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diff --git a/old/7farh10.txt b/old/7farh10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52c80d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7farh10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12528 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Far Horizon, by Lucas Malet + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Far Horizon + +Author: Lucas Malet + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8569] +[This file was first posted on July 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAR HORIZON *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Danny Wool, Lorna Hanrahan, Mary Musser, +Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE FAR HORIZON + +BY + +LUCAS MALET + +(MRS. MARY ST. LEGER HARRISON) + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +_The Wages of Sin_ + +_A Counsel of Perfection_ + +_Colonel Enderby's Wife_ + +_Little Peter_ + +_The Carissima_ + +_The Gateless Barrier_ + +_The History of Sir Richard Calmady_ + + + + +"Ask for the Old Paths, where is the Good Way, and walk therein, and ye +shall find rest."--JEREMIAS. + + +"The good man is the bad man's teacher; the bad man is the material upon +which the good man works. If the one does not value his teacher, if the +other does not love his material, then despite their sagacity they must +go far astray. This is a mystery of great import."--FROM THE SAYINGS OF +LAO-TZU. + + +..."Cherchons a voir les choses comme elles sont, et ne voulons pas avoir +plus d'esprit que le bon Dieu! Autrefois on croyait que la canne a sucre +seule donnait le sucre, on en tire a peu pres de tout maintenant. Il est +de meme de la poesie. Extrayons-la de n'importe quoi, car elle git en +tout et partout. Pas un atome de matiere qui ne contienne pas la poesie. +Et habituons-nous a considerer le monde comme un oeuvre d'art, dont il +faut reproduire les procedees dans nos oeuvres."--GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Dominic Iglesias stood watching while the lingering June twilight +darkened into night. He was tired in body, but his mind was eminently, +consciously awake, to the point of restlessness, and this was unusual +with him. He had raised the lower sash of each of the three tall, narrow +windows to its extreme height, since the first-floor sitting-room, though +of fair proportions, appeared close. His thought refused the limits of +it, and ranged outward over the expanse of Trimmer's Green, the roadway +and houses bordering it, to the far northwest, that region of hurried +storm, of fierce, equinoctial passion and conflict, now paved with +plaques of flat, dingy, violet cloud opening on smoky rose-red wastes of +London sunset. All day thunder had threatened, but had not broken. And, +even yet, the face of heaven seemed less peaceful than remonstrant, a +sullenness holding it as of troops in retreat denied satisfaction of +imminent battle. + +Otherwise the outlook was wholly pacific, one of middle-class suburban +security. The Green aforesaid is bottle-shaped, the neck of it debouching +into a crowded westward-wending thoroughfare; while Cedar Lodge, from the +first-floor windows of which Mr. Iglesias contemplated the oncoming of +night, being situate in the left shoulder, so to speak, of the bottle, +commanded, diagonally, an uninterrupted view of the whole extent of it. +Who Trimmer was, how he came by a Green, and why, or what he trimmed on +it, it is idle at this time of day to attempt to determine. Whether, +animated by a desire for the public welfare, he bequeathed it in high +charitable sort; or whether, fame taking a less enviable turn with him, +he just simply was hanged there, has afforded matter of heated +controversy to the curious in questions of suburban nomenclature and +topography. But in this case, as in so many other and more august ones, +the origins defy discovery. Suffice it, therefore, that the name remains, +as does the open space--the latter forming one of those minor "lungs of +London" which offer such amiable oases in the great city's less +aristocratic residential districts. Formerly the Green boasted a row of +fine elms, and was looked on by discreetly handsome eighteenth-century +mansions and villas, set in spacious gardens. But of these, the great +majority--Cedar Lodge being a happy exception--has vanished under the +hand of the early Victorian speculative builder; who, in their stead, has +erected full complement of the architectural platitudes common to his age +and taste. Dignity has very sensibly given place to gentility. +Nevertheless the timid red, or sickly yellow-grey, brick of the existing +houses is pleasingly veiled by ivy and Virginia creeper, while no shop +front obtrudes derogatory suggestion of retail trade. The local +authorities, moreover, some ten years back girdled the Green with healthy +young balsam-poplar and plane trees and enclosed the grass with iron +hurdles--to rescue it from trampling into unsightly pathways--thus doing +a well-intentioned, if somewhat unimaginative, best to safeguard the +theatre of long ago Trimmer's beneficence or infamy from greater +spoliation. + +Hence it follows that, certain inherent limitations admitted, the scene +upon which Dominic Iglesias' eyes rested was not without elements of +attraction. And of this fact, being a person of an excellent temperance +of expectation, he was gratefully aware. His surroundings, indeed, +constituted, so it appeared to him, the maximum of comfort and advantage +which could be expected by a middle-aged gentleman, of moderate fortune, +in the capacity of a "paying guest." Not only in word but in thought--for +in acknowledgment of obligation he was scrupulously courteous. He +frequently tendered thanks to his neighbour and old school-fellow, Mr. +George Lovegrove, first for calling his attention to Mrs. Porcher's +advertisement, and subsequently for reassuring him as to its import. For, +though incapable of forming so much as a thought to her concrete +disparagement, Mr. Iglesias was not without a quiet sense of humour, or +of that instinct of self-protection common to even the most chivalrous of +mankind. He was, therefore, perfectly sensible that "the widow of a +military officer," who describes herself in print as "bright, musical and +thoroughly domesticated," while offering "a cheerful and refined home at +the West End, within three minutes of Tube and omnibus"--"noble dining +and recreation rooms, bath h. and c." thrown in--to unmarried members of +the stronger sex, must of necessity be a lady whose close acquaintance it +would be foolhardy to make without a trifle of preliminary scouting. + +Happily not only George Lovegrove, but his estimable wife was at hand. +The latter hastened to prosecute inquiries, beginning with a visit to the +Anglican vicar of the parish, the Rev. Giles Nevington. He reported Mrs. +Porcher an evening communicant at the greater festivals, and a not +ungenerous donor to parochial charities; adding that a former curate had +resided under her roof with perfect impunity. Mrs. Lovegrove terminated +her researches by an interview with the fishmonger, who assured her that +"Cedar Lodge always took the best cuts," sternly refused fish or poultry +which had suffered cold storage, and paid its housebooks without fail +before noon on Thursday. She ascertained, further, from a source socially +intermediate between clergyman and tradesman, that Mrs. Porcher's +husband, some time veterinary surgeon of a crack regiment, had died in +the odour of alcohol rather than in that of sanctity, leaving his widow--in +addition to his numerous and heavy debts--but a fraction of the +comfortable fortune to procure the enjoyment of which he had so +considerately married her. The solid Georgian mansion was her freehold; +and it was to secure sufficient means for continued residence in it that +the poor lady started a boarding-house, or in the politer language of the +present day, had decided to receive paying guests. + +Encouraged by the satisfactory nature of the above information, Mr. +Iglesias--shortly after his mother's death, now nearly eight years ago-- +had become a member of Mrs. Porcher's household. He had never, so far, +had reason to regret that step. And it was with a consciousness of +well-being and repose that he returned daily--after hours of strenuous +work in the well-known city banking house of Messrs. Barking Brothers & +Barking--to this square first-floor sitting-room, to its dimly white +panelled and painted walls, its nice details of carved work in chimney- +piece and ceiling, and the outlook from its tall, narrow windows. A +touch of old-world stateliness in its aspect satisfied his latent pride +of race. To certain natures not obscurity or slender means, but the +pretentious vulgarity which, in English-speaking countries, too often +goes along with these constitutes the burden and the offence. + +To-night, however, things were different. Material objects remained the +same; but the conditions of existence had taken on a strange appearance, +and with that appearance Iglesias was bound to reckon, being uncertain as +yet whether it was destined to prove that of a friend or of an enemy. In +furtherance of such reckoning, he had declined dining at the public +table, in company with his hostess, Miss Eliza Hart, her devoted friend +and companion, and the three gentlemen--Mr. de Courcy Smyth, Mr. Farge, +and Mr. Worthington--who shared with him the hospitalities of Cedar +Lodge. He had dined here, upstairs, solitary; and Frederick, the German- +Swiss valet, had just finished clearing the table and departed. Usually +under such circumstances Iglesias would have taken a favourite book from +the carved Spanish mahogany bookcase containing his small library; and, +reading again that which he had often read before, would have found +therein the satisfaction of friendship, along with the soothing +influences of familiarity. But to-night neither Gibbon's _Rome_--a +handsome early edition in many volumes--_The Travels of Anacharsis_, +Evelyn's _Diary_, Napier's _Peninsular War_, John Stuart Mill's _Logic_, +Byron's _Poems_, nor those of Calderon, nor of that so-called "prodigy of +nature," Lope de Vega, not even the dear and immortal _Don Quixote_ +himself, served to attract him. His own thoughts, his own life, filled +his whole horizon, leaving no space for the thoughts or lives of others. +He found himself a prey to a certain mental incoherence, a bewildering +activity of vision. More than once before in the course of his laborious, +monotonous, and, as men go, very virtuous life had this same thing +happened to him--the tides of the obvious and accustomed suddenly +receding and leaving him stranded, as on some barren sand-bank, uncertain +whether the ship of his individual fate would lie there wind-swept and +sun-bleached till rusty rivets fell out and planks parted, disclosing the +ribs of her in unsightly nakedness, or whether the kindly tide, rising, +would float her off into blue water and she would sail hopefully once +again. + +It was inevitable that this present experience should recall these other +happenings, evoking memories poignant enough. The first time the ship of +his fate thus stranded was when, as a lad of seventeen, he left school. +Living alone with his mother in a quaint little house in Holland Street, +Kensington, eagerly ambitious to make his way in the world and to obtain, +it had dawned on him that there was something strange, unhappy, and not +as it was wont to be with that, to him, most beautiful and beloved of +women. The mere suspicion was as a blasphemy against which his young +loyalty revolted. For Dominic, with the inherent pieties of his Latin and +Celtic blood, had none of that contemptuous superiority in regard of his +near relations so common to male creatures of the Protestant persuasion +and Anglo-Saxon race. He took his parents quite seriously; it never +having occurred to him that fathers and mothers are given us merely for +purposes of discipline, or as helot-like examples of what to avoid. He +was simple-minded enough indeed to regard them as sacred, altogether +beyond the bounds of legitimate criticism--and this, as destiny would +have it, with intimate and life-long results. + +Vaguely, through the mists of infancy, he could remember a hurried +exodus--after sound of cannon and sight of blood--from Spain, the fierce +and pious country of his birth. Since then, while his mother lived-- +namely, till he was a man of over forty--always and only the house in the +Kensington side street, with its crooked creaking stairways, its high +wainscots--behind which mice squeaked and scampered--its clinging odour +of ancient woodwork, its low ceilings, and uneven floors. At the back of +it was a narrow strip of garden, glorious for one brief week in early +summer, with the gold of a big laburnum; and fragrant later thanks to +faithful effort on the part of the white jasmine clothing its enclosing +walls. In fair weather the morning sun lay warm there; while the sky +showed all the bluer overhead for the dark lines of the adjacent +housetops, and upstanding deformities in the matter of zinc cowls and +chimney-pots. Frequented by cats, boasting in the centre a rockery of gas +clinkers and chalk flints surmounted by a stumpy fluted column bearing a +stone basin--in which, after rain, sparrows disported themselves with +much conversation and fluttering of sooty wings--the garden was, to +little Dominic, a place of wonder and delight. He peopled it with beings +of his own fancy, lovely or terrific, according to his passing humour. +Granted a measure of imagination, the solitary child is often the +happiest child, since the social element, with its inevitable +materialism, is absent, and the dear spirit of romance is unquenched by +vulgar comment. + +His father, grave and preoccupied, whose arrivals after long periods of +absence had in them an effect of secrecy and haste, was to the small boy +a being, august, but remote. During his brief sojourns at home the quiet +house awoke to greater fulness of life, with much coming and going of +other grave personages, strange of dress, and with a certain effect of +hardly restrained violence in their aspect. A spirit of fear seemed to +enter with them, demanding an unnatural darkening of windows and closing +of doors. Before Dominic they were of few words; but became eloquent +enough, in sonorous foreign speech, as his ears testified when he was +banished from their rather electric presence to the solitude of the +nursery above. And so it came about that a sense of mystery, of large +issues, of things at once strong and hidden, impenetrable to his +understanding and concerning which no questions might be asked, encircled +Dominic's childhood and passed into the very fabric of his thought. While +through it all his mother moved, to him tender and wholly exquisite, but +with the reticence of some deep-seated enthusiasm silently cherished, +some far-reaching alarm silently endured, always upon her. And this +resulted in an atmosphere of seriousness and responsibility which +inevitably reacted on the boy, making him sober beyond his years, +tempering his natural vivacity with watchfulness, and pitching even his +laughter in a minor key. + +Only many years later, when after his mother's death it became his duty +to read letters exchanged between his parents during this period, did +Dominic Iglesias touch the key to the riddle, and fully measure the +public danger, the private strain and stress which had surrounded his +childhood and early youth. For his father, a man of far from ignoble +nature, but of narrow outlook and undying hatreds, was deeply involved in +revolutionary intrigue of the most advanced type--a victim of that false +passion of humanity which takes its rise not in honest desire for the +welfare of mankind, but in blind rebellion against all forms of +authority. His self-confidence was colossal; all rule being abominable to +him--save his own--all rulers hideous, save himself. The anarchist, +rightly understood, is merely the autocrat, the tyrant, turned inside +out. And this man, as Dominic gathered from the perusal of those old +letters, to whom the end so justified the means that red-handed crime +took on the fair colours of virtue, his mother had loved, even while she +feared him, with all the faithfulness and pure passion of her Irish +blood. Pathetic combination, the patience and resignation of the one ever +striving to temper the flaming zeal of the other, as though the spindrift +of the Atlantic, sweeping inland from the dim sadness of far western +coasts, should strive with relentless fierceness of sunglare outpoured on +some high-lying walled city of arid central Spain! Mist is but a weak +thing as against rock and fire; and what his mother must have suffered in +moral and spiritual conflict, let alone all question of active dread, was +to her son almost too cruel to contemplate, although it explained and +justified much. + +In 1860, when Dominic was a schoolboy of fourteen, his father left home +on one of those sudden journeys the object and objective of which were +alike concealed. For about a year letters arrived at irregular intervals, +hailing from Paris, Naples, Prague, and finally Petersburg. Then followed +silence, broken only by rumours furtively conveyed by a former associate, +one Pascal Pelletier--an angel-faced, long-haired, hysteric creature, +inspired by an impassioned enthusiasm for infernal machines and wholesale +slaughter in theory, and, in practice, by a gentle doglike devotion to +Mrs. Iglesias and young Dominic. He would arrive depressed and shadowy in +the shadowy twilights. But, once in the presence of the beings whom he +loved, he became effervescent. His belief was unlimited in the Head +Centre, the Chief, in his demonic power and fertility of resource. That +any evil should befall him!--Pascal snapped his thin fingers; while, with +the inalienable optimism of the born fanatic, he proceeded to state +hopeful conjecture as established fact, thereby doing homage to the +spirit of delusion which so conspicuously ruled him even to his inmost +thought. But a spell of cold weather in the winter of 1862 struck a +little too shrewdly through Pascal's seedy overcoat, causing that tender- +hearted subverter of society to cough his life out, with all possible +despatch, in the third-floor back of a filthy lodging-house off Tottenham +Court Road. + +This was the end as far as information went, whether authentic or +apocryphal. But Dominic, his horizon still bounded by the world of +school, greedy of distinction both in learning and in games, away all day +and eagerly, if somewhat sleepily, busy over the preparation of lessons +at night, was very far from realising that. Poor voluble kind-eyed Pascal +he mourned with all his heart; yet the months of his father's absence +accumulated into years almost unnoticed. The same thing had so often +happened before; and then, at an unlooked-for moment, the wanderer had +returned. Moreover, the old habit of obedience was still strong in him. +It was understood that concerning his father's occupations and movements +no comment might be made, no questions might be asked. + +Meanwhile, the small house in Holland Street was ever more still, more +unfrequented. As he grew older Dominic became increasingly sensible of +this--sensible of a sort of hush falling on him as he crossed the +threshold, so that instinctively he left much of his wholesome young +animality outside, while his voice took on softer tones in speech, and +his quick light footsteps became more scrupulously noiseless as he ran up +the little crooked stairs. + +"When your father comes home we must decide what profession you shall +follow, my Dominic," it had been his mother's habit to declare. But, even +before the time for such decision arrived the boy had begun to understand +he must see to all that unaided. For his mother was ill, how deeply and +in what manner he could not tell. He shrank, indeed, from all clear +thought, let alone speech, on the subject, as from something indelicate, +in a way irreverent. Her beauty remained to her, notwithstanding a +gradual wasting as of fever. A peculiar, very individual grace of dress +and of bearing remained to her likewise. But she was uncertain in mood, +the victim of strange fancies, a being almost alarmingly far removed from +the interests of ordinary life. Long ago, in submission to her husband's +anti-clerical prejudices, she had ceased to practise her religion, so +that the services of the Church no longer called her forth in beneficent +routine of sacred obligation. Now she never left the house, living, since +poor Pascal Pelletier's death, in complete seclusion. Little wonder then +that a hush fell on Dominic crossing the threshold, since so doing he +passed from the world of healthy action to that of acquiescent sickness, +from vigorous hoarse-voiced realities to the intangible sadness of +unrelated dreams! The effect was one of rather haunting melancholy; and +it was characteristic of the lad that he did not resent it, though +rejoicing in the reputation at school of being high-spirited enough, +impatient of restraint or of any frustration of purpose. His mother had +always been sacred. She remained so, even though her sympathies had +become imperfect, and she moved in regions which his sane young +imagination failed to penetrate. One thing was perfectly plain to him, +though it cut at the root of ambition--namely, that he could not leave +her. So, in that matter of a profession, he must find work which would +permit of his continuing to live at home; and, since her income was +narrow, the work in question must make no heavy demand in respect of +preliminary expense. + +Here was a problem more easy of statement than of solution, in face of +Dominic's pride, inexperience, and the singular isolation of his +position! There followed dreary months wherein his evenings were spent +in studying and answerings advertisements; and his days, till late +afternoon, in walking the town from end to end for the interviewing of +possible employers and the keeping of fruitless appointments. He would +set forth full of hope and courage in the morning, only to return full of +the dejection of failure at night. And it was then London began to reveal +herself to him in her solidarity, under the cloud of dun-blue coal smoke +--it was wintertime--which, at once hanging over and penetrating her +immensity, adds the majesty of mystery to the majesty of mere size. He +noted how, in the chill twilights, London grew strangely and feverishly +alive. Lamps sprang into clearness along the pavements. A dazzling +glitter of shop windows marked the great thoroughfares, while often the +angry glare of a fire pulsed along the sky-line. When night comes in the +country, so Dominic told himself, the land sinks into peaceful repose. +But in cities it is otherwise. There the light leaves heaven for earth; +and walks the streets, with much else far from celestial, until the +small hours move towards the dawn and usher in the decencies of day. + +Never before had he seen London thus and understood it in all its +enormous variety, yet as a unit, a whole. How much he actually beheld +with his bodily eyes, how much through the working of a rather exalted +condition of imagination induced by loneliness and bodily fatigue, he +could never subsequently determine. But the great city presented herself +to him in the guise of some prodigious living creature, breathing, +feeding, suffering, triumphing, above all mating and breeding, terrible +in her power and vitality, age old, yet still unspent. Presented herself +to him as horribly prolific, ever outpassing her own unwieldy limits, +sending forth her children, year after year, all the wide world over by +shipping or by rail; receiving some tithe of them back, proud with +accomplished fortune to enhance her glory, or, disgraced and broken, +slinking homeward to the cover of her fog and darkness merely to swell +the numbers of the nameless who rot and die. He thought of those others, +too--and this touched his young ardour with a quick shudder of personal +fear--whom she never sends forth at all; but holds close in bondage all +their lives long, enslaved to her countless and tyrant activities by +their own poverty, or by their fellow-creatures' misfortune, cruelties, +and sins. Was it thus she was going to deal with him, Dominic Iglesias? +Was he to be among the great city's bondmen through the coming years, +better acquainted with the very earthly light which walks her streets by +night, than with the heavenly light which gladdens the sweet face of day +in the open country and upon the open sea? And for a moment the boy's +heart rebelled, hungry for pleasure, hungry for wide experience, hungry +even for knowledge of those revolutionary intrigues which, as he was +beginning to understand, had surrounded his childhood, and, as he was +beginning to fear, had cost his mother her reason and his father both +liberty and life. Thus did the ship of poor Dominic's fate appear to be +stranded or ever it had fairly set sail at all. + +Meanwhile, if London claimed him, she did so in very cynical fashion, +mocking his willingness to labour, refusing to feed him even while she +refused to let him go. Everything, he feared, was against him--his youth, +his foreign name, his limited acquaintance, the impossibility of giving +definite information regarding his father's past occupations or present +whereabouts. Moreover, his spare young figure, his thin shapely hands and +feet, his blue-black Irish eyes and black hair, his energetic colourless +face, his ready yet reticent speech--all these marked him as unusual and +exotic. And for the unusual and exotic the British employer of labour--of +whatever sort--has, it must be conceded, but little use. He is half +afraid, half contemptuous of it, instinctively disliking anything more +alert and alive than his own most stolid self. But while men, distrusting +the distinctness of his personality and his good looks, refused to give +Dominic work, women, relishing them, were only too ready to give him +enjoyment--of a kind. The boy, in those solitary wanderings, ran the +gauntlet of many temptations; and was presented--did he care to accept +it--with the freedom of the city on very liberal lines. Happily, inherent +cleanliness of nature saved him from much; and reverent shame at the +thought of entering the hushed and silent house where his mother lived-- +spotless, amid pathetic memories and delicate dreams--with the soil of +licence upon him, saved him from more. Crime might have come close to him +in his childhood, but vice never; and the influences of vice are far more +insidious, and consequently more damaging, than those of crime. + +Still, one way and another, the boy came very near touching the confines +of despair. Then the tide rose and the stranded ship of his fate began to +lift a little. By means of a series of accidents--the illness of his +former school-fellow, the already mentioned George Lovegrove, whose post +he offered temporarily to fill--he drifted into connection with the +banking house of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking. There his knowledge +of modern languages, his industry, and a certain discreet aloofness +commended him to his superiors. A minor clerkship fell vacant; it was +offered to him. And from thenceforth, for Dominic Iglesias, the monotony +of fixed routine and steady labour, until the day when, as a man of past +fifty, restless and somewhat distrustful both of the present and the +future, he watched the dying of the sullen sunset over Trimmer's Green +from the windows of the first-floor sitting-room of Cedar Lodge. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That which had in point of fact happened was not, as Iglesias felt, +without a pretty sharp edge of irony. For to-day, London, so long his +task-mistress and gaoler, had assumed a new attitude towards him. +Suddenly, unexpectedly, she had cast him off, given him his freedom. It +was amazing, a thing to take your breath away for the moment. And +agitated and hurt--for his pride unquestionably had suffered in the +process--Iglesias asked himself what in the world he should do with this +gift of freedom, what he should do, indeed, with that which remained to +him of life? + +It had come about thus. Seeking an interview that morning with Sir Abel +Barking, in the latter's private room at the bank, he had made certain +statements regarding his own health in justification of a request for +some weeks' rest and holiday now, rather than later, in September, when +his yearly vacation would fall due. + +"So you find yourself unequal to dealing satisfactorily with the +increasing intricacy of our financial operations, become confused by the +multiplicity of detail, suffer from pains in the head?" Sir Abel had +commented, with a certain largeness of manner. "I own, my good friend, I +was not wholly unprepared for this announcement." + +"My work has not so far, I believe, suffered in any respect," Iglesias +put in quietly. "Directly I had reason to fear it might suffer I----" + +"Of course, of course. I make no complaint--none. I go further. I admit +that the area of our undertakings is enlarged, enormously enlarged, +thanks to the remarkable personal energy and strenuous transatlantic +business methods introduced by my nephew Reginald. I grant you all +that----" + +Sir Abel cleared his throat. Seduced by the charms of his own eloquence, +he was ready to mount the platform at the shortest possible notice, even +in private life. He loved exposition. He loved periods. His critics--for +what public man is without these, their strictures naturally inspired by +envy?--had been known to add that he also loved platitudes. Be this as it +may, certain it is that he loved an audience--even of one. He had been +considerably ruffled this morning by communications made to him by his +good-looking and somewhat scapegrace youngest son. Those who fail to rule +their own households often find solace in attempting to rule the +households of others. Speech and patronage consequently tended to the +restoration of self-complacency. + +"No doubt this expansion, these modern methods, constitute a tax upon +your capacity, my good friend, you having acquired your training under a +less exacting system. I am not surprised. I confess"--he leaned back in +his chair, with an indulgent smile, as one who should say, "the gods +themselves do not wholly escape"--"I confess," he repeated, "it is +something of a tax upon the capacity of a veteran financier such as +myself. But then strain in some form or other, as I frequently remind +myself, is the very master-note of our modern existence. We all +experience it in our degree. And there are those men, such as myself, for +instance, who from their position, their vast interests and heavy +responsibilities, from the almost incalculable issues dependent on their +judgment and their action, are called upon to endure this strain in its +most exhausting manifestations, who are compelled to subordinate personal +case, even health itself, to public obligation. In the end they pay, +incontestable they pay, for their self-abnegation, for their unswerving +obedience to the trumpet-call of public duty." + +He paused and mused a while, his head raised, his right hand resting--it +was noticeably podgy and squat--on the highly polished surface of the +extensive writing-table, his left hand dropped, with a rather awkward +negligence, over the arm of his chair. Meanwhile he gazed, as pensively +as his caste of countenance permitted, at a portrait of himself, in the +self-same attitude, which adorned the opposite wall. It had been +presented to him by the electors of his late constituency. It was life- +size and full-length. It had been painted by a well-known artist whose +appreciation of the outward as a revelation of the inward man is slightly +diabolic in its completeness. The portrait was very clever; it was also +very like. Looking upon it no sane observer could stand in doubt of Sir +Abel's eminent respectability or eminent wealth. His appearance exuded +both. Unluckily nature had been niggardly in the bestowal of those more +delicate marks of breeding which, both in man and beast, denote +distinction of personality and antiquity of race. Pursy, prolific, +Protestant, a commonness pervaded the worthy gentleman's aspect, causing +him, as compared with his head clerk, Dominic Iglesias--standing there +patiently awaiting his further utterance--to be as is a cheap oleograph +to a fine sketch in pen and ink. It may be taken as an axiom that, in +body and soul alike, to be deficient in outline is a sad mistake. But of +all these little facts and the result of them, Sir Abel was, needless to +relate, sublimely ignorant. + +"With you, my good friend, it is otherwise," he remarked presently, +reluctantly removing his gaze from the portrait of himself. "A beneficent +Providence has devised the law of compensation. And we may remark the +workings of it everywhere with instruction and encouragement. Hence +social obscurity has its compensating advantages. You, for example, are +affected by none of those considerations of public obligation binding +upon myself. You are so situated that you can avoid the more trying +consequences of this universal overstrain. If the demands of the position +you now fill are too much for you, you can retire. I congratulate you, +Iglesias. For some of us it is impossible, it is forbidden to retire." + +The speaker paused, as when in addressing a political or charitable +meeting he paused for well-merited applause, secure of having made a +telling point. Dominic Iglesias, however, had not applauded. To tell the +truth, his back was stiffening a little. He had a very just appreciation +of the relative social positions of himself and his employer; still it +did not occur to him, somehow, that applause was necessarily in the part. + +"You have the redress in your own hands," Sir Abel went on, not without a +hint of annoyance. "If you need amusement, leisure, rest, they are all +within your reach." + +Still Iglesias did not speak. + +"See now, my good friend, consider. To be practical"--Sir Abel raised his +finger and wagged it, with a heavy attempt at _bonhomie_. "You have no +family to provide for?" + +"No," said Mr. Iglesias. + +"You are, in short, not married?" + +"No, Sir Abel," he said again. + +"Well, then, no obstacle presents itself. But let us pause a moment, for +I must guard myself against misconception. In the interests of both +public and private morality I am a staunch advocate of marriage." Again +he cleared his throat. The platform was conspicuous by its presence--in +idea. "I hold matrimony to be among the primary duties, nay, to be the +primary duty of the Christian and the citizen. We owe it to the race, we +owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the opposite sex. Let us be quite clear +on this point. Yet, since I deprecate all bigotry, I admit that there may +be exceptional cases in which absence of the marital relation, though +arguing some emotional callousness, may prove advantageous to the +individual." + +A queer light had come into Dominic Iglesias' eyes. The corners of his +mouth worked a little. He stood quite still and rather noticeably erect. + +"I do not deny this," Sir Abel continued. "I repeat, I do not deny it. +And yours, my good friend, may be, I am prepared to acknowledge, a case +in point. I take for granted, by the way, that you have saved, since your +salary has been a liberal one?" + +Iglesias inclined his head. + +"Clearly we need discuss this matter no further then." The speaker became +impressive, admonitory. "Indeed, it appears to me that your lot is a most +favoured one. You are free of all encumbrances. You can retire in +comfort--retire, moreover, with the assurance that your departure will +cause no inconvenience to myself and my colleagues, since you make room +for men younger and more in touch with modern methods than yourself." + +Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile. + +"Ah, yes!" he said. "Possibly I had not taken that fact sufficiently into +account." + +"Yet, clearly, it should augment your satisfaction," Sir Abel Barking +observed, with a touch of severity. "And, by the by, you can draw your +pension. You were entitled, strictly speaking, to do so some years ago-- +four, I believe, to be accurate. This was pointed out to you at the time +by my nephew Reginald. He was not at all unwilling that you should retire +then; but you preferred to remain. I had some conversation, at the time, +with my nephew on the subject. I insisted upon the fact that your service +had been exemplary. I finally succeeded in overruling his objection to +your retaining your post." + +"I am evidently under a heavy obligation to you, Sir Abel," said +Iglesias. + +"Don't mention it--don't mention it," the great man answered nobly. +"Those in power should try to exercise it to the benefit of their +subordinates. It has always been my effort not only to be just, but to be +considerate of the interests and feelings of persons in my employment." + +And with that he again fixed his eyes upon the ironical portrait adorning +the opposite wall, wholly blind to the fact that it at once revealed his +weaknesses and mocked at them, conscious only of an agreeable conviction +that he had treated his head clerk with generosity and spoken to him with +the utmost good-feeling and tact. + +With the proud it is ever a question whether to spoil the Egyptians, or +to fling back even the best-earned wages, payable by Egyptians, full in +the said Egyptians' face. For the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, in +the abstract, Iglesias had the loyalty of long-established habit. It had +been as the rising tide, setting the ship of his fate and fortune +honourably afloat in the dismal days of that early stranding. Its service +had eaten up the best years of his life, it is true. But, even in so +doing, by mere force of constant association, the interests of the great +banking house had come to be his own, its schemes and secrets his +excitement, its successes his satisfaction. Fortunately the human mind is +so constituted that it is possible to have an esteem, amounting to +enthusiasm, for a body corporate, while entertaining but scanty +admiration for the individuals of whom that body is composed--fortunately +indeed, since otherwise what government, secular or sacred, would long +continue to subsist? Hence, to Iglesias, this matter of the pension was +decidedly difficult. Pride said, "This man, Abel Barking has been +offensive; both he and his nephew have been ungrateful; reject it with +contempt." Justice said, "You have no quarrel with the firm as a whole; +accept it." Common sense, pricked up by anger, said, "Claim your own, +take every brass farthing of it." While personal dignity, winding up the +case, admonished, "By no means give yourself away. Make no impetuous +demonstration. Go home and think it quietly over." And with the advice of +personal dignity Mr. Iglesias fell in. + +Yet he was still very sore, the heat of anger past, but the smart of it +remaining, when he journeyed back from the city later in the day. And not +only that after-smart, but a perplexity held him. For two strange faces +had looked into his during the last few hours--those of Loneliness and +Freedom. He had taken for granted, in a general sort of way, that such +personages existed and exercised a certain jurisdiction in human affairs. +But in all the course of his laborious life they had never before come +close, personally claiming him. He had had no time for them. But they are +patient, they only wait. They had time for him--plenty of it. Suddenly he +understood that; and it perplexed him, for his estimate of his own +importance was modest. He even felt apologetic towards them, as one at +whose door distinguished guests alight for whose entertainment he has +made no adequate provision. He was embarrassed, his sense of hospitality +reproaching him. + +It so happened that, on this same return journey, he occupied the seat on +the right, immediately behind that of the driver. The sky was covered, +the atmosphere close. The horses, grey ones, showed a thick yellowish +lather where the collar rubbed their necks and the traces their flanks. +They were slack and heavy, and the omnibus hugged the curb. Within it was +empty, and on the top boasted but three passengers besides Iglesias +himself. It followed that, carrying insufficiency of ballast, the great +red-painted vehicle lumbered, and jerked, and swayed uneasily; while the +lighter traffic swept past it in a glittering stream, the dominant note +of which was black as against the dirty drab of the recently watered +wood-pavement. And the character of that traffic was new to Dominic +Iglesias, though he had travelled the Hammersmith Road, Kensington High +Street and Kensington Gore, Knightsbridge and Piccadilly, back and forth +daily, these many years. For the exigencies of business demanding that +the hours of his journeying should be early and late, always the same, it +came about that the aspect of these actually so-familiar thoroughfares +was novel, as beheld in the height of the season at three o'clock in the +afternoon. + +At first Iglesias saw without seeing, busy with his own uncheerful +thoughts. But after a while he began to speculate idly on the scene +around him, turning to the outward and material for distraction, if not +for actual comfort. And so the stream of carriages and hansoms, and the +conspicuously well-favoured human beings occupying them, began to +intrigue his attention. He questioned whom they might be and whither +wending, decked forth in such brave array. They seemed to suggest +something divorced from, yet native to, his experience; something he had +never touched in fact, yet the right to which was resident in his blood. +And with this he ceased, in instinct, to be merely the highly respected +and respectable head clerk of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking--now +superannuated and laid on the shelf. A gayer, fiercer, simpler life, +quick with violences of vivacious sound and vivid colour, the excitement +of it heightened by clear shining southern sunshine and blue-black +shadow--a life undreamed of by conventional, slow-moving, rather vulgar +middle-class London--to which, on the face of it, he appeared as +emphatically to belong--awoke and cried in Dominic Iglesias. + +It was a surprising little experience, causing him to straighten up his +lean yet shapely figure; while the burden of his years, and the long +monotony of them, seemed strangely lifted off him. Then, with the air of +courtly reserve--at once the joke and envy of the younger clerks, which +had earned him the nickname of "the old Hidalgo"--he leaned forward and +addressed the omnibus driver. The latter upraised a broad, moist and +sleepy countenance. + +"Polo at Ranelagh," he answered, in a voice thickened by dust and the +laying of that dust by strong waters. "Club team plays 'Undred and First +Lancers." + +The words had been to the inquirer pretty much as phrases from the +liturgy of an unknown cult. But it was Iglesias' praiseworthy disposition +not to be angry with that which he did not happen to understand, so much +as angry with himself for not understanding it. + +"Only an additional proof, were it needed, of the prodigious extent of my +ignorance!" he reflected in stoically humorous self-contempt. His eyes +dwelt, somewhat wistfully, on the glittering stream of traffic, once +again those two unbidden guests, Loneliness and Freedom--for whose +entertainment he had made inadequate provision--sitting, as it seemed, +very close on either side of him. Then that happened which altered all +the values. Dominic Iglesias suddenly saw a person whom he knew. + +He had seen that same person about three hours previously in the bank in +Threadneedle Street, while waiting for admittance to Sir Abel's private +room. Rumour accredited this handsome young gentleman--Sir Abel's +youngest son--with tastes expensive rather than profitable, liberal +socially, rather than estimable ethically, declaring him to be distinctly +of the nature of the proverbial thorn in the banker's otherwise very +prosperous side. He had, so said rumour, the fortune or misfortune, as +you chose to take it, of being at once a considerably bad boy and a +distinctly charming one. Be all that as it might, the young man had +certainly presented a grimly anxious countenance when, without so much as +a nod of recognition, he had stalked past Mr. Iglesias in the dim light +of the glass and mahogany-walled corridor. But now, as the latter noted, +his expression had changed, and that very much for the better. The young +man's face was flushed and eager, and his teeth showed white and even +under his reddish brown moustache. If anxieties still pursued him they +were in subjection to one main anxiety, the anxiety to please, which of +all anxieties is the most engaging and grace-begetting. + +Just then the traffic was held up, thus enabling Iglesias from his perch +on the 'bustop to receive a more than fleeting impression. Two ladies +were seated opposite the young man in the carriage. In them Iglesias +recognised persons of very secure social standing. The elder he supposed +to be Lady Sokeington--Alaric Barking's half-sister--to whom, on the +occasion of her marriage, twelve or thirteen years ago, he had had the +expensive honour of presenting, in his own name and that of his +colleagues, a costly gift of plate. The other lady, so it appeared to +him, was eminently sweet to look upon. She was very young. She leaned a +little forward, and in the pose of her delicate figure and the carriage +of her pretty head--under its burden of pale pink and grey feathers, +flowers, and lace--he detected further example of that engaging anxiety +to please. They made a delightful young couple, the fair seeming of this +life and riches of it very much on their side. Mr. Iglesias' chivalrous +heart went out to them in silent sympathy and benediction; while, the +block being over, his gaze continued to follow them as long as the young +girl's slender white-clad back and the young man's flushed and eager face +remained distinguishable. Then he started, for he was aware that his +unbidden companions had received unexpected reinforcement. A third guest +had arrived, and looked hard and critically at him. It's name was Old +Age, and he found something sardonic in its glance. With all his +gentleness of soul, all his innate self-restraint, there remained +fighting blood in Dominic Iglesias. Therefore, for the moment, +recognising with whom he had to deal, a light anything but mild visited +his eyes, and a rigidity the straight lines of his chin and lips. Old Age +is a sinister visitant even to those who are moderate in demand and clean +of life. For it gives to drink of the cup not of pleasure, but merely of +patience, of physical loss and intellectual humiliation; and, once it has +laid its spell upon you, you are past all remedy save the supreme remedy +of death. And so, at first sight, Iglesias rebelled--as do all men-- +turning defiant. Then, being very sane, he gave in to the relentless +logic of fact. Silently, yet with all courtesy, he acknowledged the +newcomer, and bade it be seated along with the rest. While, after brief +pause to rally his pride, and that courage which is the noblest attribute +of pride, he turned to things concrete and material once more, finally +addressing himself to the omnibus driver: + +"Pardon me; polo, as I understand, is a species of game?" + +The broad moist countenance was again uplifted, a hint of patronage now +tempering its good-natured apathy. + +"Sort'er 'ockey on 'orseback." + +"That must be sufficiently dangerous," Mr. Iglesias remarked. + +"Bless you, yes. Players breaks their backs pretty frequent, and cuts the +ponies about most cruel--" + +He ceased speaking abruptly, jammed the brake down with his heel in +response to the conductor's bell, and drew the sweating horses up short +to permit the ingress of fresh passengers. This accomplished, the omnibus +lumbered onwards while Dominic Iglesias fell into further meditation. + +The explanation vouchsafed him was still far from explicit; yet this much +of illumination he gained from it, namely, the assurance that all these +goodly personages, Alaric Barking and his sweet companion among them, +were on pleasure bent. One and all they fared forth, on this heavy summer +afternoon, in search of amusement--in search of that intangible yet very +powerful factor in human affairs to which it is given to lift the too +great weight of seriousness from mortal life, cheating perception of +relentless actualities, helping to restore the balance, helping men to +hope, to laugh, and to forget. Perceiving all which, conscious moreover +of the near neighbourhood of Loneliness on the right hand and Old Age on +the left, Iglesias began to bestow on these votaries of pleasure a more +earnest attention, recognising in them the possessors of a secret which +it greatly behoved him to enter into possession of likewise. In what, he +asked himself, did it actually consist, this to him practically unknown +quantity, amusement? How was the spirit of it cultivated, the enjoyment +of it consciously attained? How far did it reside in inward attitude, how +far in outward circumstance? In a word, how did they all do it? It was +very incumbent upon him to learn, and he admitted a ridiculous ignorance. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Thus had the chapter of labour ended, and that of leisure opened. And it +was with the sadness of things terminated very strongly upon him that, as +Frederick, the German-Swiss valet, finished clearing the dinner-table and +departed, Mr. Iglesias looked forth over the neatly protected verdure of +Trimmer's Green in the evening quiet. The smugly pacific aspect of the +place irritated him. He was aware of a great emptiness. And very +certainly the scene before him offered no solution of the problem of the +filling of that emptiness. And somehow or other it had to be filled-- +Iglesias knew that, knew it through every fibre of him--or life would be +simply insupportable. Meanwhile from the public drawing-room below came +sounds of revelry, innocent enough yet hardly calculated to soothe over- +strained nerves. Little Mr. Farge--whose thin and reedy tenor carried as +does a penny whistle--gave forth the refrain of a song just then popular +in metropolitan music-halls. + +"They're keeping latish hours at the Convalescent Home," piped Mr. Farge; +while his friend and devout admirer, Albert Edward Worthington, tore at +the banjo strings and the ladies tittered. + +Iglesias listened in a somewhat grim spirit of endurance. On the far side +of the Green he could see the gaslights in the Lovegroves' dining-room. +These appeared to watch him rather uncomfortably, as with three +supplicating and reproachful eyes. He debated whether he would not take +his hat, step across, and tell his old friend what had happened--it would +at least relieve him of the sound of little Farge's serenading. But his +pride recoiled somehow. Good souls, man and wife, they would be full of +solicitude and kindness; but they would say the wrong thing. They would +not understand. How, indeed, should they, being wholly at one with their +surroundings--unimaginative, domestic, British middle-class, with its +virtues and limitations aggressively in evidence? George Lovegrove would +suggest some minor municipal office, or membership of the local borough +council, as a crown of consolation. His wife would skirt round the +subject of matrimony. She had done so before now; and Iglesias, while +presenting a dignified front to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She +was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when +extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly +suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was +conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness +them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, +might cause him extravagant annoyance. + +He turned away from the window and took a turn the length of the room--a +tall, distinct, and even stately figure in the thickening dusk. He felt +rather horribly desolate. He was fairly frightened by the greatness of +the emptiness, within and about him, engendered by absence of employment. +He had little to reproach himself with. His record was cleaner than most +men's--he could not but know that. He had sacrificed personal ambition, +personal happiness, to the service of one supremely dear to him. Not for +a moment did he regret it. Had it to be done all over again, without +hesitation he would do it. Still there was no blinking facts. Here was +the nemesis, not of ill living, but of good--namely, emptiness, +loneliness, homelessness, Old Age here at his elbow, Death waiting there +ahead. + +"The routine has gone on too long," he said to himself bitterly. "I have +lost my pliability, lost my humanity. I am a machine now, not a man. To +the machine, work is life. Work over, life is over; and the machine is +just so much lumber--better broken up and sent to the rag and bottle +shop, where it may fetch the worth of its weight as scrap-iron." + +He turned, came back to the open window again and stood there, rather +carefully avoiding the three reproachful eyes of the Lovegroves' dining- +room gaselier, and fixing his gaze on that sullen fierceness of sunset +still hanging in the extreme northwest. + +"Unluckily there is no rag and bottle shop where superannuated bank +clerks of five-and-fifty have even the very modest market value of scrap- +iron!" he went on. "Of all kinds of uselessness, that of we godlike human +beings is the most utterly obvious when our working day is past. Mental +decay and bodily corruption as the ultimate. And, this side of it, a few +years of increasing degradation, a mere senseless killing of time until +the very unpleasing goal is reached--along with a growing selfishness, +and narrowness of outlook; along, possibly, with some development of +senile sensuality, the more detestable because it lacks the provocations +of hot blood. Oh! Dominic Iglesias, Dominic Iglesias, is that the ugly +road you are doomed to travel--a toothless greed for filling your belly +with fly-blown dainties off the refuse-heap?" + +And through the open window, in sinister accompaniment to little Mr. +Farge's sophisticated and unpastoral pipings, came the voice of the great +city herself in answer--low, multitudinous, raucous, without emphasis but +without briefest relief of interval or of pause. And this laid hold +strongly of Iglesias' imagination, reminding him of all the intimate +wretchedness of that first stranding of the ship of his fate. Reminding +him of his long and fruitless trampings in search of employment--good +looks, energy, youth itself, seeming but an added handicap--when London +revealed herself to him in her solidarity, revealed herself as a +prodigious living creature, awful in her mysterious vigour, ever big with +impending birth, merciless with impending death. As she showed herself to +him then, with life all untried before him, so she showed herself still +when, in the blackness of his present humour, all life worth the name +appeared over and passed. He had changed, so he believed, to the point of +nullity and final ineptitude. She remained strong, active, relentless as +ever. As long ago, so now, she struck him as monstrous. Yet now, though +all the conditions were changed, he had, as long ago, an instinct that +from her there was no escape. + +"I have served you honestly enough all these years," he said--since she +had voice to speak, she had also ears to hear, mayhap--"and you have +taken much and given little. To-day you have turned me off, told me to +quit. But where, I ask you, can I go? I am too stiffened by work, +unskilled in travel, too unadaptable to begin again elsewhere. Moreover, +you hold the record of my experience, all my glad and sorrowful memories. +I might try to leave you, but it's no use. I am planted and rooted in +you, monstrous mother that you are. If I know myself, I should go only to +come back." + +For the moment the calm of long self-control was broken up within him. +Dominic Iglesias dwelt, consciously and sensibly, in the horror of the +Outer Darkness--which horror is known only to that small and somewhat +suspect minority of human beings who are also capable, by the operation +of the divine mercy, of dwelling in the glory of the Uncreated Light. The +swing of the pendulum is equal to right as to left. He was staggered by +the misery of his own isolation--a stranger, as he suddenly realised, by +temperament and ideals, as well as by race! Then resolutely he turned his +back on this, with an instinct of self-preservation directing his thought +to things practical and average. + +For example, that question of the pension--concerning which he now found, +to his slight surprise, he was no longer the least in doubt. This money +was his by right. The hard strain in his nature was dominant--to the full +he would claim his rights. And since in moments of despair the human mind +invariably requires a human victim, be it merely a simulacrum, a waxen +image of a man to melt in the fires of its humiliation and revolt, +Iglesias remembered, with much contemptuous satisfaction, the ironical +portrait of Sir Abel Barking adorning the wall of the latter's private +room at the bank. He hailed the diabolic talent of the artist who had +laid bare with such subtle skill the flatulence of his sitter. It was a +pretty revenge, very assuaging just now to Iglesias. For the real man, as +he reflected, was not the man who sat heavily self-complacent in a +library chair, exuding platitudes and pride of patronage; but the man who +hung upon the wall forever ridiculous while paint and canvas should last. +Thus would he go down to posterity! And to Dominic Iglesias, just now, it +seemed very excellent that posterity should know him for the wind-bag +hypocrite he essentially was. Securely entrenched behind his own large +prosperity, uxoriousness, paternity, had he not counted his, Iglesias', +blessings to him; counselling amusement, rest, congratulating him on just +all that which made for his present distress--namely, his obscure +position, his enforced idleness, his absence of human ties, the general +meagreness of his state in life? The more he thought of the incident, the +more it filled him with indignation and disgust. Therefore, very +certainly he would claim his pension; claim an infinitesimal but actual +fraction of this man's great wealth; would live long so as to claim it as +long as possible, till the paying of it, indeed, should become a +weariness to the payer. And he would spend it, too, unquestionably he +would. Mr. Iglesias' rare and gracious smile had an almost cruel edge to +it. + +"The machine shall become a man again," he said. "And the man shall amuse +himself. How, I don't yet know, but I will find out. Work has made me +dull and inept." + +He straightened himself up, tired, yet unbroken, defiant, aware--though +the horror of the Outer Darkness was yet upon him--of purpose still +militant and unspent. + +"Play may make me the reverse of dull and inept. I have always been +diligent and methodical. I will continue to be so. This enterprise admits +of no delay. I will begin at once, begin to-morrow, to amuse myself." + +It is characteristic of the Latin to see things written in fire and +blood, which the slower-brained Anglo-Saxon only sees written in red +paint--if, indeed, he ever arrives at seeing them written at all. To- +night the Latin held absolute sway in Dominic Iglesias. With freedom had +come a curious reversion to type. His humour, like his smile, was a +trifle cruel. He observed, criticised, judged, condemned unsparingly, all +mental courtesies in abeyance. When, therefore, at this juncture the +three eyes of the Lovegroves' dining-room gaselier winked slowly, and +closed their lids--so to speak--ceasing to watch and to supplicate, he +suffered no self-reproach. The good, simple couple were shutting up house +and going to bed, he supposed. They sought repose betimes; and, unless +supper had been more aggressively cold and heavy than usual, slept, till +broad day, a dreamless sleep. Decidedly it was well he had not taken his +hat and stepped across to visit them, for, beyond all question, they +would not have understood! The voice of London, for instance, meant +nothing to them. They had no notion London had a voice. Still less had +they any notion she was a prodigious living creature. London was the +place where they resided--that was all, and, since the streets are +admittedly noisy and dusty, they had taken a house in this genteel and +convenient suburb. Of the tremendous life and force of things, miscalled +man-made and inanimate, they had no faintest conception. Small wonder +they went to bed betimes and slept a dreamless sleep! Thinking of which-- +notwithstanding their kindness and affection--they became, just now, to +Iglesias as truly astonishing phenomena in their line as Sir Abel Barking +in his. He saw in them merely specimens, though good ones, of the great +majority of the British public, a public so overlaid and permeated by +convention, so parochial in outlook, so hidebound by social tradition and +insular prejudice, that it is really less in touch with everlasting fact +than the animals it pets, demoralises, and eats. These at least have +instinct, and so are at one with universal nature. In perception, in +spontaneity of action, good Mrs. Lovegrove was as an infant compared to +her parrot or her pug. So was little Mr. Farge with his sophisticated +warblings--so, for that matter, were all the other persons among whom +his, Iglesias', lot was cast. His sense of isolation deepened. If +amusement was his object, most certainly the society of Trimmer's Green +would not supply it. He must look further afield for all that. + +In the far northwest the last of the sunset had faded; only the cloud +remained. Yet the horizon, above the broken line of the house-roofs and +chimney-pots, pulsed with light--the very earthly light which, in great +cities, flares out when the light of heaven dies, to walk the streets, +with much else of doubtful loveliness, till it is shamed by the cold +chastity of dawn. And along with that outflaring, a certain meretricious +element introduced itself into the aspect of Trimmer's Green. Across the +roadway, the gaslamps showed cones of vivid yet sickly brightness, +bringing at regular intervals the sharply indented leaves of the plane +trees and the shivering silver of the balsam-poplars into an arresting +and artificial distinctness. Between were spaces of vacancy and gloom. +And from out such a space, immediately opposite, slowly emerged a +shambling and ungainly figure, in which Dominic Iglesias recognised the +third of his fellow-lodgers, Mr. de Courcy Smyth. His acquaintance with +the said lodger was of the slightest, since the latter had but recently +entered into residence and rarely appeared at meals. Mrs. Porcher +habitually referred to him with a pitying respect as "a gentleman very +influential in literary and professional circles, but unfortunate in his +married life"; ending with a sigh and upward glance of her still fine +eyes, as one who could sympathise, having herself been through that gate. +Influential or not, it occurred to Iglesias that the man presented a +sorry spectacle enough. For a minute or so he stood aimlessly in the full +glare of a gaslamp. His thin, creasy Inverness cape was thrown back, +displaying evening dress. He carried a soft grey felt hat in one hand. +His whole aspect was seedy, disappointed, dejected; his face pale and +puffy, his sparse reddish hair and beard but indifferently trimmed. It +was borne in upon Iglesias, moreover, that the man was hungry, that he +had not--and that for some time--had enough to eat. Voluntary poverty is +among the most beautiful, involuntary poverty among the ugliest, sights +upon earth; and to which order of poverty that of de Courcy Smyth +belonged, Mr. Iglesias was in no doubt. This was a sordid sight, a sight +of discouragement, adding the last touch to the melancholy which +oppressed him. The seedy figure crossed the road, fumbled for a minute +with a latchkey. Then nerveless footsteps ascended the stairs, passed the +door, and took their joyless way up and onward to the bed-sitting-room +immediately above. + +Down below the music had ceased, while sounds arose suggestive of a +little playfulness on the part of the two young men in bidding their +hostess and Miss Eliza Hart good-night. Very soon the house became +silent. But Dominic Iglesias, though tired, was in no humour for sleep. +He drew forward a leather-covered armchair and sat near the open window, +in at which came a breathing of night wind. This was soothing, touching +his forehead as with delicate pressure of a cool and sympathetic hand; so +that, without any sense of surprising transition, he found himself in the +garden of the little house in Holland Street, Kensington, once again. The +laburnum was in full blossom, and the breeze uplifted the light drooping +branches of it, making all their golden glory dance in the sunshine. +There must have been rain in the night, too, for the stone basin was full +of water, in which the sparrows were busy washing, sending up tiny +iridescent jets and fountains from their swiftly fluttering wings. It was +delicious to Dominic. He felt very safe, very gay. Only a heavy ill- +favoured tabby cat came from nowhere. It had designs upon the sparrows. +Twice it climbed stealthily up the broken bricks and gas clinkers. Twice +the little boy drove it away. It was not a nice cat. It had a broad white +face, deceitful little eyes, and grey whiskers. It declared it only +caught sparrows for their good and for the good of the community. It +assured Dominic he was guilty of a grave error of judgment in attempting +to interfere. It said a great deal about moral responsibility and the +heavy obligations persons of wealth and position owe to themselves. + +Just then Pascal Pelletier, carrying a square Huntley Palmer's biscuit +tin, containing an infernal machine, under his arm, his angelic +countenance radiant in the sunshine, came down the steps from the dining- +room window. And, while Dominic ran to greet him, the cat crept back +again--its face was the face of Sir Abel Barking, and it made a spring at +the sparrows. But the pillar broke and the basin toppled over, pinning +it, across the loins, down on to the clinkers under the edge of the stone +lip. + +"Oh! you've spoilt my garden, you've spoilt my garden!" Dominic cried. +"The basin has fallen. The sparrows will never wash in it any more." + +But Pascal Pelletier patted him on the head tenderly. + +"Do not weep over the fallen basin, very dear one," he said. "Rather sing +aloud Te Deum in praise of the glorious goddess of Social Revolution who +has delivered the enemy of the people into our hands. This is no affair +of cat and bird, but of the capitalist and the proletariat on which he +battens. So for a little space let the unholy creature lie there +writhing. Let it understand what it is to have a back broken by the +weight of an impossible burden. Let it try vainly to drag its limbs from +beneath an immovable load. Observe it, let it suffer. Very soon we will +finish with it, and explode the iniquitous system it represents. See, in +the name of humanity, of labour, of the unknown and unnumbered millions +of the martyred poor, I set a match to this good little fuse, and, with +the rapidity of thought, blow blasphemous tyrant Capital into a thousand +fragments of reeking flesh and splintered bone!" + +But to the little boy, words and spectacle alike had become unendurably +painful. + +"No, no, Pascal, you cannot cure everything that way. It is not just," he +cried. And running forward with all his strength he lifted the stone +basin off the wounded creature--cat, man, beast of prey, modern +financier, be it what it might. He stopped to gather it up in his arms, +and, repulsive though it was, to comfort and protect it. But just then +came a thunderous rattle and crash knocking him senseless. + +Mr. Iglesias sat bolt upright in his chair, uncertain of his identity and +surroundings, shaken and bewildered. + +Upstairs, de Courcy Smyth--spent and stupefied by the writing of a would- +be smart critique on the first-night performance of a screaming farce, +for one of to-morrow's evening papers--had stumbled, upsetting the fire- +irons, as he slouched across his room to bed. Iglesias heard the creak of +the wire-wove mattress as the man flung himself down; and that familiar +sound restored his sense of actualities. Yet all his mood was changed and +softened. The return to childhood had made a strange impression upon him, +filling him with a great nostalgia for things apparently lost, but +exquisite; and which, having once been, might, though he knew not by what +conceivable alchemy of time or chance, once again be. Meanwhile, he must +have slept long, for the wind had grown chill. The voice of London, the +monstrous mother, had grown weak and intermittent. And the earthly light, +pulsing along the horizon, had grown faint, humbled and chastened by the +whiteness of approaching dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A quarter-mile range of high unpainted oak paling, well seasoned, well +carpentered, innocent of chink or shrinkage, impervious to the human eye. +Visible above it the domed heads of enormous elm trees steeped in +sunshine, rising towards the ample curve of the summer sky. At intervals, +with tumultuous rush and scurry, the thud of the hoofs of unseen horses, +galloping for all they are worth over grass. The suck and rub of breeches +against saddle-flaps, the rattle of a curb chain or the rings of a bit. +A call, a challenge, smothered exclamations. The long-drawn swish of the +polo stick through the air, and the whack of the wooden head of it +against ball, or ground, or something unluckily softer and more sentient. +A pause, broken only by distant voices, and the sound, or rather sense, +of men and horses in quiet and friendly movement; followed by the +tumultuous rush and scurry, and all the moving incidents of the heard, +yet unwitnessed, drama over again. + +For here it was that gallant and costly game beloved of Oriental +princes--rather baldly described to Mr. Iglesias yesterday by the driver of +the Hammersmith 'bus as a "kind of hockey on horseback"--in very full swing +no doubt. Only unfortunately Iglesias found himself on the wrong side of +the palings. And, since he had learned, indirectly, from the observations +of the monumental police-sergeant--directing the stream of carriages at +the entrance gates--to other would-be spectators, that to the polo +ground, as to so much else obviously desirable in this world, there is +"no admission except by ticket," on the wrong side of these same palings +he recognised he was fated to stay. It was a disappointment, not to say +an annoyance. For he had come forth, in accordance with his +determination, to make observations and inquiries regarding that same +matter of amusement. And, since the influence of that which is to be acts +upon us almost, if not quite, as strongly as the influence of that which +has been, the handsome, eager countenance of young Alaric Barking and the +graceful figure of his fair companion, as seen from the 'bustop, occurred +very forcibly in this connection to Dominic Iglesias' mind. He would go +forth and behold that which they had gone forth to behold. He would +witness the sports of the well-born and rich. From these he elected, +somewhat proudly, to take his first lessons in the fine art of amusement. +So here he was; and here, too--very much here--were the palings, +spelling failure and frustration of purpose. + +Fortunately unwonted exercise and the pure invigorating atmosphere tended +to generate placidity, and agreeable harmony of the mental and physical +being. It followed that active annoyance was short-lived. For a minute or +two Mr. Iglesias loitered, listening to the moving music of the unseen +game. Then, walking onward to the end of the enclosure, where the palings +turn away sharply at the left, he crossed the road and made for a wooden +bench just there amiably presenting itself. It was pleasant to rest. The +walk had been a long one; but it now appeared to him that the labour of +it had not been wholly in vain. For around him stretched a breezy common, +broken by straggling bramble and furze brakes, and dotted with hawthorn +bushes, upon the topmost branches of which the crowded pinkish-white +blossoms still lingered. From one to another small birds flitted with a +pretty dipping flight, uttering quick detached notes as in merry question +and answer. Through the rough turf the bracken pushed upward, uncurling +sturdy croziers of brownish green. Away to the right, beyond the railway +line, rose the densely wooded slopes of Roehampton and Sheen; while, +against the purple-green gloom of them, the home signals of Barnes +Station--hard white lines and angles tipped with scarlet and black--stood +out in high relief like the gigantic characters of some strange alphabet. +Down the wide road motors ground and snorted; and carriages moved slowly, +two abreast, the menservants sitting at ease, talking and smoking while +waiting to take up at the police-guarded gate, back there towards the +heat and smoke of London, when the polo match should be played out. + +But immediately London, the heat, and smoke, and raucous voice of it, +seemed far enough away, the wholesome charm of the country very present. +For a while Dominic Iglesias yielded himself up to it. Receptive, +quiescent, contented, he basked in the sunshine, his mind vacant of +definite thought. But for a while only. For as physical fatigue wore off, +definite thought returned; and with it the sense of his own loneliness, +the oppression of a future empty of work, the bitterness of this enhanced +by the little disappointment he had lately suffered. He leaned forward, +his hands clasped between his knees, looking at the bracken croziers +pushing bravely upward through the rough turf to air and light. Even +these blind and speechless things worked, in a sense, fulfilling the law +of their existence. He went back on the dream of last night, on his own +childhood, the happiness, yet haunting unspoken anxiety of it, his +father's fanaticism, fierce revolutionary propaganda, and mysteriously +uncertain fate. + +"And to think that was the pit out of which I, of all men, was digged!" +he said to himself. "Have I done something to restore the family balance +in respect of right reason, or is the shame of incapacity upon me? Have I +sacrificed myself, or cowardly have I merely shirked living? Heaven +knows--I don't, only----" + +But here his uncheerful meditations were broken in on by a voice, +imperative in tone, yet perceptibly shaken by laughter. + +"Cappadocia!" it called. "Cappadocia! Do you hear? Come here, you little +reprobate." + +Then Dominic Iglesias perceived that he had ceased to be sole occupant of +the bench. A dog, a tiny toy spaniel, sat beside him. It sidled very +close, gazing at him with foolishly prominent eyes. Its ears, black edged +with tan, soft and lustrous as floss silk, hung down in long lappets on +either side its minute and melancholy face. The tip of its red tongue +just showed. It was abnormally self-conscious and solemn. It planted one +fringed paw upon Iglesias' arm and it snored. + +"Cappadocia!--well, of all the cheeky young beggars----" + +This time the voice broke in unmistakable merriment, wholly spontaneous, +as of relief, even of mischievous triumph; and Mr. Iglesias, looking up, +found himself confronted by a young woman. She advanced slowly, her +trailing string-coloured lace skirts gathered up lazily in one hand. +About her shoulders she wore a long blue-purple silk scarf, embroidered +with dragons of peacock, and scarlet, and gold. These rather violent +colours found repetition in the nasturtium leaves and flowers that +crowned her lace hat, the wide brim of which was tied down with narrow +strings of purple velvet, gipsy fashion, beneath her chin. Under her arm +she carried another tiny spaniel, the creature's black morsel of a head +peeping out quaintly from among the forms of the embroidered dragons, +which last appeared to writhe, as in the heat of deadly conflict, as +their wearer moved. Her face was in shadow owing to the breadth of the +brim of her hat. Otherwise the sunshine embraced her whole figure, +conferring on it a glittering yet singularly unsubstantial effect, as +though a column of pale windswept dust were overlaid, here and there, +with splendour of rich enamel. + +And it was just this effect of something unsubstantial, in a way +fictitious and out of relation to sober fact, which struck Dominic +Iglesias, robbing him for the moment of his dignified courtesy. Frankly +he stared at this appearance, so strangely at variance with the realities +of his own melancholy thought. Meanwhile the little dog snuggled up yet +closer against him. + +"Yes--pray don't disturb yourself," the young lady went on volubly "It's +too bad, I know, to intrude on you like this. But as Cappadocia refuses +to come to me, it is clear I have to come after Cappadocia. It's simply +disgraceful the way she carries on when one takes her out, making +acquaintances like this, casually, all over the place. The maids flatly +refuse to air her, even on a string. They say it becomes a little too +compromising. But, as I explain to them, she's not a bit the modern +woman. She belongs to a stage of social development when pretty people +infinitely preferred being compromised to being squelched." The speaker +laughed again quietly. "I'm not altogether sure they weren't right. When +you are squelched, finished, done for, it matters precious little whether +you've been compromised first or not. Don't you agree? Any way, +Cappadocia's not going to be squelched if she can help it. She's horribly +scared, or pretends to be, at motors. Let one toot and she forgets all +her fine-lady manners, and just skips to anybody for protection. She'll +take refuge in the most unconventional places to escape." + +The part of wisdom, in face of this very forthcoming young person, would +have been no doubt to arise and withdraw. But to Dominic Iglesias, just +then, dogs, woman, conversation, were alike so remote and unreal, part +merely of the scene which he had been contemplating, that he failed to +take them seriously. Divorced from routine, he was divorced, in a way, +from habitual modes of mind and conduct. He neither consented nor +refused, but just let things happen, attaching little or no meaning to +them. If this feminine being chose to prattle--well, let her do so. +Really he did not care. + +"I am not very modern myself," he said, with a shade of weariness. "So +perhaps your small dog had some intuition of a kindred spirit when taking +refuge with me." + +"All the same, you hardly date from the social era of Charles II., I +fancy," the young lady answered quickly. + +As she spoke she raised her chin with a slightly impudent movement, thus +bringing her countenance into the sunlight. For the first time Iglesias +clearly saw her face. It was small, the features insignificant, the skin +smooth and fine in texture, but sallow. Her hair, black and very massive, +was puffed out and dressed low, hiding her ears. Her lips were rather +positively red, and the tinge of colour on either cheek, though slight, +was not wholly convincing in tone. Even to a person of Mr. Iglesias' +praiseworthy limitation of experience in such matters, her face was +vaguely suggestive of the footlights--would have been distinctly so but +for her eyes. These were curiously at variance with the rest of her +appearance. They belonged to a quite other order of woman, so to speak--a +woman of finer physique, of higher intelligence, possibly of nobler +purposes. They were arrestingly large in size, thereby helping to dwarf +the proportions of her face. In colour they were a rather light warm +hazel, with a slight film over both iris and pupil, and a noticeably +bluish shade in the whites of them. In these last particulars they were +like a baby's eyes; but very unlike in the reflective intensity of their +observation as she fixed them upon Dominic Iglesias. + +"Cappadocia may be a fool about motors," she remarked, "but she's +uncommonly shrewd in reading character. She seems to like you, to have +taken you on, don't you know; and she's generally right. So I'll sit +down, please. Oh! no, no, come along now"--this as Mr. Iglesias rose and +made a movement to depart--"why, dear man, the very point of the whole +show is that you should sit down, too." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +And so it came about that the Lady of the Windswept Dust sat at one end +of the flat bench and Dominic Iglesias at the other, with the two absurd +and exquisite little dogs in between. And the lady chattered. Her voice +was sweet and full, with plaintive tones and turns of laughter in it; +and, though the vowel sounds were not wholly impeccable, having the tang +in them common to the speech of the cockney bred, the aspirates happily +remained inviolate. And Iglesias listened, still with a curious +indifference, as, sitting in the body of the house, he might have +listened to patter from the other side of the footlights. It passed the +time. Presently he would get up, taking the whole of his rather sorrowful +personality along with him, and go out by the main entrance, while she +left by the stage door--and so vanished, little dogs and all. + +"It's my habit to play fair," she announced. "If I'm going to ask +personal questions at the finish, I always lead up to them by supplying +personal information at the start. It's mean to induce other people to +give themselves away unless you give yourself away first--also, I observe +it is usually quite unsuccessful. Well, then, to begin with, his name"-- +she gently poked the tiny spaniel beside her, causing it to wriggle +uneasily all the length of its satiny back--"is Onions. Graceful and +distinguished, isn't it? But I give you my word I couldn't help myself. +Cappadocia's so duchessy that I had to knock the conceit out of her +somehow, or it would not have been possible to live with her. She was +altogether too smart for me--used to look at me as if I was a cockroach. +So I consulted a friend of mine about it; for it's a little too much to +be made to feel like a black-beetle in your own house, and by a thing of +that size, too! And he--my friend--said there is nothing to compare with +a _mesalliance_ for taking the stuffing out of anyone. I own I was not +exactly off my head about that speech of his. In a way it was rather a +facer; but when I got cool I saw he was right. After all, he knew, and I +knew--and he knew that I knew----" + +The lady paused. Her voice had taken on a plaintive inflection. She +looked away at the domed heads of the enormous elm trees above the range +of oak palings. + +"For the life of me I can't imagine why you're here," she exclaimed, +"instead of inside there with all the rest of them! However, we haven't +got as far as that yet. I was telling you about my King Charleses. So my +friend brought me this one"--again she poked the little dog gently. "His +pedigree's pretty fair, but of course it's not a patch on Cappadocia's. +Her prizes and the puppies--you don't mind my alluding quite briefly to +the puppies--are a serious source of income to me. But I believe she +would have ignored the defective pedigree. He is rather nice-looking, you +see, and Cappadocia is rather superficial. It is the name that worries +her--Onions, Willie Onions, that's where the real trouble comes in. Not +like it? I believe you. She's capable of saving up all her pocket-money +to buy him a foreign title, as a rich, ugly woman I once knew did who +married a man called Spittles. He was a bad lot when she married him, and +he stayed so. But as the Comte d'Oppitale it didn't matter. Vices became +merely quaint little eccentricities. If he beat her it was with an +umbrella with a coronet on the handle, and that made all the difference. +Everything for the shop window, you see, with a nature like hers or +Cappadocia's. But I don't rub it in, I assure you I don't. I only remind +Cappadocia of the fact by calling her Mrs. W. O. when she's a pest and a +terror. And that's better than smacking her, anyhow, isn't it?" + +To this proposition Mr. Iglesias gravely assented. The lady drew her +blue-purple scarf a little closer about her shoulders, causing the +embroidered dragons to writhe as in the heat of conflict, while the +sunlight glinted on the gold thread of their crests and claws, and +glittered in their jewelled eyes. She gazed at the elm trees again. + +"It's quite nice to hear you speak, you know," she remarked +parenthetically. "The conversation has been a little one-sided so far. I +was beginning to be afraid you might be bored. But now it's all right. I +flourish on encouragement! So, to go on, my name is Poppy--Poppy St. +John--Mrs. St. John. Rather good, isn't it?" + +"Distinctly so," said Mr. Iglesias. Her unblushing effrontery began to +entertain him somewhat. And then he had sallied forth in search of +amusement. This was not the form of amusement he would have selected; +but--since it presented itself? + +"I'm glad you like it," she returned. "I've always thought it rather +telling myself--an improvement on Mrs. Willie Onions, anyhow. Oh! yes, a +vast improvement," she repeated. "My friend was quite right. I tell you +it's an awful handicap to have a name which gives you away socially. The +man, the husband, I mean, may be the best of the good. Still, it's +difficult to forgive him for labelling you with some stupidity like that. +There's no getting away from it. You feel like a bottle of pickles, or +boot-polish, or a tin of insecticide whenever a servant announces you. +Everybody knows where you do--and don't--come in. But, to go on, I am +barely three--only I fancy you are the sort of person who is rather rough +on lying, aren't you? Well, in that case, quite between ourselves--I am +just turned nine-and-twenty." + +She faced round on Dominic Iglesias, fixing on him those curiously +arresting eyes, which at once emphasised and redeemed the commonness of +her face, as the sweetness of her voice emphasised and redeemed the +commonness of her accent, and the quietude of her manner and movements +mitigated the impertinence of her words and vulgarity of her diction. + +"And really that's about all it is necessary for you to know at present," +she asserted. "We shall see later, if we keep it up--if Cappadocia keeps +it up, I mean, of course. She is fearfully gone on you now, that's clear; +and she may be capable of a serious attachment. I can't tell. An +unfortunate marriage has been known to turn that way before now. Anyhow, +we'll give her the benefit of the doubt." + +Poppy laughed softly, leaning forward and still looking at Mr. Iglesias +from under the shadow of her wide-brimmed hat. + +"Now," she said, "come along. I've shown you I play fair all round, even +to a stuck-up little monkey of a thing like Cappadocia. It's your turn to +stand and deliver. I had been watching you and speculating for ever so +long before our introduction. Tell me, who on earth are you?" + +Iglesias' figure stiffened a little; but it was impossible to be annoyed +with her. To begin with, she was too unreal, too unsubstantial a being. +And, to go on with, invincible good-temper is so very disarming. + +"Who am I? Nobody," he answered gravely. + +"Bless us, here's a find!" Poppy cried, apparently addressing the little +dogs. "Hasn't he so much of a name even as Willie Onions? Where's it gone +to? It must be nearly as awkward for him as it was for the man who had no +shadow. Come, though," she added in tones of remonstrance, "you must play +fair. Cards on the table and no humbugging. To put it another way, what +do you do?" + +"Since yesterday, nothing," he answered. + +The young lady regarded him with increasing interest. + +"But, my gentle lunatic," she said, "you didn't exactly begin your +acquaintance with this planetary sphere yesterday--couldn't, you know, +though you are very beautiful to look at. So, if you don't very +particularly much mind, we'll hark back to before yesterday." + +Dominic Iglesias' gravity gave way slightly. He smiled in spite of his +natural pride and reticence. + +"For over thirty-five years I was a clerk in a city bank." + +"Pshaw!" Poppy cried hotly. "And pray what variety of congenital idiot do +you take me for? If you are going to decline upon fiction, please let it +be of a higher order than that. I tell you it's unworthy of you!" + +She pursed up her lips and moved her head slowly from side to side in +high disgust. + +"Don't be childish," she said. "Don't be transparently silly. If you want +to gas, do put a little more intelligence into it. You--you--out of sight +the most distinguished-looking man I've ever met except Lord--well, we +won't name names, it sounds showy--you a clerk in a city bank! There, +excuse me, but simply--" Poppy snapped her fingers like a pair of +castanets, making the little dogs start and whimper. "Fiddle!" she cried; +"tell it to a bed-ridden spinster in a blind asylum!--Fiddle-de-dee!" + +And for the life of him Dominic Iglesias could not help laughing. It was +a new sensation. It occurred to him that he had not laughed for years-- +hardly since the days of poor Pascal Pelletier and the little garden in +Holland Street, Kensington. + +Poppy watched him, her eyes dancing. Her expression was very charming, +wholly unselfconscious, in a way maternal, just then. But Iglesias was +hardly sensible of it. + +"That's good," she said. "Now you'll feel a lot better. I saw there was +something wrong with you from the start which needed breaking up. Now, +suppose you quit inadequate inventions and just tell the truth." + +"Unfortunately, I have done so already," Mr. Iglesias said. + +The lady paused a moment, her face full of inquiry and doubt. + +"Honest injun?" + +The term was not familiar to her hearer, but he judged it to be of the +nature of an asseveration, and assented. + +"And do you mean to tell me that for all those years you went through +that drudgery every day?" + +"I had my Sundays," Iglesias answered; "and, since their invention, my +bank holidays. Latterly I got three weeks' holiday in the summer, +formerly a fortnight." + +Laughter had speedily evaporated; and, his harsher mood returning upon +him, Iglesias found a certain bitter enjoyment in setting forth the +extreme meagreness of his life before this light-hearted, unsubstantial +piece of womanhood. Again he classed her with the absurd and exquisite +little dogs as something superfluous, out of relation to sad and sober +realities. + +"And yet you manage to look as you do! It beats me," Poppy declared. "I +tell you it knocks me out of time completely. For, if you'll excuse my +being personal, there is an air about you not usually generated by an +office stool--at least, in my experience. Where do you get it from? You +can't be English?" + +"I am a Spaniard by extraction," Mr. Iglesias said, with a slight lift of +the head. + +"There now, my dear man, don't you go and freeze up again. We were just +beginning to get along so nicely," Poppy put in quickly. "I am having a +capital good time, and you're not having an altogether bad one, are you? +But, tell me, how long ago were you extracted?" + +"Very long ago. I was brought to England as a baby child." + +"Oh! I didn't mean it that way," she returned. "I was not touching on the +unpardonable subject of age; not that it would matter much in your case, +for you are one of the lucky sort with whom age does not count. I only +meant are you an all-round foreigner?" + +"Practically--my mother was partly Irish." + +Dominic Iglesias looked away to those densely wooded slopes of Sheen and +Roehampton, against the purple-green gloom of which the home signals of +Barnes Station--hard white lines and angles tipped with scarlet and +black--stood out like the gigantic characters of some strange alphabet. +The air was sweet with the scent of new-mown hay. The birds flirted up +and down the hawthorn bushes and furze brakes. It was all very charming; +yet that same emptiness and distrust of the future were very present to +Iglesias. He forgot all about his companion, aware only that those two +unbidden guests, Old Age and Loneliness, stood close beside him, claiming +harbourage and entertainment. + +"Ah! your mother," Poppy said slowly, with the slightest perceptible +inflection of mockery. "And she is alive still?" + +Dominic Iglesias turned upon the poor Lady of the Windswept Dust +fiercely. She had come too close, come from her proper place--were not +her lips painted?--behind the footlights, and laid her hands upon that +which was holy. He was filled with unreasoning anger towards her--anger +towards himself, too, that he should have departed from his habitual +silence and reticence, submitted to be cross-questioned, and listened to +her feather-headed patter so long. He rose to his feet, for the moment +young, alert, full of a pride at once militant and protective. + +"God forbid!" he said sternly. "Dear saint and martyr, she is safe from +all misreading at last. She is dead." + +He stood a moment trying to choke down his anger before addressing her +again. + +"It is time I should go," he said presently. "I think we have talked +enough." + +But Poppy St. John presented a singular appearance. All the audacity had +departed from her. She sat huddled together, looking very small and +desolate; her eyes--the one noble feature of her face--swimming with +tears. + +"No, no; don't go," she cried in tones of childlike entreaty. "Why should +you go? I like you, and I meant no harm. I've had the beastliest day, and +meeting you was a let-up. You did me good somehow. Cappadocia was quite +right in taking to you. I only wanted to know about you because--well, +you are different. Pshaw, don't tell me. I know what I am talking about. +You're straight. You're good right through." + +The words were poured forth so rapidly that Iglesias hardly gathered the +exact purport of them. But one thing was clear to him--namely, that this +frivolous and meretricious being must be human after all, since she could +suffer. + +"Don't go," she repeated. "I'm miserable. I'll explain. I'll tell you. +Just sit down again. It would be awfully kind. You see, I've been +expecting a friend. It was all-important I should see him to-day, because +there were things to be said. I've been awake half the night screwing up +my courage to saying them. And then he never turned up. I got nerves +waiting hour after hour--anybody would, waiting like that. And I began to +imagine every kind of pestilent disaster." + +Poppy swallowed a little and dabbed her pocket-handkerchief against her +eyes. + +"I shall be all right in a minute," she went on. "Do sit down, please. +You say you're nobody and have nothing to do, so you can't very well be +in a hurry. I am like this sometimes. It's awfully silly, but I can't +help it. Some rotten trifle sets me off, and then I can't stop myself. I +begin to go over all my worst luck.--Doesn't it occur to you there's no +earthly good in standing? It obliges me to talk loud, and it's stupid to +take all Barnes Common into our confidence. Thanks; that's very nice of +you.--Well, you see when I'm like his, the flood-gates of memory are +opened--which sounds pretty enough, but the prettiness is strictly +limited to the sound for most of us, at least as far as my experience +goes. The water is generally a bit dirty, and there are too many dead +things floating about in it; and, when they reel by, as the current takes +them, they turn and seem to struggle and come half alive." + +She paused, hitching the embroidered dragons up about her shoulders. + +"That is why I put on this scarf to-day. It was given me by a man who was +awfully fond of me before--I married. He bought it in the bazaar at +Peshawur, and sent it home to me just as he was starting on one of those +little frontier wars the accounts of which they keep out of the English +papers. And he was killed, poor dear old boy, in some footy little +skirmish. And this is all I've got left of him." + +Poppy spread out the ends of the scarf for Mr. Iglesias' inspection. + +"It must have cost a lot of money. The stones are real, you see; and that +gold thread is tremendously heavy. Just feel the weight. It was all his +people's doing. They didn't consider me smart enough for him--or rather +for themselves. They weren't anybody in particular, but they were +climbing. The society microbe had bitten them badly. So they bundled him +off to India. What another pair of shoes it would have been for me if +he'd lived! At least it seems so to me when I'm down on my luck, as I am +to-day. But after all, I don't know." Poppy began to be impudent, to +laugh again, though somewhat brokenly. "Sometimes I don't believe one can +count on any of you men till you are well dead, and then you're not much +use, you know, faithful or unfaithful." + +She dabbed her eyes once more and looked at Mr. Iglesias, smiling +ruefully. + +"Life's a pretty rotten business, at times, all round, isn't it?" she +said. "You must have found it so with that thirty years' drudgery in a +city bank. By the way, what bank was it?" + +And Dominic Iglesias, touched by that very human story, attracted, in +spite of himself, by the frankness of his companion, a little shaken by +the novelty of the whole situation, answered mechanically: + +"The bank? Oh, yes! Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking of Threadneedle +Street." + +For a moment Poppy sat silent, her mouth round as an O. Then she drew her +open hand down sharply behind poor Willie Onions, and shot the small dog, +in a sitting position, off the bench on to the rough grass. His fringed +legs stuck out stiff as sticks, while his enormous lappets of ears flew +up and back, giving him the most wildly demented appearance during this +brief inglorious flight through space. + +"Catch birds!" she cried, "catch birds, I tell you! Think of your figure. +My good child, take exercise or you'll be as round as a tub!" + +She clapped her hands encouragingly, but the little animal, half-scared, +half-offended, came closer, fawning upon her trailing string-coloured +skirts. Poppy leaned down, resting her elbows upon her knees, and napped +at the unhappy Onions with her handkerchief. + +"Go away, you silly billy. Have a little decent pride, can't you? Don't +bestow attentions when they're unwelcome." Then she addressed herself to +Mr. Iglesias, but without looking up. "I beg your pardon, all this must +seem rather abrupt. But sometimes one's duty to one's family takes one on +the jump, as you may say; and one repairs neglect right away also on the +jump. But--but--there's one thing I should like to know--when I told you +my name just now--Poppy St. John, Mrs. St. John--you remember?" + +"I remember," he said. + +"Well, didn't it convey--didn't it mean anything special to you?" + +"I am afraid not," Iglesias answered. "You must pardon my ignorance, +since I have lived very much out of the world. I know nothing of +society." + +"So much the better. The world is a vastly overrated place, and society +is about the biggest fraud going." She left off teasing the little dog, +sat bolt upright, and looked full at Dominic Iglesias, her eyes serious, +redeeming all the insignificance of her features and those little +doubtful details of the general effect of her. "Don't make any mistake +about either of them," she said. "Let the world and society alone as you +value your peace of mind and independence. They're dead sea fruit to all +outsiders such as--well--you and me. I hate them; only they've got me, +and will have me in some form or other till the end, I suppose. But you +are different, and I warn you"--Poppy's voice took on an odd inflection +of mingled bitterness and tenderness--"they are not a bit adapted for a +beautiful, innocent, uncrowned king like you." + +She got up as she spoke, gathering her trailing skirts about her, and +called sharply to the little dogs. + +"The dew is rising," she said, "and Cappadocia's a regular cry-baby if +she gets her feet wet. I must take her home. There's my card. You see the +address? You can come when you like, only let me know the day beforehand, +because I should be sorry to have people with me or to be out. Cappadocia +'ll want you. So shall I. You do me good. I'll play quite fair, I promise +you. Good-night." + +The sun stood in a triumph of crimson and gold, which passed into the +fine blue of a belt of earth mist. Eastward the sky blushed, too, but +with brazen blushes, tarnished by the breath of the great city--the pure +blue of the earth mist exchanged for the murk of coal smoke and the +thousand and one exhalations of steaming streets, public-houses and +restaurants. Poppy St. John walked slowly along the footpath, her figure +dyed by the effulgence of the skies to the crimson and gold of her name. +About her shoulders the embroidered dragons glittered as she moved, while +the two tiny spaniels trotted humbly at her heels. For a brief space she +showed absolutely resplendent. Then suddenly an interposing terrace of +smart much-be-balconied and beflowered little houses shut off the sunset; +and in their rather vulgar shadow Dominic Iglesias, watching, beheld her +transformed into the unsubstantial, in a way fictitious, Lady of the +Windswept Dust and of the footlights once again. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +That weekly ceremony--well known to Trimmer's Green--Mrs. Lovegrove's +afternoon at-home, was in progress. She wore her black satin gown, and +her white Maltese lace fichu, just to give it a touch of summer +lightness. It must be added that she was warm and uncomfortable, having +conscientiously superintended preparations in respect of commissariat in +the overheated atmosphere of the basement; hurried upstairs--the imagined +tinkle of the front-door bell perpetually in her ears--to pull her stays +in at the waist and project herself into the aforementioned official +garments--a very trying process on a June day to a person of ample +contours and what may be described as the fluidic temperament. Later she +had cooled off, or tried so to cool--for on such occasions there is +invariably some window-blind, ornament, or piece of furniture actively in +need of straightening--sitting in her somewhat fog-stained and sun-faded +drawing-room during that evil period of waiting in which the intending +hostess first suffers acute mortification because she is "quite sure +nobody will come," and then gets hot all over from the equally agitating +certainty that everybody she has ever known will appear simultaneously, +and that there will be neither cakes nor conversation enough to go round. + +But this disquieting and oft-repeated preface to the afternoon's +festivity was now happily over. And the good lady, oblivious of +discomfort and a slightly disorganised complexion, sat purring with +satisfaction upon her best Chesterfield sofa, Dr. Giles Nevington beside +her. "Pleasure, not business, to-day, Mrs. Lovegrove. For once I am going +to make no demands on my faithful and able coadjutor. This call is a +purely friendly one--no subscription lists of any sort or description in +my pocket," the clergyman had said in his resonant bass when clasping her +hand.--A large, dark, clean-shaven man of forty, a studied effect of +geniality and benevolence about him, slightly tempered, perhaps, by cold +and watchful blue-grey eyes, fixed--so said his detractors--with +unswerving determination upon the shovel-hat, apron, and gaiters of the +Anglican episcopate. + +Rhoda Lovegrove, however, was very far from being among the detractors. +She relished this gracious speech enormously. She also approved the +attitude of her husband at this juncture; since, with praiseworthy tact, +he engaged the attention of her two other guests, a Mrs. Ballard and her +daughter. These ladies were rich, the younger had pretensions both to +beauty and fashion; but their present was, alas! stained by +Noncomformity, their past contaminated by association with retail trade. +At the entrance of the vicar, remembering these sad defects, George +Lovegrove rose to the occasion. Gently, but firmly, he pranced round them +heading them towards the doorway. + +"Who are those?" Dr. Nevington inquired, with some interest. "Not +parishioners, I fancy." + +"Not in any true sense," Mrs. Lovegrove replied. "Dissenters, and I am +sorry to say rather spiteful against the Church." + +The clergyman leaned back and crossed his legs comfortably. + +"Ah! well, poor human nature! A touch of jealousy perhaps," he remarked. + +Mrs. Lovegrove beamed. + +"Very likely--still I should be just as well pleased not to continue +their acquaintance. I don't like to hear things that are disrespectful. I +should have ceased to call, but relatives of theirs are old friends of +Mr. Lovegrove's mother's family." + +"Quite so, quite so," the other returned. Even when silent the sound of +him seemed to encompass him, as the roll of a drum seems to salute you +when merely beholding that instrument. His speech filled all the room, +flowing forth into every corner, sweeping upward in waves to the very +cornice. The feminine members of his congregation found this most +beautiful; having, indeed, been known to declare that did he preach in +Chinese, they would still receive edification and spiritual benefit.-- +"Quite so," he repeated, "the breaking of old family ties is certainly to +be avoided. And then, moreover, we should always guard against any +appearance of harshness or illiberality in dealing with Christians from +whom we have reason to differ in minor questions of doctrine or practice. +We must never forget that the Nonconformists, though they went out from +us, do remain the brethren of all right-minded Churchmen in a very +special sense, since they have the great lessons of the Reformation at +heart. I could wish that certain parties within the Church were animated +by the same manly and intelligent intolerance of idolatry and +superstition as the majority of the dissenters whom I meet. Personally I +should welcome greater freedom of intercourse, and a frequent interchange +of pulpits." + +"We know who'd be the gainers," Mrs. Lovegrove put in gracefully. + +"Ah! well, I am prepared to believe that the gain might not be +exclusively on one side." + +Mrs. Lovegrove folded her fat hands, purring almost audibly. He seemed to +her so very wise and good. + +"That's so like you, Dr. Nevington," she said. "As I always tell Mr. +Lovegrove, we have a great responsibility in having you for our pastor +and friend. You are a standing rebuke to many of us, being so wide-minded +yourself." + +"Hardly that, hardly that," he answered with becoming modesty. "In my +humble way I do strive towards unity, that is all. Even towards the +Church of Rome I would extend a friendly and helpful hand. We cannot, of +course, go to her, yet she should never be discouraged from coming to +us.--But here is your good husband back again--ceased to be unevenly +yoked with the unbeliever, eh, Lovegrove?" + +"I was glad you took them away, Georgie," Mrs. Lovegrove put in. "Still +I'm sorry for you, for the vicar's been talking so nobly. You've missed +such a lot." + +"Ah, hardly that. I have merely been giving your dear good wife a little +lecture on Christian charity. How is Mrs. Nevington? Thank you, +wonderfull well, earnest and energetic as ever. I do not know how I could +meet the demands of this large parish without her." + +"A true helpmeet," purred Mrs. Lovegrove. + +"Truly so--and specially in all questions of organisation. She is +altogether my superior in administrative capacity. Indeed, it is an +understood thing between us that I relieve her of what may be called the +bad third of her marriage vow. If she will love and honour, I assure her +I am ready to obey. A capital working rule for husbands--eh, Lovegrove?-- +always supposing they have found the right woman, as you and I have." + +In the midst of this delicious badinage the hostess had to rise to +receive further guests. Conflicting emotions struggled within her ample +bosom--namely, regret at leaving that thrice happy sofa, and +satisfaction that others should behold the glory thereon so visibly +enthroned. + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Porcher? How d'ye do, Miss Hart?" she said. "Very kind +of you to come and call. Only a few friends as yet, but perhaps that's +just as pleasant this warm afternoon. Dr. Nevington, as you see, and at +his very best"--she lowered her voice discreetly. "So at home, so full +of great thoughts, and yet so comical--quite a privilege for all to hear +him talk." + +Encouraged by recent commendation, George Lovegrove again rose with +praiseworthy tact to the occasion. It may be stated in passing that, in +person, he was below the middle height, a thick oblong man, his figure, +indeed, not unsuggestive of a large carapace, from the four corners of +which sprouted short arms and legs. His face was round, fresh-coloured, +and clean to the point of polish. His yellowish grey hair, well flattened +and shining, grew far back on his forehead. And this, combined with small +blue eyes, clear as a child's, a slight inward squint to them, produced +an effect of permanent and innocent surprise not devoid of pathos. In +character he was guileless and humble-minded. The spectacle of cruelty or +injustice would, however, rouse him to the belligerent attitude of the +proverbial _brebis enrage_. He believed himself to be very happy--an +added touch of pathos perhaps--and was pained and surprised if it was +brought home to him that others found life a less comfortable and kindly +invention than he himself did. Hence reports of suicides worried him +sadly. He would always have returned a verdict of temporary insanity, +this being to him the only explanation conceivable of a voluntary exit +from our so excellent present form of existence. Yet George Lovegrove was +not without his little secret sorrow--who indeed is? A deep-seated regret +for nonexistent small Lovegroves possessed him, the instinct of paternity +being strong in him. He loved children, and, when alone, often lingered +beside perambulators in Kensington Gardens fondly observing their +contents. Yet not for ten thousand pounds sterling would he have admitted +this weakness, lest in doing so he should hurt "the wife's feelings." And +it was in obedience to consideration for the said feelings that he now +threw himself gallantly into the breach. For, after acting as +appreciative chorus to an interlude of sonorous trifling on the part of +the clergyman with the newcomers, he adroitly--under promise of showing +her recent additions to his collection of picture postcards--detached +Miss Eliza Hart from the neighbourhood of the sofa and conveyed her to +the farther side of the room. Mrs. Porcher, neat, pensive, and +sentimental, could be trusted to play the part of attentive listener; but +the great Eliza, as he knew by experience, was liable to develop +dangerous energy, to get a little above herself, shake her leonine mane +of upstanding sandy hair, and become altogether too talkative, not to say +loud, for such distinguished company. Personally he had a soft spot in +his heart for Eliza. But, if she put herself forward, he feared for "the +wife's feelings," therefore did he skilfully detach her. + +And he had reason to congratulate himself on this manoeuvre, for Eliza +undoubtedly was in a frolicsome humour. + +"Yes," she remarked, contemplating the portrait of a celebrated actress. +"That is very taking and stylish; and it is just what I should like to +have done with my Peachie." This graceful _sobriquet_ was generally +understood to bear testimony to the excellence of Mrs. Porcher's +complexion. "Now, if we wanted a gentleman guest or two more at any time, +a picture postcard of her like this, just slightly tinted, in answer to +inquiries?" + +Miss Hart, her head on one side, looked playfully at Mr. Lovegrove. + +"What about a subsequent summons for over-crowding?" he chuckled. The +whole breadth of the room, well understood, was between him and the +wife's feelings, not to mention the august presence beside her upon the +sofa. + +"No doubt that has to be thought of!" Eliza nodded sagely. "But is she +not looking sweeter than ever to-day? Do not pretend you have not noticed +it, Mr. Lovegrove. There's no deceiving me! I know you." + +Like all mild and moral men, Lovegrove flushed with delight at any +suggestion that he was a gay dog, a dashing blade. His good, honest face +took on a higher polish than ever. + +"You are too clever by half, Miss Hart." + +"Well, somebody has to keep their wits about them, with such a love as +Peachie to care for. I dressed her myself to-day. 'The pearl-grey gown if +you like,' I said, 'but not a scrap of black with it. Just a touch of +colour at the throat, please.' 'No, dear Liz,' she said, 'it would call +for remark, since I have never done so since I lost Major Porcher.' But +there, Mr. Lovegrove, I insisted. For why she should go on wearing +complimentary mourning all her life for a wretch that nearly broke her +heart and ruined her, passes me. 'Forget the serpent,' I said, 'and put +on a little turquoise tulle pompom.' Now just look at her!" + +"Rather dangerous for some people, is it not?" Lovegrove inquired quite +slyly. + +"Hard on our gentlemen, you mean? Well, perhaps it is. But then they +always have the sight of me to put up with.--No compliments, thank you. I +have my eyesight and my toilet-glass, and they have let me know I was no +Venus ever since I can remember. It would not do to depress our gentlemen +too much. They might leave, and then wherever would Cedar Lodge be?" + +Miss Hart became suddenly serious and confidential. "And that reminds me," +she went on. "I wanted to have a private word with you to-day about a +certain gentleman." + +"Who may be?" the good George inquired. + +"You can guess, can't you? Your own candidate." + +"Mr. Iglesias?" + +The lady nodded. + +"Peachie must be spared anxiety, therefore I speak, Mr. Lovegrove. +Something is going on, and she is getting worried. You cannot approach +the person to whom we are alluding as you can either of our others. +Rather stand-offish, even now after nearly eight years that he has been +with us. Between you and me and the bedpost, Mr. Lovegrove, I am just a +wee bit nervous of that person. So if you could hint, quite in +confidence, what his plans may be for the future it would' be really +friendly." + +"Dear me, dear me! Plans? I do not quite follow you, Miss Hart. Nothing +wrong with him, I trust?" + +"That is just what we cannot find out. No spying, of course, Mr. +Lovegrove. Neither Peachie nor I would descend to such meanness. Our +gentlemen have perfect liberty. We would scorn to put questions. But it +is close on a week now since the person we are alluding to has been to +the City." + +"Bless me! You surprise me. He cannot have left Barking Brothers & +Barking?" + +The great Eliza shook her leonine mane. + +"I believe that is just exactly what he has done." + +"You do surprise me. I can hardly credit it. Nearly a week, and he as +punctual and regular as clockwork! I must run over this evening and catch +him. Something must be wrong. And yet why has he not been here? Dear me. +Miss Hart, you----" + +But the end of the sentence was lost in the bass notes issuing from the +presence upon the sofa. + +"Truly, the prosperity of the nation," Dr. Nevington was saying, "of this +dear old England of ours that we so love, is wholly bound up with the +prosperity of her national Church. I use the word prosperity in a plain, +manly, straightforward sense. Personally I should rejoice to see the +bonds of Church and State drawn closer. It could not fail to make for the +welfare of both. Then, among other benefits, we should see the poverty of +many members of my cloth, which is now a crying scandal--" + +"You do hear very sad tales from the country districts, certainly," +sighed Mrs. Lovegrove. + +"The state of affairs is more than sad, it is iniquitous. And therefore +the Church must assert herself. The individual minister must assert +himself, and claim a higher scale of remuneration. Help yourself, show +push and principle, cultivate practical aims--that is what I preach to +young men reading for Holy Orders. We have no place in these days for +visionaries and dreamers. We want men who march with the times, who are +interested in politics, and can make themselves felt." + +So did the great voice roll on and outward. Very beautiful to the +listeners in sound--though, in sense, it may be questioned whether it +conveyed very definite ideas to them--but highly embarrassing to the +house-parlourmaid, whose feminine tones quite failed to make headway +against the volume of it. With the consequence that Dominic Iglesias was +left standing in the shadow of the doorway unheeded. + +He was aware, and that not without surprise, how much these few days of +freedom and leisure had quickened his perceptions. His mental attitude +had changed. His demand had ceased to be moderate. Hence he suffered a +hundred offences to taste and sensibility hitherto unknown, or at least +unregistered. He knew when a woman was plain, when a conversation was +vapid or vulgar, a manner pretentious, a speech lacking in sincerity. +Consciously he stood aside, no longer out of humility or indifference, +but critically observant, challenging things however familiar, and +passing judgment upon them. For example, the unlovely character of Mrs. +Lovegrove's drawing-room engrossed his attention--the dirty-browns and +tentative watery blues of it, the multiplicity of flimsy, worthless, +little ornaments revealing a most lamentable absence of artistic +perception. In that fine booming clerical voice he detected a kindred +absence of delicate perception, a showiness born of very inadequate +conception of relative values. Indeed, the voice and the sentiments given +forth by it, in as far as he caught the drift of them, raised a definite +spirit of antagonism in him. The voice seemed to trample. Dominic +Iglesias was taken with an inclination--very novel in him--to trample, +too. He crossed the room, an added touch of gravity and dignity in his +aspect and manner. + +The clergyman gazed at him with some curiosity, while Mrs. Lovegrove +surged up off the sofa. + +"Mr. Iglesias! Well, of all people! Whoever would have expected to see +you at this early hour of the day?" + +"Talk of a certain gentleman and that gentleman appears," Miss Eliza Hart +whispered. Then wagging her finger at her host, "Now don't you forget +that little question of mine. Find out his intentions, just, as you may +say, under the rose. But there's Peachie signalling to go." + +In the ensuing interval of farewells, which were slightly protracted +owing to friskiness on the part of the fair Eliza, Iglesias found himself +standing beside the clergyman. The latter still regarded him with +curiosity. But, whatever his faults, not his worst enemy could accuse Dr. +Nevington of being a respecter of persons unless he was well assured +beforehand whom such persons might be. He therefore turned to Iglesias +with the easy air of patronage not uncommon to his cloth, as one who +should say: "My good sir, don't be afraid. I am a man of the world as +well as a Christian. I will handle you gently. I won't hurt you." + +"I think I caught a foreign name," he remarked. "You are paying a visit +to London? I hope our capital makes an agreeable impression upon you." + +"The visit has been of such long duration," Iglesias answered, "that +impressions have, I am afraid, become slightly blurred by usage." + +"Ah! indeed--no doubt that happens in some measure to all of us. I am to +understand that you are a resident?" + +Iglesias assented. + +"In this district?" + +Again he assented. + +"Indeed. Really, I wish I had known it sooner. It always gives me +pleasure to meet persons of another nationality than my own. Intercourse +with them makes for liberality of view. It often dispels anti-English +prejudice. I am always glad to be helpful to strangers." + +"You are very kind," Iglesias said with gravity. + +"Not at all--not at all. I hold very practical views not only regarding +the duties of the Englishman to the alien, but of the pastor towards his +flock. But I find it almost impossible, I regret to say, to become +personally acquainted with all my parishioners. My curates are capital +young fellows--earnest, active, go-ahead. But in a large area such as +this there is always a shifting population with which the clergy, however +energetic, find it difficult to keep in touch. We are obliged to +discriminate between dwellers and sojourners. As soon as any person is +proved to be a _bona fide_ dweller my curates pass his or her name on to +me, and either I or my wife call in due course." + +Dominic Iglesias permitted himself to smile. + +"An excellent system, no doubt," he remarked. + +"I find it works very well on the whole. But no system is infallible. +There must be occasional oversights, and you have been the victim of one. +I mention this to disabuse your mind of the idea of any intentional +neglect. Well, Mrs. Lovegrove, and so our good friends Mrs. Porcher and +Miss Hart have gone--estimable women both of them in their own line. I +ought to be running away, too, and I have just been having a word with +your other guest here, Mr.----" + +"Iglesias," Dominic put in coldly. He was in a state of pretty high +displeasure. To hear his name mispronounced might, he felt, precipitate a +catastrophe. + +"Iglesias?--ah! yes, thank you--I have been explaining to Mr. Iglesias +our system of parochial visiting and quoting our well-known joke about +the dwellers and sojourners. You remember it? He has, I regret to find, +been counted among the latter, while he has qualified as one of the +former. The mistake must be remedied. Well, good-by to you, Mrs. +Lovegrove; I shall see your good husband on my way downstairs. Good-day +to you, Mr. Iglesias. I shall hope to meet you again." + +And with that he, and the encompassing sound of him, moved towards the +door. Mrs. Lovegrove subsided upon the sofa. The supreme glory had +departed, yet an afterglow from the effulgence of it remained in her +beaming face as she looked up at Mr. Iglesias. + +"It was a good fairy that brought you in so early to-day," she said. +"Really, I am pleased you should have had the chance to meet Dr. +Nevington. And I could see he was quite taken with you, by the way he +began to talk before I had the chance to introduce you. But that's the +vicar all over! He never is one to stand upon ceremony." + +"So I can believe," Dominic said. + +"You saw it? Ah, part of his thoughtfulness, wanting to put everybody at +their ease. And I'm sure if there's one thing more disheartening than +another, it is to have two of your friends standing up side by side, as +stiff as a couple of pokers, without so much as a word. I know I am too +ready to enter into conversation with strangers; but if there is a thing +I cannot bear, it's any appearance of coolness." + +She passed her handkerchief round her forehead and across her lips. She +was marshalling her energies for a daring effort. + +"Very warm, is it not?" she remarked, perhaps superfluously. Then she +came to the point. "I know you are not very much of a churchgoer, Mr. +Iglesias." + +"I am afraid not"--he paused a moment. "You see, I was born and brought +up in another faith." + +"Yes--so George has told me. But I am sure none of us would ever be so +illiberal as to throw that up against you. The vicar has been talking so +beautifully about Christian charity; and we all know it was a thing you +could not help. It was your misfortune, anybody would understand that, +not your fault. Too, it's all over long ago and forgotten." + +Dominic looked rather hard at her; but it was clear her words were +innocent of any intention of offence. + +"I suppose it is," he said sadly, Old Age and Loneliness laying their +hands upon him, for some reason, very sensibly once again. + +"Not that that's anything to be otherwise than thankful for," she added, +with a slightly misplaced effort at consolation. "Of course anyone must +feel how providential it is to be saved from all those terrible false +doctrines and practices--not that I know anything about them. There's so +much, don't you think, it is so much better not to know anything about. +Then one feels more at liberty to speak." + +Mr. Iglesias smiled. + +"I am not sure that the matter had occurred from exactly that point of +view before." + +"Really now, and a clever person like you!" Mrs. Lovegrove passed her +handkerchief across her forehead again. "George has a wonderful opinion +of your cleverness, you know. And that is why I have always wished you +and the vicar could be brought together. I have--yes, I own to it--I have +been afraid sometimes you were a little unsettled about religion, and +that it might unsettle Georgie, too. But I knew if you once met the vicar +that would all be set right. As I often say to George, let anybody just +_see_ Dr. Nevington and then they will begin to have an inkling of all +they miss in not hearing him in the pulpit." + +But here, perhaps fortunately, the master of the house trotted back. He, +too, beamed. He was filled with innocent rejoicing. Had he not +successfully protected the wife's feelings, and was not Iglesias--who +remained to him a wonderful being, stirring whatever element of romance +might be resident in his guileless nature--present in person? + +"Why, what's the meaning of this, Dominic?" he chuckled. "You've turned +over a new leaf, gadding round to at-home days! Where's Threadneedle +Street? What's come over you?" + +"Threadneedle Street and I have agreed to part company." + +"What, for good? Never?" this from both husband and wife. + +"Yes, for good," Iglesias said. + +Mr. Lovegrove ceased to beam. He became anxious again, and consequently +solemn. + +"Well, you do surprise me," he said. "Nothing gone wrong, I trust? Not +any unpleasantness happened?" + +"None," Iglesias answered. In breaking the news to these kindly but +rudimentary souls he had determined to treat it very lightly. "I have +come to the conclusion that I have worked long enough. It is a mistake to +risk dying in harness. You retired, Lovegrove, three years ago. I am +going to look about me a little and see what the rest of the world is +doing." + +"You'll miss the bank, and feel a little strange at first. Georgie did, +though he had his home to interest him," Mrs. Lovegrove remarked. + +"Undoubtedly George was more fortunate than I am," Iglesias replied, in +his most courtly manner. + +"Not but that all that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch +of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his +host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting +blue eyes into his face. + +"It's all rather sudden, Dominic," he said. "I do not want to intrude +upon your confidence; but if there is anything behind, anything in which +I can help?" + +Mr. Iglesias shook his head. + +"Nothing, my good old friend," he said. + +"The wife's right, you know. You'll miss the bank, the regular hours, and +the occupation. She's quite right. I did at first." + +"I know. But already I have pretty well got through that phase, I think." + +"Ah, you have a bigger mind than mine. You can rise to a wider view. +Change affects a commonplace man like myself most. I was dreadfully lost +at first--more than the wife knew. Females are very sensitive, and it +would have hurt her to know all I felt. If the Almighty is good enough to +give a man a faithful woman to look after him, he can't be too scrupulous +in sparing her pain--at least, so I think." Suddenly his tone changed. +"But you are not going to leave us, Dominic?--you are not going to move, +I do hope?" + +He was mindful of his promise to Eliza Hart, but he was also mindful of +himself. It had occurred to him for how very much in the interest and +pleasure of his life Dominic Iglesias really stood. + +"Why, should you regret my going? Should you miss me?" the other asked, +struck by his tone. + +"Miss you," he said, "and after a friendship covering forty years! I know +you are my superior in every way. I know I am not on your level. All the +advantage is on my side in our friendship, always has been. But that is +just where it is. Why, you know, Dominic--next to the wife of course--all +along you have been the best thing I had." + +Then it came to Iglesias, looking down at him, that among the many +millions of his fellow-mortals, this whimsical childlike being stood +nearest to him in sympathy and in love. The thought moved him strangely, +at once deepening his sense of isolation and lessening the load of it. + +"In that case I will not move. I will stay here, at Trimmer's Green," he +said. + +When Mr. Lovegrove reentered the sun-faded drawing-room his wife greeted +him in these words: + +"Well, I have been thinking it all over, Georgie, and we shall only be +doing our duty by Mr. Iglesias if we send for your cousin Serena. For my +part, I don't trust Mrs. Porcher. Did you see that fly-away blue bow? +Those who seem so soft are often the deepest. And widows have all sorts +of little cunning ways with them." She rose from the thrice happy sofa. +"I was gratified to have Dr. Nevington and Mr. Iglesias meet. But we +certainly will have to send for Serena," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Mr. Iglesias crossed Trimmer's Green in the dusty sunshine. He had +engaged to stay; and, indeed, he asked himself what person, what objects +or interests there were to take him else-whither? Nevertheless, the +promise seemed, somehow, a limiting of possibility and of hope. It was +destiny. London, very evidently, having got him, did not mean to let him +go. And London was not attractive this evening, but blouzy and jaded from +the heat. He passed on into the great thoroughfare and turned eastward, +absorbed in thought. Children cried. A pungent scent of over-ripe fruit +came from barrows in the roadway and open doors of green-grocers' shops. +Tempers appeared to be on edge. Workmen, pouring out from a big block of +flats under construction on the left, jostled him in passing, not in +insolence, but simply in inattention. Their language was starred with +sanguinary adjectives. The noise of the traffic was loud. Iglesias turned +up one of the side streets leading on to Campden Hill. It was quieter +here and the air was a trifle purer. Halfway up the hill he hesitated. +There was a shrine to be visited in these regions--in it stood an altar +of the dead. And above that altar, in Iglesias' imagination, hung the +picture of a woman, beautiful, and, to him, infinitely sad. + +He turned eastward again and made his way into Holland Street. He rarely +had the courage to go back there. He had never reentered the house. But +this evening he was taken by the desire to look on it all once again. For +he was still pursued by the disquieting question as to whether he had +shirked the possibilities of his life, or had sacrificed them to a higher +duty than any duty of personal development. If the latter, however barren +of active happiness both past and present, he would be in his own eyes +justified, and desolation would cease to have in it any flavour of self- +contempt. Perhaps this dwelling-place of his childhood, youth, and what +should have been the best of his manhood, might help to answer the +question and set his doubts at rest. + +A board--"To Let"--was up on the narrow iron balcony of the dining-room. +Iglesias rang, and after brief parley with the caretaker--a neat bald- +headed little old man, in carpet slippers and a well-brushed once-smart +brown check suit, altogether too capacious for his attenuated person--was +admitted. + +"The place is quite empty save for my bits of sticks in the basement, +sir," he said. "You are at liberty to go where you please. I am afflicted +with the asthma and am glad to avoid mounting the stairs." He ended up +with a husky little cough. So Iglesias passed through the vacant house +unattended. + +He received a pathetic yet agitating impression. The rooms were even +smaller than he had supposed. They were gloomy, too, from the worn paint +of the high wainscots and discoloration of the low ceilings. All the +windows were shut and the atmosphere was close and faint. The corners +were thick with crouching shadows, merely awaiting the cover of night, as +it seemed to Iglesias, to take definite shape, stand upright, and come +forth to possess and people all the house. Even now it belonged so +sensibly to them that his own reverent footsteps sounded to him harshly +intrusive upon the bare, uneven floors. At intervals, downstairs in the +basement, he could hear the little old caretaker's husky cough. + +And it was strange to him to consider what those crouching shadows might +represent. Not the ghosts of human beings--in such he had small belief-- +but an aftermath of human emotions, purposes, and passions, formulated or +endured in this apparently so innocent place. To his knowledge the +origins of revolution had seethed here. The walls had listened to details +of political intrigue, of projected assassination, to vehement +declarations of undying hate. Of the men who had plotted and dreamed +here, uplifted in spirit by the magic of terrible ideas, none were left. +One by one they had gone out into the silence to meet death, swift-handed +or heartlessly lingering, as the case might be. And what had they +actually accomplished? he asked himself. Had their death, often as must +be surmised of a sufficiently hideous sort, really advanced the cause of +humanity and helped on the birth of that Golden Age, in which Justice +shall reign alongside Peace? Or had these men merely wasted themselves, +adding to the sum total of human confusion and wrong; and wasted the +hearts and happiness of those allied to them by ties of friendship and of +blood, leaving the second generation to repair, in so far as it might, +the ruin which their violence had worked? Dominic Iglesias could not say. +But this at least, though it savoured of reproach, he could not disguise +from himself--namely, that out of the intemperate heat and fierceness of +these men's thought and action had come, as a necessary consequence, the +narrow opportunities and cold isolation of his own. + +"As physically, so morally, spiritually, socially," he said to himself, +"the younger generation pays the debts contracted by the generation +immediately preceding it. Justice, indeed, reigns already, always has +done so--. justice of a rather tremendous sort. But peace?--Peace is +still very much to seek, both for the individual and the race." + +Iglesias visited his mother's bed-chamber. He visited his former nursery. +Then he visited the drawing-room, the heart of this very pathetic shrine +where the altar of his dead was, almost visibly set up. To this room, +during the many years of his mother's mental illness, he had come back +daily after work; and had ministered to her, suiting his speech to her +passing humour, trying to distract her brooding melancholy, and to soothe +and amuse her as though she was an ailing child. Thank God, there was +nothing ugly to remember regarding her. She had never been harsh or +unlovely in her ways. Still, the strain of constant intercourse with her +had been very great--how great Iglesias had hardly realised until now, as +he stood in the centre of the room reconstructing its former appearance +in thought and replacing its familiar furnishings. + +There to the left of the further window, overlooking the garden, she had +always sat, so that the light might fall upon her needlework--very fine +Irish lace, in the making of which nearly all her waking hours were +spent. She had learned the beautiful art as a young girl in her convent +school; and her skill in it was great. In those sad later years when her +mind was clouded the intricate designs and endless variety of delicate +and ingenious stitches had come to have symbolic meanings for her full of +mystic significance. In them she poured forth her soul, as another might +pour it forth in music, finding there an imaginative language far +surpassing, in its subtlety of suggestion, articulate speech. There were +deserts of net, of spider's web fineness, to be laboriously traversed; +hills of difficulty to be climbed, whence far horizons disclosed +themselves; dainty flower-gardens, crossed by open paths, and hedged +about with curves, sinuous and full of pretty impediments. And there +were, to her, vaguely agitating and even fearful things in this lacework +also--confusions of outline, broken purposes, multiplicity of opposing +intentions, struggle of good and evil powers in the intricacies of some +rich arabesque; or monotonous repetitions of design which distressed her +as with the terrors of imprisonment and of unescapable fate. She was +filled with feverish anxiety until such portions of her self-imposed +task were completed. Then she would be very glad. And Iglesias, glancing +up silently from the pages of his newspaper or book, would see the sorrow +pass out of her face as she leaned back in her chair and softly laughed. +And he would perceive that, in the achievement of those countless but +carefully ordered stitches, she had also achieved some mysterious victory +of the spirit which, for a time at least, would give her freedom of soul +and content. As a boy he had been rather jealous of her lacemaking, +declaring that it was dearer to her than he himself was. But as he grew +more experienced, more chastened, and, it must be added, more sad, he had +come to understand that it veritably was as speech to her--though speech +which he could but rarely interpret--expressing all that she could not, +or dared not, otherwise express, all the poetry of her sweet, broken +nature, its denied aspirations in religion, its tortured memories of +danger and of love. + +Now, standing in the centre of the empty room, and looking at the place +beside the window where she habitually sat, Iglesias seemed to see once +more, as he had so often seen in the past, her fine-drawn profile and +softly waved upturned hair, her head and shoulders draped in a black +mantilla, the lines of which followed those of her figure as she bent +over her work. He could see the long delicate white hands moving +rhythmically, with the assurance of perfected skill, over the web in its +varying degrees of whiteness from the filmy transparency of the net +foundation to the opacity of the closely wrought pattern. Those hands, in +their ceaseless and exquisite industry, had troubled his imagination at +times. For too often it had seemed as though they alone were really +alive, intelligent, sentient, the rest of the woman dead. The impression +was so vivid even yet--though Iglesias knew it to be subjective only, +projected by the vividness of remembrance--that instinctively he crossed +the room, laid his left hand upon the moulding of the high wainscot, +leaned over the vacant space which appeared to hold her image, and spoke +gently to her, so that the moving hands might find rest for a moment, +while she recognised and greeted him, looking up. + +There had always been a pause before the words of greeting came, while +her consciousness travelled back, hesitatingly, to the actual and +material world around her from the world of emotion and phantasy in which +her spirit lived. There was a pause now, a prolonged silence, broken at +last by the husky cough of the little old caretaker downstairs. The +vacant space remained vacant. Nevertheless Dominic Iglesias received both +recognition and greeting, and from these derived inward assurance that +all was well--that he was justified of his past action, that he had not +shirked the possibilities of his life, but sacrificed them to a higher +duty than any individual and private one. The present might be empty of +purpose and pleasure, the future lacking in promise and in hope; yet to +him one perfect thing had been granted--namely, a human relationship of +unsullied beauty, notwithstanding all its sadness, from first to last. + +"And in the strength of that meat, one should surely be able to go many +days!" he said, as he straightened himself up. "Thank God, I never failed +her. How far she realised it or not, is but a small matter. I am obscure, +perhaps as things now stand wholly superfluous, still I have, at all +events, never grasped personal advantage at the expense of a fellow- +creature's heart." + +Yet, even so, the longing for sympathy and companionship oppressed him as +never before. The sight of this place had stirred his affections and his +spiritual sense. His soul cried out for some language in which to express +itself--even though it were a language of symbol only, such as his +mother had found in her lacemaking. How barren and vapid a thing was the +exterior life, as all those whom he knew understood and lived it--his co- +lodgers, his fellow-clerks, the good Lovegroves, his late employer, Sir +Abel Barking, even, as he divined, that sonorous Protestant clergyman +whom he had met this afternoon--as against the interior life, suggestion +of which this vacant shadow-haunted house of innumerable memories +presented to his mind! Was there any method by which the interior and +exterior life could be brought into sane and fruitful relation, so that +the former might sensibly permeate and dignify the latter? + +The comfortable inward conviction, just vouchsafed him, that he was +justified of his own past action, merely emphasised his consciousness +that he was still very much adrift, with no definite port to steer for. +He had, perhaps unwisely, promised George Lovegrove that he would stay on +at Trimmer's Green, but what, after all, did that amount to? Even the +exterior life was second-hand enough there; the interior life, as he +judged, practically non-existent. And so his staying must be ennobled by +some purpose beyond that of stepping across to smoke an after-dinner pipe +with the good, affectionate Lovegrove man, or attending his estimable +wife's "at homes." During the last ten days Mr. Iglesias had striven, +with rare, pathetic diligence, to cultivate amusement. True, the oak +palings had shut him out from Ranelagh; but, with that and a few other +exceptions, amusement, as practised in great cities, is merely a matter +of cash. Therefore he had dined at smart restaurants, had sampled +theatres and music halls, had sat in the Park and watched the world and-- +in their more decent manifestations--the flesh and the devil drive by. He +had to admit that unfortunately all this left him cold, had bored rather +than entertained him. He had not felt out of place socially. His natural +dignity and detachment of mind were alike too strong for that; but he had +arrived at the conclusion that you must have learned the rudiments of the +art of amusement in early youth if you are to practise it with +satisfaction to yourself in middle-age. And he very certainly had not +learned the rudiments--not, anyhow, according to the English fashion. He +had been aware, during these social excursions, that he was a good deal +stared at and even commented on. At first he supposed this arose from +some peculiarity of his dress or manner. Then he understood that the +cause of this unsolicited attention bore a more flattering character, and +in this connection certain remarks made by the Lady of the Windswept Dust +occurred to his mind. But, Mr. Iglesias' pride being greatly in excess of +his vanity--when the first moment of half-humorous surprise was passed-- +he found that these tributes to his personal appearance afforded him more +displeasure than pleasure. He turned from them with a movement of +annoyance, and turned from those places in which they were liable to +manifest themselves likewise. No, indeed, it was something other than +this he had to find, something lying far deeper in the needs of human +nature, if the emptiness of his days was to be filled and the hunger of +his heart and spirit satisfied! + +Pondering which things he went down the creaking stairs of the house in +Holland Street, Kensington, leaving the empty and, to him, sacred rooms +to the crouching shadows. He had had his answer from the one person whom +he had perfectly loved. And surely, in justifying the past, that answer +gave promise of hope for the future? The way would be made clear, the +method would declare itself. Let him have patience, only patience, as +she, his mother, had had when traversing deserts and climbing Difficulty +Hill in her lacework; and to him, also, should far horizons be disclosed. + +In the narrow hall the neat little old caretaker met him, huskily +coughing. + +"The rent is low, sir," he said, "and the landlord is asking no premium. +If you should wish further particulars, or to inspect the offices----" + +But Mr. Iglesias put a couple of half-crowns into his hand. + +"No," he answered, "I do not propose to take the house. Persons who were +dear to me lived here once; and so I wanted to see it. As long as it is +unlet I may come back from time to time." + +The old man shuffled his slippered feet upon the bare boards, looking +with mild ecstasy at the coins. + +"And you will be most welcome, sir," he said. "Your generosity happens to +be of great assistance to me--not that I wish it repeated. I am not +grasping, sir, but I am grateful. I have a taste in literature which my +reduced circumstances do not allow me to gratify. I see the prospect of +many hours' enjoyment before me. I thank you." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +And so it came about that a more tranquil spirit, touched with sober +gladness, possessed Dominic Iglesias as, leaving that house of many +memories, he pursued his way down Church Street and, passing into +Kensington High Street opposite St. Mary Abbot's Church, turned eastward +once again. A few doors short of the gateway leading into Palace Gardens +was an unpretentious Italian restaurant where he proposed to dine. For it +grew late. He had spent longer than he had supposed in wordless prayer +before the altar of his dead. The remembrance of the book-loving little +caretaker's gratitude remained by him pleasantly, softening his humour +towards all his fellow-men. Simple kindness has great virtue, uplifting +to the heart. To Iglesias it seemed those five shillings had been +eminently well invested. + +The streets were clearer now; and he walked slowly, enjoying the cooler +air born of the sunset, and drawing from the leafy spaces of Kensington +Gardens and the park. Presently he became aware of a figure, not +altogether unfamiliar, threading its way among the intermittent stream of +pedestrians along the pavement a few paces ahead. His eyes followed it +reluctantly. In his present peaceful humour its aspect struck a jarring +note. Soiled white flannel trousers, a short blue boating coat, a soft +grey felt hat, tennis shoes, a shambling and uncertain gait as of one who +neither knows nor cares whither he is going or why he goes--the whole +effect purposeless, slovenly, inept. + +Then followed a little scene which caused Iglesias to further slacken his +pace. For the seedy figure, reaching the open door of the restaurant, +hesitated, standing between the clipped bay trees set in green tubs which +flanked the entrance on either hand. Stepped aside, craning upward to see +over the yellow silk curtains drawn across the lower half of the windows. +Moved back to the door and stood there undecided. Finally, as a smiling +waiter, napkin on arm, came forward, the man crushed his hat down on his +forehead, forced his hands deep into his trouser pockets and turned away +with an audible oath. This brought him face to face with Mr. Iglesias, +who recognised in him his fellow-lodger, Mr. de Courcy Smyth. + +"What, you!" he exclaimed snarlingly, while his pasty face flamed. "There +seems no escape from our dear Cedar Lodge to-night." + +Then with an uneasy laugh he made an effort to recover himself. + +"Really, I beg your pardon, Mr. Iglesias," he continued, "but my nerves +are villainously on edge. I have just met those two young idiots, Farge +and Worthington, waltzing home arm in arm like a pair of demented turtle- +doves. Having to associate with such third-rate commercial fellows and +witness their ebullitions of mutual admiration makes a man of education, +like myself, utterly sick. I came out this evening to get free of the +whole Cedar Lodge lot. You did the same, I suppose. Pray don't let me +frustrate your purpose. I sympathise with it. I will remove myself." + +The splotchy red had died out of the speaker's face. Notwithstanding the +warmth of the evening he stood with his shoulders raised and his knees a +little bent, as a poorly clad man stands in a chill wind on a wintry day. +Iglesias observed his attitude, and in his present mood it influenced him +more than the surly greeting had done. + +"I intended to dine here," he said quietly. "So, I fancy, did you." + +"Oh! I have changed my mind, thank you," Smyth answered. + +"In consequence of my arrival, I am afraid?" + +"No, I had other reasons." + +"In any case I should be very glad if you would reconsider your decision +and remain," Dominic said. "I am, as you see, alone, and I have not often +the pleasure of meeting you. I shall be very happy if you will stay and +dine with me, as my guest." + +Smyth gave an odd, furtive look at the open door of the restaurant and +the row of white tables within. A light had come into his pale blue eyes, +making them uncomfortably like those of some half-starved animal. + +"I am at a loss to know why I should accept hospitality from you," he +remarked, at once cringingly and insolently. + +"Simply because you would give me pleasure by doing so. I should value +your society." + +"I am not in evening dress." + +"Nor am I," Dominic answered, with admirable seriousness. There was +something pitiful to him in the conflict, obviously going forward in the +other's mind, between hunger and reluctance to incur an obligation. He +cut it short with gentle authority. "There is a vacant table in the +corner where we can talk free from interruption. Let us go in and secure +it." + +At the beginning of the meal the conversation was intermittent, the +burden of supporting it lying with Mr. Iglesias. But, as course followed +course, hot and succulent, while the _chianti_ at once steadied his +circulation and stimulated his brain, de Courcy Smyth became talkative, +not to say garrulous. Finally he began to assert himself, to swagger, +thereby laying bare the waste places of his own nature. + +"You may think I was hard on Farge and Worthington just now, Mr. +Iglesias," he said. "I own they disgust me; not only in themselves, but +as examples of certain modern tendencies which are choking the life out +of me and such men as me. You business people are on the up grade just +now, and you know it. Whoever goes under, you are safe to do yourselves +most uncommonly well. I don't mean anything personal, of course. I am +just stating a self-evident fact. Commerce is in the air--you all reek of +success. And so even shopwalkers, like Worthington, and that thrice +odious puppy Farge, grow sleek, and venture to spread themselves in the +presence of their betters--in the presence of a scholar and a gentleman, +who is well connected and has received a classical education, like +myself." + +Smyth paused, turning sideways to the table, leaning his elbow on it, +crossing his legs and staring gloomily down the long room. + +"But what do they know or care about scholarship?" he continued. "What +they do know is that the spirit of this unspeakably vulgar age is with +them and their miserable huckstering. They know that well enough and act +upon it, though they are too illiterate to put it into words--know that +trade is in process of exploding learning, of exploiting literature and +art to its own low purposes, in process of scaling Olympus, in short, and +ignominiously chucking out the gods." + +Dominic Iglesias had listened to this astonishing tirade in silence. The +man was evidently suffering from feelings of bitter injury, also he was +his--Iglesias'--guest. Both pity and hospitality engaged him to +endurance. But there are limits. And at this point professional dignity +and a lingering loyalty towards the house of Barking Brothers & Barking +enjoined protest. + +"No doubt we live in times of commerce, rather than in those of +chivalry," he remarked. "Still, I venture to think your condemnation is +too sweeping. One should discriminate surely between trade and finance." + +"Only as one discriminates between a little dog and a big one. The little +dog is the easier to kick. I can't get at the Rothschilds and +Rockefellers; and so I go for the Farges and Worthingtons," Smyth +answered. "In principle I am right. Trade, commerce, finance, juggle with +the names as you like, it all comes back to the same thing in the end, +namely, the murder of intellect by money. Comes back to the worship of +Mammon, chosen ruler of this contemptible _fin de siecle_, and safe to be +even more tyrannously the ruler of the coming century. What hope, I ask +you, is left for us poor devils of literary men? None, absolutely none. +Just in proportion as we honour our calling and refuse to prostitute our +talents we are at a discount. The powers that be have no earthly use for +us. We have not the ghost of a chance." + +He altered his position, looking quickly and nervously at his host. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "For the moment I forgot you were on the +other side, among the conquerors, not the conquered. Probably this +conversation does not interest you in the least." + +"On the contrary, it interests me very deeply," Dominic replied gravely. + +"All the same, out of self-respect I ought to hold my tongue about it, I +suppose. For I have accepted the position, Mr. Iglesias. I have learned +to do that. Only on each fresh occasion that it is brought home to me-- +and it has been brought home abominably clearly to-night--my gorge rises +at it. And it ought to be so. For it is an outrage--you yourself must +admit--that a man who started with excellent prospects and with the +consciousness of unusual talents--of genius, perhaps--should be ruined +and broken, while every miserable little counter-jumper----" + +He leaned his elbows on the table, hiding his face in his hands, and his +shoulders shook. + +"For I have talent," he cried, in a curiously thin voice. "Before God I +have. They may refuse to publish me, refuse to play me, force me to pick +up scraps of hack-work on fourth-rate papers to earn a bare subsistence-- +at times hardly that. Yet all the same, no supercilious beast of an +editor or actor-manager--curse the whole stinking lot--shall rob me of my +faith in myself--of my belief that I am great--if I had justice, nothing +less than that, I tell you, nothing less than great." + +Dominic Iglesias drew himself up, sitting very still, his lips rigid, not +from defect, but from excess of sympathy. The restaurant was empty now, +save for a man, four tables down, safely ensconced behind the pink pages +of an evening paper, and for a couple, at the far end, in the window--a +young Frenchwoman, whose coquettish hat and trim rounded figure were +silhouetted against the yellow silk curtain, and a precocious black- +haired youth, with a skin like pale, pink satin, round eyeglasses and an +incipient moustache. His attention was entirely occupied with the young +woman; hers entirely occupied with herself. And of this Dominic Iglesias +was glad. For the matter immediately in hand was best conducted without +witnesses. He found it strangely engrossing, strangely moving. However +vain, however madly exaggerated even, de Courcy Smyth's estimate of +himself, there could be no question but that his present emotion was as +actual and genuine as his past hunger had been. The man was utterly spent +in body and in spirit. Offensive in speech, slovenly in person, yet these +distasteful things added to, rather than detracted from, Iglesias' going +out of sympathy towards him. He had rarely been in contact with a fellow- +creature in such abandonment of distress. It was terrible to witness; yet +it gave him a sense of fellowship, of nearness, even of power, which had +in it an element of deep-seated satisfaction. While he waited for the +moment when it should become clear to him how to act, his thought +travelled back to the Lady of the Windswept Dust. He saw, not her over- +red lips, but her serious eyes; saw her tearful and in a way broken, for +all her light speech, her fanciful garments, and her antics with her +absurd little dogs amid the sweetness of sunshine and summer breeze on +Barnes Common. She was far enough away, so he judged, in sentiment and +circumstance from the embittered and poverty-haunted man sitting opposite +to him. Yet though superficially so dissimilar, they were alike in this, +that both had dared to reveal themselves, passing beyond conventional +limits in intercourse with him, Iglesias. Both had cried out to him in +their distress. And then, thinking of that recently visited altar of the +dead, thinking of the one perfect relationship he had known--his +relationship to his mother--it came to him as a revelation that not +participation in the pride of life and the splendour of it--still less +association in mere pleasure and amusement--forms the cement which binds +together the units of humanity in stable and consoling relationship; but +association in sorrow, the cry for help and the response to that cry, +whether it be help to the staying of the hunger of the heart and of the +intellect, or simply to the staying of that baser yet very searching +hunger of overstrained nerves and an empty stomach. The revelation was +partial. Iglesias groped, so to speak, in the light of it uncertain and +dazzled. But he received it as real--an idea the magnitude of which, in +inspiration and application, he was as yet by no means equal to measure. +Still he believed that could he but yield himself to it, and, in +yielding, master it, it would carry him very far, teaching him that +language of the spirit which he desired to acquire; and hence placing in +his hand that earnestly coveted key to an adjustment between the exterior +and interior life, the life of the senses and the life of the spirit, +which must needs eventuate, manward and godward alike, in triumphant +harmony. + +Meanwhile there sat de Courcy Smyth, blear-eyed, sandy-red bearded, +unsavoury, trying, poor wretch, to rally whatever of manhood was left in +him and swagger himself out of his fit of hysteria. The Latin, however +dignified, is instinctively more demonstrative than the Anglo-Saxon. +Iglesias leaned across the table and laid his hand on the other man's +shoulder. + +"Wait a little," he said. "Drink your coffee and smoke. We need not hurry +to move." + +There was a pause, during which Smyth obediently swallowed his coffee, +swallowed his _chasse_ of cognac. + +"I have made an egregious ass of myself," he said sullenly. + +"No, no," Iglesias answered. "You have honoured me by taking me into your +confidence. It rests with me to see that you never have cause to regret +having done so." + +"I believe you mean that." + +"Certainly I mean it," Iglesias answered. + +Smyth's hands trembled as he took a cigar and held a match to it. + +"I am unaccustomed to meeting with kindness," he said in a low voice. Then +recovering himself somewhat, he began to speak volubly again. "Of course +I understand it all well enough. They are simply afraid of my work, those +beasts of editors and playwrights. It is too big for them, they dare not +face it and the consequences of it. It is strong stuff, Mr. Iglesias, +strong stuff with plenty of red blood in it, and with scholarship, too. +And so they pigeon-hole my stories and drames in self-defence, knowing +that if these once reached the public, either in print or in action, +their own fly-blown anaemic productions would be hissed off the stage or +would ruin the circulation of the periodical which inserted them. It is +all jealousy, I tell you, Mr. Iglesias, rank, snakish jealousy, bred by +self-interest out of fear--a truly exalted parentage!" + +He shifted his position restlessly, again setting his elbows upon the +table and fingering the broken bread upon the cloth. + +"At times, when I can rise above the immediate injustice and cruelty +which pursue me," he went on, "I glory in my martyrdom. I range myself +alongside those heroes of literature and art, who, because they were +ahead of the age in which they lived, were scorned and repudiated by +their contemporaries; but they found their revenge in the worship of +succeeding generations. My time will come just as theirs did. It must--I +tell you it must. I know that. I am safe of eventual recognition; but I +want it now, while I am alive, while I can glut myself with the joy of +it. I want to see the men who lord it over me, just because they have +influence and money, who affect to despise me because they are green with +envy and fear of me, brought to their knees, flattened so that I can wipe +my boots on them. And--and"--he looked full at Dominic Iglesias, +spreading out both hands across the narrow table, his pale prominent eyes +blood-shot, his face working--"I want to see someone else--a woman-- +brought to her knees also. I want to make her feel what she has lost-- +curse her!--and have her come back whining." + +"And if she did come back," Iglesias asked, almost sternly, "what would +you do? Forgive her?" + +De Courcy Smyth's hands dropped with a queer little thud on the table. + +"I don't know. I suppose so. If she wanted to she could always get round +me." Then he turned on Iglesias with hysterical violence. "But what do +you know? Why do you ask that? Are you among her patrons? I trusted you. +I believed you were a gentleman in feeling--and it is a dirty trick to +get me in here and fill me up with food and liquor, when you must have +seen my nerves were all to pieces, and then spring this upon me. Oh! +hell!" he cried, "is there no comfort anywhere? Is everyone a traitor?" + +And seeing his utter abjectness, Iglesias' heart went out to the unhappy +man in immense and unqualified pity. + +"I am grieved," he said gently, "if I have pained you unnecessarily. But +truly I have sprung nothing upon you. How could I do so? I know nothing +whatever of your circumstances save that which you yourself have told me +during the last hour." + +"Then why did you ask that question about--about her?" + +"Because," Dominic answered, "I am ready to fight for you, in as far as +you will allow me to do so; but I do not fight against women." + +"You must have had uncommonly little experience of them then," Smyth +answered with a sneer. + +To this observation Mr. Iglesias deemed it superfluous to make any +answer. A silence followed. The restaurant was empty, but for the +waiters, who stood in a little knot about the door amusing themselves by +watching the movement of the street. Looking round to make sure no one +was within hearing, Smyth rose unsteadily to his feet. + +"You meant what you said just now, Mr. Iglesias--that you were ready to +fight for me?" he asked ungently yet cringingly. + +"Certainly I meant it," Dominic replied, "the proviso I have made being +respected." + +"Yes, yes, of course--but what do you understand by fighting for me? +Money?" + +Dominic had risen, too. He remained for a moment in thought. + +"Within reasonable relation to my means, yes," he said. + +"I only want my chance," the other asserted. "The rest will follow as a +matter of course. You would risk nothing, Mr. Iglesias. It would be an +investment, simply an investment. The play is not finished yet--I have +been too disheartened and disgusted recently to be able to work at it. +But it is great, I tell you, great. When it is done will you give me my +chance, and take a theatre for me and finance a couple of _matinees?_" + +Again Dominic Iglesias thought for a moment, and again, driven by that +strange necessity of fellowship--though knowing all the while he was +putting his hand to a very questionable adventure--he replied in the +affirmative. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On that same evening, and at the same hour at which Dominic Iglesias +bound himself to the practical assistance of a personally unsavoury and +professionally unsuccessful playwright, a conversation was in progress +between two persons of more exalted social station in the drawing-room of +a pleasant house in Chester Square. The said drawing-room, mid-Victorian +in aspect, was decorated in white and gold and unaggressive green. The +ground of the chintz was very white, sprinkled over with bunches of +shaded mauve roses unknown to horticulture. Lady Constance Decies' tea- +grown was white and mauve also. For she was still in half-mourning for +her father, the late Lord Fallowfeild, who had died some eighteen months +previously at a very venerable age, and with a touching modesty as though +his advent in another world might savour of intrusion. He had always been +a humble-minded man. He remained so to the last. + +The windows stood open to the balcony. And the effect of the woman, and +of the soft lights and colours surrounding her, was reposeful. For at the +age of fifty Lady Constance, though stately, was a mild and very gentle +person upon whom the push of the modern world had laid no hand. All the +active drama of her life had been crowded into a few weeks of the early +summer of her eighteenth year; since which, now remote, period she had +enjoyed a tranquil existence, happy in the love of her husband and the +care of her children. Her pretty brown hair was beginning to turn grey +upon the temples. Her eyes, set remarkably far apart, had a certain +vagueness and a great innocence of expression. She was naturally timid, +and cared but little for any society beyond that of her near relations. +To-night she was particularly content, mildly radiant even, thanks to the +presence of her favourite brother, the present Lord Fallowfeild, and his +avowed admiration of her younger daughter--a maiden of nineteen, who +stood before her, with shining eyes, in all the delicate splendour of a +spotless ball-dress. + +"Yes, darling, you look very sweet," she said. "Just lean down--the lace +has got caught in the flowers on your _berthe_. That's right. Don't keep +your father too late." + +"And in all things be discreet"--this from Lord Fallowfeild. "It's been +my motto through life, as your mother knows. And you couldn't have a +brighter example of the excellent results of it than myself. Good-night, +my dear. Enjoy yourself," and he patted her on the cheek, avoiding the +kiss which she in all innocence proffered him. "Pretty child, Kathleen, +uncommonly pretty," he continued as the door closed behind the graceful +figure. "It strikes me, Con, your girls have all the good looks of the +family in the younger generation, with the exception of Violet Aldham. +But she's getting pinched, a bit pinched and witch-like. Then she makes +up too much. I have no prejudice against a woman's improving upon nature +where nature's been niggardly. But it is among the things that'll keep. +It's a mistake to begin it too early. In my opinion Violet has begun it +too early--might quite well have given herself another ten years' +grace.--Maggie's girls are gawky, you know; and, between ourselves, so +terribly flat, poor things, both fore and aft. Upon my word, I'm not +surprised they don't marry." + +"I am afraid Maggie feels it a good deal," said Lady Constance. +Satisfaction mingled with pity in her soul. The disabilities of other +women's children are never wholly distressing to a tender mother's heart. +"You see, she's so anxious the girls should not marry the bishop's +chaplains; and yet really they hardly see any other young men. I think it +is a very difficult position, that of a bishop's wife." + +Lord Fallowfeild smiled, settling himself back in the corner of the wide +sofa and crossing his long legs. He had thought more deeply on a good +many subjects than the majority of his acquaintance supposed; with the +consequence that he occasionally surprised his fellow-peers by the +acuteness of his observations in debate. Lord Fallowfeild, it may be +added, took his recently acquired office of hereditary legislator with a +commendable mixture of humour and seriousness. + +"Their position is an anomalous one," he said; "and an anomalous position +is inevitably a difficult one--ought to be SO; in my opinion. But that's +not to the point. We were talking, not about the episcopal ladies, but +about this little business of Kathleen's. So you believe Lady Sokeington +has views and intentions?" + +"I know that she has. But you see, Shotover," Lady Constance went on, +returning to the name which that gentleman had rendered somewhat +notorious in earlier years by a record in sport, in debts, in amours, and +in irresistible sweetness of temper--"I want to be quite sure he is +really good. Because the affair has not gone very far yet and it might be +put a stop to--at least I hope and think it might--without making darling +Kathleen too dreadfully unhappy. You do believe he really is good?" + +Lord Fallowfeild leaned forward and rubbed a hardly perceptible atom of +fluff off his left trouser leg just above the ankle. + +"My dear Con," he answered, "you are very charming, but you are a trifle +embarrassing, too, you know. Haven't you learned, even at this time of +day, that very few men in our world are good in a good woman's sense of +the word?" + +Lady Constance's smooth forehead puckered into fine little lines. + +"Shotover, dear," she said, "you're not getting embittered, I hope?" + +"Me? Bless you, no, never in life!" he returned, smiling very +reassuringly at her. "Don't worry yourself under that head. I quarrel +with nobody and nothing, not even the consequences of my past iniquities. +It is a very just world, take it all round, and has been kinder to me +than I deserve." + +"Oh! but you do nothing, you--you are what--you won't think me rude, +Shotover?