Do you know, Miss Hardacre, that I once had a wife?” said Theodore Weever, suddenly.
It was after dinner at the Wolff-Salamons', who, it may be remembered, had lent their house to the Hardacres in the summer.
“I was not aware of it,” said Norma, wondering at the irrelevance of the remark, for they had just been discussing the great painter's merciless portrait of their hostess, which simpered vulgarly at them from the wall. They were sitting on a sofa in a corner of the room.
“Yes,” said Weever. “She died young. She came from a New England village, and played old-fashioned tunes on the piano, and believed in God.”
Not a flicker passed over his smooth waxen face or a gleam of sentiment appeared in his pale steady eyes. Norma glanced round at the little assembly, mainly composed of fleshy company promoters, who, as far as decency allowed, continued among themselves the conversation that had circulated over the wine downstairs, and their women-kind, who adopted the slangy manners of smart society and talked “bridge” to such men as would listen to them. Then she glanced back at Weever.
“I don't want any more wives of that sort,” he went on. “I've outgrown them. I have no use for them. They would wilt like a snow anemone in this kind of atmosphere.”
“Is it your favourite atmosphere, then?” Norma asked, by way of saying something.
“More or less. Perhaps I like it not quite so mephitic—You are racking your brains to know why I'm telling you about my wife. I'll explain. In a little churchyard in Connecticut is a coffin, and in that coffin is what a man who is going to ask a woman to marry him ought to give her. I could never give a quiet-eyed New England girl anything again. At my age she would bore me to death. But I could give the woman who is accustomed to hot-houses a perfectly regulated temperature.”
Norma looked at the imperturbable face, half touched by his unsuspected humanity, half angered by his assurance.
“Are you by any chance making me a formal demand in marriage?” she asked.
“I am.”
“And at last you have found some one who would meet your requirements for the decorative wife?”
“I found her last summer in Scotland,” replied Weever, with a little bow. “My countrymen have a habit of finding quickly what they want. They generally get it. I could n't in this particular instance, as you were engaged to another man.”
“I am still engaged,” said Norma.
“I beg your pardon. I heard the engagement was broken off.”
“Not at all. In fact only yesterday was it settled that we should be married at Easter.”
“Having gone so far on a false assumption,” remarked Weever, placidly, “may I go without rudeness a step farther? I do not dream of asking you to throw over King—if my heart were not in Connecticut, I might—but I'll say this, if you will allow me, Miss Hardacre: I don't believe you will ever marry Morland King. I have a presentiment that you're going to marry me—chiefly because I've planned it, and my plans mostly come out straight. Anyway you are the only woman in the world I should ever marry, and if at any time there should be a chance for me, a word, a hint, a message through the telephone to buy you a pug dog—or anything—would bring me devotedly to your feet. Don't forget it.”
It was impossible to be angry with a bloodless thing that spoke like a machine. It was also unnecessary to use the conventional terms of regretful gratitude in which maidens in their mercy wrap refusals.
“I'll remember it with pleasure, if you like,” she said with a half-smile. “But tell me why you don't think I shall marry Mr. King. I don't believe in your presentiments.”
She caught his eye, and they remained for some seconds looking hard at each other. She saw that he had his well-defined reasons.
“You can tell me exactly what is in your mind,” she said slowly; “you and I seem to understand each other.”
“If you understand me, what is the use of compromising speech, my dear lady?”
“You don't believe in Morland?”
“As a statesman I can't say that I do,” replied Weever, with the puckering of the faint lines round his eyes that passed for a smile. “That is what astonishes me in your English political life—the little one need talk and the little one need do. In America the politician is the orator. He must move in an atmosphere of words half a mile thick. Wherever he goes he must scream himself hoarse. But here—”
Norma touched his arm with her fan.
“We were not discussing American and English institutions,” she interrupted, “but matters which interest me a little more. You don't believe in Morland as a man? I want to know, as they are supposed to say in your country. I disregard your hint, as you may perceive. I am also indelicate in pressing you to speak unfavourably of the man I'm engaged to. Of course, having made me an offer, you would regard it as caddish to say anything against him. But supposing I absolve you from anything of the kind by putting you on a peculiar plane of friendship?”
“Then I should say I was honoured above all mortals,” replied Weever, inscrutably, “and ask you to tell me as a friend what has become of the artist—the man who got shot—Padgate.”
The unexpected allusion was a shock. It brought back a hateful scene. It awoke a multitude of feelings. Its relevance was a startling puzzle. She strove by hardening her eyes not to betray herself.
“I've quite lost sight of him,” she answered in a matter of-fact tone. “His little adventure was n't a pleasant one.”
“I don't believe he had any little adventure at all,” said Weever, coolly.
“What do you mean?” Norma started, and the colour came into her face.
“That of all the idiots let loose in a cynical, unimaginative world, Padgate is the greatest I have yet struck. If I were a hundredth part such an idiot, I should be a better and a happier man. It's getting late. I'm afraid I must be moving.”
He rose, and Norma rose with him.
“I wish you would n't speak in riddles. Can't you tell me plainly what you mean?”
“No, I can't,” he said abruptly. “I have said quite enough. Good-night. And remember,” he added, shaking hands with her, “remember what I told you about myself.”
Only after he had gone did it flash upon her that she had not put to him the vital question—what had Padgate to do with his disbelief in Morland? As is the way with people pondering over conundrums, the ridiculously simple solution did not occur to her. She spent many days in profitless speculation. Weever prophesied that the marriage would not take place. When pressed for a reason, he brought in the name of Jimmie Padgate. Obviously the latter was to stand between Morland and herself. But in what capacity? As a lover? Had Weever rightly interpreted her insane act on the day of the garden-party, and assumed that she was still in love with the detested creature? The thought made her grow hot and cold from head to foot. Why was he an idiot? Because he did not take advantage of her public confession? or was it because he stood in Weever's eyes as a wronged and heroic man? This in the depths of her heart she had been yearning for months to believe. Connie Deering almost believed it. About the facts once so brutally plain, so vulgarly devoid of mystery, a mysterious cloud had gathered and was thickening with time. Reflection brought assurance that Theodore Weever regarded Jimmie as innocent; and if ever a man viewed human affairs in the dry, relentless light of reason, it was the inscrutable, bloodless American.
