With which she smoothed his hair, arranged his tie, kissed him on both cheeks, and watched him out of sight from the window. Then she went and wrapped herself in a good deal of brown fur, and walked quickly across the square to the hideous casket in which the nation cherishes its gems of art.
She was wandering from one picture to another in a desultory sort of way, and thinking, it must be confessed, more of her own affairs than of the paintings, when she almost ran against Count Litvinoff, who was standing, his hat off and his hands behind him, in rapt contemplation of the Martyrdom of Saint Somebody.
He turned and bowed, with an air of pleased surprise. She had never seen him look so little English—so very foreign.
'Ah! this is good fortune,' he said; 'your father is with you?'
'No,' said Clare. 'Papa doesn't care about pictures, except pictures of dead fish and game, and horses and fat cattle; and I don't care about the City—at least, not the parts of it that he goes to—and this is a sort of paddock where I am allowed to run loose when he is away.'
'I often spend an hour here; I find pictures help one to think. How do you like this Claude?'
Then the conversation was all picture for a while, and at last they sat down on one of the few seats provided by the munificence of a thoughtful Administration for such lovers of art as care to stay in the Gallery long enough to get tired.
They were silent for a little while.
'Are you not well, Miss Stanley?' he said presently.
'Oh, dear me, yes; I'm very well. Do I look ill?' she asked quite frankly, looking at him with her eyebrows raised.
'Ah, no; you look—' he hesitated, 'as you always do,' he ended, as though that was not what he would have liked to say.
'Why do you ask, then?'
'Because I fancied last night that you were in some kind of pain, and I have been uneasy ever since about it.'
'Last night? You're very kind: there wasn't the least ground for your uneasiness.'
'I was not the only one who thought so.'
'I am afraid the evening must have been very dull, then, if it gave two people that impression.'
'Oh, dulness was out of the question tome,' he said, with an eloquent look. 'But I suppose we couldn't expect Mr Roland to be very cheerful, under the circumstances.'
'What circumstances?' questioned Clare, who was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable.
'He has had what I believe in England is termed a "row" with his brother.'
'How do you know?' she asked, quickly. 'Oh, I beg your pardon.'
'Never do that; but, indeed, had you not asked me, I was going to tell you, for I am in a difficulty. Although I know your language well, I do not so well know your social customs. Shall we see Mr Richard again, do you think?'
The question was put so innocently, and the Count appeared so really perplexed, that Miss Stanley stifled the evasive answer that first occurred to her, and said simply,—
'No, I don't.'
'Then a great part of my difficulty vanishes. I am ashamed to trouble you about my dilemmas; but I have been wondering whether I ought to know themboth, since they have so quarrelled, or whether it is not incumbent on me to take one side or the other.'
'If you take sides at all,' said Clare, 'you should take the side you think right.'
'I am here amongst Englishmen. Being in Rome I must do as Rome does, and I do not know what is right and wrong to English people.'
'Right is right all the world over,' said Clare, adding, as a saving clause, 'if you can only see which is right. But you are not the only one who is in a dilemma.' Then, driven by an irresistible desire to know how the quarrel struck him, she asked him directly,—
'Which do you think is in the wrong?'
'There are some things which brothers might pardon in each other, but which to other men would be unpardonable.'
'Do you think, then, that Roland Ferrier has done anything unpardonable?' She had felt intensely annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, but since it had taken this turn, she was determined to learn as much from it as possible.
'I don't think he has done anything the world would not pardon, and we must remember that the greater part of the fault lies in his bringing up.' He said this with a delicate air of chivalrously making the best of a bad cause.
'If the world pardons the unpardonable,' said Clare, feeling that she was skating on very thin ice, and not quite knowing how to get back to the bank again, 'so much the worse for the world.'
'I knew you would say that.'
'And,' she went on, forgetting how little she had told her companion, 'if I could only be sure that all Richard said was true, I would accept no one's ruling but my own on such a question.'
Litvinoff's eyes gave one little flash at the admission contained in this speech, but he said quite quietly,—
'Well, no one can possibly know. I presume he must at least believe it.'
'Yes, he certainly does. This quarrel, as you perhaps know, means ruin to them both.'
'Ruin!' he cried; 'then it must not go on.'
'You are very good to take such an interest in the Ferriers.'
'Ah,' he said sadly, 'I have known ruin, and it is hard if the innocent one suffers with the guilty.'
He looked about as little like a ruined man as it was possible to be. His dress was perfect, though it had a certain foreign air that was not to be traced to that too great prominence of shirt collar and prodigality of cuff, that shininess of hat and boot, that exuberant floridity of necktie, which are the signet of theflâneurof the boulevards. Above all, his nails were unexceptionable.
'Their father left it in his will,' said Miss Stanley, bluntly, glad to get away from the subject of Roland's possiblelâches, 'that if they quarrelled they lost all their money.'
'They were ever given to quarrelling, then?' asked Litvinoff.
'No, I don't think so; but Mr Ferrier was old and very funny.'
'He seems to have been prophetic in this instance; or perhaps he knew what they were likely to quarrel about.'
Clare stroked her muff with her kid-gloved hand, andwondered whether the late Mr Ferrier had thought they were likely to quarrel about her.
'This affair of the unfortunate girl Alice Hatfield—' he was beginning, when Clare rose.
'It is quite time I went back,' she said chillingly, and she turned and walked out. He followed her humbly. When they had passed down the steps he said,—
'I have offended you, but you must forgive me. I am ignorant of English customs. You had talked to me of the misdeed, and it did not seem to be wrong to name the victim. I ought to have recognised the gulf which separates the personal from the impersonal.'
