CHAPTER XVII.

Mrs. Bright beamed, smiled, kissed her fingers to the young girl, and then did perfectly useless things with the silver tea-strainer, rinsing it again with boiling water, and touching it fastidiously, as though it might possibly soil her immaculate hands.

Katharinehad expected to spend a quiet evening with Ralston. She had counted upon Mrs. Bright’s sleepiness, which was overpowering when it suddenly came upon her, and upon Hamilton Bright’s tact. She thought that he would very probably go out soon after dinner and not appear again. But she was very much mistaken in her calculations.

When she came down to dinner she found Bright already in the library. He was bending over a low table and looking at a new book when she entered, and she saw a broad, flat expanse of black shoulders, just surmounted by a round, flaxen head. As he heard her step behind him he straightened himself and turned round to meet her. He put out his hand. She seemed a little surprised at this, since they had exchanged all the usual greetings when she had come, but she took it with her left, with an unconscious awkwardness which touched him. She laughed a little.

“It’s not easy with my left,” she said. “It doesn’t come right—besides, we’ve shaken hands before.”

“I know,” he answered. “But it doesn’t do any harm to do it again, you know.”

It gave him pleasure to touch even the tips of her fingers.

“You have a sort of classic look,” he said, glancing at her dress. “Toga—you know—that sort of thing.”

“I don’t know how I’m dressed, I’m sure,” she answered. “It’s such a bore to have one’s arm in a sling.”

She wore black. Her left side was fitted closely by the soft material, and she had a certain little silver pin at her throat, which had associations for her. She had worn it on the morning of her marriage with John Ralston, and seldom appeared without it, though it was a most insignificant little ornament. Over her right shoulder and arm she had draped a piece of black silk and some lace. Mrs. Bright had come to her room and arranged it for her with unerring skill and taste. It fell gracefully almost to her feet, whence Bright’s remark about the toga.

“I should think it would be rather worse than a bore,” he said. “It must hurt all the time. I wonder you keep up at all. But I’m glad you’ve come down before my mother. I wanted to say something to you about all that’s happened. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Why should I mind?” asked Katharine, smilingat the little timidity which had checked him with its question.

“Well—you know—it’s about the will. There may be trouble about it. Your father may wish to break it if he can. It’s not unnatural. But of course, if he does, there’s going to be a most terrific row all round. We shall all be raging furiously together like the heathen in about a week, if he attacks the will. The Thirty Years’ War wouldn’t be in it, with the row there’s going to be.”

“You take a cheerful view, cousin Ham,” said Katharine, with a smile. “Who’s going to fight whom?”

“You and I are going to be on opposite sides,” answered Bright, gravely, and fixing his clear blue eyes on her face.

“Well—what difference does that make?” she asked. “I mean, what personal difference? We shall be just as good friends, shan’t we?”

“Ah—that’s it! Shall we?” He continued to watch her earnestly.

“Why not?” she asked, returning his gaze quietly. “What earthly difference can it make to me? Of course, I hope papa won’t do anything of the kind. We shall all have such heaps of money that I can’t see why we should fight about a little, more or less—”

“No—but if he breaks the will, my mother and Hester and I shall get nothing at all, and of courseI shall fight it like anything. You understand that, don’t you? It’s rather a big thing, you know—it’s forty millions or nothing, because we’re not next of kin. You’ll understand why I shall fight it, won’t you?”

He asked the last question very anxiously, and in his broad face there was a curious struggle between the fighting instinct, expressed in the setting of the firm jaw, and the painful fear of being misunderstood, which showed itself in the entreating glance of the eyes.

“I understand perfectly,” answered Katharine. “It’s your duty to fight it—of course.”

“I’m so glad you look at it in that way,” he said. “Because if you didn’t—” He paused in the middle of the sentence.

“If I didn’t, I should be very stupid,” observed Katharine.

“No, no! I mean—if I thought you couldn’t understand it—well, I’ll be hanged if I wouldn’t pretty nearly let the millions go, rather than displease you!”

He blurted out the last words bluntly, as such men say wild but sincerely meant things. Katharine understood.

“Please don’t say such foolish things, cousin Ham. You know it’s perfectly absurd to talk of sacrificing a fortune in that way. Besides, you’d have no right not to fight your best. Two-thirdsof what you’ll get will go to your mother and sister. You haven’t the slightest right even to think of the possibility of sacrificing aunt Maggie and Hester.”

“No. I suppose I’ve not. And I know that it isn’t as though you weren’t to have a big fortune anyway, however it turns out. Perhaps I’m a fool, but I simply can’t bear to think of being opposed to you in anything. That’s the plain fact, in two words.”

Katharine heard a sort of unsteadiness in the tone, and looked at him for a moment in silence.

“Thank you, cousin Ham,” she said. “You’re a good friend. Thank you.” She laid her hand upon his arm for an instant.

“That’s better than millions,” answered Bright, in an undertone, for his mother was just entering the room.

Mrs. Bright might well be pardoned if she did not assume a lugubrious and funereal expression that evening. To her, Robert Lauderdale had been a distant relation of enormous wealth, from whom she had little or nothing to expect, and whom she rarely saw. She had never needed his help, and though he had occasionally remembered her and sent her a jewel at Christmas, neither she nor her son had ever felt very much indebted to him. The surprise was therefore overwhelming, and the rejoicing inevitable and natural. Knowing, however,how dearly the old man had loved Katharine, and that she had been with him at the time of his death and had been really fond of him, Mrs. Bright avoided the subject altogether during dinner. It would not keep out of her face, however, nor out of her manner. Once or twice she and her son exchanged glances, and both suppressed a happy smile. Katharine saw, understood, and felt sad. The conversation turned upon generalities and was not very amusing.

Katharine could not help thinking of what Bright had said to her just before dinner. At the moment, he had undoubtedly meant that he would sacrifice the vast inheritance rather than incur her momentary displeasure. Of course, she said to herself, when the case arose he would not really have done so, but she could not but appreciate the reckless generosity of the thought, and wonder at the possible strength of the love that had prompted it. He had spoken so earnestly and there had been such a perceptible tremor in his voice, that she had been glad when Mrs. Bright’s appearance had cut short the interview. While she talked indifferently during dinner, her thoughts dwelt on what Ralston had said about Bright’s feelings and then went back to Ralston himself, who was almost always present in her reflections. She felt that she should not have felt any surprise if he had spoken as Bright had done. It wouldhave been quite natural. She might even have thought of accepting the sacrifice.

