"Pictoribus atque PoetisQuidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas."
"Pictoribus atque PoetisQuidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas."
"Pictoribus atque PoetisQuidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas."
"Pictoribus atque Poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas."
"With commissions"—Cornelius Jagenal spoke as if Gilead Beck was a man of multitude, signifying many, and as if one commission was a thousand—"with commissions pouring in as they should, Brother Humphrey——"
"And the great Epic, the masterpiece of the century about to be published in the Grand Style, brother Cornelius, the only style which is worthy of its merits——"
"Something definite should be attempted, Humphrey——"
"You mean, brother——"
"With regard to——"
"With regard to Phillis Fleming."
They looked at each other meaningly and firmly. The little table was between them; it was past twelve o'clock; already two or three soda-water bottles were lying on it empty; and the world looked rosy to the poetic pair.
Humphrey was the first to speak after the young lady's name was mentioned. He removed the pipe from his mouth, threw back his head, stroked his long brown beard, and addressed the ceiling.
"She is," he said, "she is indeed a charming girl. Her outlines finely but firmly drawn; her colouring delicate, but strongly accentuated; the grouping to which she lends herself always differentiated artistically; her single attitudes designed naturally and with freedom; her flesh-tints remarkably pure and sweet; her draperies falling in artistic folds; her atmosphere softened as by the perfumed mists of morning; her hair tied in the simple knot which is the admiration and despair of many painters;—you agree with my rendering, brother Cornelius"—he turned his reflective gaze from the ceiling, and fixed his lustrous eyes, perhaps with the least little look of triumph, upon his brother—"my rendering of this incomparable Work?"
He spoke of the young lady as if she were a picture. This was because, immediately after receiving his commission, he bethought him of reading a little modern criticism, and so bought theAcademyfor a few weeks. In that clear bubbling fount of modern English undefiled, the Art criticisms are done with such entire freedom from cant and affectation that they are a pleasure to read; and from its pages every Prig is so jealously kept out, that the paper is as widely circulated and as popular asPunch; thus Humphrey Jagenal acquired a new jargon of Art criticism, which he developed and made his own.
Cornelius had been profiting by the same delightful and genial enemy to Mutual Admiration Societies. He was a little taken aback for a moment by the eloquence and fidelity of his brother's word-picture, but stimulated to rivalry. He made answer, gazing into the black and hollow depths of the empty fireplace, and speaking slowly as if he enjoyed his words too much to let them slip out too fast—
"She is all that you say, Humphrey. From your standpoint nothing could be better. I judge her, however, from my own platform. I look on her as one of Nature's sweetest poems; such a poem as defies the highest effort of the greatest creative genius; where the cadenced lines are sunlit, and as they ripple on make music in your soul. You are rapt with their beauty; you are saddened with the unapproachable magic of their charm; you feel the deepest emotions of the heart awakened and beating in responsive harmony. And when, after long and patient watching, the Searcher after the Truth of Beauty feels each verse sink deeper and deeper within him, till it becomes a part of his own nature, there arises before him, clad in mystic and transparent Coan robe, the spirit of subtle wisdom, long lying perdu in those magic utterances. She is a lyric; she is a sonnet; she is an epigram——"
"At least," interrupted Humphrey unkindly, cutting short his brother's freest flow, "at least she doesn't carry a sting."
"Then let us say an Idyl——"
"Cornelius, make an Idyl yourself for her," Humphrey interrupted again, because really his brother was taking an unfair advantage of a paltry verbal superiority. "Now that we have both described her—and I am sure, brother," he added out of the kindness of his heart, "no description could be more poetically true than your own—it would make even a stranger see Phillis standing in a vision before his eyes. But let us see what had better be done."
"We must act at once, Humphrey. We must call upon her at her guardian's, Mrs. L'Estrange, at Twickenham. Perhaps that lady does not know so many men of genius as to render the accession of two more to her circle anything but a pleasure and an honour. And as for our next steps, they must be guided by our finesse, by our knowledge of the world, our insight into a woman's heart, our—shall I say our power of intrigue, Humphrey?"
Then the Artist positively winked. It is not a gesture to be commended from an artistic point of view, but he did it. Then he chuckled and wagged his head.
Then the Poet in his turn also winked, chuckled, and wagged his head too.
"We understand each other, Humphrey. We always do."
"We must make our own opportunity," said the Artist thoughtfully. "Not together, but separately."
"Surely separately. Together would never do."
"We will go to bed early to-night, in order to be fresh to-morrow. Have you—did you—can you give me any of your own experiences in this way, Cornelius?"
The Poet shook his head.
"I may have been wooed," he said. "Men of genius are always run after. But as I am a bachelor, you see it is clear that I never proposed."
Humphrey had much the same idea in his own mind, and felt as if the wind was a little taken out of his sails. This often happens when two sister craft cruise so very close alongside of each other.
"Do not let us be nervous, Humphrey," the elder brother went on kindly. "It is the simplest thing in the world, I dare say, when you come to do it. Love finds out a way."
"When I was in Rome——" Humphrey said, casting his thoughts backwards thirty years.
"When I was in Heidelberg——" said Cornelius, in the same mood of retrospective meditation.
"There was a model—a young artist's model——"
"There was a little country girl——"
"With the darkest eyes, and hair of a deep blue-black, the kind of colour one seems only to read of or to see in a picture."
"With blue eyes as limpid as the waters of the Neckar, and light-brown hair which caught the sunshine in a way that one seldom seems to see, but which we poets sometimes sing of."
Then they both started and looked at each other guiltily.
"Cornelius," said Humphrey, "I think that Phillis would not like these reminiscences. We must offer virgin hearts."
"True, brother," said Cornelius with a sigh, "We must. Yet the recollection is not unpleasant."
They went to bed early, only concentrating into two hours the brandy-and-soda of four. It was a wonderful thing that neither gave the other the least hint of a separate and individual preference for Phillis. They were running together, as usual, in double harness, and so far as might be gathered from their conversation they were proposing to themselves that both should marry Phillis.
They dressed with more than usual care in the morning, and, without taking their customary walk, sat each in his own room till two o'clock, when Humphrey sought Cornelius in the Workshop.
They surveyed each other with admiration. They were certainly a remarkable pair, and, save for that little redness of the nose already alluded to, they were more youthful than one could conceive possible at the age of fifty. Their step was elastic; their eyes were bright; Humphrey's beard was as brown and silky, Cornelius's cheek as smooth, as twenty years before. This it is to lead a life unclouded and devoted to contemplation of Art. This it is to have a younger brother, successful, and never tired of working for his seniors.
"We are not nervous, brother?" asked Cornelius with a little hesitation.
"Not at all," said Humphrey sturdily, "not at all. Still, to steady the system, perhaps——"
"Yes," said Cornelius; "you are quite right, brother. We will."
There was no need of words. The reader knows already what was implied.
Humphrey led the way to the dining-room, where he speedily found a pint of champagne. With this modest pick-me-up, which no one surely will grudge the brethren, they started on their way.
"What we need, Cornelius," said Humphrey, putting himself outside the last drop—"What we need. Not what we wish for."
Then he straightened his back, smote his chest, stamped lustily with his right foot, and looked like a war-horse before the battle.
