"How solemn we've become!" she exclaimed; "and we came out to be 'festive' to-night."
"I shall always remember the 'you' of to-night," he said.
They were silent again. She passed her hand across her eyes impatiently, as if to wave away the pictures of the past. By transitions their tones regained their former cheerfulness. She mentioned the hour, and drew her wrap about her. It was time to return.
"It has been delicious," she murmured, looking up at the stars. "Only you let me bore you."
"By talking of yourself?"
"So stupid of me!"
"You know," said Kent—"you know!"
"Iwantedto tell you; you won't think so badly of me, perhaps."
"I?"
"I'm sure you have. Now, sometimes?"
"If I confessed my thoughts, you'd never say so any more."
"Really?" Her eyes flashed mockery. "You mustn't tell me, then—I might be vain."
The cab bowled over the white roads rapidly. The flutter of her scarf on his shoulder stole through his blood, and the clip-clop sound of the horse's hoofs seemed to him to waken echoes in his inside.
"Do you know, it was very indiscreet of me to come down here with you?" she laughed.
"Supposing somebody had met us!"
"And then?"
"What would be thought?"
"Whatcould be thought?" he asked unsteadily.
"Scandal, perhaps. I'm very angry with you; you've made me do wrong. Why did you make me do wrong when I had such faith in you?"
"You've given me the happiest evening of my life," said Kent; "is that the wrong?"
"Do you think happiness must always be right? It's a convenient creed. Happiness at any price—and let the woman pay it, eh? That's a man's philosophy. You're quite right, though; but, then, you're at the happiest time of life. No, nobody is ever that! The happiest time of life's the past. Believe me, or believe me not, the past is always beautiful; to-morrow I shall regret to-day."
"So shall I," said Kent. "But very much indeed I appreciate it now.... What are you cynical for? You only put it on. It's not 'you' really."
"'Wise judges are we of each other.' How do you know?"
"You said that to me once before—in Paris."
"Said what? Oh, the quotation! When?"
"At your place, after the Variétés."
"What a memory! Yes, you're certainly resolved to try to make me vain. But I'm adamant. Did you know that? I'm made of stone. Do you treasure up what every woman says to you? The answer is a wounded gaze; it's dark to see expressions, but I'll take it for granted."
"I remember whatyousaid to me half an hour ago, and I know your bitterness is a sham. You were meant to be——"
"Oh, 'meant'!" she cried recklessly; "a woman's what she's made. I'm afraidI'vebeen made untidy. Do you mind driving in a hansom with such a figure?"
She plucked at her veil in the strip of looking-glass, and bent her face to him for criticism. The brilliance of the eyes that she widened glowed into him as she leant so, and his arms trembled to enfold her. His mouth was dry as he muttered a response.
The sweetness of June was in the air that caressed them as they sped through the moonlight. With every sentence she let fall, with every glance she shot at him, she dizzied him more, and he sat strained with the struggle to retain his self-command. Through his febrile emotions, the horror of proving false to Cynthia loomed like an angel betokening the revulsion of his remorse. He could imagine the afterwards—he knew how he would feel—and there were instants in which he prayed for the drive to finish and permit escape. But there were instants also in which he ceased to fight, and steeped in the present, yearned only to forget his wife, though tardy remembrance should be a double scourge.
Her fingers were busy at a knot of violets in her dress; and she held the flowers up to him, looking round, smiling.
"Shall I give you a buttonhole?" she inquired gaily. "It would be an appropriate conclusion—my ideals, my withered hopes, and my dead violets! Oh, I shiver to think of what I said to you! Did I gush towards the last? I've a fearful, a ghastly misgiving that I gushed. If you acknowledge that I did, I'll never forgive you; but you shouldn't have encouraged me. Stoop for the souvenir! It cost a penny—symbolic of the sentiment.... Though lost to sight, to memory dear! It will be a very dear memory, won't it? Use me one day! I shall come in as material—the hard woman of the world, who bares her soul on impulse, and the Star and Garter terrace, to the man she likes and stands revealed as—as what? I wonder what you'd make of me. Child, I shall never get this buttonhole in if you don't turn! I've admitted I'm a spectacle, but you might suffer for a second."
Her hair swept his cheek as she wrestled with refractory stalks, and the dark eyes grew and; fastened on him again.
The hansom sped on. The quietude was left behind, and the lights of the West End twinkled around them. There was the rattle of traffic. Kent was laughing at something she had said, and he heard himself with surprise—or was it; himself? The cab rolled to a standstill, and they got out. The lift bore them to her landing. The servant opened the door.
"Good-night," he said; "I won't come in."
"Oh, come in; it's not ten o'clock. You'll have a brandy-and-soda before you go?"
She entered without waiting for his reply, and he followed her reluctantly. Only the lamp had been lighted, and the room was full of crimson shadow. He stood watching her unpin her hat before the mirror, and pull at her gloves.
"I don't think I'll stop," he said again, "really! I've something to do."
"If I can't persuade you——" she answered listlessly.
Her gaiety had deserted her, and there was weariness in her attitude as she drooped by the mantelshelf; her air, her movements, had a languor now. She put out her bare hand slowly, and Kent's clung to it.
He stood holding her hand in a pause....
"I can't leave you," said Kent.
