BOOK IV

DISINTEGRATION

I

The process of dressing for Henry Harper's first dinner party was not a

very agreeable operation. No man could have undertaken it in a worse

state of despair. The new links he had bought could only be persuaded

with difficulty into the cuffs of the boiled shirt; further trouble

presented itself with the collar, and finally, when all the major

operations were complete, he had to solve the problem of a white tie or

a black one. In the end he chose a black one on the ground that it

would be more modest, although he was not sure that it was right.

When at last he was complete in every detail, he returned to the

sitting-room where his wife still was. She was smoking a cigarette.

"Cora," he said quietly and politely, "I am only going because I must.

I couldn't look Mr. Ambrose in the face if I let him down without a

fair excuse. But I'll promise this. I'll never go to another party

without you, and I give you my solemn word I wouldn't go now if there

was a way out."

She made no answer. Without looking at him, but with sour rage in her

eyes, she threw the end of the cigarette she was smoking into the fire

and lit another.

The young man was rather short of time, and remembering a former

excursion to Bury Street which was yet quite easy to find from the top

of the Avenue, he took a taxi. Driving in solitary state he was very

nervous and strangely uncomfortable. The evening clothes felt horribly

new and conspicuous, and they didn't seem to fit anywhere. Then again

he knew this was an adventure of the first magnitude. The bachelor

parties of two or three intimate friends were on a different plane from

an affair of this kind. However, he determined to thrust unworthy

fears aside. There could be no doubt he was far better equipped than

he had been before Madame Sadleir took him in hand. Besides, when all

was said, the feeling uppermost in his mind just now, outweighing even

the black thought of Cora, was a sense of exhilaration. Somehow he

felt, as his swift machine crossed Piccadilly Circus, in spite of Cora,

in spite of new clothes, in spite of bitter inexperience, that for the

first time in his life he was entering the golden realm whose every

door had been double-locked, thrice-bolted against him by the dark and

evil machinations of destiny.

Even when the taxi stopped before the now familiar portals in Bury

Street and he had paid the driver his fare, he still had a sense of

adventure. And this was heightened by what was going on around him.

The magic door was open wide to the night, the august form of Portman,

the butler, was framed in it, and at that very moment the Fairy

Princess was descending from her chariot.

How did he know it was she? Some occult faculty mysteriously told him.

She was tall and dark and smiling; a bright blue cloak was round her;

he saw a white satin slipper. It was She. Beyond a doubt it was the

real Hyde Park lady he was going to take in to dinner.

He hung back by the curb, a whole discreet minute, while Mr. Portman

received her. She made some smiling remark that Henry Harper couldn't

catch. He could only hear the beautiful notes of her voice. They were

those of a siren, a low deep music.

The Sailor came to the door just as another chariot glided up. He

greeted Portman, his old friend, of whom he was still rather in awe,

and doffed his coat and hat in the entrance hall without flurry, and

then went slowly up the stairs where he found that the butler had

already preceded him. Moreover, he was just in time to hear him

announce: "Miss Pridmore."

The name literally sang through the brain of the Sailor. Where had he

heard it? But he had not time then to hunt it down in his memory.

"Mr. Harper." With a feeling of excitement he heard the rolling,

unctuous announcement.

For a brief instant the vigorous grip and the laughing face of his host

put all further speculation to flight. Edward Ambrose was in great

heart and looking as only the Edward Ambroses of the world can look at

such moments. But he merely gave Henry Harper time to note, with a

little stab of dismay, that the tie he had chosen was the wrong color,

when he was almost hurled upon Miss Pridmore.

"This is Mr. Harper, Mary, whom you wanted to meet." And then with

that gay note which the Sailor could never sufficiently approve: "I

promised him one admirer. He wouldn't have come without."

Where had he heard that name? The question was surging upon the Sailor

as he stood looking at her and waiting for her to speak. A moment ago

it had been uttered for the first time, yet it was strangely familiar

to him. And that face of clear-cut good sense, with eyes of a

fathomless gray, where had he seen it?

"I should love to have been a sailor." Those were her first words.

That voice, where had he heard it? It seemed to be coming back to him

out of the years, out of the measureless Pacific. A Hyde Park lady was

speaking in Bury Street, St. James', but at that moment he was not in

London, not in England, not in Europe at all. He was on the high seas

aboard the _Margaret Carey_, he was in his bunk in the half-deck. In

one hand he held a sputtering candle; in the other a torn fragment of

the _Brooklyn Eagle_. It was Klondyke who was speaking. The Fairy

Princess was speaking with the voice of his immortal friend.

