"But what prices for a bit of canvas and a daub of paint," she said. "I can't see a bit of difference between it and the copy. That was a nice young fellow who did it too. I was sorry that you had to give so bad a report of him to my son."
Craddock hardly paused. He assumed that Philip had said something to his mother about it, and though he would not have chosen that his name should have been mentioned as informant, he felt it was useless to deny it. Nor did he wish to: jealousy, impotent and bitter, took hold of him.
"Yes, a loose young fellow, I am afraid," he said. "But I am doing what I can for him, for his gift is perfectly marvellous. Indeed, I should not wonder if he is some day known among the greatest English masters. As I was saying, there are some very fine Reynolds in the Exhibition. I had the pleasure of getting hold of one or two for them. You must see it...."
"Oh, drat the Exhibition," she said.
She explained that a sudden twinge of neuralgia had visited her, and put on several veils.
One morning towards the end of March Frank Armstrong was sitting in Charles' studio with a writing-pad on the table in front of him, a sucked out pipe upside down between his lips, a corrugated forehead, rumpled hair, and an expression of the wickedest ill-humour on his face. Beside him on the floor a waste-paper basket vomited half sheets of futile manuscript, and other crumpled up and rejected pages strewed the floor. At the far end of the studio Charles was encamped, he and his manuscript on the model's stand, painting, as he had done in the portrait of his mother, from a position above the sitter. It gave an opportunity of subtle foreshadowing which was a holy joy if you could do it right, which he was quite convinced he could. An expression of vivid and absorbed content—absorbed he was by the sight of Frank wrestling with his work, and cursing and swearing at his difficulties—pervaded his face. To him, from the artistic point of view, that angry scowling countenance was a beatific vision. Frank had come earlier than he had expected that morning, bringing his work with him as desired, and Charles, half dressed only in loose shirt and flannel trousers, had hopped on to his seat immediately, for Frank with scarcely a word of greeting had sat down at once to struggle with a troublesome situation. Seated there, with his sheaf of spear-like paint-brushes, and his young and seraphic face, he looked like some modern variation of St. Sebastian. Frank had already remarked this with singular annoyance.
Charles smiled and stared and painted.
"If you could manage to put that pipe out of your mouth for five minutes, Frank," he said tentatively.
"But I couldn't."
"It doesn't matter a bit," said Charles cordially.
Frank instantly took it out, and Charles had to stop painting for a moment, for he was so entertained by the brilliance of his own guilefulness that his hand trembled. But in a moment he got to work again, and began whistling under his breath.
"Oh, do stop that row," said Frank.
The picture had been begun a month ago, and was nearing completion. At present Charles was pleased with it, which is saying a good deal. His mother on the other hand thought Mr. Armstrong was not quite such a bear as that. And Mr. Armstrong had said "You don't know much about bears." Charles' first request to paint him had met with a firm refusal. But very shortly after Frank had said,
"You can do a picture of me if you like, Charles. But on one condition only, that you let me buy it of you in the ordinary way."
This time the refusal came from the artist. But a second attempt on Frank's part met with better success.
"You don't understand about the picture," he said. "I really want it for mercantile reasons. I'll pay you whatever Mrs. Fortescue paid, and I shall think I've made an excellent bargain, just as she does. People are talking about you. You'll get double these prices next year. Then I shall sell my picture and buy some more beer and perhaps give you a tip. I'm as hard as nails about money: don't you think I'm doing you a favour. And as a word of general advice, do get rid of a little of your sickly humility. You're like Uriah Heep. Isn't he Mrs.—Mrs. Heep?"
Mrs. Lathom looked up at him very gravely.
"There is something in what you say, Master Copperfield," she observed.
This morning, after Charles' whistling had been thus peremptorily stopped, the work went on in silence for some quarter-of-an hour. Then Frank gave a great shout.
"I've got it," he said, and began scribbling and reading as he scribbled. "It isn't that you don't believe me, it's that you are able not to believe me. Yes: that's it, and the British public won't understand the least what it means, so we'll put 'Long pause.' And then they will give a great sigh as if they did. Now it's plain sailing."
His face cleared, as the pen began to move more rapidly, and when Charles looked up at him again, the St Sebastian air left him altogether.
"You are perfectly useless if you smile in that inane manner," he said.
"Perfectly useless: perfectly useless," said Frank absently.
But soon his inane smile left him: he was in difficulties again, and Charles greatly prospered.
Frank got up and yawned.
"I'm worked out," he said. "Charles, it's a dog's life. And all the time I'm not doing it for myself: there's the rub. I've been grinding here all morning, and have done a couple of pages: if I sit and grind every day like this for a couple of months perhaps I may get it done. And then I shall go with my hat in my hand, on bended knee to that old fat cross-legged Buddha, who sits there sniffing up the incense of our toil, and say 'Please, Mr. Craddock, will this do? Will you deign to accept this humble token from your worshipper?'"
"I can hear you say it," said Charles, half shutting his eyes to look at his work, and not attending to Frank.
Frank jumped up onto the model stand, putting his hand on Charles' shoulder to steady himself.
"No you can't," said Frank, "because I never shall say it. Charles, I'm sure that's libellously like me. Shall I bring an action against you for it, or shall I merely topple you and the stool over onto the floor?"
"Whichever you please. It is pretty like you, you know."
Charles looked up at him.
"But not when you look like that. Why this unwonted good temper?"
"It will soon pass. I think it's because I've done a good bit of work. Oh, Lord, it will soon pass. All for Craddock, you know. I wish to heaven I could infect you with some of my detestation of him."
Charles frowned.
"Oh, do give up trying," he said. "It's no use arguing about it. Of course he's making the devil of a lot of money out of you, and it's very annoying if you look at that fact alone. But where would you have been if he hadn't put on 'Easter Eggs' for you? Sleeping beneath the church-yard sod as like as not. And I daresay he's going to make something out of me. Well, where would I have been if he hadn't bought that picture of Reggie, and come to look at my things? In the Sidney Street garret still. Instead of which——" and Charles waved a paint brush airily round his studio.
Frank relit his pipe, and began gathering up the débris of his rejected manuscript.
"You oughtn't to be allowed about alone," he said. "You say 'Kind man!' too much. You're like a fat baby that says 'Dada' to everybody in the railway carriage. I tell you people aren't kind men. They want to 'do' you. They want to get the most they can out of you."
"And you out of them," said Charles.
"Within limits. Kind Craddock hasn't got any limits. Besides, I don't humbug people."
"Nor does——"
"Well, he tries to. He tried to humbug me, telling me he took such an interest in me and my work. He didn't: he took an interest in the money he thought he could make out of it. Oh, it isn't only Craddock: it's everybody: it's the way the world's made. I'm not sure women aren't the worst of all. Look at the way they all took me up when 'Easter Eggs' came out. I didn't see why at first. But it's plain enough now. They thought I should make some more successes—just like Craddock,—and then I should take them to the theatre and give them dinner——"
"Oh, bosh," said Charles very loud.