Unconscious of the approaching attack of these two conquering heroes, Phillis and Agatha L'Estrange were sitting in the shade and on the grass: the elder lady with some work, the younger doing nothing. It was a special characteristic with her that she could sit for hours doing nothing. So the modern Arabs, the gipsies, niggerdom in general, and all that large section of humanity which has never learned to read and write, are contented to fold their hands, lie down, and think away the golden hours. What they think about, these untutored tribes, the Lord only knows. Whether by degrees, and as they grow old, some faint intelligence of the divine order sinks into their souls, or whether they become slowly enwrapped in the beauty of the world, or whether their thoughts, always turned in the bacon-and-cabbage direction, are wholly gross and earthly, I cannot tell. Phillis's thoughts were still as the thoughts of a child, but as those of a child passing into womanhood: partly selfish, inasmuch as she consciously placed her own individuality, as every child does, in the centre of the universe, and made the sun, the moon, the planets, and all the minor stars revolve around her; partly unselfish, because they hovered about the forms of two or three people she loved, and took the shape of devising means of pleasing these people; partly artistic, because the beauty of the June afternoon cried aloud for admiration, while the sunshine lay on the lawns and the flower-beds, threw up the light leaves and blossoms of the passion-flower on the house-side, and made darker shadows in the gables, while the glorious river ran swiftly at her feet. The river of which she never tired. Other things lost their novelty, but the river never.
"I wish Jack Dunquerque were here," she said at last.
"I wish so, too," said Agatha. "Why did we not invite him, Phillis?"
Then they were silent again.
"I wish Mr. Beck would call," remarked Phillis.
"My dear, we do nothing but wish. But here is somebody—two young gentlemen. Who are they, I wonder?"
"O Agatha, they are the Twins!"
Phillis sprang from her seat, and ran to meet them with a most unaffected pleasure.
"This is Mr. Cornelius Jagenal," she said, introducing them to Agatha. "The Poet, you know." And here she laughed, because Agatha did not know, and Cornelius perked up his head and tried to look unconscious of his fame. "And this is Mr. Humphrey, the Artist." And then she laughed again, because Humphrey did exactly the same as Cornelius, only with an air of deprecation, as one who would say, "Never mind my fame for the present."
It was embarrassing for Mrs. L'Estrange, because she could not for her life recollect any Poet or Artist named Jagenal. The men and their work were alike unknown to her. And why did Phillis laugh? And what did the pair before her look so solemn about?
They were solemn partly from vanity, which is the cause of most of the grave solemnity we so much admire in the world, and partly because, finding themselves face to face with Phillis, they became suddenly and painfully aware that they had come on a delicate errand. Cornelius looked furtively at Humphrey, and the Artist glanced at the Poet, but neither found any help from his brother. Their courage, as evanescent as that of Mr. Robert Acres, was rapidly oozing out at their boots.
Phillis noted their embarrassment, and tried to put them at their ease. This was difficult; they were so inordinately vain, so self-conscious, so unused to anything beyond their daily experience, that they were as awkward as a pair of fantoccini. People who live alone get into the habit of thinking and talking about themselves; the Twins were literally unable to think or speak on any other subject.
Phillis, they saw, to begin with, was altered. Somehow she looked older. Certainly more formidable. And it was awkward to feel that she was taking them in a manner under her own protection before a stranger. And why did she laugh? The task which they discussed with such an airy confidence over the brandy-and-soda assumed, in the presence of the young lady herself, dimensions quite out of proportion to their midnight estimate. All these considerations made them feel and look ill at ease.
Also it was vexatious that neither of the ladies turned the conversation upon the subject nearest to each man's heart—his own Work. On the contrary, Phillis asked after Joseph, and sent him an invitation to come and see her; Mrs. L'Estrange talked timidly about the weather, and tried them on the Opera, on the Academy, and on the last volume of Browning. It was odd in so great an Artist as Humphrey that he had not yet seen the Academy, and in so great a Poet as Cornelius that he had not read any recent poetry. Then they tried to talk about flowers. The two city-bred artists knew a wall-flower from a cabbage and a rose from a sprig of asparagus, and that was all.
Phillis would not help either the Twins or Agatha, so that the former grew more helpless every moment. In fact, the girl was staring at them, and wondering to feel how differently she regarded men and manners since that first evening in Carnarvon Square, when they produced champagne in her honour, and drank it all up themselves.
She remembered how she had looked at them with awe; how, after a day or two, this reverence vanished; how she found them to be mere shallow wind-bags and humbugs, and regarded them with contempt; how she made fun of them with Jack Dunquerque; and how she drew their portraits.
And now—it was a mark of her advanced education—she looked at them with pity. They were so dependent on each other for admiration; they were so childishly vain; they were so full of themselves; and their daily life of sleep, drink, and boastful pretension showed itself to her experienced head as so mean and sordid a thing.
She came to the help of the whole party, and took the Twins for a walk among the flowers, flattering them, asking how Work got on, congratulating them on their good looks, and generally making things comfortable for them.
Presently she found herself on the sloping bank of the river, where she was wont to sit with Jack. Cornelius Jagenal alone was by her side. She looked round, and saw Humphrey standing before Mrs. L'Estrange, and occasionally glancing over his shoulder. And she noticed, then, a curiously nervous motion of her companion's hand; also that his cheek was twitching with some secret emotion. He looked older, too, she thought; perhaps that was the bright sunlight, which brought out the dells and valleys and the crow's-feet round his eyes.
He cleared his voice with an effort, and opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again, silent.
"You were going to say, Mr. Cornelius?"
"Yes. Will you sit down, Miss Fleming?"
"He is going to tell me about theUpheaving of Ælfred" thought Phillis. "And how does the Workshop get on?" she asked.
"Fairly well," he replied modestly. "We publish in the autumn. The work is to be brought out, you will be glad to learn, with all the luxury of the best illustrations, paper, print, and binding that money can procure."
"So that all you want is the poem itself," said Phillis, with a mischievous light in her eyes.
"Ye-es——" he winced a little. "As you say, the Epic itself alone is wanting, and that advances with mighty strides. My brother Humphrey—a noble creature is Humphrey, Miss Fleming——"
She bowed and smiled.
"Is he still hard at work? Always hard at work?" She laughed as she asked the question.
"His work is crushing him, Miss Fleming—may I call you Phillis?" He spoke very solemnly—"His work is crushing him."
"Of course you may, Mr. Cornelius. We are quite old friends. But I am sorry to hear that your brother is being crushed."
"Yesterday, Phillis—I feel to you already like a brother," pursued the Poet—"yesterday I discovered the secret of Humphrey's life. May I tell it to you?"
"If you please." She began to be a little bored. Also she noticed that Agatha wore a look of mute suffering, as if the Artist was getting altogether too much for her. "If you please; but be quick, because I think Mrs. L'Estrange wants me."
"I will tell you the secret in a few words. My brother Humphrey adores you with all the simplicity and strength of a noble artistic nature."
"Does he? You mean he likes me very much. How good he his! I am glad to hear it, Mr. Cornelius, though why it need be a secret I do not know."
"Then my poor brother—he is all loyalty, and brings you a virgin heart," (O Cornelius! and the model with the blue black hair!) "an unsullied name, and the bright prospects of requited genius—my brother may hope?"