It was a little less than a fortnight after the dinner at Richmond that Kent brought Mrs. Deane-Pitt the ten-thousand-word story that she had wanted, and, like the two earliest stories that he had written for her, it was work to which he would have been glad to see his own name attached. He had promised to let her have half a dozen short stories as soon after its completion as possible, and it was his delight to surprise her by the versatility, as well as the originality, of the invention that he displayed in these. In one he wrote an idyll; in another a gruesome little sketch, bound to attract attention by its weirdness; in a third he seemed to be running through the stalest of devices towards the most commonplace of conclusions, until, lo! in the last half-column there came a literary thunder-clap, and this story was even more startling than its predecessors. But all the links fitted, if a reader liked to take the trouble to look back, and the tragedy had been foreshadowed from the beginning. The tales tickled the fancy of the Editor for whom they were intended. They tickled it so much that he asked Mrs. Deane-Pitt to contribute regularly for a few months; and the lady accepting the compliment and the invitation, Kent continued to supplyThe Society Mirrorwith an idyll, or a tragedy, or a comedy every week, astonished at his own fecundity.
It was amazing how his hand was emboldened, I his imagination stimulated, by the knowledge that his work was accepted before it was penned. There were weeks during which he turned out a story for Mrs. Deane-Pitt nearly every day. All the stories were built upon more or less brilliant ideas, each of them was noteworthy and distinctive when it appeared inThe Society Mirroror elsewhere; and if his share of the swindle had been punctiliously paid to him now, he would have been making a good deal of money. Even as it was, he was making it in a sense, for his partner always credited him with the sums that were not forthcoming—entering them in an oxidised silver memorandum-book that she kept in one of the drawers of her desk. When he said that it did not matter about that, she laughingly told him not to be a fool.
His conscience was not dull, however, and there were hours when Kent suffered scarcely less acutely than one realises that a wife may sometimes suffer in similar circumstances. His remorse then was just what he had known it would be. From making his projected visit to Monmouth he had excused himself—it was repugnant enough to play the hypocrite in his letters—and by degrees Cynthia ceased to refer to his coming; but while her silence on the point relieved him from the necessity for telling her further falsehoods, it intensified his shame.
His abasement was completed by the seventh rejection ofThe Eye of the Beholder. He sent it off again at once, to Messrs. Kynaston, to get it out of his sight; but the return of the ill-starred package had revived all the passion of his disappointment concerning it, and he could not get rid of the burning at his heart so easily as he did of the parcel. The weight of the slighted manuscript lay on his spirit for days after Thurgate and Tatham's refusal. The irony of it, that Mrs. Deane-Pitt could place his hasty work in the best papers, was enabled to pay him two hundred pounds for writing a novel of which he was ashamed, while his own book, to which he had devoted a year, was scorned on all sides! True, he had had, in his own name, very much better, reviews than those that had been accorded so far to the novel written for her. But ... what a profession?
Once he owned to her something of what he was feeling. He couldn't help himself—he wanted her to comfort him.
"The Eye of the Beholderhas come back again," he groaned.
"Really?" she said. "How many is that?"
"God knows! It's awfully hard thatyoucan place whatever I do, Eva, andIget my best stuff kicked back to me from every publisher's office in London. I'm miserable!"
She smiled. She did not mean to be unsympathetic, but Kent hated her for it furiously as she turned her face.
"There's much in a name," she said with a shrug. "What's the difference, though? Your terms aren't bad, 'miserable one,' whether the name is mine or yours. By the way, I can work another tale forThe Metropolis, if you'll knock it off for me; I was going to write to you."
Kent never appealed to her for pity again. But a little later there came a letter from Cynthia, replying to his brief announcement of Thurgate and Tatham's rejection. Her consolation and prophesies of "success yet" overflowed four sheets, and the man's throat was tight as he read them.
Well, he must do the tale forThe Metropolis! But he would write some short stories for himself as well, he determined. It had not been a lucrative occupation when he essayed it before, but those early stories had been the wrong kind of thing—he perceived it now: he would write some short stories of the pattern that was so successful when it was signed "Eva Deane-Pitt."
He soon began to see his work over her signature in almost every paper that he looked at. If he turned the leaves of a magazine on a book-stall, a tale of his own met his eyes, signed "Eva Deane-Pitt"; if he picked up a periodical in a restaurant, a familiar sentence might flash out of the pages at him, and there would be another of his stories "By Eva Deane-Pitt." Yes, he would submit to the editors on his own account! He would not receive such terms as she, that he knew; he doubted strongly whether he would even receive so much as she spared to him after retaining the larger share. But he could, and he would, get what was dear to him—the recognition and the kudos to which he was entitled!
He found that he did not write so quickly for himself as in his capacity of ghost, but he was not discouraged, for he felt that he was writing better. For a week he did nothing for the woman at all; he wrote all day and half the night as "Humphrey Kent," and when a manuscript was declined byThe Society Mirrorhe sent it toThe Metropolis, and forwarded the story rejected byThe MetropolistoThe Society Mirror. He could not abandon his work for her entirely, but under the pressure that she put upon him, and his new interests, he wrote for her more and more hastily—wrote frank and unmitigated rubbish at last, and on one occasion candidly told her so.
She had telegraphed to him at six o'clock, begging him to call, and he had risen from his table feeling that his head was vacant. She clamoured for a two-thousand-word story by the first post the following morning, and insisted, as usual, that "anything would do." He assured her that he was too exhausted even to invent a motive; how could he produce two thousand words before he slept? She overruled his objections, hanging about him with caresses. She made him promise that the sketch should reach her in time.
"Write twaddle, dearest boy," was her parting injunction, "but write it! A motive? A mercenary girl jilts her lover because he is poor, and then her new fiancé loses his fortune, and the jilted lover succeeds to a dukedom! What does it matter? Write a story that Noah told to his family in the Ark—only cover enough pages. Write any rot; simply fill it out. I depend on you, Humphrey, mind!"
