When Peter, in the interval between the first and second ballet, entered the box of Lady Mary he formally embarked upon his career as a social figure.
Wenderby was Lady Mary's companion of the evening, for he sat securely beside her as Peter came. But she was radiantly pleased to welcome Peter, and even seemed anxious to exaggerate her pleasure.
The two men were vividly contrasted. Peter stood for youth—resilient, athletic, and eager. Wenderby as perfectly expressed the wisdom, tolerance, and disillusion of one who already had lived. He had just successfully finished a hard campaign in the country, and he was tired. The lines of his forehead were deeper to-night than he knew.
Lady Mary's cordial reception scattered Peter's vague misgiving. It restored to him the woman who, on the terrace at Highbury, had accepted his worship, thanked him, and understood.
"Your mother isn't here?" she said, as Peter found a chair.
"I could not persuade her."
"I must know her at once. Antony is quite positive about it."
"Antony is right," said Peter. "She is wonderful."
"Lord Wenderby is more fortunate than I am. He has seen her already."
"I'm afraid of her," said Wenderby. "She has that sort of silence which spoils my best conversation."
"You mustn't allow Lord Wenderby to frighten you." Peter paused, and added quite simply: "You will love my mother."
"I must meet her at once; but I cannot go out to-morrow. Will you bring her to me at Arlington Street?"
Peter at this was entirely happy. How could he have doubted that his precious intimacy with Lady Mary would be broken. Talking thus of his mother, she invited him to come closer yet. Peter wondered if Wenderby had ever seen her tears. She passed through her hands a string of pearls that hung about her neck, and Peter saw in them the frozen symbol of drops more precious. His eyes, as this conceit came into his mind, rested upon the stones as they fell through her fingers. He did not know he was looking at the hand he had kissed. Lady Mary drew it behind her fan.
"You like my pearls?" she said abruptly.
Peter started a little.
"They are very beautiful, but you do not need them," he said bluntly.
The crudity of his compliment was more effective than the most artful flattery. Wenderbylooked wistfully at the two young faces, conscious that between them youth was singing. Peter's adoration was plainly written, and Lady Mary received it with a delicate flush of colour and a perceptible nervousness. Wenderby had never before seen her in the least perturbed.
He hastily turned the conversation, commenting on the ballet they had just seen—a ballet of lust and blood. It had stepped from the pages of Sir Richard Burton, barbaric in colour and music—frankly sadistic.
"This," he said, indicating the rows of brilliant and respectable people who had watched it, "is a feast indeed for the cynical. How many of these people realise what they have seen? How horrified they would be if you told them in plain English what they have just heard in plain music!"
"You are a musician?" Peter asked politely.
"Enough of a musician to know that even Sir Richard Burton never spoke plainer than this Russian fellow. It seems to me quite extraordinary that civilised people are able to sit serenely beside one another in a public place and hear things which they would blush to read in a private room."
It was strange that this ballet should recall a chapter almost forgotten. Peter, looking at Lady Mary, saw again a cherry-coloured ribbon folded between the leaves of her brother's book. Peter knew she had not touched that old fever. He could not think of her as kindling him in thatsavage way. He saw himself forever humbly repeating the caress of adoration.
Peter left at the end of the interval, fearing too eagerly to force himself. It was enough that he was to see Lady Mary again on the following day.
Peter's appearance at Covent Garden precipitated in Wenderby an action upon whose brink he had stood for several weeks. He called upon Lady Mary in the morning and asked for her. She came into the room bravely affecting surprise. But too well she knew what was coming.
"Lord Wenderby," she began, "this is wonderful."
"That I should come to see you?"
"I read in theTimesthat a Cabinet was called for this morning. Surely you should be there."
Wenderby shrugged his shoulders.
"The Cabinet," he said, "will be happier as they are."
"You say that bitterly."
"It's bitter truth," he answered. "I'm in the wrong set."
There was a short silence, and Lady Mary found it intolerable.
"Have you come just to grumble and go?" she inquired at last.
Wenderby paused a moment, as if looking for a way to open his mind; then he said abruptly:
"I'm going to rat."
"To leave the Cabinet?" Lady Mary exclaimed. She was now sincerely astonished.
"Perhaps," said Wenderby, looking at herintently. "It's in my mind. Politics are going to be very violent during these next years. All my friends are with the Opposition. My position will be dreary and difficult."
Lady Mary began to see his drift, and was dismayed at the sudden sinking of her spirit.
"Why do you tell me this?" she asked.
"I want you to help me," said Wenderby, and again he looked at her.
"How can that be?" she protested, avoiding his eyes.
"I'm not yet sure what I ought to do. I shall be giving up a great deal in leaving the Cabinet. I'm the youngest minister with a platform following. In a few years I should be leading the Party."
"What would become of your principles?" Lady Mary objected.
"They would suffer," he curtly replied. "But I should do my best for them. At any rate, I should do less harm than any other conceivable head of a Liberal Cabinet."
"You would be a fraud," she flashed.
"Not without justification," he coolly answered.
"Sophistry."
"Not at all. Making the best of a bad business."
Again there was silence. Wenderby found it difficult to come to the point. It was again Lady Mary who spoke.
"Have you come to me for advice?" she asked.
"Partly that."
"Then I advise you to follow your conscience," she said decisively.
