CHAPTER 1

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

The Whirlpool

by

George Gissing

Part the First

CHAPTER 1

Harvey Rolfe was old enough to dine with deliberation, young and

healthy enough to sauce with appetite the dishes he thoughtfully

selected. You perceived in him the imperfect epicure. His club had no

culinary fame; the dinner was merely tolerable; but Rolfe's unfinished

palate flattered the second-rate cook. He knew nothing of vintages; it

sufficed him to distinguish between Bordeaux and Burgundy; yet one saw

him raise his glass and peer at the liquor with eye of connoisseur. All

unaffectedly; for he was conscious of his shortcoming in the art of

delicate living, and never vaunted his satisfactions. He had known the

pasture of poverty, and the table as it is set by London landladies; to

look back on these things was to congratulate himself that nowadays he

dined.

Beyond the achievement of a vague personal distinction at the

Metropolitan Club, he had done nothing to make himself a man of note,

and it was doubtful whether more than two or three of the members

really liked him or regarded him with genuine interest. His

introduction to this circle he owed to an old friend, Hugh Carnaby,

whose social position was much more clearly defined: Hugh Carnaby, the

rambler, the sportsman, and now for a twelvemonth the son-in-law of

Mrs. Ascott Larkfield. Through Carnaby people learnt as much of his

friend's history as it concerned anyone to know: that Harvey Rolfe had

begun with the study of medicine, had given it up in disgust,

subsequently was 'in business', and withdrew from it on inheriting a

competency. They were natives of the same county, and learnt their

Latin together at the Grammar School of Greystone, the midland town

which was missed by the steam highroad, and so preserves much of the

beauty and tranquillity of days gone by. Rolfe seldom spoke of his own

affairs, but in talking of travel he had been heard to mention that his

father had engineered certain lines of foreign railway. It seemed that

Harvey had no purpose in life, save that of enjoying himself. Obviously

he read a good deal, and Carnaby credited him with profound historical

knowledge; but he neither wrote nor threatened to do so. Something of

cynicism appeared in his talk of public matters; politics amused him,

and his social views lacked consistency, tending, however, to an

indolent conservatism. Despite his convivial qualities, he had traits

of the reserved, even of the unsociable, man: a slight awkwardness in

bearing, a mute shyness with strangers, a hesitancy in ordinary talk,

and occasional bluntness of assertion or contradiction, suggesting a

contempt which possibly he did not intend. Hugh Carnaby declared that

the true Rolfe only showed himself after a bottle of wine; maintained,

moreover, that Harvey had vastly improved since he entered upon a

substantial income. When Rolfe was five and twenty, Hugh being two

years younger, they met after a long separation, and found each other

intolerable; a decade later their meeting led to hearty friendship.

Rolfe had become independent, and was tasting his freedom in a

twelvemonth's travel. The men came face to face one day on the deck of

a steamer at Port Said. Physically, Rolfe had changed so much that the

other had a difficulty in recognising him; morally, the change was not

less marked, as Carnaby very soon became aware. At thirty-seven this

process of development was by no means arrested, but its slow and

subtle working escaped observation unless it were that of Harvey Rolfe

himself.

His guest this evening, in a quiet corner of the dining-room where he

generally sat, was a man, ten years his junior, named Morphew: slim,

narrow-shouldered, with sandy hair, and pale, delicate features of more

sensibility than intelligence; restless, vivacious, talking incessantly

in a low, rapid voice, with frequent nervous laughs which threw back

his drooping head. A difference of costume--Rolfe wore morning dress,

Morphew the suit of ceremony--accentuated the younger man's advantage

in natural and acquired graces; otherwise, they presented the contrast

of character and insignificance. Rolfe had a shaven chin, a weathered

complexion, thick brown hair; the penumbra of middle-age had touched

his countenance, softening here and there a line which told of

temperament in excess. At this moment his manner inclined to a bluff

jocularity, due in some measure to the bottle of wine before him, as

also was the tinge of colour upon his cheek; he spoke briefly, but

listened with smiling interest to his guest's continuous talk. This ran

on the subject of the money-market, with which the young man boasted

some practical acquaintance.

'You don't speculate at all?' Morphew asked.

'Shouldn't know how to go about it,' replied the other in his deeper

note.

'It seems to me to be the simplest thing in the world if one is content

with moderate profits. I'm going in for it seriously--cautiously--as a

matter of business. I've studied the thing--got it up as I used to work

at something for an exam. And here, you see, I've made five pounds at a

stroke--five pounds! Suppose I make that every now and then, it's worth

the trouble, you know--it mounts up. And I shall never stand to lose

much. You see, it's Tripcony's interest that I should make profits.'

'I'm not quite sure of that.'

'Oh, but it _is_! Let me explain--'

These two had come to know each other under peculiar circumstances a

year ago. Rolfe was at Brussels, staying--his custom when abroad--at a

hotel unfrequented by English folk. One evening on his return from the

theatre, he learnt that a young man of his own nationality lay

seriously ill in a room at the top of the house. Harvey, moved by

compassion, visited the unfortunate Englishman, listened to his

ravings, and played the part of Good Samaritan. On recovery, the

stranger made full disclosure of his position. Being at Brussels on a

holiday, he had got into the company of gamblers, and, after winning a

large sum (ten thousand francs, he declared), had lost not only that,

but all else. that he possessed, including his jewellery. He had

gambled deliberately; he wanted money, money, and saw no other way of

obtaining it. In the expansive mood of convalescence, Cecil Morphew

left no detail of his story unrevealed. He was of gentle birth, and had

a private income of three hundred pounds, charged upon the estate of a

distant relative; his profession (the bar) could not be remunerative

for years, and other prospects he had none. The misery of his situation

lay in the fact that he was desperately in love with the daughter of

people who looked upon him as little better than a pauper. The girl had

pledged herself to him, but would not marry without her parents'

consent, of which there was no hope till he had at least trebled his

means. His choice of a profession was absurd, dictated merely by social

opinion; he should have been working hard in a commercial office, or at

some open-air pursuit. Naturally he turned again to the thought of

gambling, this time the great legalised game of hazard, wherein he was

as little likely to prosper as among the blacklegs of Brussels. Rolfe

liked him for his ingenuousness, and for the vein of poetry in his

nature. The love affair still went on, but Morphew seldom alluded to

it, and his seasoned friend thought of it as a youthful ailment which

would pass and be forgotten.

'I'm convinced,' said the young man presently, 'that any one who really

gives his mind to it can speculate with moderate success. Look at the

big men--the brokers and the company promoters, and so on; I've met

some of them, and there's nothing in them--nothing! Now, there's Bennet

Frothingham. You know him, I think?'

Rolfe nodded.

'Well, what do you think of him? Isn't he a very ordinary fellow? How

has he got such a position? I'm told he began just in a small way--by

chance. No doubt _he_ found it so easy to make money he was surprised

at his success. Tripcony has told me a lot about him. Why, the

"Britannia" brings him fifteen thousand a year; and he must be in a

score of other things.'

'I know nothing about the figures,' said Rolfe, 'and I shouldn't put

much faith in Tripcony; but Frothingham, you may be sure, isn't quite

an ordinary man.'

'Ah, well, of course there's a certain knack--and then, experience--'

Morphew emptied his glass, and refilled it. Nearly all the tables in

the room were now occupied, and the general hum of talk gave security

to intimate dialogue. Flushed and bright-eyed, the young man presently

leaned forward.

'If I could count upon five hundred, she would take the step.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes, that's settled. What do you think? Plenty of people live very

well on less.'

'You want my serious opinion?'

'If you _can_ be serious.'

'Then I think that the educated man who marries on less than a thousand

is either mad or a criminal.'

'Bosh! We won't talk about it.'

They rose, and walked towards the smoking-room, Rolfe giving a nod here

and there as he passed acquaintances. In the hall someone addressed him.

'How does Carnaby take this affair?'

'What affair?'

'Don't you know? Their house has been robbed--stripped. It's in the

evening papers.'

Rolfe went on into the smoking-room, and read the report of his

friend's misfortune. The Carnabys occupied a house in Hamilton Terrace.

During their absence from home last night, there had been a clean sweep

of all such things of value as could easily be removed. The

disappearance of their housekeeper, and the fact that this woman had

contrived the absence of the servants from nine o'clock till midnight,

left no mystery in the matter. The clubmen talked of it with amusement.

Hard lines, to be sure, for Carnaby, and yet harder for his wife, who

had lost no end of jewellery; but the thing was so neatly and

completely done, one must needs laugh. One or two husbands who enjoyed

the luxury of a housekeeper betrayed their uneasiness. A discussion

arose on the characteristics of housekeepers in general, and spread

over the vast subject of domestic management, not often debated at the

Metropolitan Club. In general talk of this kind Rolfe never took part;

smoking his pipe, he listened and laughed, and was at moments

thoughtful. Cecil Morphew, rapidly consuming cigarettes as he lay back

in a soft chair, pointed the moral of the story in favour of humble

domesticity.

In half an hour, his guest having taken leave, Rolfe put on his

overcoat, and stepped out into the cold, clammy November night. He was

overtaken by a fellow Metropolitan--a grizzled, scraggy-throated,

hollow-eyed man, who laid a tremulous hand upon his arm.

'Excuse me, Mr. Rolfe, have you seen Frothingham recently?'

'Not for a month.'

'Ah! I thought perhaps--I was wondering what he thought about the

Colebrook smash. To tell you the truth, I've heard unpleasant rumours.

Do you--should you think the Colebrook affair would affect the

"Britannia" in any way?'

It was not the first time that this man had confided his doubts and

timidities to Harvey Rolfe; he had a small, but to him important,

interest in Bennet Frothingham's wide-reaching affairs, and seemed to

spend most of his time in eliciting opinion on the financier's

stability.

'Wouldn't you be much more comfortable,' said Rolfe, rather bluntly,

'if you had your money in some other kind of security?'

'Ah, but, my dear sir, twelve and a half per cent--twelve and a half! I

hold preference shares of the original issue.'

'Then I'm afraid you must take your chance.'

'But,' piped the other in alarm, 'you don't mean that--'

'I mean nothing, and know nothing. I'm the last man to consult about

such things.'

And Rolfe, with an abrupt 'Goodnight,' beckoned to a passing hansom.

The address he gave was Hugh Carnaby's, in Hamilton Terrace.

Twice already the horse had slipped at slimy crossings, when, near the

top of Regent Street, it fell full length, and the abrupt stoppage

caused a collision of wheels with another hansom which was just passing

at full speed in the same direction. Rolfe managed to alight in the

ordinary way, and at once heard himself greeted by a familiar voice

from the other cab. His acquaintance showed a pallid, drawn, all but

cadaverous visage, with eyes which concealed pain or weariness under

their friendly smile. Abbott was the man's name. Formerly a lecturer at

a provincial college, he had resigned his post on marrying, and taken

to journalism.

'I want to speak to you, Rolfe,' he said hurriedly, 'but I haven't a

moment to spare. Going to Euston--could you come along for a few

minutes?'

The vehicles were not damaged; Abbott's driver got quickly out of the

crowd, and the two men continued their conversation.

'Do you know anything of Wager?' inquired the journalist, with a

troubled look.

'He came to see me a few evenings ago--late.'

'Ha, he did! To borrow money, wasn't it?'

'Well, yes.'

'I thought so. He came to me for the same. Said he'd got a berth at

Southampton. Lie, of course. The fellow has disappeared, and left his

children--left them in a lodging-house at Hammersmith. How's that for

cool brutality? The landlady found my wife's address, and came to see

her. Address left out on purpose, I dare say. There was nothing for it

but to take care of the poor little brats.--Oh, damn!'

'What's the matter?'

'Neuralgia--driving me mad. Teeth, I think. I'll have every one

wrenched out of my head if this goes on. Never mind. What do you think

of Wager?'

'I remember, when we were at Guy's, he used to advocate the

nationalisation of offspring. Probably he had some personal interest in

the matter, even then.'

'Hound! I don't know whether to set the police after him or not. It

wouldn't benefit the children. I suppose it's no use hunting for his

family?'

'Not much, I should say.'

'Well, lucky we have no children of our own. Worst of it is, I don't

like the poor little wretches, and my wife doesn't either. We must find

a home for them.'

'I say, Abbott, you must let me go halves at that.'

'Hang it, no! Why should you support Wager's children? They're

relatives of ours, unfortunately. But I wanted to tell you that I'm

going down to Waterbury.' He looked at his watch. 'Thirteen

minutes--shall I do it? There's a good local paper, the _Free Press_,

and I have the offer of part-ownership. I shall buy, if possible, and

live in the country for a year or two, to pick up my health. Can't say

I love London. Might get into country journalism for good. Curse this

torment!'

In Tottenham Court Road, Rolfe bade his friend goodbye, and the cab

rushed on.

CHAPTER 2

It was half past ten when Rolfe knocked at the door in Hamilton

Terrace. He learnt from the servant that Mr. Carnaby was at home, and

had company. In the room known as the library, four men sat smoking;

their voices pealed into the hall as the door opened, and a boisterous

welcome greeted the newcomer's appearance.

'Come to condole?' cried Hugh, striding forward with his

man-of-the-wide-world air, and holding out his big hand. 'No doubt

they're having a high old time at the club. Does it please them? Does

it tickle them?'

'Why, naturally. There's the compensation, my boy--you contribute to

the gaiety of your friends.'

Carnaby was a fair example of the well-bred, well-fed Englishman--tall,

brawny, limber, not uncomely, with a red neck, a powerful jaw, and a

keen eye. Something more of repose, of self-possession, and a slightly

more intellectual brow, would have made him the best type of

conquering, civilising Briton. He came of good family, but had small

inheritance; his tongue told of age-long domination; his physique and

carriage showed the horseman, the game-stalker, the nomad. Hugh had

never bent over books since the day when he declined the university and

got leave to join Colonel Bosworth's exploring party in the Caucasus.

After a boyhood of straitened circumstances, he profited by a skilful

stewardship which allowed him to hope for some seven hundred a year;

his elder brother, Miles, a fine fellow, who went into the army,

pinching himself to benefit Hugh and their sister Ruth. Miles was now

Major Carnaby, active on the North-West Frontier. Ruth was wife of a

missionary in some land of swamps; doomed by climate, but of spirit

indomitable. It seemed strange that Hugh, at five and thirty, had done

nothing particular. Perhaps his income explained it--too small for

traditional purposes, just large enough to foster indolence. For Hugh

had not even followed up his promise of becoming an explorer; he had

merely rambled, mostly in pursuit of fowl or quadruped. When he

married, all hope for him was at an end. The beautiful and brilliant

daughter of a fashionable widow, her income a trifle more than

Carnaby's own; devoted to the life of cities, wherein she shone; an

enchantress whose spell would not easily be broken, before whom her

husband bowed in delighted subservience--such a woman might flatter

Hugh's pride, but could scarce be expected to draw out his latent

energies and capabilities. This year, for the first time, he had

visited no wild country; his journeying led only to Paris, to Vienna.

In due season he shot his fifty brace on somebody's grouse-moor, but

the sport did not exhilarate him.

An odd and improbable alliance, that between Hugh Carnaby and Harvey

Rolfe. Yet in several ways they suited each other. Old-time memories

had a little, not much, to do with it; more of the essence of the

matter was their feeling of likeness in difference. Ten years ago

Carnaby felt inclined to call his old school-fellow a 'cad'; Harvey saw

nothing in Hugh but robust snobbishness. Nowadays they had the pleasant

sense of understanding each other on most points, and the result was a

good deal of honest mutual admiration. The one's physical vigour and

adroitness, the other's active mind, liberal thoughts, studious habits,

proved reciprocally attractive. Though in unlike ways, both were

impressively modern. Of late it had seemed as if the man of open air,

checked in his natural courses, thrown back upon his meditations,

turned to the student, with hope of guidance in new paths, of counsel

amid unfamiliar obstacles. To the observant Rolfe, his friend's

position abounded in speculative interest. With the course of years,

each had lost many a harsher characteristic, whilst the inner man

matured. That their former relations were gradually being reversed,

neither perhaps had consciously noted; but even in the jests which

passed between them on Harvey's arrival this evening, it appeared

plainly enough that Hugh Carnaby no longer felt the slightest

inclination to regard his friend as an inferior.

The room, called library, contained one small case of books, which

dealt with travel and sport. Furniture of the ordinary kind, still new,

told of easy circumstances and domestic comfort. Round about the walls

hung a few paintings and photographs, intermingled with the stuffed

heads of animals slain in the chase, notably that of a great ibex with

magnificent horns.

'Come, now, tell me all about it,' said Rolfe, as he mixed himself a

glass of whisky and water. 'I don't see that anything has gone from

this room.'

'Don't you?' cried his host, with a scornful laugh. 'Where are my

silver-mounted pistols? Where's the ibex-hoof made into a paperweight?

And'--he raised his voice to a shout of comical despair--'where's my

cheque-book?'

'I see.'

'I wish _I_ did. It must break the record for a neat house-robbery,

don't you think? And they'll never be caught--I'll bet you anything you

like they won't. The job was planned weeks ago; that woman came into

the house with no other purpose.'

'But didn't your wife know anything about her?'

'What can one know about such people? There were references, I

believe--as valuable as references usually are. She must be an old

hand. But I'm sick of the subject; let's drop it.--You were

interrupted, Hollings. What about that bustard?'

A very tall, spare man, who seemed to rouse himself from a nap, resumed

his story of bustard-stalking in Spain last spring. Carnaby, who knew

the country well, listened with lively interest, and followed with

reminiscences of his own. He told of a certain boar, shot in the

Sierras, which weighed something like four hundred pounds. He talked,

too, of flamingoes on the 'marismas' of the Guadalquivir; of punting

day after day across the tawny expanse of water; of cooking his meals

on sandy islets at a fire made of tamarisk and thistle; of lying

wakeful in the damp, chilly nights, listening to frogs and bitterns.

Then again of his ibex-hunting on the Cordilleras of Castile, when he

brought down that fine fellow whose head adorned his room, the horns

just thirty-eight inches long. And in the joy of these recollections

there seemed to sound a regretful note, as if he spoke of things gone

by and irrecoverable, no longer for him.

One of the men present had recently been in Cyprus, and mentioned it

with disgust. Rolfe also had visited the island, and remembered it much

more agreeably, his impressions seeming to be chiefly gastronomic; he

recalled the exquisite flavour of Cyprian hares, the fat francolin, the

delicious beccaficoes in commanderia wine; with merry banter from

Carnaby, professing to despise a man who knew nothing of game but its

taste. The conversation reverted to technicalities of sport, full of

terms and phrases unintelligible to Harvey; recounting feats with

'Empress' and 'Paradox', the deadly results of a 'treble A', or of

'treble-nesting slugs', and boasting of a 'right and left with No. 6'.

Hugh appeared to forget all about his domestic calamity; only when his

guests rose did he recur to it, and with an air of contemptuous

impatience. But he made a sign to Rolfe, requesting him to stay, and at

midnight the two friends sat alone together.

'Sibyl has gone to her mother's,' began Hugh in a changed voice. 'The

poor girl takes it pluckily. It's a damnable thing, you know, for a

woman to lose her rings and bracelets and so on--even such a woman as

Sibyl. She tried to laugh it off, but I could see--we must buy them

again, that's all. And that reminds me--what's your real opinion of

Frothingham?'

Harvey laughed.

'When such a lot of people go about asking that question, it would make

_me_ rather uneasy if I had anything at stake.'

'They do? So it struck me. The fact is, we have a good deal at stake.

The dowager swears by Frothingham. I believe every penny she has is in

the "Britannia", one way or another.'

'It's a wide net,' said Rolfe musingly. 'The Britannia Loan, Assurance,

Investment, and Banking Company, Limited. Very good name, I've often

thought.'

'Yes; but, look here, you don't seriously doubt--'

'My opinion is worthless. I know no more of finance than of the Cabala.

Frothingham personally I rather like, and that's all I can say.'

'The fact is, I have been thinking of putting some of my own--yet I

don't think I shall. We're going away for the winter. Sibyl wants to

give up the house, and I think she's right. For people like us, it's

mere foolery to worry with a house and a lot of servants. We're neither

of us cut out for that kind of thing. Sibyl hates housekeeping. Well,

you can't expect a woman like her to manage a pack of thieving, lying,

lazy servants. The housekeeper idea hasn't been a conspicuous success,

you see, and there's nothing for it but hotel or boarding-house.'

'If you remember,' said Rolfe, 'I hinted something of the kind a year

ago.'

'Yes; but--well, you know, when people marry they generally look for a

certain natural consequence. If we have no children, it'll be all

right.'

Rolfe meditated for a moment.

'You remember that fellow Wager--the man you met at Abbott's? His wife

died a year ago, and now he has bolted, leaving his two children in a

lodging-house.'

'What a damned scoundrel!' cried Hugh, with a note of honest

indignation.

'Well, yes; but there's something to be said for him. It's a natural

revolt against domestic bondage. Of course, as things are, someone else

has to bear the bother and expense; but that's only our state of

barbarism. A widower with two young children and no income--imagine the

position. Of course, he ought to be able to get rid of them in some

legitimate way--state institution--anything you like that answers to

reason.'

'I don't know whether it would work.'

'Some day it will. People talk such sentimental rubbish about children.

I would have the parents know nothing about them till they're ten or

twelve years old. They're a burden, a hindrance, a perpetual source of

worry and misery. Most wives are sacrificed to the next generation--an

outrageous absurdity. People snivel over the deaths of babies; I see

nothing to grieve about. If a child dies, why, the probabilities are it

_ought_ to die; if it lives, it lives, and you get survival of the

fittest. We don't want to choke the world with people, most of them

rickety and wheezing; let us be healthy, and have breathing space.'

'I believe in _that_,' said Carnaby.

'You're going away, then. Where to?'

'That's the point,' replied Hugh, moving uneasily. 'You see, with

Sibyl--. I have suggested Davos. Some people she knows are there--girls

who go in for tobogganing, and have a good time. But Sibyl's afraid of

the cold. I can't convince her that it's nothing to what we endure here

in the beastliness of a London winter. She hates the thought of ice and

snow and mountains. A great pity; it would do her no end of good. I

suppose we must go to the Riviera.'

He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment there was silence.

'By-the-bye,' he resumed, 'I have a letter from Miles, and you'd like

to see it.'

From a pile of letters on the table he selected one written on two

sheets of thin paper, and handed it to Rolfe. The writing was bold, the

style vigorous, the matter fresh and interesting. Major Carnaby had no

graces of expression; but all the more engrossing was his brief

narrative of mountain warfare, declaring its truthfulness in every

stroke of the pen.

'Fine fellow!' exclaimed Rolfe, when he had read to the end. 'Splendid

fellow!'

'Isn't he! And he's seeing life.'

'That's where you ought to be, my boy,' remarked Rolfe, between puffs

of tobacco.

'I dare say. No use thinking about it. Too late.'

'If I had a son,' pursued Harvey, smiling at the hypothesis, 'I think

I'd make a fighting man of him, or try to. At all events, he should go

out somewhere, and beat the big British drum, one way or another. I

believe it's our only hope. We're rotting at home--some of us sunk in

barbarism, some coddling themselves in over-refinement. What's the use

of preaching peace and civilisation, when we know that England's just

beginning her big fight--the fight that will put all history into the

shade! We have to lead the world; it's our destiny; and we must do it

by breaking heads. That's the nature of the human animal, and will be

for ages to come.'

Carnaby nodded assent.

'If we were all like your brother,' Rolfe went on. 'I'm glad he's

fighting in India, and not in Africa. I can't love the buccaneering

shopkeeper, the whisky-distiller with a rifle--ugh!'

'I hate that kind of thing. The gold grubbers and diamond bagmen! But

it's part of the march onward. We must have money, you know.'

The speaker's forehead wrinkled, and again he moved uneasily. Rolfe

regarded him with a reflective air.

'That man you saw here tonight,' Carnaby went on, 'the short, thick

fellow--his name is Dando--he's just come back from Queensland. I don't

quite know what he's been doing, but he evidently knows a good deal

about mines. He says he has invented a new process for getting gold out

of ore--I don't know anything about it. In the early days of mining, he

says, no end of valuable stuff was abandoned, because they couldn't

smelt it. Something about pyrites--I have a vague recollection of old

chemistry lessons. Dando wants to start smelting works for his new

process, somewhere in North Queensland.'

'And wants money, I dare say,' remarked the listener, with a twinkle of

the eye.

'I suppose so. It was Carton that brought him here for the first time,

a week ago. _Might_ be worth thinking about, you know.'

'I have no opinion. My profound ignorance of everything keeps me in a

state of perpetual scepticism. It has its advantages, I dare say.'

'You're very conservative, Rolfe, in your finance.'

'Very.'

'Quite right, no doubt. Could you join us at Nice or some such place?'

'Why, I rather thought of sticking to my books. But if the fogs are

very bad--'

'And you would seriously advise us to give up the house?'

'My dear fellow, how can you hesitate? Your wife is quite right;

there's not one good word to be said for the ordinary life of an

English household. Flee from it! Live anywhere and anyhow, but don't

keep house in England. Wherever I go, it's the same cry: domestic life

is played out. There isn't a servant to be had--unless you're a Duke

and breed them on your own estate. All ordinary housekeepers are at the

mercy of the filth and insolence of a draggle-tailed, novelette-reading

feminine democracy. Before very long we shall train an army of

menservants, and send the women to the devil.'

'Queer thing, Rolfe,' put in his friend, with a laugh; 'I've noticed it

of late, you're getting to be a regular woman-hater.'

'Not a bit of it. I hate a dirty, lying, incapable creature, that's

all, whether man or woman. No doubt they're more common in petticoats.'

'Been to the Frothinghams' lately?'

'No.'

'I used to think you were there rather often.'

Rolfe gave a sort of grunt, and kept silence.

'To my mind,' pursued the other, 'the best thing about Alma is that she

appreciates my wife. She has really a great admiration for Sibyl; no

sham about it, I'm sure. I don't pretend to know much about women, but

I fancy that kind of thing isn't common--real friendship and admiration

between them. People always say so, at all events.'

'I take refuge once more,' said Rolfe, 'in my fathomless ignorance.'

He rose from his chair, and sat down again on a corner of the table.

Carnaby stood up, threw his arms above his head, and yawned with animal

vehemence, the expression of an intolerable ennui.

'There's something damnably wrong with us all--that's the one thing

certain.'

'Idleness, for one thing,' said Rolfe.

'Yes. And I'm too old to do anything. Why didn't I follow Miles into

the army? I think I was more cut out for that than for anything else. I

often feel I should like to go to South Africa and get up a little war

of my own.'

Rolfe shouted with laughter.

'Not half a bad idea, and the easiest thing in the world, no doubt.'

'Nigger-hunting; a superior big game.'

'There's more than that to do in South Africa,' said Harvey. 'I was

looking at a map in Stanford's window the other day, and it amused me.

Who believes for a moment that England will remain satisfied with bits

here and there? We have to swallow the whole, of course. We shall go on

fighting and annexing, until--until the decline and fall of the British

Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised that it

makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall fight

like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps

Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse. Happily, no sooner do

they get fat than they kick, and somebody's shin suffers; then they

fight off the excessive flesh. War is England's Banting.'

'You'd better not talk like that to Sibyl.'

'Why, frankly, old man, I think that's your mistake. But you'll tell

me, and rightly enough, to mind my own business.'

'Nonsense. What do you mean exactly? You think I ought to--'

Hugh hesitated, with an air of uneasiness.

'Well,' pursued his friend cautiously, 'do you think it's right to

suppress your natural instincts? Mightn't it give her a new interest in

life if she came round a little to your point of view?'

'Queer thing, how unlike we are, isn't it?' said Carnaby, with a sudden

drop of his tone to amiable ingenuousness. 'But, you know; we get along

together very well.'

'To be sure. Yet you are going to rust in the Riviera when you want to

be on the Himalayas. Wouldn't it do your wife good to give up her books

and her music for a while and taste fresh air?'

'I doubt if she's strong enough for it.'

'It would make her stronger. And here's a good opportunity. If you give

up housekeeping (and housekeepers), why not reform your life

altogether? Go and have a look at Australia.'

'Sibyl hates the sea.'

'She'd soon get over that. Seriously, you ought to think of it.'

Carnaby set his lips and for a moment hung his head.

'You're quite right. But--'

'A little pluck, old fellow.'

'I'll see what can be done. Have another whisky?'

They went out into the hall, where a dim light through coloured glass

illumined a statue in terracotta, some huge engravings, the massive

antlers of an elk, and furniture in carved oak.

'Queer feeling of emptiness,' said Carnaby, subduing his voice. 'I feel

as if they'd carried off everything, and left bare walls. Sibyl

couldn't stay in the place. Shall I whistle for a cab? By Jove! that

reminds me, the whistle has gone; it happened to be silver. A wedding

present from that fool Benson, who broke his neck in a steeplechase

three weeks after.' Harvey laughed, and stepped out into the watery fog.

CHAPTER 3

A cab crawling at the upper end of the terrace took him quickly home.

He entered with his latch-key as a church clock tolled one.

It was a large house, within a few minutes' walk of Royal Oak Station.

Having struck a match, and lit a candle which stood upon the hall table

(indicating that he was the last who would enter tonight), Harvey put

up the door-chain and turned the great key, then went quietly upstairs.

His rooms were on the first floor. A tenancy of five years, with long

absences, enabled him to regard this niche in a characterless suburb as

in some sort his home; a familiar smell of books and tobacco welcomed

him as he opened the door; remnants of a good fire kept the air warm,

and dispersed a pleasant glow. On shelves which almost concealed the

walls, stood a respectable collection of volumes, the lowest tier

consisting largely of what secondhand booksellers, when invited to

purchase, are wont to call 'tomb-stones' that is to say, old folios, of

no great market value, though good brains and infinite labour went to

the making of them. A great table, at one end of which was a tray with

glasses and a water-bottle, occupied the middle of the floor; nearer

the fireplace was a small writing-desk. For pictures little space could

be found; but over the mantelpiece hung a fine water-colour, the flood

of Tigris and the roofs of Bagdad burning in golden sunset. Harvey had

bought it at the gallery in Pall Mall not long ago; the work of a man

of whom he knew nothing; it represented the farthest point of his own

travels, and touched profoundly his vague historico-poetic

sensibilities.

Three letters lay on the desk. As soon as he had lit his lamp, and

exchanged his boots for slippers, he looked at the envelopes, and chose

one addressed in a woman's hand. The writer was Mrs. Bennet Frothingham.