Phillis did not understand one word.
"Certainly," she said; "I am sure I would like to see him hoping."
"I will tell him, sister Phillis," said Cornelius, nodding with a sunny smile. "You have made two men happy, and one at least grateful."
His mission was accomplished, his task done. It will hardly be believed that this treacherous bard, growing more and more nervous as he reflected on the uncertainty of the wedded life, actually came to a sudden resolution to plead his brother's cause. Humphrey was the younger. Let him bear off the winsome bride.
"It will be a change in our lives," he said. "You will allow me to have my share in his happiness?"
Phillis made no reply. Decidedly the Poet was gone distraught with overmuch reading and thought.
Cornelius, smiling, crowing, and laughing almost like a child, pressed her hand and left her, stepping with a youthful elasticity across the lawn. Humphrey, sitting beside Mrs. L'Estrange, was bewildering that good lady with a dissertation on colourà proposof a flower which he held in his hand. Agatha could not understand this strange pair, who looked so youthful until you came to see them closely, and then they seemed to be of any age you pleased to name. Nor could she understand their talk, which was pedantic, affected, and continually involved the theory that the speaker was, next to his brother, the greatest of living men.
If it was awkward and stupid sitting with Humphrey on a bench while he discoursed on Colour, it was still more awkward when the other one appeared with a countenance wreathed with smiles, and sat on the other side. Nor did there appear any reason why the one with the beard should suddenly break off his oration, turn very red in the face, get up, and walk slowly across the lawn to take his brother's place. But that is what he did, and Cornelius took up the running.
Humphrey sat down beside Phillis without speaking. She noticed in him the same characteristics of nervousness as in his brother. Twice he attempted to speak, and twice his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.
"He is going to tell me that Cornelius adores me," she thought.
It was instinct. That was exactly what Humphrey—the treacherous Humphrey—had determined on doing. Matrimony, contemplated at close quarters and in the presence of the enemy, so to speak, lost all its charms. Humphrey thought of the pleasant life in Carnarvon Square, and determined, at the very last moment, that if either of them was to marry it should not be himself. Cornelius was the elder. Let him be married first.
"You are peaceful and happy here, Miss Fleming—may I call you Phillis?"
"Certainly, Mr. Humphrey. We are old friends, you know. And I am very happy here."
"I am glad"—he sighed heavily—"I am very glad indeed to hear that."
"Are you not happy, Mr. Humphrey? Why do you look so gloomy? And how is the Great Picture getting on?"
"The 'Birth of the Renaissance' is advancing rapidly—rapidly," he said. "It will occupy a canvas fourteen feet long by six high."
"If you have got the canvas, and the frame, and the purchaser, all you want now is the Picture."
"True, as you say, the Picture. It is all that I want. And that is striding—literally striding,Iam happy, dear Miss Fleming, dear Phillis, since I may call you by your pretty Christian name. It is of my brother that I think. It is on his account that I feel unhappy."
"What is the matter with him?"
She tried very hard not to laugh, but would not trust herself to look in his face. So that he thought she was modestly guessing his secret.
"He is a great, a noble fellow, His life is made up of sacrifices and devoted to hard work. No one works so conscientiously as Cornelius. Now, at length the prospect opens up, and he will take immediately his true position among English poets."
"Indeed, I am glad of it."
"Thank you. Yet he is not happy. There is a secret sorrow in his life."
"Oh, dear!" Phillis cried impatiently, "do let me know it, and at once. Was there ever such a pair of devoted brothers?"
Humphrey was disconcerted for the moment, but went on again:
"A secret which no one has guessed but myself."
"I know what it is." She laughed and clapped her hands.
"Has he told you, Phillis? The secret of his life is that my brother Cornelius is attached to you with all the devotion of his grand poetic soul."
"Why, that was what I thought you were going to say!"
"You knew it?" Humphrey was as solemn as an eight-day clock, while Phillis's eyes danced with mirth. "And you feel the response of a passionate nature? He shall be your Petrarch. You shall read his very soul. But Cornelius brings you a virgin heart, a virgin heart, Phillis" (O Humphrey! and after what you know about Gretchen!). "May he hope that——"
"Certainly he may hope, and so may you. And now we have had quite enough of devotion and secrets and great poetic souls. Come, Mr. Humphrey."
She rose from the grass and looked him in the face, laughing. For a moment the thought crossed the Artist's brain that he had made a mess of it somehow.
"Now," she said, joining the other two, "let us have some tea, and be real."
Neither of them understood her desire to be real, and the Twins declined tea. That beverage they considered worthy only of late breakfast, and to be taken as a morning pick-me-up. So they departed, taking leave with a multitudinous smile and many tender hand-pressures. As they left the garden together arm-in-arm they straightened their backs, held up their heads, and stuck out their legs like the Knave of Spades. And they looked so exactly like a pair of triumphant cocks that Phillis almost expected them to crow.
"Au revoir," said Cornelius, taking off his hat, with a whole wreath of smiles, for a final parting at the gate.
"Sans dire adieu," said Humphrey, doing the same, with a light in his eyes which played upon his beard like sunshine.
"Phillis, my dear," said Agatha, "they really are the most wonderful pair I ever saw."
"Theyareso funny," said Phillis, laughing. "They sleep all day, and when they wake up they pretend to have been working. And they sit up all night. And, O Agatha! each one came to me just now, and told me he had a secret to impart to me."
"What was that, my dear?"
"That the other one adored me, and might he hope?"
"But, Phillis, this is beyond a joke. And actually here, before my very eyes!"
"I said they might both hope. Though I don't know what they are to hope. It seems to me that if those two lazy men, who never do anything but pretend to be exhausted with work, were only to hope for anything at all it might wake them up a little. And they each said that the other would bring me a virgin heart, Agatha. What did they mean?"
Agatha laughed.
"Well, my dear, it is a most uncommon thing to find in a man of fifty, and I should say, if it were true, which I don't believe, that it argued extreme insensibility. Such an offering is desirable at five-and-twenty, but very, very rare, my dear at any age. And at their time of life I should think that it was like an apple in May—kept too long, Phillis, and tasting of the straw. But then you don't understand."
Phillis thought that a virgin heart might be one of the things to be understood when the Coping-stone was achieved, and asked no more.
At the Richmond railway-station the brothers, who had not spoken a word to each other since leaving the house, turned into the refreshment-room by common consent and without consultation. They had, as usual, a brandy-and-soda, and on taking the glasses in their hands they looked at each other and smiled.
"Cornelius."
"Humphrey."
"Shall we"—the Artist dropped his voice, so that the attendant damsel might not hear—"shall we drink the health and happiness of Phillis?"
"We will, Humphrey," replied the Poet, with enthusiasm.
When they got into the train and found themselves alone in the carriage they dug each other in the ribs once, with great meaning.
"She knows," said the Poet, with a grin worthy of Mephistopheles, "that she has found a virgin heart."
"She does," said Humphrey. "O Cornelius, and the little Gretchen and the milkpails? Byronic Rover!"
"Ah, Humphrey, shall I tell her of the contadina, the black-eyed model, and the old wild days in Rome, eh? Don Giovanni!"
Then they both laughed, and then they fell asleep in the carriage, because it was long past their regular hour for the afternoon nap, and slept till the guard took their tickets at Vauxhall.