His offer of marriage she put aside from her thoughts. Morland was the irrevocably accepted. It was February. Easter falling early, the wedding would take place in a little over a month. In a cold, dispassionate way, she interested herself in the usual preparations. Peace reigned in Devonshire Place. And yet Norma despised herself, feeling the degradation of the woman who sells her body.
During the session she saw little of Morland. For this she thanked God, the duchess, and the electors of Cosford. The sense of freedom caused her to repent of her contemptuous attitude towards his political aspirations. To encourage and foster them would be to her very great advantage. She adopted this policy, much to the edification of Morland, who felt the strengthening of a common bond of interest. He regularly balloted for seats in the Ladies' Gallery, and condemned her to sit for hours behind the grating and listen to uninspiring debates. He came to her with the gossip of the lobbies. He made plans for their future life together. They would make politics a feature of their house. It would be a rallying-place for the new Tory wing, in which Morland after a dinner at the Carlton Club when his health was proposed in flattering terms, had found himself enlisted. Norma was to bring back the glories of thesalon.
“When it gets too thick,” he said once laughingly, ashamed of these wanderings into the ideal, “we can go off into the country and shoot and have some decent people down and amuse ourselves rationally.”
Yet, in spite of absorbing political toys, his complete subjugation of Norma, and the smiling aspect of life, a sense of utter wretchedness weighed upon the soul of this half-developed man. He could not shake it off. It haunted him as he sat stolid and stupefied in his place below the gangway. It dulled all sensation of pleasure when he kissed the lips which Norma, resigned now to everything, surrendered to him at his pleasure. It took the sparkle out of his champagne, the joy out of his life. Now that he had asserted himself as the victorious male who had won the female that he coveted, the sense of wrong inflicted on him grew less and the consciousness of his own shame grew greater. In his shallow way he had loved Jimmie dearly. He also had the well-bred Englishman's conventional sense of honour. Accusing conscience wrote him down an unutterable knave.
One day in March, as he was proceeding citywards to see his solicitors on some question relating to marriage settlements, his carriage was blocked for some minutes in Oxford Street. Looking idly out of the near side window, he saw a familiar figure emerge from a doorway in a narrow passage come down to the pavement, and stand for a few moments in anxious thought, jostled by the passers-by. He looked thin and ill and worried. The lines by the sides of his drooping moustache had deepened. Jimmie, never spruce in his attire, now seemed outrageously shabby. Certain men who dress well are quick, like women, to notice these things. Morland's keen glance took in the discoloured brown boots and the frayed hem of trousers, the weather stains on the old tweed suit, the greasiness of the red tie, the irregular mark of perspiration on the band of the old Homburg hat. An impulse to spring out of the carriage and greet him was struggling with sheer shame, when Jimmie suddenly threw up his head—an old trick of his whose familiarity brought a pang to the man watching him—and crossed the road, disappearing among the traffic behind the brougham. Morland gazed meditatively at the little passage. Suddenly he was aware of the three brass balls and the name of Attenborough. In a moment he was on the pavement and, after a hurried word to his coachman, in pursuit of Jimmie. But the traffic had swallowed Jimmie up. It was impossible to track him. Morland returned to his brougham and drove on.
There was only one explanation of what he had seen. Jimmie was reduced to poverty, to pawning his belongings in order to live. The scandal had killed the sale of his pictures. No more ladies would sit to him for their portraits. No more dealers would purchase works on the strength of his name. Jimmie was ill, poor, down at heel, and it was all his, Morland's, fault, his very grievous fault. In a dim, futile way he wished he were a Roman Catholic, so that he could go to a priest, confess, and receive absolution. The idea of confession obsessed him in this chastened mood. By lunch-time he had resolved to tell Norma everything and abide by her verdict. At any rate, if he married her, he would not do so under false pretences. He would feel happier with the load of lies off his mind. At half-past four he left the House of Commons to transact its business without him as best it could, and drove to Devonshire Place. As he neared the door, his courage began to fail. He remembered Norma's passionate outburst against lying, and shrank from the withering words that she might speak. The situation, however, had to be faced.
The maid who opened the front door informed him that Norma was out, but that Mrs. Hardacre was at home. He was shown upstairs into the empty drawing-room, and while he waited there, a solution of his difficulty occurred to him. He caught at it eagerly, as he had caught at compromises and palliatives all his life. For he was a man of half-sins, half-virtues, half-loves, and half-repentances. His spiritual attitude was that of Naaman.
Mrs. Hardacre greeted him with smiles of welcome, and regrets at Norma's absence. If only he had sent a message, Norma would have given up her unimportant engagement. She would be greatly disappointed. The House took up so much of his time, and Norma prized the brief snatches she could obtain of his company. All of which, though obviously insincere, none the less flattered Morland's vanity.
“Perhaps it is as well that Norma is away,” said he, “for I want to have a little talk with you. Can you give me five minutes?”
“Fifty, my dear Morland,” replied Mrs. Hardacre, graciously. “Will you have some tea?”
He declined. It was too serious a matter for the accompaniment of clattering teaspoons. Mrs. Hardacre sat in an armchair with her back to the light—the curtains had not yet been drawn—and Morland sat near her, looking at the fire.
“I have something on my mind,” he began. “You, as Norma's mother, ought to know. It's about my friend Jimmie Padgate.”
Mrs. Hardacre put out a lean hand.