Just then, after a little pause in the conversation, Mrs. Bright suddenly asked her son whether he meant to go out in the evening.

“No,” he answered, promptly. “Not to-night. I wouldn’t go anywhere except to the club, and even there—well, everybody would be talking and asking questions, and that sort of thing. Besides,” he added, “cousin Katharine’s here.”

The change of tone as he spoke of Katharine was so apparent that Mrs. Bright smiled a little sadly. Her woman’s instinct had told her long ago that her son had very little chance.

The three had not been long in the library when a servant brought a card to Mrs. Bright. She glanced at it, somewhat surprised by the coming of an unexpected visitor, in these days when evening visits have disappeared from New York’s changeable civilization.

“It’s Archie Wingfield,” she said. “Funny!” she exclaimed. “Show Mr. Wingfield in,” she said to the servant.

A moment later Archibald Wingfield entered the room. In spite of himself, he paused a moment as he caught sight of Katharine.

“Oh!” he ejaculated, awkwardly, in a low voice.

Then he came forward, resolutely keeping his bold black eyes on Mrs. Bright’s face as he wentup to her and shook hands. Katharine had understood the exclamation of astonishment, and felt the awkwardness of the situation. But as she had given up all hope of seeing Ralston alone that evening, she thought it was as well, on the whole, that some one else should have come to help the general conversation. Nevertheless, she would have chosen almost any one rather than her last rejected suitor.

Both she and Hamilton Bright watched the young fellow with involuntary admiration as he crossed the room and stood exchanging first words with Mrs. Bright. There is a fascination about physical superiority when it far outdoes all its surroundings and is altogether beyond competition which, perhaps, no other attraction exercises in the same degree at first sight.

Wingfield came to Katharine next. The rich blood rose in his brown cheeks.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said, simply.

“Excuse my left hand,” she answered, quietly, as she extended it. “I’ve had a little accident.”

Wingfield started perceptibly. The expression in his black eyes changed to one of the deepest anxiety, and the blush slowly ebbed from his face.

“An accident?” he stammered.

“Oh—nothing serious,” she answered, touched by the evident strength of his feeling. “It’s onlythe small bone of my right arm. I fell down yesterday and broke it. It’s in splints, of course, so I have to use my left.”

“And you’re—you’re not taking care of yourself? With a broken arm?” He seemed amazed, not having had much experience of broken limbs—his own were solid. “But you ought to be at home—”

Katharine laughed a little.

“I’m staying here with aunt Maggie,” she answered. “I could scarcely have any better care, could I?”

“Oh—I see. Yes.” But he did not seem satisfied.

He turned to Bright, shook hands, and then sat down.

“You must think it awfully funny—my dropping in, in this way,” he said, recovering the self-possession which naturally belonged to his character. “The fact is, I was going to dine out, and at the last minute the people sent to tell me not to come, because they’ve had a little fire in the dining-room, and everything’s flooded and uncomfortable, and they were going to picnic somewhere—or something. So I dined at the club, and I’m going to see the last act of that play with the horses in it, you know—so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I asked leave to spend half an hour with you on the way.”

“Why, of course not!” cried Mrs. Bright. “I’m delighted. You must help us to amuse Katharine. She’s rather gloomy, poor child—with her arm, and all she’s been through. She was staying with poor Mr. Lauderdale when he died so suddenly.”

“Yes—it’s awfully sad,” answered Wingfield, with appropriate solemnity, and wondering whether he should congratulate the Brights upon the inheritance. “As for amusing Miss Lauderdale,” he continued, “I wish I could. But I’m not a very amusing person—not a bit.”

“Perhaps we can amuse you, instead,” suggested Katharine, by way of saying something.

“Oh, no—thanks—you’re very kind,” answered the young man, confusedly. “You know my brothers always call me the family idiot. They’re always chaffing me because I don’t know languages and things. I say, Bright—you’re clever—do you know a lot of languages?”

“I? No, indeed!” answered Bright, with a short laugh. “I don’t know anything particular—except about cattle and horses, and something about banking. I’ve had a modern education! How should I know anything?”

“Oh, hang it all—I mean—I beg your pardon—but what a thing to say!”

“It’s mere nonsense,” observed Mrs. Bright. “Ham knows everything in a useful way. Buthe’s always railing at modern education, and telling me that it’s ruined his mind. He’s not sensible about that. Really you’re not, Ham,” she added, with emphasis.

“Education’s meant for the common herd, mother,” answered Bright. “Fools are better without it, bankers don’t need it, and geniuses can do better.”

“That’s rather good,” said Katharine, thoughtfully. “With which do you class yourself?” she asked, with a laugh.

“Well—being neither a genius nor a fool, I have to be content with being a banker.”

“I say—are lawyers part of the common herd, Bright?” enquired Wingfield.

“Not if you’re going to be one, my dear boy,” answered the elder man. “But I hope you’re not going to nail me out on my statement like an owl over a stable door. It’s not kind. It’s much nicer to be misunderstood in a friendly way than to have all one’s friends up on their hind legs trying to understand one, when one hasn’t meant anything particular. By Jove! There goes the bell again! I wonder who it is?”

“What ears you have!” exclaimed Mrs. Bright. “I didn’t hear anything. But it must be Jack Ralston. He’d come early, you know.”

Katharine glanced surreptitiously at the two men, leaning back in her chair with half-closedeyes. Bright’s expression became a little more set, and he moved one foot uneasily. Wingfield looked at Mrs. Bright as she spoke, and then straight at Katharine. Ralston entered in a dead silence, glanced quickly at Wingfield, greeted every one in turn, in the quiet, easy way peculiar to him, which was quite different from Bright’s slow and rather heavy manner, and from Archibald Wingfield’s physical style, so to say, which showed itself in long, swift, powerful movements, like the great stride of a magnificent hunter going along in the open.

“You’ll be tired of the sight of me to-day,” said Ralston, smiling as he sat down near Mrs. Bright.

“No fear of that, Jack,” answered Bright, anxious to show Katharine that he was not displeased at Ralston’s coming. “My mother always looks upon you as a sort of second son.”

