CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
There is Bohemianism still—there will always be Bohemianism. But the present will never wear the same air of fantasy as the past. It is the same with all things. Every circumstance take its colour from the immediate surroundings, and you cannot expect to get the same light-hearted Bohemianism in the midst of an orderly, church-going, police-conducted district. What hope is there for a troubadour nowadays with the latest regulations upon street noises? We must dispense with troubadours and get our Romance elsewhere. So everything has to suit itself to its own time—Bohemianism with the rest.
One essential quality there is, however, in this Vie de Bohème that will never alter. It demands that those who live it, shall be careless of the morrow; it expects an absolute liberty of soul, let manners and conditions be what they may. You will still find that; you will always find it. Certain souls must be free and they always seek out the spots of the earth where social restrictions, social exigencies, are least of all in force. They live where life is freest; they eat their meals where it is not compulsory for them to be on their best behaviour. You cannot expect the Bohemian to be a slave, and to customs least of all. The only well-ruled line that he can follow is the customary prompting of his own instinct.
Such a spot—an ideal corner of all unconventionality—is Soho. They say that Greek Street is the worst street in London. You must say something is the worst, to show how bad and good things are. Then why not Greek Street? But for no definite reason. It is really no worse than many another and, with a few more lamps to light its darkened pathways, it might earn that reputation for respectability which would endear it to the most exacting of British matrons. All the doubtful deeds are only done in dark streets. Light is the sole remedy; you will see crime retreating before it like some crawling vermin that dares not show its face. Therefore, why blame Greek Street and those who live there? The county council are to blame that they do not cleanse the place with light.
Bad or good, though—whatever it may be—it is part of Soho; the refuge of Bohemianism to which district Traill brought Sally Bishop on that Thursday evening.
Outside the restaurant in Old Compton Street with its latticed windows, and its almost spotless white lintels and the low-roofed doorway, a barrel-organ was twirling tunes to which two or three girls danced a clumsy step. In the doorway itself, at the top of the precipitous flight of stairs that led immediately to the room below, stood Madame, the proprietor's wife—ready to welcome all who came. Her round, French, good-natured face beamed when she saw Traill, and her little brown eyes gleamed with genuine approval as they swept over Sally.
"Bon soir, Monsieur; bon soir, Madame."
Every lady is Madame, however many during the week Monsieur may choose to bring, and she makes a romance of every single one of them. Her own days are memories, but, being French, she still lives in the romance of others.
"Good evening," said Traill; "how's the business—good?"
"Mais, oui, Monsieur; les affaires vont assez bien."
They climbed down the narrow little staircase, made narrower and almost impassable by the pots of evergreens placed for decoration upon some of the steps. There, in the flood of light, the little room papered in gold, hung with pictures advertising the place, all done by needy customers—mostly French—who had given them to the establishment for a few francs, or out of the fullness of their hearts, they were greeted in welcome again by Berthe, the little waitress.
"Bon soir, Monsieur; bon soir, Madame."
It was like the cuckoo hopping from the clock to sing his note at every quarter.
There were little tables in every corner, all covered with virgin-white cloths and, in the centre of each, a vase full of chrysanthemums. It was all in order—all spick and span—French, every touch of it.
"Où voulez-vous asseoir, Monsieur? Sous l'escalier?"
Under the staircase by which they had just descended, two tiny tables had been placed—babies, thrust into the corner, looking plaintively for company. An Englishman would probably have made a cupboard of the place for odds and ends.
Traill consulted Sally. She did not mind. Anything in her mood would have pleased her. The atmosphere of all that was foreign in everything around her had lifted her above ordinary considerations. Under the stairs, then, they sat, Traill's head almost touching the sloping roof above him.
"Well, what do you think you'd like to have?" he asked. And Berthe stood by, patiently waiting, content to study the little details that made up Madame's costume; her eyes were lit with the same romantic interest which the proprietress had shown on their arrival.
"I don't mind."
"Well, will you have escargots?"
"What's that?"
"Snails."
Sally shook her head with a grimace and smiled. Berthe tittered with laughter.
"Monsieur is funning, he would not eat escargots himself." She smiled at Sally, the smile that opens confidence and invites you within; no grudging of it between the teeth, ill-favoured and starved, as we do the thing in this country.
"However did you find this lovely little place?" asked Sally, when the girl had gone with Traill's order.
"Deux consommés, deux!" shouted Berthe through a door at the end of the room. "Deux consommés, deux!" came the distant echo from the kitchen.
Traill leant his elbow on the table and looked at her—let his eyes rest on every feature, last of all her eyes, and held them.
"By not looking for it," he said. "By passing it one evening at about the time for dinner, seeing the new-old bottle-panes in the leaded windows, looking down these stairs and getting a rough-drawn impression that the place was cosy, a rough-drawn impression in which the bottle-panes suggested that they had some sort of ideas in their heads, these people—and the little pots of evergreen down the stairs with the ugly red frilled paper round them that made you think that they had known the country—lived in it. All that blurred together in a mazy idea that it was sure to be cosy. Then I came downstairs, saw all these little tables with their vases of flowers, the spotless serviettes sticking up like white horns out of the wine-glasses, saw the beaming face of Berthe over there; was greeted with, 'Bon soir, Monsieur;' and so I dined. That's a year and a half ago. I've had my dinner, on an average, three times a week here ever since."
