Selingman took little heed of the cordon around Maraton. He brushed
them all to one side, and when at last confronted by the final barrier,
in the shape of Julia, he only patted her gently upon the back.
"Ah, but my dear child," he exclaimed, "you do not understand! Listen.
I raise my voice, I shout--like this--'Maraton, it is I who am
here--Selingman!' You see, he will come if he is within hearing. You
know of me, you pale-faced child? You have heard of Selingman, is it
not so?"
Before Julia could answer, the door of the study was opened.
"Come in," Maraton called out from an invisible place.
Selingman, with a little bow of triumph to Julia, passed down the
passage and into the library. He threw his hat upon the sofa and held
out both his hands to Maraton. Julia, who had followed him, sank into a
chair before her typewriter.
"I have made you famous, my friend," he declared. "You may quote these
words in after life as representing the full sublimity of my conceit,
but it is true. Have you read my 'Appreciation' in the _Oracle?_"
"I have," Maraton admitted, smiling.
"The real thing," Selingman continued, "crisp and crackling with genius.
As they read it, the photographers took down their cameras, the editors
whispered to their journalists to be off to Russell Square, the ladies
began to pen their cards of invitation."
"That's all very well," Maraton remarked, a little grimly, "but where do
I come in? I have no time for the journalists, I refuse to be
photographed, and I am not likely to accept the invitations. It takes
my two secretaries half their time to wade through my correspondence and
to decide which of it is to be pitched into the waste-paper basket. I
am not a dealer in quack remedies, or an actor. I don't want
advertisement."
"Pooh, my friend!--pooh!" Selingman retorted, drawing out his worn
leather case and thrusting one of the long black cigars into his mouth.
"Everything that is spontaneous in life is good for you--even
advertisement. But listen to my news. It is great news, believe
me. . . . A match, please."
Maraton struck a vesta and handed it to him. Selingman transferred the
flame to a piece of paper from the waste-paper basket and puffed
contentedly at his cigar.
"I light not cigars with a flavour like this, with a wax vesta," he
explained. "Where was I? Oh, I know--the news! This morning I have
received a message. Maxendorf has left for England." Maraton smiled.
"Is that all?" he said. "I could have told you that myself. The fact
is announced in all the morning papers."
"He will be at the Ritz Hotel to-night," Selingman continued, unruffled.
"When he arrives, I shall be there. We speak together for an hour and
then I come for you."
"I shall be glad to meet Maxendorf," Maraton agreed quietly. "He is a
great man. But don't you think for his first few days in England it
would be better to leave him alone, so far as I am concerned?"
"Later I will remind you of those words," Selingman declared. "For a
genius you see no further than the end of your nose. They tell me that
when you landed, there were prophets in the East End who rose up and
shouted--'Maraton is come! Maraton is here!' No more--just the simple
announcement--as though that fact alone were changing life. Very well.
I will be your prophet and you shall be the people. I will say to you,
as they cried to the Children of Israel groaning under their
toil--Maxendorf has come! Maxendorf is here!"
Maraton was silent for a moment. He was sitting on the edge of the
table, with folded arms. His visitor was pacing up and down the room,
blowing out dense volumes of smoke.
"You have more in your mind, Selingman, than you have told me," he said.
"What is there that is hidden from the eye of genius?" Selingman cried,
with a theatrical wave of the hand. "More than I have told you
indeed--more than I shall tell you. One thing, at least, I have learnt
in my struggles with the pen, and that is to avoid the anti-climax. It
is a great thing to remember that. So I am dumb, I speak no more. . .
Why don't you send your poor little secretary out for a walk?
Mademoiselle, forgive me, but he works you too hard."
She looked up at him, smiling.
"I worked very much harder before I came here," she answered quietly.
"I am fortunate in my secretary," Maraton interposed. "This is Miss
Julia Thurnbrein, Selingman. I don't suppose you read our reviews, but
Miss Thurnbrein is an authority on woman labour."
"I read nothing," Selingman declared, moving over and grasping her by
the hand. "I read nothing. People are my books. I am forty-five years
old. I have done with reading. I know a great deal, I have read a
great deal; I read no more. Miss Julia Thurnbrein, you say. Well, I
like the name of Julia. Only, young lady, you would do better to spend
a little more time with the roses, and a little less under the roofs of
this grey city. Youth, you know, youth is everything. You work best
for others by realising the joys of life yourself. I, too, am a
philanthropist, Miss Julia--I don't like your other name--I, too, think
and write for others. I, too, have dreams of a millennium, of days when
the huge wheel shall be driven to a different tune, and faces be lifted
to the skies that hang now towards the gutters. But details annoy me,
details I cannot master. I do not want to know how many sufferers there
are in the world and what particular sum they starve upon. I leave
others to do that work. I only point forward to the day of
emancipation. Put your hand in mine and I will show you in time where
the clouds will first break."