He went home and did it—on the lines she had laid down. She wanted drivel—she should have it! He did not stop to think at all. He wrote, without a pause or a correction, as rapidly as his pen would glide, and posted the tale to her before half-past ten. A note went with it.
"I have done as you ordered," he scribbled. "Don't blame me because no editor will take such muck now you are obeyed."
She had no complaint to make when he saw her next. And it was after this that Kent's work for her was uniformly fatuous, while he lavished on his own a wealth of fastidious care for which she would have mocked him had she known. He visited her at much longer intervals now, for a disgust of her caresses was growing in him, a horror of the amorous afternoons, which ended always with a plea for additional tales. But that cowardice prevented him, he would have stayed away altogether. There grew something like horror of the woman herself, insatiable, no matter with how much work he might supply her—coaxing him for "two little stories more; anything will do—I must have a new costume, darling, really!" while a batch of manuscript that he had brought to her lay in her lap. He could remember now, with her arms about him, the many original ideas that she had had from him at the beginning, and he felt with a shudder that her clutch was deadly. First she had had his brains, and now she stole his conscience. He foresaw that, if the strain that she put upon him continued, a day must come when the imagination that she was squeezing like an orange would be sterile, or fruitful of nothing better than the literary abortions with which his mistress was content.
His dismay at his position did not wane. It became so evident that, by degrees, a coldness crept into the woman's manner towards him. He was at no pains to dispel it. That their relations drifted on to a purely business footing inspired him with no other fear than that presently she might make him a scene and entail upon him the disagreeable necessity for declaring, as delicately as he could, that his infidelity to his wife had been a madness that he violently regretted, and would never repeat. The obvious retort would be so superficially true that fervently he trusted that the necessity would not arise.
Meanwhile the short stories submitted in his own name, with silent prayers, had all been refused; but, undeterred by the failure, he wrote more and more. The present tenants of No. 64 were anxious to renew their agreement for another six months, and he was pleased to hear it. The prospect of meeting Cynthia again frightened him; and, closing readily with the off er that afforded him a respite, he remained at his literary forge in Soho, writing for Mrs. Deane-Pitt and for himself—seeing sometimes three of his tales for her published, by different papers, in the same week, and finding the tales submitted in the lowlier name of "Humphrey Kent" returned without exception.
He would once have said that such a state of things couldn't be, but now he discovered that it could be, and was. There was not at this stage: a periodical or magazine in London that Humphrey Kent did not essay in vain, and there were; not more than three or four (of the kind that one sees in a club or an educated woman's room) in which his stuff did not appear, at a substantial rate of payment, when it was supposed to be by Mrs. Deane-Pitt. There were not in London five papers making a feature of fiction, which did not repeatedly reject the man's best work, signed by himself, and accept his worst, signed by somebody else. Not five of the penny or sixpenny; publications—not five among the first or second-class—not five editors appraising fiction in editorial chairs who did not either find or assume a story bearing the unfamiliar name of "Humphrey Kent" to be below their standard, while they paid ten or twelve guineas for a tale scribbled by the same author in a couple of hours when it was falsely represented to be by Mrs. Deane-Pitt. During nine months he was never offered a single guinea by an editor for a tale. Every story that he submitted during nine months was declined, and every story that he gave to Mrs. Deane-Pitt was sold. Raging, he swore that some day he would set the facts forth in a novel; and even as he swore it, he knew that they would be challenged and that, in at least one literary organ of eminence, a critic would write, "We do not find the situation probable."
Once an editor did know his name. He was the Editor of a fashionable magazine, and Kent had called at the office to inquire about a manuscript that had been lying there for a long while. The gentleman was very courteous: he did not remember the title, and, unfortunately, he could not put his hand on the tale at the moment, but he promised to have a search made for it, and to read it as soon as it was found.
A letter from him (and the manuscript) reached Kent the same week. It was as considerate a letter of rejection as any one could dictate. The Editor began by saying that the story "was clever, as all Mr. Kent touched was clever, but——" And then he proceeded to analyse the plot, to demonstrate that the motive was too slight for the purpose. The tone was so kindly that, though Kent could not perceive the justice of the criticism—he was sensible enough to try—he felt a glow of gratitude towards the writer; and his appreciation was deepened when the following post brought him a copy of the current issue of the magazine, "With compliments."
He opened it at once, and the first thing that he saw in it was a story done for Mrs. Deane-Pitt—the story that he had written, tired and insolently careless, about the mercenary girl and the jilted lover and the succession to the dukedom.
And this, too, he swore, should be some day recorded in a novel, though a critic, knowing less about it than the author, would "not find the situation probable."
Now, when he was least expecting it, there came to him the first gleam of encouragement that he had had since he received his last review. Messrs. Kynaston wrote, offering to undertake the publication ofThe Eye of the Beholder, if he were willing to accept forty pounds for the copyright.
He did not hesitate even for an instant; he said "Thank God!" as devoutly as if he had never expected more for it.
Turquand had just come in.
"It's a wicked price," grunted Turquand; "but I suppose you'll take it if you can't get them to spring?"
"Take it! I could take them to my heart for it! Oh, thank God! I mean it. Yes, it's beggarly, it's awful; but, at any rate, the book 'll see the light. Price? It isn't a price at all, but the thing 'll be published. There's quite enough money for us to live while I'm writing my next, and this will send me to it with double energy. I shall go to Kynaston's to-morrow morning."
He did go, and, though he was less enthusiastic there, his attempt to induce the publisher to increase the terms was but weak. Seven rejections had made a high hand unattainable.
