You sow an idea--you sow a seed. It grows upwards through a soil of
subliminal unconsciousness until it lifts its head into the clear
air of realization. There is no limitation of time, no need for
watchful dependence upon the season. Only the moment and the
husbandry of circumstances are essential. With these, perhaps a
single hour is all that may be required for the seed to open, the
shoots to sprout, the plant itself to bear the fruit of action in
the fierce light of reality.
In Traill's mind the idea was sown when he stood outside the office
of Bonsfield & Co. in King Street. The soil was ready then--hungry
for the seed. It fell lightly--unnoticed--into the subconscious
strata of his mind. He had not even been aware of its existence. Then,
with the woman who had accompanied him to his rooms, came the
husbandry of circumstance. She fed the seed. She watered it. Before
her foot had finished tapping on the wooden staircase, before the
street and the thousand lights had swallowed her up again, his mind
had grasped the knowledge of the need that was within him.
On Monday morning he went down to the chambers in the Temple where
his name as a practising barrister was painted upon the lintel of
the door. This was a matter of formality. Numberless barristers do
it every day; numberless ones of them find the same as he did--nothing
to be done. He had long since overcome the depression which such an
announcement had used to bring with it. There should be no
disappointment in the expected which invariably happens. The
sanguine mind is a weak mind that suffers it. Traill turned away from
the Temple, whistling a hymn tune as if it were a popular favourite.
From there he made his way down into the hub of journalism. The
descent into hell is easy. He rode there with a free lance--known
by all the editors--capable in his way--a man to be relied upon for
anything but imagination. From one office to another, he trudged;
climbing numberless stairs, filling in numberless slips of paper
with his name, saying nothing about his business. They knew his
business--the ability to do anything that was going. He had written
leaders on the advance of Socialism--criticized a play, reviewed a
book. It says little beyond the fact that one is ready and willing
to do these things.
So, until the nearing hour of lunch time, he went about--a scavenger
of jobs--sweeping up the refuse of the paper's needs, as the boys
in Covent Garden search through the barrows of sawdust for the stray,
green grapes that have been thrown out with the brushings of the
stalls.
If one knew how half the men in London find the way to live, one would
stand amazed. Life is not the dreadful thing; it is the living of
it. Life in the abstract is a gay pageant, the passing of a show,
caparisoned in armour, in ermine, in motley, in what you will. But
see that man without his armour, this woman without her ermine, these
in the crowd without their motley and the merry, merry jangling of
the bells, and you will find how slender are the muscles that the
armour lays bare, how shrivelled the breast that the ermine strips,
how dragged and weary is that pitiable, naked figure which a few
moments before was dancing fantastically, grimacing with its ape.
Traill took it as it came; the man forced to a crude philosophy, as
Life, if we get enough of it, will force every soul of us. You must
have a philosophy if you are going to accept Life. Even if you refuse
it, you must have a philosophy, call it pessimistic, what you wish,
it is still a point of view. The "temporary insanity" of the coroner's
court is most times a vile hypocrisy, invented to soothe a Christian
conscience.
So long as he found enough work to do, his spirits were light. He
had a normal contempt for the temperament that is known as artistic,
despised the variability of mood, ridiculed its April uncertainty.
This is the man who hews his way through Life, making no wide passage
perhaps, no definite pathway for the thousands who are looking for
the broad and simple track; but cuts down, lops off, with the sheer
strength of dogged determination, the hundred obstacles that beset
his progress.
When the clock at the Law Courts was striking the half-hour after
twelve, he came up out of that depth of journalism which lies like
a hidden world below the level of Fleet Street and made his way along
towards the Strand. There was a definite intention in his movements.
He walked quickly; turned up without hesitation into Southampton
Street, and again into King Street. There the speed of his steps
lessened and, walking past the premises of Bonsfield & Co., he kept
his eyes in the direction of the window at which he had first seen
Sally Bishop at work.
She was there, her fingers more lively now than when he had seen them
before, in their eternal dance upon the untiring keys. In the
lingering glance he took at her as he walked slowly by, there was
much that was curiosity, but a greater interest. Thoughts had swept
through his mind since the previous Saturday night. He saw her now
from a different point of view. He still found her
attractive-compellingly so. There was something exquisitely naive
about her, an innocence that was precious. In all the sordid side
of life that he had seen--that was his daily portion to see, for the
journalism of a free lance can be sordid indeed--he found her fresh.
