Mike leaned forward to tie his white cravat. He was slight, and white
and black, and he thought of Lily, of the exquisite pleasure of
seeing her and leading her away. And he was pleased and surprised to
find that his thoughts of her were pure.
The principal contributors to the _Pilgrim_ had been invited, and a
selection had been made from the fast and fashionable gang--those who
could be trusted neither to become drunk or disorderly. It had been
decided, but not without misgivings, to ask Muchross and Snowdown.
The doors were open, servants could be seen passing with glasses and
bottles. Frank, who had finished dressing, called from the
drawing-room and begged Mike to hasten; for the housemaid was waiting
to arrange his room, for it had been decided that this room should
serve as a lounge where dancers might sit between the waltzes.
"She can come in now," he shouted. He folded the curtains of his
strange bed; he lighted a silver lamp, re-arranged his palms, and
smiled, thinking of the astonished questions when he invited young
ladies to be seated among the numerous cushions. And Mike determined
he would say that he considered his bed-room far too sacred to admit
of any of the base wants of life being performed there.
It was well-dressed Bohemia, with many markings and varied with
contrasting shades. The air was as sugar about the doorway with the
scent of gardenias; young lords shrank from the weather-stained cloth
of doubtful journalists, and a lady in long puce Cashmere provoked a
smile. Frank received his guests with laughter and epigram.
The emancipation of the women is marked by the decline of the
chaperon, and it was not clear under whose protection the young girls
had come. Beneath double rows of ruche-rose feet passed, and the soft
glow of lamps shaded with large leaves of pale glass bathed the
women's flesh in endless half tints; the reflected light of copper
shades flushed the blonde hair on Lady Helen's neck to auroral
fervencies.
In one group a fat man with white hair and faded blue eyes talked to
Mrs. Bentham and Lewis Seymour. A visit to the Haymarket Theatre
being arranged, he said--
"May I hope to be permitted to form one of the party?"
Harding overheard the remark. He said, "It is difficult to believe,
but I assure you that that Mr. Senbrook was one of the greatest Don
Juans that ever lived."
"We have in this room Don Juan in youth, middle age, and old
age--Mike Fletcher, Lewis Seymour, and Mr. Senbrook."
"Did Seymour, that fellow with the wide hips, ever have success with
women? How fat he has grown!"
"Rather; [Footnote: See _A Modern Lover_.] don't you know his story?
He came up to London with a few pounds. When we knew him first he was
starving in Lambeth. You remember, Thompson, the day he stood us a
lunch? He had just taken a decorative panel to a picture-dealer's,
for which he had received a few pounds, and he told us how he had met
a lady (there's the lady, the woman with the white hair, Mrs.
Bentham) in the picture-dealer's shop. She fell in love with him and
took him down to her country house to decorate it. She sent him to
Paris to study, and it was said employed a dealer for years to buy
his pictures."
"And he dropped her for Lady Helen?"
"Not exactly. Lady Helen dragged him away from her. He never seized
or dropped anything."
"Then what explanation do you give of his success?" said a young
barrister.
"His manner was always gentle and insinuating. Ladies found him
pretty to look upon, and very soothing. Mike is just the same; but of
course Seymour never had any of Mike's brilliancy or enthusiasm."
"Do you know anything of the old gentleman--Senbrook's his name?"
"I have heard that those watery eyes of his were once of entrancing
violet hue, and I believe he was wildly enthusiastic in his love. His
life has been closely connected with mine."
"I didn't know you knew him."
"I do not know him. Yet he poisoned my happiest years; he is the
upas-tree in whose shade I slept. When I was in Paris I loved a lady;
and I used to make sacrifices for this lady, who was, needless to
say, not worthy of them; but she had loved Senbrook in her earliest
youth, and it appears when a woman has once loved Senbrook, she can
love none other. You wouldn't think it, to look at him now, but I
assure you it is so. France is filled with the women he once loved.
