“Of the development of human phenomena, two truisms may be stated.
First, a man can seldom gauge its progress, the self of to-day differing
so infinitely little from the self of yesterday. And secondly, the
climax is seldom reached by a man's own initiative. He seems blindly
and unconsciously to depend upon that law of averages which assigns an
indefinite number of external contingencies to act upon and to complete
any given process.”
Raine had jotted down this among some rough notes for a series of
lectures in Metaphysics he was preparing, when his father's voice broke
a silence that had lasted nearly an hour.
“I am reading that letter you wrote to ----.”
“Which letter?” asked Raine.
As the old man did not reply at first, but continued reading the letter
which he held out before him, Raine closed his note-book, and went round
behind his father's chair, and looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, that one. You must have thought me idiotic. I half fancy I did it
to puzzle you.”
“I wasn't puzzled, my dear boy. I guessed. And does the magnet still
attract?”
It was the first time he had referred to the matter. His voice was a
little husky as he asked the question--it seemed to be a liberty that he
was taking with Raine. He looked up at him deprecatingly, touching the
hand that was on his shoulder.
“Don't think me an inquisitive old man,” he added, smiling to meet the
affectionate look on his son's face.
“Yes, I am attracted--very much,” said Raine. “More than I had conceived
possible.”
“I am so glad--she too is drawn to you, Raine.”
“I think so too--sometimes. At others she baffles me.”
“You would like to know for certain?”
“Of course,” said Raine with a laugh. There seemed a humorous side to
the discussion. The loved old face wore an expression of such concern.
“Then, Raine--if you really love her--I can tell you--she has given you
her heart, my son. I had it from her own lips.”
The laugh died away from Raine's eyes. With a quick movement, he came
from behind his father and stood facing him, his brows knitted.
“What do you mean, father?” he asked very earnestly.
“Felicia--she is only waiting, Raine.”
“Felicia!”
“Yes. Who else?”
Raine passed his hand through his hair and walked to and fro about the
room, his hands dug deep in his pockets. The old man followed him with
his eyes, anxiously, not comprehending.
Suddenly Raine stopped short before him.
“Father, I haven't been a brute. I haven't trifled with her. I never
suspected it. I liked her for her own sake, because she is a bright,
likeable girl--and I am fond of her for your sake. But I have never, to
my knowledge, led her to suppose--believe me.”
And then the old man saw his plans for Raine's future fall in desolation
round him like a house of cards.
“I don't understand,” he said rather piteously, “if she is the
attraction--”
“It is not little Felicia.”
“Ah!” said the old man, with the bitter pang of disappointment.
He rested his head on his hand, dejectedly.
“I had set my heart upon it. That was why, the first day you came, I
spoke of her coming back to Oxford with us. Poor little girl! Heaven
knows what will happen to her, when I tell her.”
“Tell her! You mustn't do that, dad. She must learn it for herself. It
will be best for her. I will be very careful--very careful--she will
see--and her pride will come to her help. I'll tell you what I'll do.
I'll go away--for an indefinite time. Rogers and three men are
climbing in Switzerland. I shall pack up my things and go and join them
to-morrow; I have a list of their dates.”
He searched for it among the papers in his pocket-book.
“Chamonix! Their being so close will be a good excuse. When I come
back--it will only be for a short time--this break will make it easier
to modify my attitude.”
“Let us think what would be best,” said the professor with an old man's
greater slowness of decision.
“I have made up my mind,” said Raine. “I go to-morrow.”
Just then a rap was heard at the door, and a moment afterwards Felicia
appeared, bringing her daily task of copy. She handed the professor the
manuscript--and while he looked through it mechanically, she stood like
a school-girl before her master, with clasped hands, waiting pleasurably
for the little word of praise.
“There is going to be a specially gorgeous _fête_ on the lake to-night,
Mr. Chetwynd,” she said brightly, turning to Raine.
“Won't it be like the other one?”
“Oh, much more so! There is a royal Duke of somewhere or other staying
at the National, and the municipality mean to show him what they can do.
I am so fond of these _fêtes venétiennes_. You're coming, aren't you,
professor?”
“I don't know, my dear,” replied the old man. “The night air isn't good
for me.” Then he added, closing the manuscript, “It is beautifully done.
I shall grudge giving it to the printers.”
“But you'll get it all back again,” said Felicia. “Send it to me
afterwards, and I'll bind it up beautifully with blue ribbon.”
She gave them each a little nod of farewell and tripped lightly out of
the room. The two men looked at each other, rather sadly.