'We have only just heard, from Mrs. Carnaby, that you are back in town.

_Could_ you spare us tomorrow evening? It would be so nice of you. The

quartet will give Beethoven's F minor, and Alma says it will be well

done--the conceit of the child! We hope to have some interesting people

What a shocking affair of poor Mrs. Carnaby's! I never knew anything

_quite_ so bad.--Our united kind regards.'

Harvey thrust out his lips, in an ambiguous expression, as he threw the

sheet aside. He mused before opening the next letter. This proved to be

of startling contents: a few lines scribbled informally, undated,

without signature. A glance at the postmark discovered 'Liverpool'.

'The children are at my last address,--you know it. I can do no more

for them. If the shabby Abbotts refuse--as I dare say they will--it

wouldn't hurt you to keep them from the workhouse. But it's a devilish

hard world, and they must take their chance.'

After a stare and a frown, Harvey woke the echoes with boisterous

laughter. It was long since any passage in writing had so irresistibly

tickled his sense of humour. Well, he must let Abbott know of this. It

might be as well, perhaps, if he called on Mrs. Abbott tomorrow, to

remove any doubt that might remain in her mind. The fellow Wager being

an old acquaintance of his, he could not get rid of a sense of far-off

responsibility in this matter; though, happily, Wager's meeting with

Mrs. Abbott's cousin, which led to marriage and misery, came about quite

independently of him.

The last letter he opened without curiosity, but with quiet interest

and pleasure. It was dated from Greystone; the writer, Basil Morton,

had a place in his earliest memories, for, as neighbours' children,

they had played together long before the grammar-school days which

allied him with Hugh Carnaby.

'For aught I know,' began Morton, 'you may at this moment be drifting

on the Euphrates, or pondering on the site of Alexandreia Eschate. It

is you who owe me an account of yourself; nevertheless, I am prompted

to write, if only to tell you that I have just got the complete set of

the Byzantine Historians. A catalogue tempted me, and I did buy.'

And so on in the same strain, until, in speaking of nearer matters, his

style grew simpler.

'Our elder boy begins to put me in a difficulty. As I told you, he has

been brought up on the most orthodox lines of Anglicanism; his

mother--best of mothers and best of wives, but in this respect

atavistic--has had a free hand, and I don't see how it could have been

otherwise. But now the lad begins to ask awkward questions, and to put

me in a corner; the young rascal is a vigorous dialectician and

rationalist--odd result of such training. It becomes a serious question

how I am to behave. I cannot bear to distress his mother, yet how can I

tell him that I literally believe those quaint old fables? _Solvetur

vivendo_, of course, like everything else, but just now it worries me a

little. Generally I can see a pretty clear line of duty; here the duty

is divided, with a vengeance. Have you any counsel?'

Harvey Rolfe mumbled impatiently; all domestic matters were a trial to

his nerves. It seemed to him an act of unaccountable folly to marry a

woman from whom one differed diametrically on subjects that lay at the

root of life; and of children he could hardly bring himself to think at

all, so exasperating the complication they introduced into social

problems which defied common-sense. He disliked children; fled the

sight and the sound of them in most cases, and, when this was not

possible, regarded them with apprehension, anxiety, weariness, anything

but interest. In the perplexity that had come upon him, Basil Morton

seemed to have nothing more than his deserts. 'Best of mothers and of

wives', forsooth! An excellent housekeeper, no doubt, but what shadow

of qualification for wifehood and motherhood in this year 1886? The

whole question was disgusting to a rational man--especially to that

vigorous example of the class, by name Harvey Rolfe.

Late as it was, he did not care to go to bed. This morning he had

brought home a batch of books from the London Library, and he began to

turn them over, with the pleasure of anticipation. Not seldom of late

had Harvey flattered himself on the growth of intellectual gusto which

proceeded in him together with a perceptible decline of baser

appetites, so long his torment and his hindrance. His age was now seven

and thirty; at forty he might hope to have utterly trodden under foot

the instincts at war with mental calm. He saw before him long years of

congenial fellowship, of bracing travel, of well-directed studiousness.

Let problems of sex and society go hang! He had found a better way.

On looking back over his life, how improbable it seemed, this happy

issue out of crudity, turbulence, lack of purpose, weakness,

insincerity, ignorance. First and foremost he had to thank good old Dr

Harvey, of Greystone; then, his sister, sleeping in her grave under the

old chimes she loved; then, surely himself, that seed of good within

him which had survived all adverse influences--watched, surely, by his

unconscious self, guarded long, and now deliberately nurtured. Might he

not think well of himself.

His library, though for the most part the purchase of late years,

contained books which reminded him of every period of his life. Up

yonder, on the top shelf, were two score volumes which had belonged to

his father, the share that fell to him when he and his sister made the

ordained division: scientific treatises out of date, an old magazine,

old books of travel. Strange that, in his times of folly, he had not

sold these as burdensome rubbish; he was very glad now, when love and

reverence for things gone by began to take hold upon him. There, at the

same height, stood a rank of school-books preserved for him by his

sister till she died; beside them, medical works, relics of his

abortive study when he was neither boy nor man. Descending, the eye

fell upon yellow and green covers, dozens of French novels, acquired at

any time from the year of his majority up to the other day; in the

mass, they reminded him of a frothy season, when he boasted a cheap

Gallicism, and sneered at all things English. A sprinkling of

miscellaneous literature accounted for ten years or more when he cared

little to collect books, when the senses raged in him, and only by

miracle failed to hurl him down many a steep place. Last came the

serious acquisitions, the bulk of his library: solid and expensive

works--historians, archaeologists, travellers, with noble volumes of

engravings, and unwieldy tomes of antique lore. Little enough of all

this had Rolfe digested, but more and more he loved to have erudition

within his reach. He began to lack room for comely storage; already a

large bookcase had intruded into his bedroom. If he continued to

purchase, he must needs house himself more amply; yet he dreaded the

thought of a removal.

He knew enough and to spare of life in lodgings. His experience began

when he came up as a lad to Guy's Hospital, when all lodgings in London

shone with the glorious light of liberty. It took a wider scope when,

having grasped his little patrimony, he threw physic to the dogs, and

lived as a gentleman at large. In those days he grew familiar with many

kinds of 'apartments' and their nomadic denizens. Having wasted his

substance, he found refuge in the office of an emigration agent, where,

by slow degrees, he proved himself worth a couple of hundred pounds per

annum. This was the 'business' to which Hugh Carnaby vaguely referred

when people questioned him concerning his friend's history.

Had he possessed the commercial spirit, Harvey might have made his

position in this office much more lucrative. Entering nominally as a

clerk, he undertook from the first a variety of duties which could only

be discharged by a man of special abilities; for instance, the literary

revision of seductive pamphlets and broadsheets issued by his employer

to the public contemplating emigration. These advertisements he

presently composed, and, from the point of view of effectiveness, did

it remarkably well. How far such work might be worthy of an honest man,

was another question, which for several years scarcely troubled his

conscience. Before long a use was found for his slender medical

attainments; it became one of his functions to answer persons who

visited the office for information as to the climatic features of this

or that new country, and their physical fitness for going out as

colonists. Of course, there was demanded of him a radical

unscrupulousness, and often enough he proved equal to the occasion; but

as time went on, bringing slow development of brain and character, he

found these personal interviews anything but agreeable. He had

constantly before him the spectacle of human misery and defeat, now and

then in such dread forms that his heart sank and his tongue refused to

lie. When disgust made him contemplate the possibility of finding more

honourable employment, the manifest difficulties deterred him.

He held the place for nearly ten years, living in the end so soberly

and frugally that his two hundred pounds seemed a considerable income;

it enabled him to spend his annual month of holiday in continental

travel, which now had a significance very different from that of his

truancies in France or Belgium before he began to earn a livelihood.

Two deaths, a year's interval between them, released him from his

office. Upon these events and their issue he had not counted;

independence came to him as a great surprise, and on the path of

self-knowledge he had far to travel before the significance of that and

many another turning-point grew clear to his backward gaze.

Seeking for a comfortable abode, he discovered these rooms in

Bayswater. They were to let furnished, the house being occupied by a

widow not quite of the ordinary type of landlady, who entertained only

bachelors, and was fairly conscientious in the discharge of her

obligations. Six months later, during Harvey's absence abroad, this

woman died, and on his return the house had already been stripped of

furniture. For a moment he inclined to take a house of his own, but

from this perilous experiment he was saved by an intimation that, if he

were willing to supply himself with furniture and service, an incoming

tenant would let him occupy his old quarters. Harvey grasped at the

offer. His landlord was a man named Buncombe, a truss manufacturer, who

had two children, and seemingly no wife. The topmost storey Buncombe

assigned to relatives of his own--a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Handover,

with a sickly grownup son, who took some part in the truss business.

For a few weeks Rolfe was waited upon by a charwoman, whom he paid

extravagantly for a maximum of dirt and discomfort; then the

unsatisfactory person fell ill, and, whilst cursing his difficulties,

Harvey was surprised by a visit from Mrs. Handover, who made an

unexpected suggestion--would Mr. Rolfe accept her services in lieu of

the charwoman's, paying her whatever he had been accustomed to give?

The proposal startled him. Mrs. Handover seemed to belong pretty much

to his own rank of life; he was appalled at the thought of bidding her

scrub floors and wash plates; and indeed it had begun to dawn upon him

that, for a man with more than nine hundred a year, he was living in a

needlessly uncomfortable way. On his reply that he thought of removing,

Mrs. Handover fell into profound depression, and began to disclose her

history. Very early in life she had married a man much beneath her in

station, with the natural result. After some years of quarrelling,

which culminated in personal violence on her husband's part, she

obtained a judicial separation. For a long time the man had ceased to

send her money, and indeed he was become a vagabond pauper, from whom

nothing could be obtained; she depended upon her son, and on the

kindness of Buncombe, who asked no rent. If she could earn a little

money by work, she would be much happier, and with tremulous hope she

had taken this step of appealing to her neighbour in the house.

Harvey could not resist these representations. When the new arrangement

had been in operation for a week or so, Harvey began to reflect upon

Mrs. Handover's personal narrative, and in some respects to modify his

first impulsive judgment thereon. It seemed to him not impossible that

Mr. Handover's present condition of vagabond pauper might be traceable

to his marriage with a woman who had never learnt the elements of

domestic duty. Thoroughly well-meaning, Mrs. Handover was the most

incompetent of housewives. Yet such was Harvey Rolfe's delicacy, and so

intense his moral cowardice, that year after year he bore with Mrs.

Handover's defects, and paid her with a smile the wages of two

first-rate servants. Dust lay thick about him; he had grown accustomed

to it, as to many another form of sluttishness. After all, he possessed

a quiet retreat for studious hours, and a tolerable sleeping-place,

with the advantage of having his correspondence forwarded to him when

he chose to wander. To be sure, it was not final; one would not wish to

grow old and die amid such surroundings; sooner or later, circumstance

would prompt the desirable change. Circumstance, at this stage of his

career, was Harvey's god; he waited upon its direction with an air of

wisdom, of mature philosophy.

Of his landlord, Buncombe, he gradually learnt all that he cared to

know. The moment came when Buncombe grew confidential, and he, too, had

a matrimonial history to disclose. Poverty played no part in it; his

business flourished, and Mrs. Buncombe, throughout a cohabitation of

five years, made no complaint of her lot. All at once--so asserted

Buncombe--the lady began to talk of dullness; for a few months she

moped, then of a sudden left home, and in a day or two announced by

letter that she had taken a place as barmaid at a music-hall. There

followed an interview between husband and wife, with the result, said

Buncombe, that they parted the best of friends, but with an

understanding that Mrs. Buncombe should be free to follow her own walk

in life, with a moderate allowance to supplement what she could earn.

That was five years ago. Mrs. Buncombe now sang at second-rate halls,

and enjoyed a certain popularity, which seemed to her an ample

justification of the independence she had claimed. She was just thirty,

tolerably good-looking, and full of the enjoyment of life. Her

children, originally left in the care of her mother, whom Buncombe

supported, were now looked after by the two servants of the house, and

Buncombe seemed to have no conscientious troubles on that score; to

Harvey Rolfe's eye it was plain that the brother and sister were

growing up as vicious little savages, but he permitted himself no

remark on the subject.

After a few conversations, he gained an inkling of Buncombe's motive in

taking a house so much larger than he needed. This magnificence was

meant as an attraction to the roaming wife, whom, it was clear,

Buncombe both wished and hoped to welcome back before very long. She

did occasionally visit the house, though only for an hour or two; just

to show, said Buncombe, that there was no ill-feeling. On his part,

evidently, there was none whatever. An easy-going, simple-minded

fellow, aged about forty, with a boyish good temper and no will to

speak of, he seemed never to entertain a doubt of his wife's honesty,

and in any case would probably have agreed, on the least persuasion, to

let bygones be bygones. He spoke rather proudly than otherwise of Mrs.

Buncombe's artistic success.

'It isn't every woman could have done it, you know, Mr. Rolfe.'

'It is not,' Harvey assented.

Only those rooms were furnished which the little family used, five or

six in all; two or three stood vacant, and served as playgrounds for

the children in bad weather. Of his relatives at the top, Buncombe

never spoke; he either did not know, or viewed with indifference, the

fact that Mrs. Handover served his lodger in a menial capacity. About

once a month he invited three or four male friends to a set dinner, and

hilarity could be heard until long after midnight. Altogether it was a

strange household, and, as he walked about the streets of the

neighbourhood, Harvey often wondered what abnormalities even more

striking might be concealed behind the meaningless uniformity of these

heavily respectable housefronts. As a lodger he was content to dwell

here; but sometimes by a freak of imagination he pictured himself a

married man, imprisoned with wife and children amid these leagues of

dreary, inhospitable brickwork, and a great horror fell upon him.

No. In his time he had run through follies innumerable, but from the

supreme folly of hampering himself by marriage, a merciful fate had

guarded him. It was probably the most remarkable fact of his life; it

heightened his self-esteem, and appeared to warrant him in the

assurance that a destiny so protective would round the close of his

days with tranquillity and content.

Upon this thought he lay down to rest. For half an hour Basil Morton's

letter had occupied his mind: he had tried to think out the problem it

set forth, not to leave his friend quite unanswered; but weariness

prevailed, and with it the old mood of self-congratulation.

Next morning the weather was fine; that is to say, one could read

without artificial light, and no rain fell, and far above the

house-tops appeared a bluish glimmer, shot now and then with pale

yellowness. Harvey decided to carry out his intention of calling upon

Mrs. Abbott. She lived at Kilburn, and thither he drove shortly before

twelve o'clock. He was admitted to a very cosy room, where, amid books

and pictures, and by a large fire, the lady of the house sat reading.

Whatever the cause, it seemed to him that his welcome fell short of

cordiality, and he hastened to excuse himself for intruding at so early

an hour.

'I received a letter last night which I thought you had better know of

without delay.'

'From that man--Mr. Wager?' said Mrs. Abbott quickly and hopefully, her

face brightening.

'Yes. But there's nothing satisfactory in it. He writes from Liverpool,

and merely says that the children are at his lodgings, and he can do no

more for them.'

Mrs. Abbott set her lips in an expression almost of sullenness. Rolfe

had never seen her look thus, but it confirmed a suspicion which he had

harboured concerning her. Why, he hardly knew--for she always presented

a face of amiability, and talked in gentle, womanly tones--doubt as to

Abbott's domestic felicity haunted his mind. Perhaps he now saw her,

for the first time, as she commonly appeared to her husband--slightly

peevish, unwilling to be disturbed, impatient when things did not run

smoothly.

'You saw my husband yesterday?' was her next remark, not very

graciously uttered.

'We met in the street last night--before I got Wager's letter. He was

suffering horribly from neuralgia.'

Harvey could not forbear to add this detail, but he softened his voice

and smiled.

'I don't wonder at it,' returned the lady; 'he takes no care of

himself.'

Harvey glanced about the room. Its furnishing might be called

luxurious, and the same standard of comfort prevailed through the

house. Considering that Edgar Abbott, as Rolfe knew, married on small

means, and that he had toiled unremittingly to support a home in which

he could seldom enjoy an hour's leisure, there seemed no difficulty in

explaining this neglect of his own health. It struck the visitor that

Mrs. Abbott might have taken such considerations into account, and have

spoken of the good fellow more sympathetically. In truth, Harvey did

not quite like Mrs. Abbott. Her age was about seven and twenty. She

came of poor folk, and had been a high-school teacher; very clever and

successful, it was said, and Harvey could believe it. Her features were

regular, and did not lack sweetness; yet, unless an observer were

mistaken, the last year or two had emphasised a certain air of

conscious superiority, perchance originating in the schoolroom. She had

had one child; it struggled through a few months of sickly life, and

died of convulsions during its mother's absence at a garden-party. To

all appearances, her grief at the loss betokened tenderest feeling.

When, in half a year's time, she again came forth into the world, a

change was noted; her character seemed to have developed a new energy,

she exhibited wider interests, and stepped from the background to

become a leader in the little circle of her acquaintances.

'Have you read this?' asked his hostess abruptly, holding up to him a

French volume, Ribot's _L'Heredite Psychologique_.

'No. That kind of thing doesn't interest me much.'

'Indeed! I find it _intensely_ interesting.'

Harvey rose; he was in no mood for this kind of small-talk. But no

sooner had he quitted his chair, than Mrs. Abbott threw her book aside,

and spoke in another tone, seriously, though still with a perceptible

accent of annoyance.

'Of course that man's children are here, and I suppose it is our duty

to provide for them till some other arrangement is made. But I think we

ought to put the matter in the hands of the police. Don't you, Mr

Rolfe?'

'I'm afraid there's small chance of making their father support them.

He is certainly out of England by now, and won't easily be caught.'

'The worst of it is, they are anything but _nice_ children. What could

one expect with such a father? Since their poor mother died, they have

been in the hands of horrible people--low-class landladies, no doubt;

their talk shocks me. The last amusement they had, was to be taken by

somebody to Tussaud's, and now they can talk of nothing but "the hunted

murderer"--one sees it on the walls, you know; and they play at being

murderer and policeman, one trying to escape the other. Pretty play for

children of five and seven, isn't it?'

Rolfe made a gesture of disgust.

'I know the poor things can't help it,' pursued Mrs. Abbott, with

softer feeling, 'but it turns me against them. From seeing so little of

their father, they have even come to talk with a vulgar pronunciation,

like children out of the streets almost. It's dreadful! When I think of

my cousin--such a sweet, good girl, and _these_ her children--oh, it's

horrible!'

'They are very young,' said Harvey, in a low voice, perturbed in spite

of himself. 'With good training----'

'Yes, of course we must put them in good hands somewhere.'

Plainly it had never occurred to Mrs. Abbott that such a task as this

might, even temporarily, be undertaken by herself; her one desire was

to get rid of the luckless brats, that their vulgarity might not pain

her, and the care of them encumber her polite leisure.

After again excusing himself for this call, and hearing his apology

this time more graciously received, Harvey withdrew from the cosy

study, and left Mrs. Abbott to her _Heredite Psychologique_. On his way

to lunch in town, he thought of the overworn journalist groaning with

neuralgia, and wondered how Mrs. Abbott would relish a removal to the

town of Waterbury.

CHAPTER 4

Uncertain to the last moment, Harvey did at length hurry into his dress

clothes, and start for Fitzjohn Avenue. He had little mind for the

semi-fashionable crowd and the amateur music, but he could not answer

Mrs. Bennet Frothingham with any valid excuse, and, after all, she

meant kindly towards him. Why he enjoyed so much of this lady's favour

it was not easy to understand; intellectual sympathy there could be

none between them, and as for personal liking, on his side it did not

go beyond that naturally excited by a good-natured, feather-brained,

rather pretty woman, whose sprightliness never passed the limits of

decorum, and who seemed to have better qualities than found scope in

her butterfly existence. Perhaps he amused her, being so unlike the

kind of man she was accustomed to see. His acquaintance with the family

dated from their social palingenesis, when, after obscure prosperity in

a southern suburb, they fluttered to the northern heights, and were

observed of the paragraphists. Long before that, Bennet Frothingham had

been known in the money-market; it was the 'Britannia'--Loan,

Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited--that made him

nationally prominent, and gave an opportunity to his wife (in second

marriage) and his daughter (by the first). Three years ago, when

Carnaby (already lured by the charms of Sibyl Larkfield) presented his

friend Rolfe as 'the man who had been to Bagdad', Alma Frothingham, not

quite twenty-one, was studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and,

according to her friends, promised to excel alike on the piano and the

violin, having at the same time a 'really remarkable' contralto voice.

Of late the young lady had abandoned singing, rarely used the

pianoforte, and seemed satisfied to achieve distinction as a violinist.

She had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, whose performances were

frequently to be heard at the house in Fitzjohn Avenue.

Last winter Harvey had chanced to meet Alma and her stepmother at

Leipzig, at a Gewandhaus concert. He was invited to go with them to

hear the boys' motet at the Thomaskirche; and with this intercourse

began the change in their relations from mere acquaintance to something

like friendship. Through the following spring Rolfe was a familiar

figure at the Frothinghams'; but this form of pleasure soon wearied

him, and he was glad to escape from London in June. He knew the shadowy

and intermittent temptation which beckoned him to that house; music had

power over him, and he grew conscious of watching Alma Frothingham, her

white little chin on the brown fiddle, with too exclusive an interest.

When 'that fellow' Cyrus Redgrave, a millionaire, or something of the

sort, began to attend these gatherings with a like assiduity, and to

win more than his share of Miss Frothingham's conversation, Harvey felt

a disquietude which happily took the form of disgust, and it was easy

enough to pack his portmanteau.

Through the babble of many voices in many keys, talk mingling with

laughter more or less melodiously subdued, he made his way up the great

staircase. As he neared the landing, there sounded the shrill squeak of

a violin and a 'cello's deep harmonic growl. His hostess, small,

slender, fair, and not yet forty, a jewel-flash upon her throat and in

the tiara above her smooth low forehead, took a step forward to greet

him.

'Really? How delightful! I shot at a venture, and it was a hit after

all!'

'They are just beginning?'

'The quartet--yes. Herr Wilenski has promised to play afterwards.'

He moved on, crossed a small drawing-room, entered the larger room

sacred to music, and reached a seat in the nick of time. Miss

Frothingham, the violin against her shoulder, was casting a final

glance at the assembly, the glance which could convey a noble severity

when it did not forthwith impose silence. A moment's perfect stillness,

and the quartet began. There were two ladies, two men. Miss Frothingham

played the first violin, Mr. AEneas Piper the second; the 'cello was in

the hands of Herr Gassner, and the viola yielded its tones to Miss Dora

Leach. Harvey knew them all, but had eyes only for one; in truth, only

one rewarded observation. Miss Leach was a meagre blonde, whose form,

face, and attitude enhanced by contrast the graces of the First Violin.

Alma's countenance shone--possibly with the joy of the artist, perhaps

only with gratified vanity. As she grew warm, the rosy blood mantled in

her cheeks and flushed her neck. Every muscle and nerve tense as the

strings from which she struck music, she presently swayed forward on

the points of her feet, and seemed to gain in stature, to become a more

commanding type. Her features suggested neither force of intellect or

originality of character: but they had beauty, and something more. She

stood a fascination, an allurement, to the masculine sense. Harvey

Rolfe had never so responded to this quality in the girl; the smile

died from his face as he regarded her. Of her skill as a musician, he

could form no judgment; but it seemed to him that she played very well,

and he had heard her praised by people who understood the matter; for

instance, Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, from whom--in itself a great

compliment--Alma was having lessons.

He averted his eyes, and began to seek for known faces among the

audience. His host he could not discover; Mr. Frothingham must be away

from home this evening; it was seldom he failed to attend Alma's

concerts. But near the front sat Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, a dazzling

figure, and, at some distance, her daughter Mrs. Carnaby, no shadow of

gloom upon her handsome features. Hugh was not in sight; probably he

felt in no mood for parties. Next to Mrs. Carnaby sat 'that fellow',

Cyrus Redgrave, smiling as always, and surveying the people near him

from under drooping brows, his head slightly bent. Mr. Redgrave had

thin hair, but a robust moustache and a short peaked beard; his

complexion was a rifle sallow; he lolled upon the chair, so that, at

moments, his head all but brushed Mrs. Carnaby's shoulder.

Long before the close of the piece, Rolfe had ceased to listen, his

thoughts drifting hither and hither on a turbid flood of emotion.

During the last passage--_Allegro molto leggieramente_--he felt a

movement round about him as a general relief, and when, on the last

note, there broke forth (familiar ambiguity) sounds of pleasure and of

applause, he at once stood up. But he had no intention of pressing into

the throng that rapidly surrounded the musicians. Seeing that Mr.

Redgrave had vacated his place, whilst Mrs. Carnaby remained seated, he

stepped forward to speak with his friend's wife. She smiled up at him,

and lifted a gloved finger.

'No! Please don't!'

'Not sit down by you?'

'Oh, certainly. But I saw condolence in your face, and I'm tired of it.

Besides, it would be mere hypocrisy in you.'

Harvey gave a silent laugh. He had tried to understand Sibyl Carnaby,

and at different times had come to very different conclusions regarding

her. All women puzzled, and often disconcerted, him; with Sibyl he

could never talk freely, knowing not whether to dislike or to admire

her. He was not made on the pattern of Cyrus Redgrave, who probably

viewed womankind with instinctive contempt, yet pleased all with the

flattery of his homage.

'Well, then, we won't talk of it,' he said, noticing, in the same

moment, that her person did not lack the adornment of jewels. Perhaps

she had happened to be wearing these things on the evening of the

robbery; but Rolfe felt a conviction that, under any circumstances,

Sibyl would not be without rings and bracelets.

'They certainly improve,' she remarked, indicating the quartet with the

tip of her fan.

Her opinions were uttered with calm assurance, whatever the subject. An

infinite self-esteem, so placid that it never suggested the vulgarity

of conceit, shone in her large eyes and dwelt upon the beautiful curve

of her lips. No face could be of purer outline, of less sensual

suggestiveness; it wore at times an air of cold abstraction which was

all but austerity. Rolfe imagined her the most selfish of women,

thought her incapable of sentiment; yet how was her marriage to be

accounted for, save by supposing that she fell in love with Hugh

Carnaby? Such a woman might surely have sold herself to great

advantage; and yet--odd incongruity--she did not impress one as

socially ambitious. Her mother, the ever-youthful widow, sped from

assembly to assembly, unable to live save in the whirl of fashion; not

so Sibyl. Was she too proud, too self-centred? And what ambition did

she nourish?

Or was it all an illusion of the senses? Suppose her a mere graven

image, hollow, void. Call her merely a handsome woman, with the face of

some remarkable ancestress, with just enough of warmth to be subdued by

the vigorous passion of such a fine fellow as Carnaby. On the whole,

Rolfe preferred this hypothesis. He had never heard her say anything

really bright, or witty, or significant. But Hugh spoke of her fine

qualities of head and heart; Alma Frothingham made her an exemplar, and

would not one woman see through the vacuous pretentiousness of another?

Involuntarily, he was gazing at her, trying to read her face.

'So you think we ought to go to Australia,' said Sibyl quietly,

returning his look.

Hugh had repeated the conversation of last night; indiscreet, but

natural. One could not suppose that Hugh kept many secrets from his

wife.

'I?' He was confused. 'Oh, we were talking about the miseries of

housekeeping----'

'I hate the name of those new countries.'

It was said smilingly, but with what expression in the word 'hate'!

'Vigorous cuttings from the old tree,' said Rolfe. 'There is England's

future.'

'Perhaps so. At present they are barbarous, and I have a decided

preference for civilisation. So have you, I am quite sure.'

Rolfe murmured his assent; whereupon Sibyl rose, just bent her head to

him, and moved with graceful indolence away.

'Now she hates _me_,' Harvey said in his mind; 'and much I care!'

As a matter of courtesy, he thought it well to move in Miss

Frothingham's direction. The crowd was thinning; without difficulty he

approached to within a few yards of her, and there exchanged a word or

two with the player of the viola, Miss Leach--a good, ingenuous

creature, he had always thought; dangerous to no man's peace, but

rather sentimental, and on that account to be avoided. Whilst talking,

he heard a man's voice behind him, pretentious, coarse, laying down the

law in a musical discussion.

'No, no; Beethoven is not _Klaviermaszig_. His thoughts ate

symphonic--they need the orchestra.... A string quartet is to a

symphony what a delicate water-colour is to an oil-painting.... Oh, I

don't care for his playing at all! he has not--what shall I call

it?--_Sehnsucht_.'

Rolfe turned at length to look. A glance showed him a tall, bony young

man, with a great deal of disorderly hair, and shaven face;

harsh-featured, sensual, utterly lacking refinement. He inquired of

Miss Leach who this might be, and learnt that the man's name was Felix

Dymes.

'Isn't he a humbug?'

The young lady was pained and shocked.

'Oh, he is very clever,' she whispered. 'He has composed a most

beautiful song--don't you know it?--"Margot". It's very likely that

Topham may sing it at one of the Ballad Concerts.'

'Now I've offended _her_,' said Rolfe to himself. 'No matter.'

Seeing his opportunity, he took a few steps, and stood before Alma

Frothingham. She received him very graciously, looking him straight in

the face, with that amused smile which he could never interpret. Did it

mean that she thought him 'good fun'? Had she discussed him with Sibyl

Carnaby, and heard things of him that moved her mirth? Or was it pure

good nature, the overflowing spirits of a vivacious girl?

'So good of you to come, Mr. Rolfe. And what did you think of us?'

This was characteristic. Alma delighted in praise, and never hesitated

to ask for it. She hung eagerly upon his unready words.

'I only show my ignorance when I talk of music. Of course, I liked it.'

'Ah! then you didn't think it very good. I see----'

'But I _did_! Only my opinion is worthless.'

Alma looked at him, seemed to hesitate, laughed; and Harvey felt the

conviction that, by absurd sincerity, he had damaged himself in the

girl's eyes. What did it matter?

'I've been practising five hours a day,' said Alma, in rapid, ardent

tones. Her voice was as pleasant to the ear as her face to look upon;

richly feminine, a call to the emotions. 'That isn't bad, is it?'

'Tremendous energy!'

'Oh, music is my religion, you know. I often feel sorry I haven't to

get my living by it; it's rather wretched to be only an amateur, don't

you think?'

'Religion shouldn't be marketable,' joked Harvey.