That had been the swift impression which he had formed in the few
moments that he had seen her, spoken to her, on the top of the 'bus
from Piccadilly Circus. At this second sight of her, he was not
disillusioned. Even there, in the midst of offices, chained to the
machine at which she worked, she seemed cut out from her
surroundings--a personality apart.
He walked past the book shop, down the street, until he came within
sight of the clock in the post-office in Bedford Street. It was ten
minutes to one. He turned back again. It was a practical certainty
that she would be going out to lunch at one. The only question that
arose as a difficulty in his mind was the possibility of her being
accompanied by some other member of Bonsfield's staff. He knew that
it would be inconsiderate to approach her then.
Finally he decided to a wait her coming in one of the arches of Covent
Garden market, from whence he could survey the entire length of the
street. He had scarcely taken up his position when she came out into
view. She walked in his direction, She was alone.
Traill felt a sensation in his blood. It was not unaccountable, but
it was unexpected. A combination of eagerness and timidity, that he
would have ridiculed in any one else, had mastered him for the moment.
Years ago, he would have understood it, expected it. Now he was
thirty-six. A man who has lived to his age, lived the years moreover
in his way, does not look to be moved to school-boy timidity by the
sight of a woman. He pulled a cigarette-case out of his pocket,
extracted a cigarette and lit it before he was really conscious of
this action.
She passed down Southampton Street into the Strand without noticing
him. Then for the second time he followed. It was an easy matter to
keep the blue feather in her hat in sight in the crowds of people
all hurrying to get the most of the hour for their mid-day meal. He
let her keep some yards ahead. Then she vanished into a restaurant
at the corner of Wellington Street. He smiled. The matter was as good
as done now. In another three minutes he would be ten pounds in her
debt.
He allowed a couple of minutes to go by before he entered the
restaurant; then he pushed open the doors and his eyes took in the
room with a swift scrutiny.
Everything was in his favour. She was seated at a table in the corner
of the room, herself the only occupant of it. He walked across to
her without hesitation--no timidity now. That had vanished with the
need for a show of determination. Here he must dominate the situation
or fail utterly.
"There's no need to move to another table," he said as he pulled out
a chair for himself and sat down opposite to her. "If you really
strongly object to my having my lunch opposite to you, I'll move
away."
"I do object," she replied.
"But why?"
"I don't know you, I don't know who you are."
"That's not a great difficulty," he said, smiling.
"I think it is."
He laughed lightly. "Not a bit of it. It can easily be overcome. My
name's Traill. I'm a barrister--briefless--the type of barrister
that populates the Temple and all those places. One of these days
I may come into my own; I may be conducting the leading cases at the
criminal bar; I may be--but it's not even one of my castles in the
air."
She smiled at his inconsequence. "You seem to take it very lightly,"
she remarked.
"Why not? Do you imagine I sit in chambers all day long, pining for
the impossible which no alchemy of fate can apparently ever alter?
I'm also a journalist. That's why I've come to see you." He spoke
utterly at random.
"To see me?"
"Yes."
The waitress was standing impatiently by the table, tapping her tray
with her fingers.
"What are you going to have?" he asked.
Sally snatched a swift glance at him. Was he conscious that he was
overruling her objections? She saw no sign of it. He looked up at
her questioningly, waiting for her answer.
"I don't mind at all," she replied. She felt too timid to say what
she would really like, too ashamed perhaps to say what she usually
had for her lunch. The best course was to let him choose. "I'll have
whatever you do," she said agreeably.
He gave the order, a meal for which she could never have afforded
to pay. Then he turned back with a humorous smile to her.
"The objection, the difficulty's overcome, then," he said.
Sally allowed herself to smile, eyes in a swift moment raised to his.
"I never said so."
"No, no; but surely this is tacit admission. However, the point is
not the saying of it." He saw the look of doubtfulness beginning to
show itself in her eyes. "What's the good of talking about it? We're
here for the purpose of eating, not discussing social conventions.
