Not long afterwards Mildred received a letter the very address of which
had an original appearance, looking as if it were written with a stick
in a fist rather than with a pen between fingers. It caught her
attention at once from half a dozen others.
"DEAR MRS. STEWART,--Yesterday I was at Cochrane's studio
and he told me Meres was the greatest authority in England
on tapestry, and also a cousin of yours. Please remember (or
forgive) the supper on Tuesday, and of your kindness, ask
him to let me see his lot and give me his opinion on mine.
Cochrane had a folly he called a portrait of you in his
studio. I turned its face to the wall; and in the end he
admitted I was right.
"Yours sincerely,
"GEORGE GORING."
Accordingly, on a very hot day early in July, Goring met Mildred again,
at Sir Cyril Meres's house on Campden Hill. The long room at one end of
which stood the small dining-table looked on the greenness of a lawny,
lilac-sheltered garden, so that such light as filtered through the green
jalousies was green also. There was a great block of ice somewhere in
the room, and so cool it was, so greenly dim there, that it seemed
almost like a cavern of the sea. Mildred wore a white dress, and, as
was the fashion of the moment, a large black hat shadowed with
ostrich-feathers. Once more on seeing her he had a startled impression
of looking upon an ethereal creature, a being somehow totally distinct
from other beings; and for lack of some more appropriate name, he called
her again in his mind "Undine." As the talk, which Cyril Meres had a
genius for making general, became more animated, he half lost that
impression in one of a very clever, charming woman, with a bright wit
sailing lightly over depths of knowledge to which he was unaccustomed in
her sex.
The party was not intended to number more than eight persons, of whom
Lady Thomson was one, and they sat down seven. When Sir Cyril observed:
"We won't wait any longer for Davison," Mildred was too much interested
in Goring's presence to inquire who this Davison might be.
She sparkled on half through luncheon to the delight of every one but
Miss Ormond the actress, who would have preferred to play the lead
herself. Then came a pause. A door was opened at the far end of the dim
room, and the missing guest appeared. Sir Cyril rose hastily to greet
him. He advanced without any apologetic hurry in his gait; the same
impassive Maxwell Davison as before, but leaner, browner, more
silver-headed from three more years of wandering under Oriental suns.
Mildred could hardly have supposed it possible that the advent of any
human being could have given her so disagreeable a sensation.
Sir Cyril was unaware that she knew Maxwell Davison; surprised to hear
that he was a cousin of Stewart's, between whom and himself there
existed a mutual antipathy, expressing itself in terms of avoidance. His
own acquaintance with Davison was recent and in the way of business. He
had had the fancy to build for the accommodation of his Hellenic
treasures a room in imitation of the court of a Græco-Roman house which
he had helped to excavate in Asia Minor. He had commissioned Davison to
buy him hangings for it to harmonize with an old Persian carpet in cream
color and blue of which he was already possessed. Davison had brought
these with him and a little collection of other things which he thought
Meres might care to look at. He did not know the Stewarts had moved to
London, and it was an unpleasant surprise to find himself seated at the
same table with Mildred; he had not forgotten, still less forgiven, the
lure of her coquetry, the insult of her rebuff.
Lady Thomson was next him and questioned him exhaustively about his book
on Persian Literature and the travels of his lifetime. Miss Ormond took
advantage of Mrs. Stewart's sudden silence to talk to the table rather
cleverly around the central theme of herself. Goring conversed apart
with Mrs. Stewart.
Coffee was served in the shrine which Sir Cyril had reared for his Greek
collection, of which the gem was a famous head of Aphrodite--an early
Aphrodite, divine, removed from all possible pains and agitations of
human passion. The room was an absurdity on Campden Hill, said some,
but undeniably beautiful in itself. The columns, of singular lightness
and grace, were of a fine marble which hovered between creamy white and
faint yellow, and the walls and floor were of the same tone, except for
a frieze on a Greek model, very faintly colored, and the old Persian
carpet. In fine summer weather the large skylight covering the central
space was withdrawn, and such sky as London can show looked down upon
it. The new hangings which Maxwell Davison had brought with him were
already displayed on a tall screen, and his miscellaneous collection of
antiquities, partly sent from Durham College, partly lately acquired,
were arranged on a marble bench.
"I shouldn't have brought these things, Sir Cyril," he said; "if I'd
known Mrs. Stewart was here. She's got a way of hinting that my most
cherished antiquities are forgeries; and the worst of it is, she makes
every one believe her, including myself."
Mildred protested.
"I don't pretend to know anything about antiquities, Mr. Davison. I'm
sure I never suspected you of a forgery, and if I had, I hope I
shouldn't have been rude enough to tell you so."
Maxwell Davison laughed his harsh laugh.
"Do you want me to believe you can't be rude, Mrs. Stewart?"
"I'm almost afraid she can't be," interposed Lady Thomson's full voice.
"People who make a superstition of politeness infallibly lose the higher
courtesy of truth."
Here Sir Cyril Meres called Davison away to worship at the shrine of the
Aphrodite, while Goring invited Mrs. Stewart into a neighboring corridor
where some tapestries were hanging.
The divining crystal was among the objects returned from Oxford, and had
been included in the collection which Davison had brought with him, on
the chance that the painter might fancy such curiosities. When Goring
and Mildred returned from their leisurely inspection of the tapestries,
Miss Ormond had it in her hand, and Lady Thomson was commenting on some
remark of hers.
"I've no doubt, as you say, it has played a wicked part before now in
Oriental intrigues. But of course the poor crystal is perfectly innocent
of the things read into it by rascals, practising on the ignorant and
superstitious."
"Sometimes, perhaps, Lady Thomson," returned Miss Ormond; "but sometimes
people do see extraordinary visions in a crystal."
Lady Thomson sniffed.
"Excitable, imaginative people do, I dare say."
"On the contrary, prosaic people are far more likely to see things than
highly strung imaginative creatures like myself. I've tried several
times and have never seen anything. I believe having a great deal of
brain-power and emotion and all that tells against it. I shouldn't be at
all surprised now if Mrs. Stewart, who is--well, I should fancy, just a
little cold, very bright and all that on the surface, you know--I
shouldn't wonder if she could crystal-gaze very successfully. I should
like to know whether she's ever tried."
"I'm sure she's not," replied Lady Thomson, firmly. "My niece, Mrs.
Stewart, is a great deal too sensible and well-educated."
"Mrs. Stewart can't honestly say the same for herself," interposed
Davison; "she gazed in this very crystal some years ago and certainly
saw something in it."
Miss Ormond exclaimed in triumph. Mildred froze. She did not desire the
rôle of Society Seer.
"What did I see, Mr. Davison?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing of importance. You saw a woman in a light dress. Perhaps it was
Lady Hammerton the collector, originally guilty, you remember, in the
matter of the forged Augustus."
"Mildred had only to peep in any glass to see Lady Hammerton, or some
one sufficiently like her," observed Meres.
"That idea was started when David Fletcher picked up the fancy picture
which he chose to call a portrait of Lady Hammerton," cried Lady
Thomson, who was just taking her leave. "Such nonsense! I protest
against my own niece and a scholar of Ascham being likened to that
scandalous woman."
Cyril Meres smiled and stroked his soft, silvery beard.
"Quite right of you to protest, Beatrice. Still, I'm glad Lady Hammerton
didn't stick heroically to her Professor--as Mildred here does. We
should never have been proud of her as an ancestress if she had."
"Heroically?" repeated Maxwell Davison under his breath, and laughed.
But the meaning of his laugh was lost on every one except Mildred. She
flushed hotly at the thought of having to bear the responsibility of
that ridiculous scene on the Cherwell; it was humiliating, indeed. She
took up the crystal to conceal her chagrin.
"Do please see something, Mrs. Stewart!" exclaimed Miss Ormond.
"What sort of thing?"
"Anything! Whatever you see, it will be quite thrilling.
"Please see me, Mrs. Stewart," petitioned Goring, wandering towards the
crystal-gazer. "I should so like to thrill Miss Ormond."
"It's no good your trying that way," smiled the lady, playing fine eyes.
"It's only shadows that are thrilling in the crystal; shadows of
something happening a long way off; or sometimes a coming event casts a
shadow before--and that's the most thrilling of all."
"A coming event! That's exactly what I am, a tremendous coming Political
Event. You ask them in the House," cried Goring, thrusting out his chin
and aiming a provocative side-smile at a middle-aged Under-Secretary of
State who discreetly admired Miss Ormond.
"Modest creature!" ejaculated the Under-Secretary playfully with his
lips; and in his heart vindictively, "Conceited devil!"
