"Thank you," said Mrs. Adney; and the Oberkellner withdrew. Then she
went on, abruptly: "Will you do me a favour?"
"Yes, if you'll do _me_ one. Let me see if your picture is signed."
She glanced at the sketch before giving it to me. "For a wonder it
isn't."
"It ought to be, for full value. May I keep it awhile?"
"Yes, if you'll do what I ask. Take an umbrella and go after Mr.
Vawdrey."
"To bring him to Mrs. Adney?"
"To keep him out--as long as you can."
"I'll keep him as long as the rain holds off."
"Oh, never mind the rain!" my companion exclaimed.
"Would you have us drenched?"
"Without remorse." Then with a strange light in her eyes she added: "I'm
going to try."
"To try?"
"To see the real one. Oh, if I can get at him!" she broke out with
passion.
"Try, try!" I replied. "I'll keep our friend all day."
"If I can get at the one who does it"--and she paused, with shining
eyes--"if I can have it out with him I shall get my part!"
"I'll keep Vawdrey for ever!" I called after her as she passed quickly
into the house.
Her audacity was communicative, and I stood there in a glow of
excitement. I looked at Lord Mellifont's water-colour and I looked at
the gathering storm; I turned my eyes again to his lordship's windows
and then I bent them on my watch. Vawdrey had so little the start of me
that I should have time to overtake him--time even if I should take five
minutes to go up to Lord Mellifont's sitting-room (where we had all been
hospitably received), and say to him, as a messenger, that Mrs. Adney
begged he would bestow upon his sketch the high consecration of his
signature. As I again considered this work of art I perceived there was
something it certainly did lack: what else then but so noble an
autograph? It was my duty to supply the deficiency without delay, and in
accordance with this conviction I instantly re-entered the hotel. I went
up to Lord Mellifont's apartments; I reached the door of his salon.
Here, however, I was met by a difficulty of which my extravagance had
not taken account. If I were to knock I should spoil everything; yet was
I prepared to dispense with this ceremony? I asked myself the question,
and it embarrassed me; I turned my little picture round and round, but
it didn't give me the answer I wanted. I wanted it to say: "Open the
door gently, gently, without a sound, yet very quickly: then you will
see what you will see." I had gone so far as to lay my hand, upon the
knob when I became aware (having my wits so about me), that exactly in
the manner I was thinking of--gently, gently, without a sound--another
door had moved, on the opposite side of the hall. At the same instant I
found myself smiling rather constrainedly upon Lady Mellifont, who, on
seeing me, had checked herself on the threshold of her room. For a
moment, as she stood there, we exchanged two or three ideas that were
the more singular for being unspoken. We had caught each other hovering,
and we understood each other; but as I stepped over to her (so that we
were separated from the sitting-room by the width of the hall), her lips
formed the almost soundless entreaty: "Don't!" I could see in her
conscious eyes everything that the word expressed--the confession of her
own curiosity and the dread of the consequences of mine. "_Don't!_" she
repeated, as I stood before her. From the moment my experiment could
strike her as an act of violence I was ready to renounce it; yet I
thought I detected in her frightened face a still deeper betrayal--a
possibility of disappointment if I should give way. It was as if she had
said: "I'll let you do it if you'll take the responsibility. Yes, with
some one else I'd surprise him. But it would never do for him to think
it was I."
"We soon found Lord Mellifont," I observed, in allusion to our encounter
with her an hour before, "and he was so good as to give this lovely
sketch to Mrs. Adney, who has asked me to come up and beg him to put in
the omitted signature."
Lady Mellifont took the drawing from me, and I could guess the struggle
that went on in her while she looked at it. She was silent for some
time; then I felt that all her delicacies and dignities, all her old
timidities and pieties were fighting against her opportunity. She turned
away from me and, with the drawing, went back to her room. She was
absent for a couple of minutes, and when she reappeared I could see that
she had vanquished her temptation; that even, with a kind of resurgent
horror, she had shrunk from it. She had deposited the sketch in the
room. "If you will kindly leave the picture with me, I will see that
Mrs. Adney's request is attended to," she said, with great courtesy and
sweetness, but in a manner that put an end to our colloquy.
I assented, with a somewhat artificial enthusiasm perhaps, and then, to
ease off our separation, remarked that we were going to have a change of
weather.
"In that case we shall go--we shall go immediately," said Lady
Mellifont. I was amused at the eagerness with which she made this
declaration: it appeared to represent a coveted flight into safety, an
escape with her threatened secret. I was the more surprised therefore
when, as I was turning away, she put out her hand to take mine. She had
the pretext of bidding me farewell, but as I shook hands with her on
this supposition I felt that what the movement really conveyed was: "I
thank you for the help you would have given me, but it's better as it
is. If I should know, who would help me then?" As I went to my room to
get my umbrella I said to myself: "She's sure, but she won't put it to
the proof."
