Idle memory shortens life, or shortens the sense of life, by linking the
immediate past clingingly to the present. In this may be found one of
the reasons for the length of time in our juvenile days and the brevity
of the time that succeeds. The child forgets, habitually, gayly, and
constantly. Would that I had never acquired the habit of recall!
Jack, in a well-worn velvet lounge coat, was seated at his writing-table
absorbed in his work when I entered, a couple of hours after I had left
Mabel. His small den, lined with books, contained but little furniture
beyond the big oak writing-table in the window, a heavy old-fashioned
horse-hair couch, and several easy chairs. Littered with newspapers,
books, magazines, and those minor worries of an author's life,
press-cuttings, the apartment was nevertheless snug, the bright fire and
the green-shaded reading lamp giving it a cosy appearance.
"Halloa, old chap!" he cried, throwing down his pen gayly and rising to
grip my hand. "So glad you've looked in. Have a weed?" and as we
seated ourselves before the fire he pushed the box towards me.
"I met Mabel to-day," I said at last, after we had been chatting and
smoking for some minutes.
"Did you? Well? What's the latest fad? Teas for poor children,
bicycling, golf, old silver, or what?"
"She's much concerned regarding Dora," I answered. "And she has hinted
that there are strained relations between Dora's mother and yourself.
I've come to hear all about it."
He hesitated, tugging thoughtfully at his moustache.
"There's not very much to tell," he replied, rather bitterly. "The old
lady won't hear of our marriage. When I mentioned it yesterday she went
absolutely purple with rage, and forbade me to enter her house again, or
hold any further communication with the woman I love."
"Which you will disregard, eh? Have you seen Dora to-day?"
"No. I've been waiting at home all day expecting a note, but none has
arrived," he said disappointedly; adding, "Yet, after all, there is no
disguising the fact, old chap, that I really haven't enough money to
marry a girl like Dora, and perhaps the sooner I recognise the truth and
give up all hope of marriage, the better for us both."
"No, no. Don't take such a gloomy view, Jack," I said sympathetically.
"Dora loves you, doesn't she?"
"Yes. You know well enough that I absolutely adore her," he answered
with deep earnestness.
I had known long ago that his avowed intention had been never to marry.
Until he became noted as a novelist his periods of life in town had been
few and fleeting. Not that he felt awkward or ill at ease in society;
his name was a passport, while his well-bred ease always insured him a
flattering welcome; but for the most part Society had no charm for him.
Sometimes, when among his most intimate friends, he would give the reins
to his high spirits, and then, gayest of the gay, he would have smoothed
the brow of Remorse itself. Private theatricals, dinner-parties,
dances, or tennis-matches, he was head and front of everything. Then
suddenly he would receive orders to remove with his regiment to another
town, and good-bye to all frivolity--he was a cavalry officer again, and
no engagement had power to keep him.
If he ever made any impression on the fair sex, he had remained
unscathed himself until a few months ago, and the eagerness with which
he obeyed each call to duty had been proof of the unfettered state of
his heart. His ardent love for his profession was, he used to be fond
of declaring, incompatible with domestic life. "The first requisite for
a good officer," he had told me dozens of times, "is absolute freedom
from all ties;" but now, having entered the profession of letters and
having discovered the power of the pen, he had paid Dora Stretton a
chivalrous attention that had developed into ardent and passionate
devotion. She was his goddess; he worshipped at her shrine.
"Well, having received the maternal conge, what do you intend doing?" I
inquired after a long silence.
"What can I do?" he asked despondently, gazing sadly into the fire. "I
love her with all my heart and soul, as you are aware, yet what can I
do?"
"Why, marry her all the same," cried a musical voice gayly, and as we
both jumped up, startled, we were surprised to find Dora herself
standing in the doorway, laughing at our discomfiture.
"You!" cried Jack, gladly rushing forward and grasping her hand. "How
did you get in?"
"I forbade your woman to announce me, because I wanted to surprise you,"
she laughed. "But I--I had no idea that Mr Ridgeway was with you. She
ought to have told me," she added, blushing.
"I'm surely not such a formidable person, am I?" I asked.
"Well, no," she answered. Then looking round the little book-lined room
rather timidly, she said, "I don't know that I ought to have come here,
but I wanted to see Jack. I'm supposed to be at Mabel's, dining. I
drove there in the brougham, and then came along here in a cab."
"Won't you sit down?" her lover asked. "Now you are here we must try
and make you as cosy as possible, providing you'll excuse the
Bohemianism of my quarters."
"Why apologise, Jack?" she asked, as he unclasped her cape, revealing
her handsome dinner-dress cut a trifle decollete. "If Ma will not let
us meet openly, then we must see each other surreptitiously."
"Well spoken," I exclaimed, laughing, and when she had seated herself in
Jack's arm chair, with her little satin shoes placed coquettishly upon
the fender, she told us how she had ingeniously arranged with her sister
to return to Eaton Square in a cab, and then drive home in the carriage,
as if she had been spending the whole evening with Mabel.