"It's not bosh. The idea that fellows like you have of women is enough to make one ill. You think they are tender, and self-sacrificing, and helpless and trustful and loving. Helpless! Good Lord. An ordinary modern girl is as well able to take care of herself among men as a Dreadnought among fishing smacks. She sidles along just turning her screw and then 'Bang, Bang!' she blows them all out of the water if she doesn't want them, and sucks them in if she does, and lets down a great grappling iron from her deck and hauls them on board. And when they are married they are supposed to be clinging and devoted and absorbed in their husbands and babies. Was there ever such a misconception? Why, supposing you find a block of women on the pavement opposite a shop, you may bet ten thousand to one that that shop is a dress-maker's, or a seller of women's clothes. They stand glued to the glass like flies on fly paper, thinking how sweet they would look in that eight guinea walking dress. And when they have to move away they walk with their heads still looking at the windows, stupefied and fascinated, still gazing at some dreadful white corset trimmed with lace, or open-work stockings. And they aren't thinking how ravished their silly Dick or Harry will be to see them in that new skirt, with the foolish open-work stockings peeping out below it, they are thinking how ravishing they will look when other women see them in it, and how greenly jealous other women will be. If they were thinking of their husbands, they would be imagining how ravishing darling Dick or Harry would look in that cheviot tweed. But not they!"
"Oh, put it all into one of your rotten plays," said Charles.
"Not I, thank you. The Dreadnoughts would blow me out of the water. But I'm saying it to you for your good. You trust people too much, men and women alike. You go smiling and wagging your tail like a puppy, thinking that everybody is going to be kind and tender and unselfish. Especially foolish is your view of women. You've got a sense of chivalry, and a man with a sense of chivalry always gets left. You're just as absurd about men too: you think people are nice to you, because they like you: it is very conceited of you——"
"Oh, I was Uriah Heep not long ago," remarked Charles.
"So you are still. But the truth is that people seem to like one in order to be able to get something out of one. Who of all men in the world now is going about saying perfectly fulsome things about me? Why, that slimy Akroyd, because he is making his fortune out of me. But he tried to 'do' me all right over the play. Craddock too: I'm told he is always saying nice things about me. That's because he wants me to put my very best work into the plays I have got to write for him."
Charles remembered that Craddock had said not altogether nice things about Frank on one occasion. He often remembered that, but, as often he remembered also that they were expressly meant for his private ear. The fact lurked always in his mind, in the shadow into which he had deliberately pushed it.
"And here we are back at Craddock," he said.
"Yes. Oh, by the way, Charles, I saw a flame of yours last night, a very old flame in fact, Lady Crowborough. I daresay you would have thought she was being tender and solicitous about you. I thought that she was merely extremely inquisitive."
"About me?" said Charles.
"Yes. She wanted to know all I could tell her about you. She reminded me of somebody wanting to engage a servant from a previous employer."
Charles looked thoroughly puzzled.
"Lady Crowborough?" he asked again. "About me?"
"Yes, I've already said so. What's the matter?"
Charles had risen, and came across to where Frank sat in the window seat. Into his head there had instantaneously flashed the episode of his proposing himself to go down to the Mill House to look at his Reynolds' copy, and the inexplicable letter of Mr. Wroughton's.
"Nothing's the matter," he said, sitting down close to Frank. "But please tell me just all you can. Did you ask her why she wanted to know?"
"Not I. It was perfectly clear that somebody had been gently hinting things about you. But I told her a good deal."
Frank's face grew quite gentle and affectionate.
"I told her you were the best chap in the world," he said. "That's about what it came to. I think I made her believe it too."
Then hurrying away from anything approaching to sentiment,
"Of course we have to lie on behalf of a friend," he said briskly. "I daresay she wanted to be sure she could trust herself in your studio without a chaperone."
Charles did not smile at this.
"But you think some one has been telling damned lies about me?" he asked.
"Probably. Why not? And what does it matter? Don't be upset, Charles. I wish I hadn't told you. At least I don't think I do. It may convince you that there's somebody in the world not set to a hymn-tune. Now do dress, and you will then come and lunch with me in my flat, and you may be able to hear Craddock walking about overhead. That'll make you happy, and you can get a step-ladder and kiss the ceiling!"
But there was another idea now that had to be put in the shadow of Charles' mind. It was far uglier than the first and had to be poked away in the darkest of recesses.
As soon as money had begun at all to flow his way last autumn, Charles had hounded his mother (as she put it) out of her disgusting rooms (so he put it) in Sidney Street, and had established her modestly indeed but comfortably in Grieve's Crescent not far from his new studio. To-night he was going to dine at home, and he looked forward to the serenity that always seemed as much a part of her as her hands or her hair, as a man after a hot and dusty day may look forward to a cool bath. Pictures that were candidates for the Academy had to be sent in before the end of this week, and he had spent an industrious afternoon working steadily at the background and accessories in his portrait of Frank. Craddock had advised him to send this, and the portraits of his mother and Mrs. Fortescue to the august tribunal, and had promised to speak helpful words, if such were necessary, in authoritative ears. But to-day the joy of painting had wholly deserted him, and as he worked, his conscious mind occupied with light and shadow, his unconscious mind had done a great deal of meditation, and the disagreeable objects he had so loyally stuffed away in the dark, seemed gambolling there like cats, active and alert. Every now and then one or other seemed to leap out of the shadow and confront him, and with Frank's face always before him on the canvas, they seemed in some nightmare sort of fashion to be using their mask of paint to communicate with him. It was as if Frank knew all that Charles had been so careful not to tell him ... it was as if he said "Oh, he warned you against me, did he? That was so like him." Worse still Frank seemed to say, "And he's warned other people against you. That's why you weren't welcome at the Mill House. He wanted to cut you off from the Wroughtons. I wonder why: what motive can he have had?... Look for a bad one. Let me see, wasn't there a girl? Why, yes, I bet she is the girl among the forget-me-nots. What a liar you are, Charles! You always said it was a picture out of your head. Are you a rival, do you think?"
All afternoon this sort of vague unspoken monologue rang in his ears. Again and again he pulled himself up, knowing that these were conversations internal to himself, not to be indulged in, but the moment his conscious and superficial mind was occupied again with his craft they began again.
There were other voices mixed with them ... he almost heard Lady Crowborough say "five thousand pounds for a lick of paint." He almost heard Reggie say "drew a cheque for ten thousand and one hundred pounds."... And again he pulled himself up, he felt that he would be suspecting his mother next for overcharging him for board and lodging. It was all Frank's fault, with his cynical false views about the rottenness of mankind.
For once Charles felt glad that the light was beginning to fail, and that he could honestly abandon work. But before he left his studio he turned Joyce's picture round to the light, and stood looking at it for a moment.
"I can't and won't believe it," he said.