“I would rather not hear it. I'm not uncharitable, but I wish none of us had ever set eyes on the man. He came near ruining us all.”
“He seems to have ruined himself. He's ill, poor, in dreadful low water. I caught a sight of him this morning. The poor old chap was almost in rags.”
“It's very unpleasant for Mr. Padgate, but it fails to strike me as pathetic. He has only got his deserts.”
“That's where the point lies,” said Morland. “He does n't deserve it. I do. I am the only person to blame in the whole infernal business.”
“You?” cried Mrs. Hardacre, her grey eyes glittering with sudden interest. “What had you to do with it?”
“Well, everything. Jimmie never set eyes on the girl in his life. He took all the blame to shield me. If he had n't done so, there would have been the devil to pay. That's how it stands.”
Mrs. Hardacre gave a little gasp.
“My dear Morland, you amaze me. You positively shock me. Really, don't you think in mentioning the matter to me there is some—indelicacy?”
“You are a woman of the world,” said Morland, bluntly, “and you know that men don't lead the lives of monks just because they happen to be unmarried.”
“Of course I know it,” said Mrs. Hardacre, composing herself to sweetness. “One knows many things of which it is hardly necessary or desirable to talk. Of course I think it shocking and disreputable of you. But it's all over and done with. If that was on your mind, wipe it off and let us say no more about it.”
“I'm afraid you don't understand,” said Morland, rising and leaning against the mantel-piece. “What is done is done. Meanwhile another man is suffering for it, while I go about prospering.”
“But surely that is a matter between Mr. Padgate and yourself. How can it possibly concern us?”
As Morland had not looked at the case from that point of view, he silently inspected it with a puzzled brow.
“I can't help feeling a bit of a brute, you know,” he said at length. “I meant at first to let him off—to make a clean breast of it—but it wasn't feasible. You know how difficult these things are when they get put off. Then, of course, I thought I could make it up to Jimmie in other ways.”
“Why, so you can,” said Mrs. Hardacre, with the elaborate pretence of a little yawn, as if the subject had ceased to interest her. “You could afford it.”
“Money is no good. He won't touch a penny. I have offered.”
“Then, my dear Morland, you have done your best. If a man is idiot enough to saddle himself with other people's responsibilities and refuses to be helped when he breaks down under them, you must let him go his own way. Really I haven't got any sympathy for him.”
Morland, having warmed himself sufficiently and feeling curiously comforted by Mrs. Hardacre's wise words, sat down again near her and leant forward with his arms on his knees.
“Do you think Norma would take the same view?” he asked. After all, in spite of certain eccentricities inseparable from an unbalanced sex, she had as much fundamental common-sense as her mother. The latter looked at him sharply.
“What has Norma got to do with it?”
“I was wondering whether I ought to tell her,” said he.
Mrs. Hardacre started bolt upright in her chair. This time her interest was genuine. Nothing but her long training in a world of petty strife kept the sudden fright out of her eyes and voice.
“Tell Norma? Whatever for?”
“I thought it would be more decent,” said Morland, rather feebly.
“It would be sheer lunacy!” cried the lady, appalled at the certain catastrophe that such a proceeding would cause. Did not the demented creature see that the whole affair was in unstable equilibrium? A touch, let alone a shock like this, would bring it toppling down, never to be set up again by any prayers, remonstrances, ravings, curses, thumbscrews, or racks the ingenuity of an outraged mother could devise.
“It would be utter imbecility,” she continued. “My dear man, don't you think one mad Don Quixote in a romance is enough? What on earth would you, Norma, or any one else gain by telling her? She is as happy as possible now, buying her trousseau and making all the wedding arrangements. Why spoil her happiness? I think it exceedingly inconsiderate of you—not to say selfish—I do really.”
“Hardly that. It was an idea of doing penance,” said Morland.
“If that is all,” said Mrs. Hardacre, relaxing into a bantering tone, as she joyfully noted the lack of conviction in his manner, “I'll make you a hair shirt, and I'll promise it shall be scratchy—untanned pigskin with the bristles on, if you like. Be as uncomfortable, my dear Morland, as ever you choose—wear a frock-coat with a bowler hat or dinetête-à-têtewith Mr. Hardacre, but do leave other folks to pass their lives in peace and quiet.”
Morland threw himself back and laughed, and Mrs. Hardacre knew she had won what she paradoxically called a moral victory. They discussed the question for a few moments longer, and then Morland rose to take his leave.
“It's awfully good of you to look at things in this broadminded way,” he said, with the air of a man whom an indulgent lady has pardoned for a small peccadillo. “Awfully good of you.”
“There is no other sane way of looking at them,” replied Mrs. Hardacre. “Won't you wait and see Norma?”
“I must get back to the House,” replied Morland, consulting his watch. “There may be a division before the dinner-hour.”
He smoked a great cigar on his way to Westminster, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Mrs. Hardacre was quite right. He had done his best. If Jimmie was too high and mighty to accept the only compensation possible, he was not to blame. The matter was over and done with. It would be idiotic to tell Norma.
Meanwhile, having made confession and received absolution, he felt spiritually refreshed.
THE look of illness that Morland had noticed upon Jimmie's face was due to the fact that he had been ill. Italian townlets nestling on hillsides are picturesque, but they are not always healthy. A touch of fever had laid him on his back for a week, and caused the local doctor to order him to England. He had arrived in a limp condition, much to the anxiety of Aline, who had expected to see the roses return to his cheek as soon as their slender baggage had passed the custom-house. He was shabbily dressed because he had fallen on evil times, and had no money to waste on personal vanities. The four guineas which Aline had put aside out of their limited resources to buy him a new suit he had meanly abstracted from the housekeeping drawer, and had devoted, with the surreptitious help of the servant, to purchasing necessary articles of attire for Aline. He was looking worried because he had forgotten in which of the cheap Oxford Street restaurants he had promised to meet that young lady. When he remembered, the cloud passed from his face and he darted across the road behind Morland's brougham. He found Aline seated primly at a little marble table on which were a glass of milk and a lump of amorphous pastry for herself, and a plate of cold beef and a small bottle of Bass for Jimmie. It was too early for the regular crowd of lunchers—only half-past twelve—and the slim, erect little figure looked oddly alone in the almost empty restaurant.