There was a suspicion of irony in his voice, and she did not answer, only quickened her pace a little.
'Forgive me,' he said, in a tone low, and one more earnest than any she had yet heard him use. 'You must forgive me. I would not offend you for all the world, not to gain every end I have ever fought for, to realise every hope I have ever cherished.'
She turned and looked right into his eyes, and in them read nothing but perfect honesty and sincerity.
'I have nothing whatever to forgive, Count Litvinoff,' she said. 'Pray, let us change the subject;' but all the ice was gone from her voice, and he at once plunged into a diatribe against the carelessness of omnibus drivers.
He said good-bye to her outside the hotel. At the top of the steps she turned and looked after him, and was not a little vexed with herself for having done so, for he was looking after her with an expression in his eyes which said, to her at least,—
'Whatever the ends I have fought for, or the hopes I have cherished, may have been in the past, the object of my every dream and aspiration is now yourself, Clare Stanley.'
CHAPTER XIII.
A FAIR MORNING'S WORK.
PETROVITCH waited at the corner for some moments, but as hisprotégéedid not return, he concluded that she had found the house door open, and would be all right, so he turned his face west. The new feeling that had possessed him at the sound of Alice's surname had, while he waited, only shown itself in a restless movement of his hand over his beard; but now it found vent in the swinging pace at which he walked. He slackened it now and again, to glance with a frown at the heaps of dirty rags that filled the corners of doorways and the embrasures of walls, and hid human flesh and blood: the flesh and blood of your brothers and sisters, my esteemed Royal Commissioners. These door-steps and archways and out-of-the-way corners are not, of course, to be included in an investigation into the homes of the poor; but perhaps they might be if these royal, noble, and eminent brothers realised that these are the only homes of a large proportion of the poor.
Petrovitch only stopped once, and that was before a door-step on which something gleamed brightly, and caught his attention. There was a group there of the usual type—a man and woman, and a child, a little girl, from whose eyes the gleam came. She was sitting up, her elbow on her knee andher chin on her hand; a wizened, stunted child of some eight or nine years, with tangled dark hair that fell over her face, and through which her eyes were staring wide and vacant at the clear sky. As he stopped she transferred the gaze to him, but it was still a gaze void of hope and expectation. He did not speak to her, but patted her shoulder, dropped some coppers and a bar of chocolate in her lap, and hurried on, with a muttered curse which the child did not hear.
He stopped no more till he reached a tall house in a quiet street near Portland Road Station. He let himself in with a key, and softly mounted the stairs to the second floor. The room he entered was large, and looked bare until one noticed the shelves on shelves of well-bound, well-kept books, the pigeon-holes full of manuscripts, the brackets supporting good busts and statuettes, the one or two choice prints, the antique writing-table and chairs. There were no curtains to the window, and there was no carpet to the floor; but there was a reading-lamp of uncommon design, with a green shade. It was the luxury of literary asceticism.
Petrovitch turned up the lamp and rekindled his fire. Then he went into the adjoining room, from which presently came the sound of splashing water, followed by hard breathing, as of one wrestling with a rough towel. It was a ghastly hour for tubbing, and many an Englishman who plumes himself on taking a bath at eight or nine in the morning would have shuddered at the idea of thus taking one four or five hours earlier; but it seemed to agree with Petrovitch, for he came back to the fireside glowing, and seeming to have washed from his face the look of mingled weariness and anger which he had brought in with him.
His hand hovered a moment along the line of a certain bookshelf, then he picked out a book, and for the next three hours read steadily, only pausing to make notes.
At seven o'clock he shut his book gently, replaced it carefully on its shelf, very deftly and quickly prepared his breakfast, and, having eaten it, put on his hat and a black coat and went out again.
Now, for the first time, he thought over his night's adventures, for during the time he had spent in his room he had not allowed himself to think of them. He had the capacity of dismissing utterly from his mind anything about which he did not want to think. It was time enough to think when he could act, and he had known that he could not act till the morning. Now, two minutes' thought decided the course his action should take.
By half-past eight o'clock he had knocked at the door of 15 Spray's Buildings, and had been directed to the room of Mrs Fludger. That lady was surrounded by the family linen—some just as it had been discarded by the family, some in the wash-tub, and some hanging on lines slung across the room at a convenient height for dabbing itself wetly in the faces of possible visitors. The room appeared to be furnished chastely and simply with the tub and lines before mentioned, and nothing else whatever; for the remainder of the furniture had been heaped in one corner, in order that the washing might not be impeded, and was not noticeable at the first glance. Mrs Fludger had her arms bared for toil. She wore a dress with no appreciable waist and no distinctive colour. A woollen shawl wound her figure in its embrace, a black bonnet of no particular shape, and of antique appearance, was on the extreme back of her head, where it was supported, by no visible agency, in defiance of the laws of gravitation.
'Now then, my good man,' she began, in answer to Petrovitch's tap at the open door, 'we don't want no Scripture reading here. Thank the Lord, I knows my Bible duty, and does it, which wasn't I up this very morning afore five, which ismore than you can say, I'll go bail. There's some needs talking to. Why don't you go after my master an' teach him the ten commanders if youwantsto Bible read?'
'But I don't want to Bible read,' said Petrovitch, as she ended with a snap of her teeth, and recommenced the action of 'soaping in,' which her vigorous speech had suspended. 'I only wish to ask you of a Mrs Litvinoff?'
'Don't know the name.'
'Perhaps I mistake the name; I ask of the young woman who left here yesterday morning.'
