As a rule the psychological moments of life come and go so quietly that
their passing attracts little notice. Quite minor happenings give rise
to demonstrations of excitement, of joy, of loudly voiced approbation or
disappointment. But the moments which really matter in a life, which
mark an epoch or destroy a dream, pass as a rule so quietly that only
those whose dreams are shattered, or whose lives have been touched with
the glory of the immortal, know that for a brief instant Time has become
interchangeable with Eternity; that in the space of sixty fleeting
seconds whole cycles of life have been lived through, and a vast and
yawning gulf, in thought, in feeling, in spiritual growth or mental
outlook, has opened to divide this moment from the one which directly
preceded it.
Such a moment was this one in which the two men who were bound together
by so tragic a link came face to face in Chloe Carstairs' drawing-room.
Each had been quite sincere in his dread of any future meeting; but
whereas Bruce Cheniston had been the victim of as cruel a circumstance
as ever deprived lover of his beloved, Anstice was the more to be
pitied, inasmuch as to his own burden of regret must be added the
knowledge that through his premature action he had given another man the
right to execrate his name so long as they both should live.
For a second Anstice wondered, growing cold whether Cheniston would
refuse to shake hands with him. In his heart he knew quite well, had
always known, that he had not been to blame in that bygone episode; that
although he had done a thing which must haunt him for the rest of his
life by reason of its tragic uselessness, as a man in whom a woman had
trusted he had had no alternative but to act as he had acted.
Yet of all men on earth Cheniston might well question the necessity of
his action; and Anstice told himself with a fast-beating heart that he
would have no right to resentment should the other refuse to take his
hand, to sit at meat with the man who had deprived Hilda Ryder of her
share in the gracious inheritance of life in the world she had called so
beautiful.
For a second, indeed, Cheniston himself hesitated, checked in the
friendly greeting he had been about to bestow on his sister's visitor.
He had arrived late that evening, and had been dismissed to dress with
the hasty information that two guests were expected to dinner, but he
had had no idea of the last arrival's identity; and to him, too, the
meeting brought back with horrible poignancy that last bitter interview
in the haunted East.
Then, for Bruce Cheniston was sufficiently just to acquit Anstice of any
share in this untoward situation, he held out his hand with a cold
courtesy which plainly betokened no intention of alluding to any former
meeting.
"Good evening." Their hands touched, then fell apart. "You are a
new-comer to Littlefield, I understand. Like the place?"
"Yes--in moderation," rejoined Anstice with equally frigid courtesy.
"The country has its charms--at this season of the year."
"It has charms at all seasons, Dr. Anstice." Iris' light voice
challenged him, even while her grey eyes noted the strange expression in
his face. "I'm afraid you're not a real country lover if you qualify
your affection by picking out a particular season!"
"You remind one of those people who love dogs--'in their proper place.'"
Chloe's tone was delicately quizzical. "On inquiry you find their proper
place is outside--in some kennel or inclosure as far away from the
speaker as it is possible to get!"
"You can't be charged with that particular kind of affection, Chloe."
There was an assertive note in Cheniston's voice when he spoke to his
sister which was new to her. "You think a dog's proper place is the best
armchair or the downiest bed in the house!"
For a second Chloe did not reply; and without waiting Bruce went on
speaking.
"By the way, where are your dogs? I've not seen hide or hair of one
since I arrived."
Again there was a short, but quite perceptible silence. Then Chloe said
tranquilly:
"No wonder you haven't seen any dogs, Bruce. There aren't any to see."
"No dogs?" Bruce was frankly astonished. "Why, in the old days you used
to declare you couldn't live without them!"
Just for a second a quiver of emotion convulsed Chloe's usually
impassive face. Then she laughed, and Anstice thought her laugh almost
painful in its artificiality.
"My dear Bruce," she said, "please remember the old days are as dead
as--as Queen Anne. When I was young enough and foolish enough to believe
in disinterested affection, and in the right of every creature to be
happy, I adored dogs--or thought I did. Now I am wiser, and know that
life is not all bones and playtime, so to speak. Besides, they always
die when one is fond of them, and I quite agree with Kipling that with
so much unavoidable discomfort to put up with, it's the height of folly
to 'give one's heart to a dog to tear.' In future I yield no fraction of
my heart to any living creature--not even a dog."