"Please see me, Mrs. Stewart!" pleaded Goring, half kneeling on a chair
and leaning over the crystal.
"I do," she returned. "I'd rather not. You look so distorted and odd;
and so do I, don't I? Dreadful! But the crystal's getting cloudy."
"Then you're going really to see something!" exclaimed Miss Ormond. "How
delightful! Come away directly, Mr. Goring, or you'll spoil everything."
Sir Cyril and Davison looked up from some treasure of Greek art. The
conversation was perfunctory, every one's curiosity waiting on Mildred
and the crystal.
"Don't you see anything yet, Mrs. Stewart?" asked Miss Ormond at length,
impatiently.
"No," replied Mildred, hesitatingly. "At least, not exactly. I see
something like rushing water and foam."
"The reflection of clouds overhead," pronounced the Under-Secretary,
dogmatically, glancing upward.
"I'm sure it's nothing of the kind," asserted Miss Ormond. "Please go on
looking, Mrs. Stewart, and perhaps you'll see a water-spirit."
"Why do you want her to see a water-spirit?" asked Davison, ironically.
"In all countries of the world they are reckoned spiteful, treacherous
creatures. I was once bitten by one severely, and I have never wanted to
see one since."
"Oh, Mr. Davison! Are you serious? What do you mean?" questioned Miss
Ormond.
Mrs. Stewart hastily put down the crystal. "I don't want to see one,"
she said; "I'm afraid it might bring me bad luck, and, besides, I can't
wait for it, I've got several calls to make before I go home, and I
think there's a storm coming." She shivered. "I'm quite cold."
Miss Ormond said that must be the effect of the crystal, as the
afternoon was still oppressively hot.
Goring caught up with Mrs. Stewart in the gravel drive outside the house
and walked through Kensington Gardens with her. It seemed to them both
quite natural that they should be walking together, and their talk was
in the vein of old friends who have met after a long separation rather
than in that of new acquaintances. When he left her and turned to walk
across Hyde Park towards Westminster, he examined his impressions and
perceived that he was in a state of mind foreign to his nature, and
therefore the butt of his ridicule; a state in which, if he and Mrs.
Stewart had been unmarried persons, he would have said to himself, "That
is the woman I shall marry." It would not have been a passion or an
emotion that would have made him say that; it would have been a
conviction. As it was, the thing was absurd. Cochrane had told him, half
in jest, that Mrs. Stewart was a breaker of hearts, but had not hinted
that her own was on the market. Her appearance made it surely an
interesting question whether she had a heart at all.
And for himself? He hated to think of his marriage, because he
recognized in it the fatal "little spot" in the yet ungarnered fruit of
his life. He was only thirty, but he had been married seven years and
had two children, both of them the image of all the Barthops that had
ever been, except his own father. In moments of depression he saw
himself through all the coming years being gradually broken, crushed
under a weight of Barthops--father-in-law, wife and children--moulded
into a thin semblance of a Marquis of Ipswich, a bastard Marquis. No one
but himself knew the weakness of his character--explosive, audacious in
alarums or excursions, but without the something, call it strength or
hardness or stupidity, which enables the man or woman possessing it to
resist constant domestic pressure--the unconscious pressure of radically
opposed character. The crowd applauds the marriage of such opposites
because their side almost always wins; partly by its own weight and
partly by their weight behind. But the truth is that two beings opposed
in emotional temperament and mental processes are only a few degrees
more able to help and understand each other in the close union of
marriage than the two personalities of Milly Stewart in the closer union
of her body.
From one point of view it was Goring's fatal weakness to have a real
affection for his father-in-law, who was a pattern of goodness and
good-breeding. Consequently, that very morning he had promised Lord
Ipswich to walk in the straightest way of the party, for one year at
least; and if he must slap faces, to select them on the other side of
the House. Nevertheless, if he really wished to give sincere
gratification to Lord Ipswich and to dear Augusta, he must needs give
up his capricious and offensive tactics altogether. These things might
give him a temporary notoriety in the House and country, but they were
not in the traditions of the Ipswich family, which had held a high place
in politics for two hundred years. The Marquis said that he had always
tried to make George feel that he was received as a true son of the
family and heir of its best traditions, if not of its name. There had
been a great deal of good faith on both sides. Yet now a solitary young
man, looking well in the frock-coat and tall hat of convention, might
have been observed stopping and striking the gravel viciously as he
reflected on the political future which his father-in-law was mapping
out for him.