“The prodigal son,” suggested John.

“Is that a hint to produce the fatted calf?” asked Bright. “Or have you dined? You don’t look as though you had.”

“Why? What’s the matter with me? I’ve just come from dinner. I dined at home with my mother.”

“You’re rather lean for a man who dines every day,” laughed Bright. “That’s all. I believe you starve in secret. You’re afraid of getting fat,Jack—that’s the truth. Confess it! You think it wouldn’t be romantic.”

“I wish you would get a little fatter, Jack,” said Katharine. “You’d be much nicer, I’m sure.”

The remark might have been natural enough between two cousins, both young. But there was a subtle suggestion of proprietorship, or at least of belonging to one another, in the tone of her voice, which jarred on Wingfield’s ear. He was by no means dull nor slow of perception, in spite of what he had said of himself. As an athlete, however, he took up the question.

“You’d be stronger if you were a little heavier, Ralston,” he said. “Do you go in for oatmeal when you train?”

“Oh—I haven’t trained since I was at college. I never bothered much. But I don’t like stodgy things like porridge. I was a running man, you know. I don’t believe it makes a particle of difference what one eats.”

“Oh, I do!” Katharine exclaimed, anxious to make the conversation move. “I like some things and I don’t like others.”

“What, for instance?” asked Bright. “What do you like best to eat—and then afterwards, what other things do you like best in the world? That’s interesting. If you’ll tell us, we’ll get them for you right off.”

“I should think you could, between you,” saidMrs. Bright, glancing round at the three goodly men, and wondering whether Wingfield was as much in love with Katharine as the other two.

“What I like?—let me see,” said Katharine. “I like simple things to eat. I hate peppermints, for instance. My mother lives on them. I like plain things, generally—fish and game. Truffles—that’s another thing I detest. Aunt Maggie never can understand why. She says there’s something mysterious in a truffle, that appeals to her.”

“They’re so good!” exclaimed Mrs. Bright. “Big black ones in a napkin with fresh butter. But it’s quite true. There’s a sort of mystery in a truffle. It’s like love, you know.”

Everybody laughed at what seemed the fantastic irrelevancy of the comparison—Bright laughing louder than the rest.

“How do you make that out?” he asked. “It would be rather a grimy, earthy sort of love, I should think.”

“Explain, aunt Maggie!” laughed Katharine.

“A truffle’s a cryptogam,” said Bright. “Nobody has ever explained about cryptogams.”

“What is a cryptogam?” asked Katharine. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

“Cryptogam means secret marriage, or something of the sort,” said Wingfield.

Katharine started a little and glanced at John Ralston.

“Yes,” said the latter. “It’s equivalent to saying that nobody knows how they grow. But that doesn’t at all explain what aunt Maggie means by what she said. Come, aunt Maggie, we’re all waiting for you to tell us.”

“Oh—I’m getting so sleepy, my dears, don’t ask me to explain things! You know I’m always sleepy in the evening. It’s taking an unfair advantage of me! Why is love like a truffle? Why, exactly for that reason—because nobody can possibly tell when it begins, or how, or why—or anything about it. Only, when you find it, you’ve found something worth having. As for secret marriages—wasn’t it you who mentioned them just now, Mr. Wingfield? Yes—well, they’re very romantic and unpractical and pretty, but I should think the people would find it a great nuisance. It’s much better to run away, and be done with it.”

Ralston’s eyes met Katharine’s, and he suppressed a smile, but in her pale face the colour was rising slowly. Again the door opened, and two men entered the room unannounced. The servant had taken it for granted that as two visitors had been admitted, he might admit as many more as came. Paul Griggs, the author, and Walter Crowdie, the artist, came forward into the bright light. Crowdie has been already described. Griggs was a lean, strong, grey-haired, plain-featured man of fifty, a gaunt, bony,weather-beaten man, who had lived in many countries and had seen many interesting sights—but none so interesting, people had been saying lately, as Katharine Lauderdale’s face. It was commonly said that he was in love with the girl, and people added that at his age it was ridiculous, and that he was making a fool of himself.

Crowdie, as the son-in-law of the house, and one of the numerous persons who called Mrs. Bright ‘aunt,’ came forward first, to shake hands and explain the visit.

“I was going to make an apology for coming in without warning, aunt Maggie,” he said. “Griggs dined with us, and we’re going to see the last act of that play with the horses in it—you know—and as it’s too early, we thought we’d ring the bell and call. But as you’ve got a party, I suppose you accept the apology. At least, I hope you will.”

“You’re very welcome, Walter—glad to see you, Mr. Griggs.” Mrs. Bright beamed. “It is a party—isn’t it? Why, there are five men in the room. Let’s all go and see the last act of the play with the horses, and come back to supper! Oh—I forgot—and Katharine, too, with her broken arm. But Mr. Wingfield’s going to it by and by.”

“Yes,” said Wingfield. “I’m going. We’ll walk up together.”

Both Griggs and Crowdie had already heard of Katharine’s accident and were asking her about it, before Mrs. Bright had finished speaking. Presently the new-comers got seats, and the circle widened to admit them as they sat down.

“I’m sure we interrupted some delightful conversation,” said Griggs, breaking the momentary silence. “Won’t you go on?”

“My mother was explaining her views upon secret marriages,” said Bright. “She’d just been comparing love to a truffle.”

“Truffle—cryptogam—secret marriage—love,” said Griggs, gravely. “Very natural sequence of ideas. The interesting link is the secret marriage.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” assented young Wingfield. “What do you think about it, Mr. Griggs?”

“What were you saying about it?” asked the man of letters, cautiously.

“No—what do you think about it?” insisted Mrs. Bright. “We hadn’t said anything especial.”

“Is anybody present secretly married?” enquired Griggs, with a pleasant laugh. “No—exactly—then I shouldn’t advise any of you to try it. I did once—”

“You!” exclaimed two or three voices at once, and in surprise.

“Yes—on paper, in a book, with my paper dolls. I never want to do it again. It had awful consequences.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Mrs. Bright.

“Oh—nothing! I fell in love with the heroine myself from writing about her, killed the hero out of jealousy, and blew out my brains in the end because she wouldn’t have me. I suppose it was natural, considering what I’d done, but I took my revenge. I put her into a convent of Carmelite nuns. It was so awkward afterwards. I wanted her in another book—because I was in love with her—but as she was a Carmelite, she couldn’t get out respectably, so she’s there still. It’s an awful bore.”