You know who I am, I shall know who you are in another two or three
minutes if you'll be kind enough to tell me. Why, good heavens! life's
short enough, without surrounding everything we want with social
restrictions. I'm a barrister, I told you that before. In some sort
of legal directory you'll find out exactly when I left Oxford and
was called to the bar. In _Who's Who?_ you'll find out exactly where
I live, though I can tell you that myself--" he mentioned the number
of his chambers in Regent Street. "They'll tell you in _Who's Who?_
that my sports are riding, fishing, and shooting--that describes a
man in England; it doesn't describe me. I don't ride; I don't fish
or shoot; I used to; that's another matter. I only ride an occasional
hobby now--fish for work on the papers, and shoot-- Lord knows what
I shoot! Nothing, I suppose. I belong to the National Liberal Club
for the Library, to the Savage where you pass along an editor as you
would a christening mug, and to the National Sporting, because
there's a beast in every man, thank God!"
He had won her. The rattle of that conversation had driven all
thoughts of doubt out of her mind. She would not have denied herself
of his company now for any foolish pretext of convention. In that
hurried summary of himself and his affairs, proving himself by it,
without any pride and conceit, to be a man of very different stamp
and interest to Mr. Arthur Montagu, he had marked her in her flight
for liberty. Nothing was binding her--no interest in life but to be
loved. Had there been any such bond--the prospect of an engagement
which was not distasteful to her--he would have found it no easy
matter to win her to interest then. But she was free, in the midst
of her flight, and he had marked her. She looked into his eyes as
the sighted bird blinks before the glittering barrel of the gun, and
she knew that he could win her if he chose.
"Well," he said, "I've got nothing more to tell you. How about you?"
She took a little handkerchief out from the folds in her coat, then
put it back again, apparently with no purpose.
"I thought you had something to tell me?"
"I?"
"Yes; you said when you came up to the table that you had."
"That? Oh yes, that's business. We'll talk about that later. I want
to hear something about yourself first. You're engaged to be
married."
He rushed blindly at that--knew nothing about it. A ring on her finger
had suggested the thought, but whether it were on the proper finger
or not was beyond his knowledge of such little details.
"What makes you think that?" she asked.
"The ring on the finger."
"But that's not the right finger."
"Isn't it?"
"No. My grandmother gave me that."
He held her eyes--forced her to see the comprehension in his.
"Then you won't help me?" he said.
"Help you? How?"
"You don't want to tell me anything about yourself?"
"But I have nothing to tell. I'm a very uninteresting person, I'm
afraid."
This was shyness, this dropping into conventional phrases. He led
her deftly through them to a greater confidence in his interest, as
you steer a boat through shallow, rapid-running water. He wanted to
get to the woman beneath it all, knowing that the woman was there.
So he made for deep water, guiding her through the shoals. Before
they had finished their second course, she was telling him about Mr.
Arthur.
"And you don't love him?" he said.
"No."
"Respect him?"
She paused. The pause answered him. The tension of the moment lifted.
"Yes. I respect him. I know he's honourable. He must be reliable.
After all he's offering me everything."
You would have thought, to hear her, that the matter was yet in the
balance, swaying uncertainly before it recorded the weight. There
is the instinct of the woman in that. She felt the shadow of his
apprehension; knew that she raised her value in his eyes by the
seeming presence of debate. Yet none realized better than she, that
Mr. Arthur had been stripped of all possibility now. The fateful
comparison had been made--the comparison which most women make in
the decision of such momentous issues--one man against another.
Their emotions are the agate upon which the scales must swing. In
favour of the man before her, they swung with ponderous obviousness.
"Then you'll marry him?" said Traill.
She looked at him questioningly--raised eyebrows--the look of mute
appeal. You might have read anything behind her eyes--you might have
read nothing. Traill studied them wonderingly.
"You'll marry him--of course," he repeated. He was taking the risk.
He might be forcing her to say yes. He prepared himself for it. To
take that risk, knowing one way or another, rather than blindly
groping to the end, this was typical of him. But he could not force
her to the answer that he sought for.
"Do you think I ought to?" she asked.
He drummed his fingers on the table and looked through her.