"That is just the difficulty," he pleaded. "My conscience is vague."
"It tells you to come over."
Wenderby smiled. "Naturally you say that. My desertion now would shake the Government. Perhaps we might even pull them down. There's a chance."
"Your duty is clear," she insisted.
"I do not think so," he objected. "The Government may stand in spite of me. Then my moderating influence is destroyed. Is it my duty to put this uncertain thing to the proof?"
There was a short silence. Lady Mary saw Wenderby's logical trap closing about her. He bent eagerly towards her, and a pleading note came into his voice. Lady Mary could not deny that it pleasurably moved her to detect under the steel of his manner the suspense of entire sincerity. He utterly depended upon her answer.
"My conscience," he said, "does not help me. I cannot balance the right and wrong of this business. I want a better reason. I want the best reason in the world. I want you to be my wife."
Lady Mary did not move. Wenderby's sincerity saved him from the protest with which she had thought to meet it. Nearly a minute passed.
"You understand?" said Wenderby at last.
"I think I understand," she slowly answered, "that this is not exactly what it seems."
"Does it seem so terrible?" he pleaded. "Consider it from my point of view."
"You say that, if I marry you, you will leave the Cabinet. That is my price."
"Obviously, if you consented to marry me, it would be my crowning motive for coming to your people. It is a natural consequence."
"It is my price," she insisted.
"You are brutal," he said in a low voice.
Lady Mary flushed a little. "You do not like my word. Shall we say inducement? You tell me you will leave the Cabinet, but you do not trouble to ask me whether I care for you."
"Is that necessary?" said Wenderby, quite simply. "I know you too well. You like me and trust me. I think you admire me a little. I am forty-seven. I do not urge you to passion. I have appealed to you as a woman who can weigh the things of youth against other things, more important perhaps, certainly more enduring. I have been candid with you."
Lady Mary sighed.
"I wonder," she said, "how many English girls have been talked to in this way?"
"You are not just an English girl. You are Lord Haversham's sister."
"You mean," said Lady Mary sadly, "that I have no right to be loved in the common way?"
Again there was a short silence. Wenderbythen rose, and put his hand upon Lady Mary's arm. He spoke now as one who loved her and understood.
"I know," he said, "exactly what this choice means. I want you to be my wife, and I mean to use every argument to persuade you. But I am going to be quite frank. When you marry me you will be turning away from a great deal. But I will hold you very precious. We shall always be comrades. Can you do this? To me it seems a choice between marrying for yourself and marrying for all that we hold most dear. Realise what our marriage would mean. Already we have wealth and social leading. Soon we should have supreme political office. There is no really able man of my age on the Tory side. Our house would be the absolute fortress of all we hold precious in the country. There is no one in whom I could so confidently trust as you."
Lady Mary looked steadily at this vision. She knew it could be realised. She measured the full stature of Wenderby, and answered the call of her own talent. At last she spoke, rather as though she wondered to herself than talked with another:
"But our marriage. What would our marriage be?"
"Always entirely as you wished. I should wait for you still, and hope to win you. I should never put away that hope. But I should not take you for granted."
"I cannot do things by half," she said, bravelymeeting him. "If I marry you, I shall accept all the consequences."
Wenderby bent his head.
"You do not want to answer me now?" he suggested.
"Come for my answer in twelve months."
"It is a long time."
"All my life hangs upon this decision. Twelve months is nothing at all."
"Meantime," said Wenderby, "we meet as usual."
"Of course."
"You will tell no one of this?"
"I reserve the right to tell my brother."
Wenderby rose to go. He hesitated as they stood together.
"Mary," he said, "I have talked coolly and sensibly. It was not easy. Try and believe that." His voice sank under the burden of his sincerity.
"I care with my whole soul," he added abruptly.
She met his look with understanding and compassion.
He took the hand Peter had touched and lifted it. She drew it impulsively away, giving him the other hand.
"A year from now," he said, and, kissing her fingers, went quickly from the room.
Lady Mary had a sense of escape. She had put off the immediate need to decide for twelve months. Almost she exulted in the time she had won. She felt she had saved for herself a year of her days and nights—a year in which to measure the issues.
Peter that afternoon had never seen her so radiant. He looked at her continually, and, when for a moment she left the room to answer a message, it seemed as if a light had gone out.
In recoil from her ordeal of the morning Lady Mary gave herself free rein. She accepted Peter's worship, and allowed the climbing current of her pleasure to flow. It seemed like the beginning of a holiday.
They talked quietly of indifferent things. Lady Mary saw that Peter's looks were openly read by his mother. Once, as Mrs. Paragon turned from his lost face to Lady Mary, a glance of intelligence passed between them.
Lady Mary kissed Mrs. Paragon at parting.
"You are not anxious about him?" she said, as Peter waited for his mother at the door.
"Peter finds his own way. I can trust him with you," said Mrs. Paragon.
In the evening, after her maid had left her, LadyMary sat in the firelight of her room alone with her problem. For months to come she suffered these solitary hours, looking into a future she could not read. Her duty became less clear as the days passed. She doubted the necessity of her sacrifice. Would it ultimately weigh in history? Was she justified in giving herself to a doubtful cause? In an agony of regret she saw herself turning from the virginal adoration of the boy she loved to long years of devoted work for a country that neither wanted her nor would understand.