Certainly Chloe's drawing-room was a battlefield of conflicting emotions
this evening. Just for a moment she had been shaken out of her usual
poise, had spoken warmly, as a normal woman might have done; yet both
Iris who loved her, and Anstice who had studied her, knew that this
warmer manner, this apparent freedom of speech, was in reality the
outward sign of some inward disturbance; and both guessed, vaguely, that
the meeting with her brother, who had not been in England for several
years, was the cause of her unusual animation.
Fortunately as she finished speaking the gong which summoned them to
dinner began to sound; and a moment later Bruce offered his arm to Iris
and led her into the dining-room, followed by Anstice and his hostess.
Not appearing to notice his proffered arm, Chloe walked beside him in a
sudden pensive silence which Anstice found oddly appealing after her
impetuous speech; and for a moment he forgot his own equivocal position
in a desire to help her through what he guessed to be a trying moment.
Once seated at the pretty round table things became easier. The room was
softly lit by innumerable candles--a fancy of Chloe's--and in their
tender light both women looked their best. As usual Mrs. Carstairs wore
white, the fittest setting, Anstice thought, for her pale and tragic
grace; but to-night she had thrown a wonderful Chinese scarf round her
shoulders, and the deep blue ground, embroidered with black and green
birds and flowers, gave an unusually distinctive note to her elusive
personality. Opposite to her Iris, in her filmy grey-green frock, a big
bunch of violets at her breast, wore the look of a nymph, some woodland
creature whose fragrant charm and youthful freshness were in striking
contrast to Chloe's more finished beauty.
The conversation, once started, ran easily enough. Although he never
mentioned India, Cheniston was ready enough to talk of Egypt, where for
some years he had made his home; and Iris, to whose young imagination
the very name of that mysterious land was a charm, listened entranced to
his description of a trip he had lately taken up the Nile.
"You are an engineer, Mr. Cheniston?" Anstice interpolated a polite
question and Cheniston answered in the same tone.
"Yes. And engineering in the land of the Pharaohs is no joke. You must
remember that we, as engineers, are only now where they were thousands
of years ago. I mean that our present-day feats, the Dam at Assouan,
wonderful as it is, and the rest, are mere child's play compared with
the marvels they constructed in their day."
"So I have been told before." Only Anstice knew how hard it was to sit
there conversing as though he and this man shared no tragic memory in
common. "But if Egyptologists are to be believed there is hardly any
invention, any scientific discovery--so called--which wasn't known to
the Egyptians many thousands of years before the birth of Christ."
"They even possessed aeroplanes, didn't they?" asked Iris, smiling; and
Bruce Cheniston turned to her with an involuntary softening in his
rather harsh voice.
"So it is stated, I believe," he said, with an answering smile. "And it
is generally believed that in the lost Continent of Atlantis----"
He went on talking, not monopolizing the conversation, but keeping it
going so skilfully that Iris, at least, did not recognize the fact that
both Mrs. Carstairs and Anstice were more than ordinarily silent as the
meal progressed.
When the short but perfect dinner was finished Chloe rose.
"We will have coffee in the drawing-room, Bruce," she said as she moved
slowly to the door. "If you are not too long over your cigarettes I
daresay Miss Wayne will sing for us."
"With that inducement we shall soon follow you," said Cheniston gravely;
and as Iris passed through the door which Anstice held open for her she
gave him a friendly little smile which somehow nerved him for the ordeal
which he foresaw to be at hand.
Closing the door he came back again to the table, but did not yet sit
down. Bruce had already reseated himself and was pouring out a glass of
port, an operation he interrupted with a perfunctory apology.
"Forgive me--pray help yourself." He pushed the decanter across the
table, but Anstice shook his head.
"No, thanks." He hesitated a moment, then plunged into the subject which
must surely be uppermost in both their minds. "See here, Cheniston, I
should like you to understand that when I accepted Mrs. Carstairs' kind
hospitality to-night I had no idea you were the brother I was to meet."
For a second Cheniston said nothing, his brown hand playing absently
with a pair of nutcrackers beside him. Then he raised his head and
looked Anstice squarely in the face.
