THESE days were almost unalloyed joy to Maddison, and full of pleasure
to Marian, only checkered by the difficulty which she saw before her of
persuading him to allow her to return to town while he remained where he
was. The fear of Squire molesting them was now, she felt, an
insufficient excuse for their separation, not sufficient, at any rate,
to compel Maddison to forego his decision that he would not be parted
from her again. At any rate this motive alone was not strong enough, and
she searched in vain for some further argument to support it. Determined
she was to free herself partially from him, but she did not wish to
break entirely with him yet; indeed, he was essential to her still. She
would not run any risk she could avoid or foresee, but equally she would
not leave any effort untried to obtain her own way.
“The Rebel” was quickly completed, and he had no other work on hand.
Mrs. West had learned from her husband who this friend was, and
therefore accepted the excuse. But West himself came over one afternoon
in the motor car, and was told by Marian, who came to the door, that
Maddison had walked into Brighton, and that she was alone, nursing a
headache.
“I’m awfully sorry,” West said, thinking how extraordinarily pretty she
looked against the dark shadow behind her. “If it’s not a real bad one,
come for a spin in the car: the air will blow it out of you in no time.”
“I believe it would, but——”
“Oh, I know; never mind Maddison. Leave a note pinned up for him to tell
him where you’ve gone in case he’s back before we are. Now, do come; I’m
sure it will do you good.”
“It’s awfully kind of you. Very well. I must just run up for my hat and
coat. I shan’t be two minutes.”
“Two minutes! I’ll give you five!” adding to himself: “she’s worth
waiting for.”
West laughed at Marian’s coat, “which might,” he said, “keep a few flies
out,” and wrapped her in rugs, until little of her could be seen save
her face, peeping out beneath the natty fur hat which she had tied down
with a thick brown veil.
“By Jove, you look like Mother Christmas,” laughed West. “All snug?
Right! Forrard!”
“It’s glorious!” she said, as they sped along a short piece of broad,
level road. “I don’t wonder men go mad over it.”
“Don’t you ever go mad over things?”
“I? No, I don’t think so. I’ve never come across anything which tempted
me quite enough to make me go mad over it. Perhaps I was born hopelessly
sane. It must be rather nice to feel real mad sometimes.”
“Yes, it’s intoxicating, just that. Don’t be scared, I’m not going to do
it now anyway, but I sometimes feel horribly tempted to turn on full
speed, let her rip, put my hands in my pockets and see——”
“But then—you’d never be able to get intoxicated again. I prefer
something less final than that. A big business—to be at the head of
it—a sort of king—with every other king’s hand against me—that would
intoxicate me. If I were a man, I should like to be a speaker and make
thousands drunk with my words.”
“An actress?”
“Yes; that must be intoxicating too—just to play on an audience—but—I
can’t do any of these things, so I must content myself with watching
other people—getting intoxicated. You men have most of the good things
in the way of power.”
“Except power over ourselves. That belongs to you.”
“Does it? Perhaps to some of us. I haven’t got it—at least—I want to
persuade George to do something sensible and I can’t.”
“Perhaps he’s intoxicated?”
“He can’t afford to be every day. He’s not done a stroke of work since
I’ve come down here—or rather for the last two days, not touched Mrs.
West’s portrait, and won’t—I’m afraid—till I go away, and he won’t let
me go. I came down on condition that I only stayed three days; I’ve been
here five now. I daresay you think it queer my talking to you—but you
see I haven’t got any friends, and you’re George’s friend too. Couldn’t
you—couldn’t you—just give him a bit of advice?”
“Oh, lots, heaps, tons!” West replied, laughing; “and couldn’t he and
wouldn’t he refuse to take an ounce of it? Of course he would, even if
he didn’t tell me to go to the—to go to, forsooth!”
“Probably,” said Marian, smiling; “but you wouldn’t mind that, would
you? You needn’t go. Don’t you see, it’s this way: he might pay a little
more attention to _my_ advice if he found that you gave him just the
same.”
“Perhaps. But he’s got an obstinate little way of his own, has Master
George. Besides, do you really think that if you can’t get a thing from
him by yourself you’ll be able to do so with my help?”
“You’re so strong,” Marian said, in such a matter-of-fact tone of voice
that West laughed out loud, though this very tone flattered and pleased
him.
“I think I must stop the car, get out and bow to the ground in
gratitude,” he said. “It isn’t often a pretty woman pays a pretty
compliment in such a tone that there’s no doubting its genuineness.”
“Are men any better? I should hate to pay a man false compliments, but I
never expect him to do anything else. When a man thinks a woman pretty
he calls her lovely, and when she’s ugly he says she’s pretty,
and—we—oh, we’re just weak fools enough to love a pretty lie and to
hate an ugly truth.”
“Are you?” he asked bluntly.
“Present company always excepted.”
“Do you think so? When anyone says that I at once conclude that present
company was particularly meant. Yes, it’s wonderful what you can do with
soft-sawder, especially in business. Only you must be careful to deal
with each man as an individual: some like their compliments hot, some
cold, some spoken, some implied, some like to be taken for saints and
some for sinners. Here’s the whole art of big business in a
nutshell—‘play high, play low,’ high stakes and a low estimate of the
strength of human nature; every man has his price, though more often
than not it isn’t money.”
“You’re a cynic!”
“I don’t believe in labels; I try to flatter myself that I’m a practical
man of business, while all the time at the bottom of my heart, I know
that I’m what every man and woman really is—just a mere emotional
creature of impulse. Oh, yes, I’ve met those cold-blooded, calculating,
anæmic-looking men, but they’re just as impulsive, only they hoodwink
themselves by finding reasons for their impulse, and very often by the
time they’ve found them it’s too late to act on their impulse. Study
history; you won’t find any really big man who didn’t act on impulse at
all the important moments of his life; impulse unconsciously checked and
guided by the intuition which makes a man a genius.”
“How is it there are no great women, then? We’ve got impulses and
intuition.”
“The average woman has more intuition than the average man, but almost
all women are just average. Then you let your emotions run away with you
more often than we do, and you run away so far that you generally can’t
get back again.”
“That’s true. It comes back to what I said: men have most of the good
things.”
“We have to work hard to keep them. Then—it isn’t till we’re old and
worn out that we know what’s worth having; life’s a long chase after
knowledge, and when we’ve caught it up—if we ever do—we’ve no time
left to use it in.”
“But meantime you’ve thoroughly enjoyed the chase?”
“Yes, that’s true; by God, that’s true. If life was a certainty and not
the wild speculation it is—it wouldn’t be worth living.”
He stopped short, slowed down the pace of the car almost to a crawl, as
he turned and looked searchingly at her.
“You’re—what shall I call you?” he asked—“a witch or a fairy or what?
You’ve made me talk more than I’ve ever done to any woman, or man, for
the matter of that. There are so few people worth talking to.”
“Because there are so few who know how to listen.”
West greeted this retort with a shout of laughter.
“A hit!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I suppose that’s horribly true—you’re kind
enough not to have shown me how I bored you, and so—I’ve thoroughly
enjoyed myself.”
“It’s not that at all,” Marian retorted, putting a touch of anger into
her voice. “That’s rude of you; it’s calling me deliberately insincere
and also pointing out that what I’ve said might just as well have been
unsaid for all you heard or noticed it.”
“Mrs. Squire, ’pon my honor you’re taking things—seriously; you’re not
really angry——?”
“Yes, I am. I am. I was enjoying myself, and you suddenly—Please drive
on, quick, quick. You can’t talk if you go quick, and then shan’t _I_
bore _you_.”
“But really, Mrs. Squire, I——”
“Please drive on—quick!” Marian interrupted.
“She’s a masterful little devil,” West thought, as he obeyed her orders,
and he also decided that Maddison was a lucky devil. A woman who is
difficult to win or a man who has won is usually likened to the greatest
of the fallen angels. The devil has many unconscious admirers and there
are many who envy him.
West slowed down again when they were nearing home.
“There! Wasn’t I good?” he asked. “I obeyed orders like a lamb. Have you
forgiven me?”
“No, I haven’t,” Marian answered, with a catch in her voice as she went
on: “it’s not easy to forgive anyone who smashes up a pleasant time——”
“But, Mrs. Squire, really I didn’t do anything much——”
“Much! You said the wrong thing and it jarred; that’s all, but it’s a
good deal when you’re really enjoying yourself. Here we are home, and
there’s George. Don’t forget your promise, if you get a chance of
speaking to him.”
“But I didn’t promise——”
“Well, keep it all the same—just to show you’re sorry for what you’ve
done. I was going to thank you for the ride, but I shan’t now.”
Maddison helped Marian to alight, and welcomed West warmly.
“Go and put your box of tricks up at the garage and come back here to
tea? Good! Then we’ll expect you in a quarter of an hour at most; don’t
stop down there discussing motor mysteries.”
“I hope you didn’t think it horrid of me to go out for a run with Mr.
West; I thought the blow might do my head good.”