These moods inexorably came, but at first they were few and far. In Peter's company the holiday persisted. Wenderby heard of them everywhere together. One morning, on his way to the House, he saw them in the Park. They were riding at a gallop, glowing with laughter. He stood on the path, unseen, and turned sadly away with the picture of their dancing faces firmly drawn upon his brain. He framed them in a window opposite the Treasury Bench.
Peter was already deeply committed to the routine of London. He was popular. His youth was a perpetual delight to hostesses for whom a boy of twenty-four was a precious discovery.
His readiness to enter into things eagerly and without reserve was the quaintest of pleasures to watch. It was all the more entertaining to Peter's friends owing to the rapidity with which he exhausted his ideas, emotions, hobbies, andacquaintances, and the impetuosity with which he discarded them. It was his charm to be the most lovable of spendthrifts; and the charm of his desire to rush at everything as it came was enhanced for the women who welcomed him by their knowledge of his absolute integrity. He seemed to unite the energy and frank joy of a wilful libertine with the austere purity of a Galahad. Peter's was an eager, questing purity, whose adventure was watched by many of his friends with an almost passionate solicitude.
The winter drew in, and rapidly passed. Peter began to lose the edge of his enthusiasm for the new life. He soon realised that at Highbury he had found the best, and that London was inferior. It was not upon the level he had measured by Eustace Haversham. He began to be sensible of a shabby side to the frank hedonism which had at first seemed all free nature and ready fellowship. A quiet and gradual disappointment flung him the more devotedly upon Lady Mary. He was entirely happy to be her constant friend. Now that the shadow of Wenderby had passed—Wenderby hardly saw her at this time—Peter felt only an untroubled comfort in her presence. She was his particular angel, a shrine for his private adoration. The perfect symbol of his emotion at meeting her was the cool clasp of her hand.
Lady Mary was content that this should be so. She thought of Peter as of a sleeping boy, who one day, if she were free, would wake to her.She watched him curiously, and with fear, for knowledge to stir in him. She knew that at the first flutter she would have to meet her problem with an answer.
The winter passed, and spring began warmly to enter. The lonely hours of her stress became more intolerable. Her holiday was passing, and her conscience was astir. Surely she must take Peter, or send him away. She would soon be unable to part with him.
Curiously she felt no scruples as to Peter himself—that she was betraying him into a love she might have to deny. She felt that for him it was safest to continue quietly beside her. Were she to dismiss him suddenly, it would provoke in him the storm she feared. He had come unbidden into her life, and she knew he would not leave it without a struggle.
The burden became at last too heavy. She must share it, or run for ever round in the circle of her thoughts. Upon an evening in April she heard her brother pass along the corridor as she sat in her room. She called to him.
"Tony," she said, "I want you to know something."
Haversham looked at her keenly. He had lately seen little of his sister or of Peter. The session had been very heavy, and the estate had also to be visited. Haversham was by more than twelve months older than he was a year ago.
"Is it Peter?" he asked quietly.
She shrank from an opening so direct.
"Not altogether," she said.
"It is partly Peter."
"Yes," she admitted.
"I saw it coming, Mary. You are only a sister of the younger branch. You can marry for yourself. You are not worrying about that?"
His quiet accepting of Peter made it harder for Lady Mary to go on. Instinctively she felt that her brother would be against her when he knew the rest. She shut her eyes and rushed at her confession.
"Lord Wenderby," she said, "asked me to marry him six months ago."
"Wenderby?"
The surprise in his voice uttered the quick leap of his mind. He came towards her. "Tell me," he said, "there is more in this than a proposal of marriage. Am I right?"
"Yes, Tony. If I marry Lord Wenderby, he will leave the Cabinet."
Haversham's eyes dangerously glittered.
"You mean," he said, "that Wenderby's political services are a wedding present?"
"He isn't sure what he ought to do. I can help him to decide."
"I see," said Haversham quietly. "Let me think of this."
He rapidly looked at the facts. He saw them clearly, in a hard, political light. Haversham had just come through a session of weary work in theHouse. Temper was hardening on both sides. The Government was shaken, but its power for mischief was still incalculable. Just at this moment Wenderby's defection would recast the entire position. Haversham swept into the future, thinking only of his country. He turned back to his sister.
"Mary, darling. Can you do this?"
She looked at him with dismay. She wanted for Peter the help he was giving to Wenderby.
"You think it is my duty?" she suggested.
"It is your duty." He uttered it like a doom.
"But, Antony," she pleaded, "are you sure? Think what it means."
He hesitated a moment; then, taking her by the arms, he searched her face.
"Can you reasonably do this?" he asked.
"Reasonably?" she echoed.
"I mean, you are reasonably fond of Wenderby?"
"I trust him utterly."
"Then it is only Peter."
"Peter is my youth," she cried out, "and my right to be loved."
He felt her pain, and hated the influence he used.
"It is very difficult," he said in a low voice. "Are the things for which we stand worth while? Surely we must think that they are."
She again felt the trap closing about her.
"How clearly you see things, Tony."
"Mary, darling, I see things as Lord Haversham. But I would to God this were not asked of you."
The words burst from him as he saw the tears gather in his sister's eyes. At the tenderness of his voice the barriers of her grief broke down. She wept in his arms, but at last drew erect.