"I got a hundred for my first," he said, "and you offer me forty for my second. It isn't scaling the ladder with rapidity."
"The other was longer, perhaps," suggested Mr. Kynaston, tapping his fingers together pensively—"three volumes?"
"Don't you reckon that this will make three volumes, then?" said Kent.
"Two. It's unfortunately short; that's the only fault I have to find with it. I like it—it's out of the common; but there isn't enough of it." He sighed. "I am sorry that 'forty' is the most I can say. I considered the subject very deeply before I wrote you—very deeply indeed."
His expression implied that he had lain awake all night considering, and that regret at being unable to offer more might even keep him awake again to-night.
He did not disguise his opinion of the novel, however, especially after the matter was settled.
"Send us something else, Mr. Kent," he said warmly, as he saw the author downstairs and pressed his hand—"something a trifle longer—and we shall be able to do better for you. Yours is a very rare style; you have remarkable power, if I may say so. If fine work always meant a fine sale,The Eye of the Beholdershould see six editions. I shall get it out at once. Good-day to you: and don't forget—make your next book a little longer!"
Turquand would not be back for some hours, and Kent did not hurry home. He sauntered through the streets reflecting. He resolved that now he would do ghost-work no more, and he wondered how Eva would receive the announcement. Disappointing as she would doubtless find it, she would not have had much to complain of, he thought; he congratulated himself anew on their liaison having ended, since it left him but one association to sever, instead of two. Again an access of remorse in its most poignant form assailed him, and he wished he could bear his good news to Cynthia in lieu of writing it—wished he could confess to Cynthia—wondered if the desire to do so was mad.
This desire had fastened on Kent more than once. He thought he would feel less guilty towards her—wouldbeless guilty towards her—if she knew. There had been moments when, if they had not been separated, he would have told her the truth in a burst, and, whether she pardoned him or not, have lifted his head, feeling happier for the fact that the avowal had been made. He did not imagine that his craving to confess to her was any shining virtue. He was conscious, just as he had been conscious in Paris, when he had informed her casually of the supper in the avenue Wagram, that it was as much the weakness of his character as its nobility which urged him to voice the load that lay on his mind; but, weak or noble, the longing was always there, and at times it mastered him completely.
Sleet began to fall, and he went into a tea-room and ordered some coffee. A copy ofFashionlay on the table, and, mechanically turning the pages, he noticed that the feature of the issue was an instalment of a story in three parts by Lady Cornwallis. The name arrested his attention, for she was the widow of a man who had been a connection of the late Deane-Pitt's, and Kent was aware that Eva and she were on friendly terms. He glanced at the heading with an ironical smile; the lady was not known to him as an author, though she had figured prominently of late in the witness-box, where a shrewd solicitor, and a dressmaker of distinction, had posed her in a quite romantic light; he surmised bitterly that her maiden effort in fiction had been remunerated more handsomely than his second novel. What was his astonishment, on glancing at the opening paragraph, to discover that the story "By Lady Cornwallis" was another of the stories that had been written by himself for Mrs. Deane-Pitt!
As a matter of fact, the Editor, thinking that her name would be a draw just now, had offered Lady Cornwallis a hundred pounds for a tale to run through three numbers. Lady Cornwallis, who had never tried to write anything more elaborate than a love-letter in her life, and who was being dunned to desperation for an account at a livery-stable, had gone to Mrs. Deane-Pitt to do it for her. Mrs. Deane-Pitt, who wrote much less quickly than she pretended, had relegated the duty to Kent. It was a literary house-that-Jack-built. Lady Cornwallis, fearing that her friend might ascertain how much the Editor paid, had ingenuously halved the sum with her; Mrs. Deane-Pitt, confident that the young man would be unable to ascertain, had given to him ten pounds. At the details of the transaction Kent could only guess, as he sat staring at his work while his coffee got cold; but the evolution of the story, perpetrated in a Soho attic for ten pounds, and published as Lady Cornwallis's at the cost of a hundred, was interesting.
He was fiercely and inconsistently resentful. In one way it mattered nothing to him. Since his stuff wasn't printed over his own name, it was unimportant over whose name it appeared. But the perception did not lessen his angry sense of having been duped. He remembered the circumstances in which he had written this tale and the lies that Eva had told him about it. Was he to become the ghost of every impostor in London?
Though he did not refer to the discovery that he had made, it lent a firmness to his tone when he informed her that his book was accepted and that he was going down to the country to devote a year to another. She heard him without remonstrance. Whatever her faults, she had the virtue of being a woman of the world, and she did not endow the parting, for which she was partially prepared, with any tactless tragedy. For an instant only, recalling the benefit of histrionics at Richmond, she considered the feasibility of sentiment begetting a reconciliation; then she dismissed the idea. The man was remorseful —not of having become estranged from her, but of having succumbed—and sentiment would be wasted to-day. Besides, it would make the interview painful for him, and she didn't care for him half enough to be eager to give him a bad time. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Everything has an end," she said languidly—"evenDaniel Deronda. I owe you a lot of money, by-the-by. I'm afraid I can't square accounts with you at the moment, but I suppose you don't mind trusting me?"
"You owe me nothing," said Kent. "If my boorishness has left any liking for me possible, let me have the pleasure of feeling that I did you one or two trifling services."
But he did not go down to the country. More than ever he felt that to rejoin his wife with his guilt unacknowledged would be a greater trial than he could endure. She was so innocent. If she had been a different kind of woman, his reluctance would have been duller and easier to overcome; but to have been false to Cynthia made him feel as if he had robbed a blind girl.