Jimmie nodded in a general, kindly way at the idle waitresses about the buffet, and marched down the room with a quick step, his eyes beaming. He sat down with some clatter opposite Aline, and took two cheques, a bank-note and a handful of gold and silver from his pocket, and dumped them noisily on the table.
“There, my child. Seven pounds ten. Twenty-five guineas. Five pounds. And eight pounds three-and-six-pence. Exit wolf at the door, howling, with his tail between his legs.”
Aline looked at the wealth with knitted brow.
“Can I take this?” she asked, lifting up the five-pound note.
Jimmie pushed the pile towards her. “Take it all, my dear. What on earth should I do with it? Besides, it's all your doing.”
“Because I made you go and dun those horrid dealers? And even now Hyam has only given you half. It was fifty guineas—Oh, Jimmie! Do you mean to say you forgot? Now, what did you tell him? Did you produce the agreement?”
Jimmie looked at her ruefully.
“I'm afraid I forgot the wretched agreement. I went in and twirled my moustache fiercely, and said 'Mr. Hyam, I want my money.'”
Aline laughed. “And you took him by the throat. I know. Oh, you foolish person!”
“Well, he asked me if twenty-five would be enough—and it's a lot of money, you know, dear—and I thought if I did n't say 'yes,' he would n't give me anything. In business affairs one has to be diplomatic.”
“I'll have to take Hyam in hand myself,” said Aline, decisively. “Well, he'll have to pay up some day. Then there's Blathwayt & Co.,—and Tilney—that's quite right—but where did you get all that gold from, Jimmie?”
“Oh, that was somebody else,” he said vaguely. Then turning to the waitress, who had sauntered up to open the bottle of Bass, he pointed at Aline's lunch.
“Do you mind taking away that eccentric pie-thing and bringing the most nutritious dish you have in the establishment?”
“But, Jimmie, this is a Bath bun. It's delicious,” protested Aline.
“My dear child, growing girls cannot be fed like bears on buns. Ah, here,” he said to the waitress who showed him the little wooden-handled frame containing the tariff, “bring this young lady some galantine of chicken.”
Aline, who in her secret heart loved the “eccentric pie-thing” beyond all other dainties, and trembled at the stupendous charge, possibly ninepence or a shilling, that would be made for the galantine, yielded, after the manner of women, because she knew it would please Jimmie. But accustomed to his diplomatic methods, she felt that a red herring—or a galantine—had been drawn across the track.
“Who was the somebody else?” she asked.
He nodded and drank a draught of beer and wiped the froth from his moustache. Something unusual in his personal appearance suddenly caught her attention. His watch-chain was dangling loose from the buttonhole of his waistcoat.
“Your watch!” she gasped.
Dissimulation being vain, Jimmie confessed.
“You told me this morning, my dear, that if we didn't get fifty pounds to-day we were ruined. You spoke alarmingly of the workhouse. My debt collecting amounted to thirty-eight pounds fifteen. I tried hard to work the obdurate bosom up to eleven pounds five, but he would only give me eight.”
“You don't mean to say you have sold your beautiful gold watch for eight pounds?” cried the girl, turning as pale as the milk in front of her.
It had been a present from a wealthy stockbroker who had been delighted with his portrait painted by Jimmie a couple of years ago, and it was thick and heavy and the pride of Aline's existence. It invested Jimmie with an air of solidity, worldly substantiality; and it was the only timekeeper they had ever had in the house which properly executed its functions. Now he had sold it! Was there ever so exasperating a man? He was worse than Moses with his green spectacles. But Jimmie reassured her. He had only pawned the watch at Attenborough's over the way.
“Then give me the ticket, do, or you'll lose it, Jimmie.”
He meekly obeyed. Aline began her galantine with a sigh of relief, and condescended to laugh at Jimmie's account of his exploits. But when the meal was ended, she insisted on redeeming the precious watch, and much happier in knowing it safe in his pocket, she carried him off to a ready-made tailor's, where she ordered him a beautiful thin overcoat for thirty shillings, a neat blue serge suit for three pounds ten, handing over in payment the five-pound note she had abstracted from his gleanings, and a new hat, for which she paid from a mysterious private store of her own. These matters having been arranged to her satisfaction, she made up for her hectoring ways by nestling against him on top of the homeward-bound omnibus and telling him what a delightful, lovely morning they had spent.
Thus it will be seen that Jimmie, aided by Aline's stout little heart, was battling more than usual against adversity. Aline had many schemes. Why should she not obtain some lucrative employment? Jimmie made a wry face at the phrase and protested vehemently against the suggestion. A hulking varlet like him to let her wear her fingers to the bone by addressing envelopes at twopence a million? He would sooner return to the five-shillings-a-dozen oil paintings; he would go round the streets at dawn and play “ghost” to pavement artists; he would take in washing! The idea of the street-pictures caught his fancy. He expatiated upon its advantages. Five pitches, say at two shillings a pitch, that would be ten shillings a day—three pounds a week. A most business-like plan, to say nothing of the education in art it would be to the public! He had his own fantastical way of dealing with the petty cares of life. As for Aline working, he would not hear of it. Though they lived now from hand to mouth, they were always fed. He had faith in the ravens.