"You are quite sure, Tony?" she asked again.
"Yes, dear."
"I will remember this talk when the time comes."
Haversham did not inquire when this time would be. He left everything now to his sister, inwardly deciding not to persuade her further.
"Meantime," he lightly suggested, "what is happening to Peter?"
"He holds me too precious to be loved, but I am afraid there will be trouble when I send him away."
"I wonder," reflected Haversham.
"I am sure of it," she insisted.
"He may surprise you yet," answered Haversham. "There is a blind side to Peter. Sometimes I think he was intended for a monk. He has a dedicated look."
"He loves me, Tony, and he will discover it."
"Cannot you spare him the knowledge?"
Lady Mary shook her head.
"Peter loved me at Highbury," she insisted. "I shall have nothing on my conscience."
Haversham sat that night in his room in quietcontemplation of the advice he had instinctively given to his sister. It displeased him to think how promptly and easily he had declared against the friend of his own years. He realised that a season or so ago he would not so immediately have perceived where his sister's duty lay. Was there, after all, something in Peter's ineradicable contempt for politics? Did they not rub the finer edges from a man?
Peter, after all, was his friend. He saw him with a pang, eager and impetuous; and knew how savagely his sister's marriage with Wenderby would tear him. There was nothing tangibly ignoble—nothing that a man of worldly years would boggle at—in Wenderby's proposal to Lady Mary. Nevertheless Haversham realised that young Marbury twelve months ago would have recoiled with a faint disgust from this attempt upon his sister. Undoubtedly he had changed. A year of politics, of arrangements and compromises, of difficult dealings with men of many tempers and desires, had caused young Marbury to seem like a legend, remote and debonair, to thoughtful Haversham. He had, almost without thinking, thrown over his friend, perceived the wisdom of his sister's great alliance, and quite overlooked the faint soil in Wenderby of a finesse which a year ago would rudely have jarred him.
Haversham smiled a little bitterly into the fire as he thought of these things—and the smile deepened as he realised that, though on reflectionhe could see the pity of it, and even hope that youth might even now defeat them all, nevertheless he could himself only repeat his first advice and conduct. He would on all occasions repeat that Wenderby was a man of perfect honour, even though he understood the impulsive dislike and distrust of Peter. He would continue to insist that the mere claims of youth were not enough to defeat the splendid political vision this marriage had offered to their eyes.
Meantime to ease the pricking of his conscience in regard to Peter he assured himself that Peter was far too young to be really in love with anybody—with Mary least of all.
From that hour Lady Mary began to face the future as a creditor. Her coming days with Peter were numbered and enjoyed as the reward of her sacrifice.
Yet another month slipped away. The year was now at the full of the first green, and London roared at the height of the season. Peter began to be much oppressed with the social rush. Much of it he now saw as mere noise and hurry. He read steadily in the morning, for he still intended seriously to be called to the Bar. In the afternoon he rode or went for long solitary journeys on the river. An evening seldom passed without meeting Lady Mary. They frankly exchanged plans, and schemed for snatches of conversation in crowded places.
At this time they were opportunely invited to leave the hurry of London for a few days in Norfolk. A friend of Haversham had got together at Wroxham a fleet of wherries. Peter and Lady Mary joined the same boat for their last unclouded days together. Only Lady Mary knew how precious and irrevocable they were. For Peter they were slow days of agreeable idleness, as they glided from reach to reach of the quietest country in the world. Always there was the same circle of sky, with an idle mill and rows of grey-greensedges; the quiet lapping of water and plod of the quanting. Tiny villages dropped past them, with square towers and clusters of small buildings. Upon the third evening of the cruise, Lady Mary picked up some London letters at Potter Heigham. One was from Lord Wenderby. She opened it and read:
"Lady Mary,—I hope you will not regard this as a breach of our contract. Things are moving quickly in the Cabinet. I must decide at once to stay or go. I can wait for you six days. If you cannot now help me to break with my ties and interests of the moment I must put away our vision of the future."I saw you in the Park the other day. I cannot hope you will ever be my wife. Believe that I wish you all the happiness of your heart."Wenderby."
"Lady Mary,—I hope you will not regard this as a breach of our contract. Things are moving quickly in the Cabinet. I must decide at once to stay or go. I can wait for you six days. If you cannot now help me to break with my ties and interests of the moment I must put away our vision of the future.
"I saw you in the Park the other day. I cannot hope you will ever be my wife. Believe that I wish you all the happiness of your heart.
"Wenderby."
Lady Mary answered at once. She told Wenderby to come for his answer on her return to London. Meantime, if he needed to know her mind, let him believe all that he wished.
Now she had only two days. She decided to tell Peter in London when they returned. Here she would part from him without a destroying word.
The last evening of the cruise was warm with a breeze from the land to the sea, enough for sailing. Peter and Lady Mary sat, after an early dinner, together on deck. Laughter came from the drawing-room below—a Londondrawing-room planted in a wilderness of marsh and water. Sunset was burning itself out. Light was flung upon miles of water, making of the country about them a glimmering palette. The mill on the horizon was derelict, standing black and crude, an eyeless giant, blind to the colour of earth and sky.
Merriment swelled below them. A clever musician parodied the latest phase of a modern French composer.