"I have a brother who has sailed before the mast."

In a flash he remembered the inscription in Klondyke's Bible: "Jack

Pridmore is my name, England is my nation." The mystery was solved.

This was Klondyke's sister. There was no mistaking the resemblance of

voice, of feature; this was the unforgettable girl he had seen with

Klondyke in Hyde Park.

He suddenly remembered that he must say something. It would hardly be

proper to stand there all night with his mouth open, yet with not a

word coming out of it.

"I think I know your brother," were his first words. They were not the

result of deliberate choice. Some new and strange power seemed to have

taken complete possession of him.

"You've met my brother Jack?"

"Yes. We were aboard the same craft pretty near two years. We used to

call him Klondyke."

A delightful laugh rang in his ears.

"What a perfect name for him! I must tell that to my mother. It was

because he had been in the Klondyke, I suppose."

"Yes, that was it. He had been in the Klondyke. He used to yarn about

it on the _Margaret Carey_. We were both berthed for'ard in the

half-deck. His bunk was under mine."

"Isn't it odd that we should meet like this!"

"Yes, it's queer. But there are many queer things in the world, ain't

there? At least I've seen a goodish few and so has Klondyke. But he

was a grand chap."

Mary Pridmore, who felt rather the same about her brother Jack,

although he was not a brother to be proud of, but quite the reverse, as

the members of his family always made a point of explaining to him

whenever they had the chance, was somehow touched by the tone of

reverence with which his shipmate spoke of him.

"He's the black sheep of the family, of course you know that," she

said, feeling it necessary to take precautions against this delightful

young sailorman who had already intrigued her.

"He used to say so," said the Sailor, with the simplicity of his kind.

"He used to say his mother was fearfully cut up about him. She thought

he was a rolling stone and he would never be any good at anything. But

you don't think so, Miss Pridmore, do you?" The eyes of the young man

delighted her as they looked directly into hers. "No, I can see you

don't. You think Klondyke's all right."

"Why should you think, Mr. Harper, that I think anything of the kind?"

The voice was rebuking, but the eyes were laughing, and it was the eyes

that mattered.

"You can't deny it!" he said with a charming air of defiance. "And if

I was Klondyke's sister I wouldn't want to."

"As long as mother never hears anyone speak of him like that it really

doesn't matter what we think of him, you know."

This wonderful creature, who in the sight of the Sailor was perfection

from head to heel, whose very voice he could only compare to John

Milton whom he had lately discovered, let her hand rest on his arm very

lightly, yet with a touch that was almost affectionate. And then they

went downstairs to dinner.

II

Politeness forbade that they should talk all the time to each other

during that enchanted meal. Mr. Ellis was at the other side of Miss

Pridmore, and an unknown lady of great charm and volubility was at the

other side of Mr. Harper. These very agreeable people had to have a

little share of their conversation, but during the major part of a

delightful affair, Henry Harper was talking as he had never talked in

his life before, not even to Klondyke himself, to Klondyke's sister.

It was not only about Klondyke that they talked. They had other things

in common. Miss Pridmore was a perfectly sincere, a frankly outspoken

admirer of "The Adventures of Dick Smith." She had never read anything

like it; moreover she was quite fearless and nobly unqualified in her

admiration of that fascinating tale of adventure, for the most part

murderous adventure, on the high seas.

"We all have great arguments at home," she said, "as to which volume is

the best. I say the first. To me those island chapters are

incomparable. The Island of San Pedro. I say that's better than

'Robinson Crusoe' itself, which makes Uncle George furious. He

considers it sacrilege to say anything of the kind."

"It is so," said the author with a little quiver of happiness.

"But you are bound to say that, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it, Miss Pridmore."

The quaint solemnity delighted her.

"Uncle George says the Island of San Pedro is an imitation of 'Robinson

Crusoe,' but nothing will ever make me admit that, so you had better

not admit it either. Please say it isn't, to save my reputation for

omniscience."

"I had not read 'Robinson Crusoe' when I wrote the Island, and I

suppose if I had I should have written it differently."

"It's a very good thing you hadn't. There's nothing like the Island

anywhere to my mind. You can see and feel and hear and smell and taste

that Island. It is so real that when poor Dick was put ashore by the

drunken captain of the brigantine _Excelsior_ I literally daren't go to

bed. And my brother Jack says--and I always quote this to Uncle

George--that no more lifelike picture of a windjammer--it is a

windjammer, isn't it?----"

"That's right."