'Oh, her!' with contemptuous emphasis; 'bless you, her name ain't nothing like that; no more nor yours nor mine. Her name's Hatfield; and she ain't a missus neither, without she was married yesterday.'
'I hope she did no wrong here, that you are not angry with her,' said he, as though feeling Mrs Fludger's displeasure to be the severest punishment of misdoing.
'No,' said Mrs Fludger, a little softened, 'I'm not angry with her; but will you jest be good enough to say what you want and have done with it, as my washing's all behind as it is?'
'I have a quite special reason,' he said, 'for wishing to befriend her. I am sure you will be willing to help me to give her help by telling me all you know about her.'
'Oh, Lord bless the men!' said Mrs Fludger, with an impatient intonation, dipping a blue-bag into a pail, 'I don't know nothing about the gal. She was here two months or more, and not a soul ever come a-nigh her, and now, afore she's been gone two days, here's half a dozen gentlemen comes after her. You ought to be able to do something 'andsome for her among you all. Why, only yesterday two young swells was a'most a-comin' to blows over her outside this very door, a-makin' a perfick inharmonium o' my stairs, to say nothing o' the gent as went a-makin' inquiries o' the ground-floor front, as wasquite the improper person to imply to, not being responsible, and knowin' nothing about the lodgers.'
'I am exceedingly sorry to give you any further trouble, madam, but, as I know you are the only person who can inform me, I must ask you why this young woman left.' He spoke so gravely that Mrs Fludger seemed impressed. She lowered her voice a little as she answered,—
'She heard something as wasn't to her liking.'
'Not from you, I am sure.'
'Well, no; it warn't from me, though I should have told her fast enough if I had known myself, and, since you must know the ins and outs of it, she was taken bad on Sunday night, and my Joe went for the doctor, and if you're curious you'd better ask him, for he's more time for jaw than me, not having got nine children and a husband as is always in liquor.'
Petrovitch thanked her, and asked the address of the lucky doctor whom Fate had spared these inflictions.
Mrs Fludger gave it, squeezing the soapsuds off her lean arms as she spoke.
'Thank you very much,' he said; 'good-bye,' and held out his hand as though he had known her for years. This was partly because he thought it was the English thing to do in parting with one's equals, and partly because he went enough among poor people to know that their troubles are not made lighter by an assumption of superiority on the part of their visitors. It was a matter of course with him, but Mrs Fludger was particularly gratified. She gave him her damp hand, and returned his shake with heartiness.
'Well, now,' she said, 'if I've been a bit short, you must set it down to the washin', and I couldn't get it out o' my head that you was one of the religious sort. And I hope the young woman won't come to no hurt, and I will say as you look more the sort to do her good than them young sparks as comehere yesterday, with their cussin', and swearin', and yellow kid gloves.'
An opinion in which her hearer concurred.
Dr Moore was not surprised at the inquiries with which Petrovitch called upon him ten minutes later. He had sojourned long enough in the land of the hard-up, and had seen enough of the seamy side of life, to have left off being surprised at the many threads and ties which bind together people whom one would imagine to be the very last to have any concern in each other's existences.
But before he answered any of the questions, he said,—
'Excuse me; but may I ask what interest you have in this poor girl? Are you a City missionary?'
The other smiled grimly.
'Not I; but there must be something very devout in my appearance. Evidently extremes meet in me. I encountered a hostile reception at Spray's Buildings through being taken for a Bible-reader.'
'Ah, well, I can't wonder; they do make themselves disliked. They're very good people, but they haven't a nice way with them, somehow, have they? Then, what is your motive for these questions?'
For answer the other told him frankly enough all that had passed the night before, adding that before he made any effort on her behalf he wished to verify her story as far as possible.
'But the landlady told me she had gone home to her people.'
'Ah, that was Mrs Fludger's little romance,' said Petrovitch, shrugging his shoulders. 'I wish she had gone to her people, poor child; but I am afraid that is what she will not do.'
'I am very glad,' said Dr Moore, 'that someone does take an interest in her, but I must say I wish it was a woman instead of a man, for it is a woman's care and kindness she will need by-and-by.'
'So I imagined,' said Petrovitch thoughtfully, 'and I suppose the best I can do towards her is to try and find for her such care and kindness.'
'I am afraid it will be difficult; women are angels, certainly, but they are very apt to be hard on each other.'
'Very much like the rest of us. But, like the rest of us, they can sometimes be got to hear reason.'
'That's not the general opinion of women,' said Dr Moore, laughing; 'but I hope you're right. I have seen a great many of these sad cases,' he went on, gravely, 'but very, very few of the others. We're all much too ready to cast stones, and it's two to one if a girl's in trouble that a female priest or Levite comes by, and not a good Samaritan.'
The doctor was pleased with his visitor, whose face and figure were not quite like those that usually faced him in his drug-scented surgery, and when the interview ended it was he who offered the hand-shake.
As Petrovitch came out of the door he glanced at his watch.
'Now for a third interview,' he thought, and he did not think in English. 'Only two hours and a-half in which to work a miracle.'
If this man had no connection with the Bible reading and City missionary fraternity, he had at least one thing to which they lay claim—the faith which moves mountains; but it was faith in humanity, and faith in himself.
He only knew one woman who combined the strength of character and the kindness of heart necessary for his purpose, and of her it had been said only the night before, by the one who ought to have known her best, that she had a sharp tongue. Mr Toomey had not adhered strictly to truth in telling Alice that he lived up in the direction of Gray's Inn Road, vaguely. His household gods were enshrined 'out Bermondsey way,' and thither Petrovitch now betook himself.