We laughed, and as I sat gazing at her, memories of Sybil, the woman I
had loved and lost, crowded upon me. Even though Lady Stretton's
consent was withheld, they were nevertheless happy in each other's love.
The love-look upon their faces told me how intense was the passion
between them, and I envied my friend his happiness. Dora was indeed as
charming to the sight as eyes could desire. Her bare shoulders, well
set-off by her black bespangled dress trimmed with pale-green chiffon,
were a trifle narrow, but that lent her a childish grace, and it was the
one fault that could be found with her; all the rest was perfect, and
the greatest charm of all that, unlike her sister, she was totally
unconscious of her loveliness.
In the warm atmosphere of their love and confidence their characters had
unfolded, and they had learned to know one another perfectly. Jack,
although he held a world-wide reputation for keen analysis of character
on paper, had been amazed at all the delicate susceptibilities cherished
in Dora's heart, at the freshness and innocent pleasures of which it was
capable, and not a little at the vein of malicious fun he had wholly
unsuspected.
I sat silent while they chatted, reflecting upon the strange discovery
of the photograph of my lost love, and the more remarkable encounter
that afternoon, I had called on Jack for the purpose of making a clean
breast of the whole affair, but Dora's arrival precluded me from so
doing. My sorrow, however, lost none of its bitterness by keeping, and
I resolved to return to him on the morrow, show him the portraits, and
ask his advice.
Jack had been admiring her gown, and the conversation had turned upon
the evergreen topic of dress. But she spoke with the air of a
philosopher rather than of a Society girl.
"Everyday life needs all the romance that can be crowded into it," she
said. "Dress, in my opinion, is a duty to ourselves and to others--is a
piece of altruism unsoured by sacrifice, a joy so long as it may last to
wearer and beholder, doing good openly nor blushing to find itself
famous."
"Your view is certainly correct," I said, smiling at her sedate little
speech. "You are a pretty woman, and without committing yourself to
affectation or eccentricity, you may choose the mode that shall best
become you, whether born of Worth's imagination or founded on some
picturesque tradition. You may be severe or splendid, avenante or
rococo, with equal impunity."
"Really you are awfully complimentary, Mr Ridgeway," she answered, with
just the faintest blush of modesty. "You are such a flatterer that one
never knows whether you are in earnest."
"I'm quite in earnest, I assure you," I said. "Your dresses always suit
you admirably. On any other woman they would look dowdy."
"I quite endorse Stuart's opinion," said Jack with enthusiasm. "In
writing it is often my misfortune to be compelled to describe feminine
habiliments, therefore I've tried to study them a little. It seems to
me that the ball-dress may be festal, the dinner-dress majestic, and the
outdoor frock combine the virtues of both; but romance must always
centre in the tea-gown. Before the advent of the tea-gown, the indoor
state of woman was innocent of comfort and beggared of poetry."
"Yes," she replied, clasping her hands behind her head and looking up at
him with her soft brown eyes, "the tea-gown is always ingenuous in
sentiment and not wanting in charm, even though its hues may be odious
or sickly. Once it was looked upon with disfavour as a garment too
graceful to be respectable, and stern parents, I believe, forbade its
use. But time, taste, and the sense of fitness have put Puritanism to
shame, and the useful tea-gown; bears witness now to our proficiency in
the long-lost art of living."
Her reference to stern parents caused me to refer to what Mabel had told
me regarding the attitude of her mother.
"Ah! I remember that you were discussing it when I interrupted you as I
came in," she said frankly. "Ma wants me to make a rich marriage, it is
true, but I love Jack, and I'm determined not to have any other man.
I've seen enough of the tragedy of rich unions."
"I know you are true to me, Dora," my old friend said, grasping her
hand, and looking into her eyes as he stood beside her chair. "I've
waited all day expecting a note from you, for I felt confident you would
write or see me after last night's scene."
"Don't refer to that again," she said quickly, putting up her little
hand as if to arrest his words. "It was too cruel of Ma to speak as she
did. She tried to wound my feelings, because I told her I would marry
the man of my own choice. She wants me to be smart, with a penchant for
flirtation, like Mabel," and her lips quivered with emotion.
"If you marry me, darling," he said, with an utter disregard for my
presence, "I will strive to provide you with fitting supplies, but if
you were poorer than Mabel you would at least love your husband dearly
and be his idol."
"I do not doubt it, Jack," she answered, her love-darting eyes fixed
earnestly upon his. "I love no man but yourself."
"Then nothing shall part us, dearest--nothing," he declared.
I sat gazing into the fire, thinking of some excuse whereby I might
leave them alone. The memories of my own love were too vivid, and this
passionate scene was to me painful. Alas! all that remained of the
ashes of my own romance was the photograph in my pocket. I had not torn
aside the veil of mystery that had surrounded Sybil; I did not even know
her true name.