"It must be nice to be a man," said Sally.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know; to dine where you like, find out these quaint little places, never to have to think of the impression you give by what you do."
He leaned back in his chair, and smiled at her. "We have to think just as much as you do, in most of the things we really want to do. I didn't want particularly to dine in such a place as this, that evening I came here. It seemed no liberty to me. There are things I might give the world to be able to do, yet haven't the liberty. What do you want with liberty—the liberty to come and go wherever you please?" He smiled at her again. "What good would it do you?"
Sally wondered what Miss Hallard would say if she were to hear this. She wondered what she would have said herself, had the expression of such ideas come from Mr. Arthur. There was no doubt that she would have repudiated them with vehement denial. With Traill she said nothing—felt that he was right. Why was that? She could not tell. It was beyond her power to analyze the situation as closely as it required. It was beyond her ability to realize that a man may say he is the son of God, if it be that he has behind the words the power of the personality of a Jesus Christ. Traill had the personality—the dominance behind him in what he said—that was all. He might have told her that women were only the chattels of men, born to slavery, the property of their masters, and she would not have denied it to him.
"What in the name of God are women?" he had said more than once in his life—"Is one of them ever worth all the while?" And he thought he had meant it. To a great extent, he acted up to it as well. These are the questions that men of the type put to themselves over and over again—but there are Cleopatras to mate with Antonys, Helens of Troy and Lady Hamiltons who can snap their fingers in the face of such odds and win. But Sally was not of this blood. She is the lamb that goes willing to the slaughter, the woman, whom a man like Traill, when once he holds the trembling threads of her affection, can drive to the uttermost.
"Then you give no liberty to a woman?" she said.
"No—not the liberty she talks about. Not the idea of liberty that she gets from these suffragist pamphleteers."
"I'd like you to meet my friend, Miss Hallard," said Sally.
"Why? Who's Miss Hallard? What is she?"
"She's an artist—I share rooms with her."
"Why would you like me to meet her?"
"I'd like to hear you two argue. She thinks just the opposite. She thinks—"
"I never argue with a woman," Traill interrupted.
"You think so poorly of us?" She tried to say it with spirit—struck the flint in her eyes, contracted her lips to the hard, thin line.
"As women? No—the very best." Her looks did not worry him. Water pouring over marble runs off as smoothly. "You want to be judged as men—you never will be till you can cut your hair short and dress the part. Clothes have the deuce of a lot to do with it. I can love a woman, but, my God, I can't argue with her."
He leant back to let Berthe put the plates of soup before them, and Sally watched his face. It was very hard—high cheek-bones from which the flesh drooped in hollows to the jaws, the grey eyes well set, neither deep nor prominent, but flinching at nothing. There was no great show of intellectuality in the forehead—it was broad, smooth, but not high; yet none of the features were small. The jaw was square, the upper lip long. At one end the mouth seemed to bend upwards in a twist of irony, rather than humour, and the lips themselves were thin—lips that could cut each word to a point if they chose, before they uttered it, a mouth by no means sensitive to the hard things it could speak.
To Sally it both feared and fascinated. Whenever he was not looking, she could not take her eyes away. In the pictures in her mind, it showed itself most often in ironic rage; yet he could look at her with an expression that wooed the softest of thoughts in her heart. Then she felt a slave, and would have given him the world, held in her fingers, the gift would have seemed so small.
He looked up quickly from his plate—all motions of his head were alert. "Why don't you begin your soup?" he asked.
She laughed quietly, and commenced at once with childlike obedience.
"Has Mr. Arthur said anything to you since?" he inquired presently.
For a short moment she hesitated—then she admitted it.
"When?"
"Monday evening."
"Oh—the day you had lunch with me."
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Again she hesitated.
"What right have I to ask—eh?" he interrupted before she could frame the words to reply. "Isn't that what you're sticking over? Of course I've no right but interest. You brought me the interest, you know—but I apologize for it all the same. Berthe!"
"Oui—Monsieur."
"Maquereaux grillés; and I want something to drink."
Berthe went to the bottom of the stairs, leaning on the third step with her hand and calling up to the room above.
"Alexandre!"
"Why does she do that?" inquired Sally.
"She's calling for Alexandre, the waiter who runs out across the street—obediently but slowly—with your pennies to buy your wine. They don't have a license here."
Alexandre made his appearance with a big red cardboard cover in his hand, which looked as if it held a copy of a weekly paper. This was the wine list. Traill gripped it from him, giving the number almost at the same moment.
Alexandre waited patiently for a moment, then deferentially suggested that he should be given the money, having received which, the little staircase swallowed up his tall, thin body again. It was all like playing at keeping restaurant, only everything worked without a hitch, which would never have happened if it had really been only a game.
"I apologize," Traill repeated, when Alexandre had disappeared.
"But there's no need to," said Sally, quickly. "I think it's very kind of you to take the interest that you do. And I suppose"—her eyes roamed plaintively round the room, rather than at that moment meet his; "I suppose I should have told you without your asking."
"Why?" he leaned a little forward.
"I don't know. Because I wanted to, I expect."
Her eyes fell to the table. She made tiny pellets of bread between her fingers and placed them one by one in a row, knowing that his eyes were searching through her. In that little moment, the silence vibrated with the current of their thoughts. Traill pulled himself together—laying hand upon anything that came within his reach.
"Look at this knife," he said in a dry voice, picking up the nearest to him. "Ever seen such a handle? it's shrunk in the wash." The bone handle of it was bent round, twisted like a ram's horn. "I generally get this about once a week. It's an old friend by this time."
She looked at it, scarcely seeing, and forced a smile that could not quite remove the furrow of silent intensity from her brows. Traill saw that. He could not take his eyes from her face. Her almost childish passivity was like a slow and heavy poison in his blood. It crept gradually and gradually through the veins, leaving fire wherever it touched.
Alexandre came back with the wine, and broke the spell of it. He spread the change out on the table, and the sound of it then, at that moment, was like the breaking of a thousand little pieces of glass, over which his presence walked with clumsy feet.
"Well, what did Mr. Arthur say?" Traill asked when Alexandre had disappeared again and Berthe had brought them their second course.
Sally looked up and smiled at his encouragement, a smile that lit through him. He could feel it dancing in his eyes.
"He asked me if I had made up my mind," she replied.
"Made up your mind to marry him?"
"Yes."
The pause was heavy, it seemed to swing against them.
"And you? What did you say?"
He tried to conceal the burning of his interest to know. His voice was steady—each note of each word quiet, true, subdued; but when the brain is tautened, vibrating as was his, it gives out of itself unconsciously. She felt the strain in her mind as well, just as though a wire, drawn out, were stretched between them. She heard the note, half-dominant in his speech. However quiet his voice, he could not dull her ears to that.
"Oh, I told him I couldn't; it was impossible. I don't love him, I never should love him. How could one take a step like that on no other basis than wanting a home? What a home it would be! I should be miserable."
These were her beliefs. She placed love before everything—lifted it to the altar as you raise a saint and worshipped with bent knees and silently moving lips. To understand the great-hearted love of a greatly loving woman, you must know the joy of greatly giving. She loves to give; she gives to love. Out of her breast, out of her heart, with arms laden to the breaking—dragged down by the weight of her gifts, she will give, and give, and give, holding nothing back, grudging nothing, forgetting all she has ever given in the blind joy of what is left to be bestowed. This, when it comes to a woman, is what she means by love as she kneels down in the silent chapel of her own heart and worships. This was the passion as Sally understood it. Her whole desire was to give, and to Mr. Arthur she could have given nothing.
"What did he say?" asked Traill, quietly. A man always speaks somewhat in awe, somewhat in deference, of another whose hopes have been flung to the ground; speaks of him as if he were a prisoner in a condemned cell—fool enough no doubt, but made a man again by the meeting of his fate. "What did he say?" he repeated.
Across Sally's mind pictures were rushing in kaleidoscope. The remembrance of Mr. Arthur as he had left her at the door and turned away, shuffling his steps along the pathway—the sight of Janet and herself, with heads raised from the pillow, listening to the muffled, disordered sounds in the next room—the recollection of Mr. Arthur's face the next morning as she had passed him in the hall, the eyes dull—steam, as it were, upon a window-pane—and the unhealthy shadows beneath. He had grudged her a good morning, but that was all, and she had scarcely seen him since then. He had been out every evening.
"He said very little," she replied, "but I know he felt it very much."
"How do you know?"
"Well, that night when he came in—" the words refused utterance. She looked up quaintly, appealing to him, desiring to be understood without further explanation.
"Drunk?" said Traill.
She nodded.
"Poor devil!"
A thousand apprehensions fled—darkening—across her face. So pass a flight of starlings with a thousand whirring wings that sweep out light of the sun.
"You think I treated him badly?"
"No, I didn't say so."
"But you think it?" She begged eagerly, importunately.
"No, no, my dear child; no. What else could you do?"
"But you felt sorry for him?"
"Do you forbid it? I was putting myself in his shoes, feeling for the moment what he must have felt. Sift it down and you'll find at the bottom that I really said poor devil for myself." He laughed as he looked at her. "Well, now," he went on, "we're getting more than halfway through dinner and we haven't decided where we're going to yet. What's it to be?"
"Really, I don't mind a little bit."
"Oh, you never give any help at all."
She laughed light-heartedly. "I find I get along quite all right if I let you choose."
"You're satisfied?"
"Absolutely."
"Well, then; I'm not going to offer inviolable judgment. I'm only going to make a suggestion."
"What is it?"
"My rooms are in Regent Street—"
"I know; I looked up the number the other day in theWho's Who?after we'd had lunch."
"Was that to know if I'd told the truth?" He held her eyes for the answer as you put your metal in the vice.
"No, of course not! How could you think I'd dream of such a thing?"
"Many women might."
"I certainly shouldn't."
A look of tenderness as it passed across his face freed her. She turned her eyes away. He was finding her so absolutely a child, and on the moment paused. There is a moment when a pause holds possibility laden full in its two hands. He let it slip by—it rode off like a feather on the wind. He lost sight of it.
"Well, what's your suggestion?" she asked.
"That we should come back to Regent Street, sit and talk; we'll have our coffee there; I'll show you how to make it."
He tried to run the whole sentence through. Set it on its feet, and pushed it to the conclusion that it might seem natural, unpremeditated. She saw nothing forced; but his ears burnt to the stumbling sounds. The breath caught in his nostrils as he waited for her definite refusal.
"I think that would be lovely," she said with genuine interest.
He let the breath slowly free, checked, curbed, the bearing rein upon it all the way. He imagined he had found country innocence in London, and for the moment stood aghast at it; could not see that it was her trust in him, blindly, implicitly placed, against all knowledge of the world. He stood for a gentleman in her eyes—that Apsley Manor, the late Sir William Hewitt Traill, C.B., they all helped to conjure the vision in her mind. She knew the world well enough in her gentle way; but this man was a gentleman.
Yet he saw little of this and, in a broadness of heart, warned her.
"I say nothing for or against myself," he said, "and this has not been put to you as a test; I want you to come, I really hope you'll come. But you'd be foolish beyond words if you indiscriminately accepted such an invitation from any man."
"I know that," she replied firmly.
"And you'll come?"
"Yes; I've said I would."
"Why do you make the exception?"
"Because I know you're a gentleman. I trust you implicitly."
That went to the heart of him—drove home—the words quivering where they struck.
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
There was much ceremony when they departed—much Frenchpolitesse, and many charming little attentions were paid. Marie assisted Monsieur on with his coat, which, being British, he strongly objected to. Berthe brought Madame a beautiful chrysanthemum from the vase on one of the vacant tables and, when Sally proposed wearing it, insisted upon pinning it in herself, her eyes dancing with delight as she stood back to admire its effect.
Berthe and Marie stood at the bottom of the stairs as they ascended.
"Au'voir, Monsieur—merci—au'voir, Madame."
Now it was like a duet of little cuckoo clocks, both in unison, both in time, both with that fascinating touch of the nasal Parisienne voice. Sally was enchanted with it all.
Last of all there was Madame—Madame smiling—Madame rubbing her fat, homely hands together—Madame's twinkling brown eyes dancing upon the two of them.
"You had a good dinner, Monsieur?"
"Excellent, thank you, Madame."
"Oh, Monsieur;" she caught Traill's arm and detained him as Sally went out in front. "Oh—monsieur—elle est charmante!" Her eyes lifted and her hands carried the words upwards—to heaven, if need be.
Traill threw back his head and laughed. "Madame—vous êtes trop romanesque pour ce monde."
"Ah, non, Monsieur—je suis ce que je suis. Je suis trop grosse peut-être, mais pas trop romanesque. Au'voir, Monsieur—merci—prenez garde d'elle, Monsieur." She held up a fat warning finger. "Au'voir, Madame. À bientôt."
They left her bowing there against the background of the old bottle glass, lit yellow by the light within, her smiles following them down the street.
"Well—there you are," said Traill, as they walked away. "That's the terrible, shameless Bohemian life in anarchist quarters. What a thing it is to be thankful for, that only the English mannersaremanners, and couldn't afford to show their face in Soho."
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
They walked in silence through the little bye-streets of Soho, and followed their way down Shaftesbury Avenue. At the crossings, he lightly took her arm, protecting her from the traffic, freeing it directly they reached the pavement. Inwardly she thrilled, even at the slight touch of his hand on her elbow. She had never been quite so happy before. Nothing needed explanation. She defined no sensation to herself. When the sun first bursts in April after the leaden winter skies, you bask in it, drench yourself in the fluid of its light, and ask no questions. It is only the smallest natures that are not content with the moment that is absolute.
But in the mind of Traill, there swung a ponderous balance that could not find its equilibrium. She had called him a gentleman; was he going to act as one? Into her side of the scale, with both her little hands, she had thrown in her implicit confidence. Was there any weight on his side which he could put in to equalize? He hunted through his intentions as the goldsmith hunts amongst his drachms and his counterpoises; but he found nothing that could balance the massive quality of her faith—nothing!
In his most emotional dreams of women, he had never conceived himself in the drab light of the married man. Possibly because he had never moved amongst that class of women with whom intimacy is obtained only through the sanction of a binding sacrament. His contempt of the society to which his birth gave him right of entrance, had always kept him apart from them. But he scarcely saw the matter in that breadth of light. Intimacy with the women he had known had always been possible—possible in its various degrees, some more difficult to arrive at than others, but always possible. And, until that moment, when Sally had told him that she knew he was a gentleman, he had placed her no differently to the rest. Cheap, sordid seduction, there had been none of that in his mind; but he had tacitly admitted within himself that if their acquaintance were to drift—she willing, he content—into that condition of intimacy, then what harm would be done? She was a little type-writer; he, a man, amongst other men. A thousand women pass through the fire that way and come out little the worse.
So had he assessed her, until that moment when she had unthinkingly, unhesitatingly accepted his invitation to come and see him in his rooms. He had thought it innocence, he had imagined it a purity of mind that, in a city such as this, was almost unthinkable. It was his better nature then that had prompted the warning, the opening of a kitten's eyes before it is to be drowned.
Then the last position of all, the position that made the whole thing impossible. She was not innocent! She was not ignorant of the world! She did know the pitfalls in life—knew the luring dangers that lie concealed in the hedges of every woman's highway! No, it was not that. She knew everything—but she knew him to be a gentleman.
There is no more disarming passe in the everlasting duel between a man and a woman than this appeal—whether it be made intentionally or not—the appeal to his honour as a gentleman. Up flies the glittering rapier from his hand, he is weaponless—and at her mercy. For every man, even more especially when he is not one, would be thought a gentleman.
Traill, disarmed, defenceless, weighing every possibility, every intention, was still faced with the unequal balance, her gentle faith in the best of him dragging down the scale. By the time they had reached the stairway to his rooms, he had forged his mind to its decision. This once he would let her come to his rooms—this once, but never again. He knew his instincts and refused to trust them. If she thought him a gentleman, she should find him one. That was owed to her. We give the world its own valuation of us. This is humanity. It is therefore wisest to think well of a man. Those who think badly will find themselves surrounded by the impersonation of their own minds. It is wisest to think well, for even thinking has its unconscious effects. But say evil of a man, tell him to his face, without thought of punishment, merely in candid criticism that you find him ill and, besides giving him a bad name, you will make a dog of him.
She had said he was a gentleman—bless her heart!
"This staircase is confoundedly dark," he said; "I'll strike a match."
She waited, heart beating, listening to the scratching of the match-head against the woodwork. When it flared, he raised it above his head and strode on before her, grim shadows falling round him, following him like noiseless ghosts. Sally kept close behind.
"I used to live on the top floor," he said, "until the day before yesterday; I've moved down now to the first. There's not so much difference in the rooms, but those four flights of stairs in this sort of light were a bit too much." He thought of the last woman who had climbed the stairs with him. All she had said that evening, the first day he had met Sally, trooped through his mind in slow and vivid procession. He compared her life with that of Sally's, the ghastly hollowness of it in contrast with this child's simplicity of faith. The picture was an ugly one. He shuddered before the first, no less than before the second; for whereas one repelled, the other drew him to itself with all its subtle fascinations.
"Now," he said, forcing a smile and turning round to face her with his hand upon the handle of the door, "these are only bachelor's quarters, remember; no soft cushions, no mirrors—nothing. And if you'll stay there one second, I'll light a couple of candles. You'd far better have the room chucked at you all at once, than let it grow slowly to your eyes as I stalk round with a match. Do you mind?"
"I? Not a bit!" She laughed and turned with her back to the door, looking down the staircase which they had just ascended. Her heart was still beating, throbbing with unwonted excitement and anticipation. She knew she could trust, but there was a spring—a vibration in the thought that they played with fire. Yet what a harmless fire! No stake in the marketplace at which the soul, the honour, the life of the victim is burnt! No! Nothing like that. Only that fire which, when once it is lit, soothes, warms, nurses the hearts of men and women into love, and when once it is glowing white in heat, moulds them, forges them into the God-sent cohesion of unity. What need had she to fear in playing with so tenderly fierce a fire as that? None, and there was no trace of fear in the heart of her; but her pulses hammered; she felt them even in her throat.
"Now—you can come in now!" Traill called, and he came to the door, opening it wide for her to pass through.
Sally entered—two or three steps; then she stood there looking round her. The old oak chests, carved some of them, worm-eaten here and there; the clean, pale, straw-coloured matting, no rugs of any description: the dark green walls and the rough, heavy brass candle sconces that glittered against them, reflecting the candle flames in every polished surface: it was almost barbaric, more like a reception room of a presbytery than a living room; but a presbytery decorated to convey the best of a strong and self-reliant mind, rather than to pander with a taste ornate to the futile conception of a God.
Except for two rush-seated armchairs, there was no suggestion of providing any recognized forms of comfort. The chair at the open bureau, with its case of books above it, had a wooden seat; all the rest of the smaller wooden chairs were wooden-seated as well. There was no visible and obvious sign of any desire for luxury; yet luxurious it all seemed to Sally, every corner of it, as she gazed around her. It was a luxury conveyed by the intrinsic value of every article of furniture he possessed; a luxury far more lasting, far more complete, than any to be found in down cushions and gently shaded lights.
Austerity was the note through it all, austerity even in the pictures upon the walls. They were prints, old prints, coloured or plain, representing boxers of the old school, stripped to the waist, the ugly muscles flexed and bulging as they raised their lithe arms in the attitude of defence. There were no other pictures but these; nothing to show that he had a heart above boxing. There was one thing. In their journey around the walls, Sally's eyes fell on a little coloured miniature in a plain gold frame that hung by the side of the bureau. At that distance, she could distinguish that it was a girl, a girl with fair hair that clustered on her shoulders. The beating of her heart dropped to a whisper when she saw it, all the pulses stopped, and she felt a cool, damp air blowing across her face.
"Well," said Traill, with a smile, "I suppose you think it is confoundedly uncomfortable?"
She turned, faced him, forcing strength to master her sudden apprehension.
"I think it's absolutely lovely," she said, with simplicity. "I've never seen a room like it before."
"And you don't find the want of soft things, cushions and all that sort of business?"
"No, oh no! they'd spoil it. One doesn't want cushions to be comfortable, one wants surroundings. These are perfect."
He looked at her with appreciation; then, as a thought swept over him, it altered to an expression of tenderness. He put his heel on that, churned it round, and strode over to the fireplace.
"Here, come and sit down here and get warm while I make the coffee," he said. "It's frightfully cold outside, you know. I shouldn't wonder if it isn't freezing."
She followed obediently, and took the chair he had drawn out for her. Then he hurried about, opening cupboards and drawers, producing a saucepan here, a coffee-pot and a milk-can there, until all the things were laid on the table. And all this time, while she made sure that she was not being observed, Sally's eyes wandered backwards and forwards to the little miniature. She was nearer to it now and could more clearly distinguish the features. They reminded her somewhat of herself. There were the same round cheeks, the same small childishness of lips and nose and chin, the same pale complexion tinged with fragile pink, the same big, blue eyes. Had he taken an interest in her because she was like this girl, this girl whose miniature he had allowed to be the only breaking note in the whole symphony of his scheme of decoration? They were like each other, a likeness sufficiently apparent to suggest the thought to her mind. The miniature was painted in a fashion common to all such works of art a hundred and fifty years ago. She could not tell from its style when it had been done. But the fact that it hung there alone, the one gentle spot in otherwise austere and hard surroundings, was sufficient for her to give it the highest prominence in her mind.
It must be that, it must be what she had thought. He was lonely. He had said as much to her on that first evening when they had driven on the 'bus together as far as Knightsbridge. The girl was far away, in another country perhaps, and he had seen her, Sally, had seen the likeness, been reminded of her in some slight way, and had sought to ease his own solitude with the half-satisfying pretence that she was with him.
There was no thought of blame in Sally's mind. He meant no evil by her; but it was hard. The bitterness of it struck at her heart. After all, there was no fire to be playing with. The coldness of being absolutely alone again chilled through her whole body, and she shivered.
"Now," said Traill—everything was ready at his hand. "The making of coffee's the simplest thing in the whole world; that's why everybody finds it so deucedly difficult. We'll put this kettle on first." He thrust the kettle on the flame, pressing the coals down beneath it to give it surer hold.
"I'm awfully glad you like my room," he said, looking up from his crouching attitude by the fire. "I should have been sorry if you hadn't."
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. If you hadn't liked my room, you wouldn't have liked me. My friend and his dog, I suppose."
She tried to smile. "Well, I like it immensely. I think it's so awfully uncommon. I suppose you could never get a piano that would go with the rest of the things?"
For the moment his expression hardened. A piano! He hated the sight of them.
"No, never," he said.
"P'raps you're not fond of music?"
"No, not a bit. Are you?"
"Oh yes; I love it."
His eyes lost their steel again to the tone of her voice when she said that.
"Well, that's as it ought to be," he remarked. "Religion and music are two things a woman can't do without. Are you very religious?"
"I don't know exactly what you mean by that. I'm afraid I hardly ever go to church, and in that sense, I suppose, I'm not religious. But I always say my prayers every night and morning."
Traill smiled at her gently. "That's all right," he said; "churches are nothing, only monuments that fulfil the double purpose of reminding the more forgetful of us that there are a class of people who believe in things they can't prove, and that also provide employment for those who have to look after them. I don't pray myself, but I should think it's the nearest thing you can get to in a combination of religion and common sense. Is that kettle boiling, do you think? Looks like it. Oh, of course, I ought to have known you were religious."
"Why?"
"Do you remember the way you took that impoverished joke of mine about the occupants of the kingdom of heaven?"
She laughed lightly at the recollection. But it was the lightness only of a moment. Her head turned, and she found again the eyes of that miniature looking into hers. Questions then rushed to her lips—a chorus of children fretting with intense desire. She could not hold them back—they would speak. Each one held her heart in its hands.
"Why do you have that miniature—amongst all the other pictures?"
"That?" He turned round, following her eyes, the boiling kettle steaming in his hands. "Pretty, isn't it?"
They both looked at it—he, without distraction—she, with eyes wandering covertly backwards and forwards to his face. Of course, she admitted its charm. Could she do otherwise?
He poured the hot water into the strainer over the coffeepot, then shutting the lid, he laid the kettle back in the grate and walked across to the miniature, looking long and closely into it. Sally watched him, nostrils slightly distended, lips tightly pressed. In that moment an unwarranted jealousy almost charred her softer feelings with its burning breath.
"There are a good many points in it, you know," he said, turning round, "that bear a strong resemblance to you."
"Oh, but she's very pretty," said Sally.
"And you're not?" He came back to the fireplace; stood there, taking regard of every one of her features with no attempt to conceal the direction of his eyes. "And you're not, I suppose?" he repeated.