Even Katharine, who had felt the blood rising again in her cheeks, laughed at the simple, natural regret expressed in Griggs’ face as he spoke.

“Yes,” said Bright. “That’s all very well in a novel. But in real life it’s quite different. I think a man who does that kind of thing is a cad, myself.”

“So do I,” said Archibald Wingfield, impetuously. “A howling cad, you know.”

“It’s an unnecessary piece of presumption to suppose that the world cares what one does,” said Crowdie, who had not spoken yet. “And it complicates things abominably to be married and not married at the same time. Shouldn’t you think so, Miss Lauderdale?” he asked, turning his head towards Katharine as he spoke.

“I? Oh—I’ve no opinion in the matter,” answeredKatharine, looking away, and feeling very uncomfortable.

“I don’t agree with either of you,” said Ralston, slowly. “It depends entirely on circumstances. There are cases where it’s the only thing to do, if people really love each other. I don’t think any one has a right to say that a man’s a cad simply because he’s married his wife secretly. A man’s a much worse cad who marries a girl for her money, and doesn’t care for her, than any man who gets secretly married for real love—and you all know it.”

Ralston could not help speaking rather aggressively.

“Look out for the family temper!” laughed Walter Crowdie, in his exquisitely musical voice.

“We’re all more or less of the family here,” answered Ralston, “except Mr. Griggs and Wingfield. Not that we’re likely to get angry about such a question,” he added, with an attempt at indifference. “What I say is that it’s a monstrous injustice to call a man a cad on such grounds.”

“Oh—all right, Jack!” cried Bright. “If ever you get secretly married, we won’t say you’re a cad. But in most cases—well, I’d rather hear Griggs talk about it than talk myself. He’s an expert in love affairs—on paper, as he says. Say what you really think, Griggs. Wingfield and Ican hold Ralston between us if he shows signs of being dangerous.”

“I think I could help myself, in a modest way,” said Mr. Griggs, with a quiet smile. “I used to be pretty strong once.”

He made the remark merely in the hope of turning the conversation. Wingfield, as an athlete and a young Hercules, could not hear any allusion made to physical strength without taking it up and discussing it.

“Were you a boating man, Mr. Griggs?” he enquired, with sudden interest.

“No. I never pulled in a race.”

“I suppose you went in for long distance running, then. You’re made for it,” he added, rather patronizingly and glancing at the man’s sinewy figure.

“No. I never ran in a race,” answered the literary man.

“Oh—I supposed, when you spoke, that you’d gone in for athletics—formerly,” said Wingfield, disappointed.

“No—I wasn’t educated in places where athletics were the fashion at that time. I was strong—that’s all. I could do things with my hands that other people couldn’t.”

“Could you?” Katharine saw that the original subject was dropping, and encouraged the dull conversation which had taken its place. “Whatcould you do with your hands?” she asked, with an air of interest. “They look strong. Could you roll up silver plates into holders for bouquets, like Count Orloff?”

“I think I could do it,” Griggs answered, quietly. “But nobody ever wanted to waste a silver plate on me.”

“It’s not easy, I should think,” said young Wingfield. “I know I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m sure you could,” said Katharine, turning to him. “You must be tremendously strong. But can’t you do something else with your hands, Mr. Griggs? I like to see those things. They amuse me.”

Griggs was the last man in the world to wish to show off his qualities, physical or mental, but on the present occasion he could not resist the temptation. He never knew afterwards why he had yielded, and attributed his weakness to the inborn desire to excel in the eyes of women, which is in every man.

“Have you a pack of cards?” he asked, turning to Bright. “If you have, I’ll show you something that may amuse you.”

Bright was a whist player, and immediately brought a pack from a remote corner of the room and put it into Griggs’ hands.

“Now—there’s no deception, as the conjurers say,” he began, with a laugh, looking first atKatharine, and then at Wingfield, as the strong man of the party. “Perhaps you can do it, Mr. Wingfield?” he added.

“What? Tricks with cards? No—I’m not good at that sort of thing.”

“Well—it isn’t exactly a trick. I’m going to tear the pack in two. Did you ever see it done?”

“No,” answered Wingfield, incredulously. “I’ve heard of it—but I don’t believe it’s possible, if you tear it fairly.”

“Is this fair? Have I got a fair hold on them?”

“Yes—that’s all right. I don’t believe anybody can do it that way.”

“Well—look.”

Griggs set his teeth a little as he made the effort, and the furrows in the weather-beaten face deepened a little, but that was all. The sinews stood out on the backs of his hands for a few seconds, and his hands moved, the one downwards, the other up. The pack was torn clean in two.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Bright. “I never saw that done.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Wingfield. “I’ve often tried. It’s perfectly magnificent!”

“I’ll avoid you in a fight,” observed Ralston, laughing.

Crowdie had looked on with curiosity, but he had watched Griggs’ face rather than his hands, comparing it with a picture of Samson pullingdown the pillars, which rose in his memory. He came to the conclusion that the man who had painted the picture had never seen a great feat of strength.

“It looks so easy,” said Katharine. “But it must be awfully hard.”

“There’s a good story the peasants tell in Russia about Peter the Great,” said Griggs. “He was hunting. His horse lost a shoe, and he stopped at a wayside smith’s. The smith made a shoe while Peter waited. Peter took it, tried it in his hands, broke it and threw it into a corner, saying it was bad. The smith made another, and the Czar broke it again, and so on. But he could not break the tenth. The blacksmith asked a rouble for the shoe. Peter gave him one. He broke it in two and threw it into a corner, saying it was bad—and so he broke as many roubles as the Czar had broken shoes, and said that the tenth was good. Peter was so much pleased that he made the man a general—or something.”

“I suppose you could do that, too, couldn’t you?” asked Katharine, looking at the gaunt, grey man with a strong admiration.

“Oh, yes—I’ve done it. But it’s a strange thing, isn’t it, when you think that it’s all an illusion?”

“An illusion!” cried Wingfield, in disappointment. “What do you mean? It isn’t a trick, surely!”

“Oh, no! I don’t mean that. But all matter is an illusion, isn’t it? Nothing’s real that isn’t permanent.”