But all the fantasy and the faith could not subdue Aline's passionate rebellion against Jimmie's ostracism. She was very young, very feminine; she had not his wide outlook, his generous sympathies, his disdain of trivial, ignoble things, his independence of soul. The world was arrayed against Jimmie. Society was persecuting him with monstrous injustice. She hated his oppressors, longed fiercely for an opportunity of vindicating his honour. It was sometimes more than she could bear—to think of his straitened means, the absence of sitters, the lowered prices he obtained, the hours of unremitting toil he spent at his easel and drawing-table. During their travels she had not realised what the scandal would mean to him professionally. Now her heart rose in hot revolt and thirsted for battle in Jimmie's cause.
Her heart had never been hotter than one morning when, the gem of his finished Italian studies having been rejected by the committee of a minor exhibition, she went down to the studio to give vent to her indignation. At breakfast Jimmie had laughed and kissed her and told her not to drop tears into his coffee. He would send the picture to the Academy, where it would be hung on the line and make him famous. He refused to be downhearted and talked buoyantly of other things. But Aline felt that it was only for her sake that he hid his bitter disappointment, and an hour later she could bear the strain of silence no longer.
The door of the studio was open. The girl's footstep was soft, and, not hearing it, he did not turn as she entered. For a few seconds she stood watching him; feeling shy, embarrassed, an intruder upon unexpected sacred things. Jimmie's mind was far away from minor exhibitions. He was sitting on his painting-stool, chin in hand, looking at a picture on the easel. On his face was unutterable pain, in his eyes an agony of longing. Aline caught her breath, frightened at the revelation. The eyes of the painted Norma smiled steadfastly into his. The horrible irony of it smote the girl. Another catch at the breath became a choking sob. Jimmie started, and as if a magic hand had passed across his features, the pain vanished, and Aline saw the homely face again with its look of wistful kindness. Overwrought, she broke into a passion of weeping. Jimmie put his arms about her and soothed her. What did the rejection of a picture matter? It was part of the game of painting. She must be his own brave little girl and smile at the rubs of fortune. But Aline shook the head buried on his shoulder, and stretched out a hand blindly towards the portrait. “It's that. I can't bear it.”
An impossible thought shot through him. He drew away from her and caught her wrists somewhat roughly, and tried to look at her; but she bowed her head.
“What do you mean, my child?” he asked curtly, with bent brows.
Women are lightning-witted in their interpretation of such questions. The blood flooded her face, and her tears dried suddenly and she met his glance straight.
“Do you think I'm jealous? Do you suppose I have n't known? I can't bear you to suffer. I can't bear her not to believe in you. I can't bear her not to love you.”
Jimmie let go her wrists and stood before her full of grateful tenderness, quite at a loss for words. He looked whimsically at the flushed, defiant little face; he shook her by the shoulder and turned away.
“My valiant tin soldier,” he said.
It was an old name for her, dating from nursery days, when they thought and talked according to the gospel of Hans Christian Andersen.
No more passed between them. But thenceforward Jimmie put the finishing touches to the portrait openly, Instead of painting at it when he knew he should be undisturbed. The wedding was drawing near. The date had been announced in the papers, and Jimmie had put a cross against it in his diary. If only Norma would accept the portrait as a wedding-present, he would feel happier. But how to approach her he did not know. In her pure eyes, he was well aware, he must appear the basest of men, and things proceeding from him would bear a taint of the unspeakable. Yet he hungered for her acceptance. It was the most perfect picture he had painted or could ever paint. The divinest part of him had gone to the making of it. It held in its passionate simplicity the man's soul, as the Monna Lisa in its mysterious complexity holds Leonardo's. Of material symbols of things spiritual he could not give her more. But how to give?
Connie Deering settled the question by coming to the studio one morning, a bewildering vision of millinery and smiles and kindness.
“You have persistently refused, you wicked bear, to come and see me since my return to London, so I have no choice but to walk into your den. If it had n't been for Aline, beyond an occasional 'Dear Connie, I am very well. The weather is unusually warm for the time of year. Yours sincerely, J. P.', I should n't know whether you were alive or dead. I hope you're ashamed of yourself.”
This was the little lady's exordium, to which she tactfully gave Jimmie no time to reply. She stayed for an hour. The disastrous topic was avoided. But Jimmie felt that she forbore to judge him for his supposed offence, and learned to his great happiness that Norma had asked after his welfare, and would without doubt deign in her divine graciousness to accept the portrait. She looked thoughtfully at the picture for some time, and then laid a light touch on his arm.
“How you must love her, Jimmie!” she said in a low voice. “I have n't forgotten.”
“I wish you would,” he answered gravely. “I oughtn't to have said what I did. I don't remember what I did say. I lost my head and raved. Every man has his hour of madness, and that was mine—all through your witchery. And yet somehow it seemed as if I were pouring it all out to her.”
Connie Deering perceptibly winced. Plucking up courage, she began:
“I wish a man would—”
“My dear Connie,” Jimmie interrupted kindly, “there are hundreds of men in London who are sighing themselves hoarse for you. But you are such a hard-hearted butterfly.”
Her lips twitched. “Not so hard-hearted as you think, my good Jimmie,” she retorted.
A moment later she was all inconsequence and jest. On parting he took both her white-gloved little hands.
“You can't realise the joy it has been to me to see you, Connie,” he said. “It has been like a ray of sunlight through prison bars.”
After a private talk with Aline she drove straight to Devonshire Place, and on the way dabbed her eyes with the inconsiderable bit of chiffon called a handkerchief which she carried in her gold chain purse. She saw Norma alone for a moment before lunch, and told her of her visit.
“I don't care what he has done,” she declared desperately. “I am not going to let it make a difference any longer. He's the same dear creature I have known all my life, and I don't believe he has done anything at all. If there's a sinner in that horrible business, it is n't Jimmie!”
Norma looked out of the window at the bleak March day.
“That is what Theodore Weever said,” she answered tonelessly.