“Oh, Raine--is it too late? Couldn't you?”
“No, dad,” said Raine. “I am afraid other things are too serious.”
Later in the day he opened his note-book and his eye fell upon the last
fragment he had scribbled. He threw it upon his dressing-table with an
exclamation of impatience. The personal application of his aphorisms was
too sudden and obvious to be pleasant.
There was no doubt now in his mind as to the face that attracted him to
Geneva. It had vanished on the first day of his arrival, when he had
seen Katherine comforting the hurt child. He was conscious too that it
had been Katherine all along, at Oxford, whose memory had haunted
him, that he had only evoked that of Felicia in order to enable him
to deceive himself. He had practised the self-delusion systematically,
whenever his thoughts had drifted away from the work and interests that
surrounded him. He had made light of the matter, treated it jestingly,
grown angry when it obtruded itself seriously on his thoughts. For he
had shrunk, with the instinctive fear of a man of strong nature, from
exposing to the touch a range of feelings which had once brought
him great sorrow. To love meant to bring into play a man's emotions,
infinitely deeper than those of a boy, and subject to far more
widely-reaching consequences. For this reason he had mocked at the idea
of being in love with Katherine, had forced himself, since the power
that drew him to Geneva could not be disregarded, to consider Felicia
as an equal component, and at the time of his light confidence to
Mrs. Monteith, had almost persuaded himself that he was indulging in a
whimsical holiday fancy.
But he could delude himself no longer. From the first meeting he knew
that it was not the young girl, but the older, deeper-natured woman that
had stirred him. He had felt kindly and grateful to her for his father's
sake; but there his feelings had stopped. Whereas, with Katherine,
he had been drifting, he knew not whither. The process of subjective
development had been brought suddenly to its climax by his father's
words. He realized that he loved Katherine.
To fly away from Geneva at this moment was particularly
unpleasant--necessitating almost the rending of his heart-strings. But
as he had decided, he sent a telegram to Rogers at Chamonix, secured a
place in the next morning's diligence, and packed his Gladstone-bag and
knapsack. He was sincerely sorry for Felicia. No decent, honest man can
learn that a girl has given him her heart in vain, without a certain
amount of pain and perplexity.
“And to think that I have been such a blind idiot as never even to
suspect it?” he exclaimed with a vicious jerk of the bag-strap, which
burst it, and thereby occasioned a temporary diversion.
“I passed you this afternoon and you did not see me,” said Felicia as
they were going in to dinner. “You were in the diligence office.”
“Yes,” said Raine, “I was engaging a seat to Chamonix. I am going
climbing with some Oxford people.”
“When do you start?”
“To-morrow,” said Raine. “I think I may be away some weeks.”
He could not help noticing the look of disappointment in her eyes,
and the little downward droop of her lips. He felt himself a brute for
telling her so abruptly. However, he checked the impulse, which many
men, in a similar position, have obeyed, out of mistaken kindness, to
add a few consoling words as to his return, and took advantage of the
general bustle of seat-taking to leave her and go to his place at the
opposite side of the table.
Many new arrivals had come to the pension during the last few days.
Colonel Cazet and his wife had joined their friends the Pornichons;
several desultory tourists, whose names no one knew, made their
appearance at meal-times, and vanished immediately afterwards. When
questioned concerning them, Mme. Boccard would reply:
“_Oh, des Américains!_” as if that explained everything.
In addition to these, Mr. Skeogh, the commercial gentleman who had
surrendered to Frau Schultz's seductions, had this evening introduced
a friend who was passing through Geneva. By virtue of his position as
visitor of a guest, Mme. Boccard placed him at the upper end of the
table between Frâulein Klinkhardt and Mme. Popea, instead of giving him
a seat at the foot, by herself, where new arrivals sat, and whence, by
the rules of the pension, they worked their way upwards, according to
seniority.
There were twenty-one guests that night. Mme. Boccard turned a red,
beaming face to them, disguising with smiles the sharp directing glances
kept ever upon the summer waiter and his assistant. The air was filled
with a polyglot buzz, above which could be heard the great voices of
the old soldiers and the shrill accents of the Americans fresh from
the discovery of Chillon. At the head of the table, however, where
the older house-party were gathered, reigned a greater calm. Both Mr.