The provincial towns are dotted with them. I know eight--eight exist
to my personal knowledge. Sometimes a couple live together, united by
the indissoluble fetter of a Senbrook betrayal. They know their lives
are broken, and they are content that their lives should be broken.
They have loved Senbrook, therefore there is nothing to do but retire
to France. You may think I am joking, but I'm not. It is comic, but
that is no reason why it shouldn't be true. And these ladies neither
forget nor upbraid; and they will attack you like tigers if you dare
say a word against him. This creation of faith is the certain sign of
Don Juan! No matter how cruelly the real Don Juan behaves, the women
he has deceived are ready to welcome him. After years they meet him
in all forgetfulness of wrong. Examine history, and you will find
that the love inspired by the real Don Juan ends only with death. Nor
am I sure that the women attach much importance to his infidelities;
they accept them, his infidelities being a consequential necessity of
his being, the eons and the attributes of his godhead. Don Juan
inspires no jealousy; Don Juan stabbed by an infuriated mistress is a
psychological impossibility."
"I have heard that Seymour used to drive Lady Helen crazy with
jealousy."
"Don Juan disappears at the church-door. He was her husband. The most
unfaithful wife is wildly jealous of her husband."
A sudden silence fell, and a young girl was borne out fainting.
"Nothing more common than for young girls to faint when he is
present. Go," said Harding, "and you will hear her calling his name."
Then, picking up the thread of the paradox, he continued--"But you
can't have Don Juan in this century, our civilization has wiped him
out; not the vice of which he is representative--that is eternal--but
the spectacle of adventure of which he is the hero. No more
fascinating idea. Had the age admitted of Don Juan, I should have
written out his soul long ago. I love the idea. With duelling and
hose picturesqueness has gone out of life. The mantle and the rapier
are essential; and angry words...."
"Are angry words picturesque?"
"Angry words mean angry attitudes; and they are picturesque."
The young men smiled at the fascinating eloquence, and feeling an
appreciative audience about him, Harding continued--
"See Mike Fletcher, know him, understand him, and imagine what he
would have been in the eighteenth century, the glory of adventure he
would have gathered. His life to-day is a mean parody upon an easily
realizable might-have-been. So vital is the idea in him that his life
to-day is the reflection of a life that burned in another age too
ardently to die with death. In another age Mike would have outdone
Casanova. Casanova!--what a magnificent Casanova he would have been!
Casanova is to me the most fascinating of characters. He was
everything--a frequenter of taverns and palaces, a necromancer. His
audacity and unscrupulousness, his comedies, his immortal memoirs!
What was that delightful witty remark he made to some stupid husband
who lay on the ground, complaining that Casanova hadn't fought
fairly? You remember? it was in an avenue of chestnut trees,
approaching a town. Ha! I have forgotten. Mike has all that this man
had--love of adventure, daring, courage, strength, beauty, skill. For
Mike would have made a unique swordsman. Have you ever seen him ride?
Have you ever seen him shoot? I have seen him knock a dozen pigeons
over in succession. Have you ever seen him play billiards? He often
makes a break of a hundred. Have you ever seen him play tennis? He is
the best man we have in the Temple. And a poet! Have you ever heard
him tell of the poem he is writing? The most splendid subject. He
says that neither Goethe nor Hugo ever thought of a better."
"You may include self-esteem in your list of his qualities."
"A platitude! Self-esteem is synonymous to genius. Still, I do not
suppose he would in any circumstances have been a great poet; but
there is enough of the poet about him to enhance and complete his Don
Juan genius."
"You would have to mend his broken nose before you could cite him as
a model Don Juan."
