"We do not knowHow she may soften at the sight o' the child."
"We do not knowHow she may soften at the sight o' the child."
"We do not knowHow she may soften at the sight o' the child."
"We do not know
How she may soften at the sight o' the child."
If life was pleasant at Carnarvon Square, it was far more pleasant by the banks of the river. Phillis expanded like a rose in June under the sweet and gracious influences with which Agatha L'Estrange surrounded her. Her straightforward way of speaking remained—the way that reminded one of a very superior schoolboy who hadnotbeen made a prig at Rugby—but it was rounded off by something more of what we call maidenly reserve. It should not be called reserve at all; it is an atmosphere with which women have learned to surround themselves, so that they show to the outward world like unto the haloed moon. Its presence was manifested in a hundred little ways—she did not answer quite so readily; she did not look into the face of a stranger quite so frankly; she seemed to be putting herself more upon her guard—strange that the chief charm of women should be a relic of barbarous times, when the stronger sex were to be feared for their strength and the way in which they often used it. Only with Jack Dunquerque there was no change. With him she was still the frank, free-hearted girl, the friend who opened all her heart, the maiden who, alone of womankind, knew not the meaning of love.
Phillis was perfectly at home with Agatha L'Estrange. She carolled about the house like a bird; she played and sang at her sweet will; she made sketches by thousands; and she worked hard at the elements of all knowledge. Heavens, by what arid and thirsty slopes do we climb the hills of Learning! Other young ladies had made the house by the river their temporary home, but none so clever, none so bright, none so entirely lovable as this emancipated cloister-child. She was not subdued, as most young women somehow contrive to become; she dared to have an opinion and to assert it; she did not tremble and hesitate about acting before it had been ascertained that action was correct; she had not the least fear of compromising herself; she hardly knew the meaning of proper and improper; and she who had been a close prisoner all her life was suddenly transformed into a girl as free as any of Diana's nymphs. Her freedom was the result of her ignorance; her courage was the result of her special training, which had not taught her the subjection of the sex; her liberty was not license, because she did not, and could not, use it for those purposes which schoolgirls learn in religious boarding-houses. She could walk with a curate, and often did, without flirting with the holy young man; she could make Jack Dunquerque take her for a row upon the river, and think of nothing but the beauty of the scene, her own exceeding pleasure, and the amiable qualities of her companion.
Of course, Agatha's friends called upon her. Among them were several specimens of the British young lady. Phillis watched them with much curiosity, but she could not get on with them. They seemed mostly to be suffering from feeble circulation of the pulse; they spoke as if they enjoyed nothing; those who were very young kindled into enthusiasm in talking over things which Phillis knew nothing about, such as dancing—Phillis was learning to dance, but did not yet comprehend its fiercer joys—and sports in which the other sex took an equal part. Their interest was small in painting; they cared for nothing very strongly; their minds seemed for the most part as languid as their bodies. This life at low ebb seemed to the girl whose blood coursed freely, and tingled in her veins as it ran, a poor thing; and she mentally rejoiced that her own education was not such as theirs. On the other hand, there were points in which these ladies were clearly in advance of herself. Phillis felt the cold ease of their manner; that was beyond her efforts; a formal and mannered calm was all she could assume to veil the intensity of her interest in things and persons.
"But what do they like, Agatha?" she asked one day, after the departure of two young ladies of the highest type.
"Well, dear, I hardly know. I should say that they have no strong likings in any direction. After all, Phillis dear, those who have the fewest desires enjoy the greatest happiness."
"No, Agatha, I cannot think that. Those who want most things can enjoy the most. Oh, that level line! What can shake them off it?"
"They are happier as they are, dear. You have been brought up so differently that you cannot understand. Some day they will marry. Then the equable temperament in which they have been educated will stand them in good stead with their husbands and their sons."
Phillis was silent, but she was not defeated.
Of course the young ladies did not like her at all.
They were unequal to the exertion of talking to a girl who thought differently from all other girls. Phil to them, as to all people who are weak in the imaginative faculty, wasimpossible.
But bit by bit the social education was being filled in, and Phillis was rapidly becoming ready for thedébutto which Agatha looked forward with so much interest and pride.
There remained another kind of education.
Brought up alone, with only her maid of her own age, and only an old man on whom to pour out her wealth of affection, this girl would, but for her generous nature, have grown up cold and unsympathetic. She did not. The first touch of womanly love which met her in her escape from prison was the kiss which Agatha L'Estrange dropped unthinkingly upon her cheek. It was the first of many kisses, not formal and unmeaning, which were interchanged between these two. It is difficult to explain the great and rapid change the simple caresses of another woman worked in Phillis's mind. She became softer, more careful of what she said, more thoughtful of others. She tried harder to understand people; she wanted to be to them all what Agatha L'Estrange was to her.
One day, Agatha, returning from early church, whither Phillis would not accompany her, heard her voice in the kitchen. She was singing and laughing. Agatha opened the door and looked in.
Phillis was standing in the middle of a group. Her eyes were bright with a sort of rapture; her lips were parted; her long hair was tossing behind her; she was singing, talking, and laughing, all in a breath.
In her arms she held the most wonderful thing to a woman which can be seen on this earth.
A Baby.
The child of the butter-woman. The mother stood before Phillis, her pleased red face beaming with an honest pride. Phillis's maid, Antoinette, and Agatha's three servants, surrounded these two, the principal figures. In the corner, grinning, stood the coachman. And the baby crowed and laughed.
"Oh, the pretty thing! Oh, the pretty thing!" cried Phillis, tossing the little one-year-old, who kicked and laughed and pulled at her hair. "Was there ever such a lovely child? Agatha, come and see, come and see! He talks, he laughs, he dances!"
"Ah, madame!" said Antoinette, wiping away a sympathetic tear. "Dire que ma'amsell n'en a jamais vu? Mais non, mais non—pas memes des poupees!"
"Go seek your fortune farther than at home."
Lawrence Colquhoun returned home to find himself famous. Do you remember a certain book of travels written four or five years ago by Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, in which frequent mention was made ofun nommeHarris, an inquiring and doubting Christian, who wore a pair of one-eyed spectacles and carried a volume of Paley? If that Harris, thus made illustrious, had suddenly presented himself in a London drawing-room while the book was enjoying his first run, he would have met with much the same success which awaited Lawrence Colquhoun. Harris let his opportunity go, and never showed up; perhaps he is still wandering in the Rocky Mountains and pondering over Paley. But Colquhoun appeared while the work of the Dragoon and the Younger Son was still in the mouths of men and women. The liveliest thing in that book is the account of Empire City and its Solitary. Everybody whose memory can carry him back to last year's reading will remember so much. And everybody who knew Colquhoun knew also that he was the Solitary.