"I am quite ready to believe that," he said slowly. "I can hardly
conceive any circumstances in which you would care to run the risk of a
meeting with me."
"Quite so." Something in Cheniston's manner made Anstice suddenly angry.
"Though I would ask you, in common fairness, to believe that my distaste
for such a meeting rises rather from my reluctance to remind you of the
past than from any acknowledgment that you have a right to resent my
presence."
Again Bruce Cheniston looked him in the face; and this time there was a
genuine surprise in his blue eyes.
"I don't think I have given you reason to suppose I resent meeting you,"
he said with a new note in his voice, a note of something more
definitely like hostility than he had hitherto permitted himself to
show. "Since you have started the subject I may say that as a rule one
doesn't greet as a brother the man who has robbed one of one's most
treasured possession--I'm speaking metaphorically, of course--but I
think you can hardly find fault with my--hesitation just now."
"Oh, you have been politeness itself," said Anstice, rather bitterly.
"And in return for your forbearance I will relieve you of my unwelcome
presence immediately. Luckily my profession makes it easy for me to
behave with what, in another man, would appear discourtesy."
He turned towards the door; but Bruce's voice arrested him midway.
"One moment, Dr. Anstice." His tone was less openly hostile. "Don't go
yet, please. There are still one or two things to be said between us.
Will you do me the favour of sitting down again and letting us talk a
little?"
"I don't see what good will come of it, but I'll stay if you wish."
Anstice returned to the table, and drawing out a chair--the one which
Iris had occupied during the meal--he sat down and lighted a cigarette
with a slightly defiant air.
"To begin with"--Cheniston spoke abruptly--"I gather you know my
sister's story--know the bitter injustice that has been done to her in
this damned place?"
Rather taken aback Anstice hesitated before replying, and Cheniston
continued without waiting for him to speak:
"I say you know it, because my sister has a code of honour which forbids
her welcoming to her house anyone who is ignorant of that horrible
chapter in her history. And since I find you here, not only as a doctor,
but as a friend, I gather you believe she was innocent of the charge
against her."
"Most certainly I believe in Mrs. Carstairs' innocence." He spoke warmly
now.
"For that, at least, I am grateful to you." His tone did not betray
overwhelming gratitude, yet Anstice felt a sudden lightening of his
spirit. "To me, of course, it is absolutely inconceivable how anyone
could believe my sister guilty of such a degrading crime--or series of
crimes--but doubtless I am biassed in her favour. Still, you are a new
acquaintance, and don't know her as I do; so that I am grateful to you
for your clear-sightedness in the matter."
He broke off for a moment to drink some wine. Then:
"I should like to ask you one question. Does my sister know of that
episode in India? I mean, of course, of your share in the affair?"
"No. And," said Anstice, "it has been puzzling me for the last couple of
hours to understand how it is that she has not connected my name with
you. Didn't she know it at the time?"
"I daresay. But you must remember that my sister has gone through a
great deal since that day, three years ago. Very soon after that she
became involved in that terrible chain of events which led to her public
humiliation; and I haven't a shadow of doubt that the names of the
actors in the tragedy which broke up my life vanished completely from
her memory. As you may have noticed, Chloe is a self-centred woman. Her
sympathies are not deep, nor her interests wide. Her own life is a good
deal more interesting to her than the lives of other people--it is
generally so with strong characters, I believe--and after all, her own
tragedy has been so appalling that she may be excused if she has not a
very keen curiosity for those of others."
"I quite agree with you. But"--it was Anstice's turn to look Cheniston
fully in the face--"do I understand you wish me to tell your sister of
our former--acquaintance?"
After his question there fell a silence, during which Anstice had time
to study the other man more fully than he had hitherto done.
Like himself, Cheniston had altered since that day in India. Although
still sunburned and florid, a typical young Englishman in his
square-shouldered build and general air of clean fitness, there was
something in his face which had not been there before, which warred
oddly with the youth which still lurked in the blue eyes and round the
clean-shaven mouth. The boyishness had vanished from his features,
taking with it all hint of softness; and in its place was a hard,
assertive look, the look of one who, having been once worsted in a bout
with Fate, through no fault of his own, was determined for the future to
keep a sharp lookout for his own interests and well-being.
