CLEAR WATERS
Everest was undressing, he had already taken off his coat and
waistcoat, and was standing in front of his long mirror, unfastening
his collar, when he heard light, quick footsteps outside, and the
handle of his sitting-room door turn. With one hand still on his
neck stud, he walked through the communicating doors of his rooms,
to see who was the intruder, and came face to face with Regina, as
she entered. The moment her eyes fell on the adored figure the stony
self-command she had resolutely kept wrapped round her tightly, like
a garment, fell from her, there was no need of it here.... Everest
stretched out his arms to her and she fell into them, in a sudden
passion of tears.
"My pictures, my pictures!"
Her head leaned against his breast, her whole body quivered
convulsively, with great, tearing sobs, in his arms. He held her close
pressed to him, asking no question, kissing her soft hair, and the rim
of her little ear, waiting....
"He tore them all up," she sobbed, after some minutes, "because he
disapproved of them, and I came away, because I felt I should kill him
if I stayed there.... Oh, Everest! what a thing it is to be made to
feel like that, submerged in evil!"
"Who tore them up?" he asked, as she raised her head. His voice had a
tone of horror in it.
"My father; he went into my room while I was away, saw the pictures and
took them all and destroyed them; because he thought it was right, he
told me.... Can you believe it?"
"Hardly," Everest muttered: his face had grown as white as hers.
"What an atrocious thing to do! What a regular old John Calvin!
Darling, darling, I am sorry! What can I do to comfort you?"
"I am comforted already, being here," she answered, drawing away from
him, and smiling through her tears, as she looked up at him. "Oh, if
you knew what a relief it is to be with you, and to feel that blackness
of hate vanishing out of one's mind, and the feelings of love rushing
back into it! For six hours now, since this happened, I did not know
myself.... I have been a murderess in heart.... I was devoured with
hate of him. The thought of you was the only thing that saved me, that
shone like a star in the darkness. The thought of _you_, that stole
through all the mists of murder and hate, and brought me here safely.
He owes his life to you...."
Everest's face grew very grave as he drew her closer to him.
"I am so glad you came to me," he said gently. "I like to think you
brought your grief to me, and also I was wishing for you so much, for
myself.... We can be very happy here."
"But I don't think I can stay.... Can I?" she said doubtfully.
"Really, Everest, I don't want to be any trouble to you. You may not be
ready for me. You were not prepared for me to come now. I felt I must
see you at once, but I have a little money with me, and I can go to an
hotel, can't I, and stay there by myself?"
Everest laughed and kissed her, looking down upon her with that
wonderful softening of all the brilliant face that moved her so.
"Yes, you could certainly do that if I allowed it," he answered, "which
I shall not do. You can perfectly well stay here with me. These are my
own private rooms, where I do exactly as I please. I have my studio
here too, and I always count this my happiest place in town, where I am
free and alone, and no one bothers me. How did you come? Have you got
any luggage?"
"I drove here in a taxi from the station, and I have only a handbag.
I felt I must get away from the Rectory and the possibility of losing
my senses and killing him. But I had no idea of forcing myself on you;
I want to be quiet for a day or two somewhere, and paint a picture
that came into my mind in the train. That will take away this dreadful
longing for revenge. Then you could help me, couldn't you, to get it
sold? You said I could always sell my things. I do not want ever, ever,
to go home again!"
"Darling, why should you? Your home is with me now. As for the picture,
if you want to paint, there is my studio, through that door. You can
work in it all day undisturbed, and sell your picture, I have not any
doubt, if you wish to. But now, you shall have something to eat: you
must have left before dinner."
Regina sank down in one of the large and truly easy chairs. Suddenly
she felt weak and cold and faint. For many hours that worst of all
fevers, scorching hate and anger, had burnt in her veins, eating up her
strength. For the time she was exhausted.
"We must go and get you some supper directly," Everest said, regarding
her anxiously. "Sit still till I come." And he turned back into his
bedroom, to put on his coat again.
"You were just going to bed. I am sorry to disturb you, and drag you
out again!"
For all answer, she heard him laugh from the inner room. In a few
moments he came back to her. She looked up with a sudden exclamation.
He had put on a light overcoat, a white silk handkerchief round his
neck, and his opera hat.
