THE DIVINE FIRE

by

MAY SINCLAIR

Author of _Mr. And Mrs. Nevill Tyson_, _Two Sides of a Question_, etc. Etc. 

1904

Mr. OWEN SEAMAN in _Punch_ says:--

 "Miss Sinclair is always quietly sure of herself. That is why she will not be hurried, but moves through her gradual scheme with so leisured a serenity; why her style, fluent and facile, never forces its natural eloquence; why her humour plays with a diffused light over all her work and seldom needs the advertisement of scintillating epigrams. Judged by almost every standard to which a comedy like this should be referred, I find her book, 'The Divine Fire' the most remarkable that I have read for many years. "

BY THE SAME AUTHOR_TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION_

CONTENTS

BOOK IDISJECTA MEMBRA POETAE

BOOK IILUCIA'S WAY

BOOK IIITHE HOUSE OF BONDAGE

BOOK IVTHE MAN HIMSELF

BOOK I

DISJECTA MEMBRA POETAE

CHAPTER I

Horace Jewdwine had made the most remarkable of his many remarkablediscoveries. At least he thought he had. He could not be quite sure, which was his excuse for referring it to his cousin Lucia, whoseinstinct (he would not call it judgement) in these matters wasinfallible--strangely infallible for so young a girl. What, hewondered, would she say to Savage Keith Rickman?

On Saturday, when he first came down into Devonshire, he would havebeen glad to know. But to-day, which was a Tuesday, he was notinterested in Rickman. To eat strawberries all morning; to lie out inthe hammock all afternoon, under the beach-tree on the lawn of CourtHouse; to let the peace of the old green garden sink into him; to lookat Lucia and forget, utterly forget, about his work (the making ofdiscoveries), that was what he wanted. But Lucia wanted to talk, andto talk about Rickman earnestly as if he were a burning question, wheneven lying in the hammock Jewdwine was so hot that it bothered him totalk at all. 

He was beginning to be sorry that he had introduced him--the excitingtopic, that is to say, not the man; for Rickman you could scarcelyintroduce, not at any rate to Lucia Harden. 

"Well, Lucia?" He pronounced her name in the Italian manner, "Loo-chee-a, " with a languid stress on the vowels, and his toneconveyed a certain weary but polite forbearance. 

Lucia herself, he noticed, had an ardent look, as if a particularlyinteresting idea had just occurred to her. He wished it hadn't. Anidea of Lucia's would commit him to an opinion of his own; and at themoment Jewdwine was not prepared to abandon himself to anything sodefinite and irretrievable. He had not yet made up his mind aboutRickman, and did not want to make it up now. Certainty was impossibleowing to his somewhat embarrassing acquaintance with the man. That, again, was where Lucia had come in. Her vision of him would be freeand undisturbed by any suggestion of his bodily presence. 

Meanwhile, Rickman's poem, or rather the first two Acts of hisneo-classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_, lay on Lucia's lap. Jewdwine hadobtained it under protest and with much secrecy. He had promisedRickman, solemnly, not to show it to a soul; but he had shown it toLucia. It was all right, he said, so long as he refrained fromdisclosing the name of the person who had written it. Not that shewould have been any the wiser if he had. 

"And it was you who discovered him?" Her voice lingered with apeculiarly tender and agreeable vibration on the "you. " He closed hiseyes and let that, too, sink into him. 

"Yes, " he murmured, "nobody else has had a hand in it--as yet. "

"And what are you going to do with him now you have discovered him?"

He opened his eyes, startled by the uncomfortable suggestion. It hadnot yet occurred to him that the discovery of Rickman could entail anyresponsibility whatever. 

"I don't know that I'm going to do anything with him. Unless some dayI use him for an article. "

"Oh, Horace, is that the way you treat your friends?"

He smiled. "Yes Lucy, sometimes, when they deserve it. "

"You haven't told me your friend's name?"

"No. I betrayed his innocent confidence sufficiently in showing youhis play. I can't tell you his name. "

"After all, his name doesn't matter. "

"No, it doesn't matter. Very likely you'll hear enough of it someday. You haven't told me what you think of him. "

"I don't know what I think--But then, I don't know him. "

"No, " he said, roused to interest by her hesitation, "you don't knowhim. That's the beauty of it. "

She gave the manuscript back into his hands. "Take him away. He makesme feel uncomfortable. "

"To tell the truth, Lucy, he makes me feel uncomfortable, too. "

"Why?"

"Well, when you think you've got hold of a genius, and you take him upand stake your reputation on him--and all the time you can't be surewhether it's a spark of the divine fire or a mere flash in the pan. Ithappens over and over again. The burnt critic dreads the divine fire. "

His eyes were fixed on the title page as if fascinated by the words, _Helen in Leuce_. 

"But this is not bad--it's _not_ bad for two and twenty. "

"Only two and twenty?"

"That's all. It looks as if he were made for immortality. "

She turned to him that ardent gaze which made the hot day hotter. 

"Dear Horace, you're going to do great things for him. "

The worst of having a cousin who adores you is that magnificence isexpected of you, regularly and as a matter of course. He was not evensure that Lucia did not credit him with power to work miracles. Theidea was flattering but also somewhat inconvenient. 

"I don't know about great things. I should like to do something. Thequestion is what. He's a little unfortunate in--in his surroundings, and he's been ill, poor fellow. If one could give him a change. If onewere only rich and could afford to send him abroad for a year. I _had_thought of asking him down to Oxford. "

"And why didn't you?"

"Well, you know, one gets rather crowded up with things in term time. "

Lucia looked thoughtfully at the refined, luxurious figure in thehammock. Horace was entitled to the hammock, for he had been ill. Hewas entitled also to the ministrations of his cousin Lucia. Luciaspent her time in planning and doing kind things, and, from the suddenluminous sweetness of her face, he gathered that something of the sortwas in preparation now. 

It was. "Horace, " she said, "would you like to ask him here?"

"No, Lucy, I wouldn't. I don't think it would do. "

"But why not--if he's your friend?"

"If he's my friend. "

"You _said_ he was your friend. You did, you know. " (Another awkwardconsequence of a cousin's adoration; she is apt to remember and attachimportance to your most trivial utterances. )

"Pardon me, I said he was my find. "

"Where did you find him?"

"I found him in the City--in a shop. "

She smiled at the rhythmic utterance. The tragedy of the revelationwas such that it could be expressed only in blank verse. 

"The shop doesn't matter. "

"No, but he does. You couldn't stand him, Lucia. You see, for onething, he sometimes drops his aitches. "

"Well, if he does, --he'll be out all day, and there's the open countryto drop them in. I really don't mind, if you'd like to ask him. Do youthink he'd like to be asked?"

"There's no possible doubt about that. "

"Then ask him. Ask him now. You can't do it when father's not athome. "

Jewdwine repressed a smile. Even now, from the windows of the eastwing, there burst, suddenly, the sound of fiddling, a masterlyfiddling inspired by infernal passion, controlled by divine technique. It was his uncle, Sir Frederick, and he wished him at the devil. Ifall accounts were true, Sir Frederick, when not actually fiddling, wasgoing there with a celerity that left nothing to be desired; he was, if you came to think of it, a rather amazing sort of chaperone. 

And yet, but for that fleeting and tumultuous presence, Horace himselfwould not be staying at Court House. Really, he reflected. Lucia oughtto get some lady to live with her. It was the correct thing, andtherefore it was not a little surprising that Lucia did not do it. Anexpression of disapproval passed over his pale, fastidious face. 

"Father won't mind, " she said. 

"No, but I should. " He said it in a tone which was meant to settle thequestion. 

She sat still, turning over the pages of the manuscript which she hadagain taken on her lap. 

"I suppose he is very dreadful. Still, I think we ought to dosomething for him. "

"And what would you propose to do?"

There was an irritating smile on her cousin's face. He was thinking, "So she wants to patronize him, does she?"

He did not say what he thought; with Lucia that was unnecessary, forshe always knew. He only said, "I don't exactly see you playingBeatrice to his Dante. "

Lucia coloured, and Horace felt that he had been right. The Hardenshad always been patronizing; his mother and sister were the mostsuperbly patronizing women he knew. And Rickman might or might not bea great man, but Lucia, even at three and twenty, was a great lady inher way. Why shouldn't she patronize him, if she liked? And he smiledagain more irritatingly than ever. Nobody could be more irritatingthan this Oxford don when he gave his mind to it. 

"Lucy--if you only knew him, I don't think you'd suggest my bringinghim down here. "

He was smiling still, while his imagination dallied with the monstrousvision. 

"I wouldn't have suggested it, " she said coldly, "if I hadn't thoughtyou'd like it. "

Horace felt a little ashamed of himself. He knew he had only to thinkabout Lucia in her presence to change the colour on her cheeks, andhis last thought had left a stain there like the mark of a blow. Neverhad he known any woman so sensitive as his cousin Lucia. 

"So I should like it, dear, if it were possible, or rather if _he_were not impossible. His manners have not that repose whichdistinguishes his _Helen_. Really, for two and twenty, he ismarvellously restrained. "

"Restrained? Do you think so?"

"Certainly, " he said, his thought gaining precision in opposition toher vagueness, "his _Helen_ is pure Vere de Vere. You might read mesome of it. "

She read, and in the golden afternoon her voice built up the cold, polished marble of the verse. She had not been able to tell him whatshe thought of Rickman; but her voice, in its profound vibrations, made apparent that which she, and she only, had discerned in him, thetroubled pulse of youth, the passion of the imprisoned and tumultuoussoul, the soul which Horace had assured her inhabited the body of anaitchless shopman. Lucia might not have the intuition of genius, butshe had the genius of intuition; she had seen what the great Oxfordcritic had not been able to see. 

The sound of the fiddling ceased as suddenly as it had begun; and overthe grey house and the green garden was the peace of heaven and of theenfolding hills. 

Jewdwine breathed a sigh of contentment at the close of the greatchorus in the second Act. After all, Rickman was the best antidote toRickman. 

But Lucia was looking ardent again, as if she were about to speak. 

"Don't, Lucy, " he murmured. 

"Don't what?"

"Don't talk any more about him now. It's too hot. Wait till the coolof the evening. "

"I thought you wanted me to play to you then. "

Jewdwine looked at her; he noted the purity of her face, the beautifulpose of her body, stretched in the deck-chair, her fine white handsand arms that hung there, slender, inert and frail. He admired thesethings so much that he failed to see that they expressed not onlybeauty but a certain delicacy of physique, and that her languor whichappealed to him was the languor of fatigue. 

"You might play to me, now, " he said. 

She looked at him again, a lingering, meditative look, a look inwhich, if adoration was quiescent, there was no criticism and noreproach, only a melancholy wonder. And he, too, wondered; wonderedwhat she was thinking of. 

She was thinking a dreadful thought. "Is Horace selfish? Is Horaceselfish?" a little voice kept calling at the back of her brain andwould not be quiet. At last she answered it to her own satisfaction. "No, he is not selfish, he is only ill. "

And presently, as if on mature consideration, she rose and went intothe house. 

His eyes followed, well pleased, the delicate undulations of herfigure. 

Horace Jewdwine was the most exacting, the most fastidious of men. Hisentire nature was dominated by the critical faculty in him; and Luciasatisfied its most difficult demands. Try as he would, there wasreally nothing in her which he could take exception to, barring herabsurd adoration of his uncle Frederick; and even that, when you cameto think of it, flowed from the innocence which was more than half hercharm. He could not say positively wherein her beauty consisted, therefore he was always tempted to look at her in the hope of findingout. There was nothing insistent and nothing obvious about it. Somewomen, for instance, irritated your admiration by the capriciousprettiness of one or two features, or fatigued it by the monotonousregularity of all. The beauty of others was vulgarized by theflamboyance of some irrelevant detail, such as hair. Lucia's hair wasmerely dark; and it made, as hair should make, the simplest adornmentfor her head, the most perfect setting for her face. As for herfeatures, (though it was impossible to think of them, or anythingabout her as incorrect) they eluded while they fascinated him by theirsubtlety. Lucia's beauty, in short, appealed to him, because it didnot commit him to any irretrievable opinion. 

But nothing, not even her beauty, pleased him better than the way inwhich she managed her intellect, divining by some infallible instincthow much of it was wanted by any given listener at a given time. Shehad none of the nasty tricks that clever women have, always on thelook out to go one better, and to catch you tripping. Her lucidity wasremarkable; but it served to show up other people's strong pointsrather than her own. Lucia did not impress you as being clever, andJewdwine, who had a clever man's natural distaste for clever women, admired his cousin's intellect, as well he might, for it was he whohad taught her how to use it. Her sense of humour, too (for Lucia wasdangerously gifted), that sense which more than any of her senses canwreck a woman--he would have liked her just as well if she had hadnone; but some, no doubt, she needed, if only to save her from thesituations to which her kindness and her innocence exposed her; andshe had just the right amount and no more. Heavens! Supposing, withoutit, she had met Keith Rickman and had yielded to the temptation to bekind to him! Even in the heat Jewdwine shivered at the thought. 

He put it from him, he put Rickman altogether from his mind. It wasnot to think about Rickman that he came down to Court House. On a dayas hot as this, he wanted nothing but to keep cool. The gentleoscillation of the hammock in the green shadows of the beech-treesymbolized this attitude towards Rickman and all other ardentquestions. 

Still, it was not disagreeable to know that if he could only make uphis mind to something very definite and irretrievable indeed, CourtHouse would one day be his. It was the only house in England that cameup to his idea of what a country house should be. A square Tudorbuilding with two short, gable-ended wings, thrown out at right anglesto its front; three friendly grey walls enclosing a little courtyardmade golden all day long with sunshine from the south. Court House wasolder than anything near it except Harmouth Bridge and the ParishChurch. Standing apart in its own green lands, it looked older thanthe young red earth beneath it, a mass upheaved from the greyfoundations of the hills. Its face, turned seawards, was rough andpitted with the salt air; thousands upon thousands of lichens gave ita greenish bloom, with here and there a rusty patch on groin andgable. It contained the Harden Library, _the_ Harden Library, one ofthe finest private collections in the country. It contained also hiscousin Lucia. 

He had always loved Court House, but not always his cousin Lucia. Thescholarly descendant of a long line of scholars, Jewdwine knew that hehad been a favourite with his grandfather, Sir Joseph Harden, theMaster of Lazarus, he was convinced (erroneously) that he was a Hardenby blood and by temperament, and of course if he had only been aHarden by name, and not a Jewdwine, Court House and the great HardenLibrary would have been his instead of his cousin Lucia's. He knewthat his grandfather had wished them to be his. Lucia's mother wasdead long ago; and when his uncle Sir Frederick definitely renouncedthe domestic life, Lucia and Lucia alone stood between him and theinheritance that should have been his. This hardly constituted areason for being fond of Lucia. 

His grandfather had wished him to be fond of her. But not untilJewdwine was five and twenty and began to feel the primordial manhoodstirring in his scholarly blood did he perceive that his cousin Luciawas not a hindrance but a way. The way was so obvious that it was nowonder that he did not see it all at once. He did not really see ittill Sir Joseph sent for him on his death-bed. 

"There's been some mistake, Horace, " Sir Joseph had then said. "Yourmother should have been the boy and your uncle Frederick the girl. Then Lucia would have been a Jewdwine, and you a Harden. "

And Horace had said, "I'm afraid I can't be a Harden, sir; but isthere any reason why Lucia--?"

"I was coming to that, " said Sir Joseph. But he never came to it. Horace, however, was in some way aware that the same idea had occurredto both of them. Whatever it was, the old man had died happy in it. 

There was no engagement, only a something altogether intangible andvague, understood to be an understanding. And Lucia adored him. If shehad not adored him he might have been urged to something irretrievableand definite. As it was, there was no need, and nothing could havebeen more soothing than the golden concord of that understanding. 

Needless to say if Lucia had been anybody but Lucia, such a solutionwould have been impossible. He was fastidious. He would not havemarried a woman simply because his grandfather wished it; and he couldnot have married a woman simply because she inherited property thatought to have been his. And he could not have married any woman whowould have suspected him of such brutality. He could only marry awoman who was consummately suitable to him, in whom nothing jarred, nothing offended; and his cousin Lucia was such a woman. The very factthat she was his cousin was an assurance of her rightness. It followedthat, love being the expression of that perfect and predestinedharmony, he could only marry for love. Not for a great estate, forCourt House and the Harden Library. No, to do him justice, his seekingof Lucia was independent of his reflection that these things would beadded unto him. Still, once married to Lucia, there was only SirFrederick and his infernal fiddle between him and ultimate, inviolablepossession; and Sir Frederick, to use his own phrase, had "aboutplayed himself out. " From what a stage and to what mad music!

From the east wing came the sound, not of his uncle's fiddle, but ofthe music he desired, the tremendous and difficult music that, on ahot July afternoon, taxed the delicate player's strength to itsutmost. Lucia began with Scarlatti and Bach; wandered off throughSchumann into Chopin, a moonlit enchanted wilderness of sound; paused, and wound up superbly with Beethoven, the "Sonata Appassionata. "

And as she came back to him over the green lawn she seemed to Jewdwineto be trailing tumultuous echoes of her music; the splendour and thepassion of her playing hung about her like a luminous cloud. He roseand went to meet her, and in his eyes there was a light, a light ofwonder and of worship. 

"I think, " she said, "you do look a little happier. "

"I am tolerably happy, thanks. "

"So am I. "

"Yes, but _you_ don't look it. What are you thinking of?"

She turned, and they walked together towards the house. 

"I was thinking--it's quite cool, now, Horace--of what you said--aboutthat friend of yours. "

"Lucy! Was I rude? Did I make you unhappy?"

"Not you. Don't you see that it's just because I'm happy that I wantto be kind to him?"

"Just like your sweetness. But, dear child, you can't be kind toeverybody. It really doesn't do. "

She said no more; she had certainly something else to think about. 

That was on a Tuesday, a hot afternoon in July, eighteen ninety-one. 

CHAPTER II

It was Wednesday evening in April, eighteen ninety-two. Spring wascoming up on the south wind from the river; spring was in the narrowstreets and in the great highway of the Strand, and in a certainbookseller's shop in the Strand. And it was Easter, not to say BankHoliday, already in the soul of the young man who sat there compilingthe Quarterly Catalogue. For it was in the days of his obscurity. 

The shop, a corner one, was part of a gigantic modern structure, witha decorated façade in pinkish terra-cotta, and topped by four pinkishcupolas. It was brutally, tyrannously imposing. It towered above itsneighbours, dwarfing the long sky-line of the Strand; its flushedcupolas mocked the white and heavenly soaring of St. Mary's. Whetheryou approached it from the river, or from the City, or from the west, you could see nothing else, so monstrous was it, so flagrant and sonew. Though the day was not yet done, the electric light streamed overthe pavement from the huge windows of the ground floor; a coronal ofdazzling globes hung over the doorway at the corner; there, as youturned, the sombre windows of the second-hand department stretchedhalf way down the side street; here, in the great thoroughfare, thenewest of new books stood out, solicitous and alluring, in suits ofblazing scarlet and vivid green, of vellum and gilt, of polishedleather that shone like amber and malachite and lapis lazuli. 

Within, a wall broken by a wide and lofty arch divided the front fromthe back shop. On the right of the arch was the mahogany pew of thecashier, on the left, a tall pillar stove radiating intolerable heat. Four steps led through the arch into the back shop, the floor ofwhich was raised in a sort of platform. On the platform was a table, and at the table sat the young man compiling the Quarterly Catalogue. 

Front shop and back shop reeked with the smells of new mahogany, dust, pillar-stove, gum, hot-pressed paper and Russia leather. He sat in themiddle of them, in an atmosphere so thick that it could be seenhanging about him like an aura, luminous in the glare of the electriclight. His slender, nervous hands worked rapidly, with a business-likeair of dexterity and dispatch. But every now and then he raised hishead and stared for quite a long time at the round, white, foolishface of the clock, and whenever he did this his eyes were the eyes ofa young man who has no adequate sense of his surroundings. 

The remarkable thing about the new shop was that already, like a baror a restaurant, it drew to it a certain group of young men, punctually, irresistibly. A small group--you could almost count themon the fingers of one hand--they came from Fleet Street, from theTemple, from the Junior Journalists' Club over the way. They werenever seen looking in at the windows or hanging about the counter;they were not the least bit of good to the shop, those customers. Butthey were evidently some good to the young man. Whatever they did ordid not do, they always ended by drifting to the platform, to histable. They sat on it in friendly attitudes and talked to him. 

He was so glad to be talked to, so frankly, engagingly, beautifullyglad, that the pathos of it would have been too poignant, theobligation it almost forced on you too unbearable, but for his power, his monstrous, mysterious, personal glamour. 

It lay partly, no doubt, in his appearance; not, no, not at all, inhis make-up. He wore, like a thousand city clerks, a high collar, aspeckled tie, a straight, dark blue serge suit. But in spite of thestiffness thus imposed on him, he had, unaccountably, the shy, savagebeauty of an animal untamed, uncaught. He belonged to the slender, nervous, fair type; but the colour proper to it had been taken out ofhim by the shop. His head presented the utmost clearness of linecompatible with irregularity of outline; and his face (from its heavysquare forehead to its light square jaw) was full of strangeharmonies, adjustments, compensations. His chin, rather long in afront view, rather prominent in profile, balanced the powerfulproportions of his forehead. His upper lip, in spite of its slenderarch, betrayed a youthful eagerness of the senses; but this effect wassubtilized by the fineness of his lower lip, and, when they closed, itdisappeared in the sudden, serious straightening of the lines. Evenhis nose (otherwise a firm feature, straight in the bridge and ratherbroad at the end) became grave or eager as the pose of the head hid orrevealed the nostrils. He had queer eyes, of a thick dark blue, large, though deep set, showing a great deal of iris and very little white. Without being good-looking he was good to look at, when you could looklong enough to find all these things out. He did not like being lookedat. If you tried to hold him that way, his eyes were all over theplace, seeking an escape; but they held _you_, whether you liked it ornot. 

It was uncanny, that fascination. If he had chosen to exert it in theinterests of his shop he could presumably have cleaned those friendlyyoung men out any day. But he never did exert it. Surrounded by wareswhose very appearance was a venal solicitation, he never hinted by somuch as the turn of a phrase that there was anything about him to bebought. And after what had passed between them, they felt that to hintit themselves--to him--would have been the last indelicacy. If theyever asked the price of a book it was to propitiate the grim grizzledfellow, so like a Methodist parson, who glared at them from thecounter. 

They kept their discovery to themselves, as if it had been somethingtoo precious to be handled, as if its charm, the poetry, the pathos ofit must escape under discussion. But any of them who did compare notesagreed that their first idea had been that the shop was absurdly toobig for the young man; their next that the young man was too big forthe shop, miles, oh miles too big for it; their final impression beingthe tragedy of the disproportion, the misfit. Then, sadly, withlowered voices, they admitted that he had one flaw; when the poorfellow got excited, don't you know, he sometimes dropt--no--no, heskipped--his aitches. It didn't happen often, but they felt itterrible that it should happen at all--to him. They touched ittenderly; if it was not exactly part of his poetry it was part of hispathos. The shop was responsible for it. He ought never, never to havebeen there. 

And yet, bad as it was, they felt that he must be consoled, sustainedby what he knew about himself, what it was inconceivable that heshould not know. 

He may, indeed, have reflected with some complacency that in spite ofeverything, his great classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_, was lyingfinished in the dressing-table drawer in his bedroom, and that for thelast month those very modern poems that he called _Saturnalia_ hadbeen careering through the columns of _The Planet_. But at the momenthe was mainly supported by the coming of Easter. 

CHAPTER III

The scene of the tragedy, that shop in the Strand, was well-lit andwell-appointed. But he, Savage Keith Rickman, had much preferred thedark little second-hand shop in the City where he had laboured as aboy. There was something soothing in its very obscurity andretirement. He could sit there for an hour at a time, peacefullyreading his Homer. In that agreeable dusty twilight, outward formswere dimmed with familiarity and dirt. His dreams took shape beforehim, they came and went at will, undisturbed by any gross collisionwith reality. There was hardly any part of it that was not consecratedby some divine visitation. It was in the corner by the window, standing on a step-ladder and fumbling in the darkness for a copy ofDemosthenes, _De Corona_, that he lit on his first Idea. From his seatbehind the counter, staring, as was his custom, into the recess wherethe coal-scuttle was, he first saw the immortal face of Helen inLeuce. 

Here, all that beautiful world of thought lay open to the terrificinvasion of things. His dreams refused to stand out with sufficientdistinctness from a background of coloured bindings, plate glass andmahogany. They were liable at any moment to be broken by the violentcontours of customers. A sight of Helen in Leuce could be obtainedonly by dint of much concentrated staring at the clock; and as oftenas not Mr. Rickman's eye dropt its visionary freight on encounteringthe cashier's eye in its passage from the clock to the paper. 

But (as he reflected with some humour) though Mr. Rickman's ideas sofrequently miscarried, owing to that malignant influence, his genius, like Nature irresistible and indestructible, compelled him perpetuallyto bring forth. Exposed on his little daïs or platform, in hideouspublicity, he suffered the divine labour and agony of creation. He wasthe slave of his passion and his hour. 

CHAPTER IV

A wave of heat broke from the pillar-stove and spread through theshop, strewing the heavier smells like a wrack behind it. And throughit all, with every swing of the great mahogany doors, there stole intohis young senses a something delicious and disturbing, faintlydiscernible as the Spring. 

He thrust his work from him, tilted back his chair at a dangerousangle, and began reviewing his engagements for the coming BankHoliday. 

He was only three and twenty, and at three and twenty an infinitemeasure of life can be pressed into the great three days. He saw infancy the procession of the hours, the flight of the dreams, of allthe gorgeous intellectual pageants that move through the pages of_Saturnalia_. For in ninety-two Savage Keith Rickman was a little poetabout town, a cockney poet, the poet not only of neo-classic drama, but of green suburban Saturday noons, and flaming Saturday nights, andof a great many things besides. He had made his plans long beforehand, and was prepared to consign to instant perdition the person or thingthat should interfere with them. Good Friday morning, an hour'scycling before breakfast in Regent's Park, by way of pumping some airinto his lungs, then, ten hours at least of high Parnassian leisure, of dalliance in Academic shades; he saw himself wooing some reluctantclassic, or, far more likely, flirting with his own capricious andbewildering muse. (In a world of prose it is only by such divinesnatches that poets are made) Friday evening, dinner at his club, theJunior Journalists'. Saturday morning, recovery from dinner at theJunior Journalists'. Saturday afternoon, to Hampstead or theHippodrome with Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who lived in hisboarding-house and never had any fun to speak of. Saturday night, supper with--well, with Miss Poppy Grace of the Jubilee VarietyTheatre. He had a sudden vision of Poppy as he was wont to meet her indelightful intimacy, instantaneously followed by her image thatflaunted on the posters out there in the Strand, Poppy as she appearedbehind the foot-lights, in red silk skirts and black silk stockings, skimming, whirling, swaying, and deftly shaking her foot at him. Midnight and morning merging into one. Sunday, to Richmond, probably, with Poppy and some others. Monday, up the river with Himself. Not forworlds, that is to say, not for any amount of Poppies, would he havebroken his appointment with that brilliant and yet inscrutablecompanion who is so eternally fascinating at twenty-three. Monday wasindistinct but luminous, a restless, shimmering background for ideas. Ideas! They swarmed like motes in the blue air; they loomed, theyfloated, vague, and somewhat supernaturally large, all made out of Mr. Rickman's brain. And in the midst of the ideas a figure insanelywhirled, till it became a mere wheel of flying skirts and tossinglimbs. 

At this point Mr. Rickman caught the cashier's eye looking at him overthe little mahogany rails of his pew, and he began wondering how onearth the cashier would behave when they loosed him out for the BankHoliday. Then he set to and wrote hard at the Quarterly Catalogue. Inall London there was not a more prolific or versatile writer thanSavage Keith Rickman. But if in ninety-two you had asked him for hismasterpiece, his _magnum opus_, his life-work, he would mentionnothing that he had written, but refer you, soberly and benignly, tothat colossal performance, the Quarterly Catalogue. 

"Vandam: Amours of Great Men (a little soiled). Rare. 30s. " He wasin the middle of the Vs now and within measurable distance of the end. Business being slack in the front shop, he finished earlier thanusual, and actually found himself with nearly a whole hour upon hishands before dinner. He had half a mind to spend it at his club, theJunior Journalists', in the side street over the way. 

Only half a mind; for Mr. Rickman entertained the most innocentbeliefs with regard to that club of his. He was not yet sure whetherit belonged to him or he to it; but in going to the JuniorJournalists' he conceived himself to be going into society. So extremewas his illusion. 

Mr. Rickman's place was in the shop and his home was in a boardinghouse, and for years he had thought of belonging to that club; butquite hopelessly, as of a thing beyond attainment. It had neveroccurred to him that anything could come of those invasions of thefriendly young men. Yet this was what had come of them. He wasfriends, under the rose, that is to say, over the counter, with HoraceJewdwine of Lazarus College, Oxford. Jewdwine had proposed him on hisown merits, somebody else had seconded him (he supposed) onJewdwine's, and between them they had smuggled him in. This would behis first appearance as a Junior Journalist. And he might well feel alittle diffident about it; for, though some of the members knew him, he could not honestly say he knew any of them, except Rankin (of _ThePlanet_) who possibly mightn't, and Jewdwine who certainly wouldn't, be there. But the plunge had to be made some time; he might as wellmake it now. 

From the threshold of the Junior Journalists' he looked back acrossthe side street, as across a gulf, at the place he had just left. Hiseyes moved from the jutting sign-board at the corner, announcing_Gentlemen's Libraries Purchased_, to the legend that ran above thewindow, blazoned in letters of gold:

_Isaac Rickman: New & Second-Hand Bookseller. _

His connexion with it was by no means casual and temporary. It was hisfather's shop. 

CHAPTER V

The little booksellers of the Strand, in their death struggle againstRickman's, never cursed that house more heartily than did the JuniorJournalists, in their friendly, shabby little den, smelling of oldleather and tobacco and the town. They complained that it cut ontwo-thirds of the light from the front windows of the reading-room. Not that any of them were ever known to read in it. They used itchiefly as a place to talk in, for which purpose little illuminationwas required. 

To-night one of the windows in question was occupied by a small groupof talkers isolated from the rest. There was Mackinnon, of _TheLiterary Observer_. There were the three wild young spirits of _ThePlanet_, Stables, who had launched it with frightful impetus intospace (having borrowed a sum sufficient for the purpose), Maddox, whocontrolled its course, and Rankin, whose brilliance made it twinkle sobrightly in the firmament. With them, but emphatically not of them, was Horace Jewdwine, of Lazarus, who had come up from Oxford to jointhe staff of _The Museion_. 

Jewdwine and Mackinnon, both secure of a position and a salary, lookedsolemn and a little anxious; but the men of _The Planet_, havingformed themselves into a sort of unlimited liability company, andstarted a brand new "weekly" of their own (upon no sort of securitybeyond their bare brains) were as persons without a single care, worryor responsibility. They were exchanging ideas in an off-hand andlight-hearted manner, the only stipulation being that the ideas mustbe new; for, by some unwritten law of the club, the conversationalcurrency was liable at any moment to be called in. 

This evening, however, they had hit on a topic almost virgin from themint. 

"S. K. R. ? _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?" said Mackinnon. 

"I can't tell you what he _is_; but I can pretty soon tell you whathe's not, " said Stables. He was a very young man with a white face andred eyelids, who looked as if he sat up all night and went to bed inthe day-time, as indeed he generally did. 

"_Omnis negatio est determinatio_, " murmured Jewdwine, without lookingup from the letter he was trying to write. 

"What has he done?" persisted Mackinnon. 

"He's done a great many remarkable things, " said Rankin; "thingsalmost as remarkable as himself. "

"Who unearthed him?"

"I did, " said Rankin, so complacently that the deep lines relaxedround the five copper-coloured bosses that were his chin and cheeksand brow. (The rest of Rankin's face was spectacles and moustache. )

"Oh, did you?" said Maddox. Maddox was a short man with largeshoulders; heavy browed, heavy jowled, heavy moustached. Maddox'sappearance belied him; he looked British when he was half Celt; hestruck you as overbearing when he was only top-heavy; he spoke as ifhe was angry when he was only in fun, as you could see by his eyes. Little babyish blue eyes they were with curly corners, a gay light inthe sombre truculence of his face. They looked cautiously round. 

"I can tell you a little tale about S. K. R. You know the last timeSmythe was ill--?"

"You mean drunk. "

"Well--temporarily extinguished. S. K. R. , who knows his music-halls, was offered Smythe's berth. We delicately intimated to him that if heliked at any time to devote a little paragraph to Miss Poppy Grace, hewas at perfect liberty to do so. "

"A liberty he interpreted as poetic licence. "

"Nothing of the sort. He absolutely declined the job. "

"Why?"

"Well--the marvellous boy informed me that he was too intimate withthe lady to write about her. At any rate with that noble impartialitywhich distinguishes the utterances of _The Planet_. "

"Steady, man. He _never_ told ye _that_!" said Mackinnon. 

"I didn't say he _told_ me, I said he informed me. "

"And whar's the differ'nce? I don't see it at all. "

"Trepan him, trepan him. "

Stables took out his penknife and indicated by dumb show a surgicaloperation on Mackinnon's dome-like head. 

"I gathered it, " continued Maddox suavely, "from his manner. I culledhis young thought like a flower. "

"Perhaps, " Rankin suggested, "he was afraid of compromising Poppy. "

"He might have left that subtle consideration to Pilkington. "

"That was it. He scented Dicky's hand in it, and wasn't particularlyanxious to oblige him. The point of the joke is that he happens to oweDicky a great deal more than he can conveniently pay. That'll give yousome faint notion of the magnificence of his cheek. "

Stables was impressed. He wondered what sort of young man it could bewho had the moral courage to oppose Dicky Pilkington at such a moment. He could not have done it himself. Dicky Pilkington was the great andmysterious power at the back of _The Planet_. 

"But this isn't the end of it. I told him, for his future guidance andencouragement, that he had mistaken cause and effect--that littlevariety _artistes_, like other people, are not popular because theyare written about, but written about because they are popular--that_The Planet_ is the organ of public opinion, not of private opinions;in short, that he wasn't in it, at all. I thought I'd sat on him tillhe was about flat--and the very next week he comes bounding in withhis _Saturnalia_, as he calls them. "

"That was your moment. Why didn't you rise up in your majesty andr-r-reject them?"

"Couldn't. They were too damned good. " Maddox smiled at thereminiscence. "I wasn't going to let him sign them, but he took thewind out of my sails by stating beforehand that he didn't wantto--that if I didn't mind--_mind_, if you please--he'd very muchrather not. It's only the last week (when the _Saturnalia_ weregetting better and better) that he graciously permitted his initialsto appear. S. K. R. --Savage Keith Rickman. "

"Good Lord!" said Rankin; "what must he be like?"

"Ask Jewdwine, " said Stables; "he's Jewdwine's man. "

"Excuse _me_, " said Maddox, "he is _mine_. I say, Jewdwine, what _is_he like?"

Jewdwine did not respond very eagerly; he wanted to get on with hisletter. But the club had another unwritten law as to writing. If amajority of members desired to write, silence was vigorously insistedon. Any number short of a majority wrote as best they could. For thisunfortunate scribe there could be no concession; he was in a minorityof one. 

"If"--said he, "you can imagine the soul of a young Sophocles, battling with that of a--of a junior journalist in the body of adissipated little Cockney--"

"Can't, " said Stables. "Haven't got enough imagination. "

"The child of 'Ellas and of Ollywell Street'--innocent of--er--therough breathing, " suggested Maddox. 

As it was now seven o'clock, and the Junior Journalists were droppingoff one by one to the dining-room below, the young men of _The Planet_began to stretch their legs, and raise their voices, and behave likeyoung men who believe their privacy to be inviolable and complete. They soon had the place to themselves, except for one person whoseentrance had been covered by the outgoing stream; and he haddelicately turned his back on them, and taken a seat in the farthestwindow, where his unobtrusive presence could be no possible hindranceto conversation. 

"I've seen him after supper, " said Maddox. He was obliged to speakrather loudly, because of the noise that came up from the overcrowdeddining-room. 

"Well, then, how did he strike you?"

Maddox's eyes curled with limpid, infantile devilry. 

"Well, I daresay he might be a bit of a bounder when he's sober, buthe's a perfect little gentleman when he's drunk. Softens him downsomehow. "

"_In vino veritas_--a true gentleman at heart. "

"One of Nature's gentlemen. _I_ know 'em, " said Stables. 

"One of Art's gentlemen, " interposed Jewdwine severely, "and a veryfine gentleman too, if you take him that way. "

Jewdwine raised his head from his letter and looked round uneasily. Personalities were not altogether to his taste; besides, he was reallyanxious to finish that letter. He caught sight of a back at the otherwindow. 

"I think, " said he quietly, "this conversation had better cease. "

The owner of the back had moved, a little ostentatiously. He now gotup and crossed the room. The back was still towards the group oftalkers. Jewdwine followed its passage. He was fascinated. He gasped. 

He could have sworn to that back anywhere, with its square but slendershoulders, its defiant swing from the straight hips, the head tossed alittle backwards as if to correct the student's tendency to stoop. Helooked from the back to Maddox. Maddox could not see what he saw, buthis face reflected the horror of Jewdwine's. 

Their voices were inaudible enough now. 

"Do you know who it is?"

"I should think I did. It's the man himself. "

"How truly damnable, " said Rankin. After those words there was asilence which Jewdwine, like the wise man he was, utilized for hiscorrespondence. 

It was Maddox who recovered first. "Call him what you like, " said he, in a wonderfully natural voice, between two puffs of a cigarette, "Iconsider him an uncommonly good sort. A bit of a bounder, but no endof a good sort. "

The others were evidently impressed by this bold though desperatepolicy. Maddox himself was inclined to think that it had saved thesituation, but he was anxious to make sure. Edging his chair by slowdegrees, he turned discreetly round. With the tail of his eye he couldsee "the man himself" standing at the far end of the room. He saw toothat his own effort, though supreme, had been unavailing. It haddeceived no one, least of all S. K. R. "The man himself" stood on thevery hearth of the club, with his back to the fireplace. It was theattitude of mastery, a mastery the more superb because unconscious. His eyes too, were the eyes of a master, twinkling a little as totheir light, but steady as to their direction, being fixed on Maddox. He was smiling. 

There was nothing malignant, or bitter, or sardonic about that smile. No devilry of delight at their confusion. No base abandonment of thewhole countenance to mirth, but a curious one-sided smile, implyingdelicacies, reservations. A slow smile, reminiscent, ruminant, appreciative; it expressed (if so subtle and refined a thing could besaid to express anything) a certain exquisite enjoyment of the phrasesin which they had defined him. 

And seeing it, Maddox said to himself, "He isn't a gentleman. He'ssomething more. "

In that moment the Celtic soul of Maddox had recognized its master, and had sworn to him unhesitating allegiance. 

CHAPTER VI

It was not until Rankin and the others had left the room that Jewdwinehad courage to raise his head tentatively. He had only seen that youngman's back, and he still clung to the hope that it might not beRickman's, after all. 

He looked up as steadily as he dared. Oh, no doubt that it wasRickman's back; no doubt, too, that it was his, Jewdwine's, duty to goup and speak to him. The young man had changed his place; he was athis window again, contemplating--as Jewdwine reflected with a pang ofsympathy--the shop. So profound, so sacred almost, was his absorptionthat Jewdwine hesitated in his approach. 

"_Is_ it Rickman?" he asked, still tentative. 

"Mr. Jewdwine!" Rickman's soul leapt to Jewdwine's from the depths;but the "Mister" marked the space it had had to travel. "When did youcome up?"

"Three hours ago. " ("He looks innocent, " said Jewdwine to himself. )

"Then you weren't prepared for that?"

Jewdwine followed his fascinated gaze. He smiled faintly. 

"You haven't noticed our new departure? We not only purchaseGentlemen's Libraries, but we sell the works of persons who may or maynot be gentlemen. "

Jewdwine felt profoundly uncomfortable. Rickman's face preserved itsinimitable innocence, but he continued to stare fixedly before him. 

"Poor fellow, " thought Jewdwine, "he must have heard thoseimbecilities. " He felt horribly responsible, responsible to the Clubfor the behaviour of Rickman and responsible to Rickman for thebehaviour of the Club. What could he do to make it up to him? Happythought--he would ask him to dinner at--yes, at his sister's, MissJewdwine's, house at Hampstead. That was to say, if his cousin, LuciaHarden, did not happen to be staying there. He was not quite sure howRickman would strike that most fastidious of young ladies. And Rankinhad said he drank. 

In the light of Lucia Harden's and his sister's possible criticism, heconsidered him more carefully than he had done before. 

The contrast between the two men was certainly rather marked. Agentleman can be neither more nor less than a gentleman, and Rickman, in a sense not altogether intended by Maddox, was decidedly more. Hisindividuality was too exuberant, too irrepressible. He had therestless, emphatic air of a man who has but little leisure and is tooobviously anxious to make the most of what he has. He always seemed tobe talking against time; and as he talked his emotions played visibly, too visibly, on his humorous, irregular face. Taking into account hisremarkable firmness of physique, it struck you that this transparencymust be due to some excessive radiance of soul. A soul (in Jewdwine'sopinion) a trifle too demonstrative in its hospitality to vagrantimpressions. The Junior Journalists may have been a little hard onhim. On the whole, he left you dubious until the moment when, frompure nervousness, his speech went wild, even suffering that slightelision of the aspirate observed by some of them. But then, he had avoice of such singular musical felicity that it charmed you intoforgetfulness of these enormities. 

It had charmed Jewdwine from the first, and Jewdwine was hard tocharm. There was no room for speculation as to him. Even to the eyehis type had none of the uncertainty and complexity of Rickman's. Helooked neither more nor less than he was--an Oxford don, developinginto a London Journalist. You divined that the process would be slow. There was no unseemly haste about Jewdwine; time had not been sparedin the moulding of his body and his soul. He bore the impress of theages; the whole man was clean-cut, aristocratic, finished, defined. You instinctively looked up to him; which was perhaps the reason whyyou remembered his conspicuously intellectual forehead and hispathetically fastidious nose, and forgot the vacillating mouth thatdrooped under a scanty, colourless moustache, hiding its weakness outof sight. 

Rickman had always looked up to him. For Jewdwine, as Rankin hadintimated, was the man who had discovered S. K. R. He was alwaysdiscovering him. Not, as he was careful to inform you, that thisargued any sort of intimacy; on the contrary, it meant that he wasalways losing sight of him in between. These lapses in theirintercourse might be shorter or longer (they were frequently immense), but they had this advantage, that each fresh encounter presentedRickman as an entirely new thing, if anything, more curious andinteresting than on the day, three years ago, when he unearthed himfrom behind the counter of a dingy second-hand bookshop in the City. He felt responsible for that, too. 

Rickman was instantly aware that he was under criticism. But hemistook its nature and its grounds. 

"Don't suppose, " said he, "I'm ashamed of the shop. It isn't that. Iwasn't ashamed of our other place--that little rat 'ole in the City. "

Jewdwine shuddered through all his being. 

"--But I _am_ ashamed of this gaudy, pink concern. It's so brutallybig. It can't live, you know, without sucking the life out of thelittle booksellers. They mayn't have made a great thing out of it, butthey were happy enough before we came here. "

"I never thought of it in that light. "

"Haven't you? I have. "

It was evident that little Rickman was deeply moved. His sentimentsdid him credit, and he deserved to be asked to dinner. At Hampstead?No--no, not at Hampstead; here, at the Club. The Club was the properthing; a public recognition of him was the _amende honorable_. Besides, after all, it was the Club, not Jewdwine, that had offended, and it was right that the Club should expiate its offence. 

"What are you doing at Easter?" he asked. 

Rickman stroked his upper lip and smiled as if cherishing a joy assecret and unborn as his moustache. He recited a selection from thetale of his engagements. 

"Can you dine with me here on Saturday? You're free, then, didn't yousay?"

Rickman hesitated. That was not what he had said. He was anything butfree, for was he not engaged for that evening to Miss Poppy Grace? Hewas pulled two ways, a hard pull. He admired Jewdwine with simple, hero-worshipping fervour; but he also admired Miss Poppy Grace. Again, he shrank from mentioning an engagement of that sort to Jewdwine, while, on the other hand concealment was equally painful, beingforeign to his nature. 

So he flushed a little as he replied, "Thanks awfully, I'm afraid Ican't. I'm booked that night to Poppy Grace. "

The flush deepened. Besides his natural sensitiveness on the subjectof Miss Poppy Grace, he suffered tortures not wholly sentimentalwhenever he had occasion to mention her by her name. Poppy Grace--hefelt that somehow it did not give you a very high idea of the lady, and that in this it did her an injustice. He could have avoided it byreferring to her loftily as Miss Grace; but this course, besides beingunfamiliar would have savoured somewhat of subterfuge. So he blurtedit all out with an air of defiance, as much as to say that when youhad called her Poppy Grace you had said the worst of her. 

Jewdwine's face expressed, as Rickman had anticipated, an exquisitedisapproval. His own taste in women was refined almost to nullity. Howa poet and a scholar, even if not strictly speaking a gentleman, couldcare to spend two minutes in the society of Poppy Grace, wasincomprehensible to Jewdwine. 

"I didn't know you cultivated that sort of person. "

"Oh--cultivate her--?"--His tone implied that the soil was rather toolight for _that_. 

"How long have you known her?"

"About six months, on and off. "

"Oh, only on and off. "

"On and off the _stage_, I mean. And that's knowledge, " said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not one man in a thousand knowsthem off--really knows them. "

"I'm very glad to hear it. "

He changed the subject. In Rickman the poet he was deeply interested;but at the moment Rickman the man inspired him with disgust. 

Jewdwine had a weak digestion. When he sat at the high table, peeringat his sole and chicken, with critical and pathetic twitchings of hisfastidious nose, he shuddered at the vigorous animal appetites ofundergraduates in Hall. 

Even so he shrank now from the coarse exuberance of Rickman's youth. When it came to women, Rickman _was_ impossible. 

Now Jewdwine, while pursuing an inner train of thought that hadRickman for its subject, was also keeping his eye on a hansom, andwondering whether he would hail it and so reach Hampstead in time fordinner, or whether he would dine at the Club. Edith would be annoyedif he failed to keep his appointment, and the Club dinners were notgood. But neither were Edith's; moreover, by dining at the Club forone-and-six, and taking a twopenny tram instead of a three-and-sixpennycab, he would save one and tenpence. 

"And yet, " he continued thoughtfully, "the man who wrote _Helen inLeuce_ was a poet. Or at least, " he added, "one seventh part a poet. "

Though Jewdwine's lower nature was preoccupied, the supreme criticalfaculty performed its functions with precision. The arithmeticalmethod was perhaps suggested by the other calculation. He could not bequite sure, but he believed he had summed up Savage Rickman prettyaccurately. 

"Thanks, " said Rickman, "you've got the fraction all right, anyhow. Apoet one day out of seven; the other six days a potman in an infernal, stinking, flaring Gin-Palace-of-Art. "

As he looked up at Rickman's, blazing with all its lights, he feltthat he had hit on the satisfying, the defining phrase. 

His face expressed a wistful desire to confer further with Jewdwine onthis matter; but a certain delicacy restrained him. 

Something fine in Jewdwine's nature, something half-human, half-tutorial, responded to the mute appeal that said so plainly, "Won't you hear me? I've so much to ask, so much to say. So manyideas, and you're the only man that can understand them. " Jewdwineimpressed everybody, himself included, as a person of prodigiousunderstanding. 

The question was, having understood Rickman, having discovered in hima neglected genius, having introduced him to the Club and asked him todinner on the strength of it, how much further was he prepared to go?Why--provided he was sure of the genius, almost any length, short ofintroducing him to the ladies of his family. But was he sure? SavageRickman was young, and youth is deceptive. Supposing he--Jewdwine--wasdeceived? Supposing the genius were to elude him, leaving him saddledwith the man? What on earth should he do with him?

Things had been simpler in the earlier days of their acquaintance, when the counter stood between them, and formed a firm natural barrierto closer intercourse. Nobody, not even Jewdwine, knew what thathandshake across the counter had meant for Rickman; how his soul hadhungered and thirsted for Jewdwine's society; how, in "the littlerat'ole in the City, " it had consumed itself with longing. It was hisfirst great passion, a passion that waited upon chance; to begratified for five minutes, ten minutes at the most. Once Jewdwine hadhung about the shop for half an hour talking; the interview beingbroken by Rickman's incessant calls to the counter. Once, they hadtaken a walk together down Cheapside, which from that moment became aholy place. Then came the day when, at Jewdwine's invitation, _Helenin Leuce_ travelled down from London to Oxford, and from Oxford toHarmouth. Her neo-classic beauty appealed to Jewdwine's taste (and tothe taste of Jewdwine's cousin); he recognized in Rickman a disciple, and was instantly persuaded of his genius. At one bound Rickman hadleapt the barrier of the counter; and here he was, enthusiastic anddevoted. To be sure, his devotion was not fed largely upon praise;for, unlike the younger man, Jewdwine admired but sparingly. Neitherwas it tainted with any thought of material advantage. Jewdwine wasvery free with his criticism and advice; but, beyond these highintellectual aids, it never occurred to Rickman that he had anythingto gain by Jewdwine's friendship. Discipleship is the purest of allhuman relations. 

Jewdwine divined this purity, and was touched by it. He prepared toaccept a certain amount of responsibility. He looked at his watch. Hecould still get to Hampstead by eight o'clock, if he took acab--say, --twenty minutes. He could spare him another ten. The JuniorJournalists were coming back from their dinner and the room would soonbe crowded. He took his disciple's arm in a protecting manner andsteered him into a near recess. He felt that the ten minutes he wasabout to give him would be decisive in the young man's career. 

"You've still got to find your formula. Not to have found yourformula, " he said solemnly, "is not to have found yourself. "

"Perhaps I haven't been looking in very likely places, " said Rickman, nobly touched, as he always was by the more personal utterances of themaster. 

"The Jubilee Variety Theatre, for instance. Do you go there to findthe ideal, or in pursuit of the fugitive actuality?"

"Whichever you like to call it. Its name on the programme is MissPoppy Grace. "

"Look here, Rickman, " said Jewdwine, gently; "when are you going togive up this business?"

"Which business?"

"Well, at the moment I referred to your situation in the Gin Palace ofArt--"

"I can't chuck it just yet. There's my father, you see. It would spoilall his pleasure in that new plate-glass and mahogany devilry. He'sexcited about it; wants to make it a big thing--"

"So he puts a big man into it?"

"Oh, well, I must see him started. "

He spoke simply, as of a thing self-evident and indisputable. Jewdwineadmired. 

"You're quite right. You _are_ handicapped. Heavily handicapped. So, for Goodness' sake, don't weight yourself any more. If you can't dropthe Gin Palace, drop Miss Poppy Grace. "

"Poppy Grace? She weighs about as much as a feather. "

"Drop her, drop her, all the same. "

"I can't. She wouldn't drop. She'd float. "

"Don't float with her. "

As he rose he spoke slowly and impressively. "What you've got to dois to pull yourself together. You can't afford to be dissolute, oreven dissipated. "

Rickman looked hard at Jewdwine's boots. Irreproachable boots, wellmade, well polished, unspotted by the world. And the onlydistinguishable word in Rickman's answer was "Life. " And as he said"Life" he blushed like a girl when for the first time she says "Love, "a blush of rapture and of shame, her young blood sensitive to theleast hint of apathy in her audience. 

Jewdwine's apathy was immense. 

"Another name for the fugitive actuality, " he said. "Well, I'm afraidI haven't any more time--" He looked round the room a little vaguely, and as he did so he laid on the young man's shoulder a delicatefastidious hand. "There are one or two men here I should have liked tointroduce you to, if I'd had time. --Another night, perhaps--" Hepiloted him downstairs and so out into the Strand. 

"Good night. Good night. Take my advice and leave the fugitiveactuality alone. "

Those were Jewdwine's last words, spoken from the depths of thehansom. It carried him to the classic heights of Hampstead, to thehaunts of the cultivated, the intellectual, the refined. 

Rickman remained a moment. His dreamy gaze was fixed on the massivepile before him, that rose, solidly soaring, flaunting a brutalchallenge to the tender April sky. It stood for the vast materialreality, the whole of that eternal, implacable Power which is atenmity with dreams; which may be conquered, propitiated, absorbed, butnever annihilated or denied. 

_That_ actuality was not fugitive. 

CHAPTER VII

Perhaps it was not to be wondered at if Mr. Rickman had not yet foundhimself. There were, as he sorrowfully reflected, so many Mr. Rickmans. 

There was Mr. Rickman of the front shop and second-hand department, known as "our Mr. Rickman. " The shop was proud of him; his appearancewas supposed to give it a certain _cachet_. He neither strutted norgrovelled; he moved about from shelf to shelf in an absent-mindedscholarly manner. He served you, not with obsequiousness, nor yet withcondescension, but with a certain remoteness and abstraction, a nobleapathy. Though a bookseller, his literary conscience remainedincorruptible. He would introduce you to his favourite authors with amagnificent take-it-or-leave-it air, while an almost imperceptiblelifting of his eyebrows as he handed you _your_ favourite was a subtlecriticism of your taste. This method of conducting business was calledkeeping up the tone of the establishment. The appearance anddisappearance of this person was timed and regulated by circumstancesbeyond his own control, so that of necessity all the other Mr. Rickmans were subject to him. 

For there was Mr. Rickman the student and recluse, who inhabited theinsides of other men's books. Owing to his habitual converse withintellects greater--really greater--than his own, he was anexceedingly humble and reverent person. A high and stainless soul. Youwould never have suspected his connection with Mr. Rickman, the JuniorJournalist, the obscure writer of brilliant paragraphs, a fellowdestitute of reverence and decency and everything except consummateimpudence, a disconcerting humour and a startling style. But he wasstill more distantly related to Mr. Rickman the young man about town. And that made four. Besides these four there was a fifth, the sereneand perfect intelligence, who from some height immeasurably far abovethem sat in judgement on them all. But for his abnormal sense ofhumour he would have been a Mr. Rickman of the pure reason, no good atall. As it was, he occasionally offered some reflection which wasenjoyed but seldom acted upon. 

And underneath these Mr. Rickmans, though inextricably, damnably onewith them, was a certain apparently commonplace but amiable young man, who lived in a Bloomsbury boarding-house and dropped his aitches. Thisyoung man was tender and chivalrous, full of little innocentcivilities to the ladies of his boarding-house; he admired, above allthings, modesty in a woman, and somewhere, in the dark and unexploredcorners of his nature, he concealed a prejudice in favour of marriageand the sanctities of home. 

That made six, and no doubt they would have pulled together wellenough; but the bother was that any one of them was liable at anymoment to the visitation of the seventh--Mr. Rickman the genius. Therewas no telling whether he would come in the form of a high god or ademon, a consolation or a torment. Sometimes he would descend upon Mr. Rickman in the second-hand department, and attempt to seduce him fromhis allegiance to the Quarterly Catalogue. Or he would take up thepoor journalist's copy as it lay on a table, and change it so that itsown editor wouldn't know it again. And sometimes he would swoop downon the little bookseller as he sat at breakfast on a Sunday morning, in his nice frock coat and clean collar, and wrap his big flappingwings round him, and carry him off to the place where the divine ideascome from leaving a silent and to all appearances idiotic younggentleman in his place. Or he would sit down by that young gentleman'sside and shake him out of his little innocences and complacencies, andturn all his little jokes into his own incomprehensible humour. Andthen the boarding-house would look uncomfortable and say to itselfthat Mr. Rickman had been drinking. 

In short, it was a very confusing state of affairs, and one that madeit almost impossible for Mr. Rickman to establish his identity. SevenRickmans--only think of it! And some reckon an eighth, Mr. Rickmandrunk. But this is not altogether fair; for intoxication acted ratheron all seven at once, producing in them a gentle fusion with eachother and the universe. They had ceased to struggle. But Mr. Rickmanwas not often drunk, or at least not nearly so often as his friendssupposed. 

So it was all very well for Jewdwine, who was not so bewilderinglyconstructed, to talk about finding your formula and pulling yourselftogether. How, Mr. Rickman argued, could you hope to find the formulaof a fellow who could only be expressed in fractions, and vulgarfractions, too? How on earth could you pull yourself together whenNature had deliberately cut you into little pieces? Never since poorOrpheus was torn to tatters by the Mænads was there a poet so horriblysubdivided. Talk of being dissolute, dissipated! Those adjectives werea poor description of S. K. R. It was more than sowing a mere handful ofwild oats, it was a disintegration, a scattering of Rickmans to allthe winds of the world. 

Find himself, indeed!

Still, he was perfectly willing to try; and to that end (after diningwith people who were anything but cultivated, or intellectual, orrefined) he turned himself loose into the streets. 

The streets--he was never tired of them. After nine or ten hours ofsitting in a dusty second-hand bookshop, his soul was dry with thirstfor the living world, and the young joy of the world, "the fugitiveactuality. " And her ways were in the streets. 

Being a young poet about town, he turned to the streets as naturallyas a young poet in the country turns to the woods and fields. For inthe streets, if you know how to listen, you can hear the lyric soul ofthings as plainly, more plainly perhaps, than in the woods or fields. Only it sings another sort of song. And going into the streets wasRickman's way (the only way open to him as yet) of going into society. The doors were thrown hospitably wide to him; one day was as good asanother; the world was always at home. 

It was a world where he could pick and choose his acquaintance;where, indeed, out of that multitudinous, never-ending procession ofpersons, his power of selection was unlimited. He never had anydifficulty with them; their methods were so charmingly simple anddirect. In the streets the soul is surprised through the lifting of aneyelid, and the secret of the heart sits lightly on the curl of thelip. These passers by never wearied him; they flung him the flower ofthe mystery and--passed by. The perfection of social intercourse heconceived as a similar succession of radiant intimacies. 

To-night he went southwards down Gower Street, drawn by thenever-ending fugitive perspective of the lamps. He went westwards downShaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly. The Circus was a gleaming basinfilled with grey night clear as water, the floor of it alive withlights. Lights that stood still; lights that wandered from darknessinto darkness; that met and parted, darting, wheeling, and crossing intheir flight. Long avenues opened out of it, precipitous deep cuttingsleading into the night. The steep, shadowy masses of building seemedpiled sky-high, like a city of the air; here the gleam of some goldenwhite façade, there some aerial battlement crowned with stars, withclusters, and points, and rings of flame that made a lucid twilight ofthe dark above them. Over all was an illusion of immensity. 

Nine o'clock of an April night--the time when a great city has mostpower over those that love her; the time when she lowers her voice andsubdues her brilliance, intimating that she is not what she seems;when she makes herself unearthly and insubstantial, veiling hergrossness in the half-transparent night. Like some consummatetemptress, she plays the mystic, clothing herself with light anddarkness, skirting the intangible, hinting at the infinities, flingingout the eternal spiritual lure, so that she may better seduce thesenses through the soul. And Rickman was too young a poet todistinguish clearly between his senses and his imagination, or hisimagination and his soul. 

He stood in Piccadilly Circus and regarded the spectacle of the night. He watched the groups gathering at the street corners, the boys thatwent laughing arm in arm, the young girls smiling into their lovers'eyes; here and there the faces of other women, dubious divinities ofthe gas-light and the pavement, passing and passing. A very ordinaryspectacle. But to Rickman it had an immense significance, a rhythmic, processional resonance and grandeur. It was an unrhymed song out of_Saturnalia_, it was the luminous, passionate nocturne of the streets. 

Half-past nine; a young girl met him and stopped. She laughed into hisface. 

"Pretty well pleased with yourself, aren't you?" said the young girl. 

He laughed back again. He was pleased with the world, so of course hewas pleased with himself. They were one. The same spirit was in Mr. Rickman that was in the young girl and in the young April night. 

They walked together as far as the Strand, conversing innocently. 

CHAPTER VIII

At ten o'clock he found himself in a corridor of the Jubilee VarietyTheatre. The young girl had vanished. 

For a moment he stood debating whether he would go home and work outsome ideas he had. Or whether he would pursue the young Joy, thefugitive actuality, to the very threshold of the dawn. Whether, inshort, he would make a night of it. 

He was aroused by the sound of a box-door opening and shutting; and ashining shirt-front and a shining face darted suddenly into the light. At the same moment a voice hailed him. 

"Hello, Razors! That you?"

Voice, face, and shining shirt-front belonged to Mr. RichardPilkington, Financial Agent, of Shaftesbury Avenue. 

"Razors" was the name by which Rickman was known to his intimates insubtle allusion to his youth. He responded sulkily to the hail. DickyPilkington was the last person he desired to meet. For he owed Dicky acertain sum, not large, but larger than he could conveniently pay, andDicky was objectionable for other reasons. He had mysterious relationswith the Management of the Jubilee Theatre, and consequently unlimitedfacilities of access to Miss Poppy Grace. Besides, there was somethingabout him that was deadly to ideas. 

Ideas or no ideas, Mr. Pilkington was not to be evaded. He bore downon Rickman, shining genially, and addressed him with an air of banter. 

"Couldn't have arranged it better. You're the very fellow I want. "

There was a suggestion of a chuckle in his voice which sent Rickman'sthoughts flying fearfully to his last I. O. U. The alert mind ofPilkington followed their flight. He was intensely amused. He alwayswas amused when anybody showed a marked distaste for his society. 

"Your business, not mine, this time, Rick. I happen to know of aripping old library for sale down in Devonshire. Shouldn't havethought of it if I hadn't seen you. "

"Well?" Rickman's face expressed an utter inability to perceive theconnection. Once the iron shutters had closed on Rickman's he feltthat he was no more a part of it. Words could not express hisabhorrence of the indecent people who insisted on talking shop out ofshop hours. And Dicky never had any decency. 

"Well--it's practically on our hands, d'ye see? And if your peoplecare to take over the whole lot, I can let you have it prettyreasonably. "

Rickman's face emptied itself of all expression whatever. 

"I say, you are a cool young cuss. Is this the way you generally dobusiness?"

"I'll think it over. "

"Wouldn't think too long if I were you. It ought to go by auction, andit might; only private contract's preferred. "

"Why preferred?"

"Out of respect for the feelin's of the family. "

Rickman's eyes were wandering dreamily from the matter in hand. Theyhad alighted on an enormous photograph of Miss Poppy Grace. For aninstant thought, like a cloud, obscured the brilliance of Mr. Pilkington's face. 

"Anyhow I've given you the straight tip, " said Pilkington. 

"Thanks. We'll send a fellow down to overhaul the thing. "

"He'd better hurry up then. It _may_ have to go by auction after all. But if you'd like the refusal of it, now's your chance. "

But Rickman betrayed no enthusiasm. 

"You'd better see the guv'nor about it. "

Mr. Pilkington looked Rickman up and down, and encountered animmovable determination in his gaze. 

"Right you are. I'll send him word to-night. Ta-ta!" He turned againin the moment of departing. "I say, he must send a good man down, youknow. It'll take an expert. There's a lot of old things--Greek andLatin--that's something in _your_ line, isn't it?"

But Rickman's line at present was the line of least resistance. It wasten past ten, and Poppy Grace was "on" from ten fifteen to ten forty. 

CHAPTER IX

She was only an ordinary little variety actress, and he knew herlittle programme pretty well by heart. But her fascinations wereindependent of the glamour of the foot-lights. It was off the stagethat he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that atthe first blush of it seems impossible; for the great goddess Diana isnot more divinely secret and secluded than (to a young bookseller) apopular Dance and Song Artiste in private life. Poppy's rooms werenext door to the boarding-house balcony, and it was the balcony thatdid it. 

Now, in the matter of balconies, if you choose to regard the recedingwooden partition as a partition, and sit very far back behind it, youwill have your balcony all to yourself, that is to say, you will seenothing, neither will you be seen. If, however, you prefer, as Mr. Rickman preferred, to lean forward over the railings and observethings passing in the street below, you can hardly help establishingsome sort of communication with the next-door neighbour who happens tobe doing the same thing. At first this communication was purely in theregion of the mind, without so much as the movement of an eyelid oneither side, and that made it all the more intimate and intense. Butto sit there Sunday evening after Sunday evening, when the otherboarders were at church, both looking at the same plane-tree opposite, or the same tail-end of a sunset flung across the chimney pots, without uttering a syllable or a sound, was at last seen by both inits true light, as a thing not only painful but absurd. So one eveningthe deep, full-hearted silence burst and flowered into speech. Incommon courtesy Mr. Rickman had to open his lips to ask her whethershe objected to his smoking (she did not). Then it came toacknowledging each other in the streets; after that, to Poppy's comingout and looking over the balcony about the time when Mr. Rickman wouldbe coming home from the shop, and to Mr. Rickman's looking to see ifPoppy was looking; and so on, to that wonderful night when he saw herhome from the Jubilee Theatre. The stars were out; not that Poppycared a rap about the stars. 

Her first appearance to-night was in the character of a coster-girl, apart well suited to her audacity and impertinent prettiness. Poppy wasthe tiniest dancer that ever whirled across a stage, a circumstancethat somewhat diminished the vulgarity of her impersonation, while itgave it a very engaging character of its own. Her small Cockney face, with its impudent laughing nose, its curling mouth (none too small), its big, twinkling blue eyes, was framed in a golden fringe and sidecurls. She wore a purple velveteen skirt, a purple velveteen jacketwith a large lace collar, and a still larger purple velveteen hat withwhite ostrich feathers that swayed madly from the perpendicular. 

The secret of Poppy's popularity lay in this, that you could alwaysdepend on her; she always played the same part in the same manner; buther manner was her own. To come on the stage quietly; to look, inspite of her coster costume, the picture of suburban innocence, andpink and white propriety; to stand facing her audience for a second oftime, motionless and in perfect gravity--it was a trick that, thoughPoppy never varied it, had a more killing effect than the mostingenious impromptu. 

"Sh--sh--sh--sh!" A flutter of programmes in the pit was indignantlysuppressed by the gallery. There was a movement of Poppy's righteyelid which in a larger woman would have been called a wink; in Poppyit appeared as an exaggerated twinkle. It was greeted with a roar ofrapturous applause. Then Poppy, with her hands on her hips, and herhead on one side, raised her Cockney voice in a high-pitched song, executing between each verse a slow, swinging chassée to the stageHumorist with the concertina. 

 "Oh, she's my fancy girl, With 'er 'air all outer curl, 'Ooks orf, eyes orf, petticoats all awry. For then she isn't shy; She gives 'er bangs a twirl, And it's--'Kiss me quick!'--and--'That's the Trick!' --and--(_dim_)--'_Wouldn't_ yer like to try?'"

When the stage Humorist with the concertina stopped chasséeing, andput his finger to his nose, and observed, "That's wot you might call adim innuender, " Rickman could have kicked him. 

 (_cresc. _), 'But got up fit ter kill, In 'er velverteen an' frill, It's--'Ands orf!'--'Heyes orf!'--'Fetch yer one in the heye!'-- A strollin' down the 'Igh, With 'Enery, Alf an' Bill, It's--'None er that!'--and 'Mind my 'at!'--and (_fortissimo_)--'WOULDN'T yer like to try!'"

"To try! To try!" Her chassée quickened ever so little, doubled onitself, and became a tortuous thing. Poppy's feet beat out the measurethat is danced on East End pavements to the music of the concertina. In the very abandonment of burlesque Poppy remained an artist, and herdance preserved the gravity of the original ballet, designed forperformance on a flagstone. Now it unfolded; it burst its bounds; itwas a rhythmic stampede. Louder and louder, her clicking heels beatthe furious time; higher and higher her dexterous toes flew to herfeathers that bowed to meet them, and when her last superhuman kicksent her hat flying, and the Humorist caught it on his head, they hadbrought the house down. 

Rickman went out to the bar, where he found Dicky Pilkington, and atDicky's suggestion he endeavoured to quench with brandy and soda hisinextinguishable thirst. 

He returned to the storm and glare of the ballet, the last appearanceof that small, incarnate genius of Folly. There were other dancers, but he saw none but her. He knew every pose and movement of her body, from her first tentative, preluding pirouette, to her last moon-struckdance, when she tossed her tall grenadier's cap to the back of thestage, and still spinning, shook out her hair, and flung herselfbackwards, till it streamed and eddied with the whirlwind of herdance. In her fantastic dress (she wore her colours, the red andblack) her very womanhood had vanished, she was a mere insignificantmorsel of flesh and blood, inspired by the dizzy, reckless Fury of thefoot-lights. 

There was a noise of many boots beating the floor of the house; itgrew into a thick, solid body of sound, torn at intervals by ascreaming whistle from the galleries. Someone up there shouted hername--"Poppy--Poppy Grace!" and Rickman shivered. 

To Rickman's mind the name was an outrage; it reeked of popularity; itsuggested--absurdly and abominably--a certain cheap drink of suddenand ephemeral effervescence. He never let his mind dwell on thosedreadful syllables any longer than he could help; he never thought ofher as Poppy Grace at all. He thought of her in undefined, extraordinary ways; now as some nameless aerial spirit, unaccountablywandering about in a world too gross for it; and now as the Young Joy, the fugitive actuality. To-night, after brandy and soda, hisimagination possessed itself of Poppy, and wove round her the gloryand gloom of the world. It saw in her, not the incarnation of the rosymoment, but the eternal sacrifice of woman, the tragedy of herabasement, her obedience to the world. Which, when he came to think ofit, was really very clever of his imagination. 

Meanwhile Poppy was behaving, as she had behaved for the last fiftynights, like a lunatic humming top. Now it had steadied itself in theintensity of its speed; the little humming-top was sleeping. Poppy, asshe span, seemed to be standing, her feet rooted, her body swayingdelicately from the hips, like a flower rocked by the wind, the lightof her flickering flamewise. There was a stir, a wave, as if the heartof the house had heaved. Pit and gallery breathed hard. Rickman leanedforward with clouded eyes and troubled forehead, while the youngshop-men--the other young shop-men--thrilled with familiar anddelicious emotion. Now she curtsied, as she had curtsied for the lastfifty nights, bowing lower and lower till her hair fell over her faceand swept the stage; and now she shook her head till the great goldenwhorl of hair seemed the only part of her left spinning; then Poppyfolded her arms and sank, sank till she sat on her heels, herselfinvisible, curtained in modest and mystic fashion by her hair. 

"Bravo! Bravo!" "That's the trick!"--"Encore!"--"Oh, _she's_ my fancygirl!"--"Encore-ore-ore-ore-ore!"

It was all over. 

CHAPTER X

He hurried back to Bloomsbury, in the wake of her hansom, to the houseof the balcony opposite the plane-trees. The plane-tree washalf-withdrawn into the night, but the balcony hung out black in theyellow light from its three long windows. Poppy was not in thebalcony. 

He went up into the room where the light was, a room that had beenonce an ordinary Bloomsbury drawing-room, the drawing-room ofPropriety. Now it was Poppy's drawing-room. 

You came straight out of a desert of dreary and obscurerespectability, and it burst, it blossomed into Poppy before youreyes. Portraits of Poppy on the walls, in every conceivable andinconceivable attitude. Poppy's canary in the window, in a cage hungwith yellow gauze. Poppy's mandoline in an easy chair by itself. Poppy's hat on the grand piano, tumbling head over heels among alitter of coffee cups. On the tea-table a pair of shoes that couldhave belonged to nobody but Poppy, they were so diminutive. In thewaste paper basket a bouquet that must have been Poppy's too, it wasso enormous. And on the table in the window a Japanese flower-bowlthat served as a handy receptacle for cigarette ash and spent vestas. Two immense mirrors facing each other reflected these objects andPoppy, when she was there, for ever and ever, in diminishingperspective. But Poppy was not there. 

Passing through this brilliant scene into the back room beyond, hefound her finishing her supper. 

Poppy was not at all surprised to see him. She addressed him as"Rickets, " and invited him under that name to sit down and have somesupper, too. 

But Rickets did not want any supper. He sat down at the clear end ofthe table, and looked on as in a dream. And when Poppy had finishedshe came and sat by him on the clear end of the table, and madecigarettes, and drank champagne out of a little tumbler. 

"Thought you might feel a little lonely over there, Ricky-ticky, " saidshe. 

Poppy was in spirits. If she had yielded to the glad impulse of herheart, she would have stood on one foot and twirled the other overRicky-ticky's head. But she restrained herself. Somehow, beforeRicky-ticky, Poppy never played any of those tricks that delighted Mr. Pilkington and other gentlemen of her acquaintance. She merely sat onthe table. She was in her ballet-dress, and before sitting on thetable she arranged her red skirts over her black legs with aprodigious air of propriety. Poppy herself did not know whether thismeant that she wanted Ricky-ticky to think her nice, or whether shewanted to think Ricky-ticky nice. After all, it came to the samething; for to Poppy the peculiar charm of Ricky-ticky was hisinnocence. 

The clock on St. Pancras church struck half-past eleven; in hishanging cage in the front room, behind his yellow gauze curtain, Poppy's canary woke out of his first sleep. He untucked his head fromunder his wing and chirrupped drowsily. 

"Oh, dicky, " said Poppy, "it's time you were in your little bed!"

He did not take the hint. He was intent on certain movements ofPoppy's fingers and the tip of her tongue concerned in the making ofcigarettes. 

He was gazing into her face as if it held for him the secret of theworld. And that look embarrassed her. It had all the assurance of ageand all the wonder of youth in it. Poppy's eyes were trained to lookout for danger signals in the eyes of boys, for Poppy, according tothose lights of hers, was honest. If she knew the secret of the world, she would not have told it to Ricky-ticky; he was much too young. Men, in Poppy's code of morality, were different. But this amazing, dreamy, interrogative look was not the sort of thing that Poppy wasaccustomed to, and for once in her life Poppy felt shy. 

"I say, Rickets, there goes a quarter to twelve. _Did_ I wake him outof his little sleep?"

Poppy talked as much to the canary as to Rickets, which made it allquite proper. As for Rickman, he talked hardly at all. 

"You'll have to go in ten minutes, Rick. " And by way of softening thisannouncement she gave him some champagne. 

He had paid no attention to that hint either, being occupied with acurious phenomenon. Though Poppy was, for her, most unusuallystationary, he found that it was making him slightly giddy to look ather. 

He was arriving at that moment of intoxication when things lose theirbaldness and immobility, and the world begins to float like anenchanted island in a beautiful blood-warm haze. Nothing could be moreagreeable than the first approaches of this blessed state; heencouraged it, anticipating with ecstasy each stage in the mounting ofthe illusion. For when he was sober he saw Poppy very much as she was;but when he was drunk she became for him a being immaculate, divine. He moved in a region of gross but glorious exaggeration, where hiswretched little Cockney passion assumed the proportions of a superbromance. His soul that minute was the home of the purest, most exaltedemotions. Yes, he could certainly feel it coming on. Poppy's face wasgrowing bigger and bigger, opening out and blossoming like an enormousflower. 

"Nine minutes up. In another minute you go. "

It seemed to him that Poppy was measuring time by pouring champagneinto little tumblers, and that she gave him champagne to drink. Heknew it was no use drinking it, for that thirst of his wasunquenchable; but he drank, for the sake of the illusion; and as hedrank it seemed to him that not only was Poppy worthy of alladoration, but that his passion for her was no mere vulgar and earthlypassion; it was a glorious and immortal thing. 

Poppy looked at him curiously. She was the soul of hospitality, butit struck her that she was being a little too liberal with thechampagne. 

"No, Razors. No more fizz. If I were to drink a drop more it wouldspoil my little dance that always fetches the boys. "

She turned her tumbler upside down in token of renunciation and ledthe way into the front room. He followed her with enchanted feet. Hewas now moving as in an Arabian Night's dream. 

In the front room was a sofa--No, a divan, and on the divan the skinof a Polar bear sprawling. Rickman and Poppy sat on the top of thebear. Such a disreputable, out-of-elbow, cosmopolitan bear! His littleeye-holes were screwed up in a wicked wink, a wink that repudiated anyconnection with his native waters of the Pole. 

The house was very still. Behind his yellow gauze curtain the canarystirred in his sleep. "Swe-eet, " he murmured plaintively in his dream. 

"Swe-eet, dicky!" echoed Poppy. Then because she had nothing to sayshe began to sing. She sang the song of Simpson the tenor, Simpson themaster of tears. 

 "'Twas on the night our little byby died, And Bill, 'e comes, and, 'Sal, ' 'e sez, 'look ere, I've signed a pledge, 'ser 'e, 'agains the beer. 'D'ye see?' Sez 'e. 'And wot I 'ope ter syve Will tittervyte 'is bloomin' little gryve. ' Then--Well--yo' should 'ave 'eard us 'ow we cried-- Like bloomin' kids--the--night--the byby--died. 

"That song, " said Poppy, "doesn't exactly suit my style of beauty. Youshould have heard Simpey sing it. _That_ 'd 'ave given you something to'owl for. "

For Rickman looked depressed. 

The sound of Poppy's song waked the canary; he fluttered down from hisperch and stretched his wings, trailing them on the floor of his cageto brush the sleep out of them. 

"Did you ever see such affectation, " said Poppy, "look at him, striking attitudes up there, all by 'is little self!"

Poppy seemed to cling to the idea of the canary as a symbol ofpropriety. 

"Do you know, Rickets, it's past twelve o'clock?"

No, he didn't know. He had taken no count of time. But he knew that hehad drunk a great many little tumblers of champagne, and that his lovefor Poppy seemed more than ever a supersensuous and immortal thing. Hepulled himself together in order to tell her so; but at that moment hewas confronted by an insuperable difficulty. In the tender andpassionate speech that he was about to make to her, it would benecessary to address her by name. But how--in Heaven's name--could headdress a divinity as Poppy? He settled the difficulty by decidingthat he would not address her at all. There should be no invocation. He would simply explain. 

He got up and walked about the room and explained in such words aspleased him the distinction between the corruptible and theincorruptible Eros. From time to time he chanted his own poems in theintervals of explaining; for they bore upon the matter in hand. 

"Rickets, " said Poppy, severely, "you've had too much fizz. I can seeit in your eyes--most unmistakably. I know it isn't very nice of me tosay so, when it's my fizz you've been drinking; but it isn't reallymine, it's Dicky Pilkington's--at least he paid for it. "

But Rickets did not hear her. His soul, soaring on wings of champagne, was borne far away from Dicky Pilkington. 

 "Know" (chanted Rickets) "that the Love which is my Lord most high, He changeth not with seasons and with days, His feet are shod with light in all his ways. And when he followeth none have power to fly. 

 "He chooseth whom he will, and draweth nigh. To them alone whom he himself doth raise Unto his perfect service and his praise; Of such Love's lowliest minister am I. "

"If you'd asked me, " said Poppy, "I should have said he had a prettygood opinion of himself. What do you say, Dicky?"

"Sweet!" sang the canary in one pure, penetrating note, the voice ofInnocence itself. 

"Isn't he rakish?" But Poppy got no answer from the sonneteer. He hadwheeled round from her, carried away in the triumph and rapture of thesestette. His steps marked the beat of the iambics, he turned on hisheel at the end of every line. For the moment he was sober, as mencount sobriety. 

 "For he I serve hath paced Heaven's golden floor, And chanted with the Seraphims' glad choir; Lo! All his wings are plumed with fervent fire; He hath twain that bear him upward evermore, With twain he veils his holy eyes before The mystery of his own divine desire. 

"Does it remind you of anything?" he asked. It struck her as odd thathe seemed to realize her presence with difficulty. 

"No, I can't say that I ever heard anything like it in my life. "

"Well, the idea's bagged from Dante--I mean Dante-gabrier-rossetti. But he doesn't want it as badly as I do. In fac', I don' think hewants it at all where he is now. If he does, he can take any of minein exchange. You bear me out, Poppy--I invite the gentleman to stepdown and make 's own s'lection: Nobody can say I plagiarizeanyborry--anyborry but myself. "

"All right, don't you worry, old chappy, " said Poppy soothingly. "Youcome here and sit quiet. "

He came and sat down beside her, as if the evening had only justbegun. He sat down carefully, tenderly, lest he should crush so muchas the hem of her fan-like, diaphanous skirts. And then he began totalk to her. 

He said there was no woman--no lady--in the world for whom he feltsuch reverence and admiration; "Pop-oppy, " he said, "you're fit todance before God on the floor of Heaven when they've swept it. "

"Oh come, " said Poppy, "can't you go one better?"

He could. He did. He intimated that though he worshipped every hair ofPoppy's little head and every inch of Poppy's little body, what heldhim, at the moment, were the fascinations of her mind, and thepositively gorgeous beauty of her soul. Yes; there could be no doubtthat the object of his devotion was Poppy's imperishable soul. 

"Well, " said Poppy, "that tykes the very tip-top macaroon!"

Then she laughed; she laughed as if she would never have done. Shelaughed, first with her eyes, then with her throat, then with herwhole body, shaking her head and rocking herself backwards andforwards. She laughed till her hair came down, and he took it andsmoothed it into two sleek straight bands, and tied them in a looseknot under her chin. 

Then she stopped laughing. Her face between the two tight sheaths ofhair seemed to close and shrink to a thin sharp bud. It closed andopened again, it grew nearer and bigger, it bent forward and put outits mouth (for it had a mouth, this extraordinary flower) and kissedhim. 

"I sy, it's nearly one o'clock, " said she. "You've got to clear out ofthis. Come!"

She rose; she stood before him holding out her hands to help him toget up and go. She laughed again. She laughed wide-mouthed, her headflung back, her face foreshortened, her white throat swelled andquivering--the abandoned figure of Low Comedy incarnate. But that wasnot what he saw. 

To him it was as if the dark, impenetrable world had suddenlyunfolded, had blossomed and flowered in the rose of her mouth; as ifall the roses of all the world went to make up the petals of thatrose. Her body was nothing but a shining, transparent vessel for thefire of life. It ran over; it leapt from her; the hands she stretchedout to him were two shallow lamps that could hardly hold the tall, upward shooting, wind-tortured splendour of the flame. 

He rose unsteadily to his feet. The movement, being somewhatcomplicated, brought him within a yard of his own figure as presentedin one of the long mirrors. He stood there, arrested, fascinated, shocked by that person in the mirror. The face he was accustomed tosee in mirrors was grave, and not high coloured, and it always keptits mouth shut. This person's face was very red, and his mouth wasslightly open, a detail he noticed with a peculiar disgust. He couldnot get away from it, either. It was held there, illuminated, insistedon, repeated for ever and ever, smaller and smaller, an endlessprocession of faces, all animated by one frenzy and one flame. He wasappalled by this mysterious multiplication of his person, and by theflushed and brilliant infamy of his face. The face was the worst; hethought he had never seen anything so detestable as the face. He satdown and hid it in his hands. 

"Poor Rickets, " said Poppy softly. She drew his hands from his face bya finger at a time. 

"Oh, Ricky-ticky, you are such a rum little fellow. I suppose that'swhy I like you. But for the life of me I can't think why I kissed you;unless it was to say Good-night. "

A kiss more or less was nothing to Poppy. And that one, she felt, hadbeen valedictory. She had kissed, not Ricky-ticky, but his dyingInnocence, the boy in him. And she had really wanted him to go. 

The house was stiller than ever. The canary had tucked his head underhis wing and gone to sleep again. Out of the silence the clock of St. Pancras Church struck one. 

And yet he had not gone. 

CHAPTER XI

A step was heard on the pavement outside; then the click of alatch-key; a step on the stairs, at the threshold, and Mr. Pilkingtonwalked in with the air of being the master of the house and everythingin it. 

The little laughing mask slipped from Poppy's face, her eyes were twosapphire crescents darting fright under down-dropped lids. There was alook in Dicky's face she did not care for. But Rickman--as Maddox hadtestified--was a perfect little gentleman when he was drunk, and atthe sight of Pilkington, chivalry, immortal chivalry, leapt in hisheart. 

He became suddenly grave, steady and coherent. 

"I was just going, Miss Grace. But--if you want me to stay a littlelonger, I'll stay. "

"You'd better _go_, " said Miss Grace. 

Her eyes followed him sullenly as he went; so did Pilkington's. 

"Well, " she said, "I suppose that's what you wanted?"

"Yes, but there's no good overdoing the thing, you know. This, " saidPilkington, "is a damned sight too expensive game for him to play. "

"He's all right. It wasn't his fault. I let him drink too muchchampagne. "

"What did you do that for? Couldn't you see he'd had enough already?"

"How was I to know? He's nicer when he's drunk than other people arewhen they're sober. "

He looked at her critically. "I know all about him. What I'd like toknow is what you see in him. "

Poppy returned his look with interest. Coarseness in DickyPilkington's eyes sat brilliant and unashamed. 

"Would you? So would I. P'raps it's wot I don't see in him. "

Now subtlety was the last thing Dicky expected from Poppy, and itaroused suspicion. 

Whatever Poppy's instructions were she had evidently exceeded them. Poppy read his thoughts with accuracy. 

"I only did what you told me. If you don't like it, you can finish thejob yourself. I'm tired, " said Poppy, wearily coiling up her hair. 

She was no longer in spirits. 

CHAPTER XII

A tiny jet of gas made a glimmer in the fan-light of Mrs. Downey'sboarding-house next door. Mrs. Downey kept it burning there for Mr. Rickman. 

Guided by this beacon, he reached his door, escaping many dangers. Forthe curbstone was a rocking precipice, and the street below it a greyand shimmering stream, that rolled, and flowed, and rolled, and neverrested. The houses, too, were so drunk as to be dangerous. They bowedover him, swaying hideously from their foundations. They seemed to beattracted, just as he was, by that abominable slimy flow and glisterof the asphalt. Another wriggle of the latch-key, and they would beover on the top of him. 

He approached his bedroom candle with infinite precaution. He hadtried to effect a noiseless entry, but every match, as it spurted andwent out, was a little fiendish spit-fire tongue betraying him. Frombehind a bedroom door, ajar at the dark end of the passage, the voiceof Mrs. Downey gently reminded him not to forget to turn the gas out. 

There was a bright clear space in his brain which Pilkington'schampagne had not penetrated, so intolerably clear and bright that ithurt him to look at it. In that space three figures reeled andwhirled; three, yet one and the same; Poppy of the coster-dance, Poppyof the lunatic ballet, and Poppy of the Arabian night. Beyond thebright space and the figures there was a dark place that was somehowcurtained off. Something had happened there, he could not see what. And in trying to see he forgot to turn the gas out. He turned it upinstead. 

He left it blazing away at the rate of a penny an hour, a witnessagainst him in the face of morning. But he did not forget to sit downat the bottom of the stairs and take his boots off, lest he shouldwake Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who worked so hard, and had tobe up so early. He left them on the stairs, where Flossie tripped overthem in the morning. 

On the first landing a young man in a frowsy sleeping suit stoodwaiting for him. A fresh, sober, and thoroughly wide-awake young man. 

"Gurra bed, Spinks, " said Mr. Rickman severely to the young man. 

"All right, old man. " Mr. Spinks lowered his voice to a discreetwhisper. "I say--do you want me to help you find your legs?"

"Wish you'd fin' any par' of me that is n' legs, " said Mr. Rickman. And he went on to explain and to demonstrate to Mr. Spinks theresemblance (amounting to identity) between himself and the Manx arms. "Three legs, rampant, on the bend, proper. Amazin', isn't it?"

"It _is_ amazin'. "

Feigning surprise and interest, Mr. Spinks relieved him of his candle;and under that escort Mr. Rickman managed to attain to the secondfloor. 

Mr. Rickman's room was bared to the glimmer of a lamp in the streetbelow. He plunged and stumbled through a litter of books. The glimmerfell on the books, on many books; books that covered three walls fromfloor to ceiling; books ranged above and beside the little camp-bed inthe corner; books piled on the table and under it. The glimmer fell, too, on the mantel-piece, reflected from the glass above it, right onto the white statuette of the Venus of Milo that supported aphotograph of a dancing Poppy--Poppy, who laughed in the face of thegoddess with insatiable impudence, and flung to the immortal foreheadthe flick of her shameless foot. White and austere gleamed the Venus(if Venus she be, for some say she is a Wingless Victory, and Rickman, when sober, inclined to that opinion). White and austere gleamed thelittle camp-bed in the corner. He ignored Mr. Spinks' discreetsuggestion. He wasn't going to undress to please Spinks or anybody. He'd see Spinks in another world first. He wasn't going to bed like apotman; he was going to sit up like a poet and write. That's what hewas going to do. This was his study. 

With shaking hands he lit the lamp on his study table; the wicksputtered, and the light in his head jigged horribly with the jiggingof the flame. It was as if he was being stabbed with little knives oflight. 

He plunged his head into a basin of cold water, threw open his windowand leaned out into the pure regenerating night. Spinks sat down on achair and watched him, his fresh, handsome face clouded with anxiety. He adored Rickman sober; but for Rickman drunk he had a curiousyearning affection. If anything, he preferred him in that state. Itseemed to bring him nearer to him. Spinks had never been drunk in hislife, but that was his feeling. 

Rickman laid his arms upon the window sill and his head upon his arms. 

"'The blessed damozel leaned out, '" he said (the idea in his mindbeing that _he_ was a blessed damozel). 

"'From the gold bar of heaven. '"

("Never knew they had 'em up there, " murmured Spinks. )

"'Her eyes were deeper than the depth of waters stilled ateven'--Oh--my--God!"

A great sigh shook him, and went shuddering into the night like thepassing of a lost soul. He got up and staggered to the table, andgrasped it by the edge, nearly upsetting the lamp. The flare in hisbrain had died down as the lamp burnt steadily. Under its shade around of light fell on his Euripides, open at the page he had beenreading the night before. 

[Greek: ELENÊ]

He saw it very black, with the edges a little wavering, a littleblurred, as if it had been burnt by fire into the whiteness of thepage. Below, the smaller type of a chorus reeled and shook through allits lines. Set up by an intoxicated compositor. 

Under the Euripides was the piled up manuscript of Rickman's greatneo-classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_. He implored Spinks to read it. (Spinks was a draper's assistant and uncultured. ) He thrust themanuscript into his hands. 

"There, " he said, "rea' that. Tha's the sor' o' thing I write when I'mdrunk. Couldn' do it now t' save my life. Temp'rance been _my_ ruin. "

He threw himself on his bed. 

"It's all righ'. At nine o'clock to-morrow morning, no--at a quar'erpas' nine, I mean three quar'ers pas' nine, I shall be drunk. Notdisgustingly and ridicklelously, as you are, Spinky, at this minute, but soo-p-p-perbubbly, loominously, divinely drunk! You don' know whatI could do if I was only drunk. "

"Oh, come, I shouldn't complain, if I was you. You'll do pretty wellas you are, I think. "

With an almost maternal tenderness and tact Mr. Spinks contrived toseparate the poet from his poem. He then undressed him. That is tosay, by alternate feats of strength, dexterity and cunning, hesucceeded in disengaging him from the looser portion of his clothing. From his shirt and trousers Rickman refused to part, refused with ashake of the head, slow, gentle, and implacable, and with a smile ofgreat sweetness and gravity and wisdom. He seemed to regard thosegarments with a peculiar emotion as the symbols of his dignity, andmore especially, as the insignia of sobriety. 

Spinks sat down and stared at the object of his devotion. "Poor oldchappie, " he murmured tenderly. He was helpless before that slowmelancholy shaking of the head, that mysterious and steadfast smile. He approached tip-toe on deprecating feet. But Rickman would none ofhim; his whole attitude was eloquent of rebuke. He waved Spinks awaywith one pathetic hand; with the other he clutched and gathered roundhim the last remnants of his personal majesty. And thus, in his owntime and in his own fashion, he wandered to his bed. Even then heconveyed reproach and reproof by his manner of entering it; he seemedto vanish subtly, to withdraw himself, as into some sacred andinviolable retreat. 

Spinks crept away, saddened by the rebuff. After all, he was no nearerto Rickman drunk than to Rickman sober. Half an hour later, he wasasleep in the adjoining room, dreaming a lightsome dream of ladies and_mousselines de laine_, when suddenly the dream turned to anightmare. It seemed to him that there descended upon him a heavyrolling weight, as of a bale of woollens. He awoke and found that itwas Rickman. 

The poet lay face downwards across the body of his friend, and wascrooning into his ear the great chorus from the third act of Helen inLeuce. He said that nobody but Spinky understood it. And Spinkycouldn't understand it if he wasn't drunk. 

Whereupon Spinks was most curiously uplifted and consoled. 

CHAPTER XIII

He woke tired out, as well he might be, after spending half the nightin the pursuit of young Joy personified in Miss Poppy Grace, youngJoy, who, like that little dancer, is the swiftest of all swiftthings. 

Rickman carried into this adventure a sort of innocence that reneweditself, as by a miracle, every evening. His youth remained virginbecause of its incorruptible hope. He almost disarmed criticism by thegaiety, the naïveté of the pursuit. She was always in front of him, that young Joy; but if he did not overtake her by midnight, he was allthe more sure that he would find her in the morning, with the dew onher feet and the dawn on her forehead. He was convinced that it wasthat sweet mystic mouth of hers which would one day tell him thesecret of the world. And long before the morning she would pick up herskirts and be off again, swifter than ever, carrying her secret withher. 

And so the chase went on. 

At the present moment he found himself in the society of Shame, theoldest and most haggard of all the daughters of the night. She was inno hurry to leave him. It seemed to him that she sat beside him, formless and immense, that she laid her hands about him, and that theburning on his poor forehead was her brand there; that the scorchingin his poor throat was the clutch of her fingers, and the torment inall his miserable body her fine manipulation of his nerves. She knewthe secret of the world; and had no sort of hesitation about tellingit; it sounded to him uncommonly like something that he had heardbefore. He recognized her as the form and voice of his own desire, theloathsome familiar body of unutterable thoughts, sordid, virulent, accusing, with a tongue that lashed through the flesh to the obscurespirit inside him. And because he was a poet, and knew himself a poet, because he had sinned chiefly through his imagination, it was throughhis imagination that he suffered, so that the horror was supreme. Forall the while, though Shame was there, his ideas were there too, somewhere, the divine thoughts and the proud beautiful dreams, and thegreat pure loves, winged and veiled; they stood a long way off andturned away their faces from him, and that was the worst punishment hehad to bear. 

Which meant that as Savage Keith Rickman lay in bed the morning afterthat glorious April night, he knew that he had been making an Aprilfool of himself. He knew it by the pain in his head and otherdisagreeable signs; also by the remarkable fact that he still wore theshirt and trousers of the day. 

And he knew that in spite of the pain he would have to get up and godown to breakfast as if nothing had happened; he would have to meetMr. Spinks' eyes twinkling with malign intelligence, and Flossie'swondering looks, and Mrs. Downey's tender womanly concern, as heturned white over the bacon and the butter. He didn't know which wereworse, the knowing eyes or the innocent ones. He had to be at the shopby nine o'clock, too, to force that poor, dizzy, aching head of his toits eight hours' work. 

In this unnerved, attenuated state, this mortal paleness of mind andbody, it was terrible to have to face the robust reality of"Rickman's". At nine o'clock in the morning it was more real to himthan any real thing; it even assumed an abominable personality; it wasan all-compelling, all-consuming power that sucked from him his time, his life, his energy, and for six days out of the seven required ofhim his soul. That at the same time it provided him with the means ofbodily subsistence only added to the horror of the thing. It was as if"Rickman's", destroyer and preserver, renewed his life every quarterday that it might draw in, devour, annihilate it as before. There wasa diabolical precision in the action of the machine that made andunmade him. 

And yet, with its rhythm of days and weeks, it was in its turn partof a vaster system, whose revolutions brought round a longerpause--when for three days his soul would be given back to him. Theonly thing that kept him up at this moment was the blessed hope of theBank holiday. 

While young Keith was still lying very sick and miserable in his bed, the elder Rickman, in his villa residence at Ilford in Essex, was upand eager for the day. By the time Keith had got down to breakfastIsaac had caught the early train that landed him in the City at nine. Before half-past he was in the front shop, taking a look round. 

And as he looked round and surveyed his possessions, his new stock onthe shelves, his plate-glass and his mahogany fittings, hisassistants, from the boy in shirt sleeves now washing down the greatfront window to the gentlemanly cashier, high collared andfrock-coated, in his pew, he rubbed his hands softly, and his heartswelled with thankfulness and pride. For Isaac Rickman was a dreamer, too, in his way. There are dreams and dreams, and the incontestablemerit and glory of Isaac's dreams was that they had all, or verynearly all, come true. They were of the sort that can be handed overthe counter, locked up in a cash-box and lodged in the Bank. Hislatest dream had been carried out in plate-glass and mahogany; ittowered into space and was finished off with a beautiful pink cupolaat the top. 

There was not much of the father in the son. Keith, presumably, tookafter his mother, a hectic, pale-haired, woman who had died in thesupreme effort of his birth. On her own birth there had been somethingin the nature of a slur. She had taken it to heart, and exhaustedherself in the endeavour to conceal from her very respectable husbandthe shameful fact that she had once served as barmaid in a Cityrestaurant, and that she was the illegitimate daughter of a villagesempstress and a village squire. Isaac, before he dreamed ofgreatness, had met her at a Band of Hope meeting, and had married herbecause of her sweetness and pathetic beauty. She left to her boy herfairness, her expressive face, her own nerves and her mother'spassion. Isaac and he were alike only in a certain slenderness, afleshless refinement of physique. Coarseness in grain, usuallyrevealed by the lower half of a man's countenance, had with the elderRickman taken up its abode in the superior, the intellectual region. Isaac's eyes and forehead trafficked grossly with the world, while therest of his face preserved the stern reticences and sanctities of thespirit. Isaac was a Wesleyan; and his dress (soft black felt hat, smooth black frock-coat, narrow tie, black but clerical) almostsuggested that he was a minister of that persuasion. His lips werehidden under an iron grey moustache, the short grizzled beard wassmoothed forward and fined to a point by the perpetual caress of ameditative hand. Such was Isaac. 

Impossible to deny a certain genius to the man who had raised thatmighty pile, the Gin Palace of Art. Those stately premises, with theirclustering lights, their carpeted floors, their polished fittings, were very different from the dark little house in Paternoster Rowwhere Keith first saw what light there was to be seen. When Isaac grewgreat and moved further west, the little shop was kept on and devotedto the sale of Bibles, hymn-books and Nonconformist literature. ForIsaac, life was a compromise between the pious Wesleyan he was and thesuccessful tradesman he aspired to be. There were, in fact, twoRickman's: Rickman's in the City and Rickman's in the Strand. Rickman's in the Strand bore on its fore-front most unmistakeably theseal of the world; Rickman's in the City was sealed with the Lord'sseal. 

So that now there was not a single need of the great book-buying, book-loving Public that Rickman's did not provide for and represent. It pandered to (Isaac said "catered for") the highest and the lowest, the spirit as well as the flesh. Only Isaac was wise enough to keepthe two branches of the business separate and distinct. His right handprofessed complete ignorance of the doings of his left. 

It may be that Isaac's heart was in his City shop. But there wassomething in him greater than his heart, his ambition, which wascolossal. He meant, he always had meant, to be the founder of a greatHouse, which should make the name of Rickman live after him. He aimedat nothing less than supremacy. He proposed to spread his nets tillthey had drawn in the greater part of the book trade of London; tillRickman's had reared its gigantic palaces in every district of thecapital. In '92 there was some talk of depression in the book trade. Firms had failed. Isaac did not join in the talk, and he had his owntheory of the failure. Men went smash for want of will, for want ofbrains, for want of courage and capital. Above all for want ofcapital. As if any man need want capital so long as he had the pluckto borrow, that is to say, to buy it. So ran his dream. And Isaacbelieved in his dream, and what was more, he had made Mr. RichardPilkington, Financial Agent, of Shaftesbury Avenue, believe in it. "Rickman's, " backed by Pilkington, would stand firm, firm as a rock. 

Courage and capital are great, but brains are greater. It was not onlyby shrewdness, energy and an incomparable audacity that Isaac Rickmanhad raised himself from those obscure beginnings. Isaac was an artistin his own enormous way, and he had made an exhaustive study of thePublic. With incredible versatility he followed every twist and turnof the great mind; the slow colossal movements which make capital, thefitful balancing, the sudden start and mad rush forward by which, ifyou can but foresee and keep pace with it, you reap the golden harvestof the hour. He never took his eye off the Public. He laid his finger, as it were, on that mighty pulse and recorded its fluctuations in hisledger. 

But there was a region beyond those fluctuations. With new books therewas always a pound's worth of risk to a pennyworth of profit; butthere was no end of money to be got out of old ones, if only you knewhow to set about it. And Isaac did not quite know how. In his frontshop it was the Public, in his side shop it was the books thatmattered, and knowledge of the one, however exhaustive, was no guideto the other. Isaac by himself cut a somewhat unfortunate figure; hestood fully equipped in the field where there was much danger and butlittle gain; he was helpless where the price of knowledge ruledimmeasurably high. In the second-hand department audacity withouteducation can do nothing. What he still wanted, then, was brains andyet more brains; not the raw material, mind you, he had plenty ofthat, but the finished product, the trained, cultured intellect. Isaacwas a self-made man, a man ignorant of many things, religious, butuneducated. 

But he had a son, and the son had a head on his shoulders amagnificent head that boy had. Mr. Horace Jewdwine had noticed it thefirst minute he came into the shop. And the magnificence of Keith'shead had been pointed out to Isaac long before that, when Keithcouldn't have been more than ten--why, nine he was; that was thebeginning of it. Isaac could remember how Sir Joseph Harden ofLazarus, the great scholar, who was one of Isaac's best customers, poking round the little dingy shop in Paternoster Row (it was allsecond-hand in those days), came on the young monkey perched on thestep-ladder, reading Homer. Sir Joseph had made him come down andtranslate for him then and there. And Keith went at it, translatingfor twenty minutes straight on end. Sir Joseph had said nothing, buthe asked him what he was going to be, and the young Turk grinned up athim and said he was going to be a poet, "like 'Omer, that was what hewas going to be. " Isaac had said that was just like his impudence, butSir Joseph stood there looking at him and smiling on the side of hisface that Keith couldn't see, and he told the little chap to "workhard and mind his rough breathings. " Isaac had supposed that was somesort of a joke, for Keith, he tried hard to grin, though his face wentred hot all over. Then Sir Joseph had turned round very serious andasked if he, Rickman, had any other sons, because, whatever he didwith the rest of them, he must make this one a scholar. Isaac had saidNo, he hadn't any but that one boy, and he would have to be brought upto the business. He was afraid he couldn't spare the time to make muchof a scholar of him. Time, said Isaac, was money. What Sir Joseph saidthen Isaac had never forgotten. He had said; "True, time was money, loose cash in your pockets; but brains were capital. " And there wasn'ta better investment for them, he had added, than a good soundclassical education. Isaac was to send the boy to the City of London, then to the London University, if he couldn't rise to Oxford; but SirJoseph's advice was Oxford. Let him try for a scholarship. He addedthat he would like to do something for him later on if he lived. Isaachad never forgotten it; his memory being assisted by the circumstancethat Sir Joseph had that very same day bought one hundred andtwenty-five pounds' worth of books for his great library down inDevonshire. 

The boy was sent to an "Academy, " then to the City of London; Isaachad not risen to Oxford. Keith never tried for a scholarship, and ifhe had, Isaac would have drawn the line at a university education, astending towards an unholy leisure and the wisdom of this world. Otherwise he had spared no expense, for he had grasped the fact thatthis was an investment, and he looked to have his money back againwith something like fifty per cent. Interest. And the boy, the boy wasto come back, too, with a brain as bright as steel, all its queerlittle complicated parts in working order; in short, a superb machine;and Isaac would only have to touch a spring to set it going. 

But the question was, what spring? And that, unfortunately, was whatold Rickman never could lay his finger on. 

Still it went, that machine of his, apparently of its own accord. Itwent mysteriously, capriciously, but fairly satisfactorily on thewhole. And Isaac was wise; his very respect for the thing that hadcost him so much prevented him from tampering with it. 

It was in accordance with this policy of caution that they livedapart. Isaac loved the suburbs; Keith loved the town, and it was aswell for one of them to live in it, near to their place of business. Isaac had married again, and though he was proud of his boy and fondof him, he contrived to be completely happy without him. He loved hislittle detached villa residence at Ilford in Essex, with its littleflower-garden showing from the high road, its little stable for thepony and little paddock for the cow. He loved his large smooth-facedsecond wife, with her large balance at the bank and still largercredit in the Wesleyan circle they lived and moved in. He loved thatWesleyan circle, the comfortable, safe community that knew only thebest, the Sunday best, of him. And Keith loved none of these things. By the education he had got and which he, Isaac, had given him, by the"religion" he hadn't got, and which nothing would induce him to take, by the obscure barriers of individuality and temperament, the son wasseparated from the father. As for meeting each other half-way, Isaachad tried it once or twice of a Sunday, when Keith had met him indeed, but with a directness that shocked Isaac and distressed him. He wasmade positively uncomfortable by his son's money-bought superiority;though the boy didn't bring it out and show it, Isaac felt all thetime that it was there. He was very much happier without the boy. Keith among other things suggested vividly the thoughts which theWesleyan desired to put away from Saturday afternoon to Mondaymorning, thoughts of the present evil world, for which, on Sundays, hemore than half suspected that he might be imperilling his immortalsoul. 

Sometimes in the watches of the night, especially of a Sunday night, it occurred to him that (owing to the domestic arrangement which keptthe boy in a place which, when all was said and done, was a place oftemptation) Keith's soul, no less immortal, might be in jeopardy too. He thought of him, an innocent lad, thrown on the mercy of London, asit were. But Isaac had faith in the mercy of the Lord. Besides, hewasn't the sort, a quiet, studious young fellow like Keith wasn't. Andwhen Isaac's conscience began to feel a little uncertain upon thatpoint, he simply laid the case circumstantially before the Lord, whoknew all his difficulties and all his sins, and was infinitely ableand eternally willing to bear them for him. By casting Keith upon theLord an immense burden of responsibility was slipped from hisconscience; and by the time Monday morning came round Isaac was againconvinced that he had made the very best arrangements. 

For not only was the state of Keith's soul a reproach to Isaac'sconscience, but the brilliance of Keith's intellect was a terror toit. Any day that same swift illuminating power might be turned on tothe dark places in his own soul, showing up the deplorablediscrepancies between his inner and his outer life. He wanted his sonand everybody else to think well of him, and Keith's lucid sincerityat times appalled him. He had not yet discovered that his protectionwas in the very thing he feared. Keith was so recklessly single-mindedthat it never occurred to him that his father could lead a doublelife; he never doubted for an instant that, as in his own case, theSaturday to Monday state revealed the real man. He, Keith, sat solightly to the business and with so detached a mind, that he simplycould not imagine how any human being could be so wedded to a thing initself uninteresting as to sacrifice to it any immortal chances. Thebook trade was not a matter for high spiritual romance; it was simplythe way they got their living, as honest a way as any other, taking itall round. The shop was one thing, and his father was another. Infact, so far from identifying them, he was inclined to pity his fatheras a fellow-victim of the tyranny and malignity of the shop. 

But when in his right mind he had no grudge whatever against the shop. He had been born over the shop, nursed behind the shop, and the shophad been his schoolroom ever since he could spell. It was books foundin the shop and studied in the shop that first opened his eyes to theglory of the world, as he sat on the step-ladder, reading hisShakespeare or puzzling out his first Greek by the light of a singlegas-flare; and for the sake of these things he had a tenderrecollection of Paternoster Row. It was to Rickman's that he owed hiseducation. Doggedly at first and afterwards mechanically, abstractedly, he got through the work he had to do. At times he evenappreciated with a certain enjoyment the exquisite irony of his fate. Perhaps, when it came to the Gin Palace of Art, he had felt that thething was getting almost beyond a joke. He had not been prepared forthat lurid departure. He did not realize that he was in it, that hisfather had staked, not only his hopes, but his capital on him. Hesimply knew that "the guv'nor" was wrapt up in the horrid thing, thathe had spent enormous sums on it, and he wasn't going to throw himover at the start. 

But he had not the smallest intention of spending his whole life so. As always, long ago, in the darkness of the City shop, he had seen abrilliance of his own spreading around Rickman's and beyond it, shining away into the distance, so he saw it now, flinging out abroad, flaming, unmistakable path that could by no possibility leadback there. He only suffered a certain limited and unimportant part ofhim to be made into a machine. 

Meanwhile it was perhaps in the divine mercy that the workings ofthis machine were hidden from Isaac. He hadn't even found out that thesecret spring was not in the brain but the heart of it. He would lookup a little uneasily as Keith pushed through the big swinging doorsand took his seat at the table on the platform, and while he wonderedwhat Keith was thinking of him, ten to one Keith wasn't thinking ofhim at all. 

This morning, however, he _was_ thinking of him, as it happened. Andwhen the old man saw him up there, holding his poor bursting head inhis hands, and said: "'Ead achin' my boy, again? That comes ofstudyin' too 'ard!" he thought with a touch of compunction, "Whatwould he say if he knew I'd gone drunk to bed last night? And if heknew about Poppy?"

Isaac approached his son gingerly and with a certain fear. The onlything he had discovered about this admirable machine of his was thatit went better when you left it alone. It had not been going quite sowell lately though, and this morning it seemed decidedly out of order. He took a seat at the table and busied himself with a catalogue. Presently he rose and touched the boy gently on the shoulder. 

"Come into the office a minute, will you?" he said, with a glance atthe cashier. And Keith, wondering what on earth he wanted with him, followed into a recess shut on from the shop by a plate-glass andmahogany screen. Isaac hunted among the papers on his writing-tablefor a letter he could not find. 

"You remember your old friend, Sir Joseph Harden, don't you?"

"Yes. " Keith was in fact devoted to Sir Joseph's memory. He had oftenwondered what it was, that mysterious "something" which Sir Josephwould have done for him, if he had lived, and whether, if he had doneit, it would have made a difference. 

"Well, I got a letter from his place in Devonshire this morning. They've asked me to send them some one down to catalogue his library. They want an expert, and he must go at once and finish by thetwenty-seventh, or it's no use. Dear me, where is that letter?"

Keith goaded his brain to an agonizing activity. It seemed to himthat some such proposal had been made to him before. But where or whenhe couldn't for the life of him remember. 

"Pilkington says he told you something about it, last night. I'veheard from him this morning, too. "

Pilkington--he remembered now. Dicky had bothered him about a librarylast night; and he had wished Dicky at the devil. He beat his brainstill he struck from them an illuminating flash (Lord, how it hurttoo!). 

"He didn't say it was the Harden Library. "

"It is, though. " Isaac's coarse forehead flushed with triumph. "He'spromised me the refusal of it when it comes into the market. "

At any other time Keith would have been interested; but his head achedtoo much now. Still he was not too far gone to recognize the magnitudeof the affair. 

"You'll have to go down and look at it, " continued Isaac persuasively, "and here's the opportunity. You go on their business, and do mine atthe same time, and get well paid for it, too. "

"I don't quite like going that way. If the thing's got to be sold whydo they want it catalogued?"

"That's their business, not mine. "

"It looks like 'their' mistake, whoever they are. Where's the letter?"

"I've mislaid it. That's not my business either. My business is tosend you off before they find out their mistake. You can catch theeleven express from Waterloo if you look sharp. "

Sharp? Never had he looked less so. Still, with his aching head hedimly perceived that his Easter was being tampered with. 

"And supposing they want me to stay?"

"Stay then. The longer the better. "

"I'll go after Easter then. I can't go before. I can't possibly. It's--it's out of the question. "

His brain was clear enough on that point. He had suffered many thingsfrom the brutality of Rickman's; but hitherto its dealings had alwaysbeen plain and above-board. It had kept him many an evening workingovertime, it had even exacted an occasional Saturday afternoon; butit had never before swindled him out of a Bank holiday. The thing wasincredible; it could not be. Rickman's had no rights over his Easter;whatever happened, that holy festival was indubitably, incontestablyhis. 

"Don't be afraid. You'll get your holiday, my boy, when you come back. I'll make it worth your while. "

"It isn't money--damn my head! It's so confoundedly inconvenient. Yousee, I'd made no end of engagements. "

"It's a foolish thing to make engagements so long beforehand. We neverknow the day or the hour--"

"I knew both. "

"Well, in any case you couldn't be going to any place of amusement onthe Sunday. "

Isaac and his conscience had agreed together to assume that youngKeith walked habitually and of his own fancy in the right way. 

"Come, " he continued, "you're not going to fling up a chance like thiswithout rhyme or reason. "

"I don't know, " said Keith, with a queer little one-sided smile, "I'dfling up a good many chances for a really good rhyme. "

As for reason, there were at least two reasons why the present chanceshould not lightly be let go. One was the Harden Library. If theHarden Library was not great, it was almost historic, it contained theAldine Plato of 1513, the Neapolitan Horace of 1474, and the _AureaLegenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. The other reason was Dicky Pilkington, the Vandal into whose hands destiny had delivered it. Upon the HardenLibrary Pilkington was about to descend like Alaric on the treasuresof Rome. Rickman's was hand in glove with Pilkington, and since theyoung barbarian actually offered them the chance of buying it outrightfor an old song, no time was to be lost. It would not do to trust toolong to Dicky's ignorance. At any moment knowledge might enter intohim and corrupt his soul. 

No; clearly, he would have to go; he didn't see how he was to get outof it. 

Isaac became uneasy, for the spirit of imprecation sat visibly on hisson's brow. "When I said I'd make it worth your while I meant it. "

"I know. It isn't that--"

"Wot is it? Wot is it then? Wot's the matter with you? Wot tomfooleryare you up to? Is it--" (Isaac's gross forehead flushed, his speechcame thick through his stern lips. ) "Is it a woman?"

He had also been young; though he had denied his youth. 

The boy's white face quivered with a little wave of heat and pain. Heclasped his forehead with his hands. 

"Let me think. "

His fingers tightened their hold, as if to grasp thought by holdingthe dizzy aching head that contained it. He could think of nothing butPoppy. He had seen his father's point quite steadily and clearly aminute ago; but when he thought of Poppy his brain began to turn roundand round again. He gripped his forehead harder still, to stop it. 

His thinking drifted into a kind of moody metaphysics instead ofconcentrating itself on the matter in hand. "It takes a poet, " he saidto himself, "to create a world, and this world would disgrace a JuniorJournalist. " Was it, he wondered, the last effort of a cycle oftranscendental decadence, melancholy, sophisticated? Or was it a cruelyoung jest flung off in the barbarous spring-time of creative energy?Either way it chiefly impressed him with its imbecility. He sawthrough it. He saw through most things, Himself included. He knewperfectly well that he had developed this sudden turn for speculativethought because he was baulked of an appointment with a little varietyactress. That he should see through the little variety actress was notto be expected. Poppy was in her nature impenetrable, woman being theultimate fact, the inexorable necessity of thought. Supposing theuniverse to be nothing more than a dance of fortuitous atoms, thenPoppy, herself a fortuitous atom, led the dance; she was the whirligigcentre towards which all things whirled. No wonder that it made himgiddy to think of her. 

Suddenly out of its giddiness his brain conceived and instantlymatured a plan. A practical plan. He would catch that eleven-thirtyexpress all right. He would go down into Devonshire, and stay inDevonshire till Saturday. If necessary, he would sit up with thoseabominable books all Thursday night and Friday night. And on Saturdayhe would return. At the worst he would only have to go down again onMonday. He would have missed the Junior Journalists' dinner, he wouldbe lucky if he saw the ghost of an idea on this side Whit Sunday, buthe would have torn the heart out of his holiday. 

He rose abruptly. "All right. It's a most awful nuisance, as ithappens, but I'll go. "

"I'm glad you're willing to oblige me. You'll not regret it. "

Isaac was really meditating something very handsome in the way of acommission. As he looked benignly into his son's face and saw its deepmisery and repugnance, he answered his own question. 

"It _is_ a woman. "

BOOK II

LUCIA'S WAY

CHAPTER XIV

He wondered how much longer they were going to keep him waiting. Hishead still ached, and every nerve was irritable. He began to suspectthe servant of having failed to report his arrival; he thought ofringing for him and announcing himself a second time. Then heremembered that he was only the man who had come about the books; hewas there on the Hardens' business, and their time was his time. Andthere were worse places to wait in than the library of Court House. 

He found himself in a long low room that seemed to him immense. It waslighted by four deep-set windows, one to the south, one (a smallerside lattice) to the east, two to the west, and still the corners wereleft in gloom. The bookcases that covered the length and height of thewalls were of one blackness with the oak floor and ceiling. Thescattered blues and crimsons of the carpets (repeated in duller tonesin the old morocco bindings), the gilded tracery of the tooling, andhere and there a blood-red lettering-piece, gave an effect as of somedim rich arabesque flung on to the darkness. At this hour the sunlightmade the most of all it found there; it washed the faded carpet with anew dye; it licked every jutting angle, every polished surface, everypatch of vellum; it streamed out of the great golden white busts ontheir pedestals in the windows, it lay in pale gleams over the easternwalls till it perished in the marble blackness of the roof and floor, sucked in as by an upper and nether abyss. This blackness intensifiedthe glory of the April world outside whose luminous greens and blueswere held like blazonry in the leaded lozenge panes. The two westernwindows thrown open looked over the valley to the hills; Castle Hillwith its black battlement of pines, and round-topped Core; to HarmouthGap, the great doorway of the west wind, and the straight brown flankof Muttersmoor, stretching to the sea. He seated himself by one ofthese open lattices, looked at the view, one of the loveliest in southDevon, and thought of Miss Poppy Grace. The vision of her that hadstill attended him on his journey down faded as if rebuked by thegreat tranquil presence of the hills. He was left supremely, magicallyalone. 

Now it may have been prescience, it may have been merely thedeplorable state of his nerves, but, as he continued to look out uponthat unfamiliar landscape, the beauty of it, in growing on him, becamealmost intolerable. It affected him with an indescribable uneasiness, a yearning, a foreboding, a terror. He gave a deep sigh and turned hisback on it abruptly. 

He picked up a book that lay on the window seat; it was the _Historyof Harmouth_, and the history of Harmouth was the history of theHardens of Court House. Court House was older than Harmouth and theHardens were older than Court House. In early Tudor times, thechronicler informed him, the house was the court of justice for eastDevon. Under Elizabeth it and the land for miles around it passed tothe Hardens as a reward for their services to the Crown. The firstthing they did was to pull down the gibbet on the north side and buildtheir kitchen offices there. Next they threw out a short gable-endedwing to the east, and another to the west, enclosing a pleasantcourtyard on the south. The west wing was now thrown into one with thelong room that held the Harden Library. 

Rickman searched carefully for information under this head. He learntthat the Harden library was the work of ten generations of scholarsbeginning with Sir Thomas, a Jacobean maker of madrigals, and endingwith Sir Joseph, the Victorian Master of Lazarus; that the founder'sdate is carved on the oak chimney-piece at the north end, with theHarden motto:

 16 INVICTUS 20;

that the late Master of Lazarus bought books by the cartload, and wasobliged to break through the south wall and sacrifice the west wing(his wife's boudoir) to make room for them. But where he looked forsome record of these treasures he found nothing but an elaboratedescription of the Harden arms with all their quarterings. Thehistorian was not useful for Rickman's purposes. He was preoccupiedwith the Hardens, their antiquity and splendour; he grovelled beforethem; every event in their history gave him an opportunity ofobserving that their motto was _Invictus_. He certainly seemed to havefound them so; for when he wrote of them his style took on the curiouscontortions and prostrations of his spirit. The poor wretch, in thepay of the local bookseller, had saturated himself with heraldry tillhe saw gules. 

To a vision thus inflamed book-collecting was simply a quainthereditary freak, and scholarship a distinction wholly superfluous ina race that owned half the parish, and had its arms blazoned on theeast windows of a church and the sign-board of a public-house. Andwith the last generation the hereditary passion had apparentlyexhausted itself. "The present owner, Sir Frederick Harden, " said thechronicler, "has made no addition to the library of his ancestors. "What he had done was not recorded in the history of the Hardens. Itwas silent also as to the ladies of that house, beyond drawingattention to the curious fact that no woman had ever been permitted toinherit the Harden Library. The inspired pen of the chronicler evokedthe long procession of those Hardens whose motto was _Invictus_;crossed-legged crusading Hardens, Hardens in trunk hose, Hardens inruff and doublet, in ruffles and periwig; Hardens in powder andpatches, in the loosest of stocks and the tightest of trousers; andnever a petticoat among them all. It was just as well, Rickmanreflected, that Poppy's frivolous little phantom had not danced afterhim into the Harden library; those other phantoms might not havereceived it very kindly, unless indeed Sir Thomas, the maker ofmadrigals, had spared it a shadowy smile. 

He looked round and realized that his separation from Poppy would bedisagreeably prolonged if he was expected to catalogue and arrange allthe books in the Harden Library. Allowing so much time to so muchspace, (measuring by feet of bookshelf) hours ran rapidly to days, anddays to weeks--why, months might pass and find him still labouringthere. He would be buried in the blackness, forgotten by Poppy and theworld. That was assuming that the Harden Library really belonged tothe Hardens. And if it was to belong to Dicky Pilkington, what onearth had he been sent for?

"You were sent in answer to my letter, I suppose?"

Rickman's nervous system was still so far under the dominion ofDicky's champagne that he started violently. Double doors and doublecarpets deadened all sound of coming and going, and the voice seemedto have got into the room by itself. As from its softness he judged itto be still some yards distant, he suffered a further shock on findinga lady standing by his elbow. 

It had been growing on him lately, this habit of starting at nothing, this ridiculous spasm of shoulder-blade, eyelids and mouth. It was acause of many smiles to the young ladies of his boarding-house; andthis lady was smiling too, though after another fashion. Her smile wasremote and delicately poised; it hovered in the fine, long-drawncorners of her mouth and eyes; it sobered suddenly as a second andless violent movement turned towards her his white and too expressiveface. He could not say by what subtle and tender transitions it passedinto indifference, nor how in passing it contrived to intimate herregret at having taken him somewhat at a disadvantage. It was all doneand atoned for in the lifting of an eyelid, before he could take inwhat she had actually said. 

Her letter? He murmured some sort of assent, and entered on a dreamyand protracted search for his pocket handkerchief. He was miserablyconscious that she was looking, looking down on him all the time. Forthis lady was tall, so tall indeed that her gaze seemed to light onhis eyelids rather than his eyes. When he had found his courage andhis handkerchief he looked up and their eyes met half way. Hers werebrown with the tinge of hazel that makes brown eyes clear; they had aliquid surface of light divided from their darkness, and behind thedarkness was more light, and the light and darkness were bothunfathomable. 

These eyes were entirely unembarrassed by the encounter. They stillswept him with their long gaze, lucid, meditative, and a littlecritical. 

"You have been very prompt. "

"We understood that no time was to be lost. "

She hesitated. "Mr. Rickman understood, did he not, that I asked forsome one with experience?"

Most certainly Mr. Rickman understood. 

"Do you think you will be able to do what I want?"

Her eyes implied that he seemed to her too young to have had anyexperience at all. 

Knowing that a sense of humour was not one of the things required ofhim, he controlled a smile. 

"We understood you wanted an expert, so I came myself. "

"You are Mr. Rickman then?"

"Well--Mr. Rickman's son. "

The lady puckered her brows as if trying to recall something, an idea, a memory that escaped her. She gave it up. 

"Have you been waiting long?"

"Not more than half an hour or so. "

"I am sorry. Perhaps you had better stay now and see what has to bedone. "

He was tired, he had eaten nothing all day, his nerves were out oforder, and he had an abominable headache, but he intimated that he andhis time were at her service. She spoke with authority, and hewondered who she was. Sir Frederick Harden's daughter? Or his sister?Or his wife?

"As you see, the books are fairly well arranged. It will not take verylong to sort them. "

Oh wouldn't it, though! His heart sank miserably as he followed herprogress round the room. 

"They'll have to be catalogued under their subjects--alphabetically, of course. "

"Quite so. "

She continued with the same swiftness and serenity, mistress of histime and intelligence, as of her own luminous and elaborate plan. "Their size will have to be given, the edition, the place and date ofpublication, the number of their shelf, and their place on theshelves. "

Their place on the shelves indeed! If those books had got into DickyPilkington's clutches their place would know them no more. Hewondered; did she know nothing about Dicky Pilkington? Her planimplied certainty of possession, the permanence of the Harden Libraryworld without end. He wondered whether he ought not to remind her thatit might be about to come into the market, if it were not already asgood as sold?

"Besides the cataloguing I want notes on all the rare or remarkablebooks. I believe some of them are unique. "

He wondered more and more, and ended by wondering whether DickyPilkington were really so sure of his game?

"I see. You want a catalogue _raisonné_. "

"I want something like this. " She opened a drawer and showed him oneof Rickman's Special Quarterly Catalogues of a year back. Heremembered; it used to be sent regularly to old Sir Joseph Harden, their best customer. 

"My grandfather said these catalogues were models of their kind--theycould only have been done by a scholar. He wanted the librarycatalogued on the same lines. It was to have been done in hislifetime--"

"I wish it had been. I should have liked to have worked for Sir Joseph'Arden. "

Stirred by the praise, and by a sudden recollection of Sir Joseph, hespoke with a certain emotion, so that an aitch went by the board. 

"Are you quite sure, " said she, "that you know all about this sort ofwork?"

Had she noticed that hideous accident? And did it shake her belief inhis fitness for the scholarly task?

"This _is_ my work. I made that catalogue. I have to make them everyquarter, so it keeps my hand in. "

"Are you a quick worker?"

"Yes, I can be pretty quick. "

"Could you finish my catalogue by the twenty-seventh? That's a littlemore than three weeks. "

"Well--it would depend rather on the number of notes you wanted. Letme see--there must be about fourteen or fifteen thousand books here--"

"There are fifteen thousand. "

"It would take three weeks to make an ordinary catalogue; and thatwould be quick work, even for me. I'm afraid you must give me rathermore time. "

"I can't. I'm leaving England on the twenty-sixth. "

"Couldn't I go on with it in your absence?"

"No, that would hardly do. "

"If you could only give me another week--"

"I couldn't possibly. I have to join my father at Cannes on thetwenty-seventh. "

So she was Sir Frederick Harden's daughter then, not his wife. Herlast words were illuminating; they suggested the programme of a familywhose affairs were in liquidation. They also revealed Sir FrederickHarden's amazing indifference to the fate of the library, anindifference that argued a certain ignorance of its commercial value. His father who had a scent keen as a hound's for business had taken inthe situation. And Dicky, you might trust Dicky to be sure of hisgame. But if this were so, why should the Hardens engage in such aleisurely and expensive undertaking as a catalogue _raisonné_? Was thegay Sir Frederick trying to throw dust in the eyes of his creditors?

"I see, " he said, "Sir Frederick Harden is anxious to have thecatalogue finished before you leave?"

"No, he isn't anxious about it at all. He doesn't know it's beingdone. It is entirely my affair. "

So Sir Frederick's affairs and his daughter's were separate anddistinct; and apparently neither knew what the other was about. Rickman's conscience reproached him for the rather low cunning whichhad prompted him to force her hand. It also suggested that he oughtnot to take advantage of her ignorance. Miss Harden was charming, butevidently she was a little rash. 

"If I may make the suggestion, it might perhaps be wiser to wait tillyour return. "

"If it isn't done before I go, " said Miss Harden, "it may never bedone at all. "

"And you are very anxious that it should be done?"

"Yes, I am. But if you can't do it, you had better say so at once. "

"That would not be strictly true. I could do it, if I worked at itpretty nearly all day and half the night. Say sixteen hours out of thetwenty-four. "

"You are thinking of one person's work?"

"Yes. "

"But if there are two persons?"

"Then, of course, it would take eight hours. "

"So, if _I_ worked, too--"

"In that case, " he replied imperturbably, "it would take twelvehours. "

"You said eight just now. "

"Assuming that the two persons worked equally hard. "

She crossed to a table in the middle of the room, it was littered withpapers. She brought and showed him some sheets covered with delicatehandwriting; her work, poor lady. 

"This is a rough catalogue as far as I've got. I think it will be somehelp. "

"Very great help, " he murmured, stung by an indescribable compunction. He had not reckoned on this complication; and it made the ambiguity ofhis position detestable. It was bad enough to come sneaking into herhouse as his father's agent and spy, and be doing his business all thewhile that this adorably innocent lady believed him to be exclusivelyengaged on hers. But that she should work with him, toiling at acatalogue which would eventually be Rickman's catalogue, there wassomething in the notion extremely repulsive to his sense of honour. Under its muffling of headache his mind wrestled feebly with thesituation. He wished he had not got drunk last night so that he couldsee the thing clearly all round. As far as he could see at present theonly decent course was to back out of it. 

"What I have done covers the first five sections up to F. "

"I see, " he said with a faint interest, "you are keeping the classicaland modern sections distinct. "

"Yes, I thought that was better. "

"Much better. "

"I haven't begun the classical section yet. Can I leave that to you?"

"Certainly. " He felt that every assent was committing him to he knewnot what. 

"You see a great deal of the work is done already. That makes adifference, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yes; it makes all the difference. " And indeed it did. 

"In this case you can undertake it?"

"No. I think that in this case I couldn't undertake it at all. "

"But--why not?" she asked, as well she might. 

Why not, indeed? He walked two or three paces from her, trying tothink it out. If only his head didn't ache so abominably! To refuse toshare the work with her was of course to lay himself open to a mostdisgusting suspicion. 

He paced back again. Did she suspect him of mercenary motives? No; shesuspected nothing. Her face expressed disappointment and bewilderment, so far as she allowed it to express anything. One more turn. ThankGoodness, she was not looking at him; she was giving him time. Only asecond, though. She had seated herself, as much as to say she was nowwaiting for an explanation. He mustn't keep her waiting; he must saysomething, but what on earth was he going to say?

And as he looked at the lady so serenely seated, there rose up beforehim a sudden impertinent, incongruous vision of Miss Poppy Grace'slegs. They reminded him that certain affairs of his own imperativelycalled him back to town. Happy thought--why not say so?

"I ought to have said that in any case I couldn't undertake it. Icouldn't make time without giving up some very important engagements. "

"Could you not have thought of that before you came?"

"I did think of it. I thought I could fit everything in by going up totown from Saturday to Monday. But if I'm to finish by thetwenty-seventh, even--even with your help, I oughtn't to lose a day, much less three days. "

"I see. You are afraid of not being able to finish?"

He wavered, selecting some form of expression that might shadow forthwhat was passing in his mind. 

"I'm afraid of making any promises I mightn't be able to keep. "

Man's vacillation is Fate's determination, and Miss Harden was as firmas Fate. He felt that the fine long hands playing with the cataloguewere shaping events for him, while her eyes measured him with theirmeditative gaze. 

"I must risk that, " she said. "I should lose more than three days infinding a substitute, and I think you will do the work as I want itdone. "

"And supposing I can't do it in time?"

"Will you do your best--that's all?"

"Certainly; whatever I do, I shall do my best. And if I fail you--"

Left unfinished, hanging in mid air, the phrase suggested the vaguephantasmal contingencies for which he could find no name. 

"I am willing to take the risk. "

Her phrase too was satisfying. Its generous amplitude covered him likea cloak. 

"But we haven't arranged anything about terms. "

No, they had not. Was it in her adorable simplicity, or in the mererecklessness of her youth, that she engaged him first and talked aboutterms afterwards? Or did she know an honest man when she saw one? Hetook his note-book and pencil and made out an estimate with therapidity of happy inspiration, a fantastic estimate, incredibly andludicrously small. 

"Then, " said she, "there will be your expenses. "

He had not thought of that difficulty; but he soared above it, stillreckless and inspired. 

"Expenses? Oh, expenses are included. "

She considered the estimate with the prettiest pucker of hermeditative brows. 

"I don't understand these things; but--it seems very little. "

"Our usual charge. "

So swiftly did the wings of his inspiration carry him into the blueideal, high above both verbal verity and the gross material fact. 

She acquiesced, though with some reluctance. "Well, and when do youthink you can begin?"

"Whenever it's most convenient to you. I shall have to take a lookround first. "

"You can do that at once. "

By this time he had forgotten that whatever he might have drunk he hadeaten nothing since the dinner of last night. He had ceased to feelfaint and headachy and hungry, having reached that stage of faintness, headache and hunger when the body sheds its weight and seems to walkgloriously upon air, to be possessed of supernatural energy. He wentup and down library steps that were ladders, and stood perilously onthe tops of them. He walked round and round the walls, makingcalculations, till the library began to swing slowly round too, and athin circle of grey mist swung with it. And all the time he wasobscurely aware of a delicate grey-clad figure going to and fro in thegrey mist, or seated intent at the table, doing his work. He felt thather eyes followed him now and then. 

Heroism sustained him for an hour. At the end of the hour his progressround the room grew slower; and in passing by the table where she sat, he had to steady himself with one hand. A cold sweat broke on hisforehead. He mopped it furtively. He had every reason to believe thathis appearance was repulsive; and, in the same painful instant inwhich this conviction sank into him, she raised her head and he sawthat she was beautiful. The upward look revealed her. It was as ifsome veil, soft but obscuring, had dropped from her face. As her eyesscanned him gently, it occurred to him that she had probably neverbefore had an opportunity of intimately observing a gentlemansuffering from the remoter effects of intoxication. 

"You look tired, " she said. "Or are you ill?"

He stood shame-faced before her; for her eyes were more disconcertingthan when they had looked down on him from their height. They weretranquil now, full of kind thought and innocence and candour. Ofinnocence above all, a luminous innocence, a piercing purity. He wastroubled by her presence; but it was not so much her womanhood thattroubled him as the deep mystery of her youth. 

He could not look at it as it looked at him; for in looking at it heremembered last night and many nights before. Somehow it made him seethe things it could not see, his drunkenness, his folly, his passion, the villainous naked body of his sin. And it was for their work, andtheir marks upon him, that she pitied him. 

"Have you had anything to _eat_?" said she. 

"Oh, yes, thanks, " he answered vaguely. 

"When?"

"Well--as far as I can remember it was about eight o'clock lastnight. "

"Oh--how very thoughtless of me. I am so sorry. "

"It's my own fault entirely. I wouldn't have mentioned it, except toaccount for my stupidity. "

She crossed the room with a quick movement of distress and rang thebell. With horror he perceived her hospitable intention. 

She was actually ordering his dinner and his room. He heard every wordof her soft voice; it was saying that he was to have some soup, andthe chicken, and the tart--no, the jelly, and a bottle of burgundy, inthe morning-room. He saw the young footman standing almost on tip-toe, winged for service, fired with her enthusiasm and her secrecy. 

Coming on that sinister and ambiguous errand, how could he sleep underher roof? How could he eat her chicken, and drink her burgundy, andsit in her morning-room? And how could he explain that he could not?Happily she left him to settle the point with the footman. 

With surprise and a little concern Lucia Harden learnt that the ratherextraordinary young man, Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, had betaken himselfto an hotel. It appeared, that courteously, but with an earnestnessthat admitted of no contradiction, he had declined all hospitalitywhatever. 

CHAPTER XV

It was Friday morning, and Mr. Rickman lay in bed, outwardly beholdingthrough the open window the divinity of the sea, inwardlycontemplating the phantoms of the mind. For he judged them to bephantoms (alcoholic in their origin), his scruples of last night. Strictly speaking, it was on Wednesday night that he had got drunk;but he felt as if his intoxication had prolonged itself abnormally, asif this were the first moment of indubitable sobriety. 

And as he lay there, he prepared himself to act the part of the cold, abstracted, supercilious man of business, the part already toohorribly familiar to him as young Mr. Rickman of Rickman's. Hereflected how nearly he had wrecked his prospects in that character. He bade himself beware of woman and of drink, the two things mostfatal to stability of judgement. He recalled, painfully, the events oflast evening. He was not quite sure what he had done, or hadn't done;but he believed he had all but flung up the chance of securing forRickman's the great Harden Library. And he had quite a vivid anddisturbing recollection of the face, the person that had inspired himwith that impulse of fantastic folly. 

In the candid light of morning this view of his conduct presenteditself as the sane thinking of a regenerated intellect. He realized, as he had not realized before, how colossal was the opportunity he hadso narrowly let slip. The great Harden Library would come virgin intothe market, undefiled by the touch of commerce, the breath ofpublicity. It had been the pure and solitary delight of scholar loverswho would have been insulted by the suggestion that they shouldtraffic in its treasures. Everything depended on his keeping itssecret inviolate. Heavens! supposing he had backed out of thatcatalogue, and Miss Harden had called in another expert. At thispoint he detected in himself a tendency to wander from the matter inhand. He reminded himself that whatever else he was there for, he wasthere to guard the virginal seclusion of the Aldine Plato, theNeapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He triedto shut his eyes against his vivid and disturbing vision of the ladyof the library. It suggested that he was allowing that innocent personto pay fifteen pounds for a catalogue which he had some reason tobelieve would be of no earthly use to her. He sat up in bed, andsilenced its suggestions with all the gravity of his officialcharacter. If the young lady insisted on having a catalogue made, hemight as well make it as any one else; in fact, a great deal better. He tried to make himself believe that he regretted having charged herfifteen pounds when he might have got fifty. It was more thanunbusiness-like; it was, even for him, an incredibly idiotic thing todo; he would never have done it if he had not been hopelessly drunkthe night before. 

He got out of bed with a certain slow dignity and stepped into hiscold bath solemnly, as into a font of regeneration. And as he bathedhe still rehearsed with brilliance his appointed part. No criticism ofthe performance was offered by his actual self as revealed to him inthe looking-glass. It stared at him with an abstracted air, conspicuous in the helpless pathos of its nakedness. It affectedabsorption in the intricate evolutions of the bath. Something in itsmanner inspired him with a vague distrust. He noticed that thismorning it soaped itself with a peculiar care, that it displayed morethan usual interest in the trivial details of dress. It rejected anotherwise irreproachable shirt because of a minute wine stain on thecuff. It sniffed critically at its coat and trousers, and flung themto the other end of the room. It arrayed itself finally in a brand-newsuit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his rôle. He couldnot but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity of thecharacter he had determined to represent. It is not in his best coatand trousers that the book-dealer sets out on the dusty quest of theAldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ ofWynkyn de Worde. 

He could no longer conceal the fact that he had dressed himselfelaborately for an interview with Miss Harden. But he endeavoured toadjust his mind to a new and less disturbing view of the lady. He hadseen her last night through a flush of emotion that obscured her; hewould see her to-day in the pure and imperturbable light of themorning, and his nerves should not play the devil with him this time. He would be cool, calm, incorruptibly impersonal, as became Rickman, the man of business, Rickman of Rickman's. 

Unfortunately, though the rôle was rehearsed with ease in the privacyof his bedroom, it proved impossible to sustain it under Miss Harden'scandid eyes. At the first sight of them he lost all grasp and memoryof his part; he broke down disgracefully, miserably. The sound of hervoice revived his agony of the previous night. True, the flush ofemotion had subsided, but in the fierce intellectual light thatfollowed, his doubts and scruples showed plainer than ever. They evenacquired a certain logical order and cohesion. 

He concealed himself behind the projecting wing of a bookcase andwrestled with them there. Dispassionately considered, the situationstood thus. He was possessed of certain knowledge relating to SirFrederick Harden's affairs. That was neither bad nor good. He hadallowed Sir Frederick Harden's daughter to engage him in a certaincapacity, knowing perfectly well that she would not have done so hadshe herself possessed that knowledge. That was bad--distinctly bad. Hewas going to take advantage of that engagement to act in anothercapacity, not contemplated by his employer, namely, as valuer of saidemployer's property and possibly as the agent for its purchase, wellknowing that such purchase would be effected without reference to itsintrinsic or even to its market value. That was worse. 

These were the simple data of his problem. The problem (seen withexcruciating lucidity) stated itself thus. Assuming, first of all, Miss Harden's ignorance and his own knowledge, what was the correctattitude of his knowledge to her ignorance? In other words, was it hisbusiness to enlighten her as to the state of her father's finances?

No; it might be somebody else's business, but most decidedly it wasnot his. His business, as far as he could see it, was simply towithdraw as gracefully as possible from a position so difficult tooccupy with any decency. 

He must then make another attempt to back out of it. No doubt it wouldbe an uncommonly awkward thing to do. The lady had already shown avery pretty little will of her own, and supposing she insisted onholding him to his bargain? There was that estimate, too; it seemed tohave clinched things, somehow, between him and Miss Harden. He did notexactly know how to deal with that high-handed innocence, but he wouldask her to allow him to re-consider it. 

He approached her with his head tossed up a little more than usual, his way when he was about to do something disagreeable, to drive abargain or to ask a favour. 

"Miss Harden, may I speak to you one moment?"

She looked up. Her face and figure were radiant in the light from thesouth window. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

She was busy at one of the bookcases with a note-book and pencil, cataloguing on an absurd but independent plan of her own. He gave arueful glance at her. 

"I'm not sure that I ought to have let you engage me last night. Iwonder if I might ask you--"

"To release you from your engagement?"

"You must think I'm behaving very badly. "

She did not contradict him; neither did she assent. She held him forthe moment under her long penetrating gaze. Her eyes were not of thedetective sort, quick to penetrate disguises. They were (though shedid not know it) eyes that possessed the power of spiritual seduction, luring souls to confession. Your falseness might escape them; but ifthere was any truth in you, she compelled you to be true. 

She compelled Rickman to be impulsive. 

"I'd give anything to know what I ought to do. "

She did not help him out. 

"I can't make up my mind about this work. "

"Is it the question of time? I thought we had made that clear? Youdidn't undertake to finish by the twenty-seventh. "

"The question is whether I should have undertaken it at all. "

"It might have been as well to have answered that question first. "

"I couldn't answer it. There were so many things--"

"Do you want a longer time in town?"

"I want a longer time here, to think it over, to make up my mindwhether I can go on--"

"And in the meanwhile?"

"The work goes on just the same. "

"And if you decide that you can't continue it?"

"I should find a substitute. "

"The substitute might not be just the same. For instance, he might nothave so scrupulous a conscience. "

"You mean he might not be so eager to back out of his engagements. "

"I mean what I said. Your position seems to be a little difficult. "

"I wish to goodness, Miss Harden, I could explain it. "

"I don't suggest that you should explain it. It doesn't seem to be sovery clear to yourself. "

"It isn't. I really _don't_ know what I ought to do. "

"No more do I. But I can tell you what you ought to have done. Youought to have made up your mind last night. "

"Well, the fact is--last night--I hadn't very much mind left to makeup. "

"No, I remember. You _were_ rather done up. I don't want to bind youby last night, if it's at all unfair to you. "

"It isn't in the least unfair to me. But I'm not sure that it mightn'tbe very unfair to you; and, you see, I want to think it out. "

"Very well, think it out, and let me know some time to-night. Willthat satisfy you?"

"It ought to. "

And for the moment it did satisfy him. He felt that conscience, thatstern guardian of his conduct, was off duty for the day. He was free(for the day) to abandon himself to the charm of Miss Harden'ssociety. The experience, he told himself, would be altogether new anddelightful. 

New it undoubtedly was; but he remained a little uncertain as to thedelight; the immediate effect of Miss Harden's presence being anintellectual disturbance amounting almost to aberration. It showeditself, first of all, in a frightful exaltation of the consciousnessof self. To Mr. Rickman, striving to be noiseless, it seemed that thesound of his boots, as he crossed the library, reverberated throughthe immensity of space, while the creaking of his new bracesadvertised in the most horrible manner his rising up and his sittingdown. Things were worse when he sat down; for then his breathing, light but noticeably frequent, made him the unquiet centre of theroom. In the surrounding stillness the blowing of his nose became amonstrous and appalling act. And no sooner was his attentionabstracted from his nose than it settled in his throat, producing aseries of spasmodic contractions which he imagined to be distinctlyaudible. It was really as if his body had somehow detached itself, andwas rioting in a conspicuous and unseemly individuality of its own. Hewondered what Miss Harden thought of its behaviour. 

This state of things was bad enough when he was separated from her bythe entire length of the room; but their work required a certaincollaboration, and there were occasions when he was established nearher, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, hewas compelled to speak to her. No language could describe the anguishand difficulty of these approaches. His way was beset by obstacles andperils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for himthe shameful pitfall of the aitch. He whose easy courtesy charmed awaythe shyness of Miss Flossie Walker, whose conversation (when hedeigned to converse) was the wonder and delight of the ladies of hisboarding-house, now blushed to hear himself speak. The tones of hisvoice were hateful to him; he detected in them some subtle andabominable quality that he had not observed before. How would theyappeal to Miss Harden? For this miserable consciousness of himself waspervaded, transcended by his consciousness of her. 

Of her beauty he grew every minute more aware. It was not of theconspicuous and conquering kind; it carried no flaming banner oftriumphant sex; indeed, it demanded a kindred fineness of perceptionto discern it, being yet vague with the softness of her youth. Herhair was mere darkness without colour or flame, her face merewhiteness without a flush; all her colour and her light were, whereher soul was, in her mouth and eyes. These showed more vivid for thattoneless setting; they dominated her face. However he looked at herhis gaze was led up to them. For the long dim lines of her body flowedupwards from her feet like the curves of a slender flame, mingling, aspiring, vanishing; the edges of her features were indistinct as theedges of a flame. This effect of an upward sweep was repeated in thetilt of her vivid mouth and emphasised by the arch of her eyebrows, giving a faintly interrogative expression to her face. All this henoticed. He noticed everything about her, from the fine curlingflame-like edges of her mouth and the flawless rim of her ears, to herfinger-tips and the slope of her small imperious feet. He caught everyinflection of her voice; without looking at her, he was aware of everyturn of her head, every movement of her eyelids; he watched withfurtive interest her way of touching and handling things, of risingand sitting, of walking and being still. It was a new way, unlikePoppy's way, or Flossie's way, or the way of any woman he had yetseen. What struck him most was the intense quiet of her presence; itwas this that made his own so noisy and obtrusive. 

And yet, she didn't, she really didn't appear to notice it. She mighthave been unaware that there was any such person as Mr. Savage KeithRickman in the room. He wondered how on earth she achieved that sereneunconsciousness; he came to the conclusion that it was not her ownachievement at all, but the achievement of her race. Theirs too thatsomething subtly imperious in her bearing, which seemed not so muchthe attitude of her mind as the way her head was set on her shoulders. He could not say that she betrayed any sense of his socialinferiority, unless it were in a certain courtesy which he gathered tobe rather more finished than any she would have shown to a man of herown class. 

It was not only finished, it was final. The thing was so perfect initself that obviously it could lead no further. She would say in herexquisite voice, "Would you mind taking these five volumes back toyour shelf?" or, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can you tell mewhether this is the original binding?" Under no circumstances could heimagine himself replying, "I wouldn't mind taking fifty volumes, " or"I like being interrupted. " All this was a complete inversion of therules that Keith Rickman was acquainted with as governing politeintercourse between the sexes, and he found it extremelydisconcerting. It was as if some fine but untransparent veil had beenhung between him and her, dividing them more effectually than abarricade. 

The wonder, which grew with the morning, was not so much in the thingsshe said as in the things she didn't say. Her powers of reservationseemed to Rickman little short of miraculous. Until yesterday he hadnever met a woman who did not, by some look or tone or movement of herbody, reveal what she was thinking about him. Whatever Miss Hardenthought about him she kept it to herself. Unfortunately the same highdegree of reticence was expected from him, and to Keith Rickman, whennot restrained by excess of shyness, reticence came hard. It was aptto break down when a severe strain was put on it, as had been the casethat morning. And it was appointed that the same thing should happento him this afternoon. 

As far as he could remember it happened in this way. He was busygetting the Greek dramatists into their places, an enterprise whichfrequently took him to her end of the room where Sir Joseph hadestablished his classical library. He was sitting on the top of thesteps, when she approached him carrying six vellum bound volumes inher arms, Sir Joseph's edition of Euripides of which the notesexceeded the text. He dismounted and took the books from her, turningvery red as he did so. 

"You should let me do all the carrying. These books are too heavy foryou. "

"Thank you, I think they ought to go with the others, on this shelf. "

He did not answer all at once. He was absorbed in the Euripides. Itwas an _édition de luxe_, the Greek text exquisitely printed from afount of semi-uncial type, the special glory of the Harden Classics. 

He exclaimed, "What magnificent type!"

She smiled. 

"It's rare too. I've never seen any other specimen--in modernprinting. "

"There is no other specimen, " said she. 

"Yes, there is. One book at least, printed, I think, in Germany. "

"Is there? It was set up from a new fount specially made for thisedition. I always supposed my grandfather invented it. "

"Oh no, he couldn't have done that. He may have adapted it. In fact, he must have adapted it. "

This young man had set aside a cherished tradition, as lightly as ifhe were blowing the dust off the leaves. She was interested. 

"How can you tell that?"

"Oh, I know. It's very like a manuscript in the British Museum. "

"What manuscript?"

"The Greek text of the Complutensian Polyglot. " (He could not helpsaying to himself, 'That ought to fetch her!') "But it doesn't followthat it's the same type. Whatever it is, it's very beautiful. "

"It's easier to read, too, than the ordinary kind. "

He was still turning over the pages, handling the book as a loverhandles the thing he loves. The very touch of the vellum thrilled himwith an almost sensual rapture. Here and there a line flashed from achorus and lured him deeper into the text. His impulse was still toexclaim, but a finer instinct taught him to suppress his scholarlyemotion. Looking up as she spoke he saw her eyes fixed on him with acurious sympathy. And as he thought of the possible destiny of theEuripides he felt guilty as of a treachery towards her in loving thesame book. 

"Do you read Euripides?" he asked with naïve wonder. 

"Yes. "

"And Æschylus and Sophocles and Aristoph--?" Mr. Rickman becameembarrassed as he recalled certain curious passages, and in hisembarrassment he rushed upon his doom--"and--and 'Omer?"

It was a breakdown unparalleled in his history. Never since hischildhood had he neglected the aspirate in Homer. A flush mademanifest his agony. He frowned, and gazed at her steadily, as if hedefied her to judge him by that lapse. 

"Yes, " said the lady; but she was not thinking of Homer. 

"By Jove, " he murmured pensively. His eyes turned from her anddevoured the text. He was torn between abject admiration of the ladyand of the book. 

"Which do you like best?" he asked suddenly. Æschylus or Sophocles?But it's an absurd question. "

"Why absurd?"

"Because they're so different. "

"Are they?" To tell the truth she was not thinking of them any morethan she had been thinking of Homer. 

He became perfectly hectic with excitement. "Rather! Can't you see thedifference? Sophocles carved his tragedies. He carved them in ivory, polished them up, back and front, till you can't see the marks of thechisel. And Æschylus jabbed his out of the naked granite where itstood, and left them there with the sea at their feet, and the mistround their heads, and the fire at their hearts. "

"But--but he left the edges a little rough. "

"He did. God leaves them so sometimes when he's making a big thing. "

Something like a faint ripple of light passed over her face under theobscuring veil it wore for him. 

"But Sophocles is perfect, " said she. She was not thinking ofSophocles one bit; she was thinking that when God made Mr. Rickman hehad left the edges rough, and wondering whether it was possible thathe had made "a big thing. "

"Oh yes, he's perfect. " He began to quote softly and fluently, to heruttermost surprise. His English was at times a thing to shudder at, but his Greek was irreproachable, perfect in its modulation and itsflow. Freed from all flaws of accent, the musical quality of his voicedeclared itself indubitably, marvellously pure. 

The veil lifted. Her smile was a flash of intelligence, the sexless, impersonal intelligence of the scholar. This maker of catalogues, withthe tripping tongue that Greek made golden, he had touched theelectric chain that linked them under the deep, under the social gulf. 

"Did you ever hear such a chorus? Pure liquid gold, every line of it. Still, you can read Sophocles with your hair on. I should have thoughtmost worn--most ladies would like Euripides best?"

"Why? Because they understand him best?"

"No. Because he understood them best. "

"Did he understand them? Euripides, " said the young lady withdecision, "was a decadent. "

"Was he? How about the _Bacchæ_? Of course, it's worth all the rest ofhis plays put together; they're not in the same street with it. It's athing to dream about, to go mad about. "

"My grandfather says it's not Euripidean. " "Good Lord! How do we knowit isn't the most Euripidean of the lot?"

"Well, it stands alone, doesn't it?"

"Yes. And he stands with it. "

"Does he? My grandfather was judging him by his average. "

"His average? Oh, I say, you know, you could reduce some very greatpoets to mediocrity by striking their average. Wouldn't you allow aman to be at least as great as his greatest achievement?"

"I wonder--"

"Anyhow, those are ripping good notes in that edition. "

"They ought to be. They were by a good scholar--his greatestachievement. "

He put down the Harden Euripides; and it struck Lucia that if SirJoseph had been there this truthful young man would not have hesitatedto put him down too. She laid her hand on the book with an air ofpossession and protection, which was a lesson in tact for the truthfulyoung man. He leaned up against the bookcase with his hands in hispockets. 

"I say, " said he, "I hope you don't mind my talking like this to you?"

"No. Why shouldn't you?"

"Well, it isn't exactly what I'm here for. "

That exciting conversation had lasted barely fifteen minutes; but ithad set him for the time being at his ease. He had at any rate provedhimself a scholar, and he was so far happier. He felt that he wasbeginning to get on with Miss Harden, to see a little way across thegulf, discerning the outlines of the further shore where that highlady walked unveiled. 

Then suddenly, owing to a most humiliating incident, the gulf yawnedagain. 

It was five o'clock, and he was left alone in the company of afascinating little tea-table, laid, as if for a guest, with fine whitelinen, silk embroidered, with early Georgian silver and old china. Itwas laid for him, that little tea-table. He had delayed a littlebefore beginning his repast, and it happened that when Miss Hardenappeared again she found him holding a tea-cup to his lips with onehand, while the other groped in a dish of cream cakes, abstractedly, and without the guidance of a selective eye. Both eyes indeed weregazing dreamily over the rim of the tea-cup at her empty chair. He wasall right; so why, oh why did he turn brick-red and dash his cup downand draw back his innocent hand? That was what he had seen the errandboy at Rickman's do, when he caught him eating lunch in a darkpassage. He always had compassion on that poor pariah and left him tofinish his meal in privacy; and with the same delicacy Miss Harden, perceiving his agony, withdrew. He was aware that the incident hadmarked him. 

He stood exactly where he stood before. Expert knowledge was nothing. Mere conversational dexterity was nothing. He could talk to her aboutEuripides and Sophocles till all was blue; he could not blow his nosebefore her, or eat and drink before her, like a gentleman, withoutshame and fear. 

They talked no more that evening. 

CHAPTER XVI

At seven he again refused Miss Harden's hospitality and withdrew tohis hotel. He was to return before nine to let her know his decision, and as yet he had done nothing towards thinking it out. 

A letter had come for him by the evening post. It had been forwardedfrom his rooms and ran thus. 

 "My dear Rickets:

 "I haven't forgotten about your little supper, so mind you turn up at our little pic-nic before Dicky drinks all the champagne. It's going to be awfully select. 

 "Ever your own and nobody else's, "Poppy Grace. 

 "P. S. --How is your poor head?"

There are many ways of being kind and that was Poppy's way. She wantedto tell him not to be cut up about Wednesday night; that, whateverDicky Pilkington thought of his pretensions, she still reckoned him inthe number of the awfully select. And lest he should have deepergrounds for uneasiness her postscript hinted in the most delicatemanner possible that she had not taken him seriously, attributing hisutterances to their true cause. And yet she was his own and nobodyelse's. She was a good sort, Poppy, taking her all round. 

He tried to think about Poppy and found it difficult. His mindwandered; not into the realms of fancy, but into paths strange andhumiliating for a scholar and a poet. He caught himself murmuring, "Harmouth--Harcombe--Homer--Harden. " He had got them all right. Henever dreamed of--of dropping them when he wasn't excited. It wasonly in the beaten tracks where his father had gone before him that hewas apt to slide. He was triumphant over Harmouth where he might havetripped over Hammersmith. Homer and Hesiod were as safe with him aswith Horace Jewdwine. (He couldn't think how he had managed to come togrief over Homer just now. It was nerves, or luck, or pure accident, the sort of thing that might have happened to anybody. ) Thank Heaven, his tongue was almost virgin to the aitch in Harden. 

Harden--Lucia Harden. He knew her name and how to pronounce it; for hehad seen it written in the fly-leaf of a book, and heard it spoken bythe footman who called her Miss Loocher. This he took to be acorruption of the Italian form. 

Here he again tried to evoke a vivid image of Poppy; but withoutsuccess. And then he remembered that he had still to think it out. 

First of all, then, he would eliminate sentiment. Sentiment apart, hewas by no means sure that he would do well to act on the impulse ofthe morning and decamp. After all, what _was_ he sure of? Was he surethat Sir Frederick Harden's affairs, including his library, wereinvolved beyond redemption? Put it that there was an off-chance of SirFrederick's financial recovery. 

From the bare, uninteresting, financial point of view that event wouldentail some regrettable consequences for himself. He had beenextremely rash. He had undertaken to accomplish three weeks' expertwork to the value of fifty pounds for which he had charged fifteen, anestimate that at Rickman's would have been considered ridiculous for aman's bare time. He had not so much as mentioned his fare; he hadrefused board and lodging; and on the most sanguine computation hisfees would only cover his expenses by about five pounds. Thedifference between fifteen pounds and fifty would have to be refundedout of his own private pocket. When it came to settling accounts withRickman's his position would be, to say the least of it, embarrassing. It was difficult to unravel the mental process that had led him intoit; but it was not the first time that these luxurious subtleties ofconscience had caused him to run short of ready money. It was onlyanother of those innumerable occasions when he and his father failedto see face to face, and when he had had to pay for the pleasure ofsupporting a fantastic personal view. Only the view in this case wasso hideously complicated and--and exaggerated. And this time in orderto clear himself he would be compelled to borrow again from DickyPilkington. There was no other way. No sooner did Sir Frederick's headappear rising above water than he saw his own hopelessly submerged. 

Nevertheless it was this prospect that he found himself contemplatingwith all the ardour of desire. It justified not only his presence inthe Harden Library, but Miss Harden's presence as his collaborator. With all its unpleasantness it was infinitely preferable to the otheralternative. He let his mind dwell on it until the off-chance began tolook like an absolute certainty. 

Put it then that Sir Frederick recovered. In this case the Hardensscored. Since he had charged Miss Harden fifteen where he was entitledto fifty, the best part of his labour might be considered a free giftto the lady. What was more, in the matter of commission, he stood tolose a very considerable sum. Put it that the chances were even, andthe whole business resolved itself into a game of pitch and toss. Heads, Miss Harden lost; tails, she won; and he wasn't responsible forthe tossing. 

But put it that Sir Frederick did not recover. Then he, Keith Rickman, was in a position most unpleasant for himself; but he could not makethings a bit pleasanter for Miss Harden by wriggling out of it. Thelibrary would be sold whether he stayed there or not; and by stayinghe might possibly protect her interests in the sale. It wasn't a nicething to have to be keeping his eye all the time on the Aldine Platoand the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde;but he would only be doing what must be done by somebody in any case. Conclusion; however unpleasant for him to be the agent for the sale, it would be safer for Miss Harden. 

And how about those confounded profits, represented by his commission?That was easily settled. He would have nothing to do with the filthythings. He wouldn't touch his commission with the end of the poker. Unfortunately he would never be able to explain all this to her, andHeaven only knew what she would think of him when it all came out inthe long-run, as it was bound to come. Well, it wouldn't matter whatshe thought of him so long as he knew that his hands were clean. Rickman's' hands might not be so presentable, but they were not humanhands as his were; they were the iron, irresponsible hands of amachine. 

There remained his arrangements for the Bank holiday. They seemed tohave been made so long ago that they hardly counted. Still, there wasthat engagement to Poppy Grace, and he had promised to take poorFlossie to the Hippodrome. Poor Flossie would be disappointed if hedid not take her to the Hippodrome. At the moment Flossie'sdisappointment presented itself as considerably more vital than hisown. 

To-morrow, then, being Saturday, he would go up to town; and on Mondayhe would return to his ambiguous post. 

He had thought it out. 

CHAPTER XVII

"There's a lot of rot, " said Mr. Rickman, "talked about Greek tragedy. But really, if you come to think of it, it's only in Sophocles you getthe tragedy of Fate. There isn't any such thing in Æschylus, youknow. "

He had gone up to acquaint Miss Harden with his decision and had beenled off into this hopeful track by the seductions that still lurked inthe Euripides. 

"There's Nemesis, which is the same thing, " said she. 

"Not at all the same thing. Nemesis is simply the horrid jealousy ofthe gods; and the responsibility lies with the person who provokesthem, whether it's Prometheus, or Agamemnon, or Agamemnon's greatgreat grandfather. It's the tragedy of human responsibility, the mostbrutal tragedy of all. All these people are crumpled up with it, theygo about tearing their hair over it, and howling out [Greek: drasantipathein]. There isn't any Fate in that, you know. Is there?"

He did not wait for an answer. 

"In Sophocles now, it's all the other way about. His people aren'tresponsible in the least. They're just a thundering lot of lunatics. They go knocking their poor heads against the divine law, and tryingto see which is the hardest, till they end by breaking both. There'sno question of paying for the damage. It's pure Fate. "

"Well--and Euripides?"

"Oh, Euripides goes on another tack altogether. There aren't any lawsto break, yet everybody's miserable all round, and nobody'sresponsible. It's [Greek: tô pathonti pathein]. They suffer becausethey suffer, and there's an end of it. And it's the end of Fate inGreek tragedy. I know this isn't the orthodox view of it. "

He paused, a little out of breath, for he had talked as usual againsttime, leaving behind him a luminous trail of ideas struck outfuriously as he rushed along. His excitement was of the strong-wingedkind that carried him triumphantly over all obstacles, even thebarrier of the aitch. 

Was she listening?

She was; but as she listened she looked down, and her fingers playedwith the slender gold chain that went twice round her throat and fellamong the laces of her gown. On her mouth there was the same smile hehad seen when he first saw her; he took it for a smile of innermostamusement. It didn't lurk; there was nothing underhand about it. Ithovered, delicately poised for flight. 

"Euripides, " she said, "had the deeper insight, then. He knew thatcharacter is destiny. "

"That character is destiny? Whose character? For all I know yourcharacter may be my destiny. "

It was one of those unconsidered speeches, flashed out in the heat ofargument, which nevertheless, once uttered are felt to be terrific andmomentous. He wondered how Miss Harden would take it. She took it (asshe seemed to take most things) calmly. 

"No character could have any power over you except through your own. "

"Perhaps not. All the same, you are not me, you are something outside. You would be my destiny. "

He paused again. Personalities were pitfalls which he must avoid. Nosuch danger existed for the lady; she simply ignored it; her mindnever touched those deeper issues of the discussion where hisfloundered, perilously immersed. Still she was not unwilling to pursuethe theme. 

"It all depends, " said she, "on what you mean by destiny. "

"Well, say I mean the end, the end I'm moving towards, the end Iultimately arrive at--"

"Surely that depends on your character, your character, of course, asa whole. "

"It may or mayn't. It may depend on what I eat or don't eat fordinner, on the paper I take in or the pattern of my waistcoat. And theend may be utterly repellent to my character as a whole. Say I end byadopting an unsuitable profession. Is that my character or mydestiny?"

"Your character, I think, or you wouldn't have adopted it. "

"H'm. Supposing it adopts me?"

"It couldn't--against your will. "

"No. But my will in this instance might not be the expression of mycharacter as a whole. Why, I may be doing violence to my character asa whole by--by the unique absurdity that dishes me. That's destiny, ifyou like, but it's not character--not my character, anyhow. "

Personalities again. Whither could he flee from their presence? Eventhe frigid realm of abstractions was shaken by the beating of his ownpassionate heart. Her eyes had the allurements of the confessional; hehovered, fascinated, round the holy precincts, for ever on the brinkof revelation. It was ungovernable, this tendency to talk abouthimself. In another minute--But no, most decidedly that was not whathe was there for. 

If it came to that, what _was_ he there for? It was so incredible thathe should be there at all. And yet there he was going to stay, forthree weeks, and more. He had come to tell her so. 

Miss Harden received the announcement as if it had been a foregoneconclusion. 

"It is settled, then?" said she, "you will have no more scruples?"

"None. "

"There's only one thing. I must ask you not to give anybody anyinformation about the library. We don't want to be bothered withdealers and collectors. Some of the books are so valuable that weshould never have any peace if their whereabouts became known. Can youkeep the secret?"

His heart sank as he remembered the Aldine Plato and the NeapolitanHorace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. But he pledgedhimself to absolute discretion, an inviolable secrecy. Why not? He wasa dealer himself and obviously it was his interest to keep otherdealers in the dark. It was an entirely sensible and business-likepledge. And yet in giving it he felt that he was committing himself tosomething unique, something profound, and intimate and irrevocable. Hehad burnt his ships, severed himself body and soul from Rickman's. Ifit were Miss Harden's interest that he should defend that secret fromhis own father, he would have to defend it. He had given his word; andfor the life of him he could not tell why. 

In the same way he felt that in spite of his many ingenious argumentshis determination to stay had in it something mysterious andunforeseen. He had said to her, "Your character may be my destiny. "And perhaps it was. He felt that tremendous issues hung upon hisdecision, and that all along he had been forced into it somehow fromoutside himself, rather than from within. And yet, as he sat therefeeling all this, while he worked at the abominable catalogue_raisonné_, he decided further that he would not go away at all. 

He would not go back to town to-morrow. He could not afford the time. He must and would finish that catalogue _raisonné_ by thetwenty-seventh. He had as good as pledged his word to Miss Harden. Supposing the pledge had a purely ideal, even fantastic value, he wasnone the less bound by it, in fact considerably more. For he and shecould only meet in an ideal and fantastic region, and he served her inan ideal and fantastic capacity, on the wholly ideal and fantasticassumption that the library was hers. Such a pledge would, heimagined, be held supreme in the world where honour and Miss Hardenmet face to face. And on him it was conceivably more binding than thepromise to take Flossie to the Hippodrome on Saturday, or tointoxicate himself on Sunday with champagne in the society of MissPoppy Grace. Its sovereignty cancelled the priority of the moretrivial and the grosser claim. His word to Miss Harden was one ofthose fine immortal things that can only be redeemed at the cost ofthe actual. To redeem it he was prepared for sacrifice, even thesacrifice of the great three days. 

He worked late that night and she told him of a short cut to the townby the river path at the bottom of the garden. Half-way to the riverhe stopped and looked back. The beech tree dreamed, silent on a slopeof glimmering lawn. The house loomed in the background, a grey masswith blurred outlines. From a window open in the east wing he couldhear the sound of a piano. 

He stood still and listened. All around was the tender, indescribableDevonshire night; it hung about him with warm scented breath; he feltits heart beat in the innumerable pulses of the stars. Behind the bluetransparent darkness the music throbbed like a dawn; it swayed andsank, piano, pianissimo, and streamed out again into the night, dividing the darkness. It flowed on in a tumult, a tremendous tumult, rhythmic and controlled. What was she playing? If he stayed tillmidnight he must hear it through. Night sheltered him, and he drewnearer lest he should lose a note. He stretched himself on the lawn, and, with his head on his arms, he lay under the beech-tree, under thestars, dreaming, while Lucia Harden played to him the SonataAppassionata. 

It was good to be there; but he did not know, and the music did nottell him why he was there and what he was there for. 

And yet it was the Sonata Appassionata. 

CHAPTER XVIII

It was the afternoon of Saturday the fourth that Mr. Rickman, lookingup from his table, saw a brilliant apparition coming across the lawn. He dreaded afternoon callers, he dreaded the post, he dreaded everyperson and every thing which reminded him that Lucia Harden had a lifethat he knew not and that knew not him. 

"Lucia--Lucia!" Mr. Rickman looked up and saw the brilliant apparitionstanding in the south window. "Lu-chee-a!--" it pleaded. "You can'tsay you're out when I can see perfectly well that you're in. "

"Go away Kitty, I'm busy. "

"You've no business to be busy at five o'clock in the afternoon. "

Miss Kitty Palliser's body was outside the window, but her head, crowned with a marvellous double-peaked hat of Parma violets, wasalready within the room. 

"I'm dying of thirst, " she said; "take me in and be kind to me andgive me tea. "

Lucia rose and went to the window, reluctant but resigned. Scraps oftheir conversation floated down to Mr. Rickman's end of the room. 

"Yes, you may well look at my hat. "

"I wasn't looking at it, I was looking through it. "

"Well, if you can see through my hat, Lucia, you can see through me. What do you think of it?"

"Of the hat? Oh, the hat is a poem. "

"Isn't it? Did you ever see anything so inspired, so impassioned?"

"Inspired, but--don't you think--just a little, a little meaningless?"

"Meaningless? It's _packed_ with meaning. "

"I should like to know what it means. "

"If it means nothing else it means that I've been going to and frothe whole blessed afternoon, paying calls in Harmouth for my sins. "

"Poor Kitty. "

"The last three times I paid calls in Harmouth, " said poor Kitty, "Isported a cycling skirt, the blousiest of blouses, and a tam-o'shanterover my left ear. Of course everybody was in. So I thought if I wentlike this--brand new frock--swagger hat--white gloves--that everybodywould be out. "

"And were they?"

"No. Just like my luck--they were all--all in!"

"And yet you have the audacity to come here and ask for tea?"

"For Goodness' sake, don't talk of tea. "

"I thought you were so thirsty. "

"So I am. I thirst for amusement. "

"Kitty! You've been amusing yourself all afternoon--at other people'sexpense. "

"Yes. It's cheap--awfully cheap, but fatiguing. I don't want to amusemyself; I want to be amused. "

Mr. Rickman took a longer look at the brilliant apparition. 

Now, at a little distance, Miss Palliser passed as merely an ordinaryspecimen of a brilliant but conventional type. This effect was anillusion produced by her irreproachably correct attire. As she drewnearer it became apparent that convention could never have had verymuch to do with her. Tailor and milliner were responsible for thegeneral correctness of Miss Palliser's appearance, Miss Palliserherself for the riot and confusion of the details. Her coat, flungopen, displayed a tangle of laces disposed after her own fancy. Herskirts, so flawless and sedate, swept as if inspired by the storm ofher long-legged impetuous stride. Under her too, too fashionable hather brown hair was twisted in a way entirely her own; and fashion hadleft untouched the wild originality of her face. Bumpy brows, juttingeyebrows, and nose long in the bridge, wide in the nostril, tilted ina gentle gradient; a wide full-lipped nervous mouth, and no chin tospeak of. A thin face lit by restless greenish eyes; stag-like, dog-like, humorous and alert. 

Miss Palliser sent the gaze of those eyes round the room. The hungry, Satanic humour in them roved, seeking what it might devour. It fellupon Mr. Rickman. 

"What have you got there?"

Miss Harden's reply was inaudible. 

"Let me in. I want to look at it. "

"Don't, Kitty. " Apparently an explanation followed from Miss Harden. It also was inaudible. 

"Lu-_chee_-a. ! Where is Miss Roots, B. A. ?"

"Please, _please_, Kitty. Do go into the morning-room. "

This painful scene was cut short by Robert, who announced that tea wasserved. 

"Oh joy!" said Miss Palliser, and disappeared. 

Lucia, following, found her examining the tea-tray. 

"Only two cups, " said Miss Palliser. "Isn't it going to get any teathen?"

"Isn't what going to get any tea?"

"It. The man thing you keep in there. "

"Yes. But it doesn't get it here. "

"I think you might ask it in. It might amuse me. "

Lucia ignored the suggestion. 

"I haven't talked, " said Miss Palliser, "to a man thing for ages. "

"It hasn't come to be talked to. It's much too busy. "

"Mayn't it come in, just for a treat?"

Lucia shook her head. 

"What's it like? Is it nice to look at?"

"No--yes--no. "

"What? Haven't you made up your mind yet?"

"I haven't thought about it. "

"Lucia, you're a perfect dog in the manger. You don't care a rap aboutthe creature yourself, and yet you refuse to share it with yourfriend. I put it to you. Here we are, you and I, living in a howlingwilderness untrodden by the foot of man, where even curates are at apremium--is it right, is it fair of you, to have a presentableman-thing in the house and to keep it to yourself?"

"Well--you see, it--it isn't so very presentable. "

"Rubbish, I saw it. It looked perfectly all right. "

"That, " said Lucia, "is illusion. You haven't heard it speak. "

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing--nothing. Only it isn't exactly what you'd call a gentleman. "

"Oh. Well, I think you might have told me that before. "

"I've been trying to tell you. "

Kitty reflected a moment. "So it's making a catalogue, is it? Whosebright idea is that?"

"It was grandpapa's. It's mine now. " She did not mention that it wasalso Horace Jewdwine's. 

"And what will your little papa say?"

"He won't say anything. He never does. The library's mine--mine to doas I like with. "

"You've broken the spell. Isn't there some weird legend about womennever inheriting it?"

"Well, they never have. I shall be the first. "

"I say, if I were you, I should feel a little creepy. "

"I do--sometimes. That's one reason why I want to get this thing madein my lifetime, before I go away. "

"Good gracious. You're not going away to die. "

"I don't know what I'm going away to do. Anyhow, the catalogue will bedone. All ready for Horace when he steps into my shoes. "

"Unless--happy thought--you marry him. That, I suppose, is _another_pair of shoes?"

There was a pause, during which Miss Palliser gazed thoughtfully ather friend. 

"What have you been doing to yourself? You look most awfully tired. "

"I've been sitting up rather late the last few nights, cataloguing. "

"What on earth did you do that for?"

"Because I want to finish by the twenty-seventh. "

There was a pause while Miss Palliser ate tea-cake. 

"Is Horace coming down before you go?"

"No. He's too busy. Besides, he never comes when father isn't here. "

"Oh dear no, he doesn't think it proper. It's odd, " said MissPalliser, looking down at her tea-cake with an air of profoundphilosophic reflection. "You can't ask your cousin to stay with you, because it's improper; but it isn't improper to sit up makingcatalogues with young Mr. Thing-um-a-jig till all hours of the night. "

"Why should it be improper?"

"For Goodness' sake don't ask me. How should _I_ know? Don't you findyourself wishing sometimes that Mr. Thing-um-a-jig was Mr. Jewdwine?"

"More tea, Kitty?"

"Rather! I'm going into the library to choose a book when I'vefinished my tea. I shall take the opportunity of observing for myselfwhether Mr. --Mr. --"

"Mr. Savage Keith Rickman. "

"Good Lord deliver us! Whether Mr. Savage Keith Rickman is a properperson for you to know. That reminds me. Dearest, do you know whatthey talk about in Harmouth? They talk about _you_. Conversationjiggers round you like a silly moth round a candle. Would you like toknow what Harmouth thinks of you?"

"No. I haven't the smallest curiosity. "

"I shall tell you all the same, because it's good for you to seeyourself as others see you. They say, dear, that you do put on such athundering lot of side. They say that attitude is absurd in one soyoung. They say you ought to marry, that if you don't marry you can'tpossibly hope to keep it up, and they say you never will marry if youcontinue to be so exclusive. Exclusive was the word. But before I leftthey'd married you to Mr. Jewdwine. You see dear, you're so exclusivethat you're bound to marry into your own family, no other family beinggood enough. "

"It's certainly a new light on my character. "

"I ought to tell you that Mrs. Crampton takes a charitable view. Shesays she doesn't believe you really mean it, dear, she thinks that youare only very, _very_ shy. She has heard _so_ much about you, and is_dying_ to know you. Don't be frightened, Lucia, I was most discreet. "

"How did you show your discretion?"

"I told her not to die. I tried to persuade her that she wouldn't loveyou so much if she did know you. "

"Kitty, that wasn't very kind. "

"It was the kindest thing I could think of. It must soothe her tofeel that this exclusiveness doesn't imply any reflection on hersocial position, but merely a weird unaccountable dislike. How is itthat some people can't understand that your social position is likeyour digestion or the nose on your face, you're never aware of either, unless there's something wrong with it. "

"Kitty, you're not in a nice mood this afternoon. "

"I know I'm not. I've been in Harmouth. Lucy, there are moments when Iloathe my fellow-creatures. "

"Poor things. Whatever have they been doing now?"

"Oh, I don't know. The same old thing. They make my life a burden tome?"

"But how?"

"They're always bothering me, always trying to get at you through me. They're always asking me to tea to meet people in the hope that I'llask them back to meet you. I'm worn out with keeping them off you. Some day all Harmouth will come bursting into your drawing-room overmy prostrate form, flattened out upon the door-mat. "

"Never mind. "

"I wouldn't, sweetheart, if they really cared about you. But theydon't. If you lost your money and your social position to-morrow theywouldn't care a rap. That's why I hate them. "

"Why do you visit them if you hate them?"

"Because, as I told you, I hunger and thirst for amusement, and theydo amuse me when they don't make me ill. "

"Dear Kitty, I'm sure they're nicer than you think. Most people are, you know. "

"If you think so, why don't _you_ visit them?" snapped Kitty. 

"I would, if--"

"If they ceased to be amusing; if they broke their legs or lost theirmoney, or if they got paralytic strokes, or something. You'd visitthem in their affliction, but not in the ordinary playfulcircumstances of life. That's because you're an angel. _I_, " said MissPalliser sententiously, "am not. Why do I always come to you when Ifeel most hopelessly the other thing?"

Lucia said something that had a very soothing effect; it sounded like"Skittles!" but the word was "Kitti-kin!"

"Lucy, I shouldn't be such a bad sort if I lived with you. I've beenhere exactly twenty minutes, and I've laid in enough goodness to lastme for a week. And now, " said Miss Palliser with decision, "I'mgoing. "

Lucia looked up in some trepidation. 

"Where are you going to?"

"I am going--to choose that book. "

"Oh, Kitty, do be careful. "

"I am always careful, " said Miss Palliser, "in choosing a book. "

In about ten minutes' time she returned. Her chastened mood hadvanished. 

"Lucia, " said she, "you have an immense regard for that young man. "

"How do you know that I have an immense regard for him?"

"I suppose you expect me to say that I can tell by your manner. Ican't. Your manner is perfection. It's by Robert's manner that Ijudged. Robert's manner is not perfection; for a footman, you know, it's a shade too eager, too emotional. "

"That, to my mind, is the charm of Robert. "

"Still, there are drawbacks. A footman's face ought not to betray thefeelings of his mistress. That's how I knew that Mabel Flosser wascooling off--by the increasing frostiness of Blundell. I shall feelsure of you, Lucia, as long as Robert continues to struggle againsthis fascinating smile. Take my advice--if you should ever cherish asecret passion, get rid of Robert, for, sure as fate, he'll give youaway. Perhaps, " she added meditatively, it _was_ a little mean of me. "

"Kitty, what have you been up to?"

"It was your fault. You shouldn't be so mysterious. Wishing toascertain your real opinion of Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, I watchedRobert as he was bringing in his tea. "

"I hope he was properly attentive. "

"Attentive isn't the word for it. He may have felt that my eye wasupon him, and so got flustered, but it struck me that he overdid thething. He waited on Mr. Rickman as if he positively loved him. Thatwon't do, you know. He'll be raising fatal hopes in the bosom of theSavage Keith. Let us hope that Mr. Rickman is not observant. "

"He is, as it happens, excessively observant. "

"So I found out. I found out all sorts of things. "

"What things?"

"Well, in the first place, that he is conscientious. He doesn't wastetime. He writes with one hand while he takes his tea with the other;which of course is very clever of him. He's marvellously ambidexterousso long as he doesn't know you're looking at him. Unfortunately, myeye arrested him in the double act. Lucy, my eye must have somehorrible malignant power, for it instantly gave him St. Vitus's dance. Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about my eye?"

"What a shame. "

"Yes. I'm afraid he'll have to do a little re-copying. "

"Oh, Kitty, why couldn't you leave the poor thing in peace?"

"There wasn't any peace to leave him in. Really, you'd have thoughtthat taking afternoon tea was an offence within the meaning of theAct. He couldn't have been more excited if I'd caught him in his bath. Mr. Rickman suffers from excess of modesty. "

"Mr. Rickman could hardly say the same of you. You might have had thedecency to go away. "

"There wouldn't have been any decency in going away. Flight would haveargued that I shared the theory of his guilt. I stayed where I was fortwo seconds just to reassure him; then I went away--to the other endof the room. "

"You should have gone away altogether. "

"Why? The library is big enough for two. It's so big that you couldtake a bath or do a murder at one end without anybody being aware ofit at the other. I went away; I wandered round the bookcases; I evenhummed a tune, not so much to show that I was at my ease as to set himat his. "

"In fact, you behaved as like a dreadful young person as you possiblycould. "

"I thought that would set him at his ease sooner than anything. I didit on purpose. I am nothing if not subtle. _You_ would have crushedhim with a delicate and ladylike retreat; _I_ left him as happy as hecould be, smiling dreamily to himself over the catalogue. "

"And then?"

"Then, I admit, I felt it might be time to go. But before I went Imade another discovery. You know, Lucia, he really is rather nice tolook at. Adieu, my exclusive one. "

CHAPTER XIX

The chronicler who recorded that no woman had ever inherited theHarden Library contented himself with the bare statement of the fact. It was not his business to search into its causes, which belonged tothe obscurer regions of psychology. Sir Joseph Harden and thosebook-lovers who went before him had the incurable defects of theirqualities. Hereditary instinct, working in them with a force as ofsome blind fatality, drove too many of them to espouse theiropposites. Their wives were not expected to do anything noteworthy, beyond sitting for their portraits to the masters of their day;though, as a matter of fact, many of them contrived to achieve a farless enviable distinction. The portraits have immortalized their facesand their temperaments. Ladies of lax fibre, with shining lips andhazy eyes; ladies of slender build, with small and fragile foreheads, they hang for ever facing their uniformly heavy-browed and seriouslords. Looking at those faces you cannot wonder that those oldscholars had but a poor opinion of woman, the irrational and mutableelement in things, or that the library had been handed down fromfather to son, from uncle to nephew, evading the cosmic vanity bydevious lines of descent. It was a tradition in the family that itsmen should be scholars and its women beauties, occasionally frail. 

And scholarship, in obedience to the family tradition, ran superbly inthe male line for ten generations, when it encountered an insuperableobstacle in the temperament of Sir Frederick. Then came SirFrederick's daughter, and between them they made short work of thefamily tradition. Sir Frederick had appropriated the features of oneof his great grandmothers, her auburn hair, her side-long eyes, herfawn-like, tilted lip, her perfect ease of manners and of morals. By astill more perverse hereditary freak the Harden intellect which hadlapsed in Sir Frederick appeared again in his daughter, not in itswell-known austere and colourless form, but with a certain brillianceand passion, a touch of purely feminine uncertainty and charm. 

The Harden intellect had changed its sex. It was Horace Jewdwine whohad found that out, counting it as the first of his many remarkablediscoveries. Being (in spite of his conviction to the contrary) aJewdwine rather than a Harden, he had felt a certain malignant butvoluptuous satisfaction in drawing the attention of the Master ofLazarus to this curious lapse in the family tradition. Now in theopinion of the Master of Lazarus the feminine intellect was simply acontradiction in terms. Having engaged the best masters in the county, whose fees together with their fares (second class from Exeter toHarmouth) he had himself punctually paid, he had declined to take anyfurther interest in his grand-daughter. He had no objection to hertaking up music, a study which, being no musician, he was unable toregard as in any sense intellectual. He supported his view by frequentallusions to the brainlessness of song-birds; in fact, he had beenalways a little bitter on the subject, having before his eyes theflagrant instance of his son Frederick. 

Frederick was no scholar. He despised his forefathers as a race ofpedants, and boasted that he never opened a book, barring the book oflife, in which he flattered himself he could have stood a very stiffexamination. He used a certain unbowdlerized edition which he wascareful to conceal from the ladies of his family. Before he was fortyFrederick had fiddled away the family tradition, and not only thefamily tradition, but the family splendour and the family credit. WhenLucia at seventeen was studying the classics under Horace Jewdwine, Frederick's debts came rolling in; at about the same period old SirJoseph's health showed signs of failing, and Frederick took to raisingmoney on his expectations. He had just five years to do it in. 

It was then that Lucia first began to notice a change in hergrandfather's manner towards her. Sometimes she would catch his eyesfixed on her with a curious, scrutinizing gaze, and once or twice shethought she detected in them a profound sadness. Whenever at thesemoments they happened to meet her eyes they were immediately averted. Sir Joseph had not been given to betraying emotion, save only onpoints of scholarship, and it was evident that he had something on hismind. 

What he had on his mind was the thought that at the rate Frederick wasliving he might at any moment cease to live, and then what wouldbecome of Lucia? And what would become of the Harden Library? What ofthe family tradition? By much pondering on the consequences ofFrederick's decease Sir Joseph had considerably hastened his own. Lucia knew nothing of all this. She was only aware that hergrandfather had sent for Horace Jewdwine on his death-bed. What hadpassed between them remained known only to Horace. But part of a sumof money left by Sir Joseph's will towards the founding of a Hardenscholarship was transferred by a codicil to Lucia for her education. 

The task begun by Horace Jewdwine was continued by a learned lady, Miss Sophia Roots, B. A. ; and Miss Roots did her work so well that whenSir Frederick assumed his rightful guardianship of his daughter hepronounced her the worst educated young woman in Europe. Of all thatMiss Roots had so laboriously imparted to her she retained, not asmattering, but a masterly selection. And now at four and twenty shehad what is called a beautiful view of life; with that exciting bookwhich her father kept so sedulously out of her reach she wasacquainted as it were through anthologies and translations. Foranything Lucia knew to the contrary, life might be all bursts of lyricrapture and noble sequences of selected prose. She was even in dangerof trusting too much to her own inspired version of certain passages. But anthologies are not always representative, and nobody knew betterthan Lucia that the best translations sometimes fail to give thespirit of the original. 

Something of this spirit she caught from her father's brilliant anddisturbing presence. Lucia adored her father. He brought into her lifean element of uncertainty and freedom that saved it from the tyrannyof books. It was a perpetual coming and going. A dozen times in a yearSir Frederick hurled himself from Harmouth to London, from London tothe Continent, and from the Continent back again to Harmouth, torecruit. The very transience of his appearances and Lucia's ignoranceof all that lay behind them preserved her in her attitude ofadoration. 

Sir Frederick took precious good care that it should not be disturbedby the familiarity born of frequent intercourse, that she should seehim only in his moods of unnatural sobriety. And as he left Lucia tothe library so much, it was to be supposed that, in defiance of thefamily tradition, he would leave the library to Lucia. But after allSir Frederick had some respect for the family tradition. When itseemed only too likely that a woman would inherit the Harden Library, he stepped in and saved it from that supreme disgrace by the happyexpedient of a bill of sale. Otherwise his natural inclination wouldhave been to leave it to his daughter, for whom he had more or lessaffection, rather than to his nephew, for whom he had none. 

As it happened, it was Horace Jewdwine who was responsible for thelabour which Lucia had so impetuously undertaken. Lucia was aware thather grandfather's desire had been to rearrange and catalogue thelibrary. When she came of age and found herself mistress of a tinyincome (derived from capital left by her mother, carefully tied up tokeep it from Sir Frederick, and enlarged by regular accumulations atcompound interest) her first idea was to carry out her grandfather'swishes; but it was not until Horace Jewdwine's last visit that heridea became a determination. Horace had been strolling round thelibrary, turning over the books, not exactly with the covetous eye ofthe heir apparent, but with that peculiar air of appropriation whichhe affected in all matters of the intellect. In that mood Lucia hadfound him irritating, and it had appeared that Horace had beenirritated, too. He had always felt a little sore about the library;not that he really wanted it himself, but that he hated to see it inthe possession of such a rank barbarian as his uncle Frederick. Aperson who, if his life depended on it, could not have told an Aldinefrom an Elzevir. A person, incapable not only of appreciating valuablebooks, but of taking ordinary decent care of them. There were gaps onthe shelves, a thing that he hated to see. Lucia, too; Lucia wouldtake books out by tens and twenties at a time and leave them lying allover the house, and they would be stuck in again anywhere and anyhow. No sort of method in their arrangement. No blinds, no glass doors toprotect them. He had pointed this out to Lucia, suggesting that it wasnot a good thing to let too much dust accumulate on the tops of books, neither was it altogether desirable that a strong south-westerly lightshould play upon them all day long. Had she ever noticed how thebindings were cracking and fading? For all this he seemed to beblaming Lucia; and this, Lucia tried to persuade herself, was no greatmatter; but when he asked for a catalogue, and she calmly told himthat there was none, he became involved in a sentence about a scandaland a Vandal in which his opinion of his uncle Frederick unmistakablyappeared. He even forgot himself so far as to reflect on the sanity ofthe late Master of Lazarus, at which point Lucia had left him to hisreflections. 

She had not yet forgiven Horace for his interference that day, nor forhis remark about the scandal and the Vandal. As for his otherobservations, they were insufferably rue. Hence her desperate effortsto set the library in order before she went abroad; hence the secrecyand haste with which she had applied to Rickman's, without askingHorace's advice as she naturally would have done; hence, too, her vastdelight at the success of her unassisted scheme. Mr. Rickman wasturning out splendidly. If she had looked all through London she couldnot have found a better man. 

CHAPTER XX

It was Easter Sunday and Lucia's heart was glad, for she had had aletter from her father. There never was such a father and there neverwere such letters as, once in a blue moon and when the fancy seizedhim, he wrote to his adorable Lucy. Generally speaking they were allabout himself and his fiddle, the fiddle that when he was at home heplayed from morning to night. But this letter was more exciting. Itwas full of all the foolish and delightful things they were to dotogether in Cannes, in Venice and in Florence and in Rome. He wasalways in one or other of these places, but this was the first time hehad proposed that his adorable Lucy should join him. "You're too youngto see the world, " he used to say. "You wouldn't enjoy it, Lucy, youreally wouldn't. The world is simply wasted on any woman under fiveand thirty. " Lucia was not quite five and twenty. She was not verystrong, and she felt that if she didn't see the world soon she mightnot enjoy it very much when she did see it. And it was barely a monthnow till the twenty-seventh. 

Lucia went singing downstairs and into the library to throw all itsfour windows open to the delicious spring, and there, to her amazement(for it was Sunday), she came upon Mr. Rickman cataloguing hard. 

She felt a little pang of self-reproach at the sight of him. There wassomething pathetic in his attitude, in his bowed head and spreadelbows, the whole assiduous and devoted figure. How hard he wasworking, with what a surprising speed in his slender nervous hands. She had not meant him to give up the whole of his three days' holidayto her, and she really could not take his Easter Sunday, poor littleman. So, with that courtesy which was Mr. Rickman's admiration anddespair, she insisted on restoring it to him, and earnestly advisedhis spending it in the open air. In the evening he could have thelibrary to himself, to read or write or rest in; he would, shethought, be more comfortable there than in the inn. Mr. Rickmanadmitted that he would like to have a walk to stretch his legs a bit, and as she opened the south window she had a back view of himstretching them across the lawn. He walked as rapidly as he wrote, holding his head very high in the air. He wore a light grey suit and anew straw hat with a dull olive green ribbon on it, poor dear. She wasglad that it was a fine day for the hat. 

She watched him till the beech-tree hid him from her sight; then sheopened the west windows, and the south wind that she had just let intried to rush out again by them, and in its passage it lifted up theleaves of Mr. Rickman's catalogue and sent them flying. The last ofthem, escaping playfully from her grasp, careered across the room andhid itself under a window curtain. Stooping to recover it, she cameupon a long slip of paper printed on one side. It was signed S. K. R. , and Savage Keith Rickman was the name she had seen on Mr. Rickman'scard. The headline, _Helen in Leuce_, drew her up with a little shockof recognition. The title was familiar, so was the motto fromEuripides, [Greek: su Dios ephus, ô HElena thugatêr, ]

and she read, The wonder and the curse of friend and foe, She watched the ranks of battle cloud and shine, And heard, Achilles, that great voice of thine, That thundered in the trenches far below. 

 Tears upon tears, woe upon mortal woe, Follow her feet and funeral fire on fire, While she, that phantom of the heart's desire, Flies thither, where all dreams and phantoms go. 

 Oh Strength unconquerable, Achilles! Thee She follows far into the shadeless land Of Leuce, girdled by the gleaming sand, Amidst the calm of an enchanted sea, Where, children of the Immortals, hand in hand, Ye share one golden immortality. 

It was a voice from the sad modern world she knew so well, and inspite of its form (which was a little too neo-classic and conventionalto please her) she felt it to be a cry from the heart of a living man. That man she had identified with the boy her grandfather had found, years ago, in a City bookshop. There had been no room for doubt onthat point when she saw him in the flush of his intellectual passion, bursting so joyously, so preposterously, into Greek. He had, therefore, already a certain claim on her attention. Besides, heseemed to be undergoing some incomprehensible struggle which sheconceived to be of a moral nature, and she had been sorry for him onthat account. 

But, if he were also--Was it possible that her grandfather'smarvellous boy had grown into her cousin's still more marvellous man?Horace, too, had made his great discovery in a City shop. _Helen inLeuce_ and a City shop--it hardly amounted to proof; but, if it did, what then? Oh then, she was still more profoundly sorry for him. Forthen he was a modern poet, which in the best of circumstances is to bemarked for suffering. And to Mr. Rickman circumstances had not beenexactly kind. 

A modern poet, was he? One whom the gods torment with inspired andhopeless passion; a lover of his own "fugitive and yet eternal bride, "the Helen of Homer, of Æschylus and Euripides, the Helen of Marloweand Goethe, the Helen of them all. And for Mr. Rickman, unhappy Mr. Rickman, perdition lurked darkly in her very name. What, oh what mustit feel like, to be capable of eliding the aitch in "Helen" and yetdivinely and deliriously in love with her? Here Lucia was wrong, forMr. Rickman was entirely happy with the aitch in Helen. 

She was so sorry for him. But she did not see at the moment what shecould do for him besides being sorry. And yet, if he were Horace'sfriend, she must do more. She was aware that she had been sorry forhim chiefly because he was not a gentleman. Well, she had seen menbefore who were not gentlemen and she had been very far from feelingany sort of sorrow for them. But she had never in all her life seenanything like this inspired young Cockney, with his musical voice andafflicting accent, a person whose emotions declared themselvespublicly and painfully, whose thoughts came and went as transparentlyas the blood in his cheeks, who yet contrived somehow to remain in thelast resort impenetrable. 

She could not ignore him. Apart from Horace he had established hisclaim; and if he _was_ Horace's friend he had another and a strongertitle to consideration. But was he? She had really no proof. 

She wondered whether Mr. Rickman had missed his sonnet. She laid italmost tenderly in a conspicuous place on his table, and put a bronzehead of Pallas Athene on it to keep it down. Then she wondered againwhether he enjoyed the bookshop, whether he enjoyed making catalogues_raisonnés_, whether he enjoyed himself generally, and she hoped thatat any rate he would enjoy his Easter Sunday. Poor little man. 

Lucia was so happy herself that she wanted Mr. Rickman to be happytoo. 

CHAPTER XXI

Mr. Rickman was anything but happy as he set out for his walk thatglorious April morning. 

Outside the gate of Court House he stood and looked about him, uncertain of the way he would go. All ways were open to him, andfinally, avoiding the high road, he climbed up a steep and stony laneto the great eastern rampart which is Harcombe Hill. Beneath him layHarmouth, at the red mouth of the valley where the river Hare tricklesinto the sea through a barrier of shingle. Two gigantic and flamingcliffs dwarf the little town to the proportions of a hamlet. In anyother situation Harmouth might have preserved its elegant Regency air, but sprawling on the beach and scattered on the hillsides it has ahaphazard appearance, as if it had been dropped there when those twohuge arms of the upland stretched out and opened to the sea. 

But Nature on the whole has been kind to Harmouth, though the firstthing that strikes the stranger in that place is her amazing andapparently capricious versatility. Nature, round about Harmouth, isnever in the same mood for a mile together. The cliffs change theirform and colour with every dip in the way; now they are red likeblood, and now a soft and powdery pink with violet shadows in theirseams. Inland, it is a medley of fields and orchards, beech-woods, pine-woods, dark moorland and sallow down, cut by the deep warm laneswhere hardly a leaf stirs on a windy day. It is not so much alandscape as the fragments of many landscapes, samples in little ofthe things that Nature does elsewhere on a grand scale. The effect ona stranger is at first alluring, captivating, like the caprices of abeautiful woman; then it becomes disconcerting, maddening, fatiguing;and a great longing seizes him for vast level spaces, for sameness, for the infinity where he may lose himself and rest. Then one day heclimbs to the top of Harcombe or Muttersmoor and finds the immensityhe longed for. As far as his sight can reach, the shoulders of thehills and the prone backs of the long ridges are all of one height;the combes and valleys are mere rifts and dents in a great moor thathas no boundary but the sky. The country has revealed its august, eternal soul. He is no longer distracted by its many moods; he lovesit the more for them, as a man loves the mutable ways of the womanwhose soul he knows. 

Rickman stood upon a vantage ground, looking over the valley and thebay. To him it was as if the soul of this land, like the soul of LuciaHarden, had put on a veil. The hillside beneath him dropped steeply tothe valley and the town. Down there, alone and apart from Harmouth, divided from the last white Regency villa by half a mile ofmeadow-land, stood Court House; and as he looked at it he became moreacutely conscious of his misery. He sat down among the furze andheather and bracken; he could think of nothing better than to sitthere and stare into the face of Nature, not like a poet whom lovemakes lyrical, but like a quite ordinary person whom it makes dumb. And Nature never turned to a poet a lovelier and more appealing face. It had rained in the night. From the enfolding blue, sky blue and seablue, blue of the aerial hills, the earth flung out her colours, newwashed, radiantly, immaculately pure. Bared to the sea, she flamedfrom rose pink to rose red. Only the greater hills and the dark flankof Muttersmoor waited for their hour, the hour of the ling and theheather; the valleys and the lower slopes were glad with green. Therewas an art in Nature's way; for, lest a joyousness so brimming and sotender should melt and overflow into mere pathos, it was bounded andrestrained by that solemn and tragic line of Muttersmoor drawnstraight against the sky. 

It was the same scene that had troubled him when he first looked atit, and it troubled him still; not with that thrill of prescientdelight and terror, but with a feeling more mysterious and baffling, an exquisite and indefinable reproach. He stared, as if he could hopeby staring to capture the meaning of the beautiful tender face; butbeyond that inscrutable reproach it had no meaning for him and noexpression. He had come to a land prophetic of inspiration, where, ifanywhere, he might have hoped to hear the lyric soul of things; andthe lyric soul of things absolutely refused to sing to him. It hadsung loud enough in the streets last Wednesday; it had hymned theprocession of his dreams and the loud tumultuous orgy of his passions;and why could he not hear it now? For here his senses were satisfiedto the full. Never had Nature's material loveliness been more vividly, piercingly present to him. The warm air was like a touch, palpable yetdivine. He lay face downwards on the earth and pressed it with hishands; he smelt the good smell of the grass and young bracken, and thesweet almond-scented blossom of the furze. And he suffered all thetorment of the lover who possesses the lips and body of his mistress, and knows that her heart is far from him and that her soul is not forhim. 

He felt himself to be severed from the sources of his inspiration;estranged, profoundly and eternally, from the beauty he desired. Andthat conviction, melancholy in itself, was followed by an overpoweringsense of intellectual dissolution, the corruption and decay of thepoetic faculty in him. He was aware, feverishly aware, of a faintflowing measure, the reverberation of dead songs; of ideas, amiserable attenuated procession, trailing feebly in the dark of hisbrain, which when he tried to grasp them would be gone. They were onlythe ghosts of the ideas that he had brought with him from London, thathad died on the journey down. The beauty of this place was devilishand malign. He looked into Harmouth valley as if it had been agraveyard. They were all buried down there, his dead dreams and hisdead power, buried without hope of any resurrection. Rickman's genius, the only thing he genuinely trusted, had forsaken him. 

It may be that every poet once in his lifetime has to come to thisCalvary, to hang through his black hour on the cross, and send outafter the faithless deity his Lama Sabachthani. For Rickman no agonycould compare with that isolation and emptiness of soul. He could seenothing beyond that hour, for he had never felt anything like itbefore, not even on waking in the morning after getting drunk. Hisideas had always come back again when he was in a fit state to receivethem. But this time, though he had not been drinking, he felt thatthey had gone for ever, and that all his songs were sung. And over hishead high up in the sky, a lark, a little fiend of a lark, had chosenthat moment for bursting into music. With diabolical ease andmaddening ecstasy, he flung out his perfect and incommunicable song. Asong of joy and mockery and triumph. 

He did not know how old that skylark was, but here was he, SavageKeith Rickman, played out at three and twenty. Was it, he wondered, the result, not of ordinary inebriety, but of the finer excesses ofthe soul? Was he a precocious genius? Had he taken to the immortaldrink too early and too hard? Or was it, as Jewdwine had suggested, that there were too many Rickmans, and that this poor seventh part ofhim had been crushed by the competition of the other six? The horriblething was that they would live on for years, eating and getting drunkand falling in love and buying suits of clothes, while the poet in himwas dead, like Keats, at three and twenty. 

Then suddenly, for no reason whatever, a vision of Lucia Harden rosebefore him like a light and refused to leave him. 

It wrought in him, as he contemplated it, a gradual burningillumination. He perceived that it was he himself who was responsiblefor all this. He perceived the real nature of the things he hadpursued so passionately, the thing he called pleasure, the thing hecalled love, and the thing he called his imagination. His notion ofpleasure was getting drunk and making love to Miss Poppy Grace; thelove he made was better described by a stronger and coarsermonosyllable, and he had used his imagination to glorify it. Oh yes, because he had imagination, because he was a poet, he had not gonedown into the clay-pits and wallowed in the clay; neither had he beencontent to dabble in it; he had taken it up in his hands and mouldedit into the form of a divinity, and then fallen down and worshippedit. Fallen down and worshipped at the feet, the gaily twirling feet ofMiss Poppy Grace. 

Poor Poppy, if he could have thought of her at all, he might have felta sort of pity for her transience, the transience of the feeling sheinspired. But he did not think of her; he did not even try to thinkof her. Her image, once so persistent, had dropped clean out of hismind, which was one reason why it was so empty. It had not been muchto boast of, that infatuation for Poppy, and yet somehow, after livingso intimately with it, he felt quite lost without it. It was a littleodd, if you came to think of it, that the thing he called his genius, and the thing he called his love, should have chosen the same momentto abandon him. Was it--was it possible--that there was some vitalconnection between them? As the singing of birds in the pairingseason, was his genius merely a rather peculiar symptom of the veryordinary condition known as falling in love? So that, failing thatsource of inspiration--? That no doubt _was_ what was the matter withhim. His imagination languished because his passion for Poppy wasplayed out, and he had nothing to put in its place. 

Well, yes, there was something; something that was not an instinct ora passion, but an acquired taste. To be sure he had acquired it veryquickly, it had only taken him three days. In those three days he haddeveloped a preference for the society of ladies (the women of his ownclass were not ladies but "young ladies, " a distinction he nowappreciated for the first time). It was a preference that, as thingsstood, he would never be able to gratify; there was something about itruinous and unhappy, like a craze for first editions in an impecuniousscholar, for ever limited to the twopenny bundle and the eighteenpennylot. He could not hope to enjoy Miss Harden's society for more thanthree weeks at the outside. He only enjoyed it at all through anaccident too extraordinary, too fantastic to occur again. Between himand her there stood the barrier of the counter. The barrier itself wasnot insuperable: he might get over the counter, so might Miss Harden;but there were other things that she never could get over. Though insome ways he was all right, in others, again, he was not--he could seevery well that he was not--what Miss Harden would call a gentleman. Hewas, through that abominable nervousness of his, an impossible person, hopelessly, irredeemably involved in social solecisms. Or if notimpossible, he was, at any rate, highly improbable. 

Perceiving all this, he was still unable to perceive the meaning ofhis insight and his misery. He did not know, and there was nobody totell him, that this emptiness of his was the emptiness created by theforerunners and servants of Love, who sweep and purify thedeath-chamber where a soul has died and another soul is waiting to beborn. For in the house of Love there is only one chamber for birth andfor dying; and into that clean, unfurnished place the soul entersunattended and endures its agony alone. There is no Mother-soul tobear for it the birth-pains of the new life. 

But Mr. Rickman was young, and youth's healthy instinct urged him tovigorous exercise as the best means of shaking off his misery. Hecrossed the road that runs along the top of Harcombe Hill and made forthe cliffs in a south-easterly direction across the fields. He thenkept along the coast-line, dipping into Harcombe valley, climbingagain to Easton Down. Here the coast was upheaved into terraces ofgrey limestone, topped by a layer of sand riddled with rabbit holes. Before one of these two young hawks were watching, perched on aprojecting boulder. So intent was their gaze and they so motionlessthat the air seemed to stand still and wait for the sweep of theirwings. Mr. Rickman, whom youth made reckless, lay flat on his stomachand peered over the edge of the cliff. He was fascinated, breathlesslyabsorbed. He pressed the turf a little closer in his eagerness, and soloosened a large stone that rolled down, starting a cataract of sandand rubble. He had just time to throw himself back sideways, as thehollow fringe of turf gave way and plunged down the cliff-side. So farfrom taking his escape with becoming seriousness, he amused himself bytrying to feel as he would have felt if he had actually gone over thecliff. He found that his keenest emotion was a thrill of horror, as heimagined Miss Harden a possible spectator of the ridiculous evolutionsperformed by his person in its passage through the air. 

After an hour of dipping and climbing he reached a small fishingvillage. Here he dined and rested, and it was mid-afternoon before heturned again towards Harmouth. There was no chance of missing his way;he had nothing to do but follow the coast-line as he had done before. 

There were signs in the valley of the white fog that sometimes, evenin April, comes in before sunset; already a veil of liquid air wasdrawn across the hills, and when he crossed Easton Down (if it wasEaston Down) again the sea's face was blurred with mist. 

As he went on westwards the mist kept pace with him, graduallydiminishing the view he had hoped to see. And as it shifted and closedround him, his movements became labyrinthine, then circular. 

And now his view was all foreground; he was simply walking throughcircles of moor, enclosed by walls of fine grey fog. He passed throughthese walls, like a spirit, into smaller and smaller circles; then, hopelessly bewildered, he stopped, turned, and walked in what he tookto be a contrary direction, feeling that the chance of going over thecliff-side lent an agreeable excitement to a pastime that threatenedto become monotonous. This was assuming the cliff-side to be somewherenear; and he was beginning to feel that it might be anywhere, underhis feet for all he knew, when the fog lifted a little from the highground, and he saw that he had lost his bearings altogether. He hadbeen going round and round through these circles without returning tothe point he started from. He went forward less cautiously in a largerround, and then he suddenly stood still. He was not alone. 

His foreground had widened slightly and a figure stood in the middleof it. There was something familiar in the blurred outlines, traced asif by a watery finger on the wall of mist. An idea had taken shapestealthily behind him and flung its shadow there. The idea was LuciaHarden. The fog hung in her hair in drops like rain; it made her greydress cling close about her straight, fine limbs; it gave its owngrandeur and indistinctness to her solitary figure. 

She turned, unstartled, but with an air of imperfect recognition. Heraised his hat; the hat with the green ribbon on it. 

"I beg your pardon, but can you tell me the shortest cut to Harmouth?I think I've lost my way. "

She answered absently. "You are all right. Turn to the left, andyou'll find the path along the cliff. It will bring you out on toHarmouth beach. "

He followed the path she had pointed out. Still absently she lookedafter him, a dim figure going down into the fog, and it occurred toher that she had sent him on a dangerous way. There were rabbit wiresand pitfalls on that path; places where the cliff was eaten away underits curling edge of turf, and for Mr. Rickman, who didn't know hisground, a single step might mean death. 

She could not see him now. She called to him; "Mr. Rickman!" but therewas no answer; only the sound of Mr. Rickman going down deeper. Shecalled again, a little imperiously, and yet again. The last time hervoice carried well, for there was the vibrating note of terror in it. He turned and saw her coming down the path towards him. 

"I forgot, " she said, still with the slight tremor of fear in hervoice. It seemed to draw out and intensify its sweetness. "That pathisn't safe in a fog like this. You had better go round by the road. "

"Oh, thanks. You shouldn't have troubled. I should have got on allright. " They were climbing up the moor together. 

"I'm afraid you wouldn't. I wasn't thinking, or I would never havesent you that way. "

"Why not? It was a very good way. "

"Yes. But you were going down into the thick of the fog. You mighteasily have walked over the cliff--and broken your neck. "

He laughed as if that was the most delightfully humorous idea. 

"I don't know, " said he, "that it would have mattered very much if Ihad. "

She said nothing. She never did when he made these excursions into thepersonal. Of course it would not have mattered to Miss Harden if hehad gone over the cliff. He had been guilty, not only of anunpardonable social solecism, but of a still more unpardonableplatitude. 

They had reached the top of the cliff, and Lucia stood still. 

"Isn't there another short cut cut across the valley?" he asked. 

"There is; but I don't advise you to try it. And there is a way roundby the road--if you can find it. "

He smiled. Had he tried to approach her too soon, and was shereminding him that short cuts are dangerous? There was a way round--ifhe could find it. If indeed!

"Oh, I shall find it all right, " said he, inspired by his doublemeaning. 

"I don't think you will, if the fog lasts. I am going that way and Ihad better show you. "

Show him? Was it possible?

She led the way, all too swiftly, yet with a certain leisure in herhaste. He followed with a shy delight. 

He was familiar enough by this time with her indoor aspect, with herunique and perfect manner of sitting still; now he saw that her beautywas of that rare kind that is most beautiful in movement. He wouldhave liked that walk to last for ever, for the pure pleasure offollowing, now the delicate poise of her head, now the faint ripple ofher shoulders under her thin coat, now the lines of her skirt breakingand flowing with the almost imperceptible swinging of her hips. 

Her beauty, as he now reflected, was of the sort that dwells less inthe parts than in the whole, it was subtle, pervading, and profound. It rejected all but the finer elements of sex. In those lightvanishing curves her womanhood was more suggested than defined; itdawned on him in tender adumbration rather than in light. Such beautyis eloquent and prophetic through its richness of association, itskindred with all forms of loveliness. As Lucia moved she parted withsome of that remoter quality that had first fascinated, then estrangedhim; she took on the grace of the creatures that live free in thesunlight and in the open air. 

The mist shut them in with its grey walls. There was nothing to beseen but the patch of grass trodden by her feet, and her movingfigure, grey on grey. 

The walk was somewhat lacking in incident and conversational openings. Such as occurred seemed, like Kitty Palliser's hat, to be packed withmeaning. There was the moment, the dreadful moment, when he laggedbehind and lost sight of her. The moment, his opportunity, when anenormous bramble caught and pinned her by the feet and skirt. Shetried to tread on it with one foot and walk away from it with theother, a thing manifestly impossible and absurd. Besides, ithurt--horribly. He knelt before her on the wet moor, unconscious ofhis brand-new trousers, conscious of nothing but the exquisite moment;and, with hands that trembled violently, freed first her delicate feetand then her skirt. He breathed hard, for the operation was intricateand took time. That bramble seemed to have neither beginning nor end, it branched out in all directions and was set with multitudinous andpowerful thorns. Lucia stood still, being indeed unable to move, andwatched his long, slender fingers adroitly disentangling her. 

"I'm afraid you're hurting yourself, " said she. 

"Not at all, " said Mr. Rickman gallantly, though the thorns torturedhis hands, drawing drops of blood. His bliss annihilated pain. 

"Take care, " said she, "you are letting yourself get terribly torn. "

He took no notice; but breathed harder than ever. "There, I've got itall off now, I think. "

"Thank you very much. " She drew her skirt gently from his detaininggrasp. 

"No--wait--please. There's a great hulking brute of a thorn stuck inthe hem. "

She waited. 

"Confound my clumsiness! I've done it now!"

"Done what?" She looked down; on the dainty hem there appeared threedistinct crimson stains. Mr. Rickman's face was crimson, too, with aflush of agony. Whatever he did for her his clumsiness made wrong. 

"I'm awfully sorry, but I've ruined your--your pretty dress, MissHarden. "

For it was a pretty, a very pretty, a charming dress. And he wasmaking matters worse by rubbing it with his pocket-handkerchief. 

"Please--please don't bother, " said she, "it doesn't matter. " (Howdifferent from the behaviour of Miss Walker when Spinks spilt themelted butter on her shoulder!) "You've hurt your own hands more thanmy dress. "

The episode seemed significant of the perils that awaited him in hisintercourse with Miss Harden. 

She went on. The narrow hill-track ended in the broad bridle-path thatgoes straight up Harcombe (not Harmouth) valley. He wondered, withquite painful perplexity, whether he ought still to follow at adiscreet distance, or whether he might now walk beside her. Shesettled the question by turning round and waiting for him to come upwith her. So they went up the valley together, and together climbedthe steep road that leads out of it and back in the direction they hadjust left. The mist was thinner here at the top of the hill, andRickman recognized the road he had crossed when he had turnedeastwards that morning. He could now have found his way back perfectlywell; but he did not say so. A few minutes' walk brought them to theplace where he had sat down in his misery and looked over Harmouthvalley. 

Here they stopped, each struck by the strange landscape now suddenlyrevealed to them. They stood in clear air above the fog. It had comerolling in from the south, submerging the cliffs, and the town, andthe valley; and now it lay smooth and cold and blue-white, like thesea under a winter sky. They might have been looking down on somemysterious world made before man. No land was to be seen save the topsof the hills lashed by the torn edges of the mist. Westward, acrossthe bay, the peaks of the cliffs showed like a low, flat coast, a dullpurplish line tormented by a livid surf. The flooded valley had becomean arm of that vague sea. And from under the fog, immeasurably farbelow, there came the muffled sound of the mother sea, as if it werebeating on the invisible floor of the world. 

"I say, that's rather uncanny, isn't it?" So uncanny did it seem tohim that he felt that it called for remark. 

She looked at him with that faintly interrogative lifting of theeyebrows, which always seemed familiar to him. He rememberedafterwards that Horace Jewdwine had the same trick. But in her, accompanied as it was by a pretty lifting of the corners of her mouth, it expressed friendly interest, in Jewdwine, apathy and a certaininsolence. And yet all the time she was wondering how she should breakit to him that their ways must now diverge. 

"There's a horrible unconsciousness about it, " he went on, pursuing asusual his own fancy. "If you _could_ get bare nature without spirit, it would look like that. "

"It _doesn't_ look quite real, " she admitted. (After that, there mustbe no more concessions. They must separate. )

"It hasn't any reality but what we give it. "

"Hasn't it?"

(A statement so sweeping challenged contradiction. )

"You think that's only my Cockney view?"

"I think it isn't Nature. It's your own idea. "

"It isn't even my own idea; I bagged it from Coleridge. P'raps you'llsay he muddled himself with opium till he couldn't tell which wasNature and which was Coleridge; but there was old Wordsworth, as soberas a churchwarden, and he knew. What you call my Cockney view is theview of the modern poets. They don't--they can't distinguish betweenNature and the human soul. Talk of getting near to Nature--we wouldn'tknow Nature if we saw it now. Those everlasting poets have got so nearit that they've blocked the view for themselves and everybody else. "

"Really, you talk as if they were a set of trippers. "

"So they are! Wordsworth was nothing but a tripper, a glorifiedtripper. Nature never looked the same since he ran his Excursion-trainthrough the Lake country--special service to Tintern and Yarrow. "

"This is slightly profane. "

"No--it only means that if you want Nature you musn't go to the poetsof Nature. They've humanized it. I wouldn't mind that, if they hadn'twomanized it, too. "

"That only means that they loved it, " she said softly. 

"It means that they've demoralized it; and that now it demoralizes us. Nature is the supreme sentimentalist. It's all their fault. They'vebeen flinging themselves on the bosom of Mother Earth, and sitting andwriting Stanzas in Dejection on it, and lying down like a tired childon it, and weeping away their lives of care, that they have borne andyet must bear on it, till they've saturated it with their beastlypathos. There isn't a dry comfortable place left for anybody else. "

"Perhaps that's just the way Nature inspires poets, by giving out thehumanity it absorbs. "

"Perhaps. I can't say it inspires me. "

"Are you a poet?" she asked. She was beginning to think it must be acase of mistaken identity; for this was not what she had expected ofhim. 

He did not answer at first, neither did he look at her. He looked atthe beautiful face of Nature (the sentimentalist), and a wave of hotcolour rushed again over his own. 

"I don't know whether I am or not. "

"Let us hope not, since you want to make a clean sweep of them. "

"I'd make a clean sweep of myself if I stood in my own light. Anythingfor a good view. But I'm afraid it's too late. " His tone dropped fromthe extreme of levity to an almost tragic earnest. "We've done ourwork, and it can't be undone. We've given Nature a human voice, andnow we shall never--never hear anything else. "

"That's rather dreadful; I wish you hadn't. "

"Oh, no, you don't. It's not the human voice you draw the lineat--it's the Cockney accent. "

Lucia's smile flickered and went out, extinguished by the waves of herblush. She was not prepared to have her thoughts read--and read aloudto her--in this way; and that particular thought was one she wouldhave preferred him not to read. 

"I daresay Keats had a Cockney accent, if we did but know; and Idaresay a good many people never heard anything else. "

"I'm afraid you'd have heard it yourself, Miss Harden, if you'd methim. "

"Possibly. It isn't what I should have remembered him by, though. Thatreminds me. I came upon a poem--a sonnet--of yours--if it wasyours--this morning. It was lying on the library floor. You will findit under the bronze Pallas on the table. "

Mr. Rickman stooped, picked up a sod and examined it carefully. 

"Thank you very much. It _was_ mine. I was afraid it was lost. "

"It would have been a great pity if it had been. "

Mr. Rickman dropped his sod. 

She answered the question that appeared in his eyes, though not on histongue. "Yes, I read it. It was printed, you see. I read it before Icould make up my mind whether I might or not. "

"It was all right. But I wish you hadn't. "

To look at Mr. Rickman you would have said that all his mind wasconcentrated on the heel of his boot, as it slowly but savagely groundthe sod to dust. Even so, the action seemed to say, even so could hehave destroyed that sonnet. 

"What did you think of it?"

He had looked up, when she least expected, with his disarming andingenuous smile. Lucia felt that he had laid an ambush for her by hisabstraction; the question and the smile shot, flashed, out of it witha directness that made subterfuge impossible. 

The seriousness of the question was what made it so awkward for a ladywith the pleasure-giving instinct. If Mr. Rickman had merely asked herif she liked his new straw hat with the olive green ribbon (supposingthem to be on terms that made such a question possible) she wouldprobably have said "Yes, " whether she liked it or not; because shewanted to give pleasure, because she didn't care a straw about hisstraw hat. But when Mr. Rickman asked her how she liked his sonnet, hewas talking about the things that really mattered; and in the thingsthat really mattered Lucia was sincerity itself. 

"I thought, " said she, "I thought the first dozen lines extremelybeautiful. "

"In a sonnet _every_ line should be beautiful--should be perfect. "

"Oh--if you're aiming at perfection. "

"Why, what else in Heaven's name should I aim at?"

Lucia was silent; and he mistook her silence for distrust. 

"I don't want you to judge me by that sonnet. "

"But I shouldn't dream of judging you by that sonnet, any more than Ishould judge that sonnet by its last two lines. They're not the lastyou'll ever write. "

"They're the last you will ever read. "

"Well, it's something to have written one good sonnet. "

"One swallow doesn't make a spring. "

"No; but it tells us spring is coming, and the other swallows. "

"There won't be any other swallows. All my swallows have flown. "

"Oh, they'll fly back again, you'll see, if you wait till nextspring. "

"You weren't serious just now when you asked me if I was a poet. _I_was serious enough when I said I didn't know. "

Something passed over Lucia's face, a ripple of shadow and flame, somemoving of the under currents of the soul that told him that he wasunderstood, that something had happened there, something that for themoment permitted him to be personal. 

"What made you say so?"

"I can't tell you. Not natural modesty. I'm modest about some things, but not about that. "

"Yet surely you must know?"

"I did yesterday. "

"Yesterday?"

"Yesterday--last night; in fact up to eleven o'clock this morning Ifirmly believed that I had genius, or something uncommonly like it. Istill believe that I _had_ it. "

He seemed to himself to have become almost grossly personal; but toLucia he had ceased to be personal at all; he had passed into theregion of realities; and in so passing had become intenselyinteresting. To Lucia, with the blood of ten generations of scholarsin her veins, the question of a man's talent was supremely important;the man himself might not matter, but his talent mattered very much;to discuss it with him was entirely natural and proper. So she neveronce stopped to ask herself why she was standing on Harcombe Hill, holding this really very intimate conversation with Mr. Rickman. 

"The things, " he continued, "the things I've written prove it. I cansay so without the smallest conceit, because I haven't it now, andnever shall have it again. I feel as if it had belonged to somebodyelse. "

Mr. Rickman was losing all likeness to his former self. He spoke nolonger impulsively, but in the steady deliberate tones of unalterableconviction. And Lucia no longer heard the Cockney accent in this voicethat came to her out of a suffering so lucid and so profound. Sheforgot that it came from the other side of the social gulf. If at anypoint in that conversation she had thought of dismissing him, shecould not have dismissed him now. There was very little use in havingsaved his neck if she abandoned him to his misery. 

Instead of abandoning him she sat down on a rough seat by the roadsideto consider Mr. Rickman's case in all its bearings. In doing so shefound herself for the first time contemplating his personal appearanceas such; and that not altogether with disapproval. Though it was notin the least what she would have expected, he showed to advantage inthe open air. She began to perceive the secret of his extravagant andpreposterous charm. There was something about him--something that hehad no right to have about him, being born a dweller in cities, whichnone the less he undeniably and inevitably had, something that madehim one with this moorland setting, untamed and beautiful and shy. Thegreat natural features of the landscape did him no wrong; for he wasnatural too. 

Well, she had found his sonnet for him; but could she help him torecover what he had lost now?

"I hope you won't mind my asking, but don't you know any one who canhelp you?"

"Not any one who can help me out of this. "

"I believe it must have been you Sir Joseph Harden used to talk about. I think he saw you once when you were a boy. I know if he were alivehe would have been glad to help you. "

"He did help me. I owe my education to the advice he gave my father. "

"Is that the case? I am very glad. "

She paused, exultant; she felt that she was now upon the right track. "You said you had written other things. What have you written?"

"A lyrical drama for one thing. That sonnet was meant for a sort ofmotto to it. "

A lyrical drama? She was right, then; he was Horace Jewdwine's great"find. " If so, the subject was fenced around with difficulty. She muston no account give Horace away. Mr. Rickman had seemed annoyed becauseshe had read his sonnet (which was printed); he would be still moreannoyed if he knew that she had read his lyrical drama in manuscript. He was inclined to be reticent about his writings. 

Lucia was wrong. Mr. Rickman had never been less inclined toreticence in his life. He wished she had read his drama instead of hissonnet. His spring-time was there; the swift unreturning spring-timeof his youth. If she had read his drama she would have believed in hispursuit of the intangible perfection. As it was, she never wouldbelieve. 

"I wonder, " she said, feeling her ground carefully, "if my cousinHorace Jewdwine would be any good to you?"

"Mr. Jewdwine?"

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, slightly. That is--he knows--he knows what I can do. I mean whatI've done. "

"Really?" The chain of evidence was now complete. "Well, what does hesay?"

Rickman laughed as he recalled his last conversation with the critic. "He says I'm one-seventh part a poet. 

"Does he? Then you may be very sure you are a great deal more. Mycousin is most terribly exacting. I should be glad if I succeeded insatisfying him; but I don't think I should be seriously unhappy if--ifI failed. Did he say anything to discourage, to depress you?"

"Not he. I don't think I should have minded if he had. I felt strongenough for anything then. It was this morning. I was sitting out here, looking at all this beautiful inspiring scenery, when it came to me, that notion that I should never do anything again. "

"Is it--" her hesitations were delightful to him--"is it the want ofrecognition that disheartens you?"

He laughed again, a healthy honest laugh. "Oh, dear me, no! I don'tworry about recognition. That would be all right if I could go on. ButI can't go on. "

"Have you ever felt like this before?"

"N--no. No, never. And for the life of me I can't think why I shouldnow. "

"And yet you've been making catalogues for years, haven't you?"

Lucia had said to herself, "It's that catalogue _raisonné_, I know. "

"Do you like making catalogues?"

"Well, under ordinary circumstances it isn't exactly what you'd callexciting. But I'm afraid that hasn't got anything to do with it thistime. "

"It may have everything to do with it--such a dreadful kind of work. "

"No. It isn't the work that's dreadful. "

"Then perhaps it's the worry? And I'm afraid I'm responsible forthat. "

He started, shaken out of his admirable self-possession by thatglaring personality. "How could you be?"

"By insisting on engaging you as I did. From what you told me it'svery evident that you had something on your mind, and that the workhas been very dreadful, very difficult. "

"I _have_ something on my mind and--it _has_ been difficult--all thesame--"

"I wouldn't have pressed you if I had really known. I'm very sorry. Isit too late? Would it be any good if I released you now?"

If she released him!

"Miss Harden, you are most awfully good to me. "

"_Would_ that help you?"

He looked at her. Over her face there ran again that little ripple ofthought and sympathy, like shadow and flame. One fear was removed fromhim. Whatever happened Miss Harden would never misunderstand him. Atthe same time he realized that any prospect, however calamitous, wouldbe more endurable than the course she now proposed. 

"It wouldn't help me. The best thing I can do is to stay where I amand finish. "

"Is that the truth?"

"Nothing but the truth. "

("But not the whole truth, " thought Lucia. )

"Well, " she said, rising, "whatever you do, don't lose heart. "

He smiled drearily. It was all very well to say that, when his heartwas lost already. 

"Wait--wait till next spring comes. "

He could put what meaning he liked into that graceful littlecommonplace. But it dismissed at the same time that it reassured him. The very ease and delicacy with which it was done left him no doubt onthat point. 

He was not going to accept his dismissal then and there. A boldthought leapt in his brain. Could he--might he--? She had read hissonnet; would it do to ask her to read his drama also? To be sure thesonnet had but fourteen lines, while the drama had twice as manyhundred. But the drama, the drama, his beautiful _Helen in Leuce_, washis ultimate achievement, the highest, completest expression of hissoul. And what he required of Lucia Harden was not her praise, butfuller, more perfect comprehension. He stood in a cruel and falseposition, and he longed for her to know the finest and the best ofhim, before she knew (as she must know) the worst. 

She was turning away; but there was a closed gate between her and thehill-path that led down into the valley. 

"Miss Harden--"

"Yes?"

She turned. His heart beat violently. He was afraid to look up lesthis face should betray his emotion; it must seem so disproportioned toits cause. And yet he was going to ask her for leave to put his drama, the fine offspring of his soul, into her hands. 

"May I send you the drama I spoke of? I would like you to see it. "

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure. "

He tried to stammer out some words of thanks; but they died beforeutterance. 

"You know your way now, don't you?" said she. 

"Yes, thanks. "

Her hand was on the gate; he opened it to let her pass. He also made amovement as though he would have held out his hand, but thought betterof it, raising his hat instead. 

He stood uncovered until she had passed. 

He walked up and down the road, giving her time to get well out ofsight. Then he returned to the place where he had suffered, and stooda long while looking over the valley. 

He knew now the meaning of his great misery; and it was misery nolonger. The veil was lifted from the face of Nature; and it was aface that he had never yet seen. It had lost that look of mysterious, indefinable reproach. It was as if the beauty of the land, seekingafter the heart that should love it, was appeased and reconciled. Hecould hear the lyric soul of things most clearly and unmistakably, andit was singing a new song. A strange, double-burdened contradictorysong. There was sorrow in it, such sorrow as her children drink fromthe breast of the tragic earth; and through it all and over it thelaughter as of some yet virgin and imperishable joy. 

For Nature sings to every poet the song of his own soul. 

He spent the last of that Easter Sunday in his shabby little bedroomin the Marine Hotel, where with windows open to the wind and sea hesat writing long past midnight. And hope rose again in him as hesurveyed the first rough draft--that wild battlefield andslaughter-ground of lines, lines shooting and flying in alldirections, lines broken and scattered and routed by other lines, over-ridden and trampled down by word upon triumphing word. Above thehideous confusion at least two verses shone luminous and clear; theyhad come swinging into the pure ether, full-formed and golden fromtheir birth. And over the whole he wrote in legible characters, "_OnHarcombe Hill_. "

His doubt had died there; and on Easter Monday he awoke exulting inanother blessed day. 

CHAPTER XXII

Lucia had yielded recklessly to her pleasure-giving instinct, and wasonly half contented. She had given pleasure to her father by writinghim a long letter; she was in a fair way of giving pleasure to HoraceJewdwine by undertaking this monstrous labour of the catalogue; andshe had given pleasure to herself in giving pleasure to them. Butthere was one person to whom she had not given pleasure; and thatperson was Horace Jewdwine's friend. On the contrary, she had robbedthe poor man of the one solitary pleasure he had anticipated in histhree days' holiday; with what disastrous results she had justwitnessed. 

It was impossible for Lucia to do anybody a wrong, however innocently, without making up for it. On that Sunday evening she conceived a greatidea. She had deprived Mr. Rickman of a small opportunity; she wouldgive him a large one. Restitution was to be on a noble scale. Luciahad a small sum left to her by her grandfather, and even when Mr. Rickman was paid for his four weeks' work on the catalogue that sumwould only be reduced to £285. On the strength of it she now proposedto offer Mr. Rickman the post of secretary to herself, for one year, at a salary of a hundred, the remainder to be devoted to histravelling and household expenses. As secretary he would assist her inediting Sir Joseph's unpublished works, while she secured him abundantleisure for his own. 

For one year he would be free from all sordid demands on his time andenergy. He would be free, for one year, from the shop and theQuarterly Catalogue. He would enrich his mind, and improve hismanners, with travel, for one year. At the end of that year he wouldknow if there was anything in him. 

In other words she would give the little man his chance. 

The plan had the further advantage that it would have given hergrandfather pleasure if he could have known it. It was also to bepresumed that it would give pleasure to Horace Jewdwine, since it wasthe very thing he himself had said he wished to do for Rickman. Of allconceivable ways of spending Sir Joseph's money it was the fittest andmost beautiful. In its lesser way it was in line with the besttraditions of the family; for the Hardens had been known forgenerations as the patrons of poor scholars and struggling men ofletters. And as Lucia inherited the intellect of her forefathers in amore graceful, capricious and spontaneous form, so what in them hadbeen heavy patronage, appeared in her as the pleasure-giving instinct. If she had inherited a large fortune along with it she would have beena lady of lavish and indiscreet munificence. 

By way of discretion she slept on her programme before finallycommitting herself to it. In the morning discretion suggested that shehad better wait a week. She decided to act on that suggestion; at thesame time she stifled the inner voice which kept telling her that thething she was doing "to please Horace" would not really please him atall. 

She had already ignored the advice he had given her on one point; forHorace had long ago told her plainly that there was no use in editingtheir grandfather's posthumous works; that on any subject other thantextual criticism, Sir Joseph was absurd. 

Meanwhile, by sympathy perhaps, Rickman also had become discreet. Heentered on his new week a new man. As if he had divined that he was onhis trial, he redoubled his prodigious efforts, he applied himself tohis hideous task with silent and concentrated frenzy. He seemed tolive and move and have his being in the catalogue _raisonné_. WheneverLucia had occasion to look up at him he was assiduous, rapid, absorbed, He never stopped to talk about Æschylus and Euripides. Nowand then they exchanged a necessary word, but not more than once ortwice in the morning. If Lucia by any chance gave him an opening heignored it. He maintained a silence that was almost stern. 

Mr. Rickman was undergoing a process of regeneration. 

He would not have called it by so fine a name. In fact, in its earlierstages he seemed to himself to be merely pushing to the point of maniaa strong predilection for personal cleanliness. He was first of allpossessed, recklessly, ruinously, by a passion for immaculate shirts. He had telegraphed to Spinks to send down all of his linen that hecould lay his hands on; meanwhile he had supplied deficiencies at thelocal haberdashers. At Mrs. Downey's there was a low standard for themore slender particulars of the toilette, and Mr. Rickman had comparedfavourably with his fellow-boarders. Now he looked back withincredulity and horror to his former self. Since his person had beenbrought into daily contact with Miss Harden he had begun to bestow onit a solemn, almost religious care. In the matter of the pockethandkerchief he practised an extreme ritual, permitting himself nonebut the finest lawn, which he changed after the first trivialcrumpling. The pocket-handkerchief being thus glorified and exalted inthe hierarchy of dress, one source of painful misgiving was removed. 

For the first few days he had been merely formal in this cult of theperson. Piety was appeased with external rites and symbols, withchanges of vestment, excessive lustrations, and the like. Now he hadgrown earnest, uncompromising, in his religion; and consistencyentailed a further step. Clearly his person, the object of suchsuperstitious veneration, must be guarded from all unbecoming andridiculous accidents; such an accident, for instance, as gettingdrunk. If you came to think of it, few things could be morecompromising to the person than that (Heavens! if Miss Harden had seenit last Wednesday night!). And since any friendship with ladies ofdoubtful character might be considered equally derogatory from itsdignity, he further resolved to eliminate (absolutely) Miss PoppyGrace. He took no credit for these acts of renunciation. They seemedto him no more morally meritorious than the removal of dust from hiscoat sleeves, or of ink-stains from his hands. 

But though he exterminated the devil in him with so light a touch, itwas gravely, tragically almost, that he turned to the expulsion of theCockney. Intoxication was an unlucky casualty; so, if you came tothink of it, was a violent infatuation for Miss Poppy Grace;infinitely more disastrous, more humiliating, were the fatal habits ofhis speech. Take the occasional but terrific destruction of the aitch. It was worse than drink; it wrecked a man more certainly, more utterlybeyond redemption and excuse. It was anxiety on this point that partlyaccounted for his reserve. He simply dared not talk about Æschylus orEuripides, because such topics were exciting, and excitement was aptto induce this lapse. 

But most of all he dreaded the supreme agitation of love. For he knewnow perfectly well what had happened to him; though he had never knownit happen to him in this manner before. It was love as his heart hadimagined it in the days before he became the thrall of Miss PoppyGrace. He had known the feeling, but until now he had not known thewoman who could inspire it. It was as if his heart had renewed itsprimal virginity in preparation for some divine experience. 

The night of Sunday beheld the withdrawal of Mr. Rickman into theimmensity of his preposterous dream. From this blessed state heemerged on Monday morning, enlightened as to the whole comedy andtragedy of his passion. To approach Lucia Harden required nothing lessthan a change of spirit; and Mr. Rickman doubted whether he couldmanage that. He could only change his shirts. And at this point therearose the hideous fear lest love itself might work to hinder andbetray him. 

As it turned out, love proved his ally, not his enemy. So far fromexciting him, it produced a depression that rendered him disinclinedfor continuous utterance. In this it did him good service. Itprevented him from obtruding his presence unduly on Miss Harden. Inhis seat at the opposite table he had achieved something of herprofound detachment, her consummate calm. And Lucia said to herself, "Good. He can keep quiet for a whole day at a time, which is what Idoubted. "

Six days had passed in this manner, and he had not yet attempted topenetrate the mystery and seclusion of the Aldine Plato, theNeapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. Heturned away his eyes from that corner of the bookcase where he hadgood reason to suppose them to be. He would have to look at them sometime, meanwhile he shrank from approaching them as from some grossimpiety. His father had written to him several times, making specialinquiries after the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace, and the_Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He replied with generalities in aguarded manner. He was kept very busy, and was as yet unable to sendhim any more detailed information. He had begun to feel it strangethat these questions should be put, to marvel at the assumption thatthey could in any way concern him. Rickman's had ceased altogether toexist for him. 

He was beginning to lose all sense of strangeness in his position. Thesix days might have been six years and Court House the home of hisinfancy, Lucia's presence filled it with so warm an atmosphere ofkindness and of love. The very servants had learnt something of hergentle, considerate ways. He was at home there as he had never been athome before. He knew every aspect of the library, through all thechanges of the light, from the first waking of its blues and crimsonsin the early morning to the broad and golden sweep of noonday throughthe south window; from the quick rushing flame of the sunset to itspremature death among the rafters. Then the lamps; a little light inthe centre where they sat, and the thick enclosing darkness roundabout them. 

Each of those six days was like a Sunday, and Sunday to Rickman wasalways a day of beatitude, being the day of dreams. And she, in hersweet unfamiliar beauty, only half real, though so piercingly presentto him, was an incarnate dream. She always sat with her back to thesouth window, so that her head and shoulders appeared somewhatindistinct against the outer world, a background of flower-beds andgreen grass and sky, covered with the criss-cross of the leadedlozenge panes and the watery shimmer of the glass. The outline of herhead was indicated by a little line of light that threaded her hairand tipped the curve of her small ears. He knew every change of herface, from its serene, faint-tinted morning look, to its flower-likepallor in the dusk. He knew only too well its look under thelamp-light after a hard day's work; the look that came with a slightblurring of its soft contours, and a drooping of tired eyelids overpathetic eyes. He saw what Jewdwine had failed to see, that Lucia wasnot strong. 

Six days, and three days before that, nine days in all; and it was asif he had known that face all his life; he could not conceive a timewhen he had not known it. As for the things he had known, horrible, curious and incredible things, such as Rickman's, Mrs. Downey's, St. Pancras Church, and the editor of _The Museion_ (whose last letter hehad left unanswered), they belonged to an infinitely remote andunimaginable past. It seemed the entirely obvious and natural thingthat he should be sitting there alone with Lucia Harden. He was neververy far from her. The east window looked across the courtyard to thewindow of her drawing-room; he could see her there, sitting in thelamp-light; he could hear the music that she made. Her bedroom wasabove the library; it was pleasant to him to know that when she lefthim it was to sleep there overhead. The deep quiet of his passion haddrawn him again into his dream. 

And then all of a sudden, he woke up and broke the silence. It was teno'clock on Saturday evening. Lucia had shifted the shade of the lamp. From where he sat her face was in twilight and her body in darkness. He had got up to put a book into its place, when he saw her leaningback and covering her eyes with her hand. 

The sight was too much for him. He came up and stood beside her. 

"Miss Harden, I don't like this. I--I can't stand it any longer. "

She looked up. She had been unaware of Mr. Rickman for the last hour, and certainly did not expect to find him there. 

"What is it that you can't stand?"

"To see you working from morning to night. It--it isn't right, youknow. You're paying me for this, and doing the half of it yourself. "

"I'm not doing a quarter of it. You forget that you're working threetimes as fast as I can. "

"And you forget that you're working three times as hard. "

"No. I'm leaving the hard work to you. "

"I wish you'd leave it all to me. "

"In that case we should never have finished, " said the lady. 

He smiled. "Perhaps not. At any rate you've worked so hard that I canfinish it now by myself. "

She looked round the room. Undisguised fatigue was in the look. Whatthey had done was nothing to what they had yet to do. 

"You can't, " she said. 

"I can. Easily. I miscalculated the time it would take. "

She said nothing, for she knew that he had lied. His miscalculationwas all the other way. She bent again over her work. It was all thathe could do not to lift her arms gently but firmly from the table, totake away her pen and ink, and put out her lamp. He would have likedto have done some violence to the catalogue. 

"I say, you know, you'll make yourself ill. You're burning the candleat both ends. May I suggest that the game isn't worth the candle?"

"Have you very much more to do?"

"About two hours' work. Would it be impertinent to say that I could doit better by myself?"

She looked at her watch and ignored his last question. "You can't dotwo hours' work. It's twenty minutes past your time already. "

Past his time, indeed! As if he hadn't been working past his timeevery night since he came. She had grown mighty particular all of asudden!

"The presence of these engaging little Elzevirs is a terribletemptation to a second-hand bookseller, still I believe you can trustme with them alone. "

From the expression of her face he gathered that this remark was evenmore impertinent than the other. He had meant it to be. 

"I really think, " said the lady, "that you had better go. "

"Just as you please; I shall only have to sit up two hours laterto-morrow night. "

He walked to his place with his head thrown farther back and his chinthrust farther forward than ever. He began to sort and arrange hispapers preparatory to his departure. It took him five minutes. At theend of the five minutes he was aware that Lucia had risen and wasbidding him Good-night. 

"You were quite right, " she was saying. "I _am_ tired, and I hadbetter leave off. If you had rather stay and finish, please stay. "

At those words Mr. Rickman was filled with a monstrous and amazingcourage. He made for the door, crossing without a tremor the wholelength of the library. He reached the door before Miss Harden, andopened it. He returned her good-night with a hope that she would berested in the morning. And as he went back to his solitary labour hesmiled softly to himself, a smile of self-congratulation. 

He had meant her to go--and she had gone. 

Upstairs in her room overhead Lucia communed with her own face in theglass. 

"My private secretary?"

The face in the glass looked dubious. 

"Of course I would rather have a gentleman for my private secretary. Some people would say he isn't a gentleman. " (She had said it herselfthe other day. )

The face in the glass smiled dimly, between two parted veils of hair. 

"What _is_ a gentleman?"

The face in the glass suggested that this was indeed a subtle and adifficult question. 

"It was not his business if I chose to tire myself. Would it have beenhis business if he'd been a gentleman?"

The face in the glass offered no opinion. 

"I think I like him best when he's impertinent. He is so _very_ funny, poor dear, when he tries to be polite. "

The face in the glass, framed by two white arms raising a column ofhair, was suffused with rosy mirth. 

"I wonder what Horace really thinks of him?"

The face, triumphantly crowned with its dark coil, looked grave. 

"He _is_ a gentleman. At least, he lied like one. "

By this time Lucia was in bed, and there was no face in the glass todispute or corroborate that statement. 

CHAPTER XXIII

The next morning he gave into her hands the manuscript of _Helen inLeuce_. It had arrived two or three days ago, packed by Spinks betweenhis new shirts. She had expected to feel a little guilty as shereceived the familiar sheets; but as she glanced over them she sawthat they were anything but familiar; what she had to deal with was aclean new draft. 

She had a fairly clear recollection of the outline of the play. 

In Act I Helen lands in the enchanted island of Leuce, and is foundwatching the ship that brought her sailing away with the deadMenelaus, for he, being altogether mortal, may not follow her there. The Chorus tells the story of Helen, her rape by Theseus, her marriagewith Menelaus, her flight with Paris, the tragedy of Troy and herreturn to Argos. It tells how through all her adventures the godheadin her remained pure, untouched, holding itself apart. 

In Act II Helen is asleep, for the soul of Leda still troubles herdivinity, and her mortality is heavy upon her. Helen rises out of hersleep; her divinity is seen struggling with her mortality, burningthrough the beauty of her body. Desire wakens in Achilles, and inHelen terror and anguish, as of one about to enter again into the painof mortal life. But he may not touch her till he, too, has put onimmortality. Helen prays for deliverance from the power of Aphrodite. She rouses in Achilles a great anger against Aphrodite by remindinghim of the death of Patroclus; so that he calls down upon the goddessthe curses of all the generations of men. 

It was this Act that lived in Lucia's memory. Act III she had not yetread, but she had gathered from the argument that Pallas Athene wasthere to appear to Achilles and divest him of his mortality; that shewas to lead him to Helen, whose apotheosis was supposed to becomplete; the Act concluding with two choruses, an epithalamiumcelebrating the wedding of Helen and Achilles, and a Hymn in praise ofAthene. 

She remembered how when Horace had first told her of the subject, Helen in Leuce, she had looked it up in Lemprière, found a referencein Homer and another in Euripides, had shaken her head and said, "Whatcan he make of that?"

Now for the first time she saw what he had made of it. Rickman's Helenwas to the Helena of Euripides what Shelley's Prometheus is to thePrometheus of Æschylus. Rickman had done what seemed good in his owneyes. He had made his own metres, his own myth and his own drama. Adrama of flesh and blood, a drama of spirit, a drama of dreams. Only avery young poet could have had the courage to charge it with such aweight of symbolism; but he had contrived to breathe into his symbolsthe breath of life; the phantoms of his brain, a shadowy Helen andAchilles, turned into flesh and blood under his hands. It was as iftheir bodies, warm, throbbing, full-formed, instinct with irresistibleand violent life, had come crashing through the delicate fabric of hisdream. 

As she read Lucia's mind was troubled, shaken out of its criticalserenity. She heard a new music; she felt herself in the grasp of anew power, a new spirit. It was not the classic spirit. There was toomuch tumult in its harmonies, as if the music of a whole orchestra hadbeen torn from its instruments and flung broadcast, ridingtriumphantly on the wings of a great wind. There were passages(notably the Hymn to Aphrodite in the second Act) that brought thethings of sense and the terrible mysteries of flesh and blood so nearto her that she flinched. Rickman had made her share the thrillingtriumph, the flushed passion of his youth. And when she was most hurtand bruised under the confusion of it, he lifted her up and carriedher away into the regions of spiritual beauty and eternal strength. 

It was all over; the tumult of the flesh and the agony of the spirit;over, too, the heaven-piercing singing, the rapture of spirit and offlesh made one. Rickman had ended his amazing drama with the broadmajestic music of his Hymn to Athene. Lucia had borne up under theparting of Helen and Menelaus; but she was young, and at that touch ofsuperb and ultimate beauty, two tears, the large and heavy tears ofyouth, fell upon Rickman's immaculate manuscript, where their marksremain to this day. The sight of them had the happy effect of makingher laugh, and then, and not till then, she thought of Rickman--Mr. Rickman. She thought of him living a dreadful life among dreadfulpeople; she thought of him sitting in his father's shop, makingcatalogues _raisonnés_; she thought of him sitting in the librarymaking one at that very moment. And this was the man she had had theimpertinence to pity; whom Horace would say she now proposed topatronize. As she stood contemplating the pile of manuscript beforeher, Miss Lucia Harden felt (for a great lady) quite absurdly small. 

In that humble mood she was found by Miss Palliser. 

"What's up?" said Kitty. 

"Kitty, that little man in there--he's written the most beautifulplay. It's so terribly sad. "

"What, the play?"

"No, the little man. It's a classic, Kitty--it'll live. "

"Then I'm sure you needn't pity him. Let's have a look at the thing. "Miss Palliser dipped into the manuscript, and was lost. 

"By Jove, " she said, "it does look ripping. Where does the sadnesscome in?"

"He thinks he'll never write another. "

"Well, perhaps he won't. "

"He will--think of it--he's a genius, the real thing, this time. Only--he has to stand behind a counter and make catalogues. "

Miss Palliser meditated. "Does he--does he by any chance drop hisaitches?"

"Kitty, he _does_. "

"Then Lucy, dear child, beware, beware, his flashing eyes, hisfloating hair--"

"Don't. That little man is on my mind. "

"I shouldn't let him stop there too long, if I were you. He mightrefuse to get on. "

"I must do something for him, and I must do it now. What _can_ I do?"

"Not much, I imagine. "

"I--I think I'll ask him to dinner. "

"I wouldn't. You said he drops his aitches. Weave, " said MissPalliser, "a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holydread, but whatever you do, don't ask him to dinner. "

"Why not?"

"Because ten to one it would make him most horribly uncomfortable. Notthat that matters so much. But wouldn't the faithful Robert think it alittle odd?"

"Robert is too faithful to think anything at all. "

"I'm not so sure of that. Personally, I wish you _would_ ask him todinner--I seem to foresee a certain amount of amusing incident. "

"Well, I don't think I will ask him--to dinner. Perhaps he wouldn'tenjoy it. But as I've got to talk over his play with him, I shouldlike to ask him to something. "

"Ask him to coffee afterwards. "

"Coffee hardly seems enough. "

"It depends. Serve it festively--on a table, and pour it out yourself. Offer him strange and bewitching forms of food. Comfort him with--withangel cake--and savoury sandwiches and bread and butter. "

"I see--a sort of compromise?"

"Exactly. Society, my child, is based on compromise. "

"Very well, then, I'll write him a note. "

She wrote it, and sent Robert with it to the library. 

"I suppose, " said she, "it's about time to dress for dinner?"

"Don't make yourself too pretty, dear. "

Lucia looked back through the doorway. 

"I shall make myself as pretty as ever I can. He has had nothing butugly things to look at all his life. "

Miss Palliser apostrophized the departing figure of her friend. 

"Oh Lucy, Lucy, what an angelic little fool you _are_!"

CHAPTER XXIV

Half-past six, and Miss Harden had not yet appeared in the library. Itwas the first time that Rickman had passed a whole day without seeingher. He began to be uneasy, to wonder whether she were really ill. Atseven he was leaving the house as usual for his hotel when Robertbrought him a little three-cornered note. 

 "Dear Mr. Rickman, " it said (Dear Mr. Rickman!) "you see I have taken your advice, and given myself a holiday. I have spent it very pleasantly--reading _Helen in Leuce_. It would give me much pleasure if you would come in for coffee this evening, about eight o'clock. We can then talk it over. 

 "Very truly yours, "LUCIA HARDEN. 

"You need only send a verbal answer. "

A verbal answer? No. That would never do. He could not trust himselfwith speech, but in writing he knew he was impeccable. 

 "Dear Miss Harden. How very kind of you! But I am sorry that you did not give yourself a complete rest. I should be sorrier, if I were not so grateful for the trouble you have taken. It will give me great pleasure to come in this evening at the time you name. 

 "With many thanks, yours very truly, "S. K. RICKMAN. "

He was not pleased with it; it erred on the side of redundancy; he hadnot attained the perfect utterance, the supreme simplicity. But he wasobliged to let it go. Two hours later Robert announced that coffee wasserved in the drawing-room. 

It seemed that to reach the drawing-room you had to cross the wholelength of the house from west to east. In this passage he realized(what his mind had not greatly dwelt upon), the antiquity of theHardens, and the march of their splendid generations. Going from theTudor Library into the grim stone hall of the Court House, he took acold plunge backward into time. Thence his progress wasstraightforward, bringing him into the Jacobean picture gallery thatcut the house from north to south. Here he paused, perceiving that thedouble line of portraits began with a Vandyck and a Lely. Robert stoodwith his hand on the brass rose knob of an oak door; in his eternalattitude of affection, mingled with immobile respect, he waited forthe moment when Mr. Rickman should elect to tear himself from the Lelyand the Vandyck. The moment came, and Mr. Rickman heard himselfannounced in a clear high voice as he passed over the threshold. 

He found himself in a long oak-panelled room; that room whose westwindow looked out across the courtyard to the east window of thelibrary. It was almost dark except for a small fire-lit, lamp-lit, square at the far end. Lucia was sitting in a low chair by thefireplace, under the tall shaded lamp, where the light fell full onher shoulders. She was not alone. On a settee by the other side of theopen hearth sat the young lady who had intruded on his solitude in thelibrary. The presence of the young lady filled him with anxiety anddismay. 

He had to cross a vast, dim space before he reached that lightedregion. With what seemed to him a reeling and uncertain gait, heapproached over the perilously slippery parquet. Miss Harden rose andcame forward, mercifully cutting short that frightful passage from thethreshold to her chair. 

Lucia had not carried out the intention she had announced to Kitty. She had dressed in haste; but in Rickman's eyes the effect was thatwhich Kitty had seen fit to deprecate. She had made herself verypretty indeed. He could not have given a very clear account of it, could not have said whether the thing she wore, that floating, sweeping, curling, trailing, folding and caressing garment were madeof grey gossamer in white or white in grey, but he was aware that itshowed how divinely her slender body carried its flower, her head;showed that her arms, her throat, and the first sweep and swell of hershoulders, were of one tone with the luminous pallor of her face. Something in the dress, in her bearing and manner of approach, gaveher the assured charm of womanhood for the unfinished loveliness ofyouth. 

She introduced him to her friend Miss Palliser, whose green eyessmiled in recognition. He bowed with the stiffness of a backunaccustomed to that form of salutation. He hardly knew what happenedafter that, till he found himself backing, nervously, ridiculouslybacking into a lonely seat in the middle of the room. 

The three were now grouped in a neat geometrical figure, Mr. Rickman, on the chair of his choice, forming the apex of a prolonged triangle, having the hearthrug for its base. He was aware that Miss Harden andMiss Palliser were saying something; but he had no idea of what theysaid. He sat there wondering whether he ought to be seated at all, whether he ought not rather to be hovering about that little table, ready to wait upon Miss Palliser. He was still wondering when MissPalliser got up with the evident intention of waiting upon him. 

That, he knew, was all wrong; it was not to be permitted for a moment. Inspired by a strange, unnatural courage, he advanced and took hiscoffee from her hand, retreating with it to his remote and solitaryposition. 

He sat silent, moodily looking at his coffee, stirring it from time totime and wondering whether he would ever be brave enough to drink it. He waited for an opportunity of dispatching it unperceived. Thepresence of Miss Palliser paralysed him. He wondered whether he oughtto say anything to her or to Miss Harden, or to neither or to both; hetried to think of something suitable to say. 

Meanwhile Miss Palliser talked for all three. It seemed that she haddined with her friend on her way to an "at home" in Harmouth. 

"Bread and butter?" said she judicially "N--no, I think not, thanks. I've got to eat jellies and sandwiches and things for two hoursstraight on end. It sounds horrible, but I shall be driven to it. Atthe Flossers, " she explained for her friend's benefit, "you musteither eat or talk; and if you can't talk scandal you're not expectedto talk at all. " And still talking Miss Palliser slowly bore down uponMr. Rickman with a plate of bread and butter. 

Mr. Rickman's earnest and chivalrous endeavour to forestall her causeda rug to slide under his feet. It slid, and Mr. Rickman with it, forquite a considerable distance; and though Mr. Rickman, indeed, preserved the erect attitude by a series of complicated movements (asuperb triumph of muscular ingenuity, but somewhat curious andfantastic as a spectacle), his coffee cup flung itself violently onits side, and poured out its contents at the lady's feet. 

He looked at Miss Harden. She was smiling; for who wouldn't havesmiled? But her smile became almost tender in her perception of hisdistress. 

Miss Palliser continued to talk. 

"Ah, " said Miss Palliser, "I was waiting for that to happen. I've beenwondering which of us would do it first. I rather thought it would beme; but for pure, delightful unexpectedness, give me a parquet floor. I wouldn't mop it up with my pocket handkerchief, if I were you. "

"No--please--it doesn't matter. It happens every day. "

"And it puts a visitor on an agreeable footing at once. You _can't_keep up any stiffness or formality, when what you took for adrawing-room turns itself into a skating rink. "

"Quite so, " said Rickman, "and if you fall, it breaks the ice. " He wasentering shyly into her humour. "I'm afraid my be-h-haviour wasn'tquite so h-happy and spontaneous as it might have been. "

"I assure you it was extremely naïve and natural, as far as it went, "said Kitty, laughing. 

"I think you were very clever to keep your balance, " said Lucia. 

"Too clever by half. If you'd been a really genial person, Mr. Rickman, you'd have lost it. "

Thus lightly did they cover his confusion, thus adroitly turn themalignant hand of circumstance. 

"Kitty, " said Lucia, "I don't want to hurry you, but it's past nine, and you'll _have_ to hurry if you don't want to be late. "

"But I do want to be late. I mean to be late. I can't eat sandwichesfor more than two hours. "

And Kitty flung herself on her settee again in crosslegged, unpremeditated ease, and there she conversed with Mr. Rickman as ifshe had known him all her life. Kitty was amused at last. 

So was Mr. Rickman. He found himself answering with appropriatelight-heartedness; he heard himself laughing in the manner of oneinfinitely at ease. It was impossible to be anything else in KittyPalliser's society. He was, in fact, surprised. Though it was only byimmense expenditure of thought and effort that he managed to securethe elusive aspirate, still he secured it. Never for a moment did heallow himself to be cheated into the monstrous belief that its absencewas, or could be unperceived. 

But though he was grateful to Miss Palliser, he wished all the timethat she would go. At last she rose and drew her fur-collared cloakabout her with a slow, reluctant air. 

"Well, I suppose I must be off. I shall be back before eleven, Lucy. Good-night, Mr. Rickman, if I don't see you again. "

He was alone with Lucia Harden. 

It was one thing to be alone with Lucia Harden in the library or onHarcombe Moor, and quite another thing to be left with her in thatlamp-lit, fire-lit room. The library belonged to her race and to theirhistoric past; the moor to nature and to all time; this room to herand to the burning present. There was no sign or suggestion of anotherpresence. 

A kindly room (barring that parquet floor!); a beautiful room; full ofwarm lights, and broad and pleasing shadows; furnished with an extremesimplicity, such bareness as musicians love. He was struck by thatabsence of all trivial decoration, all disturbing and irrelevantdetail. In such a room, the divinity of the human form was not dwarfedor obscured by excess of furniture. Such a room, he reflected, wasalso eminently disadvantageous to any figure that was not entirelysure of its divinity. But for two persons who desired to know eachother better there couldn't be a better place. It left them sosecurely, so intimately alone. 

For the first time, then, he was alone with Lucia Harden. 

She had risen and had unlocked a drawer in the writing-table near her, and taken out the thick pile of manuscript. He noticed that shedetached from it some loose pencilled sheets and put them back intothe drawer. She seated herself in her old place and signed to him totake the low chair beside her. 

He approached her (for the first time) without nervousness orembarrassment; for he saw his _Helen_ lying on her knees and knew thatshe held his dreams in her soul. He had made her acquainted with thebest and highest in him, and she would judge him by that alone. In hersight his genius would stand apart from all in him that was jarringand obscure. It at least was untouched by the accident of his birth, the baseness of his false position. 

"I sent for you, " said she, "because I wanted to talk to you aboutthis, while it is all fresh in my mind. I thought we could talk betterhere. "

"Thanks. I want awfully to know what you have to say. "

"I can't have anything to say that you don't know already. "

"I--I know nothing. " (What a hypocrite he felt as he said it!)

"Nor I. As far as knowledge goes I haven't any right to speak. Only--the other evening, you expressed such absolute disbelief inyourself--"

"I was perfectly sincere. "

"I know you were. That's what made me believe in you. "

(Well then, if _that_ was what made her believe in him he wouldcontinue to express disbelief in himself. )

She paused. "It's the little men, isn't it, the men of talent, thatare always so self-conscious and so sure? I don't know much about it, but it seems to me that genius isn't bound to be like that. It mightbe so different from your ordinary self that you couldn't be aware ofit in the ordinary way. There would always be a sort of divineuncertainty about it. "

"I'm afraid I don't agree with you. All the great geniuses have beennot only aware of themselves, but most uncommonly certain. "

"Still, their genius may have been the part of themselves theyunderstood least. If they had tried to understand it, they would havedoubted too. "

"There's something in that. You mean genius understandseverything--except itself?

"I think that's what I meant. "

"Yes; but whether genius understands itself or not, whatever it does, you see, it doesn't doubt. "

"Doesn't it? Have you read Keats' letters? _He_ doubted. "

"Only when he was in love with Fanny Brawne. "

He paused abruptly. He was seized by an idea, a rushing irresistibleidea that lifted him off his feet and whirled him suddenly into aregion of light, tumultuous and profound. Keats was in love when hedoubted. Could that be the explanation of his own misgiving?

"That, " he said hastily, "that's another thing altogether. Any way, ifyou don't believe in yourself, you'll have some difficulty in makingother people believe in you. "

"And if other people _do_ believe in you, before you believe inyourself?"

"Before? It might be done before, but not after. You may make a manconceited, but you can't give him back the conceit he had on Saturday, if he's lost it all by Monday. "

"That means that you know you've written a beautiful thing and youonly think you'll never write another. "

"Perhaps it does. " (He had to keep it up for the pleasure of hearingher say she believed in him. )

"Well, I don't suppose you will write another _Helen in Leuce_. "

"I'm afraid not. " He went on to tell her that the wonder was how hewrote the thing at all. It had been done anyhow, anywhere, insuccessive bursts or spasms of creative energy; the circumstances ofhis life (he referred to them with some diffidence) not being exactlyfavourable to sustained effort. "How did _you_ feel about it?" heinquired. 

"I can hardly tell you. I think I felt as you feel about anythingbeautiful that comes to you for the first time. I don't know what itis you've done. It's as if something had been done to me, as if I'dbeen given a new sense. It's like hearing Beethoven or Wagner for thefirst time. " As she spoke she saw the swift blood grow hot in hisface, she saw the slight trembling of the hand that propped his chinand she thought, "Poor fellow, so much emotion for a little praise?"

"What did you mean by it?" she said. 

He considered a moment--as who should say "What the dickens did I meanby it?"

Lucia leaned back now, for the first time, in the breathing space hegave her, attentively watching the man she proposed to make hersecretary; and as she watched him she found herself defending himagainst her own criticism. If he dropped his aitches it was notgrossly as the illiterate do; she wouldn't go so far as to say he_dropped_ them; he slipped them, slided them; it was no more than asubtle slur, a delicate elision. And that only in the commoner words, the current coin of his world. He was as right as possible, shenoticed, in all words whose acquaintance he had made on his ownaccount. And his voice--his voice pleaded against her prejudice withall its lyric modulations. Much may be forgiven to such voices. Andthere were other points in his favour. 

Kitty was right. He was nice to look at. She was beginning to know thechanges of his face; she liked it best when, as now, its featuresbecame suddenly subtle and serious and straight. At the moment hiseyes, almost opaque from the thickness of their blue, were dull underthe shadow of the eye-bone. But when he grew excited (as he frequentlydid) they had a way of clearing suddenly, they flashed first colour atyou, then light, then fire. That was what they were doing now; for nowhe let himself go. 

His Helen, he said, was the eternal Beauty, the eternal Dream. Beautyperpetually desirous of incarnation, perpetually unfaithful to fleshand blood; the Dream that longs for the embrace of reality, thatwanders never satisfied till it finds a reality as immortal as itself. Helen couldn't stay in the house of Theseus, or the house of Menelausor the house of Priam. Theseus was a fool if he thought he would takeher by force, and Paris was a fool if he thought he could keep her forpleasure; and Menelaus was the biggest fool of all if he expected herto bear him children and to mind his house. They all do violence tothe divinity in her, and she vindicates it by eluding them. Hervengeance is the vengeance of an immortal made victim to mortality. Helen of Argos and Troy is the Dream divorced from reality. 

"Yes--yes. I see. " She leaned back in her chair, fascinated, while thewonderful voice went on, covering its own offences with exquisiteresonances and overtones. 

"This divorce is the cause of all the evil that can happen to men andwomen. Because of it Helen becomes an instrument in the hands ofAphrodite--Venus Genetrix--do you see? She's the marriage-breaker, thedestroyer of men. She brings war and pestilence and death. She is thesupreme illusion. But _Helen in Leuce_ is the true Helen. In Leuce, you know, she appears as she is, in her divine form, freed from thetyranny of perpetual incarnation. I can't explain it, but that's theidea. Don't you see how the chorus in praise of Aphrodite breaks offinto a prayer for deliverance from her? And at the end I make Athenebring Helen to Achilles, who was her enemy in Troy. --That's part ofthe idea, too. "

"And Achilles?"

"Achilles is strength, virility, indestructible _will_. "

It seemed that while trivial excitement corrupted, intense feelingpurified his speech, and as he pronounced these words every accent wasirreproachable. A lyric exaltation seemed to have seized him as it hadseized him in the reading of Sophocles. 

"The idea is reconciliation, the wedding of the Dream to reality. Ihaven't made up my mind whether the last chorus will be theEpithalamium or the Hymn to Pallas Athene. "

He paused for reflection, and in reflection the lyric rapture died. He added pensively. "The 'Ymn, I think. "

Lucia averted her ardent gaze before the horror in his young blueeyes. They were the eyes of some wild winged creature dashed down fromits soaring and frenzied by the fall. Lucia could have wept for him. 

"Then this, " said she, feigning an uninterrupted absorption in themanuscript, "this is not what my cousin saw?"

"No, h--he only saw the first draft of the two first Acts. It washorribly stiff and cold. He said it was classical; I don't know whathe'd say it is now. I began it that way, and it finished itself thisway, and then I re-wrote the beginning. "

"I see. I see. Something happened to you. " As she spoke she still kepther eyes fixed on the manuscript, as if she were only reading what waswritten there. "You woke up--in the middle of the second Act, wasn'tit?--and came to life. You heard the world--the real world--calling toyou, and Helen and Achilles and all the rest of them turned to fleshand blood on your hands. "

"Yes, " he said, "they were only symbols and I'd no notion what theymeant till they left off meaning it. "

She looked from the manuscript to him. "You know in your heart you_must_ be certain of yourself. And yet--I suspect the trouble with youis that _your_ dream is divorced from reality. "

He stared in amazement at the young girl who thus interpreted him toherself. At this rate he saw no end to her powers of divination. Therewere depths in his life where her innocence could not penetrate, butshe had seized on the essential. It had been as she had said. Thatfirst draft was the work of the young scholar poet, the adorer ofclassic form, the dreamer who found in his dreams escape from thegrossness of his own lower nature and from the brutalities of theworld he lived in. A great neo-classic drama was to be his protestagainst modernity and actuality. Then came an interval of a year inwhich he learnt many things that are not to be found in books, oradequately expressed through neo-classic drama; and the thing wasfinished and re-written at a time when, as she had said, somethinghad happened to him; when that same gross actual world was making itsclaims felt through all his senses. And he was suffering now the deepmelancholy of perspicuous youth, unable to part with its dreams butaware that its dreams are hopelessly divorced from reality. That wasso; but how on earth did she know it?

"It's hardly a divorce, " he said, laughing. "I think it's separationby mutual consent. "

"That's a pity, " said she, "life is so lovable. "

"I don't always find it either lovable or loving. But then it's lifein a fifth-rate boarding-house in Bloomsbury--if you know what thatis. "

She did not know what that was, and her silence suggested that sheconceived it to be something too unpleasant to discuss with him. 

"I work eight hours a day in my father's shop--"

"And when your work is done?"

"I go back to the boarding-house and dine. "

"And after dinner?"

Mr. Rickman became visibly embarrassed. "Oh, after dinner, there arethe streets, and the theatres, and--and things. "

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing. Except a club I belong to. "

"That's something, isn't it? You make friends. "

"I don't know anybody in it, except Mr. Jewdwine; and I don't reallyknow him. It's the shop, you know. You forget the shop. "

"No I don't forget it; but I wish you would. If only you could getaway from it, away from everything. If you could get away from Londonaltogether for a while. "

"If--if? I shall never get away. "

"Why not? I've been thinking it over. I wonder whether things couldnot be made a little easier for you? You ought to make your peace withthe world, you know. Supposing you could go and live where the worldhappens to be beautiful, in Rome or Florence or Venice, wouldn't thatreconcile you to reality?"

"It might. But I don't see how I'm to go and live there. You seethere's the shop. There always is the shop. "

"Would it be impossible to leave it for a little while?"

"Not impossible, perhaps; but"--he smiled, "well--highly imprudent. "

"But if something else were open to you?"

"Nothing else is, at present. Most doors seem closed pretty tightexcept the one marked Tradesmen's Entrance. "

"You can't 'arrive' by that. "

"Not, I admit, with any dignity. My idea was to walk up thesteps--there are a great many steps, I know--to the big front door andkeep on knocking at it till they let me in. "

"I'm afraid the front door isn't always open very early in the day. But there may be side doors. "

"I don't know where to find them. And if I did, they would be bolted, too. "

"Not the one I am thinking of. Would you like to go abroad, to Italy?"

"There are a great many things I should like to do, and not theremotest chance of doing them. "

"Supposing that you got the chance, some way--even if it wasn't quitethe best way--would you take it?"

"The chance? I wish I saw one!"

"I think I told you I was going abroad to join my father. We shall bein Italy for some time. When we are settled, in Rome, for the winter, I shall want a secretary. I'm thinking of editing my grandfather'sunpublished writings, and I can't do this without a scholar's help. Itstruck me that if you want to go abroad, and nothing better turns up, you might care to take this work for a year. For the sake of seeingItaly. "

Seeing Italy? Italy that he had once desired with all his heart tosee. And now it was nothing to him that he would see Italy; the pointwas that he would see her. Talk of open doors! It was dawning on himthat the door of heaven was being opened to him. He could say nothing. He leaned forward staring at his own loosely clasped hands. 

She mistook his silence for hesitation, and it was her turn to becomediffident and shy. "The salary would not be very large, I'm afraid--"

The salary? He smiled. She had opened the door of heaven for him andshe actually proposed to pay him for walking in!

"But there would be no expenses, and you would have space and time. Ishould not want your help for more than three or four hours in themorning. After that you would be absolutely free. "

And still he said nothing. But the fine long nervous hands torturedeach other in their clasp. So this was what came of keeping up thefarce?

"Of course, " she said, "you must think it over. "

"Miss Harden, I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what tosay. "

"Don't say anything. Think. "

"I don't know what to think. "

But he was thinking hard; trying to realize where he was and what wasbeing proposed to him. To have entertained the possibility of such aproposal in the middle of last week would have argued that he wasdrunk. And here he was indubitably, conspicuously sober. Sober? Well, not exactly. He ought never to have taken that little cup of blackcoffee! Was there any difference between drinking champagne with MissPoppy Grace and drinking coffee with Lucia Harden, when the effect wasso indistinguishably the same? Or rather, for completeness andsplendour of hallucination there was no comparison. He was drunk, drunk as he had never been drunk before, most luminously, mostdivinely intoxicated with that little cup of black coffee. 

And yet her scheme was entirely in keeping with that ideal andfantastic world he lived in; a world which in the last six days hadyet, for him, the illusion of reality. He was aware that it _was_illusion. An illusion which she blindly shared. 

He was overcome by the appalling extent of his knowledge and herignorance. She thought she was rich; he knew that she was in allprobability poor. She thought a hundred a year (or thereabouts) aninsignificant sum; he knew that before long she might have less thanthat to live on. She thought herself at the present moment a wise andunderstanding woman. He knew that she was a child. A child playingwith its own beautiful imagination. 

He wondered how much of him she understood. Should he tell her thatshe did not understand him at all; that she was engaging as herprivate secretary a young man who drank, who was quite shockinglydrunk no longer ago than the middle of last week; a young man who wasan intimate friend of a lady whom it was impossible to describeaccurately in her presence? Or did she understand him better than heunderstood himself? Had she, with her child's innocence, the divinelucidity of a child? Did she fail to realize his baser possibilitiesbecause they were the least real part of him? Or was she, in this, ideal and fantastic too?

Whichever it was, her fascination was so persuasive that he foundhimself yielding to her proposal as if it were the most natural thingin the world. He accepted it as humbly, as gratefully, as gravely, asif it were a thing actually in her power to bestow. If he could havesuspected her of any intention to patronize him, he could not haveresented it, knowing as he did its pathetic impotence. 

"I know it isn't the best way, " she said, "but it _is_ a way. 

"It's a glorious way. "

"I don't know about the glory. But you will see Florence and Veniceand Rome, and they are glorious. "

Yes, he would see them, if she said so. Why not? In this ideal andfantastic world, could any prospect be more ideal and fantastic thananother?

"And you will have plenty of time to yourself. You will be a greatdeal alone. Too much alone perhaps. You must think of that. It mightreally be better for you to stay in London where you are beginning tomake friends. "

Was she trying to break it to him as gently, as delicately as possiblethat there would be no intimacy between him and her? That as herprivate secretary his privacy would be painfully unbroken?

She saw it and corrected herself. "Friends, I mean, who may be able tohelp you more. You must choose between the two advantages. It will bea complete break with your old life. "

"That would be the best thing that could happen to me. "

This time she did not see. "Well--don't be in a hurry. There isn't anyhurry. Remember, it means a whole year out of your life. "

A whole year out of his life? Was that the way she looked at it?

Yes. She was giving him his chance; but she did not conceive herselfto be giving him anything more. She understood him sufficiently totrust him; her insight went so far and no farther. She actuallybelieved that there could be a choice for him between seeing her everyday for a whole year and never seeing her again. Evidently she had notthe remotest conception of his state of mind. He doubted whether itcould have occurred to her to allow for the possibility of her privatesecretary falling in love with her in the innermost privacy of hissecretaryship. He saw that hers was not the order of mind thatentertains such possibilities on an intimate footing. She wasgenerous, large-sighted; he understood that she would let herself becarried away on the superb sweep of the impersonal, reckless ofcontingencies. He also understood that with this particular privatesecretary she would consider herself safe. The social difference wasas much her protection as some preposterous incompatibility of age. And as if that were not enough, in their thoughts they were so akinthat she might feel herself guarded from him by some law of spiritualconsanguinity. 

"Oh, my life--" he said with a queer short laugh that sounded like asob, --"well, I must be getting back to my work. "

"You are _not_ going to work again to-night?"

"I must. " Yet he did not get up to go. He seemed to be waiting to saysomething. "I--I haven't thanked you. I don't know how to. "

"Don't try. I've done nothing. There is little that one person can dofor another. "

"There's something that you might do for me--some day--if I mightask--if you would. "

"What is that?"

She followed his gaze as it travelled into the depth of the roombeyond the circle of the lamp-light, where the grand piano stood. Itskeyboard shone in an even band of white, its massive body merged inthe gleaming darkness. 

"If you would play to me--some day. "

"I will play to you with pleasure. " Her voice sounded as if she werebreathing more freely; perhaps she had wondered what on earth he wasgoing to say. "Now, if you like. "

Why not? If she had enjoyed his music, had he not a right to enjoyhers? Why should she not give him that little pleasure, he who had sofew?

"What shall I play?"

"I should like to hear that thing you were playing the other night. "

"Let me think. Oh, the Sonata Appassionata. "

"Yes, if it isn't too late. " The moment he had said it he reflectedthat that was a scruple that might have been better left to the lady. 

He watched her grey-white figure departing into the dusk of the room. He longed to follow, but some fear restrained him. He remained wherehe was, leaning back in the deep chair under the lamp while she satdown there in the dusk, playing to him the Sonata Appassionata. 

The space around the lamp grew dim to him; she had gathered intoherself all the whiteness of the flame; the music was a part of herradiance, it was the singing of her pulses, the rhythm of her breath. 

When she had stopped playing he rose and held out his hand to saygood-night. 

"Thank you. I don't think so badly of my life now. You've given me oneperfect moment. "

"Are you so fond of music?"

She was about to ring when he prevented her. 

"Please don't ring. I can find my way. I'd rather. "

She judged that he desired to keep the perfection of his momentunimpaired. She understood his feeling about it, for the SonataAppassionata is a most glorious and moving composition, and she hadplayed it well. 

It was true that he desired to be alone; and he took advantage of hissolitude to linger in the picture gallery. He went down the doublerow of portraits that began with Sir Thomas, the maker of madrigals, and ended with Sir Frederick, the father of Lucia. He paused at each, searching for Lucia's likeness in the likeness of those dead and gonegentlemen and ladies; gentlemen with grave and intellectual faces, some peevish, others proud (rather like Jewdwine), ladies with facesjoyous, dreamy, sad, voluptuous, tender and insipid, faces alike onlyin their indestructible racial distinction. Lucia had taken nothingfrom them but what was beautiful and fine; hers was the deep-drawnunconscious beauty of the race; beauty of flesh and blood purified, spiritualized in its passage through the generations, beauty thatgives the illusion of eternity, being both younger and older than thesoul. It was as if Nature had become Art in the making of Lucia, forming her by the subtlest processes of selection and rejection. 

Having gone the round of the gallery, he paused before the modernportraits which brought him again to the door of the drawing-room. SirFrederick held him with his joyous satyr-face, for it was curiously, incredibly like his daughter's (to be sure, Sir Frederick had blueeyes and reddish hair, which made a difference). His eyebrows had afar-off hint of her; she lingered in the tilted corners of his mouthand eyes. And if there could be any likeness between a thing so grossand a thing so spiritual, his upper lip took a sweep that suggestedLucia's with its long-drawn subtle curve. 

He was startled out of these reflections by the opening of the door. Lucia stood beside him. She had a lamp in her hand which she raisedfor an instant, so that the light fell full upon the portrait. Her ownface appeared as if illuminated from within by the flaming spirit oflove. 

"That is my father, " she said simply, and passed on. 

He looked again at the portrait, but the likeness had vanished. In thefrank sensuality of Sir Frederick's crimson smirk he could find noaffinity to Lucia's grave and tender smile. 

"There are some things, " he said to himself, "that she could neversee. "

CHAPTER XXV

If Lucia was not, as her father had pronounced her, the worst educatedyoung woman in Europe, there was a sense (not intended by SirFrederick) in which her education might be called incomplete. She hadlearnt the things that she liked, and she had left unlearnt the thingsthat she did not like. It was the method of discreet skipping; and itanswered so well in the world of books that she had applied it to theworld of men and women. She knew the people she liked, and she leftunknown those whom she did not like. Here in Harmouth her peculiar artor instinct of selection earned for her, as Kitty Palliser had latelytold her, the character of exclusiveness. This, by the way was familytradition again. From time immemorial there had been a certainwell-recognized distance between Court House and the little Georgiantown. And when Harmouth was discovered by a stock-broker and became awatering-place, and people began to talk about Harmouth society, CourtHouse remained innocently unaware that anything of the sort existed. Lucia selected her friends elsewhere with such supreme fastidiousnessthat she could count them on the fingers of one hand, her instinct, like all great natural gifts, being entirely spontaneous andunconscious. 

And now it seemed she had added Mr. Savage Keith Rickman to the list. She owned quite frankly that in spite of everything she liked him. 

But Rickman was right. Lucia with all her insight had not the remotestconception of his state of mind. The acquaintance had arisen quitenaturally out of her desire to please Horace, and if on this theresupervened a desire to please Mr. Rickman, there was not a particleof vanity in it. She had no thought of being Mr. Rickman'sinspiration; her attitude to his genius was humbly reverent, herattitude to his manhood profoundly unconscious. She had preserved amost formidable innocence. There had been nothing in Horace Jewdwine'sslow and well-regulated courtship to stir her senses, or give her thesmallest inkling of her own power that way. Kitty's suggestion seemedto her preposterous; it was only the Kittishness of Kitty, and couldhave no possible application to herself. 

All this was not humility on her part--nothing of the sort. So farfrom being humble, Miss Lucia Harden held the superb conviction thatany course she adopted was consecrated by her adoption. It was as ifshe had been aware that her nature was rich, and that she could affordto do what other women couldn't; "there were ways, " she would say, "ofdoing them. "

And in Mr. Savage Keith Rickman she had divined a nature no lessgenerously gifted. He could afford to take what she could afford tooffer; better still, he would take just so much and no more. With somepeople certain possibilities were moral miracles; and her instincttold her that this man's mind was incapable of vulgar misconception. She was safe with him. These things she pondered during that brieftime when Rickman lingered in the portrait gallery. 

He saw her again that night for yet another moment. Lucia was calledback into the picture gallery by the voice of Kitty Palliser, whosereturn coincided with his departure. Kitty, from the safe threshold ofthe drawing-room, looked back after his retreating figure. 

"Poor darling, he has dressed himself with care. "

"He always does. He has broken every literary convention. "

Lucia drew Kitty into the room and shut the door. 

"Has he been trying any more experiments in diminished friction onpolished surfaces?"

"No; there was a good deal more repose about him after you left. Thefriction was decidedly diminished. What do you think of him?"

"Oh, I rather like the way he drops his aitches. It gives a patheticpiquancy to his conversation. "

"Don't Kitty. "

"I won't. But, after all, how do we know that this young man is not afraud?"

"How do we know anything?"

"Oh, if you're going to be metaphysical, _I_'m off to my little bed. "

"Not yet, Kitty. Sit down and toast your toes. I want to talk to you. "

"All right, fire away. "

But Lucia hesitated; Kitty was in an unpropitious mood. 

"What do you think I've done?" she said. 

Kitty's green eyes danced merrily; but in spite of their mockery Luciatold her tale. 

"It was the best I could do, " said she. 

Kitty's eyes had left off dancing. 

"Lucia, you _can't_. It's impossible. You must _not_ go on being sokind to people. Remember, dear, if he is a heaven-born genius, he'snot--he really _is_ not a gentleman. "

"I know. I've thought of that. But if he isn't a gentleman, he isn'tthe other thing. He's something by himself. 

"I admit he's a genius, but--he drops his aitches. "

"He doesn't drop half as many as he did. He only does it when he'sflustered. And I won't let him be flustered. I shall be very kind tohim. "

"Oh, " groaned Kitty, "there's no possible doubt about that. "

"On the whole I think I'm rather glad he isn't a gentleman. He wouldbe much more likely to get in my way if he were. I don't believe thislittle man would get in my way. He's got eyes at the back of his head, and nerves all over him; he'd see in a minute when I didn't want him. He'd see it before I did, and be off. "

"You don't know. You might have to be very unpleasant to him beforeyou said good-bye. "

"No, I should never have to be unpleasant to him; because he wouldknow that would be very unpleasant for me. "

"All this might mean that he was a gentleman; but I'm afraid it onlymeans that he's a genius. "

"Genius of that sort, " said Lucia, "comes to very much the samething. " And Kitty reluctantly admitted that it did. She sat silent forsome minutes gazing into the fire. 

"Lucia, does it never occur to you that in your passion for givingpleasure you may be giving a great deal of pain?"

"It doesn't occur to me that I'm giving either in this case; and itwill not occur to him. He knows I'm only giving him his chance. I oweit him. Kitty--when you only think what I've done. I've taken thiswonderful, beautiful, delicate thing and set it down to the mostabominable drudgery for three weeks. No wonder he was depressed. And Itook his Easter from him--Kitty--think--his one happy breathing-timein the whole hateful year. "

"Whitsuntide and Christmas yet remain. "

"They're not at all the same thing. "

"That's you, Lucy, all over; you bagged his Bank Holiday, and youthink you've got to give him a year in Italy to make up. "

"Not altogether to make up. "

"Well, I don't know what to say. There's no doubt you can do a greatmany things other women can't; still, it certainly seems a risky thingto do. "

"How risky?"

"I don't want to be coarse, but--I'm not humbugging thistime--supposing, merely supposing--he falls in love with you, whatthen?"

"But he won't. "

"How do you know?"

"Because he's in love already, in love with perfection. "

"But as he'll be sure to identify perfection with you--"

"He will see very little of me. "

"Then he's all the more likely to. "

"Kitty, _am_ I the sort of woman who allows that sort of thing tohappen--with that sort of man?"

"My dear, you're the sort of woman who treats men as if they weredisembodied spirits, and that's the most dangerous sort I know. IfI'm not mistaken Mr. Savage Keith Rickman's spirit is very muchembodied. "

"What _is_ the good of trying to make me uncomfortable when it's allsettled? I can't go back on my word. "

"No, I suppose you've got to stick to it. Unless, of course, yourfather interferes. "

"Father never interferes. Did you ever know him in his life refuse meanything I wanted?"

"I can't say I ever did. " Kitty's tone intimated that perhaps it wouldhave been better if he sometimes had. "Still, Sir Frederick objectsstrongly to people who interfere with him, and he may not care to havethe young Savage poet, or poet Savage, hanging about. "

"Father? He won't mind a bit. He says he's going to take part of thePalazzo Barberini for six months. It's big enough to hold fiftypoets. "

"Not big enough to hold one like Mr. Savage Keith Rickman. " Kitty roseto her feet; she stood majestic, for the spirit of prophecy was uponher; she gathered herself together for the deliverance of her soul. "You say he won't be in the way. He will. He'll be most horribly inthe way. He'll go sliding and falling all over the place, and dashingcups of coffee on the marble floor of the Palazzo; he'll wind his feetin the tails of your best gowns, not out of any malice, but in sheernervous panic; he'll do unutterable things with soup--I can see himdoing them. "

"I can't. "

"No. I know you can't. I don't say you've no imagination; but I _do_say you're deficient in a certain kind of profane fancy. "

CHAPTER XXVI

It was extraordinary; if he had given himself time to reflect on it hemight even have considered it uncanny, the peace that had settled onhim with regard to the Harden Library. 

It remained absolutely unshaken by the growing agitation of hisfather's letters. Isaac wrote reproachfully, irritably, frantically, and received only the briefest, most unsatisfactory replies. "I can'ttell you anything more than I have. But I wouldn't be in a hurry tomake any arrangements with Pilkington, if I were you. " Not thesmallest reference to the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace or the_Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. 

Why indeed should he trouble himself? He couldn't understand hisfather's state of mind. He had now a positive intuition that SirFrederick would recover in the manner of a gentleman whose motto was_Invictus_; an infinite assurance was conveyed by that tiltedfaun-like smile. He even found himself believing in his own delightfulfuture as Miss Harden's private secretary, so entirely had hesubmitted to the empire of divine possibility. 

Meanwhile he redoubled his attentions to the catalogue. (Could therebe anything more unreasonable than that catalogue _raisonné_?) He hadfrequently got up and worked at it for an hour or two beforebreakfast, lifted out of bed by the bounding of his heart. But whereashe had been in the habit of leaving it at any time between nineo'clock and midnight, he now sat up with it till the small hours ofthe morning. This extreme devotion was necessary if he was to finishit by the twenty-seventh. It was now the fifteenth. 

He had told Miss Harden that he could work better by himself, andapparently she had taken him at his word; she had left him to finishthe catalogue alone. As it happened he didn't work a bit better byhimself. What with speculating on the chance of her appearing, listening for her voice and her footsteps on the stairs, or thedistant sound of her playing, to say nothing of his desperate effortsnot to stare out of the windows when he knew her to be in the garden, Lucia absent was even more disturbing than Lucia on the spot. He triedto console himself with the reflection that she was no longeroverworking herself; and herein appeared the great purity andself-abnegation of Mr. Rickman's love. Rather than see her makingherself ill, he was actually manoeuvring so as not to see her at all. He kept his vigils secret, having a suspicion that if she heard ofthem she would insist on returning to her hideous task. 

To this end he devised an ingenious system of deceit. He left off workfor an hour every afternoon, alleging his need of air and exercise. Hethen asked permission to sit up a little later than usual by way ofmaking good the time thus lost. He knew that by eleven the lightswould be out, and Lucia and the servants all in bed. He demanded blackcoffee to keep him awake and the key of the side door to let himselfout. All on the understanding that he would leave the house byhalf-past eleven or twelve at the latest. He could thus put in a goodfive hours extra without any one being any the wiser; and four o'clockwould find Mr. Rickman stealing back to his hotel over the grey anddewy grass. 

For three days and three nights love's miraculous energy sustainedhim. On the fourth night he was overcome by a slight fatigue, and atone o'clock he lay down on the hearth rug to sleep, registering in hisbrain his intention to wake punctually at two. 

And for three days and three nights Lucia hardly gave a thought to Mr. Rickman. She was busy with preparations for her departure, trying tosee as much of Kitty Palliser as possible, and thinking a great dealof that adorable father whom she would meet on the twenty-seventh. 

Lucia's room, as Mr. Rickman knew, was in the west wing, over thesouth-west end of the library, and from her window she could see thepale yellow green shaft of light that Mr. Rickman's lamp flung acrossthe lawn. The clock on the stable belfry struck the hours one by one, and Lucia, fast asleep, never knew that the shaft of light lay thereuntil the dawn. 

On the fourth night, the night of Thursday, the fifteenth, Lucia didnot sleep so well. She dreamed, but her dreams were too light andtransparent to veil the reality that lay on the waking side of them. Three times that night she started on her journey to Cannes, threetimes she missed her train, and three times she said to herself, "It'sonly a dream, so of course it doesn't matter. " When, after prodigiousefforts extending over interminable time, she found herself onHarmouth platform, shuddering in her nightgown before a whole trainfull of people, she was not in the least disconcerted, because of herperception of that reality behind her dream; no, not even when Mr. Rickman appeared just as she was saying to herself, "It doesn'tmatter. This is only the fifteenth and I don't really start till thetwenty-sixth. " His presence was so transparent, so insubstantial, thatit didn't seem to matter either. He said, "Miss 'Arden, you've made amiscalculation. You must start this minute if you're to be there intime. " His statement seemed to her to be founded on some solidreality; but when she asked him what he was doing there, he spoilt itall by saying that as private secretary he was in charge of theexpedition. By that, and by something unnatural and absurd in hisappearance, she knew that she was dreaming. Then, for more time thanshe could measure, she lay watching herself dream, with a curioussense of being able to foretell and control the fantastic processionof events. 

And now she was aware of something that moved with their movement, atrouble or a terror that hovered out there, not on the waking borderbut in the region of reality that lay on the other side. Almostdiscernible behind the transparent insubstantial walls of sleep, itwaited to break through them and invade her dream. For refuge from itshe plunged deeper into her dream. She came out walking on a terraceof grey grass set with strange clusters of swords, sharp-pointed anddouble-edged. Tall grey trees shot up into a grey white sky; theywere coated with sharp scales, grey and toothed like the scales of ashark's skin; and some bore yet more swords for branches, slender andwaving swords; and some, branchless, were topped with heads of curledscimitars, the blades pointing downwards. All these scaly, spiky, two-edged things stood out piercing and distinct against the grey; andshe knew that they were aloes and palm-trees, and that she had come tothe end of her journey and was walking in the garden of the Villa desPalmes. And the thing she dreaded was still waiting a little waybeyond the garden, beyond the insubstantial walls; it was looking forher, crying after her, it stretched out its arms to draw her from hersleep. 

A little twilight wind came creeping over the grey grass, it coveredher feet like water, it rose higher and higher above the sword pointsof the aloes, and she sank in it and floated, floated and sank. Andnow it tossed and rolled and shook the palm-trees till all theirblades rattled like steel; and beyond the wind she heard the callingof the thing she feared, the thing that had hunted her from dream todream. She feared it no longer; she too was looking and crying; allher desire was to find what she had feared; to answer it, to see itface to face. Her body was clasped tight by the arms of the wind; yether yearning was so strong that she struggled with them and flung themfrom her, breaking through the bonds and barriers of sleep. 

Lucia was awake and accounting for her dream. The weather had changedin the night, and a cold wind was rushing through the open window onto her bed. She had been lying with her feet uncovered, and thebed-clothes heaped on to her chest. She had been waked by the rattlingof a loosened lattice in the room below. She got out of bed and lookedout of the window. There was a vast movement in the sky, as if thedarkness were being visibly upheaved and rolled away westwards by thewind. Over the garden was the dense grey blackness of an obliterateddawn. The trees, not yet detached from the ground of night, showedlike monstrous skeletons of the whole immense body of gloom, while theviolent rocking of their branches made them one with that dark andwandering tumult of cloud and wind. 

The shaft of light no longer lay upon the lawn; Mr. Rickman's lampwas out; therefore, she argued, Mr. Rickman had gone; having, in therecklessness of his genius, forgotten to close the library windows. 

One of the west windows creaked and crashed by turns as it swungheavily in its leaded frame. Lucia put on her dressing gown andslippers, threw a light shawl about her shoulders, and went down tofasten the lattice. A small swinging lamp gave light to the hall andstaircase. A gleam followed her into the library; it lay in a poolbehind her, its thin stream lost in the blackness of the floor. Shecould distinguish nothing in the room but the three dim white busts ontheir dusky pedestals. Behind the latticework the window panes werelike chequered sheets of liquid twilight let down over the face of thenight. 

The wind held the open lattice backwards, and she had some difficultyin reaching the hasp. A shallow gust ran over the floor, chilling herhalf-naked feet. As she leaned out on the sill a great fear came overher, the fear that had always possessed her in childhood at the comingand passing of the night. As she struggled with the lattice, she had asense of pulling it against some detaining hand. It swung slowly roundand the figure of a man slid with it side-long, and stood behind itlooking in. The figure seemed to lean forward out of the darkness; itsface, pressed close against the panes, was vivid, as if seen in astrong daylight. She saw the flame of its red moustache and hair, theflicker of its faun-like tilted smile. Its eyes were fixed piercinglyon hers. 

It stood so for the space of six heart-beats. The window slipped fromher hand and swung back on its hinges. The cloud was heaved from theedges of the world, and face and figure were wiped out by the greatgrey sweep of the dawn. Lucia (strangely as it seemed to herafterwards) was not startled by the apparition, but by the aspect ofthe world it had appeared in. She stood motionless, as if afraid ofwaking her own fear; she caught the lattice, drew it towards her anddeliberately secured it by the hasp. She turned with relief from theterrible twilight of the windows to the darkness of the room. Shecrossed it with slow soft footsteps, lest she should give her terrorthe signal to pursue. 

There was a slight stir on the hearth as a mound of ashes sank andbroke asunder, opening its dull red heart. 

Lucia turned in the direction of the sound, came forward and saw thatshe was not alone. 

Stretched on the rug in front of the fireplace with his feet towardsher lay Mr. Rickman. 

Her first feeling was of relief, protection, deliverance. She stoodlooking at him, finding comfort in the sheer corporeality of hispresence. But as she looked at him that emotion merged in concern forMr. Rickman himself. He lay on his back in a deep sleep; one arm wasflung above his head, the hand brushing back his damp hair; hisforehead was beaded with the thick sweat of exhaustion. He must havebeen lying so for hours, having dropped off to sleep when the nightwas still warm. He had thrown back his coat and loosened hisshirt-collar, and lay undefended from the draught that raked thefloor. The window at this end of the room had been left open too, andthe fire was almost dead. 

Lucia looked doubtfully at the window. She knew its ways; it sagged onits hinges and was not to be shut without the grating shriek of ironupon stone. She looked, still more doubtfully, at Mr. Rickman. Hisface in the strange light showed white and sharp and patheticallyrefined. 

And as she looked her heart was filled with compassion for thehelpless sleeper. She moved very softly to the fireplace, where an oakchest stood open stored with wood; she gathered the embers togetherand laid on them a few light logs. The first log dropped through theashes to the hearth, and Mr. Rickman heaved a deep sigh and turned onhis side. 

Lucia knelt there motionless, till his breathing assured her that hestill slept. With swift noiseless movements she went on building upthe dying fire. The wood crackled; a little flame leapt up, and Mr. Rickman opened his eyes. For a moment he kept them open, fixed insleepy wonder on the woman who knelt beside him by the hearth. He wasobscurely aware that it was Lucia Harden, but his wonder was free fromthe more vivid and disturbing element of surprise; for he had beendreaming about her and was still under the enchantment of his dream. Never had she seemed more beautiful to him. 

Her head was bowed, her face turned from him and shaded by her hair;and with her hands she tended a dying flame. Her shawl had slippedfrom her shoulders, and he saw the delicate curve of her body as sheknelt; it was overlaid by her hair that fell to her hips in a looseflat braid. He closed his eyes again, feigning abysmal sleep. He keptguard over his breath, over his eyelids, lest a tremor should startleher into shame-faced flight. Yet he knew that she had risen and thather face was set towards him; that she turned from him and then pausedin her going; that she looked at the fire again to make sure of itsburning, and at him to make sure of his sleep (so intently that shenever noticed the white thing which had slipped from her shoulders asshe stood upright); that she stooped to draw his coat more closelyover him. He heard the flowing of her gown, and saw without seeing herfeet shining as she went from him. 

And his desire went after her, and the mere bodiless idea of herbecame a torment to his body as it had been a joy to his soul. 

He took up her shawl which lay there by the hearth and looked at it;he stroked it, unfolded it, spread it out and looked at it again; heheld it to his face; its whiteness and its tender texture were asflame to his sight and touch, the scarcely perceptible scent of itpierced him like a delicate pain. He gathered it up again in a heapand covered it with kisses. Then, because it made his longing for herinsupportable, he flung it back, that innocent little white shawl, asif shaking off her touch and her presence. 

He rose to his feet and ramped up and down the room savagely, like awild animal in a cage. With every thought of Lucia his tormentreturned upon him. He tried to think of the whiteness and the beautyof her soul, and he could think of nothing but the whiteness of herface and the beauty of her bending body. 

He sat down, stretched his arms on the table and laid his miserablehead upon them, all among the pages of the catalogue _raisonné_. Hehad passed from his agony of desire to an agony of contrition. He feltthat the very vehemence of his longing was an affront to her whiteunconsciousness Up till now he had not admitted that he was "in love"with Lucia; he was indeed hardly aware of it. He imagined his feelingfor her to be something altogether immaterial and incorruptible. Itnow seemed to him that in the last few minutes he had lowered italmost to the level of the emotion inspired by Miss Poppy Grace. Itwas not, and it never could be, what it had been three weeks ago. Why, he could not even recall his sensations of Easter Sunday, that strangerenewal of his heart's virginity his first vague imperfect vision ofthe dawn of love, his joy when he discerned its tender and mysteriousapproach. He knew that it held no rights, or held them only on themost subtle and uncertain tenure, that his soul touched the soul ofLucia Harden by the extreme tips of its wings stretched to the utmost. Still his passion for her had been, so far, satisfied by thatdifficult and immaterial relationship. He was bound to her by animmaterial, intangible link. 

But he had put an end to that relationship; he had broken theimmaterial, intangible link. It was as if he had given a body to somedelicate and spiritual dream, and destroyed it in a furious embrace. And in destroying it he had destroyed everything. 

Then he reflected that though this deed seemed to belong wholly to thepresent moment, it had in reality been done a long time before, whenhe first became the slave of that absurd and execrable passion forMiss Poppy Grace. Rickman the poet had believed in Love, the immortaland invincible, the highest of high divinities, and as such hadcelebrated him in song. But he had been unfortunate in his firstactual experience of him. He had found him, not "pacing Heaven'sgolden floor, " but staggering across Miss Grace's drawing-room, a mostoffensive, fifth-rate, disreputable little god. Of course he knew itwasn't the same thing, it wasn't the same thing at all. But he wasbound by his past. He had forged a chain of infamous but irresistibleassociation that degraded love in his eyes, that in his thoughtsdegraded _her_. Every hour that he had spent in the little dancer'ssociety had its kindred with this hour. In his passion for LuciaHarden there leapt up the passion of that night--that night threeweeks ago. It was then--then--that he had sinned against her. 

He had not meant--he had not meant to love her--like that. And yet heperceived how all along, unremittently, imperceptibly, this passionhad waylaid him and misled him and found him out. It was it that haddrawn him every morning across the fields to Court House, that upheldhim on his giddy perch on the library steps, that chained him to hischair at the library table and kept him sweating over that abominablecatalogue till four o'clock in the morning. It had looked at him withso pure and spiritual a face that he had not recognized it. But howotherwise could he have stayed here for three weeks, fooling with thatunlucky conscience of his; persuading it one minute that he hadnothing to do with Miss Harden, and that her father's affairs were nobusiness of his, the next that they were so much his business that hewas bound not to betray them; while as for Miss Harden, he had so muchto do with her that it was his duty to stay where he was and protecther? He had had absolutely no duty in the matter except to tell herthe truth and clear out. 

Telling the truth--it ought to have been easy for him who was sotruthful, so passionately sincere. And yet almost anything would havebeen easier, for the next step to telling the truth was going away. Ofcourse he had suffered in staying, but he would have suffered anythingrather than go. 

It had been so insidious. His feet had been caught in a net so finethat he had thought it woven of the hairs split by an exceedinglyacute and subtle conscience. He should have stood still and snapt themone by one; but he had struggled, until he was so entangled that hecould not get out. And now he perceived that the net which seemed sofine was the strong net woven by desire. All his subtle reasonings, his chivalry, his delicacy, his sincerity itself, could be reduced tothis simple and contemptible element. Positively, his whole character, as he now contemplated it seemed to slip away from him and dissolve inthe irresistible stream, primeval, monstrous, indestructible. 

The horror of his position returned upon him, the burden of hisknowledge and her ignorance. If only she knew, if only he could go toher and tell her everything, all that he knew and all that he guessed!He was still firm in his conviction that he had no moral right to hisknowledge; it was a thing he almost seemed to have come bydishonestly. If Miss Harden knew nothing of her father's affairs, itwas to be presumed that they had been purposely kept from her to saveher pain. He had no right to tell her. 

No matter, he would tell her, he would tell her this morning, andhaving told her, he would go away. 

He got up and paced to and fro again. He stood before the open windowtill he had chilled himself through; then he came back and coweredover the fire. A white thing lay by the hearth at his feet, it wasLucia Harden's shawl, lying crumpled where he had thrown it. It wasthe sign and symbol of her presence there. It was also the proof ofit. 

How would she feel if she knew that he had been aware of it all thetime? The fact remained that she had risked his waking; there wascomfort for him in that. She had always been kind to him, and he hadnever had even a momentary illusion as to the source and the nature ofher kindness. He had taken it, as he had taken her extreme courtesy, for the measure of the distance that divided them. It showed hersecure in her detachment, her freedom from any intimate thought ofhim, from any thought of him at all. But in this last act of kindnessit could hardly be that she had not taken him into consideration. Shecould hardly have been pleased if she knew he had been awake, yet shehad risked his waking. Before she risked it she must have credited himwith something of her own simplicity of soul. 

And this was how he had repaid her. 

He saw her as she had knelt by him, mending the dying fire, as she hadstood looking at him, as she had stooped over him to cover him, and asshe had turned away; and he saw himself, sinning as he had sinnedagainst her in his heart. 

He knew perfectly well that the average man would have felt nocompunction whatever upon this head. To the average man hisimagination (if he has any) is an unreal thing; to Rickman it was themost real thing about him. It was so young, and in its youth soungovernably creative, that it flung out its ideas, as it were, aliveand kicking. It was only partially true of him that his dream wasdivorced from reality. For with him the phantoms of the mind (which tothe average man are merely phantoms), projected themselves with abodily vividness and violence. Not only had they the colour andauthority of accomplished fact, they were invested with an immortalitydenied to facts. His imagination was in this so far spiritual that itperceived desire to be the eternal soul of the deed, and the deed tobe but the perishing body of desire. From this point of view, conductmay figure as comparatively unimportant; therefore this point of viewis very properly avoided by the average man. 

Rickman, now reduced to the last degree of humility and contrition, picked up Lucia's shawl very gently and reverently, and folded it withcare, smoothing out the horrid creases he had made in it. He took itto the other end of the room and laid it over the back of her chair, so that it might look to Robert as if his mistress had left it there. 

Would he see her again that morning? That depended on the amount ofwork that remained for her to do. He looked over her table; her traywas empty, the slips were pinned together in bundles in the way he hadtaught her, Section XII, Poetry, was complete. There was nothing nowto keep her in the library. And he had only ten days' work to do. Hemight see her once or twice perhaps on those days; but she would notsit with him, nor work with him, and when the ten days were over shewould go away and he would never see her again. 

Then he remembered that he had got to tell her and go away himself, atonce, this very morning. 

Meanwhile he sat down and worked till it was time to go back to hishotel. He worked mechanically, miserably, oppressed alike by his senseof his own villainy and of the futility of his task. He did not knowhow, when it was ended, he was to take up this kind of work again. Hehad only been kept up by his joy in her presence, and in her absenceby the hope of her return. But he could not bear to look into a futurein which she had no part. 

CHAPTER XXVII

He found a letter from Dicky Pilkington waiting for him at the hotel. Dicky's subtlety seemed to have divined his scruples, for he gave himthe information he most wanted in terms whose terseness left verylittle room for uncertainty. "Look sharp, " wrote Dicky, "and let meknow if you've made up your great mind about that library. If FreddyHarden doesn't pay up I shall have to put my men in on thetwenty-seventh. Between you and me there isn't the ghost of a chancefor Freddy. I hear the unlucky devil's just cleaned himself out atMonte Carlo. "

The twenty-seventh? It was the day when Miss Harden was to join herfather at Cannes. The coincidence of dates was significant; itamounted to proof. It meant that Sir Frederick must have longanticipated the catastrophe, and that he had the decency to spare herthe last painful details. She would not have to witness the invasionof the Vandals, the overturning of the household gods, and thedefilement of their sacred places. 

Well, he thought bitterly, they couldn't be much more defiled thanthey were already. He saw himself as an abominable object, a thingwith a double face and an unclean and aitchless tongue, sitting therefrom morning to night, spying, calculating, appraising, with a view tofraud. At least that was how she would think of him when she knew; andhe had got to tell her. 

He was on the rack again; and the wonder was how he had ever left it. It seemed to him that he could never have been long released at anytime. He had had moments of comparative ease, when he could lie on itat one end of the room and see Lucia sitting at the other, and thesight of her must have soothed his agony. He had had moments offorgetfulness, of illusion, when he had gone to sleep on the rack, andhad dreamed the most delicious dreams, moments even of deliverance, when his conscience, exhausted with the sheer effort of winding, haddropped to sleep too. And then had come the reckless moments, when hehad yielded himself wholly to the delight of her presence; and thatsupreme instant when his love for Lucia seemed to have set him free. 

And now it was love itself, furiously accusing, that flung him backupon the torture, and stretched him out further than he had beenstretched before. 

But Dicky's letter had to be answered at once. He settled Dicky forthe present by reminding him that nothing could be done by either ofthem till the twenty-seventh. But he thought that if Sir Frederick orany of his family were unable to pay up, there ought to be nodifficulty in arranging with his father. 

To his father he sent a word of warning. "For Goodness' sake don'tcommit yourself with Pilkington until you see me. I shall probably beback in town to-morrow afternoon!"

Having settled Dicky, he breakfasted, bathed, was a little long overhis dressing, taking care that nothing in his appearance shouldsuggest the dishevelled person of the dawn. Thus he was rather laterthan usual in presenting himself at the library. He found Miss Hardenthere at his end of the table, with his note-book, busy over his pileand engaged in finishing his Section--Philosophy. Her clear and candideyes greeted him without a shadow of remembrance. She had always thisair of accepting him provisionally, for the moment only, as if herkindness had no springs in the past and could promise nothing for thefuture. He had always found this manner a little distressing, and itbaffled him completely now. Still, in another minute he would have totell her, whatever her manner or her mood. 

"Miss Harden, " he began, "you've been so awfully good to me, there'ssomething that I want most awfully to say to you. "

"Well, say it. " But there was that in her tone which warned him not tobe too long about it. 

"It's something I ought to have said--to have confessed--ages ago--"

"Oh no, really Mr. Rickman, if it's a confession, you mustn't do itnow. We shall never finish at this rate. "

"When may I?"

"Some time in the afternoon, perhaps. " Her smile, which wasexceedingly subtle, disconcerted him inexpressibly. She turned at onceto the business of the day. The question was whether he would begin ona new section, or finish this one with her, writing at her dictation?

He too was calm, business-like, detached. He strangled a happy smilewhich suggested that her question was absurd. To start a new sectionwas to work gloomily by himself, at some distant quarter of the room;to write to her dictation was to be near her, soothed by her voice andmade forgetful by her eyes. Hypocritically he feigned a minute'sreflection, as if it were a matter for hesitation and for choice. 

"Wouldn't you find it less tiring if I read and you wrote?"

"No, I had better read. You can write faster than I can. "

So he wrote his fastest, while Lucia Harden read out titles to him inthe sonorous Latin tongue. She was standing ankle-deep in Gnostics andNeo-Platonists; as for Mr. Rickman, he was, as he observed, out of hisdepth there altogether. 

"Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis Egyptiorum_. Do you know him?"

Mr. Rickman smiled as he admitted that his acquaintance withIamblichus was of the slightest; Lucia laughed as she confessed anignorance extending to the very name. He noticed that she alwaysseemed pleased when she had any ignorance to own up to; had she foundout that this gave pleasure to other people?

"Is he Philosophy, or is he Religion?" She invariably deferred toRickman on a question of classification. She handed the book to him. "Can you tell?"

"I really don't know; he seems to be both. I'd better have a look athim. " He turned over the pages, glancing at the text. "I say, listento this. "

He hit on a passage at random, and read out the Greek, translatingfluently. 

"'If then the presence of the divine fire and the unspeakable form ofthe divine light descend upon a man, wholly filling and dominatinghim, and encompassing him on every side, so that he can in no waycarry on his own affairs, what sense or understanding or perception ofordinary matters should he have who has received the divine fire?' Canhe be referring to the business capacity of poets?"

Lucia listened amused. And all the time he was thinking, "If I don'ttell her now I shall never tell her. She'll sneak off with MissPalliser somewhere in the afternoon. " Neither noticed that Robert hadcome in and was standing by with a telegram. Robert gazed at Mr. Rickman with admiration, while he respectfully waited for the end ofthe paragraph; that, he judged, being the proper moment for attractinghis mistress' attention. 

Never in all his life would Rickman forget that passage in the _DeMysteriis_ which he had not been thinking about. As Lucia took thetelegram she was still looking at Rickman and the smile of amusementwas still on her face. Robert respectfully withdrew. Lucia opened theenvelope and Rickman looked down, apparently absorbed in Iamblichus. He was now considering in what form of words he would tell her. 

Then, without looking up, he knew that something had happened. Hisfirst feeling was that it had happened to himself. He could not sayhow or why or what was the precise moment of its happening; he onlyknew that she had been talking to him, listening to him, smiling athim, and that then something had swept him on one side and carried heraway, he did not know where, except that it was beyond his reach. 

He looked up, startled by a sudden change in her breathing. She wasstanding opposite him; she seemed to be keeping herself upright by herhands pressed palms downwards on the table. The telegram was spreadopen there before her; and she was not looking at it; she was lookingstraight at him, but without seeing him. Her mouth was so tightlyclosed that it might have been the pressure of her lips that drovethe blood from them; she breathed heavily through her nostrils, hersmall thin breast heaving without a sob. In her face there was neithersorrow nor terror, and he could see that there was no thought in herbrain, and that all the life in her body was gathered into herswollen, labouring heart. And as he looked at her he was pierced witha great pang of pity. 

She stood there so, supporting herself by her hands for about aminute. He was certain that no sense of his presence reached heracross the gulf of her unknown and immeasurable anguish. 

At last she drew her hands from the table, first one, then the other, slowly, as if she were dragging a weight; her body swayed, and hesprang to his feet with an inarticulate murmur, and held out one armto steady her. At his touch her perishing will revived and herfaintness passed from her. She put him gently aside and went slowlyout of the room. 

As he turned to the table the five words of her telegram stared him inthe face: "Your father died this morning. "

It would have been horrible if he had told her. 

His first thought was for her; and he thanked Heaven that had tied histongue. Then, try as he would to realize her suffering, it eluded him;he could only feel that a moment ago she had been with him, standingthere and smiling, and that now he was alone. He could still feel herhand pushing against his outstretched arm. There had been nothing towound him in that gesture of repulse; it was as if she had acceptedrather than refused his touch, as if her numbed body took from it theimpetus it craved. 

There was a sound of hurry and confusion in the house; servants wentup and downstairs, or stood about whispering in the passages. He heardfootsteps in that room above him which he knew to be her room. A bellrang once; he could feel the vibration of the wire down the wall ofthe library. It was her bell and he wondered if she were ill. 

Robert rushed in with a wild white face, shaken out of his respectfulcalm. He was asking Rickman if he had seen this month's Bradshaw. Theyjoined in a frenzied search for it. 

She was not ill; she was going away. 

A few minutes later he heard the sound of wheels grating on the graveldrive, of the front door being flung open, of her voice, her sweetquiet voice, then the grating of the wheels again, and she was gone. That, of course, ended it. 

Now for the first time he realized what Sir Frederick's death meantfor himself. In thus snatching her from him in the very crisis ofconfession it had taken away his chance of redeeming his dishonour. 

If he had only told her!

CHAPTER XXVIII

He did not go back to town on the seventh, after all. He stayed tofinish roughly, brutally almost, with the utmost possible dispatch, the disastrous catalogue, which would now be required, whateverhappened. Until every book in the library had passed through his handshe was hardly in a position to give a just estimate of its value. Hisfather had written again in some perturbation. It seemed that the oldsong for which he might obtain the Harden library went to the tune ofone thousand pounds; but Pilkington was asking one thousand twohundred. "It's a large sum, " wrote Isaac, "and without more preciseinformation than you've given me yet, I can't tell whether we shouldbe justified in paying it. "

That confirmed his worst misgivings. He answered it very preciselyindeed. "We shouldn't be morally justified in paying less than fourthousand for such a collection; and we should make a pretty big profitat that. But if we can't afford the price we must simply withdraw. Infact I consider that we ought to hold back in any case until we seewhether Miss Harden or any of her people are going to come forward. It's only fair to give them the chance. You can expect me on thetwentieth. "

Beside writing to his father, he had done the only honest andstraightforward thing that was left for him to do. He had written toHorace Jewdwine. That was indeed what he ought to have done at thevery first. He could see it now, the simple, obvious duty that hadbeen staring him in the face all the time. He hardly cared to thinkwhat subtle but atrocious egoism of passion had prevented him fromdisclosing to Jewdwine the fact of his presence at Court House; evennow he said nothing about the two weeks that he had spent working withJewdwine's cousin. The catalogue _raisonné_ was so bound up with thehistory of his passion that the thing had become a catalogue_raisonné_ of its vicissitudes. Some instinct, not wholly selfish, told him that the least said about that the better. He wrote on theassumption that Jewdwine knew (as he might very well have done) thetruth about the Harden library, briefly informing him that they, Rickman's, had been or rather would be in treaty with Mr. Pilkingtonfor the purchase; but that he, Savage Keith Rickman, considered it wasonly fair to suggest that Mr. Jewdwine or some other member of SirFrederick Harden's family should have the option of buying it, provided it could be so arranged with Mr. Pilkington. As Jewdwine wasprobably aware, the library represented security for one thousandpounds; whereas Rickman estimated its market value at four or evenfive times as much. But as Mr. Pilkington was not inclined to let itgo for less than one thousand two hundred, Jewdwine had better beprepared to offer a little more than that sum. If Jewdwine feltinclined to act on this suggestion Rickman would be glad if he wouldlet him know within the next ten days; as otherwise his father wouldbe obliged to close with Mr. Pilkington in due form after thetwenty-seventh. Would he kindly wire an acknowledgement of the letter?

Jewdwine had wired from London, "Thanks. Letter received; will write. "That was on the seventeenth, and it was now the twenty-seventh andJewdwine had not written. Rickman should have been back in London longbefore that time; he had allowed himself four days to finish hishorrible work; and he had finished it. But as it happened the end oftwelve days found him still in Harmouth. Seven of them passed withouthis being very vividly aware of them, though up till now he had kept astrict account of time. Two weeks once struck off the reckoning, hehad come down to calculating by days, by hours, by half hours, tomeasuring minutes as if they had been drops of some precious liquidslowly evaporating. And now he had let a whole week go by withoutcomment, while he lay in bed in his room at the Marine Hotel, doingnothing, not even sleeping. For seven days Mr. Rickman had been ill. The broad term nervous fever was considered to have sufficientlycovered all his symptoms. 

They were not improved by the discovery that Jewdwine had failed togive any sign; while the only reply sent by Rickman's was a brief notefrom his father to the effect that Keith's letter should have his verybest consideration, and that by the time he saw him he would no doubtbe in a better position to answer it. There was a postcard written onthe twenty-first, inquiring the cause of his non-appearance on thetwentieth. This had been answered by the doctor. It had been followedby a letter of purely parental solicitude, in which all mention ofbusiness was avoided. Avoided; and it was now the twenty-seventh. 

Rickman literally flung from his sick-bed a feverish and illegiblenote to Horace Jewdwine. "For God's sake, wire me what you mean todo, " an effort which sent his temperature up considerably. He passedthese days of convalescence in an anxious watching for the post. Tothe chambermaid, to the head waiter, to the landlord and landlady ofthe Marine Hotel, to the friendly commercial gentleman, who put hishead twice a day round the door to inquire "'ow he was gettin' on, "Mr. Rickman had during his seven days' illness put the same unvaryingquestion. These persons had adopted a policy of silence, shaking theirheads or twisting their mouths into the suggestion of a "No, " by wayof escape from the poignancy of the situation. But on the afternoon ofthe twenty-ninth, Mr. Rickman being for the first time up and dressed, Tom, the waiter, replied to the accustomed query with a cheerful "Nosir, no letters; but a lady was inquiring for you this morning, sir. "In Tom's mind a lady and a letter amounted to very much the samething. 

"Do you know who it was?"

"Yes sir, Miss Palliser. "

"Miss Parry? I don't know any Miss Parry, " said Rickman wearily. 

"I didn't say Miss Parry, sir I said Miss Palliser, sir. Wanted toknow 'ow you was; I said you was a trifle better, sir. "

"I? I'm all right. I think I shall go out and take a walk. " Theviolent excitement of his veins and nerves gave him the illusion ofrecovered strength. 

His walk extended from the hotel door to a seat on the seafrontopposite. He repeated it the next morning with less difficulty, andeven succeeded in reaching a further seat beyond the range of thehotel windows. There he sat looking at the sea, and watching withoutinterest the loiterers on the esplanade. At last, by sheer repetition, three figures forced themselves on his attention; two ladies, oneyoung, the other middle-aged, and a clergyman, who walked incessantlyup and down. They were talking as they passed him; he caught the man'ssteep-pitched organ monotone, "Yes, I shall certainly go up to thehouse and see her, " and the girl's voice that answered in a hardbright trill, "You won't see her. She hasn't seen any body but KittyPalliser. "

The blood boiled in his brain. She? She? Was it possible that theywere talking about her? He sat there debating this question for tenminutes, when he was aware that he himself had become an object ofintense interest to the three. The two ladies were, in fact, staringrather hard. The stare of the younger was so wide that it merelyincluded him as an unregarded detail in the panorama of sea and sky;but the stare of the elder, a stout lady in a florid gown, wasconcentrated, almost passionate; it came straight at him through adouble eye-glass elevated on a tortoiseshell stem. The clergymanendeavoured to suggest by his attitude that he took no part in thestaring or the talk; he smiled out to sea with an air of beatificunion with Nature. 

Harmouth beach is a safe place for scandal; for even a steep-pitchedorgan monotone with a brilliant feminine flourish on the top of it arelost in the accompaniment of the sea. So happily for him no word ofthe dialogue reached Rickman. All the same, to have a pair of blankblue eyes, and a tortoiseshell binocular levelled at him in thatfashion is a little disturbing to a young man just recovering from anervous fever; and Rickman got up and dragged himself to the other endof the esplanade out of the reach of the enemy's fire. Therefore hedid not see that Miss Palliser, who had been watching the scene from abalcony on the front, had come down and joined the group; neither didhe hear her cheerful replies to a volley of inquiries. 

"Yes; I've seen her. Nice day isn't it? What? No, I wouldn't if Iwere you. I say, what a swagger eye-glass! Jolly, those long stems, aren't they? You can stare for ever without pinching your nose orgouging your next door neighbour's eye out with your elbow--Oh yes, rather; he's a friend of Horace Jewdwine's. Do observe Tubs bathing;his figure is not adapted--Did you say a gentleman? Yes, no, yes; asksomebody else. It entirely depends on the point of view. He's anawfully good sort. _Really_, Tubs ought to be made to bathe beforebreakfast, when there's nobody about. Yes, of course she did. She gavehim the work to please Mr. Jewdwine, I suppose. He's been ill, poorlittle beggar; I must go and speak to him. "

After having thus first harried, then effectually baffled the enemy, Miss Palliser started with a swinging stride in pursuit of Mr. Rickman. He sat alone in an attitude of extreme dejection, on thestones of an unfinished and forsaken jetty that marked the farthestwestern limit of the esplanade. Having turned his back on that publicrendezvous, he was unaware of Miss Palliser's approach until she stoodbeside him. 

"Glad to see you out again, " said she. 

He sprang to his feet and raised his hat. At the first sight of hisface Miss Palliser had a shrewd idea of the cause and nature of hisillness. 

"Thank you so much for your kind messages. I'm all right again, as yousee. "

"I see nothing of the sort, as yet. " She had meant to tell him that itwas Lucia who had sent her to inquire; but she thought better of it. 

"Oh, well, I ought to get round in this bracing air. "

"Harmouth air, " said Kitty, "is not particularly bracing. In fact it'svery relaxing. It probably helped you to break down. "

"Well, I shall be out of it soon, anyway. " He sighed. "Miss Palliser, can you tell me if Miss Harden has come back?"

"She came back the day before yesterday. "

"Have you seen her?"

"Yes, I've seen her. "

There was a long pause, filled by the insistent clamour of the sea. His next question was less audible to the outer than to the inner ear. 

"How is she?"

Miss Palliser was seldom at a loss for a word; but this time shehesitated. "She--she is very plucky. "

There was another and a longer pause in which neither had the courageto look at the other. 

"Can I--Would it be possible for me to see her?"

Miss Palliser did not answer. 

"I wouldn't dream of asking her, except that I've got something on mymind. "

"And she--my dear man, she's got everything on her mind. "

"I know. I--I want to see her on business. "

Miss Palliser's lithe figure grew rigid. She turned on him a look ofindignation and contempt. "Everybody wants to see her on business. Butsome of them have had the grace to wait. "

He smiled in the faint tolerant manner of a man so steeped in thebitterness of the situation that no comment on it can add a furthersting. 

"I can't wait. My business hasn't much to do with me; but it has agreat deal to do with Miss Harden. "

She looked at him as he spoke. Something in his face and in his voicetoo made her feel that her judgement of him had been unspeakably, unpardonably coarse. 

"I beg your pardon, " she said gently. 

"Oh don't. I'm not surprised that you thought that of me. "

"I didn't think it. I don't quite know what I'm saying. I've spent thelast two days trying to keep fools from worrying her. I hate thepeople who want to go to her; I hate the people who keep away; I hatethem all. But I'm sorry I spoke like that to you. You look horriblyill. "

"I'm not ill. But I'm nearly out of my mind about this business. "

"What is it? Tell me, has it anything to do with the library?

"Yes. "

"Well; the library's going to be sold. "

"I know. That's what I want to speak to her about. "

"There's not a bit of good in speaking to her. There are at thismoment, " said Kitty incisively, "two persons in the house who callthemselves the men in possession. "

"The brutes--"

"You may as well sit down. You can't turn them out, they're two toone, and their position is, I believe, legally sound. "

"I must go to her at once--I knew this would happen--Miss Palliser, isany one with her?"

"I am with her. I'm going back to her in a minute; but I want to talkto you first. Everybody's looking at us, but that can't be helped. Didyou say you _knew_ this would happen?"

"Yes--Miss Palliser, I'm in the most intolerable position with regardto Miss Harden. "

"You knew they were making these arrangements?"

"Oh yes, I knew it all the time I was working for her. What's more, I'm supposed to be the agent for the sale. "

"Well--if it's got to be sold, why not?"

"Well, you see, my father's only an ordinary dealer. I'm about theonly person concerned who knows the real value and I know that it'sbeen undervalued. Of course, without the smallest dishonesty on Mr. Pilkington's part. "

"Mr. Who?" Kitty had not yet heard of Mr. Pilkington. 

"Pilkington. "

"What's his address?"

He gave it her. 

Kitty made a note of the name and address. 

"Unfortunately Mr. Pilkington has an absolute right to sell it, and myfather has an absolute right to buy it. "

"Well, somebody's got to buy it, I suppose?"

"Yes, but it seems to me we oughtn't to do anything till we knowwhether any of Miss Harden's people will come forward. "

"She is the last of her people. "

"How about Mr. Jewdwine? He's her cousin. "

"On her mother's side. "

"Still he's her cousin. I wrote to him ten days ago; and I haven't gotany answer as yet. "

"What did you say to him?"

"I invited him to step in and buy the library over our heads. "

"And how much would he have had to pay for it?"

"Probably more than one thousand two hundred. "

"Well--if you think that Mr. Jewdwine is the man to deal so lightlywith two hundred pounds, let alone the thousand! Really, that's thequaintest thing you've done yet. May I ask if this is the way yougenerally do business?"

"No, I can't say that it is. "

"Well, well, you were very safe. "

"Safe? I don't want to be safe. Don't you see how horrible it is forme? I'd give anything if he or anyone else would come in now and walkover us. "

"Still, I don't wonder that you got no answer to your very remarkableproposal. "

"It seemed to me a very simple and obvious proposal. "

"I don't know much about business, " said Kitty, "but I can think of amuch more simple and obvious one. Why can't your people buy in thelibrary and sell it again for Miss Harden on commission?"

"Do you suppose I haven't thought of that? It would be very simple andobvious if it rested with me, but I'm afraid my father mightn't see itin the same light. You see, the thing doesn't lie between Miss Hardenand me, but between my father and Mr. Pilkington. "

"I don't understand. "

"It's this way. My father won't be buying the library from MissHarden, but from Mr. Pilkington. And--my father is a man of business. "

"And you most certainly are not. "

"So he isn't likely to give any more for it than he can help. "

"Of course not. "

"Well, but--do you know what the library was valued at?"

Kitty did, and she would have blurted it out had not an inner voicetold her to be discreet for once. He took her silence for a confessionof ignorance. 

"Would you think a thousand pounds an absurdly high valuation?"

"I don't know. "

Kitty tried to banish all expression from her face. She really knewvery little about business and was as yet unaware of the necessarypublicity of bills of sale. The suspicion crossed her mind thatRickman, in his father's interests, might be trying to pump her as tothe smallest sum that need be offered. 

"Because, " he added, "it isn't. Miss Harden stands to lose somethinglike three thousand pounds by it. "

Kitty's evil surmises vanished utterly. "Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "how do you make that out?"

"It's only the difference between what the library ought to fetch andwhat will be given for it. Of course no dealer could give the _full_value; still, between one thousand and four thousand there's aconsiderable difference. "

"And who pockets it?"

"My fa--the dealer, if he succeeds in selling again to the bestadvantage. He might not, and my father, as it happens, considers thathe's taking a great risk. But I know more about it than he does, and Idon't agree with him. That's why I don't want him to get hold of thosebooks if I can help it. "

Kitty was thoughtful. 

"You see, " he continued, "I know he'd like to do what he thinksgenerous under the circumstances, but he isn't interested in MissHarden, and he _is_ interested in the Harden library. It's a chancethat a dealer like him only gets once in a lifetime and I'm afraid itisn't in human nature to let it go. "

"But, " said Kitty wildly, "he _must_ let it go. You must make him. Doyou mean to say you're going to sit and look on calmly while MissHarden loses three thousand pounds?"

"I'm not looking on calmly. On the contrary, I've lost my head. "

"What's the good of losing your head, if Miss Harden loses her money?What do you propose to do _besides_ losing your head? Lose time Isuppose? As if you hadn't lost enough already. "

"I wrote to Mr. Jewdwine as soon as I heard of Sir Frederick Harden'sdeath. Still, you're right, I did lose time; and time was everything. You can't reproach me more than I reproach myself. "

"My dear man, I'm not reproaching you. I only want to know what you'regoing to _do_?"

"Do? Is there anything left for me to do?"

"Not much, that I can see. "

"If I'd only spoken straight out in the beginning--"

"Do you mean to her?"

"To her. " He whispered the pronoun so softly that it sounded like asigh. 

"Why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I? I can see it was the one honest thing to do. But Ithought I'd no business to know about her father's affairs if shedidn't; and certainly no business to talk about them. "

"No. I don't see how you could have done it. "

"All the same I'd made up my mind to do it that morning--when thetelegram came. That stopped me. "

"You were well out of it. You don't know what an awful thing it wouldhave been to do. She worshipped her father. Is this what you've beenmaking yourself ill about?"

"I suppose so. You know how adorably kind she was to me?"

"I can guess. She is adorably kind to every one, " said Kitty, gentlebut astute. 

"And, you see, I've behaved dishonourably to her. "

"No. I don't see that. "

"Don't you? Don't you? Why, my father sent me partly as his agent, andall the time she believed I was only working for her. "

"Did you behave as your father's agent?"

"No. But I let her slave from morning till night over that catalogue. "

"Which she would have done in any case. "

"Don't you see that I ought to have backed out of it altogether, inthe very beginning?"

"Ah yes--if everybody did what they ought. "

"I tried twice, but it was no good. I suppose I didn't try hardenough. "

"What good would you have done by going, if she wanted you to stay?"

"That's how I argued. But the fact is, I stayed because I couldn't goaway. Of course, it was an abominable position, but I assure you itfelt like heaven when it didn't feel like 'ell. "

His anguish, mercifully, was too great for him to feel the horror ofhis lapse. And Kitty hardly noticed it; at any rate she never felt thesmallest inclination to smile, not even in recalling it afterwards. 

It was, if you came to think of it, an unusual, a remarkableconfession. But she remembered that he had had a nervous fever; it washis nerves, then, and his fever that had cried out, a cry covered, made decent almost, by the clangour of the sea. 

She wondered how it came that, when her mind was as full as it couldbe of Lucia and her affairs, it could give such concentrated attentionto him and his. If he had been what the tortoiseshell eye-glass tookhim for, a common man, it ought to have been easy and natural todismiss him. But she could not dismiss him. There was some force inhim, not consciously exerted, which held her there on that conspicuousseat beside him under the gaze of the tortoiseshell eye-glass. Kittywas by no means deficient in what she had called "profane fancy, " andshe felt to her finger tips that she was making a spectacle of herselfat the end of the esplanade. Their backs at this moment she knew mustbe standing out very clear and bold against the sky-line. But sheherself was losing the keen sense she had once had of hisinappropriateness to the scenes he moved in. Wherever he was he wasnatural; he was (she had it in one word) sincere, as few people aresincere nowadays. He was not a common man. That was it. All along ithad been the justification of their strange proceedings, this factthat he was not common, that he was indeed unique. On that groundLucia had always met him, and she had ignored the rest. Kitty wastrying to sympathize with Lucia. 

"But, " he went on, simply, "I can't tell her that. "

"No, you can't tell her that, but you can tell her everything else. Look here, supposing that instead of sitting here tearing yournervous system to tatters you go straight away and do it. "

"What will she think of me?"

"Think of you? If she thinks of you at all, she'll bless you forhaving spared her father's memory up to the last possible minute. "

"Has it occurred to you that my motives are open to the worstconstruction?"

"Well, frankly, it has. But it won't occur to Miss Harden. Go to herand tell her everything. "

"After all, what am I to tell her?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter much what you tell her now. "

"It matters a great deal to me. I don't want her to think me moredishonourable than I am. "

"Oh, she won't do that. "

"Perhaps she can't?"

"Well, you see, I don't know how dishonourable you've been. I onlyknow if I'd done a dishonourable thing--if I'd done--oh, the mostdisgraceful thing I can imagine, a thing I couldn't _possibly_ tell toanybody else, I wouldn't mind telling Lucia Harden. I should _have_ totell her. It wouldn't matter. She's so perfectly good, that your ownlittle amateur efforts in that line simply aren't in it; so when itcomes to telling her things, you may as well be hung for a sheep as alamb. And wait a minute; you're not likely to make a lamb of yoursheep; but don't go to the other extreme, and make a full-grown sheepof your lamb. "

"I shall not deceive her. "

"You couldn't. She's not only a good woman, but a very clever one, though she doesn't let you see it. Mind you, you won't find her cleverabout stupid things. I doubt if you'll be able to make her understandall this library affair. But she'll understand _your_ business. "

They rose, and walked together, forgetful of the eagerly observantgroup. 

"Could she see me to-day--this evening? I'm going to-morrow. "

"Yes, I'll tell her you're coming. When you _do_ see her, don't beafraid--speak out. "

"I'm not afraid of speaking to her--I'm afraid--"

"Of what?"

"Simply of _seeing_ her. "

"You mean you are afraid of seeing her changed?" She understood him;for it was what she herself had been afraid of. 

"Horribly afraid. "

"My dear Mr. Rickman, people in great trouble don't change to otherpeople. They only change to themselves. "

He raised his hat and turned from her without speaking. 

Kitty felt remorseful as she looked after him, for she had notscrupled to sacrifice him to her idea. Kitty's idea was to get as higha price as possible out of Rickman Senior, and Rickman Junior was theonly man who could get it. If the object was to shunt Rickman Senioraltogether, Rickman Junior could be depended on for that, too. Shecould see that under the influence of his unhappy passion he hadabsolutely detached himself from his father's interests and his own. Kitty was profoundly sorry for him, and if she had yielded to herimpulses of mercy and pity she would have kept him from Lucia as shewould have kept a poor insane moth from the candle. It might benecessary to turn the moth out of doors in order to save it, and--well, she would have turned him out of doors, too, in sheer mercyand pity. But Kitty had a practical mind, and that practical mindperceived the services that might be rendered by a person sosuicidally inspired. If she had read him aright, fire and water werenothing to what Mr. Rickman was prepared to go through for Lucia. Therefore she sent him to Lucia. 

But it was on his own account, for his healing and his consolation, that she advised him to make a clean breast of it. 

CHAPTER XXIX

Lucia was in the library and alone. Everything was as she had left itthat morning two weeks ago; she saw the same solid floor and ceiling, the same faded Persian rugs, the same yellow pale busts on their tallpedestals, the same bookshelves, wing after wing and row upon row. Thesouth lattice still showed through its leaded lozenge panes the brightgreen lawn, the beech tree and the blue sky; the west lattice held thevalley and the hills, with the river, a sinuous band of silver betweenthe emerald and the amethyst. These things were so woven with thetissue of her mind that the sense of them had remained with her duringthe terrible seven days at Cannes. But now they appeared to herstripped of their air of permanence and familiarity. They were blurredand insubstantial, like things remembered rather than actually seen. All that subdued and tender loveliness belonged only to her youngpast, and she had been torn from it so violently, it had been flung sofar behind her, that it seemed to her at the moment incredible andimpossible. Life, that had hitherto dealt with her so gently and sograciously, had in the last two weeks turned hideous and brutal. 

She had no very clear idea of how she had got to Cannes. The going waswiped out. She had been driven through the garden of the Villa desPalmes and had recognized it as the garden of her dream. She hadpassed (through the doors of the Villa) into a state of stupor inwhich she had recognized nothing, and thence into a sequence of stateswhich she could now too well recall. There had been a state of waking, in which she had found herself in a little gilt and velvet salon. There was another woman in it, a vast woman in a thin black dresstwinkling all over with little black eyes. She had a great whitepowdered face, and they called her Madame. Then followed a state ofhallucination, in which she believed Madame to be an innocent person, the housekeeper; a state of obsession, in which Madame, as she lookedat her, seemed to grow vaster, to become immense; a state ofimbecility in which her mind feebly tried to grapple with the detailsof her father's death as presented brokenly by Madame. Last had come astate of frenzy, in which she had freed herself from Madame. Afterthat something had appeared to her in vivid violent illumination. 

So vivid and so violent that it seemed to her even now that she wasstill sitting in the gilt and velvet salon in the Villa des Palmes;she still saw the thin green light that came slanting through thehalf-closed shutters; warm southern smells floated in, they mixed withthe thick stifling scent of patchouli and orris root wafted fromMadame as she went to and fro, and with some other odour, bitter andsickly, that came from the room beyond. 

She had made out certain familiar objects in this unfamiliar scene. Her father's travelling rug lay folded on the red velvet sofa; his capand gloves were there, just as he had flung them down; his violin, dumb in its black coffin-like case, stood propped up against the wall. Everywhere else (only gradually discerned) were things belonging toMadame, evidence of her supreme and intimate occupation of the room. 

And outside was the garden of sharp aloes and palms, where, as shebelieved, her father's spirit had gone looking for her, and had notfound her. His body lay in the inner room behind the closed door. 

That horrible little gilt and velvet salon! Whenever she thought of itshe saw Madame; she saw Madame's little dry eyes blinking in her greatwhite powdered face; she saw the vast heaving of Madame's bust wherethe little jet sequins shivered and shook; she heard her voice cooingand purring voluptuous condolence; and she felt again her own passionof disgust and fear as she wrenched herself free from the warm scentedbody, quivering in its thin black sheath. 

Then she saw the inner room behind the closed door. Nothing wasobscure and secret there. The slats of the shutter let in great shaftsof daylight; the coffin stood in the middle of the room, raised ontrestles, and covered with a white sheet. A crucifix stood at the headof the coffin, propped against a chest of drawers. Three candles, flickering in their sockets, were set on the table at its foot. Oneach knob of the two top-drawers hung a wreath of yellow immortelles. 

That long coffin, raised high on its trestles, seemed to fill thelittle room. Lucia saw it now, she saw the face in it turned up to theceiling, sharp and yellow, the limp red moustache hanging like acurtain over the half-open mouth. No trace of the tilted faun-likesmile. 

She would never get away from that terrible room. The pattern of itswalls (garlands of pink rosebuds between blue stripes) was stampedupon her brain. There too, as in the salon, abode the inextinguishableodour shaken from Madame's dress, it mixed with the hot reek ofcarbolic and the bitter stabbing odour of the coffin. 

On the floor by the trestles lay a glove, a long enormous glove, Madame's glove; it was greyish white, and wrinkled like the cast skinof a snake. The finger of its fellow hung from the chest of drawersbeside the crucifix. It pointed downwards at the dead man. 

Within the gay garlanded walls, surrounded by those symbols andsouvenirs of Madame, he lay with his face turned up to the ceiling, and his mouth half open, as if it still gasped piteously for breath. One more breath to beg for forgiveness, to defend himself, explain;while bit by bit the place he had lived in gave up his secret. 

She could not tell whether she forgave him or not. When she stood byhim there she could have implored _his_ forgiveness for having thuscome upon him unawares, for having found what he had taken such painsto hide from her. It seemed somehow cruel and unfair. She did not taxhim with hypocrisy, because he had so long contrived to keep himselfclean in her sight; she was grateful to him for having spared her thisknowledge. But whether she forgave him or not--no, looking back on itat this moment she could not tell. Lucia was too young for the greatforgiveness that comes of understanding. 

She walked up and down the library, staring at the books, at thetables piled with papers; she stood at each window in turn and lookedout on the garden, the valley and the hills, Harmouth Gap, and thelong brown rampart line of Muttersmoor. It was simply impossible forher to realize their once intimate relation to her life. 

She was unaware that her mood was chiefly the result of physical andmental exhaustion. It seemed to her rather that she had acquiredstrange powers of insight, that she had pierced to the back of theillusion. Never had she possessed so luminous a sense of the unrealityof things. She found this view consoling, for it is the desire ofunhappy youth that there shall be no permanence where there is pain. 

On this unreal and insubstantial background faces came and went allday long, faces solemn and obsequious, faces glazed and feverish withemotion; Robert's face with red-rimmed eyes hiding Robert'sunutterable sympathy under a thin mask of fright; Kitty's face with anentirely new expression on it; and her own face met them with anincomprehensible and tearless calm. For she was not even sure of that, not even sure of her own sorrow. She had had to do with sorrow oncebefore, when her grandfather died, and she thought she would be sureto know it when it came to her again; but she had no name for this newfeeling, and at times it seemed to her that it was not sorrow at all. 

Whatever it was, she had determined to bear it as far as possiblealone. She was almost sorry that she had not refused Kitty's offer tostay with her; she suffered so from Kitty's inability to conceal thetruth. Not that Kitty said anything; it was her unnatural silence thatwas so terrible. With that extraordinary acuteness that had come uponher now Lucia saw, in the involuntary hardening and flushing ofKitty's face, that in Kitty's mind her father was not only suspected, but condemned. She was afraid lest she herself should in some momentsof weakness betray him; and Kitty's strange unusual tendernessinspired her with terror. She shrank even from old Mrs. Palliser, Kitty's mother, with her soft trembling face and clinging hands. Theirsympathy was poignant and unnerving, and she needed all her strengthfor the things she had to do. 

She did them, too. While one half of her brain had slackened its gripof the world, the other half retained the most perfect grasp ofcertain necessary details. She spent the morning with her father'ssolicitor, while he explained to her the first principles of finance, and the inner meaning of mortgages and bills of sale. She understoodclearly that the things which would naturally have come to her on herfather's death belonged in a certain sense to Mr. Richard Pilkingtonof Shaftesbury Avenue. Mr. Schofield, poor man, had approached thisbranch of his subject gently and gingerly, with every delicacy ofphrasing that his fancy could suggest. He leaned back in his chair andlooked at her through half-closed eyes, respectfully veiling theshrewdness of his gaze. Lucia had at first displayed so littleinterest and intelligence that he felt himself compelled to a broaderand simpler statement of the facts. With the exception of her ownpersonal possessions, nothing in Court House remained to her, nothing, not a book, not a solitary piece of drawing-room furniture. Mr. Pilkington's bill of sale was, he grieved to say, inclusive ofeverything, from the Harden library and the great gallery ofportraits, to the glass and china in the pantry, and the blankets onthe beds. "Not even, " he had said, "that little paper weight that youhave in your hand, Miss Harden. " And Lucia had examined the paperweight as if she saw it for the first time; she put it down andsmiled. It struck her as incomprehensible, ludicrous almost that anyone could spend so much passion and solemnity on things sounimportant, so irrelevant; she was not in the least surprised to hearthat they did not belong to her; the inconceivable thing was that theyever had belonged to her. 

And as the solicitor looked at her the corners of his mouth twitchedwith a little spasm of pity; his eyes lost their veiled shrewdness, and when she smiled they stared in frankest fright. For a moment hesupposed that the shock of his announcement had turned her brain. Itnever occurred to that astute intelligence that she was smiling athis own simplicity. 

When he had left she returned to the writing-table; she sorted andarranged a disordered heap of business letters, letters of condolenceand tradesmen's bills. She pushed aside the letters of condolence--Kittywould answer those. She unlocked a drawer and took from it two openenvelopes scored with many postmarks and addressed to Harmouth, toCannes and to Harmouth again; these she scrutinized anxiously, as ifthey disclosed some secret guarded by their contents. Then she readthe letters carefully all over again. 

One was from her cousin Edith Jewdwine. Edith's sympathy covered twosheets; it flowed from her pen, facile and fluent. Edith had had theinfluenza, otherwise Edith would have come to Lucia at once. Could notLucia come to her instead? Edith could not bear to think of Luciaalone there in her trouble, in that great big house. She was glad thatKitty Palliser was with her. If only she had not been so unfortunateas to catch influenza, and so on!

Lucia was sorry that Edith had influenza, but she was not sorry thatshe had not come. She did not want Edith with her. 

The other letter was from Horace. Horace had refined his expressionsof condolence into one faultless phrase. The rest of his letterconsisted of apologies and offers of service. These his close crampedhandwriting confined to the centre of the sheet, leaving a broad anddecent margin to suggest the inexpressible. He had heard of hisuncle's death indirectly; why had she not sent for him? If she hadwired to him at once he could have made arrangements to meet and takeher to Cannes, or he could have joined her there and brought her home. At present he was overwhelmed with business; but he hoped to run downto Harmouth at the end of the week, and travel up to town with her. Heunderstood that she was going to stay with Edith. Busy as he was, hewould come now, at any minute, if he could be of any immediate use. She had only to wire if she wanted him. 

She laid down that letter, pushed it aside, took it up again, andread it a second time, as if to satisfy herself as to the writer'smeaning. She was not sure as to what Horace was or was not willing todo, but there could be no doubt that he was deeply sorry for her. Whyhad she not sent for him? Why indeed? Her first instinct had been tosend for him. She had only to let him know that she was in trouble, and he would have come to her at any inconvenience to himself. Andthat, of course, was why she had not sent. It would have been soimpossible for him to refuse. 

And now she was thankful that she had spared him, and that he had notfollowed her to those terrible rooms in the Villa des Palmes, that heknew nothing of those seven days. She would have endured anysuffering, paid any price to obliterate the memory of them. It washorrible to think how nearly Horace had been there. Horace of allpeople--the fastidious, the immaculate, the merciless. If she hadfound it hard to judge her dead father tenderly, she knew whatHorace's judgement would have been. 

She had "only to wire if she wanted him. " Oh no; he was the lastperson that she wanted now. 

Those two letters she answered without more delay. To Horace she wrotein a reassuring manner, so as to absolve him from any sense ofobligation he might happen to feel. She would rather he came down alittle later than he proposed. Meanwhile he was not to be anxious, forMr. Schofield was managing her affairs extremely well. She admittedthat when those wonderful affairs were settled her income would be butsmall (she considered that this was a thing Horace ought to be toldbefore--before he wrote any more letters). She added that the library, the pictures and the furniture would have to be sold. And Court House, too, she was afraid. (That also was a fact that must not be concealedfrom him for a moment. It seemed to concern Horace so much more thanit did her. ) These things, which it was her duty to tell him, she toldsimply and plainly. But she omitted to mention that two men inpossession were sitting in the housekeeper's room, in attitudes ofmore or less constraint. She ended by assuring Horace of hergratitude, with a fervency which suggested that he had some cause todoubt it. And indeed, at the moment, she could hardly tell whethershe were more grateful to him for offering to come to her or forhaving stopped away. 

All this necessary business Lucia transacted with one half of hermind; while the other stood far off, possessed by its sense ofunreality, of illusion. 

Next she went through the tradesmen's bills. There were a great manypeople to be paid, and unless Court House were sold there would benothing to pay them with. It was at this point that Robert came inwith the announcement that Mr. Rickman had called and wished to seeher. 

At first (the active intelligence being busy with accounts), her onlyidea was that she owed Mr. Rickman fifteen pounds and that when alldebts were paid fifteen pounds would represent a very solid portion ofher income. Then her dreaming self awoke to the memory of somethingunachieved, an obligation rashly incurred, a promise that could neverbe fulfilled. 

Yes. She would see Mr. Rickman. 

CHAPTER XXX

Lucia had risen and was standing in the embrasure of the south window. She had her back to the door, so that she could not see him as he camein. 

He wondered how on earth he was going to get over the space betweenthe window and the door. A sudden wave of weakness went through hisbody; he had horrible sensations of sinking at the middle and ofgiving way altogether at the knees. He had been afraid of seeing hersuffer; now he knew that what he was really afraid of was her fear ofseeing him. He expected to see her face set in abhorrence of hissympathy, her body shrink in anticipation of a touch on her pain. 

Lucia spared him all the embarrassments of that approach As if she haddivined his feeling, she turned, she came forward to meet him, sheheld out her hand and smiled as she would have smiled if nothing hadhappened. 

His hand trembled visibly as it dropped from hers. He hid it in hisbreast pocket, where it pretended to be looking for things. 

"Miss Palliser said she thought you would see me--"

"Yes, I wanted to see you; I would have sent for you if you had notcome. Sit down, please. "

She sat down herself, in her old place at the writing table. 

He took the chair beside her and leaned back, resting his arm on thetable. She turned so as to face him. 

She was not so changed but that his hungry and unhappy eyes could reston her, appeased and comforted. And yet she _was_ changed, too. Hergirlhood, with all its innocence of suffering, had died in her. Butthe touch of that death was masterly, it had redeemed her beauty fromthe vagueness of its youth. Grief, that drags or sharpens or deformsthe faces of older women, had given to hers the precision that itlacked. There was a faint sallow tinge in the whiteness of her skin, and her eyelids drooped as if she were tired to the point ofexhaustion. He noticed, too, the pathetic tension that restrained thequivering of her mouth. It was the upper lip that trembled. 

"You have been ill?" she said. 

And as he answered that, "Oh, it was nothing, " he was aware for thefirst time how very much it had been. She too was aware of it. 

She expressed her concern; she hoped that they had looked after himwell at the hotel. 

Decidedly she had grown older and her manner had grown older too. Itsuggested that it was she who was the protector; that she wished, asfar as possible, to spare him in an interview which must necessarilybe painful. It was as if she remembered that he at any rate was young, and that these gloomy circumstances must be highly distasteful to hisyouth. In that she was the same as ever; every nerve in her shrankfrom the pain of giving pain. 

At least that was his first impression. And then (no consoling viewbeing really open to him) he told himself he was a fool to supposethat in the circumstances she could think of him at all. He hadnothing tangible to go upon. He could see through it. He could seeperfectly through the smile, the self-possession, even the air ofpolite and leisurely interest in his illness. She dwelt on him becausehe was of all themes the one most indifferent to her. She was simplyholding herself in, according to the indestructible instincts of herrace. 

He need not have been afraid of seeing her suffer; that, at any rate, he would not see. To let him see it would have been to her an extremepersonal degradation, an offence against the decencies of her class. This sorrow of hers, this invisible, yet implacable sorrow, stoodbetween them, waving him away. It opened up again the impassable gulf. He felt himself not only a stranger, but an inferior, separated fromher beyond all possibility of approach. She had not changed. She hadsimply reverted to her type. 

Her eyes waited for him to speak. But they were not the eyes he knew, the eyes that had drawn him to confession. It was borne in upon himthat this (though it might be his last moment with her) was not themoment to confess. There was a positive grossness in the idea ofunburdening himself in the presence of this incommunicable grief. Itwas like putting in a claim for consideration as an equal sufferer. Hehad no right to obtrude himself upon her at all. In her calm-eyedattention there was a hint--a very delicate and gentle one--that hewould do well to be impersonal, business-like, and, above all, brief. 

"It was about the library that I wanted to see you, Miss Harden. "

"Was it? I was just going to ask you not to do anything more to thecatalogue if you have not finished it. "

"I finished it ten days ago--before the twenty-seventh. "

She smiled faintly. "Then you kept your promise. It doesn't matter. What I most wanted to speak to you about was the secretaryship Ioffered you. I'm afraid we must give it up. "

"Oh--Miss Harden--" his tone expressed that he had always given it up, that it was not to be thought of for an instant. But evidently she waspossessed with the idea that he had a claim upon her. 

"I'm very sorry, but as things have turned out I shan't be able tokeep a secretary. In fact, as you may have heard, I'm not able to keepanything hardly--not even my promises. "

"Please--please don't think of it--"

"There is no use thinking of it. Still, I wanted you to know that Ireally meant it--I believed it could be done. Of course I don't knowhow much you really wanted it. "

"Wanted it? I'd 'ave given half my life for a year of it. "

Lucia's hand, laid lightly on the table's edge, felt a strongvibration communicated to it from Mr. Rickman's arm. She looked up, intime to see his white face quiver before he hid it with his hand. 

"I'm so sorry. Did it mean so much to you?"

He smiled through his agony at the cause assigned to it. "I'm notthinking of that. What it means to me--what it always will mean isyour goodness--in thinking of it. In thinking of it now. "

It was his nearest approach to a sympathetic allusion. 

She did not wince (perceptibly), but she ignored the allusion. 

"Oh, that's nothing. You would have been of great use to me. If Ithought of helping you at all, my idea was simply--how shall I putit?--to make up in some way for the harm I've done you. "

"What harm have you ever done me?"

For one moment he thought that she had discovered his preposterouspassion, and reproached herself for being a cause of pain. But sheexplained. 

"I ought to say the harm the catalogue did you. I'm afraid it wasresponsible for your illness. "

He protested. But she stuck to it. "And after all I might just as wellhave let you go. For the library will have to be sold. But I did notknow that. "

"I knew it, though. "

"You knew it? How did you know it?"

"I know Mr. Pilkington, who knows my father. He practically gave himthe refusal of the library. Which is exactly what I want to speak toyou about. "

He explained the situation to her as he had explained it to MissPalliser, only at greater length and with considerably greaterdifficulty. For Lucia did not take it up as Miss Palliser had done, point by point, she laid it down, rather, dismissed it with astatement of her trust in the integrity of Rickman's. 

"If, " she said, "the library must be sold, I'm very glad that it'syour father who is going to buy it. "

He tried to make her see (without too deeply incriminating his father)that this was not the destiny most to be desired for it. 

It was in approaching this part of his subject that he most divergedfrom his manner of treating it before Miss Palliser. 

Miss Palliser had appreciated the commercial point of view. Herpractical mind accepted the assumption that a dealer was but human, and that abnegation on his part in such a matter would amount tonothing less than a moral miracle. But Miss Harden would have ahigher conception of human obligation than Miss Palliser; at any ratehe could hardly expect her sense of honour to be less delicate thanhis own, and if _he_ considered that his father was morally bound towithdraw from the business she could only think one thing of hisremaining in it. Therefore to suggest to Miss Harden that his fathermight insist upon remaining, constituted a far more terrible exposureof that person than anything he had said to Miss Palliser. 

"Why shouldn't he buy it?" she asked. 

"Because, I'm afraid, selling it in--in that way, you won't make muchmoney over it. "

"Well--it's not a question of making money, it's a question of payinga debt. "

"How much you make--or lose--of course, depends on the amount of thedebt--what it was valued at. "

Lucia, unlike Kitty, was neither suspicious nor discreet. She had therequired fact at her fingers' ends and instantly produced it. "It wasvalued at exactly one thousand pounds. "

"And it should have been valued at four. My father can't give anythinglike that. We ought to be able to find somebody who can. But it mighttake a considerable time. "

"And there is no time. What do you advise me to do then?"

"Well, if we could persuade Mr. Pilkington to sell by auction thatwould be all right. If we can't, I advise you to buy it back, or apart of it, yourself. Buy back the books that make it valuable. You'vegot the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_printed by Wynken de Worde. " (He positively blushed as he consummatedthis final act of treachery to Rickman's. ) "And heaps of othersequally valuable; I can give you a list of fifty or so. You can buythem for a pound a-piece and sell the lot for three thousand. IfPilkington collars the rest he'll still be paid, and there may besomething over. "

She considered a moment. "Has Mr. Pilkington any idea of the value ofthose books?"

"I'm certain he hasn't. Only an expert could have. "

"Would it be perfectly fair to him?"

"To _him_? Perfectly fair. You buy them at his own valuation. "

"I see. I should like to do that--if--if it can be managed. "

"I think it can be managed. My father isn't likely to settle with Mr. Pilkington without consulting me. If he _has_ settled we must try andget him to withdraw. "

"Oh, surely there would be no difficulty about that?"

He said nothing. It was really terrible the way she took integrity forgranted. To be sure his father had a reputation with the family. Heremembered how Sir Joseph used to praise him to his face as the onlyhonest dealer in London. But Sir Joseph was in the habit of buyingbooks, not selling them. 

He rose and turned away, evading her innocent eyes. 

"I hope not. I'll see Mr. Pilkington about it. By the way, here _is_Mr. Pilkington. Did you expect him?"

"No, I--" Her voice died away, extinguished in her horror. 

CHAPTER XXXI

There could be no mistake about it. 

Mr. Pilkington was coming by the private way, stepping softly over afair green lawn. The low golden light before sunset flooded the lawnso that Mr. Pilkington walking in it was strangely and gloriouslyilluminated. Everything about him shone, from his high silk hat to thetips of his varnished boots. His frock coat and trousers of greysummer suiting clung to his figure like a warm and sunny skin. Allover Mr. Pilkington and round about him there hung the atmosphere ofthe City. Not of the actual murky labyrinth, roofed with fog, but ofthe City as she stands transfigured before the eyes of the youngspeculator, in her orient golden mood. 

Lucia had seen him. The light died out of her face, her lipsstraightened. She stood motionless, superb, intent. With such a lookand in such an attitude a Roman maiden might have listened to the feetof the Vandal at the gate. 

He was coming very swiftly, was Dicky, as if borne by an impetus ofconquest. As he caught sight of Miss Harden through the open window, though he kept his head rigidly averted, his eyes slewed round towardsher, and at the same moment his fingers rose instinctively to hislittle fair moustache. It was the gesture of the irresistible male. 

"_Must_ I see him?" she asked helplessly. She had realized everythingin that moment. 

"Not unless you like. Shall I deal with him?"

"If you would be so good. But no--it doesn't matter. I shall have tosee him later. "

She sat down again and waited. The silence was so tense that it seemedto bear the impact of her pulses; it throbbed and quivered with pain. Outside, the sound of the pebbles, crunched under Pilkington'sfootsteps, became a concert of shrieks. 

Rickman did not offer to go as Mr. Pilkington advanced; for, Heavenknew how, in some obscure and subtle way she had managed to convey tohim that his presence was a protection. 

Mr. Pilkington entered the room with the air of a man completelyassured as to his reception. He bowed to Miss Harden; an extraordinarybow. No words could have conveyed the exquisite intimations of Mr. Pilkington's spine. It was as if he had said to her, "Madam, youneedn't be afraid; in your presence I am all deference and chivalryand restraint. " But no sooner had Dicky achieved this admirable effectof refinement than he spoilt it all by the glance he levelled at youngRickman. _That_ expressed nothing but the crude emotion of theinsolent male, baulked of his desire to find himself alone on thefield. It insulted her as brutally as any words by its unblushingassumption of the attitude of sex. 

"I must introduce myself, Miss 'Arden, " he said, ignoring Rickman. "Ithink I have _not_ had the pleasure--" His large mouth closedreluctantly on the unfinished phrase. 

He seated himself with circumstance, parting the tails of his coatvery carefully. He had chosen a seat opposite the window. As ifconscious of the glory of his appearance, he offered himself liberallyto the light. He let it play over his figure, a figure that youthsubdued to sleekness that would one day be corpulence; it drew out allthe yellow in his moustache and hair; it blazed in his gold-rimmedeye-glass; thence it alighted, a pale watery splendour, on the bridgeof his nose. It was a bridge where two nationalities met and contendedfor mastery. Mr. Pilkington's nose had started with a distinctlySemitic intention, frustrated by the Anglo-Saxon in him, its downwardcourse being docked to the proportion of a snub. Nobody knew betterthan Mr. Pilkington that it was that snub that saved him. He was proudof it as a proof of his descent from the dominant race. Assisted byhis reluctantly closing mouth and double eye-glass it inspiredconfidence, giving to Mr. Pilkington's face an expression of extremeopenness and candour. He was proud of his eye-glass too. Heconsidered that it made him look like a man of science or of letters. But it didn't. It did much better for him than that. It took all thesubtlety out of his face and endowed it with an earnest and enormousstare. And as that large mouth couldn't and wouldn't close properly, his sentences had a way of dying off in a faint gasp, leaving a greatdeal to the imagination. All these natural characteristics wereinvaluable for business purposes. 

But if you had asked Mr. Pilkington for the secret of his success, hewould have told you that he owed it to his possession of twoqualities, "bounce" and "tact. " To both, mind you; for tact withoutbounce will carry a man neither far nor high; while bounce withouttact will elevate him occasionally to his own perdition. Conversationally he was furnished with tentacles sensitive to thelightest touch of an idea; he had the very subtlest discernment ofshades within shades. He grasped with airy impact; he moved by adelicate contact and recoil, a process he was pleased to describe as"feelin' his way. "

He did not rush brutally into business, as a man of coarser fibremight have done. He removed his gloves, adjusted his eye-glass andadmired the view. He shrank from the suggestion that he had come to"take possession, " but clearly he could not take possession of theview. It was a safe and soothing topic. 

"You have a very glorious outlook here, Miss Harden. "

Then Mr. Pilkington perceived a shade. Miss Harden's outlook was _not_glorious. 

By an almost visible recoil from his own blunder he strove to conveyan impression of excessive delicacy. 

"Wot very exceptional weather we are enjoying--" Perceiving anotherand a finer shade (for evidently Miss Harden was not enjoying theweather, or indeed anything else) Mr. Pilkington again shifted hisground. He spoke of books. He noticed with approval the arrangement ofthe library. He admired the Harden taste in costly bindings, as if hewere by no means personally concerned with any of these things. Andthus by a delicate and imperceptible transition, he slid into histheme. 

"Now, as regards this--this sale, Miss Harden. I hope youunderstand--"

"I understand that you are my father's chief creditor, and that thesale is necessary. "

"Quite so. But I'm most awfully sorry for the necessity As for time--Idon't want you to feel that you're pressed or hurried in any way. " Mr. Pilkington's eyes gazed up at her under their great glasses, humid andimmense. His lower lip drooped in an uncertain manner. He had a greatdeal of nice feeling about him, had Dicky. 

"I hope those men aren't making a nuisance of themselves They've hadstrict orders to keep in the background I'm orf'ly upset, " said Mr. Pilkington in a thick emotional voice, "about this affair; and I wantto consider you, Miss Harden, in every possible way. "

"You are very kind. But I would rather you didn't consider me, in anyway at all. "

As she said this Mr. Rickman looked at her with a grave smile, conveying (behind Mr. Pilkington's back) an unmistakable warning. 

Mr. Pilkington smiled too, a large and fluttering smile as of oneindulgent to any little attempt at brilliance on the part of a younglady under a cloud. Lucia swept him and his smile with her long andsteady gaze, a gaze which made Dicky exceedingly uncomfortable. 

"I think if you have any arrangements to make, you had better see mysolicitor. "

"I have an appointment, " said Dicky, not without a certain dignity, "with Mr. Schofield, to-morrow morning. "

"Then I suppose what you want now is to look over the house?"

The question and the gaze were so direct that Dicky (who had meant toamble delicately round that point for another quarter of an hour) losthis head, dropped his eye-glass, and fairly let himself go. 

"Well, perhaps as I _am_ here, I'd better 'ave a look round. Ofcourse--if--if it's in any way inconvenient--"

"Not in the least. You can look round at once. "

She rang the bell. On her way to it she gathered up some books thatwere lying out of sight and laid them on the table. 

"These, " she said to Rickman, "belong to the library. They must gowith the rest. "

He looked at them. One was an Aldine Dante, he had seen her readingit. He took Pilkington aside and said something to him in a tone whichLucia could not hear. Her hand was on the door when Pilkington sprangforward. 

"One moment, Miss Harden. Everything must be sold in the regular way, but if you'll tell me of any books you've a special fancy for, I'llmake a note of them and buy them in for you. " He paused, awaiting thebreath of inspiration. It came. "For--for a merely nominal sum. "

To do Dicky justice this delicate idea greatly commended itself to hisgood nature. Business is business, but not willingly did Dicky inflictpain, least of all upon a young and pretty woman. Besides he had aneye to his reputation; he was disposed to do this thing handsomely. Rickman envied him his inspiration, his "merely nominal sum. "

"Thank you. The books were not mine, " said Lucia in spite of anothermeaning look from her ally. 

"Quite so. But I should disregard that if I were you. Anyhow you canthink it over, and if you change your mind you can let me or MrRickman know before the sale. "

Lucia looked down at him from her height. "I shall not change my mind. If I want to keep any of the books, I can buy them from Mr. Rickman. "

She turned to Rickman in the doorway. "All the same, it was kind ofyou to think of it. " She said it very distinctly, so that Mr. Pilkington could hear. 

Rickman followed her out of the room and closed the door behind them. She turned on him eyes positively luminous with trust. It was as ifshe had abandoned the leading of her intellect and flung the reins onthe neck of her intuition. 

"I was right, wasn't I? I would so much rather buy them back fromyou. "

"From my father?"

"It's the same thing, isn't it?"

He smiled sadly. "I'm afraid it isn't, quite. Why didn't you accepthis offer?"

"I couldn't. " She shuddered slightly. Her face expressed her deep anddesperate repugnance. "I _can_ buy them back from you. He is reallyarranging with your father, isn't he?"

"Yes. " It was the third time that she had appealed from Pilkington tohim, and there was a profound humiliation in the thought that at thisprecise moment the loathsome Dicky might be of more solid use to herthan he. 

"Well then, " she said almost triumphantly. "I shall be safe. You willdo your best for me. "

It was a statement, but he met it as if it had been a question. 

"I will indeed. "

He saw that it was in identifying his father with him that she left itto their honour. 

CHAPTER XXXII

Dicky Pilkington did not belong to the aristocracy of finance. Indeed, finance had not in any form claimed him at the first. 

Under the grey frock-coat and gleaming shirt-front, hidden away behindthe unapparent splendours of Dicky Pilkington's attire (his undermostgarments were of woven silk), in a corner of his young barbarian heartthere lurked an obscure veneration for culture and for art. When hisday's work was done, the time that Dicky did not spend in thepromenade of the Jubilee Variety Theatre, he spent in reading KarlPearson and Robert Louis Stevenson, with his feet on the fender. Heknew the Greek characters. He _said_ he could tell Plato fromAristotle by the look of the text. Dicky had begun life as a JuniorJournalist. But before that, long, long before, when he was aninnocent schoolboy, Dicky had a pair of wings, dear little cherubicwings, that fluttered uneasily under his little jacket. The wingsmoulted as Dicky grew older; they shrank (in the course of hisevolution) to mere rudimentary appendages, and poor Dicky floppedinstead of flying. Finally they dropped off and Dicky was much happierwithout them. Rickman used to say that if you stripped him you saw themarks of them still quite plainly; and Dicky was always strippinghimself and showing them. They proved to these writing fellows what hemight have been if he had only chosen. He had begun by being a poetlike the best of them, and in his heart of hearts Dicky believed thatit was as a poet he should end. His maxim upon this head was: "WhenI've feathered my nest it will be time enough for me to sing. "

Dicky's nest was not long in feathering, and yet Dicky had not begunto sing. Still, at moments, after supper, or on a Sunday afternoon, walking in a green lane, Dicky would unbosom himself. He would tellyou touching legends of his boyhood and adolescence. Then he wouldtalk to you of women. And then he would tell you how it was that hecame to forsake literature for finance. 

He had begun in a small way by financing little tradesmen, littlejournalists and actresses in temporary difficulties; lending smallsums to distressed clergymen, to governesses and the mistresses ofboarding-houses. By charging a moderate interest he acquired acharacter for fairness and straight-forwardness. Now and then he didwhat he called a really tip-top generous thing. "Character, " saidDicky Pilkington, "is capital"; and at thirty he had managed to saveenough of it to live on without bothering about earning any more. 

Then, by slow degrees, Dicky extended his business. He lent largersums at correspondingly higher interest. Then he let himself go. Hewas caught by the glory of the thing, the poetry of finance. He soaredto all the heights and sounded all the depths of speculation. He tookrisks with rapture. He fancied himself lending vast sums at giddyinterest. "That, " said Dicky to his conscience, was to "cover hisrisk. " He hadn't forgotten that character is capital. And when itoccurred to him, as it sometimes did, that he was making rather alarge hole in it, he would then achieve some colossal act ofgenerosity which set him on his legs again. So that Dicky Pilkingtonwas always happy in his conscience as in everything else. 

He had been prepared to do the handsome thing by Miss Harden, only hermanner had somehow "choked him off. " He could have afforded it, for heconsidered this Freddy Harden business as his very largest deal. Heheld a mortgage on the land, from the river to the top of HarcombeHill. There was any amount to be got out of the pictures and thefurniture. And the library was not altogether to be sneezed at. It hadbeen Fred Harden's last desperate resource, (rather poor security inDicky's opinion); but if the sum advanced had not been prodigious(compared with the sums that had gone before it) the interest hadbeen high. So that, in returning from his tour of inspection, he feltconsiderably elated. 

Rickman, as he went down the High Street that evening, saw Dicky alittle way in front of him. He noticed that the financial agent was anobject of considerable interest to the people of Harmouth. Men stoodat shop doors and street corners, women (according to their socialstanding) hung out of bedroom windows or hid behind parlour curtainsto look after him as he went. Here and there Rickman caught sullen andindignant glances, derisive words and laughter. Evidently the spiritof Harmouth was hostile to Dicky. A Harden was a Harden, and SirFrederick's magnificently complete disaster had moved even thetownspeople, his creditors. 

The excitement caused by Dicky concentrated at the windows of theLondon and Provincial Bank, where Sir Frederick had had a largebalance--overdrawn. 

Harmouth High Street is a lane, wide at the top and narrow at thebottom, which gives on to the esplanade between the Marine Hotel andthe Bank. At a certain distance these buildings cut the view into athin slip of grey beach and steep blue sea. The form of Dicky was nowvisible in the centre of that slip, top-hatted, distinct against theblue. He stood on the edge of the esplanade as on a railway platform, reading the paper and smoking a cigar. From time to time, looking upwith an expression half visionary, half voluptuous, he puffed and spatin dreamy rhythmic sequence. 

"_Coelum, non animam_, " said Rickman to himself, "they change theirskies, but not their habits. " When he came up with him, he found thesoul of Pilkington disporting itself in its own airy element, exchanging ideas with two young damsels who frolicked on the beachbelow. Backwards and forwards flew the light-hearted banter, likeballs of sea-foam, Mr. Pilkington the inspirer and the inspired. Theafter-glow of his last triumphant witticism still illuminated hiscountenance when he turned again to the printed page. 

Now, owing to its peculiar construction, Harmouth High Street acts asa funnel for the off-shore breezes; they rush through it as they rushthrough Windy Gap, that rift in the coast before which the waryfisherman slackens sail. Just such an air was careering seawards whenMr. Pilkington was about to perform the difficult feat of folding hispaper backwards. It smote one side of the broadsheet and tore it fromhis grasp, making it flutter like a sail escaped from the lanyard. Thebreeze dropped; it hovered; it waited like the wanton that it was; andwhen Mr. Pilkington's free hand made a clutch at the flying columns, it seized that moment to lift his hat from his head and dash it to theground. Then the demon of the wind entered into and possessed thathigh thing; the hat rolled, it curvetted, it turned brim over crown, it took wings and flew, low and eager like a cormorant; finally itstruck the beach, gathering a frightful impetus from the shock, andbounded seawards, the pebbles beating from it a thin drum-like note. Never was any created thing so tortured with indecent merriment in theface of doom. The end seemed certain, for Dicky Pilkington, though hejoined in the hysterics of the crowd, had not compromised his dignityby pursuit; when, just as the hat touched the foam of perdition, MollyTrick, the fat bathing woman, interposed the bulwark of her body; shestooped; she spread her wide skirts, and the maniac leapt into them asinto a haven. 

The young men who watched this breezy incident over the blinds of theLondon and Provincial Bank were immensely diverted. Even Rickmanlaughed as Dicky turned to him his cheerful face buffeted by the wind. 

Mr. Pilkington had put up at the same hotel as Rickman, and they foundthemselves alone at the dinner-table. 

"Glori-orious air this, " said Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know how youfeel, young 'un, but there's a voice that tells me I shall dine. "

Mr. Pilkington was not deceived by that prophetic voice. He dined withappetite undiminished by his companion's gloom. From time to time herallied him on his coyness under the fascinations of beef-steak, lagerbeer, apricots and Devonshire cream. 

"Well, Razors, " he said at last, "and wot do you think of the HardenLibrary?"

Rickman was discreet. "Oh, it isn't bad for a private show. SirFrederick doesn't seem to have been much of a collector. "

"Wasn't he, though! In his own line he was a pretty considerablecollector, quite a what d'you call 'em--virtuoso. "

"Not very much virtue about him, I imagine. "

"Well, whatever there may have been, in ten years that joker wentthrough his capital as if it had been a paper hoop. Slap through itand out at the other side, on his feet, grinning at you. "

"How did he manage it?"

"Cards--horses--women--everything you can name, " said Dicky, "that'samusing, and at the same time expensive. They're precious slow downhere in the country; but get 'em up to town, and there's nothing like'em for going the pace, when they _do_ go it. "

"His velocity must have been something tremendous, to judge by thesmash. " Rickman was looking at the financial agent with an expressionwhich some people might have been inclined to resent, but Dicky'sgaiety was proof against criticism. 

"What did he die of?" Rickman asked slowly. 

"What a beastly question to ask at dinner. He died, like most people, of his way of living. If Freddy Harden had had opportunities equal tohis talents he would have smashed up ten years ago. Talent wasn't theword for it, it was genius--genius. "

"I see. And when you come across a poor struggling devil with a giftlike that, you long to be kind to him, don't you? To bring himforward, to remove every obstacle to his career?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I did run Harden for all he was worth. Queerfish, Harden. He used to rave like a lunatic about his daughter; but Idon't suppose he spent a fiver on her in his life. It's pretty roughon her, this business. But Loocher'll do. She's got cheek enough forhalf a dozen. " Dicky chuckled at the memory of his discomfiture. "Ilike it. I like a girl with some bounce in her. Trust her to fall onher little tootsies anywhere you drop her. "

"I can't say you've made the falling very easy for her. "

Dicky's bright face clouded. "Wot the devil has that got to do withme? I've done _my_ level best. Why, I could have cleaned them outyears ago, if I'd chosen. Now, just to show you what sort of fellowFreddy Harden was--last time I ever saw him, poor chap, he told methat girl of his was a regular musical genius, just a little moretechnique, you know, and she'd beat Paderewski into a cocked hat. Shewas wonderful. That's the way he piled it on, and it may have been alltrue; he could have made a fortune, fiddling, if he hadn't been asproud as Satan and as lazy as a wombat. Well, I said, if that was so, I'd take her up and run her as a pro. --for friendship, mind you. Iliked Freddy, and I was orf'ly sorry for him. She could pay me if shepulled it off; if not, she could let it stand over till the day ofjudgement. "

Rickman flushed. "Did you know anything of Miss Harden, then?"

"Not I. Never set eyes on her. She might have been as ugly as sin forall I knew. I risked that. "

"What did Sir Frederick say to your generous proposal?"

Dicky's face became luminous at the recollection. "He said he'd see med--d first. But I meant it. I'd do it to-morrow if she asked meprettily. "

"Have you any notion how she'll be left after all this?"

"Yes. There's the house, and her mother's money. Freddy couldn't getat that. When it's all settled up she can't be so badly off, I fancy. Still it's a beastly back-hander in the face, poor girl. By Jove, shedoes stand up to it in form, too. Too d----d well bred to let you knowshe's hit. You wouldn't think she'd be plucky, to look at her, wouldyou? It's queer how the breeding comes out in a woman. "

Rickman held himself in with difficulty. When pearls are cast beforeswine you look for depreciation as a matter of course; you would beinfinitely more revolted if, instead of trampling them under theirfeet, the animals insisted on wearing them in their snouts. SoPilkington rootling in Miss Harden's affairs; Pilkington posing asMiss Harden's adviser; Pilkington adorning his obscene conversationwith Miss Harden's name, was to Rickman an infinitely more abominablebeast than Pilkington behaving according to his nature. But to quarrelwith Pilkington on this head would have provoked the vulgarest ofcomments, and for Miss Harden's sake he restrained himself. 

Dicky remained unconscious. "I'm glad you put me up to offering someof those books back. It goes against me to sell them, but what thedevil am I to do?"

"_I_ can't tell you. "

"I shan't collar all this furniture, either. I'll buy in some of itand return it. The decent thing would be to give her back poorFreddy's portrait. "

He passed his hand over a bunch of bananas, --he selected one, pinchedit, smelt it, put it down and took another. 

"It's a pity it's a Watts, that portrait, " he murmured dreamily. Heseemed to be wrestling with himself; and apparently he overcame. Whenhe had eaten his banana his face was flushed and almost firm. 

"I'll not take it. He sticks in my throat, does Freddy. "

Rickman left the table. If he had disliked Dicky when he was callous, he loathed him when he was kind. 

He threw open the window, and sat on the ledge. The breeze had dieddown and the heat in the little hotel was stifling. Across the passageglasses clinked in the bar, sounding a suitable accompaniment to thevoice of Dicky. From time to time bursts of laughter came from thebilliard-room overhead. Outside there, in the night, the sea smotheredthese jarring human notes with its own majestic tumult. Rickman, giving up his sickened senses to the night and the sea, was fortunateenough to miss a great deal that Pilkington was saying. 

For Dicky, still seated at the table, talked on. He had mingled sodawith whisky, and as he drank it, the veil of our earthly life liftedfor Dicky, and there was revealed to him the underlying verity, thefabric of the world. In other words, Dicky had arrived at the inspiredmoment of the evening, and was chanting the Hymn of Finance. 

"Look, " said Dicky, "at the Power it gives you. Now all you writingchaps, you know, you're not in it, you're not in it at all. You'resimply 'opping and dodging round the outside--you 'aven't a chance ofreally seeing the show. Whereas--look at _me_. I go and take my seatplump down in the middle of the stage box. I've got my ear to theheart of 'Umanity and my 'and on its pulse. I've got a grip ofrealities. You say you want to por-tray life. Very well, por-tray it. When all's said and done you've only got a picture. And wot's apicture, if it's ever so lifelike? You 'aven't got a bit nearer to thereal thing. I tell you, you aren't in it with me. I'd have been awriter myself if I'd thought it was good enough. I began that way; butas to going back to it, you might just as well expect me to go back tokissing a woman's photo when I can put my arm round her waist. "

And Dicky, gracefully descending on the wings of his metaphor, alighted on Miss Poppy Grace. But to Rickman the figure of Poppy, oncean obsession, was now as indistinct as the figure of Dicky seenthrough a cloud of tobacco smoke. He was roused by a more directappeal, and what seemed to him a violent change of theme. 

"Did you notice what rum eyes Miss Harden's got? They haven't taughther how to use 'em, though. Hi, Ricky! Aren't you going to join us ina drink?"

"No, I'm not. " His tone implied that he was not going to joinPilkington in anything. 

"You seem a bit cut up on Miss Harden's account. "

"If you mean that I think she's been most infernally treated, I do. "

"H'm. Well, I will say the wind is not exactly tempered to that shornlamb. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Queer howthings are mixed up in this world. You wouldn't think there was muchconnexion between Miss Harden and Miss Poppy Grace, would you? Well, wot's Loocher's loss is Popsie's gain; if that's any consolation. "

"I certainly don't see the connexion. "

"No? I say, can't you shut the window? That d----d sea makes such anoise I can't hear myself speak. I was going to say I'd some notion ofrunning Poppy on her own before long. And I think--I _think_ I can doit out of this haul, before she signs another contract. Of course, weexpect you and your friends to back us. "

Dicky's voice came slightly muffled from the depths of his longtumbler. 

Rickman turned round. "What did you say about Bacchus?" He had turnedin anger, but at the spectacle presented by Pilkington he laughedaloud in the insolence of his youth. 

"Shut that window, can't you? I say, if you can get at any of thepapers and give them the tip--"

"Well?" Rickman's hand closed fiercely over the top of a soda-watersyphon. Pilkington followed the movement with an innocent, but by nomeans unobservant eye. 

Only the other day they had been rivals for the favour of Miss PoppyGrace, which seemed to be very evenly divided between them. If Rickmanhad her heart, he--Pilkington--held her by the power of the purse. Jealous he might be, but jealousy counted for little in the great mindof Pilkington. Human passions were the stuff he worked in. Where theyraged highest it was his to ride on the whirlwind and direct thestorm. If in Poppy's case they raged too high, his position ascreditor gave him a tight grip of young Rickman. On the other hand, Rickman was now a full-fledged Junior Journalist, and Pilkington, amidthe wreck of morals and the crash of creeds, had preserved a simplechildlike faith in the omnipotence of the press. So, if it was madnessfor Rickman to irritate Pilkington, it was not altogether expedientfor Pilkington to irritate him. 

"Look here, Razors, " said he, "you needn't go shying any syphonsabout. There's nothing behind this show but business. What I do forMiss Grace I do for cold cash. See? Of course, I take an interest inthe girl--"

"Interest at something like a hundred and fifty per cent. , I suppose?"

"That's about the figure--With your permission, I'll remove thatfizz-gig out of your way--What do you think of it--my idea, I mean?"

"I think there's a d----d lot more interest than principle in it. "

"You young goat! I'm out of it. Honour bright. So if you feel inclinedto slog away and boom the lady, there's no reason why you shouldn't. "

"Is there any reason why I should?" inquired Rickman with treacherousseverity. So immense was his calm that Dicky was taken in by it andblundered. 

"Well, yes, " said he, "in that case, we might consider our littleaccount settled. "

"Our little account, Dicky, will be run up on the wrong side of thepaper if you don't take care. "

"Wot d'you mean?"

"I mean that when you've got a particularly filthy job on hand, it'sas well to keep away from people who are not fond of dirt. At anyrate, I advise you not to come too near me. "

Dicky for the first time that evening looked uncomfortable. Itoccurred to Dicky that whisky and soda was not the very best drink totalk business on. 

"I've noticed, Rickman, " said he, "that since you've been living downin the country, you don't seem able to understand a joke. "

But Rickman had got his legs on the other side of the window ledge, and as Dicky approached him he slid down on to the esplanade andslipped into the night. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

Hardly knowing how he got there he found himself on the top ofHarcombe Hill. His head was bare and the soles of his thin slipperswere cut with the flints of the hillside lane. He had walked, walked, walked, driven by a fury in his body and a fever in his feet. 

His first idea had been to get as far away as possible from hiscompanion. He felt that he never could be clean again after hiscontact with Dicky. How had the thing happened? Yesterday Londonseemed as far away from Harmouth as Babylon from Arcadia, and Rickmanwas not more infinitely removed from Lucia than Lucia was from Poppy;yet here they were, all three tangled together in Dicky's complicateddraw-net. He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity, and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth. This was whatit had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions. Inlanguage as plain as he could put it, he--he--had been offered a bribeto advertise Poppy Grace for the benefit of Dicky, who kept her. Toadvertise a little painted--he disposed of poor Poppy in a powerfulword which would have given her propriety a fit if it could have heardhim. That he himself should ever have been infatuated with Poppyseemed to him now incredible, monstrous. In the last three weeks hehad not only grown sober, but mature. That youth of his which onceseemed immortal, had then ceased to be a part of him. He had cuthimself loose from it and put it behind him with all its miseries andtumults and pollutions. But he couldn't get rid of it. Like an uncleanspirit cast out of him it seemed to have entered into Dicky as into aconvenient herd of swine. And in Dicky's detestable person it rose upagainst him and pursued him. For Dicky, though sensual as any swine, was cautious. Dicky, even with an unclean spirit in him, was not inthe least likely to rush violently down any steep place into the seaand so perish out of his life. 

That Dicky should have appeared on his last night here seemed thevilest stroke that fate had dealt him yet. But Dicky could not followhim up Harcombe Hill. 

He looked before him. The lights of Harmouth opened out a thin line tothe esplanade, dividing the sea from the land by fire instead of foam;strewn in the bed of the valley they revealed, as through some pureand liquid medium, its darkness and its depth. Above them the greatflank of Muttersmoor stretched like the rampart of the night. Nightitself was twilight against that black and tragic line. 

And Rickman, standing bareheaded on the hillside, was lifted up out ofhis immense misery and unrest. He remembered how this land that heloved so passionately had once refused him the inspiration that hesought. And now it seemed to him that it could refuse him nothing, that Nature under cover of the darkness gave up her inmost ultimatesecret. And if it be true that Nature's innermost ultimate secret isknown only to the pure, it was a sign of his own cleansing, this senseof comfort and reconciliation, of unspoiled communion, of profoundimmeasurable peace. In that moment his genius seemed to have passedbehind veils upon veils of separation, to possess that tender andtragic beauty, to become one with the soul of the divine illimitablenight. 

He was not in the least deceived as to the true source of hisinspiration. In all this, if you went back far enough, his bodycounted; his body which he had made a house of shame and hunger anddesire, shaken by its own shivering nerves and leaping desperatepulses. But what of that now? What matter, since that tumult of hisblood had set throbbing such subtle, such infinite vibrations in hissoul. _That_ was what counted. He could tell by it the quality andimmensity of his passion, by just that spiritual resonance andresponse. It was the measure of Lucia's power to move him, the measuretoo of his nearness to her no less than of his separation. 

She could not take away what she had given; and among his sources ofinspiration, of the unique and unforgettable secret that had passedinto him with the night, on Harcombe Hill, as he looked towardsMuttersmoor, she also counted. She would be always there, a part ofit, a part of him, whether she would or no--if that was anyconsolation. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

He had made no empty promise when he assured her that he would do hisbest; for there was something that could still be done. He built greathopes on the result of the coming interview with his father. His ideawas to go up to town by the early morning train and talk the wholething over as calmly as might be. He would first of all appeal to hisfather's better feelings; he would make him see this thing as he sawit, he would rouse in him the spirit of integrity, the spirit of mercyand pity, the spirit of justice and chivalry and honour. 

But if all the arts of persuasion failed to touch him, Rickman Juniorhad in reserve one powerful argument against which Rickman Seniorwould hardly be able to contend. There would no doubt be inspirations, but as to the main lines of his pleading he was already clear. He feltentirely confident and light-hearted as he rose at five the nextmorning to catch that early train. 

Rickman Senior was not in the shop when Rickman Junior arrived on thescene. He was in a great bare room on an upper floor of thesecond-hand department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and hisfrock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman withscrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenterwith foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with hismost solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyanminister, as of a priest engaged in some high service of dedication. He was in fact making arrangements for the reception of no less thanfifteen thousand volumes, the collection of the late Sir JosephHarden, of Court House, Harmouth. And as he looked around him his faceexpressed the smooth and delicately voluptuous satisfaction of thedreamer who has touched his dream. 

This look of beatitude faded perceptibly when the message came thatMr. Keith was in the front shop and wished to see him. Mr. Keith, itappeared, had no time to spare. Isaac had, in fact, experienced aslight shock at the earliness of Keith's return. His first thought wasthat at the last moment there had been some serious hitch withPilkington. He found Keith sitting before the counter in the attitudeof a rather imperious customer; but the warm pressure of his son'shand removed this disagreeable effect of superiority. Keith's facewore signs of worry and agitation that confirmed Isaac's originalfear. 

"Well, " he said a little anxiously, "I didn't expect you back as earlyas this. "

"I haven't come to stop. I've got to catch the twelve-thirty backagain. I came up because I wanted to talk to you. "

"Come, " said Isaac, "into the office. "

He laid his hand on Keith's shoulder as they went. He felt very kindlytowards him at that moment. His heart was big with trust in thebrilliant, impetuous boy. When he touched Keith's hand he had feltthat intellectual virtue had gone out of it. He guessed that there wasa crisis in the affairs of the House of Rickman, and that Keith hadcome with warning and with help. He knew his power of swift andeffectual action in a crisis. Yes, yes; Keith's wits might gowool-gathering; but he was safe enough when he had gathered his wool. 

"Well?" he repeated, lifting grave interrogative eyebrows. He hadseated himself; but Keith remained standing, a sign with him ofextreme perturbation. 

"I thought I could explain things better if I saw you, " he began. 

"Quite so; quite so. I hope you haven't come to tell me there's beenany 'itch. "

"Well, I told you as much when I wrote. "

"I understood you advised me to withdraw, because you thoughtPilkington wanted a big price. "

"I didn't know what he wanted; I knew what we ought to give. "

"That was settled by looking in the register. You don't mean to say_he_'s going to back out of it?"

Keith was so preoccupied that he failed to see the drift of hisfather's questioning. "You see, " he continued, following his ownthoughts, "it's not as if we had only ourselves to consider. There'sMiss Harden. "

"Ah, yes, Pilkington did make some mention of a young lady. "

"She was good enough to say she'd rather we bought the library thananybody. I think we're bound to justify her confidence. "

"Certainly, most certainly, we are, " said Isaac with solemnity. He wasagreeably flattered by this tribute to the greatness of his house. 

"I thought I did right in promising that we would do our very best forher. "

"Of course you were. But that's all settled. Mr. Pilkington knows thatI'm prepared to meet his wishes. "

"His wishes?"

"He gave me to understand that he was anxious to have a sum to handover to the young lady. In fact, he wrote me a most touching appeal. "

"What d----d impertinence! He had no business to appeal!"

"Well, per'aps it wasn't strictly business-like. But I think, underthe circumstances, 'e was morally--_morally_--justified. And I thinkhe will consider I've responded very handsomely. "

"You've made him an offer, then?"

"I made it three days ago, provisionally, and he's accepted it, " saidIsaac, with some heat. "Why, he's got the cheque. "

"For how much?"

"For twelve hundred. "

"My dear father, you know, really, that won't do. "

"Do you think it was foolish to pay the two hundred extra?"

Isaac gazed at him over his fine gold-rimmed spectacles; and as hegazed he kept drawing his beard slowly through one lean and meditativehand. It was thus that he grasped his son's argument and drew it to apoint. 

"Foolish? It was--Don't you see? We--we simply can't do it. "

"Why, you said yourself we could go as far as four thousand five, orfour thousand at the very least. "

Keith looked steadily at his father, who was too deeply and solemnlyabsorbed to perceive the meaning of the look. "That was not quite whatI said. I said--if we were _not_ prepared to go so far, it was ourduty to withdraw. I thought I had made that clear to you. "

"You 'aven't made it clear to me why you're objecting to that twohundred now. "

Isaac was beginning to feel that stupidity was now his refuge. 

"I'm not objecting to your reckless extravagance, as you seem tothink. I'm trying to suggest that twelve hundred is a ridiculouslysmall offer for a collection which can't be worth less than fourthousand. "

"It may be worth that to a collector. It isn't worth it to me. "

"It's worth it to any dealer who knows his business. "

"Pretty business, if you have to buy at fancy prices and sell at arisk. "

"I allowed for the risk in the valuation--I always do. There's onepoint where you _are_ extravagant, if you like. What's the use ofpaying me for advice if you won't take it?"

Isaac's stupidity increased. 

"'Ow do you mean--paying you for your advice?"

"Paying a valuer, then, if you won't accept his valuation. "

So unwilling was he to admit the sharpness of his father's practicethat he tried to persuade himself that they had merely disagreed on apoint of connoisseurship. "My advice, if you remember, was to withdrawdecently, or pay a decent price. "

"I've paid my price, and I'm certainly not going to withdraw. "

"Well, but I'm afraid, if you won't withdraw, I must. You haven't paid_my_ price, and I can't be responsible. "

Isaac caressed his beard gently, and looked at Keith with a gaze soclear that it might have passed for pure. He was saying to himself, as he had said once before, "There's a woman in it. "

"Don't you see, " Keith broke out, "the atrocious position that I'm in?I promised Miss Harden that we'd do our best for her, and now we'retaking advantage of the situation to drive an iniquitous bargain withher. "

As Keith made this powerful statement Isaac smiled, puzzled andindulgent, as at some play of diverting but incomprehensible humour. In fact, he never could clearly distinguish between Keith's sense ofhumour and his sense of honour; both seemed equally removed from thesafe, intelligible methods of ordinary men. He wasn't sure but whatthere was something fine in it, something in keeping with theintellectual extravagance that distinguished his son from otherpeople's sons. There were moments when it amused and interested him, but he did not care to have it obtruded on him in business hours. 

"I'm driving no bargain with the lady at all. The books aren't hers, they're Pilkington's. I'm dealing with him. "

"And you refuse to consider her interests?"

"How can you say so when I'm paying two hundred more than I need do, on her account alone? You must explain that clearly to her. "

"Not I. You can explain it yourself. To me, you see, the whole thing'ssimply a colossal fraud. I won't have anything to do with it. "

"You _'aven't_ anything to do with it. I made the bargain, and I keepto it. "

"Very well, then, you must choose between your bargain and me. "

"Wot do you mean, choose between my bargain and you?"

"I mean exactly what I say. I know (if you don't) that that twohundred ought to be three thousand, and if it isn't paid I shall haveto shunt the business. I never meant to stay in it for ever, but inthis case I shall simply clear out at once, that's all. See?"

"No. I don't see. I don't see myself paying three thousand to a manwho's willing to take two hundred. "

"See my point, I mean. If the three thousand isn't paid, I go. On theother hand, if it is paid, I stay. "

This was one of those inspirations on which he had counted, and itpresented itself to him as a "clincher. " At the same instant herealized that he was selling himself into slavery for three thousandpounds. No, not for three thousand pounds, for his honour's sake andLucia Harden's. 

Isaac looked graver, alarmed even; it struck him that Keith's peculiarvein of extravagance was becoming dangerous. 

"You can calculate the interest at four per cent. , and knock a hundredand twenty off my salary, if you like; but I'll stay. It's prettyclear, isn't it? I think, on the whole, it might be as well for you toclose with the offer. It seems to me that if I'm worth anything atall, I'm worth three thousand. "

"I haven't priced your services yet. " Isaac's gaze shifted. He wasbeginning to feel something of that profound discomfort he hadexperienced before in the presence of his son. "Now, when you spoke toMiss 'Arden, had she any notion of the value of the library?"

"None whatever, till I told her. "

"Do you mean to stand there and say that you were fool enough to tellher?"

"Certainly; I thought it only fair to her. "

"And did you think it was fair to me?"

"Why not? If you're not dealing with her what difference could itmake?"

He said to himself, "I've got him there!"

Isaac was indeed staggered by the blow, and lost his admirablecomposure. 

"Do you know wot you've done? You've compromised me. You'vecompromised the honour and the reputation of my 'Ouse. And you've doneit for a woman. You can't 'ide it; you're a perfect fool where womenare concerned. "

"If anybody's compromised, I think it's me. I pledged my word. "

"And wot business had you to pledge it?"

"Oh, I thought it safe. I didn't think you'd dishonour my draft onyour reputation. "

"Draft indeed! That's it. You might just as well 'ave taken mycheque-book out of the drawer there and forged my signature at thebottom. Why, it's moral forgery--that's wot it is. I can see it all. You thought you were acting very generous and grand with this younglady. I say you were mean. You did it on the cheap. You'd no expense, or risk, or responsibility at all. I know you can't see it that way, but that's 'ow it is. "

Keith did not defend himself against this view of his conduct, andIsaac preserved his attitude of moral superiority. 

"I'm not blaming you, my boy. It's my own fault. I shouldn't 'ave sentyou out like that, _with_ cart blansh, so to speak, and without it. Ishould 'ave given you some responsibility. "

"Oh, thanks, I couldn't very well have done with more than I had. "

"Ah--you don't know the kind of responsibility I mean. You seem veryready to play fast and loose with my business. I daresay, now, youthink since you 'aven't much to lose, you 'aven't much to gain?"

"Well, frankly, I can't see that I have--much. But I've got to catch atrain in twenty minutes, and I want to know what you're going to do?Am I worth three thousand, or am I not?"

"You're worth a great deal more to me. You've got an education I'aven't got; you've got brains; you've got tact, when you choose touse it. You've got expert knowledge, and I can't carry on my businesswithout that. I'm not unreasonable. I can see that you can't act toadvantage if you're not made responsible, if you haven't any directinterest in the business. " He fixed his son with a glance that wasnothing if not spiritually fine. Keith found himself strugglingagainst an infamous, an intolerable suspicion. 

"And that, " said Isaac, "is wot I mean to give you. I've thought itwell over, and I believe it's worth my while. " He went on, joining hisfinger-tips, like a man who fits careful thought to careful thought, suggesting the final adjustment of a plan long ago determined andapproved, for something in Keith's face made him anxious that thisoffer should not appear to be born of the subject under discussion. 

"It was always my intention to take you into partnership. I didn'tmean to do it quite so soon, but rather than 'ear this talk offlinging up the business, I'm prepared to do it now. "

"On the same conditions?"

Now that Rickman's should eventually become Rickman and Son was a verynatural development, and in any ordinary circumstances Isaac couldhardly have made a more innocent and suitable proposal. But it was nolonger possible for Keith to ignore its significance. It meant thathis father was ready to buy his services at any price; to bribe himinto silence. 

His worst misgivings had never included such a possibility. In fact, before going down to Devonshire he had never had any seriousmisgivings at all. His position in his father's shop had hithertopresented no difficulties to a sensitive honour. He had not been surethat his honour was particularly sensitive, not more so, he supposed, than other people's. Acting as part of the machinery of Rickman's, hehad sometimes made a clever bargain; he had never, so far as he knew, driven a hard one. He was expected to make clever bargains, to buycheap and sell dear, to watch people's faces, lowering the price bytheir anxiety to sell, raising it by their eagerness to buy. That washis stern duty in the second-hand department. But there had been somany occasions on which he had never done his duty; times when he wastempted to actual defiance of it, when a wistful calculating look inthe eyes of some seedy scholar would knock all the moral fibre out ofhim, and a two and sixpenny book would go for ninepence or a shilling. And such was his conception of loyalty to Rickman's, that he generallypaid for these excesses out of his own pocket, so that conscience wassatisfied both ways. Therefore there had been no moral element in hisdislike to Rickman's; he had shrunk from it with the half-fantasticaversion of the mind, not with this sickening hatred of the soul. After three weeks of Lucia Harden's society, he had perceived howsordid were the beginnings from which his life had sprung. As hisboyish dreams had been wrought like a broidery of stars on the floorof the back-shop, so honour, an unattainable ideal, had stood out inforlorn splendour against a darker and a dirtier background. He hadfelt himself obscurely tainted and involved. Now he realized, as hehad never realized before, that the foundations of Rickman's were laidin bottomless corruption. It was a House built, not only on every vileand vulgar art known to trade, but on many instances of such a day'swork as this. And it was into this pit of infamy that his father wasblandly inviting him to descend. He had such an abominably clearvision of it that he writhed and shuddered with shame and disgust; hecould hardly have suffered more if he had gone down into it bodilyhimself. He endured in imagination the emotions that his father shouldhave felt and apparently did not feel. 

He came out of his shudderings and writhings unspeakably consoled andclean; knowing that it is with such nausea and pangs that the soul ofhonour is born. 

Their eyes met; and it was the elder Rickman's turn for bitterness. Ithad come, the moment that he had dreaded. He was afraid to meet hisson's eyes, for he knew that they had judged him. He felt that hestood revealed in that sudden illumination of the boy's radiant soul. An instinct of self-preservation now prompted him to belittle Keith'scharacter. He had found amazing comfort in the reflection that Keithwas not all that he ought to be. As far as Isaac could make out, hewas always running after the women. He was a regular young profligate, an infidel he was. What right had he to sit in judgement?

Shrewd even in anger, he took refuge in an adroit misconstruction ofKeith's language. "I lay down _no_ conditions. I'm much too anxiousabout you. I want to see you in a house of your own, settled down andmarried to some good girl who'll keep you steady and respectable. It'sa simple straightforward offer, and you take it or leave it. "

"I'll take it on two conditions. First, as I said before, that weeither withdraw or pay over that three thousand. Second, that in thefuture no bargains are made without my knowledge--and consent. Thatmeans giving me the entire control of my own department. "

"It means reducing me to a mere cypher. "

"Such bargains are questions for experts, and should be left toexperts. "

"If I were to leave them to experts like you I should be bankrupt in afortnight. "

"I'm sorry, but you must choose between your methods and mine. There'sten minutes to do it in. "

"It won't take ten minutes to see what will ruin me quickest. As Itold you before, I'm not going back on my bargain. "

"Nor I on mine. "

Isaac spent three minutes in reflection. He reflected first, thatKeith had been in the past "a young profligate"; secondly, that he wasat the present moment in love; thirdly, that in the future he wouldinfallibly be hungry. He would think very differently when he hadforgotten the lady; or if he didn't think differently he would behavedifferently when his belly pinched him. Isaac was a firm believer inthe persuasive power of the primitive appetites. 

"Only seven minutes, " murmured Keith. "I'm sorry to hurry you, father, but I really must catch that train. "

"Wait--steady. Do you know wot you're about? You shan't do anythingrash for want of a clear understanding. Mind--as you stand there, you're nothing but a paid shop-assistant; and if you leave the shop, you leave it without a penny to your name. "

"Quite so. My name will hardly be any the worse for that. You're sureyou've decided? You--really--do not--want--to keep me?"

After all, did he want to keep him, to be unsettled in his conscienceand ruined in his trade? What, after all, had Keith brought into thebusiness but three alien and terrible spirits, the spirit ofsuperiority, the spirit of criticism, the spirit of tempestuous youth?He would be glad to be rid of him, to be rid of those clear youngeyes, of the whole brilliant and insurgent presence. Not that hebelieved that it would really go. He had a genial vision of the hourof Keith's humiliation and return, a vivid image of Keith crawlingback on that empty belly. 

At that moment Keith smiled, a smile that had in it all the sweetnessof his youth. It softened his father's mood, though it could notchange it. 

"I'm afraid I can't afford to pay your price, my boy. "

He was the first to turn away. 

And Keith understood too thoroughly to condemn. That was it. Hisfather couldn't pay his price. The question was, could he afford topay it himself?

As the great swinging doors closed behind him, he realized thatwhatever price he had paid for it, he had redeemed his soul. And hehad bought his liberty. 

CHAPTER XXXV

Really, as Miss Harden's solicitor pointed out to her in the presenceof Miss Palliser, things looked very black against the young man. Itwas clear, from the letter Mr. Schofield had received from Mr. Jewdwine that morning, that the library was worth at least three timesthe amount these Rickmans had paid for it. Barring the fact that saleby private contract was irregular and unsatisfactory, he completelyexonerated Mr. Pilkington from all blame in the matter. His valuationhad evidently been made in all good faith, if in some ignorance. Butthe young man, who by Pilkington's account had been acting all alongas his father's agent, must have been perfectly aware of the nature ofthe bargain he had made. There was every reason to suppose that he hadknown all about the bill of sale before he came down to Harmouth; andthere could be no doubt he had made use of his very exceptionalopportunities to inform himself precisely of the value of the books hewas cataloguing. He must have known that they had been undervalued byMr. Pilkington, and seen his chance of buying them for a mere song. 

So what does he do? He carefully conceals his knowledge from thepersons most concerned; obviously, that he and his father may keep themarket to themselves. Then at the last moment he comes and pretends togive Miss Harden a chance of forestalling the purchase, knowing wellthat before she can take a single step the purchase will be concluded. Then he hurries up to town; and the next thing you hear is that he'svery sorry, but arrangements have unfortunately already been made withMr. Pilkington. No doubt, as agent of the sale, that young man wouldpocket a very substantial commission. Clearly in the face of theevidence, it was impossible to acquit him of dishonesty; but noaction could be brought against him, because the matter lay entirelybetween him and Mr. Pilkington. 

Lucia and Kitty had listened attentively to the masterly analysis ofMr. Rickman's motives; and at the end Kitty admitted that appearanceswere certainly against him; while Lucia protested that he was a poetand therefore constitutionally incapable of the peculiar sort ofcleverness imputed to him. The man of law submitted that because hewas a poet it did not follow that he was not an uncommonly knowingyoung man too. Whereupon Kitty pointed out one or two flaws in thelegal argument. In the first place, urged Kitty, the one thing thatthis knowing young man did not know was the amount of security thelibrary represented. 

Mr. Schofield smiled in genial forbearance with a lady's ignorance. He_must_ have known, for such information is always published for thebenefit of all whom it may concern. 

But Kitty went on triumphantly. There was nothing to prove it, nothingto show that this knowing young man knew all the facts when he firstundertook to work for Miss Harden. So far from concealing the factslater on, he had, to her certain knowledge, written at once to Mr. Jewdwine advising him to buy in the library, literally over oldRickman's head. That old Rickman's action had not followed on youngRickman's visit to town was sufficiently proved by the dates. Theletter to Mr. Pilkington enclosing the cheque for twelve hundred hadbeen written and posted at least twelve hours before his arrival. Whatthe evidence did prove was that he had moved heaven and earth to makehis father withdraw from his bargain. 

Mr. Schofield coldly replied that the better half of Miss Palliser'sarguments rested on the statements of the young man himself, to whichhe was hardly inclined to attach so much importance as she did. If hismain assertion was correct, that he had written to inform Mr. Jewdwineof the facts, it was a little odd, to say the least of it, that Mr. Jewdwine made no mention of having received that letter. And that hehad _not_ received it might be fairly inferred from the discrepancybetween young Rickman's exaggerated account of the value and Mr. Jewdwine's more moderate estimate. 

Lucia and Kitty first looked at each other, and then away to oppositecorners of the room. And at that moment Kitty was certain, while Luciadoubted; for Kitty went by the logic of the evidence and Lucia by theintuition which was one with her desire. Surely it was more likelythat Rickman had never written to Horace than that Horace should havefailed her, if he knew? Meanwhile the cold legal voice went on toshatter the last point in Kitty's defence, observing that if Rickmanhad not had time to get up to town before his father wrote to Mr. Pilkington he had had plenty of time to telegraph. He added that theyoung man's moral character need not concern them now. Whatever mightbe thought of his conduct it was not actionable. And to the legal mindwhat was not actionable was irrelevant. 

But for Lucia, to whom at the moment material things were unrealities, the burning question was the honesty or dishonesty of Rickman; for itinvolved the loyalty or disloyalty, or rather, the ardour or theindifference of Horace. If Rickman were cleared of the grosser guilt, her cousin was, on a certain minor count, condemned; and there couldbe no doubt which of the two she was the more anxious to acquit. 

"I suppose you'll see him if he calls?" asked Kitty when they werealone. 

"See who?"

"Mr. Savage Keith Rickman. " Even in the midst of their misery Kittycould not forbear a smile. 

But for once Lucia was inaccessible to the humour of the name. 

"Of course I shall see him, " she said gravely. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

He called soon after six that evening, coming straight from thestation to the house. Miss Palliser was in the library, but his faceas he entered bore such unmistakable signs of emotion that Kitty inthe kindness of her heart withdrew. 

He was alone there, as he had been on that evening of his firstcoming. He looked round at the place he had loved so well, and knewthat he was looking at it now for the last time. At his feet the longshadow from the bust of Sophocles lay dusk upon the dull crimson; thelevel light from the west streamed over the bookshelves, lying softlyon brown Russia leather and milk-white vellum, lighting up thedelicate gold of the tooling, glowing in the blood-red splashes of thelettering pieces; it fell slant-wise on the black chimney piece, chiselling afresh the Harden motto: _Invictus_. There was nothingmeretricious, nothing flagrantly modern there, as in that place ofbooks he had just left; its bloom was the bloom of time, the beauty ofa world already passing away. Yet how he had loved it; how he hadgiven himself up to it; how it had soothed him with its suggestion ofimmortal things. And now, for this last time, he felt himselfsurrounded by intelligences, influences; above the voices of hisanguish and his shame he heard the stately generations calling; theyapproved; they upheld him in his resolution. 

He turned and saw Lucia standing beside him. She had come in unheard, as on that evening which seemed now so long ago. 

She held out her hand. Not to have shaken hands with the poor fellow, would, she felt, have been to condemn him without a hearing. 

He did not see the offered hand, nor yet the chair it signed to himto take. As if he knew that he was on his trial, he stood rigidlybefore her. His eyes alone approached her, looking to hers to see ifthey condemned him. 

Lucia's eyes were strictly non-committal. They, too, seemed to standstill, to wait, wide and expectant, for his defence. Her attitude wasso far judicial that she was not going to help him by a leadingquestion. She merely relieved the torture of his visible bodilyconstraint by inviting him to sit down. He dropped into a chair thatstood obliquely by the window, and screwed himself round in it so asto face her. 

"I saw my father this morning, " he began. "I went up by the earlytrain. "

"I know. "

"Then you know by this time that I was a day too late. "

"Mr. Pilkington sent me your father's letter. "

"What did you think of it?"

The question, so cool, so sudden, so direct, was not what she felt shehad a right to expect from him. 

"Well--what did you think of it yourself?"

She looked at him and saw that she had said a cruel thing. 

"Can't you imagine what I think of it?"

This again was too sudden; it took her at a disadvantage, compellingher instantly to commit herself to a theory of innocence orcomplicity. 

"If you can't, " said he, "of course there's no more to be said. " Hesaid it very simply, as if he were not in the least offended, and shelooked at him again. 

No. There was no wounded dignity about him, there was the tragicirremediable misery of a man condemned unheard. And could that be herdoing--Lucia's? She who used to be so kind and just? Never in all herlife had she condemned anybody unheard. 

But she had to choose between this man who a month ago was an utterstranger to her, and Horace who was of her own blood, her own class, her own life. Did she really want Mr. Rickman to be tainted thatHorace might be clean? And she knew he trusted her; he had made hisappeal to the spirit that had once divined him. He might well say, "could she not imagine what he thought of it?"

"Yes, " she said gently, "I think I can. If you had not told me whatthe library was worth, of course I should have thought your fathervery generous in giving as much for it as he has done. "

"I did tell you I was anxious he--we--should not buy it; because Iknew we couldn't give you a proper price. "

"Yes, you told me. And I wanted you to buy it, because I thought youwould do your best for me. "

"I know. I know. If it wasn't for that--but that's the horrible partof it. "

"Why? You did your best, did you not?"

"Yes. I really thought it would be all right if I went up and saw him. I felt certain he would see it as I did--"

"Well?"

He answered with painful hesitation. "Well--he didn't see it. Myfather hasn't very much imagination--he couldn't realize the thing inthe same way, because he wasn't in it as I was. He'd seen nobody butPilkington, you see. "

Something in her face told him that this line of defence wasdistasteful to her, that he had no right to make a personal matter ofan abstract question of justice. It was through those personalitiesthat he had always erred. 

"I don't see what that has to do with it, " she said. 

"He--he thought it was only a question of a bargain between Pilkingtonand him. "

"What you mean is that he wouldn't admit that I came into it at all?"

She saw that she was putting him to the torture. He could not defendhimself without exposing his father; but she meant that he shoulddefend himself, that he should if possible stand clear. 

"Yes. He hadn't seen you. He wouldn't go back on his bargain, and Icouldn't make him. God knows I tried hard enough!

"Did you think you could do anything by trying?"

"I thought I could do a good deal. I had a hold on him, you see. Ihappen to be extremely useful to him in this branch of his business. Iwas trained for it; in fact, I'm hopelessly mixed up with it. Well, hecan't do very much without me, and I told him that if he didn't giveup the library I should give him up. It wasn't a nice thing to have tosay to your father--"

"And you said it?" Her face expressed both admiration and a certainhorror. 

"Yes. I told him he must choose between me and his bargain. "

"That must have been hard. "

"He didn't seem to find it so. Anyhow, he hasn't chosen me. "

"I meant hard for you to have to say it. "

"I assure you it came uncommonly easy at the moment. "

"Don't--don't. "

"I'm not going to defend him simply because he happens to be myfather. I don't even defend myself. "

"You? You didn't know. "

"I knew quite enough. I knew he might cheat you without meaning to. Ididn't think he'd do it so soon or so infamously, but, to tell thetruth, I went up to town on purpose to prevent it. "

"I know--I know that was what you went for. " She seemed to beanswering some incessant voice that accused him, and he perceived thatthe precipitancy of his action suggested a very differentinterpretation. His position was odious enough in all conscience, butas yet it had not occurred to him that he could be suspected ofcomplicity in the actual fraud. 

"Why didn't I do something to prevent it before?"

"But--didn't you?"

"I did everything I could. I wrote to my father--if that's anything;the result, as you see, was a cheque for the two hundred that shouldhave been three thousand. "

"Did it never occur to you to write to anybody else, to Mr. Jewdwine, for instance?"

She brought out the question shrinkingly, as if urged against her willby some intolerable compulsion, and he judged that this time they hadtouched what was, for her, a vital point. 

"Of course it occurred to me. Haven't you heard from him?"

"I have. But hardly in time for him to do anything. "

He reflected. Jewdwine had written; therefore his intentions had beengood. But he had delayed considerably in writing; evidently, then, hehad been embarrassed. He had not mentioned that he had heard from him;and why shouldn't he have mentioned it? Oh, well--after all, whyshould he? At the back of his mind there had crawled a wriggling, worm-like suspicion of Jewdwine. He saw it wriggling and stamped on itinstantly. 

There were signs of acute anxiety on Miss Harden's face. It was as ifshe implored him to say something consoling about Jewdwine, somethingthat would make him pure in her troubled sight. A light dawned on him. 

"Did you write to him?" she asked. 

He saw what she wanted him to say, and he said it. "Yes, I wrote. ButI suppose I did it too late, like everything else I've done. "

He had told the truth, but not the whole truth, which would have beendamaging to Jewdwine. To deny altogether that he had written wouldhave been a clumsy and unnecessary falsehood, easily detected. Something more masterly was required of him, and he achieved itwithout an instant's hesitation, and with his eyes open to theconsequences. He knew that he was deliberately suppressing the onedetail that proved his own innocence. But as their eyes met he sawthat she knew it, too; that she divined him through the web thatwrapped him round. 

"Well, " she said, "if you wrote to Mr. Jewdwine, you did indeed doyour best. "

The answer, on her part, was no less masterly in its way. He could nothelp admiring its significant ambiguity. It was both an act ofjustice, an assurance of her belief in him, and a superb intimation ofher trust in Horace Jewdwine. And it was not only superb, it wasalmost humble in that which it further confessed and implied--hergratitude to him for having made that act of justice consistent withloyalty to her cousin. How clever of her to pack so many meaningsinto one little phrase!

"I did it too late, " he said, emphasizing the point which served forJewdwine's vindication. 

"Never mind that. You did it. "

"Miss Harden, is it possible that you still believe in me?" Thequestion was wrung from him; for her belief in him remainedincredible. 

"Why should it not be possible?"

"Any man of business would tell you that appearances are against me. "

"Well, I don't believe in appearances; and I do believe in you. Youare not a man of business, you see. "

"Thank goodness, I'm not, now. "

"You never were, I think. "

"No. And yet, I'm so horribly mixed up with this business, that I cannever think of myself as an honest man again. "

She seemed to be considering whether this outburst was genuine or onlypart of his sublime pretence. 

"And I could never think of you as anything else. I should say, fromall I have seen of you, that you are if anything _too_ honest, toopainfully sincere. "

("Yes, yes, " her heart cried out, "I believe in him, _because_ hedidn't tell the truth about that letter to Horace. " She could haveloved him for that lie. )

He was now at liberty to part with her on that understanding, leavingher to think him all that was disinterested and honourable and fine. But he could not do it. Not in the face of her almost impassioneddeclaration of belief. At that moment he was ready rather to fall ather feet in the torture of his shame. And as he looked at her, tearscame into his eyes, those tears that cut through the flesh likeknives, that are painful to bring forth and terrible to see. 

"I've not been an honest man, though. I've no right to let you believein me. "

Her face was sweeter than ever with its piteous, pathetic smilestruggling through the white eclipse of grief. 

"What have you done?"

"It's not what I've done. It's what I didn't do. I told you that Iknew the library was going to be sold. I told you that yesterday, andyou naturally thought I only _knew_ it yesterday, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but I don't see--"

She paused, and his confession dropped into the silence with an awfulweight. 

"I knew--all the time. "

She leaned back in her chair, the change of bodily posture emphasizingthe spiritual recoil. 

"All the time, and you never told me?"

"All the time and I never told you. I'd _almost_ forgotten when youoffered me that secretaryship, but I knew it when I let you engage me;I knew it before I came down. I never would have come if I'd realizedwhat it meant, but when I did know, I stayed all the same. "

"What do you think you ought to have done?"

"Of course--I ought to have gone away--since I couldn't be honest andtell you. "

"And why" (she said it very gently but with no change in herattitude), "why couldn't you be honest and tell me?"

"I'm not sure that I'd any right to tell you what I hadn't any rightto know. I'm only sure of one thing--as I did know, I oughtn't to havestayed. But, " he reiterated sorrowfully, "I did stay. "

"You stayed to help me. "

"Yes; with all my dishonesty I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't mademyself believe that. As it's turned out, I've helped to ruin you. "

"Please--please don't. As far as I'm concerned you've nothing toreproach yourself with. Your position was a very difficult one. "

"I ought never to have got into it. "

"Still, you did your best. "

"My best! You can't say I did what an honourable man would have done;I mean at the beginning. "

"No--no. I'm afraid I can't say that. "

He did not expect anything but sincerity from her, neither did hedesire that her sense of honour should be less fine than his. But helonged for some word of absolution, some look even that shouldreinstate him in his self-esteem; and it seemed to him that there wasnone. 

"You can't think worse of me than I think myself, " he said, andturned mournfully away. 

She sat suddenly upright, with one hand on the arm of her chair, as ifready to rise and cut off his retreat. 

"Wait, " she said. "Have you any idea what you are going to do?"

The question held him within a foot's length of her chair, where thelight fell full on his face. 

"I only know I'm not going back to the shop. "

"You were in earnest, then? It really has come to that?"

"It couldn't very well come to anything else. "

She looked up at him gravely, realizing for the first time, throughher own sorrow, the precise nature and the consequences of his action. He had burnt his ships, parted with his means of livelihood, in aQuixotic endeavour to serve her interests, and redeem his own honour. 

"Forgive my asking, but for the present this leaves you stranded?"

"It leaves me free. "

She rose. "I know what that means. You won't mind my paying my debtsat once, instead of later?"

He stared stupidly, as if her words had stunned him. She was seated ather writing table, and had begun filling in a cheque before hecompletely grasped the horrible significance of what she had said. 

"What are you doing?" he asked. 

"I'm writing thirty instead of fifteen, because that is what you oughtto have asked for in the beginning. You see I am more business-likenow than I was then. "

He smiled. 

"And do you really suppose I am going to take it?"

He meant his smile to be bitter, but somehow it was not. After all, she was so helpless and so young. 

"Of course you are going to take it. "

"I needn't ask what you think of me. "

This time the smile was bitterness itself. 

"But it's yours--what I owe you. I'm only paying it to-day instead ofsome other day. "

"But you have not got to pay me anything. What do you think you'repaying me for?"

"For your work, for the catalogue, of course. "

"That infamous catalogue ought never to have been made--not by me atany rate. "

"But you made it. You made it for me. I ordered it. "

"You ordered it from my father. In ordinary circumstances you wouldhave owed him fifteen pounds. But even he wouldn't take it now. Ithink he considers himself quite sufficiently paid. "

"You are mixing up two things that are absolutely distinct. "

"No. I'm only refusing to be mixed up with them. "

"But you are mixed up with them. "

He laughed at that shot, as a brave man laughs at a hurt. 

"You needn't remind me of that. I meant--any more than I can help;though it may seem to you that I haven't very much lower to sink. "

"Believe me, I don't associate you with this wretched business. I wantyou to forget it. "

"I can't forget it. If I could, it would only be by refusing todegrade myself further in connection with it. "

His words were clumsy and wild as the hasty terrified movements of anaked soul, trying to gather round it the last rags of decency andhonour. 

"There is no connection, " she added, more gently than ever, seeing howshe hurt him. "Don't you see that it lies between you and me?"

He saw that as she spoke she was curling the cheque into a convenientform for slipping into his hand in the moment of leave-taking. 

"Indeed--indeed you must, " she whispered. 

He drew back sharply. 

"Miss Harden, won't you leave me a shred of self-respect?"

"And what about mine?" said she. 

It was too much even for chivalry to bear. 

"That's not exactly my affair, is it?"

He hardly realised the full significance of his answer, but he deemedit apt. If, as she had been so careful to point out to him, her honourand his moved on different planes, how could her self-respect be hisaffair?

"It ought to be, " she murmured in a tone whose sweetness should havebeen a salve to any wound. But he did not perceive its meaning anymore than he had perceived his own, being still blinded by what seemedto him the cruelty and degradation of the final blow. 

She had stripped him; then she stabbed. 

To hide his shame and his hurt, he turned his face from her and lefther. So strangely and so drunkenly did he go, with such a mist in hiseyes, and such anguish and fury in his heart and brain, that on thethreshold of the Harden library he stumbled past Miss Palliser withoutseeing her. 

She found Lucia standing where he had left her, looking at a littleroll of pale green paper that her fingers curled and uncurled. 

"Lucia, " she said, "what have you done to him?"

Lucia let the little roll of paper fall from her fingers to the floor. 

"I don't know, Kitty. Something horrible, I think. "

BOOK III

THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE

CHAPTER XXXVII

Mrs. Downey's boarding-house was the light of Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury. In the brown monotony of the street it stood out splendid, conspicuous. Its door and half its front were painted a beautiful, aremarkable pea-green, while its door knob and door-knocker were ofpolished brass. Mrs. Downey's boarding-house knew nothing ofconcealment or disguise. Every evening, at the hour of seven, throughits ground-floor window it offered to the world a scene of stupefyingbrilliance. The blinds were up, the curtains half-drawn, revealing theallurements of the interior. 

From both sides of the street, the entire length of the dinner-tablewas visible. Above it, a handsome gilt gaselier spread out itsbranches, and on this gaselier as many as three gas-jets burnedfuriously at once. In the intense illumination the faces of theboarders could be distinctly seen. They sat, as it were, transfigured, in a nebulous whorl or glory of yellow light. It fell on the highcollars, the quite remarkably high collars of the young gentlemen, andon those gay, those positively hilarious blouses which the youngladies at Mrs. Downey's wear. Beside the water-bottles and tumblers ofred glass it lay like a rosy shadow on the cloth. It gave back theirgreen again to the aspidistras that, rising from a ruche of pinkpaper, formed the central ornament of the table. It made a luminousbody of Mrs. Downey's face. The graver values were not sacrificed tothis joyous expenditure of gas-light, for the wall-paper (the designwas in chocolate, on a ground of ochre) sustained the note offundamental melancholy. At the back of the apartment, immediatelybehind Mrs. Downey, an immense mahogany sideboard shone wine-dark in agorgeous gloom. On the sideboard stood a Family Bible, and on theFamily Bible a tea-urn, a tea-urn that might have been silver. Therewas design in this arrangement; but for the Bible the tea-urn wouldhave been obliterated by Mrs. Downey; thus elevated, it closed, itcrowned the vista with a beauty that was final, monumental andsupreme. 

You had only to glance through those windows to see that Mrs. Downey'scombined the splendid publicity of an hotel with the refinements of awell-appointed home. That it offered, together with a luxurious table, the society of youthful persons of both sexes. And if everythingaround Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant indress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at youin pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding andeffacing the little care-worn lines and wrinkles which appeared on itby day. It wore the colour of the hour which, evening after evening, renewed for her the great drama and spectacle of the Dinner. 

Her table was disposed with a view to scenic effect. It was not byaccident that Mrs. Downey herself was seated at the obscure orsideboard end, and that she gathered round her there the older andless attractive members of her circle. This arrangement was flatteringto them, for it constituted an order of precedence and they were inthe seats of honour. It had also the further advantage of givingprominence to the young people whose brilliant appearance of anevening was as good as an advertisement for Mrs. Downey's. 

First then, at the top of the table, sat two elderly ladies, dishevelled birds of passage, guests of a day and a night. Next, onMrs. Downey's right, came old Miss Bramble, with old Mr. Partridgeopposite on the left. The young gentleman at the extreme bottom orpublic end of the table was Mr. Spinks. He was almost blatantlyvisible from the street. At Mr. Spinks's side sat Miss Ada Bishop, the young lady in the fascinating pink blouse; and opposite him, MissFlossie Walker, in the still more fascinating blue. To the left ofMiss Bishop in the very centre of the table was a middle-agedcommercial gentleman, Mr. Soper (not specially conspicuous); andfacing him and on Miss Walker's right came Miss Roots, who might beany age you please between thirty and forty. Between them at thepresent moment, there was an empty chair. 

Miss Roots was the link between the melancholy decadence above theaspidistras and the glorious and triumphant youth below. As far ascould be inferred with any certainty she had leanings to the side ofyouth. Her presence was no restraint upon its glad and frolicsomehumour. It felt that it could trust her. She had never been known tobetray any of the secrets that passed at the risk of their lives fromMiss Bishop's side of the table to Miss Walker's. There was reason tosuppose that Miss Roots was aware of the surreptitious manufacture ofbread pellets by Mr. Spinks (Mr. Spinks being the spirit of youthincarnate); but when one of these missiles struck Miss Roots full inthe throat, when it should have just delicately grazed the top of MissFlossie's frizzled hair, Miss Roots not only ignored the incident atthe time, but never made the faintest allusion to it afterwards. Therefore Mr. Spinks voted Miss Roots to be a brick, and a trump, andwhat he called a real lady. 

Very curious and interesting was the behaviour of these people amongthemselves. It was an eternal game of chivy or hide-and-seek, eachperson being by turn the hunter and the hunted. Mrs. Downey tried totalk to the birds of passage; but the birds of passage would talk tonobody but each other. Miss Bramble took not the slightest notice ofMr. Partridge. Mr. Partridge did everything he could to make himselfagreeable to Miss Bramble; but she was always looking away over theaspidistras, towards the young end of the table, with a little air ofstrained attention, at once alien and alert. Mr. Spinks spent himselfin perpetual endeavours to stimulate a sense of humour in Miss Walker, who hadn't quite enough of it, with very violent effects on MissBishop, who had it in excess; while Mr. Soper was incessantly tryingto catch the eye of Miss Roots around the aspidistras, an enterprisein which he was but rarely successful; Miss Walker finally making noattempt to bridge over the space between her chair and Miss Roots. 

That empty seat was reserved for Mr. Rickman, who was generally late. On his arrival the blinds would be pulled down in deference to hiswish for a more perfect privacy. Meanwhile they remained up, so thatwandering persons in hansoms, lonely persons having furnishedapartments, persons living expensively in hotels or miserably in otherboarding-houses, might look in, and long to be received into Mrs. Downey's, to enjoy the luxury, the comfort, the society. 

The society--Yes; as Mrs. Downey surveyed her table and its guests, her imagination ignored the base commercial tie; she felt herself tobe a social power, having called into existence an assembly sovarious, so brilliant, and so gay. One thing only interfered with Mrs. Downey's happiness, Mr. Rickman's habit of being late. Such a habitwould not have mattered so much in any of the other boarders, because, remarkable as they were collectively, individually, Mrs. Downey seldomthought of them unless they happened to be there, whereas with Mr. Rickman, now, whether he was there or not, she could think of nothingelse. 

And to-night Mr. Rickman was later than ever. 

"I'm really beginning to be afraid, " said Mrs. Downey, "that he can'tbe coming. "

The middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Soper, was heard muttering something tothe effect that he thought they could bear up if he didn't come. Whereupon Mrs. Downey begged Mr. Soper's pardon in a manner which wasa challenge to him to repeat his last remark. Therefore he repeatedit. 

"I say, I 'ope we can manage to bear up. "

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Soper. " (This from Mr. Spinks who adoredRickman. )

"Well, really, I can't think how it is you and he don't seem to hit itoff together. A young fellow that can make himself so pleasant when helikes. "

"Ah-h! When he likes. And when he doesn't like? When he comes into theroom like a young lord with his head in the air, and plumps himselfdown straight in front of you, and looks at you as if you were asorter ea'wig or a centerpede? Call that pleasant?"

Mr. Spinks chuckled behind his table napkin. "He means a centre piece. Wouldn't he make a handsome one!"

Mr. Soper combined a certain stateliness of carriage with a restlessinsignificance of feature. 

"We all know, " said Mrs. Downey, "that Mr. Rickman is a very reservedgentleman. He has his own thoughts. "

"Thoughts? I've got my thoughts. But they don't make me disagreeableto everybody. "

Mr. Spinks craned forward as far as the height of his collar permittedhim. "I wouldn't be too cock-sure if I were you, Mr. Soper. "

The young end of the table heaved and quivered with primeval mirth. Even Flossie Walker was moved to a faint smile. For Mr. Soper, thoughoutwardly taciturn and morose, was possessed inwardly by a perfectfury of sociability, an immortal and insatiable craving to converse. It was an instinct which, if gratified, would have undermined thewhole fabric of the Dinner, being essentially egoistic, destructiveand malign. Mr. Soper resented the rapidity with which Rickman hadbeen accepted by the boarding-house; he himself, after two years'residence, only maintaining a precarious popularity by littleofferings of bon-bons to the ladies. Hence the bitterness of hispresent mood. 

"There are thoughts _and_ thoughts, " said Mrs. Downey severely, forthe commercial gentleman had touched her in a very sensitive place. "And when Mr. Rickman is in wot I call 'is vein, there's nobody likehim for making a dinner go off. "

Here Mr. Soper achieved a sardonic, a really sardonic smile. "Oh, ofcourse, if you're eludin' to the young gentleman's appetite--"

But this was insufferable, it was wounding Mrs. Downey in thetenderest spot of all. The rose of her face became a peony. 

"I'm doing no such thing. If any gentleman wishes to pay me acompliment--" her gay smile took for granted that no gentleman couldbe so barbarous as not to feel that wish--"let him show an appetite. As for the ladies, I wish they had an appetite to show. Mr. Partridge, let me give you a little more canary pudding. It's as light as light. No? Oh--come, Mr. Partridge. "

Mr. Partridge's gesture of refusal was so vast, so expressive, that itamounted to a solemn personal revelation which implied, not so muchthat Mr. Partridge rejected canary pudding as that he renouncedpleasure, of which canary pudding was but the symbol and the sign. 

"Mr. Spinks then? He'll let me give him another slice, _I_ know. "

"You bet. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. Downey, the canary that pudding wasmade of, must have been an uncommonly fine bird. "

There was a swift step on the pavement, the determined click of alatch-key, and the clang of a closing door. 

"Why, here _is_ Mr. Rickman, " said Mrs. Downey, betraying thepreoccupation of her soul. 

Rickman's entrance produced a certain vibration down both sides of thetable, a movement unanimous, yet discordant, as if the nerves of thissocial body that was "Mrs. Downey's" were being played upon every wayat once. Each boarder seemed to be preparing for an experience that, whether agreeable or otherwise, would be disturbing to the lastdegree. The birds of passage raised their heads with a faint flutter. Miss Walker contemplated a chromo-lithograph with a dreamy air. Mr. Soper strove vainly to fix himself in an attitude of dignifieddetachment. 

The boarding-house was about to suffer the tremendous invasion of aforeign element. For a moment it was united. 

Mrs. Downey's face revealed a grave anxiety. She was evidently askingherself: "Was he, or was he not, in his vein?"

A glance at the object of his adoration decided the question for Mr. Spinks. Rickman was, thank goodness, _not_ in his vein, in which statehe was incomprehensible to anybody but Miss Roots. He was in thatcomparatively commonplace condition which rendered him accessible toMr. Spinks. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my friend, the lyte Mr. Ryzors. Jemima, show the deceased gentleman to his chair. MissWalker, Mr. Ryzors. He is really 'appy to myke your acquaintance, MissWalker, though at first sight he may not appear so. Wot you might beapt to mistyke for coldness is merely 'is intense reserve. "

"Oh, dry up, Spinks. "

No, Mr. Rickman was certainly not in his vein this evening. He made noapology whatever for his lateness. He ignored the commercialgentleman's "Good-evening, Rickman. " As he slipped into his placebetween Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day atthe Museum, Miss Roots?"--a question that recognized her as a fellowworker in the fields of literature, thus lightening the obscurity thathid her labours there. 

And for Miss Flossie's timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lipthat just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctantand embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because shewas so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because sheworked so hard, and, though plump, was so pathetically anaemic and soshy. Critically considered, her body, in spite of its plumpness, was alittle too small for her head, and her features were a little toosmall for her face, but then they were so very correct, as correct asher demeanour and the way she did her hair. She had clusters and curlsand loops and coils of hair, black as her eyes, which were so blackthat he couldn't tell the iris from the pupil. Not that Flossie hadever let him try. And now he had forgotten whether they were black orblue, forgotten everything about them and her. Flossie might be ascorrect as Flossie pleased, she simply didn't matter. 

When she saw him smile she turned up her eyes to the chromo-lithographagain. The little clerk brought with her from the City an air ofincorruptible propriety, assumed for purposes of self-protection, andat variance with her style of hair-dressing and the blueness andgaiety of her blouse. With all that it implied and took for granted, it used to strike him as pathetic. But now, he didn't find Flossie inthe least pathetic. 

He was waiting for the question which was bound to come. 

It came from Spinks, and in a form more horrible than any that he hadimagined. 

"I say, Rickets, wot did you want all those shirts for down inDevonshire?"

Instead of replying Rickets blew his nose, making hispocket-handkerchief conceal as much of his face as possible. At thatmoment he caught Miss Bishop staring at him, and if there was onething that Mr. Rickman disliked more than another it was being staredat. Particularly by Miss Bishop. Miss Bishop had red hair, a loosevivacious mouth, and her stare was grossly interrogative. 

Flossie sent out a little winged look at him like a soft darkbutterfly. It skimmed and hovered about him, and flitted, too etherealto alight. 

Miss Bishop however had no scruples, and put it to him point blank. 

"Devonshire?" said Miss Bishop, "what were you doing down there?" Sheplanted her elbows on the table and propped her chin on herfinger-tips; her stare thus tilted was partly covered by her eyelids. 

"If you really want, " said Mr. Spinks, "to see that gentlemanopposite, you'll have to take a telescope. " The adoring youthconceived that it had been given to him alone of the boarders topenetrate the mind of Rickman, that he was the guardian of his mood, whose mission it was to protect him from the impertinent approaches ofthe rest. 

"A telescope? Wot d'you mean?"

"Don't you think he's got a sort of a far-away look? Especially aboutthe mouth and nose?"

Whether it was from being stared at or for some other reason, but bythis time Mr. Rickman had certainly become a little distant. He wasnot getting on well with anybody or anything, not even with Mrs. Downey's excellent dinner, nor yet with the claret, an extra orderedfor his private drinking, always to Mrs. Downey's secret trepidation. She gave a half-timid, half-tender look at him and signalled to herladies to withdraw. She herself remained behind, superintending theremoval of the feast; keeping a motherly eye, too, on the poor boy andhis claret. Ever since that one dreadful Sunday morning when she hadfound him asleep in full evening dress upon his bedroom floor, Mrs. Downey was always expecting to see him drop under the table. He hadnever done it yet, but there was no knowing when he mightn't. 

Whatever the extent of Mr. Rickman's alleged intemperance, his was notthe vice of the solitary drinker, and to-night the claret was nearlyall drunk by Spinks and Soper. It had the effect of waking in thecommercial gentleman the demon of sociability that slept. 

What Mr. Soper wanted to know was whether Rickman could recommend'Armouth as a holiday resort? Could he tell him of any first-classcommercial hotel or boarding-house down there? To which Rickmanreplied that he really couldn't tell him anything at all. 

"Perhaps, " said Mrs. Downey, peering over the edge of the table-clothshe was helping to fold. "Perhaps he has his reasons. "

The claret had made Mr. Soper not only sociable but jocose. "Reasons?That's a new name for 'em. If he don't want more than one at a time, Iwish he'd introduce the rest of 'em to me. "

"I daresay he would be very happy, if he thought you would understandthem, Mr. Soper. "

"Understand 'em? Why, I don't suppose they talk Greek. "

"Ryzors, " said Spinks indignantly, "could give 'em points if they did. He speaks the language. "

Mr. Soper replied that in that case perhaps Mr. Rickman would obligehim with the Greek for "crumby bits. "

At the moment Mr. Rickman did not look like obliging Mr. Soper withanything. The provocation was certainly immense. Mr. Soper's voiceinspired him with a fury of disgust. The muscles of his mouthtwitched; the blood rushed visibly to his forehead; he stood loomingover the table like a young pink thunder-god. 

Mrs. Downey and Mr. Partridge retreated in some alarm. Mr. Soper, however, was one of those people who are not roused but merelydisconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposedhe could "make a 'armless remark. " And still thirsting forcompanionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went, he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman orcharm. 

Rickman poured himself out some claret which he drank slowly, withclosed eyelids, leaning back in his chair. "For God's sake, Spinks, "he muttered; "don't speak to me. "

"All right, old chappy, I won't. " But he whispered, "I wouldn't go offjust yet, Ryzors, if I were you" (by "going off, " Mr. Spinks meantdeparture in a train of thought). "He'll be back in another minute. "

He was back already, sociable, elated, smoking a cigar. Upstairs withthe ladies he and his bon-bons had met with unprecedented success. Rickman opened his eyes. 

"Ever try, " said Mr. Soper, "a Flor di Dindigul? 'Ave one. You'll findthe flavour very delicate and mild. " He held it out, that Flor diDindigul, as an olive branch to the tempestuous young man. 

It was not accepted. It was not even seen. 

Rickman rose to his feet. To his irritated vision the opposite wallseemed to heave and bulge forward, its chocolate design to becomedistended and to burst, spreading itself in blotches on the yellowochre. On the face of the hideous welter swam the face of Mr. Soper, as it were bodiless and alone. 

He drew in his breath with a slight shudder, pushed his chair backfrom the table, and strode out of the room. 

Spinks looked after him sorrowfully. 

"Wy couldn't you leave him alone, Soper? You might see he didn't wantto talk. "

"How could I see wot he wanted? One minute 'e's as chatty andsociable--and the next he's up like three dozen of bottled stout. _It's wot I sy. _ You can't dee-pend on 'im with any certainty. "

That opinion was secretly shared by Miss Flossie Walker. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Rickman, it seemed, was doomed to inspire that sense of agonizinguncertainty. 

It was the second evening after his return. The Dinner was not goingoff well. Miss Walker was depressed, Mr. Spinks was not in hisaccustomed spirits, and Mrs. Downey had been going about with red eyesall day. Mr. Rickman had confided to her the deplorable state of hisfinances. And Mrs. Downey had said to herself she had known from thefirst that he would not be permanent. 

He didn't want to be permanent. He desired to vanish, to disappearfrom the boarding-house and the boarders, and from Poppy Grace on thebalcony next door; to get away from every face and every voice that hehad known before he knew Lucia Harden's. Being convinced that he wouldnever see her again, he wanted to be alone with his vivid and piercingmemory of her. At first it was the pain that pierced. She had takenout her little two-edged sword and stabbed him. It wouldn't havemattered, he said, if the sword had been a true little sword, but itwasn't; it had snapt and left a nasty bit of steel inside him. Herlast phrase was the touch that finished him. But the very sting of itcreated a healthy reaction. By his revolt against that solitaryinstance of her cruelty he had recovered his right to dwell upon herkindness. He dwelt upon it until at times he entered again intopossession of the tender, beautiful, dominating dream. So intense washis hallucination, that as he walked alone in any southerly directionhe still felt Muttersmoor on his right hand and Harcombe on his left, and he had waked in the morning to the sound of the sea beating uponHarmouth beach. 

But these feelings visited him more rarely in the boarding-house thanelsewhere. That was why he wanted to get away from it. The illusionwas destroyed by these irrelevant persons of the dinner-table. Notthat he noticed them much; but when he did it was to discover in themsome quality that he had not observed before. He found imbecility inthe manners of Spinks, coarseness and violence in the figures of Mrs. Downey and Miss Bishop, insipidity in the whole person of Miss FlossieWalker. And now, as he looked round the table, he wondered how it washe ever came there. After living for four weeks with Lucia Harden orthe thought of her, he had a positive difficulty in recognizing evenSpinks and Flossie as people he had once intimately known. Miss Rootsalone, for some inscrutable reason, seemed familiar, in keeping withthat divine experience to which the actual hour did violence. It wasalmost as if she understood. 

A shrewdly sympathetic glance went out from a pair of hazel eyes setin a plain, clever, strenuous face. Miss Roots was glad, she said, tosee him back again. He turned to her with the question that had neverfailed to flatter and delight. Was Miss Roots doing anything speciallyinteresting now? But there was no interest in his tone. 

Miss Roots looked up with a smile that would have been gay if it hadnot been so weary. Yes, she was collecting material for a book onAntimachus of Colophon. No, not her own book. 

(At the mention of Antimachus of Colophon, Mr. Soper folded his armsand frowned with implacable resentment. Mr. Soper was convinced thatthese subjects were introduced on purpose to exclude him from theconversation. )

Miss Roots, like Mr. Rickman, lived apart from the murmur of theboarding-house. She had raised a barrier of books in a bedroom sixfeet by nine, behind which she worked obscurely. She had never beenknown to converse until Mr. Rickman came. A sort of fluctuatingfriendship had sprung up between Mr. Rickman and Miss Roots. He had anodd feeling, half pity, half liking, for this humble servant ofliterature, doomed to its labour, ignorant of its delight. And yetMiss Roots had a heart which went out to the mad-cap journalist, wildwith youth and the joy of letters. And now these things were comingback to her. The sources of intellectual desire had been drying upwith the blood in her cheeks; but when Rickman came they began to flowagain. When Rickman talked as only he could talk, Miss Roots felt afaint fervour, a reminiscent thrill. She preened her poor littlethoughts as if for pairing time, when soul fluttered to soul acrossthe dinner-table. She knew that, intellectually speaking, she had beenassigned to Rickman; for Mrs. Downey held that just as Mr. Rickman wasthe first to rouse Miss Roots to conversation, so Miss Roots alone hadthe power of drawing him out to the best advantage. 

"Indeed?" said Rickman in a voice devoid of all intelligence. 

Now if anything could have drawn Mr. Rickman out it was Antimachus ofColophon. Four weeks ago he would have been more interested inAntimachus than Miss Roots herself, he would have talked about him bythe hour together. So that when he said nothing but "Indeed?" sheperceived that something was the matter with him. But she alsoperceived that he was anxious to be talked to, therefore she talkedon. 

Miss Roots was right; though his mind was unable to take in a word shesaid to him, he listened, soothed by the singular refinement of hervoice. It was a quality he had not noticed in it four weeks ago. Suddenly a word flashed out, dividing the evening with a line oflight. 

"So you've been staying in Harmouth?"

He started noticeably, and looked at her as if he had not heard. MissRoots seemed unaware of having said anything specially luminous; sherepeated her question with a smile. 

"Why?" he asked. "Have you been there?"

"I've not only been there, I was born there. "

He looked at her. Miss Roots had always been, to say the least of it, prosaic, and now it was as if poetry had dropped from her lips, as ifshe had said, "I too was born in Arcadia. "

"I suppose, " she said, "you saw that beautiful old house by theriver?"

"Which beautiful old house by the river?"

"Court House. You see it from the bridge. You must have noticed it. "

"Oh, yes, I know the one you mean. "

"Did you happen to see or hear anything of the lady who lives in it?Miss Lucia Harden?"

"I--I must have seen her, but I can't exactly say. Do you know her?"

His words seemed to be torn from him in pieces, shaken by the violentbeating of his heart. 

"Know her?" said Miss Roots. "I lived five years with her. I taughther. "

He looked at her again in wonder, in wonder and a sort of tenderness. For a second his heart had come to life again and leapt like a lunaticto his lips. Happily his wits were there before it. He stroked hisupper lip, as if brushing away some wild phrase that sat there. 

"Then I'm sure, " he said, contriving a smile, "that Miss Harden is anexceedingly well educated lady. "

Miss Roots' hazel eyes looked up at him intelligently; but as they metthat unnatural smile of gallantry there was a queer compression of hershrewd and strenuous face. She changed the subject. He wondered if byany chance she knew; if she corresponded with Miss Harden; if MissHarden had mentioned him in the days before her troubles came; if MissRoots were trying to test him, to draw him out as she had never drawnhim out before. No, it was not in the least likely that Miss Hardenshould have mentioned him; if she had, Miss Roots would have said so. She would never have set a trap for him; she was a kind andstraightforward little lady. Her queer look meant nothing, it was onlyher way of dealing with a compliment. 

The sweat on his forehead witnessed to the hot labour of his thought. He wondered whether anybody had observed it. 

Mr. Soper had, and drew his own conclusions. 

"'E's been at it again, " said Mr. Soper, with significance. But nobodytook any notice of him; and upstairs in the drawing-room that nighthis bon-bons failed to charm. 

"I suppose you're pleased, " said he, approaching his hostess, "nowyou've got Mr. Rickman back again?"

A deeper flush than the Dinner could account for was Mrs. Downey'ssole reply. 

"'is manners 'aven't improved since 'is residence in the country. Imet 'im in the City to-day--wy, we were on the same slab ofpavement--and 'e went past and took no more notice of me than if I'dbeen the Peabody statue. "

"Depend upon it, he was full of something. "

"Full of unsociability and conceit. And wot is 'e? Wot is 'e? 'Isfather keeps a bookshop. "

"A very fine bookshop, too, " said Miss Roots. It was the first timethat she had ever spoken of her own accord to Mr. Soper. 

"He may have come out lately, but you should have seen the way 'ebegan, in a dirty little second 'and shop in the City. A place, " saidMr. Soper, "I wouldn't 'ave put my nose into if I was paid. Crammedfull of narsty, mangy, 'Olloway Street rubbish. "

"Look here now, " said Mr. Spinks, now scarlet with fury, "you needn'tthrow his business in his face, for he's chucked it. "

"I don't think any the better of him for that. "

"Don't you? Well, he won't worry himself into fits about youropinion. "

"'Ad he got a new berth then, when he flung up the old one?"

Now one thing Mrs. Downey, with all her indulgence, did not permit, and that was any public allusion to her boarders' affairs. She mightnot refuse to discuss them privately with Miss Bramble or Miss Roots, but that was a very different thing. Therefore she maintained adignified silence. 

"Well, then, I should like to know 'ow he's going to pay 'is way. "

Before the grossness of this insinuation Mrs. Downey abandoned herpolicy of silence. 

"Some day, " said Mrs. Downey, "Mr. Rickman will be in a very differentposition to wot he is now. You mark my words. " (And nobody marked thembut little Flossie Walker. )

Two tears rolled down Mrs. Downey's face and mingled with the tartanof her blouse. A murmur of sympathy went round the room, and Mr. Soperperceived that the rest of the company were sitting in an atmosphereof emotion from which he was shut out. 

"I beg of you, Mr. Soper, that you will let Mr. Rickman be, for oncethis evening. Living together as we do, we all ought, " said Mrs. Downey, "to respect each other's feelings. "

"Ah--feelings. Wot sort of respect does your young gentleman ever showto mine? Takes me up one day and cuts me dead the next. "

"He wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing if he hadn't been worried inhis mind. Mr. Rickman, Mr. Soper, is in trouble. "

Mr. Soper was softened. "Is he? Well, really, I'm very sorry to hearit, very sorry, I'm sure. "

"My fear is, " said Mrs. Downey, controlling her voice with difficulty, "that he may be leaving us. "

"If he does, Mrs. Downey, nobody will regret it more than I do. "

"Well, I hope it won't come to that. "

Mrs. Downey did not consider it politic to add that she was preparedto make any sacrifice to prevent it. It was as well that Mr. Sopershould realize the consequences of an inability to pay your way. Shewas not prepared to make any sacrifice for the sake of keeping _him_. 

"But what, " said Mrs. Downey to herself, "will the Dinner be withoutMr. Rickman?"

The Dinner was, in her imagination, a function, a literary symposium. At the present moment, if you were to believe Mrs. Downey, nodinner-table in London could show such a gathering of remarkablepeople. But to none of these remarkable people did Mrs. Downey feel asshe felt to Mr. Rickman, who was the most remarkable of them all. Byher own statement she had enjoyed exceptional opportunities forstudying the ways of genius. There was a room at Mrs. Downey's whichshe exhibited with pride as "Mr. Blenkinsop's room. " Mr. Blenkinsopwas a poet, and Mr. Rickman had succeeded him. If Mrs. Downey did notimmediately recognize Mr. Rickman as a genius it was because he was soutterly unlike Mr. Blenkinsop. But she had felt from the first that, as she expressed it, "there was something about him, " though what itwas she couldn't really say. Only from the first she had had thatfeeling in her heart--"He will not be permanent. " The joy she had inhis youth and mystery was drenched with the pathos of mutability. Mrs. Downey rebelled against mutability's decree. "Perhaps, " she said, "wemight come to some arrangement. "

All night long in her bedroom on the ground-floor, Mrs. Downey layawake considering what arrangement could be come to. This was but adiscreet way of stating her previous determination to make anysacrifice if only she could keep him. The sacrifice which Mrs. Downey(towards the small hours of the morning) found herself contemplatingamounted to no less than four shillings a week. Occupying his presentbed-sitting room he should remain for twenty-one shillings a weekinstead of twenty-five. 

Unfortunately, at breakfast the next morning their evil geniusprompted Mr. Spinks and Mr. Soper to display enormous appetites, andMrs. Downey, to her everlasting shame, was herself tempted of thedevil. A fall of four shillings a week, serious enough in itself, wasnot to be contemplated with gentlemen eating their heads off in thatfashion. It would have to be made up in some way, to be taken out ofsomebody or something. She would--yes, she would take it out of themall round by taking it out of the Dinner. And yet when it came to thepoint, Mrs. Downey's soul recoiled from the immorality of thissuggestion. There rose before her, as in a vision, the Dinner of thefuture, solid in essentials but docked of its splendour, its characterand its pride. No; that must not be. What the Dinner was now it mustremain as long as there were eight boarders to eat it. If Mrs. Downeymade any sacrifice she must make it pure. 

"On the condition, " said Mrs. Downey by way of putting a business-likeface on it, "on the condition of his permanence. "

But it seemed that twenty-one shillings were more than Mr. Rickmancould afford to pay. 

Mrs. Downey spent another restless night, and again towards the smallhours of the morning she decided on a plan. After breakfast shewatched Mr. Soper out of the dining-room, closed the door behind himwith offensive and elaborate precaution, and approached Mr. Rickmansecretly. If he would promise not to tell the other gentlemen, shewould let him have the third floor back for eighteen shillings. 

Mr. Rickman stood by the door like one in great haste to be gone. Hecould not afford eighteen shillings either. He would stay where he wason the old terms for a fortnight, at the end of which time, he saidfirmly, he would be obliged to go. Mr. Rickman's blue eyes were darkand profound with the pathos of recent illness and suffering, so thathe appeared to be touched by Mrs. Downey's kindness. But he wasn'ttouched by it; no, not the least bit in the world. His heart insidehim was like a great lump of dried leather. Mrs. Downey looked at him, sighed, and said no more. Things were more serious with him than shehad supposed. 

Things were very serious indeed. 

His absence at Harmouth had entailed consequences that he had notforeseen. During those four weeks, owing to the perturbation of hismind and the incessant demands on his time, he had written nothing. True, while he was away his poems had found a publisher; but he hadnothing to expect from them; it would be lucky if they paid theirexpenses. On his return to town he found that his place on _ThePlanet_ had been filled up. At the most he could only reckon onplacing now and then, at infrequent intervals, an article or a poem. The places would be few, for from the crowd of popular magazines hewas excluded by the very nature of his genius. To make matters worse, he owed about thirty pounds to Dicky Pilkington. The sum of twoguineas, which _The Museion_ owed him for his sonnet, would, if heaccepted Mrs. Downey's last offer, keep him for exactly two weeks. Andafterwards? Afterwards, of course, he would have to borrow another tenpounds from Dicky, hire some den at a few shillings a week, and tryhis luck for as many months as his money held out. Then there would beanother "afterwards, " but that need not concern him now. 

The only thing that concerned him was the occult tie between him andMiss Roots. Up to the day fixed for his departure he was drawn by anirresistible fascination to Miss Roots. His manner to her becamemarked by an extreme gentleness and sympathy. Of course it wasimpossible to believe that it was Miss Roots who lit the intellectualflame that burnt in Lucia. Enough to know that she had sat with her inthe library and in the room where she made music; that she had walkedwith her in the old green garden, and on Harcombe Hill andMuttersmoor. Enough to sit beside Miss Roots and know that all thetime her heart was where his was, and that if he were to speak ofthese things she would kindle and understand. But he did not speak ofthem; for from the way Miss Roots had referred to Lucia Harden and toCourt House, it was evident that she knew nothing of what had happenedto them, and he did not feel equal to telling her. Lucia's pain was sogreat a part of his pain that as yet he could not touch it. But thoughhe never openly approached the subject of Harmouth, he was for everskirting it, keeping it in sight. 

He came very near to it one evening, when, finding himself alone withMiss Roots in the back drawing-room, he asked her how long it wassince she had been in Devonshire. It seemed that it was no longer agothan last year. Only last year? It was still warm then, the linkbetween her and the woman whom he loved. He found himself looking atMiss Roots, scanning the lines of her plain face as if it held for himsome new and wonderful significance. For him that faced flamedtransfigured as in the moment when she had first spoken of Lucia. Thethin lips which had seemed to him so utterly unattractive had touchedLucia's, and were baptized into her freshness and her charm; her eyeshad looked into Lucia's and carried something of their light. In herpresence he drifted into a sort of mysticism peculiar to lovers, seeing the hand of a holy destiny in the chance that had seated himbeside her. Though her shrewdness might divine his secret he felt thatwith her it would be safe. 

As for his other companions of the dinner-table he was obliged toadmit that they displayed an admirable delicacy. After Mrs. Downey'srevelation not one of them had asked him what he had been doing thosefour weeks. Spinks had a theory, which he kept to himself. Old Ricketshad been having a high old time. He had eloped with a barmaid or anopera girl. For those four weeks, he had no doubt, Rickets had beengloriously, ruinously, on the loose. Mrs. Downey's speculations hadtaken the same turn. Mr. Rickman's extraordinary request that all hisclean linen should be forwarded to him at once had set her mindworking; it suggested a young man living in luxury beyond his means. Mrs. Downey's fancy kindled and blushed by turns as it followed himinto a glorious or disreputable unknown. Whatever the adventures ofthose four weeks she felt that they were responsible for his awfulstate of impecuniosity. And yet she desired to keep him. "There issomething about him, " said Mrs. Downey to Miss Roots, and pausedsearching for the illuminating word; "something that goes to yourheart without 'is knowing it. "

She had found it, the nameless, ineluctable charm. 

And so for those last days the Dinner became a high funereal ceremony, increasing in valedictory splendour that proclaimed unmistakably, "Mr. Rickman is going. "

In a neighbouring street he had found a room, cheap and passablyclean, and (failing a financial miracle worked on his behalf) he wouldmove into it to-morrow. He was going, now that he would have givenanything to stay. 

In the dining-room after dinner, Spinks with a dejected countenance, sat guarding for the last time the sacred silence of Rickman. They hadfinished their coffee, when the door that let out the maid with emptycups let in Miss Bishop, Miss Bramble and Miss Walker. 

First came Miss Bishop; she advanced in a side-long and embarrassedmanner, giggling, and her face for once was as red as her hair. Shecarried a little wooden box which with an unaccustomed shyness sheasked him to accept. The sliding lid disclosed a dozen cedar pencilsside by side, their points all ready sharpened, also a card with theinscription: "Mr. Rickman, with best wishes from Ada Bishop. " At onecorner was a date suggesting that the gift marked an epoch; at theother the letters P. T. O. The reverse displayed this legend, "If youever want any typing done, I'll always do it for _you_ at 6d. A thou. _Only don't let on. _ Yours, A. B. " Now Miss Bishop's usual charge was, as he knew, a shilling per thousand. 

"Gentlemen, " said she, explaining away her modest offering, "alwayslike anything that saves them trouble. " At this point, Miss Bishop, torn by a supreme giggle, vanished violently from the scene. 

Mr. Rickman smiled sadly, but his heart remained as before. He had notloved Miss Bishop. 

Next came Miss Bramble with her gift mysteriously concealed in silverpaper. "All brain-workers, " said Miss Bramble, "suffered from coldfeet. " So she had just knitted him a pair of socks--"_bed_-socks" (ina whisper), "that would help to keep him warm. " Her poor old eyes werescarlet, not so much from knitting the bed-socks, as fromcontemplating the terrible possibility of his needing them. 

Under Mr. Rickman's waistcoat there was the least little ghost of aquiver. He had not loved Miss Bramble; but Miss Bramble had loved him. She had loved him because he was young, and because he had sometimesrepeated to her the little dinner-table jests that she was too deaf tohear. 

Last of the three, very grave and demure, came Flossie, and she, likeher friend, carried her gift uncovered. She proffered it with her mostbecoming air of correctness and propriety. It was a cabinet photographof herself in her best attitude, her best mood and her best blueblouse. It was framed beautifully and appropriately in white silk, embroidered with blue forget-me-nots by Flossie's clever hands. Shehad sat up half the night to finish it. He took it gently from her andlooked at it for what seemed to Flossie an excessively long time. Hewas trying to think of something particularly pretty and suitable tosay. In his absorption he did not notice that he was alone with her, that as Flossie advanced Spinks and Soper had withdrawn. 

"I don't know whether you'll care for it, " said she. She was standingvery close beside him, and her face under the gas-light looked paleand tender. 

"Of course I'll care for it. " He laid her gift on the table beside theothers and stood contemplating them. She saw him smile. He was smilingat the bed-socks. 

"You are all much too good to me, you know. "

"Oh, Mr. Rickman, you've been so awfully good to me. "

He looked round a little anxiously and perceived that they werealone. 

"No, Flossie, " he said, "I've not been good to anyone, I'm not verygood to myself. All the same, I'm not an utter brute; I shan't forgetyou. "

Flossie's eyes had followed, almost jealously, the movement of hishand in putting down her gift; and they had rested there, fixed on herown portrait, and veiled by their large white lids. She now raisedthem suddenly, and over their black profundity there moved a curiousgolden glitter that flashed full on his face. 

"You didn't remember me, much, last time you went away. "

"I didn't remember anybody, Flossie; I had too much to think of. "

It struck him that this was the first time she had looked him full inthe face; but it did not strike him that it was also the first timethat he had found himself alone in a room with her, though they hadbeen together many times out of doors and in crowded theatres andconcert halls. Her look conveyed some accusation that he at firstfailed to understand. And then there came into his mind the promise hehad made to her at Easter, to take her to the play, the promise brokenwithout apology or explanation. So she still resented it, did she?Poor little Flossie, she was so plump and pretty, and she had been sodependent on him for the small pleasures of her life. 

"You're always thinking, " said Flossie, and laughed. 

"I'm sorry, Flossie; it's a disgusting habit, I own. I'll make up forit some day. We'll do a lot of theatres and--and things together, whenmy ship comes in. "

"Thank you, Mr. Rickman, " said she with a return to her old demeanour. "And now I suppose I'd better say good-night?"

She turned. They said good-night. He sprang to open, the door for her. As she went through it, his heart, if it did not go with her, wastouched, most palpably, unmistakably touched at seeing her go. He hadnot loved Flossie; but he might have loved her. 

Mr. Soper, who had been waiting all the while on the stairs, walked inthrough the open door. He closed it secretly. 

He laid his hand affectionately on Rickman's shoulder. "Rickman, " hesaid solemnly, "while I 'ave the opportunity, I want to speak to you. If it should 'appen that a fiver would be useful to you, don't youhesitate to come to me. "

"Oh, Soper, thanks most awfully. Really, no, I couldn't think of it. "

"But I mean it. I really do. So don't you 'esitate; and there needn'tbe any hurry about repayment. That, " said Mr. Soper, "is quiteimmaterial. " Failing to extract from Rickman any distinct promise, hewithdrew; but not before he had pressed upon his immediate acceptancea box of his favourites, the Flor di Dindigul. 

By this time Rickman's heart was exceedingly uncomfortable inside him. He had hated Soper. 

He thought it was all over, and he was glad to escape from thesereally very trying interviews to the quiet of his own room. There hefound Spinks sitting on his bed waiting for him. Spinks had come tolay before him an offering and a scheme. The offering was no less thantwo dozen of gents' best all-wool knitted hose, double-toed andheeled. The scheme was for enabling Rickman thenceforward to purchaseall manner of retail haberdashery at wholesale prices by the simplemethod of impersonating Spinks. At least in the long-run it amountedto that, and Rickman had some difficulty in persuading Spinks that hisscheme, though in the last degree glorious and romantic, was, from anethical point of view, not strictly feasible. 

"What a rum joker you are, Rickman. I never thought of that. Iwonder--" (He mused in an unconscious endeavour to restore the moralbalance between him and Rickman). "I wonder who'll put you to bed, oldchappy, when you're tight. "

"Don't fret, Spinky. I'm almost afraid that I shall never be tightagain in this world. "

"Oh, Gosh, " said Spinks, and sighed profoundly. Then, with a slightrecovery, "do you mean you won't be able to afford it?"

"You can put it that way, if you like. "

In time Spinks left him and Rickman was alone. Just as he waswondering whether or no he would pack his books up before turning in, there was a soft rap at his door. He said, "Come in" to the rap; andto himself he said, "Who next?"

It was Mrs. Downey; she glanced round the room, looked at Flossie'sphotograph with disapproval, and removed, not without severity, MissBramble's bed-socks from a chair. She had brought no gift; but she satdown heavily like a woman who has carried a burden about with her allday, and can carry it no farther. Her features were almost obliteratedwith emotion and glazed with tears that she made no effort to remove. 

"Mr. Rickman, " she said, "do you reelly wish to go, or do you not?"

He looked up surprised. "My dear Mrs. Downey, I don't; believe me. DidI ever say I did?"

Her face grew brighter and rounder till the very glaze on it made itshine like a great red sun. "Well, we'd all been wondering, and someof us said one thing, and some another, and I didn't know what tothink. But if you want to stay perhaps--we can come to somearrangement. " It was the consecrated phrase. 

He shook his head. 

"Come, I've been thinking it over. You won't be paying less than fiveshillings a week for your empty room, perhaps more?"

He would, he said, be paying six shillings. 

"There now! And that, with your food, makes sixteen shillings at thevery least. "

"Well--it depends upon the food. "

"I should think it did depend upon it. " Mrs. Downey's face literallyblazed with triumph. She said to herself, "I was right. Mr. Spinkssaid he'd take it out of his clothes. Miss Bramble said he'd take itout of his fire. _I_ said he'd take it out of his dinner. "

"Now, " she continued, "if you didn't mind moving into the frontattic--it's a good attic--for a time, I could let you 'ave that, _and_board you, for fifteen shillings a week, or for fourteen, I could, andwelcome. As I seldom let that attic, it would be money in the pocketto me. "

"Come, " she went on, well pleased. "I know all about it. Why, Mr. Blenkinsop, when he first started to write, he lived up there sixmonths at a time. He had his ups, you may say, and his downs. One yearin the attic and the next on the second floor, having his mealsseparate and his own apartments. Then up he'd go again quite cheerful, as regularly as the bills came round. " Here Mrs. Downey entered atsome length upon the history of the splendour and misery of Mr. Blenkinsop. "And that, I suppose, " said Mrs. Downey, "is what it is tobe a poet. "

"In fact, " said Rickman relating the incident afterwards to MissRoots, "talk to Mrs. Downey of the Attic Bee and she will thoroughlyunderstand the allusion. "

After about half an hour's conversation she left him without havingreceived any clear and definite acceptance of her proposal. That didnot prevent her from announcing to the drawing-room that Mr. Rickmanwas not going after all. 

At the hour of the last post a letter was pushed under his door. Itwas from Horace Jewdwine, asking him to dine with him at Hampstead thenext evening. Nothing more, nothing less; but the sight of thesignature made his brain reel for a second. He stood staring at it. From the adjoining room came sounds made by Spinks, dancing a jig ofjoy which brought up Mr. Soper raging from the floor below. 

Jewdwine? Why, he had made up his mind that after the affair of theHarden library, Jewdwine most certainly would have nothing more to dowith him. 

Jewdwine was another link. And at that thought his heart heaved andbecame alive again. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

In the act of death, as in everything else that he had ever done, SirFrederick Harden had hit on the most inappropriate, the mostinconvenient moment--the moment, that is to say, when Horace Jewdwinehad been appointed editor of _The Museion_, when every minute of hisday was taken up with forming his staff and thoroughly reorganizingthe business of his paper. It was, besides, the long-desired moment, for which all his years at Oxford had been a training and aconsecration; it was that supreme, that nuptial moment in which anambitious man embraces for the first time his Opportunity. 

The news of Lucia's trouble found him, as it were, in the ardours andpreoccupations of the honeymoon. 

It was characteristic of Jewdwine that in this courting of Opportunitythere had been no violent pursuit, no dishevelment, no seizing by thehair. He had hung back, rather; he had waited, till he had givenhimself value, till Opportunity had come to him, with delicate andceremonious approach. Still, his head had swum a little at her coming, so that in the contemplation of his golden bride he had for the timebeing lost sight of Lucia. 

As for marrying his cousin, that was a question with which for thepresent he felt he really could not deal. No doubt it would crop upagain later on to worry him. 

Meanwhile he gave to Lucia every minute that he could spare from theallurements of his golden bride. For more than a fortnight her affairshad been weighing on him like a nightmare. But only like a nightmare, a thing that troubled him chiefly in the watches of the night, leavinghis waking thoughts free to go about the business of the day, a thingagainst which he felt that it was impossible to contend. For Lucia'saffairs had the vagueness, the confusion of a nightmare. Details nodoubt there were; but they had disappeared in the immensity of thegeneral effect. Being powerless to deal with them himself, he had sentdown his own solicitor to assist in disentangling them. But as thefull meaning of the disaster sank into him he realized with the coldpang of disappointment that their marriage must now be indefinitelypostponed. 

To be sure, what had as yet passed between them hardly amounted to anunderstanding. All Jewdwine's understandings had been with himself. But the very fact that he was not prepared to act on such anunderstanding made him feel as responsible as if it actually existed. Being conscious of something rather more than cousinly tenderness inthe past, he really could not be sure that he was not alreadyirretrievably committed. Not that Lucia's manner had ever takenanything of the sort for granted. He had nothing to fear from her. Buthe had much (he told himself) to fear from his own conscience and hishonour. 

All this was the result of deliberate reflection. In the beginning ofthe trouble, at the first news of his uncle's death, his sympathy withLucia had been free from any sordid anxiety for the future which hethen conceived to be inseparably bound up with his own. Rickman'sletter was the first intimation that anything had gone wrong. It was ashock none the less severe because it was not altogether a surprise. It was just like his uncle Frederick to raise money on the HardenLibrary. The shock lay in Rickman's assumption that he, Jewdwine, wasprepared, instantly, at ten days' notice, to redeem it. It was what hewould have liked to have done; what, if he had been a rich man, heinfallibly would have done; what even now, with his limited resources, he might do if it were not for the risk. Rickman had assured him thatthere was no risk, had implied almost that it was an opportunity, asplendid investment for his money. He could see for himself that itwas his chance of doing _the_ beautiful thing for Lucia. Looking backupon it all afterwards, long afterwards, he found consolation in thethought that his first, or nearly his first, impulse had beengenerous. 

At first, too, he had not given a thought to Rickman except as themedium, the unauthorized and somewhat curious medium, of a verystartling communication. Enough that he was expected to produce at tendays' notice a sum which might be anything you pleased over onethousand two hundred pounds. It was not until he realized that he wasseriously invited to contend with Rickman's in a private bid for theHarden library that he began to criticize Rickman's movement in thematter. Everything depended on Rickman's estimate of the risk, andRickman was not infallible. In denying Rickman's infallibility he hadnot as yet committed himself to any harsh judgement of his friend. Hisfirst really unpleasant reflection was that Rickman's information wasunsatisfactory, because vague; his next that Rickman was giving himprecious little time for deliberation. He was excessively annoyed withRickman upon both these heads, but chiefly upon the latter. He wasbeing hurried; he might almost say that pressure was being put on him. And why?

It was at this point he found himself drawn into that dangerous line, the attributing of motives. 

He perceived in Rickman's suggestion a readiness, an eagerness tostand back and, as it were, pass on the Harden library. Rickman was asharp fellow; he knew pretty well what he was about. Jewdwine's mindwent back to the dawn of their acquaintance, and to a certain FlorioMontaigne. Rickman had got the better of him over that FlorioMontaigne. Hitherto, whenever Jewdwine had thought of that littletransaction he had smiled in spite of himself; he really could nothelp admiring the smartness of a young man who had worsted him in abargain. Jewdwine was a terror to all the second-hand booksellers inLondon and Oxford; he would waste so much of their good time incheapening a book that it was hardly worth their while to sell it tohim at double the price originally asked. The idea that he had paidfive shillings for a book that he should have got for four and sixwould keep Jewdwine awake at night. And now his thought advanced byrapid steps in the direction unfavourable to Rickman. Rickman haddriven a clever bargain over that Florio Montaigne; Rickman hadcheated him, yes, cheated him infamously, over that Florio Montaigne. You could see a great deal through a very small hole, and a man whowould cheat you over a Florio Montaigne would cheat you over a wholelibrary if he got the chance. Not that there was any cheating in thesecond-hand book-trade; it was each man for himself and the Lord forus all. 

The question was, what was young Rickman driving at? And what was he, Jewdwine, being let in for now? He found himself unable to acceptRickman's alleged motive in all its grand simplicity. It was toosimple and too grand to be entirely probable. If young Rickman was notinfallible, he was an expert in his trade. He was not likely to begrossly mistaken in his valuation. If the Harden library would beworth four or five thousand pounds to Jewdwine it would be worth asmuch or more to Rickman's. Young Rickman being merely old Rickman'sassistant, he could hardly be acting without his father's knowledge. If young Rickman honestly thought that the library was worth that sum, it was not likely that they would let the prize slip out of theirhands. The thing was not in human nature. 

The more he thought of it the more he was convinced that it was aput-up job. He strongly suspected that young Rickman, in the rashnessof his youth, had proceeded farther than he cared to own, thatRickman's found themselves let in for a bad bargain, and were anxiousto get out of it. Young Rickman had no doubt discovered that the greatHarden library was not the prize they had always imagined it to be. Jewdwine remembered that there was no record, no proper catalogue, orif there ever had been, it had been mislaid or lost. He had a vision(unconsciously exaggerated) of the inconceivable disorder of the placewhen he had last visited it; and as he recalled those great gaps onthe shelves it struck him that the library had been gutted. His uncleFrederick had not been altogether the fool he seemed to be; nothingwas more likely than that he knew perfectly well the value of thevolumes that were the unique glory of the collection, and had long agoturned them into ready money. The rest would be comparativelyworthless. 

He read Rickman's letter over again and had a moment of compunction. It seemed a very simple and straightforward letter. But then, Rickmanwas a very clever fellow, he had the gift of expression; and there wasthat Florio Montaigne. He wouldn't have suspected him if only hisrecord had been pure. 

So instead of committing himself by writing to Rickman, he had senthis solicitor down to look into these matters. A day or two later, inreply to his further inquiries his solicitor assured him that therecould be no doubt that the library was intact. 

To Jewdwine in his present state of mind this information wasupsetting. It not only compelled him to modify his opinion of Rickmanafter having formed it, but it threw him back on the agony andresponsibility of decision. On the last morning of the term allowedhim for reflection he received that hurried note from Rickman, who hadflung all his emotions into one agonized line, "For God's sake wire mewhat you mean to do. " The young poet, so careful of his prose style, had not perceived that what he had written was blank verse of thepurest; which to Jewdwine in itself sufficiently revealed the disorderof his mind. 

That _cri de coeur_ rang in Jewdwine's brain for the next twenty-fourhours. Then at the last moment he came forward with an offer of onethousand three hundred. The next day he heard from Lucia (what indeedhe feared) that he had stepped in too late. The library was sold, toIsaac Rickman. 

His dominant emotion was now anger; he was furious with Rickman fornot having given him more time. He forgot his own delay, his fears andvacillations; he felt that he would have done this thing if he hadonly had more time. He had no doubt that Rickman had meant honestly byhim; but he had blundered; he could and he should have given him moretime. But gradually, as the certainty of his own generosity grew onhim, his indignation cooled. Reinstated in his self-esteem he couldafford to do justice to Rickman. What was more, now that the dangerwas over he saw his risk more clearly than ever. He had a vision ofhis brilliant future clouded by a debt of one thousand three hundredpounds impetuously raised on the unknown, of the Harden library hunglike a mill-stone round his neck. He had no doubt that Rickman, in thevery ardour of his honesty, had greatly exaggerated its value. And ashe surveyed the probable consequences of his own superb impulse, hewas almost grateful to Rickman for not having given him time to make afool of himself. Thanks to Rickman, he had now all the credit of thatreckless offer without the risk. 

A week later he had a long letter from Lucia. She thanked him withmuch warmth and affection for his generosity; it was evident that ithad touched her deeply. She assured him (as she had assured himbefore) that she needed no help. The library had sold for twelvehundred pounds, and two hundred had been handed over to her. Mr. Pilkington was afraid that no further sum would be forthcoming fromthe sale of the pictures and furniture, which had been valued overrather than under their present market price, and represented the bulkof the security. Still, she hoped to sell Court House; it could notbring in less than five thousand. That and a small part of her capitalwould pay off all remaining debts. It was a wearisome business; butHorace would be glad to hear that she would come out of it not owing afarthing to anybody, and would still have enough to live on. 

Yes. Jewdwine had his pride. He was glad that his disreputable uncle'saffairs had not landed him in the Bankruptcy Court after all; but hehad a movement of indignation on Lucia's account and of admiration forLucia. 

No more of herself or her affairs; the rest was concerned with Rickmanand his. "My dear Horace, " she wrote, "we must do something for thispoor little friend of yours. You were quite right about him. He is agenius; but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, for himself, he isso much else besides. To think that _he_ of all people should beentangled in our miserable business! He has got badly hurt, too. Firstof all, it preyed on his mind till he worried himself into a nervousfever. Kitty Palliser, who saw him, said he was nearly off his head. It seems he considered his honour implicated. As it happens he hasbehaved splendidly. He did everything in his power to prevent ourlosing the library, or at any rate to keep it out of his father'shands; and the mere fact that he failed doesn't lessen our obligation. He has simply ruined his own prospects in the attempt. Do you know, hetried to force his father to withdraw by threatening to leave theirbusiness if he didn't; and he had to keep his word. The horriblething is that I actually owe him money--money which he won't take. Hehad been working hard for three weeks on a catalogue for me, and isinsulted at the bare suggestion of payment. And here he is--absolutelystranded; in debt, I believe, and without a farthing. What in theworld am I to do?"

"Poor Lucy!" thought Jewdwine, "as if she hadn't enough to bearwithout having Rickman on her shoulders. "

"It seems to me that as he has done all this for us, we ought to standby him. If you _could_ do anything for him--couldn't you help him withsome introductions? Or, better still, give him work, at any rate tillhe has found his feet? I'm sure you can count on his devotion--"

"Dear Lucy, she might be recommending me a valet. "

"_Do_ do something for him, and you will oblige me more than I cansay. "

That letter of Lucia's gave Jewdwine much matter for reflection andsome pain. He had winced at the sale of Court House; it struck him asa personal blow. He had had a kind of tacit understanding with himselfthat, in that future which he had meant to share with Lucia, CourtHouse would be the home of his retirement. Still, it must go. He hadto live in town, and if at the moment he could have afforded to marrya penniless Lucia he could not have afforded two establishments. 

As for the redemption of the Harden library he realized with a sharppang that risk there had been none. He saw that what young Rickman hadoffered him was a unique and splendid opportunity, the opportunity ofdoing a beautiful thing for Lucia, and that without the smallestinconvenience to himself. And this opportunity had been missed. Justbecause he could not make up his mind about Rickman, could not seewhat Lucia had always seen, what he too saw now, that positivelyluminous sincerity of his. He saw it even now reluctantly--though hecould never veer round again to his absurd theory of Rickman'sdishonesty. He would have liked, if he could, to regard him as aculpable bungler; but even this consoling view was closed to him byLucia. It was plain from her account that Rickman's task had beenbeyond human power. Jewdwine, therefore, was forced to the painfulconclusion that for this loss to himself and Lucia he had nothing toblame but his own vacillation. 

As for Rickman--

Lucia had taken a great deal of pains with that part of her subject, for she was determined to do justice to it. She was aware that it wasopen to her to take the ordinary practical view of Rickman as aculpable blunderer, who, by holding his tongue when he should havespoken, had involved her in the loss of much valuable property. To anordinary practical woman the fact that this blunder had entailed suchserious consequences to herself would have made any other theoryimpossible. But Lucia was not a woman who could be depended on for anyordinary practical view. Mere material issues could never confuse herestimate of spiritual values. To her, Rickman's conduct in thatinstance was a flaw in honour, and as such she had alreadysufficiently judged it. The significant thing was that he too shouldhave so judged it; that he should have been capable of such profoundsuffering in the thought of it. 

And now, somehow, it didn't seem to her to count. 

It simply disappeared in her final pure and luminous view of Rickman'scharacter. What really counted was the alertness of his whole attitudeto honour, his readiness to follow the voice of his own ultimatevision, to repudiate the unclean thing revealed in its uncleanness;above all, what counted was his passionate sincerity. With herunerring instinct of selection Lucia had again seized on theessential. The triumph of Rickman's greater qualities appealed to heras a spectacle; it was not spoiled for her by the reflection that shepersonally had been more affected by his failure. If she showed herinsight into Rickman's character by admitting the relativeinsignificance of that failure, she showed an equal insight intoJewdwine's by suppressing all mention of it now. For Horace would haveregarded it as essential. It would have loomed large in his view byreason of its material consequences. Allowing for Horace's view shekept her portrait truer by omitting it. 

And Jewdwine accepted her portrait as the true one. It appealedirresistibly to his artistic sense. He was by profession a connoisseurof things beautifully done. Rickman's behaviour, as described byLucia, revived his earlier amused admiration for his young disciple. It was so like him. In its spontaneity, its unexpectedness, its--itscolossal impertinence, it was pure Rickman. 

Lucia had achieved a masterpiece of appreciation. 

But what helped him in his almost joyous re-discovery of his Rickmanwas his perception that here (in doing justice to Rickman) lay hischance of rehabilitating himself. If he could not buy back the Hardenlibrary, he could at any rate redeem his own character. He did nothold himself responsible for Lucia's father's debts, but he waswilling, not to say glad, to take up Lucia's. It was certainly mostimproper that she should be under any obligation to Rickman. In anycase, Rickman's action concerned Lucia's family as much as Lucia; thatis to say, it was his (Jewdwine's) affair. And personally he dislikedindebtedness. 

Another man might have handed Rickman a cheque for fifty pounds (theprice of the catalogue _raisonné_) and washed his hands of him. ButJewdwine was incapable of that grossness. 

He gave the matter a fortnight's delicate consideration. At the end ofthat time he had made up his mind not only to invite Rickman tocontribute regularly to _The Museion_ (a thing he would have done inany case) but to offer him, temporarily, the sub-editorship. Rash asthis resolution seemed, Jewdwine had fenced himself carefully from anyrisk. The arrangement was not to be considered permanent until Rickmanhad proved himself both capable and steady--if then. In giving him anywork at all on _The Museion_ Jewdwine felt that he was stretching apoint. It was a somewhat liberal rendering of his editorial programme. 

_The Museion_ was the one solitary literary journal that had thecourage to profess openly a philosophy of criticism. Its philosophymight be obsolete, it might be fantastic, it might be altogetherwrong; the point was that it was there. Its presence was a protestagainst the spirit of anarchy in the world of letters. The paper hadlost influence lately owing to a certain rigidity in the methods ofits late editor, also to an increasing dulness in its style. It wassuffering, like all old things, from the unequal competition withinsurgent youth. The proprietors were almost relieved when the deathof its editor provided them with a suitable opportunity for giving itover into the hands of younger men. "We want new blood, " said theproprietors. The difficulty was how to combine new blood with the oldspirit, and Horace Jewdwine solved their problem, presenting theremarkable combination of an old head upon comparatively youngshoulders. He was responsible, authoritative, inspired by a high andnoble seriousness. He had taken his Aristotle with a high and nobleseriousness; and in the same spirit he had approached his Kant, hisHegel and his Schopenhauer in succession. He was equipped with themost beautiful metaphysical theory of Art, and had himself writtencertain _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_. 

Metaphysics had preyed on Jewdwine like a flame. He was consumed witha passion for unity. The unity which Nature only strives after, blindly, furiously, ineffectually; the unity barely reached by theserene and luminous processes of Thought--the artist achieves it withone stroke. In him, by the twin acts of vision and creation, theworlds of Nature and the Idea are made one. He leaps at a bound intothe very heart of the Absolute. He alone can be said to have attained, and (this was the point which Jewdwine insisted on) attained only bythe sacrifice of his individuality. 

Thus Jewdwine in his _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_. 

As that work could be regarded only as a brutal and terrific challengeto the intellect, the safer course was to praise it, and it wasunanimously praised. Nobody was able to understand a word of it exceptthe last chapter on "Individualism in Modern Art. " But as criticismwisely concentrated itself on this the only comprehensible portion ofthe book, Jewdwine (who otherwise would have perished in his ownprofundity) actually achieved some journalistic notoriety as a dealerin piquant paradox and vigorous personalities. 

Jewdwine was ambitious. On the strength of his _Prolegomena_ he hadcome up from Oxford with a remarkable reputation, which he had everyinducement to cherish and to guard. He was therefore the best possibleeditor for such a review as _The Museion_, and such a review as _TheMuseion_ was the best possible instrument of his ambition. 

His aim was to preserve the tradition of the paper as pure as on theday when it was given into his hands. 

He was a little doubtful as to how far young Rickman would lendhimself to that. 

However, as the fruit of Jewdwine's meditations, Rickman received anote inviting him to dine with the editor alone, at Hampstead. Jewdwine, whose health required pure air, had settled very comfortablyin that high suburb. And, as his marriage seemed likely to remain longa matter for dubious reflection, he had arranged that his sister Edithshould keep house for him. In inviting Rickman to dine at Hampsteadhis intention was distinctly friendly; at the same time he was carefulto fix an evening when Miss Jewdwine would not be there. He waswilling to help Rickman in every possible way short of introducing himto the ladies of his family. 

But before dinner was ended he had to admit that this precaution wasexcessive. Rickman (barring certain dreadful possibilities of speech)was really by no means unpresentable. He was attired with perfectsanity. His methods at the dinner table, if at all unusual, erred onthe side of restraint rather than of extravagance; he gave indicationsof a certain curious personal refinement; and in the matter of wine hewas almost incredibly abstemious. It was the first time that Jewdwinehad come to close quarters with his disciple, and with some surprisehe saw himself going through the experience without a shock. Either hehad been mistaken in Rickman, or Rickman had improved. Shy he stillwas, but he had lost much of his old ungovernable nervousness, andgave Jewdwine the impression of an immense reserve. He seemed to haveentered into some ennobling possession which raised him above theregion of small confusions and excitements. His eye, when Jewdwinecaught it, no longer struggled to escape; but it seemed to be heldless by him than by its own controlling inner vision. 

Jewdwine watched him narrowly. It never entered into his head thatwhat he was watching was the effect of three weeks' intercourse withLucia Harden. He attributed it to Rickman's deliverance from the shop. To be sure Rickman did not strike him as particularly happy, but thisagain he accounted for by the depressing state of his finances. 

Neither of them made the most distant allusion to Lucia. Jewdwine wasnot aware of the extent of Rickman's acquaintance with his cousin, neither could he well have conceived it. And for Rickman it was notyet possible either to speak or to hear of Lucia without pain. 

It was not until dinner was over, and Rickman was no longer eatingJewdwine's food, that they ventured on the unpleasant topic that laybefore them, conspicuous, though untouched. Jewdwine felt that, as itwas impossible to ignore what had passed between them since they hadlast met, the only thing was to refer to it as casually as might be. 

"By the way, Rickman, " he said when they were alone in his study, "youwere quite right about that library. I only wish you could have let meknow a little sooner. "

"I wish I had, " said Rickman, and his tone implied that he appreciatedthe painfulness of the subject. 

There was a pause which Rickman broke by congratulating Jewdwine onhis appointment. This he did with a very pretty diffidence andmodesty, which smoothed over the awkwardness of the transition, ifindeed it did not convey an adroit suggestion of the insignificance ofall other affairs. The editor, still observing his unconsciouscandidate, was very favourably impressed. He laid before him the viewsand aims of _The Museion_. 

Yes; he thought it had a future before it. He was going to make it theorgan of philosophic criticism, as opposed to the mere personal view. It would, therefore, be unique. Yes; certainly it would also beunpopular. Heaven forbid that anything he was concerned in should bepopular. It was sufficient that it should be impartial andincorruptible. Its tone was to be sober and scholarly, but militant. Rickman gathered that its staff were to be so many knights-errantdefending the virtue of the English Language. No loose slip-shodjournalistic phrase would be permitted in its columns. Its articles, besides being well reasoned, would be examples of the purity itpreached. It was to set its face sternly against Democracy, Commercialism and Decadence. 

The disciple caught fire from the master's enthusiasm; he approved, aspired, exulted. His heart was big with belief in Jewdwine and hiswork. Being innocent himself of any sordid taint, he admired above allthings what he called his friend's intellectual chastity. Jewdwinefelt the truth of what Lucia had told him. He could count absolutelyon Rickman's devotion. He arrived by well-constructed stages at theoffer of the sub-editorship. 

Rickman looked up with a curious uncomprehending stare. When heclearly understood the proposal that was being made to him, he flusheddeeply and showed unmistakable signs of agitation. 

"Do you think, " said Jewdwine discreetly, "you'd care to try it for atime?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, " said Rickman thoughtfully. 

"Well, it's only an experiment. I'm not offering you anythingpermanent. "

"Of course, that makes all the difference. "

"It does; if it isn't good enough--"

"You don't understand me. That's what would make it all right. "

"Make what all right?"

"My accepting--if you really only want a stop-gap. "

"I see, " said Jewdwine to himself, "the youth has tasted liberty, andhe objects to being caught and caged. "

"The question is, " said Rickman, sinking into thought again, "whetheryou really want _me_. "

"My dear fellow, why on earth should I say so if I didn't?"

"N--no. Only I thought, after the mess I've made of things, that noneof your family would ever care to have anything to do with me again. "It was the nearest he had come to mentioning Lucia Harden, and thepain it cost him was visible on his face. 

"My family, " said Jewdwine with a stiff smile, "will _not_ haveanything to do with you. It has nothing to do with _The Museion_. 

"In that case, I don't see why I shouldn't try it, if I can be of anyuse to you. " From the calmness of his manner you would have supposedthat salaried appointments hung on every lamp-post, ready to drop intothe mouths of impecunious young men of letters. 

"Thanks. Then we'll consider that settled for the present. "

Impossible to suppose that Rickman was not properly grateful. Still, instead of thanking Jewdwine, he had made Jewdwine thank him. And hehad done it quite unconsciously, without any lapse from his habitualsincerity, or the least change in his becoming attitude of modesty. Jewdwine considered that what Maddox had qualified as Rickman'scolossal cheek was simply his colossal ignorance; not to say hisinsanely perverted view of the value of salaried appointments. 

"Oh, " said he, "I shall want you as a contributor, too. I don't knowhow you'll work in with the rest, but we shall see. I won't have anybut picked men. The review has always stood high; but I want it tostand higher. It isn't a commercial speculation. There's no questionof making it pay. It must keep up its independence whether it canafford it or not. We've been almost living on Vaughan'sadvertisements. All the same, I mean to slaughter those new men he'sgot hold of. "

Rickman admired this reckless policy. It did not occur to him at themoment that Jewdwine was reader to a rival publisher. 

"What, " he said, "all of them at once?"

"No--We shall work them off weekly, one at a time. "

Rickman laughed. "One at a time? Then you allow them the merit ofindividuality?"

"It isn't a merit; it's a vice, _the_ vice of the age. It shrieks; itramps. Individuality means slow disease in ethics and politics, butit's sudden death to art. When will you young men learn that art isself-restraint, not self-expansion?"

"Self expansion--it seems an innocent impulse. "

"If it were an impulse--but it isn't. It's a pose. A cold, conscious, systematic pose. So deadly artificial; and so futile, if they did butknow. After all, the individual is born, not made. "

"I believe you!"

"Yes; but he isn't born nowadays. He belongs to the ages of inspiredinnocence and inspired energy. We are not inspired; we are notenergetic; we are not innocent. We're deliberate and languid andcorrupt. And we can't reproduce by our vile mechanical process whatonly exists by the grace of nature and of God. Look at the modernindividual--for all their cant and rant, is there a more contemptibleobject on the face of this earth? Don't talk to me of individuality. "

"It's given us one or two artists--"

"Artists? Yes, artists by the million; and no Art. To produce Art, theartist's individuality must conform to the Absolute. "

Jewdwine in ninety-two was a man of enormous utterances and nobletruths. With him all artistic achievements stood or fell according tothe canons of the _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_. Therefore in ninety-twohis conversation was not what you would call diverting. Yet it madeyou giddy; his ideas kept on circulating round and round the same icy, invisible pole. Rickman, in describing the interview afterwards, saidhe thought he had caught a cold in the head talking to Jewdwine; hisintellect seemed to be sitting in a thorough draught. 

"And if the artist has a non-conforming devil in him? If he's the sortof genius who can't and won't conform? Strikes me the poor oldAbsolute's got to climb down. "

"If he's a genius--he generally isn't--he'll know that he'll expresshimself best by conforming. He isn't lost by it, but enlarged. Look atGreek art. There, " said Jewdwine, a rapt and visionary air passingover his usually apathetic face, "the individual, the artist, isalways subdued to the universal, the absolute beauty. "

"And in modern art, I take it, the universal absolute beauty issubdued to the individual. That seems only fair. What you've got toreckon with is the man himself. "

"Who wants the man himself? We want the thing itself--the reality, thepure object of art. Do any of your new men understand that?"

"We _want_ it--some of us. "

"Do you _understand_ it?"

"Not I. Do you understand it yourself? Would you know it if you met itin the street?"

"It never is in the street. "

"How do you know? You can't say where it is or what it is. You can'tsay anything about it at all. But while you're all trying to find out, the most unlikely person suddenly gets up and produces it. And _he_can't tell you where he got it. Though, if you ask him, ten to onehe'll tell you he's been sitting on it all the time. "

"Well, " said Jewdwine, "tell me when you've 'sat on' anythingyourself. "

"I will. " He rose to go, being anxious to avoid the suspicion ofhaving pushed that question to a personal issue. It was only in replyto more searching inquiries that he mentioned (on the doorstep) that abook of his was coming out in the autumn. 

"What, _Helen_?"

"No. _Saturnalia_ and--a lot of things you haven't seen yet. " It was arapid nervous communication, made in the moment of withdrawing hishand from Jewdwine's. 

"Who's your publisher?" called out Jewdwine. 

Rickman laughed as the night received him. "Vaughan!" he shouted fromthe garden gate. 

"Now, what on earth, " said Jewdwine, "could have been his motive fornot consulting me?" He had not got the clue to the hesitation andsecrecy of the young man's behaviour. He did not know that there werethree things which Rickman desired at any cost to keep pure--hisgenius, his friendship for Horace Jewdwine, and his love for LuciaHarden. 

CHAPTER XL

The end of May found Rickman still at Mrs. Downey's, established onthe second floor in a glory that exceeded the glory of Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now not only a bedroom, but a study, furnished with asimplicity that had the effect of luxury, and lined from floor toceiling with his books. Mrs. Downey had agreed that Mr. Rickmanshould, whenever the mysterious fancy took him, have his meals servedto him in his own apartment after the high manner of Mr. Blenkinsop;and it was under protest that she accepted any compensation for thebreak thus made in the triumphal order of the Dinner. 

Here then at last, he was absolutely alone and free. Feeling perhapshow nearly it had lost him, or impressed by the sudden change in hisposition, the boarding-house revered this privacy of Rickman's as asacred thing. Not even Mr. Soper would have dared to violate hisvirgin leisure. The charm of it was unbroken, it was even heightenedby the inaudible presence of Miss Roots in her den on the same floor. Miss Roots indeed was the tie that bound him to Mrs. Downey's;otherwise the dream of his affluence would have been chambers inWestminster or the Temple. For his income, in its leap from zero to afluctuating two hundred a year, appeared to him as boundlessaffluence. To be sure, Jewdwine had expressly stated that it would notbe permanent, but this he had understood to be merely a delicate wayof referring to his former imperfect record of sobriety. And he hadbecome rich not only in money but in time. Rickman's had demanded aneight or even a ten hours' day; the office of _The Museion_ claimedhim but five hours of four days in the week. From five o'clock onThursday evening till eleven on Monday morning, whatever work remainedfor him to do could be done in his own time and his own temper. 

Much of the leisure time at his disposal he spent in endeavouring tofollow the Harden library in its dispersion. He attended the greatauctions in the hope of intercepting some treasure in its passage fromRickman's to the home of the collector. Once, in his father's absence, he bought a dozen volumes straight over the counter from his successorthere. It was also about this time that Spinks and Soper appeared inthe new character of book fanciers, buying according to Rickman'sinstructions and selling to him on commission, a transaction whichfilled these gentlemen with superb importance. Thus Rickman becamepossessed of about twenty or thirty volumes which he ranged behind acurtain, on a shelf apart. The collection, formed gradually, includednothing of any intrinsic value; such as it was he treasured it with aview to restoring it ultimately to Lucia Harden. He was consideringwhether with the means at his disposal he could procure a certainAldine Dante of his memory, when the Harden library disappeared fromthe market as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. No volumebelonging to it could be bought for love or money; and none weredisplayed in the windows of Rickman's. Keith learnt nothing by hisinquiries beyond the extent of his estrangement from his father. Whenhe called at the shop his successor regretted that he was unable togive him any information. When he visited the suburban villa Isaacrefused to see him. When he wrote Isaac never answered the letters. His stepmother in an unpleasant interview gave him to understand thatthe separation was final and complete. 

He would have been more hurt by this rupture but for that other andabiding pain. The thought of Lucia Harden checked his enjoyment in theprospect of a now unimpeded career. Rickman was like some youngathlete who walks on to the field stripped and strong for the race, but invisibly handicapped, having had the heart knocked out of him bysome shameful incident outside the course. Apart from his own disgracehe was miserably anxious about Lucia herself, about her health, herhappiness, her prospects; his misery being by no means lightened byhis perception that these things were not exactly his concern. 

He tried to picture her living as poor ladies live; he had seen themsometimes at Mrs. Downey's. He could not see her there, or rather, seeing her he could see nothing else; he perceived that surroundingsand material accessories contributed nothing to his idea of her. Still, he knew nothing; and he had to accept his ignorance as part, and the worst part, of the separation that was his punishment. Manymixed feelings, shame and passion, delicacy and pride restrained himfrom asking Jewdwine any question. Even if Jewdwine had not told himas much, he would have known that his acquaintance with Jewdwine'saffairs would not involve acquaintance with Jewdwine's family. He hadabsolutely nothing to hope for from that connection. 

And yet he hoped. The probabilities were that if Lucia did not makeher home with her cousins, she would at any rate stay with them thegreater part of the year. He was always walking up to Hampstead Heathon the chance of some day seeing her there. Sometimes he would pass bythe front of Jewdwine's beautiful old brown house, and glance quicklythrough the delicate iron gate and up at the windows. But she wasnever there. Sometimes he would sit for hours on one of the seatsunder the elm tree at the back. There was a high walk thereoverlooking the West Heath and shaded by the elms and by Jewdwine'sgarden wall. The wall had a door in it that might some day open andlet out the thing he longed for. Only it never did. There was nothingto hope for from Jewdwine's house. 

At last his longing became intolerable, and one day, in the office, hemade up his mind to approach Jewdwine himself. He had been telling himabout the apparent check in the career of the Harden library, when hesaw his opportunity and took it. 

"By the way, can you tell me where your cousin is now?"

"Miss Harden, " said Jewdwine coldly, "is in Germany with MissPalliser. " He added, as if he evidently felt that some explanation wasnecessary (not on Rickman's account, but on his own), "She was to havecome to us, but we were obliged to give her up to Miss Palliser, whois living alone. "

"Alone?"

"Yes. Mrs. Palliser is dead. "

Rickman turned abruptly away to the window and stared into the streetbelow. Jewdwine from his seat by the table looked after himthoughtfully. He would have given a good deal to know what was impliedin the sudden turning of Rickman's back. What on earth did it matterto Rickman if old Mrs. Palliser was dead or alive? What could he bethinking of?

He was thinking of Kitty who had shown him kindness, of Kitty and thepleasant jests with which she used to cover his embarrassment; ofKitty who had understood him at the last. It was impossible not tofeel some grief for the grief of Lucia's friend; but he had nobusiness to show it. Therefore he had turned away. 

And then he thought of Lucia; and in his heart he cursed that otherbusiness which was his and yet not his; he cursed the making of thecatalogue; he cursed the great Harden Library which had brought themtogether and divided them. But for that, his genius, a thing apart, might have claimed her friendship for itself. As it was, his genius, being after all bound up with his person which suffered and wasashamed, had (as far as Lucia was concerned) to accept its humiliationand dismissal. 

And all the time his genius, already vigorous enough in allconscience, throve on his suffering as it had thriven on his joy. Inthat summer of ninety-two, Rickman's _Saturnalia_ were followed by _OnHarcombe Hill_ and _The Four Winds_, and that greatest poem of hislyric period, _The Song of Confession_. Upon the young poet about townthere had descended, as it were out of heaven, a power hithertoundreamed of and undivined. No rapture of the body was ever so wingedand flamed, or lost itself in such heights and depths of music, asthat cry of the passion of his soul. 

CHAPTER XLI

Meanwhile, of a Sunday evening, Miss Poppy Grace wondered whyRicky-ticky never by any chance appeared upon his balcony. At last, coming home about ten o'clock from one of his walks to Hampstead, hefound Poppy leaning out over _her_ balcony most unmistakably on thelook-out. 

"Come in and have some supper, " said she. 

"No thanks, I fancy it's a little late. "

"Better late than never, when it's supper with _me_. Catch!" AndPoppy, in defiance of all propriety, tossed her latch-key over thebalcony. And somehow that latch-key had to be returned. He did not useit, but rang, with the intention of handing it to the servant; anintention divined and frustrated by Poppy, who opened the door to himherself. 

"Don't go away, " she said, "I've got something to tell you. "

"Not now, I think--"

Her eyes were hideous to him in their great rings of paint and bistre. 

"Why ever not? It'll only tyke a minute. Come in; there's nobody upthere that matters. "

And because he had no desire to be brutal or uncivil, he went up intothe room he knew so well. It being summer, the folding doors werethrown wide open, and in the room beyond they came upon a large ladyin a dirty tea-gown, eating lobster. For Poppy, now that she sawrespectability departing from her, held out to it a pathetic littlehand, and the tea-gown, pending an engagement as heavy matron on theprovincial stage, was glad enough to play Propriety in Miss Grace'sdrawing-room. To-night Poppy made short work of Propriety. She waitedwith admirable patience while the large lady (whom she addressedaffectionately as Tiny) followed up the last thin trail of mayonnaise;but when Tiny showed a disposition to toy with the intricacies of anempty claw, Poppy protested. 

"Hurry up and clear out, there's a dear. I want to give Rickets hissupper, and we haven't got a minute to spare. "

And Tiny, who seemed to know her business, hurried up and cleared out. 

But Rickets didn't want any supper, and Poppy was visibly abstractedand depressed. She mingled whipped cream with minute fragments oflobster, and finally fell to torturing a sandwich with a spoon; andall with an immense affectation of not having a minute to spare. 

"Well, Ryzors, " she said at last (and her accent jarred him horribly), "this is very strynge behyviour. "

"Which?"

"Which? Do you know you haven't been near me for two months?"

He laughed uneasily. "I couldn't be near you when I was away. "

"Never said you could. But what did you go away for?"

"Business. "

"Too busy to write, I suppose?"

"Much too busy. "

She rose, and with one hand on his shoulder steered him into the frontroom. 

"Sit down, " she said. "And don't look so sulky. I want to talk to yousensibly. "

He sat down where he had sat that night two months ago, on the Polarbear skin. She sat down too, with a sweeping side-long movement of herhips that drew her thin skirts close about her. She contemplated theeffect a little dubiously, then with shy nervous fingers loosened andshook out the folds. He leaned back, withdrawn as far as possible intothe corner of the divan. The associations of the place wereunspeakably loathsome to him. 

"Look here, dear"--(In Poppy's world the term of endearment went fornothing; it was simply the stamp upon the current coin of comradeship. If only that had been the beginning and the end between them!)

"I haven't a minute--but, I'm going to ask you something" (thoughPoppy hadn't a minute she was applying herself very leisurely to themaking of cigarettes). "Don't go and get huffy at what I'm going tosay. Do you happen to owe Dicky anything?"

"Why?"

"Tell you why afterwards. _Do_ you owe him anything?"

"Oh, well--a certain amount--Why?"

"Why? Because I think he owes _you_ something. And that's a grudge. Itisn't my business, but if I were you, Rickets, I'd pay him orf andhave done with him. "

"Oh, that's all right. I'm safe enough. "

"You? It's just you who isn't. Dicky's not a bad sort, in his way. Allthe same, he'd sell you up as soon as look at you. Unless--" (for amoment her bright eyes clouded, charged with the melancholy meaningsof the world) "Unless you happened to be an orf'ly pretty woman. " Shelaid her right leg across her left knee and struck a vesta on the heelof her shoe. 

"Then, of course, he'd sooner look at me. "

Poppy puffed at her cigarette and threw the vesta into the grate witha dexterous jerk of her white forearm. "Look at you first. Sell youup--after. " Then Poppy burst into song--

 "Oh, he is such a nice little boy, When there's nothing you do to annoy; But he's apt to stand aloof If you arsk him for the oof, And it's then that he looks coy. Oh, he'll show the cloven hoof, If you put him to the proof. When you want him to hand you the boodle He's _not_ such a nice little boy. 

"Yes, dickee, _I_ see you!"

The canary, persuaded by Poppy's song that it was broad daylight, wasawake and splashing in his bath. Again in Poppy's mind (howunnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; hewas an understudy for Tiny of the dirty tea-gown. 

"Going?"

"Yes. I must go. "

"Wait. " She rose and held him by the collar of his coat, a lapel ineach small hand. He grasped her wrists by an instinctive movement ofself-preservation, and gently slackened her hold. She gave his coat alittle shake. "What's the matter with you, Rickets? You're such ahowling swell. "

Her eyes twinkled in the old way, and he smiled in spite of himself. 

"Say, I'm a little nuisance, Rickets, _say_ I'm a little nuisance. "

"You are a little nuisance. 

"A d----d little nuisance. "

"A d----d little nuisance. "

"Ah, now you feel better, don't you? Poor Ricky-ticky, don't you beafraid. It's only a _little_ nuisance. It'll never be a big one. It'sdone growing. That is, I won't rag you any more, if you'll tell me onething--oh, what a whopper of a sigh!--Promise me you'll pay Dickyoff. "

"All right. I'll pay him. "

"To-morrow?"

"To-morrow, then. Don't, Poppy. I--I've got a sore throat. " For Poppy, standing on tip-toe, had made an effort to embrace him. 

"I sy, if you blush like that, Rickets, you'll have a fit. Poor dear!_Did_ I crumple his nice little stylish collar!"

He endured while she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle, her head verymuch on one side. "You see, Razors, we've been such chums. Whateverhappens, I want to be all right and straight with you. "

"What should happen?"

"Oh, anything. " Again there was that troubling of the bright shallowsof her eyes. "You remember larst time you were here?" (his shuddertold her that he remembered well). "I _did_ try to send you away, didn't I?"

"As far as I can remember, you did. "

"What did you think I did it for?"

"I suppose, because you wanted me to go. "

"Stupid! I did it because I wanted you to _stay_. " She looked into hiseyes and the light went out of her own; among its paint and powder heraudacity lay dead. It was as if she saw on his face the shadow ofLucia Harden, and knew that her hour had come. 

She met it laughing. "Good-night, Ricky-ticky. "

As he took her hand he muttered something about being "fearfullysorry. "

"Sorry?" Poppy conjured up a poor flickering ghost of her inimitablewink. "The champagne was bad, dear. Don't you worry. "

When he had left her, she flung herself face downwards on the divan. "Oh, dicky, will you hold your horrid little tongue?" But as shesobbed aloud, the canary, symbol of invincible Propriety, rocked onhis perch and shook over her his piercing and exultant song. 

Rickman was sorry for her, but the sight and touch of her were hatefulto him. He took her advice however. He had had good luck with somearticles, and he called on Pilkington the next afternoon and paid himhis thirty pounds with the interest. Dicky was in a good humour andinclined to be communicative. He congratulated him on his presentberth, and informed him that Rickman's was "going it. " The old man hadjust raised four thousand on the Harden library, the only securitythat he, Dicky, would accept. 

"I suppose, " said Rickman simply, "you'd no idea of its value when youlet him buy it?"

Dicky stared through his eye-glass with his blue eyes immense andclear. 

"My dear fellow, do you take me for a d----d fool?"

So that had been Dicky's little game? Trust Dicky. 

And yet for the time being, held in the opposing grip of two firmcupidities, it was safe, the great Harden library, once the joy ofscholars, loved with such high intellectual passion, and now thecentre of so many hot schemes and rivalries and lusts. Now that thework of sacrilege was complete, housed at last in the Gin Palace ofArt, it stood, useless in its desecrated beauty, cumbering the shelveswhence no sale would remove it until either Rickman's or Pilkingtonlet go. So far the Hardens were avenged. 

CHAPTER XLII

More than once, after that night when Rickman dined with him, Jewdwinebecame the prey of many misgivings. He felt that in taking Rickman uphe was assuming an immense responsibility. It might have been better, happier for Rickman, poor fellow, if after all he had left him in hisdecent obscurity; but having dragged him out of it, he was in a manneranswerable to the world for Rickman and to Rickman for the world. Supposing Rickman disappointed the world? Supposing the worlddisappointed Rickman?

Jewdwine lived in the hope, natural to a distinguished critic, of someday lighting upon a genius. The glory of that find would go far tocompensate him for his daily traffic with mediocrity. Genius wasrarely to be seen, but Jewdwine felt that he would be the first torecognize it if he did see it; the first to penetrate its many curiousdisguises; the first to give it an introduction (if it wanted one) tohis own superior world. And here was Rickman--manifestly in need ofthat introduction--a man who unquestionably had about him some of themarks by which a genius is identified; and yet he left you terriblyuncertain. He was the very incarnation of uncertainty. Jewdwine wasperfectly willing to help the man if only he were sure of the genius. But was he sure? Had it really pleased the inscrutable divine thing totake up its abode in this otherwise rather impossible person?

Meanwhile Rickman seemed to be settling down fairly comfortably to thework of _The Museion_; and Jewdwine, having other things to think of, began to forget his existence. He was in fact rapidly realizing hisdream. He had won for himself and his paper a position lonely andunique. The reputation of _The Museion_ was out of all proportion toits circulation, but Jewdwine was making himself heard. As an editorand critic he was respected for his incorruptibility and for thepurity of his passion for literature. His utterances were consideredto carry authority and weight. 

Just at first the weight was perhaps the more conspicuous quality ofthe two. Jewdwine could not be parted from his "Absolute. " He hadlived with it for years in Oxford, and he brought it up to town withhim; it walked beside him on the London pavements and beckoned himincessantly into the vast inane. It cut a very majestic figure in hiscolumns, till some irritable compositor docked it of its capital andcompelled it to march with the rank and file of vulgar adjectives. Even thus degraded it ruled his paragraphs as it ruled his thoughts. 

But lately the review seemed to be making efforts to redeem itselffrom the charge of heaviness. In certain of its columns there was acurious radiance and agitation, as of some winged and luminouscreature struggling against obscurity; and it was felt that Jewdwinewas binding in a pious tradition of dulness a spirit that wouldotherwise have danced and flown. Whether it was his own spirit orsomebody else's did not definitely appear; but now and again it brokeloose altogether, and then, when people complimented him on thebrilliance of his appearance that week, he smiled inscrutably. 

It was impossible to say how far Jewdwine's conscience approved ofthese outbursts of individuality. Certainly he did his best torestrain them, his desire being to give to his columns a distinguishedunity of form. He saw himself the founder of a new and higher schoolof journalism, thus satisfying his undying tutorial instincts. He hadchosen his staff from the most promising among the young band ofdisciples who thronged his lecture-room at Oxford; men moulded on hismethods, inspired by his ideals, drenched in his metaphysics; crudeyoung men of uncontrollable enthusiasm, whose style awaited at hishands the final polishing. 

He knew that he had done a risky thing in associating young Rickmanwith them in this high enterprise. But under all his doubts there laya faith in the genius of his sub-editor, a faith the more fascinatingbecause it was so far removed from any certainty. In giving Rickmanhis present post he conceived himself not only to be paying a debt ofhonour, but doing the best possible thing for _The Museion_. It wasalso, he considered, the best possible thing for Rickman. His work onthe review would give him the discipline he most needed, thediscipline he had never had. To be brought into line with an augusttradition; to be caught up out of the slough of modern journalism intoa rarer atmosphere; to breathe the eternal spirit of great literature(a spirit which according to Jewdwine did not blow altogether where itlisted); to have his too exuberant individuality chastened andcontrolled, would be for Rickman an unspeakable benefit at thiscritical stage of his career. 

The chastening and controlling were difficult. Rickman's phrases werefrequently more powerful than polite. Like many young writers ofviolent imagination he was apt to be somewhat vividly erotic in hismetaphors. And he had little ways that were very irritating toJewdwine. He was wasteful with the office paper and with string; hewould use penny stamps where halfpenny ones would have served hispurpose; he had once permitted himself to differ with Jewdwine on apoint of scholarship in the presence of the junior clerk. There weretimes when Jewdwine longed to turn him out and have done with him; andyet Rickman stayed on. When all was said and done there was a charmabout him. Jewdwine in fact had proved the truth of Lucia's saying; hecould rely absolutely on his devotion. He could not afford to let himgo. Though Rickman tampered shamelessly with the traditions of thereview, it could not be said that as yet he had injured itscirculation. His contributions were noticed with approval in rivalcolumns; and they had even been quoted by Continental critics withwhom _The Museion_ passed as being the only British review that hadthe true interests of literature at heart. 

But though Rickman helped to bring fame to _The Museion_, _TheMuseion_ brought none to him. The identity of its contributors wasmerged in that of its editor, and those brilliant articles were neversigned. 

The spring of ninety-three, which found Jewdwine comfortably seatedon the summit of his ambition, saw Rickman almost as obscure as in thespring of ninety-two. His poems had not yet appeared. Vaughanevidently regarded them as so many sensitive plants, and, fearing forthem the boisterous seasons of autumn and spring, had kept them backtill the coming May, when, as he expressed it, the market would beless crowded. This delay gave time to that erratic artist, MordauntCrawley, to complete the remarkable illustrations on which Vaughanrelied chiefly for success. Vaughan had spared no expense, butnaturally it was the artist and the printer, not the poet, whom hepaid. 

Rickman, however, had not thought of his _Saturnalia_ as a source ofrevenue. It had been such a pleasure to write them that the wonder washe had not been called upon to pay for that. Happily for him he was bythis time independent. As sub-editor and contributor to _The Museion_, he was drawing two small but regular incomes. He could also count on athird (smaller and more uncertain) from _The Planet_, where from themoment of his capture by Jewdwine he had been reinstated. 

He found it easy enough to work for both. _The Planet_ was poor, andit was out of sheer perversity that it indulged a disinterestedpassion for literature. In fact, Maddox and his men were trying to dowith gaiety of heart what Jewdwine was doing with superb solemnity. But whenever Rickman mentioned Maddox to Jewdwine, Jewdwine wouldshrug his shoulders and say, "Maddox is not important"; and when hementioned _The Museion_ to Maddox, Maddox would correct him with alaugh, "The Museum, you mean, " and refer to his fellow-contributors as"a respectable collection of meiocene fossils. " Maddox had conceived ajealous and violent admiration for Savage Keith Rickman. "Rickman, " hesaid, "you shall not go over body and soul to _The Museion_. " Heregarded himself as the keeper and lover of Rickman's soul, and wouldnot have been sorry to bring about a divorce between it and Jewdwine. His irregular attentions were to save it from a suicidal devotion to ajoyless consort. So that Rickman was torn between Maddox's enthusiasmfor him and his own enthusiasm for Jewdwine. 

That affection endured, being one with his impetuous and generousyouth; while his genius, that thing alone and apart, escaped fromJewdwine. He knew that Jewdwine's incorruptibility left him nothing toexpect in the way of approval and protection, and the knowledge didnot greatly affect him. He preferred that his friend should remainincorruptible. That Jewdwine should greatly delight in his_Saturnalia_ was more than he at any time expected. For there hismuse, Modernity, had begun to turn her back resolutely on the mastersand the models, to fling off the golden fetters of rhyme, gird up herdraperies to her naked thighs, and step out with her great swingingstride on perilous paths of her own. To be sure there were otherthings which Jewdwine had not seen, on which he himself felt that hemight rest a pretty secure claim to immortality. 

Of his progress thither his friends had to accept Vaughan'sannouncements as the only intimation. Rickman had not called upon anyof the Junior Journalists to smooth the way for him. He had not, infact, called on any of them at all, but as April advanced he retreatedmore and more into a foolish privacy; and with the approaches of Mayhe vanished. One night, however, some Junior Journalists caught him atthe club, belated, eating supper. They afterwards recalled that he hadthen seemed to them possessed by a perfect demon of indiscretion; andwhen his book finally appeared on the first of May, it was felt thatit could hardly have been produced under more unfavourable auspices. This reckless attitude was evidently unaffected (nobody had everaccused Rickman of affectation); and even Maddox pronounced itimprudent in the extreme. As for Jewdwine, it could not be accountedfor by any motives known to him. His experience compelled him to takea somewhat cynical view of the literary character. Jewdwine among hisauthors was like a man insusceptible of passion, but aware of thefascinations that caused him to be pursued by the solicitations of thefair. He was flattered by the pursuit, but the pursuer inspired himwith the liveliest contempt. It had not yet occurred to him thatRickman could have any delicacy in approaching him. Still less couldhe believe that Rickman could be indifferent to the fate of his book. His carelessness therefore did not strike him as entirely genuine. There could be no doubt however as to the genuineness of Rickman'ssurprise when he came upon Jewdwine in the office reading_Saturnalia_. 

He smiled upon him, innocent and unconscious. "Ah!" he said, "soyou're reading it? You won't like it. "

Jewdwine crossed one leg over the other, and it was wonderful theamount of annoyance he managed to convey by the gesture. His face, too, wore a worried and uncertain look; so worried and so uncertainthat Rickman was sorry for him. He felt he must make it easy for him. 

"At any rate, you won't admire its personal appearance. "

"I don't. What possessed you to give it to Vaughan?"

"Some devil, I think. "

"You certainly might have done better. "

"Perhaps. If I'd taken the trouble. But I didn't. "

Jewdwine raised his eyebrows (whenever he did that Rickman thought ofsomeone who used to raise her eyebrows too, but with a difference). 

"You see, it was last year. I let things slide. "

Jewdwine looked as if he didn't see. "If you had come to me, I think Icould have helped you. "

"I didn't want to bother you. I knew you wouldn't care for thethings. "

"Well, frankly, I don't care very much for some of them. But I shouldhave stretched a point to keep you clear of Crawley. I'm sorry he puttemptation in your way. "

"He didn't. They say I put temptation in his way. Horrid, isn't it, tothink there's something in me that appeals to his diseasedimagination?"

"It's a pity. And I don't know what I can do for you. You see you'veidentified yourself with a school I particularly abominate. It isn't aschool. A school implies a master and some attempt at discipline. Itshould have a formula. Crawley has none. "

"Oh, I don't know about that. " He stood beside Jewdwine, who wasgazing at the frontispiece. "Talk about absolute beauty, any fool canshow you the beauty of a beautiful thing, or the ugliness of an uglyone; but it takes a clever beast like Crawley to show you beauty inanything so absolutely repulsive as that woman's face. Look at it!He's got hold of something. He's caught the lurking fascination, the--the leer of life. "

Jewdwine made a gesture of disgust. 

"Of course, it's no good as an illustration. I don't see life with aleer on its face. But he can draw. Look at the fellow's line. Did youever see anything like the purity of it? It's a high and holyabstraction. By Jove! He's got _his_ formula. Pure line remains pure, however bestial the object it describes. I wish he'd drawn it atillustrating _me_. But I suppose if he saw it that way he had to drawit that way. "

Jewdwine turned over the pages gingerly, as if he feared to bepolluted. He was at the moment profoundly sorry for Rickman in thismarriage of his art with Mordaunt Crawley's. Whatever might be said ofRickman's radiant and impetuous genius it neither lurked nor leered;it was in no way represented by that strange and shameless figure, half Mænad, half modern courtesan, the face foreshortened, tilted backin the act of emptying a wine-cup. 

"At any rate, " said Rickman, "he hasn't lied. He's had the courage tobe his filthy self. "

"Still, the result isn't exactly a flattering portrait of your Muse. "

"She _is_ a caution. It's quite enough to make you and Hanson lump mewith Letheby and that lot. "

This touched Jewdwine in two sensitive places at once. He objected tobeing "lumped" with Hanson. He also felt that his generosity had beencalled in question. For a moment the truth that was in him looked outof his grave and earnest eyes. 

"I do _not_ lump you with Letheby or anybody. On the contrary, I thinkyou stand by yourself. Quite one half of this book is great poetry. "

"You really think that?"

"Yes, " said Jewdwine solemnly; "I do think it. That's why I deplorethe appearance of the other half. But if you _had_ to publish, whycouldn't you bring out your _Helen in Leuce_? It was far finer thananything you have here. "

"Yes. Helen's all right _now_. " His tone implied only too plainly thatshe was not all right when Jewdwine had approved of her. 

"_Now?_ What on earth have you been doing to her?"

"Only putting a little life into her limbs. But Vaughan wouldn't haveher at any price. "

"My dear Rickman, you should have come to _me_. I hope to goodnessVaughan won't tempt you into any more _Saturnalia_. "

"After all--what's wrong with them?"

Jewdwine leaned back, keenly alive to these stirrings of dissent; hewithdrew, as it were, his protecting presence a foot or two farther. He spoke slowly and with emphasis. 

"Excess, " said he; "too much of everything. Too much force, too muchfire, and too much smoke with your fire. In other words, too muchtemperament, too much Rickman. "

"Too much Rickman?"

"Yes; far too much. It's nothing but a flaming orgy of individuality. "

"And that's why it's all wrong?" He really wondered whether theremight not be something in that view after all. 

"It seems so to me. Look here, my dear fellow. Because a poet happensto have been drunk once or twice in his life it's no reason why heshould write a poem called _Intoxication_. That sort of exhibition, you know, is scandalous. "

Rickman hung his head. That one poem he would have given anything atthe moment to recall. It _was_ scandalous if you came to think of it. Only in the joy of writing it he had not thought of it; that was all. 

"It's simply astounding in a splendid scholar like you, Rickman. It'ssuch an awful waste. " He looked at him as he spoke, and his soul wasin his eyes. It gave him a curious likeness to his cousin, and in thatmoment Rickman worshipped him. "Go back. Go back to your Virgil andyour Homer and your Sophocles, and learn a little more restraint. There's nothing like them. They'll take you out of this ugly, weary, modern world where you and I, Rickman, had no business to be born. "

"And yet, " said Rickman, "there _are_ modern poets. "

"There are very few, and those not the greatest. By modern, I meaninspired by the modern spirit; and the modern spirit does not inspiregreat poetry. The greatest have been obliged to go back--back toprimeval nature, back to the Middle Ages, back to Greece and Rome--butalways back. "

"I can't go back, " said Rickman. "I mayn't know what I'm working foryet, but I believe I'm on the right road. How can I go back?"

"Why not? Milton went back to the Creation, and _he_ was only born inthe seventeenth century. You have had the unspeakable misfortune to beborn in the nineteenth. You must live on your imagination--the worldhas nothing for you. "

"I believe it _has_ something for me, if I could only find it. "

"Well, don't lose too much time in looking for it. Art's long andlife's short, especially modern life; and that's the trouble. "

Rickman shook his head. "No; that's not the trouble. It's the otherway about. Life's infinite and art's one. And at first, you know, it'sthe infinity that staggers you. " He flung himself into a chairopposite Jewdwine, planted his elbows on the table, and propped hischin on his hands. He looked as if he saw the infinity he spoke of. "Ican't describe to you, " he said, "what it is merely to be alive outthere in the streets, on a sunny day, when the air's all fine waterygold, and goes dancing and singing into your head like dry champagne. I've given up alcohol. It isn't really necessary. I got as drunk as alord the other day going over Hampstead Heath in a west wind" (he_looked_ drunk at the mere thought of it). "Does it ever affect _you_in that way?"

Jewdwine smiled. The wind on Hampstead Heath had never affected him inthat way. 

"No. It isn't what you think. I used to go mad about women, just as Iused to drink. I don't seem to care a rap about them now. " But hiseyes had a peculiar large and brilliant look, as if he saw the womanof his desire approaching him. His voice softened. "Don't you knowwhen the world--all the divine maddening beauty of it--lies nakedbefore your eyes, and you want to get hold of it--now--this minute, and instead it gets hold of you, and pulls you every way atonce--don't you know? The thing's got a thousand faces, and twothousand arms, and ten thousand devils in it. "

Jewdwine didn't know. How should he? He had a horror of this forcingof the sensuous and passionate note. The author of the _Prolegomena toÆsthetics_ recoiled from "too much temperament. " He felt, moreover, the jealous pang of the master who realizes that he has lost his hold. This was not that Rickman who used to hang all flushed and fervid onJewdwine's words. He remembered how once on an April day, a year ago, the disciple had turned at the call of woman and of the world, thecall of the Spring in his heart and in his urgent blood. 

And yet this was not that Rickman either. 

"My dear Rickman, I don't understand. Are you talking about the world?Or the flesh? Or the devils?"

"All of them, if you like. And you can throw in the sun and the moonand the stars, too. There are moments, Jewdwine, when I understandGod. At any rate I know how he felt the very day before creation. Hisworld's all raw chaos to me, and I've got to make my world out of it. "

"I'm afraid I cannot help you _there_. "

As they parted he felt that perhaps he had failed to be sufficientlysympathetic. "I'll do my best, " said he, "to set you right with thepublic. "

Left alone, he stood staring earnestly at the chair where Rickman hadsat propping his chin in his hands. He seemed to be contemplating hisphantom; the phantom that had begun to haunt him. 

What had he let himself in for?

CHAPTER XLIII

There was one man who was sure, perfectly sure; and that man wasMaddox. He had read Rickman's book before Jewdwine had seen it, andwhile Jewdwine was still shaking his head over it in the office of the_The Museion_, its chances were being eagerly discussed in the officeof _The Planet_. Maddox was disgusted with the publishers, Stableswith the price, Rankin with the illustrations. 

"It's all very well, " said Rankin; "but those borrowed plumes willhave to be paid for. "

"Borrowed plumes with a vengeance, " said Maddox. "Vaughan might justas well have turned him out tarred and feathered as illustrated byMordaunt Crawley. Mind you, some of that tar will stick. It'll takehim all his time to get it off. "

"Did you see, " said Stables, "that Hanson bracketed him with Lethebyin this morning's _Courier_?"

"No, did he?" said Maddox; "I'm sorry for that. It's rough on littleRickman. "

"It's what you must expect, " said Rankin, "if you're illustrated byCrawley. "

"It's what you must expect, " said Stables, "if you go out of your wayto offend people who can help you. You know he refused an introductionto Hanson the other day?"

"No!"

"Fact. And it was in his sublimest manner. He said he hadn't any usefor Hanson. Hanson couldn't help him till he'd helped himself. I don'tknow whether any one was kind enough to tell that tale to Hanson. "

"Hanson, " said Maddox, "is too big a man to mind it if they did. "

"Anyhow, he _hasn't_ helped him. "

"No, " said Rankin; "but that's another story. Hanson was dining withJewdwine, and Jewdwine was cracking up Rickman most extravagantly (forhim). That was quite enough to make Hanson jump on him. He was boundto do it by way of asserting his independence. "

"I wonder if Jewdwine calculated that that would be the naturaleffect. "

"Oh, come, he's a subtle beast; but I don't suppose he's as subtle asall that. "

"You'll find that all the reviews will follow Hanson like a flock ofsheep. "

"How about the _Literary Observer_? Mackinnon was friendly. "

Maddox smiled. "He was. But our Ricky-ticky alienated Mackinnon on thevery eve of publication. "

"How?"

"By some awful jest. Something about Mackinnon's head and the dome ofthe British Museum. "

"Well, if it was a joke, Mackinnon wouldn't see it. "

"No, but he'd feel it, which would be a great deal worse. OurRicky-ticky is devoid of common prudence. "

"Our Ricky-ticky is a d----d fool, " said Stables. 

"Well, " said Rankin, "I suppose he knows what he's about. He's gotJewdwine at his back. "

Maddox shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Jewdwine? Jewdwine won'tslate his own man, but he can't very well turn round and boom the sethe always goes for. This, " said Maddox, "is my deal. I shall sail inand discover Ricky-ticky. "

"He's taking precious good care to hide himself. It's a thousandpities he ever got in with those wretched decadents. "

"He isn't in with them. "

"Well, he mayn't be exactly immersed, but the tide's caught him. "

"The tide? You might be talking of the Atlantic. "

"The stream then--' the stream of tendency that makes for '--muck. "

"It isn't a stream, it's a filthy duck-pond in somebody's back yard. There's just enough water for the rest to drown in, but it isn't deepenough to float a man of Rickman's size. He's only got his feet wet, and that won't hurt him. "

"There are things, " said Rankin, "in Saturnalia that lend themselvesto Crawley's treatment. "

"And there are things in it that Crawley can't touch. And look at thelater poems--The Four Winds, On Harcombe Hill, and The Song ofConfession. Good God! It makes my blood boil to compare the man whowrote that with Letheby. Letheby! I could wring Vaughan's neck andHanson's too. I should like to take their heads and knock themtogether. As for Letheby I'll do for him. I'll smash him in onecolumn, and I'll give Rickman his send-off in four. "

(The Planet in those early days was liberal with its space. )

"After all, " he added in a calmer tone, "he was right. We can't helphim, except by taking a back seat and letting him speak for himself. Ishall quote freely. The Song of Confession is the best answer toHanson. "

"It seems to me, " said Stables, "you'll want a whole number at thisrate. "

"I shall want six columns, if I'm to do him any justice, " said Maddox, rising. "Poor beggar, I expect he's a bit off colour. I shall go andlook him up. "

At eight that evening he went and looked him up. He found him in hisroom tranquilly reading. Thinking of him as a man of genius who hadcourted failure and madly fooled away his chances, and seeing himsitting there, so detached, and so unconscious, Maddox was profoundlymoved. He had come with cursing and with consolation, with sympathy, with prophecy, with voluble belief. But all he could say was, "It'sall right, Rickman. It's great, my son, it's great. "

All the same he did not conceal his doubts as to the sort of receptionRickman had to expect. That part of the business, he said, had beengrossly mismanaged, and it was Rickman's own fault. 

"Look here, " he said, "what on earth possessed you to go and refusethat introduction to Hanson? Was it just your cheek, or the devil'sown pride, or what?"

"Neither, " said Rickman, in a tone that pathetically intimated thathe was worn out. "I think it was chiefly my desire for peace andquiet. I'm writing some more poems, you see. I wouldn't have refusedit at any other time. "

"At any other time it wouldn't have mattered so much. You should becivil to the people who can help you. "

"I rather distrust that sort of civility myself. I've seen too much ofthe dirty back stairs of Fleet Street. I've tumbled over the miserablepeople who sit on them all day long, and I don't mean anybody totumble over me. When I've got my best trousers on I want to keep themclean. "

"It's a mistake, " said Maddox, "to wear your best trousers every day. "

"Perhaps. But I mean to wear them. "

"Wear them by all means. But you must make up your mind for a certainamount of wear and tear. In your case it will probably be tear. "

"That's my look-out. "

"Quite so. I wouldn't say anything if it was only Hanson you'doffended, but you shouldn't alienate your friends. "

"My friends?"

"Yes. Why, oh why, did you make that joke about Mackinnon's head?"

"We were all making jokes about Mackinnon's head. "

"Yes; but we weren't all of us bringing out poems the next day. Yourposition, Ricky-ticky, was one of peculiar delicacy--and danger. "

"What does it matter?" said Rickman wearily. "I can trust my friendsto speak the truth about me. "

"Heaven bless you, Rickman, and may your spring suitings last forever. " He added, as Jewdwine had added, "Anyhow, this friend will dohis level best for you. "

At which Rickman's demon returned again. "Don't crack me up too much, Maddy. You might do me harm. "

But before midnight Maddox burst into the office and flung himself onto his desk. 

"Give me room!" he cried; "I mean to spread myself, to roll, towallow, to wanton, to volupt!"

Before morning he had poured out his soul, in four columns of _ThePlanet_, the exuberant, irrepressible soul of the Celt. He did it inan hour and twenty minutes. As he said himself afterwards (relatinghis marvellous achievement) he was sustained by one continuousinspiration; his passionate pen paused neither for punctuation nor forthought. The thoughts, he said, were there. As the critical noticesonly appeared weekly, to pause would have entailed a delay of sevendays, and he meant that his panegyric should appear the very next dayafter the article in the _Literary Observer_, as an answer to Hanson'sdamnable paragraph. 

If Maddox was urged to these excesses by his contempt for Jewdwine'scritical cowardice, Jewdwine was cooled by the spectacle of Maddox'sintemperance. He had begun by feeling a little bitter towards Rickmanon his own account. He was disappointed in him. Rickman had shown thathe was indifferent to his opinion. That being so, Jewdwine might havebeen forgiven if he had had no very keen desire to help him. Still, he_had_ desired to help him; but his desire had ceased after readingMaddox's review. There was no pleasure in helping him now, since hehad allowed himself to be taken up and caressed so violently by otherpeople. The clumsy hand of Maddox had brushed the first bloom from hisRickman, that once delightful youth. He was no longer Jewdwine'sRickman, his disciple, his discovery. 

But though Jewdwine felt bitter, he was careful that no tinge of thispersonal feeling should appear in his review of Rickman's poems. Itwas exceedingly difficult for him to review them at all. He had totake an independent attitude, and most possible attitudes had beentaken already. He could not ignore Rickman's deplorable connectionwith the Decadents; and yet he could not insist on it, for that waswhat Hanson and the rest had done. Rickman had got to stay there; hecould not step in and pluck him out like a brand from the burning; forMaddox had just accomplished that heroic feat. He would say nothingthat would lend countenance to the extravagance of Maddox. There wasreally no room for fresh appreciation anywhere. He could not giveblame where Hanson had given it; and Maddox had plastered every linewith praise. He would have been the first to praise Rickman, providedthat he _was_ the first. Not that Jewdwine ever committed himself. Asa critic his surest resource had always lain in understatement. If theswan was a goose, Jewdwine had as good as said so. If the goose proveda swan, Jewdwine had implied as much by his magnificent reserve. Butthis time the middle course was imposed on him less by conviction thannecessity. He had to hold the balance true between Hanson and Maddox. 

In his efforts to hold it true, he became more than ever academic andjudicial. So judicial, so impartial was he in his opinion, that hereally seemed to have no opinion at all; to be merely summing up theevidence and leaving the verdict to the incorruptible jury. Everysentence sounded as though it had been passed through a refrigerator. Not a hint or a sign that he had ever recognized in Rickman thepossibility of greatness. 

Now, if Rickman had not been connected with _The Museion_, the reviewwould have done him neither harm nor good. As it was, it did him harm. It was naturally supposed that Jewdwine, so far from understating hisadmiration, had suppressed his bad opinion in the interests offriendship. Rickman's _Saturnalia_ remained where Hanson had placedit, rather low in the ranks of young Decadence. 

And then, just because he had suppressed the truth about him, becausehe felt that he had given Rickman some grounds for bitterness, Jewdwine began to feel more and more bitter himself. 

If Rickman felt any bitterness he never showed it. He had only twothoughts on reading Jewdwine's articles. "It wouldn't have matteredexcept that _she_ will see it"; and "I wouldn't have minded if it waswhat he really thought. "

Maddox, rightly judging that Rickman would be suffering more in hisaffection than his vanity, called on him that afternoon and draggedhim out for his usual Saturday walk. As if the thought of Jewdwinedominated their movements, they found themselves on the way toHampstead. Maddox attempted consolation. 

"It really doesn't matter much what Jewdwine says. These fellows comeup from Oxford with wet towels round their heads to keep themetaphysics in. Jewdwine's muddled himself with the Absolute Beautytill he doesn't know a beautiful thing if you stick it under hisnose. "

"Possibly not; if you keep it farther off he might have a betterchance. Trust him to know. "

"Well, if he knows, he doesn't care. "

"Oh, doesn't he. That's where Jewdwine's great. He cares for nothingelse. He cares more than any man alive--in his heart. "

"D--n his heart! I don't believe he has one. "

"Would you oblige me by not talking about him any more?"

Maddox obliged him. 

They tramped far into the country, returning at nightfall by the greatroad that crosses the high ground of the Heath. Rickman loved thatroad; for by night, or on a misty evening, it was possible to imaginesome remote resemblance between it and the long straight ridge ofHarcombe Hill. 

They paused by common consent where the Heath drops suddenly from theedge of the road; opening out the view towards London. The hollowbeneath them, filled by a thin fog, had become mysterious and immense. 

"By the way, " said Maddox, following an apparently irrelevant train ofthought, "what has become of your friendship for Miss Poppy Grace?"

"It has gone, " said Rickman, "where the old trousers go. Look there--"

Above them heaven seemed to hang low, bringing its stars nearer. A fewclouds drifted across it, drenched in the blue of the night behindthem, a grey-blue, watery and opaque. Below, sunk in a night greyerand deeper, were the lights of London. The ridge they stood on waslike the rampart of another world hung between the stars which are thelights of poets, and the lights which are the stars of men. Under thestars Maddox chanted softly the last verses of the _Song ofConfession_ that Rickman had made. 

"Oh, Ricky-ticky, " he said, "you know everything. How did you knowit?"

"Because I've been there. "

"But--you didn't stay?"

"No--no. I didn't stay. I couldn't. "

"I'm still there. And for the life of me I see no way out. It's likegoing round in the underground railway--a vicious circle. Since you'regiven to confession--own up. Don't you ever want to get back there?"

"Not yet. My way won't take me back if I only stick to it. "

Under the stars he endeavoured to account for his extraordinarychoosing of the way. 

"I've three reasons for keeping straight. To begin with, I've got aconviction that I'll write something great if I don't go to the devilfirst. Then, there's Horace Jewdwine. "

Maddox hardened his face; he had been told not to talk about Jewdwine, and he wasn't going to. 

"If I go to the devil, he won't go with me. Say what you like, he's asaint compared with you and me. If he doesn't understand Songs ofConfession, it's because he's never had anything to confess. The thirdreason--if I go to the devil--no, I can't tell you the third reason. It's also the reason why I wear my magnificent trousers. All thereasons amount to that. If I go to the devil I can't wear thosetrousers. Never, Maddox, believe me, never again. "

Maddox smiled, and, unlike Maddox, he said one thing and thoughtanother. 

What he said was. "Your trousers, Ricky-ticky, are of too heavenly apattern for this wicked world. They are such stuff as dreams are madeof, and their little life--" he paused. What he thought was--"Yourway, Ricky-ticky, is deuced hard for the likes of me. But I'll go withyou as far as I can, my son. "

Under the stars they looked into each other's faces and they knewthemselves aright. 

CHAPTER XLIV

Jewdwine made up for the coldness of his published utterances by thefervour of his secret counsel. His advice to Rickman was, "Beware ofthe friendship of little men. "

This Rickman understood to be a reflection on Maddox's position in theworld of letters. He did not care a rap about Maddox's position; butthere were moments when it was borne in upon him that Maddox was abigger man even than Horace Jewdwine, that his reckless manner poorlydisguised a deeper insight and a sounder judgement. His work on _ThePlanet_ proved it every day. And though for himself he could havedesired a somewhat discreeter champion, he had the highest opinion ofhis friend's courage in standing up for him when there was absolutelynothing to be gained by it. He had every reason therefore to beattached to Maddox. 

But it was true enough that he knew too many little men; men who wereat home in that house of bondage from which he was for ever longing toescape; men whom he had met as he had described, sitting contentedlyon the dirty back-stairs of Fleet Street; men who in rubbing shoulderswith each other in that crowded thoroughfare had had to allow for agreat deal of what Maddox called wear and tear. Those little men hadremained invincibly, imperturbably friendly. They knew perfectly wellthat he thought them little men, and they delighted in their great manall the same, more than ever, in fact, since his new suit of moralsprovided them with a subject of eternal jest. For Maddox was buthuman, and he had found Rickman's phrase too pregnant with humour tobe lost. They were sometimes very funny, those Junior Journalists, especially on a Saturday night. But Rickman was not interested in theunseemly obstacle race they dignified by the name of a career, and hedid not care to mix too freely with young men so little concernedabout removing the dirt and sweat of it. He clung to Maddox and Rankinas the strongest and the cleanest of them all. But even they hadinspirations that left him cold, and they thought many things largeand important that were too small for him to see. He would have diedrather than let either of them know what he was doing now. He saw withdismay that they suspected him of doing something, that theirsuspicions excited them most horribly, that they were watching him;and he had told Maddox that what he desired most was peace andquietness. 

He found it in the Secret Chamber of the Muse, where he shut himselfup when his work with them was done. In there, his days and nightswere as the days and nights of God. There he forecast the schemes ofdramas yet to be, dramas no longer neo-classic. And as his geniusforesaw the approach of its maturity, it purified and emptied itselfof the personal passion that obscures the dramatist's vision of theworld. This it did in a sequence of Nine and Twenty sonnets, a goldenchain that bound Lucia's name to his whether she would or no. Theyrecorded nine and twenty moments in the life of his passion, from theday of its birth up to the present hour, the hour of its purification. 

For it was still young in him; though at this distance of time Lucia'simage was no longer one and indivisible. He had come to think of heras two persons clothed mysteriously in the same garment of flesh. Onecarried that garment a little more conspicuously than the other; itwas by her beauty that she pierced him with the pain of longing; andnot by her beauty only, but by the marks of suffering that in hismemory still obscured it. She came before him, and her tragic eyesreproached him with the intolerable pathos of her fate, making himsuffer too, through his exceeding pity. And yet his longing had notbeen consumed by pity, but had mingled with it as flame in flame. Longafter he had parted from her, his senses ached as they recalled theexquisite movements of her body. He had only to shut his eyes, and hewas aware of the little ripple of her shoulders and the delicateswaying of her hips. To lie awake in the dark was to see her kneelingat his side, to feel the fragrance of her thick braid of hairflattened and warmed by her sleep, and the light touch of her hands asthey covered him. And before that memory his shame still burnt deeperthan his desire. 

But this Lucia had no desire for him and no pity. Her countenance, seen even in dreams, expressed a calm but immutable repugnance. Nowonder, for _she_ was only acquainted with the pitiably inadequatesample of him introduced to her as Mr. Rickman of Rickman's. He wasaware that she belonged exclusively not only to Jewdwine's class, butto Jewdwine himself in some way (a way unspeakably disagreeable tocontemplate). If he was not to think of her as enduring theabominations of poverty, he must think of her as married to Jewdwine. Married to Jewdwine, she would make an end of his friendship as shehad made an end of his peace of mind. There had been moments, at thefirst, when he had felt a fierce and unforgiving rage against her forthe annoyance that she caused him. 

But now, dividing the host of turbulent and tormenting memories, thereappeared a different Lucia, an invincible but intimate presence thatbrought with it a sense of deliverance and consolation. It was Luciaherself that saved him from Lucia. Her eyes were full of discernmentand of an infinite tenderness and compassion. They kindled in him thedesire that fulfils itself in its own utterance. 

That this Lucia was not wholly the creature of his imagination he wasassured by his memory of certain passages in his life at Harmouth, amemory that had all the vividness and insistence of the other. It wasthe Lucia he had known before the other Lucia, the Lucia who haddivined and would divine him still. In a way she was more real thanthe other, more real than flesh and blood, even as that part of him bywhich he apprehended her was more real than the rest. From her he wasnot and could not be divided; they belonged to each other, and by nopossibility could he think of this Lucia as married to Jewdwine, or ofhis friendship for Jewdwine as in anyway affected by her. He was hersby right of her perfect comprehension of him; for such comprehensionwas of the nature of possession. It was also an assurance of herforgiveness, if indeed she had anything to forgive. He had not wrongedher; it was the other Lucia he had wronged. In all this he never oncethought of her as his inspiration. She would not have desired him tothink of her so, being both too humble and too proud to claim any partin the genius she divined. But she could not repudiate all connectionwith it, because it was in the moments when his genius was mostdominant that he had this untroubled assurance of her presence. 

And there in the Secret Chamber he bound her to him by anindestructible chain, the chain of the Nine and Twenty Sonnets. 

The question was what should he do with it now that it was made? Todedicate twenty-nine sonnets to Lucia was one thing, to print them wasanother. If it was inevitable that he should thus reveal himself afterthe manner of poets, it was also inevitable that she should regard apublic declaration as an insult rather than an honour. And he himselfshrank from exposing so sacred a thing to the pollution and violenceof publicity. Therefore he took each sonnet as it was written, and hidit in a drawer. But he was not without prescience of their ultimatevalue, and after all this method of disposal seemed to him somehowunsatisfactory. So he determined that he would leave the manuscript toLucia in his will, to be afterwards dealt with as she judged best, whether she chose to publish or to burn. In the former case theproceeds might be regarded as partial payment of a debt. 

And so two years passed and it was Spring again. 

CHAPTER XLV

There are many ways of achieving distinction, but few are moreeffectual than a steady habit of punctuality. By this you may shineeven in the appalling gloom of the underground railway. Among all thewomen who wait every morning for the City trains at Gower StreetStation, there was none more conspicuously punctual than Miss FlossieWalker. The early clerk who travelled citywards was always sure ofseeing that little figure on the same spot at the same moment, provided he himself were punctual and kept a sharp look-out. This youmay be sure he took good care to do. To look at Flossie once was tolook again and yet again. And he was fortunate indeed if his route laybetween Moorgate Street Station and the Bank, for then he had thepleasure of seeing her sharply threading her way among the traffic, ifthat can be said of anything so soft and round as Flossie. 

If Flossie's figure was small and round, her face was somewhat large, a perfect oval moulded in the subtlest curves, smooth and whitemoreover, with a tinge of ivory sallow towards the roots of her blackhair. Wonderful hair was Flossie's. In those days she parted it in themiddle and waved it symmetrically on either side of her low forehead;she brought it over her ears, covering all but the tips and thedelicate pink lobes; she coiled it at the back in an elaborate spiraland twisted it into innumerable little curls about the nape of herneck. Unfortunately that neck was rather short; but she wore lowcollars which made the most of it. And then Flossie's features were sovery correct. She had a correct little nose, neither straight noraquiline, but a distracting mixture of both, and a correct littlemouth, so correct and so small that you wondered how it managed todisplay so many white teeth in one diminutive smile. Flossie's eyeswere not as her mouth; they were large, full-lidded, long-lashed, andblacker than her hair. No wonder if the poor clerk who passed her onher way to and fro in the City rejoiced as they looked up at him. Shemight be going to her work as he to his, but what with her bright eyesand her blue ribbons, she looked the very genius of holiday as shewent. 

At first she was a little subdued and awed by the Bank, and by her ownposition in it. But when this feeling wore off, the plump girl rolledinto her place with a delicious abandonment. Flossie was one of fiftygirls who sat, row after row, at long flat desks covered with greencloth. A soft monotonous light was reflected from the cream-colouredwalls against which Flossie's head stood out with striking effect, like some modern study in black and morbid white. You would havepicked her out among the fifty at once. Hers was the lightest of lightlabour, the delicate handling of thousands of cancelled notes--airy, insubstantial things, as it were the ghosts of bank-notes, releasedfrom the gross conditions of the currency. Towards the middle of themorning Flossie would be immersed in a pale agitated sea ofbank-notes. The air would be full of light sounds, always the sharpbrisk rustling of the notes, and now and then a human undertone, ortowards lunch time, a breath that was like a sigh. A place to growlight-headed in if you began to think about it. Happily no thought wasrequired beyond the intelligence that lives in sensitive finger-tips. It was almost mechanical labour, and for that Flossie had more than ataste, she had a positive genius. It was mechanical labour idealizedand reduced to a fine art, an art in which the personality of theartist counted. The work displayed to perfection the prettiness ofFlossie's hands, from the rapid play of her fingers in sifting, andtheir little fluttering, hovering movements in arranging, to theexquisitely soft touches of the palms when she gathered all hersheaves of notes into one sheaf, shaking, caressing, coaxing the roughedges into line. Flossie worked with the rhythm and precision of amachine; and yet humanly, self-consciously, almost coquettishly, asunder the master's eye. 

But all this was of yesterday. To-day Flossie was different. She wasnot quite so precise, so punctual as she had been. Something had gonewrong with the bright little mechanism. It worked erratically, nowunder protest, and now with spurts of terrifying activity. The finefly-wheels of thought had set off whirring on their own account andhad got mixed up with the rest of the machinery. Flossie had begun tophilosophise, to annoy destiny with questions. There was time for thatin the afternoon when the worst of the sorting was done. She was inthe stage of doubt so attractive in philosophers and women, askingherself: Is knowledge possible? And if so, what do I know? She wasaware that there are certain insurpassable limits to human knowledge;all the same, woman-like, she raised herself on tip-toe, and tried topeep over the boundaries. What did she know? She knew that somebodypitied her, because, poor little woman, she had to earn her own livinglike a man. Well, she would not have to do that if he--if he--Yes, andif he didn't? And how was she to know? And yet, and yet she had anidea. Anybody may have an idea. Then the long desks became the greentables where Flossie gambled with fate; trying--trying--trying toforce the invisible hand. 

For with Flossie it was spring-time too. Under the little clerk'scorrectness and demureness there ran and mingled with her blood thewarm undercurrent of a dream. The dream had come to her many springsago; and as Flossie grew plumper and rosier it grew plump and rosytoo. To be married (to a person hitherto unspecified in fancy, whosefeatures remained a blur or a blank), to be the mistress of a dearlittle house (the house stood out very clear in Flossie's fancy), andthe mother of a dear little girl (a figure ever present to her, complete in socks and shoes and all the delicious details of itsdress). Compared with that vision of Flossie's, no dream was ever sosoft, so rosy and so young. 

And now in the Spring-time all her being moved softly under thecurrent of the dream. Flossie's fancy did not associate it consciouslywith Keith Rickman (she would have blushed if the association had beenmade apparent to her); the Spring did that for her, mingling with herblood. 

Meanwhile, as Flossie dreamed, the same hour every week-day morningRickman was awakened by the same sounds, the click of the door-latchin the bedroom overhead and the patter of a girl's feet on the stairs. He knew it was Miss Flossie Walker going down to early breakfast. Andwhen he heard it, he turned in his bed on the side farthest from thewindow and sighed. Such a deep unhappy sigh. 

Lucia had delivered him from Lucia, but there were other troubles fromwhich she could not save him. Not, in the warm spring days, from thenewly awakened trouble of his youth; not, in the sleepless summernights, from the brief but recurrent tyranny of sense, and not fromthe incessant hunger of the heart. Though it was she who had createdthat hunger in him, it was not (at five and twenty) to be satisfied bythe mere image of her, however vividly present to him. He was onlyfive and twenty, and the spring had come with its piercing sweetness, its irresistible delicate lure, to the great stirring, melting, andunbinding of his manhood. He could be faithful to Lucia for ever inhis soul; but there were moments in this season when he was aware of adistinct cleavage between his soul and his senses. 

It seemed to him that Miss Flossie Walker lay in wait for him in justthose moments, with the secret but infallible instinct of thecreatures whom the Spring touches to its own uses. He could not blameher. Flossie was innocent, being but the unconscious handmaid of theSpring. 

It was not because Lucia was forever absent and Flossie forever on thespot. At first he was unaware of the danger that lurked for him inFlossie's ways, because his soul in its love for Lucia was so utterlysecure. At first the sighs were all on Flossie's account; poorFlossie, who had to be up so early while he settled himself foranother luxurious slumber. At first he only pitied Flossie. He thoughtof her at odd moments as a poor little girl (rather pretty) who workedtoo hard and never had any fun to speak of; but the rest of the timehe never thought of her at all. 

And in the early days of their acquaintance, Miss Flossie Walker (thenonly an apprentice to a firm of type-writers in Holborn) was very muchto be pitied. He could remember how she had come (a little whilebefore that memorable Bank holiday) to Mrs. Downey's boarding-house, aplump but rather anaemic maiden, black-haired, and demure. He hadbegun by talking to her at table, because she sat next to him, and hehad ended, if there ever is an end to these things, by taking her tomatinées, picture-galleries, restaurants, and the British Museum. Thegirl was so young, so confiding, and so obviously respectable, that hewas careful to keep to the most guileless of middle-classentertainments. A few weeks of this existence brought shy smiles and alively play of dimples on Flossie's face. She grew plumper still, lessanaemic, though hardly less demure. A few months, and Flossie's beautyflowered and expanded, she began to dress as became it, entering intorivalry with Miss Ada Bishop, until it dawned on him that Flossie wasreally, in her own place and way, a very engaging little creature. 

About this time Flossie's circumstances had improved as much as herappearance. Her father had been a clerk in the Bank of England, and onhis death she obtained a post there as a sorter. That position gaveFlossie both dignity and independence; it meant light work and hourswhich brought hope with them every day towards three o'clock. Underthese circumstances Flossie's beauty went on flowering and expanding, till she became more than ever a thing of danger and disaster. 

Her intimacy with Mr. Rickman, which had lapsed lately, owing to hisincreasing passion for solitude and separation, revived suddenly inthe spring of ninety-five. It happened in this manner. With thespring, Mrs. Downey's was once more agitated by the hope of the Bankholiday, and Mr. Spinks inquired of Rickman if he were going out oftown for Easter. (Rickman was incautiously dining that evening at thegeneral table. ) But Rickman wasn't going out of town. He said hethought of going somewhere up the river. He had also thought, thoughhe did not say so, that in fulfilment of an ancient promise he wouldtake Miss Flossie to the play on Saturday afternoon. Yet when it cameto the point he had some diffidence in asking her. She might not thinkit proper. 

It was Mr. Soper who precipitated his resolve. He wanted to know ifRickman had made up a party for the River, and 'ad any companion?

No. He hadn't made up a party. Thanks, awfully. He was going byHimself. 

Mr. Soper didn't think now that was a very enjoyable way of spendin' aBank holiday. 

He put it that if it was Rickman's intention to hire a row-boat, itwouldn't be at all a bad idea if he, Soper, and Mr. Spinks, say, wereto join. 

As Soper's incredible suggestion sank into him, the expression ofRickman's face was pitiable to see. It was then that casually, as ifthe idea had only just occurred to him, he wondered whether MissWalker would by any chance care for a matinée ticket for the play? Hewas anxious to give his offer an uncertain and impromptu character, suggesting that Miss Walker must be torn between her many engagements, and have matinée tickets in large numbers up the sleeve of hercharming blouse. 

Flossie was so shy that when you spoke to her she never answered allat once; so shy that when she spoke to you she never turned her headto look at you, but left you to judge of the effect you made on her bythe corners of her mouth and eyes. So now he had to look verycarefully at her to see whether she were saying yes or no. Casuallyagain (as if this course were not necessarily involved in acceptance)he inquired whether he might have the pleasure of taking her. 

Miss Bishop looked another way. Her loose mouth hung desirous. (MissBishop's face was flagrantly frank, devoid of all repose. None ofthese people had any repose about them except Flossie. ) Flossie wasdubious and demure. Was he quite sure it was a pleasure? He protestedthat in a world where few things were certain, that, at any rate, admitted of no doubt. Flossie deliberated whether this further stepwere or were not a departure from her ideal of propriety. And it wasnot until he showed signs of retracting his proposal that sheintimated her consent. But as for pleasure, if Flossie were pleasedshe did not allow it to appear. And although her heart beat excitedlyunder her blue blouse, it was on the side that was not next to Mr. Rickman. 

Then Miss Roots began to talk of incomprehensible things excitedly. So excitedly, that she had, for the moment, quite a colour. And whilethey talked, all the other boarders turned in their places and watchedMr. Rickman as if he had been some wonderful enchanter; Mr. Soperalone emphasizing by an attitude his entire aloofness from the generalinterest. 

And all the time Miss Roots was talking, Flossie, without saying aword, contrived to seize upon the disengaged portion of his mind. Hewondered what she was thinking about. 

She was thinking, first, that it really paid to put on your bestblouse every evening. Next, that it wasn't worth while if he wouldkeep on talking to the lady on his right. Then that she couldn'tdecide the point until she knew where he was going on Sunday. 

That she never knew; but she went to the play with him on Saturday, and on many Saturdays after that. There was nobody so gay that springas Flossie. 

Coming fresh to Flossie after a long estrangement, Rickman couldn'trecognize her from his old account of her as a poor little girl whoworked too hard and never had any fun to speak of. In so describingher, no doubt he had been influenced by the melancholy of his earliermood. But there were other reasons why he still insisted on regardingher in this pathetic light. It provided him with several veryagreeable sensations, and the most agreeable of all was the voluptuouspassion of pity. It kept him detached, always in the superior positionof a benefactor. Benefactor, indeed! He was in a fair way of becomingFlossie's deity, her Providence, the mystic source of theatre-ticketsand joy. No really brave man ever shrinks from the dangers ofapotheosis, when the process involves no loss of personal dignity. Andapart from the gratification of his natural healthy vanity, Rickman'sheart was touched by the thought that the little thing turned to himinstinctively for all her innocent pleasures. 

Then all at once the innocent pleasures ceased. They ceased just asFlossie's palpitating heart told her that she was really making animpression on this singularly unimpressionable young man. She knew itby the sudden softening of his voice as he spoke to her, by thecurious brilliant dilation of his eyes as they followed her about theroom. For after much easy practice on Mr. Spinks she knew precisely bywhat movements and what glances she could best produce theseinteresting effects. And yet nothing could be farther from Flossie'sfancy than flirtation. The little clerk was nothing if not practical, even under the tender impulse of her dream. 

Flossie was determined that whatever else she failed in she would notfail in her woman's trade. She would have considered herself disgracedby such bankruptcy. Not that she feared it. Nature had started herwith a sufficient capital of fascination, and at Mrs. Downey's shehad, so to speak, established a connection. And now it seemed therehad come a period of depression. It still rained tickets, more ticketsthan ever, but there was no Mr. Rickman to escort her to the concertor the play; Mr. Rickman always had another engagement, neverspecified. No Mr. Rickman to take her into the suburbs on a Sunday;Mr. Rickman was off, goodness knew where, scouring the country on hisbicycle. No Mr. Rickman to talk to her at dinner; Mr. Rickman took allhis meals in his own room now. For these and all other delinquencieshis invariable excuse was that he was busy; and Flossie, mind you, wassharp enough to see through _that_. 

No. Mr. Rickman had changed, suddenly, unaccountably, without amoment's warning. First of all, the other boarders noticed that he hadbecome most frightfully irritable in his temper. He had not been overpolite to any of them lately, but to her he was insufferably rude, most ungentlemanly, she called it. He would pretend not to see her ifby any chance she looked his way, not to hear her if by any chance shespoke to him. Once (they were quite alone) he had broken off in themiddle of an exciting conversation and rushed out of the room, out ofthe house. She saw him over the balcony railings, walking up and downthe street like a lunatic, with his hands thrust down into his pocketsand no hat on. And he was not only ungentlemanly but positivelyunkind. If they met on the stairs (somehow they did this very often)he would draw himself up flat against the wall as if he was afraid ofthe frill of her dress touching him. If she came into the drawing-roomhe would walk out of it; or if he stayed, it was only to sit staringat her (poor innocent little Flossie, who was so pretty) with an uglyscowl on his face. There were times when poor innocent little Flossiesaid to herself that she positively believed he hated her. And she wasso innocent that she couldn't think what she had done to make him hateher. 

She was right about the hatred. An indignant anger was certainly whathe felt when he first realized that she had power to make him feel atall. Her prettiness tormented him; therefore he hated her, andeverything about her. He hated the sound of her little tongue upraisedamong the boarders, and of her little feet running up and down thestairs. He hated every glance of her black eyes and every attitude andmovement of her plump little body. More than all he hated the touch ofher soft arms as they stirred against him at the tightly packeddinner-table. Therefore he avoided the dinner-table, and thedrawing-room; he avoided as far as possible the house, filled as itwas with the disastrous presence. He fatigued himself with excesses ofwalking and cycling, in the hope that when he flung himself into hisbed at midnight he would be too tired to feel. And sometimes he was. 

At last poor Flossie, weary of conjecture, unbent so far as to seekcounsel of Miss Bishop. For Miss Bishop gave you to understand that onthe subject of "gentlemen" there was nothing that she did not know. Itwas a little humiliating, for only a month ago Flossie had said to herin strictest confidence, "I feel it in my bones, Ada, that he's goingto come forward this spring. "

Ada laughed coarsely, but not unkindly, at the tale of her perplexity. Ada had every reason to be sympathetic; for Mr. Rickman once securelyattached, Mr. Spinks would be lonely, unappropriated, free. "Don't youworry, " said she, "_he's_ all right. "

"All right? Can't you see how frightfully rude he is to me?"

"I should think I did see it. A jolly lot you know about gentlemen. You've nothing to go on when they're so everlastingly polite, but whenthey turn mad like that all of a sudden, you may be sure they'recoming to the point. To tell you the truth, I didn't use to thinkyou'd very much chance, Flossie; but when I saw him walk out of theroom the other day, I said to myself, 'She's got 'im!'"

"I wish I knew. I don't want it hanging on for ever. "

"It won't. If he doesn't propose in May, he will in June, when you'vegot a new dress and a new hat. "

Flossie shook her head despairingly. "I wonder, " said she, "what I'dreally better do. I think sometimes I'd better go away. "

"Well, sometimes that _does_ fetch them; and then, again, sometimes itdoesn't. It's risky. Some girls, " she added reflectively, "try doingtheir hair another way; but I wouldn't, if I was you. That's risky, too. If they're really fond of you, as often as not it only puts themoff. "

"Then what _am_ I to do?"

"If you take my advice, " said Miss Bishop, "you'll not do anything. You'll just go on the same as before, as if you hadn't noticedanything out of the way. "

And Flossie went on just the same as before, with the result thatevery morning Mr. Rickman sighed more and more heavily as he heard theearly patter of those feet upon the floor. 

CHAPTER XLVI

Flossie had been working with one eye on the clock all afternoon. Atthe closing hour she went out into Lothbury with the other girls; butinstead of going up Moorgate Street as usual, she turned out ofPrince's Street to her right, and thence made her way westward asquickly as she could for the crowd. It was September, a day when itwas good to be out of doors at that hour. The sunlight filtered intothe dusty thoroughfare from the west, on her left the sprawlingmounted legends over the shops were so many gold blazons on an endlessfield of grey; on her right, a little way ahead, the tall plane-treein Wood Street hung out its green leaves over Cheapside like a signal. Thither Flossie was bound. 

As she sidled out of the throng into the quiet little lane, Mr. Rickman came forward, raising his hat. He had been waiting under theplane-tree for twenty minutes, and was now beguiling his sylvansolitude with a cigarette. Two years had worked a considerable changein his appearance. His face had grown graver and clearer cut. He hadlost his hectic look and had more the air of a man of the world thanof a young poet about town. To Flossie's admiration and delight hewore an irreproachable frock-coat and shining linen; she interpretedthese changes as corresponding with the improvement in his prospects, and judged that the profession of literature was answering fairlywell. 

They shook hands seriously, as if they attached importance to thesetrifles. "Am I dreadfully late?" she asked. 

"Dreadfully. " He smiled with one corner of his mouth, holding hiscigarette firmly in the other, while he took from her the little capeshe carried over her arm. 

"I expect I've kept you waiting a good bit?" A keen observer ofFlossie's face might have detected in it a faintly triumphantappreciation of the fact. "I'm awfully sorry I got behind-hand and hadto stay till I'd finished up. "

"Never mind, Flossie, it don't matter. At any rate it's worth it. " Thewords implied that Mr. Rickman's time was valuable, otherwise he wouldnot have given it to Flossie. "Where shall we go, and what shall wedo?"

"I don't much care. "

"Shall we have tea somewhere while we're making up our minds?"

"Well--I wouldn't mind. I hadn't time to get any at the Bank. "

"All right. Come along. " And they plunged into Cheapside again, hebreasting the stream, making a passage for her. They found a favouriteconfectioner's in St. Paul's Churchyard, where they had sometimes gonebefore. He noticed that she took her seat with rather a weary air. 

"Floss, you must come for a walk on the Embankment. You look as if youdidn't get out enough. Why will you go up and down in that abominableunderground? You're awfully white, you know. "

"I never had a red face. "

"Then what's the matter?"

"Nothing, I shall be better when I've had my tea. "

She had her tea, which after a proper protest on her part was paid forby Rickman. Then they turned into the cathedral gardens, where it wasstill pleasant under the trees. Thus approached from the north-east, the building rose up before them in detached incoherent masses, thecurve of its great dome broken by the line of the north transept seenobliquely from below. It turned a forbidding face citywards, a face ofsallow stone blackened by immemorial grime, while the north-westcolumns of the portico shone almost white against the nearer gloom. 

"It's clever of it to look so beautiful, " murmured Rickman, "when it'sso infernally ugly. " He stood for a few minutes, lost in admiration ofits eccentricity. Thus interested, he was not aware that his ownexpression had grown somewhat abstracted, impersonal and cold. 

"I call that silly, " said Flossie, looking at him out of the corner ofher black eyes. Had he come there to pay attention--to the Cathedral?

"Do you? Why?"

"Because--I suppose you wouldn't say I was beautiful if I were--well, downright ugly?"

"I might, Flossie, if your ugliness was as characteristic, assuggestive as this. "

Flossie shrugged her shoulders (not, he thought, a pretty action in alady with so short a neck). To her St. Paul's was about as beautifulas the Bank and infinitely less "suggestive. " Mr. Rickman interpretedher apathy as fatigue and looked about for a lonely seat. They foundone under the angle of the transept. 

"Let's sit down here, " he said; "better not exert ourselves violentlyso soon after tea. "

"For all the tea I've had, it wouldn't matter, " said Flossie as ifresenting an ignoble implication. Rickman laughed a littleuncomfortably and blushed. Perhaps she had hardly given him the rightto concern himself with these intimate matters. Yet from the veryfirst his feeling for Flossie had shown itself in minute cares for herphysical well-being. They sat for a while in silence. A man passedthem smoking; he turned his head to look back at the girl, and theflying ash from his cigarette lighted on her dress. 

"Confound the brute!" said Rickman, trying to brush away the obnoxiouspowder with a touch which would have been more effectual if it hadbeen less of a caress. She shivered slightly, and he put her capegently about her shoulders. A curious garment, Flossie's cape, made ofsome thin grey-blue stuff, with gold braid on the collar, cheap, pretty and a little vulgar. 

"There's not much warmth in that thing, " he said, feeling it with hisfingers. 

"I don't want to be warm, thank you, a day like this, " she retorted, pushing back the cape. For, though it was no longer spring, Flossie'sdream tugged at her heartstrings. There was a dull anger against himin her heart. At that moment Flossie could have fought savagely forher dream. 

What could have made her so irritable, poor little girl? She didn'tlook well; or--perhaps it was her work. He was sorry for all women whoworked. And Flossie--she was such an utter woman. That touch ofexaggeration in the curves of her soft figure made her irresistibly, superlatively feminine. To be sure, as he had hinted in that unguardedmoment, her beauty was of the kind that suggests nothing moreinteresting than itself. Yet there were times when it had power overhim, when he was helpless and stupid before it. And now, as he leanedback looking at her, his intellect seemed to melt away gradually andmerge in dreamy sense. They sat for a while, still without speaking;then he suddenly bent forward, gazing into her eyes. 

"What is it, Flossie? Tell me. "

Flossie turned away her face from the excited face approaching it. 

"Tell me. "

"It's nothing. Can't you see I'm only tired. I've 'ad a hard day. "

"I thought you never had hard days at the Bank?"

"No. No more we do--not to speak of. "

"Then it's something you don't like to speak of. I say--have the otherwomen been worrying you?"

"No, I should think not indeed. Catch any one trying that on with me!"

"Then I can't see what it can be. "

"I daresay you can't. You don't know what it is! It's not much, butit's the same thing day after day, day after day, till I'm sick andtired of it all! I don't see any end to it either. "

"I'm so sorry, Floss, " said Rickman in a queer thick voice. She hadturned her face towards him now, and its expression wasinscrutable--to him. To another man it would have said that it was allvery well for him to be sorry; he could put a stop to it soon enoughif he liked. 

"Oh--you needn't be sorry. "

"Why not? Do you think I don't care?"

Immense play of expression on Flossie's face. She bit her lip; andthat meant that he might care no end, or he mightn't care a rap, howwas she to know? She smiled a bitter smile as much as to say that she_didn't_ know, neither did she greatly care. Then her lips quivered, which meant that if by any chance he did care, it was a cruel shame toleave a poor girl in the dark. 

"Care? About the Bank?" she said at last. "You needn't. I shan'tstand it much longer. I shall fling it up some of these days; see if Idon't. "

"Would that be wise?"

"I don't know whether it's wise or not. I know I can't go on like thisfor ever. "

"Yes, but would anything else be better, or even half as good? Youdidn't get much fun out of that last place, you know. "

"Well, for all the fun I get out of that old Bank, I might as well bein a ladies' boarding school. If I thought it would end inanything--but it won't. "

"How do you know? It may end in your marrying a big fat manager. "

"Don't be silly. "

"Supposing you knew it would end some day, not necessarily in marryingthe manager, would you mind going on with it?"

She looked away from him, and tears formed under her eyelashes, thevague light tears that never fall. "There's no use my talking offlinging it up. I'm fixed there for good. "

"Who knows?" said Rickman; and if Flossie's eyes had been candid theywould have said, "You ought to know, if anybody does. " Whatever theysaid, it made him shudder, with fear, with shame, but no, not withhatred. "Poor Flossie, " he said gently; and there was a pause duringwhich Flossie looked more demure than ever after her little outburst. She had seen the look in his eyes that foreboded flight. 

He rose abruptly. "Do you know, I'm awfully sorry, but I've got anappointment at half past five to meet a fellow in Fleet Street. "

The fellow was Maddox, but the appointment, he had made it that veryminute, which was the twenty-fifth minute past five. 

They went their ways; he to Fleet Street, and she home. Maddox did notturn up to the appointment and Rickman had to keep it with himself. Asthe result of the interview he determined to try the effect of alittle timely absence. He did not attempt to conceal from himself thathe was really most Horribly afraid; his state of mind or rather body(for the disorder was purely physical) was such that he positivelydared not remain in the same house with Flossie another day. What heneeded was change of air and scene. He approached Mrs. Downey with ashame-faced air, and a tale of how he was seedy and thought if hecould get away for a week it would set him up. It seemed to him thatMrs. Downey's manner conveyed the most perfect comprehension of hiscondition. He did not care; he was brought so low that he could almosthave confided in Mrs. Downey. "Mark my words, " said the wise woman tothe drawing-room. "He'll be back again before the week's up. " And asusual, little Flossie marked them. 

He walked out to Hampstead that very evening and engaged rooms thereby the week, on the understanding that he might require them for amonth or more. He did not certainly know how long the cure would take. 

Hampstead is a charming and salubrious suburb, and Jewdwine was reallyvery decent to him while he was there, but in four days he had hadmore of the cure than he wanted. Or was it that he didn't want to becured? Anyway a week was enough to prove that the flight to Hampsteadwas a mistake. He had now an opportunity of observing Miss Flossiefrom a judicious distance, with the result that her image was seenthrough a tender wash of atmosphere at the precise moment when itacquired relief. He began to miss her morning greetings, the softtouch of her hand when they said good-night, and the voice that seemedto be always saying, "How orf'ly good of you, " "Thanks orf'ly, Mr. Rickman, I've had a lovely day. " He hadn't given her many lovely dayslately, poor little girl. 

At the end of the week, coming up from Fleet Street, instead of makingstraight for the Hampstead Road as he ought to have done, he foundhimself turning aside in the direction of Tavistock Place. The excusethat he made to himself was that he wanted a book that he had leftbehind at Mrs. Downey's. Now it was not in the least likely that hehad left it in the dining-room, nor yet in the drawing-room, but itwas in those places that he thought of looking first. Not finding whathe wanted, he went on dejectedly to the second floor, feeling that hemust fulfil the quest that justified his presence. And there in hisstudy, in, yes, _in_ it, as far in as anybody could get, by thebookcase next the window, Flossie was sitting; and sitting (if youcould believe it) on the floor; sitting and moving her hands along theshelves as familiarly as you please. Good Heavens! if she wasn't busydusting his books!

Flossie didn't see him, for she had her back to the door; and he stoodthere on the threshold for a second, just looking at her. She wore aloose dark-blue overall evidently intended to wrap her up and concealher. But so far from concealing her, the overall, tucked in andsmoothed out, and altogether adorably moulded by her crouchingattitude, betrayed the full but tender outline of her body. Her face, all but the white curve of her cheek and forehead, was hidden fromhim, but he could see the ivory bistre at the nape of her bowed neck, with the delicate black tendrils of her curls clustering above it. Herthroat, as she stooped over her task, was puckered and gathered, likesome incredibly soft stuff, in little folds under her chin. He drew inhis breath with a sighing sound which to Flossie was the firstintimation of his presence. 

To say that Flossie rose to her feet would be a misleading descriptionof her method. She held on to the edge of a bookshelf by the tips ofher fingers and drew herself up from the floor, slowly, as it were bysome mysterious unfolding process, not ungraceful. She turned on himthe wide half-mischievous, half-frightened eyes of a child caught thistime in some superb enormity. 

"Flossie, " he said with an affectation of severity, "what _have_ youbeen doing?"

She produced her duster gingerly. "You can see, " said she, "only Ididn't mean you to catch me at it. " She knelt down by the fireplaceand gave her duster a little flick up the chimney. "I never, never inall my life saw such a lot of dust. I can't think how you've gone onliving with it. "

He smiled. "No more can I, Flossie. I don't know how I did it. "

"Well, you haven't got to do it, now. It's all perfectly sweet andclean. "

"It's all perfectly sweet, I know that, dear. " She turned towards thedoor but not without a dissatisfied look back at the bookcase she hadleft. "Aren't you going to let me thank you?"

"You needn't. I was only helping Mrs. Downey. "

"Oh--"

"She's been having a grand turn-out while you were away. "

"The deuce she has--"

"Oh you needn't be frightened. Nobody's touched your precious booksbut me. I wouldn't let them. "

"Why wouldn't you let them?"

"Be-cause--Oh, I say, it's six o'clock; are you going to stay?"

"Perhaps. Why?"

"Because I'd only one more shelf to dust and then I'd 'ave finished. I--I'm in rather a hurry. "

"Why won't you stay and dust it now?"

"Well--you know--" She took one step inside the room timidly, thenanother, and stood still. 

"Is it me you're afraid of? I'll sit outside, on the stairs, if you'drather. "

"How silly!" She removed an invisible atom of dust from a chair as shespoke, as much as to say she was inspired solely by the instinct oforder. 

The diminutive smile played about the corners of her mouth. "MissRoots said I'd better not meddle with your books. "

"Did she? Then Miss Roots is a beast. "

"She seemed to think I didn't know how to dust them. "

"Perhaps she's right. I say, suppose you let me see. "

And Flossie, willingly cajoled, began again, and, as he saw withhorror, on his hoarded relics of the Harden library. "No, Flossie, " hesaid, with a queer change in his voice. "Not those. " But Flossie'sfingers moved along their tops with a delicacy born of the incessantmanipulation of bank notes. All the same, she did do it wrong, for shedusted towards the backs instead of away from them. But he hadn't theheart to correct her. He watched a moment; then he pretended to belooking for the book he had pretended he wanted to find, then he satdown and pretended to write a letter whilst Flossie went on dusting, skilfully, delicately. She even managed to get through ten volumes ofhis own Bekker's Plato without damage to the beautiful but perishingRussia leather. That made it all the more singular that the back ofthe eleventh volume should come off suddenly with a rip. 

She gave a little cry of dismay. He looked up, and she came to himholding the book in one hand and its back in the other. She really wasa little frightened. "Look, " she said, "I didn't think it would havegone and done like that. "

"Oh, I say, Flossie--"

"I'm orf'ly sorry. " Her mouth dropped, not unbecomingly; her eyes wereso liquid that he could have sworn they had tears in them. She lookedmore than ever like an unhappy child, standing beside him in her longstraight overall. "And I wouldn't let anybody look at them but me. "

"Why wouldn't you? I've asked you that before, Flossie--why wouldn'tyou?" He took the book and its mutilated fragment from her, and heldboth her hands in his. 

"Because I knew you were fond enough of _them_. "

"And is there anything I wasn't fond enough of--do you think?"

"I don't think; I know. "

"No, you know nothing, you know nothing at all about anything. What_did_ you think?"

"I thought you hated me. "

"Hated you?"

"Yes. Hated me like poison. "

He put his arms about her, gathering her to him! He drew her head downover his heart. "I hate you like this--and this--and this, " he said, kissing in turn her forehead, her eyelids and her mouth. He held herat arm's length and gazed at her as if he wondered whether they werethe same woman, the Flossie he had once known, and this Flossie thathe had kissed. Then he led her to the sofa, and drew her down by hisside, and held her hands to keep her there. And yet he felt that itwas he who was being led; he who was being drawn, he who was beingheld--over the brink of the immeasurable, inexpiable folly. In allthis his genius remained alone and apart, unmoved by anything he didor said, as if it knew that through it all the golden chain stillheld. 

Her mouth quivered. "If you didn't hate me, why were you so rude tome, then?" was the first thing she said. 

"Because I loved you when I didn't want to love you, and it was morethan I could stand. And because--because I didn't know it. But _you_knew it, " he said almost savagely. It seemed to him that his tonguerefused the guidance of his brain. 

"I'm sure I didn't know anything of the sort. " Her mouth quiveredagain; but this time it was with a smile. 

"Why not? Because I didn't say so in a lot of stupid words? You _are_literal. But surely you understood? Not just at first, of course; Ididn't care a bit at first; I didn't care till long after. "

"Long after what?" Flossie was thinking of Miss Poppy Grace on thebalcony next door. 

"Never mind what. "

Flossie knew all about Miss Poppy Grace, and she didn't mind at all. 

"Would I be here now if I didn't love you?" He still had to persuadehimself that this was love. It seemed incredible. 

"Rubbish--you know you only came to look at those silly old books, "said Flossie, nodding contemptuously towards the bookcase. 

"Did you imagine I was in love with them? And think of all the thingswe've done together. Didn't you know? Didn't you feel it coming on?"

"I know you've been orf'ly good--orf'ly. But as for anything else, I'msure I _never_ thought of it. "

"Then think of it now. Or--does that mean that you don't care for me?"

There was an awful pause. Then Flossie said very indistinctly, soindistinctly that he had to lean his face to hers to catch the words, "No, of course it doesn't. " Her voice cleared suddenly. "But if youdidn't hate me, why did you go away?"

"I went away because I was ill. "

"And are you any better?"

"Yes, I think I'm better. I think I'm nearly all right now. I mightsay I'll undertake never to be ill again, at least, not if you'llmarry me. "

At these words his genius turned and looked at him with eyes ominousand aghast. He had a vision of another woman kneeling beside a hearthas her hands tended a dying fire. And he hardly saw the woman at hisside as he drew her to him and kissed her again because of the pain athis heart. And Flossie wondered why in that moment he did not look ather. 

He was looking now. And as he looked his genius hid his face. 

"You knew that was what I wanted?"

She shook her head slowly. "What does that mean? That you didn't know?Or that you won't? But you will, Flossie?"

As he drew her to him a second time the old terror woke in his heart;but only for a moment. For this time Flossie kissed him of her ownaccord, with a kiss, not passionate like his own, but sweet andfugitive. It was like a reminder of the transience of the thing hesought, a challenge rousing him to assert its immortality. 

He put her from him, and stooped over his own outstretched arms andclasped hands; staring stupidly at the floor. When he spoke again itwas hardly, incisively, as a man speaks the truth he hates. "Do youknow what this means? It means waiting. "

"Waiting?"

"Yes. I'm not a bit well off, you know; I couldn't give you the sortof home you ought to have just yet. I'd no business to say anythingabout it; but somehow I thought you'd rather know. And of course I'veno business to ask you, but--will you wait?"

"Well--if we must, we must. "

"And if it means working at that beastly Bank for another year, do youthink you can keep it up so long?"

"I'll try to. "

She leaned towards him, and they sat there, holding each other'shands, looking into each other's eyes, hearing nothing, feelingnothing, but the beating of their own riotous hearts. 

It was love as nature loves to have it. It was also what men callhonest love. But in the days when he had loved dishonestly, he hadnever slipped from Poppy Grace's side with such a sense of misery andsolitude and shame. 

CHAPTER XLVII

The game was over and Flossie had won. She had forced Fate's hand, orrather, Mr Rickman's. Not by any coarse premeditated methods; Flossiewas too subtly feminine for that. She had trusted rather to theinspiration of the moment, and when her beautiful womanly emotionsgave her the opening she had simply followed it, that was all. Andcould anything have been more correct? She had not "given herselfaway" once by word or look. With true maidenly modesty she had hiddenher own feelings until she was perfectly sure of Mr. Rickman's. Therewas nothing--nothing to make her feel ashamed when she looked backupon that day; a reflection from which she derived much consolationafterwards. 

It gave her courage to fly downstairs to Mrs. Downey's private roomwhere that lady sat doing her accounts, to lean over the back of Mrs. Downey's chair and to whisper into her ear, "I've been dusting Mr. Rickman's books, He caught me at it. "

Mrs. Downey could not have shown more excitement if Flossie had toldher that the kitchen boiler had burst. "Flossie! My goodness, whateverdid he say?"

"He didn't mind one bit. Only--you won't tell him you told me not totouch them, will you, Mrs. Downey?" She brought her soft blushingcheek close to Mrs. Downey's and the warmth of it told her tale. 

And Mrs. Downey promised not to tell, pardoning the subterfuge forlove's sake, which excuses all. "Has he gone, Flossie?" she inquiredanxiously. 

"No. He's not going. He's come back for good. "

"There! Didn't I say he would!"

"And what d'you think, " said Flossie, sitting down and spreading herplump arm on the secretary all over the accounts. "He's done it. Hedid it up there. "

Mrs. Downey stared, and Flossie nodded as much as to say "Fact!"

"You don't mean to say so?"

"Nobody's more surprised than myself. "

The rest was kisses and congratulations, wholly magnanimous on Mrs. Downey's part; for the announcement of Flossie's engagement cost herone of the gayest, most desirable, and most remunerative of herbrilliant circle. Mr. Spinks (regarded by himself and everybody elseas permanent) gave notice and vanished from that hour, carrying withhim the hopes of Miss Ada Bishop. Meanwhile Flossie (hitherto regardedfrom a merely decorative point of view) became a person ofconsiderable importance in the boarding-house. It was not merely thatshe was an engaged young lady; for, as Miss Bishop pointed out to herwith some natural asperity, anybody can be engaged; but she had nowthe privilege, denied to any other boarder, of going in and out of Mr. Rickman's study. She said that she went in to tidy it; but strange tosay, the more Flossie tidied it the more hopeless it became. Mr. Rickman's study was never what you might call a really tidy room; butat any rate there had always been a certain repose about it. And nowyou could not well imagine a more unrestful place, a place moresuggestive of hurry and disorder, of an utter lack of the leisure inwhich ideas ripen and grow great. 

The table had become a troubled sea of primeval manuscript, where Mr. Rickman sat with his head in his hands, brooding over the face of thewaters. He had once profanely said that God's world was a chaos he hadgot to work on. Now it was _his_ world that was chaos. A tempestuouschaos, where things to be weltered in the wreck of things that were. Rickman's genius, like Nature, destroyed in order that it mightcreate; yet it seemed to him that nowadays the destruction was out ofall proportion to the creation. He sighed as he gazed at the piteousfragments that represented six months' labour; fragments that weptblood; the torn and mutilated limbs of living thoughts; with here andthere huge torsos of blank verse, lopped and hewn in the omnipotentfury of a god at war with his world; mixed up with undeveloped andethereal shapes, the embryos of dreams. 

And yet it was not altogether the divine rage of the artist that hadwrought this havoc. The confusion argued a power at war with itselfrather than with its creations; the very vastness of it all suggesteda deity tied as to time, but apparently unshackled as to space. Thatwas it. There really wasn't as much time as there used to be. It wasin his free evenings and on Sundays that his best thoughts came tohim, the beautiful shy thoughts that must be delicately courted. Andnow his free evenings and his Sundays were given up to the courting ofFlossie. And even on a week-day this was what would happen. He wouldrush home early from Fleet Street and settle down for two hours' workbefore dinner. Then a little timid knock would be heard at the door, and Flossie would come in bringing him a cup of tea. He couldn't justswill it down like a pig and send the dear little thing away. He _had_to let her sit and see him drink it, slowly, as if he thoroughlyenjoyed it. Or he would come in (as on that blessed evening six monthsago) and find Flossie dusting books; standing perhaps on two totteringhassocks and a chair, at an altitude perilous to so plump a person. And Flossie had to be lifted down from the hassocks and punished withhard kisses, and told not to do it again. And Flossie would do itagain. So that a great deal of time was lost in this way. And with thetouch of those soft little arms about his neck demoralization wouldset in for the evening. 

And then there was Flossie's education to be attended to; and thattook more time than anything. It meant that, as the November days drewin, he had to read or talk to Flossie as she sat in his armchair withher dear little feet on his fender, and her dear little hands mendinghis socks and shirts and things. They might have been married foryears, only they weren't; that was what made it so exciting. Flossie'shands were always mending or making something (generally something towear), and it was rather strange that it never occurred to such abusy person that other people might be busy too. He tried to break itto her. He told her (like a brute) that he thought all his things mustbe mended now, and that perhaps for another week he would be betterwithout any tea. And Flossie (very naturally offended) didn't put herdear little nose in at his door for two weeks. And for all you couldget through in that time it was hardly worth while offending her. 

But he was very far wrong in supposing that Flossie never thoughtabout his work. She had been thinking a great deal about it lately. One cold bright Sunday morning in November she tapped at his door andwalked in dressed for the open air. "Aren't you coming for a walk, "she said, "this lovely day?"

"Too busy. " To signify his annoyance, or to keep himself fromtemptation, he bent closer over the article he was writing for _TheMuseion_. She came and stood beside him, watching him as he worked, still with his air of passionate preoccupation. Presently he foundhimself drawn against his will into the following conversation. 

"How long does it take you to do one of those things?"

"It depends. "

"Depends on what?"

"Oh, on the amount of trouble I take over it. "

"And do they pay you any more for taking trouble?"

"No, Flossie. I'm sorry to say they frequently pay me less. "

"Then why on earth do you do it?"

This question seemed to him so curious that it caused him to look up, beholding for the first time the plump figure clothed entirely in anew suit of brown, and wearing on its head a fascinating hat made ofsomething that resembled fur. He tried to look at it with disapproval, while his mind dealt independently with the amazing question put tohim. 

"Well, Flossie, if you really care anything about style--"

"Style?" She stroked down the front of her jacket with a deliciousmovement of her little hands. "Don't you like it?"

He smiled. "I adore it. It makes you look like a dear little brownBeaver, as you are. " "The Beaver" was only one of the many names hehad for her; it was suggested irresistibly by her plumpness, hersingularly practical intelligence, and her secretive ways. 

"Then what do you mean by style?" asked the Beaver in a challengingtone that forced him to lay down his pen. 

"What do I mean by style?" He explained, moved by the mad lust formystification which seizes a man in the presence of adorablesimplicity. "I don't mean anything in the least resembling a Beaver'scoat (there really isn't any style about a Beaver's coat). And if youwant me to say it's the clothing of your thoughts, I won't. The lessclothing they have the better. It can't be treated as a Beaver treatsits coats. You can put it on and off (I was putting it on when youcame in and interrupted me); and you can mend it, and brush it up abit; but you can't measure it, or make it to order, and when it wearsout you can't get another where you got the first. Style isn't theclothing, it's the body of your thoughts, my Beaver; and in a slap-up, A 1 style, the style of the masters, _my_ style, you can't tell thebody from the soul. "

"If you'd said you couldn't tell the body from the skirt it wouldsound like sense. "

That remark was (for the Beaver) really so witty that he leaned backin his chair and laughed at it. But the Beaver was in no laughinghumour. "Look here, " she said, "you _say_ that if you write thosestylish things that take up such a lot of time, they only pay you lessfor them. "

"Well?"

"Well, is it fair of you to go on writing them?"

"Fair of _me_? My dear child, why not?"

"Be-_cause_, if I buy stylish things I _have_ to pay for them. AndI've been buying them long enough, just to please you. "

"I don't follow. But I suppose a Beaver has to reason backwards;because, you know, all its intelligence is in its tail. "

"Gracious, Keith! You are a silly. "

"I am not alone in my opinion. It's the opinion of some very eminentzoologists. " He drew her gently on his knee; raised her veil andlooked into her eyes. They were (as he had often had occasion tonotice) of so deep and black a black that the iris was indistinguishablefrom the pupil, and this blackness limited the range of their expression. They could only tell you what Flossie was feeling, never what she wasthinking; for thought requires a translucent medium, and the light ofFlossie's eyes was all on the surface. On the other hand, the turnsand movements of her body were always a sufficient indication of theattitude of her mind. At the present moment, sitting on Keith's knee, her pose was not one of pure complacency. But holding her there, thatlittle brown Beaver, his own unyielding virile body deliciously awareof the strange, incredible softness of hers, he wondered whether itwere possible for him to feel anything but tender to a creature sostrangely and pathetically made. Positively she seemed to melt andgrow softer by sheer contact; and presently she smiled a sweetdiminutive smile that didn't uncover more than two of her littlewhite teeth. 

"Oh, what a shame it is to treat a Beaver so!" said he. 

"When are you going to take me for a nice walk?" said she. "Any timebefore Christmas?"

"Perhaps. But you mustn't build on it. "

"I don't see that I can build on anything at this rate. "

"I suppose a Beaver can't be happy unless it's always building? That'swhy some people say it hasn't any intelligence at all. They won't evenallow that it can build. They think its architectural talent is all adelusion and a sham; because it builds in season and out of season. Keep it in your study, and it will make a moat round the hearthrugwith tobacco pouches and manuscripts and boots--whatever it can layits hands on. It will even take the ideas out of a man's head, if itcan't find anything better. Is there any logic in an animal that cando that?" And if Flossie did not understand the drift of these remarksat least she seemed to understand the kisses that punctuated them. 

But before very long he obtained more light on the Beaver's logic, andowned that it was singularly sound. They managed to put in a greatmany nice walks between that Sunday and Christmas. Whenever he couldspare time Rickman made a point of meeting Flossie at the end of herday's work. He generally waited at the corner where the longwindowless wall of the Bank stretches along Prince's Street, iron andimplacable. It was too cold now to sit under the shadow of St. Paul's. Sometimes they would walk home along Holborn, sometimes they would godown Ludgate Hill and thence on to the Embankment. It was certainlybetter for Flossie to be out of doors than in the dingy drawing-roomin Tavistock Place. They could talk freely in the less crowdedthorough-fares; and it was surprising the things they still found tosay to each other all about nothing. Every trace of Flossie'sdepression had vanished; she walked with a brisk step, she chattedgaily, she laughed the happiest laughter at the poorest jokes. All wasgoing well; and why, oh why could he not let well alone?

They were walking on the Embankment one day, and she, for such acorrect little person, was mad with mirth, when he broke out. "Flossie, you little lunatic! You might be going to marry astock-broker instead of a journalist. "

"I'm going to marry a very rich man--for me. "

"For you, darling? A devilish poor one, I'm afraid. "

"Oh don't! We've said enough about that. "

"Yes, but I haven't told you everything. Do you know, I might havebeen fairly well off by now, if I'd only chosen. "

Now there was no need whatever for him to make that revelation. He wasdriven to it by vanity. He wanted to make an impression. He wantedFlossie to see him in all his moral beauty. 

"How was that?" she asked with interest. 

"I can't tell you much about it. It was something to do with business. I got an offer of a thumping big partnership three years ago--and Irefused it. "

He had made an impression. Flossie turned on him a look of wonder, alook uncertain and inscrutable. "What did you do that for?"

"I did it because it was right. I didn't like the business. "

"That's not quite the same thing, is it?"

"Not always. It happened to be in this case. "

"Why, what sort of business was it?"

"It wasn't scavenging, and it wasn't burglary--exactly. It was--" hehesitated--"only the second-hand book-trade. "

"I know--they make a lot of money that way. "

"They make too much for my taste sometimes. Besides--"

"Besides what?" They had turned into an embrasure of the parapet todiscuss this question. They stood close together looking over theriver. 

"It isn't my trade. I'm only a blooming journalist. "

"You don't make so very much out of that, do you? Is that the reasonwhy we have to wait?"

"I'm afraid so. But I hope I shall be something more than a journalistsome day. "

"You _like_ writing, don't you?"

"Yes, Flossie; I shouldn't be much good at it, if I didn't. "

"I see. " She was looking eastwards away from him, and her expressionhad changed; but it was still inscrutable. And yet by the turning ofher head, he saw her mind moving towards a conclusion; but it wasimpossible to say whether she reached it by the slow process ofinduction, or by woman's rapid intuition. Anyhow she had reached it. Presently she spoke again. "Could you still get that thing, thatpartnership any time--if you tried?"

"Any time. But I'm not going to try. "

She turned round abruptly with an air of almost fierce determination. "Well, if _I_ get an offer of a good place, _I_ shan't refuse it. Ishall leave the Bank. " She spoke as if so desperate a step would befollowed by the instantaneous collapse of that institution. 

He was surprised to find how uneasy this threat always made him. Theproverbial safety of the Bank had impressed him in more ways than one. And Flossie's post there had other obvious advantages. It brought herinto contact with women of a better class than her own, with smallrefinements, and conventions which were not conspicuous at Mrs. Downey's. 

"Let me implore you not to do that. Heaven knows, I hate you having toearn your own living at all, but I'd rather you did it that way thanany other. "

"Why, what difference would it make to you, I should like to know?"

"It makes all the difference if I know you're doing easy work, notslaving yourself to death as some girls do. It _is_ an easy berth. And--and I like the look of those girls I saw you with to-day. Theywere nice. I'd rather think of you working with them than sitting insome horrible office like a man. Promise me you won't go looking outfor anything else. "

"All right. I promise. "

"No, but--on your honour?"

"Honour bright. There! Anything for a quiet life. "

They turned on to the street again. Rickman looked at his watch. "Lookhere, we're both late for dinner--supposing we go and dine somewhereand do a theatre after, eh?"

"Oh no--we mustn't. " All the same Flossie's eyes brightened, for shedearly loved the play. 

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think perhaps you ought to. "

"You mean I can't afford it?"

"Well--"

"Oh, I fancy even a journalist's income will run to that. "

It did run to that and to a hansom afterwards, though Flossieprotested, dragging at his arm. 

"I'd rather walk, " said she, "indeed I would. "

"Nonsense. Come, bundle in. "

"Please--please let me walk. " He helped her in and closed the apronsharply. He was annoyed. That was the second time she had insisted onhis poverty. He thought she had a little too much the air of preparingherself to be a poor man's wife. Of course it was pretty of her; buthe thought it would have been prettier still if she had let it alone. 

Now Flossie had never thought of him as a poor man before to-night;but somehow the idea of the good income he might have had and hadn'tmade him appear poor by comparison. She lay back in the hansommeditating. "If you could only write a play like that, Keith, what alot of money you'd make. "

"Shouldn't I? But then, you see, I couldn't write a play like that. "

"Rubbish. I don't believe that author--what d'you call him?--is sovery much cleverer than you. "

"Thanks. " He bowed ironically. 

"Well, I mean it. And look how they clapped him--why, they made asmuch fuss about him as any of the actors. I say, wouldn't you like tohear them calling 'Author! Author!'? And then clapping!"

"H'm!"

"Oh, wouldn't you love it just; you needn't pretend! Look there, Ideclare I've split my glove. " (That meant, as Flossie had calculated, a new pair that _she_ should not have to pay for. )

"If _you_ clapped me I would, Flossie. I should need all theconsolation I could get if I'd written as bad a play. "

"Well, if that was a bad play, I'd like to see a good one. "

"I'll take you to a good one some day. "

"Soon?"

"Well, I'm afraid not very soon. " He smiled; for the play he thoughtof taking her to was not yet written; would never be written if manyof his evenings were like this. But to Flossie, meditating, his wordsbore only one interpretation--that Keith was really very much worseoff than she had taken him to be. 

As they lingered on the doorstep in Tavistock Place, a young manapproached them in a deprecating manner from the other side of thestreet, and took off his hat to Flossie. 

"Hallo, Spinks!" said Rickman. 

"That you, Razors?" said Spinks. 

"It is. What are you doing here?"

"Oh nothing. I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd have a lookat the old place. "

"Come in, will you? (If they don't come, Flossie, I shall _have_ touse my latch-key. ")

"Not to-night, thanks, it's a bit too late. I'd better be going. " Buthe did not go. 

"I hope, " said Flossie politely, "you're comfortable where you arenow?"

"Oh, very comfortable, very comfortable indeed. " Yet his voice had amelancholy sound, and under the gas-light his face (a face notspecially designed for pathos) looked limp and utterly dejected. 

"I think, Keith, " said Flossie, "you'd better ring again. " Ringing wasa concession to propriety that Flossie insisted on and he approved. Herang again; and Mrs. Downey in a beautiful wrapper herself opened thedoor. At the sight of Spinks she gave a joyful exclamation and invitedhim into the hall. They left him there. 

"What's up?" asked Rickman as they parted on his landing. 

"Who with? Sidney? I can't tell you--really. "

"I wonder why he left. "

"I can't tell you that, either. " They said good-night at the foot ofthe stairs, and she kissed him laughing. And the two men heard itechoing in their dreams, that mysterious laughter of woman, which isas the ripple over the face of the deep. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

Isaac Rickman stood in his front shop at the close of a slack winterday. He looked about him with a gaze uncheered by the contemplation ofhis plate-glass and mahogany; and as he looked he gathered his beardinto a serious meditative hand, not as of old, but with a certainagitation in the gesture. 

Isaac was suffering from depression; so was the book-trade. Every yearthe pulse of business beat more feebly, and in the present year, eighteen ninety-six, it was almost standing still. Isaac had seen thelittle booksellers one by one go under, but their failure put no heartinto him; and now the wave of depression was swallowing him up too. Hehad not got the grip of the London book-trade; he would never buildany more Gin Palaces of Art; he had not yet freed himself from thepower of Pilkington; and more than all his depression the mortgage ofthe Harden Library weighed heavily on his soul. The Public in which hetrusted had grown tricky; and he found that even capital andincomparable personal audacity are powerless against the malignity ofevents. 

For his own part Isaac dated his decline from the hour of his son'sdefection. He had not been brought to this pass by any rashness inspeculation, or by any flaw whatever in his original scheme. But hisoriginal scheme had taken for granted Keith's collaboration. He hadcalculated to a nicety what it would cost him to build up hisfortunes; and all these calculations had been based on the union ofhis own borrowed capital with Keith's brilliant brains. And Keith withunimaginable perfidy had removed himself and his brilliant brains atthe crisis of the start. Isaac thought he had estimated prettyaccurately the value of his son's contribution; but it was only inthe actual experiment of separation that he realized the difference ithad made. 

The immediate effect of the blow was to paralyse the second-handdepartment. As far as new books went Isaac was fairly safe. If thePublic was tricky he was generally up to its tricks. But withsecond-hand books you never knew where you were, not unless you hadmade a special study of the subject. Owing to his defective educationhe had always been helpless in the second-hand shop; liable at anymoment to be over-reached by one of those innocent, lantern-jawedstudent fellows who go poking their noses everywhere. 

And in buying he was still more at a disadvantage. He had grownnervous in the auction-room; he never knew what to do there, and whenhe did it, it was generally wrong. He would let himself be outbiddenwhere Keith would have carried all before him by a superb if recklesspersistence. 

But if business was at its worst in the second-hand department, in thefront shop there was a sense of a sadder and more personal desolation. Rickman's was no longer sought after. It had ceased to be therendezvous of affable young men from Fleet Street and the Temple. Thecustomers who came nowadays were of another sort, and the tone of thebusiness was changing for the worse. The spirit, that somethingilluminating, intimate, and immortal, had perished from the place. 

At first Isaac had not been able to take its departure seriously. Hehad never really grasped the ground of that disagreement with his son;he had put it all down to "some nonsense about a woman"; and certainhints dropped by Pilkington supported him in that belief. Keith, hehad said to himself, would come back when his belly pinched him. Everyday he looked to see him crawling through the big swinging doors onthat empty belly. When he did it, Isaac meant to take him backinstantly, unquestioned, unreproved and unreproached. His triumphwould be so complete that he could afford that magnanimity. But Keithhad not come back; he had never put his nose inside the shop from thatday to this. He called to see his father now and again on a Sunday(for Isaac no longer refused to admit him into his house); and then, as if in obedience to the holy conventions that ruled in the littlevilla at Ilford in Essex, no allusion was made to the business thathad driven them apart. In the same spirit Isaac sternly refrained frominquiring into the state of Keith's finances; but from his personalappearance he gathered that, if Keith returned to the shop, it wouldnot be hunger that would send him there. And if the young man's mannerhad not suggested the unlikelihood of his return, a hint to thateffect was conveyed by his clothes. They were the symbols ofprosperity, nay more, of a social advance that there could be no goingback upon. Isaac had only to look at him to realize his separation. The thing was monstrous, incomprehensible, but certain. But it was inKeith's gaze (the gaze which he could never meet, so disturbing was itin its luminous sincerity) that he read the signs of a more profoundand spiritual desertion. 

Isaac stood pondering these things in the front shop, at the hour ofclosing. As he moved drearily away, the lights were turned out one byone behind him, the great iron shutters went up with a clang, and itwas dark in Rickman's. 

That evening, instead of hailing a Liverpool Street 'bus, he crossedthe Strand and walked up Bow Street, and so into Bloomsbury. It wasthe first time for four years that he had called in Tavistock Place. He used to go up alone to the boarding-house drawing-room, and waitthere till Keith appeared and took him into his bedroom on the secondfloor. Now his name brought an obsequious smile to the maid's face;she attended him upstairs and ushered him with ceremony into aluxurious library. Keith was writing at a table strewn withmanuscripts, and he did not look up all at once. The lamp-light fellon his fair head and boyish face, and Isaac's heart yearned towardshis son. He held out his hand and smiled after his fashion, but saidno word. 

The grip of the eager young hand gave him hope. 

Keith drew up two chairs to the fire. The chairs were very deep, verylarge, very low, comfortable beyond Isaac's dreams of comfort. Keithlay back in his, graceful in his abandoned attitude; Isaac sat up verystraight and stiff, crushing in his knees the soft felt hat that madehim look for ever like a Methodist parson. 

His eyes rested heavily on the littered table. "Well, " he said, "howlong have you been at it?"

"Oh, ever since nine in the morning--"

(Longer hours than he had in the shop); "--and--I've two more hours toput through still. " (And yet he had received him gladly. )

"It doesn't look quite as easy as making catalogues. "

"It isn't. "

Isaac had found the opening he desired. "I should think all thisliterary work was rather a 'eavy strain. "

"It does make you feel a bit muzzy sometimes, when you're at it frommorning to night. "

"Is the game worth the candle? Is it worth it? Have you made yourfortune at it?"

"Not yet. "

"Well--I gave you three years. "

Keith smiled. "What did you give me them for? To make my fortune in?"

"To learn common-sense in. "

Keith laughed. "It wasn't enough for that. You should have given methree hundred, at the very least!"

The laugh was discouraging, and Isaac felt that he was on the wrongtack. 

"I'd give you as many as you like, if I could afford to wait. But Iconsider I've waited long enough already. "

"What were you waiting for?"

"For you to come back--"

Keith's face was radiant with innocent inquiry. 

"--To come back into the business. "

The light of innocence died out of the face as suddenly as it hadkindled. 

"My dear father, I shall never come back. I thought I'd made that veryclear to you. "

"You never made it clear--your behaviour to me. Not but what I 'ad anidea, which perhaps I need not name. I've never asked what there wasat the bottom of that foolish business, and I've never blamed you forit. If it made you act badly to me, I've reason to believe it kept youout of worse mischief. "

Keith felt a queer tightening at the heart. He understood that hisfather was referring darkly to Lucia Harden. He was surprised to findthat even this remote and shadowy allusion was more than he couldbear. He must call him off that trail; and the best way of doing itwas to announce his engagement. 

"As you seem to be rather mixed, father, I ought to tell you that I'mengaged to be married. Have been for the last eighteen months. "

"Married?" Isaac's face was tense with anxiety; for he could not tellwhat this news meant for him; whether it would remove his son fartherfrom him, or bring him, beyond all expectation, near. 

"May I ask who the lady is? Any of your fine friends in Devonshire?"

Keith was silent, tongue-tied with presentiment of the coming blow. Itcame. 

"I needn't ask. It's that--that Miss 'Arden. _I_'ve heard of her. "

"As it happens it's somebody you haven't heard of. You may have seenher, though--Miss Flossie Walker. "

"No. I've never seen her, not to my knowledge. How long have you knownher?"

"Ever since I came here. She's one of the boarders. "

"Ah-h. Has she any means?"

"None. "

Isaac's heart leapt high. 

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"How can I, when I haven't seen the lady?"

"You would, if you _had_ seen her. "

"And when is it to be? Like most young people, you're a bit impatient, I suppose?"

Keith betrayed the extremity of his impatience by a painful flush. This subject of his marriage was not to be approached without acertain shame. 

"I suppose so; and like most young people we shall have to wait. "

Isaac's eyes narrowed and blinked in the manner of a man uncertain ofhis focus; as it happened, he was just beginning to see. 

"Ah--that's what's wearing you out, is it?"

"I'm beginning to get a bit sick of it, I own. "

"What's she like to look at it, this young lady? Is she pretty?"

"Very. "

A queer hungry look came over the boy's face. Isaac had seen that lookthere once or twice before. His lips widened in a rigid smile; he hadto moisten them before they would stretch. He was profoundly moved byKeith's disclosure, by the thought of that imperishable and untameabledesire. It held for him the promise of his own continuance. It stirredin him the strange fury of his fatherhood, a fatherhood destructiveand malign, that feeds on the life of children. As he looked at hisson his sickly frame trembled before that embodiment of passion andvigour and immortal youth. He longed to possess himself of thesethings, of the superb young intellect, of the abounding life, topossess himself and live. 

And he would possess them. Providence was on his side. Providence hadguided him. He could not have chosen his moment better; he had come ata crisis in Keith's life. He knew the boy's nature; after all, hewould be brought back to him by hunger, the invincible, implacablehunger of the flesh. 

"Your mother was pretty. But she lost her looks before I could marryher. I had to wait for her; so I know what you're going through. But Ifancy waiting comes harder on you than it did on me. "

"It does, " said Keith savagely. "Every day I think I'll marryto-morrow and risk it. But, " he added in a gentler tone, "that mightcome hard on her. "

"You _could_ marry to-morrow, if you'd accept the proposal I came tomake to you. "

Keith gave a keen look at his father. He had been touched by the bentfigure, the wasted face; the evident signs of sickness and suffering. He had resolved to be very tender with him. But not even pity couldblind him to the detestable cunning of that move. It revolted him. Hehad not yet realized that the old man was fighting for his life. 

"I'm not open to any proposals, " he said coldly. "I've chosen myprofession, and I mean to stick to it. "

"That's all very well; but you should 'ave a solid standby, over andabove. "

"Literature doesn't leave much room for anything over and above. "

"That's where you're making a mistake. Wot you want is variety ofoccupation. There's no reason why you shouldn't combine literaturewith a more profitable business. "

"I can't make it combine with any business at all. "

"Well, I can understand your being proud of your profession. "

"Can you understand my profession being proud of me?"

Isaac smiled. Yes, he could well understand it. 

"And, " said he, "I can understand your objection to the shop. "

"I haven't any objection to the shop. "

"Well--then there's no reason why we shouldn't come to an agreement. If I don't mind owning that I can't get on without your help, youmight allow that you'd get on a bit better with mine. "

"Why, _aren't_ you getting on, father?"

"Well, considering that my second-'and business depended on youentirely--and that that's where the profits are to be madenowadays--That's where I'm 'andicapped. I can't operate withoutknowledge; and from hour to hour I've never any seecurity that I'm notbeing cheated. "

Isaac would gladly have recalled that word. Keith met it with silence, a silence more significant than any speech; charged as it was withreminiscence and reproof. 

"Now, what I propose--"

"Please don't propose anything. I--I--I can't do what you want. "

Keith positively stammered in his nervous agitation. 

"Wait till you hear what I want. I'm not going to ask you to makecatalogues, or stand behind the counter, or, " he added almost humbly, "to do anything a gentleman doesn't do. " He looked round the room. Thematerials of the furnishing were cheap; but Keith had appeased hissense of beauty in the simplicity of the forms and the broad harmonyof the colours. Isaac was impressed and a little disheartened by therefinement of his surroundings, a refinement that might be fatal tohis enterprise. "You shall 'ave your own private room fitted up on thefirst floor, with a writing table, and a swivel chair. You needn'tcome into contact with customers at all. All I want is to 'ave you onthe spot to refer to. I want you to give me the use of those brains ofyours. Practically you'd be a sleeping partner; but we should 'alveprofits from the first. "

"Thanks--thanks" (his voice seemed to choke him)--"it's awfully goodand--and generous of you. But I can't. "

"Why not?"

"I've about fifteen reasons. One's enough. I don't like the business, and I won't have anything to do with it. "

"You--don't--like--the business?" said Isaac, with the air ofconsidering an entirely new proposition. 

"No. I don't like it. "

"I am going to raise the tone of the business. That's wot I want youfor. To raise the tone of the business. "

"I should have to raise the tone of the British public first. "

"Well--an intelligent bookseller has a good deal of influence withcustomers; and you with your reputation, there's nothing you couldn'tdo. You could make the business anything you chose. In a few years weshould be at the very head of the trade. I don't deny that the househas been going down. There's been considerable depression. Still, Ishould be in a very different position now, Keith, if you hadn't leftme. And in the second-hand department--_your_ department--there arestill enormous--e_nor_mous--profits to be made. "

"That's precisely why I object to my department, as you call it. Idon't approve of those enormous profits. "

"Now look 'ere. Let's have a quiet talk. We never have 'ad, for youwere always so violent. If you'd stated your objections to me in aquiet reasonable manner, there'd never have been any misunderstanding. Supposing you explain why you object to those profits. "

"I object, because in nine cases out of ten they're got by trading onanother person's ignorance. "

"Of course they are. Why not? If he's ignorant, it's only fair heshould pay for his ignorance; and if I'm an expert, it's fair I shouldget an expert's profits. It's all a question of buying and selling. Hecan't sell what he hasn't got; and I can't sell what I haven't got. Supposing I've got knowledge that he hasn't--if I can't make a profitout of _that_, what can I make a profit out of?"

"I can't say. My own experience of the business was unfortunate. Itstruck me, if you remember, that some of your profits meant uncommonlysharp practice. "

"Talk of ignorance! Really, for a clever fellow, Keith, you talk adeal of folly. There's sharp practice in every trade--in your owntrade, if it comes to that. Supposing you write a silly book, and someof your friends boom it high and low, and the Public buys it for awork of genius--well--aren't you making a profit out of other people'signorance? Of course you are. "

"I haven't made _much_ profit that way--yet. "

"Because you're unbusiness-like. Well. I'm perfectly willing tobelieve your objections are conscientious. But look at it another way. I'm a God-fearing, religious-minded man" (unconsciously he caressedhis soft hat, the hat of a Methodist parson, as he spoke), "is itlikely I'd continue in any business I couldn't reconcile to myconscience?"

"I've no doubt you've reconciled it to your conscience. That's hardlya reason why I should reconcile it to mine. "

"That means that you'll let me be ruined for want of a little advicewhich I'd 'ave paid you well for?"

"If my advice is all you want, you can have it any day for nothing. "

"Wot you get for nothing is worth just about wot you get it for. No. Mine was a fair business proposal, and either you come into it or youstay out. "

"Most decidedly I prefer--to stay out. "

"Then, " said Isaac suddenly, "I shall have to give up the shop. "

"I'm most awfully sorry. "

"There's no good your being sorry if you won't help me. "

"I would help you--if I could. "

"If you could!" He paused. Prudence plucked him by the sleeve, whispering that never while he lived must he breathe the wordInsolvency; but a wilder instinct urged him to disclosure. "Why--itrests with you to keep me out of the Bankruptcy Court. "

Keith said nothing. He had held out against the appeal to hisappetites; it was harder to withstand this call on his finer feelings. But if the immediate effect of the news was to shock and distress him, the next instant he was struggling with a shameful reflection. For allhis shame it was impossible not to suspect his father of some deeper, more complicated ruse. 

Isaac sat very still, turning on his son a look of concentratedresentment. Keith's youth was hateful to him now; it withheldpitilessly, implacably, the life that it was in its hands to give. Meanwhile Keith wrestled with his suspicion and overcame it. 

"Look here, father, I'll do what I can. I'll come round to-morrow andlook into things for you, if that's any good. "

The instant he had made the offer he was aware of its futility. It wasnot for his business capacity that he was valued; and he never hadbeen permitted to interfere with the finances of the shop. Thesuggestion roused his father to a passion that partook of terror. 

"Look into things?" He rose trembling. "You mind your own business. Ican look into things myself. There'd 'ave been no need to look intothem at all if you 'adn't robbed and deceived me. Robbed and deceivedme, I said. You took your education--which _I_ gave _you_ to put into_my_ business--you took it out of the business, and set up with it onyour own account. And I tell you you might as well 'ave made off witha few thousands out of my till. Robbing's wot _you've_ been guilty ofin the sight of God; and you can come and talk to me about yourconscience. I don't understand your kind of conscience--Keith. " Therewas still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son's name. 

"Perhaps not, " said Keith sorrowfully. "I don't understand it myself. "

He walked with his father to Holborn, silently, through the drizzlingrain. He held an umbrella over him, while they waited, stillsilently, for the Liverpool Street omnibus. He noticed with someanxiety that the old man walked queerly, shuffling and trailing hisleft foot, that he had difficulty in mounting the step of the omnibus, and was got into his seat only after much heaving and harrying on thepart of the conductor. His face and attitude, as he sank crouchinginto his seat, were those of a man returning from the funeral of hislast hope. 

And in Keith's heart there was sorrow, too, as for something dead anddeparted. 

CHAPTER XLIX

If, much to Rickman's regret, Flossie did not take kindly to MissRoots, very soon after her engagement she discovered her bosom friendin Miss Ada Bishop. The friendship was not founded, as are so manyfeminine attachments, upon fantasy or caprice, but rested securely onthe enduring commonplace. If Flossie respected Ada because of herknowledge of dress, and her remarkable insight into the ways ofgentlemen, Ada admired Flossie because of the engagement, which, afterall, was not (like some girls' engagements) an airy possibility or afiction, but an accomplished fact. 

This attachment, together with the firm possession of Keith, helped totide Flossie over the tedium of waiting. Only one thing was wanting tocomplete her happiness, and even that the thoughtful gods provided. 

About six o'clock one evening, as Rickman was going out of the house, he was thrust violently back into the passage by some one coming in. It was young Spinks; and the luggage that he carried in his hand gavea frightful impetus to his entry. At the sight of Rickman he let go ahat-box, an umbrella and a portmanteau, and laid hold of him by bothhands. 

"Razors--what luck! I say, I've gone and done it. Chucked them--hookedit. Stood it eighteen months--couldn't stand it any longer. On my soulI couldn't. But it's all right--I'll explain. "

"Explain what? To whom, you God-forsaken lunatic?"

"Sh--sh--sh! To you. For Heaven's syke don't talk so loud. They'llhear you. You haven't got a train you want to catch, or anappointment, have you?"

"I haven't got a train, but I have got an appointment. "

"You might spare a fellow five minutes, ten minutes, can't you? Ishan't keep you more than ten at the outside. There's something I musttell you; but I can't do it here. And _not there_!" As Rickman openedthe dining-room door Spinks drew back with a gesture of abhorrence. Hethen made a dash for the adjoining room; but retired precipitatelybackwards. "Oh damn! That's somebody's bedroom, now. How could _I_tell?"

"Look here, if you're going to make an ass of yourself, you'd bettercome up to my room and do it quietly. "

"Thanks, I've got a room somewhere; but I don't know which it is yet. "

Rickman could only think that the youth had broken his habit ofsobriety. He closed the study door discreetly, lit the lamp and took agood look at him. He fancied he caught a suggestion of melancholy inthe corners of his mouth and the lines of his high angular nose. Butthere was no sign of intoxication in Sidney's clear grey eye, nortrace of wasting emotion in his smooth shaven cheek. Under thesearching lamp-light he looked almost as fresh, as pink, as callow, ashe had done four years ago. He dropped helplessly into a low chair. Rickman took a seat opposite him and waited. While not under thedirect stimulus of nervous excitement, young Spinks had somedifficulty in finding utterance. At last he spoke. 

"I say, you must think I've acted in a very queer way. "

"Queer isn't the word for it. It's astounding. "

"D'you really think so? You mean I 'adn't any rights--it--it wasn'tfair to you--to come back as I've done?"

"Well, I don't know about its being very fair; it certainly wasn'tvery safe. "

"Safe? Safe? Ah--I was afraid you'd think that. Won't you let meexplain?"

"Certainly. I should like to know your reasons for running into melike a giddy locomotive. "

"Well, but I can't explain anything if you go on rotting like that. "

"All right. Only look sharp. I've got to meet a fellow in Baker Streetat seven. If you'll get under weigh we might finish off theexplanation outside, if you're going back that way. "

"Going back. Oh Lord--don't you know that I've come back here to stay. I've got a room--"

"Oh, that's the explanation, is it?"

"No, that's the thing I've got to explain. I thought you'd think I'dacted dishonourably in--in following her like this. But I couldn'tstand it over there without her. I tried, but on my soul I couldn't. Ishall be all right if I can only see her sometimes, at meals and--andso forth. I shan't say a word. I haven't said a word. I don't eventhink she knows; and if she did--So it's perfectly safe, you know, Rickman, it's perfectly safe. "

"Who doesn't know what? And if who did?" roared Rickman, overcome withlaughter. 

"Sh--sh--sh--Flossie. I mean--M--miss Walker. "

Rickman stopped laughing and looked at young Spinks with somethinglike compassion. "I say, old chap, what do you mean?"

"I mean that I should have gone off my chump if I'd hung on at thatplace. I couldn't get her out of my mind, not even in the shop. I usedto lie awake at nights, thinking of her. And then, you know--Icouldn't eat. "

"In fact, you were pretty bad, were you?"

"Oh, well, I just chucked it up and came here. It's all right, Razors;you needn't mind. I never had a chance with her. She never gave me somuch as a thought. Not a thought. It's the queerest thing. I couldn'ttell you how I got into this state--I don't know myself. Only nowshe's engaged and so forth, you might think that--well, you mightthink"--young Spinks had evidently come to the most delicate andcomplicated part of his explanation--"well, that I'd no right to go ongetting into states. But when it doesn't make any difference to her, and it can't matter to you--" He paused; but Rickman gathered thatwhat he wished to plead was that in those circumstances he was clearlywelcome to his "state. " "I mean that if it's all up with me, you know, it's all right--I mean, it's safe enough--for you. "

Poor Spinks became lost in the maze of his own beautiful sentiments. Adoration for Rickman (himself the soul of honour) struggled blindlywith his passion for Flossie Walker. But the thought, which his brainhad formed, which his tongue refused to utter, was that thehopelessness of his passion made it no disloyalty to his friend. "Itcan make no difference to her, my being here, " he said simply. 

"Nonsense, you've as much right to be here as I have. "

"Yes, but under the circumstances, it mightn't have been perfectlyfair to you. See?"

"My dear Spinky, it's perfectly fair to me; but is it--you won't mindme suggesting it--is it perfectly fair to yourself?"

Spinks sat silent for a minute, laying his hand upon the place of, thought, as if trying to take that idea in. "Yes, " he saiddeliberately. "That's all right. In fact, nothing else will do mybusiness. It sounds queer; but that's the only way to get her out ofmy head. You see, when I see her I don't think about her; but when Idon't see her I can't think of anything else. "

Rickman was interested. It struck him that latterly he had beenaffected in precisely the opposite way. It was curious to compareyoung Sidney's sensations with his own. He forgot all about the man inBaker Street. 

"I don't mean to say I shall ever get over it. When a man goes throughthis sort of business it leaves its mark on him somewhere. " And indeedit seemed to have stamped an expression of permanent foolishness onSpinks's comely face. 

Rickman smiled even while he sympathized. "Yes, I daresay. I'm sorry, old man; but if I were you I wouldn't be too down in the mouth. It'snot worth it--I mean; after all, there are other things besides womenin the world. It wouldn't be a bad place even if there weren't anywomen in it. Life is good, " said the engaged man. "You had betterdress for dinner. " He could give no richer consolation without seemingto depreciate the unique value of Flossie. As for Spinks's presentdetermination, he thought it decidedly risky for Spinks; but if Spinksenjoyed balancing himself in this way on the edge of perdition it wasno business of his. 

As it happened, the event seemed to prove that Spinks knew very wellwhat he was about. The callow youth had evidently hit on the righttreatment for his own disease. In one point, however, his modesty haddeceived him. His presence was far from being a matter of indifferenceto Flossie. A rejected lover is useful in so many ways. It may be atriumph to make one man supremely happy; but the effect isconsiderably heightened if you have at the same time made another mansupremely wretched. Flossie found that the spectacle of young Sidney'sdejection restored all its first fresh piquancy to her engagement. AtTavistock Place he more than justified his existence. True, he did notremain depressed for very long, and there was something not altogetherflattering in the high rebound of his elastic youth; but, as MissBishop was careful to point out, his joyous presence would have a mostsalutary effect in disturbing that prosaic sense of security in whichgentlemen's affections have been known to sleep. 

But Spinks was destined to serve the object of his infatuation in yetanother way. 

It was in the second spring after Rickman's engagement. Flossie andAda were in the drawing-room one half hour before dinner, puttingtheir heads together over a new fashion-book. 

"Shouldn't wonder, " said Miss Bishop, "if you saw me coming out in oneof these Gloriana coats this spring. I shall get a fawn. Fawn's mycolour. "

"I must say I love blue. I think I'm almost mad about blue; any shadeof blue, I don't care what it is. I know I can't go wrong about acolour. But then there's the style--" Flossie's fingers turned overthe pages with soft lingering touches, while her face expressed thegravest hesitation. "Keith likes me best in these stiff tailor-madethings; but I can't bear them. I like more of a fancy style. "

"I see you do, " said Miss Bishop solemnly. 

"Yes, that's because she's a bit of a fancy article herself, " murmureda voice from the back drawing-room, where Mr. Spinks had concealedhimself behind a curtain, and now listened with a voluptuous sense ofunlawful initiation. 

"I sy, we shall have to stop, if he _will_ keep on listening thatwy. "

"Don't stop, please, Miss Ada. There, I've got my fingers in my ears. On my honour, I have. You can talk as many secrets as you like now. Ican't hear a word. "

The two girls dropped their voices to a low impassioned monotone. 

"You've got to dress for somebody else besides yourself now--anengaged young lady. "

"Oh, I don't know that he takes so much notice. But he's given me lotsof things, besides my ring. I'm to have a real silver belt--aRussian--next birthday. "

"I sy, he's orf'ly good to you, you know. Some gentlemen get socareless once they're sure of you. D'you know, we all think you actedso honourable, giving out your engagement as soon as it was on. Whendo you think you'll be married?"

"I can't say. I don't know yet. Never, I think, as long as I'm in thatold Bank. "

Even with his fingers in his ears, young Sidney heard that voice, andbefore he could stop himself he was listening again. 

"Don't you like it?" said Miss Bishop. 

"No. I hate it. "

Spinks gave a cough; and Miss Bishop began reading to herself inostentatious silence, till the provocations of the page grewirresistible. 

"Look here, Floss, " she said excitedly. "Look at _me_. 'Fawn will bethe pree-vyling colour this year, and for morning wear a plaintailor-myde costume in palest fawn is, for 'er who can stand it, mostundeniably _chic_. '" Hitherto Miss Bishop had avoided that word (whichshe pronounced "chick") whenever she met it; but now, in its thrillingconnection with the fawn-coloured costume, it was brought home to herin a peculiarly personal manner, and she pondered. "I wish I knew whatthat word meant. It's always coming up in my magazine. "

"I think, " said Flossie, "it means something like smart. Stylish, youknow. "

Young Sidney leapt suddenly from his seat. "Go it, Flossie! Give usthe French for a nice little cup er tea. "

"Really, it's too bad we can't have a plyce to ourselves where we cantalk. I'm going. " And as Miss Bishop went she still pondered Flossie'srendering of the word _chic_. Little did any of them know what graveissues were to hang on it. 

Then Mr. Spinks emerged from his hiding-place. "Miss Walker, " he said(he considered it more honourable to call her Miss Walker now wheneverhe could think of it; only he couldn't always think), "I didn't knowyou knew the French language. "

"And why shouldn't I know it as well as other people?"

"I expect you know it a jolly sight better. Do you think, now, youcould read and write it easily?"

"I might, " said Flossie guardedly, "if I had a little practice. "

"Because, if you could--You say your're tired of the Bank?"

"I should think I _was_ tired of it. "

"Well, Flossie, do you know, a good typewriter girl who can read andwrite French can get twice as much as you're getting. "

"How do you know?"

"Girl I know told me so. She's corresponding clerk for a big firm ofwine merchants in the City. She's going to be married this autumn; andif you looked sharp, you might get her berth. "

"In a wine-merchant's shop? Mr. Rickman wouldn't hear of it. "

"It isn't a shop, you know, it's an office. You ask him. "

Flossie did not ask him; she knew a trick worth two of that. But notvery long after Mr. Spinks had made his suggestion, finding Keith verysnug in his study one evening, reading Anatole France, to his immensedelight she whispered into his ear a little shy request that some day, when he wasn't busy, he would help her a bit with her French. Thelessons were arranged for then and there, at so many kisses an hour, payable by quarterly instalments, if desired. And for several evenings(sitting very close together, as persons must sit who are looking overthe same book) they read, translating turn by turn, the delicious_Livre de Mon Ami_, until Flossie's interest was exhausted. 

"Come, I'm not going on with any more of that stuff, so you needn'tthink it. I've no time to waste, if you have; and I haven't comeacross one word in that book yet that'll be any use to me. "

"What a utilitarian Beaver!" He lay back in his chair laughing at her, as he might have laughed at the fascinating folly of a child. 

"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Savage; I'll get another French master, if you don't look out. Some one who'll teach me the way I want tolearn. "

"I'll teach you any way you like, Floss, on any system; if you'll onlyexplain what you want. What's your idea?"

"My idea's this. How would it be if you and me were to write Frenchletters to each other?"

"Rather! The Beaver's intelligence is going to its head. That's theway to learn, Floss; you'll get over the ground like winking. But youknow--I shall have to raise my terms. "

"All right. We'll see about that. "

He was delighted with her idea. That Flossie should have an idea atall was something so deliciously new and surprising; and what could bemore heartrending than these prodigious intellectual efforts, herevident fear that her limitations constituted a barrier between them?As if it mattered! As if he wanted a literary critic for his wife. Andhow brutally he had criticized _her_--as if it mattered! Still, inspite of his compunction, the French lessons were not altogether asuccess. There was too much disagreement and discussion about terms;for the master became more and more exorbitant in his charges as thedays went on, and the pupil still complained that she was learningnothing. She was thoroughly dissatisfied with his method. He wouldbreak off at the most interesting, the most instructive point, and letloose his imagination in all sorts of ridiculous histories thatfollowed from the idea of her being a Beaver; and when she desired himto tell her such simple things as the French for "Your esteemed favourto hand, " "Cheque enclosed, " "We have forwarded to you to-day as perinvoice, " he wanted to know what on earth a beaver had to do withinvoices. 

It was Spinks who explained the nature of the connection. 

Poor Spinks, who had made the suggestion with an almost suicidallyhonourable intention, was to his immense astonishment merely sworn atfor his interference. And when Flossie brought Keith his tea thatevening she found him in a most ungentlemanly humour. 

She waited demurely for a pause in the storm that raged round Spinksand his confounded wine-merchant. She cast a significant glance at thetable strewn at that moment with the rough draft of Rickman's tragedy. (Flossie couldn't understand why he could never write a thing outclearly from the first, nor why she shouldn't write it for him at hisdictation. )

"It's all very well, Keith, " said she, "but if _you_ can't do more, _I_ must. "

Before she left the room it was understood between them that Flossiewould renounce her wine-merchant, and that they would be married, ifpossible, some time in the autumn. He felt curiously shaken by thatinterview. 

He spent the evening reading over what he had written, vainly tryingto recall his inspiration, to kindle himself anew at his own flame. Last night he had had more inspiration than he could do with; hisideas had come upon him with a rush, in a singing torrent of light. His mind had been then almost intolerably luminous; now, there wastwilight on its high parts and darkness over the face of its deep. Hisideas, arrested in mid-air, had been flung down into the deep; andfrom the farther shore he caught, as it were, the flutter of a gownand the light laughter of a fugitive Muse. 

CHAPTER L

One day, four years after the publication of _Saturnalia_, Rickmanreceived a letter in an unknown hand; a woman's hand, but with afamiliar vivid signature, the signature that is to be seen beneath theportraits of Walter Fielding, the greatest among contemporary poets, the living god of Rickman's idolatry. 

 "Dear Sir, " he wrote (or rather, some woman had written for him), "I came across your Poems the other day; by chance, I must confess, and not by choice. I have something to say to you about them, and I would therefore be glad if you could call on me here, to-morrow. I say, call on me; for I am an old man, and you, if I am not mistaken, are a young one; and I say to-morrow, because the day after to-morrow I may not have that desire to see you which I feel to-day. 

 "Faithfully yours, "Walter Fielding. 

 "PS. --You had better come in time for lunch at one o'clock. "

Rickman's hand trembled as he answered that letter. All evening hesaid to himself, "To-morrow I shall see Fielding"; and the beating ofhis heart kept him awake until the dawn of the wonderful day. And ashe dressed he said to himself, "To-day I shall see Fielding. " That heshould see him was enough. He could hardly bear to think what Fieldinghad to say to him. 

He had risen early, so as to go down into Surrey on his bicycle. About noon he struck into the long golden road that goes straightacross the high moor where the great poet had built him a house. Inside his gates, a fork of the road sloped to the shore of a largelake fringed with the crimson heather. The house stood far back on aflat stretch of moor, that looked as if it had been cut with one sweepof a gigantic scythe from the sheltering pine-woods. 

He saw Fielding far off, standing at the door of his house to welcomehim. Fielding was seventy-five and he looked sixty. A strong straightfigure, not over tall nor over slender, wearing, sanely but loosely, the ordinary dress of an English gentleman. A head with strongstraight features, masses of white hair that hid the summit of theforehead, a curling moustache and beard, close-clipped, showing theline of the mouth still red as in his youth. A head to be carved insilver or bronze, its edges bitten by time, like the edges of anantique bust or coin. 

"So you've come, have you?" was his greeting which the grasp of hishand made friendly. 

He took Rickman straight into his study, where a lady sat writing at atable in the window. 

"First of all, " said he, "I must introduce you to Miss Gurney, whointroduced you to me. "

Miss Gurney rose and held out a slender feverish hand. She did notsmile (her face narrowed so abruptly below her cheekbones that therewas hardly room for a smile on it), but her eyes under their thickblack brows turned on him an eager gaze. 

Her eyes, he thought, were too piercing to be altogether friendly. Hewondered whether it was the flame in them that had consumed her faceand made it so white and small. 

She made a few unremarkable remarks and turned again to her writingtable. 

"Yes, Gertrude, you may go. "

Her sallow nervous hands had already begun gathering up her work inpreparation for the word that banished her. When it came she smiled(by some miracle), and went. 

They had a little while to wait before luncheon. The poet offeredwhisky and soda, and could hardly conceal his surprise when it wasrefused. 

"You must forgive me, " he said presently, "for never having heard ofyou till yesterday. My secretary keeps these things from me as a rule. This time she allowed herself to be corrupted. "

Rickman felt a sudden interest in Miss Gurney. 

"Your poems were sent to her by a friend of hers, with the request--amost improper one--that I should read them. I had no intention ofreading them; but I was pleased with the volume at first sight. It wasexactly the right length. "

"The right length?"

"Yes, small octavo; the very best length for making cigar lighters. "

Rickman had heard of the sardonic, the cruel humour with whichFielding scathed his contemporaries; still, he could hardly haveexpected even him to deal such a violent and devilish blow. Though heflushed with the smart he bore himself bravely under it. After all, itwas to see Fielding that he had come. 

"I am proud, " said he, "to have served so luminous a purpose. "

His readiness seemed to have disarmed the formidable Fielding. Heleaned back in his chair and looked at the young man a moment or twowithout speaking. Then the demon stirred in him again with a malignanttwinkle of his keen eyes. 

"You see I was determined to treat you honourably, as you came to methrough a friend of Miss Gurney's. But for her, you would have gonewhere your contemporaries go--into the waste-paper basket. They serveno purpose--luminous or otherwise. " He chuckled ominously. "I had theknife ready for you. But if you want to know why I paused in the deedof destruction, it was because I was fascinated, positively fascinatedby the abominations of your illustrator. And so, before I knew what Iwas doing (or I assure you I would never have done it), I had read, actually read the lines which the creature quotes at the bottom of hisfoul frontispiece. Why he quoted them I do not know--they have no moreto do with his obscenities than I have. And then--I read the poem theywere taken from. "

He paused. His pauses were deadly. 

"You have one great merit in my eyes. "

Rickman looked up with a courageous smile, prepared for anotherdouble-edged pleasantry more murderous than the last. 

"You have not imitated me. "

For one horrible moment Rickman was inspired to turn some phrase aboutthe hopelessness of imitating the inimitable. He thought better of it;but not before the old man divined his flattering intention. He shookhimself savagely in his chair. 

"Don't--please don't say what you were going to say. If you knew how Iloathe my imitators. I shouldn't have sent for you if you had been oneof them. "

His mind seemed to be diverted from his present victim by somevoluptuous and iniquitous reminiscence. Then he began again. "But youand your _Saturnalia_--Ah!"

He leant forward suddenly as he gave out the interjection like agrowl. 

"Do you know you're a very terrible young man? What do you mean bysetting my old cracked heart dancing to those detestable tunes? I wishI'd never read the d----d things. "

He threw himself back in his chair. 

"No, no; you haven't learnt any of those tunes from me. My Muse wearsa straighter and a longer petticoat; and I flatter myself she has themanners of an English gentlewoman. "

Rickman blushed painfully this time. He had no reply to make to that. 

"I didn't mean, " Fielding went on, "to talk to you about your _Saturnalia_. But _On Harcombe Hill_, and _The Song of Confession_--thoseare great poems. "

Rickman looked up, startled out of his self-possession by theunexpected words and the sudden curious vibration in the voice thatuttered them. Yet he could hardly realize that Fielding was praisinghim. 

"They moved me, " said Fielding, "as nothing moves me now, except thePsalms of David. I have been a great poet, as poets go nowadays; but"(he smiled radiantly) "the painful conviction is forced upon me thatyou will be a greater--if you live. I wanted to tell you this, because nobody else is likely to find it out until you're _dead_. Youmay make up your mind to that, my friend. "

"I had made up my mind to many things. But they don't matter--now. "

Fielding ignored the compliment. "_Has_ any one found it out? Exceptyourself?"

"Only one person. "

"Man or woman?"

He thought of Maddox, that irresponsible person. "A man. And perhapshe hardly counts. "

The old poet gave him a keen glance from his all-knowing eyes. 

"There _is_ one other person, who apparently doesn't count, either. Well, I think that was the luncheon-bell. "

On their way to the dining-room he remarked: "That's another reasonwhy I sent for you. Because I hear they've not been particularly kindto you. Don't suppose I'm going to pity you for that. "

"I don't pity myself, sir. "

"No--no--you don't. That's what I like about you, " he added, takinghis guest by the arm and steering him to his place. 

At luncheon Miss Gurney took a prominent part in the conversation, which Rickman for her sake endeavoured to divert from the enthrallingsubject of himself. But his host (perceiving with evident amusementhis modest intention) brought it up again. 

"Don't imagine, for a moment, " said he, "that Miss Gurney admires you. She hates young poets. "

Miss Gurney smiled; but as Rickman saw, more in assent than politedenial. Throughout the meal she had the air of merely tolerating hispresence there because it humoured the great man's eccentricity. Fromtime to time she looked at him with an interest in which he detected acertain fear. The fear, he gathered, was lest his coming shoulddisturb, or in any way do harm to the object of her flagrantadoration. 

After she had left the table Fielding reproached him for mixing waterwith his wine. 

"In one way, " said he, "you're a disappointment. I should havepreferred to see you drink your wine like a man. "

"Unfortunately, " said Rickman, "it's not so easy to drink it like aman, if you've ever drunk it like a beast. "

"Ah-h. You're an even more remarkable person than I thought you were, "said the poet, rising abruptly from the table. 

He proposed that they should take a walk in the garden, or rather onthe moor; for the heather ran crimson to the poet's doors, and theyoung pines stood sentinel at his windows. 

They walked slowly towards the lake. On their way there Fieldingstopped and drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with the pure, sweetair. 

"Ah! that's better. " He looked round him. "After all, we're right, Rickman. It's the poets that shall judge the world; and if _we_ sayit's beautiful, it _is_ beautiful. _And_ good. "

Happy Fielding, thought Rickman. Fielding had never suffered as he hadsuffered; _his_ dream had never been divorced from reality. It seemedfitting to the younger poet that his god should inhabit these pure andlofty spaces, should walk thus on golden roads through a land ofcrimson, in an atmosphere of crystal calm. He would have liked to talkto Fielding of Fielding; but his awe restrained him. 

Fielding's mind did not wander long from his companion. "Let me see, "said he, "do you follow any trade or profession?" He added with asmile, "besides your own?"

"I'm a journalist. " Rickman mentioned his connection with _TheMuseion_ and _The Planet_. 

"Ah, I knew there was an unlucky star somewhere. Well, at any rate, you won't have to turn your Muse on to the streets to get your living. But a trade's better than a profession; and a craft's better than atrade. It doesn't monopolize the higher centres. I certainly had theimpression that you had been in trade. "

Rickman wondered who could have given it to him. Miss Gurney's friend, he supposed. But who was Miss Gurney's friend? A hope came to himthat made his heart stand still. But he answered calmly. 

"I was. I worked for two years in a second-hand bookshop as abibliographical expert; and before that I stood behind the countermost of my time. "

"Why did you leave it? You weren't ashamed of your trade?"

"Not of my trade, but of the way I had to follow it. I'm not ashamedof working for Mr. Horace Jewdwine. "

He brought the name in awkwardly. In bringing it in at all he had somevague hope that it might lead Fielding to disclose the identity of thefriend. Horace Jewdwine was a link; if his name were familiar toFielding there would be no proof perhaps, but a very strongpresumption that what he hoped was true. 

"He is a friend of yours?"

"Yes. " His hope leapt high; but Fielding dashed it to the ground. 

"I never heard of him. I see, " he said, "you've got a conscience. Haveyou also got a wife?"

"Not yet--but--"

"Good. So young a man as you cannot afford to keep _both_. I am so oldthat I may be pardoned if I give you some advice. But why should I?You won't take it. "

"I should like to hear it all the same, sir. "

"Well, well, it's cheap enough. Whatever you do, don't fritteryourself away upon the sort of women it may be your misfortune to havemet. "

It was beautifully done, this first intimation of his consciousness ofany difference between them; between Rickman who had glorified avariety actress, and Walter Fielding whose Muse had "always had themanners of an English gentlewoman. " And to Rickman's heart, amid vividimages of Poppies and Flossies, the memory of Lucia Harden stirredlike a dividing sword. 

"That is my advice, " said Fielding. "But you will not take it. "

"These things, " said Rickman, "are not always in our power. "

In the silence which followed he put the question that was burning inhim. 

"May I ask who the friend was who told Miss Gurney about me?"

"You may ask Miss Gurney; but I do not think she'll tell you. It seemsto be a secret, and Miss Gurney, strange to say, is a young woman whocan keep a secret. "

He led the way to a seat overlooking the lake where they sat forawhile in silence, and Rickman found his thoughts roaming from hisgod. 

Presently Fielding rose and turned back to the house. Rickman feltthat the slow footsteps were measuring now the moments that he had tobe with him. He was glad that they were slow. 

Fielding stopped at his house-door, and stood for a second gazingearnestly at the young man. 

"When you write anything, " he said, "you may always send it to me. Butno more--please--no more _Saturnalia_. "

"There won't be any more _Saturnalia_. "

"Good. I do not ask you to come again to see me. "

Rickman struggled for an answer, but could not think of anythingbetter than, "It's enough for me to have seen you once, " which was notat all what he had meant to say. 

Fielding smiled faintly; his humour pleased, Rickman fancied, with theambiguity of his shy speech. 

"I'm afraid I've tired you, sir, " he said impulsively. 

"You have not tired me. I tire myself. But here is Miss Gurney; shewill look after you and give you tea. "

"Geniality, " he continued, "is not my strong point, as you may haveperceived. And any unnatural effort of the kind fatigues me. My ownfault. "

"You have been very generous to me. "

"Generous? There can't be any generosity between equals. Only a simpleact of justice. It is you who have been good to me. "

"I? To you?"

"Yes. You have satisfied my curiosity. I own that sometimes I havewanted to know what sort of voice will be singing after I am dead. Andnow I _do_ know. Good-bye, and thank you. "

He pressed his hand, turned abruptly and shuffled into the house. Hewas noticeably the worse for his walk, and Rickman felt that he had toanswer for it to Miss Gurney. 

"I'm afraid I've tired him. I hope I haven't done him harm. "

Miss Gurney glanced sharply at him, turned, and disappeared throughthe study window. Her manner implied that if he had harmed Fieldingshe would make him feel it. 

She came back still unsmiling. "No. You have not tired him. "

"Then, " said he as he followed her into the drawing-room, "I amforgiven?"

"Yes. But I did not say you had not done him harm. "

The lady paused in her amenities to pour out his tea. 

"Miss Gurney, " he said as he took the cup from her, "can you tell methe name of the friend who sent my book to you?"

"No, I'm afraid I cannot. "

"I see. After all, I am not forgiven?"

"I am not at all sure that you ought to be. "

"I heard what he said to you, " she went on almost fiercely. "That'swhy I hate young poets. He says there is only you to hate. "

"So, of course, you hate me?"

"I think I do. I wish I had never heard of you. I wish he had neverseen you. I hope you will never come again. I haven't looked at yourpoems that he praises so. He says they are beautiful. Very well, Ishall hate them _because_ they are beautiful. He says they have morelife in them than his. Do you understand _now_ why I hate them andyou? He was young before you came here. You have made him feel that heis old, that he must die. I don't know what else he said to you. ShallI tell you what he said to me? He said that the world will forget himwhen it's listening to you. "

"You misunderstood him. " He thought that he understood her; but itpuzzled him that, adoring Fielding as she did, she yet permittedherself to doubt. 

"Do you suppose I thought that he grudged you your fame? Because hedoesn't. But I do. "

"You needn't. At present it only exists in his imagination. "

"That's enough. If it exists there--"

"You mean, it will go down the ages?"

She nodded. 

"And you don't want it to go?"

"Not unless his goes too, and goes farther. "

"You need hardly be afraid. "

"I'm _not_ afraid. Only, he has always stood alone, so high that noone has touched him. I've always seen him that way, all my life--and Ican't bear to see him any other way. I can't bear any one to touchhim, or even to come anywhere near him. "

"No one ever will touch him. Whoever comes after him, he will alwaysstand alone. And, " he added gently, "you will always see him so. "

"Yes, " she said, but in a voice that told him she was stillunconsoled. "If I had seen him when he was young, I suppose I shouldalways see him young. Not that I care about that so much. His youth isthe part of him that interests me least; perhaps because it was neverin any way a part of me. "

He looked at her. Did she realize how far Fielding's youth, if reportspoke truly, had belonged to, or in her own words, "been a part of"other women? Did she resent their part in him? He thought not. It wasnot so much that she was jealous of Fielding's youth, as that sheshrank from any appearance of disloyalty to his age. 

"And yet, " she said, "I feel that no one has a right to be young whenhe is old. I hate young poets because they are young. I hate my ownyouth--"

Her youth? Yes, it was youth that leapt quivering in her tragic face, like a blown flame. Her body hardly counted except as fuel to theeager and incessant fire. 

"Don't hate it, " he said. "It is the most beautiful thing you have togive him. "

"Ah--if I _could_ give it him!"

He smiled. "You have given it him. He isn't old when he can inspiresuch devotion. He is to be envied. "

He rose and held out his hand. As she took it, Miss Gurney'sflame-like gaze rested on him a moment and grew soft. 

"If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems, "said she. And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret. 

He wondered what had made her change her mind. He wondered whetherLucia had really made a secret of it. He wondered what the secret hadto do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the lovethat kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth. 

CHAPTER LI

There were times when Rickman, harassed by his engagement, reviewedhis literary position with dismay. Of success as men count success, hehad none. He was recognized as a poet by perhaps a score of people; toa few hundreds he was a mere name in the literary papers; to the greatmass of his fellow-countrymen he was not even a name. He had gone hisown way and remained obscure; while his friends, Jewdwine and Maddox, had gone theirs and won for themselves solid reputations. As forRankin (turned novelist) he had achieved celebrity. They had not beenable to impart to him the secret of success. But the recognition andsomething more than recognition of the veteran poet consoled him forthe years of failure, and he felt that he could go through many suchon the strength of it. 

The incident was so momentous that he was moved to speak of it toJewdwine and to Maddox. As everything that interested him interestedMaddox, he related it to Maddox in full; but with Jewdwine (such washis exceeding delicacy) he observed a certain modest reticence. Stillthere was no diminution in his engaging candour, his innocentassumption that Jewdwine would be as pleased and excited as Maddox andhimself. 

"He really seemed, " said he, selecting from among Fielding'sutterances, "to think the things were great. "

Jewdwine raised his eyebrows. "My dear Rickman, I congratulate you. "He paused for so long that his next remark, thoughtfully produced, seemed to have no reference to Rickman's communication. "Fielding isgetting very old. " If Rickman had been in a state of mind to attendcarefully to Jewdwine's manner, he might have gathered that theincident had caused him some uneasiness. 

It had indeed provided the editor of _The Museion_ with much matterfor disagreeable thought. As it happened (after months of gravedeliberation), he had lately had occasion to form a very definiteopinion as to the value of Rickman the journalist. He knew thatRickman the journalist had no more deadly enemy than Rickman the poet;and at that particular moment he did not greatly care to be remindedof his existence. Jewdwine's attitude to Rickman and his confidenceswas the result of a change in the attitude of _The Museion_ and itsproprietors. _The Museion_ was on the eve of a revolution, and toJewdwine as its editor Rickman the journalist had suddenly becomeinvaluable. 

The revolution itself was not altogether sudden. For many months thebehaviour of _The Museion_ had been a spectacle of great joy to theyoung men of its contemporary, _The Planet_. The spirit of competitionhad latterly seized upon that most severely academic of reviews, andit was now making desperate efforts to be popular. It was as if amiddle-aged and absent-minded don, suddenly alive to the existence ofathletic sports in his neighbourhood, should insist on enteringhimself for all the events, clothed, uniquely, if inappropriately, incap and gown. He would be a very moving figure in the eyes ofhilarious and immortal youth. And such a figure did _The Museion_ inits latter days present. But the proprietors were going to change allthat. _The Museion_ was about to be withdrawn from circulation andreissued in a new form under the new title of _Metropolis_. As ifaware of the shocking incongruity it was going to fling off its capand gown. Whatever its staying power might be, its spirit and itsoutward appearance should henceforth in no way differ from those ofother competitors in the race for money and position. 

While the details of the change were being planned in the offices of_The Museion_, the burning question for the proprietors was this:would their editor, their great, their unique and lonely editor, beprepared to go with them? Or would he (and with him his brilliant andenthusiastic staff) insist on standing by the principles that had beenthe glory of the paper and its ruin? Mr. Jewdwine had shown himselffairly amenable so far, but would he be any use to them when it reallycame to the point?

To Jewdwine that point was the turning-point in his career. He hadhad to put that burning question to himself. Was he, after all, prepared to stand by his principles? It was pretty certain that if hedid, his principles would not stand by him. Was there anything in themthat _would_ stand at all against the brutal pressure that wasmoulding literature at the present hour? No organ of philosophiccriticism could (at the present hour) exist, unless created andmaintained by Jewdwine single-handed and at vast expense. His positionwas becoming more unique and more lonely every day, quite intolerablylonely and unique. For Jewdwine after all was human. He longed foreminence, but not for such eminence as meant isolation. Isolation isnot powerful; and even more than for eminence he longed for power. Helonged for it with the passion of a weak will governed despotically bya strong intellect. It amounted to a positive obsession, the tyrannyof a cold and sane idea. He knew perfectly well now what his positionas editor of _The Museion_ was worth. Compared with that great, thatnoble but solitary person, even Maddox had more power. But the editorof _Metropolis_, by a few trifling concessions to the spirit ofmodernity, would in a very short time carry all before him. He mustthen either run with the race or drop out of it altogether; andbetween these two courses, Jewdwine, with all his genius forhesitation, could not waver. After much deliberation he had consented(not without some show of condescension) to give his name andleadership to Metropolis; and he reaped the reward of his plasticityin a substantial addition to his income. 

This great change in the organization of the review called for certaincorresponding changes in its staff. And it was here that Rickman camein. He had been retained on _The Museion_ partly in recognition of hisbrilliance, partly by way of satisfying the claims of Jewdwine'smagnanimity. On _The Museion_ he had not proved plastic either assub-editor or as contributor. He did not fit in well with thetraditions of the paper; for he was, to Jewdwine, modernity incarnate, the living spirit of revolt, to be bound down with difficulty by theeditorial hand. Looking back on the record of the past four yearsJewdwine marvelled how and why it was that he had kept him. A scoreof times he had been tempted to dismiss him after some fresh enormity;and a score of times Rickman had endeared himself by the seductivegraces of his style. But Rickman on the staff of _Metropolis_ was, Jewdwine considered, Rickman in the right place. Not only could he nowbe allowed to let loose his joyous individuality without prejudice tothe principles of that paper (for the paper strictly speaking wouldhave no principles), but he was indispensable if it was to preservethe distinction which its editor still desired. Jewdwine had no needof the poet; but of the journalistic side of Rickman he had endlessneed. It was a baser faculty, but his care must be to develop it, totrain it, to handle it judiciously, until by handling he had made itpliable to all the uses of his paper. Jewdwine had a genius forlicking young men into shape. He could hardly recognize that band ofawkward and enthusiastic followers in his present highly disciplinedand meritorious staff. None of them were like Rickman; none of themhad done anything to rouse an uneasy suspicion of their genius. Still, none of them were precisely fitted for his present purpose. Rickmanthe poet, of course, you could not lick into shape. His shape, plasticonly under the divine fire, was fashioned by the fingers of the god. But Rickman the journalist, once get him on to the right journal, would prove to be made of less unmanageable stuff. If he had nothitherto proved manageable, that was no doubt because hitherto he hadbeen employed on the wrong journal. 

And yet, when he came to discuss the change of programme with thedifferent members of his staff (some of whom he was giving theirdismissal), it was with Rickman (whom he proposed to retain) that hefelt the most acute embarrassment. Rickman, although at the momentdining with Jewdwine, was so abominably direct. 

"I see, " he said, after listening to a lengthy exposition of theproprietors' view; "they want to popularize the thing. "

Jewdwine winced perceptibly. "Well, hardly, " said he. "In that casethey would have been obliged to change their editor. We certainly wantto draw a rather larger public than we have done; and to do that wemust make _some_ concessions to modernity. There's no doubt that thepaper's interests have suffered from its tradition. We have been tooexclusive, too detached. We can no longer afford to be detached. Wepropose to abandon the tradition in favour of--well--of a somewhatbroader attitude. " He looked keenly at Rickman, as if he defied him toput it any other way. 

"I see. We've either got to take a more genial view of ourcontemporaries--or scoot. "

"You may put it that way if you like. It simply means that if we areto appeal to a wider public, we must take a wider view. It's surely inthe interests of the public, _and_ of literature, that we should notnarrow the influence of the paper any more than we can help. Not makethe best criticism inaccessible. " He continued to take the lofty andthe noble view. The habit was inveterate. But his last remark startedhim on the way of self-justification. "Of course I couldn't go on withthe paper if I hadn't come to see this for myself. The fact is, youcannot run a leading review on abstract principles. "

Rickman forbore to smile at the fulfilment of his prophecy. Jewdwine's"Absolute" had been obliged to "climb down. "

"Not, " said Jewdwine, "if that review is really to lead publicopinion. "

"And certainly not, " said Rickman, "if public opinion is to lead thereview. "

"In either case, " said Jewdwine nobly, "the principles remain. "

"Only they're not applied?"

"They are not applied, because there is nothing to apply them to. Inthe present state of literature a review like _The Museion_ has noreason for its existence. "

"I don't know. It was a very useful protest against some forms ofmodernity. "

"My dear fellow, modernity simply means democracy. And when oncedemocracy has been forced on us there's no good protesting anylonger. "

"All the same, you'll go on protesting, you know. "

"As a harmless private person, yes. As a critic I must accept acertain amount of defeat at the hands of the majority. "

"But you don't happen to believe in the majority?"

"I do believe in it, " said he, bitterly. "I believe that it hasdestroyed criticism by destroying literature. A critic only existsthrough the existence of great men. And there are no great mennowadays; only a great number of little men. "

"I see. Othello's occupation's gone. "

"Not at all. Othello's occupation's only beginning. You can'tcriticize these people, but you must review them. And I assure you itmeans far more labour and a finer discrimination to pick out yourlittle man from a crowd of little men than to recognize your great manwhen you see him. "

"When you see him--"

"Ah yes--_when_ I see him. But where is he? Show me, " said Jewdwine, "one work of unmistakable genius published any time in the last five, the last ten years. "

Rickman looked at him and said nothing. And to Jewdwine his silencewas singularly uncomfortable. He would have been more uneasy still butfor his conviction that the serenity in Rickman's eyes was reflectedfrom the eyes of Fielding. Rickman, he thought, was rather tooobviously elated at the great man's praise; and the exhibition ofelation was unpleasant to him. Worse than all, he realized thatRickman, in spite of his serenity, was hurt. On the top of that came amiserable misgiving as to the worthiness of his own attitude to hisfriend. 

As for Rickman, he had no feeling that he could have put into words, beyond owning in his heart that he was hurt. He had never before hadany occasion for such a confession; he felt it to be humiliating bothto Jewdwine and himself. Sometimes, in moments of depression he hadsuspected that it was Jewdwine's coldness that preserved hisincorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in theirrelations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezingprocess that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the daywhen, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he ownedthat he was hurt. 

Jewdwine changed the subject. 

CHAPTER LII

When Jewdwine changed the subject, it was to intimate that his friendmight now expect a salary rising steadily with the fortunes of_Metropolis_. 

That promise to marry Flossie in the autumn had made Rickman veryuneasy on this head. The sources of his income had been hithertouncertain; for _The Planet_ might at any moment cease to be, and onlyindomitable hope could say that _The Museion_ would be long for thisworld. 

The amount of his income, too, depended on conditions which were, tosome extent, beyond his own control. It had never sunk below a hundredand fifty, and had never risen above three hundred, even in the yearswhen he wrote more articles than poems. Whereas, if he wrote morepoems than articles, two hundred was the highest figure it had yetattained. And supposing the poems came and the articles didn't? For inthese things he was in the hands of the god. Therefore he had longbeen a prey to devastating anxiety. But he hoped great things from thetransformation of _The Museion_. It certainly promised him a largerand more certain revenue in the future, almost justifying his marriagein the autumn. It had been expressly understood that his promise toFlossie was to be fulfilled only if possible. But meanwhile he had gotto make it possible, for Flossie (in spite of _her_ promise) kept theterror of her wine-merchant perpetually dangling above his head. Hehad visited Messrs. Vassell & Hawkins' detestable establishment; andit made him shudder to think of his pretty Beaver shut up in a littlemahogany cage, with her bright eyes peeping sad and shy through thebrass netting, and her dear little nostrils sniffing the villainousalcoholic air. 

But as the time approached and their marriage grew every day morecertain and more near, the joy and excitement of the bridegroom weremingled with an inexplicable terror and misgiving. He had beendisagreeably impressed by the manner of Flossie's insistence on hispoverty. He had not missed the fine contempt conveyed by all herreferences to his profession, which she not unjustly regarded as thecause of the poverty. He was well aware that his genius was a heavyburden for so small a thing to bear; and his chivalry had determinedthat it should lie lightly on her lest it should crush or injure her. It was part of her engaging innocence that she knew nothing of theworld in which his supremacy began and hers ended, that she had noteven suspected its existence. If he had any illusions about her it washis own mind that created and controlled them. He delighted in themdeliberately, as in a thing of his creating; seeing through them withthat extraordinary lucidity of his, yet abandoning himself all themore. Flossie's weakness made him tender, her very faults amused him. As for his future, he could not conceive of his marriage as in any wayaffecting him as a poet and a man of letters. While the littlesuburban Eros lit his low flame upon the hearth, his genius wouldstill stand apart, guarding with holy hands the immortal fire. Forthose two flames could never mingle. In that dream he saw himselftravelling with ease and rapidity along two infinite lines that nevertouched and never diverged; a feat only possible given two Rickmans, not one Rickman. There used to be many more of him; it was somethingthat he had reduced the quantity to two. And in dreams nothing isabsurd, nothing impossible. 

Pity that the conditions of waking life are so singularly limited. Atfirst it had been only a simple question of time and space. Not thatFlossie took up so very much space; and he owned that she left himplenty of time for the everyday work that paid. But where was thatdivine solitude? Where were those long days of nebulous conception?Where the days when he removed himself, as it were, and watched hisfull-orbed creations careering in the intellectual void? The days whenKeith Rickman was as a god? He was hardly aware how fast they werevanishing already; and where would they be in two months' time? Itwas on his tragedy that he based his hopes for his future; the future, in which Flossie had no part. He knew that the plea of art soundedweak before the inexorable claims of nature; he felt that somethingought to be sacrificed to the supreme passion; but he couldn't give uphis tragedy. He was consumed by two indomitable passions; and who wasto say which of them was supreme? Still, tragedies in blank verse werea luxury; and Flossie had more than once pointed out to him hecouldn't afford luxuries. He would sit up working on the tragedy tilllong past midnight; and when he woke in the morning his sense of guiltcould not have been greater if he had been indulging in the mosthateful orgies. But you can't burn even genius at both ends; and hispaying work began to suffer. Jewdwine complained that it was not up tohis usual level. Maddox had returned several articles. So at last hestuffed his tragedy into a drawer to wait there for a diviner hour. "That would have been a big expensive job, " he said to himself. "Isuppose it's possible to put as good work into the little things thatpay; but I shall have to cut myself in pieces. " That was what he wasdoing now; changing his gold into copper as fast as he could, so manypennies for one sovereign. Nobody was cheated. He knew that in histalent (his mere journalistic talent) there was a genius that noamount of journalism had as yet subdued. But he had an awful vision ofthe future, when he saw himself swallowed up body and soul injournalism. The gods were dead; but there were still men and columns. 

That would be the inevitable surrender to reality. To have no part inthe triumph of the poetic legions; but to march with the rank andfile, to a detestable music not his own; a mere mercenary ingloriouslyfighting in a foreign cause. 

To Jewdwine, Jewdwine once incorruptible, it seemed that Rickman waspreparing himself very suitably for the new campaign. But Maddoxmourned as he returned those articles; and when he heard of theapproaching marriage which explained them he was frantic. He rushed upon Sunday afternoon, and marched Rickman out into the suburbs and onto a lonely place on Hampstead Heath. And there, for the space of onehour, with his arm linked in Rickman's, he wrestled with Rickman forhis body and his soul. Jewdwine's cry had been, "Beware of thefriendship of little men"; the burden of Maddox was, "Beware of thelove of little women. "

"That's all you know about it, Maddy. The love of great women absorbsyou, dominates you. The little women leave you free. "

Maddox groaned. 

"A fat lot of freedom you'll get, Ricky, when you're married. " Rickmanlooked straight before him to the deep blue hills of the west, as iffreedom lay on the other side of them. "Good God, " he said, "what am Ito do? I must marry. I can't go back to Poppy Grace, and her sort. "

"If that's all, " said Maddox, "I don't see much difference. Exceptthat marriage is worse. It lasts longer. " Whereupon Rickman blushed, and said that wasn't all, and that Maddox was a brute. He would changehis opinion when he knew Miss Walker. 

Before very long he had an opportunity of changing it. 

Rickman had been in error when he told Flossie that if she wouldconsent to marry him he would never again be ill. For he was ill thefirst week in September, not two years after he had made thatill-considered statement. The Fielding episode, when the first finestimulus was over, had left him miserable and restless. It was as ifhe had heard the sound of Lucia Harden's voice passing through theimmeasurable darkness that divided them. And now he seemed to besuffering from something not unlike the nervous fever that hadattacked him once before at Harmouth; complicated, this time, by asevere cold on the chest, caught by walking about through pouring rainin great agony of mind. 

For Flossie (who may have felt latterly that she had chanced uponanother season of depression in her woman's trade) that illness was apiece of amazing good luck, coming as it did at the moment of Keith'smisgivings. It not only drew them together, just as they were driftinginsensibly apart, but it revealed them to each other in a tenderer andserener light. There was a little hard spot in Flossie which wasimpervious to the subtler charm of Rickman when he was well. ButRickman ill and at her mercy, confined to the bed where (so long asFlossie waited on him) he lay very quietly, with the sheet drawn tightup to his chin, in a state of touching dependence and humiliation, wasa wholly different person from the stormy and incomprehensible Rickmanwho for more than two years had struggled so madly in her toils. Andif, to the eye of Mrs. Downey, Flossie appeared untouched by thereally heartrending pathos of his attitude in sleep; beholding unmovedhis huddled boyish form under the blankets, one half-naked arm laidslack along the bed, the other thrust out straight into the coldoutside it; if she left Mrs. Downey to cover the poor fellow up, wondering why on earth the girl could sit there and never do it; if, when he woke, she missed the extreme poignancy of appeal in themurmurs that followed her as she went Beaver-like about her businessin the room, it may be that in that unaccustomed service the hiddenprescient motherhood in her was awakened and appeased (Flossie beingstill under the dominion of her dream). As yet it struggled blindlywith her invincible propriety; a struggle poor Rickman was made awareof by the half-averted manner of her approaches, the secrecy andhesitation of her touch. But the little clerk undoubtedly found thatpatting pillows, straightening coverlets, and making mustard plasters, was an employment more satisfying to her nature than the perpetualhandling of bank notes. And to Rickman lying there with his hungryheart filled for the time quite full with its own humility andgratitude, lying in a helplessness that had in it something soothingand agreeable, feeling the soft shy woman's hands about his bed, following with affectionate, remorseful eyes her coming and going, orwatching as she sat patiently mending his socks, it came with thefreshness of a new discovery that she was, after all, a very engaginglittle Beaver. He had never for one instant glorified his love forher; he understood it too thoroughly. It was love as Nature loves tohave it; honest enough, too, but of its kind singularly devoid of anyinspiring quality. Flossie had never moved him to the making ofsonnets or of songs. Moreover, he had discovered in her a certainlack of tenderness, or of the outward signs of tenderness. Not butwhat Flossie commanded all the foolish endearing language of younglove; only she was apt to lavish it on little details of attire, onfurniture, on things seen in shop-windows and passionately desired. But there was something very transfiguring in the firelight of hisbedroom hearth. As he lay in it, enjoying the pure sweet foretaste ofdomestic felicity, it was as if he saw more clearly into himself andher and the life that would so soon make them one. If it was not thebest life, he told himself that of its kind it would be very good. Hehad no doubt now that Flossie loved him. He was led to this certaintyby the maternal quality in her present dealings with him, when perhapsit should have warned him rather that these cares were not for him. 

Flossie had somewhat elaborated her dream. Bearing the fascinatingname of Muriel Maud, it had grown softer and rosier than ever. Shecould not any longer deny its mysterious association with KeithRickman, though she would have died rather than that Keith should havesuspected it. And now as she sat mending Keith's socks her fancy allthe time was busy fashioning delicious garments for her dream. Flossienever pursued her vision of Muriel Maud beyond the period ofenchanting infancy; when it outgrew the tender folly of thosegarments, it was dismissed from Flossie's fancy with unmaternalharshness. Therefore it appeared eternally innocent and young, mortalin a delicate immortality. In fact, viewing her life too in the lightof the bedroom firelight, Flossie was herself deceived. 

They were both blissfully unaware that Nature cares nothing aboutlove, but was bent upon using them for the only end she does careabout, the end that gives to love the illusion of its own eternity. 

But Maddox saw through it in a minute. It was in the earlier stages ofthe poet's illness, and Maddox had happened to put his head intoRickman's room at the moment when Flossie, compelled by Mrs. Downey, was helping to put a stinging mustard plaster on his chest. Theyshrieked, and Maddox instantly withdrew. 

He painted the scene afterwards for Rankin in the lurid and symboliccolours of his Celtic fancy. "Talk of Samson among the Philistines, it's nothing to Ricky-ticky in that d----d boarding-house. There was awoman on each side of his bed. They'd got him down on it; they werepinning the poor little chap in his blankets. I could just seeRicky-ticky's face between their shoulders; it was very red; and Ishall never forget the expression on it, never. The agony, Rankin, thehopeless, unutterable agony. "

"What were they doing to him?"

"I couldn't see properly. But I think they were cutting his hair off. "

He declared later that he had distinctly heard the squeaking of thatyoung Delilah's scissors. "We're not told whether Delilah was Samson'swife, " said he. "But the Scriptures were never wrong on a point ofhuman nature. "

At which Rankin looked depressed; for he too was thinking of gettingmarried; though, as Maddox reminded him for his comfort, not to MissFlossie Walker. 

"Is our Ricky-ticky, " urged Rankin, "the man to show wisdom inchoosing a wife?"

"He isn't the man to marry at all. "

"Did you expect him to live like an anchorite, then?"

"I didn't expect anything. He might have lived as he liked, providedhe didn't ruin himself as he's doing now. "

And though Maddox now saw that young Delilah frequently, and always ather prettiest and her best, he did not change his opinion. 

CHAPTER LIII

It was now the third week in September, and the wedding was fixed forthe twenty-fifth of October. Everything was fixed, even Flossie'sideas on the subject of her trousseau. There never was a little womanso unwavering in her choice of such things as clothes and furniture. To be married in ivory white, and to go away in powder blue; to have adrawing-room furnished in imitation rosewood and tapestry, and adining-room in stamped velvet and black oak (imitation, too), had beenFlossie's firm determination from the first. It saves endless time andcontention when a young woman so absolutely knows her own mind. 

Not but what she required approval and support in her decisions;otherwise she would have been hardly recognizable as a young woman. And for Rickman to go shopping with the Beaver in Tottenham CourtRoad, to follow her undeviating course through the furnituregalleries, to note the infallible instinct by which she made for andseized upon the objects of her choice, to see the austerity with whichshe resisted the seductions of the salesman who sought to entangle herwith a more expensive article, the calmness of her mind in dealingwith the most intricate problems of measurement and price, was to beled a helpless captive in a triumph of practical ability. Ability, good Lord! was there ever anything like Flossie's grasp of all factsthat can be expressed in figures? His brain reeled before theterrifying velocity of her mental arithmetic. What a little woman itwas to do sums in the top of its head!

Not that she dragged him on the chain for ever. There were idyllicresting-places, delicious, thrilling pauses in her progress; when shetried every chair in succession in the drawing-room suite; when shesettled herself in the tapestry one, before the little rosewoodtea-table (spread, for the heightening of the illusion, with atea-service all complete); when she pretended to pour out tea, smilingover the tea-pot in the prettiest delight. With such a smile she wouldwelcome him, with such a smile she would pour out his tea when he cameback from Fleet Street to the home that was to be. (It did not occurto him that at the moment Flossie was only smiling at the tea-pot. )Though he stood aloof from the anticipatory scene, as he looked at herhe grew positively weak with tenderness. In everything Flossie had herway. When they climbed (as they inevitably did) to the upper gallerieshe indeed offered some show of resistance when she insisted onchoosing a terrible bedstead of brass with mother-o'-pearl ornaments. But to do him justice, it was sheer nervous terror which prompted thebrutal remark that, "Really, mother-o'-pearl ornaments were more thanhe could stand"; for he melted and gave in at once at the sight ofFlossie feeling the rosy down coverlet with her little hands. Whentheir eyes met, Flossie's face was as rosy as the coverlet; so thatthe attendant spirit of commerce himself turned from them abashed. That there would, that there must be, such a moment Keith had had ahorrible foreboding as he followed up the stairs. 

Nobody could have been more happy than Flossie following the dream inTottenham Court Road; and Rickman was happy because she was. Happy fora whole fortnight; and then for the first time they quarrelled. 

And this was how it happened. They were going to live at Ealing; notbecause they liked it, but because the neighbourhood was cheap. Flossie had said, "When we're rich, we'll go to Kensington"; and hehad answered with an odious flippancy, "Yes, and when we die we'll goto heaven"; but for the present, Flossie (wise Flossie who lovedeconomy even more than Kensington) was content with Ealing. That shewas obliged to be content with it made her feel, naturally, that shewas entitled to gratification on every other point. It was not overEaling, then, that they quarrelled, but over the choosing of thehouse. Flossie was all for a gay little brand-new, red-brick villa, with nice clean white paint about it, only two minutes from the tram;he for a little old-fashioned brown-brick house with jasmine all overit, and a garden all grass and lilac bushes at the back. He said thegarden would be nice to sit in. She said, what was the good of sittingin a garden when you had to walk ever so far to the tram? He retortedthat walking was a reason for sitting; and she that if it came to thatthey could sit in the house. She wouldn't hear of the old brown house, nor he of the brand-new villa. He was peculiarly sensitive to hissurroundings. 

"The villa, " said he, "is a detestable little den. "

"It isn't, " said she, "it's got a lovely bay window in the drawingroom, and a _dear_ little balcony on the top. "

"But there isn't a quiet place in it, dear, where I could write. "

"Oh, that's all you're thinking of--"

"Well, there isn't, really. Whereas here" (they were going now throughthe little brown house), "there's a jolly big room at the back, whereyou can see miles away over the fields towards Harrow. "

"Oh, you've got time to look out of the window, have you, though you_are_ so busy?"

"Never mind the window, let's look at the house. What's wrong withit?"

"What's wrong with the house? It won't suit the furniture, that'swhat's wrong with it. "

"You mean the furniture won't suit it?"

"The furniture's chosen and the house isn't. There's no good goingback on that. "

"Look here, this is the room I meant. " They had climbed to the top ofthe little brown house, and Flossie had hardly condescended to glancethrough the doors he had opened on their way. He opened one now at thehead of the stairs, and this time she looked in. 

"It would make all the difference to me, Floss, " he said humbly, "if Ihad a place like this when I want to get away to write. "

"When you want to get away from me, you mean. " Her lips shook; shelooked round her with angry eyes, as if jealous of the place, and allthat he meant to do in it. 

It was a large room, with a wide window looking on to the garden andaway across meadows and cornfields to Harrow Hill with its thin churchspire. The window was guarded with iron bars. The wall-paper wasdesigned in little circles; and in each circle there were figures oflittle boys and girls, absurd and gay. So many hundreds of littlefigures, and so absurd and gay, that to sit in that room surrounded bythem, to look at them and endeavour to count them, was to go mad. Butthose figures fascinated Flossie. 

"Oh, Lord, what a beastly wall-paper, " said he. 

"I think it's sweet, " said she. And though she wasn't going to let himhave the house, she was ready to quarrel with him again about thewall-paper. And then, in the corner by the window they came upon achild's toy, a little wooden horse, broken. He pointed it out to her, half-smiling. "Some kiddy must have left that there. "

"Of course, " said she, "it's been a nursery. And, I say, Keith, Ithink it must have _died_. "

"How do you make that out?"

"It couldn't have been long here. Don't you see, the wall-paper's allnew. " (He thought that was rather sharp of her, the practical Beaver!)"And yet, " she said continuing her train of induction; "it couldn't. If it had, they'd never have left _that_ here. "

Ah, that was not sharp; it was something better. There was, after all, about his Beaver a certain poetry and tenderness. 

She picked up the little wooden horse, and held it in her hands, andadjusted its loosened mane, and mended its broken legs, fitting theedges delicately with her clever fingers. And it seemed to him that asshe bent over the toy her face grew soft again. When she lifted herhead her eyes rested on him, but without seeing him. Never had Flossiehad so poignant a vision of Muriel Maud. 

He looked at her with a new wonder in his heart. For the first time hewas made aware of the change that two years had worked in her. She hadgrown, he thought, finer in growing firmer; her body in its maturitywas acquiring a strength and richness that had been wanting in itsyouth; as if through that time of waiting it were being fashioned forthe end it waited for. But that was not all. She had clothed herselfunconsciously with poetry. She stood for a moment transfigured beforehim; a woman with sweet eyes beholding her desired destiny from far. Her soul (for a moment) rose in her face like a star--a dim propheticstar that trembled between darkness and dawn. He knew that she sawherself now as the possible mother of his children. 

The anger and the jealousy were over; and all of a sudden she gave in. 

"You can have the house, if you like, Keith. "

"All right; I do like it. That's a dear little Beaver. "

As he approached her her glance fled. "I didn't say you could have theroom. I want to keep it empty. "

He put his arm round her and led her to the window. "What do you wantto keep it empty for, Flossie?"

Her poor little thoughts, surprised and dismayed, went scurryinghither and thither, trying to hide their trail. 

"Oh, " she said, still looking away from him. "To store things in. " Hedrew her closer to him and kissed her tenderly. 

It seemed to him that a serene and happy light rested on the garden, on the empty house, and on the empty room that she had peopled alreadywith her innocent dream. It seemed to him that in that remote gaze ofher woman's eyes, abstracted from her lover, unconsciously desirous ofthe end beyond desire, he saw revealed the mystery, the sanctity, thepurity of wedded love. And seeing it he forgave her that momentaryabstraction. 

But the Beaver never dreamed; she was far too practical. She wasbuilding, that was all. 

CHAPTER LIV

That evening as they sat down to dinner, it might have been noticedthat Mrs Downey's face was more flushed and festal than it had beensince the day was fixed for Mr. Rickman's wedding and departure. Sheseated herself expansively, with a gay rustling of many frills, andsmiled well pleased upon the arrangements of her table. From thesesigns it was evident that Mrs. Downey was expecting another boarder, aboarder of whom she had reason to be proud. Rickman noticed withdismay that the stranger's place was laid beside his own. He knew themso well, these eternal, restless birds of passage, draggled with theirflight from one boarding-house to another. The only tolerable thingabout them was that, being here to-day, they were gone to-morrow. 

The new boarder was late, culpably late. But Mrs. Downey was proud ofthat too, as arguing that the poor bird of passage had stayed tosmooth her ruffled plumage. Mrs. Downey approved of all persons whothus voluntarily acknowledged the high ceremonial character of theDinner. She was glad that Mr. Rickman would appear to-night in fullevening dress, to rush away in the middle of the meal, a splendour themore glorious, being brief. She was waiting for the delightful momentwhen she would explain to the visitor that the gentleman who had justleft the room was Mr. Rickman, "the reviewer and dramatic critic. " Shewould say it, as she had said it many times before, with the easyaccomplished smile of the hostess familiar with celebrity. 

But that moment never came. The very anticipation of it was lost inthe thrill of the visitor's belated entrance. Yet nothing could havebeen quieter than the manner of it. She (for it _was_ a lady) cameinto the room as if she had lived at Mrs. Downey's all her life, andknew her way already from the doorway to her chair. When she said, "I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I'm rather late, " she seemed to be takingfor granted their recognition of a familiar personal characteristic. Perhaps it was because she was so tall that her voice sounded likemusic dropped downward from a height. 

There was a stir, a movement down each side of the table; it wassubtle, like the flutter of light and wind, and sympathetic, answeringto her footfall and the flowing rhythm of her gown. As it passed, Mrs. Downey's face became if possible more luminous, Miss Bramble's figureif possible more erect. A feeble flame flickered in Mr. Partridge'scheeks; Mr. Soper began feeling nervously in his pocket for the box ofbon-bons, his talisman of success; while Mr. Spinks appeared as ifendeavouring to assume a mental attitude not properly his own. MissBishop searched, double-chinned, for any crumbs that might have lodgedin the bosom of her blouse; and Flossie, oh, Flossie became moredemure, more correct, more absolutely the model of all propriety. Eachwas so occupied with his or herself that no one noticed the veryremarkable behaviour of Mr. Rickman. He rose to his feet. He turnedhis back on Flossie. There was a look on his face as of a man seizedwith sudden terror, and about to fly. 

In turning he found himself face to face with Lucia Harden. 

He had the presence of mind to stand back and draw her chair from thetable for her; so that his action appeared the natural movement ofpoliteness. 

Though she held out her hand by an instinct of recognition, there wasa perceptible pause before she spoke. He had known that it was shebefore he saw her. She had to look at him twice to make quite sure. 

And then, being sure, she smiled; not the slow, cold smile ofpoliteness that dies downwards on the lips, but the swift smile ofpleasure that leaps to the eyes and forehead. 

"Mr. Rickman--? I think I should have known you anywhere else; but Ididn't expect to meet you here. "

He looked at her courageously. 

And as he looked there fell from him the past five years, the longestranging years of bitterness and misery and vain desire, and theyears, still more estranging, of his madness and his folly; and notthe thinnest phantom shadow of time divided him from the days ofHarmouth, That moment of recognition annihilated all between; a lustreof his life swept away in one sweep of her eyelids, dropped fathomdeep and forgotten in the gaze of her pure and tender eyes. It was notthe Lucia of their last meeting; the tragic and terrible Lucia who hadbeen so divided from him by her suffering and her grief. As she hadappeared to him on that evening, the last of his brief, incrediblehappiness, when he sat with her alone in the drawing-room at CourtHouse, and she had declared her belief in him, so she appeared to himnow. The unforgettable movements of her face, the sweet curve of hermouth (the upper lip so soft and fine that it seemed to quiverdelicately with the rhythm of her pulses and her breath), the turn ofher head, the lifting of her eyebrows, told him that she had kept nomemory of his part in the things that had happened after that. 

And he too forgot. With Lucia sitting at his right hand, he forgot thewoman sitting at his left; he forgot the house of bondage, and heforgot that other house where the wedding chamber yet waited for thebride. 

"I should have known you anywhere. " His eyes dropped and he said nomore. 

That act of recognition had only lasted a second; but it had made itsmark. Over the dim, fluttering table was the hush of a profoundastonishment. He neither saw nor felt it; nor did he hear Mrs. Downeyscattering the silence with agitated apologies. 

"You'll excuse us beginning, Miss Harden; but it's Mr. Rickman's nightat the theatre. "

Miss Harden looked at him again, lifting her eyebrows with that air ofinterested inquiry that he knew so well. And yet, beyond those firsthalf dozen words he said nothing. 

"Silly boy, " said Mrs. Downey to herself, "why can't he say he's sorryhe has to go. I'm sure I gave him his opportunity. " She was annoyed athis rudeness. 

Whether he were sorry or not, he went at his appointed time. He neverknew how he got out of the room, nor how he had behaved before going. He had simply looked at her, held her hand and left her. And he hadnot said a word; or none at least that he could remember. 

Miss Harden was, it seemed, the guest, or the ostensible guest, ofMiss Roots. And Miss Roots enjoyed herself, delighting openly in therecovery of the friend she had lost sight of for so many years. Butfrom Mrs. Downey's point of view the Dinner that night was not exactlya success. Mr. Rickman had behaved in an extraordinary manner. Mr. Soper and Miss Bishop had never looked so--well, so out of place andcommon. And she could see that Mr. Spinks had taken advantage of thegeneral consternation to help himself outrageously to ginger. 

Lucia took her friend aside when it was over. "You might have told mehe was here, " said she. 

"My dear, I didn't know you knew him. "

"Then, did he never--" Whatever Lucia was going to say she thoughtbetter of it. 

She did not see him till the next night, after dinner, when he came toher as she was sitting in a corner of the back drawing-room alone. Andas he came, she looked at him with a curiously intent yet baffledgaze, as if trying to fit a present impression to one past. And yetshe could hardly have had any difficulty in recognizing him; for hisface was unforgettable, unique; but she missed something in it whichused to be familiar. And now she saw that what she had missed was therestless look of youth; the sensuous eagerness that had helped to makeit so irregular. It had settled into the other look that she had foundthere more rarely; the look that strengthened and refined the mobilefeatures, and brought them into harmony with the clean prominent linesof the chin and of the serious level brows. Of all his looks it wasthe one that she used to like best. 

"So you've come back again?" he said. 

"But I never was away. "

"I thought you were abroad?"

"Who told you that?"

"I don't know. I suppose I must have dreamt it. "

"I think you must. I've been in town for the last six weeks. "

"In town?"

"Yes, if Hampstead's town. I've been staying with the Jewdwines. Didn't he tell you?"

"No, he never told me anything. "

She was silent for a moment. "So _that's_ why you never came to seeme. "

"To see you? I didn't know--and if I had I shouldn't have thought--"He hesitated. 

"Of what? Of coming to see me?"

"No, that you would have cared for me to come. "

"I think that's not a thing you ought to say. Of course I cared. "

"Well, but I couldn't take that for granted, could I?"

"Couldn't you? Not after the messages I sent you?"

"But I never got any messages. "

"Didn't you?" Her upper lip quivered; it was as if she winced at somethought that struck her like a blow. "Then my cousin must haveforgotten to give them to you. Just like him; he is shockinglycareless. "

Now Rickman knew it was not just like him; Jewdwine was not careless, he was in all things painfully meticulous; and he never forgot. 

"I don't think I can forgive him for that. "

"You must forgive him. He is overwhelmed with work. And he isn'treally as thoughtless as you might suppose. He has given me news ofyou regularly. You can't think how glad I was to hear you were gettingon so well. As for the latest news of all--" She lifted her face andlooked at him with her sweet kind eyes. "It _is_ true that you aregoing to be married?"

"Quite true. "

"I was so glad to hear that, too. "

"Thanks. " There was a slight spasm in his throat. That thick difficultword stuck in it and choked him for the moment. 

"I hope I shall meet your wife some day. "

"You have met her. " Lucia looked puzzled and he smiled, a little sadlyfor a bridegroom. "You sat next her at dinner. She's here somewhere. "

Lucia turned her head to where Flossie was sitting by a table, sittingvery upright, with her little air of strained propriety. 

"Is it--is it that pretty lady? Do you think I might go up and speakto her? I would so like to know her. "

"I'll bring her to you. There's rather a crowd just now in the otherroom. "

He went to her, hardly knowing how he went. 

"Flossie, " he said, "I want to introduce you to Miss Harden. "

Flossie's eyes brightened with surprise and pleasure; for she hadlearnt from Mrs. Downey that the visitor was the daughter of SirFrederick Harden; and Lucia's distinction subdued her from afar. Keith, being aware of nothing but Lucia, failed to perceive, as heotherwise might have done, that he had risen in Flossie's opinion byhis evident intimacy with Miss Harden. She came blushing and smilingand a little awkward, steered by Keith. But for all her awkwardnessshe had never looked prettier than at that moment of her approach. 

If Keith had wanted to know precisely where he stood in the order ofLucia's intimacies, he might have learnt it from her reception of MissWalker. By it he might have measured, too, the height of her belief inhim, the depth of her ignorance. She who had divined him was ready totake his unknown betrothed on trust; to credit her, not with vastintellect, perhaps (what did that matter?), but certainly with somerare and lovely quality of soul. He loved her; that was enough. Luciadeduced the quality from the love, not the love from the quality. Hispretty lady must be lovable since he loved her. He had noticed longago that Lucia's face had a way of growing more beautiful in the actof admiration; as if it actually absorbed the loveliness it loved tolook upon. And now, as she made a place for Flossie at her side, itwore that look of wonder, ardent yet restrained, that look of shy andtentative delight with which five years ago she had approached his_Helen_. It was as if she had said to herself, "He always brought hisbest to show me. Five years ago he brought me his dream, to read andcare for. Now he brings me the real thing, to read and care for too. "She was evidently preparing to read Flossie as if she had been a newand beautiful poem. 

He was unaware of all this; unaware of everything except the mingledbeatitude and torture of the moment. He sat leaning forward, staringover his clasped hands at Lucia's feet, where he longed to fall downand worship. He heard her telling Flossie how glad she was to meether; how unexpected was her finding of him here, after fire years; howfive years ago she had known him in Devonshire; and so on. But in hisears the music of her voice detached itself wholly from the meaning ofher words. Thus he missed the assurance which, if he had only listenedintelligently, they might have had for him; the assurance of anindestructible friendship that welcomed and enfolded his pretty ladyfor his sake. 

But whatever her almost joyous acceptance of the pretty lady promisedfor the future, it could not be said that, conversationally, Lucia wasgetting on very fast with Flossie in the present; and Rickman'sabstraction did not make things easier. Therefore she was a littlerelieved when Miss Roots joined them, and Rickman, startled intoconsciousness, got up and left the room. He feared that lady'ssympathy and shrewdness. Nothing could be hidden from her clever eyes. 

And now, perceiving that the conversation flagged, Miss Rootsendeavoured to support it. 

"Have you seen _Metropolis_?" she asked in her tired voice. 

Lucia shook her head. "I don't know that I want to see it. "

"You'd better not say so before Miss Walker. "

"Oh, never mind me, " said Miss Walker. "I haven't been yet. Is itgood?"

"Some people seem to think so. It depends. "

"Yes; there's such a difference in the way they put them on the stage, too. "

Miss Roots' face relaxed, and her fatigued intelligence awoke. 

"Who's on in it?" asked Flossie, happy and unconscious; and the spiritof mischief seized upon Miss Roots. 

"I can't tell you. I'm not well posted in these things. But I thinkyou'd better not ask Mr. Rickman to take you to see _Metropolis_. "

Flossie was mystified, and a little indignant. If the play was soimproper, why had Miss Roots taken for granted that she had seen it?

"That wasn't at all nice of her, was it?" said Lucia, smiling as MissRoots went away. Her look was a healing touch laid on Flossie'swounded vanity. "That's the sort of little trap she used to lay forme. "

"I suppose you mean she was rotting me. I always know when otherpeople are rotting. But that's the worst of her; you never can tell, and she makes you look so ignorant, doesn't she?"

"She makes me _feel_ ignorant, but that's another thing. "

"But whatever did she mean just now?"

"Just now she meant that you knew all about _Metropolis_. "

"Why should I? Do _you_ know anything about it?"

"Not much; though it is my cousin's paper. But as Mr. Rickman writesfor it, you see--"

"Well, how was I to know that? He's always writing for something; andhe'd never think of coming to _me_ every time. I never talk shop tohim, and he never talks shop to me. Of course he told me that he'd goton to some better paying thing, " she added, anxious to show that shewas not shut out from the secrets of his heart; "but when you said_Metropolis_ I didn't take it in. "

Lucia made no further attempt to converse. She said good-night andfollowed Sophie Roots to her tiny room. 

"That was rather dreadful, " she said to herself. "I wonder--" But ifshe did not linger long over her wondering neither did she stop tofind out why she was so passionately anxious to think well of thewoman who was to be Keith Rickman's wife, and why it was such a reliefto her to be angry with Sophie for teasing the poor child. 

CHAPTER LV

He asked himself how it was that he had had no premonition of thething that was about to happen to him; that the supreme moment shouldhave come upon him so casually and with so light a step; that he wentto meet it in a mood so commonplace and unprepared? (Good Heavens! Heremembered that he had been eating pea soup at the time, and wishingit were artichoke. )

Had he not known that she would come back again, and in just that way?Had he not looked for her coming five years ago? And what were fiveyears, after all? How was it that he had heard no summons of thegolden and reverberant hour?

And what was he going to do with it, or it with him, now that it hadcome? That was a question that he preferred to leave unanswered forthe present. 

It seemed that Lucia was going to stay for a week as Miss Roots'guest; and it was Mrs. Downey's hope that she would be with them for amuch longer period on her own account. This hope Rickman judged to bealtogether baseless; she would never be able to bear the place formore than a week. He inquired of Miss Roots early the next morning onthis subject; and at the same time he found out from her what Luciahad been doing in the last five years. She had not been (as Jewdwinehad allowed him to suppose) abroad all the time with Kitty Palliser. She had only lived with Miss Palliser in the holidays. The rest of theyear, of the five years, she had been working for her living as musicmistress in a Women's College somewhere in the south of England. Tohis gesture of horror Miss Roots replied that this was by no means thehideous destiny he conceived it to be. 

"But--for _her_--" he exclaimed. 

"And why not for her?" Miss Roots, B. A. , retorted, stung by hisundisguised repugnance. If Lucia _had_ got her post merely by interest(which Miss Roots seemed to consider as something of a blot on hercareer) at the end of her first year she had the pick of the studentswaiting for her. Unfortunately Lucia had never been strong; and thissummer her health had completely broken down. 

At that he shuddered, and turned abruptly away. Miss Roots looked athim and wondered why. When he approached her again it was to offerher, with every delicacy and hesitation, the loan of his study for thetime of Miss Harden's visit. This was not an easy thing to do; but hewas helped by several inspirations. The room, he said, was simplystanding empty all day. He had hardly any use for it now. He would bekept busy at the office up to the time of his marriage. And he thoughtit would be a little more comfortable for Miss Harden than the publicdrawing-room. 

"I want, " he said (lying with a certain splendour), "to pay someattention to her. You see, she's my editor's cousin--"

Miss Roots turned on him a large look that took him in, his monstrousmendacity and all. But she nodded as much as to say that theexplanation passed. 

"One hardly likes to think of her, you know, sitting in the same roomwith Soper. "

"We all have to put up with Mr. Soper. "

"Yes; but if she isn't strong, she ought to have some place where shecan be alone and rest. Besides, it'll be nicer for _you_. You'll see agreat deal more of her, you know, that way. "

In the end the offer was accepted. For, as Miss Roots pointed out toher friend, it would give him far more pleasure to lend his room thanto sit in it himself. 

Certainly it gave him pleasure, a thrilling, subtle, and perfidiouspleasure, every time that he thought of Lucia occupying his room. Butbefore she could be allowed to enter, he caused it to be thoroughlycleansed, and purified as far as possible from the tobacco smoke thatlingered in the curtains and the armchairs. He tidied it up with hisown hands, removing or concealing the unlovelier signs of hispresence and profession. He bought several cushions (silk and down)for the sofa, and a curtain for the door to keep out the draught, anda soft rug for Lucia's feet; also a tea-table, a brass kettle and aspirit lamp, and flowers in an expensive pot. He did things to them tomake them look as if they had been some little time in use. He causeda wrinkle to appear in the smooth blue cheeks of the sofa cushions. Herubbed some of the youth off the edges of the tea-table. He made thebrass kettle dance lightly on the floor, until, without injury to itsessential beauty, it had acquired a look of experience. It was thedeceit involved in these proceedings that gave him the first clearconsciousness of guilt. He persuaded himself that all these articleswould come in nicely for the little house at Ealing, then rememberedthat he had provided most of them already. 

In doubt as to the propriety of these preparations, he againapproached Miss Roots. "I say, " said he, "you needn't tell her allthese things are mine. I'm going to leave them here in case she wantsto stay on afterwards. She won't have to pay so much then, you know. "He hesitated. "Do you think that's a thing that can be done?"

"Oh yes, it can be done, " she replied with an unmistakable emphasis. 

"But I mayn't do it? Mayn't I? It's all right if she doesn't know, youknow. "

Miss Roots said nothing; but he gathered that she would not betrayhim, that she understood. 

He could not explain matters half so clearly to himself. He might havewanted to lend his study to his friend's cousin; he certainly did wantto lend it to Lucia for her own sake; but besides these very properand natural desires he had other motives which would not bear toostrict examination. Lucia sitting in the same room with Mr. Soper wasnot a spectacle that could be calmly contemplated; but he hoped thatby providing her with a refuge from Mr Soper he might induce her tostay till the moment of his own departure. And there was anotherselfish consideration. It was impossible to see her, to talk to herwith any pleasure in the public drawing-room. Lucia could not comeinto his study as long as it was his; but if he gave it up to her andher friend, it was just possible that he might be permitted to call onher there. That she accepted him as a friend he could not any longerdoubt. There were so many things that he had to say to her, such longarrears of explanation and understanding to make up. He could seethat, unlike the Lucia he used to know, she had misunderstood him;indeed she had owned as much. And for this he had to thank HoraceJewdwine. 

Jewdwine's behaviour gave him much matter for reflection, painful, butinstructive. Jewdwine had not lied to him about Lucia's movements; buthe had allowed him to remain in error. He had kept his cousinregularly posted in the news she had asked for, as concerning anunfortunate young man in whom they were both interested; but he hadcontrived that no sign of her solicitude should reach the object ofit. It was as if he had been merely anxious to render an account ofhis stewardship; to assure her that the unfortunate young man was nowprospering under his protection, was indeed doing so well that therewas no occasion for Lucia to worry herself about him any more. Apparently he had even gone so far as to admit that there wasfriendship between Rickman and himself, while taking care that thereshould never be anything of the sort between Rickman and Lucia. He hadconstituted himself a way by which news of Rickman might reach Lucia;but he had sternly closed every path from Lucia to Rickman. That meantthat Lucia might be depended upon; but that Rickman must be allowed nofooting lest he should advance too far. In other words it meant thatthey acknowledged, and always would acknowledge, the genius while theyjudged it expedient to ignore the man. 

But _she_ had not always ignored him. Did it not rather mean, then, that Jewdwine would not trust her there; that, knowing her nature andhow defenceless it lay before the impulses of its own kindness, hefeared for her any personal communication with his friend? It did notoccur to Rickman that what Jewdwine dreaded more than anything forLucia was the influence of a unique and irresistible personal charm. As far as he could see, Jewdwine was merely desperately anxious toprotect his kinswoman from what he considered an undesirableacquaintance. And five years ago his fears and his behaviour wouldhave been justifiable; for Rickman owned that at that period he hadnot been fit to sit in the same room with Lucia Harden, far less, ifit came to that, than poor Soper. But his life since he had known herwas judged even by Jewdwine to be irreproachable. As Rickmanunderstood the situation, he had been sacrificed to a prejudice, aconvention, an ineradicable class-feeling on the part of thedistinguished and fastidious don. It was not the class-feeling itselfthat he resented; he could have forgiven Jewdwine a sentiment overwhich he had apparently no control; he could have forgiven himanything, even his silence and his subterfuge, if he had onlydelivered Lucia's messages. That was an unpardonable cruelty. It waslike holding back a cup of water from a man dying of thirst. He hadconsumed his heart with longing for some word or sign from her; he hadtortured himself with his belief in her utter repudiation of him; andJewdwine, who had proof of the contrary, had abandoned him to hisbelief. He could only think that, after taking him up so gently, Luciahad dropped him and left him where he fell. He owned that Jewdwine wasnot bound to tell him that Lucia had returned to England, or toprovide against any false impression he might form as to herwhereabouts; and it was not there, of course, that the cruelty camein. He could have borne the sense of physical separation if, insteadof being forced to infer her indifference from her silence, he hadknown that her kind thoughts had returned to him continually; if hehad known that whatever else had been taken from him, he had kept herfriendship. Her friendship--it was little enough compared with what hewanted--but it had already done so much for him that he knew what hecould have made of it, if he had only been certain that it was his. Hecould have lived those five years on the memory of her, as other menlive on hope; sustained by the intangible but radiant presence, byinimitable, incommunicable ardours, by immaterial satisfactions anddelights. If they had not destroyed all bodily longing, they would atleast have made impossible its separation from her and transference toanother woman. They would have saved him from this base concession tothe folly of the flesh, this marriage which, as its hour approached, seemed to him more inevitable and more disastrous. Madness lay in thethought that his deliverance had been near him on the very day when hefixed that hour; and that at no time had it been very far away. No;not when two years ago he had stood hesitating on the edge of theinexpiable, immeasurable folly; the folly that had received, engulfedhim now beyond deliverance and return. If only he had known; if hecould have been sure of her friendship; if he could have seen her forone moment in many months, one hour in many years, the thing wouldnever have begun; or, being begun, could never have been carriedthrough. 

Meanwhile the friendship remained. His being married could not make itless; and his being unmarried would certainly not have made it more. As there could be neither more nor less of it, he ought to have beenable to regard it as a simple, definite, solidly satisfactory thing. But he had no sooner realized that so much at least was his than heperceived that he had only the very vaguest notion as to the natureand extent of it. Of all human relations, friendship was theobscurest, the most uncertainly defined. At this point he rememberedone fatal thing about her; it had always been her nature to givepleasure and be kind. The passion, he imagined, was indestructible;and with a temperament like that she might be ten times his friendwithout his knowing from one day to another how he really stood withher. And hitherto one means of judging had been altogether denied tohim; he had never had an opportunity of observing her ways with othermen. 

This third evening he watched her jealously, testing her dealings withhim by her behaviour to the boarders, and notably to Spinks and Soper. For Lucia, whether she was afraid of hurting the feelings of thesepeople, or whether she hesitated to establish herself altogether inMr. Rickman's study, had determined to spend the first hours afterdinner in the drawing-room. Miss Roots protested against these weakconcessions to the social order. "You'll never be able to stand them, dear, " she said; "they're terrible. "

But Lucia had her way. "You've stood them for five years, " said she. 

"Yes, but I've had my work, and I'm used to it; and in any case I'mnot Miss Lucia Harden. "

"Mr. Rickman stands them. "

"Does he? You wouldn't say so if you'd known him for five years. "

"I wonder why he stayed. "

"Do you? Perhaps Miss Flossie could enlighten you. "

"Of course. I was forgetting her. "

"Don't forget her, " said Miss Roots drily; "she's important. "

Miss Roots went up to the study, and Lucia turned into thedrawing-room. She owned to herself that what took her there was not somuch an impulse of politeness as an irresistible desire to know whatmanner of people Keith Rickman had had to live among. In thoseevenings the scene had grown familiar to her; the long room with thethree tall windows looking on the street; the Nottingham lace curtainstied with yellow sashes in the middle; the vivid blue-green paintingof the wood-work, a bad match for the wall paper; the oleographs andpier-glasses in their gilded frames; the carpet, with its monstrousmeaningless design in brown and amber; the table, secretary, andcabinet of walnut wood whose markings simulated some horriblediscoloration of decay; the base company of chairs, and the villainouslittle maroon velvet ottoman, worn by the backs of many boarders; andbeyond the blue-green folding doors the dim little chamber looking ona mews. And the boarders, growing familiar, too, to her sensitiveimpressionable brain; Miss Bramble, upright in her morning gown andpoor little lace cap and collar; Mrs. Downey sitting, flushed andweary, in the most remote and most uncomfortable chair; Mr. Spinksreading the paper with an air of a man engaged in profound literaryresearch; the two girls sitting together on the ottoman under thegaselier; Mr. Soper wandering uneasily among them, with hisinsignificant smile and his offerings of bon-bons; and Keith Rickmansitting apart, staring at his hands, or looking at Flossie with hisblue, deep-set, profoundly pathetic eyes. For that pretty lady's sake, how he must have suffered in those five years. 

Rickman, from his retreat in the back drawing-room, watched her ways. She was kind to Miss Bramble. She was kind to that old ruffianPartridge whose neck he would willingly have wrung. She was kind, goodHeavens! yes, she was kind to Soper. When the commercial gentlemanapproached her with his infernal box of bon-bons, she took one. Hecould have murdered Soper. He was profoundly depressed by thespectacle of Lucia's ways. If she behaved like that to every one, whathad he to go upon? Nothing, nothing; it was just her way. And yet, hedid not exactly see her sending messages to Soper. 

He rose and opened the grand piano that stood in the backdrawing-room. He went up to her (meeting with a nervous smileFlossie's inquiring look as he passed). He stood a moment with one armon the chimney-piece, and waited, looking down at Lucia. Presently sheraised her head and smiled, as surely she could never have smiled atSoper. 

"Do you want me to play for you?" she said. 

"That is exactly what I wanted. " He drew the flattering inferencethat, while apparently absorbed in conversation with Miss Bramble, shehad been aware of his presence in the background, and of everymovement he had made. 

"Well, I must ask our hostess first, mustn't I?"

She went to that lady and bent over her with her request. 

If Lucia's aim was to give pleasure she had certainly achieved it. Mrs. Downey may or may not have loved music, but she was visiblyexcited at the prospect of hearing it. So were the boarders. Theysettled themselves solemnly in their seats. Spinks crushed his noisynewspaper into a ball and thrust it behind him; Miss Bramble put awayher clicking needles; while Mr. Soper let himself sink into a chairwith elaborate silence; one and all (with the exception of Mr. Partridge, who slept) they turned their faces, politely expectant, towards the inner room. It struck Lucia that in this the poor thingswere better mannered than many a more aristocratic audience. 

Rickman lit the candles on the piano and seated himself beside her. 

"I know what I have got to play. " said she. 

"What?"

"The Sonata Appassionata, isn't it?"

"Fancy your remembering. "

"Of course I remember. It isn't every one who cares for Beethoven. I'mafraid the others won't like it, though. "

"They've got to like it, " he said doggedly. 

And Lucia, with her fatal passion for giving pleasure, played. And asthe stream of music flowed through the half-lit room, it swept awayall sense of his surroundings, all memory of the love and truth andhonour pledged to his betrothed, and every little scruple of pity orof conscience. It bore down upon the barriers that stood between himand Lucia, and swept them away too. And the secret sources of hisinspiration, sealed for so many months, were opened and flowed withthe flowing of the stream; and over them the deep flood of his longingand his misery rose and broke and mingled with the tumult. And throughit, and high above it all, it was as if his soul made music with her;turning the Sonata Appassionata into a singing of many voices, asymphony of many strings. 

So lost was he that he failed to perceive the effect of her playing onthe audience of the outer room. Flossie sat there, very quiet in herawe; Miss Bishop kept her loose mouth open, drinking in the sounds;Mr. Soper leaned forward breathing heavily in a stupid wonder; there, over the tops of the chairs, one up-standing ribbon on Miss Bramble'scap seemed to be beating time to the music all by itself; while Mrs. Downey flushed and swelled with pride at the astonishing capabilitiesof her piano. He did not notice either that, as Lucia played thetender opening bars of the Sonata, Mr. Partridge shook off the slumberthat bound him at this hour; that, as she struck the thundering chordsthat signal the presto Finale, he raised his head like an oldwar-horse at the sound of the trumpet. He stared solemnly at Lucia asshe came forward followed by Rickman; then he rose from his ownconsecrated chair, heavily but with a certain dignity suited to themoral grandeur of the act, and made a gesture of abdication. 

"I was a professional myself once, " said he. "My instrument was theflute. "

There was no doubt about the spirit of Lucia's reception that night. Perhaps the finest appreciation of connoisseurs had never touched hermore than did the praise of that simple audience. Rickman was the onlyone who did not thank her. For when her playing was over he had turnedsuddenly very cold, seized with a fierce shivering, the reaction fromthe tense fever of his nerves; and it was with difficulty that hecontrolled the chattering of his teeth. But before they parted for thenight he asked if he might "call" some afternoon; his tone pointingthe allusion to the arrangement that permitted this approach, "Wecan't talk very well here, can we?" he said. 

She answered by inviting him and Miss Walker to tea the next day. Hewas conscious of a base inward exultation when he heard poor Flossiesay that she could only look in later for a little while. In October, work was heavy at the Bank, and the Beaver seldom got home till aftertea-time. His conscience asked him sternly if he had reckoned on thattoo?

When to-morrow came, Miss Hoots was busy also, and disappeared aftertea. He had certainly reckoned on that disappearance. 

There was a moment of embarrassment on his part when he found himselfalone with Lucia in the room (his room) that he had made ready forher. He had done his work so thoroughly well that the place looked asif it had been ready for her since the beginning of time. 

She was tired. He remembered how tired she used to be at Harmouth; andhe noticed with a pang how little it took to tire her now. She leanedback in his chair, propped by the cushions he had chosen for her(chosen with a distinct prevision of the beauty of the white face anddark hair against that particular shade of greenish blue). She hadbeen reading one of his books; it lay in her lap. Her feet rested onhis fender, they stretched out towards the warmth of his fire. If onlyit were permitted to him always to buy things for her; always to giveher the rest she needed; always to care for her and keep her warm andwell. He wondered how things had gone with her those five years. Hadshe been happy in that college in the south? Had they been kind toher, those women; or had they tortured her, as only women can torturewomen, in some devilish, subtle way? Or would overwork account for thefailure of her strength? He thought he saw signs in her tender face ofsome obscure, deep-seated suffering of the delicate nerves. Well, anyhow she was resting now. And in looking at her he rested, too, fromthe labour of conscience and the trouble of desire. Heart and senseswere made quiet by her mere presence. If his hands trembled as theywaited on her it was not with passion but with some new feeling, indescribable and profound. For brought so near to him as this, sonear as to create the illusion of possession, she became for himsomething too sacred for his hands to touch. 

He could count on about half an hour of this illusion before Flossieappeared. Afraid of losing one moment of it, he began instantly on thething he had to say. 

"All this time I've been waiting to thank you for your introduction toFielding. "

"Oh, " she said eagerly, "what did he say? Tell me. "

He told her. As she listened he could see how small a pleasure wasenough to give life again to her tired face. 

"I am so glad, " she said in the low voice of sincerity; "so veryglad. " She paused. "That justifies my belief in you. Not that itneeded any justification. "

"I don't know. Your cousin, who is the best critic I know, would tellyou that it did. "

"My cousin--perhaps. But he _does_ see that those poems are great. Only he's so made that I think no greatness reconciles him to--well, to little faults, if they are faults of taste. "

"Did you find many faults of taste?"

She smiled. "I found some; but only in the younger poems. There werenone--none at all--in the later ones. Which of course is what onemight expect. "

"It is, indeed. Did you look at the dates? Did you notice that allthose later things were written either at Harmouth, or after?"

"I did. "

"And didn't that strike you as significant? Didn't you draw anyconclusions?"

"I drew the conclusion that--that the poet I knew had worked out hisown salvation. "

"Exactly--the poet you knew. Didn't it occur to you that he mightnever have done it, if you hadn't known him?"

He looked at her steadily. The colour on her face had deepened, buther eyes, as they met his, were grave and meditative. She seemed to beconsidering the precise meaning of his words before she answered. 

"No, I didn't. "

"What, never? Think. Don't you remember how you used to help me?"

She shook her head. "I only remember that I meant to have helped you. And I was very sorry because I couldn't. But I see now how absurd itwas of me; and how unnecessary. "

He knew that she was thinking now of her private secretary. 

"It was beautiful of you. But, you know, it couldn't have happened. Itwas one of those beautiful things that never can happen. "

"That's why I was so sorry. I thought it must look as if I hadn'tmeant it. "

"But you did mean it. Nothing can alter that, can it?"

"No. You must take the will for the deed. "

"I do. The will is the only thing that matters. "

"Yes. But--it was absurd of me--but I thought you might have beencounting on it?"

"Did I count on it? I suppose I did; though I knew it was impossible. You forget that I knew all the time it was impossible. It was only abeautiful idea. "

"I'm sorry, then, that it had to remain an idea. "

"Don't be sorry. Perhaps that's the only way it could remainbeautiful. It wouldn't have done, you know. You only thought it couldbecause you were so kind. It was all very well for me to work for youfor three weeks or so. It would have been very different when you hadme on your hands for a whole year at a stretch. And it's much betterfor me that it never came off than if I'd had to see you sorry for itafterwards. "

"If I had been sorry, I should not have let you see it. "

"I should have seen it, though, whether you let me or not. I alwayssee these things. "

"But I think, you know, that I wouldn't have been sorry. "

"You would! You would! You couldn't have stood me. "

"I think I could. "

"What, a person with a villainous cockney accent? Who was capable ofmurdering the Queen's English any day in your drawing-room?"

"Oh, no; whatever you do you'll never do that. "

"Well, I don't know. I'm not really to be trusted unless I've got apen in my hand. I'm better than I used to be. I've struggled againstit. Still, a man who has once murdered the Queen's English alwaysfeels, you know, as if he'd got the body under the sofa. It's likehomicidal mania; the poor wretch may be cured, but he lives in terrorof an attack returning. He knows it doesn't matter what he is or whathe does; he may live like a saint or write like an archangel; but oneaitch omitted from his conversation will wreck him at the last. "

"You needn't be afraid; you never omit them. "

"You mean I never omit them now. But I did five years ago. I couldn'thelp it. Everybody about me did it. The only difference between themand me was that I knew it, and they didn't. "

"You _were_ conscious of it, then?"

"Conscious? Do you know, that for every lapse of the sort in yourpresence I suffered the torments of the damned? Do you suppose Ididn't know how terrible I was?"

She shook her head, this time with disapproval. "You shouldn't saythese things. "

"Do you mean, I shouldn't say them, or shouldn't say them to you?"

"Well, I think you shouldn't say them to me. Don't you see that itsounds as if I had done or said something to make you feel like that. "

"You? Good Heavens! rather not! But whatever you said or did, Icouldn't help knowing how you thought of me. "

"And how was that?"

"Well, as half a poet, you know, and half a hair-dresser. "

"That's funny; but it's another of the things you shouldn't say. Because you know it isn't true. "

"I only say them because I want you to see how impossible it was. "

"For me to help you?"

"Yes. "

"I do see it. It _was_ impossible--but not for any of the reasons yousuppose. If it had been possible--"

"What then?"

"Then, perhaps, I needn't have felt so sorry and ashamed. You know Ireally _am_ a little bit ashamed of having asked a great poet to be myprivate secretary. "

It was thus that she extricated herself from the embarrassing positionin which his clumsiness had placed her. For he saw what she meant whenshe told him that he should not say these things to her. He had madeher feel that she ought to defend him from the charges he had broughtagainst himself, when she knew them to be true, when her gentlenesscould only have spared him at the expense of her sincerity. Howbeautifully she had turned it off. He refrained from the obviouspretty speeches. His eyes had answered her. 

"If you knew that you _had_ done something for me; not a little thingbut a great one--" He paused; and in the silence they heard the soundof Flossie's feet coming up the stair. He had only just time to finishhis sentence--"Would it please you or annoy you?"

She answered hurriedly; for as she rose, Flossie was knocking at thedoor. 

"It would please me more than I can say. "

"Then, " he said in a voice that was too low for Flossie to hear, "you_shall_ know it. "

CHAPTER LVI

It was impossible that Rickman's intimacy with Miss Harden should passunnoticed by the other boarders. But it was well understood by MissRoots, by Flossie and by all of them, that any attentions he paid toher were paid strictly to his editor's cousin. And if there was theleast little shade of duplicity in this explanation, his conscienceheld him so far guiltless, seeing that he had adopted it more onLucia's account than his own. Incidentally, however, he was notdispleased that it had apparently satisfied Flossie. 

But if Flossie felt no uneasiness at the approaches of Mr. Rickman andMiss Harden, the news that Lucia was staying under the same roof withthe impossible young poet could hardly be received with complacency byher relations. It threw Edith Jewdwine into an agony of alarm. Horaceas yet knew nothing about it; for he was abroad. Even Edith had heardnothing until her return from her autumn holiday in Wales, when aletter from Lucia informed her that she would be staying for the nextweek or two with Sophie Roots in Tavistock Place. Edith was utterlyunprepared for her cousin's change of plans. She had not asked Luciato go with her to Wales; for Lucia's last idea had been to spendSeptember and October in Devonshire with Kitty Palliser. Edith, eagerfor her holiday, had not stopped to see whether the arrangements withKitty were completed; and Lucia, aware of Edith's impatience, hadomitted to mention that they were not. But what made Lucia's move soparticularly trying to Edith was the circumstance that relationsbetween them had latterly been a little strained; and when Edithsearched her heart she found that for this unhappy tension it was sheand not Lucia who had been to blame. 

And now (while Lucia was resting calmly on Mr. Rickman's sofa), inthe grave and beautiful drawing-room of the old brown house atHampstead a refined and fastidious little lady walked up and down in astate of high nervous excitement. That little lady bore in her slightway a remarkable resemblance to her brother Horace. It was Horace inpetticoats, diminutive and dark. There was the same clearness, thesame distinction of feature, the same supercilious forehead, the samequivering of the high-bred nose, the same drooping of the unhappymouth. Bat the flame of Edith's small steel black eyes revealed acreature of more ardour and more energy. 

At the moment Edith was visited with severe compunction; an intrusiveuncomfortable feeling that she had never before been thus compelled toentertain. For looking back upon the past two years she perceived thather conduct as mistress of that drawing-room and house had not alwaysbeen as fastidious and refined as she could wish. The house and thedrawing-room were mainly the cause of it. Before Horace became editorof _The Museion_, Edith had been mistress of a minute establishmentkept up with difficulty on a narrow income. In a drawing-roomseventeen feet by twelve she received with difficulty a small circleof the cultured; ladies as refined and fastidious as herself, and(after superhuman efforts on the part of these ladies) occasionally apreoccupied and superlatively married man. From this position, compatible with her exclusiveness, but not with her temperament or herambition, Edith found herself raised suddenly to a perfect eminence ofculture and refinement as head of the great editor's house. She held asort of salon, to which her brother's reputation attracted manyfigures if possible more distinguished than his own. She found herselfthe object of much flattering attention on the part of persons anxiousto stand well with Horace Jewdwine. With a dignity positivelymarvellous in so small a woman, her head held high and made higherstill by the raised roll of her black hair, Edith reigned for threeyears in that long drawing-room. She laid down the law grandiloquentlyto the young aspirants who thronged her court; she rewarded withsuperb compliments those who had achieved. Happily for Edith thosegentlemen were masters of social legerdemain; and they conveyed theirsmiles up the sleeves of their dress-coats adroitly unperceived. 

And then, in the very flower of her small dynasty, Lucia came. Lucia, with her music and her youth and her indestructible charm. And thelittle court, fickle by its very nature, went over bodily to Lucia! ToLucia who did not want it, who would much rather have been without it, but must needs encourage it, play to it, sympathize with it, just tosatisfy that instinct of hers which was so fatal and so blind. AndHorace, who to Edith's great relief had freed himself from this mostundesirable attachment, who for three years had presented everyappearance of judicious apathy, Horace, perceiving that men's eyes(and women's too) loved to follow and to rest upon his cousin, discovering all over again on his own account the mysterious genius ofher fascination, had ended by bowing down and worshipping too. Hisadoration was the more profound (and in Edith's shrewd opinion moredangerous), because he kept it to himself; because it pledged him tonothing in the eyes of Lucia and the world. 

But the eyes of the world, especially of the journalistic world, areexceedingly sharp; and if Lucia had not been charming in herself thoseliterary ladies and gentlemen would have found her so, as the ladywhom Horace Jewdwine was presumably about to marry. It was Hanson, Hanson of the _Courier_, who sent the rumour round, "_La reine estmorte, vive la reine_. " The superb despotic Edith saw herself not onlydeserted, but deposed; left with neither court nor kingdom; decliningfrom the palace of royalty to the cottage of the private gentlewoman, and maintaining her imperious refinement on a revenue absurdlydisproportioned to that end. Not that as yet there had been anysuggestion of Edith's abdication. As yet Lucia had only spent herwinter holidays at Hampstead. But when, at the end of the presentsummer, Lucia suddenly and unexpectedly broke down and her salaryceased with her strength, it became a question of providing her with ahome for three months at the very least. Even then, the revolution wasdelayed; for Horace had gone abroad in the autumn. But with everymonth that Edith remained in power she loved power more; and in herheart she had been considering how, without scandal to the world, orannoyance to Horace, or offence to Lucia, she could put her rivaldelicately aside. She had long been on the look-out for easy posts forLucia, for posts in rich and aristocratic families in the provinces, or better still for ladies in want of charming travelling companions. 

But now, better, a thousand times better, that Edith should have beenforced to abdicate than that Lucia should have taken herself out ofthe way in this fashion; a fashion so hideously suggestive of socialsuicide; that she should be living within four miles of her fastidiousand refined relations in a fifth-rate boarding-house inhabitated bygoodness knows whom. If only that had been all! Of course it wasintolerable to think of Lucia mixing with the sort of people whomnobody but Goodness ever does know; but, after all, she wouldn't mixwith them; she hadn't had time to; and if instantly removed from theplace of contamination she might yet be presented to society againwithout spot or taint. But it was not all. Out of the many hundredbase abodes of Bloomsbury Lucia had picked out the one house she oughtto have avoided, the one address which for five years her cousinHorace had been endeavouring to conceal from her; it being the addressof the one disreputable, the one impossible person of hisacquaintance. Rickman had appeared, as strange people sometimes did, at Edith's court; an appearance easily explained and justified by thefact that he was a genius of whom Horace Jewdwine hoped great things. But he had never been suffered in that salon when Lucia had beenthere. Horace had taken untold pains, he had even lied frequently andelaborately, to prevent Lucia's encountering, were it only byaccident, that one impossible person; and here she was living, actually living in the same house with him. Even if Rickman could betrusted to efface himself (which wasn't very likely; for if there isanything more irrepressible than a cockney vulgarian it is a poet; andRickman was both!), could they, could anybody trust Lucia and heridiotic impulse to be kind? To be kind at any cost. She nevercalculated the cost of anything; which was another irritatingreflection for Miss Jewdwine. Poor as she was, she thought nothing ofpaying twenty-five or thirty shillings for her board and a miserablelodging, when she might--she ought--to have been living with herrelations free of all expense. But there was the sting, theunspeakable sting; for it meant that Lucia would do anything, payanything, rather than stop another week in Hampstead. And Edith knewthat it was she who had made Lucia feel like that; she who had drivenher to this deplorable step. Not by anything done, or said, or evenimplied; but by things not done, things not said, things darkly orpassionately thought. For Lucia, with her terrible gift of intuition, must somehow have known all the time what Edith hardly knew, what atleast she would never have recognized if she had not observed theeffect on Lucia. Edith had no patience with people who were soabominably sensitive. It was all nerves, nerves, nerves. Lucia was andalways had been hopelessly neurotic. And if people were to be shakenand upset by every passing current of another person's thought, itwas, Edith said to herself a little pathetically, rather hard upon theother person. Nobody can help their thoughts; and there was somethingpositively indecent in the uncanny insight that divined them. All thesame, Edith, confronted with the consequences of these movements ofthe unfettered brain, was stung with compunction and considerableshame. Horace would be furious when he knew; more furious with Ediththan Lucia. Therefore Edith was furious with Sophia Roots, the causeof this disaster, who must have known that even if Lucia was tooweak-minded to refuse her most improper invitation, that invitationought never to have been given. Edith had her pride, the pride of allthe Jewdwines and the Hardens; and her private grievances gave waybefore a family catastrophe. She did not want Lucia at Hampstead; butat all cost to herself Lucia must be brought back to her cousin'shouse before anybody knew that she had ever left it. It was evenbetter that Horace should marry her than that they should risk thescandal of a mesalliance, or even-a passing acquaintance with a manlike Rickman. She would go and fetch Lucia now, this very evening. 

She went as fast as a hansom could take her, and was shown up intoRickman's room where she had the good luck to find Lucia alone. Luciawas too tired to go out very much; and at that moment of her cousin'sentrance she was resting on Mr. Rickman's sofa. As the poor poet hadbeen so careful to remove the more telling tokens of his occupation, Edith did not see that it was Mr. Rickman's room; and she was a littlesurprised to find Sophia Roots so comfortably, not to say luxuriouslylodged. 

She lost no time in delivering her soul, lest Sophia should pop inupon them. 

"Lu-_chee_-a, " she said with emphasis, "I think you ought to have toldme. "

"Told you what?"

"Why, that you hadn't anywhere to go to, instead of coming here. "

"But I didn't come here because I hadn't anywhere to go to. I camebecause I wanted to see something of Sophie after all these years. "

"You could have seen Sophie at Hampstead. I would have asked her tostay with you if I'd known you wanted her. "

"That would have been very nice of you. But I'm afraid she wouldn'thave come. You see she can't leave her work at the Museum--ever, poorthing. "

"Oh. Then you don't see so much of Sophie after all?"

"Not as much as I should like. But I must be somewhere; and I'mperfectly happy here. "

As she rose to make tea for Edith (at the poet's table, and with thepoet's brass kettle), she looked, to Edith's critical eyes, mostsuspiciously at home. Edith's eyes, alert for literature, roamed overthe bookcases before they settled on the tea-pot (the poet's tea-pot);but it was the tea-pot that brought her to her point. Did Lucia mixwith the other boarders after all?

"This isn't a bad room, " she said. "I suppose you have all your mealsup here?"

"Only tea and breakfast. "

"But, my dear girl, where do you lunch and dine?"

"Downstairs, in the dining-room. "

"With all the other boarders?"

Lucia smiled. "Yes, all of them. You see we can't very well turn anyof them out. "

"Really, Lucia, before you do things like this you might stop toconsider how your friends must feel about it. "

"Why should they feel anything? It's all right, Edith, really it is. "

"Right for you to take your meals with these dreadful people? Youcan't say they're not dreadful, Lucia; for they are. "

"They're not half so dreadful as you might suppose. In fact you've noidea how nice they can be, some of them. Indeed I don't know one ofthem that isn't kind and considerate and polite in some way. Yes, polite. They're all inconceivably polite. And do you know, they allwant me to stay on; and I've half a mind to stay. "

"Oh, no, my dear, you're not going to stay. I've come to carry you offthe very minute we've finished tea. Sophia should have known betterthan to bring you here. "

"Poor little Sophie. If she can stand it, I might. "

"That doesn't follow at all. And if you can stand it, your relationscan't. So make up your mind that you're going back with me. "

"It's extremely kind of you; but I should hurt Sophie's feelingsterribly if I went. Why should I go?"

"Because it isn't a fit place for you to be in. To begin with, I don'tsuppose they feed you properly. "

"You can't say I look the worse for it. "

No, certainly she couldn't; for Lucia looked better than she had donefor many months. In the fine air of Hampstead she had been white andlanguid and depressed; here in Bloomsbury she had a faint colour, andin spite of her fatigue, looked almost vigorous. What was more, herface bore out her own account of herself. She had said she wasperfectly happy, and she looked it. 

A horrible idea occurred to Edith. But she did not mean to speak ofRickman till she had got Lucia safe at Hampstead. 

"Besides, " said Lucia simply, "I'm staying for the best of allpossible reasons; because I want to. "

"Well, if it's pleasant for you, you forget that it's anything butpleasant for Horace and me. Horace--if you care what he thinks--wouldbe exceedingly annoyed if he knew about it. "

"Isn't he just a little unreasonable?"

"He is not. Is it nice for him to know that you prefer living withthese people to staying in his house?"

"What would he say if he knew that one of these people lent us thisroom?"

The words and the smile that accompanied them challenged Edith tospeak; and speak she must. But she could not bring herself to utterthe abominable name. "And was that on Sophie's account or yours?"

"On both our accounts; and it was beautifully done. "

"Oh, if it was done beautifully there's no doubt on whose account itwas done. I should have thought you were the last person, Lucia, toput yourself under such an obligation. "

"There was no obligation. It was kinder to Mr. Rickman to take hisroom than refuse it, that was all. "

Lucia had no difficulty whatever in bringing out the name. And that, if Edith's perceptions had not been dulled by horror, would havestruck her as a favourable sign. 

"Young Rickman!" Edith's astonishment was a master stroke in all thatit ignored and in all that it implied of the impossibility of thatperson. "Your notions of kindness are more than I can understand. Whatever possessed you to take his room? If he'd offered it fiftytimes!"

"But it wasn't wanted. "

Edith relaxed the tension of her indignant body and sank back in herchair (or rather, Mr. Rickman's chair) with an immense relief. "Youmean he isn't in the house at present?"

"Oh yes, he's in the house, I'm glad to say. Neither Sophie nor Icould stand very much of the house without him. "

That admission, instead of rousing Edith to renewed indignation, appeared to crush her. "Lucia, " she murmured, "you are hopeless. "

Another cup of tea, however, revived the spirit of remonstrance. 

"I know you don't see it, Lucia, but you are laying yourself under anobligation of the worst sort; the sort that puts a woman more thananything in a man's power. "

Lucia ignored the baser implication (so like Lucia). "I'm under somany obligations to Mr. Rickman already, that one more hardly counts. "She hastened to appease the dumb distress now visible on her cousin'sface. "I don't mean money obligations; though there's that, too--Horace knows all about it. I don't know if I can explain--" Shelaid her hands in her lap and looked at Edith and beyond her, withliquid and untroubled eyes; not seeing her, but seeing things very faroff, invisible from Edith's point of view; which things she mustendeavour, if possible, to make her see. "The kind of obligations Imean are so difficult to describe, because there's nothing to takehold of. Only, when you've once made a man believe in you and trustyou, so that he comes to you ever afterwards expecting nothing butwonderful discernment, and irreproachable tact, and--and an almostimpalpable delicacy of treatment, and you know that you failed in allthese things just when he needed them most, you do feel someobligations. There's the obligation to make up for your blunders; theobligation to think about him in a certain way because no other waydoes justice to his idea of you; the obligation to show him the sameconsideration he showed to you; the obligation to take a simplekindness from him as he would have taken it from you--"

"My _dear_ Lucia, you forget that a man may accept many things from awoman that she cannot possibly accept from him. "

"Yes, but they are quite another set of things. They don't come intoit at all. That's where you make the mistake, Edith. I've got--for myown sake--to behave to that man as finely as he behaved to me. I owehim a sort of spiritual redress. I always shall owe it him; but I'mdoing something towards it now. " She said to herself, "I am a fool totry to explain it to her. She'll never understand. I wish Kitty werehere. She would have understood in a minute. "

Edith did not understand. She thought that Lucia's perceptions inthis matter were blunt, when they were only superlatively fine. 

"All this, " said she, "implies an amount of intimacy that I was notaware of. "

"Intimacy? Yes, I suppose it _is_ intimacy, of a sort. "

"And how it could have happened with a man like that--"

"A man like what?"

"Well, my dear girl, a man that Horace wouldn't dream of allowing youto meet, even in his own house. "

"Horace? You talk about my being under an obligation. It was he whohelped to put me under it. "

"And how?"

"By never delivering one of my messages to him; by letting him believethat I behaved horribly to him; that I sent him away and never gavehim a thought--when he had been so magnificent. There were a thousandthings I wanted to explain and set right; and I asked Horace for anopportunity and he never gave it me. He can't blame me if I take itnow. "

"If Horace did all these things, he did them for the best possiblereasons. He knows rather more of this young man than you do, or couldhave any idea of. I don't know what he is now, but he was, at onetime, thoroughly disreputable. "

"Whatever _did_ he do?"

"Do? He did everything. He drank; he ran after the worst sort ofwomen--he mixes now with the lowest class of journalists in town; helived for months, Horace says, with a horrid little actress in thenext house to this. "

Lucia's face quivered like a pale flame. 

"I don't believe it. I don't believe it for a moment. "

"It's absurd to say you don't believe what everybody knows, and whatanybody here can tell you. "

"I never heard a word against him here. Ask Sophie She's known him forfive years. Besides, _I_ know him. That's enough. "

"Lucy, when you once get hold of an idea you're blind to everythingoutside it. "

"I take after my family in that. But no, I'm not blind. He may havegone wrong once, at some time--but never, no, I'm sure of it, since Iknew him. "

"Still, when a man has once lived that sort of life, the coarsenessmust remain. "

"Coarseness? There isn't any refinement, any gentleness he isn'tcapable of. He's fine through and through. Stay and meet him, Edith, and see for yourself. "

"I _have_ met him. "

"And yet you can't see?"

"I've seen all I want to see. "

"Don't, Edith--"

There was a sound of feet running swiftly up the stair; the door ofthe adjoining room opened and shut, and a man's voice was heardsinging. These sounds conveyed to Edith a frightful sense of thenearness and intimacy of the young man, and of the horror of Lucia'sposition. As she listened she held her cousin by her two hands in adumb agony of entreaty. 

"Horace is coming back, " she whispered. 

"No, Edith, it's no good. I'm going to stay till Kitty takes me. "

Edith wondered whether, after all, Lucia was so very fastidious andrefined; whether, indeed, in taking after her family, she did not takeafter the least estimable of the Hardens. There was a wild strain inthem; their women had been known to do queer things, unaccountable, disagreeable, disreputable things; and Lucia was Sir Frederick'sdaughter. Somehow that young voice singing in the next room rubbedthis impression into her. She stiffened and drew back. 

"And am I to tell Horace, then, that you are happy here?"

"Yes. Tell him to come and see how happy I am. "

"Very well. "

As Edith opened the door to go, the voice in the next room stoppedsinging, and the young man became suddenly very still. 

CHAPTER LVII

Lucia lay back in her chair, wondering, not at Edith, but at herself. Her cousin's visit had been so far effectual that it had made heraware of the attitude of her own mind. If she had been told beforehandthat she could be happy in a Bloomsbury boarding-house, or within anyreasonable distance of such people as Miss Bishop and Mr. Soper, thething would have appeared to her absurd. And yet it was so. She washappy among these dreadful people, as she had not been happy atHampstead among the cultured and refined. But when she came to examineinto the nature of this happiness she found that it contained nopositive element; that it consisted mainly of relief, relief from thestrain of an incessant anxiety and uncertainty. That the strain hadbeen divided between her and Horace had only made it worse, for shehad had the larger share of the anxiety, he of the uncertainty. Notthat he was more uncertain than in the old days at Harmouth. He wasless so. But she had never been anxious then. For after all they hadunderstood each other; and apparently it was the understanding nowthat failed. Yet Horace had been right when he told himself that Luciawould never imply anything, infer anything, claim anything, takeanything for granted on the sanction of that understanding. She wouldnot have hurried by a look or word the slow movements of the lovewhich somehow he had led her to believe in. Love between man and womanto her mind was a sort of genius; and genius, as she said long ago topoor Rickman, must always have about it a divine uncertainty. Yes, love too was the wind of the divine spirit blowing where it listeth, the kindling of the divine fire. She had waited for it patiently, reverently, not altogether humbly, but with a superb possession of hersoul. Better to wait for years than rush to meet it, and so be tossedby the wind and shrivelled by the fire. Then, when the crash came fiveyears ago, though she could hardly conceive it as altering hercousin's attitude, she knew that it must alter hers. The understandinghad been partly a family affair; and her side of the family was nowinvolved in debt and poverty and dishonour. When the debts were paidoff, and the poverty reduced and the honour redeemed, it would be timeto re-consider the understanding. But, as it was just possible thatHorace, if not exactly fascinated by her debts and all the rest of it, might feel that these very things bound him, challenged him in somesort to protection, Lucia withdrew herself from the reach of thechivalrous delivering arm. She took her stand, not quite outside thecircle of the cousinly relation, but on the uttermost fringe and vergeof it, where she entered more and more into her own possession. Theymet; they wrote long letters to each other all about art andliterature and philosophy, those ancient unimpassioned themes; for, ifLucia assumed nothing herself she allowed Horace to assume thatwhatever interested him must necessarily interest her. In short, perceiving the horrible situation in which poor Horace had been leftby that premature understanding, she did everything she could to helphim out of it. 

And she succeeded beyond her own or Horace's expectation. 

After three years' hard work, when all the debts were paid, and shewas independent, Lucia thought she might now trust herself to staywith Horace in his house at Hampstead. She had stayed there alreadywith Edith when Horace was away, but that was different. And at firstall was well; that is to say, there was no anxiety and no uncertainty. The calm and successful critic of _The Museion_ knew his own mind; andLucia said to herself that she knew hers. The understanding betweenthem was perfect now. They were simply first cousins; each was theother's best friend; and they could never be anything else. She stoodvery much nearer to the heart of the circle, in a place where it waswarm and comfortable and safe. If Horace could only have let her staythere, all would have been well still. But a mature Lucia, a Luciaentirely self-possessed, calm and successful, too, in her lesser way;a Lucia without any drawbacks, and almost to his mind as uncertain ashimself; a Lucia who might be carried off any day before his eyes bysome one of the many brilliant young men whom it was impossible not tointroduce to her, proved fatally disturbing to Horace Jewdwine. And itwas then that the anxiety and uncertainty began. 

They were at their height in the sixth year, when Lucia broke down andcame to Hampstead to recover. Fate (not Lucia, of course; you couldnot think such things about Lucia) seemed anxious to precipitatematters, and Jewdwine in his soul abhorred precipitancy. Edith, too, was secretly alarmed, and Lucia could read secrets. But it was toavoid both a grossly pathetic appeal to the emotions and an appearanceof collusion with the intrigues of Fate that Lucia had feignedrecovery and betaken herself to Sophie in Tavistock Place, before, and(this was subtlety again), well before the return of Horace from hisholiday. And if the awful reflection visited her that this step mightprove to be a more importunate appeal than any, to be a positiveforcing of his hand, Edith had dissipated it by showing very plainlythat the appeal was to their pride and not their pity. 

Lucia did not consider herself by any means an object of pity. She washappy. The absence of intolerable tension was enough to make her so. As for the society she was thrown with, after the wear of incessantsubtleties and uncertainties there was something positively soothingin straightforward uninspired vulgarity. These people knew their ownminds, if their minds were not worth knowing; and that was something. It seemed to her that her own mind was growing healthier every day;till, by the time Edith visited her, there was no need to feignrecovery, for recovery had come. And with it had come many benign andsalutary things; the old delicious joy of giving pleasure; a new senseof the redeeming and atoning pathos of the world; all manner of sweetcompunctions and tender tolerances; the divine chance, she toldherself, for all the charities in which she might have failed. Therehad come Sophie. And there had come, at last, in spite of everything, Keith Rickman. 

As for Keith Rickman, her interest in him was not only a strongpersonal matter, but it had been part of the cool intellectual gameshe had played, for Horace's distraction and her own deception; a gamewhich Horace, with his subterfuges and suppressions, had not playedfair. But when, seeking to excuse him, she began to consider thepossible motives of her cousin's behaviour, Lucia was profoundlydisturbed. 

It had come to this: if Horace had cared for her he might have had aright to interfere. But he did not care. Therefore, no interference, she vowed, should come between her and her friendship for the poet whohad honoured her by trusting her. She could not help feeling a littlebitter with Horace for the harm he had done her, or rather, might havedone her in Keith Rickman's eyes. 

For all that she had now to make amends. 

CHAPTER LVIII

Meanwhile the Beaver, like a sensible Beaver, went on calmlyfurnishing her house. She thoroughly approved of Keith's acquaintancewith Miss Harden, as she approved of everything that gave importanceto the man she was going to marry. If she had not yet given a thoughtto his work, except as a way (rather more uncertain and unsatisfactorythan most ways) of making money, she thought a great deal of theconsideration it brought him with that lady. She was prouder of Keithnow than she ever had been before. But the Beaver was before allthings a practical person; and she had perceived further that forKeith to make up to people like Miss Harden was one of the surest andquickest means of getting on. Hitherto she had been both distressedand annoyed by his backwardness in making up to anybody. And whenKeith told her that he wanted to pay some attention to his editor'scousin, if she was a little surprised at this unusual display ofsmartness (for when had Keith been known to pay attention to anyeditors, let alone their cousins?), she accepted the explanation asentirely natural. She was wide awake now to the importance of_Metropolis_ and Mr. Jewdwine. By all means, then, let him cultivateMr. Jewdwine's cousin. And if there had been no Mr. Jewdwine in thecase, Flossie would still have smiled on the acquaintance; for itmeant social advancement, a step nearer Kensington. So nobody was moredelighted than Flossie when Miss Harden invited Keith to tea in herown room, especially as she was always included in the invitation. 

It was Miss Bishop, primed with all the resources of her science, wholooked upon these advances with alarm. It struck Miss Bishop that MissHarden and Mr. Rickman were going it pretty strong. She wouldn't haveliked those goings on if she'd been Flossie. You might take it fromher that gentlemen never knew their own minds when there were two tochoose from; and Miss Bishop hadn't a doubt that it was a toss-upbetween Flossie and Miss Harden. Miss Harden would be willing enough;anybody could see that. Ladies don't keep on asking gentlemen to havetea with them alone in their rooms if they're not up to something. 

It was not only Miss Bishop's fatal science that led her to theseconclusions, but the still more fatal prescience of love. When Flossiewas once securely married to Mr. Rickman the heart of Spinks wouldturn to her for consolation, that she knew. It was a matter of commonexperience that gentlemen's hearts were thus caught on the rebound. But if that Miss Harden carried off Rickman, there would be nothingleft for Flossie but to marry Spinks, for the preservation of hertrousseau and her dignity. Therefore Miss Bishop was more than everset on Flossie's marrying Mr. Rickman. 

They were turning over the trousseau, the trousseau which might playsuch a disastrous part in the final adjustment of Flossie's mind. 

"Your dresses are orfully smart and that, " said Ada; "and yet somehowthey don't seem to do you justice. It would have been worth your whileto go to a tip-top dressmaker, my dear. You'd have a better chancethan that Miss Harden any day. No, I don't like you in that powderblue; I don't, really. " Miss Bishop was nothing if not frank. 

"I never go wrong about a colour, " said Flossie passionately. 

"No. It isn't the colour. It's the cut. It makes her look as if she'ad a better figure than you; and that's nonsense. You've got a bust, and she hasn't. Gentlemen don't care to look at a girl who's as flatas two boards back and front. That's what I say, it's the cut thatgives her her style. "

"No, it isn't. It isn't her clothes at all; it's the way she carriesthem. She may look as if she was well dressed; but she isn't. "

"Anyhow I like that coat of hers better than yours. "

"It hasn't got the new sleeves, " said Flossie, fondling herpowder-blue. 

It was this immobile complacency of hers in the face of his ownprofound and sundering agitations that stirred in Rickman the firststinging of remorse. For he could see that the poor Beaver, with herblind and ineradicable instinct, was going on building--you couldn'tcall them castles in the air--but houses such as Beavers build, housesof mud in running water. Her ceaseless winding in and out of shops, her mad and furious buying of furniture, her wild grasping at anyloose articles that came in her way, from rugs to rolling-pins, appeared to him as so many futile efforts to construct a dam. Over andover again the insane impulse came on him to seize her little handsand stop her; to tell her that it was no good, that the absurd thingcould never stand, that he alone knew the strength of the stream, itssources and its currents. But he hadn't the heart to tell her, and theBeaver went on constructing her dam, without knowing that it was adam, because she was born with the passion thus to build. 

She could not see that anything had happened, and Heaven forbid thathe should let her see. He might abandon hope, but the Beaver he couldnot abandon. That was not to be thought of for an instant. He was toodeeply pledged for that. Lest he should be in danger of forgetting, itwas brought home to him a dozen times a day. 

The very moment when Flossie was making that triumphant display of herwedding finery he had caught a glimpse of her (iniquitously) as hepassed her room on his way to Spinks's. She was standing, a jubilantlittle figure, in the line of the half-open door, shaking out andtrailing before her some white, shiny, frilly thing, the sight ofwhich made him shudder for the terror, and sigh for the pity of it. And the girls' laughter and the banging of the door as he went by, what was it but a reminder of the proprieties and decencies that boundhim? A hint that he had pledged himself thrice over by that unlawfulpeep?

It seemed to him that was the beginning of many unlawful glimpses, discoveries of things he ought never to have seen. Was it that he wasmore quick to see? Or that Flossie was less careful than she had been?Or was it simply the result of living in this detestableboarding-house, where, morally speaking, the doors were never shut?Propinquity, that had brought them together, had done its best forFlossie and its worst. It had revealed too little and too much. He hadonly to forget her for a week, to come back and see her as she reallywas; to wonder what he had ever seen in her. Her very prettinessoffended him. Her flagrantly feminine contours, once admired, nowstruck him as exaggerated, as an emphasis of the charm which is mostsubduing when subdued. As for her mind, good Heavens! Had it taken himfive years to discover that her mind was a _cul de sac_? When he cameto think of it, he had to own that intellectually, conversationallyeven, he had advanced no farther with her than on the first day oftheir acquaintance. There was something compact and immovable aboutFlossie. In those five years he had never known her change or modifyan opinion of people or of things. And yet Flossie was not stupid, orif she were her stupidity was a force; it had an invincible impetusand sweep, dragging the dead weight of character behind it. It wasbeginning to terrify him. In fact he was becoming painfully sensitiveto everything she said or did. Her little tongue was neither sharp norhard, and yet it hurt him every time it spoke. It did not always speakgood grammar. Sometimes, in moments of flurry or excitement, anaspirate miscarried. Happily those moments were rare; for at bottomFlossie's temperament was singularly calm. Remembering his own pastlapses, he felt that he was the last person to throw a stone at her;but that reflection did not prevent a shudder from going down his backevery time it happened. And if her speech remained irreproachable, theoffending strain ran through all her movements. He disliked the wayshe walked, and the way she sat down, the way she spread her skirts orgathered them, the way she carried her body and turned her head, theway her black eyes provoked a stare and then resented it, her changesof posture under observation, the perpetual movement of her hands thatwere always settling and resettling her hat, her hair, her veil; allthe blushings and bridlings, the pruderies and impertinences of thepretty woman of her class, he disliked them all. He more thandisliked, he distrusted her air of over-strained propriety. Hedetected in it the first note of falseness in her character. In athousand little things her instincts, her perceptions were at fault. 

This was disagreeably borne in upon him that first Saturday afterLucia's arrival, when he and Flossie were in the train going down toEaling. The compartment was packed with City men (how he wishedFlossie would turn her head and not her eyes if she must look atthem!); and as they got in at Earl's Court, one of them, a politeperson, gave up his seat to the lady. Flossie turned an unseeing eyeon the polite person, and took his seat with a superb pretence ofhaving found it herself after much search. And when Rickman said"Thanks" to the polite person her indignant glance informed him thatshe had expected support in her policy of repudiation. 

"My dear Beaver, " he said as he helped her on to the platform atEaling, "when you take another person's seat the least you can do isto say Thank you. "

"I _never_ speak to gentlemen in trains and buses. That's the way theyalways begin. "

"Good Heavens, the poor man was only being civil. "

"Thank you. I've gone about enough to know what 'is kind of civilitymeans. I wasn't going to lay myself open to impertinence. "

"I should have thought you'd gone about enough to know thedifference. "

Flossie said nothing. She was furious with him for his failure todefend her from the insulting advances of the City gentleman. Butperhaps she would hardly have taken it so seriously, if it had notbeen significant to her of a still more intolerable desertion. AdaBishop had said something to her just before they started, somethingthat had been almost too much even for Flossie's complacency. 

"I'm glad, " she still heard Ada saying, "you're going to take him outall day. If I were you I shouldn't let him see too much of that MissHarden. "

There hadn't been much to take hold of in Ada's words, but Ada'smanner had made them unmistakable; and from that moment a little wormhad begun to gnaw at Flossie's heart. 

And he, as he looked at her with that strange new sight of his thatwas already bringing sorrow to them both, he said to himself that hesupposed it was her "going about, " her sad acquaintance with unlovelymanners, that had made her as she was. Only how was it that he hadnever noticed it before? Poor little girl; it was only last Saturdaywhen they had come back from looking over the house at Ealing that, drawing upon all the appropriate resources of natural history, he hadcalled her a little vesper Vole, because she lived in a Bank and onlycame out of it in the evening. What Flossie called him that timedidn't matter; it was her parsimony in the item of endearments thatprovoked him to excesses of the kind. And now the thought of thosethings made him furious; furious with himself; furious with Fate forthrowing Flossie in his way; furious with Flossie for being there. Andwhen he was ready to damn her because she was a woman, he melted, andcould have wept because she was a Beaver. Poor little girl; one day tobe called a vesper Vole, the next to be forgotten altogether, the nextto be remembered after this fashion. 

And so they went on silently together, Flossie in pain because of thelittle worm gnawing at her heart, he thinking many things, sad andbitter and tender things, of the woman walking by his side. From timeto time she looked at him as she had looked at those City gentlemen, not turning her head, but slewing the large dark of her eye into itscorner. Presently she spoke. 

"You don't seem to have very much to say for yourself to-day. "

"To-day? I'm not given to talking very much at any time. "

"Oh, come, you don't seem to have any difficulty in talking to MissHarden. I've heard you. Wot a time you did sit yesterday. And you wereup there an hour or more before I came, I know. "

"Three quarters of an hour, to be strictly accurate. "

"Well, that was long enough, wasn't it?"

"Quite long enough for all I had to say. "

Now that was playing into Flossie's hands, for it meant that he hadhad nothing to say after her arrival. And she was sharp enough to seeit. 

"That's all very well, Keith, " said she, apparently ignoring heradvantage, "but Ada says they'll be talking if she keeps on asking youup there just when she's all by herself. It's not the thing to do. Iwouldn't do it if it was me, no more would Ada. "

"My dear child, Miss Harden may do a great many things that you andAda mayn't. Because, you see, she knows how to do them and you don't. "

"Oh well, if you're satisfied. But it isn't very nice for me to 'aveyou talked about, just when we're going to be married, is it?"

"I think you needn't mind Ada. Miss Harden knows that I _have_ to seeher sometimes, and that I can't very well see her in any other way. And I think you might know it too. "

"Oh, don't you go thinking I'm jealous. I know _you're_ all right. "

"If I'm all right, who's wrong?"

"Well--of course I understand what you want with _her_; but I can'tsee what she wants with you. "

"You _little_ fool. What should she want, except to help me?"

Flossie said nothing to that, for indeed her mind had not formulatedany clear charge against Miss Harden. Keith had annoyed her and shewanted to punish him a little. She was also curious to see in whatmanner the chivalry that had deserted her would defend Miss Harden. 

He stood still and looked at her with brilliant, angry eyes. 

"You don't understand a great deal, Flossie; but there's one thing you_shall_ understand--You are not to say these things about Miss Harden. Not that you'll do her any harm, mind, by saying them. Think for oneminute who and what she is, and you'll see that the only person youare harming is yourself. "

Flossie did think for a minute, and remembered that Lucia was thedaughter of a baronet and the cousin of an editor; and she did seethat this time she had gone a bit too far. 

"And in injuring yourself, you know, you injure me, " he said moregently. "I don't know whether that will appeal at all to you. "

It did appeal to her in the sense in which her practical mindunderstood that injury. 

"Do you really think she'll be able to help you to a good thing?"

He laughed aloud. "I think she'll help me to many good things. She hasdone that already. 

"Oh, well then, I suppose it's all right. "

Though he said it was all right he knew that it was all wrong; thatshe was all wrong too. He wondered again how it was that he had nevernoticed it before. It seemed to him now that he must always have seenit, and that he had struggled not to see it, as he was struggling now. 

Struggle as he would, he knew that he was only putting off theinevitable surrender. Putting off the moment that must face him yet, at some turning of the stair or opening of a door, as they went fromroom to room of the house that, empty, had once seemed to himdesirable, and now, littered with the solid irrevocable results ofFlossie's furnishing, inspired him with detestation and despair. Howcould he ever live in it? He and his dream, the dream that Lucia hadtold him was divorced from reality? She had told him too that histrouble all lay there, and he remembered that then as now she hadadvised a reconciliation. But better a divorce than reconciliationwith any of the realities that faced him now. Better even illusionthan these infallible perceptions. Better to be decently, charitablyblind where women are concerned, than to see them so; to see poorFlossie as she was, a reality divorced from any dream. 

A foolish train of thought that. As if he were only a dreamer. As ifit were a dream that had to do with it. As if his dream had not longago loved, followed, and embraced a divine reality. As if it had everfallen away after that one superb act of reconciliation. 

He had done poor Flossie some injustice. She suffered in his eyesbecause she came short, not of the dream, but of the reality. To beplaced beside Lucia Harden would have been a severe test for anywoman; but for Flossie it was cruelty itself. He had never subjectedher to that, not even in thought; for he felt that the comparison, cruel to one woman, was profanation to the other. It was only feminineFate who could be so unkind as to put those two side by side, that hemight look well, and measure his love for Flossie by his love forLucia, seeing it too as it was. Maddox had not been far wrong there. For anything spiritual in that emotion, he might as well have goneback to Poppy Grace. Better; since between him and Flossie that grosstie, once formed, could not be broken. Better; since there had atleast been no hypocrisy in his relations with the joyous Poppy. Betteranything than this baseness skulking under the superstition ofmorality. If a man has no other feeling for an innocent woman thanthat, better that a mill-stone should be hanged about his neck thanthat he should offend by marrying her. 

And yet there had been something finer and purer in this later lovethan in the first infatuation of his youth. On that day, seven daysago, the last day it had to live, he had been touched by somethingmore sacred, more immortal than desire. There had been no illusion inthe poetry that clothed the figure of a woman standing in an emptyroom, dearer to her than the bridal chamber; a woman whose face grewsoft as her instinct outran the bridal terror and the bridal joy, divining beyond love the end that sanctifies it. 

But beyond all that again he could see that, whereas the love of allother women had torn him asunder, the love of Lucia made him whole. Poppy had drawn him by his senses; Flossie by his senses and hisheart; Lucia held him by his senses, his heart, his intellect, hiswill, by his spirit, by his genius, by the whole man. Long after hissenses had renounced their part in her, the rest of him would cling toher, satisfied and appeased. And but for Flossie it would have been soeven now. Though his senses had rest in Lucia's presence, theirlonging for her was reawakened, not only by the thought of hisapproaching marriage, but by the memory of that one moment when he hadrealized the mystery of it, the moment of poor Flossie'stransfiguration, when he had seen through the thick material veil, deep into the spiritual heart of love. With Lucia the veil had beentransparent from the first. It was not with her as it was with thosewomen who must wait for the hour of motherhood to glorify them. Ofthose two years of his betrothal what was there that he would care tokeep? Only one immortal moment, that yet knew of the mortality beforeand after it. While of the last seven days Lucia had made a wholeheavenly procession of ascending hours, every moment winged with theimmortal fire. Flying moments; but flame touched flame in flying, andthey became one life. 

But he was going to marry Flossie. 

And she, the child that was to have borne the burden of his genius andhis passion, poor little blameless victim of the imagination thatglorifies desire, how would it be with her in this empty house, emptyof the love she had looked for and would never find? How would it bewith him? Had he pledged himself to a life of falsehood, and had heyet to know what torment awaited him at the hands of the avengingtruth? Truth, as he had once defined it, was the soul of the fact. Itwas the fact that he was going to marry Flossie; but it was not thetruth. Only love could have given it a soul and made it true. If hewas bound to maintain that it had a soul when it hadn't, that waswhere the falseness would come in. 

Yet no. He might go mad by thinking about it, but life after all wassimpler than thought. Things righted themselves when you left offthinking about them. He would be unhappy; but that could only makeFlossie unhappy if she cared for him. And in a year's time, when hehad left off thinking, she would have left off caring. He had shrewdlydivined that what Flossie chiefly wanted was to have children; or ifshe did not want it, Nature wanted it for her, which came to the samething. As for mating her to a man of genius, that was just Nature'swanton extravagance. Maddox had once said that any man would have doneas well, perhaps better; Flossie wouldn't care. Well, he would giveher children, and she would care for them. Indeed, he sincerely hopedthat for him she would not care. It would make things simpler. Maddox, he remembered, had also said that she was the sort of womanwho would immolate her husband for her children; whereas Poppy--butthen, Maddox was a beast. 

It never occurred for a moment to him to throw Flossie over. That, hehad settled once for all, could not now be done. Circumstancesconspired to make the thing irrevocable. Her utter dependence on him, the fact that she had no home but the one he offered her, no choicebetween marriage and earning her own living in a way she hated, theflagrant half-domestic intimacy in which they had been living, morethan all, the baseness of his past love, and the inadequacy of hispresent feeling for her, both calling on him to atone, all thesethings made a promise of marriage as binding as the actual tie. Theirengagement might possibly have been broken off at any of its earlierstages without profound dishonour. It was one thing to jilt a girlwithin a decent interval of the first congratulations; another thingaltogether to abandon her with her trousseau on her hands. It had goneso far that his failure at the last moment would be the grossestinsult he could offer her. 

Gross indeed; yet not so gross but that he could think of one stillgrosser--to let her marry him when he had no feeling to offer her butsuch indifference as marriage deepens to disgust, or such disgust asit tones down into indifference. Would he go on shuddering and wincingas he had shuddered and winced to-day? Passion that might havecondoned her failings was out of the question; but would it bepossible to keep up the decent appearance of respect?

And yet he was going to marry her. 

That was impressed on him by Flossie's voice saying that if hewouldn't decide which of those two rooms was to be _their_ room, shemust. Because the men wanted to put up the bedstead. 

It was an intimation that he was bound to her, not by any fine ties offeeling or of honour, but by a stout unbreakable chain of materialfacts. He looked out of the window. The vans were unloading in thestreet. It seemed to him that there was something almost grosslycompromising in the wash-stand, dumped down there in the garden; andas the bedstead was being borne into the house in portions, reverentially, processionally, he surrendered before that supremesymbol of finality. As he had made his bed, he must lie; even if itwas a brass bed with mother-o'-pearl ornaments; and he refused tolisten to the inner voice which suggested that the bed was not madeyet, it was not even paid for, and that he would be a fool to lie onit. He turned sad eyes on the little woman so flushed and eager overher packages. He had committed himself more deeply with every purchasethey had made that day. How carefully he had laboured at his owndestruction. 

He had gone so far with these absurd reflections, that when Flossieexclaimed, "There, after all I've forgotten the kitchen hammer, " hisnerves relaxed their tension, and he experienced a sense of momentarybut divine release. And when she insisted on repairing her oversightas they went back, he felt that the kitchen hammer had clinched thematter; and that if only they had not bought it he might yet be free. 

There was something in the Beaver's building, after all. 

CHAPTER LIX

He did not appear that evening, not even to listen to Lucia's music, for his misery was heavy upon him. Mercifully, he was able to forgetit for a while in attending to the work that waited for him; anarticle for _The Planet_ to be written; proofs to correct andmanuscripts to look through for _Metropolis_; all neglected till thelast possible moment, which moment had now come. For once he reapedthe benefit of his reckless habits of postponement. 

But four hours saw him through it; and midnight recalled him to hiscare. Instead of undressing he refilled his lamp, made up his fire, and drew his chair to the hearth. There was a question, put off, too, like his work, from hour to hour, and silenced by the scuffling, meaningless movements of the day. It related to the promise he hadmade to Lucia Harden at the end of their last interview. He had thensaid to her that, since she desired it, she should know what it wasthat she had done for him. Hitherto he had determined that she shouldnot know it yet; not know it till death had removed from her hisembarrassing, preposterous personality. The gift of knowledge that shemight have refused from the man, she could then accept from the poet. The only condition that honour, that chivalry insisted on was theremoval of the man. But there were other ways of getting rid of a manbesides the clumsy device of death. Might he not be considered to haveeffaced himself sufficiently by marriage? As far as Lucia wasconcerned he could see very little difference between the twoprocesses; in fact, marriage was, if anything, the safer. For theimportant thing was that she should know somehow; that he should handover his gift to her before it was too late. And suppose--suppose heshould fail to remove himself in time? Beholding the years as theynow stretched before him, it seemed to him that he would never die. 

There was another consideration which concerned his honour, not as aman but as a poet. He knew what it was in him to do. The nature of thegift was such that if he brought it to her to-day she would know thathe had given her his best; if he kept it till to-morrow it would behis best no longer. Besides, it was only a gift when you looked at itone way. He was giving her (as he believed) an immortal thing; but itsvery immortality gave it a certain material value. The thing might besold for much, and its price might go far towards covering that debthe owed her, or it might be held by her as a sort of security. Hecould see that his marriage would be a hindrance to speedy payment onany other system. 

He rose, unlocked a drawer, and took from it the manuscript of thenine and twenty sonnets and the sealed envelope that contained histestament concerning them. He had looked at them but once since he hadput them away three years ago, and that was on the night of hisengagement. Looking at them again he knew he was not mistaken in hisjudgement, when calmly, surely, and persistently he had thought of thething as immortal. But according to another condition that his honourhad laid down, its immortality depended upon her. At this point honouritself raised the question whether it was fair to throw on her theburden of so great a decision? She might hesitate to deny him so largea part of his immortality, and yet object to being so intimately, sopersonally bound up with it. He could see her delicate consciencestraining under the choice. 

But surely she knew him well enough to know that he had left her free?She would know that he could accept nothing from her pity, not even aportion of his immortality. She would trust his sincerity; for that atany rate had never failed her. And since what he had written he hadwritten, she would see that unless he destroyed it with his own handsthe decision as to publication must rest with her. It concerned her sointimately, so personally, that it could not be given to the worldwithout her consent. Whether what he had written should have beenwritten was another matter. If she thought not, if her refinementaccused him of a sin against good taste, that would only make hisproblem simpler. Even if her accusation remained unspoken, he wouldknow it, he would see it, through whatever web her tenderness wrappedround it. His genius would contend against her judgement, would notyield a point to her opinion, but his honour would take it as settlingthe question of publication. In no case should she be able to say orthink that he had used his genius as a cover for a cowardly passion, or that by compelling her admiration he had taken advantage of herpride. 

But would she say it or think it? Not she. He knew her. And if hisknowledge had brought much misery, it brought consolation too. WhereLucia was concerned he had never been sustained by any personalconceit; he had never walked vainly in the illusion of her love. Atthat supreme point his imagination had utterly broken down; he hadnever won from it a moment's respite from his intolerable lucidity. There was a certain dignity about his despair, in that of all thewonderful web of his dreams he had made no fine cloak to cover it. Itshivered and suffered in a noble nakedness, absolutely unashamed. Butone thing he knew also, that if Lucia did not love him, she loved hisgenius. Even when lucidity made suffering unendurable, he had stillthe assurance that his genius would never suffer at her hands. For didshe not know that God gives the heart of a poet to be as fuel to hisgenius, for ever consumed and inconsumable? That of all his passionshis love is the nearest akin to the divine fire? She of all womenwould never deny him the eternal right to utterance. 

Neither could she well find fault with the manner of it. He wentthrough the sonnets again, trying to read them with her woman's eyes. There was nothing, nothing, not an image, not a word that couldoffend. Here was no "flaming orgy of individuality. " He had chosenpurposely the consecrated form that pledged him to perfection, boundhim to a magnificent restraint. 

There still remained the scruple as to the propriety of choosing thisprecise moment for his gift. It was over-ridden by the invincibledesire to give, the torturing curiosity to know how she would take it. 

One more last scruple, easily disposed of. In all this there was nodisloyalty to the woman he was going to make his wife. For the Sonnetsbelonged to the past in which she had no part, and to the future whichconcerned her even less. 

The next day, then, at about five o'clock, the time at which Lucia hadtold him she would be free, he came to her, bringing his gift withhim. 

Lucia's face gladdened when she saw the manuscript in his hand; forthough they had discussed very freely what he had done once, he hadbeen rather sadly silent, she thought, as to what he was doing now. Hehad seemed to her anxious to avoid any question on the subject. Shehad wondered whether his genius had been much affected by his otherwork; and had been half afraid to ask lest she should learn that itwas dead, destroyed by journalism. She had heard so much of the perilsof that career, that she had begun to regret her part in helping himto it. So that her glance as it lighted on the gift was, he thought, propitious. 

He drew up his chair near her (he had not to wait for any invitationto do that now), and she noticed the trembling of his hands as hespread the manuscript on his knees. He had always been nervous inapproaching the subject of his poems, and she said to herself, "Has henot got over that?"

Apparently he had not got over it; for he sat there for severalperceptible moments sunk in the low chair beside her, saying nothing, only curling and uncurling the sheets with the same nervous movementof his hand. She came to his help smiling. 

"What is it? New poems?"

"No, I don't think I can call them new. I wrote them four or fiveyears ago. "

He saw that some of the gladness died out of her face, and he wonderedwhy. 

"Were you going to read them to me?"

"Good Heavens, no. " He laughed the short laugh she had heard once ortwice before that always sounded like a sob. 

"I don't want to read them to you. I want to give them to you--"

"To read?" She held out her hand. 

"Yes, to read, of course, but not now. "

The hand was withdrawn, evidently with some distressing consciousnessof its precipitancy. 

"You said the other night that you would have been glad to know thatyou had done something for me; and somehow I believe you meant it. "

"I did, indeed. "

"If you read these things you will know. There's no other way in whichI could tell you; for you will see that they are part of what you didfor me. "

"I don't understand. "

"You will, though, when you've read them. That, " he said meditatively, "is why I don't want you to read them now. " But then it struck himthat he had blundered, introducing a passionate personal revelationunder the dangerous veil of mystery. He had not meant to say, "Whatyou have done for me was to make me love you, " but, "I have done agreat thing, and what you did for me was to make me do it. " For allthat she should know, or he acknowledge, the passion was the means, not the end. 

"I don't want to be cryptic, and perhaps I ought to explain a little. I meant that you'll see that they're the best things I've written, andthat I should not have written them if it had not been for you. Idon't know whether you'll forgive me for writing them, but I think youwill. Because you'll understand that I had to. "

"Have you published any of them?"

It seemed to him that the question was dictated by a sudden fear. 

"Rather not. I want to talk to you about that later on, when you'veread them. "

"When will you want them back?"

"I don't want them back at all. I brought them for you to keep. "

"To keep?"

"Yes, if you care for them. "

"But this is the original manuscript?" She was most painfully aware ofthe value of the thing. 

He smiled. "Yes, I couldn't give you a copy, because there isn'tone. "

"What a reckless person you are. I must make a copy, then, and keepthat. "

"That would spoil my pleasure and my gift, too. It's only valuablebecause it's unique. "

"Whatever it is it's sure to be that. "

"I don't mean in that way altogether--" he hesitated, for he hadtouched a part of his subject which had to be handled gently; and hewas aware that in handling it at all he was courting rejection of thegift. 

"And you are going to leave it with me now?"

"Yes. "

She did not look up, but kept her eyes fixed on the sheets that lay inher lap, her hands lightly covering them. Was it possible that herfinger-tips had caught the secret of the page beneath them and thattheir delicate nerves had already carried it to her brain? Was sheconsidering what she was to do?

"You will see that one page is left blank; I couldn't fill it up tillI knew whether you would accept the dedication. "

"I?" She looked up. She was no doubt surprised; but he thought hecould read something in her look that was deeper and sweeter thansurprise. 

"If you could, it would give me great pleasure. It's the onlyacknowledgement I can make for all your kindness. "

"Please, please don't talk of my kindness. "

"I won't. If it were any other book, it might be merely a question ofacknowledgement, but this book belongs to you. "

"Are you quite sure--" She was about to question his right to offerit, which was as good as questioning his honour, as good as assumingthat--She paused, horrified as she realized what it was that she hadalmost assumed. Kitty had often told her that she erred through excessof subtlety. It wouldn't have mattered with anybody less subtle thanKeith Rickman; but he would see it all. He did. 

"Quite sure that I oughtn't to offer it to anybody else? I am quitesure. It was written four years ago, before--before I knew anybodyelse. It has nothing to do with anybody else, it couldn't have beendedicated to anybody else. If you don't accept it--"

"But I do. " Her eagerness was the natural recoil from her hesitation. She was so anxious to atone for that shocking blunder she had made. 

"I say, how you do take things on trust. "

"Some things. "

"But you mustn't. You can't accept the dedication of a book youhaven't read. Do you know, now I come to think of it, you've alwaystaken me on trust? Do you remember when first I came to you--it's morethan five years ago--you took me on trust then?" (Their talk had a wayof running to this refrain of 'Do you remember?') "Do you remember howyou said, ' I must risk it'?"

"Yes, I remember how I insisted on keeping you, and how very unwillingyou were to be kept. "

"Do you mind telling me what made you want to keep me? You didn't knowme in the least, you know. "

"I wanted to keep you _because_ you didn't want to stay. I knew thenthat I could trust you. But I confess that most people might not haveseen it in that way. "

"Well, I can't let you take these sonnets on trust. For this time, your principle doesn't apply, you see. You can't say you're acceptingthis dedication because I don't want to give it to you. " Though helaughed he rose and backed towards the door, suddenly anxious to begone. 

"Isn't it enough that I want to accept it?"

He shook his head, still backing, and at the door he paused to speak. "You've accepted nothing--as yet. "

"Of course, " she said to herself, "it would have been wiser to haveread them first. But I can trust him. "

But as she was about to read them a knock, a familiar knock at thedoor interrupted her. "Kitty!"

She laid the manuscript hastily aside, well out of Kitty's rovingsight. She had noticed how his hands had trembled as he brought it;she did not notice that her own shook a little in thus putting it awayfrom her. 

Kitty Palliser, up in town for a week, had come less on her ownaccount than as an impetuous ambassador from the now frantic Edith. She too was prepared to move heaven and earth, if only she couldsnatch her Lucy from Tavistock Place. But her anxiety was not whollyon Lucia's account, as presently appeared. 

"How can you stand it for a minute?" said she. 

"I'm standing it very well indeed. "

"But what on earth do you find to do all day long, when, " said Kittyseverely, "you're _not_ talking to young Rickman?"

"All day long I go out, or lie down and read, or talk to Sophie. "

"And in the evenings?"

"In the evenings sometimes I make an old man happy by playing. "

"And I expect you're making a young man unhappy by playing, too--avery dangerous game. "

"Kitty, that young man is perfectly happy. He's going to be married. "

"All the worse. Then you'll make a young woman unhappy as well. Thislittle game would be dangerous enough with a man of your own set. Itisn't fair to play it with him, Lucy, when you know the rules and hedoesn't. "

"I assure you, Kitty, he knows them as well as you or I do; better. "

"I doubt it. " Kitty's eyes roamed round the room (they had not losttheir alert and hungry look) and they took in the situation at aglance. That move in the game would never have been made if he hadknown the rules. How could she let him make it?

"Really, Lucy, for a nice woman you do the queerest things. "

"And, really, Kitty, for a clever woman, you say the stupidest. You'regetting like Edith. "

"I am not like Edith. I only say stupid things. She thinks them. What's more, in thinking them she only thinks of herself and herprecious family. I'm thinking of you, dear, and"--Kitty's voice grewsoft--"and of him. You ought to think of him a little too. "

"I _do_ think of him. I've been thinking of him all the time. "

"I know you have. But don't let him suffer because of the insanelybeautiful way you have of thinking. "

There was a pause, in which it was evident to Kitty that Lucia wasthinking deeply, and beautifully too. 

"Have I made him suffer? I'm afraid I did once. He was valuable, andI damaged him. "

"Yes; and ever since you've been trying to put him together again; inyour own way, not his. That's fatal. "

Lucia shook her head and followed her own train of thought. "Kitty, tobe perfectly honest, I think--I'm not sure, but I think--fromsomething he said to-day that you were right about him once. I meanabout his beginning to care too much. I'm afraid it was so, atHarmouth, towards the end. But it isn't so any more. He tried to tellme just now. He did it beautifully; as if he knew that that would makeme happier. At least I think that's what he meant. He didn't say much, but I'm sure he was thinking about his marriage. "

"Heaven help his wife then--if he got as far as that. I suppose youtake a beautiful view of her, too? Drop it, for goodness' sake, dropit. "

"Not I. It would mean dropping him. It's all right, Kitty. You don'tknow the ways of poets. "

"Perhaps not. But I know the ways of men. "

Though Kitty had not accomplished her mission she so far prevailedthat she carried her Lucy off to dinner. 

It was somewhere towards midnight, when all the house was quiet, thatLucia first looked into Keith Rickman's sonnets. She had been led toexpect something in the nature of a personal revelation, and the firstsonnet struck the key-note, gave her the clue. 

 I asked the minist'ring priests who never tire In love's high service, who behold their bliss Through golden gloom of Love's dread mysteries, What heaven there be for earth's foregone desire?

 And they kept silence. But the gentle choir Who sing Love's praises answered me, "There is No voice to speak of these deep sanctities, For Love hath sealed his servants' lips with fire. "

 Yet in his faithfulness put thou thy faith, Though he hath bound thee in the house of pain, And given thy body to the scourging years, And brought thee for thy thirst the drink of tears, That sorrowing thou shouldst serve him unto death; For when Love reigneth, all his saints shall reign. 

She kindled and flamed, her whole being one inspired and burningsympathy. She knew what it was all about. She was on the track of aPoet's Progress in quest of the beloved Perfection, Beauty and Truthin one. Of those nine and twenty sonnets she looked for a score thatshould make immortal the moments of triumph and of vision, the momentsof rapture and fulfilment of the heart's desire. Her glance fell nowon two lines that clearly pointed to the goal of those who travel onthe divine way--

 --Elysian calm and passion with no stain Of mortal tears, no touch of mortal pain--

She hoped he had reached it. And more than that she hoped. She wasignorant of what his life had been before he knew her; but the _Songof Confession_ had made her realize that besides this way where thepoet went invincibly there was another where the man desired to go, where, as they were so ready to tell her, he had not always gone. Butthat was before she knew him. She hoped (taking her beautiful view)that in this gift of his he had meant to give to her who understoodhim some hint or sign that he had come near it also, the way ofRighteousness. She looked to find many sonnets dealing with thesesecret matters of the soul. Therefore she approached them fearlessly, since she knew what they were all about. And since, in that curioushumility of the man that went so oddly with the poet's pride, he hadso exaggerated his obligation, taking, as he said, the will for thedeed and making of her desire to serve him a service actually done;since his imagination had played round her for a moment as it playedround all things, transforming, magnifying, glorifying, she mightperhaps find one sonnet of dedication to her who had understood him. 

But when she had read them all, she saw, and could not help seeing, that the whole nine and twenty were one continuous dedication--and toher. If she had found what she looked for, she found also that arevelation had been made to her of things even more sacred, morepersonal; a revelation that was in its way unique. He had hiddennothing, kept back nothing, not one moment of that three-weeks'passion (for so she dated it). It was all laid before her as it hadbeen; all its immortal splendour, and all its mortal suffering and itsshame. Not a line (if she could have stayed to think of that), not aword that could offend her taste or hurt her pride. The thing wasperfect. She understood why it had been shown to her. She understoodthat he wanted to tell her that he had loved her. She understood thathe never would have told her if it had not been all over. It wasbecause it was all over that he had brought her this, to show her howgreat a thing she had done for him, she who thought she had donenothing. As she locked the sonnets away in a safe place for the night, in her heart there was a great pride and a still greater thankfulnessand joy. Joy because it was all over, pride because it had once been, and thankfulness because it had been given her to know. 

And in his room behind the wall that separated them the poet walked upand down, tortured by suspense; and said to himself over and overagain, "I wonder how she'll take it. "

CHAPTER LX

That was on a Thursday. It had been arranged earlier in the week thatFlossie and he were to dine with Lucia on Friday evening. On Saturdayand Sunday the Beaver would be let loose, and would claim him for herown. He could not hope to see Lucia alone before Monday evening; hissuspense, then, would have to endure for the better part of four days. He had nothing to hope for from Friday evening. Lucia's manner was tooperfect to afford any clue as to how she had taken it. If she wereoffended she would hardly let him see it before Flossie and MissRoots. If she accepted, there again the occasion forbade her to giveany sign to one of her guests that should exclude the other two. Still, it was just possible that he might gather something from hersilence. 

But as it happened, he had not even that to go upon. Never had Luciabeen less silent than on Friday night. Not that she talked more thanusual, but that all her looks, all her gestures spoke. They spoke ofher pleasure in the happiness of her friend; of tenderness to thelittle woman whom he loved (so little and he so great); of love thatembraced them both, the great and the little, a large, understandinglove that was light and warmth in one. For Lucia believed firmly thatshe understood. She had always desired him to be happy, to bereconciled to the beautiful and glorious world; she had tried to bringabout that reconciliation; and she conceived herself to have failed. And now because the thing had been done so beautifully, so perfectly(if a little unexpectedly), by somebody else, because she was relievedof all anxiety and responsibility, Lucia was rejoicing with all herheart. 

He had not been five minutes in the room before he saw it all. Luciabelieved that it was all over, and was letting herself go, carriedaway by the spectacle of a supreme and triumphal happiness. Shetriumphed too. Her eyes when they looked at him seemed to be saying, "Didn't I tell you so?"

He saw why they had been asked to dinner. The spirit of the bridalhour was upon her, and she had made a little feast to celebrate it. Like everything she did, it was simple and beautiful and exquisite ofits kind. And yet it was not with that immaculate white linen cloth, spread on Keith's writing-table, strewn with slender green foliage andset out with delicate food and fruit and wine, nor with those whiteflowers, nor with those six shaded candles, that she had worked thejoyous tender charm. These things, in her hands and in his eyes, became sacramental, symbolic of Lucia's soul with its pure thoughtsand beautiful beliefs, its inspired and burning charities. 

And the hero of this feast of happiness sat at her right hand, facinghis little bride-elect, a miserable man consumed with anguish andremorse. He had never had so painful a sense of the pathos of hisBeaver. For if anybody was happy it was she. Flossie was aware that itwas her hour, and that high honour was being paid to her. Moreover, hecould see for the moment that the worm had ceased to gnaw, and thatshe had become the almost affectionate thrall of the lady whose mottowas _Invictus_. She had been forced (poor little girl) to anticipateher trousseau in order to attire herself fitly for the occasion, andwas looking remarkably pretty in her way. She sat very upright, andall her demeanour was irreproachably modest, quiet and demure. Nothingcould have been more correct than her smile, frequent, but sodiminutive that it just lifted her upper lip and no more. No insight, no foreboding troubled her. Her face, soft and golden white in thecandlelight, expressed a shy and delicate content. For Flossie was alittle materialist through and through. Her smooth and over femininebody seemed to have grown smoother and more feminine still under thetouch of pleasure; all that was hard and immobile in her melting inthe sense of well-being. 

It was not merely that Flossie was on her good behaviour. Hisimagination (in league with his conscience) suggested that the poorchild, divinely protected by the righteousness of her cause, wasinspired to confound his judgement of her, to give no vantage groundto his disloyalty, to throw him defenceless on his own remorse. Or wasit Lucia who inspired her? Lucia, whose loving spirit could create thething it loved, whose sweetness was of so fine and piercing a qualitythat what it touched it penetrated. He could not tell, but he thankedHeaven that at least for this hour which was hers the little thing washappy. He, for his part, by unprecedented acts of subterfuge andhypocrisy, endeavoured to conceal his agony. 

Miss Roots alone divined it. Beyond looking festive in a black silkgown and a kind of white satin waistcoat, that clever lady took astrained and awkward part in the rejoicing. He was inclined to thinkthat the waistcoat committed her to severity, until he became awarethat she was watching him with a furtive sympathy in the clever eyesthat saw through his pitiful play. How was it that Lucia, she who onceunderstood him, could not divine him too?

From this estranging mood he was roused by the innocent laughter ofthe Beaver. He was aware of certain thin and melancholy sounds thatfloated up from some room below. They struggled with the noises of thestreet, overcame, and rose strident and triumphant to invade thefeast. They seemed to him in perfect keeping with the misery andinsanity of the hour. 

It was Mr. Partridge playing on his flute. 

Miss Roots looked at Lucia. "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking tohim about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to hearhim play it?"

"No, Sophie, I didn't tell him that. " But Lucy looked a little guilty. The flute rose as if in passionate protest against her denial. Itseemed to say "You did! You know you did!"

"I only said it was a pity he'd given it up, and I meant it. But oh!"and Lucy put her hands up to her ears, "I don't mean it any more. "

"That comes, " said Rickman, "of taking things on trust. "

She smiled and shook her head. It was her first approach to a sign ofreassurance. 

"That's the sort of thing she's always doing. It doesn't matter foryou, Lucy. You won't have to stay on and hear him. "

"I don't know. I think I shall stay on. You see, Mr. Rickman, I can'tpart with this pretty room. "

"Do you like it?"

"I like it very much indeed. You're all coming to dine with me hereagain some day. "

"And you must come and dine with us, Miss Harden, when we've gotsettled. " It was Flossie who spoke. 

"I shall be delighted. "

He looked up, surprised. He could not have believed the Beaver couldhave done it so prettily. He had not even realized that it could bedone at all. It never occurred to him that his marriage could bringhim nearer to Lucia Harden. He looked kindly at the Beaver and blessedher for that thought. And then a thought bolder than the Beaver's cameto him. "I hope, " he said, "you'll do more than that. You must comeand stay with us in the summer. You shall sit out in a deck-chair inthe garden all day. That's the way to get strong. "

Then he remembered that she could do that just as well in someoneelse's garden up at Hampstead, and he looked shy and anxious as headded, "Will you come?"

"Of course I'll come, " said she. 

He saw her going through the house at Ealing and sitting in the littlegreen garden with the lilac bushes about her all in flower. And at thethought of her coming he was profoundly moved. His eyes moistened, andunder the table his knees shook violently with the agitation of hisnerves. Miss Roots gave one queer little glance at him and another atFlossie, and the moment passed. 

And Lucia had not divined it. No, not for a moment, not even in themoment of leave-taking. She was still holding Flossie's hand in herswhen her eyes met his, kind eyes that were still saying almosttriumphantly, "I told you so. "

As she dropped Flossie's hand for his, she answered the question thathe had not dared to ask. "I've read them, " she said, and there was nodiminution in her glad look. 

"When may I see you?"

"To-morrow, can you? Any time after four?"

CHAPTER LXI

He came into Lucia's presence with a sense of doing somethingvoluntary and yet inevitable, something sanctioned and foreappointed;a sense of carrying on a thing already begun, of returning, through adoor that had never been shut, to the life wherein alone he knewhimself. And yet this life, measured by days and hours and countingtheir times of meeting only, ran hardly to six weeks. 

Since times and places were of no account, he might have been coming, as he came five years ago, to hear her judgement on his neo-classicdrama. Strange and great things had happened to his genius since thatday. Between _Helen in Leuce_ and the Nine and Twenty Sonnets therelay the newly discovered, heavenly countries of the soul. 

"Well, " he said, glancing at the poems, as he seated himself. "What doyou think of them? Am I forgiven? Do you consent?"

"So many questions? They're all answered, aren't they, if I say Iconsent?"

"And do you?" There was acute anxiety in his voice and eyes. It struckher as painful that the man, whom she was beginning to look on aspossibly the greatest poet of his age, should think it necessary toplead to her for such a little thing. 

"I do indeed. "

"Without reservations?"

"What reservations should there be? Of course I could only beglad--and proud--that you should do me so much honour. If I can't sayvery much about it, don't think I don't feel it. I feel it more than Ican say. "

"Do you really mean it? I was afraid that it might offend you; orthat you'd think I oughtn't to have written the things; or at any ratethat I'd no business to show them to you. And as for the dedication, Icouldn't tell how you'd feel about that. "

And she, having before her eyes the greatness of his genius, wastroubled by the humility and hesitation of his approach. It recalledto her the ways of his pathetic youth, his youth that obscurity madewild and shy and unassured. 

"I can't tell either, " she replied, "I don't know whether I ought tofeel proud or humble about it; but I think I feel both. Your wantingto dedicate anything to me would have been enough to make me veryproud. Even if it had been a little thing--but this thing is great. Insome ways it seems to me the greatest thing you've done yet. I didthink just at first that I ought perhaps to refuse because of that. And then I saw that, really, that was what made it easy for me toaccept. It's so great that the dedication doesn't count. "

"But it _does_ count. It's the only thing that counts to me. You can'ttake it like that and separate it from the rest. Those sonnets wouldstill be dedicated to you even if you refused to let me write yourname before them. I want you to see that they _are_ the dedication. "

Lucia shook her head. She had seen it. She could see nothing else whenshe read them. How was it that the poet's bodily presence made herinclined to ignore the reference to herself; to take these poemsdedicated to her as an event, not in her life or his, but in thehistory of literature?

"No, " she said, "you must not look at them that way. If they were, itmight be a reason for refusing. I know most people would think they'dless right to accept what wasn't really dedicated to them. But, yousee, it's just because it isn't really dedicated to me that I canaccept it. "

"But it is--"

"No, not to me. You wouldn't be so great a poet if it were. I don'tsee myself here; but I see you, and your idea of me. It's--it'sdedicated to that dream of yours. Didn't I tell you your dream wasdivorced from reality?"

"You told me it would be reconciled to it. "

"And it is, isn't it? And the reality is worth all the dreams thatever were?"

He could have told her that so it appeared to those who are bound inthe house of bondage; but that in Leuce, the country of deliverance, the dream and the reality are indivisible, being both divine. He couldhave told her that he had known as much five years ago; even before heknew her. 

"After all, " he said, "that's admitting that they _are_ divided. Andthat, if you remember, was what I said, not what you said. "

Lucia evaded the issue in a fashion truly feminine. "It doesn't mattera bit what either of us said then, so long as _you_ know now. "

"There's one thing I don't know. I don't know how you really take it;or whether you will really understand. Just now I thought you did, Butafter all it seems you don't. You think I'm only trying to pay you astupid literary compliment. You think when I wrote those things Ididn't mean them; my imagination was simply taking a rather moreeccentric flight than usual. Isn't that so?"

"I'm certainly allowing for your imagination. I can't forget that youare a poet. You won't let me forget it. I can't separate your geniusfrom the rest of you. "

"And I can't separate the rest of me from it. That makes thedifference, you see. " He was angry as he said that. He had wonderedwhether she would deal as tenderly with his passion as she had dealtwith his dream; and she had dealt just as tenderly. But it was becauseshe identified the passion with the dream. He had not been preparedfor that view of it; and somehow it annoyed him. But for that, hewould never have spoken as he now did. "When I wondered how you wouldtake it I thought it might possibly strike you as something rather tooreal, almost offensively so. Do you know, I'd rather you'd taken itthat way than that you should talk about my dreams. My _dreams_. " (Itwas shocking, the violent emphasis of disgust the poet, the dreamer, flung into that one word. ) "As if I'd dreamed that I knew you. As ifI'd dreamed that I cared for you. Would you rather think I dreamed it?You can if you like. Or would you rather think it was the most realthing that ever happened to me? So real that after it happened--_because_it happened--I left off being the sort of man and the sort of poet Iwas, and became another sort. So real and so strong that it saved mefrom one or two other things, uncommonly strong and real, that had gota pretty tight hold of me, too. Would you rather think that you'dreally done this for me, or that I'd dreamed it all?"

She looked at his face, the unforgotten, unforgetable face, which whenshe first knew it had kindled and darkened so swiftly andinexplicably. She knew it now. She held the key of all its mysteries. It was the face that had turned to her five years ago with just thatlook; in the mouth and lifted chin that imperious impetuousdetermination to make her see; in the eyes that pathetic trust in herseeing. The same face; and yet it would have told her, if he had not, that he was another man. No, not another man; but of all the ways thatwere then open to him to take he had chosen the noblest. And so, ofall the expressions that in its youth had played on that singularlyexpressive face, it was the finest only that had become dominant. Thatface had never lied to her. Why should he not plead for the sincerityof his passion, since it was all over now? Was it possible that therewas some secret insincerity in her? How was it that she had made himthink that she desired to ignore, to repudiate her part in him? Thatshe preferred a meaningless compliment to the confession which was thehighest honour that could be paid to any woman? Was it because thehonour was so great that she was afraid to take it?

"Of course I would rather think it was really so. "

"Then you must believe that I really cared for you; and that it isonly because I cared that it is really so. "

"I do believe it. But I can't take it all to myself. Another personmight have cared just as much, and it might have done him harm--Iwould never have forgiven myself if I had done you harm--I want you tosee that it wasn't anything in _me_; it was something in _you_ thatmade the difference. "

He smiled sadly. "You know it _does_ sound as if you wanted to keepout of it. "

"Does it? If I had really been in it, do you think that I wouldn't beglad and thankful? I am, even for the little that I have done. Eventhough I know another woman might have done as much, or more, I'm gladI was the one. But, you see, I didn't know I was in it at all. Ididn't know the sort of help you wanted. Perhaps, if I had known, Icouldn't have helped you. But my knowing or not knowing doesn't matterone bit. If I _did_ help you--that way--I helped some one else too. Atleast I should like to think I did. I should like to think that onereason why you care for your wife so much is because you cared alittle for me. There is that way of looking at it. " Then, lest sheshould seem to be seeking some extraneous justification of a fact thatin her heart she abhorred, she added, "Every way I look at it I'mglad. I'm glad that you cared. I'm glad because it's been, and gladbecause it's over. For if it hadn't been over--"

"What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say that if it hadn't been over you couldn't havegiven me these. I didn't say it; because it would have sounded as ifthat were all I cared about. As if I wouldn't have been almost as gladif you'd never written a line of them. Only in that case I shouldnever have known. "

"No. You would never have known. "

"I think I should have been glad, even if the poems had been--not verygood poems. "

"You wouldn't have known in that case either. I wouldn't have shownthem to you if they had not been good. As it is, when I wrote them Inever meant to show them to you. "

"Oh, but I think--"

"Of course you do. But I wasn't going to print them before you'd seenthem. Do you know what I'd meant to do with them--what in fact I _did_do with them? I left them to you in my will with directions that theyweren't to be published without your consent. It seems a ratherunusual bequest, but you know I had a conceited hope that some timethey might be valuable. I don't know whether they would have sold forthree thousand pounds--I admit it was a draft on posterity thatposterity might have dishonoured--but I thought they might possibly goa little way towards paying my debt. "

"Your debt? I don't understand. " But the trembling of her mouth beliedits words. 

"Don't you? Don't you remember?"

"No, I don't. I never _have_ remembered. "

"Probably not. But you can hardly suppose that I've forgotten it. "

"What has it to do with you, or me--or this?"

"Not much, perhaps; but still something, you'll admit. "

"I admit nothing. I can't bear your ever having thought of it. I wishyou hadn't told me. It spoils everything. "

"Does it? Such a little thing? Surely a friend might be allowed toleave you a small legacy when he was decently dead? And it wasn't_his_ fault, was it, if it paid a debt as well?"

The tears rose in her eyes to answer him. 

"But you see I didn't leave it. I didn't wait for that. I was afraidthat my being dead would put you in a more embarrassing position thanif I'd been alive. You might have hated those poems and yet you mighthave shrunk from suppressing them for fear of wounding the immortalvanity of a blessed spirit. Or you might have taken that horridliterary view I implored you not to take. You might have hesitated toinflict so great a loss on the literature of your country. " He triedto speak lightly, as if it were merely a whimsical and extravagantnotion that he should be reckoned among the poets. And yet in hisheart he knew that it must be so. "But now the things can't bepublished unless you will accept them as they were originally meant. There's nothing gross about the transaction; nothing that need offendeither you or me. "

"I can't--I can't--"

"Well, " he said gently, fearing the appearance of grossness inpressing the question, "we can settle that afterwards, can't we?Meanwhile at all events the publication rests with you. "

"The publication has nothing whatever to do with me--The dedication, _perhaps_. "

"You've accepted that. Still, you might object to your name appearingbefore the public with mine. "

Lucia looked bewildered. She thought she had followed him in all hissubtleties; but she had had difficulty in realizing that he wasactually proposing to suppress his poems in deference to herscruples, if she had any. Some shadowy notion of his meaning waspenetrating her now. 

"My name, " she said, "will mean nothing to the public. "

"Then you consent?"

"Of course. It's absurd to talk about my consent. Besides, why shouldI mind now--when it is all over?"

He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was by an effort, as if he unwillingly obeyed some superior constraint. "If it hadn'tbeen all over would you have minded then? Would you have refused yourconsent?"

"To your publishing your own poems? How could I?"

"To the dedication, I mean. If it hadn't been all over, would you havegiven your consent to that?"

His anxiety had deepened to an agony which seemed to have made hisface grow sharp and thin almost as she looked at him. She judged thatthis question was vital, and that the truth was required of her. 

"No, not to that. You see, it's only because it's all over that I'veconsented now. "

"I see; that's the condition? You would never have consented but forthat. "

"Why should we talk about that now?"

"I wanted to know the truth. "

"Why should you? It's a truth that has nothing to do with things asthey are, only with things as they might have been. Isn't it enough tobe glad that they weren't, that it is all over, and that this is theend of it?"

Even as she said the words it struck her that there was somethingominous in this reiteration. 

"But it isn't all over. This isn't the end of it. "

His voice was so low that she could hardly have heard it but for theintense vibration of the tones. There was a pause in which they seemedstill to be throbbing, but with no meaning behind the passionate pulseof sound. 

"I didn't mean to tell you. I know you'd rather think it wasn't so. And I would have let you think it if it hadn't been for what you toldme--what I made you tell me. "

"I don't understand. What did I tell you?"

"You told me the truth. " He spoke with a sudden savage energy. "Howcould I go on lying after that?"

She looked at him with that almost imperceptible twitching of hersoft mouth which he knew to be a sign of suffering; and in her eyesthere was pain and a vague terror. 

"I might have gone on lying to the end, if nothing had depended on it. But if you tell me that you only give your consent to a thing on onecondition, and I know that I can't possibly fulfil the condition, whatam I to do? Say nothing about it, and do what you would loathe me fordoing if you knew?"

Till now she had left the manuscript lying in her lap, whereunconsciously her hands covered it with a gentle protecting touch. Butas he spoke she took it up and put it away from her with anirresistible impulse of rejection. He knew that he was answered. 

"If I had, " he said, "in one sense I should have done you no wrong. All this would be nothing to the world which would read these poems. But when I knew that it made all the difference to _you_--"

She turned, as he had seen her turn once and only Once before, inreproach that was almost anger. 

"To me? Do you suppose I'm thinking of myself?"

"Perhaps not. That doesn't prevent my thinking of you. But I wasthinking of myself, too. Supposing I had done this thing that youwould have loathed; even though you had never known it, I should havefelt that I had betrayed your trust, that I had taken something fromyou that I had no right to take, something that you would never havegiven me if you had known. What was I to do?"

She did not answer him. Once before, he remembered, when his honourwas in difficulties, she had refused to help it out, left it tostruggle to the light; which was what it did now. 

"It would have been better to have said nothing and done nothing. "

He expected her to close instantly with that view of his behaviourwhich honour had presented as the final one, but this she did not do. 

"If you had said nothing you might have done what you liked. "

"I see. It's my saying it that makes the difference?"

"That is _not_ what I meant. I meant that you were free to publishwhat you have written. You are not free to say these things to me. "

"For the life of me I don't know why I said them. It means perditionfor my poems and for me. I knew that was all I had to gain by tellingyou the truth. "

"But it _isn't_ the truth. You know it isn't. You don't even think itis. "

"And if it were, would it be so terrible to you to hear it?"

She did not answer. She only looked at him, as if by looking she couldread the truth. For his face had never lied. 

He persisted. "If it were true, what would you think of me?"

"I should think it most dishonourable of you to say so. But it isn'ttrue. "

He smiled. "Therefore it can't be dishonourable of me to say so. "

"No, not that. You are not dishonourable; therefore it can't be true. Let us forget that you ever said it. "

"But I can't forget that it's true any more than I can make it untrue. You think me dishonourable, because you think I've changed. But Ihaven't changed. It always was so, ever since I knew you; and that'smore than five years ago now. I am dishonourable; but that's not wherethe dishonour comes in. _The_ dishonourable thing would have been tohave left off caring for you. But I never did leave off. There neverwas a minute when it wasn't true, nor a minute when I didn't think it. If I was sure of nothing else I was always sure of that. Where thedishonour came in was in caring for another woman, in another way. "

"The dishonour would come in if you'd left off caring for her. And youhaven't done that. It would come in a little now, I think, if you saidthat you didn't care. But you don't say it; you don't even think it. Shall I tell you the truth? You've let your genius get too strong ahold over you. You've let it get hold, too, of this feeling that youhad for me. And now, though you know perfectly well--as well as Ido--that it's all over, your genius is trying to persuade you that thefeeling is still there when it isn't. "

"That is not so, but you can say it is, if it makes you any happier. "

"It does make me happier to think that it's your genius, not you, thatsays these things. For I can forgive your genius; but I couldn't haveforgiven you. "

At that moment he felt a savage jealousy of his genius, because sheloved it. "And yet, you said a little while ago you couldn't separatethe two. "

"You have obliged me to separate them, to find an excuse for you. Thisought not to have happened; but it could not have happened to a manwho was not a poet. "

All the time she was miserably aware that she was trying to defendherself with subtleties against the impact of a terrible reality. Andbecause that reality must weigh more heavily on him than her, she wastrying to defend him too, against himself, to force on him, againsthimself, her own subtilizing, justifying view. 

But his subtlety was a match for hers. "Your cousin once did me thehonour to say I was one-seventh part a poet, and upon my honour Iprefer his estimate to yours. "

"What is mine?"

"That I'm nothing but a poet. That there wasn't enough of me left overto make a man. "

"That is not my estimate, and you know it. I think you so much a manthat your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has ledyou very far astray. "

"Is that all you know about it?"

"Well, I'm not sure that it is your genius, this time. I rather thinkit's your sense of honour. I believe you think that because you oncecared for me you've got to go on caring, lest I should accuse you ofbeing faithless to your dream. " ("Surely, " she said to herself, "I'vemade it easy for him now?")

But the word was too much for him. "For Goodness' sake don't talk tome any more about my dream. You may think any mortal thing you likeabout me, so long as you don't do that. "

She smiled faintly, as if with an effort at forbearance. "Very wellthen, I won't talk about your dream. I'll say you were afraid lest Ishould think you had been faithless to _me_. It would never haveoccurred to you if you hadn't seen me again. It will not occur to youafter I am gone. It will be all over by to-morrow. "

"Why to-morrow?" He spoke stupidly. Fear had made him stupid. "Whyto-morrow?"

"Because I am going to-morrow. "

Then he knew that it was indeed all over. The door which had been opento him was about to close; and once closed it would never be open tohim again. 

"What _must_ you think of me--"

"I think you have done very wrong, and that our talking about it onlymakes it worse. And so--I'm sorry--but I must ask you to leave me. "

But he did not leave her. "And I must ask you to forgive me, " he saidgently. 

"I? I have nothing to forgive. You haven't done anything to me. But Ishould never forgive you if I thought this foolishness could make onemoment's difference to--to Flossie. "

"It never has made any difference to her, " he replied coldly, "or tomy feeling for her. I never felt towards any woman as I feel towardsyou. It isn't the same thing at all. Heaven knows I thought I caredenough for her to marry her. But it seems I didn't. That's why I sayit makes no difference to her. Nothing is altered by it. As far asFlossie is concerned, whether I marry her or not I shall have behavedabominably. I don't know which is the more dishonourable. "

"Don't you?"

"No. I only know which I'm going to do. "

She turned her head away. And that turning away was intolerable. Itwas the closing of the door. 

"Is it so very terrible to you?" he said gently. 

He could not see the tears in her eyes, but he heard them in hervoice, and he knew that he had wounded her, Hot in her pride, but inher tenderness and honour--Lucia's honour. 

"To me? I'm not thinking of myself--not of myself at all. How could Ithink of myself? I'm thinking of _her_. " She turned to him and let hertears gather in her eyes unheeded. "Don't you see what you've done?"