That he could not delay rejoining her much longer he was distressfully aware. It was ten months since she had gone away, and even if the people in Streatham wished to retain the house for a third half-year, as he understood was likely—their return to New York, or wherever they had come from, being indefinitely postponed—that would be no reason why he and Cynthia should not live together at Monmouth or somewhere else.
He had written her that Messrs. Kynaston had takenThe Eye of the Beholder, and during the next day or two he was in hourly expectation of her reply. On the third afternoon after he had posted his letter, the door opened and she came into the room.
He had not heard the bell ring, and at the sound of her footstep he turned quickly—and then, almost before he realised it, his wife was in his arms, laughing and half crying, saying how glad she was to see him, how delighted she was at the book's acceptance.
"I had to come," she exclaimed—"I had to! Oh, darling! you don't mind because the money isn't much? Think what Kynaston said of it! And for your next you'll get proper terms.... Well, are you surprised to see me? Let me look at you. You're different. What have you been doing to yourself? And Baby—you wouldn't know Baby. He talks!... I've been praying you'd be at home. I wouldn't let them show me in; I've been picturing walking in on you all the way in the train.... Sweetheart!" She squeezed him to her again, and then held him at arm's length, regarding him gaily. "You've changed," she repeated; "you look more serious. And I? Am I all right—am I a disappointment?"
"You're beautiful," said Kent slowly. "You have changed, too."
He gazed at her with a curious sense of unfamiliarity, striving to define to himself the alteration that puzzled him. Her face had gained something besides the hues of health. It seemed to him that her eyes were deeper, that her smile was more complex. Vaguely he felt that he had thought of her as a girl and was beholding a woman—that he had insulted a woman who was lovelier than any he had known.
"Aren't you going to invite me to take off my things? May I?"
"Do," he said, with the same sense of strangeness. "Can I help you?" He took them from her, awkwardly, and put her into a comfortable chair, and made up the fire. "It's a new hat, it suits you! I always liked you in a little hat. Did you I get it down there?"
"I trimmed it myself," she said. "Mind the pin!"
"You shall have some tea—or would you rather have dinner? You must be hungry!"
"Tea, please, and cake. Can you produce cake?"
"There's a confectioner's just round the corner." He rang the bell.
"Then, madeira. I didn't tell the servant who I was; better say 'my wife' casually when she comes in. I suppose you don't have ladies to tea and madeira cake, as a rule?"
"Not as a rule," he said—"no."
She laughed again, and stretched her shoes to the blaze luxuriously.
"So this is the room. This is where you lived before we knew each other. How funny that it should be the first time I've been in it! I've often imagined you here, and it isn't the least bit like what I fancied, of course; I always saw the window over there! Well, talk to me—tell me all! what you are thinking about? I believe you find me plain now the hat's off!"
Tea was brought to them in about a quarter of an hour, and they sat before the fire sipping it, and stealing glances at each other—the woman's, amused, delicious; Kent's, guilty and tortured. He was tempted to kiss her, but could not bring himself to do it deliberately; and with every phrase that fell from her lips his heart grew; heavier.
"You've scarcely been to Strawberry Hill all the time, I hear," she said. "This is very good tea, Humphrey!"
"Not very often; I've been so busy. Yes, it isn't bad, is it? the landlady gets it for me. Are they offended with me?"
"H'mph! they'll look over it. You'll have to be very nice and repentant."
"I will. I'll go this week if I can."
"This week? You must take me to-night!" she cried. "What do you suppose is going to become of me? I can't stop here.... Shall I give you another cup?"
Kent felt the blood sinking from his face. His hands shook as he bent over the fire, and for a moment he had no voice to reply.
"You don't go back to Monmouth to-night?" he asked harshly, without looking at her.
"N—no," she said; "I can't go back till to-morrow."
"I was thinking of the child," he muttered.
"He's as safe with the nurse as with me," she answered; "I wouldn't have left him even for a day if he hadn't been."
"I see," said Kent.
His pause appeared to him to become significant and terrible.
"I can't go there with you this evening," he said abruptly; "it can't be done. I have to be here—there is some one I must meet. I mean, I can take you there, but I can't possibly stay. You—you must forgive me, Cynthia."
Still he was not looking at her. When she spoke, her tone was different.
"You will do as you like," she said quietly.
He lifted himself, and faced her.
"Cynthia!"
"Well?"
"Cynthia, don't think I don't care for you."
She did not answer, but she was very pale, and her lips were proudly set.
"You're angry with me?" he stammered.
"What prevents you—your business? If you're too late for a train, there are hansoms. It would be expensive, I know——"
"'Expensive!'"
"Perhaps it might cost half a sovereign."
"Cynthia! It's impossible."
"Oh, please don't let's talk about it!" she said. "I made a mistake, that's all. I've made a good many since I married you; this was one more."
"Ican'tgo," gasped Kent, fighting for his words. "I——If I cared for you less, I should! I can't go, because there's something I must tell you first. If ... but you won't. I want you to know ... I've a confession to make to you. It's over, but ... I've acted badly to you; I haven't the right to go to you. For God's sake, don't hate me more than you can help—I've been unfaithful."
Her first sensation was as if, without warning, he had dealt her a brutal blow in the face. There was the same staggered sense of fright, succeeded by the same sick wave of horror. Another woman had known him? Her brain did not leap for details instantaneously, as a man's would have leapt in the inverse situation; the name the woman bore, her position—what had such things to do with it? Curiosity to compare her with herself in looks would follow; now, while she stared at him with bloodless features, she was conscious of nothing but the pollution: another woman had known him. Kent stared back at her, appalled at her aspect; but he divined what she felt no more than he could have understood her emotions had she analysed them for him. "Another woman had known him" was the tumult in her soul; he believed her pride outraged that he had known another woman. The difference was enormous. The curiosity and thirst for vengeance apart, the wife's sensation was what the husband's would have been, had he heard of her own defilement. But that he himself appeared to her defiled he could not grasp; unworthy, contemptible, corrupt, he realised, but "defiled," no.
