When the colonel of the Sussex Rangers woke on the following morning the
Umfraville element in him, fatigued doubtless with the demands of the
previous day, still slept on. That strain in him which had made his
maternal ancestors gentlemen-adventurers in Tudor times, and cavaliers
in the days of Charles the First, and Jacobites with James the Second,
and roysterers with George the Fourth--loyal, swashbuckling, and
impractical, daring, dashing, lovable, absurd, bound to come to grief
one day or another, as they had come--that strain lying dormant, Ashley
was free to wake in the spirit of the manufacturer of brushes. In other
words he woke in alarm. It was very real alarm. It was alarm not unlike
that of the gambler who realizes in the cold stare of morning that for a
night's excitement he has thrown away a fortune.
The feeling was so dreadful that, as he lay for a few minutes with his
eyes closed, he could say without exaggeration that he had never felt
anything so sickening in his life. It was worse than the blue funk that
attended the reveille for his first battle--worse than the bluer remorse
that had come with the dawn after some of his more youthful sprees. The
only parallel to it he could find was in the desolation of poor
creatures he had seen, chiefly in India, reduced suddenly by fire,
flood, or earthquake to the skin they stood in and a lodging on the
ground. His swaggering promises of yesterday had brought him as near as
possible to that.
Fortunately, when he had sprung out of bed the feeling became less
poignant. By the time he had had his bath and his breakfast it had got
itself within the limits of what could be expressed in the statement:
"I've been a jolly ass."
Though there was no denying this fact, he could nevertheless use the
reproach in its precise signification. He was not a jolly ass because he
had remained true to Olivia Guion, but because of the extravagant
methods of his faithfulness. No one but an Umfraville, he declared,
would have hesitated to accept the _status quo_. Considering that in
spite of everything he was still eager to give Olivia the shelter of his
name and the advantages of his position, his insistence on doing more
fell short of the grotesque.
Nevertheless he had insisted on it, and it was too late to shrink from
making good his offer. No doubt, if he did so shrink, Olivia would
commend him; but it would be a commendation not inconsistent with a fall
in her esteem. His nerves still tingled with the joy of hearing her say,
as she had said yesterday: "You're the noblest man in the world; I never
dreamed there could be any one like you." She was so sparing with her
words that these meant more from her than from another. If she used
them, it was because she thought he _was_ the noblest man in the world
and because he _did_ surpass her dreams. This was setting up the
standard in a way that permitted no falling short of it. He must be
Rupert Ashley at his best even if the world went to pieces while he made
the attempt. Moreover, if he failed, there was always Peter Davenant
ready to loom up above him. "I must keep higher than him," he said to
himself, "whatever it costs me." So, little by little, the Umfraville in
him also woke, with its daredevil chivalry. It might be said to have
urged him on, while the Ashley prudence held him back, when from his
room in the hotel he communicated by telephone with Olivia, begging her
to arrange an interview between Guion and himself about eleven o'clock.
* * * * *
On taking the message to her father Olivia found him awake, but still in
bed. Since his downfall had become generally known, she had noticed a
reluctance on his part to get up. It was true he was not well; but his
shrinking from activity was beyond what his degree of illness warranted.
It was a day or two before she learned to view this seeming indolence as
nothing but the desire to creep, for as many hours as possible out of
the twenty-four, into the only refuge left to him. In his bed he was
comparatively safe, not from the law, which he no longer had to fear,
but from intrusion and inspection, and, above all, from sympathy.
It was between nine and ten o'clock. The blinds were up, the windows
open, and the sunshine was streaming in. A tray with his scarcely
tasted breakfast on it stood beside the bed. Guion lay on his back, his
head sunk deep into the pillows. Though his face was turned from the
door and his eyes closed, Olivia knew he was not sleeping. After
performing small tasks in the room, carrying the breakfast tray into the
hall, and lowering the blinds, she sat down at the bedside.
"Papa, darling."
As he turned his head slowly she thought his eyes had the look of mortal
ennui that Rembrandt depicts in those of Lazarus rising from the tomb
and coming back to life.