"How beautifully Mr. Escott plays the violin!"
The melodious strain reeked through the doorways, filling the passage.
"That is Stradella's 'Chanson d'Église.' He always plays it; I'm sick of it."
"Yes, but I'm not. Do not let us go far, I should like to listen."
"I thought you would have preferred to talk with me."
Her manner did not encourage him to repeat his words, and he waited, uncertain what he should say or do. When the piece was over, he said—
"We had to turn my bedroom into a retiring-room. I'm afraid we shall not be alone."
"That does not matter; my mother does not approve of young girls sitting out dances."
"But your mother isn't here."
"I should not think of doing anything I knew she did not wish me to do."
The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Muchross with several lords, and he was with difficulty dissuaded from an attempt to swarm up the columns of the wonderful bed. The room was full of young girls and barristers gathered from the various courts. Some had stopped before the great Christ. A girl had touched the suspended silver lamp and spoken of "dim religious light"; but by no word or look did Lily admit that she had been there before, and Mike felt it would be useless to remind her that she had. She was the same as she was every Wednesday in her mother's drawing-room. And the party had been given solely with a view of withdrawing her from its influence. What was he to say to this girl? Was he to allow all that had passed between them to slip? Never had he felt so ill at ease. At last, fixing his eyes upon her, he said—
"Let us cease this trifling. Perhaps you do not know how painful it is to me. Tell me, will you come and see me? Do not let us waste time. I never see you alone now."
"I could not think of coming to see you; it would not be right."
"But you did come once."
"That was because I wanted to see where you lived. Now that I know, there would be no reason for coming again."
"You have not forgiven me. If you knew how I regret my conduct! Try and understand that it was for love of you. I was so fearful of losing you. I have lost you; I know it!"
He cursed himself for the irresolution he had shown. Had he made her his mistress she would now be hanging about his neck.
"I forgive you. But I wish you would not speak of love in connection with your conduct; when you do, all my liking for you dies."
"How cruel! Then I shall never kiss you again. Was my kiss so disagreeable? Do you hate to kiss me?"
"I don't know that I do, but it is not right. If I were married to you it would be different."
The conversation fell. Then realizing that he was compromising his chances, he said—
"How can I marry you? I haven't a cent in the world."
"I am not sure I would marry you if you had every cent in the world."
Mike looked at her in despair. She was adorably frail and adorably pale.
"This is very cruel of you." Words seemed very weak, and he feared that in the restlessness and pain of his love he had looked at her foolishly. So he almost welcomed Lady Helen's intrusion upon theirtête-à-tête.
"And this is the way you come for your dance, Mr. Fletcher, is it?"
"Have they begun dancing? I did not know it. I beg your pardon."
"And I too am engaged for this dance. I promised it to Mr. Escott," said Lily.
"Let me take you back."
He gave her his arm, assuring himself that if she didn't care for him there were hundreds who did. Lady Helen was one of the handsomest women in London, and he fancied she was thinking of him. And when he returned he stood at the door watching her as she leaned over the mantelpiece reading a letter. She did not put it away at once, but continued reading and playing with the letter as one might with something conclusive and important. She took no precaution against his seeing it, and he noticed that it was in a man's handwriting, and beganMa chère amie. The room was now empty, and the clatter of knives and forks drowned the strains of a waltz.
"You seemed to be very much occupied with that young person. She is very pretty. I advise you to take care."
"I don't want to marry. I shall never marry. Did you think I was in love with Miss Young?"
"Well, it looked rather like it."
"No; I swear you are mistaken. I say, if you don't care about dancing we'll sit down and talk. So you thought I was in love with Miss Young? How could I be in love with her while you are in the room? You know, you must have seen, that I have only eyes for you. The last time I was in Paris I went to see you in the Louvre."
"You say I am like Jean Gougon's statue."
"I think so, so far as a pair of stays allows me to judge."
Lady Helen laughed, but there was no pleasure in her laugh; it was a hard, bitter laugh.
"If only you knew how indifferent I am! What does it matter whether I am like the statue or not? I am indifferent to everything."
"But I admire you because you are like the statue."
"What does it matter to me whether you admire me or not? I don't care."
He had not asked her for the dance; she had sought him of her free-will. What did it mean?
"Why should I care? What is it to me whether you like me or whether you hate me? I know very well that three months after my death every one will have ceased to think of me; three months hence it will be the same as if I had never lived at all."
"You are well off; you have talent and beauty. What more do you want?"
"The world cannot give me happiness. You find happiness in your own heart, not in worldly possessions…. I am a pessimist. I recognize that life is a miserable thing—not only a miserable thing, but a useless thing. We can do no good; there is no good to be done; and life has no advantage except that we can put it off when we will. Schopenhauer is wrong when he asserts that suicide is no solution of the evil; so far as the individual is concerned suicide is a perfect solution, and were the race to cease to-morrow, nature would instantly choose another type and force it into consciousness. Until this earth resolves itself to ice or cinder, matter will never cease to know itself."
"My dear," said Lewis Seymour, who entered the room at that moment, "I am feeling very tired; I think I shall go home, but do not mind me. I will take a hansom—you can have your brougham. You will not mind coming home alone?"
"No, I shall not mind. But do you take the brougham. It will be better so. It will save the horse from cold; I'll come back in a hansom."
Mike noticed a look of relief or of pleasure on her face, he could not distinguish which. He pressed the conversation on wives, husbands, and lovers, striving to lead her into some confession. At last she said—
"I have had a lover for the last four years."
"Really!" said Mike. He hoped his face did not betray his great surprise. This was the first time he had ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover.
"We do not often meet; he doesn't live in England. I have not seen him for more than six months."
"Do you think he is faithful to you all that time?"
"What does it matter whether he is or not? When we meet we love each other just the same."
"I have never known a woman like you. You are the only one that has ever interested me. If you had been my mistress or my wife you would have been happier; you would have worked, and in work, not in pleasure, we may cheat life. You would have written your books, I should have written mine."
"I don't want you to think I am whining about my lot. I know what the value of life is; I'm not deceived, that is all."
"You are unhappy because your present life affords no outlet for your talent. Ah! had you had to fight the battle! How happy it would have made me to fight life with you! I wonder you never thought of leaving your husband, and throwing yourself into the battle of work."
"Supposing I wasn't able to make my living. To give up my home would be running too great a risk."
"How common all are when you begin to know them," thought Mike.
They spoke of the books they had read. She told him ofLe Journal d'Amiel, explaining the charm that that lamentable record of a narrow, weak mind, whose power lay in an intense consciousness of its own failure, had for her. She spoke savagely, tearing out her soul, and flinging it as it were in Mike's face, frightening him not a little.