"Cynthia, forgive me!"
She swayed a little as his voice struck her agony.
"I'll try."
"You see why I couldn't go?"
"Yes," she said hoarsely.
"I should have told you anyhow soon.... You aren't sorry I've told you?"
"I don't know. I think ... I think I'm sorry just now. I shall be able to thank you for that later."
"I did it for the best," said Kent.
"You were right."
He leant against the mantelpiece, his chin sunk. The only sound in the room came from the kettle, on which the woman's eyes were fixed intently. The clock of St. Giles-in-the-Fields tolled four.
"What am I to do?" he said.
"Oh," she moaned, "don't ask me; I can't think yet.... You've killed me, Humphrey—you've killed me!"
He dropped before her chair and stroked her hand. Her pain writhed like a live thing at his touch, but, in pity for him, she let the hand lie still and suffered.
"Did you ... love her so much?" she asked.
"God knows I didn't!"
"And yet——Humphrey, she wasn't——?"
"I was mad. She was a lady. It wasn't love; I didn't love her at all.... If you were a man, you'd understand. I sinned with my body, but my mind—she never had that ...it was with you—with you. It was the animal in me—how can I explain to an angel?"
Presently she said:
"Does a woman ever learn to understand a man? She gives him her life; yet to the end——They begin differently.... He has known everything before he comes to her, and she has known nothing. She's told that it doesn't matter, that it's right. She doesn't believe it in her heart —the more she loves him, the less she believes it—but she tries to persuade herself she believes it. It's wrong—wrong! To him she's a new girl, and to herheis a new world. How can marriage be the same thing to both. You didn't love her, but you gave yourself to her. Could a husband think less of his wife's sin for a reason like that?"
Kent rose, and stood beside her dumbly. Some glimmer of her point of view reached him and confused him by its strangeness.
"I'll do whatever you want. What can I say?"
"Help me to forget," she said in a low voice. "Will you help me to forget?"
"You'll let me come to you?"
"Give me a few days—wait a few days. Only I can't be your wife again, Humphrey, all at once—I can't.... Ah, don't think me unforgiving; it isn't that. Come to me, if you will, and work, and we'll be good friends together. Don't be afraid, I won't make it bad for you, I promise—I'll never remind you even by a look.... Are the terms too hard?"
"You're merciful."
The seconds crept away.
"I must go," she said; "I'll write to you."
"Shall you go to your mother's?"
"I must; there's no train to Monmouth after three. Will you send for a cab to take me to Waterloo? I'll tell them you were coming with me, but something prevented you.... Can I bathe my eyes in your room before I go?"
Kent showed her where it was, and waited for her in the parlour. Then they went downstairs together to the cab. She leant forward and gave him her hand.
"Don't be afraid of me," she whispered again.
"God bless you!" he said, closing the door.
Cynthia wrote to him to go to her.
The day was bright, and a promise of spring was in the air as he journeyed down. Some of its brightness seemed to tinge his mood, and he was conscious of a vague wonder at the pleasurable emotions that stirred him as fields and hedgerows shot past.
She was on the platform awaiting him, though he had not telegraphed the time of his arrival. He saw her at once, and was momentarily a prey to misgivings. Her welcoming smile as they advanced towards each other dissipated his dread. But it revived his embarrassment, and his embarrassment appeared to her pitiable.
"I knew," she said frankly, "that you would come by this train."
She gave orders to a porter about the luggage, and Kent passed into Monmouth by her side. He heard that her brother had come down to see her, and was at the cottage now. Cæsar was having a holiday, and had been spending a fortnight with his parents.
"He was going back this evening, but I made him stay till to-morrow. Mrs. Evans found him a room a few doors off."
He understood that it was to lessen the awkwardness of the first evening for him that she had detained her brother, and he was grateful to her.
"You must know the place well by now?" he said, looking about him.
"Every inch, I think. It's so pretty. I'm sorry it isn't summer; you'd see. We have a lot of artists then. I got rather chummy with two girls painting here in the autumn; we used to go to tea at each other's lodgings. I learnt a lot.... That's our house—the one at the corner. There's Mrs. Evans at the gate. She calls you 'the master.' She hopes the master will find her cooking good enough for him. For tea she's made some hot cakes specially in your honour."
As they drew nearer, a nurse approached wheeling a child. He heard that it was "Humphrey," and bent over the little fellow timidly. Cynthia hung about them, praying that the boy would not cry. She asked him who the gentleman was, and, having been repeatedly told that "papa was coming," he answered "Papa!" Whereat she triumphed and the man was pleased.
In the parlour, which struck Kent agreeably with its quiet, old-fashioned air, the Right Hand of McCullough was perusing a financial paper. He put it aside to greet Kent cordially. His presence dominated the evening, and, in the knowledge that he was departing early next day, Kent even found him amusing, though to be amusing was not his aim. Ostensibly he had come to England on a financial mission, and his vague allusions to it were weighted by several names of European importance. Occasionally his attention wandered and he lapsed into a brown study, obviously preoccupied by millions. For this he apologised, in case it had been unnoticed, and rallied Cynthia on the "yellow-backs" that were visible on the bookshelf.
"I'm afraid I see a lot of yellow-backs!" he said, lifting a playful finger.