"This," said Peter with a sardonic gesture at the people below, "is a return to Nature."
"You are more scathing than you know," answered Lady Mary with a smile. "You are listening to a burlesque of the latest thing in music, written in the scale of the Opopo islanders. The Opopo islanders can only count up to five. We are determined to be primitive."
"I should like to sail away into all that," said Peter, waving his arm vaguely at the sunset.
Lady Mary caught at the idea.
"Can you sail?" she asked.
"Pretty fair," said Peter.
"Then why not?"
Lady Mary pointed to the dinghy beneath them. The mast was shipped, and the sail folded.
"Will you come?" asked Peter.
"It is our last evening."
Peter did not hear the sorrow of her phrase.
"Our last evening of the simple life," he laughed. He climbed down, and held the ladder firm.
"How are you for wraps?" he called. "It is going to be colder later. This breeze will freshen."
Lady Mary smiled at his expert way.
"Where," she inquired, "did you learn all this?"
"I learned it with Antony. We did this sort of thing at Oxford."
The reference to her brother brought Lady Mary again in view of her sacrifice. She shivered and was silent as Peter rowed softly out into the stream, and spread the tiny sail. The breeze caught it, and the little boat leaned over, hesitated, and swung quickly across the river. The air freshened upon their faces. They dropped almost in a moment away from the lighted flat, and soon were alone, speeding at ease over the beautiful water.
"Why didn't we think of this before?" said Peter happily. He pushed over the tiller. The little boat turned, and the water chuckled under her bows.
"Let me take you into the open. The breeze is beginning to be stiff for this tiny boat; but we can always lower sail if it gets too rough."
"Anything to-night," said Lady Mary.
"I love to hear you say that," Peter sang.
They passed into a wide lake, and were soon far from the shore, which showed now as a dark line picked out here and there with light.
"Anything to-night," Peter echoed the phrase."It sounds," he went on, "as if the present mattered more than anything in the world."
The breeze was stronger as they neared the middle of the water. The boat heeled dangerously.
"We've too much canvas for a tub," said Peter. He lowered the sail, and found he could take in a tiny reef. The hurry of the little boat was stilled. It swung idly on the water, and the wind seemed to have left them. Peter was busy with the sail, and Lady Mary sat still as a statue opposite him, her hand on the side of the boat. His happy face was intolerable. How would he take the news which waited for him at home? He was ready now to swing the reefed sail to the mast, but she impulsively stopped him.
"Don't do that," she said abruptly.
"The boat will stand it," Peter protested.
"It's not that," said Lady Mary. "Let us stay a while in this open place."
Her tone arrested him. It was urgent and entreating. He dropped the sail into the boat, and they sat silent for a time. Lady Mary was blaming her weakness. Why did she not at once signal for that brief run over the little span of water between them and the fleet? It would take her to the duty she had accepted. Her holiday was finished.
Peter misread the entreaty in her voice.
"You do not want to go back?" he said.
"Not at once."
"You, too, find all that less inspiring than it seems?" He waved his hand towards the people they had left.
"This is better, for a time," she answered evasively.
"You still believe in all that?" He looked towards the lighted masts, his face troubled and perplexed.
"Of course I believe," she assured him.
Peter eagerly bent forward. "You remember," he said softly, "a night upon the terrace at Highbury?"
Lady Mary looked at him, terror waiting to spring at her heart.
"I hardly know," Peter continued, "whether I still believe all that I believed at Highbury. It is all too insolent, and some of it is foolish and cruel. I have seen ugly and brutal things. I am beginning to see that there are no classes. Rank is nothing at all. There are only people."
Why did he talk like that to-night? It was intolerable.
"You are wrong," she cried out. "Wealth is nothing, and there are bad shoots in an old tree. But there are men and women who must think and rule. It is their right."
"That may be only your beautiful dream."
"Peter," she called distressfully, "you don't know what you are saying."
He looked at her in wonder at the veiled agony of her voice. The pure white line of her faceshowed like stone in the shutting light. There was a short silence. Then Lady Mary spoke again:
"I want you to suppose something," she said urgently. "It is possible that I may be asked to make a sacrifice for this belief of mine. It will be painful for me and for my dearest friend."
"Nothing in the world is worth a moment of your pain."
Peter's sincerity redeemed from ridicule the tragic untimeliness of his dithyrambic assurance. Lady Mary was brought nearer to tears than to laughter.
"Not even my faith?" she protested.
"It would be an evil faith, or it would not make you suffer."
"Why do you put me so high?" Again there was a note of stress.
"I shall always do that."
He put his hand firmly upon hers that rested on the side of the boat. She held her breath, fighting the desperate flutter of her soul. When she dared to look at him, she still met the shining worship of a boy. His hand rested upon hers, temperate and cool. She was glad she had not trembled or drawn away. Peter felt only an exquisite sense of privilege. He sat with bright eyes, happy in her beautiful austerity. She triumphed over her thrilled senses, and in her triumph faced him carven and tense.
The light faded rapidly. Colour went out ofthe sky and the water. Lady Mary took a long farewell of Peter's adoration. She knew that the light in his eyes was soon to be put out.
At last, with a deep sigh, her hand still quietly held, she said:
"Now, Peter, we must go. We have no light in the boat."