“Then why don't you give Jimmie the benefit of the doubt?”
“It is better that I should n't.”
“Why, dear?”
“You are a sweet little soul, Connie,” said Norma, her eyes still fixed on the grey sky. “But you may do more harm than good. I am better as I am. I have benumbed myself into a decent state of insensibility and I don't want to feel anything ever again as long as I live.”
The door opened, and Mrs. Hardacre appeared on the threshold. Connie bent forward and whispered quickly into Norma's ear:
“One would think you were afraid to believe in Jimmie.”
She swung round, flushed, femininely excited at having seized the unfair moment for dealing a stab.
“I hope Ihavemade her feel,” she thought, as she fluttered forward to greet Mrs. Hardacre.
She succeeded perhaps beyond her hope. A sharp glance showed her Norma still staring out of window, but staring now with an odd look of fear and pain. Her kind heart repented.
“Forgive me if I hurt you,” she said on their way downstairs to lunch.
“What does it matter?” Norma answered by way of pardon.
But the shrewd thrust mattered exceedingly. After Connie had gone, the wound ached, and Norma found that her boast of having benumbed herself was a vain word. In the night she lay awake, frightened at the reaction that was taking place. Theodore Weever had shaken her more than she had realised. Connie Deering proclaimed the same faith. She felt that she too would have to accept it—against argument, against reason, against fact. She would have to accept it wholly, implicitly; and she dreaded the act of faith. Her marriage with Morland was fixed for that day week, and she was agonisingly aware that she loved another man with all her heart.
The next day she received a hurried note from Connie Deering:
“Do come in for half an hour for tea on Sunday. I have a beautiful wedding-present to show you which I hope you'll like, as great pains have been spent over it. And I want to have a last little chat with you.”
She promised unreflectingly, seeing no snare. But as she walked to Bryanston Square on Sunday afternoon, more of a presentiment, a foreboding of evil, than a suspicion fixed itself upon her mind, and she wished she had not agreed to come. She was shown into the drawing-room, and there, beside a gilt-framed picture over which a cloth was thrown, with her great brown eyes meeting her defiantly, stood Aline.
THUS had Aline, her heart hot for battle in Jimmie's cause, contrived with Connie Deering as subsidiary conspirator. She had lain awake most of the night, thinking of the approaching interview, composing speeches, elaborating arguments, defining her attitude. Her plan of campaign was based on the assumption of immediate hostilities. She had pictured a scornful lady moved to sudden anger at seeing herself trapped, and haughtily refusing to discuss overtures of peace. It was to be war from the first, until she had brought her adversary low; and when the door-handle rattled and the door opened to admit Norma, every nerve in her young body grew tense, and her heart beat like the clapper of a bell.
Norma entered, looked for a moment in smiling surprise at Aline, came quickly forward, and moved by a sudden impulse, a yearning for love, sweetness, freshness, peace—she knew not what—she put her arms round the girl and kissed her.
“My dear Aline, how sweet it is to see you again!”
The poor little girl stood helpless. The bottom was knocked out of her half-childish plan of campaign. There was no scornful lady, no haughty words, no hostilities. She fell to crying. What else could she do?
“There, there! Don't cry, dear,” said Norma soothingly, almost as helpless. Seating herself on a low chair and drawing Aline to her side, she looked up at the piteous face.
“Why should you cry, dear?”
“I did n't know you would be so good to me,” answered Aline, wiping her eyes.
“Why should n't I be good to you? What reason could I have for not being glad to see you?”
“I don't know,” said the girl, with a touch of bitterness. “Things are so different now.”
Norma sighed for answer and thought of her premonition. She was aware that Connie had deliberately planned this interview, but could find no resentment in her heart. The reproach implied in Aline's words she accepted humbly. She was at once too spiritless for anger, and too much excited by the girl's presence for regret at having come. Her eye fell upon the picture leaning against the chair-back, and a conjecture swiftly passed through her mind.
“Mrs. Deering asked me to come and look at a wedding-present,” she said with a smile.
“Did she tell you from whom?” asked Aline, thrusting her handkerchief into her pocket. She had found her nerve again.
“No.”
“It's from Jimmie.”
“Is it that over there?”
Aline caught and misinterpreted an unsteadiness of voice. She threw herself on her knees by Norma's side.
“You won't refuse it, Miss Hardacre. Oh, say you won't refuse it. Jimmie began it ever so long ago. He put everything into it. It would break his heart if you refused it—the heart of the best and beautifullest and tenderest and most wonderful man God ever made.”
Norma touched with her gloved fingers a wisp of hair straying over the girl's forehead.
“How do you know he is all that?”
“How do I know? How do I know the sun shines and the rain falls? It's just so.”
“You have faith, my child,” said Norma, oddly.
“It isn't faith. It's knowledge. You all believe Jimmie has done something horrible. He has n't. I know he hasn't. He couldn't. He couldn't harm a living creature by word or deed. I know he never did it. If I had thought so for one moment, I should have loathed myself so that I would have gone out and killed myself. I know very little about it. I did n't read the newspapers—it's hideous—it's horrible—Jimmie would as soon think of torturing a child. It's not in his nature. He is all love and sweetness and chivalry. If you say he has taken the blame on himself for some great generous purpose—yes. That's Jimmie. That's Jimmie all over. It's cruel—it's monstrous for any one who knows him to think otherwise.”
She had risen from her knees half-way through her passionate speech, and moved about in front of Norma, wringing her hands. She ended in a sob and turned away. Norma lay back in her chair, pale and agitated. The cynical worldling with his piercing vision into men and the pure, ignorant child had arrived at the same conclusion, not after months of thought, but instantly, intuitively. She could make the girl no answer. Aline began again.
“He could n't. You know he could n't. It's something glorious and beautiful he has done and not anything shameful.”