"On the contrary, by breaking his nose chance emphasized nature's
intention; for a broken nose is the element of strangeness so
essential in modern beauty, or shall I say modern attractiveness? But
see that slim figure in hose, sword on thigh, wrapped in rich mantle,
arriving on horseback with Liperello! Imagine the castle balcony, and
the pale sky, green and rose, pensive as her dream, languid as her
attitude. Then again, the grand staircase with courtiers bowing
solemnly; or maybe the wave lapping the marble, the gondola shooting
through the shadow! What encounters, what assignations, what
disappearances, what sudden returnings! So strong is the love idea in
him, that it has suscitated all that is inherent and essential in the
character. It sent him to Boulogne so that he might fight a duel; and
the other day a nun left her convent for him. Curious atavism,
curious recrudescence of a dead idea of man! Say, is it his fault if
his pleasures are limited to clandestine visits; his fame to a
summons to appear in a divorce case; his danger to that most pitiful
of modern ignominies--five shillings a week? ... Bah! this age has
much to answer for."
"But Casanova was a marvellous necromancer, an extraordinary
gambler."
"I know no more enthusiastic gambler than Mike. Have you ever seen
him play whist? At Boulogne he cleaned them all out at baccarat."
"And lost heavily next day, and left without paying."
"The facts of the case have not been satisfactorily established. Have
you seen him do tricks with cards? He used to be very fond of card
tricks; and, by Jove! now I remember, there was a time when ladies
came to consult him. He had two pieces of paper folded up in the same
way. He gave one to the lady to write her question on; she placed it
in a cleft stick and burnt it in a lamp; but the stick was cleft at
both ends, and Mike managed it so that she burnt the blank sheet,
while he read what she had written. Very trivial; inferior of course
to Casanova's immense cabalistic frauds, but it bears out my
contention ... Have you ever read the _Memoirs?_ What a prodigious
book! Do you remember when the Duchesse de Chartres comes to consult
the _cabale_ in the little apartment in the Palais Royal as to the
best means of getting rid of the pimples on her face? ... and that
scene (so exactly like something Wycherley might have written) when
he meets the rich farmer's daughter travelling about with her old
uncle, the priest?"
Mike was talking to Alice Barton, who was chaperoning Lily. Though
she knew nothing of his character she had drawn back instinctively,
but her strictness was gradually annealed in his persuasiveness, and
when he rose to go out of the room with Lily, she was astonished that
she had pleasure in his society.
Lily was more beautiful than usual, the heat and the pleasure of
seeing her admirer having flushed her cheeks. He was penetrated with
her sweetness, and the hand laid on his arm thrilled him. Where
should he take her? Unfortunately the staircase was in stone;
servants were busy in the drawing-room.
"How beautifully Mr. Escott plays the violin!"
The melodious strain reeked through the doorways, filling the
passage.
"That is Stradella's 'Chanson d'Église.' He always plays it; I'm sick
of it."
"Yes, but I'm not. Do not let us go far, I should like to listen."
"I thought you would have preferred to talk with me."
Her manner did not encourage him to repeat his words, and he waited,
uncertain what he should say or do. When the piece was over, he
said--
"We had to turn my bedroom into a retiring-room. I'm afraid we shall
not be alone."
"That does not matter; my mother does not approve of young girls
sitting out dances."
"But your mother isn't here."
"I should not think of doing anything I knew she did not wish me to
do."
The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Muchross with
several lords, and he was with difficulty dissuaded from an attempt
to swarm up the columns of the wonderful bed. The room was full of
young girls and barristers gathered from the various courts. Some had
stopped before the great Christ. A girl had touched the suspended
silver lamp and spoken of "dim religious light"; but by no word or
look did Lily admit that she had been there before, and Mike felt it
would be useless to remind her that she had. She was the same as she
was every Wednesday in her mother's drawing-room. And the party had
been given solely with a view of withdrawing her from its influence.
What was he to say to this girl? Was he to allow all that had passed
between them to slip? Never had he felt so ill at ease. At last,
fixing his eyes upon her, he said--
"Let us cease this trifling. Perhaps you do not know how painful it
is to me. Tell me, will you come and see me? Do not let us waste
time. I never see you alone now."
"I could not think of coming to see you; it would not be right."
"But you did come once."
"That was because I wanted to see where you lived. Now that I know,
there would be no reason for coming again."