Mrs Toomey welcomed him in an off-hand manner, which showed that she at least did not suspect him of being a Bible-reader. She asked him in, and he passed up the narrow passage where two Toomeys of tender years were playing at houses with a profusion of oyster-shells. A third of still smaller size was in the mother's arms.
'Toomey's a-bed,' she said, as she set a chair for Petrovitch, 'and I wonder you're not. He told me he saw you on the bridge in the beginning of the morning. What have you done with that poor thing?'
'Nothing yet.'
'What are you going to do?'
'That's just what I want you to tell me,' he answered, and forthwith began gently to unfold his plan, which was neither more nor less than that Mrs Toomey should let Alice rent her spare room, and should be as kind to her as possible. But Mrs Toomey, as might have been expected, didn't see it at all. She had much the feeling of the elder brother of the Prodigal—that it was hardly fair to those who had done their duty thus to help out of their difficulties those who had not.
'This is the great privilege of those who do their duty,' said he, 'to be able to help those who have not done it.'
'That's all very well,' said Mrs Toomey; 'but what's to become of example if the good and the bad gets treated alike?'
'It isn't that; what I want is to give the bad—who is not so very bad in this case—a chance of being better.'
But she was not silenced. She ran over the whole scale of objections, moral and conventional, to his proposition, and to each and all of them he found an answer, and sat there quietly persistent, until at last he drove her back upon 'What will people say?'
'As far as I'm concerned they can say what they like, but if you care about people's opinion, it is easy to guard yourself against it by telling them nothing. No one would know more than you chose to tell them.'
'That's honest, isn't it?' asked Mrs Toomey, patting the baby, who was choking himself with his fist.
'Well, honesty doesn't consist in publishing other people's affairs to all your neighbourhood. And, my good Mrs Toomey, don't you see that the very fact of her being in your house would stop questions?'
'I'm no hand at arguing,' said Mrs Toomey at last, 'but I know you've some sense, sir, and I don't think you'd press a thing like this without there was some rhyme or reason in it; but the most I can say is, me and Toomey'll talk it over; but the truth is, I've never had nothing to say to that sort o' girls, and I don't like to begin at this time o' day. And even if my man agrees, I won't promise about it until I've seen the young woman, for what's the good of Providence giving us common sense if we're not to put it to use, instead of trusting to hearsay and other people.'
'Quite right; that's a first-rate principle. If all the world would think like that we should see some changes. I will tell her you have a room to let, and advise her to apply for it, and then you can see her and act as you choose. But I feel sure beforehand how it will be.'
And as he bade her good-bye he did feel quite sure that he had not spent that half-hour in vain.
'I really feel like a City missionary, or a newspaper correspondent, after all these interviews. Now for the last and most interesting.'
But when he reached Mrs Litvinoff's room he found her out. There was no answer to his repeated knocks, so at last, as the key was in the door, he opened it, almost fearing to find her in another of those fainting fits. But the room was empty. He hesitated a moment, and then entered. It wanteda few minutes to noon; he would wait till the appointed time, and while he waited he wondered, as he had been wondering all the morning, why she had taken this name of Litvinoff. Was it simply because Litvinoff had been the first name that had come into her head, or for some deeper or more important reason?
The room was very neat, and did not offer much entertainment to the eye or employment to the mind; but there were four or five books on the mantelpiece, and he was drawn towards them by a natural attraction. It was one of his habits always to take up a book, if one was within reach. They were very nicely bound, he noticed, except two small volumes at the end of the row, in which he smiled rather sadly to recognise a Bible and Prayer Book. He ran over the titles—one or two novels, 'The Children's Garland,' 'Mrs Hemans,' and, strange accompaniment, Swinburne's 'Songs before Sunrise.'
He took it out and opened it. On the first page was written, 'To Alice, from Litvinoff.'
He stood looking at it fixedly—so absorbed that he did not hear Alice's foot on the stairs, nor notice the rustle of her dress in the room, till she said,—
'Have you been here long? I am so sorry I had to run out for some thread for my work. I thought I should have been back before.'
She was a little out of breath with running upstairs, and a little flushed, too. He now saw that she was prettier than he had thought, but he also saw more plainly the hollows in her cheeks and the dark circles round her eyes.
'I must make a confession,' he began at once, turning to her with the book in his hand. 'I have asked myself, was it chance made you take this name of Litvinoff? But I see now you have a right to it.'
She turned her head and looked towards the window in silence for a moment. Then she said,—
'I do not know that I have a right to any name except the one I was born to; but if I have a right to any it is to the one written there.' It was said slowly and with evident effort. She threw her bonnet on the table, leaned her elbows on the window-ledge, and looked out.
'Won't you sit down?' she asked, after a minute, without looking round.
He took a chair, and said, 'Then it wasn't only for the lecture you went to Soho?'
'No.'
'See here, Mrs Litvinoff; I know the Count, and I and others are much interested in his career. I wish you to believe that I would not ask you questions from idle curiosity. His own welfare depends to a great extent on what we may hear of him.'
'I have nothing but good to tell you of him.'
'But, madam—forgive me—how about last night? He has deserted you?'
'No,' said she, steadily; 'don't make any mistake. I left him. He was never anything but good to me.'
'You are not married to him?'
'Don't ask me any more questions,' said Alice. 'I can't tell you anything.'
'Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, very gently and very gravely, 'I beg you for his sake to tell me all you can of him. You know the sort of dangers run by a man in such a position as his; and from many of these dangers we can help to screen him. I am a friend to all who are friends of Litvinoff. Think of me not as a man and a stranger, but as the friend of him, and tell me frankly all there is to tell.'