She went on, with little pauses, hurling her short, breathless sentences across the space that separated her from Norma, forgetful of everything save the wrong done to Jimmie. At last Norma rose and went to her.
“Hush, dear!” she said. “There are some things I mustn't talk about. I daren't. You are too young to understand. Mr. Padgate has sent me a wedding-present. Tell him how gladly I accept it and how I shall value it. Let me see the picture.”
Aline, her slight bosom still heaving with the after-storm of emotion, said nothing, but drew the cloth from the canvas. Norma started back in-surprise. She had not anticipated seeing her own portrait.
“Oh, but it is beautiful!” she cried involuntarily.
“Yes—more than beautiful,” said Aline, and mechanically she moved the chair into the full light of the window.
Norma looked at the picture for a long time, stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror of the overmantel, and returned to the picture. And as she looked the soul behind the picture spoke to her. The message delivered, she glanced at Aline.
“It is not I, that woman. I wish to God it were.” She put her hands up to her face, and took a step or two across the room, and repeated a little wildly, “I wish to God it were!”
“It is very, very like you,” said Aline softly, recovering her girl's worship of the other's stately beauty.
Norma caught her by the arm and pointed at the portrait.
“Can't you see the difference?”
But the soul behind the picture had not spoken to Aline. There was love hovering around the pictured woman's lips; happy tenderness and trust and promise mingled in her eyes; in so far as the shadow of a flower-like woman's passion could strain her features, so were her features strained. Yet she looked out of the canvas a proud, queenly woman, capable of heroisms and lofty sacrifice. She was one who loved deeply and demanded love in return. She was warm of the flesh, infinitely pure of the spirit. The face was the face of Norma, but the soul was that of the dream-woman who had come and sat in the sitter's chair and communed with Jimmie as he painted her. And Norma heard her voice. It was an indictment of her life, a judgment and a sentence.
“I am glad you can't, dear,” she said to Aline, regaining her balance. “Tell him I shall prize it above all my wedding-gifts.”
They talked quietly, for a while about Jimmie's affairs, the pilgrimage through southern France and northern Italy, his illness, his work. His poverty Aline was too proud to mention.
“And you, my dear?” asked Norma, kindly.
“What about yourself? You are not looking as happy as you were. My dear child,” she said, bending forward earnestly, “do you know that no one has ever come to me with their troubles in all my life—not once. I'm beginning to feel I should be happier if some one did. You have had yours—-I have heard just a little. You see we all have them and we might help each other.”
“You have no troubles, Miss Hardacre,” said Aline, touched. “You are going to be married in a week's time.”
“And you?”
“Never,” said Aline. “Never.”
Suddenly she poured her disastrous little love-story into Norma's ears. It was a wonderful new comfort to the child, this tender magic of the womanly sympathy. Oh! she loved him, of course she loved him, and he loved her; that was the piteous part of it. If Miss Hardacre only knew what it was to have the heart-ache! It was dreadful. And there was no hope.
“And is that all?” asked Norma, when she had lowered the curtain on her tragedy. “You are eating out your heart for him and won't see him just because he won't believe in Jimmie? Listen. I feel sure that he will soon believe in Jimmie. He must. And then you'll be entirely happy.”
When the girl's grateful arms suddenly flung themselves about her, Norma was further on the road to happiness than she had ever travelled before. She yielded herself to the moment's exquisite charm. Behind her whirled a tumult of longing, shame, struggling faith, nameless suspicion. Before her loomed a shivering dread. The actual moment was an isle of enchanted peace.
The clock on a table at the far end of the room chiming six brought her back to the workaday world. She must go home. Morland was coming to dinner; also one or two Cosford people, who had already arrived in town in view of the wedding. She would have to dress with some elaborateness. Her heart grew heavy and cold at the prospect of the dreary party. She rose, looked again at the picture in the fading light. Moved by the irresistible, she turned to Aline.
“I should like to see him—to thank him—before—-before Wednesday. Do you think he would come?”
Aline blushed guiltily. “Jimmie is in the house now,” she said.
“Downstairs?”
“Yes.”
For a moment irresolute, she looked vacantly into the girl's pleading eyes. An odd darkness encompassed her and she saw nothing. The announcement was a shock of crisis. Dimly she knew that she trod the brink of folly and peril. But she had been caught unawares, and she longed stupidly, achingly, for the sight of his face. The words of Aline, eager in defence of her beloved, seemed far away.
“Of course he does n't know you are here. He was to call for me at a quarter to six, and I heard the front door open a little while ago. I brought the picture in a cab, and he is under the impression that Mrs. Deering will ask you to—will do what I have done. Jimmie is perfectly innocent, Miss Hardacre. He had not the remotest idea I was to meet you—not the remotest.”
Norma recovered herself sufficiently to say with a faint smile:
“So this has been a conspiracy between you and Connie Deering?”
Aline caught consent in the tone, and ignored the question.
“Shall I send him up to you?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes,” said Norma.
There was a girl's glad cry, a girl's impulsive kiss, and Norma was left alone in the room. She had yielded. In a few moments he would be with her—the man who had said, “Her voice haunts me like music heard in sleep... I worship her like a Madonna... I love her as the man of hot blood loves a woman... My soul is a footstool for her to rest her feet upon,” and other flaming words of unforgettable passion; the man for whom one instant of her life had been elemental sex; the man whose love had transfigured her on canvas into the wonder among women that she might have been; the man standing in a slough of infamy, whose rising vapours wreathed themselves into a halo about his head. She clenched her hands and set her teeth, wrestling with herself.
“My God! What kind of a fool am I becoming?” she breathed.
Training, the habit of the mask, came to her aid. Jimmie, entering, saw only the royal lady who had looked kindly upon him in the golden September days. She came to meet him frankly, as one meets an old friend. A new vision revealed to her the heart that leapt into his eyes, as they rested upon her. Mistress of herself, she hardened her own, but smiled and spoke softly.