"Everest, I have never seen you like that! How wonderful you look!--so
very handsome in that hat! I have never seen you in it before."
"No, one doesn't wear them in the country," rejoined Everest, laughing.
"You are the most awful little flatterer I ever knew. If I live much
with you, I shall get vain in time. Come along now, you look so white.
You ought to get something to eat, and then go to bed and to sleep as
soon as you can."
They went downstairs to the waiting taxi, and Everest ran up again with
her handbag, and set it inside his own room, with a gust of pleasure
sweeping over him.
As he got into the taxi, he told the man to drive to the West Strand
telegraph office.
"We must send word to your father," he said, when he was seated by her,
"and let them know you are safe."
He saw her face grow still whiter in the shadows of the cab.
"Why? They don't care a straw about me, any of them. Why am I obliged
to tell them what I am doing?"
"Think how anxious they will be when they find you are not in the
house, after the picture question especially! They might think you had
drowned yourself, or anything."
"They would not much care if I had! But they will probably think I am
with you."
"Well, I wish them to know it," returned Everest, so decidedly that
Regina felt silenced.
When they reached the telegraph office he got out, leaving her in the
cab, and sent the wire to John Marlow:
"Regina is with me and quite safe.--EVEREST."
He reflected for a moment with it in his hand.
It would make talk and gossip in the village, but he did not see how he
could help it.
Sooner or later he would have to meet John Marlow's inquiries about
his daughter, and he wished from the very beginning to have had no
deception, nor concealment of his own actions. He sent the message and
rejoined the waiting girl.
It was too late for diners, and still early for supper-parties, so
that the restaurant, when they entered it, was nearly empty.
Everest chose a quiet corner by a sheltering palm and screen, and the
girl sank down on the velvet-covered seat, beneath the rose-shaded
light, with a feeling of soothed contentment. It is a great thing to
come unexpectedly to one we love, and find ourselves utterly and wholly
and delightfully welcome. She saw this was so. She felt in every fibre
of her being the reflex action of the passionate electric joy that was
animating the man opposite her, under his quiet exterior. A warm colour
glowed in his clear skin; the dark eyes were full of life and fire; he
smiled a little, unconsciously, whenever he looked at her. He was so
tender and kind and devoted, so full of all that curious magnetic charm
that passion, when not thwarted, checked, too far repressed, or in
any way distorted, confers upon the male. She felt borne on a tide of
deep, peaceful happiness; she seemed to be floating gently on that warm
and buoyant flood. She was with him, and he loved and wanted her, and
nothing else in the world mattered.
Everest ordered a delicate little supper for them, and made her drink,
in champagne, the health of her new picture, which was to start
to-morrow.
The colour crept back to her face, and fresh strength into her limbs.
The beautiful emotions of grateful love and trust and joy were rapidly
mending the great rents that hate and evil had torn in her system.
"Are you feeling better now?" he asked, as they finished their coffee,
gazing at her. She looked very sweet, very youthful and appealing, he
thought, her face shadowed by the large hat, in the soft light. The
pain and excitement she had been through had lent a look of spiritual
delicacy to her face, widened the eyes, dilating enormously the pupils.
The skin was pale and very clear, the lips a bright line of scarlet.
"Are you ready? Shall we go home now?"
Regina gazed back at him, a sudden wonder on her face.
"How nice that sounds, when you say it--home; and I have always so
hated the word!"
Everest laughed and rose. He felt impatient to have her in his arms and
kiss her, which he did the moment they were in the taxi, driving back
from the restaurant.
"I am so grateful to you for being so sympathetic and sweet to me,
altogether, when I came to you suddenly, like this," she said in his
ear, with her arms round his neck, and he held her very closely as he
answered:
"Darling, it is I that am grateful to you, for coming to me, when I
wanted you so much. I am so glad you found me in." And he was silent
for a moment remembering the conflict he had had with himself, before
he had decided to stay in and go to bed early, that night, at the
studio.
It was only the picture of the enchanted garden that had held him. He
stood looking at it for a long time, and as the remembrance of those
radiant hours he had passed there came back to him he only longed for
Regina. Nothing else could satisfy or content him. He must insist on
her joining him at once, and until she came to him he would wait. And
then, just as his resolve was made, her hand was on his door and she
herself appeared! Just as he was longing for her so much! And he felt
he could not welcome her, kiss her, be grateful to her enough.