It was characteristic of the man who spoke that he should be able to make an appeal which would move this girl, who had not known him twenty-four hours, to tell him all that shehad felt it to be impossible to tell her foster-brother, Richard Ferrier. For she did tell him.
The substance of her story was this: She had been staying with an aunt who kept a small hotel in Liverpool, when she had met Litvinoff, and had seen a great deal of him. He had seemed to her to be different from all the other men she had ever seen, and though she could not help being pleased by his admiration, she had felt that the difference in their station was such that she could not properly fill the position of his wife. His grave and respectful manner and the perfect deference with which he always treated her had made it impossible for her to suppose that his wish was other than to make her his wife. So, though all her inclinations would have kept her in Liverpool, she had, after a severe struggle with herself, shortened her visit, and returned to Derbyshire without bidding him good-bye.
He had followed her, and one evening when she was walking alone she had met him. Of course, there had been explanations. He had implored her not to send him away—to let him be always as happy as he had been that month at Liverpool. He met her objections as to the difference in their position by telling her that he was an outcast and an exile, and had no position. Would she not make his hard life a little easier to him? At every word he said she felt her resolutions melting away; but her parents, would they ever consent to her marriage with one who held such opinions as his?
Then he had told her gravely and tenderly that he was at war with society and with most of its conventions, and that for him to marry in the ordinary sense of the word would be to compromise and deny every principle on which his life was founded. The true marriage, he had maintained, was fidelity, and mutual love was more binding than could be a ceremony in which one of the performers did not believe. He loved herhe had said, far too dearly to wish to deceive her in the smallest degree about his sentiments, and so he felt bound to tell her that to him a legal marriage would be for ever impossible. In spite of that, would she not be noble enough to trust her life entirely to him, and be his wife?
This had been so completely unexpected as to be a great shock to her, and she had felt at once that, however she might decide, it would be out of the question to tell or ask her parents about it. Her choice lay between them and her lover. We know how she chose.
Of her time of happiness she said very little, but her hearer gathered that, though Litvinoff had left her much alone, she had had no reason to doubt that he still cared for her.
But the influence of her early training, though it had sunk into abeyance in the hour of strong temptation, had slowly and surely reasserted itself as the months went by. She had striven still to believe that she was acting rightly, but at last it became impossible to her to persuade herself that she had any right to be a law unto herself. So at last she had left her lover, with no farewell but a letter, in which she had tried to tell him how it was. She had felt a pleasure in the hardness of the life that followed—had vaguely felt it to be in some sort an expiation of her wickedness.
'You see,' she ended, 'if I had believed as he did, perhaps I should have been right to act as I did; but I believed in all the things that he denies, and so I was wrong to dare to take his views of good and bad for me, while all the time I kept my own old thoughts of what was really good and bad. I can't explain myself well, but you see what I mean—don't you?'
'Yes,' answered Petrovitch, rising; 'I see that another life has been sacrificed upon the altar of an abstraction. If it gives you happiness to give yourself pain, at anyrate I should thinkyour wickedness, as you call it, was expiated now. Has he never tried to find you out?'
'He may have tried,' said Alice, 'but he has not succeeded.'
'Would you not go back to him—now that you have another life than your own to think of?'
Alice darted a quick glance at him, and turned very white.
'No, unless that happened which never can happen—if his belief changed. But I cannot go on talking like this; it is torture to me—and to what end?'
'I told you—for his good and yours. However, to business. Of course, since you have undertaken that tailor's work you must finish it; but after, I will get you work better paid. And this room—you do not like it? Mrs Toomey has a room to let, and I am sure she will like to have you for a lodger. Will you go there and see it, and if you like it move there? I will lend you money for moving and for present expenses, and you can pay me when you settle to work again.'
'But why,' asked Alice, half turning round to look at him, 'why are you so kind? Why do you help me so?'
'I help you,' he answered, laying some money on the table, 'because to me you are truly Litvinoff's wife, and I am the true friend of all who are friends of him.'
Alice knocked at Mrs Toomey's door about three o'clock that afternoon. Mrs Toomey, her baby in her arms, and an air of reserving judgment about her, showed the room she had to let, which was convenient and exquisitely clean.
Alice followed her into the parlour afterwards.
'I think it only fair to tell you,' she began confusedly, 'that I am not really Mrs Litvinoff—but—'
The other interrupted her.
'I know all about it,' she said, bluntly, 'and now I've seenyou—'specially as you were going to tell me, so honest and fair—I'm sure we shall get on very well. And no one sha'n't ever know anything from me, and let bygones be bygones betwixt us. If you'd like to move in at once, why do, and come and have a cup o' tea with me when you've fetched your things.'
There was no mistaking the cordiality which had replaced Mrs Toomey's half distrust as soon as she saw that her would-be lodger had no intention of coming there under false pretences.
And so, a few hours later, Alice had effected her moving, taken possession of her room, and was sitting by Mrs Toomey's spotless hearth, with her feet on the brilliant steel fender, her face brighter than it had been for many a long day, while the children stared at her with wide but friendly eyes, and Mrs Toomey's baby lay contentedly on her lap.
The day had been at its beginning so wild, so bitter, so full of horrible possibilities; this was a peaceful—almost a happy—ending to it. Alice felt the change keenly, and there was gratitude to Petrovitch in every word she spoke to the mother, every smile she gave to the little ones.
CHAPTER XIV.
A PEACEMAKER.
