XI

By mid-December the portrait needed only the finishing touches, and, at

his invitation, several of his artist-friends came to see it.

Commendation of the work was general, combined with a certain admiration

of the unknown sitter. Wyndham could not help feeling that there was

much speculation as to her identity, and he gave himself all the more

credit as an artist for the qualities with which he had endowed her, and

which alone bestowed upon her this interesting individuality.

Wyndham, who made it a point never to have his work interrupted, had so

arranged these visits that none of his friends had stumbled upon the

Robinsons. To the not infrequent query of "Who is she?" he usually

responded, with a half-humorous gleam in his eye, "She might be Brown or

Jones: as a matter of fact she is Robinson--the daughter of a

respectable citizen of that ilk." Yet what more, in sober truth, could

he tell them about her? He might have put it differently, but it was

the information he supposed they wanted. Yet one day he was to learn

that this conciseness had been construed as reserve. Sadler lounged in

one Sunday afternoon, when, as it happened, Wyndham was awaiting his

sister, whose long-deferred visit had at last been arranged for that

day. And, in the course of conversation, the visitor soon let slip out a

word that struck Wyndham like a blow. Sadler had begun by referring to

Miss Robinson as "your friend;" but, presently, as he still reviewed the

painting, out came "your _fiancee_."

"My _fiancee_! What the devil----?"

Sadler apologised; a shrewd meaning smile clung about his massive jaws.

"Of course everybody understands that it's a secret, but when you've

heard of a thing, it's difficult to keep it from slipping out, don't y'

know."

"This is all too absurd!" Wyndham was suddenly impelled to laugh.

"What's absurd about it? It seems likely enough to me; else I shouldn't

have believed it."

"An artist cannot accept a commission without being engaged to his

sitter?" urged Wyndham indignantly.

"Things have a way of getting about, you know," maintained Sadler.

"They have indeed," said Wyndham.

"Well, what are you so annoyed at?" shouted Sadler. "You make me tired.

There's nothing discreditable in being engaged by rumour to a wealthy

and beautiful woman."

Wyndham laughed again. Beautiful! he thought. If only Sadler had met the

everyday Miss Robinson shopping with her mother in the Finchley Road!

"Seriously, do you consider her beautiful?" he asked in a more genial

tone, suddenly curious to hear Sadler's real impression.

"What is beauty?" demanded Sadler. "The moment you can define it, it

ceases to be beauty. Its essence is elusiveness. A touch, a flash--and

you've got it! The lines here are not classical, but your Miss Robinson

has distinct individuality. The eyes are fine. She looks the sort that

would stick to a man. Gee-rusalem! I shouldn't mind having a shot at her

myself. Look here, old fellow, will you introduce me to her? If there's

nothing in it for you, give me a chance."

"Goodbye," said Wyndham sweetly. "You won't think me rude, but I've an

engagement in a minute or two."

"Right!" said Sadler. "I'll be off. Goodbye, Wyndham, old chap. You're a

real damned old swell. Gee-rusalem! you're just great at getting rid of

people."

Left alone, Wyndham gave way to annoyance again. It was a fine thing!

Artists themselves ought to know better than to indulge in

tittle-tattle of that kind. He worked himself up into a towering rage.

Then Mary rang the bell, and he had abruptly to recall his graciousness.

It was her first visit to the studio since the new turn of affairs; her

multifarious duties as worker among the sick and poor after her day's

teaching leaving her so little freedom. They had of course seen each

other in the interim; for Wyndham had himself looked in at the

"Buildings" in Kensington whenever his engagements had taken him that

way, and he had been fortunate enough just to catch her at home for a

few moments on several occasions. The poor girl had been overflowing

with happiness--had not a window on the skies been opened, too, for her?

And though both had so far delicately avoided all reference to that old

painful interview, she had yet often been impelled to throw herself at

his feet in contrition. Only she felt that he, in his great magnanimity,

would be hurt by such an abasement.

When he brought the picture well into the light, her first exclamation

was, "Oh, how beautiful!" Then she kissed him impulsively.

The tribute gave him more pleasure than all the professional praise that

had been showered on the portrait.

"What a charming girl! I should like to know her," were her next words.

"She has such a good face, and I'm sure she's every bit as beautiful as

you've painted her."

Wyndham's vexation at his rumoured engagement seemed to take wing and be

off into the airs. He even felt a shy pride in Miss Robinson. "I'm sure

you'll like her," he said. "Shall I arrange a tea here one of these days

before Christmas?"

"That would be lovely." Mary's voice was full of enthusiasm. "School

breaks up in a day or two, and I shall have so much more time to

myself," she added, still gazing at the picture.

"Any criticism?"

"None," she returned. "You have caught the character with rare genius.

She is so simple and unaffected; one could repose absolute trust in

her.... You see," she continued, smiling, "I feel so strong an interest

in her as being the beginning of your good fortune. I have a sort of

conviction--don't laugh at me, please--that it has come to stay."

When he poured out her tea, she suddenly laughed, remembering she had a

message for him which she had forgotten to deliver in the absorption of

contemplating Miss Robinson; in fact, there was a heap of things she had

wanted to talk over. The most important, at any rate, was the question

of his Christmas holiday. Aunt Eleanor wanted Mary to spend the two or

three weeks with her, but she was anxious that Wyndham, too, should

join their little party over the New Year--since she now understood that

he had emerged to some extent from his austere seclusion. A refusal Aunt

Eleanor would take to heart--she naturally regarded her own home as his,

as the place to which his mind should spontaneously turn at such a

season.

Wyndham welcomed the invitation. It was more than two years since he had

passed any time in Hertfordshire, and the visit itself, which last

Christmas he had sullenly avoided, would afford him the greatest

satisfaction. Much as he appreciated the Robinson housekeeping, it was a

relief to feel definitely that he was not staying the year-end at his

studio, with no resource save their cordial hospitality.

Mary went off in great elation. "I don't know when I have felt so happy

as to-day," she declared, as she kissed him. "I leave my best love for

the work--and for the lady as well," she added, smiling.

It was arranged on the door-step that they should travel down to

Hertfordshire together, and Mary insisted he must leave her to look up

the trains, and make all the arrangements.

"It is just the sort of task I enjoy," she assured him. "Looking up

trains to get into the country always sends me into a sort of happy

excitement; it is part of the joy of anticipation."

Wyndham was left, somehow, a greater admirer of Miss Robinson. He

studied her again in his own picture, and accepted her as a far finer

creature than he had realised--even allowing for this idealisation of

her in paint. "My feeling against her must be purely morbid, and it's

really too bad when she likes my society so much!--she has no idea how

much she shows it." Her unsophistication, hitherto a deficiency, began

to take on a certain charm. How refreshing this womanly simplicity in a

world of showy coquettes and chattering, feather-headed females! Even

Mary, who was so shrewd and fastidious, had been compelled to pay her

homage. The Robinson family was charming! What fine old-world courtesy

in the father--many a born aristocrat might well take a lesson from him!

How unassuming, too, the mother, full of quiet virtues and womanly

excellencies!

And Mary's significant smile remained with him. Good gracious! was she,

too, taking the sort of thing for granted? This power of suggestion from

every side was annoying: still--it would not be right to let that

prejudice him!

Wyndham paced to and fro feverishly. Why should he not----?

It was the first time he was impelled to put the question to himself in

clear seeking. Obscure in his mind these last weeks, it crystallised

itself brusquely--surprised him with its swift definiteness: but he

broke it off, all unprepared to meet it yet. He had a shamefaced

remembrance of his matrimonial conversation with Sadler, of the lofty

convictions he had then expressed.

Well, he had spoken honestly, he argued, and his convictions had changed

not a jot. "Only now that I am face to face with the actual possibility,

I see aspects of the case that then escaped me. Till now I have always

viewed marriage as the great central fact to which the whole of life has

to converge, from which everything else takes its significance. Hence it

was a case of the ideal or nothing--there seemed no other choice. But

now I recognise that matrimony that is not ideal may yet take its place

as an accessory to life, may be accepted as a good without filling the

whole horizon."

He resumed his feverish pacing. Well, why should he not seize an

opportunity which presented itself so favourably? By the loss of his

money he had become reduced in his own world to the rank of a mere

"detrimental." Had he not already felt that sufficiently? He laughed

harshly at the memory. No, no, a Lady Betty he could not hope to marry.

Such wondrous beings did not grow on every bush; nor did life permit of

his setting out in search of one. This holding out for the perfect ideal

only meant humiliation and sadness in the end. The world--the hard world

of fact--was like that, and you had to take it as you found it. No

folly could be greater than to forget that life was as it was, and not

as you thought it ought to be!

Yet he vacillated again. Did he really want to marry at all? Had he not

decided--wholly, absolutely, irrevocably--that his business in life was

work? Though he would never have spoken of it to another, he was proud

in his heart of his sentimental loyalty to Lady Betty, and marriage

seemed almost an unfaithfulness. Better perhaps to bend himself sternly

to the task before him!

Yes, but this task before him--unaided, he could never accomplish it.

Let him confess it now, since he was master again of his full sanity. He

had been beaten, smashed! But for this timely piece of good fortune all

would have been at an end by now. The Robinson support once withdrawn,

he would not be strong enough to stand. He had gauged his powers in the

great contest, and, in this moment of supreme lucidity, he foresaw he

must be conquered again. One portrait could not suffice for the

rebuilding of his future; even on the money side his fee would be

absorbed immediately. And the finishing of the great picture meant more

outlay. To try to "fake" it without proper models would be a folly of

follies--far better to abandon it altogether. His blind optimism at the

turn of things had certainly been of benefit to him, had stimulated him

to his best; but with this first piece of work practically

accomplished, the moment for estimating and facing the situation with

mathematical exactitude had certainly arrived.

He could not fight the world alone. However he might desire nothing in

life save self-consecration to work, he could not even achieve that much

without reinforcing his own strength by means that were unexceptionable

and honourable.

He came to an abrupt stop as the words swept from his brain. "By Jove,

that hits the nail pretty square!" he murmured, his lips ashen. Naked

and ugly, his primary motive stood before him as in a mirror. For one

clear moment he saw himself brutally, and shuddered. "I am not in love

with her. If she were dowerless, I should never have worked myself up to

this stage of appreciation; I should never have dressed up the Robinson

menage to make it palatable. The portrait would never have come out like

this. I should have dashed in a brutal modern study of a plain woman,

full of bravura passages. If I am going in for a thing of this kind, let

me at least be honest with myself."

And then he laughed with the irony of it all. He, the lover of poesie;

he, the fastidious gourmet in things of the spirit; who had followed the

cult of all that was lyrical and exquisite; he planned to mate beneath

him for the sake of crude money. Faugh! A vulture hovering over a heap

of carrion!

But the violence of the metaphor brought a reaction. "Rubbish!" he

murmured, and paced again. The pacing grew into a striding. Up and down

the length of the studio he stamped, face and eyes working intensely. "I

am exaggerating. I am morbid about it all; I am rushing to the other

extreme. When have I ever hidden from myself that the thing would be

primarily a means to my great impersonal end--I may as well admit it has

been in my mind all along! What could be a greater degradation than my

old way of living? Poor Mary! Why, I owe it to her as a duty to put an

end to all this misery. I'd face anything on earth now to make up to her

for the past! Besides, the idea is not at all so inhuman as I am trying

to make out. In a mildish sort of way, of course, I am really fond of

Miss Robinson. Her virtues _are_ a reality! She is plain, I admit--very

plain; but my eye has learnt to see her its own way--the way of the

portrait!"

Brusquely he flung his hesitations from him. Why should he not marry

Miss Robinson? Even in the driest aspect of the case, the match was not

inequitable. The "crude money"--yes, let him use the words

deliberately--the "crude money" on her side; on his a full equivalent in

his personal self, his no doubt brilliant career once sordid matters

were disposed of, and a sphere of existence that was obviously

interesting to her. If he brought no immediate fortune himself, his

future earnings, once he were free to work without anxiety, might well

be considerable. What was there in the idea to wound his pride? How

absurd his metaphor of the vulture!

And then he turned to dwell again with relief at the pleasanter aspects

of the case. Even if he were not attaining to passionate poetic dreams,

he would yet be carrying into effect a charming domestic ideal of peace

and tranquillity. And the very poetry of marriage began to invest Miss

Robinson with something of its own glamour. He saw her in a bridal veil

holding a big bouquet. His enthusiasm mounted.

And Mary's voice seemed to echo again in the studio: "What a charming

girl! She has such a good face, and I'm sure she's every bit as

beautiful as you've painted her." He almost felt himself blushing in

embarrassment; it was as if he himself were being commended. "She is so

simple and unaffected," went on Mary's voice with its unmistakable ring

of conviction. "One could repose absolute trust in her."

How shrewd and true was his sister's reading of the character! Moreover,

Mary had confessed to an almost superstitious thrill at gazing on the

features of the woman who had been the beginning of his good fortune.

Could he say that he was entirely free from the same sort of

superstitious sentiment? Alice Robinson had begun his good fortune; why

should she not complete it? If only that confounded set of fools hadn't

started their silly tittle-tattle!

Undoubtedly there was a substratum of truth and good sense in the views

so stoutly and passionately maintained by Sadler; only Sadler imagined

it was possible to compromise, to step down from the ideal and yet find

great happiness. He himself would give up the dream of happiness in the

ideal sense: his would be frankly a case of convenience, though were it

not for the many virtues of Miss Robinson, his mind would never have

become reconciled to it. No! not even were she as rich as Croesus. He

must do that amount of justice to himself. At his age he could

appreciate the importance of the rarer qualities of character in his

life's mate--loyalty, modesty, devotion! He would be making a wise

marriage! not a sordid one. He would be choosing the deep calm of life

instead of the elusive and often mocking flash of superficial passion

and beauty.

And, on his part, he was prepared to be the best and most dutiful of

husbands!