--what the boys call 'very decent' now." + +Lady Constance spoke hurriedly, her colour rising in the most engaging +manner. + +"As decent as I know how, you dear soul," he said, taking her hand in +his. "But that makes no difference to one's knowledge of one's own ways, +in the past, or of the ways of other men." + +"But Alaric Barking?" + +"Neither better nor worse than the rest." + +Then Lord Fallowfeild shut his small and beautiful mouth very tight, as +though he would be glad to avoid further cross-questioning. Lady +Constance's forehead remained puckered. + +"It's dreadfully difficult when one's girls grow up," she said +plaintively. "One can be comfortable about them, poor darlings, and enjoy +them when they are in the nursery--even in the schoolroom, though +governesses are worrying. They know so much about quantities of subjects +which seem to me not to matter. One never refers to them in ordinary +conversation; and if one should be obliged to it is so easy to ask +somebody to tell one. And yet they manage to make me feel dreadfully +uncomfortable and ignorant because I know nothing about them. But when +they grow up----" + +"Who, the governesses?" Lord Fallowfeild inquired. "I never supposed they +stood in need of that process--thought they started out of the egg all +finished, as you might say, and ran about at once like chickens." + +"No, no, the girls, poor darlings," Lady Constance replied. "One does get +dreadfully anxious about them, Shotover, really one does--specially if +one has escaped something very frightening oneself and has been very +happy--lest they should fall in love with the wrong people, or lest they +should be anything which one did not know beforehand and then everything +should turn out dreadful. I should be so miserable. I don't think I could +bear it. I know it is wrong to say that, because if one was really good, +one would accept whatever God sent without murmuring. So I could for +myself, I think. In any case I should earnestly try to. But for the +children it is so much harder. If they were unhappy I should feel ashamed +of having had them--as if I'd done something horribly selfish; because, +you see, there can be nothing so delightful as having children." + +She looked at Lord Fallowfeild in the most pathetic manner, the corners +of her mouth a-shake. And he took her hand and held it again, touched by +the sincerity of her confused utterance, and the great mother-love +resident in her. Touched, perhaps, by the age-old problem of man and +maid, also. + +"Dear little Con, dear little Con," he said, "I'm awfully sorry you +should be worried, but I'm afraid we've got to look facts in the face. +And it's no kindness for me to lie to you about these matters. I don't +pretend to say what's right or what's wrong; I only say what it is. We +can't make society, and the ways of it, all over again even to save +Kathleen a heartache. I don't want to seem a brute, but she must just +take her chance along with the rest of you. Marriage always has been a +confounded uncertain business, and will always remain so, I suppose. The +sort of remedies excited persons suggest to mitigate the dangers of it +are a good deal worse than the disease, in my opinion. Every woman has to +take her chance. Every man has to take his, too, you know--and the chance +strikes some of us as such an uncommonly poor one, that, upon my honour, +it seems safest to wash one's hands of it altogether." + +"But you're not unhappy, Shotover, dear? You're not lonely?" Lady +Constance inquired anxiously. + +"Abominably so sometimes, Con. But I manage, oh! I manage. I have my +consolations"--he smiled at her, perhaps a trifle shamefacedly. "But now +about Kathleen," he went on, "as I say, she must take her chance along +with the rest of you, poor little dear. After all, you took your chance +when you married Decies, and it has not turned out so badly, you know." + +Lady Constance became radiant once more, as some mild-shining summer moon +emerging from behind temporarily obscuring clouds. + +"Oh! but then," she said, "of course that was so entirely different." + +Lord Fallowfeild patted her hand, his head bent, looking at her somewhat +merrily. + +"Was it, my dear, was it?--I wonder," he said. + +She withdrew her head with a certain dignity. Notwithstanding her +softness and tenderness, there were occasions--even with those she loved +best--when Lady Constance could delicately mark her displeasure. + +"I think you are a little embittered, Shotover," she asserted. + +He leaned back, still smiling, and shaking his head at her. + +"Old and wise--unpleasantly old, and not quite such a fool as I used to +be, that's all," he answered. + +For a time there was silence, both brother and sister thinking their own +thoughts. Then the latter spoke. Like many gentle persons, she was +persistent. She always had been so. + +"I should be so grateful if you would tell me, because I think I ought to +know, and then I should try to turn the course of darling Kathleen's +affections before it all becomes too pronounced. Is there any +entanglement, anything amounting to what one calls an impediment, in-- +well--you understand--against Alaric Barking?" + +Lord Fallowfeild got up, took a turn across the room, came back, and +stood in front of her. + +"I wish you wouldn't, Con," he said. "Upon my soul, I wish you wouldn't. +It's a nasty thing for an old man, who has gone the pace in his day +pretty thoroughly, to give away a lad who may have made a slip just at +the start, and who is doing his best to get his feet again and run +straight. Alaric Barking's a good fellow. I like him. I never have been +and never shall be partial to that family. Your sister Louisa cried up +their virtues and their confounded solvency, in the old days, till she +made them a positive nuisance. She's not a happy way of inculcating a +moral economic lesson, hasn't Louisa. But I own I'm fond of this boy. +He's far the best of the whole lot--gentlemanlike, and a sportsman, and +good-looking--unusually so for one of that family--and, my dear, he's +downright honestly in love with Kathleen. I've watched him--did so when +he was down at Ranelagh one day last month with her and Victoria +Sokeington--and I know the real thing when I see it." + +"But--but, I am afraid, Shotover, you mean me to understand there is some +impediment?" Lady Constance repeated. + +"Oh! well, hang it all, I'm awfully sorry, but if you are determined to +have it, Connie, perhaps there is. Only for heaven's sake don't be in too +much of a hurry. Between ourselves, I happen to know the boy's doing his +best to shake himself free in an honourable manner. So don't rush the +business. Like the dear tender-hearted creature you are, have a little +mercy on the poor beggar. Let the whole affair drift a little. It may +straighten out." + +Lady Constance meditated for a minute or so. + +"It's very dreadful that there should be any impediment," she said. + +"I'll back Alaric to agree with you there," Lord Fallowfeild answered. + +"You'll do what you can, Shotover, won't you, to help Kathleen? I never +forget how you helped me once!" + +Lord Fallowfeild's handsome face expressed rather broad amusement. + +"I'm afraid the two cases are hardly parallel, my dear," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"The play's on the other side, the crowd's on the other side, all the +fun's on the other side, and I am on this side with nothing more lively +than you, you little shivering idiot, for company." + +Poppy St. John drew the spaniel's long silky ears through her fingers +slowly. + +"I am bored, Cappadocia," she said, with a yawn which she made not the +slightest effort to stifle, "bored right through to my very marrow. Oh +dear, oh dear, oh dear, how I do wish something would happen!" + +Poppy sat, propped up with scarlet silk cushions, in a cane deck-chair, +on the white-railed balcony upon which the first-floor bedroom windows +opened. Around her were strewn illustrated magazines and ladies' papers; +but unfortunately the stories in the former appeared to her every bit as +silly as the fashion-plates in the latter. Both had equally little to do +with life as the ordinary flesh and blood human being lives it. She was +filled with a rebellious sense of the banality of her surroundings this +afternoon. Even from her coign of vantage upon the balcony, whence wide +prospects disclosed themselves, everything looked foolish, pointless, of +the nature of an unpardonably stale joke. + +The said balcony, divided into separate compartments by the interposition +of wooden barriers, extended the whole length of the terrace of twenty- +seven houses. And these were all precisely alike, with white wood and +stucco "enrichments," as the technical phrase has it. Cheap stained and +leaded glass adorned the upper panels of the twenty-seven front doors, +which were approached by twenty-seven flights of steps--thus securing a +measure of light and air to the twenty-seven basements. The front doors +were set in couples, alternating with couples of bay windows. There was a +determination of cheap smartness, a smirking self-consciousness about the +little houses, a suggestion of having put on their best frocks and high- +heeled shoes and standing very much on tiptoe to attract attention. The +balconies, narrow where the upper bays encroached on them, wide where the +house fronts were recessed above the twin front doors, broke forth into a +garland of flower-boxes. Cascades of pink ivy-leaf geranium, creeping- +jenny, and nasturtiums backed by white or yellow Paris daisies, flowed +outward between the white ballusters and masked the edge of the woodwork. +The effect, though pretty, was not quite satisfactory--being suggestive +of millinery, of an over-trimmed summer hat. + +Immediately below was the roadway, bordered by an asphalt pavement on +either side, then the high impenetrable oak paling, which had baffled +Dominic Iglesias' maiden effort at participation in the amusements of the +rich. From Poppy's balcony, however, the palings offered no impediment to +observation. All the green expanse of the smaller polo-ground was +visible. So was the whole height of the grove of majestic elms on the +right and the back of the club house; and, and the left, between +_massifs_ of shrubbery, a vista of lawns sloping towards the river +peopled by a sauntering crowd. + +It was upon this last that Poppy directed her gaze. To the naked eye the +units composing it showed as vertical lines of grey, brown, and black, +blotted with bright delicate colour, and splashed here and there with +white, the whole mingling, uniting, breaking into fresh combinations +kaleidoscope fashion. Through the opera-glasses figures of men, women, +and horses detached themselves, becoming quaintly distinct, neat as toys, +an assemblage of elegant highly finished marionnettes. There was a +fascination in watching the movement of these brilliant, clear-cut silent +little things upon that amazingly verdant carpet of grass. But it was a +fascination which, for Poppy, had by now worn somewhat thin. The interest +proved too far away, too impersonal. Indeed it may be questioned whether +any who have not within themselves large store of resignation, or of +hope, can look on at gaiety, in which they have no share, without first +sadness and then pretty lively irritation. And of those two most precious +commodities, resignation and hope, Poppy had but limited reserve stock at +present. So she pulled the little dog's ears rather hard and lamented: + +"Oh! my good gracious me, if only something would happen!" + +Then, the words hardly out of her mouth, she shot the much-enduring +Cappadocia off her lap and, restoring her elbows on the rails, leaned +right out over the balcony. + +"Come here, dear beautiful lunatic, come here," she cried. "For pity's +sake don't pass by!" + +Perhaps fortunately this very unconventional invitation was lost upon +Dominic Iglesias, soberly crossing the road with due observance of the +eccentricities of the drivers of motor-cars and riders of bicycles. +Looking up, he was aware of a vision quite sufficiently indicative of +welcome, without added indiscretion of words.--The white balustrade, the +trailing fringe of nasturtiums, succulent leaves and orange-scarlet +blossoms; the woman's bust and shoulders in her string-coloured lace +gown, her small face, curiously vivid in effect, capped by the heavy +masses of her black hair, her singular eyes full of light, the red of her +lips and tinge of stationary pink in her cheeks supplemented by a glow of +quick excitement. A few weeks ago the ascetic in Iglesias might have +taken alarm. Now it was different. He had his idea, and, walking in the +strength of it, dared adventure himself in neighbourhoods otherwise +slightly questionable. + +Five minutes later Poppy advanced across the little drawing-room to meet +him. + +"Well," she said, "of course you might have come sooner. But, equally of +course, you might never have come at all, so I won't quarrel with you +about the delay, though I would like you to know it has worried me a good +deal." + +"Has it? I am sorry for that," Dominic answered gravely. + +"Yes, be sorry, be sorry," she repeated. "It is comfortable to hear you +say so." + +She looked at him with the utmost frankness, took his hand and led him to +a settee filling in the right angle between the fireplace and the double +doors at the back of the room. + +"Sit down," she said, "and let us talk. Have another cushion--so--and if +you're good I'll give you tea presently. And understand, you needn't be +careful of yourself. I'll play perfectly fair with you. I've been +thinking it all out during this time you didn't come; and I never go back +on my word once given. So, look here, you needn't account for yourself in +any way. I don't even want to know your name--specially I don't want to +know that. It might localise you, and I don't want to have you localised. +Directly a person is localised it takes away their restfulness to one. +One begins to see just all the places where they belong to somebody else, +notice-boards struck up everywhere warning one to keep off the grass. And +that's a nuisance. It raises Old Nick in one, and makes one long to +commit all manner of wickedness which would never have entered one's head +otherwise." + +Poppy held her hands palm to palm between her knees, glancing at Dominic +Iglesias now and again sideways as she spoke. The bodice of her dress, +cut slightly _en coeur_, showed the nape of her neck, and the whole of her +throat, which was smooth and rounded though rather long. Her make +altogether was that not uncommon to London girls of the lower middle- +class: small-boned and possibly anaemic, but prettily moulded, and with an +attraction of over-civilisation as of hot-house-grown plants. Just now +her head seemed bowed down by the weight of her dark hair, as she sat +gathered together, making herself small as a child will when +concentrating its mind to the statement of some serious purpose. + +"I've knocked about a lot," she went on. "It's right you should know +that. And there's not very much left to tell me about a number of things +not usually set down in conversation books designed for _debutants_. But +just on that account I may be rather useful to you in some ways.--Don't +go and be offended now, there's a dear, good man," she added coaxingly. +"Because judging by what you told me the other day, there's no doubt +that, under some heads, you are very much of a _debutant_." + +"I suppose I am," Iglesias said slowly. It was very strange to him to +find himself in so sudden and close an intimacy with this at once so wise +and so artificial woman creature. But he had his idea. Moreover, +increasingly he trusted her. + +"Of course you are," she asserted. "That's just where the beauty of it +all comes in. You're the veriest infant. One has only to look into your +face to see that.--Don't go and freeze up now. You belong to another +order of doctrine and practice to that current in contemporary society." + +Poppy gazed at the floor, still making herself small, the palms of her +hands pressed together between her knees. + +"And that's just why you can be useful to me, awfully useful, if you +choose--I don't mean money, business, anything of the kind. I'm perfectly +competent to manage my own affairs, thank you. But you're good for me, +somehow. You rest me." + +She began to rock herself gently backwards and forwards, but without +taking the heels of her shoes off the ground. + +"Yes, you rest me, you rest me," she repeated. + +"I am glad," Iglesias said. He felt soberly pleased, thankful almost. + +Again Poppy glanced at him sideways. + +"Yes, I believe you are," she said. "And that shows things have happened +to you--in you, more likely--since we last met. You have come on a great +piece." + +"I doubt if I have come on, so much as gone back, to influences of long +ago," he answered; "to things which had been overlaid by the dust of my +working years almost to the point of obliteration." + +"Was it pleasant to go back?" Poppy asked. + +"Not at all. The going was painful. It required some courage to brush off +the dust." + +"It usually does require courage--at least that's my experience--to brush +off the dust." + +Dominic Iglesias made no immediate answer. He was a little startled at +his companion's acute reading of him, a little touched by her confidence. +Her words seemed to suggest the possibility of a relationship which +fitted in admirably with the development of his idea. He sat looking away +across the room, and, doing so, became aware that the said room possessed +unexpected characteristics, calculated to elucidate his impressions of +its owner's character. It was a man's room rather than a woman's, +innocent of furbelows and frills. Two low, wide settees, well furnished +with cushions and upholstered in dark yellowish-red tapestry, fitted into +the corners on either side the double doors. A couple of large armchairs +and a revolving book-table occupied the centre of the room. An upright +piano, in an ebonised case, draped across the back with an Indian +phulkari--discs of looking-glass set in coarsely worked yellow eyelet +holes forming the border of it--stood at right angles to the wall just +short of the bay window. In the window, placed slant-wise, was a carved +black oak writing-table, a long row of photographs stuck up against the +back shelf of it. The walls were hung with a set of William Nicolson's +prints, strong, dark, distinct, slightly sinister in effect; a fine +etching of Jean Francois Millet's _Gleaners_; and, in noticeable contrast +to this last, a mezzotint of Romney's picture of Lady Hamilton spinning. +Upon the book-table were a silver ash-tray and cigarette-box. The air was +unquestionably impregnated with the odour of tobacco, which the burning +of scent-sticks quite failed to dissemble. + +While Mr. Iglesias thus noted the details of his surroundings, his +companion observed him, closely, intently. Suddenly she flung herself +back against the piled-up cushions. + +"Let the dust lie, let it lie," she cried, almost shrilly. And as Dominic +turned to her, surprised at her vehemence, she added, "Yes, it's safest +so. Let it lie till it grows thick, carpeting all the surface, so that, +treading on it, one's footsteps are muffled, making no sound!" + +Poppy jumped up, crossed swiftly to the writing-table, swept the long row +of photographs together and pushed them into a drawer. + +"There you go, face downwards, every man Jack of you," she said. "And, +for all I care, there you may stay." + +Then she turned round, confronting Dominic Iglesias, who had risen also, +her head carried high, her teeth set. + +"You may not grasp the connection of ideas--I don't the very least see +how you should, and I've no extra special wish that you should. But you +must just take my word for it that's one way of thickening the dust, in +my particular case, and not half a bad way either!" + +She pushed the heavy masses of her hair up from her forehead, crossed the +little room again and stood before Iglesias smiling, her hands clasped +behind her back. + +"Yes, you rest me," she said, "you do, even more than I expected. I +wanted awfully to see you; and yet I was half afraid if I did we mightn't +pull the thing off. But we are going to pull it off, aren't we?" + +This direct appeal demanded a direct answer; and Iglesias, looking down +at her, felt nerved to a certain steadiness of resolve. + +"Yes, we are," he said gravely. "That, at least, is my purpose. I have +very few friends. I should value a new one." Then he added, with a +certain hesitancy, "I am glad you are not disappointed." + +"Ah! you have come on--not a question about it," Poppy cried. "Sit down +again. You needn't go yet. And we are through with disturbances for this +afternoon anyhow. An anti-cyclone, as the weather reports put it, is +extending over all our coasts. I feel quite happy. Let me enjoy the anti- +cyclone while it lasts--and I'll give you your tea." + +But of that tea Dominic Iglesias was fated not to drink. A ring at the +bell, a parley at the front door, followed by the advent of an elderly +parlourmaid bearing a card on a small lacquer tray. + +"His lordship says if you're engaged he could wait a little, ma'am. But +he wants particularly to see you to-day." + +Poppy took the card, glanced at it, and then at Dominic Iglesias. + +"I'm afraid, I'm awfully afraid I shall have to let you go," she said. +She took both his hands, and holding them, without pressure but with a +great friendliness, went on: "Don't be offended, or you'll make me +miserable. But he's an old friend; and he's been a perfect brick to me-- +stood by me through all my worst luck. I can't send him away. You won't +be off ended?" + +"No," Iglesias said. + +"And you will come again? You make me feel all smooth and good. You +promise you'll come?" + +"Yes," Iglesias said. + +In the narrow passage a tall, eminently well-dressed middle-aged +gentleman stood aside to let him pass. Dominic Iglesias received the +impression of a very handsome person, whose possible insolence of bearing +received agreeable modification, thanks to the expression of kindly +humorous eyes and a notably beautiful mouth. + +Upon the centre table of the square first-floor sitting-room at Cedar +Lodge a note awaited Mr. Iglesias, addressed in George Lovegrove's neat +business hand. + +"Dear old friend," it ran--"the wife asks you to take supper with us to- +morrow night. Step across as early as you like. My cousin, Miss Serena +Lovegrove, is paying us a visit. Yours faithfully, G. L.--N. B. Come as +you are: no ceremony. G. L." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"Hullo, girlie," called the red and green parrot, as it helped itself up +the side of its zinc cage with beak as well as claws. + +Serena Lovegrove had opened the door suddenly. Then, seeing that Mr. +Iglesias alone occupied the room, neither her host nor hostess being +present, she paused in the doorway, a large floppy yellow silk work-bag +in her hands, undecided whether to retreat or to proceed. And it was thus +that the bird, discovering her advent, announced it, while the pupils of +his hard, round yellowish grey eyes dilated and contracted--"snapped," as +Serena would have said--maliciously. + +Serena was a tall, elegant, faded woman, dressed in black, her little +upright head balanced upon a long thin stalk of neck. Though undeniably +faded, there was, as now seen in the quiet evening light, a suggestion of +youthfulness about her. He brown eyes, pretty though rather small, +snapped even as did those of the parrot. Excitement--to-night she was +very much excited--invariably produced in Serena an effect of clutching +at her long-departed girlhood, an effect sufficiently pathetic in the +case of a woman well on in the forties. And it was precisely this +ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent a +sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it +called out again: + +"Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and ear- +piercing whistle:--"Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And hoarsely, +with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't yer? Shut the +door." + +During the delivery of these final admonitions Mr. Iglesias had +recognised the shadowy figure standing on the threshold and advanced. +This decided Serena. Still twisting the ribbons of the yellow work-bag +round her thin fingers, she drifted into the room. + +"I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice before, +Miss Lovegrove," Dominic said. His manner was specially gentle and +courtly, for he could not but feel the poor lady was at a disadvantage, +owing to the very articulate indiscretions of the parrot. + +"Oh! yes," Serena answered. "Certainly we have met. But you are wrong as +to the number of times. It is more than once or twice. Five times, I +think; or it may have been six. No, it is five, because I remember you +were expected, in the evening, the day before I went home the winter +before last; and at the last moment you were unable to come. That would +have made six. Now it is only five." + +"You have an excellent memory," Iglesias said. "It is kind of you to +remember so clearly." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean, I wonder whether it is kind," Serena +rejoined. + +She was quite innocent of any intention of sarcasm. But her mind, like +those of so many unoccupied, and consequently self-occupied persons, was +addicted to speculation of a minor and vacuous sort. She was also liable +--as such persons often are--to mistake cavilling for spirit and wit--a +most tedious error! + +"Still you are right in saying I have a good memory," she added. "People +generally observe that. But then I was always taught it was rude to +forget. Forgetfulness is the result of inattention. At school I never had +any difficulty in learning by heart." + +"You must have found that both a useful and pleasant talent." + +"Perhaps," Serena replied negligently. She was determined not to commit +herself, having arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Iglesias' address was +too civil. "It was bad manners of him not to remember how often we had +met," she said to herself, "and now he is trying to pass it off. But that +won't do!" Serena had many and distinct views on the subject of manner +and manners. She was never certain that civility did not argue a defect +of sincerity. She agreed with herself to think that over again later. +Meanwhile she would carefully remark Mr. Iglesias. "If he is insincere, +as I fear he is, he is sure to betray it in other ways. Then I shall be +on my guard." Forewarned is, of course, forarmed, and Serena felt very +acute. Though against exactly what she was taking such elaborate +precautions, it would have been difficult for her, or for anyone else, to +have stated. However, just now it was incumbent upon her to make +conversation. As is the way with persons not very fertile in ideas, she +had recourse to the simple expedient of asking a leading question. + +"Are you fond of animals?" she inquired. + +"I am afraid I have very little knowledge of animals," Iglesias replied. + +Serena laughed dryly. This was so transparent a subterfuge. + +"What a very odd answer!" she said. "Because everybody must really know +whether they like animals or not." + +"I am afraid I stand by myself then, a solitary exception. I have had +little or nothing to do with animals, and have therefore had no +opportunity of discovering whether they attract me or not." + +"How very odd!" Serena repeated. + +She moved across to the centre-table where Mr. Lovegrove's books of +picture postcards, the miscellaneous consequences of many charity +bazaars, and kindred aesthetic treasures reposed, and deposited her work- +bag in their company. Her movement revived the attention of the parrot, +who had been nodding on its perch. + +"Poor old girlie, take a brandy and soda? Kiss and be friends. Good- +night, all," it murmured hoarsely, half asleep. + +"If your question bore reference to that particular animal, I stand in no +doubt as to my sentiments," Dominic remarked. "I am anything but fond of +it. I think it an odious bird." + +"Ah! you see you do know," Serena exclaimed. "I was sure you did." She +felt justified in her suspicion of his sincerity. "But nobody would agree +with you, Mr. Iglesias, because of course it is really a very clever +parrot. They very seldom learn to say so many things." + +"How fortunate!" Dominic permitted himself to ejaculate. + +"I don't see why you should say it is fortunate." + +"Do not its remarks strike you as somewhat impertinent and intrusive?" + +"I wonder if an animal can be impertinent," Serena said reflectively. + +But here to her vexation, for it appeared to her that she had just +started a really interesting subject of discussion, Mrs. Lovegrove +bustled into the room. + +"Well, Mr. Iglesias," she began, "I am sure I am very delighted to see +you, and so will Georgie be. He was remarking only yesterday we don't +seem to see so much of you as we used to do. He's just a little behind +time, is Georgie, having been kept by the dear vicar at a meeting about +the Church Workers' Social Evenings Guild at the Mission Room in Little +Bethesda Street. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Iglesias--though I +can't help hoping you will some day--but Serena knows, don't you, +Serena? It's where Susan--her elder sister, Miss Lovegrove"--this aside +to Dominic--"gave an address once to the members of the Society for the +Conversion of the Jews." + +"No doubt I remember; but Susan is always giving addresses somewhere," +Serena said loftily. + +"And very good and kind of her it is to give addresses," Mrs. Lovegrove +rejoined. "Even the dear vicar says what a remarkable gift she has as a +speaker, and there's no question as to the worth of his praise." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is good and kind of Susan to +give addresses," Serena remarked. "Because of course she enjoys giving +them. Susan likes to have a number of people listening to her." + +"But if the object is a noble one?"--this from Mrs. Lovegrove, a little +nonplussed and put about. + +"Still, if you enjoy doing anything, how can it be good and kind to do +it?" Serena said argumentatively. "Susan is very fond of publicity. I +think people very often deceive themselves about their own motives." + +She looked meaningly at Dominic Iglesias as she spoke. And he looked back +at her gravely and kindly, though with a slightly amused smile. His +thoughts had travelled away--they had done so pretty frequently during +the last twenty-four hours--to the smirking self-conscious little house +on the verge of Barnes Common. Unpromising though it had appeared +outwardly, yet within it he believed he had found a friend--a friend who +was also an enigma. Perhaps, as he now reflected, all women are enigmas. +Certainly they are amazingly different. He thought of Poppy. He looked at +Serena. Yes, doubtless they all are enigmas; only--might Heaven forgive +him the discourtesy--all are not enigmas equally well worth finding out. + +George Lovegrove arrived. Supper, a somewhat heavy and hybrid meal, +followed--"all comfortable and friendly," as Mrs. Lovegrove described it, +"no ceremony and fal-lals, but everything put down on the table so that +you could see it and please yourself." + +Serena, however, was difficult to please. She picked daintily at the food +on her plate. Her host observed her with solicitude. + +"Do take a little more," he said, in an anxious aside, Mrs. Lovegrove +being safely engaged in conversation with Mr. Iglesias, "or I shall begin +to be nervous lest we aren't offering you quite what you like." + +But Serena was obdurate. + +"Pray don't mind, George," she said. "You know I never eat much. I am +quite different from Susan, for instance. She always has a large +appetite, and so have all her friends. Low Church people always have, I +think. But I never care to eat a great deal, especially in hot weather." + +Serena was really very glad indeed to come to London just now. Still, +there were self-respecting decencies to be observed, specially in the +presence of another guest. Relationship does not necessarily imply social +equality; and, as Serena reminded herself, the family always had felt +that poor George had married beneath him. Therefore it was well to keep +the fact of her own superior refinement well in view. In the case of good +George Lovegrove this was, however, a work of supererogation. For he had +a, to himself, positively embarrassing respect for Serena's gentility-- +embarrassing because at moments it came painfully near endangering the +completeness of his consideration for "the wife's feelings." The two +ladies frequently differed upon matters of taste and etiquette, with the +result that the good man's guileless breast was torn by conflicting +emotions. For had not Serena's father been a General Officer of the +Indian army? And had not Serena herself and her elder sister Susan--a +person of definite views and commanding character--long been resident at +Slowby in Midlandshire, an inland watering-place of acknowledged fashion? +It followed that her pronouncements on social questions were necessarily +final. Yet to uphold her judgment, as against that of the wife, was to +risk mortifying the latter. And to mortify the wife would be to act as a +heartless scoundrel. Hence situations, for George Lovegrove, difficult to +the point of producing profuse perspiration. + +That night Serena prepared for rest with remarkable deliberation. Clad in +a blue and white striped cotton dressing-gown, she sat long at her +toilet-table. And all the time she wondered--a far-reaching, mazelike, +elaborately intricate and wholly inconclusive wonder. Hers was a nature +which suffered perpetual solicitation from possible alternatives, hearing +warning voices from the vague, delusive regions of the might-be or might- +have-been. She had never grasped the rudimentary but very important truth +that only that which actually is in the least matters. And so to arrive +at what is, with all possible despatch--in so far as such arriving is +practicable--and then to go forward, comprises the whole duty of the sane +human being. Par from this, Serena's mind forever fitted batlike in the +half-darkness of innumerable small prejudices and ignorances. She moved, +as do so many women of her class, in a twilight, embryonic world, +untouched alike by the splendour and terror of living. + +Nevertheless, on this particular occasion, as she brushed her hair and +inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure to-morrow's +decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous. She wondered +whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether she had held +her own and shown independence and spirit. She laboured under the quaint +early-Victorian notion that, in the presence of members of the opposite +sex, a woman is called upon always to play something of a part. She +should advance, so to speak, and then retreat; provoke interest by a +studied indifference; yield a little, only to become more elegantly +fugitive. It may be doubted whether these wiles have even been a very +successful adjunct to feminine charms. But in the case of so negative and +colourless a creature as Serena, they were pathetically devoid of result. +Play a part industriously as she might, the majority of her audience was +wholly unaware that she was, in point of fact, playing anything at all! +They might think her a little capricious, a little foolish, but that +there was intention or purpose in her pallid flightiness passed the +bounds of imagination. Never mind, if the audience had no sense of the +position, Serena had, and she enjoyed it. Excitement possessed her, and +her eyes snapped even yet as, thinking it all over, she fastened the +curlers in her hair. + +She wondered whether George and Rhoda--how intensely she disliked the +name Rhoda!--had any special reason for asking her just now, and talking +so much about Mr. Iglesias, or whether it was a coincidence. + +"Of course it is not of the slightest importance to me whether they have +or not," she reflected. "I think it would be rather an impertinence if +they had. Still, I think I had better find out; but without letting Rhoda +suspect, of course. If you give her any encouragement Rhoda is inclined +to go too far and say what is rather indelicate. I always have thought +Rhoda had a rather vulgar mind. I wonder if poor George feels that? I +believe he does, before me. Once or twice to-night he was very nervous. +How dreadfully coarse poor Rhoda's skin is getting! I wonder if Rhoda has +given Susan a hint, and if that was what made Susan so gracious about my +leaving home? But I don't believe she did--I mean that Susan suspected +that George and Rhoda had any particular reason for inviting me. I wonder +if I shall ever make Susan see that I am not a cipher? Of course if +George and Rhoda really have any particular reason, and Susan comes to +know it, that will show her that other people do not consider me a +cipher. I wonder what most people would think of Mr. Iglesias? Of course +he has only been a bank clerk; but then so has George. Only then he is a +foreigner, and that makes a difference. I wonder whether, if anything +came of it, Susan would make his being a foreigner an objection?" + +But this was growing altogether too definite and concrete. With a sort of +mental squeak Serena's thought flitted into twilight and embryonic +regions. + +"I think if they have any particular reason, it is rather scheming of +George and Rhoda. I wonder if it is nice of them? If they have, I think +it is rather deceitful. I wonder if they have said anything to Mr. +Iglesias?" + +Serena, with the aid of a curling-pin, was controlling the short fuzzy +little hairs just at the nape of her neck; and this last wonder proved so +absorbing a one that she remained, head bent and fingers aimlessly +fiddling with the bars of the curler, till it suddenly occurred to her +that she was getting quite stiff. + +"If they have, I think it is very presuming of them," she continued +wrathfully, stretching her arms, for they ached--"very presuming. How +glad I am I was on my guard. I wonder if they saw I was on my guard? I +believe George did. I wonder if that helped to make him nervous?" + +Serena fastened in the last of the curlers. There was no excuse for +sitting up any longer; yet she lingered. + +"I must be more on my guard than ever," she said. + +Meanwhile Dominic Iglesias, after sitting in the dining-room with his old +friend while the latter smoked a last pipe, made his way across the Green +in the deepening mystery of the summer night. The sky was moonless; and +at the zenith, untouched by the upward streaming light of the great city, +the stars showed fair and bright. A nostalgia of wide untenanted spaces, +of far horizons, of emotions at once intimate and rooted in things +eternal, was upon him. But of Serena Lovegrove, it must be admitted, he +thought not one little bit. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Only one of the trees from which Cedar Lodge derives its name was still +standing. This lonely giant, sombre exile from Libanus, overshadowed all +that remained of the formerly extensive garden and sensibly darkened the +back of the house. Its foliage, spread like a deep pile carpet upon the +wide horizontal branches, was worn and sparse, showing small promise of +self-renewal. Yet though starved by the exhausted soil, and clogged by +soots from innumerable chimneys, it remained majestic, finely decorative +as some tree of metal, of age-old bronze roughened by a greenness of +deep-eating rust. From the first moment of his acquaintance with Cedar +Lodge it had been to Dominic Iglesias an object of attraction, even of +sympathy. For he recognised in it something stoical, an unmoved dignity +and lofty indifference to the sordid commonplace of its surroundings. It +made no concessions to adverse circumstances, but remained proudly +itself, owning for sole comrade the Wind--that most mysterious of all +created things, unseen, untamed, mateless, incalculable. The wind gave it +voice, gave it even a measure of mobility, as it swept through the +labyrinth of dry unfruitful branches and awoke a husky music telling of +far-distant times and places, making a shuddering and stirring as of the +resurgence of long-forgotten hope and passion. + +When Dominic entered into residence at Cedar Lodge, a pair of stout +mauve-brown wood-pigeons--migrants from the pleasant elms of Holland +Park--had haunted the tree. But they being, for all their dolorous +cooings, birds of a lusty, not to say truculent, habit, grew weary of its +persistent solemnity of aspect. So, at least, Dominic judged. He had been +an interested spectator of the love-makings, quarrels, and +reconciliations of these comely neighbours from his bedroom window daily +while dressing. But one fine spring morning he saw them fly away and +never saw them fly back again. Clearly they had removed themselves to +less solemn quarters, leaving the great tree, save for fugitive +visitations from its comrade the wind, to solitary meditation within the +borders of its narrow prison-place. + +Besides presenting in itself an object altogether majestical, the cedar +performed a practical office whereby it earned Iglesias' gratitude. For +its dark interposing bulk effectually shut off the view of an +aggressively new rawly red steam laundry, with shiny slate roofs and a +huge smoke-belching chimney to it, which, to the convulsive disgust of +the gentility of the eastern side of Trimmer's Green, had had the +unpardonable impertinence to get itself erected in an adjacent street. It +followed that when, one wet evening, yellow-headed little Mr. Farge had +advised himself to speak slightingly of the cedar tree, Iglesias was +prepared to defend it, if necessary, with some warmth. + +The conversation had ranged round the subject of the hour, namely, the +possibility--as yet in the estimation of most persons an incredible one-- +of war with the Boer Republics, when the young man indulged in a playful +aside addressed to Miss Hart, at whose right hand he was seated. + +"If I could find fault with anything belonging to the lady at the head of +the table," he said, "it would be the gloomy old party looking in at +these back windows." + +"What, the dear old cedar tree! Never, Mr. Farge!" protested Eliza. + +"Yes, it would, though," he insisted, "when, as tonight, it is drip, +drip, dripping all over the shop. No touch of Sunny Jim about him, is +these now, Bert?"--this to the devoted Worthington sitting immediately +opposite to him on Miss Hart's left. + +"Truly there is not, if I may venture so far," the other young gentleman +responded, playing up obediently. "And if anything could give me and +Charlie a fit of the blues, I believe that old fellow would in rainy +weather." + +"Makes you think of the cemetery, does it not now, Bert?" + +"You have hit it. Paddington--not the station though, Charlie, just +starting for a cosey little trip with your best girl up the river." + +"For shame, Mr. Worthington," Eliza protested again, giggling. + +"Suggestive of the end of all week-ends, in short," de Courcy Smyth, who +contrary to his custom was present at dinner that evening, put in +snarlingly. "One last trip up the River of Death for you, with a ticket +marked not transferrable, eh, Farge? Then an oblong hole in the reeking +blue clay, silence and worms." + +His tone was spiteful to the point of commanding attention. A hush fell +on the company, broken only by the drifting sob of the rain through the +branches of the great cedar. Mr. Farge went perceptibly pale. Mrs. +Porcher sighed and turned her fine eyes up to the ceiling. Iglesias +looked curiously at the speaker. Eliza Hart was the first to find voice. + +"Pray, Mr. Smyth," she said, "don't be so very unpleasant. You're enough +to give one the goose-skin all over." + +"I am sorry I have offended," he answered sullenly. "But I beg leave to +call attention to the fact that I did not start this subject. I was +rather interested in the previous discussion, which gave an opportunity +of intelligent conversation not habitual among us. Farge is responsible +for the interruption, and for the cemeteries, and consequently for my +comment. Still, I am sorry I have offended." + +He shifted his position, glancing uneasily first at his hostess, and then +at Dominic Iglesias, who sat opposite him in the place of honour at that +lady's right hand. + +"You have not offended, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. Porcher declared graciously. +"And no doubt it is well for us all to be reminded of death and burial at +times. Though some of us hardly need reminding"--again she sighed. "We +carry the thought of them about with us always." And she turned her fine +eyes languidly upon Mr. Iglesias. + +"My poor sweet Peachie," the kind-hearted Eliza murmured, under her +breath. + +"But at meals, perhaps, a lighter vein is more suitable, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. +Porcher continued. "At table the thought of death does seem rather +disheartening, does it not? But about our poor old cedar tree now, Mr. +Farge? You were not seriously proposing to have it removed?" + +"Well, strictly between ourselves, I am really half afraid I actually +was." + +"You forget it sheltered my childhood. It is associated with all my +past." + +"Can a rosebud have a past?" Farge cried, coming up to the surface again +with a bounce, so to speak. + +Mrs. Porcher smiled, shook her head in graceful reproof, and turned once +more to Dominic. + +"I think we should all like to know how you feel about it, Mr. Iglesias," +she said. "Do you wish the poor old tree removed?" + +"On the contrary, I should greatly regret it's being cut down," he +answered. "It would be a loss to me personally, for I have always taken a +pleasure both in the sound and the sight of it. But that is a minor +consideration." + +"You must allow me to differ from that opinion," Mrs. Porcher remarked, +with gentle emphasis. "We can never forget, can we, Eliza, who is our +oldest guest? Mr. Iglesias' opinion must ever carry weight in all which +concerns Cedar Lodge." + +Here Farge and Worthington made round eyes at one another, while de +Courcy Smyth shuffled his feet under the table. He had received a +disquieting impression. + +"Oh! of course, Peachie, dear," Miss Hart responded. She hugged herself +with satisfaction. "The darling looks more bonny than ever," she +reflected. "To-night what animation! What tact! She seems to have come +out so lately, since that Serena Lovegrove has been stopping over the +way. Not that there could be any rivalry between her and that poor +thread-paper of a thing!" + +Dominic Iglesias, however, received his hostess' pretty speeches with a +calm which turned the current of the ardent Eliza's thoughts, causing her +to refer, mentally, to the degree of emotion which might be predicated of +monuments, mountains, stone elephants, and kindred objects. + +"You are very kind," he said. "But on grounds far more important than +those of any private sentiment the cutting down of the cedar calls for +careful consideration. I am afraid you would find it a serious loss to +the beauty of your property. What the house loses in light, it certainly +gains in distinction and interest from the presence of the tree." + +"Yes," Mrs. Porcher returned, folding her plump pink hands upon the edge +of the table and looking down modestly. "It does speak of family +perhaps." + +"And in your case, dear, it speaks nothing more than the truth," Eliza +declared. "Just as well a certain gentleman should reckon with Peachie's +real position," she said to herself--"specially with that stuck-up Serena +Lovegrove cat-and-mousing about on the other side of the Green. It does +not take a Solomon to see what she's after!" + +"I am afraid the verdict is given against you, Mr. Farge. The cedar tree +will remain." Mrs. Porcher rose as she spoke. + +The young man playfully rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, feigning +tears. Then a scrimmage ensued between him and Worthington as to which +should reach the dining-room door first and throw it open before the +ladies. At this exhibition of high spirits de Courcy Smyth groaned +audibly, while Mrs. Porcher, linking her arm within that of Miss Hart, +lingered. + +"You will join our little circle in the drawing-room to-night, will you +not, Mr. Iglesias?" she pleaded. + +Again the young men made round eyes at one another. De Courcy Smyth had +come forward. He stood close to Iglesias and, before the latter could +answer, spoke hurriedly: + +"Can you give me ten minutes in private? I don't want to press myself +upon you, but this is imperative." + +Iglesias proceeded to excuse himself to his hostess, thereby causing Miss +Hart to refer mentally to monuments and mountains once again. + +"Thank you," Smyth gasped. His face was twitching and he swayed a little, +steadying himself with one hand on the corner of the dinner-table. + +"I loathe asking," he continued, "I loathe pressing my society upon you, +since you do not seek it. It has taken days for me to make up my mind to +this; but it is necessary. And, after all, you made the original offer +yourself." + +"I am quite ready to listen, and to renew any offer which I may have +made," Iglesias answered quietly. + +"We can't talk here, though," Smyth said. "That blundering ass of a +waiter will be coming in directly; and whatever he overhears is sure to +go the round of the house. All servants are spies." + +"We can go up to my sitting-room and talk there," Iglesias replied. + +Yet he was conscious of making the proposal with reluctance, pity +struggling against repulsion. For not only was the man's appearance very +unkempt, but his manner and bearing were eloquent of a certain +desperation. Of anything approaching physical fear Dominic Iglesias was +happily incapable. But his sitting-room had always been a peaceful place, +refuge alike from the strain and monotony of his working life. It held +relics, moreover, wholly dear to him, and to introduce into it this +inharmonious and, in a sense, degraded presence savoured of desecration. +Therefore, not without foreboding, as of one who risks the sacrifice of +earnestly cherished security, he ushered his guest into the quiet room. + +The gas, the small heart-shaped flames of which showed white against the +dying daylight coming in through the windows, was turned low in the +bracket-lamps on either side the high mantelpiece. Dominic Iglesias +moved across and drew down the blinds, catching sight as he did so-- +between the tossing foliage of the balsam-poplars which glistened in the +driving wet--of the unwinking gaselier in the Lovegroves' dining-room, on +the other side of the Green. He remembered that he ought to have called +on Mrs. Lovegrove and Miss Serena, and that he had been guilty of a lapse +of etiquette in not having done so. But he reflected poor Miss Serena was +a person whose existence it seemed so curiously difficult to bear +actively in mind. Then he grew penitent, as having added discourtesy to +discourtesy in permitting himself this reflection. He came back from the +window, turned up the lights, drew forward an armchair and motioned Smyth +to be seated; fetched a cut-glass spirit decanter, tumblers, and a syphon +of soda from the sideboard and set them at his guest's elbow. + +"Pray help yourself," he said. "And here, will you not smoke while we +talk?" + +Smyth's pale, prominent eyes had followed these preparations for his +comfort with avidity, but now, the handsome character of his surroundings +being fully disclosed to him, he was filled with uncontrollable envy. +Silently he filled his glass, by no means stinting the amount of alcohol, +gulped down half the contents of the tumbler, paused a moment, leaning +his elbow on the table, and said: + +"We were treated to a public exhibition of feminine cajolery in your +direction, Mr. Iglesias, at the end of dinner. It occurs to me we might +have been spared that. I have never had the honour of penetrating into +your apartments before; but the aspect of them is quite sufficient +indication as to who is the favoured member of Mrs. Porcher's +establishment." + +Dominic had remained standing. Hospitality demanded that he should do all +in his power to secure his guest's material comfort; but there, in his +opinion, immediate obligation ceased. In thus remaining standing he had a +quaint sense of safeguarding the sanctities of the place. The man's tone +was curiously offensive. Involuntarily Mr. Iglesias' back stiffened a +little. + +"I took these rooms unfurnished," he said. And then added: "May I ask +what your business with me may be?" + +Smyth had recourse to his tumbler again. His hand shook so that his teeth +chattered against the edge of the glass. + +"I am a fool," he said sullenly. "But my nerves are all to pieces. I +cannot control myself. I have come here to ask a favour of you, and yet +some devil prompts me to insult you. I hate you because I am driven to +make use of you. And this room, in its sober luxury, emphasises the +indignity of the position, offering as it does so glaring a contrast to +my own quarters--here under the same roof, only one flight of stairs +above--that I can hardly endure it. Life is hideously unjust. For what +have you done--you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water +to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers--to deserve this immunity +from anxiety and distress; while I, with my superior culture, my ambition +and talents, am condemned to that beastly squeaking wire-wove mattress +upstairs, and a job-lot of furniture which some previous German waiter +has ejected in disgust from his bedroom in the basement? But there--I beg +your pardon. I ought to be accustomed to injustice. I have served a long +enough apprenticeship to it. Only--partly, thanks to you, I own that--I +have seemed to see the dawning of hope again--hope of success, hope of +recognition, hope of revenge; and just on that account it becomes +intolerable to run one's head against this paralysing, stultifying dead +wall of poverty and debt."--He bowed himself together, and his voice +broke.--"I owe Mrs. Porcher money for my miserable bedsitting-room and my +board, and I am so horribly afraid she will turn me out. The place is +detestable; unworthy of me--of course it is--but I am accustomed to it. +And I am not myself. I am terrified at the prospect of any change. In +short, I am worn out. And they see that, those beasts of editors. The +_Evening Dally Bulletin_ has given me my _conge_. I have lost the last of +my hack-work. It was miserable work, wholly beneath a man of my capacity; +still it brought me in a pittance. Now it is gone. Practically I am a +pauper, and I owe money in this house." + +"I am sorry, very sorry," Iglesias said. "You should have spoken sooner. +I could not force myself into your confidence; but, believe me, I have +not been unmindful of my engagement. I have merely waited for you to +speak." + +His manner was gentle, yet he remained standing, still possessed by an +instinct to thus safeguard the sanctities of the place. He paused, giving +the other man time to recover a measure of composure: then he asked +kindly, anxious to conduct the conversation into a happier channel: +"Meanwhile, how is the play advancing? Well, I hope--so that you find +solace and satisfaction in the prosecution of it." + +Smyth moved uneasily, looking up furtively at his questioner. + +"Oh! it is grand," he said, "unquestionable it is grand. You need have no +anxiety under that head. Pray understand that anything that you may do +for me in the interim, before the play is produced, is simply an +investment. You need not be in the least alarmed. You will see all your +money back--see it doubled, certainly doubled, probably trebled." + +"I was not thinking of investments," Iglesias put in quietly. + +"But I am," Smyth asserted. "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I +should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in the +end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a favour? You +humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested generosity. Let +me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in assuming it you do not +treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is mean to take advantage of +my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself thus at my expense. Of +course I understand your point of view. From your associations and +occupations you must inevitably worship the god of wealth. One cannot +expect anything else from a business man. You gauge every one's +intellectual capacity by his power of making money. Well, wait then-- +just wait; and when that play appears, see if I do not compel you to rate +my intellectual capacity very highly. For there are thousands in that +play, I tell you--tens of thousands. It is only in the interim that I am +reduced to this detestable position of dependence. I know the worth of my +work, if----" + +But Iglesias' patience was beginning to wear rather thin. He interposed +calmly, yet with authority. + +"Pardon me," he said, "but it is irrelevant to discuss my attitude of +mind or my past occupations. It will be more agreeable for us, both now +and in the future, to treat any matters that arise between us as +impersonally as possible. Therefore, I will ask you to tell me, simply +and clearly, how much you require to clear you from immediate difficulty; +and I will tell you, in return, whether I am in a position to meet your +wishes or not." + +For a moment Smyth sat silent, his hands working nervously along the arms +of the chair. + +"You understand it is merely a temporary accommodation?" + +"Yes," Iglesias answered. "I understand. And consequently it is +superfluous to indulge in further discussion." + +"You want to get rid of me," Smyth snarled. "Everyone wants to get rid of +me; I am unwelcome. The poor and unsuccessful always are so, I suppose. +But some day the tables will be turned--if I can only last." + +And Dominic Iglesias found himself called upon to rally all his humanity, +all his faith in merciful dealing and the reward which goes along with +it. For it was hard to give, hard to befriend, so thankless and +ungracious a being. Yet, having put his hand to the plough, he refused to +look back. He had inherited a strain of fanaticism which took the form of +unswerving loyalty to his own word once given. So he spoke gravely and +kindly, as one speaks to the sick who are beyond the obligation of +showing courtesy for very suffering. And truly, as he reminded himself, +this man was grievously sick; not only physically from insufficient food, +but morally from disappointment and that most fruitful source of disease, +inordinate and unsatisfied vanity. + +"I do not wish to get rid of you; I merely wish to take the shortest and +simplest way to relieve you of your more pressing anxieties, and so +enable you to give yourself unreservedly to your work. Want may be a +wholesome spur to effort at times; but it is difficult to suppose any +really sane and well-proportioned work of art can be produced without a +sense of security and of leisure." + +"How do you come to know that? It is not your province," Smyth said +sharply. + +Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile and raise his shoulders slightly. + +"I come of a race which, in the past, has given evidence of no small +literary and artistic ability. The experience of former generations +affects the thought of their descendants, I imagine, and illuminates it, +even when these are not gifted individually with any executive talent." + +For some minutes Smyth sat staring moodily in front of him. At last he +rose slowly from his chair. + +"I am an ass," he said, "a jealous, suspicious, ungrateful ass. It is +more than ever hateful to me to ask a favour of you, just because you are +forbearing and generous. I wish to goodness I could do without you help; +but I can't. So let me have twenty-five pounds. Less would not be of use +to me. I should only have to draw on you again, and I do not care to do +that. Look here, can I have it in notes?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Iglesias. + +"I prefer it so. There might have been difficulties in cashing a cheque. +Moreover, it is unpleasant to me that your name, that any name, should +appear. It is only fair to save my self-respect as far as you can." + +Then, as Dominic put the notes into his hand, he added, and his voice was +aggressive again and quarrelsome in tone: "I don't apologise. I don't +explain. I do not even thank you. Why should I, since I simply take it as +a temporary accommodation until my play is finished--my great play, which +is going--I swear before God it is going--not only to cancel this paltry +debt, but a far more important one, the debt I owe to my own genius, and +justify me once and forever in the eyes of the whole English-speaking +world." + +With that he shambled out of the room, letting the handle of the door +slip so that it banged noisily behind him. + +For a while Dominic Iglesias remained standing before the fireplace. He +was sad at heart. He had given generously, lavishly, out of proportion, +as most persons reckon charitable givings, to his means. But, though the +act was in itself good, he was sensible of no responsive warmth, no glow +of satisfaction. The transaction left him cold; left him, indeed, a prey +to disgust. Not only were the man's faults evident, but they were of so +unpleasant a nature as to neutralise all gladness in relieving his +distress. Mechanically Iglesias straightened the chair which his guest +had so lately occupied, put away tumbler and spirit decanter, pulled up +the blind and opened one of the tall narrow windows, set the door giving +access to his bed-chamber wide, and opened a window there, too, so +creating a draught right through the apartment from end to end. He +desired to clean it both of a physical and a moral atmosphere which were +displeasing to him. And, in so doing, he let in, not only the roar of +London, borne in a fierce crescendo on the breath of the wind, but a +strange multitudinous rustling from the sombre foliage and stiff branches +of the lonely cedar tree. Two limbs, crossing, sawed upon one another as +the wind took them, uttering at intervals a long-drawn complaint--not +weakly, but rather with virility, as of a strong man chained and groaning +against his fetters. + +The sound affected Dominic Iglesias deeply, begetting in him an almost +hopeless sense of isolation. The vapid talk at dinner, poor little Mrs. +Porcher's misplaced advances--the fact of which it appeared to him +equally idle to deny and fatuous to admit--the dreary scene with his +unhappy fellow-lodger, the good deed done which just now appeared +fruitless--all these contributed to make the complaint of the exiled +cedar's tormented branches an echo of the complaint of his own heart. For +a long while he listened to these voices of the night, the great city, +the great tree, the wind and the wet; and listening, by degrees he +rallied his patience in that he humbled himself. + +"After all, I have been little else but self-seeking," he said, half +aloud. "For I gave not to the man, but to myself. I clutched at a +personal reward, if not of spoken gratitude yet of subjective content. It +has not come. I suppose I did not deserve it." + +And then, somehow, his thoughts turned to that other human creature who, +though in a very different fashion to de Courcy Smyth the unsavoury, had +claimed his help. He thought not of her over-red lips, but of her wise +eyes; not of her irrepressible effervescence and patter, but of her +serious moments and of the honesty and courage which at such moments +appeared to animate her. About a fortnight ago he had called at the +little flower-bedecked house on the confines of Barnes Common, but had +obtained no response to his ringing. He supposed she was engaged, or +possibly away. With a certain proud modesty he had abstained from +renewing his visit. But now, listening to the roar of London and the +complaint of the cedar tree, he turned to the thought of her as to +something of promise, of possible comfort, of equal friendship, in which +there should be not only help given, but help received. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Dominic Iglesias stood on Hammersmith Bridge looking upstream. The +temperature was low for the time of year, the sky packed with heavy- +bosomed indigo-grey clouds in the south and west, whence came a gusty +wind chill with impending rain. The light was diffused and cold, all +objects having a certain bareness of effect, deficient in shadow. The +weather had broken in the storm of the preceding night; and, though it +was but early September, summer was gone, autumn and the melancholy of +it already present--witness the elms in Chiswick Mall splotched with +raw umber and faded yellow. The tide had still about an hour to flow. +The river was dull and leaden, save where, near Chiswick Eyot, the +wind meeting the tide lashed the surface of it into mimic waves, the +crests of which, flung upward, showed against the gloomy stretch of +water beyond, like pale hands raised heavenward in despairing protest. +Steam-tugs, taking advantage of the tide, laboured up-stream in the +teeth of the wind, towing processions of dark floats and barges. Long +banners of smoke, ragged and fleeting, swept wildly away from the +mouths of the tall chimneys of Thorneycroft's Works, which rose black +into the low, wet sky. The roadway of the huge suspension bridge +quivered under the grind of the ceaseless traffic, while the wind +cried in the massive pea-green painted iron-gearing above. There was a +sense of hardly restrained tumult, of conflict between nature and the +multiple machinery of modern civilisation, the two in opposition, +alike victims of an angry mood. And Iglesias stood watching that +conflict among the crowd of children, and loafers, and decrepit, who +to-day--as every day--thronged the foot-way of the bridge. + +Poppy St. John stood on the foot-way, too. She had crossed from the +southern side. But, though by no means insensible to the spirit or the +details of the scene around her, she was less engaged in watching the +drama of the stormy afternoon than in watching Dominic Iglesias--as +yet unconscious of her presence. His tall, spare, shapely figure, +grave, clean-shaven face, and calm, self-recollected manner--which +removed him so singularly from the purposeless neutral-tinted human +beings close about him--delighted her artistic sense. + +"If one had caught him young," she said to herself, "if one had only +caught him young, heavenly powers, what a time one might have had, and +yet stayed good--oh! very quite good indeed!" + +Then she made her way between much undeveloped and derelict humanity. + +"Look at me, dear man," she said, "look at me--really I am worth it. I +got home late last night and I was possessed by a great longing to see +you.--Excuse my shouting, but things in general are making such an +infernal clatter.--I was determined to see you. I set my whole mind to +making you come. And I felt so sure you must come that this afternoon +I have journeyed thus far to meet you. And here you are, and here I +am." + +Poppy stood before him bracing her back against the hand-rail of the +bridge. + +"Tell me, are you glad?" she said. + +And Dominic Iglesias, surprised, yet finding the incident curiously +natural, answered simply: + +"Yes, I am, very glad." + +"That's all right," she rejoined; "because, after all, coming was a +pretty lively act of faith on my part. I have superstitious turns at +times; and the weather, and things that had happened, had made me feel +pretty cheap somehow. I don't mind telling you as you are here that if +you'd failed me there would have been the devil to pay. I should have +been awfully cut up." + +Iglesias still smiled upon her. Poppy presented herself under a new +aspect to-day, and that aspect found favour in his sight. She was no +longer the Lady of the Windswept Dust, arrayed in fantastic flowery +hat and trailing skirts, but was clothed in trim black workman-like +garments, which revealed the delicate contours of her figure and gave +her an unexpected air of distinction. Yet, though charmed, the caution +of pride--which, in his case, was also the caution of modesty--made +him a trifle shy in addressing her. He paused before speaking, and +then said, with a certain hesitancy: + +"I fancy my attitude of mind last night was the complement of your +own. I, too, had fallen on rather evil days. I wanted to see you. I +came out this afternoon to find you. If I had failed to do so, it +would have gone a little hard with me, too, I think." + +Poppy looked at him questioningly, intently, for a minute, her teeth +set. Then she whirled round, leaned her elbows on the hand-rail, +pulled her handkerchief out of the breast pocket of her smartly +fitting coat and dabbed her eyes with it, finely indifferent to +possible comment or observation. + +Iglesias remained immediately behind her, but a little to the right, +so as to save her from being jostled by the passers-by. He had a sense +of being only the more alone with her because of the traffic and the +crowd; a sense, moreover, of dependence on her part and protection on +his; a sense, in a way, of her belonging to him and he to her. And +this was very sweet to him, solemnly sweet, as are all things of +beauty and moment holding in them the promise of enduring result. Old +Age ceased to threaten and Loneliness to haunt. Over Iglesias' soul +passed a wave of thankful content. + +Suddenly Poppy straightened herself up and faced him. Her lips +laughed, but her eyes were wet. + +"I'll play fair," she said; "by the honour of the mother that bore +you, I'll play fair." + +Then she laid her hand on his arm and pointed London-wards. + +"Now, come along, dear man, for I have got to pull myself together +somehow. Let us walk. Take me somewhere I've never been before, +somewhere quiet--only let us walk." + +Therefore, desiring to meet her wishes, a little way up the broad +straggling street Dominic Iglesias turned off to the left into the +narrow old-world lanes and alleys which lie between the river frontage +and King Street West. The district is a singular one, suggestive of +some sleepy little dead-alive seaport town rather than of London. +Quaint water-ways, crossed by foot-bridges, burrow in between small +low cottages and warehouses. Some of these have overhanging upper +stories to them, are half-timbered or yellow-washed. Some are built +wholly of wood. There is an all-pervading odour of tar and hempen +rope. Small industries abound, though without any self-advertisement +of plate-glass shop fronts. Chimney-sweeps and cobblers give notice of +their presence by swinging signs. Newsvendors make irruption of +flaring boards upon the pavement. Little ground-floor windows exhibit +attenuated stores of tinware, string, and sweets. Modest tobacconists +mount the image of a black boy scantily clothed or of a Highlander in +the fullest of tartans above their doors. Cats prowl along walls and +sparrows rise in flights from off the ill-paved roadways. But of human +occupants there appear to be but few, and those with an unusual stamp +of individuality upon them; figures a trifle strange and obsolete--as +of persons by choice hidden away, voluntarily self-removed from the +levelling rush and grind of the monster city. The small heavy-browed +houses are very secretive, seeming to shelter fallen fortunes, obscure +and furtive sins, sorrows which resist alleviation and inquiry. Seen, +as to-day, under the low-hanging sky big with rain, in the diffused +afternoon light, the place and its inhabitants conveyed an impression +low-toned, yet distinct, finished in detail, rich though mournful in +effect as some eighteenth-century Dutch picture. A linnet twittered, +flitting from perch to perch of its cage at an open window. A boy, +clad in an old mouse-brown corduroy coat, passed slowly, crying "Sweet +lavender" shrilly yet in a plaintive cadence. Occasionally the siren +of a steam-tug tore the air with a long-drawn wavering scream. +Otherwise all was very silent. + +And, as they threaded their way through the maze of crooked streets, +Dominic Iglesias and Poppy St. John were silent also; but with the +silence of intimacy and good faith, rather than with that of +embarrassment or indifference. Each was very fully aware of the +presence of the other. So fully aware, indeed, that, for the moment, +speech seemed superfluous as a vehicle for interchange of thought. +Then, as they emerged on to the open gravelled space of the Upper Mall +with its low red-brick wall and stately elm trees, Poppy held out her +hand to Mr. Iglesias. + +"You are beautifully clever," she said. "You give me just what I +wanted. I'm as steady as old Time now. But what a queer rabbit-warren +of a place it is! How did you find your way?" + +"I came here often, in the past," he said, "at a time when I was +suffering grave anxiety. I could not leave home, after my office work +was over, for more than an hour together. And in the dusk or at night, +with its twinkling and evasive lights, the place used to please me, +leading as it does to the river bank, the mystery of the ebbing and +flowing tide, the ceaseless effort seaward of the stream, and those +low-lying spaces on the Surrey side. It was the nearest bit of nature, +unharnessed, irresponsible nature, which I could get to; and it +symbolised emancipation from monotonous labour and everlasting bricks +and mortar. I could watch the dying of the sunset, and the outcoming +of the stars, the tossing of the pale willows--there on the eyot--in +the windy dusk, undisturbed. And so I have come to entertain a great +fondness for it, since it tranquillised me and helped me to see life +calmly and to bring myself in line with fact, to endure and to +forgive." + +While he spoke Poppy's hand continued to rest passively in his. + +"You are a poet," she said, "and you are very good." + +Dominic Iglesias smiled and shook his head. + +"No," he answered. "I am neither a poet nor am I very good. Far from +that. I only tried to keep faith with the one clear duty which I saw." + +Poppy moved forward across the Mall and stood by the river wall, +looking out over the flowing tide. It was high now, and washed and +gurgled against the masonry. + +"You did and suffered all that for some woman," she said. "A man like +you always breaks himself for some woman. I hope she was worth it-- +often they aren't. Who was she? The woman you loved? Your wife?" + +"The woman I loved," Iglesias answered, "but not my wife." + +Poppy looked at him sharply, her eyes full of question and of fear, as +though she dreaded to hear very evil tidings. + +"Not your mistress?" she said. "Don't tell me that. The Lord knows +I've no right to mind. But I should mind. It would be like switching +off all the lights. I couldn't stand it. So, if it's that, just let us +part company at once. I've no more use for you.--I know where I am +now. If I go up into St. Peter's Square I can pick up a hansom and +drive back home--I suppose I may as well call it home, as I have no +other. And as for you, if you've any mercy in you, never let me see +you again. Never come near me. I have no use for you, I tell you. So +leave me to my own devices--what those devices are is no earthly +concern of yours." + +She paused breathless, her eyes blazing, her face very white. She +seemed to have grown tall, and there was a tremendous force in her of +bitterness, repudiation, and regret. + +"After all," she cried, "I don't so much as know your name; and so, +thank heaven, it can't be so very difficult to forget you." + +Her aspect moved Iglesias strangely, seeming as it did to embody the +very spirit of the angry sky, of the gloomy river, all the sorrow of +the dead summer and stormy autumn light. For a moment he watched her +in silence. Then he took both her hands in his and held them, smiling +at her again very gently. + +"No, dear friend," he said, "the woman was not my mistress. She was my +mother." His voice shook a little. "I never talk of her. But I think +of her always. She was very perfect and very lovely. And she suffered +greatly, so greatly that it unhinged her reason. Now do you +understand? For years she was mad." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +In the month of October immediately following two events took place +which, though of apparently very different magnitude and importance, +intimately and almost equally--as it proved in the sequel--affected +Dominic Iglesias' life. The first was the declaration of war by the +South African Republics. The second was the return of Miss Serena +Lovegrove to town. + +Now war is, unquestionably, not a little staggering to the modern +civilised conscience; and this particular war possessed the additional +unpleasantness of having in it, at first sight, an element of the +grotesque. It is not too much to say that it struck the majority of +the British public as being of the nature of a very bad joke. For it +was as though a very small and very cheeky boy, after making offensive +signs, had spat in the nation's face. Clearly the boy deserved sharp +chastisement for his impudence. Nevertheless, the position remained an +undignified and slightly ridiculous one; and the British public +proceeded to safeguard its proper pride by treating the matter as +lightly as possible. It assured itself--and others--that, given a +reasonable parade of strength, the small boy, blubbering, his fists in +his eyes, would speedily and humbly beg pardon and promise to mind his +manners in future. A few persons, it is true, remembered Majuba Hill, +and doubted the small boy's immediate reduction to obedience. A few +others dared to suspect that English society was suffering from wealth +apoplexy and the many unlovely symptoms which, in all ages of history, +have accompanied that form of seizure, and to doubt whether blood- +letting might not prove salutary. Dominic Iglesias was among these. +His recent observations upon and excursions into the world of fashion, +stray words let drop by Poppy St. John on the one hand, and by unhappy +de Courcy Smyth on the other, had begotten in him the suspicion that +the sobering and sorrowful influences of war might be healthful for +the body politic, just as a surgical operation may be healthful for +the individual body. Next to the Jew, the Dutchman is the most +stubbornly tenacious of human creatures. He is a fighting man into the +bargain. Iglesias could not flatter himself that the campaign would +result in an easy walk-over for so much of the British army as a +supine and annoyed Government condescended to place in the field. The +whole affair lay heavy on his soul. It lay there all the heavier that +a few days subsequent to the declaration of war Mr. Iglesias' thought +was unexpectedly swept back into the arena of speculative finance. + +In the portion of his morning paper allotted to business subjects, he +had lighted on a long and evidently inspired article dealing with the +flotation of a company just now in process of acquiring control over +extensive areas in Southeast Africa. The prospects held out to +investors were of the most golden sort. The land was declared to be +not only remarkably rich in precious stones and precious metals, but +also adapted for corn-growing on a vast scale--thus, both above and +below the surface, promising prodigious wealth were its resources +adequately developed. + +Iglesias did not dispute the truth of these statements. The data +quoted appeared trustworthy enough. Moreover, he was already fairly +conversant with the enterprise, since Mr. Reginald Barking--that +junior member of the great banking firm whose name has been mentioned +in connection with strenuous modern business methods--was, to his +knowledge, deeply interested in the promotion of it. That which +troubled him, striking him as unsound and misleading, was the fact +that the profits, as set forth in the newspaper article, were +calculated--so at least it was evident to Iglesias--on the results of +such development when completed, irrespective of the lapse of time +required for such development; irrespective of possible and arresting +accident; irrespective, too, of immediate and even protracted loss by +the tying-up of huge sums of money which could yield but little or no +return until the said process of development was an accomplished fact. +To Iglesias' clear-seeing and logical mind the enterprise, therefore, +presented itself as one of those gigantic modern gambles of which the +incidental risks are emphatically too heavy, since they more often +than not make rich men poor, and poor men paupers, before they come +through--if, indeed, they even come through at all. + +Reginald, in virtue of his youth, his energy, and relentless +concentration of purpose, had rapidly become the ruling spirit of the +house of Barking Brothers & Barking. Iglesias had no cause to love +him, since to him he owed his dismissal. But that fact failed to +colour his present meditations. Under the influence of his cherished +and new-found charity, Dominic had little time or inclination for +personal resentment. Too, the habits of the best part of a lifetime +cannot be thrown aside in a day. Directly he touched business on the +large scale, it became to him serious and imposing. And so the future +of the firm and the issue of its operations, in face of current +events, concerned him deeply, all the more that he gauged Reginald +Barking's temper of mind and proclivities. + +The young man's father--now happily deceased--had offered an +instructive example of social and religious survival--survival, to be +explicit, of the once famous Clapham Sect, and that in its least +agreeable aspect. His theology was that of obstinately narrow +misinterpretation of the Scriptures; his piety that of self-invented +obligations; his virtue that of unsparing condemnation of the sins of +others. His domestic morality was Hebraic--death kindly playing into +his hands in regard of it. He married four times--Reginald, the only +child of his fourth marriage, having the further privilege of being +his only son. The boy was delicate and of a strumous habit. This fact, +combined with his parents' ingrained conviction that a public school +is synonymous, morally speaking, with a common sewer, caused his +education to be conducted at home by a series of tutors as +undistinguished by birth as by scholarship--tentative apologetic young +men, the goal of whose ambitions was a wife and a curacy, failing +which they resigned themselves to the post of usher in some ultra- +Protestant school. Sport in all its forms, art and literature, being +alike forbidden, the boy's hungry energy had found no reasonable +outlet. He had been miserable, peevish, ailing, until at barely +eighteen--after a discreditable episode with a scullery-maid--he had +been shipped off to New York to learn business in the house of certain +brokers and bill-discounters with whom Messrs. Barking Brothers had +extensive financial relations. Life in the land of the Puritans was +not, even at that time of day, inevitably immaculate. Freedom from +parental supervision and the American climate went to the lad's head. +He passed through a phase of commonplace but secret vice, emerging +there-from with an unblemished social reputation; a blank scepticism +in matters religious, combined with bitter animosity against the Deity +whom he declared non-existent; and a fiercely driving ambition, not so +much for wealth in itself, as for that control ever the destinies of +men, and even of nations, with which wealth under modern conditions +endows its possessor. He was a pale, dry, lizard-like young man, +suggesting light without heat, and excitement without emotion. Early +in his career he recognised that the great sources of wealth and power +lie with the younger countries, in the development of their natural +and industrial resources, of their railways and other forms of +transport. The phenomenal advance of America, for example, was due to +her enormous territory and the opportunities of expansion, with the +bounds of nationality, which this afforded her people. But he also +recognised that America was essentially for the Americans, and that it +was useless for an outsider, however skilful, however even +unscrupulous, to pit his business capacity against that of the native +born. His dreams of power and speculative activity directed +themselves, consequently, to the British Colonies, and to those as yet +unappropriated spaces of the earth's surface where British influence +is still only tentatively present. + +Meanwhile he had espoused Miss Nancy Van Reenan, daughter of a famous +transatlantic merchant prince, first cousin, it may be added, to the +beautiful Virginia Van Reenan whose marriage with Lawrence Rivers, of +Stoke Rivers in the county of Sussex, so fluttered the smartest +section of New York society a few years ago. He returned to England in +the spring of 1897, convinced that America had taught him, +commercially speaking, all there was to know. This knowledge he +prepared to apply to waking up the venerable establishment in +Threadneedle Street, while employing the unimpeachable respectability +and solvency of the said establishment as a lever towards the +realisation of his own far-reaching ambitions. He brought with him +from the United States, in addition to his elegant wife, two dry, pale +children, whose contours were less Raphaelesque than gnat-like, and +the acuteness of whose critical faculty was very much more in evidence +than that of their affections. These bright little results of +modernity and applied science--in the shape of the incubator--took +their place in the social movement, at the ages of three and five +respectively, with the hard and chilling assurance of a world-weary +man and woman. They never exhibited surprise. They rarely exhibited +amusement. They were radically disillusioned. They frequently referred +to their nerves and their digestions, in the interests of which they +consistently repudiated every form of excess. + +With these rather terrible little gentry Dominic Iglesias was, happily +for himself, unacquainted; but with their father he was very well +acquainted, as has already been stated. Hence his fears. Folding his +newspaper together, he laid it on the table and proceeded to walk +meditatively up and down his sitting-room. The morning was keen with +sunshine, the leaves of the planes and balsam-poplars fell in brown +and yellow showers upon the Green, on the further side of which the +details of the red and yellowish grey houses stood out in high relief +of sharp-edged light and shadow. Mr. Iglesias had risen in a hopeful +frame of mind. Of late it had become his habit to call weekly on Poppy +St. John. Today was the one appointed for his visit. Since he had +spoken to her about his mother his friendship with Poppy St. John had +entered upon a new phase. It was no longer experimental, but absolute, +the more so that she had in no way presumed upon his confidence. He +felt very safe with her--safe to tell or safe to withhold as +inclination should move him. And in this there was a strange and +delicate lessening of the burden of his loneliness, without any +encroachment on his pride. He had found, moreover, that behind her +patter lay an unexpected acquaintance with public affairs and the +tendencies of current events, so that it was possible to talk on +subjects other than personal with her. He was coming to have much +faith in her judgment as well as in her sincerity of heart. And, so, +with the prospect of seeing her before him, Dominic had risen in the +happiest disposition, had so remained till the newspaper article +disturbed his mind. For what, as he asked himself, did it portend, +this extravagant puff of the company's lad and the company's +prospects, at this particular juncture? Why was it so urgently and +eloquently forced upon the market just now? Was it but another proof +of the contemptuous attitude adopted by Englishmen of all classes +towards the Boer Republics? Or did it take its origin very much +elsewhere--namely, in the fact that Reginald Barking had so deeply +involved the capital and pledged the credit of the firm that it became +necessary to make violent and doubtfully honest bid for popular +support before the position of the said firm, through difficulty and +accident induced by war, became desperate? + +This last solution of the perplexing question aroused all Mr. +Iglesias' loyalty towards his old employers. He saw before them the +ugly possibility of failure and disgrace. The mere phantom of the +thing hurt him as unseemly, as a shame and dishonour to those who in +their corporate capacity had benefited him, and therefore as a shame +and dishonour, at least indirectly, to himself. The thought agitated +him. He needed to take council with someone; and so, pushed by a +necessity of immediate action uncommon to him, he laid hands on hat +and coat and set forth to talk matters over with his old friend and +former colleague, George Lovegrove. + +Out of doors the air was stimulating. The voice of London had a tone +of urgency in it, as the voice of the young and strong who court the +coming of stirring events. + +"The moods of the monstrous mother are inexhaustible," Iglesias said +to himself. "She is changeful as the great ocean. To-day she is +virile, and shouts for battle--. well, it may be she will get her fill +of that before many months are out!" + +Then the thought of his afternoon visit returned upon him. If the air +would remain as exhilarating, the sunshine as daring as now, these +would heighten enjoyment. + +Mr. Iglesias smiled to himself, an emotion of tenderness mingling with +his anxiety. He felt very much alive, very ready to meet any demand +which the future might make on him--battle for him, too, perhaps, and +at this moment he welcomed the thought of it! Thus, a little exalted +in spirit, Dominic walked on rapidly across the Green between the iron +railings, conscious of colour, of light, and of sound; but unobservant +of the details of his immediate surroundings, until a drifting female +figure barred his path, undulating uncertainly before him. He moved to +the right to let it pass. It moved to the right also. He moved to the +left, it did so, too. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. + +"Oh!" cried Serena Lovegrove. + +"I beg your pardon," Iglesias repeated, raising his hat. "Excuse me, I +did not see who it was." + +"How very odd!" Serena remarked. She stood still in the middle of the +path. Her eyes snapped. Her silk petticoat rustled. Serena was very +particular about her petticoats. It gave her great moral and social +support to hear them rustle. "How very odd!" she said again. "Did you +not know that I had come back?" + +Dominic might truthfully have replied that he did not know that she +had ever gone away; but he abstained. + +"It must be a great pleasure to your cousins to have you with them," +he said courteously. + +Serena looked at the falling leaves. + +"I wonder whether it is--I mean I wonder whether it is a pleasure to +them, or whether they ask me out of a sense of duty." She paused, +gazing at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course, I know George has a strong regard +for me, and for Susan. It is only natural, as we are first cousins. +But I am not sure about Rhoda. Of course we never heard of Rhoda until +she married George." + +"She has made him an excellent wife," Iglesias put in. + +"I suppose she has," Serena said reflectively. "But I sometimes wonder +whether, if George had married somebody else, it might not have been +more satisfactory in some ways." + +Serena felt very proud in making this remark. It elicited no reply, +however, from Mr. Iglesias. + +"I wonder if he really sees that Rhoda is on a different level from +us, and won't admit it; or whether he doesn't see. If he doesn't see, +of course that means a good deal." + +"Do you usually go out walking in the morning?" Dominic inquired. The +silence was becoming protracted. Courtesy demanded that he should +break it. + +Serena looked at him with heightened intelligence. + +"We were always brought up to take a walk twice a day. Mamma was very +particular about it. She believed that health had so much to do with +regular exercise. Sometimes I wonder whether she did not carry that +too far. But, of course, Susan is very strong, much stronger than I +am. I believe she would have been strong in any case, even if mamma +had not insisted on our taking so much exercise." Serena paused. "But +I did not know you went out in the morning. That is, I mean I have +never seen you go out before." + +"Indeed," Iglesias exclaimed, a little startled at the close +observation of his habits implied by this remark. + +"No," she said; "of course one can see Cedar Lodge very plainly from +George's house, and I often look out of window. I think it among the +pleasures of London to look out of window. I have never seen you go +out in the morning before." Again she paused, adding reflectively: "It +really seems rather odd that neither George nor Rhoda should have told +you that I had come back." + +To this remark no suitable answer suggested itself. Moreover, Mr. +Iglesias was growing slightly impatient. He wished she would see fit +to move aside and let him pass. + +"You will get cold standing here," he said. "You must not let me +detain you any longer." + +Serena's eyes snapped. She was excited. She was also slightly +offended. "He is very abrupt," she said to herself; but she did not +move aside and let him pass. "Yes, he is abrupt," she repeated; +"still, he has a very good manner. If one didn't know that he had been +a bank clerk, I wonder if one would detect it. I don't think it would +be a thing that need be mentioned, for instance, at Slowby. Only Susan +would be sure to make a point of mentioning it. Susan has an idea she +owes it to herself to be truthful. Of course, it would be wrong to +deny that anyone had been a bank clerk; but that is different from +telling everybody. I wonder if Susan would feel obliged to tell +everybody." + +When she reached the near side of the Green, Serena looked back. Mr. +Iglesias was in the act of entering the Lovegroves' front door, which +the worthy George held open for him. Serena stood transfixed. + +"So he was going there!" she said to herself. "How extraordinary not +to mention it to me. What could have been his object in not mentioning +it? I wonder if he has only gone to see George, or to see Rhoda as +well. If he has gone to see Rhoda, then I think he has been +exceedingly rude to me. And he has been very short-sighted, too, if he +didn't want me to know, for he might have taken it for granted that of +course I should look back. Unless he did do it on purpose, meaning to +be rude. But--" + +Serena resumed her walk. She was very much excited. + +"Of course he may have done it on purpose that I should see, and +understand that he meant something special--that he was going to speak +to George and Rhoda about something in particular, which he could not +say before me. He may have wanted to sound them. But then it is so +very odd that he should have said that George had never told him I had +come back. But I don't believe he ever did say that." Serena was +growing more and more excited. She drifted along the pavement, in her +rustling petticoats, with the most unusually animated expression of +countenance. + +"I remember--of course he did not say it. He avoided the question each +time. How very extraordinary! I think he must mean me to understand +something by that. I wonder if George will refer to it at luncheon. If +he does I must find out from Rhoda, but without letting her suspect +that I observed anything, of course." + +Serena had quite ceased to be offended. Her fancy, indeed, had taken a +most wildly ingenious flight. She felt very remarkable, very acute, +quite dangerous, in short--and these sensations, however limited their +justification by fact, were highly agreeable to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The heavens remained clear, the air exhilarating, and Iglesias set +forth on his weekly pilgrimage in a serene frame of mind. George +Lovegrove's view had been reassuring. + +"I know you are much more far-sighted than I am," he had said, his +honest face beaming with combined cleanliness and affection, "so I +always hesitate to set up my opinion against yours. It would be +presumptuous. Still, you do surprise me. I never had an inkling of +anything of the sort; and between ourselves--for I should never hint +at the subject before the wife, you know--it might upset her, females +are so sensitive--but between ourselves it would fairly unman me to +think there could be any unsoundness in Barking Brothers & Barking. +You know the phrase current in the city about them--'as safe as the +Bank of England'? And I have always believed that. I know I left +before Mr. Reginald had any active share in the business, and I never +have cared about American speculation. It is all beyond me. Still I +cannot suppose the senior partners would let him have too much his own +way. Depend upon it, Sir Abel keeps an eye on him. And then as to this +war, of course you have studied it all more deeply than I have the +power to do; still I cannot help thinking you distress yourself +unnecessarily. As I said to the wife when I first heard of it, it's +suicidal. One can only feel pity for such poor ignorant creatures, +rushing headlong on their ruin. Depend upon it, they will very soon +come to their senses and deplore their own rash action. A very few +weeks will see the finish of it all. I only hope there will not be +much bloodshed first, for of course they couldn't stand up against +English troops for an hour, poor things." + +Encouraged by which cheerful optimism Dominic Iglesias began to think +his fears exaggerated, as he descended from an omnibus top at +Hammersmith Bridge that afternoon, crossed the river, and walked on +down the long suburban road. The sky was sharply blue. Multicoloured +leaves danced down from the trees in the villa gardens. Gaily clad +children, pursued by anxious mothers and nursemaids, ran and shouted, +the sunshine and fresh air having gone to their heads. Perched on the +brick pier of an entrance gate, a robin uplifted its voice in +piercingly sweet song. Autumn wore her fairest face, speaking of +promise rather than of decay. It was good to be alive. Even to Mr. +Iglesias' sober and chastened spirit horror of war, disgrace of +financial failure, seemed remote and inconsiderable things, morbid +delusions such as sane men brush aside scorning to give them +harbourage so much as of thought. + +Poppy was mirthful, too, in her greeting of him. + +"My dear man," she cried, "the house is out of windows! You find us in +the throes of a great domestic event. Cappadocia has done her duty by +posterity. She has been brought to bed, if you'll excuse my mentioning +it, of four puppies. Perfect little lambs, not a white hair among +them. And she shows true maternal feeling, does Cappadocia. Whenever +you go near her she tries to bite." + +Poppy spoke very fast, holding his hand, looking him full in the face, +her singular eyes very gentle in expression, yet all alight. + +"Ah! it's good to see you. My stars, but it is good to see you," she +said. + +And Dominic, moved beyond his wont, stood silent for a space. + +"You're not offended? Surely, at this time of the day, you're not +going to stiffen up?" she asked. + +He shook his head. + +"No, no, dear friend," he said; "but this greeting is a little +wonderful to me. Except my mother, years ago, nobody has ever cared +whether I came or went." + +"More fools they," Poppy answered, with a fine disregard of grammar. +"But all that's over now. You know it's over. All the same I can't be +altogether sorry it was so, because it gives me my chance.--Sit down; +I'll expound to you. Let us talk.--You see, my beautiful innocent, +with most men worth knowing--I am not talking about boys running about +with the shell still on their heads and more affections to place than +they can find a market for, but men. Well then, with most all of them, +when one comes to discuss matters, one finds one's had such an awful +lot of predecessors. At best one comes in a bad third--more often a +bad three-and-twentieth--I mean nothing risky. Don't be nervous. But +they have romantic memories of half-a-dozen women. And so, though they +are no end nice and kind to one, play up and give one a good time and +have a jolly good one themselves--trust 'em to take care of that--one +knows all the while, if one knows anything, that the whole show's +merely a _rechauffe_. Visions of Clara and Gladys, and dear +little Emily, and Rosina, and Beatrice, and the lovely Lucinda-- +angels, every one of them, if you haven't seen them for ten years, and +wouldn't know them again if you met them in the street--haunt the +background of every man's mind by the time he's five-and-thirty, and +cut entrancing capers against the sky-line, so that--when one comes to +thrash the matter out--one finds the actually present woman, here in +the foreground, hasn't really any look-in at all." + +Poppy threw her head back against the yellowish red cushions of the +settee, her teeth showing white as she laughed. + +"Boys aren't worth having. They're too crude, too callow. Moreover, it +isn't playing the game. One doesn't want to make a mess of their +futures, poor little chaps. And grown men, except as I say of the very +preengaged sort, are not to be had. So don't you understand, most +delightful lunatic, how it comes to pass that you and your friendship +are precious to me beyond words? When you go I could cry. When you +come I could dance." + +Her tone changed, becoming defiant, almost fierce. + +"And it is all right," she said, "thank heaven, right,--right, clean, +and honest, and good for one's soul. Now I've done. Only we are very +happy in our own quaint way, aren't we? And we can leave it at that. +Oh, yes, we can very well leave it at that if"--she looked sideways at +Mr. Iglesias, her expression half-humorous, half-pathetic--"if only it +will stay at that and not play the mischief and scuttle off into +something quite else." + +She got up quickly, with a little air of daring and bravado. + +"I must move about. I must do something--there, I'll make up the fire. +No, sit still, dear man"--as Dominic prepared to rise also--"I like +doing little odd jobs with you here. It takes off the company feeling, +and makes it seem as if you belonged, and like the bicycle, had 'come +to stay.'" + +Poppy threw a couple of driftwood logs upon the smouldering fire. +Around them sharp tongues of flame--rose and saffron, amber, sea- +green, and heliotrope, glories as of a tropic sunset--leaped upward. +She stood watching these, her left hand resting on the edge of the +mantelpiece, her right holding up the front of her black skirt. Her +right foot rested on the fender curb, thereby displaying a discreet +interval of openwork silk stocking and a neatly cut steel-buckled +shoe. The many-hued firelight flickered over her dark figure; over the +soft lace jabot at her throat and ruffles at her wrists; over her pale +profile; and glinted in the heavy masses of her hair. The room, facing +east, was cold with shadow, which the thin fantastic colours of the +flames appeared to emphasise rather than to relieve. And Iglesias, +obedient to her entreaty, sat quietly waiting until it should again +please her to speak. For he had begun to accept her many changes of +mood as an integral element of her personality--a personality rich in +rapid and subtle contradictions. Often he had no clue to the meaning +of these many changes. But he did not mind that. Not absence of vulgar +curiosity alone, but an unwilling sub-conscious shrinking from any too +close acquaintance with the details of her life contributed to render +him passive. He had a conviction, though he had never formulated it +even in thought, that ignorance in relation to her made for security +and content. And there was a refined charm in this--namely, that each +to the other, even while friendship deepened, should remain something +of an undiscovered country. Moreover, had she not told him that he +rested her? To ask questions, however sympathetic, to volunteer +consolation, however delicately worded, is to risk being officious; +and to be officious, in however mild a degree, is to drive away the +shy and illusive spirit of rest. And so Dominic Iglesias was coming, +in the good nautical reading of that phrase, simply "to stand by" and +wait where this woman was concerned. After all, it was but the +reapplication of a lesson learned long ago for the support and solace +of another woman, by him supremely loved. To act thus was, therefore, +not only natural but poignantly sweet to him, as a new and gentle +offering laid upon the dear altar of his dead. It rejoiced him to find +that now, as of old, the demand created a supply of silent but +sustaining moral force, ready to pass into the sphere of active help +should necessity arise. + +Nevertheless as the minutes passed, while daylight and firelight alike +began to fade, Dominic Iglesias grew somewhat troubled and sad. And it +was with a distinct movement of relief that he, at last, saw Poppy +draw herself up, push the soft masses of her hair back from her +forehead with a petulant gesture, and turn towards him. As she did so +she let her hands drop at her sides, as though she had finished with +and dismissed some unwelcome form of thought, while her face showed +wan, and her eyes large and vague, as though they saw beyond and +through all that which they actually looked on. + +"There, there," she said harshly, with an angry lift of her head, +"what a silly fool I am, wasting time like this when you are here. But +my soul went out of my body; and I could afford to let it go, just +because you were here, and I felt safe." Her tone softened. "Sure I +don't bore you?" she asked. + +Dominic shook his head, smiling. + +"Very sure," he said. + +"Bless you, then that's all right." Poppy strolled back and sat down +languidly. "I've gone confoundedly tired," she said. "You see, I sat +up half the night acting Gamp to Cappadocia--if you excuse my again +alluding to the domestic event.--Oh! my being tired doesn't matter. My +dear man, I'm never ill. I'm as strong as a horse. Let's talk of +something more interesting--let's review the topics of the hour--only +for the life of me I can't remember what the topics of the hour are! +Yes, I know though--the management of the Twentieth Century Theatre +has given Dot Parris a leading part. Does that leave you cold? +Impossible! Why, in theatrical circles it's a world-shaking event. I +own I'm curious to see how she does in legitimate drama, after her +career in musical comedy and at the halls, myself. I'm really very +fond of her, poor little Dot. She's going to call herself Miss +Charlotte Colthurst in the future, I understand. Did you ever hear +such cheek? But then she always had the cheek of the old gentleman +himself, and that makes for success. Cheek does go an awfully long way +towards bringing you through, don't you think so?" + +"Probably," Dominic said. "My opportunities of exercising that +particular form of virtue have been so limited that I am quite +prepared to accept your ruling on the point." + +Poppy laughed softly, looking at him with a great friendliness. + +"Ah! but it wouldn't have been cheek in your case, anyhow. It would +merely have been that you stepped into your right place, ascended any +throne that happened to be right divine. I can see you doing it, so +statelily and yet so innocently. It would be a perfectly delicious +sight. I believe you will do it yet, some day, somehow, and make a lot +of people sit up. But that reminds me, joking apart, there is a topic +of the hour I wanted to ask you about. Tell me what you think of this +war." + +And Dominic Iglesias, once more obedient to her changing mood, replied +with quiet sincerity: + +"I am told I am an alarmist. I hope I may prove to be so, for in this +matter I should much prefer the optimists to be in the right. But I +confess I do not like the outlook. Both on public and private grounds +this war makes me anxious." + +Poppy's languor had vanished. She had grown very much alive again. Now +she leaned forward, pressing her hands together, palm to palm, between +her knees, and making herself small, as a child does when it is deeply +in earnest and wants to think. + +"You're right," she assented. "I'm perfectly certain all this cocksure +Johnny-head-in-air business, 'sail to-day and see you again at tea +tomorrow, so it's not worth while saying good-by'--you know the +style?--is fatuous and idiotic. It is not bluff, because the English +officer-man doesn't bluff. He hasn't the brains, to begin with, and +then he is a very sound sort of an animal. He doesn't need to hide his +fright for the simple reason that he's not frightened. A friend of +mine was talking about it all yesterday. He thinks as you do, and he's +no silly, though he is a member of the House of Lords.--After all, he +can't help that, poor dear old chap," she added apologetically, +looking sideways at Mr. Iglesias. "But there, you've seen him, I +believe. You met him the first time you came here. Don't you remember, +I had to turn you out because I had to see him on business, and you +ran across him in the hall as you were going?" + +"I remember meeting someone," Dominic said, rather loftily. He did not +want to hear any more. The conversation had become displeasing to him, +though he could have given no reason for his displeasure. But Poppy +suddenly turned mischievous and naughty. She patted her hands gently +together between her knees and swayed with rather impish merriment. + +"Ah, of course you were much too grand to take any particular notice +of him, poor brute. But he wasn't a bit too grand to take a lot of +notice of you. He was fearfully impressed. Yes, I tell you he was. +Don't be cross. I am speaking the veracious truth. I give you my word +I'm not gassing. He was awfully keen to know who you were, and where +you came from, and how I met you. And it was the sweetest thing out to +be able to reply that I'd been introduced to you on a bench--a mighty +uncomfortable one, too, with no back to it!--on Barnes Common by +Cappadocia; and that as to your name and local habitation I hadn't the +faintest ghost of a notion what they were. Are you cross? Don't be +cross," Poppy pleaded. + +"No, no, of course not," Mr. Iglesias answered, goaded from his +habitual calm and speaking almost sharply. + +Poppy patted her palms together again, swaying backwards and forwards. +Her eyes were dancing. + +"Oh! but you are, though," she cried. "You're just a wee bit jealous. +You are--you know you are, and I'm not a scrap sorry. On the contrary, +I'm enchanted. For it shows that you are human after all, and must +have a name and address tucked away somewhere about you. I don't want +to know what they are, but it's comfortable to be assured of their +existence. It shows you don't drop straight down from heaven--as I was +beginning to be afraid you did--once a week, into the Mortlake Road, +and then go straight up again. It shows that I could get on to you by +post, or telephone, or other means of communication common to mortals, +if I was in a tight place and really wanted you, without walking as +far as Hammersmith Bridge and waiting in the wind and the wet on the +bare chance you might take it into your august head to materialise, +and break out of paradise, and take a little stroll round our +sublunary sphere." + +For a moment Poppy laid her hand lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulder. + +"Yes, be cross," she repeated. "Just as cross as ever you like, so +long as you don't keep it up too protractedly. It's the most engaging +piece of flattery I've come across for a month of Sundays. Only you +needn't worry in this particular instance, dear man, I give you my +word you needn't. It's a sheer waste of feeling. For Fallowfeild's +always been perfectly decent with me. I know people think him an +awfully risky lot, but they're noodles. He's racketed in his day--of +course he has. But if he'd been more of a hypocrite, people would have +talked less. As the man says in the play, it's not the sin but the +being found out which makes the scandal. And Fallowfeild was too +honest. He never pretended to be better than he was. He is a man of +good nature who has done wrong things, which is quite different to +being a man of bad nature who does wrong things, and still more +different to being a man of weak nature who pretends to do right +things. That last is the sort I hate most, and I speak out of beastly +intimate experience." + +She made a most expressive grimace, as though she had a remarkably +disagreeable taste in her mouth. + +"No salvation for that sort, I believe," she went on, "either here or +hereafter. Now, are you better? You do believe it has always been +perfectly square and above-board between Fallowfeild and me, don't +you?" + +"Unquestionably, I believe it," Dominic answered. He spoke slowly. + +Poppy turned her head sharply and looked hard at him. + +"Ah! but I don't quite like that," she said. "I've muddled it somehow +--I see I have. I've hurt and offended you. You're farther off than +you were ten minutes ago. In spirit you've got up and gone away. I +have muddled it. I have made you distrust me." + +"No," Dominic answered, "you have not made me distrust you; but you +have perplexed me. It is the result of my own dulness, no doubt. My +imagination is not agile enough to follow you, and so--" + +He hesitated. That which he had in his mind was not easy to put into +words without discourtesy. He would far rather have left it unsaid; +but to do so would have been, in truth, to stand farther off, to erect +a barrier which might prove insuperable to happy companionship in the +future. + +"Yes?" Poppy queried. Her voice shook just perceptibly. In the +deepening dusk neither could see the other distinctly, and this +contributed to Dominic's decision to speak. + +"It pains me," he said at last, "if you will pardon my frankness, that +you should think it necessary to account for yourself and justify +yourself as you often appear to do." + +"Yes?" Poppy queried again. + +"That you should do so distresses and disturbs me." + +"Yes," Poppy murmured. + +"I am afraid I grow selfish," Iglesias went on gently; "but you have +been good enough to tell me that my poor friendship is of value to +you. Does it not occur to you that yours is of far greater value to +me? And that for many and obvious reasons--these among others, that +while you are young, and have a wide circle of acquaintances, and in a +future to which, brilliant as you are, you may look forward with hope +and assurance, I am absolutely alone in the world. Save for one old +school-fellow, who has been very faithful to me, there is no one to +whom it matters, except in the most superficial degree, whether I live +or die." + +"Ah!" Poppy said softly. + +"Do not misunderstand me, I do not complain," Iglesias added. "I +entertain no doubt but that the circumstances in which I find myself +are the right and profitable ones for me, if I only lay to heart the +lessons they teach, and use the opportunities which they afford me." + +"I don't know about that--I doubt that," Poppy put in hastily. + +"You doubt it because you are young," he answered, "and your +circumstances are capable of alteration and development. Except under +very exceptional conditions, resignation is no virtue in the young. It +is more often an excuse for cowardice and sloth. But at my age the +world changes its complexion. My circumstances are incapable of +alteration and development. They are final. Therefore I do well to +accept them unreservedly. The work of my life is done. I do not say +that it has been a failure, for I fulfilled the main object I had in +view. But it has certainly been obscure and inglorious. The sun will +sink dimly enough into a bank of fog. My present is meagre in interest +and activity. My future, a brief enough one in all probability, must +of necessity be meagre likewise. Therefore your friendship is of +supreme importance to me." + +Iglesias paused. His voice was grave, distinct, weighted with feeling. +He did not look at his companion; he could not trust himself to do so, +for he had discovered in himself unexpected depths of emotion. + +"And just on that account," he went on, "I grow childishly nervous, +childishly apprehensive if anything arises which seems to cloud or, in +however small a measure, to endanger the serenity of our intercourse." + +He turned and looked at her. + +"This constitutes no slight to you, dear friend." + +"No," she said, "very certainly it is no slight. On the contrary, it +is very beautiful; but it's an awful responsibility, too." + +She sat quite still, her head carried high, her hands clasped in her +lap. + +"I've underrated the position, I see. I've only thought of myself so +far and how you pleased me. But though I'm pretty cheeky, too--almost +as cheeky as little Dot--I never had the presumption to put the affair +the other way about." + +Poppy began to sway slightly again and pat the palms of her hands +together between her knees. + +"It's been a game, the finest game I've ever played; and I swore by +all my gods to play fair. But, as you look at it, our friendship +amounts to a good deal more than a game. It goes very deep. And I'm +not sure--. no, I'm not--whether I'm equal to it." + +She glanced at Iglesias strangely through the clinging grey of the +dusk. + +"Dear unknown," she said, "I give you my word I'm frightened--I who've +never been frightened at any man yet. In my own little way I've played +pitch and toss with their hearts and made footballs of them--except +that poor young fellow--I told you about him the first time we met-- +who gave me the scarf, and whose people wouldn't let him marry me. But +this affair with you is different. It goes very far, it means--it +means nothing short of revolution for me, of putting away and +renouncing very much." + +Poppy got up, stood pushing her hair back with both hands from her +forehead. Then she moved across to the further side of the fireplace. +Dominic had risen also. He stood on the near side of the hearth. He +was penetrated with the conviction that a crisis was upon them both, +involving all the happiness of their future relation to one another. + +"You don't understand," Poppy cried passionately. "And I don't want +you to understand--that's half the trouble. I want to keep you. Your +friendship's the loveliest thing I've ever had. And yet I don't know. +For I'm not one woman--I'm half-a-dozen women, and they all pull all +sorts of ways so that I daren't trust myself. I want to keep you, I +tell you, I want horribly to keep you. Yet I'm ghastly afraid I'm not +equal to it. The price is too big." + +As she spoke Poppy dashed her hand against the push of the electric +bell, and held it there, ringing a prolonged alarum, in quick response +to which Phillimore, the respectable elderly parlour maid, appeared, +bearing two rose-shaded lamps. Noiselessly and deftly--as one +accustomed to agitations, whose eyes did not see or ears hear if it +should be unadvisable to permit them to do so--she drew the curtains, +made up the fire, set out the tea-table. And with that change of scene +and shutting out of the dusk, Poppy seemed to change also; gravity and +strength of purpose departing from her, and leaving her-- +notwithstanding her sober dress--unreal, fictitious, artificial, the +red-lipped carmine-tinted lady of the footlights, of the windswept +dust and embroidered dragons again. She chattered, moreover, +ceaselessly, careless of interruption, and of criticism alike. + +"Here, let's hark back to the ordinary conduct of material existence," +she said. "Tea? Won't you sit down? No--well, just as you like best. +Take it standing. Let me see, what were we discussing when we got +switched on to unexpectedly personal lines of conversation? The war-- +yes, I remember. I was just going to tell you that Fallowfeild +believes it's going to be a nasty dragging unsatisfactory business. +Everyone gasses about the Boers being a simple pastoral people. But +Fallowfeild says their simplicity is just another name for guile, and +that he anyway can't conceive a more disconcerting job than fighting a +nation of farmers and huntsmen and gamekeepers in their own country, +every inch of which they know. People say they've no military science. +But so jolly much the better for them. They can be unfettered +opportunists, with nothing to think of but outwitting the enemy and +saving their property and their skins. The poor British Tommy will be +no match for them; nor will the British officer-man either, till he's +unlearned his parade-ground etiquette, and his haw-haw red-tape +methods and manner, and learned their very primitive but very cute and +foxy ones. By which time, Fallowfeild says, the mourning warehouses +here at home will have made a record turnover, and there will be +altogether too many new graveyards for comfort in South Africa." + +Poppy paused in her harangue, for Dominic Iglesias had set down his +cup, its contents untasted. He was sad at heart. + +"Are you going?" she asked. + +"Yes," he answered. "It grows late. It's time I went, I think." + +"Perhaps it is." Poppy's eyes had become inscrutable. "I really ought +to attend to my Gamping, and pass the time of day with Cappadocia. Her +snappishness has scared the maids. They refuse to go within a measured +furlong of her." + +Poppy bent down over the tea-table, arranging the teacups with +elaborate neatness. + +"Good-by," she said. "I don't quite know when we shall meet again." + +"Why?" Iglesias asked. The muscles of his throat were rigid. He had +much ado to speak plainly and naturally. "Are you leaving home?" + +"Home?" she answered. "Yes, I'm leaving it. Good-by again. Don't let +me keep you. Certainly I'm leaving home. Indeed, I believe I have left +it already--for good." + +And she threw back her head and laughed. + +Upon the doorstep a cold rush of air met Mr. Iglesias. Above, the sky +was blue-black and very clear. The road was vacant and grey with +frost. The flame of the gaslamps quivered, giving off a sharp +brightness in the keen atmosphere. Mr. Iglesias turned up the collar +of his coat and descended the steps. Just then a hansom emerged from +the distance and drew up with a rattle and grind against the curb some +twenty paces ahead. The occupant, a young man, flung back the doors +with a thud, and stood a moment on the footboard paying the driver, +who raised himself, leaning forward with outstretched hand across the +glistening black roof of the cab. Then the young man turned round, +swung himself down on to the asphalt pavement, and came forward as +rapidly as a long motor-coat, reaching to his heels, would permit. He +was tall and fair, well-favoured, preoccupied, not to say morose. He +did not vouchsafe Mr. Iglesias so much as a glance as he brushed past +him. The road was still vacant, and in the frosty air sounds carried. +Mr. Iglesias distinctly heard him race up a neighbouring flight of +steps, heard the click and turn of a latchkey in a lock, heard the +slam of a front door pulled to violently. And so doing Dominic turned +cold and a little faint. He would not condescend to look back; but he +had recognised Alaric Barking, and was in no doubt which house he had +entered. + +"Keb, sir? 'Ere yer are, sir," the cabby called cheerily. "Very cold +night. Just set one gentleman down, and 'appy to tike another up. Want +to get back to my comfy little West End shelter, so I'll tike yer for +'alf fares, sir, though we are outside the blooming radius." + +But Iglesias shook his head. The horse stood limply in a cloud of +steam. Alaric Barking had evidently pushed the pace. But even had the +animal been in better condition, Iglesias had no desire to drive in +that particular cab. He would rather have walked the whole way to +Cedar Lodge. + +Opposite the Bell Inn, where the roads fork--one turning away through +Mortlake, the other leading to Barnes Common, Roehampton, and Sheen-- +the row of smart little houses degenerates into shops. By the time he +reached these Mr. Iglesias discovered that he was unaccountably tired. +The keen air oppressed his chest, making his breath come short. It was +useless to attempt to go home on foot. Then, with a sense of relief, +he saw that on the far side of the road a couple of omnibuses stood, +the horses' heads turned Londonwards. He crossed, climbed the stairway +of the leading vehicle slowly, and sank into a seat. The 'bustop was +unoccupied, yet Dominic was not by himself. Two companions had climbed +the winding stairway with him and taken their places beside him, Old +Age on his left hand, Loneliness on his right. All up the long +suburban road, while the omnibus bumped and jolted and the fallen +leaves whirled and scurried before the searching breath of the night +wind Iglesias' two companions seemed to lean across him, talking. +There were tones of mockery in their talk, while behind and through +it, as some discordant refrain, he heard the ring of a young man's +eager footsteps, the click and turn of a latchkey, and the slam of a +door as it shut. On nearing the river the cold grew intense. Crossing +the bridge, the waterside lights were reflected in the surface of the +stream, which ran full and strong from the autumn rains, swirling +seaward with an ebbing tide. To Iglesias' eyes the reflections +converted themselves into fiery dragons, writhing in the heat of +deadly conflict, as upon Poppy St. John's oriental scarf. A glare hung +over London, palpitating as with multitudinous and angry life; and +when the omnibus slowed up in Hammersmith Broadway the voice of the +streets grew loud--the monstrous city, so it seemed to Dominic +Iglesias, shouting defiance to the majestic calm and solemnity of the +eternal stars. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +"He says it is nothing serious, only a slight chill; and sends kind +regards and many thanks for kind inquiries, and hopes to be out in a +day or two, when he will call and thank you in person." + +This from George Lovegrove to his wife, the latter arrayed in garments +of ceremony and seated upon the Chesterfield sofa awaiting guests. It +was her afternoon at-home. + +"Well, I'm sure I hope it is no more than that, Georgie," she answered +comfortably. "Chills are always going about in November, and very +often gentlemen encourage them--especially bachelors--by not changing +into their winter vests and pants early enough. A great deal of +illness is contracted that way." + +Here Serena rustled audibly. She stood by the window, holding the lace +curtain just sufficiently aside to get a narrow and attenuated view of +the fog-enshrouded Green. The outlook was far from inspiriting, and +Serena was keenly interested in the conversation going forward between +her host and hostess. But it was not in her programme to let this +appear. She, while straining her ears to listen, therefore maintained +an air of detachment. The word "pants" was, however, too much for her +fortitude, and she rustled. "Really, Rhoda does use the most +dreadfully unladylike expressions sometimes," she commented inwardly. +"She never seems to remember that everyone is not married, though even +if they were I should hope they would not mention those sort of +things. Rhoda is wanting in refinement. I wonder if George notices +that and feels it. If he does notice it, I think he ought to tell her +about it, because--" + +But here she fell to listening again, since the said George took up +his parable once more. + +"Still, I own I don't like his looks somehow. His face is so thin and +drawn. It reminds me of the time his mother, poor Mrs. Iglesias, died. +I told him, just jocularly, that his appearance surprised me, but he +put it all aside--you know he has a very high aristocratic manner at +times that makes you feel you have been intrusive--and then talked of +other things." + +"He has lived too solitary," Mrs. Lovegrove said judicially, "too +solitary, and that tells on any one in middle life. I should never +forgive myself if we left him to mope. You must just try to coax him +over here to stay, Georgie, and I'll nurse him up and humour him, and +fortunately Serena's here, you see, for pleasant company." + +Mrs. Lovegrove looked meaningly at her spouse, while the figure at the +window again rustled. + +"I am sure you would exert yourself to help cheer poor Mr. Iglesias +up, if he came over to stay, would you not now, Serena?" she inquired +insinuatingly. + +"Are you speaking to me, Rhoda?" + +"Yes, about Mr. Iglesias coming here to stay." + +Serena turned her head and answered over her shoulder. + +"Of course you and George are quite at liberty to ask anyone here whom +you like. And if Mrs. Iglesias came I should be perfectly civil to +him. But I should not care, Rhoda, to bind myself to anything more +than that, because I do not find him an easy person to get on with." + +She turned to her contemplation of the fog with a renewed assumption +of indifference. George Lovegrove's shiny forehead puckered into +little lines. He looked anxiously at his wife. The good lady, however, +laid a fat forefinger upon her lips and nodded her head at him in the +most archly reassuring manner. + +"That's funny," she said, "because Mr. Iglesias is quite the cleverest +of all Georgie's gentlemen friends--except, of course, the dear vicar +--and so I always took for granted anyone like yourself was sure to +get on nicely with him, Serena. Even I hardly ever find him difficult +to talk with." + +"I never talk easily to strangers," Serena put in loftily. + +"Oh! but you'd hardly call Mr. Iglesias a stranger." + +"Yes, I should," Serena declared with emphasis. "I should certainly +call him a stranger. I always call everyone a stranger till I know +them intimately. It is much safer to do so. And it would be absurd to +pretend that I know Mr. Iglesias intimately. You, of course, do, but I +do not. You and George may have seen him frequently since I have been +here, but I have really seen him very seldom, four or five times at +the outside. He has generally appeared to call when I was likely to be +out. I could not help observing that. It may be a coincidence, of +course. But I cannot pretend that I have not thought it rather +marked." + +Serena had advanced into the centre of the room. She held herself +erect. She enjoyed making a demonstration. "Rhoda may think I am a +cipher," she said to herself, "but she is mistaken. She may think I +can be hoodwinked and used as a mere tool, but I will let her see that +I cannot." She felt daring and dangerous, and her eyes snapped. The +rustling of her skirts and the emphatic tones of her voice aroused the +parrot, which had been dosing on its perch, its head sunk between its +shoulders and its breast-feathers fluffed out into a little green +apron over its grey claws. + +"Pollie's own pet girlie," it murmured drowsily, with dry clickings of +its tongue against its beak, the words jolting out in foolish twos and +threes. "Hi! p'liceman--murder! fire! thieves!--there's another jolly +row downstairs." + +Poor George Lovegrove gazed in bewilderment from Serena to the parrot, +from the parrot to his wife, and then back to Serena again. + +"You do surprise me! And I am more mortified than I can say that you +should have the most distant reason, Serena--or Susan either--ever to +feel the least slighted in this house. You do surprise me--I can't +believe it has been the least intentional on Iglesias' part. But I +would not have had anything of the kind happen for twenty pounds." + +"Pray don't apologise, George," Serena cried, "or I shall feel quite +annoyed. Of course everyone has a right to their own preferences; but +I had been led to expect something different. As I say, it may only be +a coincidence. Nothing may have really been meant. Only it has seemed +rather marked. But in any case it has not been your fault, George." + +"I am very glad you allow that, Serena," the good creature said +humbly. + +"Oh! yes. I quite excuse you of any intentional slight, George. I +quite trust you. Still, nothing could be more unpleasant than for me +to feel that my being here put any restriction upon your friends +coming to the house. Of course I know Susan and I move in rather +different society from Rhoda and yourself." + +"Yes," he assented hurriedly, agonised as to the wife's feelings-- +"yes, yes." + +"And so it is quite possible that I may not suit some of your +acquaintances." + +"Excuse me," he panted--"no, Serena, I cannot think that." + +"I am not sure," she returned argumentatively. "Not at all sure, +George. And nothing could be more unpleasant to me than to feel I was +the least in the way. Of course, I should never have come back if I +had supposed I should be in the way; but Rhoda made such a point of +it." + +Here the parrot broke forth into prolonged and earpiercing shriekings, +flapping its wings violently and nearly tumbled backwards off its +perch. + +"Throw a handkerchief over the poor bird's cage, Georgie dear," cried +Mrs. Lovegrove from the sofa. Her face was red. She had become +distressingly hot and flustered.--"And just as I was flattering myself +it was all turning out so nicely, too," she said to herself.--"No, not +your own, Georgie dear"--this aloud--"you may need it later. The red +bandana out of the right-hand corner of the top drawer of the work- +table." + +"I think it would be much simpler for me to go," Serena continued, her +voice pitched in a high key to combat the cries of the parrot and the +rattle of the table drawer, which George Lovegrove in his present +state of agitation found it impossible to shut with accuracy and +despatch. + +"Of course, it may inconvenience Susan to have me return sooner than +she expected. She is away speaking at a number of missionary meetings +in the North. And the maids will be on board wages, and the drawing- +room furniture will have been put into holland covers. She counted on +my staying here till I go to my cousin, Lady Samuelson, in Ladbroke +Square, the third week in December. But, of course, all that must be +arranged. I can give up my visit. Lady Samuelson will be annoyed, and +I don't know what excuse I can make to her. Still, I think I had +really much better go; and then you can have Mr. Iglesias, or any +other of your and Rhoda's friends, to stop here without my feeling +that I am in the way. Nothing could be more odious to me than feeling +I was encroaching or forcing myself upon you. Mamma would never have +countenanced such behaviour. It is the sort of thing we were always +brought up to have the greatest horror of. It is a thing I never have +done and never could do. I hope you understand that, George. Nothing +could be further from my thoughts when I accepted Rhoda's invitation +to----" + +"Miss Hart, please, ma'am," the little house-parlour-maid trumpeted, +her face very pink from the exertion of attracting her mistress's +attention and making herself heard. Mrs. Lovegrove bounced up from the +sofa. Usually, it must be allowed, the great Eliza was rather at a +discount. Now she was astonishingly welcome. Her hostess's greeting, +though silent, was effusively cordial. She clutched at her guest's +hand as one in imminent risk of drowning at a lifebelt. The said guest +was in her sprightliest humour. She was also in a scarlet flannel +blouse thickly powdered with gradated black discs. This, in +conjunction with purple chrysanthemums in a black hat, her tawny hair +and freckled complexion, did not constitute a wholly delicious scheme +of colour; but to this fact Mrs. Lovegrove was supremely indifferent. + +"Good-afternoon," Miss Hart said in a stage whisper, glancing towards +Serena, still bright-eyed and erect. "Don't let me interrupt, pray. My +conversation will keep. I will just sit and listen." + +"Listen to what?" Serena cried, almost inarticulate with indignation. + +"Why, to your recitation. Our gentlemen often treat us to a little in +that line of an evening, Mrs. Lovegrove, after dinner. I dote on +recitation. Pieces of a comic nature specially, when well delivered." + +"I should never dream of reciting," Serena declared heatedly. + +"No, really now," Miss Hart returned. "That seems quite a pity. It is +such a pleasant occupation for a dull afternoon like this, do you not +think so, Miss Lovegrove? I declare I was quite sure, from the moment +I came into the hall--while I was taking off my waterproof--that your +cousin was giving you a little entertainment of that kind, Mr. +Lovegrove. Her voice was running up and down in such a very telling +manner." + +If glances could scorch, Miss Hart would unquestionably have been +reduced to a cinder, for rage possessed Serena. She had worked herself +up into a fine fume of anger over purely imaginary injuries. And now, +that Eliza Hart, of all people in the world, should intervene with +suggestions of comic recitations! + +"Detestable person!" Serena said to herself. "Her conduct is +positively outrageous. Of course she knew perfectly well I was doing +nothing of the kind. Really, I believe anybody would feel her manner +quite insulting. I wonder how George and Rhoda can tolerate her. It +shows George has deteriorated much that he should tolerate her. I am +not so surprised at Rhoda. Of course she never had good taste. I think +I ought to go to my room. That would mark my displeasure. But then she +may have come on purpose to say something particular. I wonder if she +has done so? Of course if she has, she wants to get rid of me. That is +her object. But she is mistaken if she thinks that I shall gratify +her. I think I owe it to myself to make sure exactly what is going on. +I will certainly stay. That will show her I am on the watch." + +During this protracted, though silent, colloquy, Serena had remained +standing in the middle of the room. Now she rustled back to the +window, held aside the lace curtain and resumed her contemplation of +the fog-enshrouded Green. Good George Lovegrove gazed after her in +deep dejection and perplexity. Somebody, it appeared to him, had been +extremely unreasonable and disagreeable; but who that somebody was for +the very life of him he could not tell. The wife was out of the +question; while to suppose it Serena approached high treason. Still he +was very sure it could not be that most scrupulously courteous +personage Dominic Iglesias. There remained himself--"Yet I wouldn't +knowingly vex a fly," he thought, "and as to vexing Serena! Sometimes +ones does wish females were not quite so sensitive." + +Miss Hart, meanwhile, had taken the unaccustomed post of honour beside +her hostess upon the sofa. She was enjoying herself immensely. She +had a conviction of marching to victory. + +"Yes," she said, "Mrs. Lovegrove, dear Peachie Porcher asked me just +to run across as she has missed your last two afternoons, lest you +should think her neglectful. I am well aware I am but a poor +substitute for Peachie--no compliments now, Mr. Lovegrove, if you +please!" + +"Mrs. Porcher is in good health, I trust"--this from Rhoda. + +"At present, yes, I am happy to say, thank you. But how long it will +continue," Miss Hart spoke impressively--"at this rate I am sure I +cannot tell." + +"Indeed," George Lovegrove inquired anxiously. "You don't tell me so? +Nothing wrong, I trust." + +"Well, as I always tell her, her sense of duty amounts almost to a +fault--so unselfish, so conscientious, it brings tears to my eyes +often at times. I hope it is appreciated in the right quarter--I do +hope that, Mr. Lovegrove." + +Here Rhoda's bosom heaved with a generous sigh. + +"There is much ingratitude in the world, Miss Hart, I fear," she said +pensively. + +Her husband looked at her in an anguish of apology--whether for his +own sins or those of others he knew not exactly. + +"So there is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza responded warmly. "And nobody is +a more speaking example of that truth than Peachie Porcher. When I +think of all she went through during her married life, and yet so +unsuspicious, so trusting--it is enough to melt an iceberg, that it +is, Mrs. Lovegrove. Now, as I was saying to her only this morning, +'You must study yourself a little, get out in the air, take a peep at +the shops, and have some amusement.' But her reply is always the +same.--'No, Liz, dear,' she says, 'not at the present time, thank you. +I know the duties of my position as mistress of Cedar Lodge. When any +one of our gentlemen is ailing, my place is at home. I must remain in +the house in case of a sudden emergency. I should not have an easy +moment away from the place,' she says." + +Miss Hart looked around upon her hearers demanding approbation and +sympathy. + +"Very affecting, is it not?" she inquired. + +After a moment's embarrassed silence, George Lovegrove murmured a +suitable, if timid, assent. His wife assumed a bolder attitude. Goaded +by provocations recently received, she went over--temporarily--to the +side of the enemy. + +"I always have maintained Mrs. Porcher was full of heart," she +declared, throwing the assertion across the room, much as though it +was a stone, in the direction of the figure at the window. + +Serena drew herself up with a rustle. + +"I wonder exactly what Rhoda means by that?" she commented inwardly. +"I think it very odd. Of course, she must have some meaning, and I +wonder what it is. She seems to be changing her line. I am glad I +stayed. I am afraid Rhoda is rather deceitful. I excuse George of +deceit. I believe George to be true; but he is sadly influenced by +Rhoda. I am rather sorry for George." + +"So she is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza Hart resumed--"Peachie's too full +of heart, as I tell her. She is forever thinking of others and their +comforts. She grudges neither time nor money, does not Peachie. There +is nothing calculating or cheese-paring about her--not enough, I often +think. Fish, sweetbreads, game, poultry, and all of the very best-- +where the profits are to come from with a bill of fare like that +passes my powers of arithmetic, and so I point out to her. I hope it +is appreciated--yes, I do hope that, Mr. Lovegrove"--there the speaker +became extremely coy and playful. "A little bird sometimes seems to +twitter to me that it is. And yet I am sure I don't know. The members +of your sex are very misleading, Mr. Lovegrove. Do not perjure +yourself now. You cannot take me in. And a certain gentleman is very +close, you know, and stand-offish. It is not easy to get at his real +sentiments, is it, now?" + +Serena laid back her ears, so to speak. "I was quite right to stay," +she reflected wrathfully. + +"I think Mr. Iglesias is unusually considerate, Miss Hart," George +Lovegrove said tentatively. "He is quite sensible of Mrs. Porcher's +kind attentions. But naturally he is very tenacious of upsetting her +household arrangements and giving additional trouble." + +"And then the position of a bachelor is delicate, Miss Hart, you must +admit," Mrs. Lovegrove chimed in. "That's what I always tell Georgie. +It may do all very well in their younger days to be unattached, but as +gentlemen get on in life they do need their own private +establishments. I am sure I am sorry for them in chambers, or even in +good rooms like those at Cedar Lodge. For it is not the same as a +home, Miss Hart, and never can be. There must be awkwardnesses on both +sides at times, especially when, it comes to illness." + +Then the great Eliza gathered herself together, for it appeared to her +her forecast had been just and that she was indeed marching to +victory. + +"Yes, there is no denying all that," she said, "and I am more than +glad you see it in that light, Mrs. Lovegrove. Between ourselves, I +have more and more ever since a certain gentleman gave up work in the +City. It would be premature to speak freely; but, just between friends +and under the rose, you being interested in one party and I in the +other, there can be no harm in dropping a hint and ascertaining how +the land lies. Of course if it came to pass, it would be to my own +disadvantage, for I do not know how I should ever bear to part with +Peachie Porcher. Still, I could put myself aside, if I felt it was for +her happiness." + +"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove exclaimed. He was filled with +consternation, his hair nearly rising on his head. "I had no notion. +Dear me, you fairly take away my breath." He could almost have wept. +"To think of it!" he repeated. "Only to think of it! Miss Hart, you do +surprise me." + +"Oh! you must not run away with the notion anything is really settled +yet," she replied. "And I could not say Mrs. Porcher really would, +when it came to the point, after the experiences she had in her first +marriage. She is very reserved, is Peachie. Still, she might. And very +fortunate a certain gentleman would be if she did--it does not take +more than half an eye to see that." + +"Dr. Nevington, please, ma'am," announced the parlour-maid, and the +fine clerical voice and clerical presence filled all the room. +Thereupon Serena graciously joined the circle. She was unusually self- +possessed and definite. She embarked in a quite spirited conversation +with the newcomer. And when Eliza Hart, after a few pleasantries of a +parochial tendency with the said newcomer--in whose favour she had +vacated the place of honour upon the sofa--rose to depart, Serena +bowed to her in the most royally distant and superior manner. Her +amiability remained a constant quantity during the rest of the +evening; and when an opportunity occurred of speaking in private to +her cousin, she did so with the utmost cordiality. + +"I do hope, George," she said, "you will not think any more of our +little unpleasantness. I can truly say I never bear malice. I own I +was annoyed, for I felt I had not been quite fairly treated by Rhoda. +But, of course, I may have been mistaken. I am quite willing to +believe so and to let bygones be bygones, and stay, as Rhoda pressed +me to do, until I go to my cousin, Lady Samuelson, in December. Of +course it would be more convenient to me in some ways. But I am not +thinking of that. I am thinking of you and Rhoda. I should not like to +disappoint her by leaving her when she wants me to help entertain your +friend, Mr. Iglesias. Of course, I cannot pretend I take easily to +strangers. Mamma was very particular whom we associated with, and so I +have always been unaccustomed to strangers, and I cannot pretend I am +partial to making new acquaintances. Still, I should be very sorry to +seem unaccommodating, or to hurt you and Rhoda by refusing to stay and +assist you." + +"Thank you truly, Serena; I am sure you are very kind," the good man +answered. And the best, or the worst, of it was he actually believed +he was speaking the truth! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The easterly wind blew strong and shattering, bleak and dreary, +against the windows of the bedchamber at the back of the house. The +complaint of the cedar tree, as the branches sawed upon one another, +was long-drawn and loud. These sounds reached Iglesias in the sitting- +room, where he sat, alone and unoccupied, before the fire. For more +than a week now he had been confined to the house. He had set the door +of communication between the two rooms open, so as to gain a greater +sense of space and that he might take a little exercise by walking the +whole length of them. The cry of the wind and the moan of the sawing +branches was very comfortless, yet he made no effort to shut it out. +To begin with, he was so weak that it was too much trouble to move. To +go on with, the melancholy sounds were not ill-suited to his present +humour. For a great depression was upon him, a weariness of spirit +which might be felt. Out of doors London shivered, houses and sky and +the expanse of Trimmer's Green, with its leafless trees and iron +railings, livid, a greyness upon them as of fear. Dominic had no +quarrel with this either. Indeed it gave him a certain bitter +satisfaction, as offering a not inharmonious setting to his own +thought. + +Though not robust he was tough and wiry, so that illness of such a +nature as to necessitate his remaining within doors was a new and +trying experience. Crossing Hammersmith Bridge on the 'bustop ten days +previously, the chill of the river had struck through him. Yet this, +in all reasonable probability, would merely have resulted in passing +physical discomfort, but for the moral and spiritual hurt immediately +preceding it. How far the mind has power to cure the body is still an +open question. But that the mind can actively predispose the body to +sickness is indubitable. To realise and analyse, in their several +bearings, the causes and consequences of that same moral hurt +Iglesias' pride and loyalty alike refused. In respect of them he set +his jaw and sternly averted his eyes. Yet, though the will may be +steady to resist and to abstain, the tides of feeling ebb and flow, +contemptuous of control as those of some unquiet sea. They defy +volition, notably in illness when vitality is low. Refuse as he might +to go behind the fact, it remained indisputable that the Lady of the +Windswept Dust had given him his dismissal. Out of his daily life a +joy had gone, a constant object of thought and interest. Out of his +heart a living presence had gone, leaving a void more harsh than +death. And all this had happened in a connection peculiarly painful +and distasteful to him; so that it was as though a foul miasma had +arisen, and, drifting across the face of his fair friendship, +distorted its proportions, rendering all his memories of it suspect. +Further, in this discrediting of friendship his hope of the discovery +of that language of the soul which can alone effect a true adjustment +between the exterior and interior life had suffered violent eclipse. +He had been thrown back into the prison-house of the obvious and the +material. The world had lost its poetry, had grown narrow, sordid, +dim, and gross. His own life had grown more than ever barren of +opportunity and inept. In short, Dominic Iglesias had lost sight of +the far horizon which is touched by the glory of the Uncreated Light; +and, so doing, dwelt in outer darkness once again, infinitely +desolate. + +On the afternoon in question he had reached the nadir of disillusion +and distrust. He leaned back in the red-covered chair, his shapely +hands lying, palms downward, along the two arms of it, his vision of +the room and its familiar contents blurred by unshed tears. It was an +hour of supreme discouragement. + +"Nothing is left," he said, half aloud, "nothing. The future is as +blank as the present. If this is to grow old, then indeed those whom +the gods love have need enough to die young." + +For a space he listened to the shattering wind as it cried in the +window-sashes, to the branches of the cedar sawing upon one another +and moaning as in self-inflicted pain. Newsboys were calling early +specials. The coarse cockney voices, strangled by the easterly blast, +met and crossed one another, died away in a side street, to emerge +again and again encounter. Such words as were distinguishable seemed +of sinister import, agitating to the imagination. Then de Courcy +Smyth's shuffling footsteps crossed the floor of the room overhead. +The wire-wove mattress of his bed creaked as he sat on the edge of it, +kicking off his slippers and putting on walking boots, as might be +gathered from floppings followed by an equally nerveless but heavier +tread. A door opened, closed, and the footsteps descended the stairs. +On the landing without they paused for an appreciable time; but, to +Mr. Iglesias's great relief, deciding against attempt of entry, +continued their cheerless progress down to the hall below. Yet, just +now Iglesias could have found it in his heart to envy the man, +notwithstanding his unsavouriness of attitude and aspect. For in him +ambition still stirred. He had still definite work to do, and the hope +of eventual fame to support him during the doing of it; had the +triumph of the theatre, the applause of an audience in the white heat +of enthusiasm to dream of and strive after. + +"But, for me, nothing," Iglesias repeated, "whether vital as of those +far-away southern battle-fields, or fictitious and close at hand as of +the stage. Not even the sting of poverty to whet appetite and give an +edge to bodily hunger. Nothing, either of fear or of hope. The measure +of my obscurity is the measure of my immunity from change of fortune, +bad or good. I am worthless even as food for powder. Danger herself +will have none of me, and passes me by." + +With that he raised his hands and let them drop despairingly along the +arms of the chair again, while the unbidden tears overflowed. For a +minute or more he remained thus, weeping silently with bowed head. +Then, a movement of self-contempt taking him, he regained his calm, +sat upright, brushing away the tears. + +And it was as though, in thus regaining a clearer physical vision, he +regained a clearer mental vision likewise. Purpose asserted itself as +against mere blind acquiescence. Iglesias looked up, demanding as of +right some measure of consolation, some object promising help. So +doing, his eyes sought a certain carven oak panel set in an ebony +frame. From his earliest childhood he remembered it, for it had hung +in his mother's bedchamber; and in those far-away years, while she +still had sufficient force to disregard opposition and make an open +practice of prayer, she had kneeled before it when engaged in her +devotions. Waking at night--when as a baby-child, during his father's +long absences, he slept in her room--Dominic had often seen the +delicate kneeling figure, wrapped in some loose-flowing garment, the +hands outstretched in supplication. Even then, in the first push of +conscious intelligence, the carven picture had spoken to him as +something masterful, for all its rigidity and sadness, and very strong +to help. It had given him a sense of protection and security, so that +his little soul was satisfied; and he could go to sleep again in +peace, sure that his mother was in safe keeping while--as he said--she +"talked to it." In the long interval which had elapsed since then he +had lost touch with the spirit of it, though preserving it as among +the most cherished of his family relics. His appreciation of it had +become aesthetic rather than religious. But now, as it hung on the +dimly white wall above his writing-table on the window side of the +fireplace, the dreary London afternoon light took the surface of it, +bringing all the details of the scene into prominence. Suddenly, +unexpectedly, the old power declared itself. The picture came alive as +to the intention and meaning of it. It spoke to him once again, and +that with no uncertain voice. + +Three tall narrow crosses uplifted against a cloudless sky. Below, a +multitude of men, women, and horses, carved in varying degrees of +relief. Some starting into bold definiteness, some barely indicated +and as though imprisoned in the thickness of the wood; but all grave, +energetic, and, whether inspired by compassion or by mockery, fierce. +These grouped around a great web of linen--upheld by some of them at +the four corners, hammock-wise, high at the head, low at the foot-- +wherein lay the corpse of a man in the very flower of his age, of +heroic proportions, spare yet muscular, long and finely angular of +limb, the articulations notably slender, the head borne proudly though +bent, the features severely beautiful, the whole virile, indomitable +even in the physical abjection of death. + +In this Spanish presentment of the closing act of the Divine Tragedy +the sensuous pagan element, which mars too many otherwise admirable +works of religious art, was absent. Its appeal was to the intellect +rather than to the emotions, inculcating effort rather than inviting +any sentimental passion of pity. Its message was that of conquest, of +iron self-mastery and self-restraint. This was bracing and courage- +begetting even when viewed from the exclusively artistic standpoint. +But now not merely the presentment of the event held Iglesias' +attention, but the event presented, the thing in itself. His heart and +intelligence grasped the meaning of it, not only as a matter of +supreme historic interest in view of its astonishing influence upon +human development during the last two thousand years; but as an ever- +present reality, as an exposition of the Absolute, of that which +everlastingly has been, and everlastingly will be, and hence of +incalculable and immediate importance to himself. It spoke to him of +no vague and general truth; but of a truth intimate and individual, +coming to him as the call to enter upon a personal inheritance. Of +obedience to the dictates of natural religion, and faithful practice +of the pieties of it, Dominic Iglesias had, all his life, been a +remarkable if unconscious exponent. But this awakening of the spirit +to the actualities of supernatural religion, this crossing of that +dark immensity of space which appears to interpose between Almighty +God and the mind of man, was new to him. He had sought a language of +the soul which might effect an adjustment between the exterior and +interior life. Here, in the Word made Flesh, with reverent amazement +he found it. He had sought it through the instrumentality of the +things of time and sense; and they, though full with promise, had +proved illusory. He had fixed his hope on relation to the creature. +But here, all the while, close beside him, waiting till the scales +should fall from his eyes and he should see and understand, had stood +the Creator. Fair, very fair--while it lasted--was human friendship. +But here, had he but strength and daring to meet it, was a friendship +infinitely fairer, immutable, eternal--namely, the friendship of +Almighty God. + +The easterly wind still cried in the window-sashes, harsh and +shattering. The branches of the exiled cedar tree sawed upon one +another, uttering their long-drawn complaint. The voices of the +newsboys, hoarse and raucous, shouting their sinister message, still +came and went. The livid light of the winter afternoon grew more +dreary as it sank into, and was absorbed by, the deepening dusk. But +to Dominic Iglesias these things had ceased to matter. Dazzled, +enchanted, confounded, alike by the magnitude and the simplicity of +his discovery, he remained gazing at the carven panel; gazing through +and beyond it to that of which it was the medium and symbol, gazing, +clear-eyed and fearlessly, away to the far horizon radiant with the +surpassing glory of the Uncreated Light. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The Black Week had just ended; but the humiliation of it lay, as a +dead weight, upon the heart of London. Three crushing reverses in +eight days--Stormberg, Magersfontein, and finally Colenso! There was +no getting rid of the facts, or the meaning of them in respect of +incapacity, blundering, and reckless waste of personal valour. It was +a sorry tale, and one over which Europe at large chuckled. It has been +universally assumed that the English are a serious nation. This is an +error. They are not serious, but indifferent, a nation of +individualists, each mainly, not to say exclusively, occupied with his +own private affairs. With the vast majority unity of sentiment is +suspect, and patriotism a passive rather than an active virtue. But at +this juncture, under the stress of repeated disaster, unity of +sentiment and patriotism--that is, a sense of the national honour and +necessity for the vindication of it--became strongly evident. London +was profoundly and visibly moved. Not with excitement--that came +later, manifesting itself in hysterical outcries of relief--but with a +grim anger and sadness of astonishment that such things could indeed +be. Strangers, passing in the street, looked one another in the eyes +questioningly, a common anxiety forging unexpected bonds of kinship. +The town was curiously hushed, as though listening, always listening, +for those ugly messages rushed so perpetually by cable from overseas. +Men's faces were strained by the effort to hear, and, hearing, to +judge justly the extent and the bearings of both national and +individual damage. Already mourning struck a sensible note in women's +dress. If the Little Englander capered, he was careful to do so at +home, or in meeting-places frequented only by persons likeminded with +himself. It may be questioned whether he is not ever most courageous +when under covert thus; since shooting out of windows or from behind +hedges would appear to be his inherent, and not particularly gallant, +notion of sport. The newsboys alone openly and blatantly rejoiced, +dominating the situation--as on Derby Day or Boat-race Night--and +putting a gilded dome to the horror by yelling highly seasoned lies +when truth proved insufficiently evil to stimulate custom to the +extent of his desires. Depression, as of storm, permeated the social +atmosphere. Churches were full, places of amusement comparatively +empty. To laugh seemed an indiscretion trenching on indecency. + +Amid surrounding bravery of imperial purple, cream-colour, and gold, +Poppy St. John sat at the extreme end of the first row of balcony +stalls in the newly opened Twentieth Century Theatre. This was a calm +and secluded spot, since the partition, dividing off the boxes, +flanked it on the right. Partly on this account Poppy had selected it. +Partly, also, because it afforded an excellent view of the left of the +stage; and it was on the left--looking from the body of the house-- +that the principal action of the piece, as far as Dot Parris's part +was concerned, took place. Poppy was unattended. She wanted an +evening's rest, an evening free of conversation and effort; but she +wanted something to look at, too, something affording just sufficient +emotional stimulus to keep importunate thought at bay. This the +theatre supplied. It had ceased long ago to tire her. She knew the +ways of it from both sides of the footlights uncommonly well, and +loved them indifferently much. She was a shrewd and cynical critic. +Nevertheless, to go to the play was a sort of going home to her--a +home neither very socially nor morally exalted, perhaps, but one +offering the advantages of perfect familiarity. + +Huddled in a black velvet fur-lined sacque, reaching to her feet and +abundantly trimmed with jet embroidery and black lace, she settled +herself in her place. The soft fur was cosey against her bare neck. +She felt chilly. Later she might peel, thereby exhibiting the values +of the rest of her costume. But it was not worth while to do so yet. +The first piece was over, but the house was still a poor one. It might +fill up. She hoped it would for Dot's sake; for few things are more +disheartening than to play to empty benches. But, at present, the +audience was altogether too sparse for it to be worth while to +sacrifice comfort to effect. In point of fact, Poppy was cold from +sheer fatigue. For the last month, to employ her own rather variegated +phraseology, she had racketed, had persistently and pertinaciously +been "going the pace." No doubt they do these things better in France; +yet, as she reflected, provided you are unhampered by prejudice, are +fairly in funds and know the ropes, even grimy fog-bound London is, in +this particular connection, by no means to be sneezed at. And truly +Poppy's autobiography during the said month would have made extremely +merry reading, amounting in some aspects to a positive classic--though +of the kind hardly suited as a basis of instruction for the pupils of +a young ladies' school. Setting aside adventures of a more +questionable character, a positively alarming good luck had pursued +her, everything she touched turning to gold. Even in this hour of +financial depression the market favoured her both in buying and +selling. If she put money on a horse, that horse was sure to win. If +she played cards--and she had played pretty constantly--she inevitably +plundered her opponents. This last alone, of all her doubtful doings, +really troubled her; for her opponents had frequently been youthful, +and it was contrary to Poppy's principles to pluck the but +half-fledged chick. + +Barring this solitary deflection from her somewhat latitudinarian code +of ethics, she had, on the face of it, ample cause for self- +congratulation. Never had she been more gaily audacious in word or +deed. Never had she been better company, keeping her audience--an +almost exclusively masculine one--in a roar, all the louder perhaps +because of inward defiance of the news from over-seas, the humiliation +of which had now culminated in the disasters of the Black Week. Flame +only shows the brighter for a sombre background. And Poppy, during +this ill-starred period, had been as a flame to her admirers and +associates--a fitful, prankish flame, full of provocation and +bedevilment, the light of it inciting to all manner of wild doings +and, in the end, not infrequently scorching those pretty shrewdly who +were over-bold in warming themselves at the heat of it. For fires of +the sort lighted by Poppy are not precisely such as contribute to the +peace and security of the domestic hearth. + +But now she was tired. The fun seemed fun no longer; so that, +notwithstanding her successes, she found herself a prey to +dissatisfaction, discontent, and a disposition to recall all the less +happy episodes of her varied career. She yawned quite loudly, as she +laid opera-glasses and play-bill upon the velvet cushion in front of +her, and pulled the soft fur-lined garment up closer about her +shoulders. + +"The first act's safe to be poorish anyhow, and Dot does not come on +till just the end of it. I wonder if I dare go to sleep?" she asked +herself, gently rubbing her eyes. "It would be awfully nice to forget +the whole blooming show, past, present, and to come, for a little +while and plunge in the waters of oblivion. Oblivion with a capital O +--a dose of that's what I want. Beautiful roomy consolation-stakes +of a word, oblivion, if one could only believe in the existence of +it--which, unluckily, some-how I can't." + +Here the strains of the orchestra ceased. The lights were turned low +in the body of the house. The curtain went up. As it did so a cold +draught drew from regions behind the stage, laden with that +indefinable odour of gas, glue, humanity, flagged stair and alleyways, +paint, canvas, carpentry, and underground places the sun never +penetrates, which haunts the working part of every theatre. Poppy +smiled as she snuffed it, with a queer mingling of enjoyment and +repulsion. For as is the smell of ocean to the seafarer, of mother- +earth to the peasant, of incense to the priest, so is the smell of the +theatre to the player. Nature may revolt; but the spell holds. Once an +actor always an actor. The mark of the calling is indelible. Even to +the third and fourth generation there is no rubbing it out. + +"I suppose it would have been wiser if I had stuck to the profession," +Poppy commented to herself. "I should have been a leading lady by now, +drawing my thirty to forty pounds a week. I had the root of the matter +in me. Have it still, worse luck; for it's the sort of root which +asserts its continued existence by aching at times like that of a +broken tooth. It was a wrench to give it all up. But then those rotten +plays of his, inflated impossible stuff, which would never act-- +couldn't act!--and I carrying them round to manager after manager and +using all the gentle arts I knew to get them accepted. Oh! it was very +dignified, it was very pretty! And then his perpetual persecutions for +money, his jealousy and spite, and his fine feelings, his infernal +superiority--yes, that was what really did the job. Flesh and blood +couldn't stand it. To prove to a woman, at three meals daily, that she +couldn't hold a candle to you in birth, or brains, or education; and +then expect her to slave for you--and make it jolly hot for her if she +didn't, too--while you sat at home and caressed the delusion of your +own heaven-born genius in the only decently comfortable chair in the +house! No, it was not good enough--that it was not." + +Poppy surveyed the stage, unseeing, her great eyes wide with unlovely +memories. + +"I wonder what's become of him," she said presently. "He hasn't dunned +me for months. Has he found some other poor wretch to bleed? Must +have, I imagine, for he always declared he was on the edge of +starvation. Supposing that was true, though--supposing he has +starved?" + +Her thought sank away into a wordless reverie of the dreariest +description. Suddenly she roused herself, clenching her hands in her +lap. + +"Well, supposing he has, what does it matter to me? If ever a man +deserved to starve, he did, vain, lazy, cowardly, self-seeking jackal +of a fellow. Why in the name of reason should I trouble about him-- +specially to-night? But then why, whenever I am a bit done, does the +remembrance of him always come back?" + +Poppy yawned again, staring blankly at the persons on the stage, +hearing the sound of their speech but knowing only the sense of her +own thought. + +"Why? Because it's like him, because it's altogether in the part. He +was always on the watch for his opportunity; wheedling or +blackguarding, directly he saw one had no fight left in one, till he +got his own way." + +She leaned forward, resting her hands on the velvet cushion. + +"I am confoundedly tired," she said. "All the same, it's rather +horrible. If the thing came over again, which mercifully it can't, I +should do precisely the same as I did. And yet I'm never quite sure +which of us was really in the right. And, therefore, I suppose just as +long as I live, whenever I'm dished--as I am to-night--I shall work +the whole hateful business through again, and the remembrance of him +will always come back." + +She pushed the soft heavy masses of hair up from her forehead with +both hands. + +"In the main it was your own fault, de Courcy Smyth, and you know that +it was. Most women would not have held out nearly as long as I did. So +lie quiet. Let me be. Starve, if you've got as far on the downgrade as +that. What do I care? I owe you nothing. You never gave me a child. So +starve, if you must--yes, starve," she said. + +Then she gathered herself back into her stall. Her expression changed. + +"Ah, there's Dot. They're giving her a reception. Bless them--how +awfully sweet! Hurrah for poor little Dot!" Her hands went up to +applaud. And for the ensuing ten minutes her fatigue was forgotten. +She became absorbed in the action of the piece. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Dot Parris earned a recall at the end of the first act, conquering by +sheer force of personality that gloomy and half-hearted audience. And +Poppy St. John--among whose many faults lack of generosity certainly +could not be counted--standing up, leaned right out over the velvet- +cushioned barrier of the dress circle, crying "Brava!" and clapping +her hands. To achieve the latter demonstration with befitting +resonance she had stripped off her gloves. Then as the lights were +turned up and the curtain swung into the place, she proceeded to +further stripping--namely, that of her black embroidered sacque, +which she threw across the back of the empty stall beside her, thereby +revealing a startling costume. For she was clothed in rose-scarlet +from shoulder to foot; and that without ornament of any description to +break up the daring uniformity of colour, save the stiff unstanding +black aigrette in her hair, tipped with diamond points which flashed +and glittered as she moved. The soft _mousseline-de-soie_ of +which her dress was made swathed her figure, cross-wise, without +apparent fastening, moulding it to the turn of the hips. Thence the +skirt flowed down in a froth of rose-scarlet gaugings and fluted frills, +which trailed behind her far. The bodice was cut in a deep V back and +front, showing her bare neck. Her arms were bare, too, from the elbow. +Her skin, somewhat sallow by day, took on a delicate ivory whiteness +under the electric light. By accident or design she had omitted to +tinge her cheeks to-night; and the even pallor of her face emphasised +the largeness of her eyes--luminous, just now, with sympathy and +enthusiasm. For the artist in Poppy dominated all else, vibrant and +alert. The glamour of the actor's life was upon her; the seamy side of +it forgotten--its unworthy rivalries and bickerings, the slangings and +prolonged weariness of rehearsals, its many disappointments, +heart-burnings, and sordid shifts. These were as though they were not; +so that the stage called her, even as the sea calls one, and mother-earth +another, and religion a third. + +"Pou-ah! aren't I just hot, though!" she said, half aloud, as she +flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, +after all! An imp of genius.--well, she's every right to that, as one +knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He +didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to +the number of one's emotions! And she's inherited his gifts on her own +lines. What a voice, what gestures! She is as clever as she can stick. +Oh! she's a real joy of a demon of a thing, bless her; and she's +nothing like come to her full strength yet." + +Then growing aware that she herself and her vivid attire were +beginning to attract more attention than, in the interests of a quiet +evening, she desired, Poppy subsided languidly into her stall, and, +picking up her opera-glasses, slowly surveyed the occupants of the +house. + +There to begin with was Bobby Saville in the second row of the stalls, +flanked on either hand by a contingent of followers. His round dark +head and the set of his tremendous shoulders were unmistakable. +Saville was very far from being a model young man, yet Poppy had a +soft spot in her heart for this aristocratic bruiser and bravo. His +constancy to Dot Parris was really touching. With a dog-like +faithfulness and docility, this otherwise most turbulent of his sex +had followed the object of his affections from music-hall to comic +opera, from comic opera to the high places of legitimate drama. And +Dot meanwhile remained serenely invulnerable, tricking and mocking her +high-born heavy-weight lover, telling him cheerfully she really had no +use for him, though his intentions were strictly honourable. Twenty- +five years hence, she added, when he was an elderly peer, and she had +begun to grow broad in the beam, and the public had begun to grow +tired of her, she might perhaps contemplate the thraldom of wedlock. +But not yet awhile--no, thank you. Her art held all her love, +satisfied all her passions; she had none to waste upon mankind. Two +days hence, as Poppy knew, Bobby Saville would sail for South Africa, +to offer an extensive target to Boer bullets. He had come to bid +farewell, to-night, to the obdurate object of his affections. And his +followers--some of whom were also bound for the seat of war--had come +to support him during those pathetic proceedings. + +In the boxes she recognised more than one woman whose rank of riches +had rendered her appearance common property through the medium of the +illustrated papers. But upon these social favourites she bestowed +scant scrutiny. To her they did not matter, since she had a +comfortable conviction that, given their chances, she might safely +have backed herself to beat them at their own game. One large and +gentle-looking lady did attract her, by the innocence of her mild eyes +set noticeably wide apart, and by the beauty of her small mouth. Her +light brown hair, touched with grey, rippled back from her low +forehead under a drapery of delicate lace. She was calm, yet there was +an engaging timidity in her aspect as she sheltered behind the farther +curtain of the box. Beside her sat a young girl, white-clad, +deliciously fresh in appearance, an expression of happy half-shy +expectation upon her charming face. Behind them, in the shadow, +kindly, handsome, debonnair, stood Lord Fallowfeild. His resemblance +to the large and gentle lady declared them brother and sister. Poppy +St. John watched the little party with a movement of tenderness. She +perceived that they were very fond of one another; moreover they were +so delightfully simple in bearing and manner, so excellently well- +bred. But of what was the pretty maiden so shyly expectant? Of +something, or somebody, far more immediately interesting to her than +players or play--so Poppy judged. + +Turning from the contemplation of these pleasant people with a sigh +she could hardly have explained--even to herself--Poppy swept the +dress circle with her opera-glasses. Presently she paused, and with a +lift of surprise looked steadily again, then let both hands and +glasses drop upon her rose-scarlet cap. Four rows up and back, on the +far side, in a stall next the stepped gang-way, a man sat. His face +was turned away, his shoulder being towards her, as he leaned sideways +talking to the woman beside him--a slender, faded, yet elegant person +of uncertain age, dressed in fluffy black. In the seat beyond, also +leaning forward and taking part in the conversation, was another man +of so whimsical an appearance as very nearly to make Poppy laugh +aloud. She would unquestionably have done so had she been at leisure; +but she was not at leisure. Her eyes travelled back to the figure +beside the gang-way, which intrigued both her interest and her memory. +Tall, spare, faultlessly dressed, yet with an effect of something +exotic, aloof, unusual about him, he provoked her curiosity with +suggestions of times and places quite other than of the present. + +"Who is it?" Poppy said to herself. "Surely I know him. Who the +Dickens is it?" + +The conversation ceased. The man drew himself up, turned his head; and +Poppy gave a little choking cry, as she found herself staring Dominic +Iglesias straight in the face. + +Whether he recognised her she did not know, did not want to know just +yet. For she needed a minute or two to reckon with the position. It +was so wholly unexpected. It affected her more deeply than she could +have anticipated. Not without amusement she realised that she had +never, heretofore, quite believed in him as an ordinary mortal, who +ate and drank, went to plays, had relations with human beings other +than herself, and conducted himself generally on the commonplace lines +of modern humanity. Therefore to see him under existing circumstances +was, in a sense, a shock to her. She did not like it. Absurd and +unreasonable though it undoubtedly was to feel it so, yet his presence +here struck her as in a way unseemly, derogatory. She had never +thought of him in this connection, and it took a little time to get +accustom to this aspect of him. Then she discovered, with half- +humorous annoyance, that she was called upon to get accustomed to +something else as well--namely, to her memories of the past month +since she parted from him. For it was undeniable that the said +memories took on a queer enough complexion in the light of this sudden +encounter with Dominic Iglesias. If an hour ago they had been +unsatisfactory, now they were very near odious. And that seemed hardly +fair. Poppy turned wicked. + +"For what's the worry, after all?" she asked herself. "Why on earth am +I either disappointed or penitent? Is he no better than the rest of +us, or am I no worse? And with what am I quarrelling, in any case--his +being less of a saint, or I less of a sinner than I'd been pleased to +imagine? I'm sure I don't know." + +Instinctively her eyes sought that kindly worlding, Lord Fallowfeild. +With him at least, as she reflected, one knew exactly where one was, +since his feet were always very much upon the floor. But here again +discomfiture, alas! awaited her. For another person, and evidently a +welcome one, had joined that pleasant little party. Standing beside +the large and gentle lady, speaking quickly, gaily, his face keen and +eager, she beheld Alaric Barking. Lord Fallowfeild, smiling, patted +the young man affectionately on the shoulder. And then, with a shudder +of pain gnawing right through her, Poppy St. John, glancing at the +graceful white-clad maiden, understood of whose coming this one had +been so sweetly and gladly expectant. + +To the strong there is something exhilarating in all certainty, even +certainty of disaster. And it was very characteristic of Poppy that at +this juncture no cry came to her lips, no sob to her throat. She +shuddered that once, it is true. But then, setting her teeth, the +whole daring of her nature rose to the situation, as a high-mettled +horse rises to a heavy fence. What lay on the other side of that fence +she did not know as yet, nor did she stop to consider. Desperate +though it looked, she took it gallantly without fuss or funking. + +"Well, there's no ambiguity about this affair, anyhow," she said +grimly. "Of course it had to come sooner or later, and I knew it had +to come. Well, here it is, that's all, and there's no use whining. And +that's why he's been so jumpy lately: he had a bad conscience. Poor +old chap, he must have been having a beastly bad time of it." + +Poppy mused a little. + +"Still, it's a facer," she added, "and a precious nasty one, too." + +She stretched herself, shaking back her head, while the diamond points +of her aigrette danced and glittered. Took a deep breath, filling her +lungs; listened to herself, so to speak, noting with satisfaction that +neither heart nor pulse fluttered. + +"No serious damage," she commented. "I must have the nerves of a +locomotive. Here I am perfectly sound, perfectly sober, standing at +the parting of the ways, between the dear old devil of love and the +deep sea of friendship. Poppy Smyth, my good soul, you've always been +rather fatally addicted to drama. Are you satisfied at last? For just +now, heaven knows, you've jolly well got your fill of it." + +Then, for a space, she sat staring out into the house, thinking hard, +intently, yet without words. The future, as she knew, hung in the +balance, for herself and for others; but, as yet, she could not decide +into which scale to throw the determining weight. Presently she looked +steadily at Dominic Iglesias. He was again engaged in conversation, +trying, with his air of fine old-world courtesy, suitably to entertain +his strangely assorted neighbours. Poppy had an idea he found it +rather hard work. She was not in the least sorry. That faded piece of +feminine elegance, in fluffy black, bored her. She entertained a +malicious hope that the said piece of feminine elegance bored Mr. +Iglesias also. Finally, with rather bitter courage, she turned her +eyes once more upon Lord Fallowfeild and his companions. + +"Poor little girl, poor little girl," she said, quite gently, "so +that's your heaven on earth, is it? I'm afraid a mighty big crop of +wild oats is on show in your Garden of Eden. Still to you, apparently, +it is a blissful place enough. Only the question is, do I intend to +relinquish my rights in that particular property and make it over to +you in fee simple, my pretty baby, or do I not? Shall I give it you, +or shall I keep it? For it is mine to give or to keep still--very much +mine, if I choose to make a fight for it, I fancy." + +Yet even as she communed thus with herself, the white-clad maiden and +the other occupants of the box became indistinct and shadowy. The buzz +of conversation in the theatre had ceased; so had the strains of the +orchestra. The lights had been turned low and the curtain had risen +upon the second act. + +About half-way through that act Poppy St. John got up, threw her +velvet sacque over her arm, and, slipping past the three intervening +stalls, made her way up the steps of the near gang-way to the swing- +doors opening out to the couloir. Her movements, though studiously +quiet, were, owing to the vivid hue of her attire, very perceptible +even in the penumbra of the dress circle, provoking attention and +smothered comment. The lady in fluffy black, for example, followed her +with glances of undisguised and condemnatory interest, finally calling +the attention of both her cavaliers to the progress of this glowing +figure. + +The New Century Theatre is one of those enterprises of trans-Atlantic +origin, undertaken with the praiseworthy and disinterested object of +teaching the Old World "how to do it," and is built and furnished +regardless of expense. The couloirs are wide, lofty, richly carpeted; +the walls of them encrusted with pale highly polished marbles, +pilasters of which, with heavily gilded capitals, flank vast panels of +looking-glass. The moulded ceilings are studded with electric lights, +the glare of which is agreeably softened by pineapple-shaped globes of +crystal glass. The scheme of colour, ranging from imperial purple +through crimson and rose-pink to softest flesh tints, formed an +harmonious setting to the rose-scarlet of Poppy's dress, with its +froth of trailing frills and flounces, as she stood discoursing to a +smart, black-gowned, white-aproned box-keeper. + +"You understand, fourth row on the left, next the gang-way? Tell him a +lady wishes particularly to speak to him between the acts. Then bring +him to me here." + +"Yes, madam, I quite understand," the young person replied, with much +intelligence, scenting something in the shape of an adventure. + +Poppy moved across and sat down on one of the wide divans, and so +doing began to know, once more, how very tired she was. A new +tiredness seemed, indeed, to have been added to the original one. That +first was, at worst, bored and irritable. This was of a different, a +more sad and intimate character. + +"I feel as if I had been beaten all over," she said to herself. "Well, +perhaps that's just what it is. I have been beaten. I wish I could +sleep. Oh! dear, oh! dear, how I wish I could sleep." + +Her thought fell away into the vague, the inarticulate, though she did +not sleep. Still there was a temporary suspension of volition, of +conscious mental activity, which, in a degree, rested her. Persons, +passing now and again, looked with curiosity at the brilliant figure, +and inscrutable eyes in the dead-white face. The smart box-keeper, +moved by some instinct of pity, came back more than once, finally +offering one of those unwholesome-looking cups of coffee and boxes of +chocolate of which so few have the requisite audacity to partake. +Poppy roused herself sufficiently to reject these terrible delicacies, +while smiling at the conveyor of them. Then she relapsed into the +vague again, and waited, just waited. + +"There's the end of the act, madam," the young woman remarked at last +encouragingly. + +"All right," Poppy answered. "Go straight away and bring the gentleman +here to me. I'm in a hurry. I want to get home." + +The glass doors of the exits swished back and forth, letting out the +confused stir and murmur of the house, letting out a crowd of men as +well. And the aspect the said crowd presented to Poppy's overstrained +nerves and exalted sensibility was repulsive. For it suggested to her +a flight of gigantic black locusts, strong-jawed, pink-faced, and +white-breasted, driven forth by a common hunger, rather cruelly active +and intent. Her sense of humour was in abeyance, as was her usually +triumphant common sense; so that her thought, going behind appearances +and the sane interpretation of them, declined to that fundamental +region in which the root laws of animal life become hideously bare and +distinct. Out of the deep places of her own womanhood a hatred towards +this crowd of men arose; that secular enmity which exists between the +sexes asserting itself and, for the time being, obscuring both reason +and justice. For upon what, as she asked herself bitterly, when all is +said and done, do these male human locusts pasture, save on the souls +and bodies of women, finding a garden before them, and, too often, +leaving but a desert behind? Sex as sex became abhorrent to her, its +penalties unpardonable, its pleasures as loathsome as its sins. + +But from the black-coated throng the trim figure of the box-keeper +just then detached itself; and a moment later Poppy, looking up, +beheld Dominic Iglesias standing before her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"You sent for me, so I have come," Iglesias said, for Poppy St. John, +usually so voluble, just now appeared speechless. + +From the moment he had become aware of her presence in the theatre, +Dominic had been sensible that she presented herself under a new +aspect. Of the many different Poppys he had seen, this was by far the +most powerful and dramatic. She stood out from the rest of the +audience as some splendid tropic flower stands out from a thick-set +mass of foliage, conspicuous in form and colour and in promise. There +were handsome women, smart women, beautifully dressed women in plenty, +but Poppy did not shade in with all these, making but part of a +general effect. She remained unique, solitary; and this not merely on +account of her vivid raiment. The effect of her told upon the mind +quite as much as upon the sight. Yet she did not look out of place. +She looked, indeed, preeminently at home. Out of doors, in the country +sunshine, she had struck Dominic as a slight creature, unreal and +fictitious. Here, amid highly artificial and conventional +surroundings, she seemed to him the most natural and vital being +present, retaining the completeness of her individuality, the energy +and mystery of it alike, almost aggressively evident and untouched. +Iglesias ceased to consider her in relation to his and her broken +friendship, or in relation to that which he so reluctantly divined of +her private life. He contemplated her in herself, finding an element +of things primitive in her, which commanded his admiration, though it +failed, so far, to touch his heart. And if this was the impression he +received seeing her at a comparative distance, that impression was +greatly intensified seeing her now at close quarters. The contrast +between the subtle softness and the flare--as of a conflagration--of +her dress, the weariness of her attitude, and the unfathomable +melancholy of her eyes, stirred him profoundly. + +"Yes," she answered quietly, almost coldly, "I know I sent. This was +about the last place I should have expected to run across you. I +flattered myself I was safe enough here. I didn't wish to meet you one +little bit. Still, when I did see you, I wanted you. You're the most +plaguey impossible person to rid oneself of somehow"--her voice and +manner softened a little--"so I sent for you. I don't know why, +because now I've got you I seem to have changed my mind. I have +nothing to say." + +"I can easily go," Iglesias remarked gravely. + +"No, no, no," she replied, "why should you hurry? I'm sure those two +freaks you're herding--the beetle turned hind-side before and the +withered leaf--can't be frantically interesting. And I like to look at +you. I never saw you before in evening dress, and you're more _grand +seigneur_ than ever. But something's happened to you. I can't tell +off-hand what it is, whether you've come on or gone back. But you're +altered." + +"I have had an illness," Iglesias said simply; "and I have been very +unhappy." + +"Neither of those are good enough," Poppy answered. "The alteration is +right inside you, in your soul. But you're well again now?" she added. + +"Yes, I am well again now." + +"And you're no longer unhappy?" + +"No," he said. "I am sad, for life is sad; but I am no longer +unhappy." + +"That's a nice distinction," Poppy put in, with a rather scornful +inflection. "What's cured your unhappiness? Not an affair of the +heart? Please don't tell me it's anything to do with a woman, for I +warn you I'm awfully off the affections to-night." + +"You can make yourself quite easy on that point," Dominic said with a +lift of the head, his native pride asserting itself. + +"Ah! that's more like old times!" Poppy's voice softened again, so did +the expression of her face. "Suppose you sit down, dear lunatic. This +wait is a long one, I know. Dot Parris told me it was. Let the freaks +play about together for a little. It will do them good. And I find I +wanted you rather more than I knew at first. I'm beginning to have +something to say after all. Words, only words, perhaps; still it's a +_soulagement_ to sit here with you like this." The corners of +Poppy's mouth drooped and quivered. "I'm having an infernally bad +time; and there's worse ahead." + +"I am sorry. I am grieved," Iglesias said. For the charm had begun to +work again, and friendship, as he began to know, although broken- +winged, was very far from dead. + +"We won't talk about that," she put in, "or I might make a fool of +myself. Dear man, I think I'd better go home. I'm awfully tired. +Still, I'm better for seeing you." She stood up. "Just help me on with +my coat. Thanks--that's right. Oh! I say, there are the freaks on the +prowl, looking for you!" Poppy's tragic eyes turned naughty, +malicious, gay even for a moment. "What sport!" she said--"unhappy +freaks! The withered leaf has intentions. I see that. She'd like to +eat me without salt. Don't marry her--promise me you won't. Ah! +heavenly, heavenly," she cried. "I need no promises, bless you. Your +face is quite enough. Wretched withered leaf! But look here," she went +on, as she gathered the soft warm garment about her, "I'm tired of +your incognito. Give me your card. I may want you again. So let me +have your name and address." + +And Iglesias giving it to her as she requested, she studied it for a +minute silently. Then she turned away. + +"I want nothing more. Don't come down with me. One of the boys will +get me a hansom. I'd rather be alone; so just go back to your +flabbergasted freaks, beloved and no-longer-nameless one," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Thin sunshine slanted in through the lace curtains of the dining-room +window. Encouraged thereby, the parrot preened its feathers, making +little snapping and clicking noises meanwhile with its tongue and +beak. The grass of the Green, seen between the black stems of the +encircling trees, glittered with hoarfrost, while the houses on the +opposite side of it looked flat and featureless owing to the +interposing veil of bluish mist. Tradesmen's carts clattered by at a +sharp trot, the defined sound of them breaking up the all-pervading +murmur of London, and dying out into it again as they passed. At the +street corner, some twenty yards away, a German band discoursed +doubtfully sweet music, the trombone making earnest efforts to keep +the rest of the instruments up to their work by the emission of loud +and reproachful tootings. It was a pleasant and cheery morning as +December mornings go, yet constraint reigned at the Lovegrove +breakfast-table. + +The day of Serena's oft-discussed departure had dawned. A few hours +hence she would remove herself and her boxes to her cousin Lady +Samuelson's residence in Ladbroke Square. This should have proved a +source of regret to her host and hostess; and they were conscience- +stricken, confessing to themselves--though not to one another, since +each accredited the other with more laudable sentiments than his or +her own--that relief rather than regret did actually possess them. A +secret from one another, and that a slightly discreditable one, was so +foreign to the experience of the excellent couple that it lay heavy +upon their hearts. Each, moreover, was aware of shame in the presence +of Serena, as in that of a person upon whom they had inflicted an +injury. Hence constraint, which the sunshine was powerless to +dissipate. + +"May I pass you the eggs, or bacon, or both, Serena?" George Lovegrove +inquired, his childlike blue eyes meanwhile humbly imploring pardon +for his lack of sorrow at her impending departure. Serena's manner was +stiff and abstracted. This, combined with the rustling of her +petticoats, filled him with anxiety. Was it possible that she knew? + +"Thank you, George, only an egg. Not that one, please, it is much too +large. I prefer the smallest. I am not feeling hungry." + +"I should never call you much of a breakfast-eater, Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove observed in her comfortable purring voice, from behind the +tea urn. She was desirous to pacify her guest. "Now I am rather hearty +myself in the morning, always have been so. I do not know whether it +is a good thing or not, as a habit. Still, I think to-day you should +force yourself a little. You should always make provision against a +journey. And then no doubt you are rather fatigued with packing and +getting home so late from the theatre. I am pleased to think you had +an outing your last night here, Serena. Georgie tells me the play was +very comical." + +"I dare say it was," Serena replied. "Of course George would be a much +better judge of that than I am. Mamma was always very particular what +we heard and saw when we were children, and I know I am inclined to +think things vulgar which other people only find amusing." + +"I did not remark any vulgarity, and do not think Mr. Iglesias would +countenance anything of that kind in the presence of a lady. He would +ascertain beforehand the nature of the piece to which he invited any +lady"--this from George Lovegrove tentatively. + +"Oh! of course I don't say there was anything vulgar. I should not +like to commit myself to an opinion. I really have been to the theatre +very seldom. Mamma never encouraged our going. And then, of course, +old Dr. Colthurst, the rector of St. Jude's at Slowby, whose church we +always attended, disapproved of the theatre. He had great influence +with mamma. And he thought it wicked." + +"Indeed," Mrs. Lovegrove commented. "I should be sorry to think that, +as so many go. But he may have come across the evils of it personally. +He had a son, an artist, who was very wild, I believe. And I remember +to have heard our dear vicar speak of Dr. Colthurst as stern, but a +true Protestant and a very grand preacher." + +"I dare say he was--I don't mean that his son was wild--I know nothing +about that, of course, but that Dr. Colthurst was a great preacher." + +Serena spoke abstractedly, inspecting the yolk of her poached egg +meanwhile as though on the watch for unpleasant foreign bodies. + +"But," she continued, "I cannot, of course, be expected to remember +his sermons, though I may have been taken to hear him. I suppose I +certainly was taken, but I was quite too much of a child to remember. +Susan remembers them, but then Susan was so very much older." + +She ceased to contemplate her egg, and looked up at her hostess. + +"Susan must be very nearly your age, Rhoda; or she may be a year or +eighteen months younger. Yes, judging by the difference between her +age and mine, she must be quite eighteen months younger. Of course, +now, Susan thinks going to the play wicked. I often wonder whether +that is not partly because she dislikes sitting still and listening +when other people are doing something. Susan likes to take part in +everything herself. I often wonder what she would do in church if it +was not for the responses and the singing. I am sure she would never +sit out a service where the congregation did not join in. Susan cannot +bear a choral service. She calls it un-English and Romanising. I do +not dislike it--I mean I do not dislike a choral service. But then I +do not consider the theatre wicked. I am not prejudiced against it, as +Susan is. Still, I cannot deny that I think you do hear very odd +things and see very over-dressed people at the theatre." + +Serena looked severely at her host, thereby heightening the anxiety +which possessed him. For once again, as so often during the past eight +or ten hours, a picture presented itself perplexing and fascinating to +his mental vision--namely, that of his dear and honoured friend, the +grave and stately Dominic Iglesias, helping an unknown lady, of +remarkably attractive personal appearance, on with a wonderful black +velvet garment--doing so in the calmest way in the world, too, as +though it were an event of chronic occurrence--while the frills and +furbelows of her voluminous skirts flowed in rosy billows about his +feet. What did the picture portend, George Lovegrove asked himself, +and still more, what did Serena suppose it portended? + +"Do you, indeed?" Mrs. Lovegrove put in, in amiable response to her +guest's last remark. She was sensible of being hurt by the allusion to +her age. But then Serena was going, and she knew that fact did not +distress her as deeply as it might have done. She therefore rose +superior to wounded feelings. "It's many years since I've been much of +a playgoer," she continued, "and people tell me it's all a good deal +changed, and not for the better. I suppose the dressing nowadays is +sadly extravagant. I am sure I don't know, and I should always be +timid of condemning anybody or their amusements. But there, as I +always do say, if you want to keep a happy mind there is so much it is +well to be ignorant of." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is well to be ignorant of +things," Serena said reflectively. "Of course, if people think you are +willing to be ignorant, it encourages them in deceiving you. I think +it is very wrong to be deceitful. Sooner or later it is sure to come +out, and then it is very difficult to forgive people. Indeed, I am not +sure it is right to forgive them." + +With difficulty George Lovegrove restrained a groan. His food was as +ashes in his mouth; his tea as waters of bitterness. + +"Oh! I should be sorry to go as far as that, Serena," Mrs. Lovegrove +remonstrated. "If you give way to unforgiving feelings you can never +tell quite where they may carry you. But as I was going to say, though +I am not much of a playgoer, I was very pleased to have Mr. Iglesias +invite me. Only, as I explained to him, I am very liable to find the +seats too narrow for comfort in places of amusement, and the +atmosphere is often so very close, too. He was most polite and +sympathising; but then that's Mr. Iglesias all over. He always is the +perfect gentleman." + +Serena paused, her fork arrested in mid-transit to her mouth. + +"I am not sure that I agree with you, Rhoda," she said. "I am not sure +whether I think Mr. Iglesias is really polite, or whether he only +appears to be so because it suits his purpose. Of course you and +George know him far better than I do. Perhaps you understand--I cannot +pretend that I understand him. I may be wrong, but I often wonder +whether there is not a good deal which is rather insincere about Mr. +Iglesias." + +After throwing which bomb, Serena gave her whole attention to her +breakfast. Usually George Lovegrove would have waxed valiant in +defence of his friend, but a guilty conscience held him tongue-tied. +Not so Rhoda; strive as she might, those allusions to her age still +rankled. And, under cover of protest against injustice to the absent, +she paid off a little of her private score, to her warm satisfaction. + +"Well, I am sure," she cried, "I never could have credited that +anybody could question Mr. Iglesias's genuineness! I would sooner +doubt Georgie, that I would, and fear him deceitful." + +Again the good man came near groaning. It was as though the wife +planted a poignard in his heart. + +"And after you playing the piano to him so frequently the few days Mr. +Iglesias stopped here, and seeming so comfortable together and +friendly, and his inviting us all to the theatre! Really, I must say I +do think you sadly changeable, Serena, that I do." + +"No, I am not changeable, Rhoda," the other lady declared, both voice +and colour rising slightly. "Nobody ever accused me of being +changeable before, and I do not like it. I do not think you are at all +justified in making such an accusation. But I am observant. I always +have been so. Even Susan allows that I am very observant. I cannot +help being so, and I do not wish to help it. I think it is much safer. +It helps you to find out who you can really trust. And, of course, I +observed a great deal that happened last night. I felt from the first +that I owed it to myself to be particularly on my guard, because +certain insinuations had been made--you know, Rhoda, you have made +them more than once yourself--and some people might have thought that +things had gone rather far when Mr. Iglesias was stopping here. I +believe Mrs. Porcher and that dreadful Miss Hart did think it. I do +not say that things did go far; I only say that people might naturally +think that they had. On several occasions Mr. Iglesias' conduct did +seem very marked. And, of course, nothing could be more odious to me +than to be placed in a false position. One cannot be too careful, +especially with foreigners. Mamma always warned us against foreigners +when we first came out. I never had any experience of foreigners until +I met Mr. Iglesias, here at your house. But, I am sorry to say, I +believe now mamma was perfectly right." + +As she ended her harangue, Serena with a petulant movement of her thin +hands pushed her plate away from the table edge, leaving a vacant +space before her. This was as a declaration of war. She scorned +further subterfuge. She announced a demonstration. A bright spot of +colour burned on either cheek, her small head, on its long stalk of +neck, was carried very erect. It was one of those pathetic moments +when--the merciless revelations of the morning sunshine +notwithstanding--this slim, faded, middle-aged spinster appeared to +recapture, and that very effectively, the charm and promise of her +vanished youth. Excited by foolish anger, animated by a sense of +insult wholly misplaced and imaginary, she became a very passably +pretty person, the immature but hopeful Serena of eighteen looking +forth from the eyes of the narrow-souled disappointed Serena of eight- +and-forty. + +"Of course, George may have some explanation of what happened last +night," she went on, speaking rapidly. "If he has, I think it would be +only fair that he should offer it to me. I took for granted he would +do so this morning as soon as we met; or that he would send you to me, +Rhoda, to explain if he felt too awkward about speaking himself. But +as you both are determined to ignore what happened, I am forced to +speak. I dare say it would be much more convenient to you, knowing you +have made a mistake, to pass the whole thing over in silence. But I +really cannot consent to that. If Mr. Iglesias meant nothing all +along, then I think he has behaved disgracefully. If he did mean +something at first, and then"--the speaker gasped--"changed his mind, +he might at least have given some hint. He ought to have refused to +stop here, of course." + +"He did refuse," George Lovegrove faltered. This was really dreadful, +far worse than anything he had anticipated--and he had not a notion +what it was safe to say. "I do wish females' minds were a little less +ingenious," he commented to himself. "They see such a lot which would +never have entered my head, for instance." + +"Still, Mr. Iglesias came," cried the belligerent Serena. + +"Yes, I over-persuaded him. He was very unwilling, very so indeed, +saying that staying out was altogether foreign to his practice. But I +pointed out to him that you and the wife might feel rather mortified +if he omitted to come, having taken such an interest in his illness +and--" + +If you made use of my name, George, you took a great liberty." + +"I am very distressed to hear you say that, Serena. Both the wife and +I certainly supposed you wished him to come." + +He looked imploringly at his spouse, asking support. But for once the +large kindly countenance failed to beam responsive. A plaintive +expression overspread its surface. Then the unhappy man stared +despondently out into the misty morning sunshine, plastering down his +shiny hair with a moist and shaky hand. Even the wife turned against +him, making him feel an outcast at his own breakfast-table. He could +have wept. + +"I have been so very guarded throughout," Serena resumed, "that it is +impossible you should have the slightest excuse for using my name. +But, of course, if you have done so, my position is more than ever +odious. There is nothing for me to do but to go. Fortunately I am +going--and I am thankful. If I had followed my own inclinations, I +should have gone long ago. Then I should have been spared all this, +and nothing would have been said. Now all sorts of things may be said, +because, of course, it must all look very odd. It shows how foolish it +is to allow one's judgment to be overruled. I stayed entirely to +oblige Rhoda. And I cannot but see I have been trifled with." + +"No, no, Serena, not that--never that," her host cried distractedly. +"If I have been in the wrong, I apologise from my heart. But trifling +never entered my thoughts. How could it do so, with all the respect I +have for you and Susan? I may have been clumsy, but I acted for the +best." + +"I am afraid I cannot agree," she retorted. "It is useless to +apologise. I am sorry to tell you so, George, for I have trusted you +until now; but I do feel, and I am afraid I always shall feel, I have +been very unkindly treated by you and Rhoda." + +She rose, rustling as she spoke, the parrot, meanwhile, leaving off +preening its feathers, regarding her, its head very much on one side, +with a wicked eye. + +"No, please leave me to myself," she said. "I do not want anybody to +help me, and if I do I shall ring for the maids. I want to compose +myself before I go to Lady Samuelson's. After all this unpleasantness, +it is much better for me to be alone." + +"Good-bye, girlie, poor old girlie. Hi! p'liceman, bring a four- +wheeler," shrieked the parrot, as Serena opened and closed the dining- +room door, flapping wildly in the sunshine till the sand and seed +husks on the floor of its cage arose and whirled upwards in a crazy +little cloud. + +George Lovegrove, who had risen to his feet, sank back into his chair, +resting his elbows on the table and covering Ids face with his hands. + +"I would rather have forfeited my pension," he murmured. "I would +rather have lost a hundred pounds." + +Then raising his head he gazed imploringly at his wife. And this time +her tender heart could not resist the appeal. He had not been open +with her, but she relented, giving him opportunity to retrieve his +error. Moreover--but that naturally was a very minor consideration-- +she was bursting with curiosity. + +"Georgie," she asked solemnly, "whatever did happen last night?" + +"Mr. Iglesias met a lady friend. She sent for him to talk to her, in +the lobby, between the acts," he answered, the red deepening in his +clean fresh-coloured face. + +"Not any of that designing Cedar Lodge lot?" + +"Oh! dear no, not all," he replied, his childlike eyes full of +gratitude. He blessed the magnanimity of the wife. But speedily +embarrassment supervened. He found this subject singularly difficult +to deal with. "Not at all of their class. I confess it did surprise +me, for though I have always taken it for granted Dominic belonged to +a higher circle by birth than that in which we have known him, I had +no idea he had such aristocratic acquaintances. His looks and manner +in public, last night, made him seem fitted for any company. Still, I +was surprised." + +"Did he not introduce you?" + +"No. I cannot say he had a convenient opportunity, and the lady may +not have wished it. I could fancy she might hold herself a little +above us. But, between ourselves, I believe that was what so upset +Serena." + +"I am of opinion Mr. Iglesias is just as well without Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove declared. "I suppose she cannot help it, but her temper is +sadly uncertain. I begin to fear she would be very exacting in +marriage. But was the lady young, Georgie?" + +The good man blushed furiously. + +"Yes, under thirty, I should suppose, and very striking to look at. +Serena had called my attention to her already. She thought her over- +dressed. I am no judge of that, but I could see she was very +beautiful." + +"Oh! Georgie dear!" This in high protest. For the speaker belonged to +that section of the British public in which puritanism is even yet +deeply ingrained, with the dreary consequence that beauty, whether of +person or in art, is suspect. To admit its existence trenches on +immodesty; to speak of it openly is to skirt the edges of licence. + +George Lovegrove, however, had developed unaccustomed boldness. + +"So she was, my dear," he repeated, not squinting in the least for +once. "She was beautiful, dark and splendid, with eyes that looked +right through you, mocking and yet mournful. They made a noble couple, +she and Dominic, notwithstanding the disparity of age. As they stood +there together I felt honoured to see them both. And if Dominic +Iglesias is to have friends with whom we are unacquainted--though I +do not deny the thing hurt me a little at first--I am glad they should +be so handsome and fine. It seems to me fitting, and as if he was in +his true sphere at last." + +A silence followed this profession of faith, during which Mrs. +Lovegrove's face presented a singular study. She stared at her husband +in undisguised amazement, while the corners of her mouth and her large +soft cheeks quivered. + +"Well, I should never have expected to hear you talk so, Georgie," she +said huskily. "It seems unlike you somehow, almost as though you were +despising your own flesh and blood." + +"No, no," he answered, "I could never do that. I could never be so +forgetful of all I owe to my own family and to yours, Rhoda. I am +under deep obligations to both. But it would be dishonest to deny that +I set a wonderfully high value on Dominic Iglesias' regard, and have +done so ever since we were boys together at school. To me Dominic has +always stood by himself, I knowing how superior he was to me in mind +and in all else, so that it has been my truest honour and privilege to +be admitted to intimacy with him. But the difference between us never +came home to me as it did when I saw him in other company last night. +He is fitted for a higher position than he has ever filled yet--we all +used to allow that in old days at the bank--or for any society we can +offer him. So, though I felt humiliated in a measure, I felt glad. For +I can grudge him nothing in the way of new friends, even though they +may be differently placed to ourselves and should come between him and +me a little, making our intercourse less frequent and easy than in the +past. From my heart I wish him the very best that is going, although +it should be rather detrimental to myself." + +Mrs. Lovegrove's cheeks still quivered, but the expression of her face +was unresponsive once more, not to say obstinate. Jealousy, indeed, +possessed her. For the first time in her whole experience she realised +her husband as an individual, as a human entity independent of +herself. To contemplate him otherwise than in the marital relation was +a shock to her. She felt deserted, a potential Ariadne on Naxos. Hence +jealousy, resentment, cruel hurt. + +"Well, to be sure, what a long story!" she cried, in tones approaching +sarcasm, "and all about someone who is no relation, too! Whatever +possesses you, Georgie? You aren't a bit like yourself. It seems to me +this morning everybody's bewitched." She heaved herself up out of her +chair. "I shall go and try to make it up with Serena," she continued. +"It is only Christian charity to do so; and, poor thing, I can well +understand she may have had cause enough for mortification now I have +made out what really did take place last night." + +Usually, left alone in the dining-room, George Lovegrove would have +proceeded methodically to do a number of neat little odd jobs, humming +softly the while funny, shapeless little tunes to himself in the +fulness of his guileless content. He would have piled up the fire with +small coal and dust, thus keeping it alight but saving fuel till +luncheon-time, when one skilful stir with the poker would produce a +cheerful blaze. Then he would have proceeded to the little +conservatory opening off his box of a sanctum at the back of the +house--containing his roller-top desk, his papers, Borough Council and +parish reports, his magazines, his best and second-best overcoats hung +on pegs against the wall along with his silk hat. In the conservatory, +still humming, he would have smoked his morning pipe, feeding the +gold-fish in the small square glass tank--a tiny fountain in the +centre of which it pleased him to set playing--and later carefully +examining the ferns and other pot-plants in search of green-fly, +scale, or blight. But to-day the innocent routine of his life was +rudely broken up. He had no heart for his accustomed tidy potterings, +but lingered aimlessly, fingering the gold watch-chain strained across +the convex surface of his waistcoat, sand looking pitifully enough +between the lace curtains out on to the Green. + +The sun had climbed the sky, burning up the hoarfrost and mist, so +that the houses opposite had become clearly discernible. Presently he +beheld a tall, upright figure emerge from the front door of Cedar +Lodge. For a moment Mr. Iglesias stood at the head of the flight of +immaculately white stone steps, rolling up his umbrella and putting on +his gloves preparatory to setting forth on his morning walk. And, +watching him, a wave of humility and self-depreciation swept over +George Lovegrove's gentle and candid soul, combined with an aching or +regret that destiny had not seen fit to deal with him rather otherwise +than it actually had. He felt a great longing that he, too, were +possessed of a stately presence, brains, breeding, and handsome looks. +There stirred in him an almost impassioned craving for romance, for +escape from the interminable respectabilities and domesticities of +English middle-class suburban life. He went a step further, rebelling +against the feminine atmosphere which surrounded him, in which +"feelings" so constantly usurped the place of actions, and +suppositions that of fact. Then, the vision of a beautiful woman with +a strange rose-scarlet dress, in whose eyes sorrow struggled with +mocking laughter, once again assailed him. Who she might be, and what +her history, he most emphatically knew not; yet that she breathed a +keener and more tonic air than that to which he was habituated, that +feelings in her case did not stand for actions, or suppositions for +fact, he was fully convinced. + +"Poor old chappie, take a brandy and soda. Got the hump?"--this, +shrilly, from the parrot hanging head downwards from the roof of its +cage. + +At the sound of that at once unhuman and singularly confidential voice +close beside him, George Lovegrove gave a guilty start. + +"Yes, the wife is quite right," he said, half aloud. "If you want to +keep a happy mind there is very much of which it is as well to be +ignorant." + +Then shame covered him, for in his recent meditations and +apprehensions had he not come very near turning traitor, and being, in +imagination at all events, subtly unfaithful to that same large kindly +comfortable wife? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Two months had passed, and February was about to give place to March-- +two months empty of outward event for Dominic Iglesias, but big with +thought and consolidation of purpose. He had been more than ever +solitary during this period, for his acquaintance, even to the +faithful George Lovegrove, stood aloof. But Dominic hardly noticed +this. Though solitary, he had not been lonely, since his mind was +absorbed in question, in pursuit, in the consciousness of deepening +conviction. For the recognition not merely of religion, but of +Christianity, as a supreme factor in earthly existence, which had come +to him in the dreary December twilight, as, broken in health and in +spirit, he gazed upon the carven picture of Calvary, had proved no +fugitive experience. It remained by him, entracing his imagination and +satisfying both his heart and his intelligence; so that he looked back +upon the hour of his despair thankfully, seeing in it the starting- +point of a journey the prosecution of which promised not only to be +the main occupation of his remaining years here in time, but, the +river of death once crossed, to stretch onward and onward through +realms, at present inconceivable, of beauty, of knowledge, and of +love. And so, for the moment, solitude was sweet to him, leaving him +free of petty cares and anxieties--he moving forward, ignorant of the +gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine +plots and counterplots of which his blameless bachelorhood was at +once the provoking cause and the object; while in his eyes--though of +this, too, he was ignorant--dwelt increasingly reflection of that +mysterious and lovely light which, let obstinately purblind man deny +it as he may, lies forever along the far horizon, for comfort of godly +wayfarers and as beacon of the elect. + +Yet it must not be supposed that the outset of Iglesias' spiritual +journey was wholly serene, free from obstacle or hesitation, from risk +of untoward selection, or rejection, of the safe way. Many roads, and +those bristling with contradictory signposts, presented themselves. +Noisy touts, each crying up his own special mode and means of +conveyance, rushed forth at every turn. + +Modern Protestantism, as he encountered it in the pages of popular +newspapers and magazines, at Mrs. Porcher's dinner-table, or in the +good Lovegroves' drawing-room, had small attraction for him, since it +appeared to advance chiefly by negations stated with rather blatant +self-sufficiency and self-conceit. It might tend to the making of +respectable municipal councillors; but, in his opinion, it was idle to +pretend that it tended to the making of saints--and for the saints, +those experts in the divine science, Iglesias confessed a weakness. Of +spirituality it showed, to his seeing, as little outward evidence as +of philosophy or of art. The phrases of piety might still be upon the +lips of its votaries; but the attitude and aspirations engendered by +piety were unfortunately dead. Its system of ethics was frankly +utilitarian. Its goal, though hidden from the simple by a maze of +high-sounding sentiment, was Rationalism pure and simple. Its god was +not the creator of the visible universe, of angels and archangels, +dominions, principalities, and powers, of incalculable natural and +supernatural forces, but a jerky loose-jointed pasteboard divinity, +the exclusive possession, since it is the exclusive invention, of the +Anglo-Saxon race, through whose gaping mouth any and every self- +elected prophet was free to shout, as heaven-descended truth, in the +name of progress and liberty, whatever political or social catchword +chanced to be the fashion of the hour. + +Nor did the neo-mystics, whose utterances are also sown broadcast in +contemporary literature and who are so lavish with their offers of +divine enlightenment, please Iglesias any better. For his mind, thanks +to his Latin ancestry, was of the logical order, while a business +training and long knowledge of affairs had taught him the value of +method, giving him an unalterable reverence for fact, and impressing +upon him the existence of law, absolute and immutable, in every +department of nature and of human activity--law, to break which is to +destroy the sequence of cause and effect, and so procure abortion. +Therefore this new school of thinkers--if one can dignify by the name +of thinkers persons of so vague and topsy-turvy a mental habit-- +nourishing themselves upon the windy meat of secular and time-exploded +fallacies, upon the temple-sweepings of all the religions, oriental +and occidental, old and new, combined with ill-attested marvels of +modern physical and psychological experiment, were far from commending +themselves to his calm and patient judgment. Such excited persons, as +a slight acquaintance with history proves beyond all question, have +existed in every age; and, suffering from chronic mental dyspepsia, +have ever been liable to mistake the rumblings of internal flatulence +for the Witness of the Spirit. In their current pronouncements +Iglesias met with a wearisome passion for paradox, and an equally +wearisome disposition to hail all eccentricity as genius, all hysteria +as inspiration. While in their exaltation of the "sub-conscious self" +--namely, of those blind movements of instinct and foreboding common +to +the lower animals and to savage or degenerate man alike--as against +the intellect and the reasoned action of the will, he saw a menace to +human attainment, to civilisation--in the best meaning of that word-- +to right reason and noble living, which it would be difficult to +overestimate. These good people, while pouring contempt on the body, +and even denying its existence, in point of fact thought and talked +about little else. All of which struck him as not only very tiresome +and very silly, but very dangerous. Modern Protestantism might +eventuate in Rationalism, in a limiting of human endeavour exclusively +to the end of material well-being. But this worship of the pseudo- +sciences, this tinkering at the accepted foundations and accepted +decencies of the social order, this cultivation of intellectual and +moral chaos, could, for the vast majority of its professors at all +events, eventuate only in the mad-house. And to the mad-house, whether +by twentieth-century esoteric airship or occult subway, Dominic +Iglesias had not the very smallest desire to go. + +For he had no ambition to be "on time" and up-to-date, to electrify +either himself or his contemporaries by an exhibition of mental +smartness. He merely desired, earnestly yet humbly, to be given grace +to find the road--however archaic in the eyes of the modern world that +road might be--which leads to the light on the far horizon and beyond +to the presence of God. The more he meditated on these things the more +inconceivable it became to him but that this road veritably existed; +and that, not by labour of man, but by everlasting ordinance of God. +It was absurd, in face of a state of being so complex, so highly +organised, so universally subjected to law, as the one in which he +found himself, that a matter of such supreme importance as the channel +of intercourse between the soul and its Maker should have been left to +haphazard accident or blundering of lucky chance. And so, having +supplemented his researches in print, by listening to the discourses +of many teachers, from one end of London to the other in lecture-hall, +chapel, and church, having even stood among the crowds which gather +around itinerant preachers in the Park, Dominic found his thought +fixing itself with deepening assurance upon the communion in which he +had been born and baptised, which his father, in the interests of the +revolutionary propaganda, had so bitterly repudiated, and from which +his mother, broken by the tyranny of circumstance and bodily weakness, +had lapsed. + +Outside that communion he beheld only weltering seas of prejudice and +conflicting opinion, heard only the tumult of confused and acrimonious +contest. Within he beheld the calm of fearlessly wielded authority and +of loyal obedience; heard the awed silence of those who worship being +glad. For the Catholic Church, as Iglesias began to understand, is +something far greater than any triumphant example of that which can be +attained by cooperation and organisation. It is not an organisation, +but an organism; a Living Being, perfectly proportioned, with inherent +powers of development and growth; ever-existent in the Divine Mind +before Time was; recipient and guardian of the deepest secrets, the +most sacred mysteries of existence; endlessly adaptable to changing +conditions yet immutably the same. Hence it is that Catholicism +presents no questionable historic pedigree and speaks with no +uncertain voice. Claiming not only to know the road the soul must +tread would it reach the far horizon, but to be the appointed warden +of that same road and sustainer of it, she points with proud +confidence to the vast multitude which, under her guidance, has +joyfully trodden it--a multitude as diverse in gifts and estate, as in +age and race--as proof of the authenticity of her mission to the +toiling and sorrowful children of men. + +Yet, since unconditional surrender must ever strike a pretty shrewd +blow at the roots both of personal pride and worldly caution, Dominic +Iglesias hesitated to take the final step and declare himself. To one +who has long lived outside the creeds, and that not ungodly, still +less bestially, it is no light matter to subject attitude of mind and +daily habit to distinct rule. Not only does the natural man rebel +against the apparent limiting of his personal freedom, but the +conventional and sophisticated man fears lest agreement should, after +all, spell weakness, while indifferentism--specially in outward +observances--argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld +Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It +was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his +needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and +diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, +decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those +undertaking them is a sincere one--and thus. + +The tide of war had begun to turn. Earlier in the week had come the +news of General Cronje's surrender, after the three days' shelling of +his laager at Paardeberg. Hence satisfaction, not only of victory but +of compassion, since a sense of horror had weighed on the hearts of +even the least sentimental at thought of the stubborn thousands, +penned in that flaming rat-trap of the dry river-bed, ringed about by +sun-baked rock and sand and death-belching guns. To-day came news of +the relief of long-beleaguered Ladysmith, and London was shaken by +emotion, under the bleak moisture-laden March sky, the air thick with +the clash of joy-bells, buildings gay with riotous outbreak of many- +coloured flags, the streets vibrant with the tread and voices of +surging crowds. + +Iglesias, who early that afternoon had walked Citywards to see the +holiday aspect of the town and glean the latest war news, growing +somewhat weary on his homeward journey of the humours of his fellow- +citizens--which became beery and boisterous as the day drew on--turned +in at the open gates of the Oratory, in passing along the Brompton +Road. His purpose was to gain a little breathing space from the +jostling throng, by standing at the head of the steps under the wide +portico of the great church. Looking westward, above the wedge of mean +and ill-assorted houses that marks the junction of the Fulham and the +Cromwell Roads--the muddy pavements of which, far as the eye carried, +were black with people--the yellowish glare of a pallid sunset spread +itself across the leaden dulness of the sky. The wan and sickly light +touched the architrave and columns of the facade of the great church, +bringing this and the statue of the Blessed Virgin which surmounts it +into a strange and phantasmal relief--a building not material and of +this world, but rather of a city of dreams. To Iglesias it appeared as +though there was an element of menace in that cold and melancholy +reflection of the sunset. It produced in him a sense of insecurity and +distrust, which the roar of the traffic and horseplay of the crowd +were powerless to counteract. London, the monstrous mother, in this +hour of her rejoicing showed singularly unattractive. Her features +were grimed with soot, her dull-hued garments foul with slush, her +gestures were common, her laughter coarse. His soul revolted from the +sight and sound of her; revolted against the fate which had bound him +so closely to her in the past, and which bound him still. The spirit +of her infected even the sky above her, painting it with the sad +colours of perplexity and doubt. He stepped farther back under the +portico, moved by desire to escape from the too insistent thought and +spectacle of her. Doing so, he became aware of music reaching him +faintly from behind the closed doors of the church, fine yet sonorous +harmonies supporting the radiant clarity of a boy's voice. + +Then Iglesias understood that he was presented here and immediately +with the moment of final choice. Delay was dishonourable, since it was +nothing less than a shirking of the obligations which his convictions +had created. So there, on the one hand--for so the whole matter +pictured itself to his seeing--was London, the type, as she is in fact +the capital, of the modern world--of its ambitions, material and +social, of its activities, of its amazing association of pleasure and +misery, of the rankest poverty and most plethoric wealth--at once +formless, sprawling, ugly, vicious, while magnificent in intelligence, +in vitality, in display, as in actual area and bulk. On the other +hand, and in the eyes of the majority phantasmal as a city of dreams, +was Holy Church, austere, restrictive, demanding much yet promising +little save clean hands and a pure heart, until the long and difficult +road is traversed which--as she declares--leads to the light on the +far horizon and beyond to the presence of God. + +"If one could be certain of that last, then all would be simple and +easy," Iglesias said to himself, looking out over the turbulence of +the streets to the pallid menace of the western sky. "But it is in the +nature of things, that one cannot be certain. Certainty, whether for +good or evil, can only come after the event. One must take the risk. +And the risk is great, almost appallingly great." + +For just then there awoke and cried in him all the repressed and +frustrated pride of a man's life--lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, +overweening ambition of power and place, of cruelty even, of gross +licence and debauch. For the moment he ceased to be an individual, +limited by time and circumstances, and became, in desire, the +possessor of the passions and reckless curiosity of the whole human +race. So that, in imagination he suffered unexampled temptations; and, +in resisting them, flung aside unexampled allurements of grandeur and +conceivable delight. Not what actually was, or ever had been, possible +to and for him, Dominic Iglesias, bank-clerk, assailed him with +provocative vision and voice; but the whole pageant of earthly being, +and the inebriation of it. Nothing less than this did he behold, and +drink of, and, in spirit, repudiate and put away forever, as at last +he pulled open the heavy swing doors and passed into the church. + +Within all was dim, mist and incense smoke obscuring the roof of the +great dome, the figures of the kneeling congregation far below showing +small and dark. Only the high altar was ablaze with many lights, in +the centre of which, high-uplifted, encircled by the golden rays of +the monstrance, pale, mysterious, pearl of incalculable price, showed +the immaculate Host. + +Quietly yet fearlessly, as one who comes by long-established right, +Dominic walked the length of the nave, knelt devoutly on both knees, +prostrating himself as, long ago, in the days of early childhood his +mother had taught him to do at the Exposition of the Blessed +Sacrament. Now, after all these years--and a sob rose in his throat-- +he seemed to feel her hand upon his shoulder, the gentle pressure of +which enjoined deepest reverence. Then rising, he took his place in +the second row of seats on the gospel side, and remained there, +through the concluding acts of the ceremonial, until the silent +congregation suddenly finds voice--penetrated by austere emotion--in +recitation of the Divine Praises. + +Some minutes later he knelt in the confessional, laying bare the +secrets of his heart. + +Thus did Dominic Iglesias cast off the bondage of that monstrous +mother, London-town, cast off the terror of those unbidden companions, +Loneliness and Old Age, using and, taking the risks, humbly reconcile +himself to Holy Church. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Good George Lovegrove wandered solitary in Kensington Gardens. He had +chosen the lower path running parallel with Kensington Gore, which +leads, between flowerborders and thickset belts of shrubbery, from the +Broad Walk to the railings enclosing the open space around the Albert +Memorial. This path, being sheltered and furnished with many green +garden seats, is specially nurse and baby haunted, and it was to see +the babies, whether sturdily on foot or seated in their little +carriages, that George Lovegrove had come hither, being sad. Thrushes +sang lustily from the treetops. The flowerborders grew resplendent +with polyanthus, crocus yellow, purple, and white, with early +daffodils, and the heaven blue of _scilla sibirica_. Above, here +and there a froth of almond or cherry blossom overspread the dark +twigs and branches, while a ruddiness of burgeoning buds flushed the +great elms. But babies of position, looking like tiny pink-faced polar +bears, still wore their long leggings and white furs, the March wind +being treacherous. They galloped, trumpeting, the clean air and merry +sunshine going to their heads in the most inebriating fashion. It was +early, moreover, so that they were full of the energy of a good +night's sleep, of breakfast, and of comfortable nursery warmth. And +George Lovegrove stepped among them carefully, watching their gambols +moist-eyed, nervously anxious lest his quaintly solid figure should +obstruct the erratic progress of toy-horse, or hoop, or ball. He +craved for notice, for even the veriest scrap of friendly recognition, +yet was too diffident to attempt any direct intercourse with these +delectable small personages, who, on their part, were royally +indifferent to his existence so long as he did not get in their way. +This he clearly perceived, yet for it bore them no ill-will, +preferring, as does every truly devout lover, to worship the beloved +from a respectful distance rather than not worship at all. + +And it was thus, even as a large and dusky elephant picking its way +very gently through a flock of skippeting and lively lambs, that Mr. +Iglesias, entering the sheltered walk from the far end, first caught +sight of him. To Dominic, it must be admitted, babies, song-birds, +burgeoning buds and blossoms, alike presented themselves as but +elements in the setting of the outward scene--a scene sweet enough had +one leisure to contemplate it, touched by the genial vernal influence, +witness to nature's undying youth. But his appreciation of that +sweetness was just now cursory and indirect. His thought was absorbed +and eager, penetrated by apprehension of matters lying above and +beyond the range of ordinary human speech. For he was in that exalted +interval of a many hours' fast when the spiritual intelligence is +wholly alive and awake, the body becoming but the vesture of the soul +--a vesture without impediment or weight, a beautifully negligible +quantity in the general scheme of existence. Later reaction sets in. +The claims of the body become dominant; and the exalted moment is too +often paid for sorrowfully enough in sluggish brain and irritated +nerves. Dominic, however, had not reached that stage of the +tragi-comedy of the marriage of flesh and spirit. He was happy, +with the white unearthly happiness of those who have been admitted +to the Sacred Mysteries. And it was not without a sense of shock, +as of rough descent to common things, of pity and of regret, that he +recognised good George Lovegrove cruising thus, elephantine, among the +roystering babes. Then Iglesias checked himself sternly. To humble +themselves, remembering their own great unworthiness, to come down +from the Mount of Transfiguration to the dwellers in the plain, and be +gentle and human towards them--this surely is the primary duty of +those who have assisted at the Divine Sacrament? And so Iglesias went +forward and hailed his old school-fellow in all tenderness and +friendship, causing the latter to raise his eyes from pathetic +contemplation of those charming but wholly self-absorbed small human +animals, and look up. + +"Dominic!" he cried. "Well, to be sure, you do surprise me. Who would +have expected to meet you out at this hour of the morning? I do +congratulate myself. I am pleased," he said. His honest face beamed, +his fresh colour deepened. As a girl at the unlooked-for advent of her +lover, he grew confused and shy. And Iglesias warmed towards him. +Whimsical in appearance, simple-minded, not greatly skilled in any +sort of learning, yet he had a heart of gold--about that there could +be no manner of doubt. + +"Turn back then, and let us walk together," Iglesias said +affectionately. "It is a long while since we have had a quiet talk-- +that is, of course, if you have no particular business which calls you +to town." + +"I have no business of any description," he answered. "And between +ourselves, Dominic, since I lost my seat on the borough council, I +have had too much time on my hands, I think. It is beginning to be +quite a trouble with me." + +"Is life too softly padded, too dead-level easy and comfortable?" +Iglesias inquired. "Are you beginning to quarrel a little with your +blessings?" + +George Lovegrove became very serious. + +"Yes," he said, "I am afraid you are right. As usual you have laid +your finger on the spot. I do reproach myself for unthankfulness +often. I know I have a good home, and everything decent and +respectable about me; more so, indeed, than a man in my position has +any right to expect. And yet I regret the old days in the city, +Dominic, that I do. I should enjoy to be back at my old desk at the +bank--just the little snap of anxiety in the morning as to whether +one would catch the 'bus; the long ride through the streets with one's +morning paper; the turning out with the other clerks--good fellows all +of them, on the whole, were they not?--to get a snack of lunch. And +then the coming home at night, with some trifling present or dainty to +please the wife; and a look round the greenhouse and garden afterwards +in your lounge suit; and hearing and retailing all the day's news, and +talking of the good time coming when you would retire and be quite the +independent gentleman; and the half-day on Saturday, too, taking some +nice little outing to Richmond or Kew, or an exhibition or something +of the sort, and then the Sunday's rest." + +He hesitated and sighed, looking wistfully at the white-clad babies. + +"If one had two or three of those little people of one's own it might +be very different--though I would never breathe a word of such a +thought to the wife. Females are so easily upset; and if it raises +regrets in us men, it must be much more trying for them, poor things, +to be childless. But where was I? Yes, well now the good time has +come--and I feel a criminal in saying so, but it appears to me to be +growing stale already, Dominic. It was better in anticipation than in +fact. I am an ungrateful fellow, that I am, I know it; but sometimes I +am inclined to ask myself whether all the things we set such fond +hopes on are not like that." + +"No, not all," Iglesias answered, with a certain subdued enthusiasm. +"There are things--a few--which never grow stale. One may build on +them as on a foundation of rock. If they ever seem to fail us, to be +shaken and overthrown, it is an evil delusion, and the cause lies not +in them but in ourselves. It is we who fail, who are shaken and +overthrown through palsied will and feebleness of faith. They remain +forever inviolate." + +"I suppose so," the other man said timidly. He was unused to such +vehemence of assertion on the part of his friend. He wondered to what +it could refer. His thought, carrying back to the evening at the +theatre, played around visions of distinguished amours. Then he +steadied himself to heroic resolve. + +"I suppose it is," he repeated, "and that makes my conduct appear all +the more discreditable to me. My circumstances are too comfortable and +easy. It is just that. And so I take to fretting over trifles and +seeing slights and unkindness where none were intended." He looked up +at Iglesias, his squinting eyes full of apology and admiration. "Yes, +I am sadly poor-spirited and I have no excuse. I have been nursing a +sense of injury towards those to whom I have most occasion for +gratitude--the wife and you. Dominic, believe me I am heartily ashamed +of myself." + +"Come, come," Iglesias answered, brought very much back to earth, yet +touched and softened. "My dear friend, you of all men have small cause +for self-reproach. In every relation of life--and our knowledge of one +another dates back to early youth--I have found you perfect in loyalty +and unselfish kindness." + +George Lovegrove walked on for a moment in silence. He had to clear +his throat once or twice before he could command his voice. + +"Praise from you is very encouraging," he managed to say at last. "But +I am afraid I do not deserve it. I have felt mortified lately +sometimes, and I am afraid envious. I--but after your last words I am +more than ever ashamed to own it--I have fancied that you were +becoming distant and that an estrangement was growing up between us. +Of course I have always understood, though we happened to be school- +fellows and in the same employment afterward, that your position and +mine were different. And I want you to know that I would never be a +clog on you, Dominic"--he spoke with an admirably simple dignity-- +"believe me, I never would be that. Lately I have been troubled by the +thought that I had extracted a promise from you to remain at Trimmer's +Green. Now I beg of you most earnestly not to let that promise, given +in a moment of generous indulgence, weigh with you in the slightest, +if circumstances have arisen which point at your residing in a more +fashionable part of the town." + +"But why should I want to go to a more fashionable part of London?" +Iglesias asked, smiling. + +"Well, you see," the other returned, his face growing furiously red, +"it came to my knowledge, unexpectedly, that you have acquaintances in +quite another walk of life to ours--the wife's and mine, I mean. And +it would pain me deeply, very deeply, Dominic, that any promise given +to me, regarding your place of residence, should stand between you and +mixing as freely with those acquaintances as you might otherwise do." + +They had come to the place where the sheltered pathway is crossed by +the Broad Walk--the upward trend of which showed blond, in the +sunshine, against the brilliant green of the grass and the dark boles +of the great trees bordering it. Here Iglesias paused. He was not +altogether pleased. + +"I do not quite follow you," he said coldly. Then looking at the +guileless and faithful being beside him, he softened once more. Was it +not only more just, but more honourable, to treat this matter with +candour? "You are alluding to the lady who was good enough to send for +me the night you and Miss Lovegrove went with me to the play?" + +"Yes," the excellent George assented in a strangled voice. He wanted +to know badly. He was agonised by fear of having committed an +indiscretion offensive to his idol. + +"Set your mind quite at rest on that point then, my dear friend. Her +world is not my world and never will be. In it I should be very much +out of place." + +Iglesias moved forward again, crossing the Broad Walk and making +towards the small iron gate, at the lower corner of the Gardens, which +opens on to Kensington High Street. But he walked slowly, becoming +conscious that he grew tired and spent. The glory of the spirit +dominant was departing, the tyranny of the body dominant beginning to +reassert itself. His features contracted slightly. He felt +unreasoningly sad. + +George Lovegrove walked beside him in silence, his eyes downcast, his +heart stirred by vague tumultuous sympathy, his modest nature at once +inflamed and abashed, recognising in his companion the hero of an +exalted and tragic romance. + +"Well, he looks it. It suits his character and appearance," he said to +himself, adding aloud--for the very life of him he could not help it-- +"But she was very beautiful, Dominic." + +"Yes," Iglesias answered, "she is beautiful and very clever and--very +unhappy." + +The good George's heart positively thumped against his ribs. "And to +think of all the plans the wife and I have been making!" he said to +himself. + +"If she wants me, she will send for me," Iglesias continued quietly, +"and I shall go to her at once, as I went that evening, without +hesitation or delay, wherever she may be. But," he added, "it becomes +increasingly improbable that she will send for me. I have not seen her +or heard from her since that night. And so, my dear friend, you +perceive that your kindly fears of having circumscribed my liberty of +choice in respect of a place of residence are quite unfounded. I have +no reason for leaving Cedar Lodge or altering my accustomed habits." + +Iglesias smiled affectionately, as dismissing the whole matter. + +"And now," he continued, "that little misunderstanding being cleared +up, will you mind my turning into the restaurant just here, in High +Street, for a cup of coffee and a roll? I have not breakfasted yet." + +Whereupon George Lovegrove pranced before him, incoherent in kindly +remonstrance and advice. + +"At 11 A. M., and after your severe indisposition at Christmas, too, +out walking on an empty stomach! It is positively suicidal. Where have +you been to?" he cried. + +"To Mass," Iglesias answered, still smiling, though with something of +a fighting light in his eyes and a lift of his head. + +His companion stared at him in blank amazement. + +"To what?" he said. + +"To Mass," Iglesias repeated. "I have been waiting for a suitable +opportunity to speak to you of this, George. I, too, have felt the +weight of enforced leisure. It has not been a particularly cheerful +experience; but it has given me time to read, and still more to think, +with the consequence that I have returned to the faith of my +childhood. I have made my peace with the Church." + +They continued to walk slowly onward; but George Lovegrove drew away +to the further side of the path as though contact might be dangerous, +as though infection was hanging about. He kept his eyes averted, his +head bent. + +"You do surprise me," he said at last. "I had not the slightest +inkling that you were contemplating such a step. I give you my word, +you have fairly taken away my breath. I do not seem to be able to +grasp it, that you, whom I have always looked up to as so mentally +superior, so independent in your thought, should have become a +Romanist--for that is your meaning, I take it, Dominic?" + +"Yes, that is my meaning," Iglesias answered. + +"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove said again presently, and in a +lamentable voice. "My mind refuses to grasp it. I would rather have +lost five hundred pounds than have heard this. I declare I am fairly +unmanned. I have never received a greater shock." + +Iglesias remained silent. He was weary and sad. But he straightened +himself, trying to keep his gaze fixed steadily upon the far horizon +where dwells the everlasting light. + +"It is presumptuous in me to criticise your action, perhaps," his +companion continued. "I never did such a thing before, having always +hesitated to set up my views against yours; but I cannot but fear you +have made a sad mistake. And if you were contemplating any change of +this kind, why did you not come into our own national English Church?" + +"Very much because it is English and national, I think," he answered. +"In my opinion there is an inherent falsity of conception in +subjecting our approach to the Absolute to restrictions imposed by +country or by race, if these can, by any means, be avoided. Why hamper +yourself with a late, expurgated, and mutilated edition, when the +original, in all its splendour and historic completeness, bearing the +sign-manual of the Author, is there ready to your hand?" + +Again Iglesias spoke with subdued but unmistakable enthusiasm. The two +friends had just reached the iron gate leading into High Street. Here +George Lovegrove stopped. He still kept carefully at a distance, +averting his eyes as from some distressing, even disgraceful, sight, +while his good honest face worked with emotion. + +"I think if you will kindly excuse me, I will go no farther," he +faltered. "What you say may be true--I am sure I don't know. It is all +beyond me. But I should prefer not to talk any more about it until I +have accustomed myself to the thought of this change in you. Nothing +does come between people like religion," he added with unconscious +irony. "So I think, if you will kindly excuse me, I will just go away, +Dominic." + +And, without more ado, he turned back into the Gardens. + +The small polar bears, meanwhile, satiated with exercise, air, and +light, had begun to grow restive and fretty. Their stomachs cried +cupboardwards, and they were disposed to filch each other's toy horses +and hoops, and use each other's small persons as targets for balls, +thrown as bombs in a fashion far from polite. Anxious maids and nurses +hunted them homewards, not without slight asperity on the one part, on +the other occasional squealings and free fights. But upon the babies, +engaging even in naughtiness, George Lovegrove had ceased to bestow +any attention. He went forward blindly, cruising among them and their +attendants and smart little carriages, elephantine, careless where he +placed his feet, to the obstruction of traffic and heightening of +general annoyance, as sorrowful a man as any would need to meet. For +it seemed to him things had gone wrong, just then, past all hope of +setting right. His idol, light of his eyes and joy of his guileless +heart, has fallen from his high estate, discovering capacity of +playing the most discreditable and soul-harrowing pranks. Prejudice is +myriad-lived here on earth; and in George Lovegrove all the bigotry, +all the semi-superstitious, terror fostered by the accumulated +ignorance which generations of Protestant forefathers have bequeathed +to the English middle-class, reared itself, not only stubborn, but +militant. His thought travelled back to those barbarities of rougher +ages which are, in point of fact, more common to the secular than to +the religious criminal code; but which Protestant teachers, even yet, +find it convenient to put down wholly to the account of the Catholic +Church. Practically ignorant of the spoliation and persecution +practised under Henry the Eighth--of blessed domestic memory--of the +further persecution which disfigured the "spacious days of great +Elizabeth," not to mention the long and shameful history of the Penal +Laws, he fixed his mind upon lurid legends of the reign of unhappy +Mary Tudor, illustrated by prints in Fox's Book of Martyrs; upon +inquisitorial tortures, the very thought of which--even out of doors +in the pleasant spring sunshine--made him break into a heavy sweat, +and which, by some grotesque perversion of ideas, he believed to be +not only the necessary outcome of, but vitally essential to, the +practice of the Faith. Against this hideous background he set the calm +and stately figure of his beloved friend Iglesias--seeing him no +longer as the faithful comrade of more than half a lifetime, but as a +foreign being, an unknown quantity, a worshipper of graven images, a +participant in blasphemous rites, a believer, in short, in just all +that which sound, respectable, and godly British common sense cast +forth, with scorn and contumely, close on four centuries back. He was +frightened. His everyday, comfortable, jog-trot, little odd and end of +a local parochial suburban middle-class world was literally turned +upside down and inside out. + +"And however will the wife take it--however will she take it?" he +mourned to himself. "To think we have been harbouring a Papist in +disguise! I dare not contemplate her feelings. She will be upset. I +must keep it from her as long as possible. And Serena, too, and Susan! +I don't know how I can face them. Females are so very eloquent when +put out. Of course I have known there was something wrong for a long +time past. I saw there was a change in him, and felt there was some +cause of coldness; but it never entered my head it could be as bad as +this. Oh! my poor, dear friend. Oh! my poor Dominic, perhaps I have +been overattached to you and this comes as a judgment. It would be +hard enough to have anything break up our friendship, but this folly, +this dreadful doting apostasy--" + +He walked on blindly along the sheltered path between the flower- +borders, deaf to remonstrant nurses and scornful, beautiful babes +clothed in spotless white. + +"If anything must come between us I would rather it was a woman," he +mourned, "ten thousand times rather, whoever and whatever she was, +than this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It happened on the afternoon of that same day that Eliza Hart, in +pursuance of her domestic avocations, had occasion to go into Mr. +Farge's room on the first floor to lay out a new coverlet on his bed. +When, as thus, compelled to enter the apartments of either of the +gentlemen guests of the establishment it was her practice to leave the +door half open, as a concession to propriety in the abstract and a +testimony to her own discretion in the concrete. The handsome mahogany +doors of Cedar Lodge, unhappily painted white by some vandal of a +former inhabitant, being heavy were hung on a rising hinge. Hence, +when half open, a space of some three inches was left between the back +of the door and the jamb, through which it was easy to get a good view +of the hall or the landing unobserved. Little Mr. Farge professed a +warm predilection for gay colours, and Eliza had selected the new +bedspread with an eye to this fact. It was of bright raspberry-red +cotton twill, enriched with a broad printed border in a flowing design +of lemon-yellow tulips and bottle-green leaves. The salesman, in +exhibiting it to her, had described it as "very chaste and pleasing." +Eliza herself qualified it as "tasty"; and had just disposed it, much +to her own satisfaction, upon the young man's bed, when her attention +was arrested by the tones of an unknown feminine voice in the hall +below. Shortly afterwards she heard Frederick, the valet's large +footsteps hurtling upstairs at a double, followed by a prolonged and +leisurely whispering of silken skirts. Here, clearly, was a matter +into which, for the reputation of Cedar Lodge, it was desirable to +look without delay. Eliza, therefore, moved to the near side of the +door, and, through the three-inch aperture afforded by the rising +hinge, raked the landing with a vigilant eye. + +The door of Mr. Iglesias's sitting-room immediately opposite stood +open. In the doorway Frederick indulged in explanatory gesticulation. +While, slowly ascending the last treads of the stairs, was a lady of +unmistakable elegance, arrayed in a large black hat with drooping +plumes to it, a sable cape--the price of which, Eliza felt assured, +ran easily into three figures--and a black cloth dress in the cut of +which she read the last word of contemporary fashion. Arrived at the +stair-head the intruder stood still, calmly surveying her surroundings, +presenting, as she turned her head, a pale face, very red lips, and +eyes--so at least it appeared to the vigilant orbs of Eliza--quite +immodestly large and lustrous, melancholy and somehow extremely +impertinent, too. Then Mr. Iglesias emerged from his sitting-room, an +expression upon his countenance which startled Eliza. She very +certainly had never seen it before. For a moment the lady looked up at +him, as though silently asking some question. Then she patted him +lightly upon the back, and passed into the sitting-room hand in hand +with him, while Frederick with his best flourish closed the door. + +"Well, of all the things!" cried Eliza, half aloud; and, oblivious +both of discretion and of the new raspberry-red cotton twill coverlet, +she backed, and sat, plump, upon the edge of the bed. Just then, as +she asserted in subsequently recounting this remarkable incident, you +might have knocked her down with a feather. + +"Of all the things!" she repeated, after an interval of breathless +amazement. "And how long has this been going on, I should like to +know? So that is the reason of a certain gentleman's iciness, and his +stand-offish high-mightiness. Well, I never! And poor darling Peachie, +so trustful and confiding all the time; not that she need fear +comparison with anybody.--Bah! the serpent." + +Nevertheless she was deeply impressed, and fell into a vein of furious +speculation as to who this unlooked-for smart lady might be. Then, +suddenly remembering the highly compromising nature of her own +existing position sitting not only in the lively little Farge's bed- +chamber, but actually upon his bed, she rose with embarrassment and +haste, and made her way downstairs to the offices--treading +circumspectly in dread of creaking boards--to interview Frederick. But +from that functionary she obtained scant information. + +"Zee lady she ask for Mr. Iglesias. I tell her I go to find him. I put +her in zee drawing-room." + +"Quite right, Frederick,"--this encouragingly from Eliza. + +"But she no stay zere. She come again out quick. She not any name, not +any visiting card give; only write somezing, very fast, on a piece of +paper and screw it togezzer. Zen she not wait till I return, but +behind me upstairs chase." + +So there was nothing for it, as the great Eliza perceived, but to +retire to the drawing-room, and--Mrs. Porcher happened to be out--note +the hour and, with the door discreetly half open, await the descent of +the intruder from the floor above. + +"I can just catch darling Peachie, too," she said to herself, "and +draw her aside. To meet such a person unexpectedly, on the stairs or +in the hall, would be enough to make her turn quite faint." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Poppy St. John laid her hands lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulders and +smiled at him. She looked very young, yet very worn; and the corners +of her mouth shook. + +"If you were anybody else," she said, "I believe I should give you a +kiss. But I am not going to, so don't be nervous, dear man. I'll be +perfectly correct, I promise you--only I had to come. I have been +good, absolutely tiptop beastly good, I tell you. I have washed the +slate. It is as clean as a vacuum, as the inside of an exhausted +receiver. And I feel as dull as empty space before the creation got +started." + +Poppy shivered a little, putting one hand over her eyes, and resting +her head with its great black hat and sweeping plumes against Mr. +Iglesias' chest. And Iglesias quietly put his arm round her, +supporting her. The day had been full of experiences. This last, +though of a notably different complexion to the rest, promised to be +by no means the least searching and surprising. Iglesias steadied +himself to take it quite calmly, in his stride; yet his jaw grew rigid +and his face blanched in dread of that which might be coming. + +"I have sent Alaric Barking about his business," Poppy continued +hoarsely. "Sent him back to his soldiering, helped to cart him off to +that rotten hole, South Africa. He is a smart officer, and he'll make +a name, if he don't get shot. And he won't get shot--I should feel it +in my bones if he was going to, and I don't feel it. I broke with him +more than a month ago. But I had to see him again to say good-bye, +this morning, before he sailed." + +Poppy moved a step or two away, turning her back on Iglesias. + +"And it hurt a jolly lot more than I expected. I don't suppose I am in +love"--she looked around inquiringly at him, as though expecting him +to solve the complicated problem of her affections. "It's not likely +at this time of day, is it? But I was fonder of Alaric than I quite +knew. He is a good sort, and we have had some ripping times together. +He had become a sort of habit, you know; and when you have knocked +about a lot, as I have, you get rather sick at the notion of any +change." + +She stood, looking down, leisurely unbuttoning and pulling off her +long gloves. + +"I don't know that I should have made up my mind to sack him in the +end, but that I wanted to please Fallowfeild." + +Mr. Iglesias became very tall. His expression was hard, his eyes +alight. This the lady noted. She returned and patted him gently on the +back again. + +"There, there, don't sail off on a wrong tack, my beloved fire-eater. +Fallowfeild was quite right. The game was up, really it was; and he +wanted me to walk out, like the gentlemanlike dog, so as to avoid +being kicked out. I always knew the break was bound to come some time; +and it's a long sight pleasanter to break than to be broken with, +don't you think so?--You see, Alaric has formed a virtuous +attachment." Poppy's lips took a cynical twist. "It was time, high +time, he should, if he meant to go in for that line of business at +all. The young lady is a niece of Fallowfeild's--a pretty little +girl, really quite pretty--I saw her that night we were both at the +play--all new, and pink and white, and well-bred, and _ingenue_, +and in every respect perfectly suitable." + +Poppy looked mutinously, even mischievously, at Dominic Iglesias. + +"Poor, dear old Alaric," she said. "I don't quarrel with him. His +elder brother's no children, and there are pots and pots of money. +That he should want to marry, and that his people should press it on +him, is perfectly natural, and obvious, and proper." + +"But," Dominic asked fiercely, "if this young man, Captain Barking, +proposes to marry, why has he not married you--always supposing you +were willing to entertain his suit?" + +Poppy flung her long gloves upon the table, unhooked her sable cape +and sent it flying to join them. + +"Pou-ah! I'm hot!" she exclaimed. "I think I'll sit down, if you have +no objection. Yes, that chair, thanks--it looks excellently +comfortable. By the way, you've got an uncommonly nice lot of things +in this room. I am going to make a tour of inspection presently. It +pleases me frightfully to see where you live and look at your +possessions." She stared absently at the furniture and pictures.--"But +about my marrying Alaric Barking," she continued. "Well, you see--you +see, dear man, there is an inconvenient little impediment in the shape +of a husband." + +As she finished speaking Poppy folded her hands in her lap. She sat +perfectly still, her lips pressed together, watching Mr. Iglesias over +her shoulder but without turning her head. He had crossed the room and +stood at one of the tall narrow windows, looking out into the bright +windy afternoon. + +For here it was in plain English, at last, that underlying secret +thing which he had known yet dreaded to know. It begot in him an +immense regret and inevitable repulsion at admitted wrongdoing. He +made no attempt to juggle with the meaning of her words. Yet, along +with them, came a feeling of gladness that Poppy St. John would remain +Poppy St. John still; and a movement of hope--intimate and very +tender--since in this tragic hour of her history she had come directly +to him, asking comfort and sympathy. Dominic, cut to the quick by the +defection of the heretofore ever-faithful George Lovegrove, hailed +with a peculiar thankfulness this mark of confidence and trust. +Sinful, greatly erring, still the Lady of the Windswept Dust had +returned to him; and thereat he soberly, yet very deeply, rejoiced. In +truth, the sharp-edged breath of persecution he had encountered this +morning, while paining him, had braced him to high endeavour. The +Catholic Church, so he argued, must indeed be a mighty and living +power since men fear her so much. And this power he felt to be behind +him, sustaining him, inciting him to noble undertakings--he strong in +virtue of her strength, fearless through the courage of her saints, +able with the energy of their accumulated merit and their prayers. +Again, as on his way home that morning from hearing Mass, the spirit +was dominant, his whole nature and outlook purified and exalted by the +Divine Indwelling. To fail any human creature calling on him for help +would be contemptible, and even dastardly, in one blessed as he +himself was. Thus his relation to Poppy St. John fell into line. He +could afford to love and serve her well, since he loved and purposed, +in all things, to serve Almighty God best. + +These meditations occupied but a few moments, yet Poppy's patience ran +short. + +"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly, sharply, "I am tired of +waiting." + +He crossed the room and stood in front of her, serious but light of +heart. + +"See here, it is all right between us?" she asked imperatively. + +"Yes, all is perfectly right between us," he answered. "Your coming +gives me the measure of your faith in me. I am grateful and I am very +glad." + +"Ah!" Poppy said softly. + +She sat forward in her chair, making herself small, patting her hands +together, palm to palm, between her knees, and swaying a little as she +spoke. + +"You see," she went on, "to be quite honest, I didn't break with +Alaric simply to enable him to marry and live happy ever after. Nor +did I do it exclusively to please Fallowfeild. It would take a greater +fool than I am to be as altruistic as all that. I always like to have +my run for my money. I--I did it more to get you back." + +She paused and raised her head, looking full at him. + +"And I have got you back?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered, smiling. "I ask nothing better than to come back." + +"Do you mean that you are prepared to take everything on trust--after +what I have just told you--without wanting explanations?" + +"Friendship has no need of explanations," Iglesias said, with a touch +of grandeur--"that is, as I understand friendship. It accepts what is +given without question, or cavilling as to much or to little, leaving +the giver altogether free. Friendship, as I understand it, should have +honourable reticences, not only of speech but of thought; wise +economies of proffered sympathy. In its desire of service it should +never approach too near or say the word too much; since, if it is to +flourish and obtain the grace of continuance, it must be rooted in +reverence for the individuality of the person dear to it. This is my +belief." His bearing was courtly, his expression very gentle. +"Therefore rest assured that whatever confidence you repose in me is +sacred. Whatever confidence you withhold from me is sacred likewise." + +Poppy mused a little, a smile on her lips and an enigmatic look in her +singular eyes. + +"You're beautiful, dear man," she murmured. "You're very beautiful. +You're worth chucking the devil over for; but you'll take a jolly lot +of living up to. So see here, you're bound to look me up pretty +constantly just at first, for I tell you life is not going to be +exactly a toy-shop for me for some little time to come. You hear? You +promise?" + +"I promise," Iglesias returned. + +"And there's another thing," she continued rather proudly, "a thing +men too often blunder over--with the very best intentions, bless them, +only they do blunder, and that leads to ructions. Please put the +question of money out of your head once and for all. I have a certain +amount of my own, nothing princely well understood, but quite possible +to live on. It was to prevent his playing ducks and drakes with it +that I finally left the jackal of a fellow whom I married. Well, I +have that, and I have made a little more, one way and another."--Poppy +permitted herself a wicked grimace.--"Poor old Alaric used to tell me +I was a great financier wasted, that I should have been invaluable as +partner in their family banking concern--that's more than he'll ever +be, poor chap, unless marriage makes pretty sweeping changes in him. +Some of my sources of income naturally are cut off through the +cleaning of the slate. For I have been tiptop beastly good--indeed I +have, as I told you! No more cards, and oh dear, no more racing. But +no doubt Cappadocia will contribute in the way of puppies. _Noblesse +oblige_--she realises her duty towards posterity, does Cappadocia. +So I shall scrape along quite tidily. And then, as long as I keep my +voice and my figure, at a push there's always my profession.--You +hadn't arrived at the fact that I had a profession? Such is fame, dear +man, such is fame. Why, I started as a child-actress at thirteen; and +went on till the jackal made that impossible, like virtue, and self- +respect, and a decent home, and a few kindred trifles in favour of +which every clean-minded woman has, after all, a strongish prejudice." + +Poppy's voice shook. She had much ado to maintain an indifferent and +matter-of-fact manner. Iglesias drew up a chair and sat down beside +her. She put out her hand, taking his and holding it quietly. + +"There, that's better," she said. "I feel babyish. I should like a +good square cry. But I won't have one. Don't be afraid. The motto is +'No snivelling, full steam ahead.'--But as to the stage, I'm not sure +that won't prove the solution of most difficulties in the end. +Sometimes it pulls badly at my heartstrings, and I shouldn't be half +sorry for an excuse for taking to it again. It's a rotten profession +for a man, and not precisely a soul-saving one for a woman. But it +gives you your opportunity; and, at bottom, I suppose that's the main +thing one asks of life--one's opportunity. Too, your art is your art; +and if it is bred in you, you sicken for it. I was awfully glad that +night to see you at the play, though in a way it shocked me. It seemed +incongruous. Tell me, do you really care for the theatre?" + +"To a moderate extent I do," Dominic answered. She wanted, so he +divined, to give a lighter tone to the conversation. He tried to meet +her wishes.--"I am not a very ardent playgoer, I am afraid. But at the +present time I happen to be involved indirectly in theatrical +enterprise. I am interested in the production of a play, which I am +assured will prove a remarkable success." + +"You're not financing it?" Poppy asked sharply. + +"Within certain limits I am," he answered, smiling. "An appeal was +made to me for help which it would have been cruel to refuse." + +Poppy's expression had become curiously sombre, not to say stormy. She +got up and began to roam about the room. + +"I hope to goodness the limits are clearly defined, and very narrow +ones, then," she exclaimed. "For my part I don't believe in talent +which can't find a market in the ordinary course of business. I grant +you managers sometimes put a play on which is no good; and sometimes +cripple what might be a fine play by doctoring it, in deference to the +rulings of that archetype of all maiden aunts and incarnation of +British hypocrisy, the censor; but they very rarely, in my experience, +reject a play which has money in it. Why should they? Poor brutes, +they are not exactly surfeited with masterpieces. The play which +requires private backing, though a record-breaker in the opinion of +its author, is usually rubbish in that of the public. And the public, +take it all round, is very fairly level-headed and just; you must not +judge it by the stupidities of the censor. He represents only an +extreme section of it, if at this time of day he really represents +anybody--a section which does the screaming sitting sanctimoniously at +home, getting its information at second-hand through the papers, and +never darkens the doors of a play-house at all. Moreover, you must +remember that the public is master. There is no getting behind its +verdict." + +Poppy's peregrinations had brought her back beside Mr. Iglesias again. +She patted him on the shoulder. + +"See here, my beloved no-longer-nameless one," she said. "Be advised. +Learn wisdom. For I tell you I've been through that gate if ever a +woman has. The jackal--I wish to heaven we could keep him out of our +talk, but, for cause unknown, he persistently obtrudes himself--he +invariably does so when I'm hipped and edgy--well, you see, he was an +unappreciated genius in the way of a dramatist, from which fact I +derived first-hand acquaintance with the habits of the species. What I +don't know about those animals is not worth knowing. They're just +simply vermin, I tell you. Their utter unprofitableness is only +equalled by their lunatic vanity. They imagine the whole world, lay +and professional, is in league to balk and defraud them. So don't +touch them, I entreat you, as you value your peace of mind and your +pocket. They'll bleed you white and never give you a penn'orth of +thanks--more likely turn on you and make out, somehow or other, you +are responsible for the failure of their precious productions.--Now +let's try to forget them, and talk of pleasanter subjects. These +obtrusions of the jackal always bring me bad luck. I'm downright +scared at them.--Tell me about your goods, your books and your +pictures. And show me something which belonged to your mother--that +is, if it wouldn't pain you to do so. I should like to hold something +she had touched in my hands. It would be comforting, somehow. And just +set that door wider open, there's a dear. I want to have a look into +the other room and see where you sleep." + +For the ensuing half hour Poppy was an enchanting companion, wholly +womanly, gentle and delicate; eager, too, with the pretty spontaneous +eagerness of a child, at the recital of stories and exhibition of +treasures beloved by her companion. The lonely cedar tree, lamenting +its exile as the wind swept through the labyrinth of its dry branches, +moved her almost to tears. + +"It is tragic," she said; "still, I am glad you have it. It's very +much in the picture, and lifts the sentiment of the place out of the +awful suburban rut. It's a little symbolic of you yourself, too, +Dominic--there's style, and poetry, and breeding about it. Only, thank +the powers, you differ from it mightily in this, that its best days +are over, while you are but in the flower of your age. And your rooms +are delightful--they're like you, too.--The rest of the house? My dear +soul, the manservant ushered me into a drawing-room, when I arrived, +the colours of which were simply frantic. I bolted. If I'd stayed +another five minutes they'd have given me lockjaw.--Now I must go." +She smiled very sweetly upon Mr. Iglesias. "I'm better, ten thousand +times better," she said. "When I came I was rather extensively +nauseated by my own virtuous actions. Now it's all square between them +and me. I'm good right through, I give you my word I am. If only it'll +last!" + +Poppy's lips quivered, and she looked Iglesias rather desperately in +the face. + +"Never fear," he answered, "but that it will last." + +"Still you'll come and see me often, very often, till I settle down +into the running? It will be beastly heavy going--must be, I'm afraid +--for a long while yet." + +Dominic Iglesias, holding her hand, bent low and kissed it. + +"I will serve you perfectly, God helping me, as long as I live," he +said. + +Five minutes later Mrs. Porcher, supported by the outraged and +sympathetic Eliza, watched, through the aperture afforded by the +rising hinge of the dining-room door, an unknown lady, escorted by Mr. +Iglesias, sweep in whispering skirts and costly sables across the +hall. + +Passing out and down the white steps, Poppy, usually so light of foot +and deft of movement, stumbled, and but for Iglesias' prompt +assistance would have fallen headlong. At that same moment de Courcy +Smyth, slovenly in dress, with shuffling footsteps, crossed the road, +and then slunk aside, his arm jerked up queerly almost as though +warding off a blow. + +"No, no, I'm not hurt, not in the least hurt," Poppy said +breathlessly, in response to Iglesias' inquiry. "But it's given me a +bad fright. I'll go straight home. Put me into the first hansom you +see.--No, I'll go by myself. I'd far rather. I give you my word I'm +not hurt; but I've a lot of things to think about--I want to be alone. +I want to be quiet. Come soon. I was very happy. Good-bye-- +good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +A featureless landscape of the brand of ugliness peculiar to the +purlicus of a great city, to that intermediate region where the +streets have ended and the country has not yet fairly begun. A waste +of cabbagefields--the dark lumpy earth between the rows of yellowish +stumps strewn with ill-smelling refuse of decaying leaves--seen +through the rents in a broken, unkempt, quickset hedge. Running +parallel with the said hedge, shiny blacktarred palings, shutting off +all view of the river. Between these barriers, a long stretch of drab- +coloured high road, flanked by slightly raised footpaths, a verge of +coarse weedy grass to them in which a litter of rags, torn posters, +and much other unloveliness found harbourage. To the northwest and +north, a sky piled to the zenith with mountainous swiftly moving +clouds, inky, blue-purple, wildly white, from out the torn bosoms of +which rushed, now and again, flurrying showers of hail and sleet +driven by a shrieking wind. March was in the act of asserting its +proverbial privilege of "going out like a lion"; but the lion, as seen +in this particular perspective, was a frankly ignoble and ill- +conditioned beast. + +And Poppy St. John, heading up against wind and weather along the +left-hand footpath, felt frankly ignoble and ill-conditioned, too. Her +poor soul, which had made such valiant efforts to spread its wings and +fly heavenward--a form of exercise sadly foreign to its habit-- +crawled, once more, soiled and mud-bespattered, along the common +thoroughfare of life. At this degradation, her heart overflowed with +bitterness and disgust, let alone the blind rage which possessed her, +as of some trapped creature frustrated in escape. She had broken gaol, +as she fondly imagined, and secured liberty. Not a bit of it! In the +hour of reconciliation, of sweetest security, she met her gaoler face +to face and heard the key grind in the lock. + +Save for the occasional passing of a market waggon, or high-shouldered +scavenger's cart, the road was deserted. Once a low-hung two-wheeled +vehicle rattled by, on which, insufficiently covered by sacking, lay a +dead horse, the great head swinging ghastly over the slanting tail- +board, the legs sticking out stark in front. A man, perched sideways +on the carcass, swore at the rickety crock he was driving, and lashed +it under the belly with a short-handled heavy-thonged whip. He was +collarless, and the scarlet and orange handkerchief, knotted about his +throat, had got shifted, the ends of it streaming out behind him as he +lifted his arm and swayed his whole body madly using his whip. Poppy +shut her eyes, sickened by the sound and sight. Just then a scourging +storm of sleet struck her, causing her to turn her back and pause, +where a curve in the range of paling offered some slight shelter. For +strong though she was, and well furnished against the inclement +weather in a thick coaching coat, buttoned up to her chin and down to +her feet, her cloth cap tied on with a thick veil, the stinging wind +and sleet were almost more than she could face. Her depression was not +physical merely, but moral likewise. For over and above her personal +and private sources of trouble, it was a day and place whereon evil +deeds seemed unpleasantly possible. The swearing driver and dangling +head of the dead horse had served to complete her discomfiture; and +presently, the storm slackening a little, hearing footsteps behind +her, she wheeled round, her chin bravely in the air, but her heart +galloping with nervous fright, while her fingers closed down on the +butt of the small silver-plated revolver which rested in the right- +hand waist pocket of her long coat. + +De Courcy Smyth was close beside her. Poppy set her lips together and +braced herself to endure the coming wretchedness. It was some years +since she had had speech of him--some years, indeed, since she had +seen him, save during that brief moment, twenty-four hours previously, +as she descended the steps of Cedar Lodge. Even in his most prosperous +days he had been unattractive in person, at once untidy and theatrical +in dress. Now Poppy registered a distinct deterioration in his +appearance. His puffy face, red-rimmed eyes, and shambling gait were +odious to her. She noted, moreover, that he was poorly clad. His grey +felt hat was stained and greasy; his ginger-coloured frieze overcoat +threadbare at the elbows, thin and stringy in the skirts. The soles of +his brown boots were splayed, the upper leathers seamed and cracked. +This might denote poverty. It might, also, only denote carelessness +and sloth. In any case, it failed to move her to pity, provoking in +her uncontrollable irritation; so that, forgetful of diplomacy, +stirred by memories of innumerable kindred provocations in the past, +Poppy spoke without preamble, asking him sharply as he joined her: + +"Have you no better clothes than that?" + +Smyth paused before answering, looking her up and down furtively yet +deliberately, wiping the wet of his beard and face, meanwhile, with a +frayed green silk pocket-handkerchief. + +"It offends your niceness that your husband should dress like a tramp, +does it?" he said hoarsely. "And pray whose fault is it that he is +reduced to doing so? Judging by your own costume, you can easily +remove that cause of offence if you choose. It does not occur to you, +perhaps, that while you live on the fat of the land I, but for the +charity of strangers--which it is loathsome to me to accept--should +not have enough to pay for the food I eat or for the detestable garret +in which I both work and sleep? Under these circumstances I am +scarcely prepared to call in a fashionable tailor to replenish my +wardrobe, lest its meagreness should, on the very rare occasions on +which I have the honour of meeting you, offer an unpleasing reflection +upon your own super-elegance." + +To these observations, delivered with a somewhat hysterical +volubility, Poppy made no direct reply. Surely it was cruel, cruel, +that at this juncture, when she had so honestly striven to refuse the +evil and choose the good, this recrudescence of all that was most +hateful to her should take place? Moreover, now as always, just that +modicum of truth underlay Smyth's exaggerated accusations and +perverted statements which made them as difficult to combat as they +were exasperating to listen to. For a minute or so Poppy could not +trust herself to speak, lest she should give way to foolish invective. +His looks, manner, intonation, the phrases he employed were odiously +familiar to her. She fought as in a malicious dream, to which the +squalor of the surrounding landscape offered an only too appropriate +setting. Turning, she walked slowly in the direction whence she had +come--namely, in that of Barnes village and Mortlake. There the quaint +riverside houses would afford some shelter and sense of comradeship. + +"I am sorry to make you come farther out," she said, with an attempt +at civility. + +"That is unexpectedly considerate," he commented. + +"But it is impossible to talk in the teeth of this wind," she +continued, "and I imagine we're neither of us particularly keen to +prolong our interview." + +"Excuse me, speak for yourself," Smyth interrupted. "I find it +decidedly interesting to meet my wife again. She has gone up in the +world, and climbed the tree of fashion in the interval. I have gone +down in the world, as every scholar and gentleman, every man with +brains and high standards of art and culture, is bound to go down +sooner or later, in this hideous age of blatant commercialism and +Mammon rampant. I don't quarrel with it. I would far rather be one of +the downtrodden, persecuted minority. But, just on that account, my +wife is all the more worth contemplating, since she offers a highly +instructive object-lesson in the advantages which accrue from allying +oneself with the victorious majority. See--" + +A rush of wind and flurry of cold rain rendered the concluding words +of his tirade inaudible. It was as well, for Poppy was growing wicked, +anger dominating every more humane and decent feeling in her. + +"Look here," she said, when the storm had somewhat abated. "I know +that sort of talk as well as my old shoe. Haven't I listened to it for +hours? For goodness' sake, quit it. It doesn't wash. Let us come to +the point at once without all this idiotic brag and gassing. You wrote +me a letter shouting danger and ruin. What did it mean? Anything real, +or merely a melodramatic blowing off of steam? Tell me. Let us have it +out and have finished with it. What do you want?" + +The softening medium of a gauze veil failed to hide the fact that +Poppy's expression was distinctly malignant, her great eyes full of +sombre fury, her red lips tense. Smyth backed away from her against +the palings in genuine alarm. + +"I--I believe you'd like to murder me," he said. + +"So I should," Poppy answered. "I should very much like to kill you. +And I've the wherewithal here, in my pocket, and there's no one on the +road. But you needn't be anxious. I'm not going to murder you. The +consequences to myself would be too inconvenient." + +As she spoke she thought of yesterday, of the renewal of her +friendship with Dominic Iglesias, and of all that he stood for to her +in things pure, lovely, and of good report. A sob rose in her throat, +for nothing, after all, is so horrible as to feel wicked; nothing so +hard to forgive as that which causes one to feel so. Poppy walked on +again slowly. + +"What do you want?" she repeated miserably. "Be straight with me for +once, if you can, de Courcy, and tell me plainly--if there's anything +to tell. What is it you want?" + +"I have my chance at last," he said hurriedly, "of fame, and success, +and recognition--of bringing those who have despised me to their +knees. I thought I was safe. But yesterday I found that you--yes, you +--come into the question, that you may stand between me and the +realisation of my hopes--more than hopes, a certainty, unless you play +some scurvy trick on me. I had to have your promise, and there was no +time to lose--so I wrote." + +Poppy looked at him contemptuously. + +"What does all that mean?--more money?" she asked. "Haven't you grown +ashamed of begging yet? I raised your allowance last year, and it's +being paid regularly--Ford & Martin have sent me on your receipts. To +give it you at all is an act of grace, for you've no earthly claim on +me, and you know it. From the day I married you I never cost you a +farthing; I've paid for everything myself, down to every morsel of +bread I put into my mouth. You, talked big about your income +beforehand, when you knew you were up to your eyes in debt. Well, in +debt you may stay, as far as I am concerned. I'll give you that +seventy-five a year if you'll keep clear of me; but I won't give you a +penny more, for the simple reason that I shan't have it to give. It'll +be an uncommonly close shave in any case--I have myself to keep." + +"Yourself to keep?" Smyth snarled. "Since when have you taken to +wholesale lying, my pretty madam? That is a new development." + +"I'm not lying," Poppy blazed out. "I am speaking honest, sober +truth." + +Smyth laughed. It was not an agreeable sound. + +"Is not that a little too brazen?" he asked. "Even with such a +negligible quantity as a deserted husband, it is a mistake to overplay +the part." + +Then, frightened by her expression, he slunk aside again. But Poppy +did not linger. Slowly, steadily, she walked on down the rain-lashed +footpath. + +"For God's sake tell me what you want--tell me what you want," she +cried, "and let me get away from all this rottenness." + +"You do not believe in me," Smyth replied sullenly, "and that is why +it is so difficult to speak to you about this matter. You have always +depreciated my powers and scoffed at my talents. No thanks to you I +have any self-confidence left." + +"All right, all right," Poppy said. "We can miss out the remainder of +that speech. I know it by heart. Come to the point--what do you want?" + +"I was just filling in the sketch of the third act." + +Poppy shrugged her shoulders and raised her hands with a despairing +gesture. + +"Oh, heavens," she ejaculated, "a play again! Are you mad? You know, +just as well as I do, every manager Mill refuse it unread." + +"It will be unnecessary to approach any manager. I go straight to the +public this time. I have the promise of money to meet the expenses of +two matinees at least. I have no scruple in accepting--it is an +investment, and an immensely profitable one--for I know the worth of +my own work. It is great, nothing less than great--" + +"Of course," Poppy said. "But pray where do I come in?" Then she +paused. Suddenly she pieced the bits of the puzzle together, saw and +understood. Misery, deeper than any she had yet experienced, +overflowed in her. "Ah, it is you, then, you who are bleeding Dominic +Iglesias," she cried. "Robbing him by appeals to his charity and lying +assurances of impossible profits. You shall not do it. I will put a +stop to it. You shall not, you shall not!" + +"Why?" Smyth inquired. "Do you want all his money yourself?" + +"You dirty hound," Poppy said under her breath. + +"I did not know of your connection with him till yesterday," Smyth +continued--in proportion as Poppy lost herself, he became cool and +astute--"though we have lived in the same house for the last eighteen +months. I supposed you to be in pursuit of larger game than +superannuated bank-clerks. However, your modesty of taste, combined +with your charming attitude towards me, might, as I perceived, lead to +complications. I ascertained how long you had been at Cedar Lodge +yesterday. Then I wrote to you." + +Poppy stood still in the wind and wet, listening intently. + +"For once," he went on exultantly, "it is my turn to give orders, my +fine lady, and yours to obey. If you interfere, in the smallest +degree, between Iglesias and me, I will call his attention to certain +facts, the appearance of which is highly discreditable to him. He will +pay to save his reputation, if he ceases to pay out of charity--not +that it is charity. He is making an investment of which, as a business +man, he fully appreciates the worth. If you interfere I will make his +position a vastly uncomfortable one. The women who keep Cedar Lodge +are as jealous as cats. It would not require much blowing to make that +fire burst into a very lively flame, I promise you." + +"You live there, then?" Poppy said absently. "You live there?" live +there?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Does that offend your niceness, too? Do you +consider the place too good for me? You need not distress yourself. I +have only one room, a small one--on the second floor immediately above +your friend's handsome sitting-room, but only half the size of it. The +floors are old. I can gather a very fair sense of any conversation +taking place below." + +Poppy moved on again. + +"May I inquire what you propose to do?" Smyth asked presently--"warn +your mature commercial admirer and compel me, in self-protection, to +blast his reputation, or hold your tongue like a reasonable woman?" + +They had reached the end of the tarred palings. Upon the left the +quaintly irregular bow-windowed rose-and-ivy-covered houses of Barnes +Terrace--no two of them alike in height or in architecture--fronted +the road. Upon the right was the river, dull-coloured and wind- +tormented. A cargo of bricks, supplying a strong note of red in the +otherwise mournful landscape, was being unloaded from a barge; carts +backed down the slip to within easy distance of the broad bulwarkless +deck, horses shivering as they stood knee-deep in the water. The +bricks grated together when the men, handling them, tossed them +across. With long-drawn thunderous roar and shriek, a train, heading +from Kew Station, rushed across the latticed iron-built railway +bridge. Poppy waited, watching the progress of it, watching the +unloading of the barge. The one perfectly pure and beautiful gift +which life had given her was utterly profaned, so it seemed to her; +that which she held dearest and best hopelessly entangled with that +which to her was most degrading and abhorrent. And what to do? To be +silent was to be disloyal. To speak was to expose Dominic Iglesias to +dishonour and disgust far deeper than that which loss of money could +inflict. Poppy weighed and balanced, clear that her thought must be +wholly for him, not letting anger sway her judgment. Of two evils she +must choose that which, for him, was least. + +"I will not give you away. I will say nothing," she said at last. + +"You swear you will not?" + +"Yes, I swear," Poppy said. + +"I want it in writing." + +"Very well, you shall have it in writing, witnessed if you like," she +answered. "The precious document shall be posted to you to-night. Now +are you satisfied, you contemptible animal? Have you humbled me +enough?" + +But Smyth came close to her, pushing his face into hers. He was +shaking with excitement, hysterical with mingled fear and relief. + +"I am not ungenerous, my dear girl," he whispered. "I am willing to +condone the past--to take you back, to acknowledge you as my wife and +let you share my success. There is a part in the new play which might +have been written for you. You could become world-famous in it. I am +not ungenerous, I am willing to make matters up." + +"Do you want me to murder you, after all?" Poppy asked. "If you try me +much further, I tell you plainly, I can't answer for myself. +Therefore, as you value your life, let me alone. Get out of my sight." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +During the watches of the ensuing night, amid bellowings of wind in the +chimneys, long-drawn complaint of the great cedar tree, rattle of sleet, +and those half-heard whisperings and footsteps--as of inhabitants long +since departed--which so often haunt an old house through the hours of +dark, Dominic Iglesias' mind, for cause unknown, was busied with +reminiscences of the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, and the many +years he had spent in its service. He had no wish to think of these +things. They came unbidden, pushing themselves upon remembrance. All +manner of details, of little histories and episodes connected both with +the financial and human affairs of the famous banking-house, occurred to +him. And from thoughts of all this, but transmogrified and perverted, +when, towards dawn, the storm abating, he at length fell asleep, his +dreams were not exempt. For through them caracoled, in grotesque and most +irregular inter-relation, those august personages, the heads of the firm, +along with his fellow-clerks, living and dead, that militant Protestant, +good George Lovegrove, and the whole personnel of the establishment, down +to caretaker, messenger-boys, porters and the like. Never surely had been +such wild doings in that sedate and reputable place of business--doings +in which gross absurdity and ingenious cruelty went hand in hand; while, +by some queer freak of the imagination, poor Pascal Pelletier, of hectic +and pathetic memory, appeared as leader of the revels, at which the Lady +of the Windswept Dust, sad-eyed, inscrutable of countenance, her +dragon-embroidered scarf drawn closely about her shoulders, looked on. + +Dominic arose from his brief uneasy slumbers anxious and unrefreshed. The +phantasmagoria of his dream had been so living, so vivid, that it was +difficult to throw off the impression produced by it. Moreover, he was +slightly ashamed to find that, the restraining power of the will removed, +his mind was capable of creating scenes of so loose and heartless a +character. He was displeased with himself, distressed by this outbreak of +the undisciplined and unregenerate "natural man" in him. Later, coming +into his sitting-room, he unfortunately found matters awaiting him by no +means calculated to obliterate displeasing impressions or promote suavity +and peace. + +For the pile of letters and circulars lying beside his plate upon the +breakfast-table was topped by a note directed in de Courcy Smyth's nervous +and irritable hand. Dominic opened it with a curious sense of reluctance. +Only last week he had lent the man ten pounds; and here was another +demand, couched in terms, too, so bullying, so almost threatening, that +Dominic's back stiffened considerably. + +Smyth requested, or rather commanded, that fifty pounds should be +delivered to him without delay. "It was conceivable that Mr. Iglesias had +not that amount by him in notes. But, since he had really nothing to do, +it would be a little occupation for him to go and procure them." Smyth +insisted the money should be paid in a lump sum, adding that, his time +being as valuable as Iglesias' was worthless, he could not reasonably be +expected to waste it in perpetual letters respecting a subject so +essentially uninteresting and distasteful to him as that of ways and +means. Such correspondence annoyed him, and put him off his work; and, as +it clearly was very much to Iglesias' interest that the play should be +finished as soon as possible, it was advisable that he should accede to +Smyth's present request without parley and pay up at once. + +Reading this mandatory epistle, Dominic was gravely displeased and hurt. +Poppy St. John had warned him against the insatiable and insolent greed +of persons of this kidney. He had discounted her speech somewhat, +supposing it infected with such prejudice as the recollection of private +wrongs will breed even in generous natures. Now he began to fear her +strictures had been just. The egoism of the unsuccessful is a moral +disease, destructive of all sense of proportion. Those suffering +from it must be reckoned as insane; not sick merely, but actually +mad with self-love. Smyth, to gain his play a hearing, would beggar +him--Iglesias--without scruple or regret. But Dominic had no intention +of being beggared in this connection. Thrice-sacred charity is one story; +the encouragement of the unlimited borrower, the fostering of so colossal +a selfishness quite another. A point had been reached where to accede +to Smyth's demands was culpable, a consenting, indeed, to wrongdoing. +Here then was occasion for careful consideration. Iglesias gravely laid +the offensive missive aside, and proceeded to eat his breakfast before +opening the rest of his letters. In the intervals of the meal he glanced +at the contents of the morning paper. + +The war news was unimportant. A skirmish or two, leaving a few more +women's lives maimed and hearts desolate. A lie or two of continental +manufacture, tending to blacken the fair fame of the most humane and +good-tempered army which, in all probability, ever took the field. +A shriek or two from soft-handed sentimentalists at home, who--for +reasons best known to themselves--are ardent patriots of every country +save their own. Such items formed too permanent a part of the daily menu, +during the year of grace 1900, to excite more than passing notice. At the +bottom of the column a paragraph of a more unusual character attracted +Iglesias' attention. It announced it had authority for stating that +Alarmist rumours, current regarding the unstable financial position of +a certain well-known and highly respected London bank, were grossly +exaggerated. No doubt the losses suffered by the bank in question had +been severe, owing to its extensive connection with land and mining +property in South Africa, and the disorganisation of business in that +country consequent upon the war. The said losses were, however, of a +temporary character, and had by no means reached the disastrous +proportions commonly reported. Granted time, and a reasonable amount of +patience on the part of persons most nearly interested, the storm would +be successfully weathered, and the bank would resume the leading position +which it had so long and honourably enjoyed. No names were given, but +Iglesias had small difficulty in supplying them. It appeared to him that +Barking Brothers must be in considerable straits or they would never, +surely, put forth disclaimers of this description. His mind went back +upon the dreams which had left such disquieting impressions upon his +mind. In the light of that newspaper paragraph they took on an almost +prophetic character. Absently he turned over the rest of the pile of +letters, selected one, the handwriting upon the envelope of which was at +once well-known and perplexing to his memory, opened it, and turned to +the signature to find that of no less a personage than Sir Abel Barking +himself. + +During the next quarter of an hour Dominic Iglesias lived hard in +thought, in decision, in struggle with personal resentment bred by +remembrance of scant courtesy and ingratitude meted out to him. He +learned that Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking's embarrassments did, in +point of fact, skirt the edge of ruin. Their affairs were +in apparently inextricable confusion, owing to Reginald Barking's +reckless speculations, while, to add to the general confusion, that +strenuous young man had broken down utterly from nervous verstrain, +and was, at the present time, incapable of the slightest mental or +physical exertion. Things were at a deadlock. "Under these terrible +circumstances," Sir Abel Barking wrote, "I turn to you, my good +friend, as a person intimately acquainted with the operation of our +firm. Your experience may be of service to us in this crisis, and, +in virtue of the many benefits you have received from us in the +past, I unhesitatingly claim your assistance. In my own name and +that of my partners, I offer to reinstate you in your former +position, but with enlarged powers. It has always been my +endeavour, as you are well aware, to reward merit and to treat +those in our employment with generosity and consideration. You will +be glad, I am sure, to embrace this opportunity of repaying, in +some small measure, your debt towards me and mine." More followed +to the same effect. Neither the taste of the writer nor his manner +of expression was happy. Of this Dominic was quite sensible. +Patronage, especially after his period of independence, was far +from agreeable to him. Yet behind the verbiage, the platitudes and +bombastic phrases, his ear detected a very human cry of fear and +cry for help. Should he accede, doing his best to allay that fear +and render that help? + +He rose, still holding the wordy letter in his hand, and paced the room. +Of his own ability to render effective help, were he allowed freedom of +action, Iglesias entertained little doubt--always supposing that the +situation did not prove even worse than he had present reason for +supposing. It was not difficult to see how the trouble had come about. +The senior partners, lulled into false security by lifelong prosperity, +had grown supine and inert. Sooner, in their opinion, might the stars fall +from heaven than the august house of Barking prove unsound of foundation +or capable of collapse! To hint at this, even as a remote possibility, was +little short of blasphemous. Their amiable nephew, meanwhile, had +regarded them as a flock of silly fat geese eminently fitted for plucking. +He let them complacently hiss and cackle, congratulate themselves upon +their worldly wisdom and conspicuous modernity, while, all the time, +silently, diligently, relentlessly plucking. Now, awakening suddenly to +the fact of their nudity, they were in a terrible taking; scandalised, +flustered, very sore, poor birds, and quite past recollecting that +feathers grow again if the system is sound and the cuticle health. To +Iglesias these purse-proud, self-righteous, middle-aged gentlemen +presented a spectacle at once pathetic and humorous in their present sad +plight. A calm head and clear judgment might do much to ameliorate their +position, and a calm head and cool judgment he was confident of +possessing. Only was he, after all, disposed to place these useful +possessions at their service? + +For in the last nine months Dominic Iglesias' habits and outlook had +changed notably. The values were altered. It would be far harder to +return to the monotonous routine of business life now--even though a +fine revenge, a delicate heaping of coals of fire, accompanied that +return--than it had been to part company with it last year. Loneliness, +the emptiness induced by absence of definite employment, no longer +oppressed him. Holy Church had cured all that, giving him a definite +place, and definite purpose, beautiful duties of prayer and worship, the +restrained, yet continuous, excitement of the pushing forward of soul and +spirit upon the fair, strange, daily, hourly journey towards the far +horizon and the friendship of Almighty God. His retirement had become very +dear to him, since it afforded scope for the conscious prosecution of that +journey. Dominic's state of mind, in short, was that of the lover who +dreads any and every outside demand which may, even momentarily, distract +his attention from the object of his love. Threadneedle Street, the +glass and mahogany walled corridors, and the moral atmosphere of +them--money-getting and of this world conspicuously worldly--were not +these ironically antagonistic to the journey upon which he had set forth +and the habit of mind necessary to the successful prosecution of it? There +was Poppy St. John, too, and the closer relation of friendship into which +he had just entered with her. This must not be neglected. And, thinking +of her, he could not but think of that younger son of the great +banking-house, Alaric Barking, and his dealings with her--enjoying her as +long as it suited him to do so, leaving her as soon as his passion cooled +and a more advantageous social connection presented itself. Towards the +handsome young soldier Iglesias was, it must be owned, somewhat merciless. +Why should he go to the rescue of this young libertine's family, and +indirectly facilitate his marriage, and increase its promise of happiness, +by helping to secure him an otherwise vanishing fortune? Let him pay the +price of his illicit pleasures and become a pauper. Such a consummation +Dominic admitted he, personally, could face with entire resignation. + +And yet--yet--on closer examination were not these reasons against +undertaking the work offered him based upon personal disinclination, +personal animosity, rather than upon plain right and wrong, and, +consequently, were they not insufficient to justify abstention and +refusal? That earlier dream of his, on the night following his dismissal +last year, came back to him, with its touching memories of the narrow town +garden behind the old house in Holland Street, Kensington--the golden +laburnum, the shallow stone basin beloved of sooty sparrows, poor, dear +Pascal Pelletier and his Huntley & Palmer's biscuit-box infernal machine +and very crude methods of adjusting the age-old quarrel between capital +and labour. On that occasion the lonely little boy, though at risk of +grave injury to himself, had not hesitated to save the ill-favoured +chunk-faced grey cat--which bore in speech and appearance so queer a +likeness to Sir Abel Barking--from the ugly fate awaiting it. He had +gathered it tenderly in his arms, pitying and striving to heal it. Was the +child, by instinct, finer, nobler, more self-forgetful, than the man in +the full possession of reason, instructed in the divine science, fortified +by the example and merits of the saints? That would, indeed, be a +melancholy conclusion. And so it occurred to him, not merely as +conceivable but as incontestable, that the road to the far horizon, +instead of leading in the opposite direction to the city banking-house, +for him, at this particular juncture, led directly into and through it; so +that to refuse would be to stray from the straight path and risk the +obscuring of the blessed light by a cowardly and selfish lust of the +immediate comfort of it. + +He would go and help those distracted plucked geese to grow new feathers. +Only to do so meant time, labour, unremitting application, a wholesale +sacrifice of leisure; so he must see Poppy St. John first. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +"I did not call yesterday," Iglesias said, "in consequence of your +prohibitory telegram. But to-day I have come early and without permission, +first because I was anxious to assure myself you were really unhurt, and +secondly because something has occurred regarding which I wish to +consult you. I must have your sanction before taking action in respect of +it." + +Entering from the blustering wind and keen, fitful sunshine without, the +little drawing-room struck Iglesias as both stuffy and dingy. And Poppy, +standing in the centre of it, huddled in a black brocade tea-gown, a +sparse pattern of bluey mauve rosebuds upon it, which hung in limp folds +from her bosom to her feet, concealing all the outline of her figure, came +perilously near looking dingy likewise. The garment, cut square at the +neck, had long seen its first youth. The big outstanding black ribbon bow +between her shoulders and that upon her breast was creased and crumpled. +Beneath the masses of her dark hair her face looked almost unnaturally +small, sallow and bloodless, while her eyes were enormous--dusky +dwelling-places, as it seemed to her visitor, of some world-old sorrow. +Her face did not light up, neither did she make any demonstration of +gladness or greeting, but stood, one toy spaniel tucked under either arm, +their forelegs lying along her wrists, their fringed paws resting upon her +palms. Dominic had a conviction she had snatched up the little dogs on +hearing his voice, and held them so as to render it impossible for him to +take her hand. Less than ever, looking upon her, had he any mercy for +Alaric Barking. Less than ever did the prospect of spending weeks, perhaps +months, in shoring up the imperilled fortunes of that young gentleman's +family prove alluring to him. + +"You were hurt," he broke out, almost fiercely. "You are suffering, and, +worse, you are unhappy. It makes me very angry to see you thus. I wish I +could reach those who are guilty of having distressed and injured you." + +Poppy's face went a shade paler, and alarm mingled with the sorrow in her +eyes, but she made a courageous effort to patter as usual. + +"You'd give them the what for, dear man, wouldn't you?" she said. "But you +would have to go way back in the ages for that, and get behind the +seed-sowing of which this gay hour is the harvest. Still, I love to see +you ferocious. It is very flattering to me, and it's mightily becoming to +you. Don't snore, Cappadocia. Manners, my good child, manners. All the +same, I wasn't hurt slipping on those gorgeous white steps of yours. Upon +my honour, I wasn't. But I had to go out yesterday afternoon, and I got +caught in one of those infernal hailstorms. It was altogether too cold for +comfort, and I feel a bit cheap this morning in consequence. That's why I +put on this odious gown. I always try to dress for the part, and the part +just now is dismality. From the start this gown has been a disappointment. +I counted on the roses fading pink, but the beasts faded blue instead. I +feel as if I was dressed in a bruise, and that's appropriate--for I also +feel as if I had been beaten all over. Merely the hail--I give you my +word. Nothing more than that. I'm never ill." Poppy paused, dropped the +little dogs on the floor. They cowered against her, looking up woefully at +her. "No, I don't want you," she said. "You're heavy. I'm tired of you." + +Then she blew her nose, and, over the top of her hand-kerchief, looked +full at Iglesias for the first time. + +"Well, what is it? What do you want my sanction for?" + +Without waiting for his answer she swept aside, knelt down, crouching over +the fire, extending both hands to the heat of it, while her open sleeves +falling back showed her arms bare to the elbow. + +"Tell me, and, if you don't mind, shove along. I own I am a trifle +jumpy--only the weather--but I need humouring, so shove along, there's a +good dear," she said. + +Whereupon, in as few words as possible, Dominic unfolded to her the +contents of Sir Abel Barking's letter. As she listened, Poppy raised +herself, turned round, stood upright, her hands clasped behind her. + +"Oh! that's it, is it?" she said. She looked less bloodless, more +animated, more natural. "I'm not altogether surprised. The poor old lads +have found out the cuckoo in their nest at last, have they? Alaric had a +notion Reginald Barking--not a nice person Reginald--I saw him once and +he looked a cross between a pair of forceps and a bag of shavings--I +didn't trust him--you don't, do you? Alaric had a notion this precious +cousin was making hay of the whole show. But it was utterly useless for +him to intervene. In the eyes of the elder generation he is the original +dog with a bad name, only fit for hanging." + +Poppy paused, took a long breath, smiled a little. + +"What do you think? Is it a very bad business?" + +"I cannot tell till I have gone into details," Iglesias replied. He was +slightly put about by the lady's change of demeanour, by the interest she +displayed, by the alteration in her expression and bearing. + +"And they howl to you to save the sinking ship?" Poppy continued lightly. +"Shall you go?" + +"That is the question I have come to ask you." + +"To ask me?" she said. "But, heart alive, dear man, where do I come in?" + +"My duty to you stands before every other duty," Iglesias answered +gravely. "Those who have caused you sorrow and injured you, are my +enemies. How can it be otherwise? A member of this family--I do not choose +to name him--has, in my opinion, played a detestable part by you; +therefore only with your sanction, freely given, can I consent to be +helpful to his relatives." + +The colour leaped into Poppy's cheeks, the light into her eyes, her lips +parted in pretty laughter; yet she still kept her hands clasped behind her +back. + +"Ah! I see--I see," she cried. "But how did you contrive to get left +behind, most beloved lunatic, and be born five or six centuries out of +your time into this shouting, pushing, modern world which knows not +chivalry? Do you imagine this is the fashion most men treat women? Here +I am laughing, yet I could cry that you should come to me--me, of all +people--on such a lovely, fine, fanciful errand." + +"My conduct appears to me perfectly obvious and simple," Iglesias replied +rather coldly. + +"I know it does, my dear, and there's the pathetic splendour of it," Poppy +declared, soft mothering tones in her voice. "All the same we must keep +our heads screwed on the right way. So, tell me, will it be of any +personal advantage to you to help pull these elderly plungers out of the +quagmire?" + +"None whatever." + +"At least they will make it worth your while by paying up handsomely?" + +"No doubt they will make me some offer, but I shall decline it," Iglesias +said. "I draw a pension. I will continue to do so. That is just. I have a +right to it in virtue of my past work. But I shall refuse to accept any +salary over and above that. I shall make it a condition that I give my +services. And that which I give I give, whether it be to king or to +beggar. To make profit out of my giving would be intolerable to me." + +Poppy mused, her head bent, pushing away the tiny dogs with her foot as +they fawned upon her. + +"Don't bother! you little miseries," she said, "don't bother! I'm busy +now. I've no use for you." Presently she glanced up at Mr. Iglesias, who +held himself proudly, as he stood waiting before her. "Do you care for +these barking people? Is it a question of affection between any of them +and you?" + +"I am afraid not," he answered. "Ours has been a purely business +connection throughout. How should it be otherwise? The social interval +between employers and employed is not easily bridged." + +"Stuff-a-nonsense!" Poppy put in scornfully. "They might feel honoured to +tie your shoe." + +"Any attempt to ignore differences of wealth and station, which others are +pleased to remember, would be unbecoming," he continued. "Nor do I relish +condescension on the part of my social betters. It does not suit me. I +prefer to remain within my own borders. Still, there is the tie of long +association with these merchant princes and their undertakings, and this, +I own, influences me strongly. It would be shocking to me to witness the +failure or ruin of those with whom I have been in daily intercourse. Then, +too, there is a certain challenge in the present position which appeals to +the fighting instinct in me. If not altogether by nature, still by habit I +am a business man. Affairs interest me, and consequently the more +embarrassed and apparently hopeless the existing state of things is, the +greater would be my satisfaction in mastering the intricacies of it and +reducing them to order. These practical matters are not without very real +excitement and drama to those who have the habit of handling them." +Iglesias paused, and then added quietly, "But I am contented enough as I +am, and should not voluntarily have touched business again had there not +been another consideration over and above those I have enumerated--namely, +the plain obligation of right doing, whether the said doing be congenial +to one or not. This obligation is supreme, or should be so, in the case of +one who, like myself, has bound himself by definite acts of obedience and +self-dedication." + +His expression had changed, taking on something of exaltation. He no +longer looked at Poppy, but away to the far horizon and the light thereon +resident. + +And the Lady of the Windswept Dust was quick to realise this, though upon +what fair unseen object the eyes of his spirit did, in fact, rest she was +ignorant. Against it the vanity inherent in her womanhood rebelled. She +was piqued and jealous of the unnamed, unknown object which absorbed his +attention more than she herself and her friendship did. From the first +Iglesias had appealed to her very various nature in a threefold manner. To +the artist in her he appealed by the clearness of his individuality, his +finish of person and of feature, his gravity and poise--these last taking +their rise not in insensibility, but in reasoned will, in passionate +emotion held, as she had learned, austerely in check. He appealed to the +motherhood in her by his unworldliness, by his ignorance of base motives, +thus making her attitude towards him protective; she instinctively trying +to stand between him and a naughty world, to stand, too, between him and +her own too often naughty self. He appealed to the child in her by the +exotic and foreign elements in him, which captivated her fancy, endowing +him with an effect of mystery, making him seem to hail from some region of +legend and high romance. But the events of the last few days had been +far from beneficial to Poppy St. John. They had demoralised her, so that +the artistic, maternal, and childlike aspects of her nature were alike +overlaid by the bitterness, the cynicism, the recklessness engendered by +her unhappy childless marriage and the irregular life she had led. Poppy's +feet were held captive in the quicksands of the things of sense; her +outlook was concrete and gross. Finer instincts lit up but momentary +flickering fires in her, speedily dying out into the gloom begotten by the +deplorable scene of yesterday with her husband, and shame at the +conspiracy of silence into which, as the lesser of the two evils presented +to her, she had entered, remembrances of which, on his first arrival, +had made her feel unworthy and a traitor in the presence of Iglesias. This +demoralisation worked in her to rebellion against just all that which, in +her happier moods, rendered Iglesias delightful to her. His exaltation, +his calm, the mystery which so delicately surrounded him, the very +distinction of his appearance irritated her, so soon as she became +conscious that she was no longer the sole object of his thoughts. She was +pushed by a bad desire to force from him a more complete self-revelation, +to cheapen him in some way and break him up. + +"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly and imperatively, "you are a trifle +too empyrean. I don't quite believe in you. Be more ordinary, more +vulgarly human. For who are you, after all? What are you?" she said. + +And he, his thoughts recalled from a great distance, regarded her +questioningly and as without immediate recognition. Her voice was harsh, +and the transition was so abrupt from the radiant land of the spirit to +the dingy realities of Poppy's drawing-room, her tired, black, bluey-mauve +patterned tea-gown, and her absurdly artificial little dogs. It took him +some few seconds to adjust himself. Then he smiled in apology, and spoke +very courteously and gently. + +"Who am I, what am I, dear friend? Why this, I think--a commonplace, very +ordinary person who, long ago, in early childhood, by mournful accident, +for which it would be an impiety to hold those on whom he was dependent +responsible, lost his sight. Through all the years which men count, and +rightly, the best of life--when courage is high and the hand strong, and +opportunity fertile, circumstance as a block of precious many-coloured +marble out of which to carve fine fortune for ourselves and those we +love--he wandered in darkness, insecure of footing, missing the very end +and object for which earthly existence has been bestowed upon us mortals. +He was sad and homesick for that which he had not; yet ignorant of the +nature of his own loss, disposed to blame the constitution of things, +rather than his own incapacity, for that which he suffered." + +"And then?" Poppy put in sharply. Listening, she had started to mock, the +cynic and worldling being hot in her, but, looking at the speaker, +somehow, she dared not mock. + +"And then--recently--since I have known you in short, it has pleased +Almighty God by degrees to restore my sight." + +Poppy regarded him intently, her singular eyes wide with question and with +doubt, her lips pressed together. + +"I see--you have got religion," she said. "But do you seriously mean to +tell me that I--I--have had anything to do with that?" + +"Yes," Iglesias answered. "You have had much to do with it. First by +love--for your friendship woke up my heart. Then by sorrow"--he paused, +divided by the desire to spare her and to tell her the whole of his +thought--"sorrow, when I came to know you better and value your character +and gifts at their true worth, because I saw noble things put to ignoble +uses, which of all pitiful sights is perhaps the most profoundly pitiful." + +Silence followed, broken only by minute and reproachful snorings on the +part of Cappadocia and her spouse. The little dogs, sensible of neglect, +had become the victims of wounded self-love, that most primitive, as it is +the most universal, of passions throughout all grades of living things. +Poppy meanwhile turned her head aside, unable or unwilling to speak. Again +she blew her nose with complete disregard of the unromantic quality of +that action, then said huskily: + +"I have cleaned the slate. I shall keep it clean." Her voice grew +steadier. A touch of malice came into her expression. "I like compliments, +and you have paid me about the biggest I ever had. It will take a little +time to digest. So I think--I think, dear man, I will not stand in the way +of your going back to the City, and saving the sinking ship--that is, if +the work won't be too hard for you?" + +"No," he answered, touched by her more gracious aspect, yet slightly +confused. "I have had nearly a year's holiday and rest; I am quite equal +to work. But I am afraid the hours must necessarily be long, and that my +opportunities of coming to see you will not be very frequent." + +"Perhaps that's just as well," she said, "while I am still in process of +digesting the big compliment." + +Then impulsively she swept up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders, +looking him full in the face. + +"See here, you thrice dear innocent, since you have mentioned that +terrible word 'love,' the complexion of our relation has changed somewhat. +Don't you understand, made as I am, I must fight seven devils within me if +I'm to continue to play fair with you, as I swore I would? And so, just +because you are so very much to me, I had best not see you too often until +I have settled down into my new scheme of life. In a sense Alaric was a +safeguard. That safeguard's gone." + +She moved a step back, letting her hands fall at her sides, while her eye +grew hard and dark. + +"And there are other reasons, brutal, unworthy, sordid reasons, why it is +wiser that you should not come here often at present. They did not +exist--at least I had not the faintest conception that they did--when we +last met. They have rushed into hateful prominence since. Don't ask me--I +cannot tell you. You must trust me, and you must not let my silence +alienate you. I can't be explicit, but I give you my word I am perfectly +straight. And you must not let your religion alienate you either. By the +way, what form of faith is it?" + +"The faith of my own people," Dominic answered. "The faith of the Catholic +Church." + +Poppy smiled. + +"Then I am not so afraid I shall lose you," she said, "for that's the only +brand of religion I've ever come across which isn't too nice to reckon +with human nature as it really is. It can save sinners, just because it +knows how to make saints--and it has made them out of jolly unpromising +material at times, there's the comfort of it." + +She held out her hand in farewell. + +"Good-bye till next time. You've done me good, as you always do. Now, I am +going to re-study some of my old parts, just to get the hang of the whole +show again." + +But the door once shut, she flung herself down on the broad settee, while +the tiny dogs, whimpering, crowded upon her lap. + +"Poppy St. John, you're not such a bad lot after all," she cried. "But oh! +oh! oh! it's beastly rough to be so young, and have gone so far, and know +so much. There, Willie Onions, don't snivel. It's both superfluous and +unpleasant." She sat up and wiped her eyes. "Upon my honour, I think it +was just as well I gave Phillimore the little revolver last night, to lock +up in the plate chest," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It followed that Dominic Iglesias walked on across the common to Barnes +Station and travelled Citywards, solaced and uplifted in spirit, yet +greatly troubled by the idea of those newly arrived complications at +which the Lady of the Windswept Dust had hinted. He did not permit himself +to inquire what they might be. Doubtless she knew best--in her social +sense he had great confidence--so he acquiesced in her silence about them. +Still, as he reflected, it is not a little lamentable that even +friendship, the angelic relation between man and woman, should be +thus beset by perils from within and pitfalls without. Where lay the +fault--with over-civilisation and the improper proprieties resultant +therefrom? Or was it of far more ancient origin, resident in the very +foundations of human nature? Woman, eternally the vehicle of man's being, +eternally the inspiration of quite three-fifths of his action; yet, at the +same time, the eternal stumbling block and danger to the highest of his +moral and intellectual attainment! Mr. Iglesias smiled sadly and soberly +to himself as the train rolled on into Waterloo. In any case she remains +the most astonishing of God's creatures. It would be dull enough here on +earth without her, though, to employ one of Poppy's characteristic +phrases, "it's most infernally risky" with! + +But once inside the bank, such far-ranging meditations gave place to +considerations immediate and concrete, Iglesias' whole mind being focussed +to arrive at the facts of the case. And this was far from easy. For alarm +stalked those usually self-secure and self-complacent rooms and glass and +mahogany-walled corridors; men looking up from their desks as he, +Iglesias, passed, with anxious faces, or moving with hushed footsteps as +though someone lay sick to death within the house. In Sir Abel Barking's +private room the drama reached its climax, panic sitting there sensibly +enthroned. Her chill presence had visibly affected Sir Abel, causing the +contrast between the overblown portrait upon the wall and the subject of +it to be ironical to the point of cruelty. For Sir Abel was aged and +shrivelled. His clothes hung loose upon him. Hardly could he rally his +tongue to the enunciation of a single platitude even of the most obviously +staring sort. The mighty, indeed, were fallen and the weapons of +wealth-getting perished! Yet never had Iglesias felt so drawn in sympathy +towards his late employer, for the spectre of possible ruin had made Sir +Abel almost humble, almost human. + +"I am obliged to you for responding to my summons so promptly--yes, sit +down, my good friend, sit down," he said. "It is necessary that I should +converse with you at some length, and I refuse to keep you standing. Our +present position is inexplicable to me. Granting that my nephew Reginald +is unworthy of the trust we reposed in his ability and probity, there was +still our own judgment in reserve, and our own unquestioned capacity to +meet any strain upon our resources. That our confidence in these last was +misplaced is still incredible to me. I am completely baffled. The past few +months, indeed, with their reiterated discovery of difficulty and of loss, +have been a terrible tax upon my fortitude. Veteran financier though I am, +I own to you, Iglesias, there have been moments when I feared that I, too, +should give way. Only my sense of the duty I owe to my own reputation has +supported me." Sir Abel turned sideways in his chair. His eyes sought the +derisive portrait upon the wall, contemplation of which appeared to +reanimate his self-confidence somewhat, for he continued in his larger +manner, "Nor has the sting of private anxiety been lacking. My younger son +has been called away to the seat of war under circumstances of a +peculiarly affecting character. My earnest hopes for his future, in the +shape of a very desirable marriage, touched on fulfilment--." + +But here Iglesias intervened. For his temper began to rise at the mention +of the loves of Alaric Barking. If the springs of Christian charity, just +now welling up so sweetly within him, were not to run incontinently dry, +the conversation, he felt, must be steadied down to themes of other +import. So he civilly but definitely requested Sir Abel to "come to +Hecuba," and to Hecuba the poor man, haltingly yet very obediently, came. +He and his ex-head-clerk seemed, indeed, to have changed places, so that, +before the end of the interview, Iglesias began to measure himself as +never before, to realise his own business acumen, his quickness of +apprehension, his grasp of the issues presented to him and his own +fearlessness of judgment. Whatever the upshot as to the eventual saving of +the credit of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking, Iglesias became +increasingly confident of his own power, and quietly satisfied in the +exercise of it. + +And so it happened that, although tired in brain and body, his mind +weighted with thought, as were his arms with bundles of papers--which he +carried home for more leisurely inspection--Iglesias came rapidly up the +white steps of Cedar Lodge that night. He was buoyant in spirit, content +with his day's work, keenly interested in the development of it. Using his +latchkey he entered the square panelled hall silently--with results, for +revels were in progress within. + +Dinner was over. Mrs. Porcher and the great Eliza, linked arm in arm, +stood near the dining-room door watching, while those two gay young +sparks, Farge and Worthington, inspired by memories of a recent visit to +the Hippodrome, played at lions. It was a simple game, still it gave +pleasure to the players. Clad in an easy-fitting dark blue "lounge suit," +with narrow white cross-bar lines on it, an aged and faded orange +sheep-skin hearthrug thrown gallantly across his shoulders, Farge, on all +fours, with the mildest roarings imaginable, made rushes from under the +dinner-table at the devoted Worthington, who withstood his fiery onslaught +with lungings and brandishings of that truly classic weapon, the humble +necessary umbrella. At each rush the ladies backed and tittered, clinging +together with the most engagingly natural semblance of terror. + +"Ha! caitiff wretch, beware!" declaimed Worthington nobly. "Only across my +prostrate corse shall you reach your innocent victims. Say, Charlie boy," +he added in a hurried aside, "I didn't poke you in the eye by mistake just +now, did I?" + +"Wurra--wurra--wurra," roared Farge. "Never touched me, Bert, by a couple +of inches--wurra." + +But there the would-be ferocious animal paused, squatted upon its +haunches, pointing its finger dramatically towards the front door, thus +causing the whole company to wheel round and gaze nervously in the +direction indicated. + +"Oh, Mr. Iglesias, how you did startle me!" Mrs. Porcher cried +plaintively, laying her hand upon her heart. + +"Pardon me," he answered. "I had no idea the hall was occupied or I would +have rung instead of letting myself in. I must apologise further for being +so late, and for not having telephoned that I should be unable to be back +in time for dinner." + +"We all know that there are counter-attractions, which may easily account +for unpunctuality," Miss Hart put in, with a toss of her head. + +"Hush, hush, dear Liz," murmured Mrs. Porcher, while the two young men +made round eyes at each other, and de Courcy Smyth, leaning against the +balusters on the landing of the half-flight, announced his presence by a +sarcastic laugh. + +Mr. Iglesias looked from one to another in surprise. He had been thinking +so very little--perhaps, as he told himself, insolently little--about all +these good people for some time past. Now he became aware of a hostile +atmosphere. For cause unknown he was in disgrace with them all. Possibly +they resented his indifference, possibly they were justified in so doing. +Hence he did not feel angry, but merely sorry and perplexed. He addressed +his hostess with increased courtliness of bearing. + +"I hope I have not caused you inconvenience, Mrs. Porcher," he said. "I +was summoned suddenly upon business to the City this morning. The business +in question proved more complicated than I had anticipated, and I was +detained by it till late. This leads me to tell you, if you will forgive +my troubling you with personal matters, that I shall be compelled to go to +the City daily for some weeks to come. I shall not, therefore, be able to +give myself the pleasure of joining you at luncheon, or probably at +dinner, either." + +"Indeed," Mrs. Porcher remarked. "This is rather unexpected, Mr. +Iglesias." + +"To me wholly unexpected," he answered, "and in some respects unwelcome; +but it is unavoidable, unfortunately." + +He bowed gravely to the two ladies and, ignoring the rest of the little +company, went on his way upstairs. At the half-flight Smyth stood aside to +let him pass; then, after a moment's hesitation, followed him. + +"Mr. Iglesias," he said, "may I be permitted so far to presume upon our +acquaintance as to remind you that you received a letter from me this +morning requiring an answer?" + +Dominic paused at the stair-head. + +"Yes, I received it," he replied coldly. + +"And you condescended to read it, so I venture to imagine, notwithstanding +that you were summoned on important business to the City. We are all +impressed by that interesting fact--vastly impressed by it, needless to +state. I specially so, of course, since commerce in all its branches, as +you know, commands my profoundest admiration and respect. Literature +and art are but as garbage compared with it--no one ever recognised +that gratifying truth more thoroughly than I do myself. Still, the +shopkeeper--I beg your pardon, financier I should have said--is not wholly +exempted, by the ideal character of his calling, from keeping his promises +even to poor devils of scholars and literary men such as myself." + +Smyth swaggered, his hands in his trouser pockets, his glance at once +impertinent and malevolent, his manner easy to the point of insolence. + +"I venture to remind you of my letter, therefore, and I may add I shall +feel obliged if you'll just hand me over those notes without delay." + +"I read your letter," Iglesias answered. "It required consideration." + +"Oh! did it, really? I supposed that I had expressed myself with perfect +lucidity. But if any point appeared to you to need explanation, I am +disengaged at the present time--I am quite willing to explain." +"Thank you," Iglesias answered, "no explanation is necessary on your part, +I believe, though perhaps a little is on mine. I must ask you to remember +that I promised to help you within reasonable relation to my means. What +constitutes a reasonable relation it is for me to judge, since I alone +know what my means are. I regret to tell you that your last demand greatly +exceeded that reasonable relation. I am therefore reluctantly obliged to +refuse it." + +"To refuse it?" Smyth exclaimed incredulously. + +"Yes, to refuse it," Iglesias said calmly. "When your play is ready for +production I am prepared to bear the cost of two representations, as I +have already told you. But I am not prepared to make you unlimited +advances meanwhile. To do so would be no kindness to you--" + +"Wouldn't it?" Smyth broke out excitedly. "No kindness to me? Do you +imagine I want kindness, that I would accept or even tolerate kindness +from any man, and particularly from you? I offer you a magnificent +investment, and you speak to me as though I was a beggar asking alms in +the street. No kindness to me? This high moral tone does not become you in +the very least, let me tell you, Mr. Iglesias. Do you suppose I am such a +stoneblind ass as not to see what has been happening. Doesn't it occur to +you that I hold your reputation in my two hands?" + +"My reputation?" Iglesias repeated, a very blaze of pride and indignation +in his eyes. + +Smyth backed hastily away from him, with a livid face and shaking knees. + +"No, no, Mr. Iglesias," he protested. "I was a fool to say that. But I am +utterly beaten by work and by worry. I do not deny that you have behaved +handsomely to me. But persistent injustice and cruelty have soured +me. Is it wonderful? And then to-night those blatant young idiots, Farge +and Worthington, have set my nerves on edge by their imbecility and +conceit, till I really am not accountable for what I say. I had better go. +We can talk of this at another time. I dare say I can manage for a day or +two, though it will not be easy to do so. However, I am accustomed to +rubbing shoulders with every created description of undeserved indignity +and wretchedness. I will go. Good-night." + +Iglesias entered his sitting-room, turned up the gas, and looked round at +the orderly aspect of the place with a movement of relief. He ranged the +bundles of papers upon the table. If he was to master their contents he +would have to work far into the night, and the day had been a long one, +full of application and of very varied emotions. He stood for a little +space thinking of it all. The return to his familiar quarters at the bank +had affected him less than he had expected. He had not felt it as a return +to slavery. + +"Thanks to the Church," he said gratefully, "which confers on her members +the only perfect freedom, namely, freedom of soul, freedom of heavenly +citizenship." + +Then he thought of Poppy--thought very tenderly of that strangely +captivating woman of many moods! How clever she was, how accurately +she knew the ways of men! Her warnings regarding his dabbling in +matters theatrical, for instance, and charities to unsuccessful +playwrights.