"This fellow's of exceeding honesty,And knows all qualities."
"This fellow's of exceeding honesty,And knows all qualities."
"This fellow's of exceeding honesty,And knows all qualities."
"This fellow's of exceeding honesty,
And knows all qualities."
It was the night of the Derby of 1875. The great race had been run, and the partisans of Galopin were triumphant. Those who had set their affections on other names had finished their weeping, because by this time lamentation, especially among those of the baser sort was changed for a cheerful resignation begotten of much beer. The busy road was deserted, save for the tramps who plodded their weary way homeward; the moon, now in its third quarter, looked with sympathetic eye upon the sleeping forms which dotted the silent downs. These lay strewn like unto the bodies on a battle-field—they lay in rows, they lay singly; they were protected from the night-dews by canvas tents, or they were exposed to the moon-light and the wind. All day long these people had plied the weary trade of amusing a mob; the Derby, when most hearts are open, is the harvest-day of those who play instruments, those who dance, those who tumble, those who tell fortunes. Among these honest artists sleeps the 'prentice who is going to rob the till to pay his debt of honour; the seedy betting-man in a drunken stupor; the boy who has tramped all the way from town to pick up a sixpence somehow; the rustic who loves a race; and the sharp-fingered lad with the restless eye and a pocketful of handkerchiefs. The holiday is over, and few are the heads which will awake in the morning clear and untroubled with regrets, remorse, or hot coppers. It is two in the morning, and most of the revellers are asleep. A few, still awake, are at the Burleigh Club; and among these are Gilead Beck, Ladds, and Jack Dunquerque.
They have been to Epsom. On the course the two Englishmen seemed, not unnaturally, to know a good many men. Some, whose voices were, oddly enough, familiar to Gilead Beck, shook hands with him and laughed. One voice—it belonged to a man in a light coat and a white hat—reminded him of Thomas Carlyle. The owner of the voice laughed cheerfully when Beck told him so. Another made him mindful of John Ruskin. And the owner of that voice, too, laughed and changed the subject. They were all cheerful, these friends of Jack Dunquerque; they partook with affability of the luncheon and drank freely of the champagne. Also there was a good deal of quiet betting. Jack Dunquerque, Gilead Beck observed, was the least adventurous. Betting and gambling were luxuries which Jack's income would not allow him. Most other things he could share in, but betting was beyond him. Gilead Beck plunged and won. It was a part of his Luck that he should win; but, nevertheless, when Galopin carried his owner's colours past the winning-post, Gilead gave a great shout of triumph, and felt for once the pleasures of the Turf.
Now it was all over. Jack and he were together in the smoking-room, where half a dozen lingered. Ladds was somewhere in the club, but not with them.
"It was a fine sight," said Gilead Beck, on the subject of the race generally; "a fine sight. In the matter of crowds you beat us: that I allow. And the horses were good: that I allow too. But let me show you a trotting-race, where the sweet little winner goes his measured mile in two minutes and a half. That seems to me better sport. But the Derby is a fine race, and I admit it. When I go back to America," he went on, "I shall institute races of my own—with a great National Dunquerque Cup—and we will have an American Derby, with trotting thrown in. There's room for both sports. What do you think, Mr. Dunquerque, of having sports from all countries?"
"Seems a bright idea. Take your bull-fights from Spain; your fencing from France; your racing from England—what will you have from Germany?"
"Playing at soldiers, I guess. They don't seem to care for any other game."
"And Russia?"
"A great green table with a pack of cards and a roulette. We can get a few Egyptian bonds for the Greeks to exhibit their favourite game with. We may import a band of brigands for the Italian sports. Imitation murder will represent Turkish Delights, and the performers shall camp in Central Park. It wouldn't be bad fun to go out at night and hunt them. Say, Mr. Dunquerque, we'll do it. A permanent Exhibition of the Amusements of all Nations. You shall come over if you like, and show them English fox-hunting. Where is Captain Ladds?"
"I left him hovering round the card-tables. I will bring him up."
Presently Jack returned.
"Ladds is hard at work atécartéwith a villainous-looking stranger. And I should think, from the way Tommy is sticking at it, that Tommy is dropping pretty heavily."
"It's an American he's playing with," said one of the other men in the room. "Don't know who brought him; not a member; a Major Hamilton Ruggles—don't know what service."
Mr. Beck looked up quietly, and reflected a moment. Then he said softly to Jack—
"Mr. Dunquerque, I think we can have a little amusement out of this. If you were to go now to Captain Ladds, and if you were to bring him up to this same identical room with Major Hamilton Ruggles, I think, sir,—I do think you would see something pleasant."
There was a sweet and winning smile on the face of Mr. Beck when he spoke these words. Jack immediately understood that there was going to be a row, and went at once on his errand, in order to promote it to the best of his power.
"You know Major Ruggles?" asked the first speaker.
"No, sir, no—I can hardly say that I know Major Ruggles. But I think he knows me."
In ten minutes Ladds and his adversary atécartécame upstairs. Ladds wore the heavy impenetrable look in which, as in a mask, he always played; the other, who had a limp in one leg and a heavy scar across his face, came with him. He was laughing in a high-pitched voice. After them came Jack.
At sight of Mr. Beck, Major Ruggles stopped suddenly.
"I beg your pardon, Captain Ladds," he said. "I find I have forgotten my handkerchief."
He turned to go. But, Jack, the awkward, was in his way.
"Handkerchief sticking out of your pocket," said Ladds.
"So it is, so it is!"
By a sort of instinct the half-dozen men in the smoking-room seemed to draw their chairs and to close in together. There was evidently something going to happen.
Mr. Beck rose solemnly—surely nobody ever had so grave a face as Gilead P. Beck—and advanced to Major Ruggles.
"Major Ruggles," he said, "I gave you to understand, two days ago, that I didn't remember you. I found out afterwards that I was wrong. I remember you perfectly well."
"You used words, Mr. Beck, which——"
"Ay, ay—I know. You want satisfaction, Major. You shall have it. Sit down now, sit down, sir. We are all among gentlemen here, and this is a happy meeting for both of us. What will you drink?—I beg your pardon, Mr. Dunquerque, but I thought we were at the Langham. Perhaps you would yourself ask Major Ruggles what he will put himself outside of?"
The Major, who did not seem quite at his ease, took a seltzer-and-brandy and a cigarette. Then he looked furtively at Gilead Beck. He understood what the man was going to say and why he was going to say it.
"Satisfaction, Major? Wal, these gentlemen shall be witnesses. Yesterday mornin', as I was walkin' down the steps of the Langham Hotel, this gentleman, this high-toned, whole-souled pride of the American army, met me and offered his hand. 'Hope you are well, Mr. Beck,' were his affable words. 'Hope you are quite well. Met you last at Delmonico's, in with Boss Calderon.' Now, gentlemen, you'll hardly believe me when I tell you I answered this politeness by askin' the Major if he had ever heard of a Banco Steerer, and if he knew the meanin' of a Roper. He did not reply, doubtless because he was wounded in his feelin's—being above all things a man of honourandthe boast of his native country. I then left him with a Scriptural reference, which p'r'aps he's overhauled since, and now understands what I meant when I said that, if I was to meet him goin' around arm-in-arm with Ananias and Sapphira, I'd say he was in good company."