“But if matter isn’t permanent, what is?” asked Bright. “But I know—you have the most extraordinary ideas about those things.”

“I don’t think they’re extraordinary. If matter were permanent in the sense you mean, then life would be permanent in the same sense, because we’re matter, and we shouldn’t die.”

YoungWingfield looked at Katharine with an air of entreaty, as though hoping that she, at least, might understand what Mr. Griggs meant. She smiled as she saw his expression, and understood what was passing in his mind. She was supposed to have seen far more of Griggs during the preceding month than she really had, and she got credit for comprehending, at least, the general drift of his ideas, beyond what she deserved. Wingfield looked at her in vain, and then broke the silence which had followed Griggs’ last speech.

“I wish one knew what to believe,” he said, formulating the nineteenth century’s dying question. “It’s not easy, you know, with all these theories about.”

Of the seven persons present there was not one whose convictions really coincided, even approximately, with any established form of belief. Yet all belonged to some one of the few principal Christian churches, by birth, early associations and youthful teaching.

Wingfield’s question was received in silence. His bold black eyes glanced from one to another ofhis companions, and the blood mounted slowly in his healthy brown cheeks, for he was young enough to fancy that some of these might have thought his remark futile or trivial and he did not wish to seem dull before Katharine.

She found herself in a strange position. By a very natural train of circumstances she was accidentally set up as a sort of idol that evening before the five men who, of all others, each in his own way, most sincerely loved and admired her. Secretly married to the one of them she loved, two of the others—Hamilton Bright and Wingfield—wished to marry her. Of the other two, Crowdie, the painter, admired her more than any woman he had ever seen, though he was undoubtedly in love with his wife. Had she been able to understand his admiration, it would have repelled her. Fortunately it was beneath her understanding. And to Griggs, weather-beaten, overworked, disenchanted of all that the world held, by reason of having had much of it either too early or too late, with his hard head and his dreamy mind and his almost supernaturally strong hands—to Griggs she represented something he would not have told then, but something which Katharine need not have been ashamed to hear of, nor her husband to tolerate. Ralston might even have found sympathy for him.

They all worshipped her in one way or another,though she was a very human girl of her time and place in the world. And somehow, in the silence which followed Griggs’ speech, broken only by Wingfield’s questioning remark, they all turned to her as he had done, as though in her face they sought the lost faith. Hard-headed men, some of them, too, and hard-fisted. The three eldest had each accomplished something. The two younger ones were perhaps on the way. They were rather typical men.

Katharine was vaguely conscious of their glances, and was the first to speak, after Wingfield.

“It’s what we all feel—what half the people we know feel, though they haven’t the courage to say it.”

Wingfield looked at her gratefully, conscious that she had justified what he had feared had been a foolish observation.

“Katharine,” said Mrs. Bright, who had not spoken for a long time, “if you’re going to talk theology, I shall go to bed—like the baron in the Ingoldsby legends. ‘There are no windows to break, and they can’t get in’—do you remember? So he went to bed and slept soundly through the siege. It’s exactly the same with theology, my dear. It’s all been discussed a hundred thousand times, and yet nobody ever gets in. There’s only one religion the whole world over, and that is, to do the best one can and help other people—becauseno one can do better than the best he can, according to what he thinks right. And there’s a great deal in soap, my dear. I’m sure people feel like better people when they’re clean, and as people do what they feel, why, they really are better people. I’d like to try free soap in the State of New York for a year, and see whether it didn’t improve the criminal statistics.”

“It’s a splendid election cry, mother,” said Bright. “ ‘Soap—Something—and Stability.’ We’ll try it some day.”

“No, but there’s truth in it,” protested Mrs. Bright. “Isn’t there, Mr. Griggs?”

“Of course,” answered Griggs, gravely. “Every religion that ever existed has some rules of ablution. And there’s a lot of truth in the other things you said, Mrs. Bright. Only the trouble is, a code of action—what you call doing the best one can—doesn’t satisfy humanity. The average human being won’t do anything for its own sake. He must do it for his own advantage here—or hereafter, since people will insist on using that idiotic word.”

“Why idiotic?” asked Wingfield, very naturally.

“Hereafter means a future, and there isn’t any such thing, except in a small way, for matter-worlds and such little trifles, which go to pieces every two or three thousand million years.”

“Yes, but the soul—if we’ve got one.”

Wingfield added the last conditional expression rather sheepishly, as though he suspected that the highly intellectual beings amongst whom he found himself might have done away with such old-fashioned nonsense as the soul.

“Of course you’ve got a soul,” said Griggs, rather impatiently. “But if it’s a real soul, it has no weight and no size, and no shape and no colour, nor anything resembling matter—nor anything with which to resemble anything, except other souls. Well, of course you know that time is only conceivable in relation to matter in motion, so that where there isn’t any matter, there isn’t any time. And where there’s no time there can’t be portions of time, which are past, present, and future. So the soul has no time, doesn’t exist in relation to time, and consequently can’t be said to have a hereafter. The body has a hereafter—oh, yes—it’s absorbed into the elements and lives over again thousands of millions of times. But the soul hasn’t. It’s eternal. If it always is to be, as we say, comparing it to matter, why, then, it always was, by the same comparison. But the fact is, that ‘it is’—and there’s no more to be said. ‘It is,’ and as it’s indestructible, not being matter, by the hypothesis, nothing can be said of it in that respect except that ‘it is.’ You can’t say that an axiom, for instance, has a past, present, and future, can you? Well—if the soul’s anything,it’s axiomatic. There, I’ve bored you to death—shall I tear another pack of cards for you, or break silver dollars to amuse you? I’ll do anything I’m told, now that I’ve had my say.”

Griggs laughed quietly and crossed one leg over the other, as he looked at Katharine.

“You’re not a comforting person when one feels religious,” she said.

“No—by Jove!” exclaimed Bright. “You wouldn’t have converted the cowboys in the Nacimiento Valley, Griggs. They’d have tried their own idea of a hereafter on you—quick. That’s the trouble with all that metaphysical stuff, or whatever you call it—it doesn’t say anything to mankind—it only talks to professorkind. Unless a fellow’s passed a sort of higher standard in terminations, he hasn’t the ghost of a chance of spiritual comfort. He couldn’t understand the first word of what you talk about.”