--And at that point Dominic Iglesias drew himself up short. +For, in a flash, the truth came to him that Poppy St. John's hated "jackal +of a husband" was none other than his fellow-lodger, de Courcy Smyth, +whose shuffling footsteps he heard even now, nervelessly crossing and +recrossing the floor of the room immediately above. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +"I could not write, Rhoda, because of course I could not be sure +beforehand whether, when I came to London, I should really wish to see you +and George again or not." This from Serena, loftily and with rustlings. +"But as Lady Samuelson was driving in this direction to-day, and offered +to drop me here if I could find my own way back, I thought I had better +come, as I knew it was your afternoon at home." + +"And I am sure for my part I am very pleased to have you come," Mrs. +Lovegrove replied, leading the way towards the seat of honour upon the +Chesterfield sofa. "I always do hold with letting bygones be bygones, +particularly as between relatives, when there has been any little +unpleasantness. And perhaps your calling will cheer poor Georgie up. He is +very tenacious of your and Susan's affection, is Georgie." + +Here the speaker proceeded to swallow rather convulsively, pressing her +handkerchief against her lips. + +"Perhaps I should be wiser to keep it all to myself," she added, not +without agitation. "But the sight of you does bring up so much. And I am +sorry to tell you, Serena, things are not as happy as they used to be in +this house." + +The office of ministering angel was not, it must be conceded, exactly +native to Serena, her sympathies being restricted, the reverse of acute. +But, at a push, "curiosity has been known to supply the place of sympathy +very passably; and of curiosity Serena had always a large stock at the +service of her friends and acquaintance. + +"I wonder why," she therefore observed in reply to her hostess's +concluding remark--"I mean I wonder why things should not be as happy as +they used to be?" + +"I trace the commencement of it all to the time when you were visiting +here last November--not that I mean you were in any way to blame--" + +Serena interrupted with spirit: + +"No, pray do not connect anything which occurred then with me, Rhoda. I +think it would be most misplaced. After all that I have had to go through +I really should have thought it only delicate on your part never to refer +to what took place during my visit. I certainly should have hesitated +about coming here to-day if I had supposed either you or George would have +referred to it.--What dreadfully bad taste of Rhoda!" she added mentally. +"I believe I had better go. That would mark my displeasure, and teach her +to be more guarded with me in future. But then perhaps she has something +to say which I really ought to know. Perhaps it would be a mistake to go. +Perhaps I had better stay. I do not want to be too harsh with Rhoda." + +The truth being that she actually itched to hear more. For, to Serena, her +wholly imaginary love episode with Mr. Iglesias represented the most vivid +of all the very limited experiences of her life. Her affections had not +been engaged, since she possessed no affections in any vital sense of that +word. But she had been flattered and excited. + +She had seemed to herself to occupy a most interesting position, demanding +infinite tact. During the months which had elapsed she had rehearsed the +history of every incident, of every hour of intercourse, with Dominic +Iglesias, a thousand times; weighing each word, discounting every look of +his, indulging in unlimited speculation and analysis, until the +proportions of that which had occurred were magnified beyond all +possibility of recognition, let alone of sane relation to fact. To +herself, therefore, Serena had become the heroine of an elaborate +intrigue. This greatly increased her importance in her own eyes; and, +though she was studiously silent regarding the subject save in indirect +allusion, the said self-importance, reacting upon those about her, gained +both for herself and her opinions a degree of consideration to which she +was unaccustomed and which she highly relished. Never had Serena presented +so bold a front to her philanthropic and very possessive elder sister. +Never had she enjoyed so much attention in the small and rigidly select +circle of Slowby society, in which she and Miss Susan moved. Serena spoke +with authority upon all subjects, on the strength of a purely fictitious +affair of the heart. She is not the first woman who has made capital out +of the non-existent in this kind, nor will she probably be the last! +Nevertheless, she was very far from admitting the great benefit which Mr. +Iglesias had so unconsciously conferred upon her. She regarded herself as +a deeply injured person--irreparably injured, but for her own diplomacy, +admirable caution, knowledge of the world and self-respect. + +"I am well aware it is a trying subject to approach," Mrs. Lovegrove +replied, with praiseworthy mildness. "And I am far from blaming you for +turning from it, Serena. I am sure it has weighed sadly on my mind and on +George's, too. Not that he has said much, but I could see how he felt; and +then a great deal has come out since. That is why I am so gratified to +have you call here to-day, and so will Georgie be. He has taken it +dreadfully to heart finding how we have all been taken in, and seeing how +wrong it must put him with you and with Susan." + +"It is very proper that you should say that, Rhoda," the other observed +with condescension. "I think you owe it to me to express regret. I should +have been sorry if George had proved indifferent, for I have been very +careful in what I have told Susan. Of course, I might have spoken +strongly. I think anyone would admit I should have been quite justified in +doing so. But I wished to spare George. Mamma was very much attached to +him, and of course he was constantly with us in old days, before his +marriage." + +It was significant of the wife's humble state that she received this +thrust without a murmur. + +"Poor Georgie was too upset to tell even me for a long time," she +continued somewhat irrelevantly, "and you may judge by that how badly he +felt. He knew how shocked I should be, and that I should take it as such +an insult to the dear vicar, after all his kindness, that any friend of +ours whom he had talked to in this house should turn Romanist." + +"Who? What?" cried Serena. She had determined to maintain a superior and +impassive attitude, but at this point curiosity became rampant, refusing +further circumlocution or delay. + +"Why, Mr. Iglesias, to be sure," Mrs. Lovegrove answered, hardly +restraining evidences of satisfaction. The news was lamentable, no doubt; +but to have it miss fire in the recital of it would have made it ten times +more lamentable still. "And the worst of it was," she continued, refreshed +by the effect upon her hearer, "he kept it dark for we don't in the least +know how long. He mentioned no dates, and poor Georgie was too upset to +ask him. Of course it is well known how double Romanists are always taught +to be--not that I was ever acquainted with any. You never meet them out, I +am glad to think, where we visit. Still, that Mr. Iglesias, who was quite +one of ourselves, as you may say, so intimate and always appearing the +perfect gentleman, so open and honest--" + +"Ah! there you are wrong, Rhoda," the other lady put in with decision, +while making a violent effort to recover her impassivity and superiority. +"You and George may be surprised, but I am not. I always had my suspicions +of Mr. Iglesias. I told you so more than once. At the time you and George +were annoyed. Now you see I was right. I am seldom mistaken. Even Susan +admits I am very observant. After his extraordinary behaviour to me I +should not be surprised at anything which Mr. Iglesias might do." She +paused, breathless but triumphant. "Have you seen him since all this came +out, Rhoda?" + +"Oh, no. He has called twice, but fortunately Georgie was out walking. He +goes out walking a great deal now, does Georgie." The speaker heaved a +voluminous sigh. Her satisfaction had been short-lived. "And I told the +girl, if Mr. Iglesias asked for me, to say I was particularly engaged. He +has written to Georgie. I know that--a long letter--but I have not been +asked to read it." + +Mrs. Lovegrove pressed her handkerchief against her lips again, agitation +gaining her. + +"After all these years of marriage, you know, Serena, it is a very cutting +thing to have any concealment between me and Georgie. I should not mention +it to you but that you were here when it commenced. I never supposed--no, +never, never--there could be any coldness between him and me. When I have +heard others speak of trouble with their husbands, I have always pitied +the poor things from my heart, but held them mainly responsible. Now I +think differently--" + +"Miss Eliza Hart, mum." This shrilly from the little house-parlourmaid. + +Serena rose as well as her hostess. Superiority counselled departure; +curiosity urged remaining. + +"Of course, I should feel justified in staying if Rhoda pressed me to do +so," she said to herself. And Rhoda, in the very act of greeting her new +guest, did press her to do so. + +"Surely you are not leaving yet?" she said plaintively. + +"It would hurt me not to have you stay to tea, and Georgie would be sadly +disappointed to think he had missed you." + +Thus admonished, Serena graciously consented to remain Miss Hart, as last +arrival, being necessarily invited to assume the place of honour upon the +sofa, Serena selected a chair at as great a distance from that historic +article of furniture as the exigencies of conversation permitted. "I must +show her that I stay not to see her, but solely on Georgie's account," she +commented inwardly. "I have been very cold in manner. I think she must +have observed that." + +But the great Eliza was in a militant humour, not easily abashed. She had +called with intentions, in the interests of which she plunged volubly into +talk. + +"You will excuse my coming without Peachie Porcher, Mrs. Lovegrove," she +began. "She was all anxiety to come, too, fearing you might think her +neglectful. But I prevented it. She overrates her strength, does Peachie, +and to-day her neuralgia is cruel. 'I'll run across and account for you,' +I said to her. 'You just lie down and take a nap, and let the housemaid +bring you up a little something with your tea, and take it early.' 'It's +not more nourishment I require, but less worry, Liz dear,' she said. And +so it is, Mrs. Lovegrove." + +"We all have our troubles, Miss Hart, and often unsuspected ones which +call for silence." + +The wife's large cheeks quivered ominously, while Serena rustled--but +whether in sympathetic agreement with the sentiments expressed by the last +speaker, or in protest against the presence of the former one, it would be +difficult to determine. + +"I wonder whether that is not best, Rhoda--I mean I wonder whether it is +not best to be silent," she remarked reflectively. "I think people are not +usually half cautious enough what they tell. So many disagreeables can be +avoided if you are really on your guard. Mamma impressed that upon us when +we were children. I am very careful, but I often think Susan is hardly +careful enough. Most troubles arise through trusting other people too +much." + +"And that's poor darling Peachie all over," Miss Hart declared, with a +fine appreciation of opportunity. "Too great trustfulness has been her +worst fault, as I always tell her, the generous pet. Not that all our +gentlemen are ungrateful, Mrs. Lovegrove. I would not have you suppose +that. Poor Mr. Smyth, for instance, whom I'm afraid I have accused of +being very surly and bearish at times, has come out wonderfully lately. +But it must be a hard nature, indeed, which Peachie's influence would not +soften. One such nature I am acquainted with." Eliza paused, looking from +one to other of her hearers with much meaning. "But it is not the case +with poor Mr. Smyth. He has yielded. Then there is the tie of an +unfortunate domestic past between him and Peachie, which helps to bring +them together.--Of course that means nothing to you, Mrs. Lovegrove." + +The lady addressed swallowed convulsively. + +"But all are not blessed with such good fortune as yours," the great Eliza +continued. "Mr. Smyth has been very open with Peachie recently. He has +some surprising tales to tell, knowing very well all that is going on in +society. And that reminds me of a certain gentleman who does not live a +thousand miles from here. Mr. Smyth has hinted at much that is very +startling in that direction." + +The speaker paused again. + +"Would it be intrusive to ask whether you have been favoured with much of +Mr. Iglesias' company during the last few weeks, Mrs. Lovegrove?" she +added. + +Ruddy mottlings bespread the wife's kindly countenance. Serena moved +slightly upon her chair. She was conscious, of growing excitement. + +"Perhaps not quite so much as formerly; but then Mr. Lovegrove has been +out walking most evenings. The warmer weather always causes him to feel +the need of exercise," the excellent woman returned, putting heroic +restraint upon herself. "And I have been very occupied with the spring +cleaning. I make it a duty to look into everything myself, you know, Miss +Hart. Not but what my girls are very good. I think all the talk about +trouble with the servants is very much exaggerated. Our cook, Fanny, has +been with us quite a number of years. Still, I hold it is well for them to +have a mistress's supervision if the cleaning is to be thorough. If you +see to it yourself, then you can have nobody to blame. And so I have had +frequently to deny myself to visitors." + +She gave a sigh of relief, trusting she had loyally steered the +conversation into safer channels. But the great Eliza was not thus to be +thwarted. + +"I asked on Peachie Porcher's account," she declared, "not on my own, Mrs. +Lovegrove. It is all of less than no consequence to me, except for the +sake of Cedar Lodge, how a certain gentleman spends his time. But +Peachie's interests must be protected. With an establishment such as ours +a good name is everything. 'You cannot be too particular; for any talk of +fastness, and the place must go down,' as she says to me--" + +But here, the wife's natural rectitude and sense of justice triumphed over +prejudice and wounded sensibilities. + +"I am sure I could never believe anyone would have occasion to accuse Mr. +Iglesias of fastness," she said. "Of course, the change of religion is +dreadful, particularly in one who should have known better, though a +foreigner, having had the advantage of being brought up in England. Nobody +can be more aware of that than myself and Mr. Lovegrove. It has been a +sad grief to us"--her voice quavered--"and no doubt early rising and fish +meals do make a lot of work and unpleasantness in a house-hold. But as to +fastness, well, Miss Hart, I cannot find it in my conscience to agree to +anything as bad as that." + +With preternatural solemnity the great Eliza shook her head. + +"Seeing is believing, Mrs. Lovegrove," she replied. "And when ladies call, +dressed in the tiptop of the fashion! Very stylish, no doubt, but not +quite the style Peachie Porcher can countenance, circumstanced as we are +with our gentlemen guests. Then there is what Mr. Smyth hinted at +subsequently, just in a friendly way. He did not say he was actually +acquainted with the lady, but intimated that he could say very much more +if he chose. No, Mrs. Lovegrove, I regret to speak, knowing how long you +and a certain gentleman have been acquainted, but there can be no question +Peachie Porcher's interests have been trifled with, and her affections +also." + +Here aggressive rustlings on the part of Serena arrested the flow of Miss +Hart's eloquence. + +"You spoke, I believe, Miss Lovegrove?" she inquired. + +"No, I did not speak," Serena cried.--"Vulgar, designing person, what +presumption!" she cried to herself. "Anyone would feel insulted by her +manner. She thinks she has put me at a disadvantage. But she is mistaken. +I know more than she supposes." She was greatly enraged; for, unreasonable +though it may appear, if trifling were about on the part of Dominic +Iglesias, Serena reserved to herself a monopoly in respect of it. Few +things, perhaps, are more galling to a woman than the assertion that a +Lovelace has been guilty of misleading attentions to others besides +herself. If she is not the solitary object of his affections, let her at +least be the solitary victim of his perfidy. And that Mrs. Porcher should +aspire to share her _role_ of betrayed one was, to Serena, a piece of +unheard-of impertinence. She refused to bestow further attention upon Miss +Hart, and turned haughtily to her hostess. + +"Have you any idea when George will be in, Rhoda? I am quite willing to +wait a reasonable time for him, but I cannot be expected to wait +indefinitely. I must consider Lady Samuelson. It is a long distance to +Ladbroke Square--of course Trimmer's Green is very far out--and I have +to dress for dinner. Everything is very well done at Lady Samuelson's, and +she makes a great point of punctuality. Of course it is no difficulty to +me to be punctual. I was brought up to be so. Mamma was always extremely +particular about our being in time. She said it was very rude to be late. +I think it is rude, and so, of course, punctuality is quite natural to me. +But I do object to being hurried; and so, unless George is likely to be in +almost directly, I really must go, Rhoda." + +"I should be very mortified to have you leave before he comes back. It +would be a sore disappointment to Georgie to find you had been here and he +had missed you," the good creature pleaded. + +"And it's something quite new for Mr. Lovegrove to be out on your at-home +day, isn't it?" Eliza put in, not without covert sarcasm. "I never +remember to have known it happen before." + +"Mrs. and Miss Ballard, please, mum"--this from the house-parlourmaid. + +Mrs. Lovegrove arose with alacrity, retail trade and nonconformity alike +forgiven. + +"I am afraid Miss Hart grows very spiteful," she said to herself. "I wish +she would go. I should be vexed to have her outsit Serena.--Well, Mrs. +Ballard, very pleased, I am sure, to see you"--this aloud--"and your +daughter, too. The spring is coming on nicely, is it not? Quite warm this +afternoon, walking? I dare say it is. You and my husband's cousin, Miss +Lovegrove, have met, I believe? Miss Ballard, Miss Lovegrove.--Are you +going, Miss Hart? Kind regards to Mrs. Porcher, and sincere hopes she may +soon lose her neuralgia. Very trying complaint, Mrs. Ballard, is it +not?--and very prevalent, so they tell me, this year.--Why, you're never +going to leave, too, Serena? You'll come again, or Georgie will be so +troubled." + +But Serena held out small hope of her reappearance. + +"Of course I should be glad to see George, but I could not bind myself to +anything, Rhoda. You see, Lady Samuelson"--the Ballard ladies, mother and +daughter, looked at one another, fluttered and impressed--"Lady +Samuelson," Serena repeated, her voice rising a little, "has such a number +of engagements, and of course if she wishes to take me with her I cannot +refuse. At home she always likes me to help entertain. I really have very +little time to call my own, and so I should not feel justified in making +any promise. Of course it was just a chance my being able to come to-day. +You can tell George I am sorry not to have seen him. I should like him to +know that I am sorry." + +"You are very kind, Serena," the other said humbly. + +"I think Rhoda has improved," Serena said to herself, as she walked across +Trimmer's Green between the black iron railings. "I think she has more +sense of my position than she did. I wonder whether she thinks that if Mr. +Iglesias had proposed I should have accepted him. Of course she thinks I +was very badly treated. I think her manner shows that. Certainly she took +his part rather against that odious Miss Hart. But I don't believe she +really sided with him. I think she only appeared to do so to snub Miss +Hart. Of course if she had stayed, I should have had to stay, too. I +should have owed it to myself to do so. But, as she went, there was no +object in staying; and it was wiser to seem quite indifferent about seeing +George. I hope he won't attempt to call upon me at Lady Samuelson's! I +should hardly think he would presume to do that. I must tell the butler, +if a gentleman calls, to say I am not at home. If it was only George it +would not so much matter, but I could not run the chance of having Lady +Samuelson and Rhoda meet. It would not do at all to have Rhoda climbing +into society through me. I think it is too bad to have people make use of +you like that. And Rhoda has no tact. I see I must be on my guard with +George and Rhoda. I wonder whether I had better tell Susan Mr. Iglesias +has become a Roman Catholic? Of course she would think I had had a great +escape; but in any case that does not excuse him. He behaved very badly. +I don't believe for an instant he ever took any notice of Mrs. Porcher. I +believe that is an entire invention. I wonder if the lady who called is +the same lady we saw at the theatre--" + +And so on, and so on, all the way home by the Uxbridge Road, and Netting +Hill, and then northward to the august retirement of Lady Samuelson's +large corner house in Ladbroke Square. For a deeply injured person Serena +had really enjoyed herself very much. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +The burden of August, dense and heavy, lay upon London. Radiating outward +in lifeless and dull-glaring sunshine, it involved the nearer suburbs; so +that Dominic Iglesias, sitting on a bench beside the roadway crossing +Barnes Common, notwithstanding the hour--past six o'clock--and the open +space surrounding him, found the atmosphere hardly less oppressive than +that of the streets. The great world, which plays, had departed. The +little world, outnumbering the great by some five or six millions, which +works, remained. And Dominic Iglesias, since he too worked, remained +likewise, sharing with it the burden of the August heat and languor; and +sharing also, to-day being Sunday, its weekly going forth over the face of +the scorched and sun-seared land seeking rest, and, too often, finding +none. + +For the past two months he had seen Poppy St. John but seldom, nor had he +heard from her. Whether by accident or by design he knew not, she had +rarely been at home on those occasions when he had been free to call. For +the last three weeks she had been away up the river, so he understood, +with her friend Dot Parris--_alias_ Miss Charlotte Colthrust. A +blight seemed to Iglesias to have fallen upon his and her friendship, ever +since the day of his return to Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking; and his +discovery, or rather divination, of the relation in which de Courcy Smyth +stood to her. While her husband remained nameless, an unknown quantity, +Dominic deplored the fact of her marriage, but as an abstraction. So soon +as that fact had acquired in his mind--whether rightly or wrongly--a +name and local habitation, now that he was liable to meet it daily +incarnate--and that in most unsavoury shape--liable to be constantly +reminded of its near neighbourhood, to witness a thousand and one +unpleasing peculiarities of speech, habit, and manner, unlooked-for +emotions arose in Iglesias, and those of a character of which he was by no +means proud. Resentment took him, indignation, strange movements of +jealousy and hatred; all very natural, no doubt, but decidedly bad for the +soul. It was idle for him to remind himself that his belief regarding +de Courcy Smyth was based upon supposition, upon circumstantial evidence +which might prove merely coincident. He could not rid himself of that +belief, nor of the emotional consequences of it; and these so vexed him +that he questioned whether it would not be better to remove from Cedar +Lodge and seek a domicile uninfected by the perpetual provocation of +the man's presence. But it was not easy to give a plausible reason to +his hostess for any immediate change of residence; nor was it easy, in +the present stress of business at the bank, to find time or energy for +house-hunting. The atmosphere of Cedar Lodge had become inimical. His +rooms had ceased to be a place of security and repose. Yet whither should +he go? The great wilderness of London seemed vastly inhospitable when it +came to the question of selecting a new dwelling-place. + +Meanwhile, he was grievously conscious of the growing estrangement between +himself and Poppy St. John, which he connected, in some way, with this +haunting yet unspoken suspicion of her relation to de Courcy Smyth--a +suspicion which tended to rob intercourse of all spontaneity by +introducing into it a spirit of embarrassment and constraint. He would +have given so very much to know the truth and be able to reckon finally +with it; but he judged it unpermissible that he should approach the ugly +subject first. It was Poppy's affair, her private and unlovely property. +While she elected to keep silence, therefore, it would be disloyal for him +to speak. Still it distressed him, adding to his mental and emotional +unrest. The happiness might have gone out of their intercourse, yet there +were times when he wearied for sight and for speech of her more than he +quite cared to admit. George Lovegrove still held aloof. Dominic rallied +his faith in the divine purpose, rallied his obedience to the divine +ruling, fixed his eyes more patiently upon the promise of the far horizon; +yet it must be owned he felt very friendless and sad at heart. + +To-day, driven in part by that friendliness, he had come out on the chance +of gaining some news of Poppy. Disappointment, however, awaited him. For +the discreet Phillimore, though receiving him graciously, reported her +mistress resident at home again, it is true, but gone into town on +business, probably theatrical, and unlikely to return until late. +Therefore Dominic had walked on to Barnes Common, and finding the +uncomfortable bench by the roadside--whereon Cappadocia, the toy spaniel, +had sought his protection more than a year ago--untenanted, had sat down +there to meditate. Cedar Lodge was no longer a refuge. He preferred to +keep away from it as long as might be. Perhaps, too, as the sun dropped +the air would grow cooler, and the southeasterly draught, parched and +scorching as from the mouth of a furnace, which huffled at times only to +fall dead, might shift to some more merciful quarter. A coppery haze hung +over London, above which the rusty white summits of a range of cumulus +cloud towered into the thick grey-blue of the upper sky. Possibly the +cloud harboured thunder and the refreshment of rain amid its giant crags +and precipices. On the chance of such refreshment he would stay. + +For in good truth he needed refreshment, and that speedily, being very +tired, fagged by long hours in the City, by heavy responsibilities, by the +burden of the airless August heat, let alone those more intimate causes of +disturbance already indicated. Iglesias could not disguise from himself +that the close application to business was beginning to tell injuriously +upon his health. This same morning, coming back from early Mass, passing +through the flagged passage which leads from Kensington Palace Green into +Church Street, he had become so faint from exhaustion, that reaching--and +not without difficulty--his former home in Holland Street, he had summoned +the neat bald-headed little caretaker and asked permission to enter the +house and rest. The ground-floor rooms were cool and dusky, sheltered by +closed shutters from the summer sun. Only the French-window of the back +dining-room stood open, on to the flight of wrought-iron steps leading +down into the garden. Beside it the caretaker, not without husky +coughings, placed a kitchen chair for Iglesias and fetched him a glass of +water. + +"I could wish I had something better to offer you, sir," he said, "but I +am an abstainer by habit myself; and I have no liquor of any kind, +unfortunately, in the house." + +The water, however, was pleasantly cold, and Dominic drank it thankfully. +He could have fancied there was virtue in it--the virtue of things +blessed by long-ago mother-love. And, thinking of that, his eyes filled +with tears as he looked out over the small neglected garden. Of the once +glorious laburnum there remained only an unsightly stump, but jasmine +still clothed the enclosing walls, the dark green of its straggling shoots +starred here and there with belated white blossoms. About the lip of the +empty stone basin, vigorously chirruping, sparrows came and went, while in +the far corner a grove of starveling sunflowers lifted their brown and +yellow-rayed faces towards the light. Dominic, resting gratefully in the +cool semi-darkness of the empty room, until the faintness which had +attacked him was passed, found the place very gentle, soothing, and sweet. +The sadder memories had died out here, so he noted. Only gracious and +tender ones remained. He wished he could stay on indefinitely. As the +years multiply, and the chequered story of them lengthens, it is +comforting to dwell in a place where, once on a time, one had been greatly +loved. + +Dominic turned to the waiting caretaker, who regarded him with mingled +solicitude, admiration, and deference. + +"So the house is still unlet?" he said. + +"Yes, sir, and is likely to remain so, I apprehend. The lease, as I +understand, falls in a very few years hence, and the landlord is unwilling +to make any outlay on the house, which will probably then be pulled down; +while no tenant, I opine, would be willing to rent a residence so wanting +in modern decoration and modern conveniences. Weeks pass, sir, without any +persons calling to view." + +"Yet the rent is low?" Iglesias said. + +"Very low for so genteel a district--I am a native of Kensington, 'the +royal village,' myself, sir--and no premium is asked." + +Now, sitting on the uneasy bench upon the confines of Barnes Common--while +the little many-millioned world, which works, in gangs, and groups, and +amatory couples, and somewhat foot-weary family parties, sauntered +by--that same oppression of faintness came over Dominic Iglesias, along +with a great nostalgia for the cool, dusky, low-ceilinged rooms, and the +neglected yet still bravely blossoming garden of the little house in +Holland Street. + +"It would be pleasant to spend one's last days and draw one's last breath +there," Iglesias said to himself; "when the sum of endeavour is complete, +when the last cable has been sent, the last column of figures balanced and +audited, when the ledgers are closed and one's work being fairly finished +one is free to sit still and listen--not fearfully, but with reverent +curiosity--for the footsteps of Death and the secrets he has in his +keeping." + +And there he paused, for the scorched dusty land and pale dense sky, even +the rusty white summits of the great range of cloud, slowly, slowly +climbing high heaven--even the light dresses of passing women and +children--went suddenly black, indistinct, and confused to his sight, so +that he seemed to be falling through some depth of dark and untenanted +space, while the dust, thick, stifling, clinging, fell with him, +encircling, enveloping him with a horror of suffocation, of crushing, +impalpable, yet unescapable, dead weight. + +Then out of the darkness, out of the dust, in voluminous dusty drab motor +veil and dusty drab motor coat, the Lady of the Windswept Dust herself +came towards him, bringing consolation and help. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +"You are coming round, dear man. You really look better. What you wanted +was a sensible Christian meal. For, I tell you, you were most uncommonly +done, and it was a near shave whether I should get you home here without +having to call on the populace for assistance. Don't go and worry now. You +were superb as usual, with enough personal dignity to supply a whole +dynasty, and have some left over for washing-day into the bargain. You +should give lessons in the art of majestic collapse--not that you did +collapse, thank goodness! But you came precious near it.--Yes, I mean it, +I mean it, dear man"--Poppy nodded her head at him, leaned across the +corner of the table and patted his arm with the utmost friendliness. "I +want to terrify you into being more careful. There are plenty of people +one could jolly well spare; but you're not among them. So lay that to +heart, or I shan't have an easy moment. And then as to personal dignity, +if you will excuse my entering into details of costume, in that grey +top-hat, grey frock-coat, et cetera, et cetera, you looked more fit for +the Ascot Royal Enclosure than for Barnes Common on a broiling August +Sunday. The populace eyed you with awe.--Don't be offended, there's a +dear. You can't help being very smart and very beautiful; and you oughtn't +to want to help it even if you could, since it gives me so much pleasure. +Your tailor's a gem. But how he must love you, must be ready to dress you +free of cost for the simple joy of fitting on." + +The little dinner had been excellent. The clear soup hot, and the +ninety-two Ayala, extra dry, chilled to a nicety--and so with the rest of +the menu. Glass, silver, china, were set forth daintily upon the fine +white damask, under the glow of scarlet-shaded candles. The double doors +connecting the small drawing-room and dining-room stood open; this, +combined with the fact that lights were limited to the dinner-table, +giving an agreeable effect of coolness and of space. While, as arrayed in +a crisp black muslin gown--the frills and panels of it painted with shaded +crimson roses and bronze-green leaves--Poppy St. John ministered to her +guest, chattered to, and rallied him, her eyes were extraordinarily dark +and luminous, and her voice rich in soft caressing tones. Never had she +appeared more engaging, more natural and human, never stronger yet more +tenderly gay. Dominic Iglesias yielded himself up gladly, gratefully, to +the charm of the woman and to the comfort of his surroundings. Temperate +in all things, he was temperate in enjoyment. Yet he was touched, he was +happy. Life was very sweet to him in this hour of relief from physical +distress, of renewed friendship, and of pretty material circumstance. + +"It was such a mercy I had a decent meal to offer you," Poppy went on. +"Often the commissariat department is a bit sketchy on Sunday, in--well, +in these days of the cleaned slate. But you see, Lionel Gordon, of the +Twentieth Century Theatre, was to tell me, this afternoon, what decision +he had come to about the engagement I have been spelling to get. He is an +appalling mongrel, three-parts German Jew and one part Scotchman--sweet +mixture of the Chosen and Self-Chosen people! He never was pretty, and +increasing years have not rendered his appearance more enticing; but he's +the cleverest manager going, on either side of the Atlantic, and he +doesn't go back on his word once given, as too many of them do. Well, he +was to let me know; and to tell the truth, beloved lunatic, I was rather +keen about this engagement. I knew if he did not give it me I should be a +little hipped, and should stand in need of support and consolation; while, +if he did, I should be rather expansive, and should want suitably to +celebrate the event. So I ordered a good dinner to be ready in either +case"--Poppy laughed gently. "Queer thing the artist," she said, "with its +instinct of falling back on creature comforts. Whatever happens, good luck +or bad luck, it always eats." + +"And they gave you the engagement?" Iglesias inquired. + +Poppy nodded her head in assent. + +"Yes, dear man, Lionel gave it me. He'd have been a fool if he hadn't, for +he knows who I am and what training I've had. And then Fallowfeild has +made things easy. He's a thundering good friend, Fallowfeild is; and in +view of late events--once I had told him to go, I wouldn't, of course, +take a penny of Alaric's--I had no conscience about letting Fallowfeild be +useful. He was lovely about it. I shall only draw a nominal salary for the +first six months until I have proved myself. What I want is my +opportunity; and money matters being made easy helped materially. Both the +Chosen and Self-Chosen People have a wonderfully keen eye to the boodle, +bless their little hearts and consciences!" + +She paused, leaning her elbows on the table and looking sideways at +Iglesias, her head thrown back. + +"I am dreadfully glad to have you here to-night," she went on, "because +you see it's a turning-point. I have pretty well climbed the ridge and +reached the watershed. The streams have all started running in the other +direction--towards the dear old work and worry, the envy, hatred, malice, +and all uncharitableness, and all the fun, too, and good comradeship, and +ambition, and joy, of the theatre. Can you understand, I at once adore and +detest it, for it's a terribly mixed business. Already I keep on seeing +the rows of pinky-white faces rising, tier above tier, up to the roof, +which turn you sick and give you cold shivers all down your spine when you +first come on. And then I go hot with the fight against their apathy or +opposition, the glorious fight to conquer and hold an audience, and bend +its emotions and its sympathies, as the wind bends the meadow grass, to +one's will." + +Poppy stretched out her hand across the corner of the table again, laying +it upon Iglesias' hand. Her eyes danced with excitement, yet her voice +shook and the words came brokenly. + +"But, dearly beloved, I have your blessing on this new departure, haven't +I?" she asked. "After all, it's you, just simply you, that sends me back +to an honest life and to my profession. So I should like to have your +blessing--that, and your prayers." + +"Can you doubt that you have them," Iglesias answered, and his voice, too, +shook, somewhat, "now and always, dearest of friends?" + +For a little minute Poppy sat looking full at him, he looking full at her. +Then, with a sort of rush, she rose to her feet. + +"Come along, this won't do," she said. "Sentiment strictly prohibited. +It's not wholesome for you after the nasty turn you had on Barnes +Common--and it's not particularly wholesome for me either, though for +quite other reasons. Moreover, it's fiendishly hot in here. So see, dear +man, you're not going just yet. I telephoned to the Bell Inn stables for a +private hansom to be on hand about ten thirty for you. Meanwhile, you're +to take it easy and rest. It is but five steps upstairs, and that won't +tire you. Come up into the cool and have your coffee on the balcony." + +And so it came about that Dominic Iglesias followed Poppy St. John +upstairs--she moving rapidly, in a way defiantly--followed her into a +bedchamber, where a subtle sweetness of orris-root met him; and a +fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight, coming in through open +windows, chequered the handsome dark-polished brass-inlaid furniture, the +green silk coverlet and hangings, the dimly patterned ceiling and walls. +Without hesitation or apology, Poppy walked straight through this +apartment, and passed out on to the white-planked and white-railed +balcony. + +The dome of the sky was immense and had become perfectly clear, the great +clouds having boiled up during the afternoon only to sink away and vanish +at sunset, as is their wont in seasons of drought. North and east the +glare of London pulsed along the horizon; and above it the stars were +faint, since the radiant first-quarter moon rode high, drenching roadway +and palings, the stretch of the polo-ground, the shrubberies and grove of +giant elms, with white light blotted and barred, here and there, by black +shadow. The air was still, but less oppressive, the cruelty of sun-heat +having gone out of it and only a suavity remaining. The _facade_ of +the terrace of smirking, self-conscious, much-be-flowered and be-balconied +little houses had taken on a certain worth of picturesqueness, suggestive +of the bazaar of some far-away Oriental city rather than of a vulgar +London suburb, the summer night even here producing an exquisiteness of +effect and making itself very sensibly felt. Poppy silently motioned her +guest to the further of the two cane deck-chairs set in the recess, +arranged a cushion at his back, drew up a little mother-of-pearl inlaid +table beside him, poured coffee into two cups. Then she moved across to +the rail of the balcony, and stood there, her head thrown back, her hands +clasped behind her, facing the moonlight, which covered her slender +rounded figure from head to foot as with a pale transparent veil of +infinite tenuity. Iglesias could see the rise and fall of her bosom, the +flutter of her eyelids, the involuntary movement of her lips as she +pressed them together, restraining, as might be divined, words to which +she judged it wiser to deny utterance. + +And this hardly repressed excitement in Poppy's bearing and aspect, along +with the peculiar scene and circumstances in which he found himself, +worked profoundly upon Dominic Iglesias. In passing through that scented, +half-discovered, fantastically lighted bedchamber and stepping out into +the magic of the night, he had stepped out, in imagination, into regions +dreamed of in earlier years--when reading poetry or hearing music,--but +never fairly entered, still less enjoyed, since all the duties and +obligations of his daily life militated against and even forbade +such enjoyment. The weariness of his work in the City, the petty +annoyances he suffered at Cedar Lodge, the haunting disgust of de Courcy +Smyth's presence, fell away from him, becoming for the time as though they +were not. He never had been, nor was he now, in any degree self-indulgent +or a sentimentalist. The appeal of the present somewhat enchanted hour was +to the intellect and the spirit, rather than sensuous, still less sensual. +Nevertheless, an almost passionate desire of earthly beauty took him--of +the beauty of things seen, of things plastic, beauty of the human form; +beauty of far-distant lands and the varied pageant of their aspect and +history; of great rivers flowing seaward; of tombs by the wayside; of the +glorious terror of the desert's naked face; of languorous fountain-cooled +gardens, close hid in the burning heart of ancient cities; beauty of +sound, beauty of words and phrases, above all, of the eternal beauty of +youth and the illimitable expectation and hope of it. + +And it was out of all this, out of the mirage of these vast elusive +prospects and apprehensions, that he answered Poppy St. John, as with +serious eyes yet smiling lips she turned, and coming across the white +floor sat down beside him, saying: + +"How goes it, Dominic? Are you rested?" + +"Yes," he answered, "I am rested. And more than that, I am alive and +awake, strangely awake and full of vision--thanks to you." + +Poppy's expression sweetened, becoming protective, maternal. She leaned +back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap; yet there was still a +certain tension in her expression, an intensity as of inward excitement in +her gaze. + +"Tell me things, then," she said, "tell me things about yourself, if the +gift of seeing is upon you.--There's no one to overhear. The neighbours on +both sides are away for the holidays, thank the powers! and their houses +stand empty. While the voices and footsteps down in the road only make us +more happily alone. So tell me things, Dominic. I am a trifle stirred up +with all this affair of the theatre, and you always quiet me. I'm really a +very good child. I deserve a treat. And there are things I dreadfully want +to know." + +"Alas! there is so absurdly little to tell," Iglesias answered, "that, +here and now, in face of my existing sense of life and of vision, I am +humbled by my own ignorance and poverty of achievement. That poverty, I +suppose, is all the more apparent to me, because twice to-day I have +been--so I judge, at least--within measurable distance of bidding farewell +to this astonishingly wonderful world and the fashion of it. It comes home +to me how little I have seen, how little I have profited, how little I +know. I would have liked to leave it; it would be more seemly to do so, +having profited more largely by my sojourn here." + +Iglesias paused, excitement which his natural sobriety disapproved gaining +him, too, through that ache of unrealised beauty. For a moment he +struggled with it as with a rising tide, then resigned himself. + +"And yet," he added, "in other respects I should not be sorry to hear the +hour strike, for curiosity of the unknown is very strong in me. +Opportunity may have been narrow, and one may have been balked of high +endeavour and rich experience, by lack of talent and by adverse +circumstances; but in the supreme, the crowning experience, that of death +and all which, for joy or sorrow, lies beyond it, even the most obscure, +the most uncultured and untravelled must participate." + +"Don't be in too great a deuce of a hurry to satisfy that curiosity, dear +man," Poppy put in. "You must contrive to exercise patience for a little +while yet, please; always remembering that it is entirely superfluous to +run to catch a train which is bound not to start until you are on board of +it. And then, too, you see--well, there's me, after all, and I want you." + +Iglesias' face grew keen, as he looked at her through that encompassing +whiteness of moonlight. + +"I am glad of that," he said very quietly, "because you are to me, dear +friend, what no other human being has ever yet been. The saddest thing +that could happen to me, save loss of faith, would be that you should +cease to want me. I only pray God, if it is not self-seeking, that you +may continue to want me as long as I live." + +"But your religion?" she asked, a point of jealousy pricking her. + +"My religion forbids sin, whether of body or mind; forbids violation of +the eternal spiritual proportion, by any placing of the creature before +the Creator in a man's action or in his heart. But my religion enjoins +love and stimulates it; since only through loving can we fulfil the +highest possibility of our nature, which is to grow into the likeness of +Almighty God." + +"You believe that?" Poppy asked again. + +"I do more," Iglesias said. "I know it." + +Then both fell silent, having reached the place where words hinder rather +than help thought. And, as it happened, just then the stillness was +sensibly broken up, and the magic of the night encroached upon by the +passing of a couple of _char-a-bancs_ in the road below, loaded up +with trippers faring homewards from a day's outing at Hampton Court. The +tired teams jog-trotted haltingly. The wheels whispered hoarsely in the +muffling dust; and voices mingled somewhat plaintively in the singing of +a then popular khaki sing--"The Soldiers of the Queen." Hearing all of +which, as the refrain died away Londonwards up the great suburban +road, the compelling drama and pathos of life as the multitude lives +it--stupidly, without ideas, without any conscious nobility of purpose, +yet with a certain blundering and clumsy heroism--took Poppy St. John by +the throat. Those who stand aside from that democratic everyday drama, +rejecting alike the common joys and common sorrows of it, have need--so it +seemed to her--to account for and justify themselves lest they become +suspect. Therefore she looked at Dominic Iglesias intently, questioningly, +hesitated a moment, and then spoke. + +"Still I don't understand you, in your determined detachment of attitude. +Tell me, if you are not afraid of love, why have you never married?" she +said. + +And he, divining to an extent that which inspired her question, smiled at +her somewhat proudly as he answered. + +"Be under no misapprehension, dear friend. I am a perfectly normal piece +of flesh and blood, with a man's normal passions, and his natural craving +for wife, and child, home, family, and the like. But during my mother's +lifetime I was bound to other service than that of marriage." + +"But in these years since her death?" Poppy asked. + +"There is a time for everything, as the Preacher testifies, a due and +proper time which must be observed if life is to be a reasoned progress, +not a mere haphazard stumbling from the weakness of childhood to the +incapacity of old age. And, can anything be more objectionably at variance +with that wise teaching than the spectacle of amorous uxorious +efflorescence in a man of well over fifty?" + +Poppy permitted herself a lively grimace. + +"All the same you have sacrificed yourself, as usual," she said. + +"Not so very greatly, perhaps," Iglesias replied, with a soberly humorous +expression. "For I have always been very exacting and have asked very +much. I am culpably fastidious. My tastes are far beyond my means, my +desires out of all reasonable relation to my station and my merits. And it +should be remembered that my circle of acquaintances has been a very +limited one, until quite recently--I do not wish to appear more glaringly +arrogant or discourteous than I actually am. I had my ideal. It happened +that I failed to realise it; and I am very impatient of compromise in +matters of intimate and purely personal import. In respect of them I hold +I have an unqualified right to consult my own tastes. It has always been +easier to me to go without than to accept a second-best." + +"In point of fact no woman was good enough! Poor brutes!" + +Poppy mused a little, with averted face. + +"How beastly cheap they'd all feel--I've not forgotten the undulating and +aspiring withered leaf--if they knew how mightily they all fell short!" +she added naughtily. Suddenly she looked round at Dominic Iglesias. Her +eyes were as stars, but her lips trembled. "Bless me, but you've +extensively original methods of conveying information! It's lucky for me +I've a steady head. So--so it comes to this--I reign all alone?" she said. + +"Yes, dear friend, save for my love for my mother--such as the throne is +or ever has been--you reign alone," Iglesias answered quietly. + +Poppy rested her elbows upon her knees, dropped her face into her hands, +and sat thus bowed together in the whiteness of the moonlight. + +"Ah, dear!" she murmured presently, brokenly, "I've got my answer. It's +better and--worse, than I expected. All the same I'm content--that's to +say, the best of me is--royally, consummately content.--Thank you a +thousand times, thrice-beloved and very most exceedingly unworldy-wise +one," she said. + +Then for a while both were silent, wrapped about by, and resting in, the +magic of the summer night. When Poppy roused herself at last to speak, it +was in a different key, studiously matter-of-fact. + +"Look here, dear man, do you in the least realise how extremely far gone +you were when I arrived to you on Barnes Common this evening? Because I +tell you plainly I didn't in the very least like it. In my opinion it is +high time you gave up dragging that Barking Brothers & Barking cart." + +"I shall give up doing so very soon," Iglesias replied. "Just now I am +acting as manager. Sir Abel is at Marienbad, and the other partners are +out of town." + +"I like that--lazy animals!" Poppy said. + +"But the situation is in process of righting itself--has practically +righted itself already." + +"Thanks to you." + +"In part, no doubt. There was a disposition to panic, which rendered it +exceedingly difficult to get accurate and definite information at first. +However, I arrived at the necessary data with patience and diplomacy, and +was able to draw out a clear detailed statement. This proved so far +satisfactory that Messrs. Gommee, Hills, Murray & Co. and Pavitt's Bank +have considered themselves justified in undertaking to finance Barking +Brothers until business in South Africa has resumed its ordinary course." + +"Then the elderly plungers are saved?" + +"Yes, I believe, practically they are saved," Iglesias said. "And, +therefore, as soon as Sir Abel has finished his cure and returns I shall +retire." + +Poppy rose, clapping her hands together with irritation. + +"Sir Abel's cure be hanged!" she cried. "What do I care about his idiotic +old liver or his gout, or anything else. Let him pay the price of steadily +over-eating himself for more than half a century. I've no use for him. +What I have a use for is you, dear man; more than ever now, don't you +see," her voice softened, became caressing, "after our recent little +explanation. And you shan't kill yourself. I won't have it. I won't allow +it. Therefore be reasonable, my good dear. Put away your mania of +self-immolation--or keep it exclusively for my benefit. Write and tell the +Barking man to hurry up with his liver and his gout. Tell him you're being +sweated to death dragging his rotten old banking cart, and that he's just +got to come home and set you free, and get between the shafts and do the +dragging and sweating himself.--Ah, there's the hansom. You must go. I'd +no notion it was so late." + +And so it came about that, once more, Dominic Iglesias followed the +Lady of the Windswept Dust into the faintly scented bedchamber, where +fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight chequered the polished +surfaces of the dark furniture, the green silk coverlet and hangings, +the dimly-patterned ceiling and walls. His instinct was to pass on, as +quickly as might be, to the secure commonplace of the landing without. But +half-way across the room, at the foot of the low-pillared and brass-inlaid +bedstead, Poppy St. John stopped, and turned swiftly, barring his passage +with extended arms. + +"Stay a minute, for probably we shall never meet in this poor little house +again, best beloved one," she said. "It is too far out. I must move into +town. Lionel puts the play into rehearsal next week, and I must live near +the theatre. And then, too--well, you know, since I've made up my mind, +it's best to clean the slate even in respect of one's dwelling-place. +Memories stick, stick like a leech; and they raise emotions of a slightly +disturbing character sometimes. I am sure of myself; and yet I know it's +safest to make a clean sweep of whatever reminds me of all the forbidden +dear damned lot. I regret nothing--don't imagine that. I'm keen on my +work. The artist, after all, is the strongest thing in me. I'm quite +happy, now I have made up my mind. My nose is in the air. I can look +creation in the face without winking an eyelid. I can respect myself. And +I'm tremendously grateful to Lionel Gordon for taking me on spec, and to +Fallowfeild for greasing the creature's Caledonian-Teutonic-Hebraic palm +for me. Still--still--you can imagine, can't you, that, take it all round, +it's not precisely a Young Woman's Christian Association blooming picnic +party for me just at present?" + +Poppy dashed her hand across her eyes, half laughing, half sobbing. + +"Ah, love me, Dominic, love me, in your own way, the clean way--that's all +I ask, all that I want--only love me always," she said. + +She laid her hands on Iglesias' shoulders and threw back her head. And he, +holding her, bending down kissed her white face, soft heavy hair, over-red +lips, her tragic and unfathomable eyes--which looking on the evil and +measuring the very actual immediate delights of it, still had courage, in +the end, to reject it and choose the good--kissed them reverently, +gravely, proudly, with the chastity and chivalry of perfect friendship. + +"Ah! that's better. I'm better. Bless you; don't be afraid. I'll play fair +to the finish--only keep well. Quit that rotten old bank.--Now go, dear +man, go," Poppy said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +During the past six weeks events had galloped. To Iglesias it appeared +that changes were in course of arriving in battalions. He neither hailed +nor deplored them, but met them with a stoical patience. To realise them +clearly, in all their bearings, would have been to add to the sense of +fatigue from which he too constantly suffered. More than sufficient to +each day was the labour thereof. So he looked beyond, to the greater +repose and freedom which, as he trusted, lay ahead. + +Upon the morning immediately in question he had closed his work at the +bank. Sir Abel's demeanour had been characteristic. His clothes, it is +true, still hung loosely upon him. His library chair and extensive +writing-table appeared a world too big. For he was shrunken and had +become an old man. Yet, though signs of chastening thus outwardly declared +themselves, in spirit he had regained tone and returned to his former high +estate. Along with the revival of financial security had come a revival of +pomposity, an addiction to patronage in manner and platitudes in speech. +He had ceased to be humble and human, self-righteous self-complacency +again loudly announcing itself. + +"So you propose to retire, you ask to be relieved of your duties, my good +friend?" he asked of Iglesias, who had requested the favour of an +interview in his private room. "Let us, then, congratulate ourselves upon +the fact that I have returned from my sojourn upon the continent with so +far renovated health that I feel equal to meeting the arduous +responsibilities of my position unaided; and am not, consequently, +compelled, out of a sense of duty either to myself or to my colleagues, to +offer any objection to your retirement. Before we part I should, however, +wish to place it clearly on record that my confidence, both in the +soundness of my own judgment and in our capacity, as capitalists, to meet +any strain put upon our resources, was not misplaced. This no one can, I +think, fail to admit. Our house emerges from this period of trial with the +hall-mark of public sympathy and esteem upon it. And, in this connection, +it is instructive to note the working of the law of compensation. This +war, for example, which to the ordinary mind might have appeared an +unmixed evil, since it threatened to jeopardise our position among the +leading financiers of the capital of the civilised world, has, in the +event, served, not only to consolidate our position, but to unmask the +practices of that unscrupulous and self-seeking member of our firm, my +unhappy nephew Reginald, and afford us legitimate excuse for his removal. +We appeared to touch on disaster; but, by that very means, we have been +enabled to rid ourselves of a canker. Still this must remain a painful +subject." + +Sir Abel became pensive, fixing his gaze, the while, upon the portrait +adorning the wall over against him. To an acute observer the said portrait +had always been subtly ironical. Now it had become coarsely so--a +merciless caricature of the shrivelled old gentleman whom it represented, +and to whom it bore much the same resemblance as a balloon soaring +skywards, fully inflated, bears to that same object with half the gas let +out of it in a condition of flabby and wobbling semi-collapse. + +"A painful subject," he repeated nobly--"I refrain from enlarging upon it, +and pass to other matters. As to the part you yourself have borne in the +history of our recent anxieties, Iglesias, I feel I cannot do less than +tender you the thanks of myself and my co-partners. I do not disguise from +you that a tendency existed to criticise my action in summoning you, to +dub your business methods antiquated, and question your ability to march +with the times. But these objections proved, I am happy to think, +unfounded. The faith I reposed in you has been justified. And I may tell +you, in confidence, that, should the occasion for doing so arise, my +colleagues will in future have as little hesitation in calling upon your +services as I should have myself." + +The speaker paused, as for applause. And Dominic, who had remained +standing during this prolonged oration--no suggestion having been made on +the present occasion that he should be seated--proceeded to acknowledge +the peculiar compliment just paid him, with somewhat sardonic courtesy. + +"Your words are extremely reassuring, Sir Abel," he remarked calmly. + +The gentleman addressed regarded him sharply for a moment, as though +doubtful of the exact purport of his words. Then, suspicion of covert +sarcasm being clearly inadmissible, Sir Abel spoke again in his largest +platform manner, although the tones of his voice, like his person, were +shrunken, docked of the fulness of their former rotundity and unction. + +"It has ever been my effort to reward merit by encouragement," he replied. +"And, were testimony to the wisdom of my practice, in this particular, +needed, I should point, I candidly tell you, my good friend, to the +excellent results of my recent demand upon your cooperation and support." +He leaned sideways in his chair, assuming the posture of the portrait, +conscious of having really said a very handsome thing indeed to his +ex-head-clerk. "For," he added, "I sincerely believe in the worth of +example. It is hardly too much to assert that a generous and high-minded +employer eventually stamps the employed with a reflection, at least, of +his own superior qualities." + +Again he paused. But truth to tell, Dominic Iglesias had not only grown +very weary of discourse and discourser, but somewhat impatient also. He had +hoped better things of the man after the nasty shaking fortune had +recently given him. Consequently he was disappointed; for it was very +effectually borne in upon him that only absence of feathers makes for +grace in a goose. Once the nudity of the foolish bird covered, it hisses, +and that loudly, to the old tune. Hence, in the interests of Christian +charity, he agreed with himself to cut short the interview, lest anger +should get the better of toleration. + +"I think we have now discussed all questions calling for your personal +attention, Sir Abel," he said, "and all documents and correspondence +relating to affairs during your absence have been placed in your hands. If +therefore you have nothing further to ask me, I need not encroach any +longer upon your valuable time." + +With that, after a brief pause, he moved towards the door; but the other +man, half rising from his chair, called after him. + +"Iglesias, your attention for one moment--that matter of a salary?" + +"I supposed I had made my terms perfectly clear, Sir Abel," Dominic +remarked coldly. + +"No doubt, in the first instance. But should you have reconsidered your +decision, and should you think the pension you enjoy an insufficient +remuneration, I am empowered to make you the offer, in addition, of a +fixed salary for the past six months." + +Listening to which tardy and awkward recognition of his own rather +princely dealings, Mr. Iglesias' temper began to rise, his jaw to grow +rigid, and his eyes dangerously alight. + +"I am not in the habit of changing my mind, Sir Abel," he said. "I +proposed to make you a free gift of my time and such experience as I +may possess. Nothing has occurred to alter or modify that intention. +There are circumstances, into which I do not choose to enter, which would +render it extremely distasteful to me to accept anything--over and above +my pension--from yourself or from any member of your family or firm." + +Here Sir Abel, who had been standing, sagged down, +half-empty-balloon-like, into his chair. Again he eyed Iglesias sharply, +doubtful of the exact purport of his speech. But again suspicion of covert +sarcasm, still more of covert rebuke, being to him quite inconceivable, he +rejoined with a condescension which he could not but feel was altogether +praiseworthy: + +"Enough, enough, my good friend. That is sufficient. I will detain you no +longer; but will merely add that I commend your reticence while +appreciating the sentiments which dictate your refusal. These it is easy +to interpret. They shall not be forgotten, since they constitute a very +suitable acknowledgment of the advantages and benefits which have accrued +to you during you long association with my partners and myself." + +Later, journeying westward upon the 'bustop, Dominic Iglesias meditated in +a spirit of humorous pity upon the above conversation. He was very glad he +had not lost his temper. Eyes blinded by self-worship, an inpenetrable +hide, these things, too, have their uses in time--very practical uses, +which it would be silly to ignore. Why, then, be angry? The truly wise +man, as Dominic told himself with a somewhat mournful smile, learns to +leave such time-wise fools as Sir Abel Barking to Almighty God for +chastisement, because--if it can be said without irreverence--the +Almighty alone has wit enough to deal with them. And, for his comfort on +lower levels, he reminded himself that though the house of Barking might +show him scant gratitude, and attribute its financial resurrection to its +own inherent virtue, this was not the opinion held by outsiders. The +manager of Pavitt's Bank, and certain members of Goome, Hills, Murray & +Co., had congratulated Iglesias, personally, upon his admirable conduct +of affairs during the crisis, and assured him of the high respect they had +conceived for his judgment, his probity, and business acumen. In this +there was satisfaction of a silent but deep-seated sort--satisfaction of +pride, since he had accomplished that which he had set forth to +accomplish: satisfaction of honour through unbiassed and unsolicited +commendation. With that satisfaction he bade himself rest thankfully +content, while turning his thoughts to other and more edifying subjects. + +And, in this connection, it was inevitable that a former journeying +westward upon a 'bustop should occur to him, with its strange record of +likeness and unlikeness in circumstance and outlook. Then, as now, +somewhat outworn in mind and in health, he had closed a period of +labour and faced new conditions, new habits, unaccustomed freedom and +leisure. But now on matters of vital, because of eternal, importance, his +mind was at rest. Loneliness and on-coming old age had ceased to disquiet +him. The ship of his individual fate no longer drifted rudderless or +risked danger of stranding, but steered steadily, fearlessly, towards the +promise of a secure and lovely harbourage. The voyage might be long or +short. At this moment Dominic supposed himself indifferent in the matter, +since he believed--not presumptuously, but through the outreaching of a +great faith--that the end was certain. And meditating, just now, upon that +gracious conviction, while the red-painted half-empty omnibus fared onward +down Piccadilly, a sense of the unusual graciousness of things immediate +and visible took hold on him. + +For to-day the monstrous mother, London-town, wore a pensive and delicate +aspect. The tender melancholy of early autumn was upon her, she looking +etherealised and even youthful, as does a penitent cleansed from the soil +of past transgressions by fasting and tears. No doubt she would sin again +and befoul herself, for the melting moods of a great city are transient; +yet for the moment she showed very meek and mild. The atmosphere was +clear, with the exquisite clarity which follows abundant and welcome rain +after a spell of heat and drought. The trees, somewhat sparse in foliage, +were distinct with infinite gradations of blonde, golden, and umber tints, +as of burnished metal, against their black branches and stems. The endless +vista of grey and red buildings, outlined finely yet without harshness, +towered up into a thin, sad, blue sky overspread with long-drawn shoals +and islands, low-shored and sinuous, of pale luminous cloud. Upon the +grey pavements the bright-coloured dress of a woman--mauve, green, or +pink--took on a peculiar value here and there, amid the generality of +darkly clad pedestrians. And in the traffic, too, the white tilt of a van +or rather barbaric reds and yellows of the omnibuses, stood away from the +sombre hues of the mass of vehicles. The air, as Iglesias met it--he +occupying the seat on the right immediately behind that of the driver--was +soft, yet with a perceptible freshness of moisture in it; a cool, wistful +wind seeming to hail from very far, the wings of it laden less with +hopeful promise than with rare unspoken farewells, gentle yet penetrating +regrets; so that Dominic, even while welcoming the refreshment of it, was +moved in spirit with impressions of impending finality as though it spoke +to him of things finished, laid aside, not wholly without sorrow +relinquished and--so far as outward seeming went--forgot. + +Involuntarily his eyes filled with tears. Then he reproached himself. Of +what had he to complain? The will must indeed be weak, the spiritual +vision reprehensively clouded, if these vague voices of nature could so +disturb the serenity of the soul. Thus he reasoned with himself, almost +sternly. But, just then, the flaming rose-scarlet bill on the knife-board +of a passing omnibus attracted his attention, along with the announcement, +in big letters, which it set forth. To-night the Twentieth Century Theatre +opened its winter season with a new piece by that admirable but all too +indolent and intermittent dramatist, Antony Hammond; and in it Poppy St. +John played the leading lady's part. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Opposite St. Mary Abbott's church Mr. Iglesias lighted down from the +'bustop. His eyes were still dazzled by those flaming bills.--Lionel +Gordon was advertising handsomely. The knife-board of every second omnibus +displayed them, now he came to look.--His thought turned in quickened +interest towards the Lady of the Windswept Dust and all that the said +advertisements stood for in her case. He had seen her a few days ago, +after rehearsal, and she had warned him off being present tonight. + +"It's all going like hot cakes, dear man," she had said gaily, "still, as +you love me, don't come. I should be more nervous of you than ninety dozen +critics. I shall want you badly, all the same, don't doubt that; and I +shall play to you, all the while, though you're not there. But--don't you +understand?--if I actually saw you it might come between me and my part. I +shouldn't be sure who I really was, and that would make me as jumpy as a +sick cat. You shall know--I'll wire to you directly the show's over; but +I'd best have my first round quite alone with the public. And then a first +night is always a bit jungly--not quite fair on the play or the company, +or the audience either for that matter. A play's the same as a ship, if +there's any real art in it. It needs time to find itself. So just wait, +like a lamb, till we've all shaken into place, and I'm quite at home in +the saddle." + +And in truth Dominic Iglesias had plenty to occupy his time and attention +at this particular juncture, irrespective of Poppy's _debut_ at the +Twentieth Century Theatre. For tomorrow would close his connection with +Cedar Lodge, as to-day had closed his connection with Messrs. Barking +Brothers & Barking. The mind in hours of fatigue, when vitality is low and +the power of concentration consequently deficient, has a tendency to work +in layers, so to speak, one strain of thought overlying another. Hence it +was that Iglesias' contemplation of those gaudy advertisements, and of +their bearing upon Poppy's fortunes, failed to oust the premonitions of +finality which had come to and somewhat perturbed him as he looked upon +the pensive tearwashed face of London-penitent, cleansed by the breath of +the wistful far-hailing autumn wind. Involuntarily, and notwithstanding +his repudiation of them, he continued to question those premonitions and +the clinging melancholy of them, asking whether they bore relation +merely to the two not wholly unwelcome partings above indicated; or +whether the foreboding induced by them did not find its source in some +sentiment, some intuition of approaching change, far more intimate and +profound than cessation of employment or alteration of dwelling-place. +Then, as he walked on up Church Street another layer of thought presented +itself. For he could not but call to mind how many hundred times he had +trodden that pavement before close against the close-packed traffic, the +high barrack-wall on the right hand, the row of modest shop-fronts on +the left, on his way home to the little house in Holland Street. Once more +that house was home to him. He would cross its familiar threshold to-day +as master. Yet how differently to of old! How steep the hill was! How +languid and spent he became in ascending it--slowly, deliberately, instead +of with light-footed energy and indifference! And this made him ask +himself, what if these premonitions of finality, of impending farewells, +of compulsory relinquishment, had indeed a very special and definite +significance, being sent to him as heralds of the approach of a common +yet--to each individual being--unique and altogether tremendous change? +What if that haunting curiosity of the unknown--concerning which he had +spoken with Poppy St. John amid the white magic of the moonlight during +the enchanted hour of his and her friendship--was to be satisfied very +soon? + +Iglesias drew himself up to his full height, fatigue and bodily weakness +alike forgotten, and stood for a little space at the turn into Holland +Street, hat in hand, facing the delicately chill wind and looking away +into the fine perspective of sky overspread by shoals and islands of pale +luminous cloud. Calmly--yet with the sharp amazement inevitable when +things taken for granted, tacitly and nominally accepted throughout a +lifetime, suddenly advance into the immediate foreground, becoming actual, +tangible, imperative--he asked himself, was death so very near, then? At +the church of the Carmelite Priory just above--the high slated roofs and +slender iron crockets of which overtopped the parapets of the intervening +houses--a bell tolled as the officiating priest, in giving the +Benediction, elevated the sacred Host. And that note, at once austere and +plaintive, striking across the hoarse murmur and trample of the streets, +was very grateful to Dominic Iglesias. For it assured him of this, at +least, that when for him the supreme hour did indeed strike and he was +called upon to go forth alone--as every soul must go--to meet the +impenetrable mystery which veils the close of the earthly chapter, he +would not go forth unbefriended, but absolved, anointed, fortified, made +ready--in so far as readiness for so stupendous an ordeal is possible--by +the rites of Holy Church. + +"_Fiat misericordia tua Domine super nos: quemad-modum speravimus te. In +te Domine speravi: non confundar in aeternum,_" he quoted half aloud. + +And then could not forbear to smile, gravely and somewhat sadly, +registering the deep pathos of the fact that the majestic hymn of praise +and thanksgiving, dedicated by the use of Christendom throughout centuries +to the celebration of highest triumph, still ends brokenly with a +childlike sob of shrinking, of entreaty, and very human pain. + +Meditating upon which, and upon much implied by it, not only of sorrow but +of consolation for whoso is not afraid to understand, Iglesias moved +onward. But so closely do things absurd and trivial jostle things august +and of profound significance in daily happenings--he was speedily aroused +from meditation and his attention claimed by example of quite another +order of pathos to that suggested by the concluding verses of the _Te +Deum_. Some little way ahead a brown-painted furniture van was backed +against the curb. From the cave-like interior of it coatless white-aproned +men bore a miscellaneous collection of goods--among others a battered +dapple-grey rocking-horse with flowing mane and tail--across the yard-wide +strip of garden, and in at the front door of a small old-fashioned house. +Bass mats were strewn upon the pavement. Sheets of packing paper +pirouetted down the roadway before the wind. While, standing in the midst +of the litter, watching the process of unloading with perplexed and even +agitated interest, was a whimsical figure--large of girth, short of limb, +convex where the accredited lines of beauty demand, if not concavity, at +least a refined flatness of surface. + +The Latin, unlike the Anglo-Saxon, does not consider it necessary as +soon as adolescence is past to extirpate his heart; or, failing successful +performance of that heroic operation, strictly to limit the activities +of it to his amours, legitimate or otherwise. Hence Dominic Iglesias +felt no shame that the sight of his old plaything, or of his old +school-fellow--now unhappily estranged from and suspicious of him--should +provoke in him a great tenderness. Upon the battered rocking-horse his +heart rode away to the dear sheltered happiness of childhood, while +towards his former school-fellow it went forth in unmixed kindliness. For +it appeared to him that for one who had so lately held converse with +approaching death, it would be a very scandal of light-minded pettiness to +nourish resentment against any fellow creature. In near prospect of the +eternal judgment, private and temporal judgment can surely afford to +declare a universal amnesty in respect of personal slights and injuries. +Therefore, after but a moment's hesitation, he went on, laid his hand upon +George Lovegrove's shoulder, and called him affectionately by name. + +"Dominic!" the latter cried, and stood staring. "Well to be sure--you did +surprise me! To think of meeting you just by accident to-day, like this!" + +He grew furiously red, gladness and embarrassment struggling within him. +Conscientiously he strove to be faithful to the menagerie of ignorances +and prejudices which he misnamed his convictions. For here was the +representative of the Accursed Thing--persecutor, enemy of truth, of +patriotism, of marriage, worshipper of senseless idols; but, alas! how he +loved that representative! How he honoured his intelligence, admired his +person, coveted his companionship! Beholding Iglesias once again, George +Lovegrove rejoiced as at the finding of lost treasure. Hence, perplexed, +perspiring, lamentably squinting, yet with the innocent half-shy ecstasy +of a girl looking upon her recovered lover, he gazed up into Mr. Iglesias' +face. + +"I give you my word I was never more taken aback in my life," he +protested. "As it happened I was just thinking about old times, observing +that some family is moving into your former house. But I had no notion of +meeting you. Positively I am unable to grasp the fact. I have not a word +to say to you, because I require to say so much. I know there is a great +deal which needs explanation on my part. And then your calling me by my +name, too! I declare it went right through me, as a voice from the grave +might." + +"Put aside explanations," Iglesias replied indulgently. "You are not going +to quarrel with me any more--let that suffice." + +"No, I cannot quarrel with you any more. I am sure I don't know whether it +is unprincipled or not, but I cannot do it." + +Regardless of observation, he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his +face. + +"If it is unprincipled I must just let it go." he said, quite recklessly. +"I cannot help myself. I give you my word, Dominic, I have held out as +long as I could." + +This appeal to Iglesias, as against himself, appeared to him abundantly +unaffected and ingenuous. + +"I cannot but believe you will find the consequences of renewed +intercourse with me less damaging than you suppose," he answered, smiling. + +"That is what the wife says," the other man stated. "She has veered round +completely in her opinion, has the wife. I do not understand why, except +that Mrs. Porcher and Miss Hart and she seem to have fallen out. The +workings of females' minds are very difficult to follow, even after years +of marriage, you know, Dominic. Opposition to one of their own sex will +make them warmly embrace opinions you supposed were just those which they +most strongly condemned. She has taken a very high tone, for some time +past, about the Cedar Lodge ladies, has the wife. And when I came in, the +evening of her last at-home day, I found her sadly upset at having heard +from one of them that you were about to leave. She implied that I was to +blame; whereas I can truthfully say my conduct throughout has been largely +influenced by the fear of hurting her feelings." The speaker looked +helplessly at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course we do not expect the same reticence +in speech from females we require of ourselves. Still, such unfounded +accusations are rather galling." + +"I cannot be otherwise than very grateful to Mrs. Lovegrove for espousing +my cause, you see," Iglesias replied. This confused and gentle being, +struggling with the complexities of friendship, religious prejudice, and +feminine methods and amenities, was wholly moving. "Circumstances have +arisen which have made me decide to give up my rooms at Cedar Lodge. +To-night is the last upon which I shall occupy them. But I do not wish +Mrs. Lovegrove to be under any misapprehension regarding my hostess and +her companion. I have nothing to complain of. During my long residence +they have treated me with courtesy and consideration. I wish them nothing +but good. Still the time has come, I feel, for leaving Cedar Lodge." + +Here the worthy George's imagination indulged in wild flights. Visions of +a hideous and rugged cell--of the sort known exclusively to serial +melodrama--and of a beautiful woman, in voluminous rose-red skirts and a +costly overcoat, presented themselves to him in amazing juxtaposition. + +"Of course, I have forfeited all right to question you as to your plans, +Dominic," he said hurriedly and humbly. "I quite realise that. I believed +I was acting on principle in keeping away from you, all the more because +it pained me terribly to do so. I believed I was being consistent. Now I +begin to fear I was only obstinate and cowardly. Your kindness of manner +has completely unmanned me. I see how superior you are in liberality to +myself. And so it cuts me to the quick, more than ever, to part from you." + +"Why should we part?" Iglesias asked. + +"But you are going away. The wife told me she heard you were +leaving London altogether; whether to--I hardly like to mention the +supposition--to join some brotherhood or--or, to be married, she did not +know." + +Mr. Iglesias shook his head, smiling sweetly and bravely. + +"Oh! no, no, my dear fellow," he answered. "Rumour must have been rather +unpardonably busy with my name. I fear I am about equally ill-fitted for +monastic and for married life. The day of splendid ventures, whether of +religion or of love, is over for me; and I shall die, as I have lived, a +bachelor and a layman. Nor shall I cease to be your neighbour, for I am +only returning here"--he pointed to the open door, in at which coatless +white-aproned men carried that miscellaneous collection of furniture--"to +the little old Holland Street house. Lately I have had a great craving +upon me to be at home again--alone, save for one or two precious +friendships; with leisure to read and to think; and, in as far as my poor +mental powers permit, to become a humble student of the awe-inspiring +philosophy--reconciling things natural and supernatural--of which the +Catholic Church is the exponent, her creeds its textbook, her ceremonies +and ritual the divinely appointed symbols of its secret truths." Iglesias' +expression was exalted, his speech penetrated by enthusiasm. "It would be +profitable and happy," he said, "before the final auditing of accounts, to +be a little better versed in this wonderful and living wisdom." + +And George Lovegrove stood watching him, bewildered, agitated, full of +doubt and inquiry. + +"Ah! it is all beyond me, quite beyond me," he exclaimed presently. +"Mistaken or not, I see you are in touch with thoughts altogether outside +my experience and comprehension. I supposed Romanism could only be held by +uneducated and superstitious persons. I see I was wrong. I ask your +pardon, Dominic. I see I quite undervalued it." Then his manner changed, +quick perception and consequent distress seizing him. "Ah! but you are +ill. That is the meaning of it all. You are ill. Now I come to observe +you, I see how thin and drawn your face is. How shall I ever forgive +myself for not finding that out sooner! I have differed from you and +blamed you. I have sulked, and thought bitterly of you, and avoided you. +I have even been envious, hearing how successfully you carried through +affairs this anxious time at the bank. I have been a contemptibly +mean-spirited individual. No, I can never forgive myself. I have found you +again, only to lose you. You are in bad health. You have been suffering, +and I never thought to inquire about that. I never knew it." + +But Dominic Iglesias made effort to comfort him, speaking not +uncheerfully, determining even to fight the fatigue and weakness which, as +he could not but own, daily increased on him, if only for the sake of this +faithful and simple adherent. + +"Perhaps the sands are running rather low," he said; "but that does not +greatly matter. The conditions are in process of alteration. Now that I am +free of my City work, the strain is practically over. With care and quiet, +the sands that remain in the glass may run very slowly. I have a peaceful +time in prospect, here in my old home. When I left here, eight years ago, +I could not make up my mind to part with any of our family belongings, so +I warehoused all the contents of the house, save those which I took to +furnish my rooms at Cedar Lodge. Now these half-forgotten possessions see +the light once more. This in itself should constitute a staying of the +running sands, a putting back of the hands of the clock. Then I have two +good servants to care for me. I am fortunate in that. And your friendship +is restored to me. I should be ungrateful if I did not live on for a while +to enjoy all this kindly circumstance. So do not grieve. There are many +after-dinner pipes to be smoked, many talks to be talked yet.--Come into +the house, and see it as you used to know it when we both were young. +Surely it is a good omen that you, my earliest friend, should be my first +visitor when I come home?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +De Courcy Smyth was not drunk, but he had been drinking--persistently +nipping, as his custom was in times of mental excitement, in the +fallacious hope of keeping up courage and steadying irritable nerves. The +series of moods usually resultant on such recourse to spirituous liquors, +followed one another with clock-work regularity. He was alternately +hysterically elated, preternaturally moral, offensively quarrelsome, +maudlin to the point of tears. The first _matinee_ of his +long-promised play had prospered but very ill, notwithstanding large +advertisement and free list. The second had prospered even worse. +Mercifully disposed persons, slipping out between the acts, had been +careful not to return. Less amiably disposed ones had remained to titter +or hiss. Failure had been written in capital letters across the whole +performance--and deservedly, in the estimation of every one save the +unhappy author himself. The play had perished in the very act of birth. + +But of this tragic termination to so many extravagant hopes Dominic +Iglesias was still ignorant, as he entered the dismantled sitting-room at +Cedar Lodge that same night a little after half-past ten o'clock. He had +dined in the old house in Holland Street; served by Frederick, the +German-Swiss valet, who, some weeks previously, hearing of his intended +departure, had announced his intention of "bettering himself," had given +Mrs. Porcher warning, and, in moving terms and three languages, implored +employment of Iglesias, declaring that the other gentlemen resident at +Cedar Lodge were "no class," their clothes utterly unworthy of his powers +of brushing and folding. + +Iglesias stayed on in Holland Street until late, the charm and gentleness +of old associations, the sight of familiar objects, the gladness of +restored friendship with George Lovegrove working upon him to +thankfulness. He was tranquil in spirit, serene with the calm twilight +serenity of the strong who have learned the secret of detachment, and, +who, while welcoming all glad and gracious occurrences, have schooled +themselves to resignation, and, in the affairs of this world, do neither +greatly fear nor greatly hope. And it was in this spirit he had made his +way back to Cedar Lodge and entered the square panelled sitting-room. But, +the door closed, he paused, aware of some sinister influence, some unknown +yet repulsive presence. The room was nearly dark, the gas being lowered to +a pin-point on either side the mantelpiece. Dominic moved across to turn +it up, and in so doing stumbled over an unexpected obstacle. De Courcy +Smith, who had been dozing uneasily in the one remaining armchair, sat +upright with an oath. + +"What are you at, you swine!" he shouted. Then as the light shone forth he +made an effort to recover himself. + +"It's hardly necessary to announce your advent by kicking me, Mr. +Iglesias," he said thickly, and without attempting to rise from his seat. +"Not but that there is an appropriateness in that graceful form of +introduction. Only a kick from the benevolent patron, who professed +himself so charitably disposed towards me, was required to make up the sum +of outrage which has been my portion to-day.--Have you seen the theatrical +items in the evening papers?" With trembling hands he spread out a +newspaper upon his knees. "See the way that dirty reptile, Percy Gerrard, +who succeeded me upon _The Daily Bulletin_, has chopped me and my +play to mincemeat, cut bits of live flesh out of me and fried them in +filth, and washed down my wounds with the vitriol of hypocritical +compassion and good advice? That is the style of recognition a really +first-class work of art, fit to rank with the classics, with Wycherley, +and Congreve, and Sheridan, or Lytton--for there are qualities of all +these very dissimilar masters in my writing--gets from the present-day +press. As I have told you all along, the critics and playwrights hate +me because they fear me. I have never spared them. I have exposed them and +their ignorance, and want of scholarship, in print. They know I spoke the +truth. Their hatred is witness to my veracity. They have been nursing +their venom for years. Now with one consent they pour it forth. It is a +vile plot and conspiracy. They were sworn to swamp me, so they formed a +ring. They did not care what they spent so long as they succeeded in +crushing me. Every one has been bought, miserably, scandalously bought. +This is the only conceivable explanation of the reception my play has met +with. They got at the members of my company. My actors played better at +first, better at rehearsal. Yesterday and to-day they have played like a +row of wooden ninepins, of straw-stuffed scarecrows, of rot-stricken +idiots! They missed their cues, and forgot their lines, or pretended to do +so; and then had the infernal impertinence to giggle and gag, blast them! +I heard them. I could have screamed. I tried to stop them; and the +stage-manager swore at me in the wings, and the scene-shifters laughed. It +was a hideous nightmare. The audience laughed--the sound of it is in my +ears now, and it tortures me, for it was not natural laughter. It was not +spontaneous--how could it be so? It was simply part of this iniquitous +conspiracy to ruin me. It was hired mockery, bought and paid for, the +mockery of subsidised traitors, liars, imbeciles, the inhuman mockery of +grinning apes!" + +He crushed the newspaper together with both hands, flung it across the +room, and broke into hysterical weeping. + +"For my play is a masterpiece," he wailed. "It is a work of genius. No +other man living could have written it. Yet it is damned by a brainless +public and vindictive press, while I know and they know--they must know, +the fact is self-evident--that it is great, nothing less than great." + +During this harangue Dominic Iglesias stood immovable, facing the speaker, +but looking down, not at him, rigid in attitude, silent. Any attempt to +stem the torrent of the wretched man's speech would have been futile. +Dominic judged it kindest just to wait, letting passion tear him till, by +force of its own violence, it had worn itself out. Then, but not till +them, it might be helpful to intervene. Still the exhibition was a very +painful one, putting a heavy strain upon the spectator. For be a fellow +creature never so displeasing in nature and in habit, never so cankered by +vanity and self-love, it cannot be otherwise than hideous to see him upon +the rack. And that de Courcy Smyth was very actually upon the rack--a rack +well deserved, may be, and of his own constructing, but which wrenched his +every joint to the agony of dislocation nevertheless--there could be no +manner of doubt. Coming as conclusion to the long day, to the peaceful +evening--the thought of the Lady of the Windswept Dust, moreover, and her +fortunes so eminently and presently just now in the balance, in his +mind--the whole situation was horrible to Dominic Iglesias. + +But Smyth's mood changed, his tears ceasing as incontinently as they had +begun. He ceased to slouch and writhe, passed his hands across his +blood-shot eyes, drew himself up in his chair, began to snarl, even to +swagger. + +"I forget myself, and forget you, too, Mr. Iglesias--which is annoying," +he said; "for you are about the last person from whom I could expect, or +should desire to receive, sympathy. Persons of my world, scholars and +idealists, and persons of your world, money-grubbing materialists, can, in +the nature of things, have very little in common. There is a great gulf +fixed between them. I beg your pardon for having so far forgotten myself +as to ignore that fact, and talked on subjects incomprehensible to you. +What follows, however, will be more in your line, I imagine, and it is +this which has made me come here to-night. You realise that your +investment has turned out an unfortunate one? You have lost, irretrievably +lost, your money." + +"I was not wholly unprepared for that," Dominic answered. His temper was +beginning to rise. Sodden with drink, maddened by failure, hardly +accountable for his words or actions, still the man's tone was rather too +offensive for endurance. "I had made full provision for such a +contingency. I accept the loss. Pray do not let it trouble you." + +"Oh! you accept it, do you? You were prepared for it?" Smyth broke in. +"You can afford to throw way a cool three hundred pounds--the expenses +will amount to that at least in the bulk. How very agreeable for you! +Your late operations in the City must have been surprisingly profitable. +I was not aware, until now, that we had the honour of numbering a +millionaire among us at Cedar Lodge. But let me tell you this extremely +superior tone does not please me, Mr. Iglesias. It smells of insult. I +warn you, you had better be a little careful. Even a miserable persecuted +pauper like myself can make it unpleasant for those who insult him. I must +request you to remember that I am a gentleman by birth, and that I have +the feelings of my class where my personal honour is concerned. Do you +suppose I do not know perfectly well that the benevolent attitude you have +seen fit to assume towards me has been a blind, from first to last; and +that every penny you have advanced me until now, as well as the three +hundred pounds, the loss of which you so amiably beg me not to let trouble +me, is hush-money? Yes, hush-money, I repeat, the price of my silence +regarding your intrigue with my wife--my wife who calls herself--" + +"We will introduce no woman's name into this conversation, if you please," +Iglesias interrupted sternly. + +The limit of things pardonable had been passed. His face was white and +keen as a sword. The weight of years and of failing health had vanished, +burned up by fierce disgust and anger, as is mist by the sun-heat. He was +young, arrogant in bearing, careless of consequence or of danger as some +fifteenth-century finely bred fighting man face to face with his enemy and +traducer, who, given honourable opportunity, he would kill or be killed +by, without faintest scruple or remorse. And of this temper of mind his +aspect was so eloquent that de Courcy Smyth, muddled with liquor though he +was, seeing him, was seized with panic. He scrambled to his feet, flung +himself behind the chair, clinging to the back of it for support. + +"Don't look at me like that, you Spanish devil!" he whimpered. "You +paralyse me. You hypnotise me. My brain is splitting. You're drawing the +life out of me. I shall go mad. If you come a step nearer I'll make a +scandal. I'll call for help. Ah! God in heaven, who's that?" + +Only the housemaid entering, salver in hand, and leaving the door wide +open behind her. Upon the landing with out, Farge and Worthington, in +comic attitudes, stood at attention. + +"A telegram for you, sir. Is the boy to wait?" she inquired, in a stifled +voice. "She could hardly keep a straight face," as she reported downstairs +subsequently, "that ridiculous Farge was so full of his jokes." + +Iglesias tore open the yellow envelope and held the telegraph-form to the +light. + +"Glorious luck. Happy as a queen. Come to supper after performance +to-morrow. Love. Poppy," + +His face softened. + +"No answer," he said, and turned purposing to speak some word of mercy to +wretched de Courcy Smyth. But the latter had slunk out at the open door, +while Mr. Farge, in an ungovernable paroxysm of humour--levelled at the +departing housemaid--effectually covered his retreat by cake-walking, with +very high knee action, the length of the landing, playing appropriate +dance-music, the while, upon an imaginary banjo in the shape of +Worthington's new crook-handled walking stick. + +For some time Dominic Iglesias heard shuffling, nerveless footsteps moving +to and fro in the room overhead. Then Smyth threw himself heavily upon his +bed. The wire-wove mattress creaked, and creaked again twice. Unbroken +silence followed, and Iglesias breathed more easily, hoping the miserable +being slept. For him, Iglesias, there was no sleep. His body was too +tired. His mind too vividly and painfully awake. He lay down, it is true, +since he did not care to remain in the dismantled sitting-room or occupy +the chair in which de Courcy Smyth had sat. But, throughout the night, he +stared at the darkness and heard the hours strike. At sunset the wind +had dropped dead. In the small hours it began to rise, and before dawn to +freshen, veering to another quarter. Softly at first, and then with richer +diapason, the cedar tree greeted its mysterious comrade, singing of +far-distant times and places, and of the permanence of nature as against +the fitful evanescent life of man. That husky singing soothed Dominic +Iglesias, and calmed him, assuring him that in the hands of the Almighty +are all things, small and great, past, present, and to come. There is +neither haste, nor omission, nor accident, nor oversight in the divine +plan; but that plan is large beyond the possibility of human intellect to +grasp or comprehend, therefore humble faith is also highest wisdom. + +As the dawn quickened into day Dominic drew aside the curtain and looked +out. Behind the dark branches, where they cleared the housetops and met +the open sky, thrown wide upward to the zenith, was the rose-scarlet of +sunrise, holding, as it seemed to him, at once the splendour of battle +and the peace of crowned achievement and--was it but a pretty conceit or a +truth of happiest import?--the colour of certain flaring omnibus +knifeboard bills and the colour of a certain woman's name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The narrow lane, running back at right angles to the great thoroughfare, +was filled with blurred yellowish light and covered in with gloom, +low-hanging and impenetrable. The high, blank buildings on either side of +it looked like the perpendicular walls of a tunnel, the black roof they +apparently supported being as solid and substantial as themselves. The +effect thereby produced was suspect and prison-like, as of a space walled +in and closed from open air and day. Outside the stage entrance of the +Twentieth Century Theatre a small crowd had collected and formed up in two +parallel lines across the pavement to the curb, against which a smart +single brougham and some half a dozen four-wheelers and hansoms were +drawn up. The crowd, which gathered and broke only to gather again, was +composed for the main part of persons of the better artisan class, +respectable, soberly habited, evidently awaiting the advent of relations +employed within the theatre. There was also a sprinkling of showy young +women, attended by undersized youths flashily dressed. On the fringes of +it night-birds, male and female, of evil aspect, loitered, watchful of +possible prey; while two or three gentlemen, correct, highly-civilised, +stood smoking, each with the air of studied indifference which defies +attempted recognition on the part of friend or foe. + +And among these last Dominic Iglesias must be counted; though, in his +case, indifference was not assumed but real. His surroundings were novel, +it is true, and produced on him clear impressions both pictorial and +moral; but those impressions were of his surroundings in and for +themselves, rather than in any doubtfulness of their relation to himself. +For his mind was occupied with problems painful in character and difficult +of solution; and to the said problems, heightening the emotional strain of +them, his surroundings--the sense of feverish life, of all-encompassing +restless humanity; the figures anxious, degraded, of questionable purpose +or merely frivolous, which started into momentary distinctness; the scraps +of conversation, caught in passing, instinct with suggestion, squalid or +passionate; along with the ceaseless tramp of footsteps, and tumult of the +great thoroughfare just now packed with the turn-out of neighbouring +places of entertainment--supplied a background penetratingly appropriate. + +For a good half-hour Mr. Iglesias stood there. At intervals the doors of +the stage entrance swung open, causing a movement of interest and comment +among the crowd. One by one hansoms and four-wheelers, obtaining fares, +rattled away over the stones. Yet the Lady of the Windswept Dust tarried. +It grew late, and Iglesias greatly desired her coming, greatly desired to +speak with her, and speaking to find approximate solution, at least, of +some of the problems which lay so heavy upon his mind. Meanwhile, the +crowd melted and vanished, leaving him alone in the blurred yellowish +light beneath the low-hanging roof of impenetrable gloom, save for the +haunting presence of some few of those terrible human birds of prey. + +He was about to turn away also, not particularly relishing the remaining +company, when, with a rush, Poppy was beside him, in stately garments of +black velvet and glimmering tissue of silver; her head and shoulders +draped with something of daring and magnificence, in her blue-purple +jewelled dragon-embroidered scarf. She caught Iglesias' right hand in both +of hers and held it a moment against her breast. And during that brief +interval he registered the fact that, notwithstanding her beauty, the +force of her personality and richness of her dress, she did not look out +of place in this somewhat cut-throat alley, with the questionable sights +and sounds of midnight London all about her; but vivid, exultant, true +daughter of great cities, fearless manipulator of the very varied +opportunities they offer, past-master, for joy and sorrow, in the curious +arts they teach. + +"Get into the brougham, dear man," she said, "and let me talk. There, put +up the window on the traffic side. I have been in the liveliest worry +about you. Had the house turned out of windows to find you--and gave +things in general the deuce of a time.--The brougham's comfortable, isn't +it? Fallowfeild's jobbed it for the winter for me.--All the same I played +like an angel, out of pure desperation, thinking you might be ill. I made +the audience cry big, big tears, bless 'em. And it wasn't the part--not +a bit of it. It was you, just simply you.--And then I dawdled talking to +Antony Hammond about some lines in the second act I want altered, so as to +let myself down easy before digesting the disappointment of driving back +to Bletchworth Mansions alone. I wanted so very badly to have you see me. +Beloved and most faithless of beings, why the mischief didn't you come?" + +And Iglesias sitting beside her watching her joyous face, crowned by her +dark hair, set in the gleaming folds of her jewelled scarf, as passing +lights revealed it clearly, or shifting left it in soft shadow, divined +rather than actually seen, became sadly conscious that the problems which +oppressed him were not only hard of solution but hard of statement +likewise. It seemed heartless to propound them in this, her hour of +success. Yet, unless he was deeply mistaken, the statement of them must +tell for emancipation and relief in the end. + +"The play has gone well, and you are happy?" he asked her. + +"Gorgeously--I grant you I was a bit nervous as to whether during these +years of--well--love in idleness, I had not lost touch with my art. But I +haven't. I have only matured in mind and in method. I am not conceited, +dear man, truly I am not; but I am neither too lazy nor too modest to use +my brains. What I know I am not afraid to apply. I've very little theory, +but a precious deal of practice--and that's the way to get on. Don't talk +about your ideas--just use them for all you're worth.--But this is beside +the mark. You're trying to head me off. Why didn't you come?" + +"I would gladly have come," Iglesias answered. "My disappointment has been +quite as great as yours." + +"Bless your heart!" Poppy murmured under her breath. + +"But it was impossible for me to come. I was detained until it was too +late." He paused, uncertain how best to say that which had to be said. + +"Oh! fiddle!" Poppy cried, with a lift of her head. "I stand first. You +ought not to have let yourself be detained. After all, it's not every day +someone you know blazes from a farthing dip into a star of the first +magnitude. You might very well have crowded other things aside. I feel a +trifle hurt, dear man, really I do." + +"Believe me, no ordinary matter would have prevented my coming," Iglesias +answered. To his relief the carriage just then turned into the comparative +peace of Langham Place. It became possible to speak softly. "There was +a death in the house last night," he went on, "that of a person with whom +I have been rather closely associated. He died under circumstances +demanding investigations of a distressing character. No one save myself +was qualified, or perhaps willing, to assume the responsibility of calling +in the authorities." + +Iglesias glanced at his companion, conscious that while he spoke her +attitude and humour had altered considerably. She was motionless. He saw +her profile, dark against the square light of window-glass. Her mouth was +slightly open, as with intensity of attention. + +"Well--well--what then?" she said. + +"The man had just suffered a heavy reverse. He had staked all his hopes, +all his future, upon a single venture. It proved a failure. He could not +accept the fact, and believed himself the victim of gross injustice and of +organised conspiracy." + +"Do you believe it, too?" + +"No," Iglesias answered. "I have an immense pity for him, as who would +not. Still, I am compelled to believe that failure came from within, +rather than from without. He overrated his own powers." + +Poppy held up her hand imperiously. "Wait half a minute," she said, in an +oddly harsh voice. Leaning forward she put down the front glass and called +to the coachman:--"Don't go to Bletchworth Mansions. Drive on. Never mind +where, so long as you keep to empty streets. Drive on and on--do you +hear?--till I tell you to stop." + +She put the window up again and settled herself back in her place, +dragging the scarf from off her head and baring her throat. She looked +full at Mr. Iglesias, her face showing ghostly white against the dark +upholstery of the carriage. Her eyes were wide with question and with +fear, which was also, in some strange way, hope. + +"Now you can speak, dear friend," she said quite steadily. "I shall be +glad to hear the whole of it, though it is an ugly story. The man was +miserable, and he is dead, and the circumstances of his death point +to--what--suicide?" + +In reply Iglesias told her how that morning, the servants failing to get +any response to their knocking, the upper part of the house being, +moreover, pervaded by a sickening smell of gas, help had been called in; +and, de Courcy Smyth's door being forced open, he had been found lying, +fully clothed, stark and cold upon his bed, an empty phial of morphia and +an empty glass on the table beside him, both gas-jets turned full on +though not alight. + +At the top of Portland Place the coachman took his way northwestward, +first skirting the outer ring of Regent's Park and then making the +gradually ascending slope of the Finchley Road. The detached houses on +either side, standing back in their walled gardens, were mostly blind. +Only here and there, behind drawn curtains, a window glowed, telling of +intimate drama gallant or mournful within. The wide grey pavements were +deserted; the place arrestingly quiet, save for the occasional heavy tread +of a passing policeman on beat, and the rhythmical trot of the horse. And +the Lady of the Windswept Dust was quiet likewise, looking straight before +her, sitting stiffly upright, her hands clasped in her lap, the shifting +lights and shadows playing queerly over her face and her bare neck, +causing her to appear unsubstantial and indefinite as a figure in a dream. +Yet a strange energy possessed her and emanated from her, so that the +atmosphere about her was electric, oppressive to Iglesias as with a +brooding of storm. Her very quietness was agitating, weighed with meaning +which challenged his imagination and even his powers of reticence and +self-control. Opposite Swiss Cottage Station, where the main road forks, +a string of market waggons--slouching, drowsy car-men, backed by a pale +green wall of glistening cabbages, nodding above their slow-moving +teams--passed, with a jingle of brass-mounted harness and grind of wheels. +This roused Poppy, and the storm broke. + +"Dominic," she said breathlessly, "do you at all know that you've just +told me means to me?" + +"I have never known positively until now; but it was impossible that I +should not have entertained suspicions." + +"Did he--you know who I mean--ever speak of me?" + +"I think," Iglesias said, "he came very near doing so, more than once. But +I put a stop to the conversation." + +"You frightened him," Poppy rejoined. "I know one could do that. It was a +last resource, a hateful one. Is there anything so difficult to forgive as +being driven to be cruel? One was bound to be cruel in self-defence, or +one would have been stifled, utterly degraded by self-contempt, bled to +death not only in respect of money but of self-esteem." + +She threw up her hands with a gesture at once fierce and despairing. + +"Oh! the weak, the weak," she cried, "of how many crimes they are the +authors! Crimes more particularly abominable when the weak one is the man, +and woman--poor brute--is strong." + +She settled herself sideways in the corner of the carriage, turning her +face once more full upon her companion. + +"Look here," she said, "I don't want to whitewash myself. What I've done +I've done. I don't pretend it's pretty or innocent, or that I haven't +jolly well got to pay the price of it--though I think a good deal has been +paid by now. But it seems to me my real crime was in marrying him, rather +than in leaving him. It was a crime against love--love, which alone, if +you've any real sense of the inherent decencies of things, makes marriage +otherwise than an outrage upon a woman's pride and her virtue. But, then, +one doesn't know all that when one's barely out of one's teens. And, you +see, like a fool I took the first comer out of bravado, just that people +mightn't see how awfully hard hit I was by his people interfering and +preventing my marrying the poor, dear boy who gave me this"--Poppy spread +out the end of her dragon scarf--"I've told you about him.--Stage people +are absurdly simple in some ways, you know. They live in such a world of +pretences and fictions that they lose their sense of fact, or rather they +never develop it. They're awfully easily taken in. Words go a tremendous +long way with them. And de Courcy could talk. He was appallingly fluent, +specially on the subject of himself. He made be believe he was rather +wonderful, and I wanted to believe he was wonderful. I wanted to believe +he was all the geniuses in creation rolled into one. All the more I wanted +to believe it because I wasn't one scrap in love with him." + +Poppy beat with one hand almost roughly on Mr. Iglesias' arm. + +"Do you see, do you see, do you see?" she repeated. "Do you understand? +I want you so badly to understand." + +And he answered her gently and gravely: "Do not be afraid, dear friend. I +see with your eyes. I feel with your heart. As far as one human being can +enter into and share the experience of another, I do understand." + +"But the nuisance is," she went on, the corners of her mouth taking a +wicked twist, "you know so very much more about a man after you've married +him. Other people are inclined to forget that sometimes. Consuming egoism +is hideous at close quarters. It comes out in a thousand ways, in mean +little tyrannies and absurd jealousies which would never have entered into +one's head.--I don't want to go into all that. It's better forgot.--Only +they piled up and up, till the shadow of them shut out the sunshine; and +I got so bored, so madly and intolerably bored. You see, I had tried to +believe in him at first. In self-defence I had done so, and stood by him, +and done my very best to put him through. But when I began to understand +that there was nothing to stand by or put through, that his talent was not +talent at all, but merely a vain man's longing to possess talent--well, +the situation became pretty bad. I tried to be civil. I tried to hold my +tongue, indeed I did. But to be bullied and grumbled at, and expected to +work, so as to give him leisure and means for the development of gifts +which didn't exist--it wasn't good enough." + +Poppy put up her hands and pushed the masses of her hair from her +forehead. And all the while the shifting lights and shadows played over +her white face and bare neck, and the horse trotted on, past closed shops +and curtained windows, farther out of London and into the night. + +"He didn't do anything which the world calls vicious," she continued +presently. A great dreariness had come into the tones of her voice. "He +was faithful to me, as the world counts faithfulness, simply because he +didn't care for women--except for philandering with sentimental sillies +who thought him an unappreciated eighth wonder of the world, and pawed +over and pitied him. La! La! The mere thought of it makes me sick! But he +was too much in love with himself to be capable of even an animal passion +for anybody else. And he made a great point of his virtue. I heard a lot +about it--oh! a lot!" + +For a minute or two Poppy sat silent. Then she turned to Mr. Iglesias, +smiling, as those smile who refuse submission to some cruel pain. + +"I wasn't born bad, dear man," she said, "and I held out longer than most +women in my profession would, where morals are easy and it's lightly come +and lightly go in respect of lovers and love. But one fine day I packed up +my traps and cleared out. He'd been whining for years, and some little +thing he said or did--I really forget exactly what--raised Cain in me, and +I thought I'd jolly well give him something to whine about. I knew +perfectly well he wouldn't divorce me. He wanted me too much, at the end +of a string, to torment, and to get money from when times were bad. Not +that I cared for a divorce. I consider it the clumsiest invention out for +setting wrongs right. I have too great a respect for marriage, which +ought, if it means anything, to mean motherhood and children, and a clean, +wholesome start in life for the second generation. When a woman breaks +away and crosses the lines, she only makes bad worse, in my opinion, by +the hypocritical respectability of a marriage while her husband is still +alive. Let's be honest sinners any way, if sin we must." + +Again she paused, looking backward in thought, seeing and hearing things +which, for the honour of others, it was kindest not to repeat. The +carriage moved slowly, the horse slackening its pace in climbing the last +steep piece of hill which leads to the pond on Hampstead Heath. + +"And now it's over," Poppy said, letting her hands drop in her lap. "Done +with. The poor wretched thing's dead--has killed himself. That is a +fitting conclusion. He was always his own worst enemy.--Well, as far as I +am concerned, let him rest in peace." + +"Amen," Iglesias responded, "so let him rest. 'Shall not the judge of all +the world do right,' counting his merits as well as his demerits, making +all just excuses for his lapses and wrong-doings; knowing, as we can never +know, exactly how far he was and was not accountable for his own and for +others' sins. And now, dear friend, as you have said, this long misery is +over and done with. Whatever remains of practical business you can leave +safely to me. His memory shall be shielded as far as foresight and +sympathy can shield it, and your name need not appear." + +The Lady of the Windswept Dust took his hand and held it. + +"I don't know," she said brokenly, "why all this should all come upon +you." + +"For a very simple reason," he answered. "What did you tell me yourself? +You stand first. And that is true." + +But it may be remarked in passing that there are limits to the passive +obedience of even the best-trained of men-servants. Those of Poppy's +coachman had been reached. At the top of the hill he drew up, vigorously +determined to drive no farther into the wilderness, without renewed and +very distinct information as to why and where he went, perceiving which +Dominic Iglesias opened the carriage door and stepped out. + +"The night is fine and dry," he said. "Let us walk a little, and then let +us drive home. You have your work to-morrow--or, rather, to-day--and you +must have a reasonable amount of rest first. The stream of your life has +been arrested, diverted from its natural channel; but it still runs strong +and clear yet. You have genius, real, not imagined, so you must husband +your energies.--Come and walk. Let the air soothe and calm you; and then, +leaving all the past in Almighty God's safe keeping, go home and rest." + +Here the high-road stretches along the ridge of the hill, a giant +causeway, the broken land of the open heath falling away sharply to left +and right. It was windless. The sky was covered, and the atmosphere, +though not foggy at this height, was thick as with smoke; so that the +road, with its long avenue of sparse-set lamps--dwindling in the extreme +distance to faintest sparks--was as a pale bridge thrown across the void +of black unsounded space. All, save the road itself, the lamps, and seats, +and broken fringe of grass edging the raised footpath of it, was formless +and vague, peopled by shapes, dark against darkness, such as the eye +itself fearfully produces in straining to penetrate unyielding obscurity. +The effect was one of intense isolation, of divorce from humanity and the +works and ways of it, so present and overpowering it might well seem that, +reaching the far end of that pale bridge, the wayfarer would part company +with the things of time altogether and pass into another state of being. + +And this so worked upon Poppy that, some fifty yards along the causeway, +her black and silver skirts gathered ankle-high about her, she stopped, +drawing very close to Iglesias and laying her hand upon his arm. + +"Listen to the silence," she said. "Look at the emptiness. I don't quite +like it, even with you. It's too suggestive of death, death with no sure +hope of life beyond it.--I am quite good now, quite sane and reasonable. +I have put aside all bitterness. I'll never say another hard word of him, +or, in as far as I can, think a hard thought." + +Then turning, suddenly she gave a cry, perceiving that east and south +all London lay below them--formless, too, indefinite, enormous, a City of +the Plains, unseen in detail but indicated through the gloom as a vast +semi-circle of smouldering fire. + +Poppy stretched out both arms, letting her splendid draperies trail in the +dust. + +"Ah! how I love it, how I love it," she cried. "Let us go back, dear man. +For it belongs to me and I belong to it. In the name of my art I must try +conclusions with it. I must play to it, and conquer it, and enchant, and +possess it, since I am free at last--I am free." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Serena's manner, though gracious, was lofty, almost regal. She had, +indeed, lately looked upon crowned heads, and the glory of them seemed, +somehow, to have rubbed off on her. + +"Yes," she said, "I came up for the Queen's funeral. Lady Samuelson felt +it was a thing I ought not to miss, and I agreed with her. It was +inconvenient to leave home, because I had a number of engagements. Still, +I felt I might regret it afterwards if I did not see it. And then, of +course, Lady Samuelson was so kind the year before last, when I had so +very much to worry me, that I feel I owe it to her to stay with her +whenever she asks me to do so. Where did you see the procession from, +Rhoda?" + +"Well, on the whole I thought it better to remain at home," Mrs. Lovegrove +confessed, "though Georgie was most pressing I should go with him. You are +slender, Serena, and that makes a great deal of difference in going about. +But I find crowds and excitement very trying. And then it must all have +been very affecting and solemn. I doubted if I could witness it without +giving way too much and troubling others. It is mortifying to feel you are +spoiling the pleasure of those that are with you, and I wanted poor +Georgie to enjoy himself as much as he could." + +"In that case it was certainly better to remain at home," Serena rejoined. +"I have my feelings very much under control. Even when I was quite a child +that used to be said of me. It used to irritate Susan." + +"Susan has a more impetuous nature," Mrs. Lovegrove observed. The day of +domestic eclipse was happily passed. She had come into her own again; +consequently she was disposed to be slightly argumentative, sitting here +upon her own Chesterfield sofa in her own drawing-room, even with Serena. + +"I wonder if she has--I mean I wonder whether Susan really has a more +impetuous nature," the latter rejoined, "or whether she is only more +wanting in self-control. I often think people get credit for strong +feelings, when it is only that they make no effort to control themselves. +And that is unfair. I never have been able to see why it was considered +so creditable to have strong feelings. They usually give a lot of +inconvenience to other people. I am not sure that it is not self-indulgent +to have strong feelings.--We had excellent places just opposite the Marble +Arch. Of course Lady Samuelson has a great deal of interest; and we saw +everything. In some ways I think, as a sight, the procession was +overrated. But I am glad I went. You can never tell whether anything is +worth seeing or not until you have seen it; and so I certainly might have +regretted if I had not gone. Still, I think you were quite wise in not +going, Rhoda, if you were likely to be upset; and then, as you say, it +must be unpleasant getting about if one is very stout. Of course, I cannot +really enter into that. I take after mamma's family. They are always +slender. But the Lovegroves often grow stout. George, of course, has, and +I should not be surprised if Susan did when she is older. But then Susan +and I are entirely different in almost everything." + +"I suppose you have heard of our dear vicar being appointed to the new +bishopric of Slowby, Serena," Mrs. Lovegrove remarked. The amplitude, or +non-amplitude, of the family figure was beginning to get upon her nerves. + +"Oh! dear, yes, of course I have," Serena answered with raised eyebrows +and a condescending expression of countenance. "Not that it will make very +much difference to me, I suppose. I am so little at home now. But +naturally people, hearing we knew the Nevingtons, came to us for +information about them. I don't think anybody had ever heard of Dr. +Nevington at Slowby, and so they were very glad to learn anything we could +tell them. Of course it is a very great rise for Dr. Nevington, though he +will only be a suffragan bishop. Still, he must be very much flattered, +after merely having a parish of this kind. Susan is very pleased at the +appointment. She wrote to Dr. Nevington immediately and has had a number +of letters from him. I was quite willing she should write, but she told +him how popular his appointment was in Midlandshire. And I thought that +was going rather far, because Susan has no real means of knowing whether +it is popular or not. She could only know that she thought she liked it +herself, and had praised him among her friends. And I wonder whether she +is right--I mean I wonder whether she really will like it. Of course Susan +has been very prominent and has had everything her own way with most of +the clergymen's wives in Slowby. I think that has been rather bad for +Susan and given her an undue idea of her own importance. Now naturally +Mrs. Nevington will be the head of everything and the clergymen's wives +will go for advice to her. I do not see how Susan can help disliking that. +And then Mrs. Nevington is said to be a very good public speaker. I am +perfectly certain Susan will dislike that. For I always observe that +people who speak a great deal themselves, like Susan, never get on well +with other good speakers."--She moved a little, throwing back the fronts +of her black beaded jacket--her complimentary mourning was scrupulously +correct--and adjusting the black silk tie at her throat. "Of course I may +be mistaken," she added, "but if you ask me, Rhoda, I fancy you will find +that Susan and Mrs. Nevington will not remain friends for very long." + +"I am distressed to hear you express such an opinion, Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove returned. The tone of mingled patronage and possession in which +her guest spoke of her own two particular sacred totems, vicar and +vicaress, incensed her highly. She wished she had not introduced the +subject of the Slowby bishopric.--"When the object in view is a truly good +one," she added, with some severity, "I should suppose all right-meaning +people would strive to sink petty rivalries and cooperate. I should quite +believe it would prove so in Susan's case." + +"Of course she would not give Mrs. Nevington's speaking well as her +reason, if they did not remain on friendly terms," Serena returned +negligently. "But then people so very seldom give their real reasons for +what they do, Rhoda. Surely you must have observed that. I think they are +generally very willing to deceive themselves a good deal." + +"I am afraid it is so with too many, Serena, and with some who would +be the last to own it when applied to themselves."--Then the wife +determined by a piece of daring strategy to carry the war into the enemy's +country.--"And that reminds me," she said. "I suppose you have heard that +Mr. Iglesias has left Trimmer's Green?" + +"I do not the least know what right you have to suppose anything of the +kind, Rhoda," the lady addressed replied with a haste and asperity far +from regal. "You must have very odd ideas of the people I meet, either at +Lady Samuelson's or at Slowby, if you imagine I am likely to hear anything +about Mr. Iglesias from them. If I had not met him here, of course, I +should never have heard of him at all; and if I had never heard of him I +should have been spared a great deal. Still, after all that has occurred, +I can quiet see that Mr. Iglesias might find it better to leave Trimmer's +Green." + +"Miss Eliza Hart, if you please, ma'am," this from the house-parlourmaid. + +In accordance with established precedent, Serena should have risen from +the place of honour, upon the sofa, making room for the newcomer. But she +defied precedent. Acknowledging the said newcomer with the stiffest of +bows, she sat tight. Her hostess, however, proved equal to the occasion. + +"Dear me, Miss Hart," she began, "I am sure you are quite the stranger. +Take that chair, will you not? And how is Mrs. Porcher? The numbers, I +trust, filling up again at Cedar Lodge? Mr. Lovegrove and myself did +truly sympathise in Mrs. Porcher's trouble in the autumn. Such a terrible +occurrence to have in your house! Of course very damaging, for a time, to +all prospects. And I shall always believe it was the great exertions he +made then that broke down poor Mr. Iglesias' health.--Yes, indeed, Miss +Hart, I regret to say he does remain very ailing. Mr. Lovegrove sees him +almost daily. He has run round to Holland Street now, has Georgie; but I +expect him back any minute.--We were just speaking of Mr. Iglesias--were +we not, Serena?--and I was about to tell Miss Lovegrove what a sweet +pretty house he has. You have seen it often no doubt, Miss Hart." + +But here Serena arose, with much dignity, and retired in the direction of +the window. + +"Pray do not think about me, Rhoda," she said over her shoulder, "or let +me interrupt your and your friend's conversation. I am going to see if the +carriage is here. Lady Samuelson said she might be able to send it for me. +She could not be sure, but she might. And I told her I would be on the +watch, as she objects to the horses being kept standing in this weather. +But pray do not think about me. Until it comes I can quite well amuse +myself." + +Holding aside the lace curtain she looked out. Upon the rawly green grass +remnants of discoloured snow lay in unsightly patches, while the bare +branches of the plane-trees and balsam-poplars shuddered in the harsh +blast. The prospect was far from alluring, and Serena surveyed it with a +wrathful eye. + +"Really, Rhoda's behaviour to me is most extraordinary," she said to +herself. "I had to mark my displeasure. For poor George's sake she ought +not to be allowed to go too far. She has grown so very self-assertive. +Last year her manner was much better. I suppose she and George have made +it up again. People who are not really ladies, like Rhoda, are always so +very much nicer when they are depressed. I wonder what has happened to +make George make it up with her!" + +And then she fell very furiously to listening. + +"We did talk it over, did Peachie Porcher and myself," the great Eliza was +saying, "for I do not deny, at the time of our trouble, a certain +gentleman came out very well. He may have had his reasons, but I will not +go into that, Mrs. Lovegrove. I am all for giving everybody his due. But +Peachie felt when he left it would be better the connection should cease +as far as visiting went. 'Should Mr. Iglesias call here, dear Liz,' she +said to me, 'I should not refuse to see him. But, after what has passed +and situated as I am, I cannot be too careful. And calling on a bachelor +living privately, with whom your name has been at all associated, must +invite comment. Throughout all,' she said, 'my conscience tells me I have +done my duty, and in that I must find my reward.' Very affecting, was it +not?" + +"Yes," the other lady admitted, candour and natural goodness of heart +getting the better alike of resentment and diplomacy. "I always have +maintained there were many sterling qualities in Mrs. Porcher." + +"So there are, the sweet pet!" Eliza responded warmly. "And I sometimes +question, Mrs. Lovegrove, whether a certain gentleman, now that he has cut +himself adrift from her, may not be beginning to find that out and wish +he had been less stand-offish and stony. Not that it would be any use now. +For, if he did not appreciate Peachie Porcher, there are other and younger +gentlemen, not a thousand miles from here, who do. I am not at liberty to +speak more plainly at present, as the poor young fellow is very shy about +his secret. A long attachment, and some might think it rather derogatory +to Peachie's position to entertain it. But straws tell which way the wind +blows; and a little bird seems to twitter to me, Mrs. Lovegrove, that if +Charlie Farge did come to the point--why--" + +Miss Hart shook her leonine mane and laid her finger on her lip in an arch +and playful manner. But before her hostess could rally sufficiently from +the stupor into which this announcement plunged her to make suitable +rejoinder, a fine booming clerical voice and large clerical presence +invaded the room. + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Lovegrove? I come unannounced but not unsanctioned. I +met with your good husband in the street just now, and he encouraged me to +look in on you. Good-day to you, Miss Hart. All is well, I trust, with our +excellent friend Mrs. Porcher.--Ah! and here is Miss Serena Lovegrove.--An +unexpected piece of good fortune." + +Promptly Serena had emerged from her self-imposed exile; and it was with +an air of assured proprietorship that she greeted the clergyman. + +"Mrs. Nevington heard from your kind sister only this morning," he +continued. "Full of active helpfulness as usual, Mrs. Lovegrove.--She +proposes that we should quarter ourselves upon you and her for a few days, +Miss Serena, while we are seeking a temporary residence. She kindly gives +us the names of several houses which she considers worth inspection." + +Here by an adroit flank movement, rapidly executed, Serena managed to +possess herself once again of the seat of honour upon the sofa, thereby +interposing a thin but impenetrable barrier between her hostess and the +latter's own particular fetish, the bishop-designate. + +"You have enough room? I do not crowd you, Rhoda?" she remarked +parenthetically. Then turning sideways, so as to present an expanse +of neatly clad back and shoulder to her outraged relative, she +continued:--"I wonder which, Dr. Nevington--I mean I wonder which houses +Susan has recommended. Of course there is the Priory. But nobody has lived +in it for ages and ages. It is in a very low neighbourhood, close to the +canal and brickfields on the Tullingworth Road. I should think it was +dreadfully damp and unwholesome. And there is old Mrs. Waghorn's in Abney +Park. That is well situated and the grounds are rather nice. But the +reception-rooms are poor, I always think. Susan was fond of Mrs. Waghorn. +I cannot say I ever cared for her myself; but there is a tower to it, of +course." + +"Ah! we hardly need towers yet, Miss Lovegrove. A 'suffering bishop'--you +recall the well-worn joke?--such as myself, must not aspire to anything +approaching castles or palaces, but be content with a very modest place of +residence." + +Here his unhappy hostess, sitting quite perilously near the edge of the +sofa, craned round the interposing barrier. + +"But that is only a matter of time, Dr. Nevington," she said, "surely. +There is but one voice all round the Green, and through the parish +generally, that this is but the first step for you; and that it will lead +on--though I am far from wishing to hasten the death of the present +archbishop--to the primacy." + +"Hardly that, hardly that," he rejoined with becoming modesty. Yet the +speech was not unpalatable to him. "Out of the mouth of babes," he said to +himself, leaning back in his chair, and eyeing--in imagination--the chaste +outline of an episcopal apron and well-cut black gaiter, while visions of +Lambeth and Canterbury floated enticingly before him.--"Hardly that. This +is little more than an embryo bishopric. Still, though it is a wrench to +leave my dear old congregation, here in this wonderful London of ours, I +cannot refuse the call to a wider sphere of usefulness. My views as a +churchman are well known. I have never, even though it might have been +professionally advantageous to me to do so, attempted any concealment." + +"No, truly," Rhoda put in, still balancing and craning. "Everyone, I am +sure, must bear witness you have always been most nobly outspoken." + +"I trust so," he returned. "I have never disguised the fact that I take my +stand upon the Reformation Settlement. Therefore I cannot but think it a +most hopeful sign of the times that I should receive this call to the +episcopate.--Ah, here is Lovegrove. You find us deep in matters +ecclesiastical. I only hope I am not taxing your ladies' patience too +heavily by talking on such serious subjects.--In Slowby itself that grand +old stalwart, the late Dr. Colthurst--a positively Cromwellian figure--has +left a sound Protestant tradition. But I hear--your good sister confirms +the rumour, Miss Serena--that there is a strong ritualistic party at +Tullingworth. I shall deal very roundly with persons of that persuasion. +My conviction is that we must suit our teaching to the progressive +spirit of this modern world of ours. Personally I am willing, if +necessary, to sacrifice very much so-called dogma to conciliate our worthy +Nonconformist brethren; while I shall lose no opportunity of cutting at +the roots of those Romanising tendencies which are so lamentably and +insidiously active in the very heart of our dear old National Church." + +While the great drum-like voice was thus rolling and booming, George +Lovegrove had shaken hands with Serena. But there was none of the +accustomed respectful enthusiasm in his greeting. He wore a preoccupied +and dejected air. For once he looked upon that pearl of spinsterhood with +a lack-lustre and indifferent eye. + +"I wonder what can have happened to George," the lady in question said +to herself, in high displeasure. "I think his manner is really very +odd--nearly as odd as Rhoda's. I wish I had not come. But then if I had +not come I should have had no opportunity of showing Rhoda what intimate +terms Susan and I are upon with the Nevingtons. And I think it is right +she should know.--Oh! that detestable Miss Hart is going. What a +dreadfully vulgar purple blouse she has on! And her hair is so unpleasant. +It always looks damp and shows the marks of the comb. I wonder why hair of +that particular colour always does look damp." Here she bowed stiffly +without rising.--"I shall simply ignore George, and not speak to him. I +think that will be sufficiently marked. But I shall stay as long as Dr. +Nevington does--I don't for one moment believe Miranda Samuelson really +intended to send the carriage--so I will just wait and go when he goes. +I think I owe it to myself to show George and Rhoda that they cannot drive +me away against my will, however much they may wish to do so." + +Having come to which amiable decision Serena turned her mind and +conversation to questions of house-hunting in Slowby. The subject, +however, began to pall, before long, upon her companion. Dr. Nevington +changed his position more than once. His replies became vague and +perfunctory, while his attention evidently strayed to the conversation +taking place at the other end of the sofa. + +"I fear you did not find Mr. Iglesias very bright then to-day?" the wife +was inquiring in her kindliest tones. + +George Lovegrove shook his head sadly. "No, my dear, I am sorry to say +not. I have been rather broken up. I will tell you all later." + +The clergyman had risen. + +"Iglesias?--ah yes," he said. "I remember meeting a person of that name +here once, eh, Lovegrove? One of our parochial oversights, unfortunately. +He proved to be a dweller. His appearance pleased me and I proposed to +call on him; and then in the press of my many duties the matter was +forgotten." + +Serena had risen likewise. A spot of colour burned on either of her +cheeks. Her eyes snapped. She carried her small head high. Her presence +asserted itself quite forcibly. Her skirts rustled. At that moment she was +young and very passably pretty--an elegant spirited Serena of eighteen, +rather than a faded and, alas! spiteful Serena of close upon fifty. + +"Oh! really, I think it was just as well you did not call, Dr. Nevington," +she cried. "I do not think it would have been in the least suitable. Of +course I may be wrong, but I do not think you would have found anything to +like in Mr. Iglesias. There was so much that was never really explained +about him.--You know you acknowledged that yourself at one time, Rhoda. +But now you and George seem to have gone round again completely.--One +cannot help knowing he associated with such very odd people; and then the +way in which he turned Roman Catholic, all of a sudden, really was +disgraceful." + +Dr. Nevington's cold, watchful glance steadied on to the speaker, then +travelled to the two other members of the little company in sharp inquiry. +George Lovegrove's innocent countenance bore an expression of agonised +entreaty, of yearning, of apology, yet of defiance. The corners of Rhoda's +mouth drooped, her large soft cheeks shook; yet she stood firm, her sorrow +tempered, and her whole warm-hearted person rendered stubborn, by virtuous +indignation. + +"You forget yourself greatly, Serena," she said, "and when you have time +to think it over will repent having passed such cruel remarks. They are +liable to create a very wrong impression, and cannot fail to cause severe +pain to others." + +For an appreciable space the clergyman hesitated. But Slowby and the +bishopric were ahead of him; Trimmer's Green and all its quaint +unimportant little inhabitants behind. She was tedious, no doubt; but her +sister promised to be very useful, so he threw in his lot with Serena. + +"Ah, well, ah, well, for I my part I admire zeal, I must confess, Mrs. +Lovegrove," he said. "No doubt these terrible lapses will occur. +Superstition and bigotry will claim their victims even in our enlightened +century, and this free England of ours. I would not judge the case of this +poor fellow, Iglesias, too harshly. Race influences are strong; and we of +the Anglo-Saxon stock, with our enormous advantages of brain, and grit, +and hard-headed manliness of character, can afford--deeply though we +deplore their weakness and errors--to be lenient toward the less favoured +foreigner. Our mission is to educate him.--And this I think you should not +have forgotten, Lovegrove. You should have acted upon it. You should have +brought your unfortunate friend to me. I should have been quite willing to +give him half an hour, or even longer. A few facts, a little plain +speaking, might have saved him from more than I quite care to contemplate, +both here and hereafter.--However, good-bye to you, Mrs. Lovegrove. You +are starting, too, Miss Serena? Assure your good, kind sister, when you +write, how gladly Mrs. Nevington and I shall avail ourselves of her +proffered hospitality." + +"Don't fret, don't take it too much to heart, Georgie dear," the wife said +soothingly later. "The vicar did seem very stern, but that was owing to +Serena. I am afraid she's a terrible mischief-maker, is Serena. She turns +things inside out so in saying them, that you do not recognise your own +words again. All this afternoon she was most trying. If Dr. Nevington +heard the real story, he would never blame you. You must not fret." + +"I am not fretting about Dr. Nevington," he answered, "but about Dominic. +I am afraid we shall not have him with us very much longer, Rhoda." + +"Oh! dear, oh! dear, you don't mean it? Never!" she cried in accents of +genuine distress. "Did you see him, Georgie?" + +"No, Miss St. John was there." + +The wife's large cheeks shook again. + +"You know," she said, "I am never very partial to hearing anything about +that Miss St. John. Actresses are all very well in the theatre, I daresay, +but they are out of place in private houses. And from what I hear, though +there may be nothing really wrong with many of them, they are all sadly +free in their manners. I should be very hurt if you got into the habit of +frequenting their society much, Georgie.--But there, I'm sure I cannot +tell what is coming to all the women nowadays! You don't seem as if you +could be safe with any one of them. To think of a middle-aged person like +Mrs. Porcher, for instance, taking up with that little snip of a Farge, +and she old enough to be his mother!" + +The wife bustled about the room straightening the chairs, patting cushions +into place, folding up the handkerchief which, in the interests of human +conversation, had been thrown over the cage of the all-too-articulate +parrot. + +"I feel terribly stirred up somehow," she said, "what with the vicar, and +Serena, and all the talk about Roman Catholics and Protestants, and Mrs. +Porcher's engagement, too, and then this bad news of Mr. Iglesias--not but +that I am sure enough we shall meet him in heaven some day, if we can ever +contrive to get there ourselves in all this chatter and worry--" + +She laid the handkerchief away in the drawer of the work-table. + +"Such an afternoon," she declared, "what with one thing and another! I +always do say there's nothing for making unpleasantnesses like religion +and marriages.--But, thank God, through all of it you are spared to me, +Georgie." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Outside, the slanting spring sunshine visited the sheltered strip of +garden in clear lights and transparent shadows. The small grass-plat +surrounding the rockery was brightly green. In the stone basin the surface +of the water trembled, glistening in broken curves of silver white. Along +the narrow border, beneath the soot-stained eastern wall, yellow and mauve +crocuses and yellow aconites opened wide, greeting the gentle warmth. +Trees in the neighbouring gardens were thick with bud. Busily the sparrows +and starlings came and went. + +Within, the house--though not uncheerful, thanks to a scrupulous +cleanliness, warm colourings, and the peculiar mellowness which comes to +rooms and furnishings that, through prolonged association, have grown in a +great mutual friendliness of aspect--was very still, with the strange, +almost eerie, stillness which seems to listen and to wait.--A singular +stillness, from which the rough utilitarian activities of ordinary life +are banished, the rude noise of them suspended, while spiritual presences, +rare apprehensions, exquisite memories and hopes, mysterious invitations +of mingled alarm and ecstasy, come forth, taking on form and voice, +passing lightly to and fro--an enchantment, yet in a manner fearful from +the subtlety of their being and piercing intimacy of their speech. +Personality, that supreme moral and emotional factor in human life, must +of necessity create an atmosphere about it, permeated with its individual +tastes and mental attributes, distinct and powerful in proportion to its +individual distinction and its strength. And, without being overfanciful, +it may be confidently asserted that, for some weeks now, ever since indeed +the specialists--summoned in consultation at the good Lovegroves' and the +Lady of the Windswept Dust's urgent request--had pronounced the cardiac +affection, from which Dominic Iglesias suffered, likely to terminate +fatally in the near future, this living stillness, this alert +tranquillity, had been more or less sensible to all those who entered the +house, offering an arresting contrast to the multitudinous rush and +clamour of London without. But to-day the impression was no longer an +intermittent and fugitive one, as heretofore. It was constant and +complete, those spiritual visitants being, as it would seem, in full +possession; so that the hours appeared to move reluctantly, and as though +enjoining watchfulness, a carefulness and economy even in prevailing +repose, lest any remaining moment and the message of it should be +overlooked and lost. + +It was characteristic of Iglesias that learning, in as far as the +consultant doctors could diagnose it, the exact conditions of his physical +state, he should refuse all experiment, however humane in intention or +plausible in theory. For he had no sympathy with the modern greediness and +worship of physical life, which is willing to sacrifice the decencies and +dignities of it to its possible prolongation. Courteously but plainly he +bade his advisers depart. The body, though an excellent servant, is a +contemptible master; and Iglesias proposed that, while his soul continued +to inhabit it, it should, as always before, be kept very much in its +place. It must remain unobtrusive, obedient, not daring to usurp, in its +present hour of failure and impediment, an interest and consideration to +which, in its full usefulness and vigour, it had not presumed to aspire. +Therefore Dominic Iglesias held calmly on his way, seeing the circle +of his occupations, pleasures, and activities dwindle and decrease, +yet maintaining not only his serenity of mind, but his accustomed +self-respecting outward refinement of bearing and habit. To meet death +with a gracious stoicism, well-dressed and standing upright, is, rightly +considered, a very fine art, reflecting much credit upon the successful +professor of it. + +And it was thus that, on the day in question, Mr. Iglesias sat waiting, in +the quaint irregularly shaped drawing-room of the old house in Holland +Street, himself the centre of that peopled stillness, that alert +tranquillity, which so strangely and sensibly filled it. Looking out of +the low window, he could see the shadow of the houses shrink and the light +broaden in the little garden below, as the sun travelled westward. Looking +into the room itself, the many familiar objects and rich sober colours of +it, quickened by a flickering of fire-light, were pleasant to his sense. +The images which passed before him, whether actually visible or not he +hardly knew, appeared beautiful. Words and phrases which occurred to him +were beautiful likewise. But all were seen and heard remotely, as through +some softly dazzling medium which, while heightening the charm of them, +produced a delicate confusion leaving him uncertain whether he really +slept or woke. More than once, not without effort, he roused himself; but +only to slip back again into the same state of fair yet gently distracted +vision. + +At last the sound of opening casements in the dining-room underneath and +of a voice, touched with laughter, reached him. + +"There, you absurdities--skip, scuttle, take exercise, catch birds, +improve your figures!" Poppy cried, clapping her hands encouragingly as +she stood at the head of the flight of iron steps down which, with her +foot, she shot the toy spaniels unceremoniously into the sunny garden +below. + +The little creatures, welcoming their freedom, forgetful for once of their +languid overbred airs, scampered away yapping and skirmishing in the +merriest fashion about the grass-plat and flower-beds. The window closed +again and there followed a sound of voices, interjectional on Poppy's +part, low and continuous on that of Mrs. Peters, the house-keeper. Then a +pause, so prolonged that Iglesias, who had rallied all his energy and +prepared to rise and to go forward to meet his guest, sank away once more +into half-consciousness which neither actually sleeps or wakes. When he +came fully to himself Poppy was sitting on the low window-seat close +beside him. Her back was to the light and his sight was somewhat clouded, +so that at first he failed to see her clearly; but he knew that her mood +had changed and her laughter departed, through the sympathy of her touch, +she holding his hand as it lay along the arm of the chair. He would have +spoken, but she stopped him. + +"No, dear man, don't hurry," she said. "I know already. Peters has just +told me, now, downstairs, that you received the Last Sacraments this +morning. That's why I didn't come up sooner. I couldn't see you directly, +somehow. I had--well, I had to get my second wind, dearly beloved, so to +speak. You see it's such a heavenly day that I couldn't help feeling +happier about you. I had persuaded myself those doctors were a pack of +croaking old grannies whose collective wisdom had eventuated in a wild +mistake, and that, given time and summer weather, you would be better +again--you know you have had ups and downs lots of times before--and that +then, when the theatre closes and I have my holiday, I'd carry you off, +somewhere, anywhere, back to your own fierce, passionate Spain, perhaps, +and nurse and coax and care for you till living grew so pretty a business +you really wouldn't have the conscience to quit." + +Poppy's voice was sweet with caressing tones, sympathetic in quality as +her lingering touch. + +"Haven't you, perhaps, been a little premature after all?" she said. "Has +it really and truly come to that? Mightn't you have put off those last +grim ceremonies a trifle longer, and let them wait?" + +"They are not grim, dearest friend, but full of strong consolation," +Iglesias answered, smiling. He began to see her face more clearly. Her +expression was tragic, a world of anguish in it, for all the restraint of +her manner and playful glibness of her speech. "Nor, in any case," he +added, "can they hasten the event." + +"I'm not altogether sure of that," Poppy declared rebelliously. + +"I could not quite trust myself as to what the day might bring forth," +Iglesias continued. "In point of fact, I have gained strength as it has +gone on.--And so it seemed wisest and most fitting to ask for the +performance of those sacred rites while I was still of sound mind, and +ready in my perception of that in which I was taking part." + +"You have suffered?" Poppy said. + +"Nothing unendurable. The nights are somewhat wearisome, since I cannot +lie down, in ordinary fashion, to rest. But I sit here, or wander through +the quiet, kindly house, contentedly enough. And I am well cared for--have +no fear as to that. Peters is a faithful creature. She nursed my mother at +the last, and her presence is grateful to me, for association's sake." + +Iglesias straightened himself up. + +"There, there," he said, "do not be too sad. The road is not such a very +hard one to tread. The last few months have been the happiest I remember +since my childhood. Any anxieties I felt concerning you are set at rest. +You are famous, and will be more famous yet, and I know I shall live in +your remembrance while you live. It is no slight thing, after all, for a +man to have been loved so well by the two women whom he loved. And for the +rest, dearest friend, as one draws near to the edge of the great shadow, +which we call death, one begins to trust more and fuss less; looking to +the next step only, so that one may take it neither with faltering nor +with presumptuous haste." + +"Ah!" Poppy cried, "that's all very well for you. But where do I come in? +I lose you." + +Iglesias smiled, lifting his shoulders slightly and raising his hands. + +"Yes," he said, "it seems that sorrow, here on earth, is always, sooner or +later, the guerdon of love. Why, I know not; but so it is, as the most +sacred and august of all examples testifies. Only let us be thankful, you +and I, that to us this parting, and the inevitable pain of it, comes while +love is still in its full strength, having endured nothing unworthy, no +shame, or diminution, or disillusionment. The more bitter the wrench, the +finer the memory, and the more desirable the meeting which lies ahead, +however far distant in time it may be and in difference of condition." + +"Yes, dear man, yes, I dare say--no doubt," Poppy answered brokenly. "Only +I can't rise to these philosophic heights. I'm right here, don't you see, +my feet well on the floor, planted in brutal commonplace. I shall want +you--just simply I shall want you, and you won't be there, and I shall be +most cut-throat horribly lonely and sad. But, looking at you, still I +don't believe it. I won't believe it. I shall keep you a long while yet." + +She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek. + +"Now I must go," she said, "if I'm to get any dinner before the theatre. I +would have liked to stay, and put my poor little understudy on, so as to +give her a chance. She's a nice little girl--not half stupid, and really +keen to learn and to work. But I can't. I'm in honour bound to appear +to-night. You see, it's our second century--the first one we could not +observe, because it came at the end of January just in the general +mourning--so there's an awful to-do and tomasha to-night, souvenir +programmes and I don't know what all, also a rather extra special +audience. It would be little too bad if I played them false. But," she +added, rising, "when it's over I shall come back--yes, I will, I will, I +tell you. Don't flatter yourself you can prevent me, beloved lunatic, for +you jolly well can't.--I shall come back directly the performance is over, +and watch with you, through the bad hours till the dawn." + +Dominic Iglesias had risen, too. He crossed the room, going to the door +and holding it open for her; then, standing on the little landing, he +watched her as she went down the narrow crooked stairs. And so doing, it +came to him, with a movement of thankfulness and of satisfied pride, how +very fully in the past six months the Lady of the Windswept Dust had +realised and fulfilled all the finer promise of her complex nature. Just +as her figure had matured, retaining its admirable proportions and +suppleness while gaining in distinction and dignity, her mind had matured +likewise. Her splendid fearlessness was no longer that of naughty +dare-devil audacity, but of secure position and recognised success. +Indeed, she had grown into a somewhat imperial creature, for whom the +world, and rightly, is very willing to make place. + +At the bottom of the flight Poppy paused, looking up and kissing her hand. + +"Till to-night," she cried. "Now I go to herd those two small miseries, +W. O. and Cappadocia.--Take most precious care of yourself until I come +back, dear man. Good-bye and God keep you, till to-night." + +Mr. Iglesias crossed the drawing-room, glad at heart, erect and stately as +in the fulness of health. For a minute or so he stood looking out into the +garden, at the stone basin full to the lip--in which the sparrows, +relieved of the presence of the toy spaniels, washed with much fluttering +of sooty wings--and at the spring flowers, beginning to close their +delicate blossoms as the sun declined towards its setting in the gold and +grey of the west. In the recovered stillness, those same spiritual +presences, rare apprehensions, exquisite memories, mysterious invitations, +once again obtained possession, coming forth, passing lightly to and fro, +filling all the place. In aspect and sentiment they were benign, all +fearfulness having gone from out them--they telling of fair things only, +of human relations unbroken by treachery or self-seeking, unsullied by +lust; telling, too, of godly endeavour faithfully to travel the road which +leads to the far horizon touched by the illimitable glory of the Uncreated +Light. + +But presently Dominic Iglesias became aware that he was very, very tired. +He sat down in the chair again. + +"Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy," he murmured, crossing himself. "I +think the day's work is over. I will sleep." + +That night Poppy St. John played as she had never played before; and her +audience, taking her astonishing manifestation of talent as a compliment +to themselves, cried with her and laughed with her in most wholehearted +fashion. + +Antony Hammond, in the stage box on the right, turned to Adolphus Carr, +his companion, saying: + +"Did I really write such admirable drama as this? I have girded at that +term, 'creating a part,' as an example of the colossal vanity of the +actor, and his very inadequate reverence for his maker, the playwright. +But, I give you my word, after to-night I hide my diminished head. The +player and playing are greater than any fondest conception of mine, when I +put those words on paper." + +And Lionel Gordon, his habitual imperturbability altogether broken up by +excitement, stamped up and down stammering: + +"Ge-ge-hanna, gehanna, what possesses the woman? I'd tour creation with +her. She must be made to sign a three years' contract. If she can act like +this there's nothing less than a cool half-million sterling in her." + +And Alaric Barking, lean and haggard, invalided home from South Africa, +escaping for one evening from the ministrations of gentle Lady Constance +Decies and his pretty _fiancee_, sat huddled together at the end of a +row at the back of the pit, hoping, "The deuce! nobody would see him," +with a choke in his throat. He would love, honour, and cherish his pretty, +high-bred, innocent maiden; but Poppy's voice tore at his very vitals. And +he asked himself how had he ever borne to give her up, forgetting, as is +the habit of civilised man in such slightly humiliating circumstances, +that it was Poppy herself, not he, who loved and rode away. + +Twice the curtain was raised at the end of the performance, and the Lady +of the Windswept Dust made her bow with the rest of the company.--Now she +could depart; thank heaven! she could go back to the strangely still +house in Holland Street and fulfil her promise to Dominic Iglesias to +watch with him till dawn. All through the play, the passion and excitement +and pathos and mirth of it, her anxiety had deepened, her yearning +increased, so that the joy of her public triumph was barred and seared +by intimate pain. Now she could go. Already the carpenters were beginning +their nightly work of destruction, metamorphosing the so-lately brilliant +stage into a vast unsightly cavern of gaunt timbers, creaking pulleys, +noisy mechanical contrivances, gaudy painted surfaces of canvas and paper, +piled-up properties, of uncertain lights and draughts many and chill. +Careless of all save that determination of going, Poppy moved away. But +still the unseen audience clamoured. A fury had taken it, a madness such +as will sometimes attack even the soberest and most aristocratic crowd, +excitement reacting upon itself and stimulating excitement, till the +demand which had begun in kindly enthusiasm became oddly violent, even +brutal, men and women standing up, applauding, drumming, shouting a single +name. + +"There, it's over, thank the powers! Now let me get out of all this +infernal din," she said, putting her hands over her ears as she pushed +into the wings. + +But Lionel Gordon met her, barring her passage, his face working with +nervous agitation, and caught hold of her unceremoniously by both arms. + +"What's the matter?" she cried angrily. "I can't stay. I have a case of +illness on hand." + +"Hang illness!" he answered. "My good girl, pull yourself together. Go +back. Don't be a blooming fool. Listen--it's you they're splitting their +throats for--yes, you--about the most fastidious audience in Europe +yelling like a pack of drunken bookies! Gehenna! you're the luckiest woman +living. You're made, great heavens, you're made!" + +He dragged her aside, pushing her into the mouth of the narrow passage +between the curtain and the footlights, where the roar of the house and +the welter of faces met her like a breaking wave. + + * * * * * + +Standing against the edge of the pavement in front of Mr. Iglesias' house, +in Holland Street, was a covered van. As Poppy drove up a couple of men +came down the steps, in the black and white of the moonlight. Their dark +clothing and somewhat sleek appearance were repulsive to her. She swept +past them, swept past Frederick holding open the door, and on up the +stairs. Her hands were encumbered by her trailing draperies of velvet and +silver tissue, and by an extravagant bouquet of orchids, lilies, and +roses, with long yellow satin streamers to it. She had not stayed even to +wash the grease paint off her face. Just as she was, the stamp of her +calling upon her, eager, fictitious, courageous, triumphant, pushed by a +great fear, she came. But in the doorway she faltered, set her teeth, +bowed her head, and paused. + +For in the centre of the room a bier was dressed, and on either side of it +stood lighted tapers of brownish wax, in tall black and gold candlesticks. +At the foot, some distance apart, two low-seated rush-bottomed high-backed +_prie-dieu_ had been placed. Upon the one on the left a little nun +knelt, her loose black habit concealing all the outline of her figure. The +white linen pall was turned back, across the chest of the corpse, to where +the shapely long-fingered hands were folded upon an ebony and silver +crucifix. By some harsh irony of imagination Lionel Gordon's voice rang in +Poppy's ears: "My good girl, pull yourself together. Gehenna! you're the +luckiest woman living. You're made, great heavens, you're made!"--while, +blank despair in her heart, she went forward, the little nun looking up +momentarily from her prayers, and stood beside the bier. Beautiful in +death as in life, serene, proud, austere, but young now with the eternal +youth of those who have believed, and attained, and reached the Land of +the Far Horizon, Dominic Iglesias lay before her. + +Presently a sound of sobbing broke up the stillness, and turning, Poppy +descried good George Lovegrove, sitting in the dusky far corner of the +room, his knees wide apart, his shiny forehead showing high above the +handkerchief he pressed against his eyes. She backed away from the corpse, +as in all reverence from the presence of a personage august and sacred. +Coming close to him, she laid her hand gently upon George Lovegrove's +shoulder. "Go home, my best beetle," she said, very tenderly. "You're worn +out with sorrow. Come back in the morning if you will. I promised Dominic +I would watch with him till the dawn. I keep my promise." + +Then the Lady of the Windswept Dust laid her extravagant bouquet with its +yellow streamers, on the floor, at the foot of the bier; and kneeling upon +the vacant _prie-dieu_, beside the little nun, buried her painted +face in her hands and wept. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAR HORIZON *** + +This file should be named 7farh10.txt or 7farh10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7farh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7farh10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Far Horizon + +Author: Lucas Malet + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8569] +[This file was first posted on July 24, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAR HORIZON *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Danny Wool, Lorna Hanrahan, Mary Musser, +Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE FAR HORIZON + +BY + +LUCAS MALET + +(MRS. MARY ST. LEGER HARRISON) + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +_The Wages of Sin_ + +_A Counsel of Perfection_ + +_Colonel Enderby's Wife_ + +_Little Peter_ + +_The Carissima_ + +_The Gateless Barrier_ + +_The History of Sir Richard Calmady_ + + + + +"Ask for the Old Paths, where is the Good Way, and walk therein, and ye +shall find rest."--JEREMIAS. + + +"The good man is the bad man's teacher; the bad man is the material upon +which the good man works. If the one does not value his teacher, if the +other does not love his material, then despite their sagacity they must +go far astray. This is a mystery of great import."--FROM THE SAYINGS OF +LAO-TZU. + + +..."Cherchons à voir les choses comme elles sont, et ne voulons pas avoir +plus d'esprit que le bon Dieu! Autrefois on croyait que la canne à sucre +seule donnait le sucre, on en tire à peu près de tout maintenant. Il est +de même de la poésie. Extrayons-la de n'importe quoi, car elle git en +tout et partout. Pas un atome de matière qui ne contienne pas la poésie. +Et habituons-nous à considerer le monde comme un oeuvre d'art, dont il +faut reproduire les procédées dans nos oeuvres."--GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Dominic Iglesias stood watching while the lingering June twilight +darkened into night. He was tired in body, but his mind was eminently, +consciously awake, to the point of restlessness, and this was unusual +with him. He had raised the lower sash of each of the three tall, narrow +windows to its extreme height, since the first-floor sitting-room, though +of fair proportions, appeared close. His thought refused the limits of +it, and ranged outward over the expanse of Trimmer's Green, the roadway +and houses bordering it, to the far northwest, that region of hurried +storm, of fierce, equinoctial passion and conflict, now paved with +plaques of flat, dingy, violet cloud opening on smoky rose-red wastes of +London sunset. All day thunder had threatened, but had not broken. And, +even yet, the face of heaven seemed less peaceful than remonstrant, a +sullenness holding it as of troops in retreat denied satisfaction of +imminent battle. + +Otherwise the outlook was wholly pacific, one of middle-class suburban +security. The Green aforesaid is bottle-shaped, the neck of it debouching +into a crowded westward-wending thoroughfare; while Cedar Lodge, from the +first-floor windows of which Mr. Iglesias contemplated the oncoming of +night, being situate in the left shoulder, so to speak, of the bottle, +commanded, diagonally, an uninterrupted view of the whole extent of it. +Who Trimmer was, how he came by a Green, and why, or what he trimmed on +it, it is idle at this time of day to attempt to determine. Whether, +animated by a desire for the public welfare, he bequeathed it in high +charitable sort; or whether, fame taking a less enviable turn with him, +he just simply was hanged there, has afforded matter of heated +controversy to the curious in questions of suburban nomenclature and +topography. But in this case, as in so many other and more august ones, +the origins defy discovery. Suffice it, therefore, that the name remains, +as does the open space--the latter forming one of those minor "lungs of +London" which offer such amiable oases in the great city's less +aristocratic residential districts. Formerly the Green boasted a row of +fine elms, and was looked on by discreetly handsome eighteenth-century +mansions and villas, set in spacious gardens. But of these, the great +majority--Cedar Lodge being a happy exception--has vanished under the +hand of the early Victorian speculative builder; who, in their stead, has +erected full complement of the architectural platitudes common to his age +and taste. Dignity has very sensibly given place to gentility. +Nevertheless the timid red, or sickly yellow-grey, brick of the existing +houses is pleasingly veiled by ivy and Virginia creeper, while no shop +front obtrudes derogatory suggestion of retail trade. The local +authorities, moreover, some ten years back girdled the Green with healthy +young balsam-poplar and plane trees and enclosed the grass with iron +hurdles--to rescue it from trampling into unsightly pathways--thus doing +a well-intentioned, if somewhat unimaginative, best to safeguard the +theatre of long ago Trimmer's beneficence or infamy from greater +spoliation. + +Hence it follows that, certain inherent limitations admitted, the scene +upon which Dominic Iglesias' eyes rested was not without elements of +attraction. And of this fact, being a person of an excellent temperance +of expectation, he was gratefully aware. His surroundings, indeed, +constituted, so it appeared to him, the maximum of comfort and advantage +which could be expected by a middle-aged gentleman, of moderate fortune, +in the capacity of a "paying guest." Not only in word but in thought--for +in acknowledgment of obligation he was scrupulously courteous. He +frequently tendered thanks to his neighbour and old school-fellow, Mr. +George Lovegrove, first for calling his attention to Mrs. Porcher's +advertisement, and subsequently for reassuring him as to its import. For, +though incapable of forming so much as a thought to her concrete +disparagement, Mr. Iglesias was not without a quiet sense of humour, or +of that instinct of self-protection common to even the most chivalrous of +mankind. He was, therefore, perfectly sensible that "the widow of a +military officer," who describes herself in print as "bright, musical and +thoroughly domesticated," while offering "a cheerful and refined home at +the West End, within three minutes of Tube and omnibus"--"noble dining +and recreation rooms, bath h. and c." thrown in--to unmarried members of +the stronger sex, must of necessity be a lady whose close acquaintance it +would be foolhardy to make without a trifle of preliminary scouting. + +Happily not only George Lovegrove, but his estimable wife was at hand. +The latter hastened to prosecute inquiries, beginning with a visit to the +Anglican vicar of the parish, the Rev. Giles Nevington. He reported Mrs. +Porcher an evening communicant at the greater festivals, and a not +ungenerous donor to parochial charities; adding that a former curate had +resided under her roof with perfect impunity. Mrs. Lovegrove terminated +her researches by an interview with the fishmonger, who assured her that +"Cedar Lodge always took the best cuts," sternly refused fish or poultry +which had suffered cold storage, and paid its housebooks without fail +before noon on Thursday. She ascertained, further, from a source socially +intermediate between clergyman and tradesman, that Mrs. Porcher's +husband, some time veterinary surgeon of a crack regiment, had died in +the odour of alcohol rather than in that of sanctity, leaving his widow--in +addition to his numerous and heavy debts--but a fraction of the +comfortable fortune to procure the enjoyment of which he had so +considerately married her. The solid Georgian mansion was her freehold; +and it was to secure sufficient means for continued residence in it that +the poor lady started a boarding-house, or in the politer language of the +present day, had decided to receive paying guests. + +Encouraged by the satisfactory nature of the above information, Mr. +Iglesias--shortly after his mother's death, now nearly eight years ago-- +had become a member of Mrs. Porcher's household. He had never, so far, +had reason to regret that step. And it was with a consciousness of +well-being and repose that he returned daily--after hours of strenuous +work in the well-known city banking house of Messrs. Barking Brothers & +Barking--to this square first-floor sitting-room, to its dimly white +panelled and painted walls, its nice details of carved work in chimney- +piece and ceiling, and the outlook from its tall, narrow windows. A +touch of old-world stateliness in its aspect satisfied his latent pride +of race. To certain natures not obscurity or slender means, but the +pretentious vulgarity which, in English-speaking countries, too often +goes along with these constitutes the burden and the offence. + +To-night, however, things were different. Material objects remained the +same; but the conditions of existence had taken on a strange appearance, +and with that appearance Iglesias was bound to reckon, being uncertain as +yet whether it was destined to prove that of a friend or of an enemy. In +furtherance of such reckoning, he had declined dining at the public +table, in company with his hostess, Miss Eliza Hart, her devoted friend +and companion, and the three gentlemen--Mr. de Courcy Smyth, Mr. Farge, +and Mr. Worthington--who shared with him the hospitalities of Cedar +Lodge. He had dined here, upstairs, solitary; and Frederick, the German- +Swiss valet, had just finished clearing the table and departed. Usually +under such circumstances Iglesias would have taken a favourite book from +the carved Spanish mahogany bookcase containing his small library; and, +reading again that which he had often read before, would have found +therein the satisfaction of friendship, along with the soothing +influences of familiarity. But to-night neither Gibbon's _Rome_--a +handsome early edition in many volumes--_The Travels of Anacharsis_, +Evelyn's _Diary_, Napier's _Peninsular War_, John Stuart Mill's _Logic_, +Byron's _Poems_, nor those of Calderon, nor of that so-called "prodigy of +nature," Lope de Vega, not even the dear and immortal _Don Quixote_ +himself, served to attract him. His own thoughts, his own life, filled +his whole horizon, leaving no space for the thoughts or lives of others. +He found himself a prey to a certain mental incoherence, a bewildering +activity of vision. More than once before in the course of his laborious, +monotonous, and, as men go, very virtuous life had this same thing +happened to him--the tides of the obvious and accustomed suddenly +receding and leaving him stranded, as on some barren sand-bank, uncertain +whether the ship of his individual fate would lie there wind-swept and +sun-bleached till rusty rivets fell out and planks parted, disclosing the +ribs of her in unsightly nakedness, or whether the kindly tide, rising, +would float her off into blue water and she would sail hopefully once +again. + +It was inevitable that this present experience should recall these other +happenings, evoking memories poignant enough. The first time the ship of +his fate thus stranded was when, as a lad of seventeen, he left school. +Living alone with his mother in a quaint little house in Holland Street, +Kensington, eagerly ambitious to make his way in the world and to obtain, +it had dawned on him that there was something strange, unhappy, and not +as it was wont to be with that, to him, most beautiful and beloved of +women. The mere suspicion was as a blasphemy against which his young +loyalty revolted. For Dominic, with the inherent pieties of his Latin and +Celtic blood, had none of that contemptuous superiority in regard of his +near relations so common to male creatures of the Protestant persuasion +and Anglo-Saxon race. He took his parents quite seriously; it never +having occurred to him that fathers and mothers are given us merely for +purposes of discipline, or as helot-like examples of what to avoid. He +was simple-minded enough indeed to regard them as sacred, altogether +beyond the bounds of legitimate criticism--and this, as destiny would +have it, with intimate and life-long results. + +Vaguely, through the mists of infancy, he could remember a hurried +exodus--after sound of cannon and sight of blood--from Spain, the fierce +and pious country of his birth. Since then, while his mother lived-- +namely, till he was a man of over forty--always and only the house in the +Kensington side street, with its crooked creaking stairways, its high +wainscots--behind which mice squeaked and scampered--its clinging odour +of ancient woodwork, its low ceilings, and uneven floors. At the back of +it was a narrow strip of garden, glorious for one brief week in early +summer, with the gold of a big laburnum; and fragrant later thanks to +faithful effort on the part of the white jasmine clothing its enclosing +walls. In fair weather the morning sun lay warm there; while the sky +showed all the bluer overhead for the dark lines of the adjacent +housetops, and upstanding deformities in the matter of zinc cowls and +chimney-pots. Frequented by cats, boasting in the centre a rockery of gas +clinkers and chalk flints surmounted by a stumpy fluted column bearing a +stone basin--in which, after rain, sparrows disported themselves with +much conversation and fluttering of sooty wings--the garden was, to +little Dominic, a place of wonder and delight. He peopled it with beings +of his own fancy, lovely or terrific, according to his passing humour. +Granted a measure of imagination, the solitary child is often the +happiest child, since the social element, with its inevitable +materialism, is absent, and the dear spirit of romance is unquenched by +vulgar comment. + +His father, grave and preoccupied, whose arrivals after long periods of +absence had in them an effect of secrecy and haste, was to the small boy +a being, august, but remote. During his brief sojourns at home the quiet +house awoke to greater fulness of life, with much coming and going of +other grave personages, strange of dress, and with a certain effect of +hardly restrained violence in their aspect. A spirit of fear seemed to +enter with them, demanding an unnatural darkening of windows and closing +of doors. Before Dominic they were of few words; but became eloquent +enough, in sonorous foreign speech, as his ears testified when he was +banished from their rather electric presence to the solitude of the +nursery above. And so it came about that a sense of mystery, of large +issues, of things at once strong and hidden, impenetrable to his +understanding and concerning which no questions might be asked, encircled +Dominic's childhood and passed into the very fabric of his thought. While +through it all his mother moved, to him tender and wholly exquisite, but +with the reticence of some deep-seated enthusiasm silently cherished, +some far-reaching alarm silently endured, always upon her. And this +resulted in an atmosphere of seriousness and responsibility which +inevitably reacted on the boy, making him sober beyond his years, +tempering his natural vivacity with watchfulness, and pitching even his +laughter in a minor key. + +Only many years later, when after his mother's death it became his duty +to read letters exchanged between his parents during this period, did +Dominic Iglesias touch the key to the riddle, and fully measure the +public danger, the private strain and stress which had surrounded his +childhood and early youth. For his father, a man of far from ignoble +nature, but of narrow outlook and undying hatreds, was deeply involved in +revolutionary intrigue of the most advanced type--a victim of that false +passion of humanity which takes its rise not in honest desire for the +welfare of mankind, but in blind rebellion against all forms of +authority. His self-confidence was colossal; all rule being abominable to +him--save his own--all rulers hideous, save himself. The anarchist, +rightly understood, is merely the autocrat, the tyrant, turned inside +out. And this man, as Dominic gathered from the perusal of those old +letters, to whom the end so justified the means that red-handed crime +took on the fair colours of virtue, his mother had loved, even while she +feared him, with all the faithfulness and pure passion of her Irish +blood. Pathetic combination, the patience and resignation of the one ever +striving to temper the flaming zeal of the other, as though the spindrift +of the Atlantic, sweeping inland from the dim sadness of far western +coasts, should strive with relentless fierceness of sunglare outpoured on +some high-lying walled city of arid central Spain! Mist is but a weak +thing as against rock and fire; and what his mother must have suffered in +moral and spiritual conflict, let alone all question of active dread, was +to her son almost too cruel to contemplate, although it explained and +justified much. + +In 1860, when Dominic was a schoolboy of fourteen, his father left home +on one of those sudden journeys the object and objective of which were +alike concealed. For about a year letters arrived at irregular intervals, +hailing from Paris, Naples, Prague, and finally Petersburg. Then followed +silence, broken only by rumours furtively conveyed by a former associate, +one Pascal Pelletier--an angel-faced, long-haired, hysteric creature, +inspired by an impassioned enthusiasm for infernal machines and wholesale +slaughter in theory, and, in practice, by a gentle doglike devotion to +Mrs. Iglesias and young Dominic. He would arrive depressed and shadowy in +the shadowy twilights. But, once in the presence of the beings whom he +loved, he became effervescent. His belief was unlimited in the Head +Centre, the Chief, in his demonic power and fertility of resource. That +any evil should befall him!--Pascal snapped his thin fingers; while, with +the inalienable optimism of the born fanatic, he proceeded to state +hopeful conjecture as established fact, thereby doing homage to the +spirit of delusion which so conspicuously ruled him even to his inmost +thought. But a spell of cold weather in the winter of 1862 struck a +little too shrewdly through Pascal's seedy overcoat, causing that tender- +hearted subverter of society to cough his life out, with all possible +despatch, in the third-floor back of a filthy lodging-house off Tottenham +Court Road. + +This was the end as far as information went, whether authentic or +apocryphal. But Dominic, his horizon still bounded by the world of +school, greedy of distinction both in learning and in games, away all day +and eagerly, if somewhat sleepily, busy over the preparation of lessons +at night, was very far from realising that. Poor voluble kind-eyed Pascal +he mourned with all his heart; yet the months of his father's absence +accumulated into years almost unnoticed. The same thing had so often +happened before; and then, at an unlooked-for moment, the wanderer had +returned. Moreover, the old habit of obedience was still strong in him. +It was understood that concerning his father's occupations and movements +no comment might be made, no questions might be asked. + +Meanwhile, the small house in Holland Street was ever more still, more +unfrequented. As he grew older Dominic became increasingly sensible of +this--sensible of a sort of hush falling on him as he crossed the +threshold, so that instinctively he left much of his wholesome young +animality outside, while his voice took on softer tones in speech, and +his quick light footsteps became more scrupulously noiseless as he ran up +the little crooked stairs. + +"When your father comes home we must decide what profession you shall +follow, my Dominic," it had been his mother's habit to declare. But, even +before the time for such decision arrived the boy had begun to understand +he must see to all that unaided. For his mother was ill, how deeply and +in what manner he could not tell. He shrank, indeed, from all clear +thought, let alone speech, on the subject, as from something indelicate, +in a way irreverent. Her beauty remained to her, notwithstanding a +gradual wasting as of fever. A peculiar, very individual grace of dress +and of bearing remained to her likewise. But she was uncertain in mood, +the victim of strange fancies, a being almost alarmingly far removed from +the interests of ordinary life. Long ago, in submission to her husband's +anti-clerical prejudices, she had ceased to practise her religion, so +that the services of the Church no longer called her forth in beneficent +routine of sacred obligation. Now she never left the house, living, since +poor Pascal Pelletier's death, in complete seclusion. Little wonder then +that a hush fell on Dominic crossing the threshold, since so doing he +passed from the world of healthy action to that of acquiescent sickness, +from vigorous hoarse-voiced realities to the intangible sadness of +unrelated dreams! The effect was one of rather haunting melancholy; and +it was characteristic of the lad that he did not resent it, though +rejoicing in the reputation at school of being high-spirited enough, +impatient of restraint or of any frustration of purpose. His mother had +always been sacred. She remained so, even though her sympathies had +become imperfect, and she moved in regions which his sane young +imagination failed to penetrate. One thing was perfectly plain to him, +though it cut at the root of ambition--namely, that he could not leave +her. So, in that matter of a profession, he must find work which would +permit of his continuing to live at home; and, since her income was +narrow, the work in question must make no heavy demand in respect of +preliminary expense. + +Here was a problem more easy of statement than of solution, in face of +Dominic's pride, inexperience, and the singular isolation of his +position! There followed dreary months wherein his evenings were spent +in studying and answerings advertisements; and his days, till late +afternoon, in walking the town from end to end for the interviewing of +possible employers and the keeping of fruitless appointments. He would +set forth full of hope and courage in the morning, only to return full of +the dejection of failure at night. And it was then London began to reveal +herself to him in her solidarity, under the cloud of dun-blue coal smoke +--it was wintertime--which, at once hanging over and penetrating her +immensity, adds the majesty of mystery to the majesty of mere size. He +noted how, in the chill twilights, London grew strangely and feverishly +alive. Lamps sprang into clearness along the pavements. A dazzling +glitter of shop windows marked the great thoroughfares, while often the +angry glare of a fire pulsed along the sky-line. When night comes in the +country, so Dominic told himself, the land sinks into peaceful repose. +But in cities it is otherwise. There the light leaves heaven for earth; +and walks the streets, with much else far from celestial, until the +small hours move towards the dawn and usher in the decencies of day. + +Never before had he seen London thus and understood it in all its +enormous variety, yet as a unit, a whole. How much he actually beheld +with his bodily eyes, how much through the working of a rather exalted +condition of imagination induced by loneliness and bodily fatigue, he +could never subsequently determine. But the great city presented herself +to him in the guise of some prodigious living creature, breathing, +feeding, suffering, triumphing, above all mating and breeding, terrible +in her power and vitality, age old, yet still unspent. Presented herself +to him as horribly prolific, ever outpassing her own unwieldy limits, +sending forth her children, year after year, all the wide world over by +shipping or by rail; receiving some tithe of them back, proud with +accomplished fortune to enhance her glory, or, disgraced and broken, +slinking homeward to the cover of her fog and darkness merely to swell +the numbers of the nameless who rot and die. He thought of those others, +too--and this touched his young ardour with a quick shudder of personal +fear--whom she never sends forth at all; but holds close in bondage all +their lives long, enslaved to her countless and tyrant activities by +their own poverty, or by their fellow-creatures' misfortune, cruelties, +and sins. Was it thus she was going to deal with him, Dominic Iglesias? +Was he to be among the great city's bondmen through the coming years, +better acquainted with the very earthly light which walks her streets by +night, than with the heavenly light which gladdens the sweet face of day +in the open country and upon the open sea? And for a moment the boy's +heart rebelled, hungry for pleasure, hungry for wide experience, hungry +even for knowledge of those revolutionary intrigues which, as he was +beginning to understand, had surrounded his childhood, and, as he was +beginning to fear, had cost his mother her reason and his father both +liberty and life. Thus did the ship of poor Dominic's fate appear to be +stranded or ever it had fairly set sail at all. + +Meanwhile, if London claimed him, she did so in very cynical fashion, +mocking his willingness to labour, refusing to feed him even while she +refused to let him go. Everything, he feared, was against him--his youth, +his foreign name, his limited acquaintance, the impossibility of giving +definite information regarding his father's past occupations or present +whereabouts. Moreover, his spare young figure, his thin shapely hands and +feet, his blue-black Irish eyes and black hair, his energetic colourless +face, his ready yet reticent speech--all these marked him as unusual and +exotic. And for the unusual and exotic the British employer of labour--of +whatever sort--has, it must be conceded, but little use. He is half +afraid, half contemptuous of it, instinctively disliking anything more +alert and alive than his own most stolid self. But while men, distrusting +the distinctness of his personality and his good looks, refused to give +Dominic work, women, relishing them, were only too ready to give him +enjoyment--of a kind. The boy, in those solitary wanderings, ran the +gauntlet of many temptations; and was presented--did he care to accept +it--with the freedom of the city on very liberal lines. Happily, inherent +cleanliness of nature saved him from much; and reverent shame at the +thought of entering the hushed and silent house where his mother lived-- +spotless, amid pathetic memories and delicate dreams--with the soil of +licence upon him, saved him from more. Crime might have come close to him +in his childhood, but vice never; and the influences of vice are far more +insidious, and consequently more damaging, than those of crime. + +Still, one way and another, the boy came very near touching the confines +of despair. Then the tide rose and the stranded ship of his fate began to +lift a little. By means of a series of accidents--the illness of his +former school-fellow, the already mentioned George Lovegrove, whose post +he offered temporarily to fill--he drifted into connection with the +banking house of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking. There his knowledge +of modern languages, his industry, and a certain discreet aloofness +commended him to his superiors. A minor clerkship fell vacant; it was +offered to him. And from thenceforth, for Dominic Iglesias, the monotony +of fixed routine and steady labour, until the day when, as a man of past +fifty, restless and somewhat distrustful both of the present and the +future, he watched the dying of the sullen sunset over Trimmer's Green +from the windows of the first-floor sitting-room of Cedar Lodge. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +That which had in point of fact happened was not, as Iglesias felt, +without a pretty sharp edge of irony. For to-day, London, so long his +task-mistress and gaoler, had assumed a new attitude towards him. +Suddenly, unexpectedly, she had cast him off, given him his freedom. It +was amazing, a thing to take your breath away for the moment. And +agitated and hurt--for his pride unquestionably had suffered in the +process--Iglesias asked himself what in the world he should do with this +gift of freedom, what he should do, indeed, with that which remained to +him of life? + +It had come about thus. Seeking an interview that morning with Sir Abel +Barking, in the latter's private room at the bank, he had made certain +statements regarding his own health in justification of a request for +some weeks' rest and holiday now, rather than later, in September, when +his yearly vacation would fall due. + +"So you find yourself unequal to dealing satisfactorily with the +increasing intricacy of our financial operations, become confused by the +multiplicity of detail, suffer from pains in the head?" Sir Abel had +commented, with a certain largeness of manner. "I own, my good friend, I +was not wholly unprepared for this announcement." + +"My work has not so far, I believe, suffered in any respect," Iglesias +put in quietly. "Directly I had reason to fear it might suffer I----" + +"Of course, of course. I make no complaint--none. I go further. I admit +that the area of our undertakings is enlarged, enormously enlarged, +thanks to the remarkable personal energy and strenuous transatlantic +business methods introduced by my nephew Reginald. I grant you all +that----" + +Sir Abel cleared his throat. Seduced by the charms of his own eloquence, +he was ready to mount the platform at the shortest possible notice, even +in private life. He loved exposition. He loved periods. His critics--for +what public man is without these, their strictures naturally inspired by +envy?--had been known to add that he also loved platitudes. Be this as it +may, certain it is that he loved an audience--even of one. He had been +considerably ruffled this morning by communications made to him by his +good-looking and somewhat scapegrace youngest son. Those who fail to rule +their own households often find solace in attempting to rule the +households of others. Speech and patronage consequently tended to the +restoration of self-complacency. + +"No doubt this expansion, these modern methods, constitute a tax upon +your capacity, my good friend, you having acquired your training under a +less exacting system. I am not surprised. I confess"--he leaned back in +his chair, with an indulgent smile, as one who should say, "the gods +themselves do not wholly escape"--"I confess," he repeated, "it is +something of a tax upon the capacity of a veteran financier such as +myself. But then strain in some form or other, as I frequently remind +myself, is the very master-note of our modern existence. We all +experience it in our degree. And there are those men, such as myself, for +instance, who from their position, their vast interests and heavy +responsibilities, from the almost incalculable issues dependent on their +judgment and their action, are called upon to endure this strain in its +most exhausting manifestations, who are compelled to subordinate personal +case, even health itself, to public obligation. In the end they pay, +incontestable they pay, for their self-abnegation, for their unswerving +obedience to the trumpet-call of public duty." + +He paused and mused a while, his head raised, his right hand resting--it +was noticeably podgy and squat--on the highly polished surface of the +extensive writing-table, his left hand dropped, with a rather awkward +negligence, over the arm of his chair. Meanwhile he gazed, as pensively +as his caste of countenance permitted, at a portrait of himself, in the +self-same attitude, which adorned the opposite wall. It had been +presented to him by the electors of his late constituency. It was life- +size and full-length. It had been painted by a well-known artist whose +appreciation of the outward as a revelation of the inward man is slightly +diabolic in its completeness. The portrait was very clever; it was also +very like. Looking upon it no sane observer could stand in doubt of Sir +Abel's eminent respectability or eminent wealth. His appearance exuded +both. Unluckily nature had been niggardly in the bestowal of those more +delicate marks of breeding which, both in man and beast, denote +distinction of personality and antiquity of race. Pursy, prolific, +Protestant, a commonness pervaded the worthy gentleman's aspect, causing +him, as compared with his head clerk, Dominic Iglesias--standing there +patiently awaiting his further utterance--to be as is a cheap oleograph +to a fine sketch in pen and ink. It may be taken as an axiom that, in +body and soul alike, to be deficient in outline is a sad mistake. But of +all these little facts and the result of them, Sir Abel was, needless to +relate, sublimely ignorant. + +"With you, my good friend, it is otherwise," he remarked presently, +reluctantly removing his gaze from the portrait of himself. "A beneficent +Providence has devised the law of compensation. And we may remark the +workings of it everywhere with instruction and encouragement. Hence +social obscurity has its compensating advantages. You, for example, are +affected by none of those considerations of public obligation binding +upon myself. You are so situated that you can avoid the more trying +consequences of this universal overstrain. If the demands of the position +you now fill are too much for you, you can retire. I congratulate you, +Iglesias. For some of us it is impossible, it is forbidden to retire." + +The speaker paused, as when in addressing a political or charitable +meeting he paused for well-merited applause, secure of having made a +telling point. Dominic Iglesias, however, had not applauded. To tell the +truth, his back was stiffening a little. He had a very just appreciation +of the relative social positions of himself and his employer; still it +did not occur to him, somehow, that applause was necessarily in the part. + +"You have the redress in your own hands," Sir Abel went on, not without a +hint of annoyance. "If you need amusement, leisure, rest, they are all +within your reach." + +Still Iglesias did not speak. + +"See now, my good friend, consider. To be practical"--Sir Abel raised his +finger and wagged it, with a heavy attempt at _bonhomie_. "You have no +family to provide for?" + +"No," said Mr. Iglesias. + +"You are, in short, not married?" + +"No, Sir Abel," he said again. + +"Well, then, no obstacle presents itself. But let us pause a moment, for +I must guard myself against misconception. In the interests of both +public and private morality I am a staunch advocate of marriage." Again +he cleared his throat. The platform was conspicuous by its presence--in +idea. "I hold matrimony to be among the primary duties, nay, to be the +primary duty of the Christian and the citizen. We owe it to the race, we +owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the opposite sex. Let us be quite clear +on this point. Yet, since I deprecate all bigotry, I admit that there may +be exceptional cases in which absence of the marital relation, though +arguing some emotional callousness, may prove advantageous to the +individual." + +A queer light had come into Dominic Iglesias' eyes. The corners of his +mouth worked a little. He stood quite still and rather noticeably erect. + +"I do not deny this," Sir Abel continued. "I repeat, I do not deny it. +And yours, my good friend, may be, I am prepared to acknowledge, a case +in point. I take for granted, by the way, that you have saved, since your +salary has been a liberal one?" + +Iglesias inclined his head. + +"Clearly we need discuss this matter no further then." The speaker became +impressive, admonitory. "Indeed, it appears to me that your lot is a most +favoured one. You are free of all encumbrances. You can retire in +comfort--retire, moreover, with the assurance that your departure will +cause no inconvenience to myself and my colleagues, since you make room +for men younger and more in touch with modern methods than yourself." + +Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile. + +"Ah, yes!" he said. "Possibly I had not taken that fact sufficiently into +account." + +"Yet, clearly, it should augment your satisfaction," Sir Abel Barking +observed, with a touch of severity. "And, by the by, you can draw your +pension. You were entitled, strictly speaking, to do so some years ago-- +four, I believe, to be accurate. This was pointed out to you at the time +by my nephew Reginald. He was not at all unwilling that you should retire +then; but you preferred to remain. I had some conversation, at the time, +with my nephew on the subject. I insisted upon the fact that your service +had been exemplary. I finally succeeded in overruling his objection to +your retaining your post." + +"I am evidently under a heavy obligation to you, Sir Abel," said +Iglesias. + +"Don't mention it--don't mention it," the great man answered nobly. +"Those in power should try to exercise it to the benefit of their +subordinates. It has always been my effort not only to be just, but to be +considerate of the interests and feelings of persons in my employment." + +And with that he again fixed his eyes upon the ironical portrait adorning +the opposite wall, wholly blind to the fact that it at once revealed his +weaknesses and mocked at them, conscious only of an agreeable conviction +that he had treated his head clerk with generosity and spoken to him with +the utmost good-feeling and tact. + +With the proud it is ever a question whether to spoil the Egyptians, or +to fling back even the best-earned wages, payable by Egyptians, full in +the said Egyptians' face. For the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, in +the abstract, Iglesias had the loyalty of long-established habit. It had +been as the rising tide, setting the ship of his fate and fortune +honourably afloat in the dismal days of that early stranding. Its service +had eaten up the best years of his life, it is true. But, even in so +doing, by mere force of constant association, the interests of the great +banking house had come to be his own, its schemes and secrets his +excitement, its successes his satisfaction. Fortunately the human mind is +so constituted that it is possible to have an esteem, amounting to +enthusiasm, for a body corporate, while entertaining but scanty +admiration for the individuals of whom that body is composed--fortunately +indeed, since otherwise what government, secular or sacred, would long +continue to subsist? Hence, to Iglesias, this matter of the pension was +decidedly difficult. Pride said, "This man, Abel Barking has been +offensive; both he and his nephew have been ungrateful; reject it with +contempt." Justice said, "You have no quarrel with the firm as a whole; +accept it." Common sense, pricked up by anger, said, "Claim your own, +take every brass farthing of it." While personal dignity, winding up the +case, admonished, "By no means give yourself away. Make no impetuous +demonstration. Go home and think it quietly over." And with the advice of +personal dignity Mr. Iglesias fell in. + +Yet he was still very sore, the heat of anger past, but the smart of it +remaining, when he journeyed back from the city later in the day. And not +only that after-smart, but a perplexity held him. For two strange faces +had looked into his during the last few hours--those of Loneliness and +Freedom. He had taken for granted, in a general sort of way, that such +personages existed and exercised a certain jurisdiction in human affairs. +But in all the course of his laborious life they had never before come +close, personally claiming him. He had had no time for them. But they are +patient, they only wait. They had time for him--plenty of it. Suddenly he +understood that; and it perplexed him, for his estimate of his own +importance was modest. He even felt apologetic towards them, as one at +whose door distinguished guests alight for whose entertainment he has +made no adequate provision. He was embarrassed, his sense of hospitality +reproaching him. + +It so happened that, on this same return journey, he occupied the seat on +the right, immediately behind that of the driver. The sky was covered, +the atmosphere close. The horses, grey ones, showed a thick yellowish +lather where the collar rubbed their necks and the traces their flanks. +They were slack and heavy, and the omnibus hugged the curb. Within it was +empty, and on the top boasted but three passengers besides Iglesias +himself. It followed that, carrying insufficiency of ballast, the great +red-painted vehicle lumbered, and jerked, and swayed uneasily; while the +lighter traffic swept past it in a glittering stream, the dominant note +of which was black as against the dirty drab of the recently watered +wood-pavement. And the character of that traffic was new to Dominic +Iglesias, though he had travelled the Hammersmith Road, Kensington High +Street and Kensington Gore, Knightsbridge and Piccadilly, back and forth +daily, these many years. For the exigencies of business demanding that +the hours of his journeying should be early and late, always the same, it +came about that the aspect of these actually so-familiar thoroughfares +was novel, as beheld in the height of the season at three o'clock in the +afternoon. + +At first Iglesias saw without seeing, busy with his own uncheerful +thoughts. But after a while he began to speculate idly on the scene +around him, turning to the outward and material for distraction, if not +for actual comfort. And so the stream of carriages and hansoms, and the +conspicuously well-favoured human beings occupying them, began to +intrigue his attention. He questioned whom they might be and whither +wending, decked forth in such brave array. They seemed to suggest +something divorced from, yet native to, his experience; something he had +never touched in fact, yet the right to which was resident in his blood. +And with this he ceased, in instinct, to be merely the highly respected +and respectable head clerk of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking--now +superannuated and laid on the shelf. A gayer, fiercer, simpler life, +quick with violences of vivacious sound and vivid colour, the excitement +of it heightened by clear shining southern sunshine and blue-black +shadow--a life undreamed of by conventional, slow-moving, rather vulgar +middle-class London--to which, on the face of it, he appeared as +emphatically to belong--awoke and cried in Dominic Iglesias. + +It was a surprising little experience, causing him to straighten up his +lean yet shapely figure; while the burden of his years, and the long +monotony of them, seemed strangely lifted off him. Then, with the air of +courtly reserve--at once the joke and envy of the younger clerks, which +had earned him the nickname of "the old Hidalgo"--he leaned forward and +addressed the omnibus driver. The latter upraised a broad, moist and +sleepy countenance. + +"Polo at Ranelagh," he answered, in a voice thickened by dust and the +laying of that dust by strong waters. "Club team plays 'Undred and First +Lancers." + +The words had been to the inquirer pretty much as phrases from the +liturgy of an unknown cult. But it was Iglesias' praiseworthy disposition +not to be angry with that which he did not happen to understand, so much +as angry with himself for not understanding it. + +"Only an additional proof, were it needed, of the prodigious extent of my +ignorance!" he reflected in stoically humorous self-contempt. His eyes +dwelt, somewhat wistfully, on the glittering stream of traffic, once +again those two unbidden guests, Loneliness and Freedom--for whose +entertainment he had made inadequate provision--sitting, as it seemed, +very close on either side of him. Then that happened which altered all +the values. Dominic Iglesias suddenly saw a person whom he knew. + +He had seen that same person about three hours previously in the bank in +Threadneedle Street, while waiting for admittance to Sir Abel's private +room. Rumour accredited this handsome young gentleman--Sir Abel's +youngest son--with tastes expensive rather than profitable, liberal +socially, rather than estimable ethically, declaring him to be distinctly +of the nature of the proverbial thorn in the banker's otherwise very +prosperous side. He had, so said rumour, the fortune or misfortune, as +you chose to take it, of being at once a considerably bad boy and a +distinctly charming one. Be all that as it might, the young man had +certainly presented a grimly anxious countenance when, without so much as +a nod of recognition, he had stalked past Mr. Iglesias in the dim light +of the glass and mahogany-walled corridor. But now, as the latter noted, +his expression had changed, and that very much for the better. The young +man's face was flushed and eager, and his teeth showed white and even +under his reddish brown moustache. If anxieties still pursued him they +were in subjection to one main anxiety, the anxiety to please, which of +all anxieties is the most engaging and grace-begetting. + +Just then the traffic was held up, thus enabling Iglesias from his perch +on the 'bustop to receive a more than fleeting impression. Two ladies +were seated opposite the young man in the carriage. In them Iglesias +recognised persons of very secure social standing. The elder he supposed +to be Lady Sokeington--Alaric Barking's half-sister--to whom, on the +occasion of her marriage, twelve or thirteen years ago, he had had the +expensive honour of presenting, in his own name and that of his +colleagues, a costly gift of plate. The other lady, so it appeared to +him, was eminently sweet to look upon. She was very young. She leaned a +little forward, and in the pose of her delicate figure and the carriage +of her pretty head--under its burden of pale pink and grey feathers, +flowers, and lace--he detected further example of that engaging anxiety +to please. They made a delightful young couple, the fair seeming of this +life and riches of it very much on their side. Mr. Iglesias' chivalrous +heart went out to them in silent sympathy and benediction; while, the +block being over, his gaze continued to follow them as long as the young +girl's slender white-clad back and the young man's flushed and eager face +remained distinguishable. Then he started, for he was aware that his +unbidden companions had received unexpected reinforcement. A third guest +had arrived, and looked hard and critically at him. It's name was Old +Age, and he found something sardonic in its glance. With all his +gentleness of soul, all his innate self-restraint, there remained +fighting blood in Dominic Iglesias. Therefore, for the moment, +recognising with whom he had to deal, a light anything but mild visited +his eyes, and a rigidity the straight lines of his chin and lips. Old Age +is a sinister visitant even to those who are moderate in demand and clean +of life. For it gives to drink of the cup not of pleasure, but merely of +patience, of physical loss and intellectual humiliation; and, once it has +laid its spell upon you, you are past all remedy save the supreme remedy +of death. And so, at first sight, Iglesias rebelled--as do all men-- +turning defiant. Then, being very sane, he gave in to the relentless +logic of fact. Silently, yet with all courtesy, he acknowledged the +newcomer, and bade it be seated along with the rest. While, after brief +pause to rally his pride, and that courage which is the noblest attribute +of pride, he turned to things concrete and material once more, finally +addressing himself to the omnibus driver: + +"Pardon me; polo, as I understand, is a species of game?" + +The broad moist countenance was again uplifted, a hint of patronage now +tempering its good-natured apathy. + +"Sort'er 'ockey on 'orseback." + +"That must be sufficiently dangerous," Mr. Iglesias remarked. + +"Bless you, yes. Players breaks their backs pretty frequent, and cuts the +ponies about most cruel--" + +He ceased speaking abruptly, jammed the brake down with his heel in +response to the conductor's bell, and drew the sweating horses up short +to permit the ingress of fresh passengers. This accomplished, the omnibus +lumbered onwards while Dominic Iglesias fell into further meditation. + +The explanation vouchsafed him was still far from explicit; yet this much +of illumination he gained from it, namely, the assurance that all these +goodly personages, Alaric Barking and his sweet companion among them, +were on pleasure bent. One and all they fared forth, on this heavy summer +afternoon, in search of amusement--in search of that intangible yet very +powerful factor in human affairs to which it is given to lift the too +great weight of seriousness from mortal life, cheating perception of +relentless actualities, helping to restore the balance, helping men to +hope, to laugh, and to forget. Perceiving all which, conscious moreover +of the near neighbourhood of Loneliness on the right hand and Old Age on +the left, Iglesias began to bestow on these votaries of pleasure a more +earnest attention, recognising in them the possessors of a secret which +it greatly behoved him to enter into possession of likewise. In what, he +asked himself, did it actually consist, this to him practically unknown +quantity, amusement? How was the spirit of it cultivated, the enjoyment +of it consciously attained? How far did it reside in inward attitude, how +far in outward circumstance? In a word, how did they all do it? It was +very incumbent upon him to learn, and he admitted a ridiculous ignorance. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Thus had the chapter of labour ended, and that of leisure opened. And it +was with the sadness of things terminated very strongly upon him that, as +Frederick, the German-Swiss valet, finished clearing the dinner-table and +departed, Mr. Iglesias looked forth over the neatly protected verdure of +Trimmer's Green in the evening quiet. The smugly pacific aspect of the +place irritated him. He was aware of a great emptiness. And very +certainly the scene before him offered no solution of the problem of the +filling of that emptiness. And somehow or other it had to be filled-- +Iglesias knew that, knew it through every fibre of him--or life would be +simply insupportable. Meanwhile from the public drawing-room below came +sounds of revelry, innocent enough yet hardly calculated to soothe over- +strained nerves. Little Mr. Farge--whose thin and reedy tenor carried as +does a penny whistle--gave forth the refrain of a song just then popular +in metropolitan music-halls. + +"They're keeping latish hours at the Convalescent Home," piped Mr. Farge; +while his friend and devout admirer, Albert Edward Worthington, tore at +the banjo strings and the ladies tittered. + +Iglesias listened in a somewhat grim spirit of endurance. On the far side +of the Green he could see the gaslights in the Lovegroves' dining-room. +These appeared to watch him rather uncomfortably, as with three +supplicating and reproachful eyes. He debated whether he would not take +his hat, step across, and tell his old friend what had happened--it would +at least relieve him of the sound of little Farge's serenading. But his +pride recoiled somehow. Good souls, man and wife, they would be full of +solicitude and kindness; but they would say the wrong thing. They would +not understand. How, indeed, should they, being wholly at one with their +surroundings--unimaginative, domestic, British middle-class, with its +virtues and limitations aggressively in evidence? George Lovegrove would +suggest some minor municipal office, or membership of the local borough +council, as a crown of consolation. His wife would skirt round the +subject of matrimony. She had done so before now; and Iglesias, while +presenting a dignified front to the enemy, had inwardly shuddered. She +was an excellent, estimable woman; but when ponderously arch, when +extensively sly! Oh, dear no! It didn't do. Her gambols were too sadly +suggestive of those of a skittish hippopotamus. Dominic Iglesias was +conscious that he had a skin too little to-night; he could not witness +them with philosophy. The kindliest intention, the best-meant words, +might cause him extravagant annoyance. + +He turned away from the window and took a turn the length of the room--a +tall, distinct, and even stately figure in the thickening dusk. He felt +rather horribly desolate. He was fairly frightened by the greatness of +the emptiness, within and about him, engendered by absence of employment. +He had little to reproach himself with. His record was cleaner than most +men's--he could not but know that. He had sacrificed personal ambition, +personal happiness, to the service of one supremely dear to him. Not for +a moment did he regret it. Had it to be done all over again, without +hesitation he would do it. Still there was no blinking facts. Here was +the nemesis, not of ill living, but of good--namely, emptiness, +loneliness, homelessness, Old Age here at his elbow, Death waiting there +ahead. + +"The routine has gone on too long," he said to himself bitterly. "I have +lost my pliability, lost my humanity. I am a machine now, not a man. To +the machine, work is life. Work over, life is over; and the machine is +just so much lumber--better broken up and sent to the rag and bottle +shop, where it may fetch the worth of its weight as scrap-iron." + +He turned, came back to the open window again and stood there, rather +carefully avoiding the three reproachful eyes of the Lovegroves' dining- +room gaselier, and fixing his gaze on that sullen fierceness of sunset +still hanging in the extreme northwest. + +"Unluckily there is no rag and bottle shop where superannuated bank +clerks of five-and-fifty have even the very modest market value of scrap- +iron!" he went on. "Of all kinds of uselessness, that of we godlike human +beings is the most utterly obvious when our working day is past. Mental +decay and bodily corruption as the ultimate. And, this side of it, a few +years of increasing degradation, a mere senseless killing of time until +the very unpleasing goal is reached--along with a growing selfishness, +and narrowness of outlook; along, possibly, with some development of +senile sensuality, the more detestable because it lacks the provocations +of hot blood. Oh! Dominic Iglesias, Dominic Iglesias, is that the ugly +road you are doomed to travel--a toothless greed for filling your belly +with fly-blown dainties off the refuse-heap?" + +And through the open window, in sinister accompaniment to little Mr. +Farge's sophisticated and unpastoral pipings, came the voice of the great +city herself in answer--low, multitudinous, raucous, without emphasis but +without briefest relief of interval or of pause. And this laid hold +strongly of Iglesias' imagination, reminding him of all the intimate +wretchedness of that first stranding of the ship of his fate. Reminding +him of his long and fruitless trampings in search of employment--good +looks, energy, youth itself, seeming but an added handicap--when London +revealed herself to him in her solidarity, revealed herself as a +prodigious living creature, awful in her mysterious vigour, ever big with +impending birth, merciless with impending death. As she showed herself to +him then, with life all untried before him, so she showed herself still +when, in the blackness of his present humour, all life worth the name +appeared over and passed. He had changed, so he believed, to the point of +nullity and final ineptitude. She remained strong, active, relentless as +ever. As long ago, so now, she struck him as monstrous. Yet now, though +all the conditions were changed, he had, as long ago, an instinct that +from her there was no escape. + +"I have served you honestly enough all these years," he said--since she +had voice to speak, she had also ears to hear, mayhap--"and you have +taken much and given little. To-day you have turned me off, told me to +quit. But where, I ask you, can I go? I am too stiffened by work, +unskilled in travel, too unadaptable to begin again elsewhere. Moreover, +you hold the record of my experience, all my glad and sorrowful memories. +I might try to leave you, but it's no use. I am planted and rooted in +you, monstrous mother that you are. If I know myself, I should go only to +come back." + +For the moment the calm of long self-control was broken up within him. +Dominic Iglesias dwelt, consciously and sensibly, in the horror of the +Outer Darkness--which horror is known only to that small and somewhat +suspect minority of human beings who are also capable, by the operation +of the divine mercy, of dwelling in the glory of the Uncreated Light. The +swing of the pendulum is equal to right as to left. He was staggered by +the misery of his own isolation--a stranger, as he suddenly realised, by +temperament and ideals, as well as by race! Then resolutely he turned his +back on this, with an instinct of self-preservation directing his thought +to things practical and average. + +For example, that question of the pension--concerning which he now found, +to his slight surprise, he was no longer the least in doubt. This money +was his by right. The hard strain in his nature was dominant--to the full +he would claim his rights. And since in moments of despair the human mind +invariably requires a human victim, be it merely a simulacrum, a waxen +image of a man to melt in the fires of its humiliation and revolt, +Iglesias remembered, with much contemptuous satisfaction, the ironical +portrait of Sir Abel Barking adorning the wall of the latter's private +room at the bank. He hailed the diabolic talent of the artist who had +laid bare with such subtle skill the flatulence of his sitter. It was a +pretty revenge, very assuaging just now to Iglesias. For the real man, as +he reflected, was not the man who sat heavily self-complacent in a +library chair, exuding platitudes and pride of patronage; but the man who +hung upon the wall forever ridiculous while paint and canvas should last. +Thus would he go down to posterity! And to Dominic Iglesias, just now, it +seemed very excellent that posterity should know him for the wind-bag +hypocrite he essentially was. Securely entrenched behind his own large +prosperity, uxoriousness, paternity, had he not counted his, Iglesias', +blessings to him; counselling amusement, rest, congratulating him on just +all that which made for his present distress--namely, his obscure +position, his enforced idleness, his absence of human ties, the general +meagreness of his state in life? The more he thought of the incident, the +more it filled him with indignation and disgust. Therefore, very +certainly he would claim his pension; claim an infinitesimal but actual +fraction of this man's great wealth; would live long so as to claim it as +long as possible, till the paying of it, indeed, should become a +weariness to the payer. And he would spend it, too, unquestionably he +would. Mr. Iglesias' rare and gracious smile had an almost cruel edge to +it. + +"The machine shall become a man again," he said. "And the man shall amuse +himself. How, I don't yet know, but I will find out. Work has made me +dull and inept." + +He straightened himself up, tired, yet unbroken, defiant, aware--though +the horror of the Outer Darkness was yet upon him--of purpose still +militant and unspent. + +"Play may make me the reverse of dull and inept. I have always been +diligent and methodical. I will continue to be so. This enterprise admits +of no delay. I will begin at once, begin to-morrow, to amuse myself." + +It is characteristic of the Latin to see things written in fire and +blood, which the slower-brained Anglo-Saxon only sees written in red +paint--if, indeed, he ever arrives at seeing them written at all. To- +night the Latin held absolute sway in Dominic Iglesias. With freedom had +come a curious reversion to type. His humour, like his smile, was a +trifle cruel. He observed, criticised, judged, condemned unsparingly, all +mental courtesies in abeyance. When, therefore, at this juncture the +three eyes of the Lovegroves' dining-room gaselier winked slowly, and +closed their lids--so to speak--ceasing to watch and to supplicate, he +suffered no self-reproach. The good, simple couple were shutting up house +and going to bed, he supposed. They sought repose betimes; and, unless +supper had been more aggressively cold and heavy than usual, slept, till +broad day, a dreamless sleep. Decidedly it was well he had not taken his +hat and stepped across to visit them, for, beyond all question, they +would not have understood! The voice of London, for instance, meant +nothing to them. They had no notion London had a voice. Still less had +they any notion she was a prodigious living creature. London was the +place where they resided--that was all, and, since the streets are +admittedly noisy and dusty, they had taken a house in this genteel and +convenient suburb. Of the tremendous life and force of things, miscalled +man-made and inanimate, they had no faintest conception. Small wonder +they went to bed betimes and slept a dreamless sleep! Thinking of which-- +notwithstanding their kindness and affection--they became, just now, to +Iglesias as truly astonishing phenomena in their line as Sir Abel Barking +in his. He saw in them merely specimens, though good ones, of the great +majority of the British public, a public so overlaid and permeated by +convention, so parochial in outlook, so hidebound by social tradition and +insular prejudice, that it is really less in touch with everlasting fact +than the animals it pets, demoralises, and eats. These at least have +instinct, and so are at one with universal nature. In perception, in +spontaneity of action, good Mrs. Lovegrove was as an infant compared to +her parrot or her pug. So was little Mr. Farge with his sophisticated +warblings--so, for that matter, were all the other persons among whom +his, Iglesias', lot was cast. His sense of isolation deepened. If +amusement was his object, most certainly the society of Trimmer's Green +would not supply it. He must look further afield for all that. + +In the far northwest the last of the sunset had faded; only the cloud +remained. Yet the horizon, above the broken line of the house-roofs and +chimney-pots, pulsed with light--the very earthly light which, in great +cities, flares out when the light of heaven dies, to walk the streets, +with much else of doubtful loveliness, till it is shamed by the cold +chastity of dawn. And along with that outflaring, a certain meretricious +element introduced itself into the aspect of Trimmer's Green. Across the +roadway, the gaslamps showed cones of vivid yet sickly brightness, +bringing at regular intervals the sharply indented leaves of the plane +trees and the shivering silver of the balsam-poplars into an arresting +and artificial distinctness. Between were spaces of vacancy and gloom. +And from out such a space, immediately opposite, slowly emerged a +shambling and ungainly figure, in which Dominic Iglesias recognised the +third of his fellow-lodgers, Mr. de Courcy Smyth. His acquaintance with +the said lodger was of the slightest, since the latter had but recently +entered into residence and rarely appeared at meals. Mrs. Porcher +habitually referred to him with a pitying respect as "a gentleman very +influential in literary and professional circles, but unfortunate in his +married life"; ending with a sigh and upward glance of her still fine +eyes, as one who could sympathise, having herself been through that gate. +Influential or not, it occurred to Iglesias that the man presented a +sorry spectacle enough. For a minute or so he stood aimlessly in the full +glare of a gaslamp. His thin, creasy Inverness cape was thrown back, +displaying evening dress. He carried a soft grey felt hat in one hand. +His whole aspect was seedy, disappointed, dejected; his face pale and +puffy, his sparse reddish hair and beard but indifferently trimmed. It +was borne in upon Iglesias, moreover, that the man was hungry, that he +had not--and that for some time--had enough to eat. Voluntary poverty is +among the most beautiful, involuntary poverty among the ugliest, sights +upon earth; and to which order of poverty that of de Courcy Smyth +belonged, Mr. Iglesias was in no doubt. This was a sordid sight, a sight +of discouragement, adding the last touch to the melancholy which +oppressed him. The seedy figure crossed the road, fumbled for a minute +with a latchkey. Then nerveless footsteps ascended the stairs, passed the +door, and took their joyless way up and onward to the bed-sitting-room +immediately above. + +Down below the music had ceased, while sounds arose suggestive of a +little playfulness on the part of the two young men in bidding their +hostess and Miss Eliza Hart good-night. Very soon the house became +silent. But Dominic Iglesias, though tired, was in no humour for sleep. +He drew forward a leather-covered armchair and sat near the open window, +in at which came a breathing of night wind. This was soothing, touching +his forehead as with delicate pressure of a cool and sympathetic hand; so +that, without any sense of surprising transition, he found himself in the +garden of the little house in Holland Street, Kensington, once again. The +laburnum was in full blossom, and the breeze uplifted the light drooping +branches of it, making all their golden glory dance in the sunshine. +There must have been rain in the night, too, for the stone basin was full +of water, in which the sparrows were busy washing, sending up tiny +iridescent jets and fountains from their swiftly fluttering wings. It was +delicious to Dominic. He felt very safe, very gay. Only a heavy ill- +favoured tabby cat came from nowhere. It had designs upon the sparrows. +Twice it climbed stealthily up the broken bricks and gas clinkers. Twice +the little boy drove it away. It was not a nice cat. It had a broad white +face, deceitful little eyes, and grey whiskers. It declared it only +caught sparrows for their good and for the good of the community. It +assured Dominic he was guilty of a grave error of judgment in attempting +to interfere. It said a great deal about moral responsibility and the +heavy obligations persons of wealth and position owe to themselves. + +Just then Pascal Pelletier, carrying a square Huntley Palmer's biscuit +tin, containing an infernal machine, under his arm, his angelic +countenance radiant in the sunshine, came down the steps from the dining- +room window. And, while Dominic ran to greet him, the cat crept back +again--its face was the face of Sir Abel Barking, and it made a spring at +the sparrows. But the pillar broke and the basin toppled over, pinning +it, across the loins, down on to the clinkers under the edge of the stone +lip. + +"Oh! you've spoilt my garden, you've spoilt my garden!" Dominic cried. +"The basin has fallen. The sparrows will never wash in it any more." + +But Pascal Pelletier patted him on the head tenderly. + +"Do not weep over the fallen basin, very dear one," he said. "Rather sing +aloud Te Deum in praise of the glorious goddess of Social Revolution who +has delivered the enemy of the people into our hands. This is no affair +of cat and bird, but of the capitalist and the proletariat on which he +battens. So for a little space let the unholy creature lie there +writhing. Let it understand what it is to have a back broken by the +weight of an impossible burden. Let it try vainly to drag its limbs from +beneath an immovable load. Observe it, let it suffer. Very soon we will +finish with it, and explode the iniquitous system it represents. See, in +the name of humanity, of labour, of the unknown and unnumbered millions +of the martyred poor, I set a match to this good little fuse, and, with +the rapidity of thought, blow blasphemous tyrant Capital into a thousand +fragments of reeking flesh and splintered bone!" + +But to the little boy, words and spectacle alike had become unendurably +painful. + +"No, no, Pascal, you cannot cure everything that way. It is not just," he +cried. And running forward with all his strength he lifted the stone +basin off the wounded creature--cat, man, beast of prey, modern +financier, be it what it might. He stopped to gather it up in his arms, +and, repulsive though it was, to comfort and protect it. But just then +came a thunderous rattle and crash knocking him senseless. + +Mr. Iglesias sat bolt upright in his chair, uncertain of his identity and +surroundings, shaken and bewildered. + +Upstairs, de Courcy Smyth--spent and stupefied by the writing of a would- +be smart critique on the first-night performance of a screaming farce, +for one of to-morrow's evening papers--had stumbled, upsetting the fire- +irons, as he slouched across his room to bed. Iglesias heard the creak of +the wire-wove mattress as the man flung himself down; and that familiar +sound restored his sense of actualities. Yet all his mood was changed and +softened. The return to childhood had made a strange impression upon him, +filling him with a great nostalgia for things apparently lost, but +exquisite; and which, having once been, might, though he knew not by what +conceivable alchemy of time or chance, once again be. Meanwhile, he must +have slept long, for the wind had grown chill. The voice of London, the +monstrous mother, had grown weak and intermittent. And the earthly light, +pulsing along the horizon, had grown faint, humbled and chastened by the +whiteness of approaching dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A quarter-mile range of high unpainted oak paling, well seasoned, well +carpentered, innocent of chink or shrinkage, impervious to the human eye. +Visible above it the domed heads of enormous elm trees steeped in +sunshine, rising towards the ample curve of the summer sky. At intervals, +with tumultuous rush and scurry, the thud of the hoofs of unseen horses, +galloping for all they are worth over grass. The suck and rub of breeches +against saddle-flaps, the rattle of a curb chain or the rings of a bit. +A call, a challenge, smothered exclamations. The long-drawn swish of the +polo stick through the air, and the whack of the wooden head of it +against ball, or ground, or something unluckily softer and more sentient. +A pause, broken only by distant voices, and the sound, or rather sense, +of men and horses in quiet and friendly movement; followed by the +tumultuous rush and scurry, and all the moving incidents of the heard, +yet unwitnessed, drama over again. + +For here it was that gallant and costly game beloved of Oriental +princes--rather baldly described to Mr. Iglesias yesterday by the driver of +the Hammersmith 'bus as a "kind of hockey on horseback"--in very full swing +no doubt. Only unfortunately Iglesias found himself on the wrong side of +the palings. And, since he had learned, indirectly, from the observations +of the monumental police-sergeant--directing the stream of carriages at +the entrance gates--to other would-be spectators, that to the polo +ground, as to so much else obviously desirable in this world, there is +"no admission except by ticket," on the wrong side of these same palings +he recognised he was fated to stay. It was a disappointment, not to say +an annoyance. For he had come forth, in accordance with his +determination, to make observations and inquiries regarding that same +matter of amusement. And, since the influence of that which is to be acts +upon us almost, if not quite, as strongly as the influence of that which +has been, the handsome, eager countenance of young Alaric Barking and the +graceful figure of his fair companion, as seen from the 'bustop, occurred +very forcibly in this connection to Dominic Iglesias' mind. He would go +forth and behold that which they had gone forth to behold. He would +witness the sports of the well-born and rich. From these he elected, +somewhat proudly, to take his first lessons in the fine art of amusement. +So here he was; and here, too--very much here--were the palings, +spelling failure and frustration of purpose. + +Fortunately unwonted exercise and the pure invigorating atmosphere tended +to generate placidity, and agreeable harmony of the mental and physical +being. It followed that active annoyance was short-lived. For a minute or +two Mr. Iglesias loitered, listening to the moving music of the unseen +game. Then, walking onward to the end of the enclosure, where the palings +turn away sharply at the left, he crossed the road and made for a wooden +bench just there amiably presenting itself. It was pleasant to rest. The +walk had been a long one; but it now appeared to him that the labour of +it had not been wholly in vain. For around him stretched a breezy common, +broken by straggling bramble and furze brakes, and dotted with hawthorn +bushes, upon the topmost branches of which the crowded pinkish-white +blossoms still lingered. From one to another small birds flitted with a +pretty dipping flight, uttering quick detached notes as in merry question +and answer. Through the rough turf the bracken pushed upward, uncurling +sturdy croziers of brownish green. Away to the right, beyond the railway +line, rose the densely wooded slopes of Roehampton and Sheen; while, +against the purple-green gloom of them, the home signals of Barnes +Station--hard white lines and angles tipped with scarlet and black--stood +out in high relief like the gigantic characters of some strange alphabet. +Down the wide road motors ground and snorted; and carriages moved slowly, +two abreast, the menservants sitting at ease, talking and smoking while +waiting to take up at the police-guarded gate, back there towards the +heat and smoke of London, when the polo match should be played out. + +But immediately London, the heat, and smoke, and raucous voice of it, +seemed far enough away, the wholesome charm of the country very present. +For a while Dominic Iglesias yielded himself up to it. Receptive, +quiescent, contented, he basked in the sunshine, his mind vacant of +definite thought. But for a while only. For as physical fatigue wore off, +definite thought returned; and with it the sense of his own loneliness, +the oppression of a future empty of work, the bitterness of this enhanced +by the little disappointment he had lately suffered. He leaned forward, +his hands clasped between his knees, looking at the bracken croziers +pushing bravely upward through the rough turf to air and light. Even +these blind and speechless things worked, in a sense, fulfilling the law +of their existence. He went back on the dream of last night, on his own +childhood, the happiness, yet haunting unspoken anxiety of it, his +father's fanaticism, fierce revolutionary propaganda, and mysteriously +uncertain fate. + +"And to think that was the pit out of which I, of all men, was digged!" +he said to himself. "Have I done something to restore the family balance +in respect of right reason, or is the shame of incapacity upon me? Have I +sacrificed myself, or cowardly have I merely shirked living? Heaven +knows--I don't, only----" + +But here his uncheerful meditations were broken in on by a voice, +imperative in tone, yet perceptibly shaken by laughter. + +"Cappadocia!" it called. "Cappadocia! Do you hear? Come here, you little +reprobate." + +Then Dominic Iglesias perceived that he had ceased to be sole occupant of +the bench. A dog, a tiny toy spaniel, sat beside him. It sidled very +close, gazing at him with foolishly prominent eyes. Its ears, black edged +with tan, soft and lustrous as floss silk, hung down in long lappets on +either side its minute and melancholy face. The tip of its red tongue +just showed. It was abnormally self-conscious and solemn. It planted one +fringed paw upon Iglesias' arm and it snored. + +"Cappadocia!--well, of all the cheeky young beggars----" + +This time the voice broke in unmistakable merriment, wholly spontaneous, +as of relief, even of mischievous triumph; and Mr. Iglesias, looking up, +found himself confronted by a young woman. She advanced slowly, her +trailing string-coloured lace skirts gathered up lazily in one hand. +About her shoulders she wore a long blue-purple silk scarf, embroidered +with dragons of peacock, and scarlet, and gold. These rather violent +colours found repetition in the nasturtium leaves and flowers that +crowned her lace hat, the wide brim of which was tied down with narrow +strings of purple velvet, gipsy fashion, beneath her chin. Under her arm +she carried another tiny spaniel, the creature's black morsel of a head +peeping out quaintly from among the forms of the embroidered dragons, +which last appeared to writhe, as in the heat of deadly conflict, as +their wearer moved. Her face was in shadow owing to the breadth of the +brim of her hat. Otherwise the sunshine embraced her whole figure, +conferring on it a glittering yet singularly unsubstantial effect, as +though a column of pale windswept dust were overlaid, here and there, +with splendour of rich enamel. + +And it was just this effect of something unsubstantial, in a way +fictitious and out of relation to sober fact, which struck Dominic +Iglesias, robbing him for the moment of his dignified courtesy. Frankly +he stared at this appearance, so strangely at variance with the realities +of his own melancholy thought. Meanwhile the little dog snuggled up yet +closer against him. + +"Yes--pray don't disturb yourself," the young lady went on volubly "It's +too bad, I know, to intrude on you like this. But as Cappadocia refuses +to come to me, it is clear I have to come after Cappadocia. It's simply +disgraceful the way she carries on when one takes her out, making +acquaintances like this, casually, all over the place. The maids flatly +refuse to air her, even on a string. They say it becomes a little too +compromising. But, as I explain to them, she's not a bit the modern +woman. She belongs to a stage of social development when pretty people +infinitely preferred being compromised to being squelched." The speaker +laughed again quietly. "I'm not altogether sure they weren't right. When +you are squelched, finished, done for, it matters precious little whether +you've been compromised first or not. Don't you agree? Any way, +Cappadocia's not going to be squelched if she can help it. She's horribly +scared, or pretends to be, at motors. Let one toot and she forgets all +her fine-lady manners, and just skips to anybody for protection. She'll +take refuge in the most unconventional places to escape." + +The part of wisdom, in face of this very forthcoming young person, would +have been no doubt to arise and withdraw. But to Dominic Iglesias, just +then, dogs, woman, conversation, were alike so remote and unreal, part +merely of the scene which he had been contemplating, that he failed to +take them seriously. Divorced from routine, he was divorced, in a way, +from habitual modes of mind and conduct. He neither consented nor +refused, but just let things happen, attaching little or no meaning to +them. If this feminine being chose to prattle--well, let her do so. +Really he did not care. + +"I am not very modern myself," he said, with a shade of weariness. "So +perhaps your small dog had some intuition of a kindred spirit when taking +refuge with me." + +"All the same, you hardly date from the social era of Charles II., I +fancy," the young lady answered quickly. + +As she spoke she raised her chin with a slightly impudent movement, thus +bringing her countenance into the sunlight. For the first time Iglesias +clearly saw her face. It was small, the features insignificant, the skin +smooth and fine in texture, but sallow. Her hair, black and very massive, +was puffed out and dressed low, hiding her ears. Her lips were rather +positively red, and the tinge of colour on either cheek, though slight, +was not wholly convincing in tone. Even to a person of Mr. Iglesias' +praiseworthy limitation of experience in such matters, her face was +vaguely suggestive of the footlights--would have been distinctly so but +for her eyes. These were curiously at variance with the rest of her +appearance. They belonged to a quite other order of woman, so to speak--a +woman of finer physique, of higher intelligence, possibly of nobler +purposes. They were arrestingly large in size, thereby helping to dwarf +the proportions of her face. In colour they were a rather light warm +hazel, with a slight film over both iris and pupil, and a noticeably +bluish shade in the whites of them. In these last particulars they were +like a baby's eyes; but very unlike in the reflective intensity of their +observation as she fixed them upon Dominic Iglesias. + +"Cappadocia may be a fool about motors," she remarked, "but she's +uncommonly shrewd in reading character. She seems to like you, to have +taken you on, don't you know; and she's generally right. So I'll sit +down, please. Oh! no, no, come along now"--this as Mr. Iglesias rose and +made a movement to depart--"why, dear man, the very point of the whole +show is that you should sit down, too." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +And so it came about that the Lady of the Windswept Dust sat at one end +of the flat bench and Dominic Iglesias at the other, with the two absurd +and exquisite little dogs in between. And the lady chattered. Her voice +was sweet and full, with plaintive tones and turns of laughter in it; +and, though the vowel sounds were not wholly impeccable, having the tang +in them common to the speech of the cockney bred, the aspirates happily +remained inviolate. And Iglesias listened, still with a curious +indifference, as, sitting in the body of the house, he might have +listened to patter from the other side of the footlights. It passed the +time. Presently he would get up, taking the whole of his rather sorrowful +personality along with him, and go out by the main entrance, while she +left by the stage door--and so vanished, little dogs and all. + +"It's my habit to play fair," she announced. "If I'm going to ask +personal questions at the finish, I always lead up to them by supplying +personal information at the start. It's mean to induce other people to +give themselves away unless you give yourself away first--also, I observe +it is usually quite unsuccessful. Well, then, to begin with, his name"-- +she gently poked the tiny spaniel beside her, causing it to wriggle +uneasily all the length of its satiny back--"is Onions. Graceful and +distinguished, isn't it? But I give you my word I couldn't help myself. +Cappadocia's so duchessy that I had to knock the conceit out of her +somehow, or it would not have been possible to live with her. She was +altogether too smart for me--used to look at me as if I was a cockroach. +So I consulted a friend of mine about it; for it's a little too much to +be made to feel like a black-beetle in your own house, and by a thing of +that size, too! And he--my friend--said there is nothing to compare with +a _mésalliance_ for taking the stuffing out of anyone. I own I was not +exactly off my head about that speech of his. In a way it was rather a +facer; but when I got cool I saw he was right. After all, he knew, and I +knew--and he knew that I knew----" + +The lady paused. Her voice had taken on a plaintive inflection. She +looked away at the domed heads of the enormous elm trees above the range +of oak palings. + +"For the life of me I can't imagine why you're here," she exclaimed, +"instead of inside there with all the rest of them! However, we haven't +got as far as that yet. I was telling you about my King Charleses. So my +friend brought me this one"--again she poked the little dog gently. "His +pedigree's pretty fair, but of course it's not a patch on Cappadocia's. +Her prizes and the puppies--you don't mind my alluding quite briefly to +the puppies--are a serious source of income to me. But I believe she +would have ignored the defective pedigree. He is rather nice-looking, you +see, and Cappadocia is rather superficial. It is the name that worries +her--Onions, Willie Onions, that's where the real trouble comes in. Not +like it? I believe you. She's capable of saving up all her pocket-money +to buy him a foreign title, as a rich, ugly woman I once knew did who +married a man called Spittles. He was a bad lot when she married him, and +he stayed so. But as the Comte d'Oppitale it didn't matter. Vices became +merely quaint little eccentricities. If he beat her it was with an +umbrella with a coronet on the handle, and that made all the difference. +Everything for the shop window, you see, with a nature like hers or +Cappadocia's. But I don't rub it in, I assure you I don't. I only remind +Cappadocia of the fact by calling her Mrs. W. O. when she's a pest and a +terror. And that's better than smacking her, anyhow, isn't it?" + +To this proposition Mr. Iglesias gravely assented. The lady drew her +blue-purple scarf a little closer about her shoulders, causing the +embroidered dragons to writhe as in the heat of conflict, while the +sunlight glinted on the gold thread of their crests and claws, and +glittered in their jewelled eyes. She gazed at the elm trees again. + +"It's quite nice to hear you speak, you know," she remarked +parenthetically. "The conversation has been a little one-sided so far. I +was beginning to be afraid you might be bored. But now it's all right. I +flourish on encouragement! So, to go on, my name is Poppy--Poppy St. +John--Mrs. St. John. Rather good, isn't it?" + +"Distinctly so," said Mr. Iglesias. Her unblushing effrontery began to +entertain him somewhat. And then he had sallied forth in search of +amusement. This was not the form of amusement he would have selected; +but--since it presented itself? + +"I'm glad you like it," she returned. "I've always thought it rather +telling myself--an improvement on Mrs. Willie Onions, anyhow. Oh! yes, a +vast improvement," she repeated. "My friend was quite right. I tell you +it's an awful handicap to have a name which gives you away socially. The +man, the husband, I mean, may be the best of the good. Still, it's +difficult to forgive him for labelling you with some stupidity like that. +There's no getting away from it. You feel like a bottle of pickles, or +boot-polish, or a tin of insecticide whenever a servant announces you. +Everybody knows where you do--and don't--come in. But, to go on, I am +barely three--only I fancy you are the sort of person who is rather rough +on lying, aren't you? Well, in that case, quite between ourselves--I am +just turned nine-and-twenty." + +She faced round on Dominic Iglesias, fixing on him those curiously +arresting eyes, which at once emphasised and redeemed the commonness of +her face, as the sweetness of her voice emphasised and redeemed the +commonness of her accent, and the quietude of her manner and movements +mitigated the impertinence of her words and vulgarity of her diction. + +"And really that's about all it is necessary for you to know at present," +she asserted. "We shall see later, if we keep it up--if Cappadocia keeps +it up, I mean, of course. She is fearfully gone on you now, that's clear; +and she may be capable of a serious attachment. I can't tell. An +unfortunate marriage has been known to turn that way before now. Anyhow, +we'll give her the benefit of the doubt." + +Poppy laughed softly, leaning forward and still looking at Mr. Iglesias +from under the shadow of her wide-brimmed hat. + +"Now," she said, "come along. I've shown you I play fair all round, even +to a stuck-up little monkey of a thing like Cappadocia. It's your turn to +stand and deliver. I had been watching you and speculating for ever so +long before our introduction. Tell me, who on earth are you?" + +Iglesias' figure stiffened a little; but it was impossible to be annoyed +with her. To begin with, she was too unreal, too unsubstantial a being. +And, to go on with, invincible good-temper is so very disarming. + +"Who am I? Nobody," he answered gravely. + +"Bless us, here's a find!" Poppy cried, apparently addressing the little +dogs. "Hasn't he so much of a name even as Willie Onions? Where's it gone +to? It must be nearly as awkward for him as it was for the man who had no +shadow. Come, though," she added in tones of remonstrance, "you must play +fair. Cards on the table and no humbugging. To put it another way, what +do you do?" + +"Since yesterday, nothing," he answered. + +The young lady regarded him with increasing interest. + +"But, my gentle lunatic," she said, "you didn't exactly begin your +acquaintance with this planetary sphere yesterday--couldn't, you know, +though you are very beautiful to look at. So, if you don't very +particularly much mind, we'll hark back to before yesterday." + +Dominic Iglesias' gravity gave way slightly. He smiled in spite of his +natural pride and reticence. + +"For over thirty-five years I was a clerk in a city bank." + +"Pshaw!" Poppy cried hotly. "And pray what variety of congenital idiot do +you take me for? If you are going to decline upon fiction, please let it +be of a higher order than that. I tell you it's unworthy of you!" + +She pursed up her lips and moved her head slowly from side to side in +high disgust. + +"Don't be childish," she said. "Don't be transparently silly. If you want +to gas, do put a little more intelligence into it. You--you--out of sight +the most distinguished-looking man I've ever met except Lord--well, we +won't name names, it sounds showy--you a clerk in a city bank! There, +excuse me, but simply--" Poppy snapped her fingers like a pair of +castanets, making the little dogs start and whimper. "Fiddle!" she cried; +"tell it to a bed-ridden spinster in a blind asylum!--Fiddle-de-dee!" + +And for the life of him Dominic Iglesias could not help laughing. It was +a new sensation. It occurred to him that he had not laughed for years-- +hardly since the days of poor Pascal Pelletier and the little garden in +Holland Street, Kensington. + +Poppy watched him, her eyes dancing. Her expression was very charming, +wholly unselfconscious, in a way maternal, just then. But Iglesias was +hardly sensible of it. + +"That's good," she said. "Now you'll feel a lot better. I saw there was +something wrong with you from the start which needed breaking up. Now, +suppose you quit inadequate inventions and just tell the truth." + +"Unfortunately, I have done so already," Mr. Iglesias said. + +The lady paused a moment, her face full of inquiry and doubt. + +"Honest injun?" + +The term was not familiar to her hearer, but he judged it to be of the +nature of an asseveration, and assented. + +"And do you mean to tell me that for all those years you went through +that drudgery every day?" + +"I had my Sundays," Iglesias answered; "and, since their invention, my +bank holidays. Latterly I got three weeks' holiday in the summer, +formerly a fortnight." + +Laughter had speedily evaporated; and, his harsher mood returning upon +him, Iglesias found a certain bitter enjoyment in setting forth the +extreme meagreness of his life before this light-hearted, unsubstantial +piece of womanhood. Again he classed her with the absurd and exquisite +little dogs as something superfluous, out of relation to sad and sober +realities. + +"And yet you manage to look as you do! It beats me," Poppy declared. "I +tell you it knocks me out of time completely. For, if you'll excuse my +being personal, there is an air about you not usually generated by an +office stool--at least, in my experience. Where do you get it from? You +can't be English?" + +"I am a Spaniard by extraction," Mr. Iglesias said, with a slight lift of +the head. + +"There now, my dear man, don't you go and freeze up again. We were just +beginning to get along so nicely," Poppy put in quickly. "I am having a +capital good time, and you're not having an altogether bad one, are you? +But, tell me, how long ago were you extracted?" + +"Very long ago. I was brought to England as a baby child." + +"Oh! I didn't mean it that way," she returned. "I was not touching on the +unpardonable subject of age; not that it would matter much in your case, +for you are one of the lucky sort with whom age does not count. I only +meant are you an all-round foreigner?" + +"Practically--my mother was partly Irish." + +Dominic Iglesias looked away to those densely wooded slopes of Sheen and +Roehampton, against the purple-green gloom of which the home signals of +Barnes Station--hard white lines and angles tipped with scarlet and +black--stood out like the gigantic characters of some strange alphabet. +The air was sweet with the scent of new-mown hay. The birds flirted up +and down the hawthorn bushes and furze brakes. It was all very charming; +yet that same emptiness and distrust of the future were very present to +Iglesias. He forgot all about his companion, aware only that those two +unbidden guests, Old Age and Loneliness, stood close beside him, claiming +harbourage and entertainment. + +"Ah! your mother," Poppy said slowly, with the slightest perceptible +inflection of mockery. "And she is alive still?" + +Dominic Iglesias turned upon the poor Lady of the Windswept Dust +fiercely. She had come too close, come from her proper place--were not +her lips painted?--behind the footlights, and laid her hands upon that +which was holy. He was filled with unreasoning anger towards her--anger +towards himself, too, that he should have departed from his habitual +silence and reticence, submitted to be cross-questioned, and listened to +her feather-headed patter so long. He rose to his feet, for the moment +young, alert, full of a pride at once militant and protective. + +"God forbid!" he said sternly. "Dear saint and martyr, she is safe from +all misreading at last. She is dead." + +He stood a moment trying to choke down his anger before addressing her +again. + +"It is time I should go," he said presently. "I think we have talked +enough." + +But Poppy St. John presented a singular appearance. All the audacity had +departed from her. She sat huddled together, looking very small and +desolate; her eyes--the one noble feature of her face--swimming with +tears. + +"No, no; don't go," she cried in tones of childlike entreaty. "Why should +you go? I like you, and I meant no harm. I've had the beastliest day, and +meeting you was a let-up. You did me good somehow. Cappadocia was quite +right in taking to you. I only wanted to know about you because--well, +you are different. Pshaw, don't tell me. I know what I am talking about. +You're straight. You're good right through." + +The words were poured forth so rapidly that Iglesias hardly gathered the +exact purport of them. But one thing was clear to him--namely, that this +frivolous and meretricious being must be human after all, since she could +suffer. + +"Don't go," she repeated. "I'm miserable. I'll explain. I'll tell you. +Just sit down again. It would be awfully kind. You see, I've been +expecting a friend. It was all-important I should see him to-day, because +there were things to be said. I've been awake half the night screwing up +my courage to saying them. And then he never turned up. I got nerves +waiting hour after hour--anybody would, waiting like that. And I began to +imagine every kind of pestilent disaster." + +Poppy swallowed a little and dabbed her pocket-handkerchief against her +eyes. + +"I shall be all right in a minute," she went on. "Do sit down, please. +You say you're nobody and have nothing to do, so you can't very well be +in a hurry. I am like this sometimes. It's awfully silly, but I can't +help it. Some rotten trifle sets me off, and then I can't stop myself. I +begin to go over all my worst luck.--Doesn't it occur to you there's no +earthly good in standing? It obliges me to talk loud, and it's stupid to +take all Barnes Common into our confidence. Thanks; that's very nice of +you.--Well, you see when I'm like his, the flood-gates of memory are +opened--which sounds pretty enough, but the prettiness is strictly +limited to the sound for most of us, at least as far as my experience +goes. The water is generally a bit dirty, and there are too many dead +things floating about in it; and, when they reel by, as the current takes +them, they turn and seem to struggle and come half alive." + +She paused, hitching the embroidered dragons up about her shoulders. + +"That is why I put on this scarf to-day. It was given me by a man who was +awfully fond of me before--I married. He bought it in the bazaar at +Peshawur, and sent it home to me just as he was starting on one of those +little frontier wars the accounts of which they keep out of the English +papers. And he was killed, poor dear old boy, in some footy little +skirmish. And this is all I've got left of him." + +Poppy spread out the ends of the scarf for Mr. Iglesias' inspection. + +"It must have cost a lot of money. The stones are real, you see; and that +gold thread is tremendously heavy. Just feel the weight. It was all his +people's doing. They didn't consider me smart enough for him--or rather +for themselves. They weren't anybody in particular, but they were +climbing. The society microbe had bitten them badly. So they bundled him +off to India. What another pair of shoes it would have been for me if +he'd lived! At least it seems so to me when I'm down on my luck, as I am +to-day. But after all, I don't know." Poppy began to be impudent, to +laugh again, though somewhat brokenly. "Sometimes I don't believe one can +count on any of you men till you are well dead, and then you're not much +use, you know, faithful or unfaithful." + +She dabbed her eyes once more and looked at Mr. Iglesias, smiling +ruefully. + +"Life's a pretty rotten business, at times, all round, isn't it?" she +said. "You must have found it so with that thirty years' drudgery in a +city bank. By the way, what bank was it?" + +And Dominic Iglesias, touched by that very human story, attracted, in +spite of himself, by the frankness of his companion, a little shaken by +the novelty of the whole situation, answered mechanically: + +"The bank? Oh, yes! Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking of Threadneedle +Street." + +For a moment Poppy sat silent, her mouth round as an O. Then she drew her +open hand down sharply behind poor Willie Onions, and shot the small dog, +in a sitting position, off the bench on to the rough grass. His fringed +legs stuck out stiff as sticks, while his enormous lappets of ears flew +up and back, giving him the most wildly demented appearance during this +brief inglorious flight through space. + +"Catch birds!" she cried, "catch birds, I tell you! Think of your figure. +My good child, take exercise or you'll be as round as a tub!" + +She clapped her hands encouragingly, but the little animal, half-scared, +half-offended, came closer, fawning upon her trailing string-coloured +skirts. Poppy leaned down, resting her elbows upon her knees, and napped +at the unhappy Onions with her handkerchief. + +"Go away, you silly billy. Have a little decent pride, can't you? Don't +bestow attentions when they're unwelcome." Then she addressed herself to +Mr. Iglesias, but without looking up. "I beg your pardon, all this must +seem rather abrupt. But sometimes one's duty to one's family takes one on +the jump, as you may say; and one repairs neglect right away also on the +jump. But--but--there's one thing I should like to know--when I told you +my name just now--Poppy St. John, Mrs. St. John--you remember?" + +"I remember," he said. + +"Well, didn't it convey--didn't it mean anything special to you?" + +"I am afraid not," Iglesias answered. "You must pardon my ignorance, +since I have lived very much out of the world. I know nothing of +society." + +"So much the better. The world is a vastly overrated place, and society +is about the biggest fraud going." She left off teasing the little dog, +sat bolt upright, and looked full at Dominic Iglesias, her eyes serious, +redeeming all the insignificance of her features and those little +doubtful details of the general effect of her. "Don't make any mistake +about either of them," she said. "Let the world and society alone as you +value your peace of mind and independence. They're dead sea fruit to all +outsiders such as--well--you and me. I hate them; only they've got me, +and will have me in some form or other till the end, I suppose. But you +are different, and I warn you"--Poppy's voice took on an odd inflection +of mingled bitterness and tenderness--"they are not a bit adapted for a +beautiful, innocent, uncrowned king like you." + +She got up as she spoke, gathering her trailing skirts about her, and +called sharply to the little dogs. + +"The dew is rising," she said, "and Cappadocia's a regular cry-baby if +she gets her feet wet. I must take her home. There's my card. You see the +address? You can come when you like, only let me know the day beforehand, +because I should be sorry to have people with me or to be out. Cappadocia +'ll want you. So shall I. You do me good. I'll play quite fair, I promise +you. Good-night." + +The sun stood in a triumph of crimson and gold, which passed into the +fine blue of a belt of earth mist. Eastward the sky blushed, too, but +with brazen blushes, tarnished by the breath of the great city--the pure +blue of the earth mist exchanged for the murk of coal smoke and the +thousand and one exhalations of steaming streets, public-houses and +restaurants. Poppy St. John walked slowly along the footpath, her figure +dyed by the effulgence of the skies to the crimson and gold of her name. +About her shoulders the embroidered dragons glittered as she moved, while +the two tiny spaniels trotted humbly at her heels. For a brief space she +showed absolutely resplendent. Then suddenly an interposing terrace of +smart much-be-balconied and beflowered little houses shut off the sunset; +and in their rather vulgar shadow Dominic Iglesias, watching, beheld her +transformed into the unsubstantial, in a way fictitious, Lady of the +Windswept Dust and of the footlights once again. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +That weekly ceremony--well known to Trimmer's Green--Mrs. Lovegrove's +afternoon at-home, was in progress. She wore her black satin gown, and +her white Maltese lace fichu, just to give it a touch of summer +lightness. It must be added that she was warm and uncomfortable, having +conscientiously superintended preparations in respect of commissariat in +the overheated atmosphere of the basement; hurried upstairs--the imagined +tinkle of the front-door bell perpetually in her ears--to pull her stays +in at the waist and project herself into the aforementioned official +garments--a very trying process on a June day to a person of ample +contours and what may be described as the fluidic temperament. Later she +had cooled off, or tried so to cool--for on such occasions there is +invariably some window-blind, ornament, or piece of furniture actively in +need of straightening--sitting in her somewhat fog-stained and sun-faded +drawing-room during that evil period of waiting in which the intending +hostess first suffers acute mortification because she is "quite sure +nobody will come," and then gets hot all over from the equally agitating +certainty that everybody she has ever known will appear simultaneously, +and that there will be neither cakes nor conversation enough to go round. + +But this disquieting and oft-repeated preface to the afternoon's +festivity was now happily over. And the good lady, oblivious of +discomfort and a slightly disorganised complexion, sat purring with +satisfaction upon her best Chesterfield sofa, Dr. Giles Nevington beside +her. "Pleasure, not business, to-day, Mrs. Lovegrove. For once I am going +to make no demands on my faithful and able coadjutor. This call is a +purely friendly one--no subscription lists of any sort or description in +my pocket," the clergyman had said in his resonant bass when clasping her +hand.--A large, dark, clean-shaven man of forty, a studied effect of +geniality and benevolence about him, slightly tempered, perhaps, by cold +and watchful blue-grey eyes, fixed--so said his detractors--with +unswerving determination upon the shovel-hat, apron, and gaiters of the +Anglican episcopate. + +Rhoda Lovegrove, however, was very far from being among the detractors. +She relished this gracious speech enormously. She also approved the +attitude of her husband at this juncture; since, with praiseworthy tact, +he engaged the attention of her two other guests, a Mrs. Ballard and her +daughter. These ladies were rich, the younger had pretensions both to +beauty and fashion; but their present was, alas! stained by +Noncomformity, their past contaminated by association with retail trade. +At the entrance of the vicar, remembering these sad defects, George +Lovegrove rose to the occasion. Gently, but firmly, he pranced round them +heading them towards the doorway. + +"Who are those?" Dr. Nevington inquired, with some interest. "Not +parishioners, I fancy." + +"Not in any true sense," Mrs. Lovegrove replied. "Dissenters, and I am +sorry to say rather spiteful against the Church." + +The clergyman leaned back and crossed his legs comfortably. + +"Ah! well, poor human nature! A touch of jealousy perhaps," he remarked. + +Mrs. Lovegrove beamed. + +"Very likely--still I should be just as well pleased not to continue +their acquaintance. I don't like to hear things that are disrespectful. I +should have ceased to call, but relatives of theirs are old friends of +Mr. Lovegrove's mother's family." + +"Quite so, quite so," the other returned. Even when silent the sound of +him seemed to encompass him, as the roll of a drum seems to salute you +when merely beholding that instrument. His speech filled all the room, +flowing forth into every corner, sweeping upward in waves to the very +cornice. The feminine members of his congregation found this most +beautiful; having, indeed, been known to declare that did he preach in +Chinese, they would still receive edification and spiritual benefit.-- +"Quite so," he repeated, "the breaking of old family ties is certainly to +be avoided. And then, moreover, we should always guard against any +appearance of harshness or illiberality in dealing with Christians from +whom we have reason to differ in minor questions of doctrine or practice. +We must never forget that the Nonconformists, though they went out from +us, do remain the brethren of all right-minded Churchmen in a very +special sense, since they have the great lessons of the Reformation at +heart. I could wish that certain parties within the Church were animated +by the same manly and intelligent intolerance of idolatry and +superstition as the majority of the dissenters whom I meet. Personally I +should welcome greater freedom of intercourse, and a frequent interchange +of pulpits." + +"We know who'd be the gainers," Mrs. Lovegrove put in gracefully. + +"Ah! well, I am prepared to believe that the gain might not be +exclusively on one side." + +Mrs. Lovegrove folded her fat hands, purring almost audibly. He seemed to +her so very wise and good. + +"That's so like you, Dr. Nevington," she said. "As I always tell Mr. +Lovegrove, we have a great responsibility in having you for our pastor +and friend. You are a standing rebuke to many of us, being so wide-minded +yourself." + +"Hardly that, hardly that," he answered with becoming modesty. "In my +humble way I do strive towards unity, that is all. Even towards the +Church of Rome I would extend a friendly and helpful hand. We cannot, of +course, go to her, yet she should never be discouraged from coming to +us.--But here is your good husband back again--ceased to be unevenly +yoked with the unbeliever, eh, Lovegrove?" + +"I was glad you took them away, Georgie," Mrs. Lovegrove put in. "Still +I'm sorry for you, for the vicar's been talking so nobly. You've missed +such a lot." + +"Ah, hardly that. I have merely been giving your dear good wife a little +lecture on Christian charity. How is Mrs. Nevington? Thank you, +wonderfull well, earnest and energetic as ever. I do not know how I could +meet the demands of this large parish without her." + +"A true helpmeet," purred Mrs. Lovegrove. + +"Truly so--and specially in all questions of organisation. She is +altogether my superior in administrative capacity. Indeed, it is an +understood thing between us that I relieve her of what may be called the +bad third of her marriage vow. If she will love and honour, I assure her +I am ready to obey. A capital working rule for husbands--eh, Lovegrove?-- +always supposing they have found the right woman, as you and I have." + +In the midst of this delicious badinage the hostess had to rise to +receive further guests. Conflicting emotions struggled within her ample +bosom--namely, regret at leaving that thrice happy sofa, and +satisfaction that others should behold the glory thereon so visibly +enthroned. + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Porcher? How d'ye do, Miss Hart?" she said. "Very kind +of you to come and call. Only a few friends as yet, but perhaps that's +just as pleasant this warm afternoon. Dr. Nevington, as you see, and at +his very best"--she lowered her voice discreetly. "So at home, so full +of great thoughts, and yet so comical--quite a privilege for all to hear +him talk." + +Encouraged by recent commendation, George Lovegrove again rose with +praiseworthy tact to the occasion. It may be stated in passing that, in +person, he was below the middle height, a thick oblong man, his figure, +indeed, not unsuggestive of a large carapace, from the four corners of +which sprouted short arms and legs. His face was round, fresh-coloured, +and clean to the point of polish. His yellowish grey hair, well flattened +and shining, grew far back on his forehead. And this, combined with small +blue eyes, clear as a child's, a slight inward squint to them, produced +an effect of permanent and innocent surprise not devoid of pathos. In +character he was guileless and humble-minded. The spectacle of cruelty or +injustice would, however, rouse him to the belligerent attitude of the +proverbial _brebis enragé_. He believed himself to be very happy--an +added touch of pathos perhaps--and was pained and surprised if it was +brought home to him that others found life a less comfortable and kindly +invention than he himself did. Hence reports of suicides worried him +sadly. He would always have returned a verdict of temporary insanity, +this being to him the only explanation conceivable of a voluntary exit +from our so excellent present form of existence. Yet George Lovegrove was +not without his little secret sorrow--who indeed is? A deep-seated regret +for nonexistent small Lovegroves possessed him, the instinct of paternity +being strong in him. He loved children, and, when alone, often lingered +beside perambulators in Kensington Gardens fondly observing their +contents. Yet not for ten thousand pounds sterling would he have admitted +this weakness, lest in doing so he should hurt "the wife's feelings." And +it was in obedience to consideration for the said feelings that he now +threw himself gallantly into the breach. For, after acting as +appreciative chorus to an interlude of sonorous trifling on the part of +the clergyman with the newcomers, he adroitly--under promise of showing +her recent additions to his collection of picture postcards--detached +Miss Eliza Hart from the neighbourhood of the sofa and conveyed her to +the farther side of the room. Mrs. Porcher, neat, pensive, and +sentimental, could be trusted to play the part of attentive listener; but +the great Eliza, as he knew by experience, was liable to develop +dangerous energy, to get a little above herself, shake her leonine mane +of upstanding sandy hair, and become altogether too talkative, not to say +loud, for such distinguished company. Personally he had a soft spot in +his heart for Eliza. But, if she put herself forward, he feared for "the +wife's feelings," therefore did he skilfully detach her. + +And he had reason to congratulate himself on this manoeuvre, for Eliza +undoubtedly was in a frolicsome humour. + +"Yes," she remarked, contemplating the portrait of a celebrated actress. +"That is very taking and stylish; and it is just what I should like to +have done with my Peachie." This graceful _sobriquet_ was generally +understood to bear testimony to the excellence of Mrs. Porcher's +complexion. "Now, if we wanted a gentleman guest or two more at any time, +a picture postcard of her like this, just slightly tinted, in answer to +inquiries?" + +Miss Hart, her head on one side, looked playfully at Mr. Lovegrove. + +"What about a subsequent summons for over-crowding?" he chuckled. The +whole breadth of the room, well understood, was between him and the +wife's feelings, not to mention the august presence beside her upon the +sofa. + +"No doubt that has to be thought of!" Eliza nodded sagely. "But is she +not looking sweeter than ever to-day? Do not pretend you have not noticed +it, Mr. Lovegrove. There's no deceiving me! I know you." + +Like all mild and moral men, Lovegrove flushed with delight at any +suggestion that he was a gay dog, a dashing blade. His good, honest face +took on a higher polish than ever. + +"You are too clever by half, Miss Hart." + +"Well, somebody has to keep their wits about them, with such a love as +Peachie to care for. I dressed her myself to-day. 'The pearl-grey gown if +you like,' I said, 'but not a scrap of black with it. Just a touch of +colour at the throat, please.' 'No, dear Liz,' she said, 'it would call +for remark, since I have never done so since I lost Major Porcher.' But +there, Mr. Lovegrove, I insisted. For why she should go on wearing +complimentary mourning all her life for a wretch that nearly broke her +heart and ruined her, passes me. 'Forget the serpent,' I said, 'and put +on a little turquoise tulle pompom.' Now just look at her!" + +"Rather dangerous for some people, is it not?" Lovegrove inquired quite +slyly. + +"Hard on our gentlemen, you mean? Well, perhaps it is. But then they +always have the sight of me to put up with.--No compliments, thank you. I +have my eyesight and my toilet-glass, and they have let me know I was no +Venus ever since I can remember. It would not do to depress our gentlemen +too much. They might leave, and then wherever would Cedar Lodge be?" + +Miss Hart became suddenly serious and confidential. "And that reminds me," +she went on. "I wanted to have a private word with you to-day about a +certain gentleman." + +"Who may be?" the good George inquired. + +"You can guess, can't you? Your own candidate." + +"Mr. Iglesias?" + +The lady nodded. + +"Peachie must be spared anxiety, therefore I speak, Mr. Lovegrove. +Something is going on, and she is getting worried. You cannot approach +the person to whom we are alluding as you can either of our others. +Rather stand-offish, even now after nearly eight years that he has been +with us. Between you and me and the bedpost, Mr. Lovegrove, I am just a +wee bit nervous of that person. So if you could hint, quite in +confidence, what his plans may be for the future it would' be really +friendly." + +"Dear me, dear me! Plans? I do not quite follow you, Miss Hart. Nothing +wrong with him, I trust?" + +"That is just what we cannot find out. No spying, of course, Mr. +Lovegrove. Neither Peachie nor I would descend to such meanness. Our +gentlemen have perfect liberty. We would scorn to put questions. But it +is close on a week now since the person we are alluding to has been to +the City." + +"Bless me! You surprise me. He cannot have left Barking Brothers & +Barking?" + +The great Eliza shook her leonine mane. + +"I believe that is just exactly what he has done." + +"You do surprise me. I can hardly credit it. Nearly a week, and he as +punctual and regular as clockwork! I must run over this evening and catch +him. Something must be wrong. And yet why has he not been here? Dear me. +Miss Hart, you----" + +But the end of the sentence was lost in the bass notes issuing from the +presence upon the sofa. + +"Truly, the prosperity of the nation," Dr. Nevington was saying, "of this +dear old England of ours that we so love, is wholly bound up with the +prosperity of her national Church. I use the word prosperity in a plain, +manly, straightforward sense. Personally I should rejoice to see the +bonds of Church and State drawn closer. It could not fail to make for the +welfare of both. Then, among other benefits, we should see the poverty of +many members of my cloth, which is now a crying scandal--" + +"You do hear very sad tales from the country districts, certainly," +sighed Mrs. Lovegrove. + +"The state of affairs is more than sad, it is iniquitous. And therefore +the Church must assert herself. The individual minister must assert +himself, and claim a higher scale of remuneration. Help yourself, show +push and principle, cultivate practical aims--that is what I preach to +young men reading for Holy Orders. We have no place in these days for +visionaries and dreamers. We want men who march with the times, who are +interested in politics, and can make themselves felt." + +So did the great voice roll on and outward. Very beautiful to the +listeners in sound--though, in sense, it may be questioned whether it +conveyed very definite ideas to them--but highly embarrassing to the +house-parlourmaid, whose feminine tones quite failed to make headway +against the volume of it. With the consequence that Dominic Iglesias was +left standing in the shadow of the doorway unheeded. + +He was aware, and that not without surprise, how much these few days of +freedom and leisure had quickened his perceptions. His mental attitude +had changed. His demand had ceased to be moderate. Hence he suffered a +hundred offences to taste and sensibility hitherto unknown, or at least +unregistered. He knew when a woman was plain, when a conversation was +vapid or vulgar, a manner pretentious, a speech lacking in sincerity. +Consciously he stood aside, no longer out of humility or indifference, +but critically observant, challenging things however familiar, and +passing judgment upon them. For example, the unlovely character of Mrs. +Lovegrove's drawing-room engrossed his attention--the dirty-browns and +tentative watery blues of it, the multiplicity of flimsy, worthless, +little ornaments revealing a most lamentable absence of artistic +perception. In that fine booming clerical voice he detected a kindred +absence of delicate perception, a showiness born of very inadequate +conception of relative values. Indeed, the voice and the sentiments given +forth by it, in as far as he caught the drift of them, raised a definite +spirit of antagonism in him. The voice seemed to trample. Dominic +Iglesias was taken with an inclination--very novel in him--to trample, +too. He crossed the room, an added touch of gravity and dignity in his +aspect and manner. + +The clergyman gazed at him with some curiosity, while Mrs. Lovegrove +surged up off the sofa. + +"Mr. Iglesias! Well, of all people! Whoever would have expected to see +you at this early hour of the day?" + +"Talk of a certain gentleman and that gentleman appears," Miss Eliza Hart +whispered. Then wagging her finger at her host, "Now don't you forget +that little question of mine. Find out his intentions, just, as you may +say, under the rose. But there's Peachie signalling to go." + +In the ensuing interval of farewells, which were slightly protracted +owing to friskiness on the part of the fair Eliza, Iglesias found himself +standing beside the clergyman. The latter still regarded him with +curiosity. But, whatever his faults, not his worst enemy could accuse Dr. +Nevington of being a respecter of persons unless he was well assured +beforehand whom such persons might be. He therefore turned to Iglesias +with the easy air of patronage not uncommon to his cloth, as one who +should say: "My good sir, don't be afraid. I am a man of the world as +well as a Christian. I will handle you gently. I won't hurt you." + +"I think I caught a foreign name," he remarked. "You are paying a visit +to London? I hope our capital makes an agreeable impression upon you." + +"The visit has been of such long duration," Iglesias answered, "that +impressions have, I am afraid, become slightly blurred by usage." + +"Ah! indeed--no doubt that happens in some measure to all of us. I am to +understand that you are a resident?" + +Iglesias assented. + +"In this district?" + +Again he assented. + +"Indeed. Really, I wish I had known it sooner. It always gives me +pleasure to meet persons of another nationality than my own. Intercourse +with them makes for liberality of view. It often dispels anti-English +prejudice. I am always glad to be helpful to strangers." + +"You are very kind," Iglesias said with gravity. + +"Not at all--not at all. I hold very practical views not only regarding +the duties of the Englishman to the alien, but of the pastor towards his +flock. But I find it almost impossible, I regret to say, to become +personally acquainted with all my parishioners. My curates are capital +young fellows--earnest, active, go-ahead. But in a large area such as +this there is always a shifting population with which the clergy, however +energetic, find it difficult to keep in touch. We are obliged to +discriminate between dwellers and sojourners. As soon as any person is +proved to be a _bona fide_ dweller my curates pass his or her name on to +me, and either I or my wife call in due course." + +Dominic Iglesias permitted himself to smile. + +"An excellent system, no doubt," he remarked. + +"I find it works very well on the whole. But no system is infallible. +There must be occasional oversights, and you have been the victim of one. +I mention this to disabuse your mind of the idea of any intentional +neglect. Well, Mrs. Lovegrove, and so our good friends Mrs. Porcher and +Miss Hart have gone--estimable women both of them in their own line. I +ought to be running away, too, and I have just been having a word with +your other guest here, Mr.----" + +"Iglesias," Dominic put in coldly. He was in a state of pretty high +displeasure. To hear his name mispronounced might, he felt, precipitate a +catastrophe. + +"Iglesias?--ah! yes, thank you--I have been explaining to Mr. Iglesias +our system of parochial visiting and quoting our well-known joke about +the dwellers and sojourners. You remember it? He has, I regret to find, +been counted among the latter, while he has qualified as one of the +former. The mistake must be remedied. Well, good-by to you, Mrs. +Lovegrove; I shall see your good husband on my way downstairs. Good-day +to you, Mr. Iglesias. I shall hope to meet you again." + +And with that he, and the encompassing sound of him, moved towards the +door. Mrs. Lovegrove subsided upon the sofa. The supreme glory had +departed, yet an afterglow from the effulgence of it remained in her +beaming face as she looked up at Mr. Iglesias. + +"It was a good fairy that brought you in so early to-day," she said. +"Really, I am pleased you should have had the chance to meet Dr. +Nevington. And I could see he was quite taken with you, by the way he +began to talk before I had the chance to introduce you. But that's the +vicar all over! He never is one to stand upon ceremony." + +"So I can believe," Dominic said. + +"You saw it? Ah, part of his thoughtfulness, wanting to put everybody at +their ease. And I'm sure if there's one thing more disheartening than +another, it is to have two of your friends standing up side by side, as +stiff as a couple of pokers, without so much as a word. I know I am too +ready to enter into conversation with strangers; but if there is a thing +I cannot bear, it's any appearance of coolness." + +She passed her handkerchief round her forehead and across her lips. She +was marshalling her energies for a daring effort. + +"Very warm, is it not?" she remarked, perhaps superfluously. Then she +came to the point. "I know you are not very much of a churchgoer, Mr. +Iglesias." + +"I am afraid not"--he paused a moment. "You see, I was born and brought +up in another faith." + +"Yes--so George has told me. But I am sure none of us would ever be so +illiberal as to throw that up against you. The vicar has been talking so +beautifully about Christian charity; and we all know it was a thing you +could not help. It was your misfortune, anybody would understand that, +not your fault. Too, it's all over long ago and forgotten." + +Dominic looked rather hard at her; but it was clear her words were +innocent of any intention of offence. + +"I suppose it is," he said sadly, Old Age and Loneliness laying their +hands upon him, for some reason, very sensibly once again. + +"Not that that's anything to be otherwise than thankful for," she added, +with a slightly misplaced effort at consolation. "Of course anyone must +feel how providential it is to be saved from all those terrible false +doctrines and practices--not that I know anything about them. There's so +much, don't you think, it is so much better not to know anything about. +Then one feels more at liberty to speak." + +Mr. Iglesias smiled. + +"I am not sure that the matter had occurred from exactly that point of +view before." + +"Really now, and a clever person like you!" Mrs. Lovegrove passed her +handkerchief across her forehead again. "George has a wonderful opinion +of your cleverness, you know. And that is why I have always wished you +and the vicar could be brought together. I have--yes, I own to it--I have +been afraid sometimes you were a little unsettled about religion, and +that it might unsettle Georgie, too. But I knew if you once met the vicar +that would all be set right. As I often say to George, let anybody just +_see_ Dr. Nevington and then they will begin to have an inkling of all +they miss in not hearing him in the pulpit." + +But here, perhaps fortunately, the master of the house trotted back. He, +too, beamed. He was filled with innocent rejoicing. Had he not +successfully protected the wife's feelings, and was not Iglesias--who +remained to him a wonderful being, stirring whatever element of romance +might be resident in his guileless nature--present in person? + +"Why, what's the meaning of this, Dominic?" he chuckled. "You've turned +over a new leaf, gadding round to at-home days! Where's Threadneedle +Street? What's come over you?" + +"Threadneedle Street and I have agreed to part company." + +"What, for good? Never?" this from both husband and wife. + +"Yes, for good," Iglesias said. + +Mr. Lovegrove ceased to beam. He became anxious again, and consequently +solemn. + +"Well, you do surprise me," he said. "Nothing gone wrong, I trust? Not +any unpleasantness happened?" + +"None," Iglesias answered. In breaking the news to these kindly but +rudimentary souls he had determined to treat it very lightly. "I have +come to the conclusion that I have worked long enough. It is a mistake to +risk dying in harness. You retired, Lovegrove, three years ago. I am +going to look about me a little and see what the rest of the world is +doing." + +"You'll miss the bank, and feel a little strange at first. Georgie did, +though he had his home to interest him," Mrs. Lovegrove remarked. + +"Undoubtedly George was more fortunate than I am," Iglesias replied, in +his most courtly manner. + +"Not but that all that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch +of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his +host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting +blue eyes into his face. + +"It's all rather sudden, Dominic," he said. "I do not want to intrude +upon your confidence; but if there is anything behind, anything in which +I can help?" + +Mr. Iglesias shook his head. + +"Nothing, my good old friend," he said. + +"The wife's right, you know. You'll miss the bank, the regular hours, and +the occupation. She's quite right. I did at first." + +"I know. But already I have pretty well got through that phase, I think." + +"Ah, you have a bigger mind than mine. You can rise to a wider view. +Change affects a commonplace man like myself most. I was dreadfully lost +at first--more than the wife knew. Females are very sensitive, and it +would have hurt her to know all I felt. If the Almighty is good enough to +give a man a faithful woman to look after him, he can't be too scrupulous +in sparing her pain--at least, so I think." Suddenly his tone changed. +"But you are not going to leave us, Dominic?--you are not going to move, +I do hope?" + +He was mindful of his promise to Eliza Hart, but he was also mindful of +himself. It had occurred to him for how very much in the interest and +pleasure of his life Dominic Iglesias really stood. + +"Why, should you regret my going? Should you miss me?" the other asked, +struck by his tone. + +"Miss you," he said, "and after a friendship covering forty years! I know +you are my superior in every way. I know I am not on your level. All the +advantage is on my side in our friendship, always has been. But that is +just where it is. Why, you know, Dominic--next to the wife of course--all +along you have been the best thing I had." + +Then it came to Iglesias, looking down at him, that among the many +millions of his fellow-mortals, this whimsical childlike being stood +nearest to him in sympathy and in love. The thought moved him strangely, +at once deepening his sense of isolation and lessening the load of it. + +"In that case I will not move. I will stay here, at Trimmer's Green," he +said. + +When Mr. Lovegrove reentered the sun-faded drawing-room his wife greeted +him in these words: + +"Well, I have been thinking it all over, Georgie, and we shall only be +doing our duty by Mr. Iglesias if we send for your cousin Serena. For my +part, I don't trust Mrs. Porcher. Did you see that fly-away blue bow? +Those who seem so soft are often the deepest. And widows have all sorts +of little cunning ways with them." She rose from the thrice happy sofa. +"I was gratified to have Dr. Nevington and Mr. Iglesias meet. But we +certainly will have to send for Serena," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Mr. Iglesias crossed Trimmer's Green in the dusty sunshine. He had +engaged to stay; and, indeed, he asked himself what person, what objects +or interests there were to take him else-whither? Nevertheless, the +promise seemed, somehow, a limiting of possibility and of hope. It was +destiny. London, very evidently, having got him, did not mean to let him +go. And London was not attractive this evening, but blouzy and jaded from +the heat. He passed on into the great thoroughfare and turned eastward, +absorbed in thought. Children cried. A pungent scent of over-ripe fruit +came from barrows in the roadway and open doors of green-grocers' shops. +Tempers appeared to be on edge. Workmen, pouring out from a big block of +flats under construction on the left, jostled him in passing, not in +insolence, but simply in inattention. Their language was starred with +sanguinary adjectives. The noise of the traffic was loud. Iglesias turned +up one of the side streets leading on to Campden Hill. It was quieter +here and the air was a trifle purer. Halfway up the hill he hesitated. +There was a shrine to be visited in these regions--in it stood an altar +of the dead. And above that altar, in Iglesias' imagination, hung the +picture of a woman, beautiful, and, to him, infinitely sad. + +He turned eastward again and made his way into Holland Street. He rarely +had the courage to go back there. He had never reentered the house. But +this evening he was taken by the desire to look on it all once again. For +he was still pursued by the disquieting question as to whether he had +shirked the possibilities of his life, or had sacrificed them to a higher +duty than any duty of personal development. If the latter, however barren +of active happiness both past and present, he would be in his own eyes +justified, and desolation would cease to have in it any flavour of self- +contempt. Perhaps this dwelling-place of his childhood, youth, and what +should have been the best of his manhood, might help to answer the +question and set his doubts at rest. + +A board--"To Let"--was up on the narrow iron balcony of the dining-room. +Iglesias rang, and after brief parley with the caretaker--a neat bald- +headed little old man, in carpet slippers and a well-brushed once-smart +brown check suit, altogether too capacious for his attenuated person--was +admitted. + +"The place is quite empty save for my bits of sticks in the basement, +sir," he said. "You are at liberty to go where you please. I am afflicted +with the asthma and am glad to avoid mounting the stairs." He ended up +with a husky little cough. So Iglesias passed through the vacant house +unattended. + +He received a pathetic yet agitating impression. The rooms were even +smaller than he had supposed. They were gloomy, too, from the worn paint +of the high wainscots and discoloration of the low ceilings. All the +windows were shut and the atmosphere was close and faint. The corners +were thick with crouching shadows, merely awaiting the cover of night, as +it seemed to Iglesias, to take definite shape, stand upright, and come +forth to possess and people all the house. Even now it belonged so +sensibly to them that his own reverent footsteps sounded to him harshly +intrusive upon the bare, uneven floors. At intervals, downstairs in the +basement, he could hear the little old caretaker's husky cough. + +And it was strange to him to consider what those crouching shadows might +represent. Not the ghosts of human beings--in such he had small belief-- +but an aftermath of human emotions, purposes, and passions, formulated or +endured in this apparently so innocent place. To his knowledge the +origins of revolution had seethed here. The walls had listened to details +of political intrigue, of projected assassination, to vehement +declarations of undying hate. Of the men who had plotted and dreamed +here, uplifted in spirit by the magic of terrible ideas, none were left. +One by one they had gone out into the silence to meet death, swift-handed +or heartlessly lingering, as the case might be. And what had they +actually accomplished? he asked himself. Had their death, often as must +be surmised of a sufficiently hideous sort, really advanced the cause of +humanity and helped on the birth of that Golden Age, in which Justice +shall reign alongside Peace? Or had these men merely wasted themselves, +adding to the sum total of human confusion and wrong; and wasted the +hearts and happiness of those allied to them by ties of friendship and of +blood, leaving the second generation to repair, in so far as it might, +the ruin which their violence had worked? Dominic Iglesias could not say. +But this at least, though it savoured of reproach, he could not disguise +from himself--namely, that out of the intemperate heat and fierceness of +these men's thought and action had come, as a necessary consequence, the +narrow opportunities and cold isolation of his own. + +"As physically, so morally, spiritually, socially," he said to himself, +"the younger generation pays the debts contracted by the generation +immediately preceding it. Justice, indeed, reigns already, always has +done so--. justice of a rather tremendous sort. But peace?--Peace is +still very much to seek, both for the individual and the race." + +Iglesias visited his mother's bed-chamber. He visited his former nursery. +Then he visited the drawing-room, the heart of this very pathetic shrine +where the altar of his dead was, almost visibly set up. To this room, +during the many years of his mother's mental illness, he had come back +daily after work; and had ministered to her, suiting his speech to her +passing humour, trying to distract her brooding melancholy, and to soothe +and amuse her as though she was an ailing child. Thank God, there was +nothing ugly to remember regarding her. She had never been harsh or +unlovely in her ways. Still, the strain of constant intercourse with her +had been very great--how great Iglesias had hardly realised until now, as +he stood in the centre of the room reconstructing its former appearance +in thought and replacing its familiar furnishings. + +There to the left of the further window, overlooking the garden, she had +always sat, so that the light might fall upon her needlework--very fine +Irish lace, in the making of which nearly all her waking hours were +spent. She had learned the beautiful art as a young girl in her convent +school; and her skill in it was great. In those sad later years when her +mind was clouded the intricate designs and endless variety of delicate +and ingenious stitches had come to have symbolic meanings for her full of +mystic significance. In them she poured forth her soul, as another might +pour it forth in music, finding there an imaginative language far +surpassing, in its subtlety of suggestion, articulate speech. There were +deserts of net, of spider's web fineness, to be laboriously traversed; +hills of difficulty to be climbed, whence far horizons disclosed +themselves; dainty flower-gardens, crossed by open paths, and hedged +about with curves, sinuous and full of pretty impediments. And there +were, to her, vaguely agitating and even fearful things in this lacework +also--confusions of outline, broken purposes, multiplicity of opposing +intentions, struggle of good and evil powers in the intricacies of some +rich arabesque; or monotonous repetitions of design which distressed her +as with the terrors of imprisonment and of unescapable fate. She was +filled with feverish anxiety until such portions of her self-imposed +task were completed. Then she would be very glad. And Iglesias, glancing +up silently from the pages of his newspaper or book, would see the sorrow +pass out of her face as she leaned back in her chair and softly laughed. +And he would perceive that, in the achievement of those countless but +carefully ordered stitches, she had also achieved some mysterious victory +of the spirit which, for a time at least, would give her freedom of soul +and content. As a boy he had been rather jealous of her lacemaking, +declaring that it was dearer to her than he himself was. But as he grew +more experienced, more chastened, and, it must be added, more sad, he had +come to understand that it veritably was as speech to her--though speech +which he could but rarely interpret--expressing all that she could not, +or dared not, otherwise express, all the poetry of her sweet, broken +nature, its denied aspirations in religion, its tortured memories of +danger and of love. + +Now, standing in the centre of the empty room, and looking at the place +beside the window where she habitually sat, Iglesias seemed to see once +more, as he had so often seen in the past, her fine-drawn profile and +softly waved upturned hair, her head and shoulders draped in a black +mantilla, the lines of which followed those of her figure as she bent +over her work. He could see the long delicate white hands moving +rhythmically, with the assurance of perfected skill, over the web in its +varying degrees of whiteness from the filmy transparency of the net +foundation to the opacity of the closely wrought pattern. Those hands, in +their ceaseless and exquisite industry, had troubled his imagination at +times. For too often it had seemed as though they alone were really +alive, intelligent, sentient, the rest of the woman dead. The impression +was so vivid even yet--though Iglesias knew it to be subjective only, +projected by the vividness of remembrance--that instinctively he crossed +the room, laid his left hand upon the moulding of the high wainscot, +leaned over the vacant space which appeared to hold her image, and spoke +gently to her, so that the moving hands might find rest for a moment, +while she recognised and greeted him, looking up. + +There had always been a pause before the words of greeting came, while +her consciousness travelled back, hesitatingly, to the actual and +material world around her from the world of emotion and phantasy in which +her spirit lived. There was a pause now, a prolonged silence, broken at +last by the husky cough of the little old caretaker downstairs. The +vacant space remained vacant. Nevertheless Dominic Iglesias received both +recognition and greeting, and from these derived inward assurance that +all was well--that he was justified of his past action, that he had not +shirked the possibilities of his life, but sacrificed them to a higher +duty than any individual and private one. The present might be empty of +purpose and pleasure, the future lacking in promise and in hope; yet to +him one perfect thing had been granted--namely, a human relationship of +unsullied beauty, notwithstanding all its sadness, from first to last. + +"And in the strength of that meat, one should surely be able to go many +days!" he said, as he straightened himself up. "Thank God, I never failed +her. How far she realised it or not, is but a small matter. I am obscure, +perhaps as things now stand wholly superfluous, still I have, at all +events, never grasped personal advantage at the expense of a fellow- +creature's heart." + +Yet, even so, the longing for sympathy and companionship oppressed him as +never before. The sight of this place had stirred his affections and his +spiritual sense. His soul cried out for some language in which to express +itself--even though it were a language of symbol only, such as his +mother had found in her lacemaking. How barren and vapid a thing was the +exterior life, as all those whom he knew understood and lived it--his co- +lodgers, his fellow-clerks, the good Lovegroves, his late employer, Sir +Abel Barking, even, as he divined, that sonorous Protestant clergyman +whom he had met this afternoon--as against the interior life, suggestion +of which this vacant shadow-haunted house of innumerable memories +presented to his mind! Was there any method by which the interior and +exterior life could be brought into sane and fruitful relation, so that +the former might sensibly permeate and dignify the latter? + +The comfortable inward conviction, just vouchsafed him, that he was +justified of his own past action, merely emphasised his consciousness +that he was still very much adrift, with no definite port to steer for. +He had, perhaps unwisely, promised George Lovegrove that he would stay on +at Trimmer's Green, but what, after all, did that amount to? Even the +exterior life was second-hand enough there; the interior life, as he +judged, practically non-existent. And so his staying must be ennobled by +some purpose beyond that of stepping across to smoke an after-dinner pipe +with the good, affectionate Lovegrove man, or attending his estimable +wife's "at homes." During the last ten days Mr. Iglesias had striven, +with rare, pathetic diligence, to cultivate amusement. True, the oak +palings had shut him out from Ranelagh; but, with that and a few other +exceptions, amusement, as practised in great cities, is merely a matter +of cash. Therefore he had dined at smart restaurants, had sampled +theatres and music halls, had sat in the Park and watched the world and-- +in their more decent manifestations--the flesh and the devil drive by. He +had to admit that unfortunately all this left him cold, had bored rather +than entertained him. He had not felt out of place socially. His natural +dignity and detachment of mind were alike too strong for that; but he had +arrived at the conclusion that you must have learned the rudiments of the +art of amusement in early youth if you are to practise it with +satisfaction to yourself in middle-age. And he very certainly had not +learned the rudiments--not, anyhow, according to the English fashion. He +had been aware, during these social excursions, that he was a good deal +stared at and even commented on. At first he supposed this arose from +some peculiarity of his dress or manner. Then he understood that the +cause of this unsolicited attention bore a more flattering character, and +in this connection certain remarks made by the Lady of the Windswept Dust +occurred to his mind. But, Mr. Iglesias' pride being greatly in excess of +his vanity--when the first moment of half-humorous surprise was passed-- +he found that these tributes to his personal appearance afforded him more +displeasure than pleasure. He turned from them with a movement of +annoyance, and turned from those places in which they were liable to +manifest themselves likewise. No, indeed, it was something other than +this he had to find, something lying far deeper in the needs of human +nature, if the emptiness of his days was to be filled and the hunger of +his heart and spirit satisfied! + +Pondering which things he went down the creaking stairs of the house in +Holland Street, Kensington, leaving the empty and, to him, sacred rooms +to the crouching shadows. He had had his answer from the one person whom +he had perfectly loved. And surely, in justifying the past, that answer +gave promise of hope for the future? The way would be made clear, the +method would declare itself. Let him have patience, only patience, as +she, his mother, had had when traversing deserts and climbing Difficulty +Hill in her lacework; and to him, also, should far horizons be disclosed. + +In the narrow hall the neat little old caretaker met him, huskily +coughing. + +"The rent is low, sir," he said, "and the landlord is asking no premium. +If you should wish further particulars, or to inspect the offices----" + +But Mr. Iglesias put a couple of half-crowns into his hand. + +"No," he answered, "I do not propose to take the house. Persons who were +dear to me lived here once; and so I wanted to see it. As long as it is +unlet I may come back from time to time." + +The old man shuffled his slippered feet upon the bare boards, looking +with mild ecstasy at the coins. + +"And you will be most welcome, sir," he said. "Your generosity happens to +be of great assistance to me--not that I wish it repeated. I am not +grasping, sir, but I am grateful. I have a taste in literature which my +reduced circumstances do not allow me to gratify. I see the prospect of +many hours' enjoyment before me. I thank you." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +And so it came about that a more tranquil spirit, touched with sober +gladness, possessed Dominic Iglesias as, leaving that house of many +memories, he pursued his way down Church Street and, passing into +Kensington High Street opposite St. Mary Abbot's Church, turned eastward +once again. A few doors short of the gateway leading into Palace Gardens +was an unpretentious Italian restaurant where he proposed to dine. For it +grew late. He had spent longer than he had supposed in wordless prayer +before the altar of his dead. The remembrance of the book-loving little +caretaker's gratitude remained by him pleasantly, softening his humour +towards all his fellow-men. Simple kindness has great virtue, uplifting +to the heart. To Iglesias it seemed those five shillings had been +eminently well invested. + +The streets were clearer now; and he walked slowly, enjoying the cooler +air born of the sunset, and drawing from the leafy spaces of Kensington +Gardens and the park. Presently he became aware of a figure, not +altogether unfamiliar, threading its way among the intermittent stream of +pedestrians along the pavement a few paces ahead. His eyes followed it +reluctantly. In his present peaceful humour its aspect struck a jarring +note. Soiled white flannel trousers, a short blue boating coat, a soft +grey felt hat, tennis shoes, a shambling and uncertain gait as of one who +neither knows nor cares whither he is going or why he goes--the whole +effect purposeless, slovenly, inept. + +Then followed a little scene which caused Iglesias to further slacken his +pace. For the seedy figure, reaching the open door of the restaurant, +hesitated, standing between the clipped bay trees set in green tubs which +flanked the entrance on either hand. Stepped aside, craning upward to see +over the yellow silk curtains drawn across the lower half of the windows. +Moved back to the door and stood there undecided. Finally, as a smiling +waiter, napkin on arm, came forward, the man crushed his hat down on his +forehead, forced his hands deep into his trouser pockets and turned away +with an audible oath. This brought him face to face with Mr. Iglesias, +who recognised in him his fellow-lodger, Mr. de Courcy Smyth. + +"What, you!" he exclaimed snarlingly, while his pasty face flamed. "There +seems no escape from our dear Cedar Lodge to-night." + +Then with an uneasy laugh he made an effort to recover himself. + +"Really, I beg your pardon, Mr. Iglesias," he continued, "but my nerves +are villainously on edge. I have just met those two young idiots, Farge +and Worthington, waltzing home arm in arm like a pair of demented turtle- +doves. Having to associate with such third-rate commercial fellows and +witness their ebullitions of mutual admiration makes a man of education, +like myself, utterly sick. I came out this evening to get free of the +whole Cedar Lodge lot. You did the same, I suppose. Pray don't let me +frustrate your purpose. I sympathise with it. I will remove myself." + +The splotchy red had died out of the speaker's face. Notwithstanding the +warmth of the evening he stood with his shoulders raised and his knees a +little bent, as a poorly clad man stands in a chill wind on a wintry day. +Iglesias observed his attitude, and in his present mood it influenced him +more than the surly greeting had done. + +"I intended to dine here," he said quietly. "So, I fancy, did you." + +"Oh! I have changed my mind, thank you," Smyth answered. + +"In consequence of my arrival, I am afraid?" + +"No, I had other reasons." + +"In any case I should be very glad if you would reconsider your decision +and remain," Dominic said. "I am, as you see, alone, and I have not often +the pleasure of meeting you. I shall be very happy if you will stay and +dine with me, as my guest." + +Smyth gave an odd, furtive look at the open door of the restaurant and +the row of white tables within. A light had come into his pale blue eyes, +making them uncomfortably like those of some half-starved animal. + +"I am at a loss to know why I should accept hospitality from you," he +remarked, at once cringingly and insolently. + +"Simply because you would give me pleasure by doing so. I should value +your society." + +"I am not in evening dress." + +"Nor am I," Dominic answered, with admirable seriousness. There was +something pitiful to him in the conflict, obviously going forward in the +other's mind, between hunger and reluctance to incur an obligation. He +cut it short with gentle authority. "There is a vacant table in the +corner where we can talk free from interruption. Let us go in and secure +it." + +At the beginning of the meal the conversation was intermittent, the +burden of supporting it lying with Mr. Iglesias. But, as course followed +course, hot and succulent, while the _chianti_ at once steadied his +circulation and stimulated his brain, de Courcy Smyth became talkative, +not to say garrulous. Finally he began to assert himself, to swagger, +thereby laying bare the waste places of his own nature. + +"You may think I was hard on Farge and Worthington just now, Mr. +Iglesias," he said. "I own they disgust me; not only in themselves, but +as examples of certain modern tendencies which are choking the life out +of me and such men as me. You business people are on the up grade just +now, and you know it. Whoever goes under, you are safe to do yourselves +most uncommonly well. I don't mean anything personal, of course. I am +just stating a self-evident fact. Commerce is in the air--you all reek of +success. And so even shopwalkers, like Worthington, and that thrice +odious puppy Farge, grow sleek, and venture to spread themselves in the +presence of their betters--in the presence of a scholar and a gentleman, +who is well connected and has received a classical education, like +myself." + +Smyth paused, turning sideways to the table, leaning his elbow on it, +crossing his legs and staring gloomily down the long room. + +"But what do they know or care about scholarship?" he continued. "What +they do know is that the spirit of this unspeakably vulgar age is with +them and their miserable huckstering. They know that well enough and act +upon it, though they are too illiterate to put it into words--know that +trade is in process of exploding learning, of exploiting literature and +art to its own low purposes, in process of scaling Olympus, in short, and +ignominiously chucking out the gods." + +Dominic Iglesias had listened to this astonishing tirade in silence. The +man was evidently suffering from feelings of bitter injury, also he was +his--Iglesias'--guest. Both pity and hospitality engaged him to +endurance. But there are limits. And at this point professional dignity +and a lingering loyalty towards the house of Barking Brothers & Barking +enjoined protest. + +"No doubt we live in times of commerce, rather than in those of +chivalry," he remarked. "Still, I venture to think your condemnation is +too sweeping. One should discriminate surely between trade and finance." + +"Only as one discriminates between a little dog and a big one. The little +dog is the easier to kick. I can't get at the Rothschilds and +Rockefellers; and so I go for the Farges and Worthingtons," Smyth +answered. "In principle I am right. Trade, commerce, finance, juggle with +the names as you like, it all comes back to the same thing in the end, +namely, the murder of intellect by money. Comes back to the worship of +Mammon, chosen ruler of this contemptible _fin de siècle_, and safe to be +even more tyrannously the ruler of the coming century. What hope, I ask +you, is left for us poor devils of literary men? None, absolutely none. +Just in proportion as we honour our calling and refuse to prostitute our +talents we are at a discount. The powers that be have no earthly use for +us. We have not the ghost of a chance." + +He altered his position, looking quickly and nervously at his host. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. "For the moment I forgot you were on the +other side, among the conquerors, not the conquered. Probably this +conversation does not interest you in the least." + +"On the contrary, it interests me very deeply," Dominic replied gravely. + +"All the same, out of self-respect I ought to hold my tongue about it, I +suppose. For I have accepted the position, Mr. Iglesias. I have learned +to do that. Only on each fresh occasion that it is brought home to me-- +and it has been brought home abominably clearly to-night--my gorge rises +at it. And it ought to be so. For it is an outrage--you yourself must +admit--that a man who started with excellent prospects and with the +consciousness of unusual talents--of genius, perhaps--should be ruined +and broken, while every miserable little counter-jumper----" + +He leaned his elbows on the table, hiding his face in his hands, and his +shoulders shook. + +"For I have talent," he cried, in a curiously thin voice. "Before God I +have. They may refuse to publish me, refuse to play me, force me to pick +up scraps of hack-work on fourth-rate papers to earn a bare subsistence-- +at times hardly that. Yet all the same, no supercilious beast of an +editor or actor-manager--curse the whole stinking lot--shall rob me of my +faith in myself--of my belief that I am great--if I had justice, nothing +less than that, I tell you, nothing less than great." + +Dominic Iglesias drew himself up, sitting very still, his lips rigid, not +from defect, but from excess of sympathy. The restaurant was empty now, +save for a man, four tables down, safely ensconced behind the pink pages +of an evening paper, and for a couple, at the far end, in the window--a +young Frenchwoman, whose coquettish hat and trim rounded figure were +silhouetted against the yellow silk curtain, and a precocious black- +haired youth, with a skin like pale, pink satin, round eyeglasses and an +incipient moustache. His attention was entirely occupied with the young +woman; hers entirely occupied with herself. And of this Dominic Iglesias +was glad. For the matter immediately in hand was best conducted without +witnesses. He found it strangely engrossing, strangely moving. However +vain, however madly exaggerated even, de Courcy Smyth's estimate of +himself, there could be no question but that his present emotion was as +actual and genuine as his past hunger had been. The man was utterly spent +in body and in spirit. Offensive in speech, slovenly in person, yet these +distasteful things added to, rather than detracted from, Iglesias' going +out of sympathy towards him. He had rarely been in contact with a fellow- +creature in such abandonment of distress. It was terrible to witness; yet +it gave him a sense of fellowship, of nearness, even of power, which had +in it an element of deep-seated satisfaction. While he waited for the +moment when it should become clear to him how to act, his thought +travelled back to the Lady of the Windswept Dust. He saw, not her over- +red lips, but her serious eyes; saw her tearful and in a way broken, for +all her light speech, her fanciful garments, and her antics with her +absurd little dogs amid the sweetness of sunshine and summer breeze on +Barnes Common. She was far enough away, so he judged, in sentiment and +circumstance from the embittered and poverty-haunted man sitting opposite +to him. Yet though superficially so dissimilar, they were alike in this, +that both had dared to reveal themselves, passing beyond conventional +limits in intercourse with him, Iglesias. Both had cried out to him in +their distress. And then, thinking of that recently visited altar of the +dead, thinking of the one perfect relationship he had known--his +relationship to his mother--it came to him as a revelation that not +participation in the pride of life and the splendour of it--still less +association in mere pleasure and amusement--forms the cement which binds +together the units of humanity in stable and consoling relationship; but +association in sorrow, the cry for help and the response to that cry, +whether it be help to the staying of the hunger of the heart and of the +intellect, or simply to the staying of that baser yet very searching +hunger of overstrained nerves and an empty stomach. The revelation was +partial. Iglesias groped, so to speak, in the light of it uncertain and +dazzled. But he received it as real--an idea the magnitude of which, in +inspiration and application, he was as yet by no means equal to measure. +Still he believed that could he but yield himself to it, and, in +yielding, master it, it would carry him very far, teaching him that +language of the spirit which he desired to acquire; and hence placing in +his hand that earnestly coveted key to an adjustment between the exterior +and interior life, the life of the senses and the life of the spirit, +which must needs eventuate, manward and godward alike, in triumphant +harmony. + +Meanwhile there sat de Courcy Smyth, blear-eyed, sandy-red bearded, +unsavoury, trying, poor wretch, to rally whatever of manhood was left in +him and swagger himself out of his fit of hysteria. The Latin, however +dignified, is instinctively more demonstrative than the Anglo-Saxon. +Iglesias leaned across the table and laid his hand on the other man's +shoulder. + +"Wait a little," he said. "Drink your coffee and smoke. We need not hurry +to move." + +There was a pause, during which Smyth obediently swallowed his coffee, +swallowed his _chasse_ of cognac. + +"I have made an egregious ass of myself," he said sullenly. + +"No, no," Iglesias answered. "You have honoured me by taking me into your +confidence. It rests with me to see that you never have cause to regret +having done so." + +"I believe you mean that." + +"Certainly I mean it," Iglesias answered. + +Smyth's hands trembled as he took a cigar and held a match to it. + +"I am unaccustomed to meeting with kindness," he said in a low voice. Then +recovering himself somewhat, he began to speak volubly again. "Of course +I understand it all well enough. They are simply afraid of my work, those +beasts of editors and playwrights. It is too big for them, they dare not +face it and the consequences of it. It is strong stuff, Mr. Iglesias, +strong stuff with plenty of red blood in it, and with scholarship, too. +And so they pigeon-hole my stories and drames in self-defence, knowing +that if these once reached the public, either in print or in action, +their own fly-blown anæmic productions would be hissed off the stage or +would ruin the circulation of the periodical which inserted them. It is +all jealousy, I tell you, Mr. Iglesias, rank, snakish jealousy, bred by +self-interest out of fear--a truly exalted parentage!" + +He shifted his position restlessly, again setting his elbows upon the +table and fingering the broken bread upon the cloth. + +"At times, when I can rise above the immediate injustice and cruelty +which pursue me," he went on, "I glory in my martyrdom. I range myself +alongside those heroes of literature and art, who, because they were +ahead of the age in which they lived, were scorned and repudiated by +their contemporaries; but they found their revenge in the worship of +succeeding generations. My time will come just as theirs did. It must--I +tell you it must. I know that. I am safe of eventual recognition; but I +want it now, while I am alive, while I can glut myself with the joy of +it. I want to see the men who lord it over me, just because they have +influence and money, who affect to despise me because they are green with +envy and fear of me, brought to their knees, flattened so that I can wipe +my boots on them. And--and"--he looked full at Dominic Iglesias, +spreading out both hands across the narrow table, his pale prominent eyes +blood-shot, his face working--"I want to see someone else--a woman-- +brought to her knees also. I want to make her feel what she has lost-- +curse her!--and have her come back whining." + +"And if she did come back," Iglesias asked, almost sternly, "what would +you do? Forgive her?" + +De Courcy Smyth's hands dropped with a queer little thud on the table. + +"I don't know. I suppose so. If she wanted to she could always get round +me." Then he turned on Iglesias with hysterical violence. "But what do +you know? Why do you ask that? Are you among her patrons? I trusted you. +I believed you were a gentleman in feeling--and it is a dirty trick to +get me in here and fill me up with food and liquor, when you must have +seen my nerves were all to pieces, and then spring this upon me. Oh! +hell!" he cried, "is there no comfort anywhere? Is everyone a traitor?" + +And seeing his utter abjectness, Iglesias' heart went out to the unhappy +man in immense and unqualified pity. + +"I am grieved," he said gently, "if I have pained you unnecessarily. But +truly I have sprung nothing upon you. How could I do so? I know nothing +whatever of your circumstances save that which you yourself have told me +during the last hour." + +"Then why did you ask that question about--about her?" + +"Because," Dominic answered, "I am ready to fight for you, in as far as +you will allow me to do so; but I do not fight against women." + +"You must have had uncommonly little experience of them then," Smyth +answered with a sneer. + +To this observation Mr. Iglesias deemed it superfluous to make any +answer. A silence followed. The restaurant was empty, but for the +waiters, who stood in a little knot about the door amusing themselves by +watching the movement of the street. Looking round to make sure no one +was within hearing, Smyth rose unsteadily to his feet. + +"You meant what you said just now, Mr. Iglesias--that you were ready to +fight for me?" he asked ungently yet cringingly. + +"Certainly I meant it," Dominic replied, "the proviso I have made being +respected." + +"Yes, yes, of course--but what do you understand by fighting for me? +Money?" + +Dominic had risen, too. He remained for a moment in thought. + +"Within reasonable relation to my means, yes," he said. + +"I only want my chance," the other asserted. "The rest will follow as a +matter of course. You would risk nothing, Mr. Iglesias. It would be an +investment, simply an investment. The play is not finished yet--I have +been too disheartened and disgusted recently to be able to work at it. +But it is great, I tell you, great. When it is done will you give me my +chance, and take a theatre for me and finance a couple of _matinées?_" + +Again Dominic Iglesias thought for a moment, and again, driven by that +strange necessity of fellowship--though knowing all the while he was +putting his hand to a very questionable adventure--he replied in the +affirmative. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +On that same evening, and at the same hour at which Dominic Iglesias +bound himself to the practical assistance of a personally unsavoury and +professionally unsuccessful playwright, a conversation was in progress +between two persons of more exalted social station in the drawing-room of +a pleasant house in Chester Square. The said drawing-room, mid-Victorian +in aspect, was decorated in white and gold and unaggressive green. The +ground of the chintz was very white, sprinkled over with bunches of +shaded mauve roses unknown to horticulture. Lady Constance Decies' tea- +grown was white and mauve also. For she was still in half-mourning for +her father, the late Lord Fallowfeild, who had died some eighteen months +previously at a very venerable age, and with a touching modesty as though +his advent in another world might savour of intrusion. He had always been +a humble-minded man. He remained so to the last. + +The windows stood open to the balcony. And the effect of the woman, and +of the soft lights and colours surrounding her, was reposeful. For at the +age of fifty Lady Constance, though stately, was a mild and very gentle +person upon whom the push of the modern world had laid no hand. All the +active drama of her life had been crowded into a few weeks of the early +summer of her eighteenth year; since which, now remote, period she had +enjoyed a tranquil existence, happy in the love of her husband and the +care of her children. Her pretty brown hair was beginning to turn grey +upon the temples. Her eyes, set remarkably far apart, had a certain +vagueness and a great innocence of expression. She was naturally timid, +and cared but little for any society beyond that of her near relations. +To-night she was particularly content, mildly radiant even, thanks to the +presence of her favourite brother, the present Lord Fallowfeild, and his +avowed admiration of her younger daughter--a maiden of nineteen, who +stood before her, with shining eyes, in all the delicate splendour of a +spotless ball-dress. + +"Yes, darling, you look very sweet," she said. "Just lean down--the lace +has got caught in the flowers on your _berthe_. That's right. Don't keep +your father too late." + +"And in all things be discreet"--this from Lord Fallowfeild. "It's been +my motto through life, as your mother knows. And you couldn't have a +brighter example of the excellent results of it than myself. Good-night, +my dear. Enjoy yourself," and he patted her on the cheek, avoiding the +kiss which she in all innocence proffered him. "Pretty child, Kathleen, +uncommonly pretty," he continued as the door closed behind the graceful +figure. "It strikes me, Con, your girls have all the good looks of the +family in the younger generation, with the exception of Violet Aldham. +But she's getting pinched, a bit pinched and witch-like. Then she makes +up too much. I have no prejudice against a woman's improving upon nature +where nature's been niggardly. But it is among the things that'll keep. +It's a mistake to begin it too early. In my opinion Violet has begun it +too early--might quite well have given herself another ten years' +grace.--Maggie's girls are gawky, you know; and, between ourselves, so +terribly flat, poor things, both fore and aft. Upon my word, I'm not +surprised they don't marry." + +"I am afraid Maggie feels it a good deal," said Lady Constance. +Satisfaction mingled with pity in her soul. The disabilities of other +women's children are never wholly distressing to a tender mother's heart. +"You see, she's so anxious the girls should not marry the bishop's +chaplains; and yet really they hardly see any other young men. I think it +is a very difficult position, that of a bishop's wife." + +Lord Fallowfeild smiled, settling himself back in the corner of the wide +sofa and crossing his long legs. He had thought more deeply on a good +many subjects than the majority of his acquaintance supposed; with the +consequence that he occasionally surprised his fellow-peers by the +acuteness of his observations in debate. Lord Fallowfeild, it may be +added, took his recently acquired office of hereditary legislator with a +commendable mixture of humour and seriousness. + +"Their position is an anomalous one," he said; "and an anomalous position +is inevitably a difficult one--ought to be SO; in my opinion. But that's +not to the point. We were talking, not about the episcopal ladies, but +about this little business of Kathleen's. So you believe Lady Sokeington +has views and intentions?" + +"I know that she has. But you see, Shotover," Lady Constance went on, +returning to the name which that gentleman had rendered somewhat +notorious in earlier years by a record in sport, in debts, in amours, and +in irresistible sweetness of temper--"I want to be quite sure he is +really good. Because the affair has not gone very far yet and it might be +put a stop to--at least I hope and think it might--without making darling +Kathleen too dreadfully unhappy. You do believe he really is good?" + +Lord Fallowfeild leaned forward and rubbed a hardly perceptible atom of +fluff off his left trouser leg just above the ankle. + +"My dear Con," he answered, "you are very charming, but you are a trifle +embarrassing, too, you know. Haven't you learned, even at this time of +day, that very few men in our world are good in a good woman's sense of +the word?" + +Lady Constance's smooth forehead puckered into fine little lines. + +"Shotover, dear," she said, "you're not getting embittered, I hope?" + +"Me? Bless you, no, never in life!" he returned, smiling very +reassuringly at her. "Don't worry yourself under that head. I quarrel +with nobody and nothing, not even the consequences of my past iniquities. +It is a very just world, take it all round, and has been kinder to me +than I deserve." + +"Oh! but you do nothing, you--you are what--you won't think me rude, +Shotover?