There was still an hour to spare before he need go home to dinner, and he bustled out for a walk in the Park in the fading day. Spring was languorous in the air, but triumphantly victorious in the spaces of grass, where she marched with daffodils and crocuses for the banner of her advancing vanguard. The squibs of green leaves had burst from their red sheaths on the limes, and planes were putting forth tentative and angled hands, as if groping and feeling their way, still drowsy from the winter's slumber, into the air, under the provocation of the compelling month. All this did Charles good: he liked the sense of the silent plants, all expanding according to their own law, minding their own business which was just to grow and blossom, and not warning each other of the untrustworthiness of their neighbours. Frank ought to be planted out here, with a gag in his clever mouth, and an archangel or two to inject into his acidulated veins the milk of human kindness.... Charles smiled at the idea: he would make a cartoon of it on a postcard and send it to him.
And then suddenly his heart hammered and stood still, and out of his brain were driven all the thoughts and suspicions that he had been stifling all day. Frank and his cynicism, Craddock and his clung-to kindnesses, his art, his mother, his dreams and deeds were all blown from him as the awakening of an untamed wind by night blows from a sultry sky the sullen and low-hung clouds, leaving the ray of stars celestial to make the darkness bright and holy again, and down the broad path towards him came Joyce. Until she had got quite close to him she did not see him, but then she stopped suddenly, and suddenly and sweetly he saw the unmanageable colour rise in her face and knew that in his own the secret signal answered hers.
"Oh, Mr. Lathom," she said, "is it you? Grandmamma telegraphed for me to come up this morning: I am here for a night."
"Not ill, I hope?" said Charles.
Joyce laughed.
"No, I am glad to say. She was not in when I got to her house, and I had to come out.... Spring, you know."
Their eyes met in a long glance, and Charles drew a long breath.
"I discovered it ten minutes ago," he said. "Spring, just Spring: month of April."
For another long moment they stood there, face to face, spring round them and below and above them, and in them. Then Joyce pointed to the grass.
"Oh, the fullest wood!" she said. "I don't know why Grannie sent for me. I must be getting back. I am late already: is there a taxi, do you think?"
Charles' ill-luck prevailed: there was, and he put her into it, and stood there looking after its retreat. As it turned the corner not fifty yards away out of the Park most distinctly did he see Joyce lean forward and look out.... And though not one atom of his ill-defined troubles or suspicions was relieved, he walked on air all the way home instead of wading through some foul resistant stickiness of mud.... The great star, the only star that really mattered, had shone on him again, not averting its light.
But though he walked on air, the mud was still there.
"A visitor to tea, Charles. I wish you had been home earlier. Three guesses."
"Mother lies," remarked Reggie. "You do—you enjoyed being asked those things. That would never have happened if Charles had been at home."
This was rather like the uncomfortable though not uncommon phenomenon of feeling that the scene now being enacted had taken place before. Charles experienced this vividly at the moment.
"My first guess and last is Lady Crowborough," he said. "Right, I fancy."
"Near enough," said Reggie. "And her questions?"
Charles felt himself descend into the mud again. It closed stiffly about him, and he thrust something back into the darkness of his mind.
"Perfectly simple," he said. "She wanted to know exactly all about me, as if—as if she was going to engage me as a servant, and was making enquiries into my character."
"Very clever. How was it done?" asked Reggie.
"Never mind. It is done, isn't it, mother?"
"Yes, dear, but how did you know?"
"It had to be so, that is all. Oh, I've had a tiresome day all but about half a minute of it. And my portraits have to go in before the end of the week, and they will all be rejected."
"Dear, there's not much conviction in your voice," observed Mrs. Lathom. "Aren't you being Uriah-ish, as Mr. Armstrong says?"
"Probably. But Frank was sitting to me this morning, and his tirades put me out of joint. The worst of it is ..."
He had stuck fast again in the slough, and again things with dreadful faces and evil communications on tongue-tip looked at him from the darkness. The sight of Reggie also had given birth to others: there they stood in a dim and lengthening line, waiting for his nod to come out into the open.
"You may as well let us know the worst," said Reggie encouragingly. "I can't bear the suspense. What is it Akroyd says: 'It—it kills me.' That's over the fourth turning. Much the funniest. What did Frank tirade about, Charles? I wish I had been there. I love hearing his warnings about the whole human race. It makes me wonder, when I can't account for a sixpence, whether you haven't taken it out of my trousers pockets while I was asleep."
"I suppose that's the sort of thing you really enjoy thinking about," said Charles savagely.
"Yes: it's so interesting. Sometimes I think you are rather bad for Frank. He said to me the other day 'You can always trust Charles.' I asked him if he didn't feel well. It wasn't like him."
Mrs. Lathom got up. It was perfectly evident that something worried Charles, and it was possible he might like to talk alone either with Reggie or her. If she took herself upstairs, Charles could join her, and leave his brother, or wait with him here, if he was to be the chosen depository.
"Don't be too long, boys," she said, going out.
Charles did not at once show any sign of the desire to consult, and Reggie, who had left Thistleton's Gallery in the winter, and obtained a clerkship in a broker's office in the city, politely recounted a witticism or two from the Stock Exchange, with a view to reconciling his brother to the human race. They fell completely flat, and Charles sat frowning and silent, blowing ragged rings of smoke.
At length he got up.
"Reggie, I've been worried all day," he said, "and seeing you has put another worry into my mind."
Reggie linked his arm in his brother's.
"I'm so sorry, Charles," he said, "and I've been babbling goatishly on. Why didn't you stop me? Nothing I've done to worry you, I hope?"
Reggie went anxiously over in his mind a variety of small adventurous affairs ... but there was nothing that should cause the eclipse of his brother's spirits.
"No, it doesn't concern you in any way, except as regards your memory. If you aren't perfectly certain about a couple of points I want to ask you, say so."
"Well?"
"The first is this. Do you remember last June an American called Ward drawing a cheque at your desk at Thistleton's? I want you to tell me all that you remember about it."
Reggie leaned his arm on the chimneypiece.
"Ward and Craddock came out together," he said after a pause. "Ward asked for my pen and drew a cheque for five thousand pounds, post-dating it by a day or two. I'm not sure how long——"
"It doesn't matter," said Charles. "The cheque——"
"The cheque was for some Dutch picture he had bought. There was a Van der Weyde, I think——"
"But Dutch pictures? You never told me that. Are you sure?"
"Quite. Is that all? And what's wrong?"
Charles was silent a moment. One of the figures in the shadow leapt out of it, and seemed to nod recognition at him.
"No, there's one thing more. Didn't the same sort of affair happen again?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, much later: I should say in October. Ward did exactly the same thing, drew another cheque out at my desk, I mean, for rather an odd sum. What was it? Ten thousand, ten thousand and something—ten thousand one hundred I think. He drew it to Craddock as before. Yes, I'm sure it was for that. But how does it all concern you? Or why does it worry you? May I know, Charles?"
Charles wondered whether his horrible inference was somehow quite unsound, whether to another his interpretation would seem ingenious indeed, but laughably fantastic. He felt he knew what Frank would make of it, but to Reggie the whole affair might seem of purely imaginary texture.
"Yes, I'll tell you," he said. "And I can't say how I long to find that you think I am suspicious and devilishly-minded. The facts are these. Craddock paid Mr. Wroughton five thousand pounds for his Reynolds, giving him a cheque of Ward's who purchased it. But you tell me this cheque was for Dutch pictures. The picture did not go to him till much later, I don't know when. And Craddock gave me fifty pounds for copying it. Do you see? What if—if Ward gave Craddock a cheque for ten thousand pounds for the picture with a hundred for me for the copy? Now, am I worse than Frank, more suspicious, more—more awful?"