"You have not forgiven me. If you knew how I regret my conduct! Try
and understand that it was for love of you. I was so fearful of
losing you. I have lost you; I know it!"
He cursed himself for the irresolution he had shown. Had he made her
his mistress she would now be hanging about his neck.
"I forgive you. But I wish you would not speak of love in connection
with your conduct; when you do, all my liking for you dies."
"How cruel! Then I shall never kiss you again. Was my kiss so
disagreeable? Do you hate to kiss me?"
"I don't know that I do, but it is not right. If I were married to
you it would be different."
The conversation fell. Then realizing that he was compromising his
chances, he said--
"How can I marry you? I haven't a cent in the world."
"I am not sure I would marry you if you had every cent in the world."
Mike looked at her in despair. She was adorably frail and adorably
pale.
"This is very cruel of you." Words seemed very weak, and he feared
that in the restlessness and pain of his love he had looked at her
foolishly. So he almost welcomed Lady Helen's intrusion upon their
_tête-à-tête_.
"And this is the way you come for your dance, Mr. Fletcher, is it?"
"Have they begun dancing? I did not know it. I beg your pardon."
"And I too am engaged for this dance. I promised it to Mr. Escott,"
said Lily.
"Let me take you back."
He gave her his arm, assuring himself that if she didn't care for him
there were hundreds who did. Lady Helen was one of the handsomest
women in London, and he fancied she was thinking of him. And when he
returned he stood at the door watching her as she leaned over the
mantelpiece reading a letter. She did not put it away at once, but
continued reading and playing with the letter as one might with
something conclusive and important. She took no precaution against
his seeing it, and he noticed that it was in a man's handwriting, and
began _Ma chère amie_. The room was now empty, and the clatter of
knives and forks drowned the strains of a waltz.
"You seemed to be very much occupied with that young person. She is
very pretty. I advise you to take care."
"I don't want to marry. I shall never marry. Did you think I was in
love with Miss Young?"
"Well, it looked rather like it."
"No; I swear you are mistaken. I say, if you don't care about dancing
we'll sit down and talk. So you thought I was in love with Miss
Young? How could I be in love with her while you are in the room? You
know, you must have seen, that I have only eyes for you. The last
time I was in Paris I went to see you in the Louvre."
"You say I am like Jean Gougon's statue."
"I think so, so far as a pair of stays allows me to judge."
Lady Helen laughed, but there was no pleasure in her laugh; it was a
hard, bitter laugh.
"If only you knew how indifferent I am! What does it matter whether I
am like the statue or not? I am indifferent to everything."
"But I admire you because you are like the statue."
"What does it matter to me whether you admire me or not? I don't
care."
He had not asked her for the dance; she had sought him of her
free-will. What did it mean?
"Why should I care? What is it to me whether you like me or whether
you hate me? I know very well that three months after my death every
one will have ceased to think of me; three months hence it will be
the same as if I had never lived at all."
"You are well off; you have talent and beauty. What more do you
want?"
"The world cannot give me happiness. You find happiness in your own
heart, not in worldly possessions.... I am a pessimist. I recognize
that life is a miserable thing--not only a miserable thing, but a
useless thing. We can do no good; there is no good to be done; and
life has no advantage except that we can put it off when we will.
Schopenhauer is wrong when he asserts that suicide is no solution of
the evil; so far as the individual is concerned suicide is a perfect
solution, and were the race to cease to-morrow, nature would
instantly choose another type and force it into consciousness. Until
this earth resolves itself to ice or cinder, matter will never cease
to know itself."
"My dear," said Lewis Seymour, who entered the room at that moment,
"I am feeling very tired; I think I shall go home, but do not mind
me. I will take a hansom--you can have your brougham. You will not
mind coming home alone?"
"No, I shall not mind. But do you take the brougham. It will be
better so. It will save the horse from cold; I'll come back in a
hansom."