--what the boys call 'very decent' now." + +Lady Constance spoke hurriedly, her colour rising in the most engaging +manner. + +"As decent as I know how, you dear soul," he said, taking her hand in +his. "But that makes no difference to one's knowledge of one's own ways, +in the past, or of the ways of other men." + +"But Alaric Barking?" + +"Neither better nor worse than the rest." + +Then Lord Fallowfeild shut his small and beautiful mouth very tight, as +though he would be glad to avoid further cross-questioning. Lady +Constance's forehead remained puckered. + +"It's dreadfully difficult when one's girls grow up," she said +plaintively. "One can be comfortable about them, poor darlings, and enjoy +them when they are in the nursery--even in the schoolroom, though +governesses are worrying. They know so much about quantities of subjects +which seem to me not to matter. One never refers to them in ordinary +conversation; and if one should be obliged to it is so easy to ask +somebody to tell one. And yet they manage to make me feel dreadfully +uncomfortable and ignorant because I know nothing about them. But when +they grow up----" + +"Who, the governesses?" Lord Fallowfeild inquired. "I never supposed they +stood in need of that process--thought they started out of the egg all +finished, as you might say, and ran about at once like chickens." + +"No, no, the girls, poor darlings," Lady Constance replied. "One does get +dreadfully anxious about them, Shotover, really one does--specially if +one has escaped something very frightening oneself and has been very +happy--lest they should fall in love with the wrong people, or lest they +should be anything which one did not know beforehand and then everything +should turn out dreadful. I should be so miserable. I don't think I could +bear it. I know it is wrong to say that, because if one was really good, +one would accept whatever God sent without murmuring. So I could for +myself, I think. In any case I should earnestly try to. But for the +children it is so much harder. If they were unhappy I should feel ashamed +of having had them--as if I'd done something horribly selfish; because, +you see, there can be nothing so delightful as having children." + +She looked at Lord Fallowfeild in the most pathetic manner, the corners +of her mouth a-shake. And he took her hand and held it again, touched by +the sincerity of her confused utterance, and the great mother-love +resident in her. Touched, perhaps, by the age-old problem of man and +maid, also. + +"Dear little Con, dear little Con," he said, "I'm awfully sorry you +should be worried, but I'm afraid we've got to look facts in the face. +And it's no kindness for me to lie to you about these matters. I don't +pretend to say what's right or what's wrong; I only say what it is. We +can't make society, and the ways of it, all over again even to save +Kathleen a heartache. I don't want to seem a brute, but she must just +take her chance along with the rest of you. Marriage always has been a +confounded uncertain business, and will always remain so, I suppose. The +sort of remedies excited persons suggest to mitigate the dangers of it +are a good deal worse than the disease, in my opinion. Every woman has to +take her chance. Every man has to take his, too, you know--and the chance +strikes some of us as such an uncommonly poor one, that, upon my honour, +it seems safest to wash one's hands of it altogether." + +"But you're not unhappy, Shotover, dear? You're not lonely?" Lady +Constance inquired anxiously. + +"Abominably so sometimes, Con. But I manage, oh! I manage. I have my +consolations"--he smiled at her, perhaps a trifle shamefacedly. "But now +about Kathleen," he went on, "as I say, she must take her chance along +with the rest of you, poor little dear. After all, you took your chance +when you married Decies, and it has not turned out so badly, you know." + +Lady Constance became radiant once more, as some mild-shining summer moon +emerging from behind temporarily obscuring clouds. + +"Oh! but then," she said, "of course that was so entirely different." + +Lord Fallowfeild patted her hand, his head bent, looking at her somewhat +merrily. + +"Was it, my dear, was it?--I wonder," he said. + +She withdrew her head with a certain dignity. Notwithstanding her +softness and tenderness, there were occasions--even with those she loved +best--when Lady Constance could delicately mark her displeasure. + +"I think you are a little embittered, Shotover," she asserted. + +He leaned back, still smiling, and shaking his head at her. + +"Old and wise--unpleasantly old, and not quite such a fool as I used to +be, that's all," he answered. + +For a time there was silence, both brother and sister thinking their own +thoughts. Then the latter spoke. Like many gentle persons, she was +persistent. She always had been so. + +"I should be so grateful if you would tell me, because I think I ought to +know, and then I should try to turn the course of darling Kathleen's +affections before it all becomes too pronounced. Is there any +entanglement, anything amounting to what one calls an impediment, in-- +well--you understand--against Alaric Barking?" + +Lord Fallowfeild got up, took a turn across the room, came back, and +stood in front of her. + +"I wish you wouldn't, Con," he said. "Upon my soul, I wish you wouldn't. +It's a nasty thing for an old man, who has gone the pace in his day +pretty thoroughly, to give away a lad who may have made a slip just at +the start, and who is doing his best to get his feet again and run +straight. Alaric Barking's a good fellow. I like him. I never have been +and never shall be partial to that family. Your sister Louisa cried up +their virtues and their confounded solvency, in the old days, till she +made them a positive nuisance. She's not a happy way of inculcating a +moral economic lesson, hasn't Louisa. But I own I'm fond of this boy. +He's far the best of the whole lot--gentlemanlike, and a sportsman, and +good-looking--unusually so for one of that family--and, my dear, he's +downright honestly in love with Kathleen. I've watched him--did so when +he was down at Ranelagh one day last month with her and Victoria +Sokeington--and I know the real thing when I see it." + +"But--but, I am afraid, Shotover, you mean me to understand there is some +impediment?" Lady Constance repeated. + +"Oh! well, hang it all, I'm awfully sorry, but if you are determined to +have it, Connie, perhaps there is. Only for heaven's sake don't be in too +much of a hurry. Between ourselves, I happen to know the boy's doing his +best to shake himself free in an honourable manner. So don't rush the +business. Like the dear tender-hearted creature you are, have a little +mercy on the poor beggar. Let the whole affair drift a little. It may +straighten out." + +Lady Constance meditated for a minute or so. + +"It's very dreadful that there should be any impediment," she said. + +"I'll back Alaric to agree with you there," Lord Fallowfeild answered. + +"You'll do what you can, Shotover, won't you, to help Kathleen? I never +forget how you helped me once!" + +Lord Fallowfeild's handsome face expressed rather broad amusement. + +"I'm afraid the two cases are hardly parallel, my dear," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"The play's on the other side, the crowd's on the other side, all the +fun's on the other side, and I am on this side with nothing more lively +than you, you little shivering idiot, for company." + +Poppy St. John drew the spaniel's long silky ears through her fingers +slowly. + +"I am bored, Cappadocia," she said, with a yawn which she made not the +slightest effort to stifle, "bored right through to my very marrow. Oh +dear, oh dear, oh dear, how I do wish something would happen!" + +Poppy sat, propped up with scarlet silk cushions, in a cane deck-chair, +on the white-railed balcony upon which the first-floor bedroom windows +opened. Around her were strewn illustrated magazines and ladies' papers; +but unfortunately the stories in the former appeared to her every bit as +silly as the fashion-plates in the latter. Both had equally little to do +with life as the ordinary flesh and blood human being lives it. She was +filled with a rebellious sense of the banality of her surroundings this +afternoon. Even from her coign of vantage upon the balcony, whence wide +prospects disclosed themselves, everything looked foolish, pointless, of +the nature of an unpardonably stale joke. + +The said balcony, divided into separate compartments by the interposition +of wooden barriers, extended the whole length of the terrace of twenty- +seven houses. And these were all precisely alike, with white wood and +stucco "enrichments," as the technical phrase has it. Cheap stained and +leaded glass adorned the upper panels of the twenty-seven front doors, +which were approached by twenty-seven flights of steps--thus securing a +measure of light and air to the twenty-seven basements. The front doors +were set in couples, alternating with couples of bay windows. There was a +determination of cheap smartness, a smirking self-consciousness about the +little houses, a suggestion of having put on their best frocks and high- +heeled shoes and standing very much on tiptoe to attract attention. The +balconies, narrow where the upper bays encroached on them, wide where the +house fronts were recessed above the twin front doors, broke forth into a +garland of flower-boxes. Cascades of pink ivy-leaf geranium, creeping- +jenny, and nasturtiums backed by white or yellow Paris daisies, flowed +outward between the white ballusters and masked the edge of the woodwork. +The effect, though pretty, was not quite satisfactory--being suggestive +of millinery, of an over-trimmed summer hat. + +Immediately below was the roadway, bordered by an asphalt pavement on +either side, then the high impenetrable oak paling, which had baffled +Dominic Iglesias' maiden effort at participation in the amusements of the +rich. From Poppy's balcony, however, the palings offered no impediment to +observation. All the green expanse of the smaller polo-ground was +visible. So was the whole height of the grove of majestic elms on the +right and the back of the club house; and, and the left, between +_massifs_ of shrubbery, a vista of lawns sloping towards the river +peopled by a sauntering crowd. + +It was upon this last that Poppy directed her gaze. To the naked eye the +units composing it showed as vertical lines of grey, brown, and black, +blotted with bright delicate colour, and splashed here and there with +white, the whole mingling, uniting, breaking into fresh combinations +kaleidoscope fashion. Through the opera-glasses figures of men, women, +and horses detached themselves, becoming quaintly distinct, neat as toys, +an assemblage of elegant highly finished marionnettes. There was a +fascination in watching the movement of these brilliant, clear-cut silent +little things upon that amazingly verdant carpet of grass. But it was a +fascination which, for Poppy, had by now worn somewhat thin. The interest +proved too far away, too impersonal. Indeed it may be questioned whether +any who have not within themselves large store of resignation, or of +hope, can look on at gaiety, in which they have no share, without first +sadness and then pretty lively irritation. And of those two most precious +commodities, resignation and hope, Poppy had but limited reserve stock at +present. So she pulled the little dog's ears rather hard and lamented: + +"Oh! my good gracious me, if only something would happen!" + +Then, the words hardly out of her mouth, she shot the much-enduring +Cappadocia off her lap and, restoring her elbows on the rails, leaned +right out over the balcony. + +"Come here, dear beautiful lunatic, come here," she cried. "For pity's +sake don't pass by!" + +Perhaps fortunately this very unconventional invitation was lost upon +Dominic Iglesias, soberly crossing the road with due observance of the +eccentricities of the drivers of motor-cars and riders of bicycles. +Looking up, he was aware of a vision quite sufficiently indicative of +welcome, without added indiscretion of words.--The white balustrade, the +trailing fringe of nasturtiums, succulent leaves and orange-scarlet +blossoms; the woman's bust and shoulders in her string-coloured lace +gown, her small face, curiously vivid in effect, capped by the heavy +masses of her black hair, her singular eyes full of light, the red of her +lips and tinge of stationary pink in her cheeks supplemented by a glow of +quick excitement. A few weeks ago the ascetic in Iglesias might have +taken alarm. Now it was different. He had his idea, and, walking in the +strength of it, dared adventure himself in neighbourhoods otherwise +slightly questionable. + +Five minutes later Poppy advanced across the little drawing-room to meet +him. + +"Well," she said, "of course you might have come sooner. But, equally of +course, you might never have come at all, so I won't quarrel with you +about the delay, though I would like you to know it has worried me a good +deal." + +"Has it? I am sorry for that," Dominic answered gravely. + +"Yes, be sorry, be sorry," she repeated. "It is comfortable to hear you +say so." + +She looked at him with the utmost frankness, took his hand and led him to +a settee filling in the right angle between the fireplace and the double +doors at the back of the room. + +"Sit down," she said, "and let us talk. Have another cushion--so--and if +you're good I'll give you tea presently. And understand, you needn't be +careful of yourself. I'll play perfectly fair with you. I've been +thinking it all out during this time you didn't come; and I never go back +on my word once given. So, look here, you needn't account for yourself in +any way. I don't even want to know your name--specially I don't want to +know that. It might localise you, and I don't want to have you localised. +Directly a person is localised it takes away their restfulness to one. +One begins to see just all the places where they belong to somebody else, +notice-boards struck up everywhere warning one to keep off the grass. And +that's a nuisance. It raises Old Nick in one, and makes one long to +commit all manner of wickedness which would never have entered one's head +otherwise." + +Poppy held her hands palm to palm between her knees, glancing at Dominic +Iglesias now and again sideways as she spoke. The bodice of her dress, +cut slightly _en coeur_, showed the nape of her neck, and the whole of her +throat, which was smooth and rounded though rather long. Her make +altogether was that not uncommon to London girls of the lower middle- +class: small-boned and possibly anæmic, but prettily moulded, and with an +attraction of over-civilisation as of hot-house-grown plants. Just now +her head seemed bowed down by the weight of her dark hair, as she sat +gathered together, making herself small as a child will when +concentrating its mind to the statement of some serious purpose. + +"I've knocked about a lot," she went on. "It's right you should know +that. And there's not very much left to tell me about a number of things +not usually set down in conversation books designed for _débutants_. But +just on that account I may be rather useful to you in some ways.--Don't +go and be offended now, there's a dear, good man," she added coaxingly. +"Because judging by what you told me the other day, there's no doubt +that, under some heads, you are very much of a _débutant_." + +"I suppose I am," Iglesias said slowly. It was very strange to him to +find himself in so sudden and close an intimacy with this at once so wise +and so artificial woman creature. But he had his idea. Moreover, +increasingly he trusted her. + +"Of course you are," she asserted. "That's just where the beauty of it +all comes in. You're the veriest infant. One has only to look into your +face to see that.--Don't go and freeze up now. You belong to another +order of doctrine and practice to that current in contemporary society." + +Poppy gazed at the floor, still making herself small, the palms of her +hands pressed together between her knees. + +"And that's just why you can be useful to me, awfully useful, if you +choose--I don't mean money, business, anything of the kind. I'm perfectly +competent to manage my own affairs, thank you. But you're good for me, +somehow. You rest me." + +She began to rock herself gently backwards and forwards, but without +taking the heels of her shoes off the ground. + +"Yes, you rest me, you rest me," she repeated. + +"I am glad," Iglesias said. He felt soberly pleased, thankful almost. + +Again Poppy glanced at him sideways. + +"Yes, I believe you are," she said. "And that shows things have happened +to you--in you, more likely--since we last met. You have come on a great +piece." + +"I doubt if I have come on, so much as gone back, to influences of long +ago," he answered; "to things which had been overlaid by the dust of my +working years almost to the point of obliteration." + +"Was it pleasant to go back?" Poppy asked. + +"Not at all. The going was painful. It required some courage to brush off +the dust." + +"It usually does require courage--at least that's my experience--to brush +off the dust." + +Dominic Iglesias made no immediate answer. He was a little startled at +his companion's acute reading of him, a little touched by her confidence. +Her words seemed to suggest the possibility of a relationship which +fitted in admirably with the development of his idea. He sat looking away +across the room, and, doing so, became aware that the said room possessed +unexpected characteristics, calculated to elucidate his impressions of +its owner's character. It was a man's room rather than a woman's, +innocent of furbelows and frills. Two low, wide settees, well furnished +with cushions and upholstered in dark yellowish-red tapestry, fitted into +the corners on either side the double doors. A couple of large armchairs +and a revolving book-table occupied the centre of the room. An upright +piano, in an ebonised case, draped across the back with an Indian +phulkari--discs of looking-glass set in coarsely worked yellow eyelet +holes forming the border of it--stood at right angles to the wall just +short of the bay window. In the window, placed slant-wise, was a carved +black oak writing-table, a long row of photographs stuck up against the +back shelf of it. The walls were hung with a set of William Nicolson's +prints, strong, dark, distinct, slightly sinister in effect; a fine +etching of Jean François Millet's _Gleaners_; and, in noticeable contrast +to this last, a mezzotint of Romney's picture of Lady Hamilton spinning. +Upon the book-table were a silver ash-tray and cigarette-box. The air was +unquestionably impregnated with the odour of tobacco, which the burning +of scent-sticks quite failed to dissemble. + +While Mr. Iglesias thus noted the details of his surroundings, his +companion observed him, closely, intently. Suddenly she flung herself +back against the piled-up cushions. + +"Let the dust lie, let it lie," she cried, almost shrilly. And as Dominic +turned to her, surprised at her vehemence, she added, "Yes, it's safest +so. Let it lie till it grows thick, carpeting all the surface, so that, +treading on it, one's footsteps are muffled, making no sound!" + +Poppy jumped up, crossed swiftly to the writing-table, swept the long row +of photographs together and pushed them into a drawer. + +"There you go, face downwards, every man Jack of you," she said. "And, +for all I care, there you may stay." + +Then she turned round, confronting Dominic Iglesias, who had risen also, +her head carried high, her teeth set. + +"You may not grasp the connection of ideas--I don't the very least see +how you should, and I've no extra special wish that you should. But you +must just take my word for it that's one way of thickening the dust, in +my particular case, and not half a bad way either!" + +She pushed the heavy masses of her hair up from her forehead, crossed the +little room again and stood before Iglesias smiling, her hands clasped +behind her back. + +"Yes, you rest me," she said, "you do, even more than I expected. I +wanted awfully to see you; and yet I was half afraid if I did we mightn't +pull the thing off. But we are going to pull it off, aren't we?" + +This direct appeal demanded a direct answer; and Iglesias, looking down +at her, felt nerved to a certain steadiness of resolve. + +"Yes, we are," he said gravely. "That, at least, is my purpose. I have +very few friends. I should value a new one." Then he added, with a +certain hesitancy, "I am glad you are not disappointed." + +"Ah! you have come on--not a question about it," Poppy cried. "Sit down +again. You needn't go yet. And we are through with disturbances for this +afternoon anyhow. An anti-cyclone, as the weather reports put it, is +extending over all our coasts. I feel quite happy. Let me enjoy the anti- +cyclone while it lasts--and I'll give you your tea." + +But of that tea Dominic Iglesias was fated not to drink. A ring at the +bell, a parley at the front door, followed by the advent of an elderly +parlourmaid bearing a card on a small lacquer tray. + +"His lordship says if you're engaged he could wait a little, ma'am. But +he wants particularly to see you to-day." + +Poppy took the card, glanced at it, and then at Dominic Iglesias. + +"I'm afraid, I'm awfully afraid I shall have to let you go," she said. +She took both his hands, and holding them, without pressure but with a +great friendliness, went on: "Don't be offended, or you'll make me +miserable. But he's an old friend; and he's been a perfect brick to me-- +stood by me through all my worst luck. I can't send him away. You won't +be off ended?" + +"No," Iglesias said. + +"And you will come again? You make me feel all smooth and good. You +promise you'll come?" + +"Yes," Iglesias said. + +In the narrow passage a tall, eminently well-dressed middle-aged +gentleman stood aside to let him pass. Dominic Iglesias received the +impression of a very handsome person, whose possible insolence of bearing +received agreeable modification, thanks to the expression of kindly +humorous eyes and a notably beautiful mouth. + +Upon the centre table of the square first-floor sitting-room at Cedar +Lodge a note awaited Mr. Iglesias, addressed in George Lovegrove's neat +business hand. + +"Dear old friend," it ran--"the wife asks you to take supper with us to- +morrow night. Step across as early as you like. My cousin, Miss Serena +Lovegrove, is paying us a visit. Yours faithfully, G. L.--N. B. Come as +you are: no ceremony. G. L." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"Hullo, girlie," called the red and green parrot, as it helped itself up +the side of its zinc cage with beak as well as claws. + +Serena Lovegrove had opened the door suddenly. Then, seeing that Mr. +Iglesias alone occupied the room, neither her host nor hostess being +present, she paused in the doorway, a large floppy yellow silk work-bag +in her hands, undecided whether to retreat or to proceed. And it was thus +that the bird, discovering her advent, announced it, while the pupils of +his hard, round yellowish grey eyes dilated and contracted--"snapped," as +Serena would have said--maliciously. + +Serena was a tall, elegant, faded woman, dressed in black, her little +upright head balanced upon a long thin stalk of neck. Though undeniably +faded, there was, as now seen in the quiet evening light, a suggestion of +youthfulness about her. He brown eyes, pretty though rather small, +snapped even as did those of the parrot. Excitement--to-night she was +very much excited--invariably produced in Serena an effect of clutching +at her long-departed girlhood, an effect sufficiently pathetic in the +case of a woman well on in the forties. And it was precisely this +ineffectual throw-back to a Serena of seventeen or eighteen which lent a +sharp edge of irony to the strident salutations of the parrot, as it +called out again: + +"Hullo, girlie! Polly's own pet girlie," then with a prolonged and ear- +piercing whistle:--"Hi, four-wheeler! girlie's going out." And hoarsely, +with a growl in its throat: "Move on there, stoopid, can't yer? Shut the +door." + +During the delivery of these final admonitions Mr. Iglesias had +recognised the shadowy figure standing on the threshold and advanced. +This decided Serena. Still twisting the ribbons of the yellow work-bag +round her thin fingers, she drifted into the room. + +"I think I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice before, +Miss Lovegrove," Dominic said. His manner was specially gentle and +courtly, for he could not but feel the poor lady was at a disadvantage, +owing to the very articulate indiscretions of the parrot. + +"Oh! yes," Serena answered. "Certainly we have met. But you are wrong as +to the number of times. It is more than once or twice. Five times, I +think; or it may have been six. No, it is five, because I remember you +were expected, in the evening, the day before I went home the winter +before last; and at the last moment you were unable to come. That would +have made six. Now it is only five." + +"You have an excellent memory," Iglesias said. "It is kind of you to +remember so clearly." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean, I wonder whether it is kind," Serena +rejoined. + +She was quite innocent of any intention of sarcasm. But her mind, like +those of so many unoccupied, and consequently self-occupied persons, was +addicted to speculation of a minor and vacuous sort. She was also liable +--as such persons often are--to mistake cavilling for spirit and wit--a +most tedious error! + +"Still you are right in saying I have a good memory," she added. "People +generally observe that. But then I was always taught it was rude to +forget. Forgetfulness is the result of inattention. At school I never had +any difficulty in learning by heart." + +"You must have found that both a useful and pleasant talent." + +"Perhaps," Serena replied negligently. She was determined not to commit +herself, having arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Iglesias' address was +too civil. "It was bad manners of him not to remember how often we had +met," she said to herself, "and now he is trying to pass it off. But that +won't do!" Serena had many and distinct views on the subject of manner +and manners. She was never certain that civility did not argue a defect +of sincerity. She agreed with herself to think that over again later. +Meanwhile she would carefully remark Mr. Iglesias. "If he is insincere, +as I fear he is, he is sure to betray it in other ways. Then I shall be +on my guard." Forewarned is, of course, forarmed, and Serena felt very +acute. Though against exactly what she was taking such elaborate +precautions, it would have been difficult for her, or for anyone else, to +have stated. However, just now it was incumbent upon her to make +conversation. As is the way with persons not very fertile in ideas, she +had recourse to the simple expedient of asking a leading question. + +"Are you fond of animals?" she inquired. + +"I am afraid I have very little knowledge of animals," Iglesias replied. + +Serena laughed dryly. This was so transparent a subterfuge. + +"What a very odd answer!" she said. "Because everybody must really know +whether they like animals or not." + +"I am afraid I stand by myself then, a solitary exception. I have had +little or nothing to do with animals, and have therefore had no +opportunity of discovering whether they attract me or not." + +"How very odd!" Serena repeated. + +She moved across to the centre-table where Mr. Lovegrove's books of +picture postcards, the miscellaneous consequences of many charity +bazaars, and kindred aesthetic treasures reposed, and deposited her work- +bag in their company. Her movement revived the attention of the parrot, +who had been nodding on its perch. + +"Poor old girlie, take a brandy and soda? Kiss and be friends. Good- +night, all," it murmured hoarsely, half asleep. + +"If your question bore reference to that particular animal, I stand in no +doubt as to my sentiments," Dominic remarked. "I am anything but fond of +it. I think it an odious bird." + +"Ah! you see you do know," Serena exclaimed. "I was sure you did." She +felt justified in her suspicion of his sincerity. "But nobody would agree +with you, Mr. Iglesias, because of course it is really a very clever +parrot. They very seldom learn to say so many things." + +"How fortunate!" Dominic permitted himself to ejaculate. + +"I don't see why you should say it is fortunate." + +"Do not its remarks strike you as somewhat impertinent and intrusive?" + +"I wonder if an animal can be impertinent," Serena said reflectively. + +But here to her vexation, for it appeared to her that she had just +started a really interesting subject of discussion, Mrs. Lovegrove +bustled into the room. + +"Well, Mr. Iglesias," she began, "I am sure I am very delighted to see +you, and so will Georgie be. He was remarking only yesterday we don't +seem to see so much of you as we used to do. He's just a little behind +time, is Georgie, having been kept by the dear vicar at a meeting about +the Church Workers' Social Evenings Guild at the Mission Room in Little +Bethesda Street. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Iglesias--though I +can't help hoping you will some day--but Serena knows, don't you, +Serena? It's where Susan--her elder sister, Miss Lovegrove"--this aside +to Dominic--"gave an address once to the members of the Society for the +Conversion of the Jews." + +"No doubt I remember; but Susan is always giving addresses somewhere," +Serena said loftily. + +"And very good and kind of her it is to give addresses," Mrs. Lovegrove +rejoined. "Even the dear vicar says what a remarkable gift she has as a +speaker, and there's no question as to the worth of his praise." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is good and kind of Susan to +give addresses," Serena remarked. "Because of course she enjoys giving +them. Susan likes to have a number of people listening to her." + +"But if the object is a noble one?"--this from Mrs. Lovegrove, a little +nonplussed and put about. + +"Still, if you enjoy doing anything, how can it be good and kind to do +it?" Serena said argumentatively. "Susan is very fond of publicity. I +think people very often deceive themselves about their own motives." + +She looked meaningly at Dominic Iglesias as she spoke. And he looked back +at her gravely and kindly, though with a slightly amused smile. His +thoughts had travelled away--they had done so pretty frequently during +the last twenty-four hours--to the smirking self-conscious little house +on the verge of Barnes Common. Unpromising though it had appeared +outwardly, yet within it he believed he had found a friend--a friend who +was also an enigma. Perhaps, as he now reflected, all women are enigmas. +Certainly they are amazingly different. He thought of Poppy. He looked at +Serena. Yes, doubtless they all are enigmas; only--might Heaven forgive +him the discourtesy--all are not enigmas equally well worth finding out. + +George Lovegrove arrived. Supper, a somewhat heavy and hybrid meal, +followed--"all comfortable and friendly," as Mrs. Lovegrove described it, +"no ceremony and fal-lals, but everything put down on the table so that +you could see it and please yourself." + +Serena, however, was difficult to please. She picked daintily at the food +on her plate. Her host observed her with solicitude. + +"Do take a little more," he said, in an anxious aside, Mrs. Lovegrove +being safely engaged in conversation with Mr. Iglesias, "or I shall begin +to be nervous lest we aren't offering you quite what you like." + +But Serena was obdurate. + +"Pray don't mind, George," she said. "You know I never eat much. I am +quite different from Susan, for instance. She always has a large +appetite, and so have all her friends. Low Church people always have, I +think. But I never care to eat a great deal, especially in hot weather." + +Serena was really very glad indeed to come to London just now. Still, +there were self-respecting decencies to be observed, specially in the +presence of another guest. Relationship does not necessarily imply social +equality; and, as Serena reminded herself, the family always had felt +that poor George had married beneath him. Therefore it was well to keep +the fact of her own superior refinement well in view. In the case of good +George Lovegrove this was, however, a work of supererogation. For he had +a, to himself, positively embarrassing respect for Serena's gentility-- +embarrassing because at moments it came painfully near endangering the +completeness of his consideration for "the wife's feelings." The two +ladies frequently differed upon matters of taste and etiquette, with the +result that the good man's guileless breast was torn by conflicting +emotions. For had not Serena's father been a General Officer of the +Indian army? And had not Serena herself and her elder sister Susan--a +person of definite views and commanding character--long been resident at +Slowby in Midlandshire, an inland watering-place of acknowledged fashion? +It followed that her pronouncements on social questions were necessarily +final. Yet to uphold her judgment, as against that of the wife, was to +risk mortifying the latter. And to mortify the wife would be to act as a +heartless scoundrel. Hence situations, for George Lovegrove, difficult to +the point of producing profuse perspiration. + +That night Serena prepared for rest with remarkable deliberation. Clad in +a blue and white striped cotton dressing-gown, she sat long at her +toilet-table. And all the time she wondered--a far-reaching, mazelike, +elaborately intricate and wholly inconclusive wonder. Hers was a nature +which suffered perpetual solicitation from possible alternatives, hearing +warning voices from the vague, delusive regions of the might-be or might- +have-been. She had never grasped the rudimentary but very important truth +that only that which actually is in the least matters. And so to arrive +at what is, with all possible despatch--in so far as such arriving is +practicable--and then to go forward, comprises the whole duty of the sane +human being. Par from this, Serena's mind forever fitted batlike in the +half-darkness of innumerable small prejudices and ignorances. She moved, +as do so many women of her class, in a twilight, embryonic world, +untouched alike by the splendour and terror of living. + +Nevertheless, on this particular occasion, as she brushed her hair and +inserted the tortoise-shell curling-pins which should secure to-morrow's +decorative effects, she felt almost daring and dangerous. She wondered +whether she had really enjoyed the evening or not; whether she had held +her own and shown independence and spirit. She laboured under the quaint +early-Victorian notion that, in the presence of members of the opposite +sex, a woman is called upon always to play something of a part. She +should advance, so to speak, and then retreat; provoke interest by a +studied indifference; yield a little, only to become more elegantly +fugitive. It may be doubted whether these wiles have even been a very +successful adjunct to feminine charms. But in the case of so negative and +colourless a creature as Serena, they were pathetically devoid of result. +Play a part industriously as she might, the majority of her audience was +wholly unaware that she was, in point of fact, playing anything at all! +They might think her a little capricious, a little foolish, but that +there was intention or purpose in her pallid flightiness passed the +bounds of imagination. Never mind, if the audience had no sense of the +position, Serena had, and she enjoyed it. Excitement possessed her, and +her eyes snapped even yet as, thinking it all over, she fastened the +curlers in her hair. + +She wondered whether George and Rhoda--how intensely she disliked the +name Rhoda!--had any special reason for asking her just now, and talking +so much about Mr. Iglesias, or whether it was a coincidence. + +"Of course it is not of the slightest importance to me whether they have +or not," she reflected. "I think it would be rather an impertinence if +they had. Still, I think I had better find out; but without letting Rhoda +suspect, of course. If you give her any encouragement Rhoda is inclined +to go too far and say what is rather indelicate. I always have thought +Rhoda had a rather vulgar mind. I wonder if poor George feels that? I +believe he does, before me. Once or twice to-night he was very nervous. +How dreadfully coarse poor Rhoda's skin is getting! I wonder if Rhoda has +given Susan a hint, and if that was what made Susan so gracious about my +leaving home? But I don't believe she did--I mean that Susan suspected +that George and Rhoda had any particular reason for inviting me. I wonder +if I shall ever make Susan see that I am not a cipher? Of course if +George and Rhoda really have any particular reason, and Susan comes to +know it, that will show her that other people do not consider me a +cipher. I wonder what most people would think of Mr. Iglesias? Of course +he has only been a bank clerk; but then so has George. Only then he is a +foreigner, and that makes a difference. I wonder whether, if anything +came of it, Susan would make his being a foreigner an objection?" + +But this was growing altogether too definite and concrete. With a sort of +mental squeak Serena's thought flitted into twilight and embryonic +regions. + +"I think if they have any particular reason, it is rather scheming of +George and Rhoda. I wonder if it is nice of them? If they have, I think +it is rather deceitful. I wonder if they have said anything to Mr. +Iglesias?" + +Serena, with the aid of a curling-pin, was controlling the short fuzzy +little hairs just at the nape of her neck; and this last wonder proved so +absorbing a one that she remained, head bent and fingers aimlessly +fiddling with the bars of the curler, till it suddenly occurred to her +that she was getting quite stiff. + +"If they have, I think it is very presuming of them," she continued +wrathfully, stretching her arms, for they ached--"very presuming. How +glad I am I was on my guard. I wonder if they saw I was on my guard? I +believe George did. I wonder if that helped to make him nervous?" + +Serena fastened in the last of the curlers. There was no excuse for +sitting up any longer; yet she lingered. + +"I must be more on my guard than ever," she said. + +Meanwhile Dominic Iglesias, after sitting in the dining-room with his old +friend while the latter smoked a last pipe, made his way across the Green +in the deepening mystery of the summer night. The sky was moonless; and +at the zenith, untouched by the upward streaming light of the great city, +the stars showed fair and bright. A nostalgia of wide untenanted spaces, +of far horizons, of emotions at once intimate and rooted in things +eternal, was upon him. But of Serena Lovegrove, it must be admitted, he +thought not one little bit. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Only one of the trees from which Cedar Lodge derives its name was still +standing. This lonely giant, sombre exile from Libanus, overshadowed all +that remained of the formerly extensive garden and sensibly darkened the +back of the house. Its foliage, spread like a deep pile carpet upon the +wide horizontal branches, was worn and sparse, showing small promise of +self-renewal. Yet though starved by the exhausted soil, and clogged by +soots from innumerable chimneys, it remained majestic, finely decorative +as some tree of metal, of age-old bronze roughened by a greenness of +deep-eating rust. From the first moment of his acquaintance with Cedar +Lodge it had been to Dominic Iglesias an object of attraction, even of +sympathy. For he recognised in it something stoical, an unmoved dignity +and lofty indifference to the sordid commonplace of its surroundings. It +made no concessions to adverse circumstances, but remained proudly +itself, owning for sole comrade the Wind--that most mysterious of all +created things, unseen, untamed, mateless, incalculable. The wind gave it +voice, gave it even a measure of mobility, as it swept through the +labyrinth of dry unfruitful branches and awoke a husky music telling of +far-distant times and places, making a shuddering and stirring as of the +resurgence of long-forgotten hope and passion. + +When Dominic entered into residence at Cedar Lodge, a pair of stout +mauve-brown wood-pigeons--migrants from the pleasant elms of Holland +Park--had haunted the tree. But they being, for all their dolorous +cooings, birds of a lusty, not to say truculent, habit, grew weary of its +persistent solemnity of aspect. So, at least, Dominic judged. He had been +an interested spectator of the love-makings, quarrels, and +reconciliations of these comely neighbours from his bedroom window daily +while dressing. But one fine spring morning he saw them fly away and +never saw them fly back again. Clearly they had removed themselves to +less solemn quarters, leaving the great tree, save for fugitive +visitations from its comrade the wind, to solitary meditation within the +borders of its narrow prison-place. + +Besides presenting in itself an object altogether majestical, the cedar +performed a practical office whereby it earned Iglesias' gratitude. For +its dark interposing bulk effectually shut off the view of an +aggressively new rawly red steam laundry, with shiny slate roofs and a +huge smoke-belching chimney to it, which, to the convulsive disgust of +the gentility of the eastern side of Trimmer's Green, had had the +unpardonable impertinence to get itself erected in an adjacent street. It +followed that when, one wet evening, yellow-headed little Mr. Farge had +advised himself to speak slightingly of the cedar tree, Iglesias was +prepared to defend it, if necessary, with some warmth. + +The conversation had ranged round the subject of the hour, namely, the +possibility--as yet in the estimation of most persons an incredible one-- +of war with the Boer Republics, when the young man indulged in a playful +aside addressed to Miss Hart, at whose right hand he was seated. + +"If I could find fault with anything belonging to the lady at the head of +the table," he said, "it would be the gloomy old party looking in at +these back windows." + +"What, the dear old cedar tree! Never, Mr. Farge!" protested Eliza. + +"Yes, it would, though," he insisted, "when, as tonight, it is drip, +drip, dripping all over the shop. No touch of Sunny Jim about him, is +these now, Bert?"--this to the devoted Worthington sitting immediately +opposite to him on Miss Hart's left. + +"Truly there is not, if I may venture so far," the other young gentleman +responded, playing up obediently. "And if anything could give me and +Charlie a fit of the blues, I believe that old fellow would in rainy +weather." + +"Makes you think of the cemetery, does it not now, Bert?" + +"You have hit it. Paddington--not the station though, Charlie, just +starting for a cosey little trip with your best girl up the river." + +"For shame, Mr. Worthington," Eliza protested again, giggling. + +"Suggestive of the end of all week-ends, in short," de Courcy Smyth, who +contrary to his custom was present at dinner that evening, put in +snarlingly. "One last trip up the River of Death for you, with a ticket +marked not transferrable, eh, Farge? Then an oblong hole in the reeking +blue clay, silence and worms." + +His tone was spiteful to the point of commanding attention. A hush fell +on the company, broken only by the drifting sob of the rain through the +branches of the great cedar. Mr. Farge went perceptibly pale. Mrs. +Porcher sighed and turned her fine eyes up to the ceiling. Iglesias +looked curiously at the speaker. Eliza Hart was the first to find voice. + +"Pray, Mr. Smyth," she said, "don't be so very unpleasant. You're enough +to give one the goose-skin all over." + +"I am sorry I have offended," he answered sullenly. "But I beg leave to +call attention to the fact that I did not start this subject. I was +rather interested in the previous discussion, which gave an opportunity +of intelligent conversation not habitual among us. Farge is responsible +for the interruption, and for the cemeteries, and consequently for my +comment. Still, I am sorry I have offended." + +He shifted his position, glancing uneasily first at his hostess, and then +at Dominic Iglesias, who sat opposite him in the place of honour at that +lady's right hand. + +"You have not offended, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. Porcher declared graciously. +"And no doubt it is well for us all to be reminded of death and burial at +times. Though some of us hardly need reminding"--again she sighed. "We +carry the thought of them about with us always." And she turned her fine +eyes languidly upon Mr. Iglesias. + +"My poor sweet Peachie," the kind-hearted Eliza murmured, under her +breath. + +"But at meals, perhaps, a lighter vein is more suitable, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. +Porcher continued. "At table the thought of death does seem rather +disheartening, does it not? But about our poor old cedar tree now, Mr. +Farge? You were not seriously proposing to have it removed?" + +"Well, strictly between ourselves, I am really half afraid I actually +was." + +"You forget it sheltered my childhood. It is associated with all my +past." + +"Can a rosebud have a past?" Farge cried, coming up to the surface again +with a bounce, so to speak. + +Mrs. Porcher smiled, shook her head in graceful reproof, and turned once +more to Dominic. + +"I think we should all like to know how you feel about it, Mr. Iglesias," +she said. "Do you wish the poor old tree removed?" + +"On the contrary, I should greatly regret it's being cut down," he +answered. "It would be a loss to me personally, for I have always taken a +pleasure both in the sound and the sight of it. But that is a minor +consideration." + +"You must allow me to differ from that opinion," Mrs. Porcher remarked, +with gentle emphasis. "We can never forget, can we, Eliza, who is our +oldest guest? Mr. Iglesias' opinion must ever carry weight in all which +concerns Cedar Lodge." + +Here Farge and Worthington made round eyes at one another, while de +Courcy Smyth shuffled his feet under the table. He had received a +disquieting impression. + +"Oh! of course, Peachie, dear," Miss Hart responded. She hugged herself +with satisfaction. "The darling looks more bonny than ever," she +reflected. "To-night what animation! What tact! She seems to have come +out so lately, since that Serena Lovegrove has been stopping over the +way. Not that there could be any rivalry between her and that poor +thread-paper of a thing!" + +Dominic Iglesias, however, received his hostess' pretty speeches with a +calm which turned the current of the ardent Eliza's thoughts, causing her +to refer, mentally, to the degree of emotion which might be predicated of +monuments, mountains, stone elephants, and kindred objects. + +"You are very kind," he said. "But on grounds far more important than +those of any private sentiment the cutting down of the cedar calls for +careful consideration. I am afraid you would find it a serious loss to +the beauty of your property. What the house loses in light, it certainly +gains in distinction and interest from the presence of the tree." + +"Yes," Mrs. Porcher returned, folding her plump pink hands upon the edge +of the table and looking down modestly. "It does speak of family +perhaps." + +"And in your case, dear, it speaks nothing more than the truth," Eliza +declared. "Just as well a certain gentleman should reckon with Peachie's +real position," she said to herself--"specially with that stuck-up Serena +Lovegrove cat-and-mousing about on the other side of the Green. It does +not take a Solomon to see what she's after!" + +"I am afraid the verdict is given against you, Mr. Farge. The cedar tree +will remain." Mrs. Porcher rose as she spoke. + +The young man playfully rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, feigning +tears. Then a scrimmage ensued between him and Worthington as to which +should reach the dining-room door first and throw it open before the +ladies. At this exhibition of high spirits de Courcy Smyth groaned +audibly, while Mrs. Porcher, linking her arm within that of Miss Hart, +lingered. + +"You will join our little circle in the drawing-room to-night, will you +not, Mr. Iglesias?" she pleaded. + +Again the young men made round eyes at one another. De Courcy Smyth had +come forward. He stood close to Iglesias and, before the latter could +answer, spoke hurriedly: + +"Can you give me ten minutes in private? I don't want to press myself +upon you, but this is imperative." + +Iglesias proceeded to excuse himself to his hostess, thereby causing Miss +Hart to refer mentally to monuments and mountains once again. + +"Thank you," Smyth gasped. His face was twitching and he swayed a little, +steadying himself with one hand on the corner of the dinner-table. + +"I loathe asking," he continued, "I loathe pressing my society upon you, +since you do not seek it. It has taken days for me to make up my mind to +this; but it is necessary. And, after all, you made the original offer +yourself." + +"I am quite ready to listen, and to renew any offer which I may have +made," Iglesias answered quietly. + +"We can't talk here, though," Smyth said. "That blundering ass of a +waiter will be coming in directly; and whatever he overhears is sure to +go the round of the house. All servants are spies." + +"We can go up to my sitting-room and talk there," Iglesias replied. + +Yet he was conscious of making the proposal with reluctance, pity +struggling against repulsion. For not only was the man's appearance very +unkempt, but his manner and bearing were eloquent of a certain +desperation. Of anything approaching physical fear Dominic Iglesias was +happily incapable. But his sitting-room had always been a peaceful place, +refuge alike from the strain and monotony of his working life. It held +relics, moreover, wholly dear to him, and to introduce into it this +inharmonious and, in a sense, degraded presence savoured of desecration. +Therefore, not without foreboding, as of one who risks the sacrifice of +earnestly cherished security, he ushered his guest into the quiet room. + +The gas, the small heart-shaped flames of which showed white against the +dying daylight coming in through the windows, was turned low in the +bracket-lamps on either side the high mantelpiece. Dominic Iglesias +moved across and drew down the blinds, catching sight as he did so-- +between the tossing foliage of the balsam-poplars which glistened in the +driving wet--of the unwinking gaselier in the Lovegroves' dining-room, on +the other side of the Green. He remembered that he ought to have called +on Mrs. Lovegrove and Miss Serena, and that he had been guilty of a lapse +of etiquette in not having done so. But he reflected poor Miss Serena was +a person whose existence it seemed so curiously difficult to bear +actively in mind. Then he grew penitent, as having added discourtesy to +discourtesy in permitting himself this reflection. He came back from the +window, turned up the lights, drew forward an armchair and motioned Smyth +to be seated; fetched a cut-glass spirit decanter, tumblers, and a syphon +of soda from the sideboard and set them at his guest's elbow. + +"Pray help yourself," he said. "And here, will you not smoke while we +talk?" + +Smyth's pale, prominent eyes had followed these preparations for his +comfort with avidity, but now, the handsome character of his surroundings +being fully disclosed to him, he was filled with uncontrollable envy. +Silently he filled his glass, by no means stinting the amount of alcohol, +gulped down half the contents of the tumbler, paused a moment, leaning +his elbow on the table, and said: + +"We were treated to a public exhibition of feminine cajolery in your +direction, Mr. Iglesias, at the end of dinner. It occurs to me we might +have been spared that. I have never had the honour of penetrating into +your apartments before; but the aspect of them is quite sufficient +indication as to who is the favoured member of Mrs. Porcher's +establishment." + +Dominic had remained standing. Hospitality demanded that he should do all +in his power to secure his guest's material comfort; but there, in his +opinion, immediate obligation ceased. In thus remaining standing he had a +quaint sense of safeguarding the sanctities of the place. The man's tone +was curiously offensive. Involuntarily Mr. Iglesias' back stiffened a +little. + +"I took these rooms unfurnished," he said. And then added: "May I ask +what your business with me may be?" + +Smyth had recourse to his tumbler again. His hand shook so that his teeth +chattered against the edge of the glass. + +"I am a fool," he said sullenly. "But my nerves are all to pieces. I +cannot control myself. I have come here to ask a favour of you, and yet +some devil prompts me to insult you. I hate you because I am driven to +make use of you. And this room, in its sober luxury, emphasises the +indignity of the position, offering as it does so glaring a contrast to +my own quarters--here under the same roof, only one flight of stairs +above--that I can hardly endure it. Life is hideously unjust. For what +have you done--you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water +to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers--to deserve this immunity +from anxiety and distress; while I, with my superior culture, my ambition +and talents, am condemned to that beastly squeaking wire-wove mattress +upstairs, and a job-lot of furniture which some previous German waiter +has ejected in disgust from his bedroom in the basement? But there--I beg +your pardon. I ought to be accustomed to injustice. I have served a long +enough apprenticeship to it. Only--partly, thanks to you, I own that--I +have seemed to see the dawning of hope again--hope of success, hope of +recognition, hope of revenge; and just on that account it becomes +intolerable to run one's head against this paralysing, stultifying dead +wall of poverty and debt."--He bowed himself together, and his voice +broke.--"I owe Mrs. Porcher money for my miserable bedsitting-room and my +board, and I am so horribly afraid she will turn me out. The place is +detestable; unworthy of me--of course it is--but I am accustomed to it. +And I am not myself. I am terrified at the prospect of any change. In +short, I am worn out. And they see that, those beasts of editors. The +_Evening Dally Bulletin_ has given me my _congé_. I have lost the last of +my hack-work. It was miserable work, wholly beneath a man of my capacity; +still it brought me in a pittance. Now it is gone. Practically I am a +pauper, and I owe money in this house." + +"I am sorry, very sorry," Iglesias said. "You should have spoken sooner. +I could not force myself into your confidence; but, believe me, I have +not been unmindful of my engagement. I have merely waited for you to +speak." + +His manner was gentle, yet he remained standing, still possessed by an +instinct to thus safeguard the sanctities of the place. He paused, giving +the other man time to recover a measure of composure: then he asked +kindly, anxious to conduct the conversation into a happier channel: +"Meanwhile, how is the play advancing? Well, I hope--so that you find +solace and satisfaction in the prosecution of it." + +Smyth moved uneasily, looking up furtively at his questioner. + +"Oh! it is grand," he said, "unquestionable it is grand. You need have no +anxiety under that head. Pray understand that anything that you may do +for me in the interim, before the play is produced, is simply an +investment. You need not be in the least alarmed. You will see all your +money back--see it doubled, certainly doubled, probably trebled." + +"I was not thinking of investments," Iglesias put in quietly. + +"But I am," Smyth asserted. "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I +should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in the +end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a favour? You +humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested generosity. Let +me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in assuming it you do not +treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is mean to take advantage of +my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself thus at my expense. Of +course I understand your point of view. From your associations and +occupations you must inevitably worship the god of wealth. One cannot +expect anything else from a business man. You gauge every one's +intellectual capacity by his power of making money. Well, wait then-- +just wait; and when that play appears, see if I do not compel you to rate +my intellectual capacity very highly. For there are thousands in that +play, I tell you--tens of thousands. It is only in the interim that I am +reduced to this detestable position of dependence. I know the worth of my +work, if----" + +But Iglesias' patience was beginning to wear rather thin. He interposed +calmly, yet with authority. + +"Pardon me," he said, "but it is irrelevant to discuss my attitude of +mind or my past occupations. It will be more agreeable for us, both now +and in the future, to treat any matters that arise between us as +impersonally as possible. Therefore, I will ask you to tell me, simply +and clearly, how much you require to clear you from immediate difficulty; +and I will tell you, in return, whether I am in a position to meet your +wishes or not." + +For a moment Smyth sat silent, his hands working nervously along the arms +of the chair. + +"You understand it is merely a temporary accommodation?" + +"Yes," Iglesias answered. "I understand. And consequently it is +superfluous to indulge in further discussion." + +"You want to get rid of me," Smyth snarled. "Everyone wants to get rid of +me; I am unwelcome. The poor and unsuccessful always are so, I suppose. +But some day the tables will be turned--if I can only last." + +And Dominic Iglesias found himself called upon to rally all his humanity, +all his faith in merciful dealing and the reward which goes along with +it. For it was hard to give, hard to befriend, so thankless and +ungracious a being. Yet, having put his hand to the plough, he refused to +look back. He had inherited a strain of fanaticism which took the form of +unswerving loyalty to his own word once given. So he spoke gravely and +kindly, as one speaks to the sick who are beyond the obligation of +showing courtesy for very suffering. And truly, as he reminded himself, +this man was grievously sick; not only physically from insufficient food, +but morally from disappointment and that most fruitful source of disease, +inordinate and unsatisfied vanity. + +"I do not wish to get rid of you; I merely wish to take the shortest and +simplest way to relieve you of your more pressing anxieties, and so +enable you to give yourself unreservedly to your work. Want may be a +wholesome spur to effort at times; but it is difficult to suppose any +really sane and well-proportioned work of art can be produced without a +sense of security and of leisure." + +"How do you come to know that? It is not your province," Smyth said +sharply. + +Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile and raise his shoulders slightly. + +"I come of a race which, in the past, has given evidence of no small +literary and artistic ability. The experience of former generations +affects the thought of their descendants, I imagine, and illuminates it, +even when these are not gifted individually with any executive talent." + +For some minutes Smyth sat staring moodily in front of him. At last he +rose slowly from his chair. + +"I am an ass," he said, "a jealous, suspicious, ungrateful ass. It is +more than ever hateful to me to ask a favour of you, just because you are +forbearing and generous. I wish to goodness I could do without you help; +but I can't. So let me have twenty-five pounds. Less would not be of use +to me. I should only have to draw on you again, and I do not care to do +that. Look here, can I have it in notes?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Iglesias. + +"I prefer it so. There might have been difficulties in cashing a cheque. +Moreover, it is unpleasant to me that your name, that any name, should +appear. It is only fair to save my self-respect as far as you can." + +Then, as Dominic put the notes into his hand, he added, and his voice was +aggressive again and quarrelsome in tone: "I don't apologise. I don't +explain. I do not even thank you. Why should I, since I simply take it as +a temporary accommodation until my play is finished--my great play, which +is going--I swear before God it is going--not only to cancel this paltry +debt, but a far more important one, the debt I owe to my own genius, and +justify me once and forever in the eyes of the whole English-speaking +world." + +With that he shambled out of the room, letting the handle of the door +slip so that it banged noisily behind him. + +For a while Dominic Iglesias remained standing before the fireplace. He +was sad at heart. He had given generously, lavishly, out of proportion, +as most persons reckon charitable givings, to his means. But, though the +act was in itself good, he was sensible of no responsive warmth, no glow +of satisfaction. The transaction left him cold; left him, indeed, a prey +to disgust. Not only were the man's faults evident, but they were of so +unpleasant a nature as to neutralise all gladness in relieving his +distress. Mechanically Iglesias straightened the chair which his guest +had so lately occupied, put away tumbler and spirit decanter, pulled up +the blind and opened one of the tall narrow windows, set the door giving +access to his bed-chamber wide, and opened a window there, too, so +creating a draught right through the apartment from end to end. He +desired to clean it both of a physical and a moral atmosphere which were +displeasing to him. And, in so doing, he let in, not only the roar of +London, borne in a fierce crescendo on the breath of the wind, but a +strange multitudinous rustling from the sombre foliage and stiff branches +of the lonely cedar tree. Two limbs, crossing, sawed upon one another as +the wind took them, uttering at intervals a long-drawn complaint--not +weakly, but rather with virility, as of a strong man chained and groaning +against his fetters. + +The sound affected Dominic Iglesias deeply, begetting in him an almost +hopeless sense of isolation. The vapid talk at dinner, poor little Mrs. +Porcher's misplaced advances--the fact of which it appeared to him +equally idle to deny and fatuous to admit--the dreary scene with his +unhappy fellow-lodger, the good deed done which just now appeared +fruitless--all these contributed to make the complaint of the exiled +cedar's tormented branches an echo of the complaint of his own heart. For +a long while he listened to these voices of the night, the great city, +the great tree, the wind and the wet; and listening, by degrees he +rallied his patience in that he humbled himself. + +"After all, I have been little else but self-seeking," he said, half +aloud. "For I gave not to the man, but to myself. I clutched at a +personal reward, if not of spoken gratitude yet of subjective content. It +has not come. I suppose I did not deserve it." + +And then, somehow, his thoughts turned to that other human creature who, +though in a very different fashion to de Courcy Smyth the unsavoury, had +claimed his help. He thought not of her over-red lips, but of her wise +eyes; not of her irrepressible effervescence and patter, but of her +serious moments and of the honesty and courage which at such moments +appeared to animate her. About a fortnight ago he had called at the +little flower-bedecked house on the confines of Barnes Common, but had +obtained no response to his ringing. He supposed she was engaged, or +possibly away. With a certain proud modesty he had abstained from +renewing his visit. But now, listening to the roar of London and the +complaint of the cedar tree, he turned to the thought of her as to +something of promise, of possible comfort, of equal friendship, in which +there should be not only help given, but help received. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Dominic Iglesias stood on Hammersmith Bridge looking upstream. The +temperature was low for the time of year, the sky packed with heavy- +bosomed indigo-grey clouds in the south and west, whence came a gusty +wind chill with impending rain. The light was diffused and cold, all +objects having a certain bareness of effect, deficient in shadow. The +weather had broken in the storm of the preceding night; and, though it +was but early September, summer was gone, autumn and the melancholy of +it already present--witness the elms in Chiswick Mall splotched with +raw umber and faded yellow. The tide had still about an hour to flow. +The river was dull and leaden, save where, near Chiswick Eyot, the +wind meeting the tide lashed the surface of it into mimic waves, the +crests of which, flung upward, showed against the gloomy stretch of +water beyond, like pale hands raised heavenward in despairing protest. +Steam-tugs, taking advantage of the tide, laboured up-stream in the +teeth of the wind, towing processions of dark floats and barges. Long +banners of smoke, ragged and fleeting, swept wildly away from the +mouths of the tall chimneys of Thorneycroft's Works, which rose black +into the low, wet sky. The roadway of the huge suspension bridge +quivered under the grind of the ceaseless traffic, while the wind +cried in the massive pea-green painted iron-gearing above. There was a +sense of hardly restrained tumult, of conflict between nature and the +multiple machinery of modern civilisation, the two in opposition, +alike victims of an angry mood. And Iglesias stood watching that +conflict among the crowd of children, and loafers, and decrepit, who +to-day--as every day--thronged the foot-way of the bridge. + +Poppy St. John stood on the foot-way, too. She had crossed from the +southern side. But, though by no means insensible to the spirit or the +details of the scene around her, she was less engaged in watching the +drama of the stormy afternoon than in watching Dominic Iglesias--as +yet unconscious of her presence. His tall, spare, shapely figure, +grave, clean-shaven face, and calm, self-recollected manner--which +removed him so singularly from the purposeless neutral-tinted human +beings close about him--delighted her artistic sense. + +"If one had caught him young," she said to herself, "if one had only +caught him young, heavenly powers, what a time one might have had, and +yet stayed good--oh! very quite good indeed!" + +Then she made her way between much undeveloped and derelict humanity. + +"Look at me, dear man," she said, "look at me--really I am worth it. I +got home late last night and I was possessed by a great longing to see +you.--Excuse my shouting, but things in general are making such an +infernal clatter.--I was determined to see you. I set my whole mind to +making you come. And I felt so sure you must come that this afternoon +I have journeyed thus far to meet you. And here you are, and here I +am." + +Poppy stood before him bracing her back against the hand-rail of the +bridge. + +"Tell me, are you glad?" she said. + +And Dominic Iglesias, surprised, yet finding the incident curiously +natural, answered simply: + +"Yes, I am, very glad." + +"That's all right," she rejoined; "because, after all, coming was a +pretty lively act of faith on my part. I have superstitious turns at +times; and the weather, and things that had happened, had made me feel +pretty cheap somehow. I don't mind telling you as you are here that if +you'd failed me there would have been the devil to pay. I should have +been awfully cut up." + +Iglesias still smiled upon her. Poppy presented herself under a new +aspect to-day, and that aspect found favour in his sight. She was no +longer the Lady of the Windswept Dust, arrayed in fantastic flowery +hat and trailing skirts, but was clothed in trim black workman-like +garments, which revealed the delicate contours of her figure and gave +her an unexpected air of distinction. Yet, though charmed, the caution +of pride--which, in his case, was also the caution of modesty--made +him a trifle shy in addressing her. He paused before speaking, and +then said, with a certain hesitancy: + +"I fancy my attitude of mind last night was the complement of your +own. I, too, had fallen on rather evil days. I wanted to see you. I +came out this afternoon to find you. If I had failed to do so, it +would have gone a little hard with me, too, I think." + +Poppy looked at him questioningly, intently, for a minute, her teeth +set. Then she whirled round, leaned her elbows on the hand-rail, +pulled her handkerchief out of the breast pocket of her smartly +fitting coat and dabbed her eyes with it, finely indifferent to +possible comment or observation. + +Iglesias remained immediately behind her, but a little to the right, +so as to save her from being jostled by the passers-by. He had a sense +of being only the more alone with her because of the traffic and the +crowd; a sense, moreover, of dependence on her part and protection on +his; a sense, in a way, of her belonging to him and he to her. And +this was very sweet to him, solemnly sweet, as are all things of +beauty and moment holding in them the promise of enduring result. Old +Age ceased to threaten and Loneliness to haunt. Over Iglesias' soul +passed a wave of thankful content. + +Suddenly Poppy straightened herself up and faced him. Her lips +laughed, but her eyes were wet. + +"I'll play fair," she said; "by the honour of the mother that bore +you, I'll play fair." + +Then she laid her hand on his arm and pointed London-wards. + +"Now, come along, dear man, for I have got to pull myself together +somehow. Let us walk. Take me somewhere I've never been before, +somewhere quiet--only let us walk." + +Therefore, desiring to meet her wishes, a little way up the broad +straggling street Dominic Iglesias turned off to the left into the +narrow old-world lanes and alleys which lie between the river frontage +and King Street West. The district is a singular one, suggestive of +some sleepy little dead-alive seaport town rather than of London. +Quaint water-ways, crossed by foot-bridges, burrow in between small +low cottages and warehouses. Some of these have overhanging upper +stories to them, are half-timbered or yellow-washed. Some are built +wholly of wood. There is an all-pervading odour of tar and hempen +rope. Small industries abound, though without any self-advertisement +of plate-glass shop fronts. Chimney-sweeps and cobblers give notice of +their presence by swinging signs. Newsvendors make irruption of +flaring boards upon the pavement. Little ground-floor windows exhibit +attenuated stores of tinware, string, and sweets. Modest tobacconists +mount the image of a black boy scantily clothed or of a Highlander in +the fullest of tartans above their doors. Cats prowl along walls and +sparrows rise in flights from off the ill-paved roadways. But of human +occupants there appear to be but few, and those with an unusual stamp +of individuality upon them; figures a trifle strange and obsolete--as +of persons by choice hidden away, voluntarily self-removed from the +levelling rush and grind of the monster city. The small heavy-browed +houses are very secretive, seeming to shelter fallen fortunes, obscure +and furtive sins, sorrows which resist alleviation and inquiry. Seen, +as to-day, under the low-hanging sky big with rain, in the diffused +afternoon light, the place and its inhabitants conveyed an impression +low-toned, yet distinct, finished in detail, rich though mournful in +effect as some eighteenth-century Dutch picture. A linnet twittered, +flitting from perch to perch of its cage at an open window. A boy, +clad in an old mouse-brown corduroy coat, passed slowly, crying "Sweet +lavender" shrilly yet in a plaintive cadence. Occasionally the siren +of a steam-tug tore the air with a long-drawn wavering scream. +Otherwise all was very silent. + +And, as they threaded their way through the maze of crooked streets, +Dominic Iglesias and Poppy St. John were silent also; but with the +silence of intimacy and good faith, rather than with that of +embarrassment or indifference. Each was very fully aware of the +presence of the other. So fully aware, indeed, that, for the moment, +speech seemed superfluous as a vehicle for interchange of thought. +Then, as they emerged on to the open gravelled space of the Upper Mall +with its low red-brick wall and stately elm trees, Poppy held out her +hand to Mr. Iglesias. + +"You are beautifully clever," she said. "You give me just what I +wanted. I'm as steady as old Time now. But what a queer rabbit-warren +of a place it is! How did you find your way?" + +"I came here often, in the past," he said, "at a time when I was +suffering grave anxiety. I could not leave home, after my office work +was over, for more than an hour together. And in the dusk or at night, +with its twinkling and evasive lights, the place used to please me, +leading as it does to the river bank, the mystery of the ebbing and +flowing tide, the ceaseless effort seaward of the stream, and those +low-lying spaces on the Surrey side. It was the nearest bit of nature, +unharnessed, irresponsible nature, which I could get to; and it +symbolised emancipation from monotonous labour and everlasting bricks +and mortar. I could watch the dying of the sunset, and the outcoming +of the stars, the tossing of the pale willows--there on the eyot--in +the windy dusk, undisturbed. And so I have come to entertain a great +fondness for it, since it tranquillised me and helped me to see life +calmly and to bring myself in line with fact, to endure and to +forgive." + +While he spoke Poppy's hand continued to rest passively in his. + +"You are a poet," she said, "and you are very good." + +Dominic Iglesias smiled and shook his head. + +"No," he answered. "I am neither a poet nor am I very good. Far from +that. I only tried to keep faith with the one clear duty which I saw." + +Poppy moved forward across the Mall and stood by the river wall, +looking out over the flowing tide. It was high now, and washed and +gurgled against the masonry. + +"You did and suffered all that for some woman," she said. "A man like +you always breaks himself for some woman. I hope she was worth it-- +often they aren't. Who was she? The woman you loved? Your wife?" + +"The woman I loved," Iglesias answered, "but not my wife." + +Poppy looked at him sharply, her eyes full of question and of fear, as +though she dreaded to hear very evil tidings. + +"Not your mistress?" she said. "Don't tell me that. The Lord knows +I've no right to mind. But I should mind. It would be like switching +off all the lights. I couldn't stand it. So, if it's that, just let us +part company at once. I've no more use for you.--I know where I am +now. If I go up into St. Peter's Square I can pick up a hansom and +drive back home--I suppose I may as well call it home, as I have no +other. And as for you, if you've any mercy in you, never let me see +you again. Never come near me. I have no use for you, I tell you. So +leave me to my own devices--what those devices are is no earthly +concern of yours." + +She paused breathless, her eyes blazing, her face very white. She +seemed to have grown tall, and there was a tremendous force in her of +bitterness, repudiation, and regret. + +"After all," she cried, "I don't so much as know your name; and so, +thank heaven, it can't be so very difficult to forget you." + +Her aspect moved Iglesias strangely, seeming as it did to embody the +very spirit of the angry sky, of the gloomy river, all the sorrow of +the dead summer and stormy autumn light. For a moment he watched her +in silence. Then he took both her hands in his and held them, smiling +at her again very gently. + +"No, dear friend," he said, "the woman was not my mistress. She was my +mother." His voice shook a little. "I never talk of her. But I think +of her always. She was very perfect and very lovely. And she suffered +greatly, so greatly that it unhinged her reason. Now do you +understand? For years she was mad." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +In the month of October immediately following two events took place +which, though of apparently very different magnitude and importance, +intimately and almost equally--as it proved in the sequel--affected +Dominic Iglesias' life. The first was the declaration of war by the +South African Republics. The second was the return of Miss Serena +Lovegrove to town. + +Now war is, unquestionably, not a little staggering to the modern +civilised conscience; and this particular war possessed the additional +unpleasantness of having in it, at first sight, an element of the +grotesque. It is not too much to say that it struck the majority of +the British public as being of the nature of a very bad joke. For it +was as though a very small and very cheeky boy, after making offensive +signs, had spat in the nation's face. Clearly the boy deserved sharp +chastisement for his impudence. Nevertheless, the position remained an +undignified and slightly ridiculous one; and the British public +proceeded to safeguard its proper pride by treating the matter as +lightly as possible. It assured itself--and others--that, given a +reasonable parade of strength, the small boy, blubbering, his fists in +his eyes, would speedily and humbly beg pardon and promise to mind his +manners in future. A few persons, it is true, remembered Majuba Hill, +and doubted the small boy's immediate reduction to obedience. A few +others dared to suspect that English society was suffering from wealth +apoplexy and the many unlovely symptoms which, in all ages of history, +have accompanied that form of seizure, and to doubt whether blood- +letting might not prove salutary. Dominic Iglesias was among these. +His recent observations upon and excursions into the world of fashion, +stray words let drop by Poppy St. John on the one hand, and by unhappy +de Courcy Smyth on the other, had begotten in him the suspicion that +the sobering and sorrowful influences of war might be healthful for +the body politic, just as a surgical operation may be healthful for +the individual body. Next to the Jew, the Dutchman is the most +stubbornly tenacious of human creatures. He is a fighting man into the +bargain. Iglesias could not flatter himself that the campaign would +result in an easy walk-over for so much of the British army as a +supine and annoyed Government condescended to place in the field. The +whole affair lay heavy on his soul. It lay there all the heavier that +a few days subsequent to the declaration of war Mr. Iglesias' thought +was unexpectedly swept back into the arena of speculative finance. + +In the portion of his morning paper allotted to business subjects, he +had lighted on a long and evidently inspired article dealing with the +flotation of a company just now in process of acquiring control over +extensive areas in Southeast Africa. The prospects held out to +investors were of the most golden sort. The land was declared to be +not only remarkably rich in precious stones and precious metals, but +also adapted for corn-growing on a vast scale--thus, both above and +below the surface, promising prodigious wealth were its resources +adequately developed. + +Iglesias did not dispute the truth of these statements. The data +quoted appeared trustworthy enough. Moreover, he was already fairly +conversant with the enterprise, since Mr. Reginald Barking--that +junior member of the great banking firm whose name has been mentioned +in connection with strenuous modern business methods--was, to his +knowledge, deeply interested in the promotion of it. That which +troubled him, striking him as unsound and misleading, was the fact +that the profits, as set forth in the newspaper article, were +calculated--so at least it was evident to Iglesias--on the results of +such development when completed, irrespective of the lapse of time +required for such development; irrespective of possible and arresting +accident; irrespective, too, of immediate and even protracted loss by +the tying-up of huge sums of money which could yield but little or no +return until the said process of development was an accomplished fact. +To Iglesias' clear-seeing and logical mind the enterprise, therefore, +presented itself as one of those gigantic modern gambles of which the +incidental risks are emphatically too heavy, since they more often +than not make rich men poor, and poor men paupers, before they come +through--if, indeed, they even come through at all. + +Reginald, in virtue of his youth, his energy, and relentless +concentration of purpose, had rapidly become the ruling spirit of the +house of Barking Brothers & Barking. Iglesias had no cause to love +him, since to him he owed his dismissal. But that fact failed to +colour his present meditations. Under the influence of his cherished +and new-found charity, Dominic had little time or inclination for +personal resentment. Too, the habits of the best part of a lifetime +cannot be thrown aside in a day. Directly he touched business on the +large scale, it became to him serious and imposing. And so the future +of the firm and the issue of its operations, in face of current +events, concerned him deeply, all the more that he gauged Reginald +Barking's temper of mind and proclivities. + +The young man's father--now happily deceased--had offered an +instructive example of social and religious survival--survival, to be +explicit, of the once famous Clapham Sect, and that in its least +agreeable aspect. His theology was that of obstinately narrow +misinterpretation of the Scriptures; his piety that of self-invented +obligations; his virtue that of unsparing condemnation of the sins of +others. His domestic morality was Hebraic--death kindly playing into +his hands in regard of it. He married four times--Reginald, the only +child of his fourth marriage, having the further privilege of being +his only son. The boy was delicate and of a strumous habit. This fact, +combined with his parents' ingrained conviction that a public school +is synonymous, morally speaking, with a common sewer, caused his +education to be conducted at home by a series of tutors as +undistinguished by birth as by scholarship--tentative apologetic young +men, the goal of whose ambitions was a wife and a curacy, failing +which they resigned themselves to the post of usher in some ultra- +Protestant school. Sport in all its forms, art and literature, being +alike forbidden, the boy's hungry energy had found no reasonable +outlet. He had been miserable, peevish, ailing, until at barely +eighteen--after a discreditable episode with a scullery-maid--he had +been shipped off to New York to learn business in the house of certain +brokers and bill-discounters with whom Messrs. Barking Brothers had +extensive financial relations. Life in the land of the Puritans was +not, even at that time of day, inevitably immaculate. Freedom from +parental supervision and the American climate went to the lad's head. +He passed through a phase of commonplace but secret vice, emerging +there-from with an unblemished social reputation; a blank scepticism +in matters religious, combined with bitter animosity against the Deity +whom he declared non-existent; and a fiercely driving ambition, not so +much for wealth in itself, as for that control ever the destinies of +men, and even of nations, with which wealth under modern conditions +endows its possessor. He was a pale, dry, lizard-like young man, +suggesting light without heat, and excitement without emotion. Early +in his career he recognised that the great sources of wealth and power +lie with the younger countries, in the development of their natural +and industrial resources, of their railways and other forms of +transport. The phenomenal advance of America, for example, was due to +her enormous territory and the opportunities of expansion, with the +bounds of nationality, which this afforded her people. But he also +recognised that America was essentially for the Americans, and that it +was useless for an outsider, however skilful, however even +unscrupulous, to pit his business capacity against that of the native +born. His dreams of power and speculative activity directed +themselves, consequently, to the British Colonies, and to those as yet +unappropriated spaces of the earth's surface where British influence +is still only tentatively present. + +Meanwhile he had espoused Miss Nancy Van Reenan, daughter of a famous +transatlantic merchant prince, first cousin, it may be added, to the +beautiful Virginia Van Reenan whose marriage with Lawrence Rivers, of +Stoke Rivers in the county of Sussex, so fluttered the smartest +section of New York society a few years ago. He returned to England in +the spring of 1897, convinced that America had taught him, +commercially speaking, all there was to know. This knowledge he +prepared to apply to waking up the venerable establishment in +Threadneedle Street, while employing the unimpeachable respectability +and solvency of the said establishment as a lever towards the +realisation of his own far-reaching ambitions. He brought with him +from the United States, in addition to his elegant wife, two dry, pale +children, whose contours were less Raphaelesque than gnat-like, and +the acuteness of whose critical faculty was very much more in evidence +than that of their affections. These bright little results of +modernity and applied science--in the shape of the incubator--took +their place in the social movement, at the ages of three and five +respectively, with the hard and chilling assurance of a world-weary +man and woman. They never exhibited surprise. They rarely exhibited +amusement. They were radically disillusioned. They frequently referred +to their nerves and their digestions, in the interests of which they +consistently repudiated every form of excess. + +With these rather terrible little gentry Dominic Iglesias was, happily +for himself, unacquainted; but with their father he was very well +acquainted, as has already been stated. Hence his fears. Folding his +newspaper together, he laid it on the table and proceeded to walk +meditatively up and down his sitting-room. The morning was keen with +sunshine, the leaves of the planes and balsam-poplars fell in brown +and yellow showers upon the Green, on the further side of which the +details of the red and yellowish grey houses stood out in high relief +of sharp-edged light and shadow. Mr. Iglesias had risen in a hopeful +frame of mind. Of late it had become his habit to call weekly on Poppy +St. John. Today was the one appointed for his visit. Since he had +spoken to her about his mother his friendship with Poppy St. John had +entered upon a new phase. It was no longer experimental, but absolute, +the more so that she had in no way presumed upon his confidence. He +felt very safe with her--safe to tell or safe to withhold as +inclination should move him. And in this there was a strange and +delicate lessening of the burden of his loneliness, without any +encroachment on his pride. He had found, moreover, that behind her +patter lay an unexpected acquaintance with public affairs and the +tendencies of current events, so that it was possible to talk on +subjects other than personal with her. He was coming to have much +faith in her judgment as well as in her sincerity of heart. And, so, +with the prospect of seeing her before him, Dominic had risen in the +happiest disposition, had so remained till the newspaper article +disturbed his mind. For what, as he asked himself, did it portend, +this extravagant puff of the company's lad and the company's +prospects, at this particular juncture? Why was it so urgently and +eloquently forced upon the market just now? Was it but another proof +of the contemptuous attitude adopted by Englishmen of all classes +towards the Boer Republics? Or did it take its origin very much +elsewhere--namely, in the fact that Reginald Barking had so deeply +involved the capital and pledged the credit of the firm that it became +necessary to make violent and doubtfully honest bid for popular +support before the position of the said firm, through difficulty and +accident induced by war, became desperate? + +This last solution of the perplexing question aroused all Mr. +Iglesias' loyalty towards his old employers. He saw before them the +ugly possibility of failure and disgrace. The mere phantom of the +thing hurt him as unseemly, as a shame and dishonour to those who in +their corporate capacity had benefited him, and therefore as a shame +and dishonour, at least indirectly, to himself. The thought agitated +him. He needed to take council with someone; and so, pushed by a +necessity of immediate action uncommon to him, he laid hands on hat +and coat and set forth to talk matters over with his old friend and +former colleague, George Lovegrove. + +Out of doors the air was stimulating. The voice of London had a tone +of urgency in it, as the voice of the young and strong who court the +coming of stirring events. + +"The moods of the monstrous mother are inexhaustible," Iglesias said +to himself. "She is changeful as the great ocean. To-day she is +virile, and shouts for battle--. well, it may be she will get her fill +of that before many months are out!" + +Then the thought of his afternoon visit returned upon him. If the air +would remain as exhilarating, the sunshine as daring as now, these +would heighten enjoyment. + +Mr. Iglesias smiled to himself, an emotion of tenderness mingling with +his anxiety. He felt very much alive, very ready to meet any demand +which the future might make on him--battle for him, too, perhaps, and +at this moment he welcomed the thought of it! Thus, a little exalted +in spirit, Dominic walked on rapidly across the Green between the iron +railings, conscious of colour, of light, and of sound; but unobservant +of the details of his immediate surroundings, until a drifting female +figure barred his path, undulating uncertainly before him. He moved to +the right to let it pass. It moved to the right also. He moved to the +left, it did so, too. + +"I beg your pardon," he said. + +"Oh!" cried Serena Lovegrove. + +"I beg your pardon," Iglesias repeated, raising his hat. "Excuse me, I +did not see who it was." + +"How very odd!" Serena remarked. She stood still in the middle of the +path. Her eyes snapped. Her silk petticoat rustled. Serena was very +particular about her petticoats. It gave her great moral and social +support to hear them rustle. "How very odd!" she said again. "Did you +not know that I had come back?" + +Dominic might truthfully have replied that he did not know that she +had ever gone away; but he abstained. + +"It must be a great pleasure to your cousins to have you with them," +he said courteously. + +Serena looked at the falling leaves. + +"I wonder whether it is--I mean I wonder whether it is a pleasure to +them, or whether they ask me out of a sense of duty." She paused, +gazing at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course, I know George has a strong regard +for me, and for Susan. It is only natural, as we are first cousins. +But I am not sure about Rhoda. Of course we never heard of Rhoda until +she married George." + +"She has made him an excellent wife," Iglesias put in. + +"I suppose she has," Serena said reflectively. "But I sometimes wonder +whether, if George had married somebody else, it might not have been +more satisfactory in some ways." + +Serena felt very proud in making this remark. It elicited no reply, +however, from Mr. Iglesias. + +"I wonder if he really sees that Rhoda is on a different level from +us, and won't admit it; or whether he doesn't see. If he doesn't see, +of course that means a good deal." + +"Do you usually go out walking in the morning?" Dominic inquired. The +silence was becoming protracted. Courtesy demanded that he should +break it. + +Serena looked at him with heightened intelligence. + +"We were always brought up to take a walk twice a day. Mamma was very +particular about it. She believed that health had so much to do with +regular exercise. Sometimes I wonder whether she did not carry that +too far. But, of course, Susan is very strong, much stronger than I +am. I believe she would have been strong in any case, even if mamma +had not insisted on our taking so much exercise." Serena paused. "But +I did not know you went out in the morning. That is, I mean I have +never seen you go out before." + +"Indeed," Iglesias exclaimed, a little startled at the close +observation of his habits implied by this remark. + +"No," she said; "of course one can see Cedar Lodge very plainly from +George's house, and I often look out of window. I think it among the +pleasures of London to look out of window. I have never seen you go +out in the morning before." Again she paused, adding reflectively: "It +really seems rather odd that neither George nor Rhoda should have told +you that I had come back." + +To this remark no suitable answer suggested itself. Moreover, Mr. +Iglesias was growing slightly impatient. He wished she would see fit +to move aside and let him pass. + +"You will get cold standing here," he said. "You must not let me +detain you any longer." + +Serena's eyes snapped. She was excited. She was also slightly +offended. "He is very abrupt," she said to herself; but she did not +move aside and let him pass. "Yes, he is abrupt," she repeated; +"still, he has a very good manner. If one didn't know that he had been +a bank clerk, I wonder if one would detect it. I don't think it would +be a thing that need be mentioned, for instance, at Slowby. Only Susan +would be sure to make a point of mentioning it. Susan has an idea she +owes it to herself to be truthful. Of course, it would be wrong to +deny that anyone had been a bank clerk; but that is different from +telling everybody. I wonder if Susan would feel obliged to tell +everybody." + +When she reached the near side of the Green, Serena looked back. Mr. +Iglesias was in the act of entering the Lovegroves' front door, which +the worthy George held open for him. Serena stood transfixed. + +"So he was going there!" she said to herself. "How extraordinary not +to mention it to me. What could have been his object in not mentioning +it? I wonder if he has only gone to see George, or to see Rhoda as +well. If he has gone to see Rhoda, then I think he has been +exceedingly rude to me. And he has been very short-sighted, too, if he +didn't want me to know, for he might have taken it for granted that of +course I should look back. Unless he did do it on purpose, meaning to +be rude. But--" + +Serena resumed her walk. She was very much excited. + +"Of course he may have done it on purpose that I should see, and +understand that he meant something special--that he was going to speak +to George and Rhoda about something in particular, which he could not +say before me. He may have wanted to sound them. But then it is so +very odd that he should have said that George had never told him I had +come back. But I don't believe he ever did say that." Serena was +growing more and more excited. She drifted along the pavement, in her +rustling petticoats, with the most unusually animated expression of +countenance. + +"I remember--of course he did not say it. He avoided the question each +time. How very extraordinary! I think he must mean me to understand +something by that. I wonder if George will refer to it at luncheon. If +he does I must find out from Rhoda, but without letting her suspect +that I observed anything, of course." + +Serena had quite ceased to be offended. Her fancy, indeed, had taken a +most wildly ingenious flight. She felt very remarkable, very acute, +quite dangerous, in short--and these sensations, however limited their +justification by fact, were highly agreeable to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The heavens remained clear, the air exhilarating, and Iglesias set +forth on his weekly pilgrimage in a serene frame of mind. George +Lovegrove's view had been reassuring. + +"I know you are much more far-sighted than I am," he had said, his +honest face beaming with combined cleanliness and affection, "so I +always hesitate to set up my opinion against yours. It would be +presumptuous. Still, you do surprise me. I never had an inkling of +anything of the sort; and between ourselves--for I should never hint +at the subject before the wife, you know--it might upset her, females +are so sensitive--but between ourselves it would fairly unman me to +think there could be any unsoundness in Barking Brothers & Barking. +You know the phrase current in the city about them--'as safe as the +Bank of England'? And I have always believed that. I know I left +before Mr. Reginald had any active share in the business, and I never +have cared about American speculation. It is all beyond me. Still I +cannot suppose the senior partners would let him have too much his own +way. Depend upon it, Sir Abel keeps an eye on him. And then as to this +war, of course you have studied it all more deeply than I have the +power to do; still I cannot help thinking you distress yourself +unnecessarily. As I said to the wife when I first heard of it, it's +suicidal. One can only feel pity for such poor ignorant creatures, +rushing headlong on their ruin. Depend upon it, they will very soon +come to their senses and deplore their own rash action. A very few +weeks will see the finish of it all. I only hope there will not be +much bloodshed first, for of course they couldn't stand up against +English troops for an hour, poor things." + +Encouraged by which cheerful optimism Dominic Iglesias began to think +his fears exaggerated, as he descended from an omnibus top at +Hammersmith Bridge that afternoon, crossed the river, and walked on +down the long suburban road. The sky was sharply blue. Multicoloured +leaves danced down from the trees in the villa gardens. Gaily clad +children, pursued by anxious mothers and nursemaids, ran and shouted, +the sunshine and fresh air having gone to their heads. Perched on the +brick pier of an entrance gate, a robin uplifted its voice in +piercingly sweet song. Autumn wore her fairest face, speaking of +promise rather than of decay. It was good to be alive. Even to Mr. +Iglesias' sober and chastened spirit horror of war, disgrace of +financial failure, seemed remote and inconsiderable things, morbid +delusions such as sane men brush aside scorning to give them +harbourage so much as of thought. + +Poppy was mirthful, too, in her greeting of him. + +"My dear man," she cried, "the house is out of windows! You find us in +the throes of a great domestic event. Cappadocia has done her duty by +posterity. She has been brought to bed, if you'll excuse my mentioning +it, of four puppies. Perfect little lambs, not a white hair among +them. And she shows true maternal feeling, does Cappadocia. Whenever +you go near her she tries to bite." + +Poppy spoke very fast, holding his hand, looking him full in the face, +her singular eyes very gentle in expression, yet all alight. + +"Ah! it's good to see you. My stars, but it is good to see you," she +said. + +And Dominic, moved beyond his wont, stood silent for a space. + +"You're not offended? Surely, at this time of the day, you're not +going to stiffen up?" she asked. + +He shook his head. + +"No, no, dear friend," he said; "but this greeting is a little +wonderful to me. Except my mother, years ago, nobody has ever cared +whether I came or went." + +"More fools they," Poppy answered, with a fine disregard of grammar. +"But all that's over now. You know it's over. All the same I can't be +altogether sorry it was so, because it gives me my chance.--Sit down; +I'll expound to you. Let us talk.--You see, my beautiful innocent, +with most men worth knowing--I am not talking about boys running about +with the shell still on their heads and more affections to place than +they can find a market for, but men. Well then, with most all of them, +when one comes to discuss matters, one finds one's had such an awful +lot of predecessors. At best one comes in a bad third--more often a +bad three-and-twentieth--I mean nothing risky. Don't be nervous. But +they have romantic memories of half-a-dozen women. And so, though they +are no end nice and kind to one, play up and give one a good time and +have a jolly good one themselves--trust 'em to take care of that--one +knows all the while, if one knows anything, that the whole show's +merely a _réchauffé_. Visions of Clara and Gladys, and dear +little Emily, and Rosina, and Beatrice, and the lovely Lucinda-- +angels, every one of them, if you haven't seen them for ten years, and +wouldn't know them again if you met them in the street--haunt the +background of every man's mind by the time he's five-and-thirty, and +cut entrancing capers against the sky-line, so that--when one comes to +thrash the matter out--one finds the actually present woman, here in +the foreground, hasn't really any look-in at all." + +Poppy threw her head back against the yellowish red cushions of the +settee, her teeth showing white as she laughed. + +"Boys aren't worth having. They're too crude, too callow. Moreover, it +isn't playing the game. One doesn't want to make a mess of their +futures, poor little chaps. And grown men, except as I say of the very +preëngaged sort, are not to be had. So don't you understand, most +delightful lunatic, how it comes to pass that you and your friendship +are precious to me beyond words? When you go I could cry. When you +come I could dance." + +Her tone changed, becoming defiant, almost fierce. + +"And it is all right," she said, "thank heaven, right,--right, clean, +and honest, and good for one's soul. Now I've done. Only we are very +happy in our own quaint way, aren't we? And we can leave it at that. +Oh, yes, we can very well leave it at that if"--she looked sideways at +Mr. Iglesias, her expression half-humorous, half-pathetic--"if only it +will stay at that and not play the mischief and scuttle off into +something quite else." + +She got up quickly, with a little air of daring and bravado. + +"I must move about. I must do something--there, I'll make up the fire. +No, sit still, dear man"--as Dominic prepared to rise also--"I like +doing little odd jobs with you here. It takes off the company feeling, +and makes it seem as if you belonged, and like the bicycle, had 'come +to stay.'" + +Poppy threw a couple of driftwood logs upon the smouldering fire. +Around them sharp tongues of flame--rose and saffron, amber, sea- +green, and heliotrope, glories as of a tropic sunset--leaped upward. +She stood watching these, her left hand resting on the edge of the +mantelpiece, her right holding up the front of her black skirt. Her +right foot rested on the fender curb, thereby displaying a discreet +interval of openwork silk stocking and a neatly cut steel-buckled +shoe. The many-hued firelight flickered over her dark figure; over the +soft lace jabot at her throat and ruffles at her wrists; over her pale +profile; and glinted in the heavy masses of her hair. The room, facing +east, was cold with shadow, which the thin fantastic colours of the +flames appeared to emphasise rather than to relieve. And Iglesias, +obedient to her entreaty, sat quietly waiting until it should again +please her to speak. For he had begun to accept her many changes of +mood as an integral element of her personality--a personality rich in +rapid and subtle contradictions. Often he had no clue to the meaning +of these many changes. But he did not mind that. Not absence of vulgar +curiosity alone, but an unwilling sub-conscious shrinking from any too +close acquaintance with the details of her life contributed to render +him passive. He had a conviction, though he had never formulated it +even in thought, that ignorance in relation to her made for security +and content. And there was a refined charm in this--namely, that each +to the other, even while friendship deepened, should remain something +of an undiscovered country. Moreover, had she not told him that he +rested her? To ask questions, however sympathetic, to volunteer +consolation, however delicately worded, is to risk being officious; +and to be officious, in however mild a degree, is to drive away the +shy and illusive spirit of rest. And so Dominic Iglesias was coming, +in the good nautical reading of that phrase, simply "to stand by" and +wait where this woman was concerned. After all, it was but the +reapplication of a lesson learned long ago for the support and solace +of another woman, by him supremely loved. To act thus was, therefore, +not only natural but poignantly sweet to him, as a new and gentle +offering laid upon the dear altar of his dead. It rejoiced him to find +that now, as of old, the demand created a supply of silent but +sustaining moral force, ready to pass into the sphere of active help +should necessity arise. + +Nevertheless as the minutes passed, while daylight and firelight alike +began to fade, Dominic Iglesias grew somewhat troubled and sad. And it +was with a distinct movement of relief that he, at last, saw Poppy +draw herself up, push the soft masses of her hair back from her +forehead with a petulant gesture, and turn towards him. As she did so +she let her hands drop at her sides, as though she had finished with +and dismissed some unwelcome form of thought, while her face showed +wan, and her eyes large and vague, as though they saw beyond and +through all that which they actually looked on. + +"There, there," she said harshly, with an angry lift of her head, +"what a silly fool I am, wasting time like this when you are here. But +my soul went out of my body; and I could afford to let it go, just +because you were here, and I felt safe." Her tone softened. "Sure I +don't bore you?" she asked. + +Dominic shook his head, smiling. + +"Very sure," he said. + +"Bless you, then that's all right." Poppy strolled back and sat down +languidly. "I've gone confoundedly tired," she said. "You see, I sat +up half the night acting Gamp to Cappadocia--if you excuse my again +alluding to the domestic event.--Oh! my being tired doesn't matter. My +dear man, I'm never ill. I'm as strong as a horse. Let's talk of +something more interesting--let's review the topics of the hour--only +for the life of me I can't remember what the topics of the hour are! +Yes, I know though--the management of the Twentieth Century Theatre +has given Dot Parris a leading part. Does that leave you cold? +Impossible! Why, in theatrical circles it's a world-shaking event. I +own I'm curious to see how she does in legitimate drama, after her +career in musical comedy and at the halls, myself. I'm really very +fond of her, poor little Dot. She's going to call herself Miss +Charlotte Colthurst in the future, I understand. Did you ever hear +such cheek? But then she always had the cheek of the old gentleman +himself, and that makes for success. Cheek does go an awfully long way +towards bringing you through, don't you think so?" + +"Probably," Dominic said. "My opportunities of exercising that +particular form of virtue have been so limited that I am quite +prepared to accept your ruling on the point." + +Poppy laughed softly, looking at him with a great friendliness. + +"Ah! but it wouldn't have been cheek in your case, anyhow. It would +merely have been that you stepped into your right place, ascended any +throne that happened to be right divine. I can see you doing it, so +statelily and yet so innocently. It would be a perfectly delicious +sight. I believe you will do it yet, some day, somehow, and make a lot +of people sit up. But that reminds me, joking apart, there is a topic +of the hour I wanted to ask you about. Tell me what you think of this +war." + +And Dominic Iglesias, once more obedient to her changing mood, replied +with quiet sincerity: + +"I am told I am an alarmist. I hope I may prove to be so, for in this +matter I should much prefer the optimists to be in the right. But I +confess I do not like the outlook. Both on public and private grounds +this war makes me anxious." + +Poppy's languor had vanished. She had grown very much alive again. Now +she leaned forward, pressing her hands together, palm to palm, between +her knees, and making herself small, as a child does when it is deeply +in earnest and wants to think. + +"You're right," she assented. "I'm perfectly certain all this cocksure +Johnny-head-in-air business, 'sail to-day and see you again at tea +tomorrow, so it's not worth while saying good-by'--you know the +style?--is fatuous and idiotic. It is not bluff, because the English +officer-man doesn't bluff. He hasn't the brains, to begin with, and +then he is a very sound sort of an animal. He doesn't need to hide his +fright for the simple reason that he's not frightened. A friend of +mine was talking about it all yesterday. He thinks as you do, and he's +no silly, though he is a member of the House of Lords.--After all, he +can't help that, poor dear old chap," she added apologetically, +looking sideways at Mr. Iglesias. "But there, you've seen him, I +believe. You met him the first time you came here. Don't you remember, +I had to turn you out because I had to see him on business, and you +ran across him in the hall as you were going?" + +"I remember meeting someone," Dominic said, rather loftily. He did not +want to hear any more. The conversation had become displeasing to him, +though he could have given no reason for his displeasure. But Poppy +suddenly turned mischievous and naughty. She patted her hands gently +together between her knees and swayed with rather impish merriment. + +"Ah, of course you were much too grand to take any particular notice +of him, poor brute. But he wasn't a bit too grand to take a lot of +notice of you. He was fearfully impressed. Yes, I tell you he was. +Don't be cross. I am speaking the veracious truth. I give you my word +I'm not gassing. He was awfully keen to know who you were, and where +you came from, and how I met you. And it was the sweetest thing out to +be able to reply that I'd been introduced to you on a bench--a mighty +uncomfortable one, too, with no back to it!--on Barnes Common by +Cappadocia; and that as to your name and local habitation I hadn't the +faintest ghost of a notion what they were. Are you cross? Don't be +cross," Poppy pleaded. + +"No, no, of course not," Mr. Iglesias answered, goaded from his +habitual calm and speaking almost sharply. + +Poppy patted her palms together again, swaying backwards and forwards. +Her eyes were dancing. + +"Oh! but you are, though," she cried. "You're just a wee bit jealous. +You are--you know you are, and I'm not a scrap sorry. On the contrary, +I'm enchanted. For it shows that you are human after all, and must +have a name and address tucked away somewhere about you. I don't want +to know what they are, but it's comfortable to be assured of their +existence. It shows you don't drop straight down from heaven--as I was +beginning to be afraid you did--once a week, into the Mortlake Road, +and then go straight up again. It shows that I could get on to you by +post, or telephone, or other means of communication common to mortals, +if I was in a tight place and really wanted you, without walking as +far as Hammersmith Bridge and waiting in the wind and the wet on the +bare chance you might take it into your august head to materialise, +and break out of paradise, and take a little stroll round our +sublunary sphere." + +For a moment Poppy laid her hand lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulder. + +"Yes, be cross," she repeated. "Just as cross as ever you like, so +long as you don't keep it up too protractedly. It's the most engaging +piece of flattery I've come across for a month of Sundays. Only you +needn't worry in this particular instance, dear man, I give you my +word you needn't. It's a sheer waste of feeling. For Fallowfeild's +always been perfectly decent with me. I know people think him an +awfully risky lot, but they're noodles. He's racketed in his day--of +course he has. But if he'd been more of a hypocrite, people would have +talked less. As the man says in the play, it's not the sin but the +being found out which makes the scandal. And Fallowfeild was too +honest. He never pretended to be better than he was. He is a man of +good nature who has done wrong things, which is quite different to +being a man of bad nature who does wrong things, and still more +different to being a man of weak nature who pretends to do right +things. That last is the sort I hate most, and I speak out of beastly +intimate experience." + +She made a most expressive grimace, as though she had a remarkably +disagreeable taste in her mouth. + +"No salvation for that sort, I believe," she went on, "either here or +hereafter. Now, are you better? You do believe it has always been +perfectly square and above-board between Fallowfeild and me, don't +you?" + +"Unquestionably, I believe it," Dominic answered. He spoke slowly. + +Poppy turned her head sharply and looked hard at him. + +"Ah! but I don't quite like that," she said. "I've muddled it somehow +--I see I have. I've hurt and offended you. You're farther off than +you were ten minutes ago. In spirit you've got up and gone away. I +have muddled it. I have made you distrust me." + +"No," Dominic answered, "you have not made me distrust you; but you +have perplexed me. It is the result of my own dulness, no doubt. My +imagination is not agile enough to follow you, and so--" + +He hesitated. That which he had in his mind was not easy to put into +words without discourtesy. He would far rather have left it unsaid; +but to do so would have been, in truth, to stand farther off, to erect +a barrier which might prove insuperable to happy companionship in the +future. + +"Yes?" Poppy queried. Her voice shook just perceptibly. In the +deepening dusk neither could see the other distinctly, and this +contributed to Dominic's decision to speak. + +"It pains me," he said at last, "if you will pardon my frankness, that +you should think it necessary to account for yourself and justify +yourself as you often appear to do." + +"Yes?" Poppy queried again. + +"That you should do so distresses and disturbs me." + +"Yes," Poppy murmured. + +"I am afraid I grow selfish," Iglesias went on gently; "but you have +been good enough to tell me that my poor friendship is of value to +you. Does it not occur to you that yours is of far greater value to +me? And that for many and obvious reasons--these among others, that +while you are young, and have a wide circle of acquaintances, and in a +future to which, brilliant as you are, you may look forward with hope +and assurance, I am absolutely alone in the world. Save for one old +school-fellow, who has been very faithful to me, there is no one to +whom it matters, except in the most superficial degree, whether I live +or die." + +"Ah!" Poppy said softly. + +"Do not misunderstand me, I do not complain," Iglesias added. "I +entertain no doubt but that the circumstances in which I find myself +are the right and profitable ones for me, if I only lay to heart the +lessons they teach, and use the opportunities which they afford me." + +"I don't know about that--I doubt that," Poppy put in hastily. + +"You doubt it because you are young," he answered, "and your +circumstances are capable of alteration and development. Except under +very exceptional conditions, resignation is no virtue in the young. It +is more often an excuse for cowardice and sloth. But at my age the +world changes its complexion. My circumstances are incapable of +alteration and development. They are final. Therefore I do well to +accept them unreservedly. The work of my life is done. I do not say +that it has been a failure, for I fulfilled the main object I had in +view. But it has certainly been obscure and inglorious. The sun will +sink dimly enough into a bank of fog. My present is meagre in interest +and activity. My future, a brief enough one in all probability, must +of necessity be meagre likewise. Therefore your friendship is of +supreme importance to me." + +Iglesias paused. His voice was grave, distinct, weighted with feeling. +He did not look at his companion; he could not trust himself to do so, +for he had discovered in himself unexpected depths of emotion. + +"And just on that account," he went on, "I grow childishly nervous, +childishly apprehensive if anything arises which seems to cloud or, in +however small a measure, to endanger the serenity of our intercourse." + +He turned and looked at her. + +"This constitutes no slight to you, dear friend." + +"No," she said, "very certainly it is no slight. On the contrary, it +is very beautiful; but it's an awful responsibility, too." + +She sat quite still, her head carried high, her hands clasped in her +lap. + +"I've underrated the position, I see. I've only thought of myself so +far and how you pleased me. But though I'm pretty cheeky, too--almost +as cheeky as little Dot--I never had the presumption to put the affair +the other way about." + +Poppy began to sway slightly again and pat the palms of her hands +together between her knees. + +"It's been a game, the finest game I've ever played; and I swore by +all my gods to play fair. But, as you look at it, our friendship +amounts to a good deal more than a game. It goes very deep. And I'm +not sure--. no, I'm not--whether I'm equal to it." + +She glanced at Iglesias strangely through the clinging grey of the +dusk. + +"Dear unknown," she said, "I give you my word I'm frightened--I who've +never been frightened at any man yet. In my own little way I've played +pitch and toss with their hearts and made footballs of them--except +that poor young fellow--I told you about him the first time we met-- +who gave me the scarf, and whose people wouldn't let him marry me. But +this affair with you is different. It goes very far, it means--it +means nothing short of revolution for me, of putting away and +renouncing very much." + +Poppy got up, stood pushing her hair back with both hands from her +forehead. Then she moved across to the further side of the fireplace. +Dominic had risen also. He stood on the near side of the hearth. He +was penetrated with the conviction that a crisis was upon them both, +involving all the happiness of their future relation to one another. + +"You don't understand," Poppy cried passionately. "And I don't want +you to understand--that's half the trouble. I want to keep you. Your +friendship's the loveliest thing I've ever had. And yet I don't know. +For I'm not one woman--I'm half-a-dozen women, and they all pull all +sorts of ways so that I daren't trust myself. I want to keep you, I +tell you, I want horribly to keep you. Yet I'm ghastly afraid I'm not +equal to it. The price is too big." + +As she spoke Poppy dashed her hand against the push of the electric +bell, and held it there, ringing a prolonged alarum, in quick response +to which Phillimore, the respectable elderly parlour maid, appeared, +bearing two rose-shaded lamps. Noiselessly and deftly--as one +accustomed to agitations, whose eyes did not see or ears hear if it +should be unadvisable to permit them to do so--she drew the curtains, +made up the fire, set out the tea-table. And with that change of scene +and shutting out of the dusk, Poppy seemed to change also; gravity and +strength of purpose departing from her, and leaving her-- +notwithstanding her sober dress--unreal, fictitious, artificial, the +red-lipped carmine-tinted lady of the footlights, of the windswept +dust and embroidered dragons again. She chattered, moreover, +ceaselessly, careless of interruption, and of criticism alike. + +"Here, let's hark back to the ordinary conduct of material existence," +she said. "Tea? Won't you sit down? No--well, just as you like best. +Take it standing. Let me see, what were we discussing when we got +switched on to unexpectedly personal lines of conversation? The war-- +yes, I remember. I was just going to tell you that Fallowfeild +believes it's going to be a nasty dragging unsatisfactory business. +Everyone gasses about the Boers being a simple pastoral people. But +Fallowfeild says their simplicity is just another name for guile, and +that he anyway can't conceive a more disconcerting job than fighting a +nation of farmers and huntsmen and gamekeepers in their own country, +every inch of which they know. People say they've no military science. +But so jolly much the better for them. They can be unfettered +opportunists, with nothing to think of but outwitting the enemy and +saving their property and their skins. The poor British Tommy will be +no match for them; nor will the British officer-man either, till he's +unlearned his parade-ground etiquette, and his haw-haw red-tape +methods and manner, and learned their very primitive but very cute and +foxy ones. By which time, Fallowfeild says, the mourning warehouses +here at home will have made a record turnover, and there will be +altogether too many new graveyards for comfort in South Africa." + +Poppy paused in her harangue, for Dominic Iglesias had set down his +cup, its contents untasted. He was sad at heart. + +"Are you going?" she asked. + +"Yes," he answered. "It grows late. It's time I went, I think." + +"Perhaps it is." Poppy's eyes had become inscrutable. "I really ought +to attend to my Gamping, and pass the time of day with Cappadocia. Her +snappishness has scared the maids. They refuse to go within a measured +furlong of her." + +Poppy bent down over the tea-table, arranging the teacups with +elaborate neatness. + +"Good-by," she said. "I don't quite know when we shall meet again." + +"Why?" Iglesias asked. The muscles of his throat were rigid. He had +much ado to speak plainly and naturally. "Are you leaving home?" + +"Home?" she answered. "Yes, I'm leaving it. Good-by again. Don't let +me keep you. Certainly I'm leaving home. Indeed, I believe I have left +it already--for good." + +And she threw back her head and laughed. + +Upon the doorstep a cold rush of air met Mr. Iglesias. Above, the sky +was blue-black and very clear. The road was vacant and grey with +frost. The flame of the gaslamps quivered, giving off a sharp +brightness in the keen atmosphere. Mr. Iglesias turned up the collar +of his coat and descended the steps. Just then a hansom emerged from +the distance and drew up with a rattle and grind against the curb some +twenty paces ahead. The occupant, a young man, flung back the doors +with a thud, and stood a moment on the footboard paying the driver, +who raised himself, leaning forward with outstretched hand across the +glistening black roof of the cab. Then the young man turned round, +swung himself down on to the asphalt pavement, and came forward as +rapidly as a long motor-coat, reaching to his heels, would permit. He +was tall and fair, well-favoured, preoccupied, not to say morose. He +did not vouchsafe Mr. Iglesias so much as a glance as he brushed past +him. The road was still vacant, and in the frosty air sounds carried. +Mr. Iglesias distinctly heard him race up a neighbouring flight of +steps, heard the click and turn of a latchkey in a lock, heard the +slam of a front door pulled to violently. And so doing Dominic turned +cold and a little faint. He would not condescend to look back; but he +had recognised Alaric Barking, and was in no doubt which house he had +entered. + +"Keb, sir? 'Ere yer are, sir," the cabby called cheerily. "Very cold +night. Just set one gentleman down, and 'appy to tike another up. Want +to get back to my comfy little West End shelter, so I'll tike yer for +'alf fares, sir, though we are outside the blooming radius." + +But Iglesias shook his head. The horse stood limply in a cloud of +steam. Alaric Barking had evidently pushed the pace. But even had the +animal been in better condition, Iglesias had no desire to drive in +that particular cab. He would rather have walked the whole way to +Cedar Lodge. + +Opposite the Bell Inn, where the roads fork--one turning away through +Mortlake, the other leading to Barnes Common, Roehampton, and Sheen-- +the row of smart little houses degenerates into shops. By the time he +reached these Mr. Iglesias discovered that he was unaccountably tired. +The keen air oppressed his chest, making his breath come short. It was +useless to attempt to go home on foot. Then, with a sense of relief, +he saw that on the far side of the road a couple of omnibuses stood, +the horses' heads turned Londonwards. He crossed, climbed the stairway +of the leading vehicle slowly, and sank into a seat. The 'bustop was +unoccupied, yet Dominic was not by himself. Two companions had climbed +the winding stairway with him and taken their places beside him, Old +Age on his left hand, Loneliness on his right. All up the long +suburban road, while the omnibus bumped and jolted and the fallen +leaves whirled and scurried before the searching breath of the night +wind Iglesias' two companions seemed to lean across him, talking. +There were tones of mockery in their talk, while behind and through +it, as some discordant refrain, he heard the ring of a young man's +eager footsteps, the click and turn of a latchkey, and the slam of a +door as it shut. On nearing the river the cold grew intense. Crossing +the bridge, the waterside lights were reflected in the surface of the +stream, which ran full and strong from the autumn rains, swirling +seaward with an ebbing tide. To Iglesias' eyes the reflections +converted themselves into fiery dragons, writhing in the heat of +deadly conflict, as upon Poppy St. John's oriental scarf. A glare hung +over London, palpitating as with multitudinous and angry life; and +when the omnibus slowed up in Hammersmith Broadway the voice of the +streets grew loud--the monstrous city, so it seemed to Dominic +Iglesias, shouting defiance to the majestic calm and solemnity of the +eternal stars. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +"He says it is nothing serious, only a slight chill; and sends kind +regards and many thanks for kind inquiries, and hopes to be out in a +day or two, when he will call and thank you in person." + +This from George Lovegrove to his wife, the latter arrayed in garments +of ceremony and seated upon the Chesterfield sofa awaiting guests. It +was her afternoon at-home. + +"Well, I'm sure I hope it is no more than that, Georgie," she answered +comfortably. "Chills are always going about in November, and very +often gentlemen encourage them--especially bachelors--by not changing +into their winter vests and pants early enough. A great deal of +illness is contracted that way." + +Here Serena rustled audibly. She stood by the window, holding the lace +curtain just sufficiently aside to get a narrow and attenuated view of +the fog-enshrouded Green. The outlook was far from inspiriting, and +Serena was keenly interested in the conversation going forward between +her host and hostess. But it was not in her programme to let this +appear. She, while straining her ears to listen, therefore maintained +an air of detachment. The word "pants" was, however, too much for her +fortitude, and she rustled. "Really, Rhoda does use the most +dreadfully unladylike expressions sometimes," she commented inwardly. +"She never seems to remember that everyone is not married, though even +if they were I should hope they would not mention those sort of +things. Rhoda is wanting in refinement. I wonder if George notices +that and feels it. If he does notice it, I think he ought to tell her +about it, because--" + +But here she fell to listening again, since the said George took up +his parable once more. + +"Still, I own I don't like his looks somehow. His face is so thin and +drawn. It reminds me of the time his mother, poor Mrs. Iglesias, died. +I told him, just jocularly, that his appearance surprised me, but he +put it all aside--you know he has a very high aristocratic manner at +times that makes you feel you have been intrusive--and then talked of +other things." + +"He has lived too solitary," Mrs. Lovegrove said judicially, "too +solitary, and that tells on any one in middle life. I should never +forgive myself if we left him to mope. You must just try to coax him +over here to stay, Georgie, and I'll nurse him up and humour him, and +fortunately Serena's here, you see, for pleasant company." + +Mrs. Lovegrove looked meaningly at her spouse, while the figure at the +window again rustled. + +"I am sure you would exert yourself to help cheer poor Mr. Iglesias +up, if he came over to stay, would you not now, Serena?" she inquired +insinuatingly. + +"Are you speaking to me, Rhoda?" + +"Yes, about Mr. Iglesias coming here to stay." + +Serena turned her head and answered over her shoulder. + +"Of course you and George are quite at liberty to ask anyone here whom +you like. And if Mrs. Iglesias came I should be perfectly civil to +him. But I should not care, Rhoda, to bind myself to anything more +than that, because I do not find him an easy person to get on with." + +She turned to her contemplation of the fog with a renewed assumption +of indifference. George Lovegrove's shiny forehead puckered into +little lines. He looked anxiously at his wife. The good lady, however, +laid a fat forefinger upon her lips and nodded her head at him in the +most archly reassuring manner. + +"That's funny," she said, "because Mr. Iglesias is quite the cleverest +of all Georgie's gentlemen friends--except, of course, the dear vicar +--and so I always took for granted anyone like yourself was sure to +get on nicely with him, Serena. Even I hardly ever find him difficult +to talk with." + +"I never talk easily to strangers," Serena put in loftily. + +"Oh! but you'd hardly call Mr. Iglesias a stranger." + +"Yes, I should," Serena declared with emphasis. "I should certainly +call him a stranger. I always call everyone a stranger till I know +them intimately. It is much safer to do so. And it would be absurd to +pretend that I know Mr. Iglesias intimately. You, of course, do, but I +do not. You and George may have seen him frequently since I have been +here, but I have really seen him very seldom, four or five times at +the outside. He has generally appeared to call when I was likely to be +out. I could not help observing that. It may be a coincidence, of +course. But I cannot pretend that I have not thought it rather +marked." + +Serena had advanced into the centre of the room. She held herself +erect. She enjoyed making a demonstration. "Rhoda may think I am a +cipher," she said to herself, "but she is mistaken. She may think I +can be hoodwinked and used as a mere tool, but I will let her see that +I cannot." She felt daring and dangerous, and her eyes snapped. The +rustling of her skirts and the emphatic tones of her voice aroused the +parrot, which had been dosing on its perch, its head sunk between its +shoulders and its breast-feathers fluffed out into a little green +apron over its grey claws. + +"Pollie's own pet girlie," it murmured drowsily, with dry clickings of +its tongue against its beak, the words jolting out in foolish twos and +threes. "Hi! p'liceman--murder! fire! thieves!--there's another jolly +row downstairs." + +Poor George Lovegrove gazed in bewilderment from Serena to the parrot, +from the parrot to his wife, and then back to Serena again. + +"You do surprise me! And I am more mortified than I can say that you +should have the most distant reason, Serena--or Susan either--ever to +feel the least slighted in this house. You do surprise me--I can't +believe it has been the least intentional on Iglesias' part. But I +would not have had anything of the kind happen for twenty pounds." + +"Pray don't apologise, George," Serena cried, "or I shall feel quite +annoyed. Of course everyone has a right to their own preferences; but +I had been led to expect something different. As I say, it may only be +a coincidence. Nothing may have really been meant. Only it has seemed +rather marked. But in any case it has not been your fault, George." + +"I am very glad you allow that, Serena," the good creature said +humbly. + +"Oh! yes. I quite excuse you of any intentional slight, George. I +quite trust you. Still, nothing could be more unpleasant than for me +to feel that my being here put any restriction upon your friends +coming to the house. Of course I know Susan and I move in rather +different society from Rhoda and yourself." + +"Yes," he assented hurriedly, agonised as to the wife's feelings-- +"yes, yes." + +"And so it is quite possible that I may not suit some of your +acquaintances." + +"Excuse me," he panted--"no, Serena, I cannot think that." + +"I am not sure," she returned argumentatively. "Not at all sure, +George. And nothing could be more unpleasant to me than to feel I was +the least in the way. Of course, I should never have come back if I +had supposed I should be in the way; but Rhoda made such a point of +it." + +Here the parrot broke forth into prolonged and earpiercing shriekings, +flapping its wings violently and nearly tumbled backwards off its +perch. + +"Throw a handkerchief over the poor bird's cage, Georgie dear," cried +Mrs. Lovegrove from the sofa. Her face was red. She had become +distressingly hot and flustered.--"And just as I was flattering myself +it was all turning out so nicely, too," she said to herself.--"No, not +your own, Georgie dear"--this aloud--"you may need it later. The red +bandana out of the right-hand corner of the top drawer of the work- +table." + +"I think it would be much simpler for me to go," Serena continued, her +voice pitched in a high key to combat the cries of the parrot and the +rattle of the table drawer, which George Lovegrove in his present +state of agitation found it impossible to shut with accuracy and +despatch. + +"Of course, it may inconvenience Susan to have me return sooner than +she expected. She is away speaking at a number of missionary meetings +in the North. And the maids will be on board wages, and the drawing- +room furniture will have been put into holland covers. She counted on +my staying here till I go to my cousin, Lady Samuelson, in Ladbroke +Square, the third week in December. But, of course, all that must be +arranged. I can give up my visit. Lady Samuelson will be annoyed, and +I don't know what excuse I can make to her. Still, I think I had +really much better go; and then you can have Mr. Iglesias, or any +other of your and Rhoda's friends, to stop here without my feeling +that I am in the way. Nothing could be more odious to me than feeling +I was encroaching or forcing myself upon you. Mamma would never have +countenanced such behaviour. It is the sort of thing we were always +brought up to have the greatest horror of. It is a thing I never have +done and never could do. I hope you understand that, George. Nothing +could be further from my thoughts when I accepted Rhoda's invitation +to----" + +"Miss Hart, please, ma'am," the little house-parlour-maid trumpeted, +her face very pink from the exertion of attracting her mistress's +attention and making herself heard. Mrs. Lovegrove bounced up from the +sofa. Usually, it must be allowed, the great Eliza was rather at a +discount. Now she was astonishingly welcome. Her hostess's greeting, +though silent, was effusively cordial. She clutched at her guest's +hand as one in imminent risk of drowning at a lifebelt. The said guest +was in her sprightliest humour. She was also in a scarlet flannel +blouse thickly powdered with gradated black discs. This, in +conjunction with purple chrysanthemums in a black hat, her tawny hair +and freckled complexion, did not constitute a wholly delicious scheme +of colour; but to this fact Mrs. Lovegrove was supremely indifferent. + +"Good-afternoon," Miss Hart said in a stage whisper, glancing towards +Serena, still bright-eyed and erect. "Don't let me interrupt, pray. My +conversation will keep. I will just sit and listen." + +"Listen to what?" Serena cried, almost inarticulate with indignation. + +"Why, to your recitation. Our gentlemen often treat us to a little in +that line of an evening, Mrs. Lovegrove, after dinner. I dote on +recitation. Pieces of a comic nature specially, when well delivered." + +"I should never dream of reciting," Serena declared heatedly. + +"No, really now," Miss Hart returned. "That seems quite a pity. It is +such a pleasant occupation for a dull afternoon like this, do you not +think so, Miss Lovegrove? I declare I was quite sure, from the moment +I came into the hall--while I was taking off my waterproof--that your +cousin was giving you a little entertainment of that kind, Mr. +Lovegrove. Her voice was running up and down in such a very telling +manner." + +If glances could scorch, Miss Hart would unquestionably have been +reduced to a cinder, for rage possessed Serena. She had worked herself +up into a fine fume of anger over purely imaginary injuries. And now, +that Eliza Hart, of all people in the world, should intervene with +suggestions of comic recitations! + +"Detestable person!" Serena said to herself. "Her conduct is +positively outrageous. Of course she knew perfectly well I was doing +nothing of the kind. Really, I believe anybody would feel her manner +quite insulting. I wonder how George and Rhoda can tolerate her. It +shows George has deteriorated much that he should tolerate her. I am +not so surprised at Rhoda. Of course she never had good taste. I think +I ought to go to my room. That would mark my displeasure. But then she +may have come on purpose to say something particular. I wonder if she +has done so? Of course if she has, she wants to get rid of me. That is +her object. But she is mistaken if she thinks that I shall gratify +her. I think I owe it to myself to make sure exactly what is going on. +I will certainly stay. That will show her I am on the watch." + +During this protracted, though silent, colloquy, Serena had remained +standing in the middle of the room. Now she rustled back to the +window, held aside the lace curtain and resumed her contemplation of +the fog-enshrouded Green. Good George Lovegrove gazed after her in +deep dejection and perplexity. Somebody, it appeared to him, had been +extremely unreasonable and disagreeable; but who that somebody was for +the very life of him he could not tell. The wife was out of the +question; while to suppose it Serena approached high treason. Still he +was very sure it could not be that most scrupulously courteous +personage Dominic Iglesias. There remained himself--"Yet I wouldn't +knowingly vex a fly," he thought, "and as to vexing Serena! Sometimes +ones does wish females were not quite so sensitive." + +Miss Hart, meanwhile, had taken the unaccustomed post of honour beside +her hostess upon the sofa. She was enjoying herself immensely. She +had a conviction of marching to victory. + +"Yes," she said, "Mrs. Lovegrove, dear Peachie Porcher asked me just +to run across as she has missed your last two afternoons, lest you +should think her neglectful. I am well aware I am but a poor +substitute for Peachie--no compliments now, Mr. Lovegrove, if you +please!" + +"Mrs. Porcher is in good health, I trust"--this from Rhoda. + +"At present, yes, I am happy to say, thank you. But how long it will +continue," Miss Hart spoke impressively--"at this rate I am sure I +cannot tell." + +"Indeed," George Lovegrove inquired anxiously. "You don't tell me so? +Nothing wrong, I trust." + +"Well, as I always tell her, her sense of duty amounts almost to a +fault--so unselfish, so conscientious, it brings tears to my eyes +often at times. I hope it is appreciated in the right quarter--I do +hope that, Mr. Lovegrove." + +Here Rhoda's bosom heaved with a generous sigh. + +"There is much ingratitude in the world, Miss Hart, I fear," she said +pensively. + +Her husband looked at her in an anguish of apology--whether for his +own sins or those of others he knew not exactly. + +"So there is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza responded warmly. "And nobody is +a more speaking example of that truth than Peachie Porcher. When I +think of all she went through during her married life, and yet so +unsuspicious, so trusting--it is enough to melt an iceberg, that it +is, Mrs. Lovegrove. Now, as I was saying to her only this morning, +'You must study yourself a little, get out in the air, take a peep at +the shops, and have some amusement.' But her reply is always the +same.--'No, Liz, dear,' she says, 'not at the present time, thank you. +I know the duties of my position as mistress of Cedar Lodge. When any +one of our gentlemen is ailing, my place is at home. I must remain in +the house in case of a sudden emergency. I should not have an easy +moment away from the place,' she says." + +Miss Hart looked around upon her hearers demanding approbation and +sympathy. + +"Very affecting, is it not?" she inquired. + +After a moment's embarrassed silence, George Lovegrove murmured a +suitable, if timid, assent. His wife assumed a bolder attitude. Goaded +by provocations recently received, she went over--temporarily--to the +side of the enemy. + +"I always have maintained Mrs. Porcher was full of heart," she +declared, throwing the assertion across the room, much as though it +was a stone, in the direction of the figure at the window. + +Serena drew herself up with a rustle. + +"I wonder exactly what Rhoda means by that?" she commented inwardly. +"I think it very odd. Of course, she must have some meaning, and I +wonder what it is. She seems to be changing her line. I am glad I +stayed. I am afraid Rhoda is rather deceitful. I excuse George of +deceit. I believe George to be true; but he is sadly influenced by +Rhoda. I am rather sorry for George." + +"So she is, Mrs. Lovegrove," Eliza Hart resumed--"Peachie's too full +of heart, as I tell her. She is forever thinking of others and their +comforts. She grudges neither time nor money, does not Peachie. There +is nothing calculating or cheese-paring about her--not enough, I often +think. Fish, sweetbreads, game, poultry, and all of the very best-- +where the profits are to come from with a bill of fare like that +passes my powers of arithmetic, and so I point out to her. I hope it +is appreciated--yes, I do hope that, Mr. Lovegrove"--there the speaker +became extremely coy and playful. "A little bird sometimes seems to +twitter to me that it is. And yet I am sure I don't know. The members +of your sex are very misleading, Mr. Lovegrove. Do not perjure +yourself now. You cannot take me in. And a certain gentleman is very +close, you know, and stand-offish. It is not easy to get at his real +sentiments, is it, now?" + +Serena laid back her ears, so to speak. "I was quite right to stay," +she reflected wrathfully. + +"I think Mr. Iglesias is unusually considerate, Miss Hart," George +Lovegrove said tentatively. "He is quite sensible of Mrs. Porcher's +kind attentions. But naturally he is very tenacious of upsetting her +household arrangements and giving additional trouble." + +"And then the position of a bachelor is delicate, Miss Hart, you must +admit," Mrs. Lovegrove chimed in. "That's what I always tell Georgie. +It may do all very well in their younger days to be unattached, but as +gentlemen get on in life they do need their own private +establishments. I am sure I am sorry for them in chambers, or even in +good rooms like those at Cedar Lodge. For it is not the same as a +home, Miss Hart, and never can be. There must be awkwardnesses on both +sides at times, especially when, it comes to illness." + +Then the great Eliza gathered herself together, for it appeared to her +her forecast had been just and that she was indeed marching to +victory. + +"Yes, there is no denying all that," she said, "and I am more than +glad you see it in that light, Mrs. Lovegrove. Between ourselves, I +have more and more ever since a certain gentleman gave up work in the +City. It would be premature to speak freely; but, just between friends +and under the rose, you being interested in one party and I in the +other, there can be no harm in dropping a hint and ascertaining how +the land lies. Of course if it came to pass, it would be to my own +disadvantage, for I do not know how I should ever bear to part with +Peachie Porcher. Still, I could put myself aside, if I felt it was for +her happiness." + +"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove exclaimed. He was filled with +consternation, his hair nearly rising on his head. "I had no notion. +Dear me, you fairly take away my breath." He could almost have wept. +"To think of it!" he repeated. "Only to think of it! Miss Hart, you do +surprise me." + +"Oh! you must not run away with the notion anything is really settled +yet," she replied. "And I could not say Mrs. Porcher really would, +when it came to the point, after the experiences she had in her first +marriage. She is very reserved, is Peachie. Still, she might. And very +fortunate a certain gentleman would be if she did--it does not take +more than half an eye to see that." + +"Dr. Nevington, please, ma'am," announced the parlour-maid, and the +fine clerical voice and clerical presence filled all the room. +Thereupon Serena graciously joined the circle. She was unusually self- +possessed and definite. She embarked in a quite spirited conversation +with the newcomer. And when Eliza Hart, after a few pleasantries of a +parochial tendency with the said newcomer--in whose favour she had +vacated the place of honour upon the sofa--rose to depart, Serena +bowed to her in the most royally distant and superior manner. Her +amiability remained a constant quantity during the rest of the +evening; and when an opportunity occurred of speaking in private to +her cousin, she did so with the utmost cordiality. + +"I do hope, George," she said, "you will not think any more of our +little unpleasantness. I can truly say I never bear malice. I own I +was annoyed, for I felt I had not been quite fairly treated by Rhoda. +But, of course, I may have been mistaken. I am quite willing to +believe so and to let bygones be bygones, and stay, as Rhoda pressed +me to do, until I go to my cousin, Lady Samuelson, in December. Of +course it would be more convenient to me in some ways. But I am not +thinking of that. I am thinking of you and Rhoda. I should not like to +disappoint her by leaving her when she wants me to help entertain your +friend, Mr. Iglesias. Of course, I cannot pretend I take easily to +strangers. Mamma was very particular whom we associated with, and so I +have always been unaccustomed to strangers, and I cannot pretend I am +partial to making new acquaintances. Still, I should be very sorry to +seem unaccommodating, or to hurt you and Rhoda by refusing to stay and +assist you." + +"Thank you truly, Serena; I am sure you are very kind," the good man +answered. And the best, or the worst, of it was he actually believed +he was speaking the truth! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The easterly wind blew strong and shattering, bleak and dreary, +against the windows of the bedchamber at the back of the house. The +complaint of the cedar tree, as the branches sawed upon one another, +was long-drawn and loud. These sounds reached Iglesias in the sitting- +room, where he sat, alone and unoccupied, before the fire. For more +than a week now he had been confined to the house. He had set the door +of communication between the two rooms open, so as to gain a greater +sense of space and that he might take a little exercise by walking the +whole length of them. The cry of the wind and the moan of the sawing +branches was very comfortless, yet he made no effort to shut it out. +To begin with, he was so weak that it was too much trouble to move. To +go on with, the melancholy sounds were not ill-suited to his present +humour. For a great depression was upon him, a weariness of spirit +which might be felt. Out of doors London shivered, houses and sky and +the expanse of Trimmer's Green, with its leafless trees and iron +railings, livid, a greyness upon them as of fear. Dominic had no +quarrel with this either. Indeed it gave him a certain bitter +satisfaction, as offering a not inharmonious setting to his own +thought. + +Though not robust he was tough and wiry, so that illness of such a +nature as to necessitate his remaining within doors was a new and +trying experience. Crossing Hammersmith Bridge on the 'bustop ten days +previously, the chill of the river had struck through him. Yet this, +in all reasonable probability, would merely have resulted in passing +physical discomfort, but for the moral and spiritual hurt immediately +preceding it. How far the mind has power to cure the body is still an +open question. But that the mind can actively predispose the body to +sickness is indubitable. To realise and analyse, in their several +bearings, the causes and consequences of that same moral hurt +Iglesias' pride and loyalty alike refused. In respect of them he set +his jaw and sternly averted his eyes. Yet, though the will may be +steady to resist and to abstain, the tides of feeling ebb and flow, +contemptuous of control as those of some unquiet sea. They defy +volition, notably in illness when vitality is low. Refuse as he might +to go behind the fact, it remained indisputable that the Lady of the +Windswept Dust had given him his dismissal. Out of his daily life a +joy had gone, a constant object of thought and interest. Out of his +heart a living presence had gone, leaving a void more harsh than +death. And all this had happened in a connection peculiarly painful +and distasteful to him; so that it was as though a foul miasma had +arisen, and, drifting across the face of his fair friendship, +distorted its proportions, rendering all his memories of it suspect. +Further, in this discrediting of friendship his hope of the discovery +of that language of the soul which can alone effect a true adjustment +between the exterior and interior life had suffered violent eclipse. +He had been thrown back into the prison-house of the obvious and the +material. The world had lost its poetry, had grown narrow, sordid, +dim, and gross. His own life had grown more than ever barren of +opportunity and inept. In short, Dominic Iglesias had lost sight of +the far horizon which is touched by the glory of the Uncreated Light; +and, so doing, dwelt in outer darkness once again, infinitely +desolate. + +On the afternoon in question he had reached the nadir of disillusion +and distrust. He leaned back in the red-covered chair, his shapely +hands lying, palms downward, along the two arms of it, his vision of +the room and its familiar contents blurred by unshed tears. It was an +hour of supreme discouragement. + +"Nothing is left," he said, half aloud, "nothing. The future is as +blank as the present. If this is to grow old, then indeed those whom +the gods love have need enough to die young." + +For a space he listened to the shattering wind as it cried in the +window-sashes, to the branches of the cedar sawing upon one another +and moaning as in self-inflicted pain. Newsboys were calling early +specials. The coarse cockney voices, strangled by the easterly blast, +met and crossed one another, died away in a side street, to emerge +again and again encounter. Such words as were distinguishable seemed +of sinister import, agitating to the imagination. Then de Courcy +Smyth's shuffling footsteps crossed the floor of the room overhead. +The wire-wove mattress of his bed creaked as he sat on the edge of it, +kicking off his slippers and putting on walking boots, as might be +gathered from floppings followed by an equally nerveless but heavier +tread. A door opened, closed, and the footsteps descended the stairs. +On the landing without they paused for an appreciable time; but, to +Mr. Iglesias's great relief, deciding against attempt of entry, +continued their cheerless progress down to the hall below. Yet, just +now Iglesias could have found it in his heart to envy the man, +notwithstanding his unsavouriness of attitude and aspect. For in him +ambition still stirred. He had still definite work to do, and the hope +of eventual fame to support him during the doing of it; had the +triumph of the theatre, the applause of an audience in the white heat +of enthusiasm to dream of and strive after. + +"But, for me, nothing," Iglesias repeated, "whether vital as of those +far-away southern battle-fields, or fictitious and close at hand as of +the stage. Not even the sting of poverty to whet appetite and give an +edge to bodily hunger. Nothing, either of fear or of hope. The measure +of my obscurity is the measure of my immunity from change of fortune, +bad or good. I am worthless even as food for powder. Danger herself +will have none of me, and passes me by." + +With that he raised his hands and let them drop despairingly along the +arms of the chair again, while the unbidden tears overflowed. For a +minute or more he remained thus, weeping silently with bowed head. +Then, a movement of self-contempt taking him, he regained his calm, +sat upright, brushing away the tears. + +And it was as though, in thus regaining a clearer physical vision, he +regained a clearer mental vision likewise. Purpose asserted itself as +against mere blind acquiescence. Iglesias looked up, demanding as of +right some measure of consolation, some object promising help. So +doing, his eyes sought a certain carven oak panel set in an ebony +frame. From his earliest childhood he remembered it, for it had hung +in his mother's bedchamber; and in those far-away years, while she +still had sufficient force to disregard opposition and make an open +practice of prayer, she had kneeled before it when engaged in her +devotions. Waking at night--when as a baby-child, during his father's +long absences, he slept in her room--Dominic had often seen the +delicate kneeling figure, wrapped in some loose-flowing garment, the +hands outstretched in supplication. Even then, in the first push of +conscious intelligence, the carven picture had spoken to him as +something masterful, for all its rigidity and sadness, and very strong +to help. It had given him a sense of protection and security, so that +his little soul was satisfied; and he could go to sleep again in +peace, sure that his mother was in safe keeping while--as he said--she +"talked to it." In the long interval which had elapsed since then he +had lost touch with the spirit of it, though preserving it as among +the most cherished of his family relics. His appreciation of it had +become aesthetic rather than religious. But now, as it hung on the +dimly white wall above his writing-table on the window side of the +fireplace, the dreary London afternoon light took the surface of it, +bringing all the details of the scene into prominence. Suddenly, +unexpectedly, the old power declared itself. The picture came alive as +to the intention and meaning of it. It spoke to him once again, and +that with no uncertain voice. + +Three tall narrow crosses uplifted against a cloudless sky. Below, a +multitude of men, women, and horses, carved in varying degrees of +relief. Some starting into bold definiteness, some barely indicated +and as though imprisoned in the thickness of the wood; but all grave, +energetic, and, whether inspired by compassion or by mockery, fierce. +These grouped around a great web of linen--upheld by some of them at +the four corners, hammock-wise, high at the head, low at the foot-- +wherein lay the corpse of a man in the very flower of his age, of +heroic proportions, spare yet muscular, long and finely angular of +limb, the articulations notably slender, the head borne proudly though +bent, the features severely beautiful, the whole virile, indomitable +even in the physical abjection of death. + +In this Spanish presentment of the closing act of the Divine Tragedy +the sensuous pagan element, which mars too many otherwise admirable +works of religious art, was absent. Its appeal was to the intellect +rather than to the emotions, inculcating effort rather than inviting +any sentimental passion of pity. Its message was that of conquest, of +iron self-mastery and self-restraint. This was bracing and courage- +begetting even when viewed from the exclusively artistic standpoint. +But now not merely the presentment of the event held Iglesias' +attention, but the event presented, the thing in itself. His heart and +intelligence grasped the meaning of it, not only as a matter of +supreme historic interest in view of its astonishing influence upon +human development during the last two thousand years; but as an ever- +present reality, as an exposition of the Absolute, of that which +everlastingly has been, and everlastingly will be, and hence of +incalculable and immediate importance to himself. It spoke to him of +no vague and general truth; but of a truth intimate and individual, +coming to him as the call to enter upon a personal inheritance. Of +obedience to the dictates of natural religion, and faithful practice +of the pieties of it, Dominic Iglesias had, all his life, been a +remarkable if unconscious exponent. But this awakening of the spirit +to the actualities of supernatural religion, this crossing of that +dark immensity of space which appears to interpose between Almighty +God and the mind of man, was new to him. He had sought a language of +the soul which might effect an adjustment between the exterior and +interior life. Here, in the Word made Flesh, with reverent amazement +he found it. He had sought it through the instrumentality of the +things of time and sense; and they, though full with promise, had +proved illusory. He had fixed his hope on relation to the creature. +But here, all the while, close beside him, waiting till the scales +should fall from his eyes and he should see and understand, had stood +the Creator. Fair, very fair--while it lasted--was human friendship. +But here, had he but strength and daring to meet it, was a friendship +infinitely fairer, immutable, eternal--namely, the friendship of +Almighty God. + +The easterly wind still cried in the window-sashes, harsh and +shattering. The branches of the exiled cedar tree sawed upon one +another, uttering their long-drawn complaint. The voices of the +newsboys, hoarse and raucous, shouting their sinister message, still +came and went. The livid light of the winter afternoon grew more +dreary as it sank into, and was absorbed by, the deepening dusk. But +to Dominic Iglesias these things had ceased to matter. Dazzled, +enchanted, confounded, alike by the magnitude and the simplicity of +his discovery, he remained gazing at the carven panel; gazing through +and beyond it to that of which it was the medium and symbol, gazing, +clear-eyed and fearlessly, away to the far horizon radiant with the +surpassing glory of the Uncreated Light. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The Black Week had just ended; but the humiliation of it lay, as a +dead weight, upon the heart of London. Three crushing reverses in +eight days--Stormberg, Magersfontein, and finally Colenso! There was +no getting rid of the facts, or the meaning of them in respect of +incapacity, blundering, and reckless waste of personal valour. It was +a sorry tale, and one over which Europe at large chuckled. It has been +universally assumed that the English are a serious nation. This is an +error. They are not serious, but indifferent, a nation of +individualists, each mainly, not to say exclusively, occupied with his +own private affairs. With the vast majority unity of sentiment is +suspect, and patriotism a passive rather than an active virtue. But at +this juncture, under the stress of repeated disaster, unity of +sentiment and patriotism--that is, a sense of the national honour and +necessity for the vindication of it--became strongly evident. London +was profoundly and visibly moved. Not with excitement--that came +later, manifesting itself in hysterical outcries of relief--but with a +grim anger and sadness of astonishment that such things could indeed +be. Strangers, passing in the street, looked one another in the eyes +questioningly, a common anxiety forging unexpected bonds of kinship. +The town was curiously hushed, as though listening, always listening, +for those ugly messages rushed so perpetually by cable from overseas. +Men's faces were strained by the effort to hear, and, hearing, to +judge justly the extent and the bearings of both national and +individual damage. Already mourning struck a sensible note in women's +dress. If the Little Englander capered, he was careful to do so at +home, or in meeting-places frequented only by persons likeminded with +himself. It may be questioned whether he is not ever most courageous +when under covert thus; since shooting out of windows or from behind +hedges would appear to be his inherent, and not particularly gallant, +notion of sport. The newsboys alone openly and blatantly rejoiced, +dominating the situation--as on Derby Day or Boat-race Night--and +putting a gilded dome to the horror by yelling highly seasoned lies +when truth proved insufficiently evil to stimulate custom to the +extent of his desires. Depression, as of storm, permeated the social +atmosphere. Churches were full, places of amusement comparatively +empty. To laugh seemed an indiscretion trenching on indecency. + +Amid surrounding bravery of imperial purple, cream-colour, and gold, +Poppy St. John sat at the extreme end of the first row of balcony +stalls in the newly opened Twentieth Century Theatre. This was a calm +and secluded spot, since the partition, dividing off the boxes, +flanked it on the right. Partly on this account Poppy had selected it. +Partly, also, because it afforded an excellent view of the left of the +stage; and it was on the left--looking from the body of the house-- +that the principal action of the piece, as far as Dot Parris's part +was concerned, took place. Poppy was unattended. She wanted an +evening's rest, an evening free of conversation and effort; but she +wanted something to look at, too, something affording just sufficient +emotional stimulus to keep importunate thought at bay. This the +theatre supplied. It had ceased long ago to tire her. She knew the +ways of it from both sides of the footlights uncommonly well, and +loved them indifferently much. She was a shrewd and cynical critic. +Nevertheless, to go to the play was a sort of going home to her--a +home neither very socially nor morally exalted, perhaps, but one +offering the advantages of perfect familiarity. + +Huddled in a black velvet fur-lined sacque, reaching to her feet and +abundantly trimmed with jet embroidery and black lace, she settled +herself in her place. The soft fur was cosey against her bare neck. +She felt chilly. Later she might peel, thereby exhibiting the values +of the rest of her costume. But it was not worth while to do so yet. +The first piece was over, but the house was still a poor one. It might +fill up. She hoped it would for Dot's sake; for few things are more +disheartening than to play to empty benches. But, at present, the +audience was altogether too sparse for it to be worth while to +sacrifice comfort to effect. In point of fact, Poppy was cold from +sheer fatigue. For the last month, to employ her own rather variegated +phraseology, she had racketed, had persistently and pertinaciously +been "going the pace." No doubt they do these things better in France; +yet, as she reflected, provided you are unhampered by prejudice, are +fairly in funds and know the ropes, even grimy fog-bound London is, in +this particular connection, by no means to be sneezed at. And truly +Poppy's autobiography during the said month would have made extremely +merry reading, amounting in some aspects to a positive classic--though +of the kind hardly suited as a basis of instruction for the pupils of +a young ladies' school. Setting aside adventures of a more +questionable character, a positively alarming good luck had pursued +her, everything she touched turning to gold. Even in this hour of +financial depression the market favoured her both in buying and +selling. If she put money on a horse, that horse was sure to win. If +she played cards--and she had played pretty constantly--she inevitably +plundered her opponents. This last alone, of all her doubtful doings, +really troubled her; for her opponents had frequently been youthful, +and it was contrary to Poppy's principles to pluck the but +half-fledged chick. + +Barring this solitary deflection from her somewhat latitudinarian code +of ethics, she had, on the face of it, ample cause for self- +congratulation. Never had she been more gaily audacious in word or +deed. Never had she been better company, keeping her audience--an +almost exclusively masculine one--in a roar, all the louder perhaps +because of inward defiance of the news from over-seas, the humiliation +of which had now culminated in the disasters of the Black Week. Flame +only shows the brighter for a sombre background. And Poppy, during +this ill-starred period, had been as a flame to her admirers and +associates--a fitful, prankish flame, full of provocation and +bedevilment, the light of it inciting to all manner of wild doings +and, in the end, not infrequently scorching those pretty shrewdly who +were over-bold in warming themselves at the heat of it. For fires of +the sort lighted by Poppy are not precisely such as contribute to the +peace and security of the domestic hearth. + +But now she was tired. The fun seemed fun no longer; so that, +notwithstanding her successes, she found herself a prey to +dissatisfaction, discontent, and a disposition to recall all the less +happy episodes of her varied career. She yawned quite loudly, as she +laid opera-glasses and play-bill upon the velvet cushion in front of +her, and pulled the soft fur-lined garment up closer about her +shoulders. + +"The first act's safe to be poorish anyhow, and Dot does not come on +till just the end of it. I wonder if I dare go to sleep?" she asked +herself, gently rubbing her eyes. "It would be awfully nice to forget +the whole blooming show, past, present, and to come, for a little +while and plunge in the waters of oblivion. Oblivion with a capital O +--a dose of that's what I want. Beautiful roomy consolation-stakes +of a word, oblivion, if one could only believe in the existence of +it--which, unluckily, some-how I can't." + +Here the strains of the orchestra ceased. The lights were turned low +in the body of the house. The curtain went up. As it did so a cold +draught drew from regions behind the stage, laden with that +indefinable odour of gas, glue, humanity, flagged stair and alleyways, +paint, canvas, carpentry, and underground places the sun never +penetrates, which haunts the working part of every theatre. Poppy +smiled as she snuffed it, with a queer mingling of enjoyment and +repulsion. For as is the smell of ocean to the seafarer, of mother- +earth to the peasant, of incense to the priest, so is the smell of the +theatre to the player. Nature may revolt; but the spell holds. Once an +actor always an actor. The mark of the calling is indelible. Even to +the third and fourth generation there is no rubbing it out. + +"I suppose it would have been wiser if I had stuck to the profession," +Poppy commented to herself. "I should have been a leading lady by now, +drawing my thirty to forty pounds a week. I had the root of the matter +in me. Have it still, worse luck; for it's the sort of root which +asserts its continued existence by aching at times like that of a +broken tooth. It was a wrench to give it all up. But then those rotten +plays of his, inflated impossible stuff, which would never act-- +couldn't act!--and I carrying them round to manager after manager and +using all the gentle arts I knew to get them accepted. Oh! it was very +dignified, it was very pretty! And then his perpetual persecutions for +money, his jealousy and spite, and his fine feelings, his infernal +superiority--yes, that was what really did the job. Flesh and blood +couldn't stand it. To prove to a woman, at three meals daily, that she +couldn't hold a candle to you in birth, or brains, or education; and +then expect her to slave for you--and make it jolly hot for her if she +didn't, too--while you sat at home and caressed the delusion of your +own heaven-born genius in the only decently comfortable chair in the +house! No, it was not good enough--that it was not." + +Poppy surveyed the stage, unseeing, her great eyes wide with unlovely +memories. + +"I wonder what's become of him," she said presently. "He hasn't dunned +me for months. Has he found some other poor wretch to bleed? Must +have, I imagine, for he always declared he was on the edge of +starvation. Supposing that was true, though--supposing he has +starved?" + +Her thought sank away into a wordless reverie of the dreariest +description. Suddenly she roused herself, clenching her hands in her +lap. + +"Well, supposing he has, what does it matter to me? If ever a man +deserved to starve, he did, vain, lazy, cowardly, self-seeking jackal +of a fellow. Why in the name of reason should I trouble about him-- +specially to-night? But then why, whenever I am a bit done, does the +remembrance of him always come back?" + +Poppy yawned again, staring blankly at the persons on the stage, +hearing the sound of their speech but knowing only the sense of her +own thought. + +"Why? Because it's like him, because it's altogether in the part. He +was always on the watch for his opportunity; wheedling or +blackguarding, directly he saw one had no fight left in one, till he +got his own way." + +She leaned forward, resting her hands on the velvet cushion. + +"I am confoundedly tired," she said. "All the same, it's rather +horrible. If the thing came over again, which mercifully it can't, I +should do precisely the same as I did. And yet I'm never quite sure +which of us was really in the right. And, therefore, I suppose just as +long as I live, whenever I'm dished--as I am to-night--I shall work +the whole hateful business through again, and the remembrance of him +will always come back." + +She pushed the soft heavy masses of hair up from her forehead with +both hands. + +"In the main it was your own fault, de Courcy Smyth, and you know that +it was. Most women would not have held out nearly as long as I did. So +lie quiet. Let me be. Starve, if you've got as far on the downgrade as +that. What do I care? I owe you nothing. You never gave me a child. So +starve, if you must--yes, starve," she said. + +Then she gathered herself back into her stall. Her expression changed. + +"Ah, there's Dot. They're giving her a reception. Bless them--how +awfully sweet! Hurrah for poor little Dot!" Her hands went up to +applaud. And for the ensuing ten minutes her fatigue was forgotten. +She became absorbed in the action of the piece. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Dot Parris earned a recall at the end of the first act, conquering by +sheer force of personality that gloomy and half-hearted audience. And +Poppy St. John--among whose many faults lack of generosity certainly +could not be counted--standing up, leaned right out over the velvet- +cushioned barrier of the dress circle, crying "Brava!" and clapping +her hands. To achieve the latter demonstration with befitting +resonance she had stripped off her gloves. Then as the lights were +turned up and the curtain swung into the place, she proceeded to +further stripping--namely, that of her black embroidered sacque, +which she threw across the back of the empty stall beside her, thereby +revealing a startling costume. For she was clothed in rose-scarlet +from shoulder to foot; and that without ornament of any description to +break up the daring uniformity of colour, save the stiff unstanding +black aigrette in her hair, tipped with diamond points which flashed +and glittered as she moved. The soft _mousseline-de-soie_ of +which her dress was made swathed her figure, cross-wise, without +apparent fastening, moulding it to the turn of the hips. Thence the +skirt flowed down in a froth of rose-scarlet gaugings and fluted frills, +which trailed behind her far. The bodice was cut in a deep V back and +front, showing her bare neck. Her arms were bare, too, from the elbow. +Her skin, somewhat sallow by day, took on a delicate ivory whiteness +under the electric light. By accident or design she had omitted to +tinge her cheeks to-night; and the even pallor of her face emphasised +the largeness of her eyes--luminous, just now, with sympathy and +enthusiasm. For the artist in Poppy dominated all else, vibrant and +alert. The glamour of the actor's life was upon her; the seamy side of +it forgotten--its unworthy rivalries and bickerings, the slangings and +prolonged weariness of rehearsals, its many disappointments, +heart-burnings, and sordid shifts. These were as though they were not; +so that the stage called her, even as the sea calls one, and mother-earth +another, and religion a third. + +"Pou-ah! aren't I just hot, though!" she said, half aloud, as she +flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, +after all! An imp of genius.--well, she's every right to that, as one +knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He +didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to +the number of one's emotions! And she's inherited his gifts on her own +lines. What a voice, what gestures! She is as clever as she can stick. +Oh! she's a real joy of a demon of a thing, bless her; and she's +nothing like come to her full strength yet." + +Then growing aware that she herself and her vivid attire were +beginning to attract more attention than, in the interests of a quiet +evening, she desired, Poppy subsided languidly into her stall, and, +picking up her opera-glasses, slowly surveyed the occupants of the +house. + +There to begin with was Bobby Saville in the second row of the stalls, +flanked on either hand by a contingent of followers. His round dark +head and the set of his tremendous shoulders were unmistakable. +Saville was very far from being a model young man, yet Poppy had a +soft spot in her heart for this aristocratic bruiser and bravo. His +constancy to Dot Parris was really touching. With a dog-like +faithfulness and docility, this otherwise most turbulent of his sex +had followed the object of his affections from music-hall to comic +opera, from comic opera to the high places of legitimate drama. And +Dot meanwhile remained serenely invulnerable, tricking and mocking her +high-born heavy-weight lover, telling him cheerfully she really had no +use for him, though his intentions were strictly honourable. Twenty- +five years hence, she added, when he was an elderly peer, and she had +begun to grow broad in the beam, and the public had begun to grow +tired of her, she might perhaps contemplate the thraldom of wedlock. +But not yet awhile--no, thank you. Her art held all her love, +satisfied all her passions; she had none to waste upon mankind. Two +days hence, as Poppy knew, Bobby Saville would sail for South Africa, +to offer an extensive target to Boer bullets. He had come to bid +farewell, to-night, to the obdurate object of his affections. And his +followers--some of whom were also bound for the seat of war--had come +to support him during those pathetic proceedings. + +In the boxes she recognised more than one woman whose rank of riches +had rendered her appearance common property through the medium of the +illustrated papers. But upon these social favourites she bestowed +scant scrutiny. To her they did not matter, since she had a +comfortable conviction that, given their chances, she might safely +have backed herself to beat them at their own game. One large and +gentle-looking lady did attract her, by the innocence of her mild eyes +set noticeably wide apart, and by the beauty of her small mouth. Her +light brown hair, touched with grey, rippled back from her low +forehead under a drapery of delicate lace. She was calm, yet there was +an engaging timidity in her aspect as she sheltered behind the farther +curtain of the box. Beside her sat a young girl, white-clad, +deliciously fresh in appearance, an expression of happy half-shy +expectation upon her charming face. Behind them, in the shadow, +kindly, handsome, debonnair, stood Lord Fallowfeild. His resemblance +to the large and gentle lady declared them brother and sister. Poppy +St. John watched the little party with a movement of tenderness. She +perceived that they were very fond of one another; moreover they were +so delightfully simple in bearing and manner, so excellently well- +bred. But of what was the pretty maiden so shyly expectant? Of +something, or somebody, far more immediately interesting to her than +players or play--so Poppy judged. + +Turning from the contemplation of these pleasant people with a sigh +she could hardly have explained--even to herself--Poppy swept the +dress circle with her opera-glasses. Presently she paused, and with a +lift of surprise looked steadily again, then let both hands and +glasses drop upon her rose-scarlet cap. Four rows up and back, on the +far side, in a stall next the stepped gang-way, a man sat. His face +was turned away, his shoulder being towards her, as he leaned sideways +talking to the woman beside him--a slender, faded, yet elegant person +of uncertain age, dressed in fluffy black. In the seat beyond, also +leaning forward and taking part in the conversation, was another man +of so whimsical an appearance as very nearly to make Poppy laugh +aloud. She would unquestionably have done so had she been at leisure; +but she was not at leisure. Her eyes travelled back to the figure +beside the gang-way, which intrigued both her interest and her memory. +Tall, spare, faultlessly dressed, yet with an effect of something +exotic, aloof, unusual about him, he provoked her curiosity with +suggestions of times and places quite other than of the present. + +"Who is it?" Poppy said to herself. "Surely I know him. Who the +Dickens is it?" + +The conversation ceased. The man drew himself up, turned his head; and +Poppy gave a little choking cry, as she found herself staring Dominic +Iglesias straight in the face. + +Whether he recognised her she did not know, did not want to know just +yet. For she needed a minute or two to reckon with the position. It +was so wholly unexpected. It affected her more deeply than she could +have anticipated. Not without amusement she realised that she had +never, heretofore, quite believed in him as an ordinary mortal, who +ate and drank, went to plays, had relations with human beings other +than herself, and conducted himself generally on the commonplace lines +of modern humanity. Therefore to see him under existing circumstances +was, in a sense, a shock to her. She did not like it. Absurd and +unreasonable though it undoubtedly was to feel it so, yet his presence +here struck her as in a way unseemly, derogatory. She had never +thought of him in this connection, and it took a little time to get +accustom to this aspect of him. Then she discovered, with half- +humorous annoyance, that she was called upon to get accustomed to +something else as well--namely, to her memories of the past month +since she parted from him. For it was undeniable that the said +memories took on a queer enough complexion in the light of this sudden +encounter with Dominic Iglesias. If an hour ago they had been +unsatisfactory, now they were very near odious. And that seemed hardly +fair. Poppy turned wicked. + +"For what's the worry, after all?" she asked herself. "Why on earth am +I either disappointed or penitent? Is he no better than the rest of +us, or am I no worse? And with what am I quarrelling, in any case--his +being less of a saint, or I less of a sinner than I'd been pleased to +imagine? I'm sure I don't know." + +Instinctively her eyes sought that kindly worlding, Lord Fallowfeild. +With him at least, as she reflected, one knew exactly where one was, +since his feet were always very much upon the floor. But here again +discomfiture, alas! awaited her. For another person, and evidently a +welcome one, had joined that pleasant little party. Standing beside +the large and gentle lady, speaking quickly, gaily, his face keen and +eager, she beheld Alaric Barking. Lord Fallowfeild, smiling, patted +the young man affectionately on the shoulder. And then, with a shudder +of pain gnawing right through her, Poppy St. John, glancing at the +graceful white-clad maiden, understood of whose coming this one had +been so sweetly and gladly expectant. + +To the strong there is something exhilarating in all certainty, even +certainty of disaster. And it was very characteristic of Poppy that at +this juncture no cry came to her lips, no sob to her throat. She +shuddered that once, it is true. But then, setting her teeth, the +whole daring of her nature rose to the situation, as a high-mettled +horse rises to a heavy fence. What lay on the other side of that fence +she did not know as yet, nor did she stop to consider. Desperate +though it looked, she took it gallantly without fuss or funking. + +"Well, there's no ambiguity about this affair, anyhow," she said +grimly. "Of course it had to come sooner or later, and I knew it had +to come. Well, here it is, that's all, and there's no use whining. And +that's why he's been so jumpy lately: he had a bad conscience. Poor +old chap, he must have been having a beastly bad time of it." + +Poppy mused a little. + +"Still, it's a facer," she added, "and a precious nasty one, too." + +She stretched herself, shaking back her head, while the diamond points +of her aigrette danced and glittered. Took a deep breath, filling her +lungs; listened to herself, so to speak, noting with satisfaction that +neither heart nor pulse fluttered. + +"No serious damage," she commented. "I must have the nerves of a +locomotive. Here I am perfectly sound, perfectly sober, standing at +the parting of the ways, between the dear old devil of love and the +deep sea of friendship. Poppy Smyth, my good soul, you've always been +rather fatally addicted to drama. Are you satisfied at last? For just +now, heaven knows, you've jolly well got your fill of it." + +Then, for a space, she sat staring out into the house, thinking hard, +intently, yet without words. The future, as she knew, hung in the +balance, for herself and for others; but, as yet, she could not decide +into which scale to throw the determining weight. Presently she looked +steadily at Dominic Iglesias. He was again engaged in conversation, +trying, with his air of fine old-world courtesy, suitably to entertain +his strangely assorted neighbours. Poppy had an idea he found it +rather hard work. She was not in the least sorry. That faded piece of +feminine elegance, in fluffy black, bored her. She entertained a +malicious hope that the said piece of feminine elegance bored Mr. +Iglesias also. Finally, with rather bitter courage, she turned her +eyes once more upon Lord Fallowfeild and his companions. + +"Poor little girl, poor little girl," she said, quite gently, "so +that's your heaven on earth, is it? I'm afraid a mighty big crop of +wild oats is on show in your Garden of Eden. Still to you, apparently, +it is a blissful place enough. Only the question is, do I intend to +relinquish my rights in that particular property and make it over to +you in fee simple, my pretty baby, or do I not? Shall I give it you, +or shall I keep it? For it is mine to give or to keep still--very much +mine, if I choose to make a fight for it, I fancy." + +Yet even as she communed thus with herself, the white-clad maiden and +the other occupants of the box became indistinct and shadowy. The buzz +of conversation in the theatre had ceased; so had the strains of the +orchestra. The lights had been turned low and the curtain had risen +upon the second act. + +About half-way through that act Poppy St. John got up, threw her +velvet sacque over her arm, and, slipping past the three intervening +stalls, made her way up the steps of the near gang-way to the swing- +doors opening out to the couloir. Her movements, though studiously +quiet, were, owing to the vivid hue of her attire, very perceptible +even in the penumbra of the dress circle, provoking attention and +smothered comment. The lady in fluffy black, for example, followed her +with glances of undisguised and condemnatory interest, finally calling +the attention of both her cavaliers to the progress of this glowing +figure. + +The New Century Theatre is one of those enterprises of trans-Atlantic +origin, undertaken with the praiseworthy and disinterested object of +teaching the Old World "how to do it," and is built and furnished +regardless of expense. The couloirs are wide, lofty, richly carpeted; +the walls of them encrusted with pale highly polished marbles, +pilasters of which, with heavily gilded capitals, flank vast panels of +looking-glass. The moulded ceilings are studded with electric lights, +the glare of which is agreeably softened by pineapple-shaped globes of +crystal glass. The scheme of colour, ranging from imperial purple +through crimson and rose-pink to softest flesh tints, formed an +harmonious setting to the rose-scarlet of Poppy's dress, with its +froth of trailing frills and flounces, as she stood discoursing to a +smart, black-gowned, white-aproned box-keeper. + +"You understand, fourth row on the left, next the gang-way? Tell him a +lady wishes particularly to speak to him between the acts. Then bring +him to me here." + +"Yes, madam, I quite understand," the young person replied, with much +intelligence, scenting something in the shape of an adventure. + +Poppy moved across and sat down on one of the wide divans, and so +doing began to know, once more, how very tired she was. A new +tiredness seemed, indeed, to have been added to the original one. That +first was, at worst, bored and irritable. This was of a different, a +more sad and intimate character. + +"I feel as if I had been beaten all over," she said to herself. "Well, +perhaps that's just what it is. I have been beaten. I wish I could +sleep. Oh! dear, oh! dear, how I wish I could sleep." + +Her thought fell away into the vague, the inarticulate, though she did +not sleep. Still there was a temporary suspension of volition, of +conscious mental activity, which, in a degree, rested her. Persons, +passing now and again, looked with curiosity at the brilliant figure, +and inscrutable eyes in the dead-white face. The smart box-keeper, +moved by some instinct of pity, came back more than once, finally +offering one of those unwholesome-looking cups of coffee and boxes of +chocolate of which so few have the requisite audacity to partake. +Poppy roused herself sufficiently to reject these terrible delicacies, +while smiling at the conveyor of them. Then she relapsed into the +vague again, and waited, just waited. + +"There's the end of the act, madam," the young woman remarked at last +encouragingly. + +"All right," Poppy answered. "Go straight away and bring the gentleman +here to me. I'm in a hurry. I want to get home." + +The glass doors of the exits swished back and forth, letting out the +confused stir and murmur of the house, letting out a crowd of men as +well. And the aspect the said crowd presented to Poppy's overstrained +nerves and exalted sensibility was repulsive. For it suggested to her +a flight of gigantic black locusts, strong-jawed, pink-faced, and +white-breasted, driven forth by a common hunger, rather cruelly active +and intent. Her sense of humour was in abeyance, as was her usually +triumphant common sense; so that her thought, going behind appearances +and the sane interpretation of them, declined to that fundamental +region in which the root laws of animal life become hideously bare and +distinct. Out of the deep places of her own womanhood a hatred towards +this crowd of men arose; that secular enmity which exists between the +sexes asserting itself and, for the time being, obscuring both reason +and justice. For upon what, as she asked herself bitterly, when all is +said and done, do these male human locusts pasture, save on the souls +and bodies of women, finding a garden before them, and, too often, +leaving but a desert behind? Sex as sex became abhorrent to her, its +penalties unpardonable, its pleasures as loathsome as its sins. + +But from the black-coated throng the trim figure of the box-keeper +just then detached itself; and a moment later Poppy, looking up, +beheld Dominic Iglesias standing before her. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"You sent for me, so I have come," Iglesias said, for Poppy St. John, +usually so voluble, just now appeared speechless. + +From the moment he had become aware of her presence in the theatre, +Dominic had been sensible that she presented herself under a new +aspect. Of the many different Poppys he had seen, this was by far the +most powerful and dramatic. She stood out from the rest of the +audience as some splendid tropic flower stands out from a thick-set +mass of foliage, conspicuous in form and colour and in promise. There +were handsome women, smart women, beautifully dressed women in plenty, +but Poppy did not shade in with all these, making but part of a +general effect. She remained unique, solitary; and this not merely on +account of her vivid raiment. The effect of her told upon the mind +quite as much as upon the sight. Yet she did not look out of place. +She looked, indeed, preeminently at home. Out of doors, in the country +sunshine, she had struck Dominic as a slight creature, unreal and +fictitious. Here, amid highly artificial and conventional +surroundings, she seemed to him the most natural and vital being +present, retaining the completeness of her individuality, the energy +and mystery of it alike, almost aggressively evident and untouched. +Iglesias ceased to consider her in relation to his and her broken +friendship, or in relation to that which he so reluctantly divined of +her private life. He contemplated her in herself, finding an element +of things primitive in her, which commanded his admiration, though it +failed, so far, to touch his heart. And if this was the impression he +received seeing her at a comparative distance, that impression was +greatly intensified seeing her now at close quarters. The contrast +between the subtle softness and the flare--as of a conflagration--of +her dress, the weariness of her attitude, and the unfathomable +melancholy of her eyes, stirred him profoundly. + +"Yes," she answered quietly, almost coldly, "I know I sent. This was +about the last place I should have expected to run across you. I +flattered myself I was safe enough here. I didn't wish to meet you one +little bit. Still, when I did see you, I wanted you. You're the most +plaguey impossible person to rid oneself of somehow"--her voice and +manner softened a little--"so I sent for you. I don't know why, +because now I've got you I seem to have changed my mind. I have +nothing to say." + +"I can easily go," Iglesias remarked gravely. + +"No, no, no," she replied, "why should you hurry? I'm sure those two +freaks you're herding--the beetle turned hind-side before and the +withered leaf--can't be frantically interesting. And I like to look at +you. I never saw you before in evening dress, and you're more _grand +seigneur_ than ever. But something's happened to you. I can't tell +off-hand what it is, whether you've come on or gone back. But you're +altered." + +"I have had an illness," Iglesias said simply; "and I have been very +unhappy." + +"Neither of those are good enough," Poppy answered. "The alteration is +right inside you, in your soul. But you're well again now?" she added. + +"Yes, I am well again now." + +"And you're no longer unhappy?" + +"No," he said. "I am sad, for life is sad; but I am no longer +unhappy." + +"That's a nice distinction," Poppy put in, with a rather scornful +inflection. "What's cured your unhappiness? Not an affair of the +heart? Please don't tell me it's anything to do with a woman, for I +warn you I'm awfully off the affections to-night." + +"You can make yourself quite easy on that point," Dominic said with a +lift of the head, his native pride asserting itself. + +"Ah! that's more like old times!" Poppy's voice softened again, so did +the expression of her face. "Suppose you sit down, dear lunatic. This +wait is a long one, I know. Dot Parris told me it was. Let the freaks +play about together for a little. It will do them good. And I find I +wanted you rather more than I knew at first. I'm beginning to have +something to say after all. Words, only words, perhaps; still it's a +_soulagement_ to sit here with you like this." The corners of +Poppy's mouth drooped and quivered. "I'm having an infernally bad +time; and there's worse ahead." + +"I am sorry. I am grieved," Iglesias said. For the charm had begun to +work again, and friendship, as he began to know, although broken- +winged, was very far from dead. + +"We won't talk about that," she put in, "or I might make a fool of +myself. Dear man, I think I'd better go home. I'm awfully tired. +Still, I'm better for seeing you." She stood up. "Just help me on with +my coat. Thanks--that's right. Oh! I say, there are the freaks on the +prowl, looking for you!" Poppy's tragic eyes turned naughty, +malicious, gay even for a moment. "What sport!" she said--"unhappy +freaks! The withered leaf has intentions. I see that. She'd like to +eat me without salt. Don't marry her--promise me you won't. Ah! +heavenly, heavenly," she cried. "I need no promises, bless you. Your +face is quite enough. Wretched withered leaf! But look here," she went +on, as she gathered the soft warm garment about her, "I'm tired of +your incognito. Give me your card. I may want you again. So let me +have your name and address." + +And Iglesias giving it to her as she requested, she studied it for a +minute silently. Then she turned away. + +"I want nothing more. Don't come down with me. One of the boys will +get me a hansom. I'd rather be alone; so just go back to your +flabbergasted freaks, beloved and no-longer-nameless one," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Thin sunshine slanted in through the lace curtains of the dining-room +window. Encouraged thereby, the parrot preened its feathers, making +little snapping and clicking noises meanwhile with its tongue and +beak. The grass of the Green, seen between the black stems of the +encircling trees, glittered with hoarfrost, while the houses on the +opposite side of it looked flat and featureless owing to the +interposing veil of bluish mist. Tradesmen's carts clattered by at a +sharp trot, the defined sound of them breaking up the all-pervading +murmur of London, and dying out into it again as they passed. At the +street corner, some twenty yards away, a German band discoursed +doubtfully sweet music, the trombone making earnest efforts to keep +the rest of the instruments up to their work by the emission of loud +and reproachful tootings. It was a pleasant and cheery morning as +December mornings go, yet constraint reigned at the Lovegrove +breakfast-table. + +The day of Serena's oft-discussed departure had dawned. A few hours +hence she would remove herself and her boxes to her cousin Lady +Samuelson's residence in Ladbroke Square. This should have proved a +source of regret to her host and hostess; and they were conscience- +stricken, confessing to themselves--though not to one another, since +each accredited the other with more laudable sentiments than his or +her own--that relief rather than regret did actually possess them. A +secret from one another, and that a slightly discreditable one, was so +foreign to the experience of the excellent couple that it lay heavy +upon their hearts. Each, moreover, was aware of shame in the presence +of Serena, as in that of a person upon whom they had inflicted an +injury. Hence constraint, which the sunshine was powerless to +dissipate. + +"May I pass you the eggs, or bacon, or both, Serena?" George Lovegrove +inquired, his childlike blue eyes meanwhile humbly imploring pardon +for his lack of sorrow at her impending departure. Serena's manner was +stiff and abstracted. This, combined with the rustling of her +petticoats, filled him with anxiety. Was it possible that she knew? + +"Thank you, George, only an egg. Not that one, please, it is much too +large. I prefer the smallest. I am not feeling hungry." + +"I should never call you much of a breakfast-eater, Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove observed in her comfortable purring voice, from behind the +tea urn. She was desirous to pacify her guest. "Now I am rather hearty +myself in the morning, always have been so. I do not know whether it +is a good thing or not, as a habit. Still, I think to-day you should +force yourself a little. You should always make provision against a +journey. And then no doubt you are rather fatigued with packing and +getting home so late from the theatre. I am pleased to think you had +an outing your last night here, Serena. Georgie tells me the play was +very comical." + +"I dare say it was," Serena replied. "Of course George would be a much +better judge of that than I am. Mamma was always very particular what +we heard and saw when we were children, and I know I am inclined to +think things vulgar which other people only find amusing." + +"I did not remark any vulgarity, and do not think Mr. Iglesias would +countenance anything of that kind in the presence of a lady. He would +ascertain beforehand the nature of the piece to which he invited any +lady"--this from George Lovegrove tentatively. + +"Oh! of course I don't say there was anything vulgar. I should not +like to commit myself to an opinion. I really have been to the theatre +very seldom. Mamma never encouraged our going. And then, of course, +old Dr. Colthurst, the rector of St. Jude's at Slowby, whose church we +always attended, disapproved of the theatre. He had great influence +with mamma. And he thought it wicked." + +"Indeed," Mrs. Lovegrove commented. "I should be sorry to think that, +as so many go. But he may have come across the evils of it personally. +He had a son, an artist, who was very wild, I believe. And I remember +to have heard our dear vicar speak of Dr. Colthurst as stern, but a +true Protestant and a very grand preacher." + +"I dare say he was--I don't mean that his son was wild--I know nothing +about that, of course, but that Dr. Colthurst was a great preacher." + +Serena spoke abstractedly, inspecting the yolk of her poached egg +meanwhile as though on the watch for unpleasant foreign bodies. + +"But," she continued, "I cannot, of course, be expected to remember +his sermons, though I may have been taken to hear him. I suppose I +certainly was taken, but I was quite too much of a child to remember. +Susan remembers them, but then Susan was so very much older." + +She ceased to contemplate her egg, and looked up at her hostess. + +"Susan must be very nearly your age, Rhoda; or she may be a year or +eighteen months younger. Yes, judging by the difference between her +age and mine, she must be quite eighteen months younger. Of course, +now, Susan thinks going to the play wicked. I often wonder whether +that is not partly because she dislikes sitting still and listening +when other people are doing something. Susan likes to take part in +everything herself. I often wonder what she would do in church if it +was not for the responses and the singing. I am sure she would never +sit out a service where the congregation did not join in. Susan cannot +bear a choral service. She calls it un-English and Romanising. I do +not dislike it--I mean I do not dislike a choral service. But then I +do not consider the theatre wicked. I am not prejudiced against it, as +Susan is. Still, I cannot deny that I think you do hear very odd +things and see very over-dressed people at the theatre." + +Serena looked severely at her host, thereby heightening the anxiety +which possessed him. For once again, as so often during the past eight +or ten hours, a picture presented itself perplexing and fascinating to +his mental vision--namely, that of his dear and honoured friend, the +grave and stately Dominic Iglesias, helping an unknown lady, of +remarkably attractive personal appearance, on with a wonderful black +velvet garment--doing so in the calmest way in the world, too, as +though it were an event of chronic occurrence--while the frills and +furbelows of her voluminous skirts flowed in rosy billows about his +feet. What did the picture portend, George Lovegrove asked himself, +and still more, what did Serena suppose it portended? + +"Do you, indeed?" Mrs. Lovegrove put in, in amiable response to her +guest's last remark. She was sensible of being hurt by the allusion to +her age. But then Serena was going, and she knew that fact did not +distress her as deeply as it might have done. She therefore rose +superior to wounded feelings. "It's many years since I've been much of +a playgoer," she continued, "and people tell me it's all a good deal +changed, and not for the better. I suppose the dressing nowadays is +sadly extravagant. I am sure I don't know, and I should always be +timid of condemning anybody or their amusements. But there, as I +always do say, if you want to keep a happy mind there is so much it is +well to be ignorant of." + +"I wonder if it is--I mean I wonder if it is well to be ignorant of +things," Serena said reflectively. "Of course, if people think you are +willing to be ignorant, it encourages them in deceiving you. I think +it is very wrong to be deceitful. Sooner or later it is sure to come +out, and then it is very difficult to forgive people. Indeed, I am not +sure it is right to forgive them." + +With difficulty George Lovegrove restrained a groan. His food was as +ashes in his mouth; his tea as waters of bitterness. + +"Oh! I should be sorry to go as far as that, Serena," Mrs. Lovegrove +remonstrated. "If you give way to unforgiving feelings you can never +tell quite where they may carry you. But as I was going to say, though +I am not much of a playgoer, I was very pleased to have Mr. Iglesias +invite me. Only, as I explained to him, I am very liable to find the +seats too narrow for comfort in places of amusement, and the +atmosphere is often so very close, too. He was most polite and +sympathising; but then that's Mr. Iglesias all over. He always is the +perfect gentleman." + +Serena paused, her fork arrested in mid-transit to her mouth. + +"I am not sure that I agree with you, Rhoda," she said. "I am not sure +whether I think Mr. Iglesias is really polite, or whether he only +appears to be so because it suits his purpose. Of course you and +George know him far better than I do. Perhaps you understand--I cannot +pretend that I understand him. I may be wrong, but I often wonder +whether there is not a good deal which is rather insincere about Mr. +Iglesias." + +After throwing which bomb, Serena gave her whole attention to her +breakfast. Usually George Lovegrove would have waxed valiant in +defence of his friend, but a guilty conscience held him tongue-tied. +Not so Rhoda; strive as she might, those allusions to her age still +rankled. And, under cover of protest against injustice to the absent, +she paid off a little of her private score, to her warm satisfaction. + +"Well, I am sure," she cried, "I never could have credited that +anybody could question Mr. Iglesias's genuineness! I would sooner +doubt Georgie, that I would, and fear him deceitful." + +Again the good man came near groaning. It was as though the wife +planted a poignard in his heart. + +"And after you playing the piano to him so frequently the few days Mr. +Iglesias stopped here, and seeming so comfortable together and +friendly, and his inviting us all to the theatre! Really, I must say I +do think you sadly changeable, Serena, that I do." + +"No, I am not changeable, Rhoda," the other lady declared, both voice +and colour rising slightly. "Nobody ever accused me of being +changeable before, and I do not like it. I do not think you are at all +justified in making such an accusation. But I am observant. I always +have been so. Even Susan allows that I am very observant. I cannot +help being so, and I do not wish to help it. I think it is much safer. +It helps you to find out who you can really trust. And, of course, I +observed a great deal that happened last night. I felt from the first +that I owed it to myself to be particularly on my guard, because +certain insinuations had been made--you know, Rhoda, you have made +them more than once yourself--and some people might have thought that +things had gone rather far when Mr. Iglesias was stopping here. I +believe Mrs. Porcher and that dreadful Miss Hart did think it. I do +not say that things did go far; I only say that people might naturally +think that they had. On several occasions Mr. Iglesias' conduct did +seem very marked. And, of course, nothing could be more odious to me +than to be placed in a false position. One cannot be too careful, +especially with foreigners. Mamma always warned us against foreigners +when we first came out. I never had any experience of foreigners until +I met Mr. Iglesias, here at your house. But, I am sorry to say, I +believe now mamma was perfectly right." + +As she ended her harangue, Serena with a petulant movement of her thin +hands pushed her plate away from the table edge, leaving a vacant +space before her. This was as a declaration of war. She scorned +further subterfuge. She announced a demonstration. A bright spot of +colour burned on either cheek, her small head, on its long stalk of +neck, was carried very erect. It was one of those pathetic moments +when--the merciless revelations of the morning sunshine +notwithstanding--this slim, faded, middle-aged spinster appeared to +recapture, and that very effectively, the charm and promise of her +vanished youth. Excited by foolish anger, animated by a sense of +insult wholly misplaced and imaginary, she became a very passably +pretty person, the immature but hopeful Serena of eighteen looking +forth from the eyes of the narrow-souled disappointed Serena of eight- +and-forty. + +"Of course, George may have some explanation of what happened last +night," she went on, speaking rapidly. "If he has, I think it would be +only fair that he should offer it to me. I took for granted he would +do so this morning as soon as we met; or that he would send you to me, +Rhoda, to explain if he felt too awkward about speaking himself. But +as you both are determined to ignore what happened, I am forced to +speak. I dare say it would be much more convenient to you, knowing you +have made a mistake, to pass the whole thing over in silence. But I +really cannot consent to that. If Mr. Iglesias meant nothing all +along, then I think he has behaved disgracefully. If he did mean +something at first, and then"--the speaker gasped--"changed his mind, +he might at least have given some hint. He ought to have refused to +stop here, of course." + +"He did refuse," George Lovegrove faltered. This was really dreadful, +far worse than anything he had anticipated--and he had not a notion +what it was safe to say. "I do wish females' minds were a little less +ingenious," he commented to himself. "They see such a lot which would +never have entered my head, for instance." + +"Still, Mr. Iglesias came," cried the belligerent Serena. + +"Yes, I over-persuaded him. He was very unwilling, very so indeed, +saying that staying out was altogether foreign to his practice. But I +pointed out to him that you and the wife might feel rather mortified +if he omitted to come, having taken such an interest in his illness +and--" + +If you made use of my name, George, you took a great liberty." + +"I am very distressed to hear you say that, Serena. Both the wife and +I certainly supposed you wished him to come." + +He looked imploringly at his spouse, asking support. But for once the +large kindly countenance failed to beam responsive. A plaintive +expression overspread its surface. Then the unhappy man stared +despondently out into the misty morning sunshine, plastering down his +shiny hair with a moist and shaky hand. Even the wife turned against +him, making him feel an outcast at his own breakfast-table. He could +have wept. + +"I have been so very guarded throughout," Serena resumed, "that it is +impossible you should have the slightest excuse for using my name. +But, of course, if you have done so, my position is more than ever +odious. There is nothing for me to do but to go. Fortunately I am +going--and I am thankful. If I had followed my own inclinations, I +should have gone long ago. Then I should have been spared all this, +and nothing would have been said. Now all sorts of things may be said, +because, of course, it must all look very odd. It shows how foolish it +is to allow one's judgment to be overruled. I stayed entirely to +oblige Rhoda. And I cannot but see I have been trifled with." + +"No, no, Serena, not that--never that," her host cried distractedly. +"If I have been in the wrong, I apologise from my heart. But trifling +never entered my thoughts. How could it do so, with all the respect I +have for you and Susan? I may have been clumsy, but I acted for the +best." + +"I am afraid I cannot agree," she retorted. "It is useless to +apologise. I am sorry to tell you so, George, for I have trusted you +until now; but I do feel, and I am afraid I always shall feel, I have +been very unkindly treated by you and Rhoda." + +She rose, rustling as she spoke, the parrot, meanwhile, leaving off +preening its feathers, regarding her, its head very much on one side, +with a wicked eye. + +"No, please leave me to myself," she said. "I do not want anybody to +help me, and if I do I shall ring for the maids. I want to compose +myself before I go to Lady Samuelson's. After all this unpleasantness, +it is much better for me to be alone." + +"Good-bye, girlie, poor old girlie. Hi! p'liceman, bring a four- +wheeler," shrieked the parrot, as Serena opened and closed the dining- +room door, flapping wildly in the sunshine till the sand and seed +husks on the floor of its cage arose and whirled upwards in a crazy +little cloud. + +George Lovegrove, who had risen to his feet, sank back into his chair, +resting his elbows on the table and covering Ids face with his hands. + +"I would rather have forfeited my pension," he murmured. "I would +rather have lost a hundred pounds." + +Then raising his head he gazed imploringly at his wife. And this time +her tender heart could not resist the appeal. He had not been open +with her, but she relented, giving him opportunity to retrieve his +error. Moreover--but that naturally was a very minor consideration-- +she was bursting with curiosity. + +"Georgie," she asked solemnly, "whatever did happen last night?" + +"Mr. Iglesias met a lady friend. She sent for him to talk to her, in +the lobby, between the acts," he answered, the red deepening in his +clean fresh-coloured face. + +"Not any of that designing Cedar Lodge lot?" + +"Oh! dear no, not all," he replied, his childlike eyes full of +gratitude. He blessed the magnanimity of the wife. But speedily +embarrassment supervened. He found this subject singularly difficult +to deal with. "Not at all of their class. I confess it did surprise +me, for though I have always taken it for granted Dominic belonged to +a higher circle by birth than that in which we have known him, I had +no idea he had such aristocratic acquaintances. His looks and manner +in public, last night, made him seem fitted for any company. Still, I +was surprised." + +"Did he not introduce you?" + +"No. I cannot say he had a convenient opportunity, and the lady may +not have wished it. I could fancy she might hold herself a little +above us. But, between ourselves, I believe that was what so upset +Serena." + +"I am of opinion Mr. Iglesias is just as well without Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove declared. "I suppose she cannot help it, but her temper is +sadly uncertain. I begin to fear she would be very exacting in +marriage. But was the lady young, Georgie?" + +The good man blushed furiously. + +"Yes, under thirty, I should suppose, and very striking to look at. +Serena had called my attention to her already. She thought her over- +dressed. I am no judge of that, but I could see she was very +beautiful." + +"Oh! Georgie dear!" This in high protest. For the speaker belonged to +that section of the British public in which puritanism is even yet +deeply ingrained, with the dreary consequence that beauty, whether of +person or in art, is suspect. To admit its existence trenches on +immodesty; to speak of it openly is to skirt the edges of licence. + +George Lovegrove, however, had developed unaccustomed boldness. + +"So she was, my dear," he repeated, not squinting in the least for +once. "She was beautiful, dark and splendid, with eyes that looked +right through you, mocking and yet mournful. They made a noble couple, +she and Dominic, notwithstanding the disparity of age. As they stood +there together I felt honoured to see them both. And if Dominic +Iglesias is to have friends with whom we are unacquainted--though I +do not deny the thing hurt me a little at first--I am glad they should +be so handsome and fine. It seems to me fitting, and as if he was in +his true sphere at last." + +A silence followed this profession of faith, during which Mrs. +Lovegrove's face presented a singular study. She stared at her husband +in undisguised amazement, while the corners of her mouth and her large +soft cheeks quivered. + +"Well, I should never have expected to hear you talk so, Georgie," she +said huskily. "It seems unlike you somehow, almost as though you were +despising your own flesh and blood." + +"No, no," he answered, "I could never do that. I could never be so +forgetful of all I owe to my own family and to yours, Rhoda. I am +under deep obligations to both. But it would be dishonest to deny that +I set a wonderfully high value on Dominic Iglesias' regard, and have +done so ever since we were boys together at school. To me Dominic has +always stood by himself, I knowing how superior he was to me in mind +and in all else, so that it has been my truest honour and privilege to +be admitted to intimacy with him. But the difference between us never +came home to me as it did when I saw him in other company last night. +He is fitted for a higher position than he has ever filled yet--we all +used to allow that in old days at the bank--or for any society we can +offer him. So, though I felt humiliated in a measure, I felt glad. For +I can grudge him nothing in the way of new friends, even though they +may be differently placed to ourselves and should come between him and +me a little, making our intercourse less frequent and easy than in the +past. From my heart I wish him the very best that is going, although +it should be rather detrimental to myself." + +Mrs. Lovegrove's cheeks still quivered, but the expression of her face +was unresponsive once more, not to say obstinate. Jealousy, indeed, +possessed her. For the first time in her whole experience she realised +her husband as an individual, as a human entity independent of +herself. To contemplate him otherwise than in the marital relation was +a shock to her. She felt deserted, a potential Ariadne on Naxos. Hence +jealousy, resentment, cruel hurt. + +"Well, to be sure, what a long story!" she cried, in tones approaching +sarcasm, "and all about someone who is no relation, too! Whatever +possesses you, Georgie? You aren't a bit like yourself. It seems to me +this morning everybody's bewitched." She heaved herself up out of her +chair. "I shall go and try to make it up with Serena," she continued. +"It is only Christian charity to do so; and, poor thing, I can well +understand she may have had cause enough for mortification now I have +made out what really did take place last night." + +Usually, left alone in the dining-room, George Lovegrove would have +proceeded methodically to do a number of neat little odd jobs, humming +softly the while funny, shapeless little tunes to himself in the +fulness of his guileless content. He would have piled up the fire with +small coal and dust, thus keeping it alight but saving fuel till +luncheon-time, when one skilful stir with the poker would produce a +cheerful blaze. Then he would have proceeded to the little +conservatory opening off his box of a sanctum at the back of the +house--containing his roller-top desk, his papers, Borough Council and +parish reports, his magazines, his best and second-best overcoats hung +on pegs against the wall along with his silk hat. In the conservatory, +still humming, he would have smoked his morning pipe, feeding the +gold-fish in the small square glass tank--a tiny fountain in the +centre of which it pleased him to set playing--and later carefully +examining the ferns and other pot-plants in search of green-fly, +scale, or blight. But to-day the innocent routine of his life was +rudely broken up. He had no heart for his accustomed tidy potterings, +but lingered aimlessly, fingering the gold watch-chain strained across +the convex surface of his waistcoat, sand looking pitifully enough +between the lace curtains out on to the Green. + +The sun had climbed the sky, burning up the hoarfrost and mist, so +that the houses opposite had become clearly discernible. Presently he +beheld a tall, upright figure emerge from the front door of Cedar +Lodge. For a moment Mr. Iglesias stood at the head of the flight of +immaculately white stone steps, rolling up his umbrella and putting on +his gloves preparatory to setting forth on his morning walk. And, +watching him, a wave of humility and self-depreciation swept over +George Lovegrove's gentle and candid soul, combined with an aching or +regret that destiny had not seen fit to deal with him rather otherwise +than it actually had. He felt a great longing that he, too, were +possessed of a stately presence, brains, breeding, and handsome looks. +There stirred in him an almost impassioned craving for romance, for +escape from the interminable respectabilities and domesticities of +English middle-class suburban life. He went a step further, rebelling +against the feminine atmosphere which surrounded him, in which +"feelings" so constantly usurped the place of actions, and +suppositions that of fact. Then, the vision of a beautiful woman with +a strange rose-scarlet dress, in whose eyes sorrow struggled with +mocking laughter, once again assailed him. Who she might be, and what +her history, he most emphatically knew not; yet that she breathed a +keener and more tonic air than that to which he was habituated, that +feelings in her case did not stand for actions, or suppositions for +fact, he was fully convinced. + +"Poor old chappie, take a brandy and soda. Got the hump?"--this, +shrilly, from the parrot hanging head downwards from the roof of its +cage. + +At the sound of that at once unhuman and singularly confidential voice +close beside him, George Lovegrove gave a guilty start. + +"Yes, the wife is quite right," he said, half aloud. "If you want to +keep a happy mind there is very much of which it is as well to be +ignorant." + +Then shame covered him, for in his recent meditations and +apprehensions had he not come very near turning traitor, and being, in +imagination at all events, subtly unfaithful to that same large kindly +comfortable wife? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Two months had passed, and February was about to give place to March-- +two months empty of outward event for Dominic Iglesias, but big with +thought and consolidation of purpose. He had been more than ever +solitary during this period, for his acquaintance, even to the +faithful George Lovegrove, stood aloof. But Dominic hardly noticed +this. Though solitary, he had not been lonely, since his mind was +absorbed in question, in pursuit, in the consciousness of deepening +conviction. For the recognition not merely of religion, but of +Christianity, as a supreme factor in earthly existence, which had come +to him in the dreary December twilight, as, broken in health and in +spirit, he gazed upon the carven picture of Calvary, had proved no +fugitive experience. It remained by him, entracing his imagination and +satisfying both his heart and his intelligence; so that he looked back +upon the hour of his despair thankfully, seeing in it the starting- +point of a journey the prosecution of which promised not only to be +the main occupation of his remaining years here in time, but, the +river of death once crossed, to stretch onward and onward through +realms, at present inconceivable, of beauty, of knowledge, and of +love. And so, for the moment, solitude was sweet to him, leaving him +free of petty cares and anxieties--he moving forward, ignorant of the +gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine +plots and counterplots of which his blameless bachelorhood was at +once the provoking cause and the object; while in his eyes--though of +this, too, he was ignorant--dwelt increasingly reflection of that +mysterious and lovely light which, let obstinately purblind man deny +it as he may, lies forever along the far horizon, for comfort of godly +wayfarers and as beacon of the elect. + +Yet it must not be supposed that the outset of Iglesias' spiritual +journey was wholly serene, free from obstacle or hesitation, from risk +of untoward selection, or rejection, of the safe way. Many roads, and +those bristling with contradictory signposts, presented themselves. +Noisy touts, each crying up his own special mode and means of +conveyance, rushed forth at every turn. + +Modern Protestantism, as he encountered it in the pages of popular +newspapers and magazines, at Mrs. Porcher's dinner-table, or in the +good Lovegroves' drawing-room, had small attraction for him, since it +appeared to advance chiefly by negations stated with rather blatant +self-sufficiency and self-conceit. It might tend to the making of +respectable municipal councillors; but, in his opinion, it was idle to +pretend that it tended to the making of saints--and for the saints, +those experts in the divine science, Iglesias confessed a weakness. Of +spirituality it showed, to his seeing, as little outward evidence as +of philosophy or of art. The phrases of piety might still be upon the +lips of its votaries; but the attitude and aspirations engendered by +piety were unfortunately dead. Its system of ethics was frankly +utilitarian. Its goal, though hidden from the simple by a maze of +high-sounding sentiment, was Rationalism pure and simple. Its god was +not the creator of the visible universe, of angels and archangels, +dominions, principalities, and powers, of incalculable natural and +supernatural forces, but a jerky loose-jointed pasteboard divinity, +the exclusive possession, since it is the exclusive invention, of the +Anglo-Saxon race, through whose gaping mouth any and every self- +elected prophet was free to shout, as heaven-descended truth, in the +name of progress and liberty, whatever political or social catchword +chanced to be the fashion of the hour. + +Nor did the neo-mystics, whose utterances are also sown broadcast in +contemporary literature and who are so lavish with their offers of +divine enlightenment, please Iglesias any better. For his mind, thanks +to his Latin ancestry, was of the logical order, while a business +training and long knowledge of affairs had taught him the value of +method, giving him an unalterable reverence for fact, and impressing +upon him the existence of law, absolute and immutable, in every +department of nature and of human activity--law, to break which is to +destroy the sequence of cause and effect, and so procure abortion. +Therefore this new school of thinkers--if one can dignify by the name +of thinkers persons of so vague and topsy-turvy a mental habit-- +nourishing themselves upon the windy meat of secular and time-exploded +fallacies, upon the temple-sweepings of all the religions, oriental +and occidental, old and new, combined with ill-attested marvels of +modern physical and psychological experiment, were far from commending +themselves to his calm and patient judgment. Such excited persons, as +a slight acquaintance with history proves beyond all question, have +existed in every age; and, suffering from chronic mental dyspepsia, +have ever been liable to mistake the rumblings of internal flatulence +for the Witness of the Spirit. In their current pronouncements +Iglesias met with a wearisome passion for paradox, and an equally +wearisome disposition to hail all eccentricity as genius, all hysteria +as inspiration. While in their exaltation of the "sub-conscious self" +--namely, of those blind movements of instinct and foreboding common +to +the lower animals and to savage or degenerate man alike--as against +the intellect and the reasoned action of the will, he saw a menace to +human attainment, to civilisation--in the best meaning of that word-- +to right reason and noble living, which it would be difficult to +overestimate. These good people, while pouring contempt on the body, +and even denying its existence, in point of fact thought and talked +about little else. All of which struck him as not only very tiresome +and very silly, but very dangerous. Modern Protestantism might +eventuate in Rationalism, in a limiting of human endeavour exclusively +to the end of material well-being. But this worship of the pseudo- +sciences, this tinkering at the accepted foundations and accepted +decencies of the social order, this cultivation of intellectual and +moral chaos, could, for the vast majority of its professors at all +events, eventuate only in the mad-house. And to the mad-house, whether +by twentieth-century esoteric airship or occult subway, Dominic +Iglesias had not the very smallest desire to go. + +For he had no ambition to be "on time" and up-to-date, to electrify +either himself or his contemporaries by an exhibition of mental +smartness. He merely desired, earnestly yet humbly, to be given grace +to find the road--however archaic in the eyes of the modern world that +road might be--which leads to the light on the far horizon and beyond +to the presence of God. The more he meditated on these things the more +inconceivable it became to him but that this road veritably existed; +and that, not by labour of man, but by everlasting ordinance of God. +It was absurd, in face of a state of being so complex, so highly +organised, so universally subjected to law, as the one in which he +found himself, that a matter of such supreme importance as the channel +of intercourse between the soul and its Maker should have been left to +haphazard accident or blundering of lucky chance. And so, having +supplemented his researches in print, by listening to the discourses +of many teachers, from one end of London to the other in lecture-hall, +chapel, and church, having even stood among the crowds which gather +around itinerant preachers in the Park, Dominic found his thought +fixing itself with deepening assurance upon the communion in which he +had been born and baptised, which his father, in the interests of the +revolutionary propaganda, had so bitterly repudiated, and from which +his mother, broken by the tyranny of circumstance and bodily weakness, +had lapsed. + +Outside that communion he beheld only weltering seas of prejudice and +conflicting opinion, heard only the tumult of confused and acrimonious +contest. Within he beheld the calm of fearlessly wielded authority and +of loyal obedience; heard the awed silence of those who worship being +glad. For the Catholic Church, as Iglesias began to understand, is +something far greater than any triumphant example of that which can be +attained by cooperation and organisation. It is not an organisation, +but an organism; a Living Being, perfectly proportioned, with inherent +powers of development and growth; ever-existent in the Divine Mind +before Time was; recipient and guardian of the deepest secrets, the +most sacred mysteries of existence; endlessly adaptable to changing +conditions yet immutably the same. Hence it is that Catholicism +presents no questionable historic pedigree and speaks with no +uncertain voice. Claiming not only to know the road the soul must +tread would it reach the far horizon, but to be the appointed warden +of that same road and sustainer of it, she points with proud +confidence to the vast multitude which, under her guidance, has +joyfully trodden it--a multitude as diverse in gifts and estate, as in +age and race--as proof of the authenticity of her mission to the +toiling and sorrowful children of men. + +Yet, since unconditional surrender must ever strike a pretty shrewd +blow at the roots both of personal pride and worldly caution, Dominic +Iglesias hesitated to take the final step and declare himself. To one +who has long lived outside the creeds, and that not ungodly, still +less bestially, it is no light matter to subject attitude of mind and +daily habit to distinct rule. Not only does the natural man rebel +against the apparent limiting of his personal freedom, but the +conventional and sophisticated man fears lest agreement should, after +all, spell weakness, while indifferentism--specially in outward +observances--argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld +Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It +was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his +needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and +diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, +decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those +undertaking them is a sincere one--and thus. + +The tide of war had begun to turn. Earlier in the week had come the +news of General Cronje's surrender, after the three days' shelling of +his laager at Paardeberg. Hence satisfaction, not only of victory but +of compassion, since a sense of horror had weighed on the hearts of +even the least sentimental at thought of the stubborn thousands, +penned in that flaming rat-trap of the dry river-bed, ringed about by +sun-baked rock and sand and death-belching guns. To-day came news of +the relief of long-beleaguered Ladysmith, and London was shaken by +emotion, under the bleak moisture-laden March sky, the air thick with +the clash of joy-bells, buildings gay with riotous outbreak of many- +coloured flags, the streets vibrant with the tread and voices of +surging crowds. + +Iglesias, who early that afternoon had walked Citywards to see the +holiday aspect of the town and glean the latest war news, growing +somewhat weary on his homeward journey of the humours of his fellow- +citizens--which became beery and boisterous as the day drew on--turned +in at the open gates of the Oratory, in passing along the Brompton +Road. His purpose was to gain a little breathing space from the +jostling throng, by standing at the head of the steps under the wide +portico of the great church. Looking westward, above the wedge of mean +and ill-assorted houses that marks the junction of the Fulham and the +Cromwell Roads--the muddy pavements of which, far as the eye carried, +were black with people--the yellowish glare of a pallid sunset spread +itself across the leaden dulness of the sky. The wan and sickly light +touched the architrave and columns of the facade of the great church, +bringing this and the statue of the Blessed Virgin which surmounts it +into a strange and phantasmal relief--a building not material and of +this world, but rather of a city of dreams. To Iglesias it appeared as +though there was an element of menace in that cold and melancholy +reflection of the sunset. It produced in him a sense of insecurity and +distrust, which the roar of the traffic and horseplay of the crowd +were powerless to counteract. London, the monstrous mother, in this +hour of her rejoicing showed singularly unattractive. Her features +were grimed with soot, her dull-hued garments foul with slush, her +gestures were common, her laughter coarse. His soul revolted from the +sight and sound of her; revolted against the fate which had bound him +so closely to her in the past, and which bound him still. The spirit +of her infected even the sky above her, painting it with the sad +colours of perplexity and doubt. He stepped farther back under the +portico, moved by desire to escape from the too insistent thought and +spectacle of her. Doing so, he became aware of music reaching him +faintly from behind the closed doors of the church, fine yet sonorous +harmonies supporting the radiant clarity of a boy's voice. + +Then Iglesias understood that he was presented here and immediately +with the moment of final choice. Delay was dishonourable, since it was +nothing less than a shirking of the obligations which his convictions +had created. So there, on the one hand--for so the whole matter +pictured itself to his seeing--was London, the type, as she is in fact +the capital, of the modern world--of its ambitions, material and +social, of its activities, of its amazing association of pleasure and +misery, of the rankest poverty and most plethoric wealth--at once +formless, sprawling, ugly, vicious, while magnificent in intelligence, +in vitality, in display, as in actual area and bulk. On the other +hand, and in the eyes of the majority phantasmal as a city of dreams, +was Holy Church, austere, restrictive, demanding much yet promising +little save clean hands and a pure heart, until the long and difficult +road is traversed which--as she declares--leads to the light on the +far horizon and beyond to the presence of God. + +"If one could be certain of that last, then all would be simple and +easy," Iglesias said to himself, looking out over the turbulence of +the streets to the pallid menace of the western sky. "But it is in the +nature of things, that one cannot be certain. Certainty, whether for +good or evil, can only come after the event. One must take the risk. +And the risk is great, almost appallingly great." + +For just then there awoke and cried in him all the repressed and +frustrated pride of a man's life--lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, +overweening ambition of power and place, of cruelty even, of gross +licence and debauch. For the moment he ceased to be an individual, +limited by time and circumstances, and became, in desire, the +possessor of the passions and reckless curiosity of the whole human +race. So that, in imagination he suffered unexampled temptations; and, +in resisting them, flung aside unexampled allurements of grandeur and +conceivable delight. Not what actually was, or ever had been, possible +to and for him, Dominic Iglesias, bank-clerk, assailed him with +provocative vision and voice; but the whole pageant of earthly being, +and the inebriation of it. Nothing less than this did he behold, and +drink of, and, in spirit, repudiate and put away forever, as at last +he pulled open the heavy swing doors and passed into the church. + +Within all was dim, mist and incense smoke obscuring the roof of the +great dome, the figures of the kneeling congregation far below showing +small and dark. Only the high altar was ablaze with many lights, in +the centre of which, high-uplifted, encircled by the golden rays of +the monstrance, pale, mysterious, pearl of incalculable price, showed +the immaculate Host. + +Quietly yet fearlessly, as one who comes by long-established right, +Dominic walked the length of the nave, knelt devoutly on both knees, +prostrating himself as, long ago, in the days of early childhood his +mother had taught him to do at the Exposition of the Blessed +Sacrament. Now, after all these years--and a sob rose in his throat-- +he seemed to feel her hand upon his shoulder, the gentle pressure of +which enjoined deepest reverence. Then rising, he took his place in +the second row of seats on the gospel side, and remained there, +through the concluding acts of the ceremonial, until the silent +congregation suddenly finds voice--penetrated by austere emotion--in +recitation of the Divine Praises. + +Some minutes later he knelt in the confessional, laying bare the +secrets of his heart. + +Thus did Dominic Iglesias cast off the bondage of that monstrous +mother, London-town, cast off the terror of those unbidden companions, +Loneliness and Old Age, using and, taking the risks, humbly reconcile +himself to Holy Church. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Good George Lovegrove wandered solitary in Kensington Gardens. He had +chosen the lower path running parallel with Kensington Gore, which +leads, between flowerborders and thickset belts of shrubbery, from the +Broad Walk to the railings enclosing the open space around the Albert +Memorial. This path, being sheltered and furnished with many green +garden seats, is specially nurse and baby haunted, and it was to see +the babies, whether sturdily on foot or seated in their little +carriages, that George Lovegrove had come hither, being sad. Thrushes +sang lustily from the treetops. The flowerborders grew resplendent +with polyanthus, crocus yellow, purple, and white, with early +daffodils, and the heaven blue of _scilla sibirica_. Above, here +and there a froth of almond or cherry blossom overspread the dark +twigs and branches, while a ruddiness of burgeoning buds flushed the +great elms. But babies of position, looking like tiny pink-faced polar +bears, still wore their long leggings and white furs, the March wind +being treacherous. They galloped, trumpeting, the clean air and merry +sunshine going to their heads in the most inebriating fashion. It was +early, moreover, so that they were full of the energy of a good +night's sleep, of breakfast, and of comfortable nursery warmth. And +George Lovegrove stepped among them carefully, watching their gambols +moist-eyed, nervously anxious lest his quaintly solid figure should +obstruct the erratic progress of toy-horse, or hoop, or ball. He +craved for notice, for even the veriest scrap of friendly recognition, +yet was too diffident to attempt any direct intercourse with these +delectable small personages, who, on their part, were royally +indifferent to his existence so long as he did not get in their way. +This he clearly perceived, yet for it bore them no ill-will, +preferring, as does every truly devout lover, to worship the beloved +from a respectful distance rather than not worship at all. + +And it was thus, even as a large and dusky elephant picking its way +very gently through a flock of skippeting and lively lambs, that Mr. +Iglesias, entering the sheltered walk from the far end, first caught +sight of him. To Dominic, it must be admitted, babies, song-birds, +burgeoning buds and blossoms, alike presented themselves as but +elements in the setting of the outward scene--a scene sweet enough had +one leisure to contemplate it, touched by the genial vernal influence, +witness to nature's undying youth. But his appreciation of that +sweetness was just now cursory and indirect. His thought was absorbed +and eager, penetrated by apprehension of matters lying above and +beyond the range of ordinary human speech. For he was in that exalted +interval of a many hours' fast when the spiritual intelligence is +wholly alive and awake, the body becoming but the vesture of the soul +--a vesture without impediment or weight, a beautifully negligible +quantity in the general scheme of existence. Later reaction sets in. +The claims of the body become dominant; and the exalted moment is too +often paid for sorrowfully enough in sluggish brain and irritated +nerves. Dominic, however, had not reached that stage of the +tragi-comedy of the marriage of flesh and spirit. He was happy, +with the white unearthly happiness of those who have been admitted +to the Sacred Mysteries. And it was not without a sense of shock, +as of rough descent to common things, of pity and of regret, that he +recognised good George Lovegrove cruising thus, elephantine, among the +roystering babes. Then Iglesias checked himself sternly. To humble +themselves, remembering their own great unworthiness, to come down +from the Mount of Transfiguration to the dwellers in the plain, and be +gentle and human towards them--this surely is the primary duty of +those who have assisted at the Divine Sacrament? And so Iglesias went +forward and hailed his old school-fellow in all tenderness and +friendship, causing the latter to raise his eyes from pathetic +contemplation of those charming but wholly self-absorbed small human +animals, and look up. + +"Dominic!" he cried. "Well, to be sure, you do surprise me. Who would +have expected to meet you out at this hour of the morning? I do +congratulate myself. I am pleased," he said. His honest face beamed, +his fresh colour deepened. As a girl at the unlooked-for advent of her +lover, he grew confused and shy. And Iglesias warmed towards him. +Whimsical in appearance, simple-minded, not greatly skilled in any +sort of learning, yet he had a heart of gold--about that there could +be no manner of doubt. + +"Turn back then, and let us walk together," Iglesias said +affectionately. "It is a long while since we have had a quiet talk-- +that is, of course, if you have no particular business which calls you +to town." + +"I have no business of any description," he answered. "And between +ourselves, Dominic, since I lost my seat on the borough council, I +have had too much time on my hands, I think. It is beginning to be +quite a trouble with me." + +"Is life too softly padded, too dead-level easy and comfortable?" +Iglesias inquired. "Are you beginning to quarrel a little with your +blessings?" + +George Lovegrove became very serious. + +"Yes," he said, "I am afraid you are right. As usual you have laid +your finger on the spot. I do reproach myself for unthankfulness +often. I know I have a good home, and everything decent and +respectable about me; more so, indeed, than a man in my position has +any right to expect. And yet I regret the old days in the city, +Dominic, that I do. I should enjoy to be back at my old desk at the +bank--just the little snap of anxiety in the morning as to whether +one would catch the 'bus; the long ride through the streets with one's +morning paper; the turning out with the other clerks--good fellows all +of them, on the whole, were they not?--to get a snack of lunch. And +then the coming home at night, with some trifling present or dainty to +please the wife; and a look round the greenhouse and garden afterwards +in your lounge suit; and hearing and retailing all the day's news, and +talking of the good time coming when you would retire and be quite the +independent gentleman; and the half-day on Saturday, too, taking some +nice little outing to Richmond or Kew, or an exhibition or something +of the sort, and then the Sunday's rest." + +He hesitated and sighed, looking wistfully at the white-clad babies. + +"If one had two or three of those little people of one's own it might +be very different--though I would never breathe a word of such a +thought to the wife. Females are so easily upset; and if it raises +regrets in us men, it must be much more trying for them, poor things, +to be childless. But where was I? Yes, well now the good time has +come--and I feel a criminal in saying so, but it appears to me to be +growing stale already, Dominic. It was better in anticipation than in +fact. I am an ungrateful fellow, that I am, I know it; but sometimes I +am inclined to ask myself whether all the things we set such fond +hopes on are not like that." + +"No, not all," Iglesias answered, with a certain subdued enthusiasm. +"There are things--a few--which never grow stale. One may build on +them as on a foundation of rock. If they ever seem to fail us, to be +shaken and overthrown, it is an evil delusion, and the cause lies not +in them but in ourselves. It is we who fail, who are shaken and +overthrown through palsied will and feebleness of faith. They remain +forever inviolate." + +"I suppose so," the other man said timidly. He was unused to such +vehemence of assertion on the part of his friend. He wondered to what +it could refer. His thought, carrying back to the evening at the +theatre, played around visions of distinguished amours. Then he +steadied himself to heroic resolve. + +"I suppose it is," he repeated, "and that makes my conduct appear all +the more discreditable to me. My circumstances are too comfortable and +easy. It is just that. And so I take to fretting over trifles and +seeing slights and unkindness where none were intended." He looked up +at Iglesias, his squinting eyes full of apology and admiration. "Yes, +I am sadly poor-spirited and I have no excuse. I have been nursing a +sense of injury towards those to whom I have most occasion for +gratitude--the wife and you. Dominic, believe me I am heartily ashamed +of myself." + +"Come, come," Iglesias answered, brought very much back to earth, yet +touched and softened. "My dear friend, you of all men have small cause +for self-reproach. In every relation of life--and our knowledge of one +another dates back to early youth--I have found you perfect in loyalty +and unselfish kindness." + +George Lovegrove walked on for a moment in silence. He had to clear +his throat once or twice before he could command his voice. + +"Praise from you is very encouraging," he managed to say at last. "But +I am afraid I do not deserve it. I have felt mortified lately +sometimes, and I am afraid envious. I--but after your last words I am +more than ever ashamed to own it--I have fancied that you were +becoming distant and that an estrangement was growing up between us. +Of course I have always understood, though we happened to be school- +fellows and in the same employment afterward, that your position and +mine were different. And I want you to know that I would never be a +clog on you, Dominic"--he spoke with an admirably simple dignity-- +"believe me, I never would be that. Lately I have been troubled by the +thought that I had extracted a promise from you to remain at Trimmer's +Green. Now I beg of you most earnestly not to let that promise, given +in a moment of generous indulgence, weigh with you in the slightest, +if circumstances have arisen which point at your residing in a more +fashionable part of the town." + +"But why should I want to go to a more fashionable part of London?" +Iglesias asked, smiling. + +"Well, you see," the other returned, his face growing furiously red, +"it came to my knowledge, unexpectedly, that you have acquaintances in +quite another walk of life to ours--the wife's and mine, I mean. And +it would pain me deeply, very deeply, Dominic, that any promise given +to me, regarding your place of residence, should stand between you and +mixing as freely with those acquaintances as you might otherwise do." + +They had come to the place where the sheltered pathway is crossed by +the Broad Walk--the upward trend of which showed blond, in the +sunshine, against the brilliant green of the grass and the dark boles +of the great trees bordering it. Here Iglesias paused. He was not +altogether pleased. + +"I do not quite follow you," he said coldly. Then looking at the +guileless and faithful being beside him, he softened once more. Was it +not only more just, but more honourable, to treat this matter with +candour? "You are alluding to the lady who was good enough to send for +me the night you and Miss Lovegrove went with me to the play?" + +"Yes," the excellent George assented in a strangled voice. He wanted +to know badly. He was agonised by fear of having committed an +indiscretion offensive to his idol. + +"Set your mind quite at rest on that point then, my dear friend. Her +world is not my world and never will be. In it I should be very much +out of place." + +Iglesias moved forward again, crossing the Broad Walk and making +towards the small iron gate, at the lower corner of the Gardens, which +opens on to Kensington High Street. But he walked slowly, becoming +conscious that he grew tired and spent. The glory of the spirit +dominant was departing, the tyranny of the body dominant beginning to +reassert itself. His features contracted slightly. He felt +unreasoningly sad. + +George Lovegrove walked beside him in silence, his eyes downcast, his +heart stirred by vague tumultuous sympathy, his modest nature at once +inflamed and abashed, recognising in his companion the hero of an +exalted and tragic romance. + +"Well, he looks it. It suits his character and appearance," he said to +himself, adding aloud--for the very life of him he could not help it-- +"But she was very beautiful, Dominic." + +"Yes," Iglesias answered, "she is beautiful and very clever and--very +unhappy." + +The good George's heart positively thumped against his ribs. "And to +think of all the plans the wife and I have been making!" he said to +himself. + +"If she wants me, she will send for me," Iglesias continued quietly, +"and I shall go to her at once, as I went that evening, without +hesitation or delay, wherever she may be. But," he added, "it becomes +increasingly improbable that she will send for me. I have not seen her +or heard from her since that night. And so, my dear friend, you +perceive that your kindly fears of having circumscribed my liberty of +choice in respect of a place of residence are quite unfounded. I have +no reason for leaving Cedar Lodge or altering my accustomed habits." + +Iglesias smiled affectionately, as dismissing the whole matter. + +"And now," he continued, "that little misunderstanding being cleared +up, will you mind my turning into the restaurant just here, in High +Street, for a cup of coffee and a roll? I have not breakfasted yet." + +Whereupon George Lovegrove pranced before him, incoherent in kindly +remonstrance and advice. + +"At 11 A. M., and after your severe indisposition at Christmas, too, +out walking on an empty stomach! It is positively suicidal. Where have +you been to?" he cried. + +"To Mass," Iglesias answered, still smiling, though with something of +a fighting light in his eyes and a lift of his head. + +His companion stared at him in blank amazement. + +"To what?" he said. + +"To Mass," Iglesias repeated. "I have been waiting for a suitable +opportunity to speak to you of this, George. I, too, have felt the +weight of enforced leisure. It has not been a particularly cheerful +experience; but it has given me time to read, and still more to think, +with the consequence that I have returned to the faith of my +childhood. I have made my peace with the Church." + +They continued to walk slowly onward; but George Lovegrove drew away +to the further side of the path as though contact might be dangerous, +as though infection was hanging about. He kept his eyes averted, his +head bent. + +"You do surprise me," he said at last. "I had not the slightest +inkling that you were contemplating such a step. I give you my word, +you have fairly taken away my breath. I do not seem to be able to +grasp it, that you, whom I have always looked up to as so mentally +superior, so independent in your thought, should have become a +Romanist--for that is your meaning, I take it, Dominic?" + +"Yes, that is my meaning," Iglesias answered. + +"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove said again presently, and in a +lamentable voice. "My mind refuses to grasp it. I would rather have +lost five hundred pounds than have heard this. I declare I am fairly +unmanned. I have never received a greater shock." + +Iglesias remained silent. He was weary and sad. But he straightened +himself, trying to keep his gaze fixed steadily upon the far horizon +where dwells the everlasting light. + +"It is presumptuous in me to criticise your action, perhaps," his +companion continued. "I never did such a thing before, having always +hesitated to set up my views against yours; but I cannot but fear you +have made a sad mistake. And if you were contemplating any change of +this kind, why did you not come into our own national English Church?" + +"Very much because it is English and national, I think," he answered. +"In my opinion there is an inherent falsity of conception in +subjecting our approach to the Absolute to restrictions imposed by +country or by race, if these can, by any means, be avoided. Why hamper +yourself with a late, expurgated, and mutilated edition, when the +original, in all its splendour and historic completeness, bearing the +sign-manual of the Author, is there ready to your hand?" + +Again Iglesias spoke with subdued but unmistakable enthusiasm. The two +friends had just reached the iron gate leading into High Street. Here +George Lovegrove stopped. He still kept carefully at a distance, +averting his eyes as from some distressing, even disgraceful, sight, +while his good honest face worked with emotion. + +"I think if you will kindly excuse me, I will go no farther," he +faltered. "What you say may be true--I am sure I don't know. It is all +beyond me. But I should prefer not to talk any more about it until I +have accustomed myself to the thought of this change in you. Nothing +does come between people like religion," he added with unconscious +irony. "So I think, if you will kindly excuse me, I will just go away, +Dominic." + +And, without more ado, he turned back into the Gardens. + +The small polar bears, meanwhile, satiated with exercise, air, and +light, had begun to grow restive and fretty. Their stomachs cried +cupboardwards, and they were disposed to filch each other's toy horses +and hoops, and use each other's small persons as targets for balls, +thrown as bombs in a fashion far from polite. Anxious maids and nurses +hunted them homewards, not without slight asperity on the one part, on +the other occasional squealings and free fights. But upon the babies, +engaging even in naughtiness, George Lovegrove had ceased to bestow +any attention. He went forward blindly, cruising among them and their +attendants and smart little carriages, elephantine, careless where he +placed his feet, to the obstruction of traffic and heightening of +general annoyance, as sorrowful a man as any would need to meet. For +it seemed to him things had gone wrong, just then, past all hope of +setting right. His idol, light of his eyes and joy of his guileless +heart, has fallen from his high estate, discovering capacity of +playing the most discreditable and soul-harrowing pranks. Prejudice is +myriad-lived here on earth; and in George Lovegrove all the bigotry, +all the semi-superstitious, terror fostered by the accumulated +ignorance which generations of Protestant forefathers have bequeathed +to the English middle-class, reared itself, not only stubborn, but +militant. His thought travelled back to those barbarities of rougher +ages which are, in point of fact, more common to the secular than to +the religious criminal code; but which Protestant teachers, even yet, +find it convenient to put down wholly to the account of the Catholic +Church. Practically ignorant of the spoliation and persecution +practised under Henry the Eighth--of blessed domestic memory--of the +further persecution which disfigured the "spacious days of great +Elizabeth," not to mention the long and shameful history of the Penal +Laws, he fixed his mind upon lurid legends of the reign of unhappy +Mary Tudor, illustrated by prints in Fox's Book of Martyrs; upon +inquisitorial tortures, the very thought of which--even out of doors +in the pleasant spring sunshine--made him break into a heavy sweat, +and which, by some grotesque perversion of ideas, he believed to be +not only the necessary outcome of, but vitally essential to, the +practice of the Faith. Against this hideous background he set the calm +and stately figure of his beloved friend Iglesias--seeing him no +longer as the faithful comrade of more than half a lifetime, but as a +foreign being, an unknown quantity, a worshipper of graven images, a +participant in blasphemous rites, a believer, in short, in just all +that which sound, respectable, and godly British common sense cast +forth, with scorn and contumely, close on four centuries back. He was +frightened. His everyday, comfortable, jog-trot, little odd and end of +a local parochial suburban middle-class world was literally turned +upside down and inside out. + +"And however will the wife take it--however will she take it?" he +mourned to himself. "To think we have been harbouring a Papist in +disguise! I dare not contemplate her feelings. She will be upset. I +must keep it from her as long as possible. And Serena, too, and Susan! +I don't know how I can face them. Females are so very eloquent when +put out. Of course I have known there was something wrong for a long +time past. I saw there was a change in him, and felt there was some +cause of coldness; but it never entered my head it could be as bad as +this. Oh! my poor, dear friend. Oh! my poor Dominic, perhaps I have +been overattached to you and this comes as a judgment. It would be +hard enough to have anything break up our friendship, but this folly, +this dreadful doting apostasy--" + +He walked on blindly along the sheltered path between the flower- +borders, deaf to remonstrant nurses and scornful, beautiful babes +clothed in spotless white. + +"If anything must come between us I would rather it was a woman," he +mourned, "ten thousand times rather, whoever and whatever she was, +than this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +It happened on the afternoon of that same day that Eliza Hart, in +pursuance of her domestic avocations, had occasion to go into Mr. +Farge's room on the first floor to lay out a new coverlet on his bed. +When, as thus, compelled to enter the apartments of either of the +gentlemen guests of the establishment it was her practice to leave the +door half open, as a concession to propriety in the abstract and a +testimony to her own discretion in the concrete. The handsome mahogany +doors of Cedar Lodge, unhappily painted white by some vandal of a +former inhabitant, being heavy were hung on a rising hinge. Hence, +when half open, a space of some three inches was left between the back +of the door and the jamb, through which it was easy to get a good view +of the hall or the landing unobserved. Little Mr. Farge professed a +warm predilection for gay colours, and Eliza had selected the new +bedspread with an eye to this fact. It was of bright raspberry-red +cotton twill, enriched with a broad printed border in a flowing design +of lemon-yellow tulips and bottle-green leaves. The salesman, in +exhibiting it to her, had described it as "very chaste and pleasing." +Eliza herself qualified it as "tasty"; and had just disposed it, much +to her own satisfaction, upon the young man's bed, when her attention +was arrested by the tones of an unknown feminine voice in the hall +below. Shortly afterwards she heard Frederick, the valet's large +footsteps hurtling upstairs at a double, followed by a prolonged and +leisurely whispering of silken skirts. Here, clearly, was a matter +into which, for the reputation of Cedar Lodge, it was desirable to +look without delay. Eliza, therefore, moved to the near side of the +door, and, through the three-inch aperture afforded by the rising +hinge, raked the landing with a vigilant eye. + +The door of Mr. Iglesias's sitting-room immediately opposite stood +open. In the doorway Frederick indulged in explanatory gesticulation. +While, slowly ascending the last treads of the stairs, was a lady of +unmistakable elegance, arrayed in a large black hat with drooping +plumes to it, a sable cape--the price of which, Eliza felt assured, +ran easily into three figures--and a black cloth dress in the cut of +which she read the last word of contemporary fashion. Arrived at the +stair-head the intruder stood still, calmly surveying her surroundings, +presenting, as she turned her head, a pale face, very red lips, and +eyes--so at least it appeared to the vigilant orbs of Eliza--quite +immodestly large and lustrous, melancholy and somehow extremely +impertinent, too. Then Mr. Iglesias emerged from his sitting-room, an +expression upon his countenance which startled Eliza. She very +certainly had never seen it before. For a moment the lady looked up at +him, as though silently asking some question. Then she patted him +lightly upon the back, and passed into the sitting-room hand in hand +with him, while Frederick with his best flourish closed the door. + +"Well, of all the things!" cried Eliza, half aloud; and, oblivious +both of discretion and of the new raspberry-red cotton twill coverlet, +she backed, and sat, plump, upon the edge of the bed. Just then, as +she asserted in subsequently recounting this remarkable incident, you +might have knocked her down with a feather. + +"Of all the things!" she repeated, after an interval of breathless +amazement. "And how long has this been going on, I should like to +know? So that is the reason of a certain gentleman's iciness, and his +stand-offish high-mightiness. Well, I never! And poor darling Peachie, +so trustful and confiding all the time; not that she need fear +comparison with anybody.--Bah! the serpent." + +Nevertheless she was deeply impressed, and fell into a vein of furious +speculation as to who this unlooked-for smart lady might be. Then, +suddenly remembering the highly compromising nature of her own +existing position sitting not only in the lively little Farge's bed- +chamber, but actually upon his bed, she rose with embarrassment and +haste, and made her way downstairs to the offices--treading +circumspectly in dread of creaking boards--to interview Frederick. But +from that functionary she obtained scant information. + +"Zee lady she ask for Mr. Iglesias. I tell her I go to find him. I put +her in zee drawing-room." + +"Quite right, Frederick,"--this encouragingly from Eliza. + +"But she no stay zere. She come again out quick. She not any name, not +any visiting card give; only write somezing, very fast, on a piece of +paper and screw it togezzer. Zen she not wait till I return, but +behind me upstairs chase." + +So there was nothing for it, as the great Eliza perceived, but to +retire to the drawing-room, and--Mrs. Porcher happened to be out--note +the hour and, with the door discreetly half open, await the descent of +the intruder from the floor above. + +"I can just catch darling Peachie, too," she said to herself, "and +draw her aside. To meet such a person unexpectedly, on the stairs or +in the hall, would be enough to make her turn quite faint." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Poppy St. John laid her hands lightly on Mr. Iglesias' shoulders and +smiled at him. She looked very young, yet very worn; and the corners +of her mouth shook. + +"If you were anybody else," she said, "I believe I should give you a +kiss. But I am not going to, so don't be nervous, dear man. I'll be +perfectly correct, I promise you--only I had to come. I have been +good, absolutely tiptop beastly good, I tell you. I have washed the +slate. It is as clean as a vacuum, as the inside of an exhausted +receiver. And I feel as dull as empty space before the creation got +started." + +Poppy shivered a little, putting one hand over her eyes, and resting +her head with its great black hat and sweeping plumes against Mr. +Iglesias' chest. And Iglesias quietly put his arm round her, +supporting her. The day had been full of experiences. This last, +though of a notably different complexion to the rest, promised to be +by no means the least searching and surprising. Iglesias steadied +himself to take it quite calmly, in his stride; yet his jaw grew rigid +and his face blanched in dread of that which might be coming. + +"I have sent Alaric Barking about his business," Poppy continued +hoarsely. "Sent him back to his soldiering, helped to cart him off to +that rotten hole, South Africa. He is a smart officer, and he'll make +a name, if he don't get shot. And he won't get shot--I should feel it +in my bones if he was going to, and I don't feel it. I broke with him +more than a month ago. But I had to see him again to say good-bye, +this morning, before he sailed." + +Poppy moved a step or two away, turning her back on Iglesias. + +"And it hurt a jolly lot more than I expected. I don't suppose I am in +love"--she looked around inquiringly at him, as though expecting him +to solve the complicated problem of her affections. "It's not likely +at this time of day, is it? But I was fonder of Alaric than I quite +knew. He is a good sort, and we have had some ripping times together. +He had become a sort of habit, you know; and when you have knocked +about a lot, as I have, you get rather sick at the notion of any +change." + +She stood, looking down, leisurely unbuttoning and pulling off her +long gloves. + +"I don't know that I should have made up my mind to sack him in the +end, but that I wanted to please Fallowfeild." + +Mr. Iglesias became very tall. His expression was hard, his eyes +alight. This the lady noted. She returned and patted him gently on the +back again. + +"There, there, don't sail off on a wrong tack, my beloved fire-eater. +Fallowfeild was quite right. The game was up, really it was; and he +wanted me to walk out, like the gentlemanlike dog, so as to avoid +being kicked out. I always knew the break was bound to come some time; +and it's a long sight pleasanter to break than to be broken with, +don't you think so?--You see, Alaric has formed a virtuous +attachment." Poppy's lips took a cynical twist. "It was time, high +time, he should, if he meant to go in for that line of business at +all. The young lady is a niece of Fallowfeild's--a pretty little +girl, really quite pretty--I saw her that night we were both at the +play--all new, and pink and white, and well-bred, and _ingénue_, +and in every respect perfectly suitable." + +Poppy looked mutinously, even mischievously, at Dominic Iglesias. + +"Poor, dear old Alaric," she said. "I don't quarrel with him. His +elder brother's no children, and there are pots and pots of money. +That he should want to marry, and that his people should press it on +him, is perfectly natural, and obvious, and proper." + +"But," Dominic asked fiercely, "if this young man, Captain Barking, +proposes to marry, why has he not married you--always supposing you +were willing to entertain his suit?" + +Poppy flung her long gloves upon the table, unhooked her sable cape +and sent it flying to join them. + +"Pou-ah! I'm hot!" she exclaimed. "I think I'll sit down, if you have +no objection. Yes, that chair, thanks--it looks excellently +comfortable. By the way, you've got an uncommonly nice lot of things +in this room. I am going to make a tour of inspection presently. It +pleases me frightfully to see where you live and look at your +possessions." She stared absently at the furniture and pictures.--"But +about my marrying Alaric Barking," she continued. "Well, you see--you +see, dear man, there is an inconvenient little impediment in the shape +of a husband." + +As she finished speaking Poppy folded her hands in her lap. She sat +perfectly still, her lips pressed together, watching Mr. Iglesias over +her shoulder but without turning her head. He had crossed the room and +stood at one of the tall narrow windows, looking out into the bright +windy afternoon. + +For here it was in plain English, at last, that underlying secret +thing which he had known yet dreaded to know. It begot in him an +immense regret and inevitable repulsion at admitted wrongdoing. He +made no attempt to juggle with the meaning of her words. Yet, along +with them, came a feeling of gladness that Poppy St. John would remain +Poppy St. John still; and a movement of hope--intimate and very +tender--since in this tragic hour of her history she had come directly +to him, asking comfort and sympathy. Dominic, cut to the quick by the +defection of the heretofore ever-faithful George Lovegrove, hailed +with a peculiar thankfulness this mark of confidence and trust. +Sinful, greatly erring, still the Lady of the Windswept Dust had +returned to him; and thereat he soberly, yet very deeply, rejoiced. In +truth, the sharp-edged breath of persecution he had encountered this +morning, while paining him, had braced him to high endeavour. The +Catholic Church, so he argued, must indeed be a mighty and living +power since men fear her so much. And this power he felt to be behind +him, sustaining him, inciting him to noble undertakings--he strong in +virtue of her strength, fearless through the courage of her saints, +able with the energy of their accumulated merit and their prayers. +Again, as on his way home that morning from hearing Mass, the spirit +was dominant, his whole nature and outlook purified and exalted by the +Divine Indwelling. To fail any human creature calling on him for help +would be contemptible, and even dastardly, in one blessed as he +himself was. Thus his relation to Poppy St. John fell into line. He +could afford to love and serve her well, since he loved and purposed, +in all things, to serve Almighty God best. + +These meditations occupied but a few moments, yet Poppy's patience ran +short. + +"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly, sharply, "I am tired of +waiting." + +He crossed the room and stood in front of her, serious but light of +heart. + +"See here, it is all right between us?" she asked imperatively. + +"Yes, all is perfectly right between us," he answered. "Your coming +gives me the measure of your faith in me. I am grateful and I am very +glad." + +"Ah!" Poppy said softly. + +She sat forward in her chair, making herself small, patting her hands +together, palm to palm, between her knees, and swaying a little as she +spoke. + +"You see," she went on, "to be quite honest, I didn't break with +Alaric simply to enable him to marry and live happy ever after. Nor +did I do it exclusively to please Fallowfeild. It would take a greater +fool than I am to be as altruistic as all that. I always like to have +my run for my money. I--I did it more to get you back." + +She paused and raised her head, looking full at him. + +"And I have got you back?" she said. + +"Yes," he answered, smiling. "I ask nothing better than to come back." + +"Do you mean that you are prepared to take everything on trust--after +what I have just told you--without wanting explanations?" + +"Friendship has no need of explanations," Iglesias said, with a touch +of grandeur--"that is, as I understand friendship. It accepts what is +given without question, or cavilling as to much or to little, leaving +the giver altogether free. Friendship, as I understand it, should have +honourable reticences, not only of speech but of thought; wise +economies of proffered sympathy. In its desire of service it should +never approach too near or say the word too much; since, if it is to +flourish and obtain the grace of continuance, it must be rooted in +reverence for the individuality of the person dear to it. This is my +belief." His bearing was courtly, his expression very gentle. +"Therefore rest assured that whatever confidence you repose in me is +sacred. Whatever confidence you withhold from me is sacred likewise." + +Poppy mused a little, a smile on her lips and an enigmatic look in her +singular eyes. + +"You're beautiful, dear man," she murmured. "You're very beautiful. +You're worth chucking the devil over for; but you'll take a jolly lot +of living up to. So see here, you're bound to look me up pretty +constantly just at first, for I tell you life is not going to be +exactly a toy-shop for me for some little time to come. You hear? You +promise?" + +"I promise," Iglesias returned. + +"And there's another thing," she continued rather proudly, "a thing +men too often blunder over--with the very best intentions, bless them, +only they do blunder, and that leads to ructions. Please put the +question of money out of your head once and for all. I have a certain +amount of my own, nothing princely well understood, but quite possible +to live on. It was to prevent his playing ducks and drakes with it +that I finally left the jackal of a fellow whom I married. Well, I +have that, and I have made a little more, one way and another."--Poppy +permitted herself a wicked grimace.--"Poor old Alaric used to tell me +I was a great financier wasted, that I should have been invaluable as +partner in their family banking concern--that's more than he'll ever +be, poor chap, unless marriage makes pretty sweeping changes in him. +Some of my sources of income naturally are cut off through the +cleaning of the slate. For I have been tiptop beastly good--indeed I +have, as I told you! No more cards, and oh dear, no more racing. But +no doubt Cappadocia will contribute in the way of puppies. _Noblesse +oblige_--she realises her duty towards posterity, does Cappadocia. +So I shall scrape along quite tidily. And then, as long as I keep my +voice and my figure, at a push there's always my profession.--You +hadn't arrived at the fact that I had a profession? Such is fame, dear +man, such is fame. Why, I started as a child-actress at thirteen; and +went on till the jackal made that impossible, like virtue, and self- +respect, and a decent home, and a few kindred trifles in favour of +which every clean-minded woman has, after all, a strongish prejudice." + +Poppy's voice shook. She had much ado to maintain an indifferent and +matter-of-fact manner. Iglesias drew up a chair and sat down beside +her. She put out her hand, taking his and holding it quietly. + +"There, that's better," she said. "I feel babyish. I should like a +good square cry. But I won't have one. Don't be afraid. The motto is +'No snivelling, full steam ahead.'--But as to the stage, I'm not sure +that won't prove the solution of most difficulties in the end. +Sometimes it pulls badly at my heartstrings, and I shouldn't be half +sorry for an excuse for taking to it again. It's a rotten profession +for a man, and not precisely a soul-saving one for a woman. But it +gives you your opportunity; and, at bottom, I suppose that's the main +thing one asks of life--one's opportunity. Too, your art is your art; +and if it is bred in you, you sicken for it. I was awfully glad that +night to see you at the play, though in a way it shocked me. It seemed +incongruous. Tell me, do you really care for the theatre?" + +"To a moderate extent I do," Dominic answered. She wanted, so he +divined, to give a lighter tone to the conversation. He tried to meet +her wishes.--"I am not a very ardent playgoer, I am afraid. But at the +present time I happen to be involved indirectly in theatrical +enterprise. I am interested in the production of a play, which I am +assured will prove a remarkable success." + +"You're not financing it?" Poppy asked sharply. + +"Within certain limits I am," he answered, smiling. "An appeal was +made to me for help which it would have been cruel to refuse." + +Poppy's expression had become curiously sombre, not to say stormy. She +got up and began to roam about the room. + +"I hope to goodness the limits are clearly defined, and very narrow +ones, then," she exclaimed. "For my part I don't believe in talent +which can't find a market in the ordinary course of business. I grant +you managers sometimes put a play on which is no good; and sometimes +cripple what might be a fine play by doctoring it, in deference to the +rulings of that archetype of all maiden aunts and incarnation of +British hypocrisy, the censor; but they very rarely, in my experience, +reject a play which has money in it. Why should they? Poor brutes, +they are not exactly surfeited with masterpieces. The play which +requires private backing, though a record-breaker in the opinion of +its author, is usually rubbish in that of the public. And the public, +take it all round, is very fairly level-headed and just; you must not +judge it by the stupidities of the censor. He represents only an +extreme section of it, if at this time of day he really represents +anybody--a section which does the screaming sitting sanctimoniously at +home, getting its information at second-hand through the papers, and +never darkens the doors of a play-house at all. Moreover, you must +remember that the public is master. There is no getting behind its +verdict." + +Poppy's peregrinations had brought her back beside Mr. Iglesias again. +She patted him on the shoulder. + +"See here, my beloved no-longer-nameless one," she said. "Be advised. +Learn wisdom. For I tell you I've been through that gate if ever a +woman has. The jackal--I wish to heaven we could keep him out of our +talk, but, for cause unknown, he persistently obtrudes himself--he +invariably does so when I'm hipped and edgy--well, you see, he was an +unappreciated genius in the way of a dramatist, from which fact I +derived first-hand acquaintance with the habits of the species. What I +don't know about those animals is not worth knowing. They're just +simply vermin, I tell you. Their utter unprofitableness is only +equalled by their lunatic vanity. They imagine the whole world, lay +and professional, is in league to balk and defraud them. So don't +touch them, I entreat you, as you value your peace of mind and your +pocket. They'll bleed you white and never give you a penn'orth of +thanks--more likely turn on you and make out, somehow or other, you +are responsible for the failure of their precious productions.--Now +let's try to forget them, and talk of pleasanter subjects. These +obtrusions of the jackal always bring me bad luck. I'm downright +scared at them.--Tell me about your goods, your books and your +pictures. And show me something which belonged to your mother--that +is, if it wouldn't pain you to do so. I should like to hold something +she had touched in my hands. It would be comforting, somehow. And just +set that door wider open, there's a dear. I want to have a look into +the other room and see where you sleep." + +For the ensuing half hour Poppy was an enchanting companion, wholly +womanly, gentle and delicate; eager, too, with the pretty spontaneous +eagerness of a child, at the recital of stories and exhibition of +treasures beloved by her companion. The lonely cedar tree, lamenting +its exile as the wind swept through the labyrinth of its dry branches, +moved her almost to tears. + +"It is tragic," she said; "still, I am glad you have it. It's very +much in the picture, and lifts the sentiment of the place out of the +awful suburban rut. It's a little symbolic of you yourself, too, +Dominic--there's style, and poetry, and breeding about it. Only, thank +the powers, you differ from it mightily in this, that its best days +are over, while you are but in the flower of your age. And your rooms +are delightful--they're like you, too.--The rest of the house? My dear +soul, the manservant ushered me into a drawing-room, when I arrived, +the colours of which were simply frantic. I bolted. If I'd stayed +another five minutes they'd have given me lockjaw.--Now I must go." +She smiled very sweetly upon Mr. Iglesias. "I'm better, ten thousand +times better," she said. "When I came I was rather extensively +nauseated by my own virtuous actions. Now it's all square between them +and me. I'm good right through, I give you my word I am. If only it'll +last!" + +Poppy's lips quivered, and she looked Iglesias rather desperately in +the face. + +"Never fear," he answered, "but that it will last." + +"Still you'll come and see me often, very often, till I settle down +into the running? It will be beastly heavy going--must be, I'm afraid +--for a long while yet." + +Dominic Iglesias, holding her hand, bent low and kissed it. + +"I will serve you perfectly, God helping me, as long as I live," he +said. + +Five minutes later Mrs. Porcher, supported by the outraged and +sympathetic Eliza, watched, through the aperture afforded by the +rising hinge of the dining-room door, an unknown lady, escorted by Mr. +Iglesias, sweep in whispering skirts and costly sables across the +hall. + +Passing out and down the white steps, Poppy, usually so light of foot +and deft of movement, stumbled, and but for Iglesias' prompt +assistance would have fallen headlong. At that same moment de Courcy +Smyth, slovenly in dress, with shuffling footsteps, crossed the road, +and then slunk aside, his arm jerked up queerly almost as though +warding off a blow. + +"No, no, I'm not hurt, not in the least hurt," Poppy said +breathlessly, in response to Iglesias' inquiry. "But it's given me a +bad fright. I'll go straight home. Put me into the first hansom you +see.--No, I'll go by myself. I'd far rather. I give you my word I'm +not hurt; but I've a lot of things to think about--I want to be alone. +I want to be quiet. Come soon. I was very happy. Good-bye-- +good-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +A featureless landscape of the brand of ugliness peculiar to the +purlicus of a great city, to that intermediate region where the +streets have ended and the country has not yet fairly begun. A waste +of cabbagefields--the dark lumpy earth between the rows of yellowish +stumps strewn with ill-smelling refuse of decaying leaves--seen +through the rents in a broken, unkempt, quickset hedge. Running +parallel with the said hedge, shiny blacktarred palings, shutting off +all view of the river. Between these barriers, a long stretch of drab- +coloured high road, flanked by slightly raised footpaths, a verge of +coarse weedy grass to them in which a litter of rags, torn posters, +and much other unloveliness found harbourage. To the northwest and +north, a sky piled to the zenith with mountainous swiftly moving +clouds, inky, blue-purple, wildly white, from out the torn bosoms of +which rushed, now and again, flurrying showers of hail and sleet +driven by a shrieking wind. March was in the act of asserting its +proverbial privilege of "going out like a lion"; but the lion, as seen +in this particular perspective, was a frankly ignoble and ill- +conditioned beast. + +And Poppy St. John, heading up against wind and weather along the +left-hand footpath, felt frankly ignoble and ill-conditioned, too. Her +poor soul, which had made such valiant efforts to spread its wings and +fly heavenward--a form of exercise sadly foreign to its habit-- +crawled, once more, soiled and mud-bespattered, along the common +thoroughfare of life. At this degradation, her heart overflowed with +bitterness and disgust, let alone the blind rage which possessed her, +as of some trapped creature frustrated in escape. She had broken gaol, +as she fondly imagined, and secured liberty. Not a bit of it! In the +hour of reconciliation, of sweetest security, she met her gaoler face +to face and heard the key grind in the lock. + +Save for the occasional passing of a market waggon, or high-shouldered +scavenger's cart, the road was deserted. Once a low-hung two-wheeled +vehicle rattled by, on which, insufficiently covered by sacking, lay a +dead horse, the great head swinging ghastly over the slanting tail- +board, the legs sticking out stark in front. A man, perched sideways +on the carcass, swore at the rickety crock he was driving, and lashed +it under the belly with a short-handled heavy-thonged whip. He was +collarless, and the scarlet and orange handkerchief, knotted about his +throat, had got shifted, the ends of it streaming out behind him as he +lifted his arm and swayed his whole body madly using his whip. Poppy +shut her eyes, sickened by the sound and sight. Just then a scourging +storm of sleet struck her, causing her to turn her back and pause, +where a curve in the range of paling offered some slight shelter. For +strong though she was, and well furnished against the inclement +weather in a thick coaching coat, buttoned up to her chin and down to +her feet, her cloth cap tied on with a thick veil, the stinging wind +and sleet were almost more than she could face. Her depression was not +physical merely, but moral likewise. For over and above her personal +and private sources of trouble, it was a day and place whereon evil +deeds seemed unpleasantly possible. The swearing driver and dangling +head of the dead horse had served to complete her discomfiture; and +presently, the storm slackening a little, hearing footsteps behind +her, she wheeled round, her chin bravely in the air, but her heart +galloping with nervous fright, while her fingers closed down on the +butt of the small silver-plated revolver which rested in the right- +hand waist pocket of her long coat. + +De Courcy Smyth was close beside her. Poppy set her lips together and +braced herself to endure the coming wretchedness. It was some years +since she had had speech of him--some years, indeed, since she had +seen him, save during that brief moment, twenty-four hours previously, +as she descended the steps of Cedar Lodge. Even in his most prosperous +days he had been unattractive in person, at once untidy and theatrical +in dress. Now Poppy registered a distinct deterioration in his +appearance. His puffy face, red-rimmed eyes, and shambling gait were +odious to her. She noted, moreover, that he was poorly clad. His grey +felt hat was stained and greasy; his ginger-coloured frieze overcoat +threadbare at the elbows, thin and stringy in the skirts. The soles of +his brown boots were splayed, the upper leathers seamed and cracked. +This might denote poverty. It might, also, only denote carelessness +and sloth. In any case, it failed to move her to pity, provoking in +her uncontrollable irritation; so that, forgetful of diplomacy, +stirred by memories of innumerable kindred provocations in the past, +Poppy spoke without preamble, asking him sharply as he joined her: + +"Have you no better clothes than that?" + +Smyth paused before answering, looking her up and down furtively yet +deliberately, wiping the wet of his beard and face, meanwhile, with a +frayed green silk pocket-handkerchief. + +"It offends your niceness that your husband should dress like a tramp, +does it?" he said hoarsely. "And pray whose fault is it that he is +reduced to doing so? Judging by your own costume, you can easily +remove that cause of offence if you choose. It does not occur to you, +perhaps, that while you live on the fat of the land I, but for the +charity of strangers--which it is loathsome to me to accept--should +not have enough to pay for the food I eat or for the detestable garret +in which I both work and sleep? Under these circumstances I am +scarcely prepared to call in a fashionable tailor to replenish my +wardrobe, lest its meagreness should, on the very rare occasions on +which I have the honour of meeting you, offer an unpleasing reflection +upon your own super-elegance." + +To these observations, delivered with a somewhat hysterical +volubility, Poppy made no direct reply. Surely it was cruel, cruel, +that at this juncture, when she had so honestly striven to refuse the +evil and choose the good, this recrudescence of all that was most +hateful to her should take place? Moreover, now as always, just that +modicum of truth underlay Smyth's exaggerated accusations and +perverted statements which made them as difficult to combat as they +were exasperating to listen to. For a minute or so Poppy could not +trust herself to speak, lest she should give way to foolish invective. +His looks, manner, intonation, the phrases he employed were odiously +familiar to her. She fought as in a malicious dream, to which the +squalor of the surrounding landscape offered an only too appropriate +setting. Turning, she walked slowly in the direction whence she had +come--namely, in that of Barnes village and Mortlake. There the quaint +riverside houses would afford some shelter and sense of comradeship. + +"I am sorry to make you come farther out," she said, with an attempt +at civility. + +"That is unexpectedly considerate," he commented. + +"But it is impossible to talk in the teeth of this wind," she +continued, "and I imagine we're neither of us particularly keen to +prolong our interview." + +"Excuse me, speak for yourself," Smyth interrupted. "I find it +decidedly interesting to meet my wife again. She has gone up in the +world, and climbed the tree of fashion in the interval. I have gone +down in the world, as every scholar and gentleman, every man with +brains and high standards of art and culture, is bound to go down +sooner or later, in this hideous age of blatant commercialism and +Mammon rampant. I don't quarrel with it. I would far rather be one of +the downtrodden, persecuted minority. But, just on that account, my +wife is all the more worth contemplating, since she offers a highly +instructive object-lesson in the advantages which accrue from allying +oneself with the victorious majority. See--" + +A rush of wind and flurry of cold rain rendered the concluding words +of his tirade inaudible. It was as well, for Poppy was growing wicked, +anger dominating every more humane and decent feeling in her. + +"Look here," she said, when the storm had somewhat abated. "I know +that sort of talk as well as my old shoe. Haven't I listened to it for +hours? For goodness' sake, quit it. It doesn't wash. Let us come to +the point at once without all this idiotic brag and gassing. You wrote +me a letter shouting danger and ruin. What did it mean? Anything real, +or merely a melodramatic blowing off of steam? Tell me. Let us have it +out and have finished with it. What do you want?" + +The softening medium of a gauze veil failed to hide the fact that +Poppy's expression was distinctly malignant, her great eyes full of +sombre fury, her red lips tense. Smyth backed away from her against +the palings in genuine alarm. + +"I--I believe you'd like to murder me," he said. + +"So I should," Poppy answered. "I should very much like to kill you. +And I've the wherewithal here, in my pocket, and there's no one on the +road. But you needn't be anxious. I'm not going to murder you. The +consequences to myself would be too inconvenient." + +As she spoke she thought of yesterday, of the renewal of her +friendship with Dominic Iglesias, and of all that he stood for to her +in things pure, lovely, and of good report. A sob rose in her throat, +for nothing, after all, is so horrible as to feel wicked; nothing so +hard to forgive as that which causes one to feel so. Poppy walked on +again slowly. + +"What do you want?" she repeated miserably. "Be straight with me for +once, if you can, de Courcy, and tell me plainly--if there's anything +to tell. What is it you want?" + +"I have my chance at last," he said hurriedly, "of fame, and success, +and recognition--of bringing those who have despised me to their +knees. I thought I was safe. But yesterday I found that you--yes, you +--come into the question, that you may stand between me and the +realisation of my hopes--more than hopes, a certainty, unless you play +some scurvy trick on me. I had to have your promise, and there was no +time to lose--so I wrote." + +Poppy looked at him contemptuously. + +"What does all that mean?--more money?" she asked. "Haven't you grown +ashamed of begging yet? I raised your allowance last year, and it's +being paid regularly--Ford & Martin have sent me on your receipts. To +give it you at all is an act of grace, for you've no earthly claim on +me, and you know it. From the day I married you I never cost you a +farthing; I've paid for everything myself, down to every morsel of +bread I put into my mouth. You, talked big about your income +beforehand, when you knew you were up to your eyes in debt. Well, in +debt you may stay, as far as I am concerned. I'll give you that +seventy-five a year if you'll keep clear of me; but I won't give you a +penny more, for the simple reason that I shan't have it to give. It'll +be an uncommonly close shave in any case--I have myself to keep." + +"Yourself to keep?" Smyth snarled. "Since when have you taken to +wholesale lying, my pretty madam? That is a new development." + +"I'm not lying," Poppy blazed out. "I am speaking honest, sober +truth." + +Smyth laughed. It was not an agreeable sound. + +"Is not that a little too brazen?" he asked. "Even with such a +negligible quantity as a deserted husband, it is a mistake to overplay +the part." + +Then, frightened by her expression, he slunk aside again. But Poppy +did not linger. Slowly, steadily, she walked on down the rain-lashed +footpath. + +"For God's sake tell me what you want--tell me what you want," she +cried, "and let me get away from all this rottenness." + +"You do not believe in me," Smyth replied sullenly, "and that is why +it is so difficult to speak to you about this matter. You have always +depreciated my powers and scoffed at my talents. No thanks to you I +have any self-confidence left." + +"All right, all right," Poppy said. "We can miss out the remainder of +that speech. I know it by heart. Come to the point--what do you want?" + +"I was just filling in the sketch of the third act." + +Poppy shrugged her shoulders and raised her hands with a despairing +gesture. + +"Oh, heavens," she ejaculated, "a play again! Are you mad? You know, +just as well as I do, every manager Mill refuse it unread." + +"It will be unnecessary to approach any manager. I go straight to the +public this time. I have the promise of money to meet the expenses of +two matinees at least. I have no scruple in accepting--it is an +investment, and an immensely profitable one--for I know the worth of +my own work. It is great, nothing less than great--" + +"Of course," Poppy said. "But pray where do I come in?" Then she +paused. Suddenly she pieced the bits of the puzzle together, saw and +understood. Misery, deeper than any she had yet experienced, +overflowed in her. "Ah, it is you, then, you who are bleeding Dominic +Iglesias," she cried. "Robbing him by appeals to his charity and lying +assurances of impossible profits. You shall not do it. I will put a +stop to it. You shall not, you shall not!" + +"Why?" Smyth inquired. "Do you want all his money yourself?" + +"You dirty hound," Poppy said under her breath. + +"I did not know of your connection with him till yesterday," Smyth +continued--in proportion as Poppy lost herself, he became cool and +astute--"though we have lived in the same house for the last eighteen +months. I supposed you to be in pursuit of larger game than +superannuated bank-clerks. However, your modesty of taste, combined +with your charming attitude towards me, might, as I perceived, lead to +complications. I ascertained how long you had been at Cedar Lodge +yesterday. Then I wrote to you." + +Poppy stood still in the wind and wet, listening intently. + +"For once," he went on exultantly, "it is my turn to give orders, my +fine lady, and yours to obey. If you interfere, in the smallest +degree, between Iglesias and me, I will call his attention to certain +facts, the appearance of which is highly discreditable to him. He will +pay to save his reputation, if he ceases to pay out of charity--not +that it is charity. He is making an investment of which, as a business +man, he fully appreciates the worth. If you interfere I will make his +position a vastly uncomfortable one. The women who keep Cedar Lodge +are as jealous as cats. It would not require much blowing to make that +fire burst into a very lively flame, I promise you." + +"You live there, then?" Poppy said absently. "You live there?" live +there?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Does that offend your niceness, too? Do you +consider the place too good for me? You need not distress yourself. I +have only one room, a small one--on the second floor immediately above +your friend's handsome sitting-room, but only half the size of it. The +floors are old. I can gather a very fair sense of any conversation +taking place below." + +Poppy moved on again. + +"May I inquire what you propose to do?" Smyth asked presently--"warn +your mature commercial admirer and compel me, in self-protection, to +blast his reputation, or hold your tongue like a reasonable woman?" + +They had reached the end of the tarred palings. Upon the left the +quaintly irregular bow-windowed rose-and-ivy-covered houses of Barnes +Terrace--no two of them alike in height or in architecture--fronted +the road. Upon the right was the river, dull-coloured and wind- +tormented. A cargo of bricks, supplying a strong note of red in the +otherwise mournful landscape, was being unloaded from a barge; carts +backed down the slip to within easy distance of the broad bulwarkless +deck, horses shivering as they stood knee-deep in the water. The +bricks grated together when the men, handling them, tossed them +across. With long-drawn thunderous roar and shriek, a train, heading +from Kew Station, rushed across the latticed iron-built railway +bridge. Poppy waited, watching the progress of it, watching the +unloading of the barge. The one perfectly pure and beautiful gift +which life had given her was utterly profaned, so it seemed to her; +that which she held dearest and best hopelessly entangled with that +which to her was most degrading and abhorrent. And what to do? To be +silent was to be disloyal. To speak was to expose Dominic Iglesias to +dishonour and disgust far deeper than that which loss of money could +inflict. Poppy weighed and balanced, clear that her thought must be +wholly for him, not letting anger sway her judgment. Of two evils she +must choose that which, for him, was least. + +"I will not give you away. I will say nothing," she said at last. + +"You swear you will not?" + +"Yes, I swear," Poppy said. + +"I want it in writing." + +"Very well, you shall have it in writing, witnessed if you like," she +answered. "The precious document shall be posted to you to-night. Now +are you satisfied, you contemptible animal? Have you humbled me +enough?" + +But Smyth came close to her, pushing his face into hers. He was +shaking with excitement, hysterical with mingled fear and relief. + +"I am not ungenerous, my dear girl," he whispered. "I am willing to +condone the past--to take you back, to acknowledge you as my wife and +let you share my success. There is a part in the new play which might +have been written for you. You could become world-famous in it. I am +not ungenerous, I am willing to make matters up." + +"Do you want me to murder you, after all?" Poppy asked. "If you try me +much further, I tell you plainly, I can't answer for myself. +Therefore, as you value your life, let me alone. Get out of my sight." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +During the watches of the ensuing night, amid bellowings of wind in the +chimneys, long-drawn complaint of the great cedar tree, rattle of sleet, +and those half-heard whisperings and footsteps--as of inhabitants long +since departed--which so often haunt an old house through the hours of +dark, Dominic Iglesias' mind, for cause unknown, was busied with +reminiscences of the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, and the many +years he had spent in its service. He had no wish to think of these +things. They came unbidden, pushing themselves upon remembrance. All +manner of details, of little histories and episodes connected both with +the financial and human affairs of the famous banking-house, occurred to +him. And from thoughts of all this, but transmogrified and perverted, +when, towards dawn, the storm abating, he at length fell asleep, his +dreams were not exempt. For through them caracoled, in grotesque and most +irregular inter-relation, those august personages, the heads of the firm, +along with his fellow-clerks, living and dead, that militant Protestant, +good George Lovegrove, and the whole personnel of the establishment, down +to caretaker, messenger-boys, porters and the like. Never surely had been +such wild doings in that sedate and reputable place of business--doings +in which gross absurdity and ingenious cruelty went hand in hand; while, +by some queer freak of the imagination, poor Pascal Pelletier, of hectic +and pathetic memory, appeared as leader of the revels, at which the Lady +of the Windswept Dust, sad-eyed, inscrutable of countenance, her +dragon-embroidered scarf drawn closely about her shoulders, looked on. + +Dominic arose from his brief uneasy slumbers anxious and unrefreshed. The +phantasmagoria of his dream had been so living, so vivid, that it was +difficult to throw off the impression produced by it. Moreover, he was +slightly ashamed to find that, the restraining power of the will removed, +his mind was capable of creating scenes of so loose and heartless a +character. He was displeased with himself, distressed by this outbreak of +the undisciplined and unregenerate "natural man" in him. Later, coming +into his sitting-room, he unfortunately found matters awaiting him by no +means calculated to obliterate displeasing impressions or promote suavity +and peace. + +For the pile of letters and circulars lying beside his plate upon the +breakfast-table was topped by a note directed in de Courcy Smyth's nervous +and irritable hand. Dominic opened it with a curious sense of reluctance. +Only last week he had lent the man ten pounds; and here was another +demand, couched in terms, too, so bullying, so almost threatening, that +Dominic's back stiffened considerably. + +Smyth requested, or rather commanded, that fifty pounds should be +delivered to him without delay. "It was conceivable that Mr. Iglesias had +not that amount by him in notes. But, since he had really nothing to do, +it would be a little occupation for him to go and procure them." Smyth +insisted the money should be paid in a lump sum, adding that, his time +being as valuable as Iglesias' was worthless, he could not reasonably be +expected to waste it in perpetual letters respecting a subject so +essentially uninteresting and distasteful to him as that of ways and +means. Such correspondence annoyed him, and put him off his work; and, as +it clearly was very much to Iglesias' interest that the play should be +finished as soon as possible, it was advisable that he should accede to +Smyth's present request without parley and pay up at once. + +Reading this mandatory epistle, Dominic was gravely displeased and hurt. +Poppy St. John had warned him against the insatiable and insolent greed +of persons of this kidney. He had discounted her speech somewhat, +supposing it infected with such prejudice as the recollection of private +wrongs will breed even in generous natures. Now he began to fear her +strictures had been just. The egoism of the unsuccessful is a moral +disease, destructive of all sense of proportion. Those suffering +from it must be reckoned as insane; not sick merely, but actually +mad with self-love. Smyth, to gain his play a hearing, would beggar +him--Iglesias--without scruple or regret. But Dominic had no intention +of being beggared in this connection. Thrice-sacred charity is one story; +the encouragement of the unlimited borrower, the fostering of so colossal +a selfishness quite another. A point had been reached where to accede +to Smyth's demands was culpable, a consenting, indeed, to wrongdoing. +Here then was occasion for careful consideration. Iglesias gravely laid +the offensive missive aside, and proceeded to eat his breakfast before +opening the rest of his letters. In the intervals of the meal he glanced +at the contents of the morning paper. + +The war news was unimportant. A skirmish or two, leaving a few more +women's lives maimed and hearts desolate. A lie or two of continental +manufacture, tending to blacken the fair fame of the most humane and +good-tempered army which, in all probability, ever took the field. +A shriek or two from soft-handed sentimentalists at home, who--for +reasons best known to themselves--are ardent patriots of every country +save their own. Such items formed too permanent a part of the daily menu, +during the year of grace 1900, to excite more than passing notice. At the +bottom of the column a paragraph of a more unusual character attracted +Iglesias' attention. It announced it had authority for stating that +Alarmist rumours, current regarding the unstable financial position of +a certain well-known and highly respected London bank, were grossly +exaggerated. No doubt the losses suffered by the bank in question had +been severe, owing to its extensive connection with land and mining +property in South Africa, and the disorganisation of business in that +country consequent upon the war. The said losses were, however, of a +temporary character, and had by no means reached the disastrous +proportions commonly reported. Granted time, and a reasonable amount of +patience on the part of persons most nearly interested, the storm would +be successfully weathered, and the bank would resume the leading position +which it had so long and honourably enjoyed. No names were given, but +Iglesias had small difficulty in supplying them. It appeared to him that +Barking Brothers must be in considerable straits or they would never, +surely, put forth disclaimers of this description. His mind went back +upon the dreams which had left such disquieting impressions upon his +mind. In the light of that newspaper paragraph they took on an almost +prophetic character. Absently he turned over the rest of the pile of +letters, selected one, the handwriting upon the envelope of which was at +once well-known and perplexing to his memory, opened it, and turned to +the signature to find that of no less a personage than Sir Abel Barking +himself. + +During the next quarter of an hour Dominic Iglesias lived hard in +thought, in decision, in struggle with personal resentment bred by +remembrance of scant courtesy and ingratitude meted out to him. He +learned that Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking's embarrassments did, in +point of fact, skirt the edge of ruin. Their affairs were +in apparently inextricable confusion, owing to Reginald Barking's +reckless speculations, while, to add to the general confusion, that +strenuous young man had broken down utterly from nervous verstrain, +and was, at the present time, incapable of the slightest mental or +physical exertion. Things were at a deadlock. "Under these terrible +circumstances," Sir Abel Barking wrote, "I turn to you, my good +friend, as a person intimately acquainted with the operation of our +firm. Your experience may be of service to us in this crisis, and, +in virtue of the many benefits you have received from us in the +past, I unhesitatingly claim your assistance. In my own name and +that of my partners, I offer to reinstate you in your former +position, but with enlarged powers. It has always been my +endeavour, as you are well aware, to reward merit and to treat +those in our employment with generosity and consideration. You will +be glad, I am sure, to embrace this opportunity of repaying, in +some small measure, your debt towards me and mine." More followed +to the same effect. Neither the taste of the writer nor his manner +of expression was happy. Of this Dominic was quite sensible. +Patronage, especially after his period of independence, was far +from agreeable to him. Yet behind the verbiage, the platitudes and +bombastic phrases, his ear detected a very human cry of fear and +cry for help. Should he accede, doing his best to allay that fear +and render that help? + +He rose, still holding the wordy letter in his hand, and paced the room. +Of his own ability to render effective help, were he allowed freedom of +action, Iglesias entertained little doubt--always supposing that the +situation did not prove even worse than he had present reason for +supposing. It was not difficult to see how the trouble had come about. +The senior partners, lulled into false security by lifelong prosperity, +had grown supine and inert. Sooner, in their opinion, might the stars fall +from heaven than the august house of Barking prove unsound of foundation +or capable of collapse! To hint at this, even as a remote possibility, was +little short of blasphemous. Their amiable nephew, meanwhile, had +regarded them as a flock of silly fat geese eminently fitted for plucking. +He let them complacently hiss and cackle, congratulate themselves upon +their worldly wisdom and conspicuous modernity, while, all the time, +silently, diligently, relentlessly plucking. Now, awakening suddenly to +the fact of their nudity, they were in a terrible taking; scandalised, +flustered, very sore, poor birds, and quite past recollecting that +feathers grow again if the system is sound and the cuticle health. To +Iglesias these purse-proud, self-righteous, middle-aged gentlemen +presented a spectacle at once pathetic and humorous in their present sad +plight. A calm head and clear judgment might do much to ameliorate their +position, and a calm head and cool judgment he was confident of +possessing. Only was he, after all, disposed to place these useful +possessions at their service? + +For in the last nine months Dominic Iglesias' habits and outlook had +changed notably. The values were altered. It would be far harder to +return to the monotonous routine of business life now--even though a +fine revenge, a delicate heaping of coals of fire, accompanied that +return--than it had been to part company with it last year. Loneliness, +the emptiness induced by absence of definite employment, no longer +oppressed him. Holy Church had cured all that, giving him a definite +place, and definite purpose, beautiful duties of prayer and worship, the +restrained, yet continuous, excitement of the pushing forward of soul and +spirit upon the fair, strange, daily, hourly journey towards the far +horizon and the friendship of Almighty God. His retirement had become very +dear to him, since it afforded scope for the conscious prosecution of that +journey. Dominic's state of mind, in short, was that of the lover who +dreads any and every outside demand which may, even momentarily, distract +his attention from the object of his love. Threadneedle Street, the +glass and mahogany walled corridors, and the moral atmosphere of +them--money-getting and of this world conspicuously worldly--were not +these ironically antagonistic to the journey upon which he had set forth +and the habit of mind necessary to the successful prosecution of it? There +was Poppy St. John, too, and the closer relation of friendship into which +he had just entered with her. This must not be neglected. And, thinking +of her, he could not but think of that younger son of the great +banking-house, Alaric Barking, and his dealings with her--enjoying her as +long as it suited him to do so, leaving her as soon as his passion cooled +and a more advantageous social connection presented itself. Towards the +handsome young soldier Iglesias was, it must be owned, somewhat merciless. +Why should he go to the rescue of this young libertine's family, and +indirectly facilitate his marriage, and increase its promise of happiness, +by helping to secure him an otherwise vanishing fortune? Let him pay the +price of his illicit pleasures and become a pauper. Such a consummation +Dominic admitted he, personally, could face with entire resignation. + +And yet--yet--on closer examination were not these reasons against +undertaking the work offered him based upon personal disinclination, +personal animosity, rather than upon plain right and wrong, and, +consequently, were they not insufficient to justify abstention and +refusal? That earlier dream of his, on the night following his dismissal +last year, came back to him, with its touching memories of the narrow town +garden behind the old house in Holland Street, Kensington--the golden +laburnum, the shallow stone basin beloved of sooty sparrows, poor, dear +Pascal Pelletier and his Huntley & Palmer's biscuit-box infernal machine +and very crude methods of adjusting the age-old quarrel between capital +and labour. On that occasion the lonely little boy, though at risk of +grave injury to himself, had not hesitated to save the ill-favoured +chunk-faced grey cat--which bore in speech and appearance so queer a +likeness to Sir Abel Barking--from the ugly fate awaiting it. He had +gathered it tenderly in his arms, pitying and striving to heal it. Was the +child, by instinct, finer, nobler, more self-forgetful, than the man in +the full possession of reason, instructed in the divine science, fortified +by the example and merits of the saints? That would, indeed, be a +melancholy conclusion. And so it occurred to him, not merely as +conceivable but as incontestable, that the road to the far horizon, +instead of leading in the opposite direction to the city banking-house, +for him, at this particular juncture, led directly into and through it; so +that to refuse would be to stray from the straight path and risk the +obscuring of the blessed light by a cowardly and selfish lust of the +immediate comfort of it. + +He would go and help those distracted plucked geese to grow new feathers. +Only to do so meant time, labour, unremitting application, a wholesale +sacrifice of leisure; so he must see Poppy St. John first. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +"I did not call yesterday," Iglesias said, "in consequence of your +prohibitory telegram. But to-day I have come early and without permission, +first because I was anxious to assure myself you were really unhurt, and +secondly because something has occurred regarding which I wish to +consult you. I must have your sanction before taking action in respect of +it." + +Entering from the blustering wind and keen, fitful sunshine without, the +little drawing-room struck Iglesias as both stuffy and dingy. And Poppy, +standing in the centre of it, huddled in a black brocade tea-gown, a +sparse pattern of bluey mauve rosebuds upon it, which hung in limp folds +from her bosom to her feet, concealing all the outline of her figure, came +perilously near looking dingy likewise. The garment, cut square at the +neck, had long seen its first youth. The big outstanding black ribbon bow +between her shoulders and that upon her breast was creased and crumpled. +Beneath the masses of her dark hair her face looked almost unnaturally +small, sallow and bloodless, while her eyes were enormous--dusky +dwelling-places, as it seemed to her visitor, of some world-old sorrow. +Her face did not light up, neither did she make any demonstration of +gladness or greeting, but stood, one toy spaniel tucked under either arm, +their forelegs lying along her wrists, their fringed paws resting upon her +palms. Dominic had a conviction she had snatched up the little dogs on +hearing his voice, and held them so as to render it impossible for him to +take her hand. Less than ever, looking upon her, had he any mercy for +Alaric Barking. Less than ever did the prospect of spending weeks, perhaps +months, in shoring up the imperilled fortunes of that young gentleman's +family prove alluring to him. + +"You were hurt," he broke out, almost fiercely. "You are suffering, and, +worse, you are unhappy. It makes me very angry to see you thus. I wish I +could reach those who are guilty of having distressed and injured you." + +Poppy's face went a shade paler, and alarm mingled with the sorrow in her +eyes, but she made a courageous effort to patter as usual. + +"You'd give them the what for, dear man, wouldn't you?" she said. "But you +would have to go way back in the ages for that, and get behind the +seed-sowing of which this gay hour is the harvest. Still, I love to see +you ferocious. It is very flattering to me, and it's mightily becoming to +you. Don't snore, Cappadocia. Manners, my good child, manners. All the +same, I wasn't hurt slipping on those gorgeous white steps of yours. Upon +my honour, I wasn't. But I had to go out yesterday afternoon, and I got +caught in one of those infernal hailstorms. It was altogether too cold for +comfort, and I feel a bit cheap this morning in consequence. That's why I +put on this odious gown. I always try to dress for the part, and the part +just now is dismality. From the start this gown has been a disappointment. +I counted on the roses fading pink, but the beasts faded blue instead. I +feel as if I was dressed in a bruise, and that's appropriate--for I also +feel as if I had been beaten all over. Merely the hail--I give you my +word. Nothing more than that. I'm never ill." Poppy paused, dropped the +little dogs on the floor. They cowered against her, looking up woefully at +her. "No, I don't want you," she said. "You're heavy. I'm tired of you." + +Then she blew her nose, and, over the top of her hand-kerchief, looked +full at Iglesias for the first time. + +"Well, what is it? What do you want my sanction for?" + +Without waiting for his answer she swept aside, knelt down, crouching over +the fire, extending both hands to the heat of it, while her open sleeves +falling back showed her arms bare to the elbow. + +"Tell me, and, if you don't mind, shove along. I own I am a trifle +jumpy--only the weather--but I need humouring, so shove along, there's a +good dear," she said. + +Whereupon, in as few words as possible, Dominic unfolded to her the +contents of Sir Abel Barking's letter. As she listened, Poppy raised +herself, turned round, stood upright, her hands clasped behind her. + +"Oh! that's it, is it?" she said. She looked less bloodless, more +animated, more natural. "I'm not altogether surprised. The poor old lads +have found out the cuckoo in their nest at last, have they? Alaric had a +notion Reginald Barking--not a nice person Reginald--I saw him once and +he looked a cross between a pair of forceps and a bag of shavings--I +didn't trust him--you don't, do you? Alaric had a notion this precious +cousin was making hay of the whole show. But it was utterly useless for +him to intervene. In the eyes of the elder generation he is the original +dog with a bad name, only fit for hanging." + +Poppy paused, took a long breath, smiled a little. + +"What do you think? Is it a very bad business?" + +"I cannot tell till I have gone into details," Iglesias replied. He was +slightly put about by the lady's change of demeanour, by the interest she +displayed, by the alteration in her expression and bearing. + +"And they howl to you to save the sinking ship?" Poppy continued lightly. +"Shall you go?" + +"That is the question I have come to ask you." + +"To ask me?" she said. "But, heart alive, dear man, where do I come in?" + +"My duty to you stands before every other duty," Iglesias answered +gravely. "Those who have caused you sorrow and injured you, are my +enemies. How can it be otherwise? A member of this family--I do not choose +to name him--has, in my opinion, played a detestable part by you; +therefore only with your sanction, freely given, can I consent to be +helpful to his relatives." + +The colour leaped into Poppy's cheeks, the light into her eyes, her lips +parted in pretty laughter; yet she still kept her hands clasped behind her +back. + +"Ah! I see--I see," she cried. "But how did you contrive to get left +behind, most beloved lunatic, and be born five or six centuries out of +your time into this shouting, pushing, modern world which knows not +chivalry? Do you imagine this is the fashion most men treat women? Here +I am laughing, yet I could cry that you should come to me--me, of all +people--on such a lovely, fine, fanciful errand." + +"My conduct appears to me perfectly obvious and simple," Iglesias replied +rather coldly. + +"I know it does, my dear, and there's the pathetic splendour of it," Poppy +declared, soft mothering tones in her voice. "All the same we must keep +our heads screwed on the right way. So, tell me, will it be of any +personal advantage to you to help pull these elderly plungers out of the +quagmire?" + +"None whatever." + +"At least they will make it worth your while by paying up handsomely?" + +"No doubt they will make me some offer, but I shall decline it," Iglesias +said. "I draw a pension. I will continue to do so. That is just. I have a +right to it in virtue of my past work. But I shall refuse to accept any +salary over and above that. I shall make it a condition that I give my +services. And that which I give I give, whether it be to king or to +beggar. To make profit out of my giving would be intolerable to me." + +Poppy mused, her head bent, pushing away the tiny dogs with her foot as +they fawned upon her. + +"Don't bother! you little miseries," she said, "don't bother! I'm busy +now. I've no use for you." Presently she glanced up at Mr. Iglesias, who +held himself proudly, as he stood waiting before her. "Do you care for +these barking people? Is it a question of affection between any of them +and you?" + +"I am afraid not," he answered. "Ours has been a purely business +connection throughout. How should it be otherwise? The social interval +between employers and employed is not easily bridged." + +"Stuff-a-nonsense!" Poppy put in scornfully. "They might feel honoured to +tie your shoe." + +"Any attempt to ignore differences of wealth and station, which others are +pleased to remember, would be unbecoming," he continued. "Nor do I relish +condescension on the part of my social betters. It does not suit me. I +prefer to remain within my own borders. Still, there is the tie of long +association with these merchant princes and their undertakings, and this, +I own, influences me strongly. It would be shocking to me to witness the +failure or ruin of those with whom I have been in daily intercourse. Then, +too, there is a certain challenge in the present position which appeals to +the fighting instinct in me. If not altogether by nature, still by habit I +am a business man. Affairs interest me, and consequently the more +embarrassed and apparently hopeless the existing state of things is, the +greater would be my satisfaction in mastering the intricacies of it and +reducing them to order. These practical matters are not without very real +excitement and drama to those who have the habit of handling them." +Iglesias paused, and then added quietly, "But I am contented enough as I +am, and should not voluntarily have touched business again had there not +been another consideration over and above those I have enumerated--namely, +the plain obligation of right doing, whether the said doing be congenial +to one or not. This obligation is supreme, or should be so, in the case of +one who, like myself, has bound himself by definite acts of obedience and +self-dedication." + +His expression had changed, taking on something of exaltation. He no +longer looked at Poppy, but away to the far horizon and the light thereon +resident. + +And the Lady of the Windswept Dust was quick to realise this, though upon +what fair unseen object the eyes of his spirit did, in fact, rest she was +ignorant. Against it the vanity inherent in her womanhood rebelled. She +was piqued and jealous of the unnamed, unknown object which absorbed his +attention more than she herself and her friendship did. From the first +Iglesias had appealed to her very various nature in a threefold manner. To +the artist in her he appealed by the clearness of his individuality, his +finish of person and of feature, his gravity and poise--these last taking +their rise not in insensibility, but in reasoned will, in passionate +emotion held, as she had learned, austerely in check. He appealed to the +motherhood in her by his unworldliness, by his ignorance of base motives, +thus making her attitude towards him protective; she instinctively trying +to stand between him and a naughty world, to stand, too, between him and +her own too often naughty self. He appealed to the child in her by the +exotic and foreign elements in him, which captivated her fancy, endowing +him with an effect of mystery, making him seem to hail from some region of +legend and high romance. But the events of the last few days had been +far from beneficial to Poppy St. John. They had demoralised her, so that +the artistic, maternal, and childlike aspects of her nature were alike +overlaid by the bitterness, the cynicism, the recklessness engendered by +her unhappy childless marriage and the irregular life she had led. Poppy's +feet were held captive in the quicksands of the things of sense; her +outlook was concrete and gross. Finer instincts lit up but momentary +flickering fires in her, speedily dying out into the gloom begotten by the +deplorable scene of yesterday with her husband, and shame at the +conspiracy of silence into which, as the lesser of the two evils presented +to her, she had entered, remembrances of which, on his first arrival, +had made her feel unworthy and a traitor in the presence of Iglesias. This +demoralisation worked in her to rebellion against just all that which, in +her happier moods, rendered Iglesias delightful to her. His exaltation, +his calm, the mystery which so delicately surrounded him, the very +distinction of his appearance irritated her, so soon as she became +conscious that she was no longer the sole object of his thoughts. She was +pushed by a bad desire to force from him a more complete self-revelation, +to cheapen him in some way and break him up. + +"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly and imperatively, "you are a trifle +too empyrean. I don't quite believe in you. Be more ordinary, more +vulgarly human. For who are you, after all? What are you?" she said. + +And he, his thoughts recalled from a great distance, regarded her +questioningly and as without immediate recognition. Her voice was harsh, +and the transition was so abrupt from the radiant land of the spirit to +the dingy realities of Poppy's drawing-room, her tired, black, bluey-mauve +patterned tea-gown, and her absurdly artificial little dogs. It took him +some few seconds to adjust himself. Then he smiled in apology, and spoke +very courteously and gently. + +"Who am I, what am I, dear friend? Why this, I think--a commonplace, very +ordinary person who, long ago, in early childhood, by mournful accident, +for which it would be an impiety to hold those on whom he was dependent +responsible, lost his sight. Through all the years which men count, and +rightly, the best of life--when courage is high and the hand strong, and +opportunity fertile, circumstance as a block of precious many-coloured +marble out of which to carve fine fortune for ourselves and those we +love--he wandered in darkness, insecure of footing, missing the very end +and object for which earthly existence has been bestowed upon us mortals. +He was sad and homesick for that which he had not; yet ignorant of the +nature of his own loss, disposed to blame the constitution of things, +rather than his own incapacity, for that which he suffered." + +"And then?" Poppy put in sharply. Listening, she had started to mock, the +cynic and worldling being hot in her, but, looking at the speaker, +somehow, she dared not mock. + +"And then--recently--since I have known you in short, it has pleased +Almighty God by degrees to restore my sight." + +Poppy regarded him intently, her singular eyes wide with question and with +doubt, her lips pressed together. + +"I see--you have got religion," she said. "But do you seriously mean to +tell me that I--I--have had anything to do with that?" + +"Yes," Iglesias answered. "You have had much to do with it. First by +love--for your friendship woke up my heart. Then by sorrow"--he paused, +divided by the desire to spare her and to tell her the whole of his +thought--"sorrow, when I came to know you better and value your character +and gifts at their true worth, because I saw noble things put to ignoble +uses, which of all pitiful sights is perhaps the most profoundly pitiful." + +Silence followed, broken only by minute and reproachful snorings on the +part of Cappadocia and her spouse. The little dogs, sensible of neglect, +had become the victims of wounded self-love, that most primitive, as it is +the most universal, of passions throughout all grades of living things. +Poppy meanwhile turned her head aside, unable or unwilling to speak. Again +she blew her nose with complete disregard of the unromantic quality of +that action, then said huskily: + +"I have cleaned the slate. I shall keep it clean." Her voice grew +steadier. A touch of malice came into her expression. "I like compliments, +and you have paid me about the biggest I ever had. It will take a little +time to digest. So I think--I think, dear man, I will not stand in the way +of your going back to the City, and saving the sinking ship--that is, if +the work won't be too hard for you?" + +"No," he answered, touched by her more gracious aspect, yet slightly +confused. "I have had nearly a year's holiday and rest; I am quite equal +to work. But I am afraid the hours must necessarily be long, and that my +opportunities of coming to see you will not be very frequent." + +"Perhaps that's just as well," she said, "while I am still in process of +digesting the big compliment." + +Then impulsively she swept up to him and laid her hands on his shoulders, +looking him full in the face. + +"See here, you thrice dear innocent, since you have mentioned that +terrible word 'love,' the complexion of our relation has changed somewhat. +Don't you understand, made as I am, I must fight seven devils within me if +I'm to continue to play fair with you, as I swore I would? And so, just +because you are so very much to me, I had best not see you too often until +I have settled down into my new scheme of life. In a sense Alaric was a +safeguard. That safeguard's gone." + +She moved a step back, letting her hands fall at her sides, while her eye +grew hard and dark. + +"And there are other reasons, brutal, unworthy, sordid reasons, why it is +wiser that you should not come here often at present. They did not +exist--at least I had not the faintest conception that they did--when we +last met. They have rushed into hateful prominence since. Don't ask me--I +cannot tell you. You must trust me, and you must not let my silence +alienate you. I can't be explicit, but I give you my word I am perfectly +straight. And you must not let your religion alienate you either. By the +way, what form of faith is it?" + +"The faith of my own people," Dominic answered. "The faith of the Catholic +Church." + +Poppy smiled. + +"Then I am not so afraid I shall lose you," she said, "for that's the only +brand of religion I've ever come across which isn't too nice to reckon +with human nature as it really is. It can save sinners, just because it +knows how to make saints--and it has made them out of jolly unpromising +material at times, there's the comfort of it." + +She held out her hand in farewell. + +"Good-bye till next time. You've done me good, as you always do. Now, I am +going to re-study some of my old parts, just to get the hang of the whole +show again." + +But the door once shut, she flung herself down on the broad settee, while +the tiny dogs, whimpering, crowded upon her lap. + +"Poppy St. John, you're not such a bad lot after all," she cried. "But oh! +oh! oh! it's beastly rough to be so young, and have gone so far, and know +so much. There, Willie Onions, don't snivel. It's both superfluous and +unpleasant." She sat up and wiped her eyes. "Upon my honour, I think it +was just as well I gave Phillimore the little revolver last night, to lock +up in the plate chest," she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +It followed that Dominic Iglesias walked on across the common to Barnes +Station and travelled Citywards, solaced and uplifted in spirit, yet +greatly troubled by the idea of those newly arrived complications at +which the Lady of the Windswept Dust had hinted. He did not permit himself +to inquire what they might be. Doubtless she knew best--in her social +sense he had great confidence--so he acquiesced in her silence about them. +Still, as he reflected, it is not a little lamentable that even +friendship, the angelic relation between man and woman, should be +thus beset by perils from within and pitfalls without. Where lay the +fault--with over-civilisation and the improper proprieties resultant +therefrom? Or was it of far more ancient origin, resident in the very +foundations of human nature? Woman, eternally the vehicle of man's being, +eternally the inspiration of quite three-fifths of his action; yet, at the +same time, the eternal stumbling block and danger to the highest of his +moral and intellectual attainment! Mr. Iglesias smiled sadly and soberly +to himself as the train rolled on into Waterloo. In any case she remains +the most astonishing of God's creatures. It would be dull enough here on +earth without her, though, to employ one of Poppy's characteristic +phrases, "it's most infernally risky" with! + +But once inside the bank, such far-ranging meditations gave place to +considerations immediate and concrete, Iglesias' whole mind being focussed +to arrive at the facts of the case. And this was far from easy. For alarm +stalked those usually self-secure and self-complacent rooms and glass and +mahogany-walled corridors; men looking up from their desks as he, +Iglesias, passed, with anxious faces, or moving with hushed footsteps as +though someone lay sick to death within the house. In Sir Abel Barking's +private room the drama reached its climax, panic sitting there sensibly +enthroned. Her chill presence had visibly affected Sir Abel, causing the +contrast between the overblown portrait upon the wall and the subject of +it to be ironical to the point of cruelty. For Sir Abel was aged and +shrivelled. His clothes hung loose upon him. Hardly could he rally his +tongue to the enunciation of a single platitude even of the most obviously +staring sort. The mighty, indeed, were fallen and the weapons of +wealth-getting perished! Yet never had Iglesias felt so drawn in sympathy +towards his late employer, for the spectre of possible ruin had made Sir +Abel almost humble, almost human. + +"I am obliged to you for responding to my summons so promptly--yes, sit +down, my good friend, sit down," he said. "It is necessary that I should +converse with you at some length, and I refuse to keep you standing. Our +present position is inexplicable to me. Granting that my nephew Reginald +is unworthy of the trust we reposed in his ability and probity, there was +still our own judgment in reserve, and our own unquestioned capacity to +meet any strain upon our resources. That our confidence in these last was +misplaced is still incredible to me. I am completely baffled. The past few +months, indeed, with their reiterated discovery of difficulty and of loss, +have been a terrible tax upon my fortitude. Veteran financier though I am, +I own to you, Iglesias, there have been moments when I feared that I, too, +should give way. Only my sense of the duty I owe to my own reputation has +supported me." Sir Abel turned sideways in his chair. His eyes sought the +derisive portrait upon the wall, contemplation of which appeared to +reanimate his self-confidence somewhat, for he continued in his larger +manner, "Nor has the sting of private anxiety been lacking. My younger son +has been called away to the seat of war under circumstances of a +peculiarly affecting character. My earnest hopes for his future, in the +shape of a very desirable marriage, touched on fulfilment--." + +But here Iglesias intervened. For his temper began to rise at the mention +of the loves of Alaric Barking. If the springs of Christian charity, just +now welling up so sweetly within him, were not to run incontinently dry, +the conversation, he felt, must be steadied down to themes of other +import. So he civilly but definitely requested Sir Abel to "come to +Hecuba," and to Hecuba the poor man, haltingly yet very obediently, came. +He and his ex-head-clerk seemed, indeed, to have changed places, so that, +before the end of the interview, Iglesias began to measure himself as +never before, to realise his own business acumen, his quickness of +apprehension, his grasp of the issues presented to him and his own +fearlessness of judgment. Whatever the upshot as to the eventual saving of +the credit of Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking, Iglesias became +increasingly confident of his own power, and quietly satisfied in the +exercise of it. + +And so it happened that, although tired in brain and body, his mind +weighted with thought, as were his arms with bundles of papers--which he +carried home for more leisurely inspection--Iglesias came rapidly up the +white steps of Cedar Lodge that night. He was buoyant in spirit, content +with his day's work, keenly interested in the development of it. Using his +latchkey he entered the square panelled hall silently--with results, for +revels were in progress within. + +Dinner was over. Mrs. Porcher and the great Eliza, linked arm in arm, +stood near the dining-room door watching, while those two gay young +sparks, Farge and Worthington, inspired by memories of a recent visit to +the Hippodrome, played at lions. It was a simple game, still it gave +pleasure to the players. Clad in an easy-fitting dark blue "lounge suit," +with narrow white cross-bar lines on it, an aged and faded orange +sheep-skin hearthrug thrown gallantly across his shoulders, Farge, on all +fours, with the mildest roarings imaginable, made rushes from under the +dinner-table at the devoted Worthington, who withstood his fiery onslaught +with lungings and brandishings of that truly classic weapon, the humble +necessary umbrella. At each rush the ladies backed and tittered, clinging +together with the most engagingly natural semblance of terror. + +"Ha! caitiff wretch, beware!" declaimed Worthington nobly. "Only across my +prostrate corse shall you reach your innocent victims. Say, Charlie boy," +he added in a hurried aside, "I didn't poke you in the eye by mistake just +now, did I?" + +"Wurra--wurra--wurra," roared Farge. "Never touched me, Bert, by a couple +of inches--wurra." + +But there the would-be ferocious animal paused, squatted upon its +haunches, pointing its finger dramatically towards the front door, thus +causing the whole company to wheel round and gaze nervously in the +direction indicated. + +"Oh, Mr. Iglesias, how you did startle me!" Mrs. Porcher cried +plaintively, laying her hand upon her heart. + +"Pardon me," he answered. "I had no idea the hall was occupied or I would +have rung instead of letting myself in. I must apologise further for being +so late, and for not having telephoned that I should be unable to be back +in time for dinner." + +"We all know that there are counter-attractions, which may easily account +for unpunctuality," Miss Hart put in, with a toss of her head. + +"Hush, hush, dear Liz," murmured Mrs. Porcher, while the two young men +made round eyes at each other, and de Courcy Smyth, leaning against the +balusters on the landing of the half-flight, announced his presence by a +sarcastic laugh. + +Mr. Iglesias looked from one to another in surprise. He had been thinking +so very little--perhaps, as he told himself, insolently little--about all +these good people for some time past. Now he became aware of a hostile +atmosphere. For cause unknown he was in disgrace with them all. Possibly +they resented his indifference, possibly they were justified in so doing. +Hence he did not feel angry, but merely sorry and perplexed. He addressed +his hostess with increased courtliness of bearing. + +"I hope I have not caused you inconvenience, Mrs. Porcher," he said. "I +was summoned suddenly upon business to the City this morning. The business +in question proved more complicated than I had anticipated, and I was +detained by it till late. This leads me to tell you, if you will forgive +my troubling you with personal matters, that I shall be compelled to go to +the City daily for some weeks to come. I shall not, therefore, be able to +give myself the pleasure of joining you at luncheon, or probably at +dinner, either." + +"Indeed," Mrs. Porcher remarked. "This is rather unexpected, Mr. +Iglesias." + +"To me wholly unexpected," he answered, "and in some respects unwelcome; +but it is unavoidable, unfortunately." + +He bowed gravely to the two ladies and, ignoring the rest of the little +company, went on his way upstairs. At the half-flight Smyth stood aside to +let him pass; then, after a moment's hesitation, followed him. + +"Mr. Iglesias," he said, "may I be permitted so far to presume upon our +acquaintance as to remind you that you received a letter from me this +morning requiring an answer?" + +Dominic paused at the stair-head. + +"Yes, I received it," he replied coldly. + +"And you condescended to read it, so I venture to imagine, notwithstanding +that you were summoned on important business to the City. We are all +impressed by that interesting fact--vastly impressed by it, needless to +state. I specially so, of course, since commerce in all its branches, as +you know, commands my profoundest admiration and respect. Literature +and art are but as garbage compared with it--no one ever recognised +that gratifying truth more thoroughly than I do myself. Still, the +shopkeeper--I beg your pardon, financier I should have said--is not wholly +exempted, by the ideal character of his calling, from keeping his promises +even to poor devils of scholars and literary men such as myself." + +Smyth swaggered, his hands in his trouser pockets, his glance at once +impertinent and malevolent, his manner easy to the point of insolence. + +"I venture to remind you of my letter, therefore, and I may add I shall +feel obliged if you'll just hand me over those notes without delay." + +"I read your letter," Iglesias answered. "It required consideration." + +"Oh! did it, really? I supposed that I had expressed myself with perfect +lucidity. But if any point appeared to you to need explanation, I am +disengaged at the present time--I am quite willing to explain." +"Thank you," Iglesias answered, "no explanation is necessary on your part, +I believe, though perhaps a little is on mine. I must ask you to remember +that I promised to help you within reasonable relation to my means. What +constitutes a reasonable relation it is for me to judge, since I alone +know what my means are. I regret to tell you that your last demand greatly +exceeded that reasonable relation. I am therefore reluctantly obliged to +refuse it." + +"To refuse it?" Smyth exclaimed incredulously. + +"Yes, to refuse it," Iglesias said calmly. "When your play is ready for +production I am prepared to bear the cost of two representations, as I +have already told you. But I am not prepared to make you unlimited +advances meanwhile. To do so would be no kindness to you--" + +"Wouldn't it?" Smyth broke out excitedly. "No kindness to me? Do you +imagine I want kindness, that I would accept or even tolerate kindness +from any man, and particularly from you? I offer you a magnificent +investment, and you speak to me as though I was a beggar asking alms in +the street. No kindness to me? This high moral tone does not become you in +the very least, let me tell you, Mr. Iglesias. Do you suppose I am such a +stoneblind ass as not to see what has been happening. Doesn't it occur to +you that I hold your reputation in my two hands?" + +"My reputation?" Iglesias repeated, a very blaze of pride and indignation +in his eyes. + +Smyth backed hastily away from him, with a livid face and shaking knees. + +"No, no, Mr. Iglesias," he protested. "I was a fool to say that. But I am +utterly beaten by work and by worry. I do not deny that you have behaved +handsomely to me. But persistent injustice and cruelty have soured +me. Is it wonderful? And then to-night those blatant young idiots, Farge +and Worthington, have set my nerves on edge by their imbecility and +conceit, till I really am not accountable for what I say. I had better go. +We can talk of this at another time. I dare say I can manage for a day or +two, though it will not be easy to do so. However, I am accustomed to +rubbing shoulders with every created description of undeserved indignity +and wretchedness. I will go. Good-night." + +Iglesias entered his sitting-room, turned up the gas, and looked round at +the orderly aspect of the place with a movement of relief. He ranged the +bundles of papers upon the table. If he was to master their contents he +would have to work far into the night, and the day had been a long one, +full of application and of very varied emotions. He stood for a little +space thinking of it all. The return to his familiar quarters at the bank +had affected him less than he had expected. He had not felt it as a return +to slavery. + +"Thanks to the Church," he said gratefully, "which confers on her members +the only perfect freedom, namely, freedom of soul, freedom of heavenly +citizenship." + +Then he thought of Poppy--thought very tenderly of that strangely +captivating woman of many moods! How clever she was, how accurately +she knew the ways of men! Her warnings regarding his dabbling in +matters theatrical, for instance, and charities to unsuccessful +playwrights.