Olga was the first to break silence.
"You ought to take your boots to be mended," she said gently. "If it rains, you'll get wet feet, and you know what that means."
"You're very kind to think of it; I will."
"You can pay for them, I hope?"
"Pay? Oh, yes, yes! a trifle such as that—Have you had a long walk?"
"I met a friend. I may as well tell you; it was the Italian, Mr. Florio."
"I saw you together," said Kite absently, but not resentfully. "I half thought of coming up to be introduced to him. But I'm rather shabby, I feared you mightn't like it."
"It wouldn't have mattered a bit, so far as I'm concerned," replied Olga good-naturedly. "But he isn't the kind of man you'd care for. If he had been, I should have got you to meet him before now."
"You like him?"
"Yes, I rather like him. But it's nothing more than that; don't imagine it. Oh, I had a call from my cousin Irene this morning. We don't quite get on together; she's getting very worldly. Her idea is that one ought to marry cold-bloodedly, just for social advantage, and that kind of thing. No doubt she's going to do it, and then we shall never see each other again, never!—She tells me that Piers Otway is coming to England again."
"Oh, now I should like to knowhim, I really should!" exclaimed Kite, with a mild vivacity.
"So you shall, if he stays in London. Perhaps you would suit each other."
"I'm sure, because you like him so much."
"Do I?" asked Olga doubtfully. "Yes, perhaps so. If he hasn't changed for the worse. But it'll be rather irritating if he talks about nothing but Irene still. Oh, that's impossible! Five years; yes, that's impossible."
"One should think the better of him, in a way," ventured Kite.
"Oh, in a way. But when a thing of that sort is hopeless. I'm afraid Irene looks down upon him, just because—you know. But he's better than most of the men she'll meet in her drawing-rooms, that's certain. Shall I ask him to come to my place?"
"Do. And I hope he'll stay in England, and that you'll see a good deal of him."
"Pray, why?"
"Because that's the right kind of acquaintance for you, he'll do you good."
Olga laughed a little, and said, with compassionate kindness:
"Youarequeer!"
"I meant nothing unpleasant, Olga," was the apologetic rejoinder.
"Of course you didn't. Have you had dinner yet?"
"Dinner? Oh yes—of course, long ago!"
"I know what that means."
"'Sh! 'Sh! May I come home and talk a little?"
Dinner, it might be feared, was no immutable feature of Mr. Kite's day. He had a starved aspect; his long limbs were appallingly meagre; as he strode along, his clothing, thin and disreputable, flapped about him. But his countenance showed nothing whatever of sourness, or of grim endurance. Nor did he appear to be in a feeble state of health; for all his emaciation, his step was firm and he held himself tolerably upright. One thing was obvious, that at Olga's side he forgot his ills. Each time he glanced at her, a strange beautiful smile passed like a light over his hard features, a smile of infinite melancholy, yet of infinite tenderness. The voice in which he addressed her was invariably softened to express something more than homage.
They had the habit of walking side by side, and could keep silence without any feeling of restraint. Kite now and then uttered some word or ejaculation, to which Olga paid no heed; it was only his way, the trick of a man who lived much alone, and who conversed with visions.
On ascending to the room in Great Portland Street, they found Miss Bonnicastle hard at work on a design of considerable size, which hung against the wall. This young lady, for all her sportiveness, was never tempted to jest at the expense of Mr. Kite; removing a charcoal holder from her mouth, she nodded pleasantly, and stood aside to allow the melancholy man a view of her work.
"Astonishing vigour!" said Kite, in his soft, sincere voice. "How I envy you!"
Miss Bonnicastle laughed with self-deprecation. She, no less than Olga Hannaford, credited Kite with wonderful artistic powers; in their view, only his constitutional defect of energy, his incorrigible dreaminess, stood between him and great achievement. The evidence in support of their faith was slight enough; a few sketches, a hint in crayon, or a wash in water-colour, were all he had to show; but Kite belonged to that strange order of men who, seemingly without effort or advantage of any kind, awaken the interest and gain the confidence of certain women. Even Mrs. Hannaford, though a mother's reasons set her against him, had felt this seductive quality in Olga's lover, and liked though she could not approve of him. Powers of fascination in a man very often go together with lax principle, if not with active rascality; Kite was an instance to the contrary. He had a quixotic sensitiveness, a morbid instinct of honour. If it is true that virile force, preferably with a touch of the brutal, has a high place in the natural woman's heart, none the less does an ideal of male purity, of the masculine subdued to gentle virtues, make strong appeal to the imagination in her sex. To the everyday man, Kite seemed a mere pale grotesque, a creature of flabby foolishness. But Olga Hannaford was not the only girl who had dreamed of devoting her life to him. If she could believe his assurance (and she all but did believe it), for her alone had he felt anything worthy to be called love, to her alone had he spoken words of tenderness. The high-tide of her passion had long since ebbed; yet she knew that Kite still had power over her, power irresistible, if he chose to exercise it, and the strange fact that he would not, that, still loving her, he did not seem to be jealous for her love in return, often moved her to bitterness.
She knew his story. He was the natural son of a spendthrift aristocrat, who, after educating him decently had died and left a will which seemed to assure Kite a substantial independence. Unfortunately, the will dealt, for the most part, with property no longer in existence. Kite's income was to be paid by one of the deceased's relatives, who, instead of benefiting largely, found that he came in for a mere pittance; and the proportion of that pittance due to the illegitimate son was exactly forty-five pounds, four shillings, and fourpence per annum. It was paid; it kept Kite alive; also, no doubt, it kept him from doing what he might have done, in art or anything else. On quarterly pay-day the dreamer always spent two or three pounds on gifts to those of his friends who were least able to make practical return. To Olga, of course, he had offered lordly presents, until the day when she firmly refused to take anything more from him. When his purse was empty he earned something by journeyman work in the studio of a portrait painter, a keen man of business, who gave shillings to this assistant instead of the sovereigns that another would have asked for the same labour.