Here the Major jumped in his chair, and put his right hand to his shirt-front.
"No, sir," said Beck, unmoved. "I can tackle more'n one wild cat at once, if you mean fightin,' which you do not. And it's no use, no manner o' use, feelin' in that breast-pocket of yours, because the shootin' irons in this country are always left at home. You sit still, Major, and take it quiet. I'm goin' to be more improvin' presently."
"Perhaps, Beck," said Jack, "you would explain what a Banco Steerer and a Roper are."
"I was comin' to that, sir. They air one and the same animal. The Roper or the Banco Steerer, gentlemen, will find you out the morning after you land in Chicago or Saint Louis. He will accost you—very friendly, wonderful friendly—when you come out of your hotel, by your name, and he will remind you—which is most surprising, considerin' you never set eyes on his face before—how you have dined together in Cincinnati, or it may be Orleans, or perhaps Francisco, because he finds out where you came from last. And he will shake hands with you: and he will propose a drink; and he will pay for that drink. And presently he will take you somewhere else, among his pals, and he will strip you so clean that there won't be left the price of a four cent paper to throw around your face and hide your blushes. In London, gentlemen, they do, I believe, the confidence trick. Perhaps Major Ruggles will explain his own method presently."
But Major Ruggles preserved silence.
"So, gentlemen, after I'd shown my familiarity with the Ax of the Apostles, I went down town, thinkin' how mighty clever I was—that's a way of mine, gentlemen, which generally takes me after I've made a durned fool of myself. All of a sudden I recollected the face of Major Ruggles, and where I'd seen him last. Yes, Major, youdidknow me—you were quite right, and I ought to have kept Ananias out of the muss—youdidknow me, and I'd forgotten it. Those words of mine, Major, required explanation, as you said just now."
"Satisfaction, I said," objected the Major, trying to recover himself a little.
"Sir, you air a whole-souled gentleman; and your sense of honour is as keen as a quarter-dollar razor. Satisfaction you shall have; and if you are not satisfied when I have done with you, ask these gentlemen around what an American nobleman—one of the noblemen like yourself that we do sometimes show the world—wants more, and the more you shall git.
"You did know me, Major; but you made a little mistake. It was not with Boss Calderon that you met me, because I do not know Boss Calderon; nor was it at Delmonico's. And where it was I am about to tell this company."
He hesitated a moment.
"Gentlemen, I believe it is a rule that strangers in your clubs must be introduced by members. I was introduced by my friend Mr. Dunquerque, and I hope I shall not disgrace that introduction. May I ask who introduced Major Ruggles?"
Nobody knew. In fact, he had passed in with an acquaintance picked up somehow, and stayed there.
The Major tried again to get away. "This is fooling," he said. "Captain Ladds, do you wish me to be insulted? If you do, sir, say so. You will find that an American officer——"
"Silence, sir!" said Mr. Beck. "An American officer! Say that again, and I will teach you to respect the name of an American officer. I've been a private soldier myself in that army," he added, by way of explanation. "Now, Major Ruggles, I am going to invite you to remain while I tell these gentlemen a little story—a very little story—but it concerns you. And if Captain Ladds likes when that story is finished, I will apologise to you, and to him, and to all this honourable company."
"Let us hear the story," said Jack. "Nothing could be fairer."
"Nothing!" echoed the little circle of listeners.
Beck addressed the room in general, occasionally pointing the finger of emphasis at the unfortunate Major. His victim showed every sign of bodily discomfort and mental agitation. First he fidgeted in the chair; then he threw away his cigarette; then he folded his arms and stared defiantly at the speaker. Then he got up again.
"What have I to do with you and your story? Let me go. Captain Ladds, you have my address. And as for you, sir, you shall hear from me to-morrow."
"Sit down, Major." Gilead Beck invited him to resume his chair with a sweet smile. "Sit down. The night's young. May be Captain Ladds wants his revenge."
"Not I," said Ladds. "Had enough. Go to bed. Not a revengeful man."
"Then," said Gilead Beck, his face darkening and his manner suddenly changing, "I will take your revenge for you. Sit down, sir!"
It was an order he gave this time, not an invitation, and the stranger obeyed with an uneasy smile.
"It is not gambling, Major Ruggles," Beck went on. "Captain Ladds' revenge is going to be of another sort, I reckon."
He drew close to Major Ruggles, and sitting on the table, placed one foot on a chair which was between the stranger and the door.
"Delmonico's, was it, where we met last? And with Joe Calderon—Boss Calderon? Really, Major Ruggles, I was a great fool not to remember that at once. But I always am weak over faces, even such a striking face as yours. So we met last when you were dining with Boss Calderon, eh?"
Then Mr. Beck began his little story.
"Six years ago, gentlemen,—long before I found my Butterfly, of which you may have heard,—I ran up and down the Great Pacific Railway between Chicago and Francisco for close upon six months. I did not choose that way of spendin' the golden hours, because, if one had a choice at all, a Pullman's sleeping-car on the Pacific Railway would be just one of the last places you would choose to pass your life in. I should class it, as a permanent home, with a first-class saloon in a Cunard steamer. No, gentlemen, I was on board those cars in an official capacity. I was conductor. It is not a proud position, not an office which you care to magnify; it doesn't lift your chin in the air and stick out your toes like the proud title of Major does for our friend squirmin' in the chair before us. Squirm on, Major; but listen, because this is interestin'. On those cars and on that railway there is a deal of time to be got through. I am bound to say that time kind of hangs heavy on the hands. You can't be always outside smokin'; you can't sleep more'n a certain time, because the nigger turns you out and folds up the beds; and you oughtn't to drink more'n your proper whack. Also, you get tired watchin' the scenery. You may make notes if you like, but you get tired o' that. And you get mortal tired of settin' on end. Mostly, therefore, you stand around the conductor, and you listen to his talk.
"But six years ago the dullness of that long journey was enlivened by the presence of a few sportsmen like our friend the Major here. They were so fond of the beauties of Nature, they were so wrapped up in the pride of bein' American citizens and ownin' the biggest railway in the world, that they would travel all the way from New York to San Francisco, stay there a day, and then travel all the way back again. And the most remarkable thing was, that when they got to New York again they would take a through ticket all the way back to San Fran. This attachment to the line pleased the company at first. It did seem as if good deeds was going to meet their recompense at last, even in this world, and the spirited conduct of the gentlemen, when it first became known, filled everybody with admiration.—You remember, Major, the very handsome remarks made by you yourself on the New York platform.
"Lord, is it six years ago? Why, it seems to me but yesterday, Major Ruggles, that I saw you standin' erect and bold—lookin' like a senator in a stove pipe hat, store boots, and go-to-meetin' coat—shakin' hands with the chairman. 'Sir,' you said, with tears in your eyes, 'you represent the advance of civilisation. We air now, indeed, ahead of the hull creation. You have united the Pacific and the Atlantic. And, sir, by the iron road the West and the East may jine hands and defy the tyranny of Europe.' Those, gentlemen, were the noble sentiments of Major Hamilton Ruggles.—Did I say, Major, that I would give you satisfaction? Wait till I have done, and you shall bust with satisfaction."