--And at that point Dominic Iglesias drew himself up short. +For, in a flash, the truth came to him that Poppy St. John's hated "jackal +of a husband" was none other than his fellow-lodger, de Courcy Smyth, +whose shuffling footsteps he heard even now, nervelessly crossing and +recrossing the floor of the room immediately above. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +"I could not write, Rhoda, because of course I could not be sure +beforehand whether, when I came to London, I should really wish to see you +and George again or not." This from Serena, loftily and with rustlings. +"But as Lady Samuelson was driving in this direction to-day, and offered +to drop me here if I could find my own way back, I thought I had better +come, as I knew it was your afternoon at home." + +"And I am sure for my part I am very pleased to have you come," Mrs. +Lovegrove replied, leading the way towards the seat of honour upon the +Chesterfield sofa. "I always do hold with letting bygones be bygones, +particularly as between relatives, when there has been any little +unpleasantness. And perhaps your calling will cheer poor Georgie up. He is +very tenacious of your and Susan's affection, is Georgie." + +Here the speaker proceeded to swallow rather convulsively, pressing her +handkerchief against her lips. + +"Perhaps I should be wiser to keep it all to myself," she added, not +without agitation. "But the sight of you does bring up so much. And I am +sorry to tell you, Serena, things are not as happy as they used to be in +this house." + +The office of ministering angel was not, it must be conceded, exactly +native to Serena, her sympathies being restricted, the reverse of acute. +But, at a push, "curiosity has been known to supply the place of sympathy +very passably; and of curiosity Serena had always a large stock at the +service of her friends and acquaintance. + +"I wonder why," she therefore observed in reply to her hostess's +concluding remark--"I mean I wonder why things should not be as happy as +they used to be?" + +"I trace the commencement of it all to the time when you were visiting +here last November--not that I mean you were in any way to blame--" + +Serena interrupted with spirit: + +"No, pray do not connect anything which occurred then with me, Rhoda. I +think it would be most misplaced. After all that I have had to go through +I really should have thought it only delicate on your part never to refer +to what took place during my visit. I certainly should have hesitated +about coming here to-day if I had supposed either you or George would have +referred to it.--What dreadfully bad taste of Rhoda!" she added mentally. +"I believe I had better go. That would mark my displeasure, and teach her +to be more guarded with me in future. But then perhaps she has something +to say which I really ought to know. Perhaps it would be a mistake to go. +Perhaps I had better stay. I do not want to be too harsh with Rhoda." + +The truth being that she actually itched to hear more. For, to Serena, her +wholly imaginary love episode with Mr. Iglesias represented the most vivid +of all the very limited experiences of her life. Her affections had not +been engaged, since she possessed no affections in any vital sense of that +word. But she had been flattered and excited. + +She had seemed to herself to occupy a most interesting position, demanding +infinite tact. During the months which had elapsed she had rehearsed the +history of every incident, of every hour of intercourse, with Dominic +Iglesias, a thousand times; weighing each word, discounting every look of +his, indulging in unlimited speculation and analysis, until the +proportions of that which had occurred were magnified beyond all +possibility of recognition, let alone of sane relation to fact. To +herself, therefore, Serena had become the heroine of an elaborate +intrigue. This greatly increased her importance in her own eyes; and, +though she was studiously silent regarding the subject save in indirect +allusion, the said self-importance, reacting upon those about her, gained +both for herself and her opinions a degree of consideration to which she +was unaccustomed and which she highly relished. Never had Serena presented +so bold a front to her philanthropic and very possessive elder sister. +Never had she enjoyed so much attention in the small and rigidly select +circle of Slowby society, in which she and Miss Susan moved. Serena spoke +with authority upon all subjects, on the strength of a purely fictitious +affair of the heart. She is not the first woman who has made capital out +of the non-existent in this kind, nor will she probably be the last! +Nevertheless, she was very far from admitting the great benefit which Mr. +Iglesias had so unconsciously conferred upon her. She regarded herself as +a deeply injured person--irreparably injured, but for her own diplomacy, +admirable caution, knowledge of the world and self-respect. + +"I am well aware it is a trying subject to approach," Mrs. Lovegrove +replied, with praiseworthy mildness. "And I am far from blaming you for +turning from it, Serena. I am sure it has weighed sadly on my mind and on +George's, too. Not that he has said much, but I could see how he felt; and +then a great deal has come out since. That is why I am so gratified to +have you call here to-day, and so will Georgie be. He has taken it +dreadfully to heart finding how we have all been taken in, and seeing how +wrong it must put him with you and with Susan." + +"It is very proper that you should say that, Rhoda," the other observed +with condescension. "I think you owe it to me to express regret. I should +have been sorry if George had proved indifferent, for I have been very +careful in what I have told Susan. Of course, I might have spoken +strongly. I think anyone would admit I should have been quite justified in +doing so. But I wished to spare George. Mamma was very much attached to +him, and of course he was constantly with us in old days, before his +marriage." + +It was significant of the wife's humble state that she received this +thrust without a murmur. + +"Poor Georgie was too upset to tell even me for a long time," she +continued somewhat irrelevantly, "and you may judge by that how badly he +felt. He knew how shocked I should be, and that I should take it as such +an insult to the dear vicar, after all his kindness, that any friend of +ours whom he had talked to in this house should turn Romanist." + +"Who? What?" cried Serena. She had determined to maintain a superior and +impassive attitude, but at this point curiosity became rampant, refusing +further circumlocution or delay. + +"Why, Mr. Iglesias, to be sure," Mrs. Lovegrove answered, hardly +restraining evidences of satisfaction. The news was lamentable, no doubt; +but to have it miss fire in the recital of it would have made it ten times +more lamentable still. "And the worst of it was," she continued, refreshed +by the effect upon her hearer, "he kept it dark for we don't in the least +know how long. He mentioned no dates, and poor Georgie was too upset to +ask him. Of course it is well known how double Romanists are always taught +to be--not that I was ever acquainted with any. You never meet them out, I +am glad to think, where we visit. Still, that Mr. Iglesias, who was quite +one of ourselves, as you may say, so intimate and always appearing the +perfect gentleman, so open and honest--" + +"Ah! there you are wrong, Rhoda," the other lady put in with decision, +while making a violent effort to recover her impassivity and superiority. +"You and George may be surprised, but I am not. I always had my suspicions +of Mr. Iglesias. I told you so more than once. At the time you and George +were annoyed. Now you see I was right. I am seldom mistaken. Even Susan +admits I am very observant. After his extraordinary behaviour to me I +should not be surprised at anything which Mr. Iglesias might do." She +paused, breathless but triumphant. "Have you seen him since all this came +out, Rhoda?" + +"Oh, no. He has called twice, but fortunately Georgie was out walking. He +goes out walking a great deal now, does Georgie." The speaker heaved a +voluminous sigh. Her satisfaction had been short-lived. "And I told the +girl, if Mr. Iglesias asked for me, to say I was particularly engaged. He +has written to Georgie. I know that--a long letter--but I have not been +asked to read it." + +Mrs. Lovegrove pressed her handkerchief against her lips again, agitation +gaining her. + +"After all these years of marriage, you know, Serena, it is a very cutting +thing to have any concealment between me and Georgie. I should not mention +it to you but that you were here when it commenced. I never supposed--no, +never, never--there could be any coldness between him and me. When I have +heard others speak of trouble with their husbands, I have always pitied +the poor things from my heart, but held them mainly responsible. Now I +think differently--" + +"Miss Eliza Hart, mum." This shrilly from the little house-parlourmaid. + +Serena rose as well as her hostess. Superiority counselled departure; +curiosity urged remaining. + +"Of course, I should feel justified in staying if Rhoda pressed me to do +so," she said to herself. And Rhoda, in the very act of greeting her new +guest, did press her to do so. + +"Surely you are not leaving yet?" she said plaintively. + +"It would hurt me not to have you stay to tea, and Georgie would be sadly +disappointed to think he had missed you." + +Thus admonished, Serena graciously consented to remain Miss Hart, as last +arrival, being necessarily invited to assume the place of honour upon the +sofa, Serena selected a chair at as great a distance from that historic +article of furniture as the exigencies of conversation permitted. "I must +show her that I stay not to see her, but solely on Georgie's account," she +commented inwardly. "I have been very cold in manner. I think she must +have observed that." + +But the great Eliza was in a militant humour, not easily abashed. She had +called with intentions, in the interests of which she plunged volubly into +talk. + +"You will excuse my coming without Peachie Porcher, Mrs. Lovegrove," she +began. "She was all anxiety to come, too, fearing you might think her +neglectful. But I prevented it. She overrates her strength, does Peachie, +and to-day her neuralgia is cruel. 'I'll run across and account for you,' +I said to her. 'You just lie down and take a nap, and let the housemaid +bring you up a little something with your tea, and take it early.' 'It's +not more nourishment I require, but less worry, Liz dear,' she said. And +so it is, Mrs. Lovegrove." + +"We all have our troubles, Miss Hart, and often unsuspected ones which +call for silence." + +The wife's large cheeks quivered ominously, while Serena rustled--but +whether in sympathetic agreement with the sentiments expressed by the last +speaker, or in protest against the presence of the former one, it would be +difficult to determine. + +"I wonder whether that is not best, Rhoda--I mean I wonder whether it is +not best to be silent," she remarked reflectively. "I think people are not +usually half cautious enough what they tell. So many disagreeables can be +avoided if you are really on your guard. Mamma impressed that upon us when +we were children. I am very careful, but I often think Susan is hardly +careful enough. Most troubles arise through trusting other people too +much." + +"And that's poor darling Peachie all over," Miss Hart declared, with a +fine appreciation of opportunity. "Too great trustfulness has been her +worst fault, as I always tell her, the generous pet. Not that all our +gentlemen are ungrateful, Mrs. Lovegrove. I would not have you suppose +that. Poor Mr. Smyth, for instance, whom I'm afraid I have accused of +being very surly and bearish at times, has come out wonderfully lately. +But it must be a hard nature, indeed, which Peachie's influence would not +soften. One such nature I am acquainted with." Eliza paused, looking from +one to other of her hearers with much meaning. "But it is not the case +with poor Mr. Smyth. He has yielded. Then there is the tie of an +unfortunate domestic past between him and Peachie, which helps to bring +them together.--Of course that means nothing to you, Mrs. Lovegrove." + +The lady addressed swallowed convulsively. + +"But all are not blessed with such good fortune as yours," the great Eliza +continued. "Mr. Smyth has been very open with Peachie recently. He has +some surprising tales to tell, knowing very well all that is going on in +society. And that reminds me of a certain gentleman who does not live a +thousand miles from here. Mr. Smyth has hinted at much that is very +startling in that direction." + +The speaker paused again. + +"Would it be intrusive to ask whether you have been favoured with much of +Mr. Iglesias' company during the last few weeks, Mrs. Lovegrove?" she +added. + +Ruddy mottlings bespread the wife's kindly countenance. Serena moved +slightly upon her chair. She was conscious, of growing excitement. + +"Perhaps not quite so much as formerly; but then Mr. Lovegrove has been +out walking most evenings. The warmer weather always causes him to feel +the need of exercise," the excellent woman returned, putting heroic +restraint upon herself. "And I have been very occupied with the spring +cleaning. I make it a duty to look into everything myself, you know, Miss +Hart. Not but what my girls are very good. I think all the talk about +trouble with the servants is very much exaggerated. Our cook, Fanny, has +been with us quite a number of years. Still, I hold it is well for them to +have a mistress's supervision if the cleaning is to be thorough. If you +see to it yourself, then you can have nobody to blame. And so I have had +frequently to deny myself to visitors." + +She gave a sigh of relief, trusting she had loyally steered the +conversation into safer channels. But the great Eliza was not thus to be +thwarted. + +"I asked on Peachie Porcher's account," she declared, "not on my own, Mrs. +Lovegrove. It is all of less than no consequence to me, except for the +sake of Cedar Lodge, how a certain gentleman spends his time. But +Peachie's interests must be protected. With an establishment such as ours +a good name is everything. 'You cannot be too particular; for any talk of +fastness, and the place must go down,' as she says to me--" + +But here, the wife's natural rectitude and sense of justice triumphed over +prejudice and wounded sensibilities. + +"I am sure I could never believe anyone would have occasion to accuse Mr. +Iglesias of fastness," she said. "Of course, the change of religion is +dreadful, particularly in one who should have known better, though a +foreigner, having had the advantage of being brought up in England. Nobody +can be more aware of that than myself and Mr. Lovegrove. It has been a +sad grief to us"--her voice quavered--"and no doubt early rising and fish +meals do make a lot of work and unpleasantness in a house-hold. But as to +fastness, well, Miss Hart, I cannot find it in my conscience to agree to +anything as bad as that." + +With preternatural solemnity the great Eliza shook her head. + +"Seeing is believing, Mrs. Lovegrove," she replied. "And when ladies call, +dressed in the tiptop of the fashion! Very stylish, no doubt, but not +quite the style Peachie Porcher can countenance, circumstanced as we are +with our gentlemen guests. Then there is what Mr. Smyth hinted at +subsequently, just in a friendly way. He did not say he was actually +acquainted with the lady, but intimated that he could say very much more +if he chose. No, Mrs. Lovegrove, I regret to speak, knowing how long you +and a certain gentleman have been acquainted, but there can be no question +Peachie Porcher's interests have been trifled with, and her affections +also." + +Here aggressive rustlings on the part of Serena arrested the flow of Miss +Hart's eloquence. + +"You spoke, I believe, Miss Lovegrove?" she inquired. + +"No, I did not speak," Serena cried.--"Vulgar, designing person, what +presumption!" she cried to herself. "Anyone would feel insulted by her +manner. She thinks she has put me at a disadvantage. But she is mistaken. +I know more than she supposes." She was greatly enraged; for, unreasonable +though it may appear, if trifling were about on the part of Dominic +Iglesias, Serena reserved to herself a monopoly in respect of it. Few +things, perhaps, are more galling to a woman than the assertion that a +Lovelace has been guilty of misleading attentions to others besides +herself. If she is not the solitary object of his affections, let her at +least be the solitary victim of his perfidy. And that Mrs. Porcher should +aspire to share her _role_ of betrayed one was, to Serena, a piece of +unheard-of impertinence. She refused to bestow further attention upon Miss +Hart, and turned haughtily to her hostess. + +"Have you any idea when George will be in, Rhoda? I am quite willing to +wait a reasonable time for him, but I cannot be expected to wait +indefinitely. I must consider Lady Samuelson. It is a long distance to +Ladbroke Square--of course Trimmer's Green is very far out--and I have +to dress for dinner. Everything is very well done at Lady Samuelson's, and +she makes a great point of punctuality. Of course it is no difficulty to +me to be punctual. I was brought up to be so. Mamma was always extremely +particular about our being in time. She said it was very rude to be late. +I think it is rude, and so, of course, punctuality is quite natural to me. +But I do object to being hurried; and so, unless George is likely to be in +almost directly, I really must go, Rhoda." + +"I should be very mortified to have you leave before he comes back. It +would be a sore disappointment to Georgie to find you had been here and he +had missed you," the good creature pleaded. + +"And it's something quite new for Mr. Lovegrove to be out on your at-home +day, isn't it?" Eliza put in, not without covert sarcasm. "I never +remember to have known it happen before." + +"Mrs. and Miss Ballard, please, mum"--this from the house-parlourmaid. + +Mrs. Lovegrove arose with alacrity, retail trade and nonconformity alike +forgiven. + +"I am afraid Miss Hart grows very spiteful," she said to herself. "I wish +she would go. I should be vexed to have her outsit Serena.--Well, Mrs. +Ballard, very pleased, I am sure, to see you"--this aloud--"and your +daughter, too. The spring is coming on nicely, is it not? Quite warm this +afternoon, walking? I dare say it is. You and my husband's cousin, Miss +Lovegrove, have met, I believe? Miss Ballard, Miss Lovegrove.--Are you +going, Miss Hart? Kind regards to Mrs. Porcher, and sincere hopes she may +soon lose her neuralgia. Very trying complaint, Mrs. Ballard, is it +not?--and very prevalent, so they tell me, this year.--Why, you're never +going to leave, too, Serena? You'll come again, or Georgie will be so +troubled." + +But Serena held out small hope of her reappearance. + +"Of course I should be glad to see George, but I could not bind myself to +anything, Rhoda. You see, Lady Samuelson"--the Ballard ladies, mother and +daughter, looked at one another, fluttered and impressed--"Lady +Samuelson," Serena repeated, her voice rising a little, "has such a number +of engagements, and of course if she wishes to take me with her I cannot +refuse. At home she always likes me to help entertain. I really have very +little time to call my own, and so I should not feel justified in making +any promise. Of course it was just a chance my being able to come to-day. +You can tell George I am sorry not to have seen him. I should like him to +know that I am sorry." + +"You are very kind, Serena," the other said humbly. + +"I think Rhoda has improved," Serena said to herself, as she walked across +Trimmer's Green between the black iron railings. "I think she has more +sense of my position than she did. I wonder whether she thinks that if Mr. +Iglesias had proposed I should have accepted him. Of course she thinks I +was very badly treated. I think her manner shows that. Certainly she took +his part rather against that odious Miss Hart. But I don't believe she +really sided with him. I think she only appeared to do so to snub Miss +Hart. Of course if she had stayed, I should have had to stay, too. I +should have owed it to myself to do so. But, as she went, there was no +object in staying; and it was wiser to seem quite indifferent about seeing +George. I hope he won't attempt to call upon me at Lady Samuelson's! I +should hardly think he would presume to do that. I must tell the butler, +if a gentleman calls, to say I am not at home. If it was only George it +would not so much matter, but I could not run the chance of having Lady +Samuelson and Rhoda meet. It would not do at all to have Rhoda climbing +into society through me. I think it is too bad to have people make use of +you like that. And Rhoda has no tact. I see I must be on my guard with +George and Rhoda. I wonder whether I had better tell Susan Mr. Iglesias +has become a Roman Catholic? Of course she would think I had had a great +escape; but in any case that does not excuse him. He behaved very badly. +I don't believe for an instant he ever took any notice of Mrs. Porcher. I +believe that is an entire invention. I wonder if the lady who called is +the same lady we saw at the theatre--" + +And so on, and so on, all the way home by the Uxbridge Road, and Netting +Hill, and then northward to the august retirement of Lady Samuelson's +large corner house in Ladbroke Square. For a deeply injured person Serena +had really enjoyed herself very much. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +The burden of August, dense and heavy, lay upon London. Radiating outward +in lifeless and dull-glaring sunshine, it involved the nearer suburbs; so +that Dominic Iglesias, sitting on a bench beside the roadway crossing +Barnes Common, notwithstanding the hour--past six o'clock--and the open +space surrounding him, found the atmosphere hardly less oppressive than +that of the streets. The great world, which plays, had departed. The +little world, outnumbering the great by some five or six millions, which +works, remained. And Dominic Iglesias, since he too worked, remained +likewise, sharing with it the burden of the August heat and languor; and +sharing also, to-day being Sunday, its weekly going forth over the face of +the scorched and sun-seared land seeking rest, and, too often, finding +none. + +For the past two months he had seen Poppy St. John but seldom, nor had he +heard from her. Whether by accident or by design he knew not, she had +rarely been at home on those occasions when he had been free to call. For +the last three weeks she had been away up the river, so he understood, +with her friend Dot Parris--_alias_ Miss Charlotte Colthrust. A +blight seemed to Iglesias to have fallen upon his and her friendship, ever +since the day of his return to Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking; and his +discovery, or rather divination, of the relation in which de Courcy Smyth +stood to her. While her husband remained nameless, an unknown quantity, +Dominic deplored the fact of her marriage, but as an abstraction. So soon +as that fact had acquired in his mind--whether rightly or wrongly--a +name and local habitation, now that he was liable to meet it daily +incarnate--and that in most unsavoury shape--liable to be constantly +reminded of its near neighbourhood, to witness a thousand and one +unpleasing peculiarities of speech, habit, and manner, unlooked-for +emotions arose in Iglesias, and those of a character of which he was by no +means proud. Resentment took him, indignation, strange movements of +jealousy and hatred; all very natural, no doubt, but decidedly bad for the +soul. It was idle for him to remind himself that his belief regarding +de Courcy Smyth was based upon supposition, upon circumstantial evidence +which might prove merely coincident. He could not rid himself of that +belief, nor of the emotional consequences of it; and these so vexed him +that he questioned whether it would not be better to remove from Cedar +Lodge and seek a domicile uninfected by the perpetual provocation of +the man's presence. But it was not easy to give a plausible reason to +his hostess for any immediate change of residence; nor was it easy, in +the present stress of business at the bank, to find time or energy for +house-hunting. The atmosphere of Cedar Lodge had become inimical. His +rooms had ceased to be a place of security and repose. Yet whither should +he go? The great wilderness of London seemed vastly inhospitable when it +came to the question of selecting a new dwelling-place. + +Meanwhile, he was grievously conscious of the growing estrangement between +himself and Poppy St. John, which he connected, in some way, with this +haunting yet unspoken suspicion of her relation to de Courcy Smyth--a +suspicion which tended to rob intercourse of all spontaneity by +introducing into it a spirit of embarrassment and constraint. He would +have given so very much to know the truth and be able to reckon finally +with it; but he judged it unpermissible that he should approach the ugly +subject first. It was Poppy's affair, her private and unlovely property. +While she elected to keep silence, therefore, it would be disloyal for him +to speak. Still it distressed him, adding to his mental and emotional +unrest. The happiness might have gone out of their intercourse, yet there +were times when he wearied for sight and for speech of her more than he +quite cared to admit. George Lovegrove still held aloof. Dominic rallied +his faith in the divine purpose, rallied his obedience to the divine +ruling, fixed his eyes more patiently upon the promise of the far horizon; +yet it must be owned he felt very friendless and sad at heart. + +To-day, driven in part by that friendliness, he had come out on the chance +of gaining some news of Poppy. Disappointment, however, awaited him. For +the discreet Phillimore, though receiving him graciously, reported her +mistress resident at home again, it is true, but gone into town on +business, probably theatrical, and unlikely to return until late. +Therefore Dominic had walked on to Barnes Common, and finding the +uncomfortable bench by the roadside--whereon Cappadocia, the toy spaniel, +had sought his protection more than a year ago--untenanted, had sat down +there to meditate. Cedar Lodge was no longer a refuge. He preferred to +keep away from it as long as might be. Perhaps, too, as the sun dropped +the air would grow cooler, and the southeasterly draught, parched and +scorching as from the mouth of a furnace, which huffled at times only to +fall dead, might shift to some more merciful quarter. A coppery haze hung +over London, above which the rusty white summits of a range of cumulus +cloud towered into the thick grey-blue of the upper sky. Possibly the +cloud harboured thunder and the refreshment of rain amid its giant crags +and precipices. On the chance of such refreshment he would stay. + +For in good truth he needed refreshment, and that speedily, being very +tired, fagged by long hours in the City, by heavy responsibilities, by the +burden of the airless August heat, let alone those more intimate causes of +disturbance already indicated. Iglesias could not disguise from himself +that the close application to business was beginning to tell injuriously +upon his health. This same morning, coming back from early Mass, passing +through the flagged passage which leads from Kensington Palace Green into +Church Street, he had become so faint from exhaustion, that reaching--and +not without difficulty--his former home in Holland Street, he had summoned +the neat bald-headed little caretaker and asked permission to enter the +house and rest. The ground-floor rooms were cool and dusky, sheltered by +closed shutters from the summer sun. Only the French-window of the back +dining-room stood open, on to the flight of wrought-iron steps leading +down into the garden. Beside it the caretaker, not without husky +coughings, placed a kitchen chair for Iglesias and fetched him a glass of +water. + +"I could wish I had something better to offer you, sir," he said, "but I +am an abstainer by habit myself; and I have no liquor of any kind, +unfortunately, in the house." + +The water, however, was pleasantly cold, and Dominic drank it thankfully. +He could have fancied there was virtue in it--the virtue of things +blessed by long-ago mother-love. And, thinking of that, his eyes filled +with tears as he looked out over the small neglected garden. Of the once +glorious laburnum there remained only an unsightly stump, but jasmine +still clothed the enclosing walls, the dark green of its straggling shoots +starred here and there with belated white blossoms. About the lip of the +empty stone basin, vigorously chirruping, sparrows came and went, while in +the far corner a grove of starveling sunflowers lifted their brown and +yellow-rayed faces towards the light. Dominic, resting gratefully in the +cool semi-darkness of the empty room, until the faintness which had +attacked him was passed, found the place very gentle, soothing, and sweet. +The sadder memories had died out here, so he noted. Only gracious and +tender ones remained. He wished he could stay on indefinitely. As the +years multiply, and the chequered story of them lengthens, it is +comforting to dwell in a place where, once on a time, one had been greatly +loved. + +Dominic turned to the waiting caretaker, who regarded him with mingled +solicitude, admiration, and deference. + +"So the house is still unlet?" he said. + +"Yes, sir, and is likely to remain so, I apprehend. The lease, as I +understand, falls in a very few years hence, and the landlord is unwilling +to make any outlay on the house, which will probably then be pulled down; +while no tenant, I opine, would be willing to rent a residence so wanting +in modern decoration and modern conveniences. Weeks pass, sir, without any +persons calling to view." + +"Yet the rent is low?" Iglesias said. + +"Very low for so genteel a district--I am a native of Kensington, 'the +royal village,' myself, sir--and no premium is asked." + +Now, sitting on the uneasy bench upon the confines of Barnes Common--while +the little many-millioned world, which works, in gangs, and groups, and +amatory couples, and somewhat foot-weary family parties, sauntered +by--that same oppression of faintness came over Dominic Iglesias, along +with a great nostalgia for the cool, dusky, low-ceilinged rooms, and the +neglected yet still bravely blossoming garden of the little house in +Holland Street. + +"It would be pleasant to spend one's last days and draw one's last breath +there," Iglesias said to himself; "when the sum of endeavour is complete, +when the last cable has been sent, the last column of figures balanced and +audited, when the ledgers are closed and one's work being fairly finished +one is free to sit still and listen--not fearfully, but with reverent +curiosity--for the footsteps of Death and the secrets he has in his +keeping." + +And there he paused, for the scorched dusty land and pale dense sky, even +the rusty white summits of the great range of cloud, slowly, slowly +climbing high heaven--even the light dresses of passing women and +children--went suddenly black, indistinct, and confused to his sight, so +that he seemed to be falling through some depth of dark and untenanted +space, while the dust, thick, stifling, clinging, fell with him, +encircling, enveloping him with a horror of suffocation, of crushing, +impalpable, yet unescapable, dead weight. + +Then out of the darkness, out of the dust, in voluminous dusty drab motor +veil and dusty drab motor coat, the Lady of the Windswept Dust herself +came towards him, bringing consolation and help. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +"You are coming round, dear man. You really look better. What you wanted +was a sensible Christian meal. For, I tell you, you were most uncommonly +done, and it was a near shave whether I should get you home here without +having to call on the populace for assistance. Don't go and worry now. You +were superb as usual, with enough personal dignity to supply a whole +dynasty, and have some left over for washing-day into the bargain. You +should give lessons in the art of majestic collapse--not that you did +collapse, thank goodness! But you came precious near it.--Yes, I mean it, +I mean it, dear man"--Poppy nodded her head at him, leaned across the +corner of the table and patted his arm with the utmost friendliness. "I +want to terrify you into being more careful. There are plenty of people +one could jolly well spare; but you're not among them. So lay that to +heart, or I shan't have an easy moment. And then as to personal dignity, +if you will excuse my entering into details of costume, in that grey +top-hat, grey frock-coat, et cetera, et cetera, you looked more fit for +the Ascot Royal Enclosure than for Barnes Common on a broiling August +Sunday. The populace eyed you with awe.--Don't be offended, there's a +dear. You can't help being very smart and very beautiful; and you oughtn't +to want to help it even if you could, since it gives me so much pleasure. +Your tailor's a gem. But how he must love you, must be ready to dress you +free of cost for the simple joy of fitting on." + +The little dinner had been excellent. The clear soup hot, and the +ninety-two Ayala, extra dry, chilled to a nicety--and so with the rest of +the menu. Glass, silver, china, were set forth daintily upon the fine +white damask, under the glow of scarlet-shaded candles. The double doors +connecting the small drawing-room and dining-room stood open; this, +combined with the fact that lights were limited to the dinner-table, +giving an agreeable effect of coolness and of space. While, as arrayed in +a crisp black muslin gown--the frills and panels of it painted with shaded +crimson roses and bronze-green leaves--Poppy St. John ministered to her +guest, chattered to, and rallied him, her eyes were extraordinarily dark +and luminous, and her voice rich in soft caressing tones. Never had she +appeared more engaging, more natural and human, never stronger yet more +tenderly gay. Dominic Iglesias yielded himself up gladly, gratefully, to +the charm of the woman and to the comfort of his surroundings. Temperate +in all things, he was temperate in enjoyment. Yet he was touched, he was +happy. Life was very sweet to him in this hour of relief from physical +distress, of renewed friendship, and of pretty material circumstance. + +"It was such a mercy I had a decent meal to offer you," Poppy went on. +"Often the commissariat department is a bit sketchy on Sunday, in--well, +in these days of the cleaned slate. But you see, Lionel Gordon, of the +Twentieth Century Theatre, was to tell me, this afternoon, what decision +he had come to about the engagement I have been spelling to get. He is an +appalling mongrel, three-parts German Jew and one part Scotchman--sweet +mixture of the Chosen and Self-Chosen people! He never was pretty, and +increasing years have not rendered his appearance more enticing; but he's +the cleverest manager going, on either side of the Atlantic, and he +doesn't go back on his word once given, as too many of them do. Well, he +was to let me know; and to tell the truth, beloved lunatic, I was rather +keen about this engagement. I knew if he did not give it me I should be a +little hipped, and should stand in need of support and consolation; while, +if he did, I should be rather expansive, and should want suitably to +celebrate the event. So I ordered a good dinner to be ready in either +case"--Poppy laughed gently. "Queer thing the artist," she said, "with its +instinct of falling back on creature comforts. Whatever happens, good luck +or bad luck, it always eats." + +"And they gave you the engagement?" Iglesias inquired. + +Poppy nodded her head in assent. + +"Yes, dear man, Lionel gave it me. He'd have been a fool if he hadn't, for +he knows who I am and what training I've had. And then Fallowfeild has +made things easy. He's a thundering good friend, Fallowfeild is; and in +view of late events--once I had told him to go, I wouldn't, of course, +take a penny of Alaric's--I had no conscience about letting Fallowfeild be +useful. He was lovely about it. I shall only draw a nominal salary for the +first six months until I have proved myself. What I want is my +opportunity; and money matters being made easy helped materially. Both the +Chosen and Self-Chosen People have a wonderfully keen eye to the boodle, +bless their little hearts and consciences!" + +She paused, leaning her elbows on the table and looking sideways at +Iglesias, her head thrown back. + +"I am dreadfully glad to have you here to-night," she went on, "because +you see it's a turning-point. I have pretty well climbed the ridge and +reached the watershed. The streams have all started running in the other +direction--towards the dear old work and worry, the envy, hatred, malice, +and all uncharitableness, and all the fun, too, and good comradeship, and +ambition, and joy, of the theatre. Can you understand, I at once adore and +detest it, for it's a terribly mixed business. Already I keep on seeing +the rows of pinky-white faces rising, tier above tier, up to the roof, +which turn you sick and give you cold shivers all down your spine when you +first come on. And then I go hot with the fight against their apathy or +opposition, the glorious fight to conquer and hold an audience, and bend +its emotions and its sympathies, as the wind bends the meadow grass, to +one's will." + +Poppy stretched out her hand across the corner of the table again, laying +it upon Iglesias' hand. Her eyes danced with excitement, yet her voice +shook and the words came brokenly. + +"But, dearly beloved, I have your blessing on this new departure, haven't +I?" she asked. "After all, it's you, just simply you, that sends me back +to an honest life and to my profession. So I should like to have your +blessing--that, and your prayers." + +"Can you doubt that you have them," Iglesias answered, and his voice, too, +shook, somewhat, "now and always, dearest of friends?" + +For a little minute Poppy sat looking full at him, he looking full at her. +Then, with a sort of rush, she rose to her feet. + +"Come along, this won't do," she said. "Sentiment strictly prohibited. +It's not wholesome for you after the nasty turn you had on Barnes +Common--and it's not particularly wholesome for me either, though for +quite other reasons. Moreover, it's fiendishly hot in here. So see, dear +man, you're not going just yet. I telephoned to the Bell Inn stables for a +private hansom to be on hand about ten thirty for you. Meanwhile, you're +to take it easy and rest. It is but five steps upstairs, and that won't +tire you. Come up into the cool and have your coffee on the balcony." + +And so it came about that Dominic Iglesias followed Poppy St. John +upstairs--she moving rapidly, in a way defiantly--followed her into a +bedchamber, where a subtle sweetness of orris-root met him; and a +fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight, coming in through open +windows, chequered the handsome dark-polished brass-inlaid furniture, the +green silk coverlet and hangings, the dimly patterned ceiling and walls. +Without hesitation or apology, Poppy walked straight through this +apartment, and passed out on to the white-planked and white-railed +balcony. + +The dome of the sky was immense and had become perfectly clear, the great +clouds having boiled up during the afternoon only to sink away and vanish +at sunset, as is their wont in seasons of drought. North and east the +glare of London pulsed along the horizon; and above it the stars were +faint, since the radiant first-quarter moon rode high, drenching roadway +and palings, the stretch of the polo-ground, the shrubberies and grove of +giant elms, with white light blotted and barred, here and there, by black +shadow. The air was still, but less oppressive, the cruelty of sun-heat +having gone out of it and only a suavity remaining. The _facade_ of +the terrace of smirking, self-conscious, much-be-flowered and be-balconied +little houses had taken on a certain worth of picturesqueness, suggestive +of the bazaar of some far-away Oriental city rather than of a vulgar +London suburb, the summer night even here producing an exquisiteness of +effect and making itself very sensibly felt. Poppy silently motioned her +guest to the further of the two cane deck-chairs set in the recess, +arranged a cushion at his back, drew up a little mother-of-pearl inlaid +table beside him, poured coffee into two cups. Then she moved across to +the rail of the balcony, and stood there, her head thrown back, her hands +clasped behind her, facing the moonlight, which covered her slender +rounded figure from head to foot as with a pale transparent veil of +infinite tenuity. Iglesias could see the rise and fall of her bosom, the +flutter of her eyelids, the involuntary movement of her lips as she +pressed them together, restraining, as might be divined, words to which +she judged it wiser to deny utterance. + +And this hardly repressed excitement in Poppy's bearing and aspect, along +with the peculiar scene and circumstances in which he found himself, +worked profoundly upon Dominic Iglesias. In passing through that scented, +half-discovered, fantastically lighted bedchamber and stepping out into +the magic of the night, he had stepped out, in imagination, into regions +dreamed of in earlier years--when reading poetry or hearing music,--but +never fairly entered, still less enjoyed, since all the duties and +obligations of his daily life militated against and even forbade +such enjoyment. The weariness of his work in the City, the petty +annoyances he suffered at Cedar Lodge, the haunting disgust of de Courcy +Smyth's presence, fell away from him, becoming for the time as though they +were not. He never had been, nor was he now, in any degree self-indulgent +or a sentimentalist. The appeal of the present somewhat enchanted hour was +to the intellect and the spirit, rather than sensuous, still less sensual. +Nevertheless, an almost passionate desire of earthly beauty took him--of +the beauty of things seen, of things plastic, beauty of the human form; +beauty of far-distant lands and the varied pageant of their aspect and +history; of great rivers flowing seaward; of tombs by the wayside; of the +glorious terror of the desert's naked face; of languorous fountain-cooled +gardens, close hid in the burning heart of ancient cities; beauty of +sound, beauty of words and phrases, above all, of the eternal beauty of +youth and the illimitable expectation and hope of it. + +And it was out of all this, out of the mirage of these vast elusive +prospects and apprehensions, that he answered Poppy St. John, as with +serious eyes yet smiling lips she turned, and coming across the white +floor sat down beside him, saying: + +"How goes it, Dominic? Are you rested?" + +"Yes," he answered, "I am rested. And more than that, I am alive and +awake, strangely awake and full of vision--thanks to you." + +Poppy's expression sweetened, becoming protective, maternal. She leaned +back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap; yet there was still a +certain tension in her expression, an intensity as of inward excitement in +her gaze. + +"Tell me things, then," she said, "tell me things about yourself, if the +gift of seeing is upon you.--There's no one to overhear. The neighbours on +both sides are away for the holidays, thank the powers! and their houses +stand empty. While the voices and footsteps down in the road only make us +more happily alone. So tell me things, Dominic. I am a trifle stirred up +with all this affair of the theatre, and you always quiet me. I'm really a +very good child. I deserve a treat. And there are things I dreadfully want +to know." + +"Alas! there is so absurdly little to tell," Iglesias answered, "that, +here and now, in face of my existing sense of life and of vision, I am +humbled by my own ignorance and poverty of achievement. That poverty, I +suppose, is all the more apparent to me, because twice to-day I have +been--so I judge, at least--within measurable distance of bidding farewell +to this astonishingly wonderful world and the fashion of it. It comes home +to me how little I have seen, how little I have profited, how little I +know. I would have liked to leave it; it would be more seemly to do so, +having profited more largely by my sojourn here." + +Iglesias paused, excitement which his natural sobriety disapproved gaining +him, too, through that ache of unrealised beauty. For a moment he +struggled with it as with a rising tide, then resigned himself. + +"And yet," he added, "in other respects I should not be sorry to hear the +hour strike, for curiosity of the unknown is very strong in me. +Opportunity may have been narrow, and one may have been balked of high +endeavour and rich experience, by lack of talent and by adverse +circumstances; but in the supreme, the crowning experience, that of death +and all which, for joy or sorrow, lies beyond it, even the most obscure, +the most uncultured and untravelled must participate." + +"Don't be in too great a deuce of a hurry to satisfy that curiosity, dear +man," Poppy put in. "You must contrive to exercise patience for a little +while yet, please; always remembering that it is entirely superfluous to +run to catch a train which is bound not to start until you are on board of +it. And then, too, you see--well, there's me, after all, and I want you." + +Iglesias' face grew keen, as he looked at her through that encompassing +whiteness of moonlight. + +"I am glad of that," he said very quietly, "because you are to me, dear +friend, what no other human being has ever yet been. The saddest thing +that could happen to me, save loss of faith, would be that you should +cease to want me. I only pray God, if it is not self-seeking, that you +may continue to want me as long as I live." + +"But your religion?" she asked, a point of jealousy pricking her. + +"My religion forbids sin, whether of body or mind; forbids violation of +the eternal spiritual proportion, by any placing of the creature before +the Creator in a man's action or in his heart. But my religion enjoins +love and stimulates it; since only through loving can we fulfil the +highest possibility of our nature, which is to grow into the likeness of +Almighty God." + +"You believe that?" Poppy asked again. + +"I do more," Iglesias said. "I know it." + +Then both fell silent, having reached the place where words hinder rather +than help thought. And, as it happened, just then the stillness was +sensibly broken up, and the magic of the night encroached upon by the +passing of a couple of _char-a-bancs_ in the road below, loaded up +with trippers faring homewards from a day's outing at Hampton Court. The +tired teams jog-trotted haltingly. The wheels whispered hoarsely in the +muffling dust; and voices mingled somewhat plaintively in the singing of +a then popular khaki sing--"The Soldiers of the Queen." Hearing all of +which, as the refrain died away Londonwards up the great suburban +road, the compelling drama and pathos of life as the multitude lives +it--stupidly, without ideas, without any conscious nobility of purpose, +yet with a certain blundering and clumsy heroism--took Poppy St. John by +the throat. Those who stand aside from that democratic everyday drama, +rejecting alike the common joys and common sorrows of it, have need--so it +seemed to her--to account for and justify themselves lest they become +suspect. Therefore she looked at Dominic Iglesias intently, questioningly, +hesitated a moment, and then spoke. + +"Still I don't understand you, in your determined detachment of attitude. +Tell me, if you are not afraid of love, why have you never married?" she +said. + +And he, divining to an extent that which inspired her question, smiled at +her somewhat proudly as he answered. + +"Be under no misapprehension, dear friend. I am a perfectly normal piece +of flesh and blood, with a man's normal passions, and his natural craving +for wife, and child, home, family, and the like. But during my mother's +lifetime I was bound to other service than that of marriage." + +"But in these years since her death?" Poppy asked. + +"There is a time for everything, as the Preacher testifies, a due and +proper time which must be observed if life is to be a reasoned progress, +not a mere haphazard stumbling from the weakness of childhood to the +incapacity of old age. And, can anything be more objectionably at variance +with that wise teaching than the spectacle of amorous uxorious +efflorescence in a man of well over fifty?" + +Poppy permitted herself a lively grimace. + +"All the same you have sacrificed yourself, as usual," she said. + +"Not so very greatly, perhaps," Iglesias replied, with a soberly humorous +expression. "For I have always been very exacting and have asked very +much. I am culpably fastidious. My tastes are far beyond my means, my +desires out of all reasonable relation to my station and my merits. And it +should be remembered that my circle of acquaintances has been a very +limited one, until quite recently--I do not wish to appear more glaringly +arrogant or discourteous than I actually am. I had my ideal. It happened +that I failed to realise it; and I am very impatient of compromise in +matters of intimate and purely personal import. In respect of them I hold +I have an unqualified right to consult my own tastes. It has always been +easier to me to go without than to accept a second-best." + +"In point of fact no woman was good enough! Poor brutes!" + +Poppy mused a little, with averted face. + +"How beastly cheap they'd all feel--I've not forgotten the undulating and +aspiring withered leaf--if they knew how mightily they all fell short!" +she added naughtily. Suddenly she looked round at Dominic Iglesias. Her +eyes were as stars, but her lips trembled. "Bless me, but you've +extensively original methods of conveying information! It's lucky for me +I've a steady head. So--so it comes to this--I reign all alone?" she said. + +"Yes, dear friend, save for my love for my mother--such as the throne is +or ever has been--you reign alone," Iglesias answered quietly. + +Poppy rested her elbows upon her knees, dropped her face into her hands, +and sat thus bowed together in the whiteness of the moonlight. + +"Ah, dear!" she murmured presently, brokenly, "I've got my answer. It's +better and--worse, than I expected. All the same I'm content--that's to +say, the best of me is--royally, consummately content.--Thank you a +thousand times, thrice-beloved and very most exceedingly unworldy-wise +one," she said. + +Then for a while both were silent, wrapped about by, and resting in, the +magic of the summer night. When Poppy roused herself at last to speak, it +was in a different key, studiously matter-of-fact. + +"Look here, dear man, do you in the least realise how extremely far gone +you were when I arrived to you on Barnes Common this evening? Because I +tell you plainly I didn't in the very least like it. In my opinion it is +high time you gave up dragging that Barking Brothers & Barking cart." + +"I shall give up doing so very soon," Iglesias replied. "Just now I am +acting as manager. Sir Abel is at Marienbad, and the other partners are +out of town." + +"I like that--lazy animals!" Poppy said. + +"But the situation is in process of righting itself--has practically +righted itself already." + +"Thanks to you." + +"In part, no doubt. There was a disposition to panic, which rendered it +exceedingly difficult to get accurate and definite information at first. +However, I arrived at the necessary data with patience and diplomacy, and +was able to draw out a clear detailed statement. This proved so far +satisfactory that Messrs. Gommee, Hills, Murray & Co. and Pavitt's Bank +have considered themselves justified in undertaking to finance Barking +Brothers until business in South Africa has resumed its ordinary course." + +"Then the elderly plungers are saved?" + +"Yes, I believe, practically they are saved," Iglesias said. "And, +therefore, as soon as Sir Abel has finished his cure and returns I shall +retire." + +Poppy rose, clapping her hands together with irritation. + +"Sir Abel's cure be hanged!" she cried. "What do I care about his idiotic +old liver or his gout, or anything else. Let him pay the price of steadily +over-eating himself for more than half a century. I've no use for him. +What I have a use for is you, dear man; more than ever now, don't you +see," her voice softened, became caressing, "after our recent little +explanation. And you shan't kill yourself. I won't have it. I won't allow +it. Therefore be reasonable, my good dear. Put away your mania of +self-immolation--or keep it exclusively for my benefit. Write and tell the +Barking man to hurry up with his liver and his gout. Tell him you're being +sweated to death dragging his rotten old banking cart, and that he's just +got to come home and set you free, and get between the shafts and do the +dragging and sweating himself.--Ah, there's the hansom. You must go. I'd +no notion it was so late." + +And so it came about that, once more, Dominic Iglesias followed the +Lady of the Windswept Dust into the faintly scented bedchamber, where +fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight chequered the polished +surfaces of the dark furniture, the green silk coverlet and hangings, +the dimly-patterned ceiling and walls. His instinct was to pass on, as +quickly as might be, to the secure commonplace of the landing without. But +half-way across the room, at the foot of the low-pillared and brass-inlaid +bedstead, Poppy St. John stopped, and turned swiftly, barring his passage +with extended arms. + +"Stay a minute, for probably we shall never meet in this poor little house +again, best beloved one," she said. "It is too far out. I must move into +town. Lionel puts the play into rehearsal next week, and I must live near +the theatre. And then, too--well, you know, since I've made up my mind, +it's best to clean the slate even in respect of one's dwelling-place. +Memories stick, stick like a leech; and they raise emotions of a slightly +disturbing character sometimes. I am sure of myself; and yet I know it's +safest to make a clean sweep of whatever reminds me of all the forbidden +dear damned lot. I regret nothing--don't imagine that. I'm keen on my +work. The artist, after all, is the strongest thing in me. I'm quite +happy, now I have made up my mind. My nose is in the air. I can look +creation in the face without winking an eyelid. I can respect myself. And +I'm tremendously grateful to Lionel Gordon for taking me on spec, and to +Fallowfeild for greasing the creature's Caledonian-Teutonic-Hebraic palm +for me. Still--still--you can imagine, can't you, that, take it all round, +it's not precisely a Young Woman's Christian Association blooming picnic +party for me just at present?" + +Poppy dashed her hand across her eyes, half laughing, half sobbing. + +"Ah, love me, Dominic, love me, in your own way, the clean way--that's all +I ask, all that I want--only love me always," she said. + +She laid her hands on Iglesias' shoulders and threw back her head. And he, +holding her, bending down kissed her white face, soft heavy hair, over-red +lips, her tragic and unfathomable eyes--which looking on the evil and +measuring the very actual immediate delights of it, still had courage, in +the end, to reject it and choose the good--kissed them reverently, +gravely, proudly, with the chastity and chivalry of perfect friendship. + +"Ah! that's better. I'm better. Bless you; don't be afraid. I'll play fair +to the finish--only keep well. Quit that rotten old bank.--Now go, dear +man, go," Poppy said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +During the past six weeks events had galloped. To Iglesias it appeared +that changes were in course of arriving in battalions. He neither hailed +nor deplored them, but met them with a stoical patience. To realise them +clearly, in all their bearings, would have been to add to the sense of +fatigue from which he too constantly suffered. More than sufficient to +each day was the labour thereof. So he looked beyond, to the greater +repose and freedom which, as he trusted, lay ahead. + +Upon the morning immediately in question he had closed his work at the +bank. Sir Abel's demeanour had been characteristic. His clothes, it is +true, still hung loosely upon him. His library chair and extensive +writing-table appeared a world too big. For he was shrunken and had +become an old man. Yet, though signs of chastening thus outwardly declared +themselves, in spirit he had regained tone and returned to his former high +estate. Along with the revival of financial security had come a revival of +pomposity, an addiction to patronage in manner and platitudes in speech. +He had ceased to be humble and human, self-righteous self-complacency +again loudly announcing itself. + +"So you propose to retire, you ask to be relieved of your duties, my good +friend?" he asked of Iglesias, who had requested the favour of an +interview in his private room. "Let us, then, congratulate ourselves upon +the fact that I have returned from my sojourn upon the continent with so +far renovated health that I feel equal to meeting the arduous +responsibilities of my position unaided; and am not, consequently, +compelled, out of a sense of duty either to myself or to my colleagues, to +offer any objection to your retirement. Before we part I should, however, +wish to place it clearly on record that my confidence, both in the +soundness of my own judgment and in our capacity, as capitalists, to meet +any strain put upon our resources, was not misplaced. This no one can, I +think, fail to admit. Our house emerges from this period of trial with the +hall-mark of public sympathy and esteem upon it. And, in this connection, +it is instructive to note the working of the law of compensation. This +war, for example, which to the ordinary mind might have appeared an +unmixed evil, since it threatened to jeopardise our position among the +leading financiers of the capital of the civilised world, has, in the +event, served, not only to consolidate our position, but to unmask the +practices of that unscrupulous and self-seeking member of our firm, my +unhappy nephew Reginald, and afford us legitimate excuse for his removal. +We appeared to touch on disaster; but, by that very means, we have been +enabled to rid ourselves of a canker. Still this must remain a painful +subject." + +Sir Abel became pensive, fixing his gaze, the while, upon the portrait +adorning the wall over against him. To an acute observer the said portrait +had always been subtly ironical. Now it had become coarsely so--a +merciless caricature of the shrivelled old gentleman whom it represented, +and to whom it bore much the same resemblance as a balloon soaring +skywards, fully inflated, bears to that same object with half the gas let +out of it in a condition of flabby and wobbling semi-collapse. + +"A painful subject," he repeated nobly--"I refrain from enlarging upon it, +and pass to other matters. As to the part you yourself have borne in the +history of our recent anxieties, Iglesias, I feel I cannot do less than +tender you the thanks of myself and my co-partners. I do not disguise from +you that a tendency existed to criticise my action in summoning you, to +dub your business methods antiquated, and question your ability to march +with the times. But these objections proved, I am happy to think, +unfounded. The faith I reposed in you has been justified. And I may tell +you, in confidence, that, should the occasion for doing so arise, my +colleagues will in future have as little hesitation in calling upon your +services as I should have myself." + +The speaker paused, as for applause. And Dominic, who had remained +standing during this prolonged oration--no suggestion having been made on +the present occasion that he should be seated--proceeded to acknowledge +the peculiar compliment just paid him, with somewhat sardonic courtesy. + +"Your words are extremely reassuring, Sir Abel," he remarked calmly. + +The gentleman addressed regarded him sharply for a moment, as though +doubtful of the exact purport of his words. Then, suspicion of covert +sarcasm being clearly inadmissible, Sir Abel spoke again in his largest +platform manner, although the tones of his voice, like his person, were +shrunken, docked of the fulness of their former rotundity and unction. + +"It has ever been my effort to reward merit by encouragement," he replied. +"And, were testimony to the wisdom of my practice, in this particular, +needed, I should point, I candidly tell you, my good friend, to the +excellent results of my recent demand upon your cooperation and support." +He leaned sideways in his chair, assuming the posture of the portrait, +conscious of having really said a very handsome thing indeed to his +ex-head-clerk. "For," he added, "I sincerely believe in the worth of +example. It is hardly too much to assert that a generous and high-minded +employer eventually stamps the employed with a reflection, at least, of +his own superior qualities." + +Again he paused. But truth to tell, Dominic Iglesias had not only grown +very weary of discourse and discourser, but somewhat impatient also. He had +hoped better things of the man after the nasty shaking fortune had +recently given him. Consequently he was disappointed; for it was very +effectually borne in upon him that only absence of feathers makes for +grace in a goose. Once the nudity of the foolish bird covered, it hisses, +and that loudly, to the old tune. Hence, in the interests of Christian +charity, he agreed with himself to cut short the interview, lest anger +should get the better of toleration. + +"I think we have now discussed all questions calling for your personal +attention, Sir Abel," he said, "and all documents and correspondence +relating to affairs during your absence have been placed in your hands. If +therefore you have nothing further to ask me, I need not encroach any +longer upon your valuable time." + +With that, after a brief pause, he moved towards the door; but the other +man, half rising from his chair, called after him. + +"Iglesias, your attention for one moment--that matter of a salary?" + +"I supposed I had made my terms perfectly clear, Sir Abel," Dominic +remarked coldly. + +"No doubt, in the first instance. But should you have reconsidered your +decision, and should you think the pension you enjoy an insufficient +remuneration, I am empowered to make you the offer, in addition, of a +fixed salary for the past six months." + +Listening to which tardy and awkward recognition of his own rather +princely dealings, Mr. Iglesias' temper began to rise, his jaw to grow +rigid, and his eyes dangerously alight. + +"I am not in the habit of changing my mind, Sir Abel," he said. "I +proposed to make you a free gift of my time and such experience as I +may possess. Nothing has occurred to alter or modify that intention. +There are circumstances, into which I do not choose to enter, which would +render it extremely distasteful to me to accept anything--over and above +my pension--from yourself or from any member of your family or firm." + +Here Sir Abel, who had been standing, sagged down, +half-empty-balloon-like, into his chair. Again he eyed Iglesias sharply, +doubtful of the exact purport of his speech. But again suspicion of covert +sarcasm, still more of covert rebuke, being to him quite inconceivable, he +rejoined with a condescension which he could not but feel was altogether +praiseworthy: + +"Enough, enough, my good friend. That is sufficient. I will detain you no +longer; but will merely add that I commend your reticence while +appreciating the sentiments which dictate your refusal. These it is easy +to interpret. They shall not be forgotten, since they constitute a very +suitable acknowledgment of the advantages and benefits which have accrued +to you during you long association with my partners and myself." + +Later, journeying westward upon the 'bustop, Dominic Iglesias meditated in +a spirit of humorous pity upon the above conversation. He was very glad he +had not lost his temper. Eyes blinded by self-worship, an inpenetrable +hide, these things, too, have their uses in time--very practical uses, +which it would be silly to ignore. Why, then, be angry? The truly wise +man, as Dominic told himself with a somewhat mournful smile, learns to +leave such time-wise fools as Sir Abel Barking to Almighty God for +chastisement, because--if it can be said without irreverence--the +Almighty alone has wit enough to deal with them. And, for his comfort on +lower levels, he reminded himself that though the house of Barking might +show him scant gratitude, and attribute its financial resurrection to its +own inherent virtue, this was not the opinion held by outsiders. The +manager of Pavitt's Bank, and certain members of Goome, Hills, Murray & +Co., had congratulated Iglesias, personally, upon his admirable conduct +of affairs during the crisis, and assured him of the high respect they had +conceived for his judgment, his probity, and business acumen. In this +there was satisfaction of a silent but deep-seated sort--satisfaction of +pride, since he had accomplished that which he had set forth to +accomplish: satisfaction of honour through unbiassed and unsolicited +commendation. With that satisfaction he bade himself rest thankfully +content, while turning his thoughts to other and more edifying subjects. + +And, in this connection, it was inevitable that a former journeying +westward upon a 'bustop should occur to him, with its strange record of +likeness and unlikeness in circumstance and outlook. Then, as now, +somewhat outworn in mind and in health, he had closed a period of +labour and faced new conditions, new habits, unaccustomed freedom and +leisure. But now on matters of vital, because of eternal, importance, his +mind was at rest. Loneliness and on-coming old age had ceased to disquiet +him. The ship of his individual fate no longer drifted rudderless or +risked danger of stranding, but steered steadily, fearlessly, towards the +promise of a secure and lovely harbourage. The voyage might be long or +short. At this moment Dominic supposed himself indifferent in the matter, +since he believed--not presumptuously, but through the outreaching of a +great faith--that the end was certain. And meditating, just now, upon that +gracious conviction, while the red-painted half-empty omnibus fared onward +down Piccadilly, a sense of the unusual graciousness of things immediate +and visible took hold on him. + +For to-day the monstrous mother, London-town, wore a pensive and delicate +aspect. The tender melancholy of early autumn was upon her, she looking +etherealised and even youthful, as does a penitent cleansed from the soil +of past transgressions by fasting and tears. No doubt she would sin again +and befoul herself, for the melting moods of a great city are transient; +yet for the moment she showed very meek and mild. The atmosphere was +clear, with the exquisite clarity which follows abundant and welcome rain +after a spell of heat and drought. The trees, somewhat sparse in foliage, +were distinct with infinite gradations of blonde, golden, and umber tints, +as of burnished metal, against their black branches and stems. The endless +vista of grey and red buildings, outlined finely yet without harshness, +towered up into a thin, sad, blue sky overspread with long-drawn shoals +and islands, low-shored and sinuous, of pale luminous cloud. Upon the +grey pavements the bright-coloured dress of a woman--mauve, green, or +pink--took on a peculiar value here and there, amid the generality of +darkly clad pedestrians. And in the traffic, too, the white tilt of a van +or rather barbaric reds and yellows of the omnibuses, stood away from the +sombre hues of the mass of vehicles. The air, as Iglesias met it--he +occupying the seat on the right immediately behind that of the driver--was +soft, yet with a perceptible freshness of moisture in it; a cool, wistful +wind seeming to hail from very far, the wings of it laden less with +hopeful promise than with rare unspoken farewells, gentle yet penetrating +regrets; so that Dominic, even while welcoming the refreshment of it, was +moved in spirit with impressions of impending finality as though it spoke +to him of things finished, laid aside, not wholly without sorrow +relinquished and--so far as outward seeming went--forgot. + +Involuntarily his eyes filled with tears. Then he reproached himself. Of +what had he to complain? The will must indeed be weak, the spiritual +vision reprehensively clouded, if these vague voices of nature could so +disturb the serenity of the soul. Thus he reasoned with himself, almost +sternly. But, just then, the flaming rose-scarlet bill on the knife-board +of a passing omnibus attracted his attention, along with the announcement, +in big letters, which it set forth. To-night the Twentieth Century Theatre +opened its winter season with a new piece by that admirable but all too +indolent and intermittent dramatist, Antony Hammond; and in it Poppy St. +John played the leading lady's part. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Opposite St. Mary Abbott's church Mr. Iglesias lighted down from the +'bustop. His eyes were still dazzled by those flaming bills.--Lionel +Gordon was advertising handsomely. The knife-board of every second omnibus +displayed them, now he came to look.--His thought turned in quickened +interest towards the Lady of the Windswept Dust and all that the said +advertisements stood for in her case. He had seen her a few days ago, +after rehearsal, and she had warned him off being present tonight. + +"It's all going like hot cakes, dear man," she had said gaily, "still, as +you love me, don't come. I should be more nervous of you than ninety dozen +critics. I shall want you badly, all the same, don't doubt that; and I +shall play to you, all the while, though you're not there. But--don't you +understand?--if I actually saw you it might come between me and my part. I +shouldn't be sure who I really was, and that would make me as jumpy as a +sick cat. You shall know--I'll wire to you directly the show's over; but +I'd best have my first round quite alone with the public. And then a first +night is always a bit jungly--not quite fair on the play or the company, +or the audience either for that matter. A play's the same as a ship, if +there's any real art in it. It needs time to find itself. So just wait, +like a lamb, till we've all shaken into place, and I'm quite at home in +the saddle." + +And in truth Dominic Iglesias had plenty to occupy his time and attention +at this particular juncture, irrespective of Poppy's _debut_ at the +Twentieth Century Theatre. For tomorrow would close his connection with +Cedar Lodge, as to-day had closed his connection with Messrs. Barking +Brothers & Barking. The mind in hours of fatigue, when vitality is low and +the power of concentration consequently deficient, has a tendency to work +in layers, so to speak, one strain of thought overlying another. Hence it +was that Iglesias' contemplation of those gaudy advertisements, and of +their bearing upon Poppy's fortunes, failed to oust the premonitions of +finality which had come to and somewhat perturbed him as he looked upon +the pensive tearwashed face of London-penitent, cleansed by the breath of +the wistful far-hailing autumn wind. Involuntarily, and notwithstanding +his repudiation of them, he continued to question those premonitions and +the clinging melancholy of them, asking whether they bore relation +merely to the two not wholly unwelcome partings above indicated; or +whether the foreboding induced by them did not find its source in some +sentiment, some intuition of approaching change, far more intimate and +profound than cessation of employment or alteration of dwelling-place. +Then, as he walked on up Church Street another layer of thought presented +itself. For he could not but call to mind how many hundred times he had +trodden that pavement before close against the close-packed traffic, the +high barrack-wall on the right hand, the row of modest shop-fronts on +the left, on his way home to the little house in Holland Street. Once more +that house was home to him. He would cross its familiar threshold to-day +as master. Yet how differently to of old! How steep the hill was! How +languid and spent he became in ascending it--slowly, deliberately, instead +of with light-footed energy and indifference! And this made him ask +himself, what if these premonitions of finality, of impending farewells, +of compulsory relinquishment, had indeed a very special and definite +significance, being sent to him as heralds of the approach of a common +yet--to each individual being--unique and altogether tremendous change? +What if that haunting curiosity of the unknown--concerning which he had +spoken with Poppy St. John amid the white magic of the moonlight during +the enchanted hour of his and her friendship--was to be satisfied very +soon? + +Iglesias drew himself up to his full height, fatigue and bodily weakness +alike forgotten, and stood for a little space at the turn into Holland +Street, hat in hand, facing the delicately chill wind and looking away +into the fine perspective of sky overspread by shoals and islands of pale +luminous cloud. Calmly--yet with the sharp amazement inevitable when +things taken for granted, tacitly and nominally accepted throughout a +lifetime, suddenly advance into the immediate foreground, becoming actual, +tangible, imperative--he asked himself, was death so very near, then? At +the church of the Carmelite Priory just above--the high slated roofs and +slender iron crockets of which overtopped the parapets of the intervening +houses--a bell tolled as the officiating priest, in giving the +Benediction, elevated the sacred Host. And that note, at once austere and +plaintive, striking across the hoarse murmur and trample of the streets, +was very grateful to Dominic Iglesias. For it assured him of this, at +least, that when for him the supreme hour did indeed strike and he was +called upon to go forth alone--as every soul must go--to meet the +impenetrable mystery which veils the close of the earthly chapter, he +would not go forth unbefriended, but absolved, anointed, fortified, made +ready--in so far as readiness for so stupendous an ordeal is possible--by +the rites of Holy Church. + +"_Fiat misericordia tua Domine super nos: quemad-modum speravimus te. In +te Domine speravi: non confundar in aeternum,_" he quoted half aloud. + +And then could not forbear to smile, gravely and somewhat sadly, +registering the deep pathos of the fact that the majestic hymn of praise +and thanksgiving, dedicated by the use of Christendom throughout centuries +to the celebration of highest triumph, still ends brokenly with a +childlike sob of shrinking, of entreaty, and very human pain. + +Meditating upon which, and upon much implied by it, not only of sorrow but +of consolation for whoso is not afraid to understand, Iglesias moved +onward. But so closely do things absurd and trivial jostle things august +and of profound significance in daily happenings--he was speedily aroused +from meditation and his attention claimed by example of quite another +order of pathos to that suggested by the concluding verses of the _Te +Deum_. Some little way ahead a brown-painted furniture van was backed +against the curb. From the cave-like interior of it coatless white-aproned +men bore a miscellaneous collection of goods--among others a battered +dapple-grey rocking-horse with flowing mane and tail--across the yard-wide +strip of garden, and in at the front door of a small old-fashioned house. +Bass mats were strewn upon the pavement. Sheets of packing paper +pirouetted down the roadway before the wind. While, standing in the midst +of the litter, watching the process of unloading with perplexed and even +agitated interest, was a whimsical figure--large of girth, short of limb, +convex where the accredited lines of beauty demand, if not concavity, at +least a refined flatness of surface. + +The Latin, unlike the Anglo-Saxon, does not consider it necessary as +soon as adolescence is past to extirpate his heart; or, failing successful +performance of that heroic operation, strictly to limit the activities +of it to his amours, legitimate or otherwise. Hence Dominic Iglesias +felt no shame that the sight of his old plaything, or of his old +school-fellow--now unhappily estranged from and suspicious of him--should +provoke in him a great tenderness. Upon the battered rocking-horse his +heart rode away to the dear sheltered happiness of childhood, while +towards his former school-fellow it went forth in unmixed kindliness. For +it appeared to him that for one who had so lately held converse with +approaching death, it would be a very scandal of light-minded pettiness to +nourish resentment against any fellow creature. In near prospect of the +eternal judgment, private and temporal judgment can surely afford to +declare a universal amnesty in respect of personal slights and injuries. +Therefore, after but a moment's hesitation, he went on, laid his hand upon +George Lovegrove's shoulder, and called him affectionately by name. + +"Dominic!" the latter cried, and stood staring. "Well to be sure--you did +surprise me! To think of meeting you just by accident to-day, like this!" + +He grew furiously red, gladness and embarrassment struggling within him. +Conscientiously he strove to be faithful to the menagerie of ignorances +and prejudices which he misnamed his convictions. For here was the +representative of the Accursed Thing--persecutor, enemy of truth, of +patriotism, of marriage, worshipper of senseless idols; but, alas! how he +loved that representative! How he honoured his intelligence, admired his +person, coveted his companionship! Beholding Iglesias once again, George +Lovegrove rejoiced as at the finding of lost treasure. Hence, perplexed, +perspiring, lamentably squinting, yet with the innocent half-shy ecstasy +of a girl looking upon her recovered lover, he gazed up into Mr. Iglesias' +face. + +"I give you my word I was never more taken aback in my life," he +protested. "As it happened I was just thinking about old times, observing +that some family is moving into your former house. But I had no notion of +meeting you. Positively I am unable to grasp the fact. I have not a word +to say to you, because I require to say so much. I know there is a great +deal which needs explanation on my part. And then your calling me by my +name, too! I declare it went right through me, as a voice from the grave +might." + +"Put aside explanations," Iglesias replied indulgently. "You are not going +to quarrel with me any more--let that suffice." + +"No, I cannot quarrel with you any more. I am sure I don't know whether it +is unprincipled or not, but I cannot do it." + +Regardless of observation, he pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his +face. + +"If it is unprincipled I must just let it go." he said, quite recklessly. +"I cannot help myself. I give you my word, Dominic, I have held out as +long as I could." + +This appeal to Iglesias, as against himself, appeared to him abundantly +unaffected and ingenuous. + +"I cannot but believe you will find the consequences of renewed +intercourse with me less damaging than you suppose," he answered, smiling. + +"That is what the wife says," the other man stated. "She has veered round +completely in her opinion, has the wife. I do not understand why, except +that Mrs. Porcher and Miss Hart and she seem to have fallen out. The +workings of females' minds are very difficult to follow, even after years +of marriage, you know, Dominic. Opposition to one of their own sex will +make them warmly embrace opinions you supposed were just those which they +most strongly condemned. She has taken a very high tone, for some time +past, about the Cedar Lodge ladies, has the wife. And when I came in, the +evening of her last at-home day, I found her sadly upset at having heard +from one of them that you were about to leave. She implied that I was to +blame; whereas I can truthfully say my conduct throughout has been largely +influenced by the fear of hurting her feelings." The speaker looked +helplessly at Mr. Iglesias. "Of course we do not expect the same reticence +in speech from females we require of ourselves. Still, such unfounded +accusations are rather galling." + +"I cannot be otherwise than very grateful to Mrs. Lovegrove for espousing +my cause, you see," Iglesias replied. This confused and gentle being, +struggling with the complexities of friendship, religious prejudice, and +feminine methods and amenities, was wholly moving. "Circumstances have +arisen which have made me decide to give up my rooms at Cedar Lodge. +To-night is the last upon which I shall occupy them. But I do not wish +Mrs. Lovegrove to be under any misapprehension regarding my hostess and +her companion. I have nothing to complain of. During my long residence +they have treated me with courtesy and consideration. I wish them nothing +but good. Still the time has come, I feel, for leaving Cedar Lodge." + +Here the worthy George's imagination indulged in wild flights. Visions of +a hideous and rugged cell--of the sort known exclusively to serial +melodrama--and of a beautiful woman, in voluminous rose-red skirts and a +costly overcoat, presented themselves to him in amazing juxtaposition. + +"Of course, I have forfeited all right to question you as to your plans, +Dominic," he said hurriedly and humbly. "I quite realise that. I believed +I was acting on principle in keeping away from you, all the more because +it pained me terribly to do so. I believed I was being consistent. Now I +begin to fear I was only obstinate and cowardly. Your kindness of manner +has completely unmanned me. I see how superior you are in liberality to +myself. And so it cuts me to the quick, more than ever, to part from you." + +"Why should we part?" Iglesias asked. + +"But you are going away. The wife told me she heard you were +leaving London altogether; whether to--I hardly like to mention the +supposition--to join some brotherhood or--or, to be married, she did not +know." + +Mr. Iglesias shook his head, smiling sweetly and bravely. + +"Oh! no, no, my dear fellow," he answered. "Rumour must have been rather +unpardonably busy with my name. I fear I am about equally ill-fitted for +monastic and for married life. The day of splendid ventures, whether of +religion or of love, is over for me; and I shall die, as I have lived, a +bachelor and a layman. Nor shall I cease to be your neighbour, for I am +only returning here"--he pointed to the open door, in at which coatless +white-aproned men carried that miscellaneous collection of furniture--"to +the little old Holland Street house. Lately I have had a great craving +upon me to be at home again--alone, save for one or two precious +friendships; with leisure to read and to think; and, in as far as my poor +mental powers permit, to become a humble student of the awe-inspiring +philosophy--reconciling things natural and supernatural--of which the +Catholic Church is the exponent, her creeds its textbook, her ceremonies +and ritual the divinely appointed symbols of its secret truths." Iglesias' +expression was exalted, his speech penetrated by enthusiasm. "It would be +profitable and happy," he said, "before the final auditing of accounts, to +be a little better versed in this wonderful and living wisdom." + +And George Lovegrove stood watching him, bewildered, agitated, full of +doubt and inquiry. + +"Ah! it is all beyond me, quite beyond me," he exclaimed presently. +"Mistaken or not, I see you are in touch with thoughts altogether outside +my experience and comprehension. I supposed Romanism could only be held by +uneducated and superstitious persons. I see I was wrong. I ask your +pardon, Dominic. I see I quite undervalued it." Then his manner changed, +quick perception and consequent distress seizing him. "Ah! but you are +ill. That is the meaning of it all. You are ill. Now I come to observe +you, I see how thin and drawn your face is. How shall I ever forgive +myself for not finding that out sooner! I have differed from you and +blamed you. I have sulked, and thought bitterly of you, and avoided you. +I have even been envious, hearing how successfully you carried through +affairs this anxious time at the bank. I have been a contemptibly +mean-spirited individual. No, I can never forgive myself. I have found you +again, only to lose you. You are in bad health. You have been suffering, +and I never thought to inquire about that. I never knew it." + +But Dominic Iglesias made effort to comfort him, speaking not +uncheerfully, determining even to fight the fatigue and weakness which, as +he could not but own, daily increased on him, if only for the sake of this +faithful and simple adherent. + +"Perhaps the sands are running rather low," he said; "but that does not +greatly matter. The conditions are in process of alteration. Now that I am +free of my City work, the strain is practically over. With care and quiet, +the sands that remain in the glass may run very slowly. I have a peaceful +time in prospect, here in my old home. When I left here, eight years ago, +I could not make up my mind to part with any of our family belongings, so +I warehoused all the contents of the house, save those which I took to +furnish my rooms at Cedar Lodge. Now these half-forgotten possessions see +the light once more. This in itself should constitute a staying of the +running sands, a putting back of the hands of the clock. Then I have two +good servants to care for me. I am fortunate in that. And your friendship +is restored to me. I should be ungrateful if I did not live on for a while +to enjoy all this kindly circumstance. So do not grieve. There are many +after-dinner pipes to be smoked, many talks to be talked yet.--Come into +the house, and see it as you used to know it when we both were young. +Surely it is a good omen that you, my earliest friend, should be my first +visitor when I come home?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +De Courcy Smyth was not drunk, but he had been drinking--persistently +nipping, as his custom was in times of mental excitement, in the +fallacious hope of keeping up courage and steadying irritable nerves. The +series of moods usually resultant on such recourse to spirituous liquors, +followed one another with clock-work regularity. He was alternately +hysterically elated, preternaturally moral, offensively quarrelsome, +maudlin to the point of tears. The first _matinee_ of his +long-promised play had prospered but very ill, notwithstanding large +advertisement and free list. The second had prospered even worse. +Mercifully disposed persons, slipping out between the acts, had been +careful not to return. Less amiably disposed ones had remained to titter +or hiss. Failure had been written in capital letters across the whole +performance--and deservedly, in the estimation of every one save the +unhappy author himself. The play had perished in the very act of birth. + +But of this tragic termination to so many extravagant hopes Dominic +Iglesias was still ignorant, as he entered the dismantled sitting-room at +Cedar Lodge that same night a little after half-past ten o'clock. He had +dined in the old house in Holland Street; served by Frederick, the +German-Swiss valet, who, some weeks previously, hearing of his intended +departure, had announced his intention of "bettering himself," had given +Mrs. Porcher warning, and, in moving terms and three languages, implored +employment of Iglesias, declaring that the other gentlemen resident at +Cedar Lodge were "no class," their clothes utterly unworthy of his powers +of brushing and folding. + +Iglesias stayed on in Holland Street until late, the charm and gentleness +of old associations, the sight of familiar objects, the gladness of +restored friendship with George Lovegrove working upon him to +thankfulness. He was tranquil in spirit, serene with the calm twilight +serenity of the strong who have learned the secret of detachment, and, +who, while welcoming all glad and gracious occurrences, have schooled +themselves to resignation, and, in the affairs of this world, do neither +greatly fear nor greatly hope. And it was in this spirit he had made his +way back to Cedar Lodge and entered the square panelled sitting-room. But, +the door closed, he paused, aware of some sinister influence, some unknown +yet repulsive presence. The room was nearly dark, the gas being lowered to +a pin-point on either side the mantelpiece. Dominic moved across to turn +it up, and in so doing stumbled over an unexpected obstacle. De Courcy +Smith, who had been dozing uneasily in the one remaining armchair, sat +upright with an oath. + +"What are you at, you swine!" he shouted. Then as the light shone forth he +made an effort to recover himself. + +"It's hardly necessary to announce your advent by kicking me, Mr. +Iglesias," he said thickly, and without attempting to rise from his seat. +"Not but that there is an appropriateness in that graceful form of +introduction. Only a kick from the benevolent patron, who professed +himself so charitably disposed towards me, was required to make up the sum +of outrage which has been my portion to-day.--Have you seen the theatrical +items in the evening papers?" With trembling hands he spread out a +newspaper upon his knees. "See the way that dirty reptile, Percy Gerrard, +who succeeded me upon _The Daily Bulletin_, has chopped me and my +play to mincemeat, cut bits of live flesh out of me and fried them in +filth, and washed down my wounds with the vitriol of hypocritical +compassion and good advice? That is the style of recognition a really +first-class work of art, fit to rank with the classics, with Wycherley, +and Congreve, and Sheridan, or Lytton--for there are qualities of all +these very dissimilar masters in my writing--gets from the present-day +press. As I have told you all along, the critics and playwrights hate +me because they fear me. I have never spared them. I have exposed them and +their ignorance, and want of scholarship, in print. They know I spoke the +truth. Their hatred is witness to my veracity. They have been nursing +their venom for years. Now with one consent they pour it forth. It is a +vile plot and conspiracy. They were sworn to swamp me, so they formed a +ring. They did not care what they spent so long as they succeeded in +crushing me. Every one has been bought, miserably, scandalously bought. +This is the only conceivable explanation of the reception my play has met +with. They got at the members of my company. My actors played better at +first, better at rehearsal. Yesterday and to-day they have played like a +row of wooden ninepins, of straw-stuffed scarecrows, of rot-stricken +idiots! They missed their cues, and forgot their lines, or pretended to do +so; and then had the infernal impertinence to giggle and gag, blast them! +I heard them. I could have screamed. I tried to stop them; and the +stage-manager swore at me in the wings, and the scene-shifters laughed. It +was a hideous nightmare. The audience laughed--the sound of it is in my +ears now, and it tortures me, for it was not natural laughter. It was not +spontaneous--how could it be so? It was simply part of this iniquitous +conspiracy to ruin me. It was hired mockery, bought and paid for, the +mockery of subsidised traitors, liars, imbeciles, the inhuman mockery of +grinning apes!" + +He crushed the newspaper together with both hands, flung it across the +room, and broke into hysterical weeping. + +"For my play is a masterpiece," he wailed. "It is a work of genius. No +other man living could have written it. Yet it is damned by a brainless +public and vindictive press, while I know and they know--they must know, +the fact is self-evident--that it is great, nothing less than great." + +During this harangue Dominic Iglesias stood immovable, facing the speaker, +but looking down, not at him, rigid in attitude, silent. Any attempt to +stem the torrent of the wretched man's speech would have been futile. +Dominic judged it kindest just to wait, letting passion tear him till, by +force of its own violence, it had worn itself out. Then, but not till +them, it might be helpful to intervene. Still the exhibition was a very +painful one, putting a heavy strain upon the spectator. For be a fellow +creature never so displeasing in nature and in habit, never so cankered by +vanity and self-love, it cannot be otherwise than hideous to see him upon +the rack. And that de Courcy Smyth was very actually upon the rack--a rack +well deserved, may be, and of his own constructing, but which wrenched his +every joint to the agony of dislocation nevertheless--there could be no +manner of doubt. Coming as conclusion to the long day, to the peaceful +evening--the thought of the Lady of the Windswept Dust, moreover, and her +fortunes so eminently and presently just now in the balance, in his +mind--the whole situation was horrible to Dominic Iglesias. + +But Smyth's mood changed, his tears ceasing as incontinently as they had +begun. He ceased to slouch and writhe, passed his hands across his +blood-shot eyes, drew himself up in his chair, began to snarl, even to +swagger. + +"I forget myself, and forget you, too, Mr. Iglesias--which is annoying," +he said; "for you are about the last person from whom I could expect, or +should desire to receive, sympathy. Persons of my world, scholars and +idealists, and persons of your world, money-grubbing materialists, can, in +the nature of things, have very little in common. There is a great gulf +fixed between them. I beg your pardon for having so far forgotten myself +as to ignore that fact, and talked on subjects incomprehensible to you. +What follows, however, will be more in your line, I imagine, and it is +this which has made me come here to-night. You realise that your +investment has turned out an unfortunate one? You have lost, irretrievably +lost, your money." + +"I was not wholly unprepared for that," Dominic answered. His temper was +beginning to rise. Sodden with drink, maddened by failure, hardly +accountable for his words or actions, still the man's tone was rather too +offensive for endurance. "I had made full provision for such a +contingency. I accept the loss. Pray do not let it trouble you." + +"Oh! you accept it, do you? You were prepared for it?" Smyth broke in. +"You can afford to throw way a cool three hundred pounds--the expenses +will amount to that at least in the bulk. How very agreeable for you! +Your late operations in the City must have been surprisingly profitable. +I was not aware, until now, that we had the honour of numbering a +millionaire among us at Cedar Lodge. But let me tell you this extremely +superior tone does not please me, Mr. Iglesias. It smells of insult. I +warn you, you had better be a little careful. Even a miserable persecuted +pauper like myself can make it unpleasant for those who insult him. I must +request you to remember that I am a gentleman by birth, and that I have +the feelings of my class where my personal honour is concerned. Do you +suppose I do not know perfectly well that the benevolent attitude you have +seen fit to assume towards me has been a blind, from first to last; and +that every penny you have advanced me until now, as well as the three +hundred pounds, the loss of which you so amiably beg me not to let trouble +me, is hush-money? Yes, hush-money, I repeat, the price of my silence +regarding your intrigue with my wife--my wife who calls herself--" + +"We will introduce no woman's name into this conversation, if you please," +Iglesias interrupted sternly. + +The limit of things pardonable had been passed. His face was white and +keen as a sword. The weight of years and of failing health had vanished, +burned up by fierce disgust and anger, as is mist by the sun-heat. He was +young, arrogant in bearing, careless of consequence or of danger as some +fifteenth-century finely bred fighting man face to face with his enemy and +traducer, who, given honourable opportunity, he would kill or be killed +by, without faintest scruple or remorse. And of this temper of mind his +aspect was so eloquent that de Courcy Smyth, muddled with liquor though he +was, seeing him, was seized with panic. He scrambled to his feet, flung +himself behind the chair, clinging to the back of it for support. + +"Don't look at me like that, you Spanish devil!" he whimpered. "You +paralyse me. You hypnotise me. My brain is splitting. You're drawing the +life out of me. I shall go mad. If you come a step nearer I'll make a +scandal. I'll call for help. Ah! God in heaven, who's that?" + +Only the housemaid entering, salver in hand, and leaving the door wide +open behind her. Upon the landing with out, Farge and Worthington, in +comic attitudes, stood at attention. + +"A telegram for you, sir. Is the boy to wait?" she inquired, in a stifled +voice. "She could hardly keep a straight face," as she reported downstairs +subsequently, "that ridiculous Farge was so full of his jokes." + +Iglesias tore open the yellow envelope and held the telegraph-form to the +light. + +"Glorious luck. Happy as a queen. Come to supper after performance +to-morrow. Love. Poppy," + +His face softened. + +"No answer," he said, and turned purposing to speak some word of mercy to +wretched de Courcy Smyth. But the latter had slunk out at the open door, +while Mr. Farge, in an ungovernable paroxysm of humour--levelled at the +departing housemaid--effectually covered his retreat by cake-walking, with +very high knee action, the length of the landing, playing appropriate +dance-music, the while, upon an imaginary banjo in the shape of +Worthington's new crook-handled walking stick. + +For some time Dominic Iglesias heard shuffling, nerveless footsteps moving +to and fro in the room overhead. Then Smyth threw himself heavily upon his +bed. The wire-wove mattress creaked, and creaked again twice. Unbroken +silence followed, and Iglesias breathed more easily, hoping the miserable +being slept. For him, Iglesias, there was no sleep. His body was too +tired. His mind too vividly and painfully awake. He lay down, it is true, +since he did not care to remain in the dismantled sitting-room or occupy +the chair in which de Courcy Smyth had sat. But, throughout the night, he +stared at the darkness and heard the hours strike. At sunset the wind +had dropped dead. In the small hours it began to rise, and before dawn to +freshen, veering to another quarter. Softly at first, and then with richer +diapason, the cedar tree greeted its mysterious comrade, singing of +far-distant times and places, and of the permanence of nature as against +the fitful evanescent life of man. That husky singing soothed Dominic +Iglesias, and calmed him, assuring him that in the hands of the Almighty +are all things, small and great, past, present, and to come. There is +neither haste, nor omission, nor accident, nor oversight in the divine +plan; but that plan is large beyond the possibility of human intellect to +grasp or comprehend, therefore humble faith is also highest wisdom. + +As the dawn quickened into day Dominic drew aside the curtain and looked +out. Behind the dark branches, where they cleared the housetops and met +the open sky, thrown wide upward to the zenith, was the rose-scarlet of +sunrise, holding, as it seemed to him, at once the splendour of battle +and the peace of crowned achievement and--was it but a pretty conceit or a +truth of happiest import?--the colour of certain flaring omnibus +knifeboard bills and the colour of a certain woman's name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The narrow lane, running back at right angles to the great thoroughfare, +was filled with blurred yellowish light and covered in with gloom, +low-hanging and impenetrable. The high, blank buildings on either side of +it looked like the perpendicular walls of a tunnel, the black roof they +apparently supported being as solid and substantial as themselves. The +effect thereby produced was suspect and prison-like, as of a space walled +in and closed from open air and day. Outside the stage entrance of the +Twentieth Century Theatre a small crowd had collected and formed up in two +parallel lines across the pavement to the curb, against which a smart +single brougham and some half a dozen four-wheelers and hansoms were +drawn up. The crowd, which gathered and broke only to gather again, was +composed for the main part of persons of the better artisan class, +respectable, soberly habited, evidently awaiting the advent of relations +employed within the theatre. There was also a sprinkling of showy young +women, attended by undersized youths flashily dressed. On the fringes of +it night-birds, male and female, of evil aspect, loitered, watchful of +possible prey; while two or three gentlemen, correct, highly-civilised, +stood smoking, each with the air of studied indifference which defies +attempted recognition on the part of friend or foe. + +And among these last Dominic Iglesias must be counted; though, in his +case, indifference was not assumed but real. His surroundings were novel, +it is true, and produced on him clear impressions both pictorial and +moral; but those impressions were of his surroundings in and for +themselves, rather than in any doubtfulness of their relation to himself. +For his mind was occupied with problems painful in character and difficult +of solution; and to the said problems, heightening the emotional strain of +them, his surroundings--the sense of feverish life, of all-encompassing +restless humanity; the figures anxious, degraded, of questionable purpose +or merely frivolous, which started into momentary distinctness; the scraps +of conversation, caught in passing, instinct with suggestion, squalid or +passionate; along with the ceaseless tramp of footsteps, and tumult of the +great thoroughfare just now packed with the turn-out of neighbouring +places of entertainment--supplied a background penetratingly appropriate. + +For a good half-hour Mr. Iglesias stood there. At intervals the doors of +the stage entrance swung open, causing a movement of interest and comment +among the crowd. One by one hansoms and four-wheelers, obtaining fares, +rattled away over the stones. Yet the Lady of the Windswept Dust tarried. +It grew late, and Iglesias greatly desired her coming, greatly desired to +speak with her, and speaking to find approximate solution, at least, of +some of the problems which lay so heavy upon his mind. Meanwhile, the +crowd melted and vanished, leaving him alone in the blurred yellowish +light beneath the low-hanging roof of impenetrable gloom, save for the +haunting presence of some few of those terrible human birds of prey. + +He was about to turn away also, not particularly relishing the remaining +company, when, with a rush, Poppy was beside him, in stately garments of +black velvet and glimmering tissue of silver; her head and shoulders +draped with something of daring and magnificence, in her blue-purple +jewelled dragon-embroidered scarf. She caught Iglesias' right hand in both +of hers and held it a moment against her breast. And during that brief +interval he registered the fact that, notwithstanding her beauty, the +force of her personality and richness of her dress, she did not look out +of place in this somewhat cut-throat alley, with the questionable sights +and sounds of midnight London all about her; but vivid, exultant, true +daughter of great cities, fearless manipulator of the very varied +opportunities they offer, past-master, for joy and sorrow, in the curious +arts they teach. + +"Get into the brougham, dear man," she said, "and let me talk. There, put +up the window on the traffic side. I have been in the liveliest worry +about you. Had the house turned out of windows to find you--and gave +things in general the deuce of a time.--The brougham's comfortable, isn't +it? Fallowfeild's jobbed it for the winter for me.--All the same I played +like an angel, out of pure desperation, thinking you might be ill. I made +the audience cry big, big tears, bless 'em. And it wasn't the part--not +a bit of it. It was you, just simply you.--And then I dawdled talking to +Antony Hammond about some lines in the second act I want altered, so as to +let myself down easy before digesting the disappointment of driving back +to Bletchworth Mansions alone. I wanted so very badly to have you see me. +Beloved and most faithless of beings, why the mischief didn't you come?" + +And Iglesias sitting beside her watching her joyous face, crowned by her +dark hair, set in the gleaming folds of her jewelled scarf, as passing +lights revealed it clearly, or shifting left it in soft shadow, divined +rather than actually seen, became sadly conscious that the problems which +oppressed him were not only hard of solution but hard of statement +likewise. It seemed heartless to propound them in this, her hour of +success. Yet, unless he was deeply mistaken, the statement of them must +tell for emancipation and relief in the end. + +"The play has gone well, and you are happy?" he asked her. + +"Gorgeously--I grant you I was a bit nervous as to whether during these +years of--well--love in idleness, I had not lost touch with my art. But I +haven't. I have only matured in mind and in method. I am not conceited, +dear man, truly I am not; but I am neither too lazy nor too modest to use +my brains. What I know I am not afraid to apply. I've very little theory, +but a precious deal of practice--and that's the way to get on. Don't talk +about your ideas--just use them for all you're worth.--But this is beside +the mark. You're trying to head me off. Why didn't you come?" + +"I would gladly have come," Iglesias answered. "My disappointment has been +quite as great as yours." + +"Bless your heart!" Poppy murmured under her breath. + +"But it was impossible for me to come. I was detained until it was too +late." He paused, uncertain how best to say that which had to be said. + +"Oh! fiddle!" Poppy cried, with a lift of her head. "I stand first. You +ought not to have let yourself be detained. After all, it's not every day +someone you know blazes from a farthing dip into a star of the first +magnitude. You might very well have crowded other things aside. I feel a +trifle hurt, dear man, really I do." + +"Believe me, no ordinary matter would have prevented my coming," Iglesias +answered. To his relief the carriage just then turned into the comparative +peace of Langham Place. It became possible to speak softly. "There was +a death in the house last night," he went on, "that of a person with whom +I have been rather closely associated. He died under circumstances +demanding investigations of a distressing character. No one save myself +was qualified, or perhaps willing, to assume the responsibility of calling +in the authorities." + +Iglesias glanced at his companion, conscious that while he spoke her +attitude and humour had altered considerably. She was motionless. He saw +her profile, dark against the square light of window-glass. Her mouth was +slightly open, as with intensity of attention. + +"Well--well--what then?" she said. + +"The man had just suffered a heavy reverse. He had staked all his hopes, +all his future, upon a single venture. It proved a failure. He could not +accept the fact, and believed himself the victim of gross injustice and of +organised conspiracy." + +"Do you believe it, too?" + +"No," Iglesias answered. "I have an immense pity for him, as who would +not. Still, I am compelled to believe that failure came from within, +rather than from without. He overrated his own powers." + +Poppy held up her hand imperiously. "Wait half a minute," she said, in an +oddly harsh voice. Leaning forward she put down the front glass and called +to the coachman:--"Don't go to Bletchworth Mansions. Drive on. Never mind +where, so long as you keep to empty streets. Drive on and on--do you +hear?--till I tell you to stop." + +She put the window up again and settled herself back in her place, +dragging the scarf from off her head and baring her throat. She looked +full at Mr. Iglesias, her face showing ghostly white against the dark +upholstery of the carriage. Her eyes were wide with question and with +fear, which was also, in some strange way, hope. + +"Now you can speak, dear friend," she said quite steadily. "I shall be +glad to hear the whole of it, though it is an ugly story. The man was +miserable, and he is dead, and the circumstances of his death point +to--what--suicide?" + +In reply Iglesias told her how that morning, the servants failing to get +any response to their knocking, the upper part of the house being, +moreover, pervaded by a sickening smell of gas, help had been called in; +and, de Courcy Smyth's door being forced open, he had been found lying, +fully clothed, stark and cold upon his bed, an empty phial of morphia and +an empty glass on the table beside him, both gas-jets turned full on +though not alight. + +At the top of Portland Place the coachman took his way northwestward, +first skirting the outer ring of Regent's Park and then making the +gradually ascending slope of the Finchley Road. The detached houses on +either side, standing back in their walled gardens, were mostly blind. +Only here and there, behind drawn curtains, a window glowed, telling of +intimate drama gallant or mournful within. The wide grey pavements were +deserted; the place arrestingly quiet, save for the occasional heavy tread +of a passing policeman on beat, and the rhythmical trot of the horse. And +the Lady of the Windswept Dust was quiet likewise, looking straight before +her, sitting stiffly upright, her hands clasped in her lap, the shifting +lights and shadows playing queerly over her face and her bare neck, +causing her to appear unsubstantial and indefinite as a figure in a dream. +Yet a strange energy possessed her and emanated from her, so that the +atmosphere about her was electric, oppressive to Iglesias as with a +brooding of storm. Her very quietness was agitating, weighed with meaning +which challenged his imagination and even his powers of reticence and +self-control. Opposite Swiss Cottage Station, where the main road forks, +a string of market waggons--slouching, drowsy car-men, backed by a pale +green wall of glistening cabbages, nodding above their slow-moving +teams--passed, with a jingle of brass-mounted harness and grind of wheels. +This roused Poppy, and the storm broke. + +"Dominic," she said breathlessly, "do you at all know that you've just +told me means to me?" + +"I have never known positively until now; but it was impossible that I +should not have entertained suspicions." + +"Did he--you know who I mean--ever speak of me?" + +"I think," Iglesias said, "he came very near doing so, more than once. But +I put a stop to the conversation." + +"You frightened him," Poppy rejoined. "I know one could do that. It was a +last resource, a hateful one. Is there anything so difficult to forgive as +being driven to be cruel? One was bound to be cruel in self-defence, or +one would have been stifled, utterly degraded by self-contempt, bled to +death not only in respect of money but of self-esteem." + +She threw up her hands with a gesture at once fierce and despairing. + +"Oh! the weak, the weak," she cried, "of how many crimes they are the +authors! Crimes more particularly abominable when the weak one is the man, +and woman--poor brute--is strong." + +She settled herself sideways in the corner of the carriage, turning her +face once more full upon her companion. + +"Look here," she said, "I don't want to whitewash myself. What I've done +I've done. I don't pretend it's pretty or innocent, or that I haven't +jolly well got to pay the price of it--though I think a good deal has been +paid by now. But it seems to me my real crime was in marrying him, rather +than in leaving him. It was a crime against love--love, which alone, if +you've any real sense of the inherent decencies of things, makes marriage +otherwise than an outrage upon a woman's pride and her virtue. But, then, +one doesn't know all that when one's barely out of one's teens. And, you +see, like a fool I took the first comer out of bravado, just that people +mightn't see how awfully hard hit I was by his people interfering and +preventing my marrying the poor, dear boy who gave me this"--Poppy spread +out the end of her dragon scarf--"I've told you about him.--Stage people +are absurdly simple in some ways, you know. They live in such a world of +pretences and fictions that they lose their sense of fact, or rather they +never develop it. They're awfully easily taken in. Words go a tremendous +long way with them. And de Courcy could talk. He was appallingly fluent, +specially on the subject of himself. He made be believe he was rather +wonderful, and I wanted to believe he was wonderful. I wanted to believe +he was all the geniuses in creation rolled into one. All the more I wanted +to believe it because I wasn't one scrap in love with him." + +Poppy beat with one hand almost roughly on Mr. Iglesias' arm. + +"Do you see, do you see, do you see?" she repeated. "Do you understand? +I want you so badly to understand." + +And he answered her gently and gravely: "Do not be afraid, dear friend. I +see with your eyes. I feel with your heart. As far as one human being can +enter into and share the experience of another, I do understand." + +"But the nuisance is," she went on, the corners of her mouth taking a +wicked twist, "you know so very much more about a man after you've married +him. Other people are inclined to forget that sometimes. Consuming egoism +is hideous at close quarters. It comes out in a thousand ways, in mean +little tyrannies and absurd jealousies which would never have entered into +one's head.--I don't want to go into all that. It's better forgot.--Only +they piled up and up, till the shadow of them shut out the sunshine; and +I got so bored, so madly and intolerably bored. You see, I had tried to +believe in him at first. In self-defence I had done so, and stood by him, +and done my very best to put him through. But when I began to understand +that there was nothing to stand by or put through, that his talent was not +talent at all, but merely a vain man's longing to possess talent--well, +the situation became pretty bad. I tried to be civil. I tried to hold my +tongue, indeed I did. But to be bullied and grumbled at, and expected to +work, so as to give him leisure and means for the development of gifts +which didn't exist--it wasn't good enough." + +Poppy put up her hands and pushed the masses of her hair from her +forehead. And all the while the shifting lights and shadows played over +her white face and bare neck, and the horse trotted on, past closed shops +and curtained windows, farther out of London and into the night. + +"He didn't do anything which the world calls vicious," she continued +presently. A great dreariness had come into the tones of her voice. "He +was faithful to me, as the world counts faithfulness, simply because he +didn't care for women--except for philandering with sentimental sillies +who thought him an unappreciated eighth wonder of the world, and pawed +over and pitied him. La! La! The mere thought of it makes me sick! But he +was too much in love with himself to be capable of even an animal passion +for anybody else. And he made a great point of his virtue. I heard a lot +about it--oh! a lot!" + +For a minute or two Poppy sat silent. Then she turned to Mr. Iglesias, +smiling, as those smile who refuse submission to some cruel pain. + +"I wasn't born bad, dear man," she said, "and I held out longer than most +women in my profession would, where morals are easy and it's lightly come +and lightly go in respect of lovers and love. But one fine day I packed up +my traps and cleared out. He'd been whining for years, and some little +thing he said or did--I really forget exactly what--raised Cain in me, and +I thought I'd jolly well give him something to whine about. I knew +perfectly well he wouldn't divorce me. He wanted me too much, at the end +of a string, to torment, and to get money from when times were bad. Not +that I cared for a divorce. I consider it the clumsiest invention out for +setting wrongs right. I have too great a respect for marriage, which +ought, if it means anything, to mean motherhood and children, and a clean, +wholesome start in life for the second generation. When a woman breaks +away and crosses the lines, she only makes bad worse, in my opinion, by +the hypocritical respectability of a marriage while her husband is still +alive. Let's be honest sinners any way, if sin we must." + +Again she paused, looking backward in thought, seeing and hearing things +which, for the honour of others, it was kindest not to repeat. The +carriage moved slowly, the horse slackening its pace in climbing the last +steep piece of hill which leads to the pond on Hampstead Heath. + +"And now it's over," Poppy said, letting her hands drop in her lap. "Done +with. The poor wretched thing's dead--has killed himself. That is a +fitting conclusion. He was always his own worst enemy.--Well, as far as I +am concerned, let him rest in peace." + +"Amen," Iglesias responded, "so let him rest. 'Shall not the judge of all +the world do right,' counting his merits as well as his demerits, making +all just excuses for his lapses and wrong-doings; knowing, as we can never +know, exactly how far he was and was not accountable for his own and for +others' sins. And now, dear friend, as you have said, this long misery is +over and done with. Whatever remains of practical business you can leave +safely to me. His memory shall be shielded as far as foresight and +sympathy can shield it, and your name need not appear." + +The Lady of the Windswept Dust took his hand and held it. + +"I don't know," she said brokenly, "why all this should all come upon +you." + +"For a very simple reason," he answered. "What did you tell me yourself? +You stand first. And that is true." + +But it may be remarked in passing that there are limits to the passive +obedience of even the best-trained of men-servants. Those of Poppy's +coachman had been reached. At the top of the hill he drew up, vigorously +determined to drive no farther into the wilderness, without renewed and +very distinct information as to why and where he went, perceiving which +Dominic Iglesias opened the carriage door and stepped out. + +"The night is fine and dry," he said. "Let us walk a little, and then let +us drive home. You have your work to-morrow--or, rather, to-day--and you +must have a reasonable amount of rest first. The stream of your life has +been arrested, diverted from its natural channel; but it still runs strong +and clear yet. You have genius, real, not imagined, so you must husband +your energies.--Come and walk. Let the air soothe and calm you; and then, +leaving all the past in Almighty God's safe keeping, go home and rest." + +Here the high-road stretches along the ridge of the hill, a giant +causeway, the broken land of the open heath falling away sharply to left +and right. It was windless. The sky was covered, and the atmosphere, +though not foggy at this height, was thick as with smoke; so that the +road, with its long avenue of sparse-set lamps--dwindling in the extreme +distance to faintest sparks--was as a pale bridge thrown across the void +of black unsounded space. All, save the road itself, the lamps, and seats, +and broken fringe of grass edging the raised footpath of it, was formless +and vague, peopled by shapes, dark against darkness, such as the eye +itself fearfully produces in straining to penetrate unyielding obscurity. +The effect was one of intense isolation, of divorce from humanity and the +works and ways of it, so present and overpowering it might well seem that, +reaching the far end of that pale bridge, the wayfarer would part company +with the things of time altogether and pass into another state of being. + +And this so worked upon Poppy that, some fifty yards along the causeway, +her black and silver skirts gathered ankle-high about her, she stopped, +drawing very close to Iglesias and laying her hand upon his arm. + +"Listen to the silence," she said. "Look at the emptiness. I don't quite +like it, even with you. It's too suggestive of death, death with no sure +hope of life beyond it.--I am quite good now, quite sane and reasonable. +I have put aside all bitterness. I'll never say another hard word of him, +or, in as far as I can, think a hard thought." + +Then turning, suddenly she gave a cry, perceiving that east and south +all London lay below them--formless, too, indefinite, enormous, a City of +the Plains, unseen in detail but indicated through the gloom as a vast +semi-circle of smouldering fire. + +Poppy stretched out both arms, letting her splendid draperies trail in the +dust. + +"Ah! how I love it, how I love it," she cried. "Let us go back, dear man. +For it belongs to me and I belong to it. In the name of my art I must try +conclusions with it. I must play to it, and conquer it, and enchant, and +possess it, since I am free at last--I am free." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Serena's manner, though gracious, was lofty, almost regal. She had, +indeed, lately looked upon crowned heads, and the glory of them seemed, +somehow, to have rubbed off on her. + +"Yes," she said, "I came up for the Queen's funeral. Lady Samuelson felt +it was a thing I ought not to miss, and I agreed with her. It was +inconvenient to leave home, because I had a number of engagements. Still, +I felt I might regret it afterwards if I did not see it. And then, of +course, Lady Samuelson was so kind the year before last, when I had so +very much to worry me, that I feel I owe it to her to stay with her +whenever she asks me to do so. Where did you see the procession from, +Rhoda?" + +"Well, on the whole I thought it better to remain at home," Mrs. Lovegrove +confessed, "though Georgie was most pressing I should go with him. You are +slender, Serena, and that makes a great deal of difference in going about. +But I find crowds and excitement very trying. And then it must all have +been very affecting and solemn. I doubted if I could witness it without +giving way too much and troubling others. It is mortifying to feel you are +spoiling the pleasure of those that are with you, and I wanted poor +Georgie to enjoy himself as much as he could." + +"In that case it was certainly better to remain at home," Serena rejoined. +"I have my feelings very much under control. Even when I was quite a child +that used to be said of me. It used to irritate Susan." + +"Susan has a more impetuous nature," Mrs. Lovegrove observed. The day of +domestic eclipse was happily passed. She had come into her own again; +consequently she was disposed to be slightly argumentative, sitting here +upon her own Chesterfield sofa in her own drawing-room, even with Serena. + +"I wonder if she has--I mean I wonder whether Susan really has a more +impetuous nature," the latter rejoined, "or whether she is only more +wanting in self-control. I often think people get credit for strong +feelings, when it is only that they make no effort to control themselves. +And that is unfair. I never have been able to see why it was considered +so creditable to have strong feelings. They usually give a lot of +inconvenience to other people. I am not sure that it is not self-indulgent +to have strong feelings.--We had excellent places just opposite the Marble +Arch. Of course Lady Samuelson has a great deal of interest; and we saw +everything. In some ways I think, as a sight, the procession was +overrated. But I am glad I went. You can never tell whether anything is +worth seeing or not until you have seen it; and so I certainly might have +regretted if I had not gone. Still, I think you were quite wise in not +going, Rhoda, if you were likely to be upset; and then, as you say, it +must be unpleasant getting about if one is very stout. Of course, I cannot +really enter into that. I take after mamma's family. They are always +slender. But the Lovegroves often grow stout. George, of course, has, and +I should not be surprised if Susan did when she is older. But then Susan +and I are entirely different in almost everything." + +"I suppose you have heard of our dear vicar being appointed to the new +bishopric of Slowby, Serena," Mrs. Lovegrove remarked. The amplitude, or +non-amplitude, of the family figure was beginning to get upon her nerves. + +"Oh! dear, yes, of course I have," Serena answered with raised eyebrows +and a condescending expression of countenance. "Not that it will make very +much difference to me, I suppose. I am so little at home now. But +naturally people, hearing we knew the Nevingtons, came to us for +information about them. I don't think anybody had ever heard of Dr. +Nevington at Slowby, and so they were very glad to learn anything we could +tell them. Of course it is a very great rise for Dr. Nevington, though he +will only be a suffragan bishop. Still, he must be very much flattered, +after merely having a parish of this kind. Susan is very pleased at the +appointment. She wrote to Dr. Nevington immediately and has had a number +of letters from him. I was quite willing she should write, but she told +him how popular his appointment was in Midlandshire. And I thought that +was going rather far, because Susan has no real means of knowing whether +it is popular or not. She could only know that she thought she liked it +herself, and had praised him among her friends. And I wonder whether she +is right--I mean I wonder whether she really will like it. Of course Susan +has been very prominent and has had everything her own way with most of +the clergymen's wives in Slowby. I think that has been rather bad for +Susan and given her an undue idea of her own importance. Now naturally +Mrs. Nevington will be the head of everything and the clergymen's wives +will go for advice to her. I do not see how Susan can help disliking that. +And then Mrs. Nevington is said to be a very good public speaker. I am +perfectly certain Susan will dislike that. For I always observe that +people who speak a great deal themselves, like Susan, never get on well +with other good speakers."--She moved a little, throwing back the fronts +of her black beaded jacket--her complimentary mourning was scrupulously +correct--and adjusting the black silk tie at her throat. "Of course I may +be mistaken," she added, "but if you ask me, Rhoda, I fancy you will find +that Susan and Mrs. Nevington will not remain friends for very long." + +"I am distressed to hear you express such an opinion, Serena," Mrs. +Lovegrove returned. The tone of mingled patronage and possession in which +her guest spoke of her own two particular sacred totems, vicar and +vicaress, incensed her highly. She wished she had not introduced the +subject of the Slowby bishopric.--"When the object in view is a truly good +one," she added, with some severity, "I should suppose all right-meaning +people would strive to sink petty rivalries and cooperate. I should quite +believe it would prove so in Susan's case." + +"Of course she would not give Mrs. Nevington's speaking well as her +reason, if they did not remain on friendly terms," Serena returned +negligently. "But then people so very seldom give their real reasons for +what they do, Rhoda. Surely you must have observed that. I think they are +generally very willing to deceive themselves a good deal." + +"I am afraid it is so with too many, Serena, and with some who would +be the last to own it when applied to themselves."--Then the wife +determined by a piece of daring strategy to carry the war into the enemy's +country.--"And that reminds me," she said. "I suppose you have heard that +Mr. Iglesias has left Trimmer's Green?" + +"I do not the least know what right you have to suppose anything of the +kind, Rhoda," the lady addressed replied with a haste and asperity far +from regal. "You must have very odd ideas of the people I meet, either at +Lady Samuelson's or at Slowby, if you imagine I am likely to hear anything +about Mr. Iglesias from them. If I had not met him here, of course, I +should never have heard of him at all; and if I had never heard of him I +should have been spared a great deal. Still, after all that has occurred, +I can quiet see that Mr. Iglesias might find it better to leave Trimmer's +Green." + +"Miss Eliza Hart, if you please, ma'am," this from the house-parlourmaid. + +In accordance with established precedent, Serena should have risen from +the place of honour, upon the sofa, making room for the newcomer. But she +defied precedent. Acknowledging the said newcomer with the stiffest of +bows, she sat tight. Her hostess, however, proved equal to the occasion. + +"Dear me, Miss Hart," she began, "I am sure you are quite the stranger. +Take that chair, will you not? And how is Mrs. Porcher? The numbers, I +trust, filling up again at Cedar Lodge? Mr. Lovegrove and myself did +truly sympathise in Mrs. Porcher's trouble in the autumn. Such a terrible +occurrence to have in your house! Of course very damaging, for a time, to +all prospects. And I shall always believe it was the great exertions he +made then that broke down poor Mr. Iglesias' health.--Yes, indeed, Miss +Hart, I regret to say he does remain very ailing. Mr. Lovegrove sees him +almost daily. He has run round to Holland Street now, has Georgie; but I +expect him back any minute.--We were just speaking of Mr. Iglesias--were +we not, Serena?--and I was about to tell Miss Lovegrove what a sweet +pretty house he has. You have seen it often no doubt, Miss Hart." + +But here Serena arose, with much dignity, and retired in the direction of +the window. + +"Pray do not think about me, Rhoda," she said over her shoulder, "or let +me interrupt your and your friend's conversation. I am going to see if the +carriage is here. Lady Samuelson said she might be able to send it for me. +She could not be sure, but she might. And I told her I would be on the +watch, as she objects to the horses being kept standing in this weather. +But pray do not think about me. Until it comes I can quite well amuse +myself." + +Holding aside the lace curtain she looked out. Upon the rawly green grass +remnants of discoloured snow lay in unsightly patches, while the bare +branches of the plane-trees and balsam-poplars shuddered in the harsh +blast. The prospect was far from alluring, and Serena surveyed it with a +wrathful eye. + +"Really, Rhoda's behaviour to me is most extraordinary," she said to +herself. "I had to mark my displeasure. For poor George's sake she ought +not to be allowed to go too far. She has grown so very self-assertive. +Last year her manner was much better. I suppose she and George have made +it up again. People who are not really ladies, like Rhoda, are always so +very much nicer when they are depressed. I wonder what has happened to +make George make it up with her!" + +And then she fell very furiously to listening. + +"We did talk it over, did Peachie Porcher and myself," the great Eliza was +saying, "for I do not deny, at the time of our trouble, a certain +gentleman came out very well. He may have had his reasons, but I will not +go into that, Mrs. Lovegrove. I am all for giving everybody his due. But +Peachie felt when he left it would be better the connection should cease +as far as visiting went. 'Should Mr. Iglesias call here, dear Liz,' she +said to me, 'I should not refuse to see him. But, after what has passed +and situated as I am, I cannot be too careful. And calling on a bachelor +living privately, with whom your name has been at all associated, must +invite comment. Throughout all,' she said, 'my conscience tells me I have +done my duty, and in that I must find my reward.' Very affecting, was it +not?" + +"Yes," the other lady admitted, candour and natural goodness of heart +getting the better alike of resentment and diplomacy. "I always have +maintained there were many sterling qualities in Mrs. Porcher." + +"So there are, the sweet pet!" Eliza responded warmly. "And I sometimes +question, Mrs. Lovegrove, whether a certain gentleman, now that he has cut +himself adrift from her, may not be beginning to find that out and wish +he had been less stand-offish and stony. Not that it would be any use now. +For, if he did not appreciate Peachie Porcher, there are other and younger +gentlemen, not a thousand miles from here, who do. I am not at liberty to +speak more plainly at present, as the poor young fellow is very shy about +his secret. A long attachment, and some might think it rather derogatory +to Peachie's position to entertain it. But straws tell which way the wind +blows; and a little bird seems to twitter to me, Mrs. Lovegrove, that if +Charlie Farge did come to the point--why--" + +Miss Hart shook her leonine mane and laid her finger on her lip in an arch +and playful manner. But before her hostess could rally sufficiently from +the stupor into which this announcement plunged her to make suitable +rejoinder, a fine booming clerical voice and large clerical presence +invaded the room. + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Lovegrove? I come unannounced but not unsanctioned. I +met with your good husband in the street just now, and he encouraged me to +look in on you. Good-day to you, Miss Hart. All is well, I trust, with our +excellent friend Mrs. Porcher.--Ah! and here is Miss Serena Lovegrove.--An +unexpected piece of good fortune." + +Promptly Serena had emerged from her self-imposed exile; and it was with +an air of assured proprietorship that she greeted the clergyman. + +"Mrs. Nevington heard from your kind sister only this morning," he +continued. "Full of active helpfulness as usual, Mrs. Lovegrove.--She +proposes that we should quarter ourselves upon you and her for a few days, +Miss Serena, while we are seeking a temporary residence. She kindly gives +us the names of several houses which she considers worth inspection." + +Here by an adroit flank movement, rapidly executed, Serena managed to +possess herself once again of the seat of honour upon the sofa, thereby +interposing a thin but impenetrable barrier between her hostess and the +latter's own particular fetish, the bishop-designate. + +"You have enough room? I do not crowd you, Rhoda?" she remarked +parenthetically. Then turning sideways, so as to present an expanse +of neatly clad back and shoulder to her outraged relative, she +continued:--"I wonder which, Dr. Nevington--I mean I wonder which houses +Susan has recommended. Of course there is the Priory. But nobody has lived +in it for ages and ages. It is in a very low neighbourhood, close to the +canal and brickfields on the Tullingworth Road. I should think it was +dreadfully damp and unwholesome. And there is old Mrs. Waghorn's in Abney +Park. That is well situated and the grounds are rather nice. But the +reception-rooms are poor, I always think. Susan was fond of Mrs. Waghorn. +I cannot say I ever cared for her myself; but there is a tower to it, of +course." + +"Ah! we hardly need towers yet, Miss Lovegrove. A 'suffering bishop'--you +recall the well-worn joke?--such as myself, must not aspire to anything +approaching castles or palaces, but be content with a very modest place of +residence." + +Here his unhappy hostess, sitting quite perilously near the edge of the +sofa, craned round the interposing barrier. + +"But that is only a matter of time, Dr. Nevington," she said, "surely. +There is but one voice all round the Green, and through the parish +generally, that this is but the first step for you; and that it will lead +on--though I am far from wishing to hasten the death of the present +archbishop--to the primacy." + +"Hardly that, hardly that," he rejoined with becoming modesty. Yet the +speech was not unpalatable to him. "Out of the mouth of babes," he said to +himself, leaning back in his chair, and eyeing--in imagination--the chaste +outline of an episcopal apron and well-cut black gaiter, while visions of +Lambeth and Canterbury floated enticingly before him.--"Hardly that. This +is little more than an embryo bishopric. Still, though it is a wrench to +leave my dear old congregation, here in this wonderful London of ours, I +cannot refuse the call to a wider sphere of usefulness. My views as a +churchman are well known. I have never, even though it might have been +professionally advantageous to me to do so, attempted any concealment." + +"No, truly," Rhoda put in, still balancing and craning. "Everyone, I am +sure, must bear witness you have always been most nobly outspoken." + +"I trust so," he returned. "I have never disguised the fact that I take my +stand upon the Reformation Settlement. Therefore I cannot but think it a +most hopeful sign of the times that I should receive this call to the +episcopate.--Ah, here is Lovegrove. You find us deep in matters +ecclesiastical. I only hope I am not taxing your ladies' patience too +heavily by talking on such serious subjects.--In Slowby itself that grand +old stalwart, the late Dr. Colthurst--a positively Cromwellian figure--has +left a sound Protestant tradition. But I hear--your good sister confirms +the rumour, Miss Serena--that there is a strong ritualistic party at +Tullingworth. I shall deal very roundly with persons of that persuasion. +My conviction is that we must suit our teaching to the progressive +spirit of this modern world of ours. Personally I am willing, if +necessary, to sacrifice very much so-called dogma to conciliate our worthy +Nonconformist brethren; while I shall lose no opportunity of cutting at +the roots of those Romanising tendencies which are so lamentably and +insidiously active in the very heart of our dear old National Church." + +While the great drum-like voice was thus rolling and booming, George +Lovegrove had shaken hands with Serena. But there was none of the +accustomed respectful enthusiasm in his greeting. He wore a preoccupied +and dejected air. For once he looked upon that pearl of spinsterhood with +a lack-lustre and indifferent eye. + +"I wonder what can have happened to George," the lady in question said +to herself, in high displeasure. "I think his manner is really very +odd--nearly as odd as Rhoda's. I wish I had not come. But then if I had +not come I should have had no opportunity of showing Rhoda what intimate +terms Susan and I are upon with the Nevingtons. And I think it is right +she should know.--Oh! that detestable Miss Hart is going. What a +dreadfully vulgar purple blouse she has on! And her hair is so unpleasant. +It always looks damp and shows the marks of the comb. I wonder why hair of +that particular colour always does look damp." Here she bowed stiffly +without rising.--"I shall simply ignore George, and not speak to him. I +think that will be sufficiently marked. But I shall stay as long as Dr. +Nevington does--I don't for one moment believe Miranda Samuelson really +intended to send the carriage--so I will just wait and go when he goes. +I think I owe it to myself to show George and Rhoda that they cannot drive +me away against my will, however much they may wish to do so." + +Having come to which amiable decision Serena turned her mind and +conversation to questions of house-hunting in Slowby. The subject, +however, began to pall, before long, upon her companion. Dr. Nevington +changed his position more than once. His replies became vague and +perfunctory, while his attention evidently strayed to the conversation +taking place at the other end of the sofa. + +"I fear you did not find Mr. Iglesias very bright then to-day?" the wife +was inquiring in her kindliest tones. + +George Lovegrove shook his head sadly. "No, my dear, I am sorry to say +not. I have been rather broken up. I will tell you all later." + +The clergyman had risen. + +"Iglesias?--ah yes," he said. "I remember meeting a person of that name +here once, eh, Lovegrove? One of our parochial oversights, unfortunately. +He proved to be a dweller. His appearance pleased me and I proposed to +call on him; and then in the press of my many duties the matter was +forgotten." + +Serena had risen likewise. A spot of colour burned on either of her +cheeks. Her eyes snapped. She carried her small head high. Her presence +asserted itself quite forcibly. Her skirts rustled. At that moment she was +young and very passably pretty--an elegant spirited Serena of eighteen, +rather than a faded and, alas! spiteful Serena of close upon fifty. + +"Oh! really, I think it was just as well you did not call, Dr. Nevington," +she cried. "I do not think it would have been in the least suitable. Of +course I may be wrong, but I do not think you would have found anything to +like in Mr. Iglesias. There was so much that was never really explained +about him.--You know you acknowledged that yourself at one time, Rhoda. +But now you and George seem to have gone round again completely.--One +cannot help knowing he associated with such very odd people; and then the +way in which he turned Roman Catholic, all of a sudden, really was +disgraceful." + +Dr. Nevington's cold, watchful glance steadied on to the speaker, then +travelled to the two other members of the little company in sharp inquiry. +George Lovegrove's innocent countenance bore an expression of agonised +entreaty, of yearning, of apology, yet of defiance. The corners of Rhoda's +mouth drooped, her large soft cheeks shook; yet she stood firm, her sorrow +tempered, and her whole warm-hearted person rendered stubborn, by virtuous +indignation. + +"You forget yourself greatly, Serena," she said, "and when you have time +to think it over will repent having passed such cruel remarks. They are +liable to create a very wrong impression, and cannot fail to cause severe +pain to others." + +For an appreciable space the clergyman hesitated. But Slowby and the +bishopric were ahead of him; Trimmer's Green and all its quaint +unimportant little inhabitants behind. She was tedious, no doubt; but her +sister promised to be very useful, so he threw in his lot with Serena. + +"Ah, well, ah, well, for I my part I admire zeal, I must confess, Mrs. +Lovegrove," he said. "No doubt these terrible lapses will occur. +Superstition and bigotry will claim their victims even in our enlightened +century, and this free England of ours. I would not judge the case of this +poor fellow, Iglesias, too harshly. Race influences are strong; and we of +the Anglo-Saxon stock, with our enormous advantages of brain, and grit, +and hard-headed manliness of character, can afford--deeply though we +deplore their weakness and errors--to be lenient toward the less favoured +foreigner. Our mission is to educate him.--And this I think you should not +have forgotten, Lovegrove. You should have acted upon it. You should have +brought your unfortunate friend to me. I should have been quite willing to +give him half an hour, or even longer. A few facts, a little plain +speaking, might have saved him from more than I quite care to contemplate, +both here and hereafter.--However, good-bye to you, Mrs. Lovegrove. You +are starting, too, Miss Serena? Assure your good, kind sister, when you +write, how gladly Mrs. Nevington and I shall avail ourselves of her +proffered hospitality." + +"Don't fret, don't take it too much to heart, Georgie dear," the wife said +soothingly later. "The vicar did seem very stern, but that was owing to +Serena. I am afraid she's a terrible mischief-maker, is Serena. She turns +things inside out so in saying them, that you do not recognise your own +words again. All this afternoon she was most trying. If Dr. Nevington +heard the real story, he would never blame you. You must not fret." + +"I am not fretting about Dr. Nevington," he answered, "but about Dominic. +I am afraid we shall not have him with us very much longer, Rhoda." + +"Oh! dear, oh! dear, you don't mean it? Never!" she cried in accents of +genuine distress. "Did you see him, Georgie?" + +"No, Miss St. John was there." + +The wife's large cheeks shook again. + +"You know," she said, "I am never very partial to hearing anything about +that Miss St. John. Actresses are all very well in the theatre, I daresay, +but they are out of place in private houses. And from what I hear, though +there may be nothing really wrong with many of them, they are all sadly +free in their manners. I should be very hurt if you got into the habit of +frequenting their society much, Georgie.--But there, I'm sure I cannot +tell what is coming to all the women nowadays! You don't seem as if you +could be safe with any one of them. To think of a middle-aged person like +Mrs. Porcher, for instance, taking up with that little snip of a Farge, +and she old enough to be his mother!" + +The wife bustled about the room straightening the chairs, patting cushions +into place, folding up the handkerchief which, in the interests of human +conversation, had been thrown over the cage of the all-too-articulate +parrot. + +"I feel terribly stirred up somehow," she said, "what with the vicar, and +Serena, and all the talk about Roman Catholics and Protestants, and Mrs. +Porcher's engagement, too, and then this bad news of Mr. Iglesias--not but +that I am sure enough we shall meet him in heaven some day, if we can ever +contrive to get there ourselves in all this chatter and worry--" + +She laid the handkerchief away in the drawer of the work-table. + +"Such an afternoon," she declared, "what with one thing and another! I +always do say there's nothing for making unpleasantnesses like religion +and marriages.--But, thank God, through all of it you are spared to me, +Georgie." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +Outside, the slanting spring sunshine visited the sheltered strip of +garden in clear lights and transparent shadows. The small grass-plat +surrounding the rockery was brightly green. In the stone basin the surface +of the water trembled, glistening in broken curves of silver white. Along +the narrow border, beneath the soot-stained eastern wall, yellow and mauve +crocuses and yellow aconites opened wide, greeting the gentle warmth. +Trees in the neighbouring gardens were thick with bud. Busily the sparrows +and starlings came and went. + +Within, the house--though not uncheerful, thanks to a scrupulous +cleanliness, warm colourings, and the peculiar mellowness which comes to +rooms and furnishings that, through prolonged association, have grown in a +great mutual friendliness of aspect--was very still, with the strange, +almost eerie, stillness which seems to listen and to wait.--A singular +stillness, from which the rough utilitarian activities of ordinary life +are banished, the rude noise of them suspended, while spiritual presences, +rare apprehensions, exquisite memories and hopes, mysterious invitations +of mingled alarm and ecstasy, come forth, taking on form and voice, +passing lightly to and fro--an enchantment, yet in a manner fearful from +the subtlety of their being and piercing intimacy of their speech. +Personality, that supreme moral and emotional factor in human life, must +of necessity create an atmosphere about it, permeated with its individual +tastes and mental attributes, distinct and powerful in proportion to its +individual distinction and its strength. And, without being overfanciful, +it may be confidently asserted that, for some weeks now, ever since indeed +the specialists--summoned in consultation at the good Lovegroves' and the +Lady of the Windswept Dust's urgent request--had pronounced the cardiac +affection, from which Dominic Iglesias suffered, likely to terminate +fatally in the near future, this living stillness, this alert +tranquillity, had been more or less sensible to all those who entered the +house, offering an arresting contrast to the multitudinous rush and +clamour of London without. But to-day the impression was no longer an +intermittent and fugitive one, as heretofore. It was constant and +complete, those spiritual visitants being, as it would seem, in full +possession; so that the hours appeared to move reluctantly, and as though +enjoining watchfulness, a carefulness and economy even in prevailing +repose, lest any remaining moment and the message of it should be +overlooked and lost. + +It was characteristic of Iglesias that learning, in as far as the +consultant doctors could diagnose it, the exact conditions of his physical +state, he should refuse all experiment, however humane in intention or +plausible in theory. For he had no sympathy with the modern greediness and +worship of physical life, which is willing to sacrifice the decencies and +dignities of it to its possible prolongation. Courteously but plainly he +bade his advisers depart. The body, though an excellent servant, is a +contemptible master; and Iglesias proposed that, while his soul continued +to inhabit it, it should, as always before, be kept very much in its +place. It must remain unobtrusive, obedient, not daring to usurp, in its +present hour of failure and impediment, an interest and consideration to +which, in its full usefulness and vigour, it had not presumed to aspire. +Therefore Dominic Iglesias held calmly on his way, seeing the circle +of his occupations, pleasures, and activities dwindle and decrease, +yet maintaining not only his serenity of mind, but his accustomed +self-respecting outward refinement of bearing and habit. To meet death +with a gracious stoicism, well-dressed and standing upright, is, rightly +considered, a very fine art, reflecting much credit upon the successful +professor of it. + +And it was thus that, on the day in question, Mr. Iglesias sat waiting, in +the quaint irregularly shaped drawing-room of the old house in Holland +Street, himself the centre of that peopled stillness, that alert +tranquillity, which so strangely and sensibly filled it. Looking out of +the low window, he could see the shadow of the houses shrink and the light +broaden in the little garden below, as the sun travelled westward. Looking +into the room itself, the many familiar objects and rich sober colours of +it, quickened by a flickering of fire-light, were pleasant to his sense. +The images which passed before him, whether actually visible or not he +hardly knew, appeared beautiful. Words and phrases which occurred to him +were beautiful likewise. But all were seen and heard remotely, as through +some softly dazzling medium which, while heightening the charm of them, +produced a delicate confusion leaving him uncertain whether he really +slept or woke. More than once, not without effort, he roused himself; but +only to slip back again into the same state of fair yet gently distracted +vision. + +At last the sound of opening casements in the dining-room underneath and +of a voice, touched with laughter, reached him. + +"There, you absurdities--skip, scuttle, take exercise, catch birds, +improve your figures!" Poppy cried, clapping her hands encouragingly as +she stood at the head of the flight of iron steps down which, with her +foot, she shot the toy spaniels unceremoniously into the sunny garden +below. + +The little creatures, welcoming their freedom, forgetful for once of their +languid overbred airs, scampered away yapping and skirmishing in the +merriest fashion about the grass-plat and flower-beds. The window closed +again and there followed a sound of voices, interjectional on Poppy's +part, low and continuous on that of Mrs. Peters, the house-keeper. Then a +pause, so prolonged that Iglesias, who had rallied all his energy and +prepared to rise and to go forward to meet his guest, sank away once more +into half-consciousness which neither actually sleeps or wakes. When he +came fully to himself Poppy was sitting on the low window-seat close +beside him. Her back was to the light and his sight was somewhat clouded, +so that at first he failed to see her clearly; but he knew that her mood +had changed and her laughter departed, through the sympathy of her touch, +she holding his hand as it lay along the arm of the chair. He would have +spoken, but she stopped him. + +"No, dear man, don't hurry," she said. "I know already. Peters has just +told me, now, downstairs, that you received the Last Sacraments this +morning. That's why I didn't come up sooner. I couldn't see you directly, +somehow. I had--well, I had to get my second wind, dearly beloved, so to +speak. You see it's such a heavenly day that I couldn't help feeling +happier about you. I had persuaded myself those doctors were a pack of +croaking old grannies whose collective wisdom had eventuated in a wild +mistake, and that, given time and summer weather, you would be better +again--you know you have had ups and downs lots of times before--and that +then, when the theatre closes and I have my holiday, I'd carry you off, +somewhere, anywhere, back to your own fierce, passionate Spain, perhaps, +and nurse and coax and care for you till living grew so pretty a business +you really wouldn't have the conscience to quit." + +Poppy's voice was sweet with caressing tones, sympathetic in quality as +her lingering touch. + +"Haven't you, perhaps, been a little premature after all?" she said. "Has +it really and truly come to that? Mightn't you have put off those last +grim ceremonies a trifle longer, and let them wait?" + +"They are not grim, dearest friend, but full of strong consolation," +Iglesias answered, smiling. He began to see her face more clearly. Her +expression was tragic, a world of anguish in it, for all the restraint of +her manner and playful glibness of her speech. "Nor, in any case," he +added, "can they hasten the event." + +"I'm not altogether sure of that," Poppy declared rebelliously. + +"I could not quite trust myself as to what the day might bring forth," +Iglesias continued. "In point of fact, I have gained strength as it has +gone on.--And so it seemed wisest and most fitting to ask for the +performance of those sacred rites while I was still of sound mind, and +ready in my perception of that in which I was taking part." + +"You have suffered?" Poppy said. + +"Nothing unendurable. The nights are somewhat wearisome, since I cannot +lie down, in ordinary fashion, to rest. But I sit here, or wander through +the quiet, kindly house, contentedly enough. And I am well cared for--have +no fear as to that. Peters is a faithful creature. She nursed my mother at +the last, and her presence is grateful to me, for association's sake." + +Iglesias straightened himself up. + +"There, there," he said, "do not be too sad. The road is not such a very +hard one to tread. The last few months have been the happiest I remember +since my childhood. Any anxieties I felt concerning you are set at rest. +You are famous, and will be more famous yet, and I know I shall live in +your remembrance while you live. It is no slight thing, after all, for a +man to have been loved so well by the two women whom he loved. And for the +rest, dearest friend, as one draws near to the edge of the great shadow, +which we call death, one begins to trust more and fuss less; looking to +the next step only, so that one may take it neither with faltering nor +with presumptuous haste." + +"Ah!" Poppy cried, "that's all very well for you. But where do I come in? +I lose you." + +Iglesias smiled, lifting his shoulders slightly and raising his hands. + +"Yes," he said, "it seems that sorrow, here on earth, is always, sooner or +later, the guerdon of love. Why, I know not; but so it is, as the most +sacred and august of all examples testifies. Only let us be thankful, you +and I, that to us this parting, and the inevitable pain of it, comes while +love is still in its full strength, having endured nothing unworthy, no +shame, or diminution, or disillusionment. The more bitter the wrench, the +finer the memory, and the more desirable the meeting which lies ahead, +however far distant in time it may be and in difference of condition." + +"Yes, dear man, yes, I dare say--no doubt," Poppy answered brokenly. "Only +I can't rise to these philosophic heights. I'm right here, don't you see, +my feet well on the floor, planted in brutal commonplace. I shall want +you--just simply I shall want you, and you won't be there, and I shall be +most cut-throat horribly lonely and sad. But, looking at you, still I +don't believe it. I won't believe it. I shall keep you a long while yet." + +She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek. + +"Now I must go," she said, "if I'm to get any dinner before the theatre. I +would have liked to stay, and put my poor little understudy on, so as to +give her a chance. She's a nice little girl--not half stupid, and really +keen to learn and to work. But I can't. I'm in honour bound to appear +to-night. You see, it's our second century--the first one we could not +observe, because it came at the end of January just in the general +mourning--so there's an awful to-do and tomasha to-night, souvenir +programmes and I don't know what all, also a rather extra special +audience. It would be little too bad if I played them false. But," she +added, rising, "when it's over I shall come back--yes, I will, I will, I +tell you. Don't flatter yourself you can prevent me, beloved lunatic, for +you jolly well can't.--I shall come back directly the performance is over, +and watch with you, through the bad hours till the dawn." + +Dominic Iglesias had risen, too. He crossed the room, going to the door +and holding it open for her; then, standing on the little landing, he +watched her as she went down the narrow crooked stairs. And so doing, it +came to him, with a movement of thankfulness and of satisfied pride, how +very fully in the past six months the Lady of the Windswept Dust had +realised and fulfilled all the finer promise of her complex nature. Just +as her figure had matured, retaining its admirable proportions and +suppleness while gaining in distinction and dignity, her mind had matured +likewise. Her splendid fearlessness was no longer that of naughty +dare-devil audacity, but of secure position and recognised success. +Indeed, she had grown into a somewhat imperial creature, for whom the +world, and rightly, is very willing to make place. + +At the bottom of the flight Poppy paused, looking up and kissing her hand. + +"Till to-night," she cried. "Now I go to herd those two small miseries, +W. O. and Cappadocia.--Take most precious care of yourself until I come +back, dear man. Good-bye and God keep you, till to-night." + +Mr. Iglesias crossed the drawing-room, glad at heart, erect and stately as +in the fulness of health. For a minute or so he stood looking out into the +garden, at the stone basin full to the lip--in which the sparrows, +relieved of the presence of the toy spaniels, washed with much fluttering +of sooty wings--and at the spring flowers, beginning to close their +delicate blossoms as the sun declined towards its setting in the gold and +grey of the west. In the recovered stillness, those same spiritual +presences, rare apprehensions, exquisite memories, mysterious invitations, +once again obtained possession, coming forth, passing lightly to and fro, +filling all the place. In aspect and sentiment they were benign, all +fearfulness having gone from out them--they telling of fair things only, +of human relations unbroken by treachery or self-seeking, unsullied by +lust; telling, too, of godly endeavour faithfully to travel the road which +leads to the far horizon touched by the illimitable glory of the Uncreated +Light. + +But presently Dominic Iglesias became aware that he was very, very tired. +He sat down in the chair again. + +"Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy," he murmured, crossing himself. "I +think the day's work is over. I will sleep." + +That night Poppy St. John played as she had never played before; and her +audience, taking her astonishing manifestation of talent as a compliment +to themselves, cried with her and laughed with her in most wholehearted +fashion. + +Antony Hammond, in the stage box on the right, turned to Adolphus Carr, +his companion, saying: + +"Did I really write such admirable drama as this? I have girded at that +term, 'creating a part,' as an example of the colossal vanity of the +actor, and his very inadequate reverence for his maker, the playwright. +But, I give you my word, after to-night I hide my diminished head. The +player and playing are greater than any fondest conception of mine, when I +put those words on paper." + +And Lionel Gordon, his habitual imperturbability altogether broken up by +excitement, stamped up and down stammering: + +"Ge-ge-hanna, gehanna, what possesses the woman? I'd tour creation with +her. She must be made to sign a three years' contract. If she can act like +this there's nothing less than a cool half-million sterling in her." + +And Alaric Barking, lean and haggard, invalided home from South Africa, +escaping for one evening from the ministrations of gentle Lady Constance +Decies and his pretty _fiancee_, sat huddled together at the end of a +row at the back of the pit, hoping, "The deuce! nobody would see him," +with a choke in his throat. He would love, honour, and cherish his pretty, +high-bred, innocent maiden; but Poppy's voice tore at his very vitals. And +he asked himself how had he ever borne to give her up, forgetting, as is +the habit of civilised man in such slightly humiliating circumstances, +that it was Poppy herself, not he, who loved and rode away. + +Twice the curtain was raised at the end of the performance, and the Lady +of the Windswept Dust made her bow with the rest of the company.--Now she +could depart; thank heaven! she could go back to the strangely still +house in Holland Street and fulfil her promise to Dominic Iglesias to +watch with him till dawn. All through the play, the passion and excitement +and pathos and mirth of it, her anxiety had deepened, her yearning +increased, so that the joy of her public triumph was barred and seared +by intimate pain. Now she could go. Already the carpenters were beginning +their nightly work of destruction, metamorphosing the so-lately brilliant +stage into a vast unsightly cavern of gaunt timbers, creaking pulleys, +noisy mechanical contrivances, gaudy painted surfaces of canvas and paper, +piled-up properties, of uncertain lights and draughts many and chill. +Careless of all save that determination of going, Poppy moved away. But +still the unseen audience clamoured. A fury had taken it, a madness such +as will sometimes attack even the soberest and most aristocratic crowd, +excitement reacting upon itself and stimulating excitement, till the +demand which had begun in kindly enthusiasm became oddly violent, even +brutal, men and women standing up, applauding, drumming, shouting a single +name. + +"There, it's over, thank the powers! Now let me get out of all this +infernal din," she said, putting her hands over her ears as she pushed +into the wings. + +But Lionel Gordon met her, barring her passage, his face working with +nervous agitation, and caught hold of her unceremoniously by both arms. + +"What's the matter?" she cried angrily. "I can't stay. I have a case of +illness on hand." + +"Hang illness!" he answered. "My good girl, pull yourself together. Go +back. Don't be a blooming fool. Listen--it's you they're splitting their +throats for--yes, you--about the most fastidious audience in Europe +yelling like a pack of drunken bookies! Gehenna! you're the luckiest woman +living. You're made, great heavens, you're made!" + +He dragged her aside, pushing her into the mouth of the narrow passage +between the curtain and the footlights, where the roar of the house and +the welter of faces met her like a breaking wave. + + * * * * * + +Standing against the edge of the pavement in front of Mr. Iglesias' house, +in Holland Street, was a covered van. As Poppy drove up a couple of men +came down the steps, in the black and white of the moonlight. Their dark +clothing and somewhat sleek appearance were repulsive to her. She swept +past them, swept past Frederick holding open the door, and on up the +stairs. Her hands were encumbered by her trailing draperies of velvet and +silver tissue, and by an extravagant bouquet of orchids, lilies, and +roses, with long yellow satin streamers to it. She had not stayed even to +wash the grease paint off her face. Just as she was, the stamp of her +calling upon her, eager, fictitious, courageous, triumphant, pushed by a +great fear, she came. But in the doorway she faltered, set her teeth, +bowed her head, and paused. + +For in the centre of the room a bier was dressed, and on either side of it +stood lighted tapers of brownish wax, in tall black and gold candlesticks. +At the foot, some distance apart, two low-seated rush-bottomed high-backed +_prie-dieu_ had been placed. Upon the one on the left a little nun +knelt, her loose black habit concealing all the outline of her figure. The +white linen pall was turned back, across the chest of the corpse, to where +the shapely long-fingered hands were folded upon an ebony and silver +crucifix. By some harsh irony of imagination Lionel Gordon's voice rang in +Poppy's ears: "My good girl, pull yourself together. Gehenna! you're the +luckiest woman living. You're made, great heavens, you're made!"--while, +blank despair in her heart, she went forward, the little nun looking up +momentarily from her prayers, and stood beside the bier. Beautiful in +death as in life, serene, proud, austere, but young now with the eternal +youth of those who have believed, and attained, and reached the Land of +the Far Horizon, Dominic Iglesias lay before her. + +Presently a sound of sobbing broke up the stillness, and turning, Poppy +descried good George Lovegrove, sitting in the dusky far corner of the +room, his knees wide apart, his shiny forehead showing high above the +handkerchief he pressed against his eyes. She backed away from the corpse, +as in all reverence from the presence of a personage august and sacred. +Coming close to him, she laid her hand gently upon George Lovegrove's +shoulder. "Go home, my best beetle," she said, very tenderly. "You're worn +out with sorrow. Come back in the morning if you will. I promised Dominic +I would watch with him till the dawn. I keep my promise." + +Then the Lady of the Windswept Dust laid her extravagant bouquet with its +yellow streamers, on the floor, at the foot of the bier; and kneeling upon +the vacant _prie-dieu_, beside the little nun, buried her painted +face in her hands and wept. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FAR HORIZON *** + +This file should be named 8farh10.txt or 8farh10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8farh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8farh10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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