He reluctantly made ready the sail. The breeze caught it rudely. Their dream was broken up with the noise of water and wind. They came within sight and sound of the river. Peter lowered the sail to row in to the side of their wherry. There was only a moment now.
Lady Mary caught at Peter's wrist upon the oars.
"You will believe in me always, Peter?"
"Always."
"My life may take me away from you," she desperately urged. "We read things differently."
A burst of laughter came from the deck of the wherry. Lady Mary withdrew her hand from Peter's wrist.
"Nothing in the world can shake my belief in you," said Peter, still pausing on the oars.
"That is easily said."
Lady Mary cried out in pain at the light heart of the boy she loved.
"I mean it in every fibre," Peter insisted. "I am utterly yours."
"Row in to the boat," said Lady Mary. "This is the end."
Peter and Lady Mary travelled up to London next morning in the same train. They separated at Arlington Street, and she asked him to come and see her on the evening of the following day. Peter lightly promised, and happily left her.
Late in the day he sat with his mother in Curzon Street with open windows, idle and reminiscent. His talk in the boat with Lady Mary had emphasized his impressions of the life he was leading. It was not all wise and beautiful. His absurd enthusiasm had again been mocked. He measured what he had saved from the wreck of his expectations. The people with whom he now was living were more frank and free than any he had known. They were on the whole without fear. They feared neither men, nor words, nor the satisfaction of their heart's desire. But he had not found, and would not find, Eustace Haversham repeated.
He considered Lady Mary. Was not the world justified in that it put her high above fear and calculation, bidding her be queenly and untroubled? Peter tried to see her snatched from her world of policy and grace. Might she not show fairer yet, seen apart from the things for which she stood?Last night she had seemed like a creature with wings caught and held. How would they fare, those beating wings, if the common round too obstinately claimed her? Jealousy caught at Peter—the jealousy he had felt years ago when he saw a woman of the street pass to her desecration.
"How much do I love her?" he asked, prompted by the pain at his heart.
He loved her as far as the clasping of hands and his privileged admission to regard closely her perfection. His passion was a strong resolve that she should purely stand to be adored, not familiar, too delicate to catch at rudely for a possession.
His thoughts were shattered by a screaming in the street. Something extraordinary had happened. Peter moved to the window, and saw a newsboy rushing down from Piccadilly. Servants hurried from the doors, and bought the papers as he came. Peter at last heard the news, and saw the big black letters of the boy's fluttering bill. Wenderby had resigned. Peter turned impatiently away. These politics did not touch him.
But London was clearly interested. Next morning the papers were heavy with this great event. It stared at Peter from every corner of the street. Peter did not trouble to read the excited press. Since Wenderby had ceased to cloud the presence of his angel Peter had not regarded him. Frequently he paused that morning in his quiet reading of the law, but he paused to think only of an evening with Lady Mary.
Lady Mary was with Wenderby at that moment in her drawing-room at Arlington Street.
"I am pledged to you, Lord Wenderby," she was saying; and he answered:
"You talk like a creditor."
"Are you not a creditor?" she insisted. "You have put me beyond remedy into your debt."
"My resignation had to come last night, or not at all," he explained. "I was not trying to force you."
She measured him with a look, deliberate and frank.
"If I thought you were trying to force me," she said, "I should not be listening to you now. Your debt will be paid in full. But you must give me time. There are things you must allow me to forget."
Wenderby rose to go. He held her hand at parting, and hesitated a moment. The settled sadness of her manner showed him that she was looking back; showed him also that she had faced the future, and would not weakly remember things she must put away.
"Mary," he said, "if you cannot reasonably go through with this, remember that I resigned last night for the chance of you. It was only a chance."
"It was a safe chance," she answered quickly; "a chance that depended on my honour."
Wenderby gratefully accepted her decision. He became practical.
"How would you have it arranged?" he asked. "I mean the formal part of it."
"We must meet, and be publicly seen. The engagement—shall we say three months from now?"
Her sobriety misgave him. He began to realise the extent of her sacrifice. Had he pressed her unfairly?
"You are sure you can go on with this?" he urgently asked, again opening a way of retreat.
"Quite sure," she firmly answered. "I cannot yet be glad of this event; but I shouldn't undertake to be your wife if I did not think I was able to keep faith. I shall join you gladly, and without reserve."
Wenderby bent his head.
"I don't think you will regret this," he said with deep emotion. "Everything I have is now devoted to you and the things which are dear to you. But I won't urge personal feeling on you now."
He pressed her hand in a quick and friendly farewell. In another moment she was alone, able to think of her coming interview with Peter. She had begun to dread this so keenly that in a fit of shrinking she had almost written to him. She feared to see his pain, and trembled for its effect upon herself.
Peter's invitation was for dinner at Arlington Street. Shortly before he came Lady Mary talked with her brother. He had just arrived in town,brought by Wenderby's resignation. He at once looked for his sister.
They greeted in the drawing-room shortly before dinner.
"This is great news," he began. "I came up from Yorkshire with the Chief Whip. He thinks we shall turn them out." He paused, and looked closely at his sister.
"I am very proud of you, Mary," he went on. "You have accepted the work of your life."
Lady Mary had lately seen little of Haversham. His work began utterly to absorb him. She put her hand on his arm.
"Tony," she said, "I sometimes wonder if I'm not losing a brother."