“Did I use long words?” asked Griggs, blandly. “I thought I didn’t.”

“Well, not exactly long words. I don’t mean literally terminations. But you talk another language, somehow. I know I’m what they call an educated man, because I once learned some Latin and Greek at a sinful expense of time. But I can’t half follow you, even when you use good plain English. The policeman at the corner would march you off and clap you in the jug like a shot ifyou talked to him that way for five minutes. That is, unless you tied him up in a hard knot with those hands of yours, and set him down by the railings to cool. I wouldn’t try it, though. I suppose there’s a limit to the number of policemen you could strangle with each finger. No—joking apart—that sort of thing isn’t going to take the place of Christianity, you know—even as people like us look at what we call Christianity. You’ve got to have something to pray for and somebody to pray to, you know, after all.”

“Well,” answered Griggs, “there’s God to pray to and salvation to pray for.”

“Not in your system—without any future,” retorted Bright.

“Oh, yes, there is,” replied the other. “You seem to think I’m an atheist, or a freethinker, at least—though I can’t see why, I’m sure.”

“Why—because—” Bright stopped, trying to formulate his accusation.

Katharine laughed a little, and Wingfield looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression, as though he should have liked to understand better. Griggs proceeded to defend himself.

“Did I say that there was no soul?” he enquired. “On the contrary, I said that the soul was eternal. Did I say that there was no God? I said nothing about it. The soul is a part of God, and, therefore, since the part exists, the Whole, of which it is apart, exists also. It’s my belief, and, therefore, so far as I’m concerned, it’s fact. Belief is knowledge—the ultimate possible knowledge of every man at the moment of asking him what he believes. Did I deny that the soul is happy or unhappy according to its rule of itself? Not at all, though I didn’t try to explain the way in which it strikes me. You might not understand it. But I believe that its happiness or unhappiness is exactly inversely relative to the amount of alloy it gets from the things of which it is conscious. As I see them all in my own way, I believe all the articles of faith of my church, and I’m a Roman Catholic.”

“Well—I don’t see how you can,” said Bright, discontentedly.

“You’re our dear Buddhist!” put in Mrs. Bright, with a breadth of toleration peculiar to her, and becoming. “You’ve often told me the most delightful things about Buddhism, and I shall never think of you as anything but a Buddhist.”

“That’s a thoroughly logical position, mother!” laughed Bright. “Stick to it!”

“I can’t help it if my Christianity seems like Buddhism to you,” answered Griggs. “If you knew more about Buddhism, you’d see the difference very soon. But religion’s like love. It affects different people differently. It isn’t often that any two people see it in precisely the same light. When they do—”

He paused, interrupting himself. His tired eyes became suddenly dreamy, as he stared at the Persian embroidery that hung before the disused fireplace around which they were all sitting.

“What happens when they do?” asked Katharine.

“What happens, Miss Lauderdale? How should I know what happens when people who are in love see love in the same light? I’m an old bachelor, you know.” He laughed drily, being roused again.

“You’re right about one thing at all events,” said Crowdie. “It’s not often that two people love in the same way. There are five of us men here, about as radically different from each other as five men could be, I should think. It’s quite possible that we may all be more or less in love at the present moment. I’m willing to confess that I am. Don’t jump, Ham! I’m in love with my wife, and as we’re in the family I suppose I may say so, mayn’t I?”

“You needn’t be ashamed of loving Hester, my dear Walter!” cried Mrs. Bright.

Bright himself said nothing, but looked curiously at his brother-in-law, whom he disliked in an unaccountable way. He had never been able to understand Griggs’ apparent attachment to the man. He had heard that when Crowdie had been a young art student in Paris, twelve or fourteen years earlier, Griggs had nursed him through an illness,and had otherwise taken care of him. There was a mystery about it which Hamilton Bright had always wished to solve. According to him, the best thing about Crowdie was his friendship for the literary man. Bright could not fathom its mystery, any more than he could understand his sister’s passionate, all-devouring love for Crowdie. The husband and wife were almost inseparable. Such a state of things should have seemed admirable to the wife’s brother, but for some mysterious reason it did not. Bright had almost resented his sister’s ardent devotion to a man who seemed to him so unmanly. He always thought that Crowdie, with his soft, pale face and vividly red lips, was like a poisonous tropical flower that would ultimately harm Hester in some unimaginable way.

“No—I’m not ashamed of it,” said the painter, in answer to his mother-in-law’s remark. “But that isn’t the question. What I mean is, that we all love, or should love, in different ways—all five of us. Look at us—how different we are! There’s Griggs, now. I’ve known him half my life and a good bit of his. If he’s in love, he’s picked out a soul, and then a face, and then a set of ideas out of his extensive collection, and he’s sublimated the whole in that old retort of a brain of his, and he’s living on the perfume of the essence. Poor old Griggs!”

“Don’t pity me, and don’t patronize me, Crowdie!” laughed Griggs. “If you offend me, I’ll pay you off, you know.”

“I’m not frightened—but I’ve done with you. I’ll go on. There’s Ralston—he’s dangerous. He’d love like Othello, and lose his temper like Hotspur. As for Bright, he has permanent qualities. When he’s once made up his mind, it makes up him for the rest of his life. Faithful Johnnie, don’t you know? He’s a do or die sort of man—and with his constitution it means doing and not dying. Wingfield—oh, Wingfield’s Achilles. An Achilles with black hair—only rather more so. With his size, it’s lucky for the Trojans that he hasn’t got your Lauderdale temper that you’re always talking about. Schliemann wouldn’t even find the foundations of Troy. Wingfield would pulverize the whole place and use it up for polishing his weapons. Briseis, or nothing—while the mood lasts. I don’t mean to say that you’re fickle, Wingfield, but you’re much too human for an undying passion, you know.”

“How about yourself?” enquired young Wingfield. “We’ve each had our turn. Don’t forget yourself.”

“Oh—as for myself—I don’t know. I’ll leave that to you. You can all take your revenge, and define me, if you like. I’ll be patient. I’m not aggressive by nature. Besides, I’m quite different—I mustn’t be judged like you other men.”

“And why not?” enquired Katharine.

“Why—I’m an artist. The foundations of my nature are different from yours. I’m a skilled workman. It’s your business to be more or less skilled thinkers. I do things with my hands, you do things with your brains. The beginning of art is manual, mechanical skill. Any one who’s got it enough to be an artist must be something of a materialist. He can’t help it, any more than a surgeon can. What’s subject to you is object to me—so we can’t possibly look at the same things in the same way.”

“That’s why you’re such a confounded materialist!” exclaimed Griggs.

“Nonsense!” retorted Crowdie. “You’re always saying that matter’s an illusion and an idea. I’m the real idealist because I go in for matter, which is nothing but a dream, according to you.”

“Of all the consummately impertinent arguments!” laughed the man of letters. “You’re an arrant humbug, my dear Crowdie.”

“Since matter’s only humbug, I don’t mind,” rejoined the painter. “That’s unanswerable unless you throw up your theory—which you won’t, for I know you. So you’d better leave me and my art to do the best they can together.”

“It seems to me that Crowdie’s got rather the better of you,” observed Bright.

“Oh—he has. I always admit that the childrenof light haven’t a chance against the children of darkness.”

“That’s an argument ‘ad hominem,’ ” observed Crowdie. “It’s your way of throwing up the sponge.”

“Hit him again!” laughed Bright. “Turn the other theoretical cheek to the smiter, Griggs!”

“He’s afraid of me, all the same,” retorted Griggs. “These materialists are the most superstitious people alive. He believes that I learned all sorts of queer things in the East, and that I could roll up his shadow, like Peter Schlemil’s, and destroy his Totem, and generally make his life a burden to him by translating ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ into Arabic, and pouring ink into my hand, and all that. You know you do.”

“Yes,” answered Crowdie. “I confess that I’m what you call superstitious. I’m inclined to believe in things like magic and spells—like John Wellington Wells. Since your matter’s all a dream, it can’t take much to blur it, and make it move about and change and behave oddly. Oh, yes—I believe in the spirits of the four elements, and all that—or if I don’t, I’d like to.”

“What good would it do you?” asked Wingfield, bluntly.

“Good? It isn’t a question of good, it’s a question of beauty. I want to believe that beautiful things have a consciousness and a sort ofpower of their own, a special perishable soul—the sort of soul that Lucretius talks about. I’m quite willing to think that they may have an immortal soul, too, but what concerns me is the perishable one, that suffers and enjoys and speaks in the eyes and sighs in the voice.”

Crowdie knew what he was talking about. In painting, his talent lay chiefly in expressing that perishable, passionate animation which is in every human face. And so far as the voice was concerned, his own was remarkable, and the few who ever heard him sing were almost inclined to ask whether he had not mistaken his vocation and erred in not becoming a public singer. It is not an uncommon thing to find painters who have beautiful voices. Gustave Doré, for instance, might have earned both reputation and fortune as a tenor.

“I’m afraid you’re an incorrigible heathen, Walter,” said Mrs. Bright. “I wonder you haven’t set up gods and goddesses all over your house—you and Hester—with little tripods before them, and garlands and perfumes—like Tadema’s pictures, you know.”

“You can’t symbolize matter, aunt Maggie,” laughed Crowdie. “If you do, you get entangled with the ideal again, and your symbol turns into an idol. The Greek statues were meant for portraits of gods and goddesses, not for symbols. Sowere the pictures and the images of the early church—portraits of divine and holy personages. The moment such things become symbols, there’s a revulsion, and they turn into idols.”

“That’s a profound thought, Crowdie,” said Griggs. “I don’t believe you ever hit on it by yourself.”

“Well—it’s in my consciousness, anyhow, and I don’t know where it comes from,” answered the painter. “I suppose it’s part of my set of ideas about matter.”

“It all seems to me very abstruse,” said Wingfield, who was considerably bored by the discussion, to Katharine, who was listening.

“No,” she answered, quickly. “I like it. It interests me.”

She had only glanced at him, but she had realized at once that he was still wholly occupied with herself. There was a wistful, longing regret in his black eyes just then which she understood well enough. She was sincerely sorry for him, and would have done anything reasonable in her power to comfort him. As he turned from her she looked at him again with an expression which might have been interpreted to mean an affectionate pity, though she had certainly never got so far as to feel anything approaching to affection for the magnificent youth. Almost immediately she was conscious that both Ralston and Bright werewatching her during the momentary pause in the conversation.

“Why are you both looking at me like that?” she asked, innocently glancing from one to the other.

“Oh—nothing!” answered Bright, colouring suddenly and turning his eyes away. “I didn’t know I was staring.”

Ralston said nothing in reply to her question, but transferred his gaze from her to Wingfield, with something not unlike envy in his look. Few men could look at Wingfield without feeling a little envious of his outward being, and Ralston was a man singularly devoid of personal vanity, like his mother.

“I wish I could paint you all!” exclaimed Crowdie, suddenly.

“That’s a large order,” observed Bright, with a smile.

“You’ve all got such lots in your faces to-night,” continued the artist, with an odd enthusiasm. “There must be something in the air—well, that doesn’t mean anything, of course—but it’s very strange.”

“What’s strange?” asked Katharine.

“Oh—I can’t exactly explain. There’s an unusual air about us all, as though we were under pressure and rather inclined to do eccentric things. I could paint it, but I can’t possibly put it in words.”

“I suppose I’m not sensitive,” said Wingfield to Katharine. “I don’t notice anything particular, do you? At least—not outside, you know,” he added, quickly, being all at once conscious of something he had not been aware of a moment earlier.

“I know what he means,” answered Katharine. “I feel it myself. But then—I’m tired and I suppose I’m nervous.”

“There’s a queer, mythological atmosphere about,” Crowdie was saying.

“It’s what we’ve been talking about,” said Mrs. Bright. “We’re all so completely mixed on the subject of time and space and things like that, that we’re just ready to believe in ghosts, and turn tables, and make idiots of ourselves.”

“What a barbarian you are, aunt Maggie!” cried Crowdie, looking round at his mother-in-law. “You’d take the poetry out of the Nine Muses. Not that I meant anything poetical. It’s much more a sort of creepy, dreamy, undefinable sensation. Yes—perhaps you’re right after all. I shouldn’t be surprised if one of us saw a ghost to-night.”

“What will you bet?” enquired Ham, with the slow, western emphasis he could assume when he chose.