The Hermit; the man with the Golden Butterfly, now a millionaire; the Golden Butterfly, now in a golden cage—all these actually present, so to speak, in the flesh, and ready to witness if the authors lied. Why, each was an advertisement of the book, and if the two Chinamen had been added, probably people might be reading the work still. But they, poor fellows, were defunct.
It annoyed Lawrence at first to find himself, like Cambuscan, with his tale half told; and it was monotonous to be always asked whether it was really true, and if he was the original Hermit. But everything wears off; people in a week or two began to talk of something else, and when Colquhoun met a man for the first time after his return he would startle and confuse that man by anticipating his question. He knew the outward signs of its approach. He would watch for the smile, the look of curiosity, and the parting of the lips before they framed the usual words:
"By the way, Colquhoun, is it actually true that you are the Hermit in Jack Dunquerque's book?"
And while the questioner was forming the sentence, thinking it a perfectly original one, never asked before, Lawrence would answer it for him.
"It is perfectly true that I was the Hermit. Now talk of something else."
For the rest he dropped into his old place. Time, matrimony, good and evil hap, had made havoc among his set; but there was still some left. Club-men come and club-men go; but the club goes on for ever.
Colquhoun had the character of being at once the laziest and the most good-natured of men. A dangerous reputation, because gratitude is a heavy burden to bear. If you do a man a good turn he generally finds it too irksome to be grateful, and so becomes your enemy. But Colquhoun cared little about his reputation.
When he disappeared, his friends for a day or two wondered where he was. Then they ceased to talk of him. Now he was come back they were glad to have him among them again. He was a pleasant addition. He was not altered in the least—his eyes as clear from crows-feet, his beard as silky, and his face as cheerful as ever. Some men's faces have got no sun in them; they only light up with secret joy at a friend's misfortunes; but this is an artificial fire, so to speak; it burns with a baleful and lurid light. There are others whose faces are like the weather in May, being uncertain and generally disagreeable. But Lawrence Colquhoun's face always had a cheerful brightness. It came from an easy temper, a good digestion, a comfortable income, and a kindly heart.
Of course he made haste to find Gilead P. Beck. Jack Dunquerque, who forgot at the time to make any mention of Phillis Fleming, informed him of the Golden Butterfly's wonderful Luck. And they all dined together—the Hermit, the Miner, the Dragoon, and the Younger Son.
They ran the Bear Hunt over again; they talked of Empire City, and speculated on the two Chinamen; had they known the fate of the two, their speculations might have taken a wider range.
"It was rough on me that time," said Gilead. "It had never been so rough before, since I began bumming around."
They waited for more, and presently he began to tell them more. It was the way of the man. He never intruded his personal experiences, being for the most part a humble and even a retiring man; but when he was among men he knew, he delighted in his recollections.
"Thirty-three years ago since I began. Twelve years old; the youngest of the lot. And I wonder where the rest are. Hiram, I know, sat down beside a rattle one morning. He remembered he had an appointment somewhere else, and got up in a hurry. But too late, and his constitution broke up suddenly. But for the rest I never did know what became of them. When I go back with that almighty Pile of mine, they will find me out, I dare say. Then they will bring along all their friends and the rest of the poor relations. The poorer the relations in our country, the more affectionate and self-denying they are."
"What did you do first?" asked Ladds.
"Ran messages; swept out stores; picked up trades; went handy boy to a railway engineer; read what I could and when I could. When I was twenty I kept a village school at a dollar a day. That was in Ohio. I've been many things in my pilgrimage and tried to like them all, but that was most too much for me. Boysandgells, Captain Ladds. Boys themselves are bad; but boys and gells mixed, they air—wal, it's a curious and interestin' thing that, ever since that time, when I see the gells snoopin' around with their eyes as soft as velvet, and their sweet cheeks the colour of peach, I say to myself, 'Shoddy. It is shoddy. I've seen you at school, and I know you better than you think.' As the poet says, 'Let gells delight to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature to.' You believe, Mr. Dunquerque, because you are young and inexperienced, that gells air soft. Air they? Soft as the shell of a clam. And tender? Tender as hickory-nut. Air they gentle, unselfish, and yieldin'? As rattlesnakes. The child is mother to the woman, as the poet says; and school-gells grow up mostly into women. They're sweet to look at; but when you've tended school, you feel to know them. And then you don't yearn after them so much.
"There was once a boy I liked. He was eighteen, stood six foot high in his stocking-boots, and his name was Pete Conkling. The lessons that boy taught me were useful in my after life. We began it every morning at five minutes past nine. Any little thing set us off. He might heave a desk, or a row of books, or the slates of the whole class at my head. I might go for him first. It was uncertain how it began, but the fight was bound to be fought. The boys expected it, and it pleased the gells. Sometimes it took me half an hour, and sometimes the whole morning, to wallop that boy. When it was done, Pete would take his place among the little gells, for he never could learn anything, and school would begin. To see him after it was over sitting alongside of little Hepzibah and Keziah, as meek as if he'd never heard of a black eye, and never seen the human fist, was one of my few joys. I was fond of Pete, and he was fond of me. Ways like his, gentlemen, kinder creep round the heart of the lonely teacher. Very fond of him I grew. But I got restless and dug out for another place; it was when I went on the boards and became an actor, I think; and it was close on fifteen years afterwards that I met him. Then he was lying on the slopes of Gettysburg—it was after the last battle—and his eyes were turned up to the sky; one of them, I noticed, was black; so that he had kept up his fighting to the end. For he was stark dead, with a Confed. bullet in his heart. Poor Pete!"
"You fought for the North?" asked one of his audience.
"Iwasa Northerner," he replied simply. How could he help taking his part in maintaining undivided that fair realm of America, which every one of his countrymen love as Queen Elizabeth's yeoman loved the realm of England? We have no yeomen now, which is perhaps one of the reasons why we could not understand the cause of the North.
"I worried through that war without a scratch. We got wary towards the end, and let the bullets drop into trunks of trees for choice. And when it was over, I was five-and-thirty, and had to begin the world again. But I was used to it."
"And you enjoyed a wandering life?"
"Yes, I believe I did enjoy barking up a new tree. There's a breed of Americans who can't keep still. I belong to that breed. We do not like to sit by a river and watch the water flow; we get tired livin' in the village lookin' in each other's faces while the seasons come round like the hands of a clock. There's a mixture among us of Dutch and German and English to sit quiet and till the ground. They get their heels well grounded in the clay, and there they stick."
"Where do you get it from, the wandering blood?" asked Colquhoun.
Gilead P. Beck became solemn.