When they reached his rooms again Regina said: "I should so like to
begin my picture to-morrow, but I haven't any materials with me, and
to-morrow is Sunday.... I can't buy them anywhere, can I?"
Everest walked across the sitting-room and unlocked the door at the
end. This led into the studio. He turned on the light and called her to
follow him.
"Here is everything, either for oil or water-colours. You can use this
easel," and he lifted a half-finished canvas from one of the easels,
and set it on the floor. "All the paints and brushes you will find in
that drawer, and the drawing paper in the large drawer underneath."
Regina looked round her with pleasure. It was a large and
well-furnished studio; comfort and ease and every facility for work was
everywhere.
"What a delightful place," she said; "and full of your work. I want you
to show it all to me."
"I will some time, but not now," Everest answered, drawing her out of
the room with an arm she could not resist, and closing the door after
them. "Come into my room, and see your own picture, that was safely
with me when the others came to grief."
He opened his bedroom door, and the girl, with a feeling of awed
delight, crossed the threshold of his room.
If anything could have added to the worship which filled her for this
man it was the sight of that beautiful room, in which he slept and, as
he said, dreamt and thought about her.
She hated disorder of any kind, and finding it difficult to be always
tidy and orderly in her surroundings, herself, owing to her impetuous,
unmethodical nature, she specially admired the gift for order in
another.
She hated old, untidy clothes, hated the sight of anything that looked
torn or used or worn, and was fairly familiar with such things in the
Rectory bedrooms, since any clothes are considered good enough for the
country and home. Here, having taken Everest completely by surprise,
she saw nothing that offended her. All was in perfect order, every
object that met the eye was one of beauty and spoke of refinement and
elegance.
The centre table had flowers upon it, and an open leather writing-case,
where he had written his last letter to her, the previous evening.
A bookcase, low and convenient, stood by a long chair covered with
a blue silk rug. There seemed no clothes anywhere--doubtless they
were all ranged neatly in those many wardrobes, standing against the
walls--except a deep blue dressing-gown, thrown over an arm-chair, and
the silk sleeping-suit lying on his bed.
His dressing-table was really beautiful in its appointments, and the
girl's eyes rested with delight on his silver brushes and mirrors and
razors and scissors and buttonhooks.
It was all charming; it breathed order, beauty and peace; for a spirit
of peace is largely the result of order. Although not perhaps generally
recognised, nothing fatigues the eye and mind and body more than
disordered surroundings, the broken lines of a crowded and untidy room.
Regina had heard much of the supposed ugliness and untidiness of
bachelors' apartments, much also about the feminine touch and the
refinement to be found in a maiden's room. But this, the first
bachelor's room she had ever entered, in its stately order, compared
amazingly with the many rooms of girls and women that she had seen.
Everest drew her over to the mantelpiece.
"There is your picture," he said, and she gave an exclamation of
delight as she saw it.
It stood on his mantel, in a handsome double-swept frame, with
plate-glass before it, and looked as if the greatest care had been
expended on it, which it had.
She was surprised at the beauty of the work, now she came upon it
suddenly. The enchanted garden, in all its beauty, bloomed before her,
beneath its soft, crimson sky.
"How well it looks in its frame!" she said; "how perfectly you have had
it done!"
"It is a dear picture," he answered her. "It is my guardian angel. It
kept me here to-night, for you."
Then he took off her hat, and put it on his table, and her cloak, and
drew her into his arms, and kissed her, but very softly and tenderly,
for, while she felt an absolute adoration for him, he had also for her
an overwhelming reverence, and these feelings, animating them both,
carried their love far above the range of common, earthly things.
* * * * * * *
The next morning Everest wrote to the Rector:
"MY DEAR JOHN,--Last night Regina came here in a very
excited state. She was very much upset about her pictures. She is
now staying with me, and if you can feel enough confidence in me
to let things stand just as they are for the present, I think they
will work out all right. I offered to marry her, while I was still
at Stossop, but, acting on some quixotic idea that our positions
were too unequal, she refused me, and continues to do so. I have
no doubt, however, I shall be able in time to persuade her into
granting me what is my dearest wish.