That it was a stronger face there was no denying, but it was also a far
less attractive one than that which Bruce Cheniston, the boy, had
presented to the world.
At another moment Anstice would have found occasion for interested
speculation in the question as to whether or no this new man were the
real Bruce Cheniston--the Cheniston who would eventually have come to
the surface no matter how his life had been ordained; and as a
psychologist he would have found pleasure in debating the subject in all
its aspects. But as things were he was too miserably conscious that to
him, indirectly, this change from boy to man was due to take any
interest in the subtler question as to whether, after all, the
alteration was only the logical outcome of the man's true character,
uninfluenced by external happenings.
* * * * *
"No." Cheniston spoke so suddenly that Anstice started. "On the whole I
see no reason why my sister need be told the truth. Of course, one day
the similarity of name may flash upon her, and then, naturally, she must
be told."
"Quite so." Anstice played with an empty glass for a moment. "As a
matter of fact I should really prefer Mrs. Carstairs to know the truth.
Of course the decision rests with you; but if you see your way to
telling her the story, pray don't be held back from doing so by any
scruples on my account. Besides----"
Suddenly, so suddenly that he broke off involuntarily in his sentence,
the notes of the piano rang out from the room across the hall, and
without thinking what he did he rose hastily to his feet.
"Miss Wayne is going to sing." Cheniston followed his lead politely.
"Shall we go and listen to the concert, Anstice?"
"As you like. Forgive my abruptness, Cheniston." He had realized he had
acted unconventionally. "Miss Wayne's singing is a treat one doesn't
want to lose."
With a queer little smile Cheniston led the way across the hall, and
they entered the drawing-room, Iris bringing her prelude to a close as
the door opened to admit them.
"Come and sit down, Dr. Anstice." Chloe indicated a deep chair beside
the piano, and nothing loth, Anstice sat down as directed, while
Cheniston, his face a little in shadow, stood by one of the
widely-opened casements, through which the scents of the sleeping garden
stole softly, like a benison from the heart of the pitiful earth.
A moment later Iris began to sing, and once again her rich, soft tones
seemed to cast a spell over Anstice's troubled, bitter spirit.
From his low seat he had an unimpeded view of the singer. Her profile,
shaded by her soft, fair hair, looked unusually pure and delicate in the
candlelight, and as she sang the rise and fall of her breast in its fold
of filmy chiffon, the motion of her hands over the ivory keys, the sweet
seriousness of her expression, gave her an appearance of radiant, tender
youth which held an appeal as potent as it was unconscious.
When she had finished her song, the last notes dying away into silence,
Cheniston came forward quickly.
"Miss Wayne, you sing beautifully. May we ask for another song? You're
not tired, are you?"
He bent over her as he spoke, and something in his manner, something
subtly protective, made Anstice's heart beat with a sudden fierce
jealousy which he knew to be quite unjustifiable.
"No, I'm not in the least tired." Iris lifted her grey eyes frankly to
Cheniston's face, and again Anstice, watching, felt a pang of whose
nature he could have no doubt. He rose from his chair, with a
half-formed intention of adding his entreaties to those of Cheniston,
but sank back again as he realized the favour was already won.
"I will sing with pleasure." Iris turned on the music-stool to glance at
her hostess, and Anstice saw her face, pearly and luminous in the soft
candlelight. "Mrs. Carstairs, you like Dvorak. Shall I sing you one of
his gipsy songs?"
"Please, Iris." Few words of endearment ever passed between the two, yet
each felt something like real affection for the other, and Chloe's deep
voice was always gentle when she spoke to Iris.
The next moment Cheniston stepped back and took up his former position
on the far side of the piano; and Iris began the simple little melody
which Dvorak acquired from the gipsies of his native land.
"Songs my mother taught me
In the days long vanished!"
So far Anstice heard the pure, soft voice; and suddenly he felt a
half-shy, half-reverential wonder as to what manner of woman she had
been who had brought this adorable girl into the world. Surely Fate had
been cruel to this unknown woman, inasmuch as Death had been permitted
to snatch her away before her eyes had been gladdened by the vision of
her child grown into this priceless, this wonderful youth, which held a
hint of a yet more gracious, yet more desirable womanhood....