"I wish I had known Amiel; I think I could have loved him."
"Did he never write anything but this diary?"
"Oh, yes; but nothing of any worth. The diary was not written for publication. A friend of his found it among his papers, and from a huge mass extricated two volumes." Then speaking in praise of the pessimism of the Russian novels, she said—"There is no pleasure in life—at least none for me; the only thing that sustains me is curiosity."
"I don't speak of love, but have you no affection for your friends?—you like me, for instance."
"I am interested in you—you rouse my curiosity; but when I know you,I shall pass you by just like another."
"You are frank, to say the least of it. But like all other women, I suppose you like pleasure, and I adore you; I really do. I have never seen any one like you. You are superb to-night; let me kiss you." He took her in his arms.
"No, no; loose me. You do not love me, I do not love you; this is merely vice."
He pleaded she was mistaken. They spoke of indifferent things, and soon after went in to supper.
"What a beautiful piece of tapestry!" said Lady Helen.
"Yes, isn't it. But how strange!" he said, stopping in the doorway. "See how exquisitely real is the unreal—that is to say, how full of idea, how suggestive! Those blue trees and green skies, those nymphs like unswathed mummies, colourless but for the red worsted of their lips,—that one leaning on her bow, pointing to the stag that the hunters are pursuing through a mysterious yellow forest,—are to my mind infinitely more real than the women bending over their plates. At this moment the real is mean and trivial, the ideal is full of evocation."
"The real and the ideal; why distinguish as people usually distinguish between the words? The real is but the shadow of the ideal, the ideal but the shadow of the real."
The table was in disorder of cut pineapple, scattered dishes, and drooping flowers. Muchross, Snowdown, Dicky the driver, and others were grouped about the end of the table, and a waiter who styled them "most amusing gentlemen," supplied fresh bottles of champagne. Muchross had made several speeches, and now jumping on a chair, he discoursed on the tapestry, drawing outrageous parallels, and talking unexpected nonsense. The castle he identified as the cottage where he and Jenny had spent the summer; the bleary-eyed old peacock was the chicken he had dosed with cayenne pepper, hoping to cure its rheumatism; the pool with the white threads for sunlight was the water-butt into which Tom had fallen from the tiles—"those are the hairs out of his own old tail." The nymphs were Laura, Maggie, Emily, &c. Mike asked Lady Helen to come into the dancing-room, but she did not appear to hear, and her laughter encouraged Muchross to further excesses. The riot had reached its height and dancers were beginning to come from the drawing-room to ask what it was all about.
"All about!" shouted Muchross; "I don't care any more about nymphs—I only care about getting drunk and singing. 'What cheer, 'Ria!'"
"Don't you care for dancing?" said Lady Helen, with tears running down her cheeks.
"Ra-ther; see me dance the polka, dear girl." And they went banging through the dancers. Snowdown and Dicky shouted approval.
"What cheer, 'Ria!'Ria's on the job.What cheer, 'Ria!Speculate a bob.'Ria is a toff, and she is immensikoff—And we all shouted,What cheer, 'Ria!"
Amid the uproar Lady Helen danced with Lily Young. Insidious fragilities of eighteen were laid upon the plenitudes of thirty! Pure pink and cream-pink floated on the wind of the waltz, fading out of colour in shadowy corners, now gliding into the glare of burnished copper, to the quick appeal of the 'Estudiantina.' A life that had ceased to dream smiled upon one which had begun to dream. Sad eyes of Summer, that may flame with no desire again, looked into the eyes of Spring, where fancies collect like white flowers in the wave of a clear fountain.
Mike and Frank turned shoulder against shoulder across the room, four legs following in intricate unison to the opulent rhythm of the 'Blue Danube'; and when beneath ruche-rose feet died away in little exhausted steps, the men sprang from each other, and the rhythm of sex was restored—Mike with Lily, and Frank with Helen, yielding hearts, hands, and feet in the garden enchantment of Gounod's waltz.
* * * * * *
The smell of burnt-out and quenched candle-ends pervaded the apartment, and slips of gray light appeared between the curtains. The day, alas! had come upon them. Frank yawned; and pale with weariness he longed that his guests might leave him. Chairs had been brought out on the balcony. Muchross and his friends had adjourned from the supper-room, bringing champagne and an hysterical lady with them. Snowdown and Platt were with difficulty dissuaded from attempting acrobatic feats on the parapet; and the city faded from deep purple into a vast grayness. Strange was the little party ensconced in the stone balcony high above the monotone of the river.
Harding and Thompson, for pity of Frank, had spoken of leaving, but the lords and the lady were obdurate. Her husband had left in despair, leaving Muchross to bring her home safely to Notting Hill. As the day broke even the "bluest" stories failed to raise a laugh. At last some left, then the lords left; ten minutes after Mike, Frank, Harding, and Thompson were alone.
"Those infernal fellows wouldn't go, and now I'm not a bit sleepy."
"I am," said Thompson. "Come on, Harding; you are going my way."
"Going your way!"
"Yes; you can go through the Park. The walk will do you good."
"I should like a walk," said Escott, "I'm not a bit sleepy now."
"Come on then; walk with me as far as Hyde Park Corner."
"And come home alone! Not if I know it—I'll go if Mike will come."
"I'll go," said Mike. "You'll come with us, Harding?"
"It is out of my way, but if you are all going … Where's JohnNorton?"
"He left about an hour ago."
"Let's wake him up."
As they passed up the Temple towards the Strand entrance, they turned into Pump Court, intending to shout. But John's window was open, and he stood, his head out, taking the air.
"What!—not gone to bed yet?"
"No; I have bad indigestion, and cannot sleep."
"We are going to walk as far as Hyde Park Corner with Thompson. Just the thing for you; you'll walk off your indigestion."
"All right. Wait a moment; I'll put my coat on…."
"I never pass a set of street-sweepers without buttoning up," said Harding, as they went out of the Temple into the Strand. "The glazed shoes I don't mind, but the tie is too painfully significant."
"The old signs of City," said Thompson, as a begging woman rose from a doorstep, and stretched forth a miserable arm and hand.
About the closed wine-shops and oyster-bars of the Haymarket a shadow of the dissipation of the night seemed still to linger; and a curious bent figure passed picking with a spiked stick cigar-ends out of the gutter; significant it was, and so too was the starving dog which the man drove from a bone. The city was mean and squalid in the morning, and conveyed a sense of derision and reproach—the sweep-carriage-road of Regent Street; the Royal Academy, pretentious, aristocratic; the Green Park still presenting some of the graces of a preceding century. There were but three cabs on the rank. The market-carts rolled along long Piccadilly, the great dray-horses shuffling, raising little clouds of dust in the barren street, the men dozing amid the vegetables.