A quarter of an hour later I had overtaken Clare Vawdrey in the pass,
and shortly after this we found ourselves looking for refuge. The storm
had not only completely gathered, but it had broken at the last with
extraordinary rapidity. We scrambled up a hillside to an empty cabin, a
rough structure that was hardly more than a shed for the protection of
cattle. It was a tolerable shelter however, and it had fissures through
which we could watch the splendid spectacle of the tempest. This
entertainment lasted an hour--an hour that has remained with me as full
of odd disparities. While the lightning played with the thunder and the
rain gushed in on our umbrellas, I said to myself that Clare Vawdrey was
disappointing. I don't know exactly what I should have predicated of a
great author exposed to the fury of the elements, I can't say what
particular Manfred attitude I should have expected my companion to
assume, but it seemed to me somehow that I shouldn't have looked to him
to regale me in such a situation with stories (which I had already
heard), about the celebrated Lady Ringrose. Her ladyship formed the
subject of Vawdrey's conversation during this prodigious scene, though
before it was quite over he had launched out on Mr. Chafer, the scarcely
less notorious reviewer. It broke my heart to hear a man like Vawdrey
talk of reviewers. The lightning projected a hard clearness upon the
truth, familiar to me for years, to which the last day or two had added
transcendent support--the irritating certitude that for personal
relations this admirable genius thought his second-best good enough. It
was, no doubt, as society was made, but there was a contempt in the
distinction which could not fail to be galling to an admirer. The world
was vulgar and stupid, and the real man would have been a fool to come
out for it when he could gossip and dine by deputy. None the less my
heart sank as I felt my companion practice this economy. I don't know
exactly what I wanted; I suppose I wanted him to make an exception for
_me_. I almost believed he would, if he had known how I worshipped his
talent. But I had never been able to translate this to him, and his
application of his principle was relentless. At any rate I was more than
ever sure that at such an hour his chair at home was not empty: _there_
was the Manfred attitude, _there_ were the responsive flashes. I could
only envy Mrs. Adney her presumable enjoyment of them.
The weather drew off at last, and the rain abated sufficiently to allow
us to emerge from our asylum and make our way back to the inn, where we
found on our arrival that our prolonged absence had produced some
agitation. It was judged apparently that the fury of the elements might
have placed us in a predicament. Several of our friends were at the
door, and they seemed a little disconcerted when it was perceived that
we were only drenched. Clare Vawdrey, for some reason, was wetter than
I, and he took his course to his room. Blanche Adney was among the
persons collected to look out for us, but as Vawdrey came toward her she
shrank from him, without a greeting; with a movement that I observed as
almost one of estrangement she turned her back on him and went quickly
into the salon. Wet as I was I went in after her; on which she
immediately flung round and faced me. The first thing I saw was that she
had never been so beautiful. There was a light of inspiration in her
face, and she broke out to me in the quickest whisper, which was at the
same time the loudest cry, I have ever heard: "I've got my _part!_"
"You went to his room--I was right?"
"Right?" Blanche Adney repeated. "Ah, my dear fellow!" she murmured.
"He was there--you saw him?"
"He saw me. It was the hour of my life!"
"It must have been the hour of his, if you were half as lovely as you
are at this moment."
"He's splendid," she pursued, as if she didn't hear me. "He _is_ the one
who does it!" I listened, immensely impressed, and she added: "We
understood each other."
"By flashes of lightning?"
"Oh, I didn't see the lightning then!"
"How long were you there?" I asked with admiration.
"Long enough to tell him I adore him."
"Ah, that's what I've never been able to tell him!" I exclaimed
ruefully.
"I shall have my part--I shall have my part!" she continued, with
triumphant indifference; and she flung round the room with the joy of a
girl, only checking herself to say: "Go and change your clothes."
"You shall have Lord Mellifont's signature," I said.
"Oh, bother Lord Mellifont's signature! He's far nicer than Mr.
Vawdrey," she went on irrelevantly.
"Lord Mellifont?" I pretended to inquire.
"Confound Lord Mellifont!" And Blanche Adney, in her elation, brushed by
me, whisking again through the open door. Just outside of it she came
upon her husband; whereupon, with a charming cry of "We're talking of
you, my love!" she threw herself upon him and kissed him.
I went to my room and changed my clothes, but I remained there till the
evening. The violence of the storm had passed over us, but the rain had
settled down to a drizzle. On descending to dinner I found that the
change in the weather had already broken up our party. The Mellifonts
had departed in a carriage and four, they had been followed by others,
and several vehicles had been bespoken for the morning. Blanche Adney's
was one of them, and on the pretext that she had preparations to make
she quitted us directly after dinner. Clare Vawdrey asked me what was
the matter with her--she suddenly appeared to dislike him. I forget what
answer I gave, but I did my best to comfort him by driving away with him
the next day. Mrs. Adney had vanished when we came down; but they made
up their quarrel in London, for he finished his play, which she
produced. I must add that she is still, nevertheless, in want of the
great part. I have a beautiful one in my head, but she doesn't come to
see me to stir me up about it. Lady Mellifont always drops me a kind
word when we meet, but that doesn't console me.