ON the morning after that which he had spent in the study of Art, Count Litvinoff was busily engaged in turning out the pockets of coats, and 'making hay' of the contents of portmanteaus, conducting a vigorous search for something or other, and singing softly to himself the while,—
'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round;Every day beneath his sway fools old and young are found.'Tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round.'
'It may do that,' he said, dropping suddenly into prose, 'but it doesn't find missing property. I shall have to buy one, which will be annoying, when that one has been kicking about ever since I came from Liverpool. Ah! here it is. I've saved at least four and sixpence, which to a man in my delicate position is a largish sum. For, after all, you can't insult a man by pursuing him about London with a cigar-case that cost less.'
He opened the little crocodile-skin trifle and looked into it.
'It has been used as a letter-case before now, and it would rather complicate matters if I left one of somebody's notes sticking in the lining. Things are a little bit that way as it is. The world is very, very small. A remark, by the way, whichis invariably made by people who have more than one creditor. But it is strange that I should have run right into the midst of this Ferrier set. One would think that there was only one county in England, and that was Derbyshire.'
He sighed a little, but brightened as his eye fell on the chair which Roland had occupied two nights before. His voice took up the song again as he returned his belongings to something like order. He had just made his sitting-room presentable again when the waiter appeared, and offered, with an air of virtuous and respectful protest, a folded piece of paper, which had been white once, but since that time had apparently sojourned in the pockets of one who carried his meals about with him.
'Seductive billet-doux,' said Litvinoff, as he took it. 'Is it by chance a tinker's bill?'
'It was brought, sir,' said the waiter, 'by a man who appears to be a foreigner. He said he'd wait for an answer.'
'Show that distinguished gentleman up.'
While his order was being obeyed, Litvinoff looked at the paper again. It was not a letter or a bill, after all; but seemed intended to answer the purpose of a visiting card, for all that was written on it was 'Johann Hirsch.'
Litvinoff was not altogether unaccustomed to being called upon by foreign gentlemen with bold and original views on the subject of visiting-cards. He never refused to see any of these visitors, and always sent them away charmed with the beauty of his sentiments and the liberality of his intentions, and occasionally with something more substantial.
As the waiter closed the door and retreated with a glance of politely veiled contempt, the man whom he had shown in came forward, and Litvinoff recognised in him at once the person who had been so interested in the 'Prophetic Vision' on Sunday evening. He offered the visitor his hand with sunny cordiality.
'I am delighted to see you. I have not forgotten your kind interest in my lecture at the Agora. Please take that arm-chair.'
The other did so.
'I speak English not well,' he began. 'Perhaps the Herr Count speaks German?'
'Certainly,' he replied, in that language; 'but to my friends I am not Count, but Citizen Litvinoff.'
'I cannot claim to be a friend of yours,' said the other, who seemed to speak under the influence of some constraint; 'but I am a friend to the cause you advocate. I do not come to you for myself, but to ask you to help another, who is in sore trouble and distress.'
'I am very sorry. Who is he?'
'It is a woman. The wife of an exile, one of us, separated from her husband by circumstances I may not tell of, but which are not to the discredit of either.'
'What is her name?' asked Litvinoff, a shade more interested than if it had been the exiled husband who needed relief.
'I don't know her name,' said Hirsch; 'but she is very poor and very proud, and I am afraid very ill.'
'Unfortunate combination,' muttered the Count, below his breath, in English.
'But, my good friend Hirsch, how do you propose to give money to this distressed lady, whose name you do not even know?'
'There is only one from whom she will take it, and from him I come. He will give it to her. You will have no credit for your generosity, citizen, for she will not know from whom it comes.'
'I don't think credit is what we work for,nous autres,' said the Count, with a slightly injured air.
'I must tell you the truth,' answered the Austrian, with ashrug of his shoulders and an outward gesture of the palms of his hands.
'Doubtless; but may I not know the name of the benefactor from whose assistance this lady's pride does not shrink?'
'Assuredly; he told me that if I mentioned his name to you, it would be enough to guarantee your attention.'
A very slight change passed over the Count's face, and yet there seemed nothing in that speech to stir up uneasiness. The expression was so transient that it escaped the sharp eyes that watched him from under Hirsch's shaggy eyebrows.
'Distress itself is the best guarantee for my attention.'
He rose and unlocked a despatch box and took out a cheque-book.
As he took up a pen and sat down he asked,—
'What is our friend's name?'
'His name is Petrovitch. You knew him in Russia, I believe.'
'I have heard much of him lately in London, but I have never been so fortunate as to meet him here.'
'He was with me at the Agora on Sunday.'
Litvinoff looked up pleasantly from the cheque he had been filling in.
'Ah, so,' he said, 'I wonder he could not have answered you about the pamphlet.'
'He could have done,' said the other rather grimly, 'if I had thought of asking him, but I did not think of doing so.'
'Well, I must hope soon to meet Citizen Petrovitch. In the meantime give him this, with my best hopes for the welfare of his lady friend. I wish it may be useful, small though it is.'
'There's no doubt about that,' said Hirsch, rising as the other held out the cheque, and glancing at the two figures onit, before folding it very small and concealing it in an inner part of his nondescript garments.
'By the way,' said Litvinoff, 'I've made that out to Petrovitch's order, as I did not know the lady's name.'
'It is better so perhaps,' said Hirsch. 'Good day.'
'Do not go yet,' said the other, hospitably; 'won't you stay and have some lunch?'
'Thank you, no; I have eaten.'
'Well, at anyrate, you'll have a glass of wine, won't you?'
'I am not thirsty, I thank you; good day.'