Oh, yes; he saw very well what he had done. He had taken thefriendship she had given to him to last his life and destroyed it in amoment, with his own hands. All for the sake of a subtlety, afantastic scruple, a question asked, a thing said under some obscurecompulsion. He had been moved by he knew not what insane urgency ofhonour. And whatever else he saw he did not see how he could have doneotherwise. The only alternative was to say nothing, to do nothing. Supposing he had suppressed both his passion and the poems thatimmortalized it, what would she have thought of him then? Would shenot have thought that he had either dedicated to her a thing that hewas afterwards ashamed of, or that he had meant nothing by thededication?

"Don't you see what you have done?" she said. "You've made me wish Ihad never come here and that I'd never seen you again. It was only theother night--the dear little girl--she came up here and sat with me, and we had a talk. We talked about you. She told me how she came toknow you, and how good you'd been to her and how long it was beforeeither of you knew. She told me things about herself. She is veryshy--very reserved--but she let me see how much she cares--and howmuch you care. Think what you must be to her. She has no father and nomother, she has nobody but you. She told me that. And then--she tookme up to her room and showed me all her pretty things. She was sohappy--and how can I look at her again? She would hate me if she knew;and I couldn't blame her, poor child. She could never understand thatit was not my fault. "

But as she said it her conscience rose in contradiction and told herthat it was her fault. Her fault in the very beginning for drawing himinto an intimacy that his youth and inexperience made dangerous. Herfault for sacrificing, yes, sacrificing him to that impulse to givepleasure which had only meant giving pleasure to herself at hisexpense. Her fault for endlessly refining on the facts of life, tillshe lost all feeling of its simpler and more obvious issues. Kitty hadbeen right when she told her that she treated men as if they weredisembodied spirits. She had trusted too much to her own subtlety. That was how all her blunders, had been made. If she had been cold aswell as subtle--but Lucia was capable of passionate indiscreet thingsto be followed by torments of her pride. Her pride had only madematters worse. It was her pride, in the beginning, that had blindedher. When she had told Kitty that she was not the sort of woman to letthis sort of thing happen with this sort of man, she had summed up herabiding attitude to one particular possibility. She had trusted to thesocial gulf to keep her safe, apart. Afterwards, she knew that she hadnot trusted so much to the social gulf. She had not been quite soproud; neither, since Kitty had opened her eyes, had she been soblind; but she had been ten times more foolish. Her mind had refusedto dwell upon Kitty's dreadful suggestions, because they weredreadful. Unconscious of her sex, she had remained unconscious of herpower; she had trusted (unconsciously) to the power of another womanfor protection. Flossie had, so to speak, detached and absorbed thepassionate part of Keith Rickman; by which process the rest of him wasleft subtler and more pure. She had thought she could really deal withhim now as a disembodied spirit. And so under the shelter of hisengagement she had, after her own manner, let herself go. 

These thoughts swept through her brain like one thought, as shecontemplated the misery she had made. They came with the surging ofthe blood in her cheeks, so swiftly that she had no time to see thatthey hardly exhausted the aspects of her case. And it was not her owncase that she was thinking of. 

She turned to him pleading. "Don't you see that I could never forgivemyself if I thought that I had hurt her? You are not going to make meso unhappy?"

"Do you mean, am I going to marry her?"

She said nothing; for she was conscious now, conscious and ashamed ofusing a power that she had no right to have; ashamed, too, of beingforced to acknowledge the truth of the thing she had so passionatelydenied. 

"You needn't be afraid, " he said. "Of course I am going to marry her. "

He turned away from her as he had turned away five years ago, with thesame hopeless sense of dishonour and defeat. She called him back, asshe had called him back five years ago, and for the same purpose, ofdelivering a final stab. Only that this time she knew it was a stab;and her own heart felt the pain as she delivered it. 

But the terrible thing had to be done. She had got to return themanuscript, the gift that should never have been given. She gatheredthe loosened sheets tenderly, like things that she was grieved to partfrom. He admitted that she was handling her sword with all gentlenessso as to avoid as far as possible any suggestion of a thrust. 

"You must take them back, " she said. "I can't keep them--or--or haveanything to do with them after what you told me. I should feel as ifI'd taken what belonged to some one else. "

As he took the sheets from her and pocketed them, she felt that againhe was pocketing an insult as well as a stab. 

But the victim was no longer an inexperienced youth. So he smiledvalorously, as beseemed his manhood. "And yet, " he murmured, "you sayit isn't true. "

She did not contradict him this time. And as he turned he heard behindhim the closing of the door. 

BOOK IV

THE MAN HIMSELF

CHAPTER LXII

After all, the wedding did not take place on the twenty-fifth; for onthe twentieth Keith was summoned to Ilford by a letter from hisstepmother. Mrs. Rickman said she thought he ought to know (as ifKeith were seeking to avoid the knowledge!) that his father had had aslight paralytic seizure. He had recovered, but it had left him veryunsettled and depressed. He kept on for ever worrying to see Keith. Mrs. Rickman hoped (not without a touch of asperity) that Keith wouldlose no time in coming, as his father seemed so uneasy in his mind. 

Very uneasy in his mind was Isaac, as upstairs in the big frontbedroom, (which from its excess of glass and mahogany bore a curiousresemblance to the front shop, ) he lay, a strangely shrunken figure inthe great bed. His face, once so reticent and regular, was drawn onone side, twisted into an oblique expression of abandonment and agony. 

Keith was not prepared for the change; and he broke down completely asthe poor right hand (which Isaac _would_ use) opened and closed in avain effort to clasp his. But Isaac was intolerant of sympathy, and atonce rebuked all reference to his illness. Above the wreck of hisaustere face, his eyes, blood-shot as they were and hooded under theirslack lids, defied you to notice any change in him. 

"I sent for you, " he said, "because I wanted to talk over a littlebusiness. " His utterance was thick and uncertain; the act of speechshowed the swollen tongue struggling in the distorted mouth. 

"Oh, don't bother about business now, father, " said Keith, trying hardto steady his voice. 

His father gave an irritable glance, as if he were repelling anaccusation of mortality, conveyed in the word "now. "

"And why not now as well as any other time?"

Keith blew his nose hard and turned away. 

"What's the matter with you? Do you suppose I'm ill?"

"Oh no, of course not. "

"No. I'm just lying here to rest and get up my strength again; Godwilling. But _in case_ anything should happen to me, Keith, I want youto be clear as to how you stand. "

"Oh, that's all right, " said Keith cheerfully. 

"It's not all right. It's not as I meant it to be. Between you and me, my big house hasn't come to much. I think if you'd stayed init--well--we won't say any more about that. But PaternosterRow--now--that's sound. Mrs. Rickman always 'ad a fancy for the City'ouse, and she's put money into it. You'll have your share that wassettled on you when I married your poor mother. You stick to the City'ouse, Keith, and it'll bring you in something some day. And theName'll still go on. " It was pathetic, his persistent clinging to theimmortality of his name. Pathetic, too, his inability to see itotherwise than as blazoned for ever and ever over a shop-front. Hisson's fame (if he ever achieved it) was a mere subsidiary glory. "ButPilkington'll get the Strand 'ouse. Whatever I do I can't save it. Idon't mind owning now, the Strand 'ouse was a mistake. "

"A very great mistake. "

"And Pilkington'll get the 'Arden library. "

"You don't know. You may get rid of him--before that time. "

Isaac seemed to be torn by his thoughts the more because they found noexpression in his face that was bound, mouth, eye, and eyelid in itsown agony. Before _what_ time? Before the day of his death, or the dayof redemption? "The mortgage, " he said, "'as still three years to run. But I can't raise the money. "

Keith was silent. He hardly liked to ask, though he would have givena great deal to know, the amount of the sum his father could notraise. A possibility, a splendid, undreamed of possibility, had risenup before him; but he turned away from it; it was infamous toentertain it, for it depended on his father's death. And yet for thelife of him he could not help wondering whether the share which wouldultimately come to him would by any chance cover that mortgage. To beany good it would have to come before the three years were up, though--He put the splendid horrible thought aside. He could notcontemplate it. The wish was certainly not the father of that thought. But supposing the thought became the father of a wish?

"That reminds me, " said Isaac, "that there was something else I 'ad tosay to you. "

He did not say it all at once. At the very thought of it his swollentongue moved impotently without words. At last he got it out. 

"I've been thinking it over--that affair of the library. And I've beenled to see that what I did was wrong. Wrong, I mean, in the sight ofGod. "

There was a sense he could not get rid of, in which it might still beconsidered superlatively right. 

"And wot you did--"

"Oh, never mind what I did. _That's_ all right. "

"You did the righteous and the Christian thing. "

"Did I? I'm sure I don't know why I did it. "

"Ah--if you'd done it for the love of God, there's no doubt it'd 'avebeen more pleasing to 'im. "

"Well, you know I didn't do it for the love--of God. "

"You did it for the love of woman? I was right then, after all. "

Isaac felt inexpressibly consoled by Keith's cheerful disclaimer ofall credit. His manner did away with the solemnity of the occasion;but it certainly smoothed for him the painful path of confession. 

"Well, yes. If it hadn't been for Miss Harden I don't suppose I shouldhave done it at all. "

He said it very simply; but not all the magnificent consolations ofreligion could have given Isaac greater peace. It was a little moreeven, the balance of righteousness between him and Keith. He had neversinned, as Keith had done, after the flesh. Of the deeds done in thebody he would have but a very small account to render at the last. 

"And you see, you haven't got anything for it out of _her_. "

There was a certain satisfaction in his tone. He saw a mark of thedivine displeasure in Keith's failure to marry the woman he desired. 

"And if I could only raise that money--"

He meant it--he meant it. The balance, held in God's hands, hungsteady now. 

"How much is it?" asked Keith; for he thought, "Perhaps he's onlyholding on to that share for my sake; and if he knew that I would giveit up now, he might really--"

"Four thousand nine with th' interest, " said Isaac. 

"Do you think, Keith, it would have sold for five?"

"Well, yes, I think it very possibly might. "

"Ah!" Isaac turned his face from his son. The sigh expressed aprofound, an infinite repentance. 

CHAPTER LXIII

On the twenty-fifth Isaac Rickman lay dead in his villa at Ilford. Twodays after Keith's visit he had been seized by a second and moreterrible paralytic stroke; and from it he did not recover. The weddingwas now indefinitely postponed till such time as Keith could havesucceeded in winding up his father's affairs. 

They proved rather less involved than he had expected. Isaac hadescaped dying insolvent. Though a heavy mortgage delivered Rickman'sin the Strand into Pilkington's possession, the City house was notonly sound, as Isaac had said, but in a fairly flourishing condition. Some blind but wholly salutary instinct had made him hold on to thathumbler and obscurer shop where first his fortunes had been made; andwith its immense patronage among the Nonconformist populationRickman's in the City held a high and honourable position in thetrade. The bulk of the profits had to go to the bookseller's widow aschief owner of the capital; still, the slender partnership settled onhis son, if preserved intact and carefully manipulated, would yield intime a very comfortable addition to Keith's income. If Isaac hadlived, his affairs (as far as he was concerned) would have been easilysettled. But for his son and heir they proved most seriouslycomplicated. 

For Keith was heir, not only to his father's estate, but to that veryconsiderable debt of honour which Isaac had left unpaid. It seemed asif the Harden library, the symbol of a superb intellectual vanity, wasdoomed to be in eternal necessity of redemption. Until yesterday ithad not occurred to Keith that it could be his destiny to redeem it. Yesterday he had refused to let his mind dally with that possibility;to-day it had become the most fitting subject of his contemplation. 

The thing was more easily conceived than done. His literary incomeamounted, all told, to about three hundred and fifty a year, but itssources were not absolutely secure. _Metropolis_ or _The Planet_ mightconceivably at any moment cease to be. And there was his marriage. Itwas put off; but only for a matter of weeks. He had only a hundred andfifty pounds in ready money; the rest had been swallowed up by thelittle house at Ealing. It was impossible to redeem the Harden libraryunless he parted with his patrimony; which was, after all, his onlysafe and imperishable source of income. Still, he had not the smallesthesitation on this head. Neither he nor Flossie had taken it intotheir calculations when they agreed to marry, and he was not going toconsider it now. 

The first step proved simple. Mrs. Rickman had no objection to buyinghim out. On the contrary, she was thankful to get rid of a mostreckless and uncomfortable partner. But in the present state of thetrade it was impossible to estimate his share at more than fourthousand. That covered the principal; but Isaac had paid no interestfor more than two years; and that interest Keith would have to pay. Though the four thousand was secure, and Pilkington had given himthree years to raise the seven hundred and fifty in, it was not soeasily done on an income of three hundred and fifty. Not easy in threeyears; and impossible in any number of years if he married. Possibleonly, yes, just possible, if his marriage were postponed until suchtime as he could have collected the money. Some brilliant stroke ofluck might unexpectedly reduce the term; but three years must beallowed. _Metropolis_ and _The Planet_ were surely good for anotherthree years. The other alternative, that of repudiating theobligation, never entered his head for an instant. He could not havetouched a shilling of his father's money till this debt was cleared. 

There could be no doubt as to what honour demanded of him. But howwould Flossie take it? The worst of it was that he was bound (inhonour again) to give her the option of breaking off their engagement, if she didn't care to wait. And after all that had passed betweenthem it might not be so easy to persuade her that he was not glad ofthe excuse; for he himself was so lacking in conviction. Still she wasvery intelligent; and she would see that it wasn't his fault if theirmarriage had to be put off. The situation was inevitable andimpersonal, and as such it was bound to be hard on somebody. Headmitted that it was particularly hard on Flossie. It would have beenharder still if Flossie had been out of work; but Flossie, withcharacteristic prudence, had held on to her post till the very eve ofher wedding-day, and had contrived to return to it when she foresawthe necessity for delay. Otherwise he would have had to insist onproviding for her until she was independent again; which would havecomplicated matters really most horribly. It was quite horrible enoughto have to explain all this to Flossie. The last time he had explainedthings (for he had explained them) to Flossie the result had not beenexactly happy. But then the things themselves had been very different, and he had had to admit with the utmost contrition that a woman couldhardly have had more reasonable grounds for resentment. That was allover and done with now. In that explanation they had explainedeverything away. They had left no single thread of illusion hanginground the life they were to live together. They accepted themselvesand each other as they were. And in the absence of any brighterprospect for either of them there was high wisdom in that acceptance. 

If then there was a lack of rapture in his relations with Flossie, there would henceforth at any rate be calm. Her temperament was, hejudged, essentially placid, not to say apathetic. There was a softsmoothness about the plump little lady that would be a securityagainst friction. She was not great at understanding; but, taking itall together, she was now in an infinitely better position forunderstanding him than she had been two weeks ago. Besides, it wasafter all a simple question of figures; and Flossie's attitude tofigures was, unlike his own, singularly uninfluenced by passion. Shewould take the sensible, practical view. 

The sensible practical view was precisely what Flossie did take. Buther capabilities of passion he had again misjudged. 

He chose his moment with discretion, when time and place and Flossie'smood were most propitious. The time was Sunday evening, the place wasthe Regent's Park, Flossie's mood was gentle and demure. She had beenvery nice to him since his father's death, and had shown him manycareful small attentions which, with his abiding sense of his ownshortcomings towards her, he had found extremely touching. She seemedto him somehow a different woman, not perhaps so pretty as she hadbeen, but nicer. He may have been the dupe of an illusory effect oftoilette, for Flossie was in black. She had discussed the propriety ofmourning with Miss Bishop, and wore it to-day for the first time witha pretty air of solemnity mingled with satisfaction in her owndelicate intimation that she was one with her lover in his grief. Shehad not yet discovered that black was unbecoming to her, which wouldhave been fatal to the mood. 

The flowers were gay in the Broad Walk, Flossie tried to be gay too;and called on him to admire their beauty. They sat down together on aseat in the embrasure of a bed of chrysanthemums. Flossie wasinterested in everything, in the chrysanthemums, in the weather and inthe passers-by--most particularly interested, he noticed, in thefamily groups. Her black eyes, that glanced so restlessly at the menand so jealously at the women, sank softly on the children, happy andappeased. Poor Flossie. He had long ago divined her heart. He did hisbest to please her; he sat down when she told him to sit down, staredwhen she told him to stare, and relapsed into his now habitualattitude of dejection. A little girl toddled past him in play; stoppedat his knees and touched them with her hand and rubbed her small bodyagainst them, chuckling with delight. 

"The dear little mite, " said Flossie; "she's taken quite a fancy toyou, Keith. " Her face was soft and shy under her black veil, and whenshe looked at him she blushed. He turned his head away. He could notmeet that look in Flossie's eyes when he thought of what he had to sayto her. He was going to put the joy of life a little farther from her;to delay her woman's tender ineradicable hope. 

This was not the moment or the place to do it in. They rose andwalked on, turning into the open Park. And there, sitting under asolitary tree by the path that goes towards St. John's Wood, he brokeit to her gently. 

"Flossie, " he said, "I've something to tell you that you mayn't liketo hear. "

She made no sign of agitation beyond scraping a worn place in thegrass with the tips of her little shoes. "Well, " she said, with anadmirable attempt at patience, "what is it _now_?"

"You mean you think it's been about enough already?"

"If it's really anything unpleasant, for goodness' sake let's have itout and get it over. "

"Right, Flossie. I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid we shan't be ableto marry for another two years, perhaps three. "

"And why not?" Her black eyes darted a vindictive look at him underher soft veil. 

"My father's death has made a difference to me. "

Her lips tightened, and she drew a sharp but inaudible breath throughher nostrils. He had been wrong in supposing that she had not lookedfor any improvement in his finances after his father's death. On thecontrary, knowing of their reconciliation and deceived by the imposingappearance of Rickman's in the Strand, she had counted on a verysubstantial increase of income. 

"Do you mean to say, Keith, he hasn't left you anything?"

He laughed softly--an unpleasant way he had in situations where mostpeople would consider it only decent to keep grave. 

"He _has_ left me something. A bad debt. "

"What have you got to do with his bad debts? Nobody can come down onyou to pay them. " She paused. A horrible thought had struck her. "_Can_ they? You don't mean to say they can?"

He shook his head and struggled with his monstrous mirth. 

"Keith! What 'ave you done? You surely haven't been backing anybills?"

He laughed outright this time, for the sheer misery of the thing. 

"No, oh dear me, no. Not in your sense at least. "

"There _isn't_ any other sense. Either you did or you didn't; and Ithink you might tell me which. "

"It's not quite so simple, dear. I didn't back his bills, d'you see, but I backed _him_. '

"Can they make you responsible? Have they got it down in black andwhite?"

"Nobody can make me responsible, except myself. It's what they call adebt of honour, Flossie. Those debts are not always down in black andwhite. "

"Why can't you speak plain? I really can't think what you mean bythat. "

"Can't you? I'll endeavour to explain. A debt of honour, Beaver dear, is a debt that's got to be paid whoever else goes unpaid. "

"A fine lot of honour about that, " said she. 

Was it possible to make the Beaver understand? He, gave her a slightoutline of the situation; and he really could not complain of anyfault in the Beaver's intelligence. For, by dint of a masterly crossexamination, she possessed herself of all the details, even of thosewhich he most desired to keep from her. After their last greatexplanation there had been more than a tacit agreement between themthat the name of Lucia Harden was never to come up again in any futurediscussion; and that name he would not give. She, however, readilyinferred it from his silence. 

"You needn't tell me the lady's name, " said she. 

"I certainly needn't. The name has nothing whatever to do with it. '"

"Oh, hasn't it? You'll not make me believe that you'd 'ave taken it upthis way for any one but her. "

"Whether I would or wouldn't doesn't affect the point of honour. "

"I don't see where it comes in there. "

"If you don't I can't make you see it. "

"I said I didn't see where it comes in--_there_. I know what'shonourable as well as you, though I daresay my notions wouldn't agreewith yours. "

"Upon my soul, I shouldn't wonder if they didn't!"

"Look here, Keith. Did you ever make Miss Harden any promise to payher that money when your father died?"

"Of course I didn't--How could I? Do you suppose she'd have let me doanything of the sort?"

"I don't know what she wouldn't have let you do. Anyhow you didn'tmake her any promise. Think of the promises and promises you've madeto me. "

"I do think of them. Have I broken one of them?"

"I don't say you have yet; but you want to. "

"I don't wa--I won't break them, I'll keep every one of the blessedlot, if you'll only give me time. "

"Give you time? I know what that means. It means that I'm to go backand earn my living. I can slave till I drop for all you care--whileyou go and throw away all that money on another woman. And I'm to giveyou time to do it in!"

"I won't ask you to wait for me. I'm perfectly willing to release youfrom your engagement if you like. It seems only fair to you. "

"You care a lot, don't you, about what's fair to me? I believe you'dtake the bread out of my mouth to give it to her. "

"I would, Flossie, if it was her bread. That money doesn't belong toyou or me; it belongs to Miss Harden. "

"It seems to me, " said Flossie, "that everything belongs to her. I'msure you've as good as told me so. "

"I've certainly given you some right to think so. But that has nothingto do with it; and we agreed that we were going to let it alone, didn't we?"

"It wasn't me that brought it up again, it was you; and it's goteverything to do with it. You wouldn't have behaved like this, and youwouldn't be sitting there talking about what's honourable, if ithadn't been for Miss Harden. "

"That may very well be. But it doesn't mean what you think it does. Itmeans that before I knew Miss Harden I didn't know or care very muchabout what's honourable. She taught me to care. I wasn't fit to speakto a decent woman before I knew her. She made me decent. "

"Did she sit up half the night with you to do it?". 

He made a gesture of miserable impatience. 

"You needn't tell me. I can see her. "

"You can't. She did it by simply being what she is. If I ever manageto do anything right it will be because of her, as you say. But itdoesn't follow that it'll be for her. There's a great difference. "

"I don't see it. "

"You must try to see it. There's one thing I haven't told you aboutthat confounded money. It was I who let her in for losing it. Isn'tthat enough to make me keen?"

"You always were keen where she was concerned. "

"Look here, Flossie, I thought you were going to give up this sort ofthing?"

"So I was when I thought you were going to give her up. It doesn'tlook like it. "

"My dear child, how can I give up what I never had or could have?"

"Well then--are you going to give up your idea?"

"No, I am not. But you can either give me up or wait for me, as Isaid. But if you marry me, you must marry me and my idea too. Youdon't like my idea; but that's no reason why you shouldn't like me. "

"You're not taking much pains to make me like you. "

"I'm taking all the pains I know. But your liking or not liking mewon't alter me a little bit. You'll have to take me as I am. "

As she looked up at him she realized at last the indomitable nature ofthe man she had to deal with. And yet he was not unalterable, even onhis own showing. She knew some one who had altered him out of allknowledge. 

"Come, " said she, "don't say you never change. "

"I don't say it. You'll have to allow for that possibility, too. "

"It seems to me I have to allow for a good many things. "

"You have indeed. "

"Well, are we going to sit here all night?"

"I'm ready. "

They walked back in silence over the straight path that seemed as ifit would never end. Flossie stopped half-way in it, stung by an idea. 

"There's something you haven't thought of. What are you going to dowith the house? And with all that furniture?"

"Let them to somebody. That's all right, Beaver. The house and thefurniture can't run away. "

"No, but they'll never be the same again. "

Nothing would ever be the same again; that was clear. The flowers werestill gay in the Broad Walk, and the children, though a littlesleepier, were still adorable; but Flossie did not turn to look atthem as she passed. Would she ever look at them, at anything, withpleasure again? He had made life very difficult, very cruel to thispoor child, whom after all he had promised to protect and care for. 

"I say, Beaver dear, it _is_ hard luck on you. "

The look and the tone would have softened most women, at least for thetime being; but the Beaver remained implacable. 

"I'll try to make it easier for you. I'll work like mad. I'll doanything to shorten the time. "

"Shorten the time? You don't know how many years you're asking me towait. "

"I'm not asking you to wait. I'm asking you to choose. "

"Do you want me to do it now?"

"No, certainly not. " She was not indeed in a mood favourable tochoice; and he would not influence her decision. It was mean to urgeher to an arduous constancy; meaner still to precipitate her refusal. "You must think. You can, you know, when you give your mind to it. "

She appeared to be giving her mind to it for the rest of the way home;and her silence left him also free to think it over. After all, whathad he done? He had not asked her to wait, but what if he had? Manymen have to ask as much of the woman who loves them. Some men haveasked even more of the woman whom they love. That was the secret. Hecould have asked it with a clear conscience if he had but loved her. 

CHAPTER LXIV

Flossie was in no hurry about making up her mind. If Keith had askedher to give him time, it was only fair that he should give her timetoo, and since his mind was made up in any case, time could be noobject to him. So days and weeks had passed on and she had conveyed tohim no hint of her decision. 

On that Sunday evening, in the seclusion of her bedroom, Flossie saidto herself that she had made one great mistake. Prudence and foresightwere all very well in their way, but this time she had blunderedthrough excess of caution. In sticking to the post that made herindependent she had broken her strongest line of defence. If only shehad had the courage to relinquish it at the crucial moment, she wouldhave stood a very much better chance in her contest with Keith. Shecould then have appealed to his pity as she had done with such signalsuccess two years ago, when the result of the appeal had been to bringhim violently to the point. She was wise enough to know that incontending with a chivalrous man a woman's strongest defence is herdefencelessness. Though she was unable to believe that pure abstracthonour was or could be the sole and supreme motive of Keith'sbehaviour, she felt that if she could have said to him, "I've thrownup a good situation to marry you, " his chivalry would not have heldout against that argument. 

But Flossie never made mistakes. She was too consummate a diplomatist. Therefore, though appearances were against her, it was only reasonableto suppose that she had not really done so now, and that her originalinspiration had been right. It was foresight so subtle, so advanced, that it outstripped the ordinary processes of calculation, andappeared afterwards as the mysterious leading of a profounder power, of the under-soul that presses the innocent intellect into theservices of its own elemental instincts. The people who yield mostobediently to this compulsion are said to have good luck. 

Flossie's good luck, however, was not yet apparent either to herselfor to her fellow-boarders at Tavistock Place. Not that she hadenlarged on her trouble to any of them. The whole thing had been tooprofoundly humiliating for that. To say nothing of being engaged to aman who had shown so very little impatience to marry her, to havetaken and furnished a house and be unable to live in it, to havereceived congratulations and wedding presents which had all provedpremature, to know, and feel that everybody else knew, that herbedroom was at this moment lumbered up with a trousseau which, whethershe wore it or put it by two years, would make her equally ridiculous, was really a very trying position for any young lady, and to Flossie, whose nature was most delicately sensitive to such considerations, itwas torture. But, after all, these things were material and external;and the worst of Flossie's suffering was in her soul. Before theappearance of Miss Harden, the last two years had passed for Flossiein gorgeous triumphal procession through the boarding-house. She hadbeen the invincible heroine of Mrs. Downey's for two years, she haddragged its young hero at her chariot wheels for two years, she hadfilled the heart of Ada Bishop with envy and the hearts of Mr. Soperand Mr. Spinks with jealousy and anguish for two years; and now shehad all these people pitying her and looking down on her because shehad been so queerly treated; and this was even more intolerable topoor Flossie. She knew perfectly well what every one of them wassaying. She knew that Ada Bishop had thanked Goodness she wasn't inher shoes; that Miss Bramble spoke of her persistently as "that pooryoung thing"; that Mrs. Downey didn't know which she pitied most, heror poor Mr. Rickman. He was poor Mr. Rickman, if you please, becausehe was considered to have entangled himself so inextricably with her. She knew that Miss Roots maintained that it was all her (Flossie's)own fault for holding Keith to his engagement; that Mr. Partridge hadwondered why girls were in such a hurry to get married; and that Mr. Soper said she'd made a great mistake in ever taking up with a youngfellow you could depend on with so little certainty. And the burden ofit all was that Flossie had made a fool of herself and been made afool of. So she was very bitter in her little heart against the manwho was the cause of it all; and if she did not instantly throw KeithRickman over, that was because Flossie was not really such a fool asfor the moment she had been made to look. 

But there was one person of the boarding-house whose opinion was asyet unknown to Flossie or to anybody else; it was doubtful indeed ifit was known altogether to himself; for Mr. Spinks conceived thathonour bound him to a superb reticence on the subject. He had followedwith breathless anxiety every turn in the love affairs of Flossie andhis friend. He could not deny that a base and secret exultation hadpossessed him on the amazing advent of Miss Harden; for love had madehim preternaturally keen, and he was visited with mysteriousintimations of the truth. He did not encourage these visitings. He hadtried hard to persuade himself that he was glad for Flossie's sakewhen Miss Harden went away; when, whatever there had been betweenRickets and the lady, it had come to nothing; when the wedding dayremained fixed, immovably fixed. But he had not been glad at all. Onthe contrary he had suffered horribly, and had felt the subsequentdelay as a cruel prolongation of his agony. In the irony of destiny, shortly before the fatal twenty-fifth, Mr. Spinks had been madepartner in his uncle's business, and was now enjoying an incomesuperior to Rickman's not only in amount but in security. If anythingcould have added to his dejection it was that. His one consolationhitherto had been that after all, if Rickman did marry Flossie, as_he_ was not in a position to marry her, it came to the same thing inthe long run. Now he saw himself cut off from that source of comfortby a solid four hundred a year with prospects of a rise. He couldforego the obviously impossible; but in that rosy dawn of incarnationhis dream appeared more than ever desirable. Whenever Mr. Spinks'simagination encountered the idea of marriage it had tried to lookanother way. Marriage remote and unattainable left Mr. Spinks'simagination in comparative peace; but brought within the bounds ofpossibility its appeal was simply maddening. And now, bringing itnearer still, so near that it was impossible to look another way, there came these disturbing suggestions of a misunderstanding betweenRickman and his Beaver. The boarding-house knew nothing but that thewedding was put off because Rickman was in difficulties and could notafford to marry at the moment. Spinks would have accepted thisexplanation as sufficient if it had not been for the peculiarbehaviour of Rickman, and the very mysterious and agitating change inFlossie's manner. Old Rickets had returned to his awful solitude. Heabsented himself entirely from the dinner-table. When you met him onthe stairs he was incommunicative and gloomy; and whatever you askedhim to do he was too busy to do it. His sole attention to poor Flossiewas to take her for an occasional airing in the Park on Sundayafternoons. Spinks had come across them there walking sadly side byside. Flossie for propriety's sake would be making a littleconversation as he went by; but Rickman had always the shut mouth andsteady eyes of invincible determination. 

What was it that Razors was so determined about? To marry Flossie? Ornot to marry her? That was the question which agitated poor Spinksfrom morning till night, or rather from night till morning. The worstof it was that the very nature of his woes compelled him as anhonourable person to keep them to himself. 

But there was no secret which could be long concealed from the eyes ofthat clever lady, Miss Roots; and she had contrived in the mostdelicate manner to convey to the unfortunate youth that he had hersympathy. Spinks, bound by his honour, had used no words in divulginghis agony; but their unspoken confidences had gone so far that MissRoots at last permitted herself to say that it might be as well tofind out whether "it was on or off. "

"But, " said the miserable Spinks, "would that be fair to Rickman?"

"I think so, " said the lady, with a smile that would have been sweethad it been rather less astute. "Mind you, I'm not in their secrets;but I believe you really needn't be afraid of that. "

"Yes. But how in Heaven's name am I to find out? I can't ask him, andI can't ask her. "

"Why can't you ask them?"

Spinks was unable to say why; but his delicacy shrank from eithercourse as in some subtle way unfair. Besides he distrusted MissRoots's counsel, for she had not been nice to Flossie. 

"Oh Lord, " said Spinks, "what an orful mess I'm in!" He said it tohimself; for he had resolved to talk no longer to Miss Roots. 

He could have borne it better had not the terrible preoccupation ofRickman thrown Flossie on his hands. In common decency he had to talkto her at the dinner-table. But it was chivalry (surely) that drew himto her in the drawing-room afterwards. She had to be protected (poorFlossie) from the shrewdness of Miss Roots, the impertinence of Mr. Soper, and the painful sympathy of the other boarders. With the verybest and noblest intentions in the world, Mr. Spinks descended nightlyinto that atmosphere of gloom, and there let loose his imperishablehilarity. 

He was quite safe, he knew, as long as their relations could be keptupon a purely hilarious footing; but Flossie's manner intimated (whatit had never intimated before) that she now realized and preferred theserious side of him; and there was no way by which the humorous Spinkswas more profoundly flattered than in being taken seriously. Somenights they had the drawing-room to themselves but for the harmlesspresence of Mr. Partridge dozing in his chair; and then, to seeFlossie struggling to keep a polite little smile hovering on a mouthtoo tiny to support it; to see her give up the effort and suddenlybecome grave; to see her turn away to hide her gravity with all theprecautions another woman takes to conceal her merriment; to see hersitting there, absolutely unmoved by the diverting behaviour of Mr. Partridge in his slumber, was profoundly agitating to Mr. Spinks. 

"I'm sure, " said Flossie one night (it was nearly three weeks afterthe scene with Rickman in the Park), "I'm sure I don't know why we'relaughing so much. There's nothing to laugh at that I can see. "

Spinks could have have replied in Byron's fashion that if he laughed'twas that he might not weep, but he restrained himself; and all hesaid was, "I like to see you larf. "

"Well, you can't say you've ever seen me cry. "

"No, I haven't. I shouldn't like to see _that_, Flossie. And Ishouldn't like to be the one that made you. "

"Wouldn't you?" Flossie put her pocket handkerchief to her littlenose, and under the corner of it there peeped the tail-end of alurking smile. 

"No, " said Spinks simply, "I wouldn't. " He was thinking of Miss Roots. The theory of Rickman's bad behaviour had never entered his head. "What's more, I don't think any nice person would do it. "

"Don't you?"

"No. Not any really nice person. "

"It's generally, " said Flossie, sweetly meditative, "the nicest personyou know who can make you cry most. Not that _I_'m crying. "

"No. But I can see that somebody's been annoying you, and I think Ican guess pretty well who it is, too. Nothing would please me morethan to 'ave five minutes' private conversation with that person. " Hewas thinking of Miss Harden now. 

"You mustn't dream of it. It wouldn't do, you know; it reallywouldn't. Look here, promise me you'll never say a word. "

"Well it's safe enough to promise. There aren't many opportunities ofmeeting. "

"No, that's the worst of it, there aren't now. Still, you might meethim any minute on the stairs, or anywhere. And if you go saying thingsyou'll only make him angry. "

"Oh it's a him, is it?" (_Now_ he was thinking of Soper. ) "_I_ know. Don't say Soper's been making himself unpleasant. "

"He's always unpleasant. "

"Is he? By 'Eaven, if I catch him!"

"Do be quiet. It isn't Mr. Soper. "

"Isn't it?"

"No. How could it be? You don't call Mr. Soper _nice_, do you?"

Spinks was really quiet for a moment. "I say, Flossie, have you andRickets been 'aving a bit of a tiff?"

"What do you want to know that for? It's nothing to you. "

"Well, it isn't just my curiosity. It's because I might be able tohelp you, Floss, if you didn't mind telling me what it was. I'm not aclever fellow, but there's no one in this house understands old Razorsas well as I do. "

"Then you must be pretty sharp, for I can't understand him at all. Hashe been saying anything to you?"

"Oh no, he wouldn't say anything. You don't talk about these things, you know. "

"I thought he might--to you. "

"Me? I'm the very last person he'd dream of talking to. "

"I thought you were such friends. "

"So we are. But you see he never talks about you to me, Flossie. "

"Why ever not?"

"That's why. Because we're friends. Because he wouldn't think itfair--"

"Fair to who?"

"To me, of course. "

"Why shouldn't it be fair to you?" Her eyes, close-lidded, were fixedupon the floor. As long as she looked at him Spinks held himself wellin hand; but the sudden withdrawing of those dangerous weapons threwhim off his guard. 

"Because he knows I--Oh hang it all, that's what I swore I wouldn'tsay. "

"You haven't said it. "

"No, but I've made you see it. "

His handsome face stiffened with horror at his stupidity. To let fallthe slightest hint of his feeling was, he felt, the last disloyalty toRickman. He had a vague idea that he ought instantly to go. Butinstead of going he sat there, silent, fixing on his own enormity amental stare so concentrated that it would have drawn Flossie'sattention to it, if she had not seen it all the time. 

"If there's anything to see, " said she, "there's no reason why Ishouldn't see it. "

"P'raps not. There's every reason, though, why I should have held mysilly tongue. "

"Why, what difference does it make?"

"It doesn't make any difference to you, of course, and it can't makeany difference--really--to him; but it's a downright dishonourablething to do, and that makes a jolly lot of difference to me. You see, I haven't any business to go and feel like this. "

"Oh well, you can't help your feelings, can you?" she said softly. "Anybody may have feelings--"

"Yes, but a decent chap, you know, wouldn't let on that he had any--atleast, not when the girl he--he--you know what I mean, it's what Imustn't say--when she and the other fellow weren't hitting it off verywell together. "

"Oh, you think it might make a difference then?"

"No, I don't--not reelly. It's only the feeling I have about it, don'tyou see. It seems somehow so orf'ly mean. Razors wouldn't have done itif it had been me, you know. "

"But it couldn't have been you. "

"Of course it couldn't, " said the miserable Spinks with a weak spurtof anger; "that was only my way of putting it. "

"What are you driving at? What ever did you think I said?"

"Never mind what you said. You're making me talk about it, and I saidI wouldn't. "

"When did you say that?"

"Ages ago--when Rickets first told me you--and he--"

"Oh that? That was so long ago that it doesn't matter much now. "

"Oh, doesn't it though, it matters a jolly sight more. You said"(there was bitterness in his tone), "you said it couldn't have beenme. As if I didn't know that. "

"I didn't mean it couldn't have been you, not in that way. I onlymeant that you'd have--well, you'd have behaved very differently, ifit had been you; and so I believe you would. "

"You don't know how I'd 'ave behaved. "

"I've a pretty good idea, though. " She looked straight at him thistime, and he grew strangely brave. 

"Look here, Flossie, " he said solemnly, "you know--as I've just let itout--that I'm most orf'ly gone on you. I don't suppose there'sanything I wouldn't do for you except--well, I really don't know whatyou're driving at, but if it's anything to do with Razors, I'd rathernot hear about it, if you don't mind. It isn't fair, really. You see, it's putting me in such a 'orribly delicate position. "

"I don't think you're very kind, Sidney. You don't think of me, orwhat sort of a position you put me in. I'm sure I wouldn't have said aword, only you asked me to tell you all about it; you needn't say youdidn't. "

"That was when I thought, p'raps, I could help you to patch it up. Butif I can't, it's another matter. "

"Patch it up? Do you think I'd let you try? I don't believe inpatching things up, once they're--broken off. "

"I say Flossie, it hasn't come to that?"

"It couldn't come to anything else, the way it was going. "

"Oh Lord"--Spinks buried a crimson face in his hands. If only hehadn't felt such a horrible exultation!

"I thought you knew. Isn't that what we've been talking about all thetime?"

"I didn't understand. I only thought--_he_ didn't tell me, mind you--Ithought it was just put off because he couldn't afford to marry quiteso soon. "

"Don't you think three hundred a year is enough to marry on?"

"Well, I shouldn't care to marry on that myself; not if it wasn'tregular. He's quite right, Flossie. You see, a man hasn't got only hiswife to think of. "

"No--I suppose he must think of himself a little too. "

"Oh well, no; if he's a decent chap, he thinks of his children. "

Flossie's face was crimson, too, while her thoughts flew to thatunfurnished room in the brown house at Ealing. She was losing sight ofKeith Rickman; for behind Keith Rickman there was Sidney Spinks; andbehind Sidney Spinks there was the indomitable Dream. She did not lookat Spinks, therefore, but gazed steadily at the top of Mr. Partridge'shead. With one word Spinks had destroyed the effect he had calculatedon from his honourable reticence. Perhaps it was because Flossie'sthoughts had flown so far that her voice seemed to come from somewherea long way off, too. 

"What would you think enough to marry on, then?"

"Well, I shouldn't care to do it much under four hundred myself, " hesaid guardedly. 

"And I suppose if you hadn't it you'd expect a girl to wait for youany time until you'd made it?"

"Well of course I should, if we were engaged already. But I shouldn'task any girl to marry me unless I could afford to keep her--"

"You wouldn't _ask_, but--"

"No, and I wouldn't let on that I cared for her either. I wouldn't leton under four hundred--certain. "

"Oh, " said Flossie very quietly. And Spinks was crushed under a senseof fresh disloyalty to Rickman. His defence of Rickman had been madeto turn into a pleading for himself. "But Razors is different; he'llbe making twice that in no time, you'll see. I shouldn't be afraid toask any one if I was him. "

Vainly the honourable youth sought to hide his splendour; Flossie haddrawn from him all she needed now to know. 

"Look, here, Floss, you say it's broken off. Would you mind telling mewas it you--or was it he who did it?" His tone expressed acute anxietyon this point, for in poor Spinks's code of honour it made all thedifference. But he felt that his question was clearly answered, forthe silence of Razors argued sufficiently that it was he. 

"Well, " said Flossie with a touch of maidenly dignity, "whichever itwas, it wasn't likely to be Keith. "

Spinks's face would have fallen, but for its immense surprise. In thiscase Rickman ought, yes, he certainly ought to have told him. Itwasn't behaving quite straight, he considered, to keep it from the manwho had the best right in the world to know, a fellow who had alwaysacted straight with him. But perhaps, poor chap, he was only waiting alittle on the chance of the Beaver changing her mind. 

"Don't you think, Flossie, that if he tried hard he could bring it onagain?"

"No, he couldn't. Never. Not if he tried from now till next year. Notif he went on his bended knees to me. "

Spinks reflected that Rickman's knees didn't take kindly to bending. "Haven't you been a little, just a little hard on him? He's such asensitive little chap. If I was a woman I don't think I could let himgo like that. You might let him have another try. "

Poor Spinks was so earnest, so sincere, so unaffectedly determined notto take advantage of the situation, that it dawned on Flossie thatdignity must now yield a little to diplomacy. She was not making thebest possible case for herself by representing the rupture asone-sided. "To tell you the truth, Sidney, he doesn't want to try. We've agreed about it. We've both of us found we'd made a greatmistake--". 

"I wish _I_ could be as sure of that. "

"Why, what difference could it make to you?" said Flossie, turning onhim the large eyes of innocence, eyes so dark, so deep, that herthoughts were lost in them. 

"It would make all the difference in the world, if I knew you weren'tmaking a lot bigger mistake now. " He rose, "I think, if you don'tmind, I'll 'ave a few words with Rickets, after all. I think I'll goup and see him now. "

There was no change in the expression of her eyes, but her eyelidsquivered. "No, Sidney, don't. For Goodness' sake don't go and sayanything. "

"I'm not going to say anything. I only want to know--"

"I've told you everything--everything I can. "

"Yes; but it's what you can't tell me that I want to know. "

"Well, but do wait a bit. Don't you speak to him before I see him. Because I don't want him to think I've given him away. "

"I'll take good care he doesn't think that, Flossie. But I'm going toget this off my mind to-night. "

"Well then, you must just take him a message from me. Say, I'vethought it over and that I've told you everything. Don't forget. I'vetold you everything, say. Mind you tell him that before you beginabout anything else. Then he'll understand. "

"All right. I'll tell him. "

Her eyes followed him dubiously as he stumbled over Mr. Partridge'slegs in his excited crossing of the room. She was by no means sure ofher ambassador's discretion. His heart would make no blunder; butcould she trust his head?

Up to this point Flossie had played her game with admirable skill. Shehad, without showing one card of her own, caused Spinks to reveal hisentire hand. It was not until she had drawn from him the assurance ofhis imperishable devotion, together with the exact amount of hisequally imperishable income, that she had committed herself to areally decisive move. She was perfectly well aware of its delicacy anddanger. Not for worlds would she have had Spinks guess that Rickmanwas still waiting for her decision. And yet, if Spinks referred rashlyand without any preparation to the breaking off of the engagement, Rickman's natural reply would be that this was the first he had heardof it. Therefore did she so manoeuvre and contrive as to make Rickmansuppose that Spinks was the accredited bearer of her ultimatum, whileSpinks himself remained unaware that he was conveying the firstintimation of it. It was an exceedingly risky thing to do. ButFlossie, playing for high stakes, had calculated her risk to a nicety. She must make up her mind to lose something. As the game now stood themoral approbation of Spinks was more valuable to her than the moralapprobation of Rickman; and in venturing this final move she hadreckoned that the moral approbation of Rickman was all she had tolose. Unless, of course, he chose to give her away. 

But Rickman could be trusted not to give her away. 

When Spinks presented himself in Rickman's study he obtained admissionin spite of the lateness of the hour. The youth's solemn agitation wasnot to be gainsaid. He first of all delivered himself of Flossie'smessage, faithfully, word for word. 

"Oh, so she's told you everything, has she? And what did she tellyou?"

"Why, that it was all over between you, broken off, you know. "

"And you've come to me to know if it's true, is that it?"

"Well no, why should I? Of course it's true if she says so. "

Rickman reflected for a moment; the situation, he perceived, wasdelicate in the extreme, delicate beyond his power to deal with it. But the god did not forsake his own, and inspiration came to him. 

"You're right there, Spinky. Of course it's true if she says so. "

"She seemed to think you wouldn't mind her telling me. She said you'dunderstand. "

"Oh yes, I think I understand. Did she tell you she had broken itoff?" (He was really anxious to know how she had put it. )

"Yes, but she was most awfully nice about it. I made out--I mean shegave me the impression--that she did it, well, partly because shethought you wanted it off. But that's just what I want to be sureabout. Do you want it off, or don't you?"

"Is that what she wants to know?"

"No. It's what I want to know. What's more, Rickets, I think I've gota fair right to know it, too. "

"What do you want me to say? That I don't want to marry Miss Walker orthat I do?"

Spinks's face flushed with the rosy dawn of an idea. It was possiblethat Rickets didn't want to marry her, that he was in need ofprotection, of deliverance. There was a great deed that he, Spinks, could do for Rickets. His eyes grew solemn as they beheld his destiny. 

"Look here, " said he, "I want you to tell me nothing but the ballytruth. It's the least you can do under the circumstances. I don't wantit for her, well--yes I do--but I want it for myself, too. "

"All right, Spinky, you shall have the best truth I can give you atsuch uncommonly short notice. I can't say I don't want to marry MissWalker, because that wouldn't be very polite to the lady. But I cansay I think she's shown most admirable judgement, and that I'mperfectly satisfied with her decision. I wouldn't have her go back, onit for worlds. Will that satisfy you?"

"It would if I thought you really meant it. "

"I do mean it, God forgive me. But that isn't her fault, poor littlegirl. The whole thing was the most infernal muddle and mistake. "

"Ah--that was what she called it--a mistake. " Spinks seemed to beclinging to and cherishing this word of charm. 

"I'm glad for her sake that she found it out in time. I'm not the sortof man a girl like Flossie ought to marry. I ought never to have askedher. "

"Upon my soul, Rickets, I believe you're right there. That's notsaying anything against you, or against her either. "

"No. Certainly not against _her_. She's all right, Spinky--"

"I know, I know. "

Still Spinks hesitated, restraining his ardent embrace of the truthpresented to him, held back by some scruple of shy unbelievingmodesty. 

"Then you think, you really _do_ think, that there isn't any reasonwhy I shouldn't cut in?"

"No, Heaven bless you; no reason in the world, as far as I'mconcerned. For God's sake cut in and win; the sooner the better. Now, this minute, if you feel like it. "

But still he lingered, for the worst was yet to come. He lingered, nursing a colossal scruple. Poor Spinks's honour was dear to himbecause it was less the gift of nature than the supreme imitativeeffort of his adoring heart. He loved honour because Rickman loved it;just as he had loved Flossie for the same reason. These were the onlyways in which he could imitate him; and like all imitators heexaggerated the master's manner. 

"I say, I don't know what you'll think of me. I said I'd never let onto Flossie that I cared; and I didn't mean to, I didn't on my word. Idon't know how it happened; but to-night we got talking--to tell youthe truth I thought I was doing my best to get her to make it up withyou--"

"Thanks; that was kind, " said Rickman in a queer voice which putSpinks off a bit. 

"I was really, Razors. I do believe I'd have died rather than let herknow how I felt about her; but before I could say knife--"

"She got it out of you?"

"No, she didn't do anything of the sort. It was all me. Like a damnfool I let it out--some'ow. "

Nothing could have been more demoralizing than the spectacle ofSpinks's face as he delivered himself of his immense confession; sofantastically did it endeavour to chasten rapture with remorse. Rickman controlled himself the better to enjoy it; for Spinks, takenseriously, yielded an inexhaustible vein of purest comedy. "Oh, Spinky, " he said with grave reproach, "how could you?"

"Well, I know it was a beastly dishonourable thing to do; but you seeI was really most awkwardly situated. "

"I daresay you were. " It was all very well to laugh; but in spite ofhis amusement he sympathized with Spinky's delicacy. He also had foundhimself in awkward situations more than once. 

"Still, " continued Spinks with extreme dejection, "I can't think how Icame to let it out. "

That, and the dejection, was too much for Rickman's gravity. 

"If you want the truth, Spinky, the pity was you ever kept it in. "

And his laughter, held in, piled up, monstrous, insane, ungovernable, broke forth, dispersing the last scruple that clouded the beatitude ofSpinks. 

CHAPTER LXV

Often, after half a night spent in a vain striving to shape someimmense idea into the form of beauty, be had turned the thing neck andcrop out of his mind and gone to sleep on it. Whenever he did this hewas sure to wake up and find it there waiting for him, full-formed andperfect as he had dreamed it and desired. It had happened so oftenthat he had grown to trust this profounder inspiration of his sleep. 

Hitherto it was only the problems of his heart that had been thusdivinely dealt with; he had been left to struggle hopelessly with theproblems of his life; and of these Flossie was the most insoluble. Andnow that he had given up thinking of her, had abandoned her to her ownmysterious workings, it too had been solved and in the same simple, inevitable way. His contempt for Flossie's methods could not blind himto the beneficence of the result. 

He wrote to her that night to the effect that he gladly and entirelyacquiesced in her decision; but that he should have thought that heand not Mr. Spinks had been entitled to the first intimation of it. Hehad no doubt, however, that she had done the best and wisest thing. Heforbore to add "for both of us. " His chivalry still persisted inregarding Flossie as a deeply injured person. He had wronged her fromthe beginning. Had he not laid on her, first the burden of hispassion, and yet again the double burden of his genius and his honour?A heavier load, that, and wholly unfitted for the poor little backthat would have had to bear it. It never occurred to him that he hadbeen in any way the victim of Flossie's powerful instincts. It wasMaddox who said that Mr. Spinks had made himself immortal by hismarriage; that he should be put on the Civil List for his services toliterature. 

Of Rickman's place in literature there could be no question for thenext two or three years. He foresaw that the all-important thing washis place on _The Planet_, his place on _Metropolis_, his place (if hecould find one) on any other paper. He had looked to journalism forthe means to support a wife, and journalism alone could maintain himin his struggle with Pilkington. Whether Maddox was right or wrong inhis opinion of the disastrous influence of Flossie, there could be nodoubt that for the present Rickman's genius had no more formidablerival than his honour. If it is perdition to a great tragic dramatistwhen passion impels him to marry on three hundred a year, it canhardly be desirable that conscience should constrain him to raiseseven hundred and fifty pounds in three years. Fate seemed bent inforcing him to live his tragedies rather than write them; but Rickman, free of Flossie, faced the desperate prospect with the old recklessspirit of his youth. 

For the first year the prospect did not look so very desperate. He hadfound cheap rooms unfurnished in Torrington Square where the housesare smaller and less sumptuous than Mrs. Downey's. He had succeeded inletting the little house in Ealing, where the abominable furniturethat had nearly cost so dear justified its existence by adding a smallsum to his income. He had benefited indirectly by Rankin's greatness;for Rankin seldom contributed anything to _The Planet_ now beyond hislively column once a week; and Rickman was frequently called on tofill his place. _The Planet_ was good for at least a solid hundred ayear; _Metropolis_ (once it began to pay) for a solid two hundred andfifty or more; other papers for small and varying sums. When he tottedit all up together he found that he was affluent. He could reckon on around four hundred all told. In Torrington Square, by the practice ofa little ingenious economy, he could easily live on a hundred andtwenty-five; so that by the end of the first year he should have savedthe considerable sum of two hundred and seventy-five pounds. At thatrate, in three years--no, in two years and a--well, in rather morethan two and a half years the thing would be done. By a little extraexertion he might be able to reduce it to two years; to one, perhaps, by a magnificent stroke of luck. Such luck, for instance, as a stagesuccess, a run of a hundred nights for the tragedy whose First Act hewas writing now. 

That, of course, it would be madness to count on; but he had somehopes from the sudden and extraordinary transformation of _TheMuseion_. 

Sudden enough, to the uninitiated, seeing that in September, ninety-seven, the organ of philosophic criticism to all appearancesdied, and that in October it burst into life again under a new coverand a new title, Jewdwine himself sounding the trump of resurrection. _The Museion's_ old contributors knew it no more; or failed torecognise it in _Metropolis_. On the tinted cover there was no traceof the familiar symbolic head-piece, so suggestive of an Ionic frieze, but the new title in the broadest, boldest, blackest of typeproclaimed its almost wanton repudiation of the old tradition. 

Jewdwine's first "concession to modernity, " was a long leading reviewof the "Art of Herbert Rankin. " Herbert Rankin was so much amused withit that it kept him quiet for at least three weeks in his playgroundof _The Planet_. After such a handsome appreciation as that, he had towait a decent interval before "going for Jewdwine. " When he remarkedto Rickman that it would have been more to the purpose if Jewdwine haddevoted his six columns to the Art of S. K. R. , Rickman blushed andturned his head away, as if Rankin had been guilty of some grossindelicacy. He was still virginally sensitive where Jewdwine wasconcerned. 

But, in a sense not intended by Rankin, Jewdwine was very muchoccupied, not to say perturbed by the art of S. K. R. Not exactly to theexclusion of every other interest; for Rickman, looking in on thegreat editor one afternoon, found him almost enthusiastic over his"last discovery. " A new poet, according to Jewdwine, had arisen in theperson of an eminent Cabinet Minister, who in ninety-seven wasbeguiling the tedium of office with a very pretty playing on thepastoral pipe. Mr. Fulcher's _In Arcadia_ lay on the editorial table, bound in white vellum, with the figure of the great God Pansymbolizing Mr. Fulcher, on the cover. Jewdwine's attitude to Mr. Fulcher was for Jewdwine humble, not to say reverent. He intimated toRickman that in Fulcher he had found what he had wanted. 

Jewdwine in the early days of _Metropolis_ wore the hungry look of aman who, having swallowed all his formulas, finds himself unnourished. "The soul, " Jewdwine used to say (perverting Emerson) "is appeased bya formula"; and it was clear that his soul would never be appeaseduntil it had found a new one. Those who now conversed intimately withJewdwine were entertained no longer with the Absolute, but they hearda great deal about the "Return to Nature. " Mr. Fulcher's pipings, therefore, were entirely in harmony with Jewdwine's change of mood. 

But Rickman, who had once protested so vigorously against theAbsolute, would not hear of the Return to Nature, either. That cry wasonly a symptom of the inevitable sickness of the academic spirit, surfeited with its own philosophy. He shook his head mournfully overMr. Fulcher. What looked to Jewdwine like simplicity seemed to himonly a more intolerably sophisticated pose than any other. 

"I prefer Mr. Fulcher in Downing Street to Mr. Fulcher in Arcadia. Mr. Fulcher, " he said, "can no more return to Nature than he can enter asecond time into his mother's womb and be born. "

He walked up and down the little office excitedly, while he drew forJewdwine's benefit an unattractive picture of the poet as babe, drinking from the breasts of the bounteous mother. "You can't go forever hanging on your mother's breasts; it isn't decent and it isn'tmanly. Return to Nature! It's only too easy to return, and stay. You'll do no good at all if you've never been there; but if you meanto grow up you must break loose and get away. The great mother isinclined to bug some of her children rather too tight, I fancy; and byHeaven! it's pretty tough work for some of them wriggling out of herarms. "

He came to a sudden standstill, and turned on Jewdwine the suddenleaping light of the blue eyes that seemed to see through Jewdwine andbeyond him. No formula could ever frame and hold for him that visionof his calling which had come to him four years ago on Harcombe Hill. He had conceived and sung of Nature, not as the indomitable parent byturns tyrannous and kind, but as the virgin mystery, the shy andtender bride that waits in golden abysmal secrecy for the embrace ofspirit, herself athirst for the passionate immortal hour. He foresawthe supreme and indestructible union. He saw one eternal nature and athousand forms of art, differing according to the virile soul. Andwhat he saw he endeavoured to describe to Jewdwine. "That means, mindyou, that your poet is a grown-up man and not a slobbering infant. "

"Exactly. And Nature will be the mother of his art, as _I_ said. "

"As you didn't say--The mother _only_. There isn't any immaculateconception of truth. Don't you believe it for a moment. "

Jewdwine retired into himself a moment to meditate on that tellingword. He wondered what lay beyond it. 

"And Art, " continued Rickman, "is truth, just because it isn'tNature. "

"If you mean, " said Jewdwine, seeking a formula, "that modern art isessentially subjective, I agree with you. "

"I mean that really virile and original art--the art, I believe of thefuture--must spring from the supreme surrender of Nature to the humansoul. "

"And do you honestly believe that the art of the future will be onebit more 'virile' than the art of the present day?"

"On the whole I do. "

"Well, I don't. I see nothing that makes for it. No art can hold outfor ever against commercialism. The nineteenth century has beencommercial enough in all conscience, bestially, brutally commercial;but its commercialism and brutality will be nothing to thecommercialism and brutality of the twentieth. If these things aredeadly to art now, they'll be ten times more deadly then. Themortality, among poets, my dear Rickman, will be something terrific. "

"Not a bit of it. The next century, if I'm not mistaken, will see apretty big flare up of a revolution; and the soul will come out ontop. Robespierre and Martin Luther won't be in it, Jewdwine, with thepoets of that school. "

"I'm glad you feel able to take that view of it. I don't seem to seethe poets of the twentieth century myself. "

"I see them all right, " said Rickman, simply. "They won't be the poetsof Nature, like the nineteenth century chaps; they'll be the poets ofhuman nature--dramatic poets, to a man. Of course, it'll take arevolution to produce that sort. "

"A revolution? A cataclysm, you mean. "

"No. If you come to think of it, it's only the natural way a healthypoet grows. Look at Shakespeare. I believe, you know, that most poetswould grow into dramatic poets if they lived long enough. Onlysometimes they don't live; and sometimes they don't grow. Lyric poetsare cases of arrested development, that's all. "

Jewdwine listened with considerable amusement as his subordinatepropounded to him this novel view. He wondered what literary enormityRickman might be contemplating now. That he had something at the backof his mind was pretty evident. Jewdwine meant to lie low till, fromthat obscure region, Rickman, as was his wont, should have brought outhis monster for inspection. 

He produced it the next instant, blushingly, tenderly, yet with nodiminution of his sublime belief. 

"You see--you'll think it sheer lunacy, but--I've a sort of idea thatif I'm to go on at all, myself, it must be on those lines. Modernpoetic drama--It's that or nothing, you know. "

Jewdwine's face said very plainly that he had no doubt whatever of thealternative. It also expressed a curious and indefinable relief. 

"Modern poetic drama? So that's your modest ambition, is it?"

Rickman owned that indeed it was. 

"My dear fellow, modern poetic drama is a contradiction in all itsterms. There are only three schools of poetry possible--the classic, the romantic and the natural. Art only exists by one of threeprinciples, normal beauty, spiritual spontaneity, and vital mystery orcharm. And none of these three is to be found in modern life. " Thesewere the laws he had laid down in the _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_, which Rickman, in the insolence of his genius, had defied. Somehow thelife seemed to have departed from those stately propositions, butJewdwine clung to them in a desperate effort to preserve his criticalintegrity. He was soothed by the sound of his own voice repeatingthem. He caught as it were an echo of the majestic harmonies thatonce floated through his lecture-room at Lazarus. "Besides, " he wenton, "where will you find your drama to begin with?"

"In modern men and women. "

"But modern men and women are essentially undramatic, _and_ unpoetic. "

"Still, I must take them, because, you see, there's nothing else totake. There never was or will be. The men and women of Shakespeare'stime were modern to him, you know. If they seem poetic to us, that'sbecause a poet made them so; and he made them so because he sawthat--essentially--they _were_ so. "

Jewdwine pushed out his lips in the manner of one unwillingly dubious. 

"My dear Rickman, you have got to learn your limitations; or if notyour limitations, the limitations made for you by the ridiculous andunlovely conditions of modern life. "

"I have learnt them. After all, what am I to do? I _am_ modern--modernas my hat, " said Rickman, turning it in his hands. "I admit that myhat isn't even a fugitive form of the eternal and absolute beauty. Itis, I'm afraid, horribly like everybody else's hat. In moments ofprofound insight I feel that _I_ am horribly like everybody else. Ifit wasn't for that I should have no hope of achieving my modestambition. "

"I'm not saying anything against your modesty or your ambition. I'mnot defying you to write a modern blank verse play; but I defy anybodyto act one. "

"I know, " said Rickman, "it's sad of course, but to the frivolous mindof a critic there always will be something ridiculous in the notion ofblank verse spouted on the stage by a person in a frock-coat and atop-hat. But do you think you'd see that frock-coat and top-hat ifonce the great tragic passions got inside them?"

"Where _are_ the great tragic passions?"

"They exist and are poetic. "

"As survivals only. They are poetic but not modern. We have thepassions of the divorce-court and the Stock Exchange. They are modern, if you like, but not strikingly poetic. "

"Well--even a stock-broker--if you insist on stockbrokers--"

"I don't. Take the people--take the women I know, the women you know. Is there--honestly, is there any poetry in them?"

"There is--heaps. Oceans of poetry--There always has been and will be. It's the poets, the great poets that don't turn up to time. "

"Well; I don't care how great a poet you may be. Modern poetic dramais the path of perdition for you. I wish, " he added with anunmistakable air of turning to a subject of real interest. "I wish Iknew what to do with Fulcher. "

"I don't know. I only know Mr. Fulcher's art hasn't much to do withnature. I'm afraid it's the illegitimate offspring of Mr. Fulcher andsome young shepherdess of Covent Garden. "

"He seems to have proved himself pretty much at home in Arcadia. "

"Don't you believe him. He's only at home in Downing Street. You'dbetter leave him there. "

But Jewdwine did not leave him there. He exalted Mr. Fulcher to theseventh heaven in four and a half columns of _Metropolis_. With hisjournalistic scent for the alluring and the vivid phrase, he tookeverything notable that Rickman had said and adapted it to Mr. Fulcher. _In Arcadia_ supplying a really golden opportunity for acritical essay on "Truth to Nature, " wherein Mr. Fulcher learnt, tohis immense bewilderment, that there is no immaculate conception ofthat truth; but that to Mr. Fulcher, as poet, belonged the exultationof paternity. Jewdwine quoted Coleridge to the effect that Mr. Fulcheronly received what he was pleased to give, and that in Mr. Fulcher'slife alone did Nature live. And when Rankin, falling on that article, asked Maddox what it meant, Maddox replied that it meant nothingexcept that Mr. Fulcher was a Cabinet Minister. 

But within three months of the day on which Jewdwine had pronouncedthe modern poetic drama to be dead, Rickman had written the First Actof his tragedy which proved it (as far as a First Act can proveanything) to be very much alive. 

Jewdwine received the announcement of this achievement with everyappearance of pleasure. He was indeed genuinely relieved to think thatRickman was thus harmlessly employed. The incessant successfulproduction of _Saturnalia_ would have been prejudicial to theinterests of _The Museion_; a series of triumphant _Helens in Leuce_would have turned Rickman aside for ever from the columns of_Metropolis_; but Jewdwine told himself that he had nothing to fearfrom the rivalries of the modern Tragic Muse. Rickman the journalistwould live; for Rickman the poet had set out on the path of perdition. 

Nobody could say that it was Jewdwine who had encouraged him to takeit. 

CHAPTER LXVI

In January, ninety-eight, _Metropolis_ began to pay, and Rickman'shopes were justified. He was now a solid man, a man of income. Foreighteen months he kept strictly within the limits he had allowedhimself. His nature inclined him to a riotous and absurd expenditure, and for eighteen months he wrestled with and did violence to hisnature. Each sum he saved stood for some triumph of ingeniousabnegation, some miracle of self-restraint. And for eighteen monthsDicky Pilkington, beholding the spectacle of his heroism, laid ten toone against his ultimate success. The thing, Dicky said, wasimpossible; he could never keep it up. But Rickman once abandoned to apersistent and passionate economy, there was no more holding him in onthat path than on any other. By the middle of the following year, outof an income of four hundred he had saved that sum. 

He said to himself that the worst was over now. He had paid off morethan half of his debt, and the remainder had still another fourteenmonths to run. Only fourteen months' passionate economy and the Hardenlibrary would be redeemed. As he saw himself within measurabledistance of his end, he was seized by an anxiety, an excitement thathe had not been aware of at the start. The sight of the goal perturbedhim; it suggested the failure that up to that moment he had notallowed himself to contemplate. Like an athlete he gathered himselftogether for the final spurt; and ninety-nine was a brilliant year for_The Planet_ made glorious by the poems, articles and paragraphsshowered on it by S. K. R. Maddox shook his head over some of them; buthe took them all and boasted, as he well might, that _The Planet_published more Rickman--the real Rickman--in six months than_Metropolis_ would do in as many years. He distinguished betweenRickman's genius and his talent; provided he got his best work, anybody else was welcome to his second-best. By anybody else he meantJewdwine. 

Yet it was a nobler feeling than professional rivalry that made himabhor the poet's connection with _Metropolis_; for Maddox was ifanything more jealous for Rickman's reputation than for his own. Fromthe very beginning he had never ceased to wonder at his unaccountableaffection for Horace Jewdwine; the infatuation, for it amounted toinfatuation, would have been comprehensible enough in any other man, but it was unaccountable in Rickman, who was wholly destitute ofreverence for the sources of his income. Jewdwine of _The Museion_ hadbeen in Maddox's opinion a harmless philosophic crank; he had donenothing, absolutely nothing for Rickman's genius; but Jewdwine of_Metropolis_ was dangerous, for he encouraged Rickman's talent; andRickman's talent would, he was afraid, be ultimately destructive tothe higher power. 

So Maddox prayed to heaven for promotion, that he might make Rickmanindependent of Jewdwine and his journal. There were many things thathe had in his mind to do for him in the day of advancement. His eyesraked the horizon, sighting promotion from afar. And in the last twoyears, promotion had come very near to Maddox. There were quarters, influential quarters, where he Was spoken of as a singularly originalyoung man; and he had the knack of getting hold of singularly originalyoung men; young men of originality too singular perhaps to make thepaper pay. Still, though the orbit of _The Planet_ was hardly so vastas Maddox had anticipated, as to its brilliance there could be no twoopinions. In the year ninety-eight, the year that saw Rickman firststruggling in the financier's toils, Maddox had delivered his paperfrom the power of Pilkington. Promotion played with Maddox; it hoveredround him, touching him tentatively with the tips of its wings; helured it by every innocent art within his power, but hitherto it hadalways settled on some less wild and wanton head. 

At last it came, it kept on coming, from a quarter where, as he hadevery right to look for it, he had of course never dreamed of looking. Rankin's publishers, grown rich on the proceeds of Rankin's pen, weredissatisfied with their reader (the poor man had not discoveredRankin); on Rankin's advice they offered his post to Maddox (who had), and that at double his salary. They grew richer, and at a further hintfrom Rankin they made Maddox a director. In the same mad year theystarted a new monthly, and (Rankin again) appointed Maddox as theireditor. 

His opportunity had come. On the very night of this third appointmentMaddox called on Rickman and proposed on behalf of Rankin and Stablesto hand over to him the editorship of _The Planet_. For Stables, hesaid, was too dog lazy, and Rankin too grossly prosperous to haveanything to do with it. He didn't think any of them would ever make afortune out of it; but its editor's income would be at any ratesecure. He omitted to mention that it would be practically secured outof his, Maddox's, own pocket. 

"You may reckon, " said he, "on three hundred and fifty. " He named thesum modestly, humbly almost; not that he thought Rickman would besorry to have that little addition to his income, but because he wasalways diffident in offering anything to Rickman, "when you thought ofwhat he was"; and he found something startling, not to say upsetting, in the joy that leapt up in his young eyes. You never could tell howRicky-ticky would take a thing; but if he had known he was going totake it that way he would have written him a note. He wondered whetherRicky-ticky was in a tight corner, head over ears in debt or love. Didthe young lunatic want to marry after that near shave he had two yearsago? You wouldn't exactly refuse three hundred and fifty; but a beggarmust be brought pretty low to be crumpled up in that way by the meremention of the sum. 

Maddox was not aware that no other combination of figures could haveexcited precisely those emotions; three hundred and fifty being theexact sum that Rickman needed for the accomplishment of his purpose. It brought his dream nearer to him by a year. A year? Why, it didmore. He had only to ask and Maddox would advance the money. His dreamwas now, this moment, within his grasp. 

And all he could say was, "I say, you know, this is awfully good ofyou. "

"Good of you, Rickets, to take the thing off my hands. I can't verywell run a monthly and a weekly with all my other jobs thrown in. "

"The question is whether I can manage two weeklies and the otherthings. "

"No, you can't. You're not built that way. But if you take _ThePlanet_, you can afford to chuck _Metropolis_. Tell you the truth, that's one reason why I want you to take it. "

Some of the joy died out of Rickman's face. 

"The other reason is, of course, that I can't think of a better man. "

"It's awfully good of you to think of me at all. But why do you wantme to chuck _Metropolis_?"

"Never mind why. I don't say _The Planet_ is the best imaginable placefor you, nor are you the best imaginable man for _The Planet_; but Ireally can't think of a better. "

"No, but why--"

"(Confound him, why can't he leave it alone? I shall lose my temper inanother minute, " said Maddox to himself. ) "The question is, would youlike it? Because, if you wouldn't, don't imagine you've got to take itto oblige me. "

"Of course I'd like it. There isn't anything I'd like so well. "

"It's settled then. "

It might have been, but Rickman turned on him again with hisungovernable "Why?"

"If you'd like it, Ricky, there's nothing more to be said. I know itisn't exactly a sumptuous berth for you, but it's a bit bettersalary. "

"I'm not thinking of the salary. Oh, yes, I am, though; God forgiveme, I'm thinking of nothing else. "

"Salary apart, " said Maddox, with the least touch of resentment, "it'sa better thing for you to edit _The Planet_ than to sub-edit_Metropolis_. "

"Of course it is. Still, I should like to know why you want me tothrow Jewdwine over. "

"Hang Jewdwine. I said _Metropolis_. "

"I'm glad you admit the distinction. "

"I _don't_ admit it. "

"Why do you want me to throw the thing over, then? Do you mean that Ican't work for you and Jewdwine at the same time?"

"I never said anything about Jewdwine at all. But--if you will haveit--I can't say I consider the connection desirable for the editor of_The Planet_. "

"I think I'm the best judge of that. "

"I said--for the editor of _The Planet_. "

"For the editor of _The Planet_ then, why not?"

"Ours is a poor but honest paper, " said Maddox with his devilishtwinkle. 

"I don't see how I can very well be the editor of _The Planet_ so longas it insists on shying a dead cat every week at the editor of_Metropolis_. "

"We have never mentioned the editor of _Metropolis_. Still--if you caninduce Rankin to give up his little jest--the cat is certainly verydead by this time. "

"He'll have to give it up if you make me editor. "

"You'd better tell him so. "

"I shall. "

"All right, Rickets; only wait till you _are_ editor. Then you can putas much side on as you like. "

"Good heavens, did you ever see me put on side?"

"Well, I've seen you strike an attitude occasionally. "

"All my attitudes put together hardly amount to side. "

"They do, if they assume that they're going to affect the attitude ofour paper. "

"I didn't know it had one. "

"It has a very decided attitude with regard to the ethics ofreviewing; and whatever else you make it give up, it's not going togive up that. _The Planet_, Ricky, doesn't put on side. Side would befatal to any freedom in the handling of dead cats. I wouldn't go sofar as to say that it makes its moral being its prime care; but thereare some abuses which it lives to expose, though the exposure doesn'thelp it much to live. "

"Oh, I say, Maddy! That's what keeps you going. My poems would havesunk you long ago, if it hadn't been for your thrillingpersonalities. "

"Personalities or no personalities, what I mean to rub into you isthat _The Planet_ is impartial; it's _the_ only impartial review inthis country. It has always reserved to itself an absolutelyuntrammelled hand in the shying of dead cats; and because a manhappens to be a friend of the editor, it's no guarantee whatever thathe won't have one slung at him the minute he deserves it. His onlysecurity is to perpetrate some crime so atrocious that we can'tpublish his name for fear of letting ourselves in for an action forlibel. Your attitude to Mr. Jewdwine is naturally personal. Ours isnot. I should have thought you'd have been the first to see that. "

"I don't see what you've got against him, to begin with. I wish you'dtell me plainly what it is. "

"If you will have it, it's simply this--he isn't honest. "

"What the devil _do_ you mean?"

"I mean what you mean when you say a woman isn't honest. As you've sooften remarked, there's such a thing as intellectual chastity. Somepeople have it, and some have not. You have it, my dear Rickets, inperfection, not to say excess; but most of us manage to lose it moreor less as we go on. It's a deuced hard thing, I can tell you, for anyeditor to keep; and Jewdwine, I'm afraid, has latterly been induced topart with it to a considerable, a very considerable extent. It's athousand pities; for Jewdwine had the makings in him of a really finecritic. He might have been a classic if he'd died soon enough. "

"He _is_ a classic--he's the only man whose opinion's really worthhaving at this moment. "

"Whom are we talking about? Jewdwine? Or the editor of _Metropolis_?"

"I'm talking about Jewdwine. I happen to know him, if you don't. "

"And I'm talking about the other fellow whom you don't happen to knowa little bit. Nobody cares a tuppenny damn about _his_ opinion, exceptthe fools who read it and the knaves who buy it. "

"And who do you imagine those people are?"

"Most of them are publishers, I believe. But a good few are authors, Iregret to say. "

"Authors have cheek enough for most things; but I should like to seeone suggesting to Jewdwine that he should sell him his opinion. "

"My dear fellow, anybody may suggest it. That's what he's there for, since he turned his opinion on to the streets. Whether you get apretty opinion or not depends on the length of your purse. "

"Why don't you call it bribery at once?"

"Because bribery's too harsh a term to apply to an editor, _monsemblable, mon frère_; but in a woman, or a parliamentary candidate, it might possibly be called corruption. "

"Thanks. Well, you've made me a very generous offer, Maddox, sogenerous that I'm glad you've explained yourself before I took it. Forafter that, you know, it would have been rather awkward for me to haveto tell you you're a liar!"

"You consider me a liar, do you?" said Maddox in a mild dispassionatevoice. 

"Certainly I do, when you say these thing about Jewdwine. "

"How about Rankin? He says them. "

"Then Rankin's a liar, too!"

"And Stables?"

"_And_ Stables--if he says them. "

"My dear Rickman, everybody says them; only they don't say them toyou. We can't all be liars. "

"There's a difference, I admit. Anybody who says them is a liar; andanybody who says them to _me_ is a d----d liar! That's thedifference. "

Whereupon Maddox intimated (as honour indeed compelled him) thatRickman was the sort of young fool for which there is no salvation. And by the time Rickman had replied with suitable hyperbole; andMaddox, because of the great love he bore to Rickman, had observedthat if Rickman chose to cut his confused throat he might do sowithout its being a matter of permanent regret to Maddox; and Rickman, because of the great love he bore to Maddox, had suggested hisimmediate departure for perdition, it was pretty clearly understoodthat Rickman himself preferred to perish, everlastingly perish, ratherthan be connected even remotely with Maddox and his paper. And on thatunderstanding they separated. 

And when the door was closed between them, Rickman realised that hisfolly was even as Maddox had described it. In one night, and at acrisis of his finances, he had severed himself from a fairly permanentsource of income; flung up the most desirable chance that hadpresented itself hitherto in his career; and quarrelled disgracefullyand disagreeably with his best friend. He supposed the split was boundto come; but if he could only have staved it off for another year, till he had collected that seven hundred and fifty! There could be nodoubt that that was what he ought to have done. He ought to have beenprudent for Lucia's sake. And on the top of it all came the terriblereflection--Was it really worth it? Did he really believe in Jewdwine?Or had he sacrificed himself for an idea?

CHAPTER LXVII

Rickman could never be made to speak of the quarrel with Maddox. Hemerely mentioned to Jewdwine in the most casual manner that he hadleft _The Planet_. As for his grounds for that abrupt departureJewdwine was entirely in the dark. It was Lucia that enlightened him. 

For all things, even the deep things of journalism, sooner or latercome to light. Rickman, before the quarrel, had given Miss Roots anintroduction to the young men of _The Planet_, and its editor hadtaken kindly to Miss Roots. Maddox, it is true, did his best to keepthe matter quiet, until in a moment of expansion he allowed thatshrewd lady to lure him into confidences. Maddox tried to take it andpresent it philosophically. "It was bound to happen, " he said. "OurRicky-ticky is a bad hand at serving two masters, " but as to which wasGod and which Mammon in this connection he modestly reserved hisopinion. Jewdwine's name was carefully avoided, but Miss Roots wasleft in no doubt as to the subject of dispute. 

She and Maddox were one in their inextinguishable enthusiasm for theirRickman, for Rickman had the gift, the rarest of all gifts, of unitingthe hearts that loved him. If Jewdwine had showed anything like aproper appreciation of the poet, Maddox would have spared him now. Sothe two looked at each other, with eyes that plumbed all the depths ofthe unspoken and unspeakable, eyes that sent out a twinkling flash ofadmiration as they agreed that it was "just like Rickman. " That phrasewas for ever on the lips of his admirers, a testimony to the fact thatRickman was invariably true to himself. 

He was being true to himself now in being true to Jewdwine, and it wasin that form that the tale went round. "I can't tell you all the insand outs of it, " wrote Miss Roots to Lucia, "but he is paying for hisloyalty to Mr. Jewdwine;" and Lucia, with equal pride in her cousinand her friend, repeated it to Kitty Palliser, who repeated it tosomebody else with the comment, "I'm not surprised to hear it"; andsomebody else repeated it in a good many quarters without any commentat all. For everybody but Lucia understood that it spoke for itself. 

And nobody understood it better than Jewdwine when his cousin said, "You _will_ be nice to him, Horace, won't you? He is suffering for hisloyalty to you. " Lucia herself had adopted a theory which she now setforth (reluctantly, by reason of the horrible light it threw on humannature). Mr. Maddox (whoever he might be) was of course jealous ofHorace. It was a shocking theory, but it was the only one which madethese complications clear to her. 

But Jewdwine had no need of theories or explanations. He understood. He knew that a certain prejudice, not to say suspicion, attached tohim. Ideas, not very favourable to his character as a journalist, werein the air. And as his mind (in this respect constitutionallysusceptible) had seldom been able to resist ideas in the air therewere moments when his own judgment wavered. He was beginning tosuspect himself. 

He was not sure, and if he had been he would not have acted on thatcertainty; for he had never possessed the courage of his opinions. Butit had come to this, that Jewdwine, the pure, the incorruptible, wasactually uncertain whether he had or had not taken a bribe. As he layawake in bed at four o'clock in the morning his conscience wouldsuggest to him that he had done this thing; but at noon, in the officeof _Metropolis_, his robust common sense, then like the sun, in theascendant, boldly protested that he had done nothing of the sort. Hehad merely made certain not very unusual concessions to the interestsof his journal. In doing so he had of course set aside his artisticconscience, an artistic conscience being a private luxury incompatiblewith the workings of a large corporate concern. He was bound todisregard it in loyalty to his employers and his public. They expectedcertain things of him and not others. It was different in theunexciting days of the old _Museion_; it would be different now if hecould afford to run a paper of his own dedicated to the service ofthe Absolute. But Jewdwine was no longer the servant of the Absolute. He was the servant and the mouthpiece of a policy that in his heart heabhorred; irretrievably committed to a programme that was concernedwith no absolute beyond the absolute necessity of increasing thecirculation of _Metropolis_. Such a journal only existed on theassumption that its working expenses were covered by theadvertisements of certain publishing houses. But if this necessitycommitted him to a more courteous attitude than he might otherwisehave adopted towards the works issued by those houses, that was notsaying that he was in their pay. He was, of course, in the pay of hisown publishers, but so was every man who drew a salary under the sameconditions; and if those gentlemen, finding their editor an even morecompetent person than they had at first perceived, were in the habitof increasing his salary in proportion to his competence, that wasonly the very correct and natural expression of their good opinion. 

Whatever he had thought of himself at four o'clock in the morning, byfour o'clock in the afternoon Jewdwine took an extremely lenient, notto say favourable view. Unfortunately he had not the courage of thatopinion either. Therefore he was profoundly touched by this finalinstance of Rickman's devotion, and all that it argued of reckless andinspired belief. In the six months that followed he saw more ofRickman than he had seen in as many years. Whenever he had a slackevening he would ask him to dinner, and let him sit talking on farinto the night. He was afraid of being left alone with thatuncomfortable doubt, that torturing suspicion. Rickman brought withhim an atmosphere charged with stimulating conviction, and in hispresence Jewdwine breathed freely and unafraid. He felt himself nolonger the ambiguous Jewdwine that he was, but the noble incorruptibleJewdwine that he had been. Up there in the privacy of his studyJewdwine let himself go; to that listener he was free to speak as acritic noble and incorruptible. But there were moments, painful forboth men, when he would pause, gripped by his doubt, in the full swingof some high deliverance; when he looked at Rickman with a patheticanxious gaze, as if uncertain whether he were not presuming too faron a character that he held only at the mercy of his friend's belief. 

Though as yet he was not fully aware of the extent to which he reliedon that belief, there could hardly have been a stronger tie than thatwhich now bound him to his subordinate. He would have shrunk fromloosing it lest he should cut himself off from some pure source ofimmortality, lest he should break the last link between his soul andthe sustaining and divine reality. It was as if through Rickman heremained attached to the beauty which he still loved and to the truthwhich he still darkly discerned. 

In any case he could not have suffered him to go unrewarded. He owedthat to himself, to the queer personal decency which he still managedto preserve after all his flounderings in the slough of journalism. Itwas intolerable to his pride that Rickman should be in any pecuniaryembarrassment through his uncompromising devotion. He hardly knewwhether he was the more pleased because Rickman had stuck to him orbecause he had thrown his other friends over. He had never quiteforgiven him that divided fealty. He cared nothing for an allegiancethat he had had to share with Maddox and his gang. But now thatRickman was once more exclusively, indisputably his, he was in honourbound to cherish and protect him. (Jewdwine was frequently visited bythese wakenings of the feudal instinct that slept secretly in hisblood. ) If he could not make up to Rickman for the loss of theproposed editorship, he saw to it that he was kept well supplied withlucrative work on his own paper. As an even stronger proof of hisesteem he allowed him for the first time a certain authority, and anunfettered hand. 

For six months Rickman luxuriated in power and increase of leisure andof pay. If the pay was insufficient to cover all his losses theleisure was invaluable; it enabled him to get on with his tragedy. 

Now if Rickman had been prudent he would have finished his tragedythen and there and got it published in all haste. For there is nodoubt that if any work of his had been given to the world any timewithin those six months, Jewdwine would have declared the faith thatwas in him. Whatever the merits of the work he would have celebratedits appearance by a sounding Feast of Trumpets in _Metropolis_. Hewould have done anything to strengthen the tie that attached him tothe sources of his spiritual content. But Rickman was not prudent. Helet the golden hours slip by while he sat polishing up his blank verseas if he had all eternity before him. 

Meanwhile he did all he could for Jewdwine. Jewdwine indeed could nothave done a better thing for himself than in giving Rickman that freehand. In six months there was a marked improvement in the tone of_Metropolis_ and the reputation of its editor, and, but for theunexpected which is always happening, Jewdwine might in the long runhave emerged without a stain. 

Nothing in fact could have been more utterly unforeseen, and yet, inreviewing all the steps which led to the ultimate catastrophe, Rickmansaid to himself that nothing would have been more consistent andinevitable. It came about first of all through a freak, a wanton freakof Fate in the form of a beardless poet, a discovery, not ofJewdwine's nor of Rickman's but of Miss Roots'. That Miss Roots couldmake a discovery clearly indicated the finger of fate. Miss Rootspromptly asked Rickman to dinner and presented to him the discovery, beardless, breathless also and hectic, wearing an unclean shirt and asuit of frayed shoddy. 

He came away from that dinner, that embarrassing, palpitatingencounter, with a slender sheaf of verses in his pocket. It did nottake him long to read them, nor to see (the unforeseen again!) thatthe verses would live longer than their maker. They were beardless, breathless, and hectic like the boy, but nobody could have been keenerthan Rickman to recognize the immortal adolescence, the swift pantingof the pursuing god, the burning of the inextinguishable flame. Hewrote a letter to him, several letters, out of the fulness of hisheart. Then Maddox, to whom he had not spoken since the day of theirfalling out, came up to him at the Junior Journalists, shook his handas if nothing had happened, and thanked him for his appreciation ofyoung Paterson. He said that it had put new life into the boy. Theymade it up over young Paterson. And that was another step towards theinevitable conclusion. 

The next step was that somebody who was paying for the boy's doctor'sbills paid also for the publication of his poems. They arrived (thisof course was only to be expected) at the office of _Metropolis_ (theslender sheaf grown slenderer by some omissions which Rickman hadadvised). But it was Fate that contrived that they should arrive inthe same week with a volume (by no means slender), a volume of Poemsissued by the publishers of _Metropolis_ and written by a friend (andan influential friend) of the editor. Therein were the last sweetpipings of the pastoral Fulcher. No other hand but Jewdwine's, asJewdwine sorrowfully owned, could have done anything for this work, and he meant to have devoted a flattering article to it in the nextnumber. But in the arrangements of the unforeseen it was furtherprovided that Jewdwine should be disabled, at what he playfully calledthe "critical moment, " by an attack of influenza. The two volumes, theslender and the stout, were forwarded to Rickman in the same parcel, and Jewdwine in a note discreetly worded threw himself and the poemsof his influential friend on Rickman's mercy. Would Rickman deal withthe big book? He would see for himself that it _was_ a big book. Hegave him as usual a perfectly free hand as to space, but he thought itmight be well to mention that the book _was_ to have had a two-pagearticle all to itself. He drew Rickman's attention to the fact that itwas published by So and So, and hoped that he might for once at leastrely on his discretion. Perhaps as he was reviewing the work of a"brother bard" it would be better to keep the article anonymous. 

There was nothing coarse about Jewdwine's methods. Through all hiscareer he remained refined and fastidious, and his natural instinctsforbade him to give a stronger hint. Unfortunately, in this instance, refinement had led him into a certain ambiguity of phrase!

On this ambiguity Rickman leapt, with a grin of diabolical delight. Hemay have had some dim idea that it would be his shelter in the day ofrebuke; but all he could clearly think of as he held the boy's frailpalpitating volume in his hand, was that he had but that moment inwhich to praise him. This was his unique and perfect opportunity, theonly sort of opportunity that he was not likely to let slip. 

_Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat_; and it really looked as ifmadness had come upon Rickman in the loneliness and intoxication ofhis power. With those two volumes of poetry before him, a small one bya rank outsider, unknown, unkempt and unprotected; a boy from whom nomore was to be expected, seeing that he was about to depart out of theworld where editors are powerful; and one, a large, considerablevolume by a person eminent already in that world and with many yearsof poetry and influence before him, he gave (reckless of allproportion) the two-page article to the slender volume and theparagraph to the stout. That was what he did--he, the sub-editor. 

Of the paragraph the less said the better. As for the article it wassuch a song of jubilation as one poet sings over the genius ofanother; and nothing that he had ever done for _Metropolis_ delightedhim so much as the making of it. He sent the proofs to Jewdwine asusual with a note. "Here they are. I _think_ I've been discreet. I'vedone what I could for Mr. Fulcher, but, as you'll see, I've dealtnobly with young Paterson, as he deserves. " As he heard nothing fromJewdwine, he could only suppose that the chief was satisfied, and hecould not help reflecting with some complacency that no doubt oldMaddox would be satisfied too. 

The next thing that happened was that he was cut by Maddox at theJunior Journalists. (It was on a Saturday, and _Metropolis_, _the_number, had appeared the night before). Cut unmistakably, with athrust from the blue eyes and an expressive turning of the enormousshoulders. A number once issued from his hands Rickman never looked atit again if he could help it, and he never troubled to look at it now. He simply regarded Maddox's behaviour as unaccountable. In the hope oflighting on some explanation he called at Tavistock Place one Sundayafternoon, at a time when he was pretty sure of finding Miss Rootsalone. He wanted to know, he said, what was the matter with Maddy. Apparently Miss Roots had something the matter with her too, for heronly answer was to hand him stiffly a copy of _Metropolis_ with thepages scored in blue pencil at his own article. He took it with aradiant and confiding smile, a smile that assumed such a thoroughlydelightful understanding between him and Miss Roots that the littlelady, who had evidently counted on a very different effect, was put tosome intellectual confusion. She noticed that as he read the smilevanished and gave place, first to an expression of absolutebewilderment, and then to a furious flush, whether of shame orindignation she could not tell, but it looked (again to her confusion)uncommonly like both. 

"I see, " he said quietly, and laid the paper aside. 

What he had seen was that, save for a few ingenious transpositions, the two reviews stood very much as he had written them. The onlystriking alteration was that Mr. Fulcher had got the article and youngPaterson the paragraph. 

"Oh, you see, do you?" said Miss Roots bitterly. "That's more than Ido. "

"I see there's been some astonishing mistake. " For one moment heexonerated Jewdwine and embraced the wild hypothesis of a printer'serror. He took back the accursed journal; as he held it his handtrembled uncontrollably. He glanced over the notices again. No. It wasnot after this fashion that the printers of the _Metropolis_ were wontto err. He recognized the familiar hand of the censor, though it hadnever before accomplished such an incredible piece of editing as this. 

And yet it was in strict accordance with the old tradition. The staffof _Metropolis_ knew that before a line of theirs was printed it hadto pass under their editor's reforming hand; that was the understoodcondition on which they wrote for him at all; it was the method bywhich Jewdwine maintained the unity of his empire. But in the case ofRickman he either forbore to exercise his privilege, or exercised itin such a manner as preserved the individuality of the poet's style. Like some imperial conqueror Jewdwine had absorbed the literary spiritof the man he conquered, and _Metropolis_ bore the stamp of Rickmanfor all time. So now the style of the articles remained intact; theymight have passed equally for the work of Rickman or of Jewdwine. 

"I suppose, " he said helplessly, "it is a little short. "

"Short? You weren't bound to make it long; but there was no occasionto be so contemptuous. "

"Contemptuous? Good God!"

"That's what it amounts to when you're so insufferably polite. "

Oh yes he recognized it, the diabolical urbanity that had seemed thevery choicest method of dealing with Mr. Fulcher. 

"Politeness was not exactly all you led us to expect from you. "

He passed his hand wearily over his forehead and his eyes. Miss Rootshad a moment of compunction. She thought of all that he had done forher. He had delivered her from her labours in the Museum; he hadintroduced her to the young men of _The Planet_, and had made Maddoxsend her many books to review; he had lifted her from the obscuritythat threatened to engulf her. And he had done more for her than this. He had given her back her youth and intellect; he had made her life ajoy instead of a terror to her. But Miss Roots was just. The agony onhis face would have melted her heart, but for another agony that shesaw. 

"If the poor boy knew that _you_ had written that paragraph--"

"He needn't know unless some kind friend goes and tells him. It isn'tsigned. "

"No. I don't wonder that you were ashamed to put your name to it. "

He rose to go. She looked up at him with a queer little look, halfpenetrating and half pleading, and held out her hand. 

"Well, " she said, "what am I to say if he asks me if you wrote it? Canyou deny it?"

"No, " he said curtly, "I can't deny it. "

"And you can't explain it?"

"No, and I can't explain it. Surely, " he said with a horrible attemptat laughter, "it speaks for itself. "

"It does indeed, Keith. "

And Maddox, to whom Miss Roots related the substance of thatinterview, echoed her sentiment. 

"It does indeed. "

Of all that brilliant band of young men lured by journalism to ruinthey looked on their Rickman as the most splendid, the most tragic. 

CHAPTER LXVIII

Up till now it had never occurred to Rickman that his connection with_Metropolis_ could directly damage him, still less that Jewdwine couldpersonally inflict a blow. But the injury now done to him wasmonstrous and intolerable; Jewdwine had hurt him in a peculiarlydelicate and shrinking place. Because his nature was not originallymagnificent in virtue of another sort, it was before all thingsnecessary that he should perserve his intellectual chastity. Thatquality went deeper than the intellect; it was one with a sense ofhonour so fine that a touch, impalpable to ordinary men, was felt byit as a laceration and a stain. He walked up to Hampstead that Sundayevening, taking the hill at a round swinging pace. Not all the ardourand enthusiasm of his youth had ever carried him there with such animpetus as did his burning indignation against Jewdwine. And as hewent the spirit of youth, the spirit of young Paterson, went besidehim and breathed upon the flame. 

And yet he was the same man who only an hour ago had been defendingJewdwine's honour at the expense of his own; without a thought that inso defending it he was doing anything in the least quixotic orremarkable. He had done nothing. He had simply refrained at a criticalmoment from giving him away. Maddox was Jewdwine's enemy; and to havegiven Jewdwine away at that moment would have meant delivering himover to Maddox to destroy. 

No; when he thought of it he could hardly say he had defended hisfriend's honour at the expense of his own; for Jewdwine's honour wasLucia's, and Lucia's was not Jewdwine's but his, indistinguishably, inseparably his. 

But though he was not going to give Jewdwine up to Maddox, he wasgoing to give him up. It might come to the same thing. He couldimagine that, to anybody who chose to put two and two together, anopen rupture would give him away as completely as if he had accusedhim in so many words. That, of course he could not help. There was apoint beyond which his honour refused to identify itself withJewdwine's. He had never felt a moment's hesitation upon that point. For in his heart he condemned his friend far more severely than Maddoxcould have condemned anybody. He had a greater capacity for disgustthan Maddox. He would draw up, writhing at trifles over which Maddoxwould merely shrug his shoulders and pass on. In this instance Maddox, whose Celtic soul grew wanton at the prospect of a fight, would havefallen upon Jewdwine with an infernal joy, but he would have been thefirst to deprecate Rickman's decision as absurd. As for Rankin ofStables, instead of flying into a passion they would, in similarcircumstances, have sat still and smiled. 

If it had not been for young Paterson, Rickman would have smiled too, even if he had been unable to sit still; for his vision of Fulcherpocketing the carefully selected praise intended for Paterson waspurely and supremely comic; so delightful in fact, that he could haveembraced Jewdwine for providing it. But Paterson, who had looked tohim as to the giver of life or death, Paterson on his death-bed takingFulcher's paragraph to himself and wondering whether it were indeedRickman who had done this thing, the thought of Paterson was toopainful to be borne. Honour or no honour, it would be impossible forhim to work for Jewdwine after that. 

He had got to make that clear to Jewdwine; and anything moreunpleasant than the coming interview he could not well conceive. 

Unpleasantness you would have said, was far from Jewdwine's mind thatSunday evening. He himself suggested nothing of the sort. He was inhis study, sitting in an armchair with a shawl over his knees, smokinga cigarette and looking more pathetically refined than ever after hisinfluenza, when Rickman burst in upon his peace. He was so franklyglad to see him that his greeting alone was enough to disarmprejudice. It seemed likely that he would carry off the honours of thediscussion by remaining severely polite while Rickman grew more andmore perturbed and heated. Rickman, however, gained at the outset bymaking straight for his point. As Jewdwine gave him no opening he hadto make one and make it as early as possible, before the great man'samenities had time to lure him from the track. 

"I wish, " said he abruptly, "you'd tell me what was wrong with thosereviews of mine, that you found it necessary to alter them?"

"The reviews? Oh, the reviews were all right--excellent material--theyonly wanted a little editing. "

"Do you mind telling me what you mean by editing?"

"_That_ is the last point an editor is competent to explain. "

"All the same I'd like to hear what you've got to say. I think you'lladmit that you owe me some explanation. "

"My dear fellow--sit down, won't you?--I admit nothing of the sort. "

Jewdwine no longer stood on his dignity, he lay back on it, lounged onit, stretched all his graceful length upon it, infinitely at ease. Time had mellowed his manners and made them incomparably gentle andhumane. 

"You seem to think I took a liberty with your articles. I didn't. Imerely exercised an ancient editorial right. I couldn't possibly havelet them be printed as they stood. Conceive my feelings if I'd had tosit next to Mr. Fulcher at dinner that evening. It might easily havehappened. It's all very well for you, Rickman; you're young andirresponsible, and you haven't got to sit next to Mr. Fulcher atdinner; but you'll own that it would have been rather an awkwardsituation for me?"

"I can forgive you Fulcher, but I can't forgive you Paterson. "

"And I could have forgiven you Paterson, but I couldn't forgive youFulcher. Do you see?"

He allowed a few moments for reflection, and continued. 

"Of course, I understand your feelings. In fact I sympathizeprofoundly. As a rule I never dream of touching anything with yoursignature; I've far too great a reverence for style. "

"Style be d----d. For all I care you may cut up my style till youcan't tell it from Fulcher's. I object to your transposing my meaningto suit your own. Honestly, Jewdwine, I'd rather write like Fulcherthan write as you've made me appear to have written. "

"My dear Rickman, that's where you make the mistake. You don't appearat all. " He smiled with urbane tolerance of the error. "The editor, asyou know, is solely responsible for unsigned reviews. "

So far Jewdwine had come off well. He had always a tremendousadvantage in his hereditary manners; however right you had been tostart with, his imperturbable refinement put you grossly in the wrong. And at this point Rickman gave himself away. 

"What's the good of that?" said he, "if young Paterson believes Iwrote them?"

"Young Paterson isn't entitled to any belief in the matter. "

"But--he knew. "

There was a shade of genuine annoyance on Jewdwine's face. 

"Oh of course, if you've told him that you were the author. That'srather awkward for you, but it's hardly my fault. I'm sorry, Rickman, but you really _are_ a little indiscreet. "

"I wish I could explain your behaviour in the same way. "

"Come, since you're so keen on explanations, how do you propose toexplain your own? I gave you certain instructions, and what right hadyou to go beyond them, not to say against them?"

"What earthly right had you to make me say the exact opposite of whatI did say? But I didn't go against your instructions. Here they are. "

He produced them. "You'll see that you gave me a perfectly free handas to space. "

Jewdwine looked keenly at him. "You knew perfectly well what I meant. And you took advantage of--of a trifling ambiguity in my phrasing, todo--as you would say--the exact opposite. That was hardly what Iexpected of you. "

As he spoke Jewdwine drew his shawl up about his waist, thusdelicately drawing attention to his enfeebled state. The gestureseemed to convict Rickman of taking advantage not only of his phrasebut of his influenza, behaviour superlatively base. 

"I can give you a perfectly clear statement of the case. You carefullysuppressed _my_ friend and you boomed your own for all you were worth. Naturally, I reversed your judgment. Of course, if you had told me youwanted to do a little log-rolling on your own account, I should havebeen only too delighted--but I always understood that you disapprovedof the practice. "

"So I do. Paterson isn't a friend of mine. "

"He's your friend's friend then. I think Mr. Maddox might have beenleft to look after his own man. "

Rickman rose hastily, as if he were no longer able to sit still andbear it. 

"Jewdwine, " he said, and his voice had the vibration which the masterhad once found so irresistible. "Have you read young Paterson'spoems?"

"Yes. I've read them. "

"And what is your honest--your private opinion of them?"

"I'm not a fool, Rickman. My private opinion of them is the same asyours. "

"What an admission!"

"But, " said Jewdwine suavely, "that's not the sort of opinion mypublic--the public that pays for _Metropolis_--pays to have. "

"You mean it's the sort of opinion I'm paid to give. "

"Well, broadly speaking--of course there are exceptions, and Patersonin other circumstances might have been one of them--that's very muchwhat I do mean. "

"Then--I'm awfully sorry, Jewdwine--but if that's so I can't go onworking for _Metropolis_. I must give it up. In fact, that's reallywhat I came to say. "

Jewdwine too had risen with an air of relief, being anxious to end aninterview which was becoming more uncomfortable than he cared for. Hehad stood, gazing under drooping eyelids at his disciple's feet. Nobody would have been more surprised than Jewdwine if you hadsuggested to him that he could have any feeling about looking anybodyin the face. But at that last incredible, impossible speech of his heraised his eyes and fixed them on Rickman's for a moment. 

In that moment many things were revealed to him. 

He turned and stood with his back to Rickman, staring through the openwindow. All that he saw there, the quiet walled garden, the rows ofelms on the terrace beside it, the dim green of the Heath, and thesteep unscaleable grey blue barrier of the sky, had taken on anunfamiliar aspect, as it were a tragic simplicity and vastness. Forthese things, once so restfully indifferent, had in a moment becomethe background of his spiritual agony, a scene where his soul appearedto him, standing out suddenly shelterless, naked and alone. No--if it_had_ only been alone; but that was the peculiar horror of it. Hecould have borne it but for the presence of the other man who hadcalled forth the appalling vision, and remained a spectator of it. 

There was at least this much comfort for him in his pangs--he knewthat a man of coarser fibre would neither have felt nor understoodthem. But it was impossible for Jewdwine to do an ignoble thing andnot to suffer; it was the innermost delicacy of his soul that made itwrithe under the destiny he had thrust upon it. 

And in the same instant he recognized and acknowledged the greatnessof the man with whom he had to do; acknowledged, not grudgingly, notin spite of himself, but because of himself, because of that finersoul within his soul which spoke the truth in secret, being born torecognize great things and admire them. He wondered now how he couldever have mistaken Rickman. He perceived the origin and significanceof his attitude of disparagement, of doubt. It dated from a certainhot July afternoon eight years ago when he lay under a beech-tree inthe garden of Court House and Lucia had insisted on talking about thepoet, displaying an enthusiasm too ardent to be borne. He had meantwell by Rickman, but Lucia's ardour had somehow put him off. Maddox'shad had the same effect, though for a totally different reason, and soit had gone on. He had said to himself that if other people were goingto take Rickman that way he could no longer feel the same peculiarinterest. 

He turned back again. 

"Do you really mean it?" said he. 

"I'm afraid I do. "

"You mean that you intend to give up reviewing for _Metropolis_?"

"I mean that after this I can't have anything more to do with it. "

He means, thought Jewdwine, that he won't have anything more to dowith me. 

And Rickman saw that he was understood. He wondered how Jewdwine wouldtake it. 

He took it nobly. "Well, " he said, "I'm sorry. But if you must go, youmust. To tell the truth, my dear fellow, at this rate, you know, Icouldn't afford to keep you. I wish I could. You are not the onlything I can't afford. " He said it with a certain emotion not verysuccessfully concealed beneath his smile. Rickman was about to go; buthe detained him. 

"Wait one minute. Do you mind telling me whether you've any regularsources of income besides _Metropolis_?"

"Well, not at the moment. "

"And supposing--none arise?"

"I must risk it. "

"You seem to have a positive mania for taking risks. " Yes, that wasRickman all over, he found a brilliant joy in the excitement; he wasin love with danger. 

"Oh well, sometimes, you know, you've _got_ to take them. "

Happy Rickman! The things that were so difficult and complicated toJewdwine were so simple, so incontestable to him. "Some people, Rickman, would say you were a fool. " He sighed, and the sigh was atribute his envy paid to Rickman's foolishness. "I won't offer anopinion; the event will prove. "

"It won't prove anything. Events never do. They merely happen. "

"Well, if they happen wrong, and I can help you, you've only got tocome to me. "

Never in all his life had Jewdwine so nearly achieved the grace ofhumility as in this offer of his help. He would have given anything ifRickman could have accepted it, but refusal was a foregone conclusion. And yet he offered it. 

"Thanks--thanks awfully. " It was Rickman who appeared nervous andashamed. His mouth twitched; he held out his hand abruptly; he wasdesperately anxious to say good-night and get it over. It seemed tohim that he had been six years taking leave of Jewdwine; each year hadseen the departure of some quality he had known him by. He wanted tohave done with it now for ever. 

But Jewdwine would not see his hand. He turned away; paced the floor;swung back on a hesitating heel and approached him, smiling. 

"You're not going to disappear altogether, are you? You'll turn upagain, and let me know how you're getting on?"

To Rickman there was something tragic and retrospective in Jewdwine'ssmile. It had no joy in it, but an appeal, rather, to the memory ofwhat he had been. He found it irresistible. 

"Thanks. I shall get on all right; but I'll turn up again sometime. "

Jewdwine's smile parted with its pathos, its appeal. It conveyed apromise, an assurance that whatever else had perished in him hisfriendship was not dead. 

For there were ways, apart from the ways of journalism, in whichJewdwine could be noble still. And still, as he watched Rickman'sdeparting back, the back that he seemed doomed to know so well, hesaid to himself--

"He's magnificent, but I can't afford him. "

CHAPTER LXIX

In all this his history had only repeated itself. When six years agohe had turned his back on Rickman's he had made it inevitable that heshould turn his back on Jewdwine now. On each occasion his behaviourhad provoked the same melancholy admission, from Jewdwine--"He ismagnificent, but I can't afford him"; from Isaac Rickman--"I can'tafford to pay your price, my boy. " The incredible thing was thatJewdwine should have been brought to say it. Jewdwine was changed; butRickman was the same Rickman who had swung the shop door behind him, unmoved by the separation from his salary. 

But after all he could only keep half of that rash vow he had made tohimself on the way to Hampstead. He must give up the Editor of_Metropolis_; but he could not give up Horace Jewdwine. It was not thefirst time he had been compelled to admit the distinction which Maddoxfor decency's sake had insisted on. When it came to the point, as now, he found himself insisting on it with even greater emphasis thanMaddox. He knew that in his soul Jewdwine still loved and worshippedwhat was admirable, that in his soul he would have given anything torecall his injustice to young Paterson. But young Paterson was toogreat to have need either of Jewdwine or of him. Young Paterson hadhis genius to console him. His profounder pity was for the man who hadinflicted such awful injuries on himself; the great man who had madehimself mean; the spiritual person who had yielded to a materialtyranny; the incorruptible person who had sold his soul, who onlyrealized the value of his soul now that he had sold it. 

And yet he knew that there could be nothing more sundering than suchmeanness, such corruptibility as Jewdwine's. Their friendship couldnever be the same. There was a certain relief in that. There couldnever be any hypocrisy, any illusion in their relations now. Andnobody knew that better than Jewdwine. Well, the very fact thatJewdwine had still desired and chosen that sad-hearted, clear-eyedcommunion argued a certain greatness in him. 

Therefore he resolved to spare him. It would cost him the friendshipof better men than he; but that could not be helped. They mustcontinue to think that he had sold or at any rate lent himself atinterest to Jewdwine. Honour debarred him from all explanation anddefence, an honour so private and personal that it must remainunsuspected by the world. In the beginning he had made himself almostunpleasantly conspicuous by the purity of his literary morals; hisinnocence had been a hair-lifting spectacle even to honestjournalists. And now the fame he would have among them was the fame ofa literary prostitute, without a prostitute's wages. 

On the contrary he would have to pay heavily for the spiritual luxuryof that break with the editor of _Metropolis_. When he reached hiscomfortable room on the third floor in Torrington Square, he sat downby his writing-table, not to write but to think. It was war-time, fatal to letters. Such terrors arose before him as must arise before ayoung man severed by his own rash act from the sources of his income. What a moment he had chosen for the deed, too! When money was of allthings the thing he most passionately desired; when to his fancy thesum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds was the form that mostnearly, most divinely presented the adored perfection; when, too, thatenchanting figure was almost in his grasp. A few brief spasms ofeconomy, and ten months of _Metropolis_ would have seen him through. 

And yet there was no bitterness in the dismay with which hecontemplated his present forlorn and impecunious state. It wasinevitable that he should sever himself from the sources of his incomewhen they were found to be impure. Much more inevitable than that heshould have cut off that untainted supply which six months ago wouldhave flowed to him through Maddox. Common prudence had not restrainedhim from quarrelling with Maddox over a point of honour that wasshadowy compared with this. It was hardly likely that it should haverestrained him now. There were few things that he would not do forLucia Harden, but not even for her sake could he have done otherwisethan he had done. It was the least that honour could require of him, the very least. 

His attitude to honour had in a manner changed. Eight years ago it hadseemed to him the fantastic child of a preference for common honesty, coupled with a preposterous passion for Lucia Harden. He had indulgedit as a man indulges the creature of fantasy and caprice, and had feltthat he was thrusting a personal infatuation into a moral region wheresuch extravagances are unknown. It belonged rather to the realm ofimagination, being essentially a poet's honour, a winged and lyriccreature, a creature altogether too radiant and delicate to do battlewith the gross material world, a thing as mysterious and indomitableas his genius; a very embarrassing companion for a young journalist inhis first start in life. And now he had grown so used to it that itseemed to him no longer mysterious and fantastic; obedience to it wasas simple as the following of a natural impulse, a thing in no wayconspicuous and superb. It was the men who knew nothing of suchleadership who seemed to him separated from the order of the world. But to the friends who watched him Rickman's honour had been always anamazing spectacle. Like another genius it had taken possession of himand led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism, so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean placesin that difficult way. Like another genius it had lured him, laughingand reckless, along paths perilous and impossible to other men. Howglad he had been to follow that bright-eyed impetuous leader. 

And this was where it had led him to, the radiant and delicate comradeof his youth. As he sat propping his chin up with his hands the facethat confronted destiny had grown haggard in an hour. 

He pulled himself together, and deliberately reviewed the situation. He had at that moment three and eightpence in his pocket, and lyingabout somewhere in the table-drawer there was part of last week'ssalary and a cheque for nine pounds, the price of a recent article. He could count on five pounds at Michaelmas, the quarterly rent of thefurniture in the little house at Ealing. Added to these certain sumsthere was that unknown incalculable amount that he might yet receivefor unsolicited contributions. He had made seventy-five pounds in thisway last year. The casual earnings of ninety-nine were no security fornineteen hundred; still, invincible hopefulness fixed theprobabilities at that figure. 

But it was now January, and Dicky Pilkington's bill would be due inNovember. By successive triumphs of ingenious economy he had reducedthat once appalling seven hundred and fifty to a hundred andseventy-five. He couldn't actually count on more than twenty-sixpounds three and eightpence with which to meet the liability. And hehad also to live for ten months before he met it. Even invincible Hopewas nervous facing those formidable figures. It did indeed suggest thepresence of a shadowy army in the rear, whole columns of figuresmarching invincibly to his aid. They were the sums that might, thatought to be obtained by a dramatic poet in the hour of his success. But Rickman had not been born over a bookseller's shop for nothing;and an austere hereditary voice reminded him that he couldn't reallycount on a penny from his tragedy. He couldn't even afford to writeit. The thing was, economically speaking, a crime. It would of coursebe finished, as it had been begun, in defiance of economy, as of allother human pieties and laws, but it would be unreasonable to expectthat any financial blessing could rest on it. 

He had only got ten months to raise the money in. It would probablytake him that time to find regular work, if he found it. There was notan editor in London to whom the initials S. K. R. Conveyed the uniquesignificance they did to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin. He nowthought with regret of the introductions he had refused in theinsolence of his youth. To Hanson for instance. Hanson was a goodsort, and he might have come in very handy now. A few other namespassed before him, men whom it would be useless for him to approach. There was old Mackinnon, though, who was a good sort, too. He hadlong ago forgotten that ancient jest which compared his head with thedome of the Museum. He had been the most frequent entertainer ofadventitious prose. Mackinnon might be good for something. He had halfa mind to look him up. The thought of Mackinnon made him feel almostcheerful again. 

Before he went to bed he put ten pounds into a tobacco-jar on aninaccessible shelf, keeping one pound three and eightpence for theexpenses of the coming week. The next morning he looked Mackinnon up. 

Now Mackinnon's head was so far unlike the dome of the Museum that itwas by no means impervious to light; and where Mackinnon's interestswere concerned it was positively limpid in its transparency. So thatMackinnon was not slow to perceive the advantages of an alliance withimpecunious brilliance. The brilliance he was already familiar with, the impecuniosity he inferred from the more than usual offhandednessof Rickman's manner. The war had hit Mackinnon also; the affairs ofthe _Literary Observer_ were not so flourishing as Mackinnon couldhave wished, and he was meditating some reductions in his staff. Hereflected that young men in Rickman's mood and Rickman's circumstanceswere sometimes willing to do the work of two journalists for a lowersalary than he had been paying to one. And when he further learnt thatRickman had left _Metropolis_, he felt that besides these solidadvantages a subtler satisfaction would be his. Jewdwine, corruptibleor incorruptible, had not endeared himself to other editors, and eventhe sober Mackinnon was unable to resist the temptation of annexingthe great man's great man. But the dome-like head, impenetrable inthis, betrayed none of the thoughts that were going on inside it, andin the bargaining that followed it was concealed from Rickman that hisconnection with _Metropolis_ had in any way increased his marketvalue. He made the best terms he could; and the end of the interviewfound him retained on Mackinnon's staff as leader, writer and dramaticcritic at a salary of two pounds ten a week. Mackinnon had offered twopounds, Rickman had held out for three, and they split the difference. As the poet left the room Mackinnon turned to his desk with a smile ofsatisfaction that seemed to illuminate the dome. He had effected aconsiderable saving by that little transaction. 

And for the poet it did not prove so bad a bargain after all. He hadnow a more ample leisure; and for the first time in his journalisticcareer he knew what it was to be left mercifully, beneficently alone. He had cut himself off from all his friends; and though at times hisheart suffered, his genius profited by the isolation. It was not untilhe had escaped from Jewdwine that he realized what that specialdeliverance meant for him. He could not well have encountered a moresubtle and dangerous influence than that of the author of the_Prolegomena to Æsthetics_. Jewdwine had been hostile to his geniusfrom the beginning, though he had cared for it, too, in his imperiousway. He would have tamed the young, ungovernably ardent thing andwedded it to his own beautiful and passionless idea; an achievementwhich would have reflected some glory on Jewdwine as the matchmaker. But he had left off caring when he found that he had less to gain fromRickman's genius than from his talent, and had turned his attention tothe protection and encouragement of the more profitable power. As thattalent ran riot in the columns of _Metropolis_ Rickman himself wasunaware how relentlessly it drew on the vitality that sustained hisgenius. It was Jewdwine's excuse that the vitality seemedinexhaustible. 

Jewdwine, as he had once said, dreaded the divine fire. He wouldultimately have subdued the flame by a persistent demand forbrilliance of another kind. Even Maddox (who adored his Rickman) hadnot seen that his Rickman, his young divinity, must change and grow. He admired his immortal adolescence; he would have him young andlyrical for ever. He had discovered everything in him but the dramaticpoet he was yet to be. Thus, through the very fervour of hissuperstition, Maddox had proved hostile, too. But in Mackinnon Rickmanfound no malign disturbing influence, no influence of any kind at all. No thought of capturing his genius or exploiting his talent had everentered into the dome-like head. Mackinnon, his mortal nature appeasedby his victory over Jewdwine and further gratified by theconsciousness of having secured a good man cheap, made no exorbitantclaims on his contributor. Let Rickman write what he would, Mackinnonknew he had got his money's worth. 

Rickman squared himself nobly for the next round with fortune. AndDicky, in his attitude of enthusiastic but not uninterested spectator, cheered him on, secretly exultant. Dicky was now serenely sure of hisodds. It was war-time; and Rickman could not hold out long after suchan injury to his income. 

But Rickman, unconquered, made matters even by reducing hisexpenditure. It was winter, and the severity of the weather would haveruined him in coal alone had he not abandoned the superstition of afire. With an oil-stove there was always some slight danger ofasphyxia, but Rickman loved the piquancy of danger. By many suchingenious substitutions he effected so prodigious a saving thatthree-fifths or more of his salary went into the tobacco-jar andthence into Dicky Pilkington's pocket. He rejoiced to see it go, socompletely had he subdued the lust of spending, so ardently embracedthe life of poverty; if it were poverty to live on a pound a week. Wasit not rather wanton, iniquitous extravagance to have allowed himselfthree times that amount? But for that his position at this momentwould have been such that three months on the _Literary Observer_would have cleared him. As he stood, the remainder of his debt loomedmonstrous under the shadow of next November. 

And it was this moment (when he should have been turning his talentinto ready-money by unremitting journalism), that he chose forfinishing his tragedy. If he could be said to have chosen it; for itwas rather the Tragic Muse that had claimed him for her own. She knewher hour, the first young hour of his deliverance, when he had ceasedfrom hungering and thirsting after life, and from the violence andstress of living, and was no more tormented by scruple and by passion;when the flaming orgy of his individuality no longer confused thepageant of the world. He had been judging by himself when hepropounded the startling theory that lyric poets must grow intodramatic poets if they grow at all. It was now, when his youth nolonger sang aloud in him, that he heard the living voices of the menand women whom he made. Their flesh and blood no longer struggledviolently for birth, no longer tortured the delicate tissue of thedream. His dreams themselves were brought forth incarnate, he being nolonger at variance with himself as in the days of neo-classic drama. 

And so now, when he contemplated his poverty, he saw in it thedream-crowned head and austere countenance of an archangel destiny. Inthe absence of all visible and material comfort the invisible powersassumed their magnificent dominion. He gave his evenings to Mackinnonand his mornings, his fresh divine mornings, to the Tragic Muse, thussetting a blessed purifying interval of sleep between his talent andhis genius. But through it all, while he slept and while he worked, and while he scribbled with a tenth part of his brain, mechanicallyfilling in his columns of the _Literary Observer_, he felt that hisgenius, conscious of its hour, possessed him utterly. Not even forLucia's sake could he resist the god who was so tyrannous and strong. In his heart he called on her to forgive him for writing unsaleabletragedies when he ought to have been making money for her. His heartkept on accusing him. "You would write tragedies if she werestarving, " it said. And the god, indignant at the interruption, answered it, "You wouldn't, you fool, you know you wouldn't. And sheisn't starving. It's you who'll starve, if anybody does; so fireaway. " And he fired away; for hope, still invincible, told him that hecould afford to do it, that he had in a drawer fifty pounds' worth ofunpublished articles, works of the baser power, and that, war or nowar, he could surely sell them. He could sell his furniture also; andif the worst came to the worst, he could sell his books (his ownbooks, not Lucia's). Meanwhile he must get on with his tragedy. Hecould easily finish it in six weeks, and expiate the crime by monthsof journalism. 

He did finish it in six weeks; and when the Spring came he begananother; for the hand of the god was heavy upon him. This he knew wasmadness, though a madness divine and irresistible. In view of itscontinuance he called upon Mackinnon and inquired whether at any time, if the occasion should arise, he could count upon an advance ofsalary. Mackinnon, solid, impenetrable, but benignant, replied thatvery possibly it might be so. This Rickman interpreted as a distinctencouragement to dally with the Tragic Muse. It was followed by arequest from Mackinnon that Rickman on his part should oblige him witha few columns in advance. This he did. He was now, though he wasblissfully unaware of it, the last man on the paper. In six monthsfrom the time of his joining its staff the _Literary Observer_ ceasedfrom observing, and Mackinnon retired suddenly into private life. 

Dicky, who had watched with joy the decline of the _LiteraryObserver_, chuckled openly at its fall. He was sorry for old Razors, though. It was hard luck on him. Old Razors, in Dicky's opinion, wasabout done for now. 

It might have seemed so to Rickman but that the experience had soberedhim. He rose from the embraces of the Tragic Muse. Yet dizzy with theaugust rapture, he resisted and defied the god. He thrust his tragedyfrom him into the hindmost obscurity of his table-drawer. Then hebetook himself, in a mood more imperative than solicitous, to Hanson. Hanson who had labelled him Decadent, and lumped him with Letheby. Itwas no matter now. Whatever Hanson thought of his genius, there couldbe but one opinion of his talent. 

Hanson was genial and complimentary. He, like Mackinnon, knew hisbusiness too well to let Savage Keith Rickman slip through hisfingers. Like Mackinnon he was pleased with the idea of securing adeserter from the insufferable Jewdwine. But the _Courier_ was full upwith war news and entirely contented with its staff. Hanson was onlygood for occasional contributions. 

Rickman again overhauled his complicated accounts. By what seemed tohim a series of miracles he had saved seventy-five pounds somehowduring those six months with Mackinnon; but how he was going to raisea hundred in four months he did not know. That was what he meant totry for, though. It was July; and he loved more than ever the greenpeace of Torrington Square, and the room associated with the firstaustere delights of poverty and the presence of the Tragic Muse. Buthe could forego even peace for four months. After much search in thesecret places of Bloomsbury, he found an empty attic in HowlandStreet. The house was clean, decent, and quiet for a wonder. Thitherhe removed himself and his belongings. He had parted with all but theabsolutely essential, among which he reckoned all Lucia's books and afew of his own. He had stripped himself for this last round withFortune. He would come out of it all right if he wrote nothing butarticles, lived on ten shillings a week and sold the articles; which, meant that in the weeks when no articles were sold he must live onless. It meant, too, that he must make his own bed, sweep his ownroom, and cook his own meals when they were cooked at all; that tohave clean linen he must pay the price of many meals, as he countedmeals. 

The attic was not a nice place in July and August. Though the housewas quiet, there flowed through it, in an incessant, suffocating, sickly stream, the untamed smells and noises of the street. For thesake of peace he took to working through the night and going to bed inthe day-time; an eccentricity which caused him to be regarded withsome suspicion by his neighbours. In spite of their apparent decencyhe had judged it expedient to keep his door locked, a lack ofconfidence that wounded them. The lodger in the garret next to hiswent so far as to signify by laughter her opinion of his unfriendlysecrecy. Her own door was never shut except when he shut it. Thisinterference with her liberty she once violently resented, deliveringherself of a jet of oratory that bore with far-fetched fancy on hisparentage and profession. For her threshold was her vantage ground. Upon it she stood and waited, listening for the footsteps of her luck. 

It was a marvel to him how under these conditions he could turn outthe amount of work he did. For some nights were as noisy as the day. There was no sort of repose about his next-door neighbour. At timesshe coughed all night, at times she sang. Or again, by sounds ofsobbing he gathered that the poor wretch was not prospering in hertrade. Still, there were long and blessed intervals of peace when sheroamed farther afield; intervals which might or might not be prolongedby alcoholic stupor after her return. It may have been owing to theseinfluences that he began to notice a decided deterioration in hisprose. Hanson had returned his last article. He had worked poorHanson's geniality for all it was worth, and he felt that in commonprudence he must withdraw from the _Courier_ for a season. Meanwhilehis best prose, the articles he had by him, remained unpublished. Inwar-time there was no market for such wares. 

It was now October, and he had paid off but fifteen pounds of thehundred he still owed. The lease of the little house at Ealing was outat Michaelmas; he had the five pounds provided every quarter by thefurniture. He sold his furniture and the last of his books, but whenDicky's bill fell due in November he was still fifty pounds to thebad. The fact that he had already paid three thousand and thirty-fivewould not prevent the sale and dispersal of part, and perhaps the mostvaluable part, of the Harden Library. In that event he would get themoney, not the books, and it was the books, all the books, he wanted. He had persuaded himself that the actual redemption of the whole wasthe only legitimate means by which he could now approach Lucia Harden. The mere repayment of the money was a coarser and more difficultmethod. And now at the last moment the end, all but achieved, was asfar from him as ever, supposing Dicky should refuse to renew his bill. 

But Dicky did not refuse. He gave him another two months. No longerterm could be conceded; but, yes, he would give him another twomonths. "Just for the almighty fun of the thing. If there's one thingI like to see, " said Dicky, "it's pluck. " Dicky was more than eversure of his game. He argued rightly that Rickman would never have soldhis books if he could have sold his articles or borrowed from afriend; that, as he had nothing else to sell or offer as security, hisend was certain. But it was so glorious to see the little fellowfighting his luck. Dicky was willing to prolong the excitement foranother two months. 

For two months he fought it furiously. 

He spent many hours of many days in trying to find work; a difficultthing when a man has cut himself loose from all his friends. Strangerswere not likely to consider his superior claims when the kind of workfor which he was now applying could be done by anybody as well orbetter. He counted himself uncommonly happy if he got a stray book toreview or a job at the Museum, or if Vaughan held out the promise ofgiving him some translation by-and-by. 

The conditions under which he worked were now appalling. It was hardto say whether the attic was more terrible in summer, or in the winterthat forced him to the intimate and abominable companionship of hisoil-stove. Nor was that all. A new horror was added to his existence. He was aware that he had become an object of peculiar interest to thewoman in the next room, that she waited for him and stealthily watchedhis going out and his coming in. As he passed on the landing two eyes, dull or feverish, marked him through the chink of the door that neverclosed. By some hideous instinct of her kind she divined the days whenhe was in luck. By another instinct she divined also his nature. Hismystic apathy held her brute soul in awe; and she no longer revengedherself by furious and vindictive song. So he stayed on, for he owedrent, and removals were expensive. 

He found also that there were limits to the advantages of tooeccentric an asceticism in diet. No doubt the strange meals heprepared for himself on his oil-stove had proved stimulating by theirvery strangeness; but when the first shock and surprise of them hadworn off he no longer obtained that agreeable result. Perhaps therewas something cloying in so much milk and cocoa; he fancied he gainedby diluting these rich foods with water. It certainly seemed to himthat his veins were lighter and carried a swifter and more delicatecurrent to his brain, that his thoughts now flowed with a remarkablefineness and lucidity. And then all of a sudden the charm stoppedworking. What food he ate ceased to nourish him. He grew drowsy byday, and had bad dreams at night. He had not yet reached thereconciling stage of nausea, but was forever tormented by a strong andhealthy craving for a square meal. There was a poor devil on the floorbelow him whose state in comparison with his own was affluence. Thatman had a square meal every Sunday. Even she, the lady of theever-open door, was better off than he; there was always, or nearlyalways, a market for her wares. 

His sufferings would have been unendurable if any will but his own hadimposed them on him in the beginning. Not that he could continue toregard his poverty as a destiny in any way angelic. It was becausehitherto he had not known the real thing, because he had seen it fromvery far away, that it had worn for him that divine benignant aspect. Now it was very near him; a sordid insufferable companion that doggedhis elbow in the street, that sat with him by his fireless hearth, that lay beside him all night, a loathsome bedfellow, telling him ashameful, hopeless tale, and driving the blessed sleep away from him. There were times when he envied his neighbour her nirvana of gin andwater; times when the gross steam of the stew prepared for the manbelow awoke in him acute, intolerable emotion; times when thespiritual will that dominated him, so far from being purified byabstinence, seemed merged in the will of the body made conspicuous andclamorous by hunger. 

There were ways in which he might have satisfied it. He could haveobtained a square meal any day from Mrs. Downey or the Spinkses; butnow that the value of a square meal had increased so monstrously inimagination, his delicacy shrank from approaching his friends withconscious designs upon their hospitality. Spinks was always asking himto dine at his house in Camden Town; but he had refused because hewould have had abominable suspicions of his own motives in accepting. Trust Flossie to find him out too. And latterly he had hidden himselffrom the eye of Spinks. There were moments now when he might have beentempted to borrow fifty pounds from Spinks and end it; but he couldnot bring himself to borrow from Flossie's husband. The last time hehad dined with them he thought she had looked at him as if she wereafraid he was going to borrow money. He knew it so well, that gleam ofthe black eyes, half subtle and half savage. For Flossie had realizedher dream, and her little hand clung passionately to the purse thatprovided for Muriel Maud. He couldn't borrow from Spinky. FromJewdwine? Never. From Hanson? Hardly. From Vaughan? Possibly. Vaughanwas considering the expediency of publishing his tragedy, and might beinduced to advance him a little on account. Such possibilities visitedhim in the watches of the night, but dawn revealed their obviousfutility. And yet he knew all the time he had only to go to Maddoxfor the money, and he would get it. To Maddox or to Rankin, Rankinwhose books stood open on every bookstall, whose face in its beautifulphotogravure portrait smiled so impenetrably, guarding the secret ofsuccess. But he could not go to them without giving them theexplanation he was determined not to give. He knew what they thoughtof him; therefore he would not go to them. If they had known himbetter they would have come to him. 

He was reminded of them now by seeing in _The Planet_ an obituarynotice of young Paterson. Paterson had been dying slowly all the year, and December finished him. Though Rickman had been expecting the newsfor months, the death accomplished affected him profoundly. And at thethought of the young poet whom he had seemed to have so greatlywronged, at the touch of grief and pity and divine regret, his owngenius, defied and resisted, descended on him again out of heaven. Itwas as if the spirit of young Paterson, appeased and reconciled, hadbequeathed to him its own immortal adolescence. He finished the poemin four nights, sitting in his great coat, with his legs wrapped inhis blankets, and for the last two nights drinking gin and water tokeep the blood beating in his head. In the morning he felt as if itwere filled with some light and crackling and infinitely brittlesubstance, the ashes of a brain that had kindled, flamed, and burneditself away. It was the last onslaught of the god, the last madflaring of the divine fire. 

For now he could write no longer. His whole being revolted against thelabour of capturing ideas, of setting words in their right order. Theleast effort produced some horrible sensation. Now it was of aplunging heart that suddenly reversed engines while his brain shiveredwith the shock; now of a little white wave that swamped his brain withone pulse of oblivion; now it was a sudden giving way of the floor ofconsciousness, through which his thoughts dropped downwards headlonginto the abyss. He had great agony and distress in following theirflight. At night as he lay in bed, watching the feeble, automaticprocession of ideas, he noticed that they arrived in an order that wasnot the order of sanity, that if he took note of the language theyclothed themselves in, he found he was listening as it were to thegabble of idiocy or aphasia. At such moments he trembled for hisreason. 

At first these horrors would vanish in the brief brilliance thatfollowed the act of eating; but before long, in the next stage ofexhaustion, food induced nothing but a drunken drowsiness. He had oncesaid as an excuse for refusing wine that he could get drunk onanything else as well. In these days he got dead drunk on oatmealporridge, while he produced a perishing ecstasy on bread and milk. Butof genuine intoxication the pennyworth of gin and water that sustainedthe immortal Elegy was his last excess. 

He sent the poem to Hanson. Hanson made no sign. But about the middleof January Rankin of all people broke the silence that had bound themfor a year and a half. Rankin did not know his address, even Hansonhad forgotten it. The letter had been forwarded by one of Hanson'sclerks. 

 "My dear Rickman, " it said, "where are you? And what are you doing? I dined with Hanson the other night, and he showed me your Elegy. It's too long for _The Courier_, and he's sending it back to you with a string of compliments. If you have no other designs, can you let us have it for _The Planet_? For Paterson's sake it ought to appear at once. My dear fellow, I should like to tell you what I think of it, but I will only state my profound conviction that you have given poor Paterson the fame he should have had and couldn't get, anymore than we could get it for him; and I, as his friend, thank you for this magnificent tribute to his genius. Will you do me the honour of dining with me on Sunday if you have nothing better to do? There are many things I should like to talk over with you, and my wife is anxious to make your acquaintance. 

 "Sincerely yours, "Herbert Rankin. 

 "PS. --Maddox is out of town at present, but you'll meet him if you come on Sunday. By the way, I saw your friend Jewdwine the other day. He explained at my request a certain matter which I own with great regret should never have required explanation. "

So Jewdwine had explained. And why had not Rankin asked for theexplanation sooner? Why had he had to ask for it at all? Still, it wasdecent of him to admit that he ought not to have required it. 

He supposed that he must accept Rankin's invitation to dine. Exceptfor his hunger, which made the prospect of dining so unique and greata thing, he had no reason for refusing. Rankin had reckoned on ascruple, and removed the ground of it. He knew that there was noapproaching Rickman as long as there remained the shadow of anassumption that the explanation should have come from him. 