Mike noticed a look of relief or of pleasure on her face, he could
not distinguish which. He pressed the conversation on wives,
husbands, and lovers, striving to lead her into some confession. At
last she said--
"I have had a lover for the last four years."
"Really!" said Mike. He hoped his face did not betray his great
surprise. This was the first time he had ever heard a lady admit she
had had a lover.
"We do not often meet; he doesn't live in England. I have not seen
him for more than six months."
"Do you think he is faithful to you all that time?"
"What does it matter whether he is or not? When we meet we love each
other just the same."
"I have never known a woman like you. You are the only one that has
ever interested me. If you had been my mistress or my wife you would
have been happier; you would have worked, and in work, not in
pleasure, we may cheat life. You would have written your books, I
should have written mine."
"I don't want you to think I am whining about my lot. I know what the
value of life is; I'm not deceived, that is all."
"You are unhappy because your present life affords no outlet for your
talent. Ah! had you had to fight the battle! How happy it would have
made me to fight life with you! I wonder you never thought of leaving
your husband, and throwing yourself into the battle of work."
"Supposing I wasn't able to make my living. To give up my home would
be running too great a risk."
"How common all are when you begin to know them," thought Mike.
They spoke of the books they had read. She told him of _Le Journal
d'Amiel_, explaining the charm that that lamentable record of a
narrow, weak mind, whose power lay in an intense consciousness of its
own failure, had for her. She spoke savagely, tearing out her soul,
and flinging it as it were in Mike's face, frightening him not a
little.
"I wish I had known Amiel; I think I could have loved him."
"Did he never write anything but this diary?"
"Oh, yes; but nothing of any worth. The diary was not written for
publication. A friend of his found it among his papers, and from a
huge mass extricated two volumes." Then speaking in praise of the
pessimism of the Russian novels, she said--"There is no pleasure in
life--at least none for me; the only thing that sustains me is
curiosity."
"I don't speak of love, but have you no affection for your
friends?--you like me, for instance."
"I am interested in you--you rouse my curiosity; but when I know you,
I shall pass you by just like another."
"You are frank, to say the least of it. But like all other women, I
suppose you like pleasure, and I adore you; I really do. I have never
seen any one like you. You are superb to-night; let me kiss you." He
took her in his arms.
"No, no; loose me. You do not love me, I do not love you; this is
merely vice."
He pleaded she was mistaken. They spoke of indifferent things, and
soon after went in to supper.
"What a beautiful piece of tapestry!" said Lady Helen.
"Yes, isn't it. But how strange!" he said, stopping in the doorway.
"See how exquisitely real is the unreal--that is to say, how full of
idea, how suggestive! Those blue trees and green skies, those nymphs
like unswathed mummies, colourless but for the red worsted of their
lips,--that one leaning on her bow, pointing to the stag that the
hunters are pursuing through a mysterious yellow forest,--are to my
mind infinitely more real than the women bending over their plates.
At this moment the real is mean and trivial, the ideal is full of
evocation."
"The real and the ideal; why distinguish as people usually
distinguish between the words? The real is but the shadow of the
ideal, the ideal but the shadow of the real."
The table was in disorder of cut pineapple, scattered dishes, and
drooping flowers. Muchross, Snowdown, Dicky the driver, and others
were grouped about the end of the table, and a waiter who styled them
"most amusing gentlemen," supplied fresh bottles of champagne.
Muchross had made several speeches, and now jumping on a chair, he
discoursed on the tapestry, drawing outrageous parallels, and talking
unexpected nonsense. The castle he identified as the cottage where he
and Jenny had spent the summer; the bleary-eyed old peacock was the
chicken he had dosed with cayenne pepper, hoping to cure its
rheumatism; the pool with the white threads for sunlight was the
water-butt into which Tom had fallen from the tiles--"those are the
hairs out of his own old tail." The nymphs were Laura, Maggie, Emily,
&c. Mike asked Lady Helen to come into the dancing-room, but she did
not appear to hear, and her laughter encouraged Muchross to further
excesses. The riot had reached its height and dancers were beginning
to come from the drawing-room to ask what it was all about.