Chetwynd and Felicia were silent. Raine conversed in low tones with
Katherine, on America, where she had lived most of her younger life. She
very rarely alluded to her once adopted nationality, preferring to be
recognized as an Englishwoman, but Raine was recording his impressions
of a recent visit to New York, and her comments upon his criticisms were
necessary. Around them the general topic was the _fête venétienne_ that
was to take place on the lake. To Mr. Skeogh, who had never seen one,
Frau Schultz gave hyperbolic description. Mr. Wanless, a grizzled and
tanned middle-aged man, with a cordless eyeglass and a dark straggling
moustache, who had travelled apparently all over the world, rather
pooh-poohed the affair as childish, and, in a lull in the talk, was
heard describing a Nautch-dance to Mme. Popea.
It seemed commonplace enough, this pension dinner-party. Hundreds such
were at that moment in progress all through Switzerland, differing
from each other as little as the loads of any two consecutive London
omnibuses on the same route. Yet to more than one person it was ever
memorable.
Little Miss Bunter, who sat next to Felicia, had grown happier of
late. The summer had warmed her blood. Also she had lately received an
eight-page letter from Burmah which had brought her much consolation.
There was a possibility, it hinted, of the marriage taking place in the
spring. She had already consulted Katherine as to the trousseau, and had
made cuttings from _Modern Society_ of the description of fashionable
weddings during the past two months. Having these hopes within her, and
one of the new dresses chosen by Katherine, without, she looked much
fresher than usual this evening. Her sandy hair seemed less
lifeless, her complexion less sallow. She did not speak much, being
constitutionally timid. Her opinions were such weak, frail things,
that she was afraid of sending them forth into the rough world. But she
listened with animated interest to the various conversations. Raine's
talk particularly interested her. She had a vague idea that she was
improving her mind.
“It struck me,” Raine was saying, “that culture in America was chiefly
in the hands of the women--more so even than it is in our own strictly
business circles. And nearly all New York is one great business circle.”
“Were you long in the States, sir?” asked Mr. Skeogh, who had been
silent for some time.
“Oh no,” said Raine, looking over towards him, “only a few weeks. My
remarks are from the merest superficial impressions.”
“It is a fine country,” said Mr. Skeogh.
Raine acquiesced politely.
“I do not like the country,” said Frau Schultz, thus making the topic a
fairly general one. “There is no family life. The women are idle. They
are not to my taste.”
“What a blessing!” murmured Katherine in a low voice, to which Raine
replied by an imperceptible smile. But aloud she said: “I don't think
American women are idle. They give their wits and not their souls to
housekeeping. So they order their husbands' dinners and see to the
washing of their babies just as well as other women; but they think that
these are duties that any rational creature can perform without letting
them absorb their whole interests in life.”
“A woman's duty is to be a good housewife,” said Frau Schultz
dictatorially, in her harshest accent. “In Germany it is so.”
“But is not the party of progress in Germany trying to improve the
position of women?” asked Mr. Wanless with a securing grip of his
eyeglass.
“It cannot be improved,” said Frau Schultz.
“That is a matter of opinion,” replied Mr. Wanless. “When elegant ladies
have _Damen-lectüre_ especially written for them, and when peasant women
are harnessed to a cart by the side of the cow, while the husband walks
behind smoking his cigar--I think a little improvement is necessary
somewhere.”
He spoke in a clear, authoritative voice, commanding attention.
“Have you been in Germany?” asked Frau Schultz.
“I have been all over the world--travelled continuously for twenty
years. Somehow the position of women has interested me. It is an index
to the sociology of a country.”
“Which is the most interesting one you know from that point of view?”
asked old Mr. Chetwynd, who had been following the conversation.
“Burmah,” replied Mr. Wanless. “It is the anomaly of the East. Germany
could learn many lessons from her.”
“Is the position of women very high there?” asked Miss Bunter, timidly,
the mention of Burmah having stimulated her interest to the pitch of
speaking.
“Oh yes!” returned Mr. Wanless, laughing. “A wife is the grey mare there
with a vengeance.”
A faint flush came into Miss Bunter's cheek.
“But it does not matter to the English people who live there, does it?”
Mr. Wanless assured her, amid the general smile, that English people
carried their own laws and customs with them. Miss Bunter relapsed into
a confused yet pleased silence. The talk continued, became detached and
desultory again. Miss Bunter no longer listened, but nerved herself up
to a great effort. At last, when a lull came, she moistened her lips
with some wine, and leant across the table, catching the traveller's
eye.
“Have you lived long in Burmah?”
“Yes. I have just come from an eighteen-months' stay there.”
“I wonder if you ever met a Mr. Dotterel there?”
“I know a man of that name,” said Mr. Wanless, smiling. “But Burmah is
an enormous place, you know. My friend is an F. J. Dotterel--Government
appointment--stationed at Bhamo!”