"Stuart, old fellow, you will excuse us speaking in this manner," my
friend said apologetically. "If you had ever loved you would know the
depths of our feelings in this hour when estrangement seems probable."
If I had ever loved! The thought was galling. Was he taunting me?
"Ill go," I stammered, stifling with difficulty a sob that very nearly
escaped me. "Though your exchange of confidences may be made before me,
your old friend, without fear of their betrayal, it is best that you
should be alone," and stretching forth my hand I bade Dora adieu.
"No, don't go, Mr Ridgeway," she exclaimed concernedly. "As children,
you and I often played at being lovers. When I was a child you were
like a big brother, and I confess I then admired you. I regard you now
as Jack's firm and sincerest friend--as my own friend."
"I am gratified by your esteem," I said; "that you both may be happy is
my heartfelt desire. If I can be of any assistance to Jack or to
yourself, command me."
"We--we may want assistance," she said. Then she paused, plainly
stopped by the beating of her heart, for her breast rose and fell
convulsively as tears forced themselves up to her long eyelashes.
Bethune was leaning over her. The light of those brown eyes, seen
through the bright brimming tears, affected him in a manner strange and
touching.
"If we ask Stuart to help us I know he will do all in his power," he
assured her. "Ours must be a secret marriage if her ladyship will not
consent. Do you trust me?"
"Implicitly, Jack. I trust you because--because I love you."
"Then after all I have no need to be jealous of Gilbert Sternroyd," the
soldier-novelist said smiling.
"Gilbert Sternroyd!" I cried amazed. "Who is Gilbert Sternroyd?"
"Dora will answer your question," my friend replied.
I looked eagerly at her, and her eyes met mine with a look full of
surprise and mild reproach.
"He admires me, and because he is wealthy, Mabel has suggested that a
marriage is possible," she answered.
"He admires you!" I echoed. "Who is he? what is he?"
With some surprise she regarded me, perhaps alarmed at the fierce manner
in which I had demanded an explanation.
"I really know very little except that his income is fabulously large,
and that he is regarded by many mothers as a substantial matrimonial
prize," she replied, adding, "I really don't know his--well, I--"
"Suppose we go into the next room," Jack interposed, evidently to hide
Dora's embarrassment. "There is a piano there, although I'm afraid
you'll find it sadly out of tune."
"A piano! I really can't play to-night."
"Oh, but you must," I said laughing. "Remember, you came here to spend
the evening, and the penalty for coming to a man's chambers is to bring
brightness to his life."
We had both risen. With seeming reluctance she also rose, and together
we went into an adjoining room, well furnished with a few handsome
pieces of old oak, a quantity of bric-a-brac, and many strange arms and
curios which their owner had picked up in out-of-the-way corners of the
world.
The apartment was half dining-room, half drawing-room, with dark
upholstered chairs, the walls papered a dull red, the effect of the
whole being so severe that the shaded lamps seemed to cast no radiance
around, but to die out like water drunk up by sand.
Jack, noticing the inconvenient position of the piano, dragged it toward
the fire, then bringing a music-stool, he placed a fire-screen behind
it, and falling back into an easy-chair, said, "Now we are ready to
listen."
She blushed again, overcome with proof of his solicitude, but sat down
with murmured thanks; then, after a moment's pause, she turned to me,
exclaiming:
"It is not enough for you to say you like music. What is your favourite
style? Classical or modern?--grave or gay?"
"Whatever you please," I answered.
She thought for a moment, reviewing in her mind the works she knew, then
began a nocturne by Chopin. Then another and another, passing on
abruptly to the celebrated impromptu whose tempo agitato and vehement
bursts suddenly tone down into a movement of exquisite softness.
After the first few bars, Jack, rising, had gone to lean over the end of
the piano, attracted alike by the charm of the caressing touch and by
the strangeness of the music that pleased his ears. From where he stood
his eyes wandered over her, from the brown of her hair, softened still
more by the shaded light of the candles, to her bust, so white, frail,
and elegant. Even to me it seemed that what she was playing was as much
her own as her loveliness, and I fell into a reverie until her rich
contralto voice suddenly broke forth in Tosti's song:
"If in your heart a corner lies that has no place for me. You do not
love me as I deem that love should ever be."
Then, when she had concluded and risen, and I had thanked her, Jack
suddenly stooped over her tiny hand and kissed it, as he said in a low,
tender voice, "Thanks to the little fingers that have charmed me."
Chancing to glance at my watch, I found it was already past eight
o'clock. Enchanted by our fair visitor, neither of us had thought of
dinner, but a private room at Verrey's was quickly suggested by Jack,
and we went thither in a cab without waiting to dress and there
concluded an enjoyable evening, Dora's lover afterward escorting her
back to Eaton Square, while I strolled home.
Alone in my chambers that night I carefully examined the portraits of
Sybil and Gilbert Sternroyd, but the mystery surrounding them grew
hourly more puzzling. That Jack knew something of Sternroyd was
evident, therefore I resolved to call on him on the morrow, show him the
pictures, and seek his advice.