A novel, by a woman, of whichThe Speakerhad written that "it's dialogue would move every literary artist to enthusiasm," lay on the window-sill—Kent had already observed it with gratification—and Cæsar acknowledged that he had read it. He conceded that it possessed a "superficial smartness." "Superficial" was his latest word, and when his discourse took a literary turn, his authoritative opinions were peppered with it.
Kent's bedroom was furnished very plainly, but it was exquisitely neat. His gaze rested with thankfulness on a large table, of a solidity that seemed to promise that it would not wobble. Beside the blotting-pad was an inkstand, of whose construction the primary object had been that it should hold ink; a handful of early flowers was arranged in a china bowl. There was a knot in his throat as he contemplated these preparations—the more touching for their simplicity—and when he sat down, the table confirmed its promise, and he found that the position afforded him a view of a corner of the garden.
It was here that he worked.
By degrees the frankness of her manner became more spontaneous in Cynthia, and his embarrassment in her society was sometimes forgotten. They were, as she had promised, the best of friends. Their rambles together had a charm which one associates with a honeymoon, but in which their own honeymoon had been lacking. In these rambles Kent was never bored; it appeared to him delightful to place himself in her hands and be taken where she listed in the April twilight. To seek shelter from showers in strange quarters was adventurous; and milk had a piquancy drunk with Cynthia in farmyards. He signed the extension of the Streatham agreement with gladness.
The alteration in her impressed him still more strongly now that he had opportunities for studying it; and the gradual result of three years, presenting itself to him as the fruit of ten months, was startling. His wife had become a woman—in her tone, in her bearing, in her comments, which often had a pungency, though they might not be brilliant. She was a woman in the composure with which she ignored their anomalous relations—a very fascinating woman withal, whose composure, while it won his admiration, disturbed him too, as the weeks went by. It was in moments difficult to identify her new personality with the girl's whose love for him had been so constantly evident. Among her other changes, had she grown to care less for him? He could not be surprised if she had.
Shortly after his arrival, Messrs. Kynaston had begun to send his proof-sheets, and in MayThe Eye of the Beholderwas published. In the walk that they took after Cynthia had read it, she and Kent spoke of little else. It had amazed him to perceive how eager he was to hear her verdict, and at her first words, "I'm proud of you," the colour rushed to his face. He would never have supposed that her approval could excite him so much, or that her views would have such interest for him. When the criticisms began to come in, it was delicious, as they sat at breakfast, to open the yellow envelopes and devour the long slips with their heads bent together; and then, after he had paid a visit to the child, he would go up to his room and wish that the corner of the garden that he overlooked contained the bench.
Despite the seven rejections, and the opinion of Messrs. Cousins' reader that the construction rendered the novel hopeless, the criticisms were magnificent. The more important the paper, the less qualified was the praise. The lighter periodicals were sometimes a little "superior," but the authoritative organs were earnest and cordial, and in no less powerful a pronouncement thanThe Spectator's the construction was called "masterly."The Saturday Reviewrepeated that Mr. Kent's style was admirable; andThe Athenæum, andThe Daily Chronicle, andThe Times, and every paper to which a novelist looks, described him as a realist of a high order.
Delusions die hard, and the bitter reviewer, rending the talented young author's book, is a companion myth to the sleepless editor poring indefatigably over illegible manuscripts in quest of new talent. As a matter of fact, it is only to his reviewers that the struggling novelist ever owes a "thank you"; and Kent wrote with exultation and confidence under the stimulus of the encouragement that he received.The Eye of the Beholderdid not sell in thousands—you may lead a donkey to good fiction, but you cannot make him read—but in a moderate degree it was a success even with the public; and work had an irresistible attraction in consequence.
Nevertheless, the question whether Cynthia's attitude was not perhaps the one that had become most natural to her haunted Kent with growing persistency. Had it been possible, he would have asked her. He found himself wishful of a little tenderness from the woman who had once wearied him—or from the woman who had sprung from her. She was merciful, she was charming, she drew him towards her strongly; but she talked to him as a sister might have done. The suggestion of a honeymoon in their rambles now tantalised him by its illusiveness, and he was piqued by the feeling that their intercourse was devoid even of the incipient warmth of courtship.
It occurred to him that the book that he was writing might be dedicated to her, and the idea pleased him vastly. It begot several other ideas which he indulged. Roses were transferred from a shop-window to Cynthia's bosom, and he sent to town for a story that she had said she would like to read. Her surprise enchanted him, and he wished, as her gaze rested on him, that he could surprise her oftener. The thought of the evening to be passed beside her would come to him during the day, and fill him with impatience to realise the picture again. Tea was no sooner finished than they put on their hats, to wander where their humour led them. Generally they returned at sunset; and sometimes they returned under the stars. Supper would be awaiting them, and afterwards they sat and talked—or dreamed, by the open window—until, all too early, she gave him her hand and said "Good-night."
His heart followed her. Surely Kent comprehended that the feeling that she awoke in him was more than admiration, more than pique, was something infinitely different from the calm affection into which his first fancy had subsided. He knew that the conditions that she had imposed had aroused no ephemeral ardour, but had illumined in himself as vividly as in her a development that possession had left obscure. He knew he loved her—he loved her, and he was unworthy of her love. He could not speak—that was for her—but his eyes besought, and the woman read them. She made no sign. So speedily?—her pride forbade it. Her manner towards him remained unchanged. But tenderness tugged at her pride, and joy at what she read flooded her soul.