"There air folk among us," he whispered, "Who hold that we are descended from the Ten Tribes. I don't say those folk are right, but I do say that it sometimes looks powerful like as if they were. Descended from the Ten Tribes, they say, and miraculously kept separate from the English among whom they lived. Lost their own language—which, if it was Hebrew, I take it was rather a good thing to be quit of—and speakin' English, like the rest. What were the tribes? Wanderers, mostly. Father Abraham went drivin' his cows and his camels up and down the country. Isaac went around on the rove, and Jacob couldn't sit still. Very well, then. Didn't their children walk about, tryin' one location after another, for forty years, and always feelin' after a bit as if there must be a softer plank farther on? And when they'd be settled down for a few hundred years, didn't they get up and disappear altogether? Mark you, theydidn't wantto settle. And where are the Ten Tribes now? For they never went back; you may look Palesteen through and through, and nary a tribe."
He looked round asking the question generally, but no one ventured to answer it.
"Our folk, who have mostly gut religion, point to themselves. They say; 'Look at us; we air the real original Wanderers.' Look at us all over the world. What are the hotels full of? Full of Americans. We are everywhere. We eat up the milk and the honey, and we tramp off on ramble again. But there's more points of gen'ral resemblance. We like bounce and bunkum; so did those people down in Syria; we like to pile up the dollars; so did the Jews; they liked to set up their kings and pull them down again; we pursue the same generous and confiding policy with our presidents; and if they were stiff-necked and backsliding, we are as stiff-necked and backsliding as any generation among all the lot."
"A very good case, indeed," said Colquhoun.
"I did not think so, sir, till lately. But it's been borne in upon me with the weight and force that can't be resisted, and I believe it now. The lost Ten Tribes, gentlemen, air now located in the United States. I am certain of it from my own case. Do any of you think—I put it to you seriously—that such an inseck as the Golden Butterfly would have been thrown away upon an outsider? It is likely that such all-fired Luck as mine would have been wasted on a man who didn't belong to the Chosen People? No, sir; I am of the children of Israel; and I freeze to that."
"Animum pictura pascit inani."
When Panurge was in that dreadful difficulty of his about marrying he took counsel of all his friends. Pantagruel, as we know, advised him alternately for and against, according to the view taken at the moment by his versatile dependent. Gilead Beck was so far in Panurge's position that he asked advice of all his friends. Mr. Cassilis recommended him to wait and look about him; meantime, he took his money for investment; and, as practice makes perfect, and twice or thrice makes a habit, he found now no difficulty in making Mr. Beck give him cheques without asking their amount or their object, while the American Fortunatus easily fell into the habit of signing them without question. He was a Fool? No doubt. The race is a common one; especially common is that kind of Fool which is suspicious from long experience, but which, having found, as he thinks, a fellow-creature worthy of trust, places entire and perfect trust in him, and so, like a ship riding at anchor with a single stout cable, laughs at danger even while the wind is blowing, beam on, to a lee shore. Perfect faith is so beautiful a thing that neither religionists who love to contemplate it, nor sharpers who profit by it, would willingly let it die out.
Lawrence Colquhoun recommended pictures.
"You may as well spend your money on Artists as on any other people. They are on the whole a pampered folk, and get much too well paid. But a good picture is generally a good investment. And then you will become a patron and form a gallery of your own, the Beck collection, to hand down to posterity."
"I can't say, Colonel—not with truth—that I know a good picture from a bad one. I once tried sign painting. But the figures didn't come out right, somehow. Looked easy to do, too. Seems I didn't know about Perspective, and besides, the colours got mixed. Sign-painting is not a walk in life that I should recommend from personal experience."
But the idea took root in his brain.
Jack Dunquerque encouraged it.
"You see, Beck," he said, "you may as well form a gallery of paintings as anything else. Buy modern pictures; don't buy Old Masters, because you will be cheated. The modern pictures will be old in a hundred years, and then your collection will be famous."
"I want to do my work in my own lifetime," said the millionaire. He was a man of many ideas but few convictions, the strongest being that man ought to do what he has to do in his own lifetime, and not to devise and bequeath for posthumous reputation.
"Why, and so you would. You buy the pictures while you are living; when you go off, the pictures remain."
A patron of Art. The very name flattered his vanity, being a thing he had read of, and his imagination leaped up to the possibilities of the thing. Why should he not collect for his own country? He saw himself, like Stewart, returning to New York with a shipload of precious Art treasures bought in London; he saw his agent ransacking the studios and shops of Florence, Naples, Rome, Dresden—wherever painters congregate and pictures are sold; he imagined rich argosies coming to him across the ocean—the American looks across the ocean for the luxuries and graces of life, his wines, his Art, and his literature. Then he saw a great building, grander than the Capitol at Washington, erected by a grateful nation for the reception of the Gilead P. Beck Collection of Ancient and Modern Paintings.
Now one of the earliest callers upon Mr. Beck was a certain picture-dealer named Burls. Mr. Burls and his fraternity regard rich Americans with peculiar favour. It is said to have been Bartholomew Burls who invented especially for American use the now well-known "multiplication" dodge. The method is this. You buy a work by a rising artist, one whose pictures may be at some future time, but are not yet, sufficiently known to make their early wanderings matter of notoriety. One of your young men—he must be a safe hand and a secret—make two, three, or four copies, the number depending on the area, rather than the number, of yourclientele. You keep the Artist's receipt, a proof of the genuineness of the picture. The copies, name and all, are so well done that even the painter himself would be puzzled to know his own. You then proceed to place your pictures at good distances from each other, representing each as genuine. It is a simple, beautiful, and lucrative method. Not so profitable, perhaps, as cleaning oil-paintings, which takes half an hour apiece and is charged from ten shillings to ten pounds, according to the dealer's belief in your power to pay. Nor is it more profitable than the manufacture of a Correggio or a Cuyp for a guileless cotton manufacturer, and there is certainly a glow of pride to be obtained by the successful conversion of a new into an old picture by the aid of mastic varnish, mixed with red and yellow lake to tone it down, and the simple shaking of a door-mat over it. But then people have grown wary, and it is difficult to catch a purchaser of a Correggio, for which a large sum has to be asked. The multiplication dodge is the simpler and the safer.
Mr. Beck, as has been already shown, was by no means deficient in a certain kind of culture. He had read such books as fell in his way during his wandering and adventurous life. His reading was thus miscellaneous. He had been for a short time an actor, and thus acquired a little information concerning dramatic literature. He had been on a newspaper, one of the rank and file as well as an editor. He knew a good deal about many things, arts, customs, and trades. But of one thing he was profoundly ignorant, and that was of painting.
He looked at Burls' card, however—"Bartholomew Burls and Co., Church Street, City, Inventors of the only safe and perfect Method of Cleaning Oil Paintings"—and, accompanied by Jack Dunquerque, who knew about as much of pictures as himself, hunted up the shop, and entered it with the meekness of a pigeon about to be plucked.