And then the second verse stole softly on the quiet air....
"Now I teach my children
Each melodious measure...."
Again did one, at least, of Iris' hearers lose the remaining lines. For
to Anstice these words brought another vision--a vision in which Iris,
this fair-haired girl who looked so adorably young and sweet, bent over
a little child whose rose-leaf face was a baby replica of her own....
And suddenly Anstice knew, knew irrevocably, beyond shadow of doubt,
that he wanted Iris Wayne for himself, that she was the one woman in all
the world he desired to make his wife....
With a wild throb of his heart he looked up--to find Bruce Cheniston's
eyes fixed upon his face with a half-mocking smile in their blue depths,
of whose hostile meaning there could be no question.
* * * * *
An hour or so later, when the guests had departed, and Cheniston had
finished a solitary pipe downstairs, he went up, yawning, to bed.
Passing his sister's open door he heard her call him, and after a
second's indecision he answered the summons, wondering why she were not
already asleep.
Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which
made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two
heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed
indistinctly in its silky black frame.
"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.
"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the
night. Bruce"--her voice grew more alert--"have you and Dr. Anstice met
before?"
"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"
"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she
answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned
upon me that you had met--and distrusted one another--before."
"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We
_have_ met before--in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize
that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested----"
She interrupted him without ceremony.
"I? But how should I realize ... unless"--suddenly her intuition serving
her as it serves so many women, she grasped the truth with a quickness
which surprised even her brother--"was that the name of the man who--you
don't mean it was Dr. Anstice who ... who...."
He nodded.
"Yes. I see you've grasped the truth. Anstice is an uncommon name, and
I'm surprised you did not recognize it earlier."
"I had forgotten it." She stared at him, her blue eyes narrowing as her
mind worked quickly. "I see now. Dr. Anstice is the man----"
"Who shot Hilda Ryder." Cheniston finished her sentence for her calmly,
but she saw him whiten beneath his tan. "Yes. He is the man all right.
We met, once, in Bombay--afterwards. And now you know why our meeting
to-night was not calculated to give either of us any great pleasure."
"Yes. I know now." She spoke slowly, almost meditatively. "And I know,
too, why he always looks so sad. Bruce, from the bottom of my heart I
pity that man."
"You do?" Bruce's eyebrows rose. "I confess I don't see why you should
waste your pity on him. I think you might bestow a little more of it on
me--though it is rather late for pity now."
"On you?" Slowly her blue gaze rested on his face. "Bruce, you don't
compare your position with his? Surely even you can understand that he
is a thousand times more to be pitied than you? I always thought there
was a tragedy in Dr. Anstice's life. But I never dreamed it was quite so
piteous as this."
Bruce uttered an exclamation of impatience.
"I didn't expect such sentimentality from you, Chloe. I gathered from
your conversation before dinner that you were pretty well disillusioned
by this time, and it rather surprises me to hear you pouring out your
compassion on a man like Anstice, who certainly doesn't strike me as
requiring any outside sympathy."
For a moment there was silence, while Chloe played absently with a
bracelet she had just discarded. Then she said tranquilly:
"You never were overburdened with brains, Bruce, though I grant you do
well in your own profession. But, if you fail to see the reason why Dr.
Anstice is deserving of more compassion than you I'm afraid it's
hopeless to expect anything very brilliant from you in the future."
Cheniston's eyes darkened and his jaw set itself aggressively. For a
moment his sister found him an unfamiliar personality, and in her own
indifferent way asked herself whether after all she had ever known her
brother thoroughly.
Then as she was considering the problem, and finding it mildly
attractive, Bruce turned on his heel and strode sulkily to the door.
"Good night," he said angrily as he reached it. "You're in one of your
aggravating moods to-night, and it's no use me staying to talk to you."
"Not a bit of use," she assented serenely; and her brother went out,
nearly falling over Tochatti, who was evidently about to seek admission
to her mistress's room.
"Why on earth aren't you in bed, Tochatti?" His inward annoyance made
him speak harshly; but Tochatti apparently bore no resentment.
She murmured something to which he paid scant attention; and then,
standing aside for him to pass her, she quietly entered the room he had
just quitted, and proceeded with her final duties for the night.