On the following day Harz was summoned to the Villa. Mr. Treffry had
just risen, and was garbed in a dressing-suit, old and worn, which had a
certain air of magnificence. His seamed cheeks were newly shaved.
“I hope I see you well,” he said majestically.
Thinking of the drive and their last parting, Harz felt sorry and
ashamed. Suddenly Christian came into the room; she stood for a moment
looking at him; then sat down.
“Chris!” said Mr. Treffry reproachfully. She shook her head, and did not
move; mournful and intent, her eyes seemed full of secret knowledge.
Mr. Treffry spoke:
“I've no right to blame you, Mr. Harz, and Chris tells me you came
to see me first, which is what I would have expected of you; but you
shouldn't have come back.”
“I came back, sir, because I found I was obliged. I must speak out.”
“I ask nothing better,” Mr. Treffry replied.
Harz looked again at Christian; but she made no sign, sitting with her
chin resting on her hands.
“I have come for her,” he said; “I can make my living—enough for both of
us. But I can't wait.”
“Why?”
Harz made no answer.
Mr. Treffry boomed out again: “Why? Isn't she worth waiting for? Isn't
she worth serving for?”
“I can't expect you to understand me,” the painter said. “My art is my
life to me. Do you suppose that if it wasn't I should ever have left my
village; or gone through all that I've gone through, to get as far even
as I am? You tell me to wait. If my thoughts and my will aren't free,
how can I work? I shan't be worth my salt. You tell me to go back to
England—knowing she is here, amongst you who hate me, a thousand miles
away. I shall know that there's a death fight going on in her and
outside her against me—you think that I can go on working under these
conditions. Others may be able, I am not. That's the plain truth. If I
loved her less—”
There was a silence, then Mr. Treffry said:
“It isn't fair to come here and ask what you're asking. You don't know
what's in the future for you, you don't know that you can keep a wife.
It isn't pleasant, either, to think you can't hold up your head in your
own country.”
Harz turned white.
“Ah! you bring that up again!” he broke out. “Seven years ago I was a
boy and starving; if you had been in my place you would have done what I
did. My country is as much to me as your country is to you. I've been
an exile seven years, I suppose I shall always be I've had punishment
enough; but if you think I am a rascal, I'll go and give myself up.” He
turned on his heel.
“Stop! I beg your pardon! I never meant to hurt you. It isn't easy for
me to eat my words,” Mr. Treffry said wistfully, “let that count for
something.” He held out his hand.
Harz came quickly back and took it. Christian's gaze was never for a
moment withdrawn; she seemed trying to store up the sight of him within
her. The light darting through the half-closed shutters gave her eyes
a strange, bright intensity, and shone in the folds of her white dress
like the sheen of birds' wings.
Mr. Treffry glanced uneasily about him. “God knows I don't want anything
but her happiness,” he said. “What is it to me if you'd murdered your
mother? It's her I'm thinking of.”
“How can you tell what is happiness to her? You have your own ideas of
happiness—not hers, not mine. You can't dare to stop us, sir!”
“Dare?” said Mr. Treffry. “Her father gave her over to me when she was
a mite of a little thing; I've known her all her life. I've—I've loved
her—and you come here with your 'dare'.” His hand dragged at his beard,
and shook as though palsied.
A look of terror came into Christian's face.
“All right, Chris! I don't ask for quarter, and I don't give it!”
Harz made a gesture of despair.
“I've acted squarely by you, sir,” Mr. Treffry went on, “I ask the same
of you. I ask you to wait, and come like an honest man, when you can
say, 'I see my way—here's this and that for her.' What makes this art
you talk of different from any other call in life? It doesn't alter
facts, or give you what other men have no right to expect. It doesn't
put grit into you, or keep your hands clean, or prove that two and two
make five.”
Harz answered bitterly:
“You know as much of art as I know of money. If we live a thousand years
we shall never understand each other. I am doing what I feel is best for
both of us.”
Mr. Treffry took hold of the painter's sleeve.
“I make you an offer,” he said. “Your word not to see or write to her
for a year! Then, position or not, money or no money, if she'll have
you, I'll make it right for you.”
“I could not take your money.”
A kind of despair seemed suddenly to seize on Mr. Nicholas Treffry. He
rose, and stood towering over them.
“All my life—” he said; but something seemed to click deep down in his
throat, and he sank back in his seat.
“Go!” whispered Christian, “go!” But Mr. Treffry found his voice again:
“It's for the child to say. Well, Chris!”
Christian did not speak.
It was Harz who broke the silence. He pointed to Mr. Treffry.
“You know I can't tell you to come with—that, there. Why did you send
for me?” And, turning, he went out.
Christian sank on her knees, burying her face in her hands. Mr. Treffry
pressed his handkerchief with a stealthy movement to his mouth. It was
dyed crimson with the price of his victory.