"Mary, dear," he protested, "you are more than ever precious to me now."
Lady Mary sadly shook her head.
"Your first word to me was of the Chief Whip," she reminded him.
Haversham was touched. He put his hand gently on his sister's arm.
"We do not belong to ourselves," he pleaded. "This act of yours is a public thing."
"I have a personal thing still left to do," she said. "Peter is coming to-night. You must leave him with me."
"That will be easy," he assured her. "They're all political people this evening. We shall go on afterwards to the House."
The talk at dinner was all of Wenderby'sresignation. The division that night would show the strength of his following. Peter was exasperated by the persistence with which this event pursued him.
"Is this resignation really important?" he asked in an early pause of the conversation. Lady Mary had left her seat at the foot of the table.
"Important!" his neighbour exclaimed at him. "Why, it's the most important event in politics for fifty years. It changes everything."
"This, Peter, is not one of those important things which happen every day," said Haversham quietly. "I would have given almost anything to bring this about."
"At any rate, Haversham," said one of the politicians, "you have helped it a little."
"I'm afraid not."
"Just a little, I think," the politician insisted. "Your friendship with Wenderby must have counted. These personal things do weigh. Wenderby was not very comfortable with his late friends."
"Lord Wenderby's change of party, I suppose, is final?" Peter politely suggested.
"Quite," said Haversham curtly.
"He'll certainly stay with us," chuckled Peter's neighbour. "We shall make it worth while."
"There's less competition on our side," said another. "We haven't any brains under sixty-five."
"Moreover," said Haversham incisively, "Wenderby is a man of honour."
"Has that anything to do with it?" Peter must somehow persist in his hostility. He could only think of Wenderby as an adventurer. Haversham lifted a finger at him:
"Peter," he said, "we shall quarrel if you cannot help being rude to one of my best friends. You must believe in Wenderby. You don't know how essential it is."
They broke up, and prepared to leave for the House. Haversham told Peter he would find Lady Mary in her drawing-room. Peter went happily to discover her. He had seen her room only once before. He remembered with pleasure how exquisitely it framed her.
The servants were removing the coffee as he came in, and Lady Mary was softly at the piano. She continued her music after they were alone, Peter watching her in a light soft as the blurred harmonies of her playing. She had never seemed so elusive. At last she abruptly turned.
"What would you do, Peter, if this were our last evening together?"
Peter was surprised at her sudden question. He took it seriously, and thought a little.
"I should sit quietly here," he said at last, "and learn you by heart."
"But you would want to talk," she protested.
"There has been talking enough."
She had come from the piano, and now sat near him upon a low chair. The silence deepened as she hunted for an opening. Then suddenly she uttered her secret thought:
"I wonder how much you love me, Peter?"
Peter did not in words answer her quiet speculation. He dropped softly beside her on the rug, putting his free hand between hers. There calmly it lay upon her lap as he looked at the fire. The minutes passed till Lady Mary found them intolerable. Her hands closed tightly upon his.
"Peter, dear," she whispered.
Peter turned slowly towards her, startled by the stress of her voice, startled yet more when he found it in her eyes.
"You are in trouble?"
"I have something to tell you," she said.
"About yourself?"
Lady Mary bent her head.
"You remember," she went on, "our evening on the water?"
"I shall not forget it."
"I said then that the time might come when I should be drawn away from you."
"That is impossible," he protested. "I cannot lose you. I shall always know that you are wonderful."
"Will you always think of me like that?" she mournfully wondered.
"You are sacred," said Peter simply. He bent to kiss her fingers, but she drew them sharply back.
"No, Peter," she cried in pain; "I have given your hand away."
Peter stared at her.
"Do you mean," he slowly asked, "that I have no share in you at all?"
"Tell me"—she spoke in a low voice, and her eyes were veiled—"will you hold me sacred"—she shyly quoted his word—"as the wife of another man?"
Peter struggled with this new idea. It raised in him a bitter confusion. His calm devotion wasshaken and stirred. Above it triumphed a sense of loss, an instinct to grasp at something threatened.
"You are pledged?" he abruptly asked.
"Yes, Peter." It came from her like a confession.
The idea was now being driven into his brain. He looked at Lady Mary as he had not looked before. She sat back in her chair, turning aside from him. With opened eyes, he saw now the beauty of a woman snatched away. He leant towards her, uttering one hungry syllable:
"Who?"
It was the first time Peter's voice had challenged her. The adoration had gone out of it. It was hard.
"Does it matter?" she protested.
"It is a secret, then?" he coldly asked.
"No; I have promised to marry Lord Wenderby."
"Lord Wenderby," he echoed.
The name tore savagely at his heart, wounding him into jealousy and distrust. He was all blind passion now. Wenderby sprang to his eye, as he had stood darkly beside Lady Mary at the theatre. He saw, redly, in his galloping mind, his shining angel—now a beautiful woman he had exquisitely touched—possessed by another.
"Turn to me, Lady Mary."
It was a command, and she obeyed. She bravelymet his burning look, but she did not know how unendurable it had become. It searched and denounced her. Her eyes failed.
"You do not love Lord Wenderby."
Now he accused her. She collected her mind for a defence.
"It is not so simple as that," she pleaded.
"You do not love him," he repeated.
She drew herself erect and faced him.