"And of an island in the Pacific could possibly be given."

"Well, I wouldn't quite say that myself," said the sailorman, with the

blood singing in his ears.

"Of course not. It wouldn't be right for you to say it."

"Where is Klondyke now, Miss Pridmore?" he asked suddenly.

"No one knows. He probably doesn't know himself. The last letter my

mother had from him arrived about two months ago. He was then in the

middle of Abyssinia. But he has moved since. He never stays long

anywhere when the wanderlust is on him. But we don't worry. He'll

turn up one of these days quite unexpectedly, looking rather like a

tramp, and will settle down to civilization for a short time; and then

one morning he'll go off again to the most outlandish place he can

think of, and we may not see or hear anything of him for months or even

years."

A dull period followed the dessert. Miss Pridmore and the other ladies

went and the Sailor had to remain with four comparatively flat and tame

gentlemen who smoked very good cigars and talked of matters which the

young man did not feel competent to enter upon.

It was an irksome twenty minutes, but it had to be endured. And it was

not really so very difficult because he was in heaven.

At last when the four other gentlemen had solemnly smoked their cigars,

and he had smoked the mild cigarette which contented him, they went

upstairs. And as they did so he felt the hand of Edward Ambrose on his

shoulder and he heard a laughing voice in his ear. "Henry, you are

going great guns."

That was quite true. He felt wonderful. There is no doubt people do

feel wonderful when they are in heaven. And there was his divinity

sitting in the middle of the smaller sofa, and as soon as he entered he

was summoned with a gesture of charming imperiousness which the boldest

of men would not have dared to disobey. And as he came to her she

laughingly made room for him. He sat by her side and fell at once to

talking again of Klondyke. From Klondyke, whom she would not admit was

quite the hero the author of "Dick Smith" considered him to be, they

passed to the High Seas, and then to Literature, and then to the Drama,

and then to Life itself, and then to the High Seas again, and then to

Edward Ambrose, whom she spoke of with great affection as a very old

friend of hers and of her family, and then once more to Life itself.

After the flight of a winged hour she rose suddenly and held out her

hand. But as she did so she also said one memorable thing.

"Mr. Harper"--her fingers were touching his--"promise, please, you will

come to tea one afternoon soon. No. 50, Queen Street, Mayfair. I am

going to write it on a piece of paper if you will get it for me, so

that there will be no mistake."

The Sailor got the piece of paper for Miss Pridmore. As he did so the

eternal feminine rejoiced at his tall, straight, cleanly handsomeness,

in spite of the reach-me-down which clothed it.

"Now that means no excuse," she said, with a little touch of royal

imperiousness returning upon her. "No. 50, Queen Street. One of those

little houses on the left. About half past four. Shall we say

Wednesday? I want to hear you talk to my mother about Klondyke."

She gave him her hand again, and then after a number of very cordial

and direct good-bys which Klondyke himself could not have bettered, she

went downstairs gayly with her host.

"Tell me, Mary," said Edward Ambrose on the way down, "who in the world

is Klondyke?"

"It's Jack," she said. "They were together on board the brigantine

_Excelsior_--although that's not the real name of it."

"How odd!" said Edward Ambrose. "But what a fellow he is not to have

said so. When one remembers how he gloated over the yarn one would

have thought----"

"But how should he know? It must have been years ago. Yet the strange

thing is he remembers Jack and he knew I was his sister because we are

so exactly alike, which I thought very tactless."

"Naturally. Did you like him?" The question came with very swift

directness.

"He's amazing." The answer was equally swift, equally direct. "He is

the only author I have ever met who comes near to being----"

"To being what?" Mary Pridmore had suddenly remembered that she was

being escorted downstairs by a distinguished man of letters.

"Do you press the question?"

"Certainly I press the question."

"Very well, then," said Mary Pridmore. "Wild horses will not make me

answer it. But I can only say that your young man is as wonderful as

his books. He's coming to tea on Wednesday, and it will be very

disappointing if you don't come as well. Good-by, Edward. It's been a

splendid evening." And she waved her hand to him as she sped away with

an air of large and heroic enjoyment of the universe, while Edward

Ambrose stood rather wistfully at the door watching her recede into the

night.

III

"My friend," said Edward Ambrose, as he helped the last departing guest

into his overcoat, "I suppose you know you have made a conquest?"

The Sailor was not aware of the fact.

"Mary Pridmore is ... well, she is rather ... she is rather..."