'Oh, but you know what I mean. You are so critical, Mr. Rolfe. I've a

good mind to ask Father to turn me out of house and home, with just

half-a-crown. Then I might really do something. It would be splendid!--

Oh, what do you think of that shameful affair in Hamilton Terrace? Mrs

Carnaby takes it like an angel. They're going to give up housekeeping.

Very sensible, I say. Everybody will do it before long. Why should we

be plagued with private houses?'

'There are difficulties----'

'Of course there are, and men seem to enjoy pointing them out. They

think it a crime if women hate the bother and misery of housekeeping.'

'I am not so conservative.'

He tried to meet her eyes, which were gleaming fixedly upon him; but

his look fell, and turned as quickly from the wonderful white

shoulders, the throbbing throat, the neck that showed its colour

against swan's-down. To his profound annoyance, someone intervened--a

lady bringing someone else to be introduced. Rolfe turned on his heel,

and was face to face with Cyrus Redgrave. Nothing could be suaver or

more civil than Mr. Redgrave's accost; he spoke like a polished

gentleman, and, for aught Harvey knew, did not misrepresent himself.

But Rolfe had a prejudice; he said as little as possible, and moved on.

In the smaller drawing-room he presently conversed with his hostess.

Mrs. Frothingham's sanguine and buoyant temper seemed proof against

fatigue; at home or as a guest she wore the same look of enjoyment;

vexations, rivalries, responsibilities, left no trace upon her beaming

countenance. Her affections were numberless; her ignorance, as an

observer easily discovered, was vast and profound; but the desire to

please, the tact of a 'gentlewoman, and thorough goodness of heart,

appeared in all her sayings and doings; she was never offensive, never

wholly ridiculous. Small-talk flowed from her with astonishing

volubility, tone and subject dictated by the characteristics of the

person with whom she gossiped; yet her preference was for talk on

homely topics, reminiscences of a time when she knew not luxury. 'You

may not believe it,' she said to him in a moment of confidence, 'but I

assure you I am a very good cook.' Rolfe did not quite credit the

assurance, but he felt it not improbable that Mrs. Frothingham would

accept a reverse of fortune with much practical philosophy; he could

imagine her brightening a small house with the sweetness of her

disposition, and falling to humble duties with sprightly goodwill. In

this point she was a noteworthy exception among the prosperous women of

his acquaintance.

'And what have you been doing?' she asked, not as a mere phrase of

civility, but in a voice and which a look of genuine interest.

'Wasting my time, for the most part.'

'So you always say; but it can't be true. I know the kind of man who

wastes his time, and you're not a bit like him. Nothing would gratify

my curiosity more than to be able to watch you through a whole day.

What did you think of the quartet?'

'Capital!'

'I'm sure they would make wonderful progress, and Alma does work so

hard! I'm only afraid she may injure her health.'

'I see no sign of it yet.'

'She's certainly looking very well,' said Mrs. Frothingham, with

manifest pride and affection. Of Alma she always spoke thus; nothing of

the step-mother was ever observable.

'Mr. Frothingham is not here this evening!'

'I really don't know why,' replied the hostess, casting her eyes round

the room. 'I quite expected him. But he has been dreadfully busy the

last few weeks. And people do worry him so. Somebody called whilst we

were at dinner, and refused to believe that Mr. Frothingham was not at

home, and made quite a disturbance at the door--so they told me

afterwards. I'm really quite nervous sometimes; crazy people are always

wanting to see him--people who really ought not to be at large. No

doubt they have had their troubles, poor things; and everybody thinks

my husband can make them rich if only he chooses.'

A stout, important-looking man paused before Mrs. Frothingham, and

spoke familiarly.

'I'm looking for B. F. Hasn't he put in an appearance yet?'

'I really hope he's enjoying himself somewhere else,' replied the

hostess, rising, with a laugh. 'You leave him no peace.'

The stout man did not smile, but looked gravely for a moment at Rolfe,

a stranger to him, and turned away.

Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, was about to play something; the guests

moved to seat themselves. Rolfe, however, preferred to remain in this

room, where he could hear the music sufficiently well. He had not quite

recovered from his chagrin at the interruption of his talk with Alma--a

foolishness which made him impatient with himself. At the same time, he

kept thinking of the 'crazy people' of whom Mrs. Frothingham spoke so

lightly. A man such as Bennet Frothingham must become familiar with

many forms of 'craziness', must himself be responsible for a good deal

of folly such as leads to downright aberration. Recalling Mrs.

Frothingham's innocent curiosity concerning his own life, Harvey

wished, in turn, that it were possible for him to watch and comprehend

the business of a great finance-gambler through one whole day. What

monstrous cruelties and mendacities might underlie the surface of this

gay and melodious existence! Why was the stout man looking for 'B. F.'?

Why did he turn away with such a set countenance? Why was that old bore

at the club in such a fidget about the 'Britannia'?

Ha! There indeed sounded the violin! It needed no technical

intelligence to distinguish between the playing of Wilenski and that of

Alma Frothingham. Her religion, forsooth! Herr Wilenski, one might be

sure, talked little enough about his 'religion'. What did Alma think as

she listened? Was she overcome by the despair of the artist-soul

struggling in its immaturity? Or did she smile, as ever, and

congratulate herself on the five hours a day, and tell herself how soon

she would reach perfection if there were real necessity for it?

Hopeless to comprehend a woman. The senses warred upon the wit; seized

by calenture, one saw through radiant mists.

He did not like the name 'Alma'. It had a theatrical sound, a

suggestion of unreality.

The _maestro_ knew his audience; he played but for a quarter of an

hour, and the babble of tongues began again. Rolfe, sauntering before

the admirable pictures which hung here as a mere symbol of wealth,

heard a voice at his shoulder.

'I'm very thirsty. Will you take me down?'

His heart leapt with pleasure; Alma must have seen it in his eyes as he

turned.

'What did Wilenski play?' he asked confusedly, as they moved towards

the staircase.

'Something of Grieg's Mr. Wilbraham is going to sing "Wie bist du,

meine Koniginn"--Brahms, you know. But you don't really care for music.'

'What an astounding accusation!'

'You don't really care for it. I've known that since we were at

Leipzig.'

'I have never pretended to appreciate music as you do. That needs

education, and something more. Some music wearies me, there's no

denying it.'

'You like the Melody in F?'

'Yes, I do.'

Alma laughed, with superiority, but not ill-naturedly.

'And I think it detestable--but of course that doesn't matter. When I

talk about books you think me a nincompoop.--That word used to amuse me

so when I was a child. I remember laughing wildly whenever I saw or

heard it. It _is_ a funny word, isn't it?'

'The last I should apply to you,' said Rolfe in an absent undertone, as

he caught a glimpse of the white teeth between her laughing lips.

They entered the supper-room, where as yet only a few people were

refreshing themselves. Provisions for a regiment spread before the

gaze; delicacies innumerable invited the palate: this house was famed

for its hospitable abundance. Alma, having asked her companion to get

her some lemonade, talked awhile with two ladies who had begun to eat

and drink in a serious spirit; waiting for her, Rolfe swallowed two

glasses of wine to counteract a certain dullness and literalness which

were wont to possess him in such company.

'I won't sit down,' she said. 'No, thanks, nothing to eat. I wonder

where Papa is? Now, _he_ enjoys music, though he is no musician. I

think Papa a wonderful man. For years he has never had more than six

hours sleep; and the work he does! He _can't_ take a holiday; idleness

makes him ill. We were down in Hampshire in July with some relatives of

Mamma's--the quietest, sleepiest village--and Papa tried to spend a few

days with us, but he had to take to flight; he would have perished of

ennui.'

'Life at high pressure,' remarked Rolfe, as the least offensive comment

he could make.

'Yes; and isn't it better than life at low?' exclaimed the girl, with

animation. 'Most people go through existence without once exerting all

the powers that are in them. I should hate to die with the thought that

I hadn't really lived myself _out_. A year ago Papa took me into the

City to see the offices of _Stock and Share_, just after the paper

started. It didn't interest me very much; but I pretended it did,

because Papa always takes an interest in _my_ affairs. But I found

there was something else. After we had seen the printing machinery, and

so on, he took me up to the top of the building into a small room,

where there was just a table and a chair and a bookshelf; and he told

me it was his first office, the room in which he had begun business

thirty years ago. He has always kept it for his own, and just as it

was--a fancy of his. There's no harm in my telling you; he's very proud

of it, and so am I. That's energy!'

'Very interesting indeed.'

'I must go up again,' she added quickly. 'Oh, there's miss Beaufoy; do

let me introduce you to Miss Beaufoy.'

She did so, unaware of Rolfe's groaning reluctance, and at once

disappeared.

The supper-room began to fill. As soon as he could escape from Miss

Beaufoy, who had a cavalier of her own, Harvey ascended the stairs

again, and found a quiet corner, where he sat for a quarter of an hour

undisturbed. Couples and groups paused to talk near him, and whenever

he caught a sentence it was the merest chatter, meaningless repetition

of commonplaces which, but for habit, must have been an unutterable

weariness to the least intelligent of mortals. He was resolved never to

come here again; never again to upset his peace of mind and sully his

self-respect by grimacing amid such a crowd. He enjoyed human

fellowship, timely merry-making; but to throng one's house with people

for whom, with one or two exceptions, one cared not a snap of the

fingers, what was this but sheer vulgarism? As for Alma Frothingham,

long ago he had made up his mind about her. Naturally, inevitably, she

absorbed the vulgarity of her atmosphere. All she did was for effect:

it was her cue to pose as the artist; she would keep it up through

life, and breathe her last, amid perfumes, declaring that she had

'lived herself out'.

In his peevishness he noticed that women came up from supper with

flushed cheeks and eyes unnaturally lustrous. What a grossly sensual

life was masked by their airs and graces! He had half a mind to start

tomorrow for the Syrian deserts.

'Do let us see you again soon,' said his hostess, as he took leave of

her. 'Come in at five o'clock on Wednesday, that's our quiet day; only

a few of our _real_ friends. We shall be in town till Christmas, for

certain.'

On the stairs he passed Mr. Felix Dymes, the composer of 'Margot'.

'Oh, it's the easiest thing in the world,' Mr. Dymes was saying, 'to

compose a song that will be popular. I'll give you the recipe, and

charge nothing You must have a sudden change to the minor, and a waltz

refrain--that's all. Oh yes, there's money in it. I know a man who----'

Rolfe had never left the house in such a bad temper.

CHAPTER 5

When he awoke next morning, the weather was so gloomy that he seriously

resumed his thought of getting away from London. Why, indeed, did he

make London his home, when it would be easy to live in places vastly

more interesting, and under a pure sky? He was a citizen of no city at

all, and had less desire than ever to bind himself to a permanent

habitation. All very well so long as he kept among his male friends, at

the club and elsewhere; but this 'society' played the deuce with him,

and he had not the common-sense, the force of resolve, to keep out of

it altogether.

Well, he must go to his bank this morning, to draw cash.

It was about twelve o'clock when he stood at the counter, waiting with

his cheque. The man before him talked with the teller.

'Do you know that the "Britannia" has shut up?'

'The bank? No!'

'But it has. I passed just now, and there were a lot of people standing

about. Closed at half-past eleven, they say.

Harvey had a singular sensation, a tremor at his heart, a flutter of

the pulses, a turning cold and hot; then he was quite calm again, and

said to himself, 'Of course.' For a minute or two the quiet routine of

the bank was suspended; the news passed from mouth to mouth; newcomers

swelled a gossiping group in front of the counter, and Harvey listened.

The general tone was cynical; there sounded scarcely a note of

indignation; no one present seemed to be personally affected by the

disaster. The name of Bennet Frothingham was frequently pronounced,

with unflattering comments.

'Somebody'll get it hot,' remarked one of the speakers; and the others

laughed.

Rolfe, having transacted his business, walked away. It struck him that

he would go and look at the closed bank, but he did not remember the

address; a policeman directed him, and he walked on, the distance not

being very great. At the end of the street in which the building stood,

signs of the unusual became observable--the outskirts of a crowd,

hanging loose in animated talk, as after some exciting occurrence; and

before the bank itself was gathered a throng of men, respectability's

silk hats mingling with the felts and caps of lower strata. Here and

there a voice could be heard raised in anger, but the prevailing

emotion seemed to be mere curiosity. The people who would suffer most

from the collapse of this high-sounding enterprise could not reach the

scene of calamity at half an hour's notice; they were dwellers in many

parts of the British Isles, strangers most of them to London city, with

but a vague mental picture of the local habitation of the Britannia

Loan, Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited.

His arm was seized, and a voice said hoarsely in his ear--

'By God! too late.'

Hugh Carnaby had tumbled out of a cab, and saw his friend in the same

moment that he got near enough to perceive that the doors of the bank

were shut.

'The thieves have lost no time,' he added, pale with fury.

'You had warning of it?'

Hugh pulled him a few yards away, and whispered----

'Bennet Frothingham shot himself last night.'

Again Harvey experienced that disagreeable heart-shock, with the

alternation of hot and cold.

'Where? At home?'

'At the office of _Stock and Share_. Come farther away. It'll be in the

evening papers directly, but I don't want those blackguards to hear me.

I got up late this morning, and as I was having breakfast, Sibyl rushed

in. She brought the news; had it from some friend of her mother's, a

man connected somehow with _Stock and Share_. I thought they would shut

up shop, and came to try and save Sibyl's balance--a couple of hundred,

that's all--but they've swallowed it with the rest.'

'With the rest?'

Hugh laughed mockingly.

'Of hers. Devilish bad luck Sibyl has. It was just a toss-up that a

good deal of my own wasn't in, one way or another.'

'Do you know any more about Frothingham?'

'No. Only the fact. Don't know when it was, or when it got known. We

shall have it from the papers presently. I think every penny Mrs

Larkfield had was in.'

'But it may not mean absolute ruin,' urged Harvey.

'I know what to think when B. F. commits suicide. We shall hear that

some of the others have bolted. It'll be as clean a sweep as our

housekeeper's little job.'

'I've had queer presentiments,' Harvey murmured.

'Why, damn it, so have I! So had lots of people. But nobody ever does

anything till it's too late. I must get home again with my agreeable

news. You'll be going to the club, I dare say? They'll have plenty to

talk about for the next month or two.'

'Try to come round tonight to my place.'

'Perhaps. It depends on fifty chances. There's only one thing I know

for certain--that I shall get out of this cursed country as soon as

possible.'

They parted, and Harvey walked westward. He had no reason for hurry; as

usual, the tumult of the world's business passed him by; he was merely

a looker-on. It occurred to him that it might be a refreshing and a

salutary change if for once he found himself involved in the anxieties

to which other men were subject; this long exemption and security

fostered a too exclusive regard of self, an inaptitude for sympathetic

emotion, which he recognised as the defect of his character. This

morning's events had startled him, and given a shock to his

imagination; but already he viewed them and their consequences with a

self-possession which differed little from unconcern. Bennet

Frothingham, no doubt, had played a rascally game, foreseeing all along

the issues of defeat. As to his wife and daughter, it would be strange

if they were not provided for; suffer who might, they would probably

live on in material comfort, and nowadays that was the first

consideration. He was surprised that their calamity left him so

unmoved; it showed conclusively how artificial were his relations with

these persons; in no sense did he belong to their world; for all his

foolish flutterings, Alma Frothingham remained a stranger to him, alien

from every point of view, personal, intellectual, social. And how many

of the people who crowded to her concert last night would hear the news

this morning with genuine distress on her account? Gratified envy would

be the prevailing mood, with rancorous hostility in the minds of those

who were losers by Bennet Frothingham's knavery or ill-fortune. Hugh

Carnaby's position called for no lament; he had a sufficient income of

his own, and would now easily overcome his wife's pernicious influence;

with or without her, he would break away from a life of corrupting

indolence, and somewhere beyond seas 'beat the British drum'--use his

superabundant vitality as nature prompted.

After all, it promised to clear the air. These explosions were

periodic, inevitable, wholesome. The Britannia Loan, &c, &c, &c, had

run its pestilent course; exciting avarice, perturbing quiet industry

with the passion of the gamester, inflating vulgar ambition, now at

length scattering wreck and ruin. This is how mankind progresses.

Harvey Rolfe felt glad that no theological or scientific dogma

constrained him to a justification of the laws of life.

At lunchtime, newspaper boys began to yell. The earliest placards

roared in immense typography. In the Metropolitan Club, sheets moist

from the press suddenly descended like a fall of snow. Rolfe stood by a

window and read quietly. This first report told him little that he had

not already learnt, but there were a few details of the suicide.

Frothingham, it appeared, always visited the office of _Stock and

Share_ on the day before publication. Yesterday, as usual, he had

looked in for half an hour at three o'clock; but unexpectedly he came

again at seven in the evening, and for a third time at about eleven,

when the printing of the paper was in full swing. 'It was supposed by

the persons whom he then saw that Mr. Frothingham finally quitted the

office; whether he actually left the building or not seems to remain

uncertain. If so, he re-entered without being observed, which does not

seem likely. Between two and three o'clock this morning, when _Stock

and Share_ was practically ready for distribution, a man employed on

the premises is said, for some unexplained reason, to have ascended to

the top floor of the building, and to have entered a room ordinarily

unused. A gas-jet was burning, and the man was horrified to discover

the dead body of Mr. Frothingham, at full length on the floor, in his

hand a pistol. On the alarm being given, medical aid was at once

summoned, and it became evident that death had taken place more than an

hour previously. That no one heard the report of a pistol can be easily

explained by the noise of the machinery below. The dead man's face was

placid. Very little blood had issued from the wound, and the shot must

have been fired with a remarkably steady hand.'

'A room on the top floor of the building, ordinarily unused----' What

story was it that Alma Frothingham told last night, of her visit to the

office of _Stock and Share_? Rolfe had not paid much attention to it at

the time; now he recalled the anecdote, and was more impressed by its

significance. That room, his first place of business, the scene of poor

beginnings, Bennet Frothingham had chosen for his place of death.

Perhaps he had long foreseen this possibility, had mused upon the

dramatic fitness of such an end; for there was a strain of melancholy

in the man, legible on his countenance, perceptible in his private

conversation. Just about the time when Alma laughingly told the story,

her father must have been sitting in that upper room, thinking his last

thoughts; or it might be that he lay already dead.

Later issues contained much fuller reports. The man who found the body

had explained his behaviour in going up to the unused room, and it

relieved the dark affair with a touch of comedy. Before coming to work,

he had quarrelled with his wife, and, rather than go home in the early

hours of the morning, he hit upon the idea of finding a sleeping-place

here on the premises, to which he could slink unnoticed. 'It's little

enough sleep I get in my own house,' was his remark to the reporter who

won his confidence. Clubmen were hilarious over this incident,

speculating as to the result of its publication on the indiscreet man's

domestic troubles.

It was not unremarked that a long time elapsed between the discovery of

the suicide and its being heard of by anyone who had an interest in

making it generally known. With the exception of two persons, all who

were engaged upon the production of the newspaper went home in complete

ignorance of what had happened, so cautiously and successfully was the

situation dealt with by the sub-editor and his informant. When, after

an examination by the doctor, who had been summoned in all secrecy, it

became necessary to communicate with the police, the employees had all

gone away, and the printed sheets had been conveyed to the distributing

agents. Naturally, the subeditor of _Stock and Share_' preserved a

certain reticence in the matter; but one could hardly be mistaken in

assuming that the directors of the Britannia Company--two or three of

them, at all events--had an opportunity of surveying their position

long before the hour when this momentous news got abroad.

With regard to the company's affairs, only conjecture could be as yet

indulged in. In view of the immediate stoppage of business, it was

pretty safe to surmise that alarming disclosures awaited the public. No

one, of course, would be justified in prejudging the case against the

unhappy man who, amid seemingly brilliant circumstances, had been

driven to so desperate an act.

And so on, and so on, in one journal after another, in edition upon

edition. Harvey Rolfe read them till he was weary, listened to the

gossip of the club till he was nauseated. He went home at length with a

headache, and, having carefully avoided contact with Buncombe or Mrs

Handover, made an effort to absorb himself in a volume of Gregorovius,

which was at present his study. The attempt was futile. Talk still

seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered

far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard

raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from

this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny

paper made the most of what Providence had sent them.

The first thing after breakfast next morning, he posted a line to Hugh

Carnaby. 'Is there any way in which I can be of use to you? If you

think not, I shall be off tomorrow to Greystone for a few days. I feel

as if we were all being swept into a ghastly whirlpool which roars over

the bottomless pit. Of course, I will stay if I can do anything, no

matter what. Otherwise, address for a week to Basil Morton's.'

This he dropped into the nearest pillar-box, and, as the sun was

endeavouring to shine, he walked the length of the street, a pretence

of exercise. On his way back he was preceded by a telegraph boy, who

stopped at Buncombe's front door, and awoke the echoes with a twofold

double knock. Before the servant could open, Harvey was on the steps.

'What name?'

'Rolfe.'

'For me, then.'

He tore open the envelope.

'Could you come at once? Something has happened.--Abbott.'

The boy wished to know if there would be a reply. Harvey shook his

head, and stepped into the hall, where he stood reflecting. What could

have happened that Edgar Abbott should summon him? Had his wife run

away?-- Ah, to be sure, it must have something to do with Wager's

children--an accident, a death. But why send for _him_?

He made a little change in his dress, and drove forthwith to Kilburn.

As his cab stopped, he saw that all the blinds in the front of the

Abbotts' house were drawn down. Death, then, obviously. It was with a

painful shaking of the nerves that he knocked for admission.

'Mr. Abbott----?'

The servant girl, who had a long-drawn face, said nothing, but left him

where he stood, returning in a moment with a mumbled 'Will you please

to come in, sir?' He followed her to the room in which he had talked

with Mrs. Abbott two days ago; and she it was who again received him.

Her back to the light, she stood motionless.

'Your husband has telegraphed for me----'

A voice that struggled with a sob made thick reply----

'No--I--he is dead!'

The accent of that last monosyllable was heart-piercing. It seemed to

Harvey as though the word were new-minted, so full it sounded of

dreadful meaning.

'Dead?'

Mrs. Abbott moved, and he could see her face better. She must have wept

for hours.

'He has been taking morphia--he couldn't sleep well--and then his

neuralgia. The girl found him this morning, at seven o'clock--there.'

She pointed to the couch.

'You mean that he had taken an overdose--by accident----'

'It _must_ have been so. He had to work late--and then he must have

lain down to sleep.'

'Why here?'

'A flood of anguish whelmed her. She uttered a long moan, all the more

terrible for its subdual to a sound that could not pass beyond the

room. Her struggle for self-command made her suffering only the more

impressive, the more grievous to behold.'

'Mr. Rolfe, I sent for you because you are his old friend. I meant to

tell you all the truth, as I know it. I _can't_ tell it before

strangers--in public! I _can't_ let them know--the shame--the shame!'

Harvey's sympathy gave way to astonishment and strange surmise.

Hurriedly he besought her not to reveal anything in her present

distress; to wait till she could reflect calmly, see things in truer

proportion. His embarrassment was heightened by an inability to

identify this woman with the Mrs. Abbott he had known; the change in

her self-presentment seemed as great and sudden as that in her

circumstances. Face and voice, though scarce recognisable, had changed

less than the soul of her--as Harvey imaged it. This entreaty she

replied to with a steadiness, a resolve, which left him no choice but

to listen.

'I cannot, dare not, think that he did this knowingly. No! He was too

brave for that. He would never have left me in that way--to my despair.

But it was my fault that made him angry--no, not angry; he was never

that with me, or never showed it. But I had behaved with such utter

selfishness----'

Her misery refused to word itself. She sank down upon a chair and

sobbed and moaned.

'Your grief exaggerates every little fault,' said Harvey.

'No--you must hear it all--then perhaps I can hide my shame from

strangers. What use would it be if they knew? It alters nothing--it's

only in my own heart. I have no right to pain you like this. I will

tell you quietly. You know that he went to Waterbury, on business. Did

he tell you?--it was to buy a share in a local newspaper. I, in my

blindness and selfishness, disliked that. I wanted to live here; the

thought of going to live in the country seemed unbearable. That Edgar

was overworked and ill, seemed to me a trifle. Don't you remember how I

spoke of it when you came here the other morning?--I can't understand

myself. How could I think so, speak so!'

The listener said nothing.

'He did what he purposed--made a bargain, and came back to conclude the

purchase by correspondence. But his money--the small capital he counted

upon--was in "Britannia" shares; and you know what happened

yesterday--yesterday, the very day when he went to sell the shares,

thinking to do so without the least difficulty.'

Harvey gave a grim nod.

'He came home, and I showed that I was glad----'

'No! You accuse yourself unreasonably.'

'I tell you the truth, as my miserable conscience knows it. I was crazy

with selfishness and conceit. Rightly, he left me to my cowardly

temper, and went out again, and was away for a long time. He came back

to dinner, and then the suffering in his face all but taught me what I

was doing. I wanted to ask him to forgive me--to comfort him for his

loss; but pride kept me from it. I couldn't speak--I couldn't! After

dinner he said he had a lot of work to do, and came into this room. At

ten o'clock I sent him coffee. I wished to take it myself--O God! if

only I had done so! I _wished_ to take it, and speak to him, but still

I couldn't. And I knew he was in torture; I saw at dinner that pain was

racking him. But I kept away, and went to my own bed, and slept--whilst

he was lying here.'

A rush of tears relieved her. Harvey felt his own eyes grow moist.

'It was only that he felt so worn out,' she pursued. 'I know how it

was. The pain grew intolerable, and he went upstairs for his draught,

and then--not having finished his work--he thought he would lie down on

the sofa for a little; and so sleep overcame him. He never meant

_this_. If I thought it, I couldn't live!'

'Undoubtedly you are right,' said Harvey, summoning an accent of

conviction. 'I knew him very well, and he was not the man to do that.'

'No? You are sure of it? You feel it impossible, Mr. Rolfe?'

'Quite impossible. There are men--oh, you may assure yourself that it

was pure accident. Unfortunately, it happens so often.'

She hung on his words, leaning towards him, her eyes wide and lips

parted.

'So often! I have seen so many cases, in the papers. And he was

absent-minded. But what right have I to seek comfort for myself? Was I

any less the cause of his death? But must I tell all this in public? Do

you think I ought to?'

With comfortable sincerity Rolfe was able to maintain the needlessness

of divulging anything beyond the state of Abbott's health and his

pecuniary troubles.

'It isn't as if we had lived on ill terms with each other,' said the

widow, with a sigh of gratitude. 'Anything but that. Until of late we

never knew a difference, and the change that came was wholly my fault.

I hadn't the honesty to speak out and say what was in my mind. I never

openly opposed his wish to leave London. I pretended to agree to

everything, pretended. He showed me all his reasons, put everything

simply and plainly and kindly before me, and if I had said what I

thought, I feel sure he would have given it up at once. It was in my

own hands to decide one way or the other.'

'Why should you reproach yourself so with mere thoughts, of which he

never became aware?'

'Oh, it was yesterday, when he came back from the City. He knew then

that I was glad he couldn't carry out his purpose. He looked at me as

he never had done before--a look of surprise and estrangement. I shall

always see that look on his face.'

Harvey talked in the strain of solace, feeling how extraordinary was

his position, and that of all men he had least fitness for such an

office. It relieved him when, without undue abruptness, he could pass

to the practical urgencies of the case. Were Wager's children still in

the house? Alas! they were, and Mrs. Abbott knew not what to do about

them.

'You can't think of anyone who would take them--for a day or two, even?'

Among her acquaintances there was not one of whom she could venture to

ask such a service. 'People have such a dread of children.' Her sister

was a governess in Ireland; other near relatives she had none. Edgar

Abbott's mother, old and in feeble health, lived near Waterbury; how

was the dreadful news to be conveyed to her?

Harvey bestirred himself. Here, at all events, was a call to active

usefulness; he felt the privilege of money and leisure.

'Can you give me the name of any one at Waterbury who would be a fit

person to break the news to Mrs. Abbott?'

Two names were mentioned, and he noted them.

'I will send telegrams at once to both.'

'You will say it was an accident----'

'That shall be made clear. As for the children, I think I can have them

taken away this morning. In the house where I live there is a decent

woman who I dare say would be willing to look after them for the

present. Will you leave this entirely in my hands?'

'I am ashamed--I don't know how to thank you.'

'No time shall be lost.' He rose. 'If Mrs. Handover will help us, I

will bring her here; then I shall see you again. In any case, of

course, I will come back--there will be other business. But you ought

to have some friend--some lady.'

'There's _no_ one I can ask.'

'Oh, but of all the people you know in London--surely!'

'They are not friends in that sense. I understand it now--fifty

acquaintances; no friend.'

'But let me think--let me think. What was the name of that lady I met

here, whose children you used to teach?'

'Mrs. Langland. She is very kind and friendly, but she lives at

Gunnersbury--so far--and I couldn't trouble her.'

Upon one meeting and a short conversation, with subsequent remarks from

Edgar Abbott, Rolfe had grounded a very favourable opinion of Mrs

Langland. She dwelt clearly in his mind as 'a woman with no nonsense

about her', likely to be of much helpfulness at a crisis such as the

present. With difficulty he persuaded Mrs. Abbott to sit down and write

a few lines, to be posted at once to Gunnersbury.

'I haven't dared to ask her to come. But I have said that I am alone.'

'Quite enough, I think, if she is at home.'

He took his leave, and drove back to Bayswater, posting the letter and

despatching two telegrams on the way.

Of course, his visit to Greystone was given up.

CHAPTER 6

Hugh Carnaby was gratified by the verdict of _felo de se_. He applauded

the jury for their most unexpected honesty. One had taken for granted

the foolish tag about temporary madness, which would have been an

insult to everybody's common-sense.

'It's a pity they no longer bury at four cross-roads, with a stake in

his inside. (Where's that from? I remember it somehow.) The example

wouldn't be bad.'

'You're rather early-Victorian,' replied Sibyl, who by this term was

wont to signify barbarism or crudity in art, letters, morality, or

social feeling. 'Besides, there's no merit in the verdict. It only

means that the City jury is in a rage. Yet every one of them would be

dishonest on as great a scale if they dared, or had the chance.'

'Something in that, I dare say,' conceded Hugh.

He admired his wife more than ever. Calm when she lost her trinkets,

Sibyl exhibited no less self-command now that she was suddenly deprived

of her whole fortune, about eight hundred a year. She had once remarked

on the pleasantness and fitness of a wife's possessing in her own name

an income equal to that of her husband; yet she resigned it without

fuss. Indeed, Sibyl never made a fuss about anything. She intimated her

wishes, and, as they were always possible of gratification, obtained

them as a matter of course. Naturally, since their marriage, she and

Hugh had lived to the full extent of their means. Carnaby had reduced

his capital by a couple of thousand pounds in preliminary expenses, and

debt to the amount of two or three hundred was outstanding at the end

of the first twelvemonth; but Sibyl manifested no alarm.