"You must not speak like that," she said. "You are talking wildly. I tell you again this is not a simple thing."
"Love is a simple thing," he rudely countered.
"You are disappointing me, Peter."
The pain in her eyes for a moment arrested his passion. He stood away from her, and grasped at his vanishing peace. Lady Mary perceived his effort, and appealed once more to the boy who had so suddenly leaped out of her knowledge.
"You will listen to me, Peter!" she urged.
He stood silently waiting to hear what she had to say. She spoke quickly, running from the breaking storm in his eyes:
"I am quite content to be the wife of Lord Wenderby. I have always liked him and admired him. Six months ago he asked me if I would help him to join us politically. I have used my influence to bring him over. This pledges me to work with him."
"Does it pledge you to be his wife?"
"That is understood."
"So Lord Wenderby has been bribed," Peter flashed.
He looked at her cold and hostile. His thwarted pride of possession in Lady Mary stirred a cruelty he had never known.
Between love and anger she cried to him:
"This is not worthy of you, Peter."
But Peter's mind was busy now elsewhere. He was putting time and fact together.
"Lord Wenderby arranged for this six months ago," he suggested.
"He asked me to be his wife six months ago."
Now he stabbed at her again:
"You have let me love the promised wife of Lord Wenderby for six months."
"No," she sharply corrected him; "I answered him yesterday."
"But you had this in your mind?" Peter insisted.
Lady Mary was too deeply grieved for dignity or anger.
"I am on my defence, it seems," she said, suddenly weary of their fruitless talk.
"You have made me your judge," he bitterly retorted. "Why else do you tell me these things?"
"I wanted you to understand."
"I shall never understand."
Lady Mary looked at Peter, and saw the face of an enemy.
"We will put an end to this," she said. "It is useless."
She moved to dismiss him. Peter saw her passing to another.
He took her by the arm, harshly.
"You cannot so easily be rid of me."
"I do not know you, Peter," she protested, drawing away from him.
He released her as to the troubled surface of his mind there came an impulse of his old devotion.
"How can you do this thing?" he asked in a burst of grief. "You were the angel of my life."
Her pride sank at this.
"Peter, be just to me," she said. "This is a sacrifice."
He caught at the word, and returned to his old refrain.
"Sacrifice! You do not love Lord Wenderby."
"I shall be his wife. I am content to work with him."
"Lord Wenderby is old," said Peter brutally. "He has bribed you to give him all your beautiful years."
She shrank from the climbing rhetoric of his passion.
"It is infamous," he almost shouted.
Lady Mary flung back the challenge.
"It is my appointed work. I shall work with Lord Wenderby for all I hold dear. I am going to live as Eustace Haversham died. Cannot you realise that this is required of me? I cannotchoose only for myself. You must understand me, Peter. I can only endure this if you will believe that I am doing what is right."
Peter was obstinate.
"I do not believe it," he said. "It is a terrible mistake."
"Once you believed," she reminded him.
"I believed in you."
She faced him, queenly now, as when Peter had worshipped her. His soul fell suddenly at her feet.
"I still believe in you," he cried out. "I believe that you are too dear to be flung away."
"I cannot value myself as you do."
"You are giving yourself up," he said contemptuously, "so that your people for a few more years may live as we are living now."
"So that we may for a few more years be allowed to work as we must," she corrected him.
Peter was silent. He had seen her justification, but his passion prompted him to put it away. Lady Mary now touched him to the quick.
"You begin to see that I am right," she said, searching for his acquiescence.
"I see nothing," he insisted. "I only see that I am losing you."
"You make this very difficult," she said, trembling before the passion of his voice.
"Difficult!" He caught her by the arm. "Why should you care what I say or believe?"
She looked at his fingers imprinted in her flesh.She was weary and faint. She knew that love without reserve was confessed in her eyes.
"You know that I care, Peter. Please let me go."
Peter leaned towards her. He wanted to see her face. She felt that in a moment she must yield the message shut under her lids. She desperately shook free of him and stood away. But Peter read the deep flush of her neck and the motion she made to suppress the labour of her breath. She superbly filled his eyes against a background that had grown dim. He caught at her.
"My darling," he suddenly cried out, "I cannot let you go."
She felt the blood rushing to cover her.
"On your honour, Peter."
For a moment he was checked. "Tell me again to leave you," he said.
She faced him, and her eyes were fast held. He read the whole of her secret. In a flash his arms were about her.
"You cannot tell me to go."
She rested helplessly. Peter held her with a fierce pride. He would not surrender her. She closed her eyes upon a whispered entreaty as he touched her lips. He felt the stir of her heart, and the jealousy of possession utterly claimed him. Something wild and cruel lit in him. He kissed her upon the face and neck. She felt them as the kisses of mere hunger, and she suddenly rebelled.
"Peter, you dishonour me." Her voice smoteinto him a revelation. Already the passion had gone out of him. It had died in the act of touching her. He knew what he had done; he was utterly ashamed. His arms fell away from her. He stood with bent head waiting for her decree.
"I will write to you, Peter."
He accepted his dismissal, turning without a word. Lady Mary heard that the door had closed. She stood silently for a moment. Then, all that evening, she lay back in her chair stone still. Her eyes were tight shut; but at long intervals a tear was forced from under her lids, and fell insensibly.