"Why do you ask me?"
"I'm sorry." She returned sensitively to the food that was before
her--"I thought you had seemed interested. I'm sorry--I took too much
for granted."
He knew the danger of all this--so did she. But danger of what? That
dancing upon the edge of the precipice of emotion is in the normal
heart of every woman--and he? He sought it out; to the edge he had
brought her, knowing the way--every step of it. She had only followed
blindly where he had led. Once there, she knew well the chasm on whose
edge she was balancing. Natural instinct alone would have told her
that. The height was dizzy. She had known well that if ever she gazed
down, it would be that. Her head swam with the giddiness of it. She
kept her eyes fixed rigidly on the plate before her, not daring to
look up, or meet his glance.
"Suppose you haven't taken too much for granted," he suggested
quietly.
"Well?" she raised her head--tried to look with unconcern into his
eyes--failed. Then her head dropped again.
"I should say--don't marry him--not yet--wait. The harm that is done
by waiting is measurable by inches. Wait. How old are you? Is that
rude? No--of course it isn't. It's only rude when a woman's got to
answer you with a lie. How old are you? Twenty?"
"Twenty-one."
"Twenty-one! I was fifteen when you first woke up and yelled."
She threw back her head and laughed.
"Why do you laugh?"
"You say such funny things sometimes."
"I remember the first joke I made you thought was bad taste."
She looked at him. There was excitement in her eyes. The rush of the
stream had taken her; an impulse for the moment carried her away.
"I repeated that joke afterwards," she said quickly, "the same
evening to shock Mr. Arthur."
The moment she had said it, came regret. It was showing him too
plainly the impression that he had left upon her. But he seemed not
to notice it.
"Was he shocked?" he asked.
"Yes--terribly."
She looked at her watch. That moment's regret had brought her to her
senses. The blood came quickly to her face, as she thought how
intimately they had talked within so short a time. Reviewing it--as
with a searchlight that strides across the sky--she scarcely
believed that it was true. In just an hour, she had told him as
much--more than she had told Miss Hallard. Had she changed? Was the
freedom of the life she lived altering her? She had known Mr. Arthur
for a year and a half before he had thought of speaking with any
intimacy to her. The thought that she was deteriorating--becoming
as other women--passed across her mind with a sensation of nausea.
She rose to her feet.
"I must get back," she said.
"But it's only just two," he replied.
"I know, but then I came out five minutes early."
"Are they so fierce as that?"
"Yes, I daren't be late. Mr. Bonsfield gives me his letters directly
after lunch. I think he'd tell me I might go, if I was late. You see
it's very easy for them to get a secretary, the work's not difficult
though there's a lot of it; and there are hundreds of girls who'd
be ready to fill my place in a moment."
He watched her considerately. "Thank God, my lance is free," he said.
"Well--I suppose you must--if you must. I've enjoyed the talk."
Her eyes lighted, smiling. "So have I--immensely--it is very good
of you. Good-bye." She held out her hand.
"Do you think you get off so lightly?" he asked.
"How do you mean?"
"I mean--do you think I'm going to let you go without some chance
of seeing you again?"
"But--"
He checked that. He could not guess what had been passing through
her mind, yet the note in her voice on that one word was discouraging.
"You are going to come to dinner with me one evening."
She was full of indecision. He gave her no time to think. It was not
his intention to do so.
"But how can I?" she began.
"By coming dressed--just as you are. No need to go home and change.
I'll be ready to meet you outside the office at six o'clock. You don't
get out till a quarter past? Then a quarter past. We go to dinner--we
go to a theatre; music-hall if you like--then I drive you down to
Waterloo, put you in the last train to Kew Bridge--and that is all."
She laughed in spite of herself.
"I'll write to Strand-on-Green, and let you know what evening. Miss
Bishop--what initial?"
"S."
"What's S. for?"
"Sally."
"Miss Sally Bishop, 73 Strand-on-Green, Kew Bridge. And I owe you
ten pounds."
For a moment she smiled--then her expression changed.
"That's perfectly ridiculous," she said.
"I wouldn't have you think it anything else," he said; "but,
nevertheless, that's a legally contracted debt."