"We talked a lot," said the young man, with a glow in his voice. "I

hope she wasn't bored. But as she was Klondyke's sister, I couldn't

help letting myself go a bit. She's--she's just my idea of what a lady

ought to be."

The young man, who was still in heaven, had the grace to blush at such

an indiscretion. His host laughed.

Said he: "Had I realized that you were such a very dangerous fellow, I

don't think you would have been invited here tonight. I mean it,

Henry." And to show that he didn't mean it in the least, Edward

Ambrose gave the Sailor a little affectionate push into Bury Street.

As the night was fine and time was his own, Henry Harper returned on

foot to King John's Mansions. He did not go by a direct route, but

chose Regent Street, Marylebone Road, Euston Road, and other circuitous

thoroughfares, so that the journey took about four times as long as it

need have done. Midnight had struck already when he came to the top of

the Avenue.

By that time he was no longer in heaven. As a matter of fact, he had

fallen out of paradise in Portland Place. It was there he suddenly

remembered Cora. For several enchanted hours he had completely

forgotten her. He had been in Elysium, but almost opposite the Queen's

Hall he fell out of it. It was there the unwelcome truth came upon him

that he had been surrendering himself to madness.

He clenched his teeth as if he had received a blow in the face. He was

like an ill-found ship wrenched from its moorings and cast adrift in

mid-ocean. God in heaven, how was he to go home to that unspeakable

woman after such a draught of sheer delight!

For a moment, standing dazed and breathless in the middle of the road,

he almost wanted to shriek. He had been drinking champagne, not with

undignified freedom, yet for unseasoned temperaments it may be a

dangerous beverage even in modest quantities. He had really drunk very

little, but he felt that in the situation he had now to face it would

have been better to have left it alone.

How was he going to face Cora now he had seen the peri, now he had

looked within the Enchanted Gates?

There was only one possible answer to the question. And that had come

to him as he had crossed, quite unnecessarily, the Marylebone Road, and

had fetched up against the railings of Regent's Park. He must accept

the issue like a man. Setting his teeth anew, he moved in an easterly

direction towards the Euston Road.

He allowed himself to hope, as he turned the latchkey in the door of

No. 106, King John's Mansions, that Cora had not carried out her

threat. But he was not able to build much upon it. As he climbed up

slowly towards the roof of the flats there seemed something

indescribably squalid about the endless flights of bleak, iron-railed

stone stairs.

When the door of No. 106 opened to his latchkey, the first thing he

perceived was a stealthy reek of alcohol. A light was in the passage;

and then as he closed the outer door, he caught an oddly unexpected

sound of voices coming through the half open door of the sitting-room.

He stood and listened tensely. One of the voices was that of a man.

It was not necessary to enter the sitting-room itself to confirm this

fact. A man's hat, one of the sort called a gibus, which he knew was

only worn with evening clothes, was hanging on one of the pegs in the

passage. An overcoat lined with astrachan was under it.

He could hear a strange voice coming from the sitting-room. It was

that of a man of education, but it had a sort of huskiness which

betrayed the familiar presence of alcohol. Involuntarily, he stood to

listen at the half open door.

"Cora, old girl, you are as tight as a tick." After all, the tones

were more, sober than drunk. "I'll be getting a move on, I think.

I'll soon be as bad as you, and then I won't be able to, I expect."

"Don't go yet, ducky. I am just beginning to like you." It was the

voice of Cora--the voice of Cora drunk.

"I will, if you don't mind. That second bottle has been a mistake.

And you are not so very amusing, are you?"

"Speak for yourself." And the voice of Cora subsided into some far and

deep oblivion.

There was a silence. In the midst of it, the young man suddenly

entered the room.

The visitor, who was tall and powerful and well dressed, had the look

of a gentleman. Perhaps a gentleman run a little to seed. He was

standing on the threadbare hearthrug, his hands in his pockets, in a

rather contemptuous attitude, while Cora, unmistakably drunk, had

subsided on the sofa. Several bottles with glasses beside them were on

the table.

As Henry Harper entered the room, the man looked at him in utter

astonishment. His surprise seemed too great to allow him to speak.

"'Ullo, Harry," muttered Cora from her sofa. She did not attempt a

more formal or coherent greeting.

He did not know what to say or how to act. He was wholly taken aback

by the man's air of cool surprise; indeed his attitude expressed grim

resentment for the intrusion of a third person.

"Who is this gentleman, Cora?" at last the young man was able to ask.

"Go to hell," Cora muttered.

"Yes, go to hell," said the man, apparently grateful for the lead.