They were now at Hyde Park Corner. Thompson spoke of theimprovements—the breaking up of the town into open spaces; but he doubted if anything would be gained by these imitations of Paris. His discourse was, however, interrupted by a porter from the Alexandra Hotel asking to be directed to a certain street. He had been sent to fetch a doctor immediately—a lady just come from an evening party had committed suicide.
"What was she like?" Harding asked.
"A tall woman."
"Dark or fair?"
He couldn't say, but thought she was something between the two. Prompted by a strange curiosity, feeling, they knew not why, but still feeling that it might be some one from Temple Gardens, they went to the hotel, and obtained a description of the suicide from the head-porter. The lady was very tall, with beautiful golden hair. For a description of her dress the housemaid was called.
"I hope," said Mike, "she won't say she was dressed in cream-pink, trimmed with olive ribbons." She did. Then Harding told the porter he was afraid the lady was Lady Helen Seymour, a friend of theirs, whom they had seen that night in a party given in Temple Gardens by this gentleman, Mr. Frank Escott. They were conducted up the desert staircase of the hotel, for the lift did not begin working till seven o'clock. The door stood ajar, and servants were in charge. On the left was a large bed, with dark-green curtains, and in the middle of the room a round table. There were two windows. The toilette-table stood between bed and window, and in the bland twilight of closed Venetian blinds a handsome fire flared loudly, throwing changing shadows upon the ceiling, and a deep, glowing light upon the red panels of the wardrobe. So the room fixed itself for ever on their minds. They noted the crude colour of the Brussels carpet, and even the oilcloth around the toilette-table was remembered. They saw that the round table was covered with a red tablecloth, and that writing materials were there, a pair of stays, a pair of tan gloves, and some withering flowers. They saw the ball-dress that Lady Helen had worn thrown over the arm-chair; the silk stockings, the satin shoes—and a gleam of sunlight that found its way between the blinds fell upon a piece of white petticoat. Lady Helen lay in the bed, thrown back low down on the pillow, the chin raised high, emphasizing a line of strained white throat. She lay in shadow and firelight, her cheek touched by the light. Around her eyes the shadows gathered, and as a landscape retains for an hour some impression of the day which is gone, so a softened and hallowed trace of life lingered upon her.
Then the facts of the case were told. She had driven up to the hotel in a hansom. She had asked if No. 57 was occupied, and on being told it was not, said she would take it; mentioning at the same time that she had missed her train, and would not return home till late in the afternoon. She had told the housemaid to light a fire, and had then dismissed her. Nothing more was known; but as the porter explained, it was clear she had gone to bed so as to make sure of shooting herself through the heart.
"The pistol is still in her hand; we never disturb anything till after the doctor has completed his examination."
Each felt the chill of steel against the naked side, and seeing the pair of stays on the table, they calculated its resisting force.
Harding mused on the ghastly ingenuity, withal so strangely reasonable. Thompson felt he would give his very life to make a sketch. Mike wondered what her lover was like. Frank was overwhelmed in sentimental sorrow. John's soul was full of strife and suffering. He had sacrificed his poems, and had yet ventured in revels which had led to such results! Then as they went down-stairs, Harding gave the porter Lewis Seymour's name and address, and said he should be sent for at once.
"I don't say we have never had a suicide here before, sir," said the porter in reply to Harding as they descended the steps of the hotel; "but I don't see how we are to help it. Whenever the upper classes want to do away with themselves they chose one of the big hotels—the Grosvenor, the Langham, or ourselves. Indeed they say more has done the trick in the Langham than 'ere, I suppose because it is more central; but you can't get behind the motives of such people. They never think of the trouble and the harm they do us; they only think of themselves."
London was now awake; the streets were a-clatter with cabs; the pick of the navvy resounded; night loiterers were disappearing and giving place to hurrying early risers. In the resonant morning the young men walked together to the Corner. There they stopped to bid each other good-bye. John called a cab, and returned home in intense mental agitation.
"It really is terrible," said Mike. "It isn't like life at all, but some shocking nightmare. What could have induced her to do it?"
"That we shall probably never know," said Thompson; "and she seemed brimming over with life and fun. How she did dance! …"
"That was nerves. I had a long talk with her, and I assure you she quite frightened me. She spoke about the weariness of living;—no, not as we talk of it, philosophically; there was a special accent of truth in what she said. You remember the porter mentioned that she asked if No. 57 was occupied. I believe that is the room where she used to meet her lover. I believe they had had a quarrel, and that she went there intent on reconciliation, and finding him gone determined to kill herself. She told me she had had a lover for the last four years. I don't know why she told me—it was the first time I ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover; but she was in an awful state of nerve excitement, and I think hardly knew what she was saying. She took the letter out of her bosom and read it slowly. I couldn't help seeing it was in a man's handwriting; it began, 'Ma chère amie!' I heard her tell her husband to take the brougham; that she would come home in a cab. However, if my supposition is correct, I hope she burnt the letter."
"Perhaps that's what she lit the fire for. Did you notice if the writing materials had been used?"
"No, I didn't notice," said Mike. "And all so elaborately planned! Just fancy—shooting herself in a nice warm bed! She was determined to do it effectually. And she must have had the revolver in her pocket the whole time. I remember now, I had gone out of the room for a moment, and when I came back she was leaning over the chimney-piece, looking at something."
"I have often thought," said Harding, "that suicide is the culminating point of a state of mind long preparing. I think that the mind of the modern suicide is generally filled, saturated with the idea. I believe that he or she has been given for a long time preceding the act to considering, sometimes facetiously, sometimes sentimentally, the advantages of oblivion. For a long time an infiltration of desire of oblivion, and acute realization of the folly of living, precedes suicide, and, when the mind is thoroughly prepared, a slight shock or interruption in the course of life produces it, just as an odorous wind, a sight of the sea, results in the poem which has been collecting in the mind."
"I think you might have the good feeling to forbear," said Frank; "the present is hardly, I think, a time for epigrams or philosophy. I wonder how you can talk so…."
"I think Frank is quite right. What right have we to analyse her motives?"
"Her motives were simple enough; sad enough too, in all conscience. Why make her ridiculous by forcing her heart into the groove of your philosophy? The poor woman was miserably deceived; abominably deceived. You do not know what anguish of mind she suffered."
"There is nothing to show that she went to the Alexandra to meet a lover beyond the fact of a statement made to Mike in a moment of acute nervous excitement. We have no reason to think that she ever had a lover. I never heard her name mentioned in any such way. Did you, Escott?"
"Yes; I have heard that you were her lover."