Reggie was staring at him with wide-open eyes and shook his head.
"No," he said. "It sounds, it sounds—but surely it's impossible."
"Oh, I'm tired of saying that to myself. By the way, don't say a word to anyone. There are other things too. Oh, Reggie, can't you think of any explanation that is at all reasonable?"
Again Reggie shook his head.
"No," he said. "The first cheque was for some Dutch pictures."
"Well, let's go upstairs," said the other.
Later in the evening when Mrs. Lathom went to bed, Charles followed her up to her room, and sat down in front of her fire while she brushed her hair. It was not rarely that he did this and these minutes were to him a sort of confessional. Generally, the confession was a mere babble of happy talk, concerning his pictures, and his projects, but to-night he sat silent until the hair-brushing was nearly over. Then he spoke.
"Mother, darling," he said, "I saw Miss Joyce this evening, and—and she was jolly and friendly and natural. It lifted me up out of—what is it—out of the mire and clay. But I've gone back again, oh, much deeper. I want your advice."
She instantly got up, and came across to him. He put her in his chair, and sat down on the rug by her, leaning against her knees.
"Ah, I'm so glad, my darling," she said, "that you want to tell me what's wrong. These are my jewels."
"I can't tell you explicitly what is wrong. But I suspect someone whom I have always trusted immensely. Who has been very good to me, of—of swindling, and perhaps worse. What am I to do?"
She stroked his hair.
"Oh, my dear, if it is only suspicion dismiss it all from your mind or make a certainty of it one way or the other."
"But how?"
"I can't be sure without knowing the facts. But if your suspicion is reasonable, if, I mean, you can see no other explanation except the bad one, go as soon as you can to anyone who can give you certain information. But if there's a loophole for doubt——"
"I don't see that there is," said Charles quickly.
"Then make certain somehow and quickly," she said. "Not in a hurry, of course, for you must not act foolishly, but as soon as you can with wisdom. Oh, Charles, we can none of us risk keeping suspicion in our minds! There is nothing so poisoning to oneself. It—it shuts the wisdom of your soul: it turns everything sour; it spreads like some dreadful contagion, and infects all within us, so that there is no health left, or sense of beauty, or serenity. It is like walking in a cloud of flies. But, my dear, unless your suspicion is—is terribly well founded, don't give it another thought, if you can possibly avoid it. Be very certain that you can't explain things away otherwise."
Charles turned a shining face to her, shining for her through all his trouble.
"Thanks, mother darling," he said. "It really is a beastly position. And I'm such a coward."
"So are we all, dear," she said. "But most of us don't turn back really. Perhaps we aren't such cowards as we think. It is so easy to make the worst of oneself."
Charles got up.
"Yes, but I'm pretty bad," he said.
"I know, dear. You are a continual sorrow and trouble to me. Ah, bless you! And you saw Joyce. That's something, isn't it?"
"Well, a good deal," said he. "Good-night. I must get back home."
Charles had labelled himself coward, and indeed, as in the manner of youth, whose function so clearly in this life is to enjoy, he shrank from pain instinctively, not seeing beyond the present discomfort, but living in the moment. Yet it was not his bravery that was here attacked: it was at his trust that the blow at which he cowered was aimed, at the confidence in his fellows which was so natural to him. As he lay tossing and turning that night, he could not imagine himself taking the only step that seemed to be able to decide his suspicions, which was to go to Craddock himself with the whole history of them. There was just one other chance, namely, that Lady Crowborough's purpose in making these inexplicable enquiries about him might declare itself. That in a manner ruthlessly convincing would settle everything, if her purpose was that which he could not but surmise. And at the thought he felt his face burn with a flame of anger, at the possibility of so monstrous an explanation. Yet all this agitating thought was just the secret nurture and suckling of suspicion against which his mother had warned him. How right she was: how the poison encroached and spread!
Frank turned up early next morning for his final sitting, with an evil eye and a brisk demeanour.
"A plan at last," he announced, "a real plan, and a good plot for a play. It's all quite serious, and I'm going to do it. It's taken me five months to puzzle it out, and last night it all burst upon me. New play of mine, which I shall begin working at immediately. I'm stale over the other, and this will be a change. I daresay Craddock will like it so much that he will ask me to put the other aside a bit. You see it's about Craddock. He's an egotist, you see: he will like that."
Charles was touched on the raw.
"Oh, do leave him alone, Frank," he said with a sudden appeal, as it were, to his own vanished confidence. "We disagree about him, you know, as we settled yesterday. It isn't really very nice of you to abuse a man who's a friend of mine."
"Nor is it nice of you to stick up for an enemy of mine," remarked Frank. "You should respect my dislike just as much as I should respect your affection. As you never do, I shall proceed."
Charles packed himself on his painting-stool. He could at least try to absorb himself in his work, for the sake of stifling his own thoughts even more than for distracting them from what Frank said.
"Rumple your hair," he said, "and stop still."
"I'm going to submit the scenario to Craddock this evening if I can see him," he said, obligingly rubbing up his hair. "Golly, it's a good plot. I've really only thought out the first two acts, but that will be enough for him to judge by. It's called 'The Middleman.' There's a lot in a title."
Charles sighed.
"You needn't groan," he said. "I can tell it you. He's a great big fat chap, popular and wealthy and hearty, engaged to a delightful girl. Then it comes out that he sweats young men of genius, you and me, of course, takes them up when they are unknown, and gets options on their future works. Isn't that it?"
"'Where's the plot then?' You don't see the hang of it. One of those young men of genius, that's me, goes to him in the play with a play of which what you have just said is the sketch—Hamlet's not in it any more—and says, 'Now let me out of these options of yours, or I shall write a play like that.' And then it will faintly dawn on Craddock that the play is really happening to him and that in real life, that I shall do exactly what the young man of genius says he will do. Do you see? Simultaneously another of the young men of genius, that's you—you can be in love with 'The Middleman's' girl, says 'I'm going to paint a portrait called the Middleman, a great big fat chap, with gold dust on his coat collar. There's a play called the Middleman coming out at the same time: you may have heard of it. Now will you let me out of your options?' The Middleman in a burst of righteous indignation exclaims 'This is a conspiracy.' And they both say 'It is a conspiracy. What then?' He's in rather a hole, isn't he?"
Charles did not answer.
"You're an ungrateful dog, Charles," said Frank, "it gets you out of your options too. That shall be part of my bargain. I really am going to Craddock with that scenario. There's no third act, it is true, but he will give me credit for thinking of something spicy. Tranby would take that sort of play like a shot. Craddock has 'done' me. Why shouldn't I 'do' him? Do those whom you've been done by. A very Christian sentiment, and an application of abstract justice."
Charles put down his palette and got off his stool. There was a Frank-ish, a fiendish ingenuity about this, which, in ordinary mental weather, so to speak, with a gleam of sun on his own part to give sparkle to the east wind of it, could not have failed to make brisk talking. But to-day with his nightmare of doubt swarming bat-like round him, he found no humour but only horror in it.