"Best say as little as possible at present of the matter; but
where necessary you can, if you wish, give out we are already
married. Yours always,
"EVEREST."
He sent this letter when they had had their morning coffee, which he
made himself, and after Regina had gone into the studio and settled
down to her work.
She was nervous, trembling with a sort of inward palpitation, which so
often precedes intense effort, and he knew the only way to calm her was
to let her produce as soon as possible the ideas burning within her.
She worked all day, never once pausing to eat or drink. Everest,
knowing her intense preoccupation, and anxious to see her freed from
the feverish tension possessing her, went away to his club, and then on
to the new flat, leaving her alone, and thus free to work all the hours
of light.
At five he returned, and as he opened the door of their sitting-room
she rushed to him and kissed him passionately.
"It is done! It is finished! Come and look!" And she drew him over to
the studio, and to the window, where the picture stood, facing the last
western light, on the easel.
Everest almost started as his eyes fell on it. Its realism was so
tremendous. The passion and the fury of it seemed to strike the
spectator like a blow. It was a great picture, but horrible!--horrible
as its title, written in glittering letters of gold paint, beneath it:
"The Murderer."
Over a plain of snow, snow that covered foreground, middle distance and
distance alike, one limitless, hostile plain, hurried a single figure,
a fugitive, cowering figure, the folds of whose heavy coat, torn back
by the merciless wind, revealed a face in which fear and every hideous,
malignant emotion known to humanity struggled together. Behind him
glowed, blood-red, a crimson sky, the light from which, exquisitely
handled, by a truly master-hand, fell all across the snowy plain and
caught and tinged with scarlet the foot-tracks the wretched wayfarer
had left behind him; footsteps of blood indeed they seemed.
Awe-inspiring, terrible, fascinating, great in its grip of its horrible
subject, the picture wounded, satisfied, attracted and repelled all at
the same instant.
Everest turned from it to her and drew her into his arms. "I think it
is a very, very great thing," he said gently.
"He murdered my pictures and I longed to murder him. I have lived, and
slept, and lain down and got up with murder ever since. But now, it
is over. I have exorcised the demon. It is all there in the picture.
I have put it into that, and got rid of it. I am free again. Also I
am content, happy again!" And she smiled up at him, the light of love
and joy all rippling over her face. "It is greater than any you saw at
Stossop, better than any he tore up, is it not?" she asked. "That's why
I feel I can forgive him; he tore up all those, but then, his action
inspired this, which is greater, so I am not really injured, after all.
Besides, all that fire and rage and passion I felt seemed to be like
a smelter, in which my talent found itself, gathered itself together,
freed itself from all its dross of weakness or indecision, and flowed
out in its true mould. I shall paint better now, always, I think, than
I did."
She was wonderfully attractive to him in her excitement and enthusiasm.
That great energy that was in his own system seemed roused and called
into its full life by the display of it in another.
She was quite white, after her long fast, and her eyes shone like great
lights in her face. He could feel all the muscles of her arms tremble,
beneath the smooth surface of the skin, as he held them.
He had seen women before in all stages of excitement, induced by wine
and physical emotions, but this was totally different; this joyous,
passionate, mental elation that seemed rushing through her veins and
pouring from every cell of her slender, supple, beautiful body, into
his own.
As in the enchanted garden, she seemed less an ordinary woman to him
than some immortal, with all the fires of Olympus in her intoxicating
kiss. He had grudged those hours of the dull, uninteresting Sunday
that he had spent alone, while she was engaged in her work, but this
was worth it!--this moment of his home-coming, to her embrace, and
the hour which followed, when the painting was shut up alone, in the
cold studio, and he drew all her joyous passion, her ardent energy, to
himself!
* * * * * * *
When the Rector received Everest's letter, which he did the following
afternoon, alone in his study, his face was a complex reflection of
the emotions of joy and surprise. He knew that Regina was extremely
unworldly (foolish, he considered), but that unselfishness or
disinterestedness could take any girl so far as to refuse Everest was
something his mind could hardly grasp.... So Everest had been immensely
taken with her! That was just what he had thought.... And he had
actually proposed to her!... And then, the little imbecile had refused
him!