She would be contemptible to condone so soon, she told herself. He would never know how he had made her suffer—never suspect how in minutes the unutterable recollection that she had hidden for his sake had wrenched and tortured her while she talked to him so easily; she prayed that he nevermightknow! But to yield at his first sigh, because he looked unhappy—how could she contemplate it?
Yet was his unhappiness her sole temptation? She trembled. Was she despicable to long for his arm about her again? Was it degraded to feel that even to-day——
In July Kent was lonelier than he had been hitherto. His wife could seldom contrive to accompany him when he went out, and the excursions were in any case curtailed. She seemed to care less for walking, and there were little tiresome things that demanded her attention, or to which, at least, she chose to give it. The child missed her, when he woke at eight o'clock, if she was not at home to run in to him; she wanted to practise on the wheezy piano; there was needle-work she was compelled to do—always something!
The first time, Kent was merely disappointed, and came back early in low spirits; but after the third of his solitary walks, misgivings oppressed him with double weight. She was indifferent—no other explanation was possible; she was indifferent, and no longer chose to mask it!
"You're always busy," he told her at last. "I miss you dreadfully, Cynthia. Is it so important that what you are doing should be gone on with to-night?"
"I should like to finish it to-night," she said constrainedly—"yes. I'm sorry you miss me, but the girl is clumsy with her needle; one can't expect perfection."
"Yesterday something else prevented you. You have only been out with me once this week."
"Surely more than that?" she said calmly; "twice, I think?"
"Once. You went with me on Tuesday. There's all day for the boy, Cynthia; you might spare me the evening."
She bent lower over the pinafore, engrossed by it.
"It isn't only the boy, poor little chap! What a tyrant you'd make him out! Yesterday I didn't feel like going; I was up to my eyes in a book."
Kent regarded her hungrily.
"I've very little claim on you, I know; but when I first came——"
"'Sh!" she said.... "What a mountain out of a molehill! If I haven't been with you since Tuesday, we must have our walk together toil morrow."
Kent found this very unsatisfactory. It was a concession, and he did not seek her society as a concession. The walk, as usual latterly, was short, and neither had the air of enjoying it very much. They roamed along the dusty roads for the most part in silence, and for the rest with platitudes. He could not avoid seeing that her companionship was reluctantly accorded, and after their return, when she put out her hand in the stereotyped "Good-night," he resolved not to beg her to go with him any more.
He wasn't without a hope that, by refraining from the request, he might move her to gratitude; but her avoidance of him did not diminish, and when August came, he questioned whether he ought to leave her for a while. The part that she had allotted to herself was plainly more than she could sustain; to relieve her temporarily of his presence might be the most considerate plan he could adopt? But the notion repelled him violently. Though she was colder and ill at ease, she enchained him. He had very little, and that little he was loath to lose. To look at her across the room, unobserved, in their long pauses was not charged with regret only—the bitterness had an indefinable joy as well; he liked to note the effect of lamplight on her profile as she read, took pleasure in her grace when she moved. To spare her what distress he could, however, was his duty—yes, if she wished it, he would go! He debated, where he sat smoking by the window one evening, whether she would wish it if she knew how dear she had grown to him; whether if he stammered to her something of his remorse——His pain had become almost intolerable.
The hour was very still. In the west, on the faint azure, some smears of flame colour lingered; then, while he stared out, faded, and hung in the sky like curls of violet smoke. Over the myriad tints of green came the low whinny of a horse. His wife sat sewing by the table, and, turning, he watched the rhythmical movement of her hand. A passionate longing assailed him to free his tongue from the weight that hampered it and cry to her he loved her, though she might not care to hear. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sauntered nearer.
"Aren't you going to smoke any more?" she said.
"Not now; I've been smoking all day."
"You should try to write without."
"I ought to—but I never could."
He touched the muslin on her lap diffidently—itwason her lap.
"What are you making—another pinafore?"
"Yes. Do you think it's pretty?"
His hand lay close to her own; but she held the garment up to him, and perforce he drew back.
It was not so easy to voice emotion as to feel it. Half an hour crept away; shadows filled the room, and a grey peace brooded over the grass outside. The tones deepened, and beyond a ridge of blackened boughs the moon swam up. He decided that he would speak after supper. But after supper, when she resumed her sewing, he felt that it would be useless. He sat by the hearth, holding a paper that he did not read. Presently the landlady was heard slipping the bolt in the passage, and Cynthia pushed her basket from her, preparing to retire. With her change of position, a reel escaped and rolled to the fender. Kent had not noticed where it fell, but he became conscious, with a tremor, that she was stooping by his side. In rising, it seemed to him that her figure brushed his arm as if with a caress. She had drawn apart from him before he could do more than wonder if it had been accidental, but now he watched her with a curious intentness. She wandered about the room a little aimlessly, righting a photograph, settling a flower in a glass on the shelf. Having gathered up her work, she hesitated, and sought some books; when she had chosen them, her arms were full and she could not give him her hand.
But she did not say "Good-night," either. A she passed him on the threshold, her face was lifted, and for a moment her gaze engulfed him.
When he dared to interpret it, Kent stole shakenly up the stairs. The way was dark; but ahead—in a room of which the door had been left ajar—his eager eyes saw Light.
CONTENTSINTRODUCTIONCHAPTER ICHAPTER IICHAPTER IIICHAPTER IVCHAPTER VCHAPTER VICHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIIICHAPTER IXCHAPTER XCHAPTER XICHAPTER XIICHAPTER XIIICHAPTER XIVCHAPTER XVCHAPTER XVICHAPTER XVIICHAPTER XVIIICHAPTER XIXCHAPTER XXCHAPTER XXICHAPTER XXIICHAPTER XXIIICHAPTER XXIV