"Sometimes I hardly think you're human, Frank," he said. "If you really believe Craddock is a swindler, how can you make jokes about it? If it was true, it would be too terrible to speak of. But you believe it is true, and yet you dwell on it, and gloat on it. I think you're a sort of devil, rubbing your hands when you see poor souls damning themselves."
"Hullo!" said Frank, rather startled by this.
"It's no good saying 'hullo.' It isn't news to you," said Charles, standing in front of the fire, flushed and troubled and looking younger than ever. "I've often told you I hate your attitude towards Craddock. It hurts me to hear a jolly good friend of mine abused, and you're continually doing it."
It would have required a prodigiously dull fellow not to see that there was something serious at the bottom of this. For all Frank's cynicism, for all the armoured hardness with which he met the world, there was just one person for whom he felt an affection, a protective tenderness that he was half-ashamed of, and yet cherished and valued more than any of the other tinned foods, so to speak, in his spiritual larder. It had fragrance, the freshness of dew on it.... He got up, and put his hands on Charles' shoulders.
"Charles, old chap," he said. "You never told me in that voice, you know."
Charles shook his head.
"I know I didn't," he said. "I never felt it in—in that voice before. But I do now. I can't bear the thought of anybody I know cheating and swindling and lying. Suppose I found out that you had been cheating me, or blackguarding me, should I be able to laugh about it, do you think, or sketch out a damned little play to read to you, which would show you up?"
"Yes, but you always say that Craddock's been so good to you," said Frank. "Till now, you have always half laughed at me when I slanged him. And who has been blackguarding you, I should like to know? What does that mean? Or ... or are you referring to what Lady Crowborough asked me? I talked some rot about the explanation being that some one had been abusing you."
Charles grasped at this rather appealingly.
"Yes, it was rot, wasn't it, Frank?" he said.
"Of course it was. Charles, I never dreamed it would stick in your mind like this—but what has that got to do with Craddock and his nimble option?"
Charles interrupted clamourously.
"Nothing, nothing at all!" he said. "I've got the blues, the hump, the black cat, what you please. Now be a good chap, and don't think any more about it. I want to finish your hair. It won't take long."
The interrupted sitting had not been in progress many minutes before the telephone-bell stung the silence, and Charles went to it where it hung in a corner of the studio. A very few words appeased that black round open mouth and Charles put back the receiver. Frank noticed that his hands were a little unsteady.
"Craddock's coming down here almost immediately, Frank," he said. "He's bringing a man called Ward with him, for whom I copied Wroughton's Reynolds."
"Customer, I hope," said Frank. "What do you want me to do, Charles?"
Charles flared out at this with the uncontrolled irritability of his jangled nerves.
"Stop here, and behave like a gentleman, I hope," he said. If any other man in the world had said that he would assuredly have found the most convenient hard object in full flight for his head.
"All right, old boy," said Frank.
Craddock arrived not a quarter of an hour later, with Mr. Ward. He was in the height of cheerful spirits, having, only an hour before, disposed of his entire lunatic asylum of post-Impressionist pictures to a friend of Ward's whose ambition it was to spend as much as possible over the embellishment, in a manner totally unprecedented and unique, of his house in New York. The dining-room was called the Inferno; it had black walls with a frieze of real skulls.... The floor of the drawing-room was on a steep slant, and all the tables and chairs had two short and two long legs in order to keep their occupants and appurtenances on the horizontal. It was for this room, brightly described to him by the owner, that the post-Impressionists were designed, and Craddock, in sympathy with his client's conviction that they were predestined for it, had put an enormous price on them, and the bargain had been instantly completed. After that he cheerfully gave up an hour to do Charles this good turn of taking Mr. Ward down to his studio, and on the way he found himself hoping that the picture of Mrs. Lathom had not yet gone in to the Academy. On the way, too, he gave the patron a short résumé.
"I think you never saw young Lathom when he was at your work on your Reynolds," he said. "You will find him a charming young fellow, and he, as soon as the Academy opens this year, will find himself famous. He will leap at one bound to the top of his profession. I strongly recommend you to get him to do a portrait of you now, in fact. His charge for a full length at present is only four hundred pounds. However, here we are, and you will judge for yourself on the value of his work."
Craddock made himself peculiarly amiable to Frank, while Ward looked at the portraits in the studio. Before the one of Charles' mother, he stopped a long time, regarding it steadily through his glasses. He was a spare middle-aged man, grey on the temples, rather hawk-like in face, with a low very pleasant voice. From it he looked at Charles and back again.
"You may be proud to have your mother's blood in you, Mr. Lathom," he said, "and I daresay she's not ashamed of you. I wish I'd got you to copy some more pictures for me at a hundred pounds apiece."
Craddock had given up wasting amiability on that desert of a playwright, and was standing close to the other two. Quite involuntarily Charles glanced at him, and he had one moment's remote uneasiness ... he could not remember if he had given Charles a hundred pounds or not. But it really was of no importance. Should Charles say anything, what was easier than to look into so petty a mistake and rectify it? But Charles said nothing whatever.
Ward turned and saw Craddock close to him.
"I was saying to Mr. Lathom," he said, "that there were no more full length copies to be had for a hundred pounds, any more than there are any more original Reynolds of that calibre to be had for what I gave for Mr. Wroughton's."
"What did you give?" asked Charles deliberately. He felt his heart beat in his throat as he waited for the answer.
"Well, don't you tell anyone, Mr. Lathom," he said, "but I got it for ten thousand pounds. But I've felt ever since as if I had been robbing Mr. Wroughton."
This time Charles did not look at Mr. Craddock at all.
"Yes, I suppose that's cheap," he said, "considering what an enormous price a fine Reynolds fetches."
"Yes: now I suppose, Mr. Lathom, that portrait of your mother is not for sale. I am building, I may tell you, a sort of annex, or Luxembourg, to my picture gallery at Berta, entirely for modern artists. I should like to see that there: I should indeed."
Charles smiled.
"You must talk over that with Mr. Craddock," he said. "It belongs to him."
"You may be sure I will. And now I should be very grateful to you if you could find time and would consent to record—" Mr. Ward had a certain native redundancy—"to record at full length your impression of my blameless but uninteresting person. Your price, our friend tells me, is four hundred pounds, and I shall think I am making a very good bargain if you will execute your part of the contract."
Charles saw Craddock, from where he stood, just behind Mr. Ward, give him an almost imperceptible nod, to confirm this valuation. If he had not seen that it is very likely that he would have accepted this offer without correction. As it was that signal revolted him. It put him into partnership with ... with the man in whose studio he now stood. Now and for all future time there could be nothing either secret or manifest between them.
"You have made a mistake about the price," he said to Ward. "I only charge two hundred for a portrait. I shall be delighted to paint you for that."
From a little way off he heard Frank make the noise which is written "Tut," and he saw a puzzled look cross Craddock's face, who just shrugged his shoulders, and turned on his heel.