“You’re insufferable!” exclaimed Crowdie. “Fancy betting on seeing ghosts! You’re worse than aunt Maggie. The only man who understandsme is Griggs. Griggs, you do understand, don’t you?”

There was something petulant and almost womanish in his tone, which struck all four men disagreeably, though perhaps none of them could or would have told why.

“Don’t talk!” answered Griggs. “When you want people to understand you, paint or sing. You only make a mess of it when you try to explain what you feel in English. You’re a good painter and you sing like an angel, but you’re a bad talker.”

“That’s said because I got the better of you in talking just now,” retorted Crowdie, who did not seem in the least annoyed.

“Oh, don’t begin sparring again, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Bright. “Cousin Katharine’s tired to death of hearing you two fighting. Sing something, Walter. It’s much better.”

“Oh, no!” answered Crowdie. “Oh, no! I can’t sing, thank you. I never sing at parties—as they call it.”

“You don’t call this a party, do you?” enquired Bright. “Don’t be silly. We all want to hear you. You’re not the common amateur who has to be begged and flattered and cajoled, and praised afterwards. You can sing when you choose, and we all want you to.”

“No. I’d rather not,” said the painter, with achange of tone, as though he were very much in earnest.

“I wish you would!” Katharine, for the moment, really longed to hear the wonderful voice.

“Do you?” asked Crowdie.

There was a hesitation in his tone which suggested the idea that he had perhaps been waiting for Katharine to ask him, in order to yield to the request. Instantly the young girl was aware that the eyes of Ralston and Bright were upon her. Griggs had turned his head and was watching Crowdie curiously. Mrs. Bright looked at him, too, hesitated, and then spoke.

“I really think that promise you made Hester was too absurd, Walter!” she said.

“What promise?” asked Katharine, quickly.

“Not to sing for any one but her,” said Mrs. Bright, before Crowdie could interrupt her. “Hester told me.”

Everybody looked at Crowdie and smiled at the sentimentality. His soft eyes glanced disagreeably at his mother-in-law for a moment, and the smile on his red lips did not conceal his annoyance.

“Besides,” continued Mrs. Bright, “if Katharine asks you, I think you might—really, it’s too silly of Hester.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Katharine, “I don’t want you to break any promise, Mr. Crowdie—especiallyone you’ve made to Hester. She’d never forgive me. Please don’t sing—some time when she’s here—perhaps—”

But at once she again felt Ralston’s glance and Bright’s. She wondered why they looked at her so often.

“Well then, it isn’t Katharine who asks you,” said Mrs. Bright. “I do. I’ll be responsible to Hester. I know she won’t mind, if it’s for me. Now, Walter, do! Just to please me!”

Crowdie said nothing. He turned his eyes upon her and then to Katharine’s face. But, feeling uncomfortably as though she were being watched for some reason which she could not understand, Katharine was looking down, nervously pulling at a thread in the lace which covered her right arm.

Wingfield was sitting on one side of her, in one of those naturally graceful attitudes which athletes assume without thought or care, one elbow on his knee as he bent forward, supporting his chin upon his in-turned hand, his resolute young face turned towards Crowdie, his black eyes somewhat sad and shadowy. On Katharine’s other side sat Ralston, nervous, moody, ready to spring, as it were, for he had not yet recovered from his anger at what had been said about secret marriages. Next to him was Bright, upright in his straight-backed chair, his heavy arms folded on his full chest, his roundhead thrown back, his clear blue eyes fixed on Katharine’s face.

As she looked up again, she had a strong impression of being surrounded by splendid wild animals. Wingfield was the tiger, colossally lithe, brown, black, and golden; Ralston the panther, less in strength, but lighter to spring, quicker to see, perhaps more cruel; Bright the lion, fair, massive, dominant, silent in his strength. Griggs was a wolf, grey, old, tough, destined to die hard some day without a cry. And Crowdie—with his woman’s eyes, his soft, clear voice, his delicate white hands, his repellent pallor, and wound-like lips—Katharine thought of neither man nor beast. Even in the midst of her dream of wild animals, he was Crowdie still, with a mysterious, indescribable, poisonous something in all his being which made it a suffering for her to touch his hand. To this something, whatever it might be, she preferred her father’s cruel avarice, her mother’s envy, heartless as it had been while it lasted. To it she would have preferred a drunkard’s trembling hand and lip. John Ralston’s ungovernable temper was immeasurably preferable to that, or her sister’s mean pride and petty vanity. There was no weakness or sin, scarcely any crime of which her maiden heart had dreamed with horror, which she would not have met and faced and seen in its bare ugliness, rather than that unknownsomething of which the existence was a certainty when Crowdie was near her.

In the dead silence of the moment the very faintest sound would have been loud. Whether they admitted it or not, they were none of them just then in a natural or normal state of nerves, except perhaps Mrs. Bright, whose supernal calm was not easily disturbed. Each one of the five men was thinking in his own way of Katharine, and of all she might be to him. The great passion was there, five-fold, and it made itself felt in the very air of the quiet room.

Then a soft vibration, as of a soul far off, murmuring to itself, just trembled and felt its way amongst them, like the promise of a caress. And again it came, more strongly, more clear, floating in the soft air and taking life in it, and stealing to the heart with a tender, backward-reaching regret, with a low, passionate looking forward to things of love yet to come.

Crowdie was singing. He had not changed his position as he sat in his chair, and he had scarcely raised his face. There was no effort, no outward striving for art, no searching for effect. The notes floated from his lips as though he thought them rather than as though they were produced by any human means, rising, sinking, with ever varying colour, tone, and meaning, ringing, as he sang, like an angel’s clarion tones, sighing, as he breathed them, like the whole world’s love-dream.

Then time, too, sank away into dreamland. Before Katharine’s closed eyes rose Lohengrin, silver-armed—floated the mystic swan—clashed the clanging swords. And then, moonbeams, the passionate, great, spell-ruled love—the question and its horror of endless parting—the rush of the destroyers to the bridal chamber, the last, the very last farewell, and out through the misty portals of the dream floated again the fatal, lordly swan, with arching neck, bearing away, spirit-like, the last breath of love from Elsa’s life.

None of them could have told how long he sang, for time was away in dreamland, and passion’s weary eyes drooped and saw not the pain.

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