"All about!" shouted Muchross; "I don't care any more about nymphs--I
only care about getting drunk and singing. 'What cheer, 'Ria!'"
"Don't you care for dancing?" said Lady Helen, with tears running
down her cheeks.
"Ra-ther; see me dance the polka, dear girl." And they went banging
through the dancers. Snowdown and Dicky shouted approval.
"What cheer, 'Ria!
'Ria's on the job.
What cheer, 'Ria!
Speculate a bob.
'Ria is a toff, and she is immensikoff--
And we all shouted,
What cheer, 'Ria!"
Amid the uproar Lady Helen danced with Lily Young. Insidious
fragilities of eighteen were laid upon the plenitudes of thirty! Pure
pink and cream-pink floated on the wind of the waltz, fading out of
colour in shadowy corners, now gliding into the glare of burnished
copper, to the quick appeal of the 'Estudiantina.' A life that had
ceased to dream smiled upon one which had begun to dream. Sad eyes of
Summer, that may flame with no desire again, looked into the eyes of
Spring, where fancies collect like white flowers in the wave of a
clear fountain.
Mike and Frank turned shoulder against shoulder across the room, four
legs following in intricate unison to the opulent rhythm of the 'Blue
Danube'; and when beneath ruche-rose feet died away in little
exhausted steps, the men sprang from each other, and the rhythm of
sex was restored--Mike with Lily, and Frank with Helen, yielding
hearts, hands, and feet in the garden enchantment of Gounod's waltz.
* * * * * *
The smell of burnt-out and quenched candle-ends pervaded the
apartment, and slips of gray light appeared between the curtains. The
day, alas! had come upon them. Frank yawned; and pale with weariness
he longed that his guests might leave him. Chairs had been brought
out on the balcony. Muchross and his friends had adjourned from the
supper-room, bringing champagne and an hysterical lady with them.
Snowdown and Platt were with difficulty dissuaded from attempting
acrobatic feats on the parapet; and the city faded from deep purple
into a vast grayness. Strange was the little party ensconced in the
stone balcony high above the monotone of the river.
Harding and Thompson, for pity of Frank, had spoken of leaving, but
the lords and the lady were obdurate. Her husband had left in
despair, leaving Muchross to bring her home safely to Notting Hill.
As the day broke even the "bluest" stories failed to raise a laugh.
At last some left, then the lords left; ten minutes after Mike,
Frank, Harding, and Thompson were alone.
"Those infernal fellows wouldn't go, and now I'm not a bit sleepy."
"I am," said Thompson. "Come on, Harding; you are going my way."
"Going your way!"
"Yes; you can go through the Park. The walk will do you good."
"I should like a walk," said Escott, "I'm not a bit sleepy now."
"Come on then; walk with me as far as Hyde Park Corner."
"And come home alone! Not if I know it--I'll go if Mike will come."
"I'll go," said Mike. "You'll come with us, Harding?"
"It is out of my way, but if you are all going ... Where's John
Norton?"
"He left about an hour ago."
"Let's wake him up."
As they passed up the Temple towards the Strand entrance, they turned
into Pump Court, intending to shout. But John's window was open, and
he stood, his head out, taking the air.
"What!--not gone to bed yet?"
"No; I have bad indigestion, and cannot sleep."
"We are going to walk as far as Hyde Park Corner with Thompson. Just
the thing for you; you'll walk off your indigestion."
"All right. Wait a moment; I'll put my coat on...."
"I never pass a set of street-sweepers without buttoning up," said
Harding, as they went out of the Temple into the Strand. "The glazed
shoes I don't mind, but the tie is too painfully significant."
"The old signs of City," said Thompson, as a begging woman rose from
a doorstep, and stretched forth a miserable arm and hand.