As usual when he came here, Kite settled himself in a chair, stretched out his legs, let his arms depend, and so watched the two girls at work. There was not much conversation; Kite never began it. Miss Bonnicastle hummed, or whistled, or sang, generally the refrains of the music-hall; if work gave her trouble she swore vigorously—in German, a language with which she was well acquainted and at the sound of her maledictions, though he did not understand them, Kite always threw his head back with a silent laugh. Olga naturally had most of his attention; he often fixed his eyes upon her for five minutes at a time, and Olga, being used to this, was not at all disturbed by it.
When five o'clock came, Miss Bonnicastle flung up her arms and yawned.
"Let's have some blooming tea!" she exclaimed. "All right, I'll get it. I've just about ten times the muscle and go of you two put together; it's only right I should do the slavey."
Kite rose, and reached his hat. Whereupon, with soft pressure of her not very delicate hands, Miss Bonnicastle forced him back into his chair.
"Sit still. Do as I tell you. What's the good of you if you can't help us to drink tea?"
And Kite yielded, as always, wishing he could sit there for ever.
Three weeks later, on an afternoon of rain, the trio were again together in the same way. Someone knocked, and a charwoman at work on the premises handed in a letter for Miss Hannaford.
"I know who this is from," said Olga, looking up at Kite.
"And I can guess," he returned, leaning forward with a look of interest.
She read the note—only a few lines, and handed it to her friend, remarking:
"He'd better come to-morrow."
"Who's that?" asked Miss Bonnicastle.
"Piers Otway."
The poster artist glanced from one face to the other, with a smile. There had been much talk lately of Otway, who was about to begin business in London; his partner, Andre Moncharmont, remaining at Odessa. Olga had heard from her mother that Piers wished to see her, and had allowed Mrs. Hannaford to give him her address; he now wrote asking if he might call.
"I'll go and send him a wire," she said. "There isn't time to write. To-morrow's Sunday."
When Olga had run out, Kite, as if examining a poster on the wall, turned his back to Miss Bonnicastle. She, after a glance or two in his direction, addressed him by name, and the man looked round.
"You don't mind if I speak plainly?"
"Of course I don't," he replied, his features distorted, rather than graced, by a smile.
The girl approached him, arms akimbo, but, by virtue of a frank look, suggesting more than usual of womanhood.
"You've got to be either one thing or the other. She doesn't carethat"—a snap of the fingers—"for this man Otway, and she knows he doesn't care for her. But she's playing him against you, and you must expect more of it. You ought to make up your mind. It isn't fair to her."
"Thank you," murmured Kite, reddening a little. "It's kind of you."
"Well, I hope it is. But she'd be furious if she guessed I'd said such a thing. I only do it because it's for her good as much as yours. Things oughtn't to drag on, you know; it isn't fair to a girl like that."
Kite thrust his hands into his pockets, and drew himself up to a full five feet eleven.
"I'll go away," he said. "I'll go and live in Paris for a bit."
"That's foryouto decide. Of course if you feel like that—it's none of my business, I don't pretend to understandyou; I'm not quite sure I understandher. You're a queer couple. All I know is, it's gone on long enough, and it isn't fair to a girl like Olga. She isn't the sort that can doze through a comfortable engagement of ten or twelve years, and surely you know that."
"I'll go away," said Kite again, nodding resolutely.
He turned again to the poster, and Miss Bonnicastle resumed her work. Thus Olga found them when she came back.
"I've asked him to come at three," she said. "You'll be out then, Bonnie. When you come in we'll put the kettle on, and all have tea." She chanted it, to the old nursery tune. "Of course you'll come as well"—she addressed Kite—"say about four. It'll be jolly!"
So, on the following afternoon, Olga sat alone, in readiness for her visitor. She had paid a little more attention than usual to her appearance, but was perfectly self-possessed; a meeting with Piers Otway had never yet quickened her pulse, and would not do so to-day. If anything, she suffered a little from low spirits, conscious of having played a rather disingenuous part before Kite, and not exactly knowing to what purpose she had done so. It still rained; it had been gloomy for several days. Looking at the heavy sky above the gloomy street, Olga had a sense of wasted life. She asked herself whether it would not have been better, on the decline of her love-fever, to go back into the so-called respectable world, share her mother's prosperity, make the most of her personal attractions, and marry as other girls did—if anyone invited her. She was doing no good; all the experience to be had in a life of mild Bohemianism was already tasted, and found rather insipid. An artist she would never become; probably she would never even support herself. To imagine herself really dependent on her own efforts, was to sink into misery and fear. The time had come for a new step, a new beginning, yet all possibilities looked so vague.
A knock at the door. She opened, and saw Piers Otway.
If they had been longing to meet, instead of scarcely ever giving a thought to each other, they could not have clasped hands with more warmth. They gazed eagerly into each other's eyes, and seemed too much overcome for ordinary words of greeting. Then Olga saw that Otway looked nothing like so well as when on his visit to England some couple of years ago. He, in turn, was surprised at the change in Olga's features; the bloom of girlhood had vanished; she was handsome, striking, but might almost have passed for a married woman of thirty.
"A queer place, isn't it?" she said, laughing, as Piers cast a glance round the room.
"Is this your work?" he asked, pointing to the posters.
"No, no! Mine isn't for exhibition. It hides itself—with the modesty of supreme excellence!"
Again they looked at each other; Olga pointed to a chair, herself became seated, and explained the conditions of her life here. Bending forward, his hands folded between his knees, Otway listened with a face on which trouble began to reassert itself after the emotion of their meeting.
"So you have really begun business at last?" said Olga.
"Yes. Rather hopefully, too."