Harper stood nonplused, defeated. But he managed to say, feebly enough

as it seemed to himself, "I don't know who you are, sir, but I'll thank

you for an explanation."

The man laughed insolently. "It's the limit," he said.

At this point, Cora, by an effort verging upon the superhuman, sat up

on the sofa.

"Charlie." Her voice was a wheeze. "I want you to set about this

beauty--to oblige me."

"My God, I've a good mind to," said Charlie, who as he became more

sober seemed to grow more dangerous. "I don't know who you are, my

friend, but if you'll take advice you'll clear out."

As the man spoke, his eyes looked particularly ugly. But among the

things the Sailor had learned aboard the _Margaret Carey_ was the art

of keeping cool in a crisis.

"You've no right here at all, sir," said the man. "You ought to know

that."

"No right!" said Henry Harper, in astonishment.

"If you are a wise man, you will go away. I was here first."

"What do you mean?"

"I came at the invitation of this lady, Miss Cora Dobbs, who is a very

old friend of mine."

The man turned towards the sofa. Cora nodded. But she was now

bordering on a state of coma.

"Who are you, sir?" Harper tried hard to keep his temper in spite of

the man's calculated insolence. "Are you a relation of hers?"

"A relation!" The man was taken aback. "We are both here for the same

object, I presume."

"I don't know what you mean, but this is my flat and I'll be very

thankful if you'll quit."

"Your flat!" A light seemed to dawn. The man turned to Cora: "Why

didn't you tell me? I thought you were on your own, as you were before

I went to Canada."

To the man's clear annoyance, Cora had now reached a phase which

forbade her to answer this question. He then addressed Henry Harper

with a sudden change of voice.

"She's not played the game," he said, half apologetically.

"I don't know what you mean by that. I don't understand you."

The man looked at him in astonishment. He then looked at Cora, who was

half lying upon the sofa, mute, fuddled, and indifferent.

"Come outside," said the man, in a lower tone, "and I'll explain."

Feeling completely bewildered, Harper accompanied him into the passage.

"I apologize," said the man, as soon as they got there. "But Cora is

entirely to blame. There's no need to say she never told me she was

living with you."

"I don't understand," said Henry Harper.

The man stared at him. He was at a loss.

"Of course, I've known Cora Dobbs for years." He lowered his voice.

"But I've been away in Canada. Before I went, I used to come here

pretty regularly."

As the man spoke, light came to Henry Harper. All at once, a chill ran

in his veins.

"But ... but she's ... she's my wife," he gasped, leaning heavily

against the wall of the passage.

"She's your _what_!" the man almost shouted.

"She's my wife."

Again the man stared at him, but now with a look of consternation and

pity.

"You mean to say you didn't know?"

The young man, still leaning against the wall, was unable to speak. A

glance at the ashen face convinced the older man that there was no need

to repeat the question.

"Well, I'm sorry, and I can only apologize," he said, after a moment's

pause, and in a tone of good feeling. He then took his hat and coat

from the peg, and suddenly darted out of the flat. The door closed

after him with a bang.

IV

The Sailor continued to lean against the wall. An abyss had opened.

The look on the face of Mr. Rudge, his late master, and the strange

words he had used were returning upon him with awful force.

With this discovery came surprise, bewilderment, self-disgust. It

hardly seemed possible that a man in his senses could be so blind, so

ignorant, so gullible. Where had been his wits, that he should have

allowed the creature at the other side of the passage wall, and her

associates, to dupe him so completely?

As the feeling of amazement at his own folly deepened, a gust of fury

swept through him like a storm. An overmastering desire came upon him

to enter that room, to deal once and for all with this bird of prey.

Let the world be rid of a foul thing. Let his be the hand to efface it

in its infamy.

He would go in at once and make an end of her. A surge of inherited

forces, a flood of old, unhappy, far-off things were whirling him like

a piece of driftwood into the maelstrom. He was in the grip of a

terrible power ... a power beyond his control. It was not merely that

she had entrapped him, or that he had been incredibly blind to the drab

and sordid world in which she lived; in the light of a widening

knowledge, the fact which now drove him to frenzy was that a creature

so common and unclean should have found it so easy to make him her

victim.

He did not return to the room at once. There were other forces, it

seemed, vibrating in the air around him. There came a sudden reminder

from the talisman that he bore continually in the right-hand corner of

his brain. He heard a voice.

"Henry Harper, is she worth it? Remember, if you destroy her, you

destroy yourself utterly, body and soul."