They stood amid a mass of pictures, the like of which Gilead Beck had never before conceived. They were hanging on the walls; they were piled on the floor; they were stretched across the ceiling; they climbed the stairs; they were hiding away in dark corners; a gaping doorway lit with gas showed a cellar below where they were stacked in hundreds. Pictures of all kinds. The shop was rather dark, though the sun of May was pouring a flood of light even upon the narrow City streets. But you could make out something. There were portraits in hundreds. The effigies of dead men and women stared at you from every second frame. Your ancestor—Mr. Burls was very particular in ascertaining beyond a doubt that it was your own ancestor, and nobody else's—frowned at you in bright steel armour with a Vandyke beard; or he presented a shaven face with full cheeks and a Ramillies wig; or he smirked upon you from a voluminous white scarf and a coat-collar which rose to the top of his head. The ladies of your family—Mr. Burls was very particular, before selling you one, in ascertaining beyond a doubt that she belonged to your own branch of the house, and none other—smiled upon you with half-closed lids, like the consort of Potiphar, the Egyptian, or they frisked as shepherdesses in airy robes, conscious of their charms; or they brandished full-blown petticoats, compared with which crinolines were graceful, or they blushed in robes which fell tightly about the figure, and left the waist beneath the arms. Name any knight, or mayor, or court beauty, or famous toast among your ancestry whose portrait is wanting to your gallery, and Burls, the great genealogical collector, will find you before many weeks that missing link in the family history. Besides the portraits, there were landscapes, nymphs bathing, Venuses asleep, Venuses with a looking-glass, Venuses of all sorts; scenes fromDon Quixote; Actæons surprising Dianas; battle-pieces, sea-pieces, river-pieces; "bits" of Hampstead Heath, and boats on the Thames.
Mr. Beck looked round him, stroked his chin, and addressed the guardian of this treasure-house:
"I am going to buy pictures," he began comprehensively. "You air the Boss?"
"This gentleman means," Jack explained, "that he wants to look at your pictures with a view to buying some if he approves of them."
The man in the shop was used to people who would buy one picture after a whole mornings haggling, but he was not accustomed to people who wanted to buy pictures generally. He looked astonished, and then, with a circular sweep of his right hand, indicated that here were pictures, and all Mr. Beck had to do was to go in and buy them.
"Look round you, gentlemen," he said; "pray look round you; and the more you buy, the better we shall like it."
Then he became aware that the elder speaker was an American, and he suddenly changed his front.
"Our chicer pictures," he explained, "are up stairs. I should like you to look at them first. Will you step up, gentlemen?"
On the stairs, more pictures. On the landing, more pictures. On the stairs mounting higher, more pictures. But they stopped on the first floor. Mr. Burls and his assistants never invited any visitors to the second and third floors, because these rooms were sacred to the manufacture of old pictures, the multiplication of new, and the sacred processes of cleaning, lining, and restoring. In the first-floor rooms were fewer pictures but more light.
One large composition immediately caught Mr. Beck's eye. A noble picture; a grand picture; a picture whose greatness of conception was equalled by its boldness of treatment. It occupied the whole of one side of the wall, and might have measured twenty feet in length by fourteen in height. The subject was scriptural—the slaying of Sisera by Jael, Heber the Kenite's wife. The defeated general lay stretched on the couch, occupying a good ten feet of the available space. Beside him stood the woman, a majestic figure, with a tent-peg and a mallet, about to commit that famous breach of hospitality. The handle of the mallet was rendered most conscientiously, and had evidently been copied from a model. Through the open hangings of the tent were visible portions of the army chasing the fugitives and lopping off their heads.
"That seems a striking picture," said Mr. Beck. "I take that picture, sir, to represent George Washington after the news of the surrender at Saratoga, or General Jackson after the battle of New Orleans."
"Grant after Gettysburg," suggested Jack.
"No, sir. I was at Gettysburg myself; and the hero asleep on the bed, making every allowance for his fancy dress, which I take to be allegorical, is not at all like General Ulysses Grant, nor is he like General Sherman. The young female, I s'pose, is Liberty, with a hammer in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Too much limb for an American gell, and the flesh is redder than one could wish. But on the hull a striking picture. What may be the value of this composition, mister?"
"I beg your pardon, sir. Not Washington, sir, nor General Jackson, though we can procure you in a very short time fine portraits of both these 'eroes. This, gentlemen, is a biblical subject. Cicero, overtaken, by sleep while in jail, about to be slain by 'Eber the wife of the Kenite. That is 'Eber, with the 'eavy 'ammer in 'er 'and. The Kenite belonged, as I have always understood—for I don't remember the incident myself—to the opposite faction. That splendid masterpiece, gentlemen, has been valued at five 'undred. For a town'all, or for an altar-piece, it would be priceless. To let it go at anything under five 'undred would be a sin and a shame, besides a-throwing away of money. Look at the light and shade. Look at 'Eber's arm and Cicero's leg. That leg alone has been judged by connisseers worth all the money."
Mr. Beck was greatly disappointed in the subject and in the price; even had it been the allegorical picture which he thought, he was not yet sufficiently educated in the prices of pictures to offer five hundred for it; and when Mr. Burls's assistant spoke of pounds, Mr. Beck thought dollars. So he replied:
"Five hundred dollars? I will give you five-and-twenty."
"That," interposed Jack Dunquerque, "is a five-pound note."
"Then, by gad, sir," said the man, with alacrity, "it's yours! It's been hangin' there for ten years, and never an offer yet. It's yours!"
This splendid painting, thus purchased at the rate of rather more than threepence a square foot, was the acquisition made by Mr. Beck towards his great Gallery of Ancient and Modern Masters.
He paid for it on the spot calling Jack to witness the transaction.
"We will send it up to the hotel to-morrow," said the man.
"I shall have it fixed right away along the side of my room," said Mr. Beck. "Should it be framed?"
"I should certainly have it framed," said Jack.
"Yes, sir; we shall be happy to frame it for you."
"I dare say you would," Jack went on. "This is a job for a house-carpenter, Mr. Beck. You will have to build the frame for this gigantic picture. Have it sent over, and consider the frame afterwards."
This course was approved; but, for reasons which will subsequently appear, the picture never was framed.
The dealer proceeded to show other pictures.
"A beautiful Nicolas Pushing—'Nymphs and Satyrs in a Bacchanalian Dance'—a genuine thing."
"I don't think much of that, Mr. Dunquerque; do you? The Nymphs haven't finished dressing; and the gentlemen with the goats' legs may be satires on human nature, but they are not pretty. Let us go on to the next show in the caravan, mister."
"This is Hetty. In the master's best style. 'Graces surprised while Bathing in the River.' Much admired by connisseers."
"No, sir; not at all," said Mr. Beck severely. "Mygallery is going to elevate the morals of our gells and boys. It's a pretty thing, too, Mr. Dunquerque, and I sometimes think it's a pity morality was ever invented. Now, Boss."
"Quite so, sir. Hetty is, as you say—rayther—What do you think of this, now—a lovely Grooze?"
"Grooze," said Mr. Beck, "is French, I suppose, for gell. Yes, now that's a real pretty picture; I call that a picture you ain't ashamed to admire; there's lips you can kiss; there's a chin you can chuck——"
"How about the morals?" asked Jack.
"Wal, Mr. Dunquerque, we'll buy the picture first, and we'll see how it rhymes with morals afterwards. There's eyes to look into a man's. Any more heads of pretty Groozes, mister? I'll buy the lot."
"This is a Courage-oh!" the exhibitor went on, after expressing his sorrow that he had no more Groozes, and bringing out a Madonna. "Thought to be genuine by the best judges. History of the picture unknown redooces the value."
"I can't go fooling around with copies inmygallery," said Mr. Beck. "I must have genuine pictures, or none."
"Then we will not offer you that Madonna, sir. I think I have something here to suit you. Come this way. A Teniers, gentlemen—a real undoubted gem of Teniers. This is a picture now for any gentleman's collection. It came from the gallery of a nobleman lately deceased, and was bought at the sale by Mr. Burls himself, who knows a picture when he sees one. Mr. Bartholomew Burls, our senior partner, gentlemen. 'The Bagpipe-player.'"
It was an excellent imitation, but of a well-known picture, and it required consummate impudence to pretend that it was original.
"Oh," said Jack, "but I have seen this somewhere else. In the Louvre, I believe."
"Very likely, sir," replied the unabashed vendor. "Teniers painted six hundred pictures. There was a good many 'Bagpipe-players' among them. One is in the Louvre. This is another."
On the advice of Jack Dunquerque Mr. Beck refrained from buying, and contented himself with selecting, with the option of purchase. When they left the shop, some twenty pictures were thus selected.
The seller, who had a small interest or commission on sales, as soon as their steps were fairly out of the shop, executed a short dance indicative of joy. Then he called up the stairs, and a man came slowly down.
A red-nosed bibulous person, by name Critchett. He was manufacturer of old masters in ordinary to Bartholomew Burls and Co.; cleaned and restored pictures when other orders were slack, and was excellent at "multiplication." He had worked for Burls for a quarter of a century, save for a few weeks, when one Frank Melliship, a young gentleman then down on his luck, worked in his stead. A trustworthy and faithful creature, though given to drink; he could lie like an echo; was as incapable of blushing as the rock on which the echo plays; and bore cross-examination like a Claimant.
"Come down, Critchett—come down. We've sold 'Cicero and 'Eber.'"
"'Sisera and Jael.'"
"Well, it don't matter—and I said 'Cicero in Jail.' They've gone for five pounds. The governor he always said I could take whatever was offered, and keep it for myself. Five pounds in my pocket! Your last Teniers—that old bagpipe-party—I tried him, but it was no go. But I've sold the only one left of your Groozes, and you had better make a few more, out of hand. Look here, Critchett: it isn't right to drink in hours, and the guv'nor out and all; but this is an occasion. This ain't a common day, because I've sold the Cicero. I won't ask you to torse, nor yet to pay; but I says, 'Critchett, come across the way, my boy, and put your lips to what you like best.' Lord, Lord! on'y give me an American, and give him to me green! Never mind your hat, Critchett. 'It's limp in the brim and it's gone in the rim,' as the poet says; and you look more respectable without it, Critchett."
"That's a good beginning," Beck observed, after luncheon. They were in Jack Dunquerque's club, in the smoking room. "That's a first-rate beginning. How many pictures go to a gallery?"
"It depends on the size of it. About five hundred for a moderate sized one."
Mr. Beck whistled.
"Never mind. The Ile pays for all. A Patron of Art. Yes, sir, that seems the right end of the stick for a rich man to keep up. But I've been thinking it over. It isn't enough to go to shops and buy pictures. We must go in for sculpting too, and a Patron ought to get hold of a struggling artist, and lend him a helping hand; he should advance unknown talent. That's my idea."
"I think I can help you there," said Jack, his eyes twinkling. "I know just such a man; an artist unknown, without friends, with slender means, of great genius, who has long languished in obscurity."
"Bring him to me, Mr. Dunquerque. Bring that young man to me. Let me be the means of pushing the young gentleman. Holy thunder! What is money if it isn't used. Tell me his name."
"I think I ought to have spoken to him first," said Jack, in some confusion, and a little taken aback by Mr. Beck's determination. "But, however, you can only try. His name is Humphrey Jagenal. I will, if you please, go and see him to-day. And I will ask him to call upon you to-morrow morning."
"I would rather call uponhim," said Mr. Beck. "It might look like the pride of patronage asking him to call at the Langham. I don't want him to start with a feeling of shame."
"Not at all; at least, of course, it will be patronage, and I believe he will prefer it. There is no shame in taking a commission to execute a picture."
"Mr. Dunquerque, every day you confer fresh obligations upon me. And I can do nothing for you—nothing at all."
At this time it was Gilead Beck's worst misfortune that he was not taken seriously by any one except Gabriel Cassilis, who literally and liberally interpreted his permission to receive all his money for safe investment. But as for his schemes, vague and shadowy as they were, for using his vast income for some practically philanthropic and benevolent objects, none of his friends sympathised with him, because none of them understood him. Yet the man was deeply in earnest. He meant what he said, and more, when he told Gabriel Cassilis that a voice urged him by day and by night not to save his money, but to use for others what he could not use himself. He had been two months in England on purpose to learn a way, but saw no way yet. And every way seemed barred. He would not give money to societies, because they were societies; he wanted to strike out something new for himself. Nor would he elaborate a scheme to be carried out after his death. Let every man, he repeated every day, do what he has to do in his lifetime. How was he to spend his great revenues? A Patron of Art? It was the first tangible method that he had struck upon. He would be that to begin with. Art has the great advantage, too, of swallowing up any conceivable quantity of money.
And on the way from the Burls's Depot of Real and Genuine Art, he hit upon the idea of advancing artists as well as Art. He was in thorough earnest when he raised his grave and now solemn eyes to Jack Dunquerque, and thanked him for his kindness. And Jack's conscience smote him.
"I must tell you," Jack explained, "that I have never seen any of Mr. Humphrey Jagenal's pictures. Miss Fleming, the young lady whom you met at Mrs. Cassilis's, told me once that he was a great artist."
"Bring him to me, bring him to me, and we will talk. I hope that I may be able to speak clearly to him without hurting his feelin's. If I brag about my Pile, Mr. Dunquerque, you just whisper 'Shoddy,' and I'll sing small."
"There will be no hurting of feelings. When you come to a question of buying and selling, an artist is about the same as everybody else. Give him a big commission; let him have time to work it out; and send him a cheque in advance. I believe that would be the method employed by patrons whom artists love. At least, I should love such a patron.
"Beck," he went on after a pause: both were seated in the long deep easy-chairs of the club smoking-room, with the chairs pretty close together, so that they could talk in low tones,—"Beck, if you talk about artists, there's Phil—I mean Miss Fleming. By Jove! she only wants a little training to knock the heads off half the R.A.s. Come out with me and call upon her. She will show us her sketches."
"I remember her," said Gilead Beck slowly; "a tall young lady; a lovely Grooze, as the man who grinds that picture-mill would say; she had large brown eyes that looked as if they could be nothing but tender and true, and a rosebud mouth all sweetness and smiles, and lips that trembled when she thought. I remember her—a head like a queen's piled up with her own brown hair and flowers, an' a figure like—like a Mexican half-caste at fourteen."
"You talk of her as if you were in love with her," said Jack jealously.
"No, Mr. Dunquerque; no, sir. That is, I may be. But it won't come between you and her, what I feel. You air a most fortunate man. Go down on your knees when you get home, and say so. For or'nary blessin's you may use the plan of Joshua Mixer, the man who had the biggest claim in Empire City before it busted up. He got his Petitions and his Thanksgivin's printed out neat on a card together, and then he hung that card over his bed. 'My sentiments,' he used to say, jerkin' his thumb to the card when he got in at night. Never omitted his prayers; never forgot that jerk, drunk or sober. Joshua Mixer was the most religious man in all that camp. But for special Providences; for Ile; for a lucky shot; for a sweet, pure, heavenly, gracious creature like Miss Fleming,—I say, go on your knees and own to it, as a man should. Well, Mr. Dunquerque," he continued, "I wish you success; and if there's anything I can do to promote your success, let me know. Now there's another thing. What I want to do is to unlock the door which keeps me from the society of men of genius. I can get into good houses; they all seem open to me because I've got money. London is the most hospitable city in this wide world for those who have the stamps. Republican? Republican ain't the word for it. Do they ask who a man is? Not they. They ask about his dollars, and they welcome him with smiles. It's a beautiful thing to look at, and it makes an Amer'can sigh when he thinks of his own country, where they inquire into a stranger's antecedents. But there's exceptions, and artists and authors I cannot get to. And I want to meet your great men. Not to interview them, sir. Not at all. They may talk a donkey's hind leg off, and I wouldn't send a single line to the New York papers to tell them what was said nor what they wore. But I should like, just for one evening, to meet and talk with the great writers whom we respect across the water."
Again Jack Dunquerque's eyes began to twinkle. Hecouldnot enter into the earnestness of this man. And an idea occurred to him at which his face lit up with smiles.
"It requires thinking over. Suppose I was to be able to get half-a-dozen or so of our greatest writers, how should we manage to entertain them?"
"I should like, if they would only come—I should like to give them a dinner at the Langham. A square meal; the very best dinner that the hotel can serve. I should like to make them feel like being at the Guildhall."
"I will think about it," said Jack, "and let you know in a day or two what I can do for you."
"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff."
"A patron at last, Cornelius," said Humphrey Jagenal, partly recovering from the shock of Jack Dunquerque's communication. "A Patron. Patronage is, after all, the breath of life in Art. Let others pander to the vitiated public taste and cater for a gaping crowd round the walls of the Royal Academy. I would paint for a Lorenzo only, and so work for the highest interests of Art. We will call, brother, upon this Mr. Beck to-morrow."
"We will!" said Cornelius, with enthusiasm.
It was in the Studio. Both brothers, simultaneously fired with ardour, started to their feet and threw back their heads with a gesture of confidence and determination. The light of high resolve flashed from their eyes, which were exactly alike. The half-opened lips expressed their delight in the contemplation of immortal fame. Their chance had arrived; their youth was come back to them.
True, that Gilead Beck at present only proposed to become a Patron to the Artist; but while it did not enter into Humphrey's head for one moment that he could make that visit unsupported by his brother, so the thought lay in either's brain that a Poet wanted patronage as much as an Artist.
They were both excited. To Humphrey it was clear that the contemplation of his great work, in which he had basked so many years, was to be changed for days of active labour. No longer could he resolve to carry it into execution the "day after to-morrow," as the Arabs say. This was difficult to realise, but as yet the thought was like the first shock of ice-cold water, for it set his veins tingling and braced his nerves. He felt within him once more the strength felt by every young man at first, which is the strength of Michael Angelo. He saw in imagination his great work, the first of many great works, finished, a glorious canvas glowing with the realization of a painter's dream of colour, crowded with graceful figures, warm with the thought of genius, and rich with the fancy of an Artist-scholar—a work for all time. And he gasped. But for his beard he might have been a boy waiting for the morrow, when he should receive the highest prize in the school; or an undergraduate, the favourite of his year, after the examination, looking confidently to the Senior Wranglership.
In the morning they took no walk, but retired silently each to his own room. In the Studio the Artist opened his portfolios, and spread out the drawings made years ago when he was studying in Rome. They were good drawings; there was feeling in every line; but they were copies. There was not one scrap of original work, and his Conscience began to whisper—only he refused at first to listen—that the skill of hand and touch was gone. Then Conscience, which gets angry if disregarded, took to whispering more loudly, and presently he heard. He took crayon and paper, and began, feverishly and in haste, to copy one of his old drawings. He worked for a quarter of an hour, and then, looking at the thing he had once done beside the thing he was then doing, he dashed the pencil from him, and tore up the miserable replica in disgust. His spirit, which had flown so high, sank dull and heavy as lead; he threw himself back in his chair and began to think, gazing hopelessly into space.
It was the opportunity of Conscience, who presently began to sing as loudly as any skylark, but not so cheerfully. "You are fifty," said that voice which seldom lies, "you have wasted the last twenty years of your life; you have become a wind-bag and a shallow humbug; you cannot now paint or draw at all; what little power was in you has departed. Your brother, the Poet, has been steadily working while you have slept"—and it will be perceived that Conscience spoke from imperfect information. "He will produce a great book, and live. You will die. The grave will close over you, and you will be forgotten."
It was a hard saying, and the Artist groaned as he listened to it.