'We have been great fools,' she said, alluding to their faith in Bennet

Frothingham.

'It's certain that _I_ have,' replied her husband. 'I oughtn't to have

let your mother have her way about that money. If there had been a

proper settlement, you would have run no risk. Trustees couldn't have

allowed such an investment.'

The same day Sibyl bought a fur for her neck which cost fifteen

guineas. The weather was turning cold, and she had an account at the

shop.

That afternoon, too, she went to see her mother, and on returning at

six o'clock looked into the library, where Hugh sat by the fire, a book

in his hand. Carnaby found the days very long just now. He shunned his

clubs, the Metropolitan and the Ramblers', because of a fear that his

connection with the 'Britannia' was generally known; to hear talk on

the subject would make him savage. He was grievously perturbed in mind

by his position and prospects; and want of exercise had begun to affect

his health. As always, he greeted his wife's entrance with a smile, and

rose to place a chair for her.

'Thanks, I won't sit down,' said Sibyl. 'You look comfortable.'

'Well?'

She looked at him reflectively, and said in balanced tones----

'I really think I can boast of having the most selfish mother in

England.'

Hugh had his own opinion concerning Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, but would

not have ventured to phrase it.

'How's that?'

'I never knew anyone who succeeded so well in thinking steadily and

exclusively of herself. It irritates me to see her since this affair; I

shan't go again. I really didn't know what a detestable temper she has.

Her talk is outrageous. She doesn't behave like a lady. Could you

believe that she has written a violent letter to Mrs.

Frothingham--"speaking her mind", as she says? It's disgraceful!'

'I'm sorry she has done that. But it isn't every one that can bear

injury as you do, Sibyl.'

'I supposed she could behave herself. She raises her voice, and uses

outrageous words, and shows temper with the servants. I wouldn't spend

a day in that house now on any account. And, after all, I find she

hasn't lost much more than I have. She will be able to count on six

hundred a year at least.'

Carnaby received the news with a brightened visage.

'Oh come! That's something.'

'She took very good care, you see, not to risk everything herself.'

'It's possible,' said Hugh, 'that she hadn't control of all her money.'

'Oh yes, she had. She let that fact escape in her fury--congratulated

herself on being so far prudent. Really, I never knew a more hateful

woman.'

It was said without vehemence, with none of that raising of the voice

which so offended her: a deliberate judgment, in carefully chosen

words. Hugh tried to smile, but could not quite command his features;

they expressed an uneasy thoughtfulness.

'Do you go out this evening?' he asked, after a pause.

'No; I'm rather tired and out of sorts. Dinner is at seven. I shall go

to bed early.'

The police had as yet failed to get upon the track of the felonious

housekeeper, known as Mrs. Maskell. Mrs. Carnaby's other servants still

kept their places, protesting innocence, and doubtless afraid to leave

lest they should incur suspicion. Domestic management was now In the

hands of the cook. Sibyl always declared that she could not eat a

dinner she had had the trouble of ordering, and she seemed unaffectedly

to shrink from persons of the menial class, as though with physical

repulsion. Perforce she submitted to having her hair done by her maid,

but she found the necessity disagreeable.

The dinner was simple, but well cooked. Sibyl never ate with hearty

appetite, and declined everything not of excellent quality; unlike

women in general, she was fastidious about wine, yet took of it

sparingly; liqueurs, too, she enjoyed, and very strong coffee. To a

cigarette in the mouth of a woman she utterly objected; it offended her

sense of the becoming, her delicate perception of propriety. When

dining alone or with Hugh, she dressed as carefully as for a

ceremonious occasion. Any approach to personal disorder or neglect was

inconceivable in Sibyl. Her husband had, by accident, heard her called

'the best-groomed woman in London'; he thought the praise well merited,

and it flattered him.

At table they talked of things as remote as possible from their

immediate concerns, and with the usual good humour. When he rose to

open the door, Hugh said----

'Drawing-room or library?'

'Library. You would like to smoke.'

For ten minutes he sat with his arms on the table, his great

well-shapen hands loosely clenched before him. He drank nothing. His

gaze was fixed on a dish of fruit, and widened as if in a growing

perplexity. Then he recovered himself, gave a snort, and went to join

his wife.

Sibyl was reading a newspaper. Hugh lit his pipe in silence, and sat

down opposite to her. Presently the newspaper dropped, and Sibyl's eyes

were turned upon her husband with a smile.

'Well?'

'Well?'

They smiled at each other amiably.

'What do you suggest, Birdie?'

The fondling name was not very appropriate, and had not been used of

late; Carnaby hit upon it in the honeymoon days, when he said that his

wife was like some little lovely bird, which he, great coarse fellow,

had captured and almost feared to touch lest he should hurt it. Hugh

had not much originality of thought, and less of expression.

'There are places, you know, where one lives very comfortably on very

little,' said Sibyl.

'Yes; but it leads to nothing.'

'What _would_ lead to anything?'

'Well, you see, I have capital, and some use ought to be made of it.

Everybody nowadays goes in for some kind of business.'

She listened with interest, smiling, meditative.

'And a great many people come out of it--wishing they had done so

before.'

'True,' said Carnaby; 'there's the difficulty. I had a letter from

Dando this morning. He has got somebody to believe in his new smelting

process--somebody in the City; talks of going out to Queensland

shortly. Really--if I could be on the spot----'

He hesitated, timidly indicating his thoughts. Sibyl mused, and slowly

shook her head.

'No; wait for reports.'

'Yes; but it's those who are in it first, you see.'

Sibyl seemed to forget the immediate subject, and to let her thoughts

wander in pleasant directions. She spoke as if on a happy impulse.

'There's one place I think I should like--though I dread the voyage.'

'Where's that?'

'Honolulu.'

'What has put that into your head?'

'Oh, I have read about it. The climate is absolute perfection, and the

life exquisite. How do you get there?'

'Across America, and then from San Francisco. It's anything but a cheap

place, I believe.'

'Still, for a time. The thing is to get away, don't you think?'

'No doubt of that.--Honolulu--by Jove! it's an idea. I should like to

see those islands myself.'

'And it isn't commonplace,' remarked Sibyl. 'One would go off with a

certain eclat. Very different from starting for the Continent in the

humdrum way.'

The more Carnaby thought of it, the better he liked this suggestion.

That Sibyl should voluntarily propose so long a journey surprised and

delighted him. The tropics were not his favourite region, and those

islands of the Pacific offered no scope for profitable energy; he did

not want to climb volcanoes, still less to lounge beneath bananas and

breadfruit-trees, however pleasant such an escape from civilisation

might seem at the first glance. A year of marriage, of idleness amid

amusements, luxuries, extravagances, for which he had no taste, was

bearing its natural result in masculine restiveness. His robust

physique and temper, essentially combative, demanded liberty under

conditions of rude or violent life. He was not likely to find a

satisfying range in any mode of existence that would be shared by

Sibyl. But he clutched at any chance of extensive travel. It might be

necessary--it certainly would be--to make further incision into his

capital, and so diminish the annual return upon which he could count

for the future; but when his income had already become ludicrously

inadequate, what did that matter? The years of independence were past;

somehow or other, he must make money. Everybody did it nowadays, and an

'opening' would of course present itself, something would of course

'turn up'.

He stretched his limbs in a sudden vast relief.

'Bravo! The idea is excellent. Shall we sell all this stuff?' waving a

hand to indicate the furniture.

'Oh, I think not. Warehouse it.'

Hugh would have rejoiced to turn every chair and table into hard cash,

not only for the money's sake, but for the sense of freedom that would

follow; but he agreed, as always, to whatever his wife preferred. They

talked with unwonted animation. A great atlas was opened, routes were

fingered; half the earth's circumference vanished in a twinkling.

Sibyl, hitherto mewed within the circle of European gaieties and

relaxations, all at once let her fancy fly--tasted a new luxury in

experiences from which she had shrunk.

'I'll order my outfit tomorrow. Very light things, I suppose? Who could

advise me about that?'

Among a number of notes and letters which she wrote next day was one to

Miss Frothingham. 'Dear Alma,' it began, and it ended with 'Yours

affectionately'--just as usual.

'Could you possibly come here some day this week? I haven't written

before, and haven't tried to see you, because I felt sure you would

rather be left alone. At the same time I feel sure that what has

happened, though for a time it will sadden us both, cannot affect our

friendship. I want to see you, as we are going away very soon, first of

all to _Honolulu_. Appoint your own time; I will be here.'

By return of post came the black-edged answer, which began with

'Dearest Sibyl,' and closed with 'Ever affectionately'.

'I cannot tell you how relieved I am to get your kind letter. These

dreadful days have made me ill, and one thing that increased my misery

was the fear that I should never hear from you again. I should not have

dared to write. How noble you are!--but then I always knew that. I

cannot come tomorrow--you know why--but the next day I will be with you

at three o'clock, if you don't tell me that the hour is inconvenient.'

They met at the appointed time. Mrs. Carnaby's fine sense of the

becoming declared itself in dark array; her voice was tenderly subdued;

the pressure of her hand, the softly lingering touch of her lips,

conveyed a sympathy which perfect taste would not allow to become

demonstrative. Alma could at first say nothing. The faint rose upon her

cheek had vanished; her eyes were heavy, and lacked their vital gleam;

her mouth, no longer mobile and provocative, trembled on the verge of

sobs, pathetic, childlike. She hung her head, moved with a languid,

diffident step, looked smaller and slighter, a fashionable garb of woe

aiding the unhappy transformation.

'I oughtn't to have given you this trouble,' said Sibyl. 'But perhaps

you would rather see me here----'

'Yes--oh yes--it was much better----'

'Sit down, dear. We won't talk of wretched things, will we? If I could

have been of any use to you----'

'I was so afraid you would never----'

'Oh, you know me better than that,' broke in Mrs. Carnaby, almost with

cheerfulness, her countenance already throwing off the decorous shadow,

like a cloak that had served its turn. 'I hope I am neither foolish nor

worldly-minded.'

'Indeed, indeed not! You are goodness itself.'

'How is Mrs. Frothingham?'

The question was asked with infinite delicacy, head and body bent

forward, eyes floatingly averted.

'Really ill, I'm afraid. She has fainted several times--yesterday was

unconscious for nearly half an hour.'

Sibyl flinched. Mention of physical suffering affected her most

disagreeably; she always shunned the proximity of people in ill health,

and a possibility of infection struck her with panic.

'Oh, I'm so sorry. But it will pass over.'

'I hope so. I have done what I could.'

'I'm sure you have.'

'But it's so hard--when every word of comfort sounds heartless--when

it's kindest to say nothing----'

'We won't talk about it, dear. You yourself--I can see what you have

gone through. You must get away as soon as possible; this gloomy

weather makes everything worse.'

She paused, and with an air of discreet interest awaited Alma's reply.

'Yes, I hope to get away. I shall see if it's possible.'

The girl's look strayed with a tired uncertainty; her hands never

ceased to move and fidget; only the habits of good breeding kept her

body still.

'Of course, it is too soon for you to have made plans.'

'It's so difficult,' replied Alma, her features more naturally

expressive, her eyes a little brighter. 'You see, I am utterly

dependent upon Mamma. I had better tell you at once--Mamma will have

enough to live upon, however things turn out. She has money of her own;

but of course I have nothing--nothing whatever. I think, most likely,

Mamma will go to live with her sister, in the country, for a time. She

couldn't bear to go on living in London, and she doesn't like life

abroad. If only I could do as I wish!'

'I guess what that would be,' said the other, smiling gently.

'To take up music as a profession--yes. But I'm not ready for it.'

'Oh, half a year of serious study; with your decided talent, I should

think you couldn't hesitate. You are a born musician.'

The words acted as a cordial. Alma roused herself, lifted her drooping

head and smiled.

'That's the praise of a friend.'

'And the serious opinion of one not quite unfit to judge,' rejoined

Sibyl, with her air of tranquil self-assertion. 'Besides, we have

agreed--haven't we?--that the impulse is everything. What you wish for,

try for. Just now you have lost courage; you are not yourself. Wait

till you recover your balance.'

'It isn't that I want to make a name, or anything of that sort,' said

Alma, in a voice that was recovering its ordinary pitch and melody. 'I

dare say I never should; I might just support myself, and that would be

all. But I want to be free--I want to break away.'

'Of course!'

'I have been thinking that I shall beg Mamma to let me have just a

small allowance, and go off by myself. I know people at Leipzig--the

Gassners, you remember. I could live there on little enough, and work,

and feel free. Of course, there's really no reason why I shouldn't. I

have been feeling so bound and helpless; and now that nobody has any

right to hinder me, you think it would be the wise thing?'

Alma had occasionally complained to her friend, as she did the other

evening to Harvey Rolfe, that easy circumstances were not favourable to

artistic ambition, but no very serious disquiet had ever declared

itself in her ordinary talk. The phrases she now used, and the look

that accompanied them, caused Sibyl some amusement. Only two years

older than Alma, Mrs. Carnaby enjoyed a more than proportionate

superiority in knowledge of the world; her education had been more

steadily directed to that end, and her natural aptitude for the study

was more pronounced. That she really liked Alma seemed as certain as

that she felt neither affection nor esteem for any other person of her

own sex. Herself not much inclined to feminine friendship, Alma had

from the first paid voluntary homage to Sibyl's intellectual claims,

and thought it a privilege to be admitted to her intimacy; being

persuaded, moreover, that in Sibyl, and in Sibyl alone, she found

genuine appreciation of her musical talent. Sibyl's choice of a husband

had secretly surprised and disappointed her, for Hugh Carnaby was not

the type of man in whom she felt an interest, and he seemed to her

totally unworthy of his good fortune; but this perplexity passed and

was forgotten. She saw that Sibyl underwent no subjugation; nay, that

the married woman did but perfect herself in those qualities of mind

and mood whereby she had shone as a maiden. It was a combination of

powers and virtues which appeared to Alma little short of the ideal in

womanhood. The example influenced her developing character in ways she

recognised, and in others of which she remained quite unconscious.

'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last

question; 'provided that----'

She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland

wisdom.

'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise me--tell me

just what you think.'

'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly

conventionalities and proprieties--our old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'

'That's it! You understand me perfectly, as you always do.'

'If it had been possible, we would have lived together.'

'Ah! how delightful! Don't speak of what can't be.'

'I was going to say,' pursued Sibyl thoughtfully, 'that you will meet

with all sorts of little troubles and worries, which you have never had

any experience of. For one thing, you know'--she leaned back, smiling,

at ease--'people won't behave to you quite as you have been accustomed

to expect. Money is very important even to a man; but to a woman it

means more than you can imagine.'

'Oh, but I shan't be living among the kind of people----'

'No, no. Perhaps you don't quite understand me yet. It isn't the people

you seek who matter, but the people that will seek _you_; and some of

them will have very strange ideas--very strange indeed.'

Alma looked self-conscious, kept her eyes down, and at length nodded.

'Yes. I think I understand.'

'That's why I said "provided". You are not the ordinary girl, and you

won't imagine that I feared for you; I know you too well. It's a

question of being informed and on one's guard. I don't think there's

anyone else who would talk to you like this. It doesn't offend you?'

'Sibyl!'

'Well, then, that's all right. Go into the world by all means, but go

prepared--armed; the word isn't a bit too strong, as I know perfectly.

Some day, perhaps--but there's no need to talk about such things now.'

Alma kept a short silence, breaking it at length with note of

exultation.

'I'm quite decided now. I wanted just to hear what you would say. I

shan't wait a day longer than I can help. The old life is over for me.

If only it had come about in some other way, I should be singing with

rapture. I'm going to begin to live!'

She quivered with intensity of feeling, or with that excitement of the

nerves which simulates intense feeling in certain natures. A flush

stole to her cheek; her eyes were once more full of light. Sibyl

regarded her observantly and with admiration.

'You never thought of the stage, Alma?'

'The stage? Acting?'

'No; I see you never did. And it wouldn't do--of course it wouldn't do.

Something in your look--it just crossed my mind--but of course you have

much greater things before you. It means hard work, and I'm only afraid

you'll work yourself all but to death.'

'I shouldn't wonder,' replied the girl, with a little laugh of pride in

this possibility.

'Well, I too am going away, you know.'

Alma's countenance fell, shame again crept over it, and she murmured,

'O Sibyl----!'

'Don't distress yourself the least on my account. That's an understood

thing; no mention, no allusion, ever between us. And the truth is that

my position is just a little like yours: on the whole, I'm rather glad.

Hugh wants desperately to get to the other end of the world, and I dare

say it's the best thing I could do to go with him. No roughing it, of

course; that isn't in my way.'

'I should think not, indeed!'

'Oh, I may rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever

seemed worth the trouble.--In a year or two, we shall meet and compare

notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do

indifferently what other people have done well and put into print--it's

a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and

original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm sure, at

Honolulu.'

They drank tea together, and talked, in all, for a couple of hours.

When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally

changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at first

presented herself.

'There's no one else,' she said, 'who would have behaved to me so

kindly and so nobly.'

'Nonsense! But _that's_ nonsense, too. Let us admire each other; it

does us good, and is so very pleasant.'

'I shall say goodbye to no one but you. Let people think and say of me

what they like; I don't care a snap of the fingers. In deed, I _hate_

people.'

'Both sexes impartially?'

It was a peculiarity of their intimate converse that they never talked

of men, and a jest of this kind had novelty sufficient to affect Alma

with a slight confusion.

'Impartially--quite,' she answered.

'Do make an exception in favour of Hugh's friend, Mr. Rolfe. I abandon

all the rest.'

Alma betrayed surprise.

'Strange! I really thought you didn't much like Mr. Rolfe,' she said,

without any show of embarrassment.

'I didn't when I first knew him; but he grows upon one. I think him

interesting; he isn't quite easy to understand.'

'Indeed he isn't.'

They smiled with the confidence of women fancy-free, and said no more

on the subject.

Carnaby came home to dinner brisk and cheerful; he felt better than for

many a day. Brightly responsive, Sibyl welcomed his appearance in the

drawing-room.

'Saw old Rolfe for a minute at the club. In a vile temper. I wonder

whether he really has lost money, and won't confess? Yet I don't think

so. Queer old stick.'

'By-the-bye, what _is_ his age?' asked Alma unconcernedly.

'Thirty-seven or eight. But I always think of him as fifty.'

'I suppose he'll never marry?'

'Rolfe? Good heavens, no! Too much sense--hang it, you know what I

mean! It would never suit _him_. Can't imagine such a thing. He gets

more and more booky. Has his open-air moods, too, and amuses me with

his Jingoism. So different from his old ways of talking; but I didn't

care much about him in those days. Well, now, look here, I've had a

talk with a man I know, about Honolulu, and I've got all sorts of

things to tell you.--Dinner? Very glad; I'm precious hungry.'

CHAPTER 7

About the middle of December, Alma Frothingham left England, burning

with a fever of impatience, resenting all inquiry and counsel, making

pretence of settled plans, really indifferent to everything but the

prospect of emancipation. The disaster that had befallen her life, the

dishonour darkening upon her name, seemed for the moment merely a price

paid for liberty. The shock of sorrow and dismay had broken innumerable

bonds, overthrown all manner of obstacles to growth of character, of

power. She gloried in a new, intoxicating sense of irresponsibility.

She saw the ideal life in a release from all duty and obligation--save

to herself.

Travellers on that winter day from Antwerp into Germany noticed the

English girl, well dressed, and of attractive features, whose excited

countenance and restless manner told of a journey in haste, with

something most important, and assuredly not disagreeable, at the end of

it. She was alone, and evidently quite able to take care of herself.

Unlike the representative English _Fraulein_, she did not reject

friendly overtures from strangers; her German was lame, but she spoke

it with enjoyment, laughing at her stumbles and mistakes. With her in

the railway carriage she kept a violin-case. A professional musician?

'Noch nicht' was her answer, with a laugh. She knew Leipzig? Oh dear,

yes, and many other parts of Germany; had travelled a good deal; was an

entirely free and independent person, quite without national prejudice,

indeed without prejudice of any kind. And in the same breath she spoke

slightingly, if not contemptuously, of England and everything English.

At Leipzig she stayed until the end of April, living with a family

named Gassner, people whom she had known for some years. Only on

condition that she would take up her abode with this household had Mrs.

Frothingham consented to make her an allowance and let her go abroad.

Alma fretted at the restriction; she wished to have a room of her own

in a lodging-house; but the family life improved her command of

German--something gained. To music, meanwhile, she gave very little

attention, putting off with one excuse after another the beginning of

her serious studies. She seemed to have quite forgotten that music was

her 'religion', and, for the matter of that, appeared to have no

religion at all. 'Life' was her interest, her study. She made

acquaintances, attended concerts and the theatre, read multitudes of

French and German novels. But her habits were economical. All the

pleasures she desired could be enjoyed at very small expense, and she

found her stepmother's remittances more than sufficient.

In April she gained Mrs. Frothingham's consent to her removal from

Leipzig to Munich. A German girl with whom she had made friends was

going to Munich to study art. For reasons, vague even to herself (so

ran her letters to Mrs. Frothingham), she could not 'settle' at

Leipzig. The climate did not seem to suit her. She had suffered from

bad colds, and, in short, was doing no good. At Munich lived an

admirable violinist, a friend of Herr Wilenski's, who would be of great

use to her. 'In short, dear Mamma, doesn't it seem to you rather

humiliating that at the age of four-and-twenty I should be begging for

permission to go here and there, do this or that? I know all your

anxieties about me, and I am very grateful, and I feel ashamed to be

living at your expense, but really I must go about making a career for

myself in my own way.' Mrs. Frothingham yielded, and Alma took lodgings

in Munich together with her German friend.

English newspapers were now reporting the trial of the directors of the

Britannia Company, for to this pass had things come. The revelations of

the law-court satisfied public curiosity, and excited indignant

clamour. Alma read, and tried to view the proceedings as one for whom

they had no personal concern; but her sky darkened, her heart grew

heavy. The name of Bennet Frothingham stood for criminal recklessness,

for huge rascality; it would be so for years to come. She had no

courage to take up her violin; the sound of music grew hateful to her,

as if mocking at her ruined ambition.

Three months had passed since she received her one and only letter from

Honolulu; two months since she had written to Sibyl. On a blue day of

spring, when despondency lowered upon her, and all occupation, all

amusements seemed a burden, she was driven to address her friend on the

other side of the world, to send a cry of pain and hopelessness to the

dream-island of the Pacific.

'What is the use of working at music? The simple truth is, that since I

left England I have given it up. I am living here on false pretences; I

shall never care to play the violin again. What sort of a reception

could I expect from an English audience? If I took another name, of

course it would get known who I was, and people would just come to

stare at me--pleasant thought! And I have utterly lost confidence in

myself. The difficulties are great, even where there is great talent,

and I feel I have nothing of the kind. I might toil for years, and

should do no good. I feel I am not an artist--I am beaten and

disgraced. There's nothing left but to cry and be miserable, like any

other girl who has lost her money, her hopes, everything. Why don't you

write to me? If you wait till you get this, it will be six or seven

weeks before I could possibly hear. And a letter from you would do me

so much good.'

Some one knocked at her door. She called '_Herein_!' and there appeared

a little boy, the child of her landlady, who sometimes ran errands for

her. He said that a gentleman was asking to see her.

'_Ein Deutscher_?'

'_Nein. Ein Englander, glaub'ich, und ein schnurriges Deutsch ist's,

das er verbricht_!'

Alma started up, shut her unfinished letter in the blotting-case, and

looked anxiously about the room.

'What is his name? Ask him to give you his name.'

The youngster came back with a card, and Alma was astonished to read

the name of 'Mr. Felix Dymes'. Why, she had all but forgotten the man's

existence. How came he here? What right had he to call? And yet she was

glad--nay, delighted. Happily, she had the sitting-room (shared with

her art-studying friend) to herself this morning.

'Bring him up here,' she said to the boy hurriedly, 'and ask him to

wait a minute for me.'

And she escaped to make a rapid change of dress. For Alma was not like

Sibyl Carnaby in perpetual regard for personal finish; she dressed

carelessly, save when the occasion demanded pains; she liked the ease

of gowns and slippers, of loose hair and free throat; and this taste

had grown upon her during the past months. But she did not keep Mr.

Dymes waiting very long, and on her entrance he gazed at her with very

frank admiration. Frank, too, was his greeting--that of a very old and

intimate friend, rather than of a drawing-room acquaintance. He came

straight from England, he said; a spring holiday, warranted by the

success of his song 'Margot', which the tenor, Topham, had sung at St

James's Hall. A few days ago he had happened to see Miss Leach, who

gave him Miss Frothingham's address, and he could not deny himself the

pleasure of calling. Chatting thus, he made himself comfortable in a

chair, and Alma sat over against him. The man was loud, conceited,

vulgar; but, after all, he composed very sweet music, which promised to

take the public ear; and he brought with him a waft from the happiness

of old days; and how could one expect small proprieties of a bohemian,

an artist? Alma began to talk eagerly, joyously.

'And what are you doing, Miss Frothingham?'

'Oh, fiddling a little. But I haven't been very well.'

'I can see that. Yet in another sense you look a better than ever.'

He began to hum an air, glancing round the room.

'You haven't a piano. Just listen to this; how do you think it will

do?' He hummed through a complete melody. 'Came into my head last

night. Wants rather sentimental words--the kind of thing that goes down

with the British public. Rather a good air, don't you think?'

Felix Dymes had two manners of conversation. In a company at all

ceremonious, and when it behoved him to make an impression, he talked

as the artist and the expert in music, with many German phrases, which

he pronounced badly, to fill up the gaps in his knowledge. His familiar

stream of talk was very different: it discarded affectation, and had a

directness, a vigour, which never left one in doubt as to his actual

views of life. How melody of any kind could issue from a nature so

manifestly ignoble might puzzle the idealist. Alma, who had known a

good many musical people, was not troubled by this difficulty; in her

present mood, she submitted to the arrogance of success, and felt a

pleasure, an encouragement, in Dymes's bluff _camaraderie_.

'Let me try to catch it on the violin,' she said when, with nodding

head and waving arm, he had hummed again through his composition.

She succeeded in doing so, and Dymes raised his humming to a

sentimental roar, and was vastly pleased with himself.

'I like to see you in a place like this,' he said. 'Looks more

business-like--as if you really meant to do something. Do you live here

alone?'

'With a friend.'

Something peculiar in Dymes's glance caused her to add, 'A German girl,

an art student.' Whereat the musician nodded and smiled.

'And what's your idea? Come now, let's talk about it. I wonder whether

I could be of any use to you--awfully glad if I could.'

Alma was abashed, stammered her vague projects, and reddened under the

man's observant eye.

'Look here,' he cried, with his charming informality, 'didn't you use

to sing? Somebody told me you had a pretty good voice.'

'Oh, that was long ago.'

'I wish you'd let me hear you.'

'No, no! I don't sing at all.'

'Pity, if it's true. I want to write a serio-comic opera, a new sort of

thing, and it struck me you were just cut out for that kind of singing.

You have the face and the--you know--the refinement; sort of thing not

easy to find. It's a poor chance, I'm afraid, coming out as a

violinist.'

Half inclined to resent his impertinence, yet subdued by the practical

tone and air of superior knowledge, Alma kept a grave face. Dymes,

crossing his legs, went on with talk of projects he had in view, all

intended to be lucrative. He had capital; nothing great, just a

comfortable sum which he was bent on using to the best advantage. His

songs would presently be bringing him in a few hundreds a year--so he

declared--and his idea of life was to get as much enjoyment as possible

without working over-hard for it. The conversation lasted for a couple

of hours, Dymes growing even more genial and confidential, his eyes

seldom moving from Alma's face.

'Well,' he said at length, rising, 'it's very jolly to see you again,

after all this time. I shall be staying here for a few days. You'll let

me call tomorrow?'

At once glad and sorry to see him go, Alma laughingly gave the desired

permission. When, that evening, she looked at her unfinished letter, it

seemed such a miserable whine that she tore it up in annoyance. Dymes's

visit had done her good; she felt, if not a renewal of hope, at all

events the courage which comes of revived spirits.

The next day she awaited his arrival with a pleasant expectation. He

entered humming an air--another new composition--which again she caught

from him and played on the violin.

'Good, don't you think? I'm in great vein just now--always am in the

spring, and when the weather's fine. I say, you're looking much better

today--decidedly more fit. What do you do here for exercise? Do you go

to the Englische Garten? Come now, will you? Let's have a drive.'

With sudden coldness Alma excused herself. The musician scrutinised her

rapidly, bit his lip, and looked round to the window; but in a moment

he had recovered his loud good humour.

'You'll hardly believe it, but it's the plain truth, that I came all

this way just to see you. I hadn't thought of coming to Germany till I

met Miss Leach and heard about you. Now I'm so far, I might as well go

on into Italy, and make a round of it. I wish you were coming too.'

Alma made no reply. He scrutinised her as before, and his features

worked as if with some emotion. Then, abruptly, he put a blunt question.

'Do you think people who go in for music, art, and that kind of thing,

ought to marry?'

'I never thought about it at all,' Alma replied, with a careless laugh,

striking a finger across the strings of the violin which she held on

her lap.

'We're generally told they shouldn't,' pursued Dymes, in a voice which

had lost its noisy confidence, and was a little uncertain. 'But it all

depends, you know. If people mean by marriage the ordinary kind of

thing--of course, that's the deuce. But it needn't be. Lots of people

marry nowadays and live in a rational way--no house, or bother of that

kind; just going about as they like, and having a pleasant, reasonable

life. It's easy enough with a little money. Sometimes they're a good

deal of help to each other; I know people who manage to be.'

'Oh, I dare say,' said Alma when he paused. 'It all depends, as you

say. You're going on to Italy at once?'

Her half-veiled eyes seemed to conceal amusement, and there was

good-humoured disdain in the setting of her lips. With audacity so

incredible that it all but made her laugh, Dymes, not heeding her

inquiry, jerked out the personal application of his abstract remarks.

Yes, it was a proposal of marriage--marriage on the new plan, without

cares or encumbrance; a suggestion rather than a petition; off-hand,

unsentimental, yet perfectly serious, as look and tone proclaimed.

'There's much to be said for your views,' Alma replied, with humorous

gravity, 'but I haven't the least intention of marrying.'