"You don't look hopeful, somehow."
"Oh, that's nothing. Moncharmont has scraped together a fair capital, and as for me, well, a friend has come to my help, I mustn't say who it is. Yes, things look promising enough, for a start. Already I've seen an office in the City, which I think I shall take. I shall decide to-morrow, and then—avos!"
"What does that mean?"
"A common word in Russian. It means 'Fire away.'"
"I must remember it," said Olga, laughing. "It'll make a change from English and French slang—Avos!"
There was a silence longer than they wished. Olga broke it by asking abruptly:
"Have you seen my mother?"
"Not yet."
"I'm afraid she's not well."
"Then why do you keep away from her?" said Piers, with good-humoured directness. "Is it really necessary for you to live here? She would be much happier if you went back."
"I'm not sure of that."
"But I am, from what she says in her letters, and I should have thought that you, too, would prefer it to this life."
He glanced round the room. Olga looked vexed, and spoke with a note of irony.
"My tastes are unaccountable, I'm afraid. You, no doubt, find it difficult to understand them. So does my cousin Irene. You have heard that she is going to be married?"
Piers, surprised at her change of tone, regarded her fixedly, until she reddened and her eyes fell.
"Is the engagement announced, then?"
"I should think so; but I'm not much in the way of hearing fashionable gossip."
Still Piers regarded her; still her cheeks kept their colour, and her eyes refused to meet his.
"I see I have offended you," he said quietly. "I'm very sorry. Of course I went too far in speaking like that of the life you have chosen. I had no right——"
"Nonsense! If you mustn't tell me what you think, who may?"
Again the change was so sudden, this time from coldness to smiling familiarity, that Piers felt embarrassed.
"The fact is," Olga pursued, with a careless air, "I don't think I shall go on with this much longer. If you said what you have in your mind, that I should never be any good as an artist, you would be quite right. I haven't had the proper training; it'll all come to nothing. And—talking of engagements—I daresay you know that mine is broken off?"
"No, I didn't know that."
"It is. Mr. Kite and I are only friends now. He'll look in presently, I think. I should like you to meet him, if you don't mind."
"Of course I shall be very glad."
"All this, you know," said Olga, with a laugh, "would be monstrously irregular in decent society, but decent society is often foolish, don't you think?"
"To be sure it is," Piers answered genially, "and I never meant to find fault with your preference for a freer way of living. It is only—you say I may speak freely—that I didn't like to think of your going through needless hardships."
"You don't think, then, it has done me good?"
"I am not at all sure of that."
Olga lay back in her chair, as if idly amused.
"You see," she said, "how we have both changed. We are both much more positive, in different directions. To be sure, it makes conversation more interesting. But the change is greatest in me. You always aimed at success in a respectable career."
Otway looked puzzled, a little disconcerted.
"Really, is that how I always struck you? To me it's new light on my own character."
"How did you think of yourself, then?" she asked, looking at him from beneath drooping lids.
"I hardly know; I have thought less on that subject than on most."
Again there came a silence, long enough to be embarrassing. Then Olga took up a sketch that was lying on the table, and held it to her visitor.
"Don't you think that good? It's one of Miss Bonnicastle's. Let us talk about her; she'll be here directly. We don't seem to get on, talking about ourselves."
The sketch showed an elephant sitting upright, imbibing with gusto from a bottle of some much-advertised tonic. Piers broke into a laugh. Other sketches were exhibited, and thus they passed the time until Miss Bonnicastle and Kite arrived together.
Strangers with whom Piers Otway had business at this time saw in him a young man of considerable energy, though rather nervous and impulsive, capable in all that concerned his special interests, not over-sanguine, inclined to brevity of speech, and scrupulously courteous in a cold way. He seldom smiled; his clean-cut, intelligent features expressed tension of the whole man, ceaseless strain and effort without that joy of combat which compensates physical expenditure. He looked in fair, not robust, health; a shadowed pallor of complexion was natural to him, and made noticeable the very fine texture of his skin, which quickly betrayed in delicate flushes any strong feeling. He shook hands with a short, firm grip which argued more muscle than one might have supposed in him. His walk was rapid; his bearing upright; his glance direct, with something of apprehensive pride. The observant surmised a force more or less at odds with the facts of life. Shrewd men of commerce at once perceived his qualities, but reserved their judgment as to his chances; he was not, in any case, altogether of their world, however well he might have studied its principles and inured himself to its practice.
He took rooms in Guildford Street. Indifferent to locality, asking nothing more than decency in his immediate surroundings, he fell by accident on the better kind of lodging-house, and was at once what is called comfortable; his landlady behaved to him with a peculiar respectfulness, often noticeable in the uneducated who had relations with Otway, and explained perhaps by his quiet air of authority. To those who served him, no man was more considerate, but he never became familiar with them; without a trace of pretentiousness in his demeanour, he was viewed by such persons as one sensibly above them, with some solid right to rule.
In the selection of his place of business, he of course exercised more care, but here, too, luck favoured him. A Russian merchant moving into more spacious quarters ceded to him a small office in Fenchurch Street, with furniture which he purchased at a very reasonable price. To begin with, he hired only a lad; it would be seen in a month or so whether he had need of more assistance. If business grew, he was ready to take upon himself a double share, for the greater his occupation the less his time for brooding. Labour was what he asked, steady, dogged toil; and his only regret was that he could not work with his hands in the open air, at some day-long employment followed by hunger and weariness and dreamless sleep.
The partner whose name he did not wish to mention was John Jacks. Very soon after learning the result to the young man of Jerome Otway's death (the knowledge came in an indirect way half a year later), Mr. Jacks wrote to Piers a letter implying what he knew, and made offer of a certain capital towards the proposed business. Piers did not at once accept the offer, for difficulties had arisen on the side of his friend Moncharmont, who, on Otway's announcement of inability to carry out the scheme they had formed together, turned in another direction. A year passed; John Jacks again wrote; and, Moncharmont's other projects having come to nothing, the friends decided at length to revert to their original plan, with the difference that a third partner supplied capital equal to that which Moncharmont himself put into the venture. The arrangement was strictly business-like; John Jacks, for all his kindliness, had no belief in anything else where money was concerned, and Piers Otway would not have listened to any other sort of suggestion. Piers put into the affair only his brains, his vigour, and his experience; he was to reap no reward but that fairly resulting from the exercise of these qualities.
Only a day or two before leaving Odessa he received a letter from Mrs. Hannaford, in which she hinted that Irene Derwent was likely to marry. On reaching London, he found at the hotel her answer to his reply; she now named Miss Derwent's wooer, and spoke as if the marriage were practically a settled thing. This turned to an ordeal for Piers what would otherwise have been a pleasure, his call upon John Jacks. He had to dine at Queen's Gate; he had to converse with Arnold Jacks; and for the first time in his life he knew the meaning of personal jealousy.
The sight of Irene's successful lover made active in him what had for years been only a latent passion. All at once it seemed impossible that he should have lost what hitherto he had scarcely ever felt it possible to win. An unconsciously reared edifice of hope collapsed about him, laid waste his life, left him standing in desolate revolt against fate. Arnold Jacks was the embodiment of a cruel destiny; Piers regarded him, not so much with hate, as with a certain bitter indignation. He had no desire to disparage the man, to caricature his assailable points; rather, in undiminished worship of Irene, he exaggerated the qualities which had won her, the power to which her gallant pride had yielded. These qualities, that power, were so unlike anything in himself, that they gave boundless scope to a jealous imagination. He knew so little of the man, of his pursuits, his society, his prospects or ambitions. But he could not imagine that Irene's love would be given to any man of ordinary type; there must be a nobility in John Jacks' son, and indeed, knowing the father, one could readily believe it. Piers suffered a cruel sense of weakness, of littleness, by comparison.
And Arnold behaved so well to him, with such frank graceful courtesy; to withhold the becoming return was to feel oneself a shrinking creature, basely envious.
It was at Mrs. Hannaford's suggestion that he asked to be allowed to call on Olga. A few days later, having again exchanged letters with Irene's aunt, he sat writing in the office after business hours, his door and that of the anteroom both open. Footsteps on the staircase had become infrequent since the main exodus of clerks; he listened whenever there was a sound, and looked towards the entrance. There, at length, appeared a lady, Mrs. Hannaford herself. Piers went forward, and greeted her without words, motioning her with his hand into the inner office; the outer door he latched.
"So I have tracked you to your lair!" exclaimed the visitor, with a nervous laugh, as she sank in fatigue upon the chair he placed for her. "I looked for your name on the wall downstairs, forgetting that you are Moncharmont & Co."
"It is very, very kind of you to have taken all this trouble!"
He saw in her face the signs of ill-health for which he was prepared, and noticed with pain her tremulousness and shortness of breath after the stair-climbing. The friendship which had existed between them since his boyhood was true and deep as ever; Piers Otway could, as few men can, be the loyal friend of a woman. A reverent tenderness coloured his feeling towards Mrs. Hannaford; it was something like what he would have felt for his mother had she now been living. He did not give much thought to her character or circumstances; she had always been kind to him, and he in turn had always liked her: that was enough. Anything in her service that might fall within his power to do, he would do right gladly.
"So you saw poor Olga?"
"Yes, and the friend she lives with—and Mr. Kite."
"Ah! Mr. Kite!" The speaker's face brightened. "I have news about him; it came this morning. He has gone to Paris, and means to stay there."
"Indeed! I heard no syllable of that the other day."
"But it is true. And Olga's letter to me, in which she mentions it; gives hope that that is the end of their engagement. Naturally, the poor child won't say it in so many words, but it is to be read between the lines. What's more, she is willing to come for her holiday with me! It has made me very happy!—I told you I was going to Malvern; my brother thinks that is most likely to do me good. Irene will go down with me, and stay a day or two, and then I hope to have Olga. It is delightful! I hadn't dared to hope. Perhaps we shall really come together again, after this dreary time!"
Piers was listening, but with a look which had become uneasily preoccupied.
"I am as glad, almost, as you can be," he said. "Malvern, I never was there."
"So healthy, my brother says! And Shakespeare's country, you know; we shall go to Stratford, which I have never seen. I have a feeling that I really shall get better. Everything is more hopeful."
Piers recalled Olga's mysterious hints about her mother. Glancing at the worn face, with its vivid eyes, he could easily conceive that this ill-health had its cause in some grave mental trouble.
"Have you met your brother?" she asked.
"My brother? Oh no!" was the careless reply. Then on a sudden thought, Piers added, "You don't keep up your acquaintance with him, do you?"
"Oh—Ihaveseen him—now and then——"
There was a singular hesitancy in her answer to the abrupt question. Piers, preoccupied as he was, could not but remark Mrs. Hannaford's constraint, almost confusion. At once it struck him that Daniel had been borrowing money of her, and the thought aroused strong indignation. His own hundred and fifty pounds he had never recovered, for all Daniel's fine speeches, and notwithstanding the fact that he had taken suggestive care to let the borrower know his address in Russia. Rapidly he turned in his mind the question whether he ought not to let Mrs. Hannaford know of Daniel's untrustworthiness; but before he could decide, she launched into another subject.
"So this is to be your place of business? Here you will sit day after day. If good wishes could help, how you would flourish! Is it orthodox to pray for a friend's success in business?"
"Why not? Provided you add—so long as he is guilty of no rascality."
"That,youwill never be."
"Why, to tell you the truth, I shouldn't know how to go about it. Not everyone who wishes becomes a rascal in business. It's difficult enough for me to pursue commerce on the plain, honest track; knavery demands an expertness altogether beyond me. Wherefore, let us give thanks for my honest stupidity!"
They chatted a while of these things. Then Piers, grasping his courage, uttered what was burning within him.
"When is Miss Derwent to be married?"
Mrs. Hannaford's eyes escaped his hard look. She murmured that no date had yet been settled.
"Tell me—I beg you will tell me—is her engagement absolutely certain?"
"I feel sure it is."
"No! I want more than that. Do you know that it is?"
"I can only say that her father believes it to be a certain thing. No announcement has yet been made."
"H'm! Then it isn't settled at all."
Piers sat stiffly upon his chair. He held an ivory paperknife, which he kept bending across his knee, and of a sudden the thing snapped in two. But he paid no attention, merely flinging the handle away. Mrs. Hannaford looked him in the face; he was deeply flushed; his lips and his throat trembled like those of a child on the point of tears.
"Don't! Oh, don't take it so to heart! It seems impossible—after all this time——"
"Impossible or not, itis!" he replied impetuously. "Mrs. Hannaford, you will do something for me. You will let me come down to Malvern, whilst she is with you, and see her—speak with her alone."
She drew back, astonished.
"Oh! how can you think of it, Mr. Otway?"
"Why should I not?" he spoke in a low and soft voice, but with vehemence. "Does she know all about me?"
"Everything. It was not I who told her. There has been talk——"
"Of course there has"—he smiled—"and I am glad of it. I wished her to know. Otherwise, I should have told her. Yes, I should have told her! It shocks you, Mrs. Hannaford? But try to understand what this means to me. It is the one thing I greatly desire in all the world, shall I be hindered by a petty consideration of etiquette? A wild desire—you think. Well, the man sentenced to execution clings to life, clings to it with a terrible fierce desire; is it less real because utterly hopeless? Perhaps I am behaving frantically; I can't help myself. As that engagement is still doubtful—you admit it to be doubtful—I shall speak before it is too late. Why not have done so before? Simply, I hadn't the courage. I suppose I was too young. It didn't mean so much to me as it does now. Something tells me to act like a man, before it is too late. I feel Icando it. I never could have, till now."
"But listen to me—do listen! Think how extraordinary it will seem to her. She has no suspicion of——"
"She has! She knows! I sent her: a year ago, a poem—some verses of my writing, which told her."
Mrs. Hannaford kept silence with a face of distress.
"Is there any harm," he pursued, "in asking you whether she has ever spoken of me lately—since that time?"
"She has," admitted the other reluctantly, "but not in a way to make one think——"
"No, no! I expected nothing of the kind. She has mentioned me; that is enough. I am not utterly expelled from her thoughts, as a creature outlawed by all decent people——"
"Of course not. She is too reasonable and kind."
"That she is!" exclaimed Piers, with a passionate delight on his visage and in his voice. "And she wouldratherI spoke to her—I feel she would! She, with her fine intelligence and noble heart, she would think it dreadful that a man did not dare to approach her, just because of something not his fault, something that made him no bit the less a man, and capable of honour. I know that thought would shake her with pity and indignation. So far I can read in her. What! You think I know her too little? And the thought of her never out of my mind for these five years! I have got to know her better and better, as time went on. Every word she spoke at Ewell stayed in my memory, and by perpetual repetition has grown into my life. Every sentence has given me its full meaning. I didn't need to be near her to study her. She was in my mind; I heard her and saw her whenever I wished; as I have grown older and more experienced in life, I have been better able to understand her. I used to think this was enough. I had—you know—that exalted sort of mood; Dante's Beatrice, and all that! Itwasenough for the time, seeing that I lived with it, and through it. But now—no! And there is no single reason why I should be ashamed to stand before her, and tell her that—What I feel."
He checked himself, and gloomed for an instant, then continued in another tone:
"Yet that isn't true. Therearereasons—I believe no man living could say that when speaking of such a woman as Irene Derwent. I cannot face her without shame—the shame of every man who stands before a pure-hearted girl. We have to bear that, and to hide it as best we can."
The listener bent upon him a wondering gaze, and seemed unable to avert it, till his look answered her.
"You will give me this opportunity, Mrs. Hannaford?" he added pleadingly.
"I have no right whatever to refuse it. Besides, how could I, if I wished?
"When shall I come? I must remember that I am not free to wander about. If it could be a Sunday——"
"I have forgotten something I ought to have told you already," said Mrs. Hannaford. "Whilst she was on her travels, Irene had an offer from someone else."
Piers laughed.
"Can that surprise one? Should I wonder if I were told she had fifty?"
"Yes, but this was not of the ordinary kind. You know that Mr. Jacks is well acquainted with Trafford Romaine. And it was Trafford Romaine himself."
The news did not fail of its impression. Piers smiled vaguely, and on the smile came a look of troubled pride.
"Well, it is not astonishing, but it gives me a better opinion of the man. I shall always feel a sort of sympathy when I come across his name. Why did you think I ought to know?"
"For a reason I feel to be rather foolish, now I come to speak of it," replied Mrs. Hannaford. "But—I had a feeling that Irene is by nature rather ambitious; and if, after such an experience as that, she so soon accepts a man who has done nothing particular, whose position is not brilliant——"
"I understand. She must, you mean, be very strongly drawn to him. But then I needed no such proof of her feeling—if it iscertainthat she is going to marry him. Could I imagine her marrying a man for any reason but one? Surely you could not?"
"No—no——"
The denial had a certain lack of emphasis. Otway's eyes flashed.
"You doubt? You speak in that way of Irene Derwent?"
Gazing into Mrs. Hannaford's face, he saw rising tears. She gave a little laugh, which did not disguise her emotion as she answered him.
"Oh, what an idealist it makes a man!—don't talk of your unworthiness. If some women are good, it is because they try hard to be what the best men think them. No, no, I have no doubts of Irene. And that is why it really grieves me to see you still hoping. She would never have gone so far——"
"But there's the very question!" cried Piers excitedly. "Who knows how far she has gone? It may be the merest conjecture on your part, and her father's. People are so ready to misunderstand a girl who respects herself enough to be free and frank in her association with men. Let me shame myself by making a confession. Five years ago, when I all but went mad about her, I was contemptible enough to think she had treated me cruelly." He gave a scornful laugh. "You know what I mean. At Ewell, when I lived only for my books, and she drew me away from them. Conceited idiot! And she so bravely honest, so simple and direct, so human! Was itherfault if I lost my head?"
"She certainly changed the whole course of your life," said Mrs. Hannaford thoughtfully.
"True, she did. And to my vast advantage! What should I have become? A clerkship at Whitehall—heaven defend us! At best a learned pedant, in my case. She sent me out into the world, where there is always hope. She gave me health and sanity. Above all, she set before me an ideal which has never allowed me to fall hopelessly—never will let me become a contented brute! If she never addresses another word to me, I shall owe her an infinite debt as long as I live. And I want her to hear that from my own lips, if only once."
Mrs. Hannaford held out her hand impulsively.
"Do what you feel you must. You make me feel very strangely. I never knew what——"
Her voice faltered. She rose.
When she had left him, Piers sat for some time communing with his thoughts. Then he went home to the simple meal he called dinner, and afterwards, as the evening was clear, walked for a couple of hours away from the louder streets. His resolve gave him a night of quiet rest.
Again Irene was going down into Cheshire, to visit the two old ladies, her relatives. It was arranged that she should accompany Mrs. Hannaford to Malvern, and spend a couple of days there. The travellers arrived on a Friday evening. Before leaving town Mrs. Hannaford had written to Piers Otway to give him the address of the house at Malvern in which rooms had been taken for them.
On Saturday morning there was sunshine over the hills. Irene walked, and talked, but it was evident with thoughts elsewhere. When they sat down to rest and to enjoy the landscape before them, the rich heart of England, with its names that echo in history and in song, Irene plucked at the grass beside her, and presently began to strip a stem, after the manner of children playing at a tell-fortune game. She stripped it to the end; her hands fell and she heaved a little sigh. From that moment she grew merry and talked without pre-occupation.
After lunch she wrote a short letter, and herself took it to the post. Mrs. Hannaford was lying on the sofa, with eyes closed, but not in sleep; her forehead and lips betraying the restless thoughts which beset her now as always. On returning, Irene took a chair, as if to read; but she gave only an absent glance at the paper in her hands, and smiled to herself in musing.
"I'm sure those thoughts are worth far more than a penny," fell from the lady on the couch, who had observed her for a moment.
"I may as well tell you them," was the gently toned reply, as Irene bent forward. "I have just done something decisive."
Mrs. Hannaford raised herself, a sudden anxiety in her features; she waited.
"You guess, aunt? Yes, that's it, I have written to Mr. Jacks."
"To—to——?"
"To answer an ultimatum. In the right way, I hope; any way, it's done."
"You have accepted him?"
"Even so."
Mrs. Hannaford tried to smile, but could not smooth away the uneasiness which had come into her look. She spoke a few of the natural words, and in doing so looked at the clock.
"There is something I have forgotten," she said, starting to her feet hurriedly. "You reminded me of it—speaking of a letter; I must send a telegram at once—indeed I must. No, no, I will go myself, dear. I had rather!"
She hastened away, leaving Irene in wonder.
When they were together again, Mrs. Hannaford seemed anxious to atone for her brevity on the all-important subject. She spoke with pleasure of her niece's decision thought it wise; abounded in happy prophecy; through the rest of the day she had a face which spoke relief, all but contentment. The morning of Sunday saw her nervous. She made an excuse of the slightly clouded sky for lingering within doors; she went often to the window and looked this way and that along the road, as if judging the weather, until Irene, when the church bells had ceased, grew impatient for the open air.
"Yes, we will go," said her aunt. "I think we safely may."
Each went to her room to make ready. At Mrs. Hannaford's door, just as she was about to come forth, there sounded a knock; the servant announced that a gentleman had called to see her—Mr. Otway. Quivering, death-pale, she ran to the sitting-room. Irene had not yet reappeared. Piers Otway stood there alone.
"You didn't get my telegram?" broke from her lips, in a hurried whisper. "Oh! I feared it would be too late, and all is too late."
"You mean——"
"The engagement is announced."
She had time to say no more. At that moment Irene entered the room, dressed for walking. At first she did not seem to recognise the visitor, then her face lighted up; she smiled, subdued the slight embarrassment which had succeeded to her perplexity, and stepped quickly forward.
"Mr. Otway! You are staying here?"
"A few hours only. I came down yesterday on business—which is finished."
His voice was so steady, his bearing so self-possessed, that Irene found herself relieved from the immediate restraint of the situation. She could not quite understand his presence here; there was a mystery, in which she saw that her aunt was involved; the explanation might be forthcoming after their visitor's departure. For the moment, enough to remark that the sun was dispersing the clouds, and that all were ready to enjoy a walk. Mrs. Hannaford, glancing anxiously at Irene before she spoke, hoped that Mr. Otway would return with them to lunch; Irene added her voice to the invitation; and Piers at once accepted.
Talk suggested by the locality occupied them until they were away from the houses; by that time Irene had thoroughly reassured herself, and was as tranquil in mind as in manner. Whatever the meaning of Piers Otway's presence, no difficulty could come about in the few hours he was to spend with them. Involuntarily she found herself listening to the rhythm of certain verses which she had received some months ago, and which she still knew by heart; but nothing in the author's voice or look indicated a desire to remind her of that romantic passage in their acquaintance. If they were still to meet from time to time—and why not?—common sense must succeed to vain thoughts in the poet's mind. He was quite capable of the transition, she felt sure. His way of talking, the short and generally pointed sentences in which he spoke on whatever subject, betokened a habit of lucid reflection. Had it been permissible, she would have dwelt with curiosity on the problem of Piers Otway's life and thoughts; but that she resolutely ignored, strong in the irrevocable choice which she had made only yesterday. He was interesting, but not to her. She knew him on the surface, and cared to know no more.
Business was a safe topic; at the first noticeable pause, Irene led to it.
Piers laughed with pleasure as he began to describe Andre Moncharmont. A man of the happiest vivacity, of the sweetest humour, irresistibly amusing, yet never ridiculous—entirely competent in business, yet with a soul as little mercantile as man's could be. Born a French Swiss, he had lived a good deal in Italy, and had all the charm of Italian manners; but in whatever country, he made himself at home, and by virtue of his sunny temper saw only the best in each nationality. His recreation was music, and he occasionally composed.
"There is a song of Musset's—you know it, perhaps—beginning 'Quand on perd, par triste occurrence'—which he has set, to my mind, perfectly. I want him to publish it. If he does I must let you see it."
Irene did not know the verses and made no remark.
"There are English men of business," pursued Otway, "who would smile with pity at Moncharmont. He is by no means their conception of the merchant. Yet the world would be a vastly better place if its business were often in the hands of such men. He will never make a large fortune, no; but he will never fall into poverty. He sees commerce from the human point of view, not as the brutal pitiless struggle which justifies every form of ferocity and of low cunning. I never knew him utter an ignoble thought about trade and money-making. An English acquaintance asked me once, 'Is he a gentleman?' I was obliged to laugh—delicious contrast between whathemeant by a gentleman and all I see in Moncharmont."
"I picture him," said Irene, smiling, "and I picture the person who made that inquiry."
Piers flashed a look of gratitude. He had, as yet, hardly glanced at her; he durst not; his ordeal was to be gone through as became a man. Her voice, at moments, touched him to a sense of faintness; he saw her without turning his head; the wave of her dress beside him was like a perfume, was like music; part of him yielded, languished, part made splendid resistance.
"He is a lesson in civilisation. If trade is not to put an end to human progress, it must be pursued in Moncharmont's spirit. It's only returning to a better time; our man of business is a creation of our century, and as bad a thing as it has produced. Commerce must be humanised once more. We invented machinery, and it has enslaved us—a rule of iron, the servile belief that money-making is an end in itself, to be attained by hard selfishness."
He checked himself, laughed, and said something about the beauty of the lane along which they were walking.
"Don't you think," fell from Irene's lips, "that Mr. John Jacks is a very human type of the man of business?"
"Indeed he is!" replied Piers, with spirit. "An admirable type."
"I have been told that he owed most of his success to his brothers, who are a different sort of men."
"His wealth, perhaps."
"Yes, there's a difference," said Irene, glancing at him. "You may be successful without becoming wealthy; though not of course in the common opinion. But what would have been the history of England these last fifty years, but for our men of iron selfishness? Isn't it a fact that only in this way could we have built up an Empire which ensures the civilisation of the world?"
Piers could not answer with his true thought, for he knew all that was implied in her suggestion of that view. He bent his head and spoke very quietly.
"Some of our best men think so."
An answer which gratified Irene more keenly than he imagined; she showed it in her face.
When they returned to luncheon, and the ladies went upstairs, Mrs. Hannaford stepped into her niece's room.
"What you told me yesterday," she asked, in a nervous undertone, "may it be repeated?"
"Certainly—to anyone."
"Then please not to come down until I have had a few minutes' talk with Mr. Otway. All this shall be explained, dear, when we are alone again."
On entering the sitting-room Irene found it harder to preserve a natural demeanour than at her meeting with the visitor a couple of hours ago. Only when she had heard him speak and in just the same voice as during their walk was she able to turn frankly towards him. His look had not changed. Impossible to divine the thoughts hidden by his smile; he bore himself with perfect control.
At table all was cheerfulness. Speaking of things Russian, Irene recalled her winter in Finland, which she had so greatly enjoyed.
"I remember," said Otway, "you had just returned when I met you for the first time."
It was said with a peculiar intonation, which fell agreeably on the listener's ear; a note familiar, in the permitted degree, yet touchingly respectful; a world of emotion subdued to graceful friendliness. Irene passed over the reminiscence with a light word or two, and went on to gossip merely of trifles.
"Do you like caviare, Mr. Otway?"
"Except perhaps that supplied by the literary censor," was his laughing reply.
"Now I amintriguee. Please explain."
"We call caviare the bits blacked out in our newspapers and periodicals."
"Unpalatable enough!" laughed Irene. "How angry that would make me!"
"I got used to it," said Piers, "and thought it rather good fun sometimes. After all, a wise autocrat might well prohibit newspapers altogether, don't you think? They have done good, I suppose, but they are just as likely to do harm. When the next great war comes, newspapers will be the chief cause of it. And for mere profit, that's the worst. There are newspaper proprietors in every country, who would slaughter half mankind for the pennies of the half who were left, without caring a fraction of a penny whether they had preached war for a truth or a lie."
"But doesn't a newspaper simply echo the opinions and feelings of its public?"
"I'm afraid it manufactures opinion, and stirs up feeling. Consider how very few people know or care anything about most subjects of international quarrel. A mere handful at the noisy centre of things who make the quarrel. The business of newspapers, in general, is to give a show of importance to what has no real importance at all—to prevent the world from living quietly—to arouse bitterness when the natural man would be quite different."
"Oh, surely you paint them too black! We must live, we can't let the world stagnate. Newspapers only express the natural life of peoples, acting and interacting."
"I suppose I quarrel with them," said Piers, once more subduing himself, "because they have such gigantic power and don't make anything like the best use of it."
"That is to say, they are the work of men—I don't mean," Irene added laughingly, "of men instead of women. Though I'm not sure that women wouldn't manage journalism better, if it were left to them."
"A splendid idea! All men to go about their affairs and women to report and comment. Why, it would solve every problem of society! There's the hope of the future, beyond a doubt! Why did I never think of it!"
The next moment Piers was talking about nightingales, how he had heard them sing in Little Russia, where their song is sweeter than in any other part of Europe. And so the meal passed pleasantly, as did the hour or two after it, until it was time for Otway to take leave.
"You travel straight back to London?" asked Irene.
"Straight back," he answered, his eyes cast down.
"To-morrow," said Mrs. Hannaford, "we think of going to Stratford."
Piers had an impulse which made his hands tremble and his head throb; in spite of himself he had all but asked whether, if he stayed at Malvern overnight, he might accompany them on that expedition. Reason prevailed, but only just in time, and the conquest left him under a gloomy sense of self-pity, which was the worst thing he had suffered all day. Not even Mrs. Hannaford's whispered words on his arrival had been so hard to bear.
He sat in silence, wishing to rise, unable to do so. When at length he stood up, Irene let her eyes fall upon him, and continued to observe him, as if but half consciously whilst he shook hands with Mrs. Hannaford. He turned to her, and his lips moved, but what he had tried to say went unexpressed. Nor did Irene speak; she could have uttered only a civil commonplace, and the tragic pallor of his countenance in that moment kept her mute. He touched her hand and was gone.
When the house door had closed behind him, the eyes of the two women met. Standing as before, they conversed with low voices, with troubled brows. Mrs. Hannaford rapidly explained her part in what had happened.
"You will forgive me, Irene? I see now that I ought to have told you about it yesterday."
"Better as it was, perhaps, so far as I am concerned. But he—I'm sorry——"
"He behaved well, don't you think?"
"Yes," replied Irene thoughtfully, slowly, "he behaved well."
They moved apart, and Irene laid her hand on a book, but did not sit down.
"How old is he?" she asked of a sudden.
"Six-and-twenty."
"One would take him for more. But of course his ways of thinking show how young he is." She fluttered the pages of her book, and smiled. "It will be interesting to see him in another five years."
That was all. Neither mentioned Otway's name again during the two more days they spent together.
But Irene's mind was busy with the contrast between him and Arnold Jacks. She pursued this track of thought whithersoever it led her, believing it a wholesome exercise in her present mood. Her choice was made, and irrevocable; reason bade her justify it by every means that offered. And she persuaded herself that nothing better could have happened, at such a juncture, than this suggestion of an alternative so widely different.
An interesting boy—six-and-twenty is still a boyish age—with all sorts of vague idealisms; nothing ripe; nothing that convinced; a dreary cosmopolite, little likely to achieve results in any direction. On the other hand, a mature and vigorous man, English to the core, stable in his tested views of life, already an active participant in the affairs of the nation and certain to move victoriously onward; a sure patriot, a sturdy politician. It was humiliating to Piers Otway. Indeed, unfair!
On Monday, when she returned from her visit to Stratford, a telegram awaited her. "Thank you, letter tomorrow, Arnold." That pleased her; the British laconicism; the sensible simplicity of the thing! And when the letter arrived (two pages and a half) it seemed a suitable reply to hers of Saturday, in which she had used only everyday words and phrases. No gushing in Arnold Jacks! He was "happy," he was "grateful"; what more need an honest man say to the woman who has accepted him? She was his "Dearest Irene"; and what more could she ask to be?
A curious thing happened that evening. Mrs. Hannaford and her niece, both tired after the day's excursion, and having already talked over its abundant interests, sat reading, or pretending to read. Suddenly, Irene threw her book aside, with a movement of impatience, and stood up.
"Don't you find it very close?" she said, almost irritably. "I shall go upstairs. Good-night!"
Her aunt gazed at her in surprise.
"You are tired, my dear."
"I suppose I am—Aunt, there is something I should like to say, if you will let me. You are very kind and good, but that makes you, sometimes, a little indiscreet. Promise me, please, never to make me the subject of conversation with anyone to whom you cannot speak of me quite openly, before all the world."
Mrs. Hannaford was overcome with astonishment, with distress. She tried to reply, but before she could shape a word Irene had swept from the room.
When they met again at breakfast, the girl stepped up to her aunt and kissed her on both cheeks—an unusual greeting. She was her bright self again; talked merrily; read aloud a letter from her father, which proved that at the time of writing he had not seen Arnold Jacks.
"I must write to the Doctor to-morrow," she said, with an air of reflection.
At ten o'clock they drove to the station. While Miss Derwent took her ticket Mrs. Hannaford walked on the platform. On issuing from the booking-office, Irene saw her aunt in conversation with a man, who, in the same moment, turned abruptly and walked away. Neither she nor her aunt spoke of this incident, but Irene noticed that the other was a little flushed.
She took her seat; Mrs. Hannaford stood awaiting the departure of the train. Before it moved, the man Irene had noticed came back along the platform, and passed them without a sign. Irene saw his face, and seemed to recognise it, but could not remember who he was.
Half an hour later, the face came back to her, and with it a name.
"Daniel Otway!" she exclaimed to herself.
It was five years and more since her one meeting with him at Ewell, but the man, on that occasion, had impressed her strongly in a very disagreeable way. She had since heard of him, in relation to Piers Otway's affairs, and knew that her aunt had received a call from him in Bryanston Square. What could be the meaning of this incident on the platform? Irene wondered, and had an unpleasant feeling about it.