"I am very busy for the rest of this week," said Charles, "but after that I shall be free."
He glanced at Craddock, who had moved away, and was looking at the portrait of Mrs. Fortescue.
"I am changing my studio," said Charles in a low voice. "I will send you my new address."
Craddock did not hear this, but Frank did. It seemed to him, with his quick wits, to supply a key to certain things Charles had said that morning. He felt no doubt of it.
Mr. Ward involved himself in a somewhat flowery speech ofcongé.
"Next week will suit me admirably," he said, "and I shall think it an honour to sit to you. The only thing that does not quite satisfy me is the question of price. You must allow me at some future time to refer to that again. The picture I may tell you is designed to be a birthday present for Mrs. Ward, and though the intrinsic merit of the picture, I am sure, will be such that the donor—" he became aware that he could never get out of this labyrinth, and so burst, so to speak, through the hedge—"well, we must talk about it. And now I see I have already interrupted a sitting, and will interrupt no longer. Mr. Craddock, I shall take you away to have some conversation in our taxi about that picture of Mr. Lathom's mother."
Charles saw them to the door, and came back to Frank.
"I suppose you guess," he said. "Well, you've guessed right."
He threw himself into a chair.
"He has swindled Mr. Wroughton," he said. "He has swindled me, me, of a paltry wretched fifty pounds, which is worse, meaner than the other."
"And Mr. Wroughton?" asked Frank.
"He gave him five thousand for the Reynolds, receiving ten. That's not so despicable: there's some point in that. But to save fifty pounds, when he was giving me this studio, getting me commissions, doing everything for me! There's that damned telephone: see who it is, will you?"
Frank went to the instrument.
"Lady Crowborough," he said. "She wants to see you particularly, very particularly. Can you go to her house at three?"
"Yes," said Charles.
He got up from his chair, white and shaking.
"There may be something worse, Frank," he said. "She may have something to tell, much worse than this. Good God, I wish I had never seen him."
Frank came back across the studio to Charles.
"Charles, old chap," he said, "I've often told you there are swindlers in the world, and you've run up against one. Well, face it, don't wail."
Charles turned a piteous boyish face to him.
"But it hurts!" he said.
He paused a moment
"My father killed himself," he said, "because he had gambled everything away, and none of us knew, nor suspected. That's where it hurts, Frank. It's not anything like that, of course, but somehow it's the old place."
"We've all got an old place," said Frank. "Wounds? Good Lord, I could be a gaping mass of wounds if I sat down and encouraged myself. Buck up! And if you find there's anything to be done, or talked about, well, ring me up, won't you? Now, you're not going to sit here and mope. You are coming straight off with me to have lunch. There's nothing like food and drink when one is thoroughly upset. And afterwards I shall leave you at the house of that very mature siren."
Suddenly it occurred to Charles that Joyce was staying with her, or at any rate had done so last night. Till then his first outpouring of amazed disgust had caused him to forget that.... And it is a fact that he ate a very creditable lunch indeed.
Lady Crowborough, as has been incidentally mentioned, was in the habit of hermetically sealing herself up in a small dark house in Half Moon Street for the winter months. This year as recounted, she had substituted a process of whole-hearted unsealedness in Egypt for a couple of months, but on her return had been more rigorously immured than ever, to counteract, it must be supposed, the possibly deleterious effects of so persistent an exposure to the air, and to fortify her for her coming visits to Charles' studio. In the evening, it is true, she often went out to dine, in a small brougham with the windows up, but except for her call yesterday on Charles' mother, the daylight of Piccadilly had scarcely beheld her since her return. Windows in the house were always kept tightly shut, except owing to the carelessness or approaching asphyxia of servants, rooms were ventilated by having their doors set ajar, so that the air of the passage came into them, and dry stalks of lavender were continually burned all over the house, so that it was impregnated with their fresh fragrance. She was a standing protest against those modern fads, so she labelled them, of sitting in a draught, and calling it hygiene, and certainly her procedure led to excellent results in her own case, for her health, always good, became exuberant when she had spent a week or two indoors, her natural vitality seemed accentuated, and she ate largely and injudiciously without the smallest ill-effects. Between meals, she worked at fine embroidery without spectacles, sitting very upright in a small straight-backed cane chair.
The house was tiny, and crammed from top to bottom with what she called "my rubbish," for, without collecting, she had an amazing knack of amassing things. Oil paintings, water-colour sketches, daguerrotypes, photographs, finely-shaded pencil drawings, samplers, trophies of arms, hung on the walls, and on chimney-pieces and tables and in cupboards and cabinets were legions of little interesting objects, Dresden figures, carved ivory chessmen, shells, silver boxes, commemorative mugs, pincushions, Indian filigree-work, bits of enamel, coins, coral, ebony elephants, all those innumerable trifles that in most houses get inexplicably lost. She had just cleared a shelf in a glass case by the fireplace in her minute drawing room, and was busy arranging the beads and doubtful scarabs of "me Egyptian campaign" in it when Charles entered. Upon which she dismissed from her shrewd and kindly old mind all concerns but his.
"Sit down, my dear," she said. "And light your cigarette. I saw your mother yesterday, as she may have told you. I'm coming to sit for you next week, and so please have the room well warmed, and not at all what these doctors call aired. Lord bless me, I had enough air in Egypt to last me for twenty years to come."
She indulged in these cheerful generalities until she saw that Charles was established. Then she broke them off completely.
"Now I sent for you because I wished to see you most particularly, Mr. Lathom," she said. "No, there's nobody here but me: I sent Joyce back to her father this morning, so if you think you're going to see her, you'll be disappointed. Now it's no use beating about the bush: there's something I've got to tell you, and here it comes. That Craddock—I call him that Craddock—told my son Philip that you were a disreputable young fellow, that's about what it comes to. I had it from Craddock's own lips that he did. Joyce knew from her father that somebody had done so, and guessed it was that Craddock. So I was as cool as a cucumber, and just said 'I'm sorry you had so bad a report to give my son of Mr. Lathom.' I said it so naturally that he never guessed I didn't know it was he. And there he was caught like a wasp in the marmalade. I wish he had been one. I'd have had the spoon over him in no time."
Charles sat quite still for a moment, and in that moment every feeling but one was expunged from his mind. There was left nothing but a still white anger that spread evenly and smoothly over his heart and his brain. He had no longer any regret that Craddock had done this, the consciousness that he had sufficed to choke all other emotions. More superficially the ordinary mechanism of thought went on.
"I never believed a word of it, my dear," went on Lady Crowborough, "nor did Joyce. But it was my duty, for reasons which you can guess, to find out if it was true or not. Well, I got your mother's account of you yesterday, as she may have told you, and your friend Mr. Armstrong's account, as he also may have told you, and there were several others. So either all these people are liars or else that Craddock is. And there ain't a sane person in the land who could doubt which it was. And Joyce has gone back home to tell her father."
Charles got up, still very quietly.
"I want to know one thing," he said. "Why did Craddock do it?"