'Good day,' said the Count, shaking hands cordially. As the door closed behind the other he sank into an arm-chair.
'What an exceedingly fatiguing person. He chooses amiable and courteous messengers, this Petrovitch. I wonder if Ididknow him in Russia. My memories of childhood's hour are singularly confused, but it's impossible to remember everybody, that's one comfort. It is remarkable how well people remember me, when there's anything to be got by it. This princely drawing of cheques, however, will come to an abrupt termination shortly, and then—I wonder exactly how long it will be before I send in my name to people on dirty bits of paper as a preface to requests for cheques for destitute lady friends?'
He deftly rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and then said, musingly,—
'That property in Volhynia, would it be possible—By heaven, it would be a gallant attempt—it would be almost genius. As a forlorn hope it would be sublime; but I have still some hopes that are not forlorn, and the position of an English landowner is not unenviable. It would at anyrate enable one to give cheques with a freer hand to any mysterious stranger with dirty linen whose anonymous lady friends may happen to be hard up. Hullo, my friend!'—as his eye fell onthe cigar-case—'I'd almost forgotten you. I suppose I must be about my business. There are very few men, I am convinced, who work as hard for "the daily crust" as I do.' He flung the end of his cigarette in the fire, and put on his coat.
'And now,' he said, taking up his hat, 'to seek the Midland Hotel, and face whichever Ferrier the Fates may send me. Probably I shall have my walk for nothing; they will be engaged in business, these interesting victims of a misunderstanding which I so deeply deplore.'
He smiled hopefully at himself in the glass, and went out.
'Is Mr Ferrier in?' he asked, when he reached the Midland Hotel, and the answer being 'Yes,' he turned into the coffee-room to wait, still uncertain as to which brother he should see.
It was Richard who came down to him after a few minutes—Richard, whose face, ulster, and soft hat all seemed to be of the same shade of drab.
'Good morning, Count Litvinoff,' he said; 'can I be of any service to you?'
'It was your brother I wished to see,' said the Count. 'He did me the honour to spend a few moments at my rooms last night, and I think this must be his. May I trouble you to give it to him?'
Here he produced the cigar-case.
'I don't think it belongs to my brother,' said Richard, 'and I'm sorry I can't do anything in the matter; but I sha'n't see him again.'
'Ah! you are leaving London?'
'I'm leaving this hotel.'
'Well, perhaps you are right to seek one more cheerfully placed. You are not looking well; perhaps this situation depresses you?'
'Oh, I'm all right, thanks. I'm rather glad you happenedto call, because I shall perhaps not see you again. I'm afraid I was rather uncivil yesterday, and, if so, I'm sorry: I didn't intend it, but it struck me afterwards that it might seem so to you. The fact is, I was horribly put out about something.'
'Oh, don't mention it. I saw then that you were annoyed about something, and now I know what it was. I know enough of English manners, Mr Ferrier, to know that here a stranger's interference in personal or family matters is the unpardonable sin. But my faith, you know, compels me to set aside conventions that are only conventions, and to try to give help wherever help can be given.
'I am so complete a stranger,' he went on, regardless of a slight movement of impatience from the other, 'so utterly, so palpably disinterested, that I hope I may without offence say to you what I intended to say to Mr Roland.'
'I don't see that anything could be said to my brother without offence that could not equally well be said to me.'
'This, then, is what I would ask. Is there anything I can do to effect a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach from growing wider?'
'I had never told you that there was any breach,' Richard said stiffly.
'No,' he said, 'but all others have not your powers of reticence.'
'I presume my brother has been confiding in you.'
'Your brother told me—what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell you—that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he was as innocent as—as I am,' ended Litvinoff, raising his eyebrows ingenuously.
Richard's first impulse was to request the Count to mind his own business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and besides, Litvinoff's manner was so honest, and what he said was true enough. He certainly must be disinterested. So he constrained himself to say, with very little change of manner,—
'If my brother wishes to disprove any charges I may bring, he'd better disprove them to me.'
'But are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? May not your feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without evidence enough in this?'
'I quite fail to understand,' said Richard, frowning.
'Is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your brother than as your rival?'
'If you have anything more to say thatneedssaying, I shall be glad if you will say it plainly.' Richard spoke angrily.
'Plainly, then—you also are a suitor for the hand of Miss Stanley?'
Ferrier's hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which seemed quite involuntary. The blood rushed to his face as he spoke.
'May I ask who gave you that piece of false information?'
'Certainly you may ask,' answered Litvinoff, smiling very sweetly. Other people's tempers did not seem to affect him much. 'You may ask, but I—I must not reply.'
'It is lucky that I don't need your answer. There's only one person who would have told you such a lie, and for the future you'd better keep your interference for him, as he seems to like it.'
'And you, perhaps you'd better keep your insolence for those who'll stand it,' said Litvinoff, with the same gentle smile. 'Perhaps our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to avenge insults in some other way than what you call, I think, a rough-and-tumble fight.Au revoir!'
'You don't seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since you have had to run away from one at least,' said Richard passionately.
'Oh, delicacy and nobility of English chivalry!' said the Count, turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. 'How unfortunate for Miss Stanley that you at least are impossible. Pouf! Thebourgeoisieis the same, all the world over!'
He lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting Richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the street.
Richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table by which the conversation had taken place.