In the workshop, Cornelius also, startled into action, spread out upon the table a bundle of papers which had been lying undisturbed in his desk for a dozen years or more. They were poems he had written in his youth, unpublished verses, thoughts in rhyme such as an imaginative young man easily pours forth, reproducing the fashion of the time and the thoughts of others. He began to read these over again with mingled pleasure and pain. For the thoughts seemed strange to him. He felt that they were good and lofty thoughts, but the conviction forced itself upon him that the brain which had produced them was changed. No more of such good matter was left within it. The lines of thought were changed. The poetic faculty, a delicate plant, which droops unless it is watered and carefully tended, was dead within him.
And the whole of the Epic to be written.
Not a line done, not a single episode on paper, though to Phillis he claimed to have done so much.
He seized a pen, and with trembling fingers and agitated brain forced himself to write.
In half an hour he tore the paper into shreds, and, with a groan, threw down the pen. The result was too feeble.
Then he too began to meditate, like his brother in the Studio. Presently his guardian angel, who very seldom got such a chance, began to admonish him, even as the dean admonishes an erring undergraduate.
"You are fifty," said the invisible Censor. "What have you done with yourself for twenty years and more. Your best thoughts have passed away; the poetical eye is dim; you will write no more. Your brother, the Artist, is busy with pencil and brain. He will produce a great work, and live for ever. You will do nothing; you will go down into the pit and be forgotten."
It was too much for the Poet. His lips trembled, his hand shook. He could no more rest in his chair.
He walked backwards and forwards, the voice pursuing him.
"Wasted years; wasted energies; wasted gifts; your chance is gone. You cannot write now."
Poets are more susceptible than artists. That is the reason why Cornelius rushed out of the Workshop to escape this torture and sought his brother Humphrey.
Humphrey started like a guilty person. His face was pale, his eye was restless.
"Cornelius?"
"Do not me disturb you, my dear brother. You are happy; you are at work; your soul is at peace."
"And you, Cornelius?"
"I am not at peace. I am restless this morning. I am nervous and agitated."
"So am I, Cornelius. I cannot work. My pencil refuses to obey my brain."
"My own case. My pen will not write what I wish. The link between the brain and the nerves is for the moment severed."
"Let us go out, brother. It is now three. We will walk slowly in the direction of the Langham Hotel."
As they put on their hats Cornelius stopped, and said reflectively—
"The nervous system is a little shaken with both of us. Can you suggest anything, brother Humphrey?"
"The best thing for a shaken nervous system," replied Humphrey promptly, "is a glass of champagne. I will get some champagne for you, brother Cornelius."
He returned presently with a modest pint bottle, which they drank together, Humphrey remarking (in italics) that in such a case it is not a question of what a manwants, so much as of what heneeds.
A pint of champagne is not much between two men, but it produced an excellent effect upon the Twins. Before it they were downcast; they looked around with the furtive eyes of conscious imposture; their hands trembled. After it they raised their heads, laughed, and looked boldly in each other's eyes, assumed a gay and confident air, and presently marched off arm-in-arm to call upon the Patron.
Gilead Beck, unprepared to see both brethren, welcomed them with a respect almost overwhelming. It was his first interview with Genius.
They introduced each other.
"Mr. Beck," said Cornelius, "allow me to introduce my brother, Humphrey Jagenal. In his case the world is satisfied with the Christian name alone, without the ceremonial prefix. He is, as you know, the Artist."
If his brother had been Titian or Correggio he could not have said more.
"Sir," said Mr. Beck, shaking Humphrey's hand warmly, "I am proud indeed to make your acquaintance. I am but a rough man myself, sir, but I respect genius."
"Then," said Humphrey, with admirable presence of mind, "allow me to introduce my brother. Cornelius Jagenal, as you doubtless know, Mr. Beck, is the Poet."
Mr. Beck did not know it, and said so. But he shook hands with Cornelius none the less cordially.
"Sir, I have been knocking about the world, and have not read any poetry since I was a boy. Then I read Alexander Pope. You know Pope, Mr. Jagenal?"
Cornelius smiled, as if he might allow some merit to Pope, though small in comparison with his own.
"I have never met with your poem, Mr. Cornelius Jagenal or your pictures, Mr. Humphrey, but I hope you will now enable me to do so."
"My brother is engaged"—said Cornelius.
"My brother is engaged"—began Humphrey. "Pardon, brother."
"Sit down, gentlemen. Will you take anything? In California, up country, we always begin with a drink. Call for what you please, gentlemen. Sail in, as we say."
They took champagne, for the second time that day, and then their eyes began to glisten.
Mr. Beck observed that they were both alike—small and fragile-looking men, with bright eyes and delicate features; he made a mental note to the effect that they would never advance their own fortunes. He also concluded from their red noses, and from the way in which they straightened their backs after placing themselves outside the champagne, that they loved the goblet, and habitually handled it too often.
"Now, gentlemen," he began, after making these observations, "may I be allowed to talk business?"
They both bowed.
"Genius, gentlemen, is apt to be careless of the main chance. It don't care for the almighty dollar; it lets fellows like me heap up the stamps. What can we do but ask Genius to dig into our Pile?"
Humphrey poured out another glass of champagne for his brother, and one for himself. Then he turned to Cornelius and nodded gravely.
"Cornelius, so far as I understand him, Mr. Beck speaks the strongest common sense."
"We agree with you so far, Mr. Beck," said Cornelius critically, because he was there to give moral support to his brother.
"Why should I have any delicacy in saying to a young man, or a man of any age," he added doubtfully, for the years of the Twins seemed uncertain, "'You, sir, are an Artist and a Genius. Take a cheque, and carry out your ideas.'?"
"What reason indeed?" asked Cornelius. "The offer does honour to both."
"Or to another man, 'You, sir, are a Poet. Why should the cares of the world interfere with your thoughts? Take a cheque, and make the world rejoice'!"
Humphrey clapped his hands.
"The world lies in travail for such a patron of poetry," he said.
"Why, then, we are agreed," said Mr. Beck. "Gentlemen, I say to you both, collectively, let me usher into the world those works of genius which you are bound to produce. You, sir, are painting a picture. When can you finish me that picture?"
"In six months," said Humphrey, his brain suffused with a rosy warmth of colour which made him see things in an impossibly favourable light.
"I buy that picture, sir, at your own price," said the patron. "I shall exhibit it in London, and it shall then go to New York with me. And you, Mr. Cornelius Jagenal, are engaged upon poems. When would you wish to publish your verses?"
"My Epic, theUpheaval of Ælfred, will be ready for publication about the end of November," said Cornelius.
Humphrey felt a passing pang of jealousy as he perceived that his brother would be before the world a month in advance of himself. But what is a month compared with immortality?
"I charge myself, sir, if you will allow me," said the American, "with the production of that work. It shall be printed in the best style possible, on the thickest paper made, and illustrated by the best artist that can be found—you, perhaps, Mr. Humphrey Jagenal. It shall be bound in Russian leather; its exterior shall be worthy of its contents. And as for business arrangements, gentlemen, you will please consider them at your leisure, and let me know what you think. We shall be sure to agree, because, if you will not think it shoddy in me to say so, I have my Pile to dig into. And I shall send you, if you will allow me, gentlemen, a small cheque each in advance."
