After lunch the two in the picture gallery passed a perfectly delightful
half-hour. Mr. Strobridge had sagacity enough to know that he must stick
loyally to art, and indeed after the first few minutes he found he was
carried away himself, his listener was so interested, and gave such
intelligent response. He almost began to believe that she had really
come there to learn something; and not to flirt with himself! Her taste
also surprised him, and her want of all pose.
She wrote systematically the reflections he made as to the condition of
the canvases.
"It is a great thing to learn how to look at pictures," she said when
they halted before a particularly primitive Madonna. "Of course I could
not have seen anything to admire in this if I had come by myself, and I
do not suppose that I shall ever be able really to appreciate it--except
the colour--because there is something in me which likes the real so
much better than the ideal; I like prose far more than poetry, for
instance."
"Will you let me come up again to the schoolroom and read to you some
day?"
"I should like that very much."
"I would try to make you love poetry; you are endeavouring to convince
me that you are a very material young woman, you know!"
"Well, I suppose I am material. I like facts and solid things."
"And yet you spoke of dreamland once not so very long ago--do you
remember!"
"Yes--but you do not know that this dreamland of mine may not be a place
where wished-for facts and solid things appear realities, not fancies."
"You would not tell me if I asked you; I recollect how you eluded me
before, and said it was a place which only admitted yourself."
"Even materialists must have some corner where they can be alone."
Then he questioned her.--How had she learned all that she knew?--And his
interest did not diminish when she gave him a brief outline of the
manner of her education.
"It was very difficult sometimes, because I never had anyone with whom
to talk, and one grows one-sided _if_ one has only oneself to argue
with, and I don't really know how to pronounce numbers of words. I
should be grateful if you would tell me every time I make a mistake."
"It is quite evident that we must ratify this compact that I shall be
your tutor, though I am to get no wages--even love!"
"Who would be supposed to give the love?"
Her strange eyes glanced at him provokingly for a second, and then
resumed their steady look. He was quite uncertain as to whether in this
there lay a challenge.--He proceeded to act as if there did.
"When I come up to give my first lesson I will tell you all about the
giving--and taking--of love."
"That would be of no advantage to either of us. Love is a thing which
can cause only pain."
"You are quite mistaken--it is the only divine joy in this
unsatisfactory world."
Her face changed; she felt this was cruelly true--and she did not wish
to be reminded of the fact.
"You shall only come to the schoolroom if you talk sense. I will not
listen to a word of speculation about love; it is pure waste of
time--but in any case I do not see how you can come there at all. I
would not receive you without Her Ladyship's permission--it was very
kind of her to let me have this afternoon."
"What a circumspect darling!"
Miss Bush looked at him with scorn.
"I am not a darlings--I am a lower middle class young woman, trying to
learn how to be a lady, and whatever you think, if you want to be with
me, you will have to treat me as if I had arrived at my goal already."
"I think you have, but the greatest ladies are often darlings."
"Yes, but married men do not tell them so, on very short acquaintance,
Mr. Strobridge."
In his case he felt this was rather true, since he never spoke to girls
at all if he could help it. He suddenly wondered in what light he really
did consider her?--As an abstract and quite adorably provoking woman, he
supposed.
"Is there anything else to be written down?" she asked. She had become
the conventional secretary. "Because if not, I must go back to my work."
"My aunt gave me full permission to keep you for two hours. I told her
all we had to do would take quite that time."
"Well, you see it has not--we have come to the end of the gallery."
"Then there is a very comfortable sofa not too far from the fire, where
we could sit down and discuss what we have learned."
They walked to it. As long as he was being of some use to her Katherine
Bush desired his company. So they talked uninterruptedly until dusk
fell, and the footmen would soon be coming to close shutters and draw
curtains.
They flitted from subject to subject, Gerard Strobridge exerting his
brain to interest and amuse her, in a way that he had seldom done
with Englishwomen, even of his own class. Her receptive power was
exceptional, and she was completely frank. She was honestly and deeply
interested in all he had to say, and the subtle flattery of this was
eminently soothing. He began to take pride in his pupil. They touched
upon the spirit of the Renaissance and its origin--and upon all the
glorious flood of light which it brought to art and learning. He was
astonished to find her so advanced in certain branches of literature,
and absolutely ignorant of the names even of others--showing that it had
merely been chance and no helping hand which had guided her.
"I must send you some books upon the Renaissance," he said, "if you will
let me."
"That will be very kind--If I had had some master to give me an idea
what to read, as a kind of basis to go upon, it would have been much
better, but I had no guide--only if I saw one subject that I did not
know about mentioned in what I was reading, I looked it up, but of
course with really educated people there must be some plan."