"I assure you I never was; we have not even been on good terms for a long time past."
"You said just now that the act was generally preceded by a state of feeling long preparing. It was you who taught her to read Schopenhauer."
"I am not going to listen to nonsense at this hour of the morning. I never take nonsense on an empty stomach. Come, Thompson, you are going my way."
Mike and Frank walked home together. The clocks had struck six, and the milkmen were calling their ware; soon the shop-shutters would be coming down, and in this first flush of the day's enterprise, a last belated vegetable-cart jolted towards the market. Mike's thoughts flitted from the man who lay a-top taking his ease, his cap pulled over his eyes, to the scene that was now taking place in the twilight bedroom. What would Seymour say? Would he throw himself on his knees? Frank spoke from time to time; his thoughts growled like a savage dog, and his words bit at his friend. For Mike had incautiously given an account in particular detail of histête-à-têtewith Lady Helen.
"Then you are in a measure answerable for her death."
"You said just now that Harding was answerable; we can't both be culpable."
Frank did not reply. He brooded in silence, losing all perception of the truth in a stupid and harsh hatred of those whom he termed the villains that ruined women. When they reached Leicester Square, to escape from the obsession of the suicide, Mike said—
"I do not think that I told you that I have sketched out a trilogy on the life of Christ. The first playJohn, the secondChrist, the thirdPeter. Of course I introduce Christ into the third play. You know the legend. When Peter is flying from Rome to escape crucifixion, he meets Christ carrying His cross."
"Damn your trilogy—who cares! You have behaved abominably. I want you to understand that I cannot—that I do not hold with your practice of making love to every woman you meet. In the first place it is beastly, in the second it is not gentlemanly. Look at the result!"
"But I assure you I am in no wise to blame in this affair. I never was her lover."
"But you made love to her."
"No, I didn't; we talked of love, that was all. I could see she was excited, and hardly knew what she was saying. You are most unjust. I think it quite as horrible as you do; it preys upon my mind, and if I talk of other things it is because I would save myself the pain of thinking of it. Can't you understand that?"
The conversation fell, and Mike thrust both hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
At the end of a long silence, Frank said—
"We must have an article on this—or, I don't know—I think I should like a poem. Could you write a poem on her death?"
"I think so. A prose poem. I was penetrated with the modern picturesqueness of the room—the Venetian blinds."
"If that's the way you are going to treat it, I would sooner not have it—the face in the glass, a lot of repetitions of words, sentences beginning with 'And,' then a mention of shoes and silk stockings. If you can't write feelingly about her, you had better not write at all."
"I don't see that a string of colloquialisms constitute feelings," said Mike.
Mike kept his temper; he did not intend to allow it to imperil his residence in Temple Gardens, or his position in the newspaper; but he couldn't control his vanity, and ostentatiously threw Lady Helen's handkerchief upon the table, and admitted to having picked it up in the hotel.
"What am I to do with it? I suppose I must keep it as a relic," he added with a laugh, as he opened his wardrobe.
There were there ladies' shoes, scarves, and neckties; there were there sachets and pincushions; there were there garters, necklaces, cotillion favours, and a tea-gown.
Again Frank boiled over with indignation, and having vented his sense of rectitude, he left the room without even bidding his friend good-night or good-morning. The next day he spent the entire afternoon with Lizzie, for Lady Helen's suicide had set his nature in active ferment.
In the story of every soul there are times of dissolution and reconstruction in which only the generic forms are preserved. A new force had been introduced, and it was disintegrating that mass of social fibre which is modern man, and the decomposition teemed with ideas of duty, virtue, and love. He interrupted Lizzie's chit-chat constantly with reflections concerning the necessity of religious belief in women.
About seven they went to eat in a restaurant close by. It was an old Italian chop-house that had been enlarged and modernized, but the original marble tables where customers ate chops and steaks at low prices were retained in a remote and distant corner. Lizzie proposed to sit there. They were just seated when a golden-haired girl of theatrical mien entered.
"That's Lottie Rily," exclaimed Lizzie. Then lowering her voice she whispered quickly, "She was in love with Mike once; he was the fellow she left her 'ome for. She's on the stage now, and gets four pounds a week. I haven't seen her for the last couple of years. Lottie, come and sit down here."
The girl turned hastily. "What, Lizzie, old pal, I have not seen you for ages."
"Not for more than two years. Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.Escott—Miss Lottie Rily of the Strand Theatre."
"Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir; the editor of thePilgrim, I presume?"
Frank smiled with pleasure, and the waiter interposed with the bill of fare. Lottie ordered a plate of roast beef, and leaned across the table to talk to her friend.
"Have you seen Mike lately?" asked Lizzie.
"Swine!" she answered, tossing her head. "No; and don't want to. You know how he treated me. He left me three months after my baby was born."
"Have you had a baby?"
"What, didn't you know that? It is seven months old; 'tis a boy, that's one good job. And he hasn't paid me one penny piece. I have been up to Barber and Barber's, but they advised me to do nothing. They said that he owed them money, and that they couldn't get what he owed them—a poor look-out for me. They said that if I cared to summons him for the support of the child, that the magistrate would grant me an order at once."
"And why don't you?" said Frank; "you don't like theexposéin the newspapers."
"That's it."
"Do you care for him still?"
"I don't know whether I do, or don't. I shall never love another man, I know that. I saw him in front about a month ago. He was in the stalls, and he fixed his eyes upon me; I didn't take the least notice, he was so cross. He came behind after the first act. He said, 'How old you are looking!' I said, 'What do you mean?' I was very nicely made up too, and he said, 'Under the eyes.' I said, 'What do you mean?' and he said, 'You are all wrinkles.' I said, 'What do you mean?' and he went down-stairs…. Swine!"
"He isn't good-looking," said Frank, reflectively, "a broken nose, a chin thrust forward, and a mop of brown curls twisted over his forehead. Give me a pencil, and I'll do his caricature."
"Every one says the same thing. The girls in the theatre all say, 'What in the world do you see in him?' I tell them that if he chose—if he were to make up to them a bit, they'd go after him just the same as I did. There's a little girl in the chorus, and she trots about after him; she can't help it. There are times when I don't care for him. What riles me is to see other women messing him about."
"I suppose it is some sort of magnetism, electro-biology, and he can't help exercising it any more than you women can resist it. Tell me, how did he leave you?"
"Without a word or a penny. One night he didn't come home, and I sat up for him, and I don't know how many nights after. I used to doze off and awake up with a start, thinking I heard his footstep on the landing. I went down to Waterloo Bridge to drown myself. I don't know why I didn't; I almost wish I had, although I have got on pretty well since, and get a pretty tidy weekly screw."