They murmured assent and rose to go.
"If you would favor me further, gentlemen, by dining with me—say this day week—I should take it as a great distinction. I hope, with the assistance of Mr. Dunquerque, to have a few prominent men of letters to meet you. I want to have my table full of genius."
"Can we, brother Humphrey, accept Mr. Beck's invitation?"
Cornelius asked as if they were weeks deep in engagements. As it was, nobody ever asked them anywhere, and they had no engagements at all.
Humphrey consulted a pocket-book with grave face.
"We can, Mr. Beck."
"And if you know any one else, gentlemen, any men of Literature and Art who will come too, bring them along with you, and I shall feel it an honour."
They knew no one connected with Literature and Art, not even a printer's devil, but they did not say so.
At twelve o'clock, toward the close of this fatiguing day, Cornelius asked Humphrey, with a little hesitation, if he really thought he should have finished his great work in six months.
"Art cannot be forced, Cornelius," said the Painter airily. "If I am not ready, I shall not hesitate to consider the pledge conditional. My work must be perfect ere it leaves my hands."
"And mine, too," said the Poet. "I will never consent to let a poem of mine go forth unfinished to the world. The work must be polishedad unguem."
"This is a memorable day, brother. The tumblers are empty. Allow me. And, Cornelius, I really do think that, considering the way in which we have been treated by Phillis Fleming, and her remarks about afternoon work, we ought to call and let her understand the reality of our reputation."
"We will, Humphrey. But it is not enough to recover lost ground; we must advance farther. The fortress shall be made to surrender."
"Let us drink to your success, brother, and couple with the toast the name of Phillis—Phillis—Phillis Jagenal, brother?"
They drank that toast, smiling unutterable things.
"Call me not fool till Heaven hath sent me fortune."
When Jack Dunquerque communicated to Lawrence Colquhoun the fact of having made the acquaintance of Miss Fleming, and subsequently that of Mrs. L'Estrange, Lawrence expressed no surprise and felt no suspicions. Probably, had he felt any, they would have been at once set aside, because Colquhoun was not a man given to calculate the future chances, and to disquiet himself about possible events. Also at this time he was taking little interest in Phillis. A pretty piquante girl; he devoted a whole day to her; drove her to Twickenham, and placed her in perfect safety under the charge of his cousin. What more was wanted? Agatha wrote to him twice a week or so, and when he had time he read the letters. They were all about Phillis, and most of them contained the assurance that he had no entanglements to fear.
"Entanglements!" he murmured impatiently. "As if a man cannot dine with a girl without falling in love with her. Women are always thinking that men want to be married."
He was forgetting, after the fashion of men who have gone through the battle, how hot is the fight for those who are just beginning it. Jack Dunquerque was four-and-twenty; he was therefore, so to speak, in the thick of it. Phillis's eyes were like two quivers filled with darts, and when she turned them innocently upon her friend the enemy, the darts flew straight at him, and transfixed him as if he were another Sebastian. Colquhoun's time was past; he was clothed in the armour of indifference which comes with the years, and he was forgetting the past.
Still, had he known of the visit to the Tower of London, the rowing on the river, the luncheons in Carnarvon Square, it is possible that even he might have seen the propriety of requesting Jack Dunquerque to keep out of danger for the future.
He had no plans for Phillis, except of the simplest kind. She was to remain in charge of Agatha for a year, and then she would come out. He hoped that she would marry well, because her father, had he lived, would have wished it. And that was all he hoped about her.
He had his private worries at this time—those already indicated—connected with Victoria Cassilis. The ice once broken, that lady allowed him no rest. She wrote to him on some pretence nearly every day; she sent her maid, the unlovely one, with three-cornered notes all about nothing; she made him meet her in society, she made him dine with her; it seemed as if she was spreading a sort of net about him, through the meshes of which he could not escape.
With the knowledge of what had been, it was an unrighteous thing for Colquhoun to go to the house of Gabriel Cassilis; he ought not to be there, he felt, it was the one house in all London in which he had no business. And yet—how to avoid it?
And Gabriel Cassilis seemed to like him; evidently liked to talk to him; singled him out, this great financier, and talked with him as if Colquhoun too was interested in stock; called upon him at his chambers, and told him, in a dry but convincing way, something of his successes and his projects.
It was after many talks of this kind that Lawrence Colquhoun, forgetful of the past, and not remembering that of all men in the world Gabriel Cassilis was the last who should have charge of his money, put it all in his hands, with power-of-attorney to sell out and reinvest for him. But that was nothing. Colquhoun was not the man to trouble about money. He was safe in the hands of this great and successful capitalist: he gave no thought to any risk; he congratulated himself on his cleverness in persuading the financier to take the money for him; and he continued to see Victoria Cassilis nearly every day.
They quarrelled when they did meet; there was not a conversation between them in which she did not say something bitter, and he something savage. And yet he did not have the courage to refuse the invitations which were almost commands. Nor could she resign the sweet joys of making him feel her power.
A secret, you see, has a fatal fascination about it. Schoolgirls, I am told, are given to invent little secrets which mean nothing, and to whisper them in the ears of their dearest friends to the exclusion of the rest. The possession of this unknown and invaluable fact brings them together, whispering and conspiring, at every possible moment. Freemasons again—how are they kept together; except by the possession of secrets which are said to have been published over and over again? And when two people have a secret which means—all that the secret between Colquhoun and Mrs. Cassilis meant, they can no more help being drawn together than the waters can cease to find their own level. To be together, to feel that the only other person in the world who knows that secret is with you, is a kind of safety. Yet what did it matter to Colquhoun? Simply nothing. The secret was his as well as hers, but the reasons for keeping it a secret were not his at all, but hers entirely.
So Phillis was neglected by her guardian and left to Agatha and Jack Dunquerque, with such results as we shall see.
So Lawrence Colquhoun fell into the power of this man of stocks, about the mouth of whose City den the footsteps pointed all one way. He congratulated himself; he found out Gilead Beck, and they congratulated each other.
"I don't see," said Colquhoun, who had already enough for four bachelors, "why one's income should not be doubled."
"With Mr. Cassilis," said Gilead Beck, "you sign cheques, and he gives you dividends. It's like Ile, because you can go on pumping."
"He understands more than any other living man," said Lawrence.
"He is in the inner track, sir," said Mr. Beck.
"And a man," said Lawrence, "ready to take in his friends with himself."
"A high-toned and a whole-souled man," said Gilead Beck, with enthusiasm. "That man, sir, I do believe would take in the hull world."