About the closed wine-shops and oyster-bars of the Haymarket a shadow
of the dissipation of the night seemed still to linger; and a curious
bent figure passed picking with a spiked stick cigar-ends out of
the gutter; significant it was, and so too was the starving dog
which the man drove from a bone. The city was mean and squalid in
the morning, and conveyed a sense of derision and reproach--the
sweep-carriage-road of Regent Street; the Royal Academy, pretentious,
aristocratic; the Green Park still presenting some of the graces of
a preceding century. There were but three cabs on the rank. The
market-carts rolled along long Piccadilly, the great dray-horses
shuffling, raising little clouds of dust in the barren street, the
men dozing amid the vegetables.
They were now at Hyde Park Corner. Thompson spoke of the
_improvements_--the breaking up of the town into open spaces; but he
doubted if anything would be gained by these imitations of Paris. His
discourse was, however, interrupted by a porter from the Alexandra
Hotel asking to be directed to a certain street. He had been sent to
fetch a doctor immediately--a lady just come from an evening party
had committed suicide.
"What was she like?" Harding asked.
"A tall woman."
"Dark or fair?"
He couldn't say, but thought she was something between the two.
Prompted by a strange curiosity, feeling, they knew not why, but
still feeling that it might be some one from Temple Gardens, they
went to the hotel, and obtained a description of the suicide from the
head-porter. The lady was very tall, with beautiful golden hair. For
a description of her dress the housemaid was called.
"I hope," said Mike, "she won't say she was dressed in cream-pink,
trimmed with olive ribbons." She did. Then Harding told the porter he
was afraid the lady was Lady Helen Seymour, a friend of theirs, whom
they had seen that night in a party given in Temple Gardens by this
gentleman, Mr. Frank Escott. They were conducted up the desert
staircase of the hotel, for the lift did not begin working till seven
o'clock. The door stood ajar, and servants were in charge. On the
left was a large bed, with dark-green curtains, and in the middle of
the room a round table. There were two windows. The toilette-table
stood between bed and window, and in the bland twilight of closed
Venetian blinds a handsome fire flared loudly, throwing changing
shadows upon the ceiling, and a deep, glowing light upon the red
panels of the wardrobe. So the room fixed itself for ever on their
minds. They noted the crude colour of the Brussels carpet, and even
the oilcloth around the toilette-table was remembered. They saw that
the round table was covered with a red tablecloth, and that writing
materials were there, a pair of stays, a pair of tan gloves, and some
withering flowers. They saw the ball-dress that Lady Helen had worn
thrown over the arm-chair; the silk stockings, the satin shoes--and a
gleam of sunlight that found its way between the blinds fell upon a
piece of white petticoat. Lady Helen lay in the bed, thrown back low
down on the pillow, the chin raised high, emphasizing a line of
strained white throat. She lay in shadow and firelight, her cheek
touched by the light. Around her eyes the shadows gathered, and as a
landscape retains for an hour some impression of the day which is
gone, so a softened and hallowed trace of life lingered upon her.
Then the facts of the case were told. She had driven up to the hotel
in a hansom. She had asked if No. 57 was occupied, and on being told
it was not, said she would take it; mentioning at the same time that
she had missed her train, and would not return home till late in the
afternoon. She had told the housemaid to light a fire, and had then
dismissed her. Nothing more was known; but as the porter explained,
it was clear she had gone to bed so as to make sure of shooting
herself through the heart.
"The pistol is still in her hand; we never disturb anything till
after the doctor has completed his examination."
Each felt the chill of steel against the naked side, and seeing the
pair of stays on the table, they calculated its resisting force.
Harding mused on the ghastly ingenuity, withal so strangely
reasonable. Thompson felt he would give his very life to make a
sketch. Mike wondered what her lover was like. Frank was overwhelmed
in sentimental sorrow. John's soul was full of strife and suffering.
He had sacrificed his poems, and had yet ventured in revels which had
led to such results! Then as they went down-stairs, Harding gave the
porter Lewis Seymour's name and address, and said he should be sent
for at once.