The words sank into him. The issue was joined, and there came the

shock of battle. A will half wrenched asunder seemed about to be

overthrown. The desire to enter the room was overmastering; a sense of

duty was reinforced by the passion of revenge. There was madness in

the thought that he was the dupe of a common woman of the streets.

Shaken with a fury that was awful, he still leaned against the wall of

the passage. The voice of the genie was no longer heard. The talisman

shone no more. The old, unhappy, far-off things had overwhelmed them.

"Kill her, kill her," they whispered savagely. "It is the only thing

to do."

He was half down already. The forces of destiny were crushing out his

life.

"Kill her. Kill her." The very walls were breathing commands in his

ears. "It is a duty to others to avenge yourself."

There was subtlety in the demand. But this was a strong, not a subtle

nature. It did not practice self-deception lightly. Aladdin's lamp

was quick to reveal the sophist; moreover, it had its own answer ready.

Suddenly it flashed before the mind of Henry Harper the elemental

figure of the man James Thorneycroft simply relating his story. By a

curious trick of the brain, the words of the condemned man were again

in his ears.

"You can take it from me that there is a God."

He hardly knew what those words meant even as he heard them now. But

he knew they had a significance beyond any which had previously touched

his life. Then a miracle happened. The powers which had him in their

grip began to relax. It was as if his whole being was translated. He

was again his own man. Broken and shattered he was able to stagger to

his own room and light the gas.

The battle was not decided yet. But a new power had come to him.

Therefore Henry Harper's first act was to do that which he had never

done before in his life. He kneeled by the side of his bed and prayed.

Presently he rose, and went out again into the little lobby, past the

half open door through which could be heard a succession of drunken

snores. He snatched his coat and hat from the peg and went hurriedly

down into the street.

It was one o'clock. The Avenue and its environs were almost deserted,

save for an occasional policeman and a few returning revelers. He had

no idea as to the way he should go. His one desire was to get as far

as he could from King John's Mansions in the shortest possible time.

Walking about the streets of the city hour after hour, he could not

measure the abyss which had engulfed him. He was completely cast away,

he had lost track of himself, he didn't know where he was, he had no

chart by which to go.

Ceaseless wandering through remote and unknown places brought the dawn

at last, and then he found that the spot he had reached was Camberwell

Green. Overcome with fatigue, he sat on a public seat near a tram

terminus for a little while. Then he tried to shape his thoughts, but

the mind refused to act.

V

The longer he sat the more confused he became. At last it occurred to

him that the best thing he could do was to seek the advice of Edward

Ambrose. Indeed, in his present state that seemed the only course to

take. Almost mechanically, he began to make his way in the direction

of Bury Street, St. James'.

He had a long way to go, and the road was obscure, but as there was not

the least need for hurry, he followed the tram lines as far as the

Embankment. By the time he had reached Whitehall, it was about eight

o'clock. Less than half an hour afterwards he had entered Bury Street,

and was back in that house which a few short hours ago had given him

his first glimpse of paradise.

"Why, Henry!" His friend gave a cry of surprise. And then to cover it

he said: "You are just in time for breakfast. Another knife and fork,

Portman. Take off your overcoat."

The young man had no wish to do so. He remembered that his evening

clothes were under it. Nor had he any desire for breakfast.

As soon as the servant had retired, Edward Ambrose compelled him firmly

but kindly to eat.

Ambrose had noted already that the Sailor was in a decidedly

overwrought state. The ashen face, the wild eyes, the disheveled

appearance was not pleasant to see.

"Tell me what has happened."

"Before I do that," said the young man, in a voice unlike his own, "I

want you to consider this a secret between us."

"Yes ... of course."

"To begin at the beginning of a rotten story." There was a queer break

in the voice. "You didn't know that I was married, did you?"

"No," said Ambrose, impassively.

"I dare say I ought to have told you. Several times I made up my mind

that I would. I am very sorry now I didn't."

"You were under no obligation to do so."

"There wouldn't be so much to tell you now if I had," said the Sailor,

with horror in his eyes. He then told his story at length, with detail

and with difficulty, but concealing nothing.

Edward Ambrose was much affected. He somehow felt, as a generous mind

was likely to feel in such a case, that it should have been his part to

shield this lamb from the wolves. Yet he knew that blame did not lie

at his door.

Still, he was deeply grieved. He accepted the story without question

as it was told him. There could be no doubt that all the essential

facts were exactly as they had been related. Harper, in his curious

ignorance of the world, had fallen into a trap.