He never doubted a single word in the letter; the two men knew each
other and understood each other perfectly, and he felt sure what
Everest had written was the absolute truth.
He sat, absently playing with the sheet of paper a long time, thinking.
As things were now, he could not certainly do any good by interfering.
He could only hope that Regina would abandon her idiotic attitude
before Everest's passion cooled. Her duty, of course, was to do, as
every good woman does: tie up the man firmly, while in a state of
helpless intoxication, so that when he recovers his senses he may be
rigidly bound, and none of his struggles to escape can avail him
anything. This leaving him free until he was sane again was a most
immoral and silly idea. However, there it was, and Regina had wonderful
brains, intellectually, though she was such a fool about her own
interests; she was just the sort of girl to keep a man like Everest in
love with her. It might turn out very well.
To her mother he had better state the case as it was; to the girls
he should say, he thought, that their sister was married. Regina's
flight had not occasioned much stir at the Rectory, for it had not been
discovered till the following morning, and then almost simultaneously
with the arrival of Everest's telegram. Jane had cried all the morning
over this final destruction of her hopes, and had not appeared at
luncheon; Violet had been round-eyed, silent and stolid, as usual.
Mrs. Marlow had violently reproached him for tearing up the child's
paintings and thrown all the responsibility of Regina's leaving home
upon him, and he had finally lost his temper, and taken her by the
shoulders, and put her out of his study, and she had not been at
luncheon either. That was all.
By dinner all would assemble again, with only the usual feelings of
aggravation, dislike and hostility to one another.
And now he could certainly get Everest to restore the church for him.
It needed it badly, and enlarging too. He could not well refuse under
the circumstances, and after the marriage Lanark Park would be a
nice place for the girls to stay at. What an excuse for him too; for
frequent visits to town ... to see Regina!... She was very generous
also. Now she would be so rich, there were many little loans he
could ask of her--a motor would certainly be a convenience, for the
more distant visits to his parishioners, and ready cash ... for other
expenses that it was troublesome to draw cheques for.... Yes, decidedly
the news was good, though it might have been better; so he dipped his
pen in the ink and answered Everest's note at once:
"MY DEAR EVEREST,--Perhaps you can imagine with what
profound sorrow I read your letter of yesterday. I am doubly
wounded, as father and as clergyman.
"It is indeed deplorable that a girl like Regina, brought up so
carefully, spiritually watched over so tenderly, grounded so
thoroughly in religious principles and surrounded by the purity of
a loving home, should have taken such a terrible and distressing
step.
"You ask me to have confidence in you, and I think you know
already, my dear Everest, I have the greatest confidence. But for
this, the blow would be insupportable. You must, however, realise
what a father's feelings are in such a terrible situation, and I
trust you will exert yourself to the utmost to make my daughter's
position an honourable one as soon as you possibly can. I cannot
write more at present; I feel it all too keenly. In much sorrow,
your old friend,
"JOHN."
He read that over with satisfaction. He knew Everest would not stand
the least coercion, but that to say he had confidence in him and, as it
were, to put him on his honour, was the best--in fact the only--way to
deal with him.
With a bland smile, he folded the letter, put it in its envelope and
then turned to his sermon for next Sunday, on "Candour and Honesty."
When Everest received this letter he read it through, an amused smile
playing over his handsome face, and then slipped it into his pocket,
with the single comment: "Jolly old humbug, John!"
The first thing on Monday morning Regina begged him to see about
getting her picture sold, and Everest sent it to a shop he knew well in
Bond Street, with instructions to frame and glaze it, and expose it in
the window.
Regina asked specially that the price might be put on, and fixed it
without consulting anyone at seventy-five pounds.
Two or three days after, in Bond Street, they saw a little knot of
people before a shop, and when they came up to it found it was "The
Murderer" that made the attraction.
The painting looked very fine in its frame, and leaning back at just
the right angle in the window. One could hardly pass it without at
least a sideways glance, and nearly everyone paused to gaze at it.
Regina stood for a moment, hearing, with Everest beside her, the
comments on her work. Outwardly, she was quite unmoved, but when they
turned into the park she looked up at him.