"Good Lord, my dear," said Lady Crowborough, "as if that wasn't plain. Why the man wanted to marry Joyce himself, and proposed to her, too. He guessed, and I don't suppose he guessed very wrong either, that there was somebody in his way. At least," she added with a sudden fit of caution, "it might have been that in his mind. For my part the less I know about Craddock's mind the better I shall sleep at night."
"And that was why Mr. Wroughton didn't want me down there last autumn?" he asked.
"Why, of course. He wanted Joyce to marry the man. But Joyce will have told him all about it by now, and spoiled his lunch, too, I hope. But if he don't ask you down for next Sunday, when I'm going there, too, I'll be dratted if I don't take you down in my own dress basket, and open it in the middle of the drawing room. That's what I'll do. But he'll ask you, don't fear. I sent him a bit of my mind this morning about believing what the rats in the main drain tell him. Yes, a bit of my mind. And if he ain't satisfied with that there's more to come."
Suddenly over the sea of white anger that filled Charles there hovered a rainbow....
"Lady Crowborough," he said flushing a little. "You told me that it was your duty to find out whether these lies were true or not, for reasons that I could guess. Did you—did you mean I could really guess them?"
"Yes, my dear, unless you're a blockhead. But it ain't for me to talk about that, and I ain't going to. Now what about this Craddock? He's got to eat those lies up without any more waste of time, and he's got to tell Philip they were lies. How can we make him do that?"
Charles looked at her a minute, considering.
"I can make him do that," he said.
"By punching of his head?" asked Lady Crowborough.
"No, by a very simple threat. You told me once you had seen the cheque that Mr. Ward paid for Mr. Wroughton's Reynolds, and that it was five thousand pounds. That is so, is it not?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Mr. Ward paid him ten thousand pounds for it," said Charles.
"Good Lord, my dear, do you mean that?" she asked.
"Mr. Ward told me this morning that he paid Craddock ten thousand for it," said Charles.
"And certainly he gave Philip Mr. Ward's cheque for five thousand," said Lady Crowborough, "for I saw it myself and thought 'What a sum for a picture of a young woman!' Well, he's brought a pretty peck of trouble on himself, and I ain't a bit sorry for him. But even that's not so bad as what he did to you, with those nasty mean lies, as he thought could never be caught hold of. And so you'll go to him now, will you, and tell him what you know, and threaten that we'll have the law on him as a common swindler? Is that it?"
"Something like that," said Charles, getting up. "I think I shall see Frank Armstrong first."
"Aye do, and take him with you. He looks a hard one," said Lady Crowborough vindictively. "I wish I could come, too, and tell him what I thought about it all. And he wouldn't forget that in a hurry my dear if there's a rough side to my tongue! And you'll let me know, won't you?"
"Of course."
Charles paused a moment. Then he bent down and kissed her hand.
"I can't thank you," he said. "You don't know what you've done for me. It's—it's beyond thanks, altogether beyond it."
She drew his brown head down to hers and kissed him soundly.
"Get along, my dear," she said, "or you'll be calling me an idiot next minute, and then I shall have to quarrel with you. Get along and have a talk with that Craddock, and mind you shut the door tight when you go out."
Charles came out into Half Moon Street and the pale sunshine of the spring afternoon, in a sort of black exaltation of the spirit. For the time all thought of Joyce, of the magical, the golden possibilities that this detected slander opened in front of him, was utterly obscured by his immediate errand, that hung between him and it like some impenetrable cloud which must first find its due discharge in outpoured storm before the "clear shining" could dawn on him. He felt void of all pity, void even of regret that the man whom he had so completely trusted, for whom he had cherished so abounding a sense of gratitude, should have proved so sinister a rogue. What he should say, and on what lines this scorching interview would develop and fulfil itself, he had no sort of idea, nor to that did he give one moment's thought; he only looked forward with a savage glee to the fact that within a few minutes, if he was lucky enough to find Craddock in, he would be face to face with him. All his shrinking from the suspicions which he had so sincerely tried to keep at arm's length was gone, now that the suspicions had turned out to be true, and he only longed to fling the truth of them in the teeth of the man whose integrity, so short a while ago, he had rejoiced to champion. That integrity was blown into blackened fragments, and his belief in it seemed now as incredible to him as the happenings of some diseased dream, which to his awakened senses were a tissue of the wildest rubbish, a mere babble of unfounded incoherence. There could be no regret for the cessation of impressions so false and unreal....
He walked quickly along Piccadilly, with colour a little heightened, and a smile, vivid and genial, on his mouth. Every now and then his lips pursed themselves up for a bar or two of aimless whistling, and he swung a light-hearted stick as he went. The pavement was full of cheerful passengers, the roadway of briskly-moving vehicles, and all the stir of life seemed full of the promise of this exquisite springtime. Then in a flash all recognition of the lively world passed from his consciousness, and he saw only that black cloud of his own exalted indignation and blind anger, which so soon, so soon now was going to discharge itself in God knew what torrent and tempest. Or would it quietly dissolve and drain itself away? Would there be no explosion, no torrent of storm, only just little trickling sentences and denials no doubt, then more little trickling sentences until there was just silence and no denials at all? He did not know and certainly he did not care. The manner of the affair in no way occupied or interested him. And over his boiling indignation that he knew raged below, there stretched a crust, that just shook and trembled with the tumult within, but showed no sign of giving way. Every now and then he said softly to himself, "Something's got to happen: something's got to happen," as he whistled his tuneless phrase and swung his stick.
Frank, who occupied a flat immediately below Craddock's, was in, and Charles, brisk and gay of face, marched in upon him.
"I've seen Lady Crowborough," he said, "and now we will go to see Craddock. He's ... he's amazing. The worst that I suspected, which I didn't tell you, is all soberly true. He has lied about me, he told the Wroughtons that I was a disreputable sort of affair. He has lied, lied, to get me out of the way. Now he has got to eat his lies. Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?"
Frank sprang up.
"Tell me about it first," he said.
"Oh, not now. I'll tell you about it upstairs. By the way, you had some little scheme to get yourself and me out of his hands. We'll take that first: we'll lead up to the grand crash. More artistic, eh? Or shall we begin with the grand crash? I don't know. I don't care. Let's go upstairs anyhow and see what happens. Let Nature take her course. Let's have a touch of Nature. What is it I have got to do according to your plan? Oh, yes, just say I'll draw a portrait of the Middleman. Frank, why the devil am I not blazing with indignation, and chucking things about. You're a psychologist, aren't you? Tell me that. You study people and make them have adventures. I'm all for adventures. Come on, and let's see what happens. We've such a fine day, too."
Frank licked his lips.
"Gosh, I'm on in this piece," he said. "Now wait a minute. We'll take my little farce first, just a curtain-raiser. He's got an agreement of yours, I suppose, just as he's got one of mine, that gives him his options. We must get those out of him first of all. Then ... then we can proceed with unbiassed minds. Ha!"
Frank gave one mirthless crack of laughter.
"We'll get those first," he said, "and then start fair. Up we go."
Craddock was in, and the two were admitted. It appeared that he had been having a little nap, for even as they entered he struggled to a sitting position on his sofa.