“It is great good fortune you have come, so that I can thank you,” she said. “But how can I ever thank you—for that?”
“It is a small gift enough,” said Jimmie. “Your acceptance is more than thanks.”
“I shall prize it dearly. It is like nothing that can be bought. It is something out of yourself you are giving me.”
“If you look at it in that light,” said he, “I am happy indeed.”
With a common instinct they went up to the portrait and regarded it side by side. Conventional words passed. He enquired after Morland.
“You have n't seen him for a long time?” she asked hesitatingly.
“Not for a long time.”
“You must have been very lonely.”
“I have had Aline—and Connie Deering—and my work.”
“Are they sufficient for you?”
“Any human love a man gets he can make fill his life. It's like the grain of mustard-seed.”
Norma felt a thrill of admiration. Not a tone in his voice betrayed complaint, reproach, or bitterness. Instead, he sounded the note of thanksgiving for the love bestowed upon him, of faith in the perfect ordering of the world. She glanced at him, and felt that she had wronged him. No matter what was the solution of the mystery, she knew him to be a sweet-souled man, wonderfully steadfast.
“Your old way,” she replied with a smile, sitting down and motioning him to a chair beside her. “Do you remember that we first met in this very room? You have not changed. Have I?”
“No,” he said gravely, “you were always beautiful, without and within. I told you that then, if you remember. Perhaps, now, you are a little truer to yourself.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, somewhat bitterly.
“Perhaps it is the approach of your great happiness,” blundered Jimmie, in perfect conviction. She was silent. “It has been more to me than I can say,” he went on, “to see you once again—as you are, before your marriage. I wish you many blessings—all that love can bring you.”
“Do you think love is necessary for married happiness?”
“Without it marriage must be a horror,” said Jimmie. For a moment she was on the brink of harsh laughter. Did he sincerely believe she was in love with Morland? She could have hurled the question at him. Will checked the rising hysteria and turned it into other channels.
“Why have you never married? You must have loved somebody once.”
It was a relief to hurt him. The dusk was gathering in the room, and she could scarcely see his face. A Sunday stillness filled the quiet square outside. The hour had its dangers.
“My having loved a woman does not necessarily imply that I could have married her,” said Jimmie.
The evasion irritated her mood, awoke a longing to make him speak. She drew her chair nearer, bent forward, so that the brim of her great hat almost brushed his forehead and the fragrance of her overspread him.
“Do you remember a picture you would n't show me in your studio? You called it a mad painter's dream. You said it was the Ideal Woman.”
“Yousaid so,” replied Jimmie.
“I should like to see it.”
“It is mine no longer to show you,” said Jimmie.
“I think you must have loved that woman very deeply.” She was tempting him as she had tempted no man before, feeling a cruel, senseless joy in it. His voice vibrated.
“Yes. I loved her infinitely.”
“What was she like?”
“Like all the splendid flowers of the earth melted into one rose,” said Jimmie.
“I wish some one had ever said that about me,” she whispered.
“Many must have thought it.”
“She must be a happy woman to be loved by you.”
“By me? Who am I that I could bring happiness to a woman? I have never told her.”
“Why not?” she whispered. “Do you suppose you can love a woman without her knowing it?”
“In what way can the star be cognisant of the moth's desire?” said Jimmie, going back to the refrain of his love.
“You a moth and she a star! You are a man and she is but a trumpery bit of female flesh that on a word would throw herself into your arms.”
“No,” said Jimmie, hoarsely. “No, you don't know what you are saying.”
The temptation to goad him was irresistible.
“We are all of us alike, all of us. Tell her.”
“I dare n't.”
“Tell me who she is.”
She looked at him full, with meaning in her eyes, which glowed like deep moons in the dusk. He brought all his courage into his glance. He was the master. She turned away her head in confusion, reading his love, his strength, his loyalty. A lesser man loving her would have thrown honour to the winds. A curious reverence of him filled her. She felt a small thing beside him. All doubts vanished forever. Her faith in him was as crystal clear as Aline's.
“I have no right to mention her name,” he said after a pause.
Norma leaned back in her chair and passed her handkerchief across her lips.
“Would you do anything in the world she asked you?” she murmured.
“I would go through hell for her,” said Jimmie.
There was another span of silence, tense and painful. Jimmie broke it by saying:
“Why should you concern yourself about my fantastic affairs? They merely belong to dreamland—to the twilight and the stillness. They have no existence in the living world.”
“If I thought so, should I be sitting in the twilight and the stillness listening to you?” she asked. “Or even if I did, may I not enter into dreamland too for a few little minutes before the gates are closed to me forever? Why should you want to shut me out of it? Do you think much love has come my way? Yours are the only lips I have ever heard speak of it.”
“Morland loves you,” said Jimmie, tremulously.
The door opened. The electric light was switched on, showing two pale, passion-drawn faces, and Connie Deering brought her sweet gaiety into the room.
“If I had known you two were sitting in the dark like this, I should have come up earlier. Is n't it nice, Norma, to have Jimmie back again?”
The spell was broken. Norma gave an anxious look at the clock and fled, after hurried farewells.
The mistress of the house arched her pretty eyebrows as she returned to Jimmie.
“Eh bien?”
“Connie—” He cleared his throat. “You have kept my secret?”
“Loyally,” she said. “Have you?”
“I have done my best. God knows I have done my best.”
He sat down, took up a book and began to turn the leaves idly. Connie knelt down before the fire and put on a fresh log. This done, she came to his side. He took her hand and looked up into her face.
“I have n't thanked you, Connie. I do with all my heart.”
She smiled at him with an odd wistfulness.
“You once thanked me in a very pretty manner,” she said. “I think I deserve it again.”