He felt indignantly injured by Litvinoff's interference, and in the first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been disinterested. But as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for the Count's wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and Roland, except the one he had given. Yet, even if the Russian had been merely filling therôleof 'friend of humanity,' Dick felt glad that he had shown resentment. One might overlook intermeddling which had its rise in an overpowering interest in one's own personality; but when one was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist, and the conduct of the Count became simply offensive. But, after all, most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon into the Russian's hands. Had his brother completely lost all sense of honour—of decency even—that he should thus make him, Richard, the subject of confidence with a stranger? And such confidences, too; confidences that hinged onhername.
'But why should I expect anything better from him, after his conduct to that poor child?'
Then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered aboutAlice, and all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with Roland. All the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if it were written here in detail, but to Richard and his brother these things appeared in far other proportions. The mutual jealousy and distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for anger which either might have lighted on.
And this case of Alice was something more than a trifling pretext. Richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played the game of life according to the rules. And, consequently, he felt towards his brother much as an oldécartéplayer might towards a man who kept kings up his sleeve.
He decided to spend a few more hours in the search for Alice, which, hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he would go down home and see Gates, and Roland would have his wish. The same roof should not cover them again.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CLEON.
WELL, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'
The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.
'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don't feel frightened of you, because I know how kind you are, but I'm afraid I shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.'
Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. 'Oh, mydear, intellect isnotwhat we care for. The great thing ischaracter.'
Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. To-night the meetingwas to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter's school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the 'Travellers'' with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the 'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naïvely styled 'one'sownfriends' to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that of their children.
On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them.
This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him.
Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personaladherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them.Theyhad not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses.
There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent Irreconcilables 'the member for Quaid.' He was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down—to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very nice of him.
Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.
Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.
The 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the Cleon met and discussed, was represented by one stone-mason. Clare was surprised when she heard what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to distinguish him from the other men present. Perhaps that was why Mrs Quaid had specially invited him.
There were about a score of other members who were less noticeable on account of any peculiarity. They formed the realstrength of the society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the Socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers.
The majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening by severely retaining their outdoor garments. Some of these were of peculiar shape and make, a fact which Mrs Quaid explained in a whisper to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on the highest moral grounds.
By the time Clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whosemotifwas social regeneration.
She was just thinking something like this when Mrs Quaid touched her on the shoulder.
'Clare, my love,' she said, 'youmustlet me introducedearMr Petrovitch to you. You know he has been so exceedingly good as to consent to read us a paper to-night.'
Clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were 'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after their first introduction, but when she turned to receive Petrovitch's bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually incongruous. He was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms of indiscriminate endearment could be applied.
After the Continental manner, he had put on evening dress. The wide shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not have disgraced a Life Guardsman in uniform. Miss Stanley, as she looked at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat was not without its æsthetic attraction.
As the people settled down into chairs he took a seat beside her, but in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own.
Then, after a few business preliminaries, Petrovitch began to speak. He did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign language. To most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no doubt; but to Clare all he said came as a revelation. She had come to be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. It seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. She listened intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking solely to the girl beside him. If he saw comprehension in her eyes, he did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there, he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. Some eyes are easy to read, and Petrovitch was a master of that art.
The girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of Socialism was new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with which he led up to his conclusions. He attacked all the stock ideas which she had been brought up to respect. It somehow did not seem like blasphemy. He flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she had heard lauded from her cradle. Some things which she had been taught to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem mean and paltry. Life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became of deeper significance. Even the affairs of every day, the chance stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers, which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only occasionsfor the sprinkling of a little Radical rose-water—little stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from the pleasures of existence—seemed now to be worth considering in some other light.
This was not the first time that Clare's heart had been stirred and her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. More than once she remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient, and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when she left the sacred portals, the small things of life—the duties of school, the light worries of home, the socialbagatelles, things trivial and tenuous enough in themselves—had soon settled down upon her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed, not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the new-born life.
As Petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself, so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. She hoped no; she feared yes. But somehow something seemed to tell her that in these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it would be harder to chloroform that, she thought.
For some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. When she did begin to listen to them, itwas only to wonder how people could so have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. There was one lady in particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that Clare felt an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a little sense into her.
The genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of Petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present Radical programme, but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. It struck Miss Stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and left untouched the main contentions.
When the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once—in most casesnotabout the paper. Perhaps they were all glad to get away from the larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives.
'You are interested in these questions, Miss Stanley?' Petrovitch said, as he turned to bid her good-night.
'I—I—shall be.'
'Yes, I think you will. Good-bye.'
He left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment to keep.
Just outside the door he met Count Litvinoff's visitor of the morning. Hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. He turned, and they walked away together.
'I've been here some time,' he said. 'I thought you must have gone.'
'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch; 'I could not leave earlier.'
'Little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled Hirsch, knitting his brows. 'Casting pearls before swine.'
'Not quite that, my good Hirsch. Casting seed upon stony ground, maybe, but I am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and then my evening has not been wasted. How did it fare with you this morning?'
Hirsch silently produced Litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking as when he had received it.
'Ah, as I expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp. 'Ten pounds is not illiberal. You see, he does not keep so tight a purse-string as you thought.'
'Lightly won lightly spent. Donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.'
'This is not spent—it is given. Don't be unjust.'
'Gott in Himmel! You're a good man, Petrovitch. You seem to have no faults.'
'Ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but I have known myself more than a score of years, and I know that I am full of them. Come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about something else.'
'And how have you liked it, my dearest Clare? Have you been terribly bored—or puzzled perhaps—since you are not used to these discussions?'
'I have never been more interested than I was by Mr Petrovitch,' said Clare, with perfect truth.
'Ah, yes,' said Mrs Quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?'
Clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the principal ingredient in Petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar.