"You think she will marry me?"
"Everything in nature is unexpected, that is all I can tell you. Art
is logic, Nature incoherency."
"Well, let us hope that Nature will be a little more coherent
to-morrow than she was last night, and that Evelyn will do the right
thing. Women generally marry when it is pressed upon them
sufficiently, don't you think so, Harding?"
"I hope it will be so, since you desire it."
"And you will be my best man, won't you?"
"I shall be only too pleased. Now, if you wait for me while I change
my boots we'll go out together." And the two men crossed the Green
Park talking of the great moral laxity of the time they lived in;
whereas in the eighteenth century men were even accused of boasting
of their successes, now the conditions were reversed, men never
admitting themselves to be anything else but virtuous; women, on the
contrary, publishing their _liaisons_, and taking little pleasure in
them until they were known to everybody.
"_Liaisons_ have become as official as marriages. Who doesn't know--"
And Harding mentioned a number of celebrated 'affairs' which had
been going on for ten, some twenty years. "The real love affair of
her ladyship now is probably some little tenor or drawing-master,
and Cecil's a little milliner; but her ladyship and Cecil are forced
to keep up appearances, for if they didn't who would talk about them
any more?"
"You should write that as a short story," Owen suggested. And the two
friends began to argue as to the number of lovers which fell to the
lot of fashionable women, from the age of twenty-three to fifty. Two
or three ladies were mentioned whose _liaisons_ reached a couple of
hundred, and there was another about whom they were not agreed, for
some of her _liaisons_ had lasted so long that Owen did not believe
she had had more than fifty lovers.
"It is impossible to imagine any time for a young man more propitious
than the present, or any society more agreeable than London. Morals,
as the newspapers would say, are in abeyance, conscience is looked
upon as pedantic, especially in women, and unbecoming." As the two
walked up St. James' Street together, Harding noticed that Owen,
notwithstanding his chatter about morals, was thinking of Evelyn,
and took very little interest in the display of the season--in the
slim nobility of England, fresh from Oxford, all in frock coats for
the first time, delighting in canes, and deerskin gloves, in collars
and ties, the newest fashion, going down the street in pairs,
turning into their clubs, lifting their hats to the women who drove
past in victorias and electric broughams.
"Never were women more charming than they are now," Owen said, in
order not to appear too much immersed in his own thoughts, and he
picked a woman out, pretending to be interested in her. "That one
leaning a little to the left, her white dog sitting beside her."
"Like a rose in Maytime."
"Rather an orchid in a crystal glass."
Harding accepted the correction.
"Do you know who she is, Harding?"
The question was a thoughtless one, for no one knows the whole of the
peerage, not even Harding, and it was painful for him to admit that
he did not know the lady, who happened to be an earl's daughter--
somebody he really should have known. Not having been born a peer
himself, he had, as a friend once said, resolved to make amends for
the mistake in his birth by never knowing anybody who hadn't a
title. But this criticism was not a just one; Harding was not a
snob. It has already been explained that love of order and tradition
were part of his nature; the reader remembers, no doubt, Harding's
idiosyncrasies, and how little interested he was in writers, and
painters, avoiding always the society of such people. But his face
brightened presently, for a very distinguished woman bowed to him,
and he was glad to tell Owen he was going to stay with her in the
autumn. The Duchess had just returned from Palestine, and it was
beginning to be whispered she had gone there with a young man. The
talk turned again on the morality of London, and exciting stories
were told of a fracas which had occurred between two well-known men.
So their desks had been broken open, and packets of love letters
abstracted. New scandals were about to break to blossom, other
scandals had been nipped in the bud.
Harding said nothing wittier had been said for many generations than
the _mot_ credited to a young girl, who had described a ball given
that season by the women of forty as "The Hags' Hop." Somebody else
had called it "The Roaring Forties." Which was the better
description of the two? "The Roaring Forties" seemed a little
pretentious, and preference was given to the more natural epigram,
"The Hags' Hop."
"We were all virtuous in the fifties, now licence has reached its
prime, and we shall fall back soon into decadence."
Harding, who was something of an historian, was able to illustrate
this prophecy by reference to antiquity. When the life of the senses
and understanding reached its height, as it did in the last stages
of the Roman Empire, a reaction came. St. Francis of Assisi was
succeeded by Alexander VI.; Luther soon followed after. "And in
twenty years hence we shall all become moral again. Good heavens! the
first sign of it has appeared--Evelyn."
Piccadilly flowed past, the stream of the season, men typical of
England in their age as in their youth, typical of their castles,
their swards, and lofty woods, of their sports and traditions,
hunting, shooting, racing, polo playing; the women, too, typical of
English houses and English parks, but not so typical; only
recognisable by a certain reflected light; an Englishman makes woman
according to his own image and likeness, taking clay often from
America. The narrow pavements of Bond Street were thronged, women
getting out of their carriages, intent on their shopping, bowing to
the men as they ran into the shops, making amends for the sombre
black of the men's coats by a delirium of feathers, skirts, and pink
ankles. And nodding to their friends, bowing to the ladies in the
carriages, Harding and Owen edged their way through the crowd.
"The street at this hour is like a ballroom, isn't it?" Owen said. "I
want to get some cigars." And they turned into a celebrated store,
where half a dozen assistants were busily engaged in tying up
parcels of five hundred or a thousand cigars, or displaying
neatly-made paper boxes containing a hundred cigarettes.
"When will men give up smoking pipes, I should like to know?"
"I thought you were a pipe smoker?"
"So I was, but I can t bear the smell any longer."
"Yet you smoke cigars?"
"Cigars are different."
"How was it the change came?"
"I don't know." Owen ordered a thousand cigars to be sent to Berkeley
Square.
It was late for tea, and still too early for dinner.
"I am sorry to ask you to dine at such an early hour, but I daresay
we shan't have dinner till half-past seven."
But Harding remembered his tailor: some trousers. And he led Owen
towards Hanover Square, wondering if Owen would approve of his
choice?
"It was like you to choose that grey."
Now what was there to find fault with in the grey he had chosen? They
turned over the tailor's pattern sheet. Daring, in the art of
dressing, is the prescriptive right of the professional just as it
is in writing. Owen was a professional dresser, whereas he, Harding,
was but an amateur; and that was why he had chosen a timid,
insignificant grey. At once Owen discovered a much more effective
cloth; and he chose a coat for Harding, who wanted one--the same
rough material which Harding had often admired on Owen's shoulders.
But would such a dashing coat suit him as well as it did its
originator, and dare he wear the fancy waistcoats Owen was pressing
upon him?
"They suit you, Asher, but you still go in at the waist, and brown
trousers look well on legs as straight as billiard cues."
"Is there nothing we can do for you, Sir Owen?"
Owen spoke about sending back a coat which he was not altogether
satisfied with.
"Every suit of clothes I have, Harding, costs me fifty pounds."
Harding raised his thick eyebrows, and Owen explained that only one
suit in six was worth wearing.
"There is more truth in what you say than appears. I once wore a suit
of clothes for six years! And they were as good as new when--"
But Owen refused to be interested in Harding's old clothes. "If I'm
not married to-morrow I shall never marry. You don't believe me,
Harding? Now, of what are you thinking? Of that suit of clothes which
you have had for six years or of my marriage--which?"
At the moment that Owen interrupted him Harding was thinking that
perhaps a woman who had attempted suicide to escape from another man
would not drift as easily into marriage as Owen thought; but, of
course, he did not dare to confess such an opinion.
"You don't mind dining at half-past seven?"
"Not in the least, my good friend, not in the least." Going towards
Berkeley Square they continued to speak about Evelyn.... She would
have to refuse Owen to-night or accept him: so he would know his
fate to-night.
"Just fancy," he said, "to-morrow I am either going to be married
or--" And he stared into the depths of a picture about which he
thought he would like to have Harding's opinion, but it did not matter
what anybody thought of pictures until he knew what Evelyn was going
to do. None had any interest for him; but they could not talk of
Evelyn during dinner, the room being full of servants, and he was
forced to listen to Harding, who was rather tiresome on the subject of
how a collection of pictures had better be formed, and the proposal to
go to France to seek for an Ingres did not appeal to him.
"I hope you don't mind my smoking a pipe," Harding said as they rose
from table.
"No," he said, "smoke what you like, I don't care; smoke in my study,
only raise the window. But you'll excuse me, Harding. My appointment
is for eight."
As he was about to leave the room a footman came in, saying that Miss
Innes' maid would like to see him, and, guessing that something had
happened, Owen said:
"It is to tell me I'm not to go to see her; something disagreeable
always--" And he left the room abruptly.
"I have shown the maid into the morning-room, Sir Owen."
"Now, what is the matter, Mérat?"
"Perhaps you had better read the letter first, Sir Owen, and then we
can talk."
"I can't read without my glasses; do you read it, Mérat." Without
waiting for her to answer he returned to the dining-room. "I have
forgotten my glasses, Harding, that is all; you will wait for me."
His hand trembled as he tried to fix the glasses on his nose.
"MY DEAR OWEN,--I am afraid you will be disappointed, and I am
disappointed too, for I should like to see you; but I think it would
be better, and Monsignor, who was here to-day, thinks it would be
better, that we should not see each other... for the present. I have
recovered a good deal, but am still far from well; my nerves are
shattered. You know I have been through a great deal; and though I am
sure you would have refrained from all allusions to unpleasant
topics, still your presence would remind me too much of what I don't
want to think about. It is impossible for me to explain better. This
letter will seem unkind to you, who do not like unkind letters; but
you will try to understand, and to see things from my point of view,
and not to rave when I tell you that I am going to a convent--not to
be a nun; that, of course, is out of the question; but for rest, and
only among those good women can I find the necessary rest.
"My first thought was to go to Dulwich to my father, but--well, here
is a piece of news that will interest you--he has been appointed
_capelmeister_ to the Papal choir, the ambition of his life is
fulfilled, and he started at once for Rome. It is possible that
three or four months hence, when he is settled, he will write to ask
me to go out to join him there, and Monsignor would like me to do
this, for, of course, my duty is by my father, who is no longer as
young as he used to be. I don't like to leave him, but the matter
has been carefully considered; he has been here with Monsignor, and
the conclusion arrived at is, that it is better for me to go to the
convent for a long rest. Afterwards ... one never knows; there is no
use making plans. "EVELYN."
"No use making plans; I should think not, indeed," Owen cried. "Never
will she come out of that convent, Mérat, never! They have got her,
they have got her! You remember the first day we met, you and I, in
the Rue Balzac, and you have been with her ever since; you were with
us in Brussels when she sang 'Elizabeth,' and in Germany--do you
remember the night she sang 'Isolde'? So it has come to this, so it
has come to this; and in spite of all we could do. Do you remember
Italy, Mérat? Good God! Good God!" And he fell into a chair and did
not speak again for some time. "It would have been better if Ulick
Dean had persuaded her to go away with him. It was I who told him to
go to see her and kept him in my house because I knew that this
damned priest would get her in the end."
"But, Sir Owen, for mademoiselle to be a nun is out of the
question... if you knew what convents were."
"Oh, Mérat, don't talk to me, don't talk to me; they have got her!"
Then a sudden idea seized him.
"Come into the dining-room," he said. "You know Mr. Harding? He is
there." He passed out of the room, leaving the door open for Mérat
to follow through. "Harding, read this letter." He stood watching
Harding while he read; but before Harding was half-way down the page
he said: "You see, she is going into a convent. They have got her,
they have got her! But they shan't get her as long as I have a
shoulder with which to force in a door. The doors of those mansions
where she has gone to live are not very strong, are they, Mérat? She
shall see me; she shall not go to that convent. That blasted priest
shall not get her. Those ghouls of nuns!" And he was about to break
from the room when Mérat threw herself in front of him.
"Remember, Sir Owen, she has been very ill; remember what has
happened, and if you prevent her from going to the convent--"
"So, Mérat, you're against me too? You want to drive her into a
convent, do you?"
"Sir Owen, you hardly know what you are saying. I am thinking of what
might happen if you went to Ayrdale Mansions and forced in the door.
Sir Owen, I beg of you."
"Then if you oppose me you are responsible. They will get her, I tell
you; those blasted ghouls, haunters of graveyards, diggers of
graves, faint creatures who steal out of the light, mumblers of
prayers! You know, Harding, what I say is true. God!" He raised his
fist in the air and fell back into an armchair, screaming oaths and
blasphemies without sense. It was on Harding's lips to say, "Asher,
you are making a show of yourself." "_Vous vous donnez en spectacle_"
were the words that crossed Mérat's mind. But there was something
noble in this crisis, and Harding admired Owen--here was one who was
not afraid to shriek out and to rage. And what nobler cause for a
man's rage?
"The woman he loves is about to be taken out of the sunlight into the
grey shadow of the cloister. Why shouldn't he rage?"
"To sing of death, not of life, and where the intelligence wilts and
bleaches!" he shrieked. "What an awful end! don't you understand?
Devils! devils!" and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the
hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant
fribble of St. James' Street had passed back to the primeval savage
robbed of his mate.
"You give way to your feelings, Asher."
At these words Asher sprang to his feet, yelling:
"Why shouldn't I give way to my feelings? You haven't lost the most
precious thing on God's earth. You never cared for a woman as I do;
perhaps you never cared for one at all. You don't look as if you
did." Owen's face wrinkled; he jibbered at one moment like a
demented baboon, at the next he was transfigured, and looked like
some Titan as he strode about the room, swearing that they should
not get her.
"But it all depends upon herself, Owen; you can do nothing," Harding
said, fearing a tragedy. But Owen did not seem to hear him, he could
only hear his own anger thundering in his heart. At last the storm
seemed to abate a little, and he said that he knew Harding would
forgive him for having spoken discourteously; he was afraid he had
done so just now.
"But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint
was in her blood. You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe,
how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you
say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred
years. Now, why do you defend them?"
"Defend them, Asher? I am not defending them."
"Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences." He stopped, choked,
unable to articulate for his haste. "That brute, Monsignor Mostyn--
at all events I can see him, and kick the vile brute." And taken in
another gust of passion, Owen went towards the door. "Yes, I can
have it out with him."
"But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin."
"What do I care about ruin? I am ruined. They have got her, and her
mind will be poisoned. She will get the abominable ascetic mind. The
pleasure of the flesh transferred! What is legitimate and beautiful
in the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by passions that do
not belong to the mind. That is what papistry is! They will poison
that pure, beautiful woman's mind. That priest has put them up to
it, and he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!" Owen broke
away suddenly, leaving Harding and Merat in the dining-room, Harding
regretting that he had accepted Owen's invitation to dinner... If
Asher and Monsignor were to meet that night? Good Lord! ... Owen
would strike him for sure, and a blow would kill the old man.
"Merat, this is very unfortunate.... Not to be able to control one's
temper. You have known him a long time.... I hope nothing will
happen. Perhaps you had better wait."
"No, Mr. Harding, I can't wait; I must go back to mademoiselle." And
the two went out together, Harding turning to the right, jumping
into a cab as soon as he could hail one, and Merat getting into
another in order to be in time to save her mistress from her madman
lover.