"Sorry to disturb you," said Frank, "but I wanted to see you rather particularly. Charles also. So we came up together."
Frank took up his stand on the hearth rug, while Charles gracefully subsided into a long low arm-chair. Craddock looked from one to the other, not nervously, but with an air of slightly puzzled expectancy. There was something vaguely unusual about it all.
"I wanted to speak to you about a play," said Frank, "which, under certain circumstances, I shall assuredly write. Tranby would be sure to take it. I naturally want to know if it appeals to you."
Craddock stroked the right side of his face. It was smooth and plump.
"My dear fellow," he said, "I should be charmed to hear it, but as a matter of fact I have not very much time this afternoon. Perhaps if you left the scenario with me——"
"It's not written out," said Frank.
Craddock glanced at the clock.
"Ah, I see I have half an hour," he said.
"That ought to be sufficient. If not, perhaps you can postpone your next engagement. However, you will see, if you think it worth while. I propose to call my play 'The Middleman.'"
Craddock's hand, that was still up to his face, paused a moment. Then it began stroking again.
"Quite a good title," he said, with an absolutely impassive tone.
"I thought you would approve. Of course he is the hero—shall we say?—of the play. He's large and stout, I want you to picture him to yourself—and wealthy and cultivated, a great judge of pictures and the arts generally. He purchases options on the work of young and unknown men, that's how he gets his money, and makes devilish good bargains."
Craddock raised his eyebrows slightly, and turned to Charles.
"And what is your part in this conspiracy?" he said quietly. "It is a conspiracy, I suppose."
Charles crossed one leg over the other, and put his finger-tips together.
"Oh, yes, you may call it a conspiracy," he said. "We thought you would. You see, I'm going to paint a portrait of Frank's middleman. I know just what he looks like. I could draw him for you on a half-sheet, if you think it necessary. Then I shall send it to some gallery or other,—it will be very like—just about the time that Frank's play comes out. You might like to exercise your option over it. So I shall paint another one."
"Not in your present studio," said Craddock suddenly.
"Certainly not in my present studio. I shall never paint anything more in my present studio."
Craddock grasped the whole situation: indeed it did not require any very great acuteness to enable him to see exactly how he stood, and on the whole he felt up to dealing with it. For a moment there was dead silence, and Charles whistled a futile tuneless phrase.
"There are such things as libel actions," he said to Frank.
"For those who feel up to bringing them," said he.
Once again Craddock paused. He got up from his sofa, went to the window and came back again. He rather expected to surprise a consultation of eyes going on between the two young men. But there was nothing of the kind. Frank was regarding his own boots, Charles was staring vacantly and stupidly, smiling a little, straight in front of him. Craddock was by no means a coward, and he felt not the smallest fright or nervousness.
"If you think I should hesitate to bring a libel action against you," he said to Frank, "if you ever put on anything that could be construed as defamatory to my character, you are stupendously mistaken. I know quite well that you have always disliked me, me, who took you out of the gutter, and gave you a chance of making your talents known. But that is always the way. To befriend a certain type of man means to make an enemy. By all means proceed to write your play, and make it as scandalous and defamatory as you please. I shall make not the smallest protest against it, you can produce it as soon as you like. But mind you it will run for one night only, and you will then find yourself involved in a libel action that will beggar you. Incidentally, though I imagine that this will seem to you a comparatively light matter, you will find you have caused to be recorded against you the verdict not of a jury only but of every decent-minded man and woman in England."
Frank looked at him, and suppressed an obviously artificial yawn.
"Hear, hear!" he said.
"And about my portrait?" said Charles from the depth of his chair.
Craddock turned to him.
"All I have said to your friend regarding my line of conduct applies to you also," he said. "You may do any caricature of me you please, and the more you hold me up to ridicule, the sounder will my grounds for action be. But what applies to you only is this. I consider that your conduct is infinitely more treacherous than his. He at least has from the first almost been avowedly hostile to me. You have pretended that you were conscious of the gratitude you certainly owe me. You have made me think that I was befriending a young man who was fond of me, and appreciated my kindness to him. Armstrong at any rate has made no such nauseous pretence. How deeply I am hurt and wounded I do not care to tell you. But if it is, as I suppose it must be, a source of gratification to you to know that you have wounded me, you may rest thoroughly well satisfied with what you have done. I congratulate you on the result. I warned you months ago, about your choice of friends. The only possible excuse for you is that you have fallen under the influence of the man I cautioned you against."
Frank looked up from his boots to Charles.
"Did he caution you against me?" he asked. "You never told me that."
"No, Frank. I didn't want then to give you another cause for grievance. But he did warn me against you."
"You would have been wise to take my advice," said Craddock. "As it is, perhaps you will see the propriety of your vacating my studio as soon as is convenient to you. I should think that by to-morrow evening I might hope to find it at my disposal."
"Certainly," said Charles. "I daresay you will soon find some other promising student."
Craddock turned his back on Frank for a moment.
"I never should have thought this of you, Charles," he said. There was real sincerity in his reproach. Bitter as was the injury he had inflicted on the boy, he was very fond of him, and valued the return of his affection. It might be objected that a man does not wilfully and cruelly injure one whom he is fond of. Such an objection is mistaken and ignorant. For herein lie three quarters of the tragic dealings of the world, namely, that day by day and all day long men strike and betray their friends. They do not wrong those who are indifferent to them: for where should be the motive of that?
"I should never have thought it of myself," said Charles, and his voice faltered on the words.
Craddock turned to Frank again.
"You have told me about your proposed play," he said, "which I imagine was the object of your coming here, and Charles has come about his portrait. I do not know that anything further detains either of you."
Frank could have applauded the quiet dramatic development of the scene. If he had come across it in a play, he would have watched it with the tensest diligence. And here it was all unplanned: the situation seemed to develop itself without any exterior assistance. Craddock, for instance, was taking exactly the line that the drama demanded, and it was quite certain that he had not rehearsed his part. He felt certain also that Charles would prove equally discerning.
"There is just one more thing," he said. "I require you to destroy, in my presence, the contract I signed giving you an option to purchase three more plays of mine. You have a similar one with regard to pictures by Charles. That must be destroyed also."
Craddock stared at him in amazement.
"And is there anything else you would like me to do for you?" he asked.
"No, that is all."
Craddock gave his usual sign of merriment, the laugh that chuckled in his throat, but did not reach outwards as far as his lips, which remained without a smile. It was something of a relief to find that this was the object of their outrageous threats, for he again felt himself quite competent to deal with it. It was not that he had actually feared anything else, but in spite of that he was glad to have the object of their threats avowed.
"You are most original conspirators," he said. "You threaten me first, and when you see that your threats do not disturb me in the slightest degree, you produce, somewhat as an anti-climax surely, the object which you hope to gain by your futile menaces. Go away and practise: that is what I recommend you to do. Get some small handbook about conspiracy and black-mail. You are ignorant of the very rudiments of it. As you have seen I snap my fingers at your threats, indeed, I am not sure whether it would not amuse me if you put them into execution. But to make your demands upon the top of so pathetic a failure is surely what you, Armstrong, would call a 'weak curtain.'"