Julia smiled at him a little sadly.
"Perhaps it is as well," she said, "that we have champions who do not
care for detail. It is detail and the sight of suffering which sap all
the enthusiasms out of us before our time."
Selingman frowned at her angrily. He blew out another cloud of smoke.
"You make me angry," he asserted. "I love your sex, I adore womanhood.
I look upon a beautiful woman as a gift to the world. Beauty is a gift
to be made much of, to be nourished, to be glorified. You are tired,
young woman. You work too hard. You have the rare gift--has any one
ever told you that you are beautiful?"
Julia stared at him, her lips a little parted, half angry, half
wondering.
"Look at her," Selingman continued, turning to Maraton. "She has the
slim body, the long, delicate figure of those Botticellis we all
love--except the Russians. I never yet met a Russian who could
appreciate a Botticelli. And her eyes--look at them, man. And you let
her sit there till the hollows are forming in her cheeks. Be ashamed of
yourself. Take her out into the country. One works just as well in the
sunshine. You do better work if you can smell flowers growing around
you while your brain is active. Lend her to me for a week. I'll take
her to my cottage in the Ardennes. There I live with the sun--breakfast
at sunrise, to bed at sunset. I will dictate to you, Miss
Julia--dictate beautiful things. You shall be proud always. You shall
say--'I have worked for Selingman. Conceited ass!' you will probably
add. Thank Heavens that I am conceited! Nothing is so splendid in life
as to know your own worth. Nothing makes so much for happiness. . . .
Maraton, where shall I find you to-night?"
"In the House of Commons, probably," Maraton replied. "But take my
advice. Leave Maxendorf alone for a few days."
"We will see--we will see," Selingman went on, a little impatiently.
"Come, I have nothing to do--nothing whatever. I came to London to see
you, Maraton. You must put up with me. Work--put it away. The sun
shines. Let us all go into the country. I will get a car. Or what of
the river? Perhaps not. I am too restless, I cannot sit still. I will
walk about always. And I cannot swim. We will take a car and sometimes
we will walk. I go to fetch it now, eh?"
Maraton glanced helplessly at Julia. They both laughed.
"I have to be back at four o'clock," the former said. "I have an
appointment at the House of Commons then."
"Excellent!" Selingman declared. "I go there with you. Your House of
Commons always fascinates me. I hear you speak, perhaps? No? What
does it matter? I will hear the others drone. I go to fetch a car."
Maraton held out his hand.
"I have a car," he observed. "It is waiting now at the back entrance.
You had better get your things on, Miss Thurnbrein. I can see that we
have come under the influence of a master spirit."
She looked at the pile of letters by her side, but Maraton only shook
his head.
"We must parody his own phrase and declare that 'Selingman is here!'" he
said. "Go and put your things on and tell Aaron. We will steal out
like conspirators at the back door."
They lunched at a roadside inn in Buckinghamshire, an inn ivy-covered,
with a lawn behind, and a garden full of cottage flowers. Selingman
with his own hands dragged out the table from the little sitting-room,
through the open windows to a shaded corner of the lawn, drew the cork
from a bottle of wine, and taking off his coat, started to make a salad.
"Insects everywhere," he remarked cheerfully. "Hold your parasol over
my salad, please, Miss Julia. So! What does it matter? Where there
are flowers and trees there must be insects. Let them live their day of
life."
"So long as we don't eat them!" Julia protested.
"I have tasted insects in South America which were delicious," Selingman
assured them. "There--leave your parasol over the salad, and, Maraton,
move the ice-pail a little more into the shade. Now, while they set the
luncheon, we will walk in that little flower garden, and I will tell
you, if you like, a story of mine I once wrote, the story of two roses.
I published it, alas! It is so hard to save even our most beautiful
thoughts from the vulgarity of print, in these days where
everything--love and wine, and even the roses themselves--cost money.
Bah!"
"The story, please," Julia begged.
He walked in the middle and took an arm of each of his companions.
"So you would hear my little story?" he exclaimed. "Then listen."
They obeyed. Presently he forgot himself. His eyes were half-closed,
his thoughts seemed to have wandered into the strangest places. As his
allegory proceeded, he seemed to drift away from all knowledge of his
immediate surroundings. He chose his words always with the most
exquisite and precise care. They listened, entranced. Then suddenly he
stopped short in the path.