"Well, shall we begin upon the Renaissance; that is rather a favourite
period of mine?"
"Yes--do you not wonder if we shall ever have another?--What a lot of
good it would do us, would it not?"
"Probably--some learned professors think that we must go through a
second series of dark ages first; when we shall get back to primitive
ideas--and primitive passions."
"It may be,--nearly everything natural is distorted now; the world seems
so tired to me, just looking on."
He stretched himself and threw out his arms--as it were to break some
imaginary bonds.
"Yes--we have been coerced into false morals and manners--and we have
suppressed most things which make life worth having--sometimes I envy
the beasts."
"I never do that--it is only weaklings who are coerced; the strong do
what they please, even in these days--but however strong a beast may be,
he always finds, as Jack London shows with his wonderful _Buck_ in 'The
Call of the Wild,' that there is invariably 'the man with the club.'"
"You mean to conquer fate, then?"
"I shall do my very best to obtain my desires, and of course shall have
to pay for all my mistakes."
He looked at her curiously--had she made any mistakes? Not many, he
thought, her regard was so serene, and her clever, strong face showed no
vacillation. He suddenly faced the fact that he was falling in love with
her, not as he had tried to do with Läo--not even as he had once
succeeded in doing with Alice Southerwood, long ago. There was a quality
in his present feeling which almost frightened him, it was so lawless.
She felt his eyes searching hers burningly, and rose from the sofa.
"Now I am going to have my tea--so good-bye for to-day. I have really
enjoyed the pictures."
"May not I come and have tea with you? I am all alone."
"Certainly not--Martha would be scandalised. It does seem so
extraordinary that I should have to tell you such things--it shows
either great disrespect to me, or else--"
"What?" eagerly. He had risen, too, and was following her as she walked
down the long room.
"--That you cannot help yourself."
"Yes--that is it. You have bewitched me in some way--I cannot help
myself."
"Do you want all I have taken down typewritten? I can do it after tea,
if so?"
"And you will sit up there all by yourself from now until you go to
bed?"
"Of course."
"You must feel awfully solitary."
"Not in the least. I have books which are the most agreeable companions.
They have no independent moods--you can be sure of them, and pick up
those which suit yourself. Good-night."
And she turned at the bend of the great staircase from which the gallery
opened, and rapidly walked on to the entrance to her passage.
He looked after her with a rapt face, and then he went discontentedly
down into the library, and waited for his aunt's return.
He was extremely disturbed; it was horribly tantalizing to feel that
this girl whom he was so passionately drawn to, was there in the house
with him, and that he might not talk with her further, or be in her
presence.
He walked up and down the room--and those who knew the casual Gerard
Strobridge, cultivated, polished and self-contained, would have been
greatly surprised could they have seen his agitated pacings.
Lady Garribardine had a quizzical eye when she finally came in--how had
the afternoon progressed? Her opinion of the mental balance of her
secretary was exceedingly high. She felt convinced that she would know
exactly how to tackle her nephew, and if Gerard desired to amuse himself
he would certainly do so whether she smiled upon the affair or not!
It did strike her that he was rather a dangerous creature to be left a
free hand with any young woman--and that after to-day she would see that
Katherine ran no more risks from too much of his company.
The pupils of his eyes were rather dilated, she noticed; otherwise he
seemed his usual self at tea--and when Colonel Hawthorne left them
alone, she got him to read to her, and did not mention her secretary at
all.
The afternoon had been most instructive, Katherine thought, as she ate
her muffin, and looked at the papers before the old schoolroom fire. She
had learned a quantity of things. Mr. Strobridge was undoubtedly a
charming man, and she wondered what effect he would have had upon her if
she had never met Algy? As it was he mattered no more than a chair or a
table, he was just part of her game. And he was rapidly approaching the
state when she could obtain complete dominion over him.
"He knows quite well that he is married and that I can never honestly be
anything to him. He is only coming after me because he is attracted and
is not master of his passions or his will. If he is a weakling he must
pay the price--I shall not care! He is not thinking in the least as to
whether or no it will hurt me--he is only thinking of himself, just like
Bob Hartley, only he is a gentleman and therefore does not make any
hypocritical promises to try to lure me."
And then she laughed softly. "Well, whatever comes is on his own head,
I need have no mercy upon him!"