Her face was flushed and glowing, her eyes shone softly. "Thank you
so much for arranging it all so well for me. I shall be glad when it
is sold. It is not a picture one wants to keep, as one does 'The
Enchanted Garden,'" and then after a pause: "All those people to-day
spoke of its great power, didn't they? It was fun to hear them talk!"
The following days were largely occupied in getting clothes, and though
Regina begged him not to trouble about these, he came with her and
superintended all the purchases.
She did not seem to wish to have anything sent her from the Rectory,
and she never inquired what Everest had written to her father, nor what
the reply had been. For her, apparently, her home and all its inmates
had ceased to exist.
These days spent in town, empty though it was, and rather dusty and
disagreeable at that time of year, were full of a wonderful delight
for them both. Everest was gifted with a marvellously good temper,
the result of his perfect health and strength. Nothing ever seemed to
ruffle or disturb him. He was always ready to laugh at those thousand
little contretemps that occur in life from day to day--he never blamed
her for them, even when she deserved it. He was always satisfied with
the clothes she chose and wore; according to him, she was always
dressed in the right things, and looked sweet in them. He sympathised
with her in her smallest troubles. If she had an ache, or pain, or
a cut finger it was a serious matter to him; and in these days of
intimate companionship with him Regina grew to know what the absolute
idolatry of another meant. She had come to him with it in her heart,
as so many women come to their lovers and husbands with that precious
gift, but in nearly every case the intense egoism, the want of all
consideration, the ungracious ill-humour, the constant anger over petty
details that men usually display in daily life, completely destroy it,
leaving the woman at last weary and indifferent. Everest's gay, sunny
disposition was very like Regina's own, and to be with him, after
living in the depressing atmosphere of the Rectory, made her feel as a
bird might feel set free in a glad, green wood, full of summer light,
after long imprisonment in a cellar. Almost breaking with its own
delight, her heart soared upwards in love's bright and sunny sky.
The picture had been in the window of the Bond Street shop a few days
when late one afternoon a middle-aged man entered, and nodding to the
proprietor took a chair by the counter.
"I see you've found a new genius, Jim," he said, "and you are doing
your best to boom it, by putting on that ridiculous price; but you know
it's too much; you won't get it!"
"Well, sir, it's the lady's own price. I am selling it for her,"
answered the man deferentially, for his visitor was a constant
customer; a good judge of painting, and with a purse as sound as his
judgment.
"Oh, it's a lady, is it? So much the better. A pretty one?"
"I shouldn't like to say so very pretty, but tall and attractive, and
so bright it's just like sunshine to see her come in."
"And how old?"
"Oh, about eighteen or nineteen I should say."
His customer nodded contentedly.
"She has remarkable talent--remarkable! The choice of subject alone
shows that; so strong, so original. All the same, I can't give you that
sum for it. It's ridiculous. You just take off two-fifty, and then we
can talk about it."
The shopman's face was a study, as he looked back at his interlocutor.
He had known Mr. Burton for twenty-five years, and had never seen him
intoxicated yet, but what was he talking about now?
"Two-fifty?" he repeated blankly.
"Yes!" returned the other testily, thinking he was pondering
discontentedly over the demanded reduction, "I say two-fifty. You
must know, as well as I do, that five hundred is a fancy price for
a water-colour. However I'll stand that; it's a big picture, and
something quite exceptional, so I'll go five hundred, especially as the
lady is eighteen and attractive. But not any more, and if you refuse
that, you're a fool, Jim!"
Jim looked down at his glass counter, struggling with his amazement,
and it did credit to his good qualities as a trader that his face
presented nothing more than the surly and sour look of one who is asked
to reduce his price for a valuable object. Rapidly, he tried to grasp
the position, and, though he could not find at once the key to it,
he saw that there was some error somewhere, which had induced Burton
to make him an offer of five hundred pounds for a picture priced at
seventy-five. It was clearly his duty to get for the artist the most
that anyone was willing to pay for the painting. It was even more his
duty to secure the largest possible commission for himself.
Here, if anywhere, the law of _caveat emptor_ must apply. Burton had
seen the picture, Burton was a connoisseur, if Burton said it was
worth five hundred that settled it; it was worth it. The vocation of
picture-dealing lends a mask to the face and adroitness to the mind.
Jim looked up with a depressed air.
"The lady fixed the price herself, sir.... I don't know whether I ought
to...."
Burton interrupted him: "Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks! I'll write you a
cheque for five hundred pounds, and you send it to the lady with my
compliments, not only on her painting, but on her cheek in asking so
much for it. Say if she's not satisfied, she can return the cheque
and have her picture back." And he drew out a cheque-book and laid it
on the counter. Jim, inwardly trembling lest at any moment Regina or
Everest should come in and in some way spoil this amazing bargain,
still moved slowly to fetch pen and ink, and put it before his customer
with the grudging air of a man who hates the concession he is making.
As soon as Burton was engrossed in writing he turned to the window,
and himself lifted the picture from it. The price ticket he rapidly
transferred to his pocket, before Burton looked round. He had signed
the cheque and pushed it over to Jim's side of the counter. He
stretched out his hand and took the painting.
"Turn on the light.... Let's see how it looks by electric."
The light was flashed on, and the beautiful soft crimson tones of the
sky, the fallen brilliance on the snow, lost nothing by it.
Strong, masterly, complete, it satisfied the eye of the judge, as he
scanned it rapidly and keenly.
"She'll go far, very far, if some damned love business doesn't cripple
her," he muttered to himself, and then aloud to Jim:
"Tell her to paint me a pendant to this--anything she likes, and I'll
give her another five hundred pounds, but not more, mind! Gad, I do
like her cheek!"
"Shall I send this, sir?" asked Jim: he felt himself turning green with
fear lest anything should happen before he could get Burton and the
picture safely off his premises, the cheque left behind.
"No, no! Put it in the motor, I'll take it with me. You can send me
up the lady herself, if you like! With the pendant, you know!" And
chuckling at his own joke he went out to his waiting motor, followed
by Jim, grasping the picture with hands that were damp and cold with
anxiety. The motor started, and he went back to his shop.
"Well, talk of luck!!!"
He drew the ticket from his pocket and looked at it under the electric
burner; a hair had curled itself round on the paper, by the figures,
and formed a little blot after them, which looked something like a
closed nought. The ticket, if your eye happened to catch it that way,
read £750, and nothing else.
Just as Everest was going to change his clothes for dinner, that
evening, the telephone in the studio called him up. He went to it and
heard the picture-dealer's voice:
"Would you mind stepping round, sir, for a moment? It's about the
picture, and it's important: only please don't say anything to the
lady till you've seen me, please, sir."
Everest assented and went back to Regina. She was seated, ready to go
out to the restaurant where they usually dined, dressed in a white
dress he had chosen for her, very similar to the one she had worn at
the Rectory the first night he saw her.
"I like to see you in one like that--it brings such happy associations
with it," he had said.
A collar of sapphires he had given her was round her neck, and the
jewelled star he had sent to Stossop at her breast.
She looked very lovely, as she always did in evening dress, the
wonderful milky whiteness of her skin and its satin surface seemed to
hold the eye irresistibly.
Beside her lay her dark cloak, white-lined, ready to slip on. "I am so
sorry, but I must go out for a few minutes. Will you amuse yourself
till I come back?"
She looked up and saw Everest with his hat and coat on.
"Certainly, don't hurry on my account," she said, smiling up at him,
and he went out.
At the shop he found Jim in a state of dismay. Possible complications
had occurred to him. He explained the whole incident to Everest and
then wound up with:
"I didn't know what to say on the spur of the moment, as you might
call it. With the gentleman there, pressing me to take five hundred
pounds for it, it seemed nothing less than my duty, but for heaven's
sake, sir, don't let the lady give me away about it, for if Mr. Burton
thought I'd made him pay more than I might have done, perhaps he'd
never come into the shop again."
Everest listened to the whole recital with some amusement.
"I can't say what view the lady will take," he said at the end. "But
I am quite sure she won't do anything to make trouble for you. As you
say, Burton's opinion goes far to making the value of it. I do not
see any harm in her accepting his price myself, but she may choose to
refuse. We shall see."
"If she lets on that she fixed the price at seventy-five pounds,
Burton'll see the whole game," wailed the shopman. "Do tell her, sir,
she mustn't give me away like that."
Everest promised he would see he was protected, and when the man was
somewhat calmed, he returned to the rooms.
Regina was standing by the mantelpiece, gazing at the garden picture,
when he entered.
He went up to her, and bending over her kissed her white shoulder, and
pressed the cheque into her hand.
"The picture was sold to-day and the buyer thought its price was seven
hundred and fifty pounds. He offered Jim five hundred for it, and the
man thought it his duty to accept it."
Regina gazed back at him with astonished eyes.
"Then is this for me?" she asked, unfolding the cheque.
"Yes; Burton, the man who bought it, was satisfied to give that for it,
which should be a great satisfaction to you."
"It is; but why did he think it was priced at seven hundred and fifty?
I suppose he misread the card. I think I had better write and tell him
I only asked seventy-five pounds."
If John Marlow was a humbug, Regina certainly was not. Everest watched
her with interest. He knew so well what John would have said and done
in a like case. He would have been so bland and glib, and pocketed the
cheque so smoothly!
"You can't very well without giving away the shopman, who not
unnaturally thought he was doing his best for you. It has made rather
a difficult situation. You had better think over what you'd like to do
while I'm dressing."
Regina took the cheque and walked back into the sitting-room. She sat
down at once and wrote:
"DEAR SIR,--Through a mistake of mine, you were asked
for my picture more than I intended. I am therefore returning you
your cheque for five hundred pounds and I shall be quite satisfied
if you will send me another for one hundred pounds instead. Yours
faithfully,
"REGINA ----."
And here she paused. It was the first note she had written since she
had been with Everest. What would he wish her to sign it? She left it
open, and sat and waited till he came in.
Everest picked up the note and read it; then he saw the blank she had
left, and took the pen from her and wrote in, himself: "Lanark," and
she pressed her soft, warm lips on his hand as it laid down the pen.
"Can that do any harm to the dealer?" she asked. "It has all got into
a muddle, and I hate even that note, because it's not absolutely
straight facts, but perhaps it's the best I can do. What do you think?"
"I think it's all right, if you want to return the cheque, which
there's no real need to do, since Burton bought the thing with his eyes
open."
"I know, but there is a feeling he was somehow deceived. I would rather
return it, I think. I only want the seventy-five pounds I asked really,
but I don't dare to bring that in, because it would betray the dealer.
It would strike Burton probably, then, that the man acted as he did."
She put the note in an envelope and addressed it at Everest's
dictation, and on their way to the restaurant they posted it. Everest
meditated in silence on her action. It was just what he had expected of
her. He saw that of the business, worldly, trader's instinct, which was
so marked a feature of the Rector's character, there was not a trace
in Regina. She had the aristocrat's outlook on things, similar to his
own, and he admired the quick, decided way she had instantly refused to
be even the passive party to a mild deceit, by which she was to profit
considerably. That Burton had considered her picture worth five hundred
pounds, and valued it at that, pleased him also greatly, and in his
ears rang the words of the connoisseur, repeated by the dealer:
"She will go very far, if some confounded love business doesn't cripple
her."
And suddenly, besieged by many thoughts, he turned to her, as she sat
beside him in the taxi, and kissed her impetuously, and crushed her
up to him, taking the girl by surprise. But she was always ready for
his caresses, and put her arm up round his neck, and kissed him back,
although it was ruffling her hair, and crushing to death the tea-roses
she had pinned at her breast.
The next day, while they were having tea together in the studio,
where he had been showing her his work, she received Burton's answer,
enclosing the original cheque:
"MY DEAR YOUNG LADY,--Pardon this form of address. I am
sure you must be very young to be so honest. I paid five hundred
pounds for your picture, and it's more than worth it. I had an
advance offer on it to-day.
"Go to work, and paint me another as soon as you can. Any subject,
and the price to be five hundred pounds. Your admirer,
"CHARLES BURTON."
"I _am_ so glad, Everest!" she exclaimed, the brilliant light he knew
so well leaping up in her eyes. "A thousand pounds! I need not spend
more than that in a year, and so be no expense whatever to you."
Everest laughed.
"My sweet, no; but if you cost me twenty thousand a year, I would be
delighted to pay it!"