The Major did not look, at all events, like being satisfied so far.
"One day an ugly rumor got about—you know how rumours spread—that the Great Pacific Railroad was a big gamblin' shop. The enthusiastic travellers up and down that line were one mighty confederated gang. They were up to every dodge: they travelled together, and they travelled separate; they had dice, and those dice were loaded; they had cards, and those cards were marked; they played on the square, but behind every man's hand was a confederate, and he gave signs, so that the honest sportsman knew how to play. And by these simple contrivances, gentlemen, they always won. So much did they win, that I have conducted a through train in which, when we got to Chicago, there wasn't a five-dollar piece left among the lot. And all the time strangers to each other. The gang never, by so much as a wink, let out that they had met before. And no one could tell them from ordinary passengers. But I knew; and I had a long conversation with the Directors one day, the result of which—Major Ruggles, perhaps you can tell these gentlemen what was the result of that conversation."
The man was sallow. His sharp eyes gleamed with an angry light as he looked from one to the other, as if in the hope of finding an associate. There was none. Only Ladds, his adversary, moved quietly around the room and sat near to Gilead Beck, on the table, butnearer the door. The Major saw this manœuvre with a sinking heart, because his pockets were heavy with the proceeds of the evening game.
"Well, gentlemen, a general order came for all the conductors. It was 'No play.' We were to stop that. And another general order was—an imperative order, Major, so that I am sure you will not bear malice—'If they won't leave off, chuck 'em out.' That was the order, Major, 'Chuck 'em out.'
"It was on the journey back from San Francisco that the first trouble began. You were an upright man to look at then, Major; you hadn't got the limp you've got now, and you hadn't received that unfort'nate scar across your handsome face. You were a most charmin' companion for a long railway journey, but you had that little weakness—that youwouldplay. I warned you at the time. I said, 'Cap'en, this must stop.' You were only a Cap'en then. But you would go on. 'Cap'en,' I said, 'if you will not stop, you will be chucked out.' You will acknowledge, Major, that I gave you fair warnin'. You laughed. That was all you did. You laughed and you shuffled the cards. But the man who was playing with you got up. He saw reason. Then you drew out a revolver and used bad language. So I made for you.
"Gentlemen, it was not a fair fight. But orders had to be observed. In half a minute I had his pistol from him, and in two minutes more he was flyin' from the end of the train. We were goin' twenty miles an hour, and we hadn't time to stop to see if he was likely to get along somehow. And the last I saw of Captain Ruggles—I beg your pardon, Major—was his two heels in the air as he left the end of the train. I s'pose, Major, it was stoppin' so sudden gave you that limp and ornamented your face with that beautiful scar. The ground was gritty, I believe?"
Everybody's eyes were turned on the Major, whose face was livid.
"Gentlemen," Mr. Beck continued, "that ærial flight of Captain Ruggles improved the moral tone of the Pacific Railroad to a degree that you would hardly believe. I don't think there has been a single sportsman chucked out since. Major Ruggles, sir, you were the blessed means, under Providence and Gilead P. Beck conjointly, of commencing a new and moral era for the Great Pacific Railroad.
"And now, Major, that my little story is told, may I ask if you are satisfied? Because if there is any other satisfaction in my power you shall have that too. Have I done enough for honour, gentlemen all?"
The men laughed.
"Now for a word with me," Ladds began.
"Cap'en," said Gilead Beck, "let me work through this contract, if you have no objection—Major Ruggles, you will clear out all your pockets."
The miserable man made no reply.
"Clear out every one, and turn them inside out, right away."
He neither moved nor spoke.
"Gentlemen," Mr. Beck said calmly, "you will be kind enough not to interfere."
He pulled a penknife out of his pocket and laid it on a chair open. He then seized Major Ruggles by the collar and arm. The man fought like a wild cat, but Beck's grasp was like a vice. It seemed incredible to the bystanders that a man should be so strong, so active, and so skilled. He tossed, rather than laid, his victim on the table, and then, holding both his hands in one grip of his own enormous fist, he deliberately ripped open the Major's trousers, waistcoat, and coat pockets, and took out the contents. When he was satisfied that nothing more was left in them he dragged him to the ground.
On the table lay the things which he had taken possession of.
"Take up those dice," he said to Ladds; "Try them; if they are not loaded, I will ask the Major's pardon."
They were loaded.
"Look at these cards," he went on. "They are the cards you have been playing with, when you thought you had a new pack of club-cards. If they are not marked, I will ask the Major to change places with me."
They were marked.
"And now, gentlemen, I think I may ask Captain Ladds what he has lost, and invite him to take it out of that heap."
There was a murmur of assent.
"I lost twenty pounds in notes and gold," said Ladds. "And I gave an I O U for sixty more."
There were other I O U's in the heap, and more gold when Ladds had recovered his own. The paper was solemnly torn up, but the coin restored to the Major, who now stood, abject, white, and trembling, but with the look of a devil in his eyes.
"Such men as you, Major," said Gilead the Moralist, "are the curse of our country. You see, gentlemen, we travel about, we make money fast; we are sometimes a reckless lot; the miners have got pockets full; there's everything to encourage such a crew as Major Ruggles belonged to. And when we find them out, we lynch them.—Lynch is the word, isn't it, Major?—do you want to know the end of this man, gentlemen? I am not much in the prophetic line, but I think I see a crowd of men in a minin' city, and I see a thick branch with a rope over it. And at the end of that rope is Major Ruggles's neck, tightened in a most unpleasant and ungentlemanly manner.—It's inhospitable, but what can you expect, Major? We like play, but we like playin' on the square. Now, Major, you may go. And you may thank the Lord on your knees before you go to sleep that this providential interference has taken place in London instead of the States. For had I told my interestin' anecdote at a bar in any city of the Western States, run up you would have been. You may go, Major Ruggles; and I daresay Cap'en Ladds, in consideration of the damage done to those bright and shinin' store clothes of yours, will forego the British kicking which I see tremblin' at the point of his toes."
Ladds did forego that revenge, and the Major slunk away.
"Nulla fere causa est in qua non femina litem Moverit."
When Mr. Wylie, the pamphleteer, left Gabriel Cassilis, the latter resumed with undisturbed countenance his previous occupation of reading the letters and telegrams he had laid aside. Among them was one which he took up gingerly, as if it were a torpedo.
"Pshaw!" he cried impatiently, tossing it from him. "Another of those anonymous letters. The third." He looked at it with disgust, and then half involuntarily his hand reached out and took it up again. "The third, and all in the same handwriting. 'I have written you two letters, and you have taken no notice. This is the third. Beware! Your wife was with Mr. Colquhoun yesterday; she will be with him again to-day and to-morrow. Ask her, if you dare, what is her secret with him. Ask him what hold he has over her. Watch her, and caution her lest something evil befall you.—Your well-wisher.'
"I am a fool," he said, "to be disquieted about an anonymous slander. What does it matter to me? As if Victoria—she did know Colquhoun before her marriage—their names were mentioned—I remember hearing that there had been flirtation—flirtation! As if Victoria could ever flirt! She was no frivolous silly girl. No one who knows Victoria could for a moment suspect—suspect! The word is intolerable. One would say I was jealous."
