Matravers passed out into the street with a curious admixture of
sensations in a mind usually so free from any confusion of sentiments
or ideas. The few words which he had been compelled to exchange with
Thorndyke had grated very much against his sense of what was seemly;
he was on the whole both repelled and fascinated by the incidents of
this visit of his. Yet as he walked leisurely homewards through the
bright, crowded streets, he recognized the existence of that strange
personal charm in Berenice of which so many people had written and
spoken. He himself had become subject to it in some slight degree, not
enough, indeed, to engross his mind, yet enough to prevent any
feeling of disappointment at the result of his visit.
She was not an ordinary woman--she was not an ordinarily clever woman.
She did not belong to any type with which he was acquainted. She must
for ever occupy a place of her own in his thoughts and in his
estimation. It was a place very well defined, he told himself, and by
no means within that inner circle of his brain and heart wherein lay
the few things in life sweet and precious to him. The vague excitement
of the early morning seemed to him now, as he moved calmly along the
crowded, fashionable thoroughfare, a thing altogether unreal and
unnatural. He had been in an emotional frame of mind, he told himself
with a quiet smile, when the sight of those few lines in a handwriting
then unknown had so curiously stirred him. Now that he had seen
and spoken to her, her personality would recede to its proper
proportions, the old philosophic calm which hung around him in his
studious life like a mantle would have no further disturbance.
And then he suffered a rude shock! As he passed the corner of a
street, the perfume of Neapolitan violets came floating out from a
florist's shop upon the warm sunlit air. Every fibre of his being
quivered with a sudden emotion! The interior of that little room was
before him, and a woman's eyes looked into his. He clenched his hands
and walked swiftly on, with pale face and rigid lips, like a man
oppressed by some acute physical pain.
There must be nothing of this for him! It was part of a world which
was not his world--of which he must never even be a temporary denizen.
The thing passed away! With studious care he fixed his mind upon
trifles. There was a crease in his silk hat, clearly visible as he
glanced at his reflection in a plate-glass window. He turned into
Scott's, and waited whilst it was ironed. Then he walked homewards and
spent the remainder of the day carefully revising a bundle of proofs
which he found on his table fresh from the printer.
On the following morning he lunched at his club. Somehow, although he
was in no sense of the word an unpopular man, it was a rare thing for
any one to seek his company uninvited. The scholarly exclusiveness of
his Oxford days had not been altogether brushed off in this contact
with a larger and more spontaneous social life, and he figured in a
world which would gladly have known more of him, as a man of courteous
but severe reserve.
To-day he occupied his usual round table set in an alcove before a
tall window. For a recluse, he always found a singular pleasure in
watching the faces of the people in that broad living stream, little
units in the wheeling cycle of humanity of which he too felt himself
to be a part; but to-day his eyes were idle, and his sympathies
obstructed. Although a pronounced epicure in both food and drink, he
passed a new and delicate _entree_, and not only ordered the wrong
claret, but drank it without a grimace. The world of his sensations
had been rudely disturbed. For the moment his sense of proportions was
at fault, and before luncheon was over it received a further shock. A
handsomely appointed drag rattled past the club on its way into
Piccadilly. The woman who occupied the front seat turned to look at
the window as they passed, with some evident curiosity--and their eyes
met. Matravers set down the glass, which he had been in the act of
raising to his lips, untasted.
"Berenice and her Father Confessor!" he heard some one remark lightly
from the next table. "Pity some one can't teach Thorndyke how to
drive! He's a disgrace to the Four-in-hand!"
It was Berenice! The sight of her in such intimate association with a
man utterly distasteful to him was one before which he winced and
suffered. He was aware of a new and altogether undesired experience.
To rid himself of it with all possible speed, he finished his lunch
abruptly, and lighting a cigarette, started back to his rooms.
On the way he came face to face with Ellison, and the two men stood
together upon the pavement for a moment or two.
"I am not quite sure," Ellison remarked with a little grimace,
"whether I want to speak to you or not! What on earth has kindled the
destructive spirit in you to such an extent? Every one is talking of
your attack upon the New Theatre!"
"I was sent," Matravers answered, "with a free hand to write an honest
criticism--and I did it. Istein's work may have some merit, but it is
unclean work. It is not fit for the English stage."
"It is exceedingly unlikely," Ellison remarked, "that the English
stage will know him any more! No play could survive such an onslaught
as yours. I hear that Thorndyke is going to close the theatre."
"If it was opened," Matravers said, "for the purpose of presenting
such work as this latest production, the sooner it is closed the
better."
Ellison shrugged his shoulders.
"It is a large subject," he said, "and I am not sure that we are of
one mind. We will not discuss it. At any rate, I am very sorry for
Berenice!"
"I do not think," Matravers said in measured tones, "that you need be
sorry for her. With her gifts she will scarcely remain long without an
engagement. I trust that she may secure one which will not involve
the prostitution of her talent." Ellison laughed shortly. He had an
immense admiration for Matravers, but just at present he was a little
out of temper with him.
"You admit her talent, then?" he remarked. "I am glad of that!"
"I am not sure," Matravers said, "that talent is the proper word to
use. One might almost call it genius."
Ellison was considerably mollified.
"I am glad to hear you say so," he declared. "At the same time I am
afraid her position will be rather an awkward one. She will lose some
money by the closing of the theatre, and I don't exactly see what
London house is open for her just at present. These actor-managers are
all so clannish, and they have their own women."
"I am sorry," Matravers said thoughtfully; "at the same time I cannot
believe that she will remain very long undiscovered! Good afternoon!
I am forgetting that I have some writing to do."
Matravers walked slowly back to his rooms, filled with a new and
fascinating idea which Ellison's words had suddenly suggested to him.
If it was true that his pen had done her this ill turn, did he not owe
her some reparation? It would be a very pleasant way to pay his debt
and a very simple one. By the time he had reached his destination the
idea had taken definite hold of him.
[Illustration: At half-past four his servant brought in a small
tea-equipage]
For several hours he worked at the revision of a certain manuscript,
polishing and remodelling with infinite care and pains. Not even
content with the correct and tasteful arrangement of his sentences, he
read them over to himself aloud, lest by any chance there should have
crept into them some trick of alliteration, or juxtaposition of words
not entirely musical. In his work he gained, or seemed to gain, a
complete absorption. The cloudy disquiet of the last few hours
appeared to have passed away,--to have been, indeed, only a fugitive
and transitory thing.
At half-past four his servant brought in a small tea-equipage--a
silver tray, with an old blue Worcester teapot and cup, and a quaintly
cut glass cream-jug. He made his tea, and drank it with his pen still
in his hand. He had scarcely turned back to his work, before the same
servant re-entered carrying a frock coat, an immaculately brushed silk
hat, and a fresh bunch of Neapolitan violets. For a moment Matravers
hesitated; then he laid down his pen, changed his coat, and once more
passed out into the streets, more brilliant than ever now with the
afternoon sunshine. He joined the throng of people leisurely making
their way towards the Park!