She smiled with an effort. "If I were, it 'ud scarcely be for me to say. But I don't think I am. I suppose I'm not ugly. When I'm in good spirits, I sometimes go so far as to think I'm not actually plain. But she's pretty—really pretty." Her eyes pointed in the direction of her last remark.
Traill leant forward, facing her, putting both hands on the arms of the chair in which she was sitting. "So are you," he said quietly, "really pretty."
She was locked in, his hands on the arms of her chair and his body making the bars, against which, even had she wished it, escape were impossible. She tried to take it with a little smile, the ordinary compliment in the ordinary way. But the note in his voice refused to harmonize with that. Her smile was forced, her expression unnatural. And there she was caged, locked in by his eyes and, like a bird in the first moments of its captivity, her heart beat wildly against her breast. It was not because she was afraid—the trust in her mind never failed her for an instant—but she knew that she was captive. Whoever the other woman might be, if his honour, his heart, his whole soul were plighted to her, yet Sally knew that she must love him. There was all the giving, all the yielding, all the passive abandonment in her eyes; and when he saw that, Traill shot upright, forcing his hands to anything they might do.
"That's my sister," he said hurriedly, breaking into conversation—the man pursued and seeking sanctuary. He could not trust himself to look closely at her again. The boiling of the milk was an action of refuge; he crushed the saucepan down on to the glowing coals. She had said he was a gentleman.
"Your sister?" Sally whispered. He did not turn; he did not see her lips twitching in the reaction of relief. He had known nothing of the whirlwind that had been sweeping through her mind. All that play he had lost and yet was no loser. Had he seen the jealous hunger in her heart, it would have pointed the rowels of the spur that was already drawing its blood.
"Yes; she lives down in Buckinghamshire. My father left her the place. She's married. That was done of her when she was twenty."
"Apsley Manor?"
"Yes," he twisted round. "How did you know the name of the place?"
"I saw it inWho's Who?"
"Oh—" He laughed—laughed hard. "Of course, you told me. Yes, Apsley Manor. It's a fine old place."
"I'm sure it is. I've often—tried—to picture it."
"I'll take you there one day to see it."
It was out! Ripped from him on the impulse. How could he take her to see it, if they were not going to meet again after this? But he had never determined that they were not to meet again; only that he would not bring her to his rooms. It amounted to the same thing. He was not the man to let his inclinations fool him. If they met, what was there to keep him from bringing her here? Nothing! He knew he would do it. He hoped then that she would take no notice of his remark; but he hoped in vain. She leapt to it, eyes glinting with delight. To her that offer conveyed everything. She saw herself down there in the country with him, the spring just lifting its promise of life, like a child, out of the cradle of the earth. She heard him telling her that he loved her. She felt herself pledging the very soul that God had given her into the open hollow of his hands. Take no notice of his remark? Her whole instinct lifted to it.
"I don't believe there's anything else I should like so well," she exclaimed intensely.
He inwardly cursed his impulsiveness. "Oh, well, that'll be splendid," he said soberly. "Only it's no good going down at this time of the year. The country now's a grave, a sort of God's acre where only dead things are buried. I can't stand the country at this time of the year."
"No, of course not. It's much too cold now; but in the spring—"
"Yes," he jumped at that—"in the spring. That's the time."
Then he thought so too. Perhaps the same fancies were shaping in his mind as well. She threw back her head, resting it on the chair behind. There was complete happiness in the heart of her. Every breath she took was an unspoken gratitude.
"Do you see your sister often?" she asked, as he handed her her cup of coffee.
"Often? No, once a month perhaps." His lips shut tight, as though the question had been a plea that he should see her more frequently and he were determined to refuse.
"But why is that?" she asked sympathetically. "Doesn't she often come to Town?"
"Oh yes—most part of the year. They've got a small house in Sloane Street, and live there all the winter."
Sally looked at him with troubled eyes—troubled in sympathy because, with the quick wit of a woman in love, she had felt here the need of it. His sister lived in Sloane Street—lived there for the most part of the winter, and he saw but little of her; yet he kept her miniature lovingly in his room. If there is but one woman pictured on his walls, you may be sure a man rates her high. Sally knew all this—knew there was more behind it, yet hesitated to intrude. Another gentle question was rising to her lips, when he volunteered it all.
"My sister and I differ in our points of view," he said without sentiment. "We look at life from hopelessly opposite quarters. That's why I live here. The house, the grounds, they were all left to me when my father died. She was given her legacy in a round sum—not very round either. He wasn't particularly well off. Whatever it was, at any rate, it meant little or nothing to her. The house—the property—they were the only things worth having. I was the eldest son—I got 'em. P'raps this bores you?"
She shook her head firmly—an emphatic negative. "How could you possibly think that?"