So she calmly finished her tea and wrote to Matilda whose excited letter
with the family news of Gladys' secret marriage she had not yet replied
to. Gladys had written her a little missive also--full of thanks for her
part in the affair. Bob was being rather rude and unkind to her about
it, she said, but it was not altogether his fault, because on Christmas
night he had had rather too much to drink, and had been quarrelsome for
two days since. She was going to keep the expected event from being
known as long as possible, and then she supposed they would go and live
somewhere together. It would be wretched poverty and struggle, and she
was miserable, but at least she felt an "honest woman," and could not be
grateful enough to her sister for bringing this state of things about.
Katherine stared into the fire while she thought over it all. It seemed
to her too astonishing that a woman should prefer a life tied to a man
who was reluctant to keep her--his drudge and the object of his
scorn--to one of her own arranging in America, perhaps--along with the
child, but free. Gladys had sufficient talent in her trade to have
earned good wages anywhere, and must have enough money saved, could she
have got it from Matilda's fond guardian clutches, to have tided over
the time. But weaklings must always suffer and be other people's slaves
and tools. Poor Gladys! Then she fell to thinking of Algy--why was he
haunting her? For the first month the complacent satisfaction from the
conquest of self had upheld her splendidly, but now the pain felt as
keen as on the first day of separation.
_She would crush it._
Except on the path coming out of church she had no words with Mr.
Strobridge on the morrow--and then it was only a few sentences of
ordinary greeting. Lady Garribardine claimed his entire attention. She
did see him from the window, smoking a cigar in the rose garden in the
afternoon, whither he had come from the smoking-room. She deliberately
let him catch sight of her, as she stood there, and she marked the look
of eager joy on his face, and then she moved away and did not appear
again.
So the Monday arrived--the last day of the old year.
Lady Garribardine was having no party for it as was her usual custom;
her rheumatism was rather troublesome, and she stayed in the house all
the day, up in her boudoir, where Katherine was in constant attendance.
Gerard and Colonel Hawthorne were out rabbiting with the keepers in the
park, and only came in to tea.
Katherine found her mistress rather exacting and difficult to please,
and she felt tired and cross--so it gave her some kind of satisfaction
to be as provoking as possible when she was ordered to pour out the tea
for the shooters in the sitting-room. She remained perfectly silent, but
every now and then allowed her magnetic eyes to meet Mr. Strobridge's
with the sphinxlike smile in them.
On his side Gerard had found the hours hell.--He knew he was now madly
in love with this exasperating girl, and that she was exercising the
most powerful attraction upon him.
He gazed at her as she sat there, white and sensuous-looking, her red
lips pouting, and her grey-green eyes full of some unconscious
challenge, and gradually wild excitement grew in his blood.
As soon as her actual duties were over, Katherine said respectfully:
"If Your Ladyship has no more need of me, I must get some letters
finished before the post goes."
And when a nod of assent was given, she quietly left the room.
So Gerard Strobridge knew he would see her no more that night; and there
would be a boring dinner with the parson, and his wife and daughter, to
be got through, and on the morrow he was returning to town!
For the first time in their lives he felt resentful towards his aunt.
That Seraphim should not have been more sympathetic, and have made some
opportunity for him to talk again to Katherine, was quite too bad!
She, who usually understood all his moods and wants! Her silence upon
the subject of her secretary, ever since her return from that drive, was
ominous, now that he thought about it. Evidently he need hope for no
further coöperation from her, and because he was feeling so deeply, he
could not act in the casual and intelligent way to secure his ends which
he would have used on other occasions. So the incredibly wearisome
evening passed. The guests left early, and Lady Garribardine went gladly
to bed, leaving her nephew and Colonel Hawthorne to drink in the New
Year together--the New Year of 1912.
But the old gentleman was fatigued with his day's shooting and when
half-past eleven came he was glad to slink off to his friendly couch.
Thus Gerard was alone.
He lit a cigar and stretched himself in a huge leather armchair, an
untouched drink close at hand.
The house was quite silent. He had told Bronson that he would put out
the lights in the smoking-room when they left. No one was about and not
a breath of wind stirred a tree outside.
He sat there for some minutes--and then his heart began to beat
violently.
Whose was that soft footfall directly overhead? With the departure of
the grandchildren from the old nurseries there was no one left in the
wing but Katherine Bush!
All sorts of visions came to him; she had not yet gone to bed--perhaps
she, too, was waiting for the New Year?
He got up and listened, his pulses bounding so that he seemed to hear
his heart thumping against his side.
There was the sound again!
It was not to be endured. Fierce emotion shook him, and at last all
restraint fell from him, and passion became lord.
Then he extinguished the lights and softly crept up the stairs.