"For half an hour have I been giving of myself," he declared. "Almost I
faint. Come."
He tightened his grasp upon their arms and started walking with short,
abrupt footsteps--and great haste for the luncheon table.
"Fool that I am!" he muttered. "It is one o'clock, and I lunch always
at half-past twelve. I must eat quickly. See, the waiter looks at us
sorrowfully. What of the omelette, I wonder? Come, Miss Julia, at my
right hand there. Ah! was I not right? The roses are creeping
already--creeping into their proper place. Sit back in your chair and
eat slowly and drink the yellow wine, and listen to the humming of those
bees. So soon you will become normal, a woman, just what you should be.
Heavens! It is well that I came to see Maraton. When I saw you this
morning in that room, I said to myself--'There is a human creature who
half lives. What a sin to half live!' . . . Taste that salad,
Maraton. Taste it, man, and admit that it is well that I came."
They were alone in the garden--the inn was a little way off the main
road and they had discovered it entirely by accident. Both Julia and
Maraton yielded gracefully enough to the influence of their companion's
personality.
"Whether it is well for us or not," Maraton remarked, as he watched the
wine flow into his glass, "to yield up one's will like this, to become
even as a docile child, I do not know, but it is very pleasant. It is
an hour of detachment."
"It is the secret of youth, the secret of life, the secret of joy,"
Selingman declared. "Detachment is the word. Life would make slaves of
all of us, if one did not sometimes square one's shoulders and say--'No,
thank you, I have had enough! Good-bye! I return presently.' One needs
a will, perhaps, but then, what is life without will? I myself was at
work. The greatest theatrical manager in the world kept sentry before
my door. The greatest genius who ever trod upon the stage sent me
frantic messages every few hours. Then they spoke to me of Maraton. I
heard the cry--'Maraton is here!' I heard the thunder from across the
seas. Up from my desk, out from my room--hysterics, entreaties, nothing
stopped me. No luggage worth mentioning. Away I come, to London, to
Sheffield--what a place! To-morrow--to-morrow or the next day I return,
full of life and vigour. It is splendid. I broke away. No one else
could have done it. I left them in tears. What did I care? It is for
myself--for myself I do these things. Unless I myself am at my best,
what have I to give the world? Miss Julia, your health! To the roses,
and may they never leave your cheeks! No, don't go yet. There are
strawberries coming."
Maraton and his host sat together for a few moments in the garden before
they started on their return journey. Selingman leaned across the
table. He had forgotten to put on his coat, and he sat unabashed in his
shirt sleeves. He had drunk a good deal of wine, and the little beads
of perspiration stood out upon his forehead.
"Maraton," he said, "you need me. You are like the others. When the
fire has touched their eyes and indeed they see the things that are,
they fall on their knees and they tear away at the weeds and rubbish
that cumber the earth, and they never lift their eyes, and soon their
frame grows weary and their heart cold. Be wise, man. The mark is upon
you. Those live best and work best in this world who have a soul for
its beauties. Women, for instance," he went on, smoking furiously.
"What help do you make of women? None! You sit at one end of the
table, your secretary at the other. You don't look at her. She might
have pig's eyes, for anything you know about it. Idiot! And she--not
quite as bad, perhaps. Women feel a little, you know, that they don't
show. Why not marry, Maraton? No? Perhaps you are right. And yet
women are wonderful. You can't do your greatest work, Maraton, you
never will reach your greatest work, unless a woman's hand is yours."
They rode back to London in comparative silence. Selingman frankly and
openly slept, with his grey hat on the back of his head, his untidy feet
upon the opposite cushions, his mouth wide open. Maraton more than once
found himself watching Julia covertly. There was no doubt that in her
strange, quiet way she was beautiful. As he sat and looked at her, his
thoughts travelled back to the little garden, the sheltered corner under
the trees, the curious sense of relaxation which in that short hour
Selingman had inspired. Was the man indeed right, his philosophy sound?
Was there indeed wisdom in the loosening of the bonds? He met her eyes
suddenly, and she smiled at him. With her--well, he scarcely dared to
tell himself that he knew how it was. He closed his eyes again. A
thought had come to him sweeter than any yet.
As they neared London, Selingman awoke, smiled blandly upon them,
brushed the cigar ash from his coat and waistcoat, put on his hat and
looked about him with interest.
"So we are arrived," he said presently. "The Houses of Parliament, eh?
I enter with you, Maraton. You find me a corner where I sleep while the
others speak, and wake at the sound of your voice. Afterwards, late
to-night, we shall go to Maxendorf."