'Well, I've mentioned it.' He waved his hand as if to overcome an

unwonted embarrassment. 'You don't mind?'

'Not a bit.'

'I hope we shall meet again before long, and--some day, you know--you

may see the thing in another light. You mustn't think I'm joking.'

'But it _is_ rather a joke.'

'No; I never was more in earnest about anything, believe me. And I'm

convinced it's a good idea. However, you know one thing--if I can be of

use to you, I shall. I'll think it over--your chances and so on;

something may suggest itself. You're not cut out for everyday things.'

'I try to hope not.'

'Ah, but you can take my word for it.'

With this comforting assurance, Felix Dymes departed. No melodrama; a

hand-grip, a significant nod, a loud humming as he went downstairs.

Alma presently began a new letter to Sibyl Carnaby. It was written in a

cheery humour, though touched by the shadow of distressful

circumstance. She told the story of Mr. Dymes's visit, and made merry

over it. 'I am sure this is the very newest thing in "proposals".

Though I live in such a dull, lonely way, it has made me feel that I am

still in touch with civilisation. And really, if the worst come to the

worst--but it's dangerous to joke about such things.' She touched

lightly on the facts of her position. 'I'm afraid I have not been doing

very much. Perhaps this is a fallow time with me; I may be gaining

strength for great achievements. Unfortunately, I have a lazy

companion. Miss Steinfeld (you know her from my last letter, if you got

it) only pretends to work. I like her for her thorough goodness and her

intelligence; but she is just a little _melancholisch_, and so not

exactly the companion I need. Her idea just now is that we both need

"change" and she wants me to go with her to Bregenz, on the Bodensee.

Perhaps I shall when the weather gets hot.'

It had surprised her to be told by Felix Dymes that he obtained her

address at Munich from Miss Leach, for the only person in England to

whom she had yet made known her departure from Leipzig was her

step-mother. Speak of her how they might, her acquaintances in London

still took trouble to inform themselves of her movements. Perhaps the

very completeness of the catastrophe in which she was involved told in

her favour; possibly she excited much more interest than could ever

have attached to her whilst her name was respected. There was new life

in the thought. She wrote briefly to Dora Leach, giving an account of

herself, which, though essentially misleading, was not composed in a

spirit of conscious falsehood. For all her vanity, Alma had never aimed

at effect by practice of deliberate insincerities. Miss Leach was

informed that her friend could not find much time for correspondence.

'I am living in the atmosphere of art, and striving patiently. Some day

you shall hear of me.' And when the letter was posted, Alma mused long

on the effect it would produce.

With the distinguished violinist; the friend of Herr Wilenski, spoken

of to Mrs. Frothingham, she had as yet held no communication, and

through the days of early summer she continued to neglect her music.

Indolence grew upon her; sometimes she spent the whole day in a

dressing-gown, seated or reclining, with a book in her hand, or totally

unoccupied. Sometimes the military bands in the public gardens tempted

her to walk a little, or she strolled with Miss Steinfeld through the

picture galleries; occasionally they made short excursions into the

country. The art student had acquaintances in Munich, but did not see

much of them, and they were not the kind of people with whom Alma cared

to associate.

In July it was decided that they should go for a few weeks to Bregenz;

their health called for the change, which, as Miss Steinfeld knew of a

homely _pension_, could be had at small expense. Before their departure

the art student was away for a few days, and, to relieve the dreariness

of an existence which was becoming burdensome, Alma went out alone one

afternoon, purposing a trip by steam-tram to the gardens at

Nymphenburg. She walked to the Stiglmeyerplatz, where the tram starts,

and there stood waiting. A carriage drove past, with a sound of English

voices, which drew her attention. She saw three children, a lady, and a

gentleman. The last-mentioned looked at her, and she recognised Cyrus

Redgrave. Whether he knew her face seemed uncertain. Hoping to escape

unobserved, she turned quickly, and walked a few yards. Before she

faced round again, a quick footstep approached her, and the next moment

Mr. Redgrave stood, hat in hand, courteously claiming her acquaintance.

'I thought I could not possibly be mistaken!'

The carriage, having stopped for him to alight, was driving away.

'That is my sister and her children,' said Redgrave, when he had warmly

shaken hands and expressed his pleasure at the meeting. 'You never met

her. Her husband is in India, and you see me in full domesticity. This

morning I posted a note to you; of course, you haven't received it yet.'

Alma did her best to behave with dignity. In any case it would have

been trying to encounter such a man as Redgrave--wealthy, elegant, a

figure in society, who must necessarily regard her as banished from

polite circles; and in her careless costume she felt more than abashed.

For the first time a sense of degradation, of social inferiority,

threatened to overwhelm her self-respect.

'How did you know my address?' she asked, with an involuntary imitation

of hauteur, made pathetic by the flush on her face and the lingering

half-smile.

'Mrs. Frothingham kindly gave it me.--You were walking this way, I

think?--My sister is living at Stuttgart, and I happened to come over

just in time to act as her courier on a journey to Salzburg. We got

here yesterday, and go on tomorrow, or the day after. I dropped you a

note, asking if I might call.'

'Where have you seen Mamma lately?' asked Alma, barely attentive to the

explanations he was giving her.

'In London, quite by chance. In fact, it was at Waterloo Station. Mrs

Frothingham was starting for the country, and I happened to be going to

Wimbledon. I told her I might possibly see you on my way through

Munich.'

Alma began to recover herself. That Cyrus Redgrave should still take an

interest in her was decidedly more gratifying than the eccentric

compliment of Felix Dymes. She strove to forget the humiliation of

having been found standing in a public place, waiting for a tram-car.

In Redgrave's manner no change was perceptible, unless, indeed, he

spoke with more cordiality, which must be prompted by kind feeling.

Their acquaintance covered only a year or two, and had scarcely

amounted to what passes for friendship, but Redgrave seemed oblivious

of late unpleasant events.

'I'm glad you didn't call unexpectedly,' she said, trying to strike a

light note. 'I'm a student now--no longer an amateur--and live as a

student must.'

'So much the better. I'm a natural bohemian myself, and like nothing so

well as to disregard ceremony. And, by-the-bye, that's the very reason

why I ran away from my sister to speak to you; I knew you would dislike

formalities. I'm afraid I was rather glad than otherwise to escape. We

have been taking the children for a drive--charming little rascals, but

for the moment my domestic instincts are satisfied. Mrs. Frothingham

mentioned that you were living with a friend--an art student.'

'We go away for a holiday in a day or two,' said Alma, more at her

ease. 'To Bregenz--do you know it?'

'By name only. You go in a day or two? I wish you would let me know

your address there,' he added, with frank friendliness. 'I go on with

my sister to Salzburg, and then turn off on my own account; I might be

able to pass your way, and I should so much like to have a talk with

you--a real talk, about music and all sorts of things. Did I ever tell

you of my little place at Riva, head of Lake Garda? Cosy little nook,

but I'm not there very often; I half thought of going for a week or

two's quietness. Quite cool there by the lake. But I really must try to

see you at Bregenz--do let me.'

He begged it as a favour, a privilege, and Alma without hesitation told

him where she would be living.

'For a few weeks? Oh, then, I shall make a point of coming that way.

You're not working too hard, I hope? I know you don't do things by

halves. When I first heard you were going in seriously for music, I

said to myself, "_Tant mieux_, another great violinist!"'

The listener reddened with delight; her step became elastic; she

carried her head gallantly, and feared not the glances Redgrave cast at

her.

'I have learnt not to talk about myself,' she said, bestowing a smile

upon him. 'That's the first bad habit to be overcome by the amateur

converted.'

'Capital! An axiom worth putting into print, for the benefit of all and

sundry. Now I must say goodbye; that fellow yonder will take me back to

the domesticities.' He hailed an empty carriage. 'We shall meet again

among the mountains. _Auf Wiedersehen_!'

Alma continued to walk along the Nymphenburg road, unconscious of

external things. The tram for which she had been waiting passed by; she

no longer cared to go out into the country. It was enough to keep

moving in the bright sunshine, and to think her thoughts.

No; people had by no means forgotten her. Whilst she was allowing

herself to fall into gloom and indolence, her acquaintances, it was

evident, made her a constant subject of talk, of speculation; just what

she had desired, but had lost courage to believe. They expected great

things of her; her personal popularity and her talents had prevailed

against the most prejudicial circumstance; people did not think of her

as the daughter of Bennet Frothingham,--unless to contrast the

hopefulness of her future with the black calamity that lay behind.

She waxed philosophical. How everything in this world tends to good! At

her father's death she had mourned bitterly; it had struck her to the

heart; his imprudence (she could never use, even in thought, a harsher

word) pained more than it shamed her, and not a day passed but she

sorrowed over the dishonour that darkened his memory. Yet were not

these woes and disasters the beginning of a new life for _her_! In

prosperity, what would she ever have become? Nothing less than being

thrown out into the world could have given her the impulse needed to

realise a high ambition. '_Tant mieux_, another great violinist!' How

sincerely, how inspiringly, it was said!

And Alma's feet had brought her home again before she paused to reflect

that, for all purposes of ambition, the past half-year had been utterly

wasted. Never mind; after her return from Bregenz!

On her table lay Redgrave's note; a very civil line or two, requesting

permission to call. There was another letter, black-bordered, which

came from her step-mother. Mrs. Frothingham said that she had been

about to write for several days, but all sorts of disagreeable business

had hindered her; even now, she could only write hurriedly. In the last

fortnight she had had to go twice to London. 'And really I think I

shall be obliged to go and live there again, for a time; so many things

have to be seen to. It might be best, perhaps, if I took a small flat.

I was going to say, however, that the last time I went up, I met Mr.

Redgrave, and we had quite a long talk--about _you_. He was most

sincerely interested in your future; indeed it quite surprised me, for

I will confess that I had never had a very high opinion of him. I fancy

he suffered _no loss_. His behaviour to me was that of a gentleman,

very different from that of some people I could name. But it was _you_

he spoke of most. He said he was shortly going to Germany, and begged

me to let him have your address, and really I saw no harm in it. He may

call upon you. If so, let me hear all about it, for it will interest me

very much.'

Alma had half a mind to reply at once, but on reflection decided to

wait. After all, Mr. Redgrave might not keep his promise of coming to

see her at Bregenz, and in that event a very brief report of what had

happened would suffice. But she felt sure that he meant to come.

And decidedly she hoped it; why, she was content to leave a rosy

vagueness.

CHAPTER 8

Alma and her German friend silently agreed in foreseeing that they

would not live together much longer. Miss Steinfeld, eager at first to

talk English, was relapsing into her native tongue, and as Alma lazily

avoided German, they conversed in different languages, each with a

sprinkling of foreign phrase. The English girl might have allied

herself with a far worse companion; for, in spite of defects which

resembled Alma's own, vagueness of purpose, infirmity of will, Miss

Steinfeld had a fund of moral principle which made her talk wholesome

and her aspirations an influence for good. She imagined herself in love

with an artist whom she had seen only two or three times, and no strain

could have been more exalted than that in which she confided her

romance to the sympathetic Alma. Sympathetic, that is, within her

limits; for Miss Frothingham had never been in love, and rarely

indulged a mood of sentiment. Her characteristic emotions she of course

did not reveal, save unconsciously, and Miss Steinfeld knew nothing of

the tragic circumstances which explained her friend's solitude.

In the first days at Bregenz they felt a renewal of pleasure in each

other's society; Alma's spirits were much improved; she enjoyed the

scenery, and lived in the open air. There was climbing of mountains,

the Pfander with its reward of noble outlook, and the easier

Gebhardsberg, with its hanging woods; there was boating on the lake,

and rambling along its shores, with rest and refreshment at some

Gartenwithschaft. Miss Steinfeld, whose reading and intelligence were

superior to Alma's, liked to explore the Roman ruins and linger in the

museum. Alma could not long keep up a pretence of interest in the

relics of Brigantium; but she said one day, with a smile----

'I know someone who would enjoy this kind of thing--an Englishman--very

learned----'

'Old?' inquired her friend significantly.

'Yes--no. Neither old nor young. A strange man; rather interesting.

I've a good mind,' she added mischievously, 'to send him a photograph.'

'Of yourself?'

'Oh dear, no! He wouldn't care for that. A view of the Alt-Stadt.'

And in her mood of frolic she acted upon the thought. She purchased two

or three views, had them done up for post, and addressed them to Harvey

Rolfe, Esq, at the Metropolitan Club; for his private address she could

not remember, but the club remained in her mind from Sibyl's talk of

it. When the packet was gone, of course she regretted having sent it.

More likely than not, Mr. Rolfe considered himself to have ended all

acquaintance with the disgraced family, and, if he recognised her

handwriting, would just throw the photographs aside. Let him; it

mattered nothing, one way or the other.

When a week had passed, the novelty of things wore off; the friends

began to wander apart; Miss Steinfeld made acquaintances in the

_pension_, and Alma drifted into solitude. At the end of a fortnight

she was tired of everything, wished to go away, thought longingly of

England. It was plain that Mr. Redgrave would not come; he had never

seriously meant it; his _Auf Wiedersehen_ was a mere civility to get

rid of her in the street. Why had he troubled to inquire about her at

all? Of course it didn't matter--nothing mattered--but if ever she met

him again! Alma tried her features in expression of cold scornfulness.

On the next day, as she was returning from an idle walk with her friend

along the Lindau road, Mr. Redgrave met them. He was dressed as she had

never seen him, in flannels, with a white necktie loosely knotted and a

straw hat. Not till he had come near enough to salute did she recognise

him; he looked ten years younger.

They talked as if the meeting were of daily occurrence. Redgrave

addressed himself to Miss Steinfeld as often as to Alma, and showed a

graceful command of decorous commonplace. He had arrived early this

morning, had put up at the Oesterreichischer Hof, was already delighted

with Brogenz. Did Miss Steinfeld devote herself to landscape? Had she

done anything here? Had Miss Frothingham brought her violin? They

strolled pleasantly to the Hafen promenade, and parted at length with

assurances of meeting again, as if definite appointment were needless.

'That is my idea of the English gentleman,' said Miss Steinfeld

afterwards. 'I think I should have taken him for a lord. No doubt he is

very rich?'

'Oh, pretty well off,' Alma replied, with assumed indifference. 'Ten

thousand pounds a year, I dare say.'

'Ten thousand! _Lieber Himmel_! And married?'

'No.'

'In Parliament, I suppose?'

'No.'

'Then, what does he do?'

'Oh, amuses himself.'

Each became occupied with her thoughts. Alma's were so agreeable, that

Miss Steinfeld, observing her, naturally fell into romantic speculation.

Redgrave easily contrived that his next walk should be with Miss

Frothingham alone. He overtook her next morning, soon after she had

left the house, and they rambled in the Gebhardsberg direction.

'Now let us have the promised talk,' he began at a favourable moment.

'I've been thinking about you all the time.'

'Did you go to your place on Lake Garda?'

'Yes; just to look at it, and get it put in order. I hope to be there

again before long. You didn't doubt I should come?'

'You left it uncertain.'

'To be sure. Life is uncertain. But I should have been desperately

disappointed if I hadn't found you here. There are so many things to be

said about going in for music as a profession. You have the talent, you

have the physical strength, I think.' His eye flattered her from head

to foot. 'But, to be a great artist, one must have more than technical

qualifications. It's the soul that must be developed.'

Alma laughed.

'I know it. And what is your receipt for developing the soul?'

Redgrave paused in his walk. Smiling, he gave a twist to his moustache,

and appeared to meditate profoundly.

'The soul--well, it has a priggish sound. Let us say the character; and

that is developed through experience of life.'

'I'm getting it.'

'Are you? In the company of Miss Steinfeld? I'm afraid that won't carry

you very far. Experience means emotion; certainly, for a woman. Believe

me, you haven't begun to live yet. You may practise on your violin day

and night, and it won't profit you--until you have _lived_.'

Alma was growing serious. These phrases harmonised well enough with her

own insubstantial thoughts and idly-gathered notions. When preparing to

escape from England, she had used much the same language. But, after

all, what did it mean? What, in particular, did Cyrus Redgrave mean,

with his expressive eyes, and languid, earnest tone?

'You will say that a girl has few opportunities. True, thanks to her

enslavement by society.'

'I care nothing for society,' Alma interposed.

'Good! I like the sound of that defiance; it has the right ring. A man

hasn't often the pleasure of hearing that from a woman he can respect.

It's easy, of course, to defy the laws of a world one doesn't belong

to; but you, who are a queen in your circle, and may throne, at any

moment, in a wider sphere--it means much when you refuse to bow down

before the vulgar idols, to be fettered by superstitions.'

His aim was dark to her, but she tasted the compliment which ignored

her social eclipse. Redgrave's conversation generally kept on the

prosaic levels--studiously polite, or suavely cynical. It was a new

experience to see him borne on a wave of rhetoric; yet not borne away,

for he spoke with an ease, a self-command, which to older ears would

have suggested skill rather than feeling. He had nothing of the ardour

of youth; his poise and deliberation were quite in keeping with the two

score years that subtly graved his visage; the passions in him were

sportive, half-fantastical, as though, together with his brain, they

had grown to a ripe worldliness. He inspired no distrust; his good

nature seemed all-pervading; he had the air of one who lavishes

disinterested counsel, and ever so little exalts himself with his

facile exuberance of speech.

'I have seen much of artists; known them intimately, and studied their

lives. One and all, they date their success from some passionate

experience. From a cold and conventional existence can come nothing but

cold and conventional art. You left England, broke away from the common

routine, from the artificial and the respectable. That was an

indispensable first step, and I have told you how I applauded it. But

you cannot stop at this. I begin to fear for you. There is a convention

of unconventionality: poor quarters, hard life, stinted pleasures--all

that kind of thing. I fear its effect upon you.'

'What choice have I?' exclaimed Alma, moved to familiar frankness. 'If

I _am_ poor, I must live poorly.'

He smiled graciously upon her, and raised his hand almost as though he

would touch her with reassuring kindness; but it was only to stroke his

trimmed beard.

'Oh, you have a choice, believe me,' came his airy answer. 'There's no

harm in poverty that doesn't last too long. You may have profited by

it; it is an experience. But now--Don't let us walk so far as to tire

you. Yes, we will turn. Variety of life, travel, all sorts of joys and

satisfactions--these are the things you need.'

'And if they are not within my reach?' she asked, without looking at

him.

'By-the-bye'--he disregarded her question--'your friend, Mrs. Carnaby,

has taken a long flight.'

'Yes.'

The monosyllable was dropped. Alma walked with her eyes on the ground,

trailing her sunshade.

'I didn't think she had much taste for travel. But you know her so much

better than I do.'

'She is enjoying herself,' said Alma.

'No need for _you_ to go so far. Down yonder'--he nodded southward--'I

was thinking, the other day, of the different kinds of pleasure one

gets from scenery in different parts of the world. I have seen the

tropics; they left me very much where I was, intellectually. It's the

human associations of natural beauty that count. You have no desire to

go to the islands of the Pacific?'

'I can't say that I have.'

'Of course not. The springs of art are in the old world. Among the

vines and the olives one hears a voice. I must really try to give you

some idea of my little place at Riva.'

He began a playful description--long, but never tedious; alluring, yet

without enthusiasm--a dreamy suggestion of refined delights and

luxuries.

'I have another place in the Pyrenees, to suit another mood; and not

long ago I was sorely tempted by the offer of a house not far from

Antioch, in the valley of the Orontes--a house built by an Englishman.

Charming place, and so entirely off the beaten track. Isn't there a

fascination in the thought of living near Antioch? Well away from bores

and philistines. No Mrs. Grundy with her clinking tea-cups. I dare say

the house is still to be had.--Oh, do tell me something about your

friend, Fraulein Steinfeld. Is she in earnest? Will she do anything?'

His eloquence was at an end. Thenceforward he talked of common things

in unemotional language; and when Alma parted from him, it was with a

sense of being tired and disappointed.

On the following day she did not see him at all. He could not have left

Bregenz, for, of course, he would have let her know. She thought of him

incessantly, reviewing all his talk, turning over this and that

ambiguous phrase, asking herself whether he meant much or little. It

was natural that she should compare and contrast his behaviour with

that of Felix Dymes. If his motive were not the same, why did he seek

her society? And if it were? If at length he spoke out, summing his

hints in the plain offer of all those opportunities she lacked?

A brilliant temptation. To leave the world as Alma Frothingham, and to

return to it as Mrs. Cyrus Redgrave!

But, in that event, what of her musical ambitions? He spoke of her art

as the supreme concern, to which all else must be subordinate. And

surely that was his meaning when he threw scorn upon 'bores and

philistines'. Why should the fact of his wealth interfere with her

progress as an artist? Possibly, on the other hand, he did not intend

that she should follow a professional career. Cannot one be a great

artist without standing on public platforms? Was it his lordly thought

to foster her talents for his own delectation and that of the few

privileged?

Her brain grew confused with interpreting and picturing. But once more

she had made an advance in self-esteem. She could await the next

meeting with a confidence and pride very unlike her sensations in the

Stiglmeyerplatz at Munich.

It took place on the second day. This time Redgrave did not wait upon

accident; he sent a note, begging that he might have the pleasure of

another talk with her. He would call at a certain hour, and take his

chance of finding her at home. When he presented himself, Alma was

sitting in the common room of the _pension_ with two German ladies;

they in a few minutes withdrew, and familiar conversation became

possible. As the windows stood open, and there were chairs upon the

balcony, Redgrave shortly proposed a move in that direction. They sat

together for half an hour.

When Redgrave took his leave, it was without shaking of hands--with no

_Auf Wiedersehen_. He smiled, he murmured civilities; Alma neither

smiled nor spoke. She was pale, and profoundly agitated.

So this was his meaning?--made plain enough at last, though with the

most graceful phrasing. Childish vanity and ignorance had forbidden her

to dream of such an issue. She had not for a moment grasped the

significance to a man of the world of the ruin and disgrace fallen upon

her family. In theory she might call herself an exile from the polite

world; none the less did she imagine herself still illumined by the

social halo, guarded by the divinity which doth hedge a member of the

upper-middle class. Was she not a lady? And who had ever dared to offer

a lady an insult such as this? Shop-girls, minor actresses, the

inferior sort of governess, must naturally be on their guard; their

insecurity was traditional; novel and drama represented their moral

vicissitudes. But a lady, who had lived in a great house with many

servants, who had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, the hem of whose

garment had never been touched with irreverent finger--could _she_

stand in peril of such indignity?

Not till now had she called to mind the forewarnings of Sibyl Carnaby,

which, at the time of hearing them, she did not at all understand.

'People,' said Sibyl, 'would approach her with strange ideas.' This she

might have applied to the grotesque proposal (as it seemed to her) of

Felix Dymes, or to the risk of being tempted into premature publicity

by a business offer from some not very respectable impresario. What

Sibyl meant was now only too clear; but how little could Mrs. Carnaby

have imagined that her warning would be justified by one of her own

friends--by a man of wealth and consideration.

She durst not leave the house for fear of encountering Redgrave, who,

if they crossed by chance, might fancy she invited another meeting. She

dreaded the observation of women, especially of Miss Steinfeld. The

only retreat was her bedroom, and here she secluded herself till

dinner-time. At this meal she must needs face the company or incur

remark. She tried to return her friend's smile with the ordinary

unconcern. After dinner there was no avoiding Miss Steinfeld, whose air

of extreme discretion showed that she had an inkling of events, and

awaited confidences.

'Mr. Redgrave has gone--he called to say goodbye.'

'_So_?'

Irritated by self-consciousness, revolting against a misinterpretation

which would injure her vanity, though it was not likely to aim at her

honour, Alma had recourse to fiction.

'I daresay you guess?--Yes, and I refused.'

Miss Steinfeld was puzzled. It did not astonish her that a girl should

reject ten thousand pounds per annum, for that she was too high-minded;

but she had thought it beyond doubt that Alma's heart was engaged.

Here, it had seemed to her, was the explanation of a mystery attaching

to this original young Englishwoman; unhoped, the brilliant lover, the

secretly beloved, had sought her in her retirement. And after all, it

was a mistake.

'I don't care for him a bit,' Alma went on. 'It had to be got over and

done with, that was all.'

She felt ashamed of herself. In childhood she had told falsehoods

freely, but with the necessity for that kind of thing the habit had

fallen away. Solace, however, was at hand, for the German girl looked

at her with a new interest, a new sympathy, which Alma readily

construed as wonder and admiration, if not gentle envy. To have refused

an offer of marriage from a handsome man of great wealth might be

counted for glory. And Alma's momentary shame yielded to a

gratification which put her outwardly at ease.

The restless night brought torment of the mind and harassed spirits.

Redgrave's proposal echoed in the vacant chambers of her life, sounding

no longer an affront, but an allurement. Why, indeed, had she repelled

it so unthinkingly? It did not necessarily mean scandal. He had not

invited her to open defiance of the world. 'You can absolutely trust

me; I am discretion itself. All resources are at my command.' Why had

she rejected with scorn and horror what was, perhaps, her great

opportunity, the one hope of her struggling and sinking ambition? She

had lost faith in herself; in her power to overcome circumstances, not

yet in her talent, in her artistic birthright. Redgrave would have made

her path smooth. 'I promise you a great reputation in two or three

years' time.' And without disgrace, without shadow of suspicion, it

would all be managed, he declared, so very easily. For what alternative

had she rebuffed him?

Redgrave's sagacity had guided him well up to a certain point, but it

had lost sight of one thing essential to the success of his scheme.

Perhaps because he was forty years of age, perhaps because he had so

often come and seen and conquered, perhaps because he made too low an

estimate of Bennet Frothingham's daughter,--he simply overlooked

sentimental considerations. It was a great and a fatal oversight. He

went far in his calculated appeal to Alma's vanity; had he but credited

her with softer passions, and given himself the trouble to play upon

them, he would not, at all events, have suffered so sudden a defeat.

Men of Redgrave's stamp grow careless, and just at the time of life

when, for various causes, the art which conceals art has become

indispensable. He did not flatter himself that Alma was ready to fall

in love with him; and here his calm maturity served him ill. To his own

defect of ardour he was blinded by habit. After all, the affair had

little consequence. It had only suggested itself after the meeting in

Munich, and perhaps--he said to himself--all things considered, the

event was just as well.

But Alma felt the double insult, to her worldly honour, to her

womanhood. The man had not even made pretence of loving her; and this,

whilst it embittered her disappointment, strengthened her to cast from

her mind the baser temptation. Marriage she would have accepted, though

doubtless with becoming hesitancy; the offer could not have been made

without one word of tenderness (for Cyrus Redgrave was another than

Felix Dymes), and she had not felt it impossible to wed this polished

capitalist. Out of the tumult of her feelings, as another day went by,

issued at length that one simple and avowable sense of disappointment.

She had grasped the prize, and heated her imagination in regarding it;

had overcome natural reluctances, objections personal and moral; was

ready to sit down and write to Mrs. Frothingham the splendid, startling

announcement. And here she idled in her bedroom, desolate, hopeless,

wishing she had courage to steal down at night to the waters of the

Bodensee, and end it all.

On the third day she returned to Munich, having said farewell to her

friend, who was quite prepared for the parting. From Munich she

proceeded to Leipzig, and there entered again the family circle of the

Gassners. She had no intention of staying for very long; the pretence

of musical study could not be kept up; but her next step was quite

uncertain.

A fortnight later, Mrs. Frothingham wrote thus:----

'I am sending you on a letter which, if I am not mistaken, comes from

Mr. Rolfe. Do tell me if I am right. Odd that he should write to you, if

it is he. You have not told me yet whether you saw Mr. Redgrave again.

But I see that you don't care much, and perhaps it is as well.'

The forwarded letter had been originally addressed to the care of Mrs

Frothingham, and Alma, at a glance, recognised Harvey Rolfe's writing.

He dated from London. Was he mistaken, he began, in thinking that

certain photographs from Bregenz had come to him by Miss Frothingham's

kindness? For his part, he had spent June in a ramble in South-west

France, chiefly by the Dordogne, and through a strange, interesting bit

of marsh-country, called La Double. 'I hardly know how I got there, and

I shall not worry you by writing any account of the expedition. But at

a miserable village called La Roche Chalais, where I had a most

indigestible supper and a bed unworthy of the name, I managed to fall

ill, and quite seriously thought, "Ah, here is the end!" It has to come

somewhere, and why not on a _grabat_ at La Roche Chalais? A mistake; I

am here again, wasting life as strenuously as ever. Would you let me

hear from you? I should think it a great addition to your kindness in

sending the views. And so, with every good wish, he remained, &c.

Having nothing better to do, Alma got out a map of France, and searched

for La Roche Chalais; but the place was too insignificant to be marked.

On the morrow, being still without occupation, she answered Rolfe's

letter, and in quite a playful vein. She had no time to correspond with

people who 'wasted their lives'. To her, life was a serious matter

enough. But he knew nothing of the laborious side of a musician's

existence, and probably doubted its reality. As an afterthought, she

thanked him gravely for his letter, and hoped that some day, when she

had really 'done something', they might meet and renew their friendship.

CHAPTER 9

On an afternoon in September, Harvey Rolfe spent half an hour at a

certain London bookseller's, turning over books that dealt with the

theory and practice of elementary education. Two or three of them he

selected, and ordered to be sent to a lady at Gunnersbury. On his way

out he came upon an acquaintance making a purchase in another

department of the shop. It was some months since he had seen Cecil

Morphew, who looked in indifferent health, and in his dress came near

to shabbiness. They passed out together, Morphew carrying an enwrapped

volume, which he gave Rolfe to understand was a birthday present--for

_her_. The elder man resisted his inclination to joke, and asked how

things were going on.

'Much the same as usual, except that her father is in very bad health.

It's brutal, but I wish he would die.'

'Naturally.'

'That's what one's driven to, you see. And anyone but you, who know me,

would set me down as a selfish, calculating beast. Can't help it. I had

rather have her penniless.--Will you come in here with me? I want to

buy some pyrogallic acid.'

In the street again, Morphew mentioned that he had taken up photography.

'It gives me something to do, and it takes me out into the open air.

This beastly town is the ruin of me, in every way.--Come to my rooms

for an hour, will you? I'll show you some attempts; I've only just

tried my hand at developing. And it's a long time since we had a talk.'

They made for a Chelsea omnibus and mounted.

'I thought you were never in town at this time,' Morphew resumed. 'I

want to get away, but can't afford it; devilish low-water with me. I

must have a bicycle. With that and the camera I may just manage to

live; often there seems little enough to live for.--Tripcony? Oh,

Tripcony's a damned swindler; I've given him up. Speculation isn't

quite so simple as I imagined. I made a couple of hundred, though--yes,

and lost nearly three.'