"What do you get?"
"Three ten. Mine's a singing part. Waiter, some cheese and celery."
"What a blackguard he is! I'll never speak to him again; he shall edit my paper no more. To-night I'll give him the dirty kick-out."
Mike remained the topic of conversation until Lottie said—
"Good Lord, I must be 'getting'—it is past seven o'clock."
Frank paid her modest bill, and still discussing Mike, they walked to the stage-door. Quick with desire to possess Lizzie wholly beyond recall, and obfuscated with notions concerning the necessity of placing women in surroundings in harmony with their natural goodness, Frank walked by his mistress's side. At the end of a long silence, she said—
"That's the way you'll desert me one of these days. All men are brutes."
"No, darling, they are not. If you'll act fairly by me, I will by you—I'll never desert you."
Lizzie did not answer.
"You don't think me a brute like that fellow Fletcher, do you?"
"I don't think there's much difference between any of you."
Frank ground his teeth, and at that moment he only desired one thing—to prove to Lizzie that men were not all vile and worthless. They had turned into the Temple; the old places seemed dozing in the murmuring quietude of the evening. Mike was coming up the pathway, his dress-clothes distinct in the delicate gray light, his light-gray overcoat hanging over his arm.
"What a toff he is!" said Lizzie. His appearance and what it symbolized—an evening in a boudoir or at the gaming-table—jarred on Frank, suggesting as it did a difference in condition from that of the wretched girl he had abandoned; and as Mike prided himself that scandalous stories never followed upon his loves, the unearthing of this mean and obscure liaison annoyed him exceedingly. Above all, the accusation of paternity was disagreeable; but determined to avoid a quarrel, he was about to pass by, when Frank noticed Lady Helen's pocket-handkerchief sticking out of his pocket.
"You blackguard," he said, "you are taking that handkerchief to a gambling hell."
Then realizing that the game was up, he turned and would have struck his friend had not Lizzie interposed. She threw herself between the men, and called a policeman, and the quarrel ended in Mike's dismissal from the staff of thePilgrim.
Frank had therefore to sit up writing till one o'clock, for the whole task of bringing out the paper was thrown upon him. Lizzie sat by him sewing. Noticing how pale and tired he looked, she got up, and putting her arm about his neck, said—
"Poor old man, you are tired; you had better come to bed."
He took her in his arms affectionately, and talked to her.
"If you were always as kind and as nice as you are to-night …I could love you."
"I thought you did love me."
"So I do; you will never know how much." They were close together, and the pure darkness seemed to separate them from all worldly influences.
"If you would be a good girl, and think only of him who loves you very dearly."
"Ah, if I only had met you first!"
"It would have made no difference, you'd have only been saying this to some one else."
"Oh, no; if you had known me before I went wrong."
"Was he the first?"
"Yes; I would have been an honest little girl, trying to make you comfortable."
Throwing himself on his back, Frank argued prosaically—
"Then you mean to say you really care about me more than any one else?"
She assured him that she did; and again and again the temptations of women were discussed. He could not sleep, and stretched at length on his back, he held Lizzie's hand.
She was in a communicative humour, and told him the story of the waiter, whom she described as being "a fellow like Mike, who made love to every woman." She told him of three or four other fellows, whose rooms she used to go to. They made her drink; she didn't like the beastly stuff; and then she didn't know what she did. There were stories of the landlady in whose house she lodged, and the woman who lived up-stairs. She had two fellows; one she called Squeaker—she didn't care for him; and another called Harry, and she did care for him; but the landlady's daughter called him a s——, because he seldom gave her anything, and always had a bath in the morning.
"How can a girl be respectable under such circumstances?" Lizzie asked, pathetically. "The landlady used to tell me to go out and get my living!"
"Yes; but I never let you want. You never wrote to me for money thatI didn't send it."
"Yes; I know you did, but sometimes I think she stopped the letters. Besides, a girl cannot be respectable if she isn't married. Where's the use?"
He strove to think, and failing to think, he said—
"If you really mean what you say, I will marry you." He heard each word; then a sob sounded in the dark, and turning impulsively he took Lizzie in his arms.
"No, no," she cried, "it would never do at all. Your family—what would they say? They would not receive me."
"What do I care for my family? What has my family ever done for me?"
For an hour they argued, Lizzie refusing, declaring it was useless, insisting that she would then belong to no set; Frank assuring her that hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart they would together, with united strength and love, win a place for themselves in the world. They dozed in each other's arms.
Rousing himself, Frank said—
"Kiss me once more, little wifie; good-night, little wife …"
"Good-night, dear."
"Call me little husband; I shan't go to sleep until you do."
"Good-night, little husband."
"Say little hussy."
"Good-night, little hussy."
Next morning, however, found Lizzie violently opposed to all idea of marriage. She said he didn't mean it; he said he did mean it, and he caught up a Bible and swore he was speaking the truth. He put his back against the door, and declared she should not leave until she had promised him—until she gave him her solemn oath that she would become his wife. He was not going to see her go to the dogs—no, not if he could help it; then she lost her temper and tried to push past him. He restrained her, urging again and again, and with theatrical emphasis, that he thought it right, and would do his duty. Then they argued, they kissed, and argued again.
That night he walked up and down the pavement in front of her door; but the servant-girl caught sight of him through the kitchen-window and the area-railings, and ran up-stairs to warn Miss Baker, who was taking tea with two girl friends.
"He is a-walking up and down, Miss, 'is great-coat flying behind him."
Lizzie slapped his face when he burst into her room; and scenes of recrimination, love, and rage were transferred to and fro between Temple Gardens and Winchester Street. Her girl friends advised her to marry, and the landlady when appealed to said, "What could you want better than a fine gentleman like that?"
Frank was conscious of nothing but her, and every vision of MountRorke that had risen in his mind he had unhesitatingly swept away.All prospects were engulfed in his desire; he saw nothing but thewhite face, which like a star led and allured him.
One morning the marriage was settled, and like a knight going to the crusade, Frank set forth to find out when it could be. They must be married at once. The formalities of a religious marriage appalled him. Lizzie might again change her mind; and a registrar's office fixed itself in his thought.
It was a hot day in July when he set forth on his quest. He addressed the policeman at the corner, and was given the name of the street and the number. He hurried through the heat, irritated by the sluggishness of the passers-by, and at last found himself in front of a red building. The windows were full of such general announcements as—Working Men's Peace Preservation, Limited Liability Company, New Zealand, etc. The marriage office looked like a miniature bank; there were desks, and a brass railing a foot high preserved the inviolability of the documents. A fat man with watery eyes rose from the leather arm-chair in which he had been dozing, and Frank intimated his desire to be married as soon as possible; that afternoon if it could be managed. It took the weak-eyed clerk some little time to order and grasp the many various notions which Frank urged upon him; but he eventually roused a little (Frank had begun to shout at him), and explained that no marriage could take place after two o'clock, and later on it transpired that due notice would have to be given.