The young man ended the story with a pathetic appeal for advice. He

made it clear that he could never go back to this woman; he dared not

even venture to see her again lest he do her violence. He must get

free of her at all costs. Could his friend tell him how such a thing

must be managed?

"One feels it ought not to be very difficult in the circumstances,"

said Edward Ambrose, "if we go the right way to work. But the first

thing is to consult a lawyer."

Accordingly, before he had finished a greatly interrupted meal, Ambrose

went to the telephone and arranged to see his own solicitor as soon as

that gentleman should arrive at his office in Spring Gardens. When he

returned to the dining-room, he found Henry Harper striding up and down

it. A sort of determined rage had taken possession of him. The

hereditary forces that had so nearly overthrown him a few hours before

had returned upon him.

"I'll never be so near murder as I was between twelve and one last

night," he said, huskily, with a clenched and deadly look.

"She wouldn't have been worth it," said Edward Ambrose. He then turned

abruptly from the subject. "You will want rooms, won't you--somewhere

to go?" He had a fund of very practical kindness. "And you'll want

clothes. And your papers and books. But I think we had better send

one of Mortimer's clerks to collect those. As for rooms, perhaps

Portman may know of some."

Upon due interrogation, Portman, it seemed, knew of some rooms that

might be vacant. Thereupon he was sent on a diplomatic mission; the

scale of charges must be strictly moderate. He must not show his nose,

which prided itself on a resemblance to that of a certain very eminent

statesman, in Bury Street again until his errand had been carried out

successfully.

Presently, the solicitors, Messrs. Mortimer, Groves, Pearce, Son and

Mortimer, rang up to say that Mr. Daniel Mortimer had arrived at the

office, and would be glad to see Mr. Ambrose. Accordingly, Henry

Harper went at once with his friend in a taxi to Spring Gardens.

Mr. Daniel Mortimer was the kind of man who would have greatly

impressed the Sailor on an ordinary occasion. Mr. Mortimer was by

nature very impressive. He could not help being so. Even when he was

quite alone and merely warming his hands at the fire, he was

impressive. In fact, it was a quality which was worth several

thousands a year to him.

Mr. Mortimer had the reputation of being a very sound lawyer. He

certainly looked a very sound lawyer. His geniality was most engaging,

and there was a shrewd and knowledgeable personality beneath.

He greeted Mr. Ambrose less as a client than as a rather irresponsible

nephew received by a preternaturally wise yet jovial uncle. Ambrose

had been his fag at school.

"Well, Edward, what can we do for you?" was the pontifical greeting.

"Allow me to introduce Mr. Harper--Mr. Mortimer--and you can prepare to

speak out of the depths of your wisdom after the ancient manner."

"Certainly," said Mr. Mortimer, with the air of one very well able to

do so. "Won't you sit down?" He placed two chairs with innate and

almost oriental magnificence. "We are now at your service." It was

less a trick of speech than sheer pressure of human character which

caused Mr. Mortimer always to refer to himself in the plural.

"I think you had better tell the story, Henry," said Edward Ambrose.

"Tell it to Mortimer exactly as you have told it to me."

That gentleman assumed his armchair of state, and for the second time

that morning Henry Harper told his strange story.

"And you never guessed!" was the solicitor's brief comment when it had

been told.

"I can't think why I didn't," said the young man.

Mr. Mortimer frowned tremendously. He then took up a pencil and began

with great freedom of style to draw on his blotting pad a portrait of

no one in particular.

"Edward," he said, after he had continued to do this for several

minutes, "I am afraid this is a difficult business."

"I am afraid so," said Edward Ambrose gravely. "And we have come to a

very wise man to set it right for us. It oughtn't to be beyond your

powers, ought it, having regard to the acknowledged character of the

lady?"

"I fear," said Mr. Mortimer, "the character of the lady is too much

acknowledged if the question of a divorce is running in your mind."

"Well, of course it is," said Edward Ambrose, with an air of deep

disappointment as he looked at Henry Harper.

"I'll have a divorce if I can possibly get one," said the young man.

"And I don't care what trouble I take or what it costs."

Mr. Mortimer continued to draw very spirited pictures on his blotting

pad.

"Don't you advise it?" asked Edward Ambrose.

"Yes, I do, if we can get one. But in the special circumstances, it is

going to prove uncommonly difficult, in fact, one might say impossible."

"You don't mean that, sir," said Henry Harper.

"It is only my opinion." Mr. Mortimer spoke as if there could be no

other. "But let me be quite candid, as I am sure you want me to be. I

am perfectly certain you will never get a British jury to believe the

first part of your story."