The young man's laugh was less pleasant to hear than formerly.

Altogether, Rolfe observed in him a decline, a loss of refinement as

well as of vitality.

'Why don't you go into the country?' he said. 'Take a cottage and grow

cabbages; dig for three hours a day. It would do you no end of good.'

'Of course it would. I wish I had the courage.'

'I'm going to spend the winter in Wales,' said Harvey. 'An

out-of-the-world place in Carnarvonshire--mountains and sea. Come along

with me, and get the mephitis blown out of you. You've got town

disease, street-malaria, lodging-house fever.'

'By Jove, I'll think of it,' replied the other, with a strange look of

eagerness. 'But I don't know whether I can. No, I can't be sure. But

I'll try.'

'What holds you?'

'Well, I like to be near, you know, to _her_. And then--all sorts of

difficulties----'

Morphew had his lodgings at present in a street near Chelsea Hospital,

a poor-looking place, much inferior to those in which Rolfe had

formerly seen him. His two rooms were at the top, and he had converted

a garret into a dark chamber for his photographic amusement. Dirt and

disorder made the sitting-room very uninviting; Rolfe looked about him,

and wondered what principle of corruption was at work in the young

man's life.

Morphew showed a new portrait of his betrothed, Henrietta Winter; a

comely face, shadowed with pensiveness. 'Taken at Torquay; she sent it

a day or two ago.--I've been thinking of giving her up. If I do, I

shall do it brutally and savagely, to make it easy for her. I've spoilt

her life, and I'm pretty sure I've ruined my own.'

He brought out a bottle of whisky and half filled two tumblers. His own

measure he very slightly diluted, and drank it off at once.

'You're at a bad pass, my boy,' remarked Rolfe. 'What's wrong?

Something more than usual, I know. Make a clean breast of it.'

Morphew continued to declare that he was only low-spirited from the

longstanding causes, and, though Rolfe did not believe him, nothing

more could at present be elicited. The talk turned to photography, but

still had no life in it.

'I think you had better dine with me this evening,' said Harvey.

'Impossible. I wish I could. An engagement.'

The young man shuffled about, and after a struggle with embarrassment,

aided by another tumbler of whisky, threw out something he wished to

say.

'It's deuced hard to ask you, but--could you lend me some money?'

'Of course. How much? Why do you make such a sputter about it?'

'I've been making a fool of myself--got into difficulties. Will you let

me have fifty pounds?'

'Yes, if you'll promise to clear at once out of this dust-bin, and in a

month or so come into Wales.'

'You're an awfully good fellow, Rolfe,--and I'm a damned fool. I

promise! I will! I'll get out of it, and then I'll think about breaking

with that girl. Better for both of us--but you shall advise me.-- I'll

tell you everything some day. I can't now. I'm too ashamed of myself.'

When he got home, Harvey wrote a cheque for fifty pounds, and posted it

at once.

Not many days after, there came to him a letter from Mrs. Frothingham.

With this lady he had held no communication since the catastrophe of

last November; knowing not how to address her without giving more pain

than his sympathy could counterbalance, he remained silent. She wrote

from the neighbourhood of Swiss Cottage, where she had taken a flat; it

was her wish, if possible, to see him 'on a matter of business', and

she requested that he would make an appointment. Much wondering in what

business of Mrs. Frothingham's he could be concerned, Harvey named his

time, and went to pay the call. He ascended many stairs, and was

conducted by a neat servant-maid into a pleasant little drawing-room,

where Mrs. Frothingham rose to receive him. She searched his face, as

if to discern the feeling with which he regarded her, and her timid

smile of reassurance did not lack its pathos.

'Mr. Rolfe, it seems years since I saw you.'

She was aged a little, and her voice fell in broken notes, an unhappy

contrast to the gay, confident chirping of less than twelve months ago.

'I have only been settled here for a week. I thought of leaving London

altogether, but, after all, I had to come backwards and forwards so

often,--it was better to have a home here, and this little flat will

just suit me, I think.'

She seemed desirous of drawing attention to its modest proportions.

'I really don't need a house, and lodgings are so wretched. These flats

are a great blessing--don't you think? I shall manage here with one

servant, only one.'

Rolfe struggled with the difficulty of not knowing what to say. There

was nothing for it but to discourse as innocently as might be on the

advantages of flats, their increasing popularity, and the special

charms of this particular situation. Mrs. Frothingham eagerly agreed

with everything, and did her best to allow no moment of silence.

'You have heard from Miss Frothingham, I think?' she presently let

fall, with a return of anxiety.

'Not very long ago. From Leipzig.'

'Yes. Yes.--I don't know whether she will stay there. You know she is

thinking of taking up music professionally?--Yes. Yes.--I do so hope

she will find it possible, but of course that kind of career is so very

uncertain. I'm not sure that I shouldn't be glad if she turned to

something else.'

The widow was growing nervous and self-contradictory. With a quick

movement of her hands, she suddenly resumed in another tone.

'Mr. Rolfe, I do so wish you would let me speak to you in confidence. I

want to ask your help in a most delicate matter. Not, of course, about

my step-daughter, though I shall have to mention her. It is something

quite personal to myself. If I could hope that you wouldn't think it

tiresome--I have a special reason for appealing to you.'

He would gladly, said Harvey, be of any use he could.

'I want to speak to you about painful things,' pursued his hostess,

with an animation and emphasis which made her more like the lady of

Fitzjohn Avenue. 'You know everything--except my own position, and that

is what I wish to explain to you. I won't go into details. I will only

say that a few years ago my husband made over to me a large sum of

money--I had none of my own--and that it still belongs to me. I say

belongs to me; but there is my trouble. I fear I have no right whatever

to call it mine. And there are people who have suffered such dreadful

losses. Some of them you know. There was a family named Abbott. I

wanted to ask you about them. Poor Mr. Abbott--I remember reading----'

She closed her eyes for an instant, and the look upon her face told

that this was no affectation of an anguished memory.

'It was accident,' Rolfe hastened to say. 'The jury found it accidental

death.'

'But there was the loss--I read it all. He had lost everything. Do tell

me what became of his family. Someone told me they were friends of

yours.'

'Happily they had no children. There was a small life-insurance. Mrs

Abbott used to be a teacher, and she is going to take that up again.'

'Poor thing! Is she quite young?'

'Oh, about thirty, I should say.'

'Will she go into a school?'

'No. Private pupils at her own house. She has plenty of courage, and

will do fairly well, I think.'

'Still, it is shocking that she should have lost all--her husband, too,

just at that dreadful time. This is what I wanted to say, Mr. Rolfe. Do

you think it would be possible to ask her to accept something----? I do

so feel,' she hurried on, 'that I ought to make some sort of

restitution--what I can--to those who lost everything. I am told that

things are not quite hopeless; something may be recovered out of the

wreck some day. But it will be such a long time, and meanwhile people

are suffering so. And here am I left in comfort--more than comfort. It

isn't right; I couldn't rest till I did something. I am glad to say

that I have been able to help a little here and there, but only the

kind of people whom it's easy to help. A case like Mrs. Abbott's is far

worse, yet there's such a difficulty in doing anything; one might only

give offence. I'm sure my name must be hateful to her--as it is to so

many.'

Rolfe listened with a secret surprise. He had never thought ill of Mrs

Frothingham; but, on the other hand, had never attributed to her any

save superficial qualities, a lightsome temper, pleasure in

hospitality, an easy good nature towards all the people of her

acquaintance. He would not have supposed her capable of substantial

sacrifices; least of all, on behalf of strangers and inspired by a

principle. She spoke with the simplest sincerity; it was impossible to

suspect her motives. The careless liking with which he had always

regarded her was now infused with respect; he became gravely attentive,

and answered in a softer voice.

'She was embittered at first, but is overcoming it. To tell you the

truth, I think she will benefit by this trial. I don't like the words

that are so often used in cant; I don't believe that misery does any

good to most people--indeed, I know very well that it generally does

harm. But Mrs. Abbott seems to be an exception; she has a good deal of

character; and there were circumstances--well, I will only say that she

faces the change in her life very bravely.'

'I do wish I knew her. But I daren't ask that. It's too much to expect

that she could bear to see me and listen to what I have to say.'

'The less she's reminded of the past the better, I think.'

'But would it not be possible to do something? I am told that the sum

was about fifteen hundred pounds. The whole of that I couldn't restore;

but half of it--I could afford so much. Could I offer to do so--not

directly, in my own name, but through you?'

Harvey reflected, his head and body bent forward, his hands folded

together. In the flat beneath, someone was jingling operetta on a piano

not quite in tune; the pertinacious vivacity of the airs interfered

with Harvey's desire to view things seriously. He had begun to wonder

how large a capital Mrs. Frothingham had at her command. Was it not

probable that she could as easily bestow fifteen hundred pounds as the

half of that sum? But the question was unworthy. If in truth she had

set herself to undo as much as possible of the wrong perpetrated by her

husband, Mrs. Frothingham might well limit her benefactions, be her

fortune what it might.

'I will do whatever you desire,' he said, with deliberation. 'I cannot

answer for Mrs. Abbott, but, if you wish it, she shall know what you

have in mind.'

'I do wish it,' replied the lady earnestly. 'I beg you to put this

before her, and with all the persuasion you can use. I should be very,

very glad if she would allow me to free my conscience from a little of

this burden. Only that I dare not speak of it, I would try to convince

you that I am doing what my dear husband himself would have wished. You

can't believe it; no one will ever believe it; even Alma, I am

afraid--and that is so cruel, so dreadful; but he did not mean to wrong

people in this way. It wasn't in his nature. Who knew him better than

I, or so well? I know--if he could come back to us----'

Her voice broke. The piano below jingled more vivaciously than ever,

and a sound of shrill laughter pierced through the notes. Afraid to sit

silent, lest he should seem unsympathetic and sceptical, Rolfe murmured

a few harmless phrases, tending to nervous incoherence.

'I am thinking so much about Alma,' pursued the widow, recovering

self-command. 'I am so uncertain about my duty to her. Of her own, she

has nothing; but I know, of course, that her father wished her to share

in what he gave me. It is strange, Mr. Rolfe, that I should be talking

to you as if you were a relative--as if I had a right to trouble you

with these things. But if you knew how few people I dare speak to.

Wasn't it so much better for her to lead a very quiet life? And so I

gave her only a little money, only enough to live upon in the simplest

way. I hoped she would get tired of being among strangers, and come

back. And now I fear she thinks I have behaved meanly and selfishly.

And we were always so kindly disposed to each other, such thorough

friends; never a word that mightn't have passed between a mother and

her own child.'

'I gathered from her letter,' interposed Harvey, 'that she was well

contented and working hard at her music.'

'Do you think so? I began to doubt--she wrote in low spirits. Of

course, one can't say whether she would succeed as a violinist. Oh, I

don't like to think of it! I must tell you that I haven't said a word

to her yet of what I am doing; I mean, about the money. I know I ought

to consider _her_ as much as other people. Poor girl, who has suffered

more, and in so many ways? But I think of what I keep for myself as

hers. I was not brought up in luxury, Mr. Rolfe. It wouldn't seem to me

hard to live on a very little. But in this, too, I must consider Alma.

I daren't lose all my acquaintances. I must keep a home for Alma, and a

home she wouldn't feel ashamed of. Here, you see, she could have her

friends. I have thought of going to Leipzig; but I had so much rather

she came to London--if only for us just to talk and understand each

other.'

Harvey preserved the gravest demeanour. Of Alma he would not permit

himself to speak, save in answer to a direct question; and that was not

long in coming.

'I am sure you think I should be quite open with her?'

'That would seem to me the best.'

'Yes; she shall know all my thoughts. But with regard to Mrs. Abbott, I

know so well what she would say. I beg you to do me that kindness, Mr

Rolfe.'

'I will write to Mrs. Abbott at once.'

The interview was at an end; neither had anything more to say. They

parted with looks of much mutual kindliness, Harvey having promised to

make another call when Mrs. Abbott's reply had reached him.

After exchanging letters with Mrs. Abbott, Harvey went over to see her;

for the sake of both persons concerned, he resolved to leave no

possibility of misunderstanding. A few days passed in discussions and

reflections, then, at the customary hour for paying calls, he again

ascended the many stairs to Mrs. Frothingham's flat. It had rained all

day, and in this weather there seemed a certainty that the lady would

be at home. But, as he approached the door, Harvey heard a sound from

within which discomposed him. Who, save one person, was likely to be

playing on the violin in these rooms? He paused, cast about him a

glance of indecision, and finally pressed the electric bell.

Mrs. Frothingham was not at home. She might return very shortly.

'Is--Miss Frothingham at home?'

The servant did not straightway admit him, but took his name. On his

entering the drawing-room, three figures appeared before him. He saw

Alma; he recognised Miss Leach; the third lady was named to him as Miss

Leach's sister.

'You knew I was in London?' Alma remarked rather than inquired.

'I had no idea of it--until I heard your violin.'

'My violin, but not my playing. It was Miss Leach.'

From the first word--her 'Ah, how d'you do' as he entered--Alma's tone

and manner appeared to him forced, odd, unlike anything he remembered

of her. In correcting him, she gave a hard, short laugh, glancing at

Dora Leach in a way verging upon the ill-bred. Her look had nothing

amiable, though she continuously smiled, and when she invited the

visitor to be seated, it was with off-hand familiarity very

unflattering to his ear.

'You came to see Mamma, of course. I dare say she won't be long. She

had to go through the rain on business with someone or other--perhaps

you know. Have you been in London all the summer? Oh no, I remember you

told me you had been somewhere in France; on the Loire, wasn't it?'

Rolfe dropped a careless affirmative. His temper prompted him to ask

whether Miss Frothingham knew the difference between the Loire and the

Garonne; but on the whole he was more puzzled than offended. What had

come over this young woman? Outwardly she was not much altered--a

little thinner in the face, perhaps; her eyes seeming a trifle darker

and deeper set; but in the point of demeanour she had appreciably

suffered. Her bearing and mode of speech were of that kind which, in a

man, would be called devil-may-care. Was it a result of student-life?

If her stinted allowance had already produced effects such as this, Mrs

Frothingham was justified in uneasiness.

He turned to Miss Leach, and with her talked exclusively for some

minutes. As soon as civility permitted, he would rise and make his

escape. Alma, the while, chatted with the younger sister, whom she

addressed as 'Gerda'. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Frothingham came

in, wearing her out-of-doors and gave him cordial welcome, though in

few and nervous costume; she fixed her eyes on Rolfe with a peculiar

intensity, words.

'I am no longer alone, you see.' She threw a swift side-glance at Alma.

'It is a great pleasure.'

'Does it rain still, Mamma?' asked Alma in a high voice.

'Not just now, my dear; but it's very disagreeable.'

'Then I'll walk with you to the station.' She addressed the sisters.

'Dora and Gerda can't stay; they have an appointment at five o'clock.

They'll come again in a day or two.'

After the leave-takings, and when Alma, with a remark that she would

not be long, had closed the door behind her, Mrs. Frothingham seated

herself and began to draw off her gloves. The bonnet and cloak she was

wearing, though handsome and in the mode, made her look older than at

Rolfe's last visit. She was now a middle-aged woman, with emphasis on

the qualifying term; in home dress she still asserted her sex, grace of

figure and freshness of complexion prevailing over years and sorrows.

At this moment, moreover, weariness, and perhaps worry, appeared in her

countenance.

'Thank you so much for coming,' she said quietly. 'You must have been

surprised when you saw----'

'I was, indeed.'

'And my surprise was still greater, when, without any warning, Alma

walked into the room two days ago. But I was so glad, so very glad.'

She breathed a little sigh, looking round.

'Hasn't Alma given her friends any tea? I must ring--Thank you.--Oh,

the wretched, wretched day! I seem to notice the weather so much more

than I used to. Does it affect you at all?'

Not till the tea-tray was brought in, and she had sipped from her cup,

did Mrs. Frothingham lay aside these commonplaces. With abrupt gravity,

and in a subdued voice, she at length inquired the result of Rolfe's

delicate mission.

'I think,' he replied, 'that I made known your wish as clearly and

urgently as possible. I have seen Mrs. Abbott, and written to her

twice. It will be best, perhaps, if I ask you to read her final letter.

I have her permission to show it to you.'

He drew the letter from its envelope, and with a nervous hand Mrs

Frothingham took it for perusal. Whilst she was thus occupied, Rolfe

averted his eyes; when he knew that she had read to the end, he looked

at her. She had again sighed, and Harvey could not help imagining it an

involuntary signal of relief.

'I am very glad to have read this, Mr. Rolfe. If you had merely told me

that Mrs. Abbott refused, I should have felt nothing but pain. As it

is, I understand that she _could_ only refuse, and I am most grateful

for all she says about me. I regret more than ever that I don't know

her.'

As she handed the letter back, it shook like a blown leaf. She was

pale, and spoke with effort. But in a few moments, when conversation

was resumed, her tone took a lightness and freedom which confirmed

Rolfe's impression that she had escaped from a great embarrassment; and

this surmise he inevitably connected with Alma's display of strange

ill-humour.

Not another word passed on the subject. With frequent glances towards

the door, Mrs. Frothingham again talked commonplace. Harvey, eager to

get away, soon rose.

'Oh, you are not going? Alma will be back in a moment.'

And as her step-mother spoke, the young lady reappeared.

'Why didn't you give your friends tea, dear?'

'I forgot all about it. That comes of living alone. Dora has composed a

gavotte, Mamma. She was playing it when Mr. Rolfe came. It's capital!

Is Mr. Rolfe going?'

Harvey murmured his peremptory resolve. Mrs. Frothingham, rising, said

that she was almost always at home in the afternoon; that it would

always give her so much pleasure----

'You remain in England?' asked Harvey, barely touching the hand which

Alma cavalierly offered.

'I really don't know. Perhaps I ought to, just to look after Mamma.'

Mrs. Frothingham uttered a little exclamation, and tried to laugh. On

the instant, Harvey withdrew.

By the evening's post on the following day he was surprised to receive

a letter addressed in Alma's unmistakable hand. The contents did not

allay his wonder.

DEAR MR ROLFE,

I am sure you will not mind if I use the privilege of a fairly long

acquaintance and speak plainly about something that I regard as

important. I wish to say that I am quite old enough, and feel quite

competent, to direct the course of my own life. It is very kind of you,

indeed, to take an interest in what I do and what I hope to do, and I

am sure Mamma will be fittingly grateful for any advice you may have

offered with regard to me. But I feel obliged to say quite distinctly

that I must manage my own affairs. Pray excuse this freedom, and

believe me, yours truly,

He gasped, and with wide eyes read the missive again and again. As soon

as his nerves were quieted, he sat down and replied thus:----

DEAR MISS FROTHINGHAM,

Your frankness can only be deemed a compliment. It is perhaps a

triviality on my part, but I feel prompted to say that I have at no

time discussed your position or prospects with Mrs. Frothingham, and

that I have neither offered advice on the subject nor have been

requested to do so. If this statement should appear to you at all

germane to the matter, I beg you will take it into consideration.--And

I am, yours truly,

HARVEY RADCLIFFE ROLFE

CHAPTER 10

This reply despatched, Harvey congratulated himself on being quits with

Miss Frothingham. Her letter, however amusing, was deliberate

impertinence; to have answered it in a serious tone would have been to

encourage ill-mannered conceit which merited nothing but a snub.

But what had excited her anger? Had Mrs. Frothingham been guilty of

some indiscretion, or was it merely the result of hotheaded surmises

and suspicions on the girl's part? Plainly, Alma had returned to

England in no amiable mood; in all probability she resented her

step-mother's behaviour, now that it had been explained to her; there

had arisen 'unpleasantness' on the old, the eternal subject--money.

Ignoble enough; but was it a new thing for him to discern ignoble

possibilities in Alma's nature?

Nevertheless, his thoughts were constantly occupied with the girl. Her

image haunted him; all his manhood was subdued and mocked by her

scornful witchery. From the infinitudes of reverie, her eyes drew near

and gazed upon him--eyes gleaming with mischief, keen with curiosity; a

look now supercilious, now softly submissive; all the varieties of

expression caught in susceptible moments, and stored by a too faithful

memory. Her hair, her lips, her neck, grew present to him, and lured

his fancy with a wanton seduction. In self-defence--pathetic stratagem

of intellectual man at issue with the flesh--he fell back upon the

idealism which ever strives to endow a fair woman with a beautiful

soul; he endeavoured to forget her body in contemplation of the

spiritual excellencies that might lurk behind it. To depreciate her was

simpler, and had generally been his wont; but subjugation had reached

another stage in him. He summoned all possible pleadings on the girl's

behalf: her talents, her youth, her grievous trials. Devotion to

classical music cannot but argue a certain loftiness of mind; it might,

in truth, be somehow akin to 'religion'. Remembering his own follies

and vices at the age of four-and-twenty, was it not reason, no less

than charity, to see in Alma the hope of future good? Nay, if it came

to that, did she not embody infinitely more virtue, in every sense of

the word, than he at the same age?

One must be just to women, and, however paltry the causes, do honour to

the cleanliness of their life. Nothing had suggested to him that Alma

was unworthy of everyday respect. Even when ill-mannered, she did not

lose her sexual dignity. And after all she had undergone, there would

have been excuse enough for decline of character, to say nothing of a

lapse from the articles of good breeding. This letter of hers, what did

it signify but the revolt of a spirit of independence, irritated by all

manner of sufferings, great and small? Ought he not to have replied in

other terms? Was it worthy of him--man of the world, with passions,

combats, experience multiform, assimilated in his long, slow growth--to

set his sarcasm against a girl's unhappiness?

He was vexed with himself. He had not behaved as a gentleman. And how

many a time, in how many situations, had he incurred this form of

self-reproach!

When a week went by without anything more from Alma, Harvey ceased to

trouble. As the fates directed, so be it. He began to pack the books

which he would take with him into Wales.

One day he found himself at Kensington High Street, waiting for a City

train. In idleness, he watched the people who alighted from carriages

on the opposite side of the platform, and among them he saw Alma. On

her way towards the stairs she was obliged to pass him; he kept his

position, and only looked into her face when she came quite near. She

bent her head with a half-smile, stopped, and spoke in a low voice,

without sign of embarrassment.

'I was quite wrong. I found it out soon after I had written, and I have

wanted to beg your pardon.'

'It is my part to do that,' Harvey replied. 'I ought not to have

answered as I did.'

'Perhaps not--all things considered. I'm rather in a hurry.

Good-morning!'

As a second thought, she offered her hand. Harvey watched her trip up

the stairs.

Next morning he had a letter from her. 'Dear Mr. Rolfe,' she wrote,

'did you let Mamma know of my hasty and foolish behaviour? If not--and

I very much hope you didn't--please not to reply to this, but let us

see you on Wednesday afternoon, just in the ordinary way. If Mamma

_has_ been told, still don't trouble to write, and in that case I dare

say you will not care to come. If you are engaged this Wednesday,

perhaps you could come next.' And she signed herself his sincerely.

He did not reply, and Wednesday saw him climbing once more to the

little flat; ashamed of being here, yet unable to see how he could have

avoided it, except by leaving London. For that escape he had no longer

much mind. Quite consciously, and with uneasiness which was now taking

a new form, he had yielded to Alma's fascination. However contemptible

and unaccountable, this was the state of things with him, and, as he

waited for the door to be opened, it made him feel more awkward, more

foolish, than for many a long year.

Mrs. Frothingham and her step-daughter were sitting alone, the elder

lady occupied with fancy-work, at her feet a basket of many-coloured

silks, and the younger holding a book; nothing could have been quieter

or more home-like. No sooner had he entered than he overcame all

restraint, all misgiving; there was nothing here today but peace and

good feeling, gentle voices and quiet amiability. Whatever shadow had

arisen between the two ladies must have passed utterly away; they spoke

to each other with natural kindness, and each had a tranquil

countenance.

Alma began at once to talk of their common friends, the Carnabys,

asking whether Rolfe knew that they were in Australia.

'I knew they had decided to go,' he answered. 'But I haven't heard for

at least two months.'

'Oh, then I can give you all the news; I had a letter yesterday. When

Mrs. Carnaby wrote, they had spent a fortnight at Melbourne, and were

going on to Brisbane. Mr. Carnaby is going to do something in

Queensland--something about mines. I'll read you that part.'

The letter lay in the book she was holding. Sibyl wrote indefinitely,

but Harvey was able to gather that the mining engineer, Dando, had

persuaded Carnaby to take an active interest in his projects.

Discussion on speculative enterprises did not recommend itself to the

present company, and Rolfe could only express a hope that his friend

had at last found a pursuit in which he could interest himself.

'But fancy Sibyl at such places!' exclaimed Alma, with amusement. 'How

curious I shall be to see her when she comes back! Before she left

England, I'm sure she hadn't the least idea in what part of Australia

Brisbane was, or Melbourne either. I didn't know myself; had to look at

a map. You'll think that a shameful confession, Mr. Rolfe.'

'My own ideas of Australian geography are vague enough.'

'Oh, but haven't you been there?'

'Not to any of the new countries; I don't care about them. A defect, I

admit. The future of England is beyond seas. I would have children

taught all about the Colonies before bothering them with histories of

Greece and Rome. I wish I had gone out there myself as a boy, and grown

up a sheep-farmer.'

Alma laughed.

'That's one of the things you say just to puzzle people. It contradicts

all sorts of things I've heard you say at other times.--Do _you_ think,

Mamma, that Mr. Rolfe missed his vocation when he didn't become a

sheep-farmer?'

Mrs. Frothingham gently shook her head. No trace of nervousness

appeared in her today; manipulating the coloured silks, she only now

and then put in a quiet word, but followed the talk with interest.

'But I quite thought you had been to Australia,' Alma resumed. 'You

see, it's very theoretical, your admiration of the new countries. And I

believe you would rather die at once in England than go to live in any

such part of the world.'

'Weakness of mind, that's all.'

'Still, you admit it. That's something gained. You always smile at

other people's confessions, and keep your own mind mysterious.'

'Mysterious? I always thought one of my faults was over-frankness.'

'That only shows how little we know ourselves.'

Harvey was reflecting on the incompleteness of his knowledge of Alma.

Intentionally or not, she appeared to him at this moment in a perfectly

new light; he could not have pictured her so simple of manner, so

direct, so placid. Trouble seemed to have given her a holiday, and at

the same time to have released her from self-consciousness.

'But you have never told us,' she went on, 'about your wanderings in

France this summer. English people don't go much to that part, do they?'

'No. I happened to read a book about it. It's the old fighting-ground

of French and English--interesting to any one pedantic enough to care

for such things.'

'But not to people born to be sheep-farmers. And you had a serious

illness.--Did Mr. Rolfe tell you, Mamma dear, that he nearly died at

some miserable roadside inn?'

Mrs. Frothingham looked startled, and declared she knew nothing of it.

Harvey, obliged to narrate, did so in the fewest possible words, and

dismissed the matter.

'I suppose you have had many such experiences,' said Alma. 'And when do

you start on your next travels?'

'I have nothing in view. I half thought of going for the winter to a

place in North Wales--Carnarvonshire, on the outer sea.'

The ladies begged for more information, and he related how, on a ramble

with a friend last spring (it was Basil Morton), he had come upon this

still little town between the mountains and the shore, amid a country

shining with yellow gorse, hills clothed with larch, heathery moorland,

ferny lanes, and wild heights where the wind roars on crag or cairn.

'No railway within seven miles. Just the place for a pedant to escape

to, and live there through the winter with his musty books.'

'But it must be equally delightful for people who are not pedants!'

exclaimed Alma.

'In spring or summer, no doubt, though even then the civilised person

would probably find it dull.'

'That's your favourite affectation again. I'm sure it's nothing but

affectation when you speak scornfully of civilised people.'

'Scornfully I hope I never do.'

'Really, Mamma,' said Alma, with a laugh, 'Mr. Rolfe is in his very

mildest humour today. We mustn't expect any reproofs for our good. He

will tell us presently that we are patterns of all the virtues.'

Mrs. Frothingham spoke in a graver strain.

'But I'm sure it is possible to be too civilised--to want too many

comforts, and become a slave to them. Since I have been living here, Mr

Rolfe, you can't think how I have got to enjoy the simplicity of this

kind of life. Everything is so easy; things go so smoothly. Just one

servant, who can't make mistakes, because there's next to nothing to

do. No wonder people are taking to flats.'

'And is that what you mean by over-civilisation?' Alma asked of Rolfe.

'I didn't say anything about it. But I should think many people in

large and troublesome houses would agree with Mrs. Frothingham. It's

easy to imagine a time when such burdens won't be tolerated. Our

misfortune is, of course, that we are not civilised enough.'

'Not enough to give up fashionable nonsense. I agree with that. We're

wretched slaves, most of us.'

It was the first sentence Alma had spoken in a tone that Rolfe

recognised. For a moment her face lost its placid smile, and Harvey

hoped that she would say more to the same purpose; but she was silent.

'I'm sure,' remarked Mrs. Frothingham, with feeling, 'that most

happiness is found in simple homes.'

'Can we be simple by wishing it?' asked Alma. 'Don't you think we have

to be born to simplicity?'

'I'm not sure that I know what you mean by the word,' said Harvey.

'I'm not sure that I know myself. Mamma meant poverty, I think. But

there may be a simple life without poverty, I should say. I'm thinking

of disregard for other people's foolish opinions; living just as you

feel most at ease--not torturing yourself because it's the custom.'

'That's just what requires courage,' Rolfe remarked.

'Yes; I suppose it does. One knows people who live in misery just

because they daren't be comfortable; keeping up houses and things they

can't afford, when, if they only considered themselves, their income

would be quite enough for everything they really want. If you come to

think of it, that's too foolish for belief.'

Harvey felt that the topic was growing dangerous. He said nothing, but

wished to have more of Alma's views in this direction. They seemed to

strike her freshly; perhaps she had never thought of the matter in this

way before.

'That's what I meant,' she continued, 'when I said you must be born to

simplicity. I should think no one ever gave up fashionable extravagance

just because they saw it to be foolish. People haven't the strength of

mind. I dare say,' she added, with a bright look, 'anyone who _was_

strong enough to do that kind of thing would be admired and envied.'

'By whom?' Rolfe asked.

'Oh, by their acquaintances who were still slaves.'

'I don't know. Admiration and envy are not commonly excited by merely

reasonable behaviour.'