The invitation had arrived just in time, before Rickman had sent thelast saleable remnants of his wardrobe to the place where hisdress-suit had gone before. He would have to apologize to Mrs. Rankinfor its absence, but his serge suit was still presentable, for he hadpreserved it with much care, and there was one clean unfrayed shirt inhis drawer. 

But when Sunday came, the first febrile excitement of anticipation wassucceeded by the apathy of an immense fatigue, and at the back of itall a loathsome sense of the positive indecency of his going. It washunger that was driving him, the importunate hunger of many months, apparent in his lean face and shrunken figure. And after all could anydinner be worth the pain of dressing for it? When at the last momenthe discovered a loose button on his trousers, he felt that there wasno motive, no power on earth that could urge him to the task ofsecuring it. And when it broke from its thread and fell, and hiditself under the skirting board in a sort of malignant frenzy, he tookits behaviour as a sign that he would do well to forego that dinner atRankin's. He had hardly acquiesced in this decision when reasonreasserted itself and told him that everything depended on that dinnerand that the dinner depended on the button; therefore that in allGod's universe there was nothing so important, so essential to him asthat button. He went down on his knees and dislodged the button with apenknife, after an agonizing search. He sat feebly on the edge of hisbed, and with many sad, weak blasphemies bowed himself to a miserable, ignominious struggle. All malign and adverse fortunes seemed to beconcentrated in the rolling, slippery, ungovernable thing. 

The final victory was his, such a victory as amounted to a resurgenceof the spiritual will. 

CHAPTER LXX

All things seemed to work together to create an evening ofmisunderstanding rather than of reconciliation. To begin with hearrived at the Rankins' half an hour after the time appointed. Rankinlived in Sussex Square, which seemed to him an interminably long wayoff. The adventure with the trouser button, and a certain dizzinesswhich precluded all swift and decided movement, would have been enoughto make him late, even if he had not miscalculated the distancebetween Hyde Park and Bloomsbury. 

He had also miscalculated the distance between Rankin the juniorjournalist and Rankin the celebrity. Rankin had achieved celebrity ina way he had not meant. There was a time when even Jewdwine wasoutdone by the young men of _The Planet_ in honest contempt for thetaste and judgement of the many; when it had been Rankin's task topursue with indefatigable pleasantry the figures of popular renown. And now he was popular himself. The British public had given to himits fatal love. 

At first he looked on himself as a man irretrievably disgraced. However proudly he might bear himself in the company of strangers, heapproached his colleagues with the air of a man made absurd byunsolicited attentions, persecuted and compromised to the last degree. The bosses of his ruddy face displayed all the quiverings and torturesand suffusions of a smiling shame. He was, however, compensated forthe loss of personal dignity by a very substantial income. Not that atfirst he would admit the compensation. "Ricky, " he would say in thevoice of a man bowed and broken on the wheel of life, "you needn'tenvy me my thousands. They are the measure of my abasement. " Yet hecontinued to abase himself. Nothing was more amazing than hisversatility. The public could hardly keep up with the flight ofRankin's incarnations. Drawing-room comedy, pathetic pastoral, fantastic adventure, slum idyll and medieval romance, it was all oneto Rankin. An infallible instinct told him which _genre_ should bechosen at any given moment; a secret tocsin sounded far-off the hourof his success. And still the spirit of Rankin held itself aloof; andunderneath his many disguises he remained a junior journalist. Butlatterly (since his marriage with a rich City merchant's daughter) aninsidious seriousness had overtaken him; he began first to tolerate, then to respect, then to revere the sources of his affluence. The oldironic spirit was there to chastise him whenever he caught himselfdoing it; but that spirit made discord with the elegant respectabilitywhich was now the atmosphere of his home. 

Rankin's drawing-room (where he was now waiting for Rickman) wasfurnished with the utmost correctness in the purest Chippendale, upholstered in silver and grey and lemon and rose brocade; it had greycurtains, rose-lined, with a design of true lovers' knots in silver;straight draperies of delicate immaculate white muslin veiled thewindow-panes; for the feet an interminable stretch of grey velvetcarpet whose pattern lay on it like a soft shadow. Globes of electriclight drooped clustering under voluminously fluted shades. Rankinhimself looked grossly out of keeping with the scene. It was (and theyboth knew it) simply the correct setting for his wife, who dominatedit, a young splendour of rose-pink and rose-white and jewelled lacesand gold. 

Rickman, after many weeks' imprisonment between four dirty yellowochre walls, was bewildered with the space, the colours, the perfumes, the illumination. He was suffering from a curious and, it seemed tohim, insane illusion, the illusion of distance, the magnifying of thespaces he had got to traverse, and as he entered Mrs. Rankin'sdrawing-room the way from the threshold to the hearthrug stretchedbefore him as interminably as the way from Howland Street to SussexSquare. But of any other distance he was blissfully unaware. Besidehis vision of Lucia Harden Mrs. Herbert Rankin was an entirelyinsignificant person. 

Now Rankin was a little afraid of the elegant lady his wife. He hadhad to apologise to her many times for the curious people he broughtto the house, and he was anxious that Rickman should make a goodimpression. He was also hungry, as hungry as a man can be who hasthree square meals every day of his life. Therefore he was annoyedwith Rickman for being late. 

But his annoyance vanished at the first sight of him. His handshakewas significant of atonement and immutable affection. He introducedhim almost fearlessly to his wife. He had been at some pains toimpress upon her that she was about to entertain a much greater manthan her husband, and that it would be very charming of her if shebehaved accordingly. At this she pouted prettily, as became a bride, and he pointed out that as Keith Rickman was a poet his greatness wasincommensurable with that of her husband, it left him undisturbed uponhis eminence as the supreme master of prose. So that Mrs. Rankinsmiled dimly and deferentially as an elegant hostess must smile upon apoet who has kept her waiting. There were two other ladies there(Rankin's mother and sister from the provinces); their greetingconveyed a rustling and excited consciousness of the guest'sdistinction. 

As Rankin's family retreated, Maddox heaved himself forward andgrasped Rickman's hand without a word. 

Rickman had no very clear idea of what happened in the brief pausebefore dinner. His first sensation was one of confused beatitude andwarmth, of being received into an enfolding atmosphere offriendliness. He was sure it was friendliness that made Maddox pluckhim by the arm and draw him down beside him on the sofa; and he wastoo tired to wonder why Maddy should think it necessary to whisperinto his collar, "Steady, you'll be all right if you sit still, oldman. " The strange voices of the women confused him further, andstanding made him giddy: he was glad to sit still in his cornerobliterated by Maddy's colossal shoulders. It was friendliness, heknew, that made Rankin dispense with ceremony and pilot him throughthose never-ending spaces to the dining-room. And it must have been anexaggeration of the same feeling that made him (regardless of hiswife's uplifted eyebrows) insist on placing the guest of the eveningbetween Maddox and himself. It was later on, about the time when thewine went round, that Rickman became aware of a change, of a subtleundefined hostility in the air. He wondered whether the Rankins wereannoyed with him because of his inability to take a brilliant part inthe conversation or to finish any one thing that he took upon hisplate. But for the life of him he couldn't help it. He was too tiredto talk, and he had reached that stage of hunger when the desire toeat no longer brought with it the power of eating, when themasterpieces of Rankin's _chef_ excited only terror and repugnance. Heate sparingly as starving men must eat, and he drank more sparinglythan he ate; for he feared the probable effect of unwonted stimulants. So that his glass appeared ever to be full. 

The hostility was more Mrs. Herbert Rankin's attitude than that of herhusband, but he noticed a melancholy change in Rankin. His genialityhad vanished, or lingered only in the curl of his moustache. He wasless amusing than of old. His conversation was no longer that of thelight-hearted junior journalist flinging himself recklessly into thetide of talk; but whatever topic was started he turned it to himself. He was exceedingly indignant on the subject of the war, which heregarded more as a personal grievance than as a national calamity. Nodoubt it was his eminence that constituted him the centre of so vast arange. 

"The worst of it is, " said he, "whichever side beats it's destructionto royalties. I lost a clean thousand on Spion Kop and I can tell youI didn't recover much on Mafeking, though I worked Tommy Atkins forall he was worth. This year my sales have dropped from fifty to thirtythousand. I can't stand many more of these reverses. "

He paused, dubious, between two _entrées_. 

"If it's had that effect on _me_, " said the great man, "Heaven onlyknows what it's done to other people. How about you, Rickman?"

"Oh, I'm all right, thanks. " The war had ruined him, but his ruin wasnot the point of view from which he had yet seriously regarded it. Hewas frankly disgusted with his old friend's tone. 

"If it goes on much longer, I shall be obliged, " said Rankinsolemnly, "to go out to the seat of war. "

Rickman felt a momentary glow. He was exhilarated by the idea ofRankin at the seat of war. He said he could see Rankin sitting on it. 

Rankin laughed, for he was not wholly dead to the humour of his owncelebrity; but there was a faint silken rustle at the head of thetable, subtle and hostile, like the stirring of a snake. Mrs. HerbertRankin bent her fine flat brows towards the poet, with a look ominousand intent. The look was lost upon Rickman and he wondered why Maddoxpressed his foot. 

"Have you written anything on the war, Mr. Rickman?" she asked. 

"No; I haven't written anything on the war. "

She looked at him almost contemptuously as at a fool who had neglectedan opportunity. 

"What do you generally write on, then?"

Rickman looked up with a piteous smile. He was beginning to feel verymiserable and weary, and he longed to get up and go. It seemed to himthat there was no end to that dinner; no end to the pitiless ingenuityof Rankin's _chef_. And he always had hated being stared at. 

"I don't--generally--write--on anything, " he said. 

"Your last poem is an exception to your rule, then?"

"It is. I wrote most of _that_ on gin and water, " said Rickmandesperately. 

Rankin had tugged all the geniality out of his moustache, and his facewas full of anxiety and gloom. Maddox tried hard not to snigger. Hewas not fond of Mrs. Herbert Rankin. 

And Rankin's _chef_ continued to send forth his swift and faircreations. 

Rickman felt his forehead grow cold and damp. He leaned back and wipedit with his handkerchief. A glance passed between Maddox and Rankin. But old Mrs. Rankin looked at him and the motherhood stirred in herheart. 

"Won't you change places with me? I expect you're feeling that firetoo much at your back. "

Maddox plucked his sleeve. "Better stay where you are, " he whispered. 

Rickman rose instantly to his feet. The horrible conviction wasgrowing on him that he was going to faint, to faint or to beignominiously ill. That came sometimes of starving, by some irony ofNature. 

"Don't Maddy--I think perhaps--"

Surely he was going to faint. 

Maddox jumped up and held him as he staggered from the room. 

Rankin looked at his wife and his wife looked at Rankin. "He may be avery great poet, " said she, "but I hope you'll never ask him to dinehere again. "

"Never. I can promise you, " said Rankin. 

The mother had a kinder voice. "I think the poor fellow was feelingill from that fire. "

"Well he might, too, " said Rankin with all the bitterness that becamethe husband of elegant respectability. 

"Go and make him lie down and be sure and keep his head lower than hisfeet, " said Rankin's mother. 

"I shouldn't be surprised if Ricky's head were considerably lower thanhis feet already, " said Rankin. And when he said it the bosses of hisface grew genial again as the old coarse junior journalistic humourpossessed itself of the situation. And he went out sniggering andcursing by turns under his moustache. 

Rankin's mother was right. Rickman was feeling very ill indeed. Without knowing how he got there he found himself lying on a bed inRankin's dressing-room. Maddox and Rankin were with him. Maddox hadtaken off his boots and loosened his collar for him, and was nowstanding over him contemplating the effect. 

"That's all very well, " said Maddox, "but how the dickens am I to gethim home? Especially as we don't know his address. "

"Ask him. "

"I'm afraid our Ricky-ticky's hardly in a state to give very reliableinformation. "

"Sixty-five Howland Street, " said Rickman faintly, and the two smiled. 

"It was Torrington Square, but I forget the number. "

"Sixty-five Howland Street, " repeated Rickman with an effort to bedistinct. 

Maddox shook his head. Rickman had sunk low enough, but it wasincredible to them that he should have sunk as low as Howland Street. His insistence on that address they regarded as a pleasantry peculiarto his state. "It's perfectly hopeless, " said Maddox. "I don't seeanything for it, Rankin, but to let him stay where he is. "

At that Rickman roused himself from his stupor. "If you'd only stopjawing and give me some brandy, I could go. "

"Oh my Aunt!" said Rankin, dallying with his despair. 

"It isn't half a bad idea. Try it. "

They tried it. Maddox raised the poet's head and Rankin poured thebrandy into him. Rankin's hand was gentle, but there was a sternnessabout Maddox and his ministrations. And as the brandy brought theblood back to his brain, Rickman sat up on Rankin's bed, murmuringapologies that would have drawn pity from the nether mill-stone. Butthere was no sign of the tenderness that had warmed him when he came. He could see that they were anxious to get him out of the house. Sincethey had been so keen on reconciliation whence this change tohostility and disapproval? Oh, of course, he remembered; he had beenill (outrageously ill) in Rankin's dressing-room. Perhaps it wasn'tvery nice of him; still he didn't do it for his own amusement, andRankin might have been as ill as he liked in _his_ dressing-room, ifhe had had one. Even admitting that the nature of his calamity wassuch as to place him beyond the pale of human sympathy, he thoughtthat Rankin might have borne himself with a somewhat better grace. Andwhy Maddox should have taken that preposterous tone--

Maddox explained himself as they left Sussex Square. 

Rickman did not at first take in the explanation. He was thinking howhe could best circumvent Maddox's obvious intention of hailing ahansom and putting him into it. He didn't want to confess that hehadn't a shilling in his pocket. Coppers anybody may be short of, andpresently he meant to borrow twopence for a bus. Later on he wouldhave to ask for a loan of fifty pounds; for you can borrow pounds andyou can borrow pennies, but not shillings. Not at any rate if you arestarving. 

"If I were you, Ricky, " Maddox was saying. "I should go straight tobed when you get home. You'll be all right in the morning. "

"I'm all right now. I can't think what bowled me over. "

"Ricky, the prevarication is unworthy of you. Without humbug, I thinkyou might keep off it a bit before you dine with people. It doesn'tmatter about us, you know, but it's hardly the sort of thing Mrs. Rankin's been accustomed to. "

"Mrs. Rankin?"

"Well yes, I said Mrs. Rankin; but it's not about her I care--it'sabout you. Of course you'll tell me to mind my own business, but Iwish--I wish to goodness you'd give it up--altogether. You did once, why not again? Believe me the game isn't worth the candle. " And hesaid to himself, noting the sharp lines of his friend's haggardfigure, "It's killing him. "

"I see, " said Rickman slowly. In an instant he saw it all; themonstrous and abominable suspicion that had rested upon him all theevening. It explained everything. He saw, too, how every movement ofhis own had lent itself to the intolerable inference. It was socomplete, so satisfactory, so comprehensive, that he could not wonderthat they had found no escape from it. He could find none himself. There was no way by which he could establish the fact of his sobriety;for it is the very nature of such accusations to feed upon defence. Denial, whether humorous or indignant, would but condemn him more. Thevery plausibility of the imputation acted on him as a despoticsuggestion. He began to feel that he must have been drunk at Rankin's;that he was drunk now while he was talking to Maddox. And to have toldthe truth, to have said, "Maddy, I'm starving. I haven't had a squaremeal for four months, " would have sounded too like a beggar's whine. Whatever he let out later on, it would be mean to spring all that onMaddox now, covering him with confusion and remorse. 

He laughed softly, aware that his very laugh would be used asevidence against him. "I see. So you all thought I'd been drinking?"

"Well--if you'll forgive my saying so--"

"Oh, I forgive you. It was a very natural supposition. "

"I think you'll have to apologise to the Rankins. "

"I think the Rankins'll have to apologise to me. "

With every foolish word he was more hopelessly immersed. 

He insisted on parting with Maddox at the Marble Arch. After all, hehad not borrowed that fifty pounds nor yet that twopence. LuckilyRankin's brandy enabled him to walk back with less difficulty than hecame. It had also warmed him, so that he did not find out all at oncethat he had left his overcoat at Rankin's. He could not go back forit. He could never present himself at that house again. 

It was a frosty night with a bitter wind rising in the east andblowing up Oxford Street. His attic under the icicled tiles was darkand narrow as the grave. And on the other side of the thin wall aHunger, more infernal and malignant than his own, waited stealthilyfor its prey. 

CHAPTER LXXI

It was five o'clock, and Dicky Pilkington was at his ease stretchedbefore the fire in a low chair in the drawing-room of the flat he nowhabitually shared with Poppy Grace. It was beatitude to lie there withhis legs nicely toasting, to have his tea (which he did not drink)poured out for him by the most popular little variety actress inLondon, and to know that she had found in him her master. Thisevening, his intellect in play under many genial influences, Dicky wasonce more raising the pæan of Finance. Under some piquant provocation, too; for Poppy had just informed him, that she "didn't fancy hisbusiness. "

"Now, look here, " said Dicky, "you call yourself an artist. Well--thisbusiness of mine isn't a business, it's an art. Think of the delicacywe 'ave to use. To know to a hairsbreadth how far you can go with aman, to know when to give him his head with the snaffle and when todraw him in with the curb. It's a feelin' your way all along. Why, Iknew a fellow, a broker--an uncommonly clever chap he was, too--ruinedjust for want of a little tact. He was too precipitate, began haulinghis man up just when he ought to have let him go. He'd no imagination, that fellow. (Don't you go eating too much cake, Popsie, or you'llmake your little nose red. ) I don't know any other profession givesyou such a grip of life and such a feelin' of power. You've got someyoung devil plungin' about, kickin' up his heels all over the shop, say. He thinks he's got the whole place to break his neck in; and youknow the exact minute by your watch that you can bring him ingrovellin' on your office floor. It's the iron 'and in the velvetglove, " said Dicky. 

"I know what you're driving at, and I call it a beastly shame. "

"No, it isn't. I shouldn't wonder if old Rickets paid up all right, after all. "

"And if he doesn't?"

"If he doesn't--Well--"

"I say, though, think wot a lot he's paid you. Can't you let him go?"

Dicky shook his head and smiled softly as at some interior vision. 

"You'll ruin him for a dirty fifty pounds?"

"I won't ruin him. And it isn't for the money, it's for the game. Ilike, " said Dicky, "to see a man play in first-class style. But Idon't blame him if he hasn't got style so long as he's got pluck. Infact, I don't know that of the two I wouldn't rather have pluck. I'veseen a good many men play this game, but I've never seen any one whocame up to old Razors for pluck _and_ style. It's a treat to see him. Do you suppose I'm going to cut in now and spoil it all by giving himpoints? That would take all the gilt off the gingerbread. And do yousuppose he'd let me? Not he; he's spreading the gilt on thick, andhe'd see me d----d first. "

Dicky smoked, with half-closed eyes fixed on the fire, in speechlessadmiration. He felt that he was encouraging the display of highheroism by watching it. He singled out a beautiful writhing flame, spat at it, and continued: "No, I'll take good care that Ricketsdoesn't starve. But I'm going to stand by and see him finish fair. Ifyou like, Popsie, you can back him to win. I don't care if he _doe'_win. It would be worth it for what I've got out of him. "

By what he had got out of him Dicky meant, not three thousand sevenhundred and odd pounds, but a spectacle beyond all comparison excitingand sublime. For that he was prepared to abandon any further advantagethat might be wrung from the Harden library by a successfulmanipulation of the sales. 

Poppy did not back Rickman to win; but she determined to call on himat his rooms, and leave a little note with a cheque and a request thathe would pay Dicky and have done with him. "You'd better owe it to methan to him, old chappy"; thus she wrote in the kindness andimpropriety of her heart. But Rickman never got that little note. 

CHAPTER LXXII

Of all the consequences of that terrible dinner at Rankin's there wasnone that Rickman resented more than the loss of his overcoat. As helay between his blankets he still felt all the lashings of the eastwind around his shivering body. He was awake all that night, and themorning found him feverish with terror of the illness that mightovertake him before he attained his end. He stayed in bed all day toprevent it, and because of his weakness, and for warmth. 

But the next day there came a mild and merciful thaw, a tenderness ofHeaven that was felt even under the tiles in Howland Street. And themorning of that day brought a thing that in all his dreams he had notyet dreamed of, a letter from Lucia. 

He read it kneeling on the floor of his garret, supporting himself bythe edge of the table. It was only a few lines in praise of the Elegy(which had appeared in _The Planet_ the week before) and a postscriptthat told him she would be staying at Court House with Miss Pallisertill the summer. 

He knelt there a long time with his head bowed upon his arms. Hisbrains failed him when he tried to write an answer, and he put theletter into his breast-pocket, where it lay like a loving hand againsthis heart. And yet there was not a word of love in it. 

The old indomitable hope rose in his heart again and he forced himselfto eat and drink, that he might have strength for the things he had todo. That night he did not sleep, but lay wrapt in his beatificpassion. His longing was so intense that it created a vision of thething it longed for. It seemed to him that he heard Lucia's softfootfall about his bed, that she came and sat beside his pillow, thatshe bowed her head upon his breast, and that her long hair driftedover him. For the beating of his own heart gave him the sense of apresence beside him all night long, as he lay with his right arm flungacross his own starved body, guarding her letter, the letter that hadnot a word of love in it. 

In the morning he discovered that another letter had lain on his tableunder Lucia's. It was from Dicky Pilkington, reminding him that itwanted but seven days to the thirtieth. Dicky said nothing about anywillingness to renew the bill. What did it matter? Dicky would renewit, Dicky must renew it; he felt that there was force in him to compelDicky to renew it. He went out and bought a paper with the price of ameal of milk (he couldn't pawn his good clothes; their assistance wastoo valuable in interviews with possible employers). He found theadvertisement of an Exeter bookseller in want of a foreman and expertcataloguer at a salary of ninety pounds. He answered it by return. Inthe list of his credentials he mentioned that he had catalogued theHarden library (a feat, as he knew, sufficient to constitute him acelebrity in the eyes of the Exeter man). He added that if thebookseller felt inclined to consider his application he would beobliged by a wire, as he had several other situations in view. 

The bookseller wired engaging him for six months. The same day came acheque for ten pounds from _The Planet_, the honorarium for the Elegy. He sent the ten pounds to Dicky at once (by way of showing what hecould do) with a curt note informing him of his appointment andrequesting a renewal for three months, by which time his salary wouldcover the remainder still owing. 

Feeling that no further intellectual efforts were now required of himhe went out to feed on the fresh air. As he crossed the landing anodour of hot pottage came to meet him. Through the ever-open door hecaught a glimpse of a woman's form throned, as it were, above cloudsof curling steam. A voice went out, hoarse with a supreme emotion. 

"Come in, you there, and 'ave a snack, wontcher?" it said. 

"No, thank you, " he answered. 

"Garn then. I'll snack yer for a ----y fool!"

And from the peaceableness of the reply he gathered that this time thelady was not soliciting patronage but conferring it. 

He was no longer hungry, no longer weighed upon by his exhausted body. A great restlessness had seized it, a desire to walk, to walk on andon without stopping. The young day had lured him into the Regent'sPark. So gentle was the weather that, but for bare branches andblanched sky, it might have been a day in Spring. As he walked heexperienced sensations of indescribable delicacy and lightness, he sawahead of him pellucid golden vistas of metaphysical splendour, heskimmed over fields of elastic air with the ease and ecstasy of ablessed spirit. 

When he came in he found that the experience prolonged itself throughthe early night, even when he lay motionless on his bed staring at thewall. And as he stared it seemed to him that there passed upon thewall clouds upon clouds of exquisite and evanescent colour, and thatstrange forms appeared and moved upon the clouds. He saw a shoal offishes (they _were_ fishes, radiant, iridescent, gorgeous fishes, withthe tails of peacocks); they swam round and round the room just underthe cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immenselyinterested in these decorative hallucinations. His brain seemed to belifted up, to be iridescent also, to swim round and round with theswimming fishes. 

He woke late in the morning with a violent sore throat and pain in allhis body. He was too giddy to sit up and help himself, but he knockedweakly on the thin wall. His neighbour roused herself at the faintsummons and appeared. She stood at the foot of the bed with her handson her hips and contemplated him for a moment. He tried to speak, buthis tongue seemed to be stuck burning to the roof of his mouth. Hepointed to his throat. 

"Yes, I dessay, " said she. "I said you'd get somefing and you've gotit. " So saying she disappeared into her own apartment. 

As he saw her go despair shook him. He thought that he was abandoned. But presently she returned, bringing a cup of hot tea with a dash ofgin in it from her own breakfast. 

"I'd a seen to you afore ef you'd let me, " she said. "You tyke it fromme, young man, wot you wants is a good hot lining to your belly. I'd'ave given it to you ef you'd a let me. I'm a lydy as tykes her dinnerreg'ler, I am. No, you don't--" This, as he turned away his head inprotest. She however secured it firmly with one filthy hand, whilewith the other she held the reeking cup to his lips. She had put it toher own first to test the heat and quality of the brew. Yet he wasgrateful. He had some difficulty in swallowing; and from time to timeshe wiped his mouth with her villainous apron; and he was gratefulstill, having passed beyond disgust. 

She perceived the gratitude. "Garn, " said she, "wot's a cup er tea?I'd a seen to yer afore ef you'd a let me. "

She continued her ministrations; she brought coal in her own scuttleand after immense pains she lighted a fire in the wretched grate. Thenshe smoothed his bed-clothes till they were covered with her smuttytrail. She would have gone for a doctor then and there, but difficultyarose. For doctors meant hospitals, and the man below threatened tosell his lodger's "sticks" if rent were not forthcoming. She cast hereyes about in search of pawnable articles. They fell upon his clothes. She took up his shirt and examined it carefully, appraising the sleevelinks and the studs. But when she touched the coat, the coat that hadLucia's letter in the breast-pocket, Rickman turned in his bed andmade agonizing signs, struggling with the voice that perished in hisburning throat. 

"Wot's the good, " said she, "of a suit when yer can't wear it? As Itelled you wot you wa--No, the's no sorter use your making fyces atme. And you keep your ----y legs in, or I'll--" The propositions thatfollowed were murmured in a hoarse but crooning tone such as a mothermight have used to soothe a fractious child. She went away, carryingthe clothes with her, and turned out the pockets in her den. 

On her return she sent the man below to fetch the doctor. But the manbelow fell in with boon companions on the way, and no doctor came. Allthat night the woman watched by Rickman's bedside, heedless of herluck. She kept life in him by feeding him with warm milk and gin, ateaspoonful at a time. Rickman, aware of footsteps in the room, fancied himself back again in Rankin's dressing-room. The whole sceneof that evening floated before him all night long. He had a sense ofpresences hostile and offended, of being irretrievably disgraced. Inthe recurring nightmare he saw Lucia Harden instead of Mrs. Rankin. Sopersistently did he see her that when he woke he could not shake offthe impression that she had been actually, if unaccountably, present, a spectator of his uttermost disgrace. He could never look her in theface again. No, for he was disgraced; absolutely, irredeemably, atrociously disgraced. Beyond all possibility of explanation anddefence; though he sometimes caught himself explaining and pleadingagainst those offended phantoms of his brain. Why should he suffer so?Just because of his inability to deal with Rankin's never-endingdinner, or to pay a debt of millions, many millions of figures thatclimbed up the wall. He was not sure which of these two obligationswas laid upon him. 

He became by turns delirious and drowsy, and the woman fetched adoctor early the next day. He found enteric and blood-poisoning also, of which Rickman's illness at the Rankins' must have been the firstwarning symptoms. 

"He'll have to go to the hospital; but you'd better send word to hisfriends. "

"'E ain't got no friends. And _I_ dunno 'oo 'e is. "

The doctor said to himself, "Gone under, " and looked round him for aclue. He examined a postcard from Spinks and a parcel (containing anovercoat) from Rankin, with the novelist's name and address inside thewrapper. The poet's name was familiar to the doctor, who read_Metropolis_. He first of all made arrangements for removing hispatient to the hospital. Then in his uncertainty he telegraphed toJewdwine, to Rankin and to Spinks. 

The news of Rickman's illness was thus spread rapidly among hisfriends. It brought Spinks that afternoon, and Flossie, the poorBeaver, dragged to Howland Street by her husband to see what herwoman's hands could do. They entered upon a scene of indescribableconfusion and clangour. Poppy Grace, arrived on her errand (for whichshe had attired herself in a red dress and ermine tippet), had mountedguard over the unconscious poet. 

"Ricky, " cried Poppy, bending over him, "won't you speak to me? It'sPoppy, dear. Don't you know me?"

"No, 'e don't know yer, so you needn't arsk 'im. "

Poppy placed her minute figure defiantly between Rickman and her rivalof the open door. She had exhausted her emotions in those wild cries, and was prepared to enjoy the moment which produced in her thehallucination of self-conscious virtue. 

The woman, voluble and fierce, began to describe Miss Grace'scharacter in powerful but somewhat exaggerated language, appealing tothe new-comers to vindicate her accuracy. Poppy seated herself on thebed and held a pocket-handkerchief to her virtuous nose. It was thedumb and dignified rebuke of Propriety in an ermine tippet, to Vicemade manifest in the infamy of rags. The Beaver retreated in terror onto the landing, where she stood clutching the little basket of jelliesand things which she had brought, as if she feared that it might betorn from her in the violence of the scene. Spinks, convulsed withanguish by the sight of his friend lying there unconscious, could onlyoffer an inarticulate expostulation. It was the signal for the womanto burst into passionate self-defence. 

"I ain't took nothing 'cept wot the boss 'e myde me. 'Go fer adoctor?' ses 'e. 'No you don't. I don't 'ave no ----y doctor messinground 'ere an' cartin' 'im orf to the 'orspital afore 'e's paid 'isrent. ' Ses 'e 'I'm--"

The entrance of Maddox and Rankin checked the hideous flow. They werefollowed by the porters of the hospital and the nurse in charge. Herpresence commanded instantaneous calm. 

"There are far too many people in this room, " said she. Her expellingglance fell first on Poppy, throned on the bed, then on the convulsiveSpinks. She turned more gently to Rankin, in whose mouth she sawremonstrance, and to Maddox, in whose eyes she read despair. "It willreally be better for him to take him to the hospital. "

"No, " cried Spinks, darting in again from the landing, "take him tomy house, 45, Dalmeny Av--" but the Beaver plucked him by the sleeve;for she thought of Muriel Maud. 

"No, no, take him to mine, 87, Sussex Square, " said Rankin, and heinsisted. But in the end he suffered himself to be overruled; for hethought darkly of his wife. 

"I'd give half my popularity if I could save him, " he said to Maddox. 

"Half your popularity won't save him, nor yet the whole of it, " saidMaddox savagely. In that moment they hated themselves and each otherfor the wrong they had done him. Their hearts smote them as theythought of the brutalities of Sunday night. 

The woman still held her ground in the centre of the room where shestood scowling at the nurse as she busied herself about the bed. 

"I'd a seen to 'im ef 'e'd a let me, " she reiterated. 

Maddox dealt with her. He flicked a sovereign on to the table. "Lookhere, " said he, "suppose you take that and go out quietly. "

There was a momentary glitter in her eyes, but her fingers hesitated. 

"I didn' fink 'e 'ad no frien's wen I come in. " It was her way ofintimating that what she had done she had not done for money. 

"All right, take it. "

She drew out a filthy grey flannel bag from the bosom of her gown andslipped the gold into it. And still she hesitated. She could notunderstand why so large a sum was offered for such slight services asshe had rendered. It must have been for--Another thought stirred inher brute brain. 

They were raising Rickman in his bed before taking him away. Hisshoulders were supported on the nurse's arm, his head dropped on herbreast. The posture revealed all the weakness of his slender body. Thewoman turned. And as she looked at the helpless figure she was visitedby a dim sense of something strange and beautiful and pure, something(his helplessness perhaps) that was outraged by her presence, andcalled for vindication. 

"'E never 'ad no truck with me, " she said. It struck Maddox that thedenial had a sublimity and pathos of its own. She dropped the bag intoher lean bosom and went out. 

And the porters wrapped him in his blankets, and laid him on astretcher, and carried him out; past Maddox and Rankin who turnedtheir heads away; past Flossie who shrank a little from the blankets, but cried softly to see him go; and past the woman standing on herthreshold. And in that manner he passed Horace Jewdwine coming up thestair too late. And all that Jewdwine could do was to stand back andlet him pass. 

It was Jewdwine's fear that made him uncover, as in the presence ofthe dead. 

CHAPTER LXXIII

When Rankin, Maddox and Jewdwine stood alone in the garret whence theyhad seen Rickman carried away from them, remorse drove all hope of hisrecovery from their hearts. They learnt some of the truth about himfrom the woman in the next room, a keen observer of human nature. Jewdwine and Rankin, when they too had paid her for her services, wereglad to escape from the intolerable scene. Maddox stayed behind, collecting what he could only think of as Rickman's literary remains. 

He found in the table drawer three unpublished articles, a few poems, and the First Act of the second and unfinished tragedy, saved by itsobscure position at the back of the drawer. The woman owned to havinglit the fire with the rest. Maddox cursed and groaned as he thought ofthat destruction. He knew that many poems which followed _Saturnalia_had remained unpublished. Had they too been taken to light the fire?He turned the garret upside down in search of the missing manuscripts. At last in a cupboard, he came upon a leather bag. It was locked andhe could find no key, but he wrenched it open with the poker. Itcontained many manuscripts; among them the Nine and Twenty Sonnets, and the testament concerning them. He read the Sonnets, but not theother document which was in a sealed envelope. He found also a bundleof Dicky Pilkington's receipts and his last letter threateningforeclosure. And when he had packed up the books (Lucia's books) andredeemed Rickman's clothes from the pawn-shop, he took all thesethings away with him for safety. 

There was little he could do for Rickman, but he promised himself thepleasure of settling Dicky's claim. But even that satisfaction wasdenied him. For Dicky had just renewed his bill for a nominal threemonths. Nominal only. Dicky had in view a magnificent renunciation, and he flatly refused to treat with Maddox or anybody else. He wascompletely satisfied with this conclusion; it meant that Rickman, forall his style and pluck, had lost the game and that he, Pilkington, had done the handsome thing, as he could do it when the fancy tookhim. For Dicky's heart had been touched by the tale that Poppy toldhim, and it melted altogether when he went and saw for himself poorRicky lying in his cot in the North-Western Hospital. He had a greatdeal of nice feeling about him after all, had Dicky. 

Terrible days followed Rickman's removal to the hospital; days whenhis friends seemed justified in their sad conviction; days when thedoctors gave up hope; days when he would relapse after some briefrecovery; days when he kept them all in agonizing suspense. 

But Rickman did not die. As they said, it was not in him to take thatexquisitely mean revenge. It was not in him to truckle to thetradition that ordains that unfortunate young poets shall starve ingarrets and die in hospitals. He had always been an upsetter ofconventions, and a law unto himself. So there came a day, about themiddle of March, when he astonished them all by appearing among themsuddenly in Maddox's rooms, less haggard than he had been that nightwhen he sat starving at Rankin's dinner-table. 

And as he came back to them, to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin, they each could say no more to him than they had said five years ago. "What a fool you were, Rickman. Why didn't you come to _me_?" But whenthe others had left, Maddox put his hands on Rickman's shoulders andthey looked each other in the face. 

"I say, Ricky, what did you do it for?"

But that was more than Rickman could explain, even to Maddox. 

They had all contended which should receive him when he came out ofhospital; but it was settled that for the present he should remainwith Maddox in his rooms. There Dicky, absolutely prepared to do thehandsome thing, called upon him at an early date. Dicky had promisedhimself some exquisite sensations in the moment of magnanimity; butthe moment never came. Rickman remained firm in his determination thatevery shilling of the debt should be paid and paid by him; it was morethan covered by the money Maddox advanced for his literary remains. Dicky had to own that the plucky little fellow had won his game, buthe added, "You couldn't have done it, Razors, if I hadn't given youpoints. "

The great thing was that he had done it, and that the Harden librarywas his, was Lucia's. It only remained to tell her, and to hand itover to her. He had long ago provided for this difficult affair. Hewrote, as he had planned to write, with a judicious hardness, brevityand restraint. He told her that he desired to see her on some businessconnected with the Harden library, in which he was endeavouring tocarry out as far as possible his father's last wishes. He asked to beallowed to call on her some afternoon in the following week. Hethanked her for her letter without further reference, and heremained--"sincerely"? No, "faithfully" hers. 

He told Maddox that he thought of going down to Devonshire to recruit. 

CHAPTER LXXIV

Lucia was suffering from the disagreeable strain of a divided mind. Tobegin with she was not altogether pleased with Mr. Rickman. He hadtaken no notice of the friendly little letter she had written aboutthe Elegy, her evident intention being to give him pleasure. She hadwritten it on impulse, carried away by her ardent admiration. That wasanother of those passionate indiscreet things, which were followed bytorments of her pride. And the torments had followed. His two months'silence had reproved her ardour, had intimated to her that he was inno mood to enter in at the door which she had closed to him threeyears ago. She took it that he had regarded her poor little olivebranch as an audacity. And now that he _had_ written there was not aword about the subject of her letter. He had only written becausebusiness compelled him, and his tone was not only cold, but positivelyaustere. 

But, she reflected, business after all did not compel him to come downand see her. Having reached this point she became aware that her heartwas beating most uncomfortably at the bare idea of seeing him. For thefirst time this anticipation inspired her with anxiety and fear. Untiltheir last meeting in Tavistock Place there had been in all theirintercourse something intangible and rare, something that, though onher part it had lacked the warmth of love, she had acknowledged to befiner than any friendship. That beautiful intangible quality hadperished in the stress of their final meeting. And even if it came tolife again it could never be the same, or so she thought. She hadperceived how much its permanence had depended on external barriers, on the social gulf, and on the dividing presence of another woman. Shecould not separate him from his genius; and his genius had long agooverleapt the social gulf. And now, without poor Flossie, without thesafeguard of his engagement, she felt herself insecure andshelterless. More than ever since he had overleapt that barrier too. 

But though Lucia had found out all these things, she had not yet foundout why it was that she had been so glad to hear that Keith Rickmanwas going to be married, nor why she had been so passionately eager tokeep him to his engagement. In any case she could not have borne to bethe cause of unhappiness to another woman; and that motive was sonatural that it served for all. 

As things had turned out, if he had married, that, she had understood, would have been such a closing of the door as would have shut him outfor ever. And now that he was knocking at the door again, now thatthere was no reason why, once opened, it should not remain open, shebegan to be afraid of what might enter in with him. She made up hermind that she would not let him in. So she sat down and wrote a coldlittle note to say that she was afraid she would not be able to seehim next week. Could he not explain the business in writing? She tookthat letter to the post herself. And as each step brought her nearerto the inevitable act, the conviction grew on her that this conduct ofhers was cowardly, and unworthy both of him and of herself. A refusalto see him was a confession of fear, and fear assumed the existence ofthe very thing his letter had ignored. It was absurd too, if he hadcome to see that his feeling for her was (as she persisted inbelieving it to be) a piece of poetic folly, an illusion of theliterary imagination. She turned back and tore up that cold littlenote, and wrote another that said she would be very glad to see himany day next week, except Friday. There was no reason why she shouldhave excepted Friday; but it sounded more business-like somehow. 

She did not take Kitty into her confidence, and in this she failed toperceive the significance of her own secrecy. She told herself thatthere was no need to ask Kitty's advice, because she knew perfectlywell already what Kitty's advice would be. 

He came on Tuesday. Monday was too early for his self-respect, Wednesday too late for his impatience. He had looked to findeverything altered in and about Court House; and he saw, almost withsurprise, the same April flowers growing in the green garden, and thesame beech-tree dreaming on the lawn. He recognized the black rifts inits trunk and the shining sweep of its branches overhead. The door wasopened by Robert, and Robert remembered him. There was a shade moregravity in the affectionate welcome, but then Robert was nine yearsolder. He was shown into the drawing-room, and it, too, was much as hehad left it nine years ago. 

Kitty Palliser was there; she rose to meet him with her irrepressiblefriendliness, undiminished by nine years. There was nothing cold andbusiness-like about Kitty. 

"Will you tell Miss Harden?" said she to the detached, retreatingRobert. Then she held out her hand. "I am very glad to see you. " But awave of compassion rather than of gladness swept over her face as shelooked at him. She made him sit down, and gave him tea. There was amarked gentleness in all her movements, unlike the hilarious lady sheused to be. 

The minutes went by and Lucia did not appear. He could not attend towhat Kitty was saying. His eyes were fixed on the door that looked asif it were never going to open. Kitty seemed to bear tenderly with hisabstraction. Once he glanced round the room, recognizing familiarobjects. He had expected, after Dicky's descent on Court House, tofind nothing recognizable in it. Kitty was telling him how an uncle ofhers had lent them the house for a year, how he had bought itfurnished, and how, but for the dismantled library and portraitgallery, it was pretty much as it had been in Miss Harden's time. Sounchanged was it and its atmosphere that Rickman felt himself in thepresence of a destiny no less unchanging and familiar. He had come onbusiness as he had done nine years ago; and he felt that the events ofthat time must in some way repeat themselves, that when he was alonewith Lucia he would say to her such things as he had said before, thatthere would be differences, misunderstandings, as before, and that hissecond coming would end in misery and separation like the first. Itseemed to him that Kitty, kind Kitty, had the same perception andforeboding. Thus he interpreted her very evident compassion. She meantto console him. 

"Robert remembers you, " said she. 

"That's very clever of Robert, " said he. 

"No, it's only his faithfulness. What a funny thing faithfulness is. Robert won't allow any one but Miss Harden to be mistress here. Mypeople are interlopers, abominations of desolation. He can barely becivil to their friends. But to hers--he is as you see him. It's a goodthing for me I'm her friend, or he wouldn't let me sit here and pourout tea for you. "

He thought over the speech. It admitted an encouraging interpretation. But Miss Palliser may have been more consoling than she had meant. 

She rattled on in the kindness of her heart. He was grateful for herpresence; it calmed his agitation and prepared him to meet Lucia withcomposure when she came. But Lucia did not come; and he began to havea horrible fear that at the last moment she would fail him. He refusedthe second cup that Kitty pressed on him, and she looked at himcompassionately again. He was so used to his appearance that he hadforgotten how it might strike other people. He was conscious only ofKitty's efforts to fill up agreeably these moments of suspense. 

At last it ended. Lucia was in the doorway. At the sight of her hisbody shook and the strength in his limbs seemed to dissolve and flowdownwards to the floor. His eyes never left her as she came to himwith her rhythmic unembarrassed motion. She greeted him as if they hadmet the other day; but as she took his hand she looked down at it, startled by its slenderness. He was glad that she seated herself onhis right, for he felt that the violence of his heart must be audiblethrough his emaciated ribs. 

Kitty made some trivial remark, and Lucia turned to her as if herwhole soul hung upon Kitty's words. Her absorption gave him time torecover himself. (It did not occur to him that that was what she hadturned away for. ) Her turning enabled him to look at her. He noticedthat she seemed in better health than when he had seen her last, andthat in sign of it her beauty was stronger, more vivid and moredefined. 

They said little to each other. But when Kitty had left them they drewin their chairs to the hearth with something of the glad consent ofthose for whom the long-desired moment has arrived. He felt that oldsense of annihilated time, of return to a state that had never reallylapsed; and it struck him that she, too, had that feeling. It was shewho spoke first. 

"Before you begin your business, tell me about yourself. "

"There isn't anything to tell. "

She looked as if she rather doubted the truth of that statement. 

"If you don't mind, I'd rather begin about the business and get itover. "

"Why, is it--is it at all unpleasant?"

He smiled. "Not in the least, not in the very least. It's about thelibrary. "

"I thought we'd agreed that that was all over and done with long ago?"

"Well, you see, it hasn't anything to do with _us_. My father--"

"Don't let us go back to that. "

"I'm sorry, but we must--a little. You know my father and I had adifference of opinion?"

"I know--I know. "

"Well, in the end he owned that I was right. That was when he wasdying. "

He wished she would not look at him; for he could not look at her. Hewas endeavouring to make his tale appear in the last degree naturaland convincing. Up till now he had told nothing but the truth, but ashe was about to enter on the path of perjury he became embarrassed bythe intentness of her gaze. 

"You were with him?" she asked. 

"Yes. " He paused a moment to command a superior kind of calm. Thatpause wrecked him, for it gave her also time for thought. "He wantedeither to pay you the money that you should have had, or to hand overthe library; and I thought--"

"But the library was sold?"

He explained the matter of the mortgage, carefully, but with an amountof technical detail meant to impose and mystify. 

"Then how, " she asked, "was the library redeemed?"

He repudiated an expression so charged with moral and emotionalsignificance. He desired to lead her gently away from a line ofthought that if pursued would give her intelligence the clue. "Youcan't call it redeemed. Nobody redeemed it. The debt, of course, hadto be paid out of my father's estate. "

"In which case the library became yours?"

He smiled involuntarily, for she had him there, and she knew it. 

"It became nothing of the sort, and if it had I could hardly goagainst my father's wishes by holding on to it. "

"Can't you see that it's equally impossible for me to take it?"

"Why? Try and think of it as a simple matter of business. "

He spoke like a tired man, straining after a polite endurance of herfeminine persistence and refining fantasy. "It hasn't anything to dowith you or me. "

Thus did he turn against her the argument with which she had crushedhim in another such dispute nine years ago. 

"I am more business-like than you are. I remember perfectly well thatyour father paid more than a thousand pounds for those books in thebeginning. "

"That needn't trouble you. It has been virtually deducted. I'm sorryto say a few very valuable books were sold before the mortgage andcould not be recovered. "

He had given himself away by that word "recovered. " Her eyes searchedhim through and through to find his falsehood, as they had searchedhim once before to find his truth. "It is very, very good of you, " shesaid. 

"Of _me_? Am _I_ bothering you? Don't think of me except as myfather's executor. "

"Did you know that he wanted you to do this, or did you only think it?Was it really his express wish?"

He looked her in the face and lied boldly and freely. "It was. Absolutely. "

And as she met that look, so luminously, so superlatively sincere, sheknew that he had lied. "All the same, " said she, "I can't take it. Don't think it unfriendly of me. It isn't. In fact, don't you see it'sjust because we have been--we are--friends that I must refuse it? Ican't take advantage of that"--she was going to say "feeling, " butthought better of it. 

"And don't you see by refusing you are compelling me to bedishonourable? If you were really my friend you would think more of myhonour than of your own scruples. Or is that asking too much?" He feltthat he had scored in this game of keen intelligences. 

"No. But it would be wrong of me to let your honour be influenced byour friendship. "

"Don't think of our friendship, then. It's all pure business, asbrutally impersonal as you like. "

"If I could only see it that way. "

"I should have thought it was quite transparently and innocentlyclear. " He had scored again. For now he had taxed her with stupidity. "If I could persuade you that it came from my father, you wouldn'tmind. You mind because you think it comes from me. Isn't that so?"

She was silent, and he knew. 

"How can I persuade you? I can only repeat that I've absolutelynothing to do with it. " There was but little friendliness about himnow. His whole manner was full of weariness and irritation. "Whyshould you imagine that I had?"

"Because it would have been so very like you. "

"Then I must be lying abominably. Is that so very like me?"

"I have heard you do it before--once--twice--magnificently. "

"When?"

"About this time nine years ago. "

He remembered. The wonder was that she should have remembered too. 

"I daresay. But what possible motive could I have for lying now?"

He had scored heavily this time. Far too heavily. There was a flame inLucia's face which did not come from the glow of the fire, a flamethat ran over her neck and forehead to the fine tips of her ears. Forshe thought, supposing all the time he had been telling her the simpletruth? Why should she have raised that question? Why should she havetaken for granted that any personal interest should have led him todo this thing? And in wondering she was ashamed. He saw her confusion, and attributed it to another cause. 

"I'm only asking you to keep the two things distinct, as I do--as Imust do, " he said gently. 

"I'll think about it, and let you know to-morrow. "

"But I'm going to-night. "

"Oh no, I can't let you do that. You must stay over the night. Yourroom is ready for you. "

He protested; she insisted; and in the end she had her way, as hemeant to have his way to-morrow. 

He stayed, and all that evening they were very kind to him. Kittytalked gaily throughout dinner; and afterwards Lucia played to himwhile he rested, propped up with great cushions (she had insisted onthe cushions) in her chair. Kitty, his hostess, drew back, and seemedto leave these things to Lucia as her right. He knew it was Lucia, andnot Kitty, who ran up to his room to see that all was comfortable andthat his fire burnt well. In everything she said and did there was apeculiar gentleness and care. It was on the same lines as Kitty'scompassion, only more poignant and intense. It was, he thought, as ifshe knew that it was for the last time, that of all these pleasantthings to-morrow would see the end. Was it kind of her to let him knowwhat her tenderness could be when to-morrow must end it all? For hehad no notion of the fear evoked by his appearance, the fear that wasin both their hearts. He did not know why they looked at him withthose kind glances, nor why Lucia told him that Robert was close athand if he should want anything in the night. He slept in the roomthat had once been Lucia's, the room above the library, looking to thewestern hills. He did not know that they had given it him because itwas a good room to be ill and to get well in. 

Lucia and Kitty sat up late that night over the fire, and they talkedof him. 

Kitty began it. "_Do_ you remember, " said she, "the things we used tosay about him?"

"Oh don't, Kitty; I do. "

"You needn't mind; it was only I who said them. "

"Yes, you said them; but I thought them. "

Then she told Kitty what had brought him there and the story that hehad told her. "And, Kitty, all the time I knew he lied. "

"Probably. You must take it, Lucy, all the same. "

"How can I take it, when I know it comes out of his own poor littlewaistcoat pocket?"

"You would, if you cared enough about him. "

"No. It's just _because_ I care that I can't. "

"You do care, then?"

"Yes, of course I do. "

"But not in the same way as _he_ cares, Lucy. "

Kitty's words sounded like a statement rather than a question, so theypassed unanswered. 

"It's all right, Kitty. It's all over, at last. He doesn't care a bitnow, not a bit. "

"Oh doesn't he! How can you be so idiotic? All over? I assure you it'sonly just begun. "

Lucia turned her head away. 

"Lucy--what are you going to do with him?"

Lucia smiled sadly. That was the question she had asked Horace tenyears ago, making him responsible. And now the responsibility had beenlaid on her. "Kitty--did you notice how thin he is? He looks as ifhe'd just come through some awful illness. But I can't ask him aboutit. "

"Rather not. You don't know whether he's had it, or whether he's goingto have it. "

"I wonder if you'd mind asking him to stay a week or two? It mighthelp him to get strong. "

"I doubt it. "

"I don't. I think it's just what he wants. Oh, Kitty, could you--wouldyou, if I wanted it, too?"

"You needn't ask. But what earthly good can it do?"

"If he got strong here it would be so nice to think we sent him awaywell. And if he's going to be ill I could look after him--"

Her use of "we" and "I" did not pass unnoticed by the observant Kitty. 

"And then?"

Lucia's face, which had been overcast with care, was now radiant. "Then I should have done something for him besides making himmiserable. Will you ask him, Kitty?"

"You're a fool, Lucy, and I'm another. But I'll ask him. To-morrow, though; not to-day. "

She waited to see what to-morrow would bring forth, for she wascertain it would bring forth something. 

It brought forth glorious weather after the east wind, a warm languidday, half spring, half summer. Lucia and Kitty seemed bent on puttingall idea of business out of their guest's head. In the morning theydrove about the country. In the afternoon they all sat out in thesouth square under the windows of the morning-room, while Lucia talkedto him about his tragedies. Kitty still held her invitation inreserve. 

At last she left them to themselves. It was Lucia who first returnedto the subject of dispute. She had some sewing in her lap which gaveher the advantage of being able to talk in a calm, detached manner andwithout looking up. He sat near her, watching with delight the quietmovements of her hands. 

"I've been thinking over what you said yesterday, " said she. "I can'tdo what you want; but I can suggest a compromise. You seem determinedon restitution. Have you forgotten that you once offered it me inanother form?"

"You refused it in that form--then. "

"I wouldn't refuse it now. If you could be content with that. "

"Do you remember why you refused it?"

She did not answer, but a faint flush told him that she had notforgotten. 

"The same objection--the same reason for objecting--holds good now. "

"Not quite. I should not be wronging any one else. "

"You mean the Beaver, who dotes upon immortal verse?"

She smiled a little sadly. "Yes; there's no Beaver in the questionnow. "

"You shall have the sonnets in any case. I brought them for you inplace of the _Aurea Legenda_, and the Neapolitan Horace and--"

She lay back in her chair and closed her eyes, as if she could shutout sound with sight. "Please--please. If you go on talking about itwe shall both be very tired. Don't you feel as if you'd like sometea?" She was bringing out all her feminine reserves to conquer him. But he was not going to be conquered this time. He could afford towait; for he also had reserves. 

"I'm so sorry, " he said humbly. "I won't bore you any more till aftertea. "

And Lucia knew it was an armistice only and not peace. 

At tea-time Kitty perceived that the moment was not yet propitious forher invitation. She was not even sure that it would ever come. Norwould it; for Rickman knew that his only chance lay in their imminentparting, in the last hour that must be his. 

He was counting on it when the steady, resistless flow of a stream ofcallers cut short his calculations. It flowed between him and Lucia. They could only exchange amused or helpless glances across it now andthen. At last he found a moment and approached her. 

"I wanted to give you those things before I go. "

"Very well. We'll go into the house in one minute. "

He waited. She made a sign that said, "Come, " and he followed her. Sheavoided the morning-room that looked on the courtyard with its throngof callers; hesitated, and opened the door into the library. He ranupstairs to fetch the manuscript, and joined her there. But for theempty bookshelves this room, too, was as he had left it. 

Lucia was sitting in a window seat. He came to her and gave the poemsinto her open hands, and she thanked him. 

"Nonsense. It's good of you to take them. But that doesn't release youfrom your obligations. "

She laid the manuscript on the window-seat, protected by her hand. Hesat there facing her, and for a moment neither spoke. 

"I haven't very much time, " he said at last. "I've got to catch theseven-forty. "

"You haven't. We don't want you to go like this. Now you're here youmust stay a fortnight at the very least. "

He hung his head. He did not want her to see how immense was thetemptation. He murmured some half-audible, agitated thanks, but hisrefusal was made quite plain. He could not give up the advantage hehad counted on. "I'm afraid I must bore you again a little now. I'veonly got an hour. "

"Don't spoil it, then. See how beautiful it is. "

She rose and threw open the lattice, and they stood together for amoment looking out. It was about an hour before sunset, an Aprilsunset, the golden consummation of the wedding of heaven and earth. Hefelt a delicate vibration in the air, the last tender resonance of thenuptial song. This April was not the April of the streets where thegreat wooing of the world goes on with violence and clangour; for thecity is earth turned to stone and yields herself struggling andunwilling to the invasion of the sky. Here all the beautifuldeep-bosomed land lay still, breathless in her escape from the wind tothe sun. Up the western valley the earth gave all her greenness nakedto the light; but the hills were dim with the divine approaches of hermystical union, washed by the undivided streams of blue and purple airthat flowed to the thin spiritual verge, where earth is caught up andwithdrawn behind heaven's inmost veil. 

The hour was beautiful as she had said. Its beauty had clothed itselfwith immortality in light; yet there was in it such mortal tendernessas drew his heart after it and melted his will in longing. He turnedfrom the window and looked at her with all his trouble in his eyes. 

Lucia saw that her words had saddened him, and she sat still, devisingsome comfort for him in her heart. 

"I don't think, " he said at last, "you quite know what you are doing. I'm going to tell you something that I didn't mean to tell you. When Isaid I'd had nothing to do with all this, it wasn't altogether true. "

"So I supposed, " she murmured. 

"There was a--a certain amount of trouble and difficulty about it--"

"And what did that mean?"

"It only meant that I had to work rather hard to put it right. I likedit, so you needn't think anything of that. But if you persist in yourrefusal all my hard work goes for nothing. " He was so powerlessagainst her tender obstinacy that he had determined to appeal to hertenderness alone. "There were about three years of it, the best threeyears out of my life; and you are going to fling them away and makethem useless. All for a little wretched scruple. This is the onlyargument that will appeal to you; or I wouldn't have mentioned it. "

"The best years out of your life--why were they the best?"

"Because they were the first in which I was free. "

She thought of the time nine years ago when she had taken from himthree days, the only days when he was free, and how she had tried tomake restitution and had failed. "And whatever else I refuse, " shesaid, "I've taken _them_? I can't get out of that?"

"No. If you want to be very cruel you can say I'd no business to layyou under the obligation, but you can't get out of it. "

She looked away. Did she want to be very cruel? Did she want to getout of it? Might it not rather be happiness to be in it, immersed init? Lost in it, with all her scruples and all her pride?

His voice broke and trembled into passion. "And what is it that I'masking you to take? Something that isn't mine and _is_ yours;something that it would be dishonourable of me to keep. But if it_was_ mine, it would be a little thing compared with what I wanted togive you and you wouldn't have. "

Her hands in her distress had fallen to their old unconscious trick ofstroking and caressing the thing they held, the one thing that he hadgiven her, that she had not refused. His eyes followed her movements. She looked up and saw the jealous hunger in them. 

She saw too, through his loose thin suit, that the lines of his bodywere sharper than ever. His face was more than ever serious and cleancut; his eyes were more than ever sunk under the shadow of his brows, darkening their blue. He was refined almost to emaciation. And she sawother things. As he sat there, with one leg crooked over the other, his wrists stretched out, his hands clasped, nursing his knee, shenoticed that his cuffs, though clean, were frayed; that his coat wasworn in places; that his boots were patched and broken at the sole. Hechanged his attitude suddenly when he became aware of her gaze. Shedid not know why she had not noticed these details before, nor why shenoticed them now. Perhaps she would not have seen them but for thatattempt to hide them which revealed their significance. She said toherself, "He is poor; and yet he has done this. " And the love that hadbeen so long hidden, sheltered and protected by her pity, came forth, and knew itself as love. And she forgot his greatness and rememberedonly those pitiful human things in which he had need of her. So shesurrendered. 

"I will take everything--on one condition. That you will give me--whatyou said just now I wouldn't have. " The eyes that she lifted to hiswere full of tears. 

For one moment he did not understand. Very slowly he realized that thething he had dreamed and despaired of, that he dared not ask for, wasbeing divinely offered to him as a free gift. There was no moment, noteven in that night of his madness, in this room nine years ago, nor inthat other night in Howland Street, when he had desired it as hedesired it now. 

Her tears hung curved on the curved lashes of her eyes, and spiltthemselves, and fell one by one on to the pages of the manuscript. Heheard them fall. 

Before he let himself be carried away by the sweep of her impulse andhis own passion he saw that not honour but common decency forbade himto take advantage of a moment's inspired tenderness. He had alreadymade a slight appeal _ad misericordiam_; but that was for her sake nothis own. He realized most completely his impossible position. He hadno income, and he had damaged his health so seriously that it might belong enough before he could make one; and these facts he could notpossibly mention. She suspected him of poverty; but the smallest hintof his real state would have roused her infallible instinct ofdivination. He had felt, as her eyes rested on his emaciated body, that they could see the course of its sufferings, its starvation. Hemeant that she should never know what things had happened to him inHowland Street. His chivalry revolted against the brutality ofcapturing her tender heart by such a lacerating haul on itscompassion. 

All this swept through him between the falling of her ears. Last ofall came the thought of what he was giving up. Was it possible thatshe cared for him?

It could not be. The illusion lasted only for an instant. Yet while itlasted the insane longing seized him to take her at her word and riskthe consequences. For she would find out afterwards that she had neverloved him; and she would disguise her feeling and he would see throughher disguise. He would know. There could never be any disguise, anyillusion between her and him. But at least he could take her in hisarms and hold her now, while her tears fell; she would be his for thismoment that was now. 

He searched her face to see if indeed there had been any illusion. Through the tears that veiled her eyes he could not see whether itwere love or pity that still shone in them; but because of the tearshe thought it must be pity. 

She went on. "You said I had taken the best years of your life--Iwould like to give you all mine, instead, such as it is--if you'lltake it. "

She said it quietly, so quietly that he thought that she had spoken soonly because she did not love him. 

"How can I take it--now, in this way?"

(Her tears stopped falling suddenly. )

"I admit that I made a gross appeal to your pity. "

"My pity?"

"Yes, your pity. " His words were curt and hard because of the terriblerestraint he had to put upon himself. "I did it because it was thebest argument. Otherwise it would have been abominable of me to havesaid those things. "

"I wasn't thinking of anything you said, only of what you've done. "

"I haven't done much. But tell me the truth. Whether would you ratherI had done it for your sake or for mere honour's sake?"

"I would rather you had done it for honour's sake. " She said it outbravely, though she knew that it was the profounder confession of herfeeling. He, however, was unable to take it that way. 

"I thought so, " he said. "Well, that _is_ why I did it. "

"I see. I wanted to know the truth; and now I know it. "

"You don't know half of it--" His passion leapt to his tongue underthe torture, but he held it down. He paused, knowing that this momentin which he stood was one of those moments which have the spirit andthe power of eternity, and that it was his to save or to destroy it. So admirable indeed was his control that it had taken their ownsignificance from his words, and she read into them another meaning. Her face was white with terror because of the thing she had said; butshe still looked at him without flinching. She hardly realized that hewas going, that he was trying to say good-bye. 

"I will take the books--if you can keep them for me a little while. "

Some perfect instinct told her that this was the only way of atonementfor her error. He thanked her as if they had been speaking of atrifling thing. 

She rose, holding the manuscript loosely in her clasped hands, and hehalf thought that she was going to give it back to him. He took itfrom her and threw it on the window-seat, and held her hands togetherfor an instant in his own. He looked down at them, longing to stoopand kiss them, but forebore, because of his great love for her, andlet them go. He went out quickly. He had sufficient self-command tofind Kitty and thank her and take his leave. 

As the door closed on him Lucia heard herself calling him back, withwhat intention she hardly knew, unless it were to return his poems. "Keith, " she said softly--"Keith. " But even to her own senses it wasless a name than a sound that began in a sob and ended in a sigh. 

Kitty found her standing in the window-place where he had left her. "Has anything happened?" she asked. 

"I asked him to marry me, Kitty, and he wouldn't. That was all. "

"Are you sure you did, dear? From the look of him I should have saidit was the other way about. "

CHAPTER LXXV

"I don't know what to think of it, Kitty. What do you think?"

"I think you've been playing with fire, dear. With the divine fire. It's the most dangerous of all, and you've got your little fingersburnt. "

"Like Horace. He once said the burnt critic dreads the divine fire. I'm not a critic. "

"That you most certainly are not. "

"Still I used to understand him; and now I can't. I can't make it outat all. "

"There's only one thing, " said Kitty, musing till an inspiration came. "You haven't seen him for more than three years, and you can't tellwhat may have happened in between. He _may_ have got entangled withanother woman. "

Kitty would not have hazarded this conjecture if she had not believedit plausible. But she dwelt on it with a beneficent intention. Noother theory, she opined, would so effectually turn and rout theinvading idea of Keith Rickman. 

Kitty was for once mistaken in her judgement, not having all theevidence before her. The details which would have thrown light on thesituation were just those which Lucia preferred to keep to herself. All that the benevolent Kitty had achieved was to fill her friend'smind with a new torment. Lucia had dreaded Rickman's coming; she hadlost all sense of security in his presence. Still she had understoodhim. And now she felt that her very understanding was at fault; thatsomething troubled the fine light she had always viewed him in. Was itpossible that she had never really understood?

Close upon Kitty's words there came back to her the tilings thatEdith had said of him, that Horace had hinted; things that he hadconfessed to her himself. Was it possible that he was still that sortof man, the sort that she had vowed she would never marry? He was notbad; she could not think of him as bad; but was he good? Was he likeher cousin Horace? No; certainly there was not the smallestresemblance between him and Horace. With Horace she had alwaysfelt--in one way--absolutely secure. If she had ever been uncertain ithad not been with this obscure inexplicable dread. 

How was it that she had never felt it before? Never felt it in thefirst weeks of their acquaintance, when day after day and eveningafter evening she had sat working with him, here, alone? When he hadappeared to her in the first flush of his exuberant youth, transparentas glass, incapable of reservation or disguise? It was in those days(he had told her) that he had not been--good. And yet her own visionof him had never been purer, her divination subtler than then. Even inthat last week, after her terrible enlightenment at Cannes, when shewas ready to suspect every man, even Horace, she had never suspectedhim. And in the second period of their friendship, when his characterwas ripened and full-grown, when she had lived under the same roofwith him, she had never had a misgiving or a doubt. And now there wasno end to her doubt. She could not tell which was the instinct sheshould trust, or whether she were better able to judge him then ornow. What had become of her calm and lucid insight? Of the sympathy inwhich they had once stood each transparent to the other. 

For that was the worst of it; that he no longer understood her; andthat she had given him cause for misunderstanding (this thought wasbeginning to keep her awake at night). She had made it impossible forhim to respect her any more. He had his ideas of what a woman shouldand should not do, and he had been horrified at finding her so like, and oh, so unlike other women (here Lucia's mood rose from misery toanger). She had thought him finer, subtler than that; but he hadjudged her as he judged such women. And she had brought that judgementon herself. 

In an ecstasy of shame she recalled the various episodes of theiracquaintance, from the time when she had first engaged him to work forher (against his will), to the present intolerable moment. There rosebefore her in an awful vision that night when she had found himsleeping in the library; when she had stayed and risked the chances ofhis waking. Well, he could not think any the worse of her for that;because he had not waked. But she had risked it. The more she thoughtof it the more she saw what she had risked. He would always think ofher as a woman who did risky things. Edith had said she had putherself in his power. She remembered how she had come between him andthe woman whom he would have married but for her; how she had invitedhim to sit with her when the Beaver was away. He had liked it, but hemust have had his own opinion of her all the same. That was another ofthe risky things. And of course he had taken advantage of it. That wasthe very worst of all. He had loved her in his way; she had been oneof a series. Flossie had come before her. And before Flossie? All thatwas fine in him had turned against Flossie because of the feeling sheinspired. And it had turned against her. 

For now, when he had got over it, had forgotten that he had ever hadthat feeling, when all he wanted was to go his own way and let her gohers, she had tried to force herself upon him (Lucia was unaware ofher violent distortion of the facts). He had come with his simplehonourable desire for reparation; and she had committed _the_unpardonable blunder--she had mistaken his intentions. And for themonument and crown of her dishonour, she, Lucia Harden, had proposedto him and been rejected. 

Her misery endured (with some merciful intermissions) for three weeks. Then Horace Jewdwine wrote and invited himself down for the firstweek-end in May. 

"_Can_ he come, Kitty?" she asked wearily. 

"Of course he can, dear, if you want him, "

"I don't want him; but I don't mind his coming. "

Kitty said to herself, "He has an inkling; Edith has been sayingthings; and it has brought him to the point. " Otherwise she could notaccount for such an abrupt adventure on the part of the deliberateHorace. It was a Wednesday; and he proposed to come on Friday. Hecame on Friday. Kitty's observation was on the alert; but it coulddetect nothing that first evening beyond a marked improvement inHorace Jewdwine. With Lucia he was sympathetic, deferential, charming. He also laid himself out, a little elaborately, to be agreeable toKitty. 

In the morning he approached Lucia with a gift, brought for herbirthday ("I thought, " said Lucia, "he had forgotten that I ever had abirthday"). It was an early copy of Rickman's tragedy _The Triumph ofLife_, just published. His keen eyes watched her handling it. 

"He suspects, " thought Kitty, "and he's testing her. "

But Lucia's equanimity survived. "Am I to read it now?"

"As you like. "

She carried the book up to her own room and did not appear tilllunch-time. In her absence Horace seemed a little uneasy; but he wenton making himself agreeable to Kitty. "He must be pretty desperate, "thought she, "if he thinks it worth while. " Apparently he did think itworth while, though he allowed no sign of desperation to appear. Lucia, equally discreet, avoided ostentatious privacy. They sat outall afternoon under the beechtrees while she read, flaunting _TheTriumph of Life_ in his very eyes. He watched every movement of herface that changed as it were to the cadence of the verse. It wasalways so, he remembered, when she was strongly moved. At last shefinished and he smiled. 

"You like your birthday present?"

"Very much. But Horace, he has done what you said was impossible. "

"Anybody would have said it was impossible. Modern drama in blankverse, you know--"

"Yes. It ought to have been all wrong. But because he's both a greatpoet and a great dramatist, it's all right, you see. Look, " she said, pointing to a passage that she dared not read. "Those are humanvoices. Could anything be simpler and more natural? But it's blankverse because it couldn't be more perfectly expressed in prose. "

"Yes, yes. I wonder how he does it. "

"It would have been impossible to anybody else. "

"It remains impossible. If it's ever played, it will be played becauseof Rickman's stage-craft and inimitable technique, not because of hisblank verse. "

She put the book down; took up her work, and said no more. Horaceseemed to have found his answer and to be satisfied. "A fool, " thoughtKitty; "but he shall have his chance. " So she left them alone togetherthat evening. 

But Jewdwine was very far from being satisfied, either with Lucia orhimself. Lucia had refused to play to him yesterday because she had aheadache; she had refused to walk with him to-day because she wastired; and to-night she would not sit up to talk to him because shehad another headache. That evening he had all but succumbed to aterrible temptation. It was so long since he had been alone withLucia, and there was something in her face, her dress, her attitude, that appealed to the authority on Æsthetics. He found himselfwondering how it would be if he got up and kissed her. But just thenLucia leaned back in her chair, and there was that tired look in herface which he had come to dread. He thought better of it. If he hadkissed her his sense of propriety would have obliged him to propose toher and marry her. 

He almost wished he had yielded to that temptation, done thatdesperate deed. It would have at least settled the question once forall. 

For Jewdwine had found himself a third time at the turning of theways. He knew where he was; but not where he was going. It hadhappened with Jewdwine as it had with Isaac Rickman; as it happens toevery man bent on serving two masters. He had forbidden his right handall knowledge of his left. He lived in two separate worlds. In one, lit by the high, pure light of the idea, he stood comparatively alone, cheered in his intellectual solitude by the enthusiasm of hisdisciples. For in the minds of a few innocent young men HoraceJewdwine's reputation remained immortal; and these made a point ofvisiting the Master in his house at Hampstead. He allowed the souls ofthese innocent young men to appear before him in an undress; for themhe still kept his lamp well trimmed, handing on the sacredimperishable flame. Some suffered no painful disenchantment for theirpilgrimage; and when the world that knew Jewdwine imparted to them itswisdom they smiled the mystic smile of the initiated. But many hadbecome shaken in their faith. One of these, having achieved a littlecelebrity, without (as he discovered to his immense astonishment) anypublic assistance from the Master, had gone to Rickman and asked himdiffidently for the truth about Jewdwine. Rickman had assured him thatthe person in the study, the inspired and inspiring person with thesuperhuman insight, who knew your thoughts before you had time toround your sentence, the person who in that sacred incommunicableprivacy had praised your work, he was the real Jewdwine. "But, " he hadadded, "everybody can't afford to be himself. " And this had beenJewdwine's own confession and defence. 

But now he had gone down into Devonshire, as Rickman had once gonebefore him, to find himself. He had returned to Lucia as to his ownpurer soul. That night Jewdwine sat up face to face with himself andall his doubts; his problem being far more complicated than before. Three years ago it might have been very simply stated. Was he or washe not going to marry his cousin Lucia? But now, while personalinclination urged him to marry her, prudence argued that he would dobetter to marry a certain cousin of Mr. Fulcher's. His own cousin hadneither money nor position. Mr. Fulcher's cousin had both. Oncemarried to Miss Fulcher he could buy back Court House, if thePallisers would give it up. The Cabinet Minister's cousin was in lovewith him, whereas he was well aware that his own cousin was not. 

But then he had never greatly desired her to be so. 

Jewdwine had neither respect nor longing for Miss Fulcher's passionatelove. To his fragile temperament there was something infinitely morealluring in Lucia's virginal apathy. Her indifference (which heconfused with her innocence) fascinated him; her reluctance was as achallenge to his languid blood. He was equally fascinated by herindifference to the income and position that were his. He admired thatimmaculate purity the more because he was not himself in these waysparticularly pure. He loved money and position for their own sakesand hated himself for loving them. He would have liked to have beenstrong enough to despise these things as Lucia had always despisedthem. But he did not desire that she should go on despising them, anymore than he desired that her indifference should survive the marriageceremony. He pictured with satisfaction her gradual yielding to themodest luxury he had to offer her, just as he pictured the exquisitedelaying dawn of her wifely ardour. 

The truth was he had lived too long with Edith. The instincts of hisnature cried out (as far as anything so well-regulated could be saidto cry out) in the most refined of accents for a wife, for childrenand a home. He had his dreams of the holy faithful spouse, a spousewith great dog-like eyes and tender breast, fit pillow for the head ofa headachy, literary man. Lucia had dog-like eyes, and of hertenderness he had never had a doubt. He had never forgotten that hotJune day, the year before he left Oxford, when he lay in the hammockin the green garden and Lucia ministered to him. Before that there wasa blessed Long Vacation when he had over-read himself into a nervousbreakdown, and Lucia had soothed his headaches with the touch of hergentle hands. For the sake of that touch he would then have borne theworst headache man ever had. 

And now it seemed that it was Lucia that was always having headaches. He had, in fact, begun to entertain the very gravest anxiety about herhealth. Her face and figure had grown thin; they were becoming lessand less like the face and figure of the ideal spouse. Poor Lucia'sarms offered no reliable support for a tired man. 

To his annoyance Jewdwine found that he had to breakfast alone withhis hostess, because of Lucia's headache. 

"Lucia doesn't seem very strong, " he said to Kitty, sternly, as if ithad been Kitty's fault. "Don't you see it?"

"I have seen it for some considerable time. "

"She wants rousing. "

And Jewdwine, who was himself feeling the need of exercise, roused herby taking her for a walk up Harcombe Hill. Half-way up she turned awhite face to him, smiling sweetly, sat down on the hillside, andbent her head upon her knees. He sat beside her and waited for herrecovery with punctilious patience. His face wore an expression ofagonized concern. But she could see that the concern was not therealtogether on her account. 

"Don't be frightened, Horace, you won't have to carry me home. "

He helped her to her feet, not ungently, and was very considerate inaccommodating his pace to hers, and in reassuring her when sheapologized for having spoilt his morning. And then it was that shethought of Keith Rickman, of his gentleness and his innumerable actsof kindness and of care; and she said to herself, "_He_ would not beimpatient with me if I were ill. "

She rested in her room that afternoon and Kitty sat with her. Kittycould not stand, she said, more than a certain amount of HoraceJewdwine. 

"Lucia, " she asked suddenly, "if Horace Jewdwine had asked you tomarry him five years ago, would you have had him?"

"I don't know. I don't really know. He's a good man. "

"You mean his morals are irreproachable. It's quite easy to haveirreproachable morals if you have the temperament of an iceberg thathas never broken loose from its Pole. Now I call Keith Rickman asaint, because he could so easily have been the other thing. "

Lucia did not respond; and Kitty left her. 

Kitty's question had set her thinking. Would she have married Horaceif he had asked her five years ago? Why not? Between Horace and herthere was the bond of kindred and of caste. He was a scholar; he had, or he once had, a beautiful mind full of noble thoughts of the kindshe most admired. With Horace she would have felt safe from manythings. All his ideas and feelings, all his movements could be reliedon with an absolute assurance of their propriety. Horace would neverdo or say anything that could offend her feminine taste. In his love(she had been certain) there would never be anything painful, passionate, disturbing. She had dreamed of a love which should be agreat calm light rather than a flame. There was no sort of flame aboutHorace. _Was_ Horace a good man? Yes. That is to say he was a moralman. He would have come to her clean in body and in soul. She hadvowed she would never marry a certain kind of man. And yet that wasthe kind of man Keith Rickman had been. 

She had further demanded in her husband the finish of the ages. Whowas more finished than Horace? Who more consummately, irreproachablyrefined? And yet her heart had grown more tender over Keith Rickmanand his solecisms. And now it beat faster at the very thought of him, after Horace Jewdwine. 

For Horace's coming had brought her understanding of Keith Rickman andherself. She knew now what had troubled her once clear vision of him. It was when she had loved him least that she had divined him best. Hers was not the facile heart that believes because it desires. Itdesired because it believed; and now it doubted because its belief wasset so high. 

And, knowing that she loved him, she thought of that last day when hehad left her, and how he had taken her hands in his and looked atthem, and she remembered and wondered and had hope. 

Then it occurred to her that Horace would be leaving early the nextmorning, and that she really ought to go down to the drawing-room andtalk to him. 

Again by Kitty's mercy he had been given another chance. He wassoftened by a mood of valediction mingled with remorse. He was eveninclined to be a little sentimental. Lucia, because her vision wasindifferent therefore untroubled, could not but perceive the change inhim. His manner had in it something of benediction and something ofentreaty; his spirit brooded over, caressed and flattered hers. Hedeplored the necessity for his departure. "_Et ego in Arcadia_"--hequoted. 

"But you'll go away to-morrow and become more--more Metropolitan thanever. "

"Ah, Lucia, can't you leave my poor rag alone? Do you really think sobadly of it?"

"Well, I was prouder of my cousin when he had _The Museion_. "

"I didn't ask you what you thought of _me_. Perhaps I'm not very proudof myself. "

"I don't suppose it satisfies your ambition--I should be sorry if itdid. "

"My _ambition_? What do you think it was?"

"It was, wasn't it--To be a great critic?"

"It depends on what you call great. "

"Well, you came very near it once. "

"When?"

"When you were editor of _The Museion_. "

He smiled sadly. "The editor of _The Museion_, Lucia, was a verylittle man with a very big conceit of himself. I admit he made himselfpretty conspicuous. So does every leader of a forlorn hope. "

"Still he led it. What does the editor of _Metropolis_ lead?"

"Public opinion, dear. He has--although you mightn't thinkit--considerable power. "

Lucia was silent. 

"He can make--or kill--a reputation in twenty-four hours. "

"Does that satisfy your ambition?"

"Yes. It satisfies my ambition. But it doesn't satisfy me. "

"I was afraid it didn't. "

"You needn't be afraid, dear; for you know perfectly well what would. "

"Do I know? Do you know yourself, Horace?"

"Yes, Lucia, " he said gently; "after ten years. You may not be proudof your cousin--"

"I used to be proud of him always--or nearly always. "

"When were you proud of him?"

"When he was himself; when he was sincere. "

"I ought to be very proud of _my_ cousin; for she is pitilesslysincere. "

"Horace--"

"It is so, dear. Never mind, you needn't be proud of me, if you'llonly care--"

"I have always cared. "

"Or is it--nearly always?"

"Well--nearly always. "

"You're right. I _am_ insincere, I was insincere when I said youneedn't be proud of me. I want you, I mean you to be. "

"Do you mean to give up _Metropolis_, then?"

"Well, no. That's asking rather too much. "

"I know it is. "

"Do you hate it so much, Lucia? I wish you didn't. "

"I have hated it so much, Horace, that I once wished I had been a richwoman, that you might be"--she was going to say "an honourable man. "

"What's wrong with it? It's a better paper than the old one. There arebetter men on it, and its editor's a better man. "

"Is he?"

"Yes. He's a simpler, humbler person, and--I should have thought--morepossible to like. "

In her heart Lucia admitted that it was so. There was a charm aboutthis later Horace Jewdwine which was wanting in that high spirit thathad essayed to move the earth. He had come down from his chillyaltitudes to mix with men; he had shed the superstition ofomnipotence, he was aware of his own weakness and humanized by it. Theman was soiled but softened by his traffic with the world. There wasmoreover an indescribable pathos in the contrast presented by theremains of the old self, its loftiness, its lucidity, and thevulgarity with which he had wrapped it round. Jewdwine's intellectualsplendour had never been so impressive as now when it showed thustarnished and obscured. 

"At any rate, " he went on, "he is infinitely less absurd. He knows hislimitations. Also his mistakes. He tried to turn the republic ofletters into a limited monarchy. Now he has surrendered to theomnipotence of facts. "

"You mean he has lowered his standard?"

"My dear girl, what am I to do with my standard? Look at the rabblethat are writing. I can't compare Tompkins with Shakespeare or Brownwith Sophocles. I'm lucky if I can make out that Tompkins hassurpassed Brown this year as Brown surpassed Tompkins last year; inother words, that Tompkins has surpassed himself. "

"And so you go on, looking lower and lower. "

"N-n-no, Lucia. I don't look lower; I look closer, I see that there issomething to be said for Tompkins after all. I find subtler andsubtler shades of distinction between him and Brown. I become morejust, more discriminating, more humane. "

"I know how fine your work is, and that's just the pity of it. Youmight have been a great critic if you hadn't wasted yourself on littlethings and little men. "

"If a really big man came along, do you think I should look at them?But he doesn't come. I've waited for him ten years, Lucia, and hehasn't come. "

"Oh, Horace--"

"He hasn't. Show me a big man, and I'll fall down and worship him. Only show him me. "

"That's your business, isn't it, not mine? Still, I can show you one, not very far off, in fact very near. "

"Too near for us to judge him perhaps. Who is he?"

"If I'm not mistaken, he's a sort of friend of yours. "

"Keith Rickman? Oh--"

"Do you remember the day we first talked about him?"

He did indeed. He remembered how unwilling he had been to talk abouthim; and he was still more unwilling now. He wanted, and Lucia knewthat he wanted, to talk about himself. 

"It's ten years ago, " she said. "Have you been waiting all this timeto see him?"

He coloured. "I saw him before you did, Lucia. I saw him a very longway off. I was the first to see. "

"Were you? Then--oh Horace, if you saw all those years ago why haven'tyou said so?"

"I have said so, many times. "

"Whom have you said it to?"

"To you for one. To every one, I think, who knows him. They'll bear meout. "

"The people who know him? What was the good of that? You should havesaid it to the people who don't know him--to the world. "

"You mean I should have posed as a prophet?"

"I mean that what you said you might have written. "

"Ah, _litera scripta manet_. It isn't safe to prophesy. Remember, Isaw him a very long way off. Nobody had a notion there was anybodythere. "

"You could have given them a notion. "

"I couldn't. The world, Lucia, is not like you or me. It has noimagination. It wouldn't have seen, and it wouldn't have believed. Ishould have been a voice crying in the wilderness; a voice and nothingbehind it. And as I said prophecy is a dangerous game. In the firstplace, there is always a chance that your prediction may be wrong; andthe world, my dear cousin, has a nasty way of stoning its prophetseven when they're right. "

"Oh, I thought it provided them with bread and butter, plenty ofbutter. "

"It does, on the condition that they shall prophesy buttery things. When it comes to hard things, if they ask for bread the worldretaliates and offers them a stone. And that stone, I need not tellyou, has no butter on it. "

"I see. You were afraid. You haven't the courage of your opinion. "

"And I haven't much opinion of my courage. I own to being afraid. "

"Afraid to do your duty as a critic and as a friend?"

"My first duty is to the public--_my_ public; not to my friends. Savage Keith Rickman may be a very great poet--I think he is--but ifmy public doesn't want to hear about Savage Keith Rickman, I can'tinsist on their hearing, can I?"

"No, Horace, after all you've told me, I don't believe you can. "

"Mind you, it takes courage, of a sort, to own it. "

"I'm to admire your frankness, am I? You say you're afraid. But yousaid just now you had such power. "

"If I had taken your advice and devoted myself to the rôle of Vates Ishould have lost my power. Nobody would have listened to me. I beganthat way, by preaching over people's heads. The _Museion_ was a pulpitin the air. I stood in that pulpit for five years, spouting literarytranscendentalism. Nobody listened. When I condescended to come downand talk about what people could understand then everybody listened. It wouldn't have done Rickman any good if I'd pestered people withhim. But when the time comes I shall speak out. "

"I daresay, when the time comes--it will come too--when he has madehis name with no thanks to you, then you'll be the first to say 'Itold you so. ' It would have been a greater thing to have helped himwhen he needed it. "

"I did help him. He wouldn't be writing now if it wasn't for me. "

"Do you see much of him?"

"Not much. It isn't my fault, " he added in answer to her reproachfuleyes. "He's shut himself up with Maddox in a stuffy little house atEaling. "

"Does that mean that he's very badly off?"

"Well, no; I shouldn't say so. He's got an editorship. But he isn'tthe sort that's made for getting on. In many things he is a fool. "

"I admire his folly more than some people's wisdom. "

From the look in Lucia's eyes Jewdwine was aware that his cousin nolonger adored him. Did she adore Rickman?

"You're a little hard on me, I think. After all, I was the first tohelp him. "

"_And_ the last. Are you quite sure you helped him? How do you knowyou didn't hinder him? You kept him for years turning out inferiorwork for you, when he might have been giving us his best. "

"He might--if he'd been alive to do it. "

"I'm only thinking of what you might have done. The sort of thingyou've done for other people--Mr. Fulcher, for instance. "

Jewdwine blushed as he had never blushed before. He was not given tothat form of self-betrayal. 

"You said just now you could either kill a book in twenty-four hours, or make it--did you say?--immortal. "

"I might have said I could keep it alive another twenty-four hours. "

"You know the reputations you have made for people. "

"I do know them. I've made enough of them to know. The reputationsI've made will not last. The only kind that does last is the kind thatmakes itself. Do you seriously suppose a man like Rickman needs myhelp? I am a journalist, and the world that journalists are compelledto live in is very poor and small. He's in another place altogether. Icouldn't dream of treating him as I treat, say, Rankin or Fulcher. Thebest service I could do him was to leave him alone--to keep off andgive him room. "

"Room to stand in?"

"No. Room to grow in, room to fight in--"

"Room to measure his length in when he falls?"

"If you like. Rickman's length will cover a considerable area. "

Lucia looked at her cousin with genuine admiration. How clever, howamazingly clever he was! She knew and he knew that he had failed ingenerosity to Rickman; that he had been a more than cautious criticand a callous friend. She had been prepared to be nice to him if theyhad kept Rickman out of their conversation; but as the subject hadarisen she had meant to give Horace a terribly bad quarter of an hour;she had meant to turn him inside out and make him feel very mean andpitiful and small. And somehow it hadn't come off. Instead ofdiminishing as he should have done, Horace had worked himselfgradually up to her height, had caught flame from her flame, and nowhe was consuming her with her own fire. It was she who had taken, theview most degrading to the man she admired; she who would have draggedher poet down to earth and put him on a level with Rankin and Fulcherand such people. Horace would have her believe that his own outlookwas the clearer and more heavenly; that he understood Rickman better;that he saw that side of him that faced eternity. 

His humility, too, was pathetic and disarmed her indignation. At thesame time he made it appear that this was a lifting of the veil, aglimpse of the true Jewdwine, the soul of him in its naked simplicityand sincerity. And she was left uncertain whether it were not so. 

"Even so, " she said gently; "think of all you will have missed. "

"Missed, Lucia?"

"Yes, missed. I think, to have believed in any one's greatness--thegreatness of a great poet--to have been allowed to hold in your handsthe pure, priceless thing, before the world had touched it--to haveseen what nobody else saw--to feel that through your first glorioussight of him he belonged to you as he never could belong to the world, that he was your own--that would be something to have lived for. Itwould be greatness of a kind. "

He bowed his head as it were in an attitude as humble and reverent asher own. "And yet, " he said, "the world does sometimes see its poetand believe in him. "

"It does--when he works miracles. "

"Someday he will work his miracle. "

"And when the world runs after him you will follow. "

"I shall not be very far behind. "

CHAPTER LXXVI

He wondered how it was that Lucia had seen what he could not see. Asfar as he understood his own attitude to Rickman, he had begun bybeing uncertain whether he saw or not; but he had quite honestlydesired to see. Yet he had not seen; not because he was incapable ofseeing but because there had come a time when he had no longer desiredto see; and from not desiring to see he had gone on till he had endedby not seeing. Then because he had not seen he had persuaded himselfthat there was nothing to see. And now, in that last sudden flaming ofLucia's ardour, he saw what he had missed. 

They parted amicably, with a promise on Lucia's part that she wouldstay with Edith in the summer. 

By the time he returned to town he was very sure of what he saw. Ithad become a platitude to say that Keith Rickman was a great poetafter the publication of _The Triumph of Life_. The interesting, theburning question was whether he were not, if anything, a greaterdramatist. By the time Lucia came to Hampstead that point also hadbeen settled, when the play had been actually running for three weeks. Its success was only sufficient to establish his position and no more. He himself required no more; but his friends still waited anxiouslyfor what they regarded as the crucial test, the introduction of thenew dramatist to a picked audience in Paris in the autumn. 

Lucia had come up with Kitty Palliser to see the great play. Shelooked wretchedly ill. Withdrawn as far as possible into the darknessof the box, she sat through the tremendous Third Act apparentlywithout a sign of interest or emotion. Kitty watched her anxiouslyfrom time to time. She wondered whether she were over-tired, oroverwrought, or whether she had expected something different and weredisappointed with Keith's tragedy. Kitty herself wept openly andunashamed. But to Lucia, who knew that tragedy by heart, it was as ifshe were a mere spectator of a life she herself had once livedpassionately and profoundly. With every word and gesture of the actorsshe felt that there passed from her possession something of KeithRickman's genius, something sacred, intangible, and infinitely dear;that the triumphant movement of the drama swept between him and her, remorselessly dividing them. She was realizing for the first time thathenceforth he would belong to the world and not to her. And yet thereiterated applause sounded to her absurd and meaningless. Why werethese people insisting on what she had known so well, had seen so longbeforehand?

She was glad that Horace was not with her. But when he came out of hisstudy to greet them on their return she turned aside into the room andcalled him to her. It was then that she triumphed. 

"Well, Horace, he has worked his miracle. "

"I always said he would. "

"You doubted--once. "

"Once, perhaps, Lucia. But now, like you, I believe. "

"Like me? I never doubted. I believed without a miracle. "

She leaned against the chimney-piece, and he saw that she wastrembling. She turned to him a face white with trouble and anxiety. 

"Where is he, Horace?"

"He's still with Maddox. You needn't worry, Lucy; if he scores asuccess like this in Paris that will mean magnificence. " There wassomething unspeakably offensive to her in her cousin's tone. He didnot perceive the disgust in her averted profile. He puzzled her. Onemoment he seemed to be worshipping humbly with her at the innershrine, the next he forced her to suspect the sincerity of hisconversion. She could see that now his spirit bowed basely before thepossibility of the great poet's material success. 

"You'll meet him if you stay till next week, Lucy. He'll be dininghere on the tenth. "

Again the tone, the manner hurt her. Horace could not conceal hispride in the intimacy he had once repudiated. He so obviously exultedin the thought that some of Rickman's celebrity, his immortality, perhaps, must through that intimacy light upon him. For her own partshe felt that she could not face Keith Rickman and his celebrity. Hisimmortality she had always faced; but his celebrity--no. It rose upbefore her, crushing the tender hope that still grew among hermemories. She said to herself that she was as bad as Horace inattaching importance to it; she was so sure that Keith would attachnone to it himself. Yet nothing should induce her to stay for thatdinner on the tenth; if it were only that she shrank from thespectacle of Horace's abasement. 

Something of this feeling was apparent in the manner of her refusal;and Jewdwine caught the note of disaffection. He was not sure whetherhe still loved his cousin, but he could not bear that his self-loveshould thus perish through her bad opinion. It was in something of hisold imperial mood that he approached her the next morning with theproofs of his great article on "Keith Rickman and the Modern Drama. "There the author of the _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_, the apostle of theAbsolute, the opponent of Individualism, had made his recantation. Hetouched with melancholy irony on the rise and fall of schools; anddeclared, as Rickman had declared before him, that "in modern art whatwe have to reckon with is the Man Himself. " That utterance, heflattered himself, was not unbecoming in the critic who could callhimself Keith Rickman's friend. For Rickman had been his discovery inthe beginning; only he had lost sight of him in between. 

He was immensely solemn over it. "I think that is what I should havesaid. "

"Yes, Horace; it is what you should have said long ago when he neededit; but not now. "

He turned from her and shut himself up in his study with his article, his eulogy of Rickman. He had had pleasure in writing it, but thereading was intolerable pain. He knew that Lucia saw both it and himwith the cold eye of the Absolute. There was no softening, nocondonement in her gaze; and none in his bitter judgement of himself. Up till now there had been moments in which he persuaded himself thathe was justified in his changes of attitude. If his conscience joinedwith his enemies in calling him a time-server, what did it mean butthat in every situation he had served his time? He had grown opulentin experience, espousing all the fascinating forms of truth. And didnot the illuminated, the supremely philosophic mood consist in justthis openness, this receptivity, this infinite adaptability, in short?Why should he, any more than Rickman, be bound by the laws laid downin the _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_? The _Prolegomena to Æsthetics_ wasnot a work that one could set aside with any levity; still, inconstructing it he had been building a lighthouse for the spirit, nota prison. 

But now he became the prey of a sharper, more agonizing insight, aninsight that oscillated between insufferable forms of doubt. Was itpossible that he, the author of the _Prolegomena_, had ceased to careabout the Truth? Or was it that the philosophy of the Absolute hadnever taken any enormous hold on him? He had desired to be consistentas he was incorruptible. Did his consistency amount to this, that he, the incorruptible, had been from first to last the slave of whateveropinion was dominant in his world? Loyal only to whatever theory bestserved his own ungovernable egoism? In Oxford he had cut a veryimposing figure by his philosophic attitude. In London he had foundthat the same attitude rendered him unusual, not to say ridiculous. Had the Absolute abandoned him, or had he abandoned the Absolute, whenit no longer ministered to his personal prestige? Jewdwine was awarethat, however it was, his case exemplified the inevitable collapse ofa soul nourished mainly upon formulas. Yet behind that moral wreckagethere remained the far-off source of spiritual illumination, the innersoul that judged him, as it judged all things, holding the pellucidimmaterial view. Its vision had never been bound, even by the_Prolegomena_. If he had trusted it he might have been numbered amongthose incorruptible spirits that preserve the immortal purity ofletters. As it was, that supreme intelligence was only a light bywhich he saw clearly his own damnation. 

CHAPTER LXXVII

Meanwhile the Junior Journalists found amusement in discussing whetherthe great dramatist were Maddox's discovery or Jewdwine's. With thereaders of _Metropolis_ he passed as Jewdwine's--which was all thatJewdwine wanted. With the earnest aspiring public, striving to admireKeith Rickman because they had been told they ought to, he passed astheir own. The few who had known him from the first knew also thatpoets like Rickman are never discovered until they discoverthemselves. Maddox, whom much worship had made humble, gave up theabsurd pretension. Enough that he lived, and was known to live, withRickman as his friend. 

They shared that little house at Ealing, which Rickman, in the ardourof his self-immolation, had once destined for the young Delilah, hisbride. It had now become a temple in which Maddox served with all thereligious passion of his half-Celtic soul. 

The poet had trusted the honour and the judgement of his friend so faras to appoint him his literary executor. Thus Maddox became possessedof the secret of the Sonnets. And here a heavy strain was put upon hisjudgement and his honour. Maddox had guessed that there was a power inRickman's life more terrible than Jewdwine, who after all had neverreally touched him. There was, Maddox had always known, a womansomewhere. A thousand terrors beset the devotee when he noticed thatsince fame had lighted upon Rickman the divinity had again begun tofurnish his part (the holy part) of the temple in a mannerunmistakably suggestive of mortality. Maddox shuddered as he thoughtof the probable destination of that upper chamber which was theholiest of all. And now this terror had become a certainty. The womanexisted; he knew her name; she was a cousin of the detestableJewdwine; the Sonnets could never be given to the world as long as shewithheld her consent, and apparently she did withhold it. More thanthis had not been revealed to Maddox, and it was in vain that he triedto penetrate the mystery. 

His efforts were not the most delicate imaginable. One evening, sitting with Rickman in that upper chamber, he entered on the subjectthus--

"Seen anything of the Spinkses lately?"

"I called there last Saturday. "

"How is the divine Flossie?"

"Flourishing. At least there's another baby. By the way Maddy you weregrossly wrong about her there. The Beaver is absolutely devoid of thematernal instinct. She's decent to the baby, but she's positivelybrutal to Muriel Maud. How Spinky--He protests and there are horridscenes; but through them all I believe the poor chap's in love withher. "

"Curious illusion. "

Curious indeed. It had seemed incredible to Rickman when he had seenthe Beaver pushing her first-born from her knee. 

"Good Heavens, Rickman, what a deliverance for you. "

"I wonder if he's happy. "

"Can't say; but possibly he holds his own. You see, Spinky's positionis essentially sound. My theory is--"

But Rickman had no desire for a theory of marriage as propounded byMaddox. He had always considered that in these matters Maddox was abrute. 

Maddox drew his own conclusions from the disgusted protest. Heremembered how once, when he had warned Rickman of the love of littlewomen, Rickman had said it was the great women who were dangerous. Thelady to whom he had entrusted the immortality of his Sonnets would beone of these. As the guardian of that immortality Maddox conceived itwas his duty to call on the lady and prevail on her to give them up. Under all his loyalty he had the audacity of the journalist who sticksat nothing for his own glorious end. 

There was after all a certain simplicity about Maddox. He consideredhimself admirably equipped by nature for this delicate mission. Hewas, besides, familiar with what he called the "society woman, " and hebelieved that he knew how to deal with her. Maddox always had the airof being able to push his way anywhere by the aid of his mightyshoulders. He sent in his card without a misgiving. 

Lucia knew that Maddox was a friend of Keith Rickman's, and shereceived him with a courtesy that would have disarmed a man lesssingularly determined. It was only when he had stated hisextraordinary purpose that her manner became such that (so hedescribed it afterwards) it would have "set a worm's back up. " AndMaddox was no worm. 

It was a little while before Lucia realized that this ratheroverpowering visitor was requesting her to "give up" certain sonnetsof Keith Rickman's, written in ninety-three. "I don't quiteunderstand. Are you asking me to give you the manuscript or to give myconsent to its publication?"

"Well--both. I _have_ to ask you because he never would do ithimself. "

"Why should he not?"

"Oh, well, you know his ridiculous notions of honour. "

"I do indeed. I daresay some people would consider them ridiculous. "

It was this speech, Maddox confessed, that first set his back up. Hewas irritated more by the calm assumption of proprietorship in Rickmanthan by the implied criticism of himself. 

"Do you mind telling me, " she continued, still imperturbably, "how youcame to know anything about it?"

Maddox stiffened. "I am Mr. Rickman's oldest and most intimate friend, and he has done me the honour to make me his literary executor. "

"Did he also give you leave to settle his affairs beforehand?"

Maddox shrugged his shoulders by way of a reply. 

"If he did not, " said Lucia, "there's nothing more to be said. "

"Pardon me, there is a great deal more to be said. I don't knowwhether you have any personal reason for objecting--"

She coloured and was silent. 

"If it's pride, I should have thought most women would have beenprouder--" (A look from Lucia warned him that he would do well torefrain from thinking. ) "Oh, well, for all I know you might have fiftygood reasons. The question is, are you justified in sacrificing a workof genius to any mere personal feeling?"

He had her there, and she knew it. She was silently considering thequestion. Three years ago she would have had no personal feeling inthe matter beyond pride in the simple dedication. Now that personalfeeling had come in and had concentrated itself upon that work ofgenius, and made it a thing so sacred and so dear to her, she shrankwith horror from the vision of publicity. Besides, it was all of KeithRickman that was left to her. His other works were everybody'sproperty; therefore she clung the more desperately to that one which, as he had said, belonged to nobody but her. And Mr. Maddox had noright to question her. Instead of answering him she moved her chair alittle farther from him and from the light. 

Now Maddox had the coldness as well as the passion of the Celt. He wasnot touched by Lucia's beauty, nor yet by the signs of illness orfatigue manifest in her face and all her movements. Her mannerirritated him; it seemed the feminine counterpart of her cousin'sinsufferable apathy. He felt helpless before her immobility. But hemeant to carry his point--by brute force if necessary. 

But not yet. "I'm not asking you to give up a mere copy of verses. TheSonnets are unique--even for Rickman; and for one solitary lady toinsist on suppressing them--well, you know, it's a large order. "

This time she indeed showed some signs of animation. "How do you knowthey are unique? Did he show you them?"

"No, he did not. I found them among his papers when he was inhospital. "

"In hospital?" She sat up and looked at him steadily and withoutemotion. 

"Yes; I had to overhaul his things--we thought he was dying--and theSonnets--"

"Never mind the Sonnets now, please. Tell me about his illness. Whatwas it?"

Again that air of imperious proprietorship! "Enteric, " he saidbluntly, "and some other things. "

"Where was he before they took him to the hospital?"

"He was--if you want to know--in a garret in a back street offTottenham Court Road. "

"What was he doing there?"

"To the best of my belief, he was starving. Do you find the room tooclose?"

"No, no. Go on. "

Maddox went on. He was enjoying the sensation he was creating. He wenton happily, piling up the agony. Since she would have it he was notreticent of detail. He related the story of the Rankins' dinner. Hedescribed with diabolically graphic touches the garret in HowlandStreet. "We thought he'd been drinking, you know, and all the time hewas starving. "

"He was starving--" she repeated slowly to herself. 

"He was not doing it because he was a poet. It seems he had to paysome debt, or thought he had. The poor chap talked about it when hewas delirious. Oh--let _me_ open that window. "

"Thank you. You say he was delirious. Were you with him then?"

Maddox leapt to his conclusion. Miss Lucia Harden had something toconceal. He gathered it from her sudden change of attitude, from herinterrogation, from her faintness and from the throbbing terror in hervoice. _That_ was why she desired the suppression of the Sonnets. 

"Were you with him?" she repeated. 

"No. God forgive me!"

"Nobody was with him--before they took him to the hospital?"

"Nobody, my dear lady, whom you would call anybody. He owes his lifeto the charity of a drunken prostitute. "

She was woman, the eternal, predestined enemy of Rickman's genius. Therefore he had determined not to spare her, but to smite her withwords like sledge-hammers. 

And to judge by the look of her he had succeeded. She had turned awayfrom him to the open window. She made no sign of suffering but for thetroubled rising and falling of her breast. He saw in her a womanmortally smitten, but smitten, he imagined, in her vanity. 

"Have I persuaded you, " he said quietly, "to give up those Sonnets?"

"You shall have a copy. If Mr. Rickman wants the original he must comefor it himself. "

"Thanks. " Maddox had ceased to be truculent, having gained his end. His blue eyes twinkled with their old infantile devilry. "Thanks. It'sawfully nice of you. But--couldn't you make it seem a little morespontaneous? You see, I don't want Rickman to know I had to ask youfor them. " He had a dim perception of inconsistency in his judgementof the lady; since all along he had been trusting her generosity toshelter his indiscretion. 

Lucia smiled even in her anguish. "That I can well imagine. The copyshall be sent to him. "

And Maddox considered himself dismissed. He wondered why she calledhim back to ask for the number of that house in Howland Street. 

That afternoon she dragged herself there, that she might torture hereyes because they had not seen, and her heart because it had not felt. 

CHAPTER LXXVIII

At Jewdwine's heart there was trouble and in his mind perfect peace. For he knew his own mind at last, though he was still a littleindefinite as to the exact condition of his heart. 

Three days after Maddox's extraordinary disclosures Lucia had becomemost obviously and inconsiderately ill; and had given her cousin Editha great deal of trouble as well as a severe fright, till Kitty, alsofrightened, had carried her off to Devonshire out of the house of theJewdwines. To Horace the working of events was on the wholebeneficent. Lucia's change of attitude, her illness, her abruptdeparture, though too unpleasant for his fastidious mind to dwellupon, had committed that mind irretrievably to the path of prudence. 

So prudent was he, that of his saner matrimonial project the world ingeneral took no note. Secure of the affections of Miss Fulcher, he hadpropitiated rumour by the fiction of his engagement to Lucia. Rumour, adding a touch of certainty to the story, had handed it on to Rickmanby way of Maddox and Miss Roots. He there upon left off beautifyinghis house at Ealing, and agreed with Maddox that after Paris inNovember they should go on to Italy together, and that he would winterthere for his health. 

But by November there came more rumours, rumours of the breaking offof the engagement; rumours of some mysterious illness of Lucia's asthe cause. They reached Rickman in the week before the date fixed forthe production of _The Triumph of Life_ in Paris. He was paying afarewell call on Miss Roots, who became inscrutable at the mention ofLucia's name. He accused her with violence of keeping the truth fromhim, and implored her with pathos to tell it him at once. But MissRoots had no truth, no certain truth to tell; there were only rumours. Miss Roots knew nothing but that Lucia had been lying on her back formonths; she conjectured that possibly there might be something thematter with her spine. Her mother had been delicate, and SirFrederick, well, the less said about Sir Frederick the better. Rickmanretreated, followed by Miss Roots. As for an engagement, she was notaware that there ever had been one; there was once, she admittedhalf-way downstairs, an understanding, probably misunderstood. He hadbetter ask Horace Jewdwine straight out. "But, " she assured him fromthe doorstep, "it would take an earthquake to get the truth out of_him_. "

He flung himself into a hansom, and was one with the driver inimprecation at the never-ending, ever-increasing gradient of the hill. The delay, however, enabled him to find Jewdwine at home and alone. Hewas aware that the interview presented difficulties, but none deterredhim. 

Jewdwine, questioned as to his engagement, betrayed no surprise; forwith Rickman the unusual was to be expected. He might not havecondescended to answer Rickman, his obscure disciple, but he felt thatsome concession must be made to the illustrious dramatist. 

There had been, he admitted, an understanding between him and MissHarden. It hardly amounted to an engagement; and it had been cancelledon the score of health. 

"Of _her_ health?"

The compression of Jewdwine's lips intimated that the great poet hadsinned (not for the first time) against convention. 

"She _is_ ill, then?"

"I said on the score of health. We're first cousins, and it is notalways considered advisable--"

"I see. Then that's all over. "

"At any rate I'm not going to take any risks. "

Rickman pondered that saying for a while. "Do you mean you're notgoing to let her take any risks?"

Jewdwine said nothing, but endeavoured to express by his manner acertain distaste for the conversation. 

("Or does he mean, " thought Rickman, "that he won't risk having adelicate wife on his hands?")

"It's not as if I didn't know, " he persisted, "I know she--she lieson her back and can't move. Is it her spine?"

"No. "

"Or her heart?"

"Not to my knowledge. "

"Is it something worse?"

Jewdwine was silent. 

And in the silence Rickman's mind wandered free among all imaginablehorrors and forebodings. At last, out of the silence, there appearedto him one more terrible than the rest. He saw what Jewdwine must havemeant. He gathered it, not from anything he had said, but from what herefused to say, from the sternness of his face, from his hesitations, his reserves. Jewdwine had created the horror for him as vividly as ifhe had shaped it into words. 

"You needn't tell me what it is. Do you mind telling me whether it'scurable or not?"

"My _dear_ Rickman, if I knew why you are asking all thesequestions--"

"They must seem extraordinary. And my reason for asking them is moreextraordinary still. "

They measured each other with their eyes. "Then, I think, " saidJewdwine quietly, "I must ask you for your reason. "

"The reason is that if you're not going to marry her I am. "

"That, " said Jewdwine, "is by no means certain. There is not a singlemember of her family living except my sister and myself. Therefore Iconsider myself responsible. If I were her father or her brother Iwould not give my consent to her marrying, and I don't give it now. "

"Oh. And why not?"

"For many reasons. Those that applied in my own case are sufficient. "

"You only said there was a risk, and that you weren't going to takeit. Now I mean to take it. You see, those fools of doctors may bemistaken. But whether they're mistaken or not, I shall marry her justthe same. "

"The risk, you see, involves her happiness; and judging by what I knowof your temperament--"

"What do you know about my temperament?"

"You know perfectly well what I know about it. "

"I know. You don't approve of my morals. I don't altogether blame you, considering that since I knew Miss Harden I very nearly marriedsomeone else. My code is so different from yours that I should haveconsidered marrying that woman a lapse from virtue. So the intentionmay count against me, if you like. "

"Look here, Rickman, that is not altogether what I mean. Neither of usis fit to marry Miss Harden--and _I_ have given her up. " He said itwith the sublime assurance of Jewdwine, the moral man. 

"Does it--does her illness--make all that difference? It makes none tome. "

"Oh, well--all right--if you think you can make her happy. "

"My dear Jewdwine, I don't think, I know. " He smiled that smile thatJewdwine had seen once or twice before. "It may be arrogant to supposethat I'll succeed where better men might fail; still--" He rose anddrew himself up to all his slender height--"in some impossible thingsI have succeeded. "

"They are not the same things. "

"No; but in both, you see, it all depends upon the man. " With that heleft him. 

As Rickman's back turned on him, Jewdwine perceived his own finalerror. As once before in judging the genius he had reckoned withoutthe man, so now, in judging the man he had reckoned without hisgenius. 

This horrid truth came home to him in his solitude. In theinterminable watches of the night Jewdwine acknowledged himself afailure; and a failure for which there was no possible excuse. He hadhad every conceivable advantage that a man could have. He had beenborn free; free from all social disabilities; free from pecuniaryembarrassment; free from the passions that beset ordinary men. And hehad sold himself into slavery. He had opinions; he was packed full ofopinions, valuable opinions; but he had never had the courage of them. He had always been a slave to other people's opinions. Rickman hadbeen born in slavery, and he had freed himself. When Rickman stoodbefore him, superb in his self-mastery, he had felt himself conqueredby this man, whom, as a man, he had despised. Rickman's errors hadbeen the errors of one who risks everything, who never deliberates orcounts the cost. And in their repeated rivalries he had won because hehad risked everything, when he, Jewdwine, had lost because he wouldrisk nothing. 

He had lost ever since the beginning. He had meant to discover thisgreat genius; to befriend him; to protect him with his praise;eventually to climb on his shoulders into fame. And he had notdiscovered him; and as for climbing on his shoulders, he had beenshaken off with one shrug of them. There had been risk in passingjudgement on young Rickman, and he had not taken the risk. Thereforehe had failed as a critic. He had waited to found an incorruptiblereview. It had been a risky proceeding, and he had not taken the risk. His paper was a venal paper, sold like himself to the public hedespised. Of all that had ever appeared in it, nothing would live, nothing but a few immortal trifles, signed S. K. R. He had failed prettyextensively as an editor. Last of all he had wanted to marry hiscousin Lucia; but there was risk in marrying her, and he would nottake the risk, and Rickman would marry her. He had failed mostmiserably as a man. 

With that Jewdwine turned on his pillow, and consoled himself bythinking of Miss Fulcher and her love. 

CHAPTER LXXIX

Lucia had been lying still all the afternoon on her couch in thedrawing-room; so still that Kitty thought she had been sleeping. ButKitty was mistaken. 

"Kitty, it's past five, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear; a quarter past. "

"It'll be all over by this time to-morrow. Do you think he'll be veryterrible?"

"No, dear. I think he'll be very kind and very gentle. "

"Not if he thinks I'm shamming. "

"He won't think that. " ("I wish he could, " said Kitty to herself. )

They were waiting for the visit of Sir Wilfrid Spence. The Harmouthdoctor had desired a higher light on the mysterious illness that keptLucia lying for ever on her back. It might have been explained, hesaid, if she had suffered lately some deep mental or moral shock; butLucia had not confessed to either, and in the absence of any mentalcause it would be as well, said the Harmouth doctor, to look for aphysical one. The fear at the back of the Harmouth doctor's mind wassufficiently revealed by his choice of the specialist, Sir WilfridSpence. 

"_Do_ you think I'm shamming, Kitty? Sometimes I think I am, andsometimes I'm not quite sure. You know, if you think about your spinelong enough you can imagine that it's very queer. But I haven't beenthinking about my spine. It doesn't interest me. Dr. Robson would havetold me if he thought I was shamming, because I asked him to. There'sone thing makes me think it isn't fancy. I keep on wanting to dothings. I want--you don't know how I want to go to the top of HarcombeHill. And my ridiculous legs won't let me. And all the while, Kitty, Iwant to play. It's such a long time since I made my pretty music. "

A long time indeed, as Kitty was thinking sadly. Lucia had not madeher pretty music since that night six months ago when she had playedto please Keith Rickman. 

"Things keep on singing in my head, and I want to play them. It standsto reason that I would if I could. But I _can't_. Oh, how I do talkabout myself! Kitty, there must be a fine, a heavy fine, of sixpence, every time I talk about myself. "

"I shouldn't make much by it, " said Kitty. 

Lucia closed her eyes, and Kitty went on with the manuscript she wascopying. After a silence of twenty minutes Lucia opened her eyesagain. They rested longingly on Kitty at her work. 

"Kitty, " she said, "Do you know, I sometimes think it would be betterto sell those books. I can't bear to do it when he gave them to me. But I do believe I ought to. The worst of it is I should have to askhim to do it for me. "

"Don't do anything in a hurry, dear. Wait and see, " said Kittycheerfully. 

It seemed to Lucia that there was nothing to wait for now. Shewondered why Kitty said that, and whether it meant that they thoughther worse than they liked to say and whether that was why Sir WilfridSpence was coming?

"Kitty, " she said again, "I want you to promise me something. Supposing--it's very unlikely--but supposing after all I were to goand die--"

"I won't suppose anything of the sort. People don't go and die ofnervous exhaustion. You'll probably do it fifty years hence, but thatis just the reason why I won't have you harrowing my feelings this waynow. "

"I know I've had such piles of sympathy for my nervous exhaustion thatit's horrid of me to try and get more for dying, too. I only meant ifI did do it, quite unexpectedly, of something else--you wouldn't tellhim, would you?"

"Well, dear, of course I won't mention it if you wish me not to--buthe'd be sure to see it in the papers. "

"Kitty--you know what I mean. He couldn't see _that_ in the papers. Hecouldn't see it anywhere unless you told him. And if you did, it mightmake him very uncomfortable, you know. "

Poor Kitty, trying to be cheerful under the shadow of Sir WilfridSpence, was tortured by this conversation. She had half a mind to say, "You don't seem to think how uncomfortable you're making _me_. " Butshe forbore. Any remark of that sort would rouse Lucia to effortspenitential in their motive, and more painful to bear than thispitiful outburst, the first in many months of patience and reserve. She remembered how Lucia had once nursed her through a long illness inDresden. It had not been, as Kitty expressed it, "a pretty illness, "and she had been distinctly irritable in her convalescence; but Lucyhad been all tenderness, had never betrayed impatience by any look orword. 

"I shouldn't mind anything, if only I'd been with him when _he_ wasill. But perhaps he'd rather I hadn't been there. I think it's that, you know, that I really cannot bear. "

Kitty would have turned to comfort her, but for the timely entrance ofRobert. He brought a letter for Lucia which Kitty welcomed as anagreeable distraction. It was from Horace Jewdwine. "Any news?" sheasked presently. 

"Yes. What _do_ you think? He's going to Paris to-morrow. Then he'sgoing on to Italy--to Alassio, with Mr. Maddox. "

"Horace Jewdwine and Mr. Maddox? What next?"

"It isn't Horace that's going. " She gave the letter to Kitty becauseshe had shrunk lately from speaking of Keith Rickman by his name. 

"That's a very different tale, " said Kitty

"I'm so glad he's going. That was what he always wanted to do. Do youremember how I asked him to be my private secretary? Now I'm hisprivate secretary; which is as it should be. "

"You mean _I_ am. "

"Yes. Do you think you could hurry up so that he'll get them before hegoes? Poor Kitty--I can't bear your having all these things to do forme. "

"Why not? You'd do them for me, if it was I, not you. "

"I wish it were you. I mean I wish I were doing things for you. Butyou haven't done them all, Kitty. I did some. I forget how many. "

"You did three, darling. "

"Only three? And there are nine and twenty. Still, he'll see that Ibegan them. Kitty--do you think he'll wonder and guess why I leftoff?"

"Oh no, he isn't as clever as all that. "

"You mustn't tell him. You're writing the letter, dear, now, aren'tyou? You mustn't say a word about my illness. Only tell him I'm soglad to hear he's going to Alassio with Mr. Maddox. "

"I don't think any the better of him for that. Fancy going to Italywith that brute of a man!"

"He wasn't really a brute. He only said those things because he caredfor him. You can't blame him for that. "

"I don't blame him for that. I blame him for being a most appallingbounder. "

"Do you mind not talking about him any more?"

"No dear, I don't a bit. "

Lucia lay very quiet for some time before she spoke again. "They can'tsay now I sacrificed his genius to my pride. You _will_ catch thepost, won't you? What a plague I am, but if they're posted beforeseven he'll get them in the morning and he'll have time to write. Perhaps he won't be starting till the afternoon. "

In the morning she again betrayed her mind's preoccupation. "He musthave got them by now. Kitty, did you hear how the wind blew in thenight? He'll have an awful crossing. "

"Well then, let's hope he won't be very ill; but he isn't going by theBay of Biscay, dear. "

The wind blew furiously all morning, and when it dropped a littletowards evening it was followed by a pelting rain. 

"He's at Dover now. "

"In a mackintosh, " said Kitty by way of consolation. But Lucia, uncomforted, lay still, listening to the rain. It danced like athousand devils on the gravel of the courtyard. Suddenly she sat up, raising herself by her hands. 

"Kitty!" she cried. "He's coming. He is really. By the terrace. Can'tyou hear?"

Kitty heard nothing but the rain dancing on the courtyard. And theterrace led into it by the other wing. It was impossible that Luciacould have heard footsteps there. 

"But I _know_, Kitty, I know. It's his walk. And he always came thatway. "

She slipped her feet swiftly on to the floor, and to Kitty's amazementsat up unsupported. Kitty in terror ran to her and put her arm roundher, but Lucia freed herself gently from her grasp. She was tremblingin all her body. Kitty herself heard footsteps in the courtyard now. They stopped suddenly and the door-bell rang. 

"Do go to him, Kitty--and tell him. And send him here to me. "

Kitty went, and found Keith Rickman standing in the hall. Her instincttold her that Lucia must be obeyed. And as she sent him in to her, shesaw through the open door that Lucia rose to her feet, and came to himand never swayed till his arms held her. 

She clung to him and he drew her closer and lifted her and carried herto her couch, murmuring things inarticulate yet so plain that even shecould not misunderstand. 

"I thought you were going to Paris?" she said. 

"I'm not. I'm here. "

She sat up and laid her hands about him, feeling his shoulders and hissleeves. 

"How wet your coat is. "

He kissed her and she held her face against his that was cold with thewind and rain; she took his hands and tried to warm them in her own, piteously forgetful of herself, as if it were he, not she, who neededtenderness. 

"Lucy--are you very ill, darling?"

"No. I am very, very well. "

He thought it was one of those things that people say when they meanthat death is well. He gathered her to him as if he could hold herback from death. She looked smiling into his face. 

"Keith, " she said, "you _didn't_ have a mackintosh. You must go awayat once to Robert and get dry. "

"Not now, Lucy. Let me stay. "

"How long can you stay?"

"As long as ever you'll let me. "

"Till you go to Italy?"

"Very well. Till I go to Italy. "

"When are you going?"

"Not till you're well enough to go with me. "

"How did you know I was ill?"

"Because I saw that Kitty had had to finish what your dear littlehands had begun. "

"Ah--you should have had them sooner--"

"Why should I have had them at all? Do you think I would havepublished them before I knew I had dedicated them to my wife?"

"Keith--dear--you mustn't talk about that yet. "

She hid her face on his shoulder; he lifted it and looked at it as ifit could have told him what he had to know. It told him nothing; ithad not changed enough for that. It was like a beautiful pictureblurred, and the sweeter for the blurring. 

He laid his hand over her heart. At his touch it leapt and throbbedviolently, suggesting a new terror. 

"Darling, how fast your heart beats. Am I doing it harm?"

"No, it doesn't mind. "

"But am I tiring it?"

"No, no, you're resting it. "

She lay still a long time without speaking, till at last he carriedher upstairs and delivered her into Kitty's care. At the open door ofher room he saw a nurse in uniform standing ready to receive her. Herpresence there was ominous of the unutterable things he feared. 

"Kitty, " said Lucia, when they were alone. "It looks as if I had beenshamming after all. What do you think of me?"

"I think perhaps Sir Wilfrid Spence needn't come down to-morrow. "

"Perhaps not. And yet it would be better to know. If there really isanything wrong I couldn't let him marry me. It would be awful. I wantto be sure, Kitty, for his sake. "

Kitty felt sure enough; and her certainty grew when Lucia came downthe next morning. But she was unable to impart her certainty to Keith. The most he could do was to hide his anxiety from Lucia. It wanted buta day to the coming of the great specialist; and for that day theymade such a brave show of happiness that they deceived both Kitty andthemselves. Kitty, firm in her conviction, left them to themselvesthat afternoon while she went into Harmouth to announce to Lucia'sdoctor the miracle of her recovery. 

When she had left the house a great peace fell on them. They had somuch to say to each other, and so little time to say it in, whento-morrow might cut short their happiness. But Lucia was sorry forKitty. 

"Poor Kitty, " said she, "she's going to marry her cousin CharliePalliser. But that won't be the same. "

"The same as what?"

"The same as my marrying you. Oh, Keith, that's one of the things Isaid we weren't to say. Do you know, once Kitty was angry with me. Shesaid I was playing with fire--the divine fire. Ought I to have beenafraid of it? Just a little bit in awe?"

"What? Of the divine fire? I gave it you, dearest, to play with--or towarm your little hands by. "

"And now you've given it me to keep, to put my hands round it--so--andtake care of it and see that it never goes out. I can do that, can'tI, whatever happens?"

There was always that refrain: Whatever happens. 

"I keep forgetting it doesn't really belong to me; it belongs toeverybody, to the whole world. I believe I'm jealous. "

"Of the British public? It doesn't really love me, Lucy, nor I it. "

"Whether it does or not, you _do_ remember that I loved youfirst--before anybody ever knew?"

"I do indeed. "

"It _is_ a shame to be so glad because Kitty is away. "

Yet she continued to rejoice in the happiness that came of theirsolitude. It was Keith, not Kitty, who arranged her cushions for herand covered her feet; Keith, not Kitty, who poured out tea for her, and brought it her, and sat beside her afterwards, leaning over herand stroking her soft hair, as Kitty loved to do. 

"Lucy, " he said suddenly, "can you stand living with me in a horridlittle house in a suburb?"

"I should love it. Dear little house. "

"Maddox is in it now; but we'll turn him out. You don't know Maddox?"

She shuddered, and he drew the rug in closer about her. 

"It's such a tiny house, Lucy; it would all go into this room. "

"This room, " said Lucy, "is much too large. "

"There's only room for you and me in it. "

"All the better, so long as there's room for me. "

"And the walls are all lath and plaster. When Maddox is in anotherroom I can hear him breathing. "

"And when I'm in another room I shall hear you breathing; and then Ishall know you're alive when I'm afraid you're not. I'm glad the wallsare all lath and plaster. "

"But it isn't a pretty house, Lucy. "

"It will be a pretty house when I'm in it, " said she, and was admittedto have had the best of the argument. 

"Then, if you really don't mind, we shan't have to wait. Not a week, if you're ready to come to me. "

But Lucia's face was sad. "Keith--darling--don't make plans till weknow what Sir Wilfrid Spence says. "

"I shall, whatever he says. But I suppose I must consult him before Itake you to Alassio. "

For still at his heart, under all its happiness, there lay thatannihilating doubt; the doubt and the fear that had been sown there byHorace Jewdwine. He could see for himself that one of his terrors wasbaseless; but there remained that other more terrible possibility. None of them had dared to put it into words; but it was implied, reiterated, in the name of Sir Wilfrid Spence. He had moreover afeeling that this happiness of his was too perfect, that it must betaken away from him. 

He confided his trouble to Kitty that night, sitting up over thedrawing-room fire. Lucia's doctor had come and gone. 

"What did he say, Kitty?"

"He says there's no need for Sir Wilfrid Spence to see her at all. Heis going to wire to him not to come. "

He gave a sigh of relief. Then his eyes clouded. 

"No. He must come. I'd rather he came. "

"But why? He isn't a nerve specialist. "

He shuddered. "I know. That's why I must have him. I can't trustthese local men. "

"It will be horribly expensive, Keith. And it's throwing money away. Dr. Robson said so. "

"That's my affair. "

"Oh well, as for that, it was all arranged for. "

"Nobody has any right to arrange for it but me. "

"Much better arrange for a good time at Alassio. "

"No. I want to be absolutely certain. You tell me she's perfectlywell, and that doctor of yours swears she is, and I think it; and yetI can't believe it. I daren't. "

"That's because you're not feeling very well yourself. "

"I know that in some ways she is getting stronger every minute; butyou see, I can't help thinking what that other man said. "

"What other man?"

"Well, the Jewdwines' doctor. "

"What did _he_ say?"

"Nothing. It was Jewdwine. He told me--well--that was why theirengagement was broken off. Because she wasn't strong enough to marry. "

Kitty's eyes blazed. "He told you _that_?"

"Not exactly. He couldn't, you know. I only thought their doctor musthave told him--something terrible. "

"I don't suppose he told him anything of the sort. "

"Oh well, you know, he didn't say so. But he let me think it. "

"Yes. I know exactly how it was done. He wouldn't say anything heoughtn't to. But he'd let you think it. It was just his awfulselfishness. He thought there was an off chance of poor Lucy being asort of nervous invalid, and he wouldn't risk the bother of it. But asfor their engagement, there never was any. That was another of thethings he let you think. I suppose he cared for Lucy as much as hecould care for anybody; but the fact is he wants to marry anotherwoman, and he couldn't bear to see her married to another man. "

"Oh, I say, you know--"

"It sounds incredible. But you don't know how utterly I distrust thatman. He's false through and through. There's nothing sound in himexcept his intellect. I wish you'd never known him. He's been thecause of all your--your suffering, and Lucy's too. You might have beenmarried long ago if it hadn't been for him. "

"No, Kitty. I don't think that. "

"You might, really. If he hadn't been in the way she would have knownthat she cared for you and let you know it, too. But nothing that heever did or didn't do comes up to this. "

"The truth is, Kitty, he thinks I'm rather a bad lot, you know. "

"My dear Keith, he thinks that if _he_ doesn't marry Lucy he'd ratheryou didn't. He certainly hit on the most effectual means of preventingit. "

"Oh, did he! He doesn't know me. I shall marry her whatever SirWilfrid Spence says. If she's ill, all the more reason why I shouldlook after her. I'm only afraid lest--lest--"

She knew what he thought and could not say--lest it should not be forvery long. 

"There are some things, " he said quietly, "that _can't_ be taken awayfrom me. "

Kitty was silent; for she knew what things they were. 

"You can trust her to me, Kitty?"

"I can indeed. "

And so on Sunday the great man came down. 

It was over in half an hour. That half-hour Keith spent in pacing upand down the library, the place of so many dear and tender andtriumphant memories. They sharpened his vision of Lucy doomed, of hersweet body delivered over to the torture. 

He did not hear Kitty come in till she laid her hand upon his arm. Heturned as if at the touch of destiny. 

"Don't Keith, for Goodness' sake. It's all right. Only--he wants tosee you. "

Sir Wilfrid Spence stood in the morning-room alone. He looked verygrave and grim. He had a manner, a celebrated manner that hadaccomplished miracles by its tremendous moral effect. It had helped toset him on his eminence and he was not going to sacrifice it now. Hefixed his gaze on the poet as he entered and held him under it forthe space of half a minute without speaking. He seemed, this master ofthe secrets of the body, to be invading despotically the province ofthe soul. It struck Rickman that the great specialist was passingjudgement on him, to see whether in all things he were worthy of hisdestiny. The gaze thus prolonged became more than he could bear. 

"Do you mind telling me at once what's wrong with her?"

"There isn't anything wrong with her. What fool ever told you thatthere was? She has been made ill with grief. "

Lucia herself came to him there and led him back into the library. They sat together in the window-seat, held silent for a little whileby the passing of that shadow of their fear. 

"Keith, " she said at last. "Is it true that you loved me when you werewith me, here, ever so long ago?"

He answered her. 

"And when you came to me and I was horrid to you, and when I sent youaway? And when I never wrote to you, and Horace made you think I'dforgotten you? Did you love me then?"

"Yes, more than I did before, Lucy. "

"But--Keith--you didn't love me when you were loving somebody else?"

"I did, more than ever then. That happened because I loved you. "

"I can understand all the rest; but I can't understand that. "

"I think I'd rather you didn't understand it, darling. "

She sighed, puzzled over it and gave it up. "But you didn't love mewhen you--when I--when you wouldn't have me?"

He answered her; but not with words. 

"And now, " said she, "you're going to Paris to-morrow. "

"Perhaps. "

"You must. Perhaps they'll be calling for you. "

"And perhaps I shan't be there. Do you know, Lucy, you've got violetsgrowing among the roots of your hair?"

"I know you're going to Paris, to-morrow, to please me. "

"Perhaps. And after that we're going to Alassio, and after that toFlorence and Rome; all the places where your private secretary--"

"And when, " said she, "is my private secretary going to take me home?"

"If his play succeeds, dear, he won't have to take you to that horridhouse of his. "

"Won't he? But I like it best of all. "

"Why, Lucy?"

"Oh, for such a foolish reason. Because he's been in it. "

"I'm afraid, darling, some of the houses he's been in--"

At that she fell to a sudden breathless sobbing, as if the life thathad come back to her had spent itself again. 

In his happiness he had forgotten Howland Street; or if he thought ofit at all he thought of it as an enchanted spot, the stage that hadbrought him nearest to the place of his delight. 

"Lucy, Lucy, how did you know? I never meant you to. "

"Some one told me. And I--I went to see it. "

"Good God!"

"I saw your room, the room they carried you out of. If I'd only known!My darling, why didn't you come to me then? Why didn't you? I hadplenty. Why didn't you send for me?"

"How could I?"

"You could, you could--"

"But sweetest, I didn't even know where you were. "

"Wherever I was I would have come to you. I would have taken youaway. "

"It was worth it, Lucy. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't behere now. Looking back it seems positively glorious. And whatever itwas I'd go through years of it, for one hour with you here. One ofthose hours even when you didn't love me. "

"I've always loved you, all my life long. Only I didn't know it wasyou. Do you remember my telling you that your dream was divorced fromreality? It wasn't true. That was what was wrong with me. "

"I'm afraid I wasn't always very faithful to my dream. "

"Because your dream wasn't always faithful to you. And yet it _was_faithful. "

"Lucy, do you remember the things I told you? Can you forgive me forbeing what I was?"

"It was before I knew you. "

"Yes, but after? That was worse; it was the worst thing I ever did, because I _had_ known you. "

She wondered why he asked forgiveness of her now, of all moments; andas she wondered the light dawned on her. 

"I forgive you everything. It was my fault. I should have been there, and I wasn't. "

Then he knew that after all she had understood. Her love was in hereyes, in their light and in their darkness. They gathered many flamesof love into that tender tragic gaze, all pitying, half maternal. Those eyes had never held for him the sad secrets of mortality. Lovein them looked upon things invisible, incorruptible; divining, even asit revealed, the ultimate mystery. He saw that in her womanhood Naturewas made holy, penetrated by the spirit and the fire of God. He kneltdown and laid his face against her shoulder, and her arm, caressing, held him there, as if it were she who sheltered and protected. 

"Keith, " she whispered, "did you mean to marry me before you came thistime, or after?"

"Before, oh before. "

"You thought--that terrible thing had happened to me; you thought youwould always have me dragging on you? And yet you came? It made nodifference. You came. "

"I came because I wanted to take care of you, Lucy. I wanted nothingelse. That was all. "

Lucia's understanding was complete. 

"I knew you were like that, " said she; "I always knew it. "

She bent towards his hidden face and raised it to her own.