Very much disappointed, Frank asked him to inscribe his name. The clerk opened a book, and then it suddenly cropped up that this was the registry office, not for Pimlico, but for Kensington.
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Frank, "and where is the registry office for Pimlico in Kensington?"
"That I cannot tell you; it may be anywhere; you will have to find out."
"How am I to find out, damn it?"
"I really can't tell you, but I must beg of you to remember where you are, sir, and to moderate your language," said the clerk, with some faint show of hieratic dignity. "And now, ma'am, what can I do for you?" he said, turning to a woman who smelt strongly of the kitchen.
Frank was furious; he appealed again to the casual policeman, who, although reluctantly admitting he could give him no information, sympathized with him in his diatribe against the stupidities of the authorities. The policeman had himself been married by the registrar, and some time was lost in vain reminiscences; he at last suggested that inquiry could be made at a neighbouring church.
Frank hurried away, and had a long talk with a charwoman whom he discovered in the desert of the chairs. She thought the office was situated somewhere in a region unknown to Frank, which she called St. George-of-the-Fields; her daughter, who had been shamefully deserted, had been married there. The parson, she thought, would know, and she gave him his address.
The heat was intolerable! There were few people in the streets. The perspiration collected under his hat, and his feet ached so in his patent leather shoes that he was tempted to walk after the water-cart and bathe them in the sparkling shower. Several hansoms passed, but they were engaged. Nor was the parson at home. The maid-servant sniggered, but having some sympathy with what she discovered was his mission, summoned the housekeeper, who eyed him askance, and directed him to Bloomsbury; and after a descent into a grocer's shop, and an adventure which ended in an angry altercation in a servants' registry office, he was driven to a large building which adjoined the parish infirmary and workhouse.
Even there he was forced to make inquiries, so numerous and various were the offices. At last an old man in gray clothes declared himself the registrar's attendant, and offered to show him the way; but seeing himself now within range of his desire, he distanced the old chap up the four flights of stairs, and arrived wholly out of breath before the brass railing which guarded the hymeneal documents. A clerk as slow of intellect as the first, and even more somnolent, approached and leaned over the counter.
Feeling now quite familiar with a registrar's office, Frank explained his business successfully. The fat clerk, whose red nose had sprouted into many knobs, balanced himself leisurely, evidently giving little heed to what was said; but the broadness of the brogue saved Frank from losing his temper.
"What part of Oireland do ye come from? Is it Tipperary?"
"Yes."
"I thought so; Cashel, I'm thinking."
"Yes; do you come from there?"
"To be sure I do. I knew you when you were a boy; and is his lordship in good health?"
Frank replied that Lord Mount Rorke was in excellent health, and feeling himself obliged to be civil, he asked the clerk his name, and how long it was since he had been in Ireland.
"Well, this is odd," the clerk began, and then in an irritating undertone Mr. Scanlon proceeded to tell how he and four others were driving through Portarlington to take the train to Dublin, when one of them, Michael Carey he thought it was, proposed to stop the car and have some refreshment at the Royal Hotel.
Frank tried several times to return to the question of the license, but the imperturbable clerk was not to be checked.
"I was just telling you," he interposed.
It seemed hard luck that he should find a native of Cashel in the Pimlico registrar's office. He had intended to keep his marriage a secret, as did Willy Brookes, and for a moment the new danger thrilled him. It was intolerable to have to put up with this creature's idle loquacity, but not wishing to offend him he endured it a little longer.
When the clerk paused in his narrative of the four gentlemen who had stopped the car to have some refreshment, Frank made a resolute stand against any fresh developments of the story, and succeeded in extracting some particulars concerning the marriage laws. And within the next few days all formalities were completed, and Frank's marriage fixed for the end of the week—for Friday, at a quarter to eleven. He slept lightly that night, was out of bed before eight, and mistaking the time, arrived at the office a few minutes before ten. He met the old man in gray clothes in the passage, and this time he was not to be evaded.
"Are you the gentleman who's come to be married by special license, sir?"
"Yes."
"Neither Mr. Southey—that is the Registrar—nor Mr. Freeman—that's the Assistant-Registrar—has yet arrived, sir."
"It is very extraordinary they should be late. Do they never keep their appointments?"
"They rarely arrives before ten, sir."
"Before ten! What time is it now?"
"Only just ten. I am the regular attendant. I'll see yer through it; no necessity to hagitate yerself. It will be done quietly in a private room—a very nice room too, fourteen feet by ten high—them's the regulations; all the chairs covered with leather; a very nice comfortable room. Would yer like to see the room? Would yer like to sit down there and wait? There's a party to be married before you. But they won't mind you. He's a butcher by trade."
"And what is she?"
"I think she's a tailoress; they lives close by here, they do."
"And who are you, and where do you live?"
"I'm the regular attendant; I lives close by here."
"Where close by?"
"In the work'us; they gives me this work to do."
"Oh, you are a pauper, then?"
"Yease; but I works here; I'm the regular attendant. No need to be afraid, sir; it's all done in a private room; no one will see you. This way, sir; this way."
The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story for thePilgrim. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it he volunteered to act as witness to the butcher's marriage, one being wanted. The effects of a jovial night, fortified by some matutinal potations, were still visible in the small black eyes of the rubicund butcher—a huge man, apparently of cheery disposition; he swung to and fro before the shiny oak table as might one of his own carcasses. His bride, a small-featured woman, wrapped in a plaid shawl, evidently fearing that his state, if perceived by the Registrar, might cause a postponement of her wishes, strove to shield him. His pal and a stout girl, with the air of the coffee-shop about her, exchanged winks and grins, and at the critical moment, when the Registrar was about to read the declaration, the pal slipped behind some friends and, catching the bridegroom by the collar, whispered, "Now then, old man, pull yourself together." The Registrar looked up, but his spectacles did not appear to help him; the Assistant-Registrar, a tall, languid young man, who wore a carnation in his button-hole, yawned and called for order. The room was lighted by a skylight, and the light fell diffused on the hands and faces; and alternately and in combination the whiskied breath and the carnation's scent assailed the nostrils. Suddenly the silence was broken by the Registrar, who began to read the declarations. "I hereby declare that I, James Hicks, know of no impediment whereby I may not be joined in matrimony with Matilde, Matilde—is it Matilde or Matilda?"