'But this would be something more than merely reasonable. It would be

the beginning of a revolution.'

'My dear,' remarked Mrs. Frothingham, smiling sadly, 'people would

never believe that it didn't mean loss of money.'

'They might be made to believe it. It would depend entirely on the

persons, of course.'

Alma seemed to weary of the speculation, and to throw it aside. Harvey

noticed a shadow on her face again, which this time did not pass

quickly.

He was so comfortable in his chair, the ladies seemed so entirely at

leisure, such a noiseless calm brooded about them, unbroken by any new

arrival, that two hours went by insensibly, and with lingering

reluctance the visitor found it time to take his leave. On reviewing

the afternoon, Harvey concluded that it was probably as void of meaning

as of event. Alma, on friendly terms once more with her step-mother,

felt for the moment amiably disposed towards everyone, himself

included; this idle good humour and insignificant talk was meant, no

doubt, for an apology, all he had to expect. It implied, of course,

thorough indifference towards him as an individual. As a member of

their shrunken circle, he was worth retaining. Having convinced herself

of his innocence of undue pretensions, Alma would, as the children say,

be friends again, and everything should go smoothly.

He lived through a week of the wretchedest indecision, and at the end

of it, when Wednesday afternoon came round, was again climbing the many

stairs to the Frothinghams' flat; even more nervous than last time,

much more ashamed of himself, and utterly doubtful as to his reception.

The maid admitted him without remark, and showed him into an empty

room. When he had waited for five minutes, staring at objects he did

not see, Alma entered.

'Mamma went out to lunch,' she said, languidly shaking hands with him,

'and hasn't come back yet.'

No greeting could have conveyed less encouragement. She seated herself

with a lifeless movement, looked at him, and smiled as if discharging a

duty.

'I thought'--he blundered into speech--'that Wednesday was probably

your regular afternoon.'

'There is nothing regular yet. We haven't arranged our life. We are

glad to see our friends whenever they come.--Pray sit down.'

He did so, resolving to stay for a few minutes only. In the silence

that followed, their eyes met, and, as though it were too much trouble

to avert her look, Alma continued to regard him. She smiled again, and

with more meaning.

'So you have quite forgiven me?' fell from her lips, just when Harvey

was about to speak.

'As I told you at the station, I feel that there is more fault on my

side. You wrote under such a strange misconception, and I ought to have

patiently explained myself.'

'Oh no! You were quite right in treating me sharply. I don't quite

remember what I said, but I know it must have been outrageous. After

that, I did what I ought to have done before, just had a talk with

Mamma.'

'Then you took it for granted, without any evidence, that I came here

as a meddler or busybody?'

His voice was perfectly good-humoured, and Alma answered in the same

tone.

'I _thought_ there was evidence. Mamma had been talking about her

affairs, and mentioned that she had consulted you about something--Oh,

about Mrs. Abbott.'

'Very logical, I must say,' remarked Rolfe, laughing.

'I don't think logic is my strong point.'

She sat far back in the easy chair, her head supported, her hands

resting upon the chair arms. The languor which she hardly made an

effort to overcome began to invade her companion, like an influence

from the air; he gazed at her, perceiving a new beauty in the

half-upturned face, a new seductiveness in the slim, abandoned body. A

dress of grey silk, trimmed with black, refined the ivory whiteness of

her flesh; its faint rustling when she moved affected Harvey with a

delicious thrill.

'There's no reason, now,' she continued, 'why we shouldn't talk about

it--I mean, the things you discussed with Mamma. You imagine, I dare

say, that I selfishly objected to what she was doing. Nothing of the

kind. I didn't quite see why she had kept it from me, that was all. It

was as if she felt afraid of my greediness. But I'm not greedy; I don't

think I'm more selfish than ordinary people. And I think Mamma is doing

exactly what she ought; I'm very glad she felt about things in that

way.'

Harvey nodded, and spoke in a subdued voice.

'I was only consulted about one person, whom I happened to know.'

'Yes--Mrs. Abbott.'

Her eyes were again fixed upon him, and he read their curiosity. Just

as he was about to speak, the servant appeared with tea. Alma slowly

raised herself, and, whilst she plied the office of hostess, Harvey got

rid of the foolish hat and stick that encumbered him. He had now no

intention of hurrying away.

As if by natural necessity, they talked of nothing in particular whilst

tea was sipped. Harvey still held his cup, when at the outer door

sounded a rat-tat-tat, causing him silently to execrate the intruder,

whoever it might be. Unheeding, and as if she had not heard, Alma

chatted of trifles. Harvey's ear detected movements without, but no one

entered; in a minute or two, he again breathed freely.

'Mrs. Abbott----'

Alma just dropped the name, as if beginning a remark, but lapsed into

silence.

'Shall I tell you all about her?' said Rolfe. 'Her husband's death left

her in great difficulties; she had hardly anything. A friend of hers, a

Mrs. Langland, who lives at Gunnersbury, was very kind and helpful.

They talked things over, and Mrs. Abbott decided to take a house at

Gunnersbury, and teach children;--she was a teacher before her

marriage.'

'No children of her own?'

'No. One died. But unfortunately she has the care of two, whose

mother--a cousin of hers--is dead, and whose father has run away.'

'Run away?'

'Literally. Left the children behind in a lodging-house garret to

starve, or go to the workhouse, or anything else. A spirited man;

independent, you see; no foolish prejudices.'

'And Mrs. Abbott has to support them?'

'No one else could take them. They live with her.'

'You didn't mention that to Mamma.'

'No. I thought it needless.'

The silence that followed was embarrassing to Harvey. He broke it by

abruptly changing the subject.

'Have you practised long today?'

'No,' was the absent reply.

'I thought you looked rather tired, as if you had been working too

hard.'

'Oh, I don't work too hard,' said Alma impatiently.

'Forgive me. I remember that it is a forbidden subject.'

'Not at all. You may ask _me_ anything you like about myself. I'm not

working particularly hard just now; thinking a good deal, though.

Suppose you let me have your thoughts on the same subject. No harm. But

I dare say I know them, without your telling me.'

'I hardly think you do,' said Rolfe, regarding her steadily. 'At all

events'--his voice faltered a little--'I'm afraid you don't.'

'Afraid? Oh'--she laughed--'don't be afraid. I have plenty of courage,

and quite enough obstinacy. It rather does me good when people show

they have no faith in me.'

'You didn't understand,' murmured Harvey.

'Then make me understand,' she exclaimed nervously, moving in the chair

as if about to stand up, but remaining seated and bent forward, her

eyes fixed upon him in a sort of good-humoured challenge. 'I believe I

know what you mean, all the time. You didn't discuss me with Mamma, as

I suspected, but you think about me just as she does.--No, let me go

on, then you shall confess I was right. You have no faith in my powers,

to begin with. It seems to you very unlikely that an everyday sort of

girl, whom you have met in society and know all about, should develop

into a great artist. No faith--that's the first thing. Then you are so

kind as to have fears for me--yes, it was your own word. You think that

you know the world, whilst I am ignorant of it, and that it's a sort of

duty to offer warnings.'

Harvey's all but angry expression, as he listened and fidgeted,

suddenly stopped her.

'Well! Can you deny that these things are in your mind?'

'They are not in my mind at this moment, that's quite certain,' said

Harvey bluntly.

'Then, what is?'

'Something it isn't easy to say, when you insist on quarrelling with

me. Why do you use this tone? Do I strike you as a pedagogue, a

preacher--something of that sort?'

His energy in part subdued her. She smiled uneasily.

'No. I don't see you in that light.'

'So much the better. I wanted to appear to you simply a man, and one

who has--perhaps--the misfortune to see in _you_ only a very beautiful

and a very desirable woman.'

Alma sat motionless. Her smile had passed, vanishing in a swift gleam

of pleasure which left her countenance bright, though grave. In the

same moment there sounded again a rat-tat at the outer door. Through

his whirling senses, Harvey was aware of the threatened interruption,

and all but cursed aloud. That Alma had the same expectation appeared

in her moving so as to assume a more ordinary attitude; but she uttered

the word that had risen to her lips.

'The misfortune, you call it?'

Harvey followed her example in disposing his limbs more conventionally;

also in the tuning of his voice to something between jest and earnest.

'I said _perhaps_ the misfortune.'

'It makes a difference, certainly.' She smiled, her eyes turned to the

door. '_Perhaps_ is a great word; one of the most useful in the

language.--Don't you think so, Mamma?'

Mrs. Frothingham had just entered.

CHAPTER 11

The inconceivable had come to pass. By a word and a look Harvey had

made real what he was always telling himself could never be more than a

dream, and a dream of unutterable folly. Mrs. Frothingham's unconscious

intervention availed him nothing; he had spoken, and must speak again.

For a man of sensitive honour there could be no trilling in such a

matter as this with a girl in Alma Frothingham's position. And did he

not rejoice that wavering was no longer possible?

This was love; but of what quality? He no longer cared, or dared, to

analyse it. Too late for all that. He had told Alma that he loved her,

and did not repent it; nay, hoped passionately to hear from her lips

the echoed syllable. It was merely the proof of madness. A shake of the

head might cure him; but from that way to sanity all his blood shrank.

He must consider; he must be practical. If he meant to ask Alma to

marry him, and of course he did, an indispensable preliminary was to

make known the crude facts of his worldly position.

Well, he could say, with entire honesty, that he had over nine hundred

pounds a year. This was omitting a disbursement of an annual fifty

pounds, of which he need not speak--the sum he had insisted on paying

Mrs. Abbott that she might be able to maintain Wager's children. With

all the difficulty in the world had he gained his point. Mrs. Abbott

did not wish the children to go into other hands; she made it a matter

of conscience to keep them by her, and to educate them, yet this seemed

barely possible with the combat for a livelihood before her. Mrs.

Abbott yielded, and their clasp of hands cemented a wholesome

friendship--frank, unsuspicious--rarest of relations between man and

woman. But all this there was certainly no need of disclosing.

At midnight he was penning a letter. It must not be long; it must not

strike the lyrical note; yet assuredly it must not read like a

commercial overture. He had great difficulty in writing anything that

seemed tolerable. Yet done it must be, and done it was; and before

going to bed he had dropped his letter into the post. He durst not

leave it for reperusal in the morning light.

Then came torture of expectancy. The whole man aching, sore, with

impatience; reason utterly fled, intellect bemused and baffled; a

healthy, competent citizen of nigh middle age set all at once in the

corner, crowned with a fool's cap, twiddling his thumbs in nervous

fury. Dolorous spectacle, and laughable withal.

He waited four-and-twenty hours, then clutched at Alma's reply. 'Dear

Mr. Rolfe,--Will you come again next Wednesday?' That was all. Did it

amuse her to keep him in suspense? The invitation might imply a

fulfilment of his hopes, but Alma's capriciousness allowed no

certainty; a week's reflection was as likely to have one result as

another. For him it meant a week of solitude and vacancy.

Or would have meant it, but for that sub-vigorous element in his

character, that saving strain of practical rationality, which had

brought him thus far in life without sheer overthrow. An hour after

receiving Alma's enigmatical note, he was oppressed by inertia; another

hour roused him to self-preservation, and supplied him with a project.

That night he took the steamer from Harwich to Antwerp, and for the

next four days wandered through the Netherlands, reviving his memories

of a journey, under very different circumstances, fifteen years ago.

The weather was bright and warm; on the whole he enjoyed himself; he

reached London again early on Wednesday morning, and in the afternoon,

with a touch of weather on his cheek, presented himself at Alma's door.

She awaited him in the drawing-room, alone. This time, he felt sure, no

interruption was to be feared; he entered with confident step and a

cheery salutation. A glance showed him that his common-sense had served

him well; it was Alma who looked pale and thought-worn, who betrayed

timidity, and could not at once command herself.

'What have you been doing?' she asked, remarking his appearance.

'Rambling about a little,' he replied good-humouredly.

'Where? You look as if you had been a voyage.'

'So I have, a short one.'

And he told her how his week had passed.

'So that's how you would like to spend your life--always travelling?'

'Oh no! I did it to kill time. You must remember that a week is

something like a year to a man who is waiting impatiently.'

She dropped her eyes.

'I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. But I never thought you very

impatient. You always seemed to take things philosophically.'

'I generally try to.'

There was a pause. Alma, leaning forward in her chair, kept her eyes

down, and did not raise them when she again spoke.

'You have surprised and perplexed and worried me. I thought in a week's

time I should know what to say, but--Doesn't it strike you, Mr. Rolfe,

that we're in a strange position towards each other? You know very

little of me--very little indeed, I'm sure. And of you, when I come to

think of it, all I really know is that you hardly care at all for what

has always been my one great interest.'

'That is putting it in a matter-of-fact way--or you think so. I see

things rather differently. In one sense, I care very much indeed for

everything that really makes a part of your life. And simply because I

care very much about you yourself. I don't know you; who knows any

other human being? But I have formed an idea of you, and an idea that

has great power over my thoughts, wishes, purposes--everything. It has

made me say what I thought I should never say to any woman--and makes

me feel glad that I have said it, and full of hope.'

Alma drew in her breath and smiled faintly. Still she did not look at

him.

'And of course I have formed an idea of you.'

'Will you sketch the outline and let me correct it?'

'You think I am pretty sure to be wrong?' she asked, raising her eyes

and regarding him for a moment with anxiety.

'I should have said "complete" it. I hope I have never shown myself to

you in an altogether false light.'

'That is the one thing I have felt sure about,' said Alma, slowly and

thoughtfully. 'You have always seemed the same. You don't change with

circumstances--as people generally do.'

Harvey had a word on his lips, but checked it, and merely gazed at her

till her eyes again encountered his. Then Alma smiled more naturally.

'There was something you didn't speak of in your letter. What kind of

life do you look forward to?'

'I'm not sure that I understand. My practical aims--you mean?'

'Yes,' she faltered, with embarrassment.

'Why, I'm afraid I have none. I mentioned the facts of my position, and

I said that I couldn't hope for its improvement----'

'No, no, no! You misunderstand me. I am not thinking about money. I

hate the word, and wish I might never hear it again!' She spoke with

impetuosity. 'I meant--how and where do you wish to live? What thoughts

had you about the future?'

'None very definite, I confess. And chiefly because, if what I desired

came to pass, I thought of everything as depending upon you. I have no

place in the world. I have no relatives nearer than cousins. Of late

years I have been growing rather bookish, and rather fond of

quietness--but of course that resulted from circumstances. When a man

offers marriage, of course he usually says: My life is this and this;

will you enter into it, and share it with me? I don't wish to say

anything of the kind. My life may take all sorts of forms; when I ask

you to share it, I ask you to share liberty, not restraint.'

'A gipsy life?' she asked, half playfully.

'Is your inclination to that?'

Alma shook her head.

'No, I am tired of homelessness.--And,' she added as if on an impulse,

'I am tired of London.'

'Then we agree. I, too, am tired of both.'

Her manner altered; she straightened herself, and spoke with more

self-possession.

'What about my art--my career?'

'It is for me to ask that question,' replied Harvey, gazing steadfastly

at her.

'You don't mean that it would all necessarily come to an end.'

'Why? I mean what I say when I speak of sharing liberty. Heaven forbid

that I should put an end to any aim or hope of yours--to anything that

is part of yourself. I want you to be yourself. Many people nowadays

revolt against marriage because it generally means bondage, and they

have much to say for themselves. If I had been condemned to a wearisome

occupation and a very small income, I'm sure I should never have asked

anyone to marry me; I don't think it fair. It may seem to you that I

haven't much right to call myself an independent man as it is----'

Alma broke in, impatiently.

'Don't speak of money? You have enough--more than enough.'

'So it seems to me. You are afraid this might prevent you from becoming

a professional musician?'

'I know it would,' she answered with quiet decision.

'I should never dream of putting obstacles in your way. Do understand

and believe me. I don't want to shape you to any model of my own; I

want you to be your true self, and live the life you are meant for.'

'All the same, you would rather I did not become a professional

musician. Now, be honest with me! Be honest before everything. You

needn't answer, I know it well enough; and if I marry you, I give up my

music.'

Rolfe scrutinised her face, observed the tremulous mouth, the nervous

eyelid.

'Then,' he said, 'it will be better for you not to marry me.'

And silence fell upon the room, a silence in which Harvey could hear a

deep-drawn breath and the rustle of silk. He was surprised by a voice

in quite a new tone, softly melodious.

'You give me up very easily.'

'Not more easily than you give up your music.'

'There's a difference. Do you remember what we were saying, last

Wednesday, about simplicity of living?'

'Last Wednesday? It seems a month ago. Yes, I remember.'

'I have thought a good deal of that. I feel how vulgar the life is that

most people lead. They can't help it; they think it impossible to do

anything else. But I should like to break away from it altogether--to

live as I chose, and not care a bit what other people said.'

Harvey had the same difficulty as before in attaching much significance

to these phrases. They were pleasant to hear, for they chimed with his

own thoughts, but he could not respond with great seriousness.

'The wife of a man with my income won't have much choice, I fancy.'

'How can you say that?' exclaimed Alma. 'You know that most people

would take a house in a good part of London, and live up to the last

penny--making everyone think that their income must be two or three

thousand pounds. I know all about that kind of thing, and it sickens

me. There's the choice between vulgar display with worry, and a simple,

refined life with perfect comfort. You fancied I should want a house in

London?'

'I hardy thought anything about it.'

'But it would ease your mind if I said that I would far rather live in

a cottage, as quietly and simply as possible?'

'What does ease my mind--or rather, what makes me very happy, is that

you don't refuse to think of giving me your companionship.'

Alma flushed a little.

'I haven't promised. After all my thinking about it, it came to

this--that I couldn't make up my mind till I had talked over everything

with you. If I marry, I must know what my life is going to be. And it

puzzles me that you could dream of making anyone your wife before you

had asked her all sorts of questions.'

In his great contentment, Harvey laughed.

'Admirable, theoretically! But how is a man to begin asking questions?

How many would he ask before he got sent about his business?'

'That's the very way of putting his chance to the test!' said Alma

brightly. 'If he _is_ sent about his business, how much better for him

than to marry on a misunderstanding.'

'I agree with you perfectly. I never heard anyone talk better sense on

the subject.'

Alma looked pleased, as she always did when receiving a compliment.

'Will you believe, then, Mr. Rolfe, that I am quite in earnest in

hating show and pretences and extravagance, and wishing to live in just

the opposite way?'

'I will believe it if you cease to address me by that formal name--a

show and a pretence, and just a little extravagant.'

Her cheeks grew warm again

'That reminds me,' she said; 'I didn't know you had a second name--till

I got that letter.'

'I had almost forgotten it myself, till I answered a certain other

letter. I didn't know till then that _you_ had a second name. Your

"Florence" called out my "Radcliffe"--which sounds fiery, doesn't it? I

always felt that the name over-weighted me. I got it from my mother.'

'And your first--Harvey?'

'My first I got from a fine old doctor, about whom I'll tell you some

day--Alma.'

'I named your name. I didn't address you by it.'

'But you will?'

'Let us talk seriously.--Could you live far away from London, in some

place that people know nothing about?'

'With you, indeed I could, and be glad enough if I never saw London

again.'

An exaltation possessed Alma; her eyes grew very bright, gazing as if

at a mental picture, and her hands trembled as she continued to speak.'

'I don't mean that we are to go and be hermits in a wilderness. Our

friends must visit us--our real friends, no one else; just the people

we really care about, and those won't be many. If I give up a public

career--as of course I shall--there's no need to give up music. I can

go on with it in a better spirit, for pure love of it, without any wish

for making money and reputation. You don't think this a mere dream?'

Harvey thought more than he was disposed to say. He marvelled at her

sudden enthusiasm for an ideal he had not imagined her capable of

pursuing. If he only now saw into the girl's true character, revealed

by the awakening of her emotions, how nobly was his ardour justified!

All but despising himself for loving her, he had instinctively chosen

the one woman whose heart and mind could inspire him to a life above

his own. 'I should think it a dream,' he answered, 'if I didn't hear it

from your lips.'

'But it is so easy! We keep all the best things, and throw off only the

worthless--the things that waste time and hurt the mind. No crowded

rooms, no wearying artificial talk, no worry with a swarm of servants,

no dressing and fussing. The whole day to one's self, for work and

pleasure. A small house--just large enough for order and quietness, and

to keep a room for the friend who comes. How many people would like

such a life, but haven't the courage to live it!'

'Where shall it be, Alma?'

'I have given no promise. I only say this is the life that IJ should

like. Perhaps you would soon weary of it?'

'I? Not easily, I think.'

'There might be travel, too,' she went on fervently. 'We should be

rich, when other people, living in the ordinary vulgar way, would have

nothing to spare. No tours where the crowd goes; real travel in

out-of-the-way parts.'

'You are describing just what I should choose for myself; but I

shouldn't have dared to ask it of you.

'And why? I told you that you knew so little of me. We are only just

beginning to understand each other.'

'What place have you in mind?'

'None. That would have to be thought about Didn't you say you were

going to some beautiful spot in Wales?'

Harvey reflected.

'I wonder whether you would like that----'

'We are only supposing, you know. But show me where it is. If you wait

a moment, I'll fetch a map.'

She rose quickly. He had just time to reach the door and open it for

her; and as she rapidly passed him, eyes averted, the faintest and

sweetest of perfumes was wafted upon his face. There he stood till her

return, his pulses throbbing.

'This is my old school atlas,' she said gaily; 'I always use it still.'

She opened it upon the table and bent forward.

'North Wales, you said? Show me----'

He pointed with a finger that quivered. His cheek was not far from

hers; the faint perfume floated all about him; he could Imagine it the

natural fragrance of her hair, of her breath.

'I see,' she murmured. 'That's the kind of place far off, but not too

far. And the railway station?'

As he did not answer, she half turned towards him.

'The station?--Yes.--Alma!----

CHAPTER 12

Mrs. Frothingham was overjoyed. In private talk with Harvey she sang

the praises of her step-daughter, whom, she declared, any man might be

proud to have won. For Alma herself had so much pride; the

characteristic, said Mrs. Frothingham, which had put dangers in her

path, and menaced her prospects of happiness.

'There's no harm in saying, Mr. Rolfe, that I never dared to hope for

this. I thought perhaps that you--but I was afraid Alma wouldn't listen

to any one. Just of late, she seemed to feel her position so much more

than at first. It was my fault; I behaved so foolishly; but I'm sure

you'll both forgive me. For months I really wasn't myself. It made the

poor girl bitter against all of us. But how noble she is! How

high-minded! And how much, much happier she will be than if she had

struggled on alone--whatever she might have attained to.'

It was clear to Harvey that the well-meaning lady did not quite

understand Alma's sudden enthusiasm for the 'simple life', that she had

but a confused apprehension of the ideal for which Alma panted. But the

suggestion of 'economy' received her entire approval.

'I feel sure you couldn't do better than to go and live in the country

for a time. There are so many reasons why Alma will be happier there,

at first, than in London. I don't know whether that place in North

Wales would be quite--but I mustn't meddle with what doesn't concern

me. And you will be thoroughly independent; at any moment you can make

a change.'

To a suggestion that she should run down into Carnarvonshire, and see

her proposed home before any practical step was taken, Alma replied

that she had complete faith in Harvey Rolfe's judgment. Harvey's only

doubt was as to the possibility of finding a house. He made the journey

himself, and after a few days' absence returned with no very hopeful

report; at present there was nothing to be had but a cottage, literally

a cotter's home, and this would not do. He brought photographs, and

Alma went into raptures over the lovely little bay, with its grassy

cliffs, its rivulet, its smooth sand, and the dark-peaked mountains

sweeping nobly to a sheer buttress above the waves. 'There must be a

house! There _shall_ be a house!' Of course, said Harvey, one could

build, and cheaply enough; but that meant a long delay. Regarding the

date of the marriage nothing was as yet decided, but Harvey had made up

his mind to be 'at home' for Christmas. When he ventured to hint at

this, Alma evaded the question.

A correspondent would inform him if any house became tenantless. 'I

shall bribe someone to quit!' he cried. 'One might advertise that all

expenses would be paid, with one year's rent of a house elsewhere.'

Harvey was in excellent spirits, though time hung rather heavily on his

hands.

On an appointed day the ladies paid him a visit at his rooms. Mrs

Handover, requested to prepare tea for a semi-ceremonious occasion, was

at once beset with misgivings, and the first sight of the strangers

plunged her into profound despondency. She consulted her indifferent

relative, Buncombe; had he any inkling of the possibility that Mr.

Rolfe was about to change his condition? Buncombe knew nothing and

cared nothing; his own domestic affairs were giving him more than usual

anxiety just now. 'I didn't think he was fool enough'--thus only he

replied to Mrs. Handover's anxious questions.

Alma surveyed the book-shelves, and took down volumes with an air of

interest; she looked over a portfolio of photographs, inspected

mementoes of travel from Cyprus, Palestine, Bagdad. Mrs. Frothingham

noted to herself how dusty everything was.

'That woman neglects him scandalously,' she said afterwards to Alma. 'I

wish I had to look after her when she is at work.'

'I didn't notice any neglect. The tea wasn't very well made, perhaps.'

'My dear child! the room is in a disgraceful state--never dusted, never

cleaned--oh dear!'

Alma laughed.

'I'm quite sure, Mamma, you are much happier now--in one way--than when

you never had to think of such things. You have a genius for domestic

operations. When I have a house of my own I shall be rather afraid of

you.'

'Oh, of course you will have good servants, my dear.'

'How often have I to tell you, Mamma, that we're not going to live in

that way at all! The simplest possible furniture, the simplest possible

meals--_everything_ subordinate to the higher aims and pleasures.'

'But you must have servants, Alma! You can't sweep the rooms yourself,

and do the cooking?'

'I'm thinking about it,' the girl answered gravely. 'Of course, I shall

not waste my time in coarse labour; but I feel sure we shall need only

one servant--a competent, trustworthy woman, after your own heart. It's

snobbish to be ashamed of housework; there are all sorts of things I

should like to do, and that every woman is better for doing.'

'That is very true indeed, Alma. I can't say how I admire you for such

thoughts. But----'

'The thing is to reduce such work to the strictly necessary. Think of

all the toil that is wasted in people's houses, for foolish display and

luxury. We sweep all that away at one stroke! Wait till you see. I'm

thinking it out, making my plans.'

In the pleasant little drawing-room, by the fireside (for it was now

October and chilly), Harvey and Alma had long, long conversations.

Occasionally they said things that surprised each other and led to

explanations, debates, but harmony was never broken. Rolfe came away

ever more enslaved; more impressed by the girl's sweet reasonableness,

and exalted by her glowing idealism. Through amorous mists he still

endeavoured to discern the real Alma; he reflected ceaselessly upon her

character; yet, much as she often perplexed him, he never saw reason to

suspect her of disingenuousness. At times she might appear to excite

herself unduly, to fall into excess of zeal; it meant, no doubt, that

the imaginative fervour she had been wont to expend on music was turned

in a new quarter. Alma remained herself--impulsive, ardent,

enthusiastic, whether yearning for public triumphs, or eager to lead a

revolution in domestic life. Her health manifestly improved; languor

was unknown to her; her cheeks had a warmer hue, a delicate carnation,

subtly answering to her thoughts.

She abhorred sentimentality. This was one of her first intimate

declarations, and Harvey bore it in mind. He might praise, glorify,

extol her to the uttermost, and be rewarded by her sweetest smiles; but

for the pretty follies of amatory transport she had no taste. Harvey

ran small risk of erring in this direction; he admired and reverenced

her maidenly aloofness; her dignity he found an unfailing charm, the

great support of his own self-respect. A caress was not at all times

forbidden, but he asserted the privilege with trembling diffidence. It

pleased her, when he entered the room, to be stately and rather distant

of manner, to greet him as though they were still on formal terms; this

troubled Harvey at first, but he came to understand and like it. In Mrs

Frothingham's presence, Alma avoided every sign of familiarity, and

talked only of indifferent things.

Early in November there came news that a certain family in the little

Welsh town would be glad to vacate their dwelling if a tenant could at

once be found for it. The same day Harvey travelled northwards, and on

the morrow he despatched a telegram to Alma. He had taken the house,

and could have possession in a week or two. Speedily followed a letter

of description. The house was stone-built and substantial, but very

plain; it stood alone and unsheltered by the roadside, a quarter of a

mile from the town, looking seaward; it had garden ground and primitive

stabling. The rooms numbered nine, exclusive of kitchen; small, but not

diminutive. The people were very friendly (Harvey wrote), and gave him

all aid in investigating the place, with a view to repairs and so on;

by remaining for a few days he would be able to consult with a builder,

so as to have necessary work set in train as soon as the present

occupants were gone.

Alma's engagement had been kept strictly secret. When Harvey returned

after a week of activity, he found her still reluctant to fix a day, or

even the month, for their wedding. He did not plead, but wrote her a

little letter, saying that the house could be ready by--at all

events--the second week in December; that he would then consult with

her about furniture, and would go down to superintend the final putting

in order. 'After that, it rests with you to say when you will enter

into possession. I promise not to speak of it again until, on coming

into the room, I see your atlas lying open on the table; that shall be

a sign unto me.'

On his return to London he received a note from Mrs. Frothingham,

requesting him to be at home at a certain hour, as she wished to call

and speak privately with him. This gave him an uneasy night; he

imagined all manner of vexatious or distracting possibilities; but Mrs

Frothingham brought no ill news.

'Don't be frightened,' she began, reading his anxious face. 'All's

well, and I am quite sure Alma will soon have something to say to you.

I have come on a matter of business--strictly business.'

Harvey felt a new kind of uneasiness.

'Let me speak in a plain way about plain things,' pursued the widow,

with that shadow on her face which always indicated that she was

thinking of the mournful past. 'I know that neither Alma nor you would

hear of her accepting money from me; I know I mustn't speak of it. All

the better that you have no need of money. But now that you are my

relative--will be so very soon--I want to tell you how my affairs

stand. Will you let me? Please do!'

Impossible to refuse a hearing to the good little woman, who delighted

in confidential gossip, and for a long time had been anxious to pour

these details into Harvey's ear. So she unfolded everything. Her

capital at Bennet Frothingham's death amounted to more than sixteen

thousand pounds, excellently invested--no 'Britannia' stocks or shares!

Of this, during the past six months, she had given away nearly six

thousand to sufferers by the great catastrophe. Her adviser and

administrator in this affair was an old friend of her husband's, a City

man of honourable repute. He had taken great trouble to discover worthy

recipients of her bounty, and as yet had kept the source of it unknown.