He pushed forward his papers and leaned back in his chair, casting his thoughts behind him to the days of his stiff and formal wooing. He remembered how he said, sitting opposite to her in her cousin's drawing-room—there was no wandering by the river-bank or in pleasant gardens on summer evenings for those two lovers—
"You bring me fewer springs than I can offer you, Victoria;" which was his pretty poetical way of telling her that he was nearly forty years older than herself: "but we shall begin life with no trammels of previous attachments on either hand."
He called it—and thought it—at sixty-five, beginning life; and it was quite true that he had never before conceived an attachment for any woman.
"No, Mr. Cassilis," she replied; "we are both free, quite free; and the disparity of age is only a disadvantage on my side, which a few years will remedy."
This cold stately woman conducting a flirtation before her marriage? This Juno among young matrons causing a scandal after her marriage? It was ridiculous.
He said to himself that it was ridiculous so often, that he succeeded at last in persuading himself that it really was. And when he had quite done that, he folded up the anonymous document, docketed it, and placed it in one of the numerous pigeon-holes of his desk, which was one of those which shut up completely, covering over papers, pigeon-holes, and everything.
Then he addressed himself again to business, and, but for an occasional twinge of uneasiness, like the first throb which presages the coming gout, he got through an important day's work with his accustomed ease and power.
The situation, as Lawrence Colquhoun told Victoria, was strained. There they were, as he put it, all three—himself, for some reason of his own, put first; the lady; and Gabriel Cassilis. The last was the one who did not know. There was no reason, none in the world, why things should not remain as they were, only that the lady would not let sleeping dangers sleep, and Lawrence was too indolent to resist. In other words, Victoria Cassilis, having once succeeded in making him visit her, spared no pains to bring him constantly to her house, and to make it seem as if he was that innocent sort ofcicisbeowhom English society allows.
Why?
The investigation of motives is a delicate thing at the best, and apt to lead the analyst into strange paths. It may be discovered that the philanthropist acts for love of notoriety; that the preacher does not believe in the truths he proclaims; that the woman of self-sacrifice and good works is consciously posing before an admiring world. This is disheartening, because it makes the cynic and the worldly-minded man to chuckle and chortle with an open joy. St. Paul, who was versed in the ways of the world, knew this perfectly when he proclaimed the insufficiency of good works. It is at all times best to accept the deed, and never ask the motive. And, after all, good deeds are something practical. And as for a foolish or a bad deed, the difficulty of ascertaining an adequate motive only becomes more complicated with its folly or its villainy. Mrs. Cassilis had everything to gain by keeping her old friend on the respectful level of a former acquaintance; she had everything to lose by treating him as a friend. And yet she forced her friendship upon him.
Kindly people who find in the affairs of other people sufficient occupation for themselves, and whose activity of intellect obtains a useful vent in observation and comment, watched them. The man was always the same; indolent, careless, unmoved by any kind of passion for any other man's wife or for any maid. That was a just conclusion. Lawrence Colquhoun was not in love with this lady. And yet he suffered himself to obey orders; dropped easily in the position; allowed himself to be led by her invitations; went where she told him to go; and all the time half laughed at himself and was half angry to think that he was thus enthralled by a siren who charmed him not. To have once loved a woman; to love her no longer; to go about the town behaving as if you did: this, it was evident to him, was not a position to be envied or desired. Few false positions are. Perhaps he did not know that Mrs. Grundy talked; perhaps he was only amused when he heard of remarks that had been made by Sir Benjamin Backbite; and although the brief sunshine of passion which he only felt for this woman was long since past and gone, nipped in its very bud by the lady herself perhaps, he still liked her cold and cynical talk. Colquhoun habitually chose the most pleasant paths for his lounge through life. From eighteen to forty there had been but one disagreeable episode, which he would fain have forgotten. Mrs. Cassilis revived it; but, in her presence, the memory was robbed somehow of half its sting.
Sir Benjamin Backbite remarked that though the gentleman was languid, the lady was shaken out of her habitual coldness. She was changed. What could change her, asked the Baronet, but passion for this old friend of her youth? Why, it was only four years since he had followed her, after a London season, down to Scotland, and everybody said it would be a match. She received his attentions coldly then, as she received the attentions of every man. Now the tables were turned; it was the man who was cold.
These social observers are always right. But they never rise out of themselves; therefore their conclusions are generally wrong. Victoria Cassilis was not, as they charitably thought, running after Colquhoun through the fancy of a wayward heart. Not at all. She was simply wondering where it had gone—that old power of hers, by which she once twisted him round her finger—and why it was gone. A woman cannot believe that she has lost her power over a man. It is an intolerable thought. Her power is born of her beauty and her grace; these may vanish, but the old attractiveness remains, she thinks, if only as a tradition. When she is no longer beautiful she loves to believe that her lovers are faithful still. Now Victoria Cassilis remembered this man as a lover and a slave; his was the only pleading she had ever heard which could make her understand the meaning of man's passion; he was the only suitor whom a word could make wretched or a look happy. For he had once loved her with all his power and all his might. Between them there was the knowledge of a thing which, if any knowledge could, should have crushed out and beaten down the memory of this love. She had made it, by her own act and deed, a crime to remember it. And yet, in spite of all, she could not bring herself to remember that the old power was dead. She tried to bring him again under influence. She failed, but she succeeded in making him come back to her as if nothing had ever happened. And then she said to herself that there must be another woman, and she set herself to find out who that woman was.
Formerly many men had hovered—marriageable men, excellentpartis—round the cold and statuesque beauty of Victoria Pengelley. She was an acknowledged beauty; she brought an atmosphere of perfect taste and grace into a room with her; men looked at her and wondered; foolish girls, who knew no better, envied her. Presently the foolish girls, who had soft faces and eyes, which could melt in love or sorrow, envied her no longer, because they got engaged and married. And of all the men who came and went, there was but one who loved her so that his pulse beat quicker when she came; who trembled when he took her hand; whose nerves tingled and whose blood ran swifter through his veins when he asked her, down in that quiet Scotch village, with no one to know it but her maid, to be his wife.
The man was Lawrence Colquhoun. The passion had been his. Now love and passion were buried in the ashes of the past. The man was impassable, and the woman, madly kicking against the fetters which she had bound around herself, was angry and jealous.
It is by some mistake of Nature that women who cannot love can yet be jealous. Victoria Pengelley's pulse never once moved the faster for all the impetuosity of her lover. She liked to watch it, this curious yearning after her beauty, this eminently masculine weakness, because it was a tribute to her power; it is always pleasant for a woman to feel that she is loved as women are loved in novels—men's novels, not the pseudo-passionate school-girls' novels, or the calmly respectable feminine tales where the young gentlemen and the young ladies are superior to the instincts of common humanity. Victoria played with this giant as an engineer will play with the wheels of a mighty engine. She could do what she liked with it. Samson was not more pliable to Delilah; and Delilah was not more unresponsive to that guileless strong man. She soon got tired of her toy, however. Scarcely were the morning and the evening of the fifth day, when by pressing some unknown spring she smashed it altogether.
Now, when it was quite too late, when the thing was utterly smashed, when she had a husband and child, she was actually trying to reconstruct it. Some philosopher, probing more deeply than usual the mysteries of mankind, once discovered that it was at all times impossible to know what a woman wants. He laid that down as a general axiom, and presented it as an irrefragable truth for the universal use of humanity. One may sometimes, however, guess what a woman does not want. Victoria Cassilis, one may be sure, did not want to sacrifice her honour, her social standing, or her future. She was not intending to go off, for instance, with her old lover, even if he should propose the step, which seemed unlikely. And yet she would have liked him to propose it, because then she would have felt the recovery of her power. Now her sex, as Chaucer and others before him pointed out, love power beyond all other earthly things. And the history of queens, from Semiramis to Isabella, shows what a mess they always make of it when they do get power.
A curious problem. Given a woman, no longer in the first bloom of youth, married well, and clinging with the instincts of her class to her reputation and social position. She has everything to lose and nothing to gain. She cannot hope even for the love of the man for whom she is incurring the suspicions of the world, and exciting the jealousy of her husband. Yet it is true, in her case, what the race of evil-speakers, liars, and slanderers say of her. She is running after Lawrence Colquhoun. He is too much with her. She has given the enemy occasion to blaspheme.
As for Colquhoun, when he thought seriously over the situation, he laughed when it was a fine day, and swore if it was raining. The English generally take a sombre view of things because it is so constantly raining. We proclaim our impotence, the lack of national spirit, and our poverty, until other nations actually begin to believe us. But Colquhoun, though he might swear, made no effort to release himself, when a word would have done it.
"You may use harsh language to me, Lawrence," said Mrs. Cassilis—he never had used harsh language to any woman—"you may sneer at me, and laugh in your cold and cruelly impassive manner. But one thing I can say for you, that you understand me."
"I have seen all your moods, Mrs. Cassilis, and I have a good memory. If you will show your husband that the surface of the ocean may be stormy sometimes, he will understand you a good deal better. Get up a little breeze for him."
"I am certainly not going to have a vulgar quarrel with Mr. Cassilis."
"A vulgar quarrel? Vulgar? Ah, vulgarity changes every five years or so. What a pity that vulgar quarrels were in fashion six years ago, Mrs. Cassilis!"
"Some men are not worth losing your temper about."
"Thank you. I was, I suppose. It was very kind of you, indeed, to remind me of it, as you then did, in a manner at once forcible and not to be forgotten. Mr. Cassilis gets nothing, I suppose, but east wind, with a cloudless sky which has the sun in it, but only the semblance of warmth. I got a good sou'-wester. But take care, take care, Mrs. Cassilis! You have wantonly thrown away once what most women would have kept—kept, Mrs. Cassilis! I remember when I was kneeling at your feet years ago, talking the usual nonsense about being unworthy of you. Rubbish! I was more than worthy of you, because I could give myself to you loyally, and you—you could only pretend!"
"Go on, Lawrence. It is something that you regret the past, and something to see that youcanfeel, after all."
She stopped and laughed carelessly.
"Prick me and I sing out. That is natural. But we will have no heroics. What I mean is, that I am well out of it; and that you, Victoria Cassilis, are—forgive the plain speaking—a foolish woman."
"Lawrence Colquhoun has the right to insult me as he pleases, and I must bear it."
It was in her own room. Colquhoun was leaning on the window; she was sitting on a chair before him. She was agitated and excited. He, save for the brief moments when he spoke as if with emotion, was languid and calm.
"I have no right," he replied, "and you know it. Let us finish. Mrs. Cassilis, keep what you have, and be thankful."
"What I have! What have I?"
"One of the best houses in London. An excellent social position. A husband said to be the ablest man in the City. An income which gives you all that a woman can ask for. The confidence and esteem of your husband—and a child. Do these things mean nothing?"
"My husband—Oh, my husband! He is insufferable sometimes, when I remember, Lawrence."
"He is a man who gives his trust after a great deal of doubt and hesitation. Then he gives it wholly. To take it back would be a greater blow, a far greater blow, than it would ever be to a younger man—to such a man as myself."
"Gabriel Cassilis only suffers when he loses money."
"That is not the case. You cannot afford to make another great mistake. Success isn't on the cards after two such blunders, Mrs. Cassilis."
"What do I want with success? Let me have happiness."
"Take it; it is at your feet," said Lawrence. "It is in this house. It is the commonest secret. Every simple country woman knows it."
"No one will ever understand me," she sighed. "No one."
"It is simply to give up for ever thinking about yourself. Go and look after your baby, and find happiness there."
Why superior women are always so angry if they are asked to look after their babies, I cannot understand. There is no blinking the fact that they have them. The maternal instinct makes women who cannot write or talk fine language about the domestic affections, take to the tiny creatures with a passion of devotion which is the loveliest thing to look upon in all this earth. Thefemme incomprisealone feels no anguish if her baby cries, no joy if he laughs, and flies into a divine rage if you remind her that she is a mother.
"My baby!" cried Victoria, springing to her feet. "You see me yearning for sympathy, looking to you as my oldest—once my dearest—friend, for a little—only a little—interest and pity, and you send me to my baby! The world is all selfish and cold-hearted, but the most selfish man in it is Lawrence Colquhoun!"
He laughed again. After all, he had said his say.
"I am glad you think so, because it simplifies matters. Now, Mrs. Cassilis, we have had our little confidential talk, and I think, under the circumstances, that it had better be the last. So, for a time, we will not meet, if you please. I do take a certain amount of interest in you—that is, I am always curious to see what line you will take next. And if you are at all concerned to have my opinion and counsel, it is this: that you've got your chance; and if you give that man who loves you and trusts you any unhappiness through your folly, you will be a much more heartless and wicked woman than even I have ever thought you. And, by Gad! I ought to know."
He left her. Mrs. Cassilis heard his step in the hall and the door close behind him. Then she ran to the window, and watched him strolling in his leisurely, careless way down the road. It made her mad to think that she could not make him unhappy, and made her jealous to think that she could no longer touch his heart. Not in love with him at all—she never had been; but jealous because her old power was gone.
Jealous! There must be another girl. Doubtless Phillis Fleming. She ordered her carriage and drove straight to Twickenham. Agatha was having one of her little garden-parties. Jack Dunquerque was there with Gilead Beck. Also Captain Ladds. But Lawrence Colquhoun was not. She stayed an hour; she ascertained from Phillis that her guardian seldom came to see her, and went home again in a worse temper than before, because she felt herself on the wrong track.
Tomlinson, her maid, had a very bad time of it while she was dressing her mistress for dinner. Nothing went right, somehow. Tomlinson, the hard-featured, was long suffering and patient. She made no reply to the torrent which flowed from her superior's angry lips. But when respite came with the dinner-bell, and her mistress was safely downstairs, the maid sat down to the table and wrote a letter very carefully. This she read and re-read, and, being finally satisfied with it, she took it out to the post herself. After that, as she would not be wanted till midnight at least, she took a cab and went to the Marylebone Theatre, where she wept over the distresses of a lady, ruined by the secret voice of calumny.
It was at the end of May, and the season was at its height. Mrs. Cassilis had two or three engagements, but she came home early, and was even sharper with the unfortunate Tomlinson than before dinner. But Tomlinson was very good, and bore all in patience. It is Christian to endure.
Next morning Gabriel Cassilis found among his letters another in the same handwriting as that of the three anonymous communications he had already received.