"Well, anyhow," he continued, "she was disappointed. She's become—since she married—a woman to whom social power is a jewelled sceptre. Before then, she was what you see in that miniature—a little bit of a child with a pretty face that wanted kissing—and got it. Got it from me as well as others. I was fond of her, even after she married this man—a soldier; he's in the Guards, and after dinner sometimes thinks he has an eye to the situation in politics. Even after that, when she began to lift her head so that you couldn't kiss her and wouldn't have wanted to if you could, I was fond of her. But I hate society—I wouldn't come to her crushes—I wouldn't go to her dinners. These things sicken me. They're as empty as an echo. We fell out a bit over that; but I was living down at the Manor then, and so it didn't actually come to a split. But when the governor died and she found that I'd been left the house which was worth no end to her—socially—and she'd been left the money which really wasn't worth a damn—sorry—that slipped out"—Sally smiled—"she came back to me, arms round the neck—head quite low enough to be kissed then—and did her best to patch the business up. I suppose that rattled me. I could see the value of it. It was just as empty as all the rest of her social schemes. I took her at the valuation, told her she could have the house and I'd take the money, and behaved generally like a young fool. I was only—what? Only twenty-six then. And sham seemed to me the most detestable thing on earth. So Apsley Manor went over to her and I came up to live in London. I don't know really that I regret it so very much. This life suits me in a way, though sometimes it's a bit lonely. That's, at any rate, the gist of the whole business. We see each other sometimes; but her continual efforts to get me to don the uncomfortable garments of social respectability make the meetings as uninviting as when you go to be fitted at a tailor's. I suppose that's a sort of thing you like—you're a woman—but I'm hanged if I do. I'd buy all my clothes ready made if I could be sure that nobody else had worn 'em before. Anyhow, I won't be fitted for social respectability any more often than I can help. By Jove! What's that? Do you hear that noise? It's at the back!"
They strained their ears; lips half parted on which the breath waited, to listen. The sounds, muffled, were broken at moments by a subdued chorus of men's voices.
Traill crossed the room to the door that opened into his bedroom; unlatched it, held it wide. Sally watched his face with half-expectant eyes.
"There's a yard at the back," he said; "my bedroom looks on to it. Excuse me a second." He disappeared. She heard him throw up the window, when the sounds increased in volume. Now she could distinguish individual voices—voices taut, strained to a pitch of excitement. Then Traill's voice, with a strange, stirring voice of vitality keyed in it.
"Sally—here!"
It was not thinkingly said. That there had been no thought, no premeditation, was the fact that stirred her most. In his mind she had been Sally, and in a moment of tensity he had let it shape on his lips. She felt the blood racing through her like a mill-dam loosed. She thought when first she rose to her feet—and it was as though some strong hand had lifted her—that her limbs would refuse obedience. A moment of emotion, that was passivity itself, obsessed her. Then she hurried through into the other room, across to the open window where he stood expectant. There was no thought that it was his bedroom in which they stood—no consideration in her mind of the observance of any narrow laws of propriety. He had asked her. She came.
"This is the cleanest bit of luck," he said, with scarce controlled excitement.
"What is it?" She pressed nearer to the window.
He explained. "This yard at the back belongs to some railway company and two of their men are going to settle a difference of opinion—that's putting it mildly—as far as I can make out they mean business."
"What are they going to do?"
He answered her question by putting another. "You know I told you I belonged to the National Sporting?"
"Are they going to fight?" She caught her breath, forcing back the sense of nausea.
"Yes; bare fists with a definite end in view. Why look here—" He took her arm and gently pulled her to the window where he was standing. "Look here, you see they've even got assistants—those two chaps with towels over their arms. The men are over in that shed—stripping, I suppose. By Jove, if I had thought of an entertainment, I couldn't have got anything more exciting than this for you. Ever seen a fight?"
"No." The word struggled through cold lips.
"P'raps you'd rather not look at this? Don't you hesitate to say so if you think it'll be disgusting."
She caught the note of disappointment. There was no mistaking it. In this moment of excitement, he had become a child—scarce content with seeing the passing show himself, but must drag others with him to share his delight and thereby intensify it.
"I can easily go away if I don't like it," she said.
"Yes—of course you can—of course you can. But you ought just to see the beginning, you ought to really. They'll be as quaint as two waltzing Japanese mice. All these preparations will put them right off at first. They'll be funked utterly and look as if they were trying to break bubbles, then they'll warm up a bit. You should see the novices at the National Sporting on Thursday afternoon. They make the whole house roar with laughter. Talk about Don Quixote and the windmills! You must just see the beginning!"
How could she disappoint or refuse him, though the prospect was a moving horror in her mind? She could close her eyes. He had called her. He wanted her to see it with him. How could she refuse, lessen herself perhaps in his opinion? She leant out upon the window-sill and looked bravely below. Their shoulders were touching—she found even consolation and assistance in that.
"Do you think it'll be long?" she asked in a low voice.
"Don't know; it all depends. I hope it won't be too short. Sure you don't mind?"
She was possessed of that same motive which induces a woman to make light, to make nothing of her pain and her suffering to the man she loves. In such moments—loving deeply—she looks upon it, speaks of it, as a visitation of which she is ashamed. Begs him to forgive her that she suffers. It is an entire abnegation of self. It was so in this matter with Sally.
"I'm quite sure," she replied, as she held, with tightening hands and knuckles white, upon the window-sill.