'I mustn't give very much more,' she said, looking at Harvey with a

pathetic deprecation of criticism. 'I want to keep an income of three

hundred pounds. I could live on less, much less; but I should like

still to have it in my power to do a little good now and then, and I

want to be able to leave something to my sister, or her children. The

truth is, Mr. Rolfe--no, I will call you Harvey, once for all--the

truth is, I couldn't live now without giving a little help here and

there to people poorer than myself. Don't think it foolish.' Her voice

quivered. 'I feel that it will be done in the name of my poor husband

as if he himself were doing it, and making amends for a wrong he never,

never intended. If I had given up everything--as some people say I

ought to have done--it wouldn't have seemed the same to me. I couldn't

earn my own living, and what right had I to become a burden to my

relatives? I hope I haven't done very wrong. Of course, I shall give up

the flat as soon as Alma is married. In taking it I really thought more

of her than of my own comfort. I shall live with my sister, and come up

to town just now and then, when it is necessary.'

The listener was touched, and could only nod grave approval.

'There's another thing. Alma thinks with me in everything--but she says

I ought to let it be known who has given that money. She says it would

make many people less bitter against her father's memory. Now, what is

your opinion? If she is right in that----'

Harvey would offer no counsel, and Mrs. Frothingham did not press him.

She must think about it. The disclosure, if wise, could be made at any

time.

'That's all I had to say, Harvey. Now tell me about the house, and then

go arid see Alma. I have business in the City.'

He went, but only to be disappointed; Alma was not at home. To make

amends, she sent him a note that evening, asking him to call at twelve

the next day, and to stay to luncheon. When he entered the room, the

first object his eye fell upon was the old school atlas, lying open on

the table at the map of England and Wales.

And the day appointed was the twentieth of December.

The wedding was to be the simplest conceivable. No costume, no

bridesmaid or hulking groomsman, no invitations; no announcement to

anyone until the day had passed, save only to Dora Leach, who would be

summoned as if for some ordinary occasion of friendship, and then be

carried off to the church.

'It will insure my smiling all through the ordeal,' said Alma to her

step-mother; 'Dora's face will be such a study!'

'My dear,' began Mrs. Frothingham very earnestly, 'you are _quite_

sure----'

'More than sure, if that's possible. And Harvey throws up his hat at

being let off so easily. He dreaded the ceremony.'

Which was very true, though Rolfe had not divulged it.

His personal possessions were now to be made ready for removal. The

books represented nearly all that he could carry away from his old

rooms, but they were a solid addendum to the garnishing of home. For a

moment he thought of selling a few score of volumes. Would he ever

really want those monumental tomes--the six folios of Muratori, for

instance, which he liked to possess, but had never used? Thereby hung

the great, the unanswerable question: How was he going to spend his

life as a married man? Was it probable that he would become a serious

student, or even that he would study as much as heretofore? No

foreseeing; the future must shape itself, even as the past had done.

After all, why dismember his library for the sake of saving a few

shillings on carriage? If he did not use the books himself----

A thought flashed through him which made his brain, unsteady. If he did

not use the books himself, perhaps----

He tried to laugh, but for five minutes was remarkably sober. No, no;

of course he would keep his library intact.

And now there was a duty to perform: he must write to his friends, make

known his marriage; the letters to be posted only on the day of fate.

Dear old Basil Morton--how he would stare! Morton should soon come down

into Wales, and there would be great quaffing and smoking and talking

into the small hours; a jolly anticipation! And Hugh Carnaby! Hugh

would throw up his great arms, clench his huge red fists, and roar with

mocking laughter. Good old boy! out there on the other side of the

world, perhaps throwing away his money, with the deft help of a

swindler. And the poor lad, Cecil Morphew! who assuredly would never

pay back that fifty pounds--to which he was heartily welcome. Morphew

had kept his promise to quit the garret in Chelsea, but what was since

become of him Harvey knew not; the project of their going together into

Wales had, of course, fallen through.

Lastly, Mary Abbott--for so had Harvey come to name his friend's widow.

Mary Abbott! how would she receive this news? It would come upon her as

the strangest surprise; not the mere fact of his marrying, but that he

had chosen for a wife, out of the whole world, the daughter of Bennet

Frothingham. Would she be able to think kindly of him after this? Of

Mrs. Frothingham she could speak generously, seeming to have outlived

natural bitterness; but the name must always be unwelcome to her ears.

Alma would cease to bear that name, and perhaps, in days to come, Mary

Abbott might forget it. He could only hope so, and that the two women

might come together. On Alma's side, surely, no reluctance need be

feared; and Mary, after her ordeal, was giving proof of sense and

character which inspired a large trust. He would write to her in the

most open-hearted way; indeed, no other tone was possible, having

regard to the relations that had grown up between them.

How the aspect of his little world was changing! A year ago, what

things more improbable than that he should win Alma Frothingham for a

wife, and become the cordial friend of Mary Abbott?

When the revelation could be postponed no longer, he made known to Mrs

Handover that he was about to be married. It cost him an extraordinary

effort, for in a double sense he was shamed before the woman. Mrs

Handover, by virtue of her sex, instinctively triumphed over him. He

saw in her foolish eyes the eternal feminine victory; his head was

bowed before her slatternly womanhood. Then again, he shrank from

announcing to the poor creature that she could no longer draw upon him

for her livelihood.

'I'm very sorry, Mr. Rolfe,' she began, in her most despondent voice.

'That is, of course, I'm very glad you're going to be married, and I'm

sure I wish you every happiness--I do indeed. But we are sorry to lose

you--indeed we are.'

Of her sincerity herein there could be no sort of doubt. Harvey

coughed, and looked at the window--which had not been cleaned for some

months.

'May I ask, without rudeness, whether it is the young lady who came----'

'Yes, Mrs. Handover.'

He was uncommonly glad that Alma's name had never been spoken. There,

indeed, would have been matter for gossip.

'A very handsome young lady, Mr. Rolfe, and I'm sure I wish her all

happiness, as well as yourself.' She fidgeted. 'Of course, I don't know

what your plans may be, sir, but--perhaps there's no harm if I mention

it--if ever you should be in need of a housekeeper--you've known me a

long time, sir----'

'Yes--yes--certainly.' Harvey perspired. 'Of course, I should bear you

in mind.'

Thereupon he had to listen whilst Mrs. Handover discoursed at large

upon her dubious prospects. At the close of the Interview, he gave her

a cheque for ten pounds, concealed in an envelope. 'A little

present--of course, I shall be hearing of you--every good wish----'

On the eve of his marriage day he stood in the dismantled rooms, at

once joyful and heavy at heart. His books were hidden in a score of

packing-cases, labelled, ready to be sent away. In spite of open

windows, the air was still charged with dust; since the packing began,

everyone concerned in it had choked and coughed incessantly; on the

bare floor, footsteps were impressed in a thick flocky deposit. These

rooms could have vied with any in London for supremacy of filthiness.

Yet here he had known hours of still contentment; here he had sat with

friends congenial, and heard the walls echo their hearty laughter; here

he had felt at home--here his youth had died.

Where all else was doubtful, speculative, contingent, that one thing he

certainly knew; he was no longer a young man. The years had passed like

a shadow, unnoted, uncounted, and had brought him to this point of

pause, of change momentous, when he must needs look before and after.

In all likelihood much more than half his life was gone. His mother did

not see her thirtieth year; his father died at little over forty; his

grandparents were not long-lived; what chance had he of walking the

earth for more than half the term already behind him? Did the life of

every man speed by so mockingly? Yesterday a school-boy;

tomorrow--'Rolfe? you don't say so? Poor old fellow!'

And he was going to be married. Incredible, laughter-moving, but a

fact. No more the result of deliberate purpose than any other change

that had come about in his life, than the flight of years and the

vanishment of youth. Fate so willed it, and here he stood.

Someone climbed the stairs, breaking upon his reverie. It was Buncombe,

who smiled through a settled gloom.

'All done? I shan't be much longer here myself. House too big for me.'

'Ah! it is rather large.'

'I'm thinking of changes.--You know something about my

affairs.--Yes--changes----'

Rolfe had never seen the man so dismal before; he tried to inspirit

him, but with small result.

'It's the kids that bother me,' said Buncombe. Then he dropped his

voice, and brought his head nearer.

'You're going to get married.' His eyes glinted darkly. 'I'm--going to

get divorced.'

And with a grim nod the man moved away.

Part the Second

CHAPTER 1

A morning of April, more than two years after his marriage, found

Harvey Rolfe in good health and very tolerable spirits. As his wont

was, he came down at half-past eight, and strolled in the open air

before breakfast. There had been rain through the night; a grey mist

still clung about the topmost larches of Cam Bodvean, and the Eifel

summits were densely wrapped. But the sun and breeze of spring promised

to have their way; to drive and melt the clouds, to toss white wavelets

on a blue sea, to make the gorse shine in its glory, and all the hills

be glad.

A gardener was at work in front of the house; Harvey talked with him

about certain flowers he wished to grow this year. In the small

stable-yard a lad was burnishing harness; for him also the master had a

friendly word, before passing on to look at the little mare amid her

clean straw. In his rough suit of tweed and shapeless garden hat, with

brown face and cheery eye, Rolfe moved hither and thither as though

native to such a life. His figure had filled out; he was more robust,

and looked, indeed, younger than on the day when he bade farewell to

Mrs. Handover and her abominations.

At nine o'clock he entered the dining-room, where breakfast was ready,

though as yet no other person had come to table. The sun would not

touch this window for several hours yet, but a crackling fire made the

air pleasant, and brightened all within. Seats were placed for three.

An aroma of coffee invited to the meal, which was characterised by no

suggestion of asceticism. Nor did the equipment of the room differ

greatly from what is usual in middle-class houses. The clock on the

mantelpiece was flanked with bronzes; engravings and autotypes hung

about the walls; door and window had their appropriate curtaining; the

oak sideboard shone with requisite silver. Everything unpretentious;

but no essential of comfort, as commonly understood, seemed to be

lacking.

In a minute or two appeared Mrs. Frothingham; alert, lightsome, much

improved in health since the first year of her widowhood. She had been

visiting here for a fortnight, and tomorrow would return to her home in

the south. Movement, variety, intimate gossip, supported her under the

affliction which still seemed to be working for her moral good. Her

bounty (or restitution) had long ago ceased to be anonymous, but she

did not unduly pride herself upon the sacrifice of wealth; she was glad

to have it known among her acquaintances, because, in certain quarters,

the fact released her from constraint, and restored her to friendly

intercourse. For her needs and her pleasures a very modest income

proved quite sufficient. To all appearances, she found genuine and

unfailing satisfaction in the exercise of benevolent sympathies.

'Alma will not come down,' was her remark, as she entered. 'A little

headache--nothing. We are to send her some tea and dry toast.'

'I thought she didn't seem quite herself last night,' said Harvey, as

he cut into a ham.

Mrs. Frothingham made no remark, but smiled discreetly, taking a place

at the head of the table.

'We shall have to go somewhere,' Harvey continued. 'It has been a long

winter. She begins to feel dull, I'm afraid.'

'A little, perhaps. But she's quite well--it's nothing----'

'Why won't she go on with her water-colours? She was beginning to do

really good things--then all at once gives it up.'

'Oh, she must! I think those last sketches simply wonderful. Anyone

would suppose she had worked at it all her life, instead of just a few

months. How very clever she is!'

'Alma can do anything,' said Harvey, with genial conviction.

'Almost anything, I really think. Now _don't_ let her lose interest in

it, as she did in her music. You have only to show that you think her

drawings good, and speak about them. She depends rather upon

encouragement.'

'I know. But it wasn't for lack of _my_ encouragement that she dropped

her violin.'

'So unfortunate! Oh, she'll come back to it, I'm sure.'

When Mrs. Frothingham paid her first visit to the newly-married couple,

it amused her to find a state of things differing considerably from her

anxious expectations. True, they had only one servant within doors, the

woman named Ruth, but she did not represent the whole establishment.

Having bought a horse and trap, and not feeling called upon to act as

groom, Harvey had engaged a man, who was serviceable in various

capacities; moreover, a lad made himself useful about the premises

during the day. Ruth was a tolerable cook, and not amiss as a

housemaid. Then, the furnishing of the house, though undeniably

'simple', left little to be desired; only such things were eschewed as

serve no rational purpose and are mostly in people's way. Alma, as

could at once be perceived, ran no risk of overexerting herself in

domestic duties; she moved about of mornings with feather-brush, and

occasionally plied an unskilful needle, but kitchenward she never

turned her steps. Imprudently, Mrs. Frothingham remarked that this

life, after all, much resembled that of other people; whereat Alma

betrayed a serious annoyance, and the well-meaning lady had to

apologise, to admit the absence of 'luxuries', the homeliness of their

diet, the unmistakable atmosphere of plain living and high thinking.

She remained for nearly a month, greatly enjoying herself. Late in

autumn, Alma begged her to come again, and this time the visit lasted

longer; for in the first week of December the house received a new

inhabitant, whose arrival made much commotion. Alma did not give birth

to her son without grave peril. Day after day Harvey strode about the

wintry shore under a cloud of dread. However it had been with him a

year ago, he was now drawn to Alma by something other than the lures of

passion; the manifold faults he had discerned in her did not seriously

conflict with her peculiar and many-sided charm; and the birth of her

child inspired him with a new tenderness, an emotion different in kind

from any that he had yet conceived. That first wail of feeblest

humanity, faint-sounding through the silent night, made a revolution in

his thoughts, taught him on the moment more than he had learnt from all

his reading and cogitation.

It seemed to be taken as a matter of course that Alma would not nurse

the baby; only to Harvey did this appear a subject for regret, and he

never ventured to speak of it. The little mortal was not vigorous; his

nourishment gave a great deal of trouble; but with the coming of spring

he took a firmer hold on life, and less persistently bewailed his lot.

The names given to him were Hugh Basil. When apprised of this, the

strong man out in Australia wrote a heart-warming letter, and sent with

it a little lump of Queensland gold, to be made into something, or kept

intact, as the parents saw fit. Basil Morton followed the old

tradition, and gave a silver tankard with name and date of the new

world-citizen engraved upon it.

Upon her recovery, Harvey took his wife to Madeira, where they spent

three weeks. Alma's health needed nothing more than this voyage; she

returned full of vitality. During her absence Mrs. Frothingham

superintended the household, the baby being in charge of a competent

nurse. It occurred to Harvey that this separation from her child was

borne by Alma with singular philosophy; it did not affect in the least

her enjoyment of travel. But she reached home again in joyous

excitement, and for a few days kept the baby much in view. Mrs

Frothingham having departed, new visitors succeeded each other: Dora

and Gerda Leach, Basil Morton and his wife, one or two of Alma's

relatives. Little Hugh saw less and less of his mother, but he

continued to thrive; and Harvey understood by now that Alma must not be

expected to take much interest in the domestic side of things. It

simply was not her forte.

She had ceased to play upon her violin, save for the entertainment and

admiration of friends. After her return from Madeira she made the

acquaintance of a lady skilled in water-colour drawing, and herewith

began a new enthusiasm. Her progress was remarkable, and corresponded

to an energy not less than that she had long ago put forth in music. In

the pursuit of landscape she defied weather and fatigue; she would pass

half the night abroad, studying moonlight, or rise at an unheard-of

hour to catch the hues of dawn. When this ardour began to fail, her

husband was vexed rather than surprised. He knew Alma's characteristic

weakness, and did not like to be so strongly reminded of it. For about

this time he was reading and musing much on questions of heredity.

In a moment of confidence he had ventured to ask Mrs. Frothingham

whether she could tell him anything of Alma's mother. The question,

though often in his mind, could hardly have passed his lips, had not

Mrs. Frothingham led up to it by speaking of her own life before she

married: how she had enjoyed the cares of country housekeeping; how

little she had dreamt of ever being rich; how Bennet Frothingham, who

had known her in his early life, sought her out when he began to be

prosperous, therein showing the fine qualities of his nature, for she

had nothing in the world but gentle birth and a lady's education. Alma

was then a young girl of thirteen, and had been motherless for eight

years. Thus came Harvey's opportunity. Alma herself had already

imparted to him all she knew: that her mother was born in England,

emigrated early with her parents to Australia, returned to London as a

young woman, married, and died at twenty-seven. To this story Mrs.

Frothingham could add little, but the supplement proved interesting.

Bennet Frothingham spoke of his first marriage as a piece of folly; it

resulted in unhappiness, yet, the widow was assured, with no glaring

fault on either side. Alma's mother was handsome, and had some natural

gifts, especially a good voice, which she tried to use in public, but

without success. Her education scarcely went beyond reading and

writing. She died suddenly, after an evening at the theatre, where, as

usual, she had excited herself beyond measure. Mrs. Frothingham had seen

an old report of the inquest that was held, the cause of death being

given as cerebral haemorrhage. In these details Harvey Rolfe found new

matter for reflection.

Their conversation at breakfast this morning was interrupted by the

arrival of letters; two of them particularly welcome, for they bore a

colonial postmark. Hugh Carnaby wrote to his friend from an

out-of-the-way place in Tasmania; Sibyl wrote independently to Alma

from Hobart.

'Just as I expected,' said Harvey, when he had glanced over a few

lines. 'He talks of coming home:--"There seems no help for it. Sibyl is

much better in health since we left Queens land, but I see she would

never settle out here. She got to detest the people at Brisbane, and

doesn't like those at Hobart much better. I have left her there whilst

I'm doing a little roaming with a very decent fellow I have come

across, Mackintosh by name. He has been everywhere and done

everything--not long ago was in the service of the Indo-European

Telegraph Company at Tehran, and afterwards lived (this will interest

you) at Badgered, where he got a _date-boil_, which marks his face and

testifies to his veracity. He has been trying to start a timber

business here; says some of the hard woods would be just the thing for

street paving. But now his father's death is taking him back home, and

I shouldn't wonder if we travel together. One of his ideas is a bicycle

factory; he seems to know all about it, and says it'll be the most

money-making business in England for years to come. What do you think?

Does this offer a chance for _me_?"'

Harvey interrupted himself with a laugh. Smelting of abandoned gold

ores, by the method of the ingenious Dando, had absorbed some of Hugh's

capital, with very little result, and his other schemes for

money-making were numerous.

'"The fact is, I must get money somehow. Living has been expensive ever

since we left England, and it's madness to go on till one's resources

have practically run out. And Sibyl _must_ get home again; she's

wasting her life among these people. How does she write to your wife? I

rather wish I could spy at the letters. (Of course, I don't seriously

mean that.) She bears it very well, and, if possible, I have a higher

opinion of her than ever."'

Again Harvey laughed.

'Good old chap! What a pity he can't be cracking crowns somewhere!'

'Oh! I'm sure I'd rather see him making bicycles.'

''Tisn't his vocation. He ought to go somewhere and get up a little war

of his own--as he once told me he should like to. We can't do without

the fighting man.'

'Will you bring Hughie up to it, then?'

Harvey fixed his eyes on a point far off.

'I fear he won't have the bone and muscle. But I should like him to

have the pluck. I'm afraid he mayn't, for I'm a vile coward myself.'

'I should like a child never to hear or know of war,' said Mrs

Frothingham fervently.

'And so should I,' Harvey answered, in a graver tone.

When Mrs. Frothingham went upstairs with the letter for Alma, he broke

open another envelope. It was from Mary Abbott, who wrote to him twice

a year, when she acknowledged the receipt of his cheque. She sent the

usual careful report concerning Wager's children--the girl now seven

years old, and the boy nine. Albert Wager, she thought, was getting too

old for her; he ought to go to a boys' school. Neither he nor his

sister had as yet repaid the care given to them; never were children

more difficult to manage. Harvey read this between the lines; for Mary

Abbott never complained of the task she had undertaken. He rose and

left the room with a face of anxious thoughtfulness.

The day was wont to pass in a pretty regular routine. From half-past

nine to half-past one Harvey sat alone in his study, not always

energetically studious, but on the whole making progress in his chosen

field of knowledge. He bought books freely, and still used the London

Library. Of late he had been occupying himself with the authorities on

education; working, often impatiently, through many a long-winded

volume. He would have liked to talk on this subject with Mary Abbott,

but had not yet found courage to speak of her paying them a visit. The

situation, difficult because of Alma's parentage, was made more awkward

by his reticence with Alma regarding the payment he made for those

luckless children. The longer he kept silence, the less easily could he

acquaint his wife with this matter--in itself so perfectly harmless.

This morning he felt indisposed for study, and cared just as little to

go out, notwithstanding the magnificent sky. From his windows he looked

upon the larch-clad slopes of Cam Bodvean; their beauty only reminded

him of grander and lovelier scenes in far-off countries. From time to

time the wanderer thus awoke in him, and threw scorn upon the

pedantries of a book-lined room. He had, moreover, his hours of regret

for vanished conviviality; he wished to step out into a London street,

collect his boon-companions, and hold revel in the bygone way. These,

however, were still but fugitive moods. All in all, he regretted

nothing. Destiny seemed to have marked him for a bookish man; he grew

more methodical, more persistent, in his historical reading; this,

doubtless, was the appointed course for his latter years. It led to

nothing definite. His life would be fruitless----

Fruitless? There sounded from somewhere in the house a shrill little

cry, arresting his thought, and controverting it without a syllable.

Nay, fruitless his life could not be, if his child grew up. Only the

chosen few, the infinitesimal minority of mankind, leave spiritual

offspring, or set their single mark upon the earth; the multitude are

but parents of a new generation, live but to perpetuate the race. It is

the will of nature, the common lot. And if indeed it lay within his

power to shape a path for this new life, which he, nature's slave, had

called out of nothingness,--to obviate one error, to avert one

misery,--to ensure that, in however slight degree, his son's existence

should be better and happier than his own,--was not this a sufficing

purpose for the years that remained to him, a recompense adequate to

any effort, any sacrifice?

As he sat thus in reverie, the door softly opened, and Alma looked in

upon him.

'Do I interrupt you?'

'I'm idling. How is your headache?'

She answered with a careless gesture, and came forward, a letter in her

hand.

'Sibyl says she will certainly be starting for home in a few weeks.

Perhaps they're on the way by now. You have the same news, I hear.'

'Yes. They must come to us straight away,' replied Harvey, knocking the

ash out of his pipe 'Or suppose we go to meet them? If they come by the

Orient Line, they call at Naples. How would it be to go overland, and

make the voyage back with them?'

Alma seemed to like the suggestion, and smiled, but only for a moment.

She had little colour this morning, and looked cold, as she drew up to

the fire, holding a white woollen wrap about her shoulders. A slow and

subtle modification of her features was tending to a mature beauty

which would make bolder claim than the charm that had characterised her

in maidenhood. It was still remote from beauty of a sensual type, but

the outlines, in becoming a little more rounded, more regular, gained

in common estimate what they lost to a more refined apprehension. Her

eyes appeared more deliberately conscious of their depth and gleam; her

lips, less responsive to the flying thought, grew to an habitual

expression--not of discontent, but something akin unto it; not of

self-will, but something that spoke a spirit neither tranquil nor

pliant.

'Had you anything else?' she asked, absently.

'A letter from Mrs. Abbott.'

Alma smiled, with a shade of pleasantry not usual upon her countenance.

Harvey generally read her extracts from these letters. Their allusion

to money imposed the reserve; otherwise they would have passed into

Alma's hands. From his masculine point of view, Harvey thought the

matter indifferent; nothing in his wife's behaviour hitherto had led

him to suppose that she attached importance to it.

'The usual report of progress?'

'Yes. I fancy those two children are giving her a good deal of trouble.

She'll have to send the boy to a boarding school.'

'But can she afford it?'

'I don't know.'

'I've never understood yet why you take so much interest in those

children.'

Her eyes rested upon him with a peculiarly keen scrutiny, and Harvey,

resenting the embarrassment due to his own tactics, showed a slight

impatience.

'Why, partly because I wish to help Mrs. Abbott with advice, if I can:

partly because I'm interested in the whole question of education.'

'Yes, it's interesting, of course. She has holidays, I suppose?'

'It's holiday time with her now.'

'Then why don't you ask her to come and see us?'

'I would at once,' Harvey replied, with hesitation, 'if I felt sure

that----' He broke off, and altered the turn of his sentence. 'I don't

know whether she can leave those children.'

'You were going to make a different objection. Of course there's a

little awkwardness. But you said long ago that all that sort of thing

would wear away, and surely it ought to have done by now. If Mrs.

Abbott is as sensible as you think, I don't see how she can have any

unpleasant feeling towards me.'

'I can't suppose that she has.'

'Then now is the opportunity. Send an invitation.--Why shouldn't I

write it myself?'

Alma had quite shaken off the appearance of lassitude; she drew herself

up, looked towards the writing-table, and showed characteristic

eagerness to carry out a project. Though doubtful of the result, Harvey

assented without any sign of reluctance, and forthwith she moved to the

desk. In a few minutes she had penned a letter, which was held out for

her husband's perusal.

'Admirable!' he exclaimed. 'Couldn't be better. _Nihil quod tetigit non

ornavit_.'

'And pray what does that mean?' asked Alma, her countenance a trifle

perturbed by the emotions which blended with her delight in praise.

'That my wife is the most graceful of women, and imparts to all she

touches something of her own charm.'

'All that?'

'Latin, you must know, is the language of compression.'

They parted with a laugh. As she left the study, Alma saw her little

son just going out; the nurse had placed him in his mail-cart, where he

sat smiling and cooing. Mrs. Frothingham, who delighted in the child,

had made ready for a walk in the same direction, and from the doorway

called to Alma to accompany them.

'I may come after you, perhaps,' was the reply. 'Ta-ta, Hughie!'

With a wave of her hand, Alma passed into the sitting-room, where she

stood at the window, watching till Mrs. Frothingham's sunshade had

disappeared. Then she moved about, like one in search of occupation;

taking up a book only to throw it down again, gazing vacantly at a

picture, or giving a touch to a bowl of flowers. Here, as in the

dining-room, only the absence of conventional superfluities called for

remark; each article of furniture was in simple taste; the result, an

impression of plain elegance. On a little corner table lay Alma's

colour-box, together with a drawing-board, a sketching-block, and the

portfolio which contained chosen examples of her work. Not far away,

locked in its case, lay her violin, the instrument she had been wont to

touch caressingly; today her eyes shunned it.

She went out again into the little hall. The front door stood open;

sunshine flooded the garden; but Alma was not tempted to go forth. All

the walks and drives of the neighbourhood had become drearily familiar;

the meanest of London streets shone by contrast as a paradise in her

imagination. With a deep sigh of ennui, she turned and slowly ascended

the stairs.

Above were six rooms; three of them the principal chambers (her own,

Harvey's, and the guest-room), then the day-nursery, the night nursery,

and the servant's bedroom. On her first coming, she had thought the

house needlessly spacious; now it often seemed to her oppressively

small, there being but one spare room for visitors. She entered her own

room. It could not be called disorderly, yet it lacked that scrupulous

perfection of arrangement, that dainty finish, which makes an

atmosphere for the privacy of a certain type of woman. Ruth had done

her part, preserving purity unimpeachable; the deficiency was due to

Alma alone. To be sure, she had neither dressing-room nor lady's-maid;

and something in Alma's constitution made it difficult for her to

dispense with such aids to the complete life.

She stood before the mirror, and looked at herself, blankly, gloomily.

Her eyes fell a little, and took a new expression, that of anxious

scrutiny. Gazing still, she raised her arms, much as though she were

standing to be measured by a dressmaker; then she turned, so as to

obtain a view of her figure sideways. Her arms fell again,

apathetically, and she moved away.

Somehow, the long morning passed. In the afternoon she drove with

Harvey and Mrs. Frothingham, conversing much as usual, giving no verbal

hint of her overwhelming ennui. No reference was made to Mrs. Abbott.

Harvey had himself written her a letter, supporting Alma's invitation

with all possible cordiality; but he gravely feared that she would not

come.

At tea, according to custom, little Hugh was brought into the room, to

be fondled by his mother, who liked to see him when he was prettily

dressed, and to sit upon his father's knee. Hugh, aged sixteen months,

began to have a vocabulary of his own, and to claim a share in

conversation; he had a large head, well formed, and slight but shapely

limbs; the sweet air of sea and mountain gave a healthful, though very

delicate, colouring to his cheeks; his eyes were Alma's, dark and

gleaming, but with promise of a keener intelligence. Harvey liked to

gaze long at the little face, puzzled by its frequent gravity,

delighted by its flashes of mirth. Syllables of baby-talk set him

musing and philosophising. How fresh and young, yet how wondrously old!

Babble such as this fell from a child's lips thousands of years ago, in

the morning of the world; it sounded on through the ages, infinitely

reproduced; eternally a new beginning; the same music of earliest human

speech, the same ripple of innocent laughter, renewed from generation

to generation. But he, listening, had not the merry, fearless pride of

fathers in an earlier day. Upon him lay the burden of all time; he must

needs ponder anxiously on his child's heritage, use his weary knowledge

to cast the horoscope of this dawning life.

'Why are you looking at him in that way?' exclaimed Alma. 'You'll

frighten him.'

'How did I look?'

'As if you saw something dreadful.'

Harvey laughed, and ran his fingers through the soft curls, and bade

himself be of good heart. Had he not thrown scorn upon people who make

a 'fuss' about their children. Had he not despised and detested chatter

about babies? To his old self what a simpleton would he have seemed!

On the morrow Mrs. Frothingham took her departure; leaving it, as

usual, uncertain when she would come again, but pleasantly assured that

it could not be very long. She thought Harvey the best of husbands; he

and Alma, the happiest of married folk. In secret, no doubt, she sadly

envied them. If her own lot had fallen in such tranquil places!

Two more days, and Alma received a reply to her invitation. Yes, Mrs

Abbott would come, and be with them for a week; longer she could not.

Her letter was amiable and well-worded as Alma's own. Harvey felt a

great relief, and it pleased him not a little to see his wife's

unfeigned satisfaction. This was Monday; the visitor promised to arrive

on Tuesday evening.

'Of course you'll drive over with me to meet her,' said Harvey.

'I think not. I dislike making acquaintance at railway stations. If it

should rain, you'll have to have a covered carriage, and imagine us

three shut up together!'

Alma laughed gaily at the idea. Harvey, though at a loss to interpret

her merriment, answered it with a smile, and said no more. Happily, the

weather was settled; the sun shone gallantly each morning; and on

Tuesday afternoon Harvey drove the seven miles, up hill and down,

between hedges of gorse and woods of larch, to the little market-town

where Mary Abbott would alight after her long journey.