“And has it, sweetheart?” he asked, as he nestled her head against his
shoulder and kissed her. “I do hope it has. I hate you having any pain.”
“Yes, dear, it’s quite gone away—but—you asked Mr. West to tea and
there won’t be any for him if—you insist on going on in this way!”
She broke away from him, laughing merrily, and slammed the parlor door
and locked it in his face as he ran after her, calling to him:
“Cook won’t have you in her kitchen! I must attend to the kettle and not
to you for once!”
She took off her heavy coat and then set about preparing the tea things,
and as she busied herself with them, thought over the events of the
afternoon. She was certain that West was to be caught only by making him
feel that he was pursuer, not pursued; by no art of coquetry on her
part, but by a show of absolute indifference to him, which would lure
him to win her out of pride if not for love. Once she could rouse his
interest in her, she was confident the game would be in her own hands.
She was pleased at the way in which she had made the most of West’s
innocent speech, and made up her mind that merely pleasant friendliness
must be her attitude toward him, until he sought to make her change it,
and even then he must find anything further difficult to gain.
West was in the studio when she carried in the tray, and insisted on
taking it from her, while Maddison drew up a table to the fireside.
Cakes were set close to the blazing fire to keep hot. Maddison drew the
curtains and struck a match.
“Don’t light the lamps yet, George,” said Marian, “unless you and Mr.
West dislike blindman’s holiday. Stir up the fire and make a big blaze
and we’ll have tea by firelight; it’s much more cozy—and artistic too,
so there!”
The rough cottage fireplace, with old-fashioned blue tiles and broad
grate; the rich blaze; the dark background of the studio; Marian, her
red-gold hair gloriously lit by the dancing flames, graceful, lithe;
Maddison, with his dusky, refined face and his midnight eyes; West,
long, lank, angular, with his shock of dark hair and his eyes of deep
blue: the man of art, the man of the world, and the woman; each man
wishing that the other were absent.
“Now, Mr. West, open the door,” said Marian, after tea, as she put the
cups and saucers together on the tray. “Please open the door—I’m off to
wash up. I always wash up the tea things, because it secures a lecture
from Mrs. Witchout in the morning, which is always delightful. You and
George can talk high art and smoke.”
Maddison lit a pipe, while West contented himself with a cigarette.
“When you told me about yourself and Mrs. Squire, I naturally thought
you’d made a fool of yourself or been made a fool of, Maddison,” West
said, as he prowled about; “but you’re a lucky devil. She’s a clever,
interesting woman. No wonder she couldn’t stick to the curate—I wonder
how she ever came to marry him. Hullo! Here’s ‘The Rebel.’ Can’t see by
this jumpy light—is it finished?”
“Yes—as far as _I_ can finish it.”
“If you can’t, who can? Anything else on hand beside the portrait of the
missis?”
“No.”
“You’re getting lazy. You’re enjoying yourself too much. I must tell
Mrs. Squire to buck you up and make you work. Don’t forget, old chap,
that I want ‘The Rebel’ if you’ll let me have it. I don’t mind your
doing a replica for yourself, provided you never part with it. Think it
over. You haven’t much more than three months before you’ll have to send
in—I forgot you’re a blooming A.R.A.—but buck up, it don’t do to rest
on your oars nowadays, competition’s too keen and you must keep yourself
before the public if you don’t want to be forgotten.”
“That’s shop talk, West.”
“All the world’s a shop, my boy; always has been, always will be. Why,
even the socialist idea is to turn the country into a universal
provider. Don’t think it would help matters if poets and painters were
endowed by the State and hadn’t to work for a living. You can’t tell me
of any rich man—any man born rich—who has ever done any art work worth
talking about. If it weren’t for women and money the world would die of
inanition.”
“What rot you do talk sometimes, West; I suppose you find it a useful
habit in business; when a wise man can disguise himself as a foolish,
he’s sure to get on.”
“And the reverse also holds good, from which, logically, it must be
deduced that to appear other than you are is the first law of existence!
But as a matter of fact you know I’m not talking nonsense. If I were to
say to you: ‘I’ll give you an annuity of three thousand a year, on
condition that you give me all the pictures you paint, but you’ve only
to paint when you feel inspired to do so,’ why, my dear fellow, you know
as well as I do that your career would be over. Thank your lucky stars
you’ve got to work for your living. Well, I must be off, Aggy will
wonder what on earth’s become of me. She’s always expecting me to smash
myself. Do you think I may ‘walk into the parlor’ and say ‘good-by’
to—cook?”