“That's him,” cried Miss Bunter, in suppressed and ungrammatical
excitement. “How extraordinary you should know him! He is a great friend
of mine.”
“A very good fellow,” said Mr. Wanless. “His wife and himself were very
kind to me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Bunter. “His wife? It can't be the
same--my friend is not married.”
“Oh yes he is,” laughed the traveller pleasantly. “There is only one F.
J. Dotterel in the Government service at Bhamo. Married out there. Got
three or four jolly little children.”
She looked at him for a moment haggardly, and grew white to the lips.
The loss of blood made her face look pinched and death-like. She tried
to utter some words, but only a few inarticulate sounds came from her
throat. There was a moment's intense silence, every one around her
knowing what had happened. Then she swayed sideways, and Felicia caught
her in her arms.
She had fainted. The table rose in confusion. Amid a hubbub of voices
was heard Mme. Popea's explaining to Mr. Wanless the nature of his
indiscretion.
“I will carry her to her room,” said Raine, lifting her thin body in his
arms. “Come and help me,” he added, signing with his head to Felicia and
Katherine.
They followed him out and upstairs. He laid her down on her bed.
“You know what to do, don't you?” he said to Katherine, as he left the
two with the unconscious lady.
“Poor thing. It will break her heart,” whispered Katherine, as she
busied herself with the hooks and eyes and laces.
“I don't much believe in the fragility of women's hearts,” said Felicia.
“Why do you say that, Felicia?” said Katherine gently. “You know that
you don't mean it.”
“Oh!” said Felicia with a little inflexion of superciliousness, “I
generally say what I mean.”
Katherine did not reply, reading her well enough by her own general
knowledge of human nature. We often contradict our own common sense and
better impulses, for the unprofitable satisfaction of contradicting our
enemy.
So when poor Miss Bunter opened her eyes and recovered consciousness,
feeling sick and giddy and cold, and, seizing Felicia's hand, broke into
miserable crying and sobbing, Katherine judged it wiser to leave the
two of them alone together, without any further offer to share Felicia's
ministrations.
When she entered the salon a little later, she found most of the party
preparing to go out to see the illuminations. The little tragedy was
still being discussed, and Katherine was beset by questioners. Little
Miss Bunter's love story had long been common property in the pension,
as she had told it to each of the ladies in the very strictest
confidence.
The exodus of the guests began. Mme. Popea ran out of the room and
quickly returned to Katherine's side.
“Mademoiselle Graves will not come,” she said, buttoning her glove.
“Could not you go and persuade her?”
“I fear I should be of no use, Mme. Popea,” said Katherine. “I will ask
Mr. Chetwynd.”
“Ah! Then she will come,” laughed Mme. Popea--and she hurried out after
the Pornichons, who had asked her to accompany them.
Katherine passed by the few remaining people, chiefly ladies, standing
about the room in hats and wraps, to meet Raine, who was just coming in
from the balcony, where he had been smoking.
“I hear that Felicia won't go to the _fête_. Don't you think you could
persuade her? It would do her good. She has been looking forward to it
so much.”
But Raine shook his head and looked down at her, tugging his blonde
moustache. It was an embarrassing request. Katherine half divined, and
forbore to press the matter. She had already somewhat sacrificed her
tact to her conscience.
“But you, yourself? Are you not coming?” he asked.
“No; I think I'll stay in. I feel rather too sorry for that poor little
body.”
“You had better come. The brightness will cheer you.”
“I don't think I should care for it,” she replied, with her hand to her
bosom, fingering a dark red rose in her dress.
Suddenly the flower fell from its stalk to the ground. She started
slightly, from the unexpectedness, and, when Raine stooped and picked
it up, held out her hand for it, palm upwards. But he disregarded her
action and retained the rose.
“Do come!” he pleaded.
She glanced at him, met his eyes. A wave of emotion passed through her,
seeming for the moment to lift her off her feet. Why should she refuse?
She knew perfectly well that she would give her soul to go with him
through fire and water to the ends of the earth. But she dreaded lest he
should know it.
“Would you really like me to come?”
“You know I should.”
She went to put on her things. Raine stepped on to the balcony to wait
for her. He could see the pale reflection of the illuminations, and
hear the noise of the people, and the faint sound of music broken by
the cracking of a cabman's whip in the street below. For a moment his
surroundings seemed to him unreal, as they do to a man gliding over the
edge of a precipice.
“I wonder what is going to happen?” he said to himself.