"I calls her Tilly when I am a-cuddling of her; when she riles me, and gets my dander up, I says, 'Tilder, come here!'" and the butcher raised his voice till it seemed like an ox's bellow.
"I really must beg," exclaimed the Registrar, "that the sanctity of—the gravity of this ceremony is not disturbed by any foolish frivolity. You must remember …" But at that moment the glassy look of the butcher's eyes reached the old gentleman's vision, and a heavy hiccup fell upon his ears. "I really think, Mr. Freeman, that that gentleman, one of the contracting parties I mean, is not in a fit state—is in a state bordering on inebriation. Will you tell me if this is so?"
"I didn't notice it before," said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, "but now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly in a fit …"
"I ne—ver was more jolly, jolly dog in my life (hiccup)—when you gentlemen have made it (hiccup) all squ—square between me and my Tilly" (a violent hiccup),—then suddenly taking her round the waist, he hugged her so violently that Matilda could not forbear a scream,—"I fancy I shall be, just be a trifle more jolly still…. If any of you ge—gen'men would care to join us—most 'appy, Tilly and me."
Lizzie, who had discovered a relation or two—a disreputable father and a nondescript brother—now appeared on the threshold. Her presence reminded Frank of his responsibility, so forthwith he proceeded to bully the Registrar and allude menacingly to his newspaper.
"I'm sure, sir, I am very sorry you should have witnessed such a scene. Never, really, in the whole course of my life …"
"There is positively no excuse for allowing such people …"
"I will not go on with the marriage," roared the Registrar; "really,Mr. Freeman, you ought to have seen. You know how short-sighted I am.I will not proceed with this marriage."
"Oh, please, sir, Mr. Registrar, don't say that," exclaimed Matilda. "If you don't go on now, he'll never marry me; I'll never be able to bring 'im to the scratch again. Indeed, sir, 'e's not so drunk as he looks. 'Tis mostly the effect of the morning hair upon him."
"I shall not proceed with the marriage," said the Registrar, sternly. "I have never seen anything more disgraceful in my life. You come here to enter into a most solemn, I may say a sacred, contract, and you are not able to answer to your names; it is disgraceful."
"Indeed I am, sir; my name is Matilda, that's the English of it, but my poor mother kept company with a Frenchman, and he would have me christened Matilde; but it is all the same, it is the same name, indeed it is, sir. Do marry us; I shan't be able to get him to the scratch again. For the last five years …"
"Potter, Potter, show these people out; how dare you admit people who were in a state of inebriation?"
"I didn't 'ear what you said, sir."
"Show these people out, and if you ever do it again, you'll have to remain in the workhouse."
"This way, ladies and gentlemen, this way. I'm the regular attendant."
"Come along, Tilly dear, you'll have to wait another night afore we are churched. Come, Tilly; do you hear me? Come, Tilda."
Frightened as she was, the words "another night" suggested an idea to poor Matilde, and turning with supplicating eyes to the Registrar, she implored that they might make an appointment for the morrow. After some demur the Registrar consented, and she went away tearful, but in hope that she would be able to bring him on the morrow, as he put it, "fit to the post." This matter having been settled, the Registrar turned to Frank. Never in the course of his experience had the like occurred. He was extremely sorry that he (Mr. Escott) had been present. True, they were not situated in a fashionable neighbourhood, the people were ignorant, and it was often difficult to get them to sign their names correctly; but he was bound to admit that they were orderly, and seemed to realize, he would say, the seriousness of the transaction.
"It is," said the Registrar, "our object to maintain the strictly legal character of the ceremony—the contract, I should say—and to avoid any affectation of ritual whatsoever. I regret that you, sir, a representative of the press …"
"The nephew and heir to Lord Mount Rorke," suggested the clerk.
The Registrar bowed, and murmured that he did not know he had that honour. Then he spoke for some time of the moral good the registry offices had effected among the working classes; how they had allowed the poor—for instance, the person who has been known for years in the neighbourhood as Mrs. Thompson, to legalize her cohabitation without scandal.
But Frank thought only of his wife, when he should clasp her hand, saying, "Dearest wife!" He had brought his dramatic and musical critics with him. The dramatic critic—a genial soul, well known to the shop-girls in Oxford Street, without social prejudices—was deep in conversation with the father and brother of the bride; the musical critic, a mild-faced man, adjusted his spectacles, and awaking from his dream reminded them of an afternoon concert that began unusually early, and where his presence was indispensable. When the declarations were over, Frank asked when he should put the ring on.
"Some like to use the ring, some don't; it isn't necessary; all the best people of course do," said the Assistant-Registrar, who had not yawned once since he had heard that Frank's uncle was Lord Mount Rorke.
"I am much obliged to you for the information; but I should like to have my question answered—When am I to put on the ring?"
The dramatic critic tittered, and Frank authoritatively expostulated.But the Registrar interposed, saying—
"It is usual to put the ring on when the bride has answered to the declarations."
"Now all of ye can kiss the bride," exclaimed the clerk from Cashel.
Frank was indignant; the Registrar explained that the kissing of the bride was an old custom still retained among the lower classes, but Frank was not to be mollified, and the unhappy clerk was ordered to leave the room.
The wedding party drove to the Temple, where champagne was awaiting them; and when health and happiness had been drunk the critics left, and the party became a family one.
Mike was in his bedroom; he was too indolent to move out of Escott's rooms, and by avoiding him he hoped to avert expulsion and angry altercations. The night he spent in gambling, the evening in dining; and some hours of each afternoon were devoted to the composition of his trilogy. Now he lay in his arm-chair smoking cigarettes, drinking lemonade, and thinking. He was especially attracted by the picture he hoped to paint in the first play of John and Jesus; and from time to time his mind filled with a picture of Herod's daughter. Closing his eyes slightly he saw her breasts, scarce hidden beneath jewels, and precious scarves floated from her waist as she advanced in a vaulted hall of pale blue architecture, slender fluted columns, and pointed arches. He sipped his lemonade, enjoying his soft, changing, and vague dream. But now he heard voices in the next room, and listening attentively he could distinguish the conversation.
"The drivelling idiot!" he thought. "So he's gone and married her—that slut of a barmaid! Mount Rorke will never forgive him. I wouldn't be surprised if he married again. The idiot!"
The reprobate father declared he had not hoped to see such a day, so let bygones be bygones, that was his feeling. She had always been a good daughter; they had had differences of opinion, but let bygones be bygones. He had lived to see his daughter married to a gentleman, if ever there was one; and his only desire was that God might spare him to see her Lady Mount Rorke. Why should she not be Lady Mount Rorke? She was as pretty a girl as there was in London, and a good girl too; and now that she was married to a gentleman, he hoped they would both remember to let bygones be bygones.
"Great Scott!" thought Mike; "and he'll have to live with her for the next thirty years, watching her growing fat, old, and foolish. And that father!—won't he give trouble! What a pig-sty the fellow has made of his life!"
Lizzie asked her father not to cry. Then came a slight altercation between Lizzie and her husband, in which it was passionately debated whether Harry, the brother, was fitted to succeed Mike on the paper.
"How the fellow has done for himself! A nice sort of paper they'll bring out."
A cloud passed over Mike's face when he thought it would probably be this young gentleman who would continue his articles—Lions of the Season.
"You have quarrelled with Mike," said Lizzie, "and you say you aren't going to make it up again. You'll want some one, and Harry writes very nicely indeed. When he was at school his master always praised his writing. When he is in love he writes off page after page. I should like you to see the letters he wrote to …"
"Now, Liz, I really—I wish you wouldn't …"
"I am sure he would soon get into it."
"Quite so, quite so; I hope he will; I'm sure Harry will get into it—and the way to get into it is for him to send me some paragraphs. I will look over his 'copy,' making the alterations I think necessary. But for the moment, until he has learned the trick of writing paragraphs, he would be of no use to me in the office. I should never get the paper out. I must have an experienced writer by me."
Then he dropped his voice, and Mike heard nothing till Frank said—
"That cad Fletcher is still here; we don't speak, of course; we passed each other on the staircase the other night. If he doesn't clear out soon I'll have to turn him out. You know who he is—a farmer's son, and used to live in a little house about a mile from Mount Rorke Castle, on the side of the road."
Mike thrilled with rage and hatred.
"You brute! you fool! you husband of a bar-girl!—you'll never be Lord Mount Rorke! He that came from the palace shall go to the garret; he that came from the little house on the roadside shall go to the castle, you brute!"
And Mike vowed that he would conquer sloth and lasciviousness, and outrageously triumph in the gaudy, foolish world, and insult his rival with riches and even honour. Then he heard Lizzie reproach Frank for refusing her first request, and the foolish fellow's expostulations suscitated feelings in Mike of intense satisfaction. He smiled triumphantly when he heard the old man's talents as accountant referred to.
"Father never told you about his failure," said Lizzie. Then the story with all its knots was laboriously unravelled.
"But," said the old man, "my books were declared to be perfect; I was complimented on my books; I was proud of them books."
"Great Scott! the brother as sub-editor, the father as book-keeper, the sister as wife—it would be difficult to imagine anything more complete. I'm sorry for the paper, though;—and my series, what a hash they'll make of it!" Taking the room in a glance, and imagining the others with every piece of furniture and every picture, he thought—"I give him a year, and then these rooms will be for sale. I shall get them; but I must clear out."
He had won four hundred pounds within the last week, and this and his share in a play which was doing fairly well in the provinces, had run up his balance at the bank higher than it had ever stood—to nearly a thousand pounds.
As he considered his good fortune, a sudden desire of change of scene suddenly sprang upon him, and in full revulsion of feeling his mind turned from the long hours in the yellow glare of lamp-light, the staring faces, the heaps of gold and notes, and the cards flying silently around the empty space of green baize; from the long hours spent correcting and manipulating sentences; from the heat and turmoil and dirt of London; from Frank Escott and his family; from stinking, steamy restaurants; from the high flights of stairs, and the prostitution of the Temple. And like butterflies above two flowers, his thoughts hovered in uncertain desire between the sanctity of a honeymoon with Lily Young in a fair enchanted pavilion on a terrace by the sea, near, but not too near, white villas, in a place as fairylike as a town etched by Whistler, and some months of pensive and abstracted life, full to overflowing with the joy and eagerness of incessant cerebration; a summer spent in a quiet country-side, full of field-paths, and hedge-rows, and shadowy woodland lanes—rich with red gables, surprises of woodbine and great sunflowers—where he would walk meditatively in the sunsetting, seeing the village lads and lassies pass, interested in their homely life, so resting his brain after the day's labour; then in his study he would find the candles already lighted, the kettle singing, his books and his manuscripts ready for three excellent hours; upon his face the night would breathe the rustling of leaves and the rich odour of the stocks and tall lilies, until he closed the window at midnight, casting one long sad and regretful look upon the gold mysteries of the heavens.
So his reverie ran, interrupted by the conversation in the next room. He heard his name mentioned frequently. The situation was embarrassing, for he could not open a door without being heard. At last he tramped boldly out, slamming the doors after him, leaving a note for Frank on the table in the passage. It ran as follows—"I am leaving town in a few days. I shall remove my things probably on Monday. Much obliged to you for your hospitality; and now, good-bye." "That will look," he thought, "as if I had not overheard his remarks. How glad I shall be to get away! Oh, for new scenes, new faces! 'How pleasant it is to have money!—heigh-ho!—how pleasant it is to have money!' Whither shall I go? Whither? To Italy, and write my poem? To Paris or Norway? I feel as if I should never care to see this filthy Temple again." Even the old dining-hall, with its flights of steps and balustrades, seemed to have lost all accent of romance; but he stayed to watch the long flight of the pigeons as they came on straightened wings from the gables. "What familiar birds they are! Nothing is so like a woman as a pigeon; perhaps that's the reason Norton does not like them. Norton! I haven't seen him for ages—since that morning…." He turned into Pump Court. The doors were wide open; and there was luggage and some packing-cases on the landing. The floor-matting was rolled, and the screen which protected from draughts the high canonical chair in which Norton read and wrote was overthrown. John was packing his portmanteau, and on either side of him there was a Buddha and Indian warrior which he had lately purchased.
"What, leaving? Giving up your rooms?"
"Yes; I'm going down to Sussex. I do not think it is worth while keeping these rooms on."
Mike expressed his regret. Mike said, "No one understands you as I do." Herein lay the strength of Mike's nature; he won himself through all reserve, and soon John was telling him his state of soul: that he felt it would not be right for him to countenance with his presence any longer the atheism and immorality of the Temple. Lady Helen's death had come for a warning. "After the burning of my poems, after having sacrificed so much, it was indeed a pitiful thing to find myself one of that shocking revel which had culminated in the death of that woman."
"There he goes again," thought Mike, "running after his conscience like a dog after his tail—a performing dog, too; one that likes an audience." And to stimulate the mental antics in which he was so much interested, he said, "Do you believe she is in hell?"
"I refrain from judging her. She may have repented in the moment of death. God is her judge. But I shall never forget that morning; and I feel that my presence at your party imposes on me some measure of responsibility. As for you, Mike, I really think you ought to consider her fate as an omen. It was you …"