"But you believe it?" said Henry Harper, with wild eyes.

"I most certainly believe it, I believe every word you tell me. But we

have to deal with a British jury, and in any question affecting what it

calls 'morality,' a British jury is a very difficult proposition. At

least, that's my experience."

Both Henry Harper and his friend were so dismayed by the force of Mr.

Mortimer's conviction, that at first they did not say anything. Soon,

however, Edward Ambrose, who was looking particularly unhappy,

remarked: "Then you don't advise him to fight it?"

"I don't. I am sorry to say I don't. There is not a dog's chance

without very strong direction from the Bench, and there is little hope

of that in a case of this kind. His Majesty's judges are quite as bad

as a British jury when they are out on the 'morality' racket."

"The good bourgeois, in fact, without a spark of imagination?"

"Quite so. Of course, we might try, but really one doesn't advise it.

There would be unwarrantable expense, and even if we were lucky enough

to get a verdict, it would still be a very serious matter for a young

and rising man. At least, that's my view."

"I don't doubt you are right," said Edward Ambrose, with a groan of

sheer vexation.

"You mean, sir, I can't get free of her?" said the Sailor.

"Only with great difficulty, I am afraid. And in any event, the issue

is uncertain. As I understand, you are in a position to prove very

little. Conjecture will not satisfy a jury, and even that must be

based on a set of circumstances that will not help your case."

"Well, what do you advise?" asked Edward Ambrose.

"I should be inclined to let matters take their course for the present.

As she appears to be drinking heavily, it is not unreasonable to hope

that in time things may adjust themselves automatically."

"But in the meantime how can she be kept from making herself

objectionable?"

"If you care to leave that to us, I think a way may be found."

"By paying her a sum weekly?" suggested Edward Ambrose. "And by

threatening to withdraw it if she doesn't behave herself?"

"I don't think it will be necessary to do that."

However, the young man felt it to be his duty to keep her from the

gutter, which seemed to be her present destination.

"That is for you to consider," said Mr. Mortimer. "In my judgment, you

are under no obligation to provide for her, but if on grounds of

humanity you wish to do so, let no one dissuade you."

Edward Ambrose agreed.

The upshot of a painful matter was that it was left in Mr. Mortimer's

hands. He undertook to deal in such a way with Mrs. Henry Harper that

there should be no fear of molestation from her. Also, he would have

inquiries made into her past history and her present mode of life; and

if a subsequent reconsideration of the case should make a final appeal

to the law seem in any wise expedient, then would be the time to invoke

it. In the meantime a sum would be paid to her weekly. Mr. Mortimer

undertook to send a clerk to the flat in order to collect Henry

Harper's papers and other belongings.

It was an unhappy state of affairs, but the young man realized that for

the present it would be the part of wisdom to leave the matter in the

prudent hands of Mr. Mortimer.

VI

The Sailor found sanctuary at Bury Street until late in the afternoon.

By that time a member of Mr. Mortimer's staff had retrieved his

chattels from King John's Mansions; also the admirable Portman had

returned from his quest "for lodgings, clean and decent, for a single

man." Moreover, success had crowned it, as Edward Ambrose had been

confident that it would.

Portman, it appeared, had found very nice rooms for a single gentleman

in Brinkworth Street, Chelsea. They were kept by a friend of his who

had been butler in the service of the Honorable Lady Price, relict of

the late Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., a former governor of the

Bowerman Islands, who had given him an excellent character. It was

also fortified by the fact that he had married the cook lately in the

service of that lady. Portman was sure that Mr. Harper would find

everything very comfortable.

Half an hour later, Henry Harper was on his way to Brinkworth Street

with his few belongings. Before taking leave of Portman, he presented

him with half a sovereign. This was a princely emolument in the eyes

of the Sailor, but he felt that nothing less could meet the case.

On his arrival at Brinkworth Street, the young man knew at once that he

would be in good hands. The air of respectability which hovered round

his rooms was a little portentous, perhaps, but at least it was in

welcome and vivid contrast to the cheap and dismal tawdriness of King

John's Mansions. Mr. Emerson Paley, the proprietor of No. 14, and Mrs.

Paley also, had something of Portman's impressiveness. It was clear

that they had their own standard of taste and conduct. Moreover, Henry

Harper welcomed it. To him it meant a fixing of social values. The

atmosphere of No. 14, Brinkworth Street, was wholly different from that

which had enveloped any home he had ever known before.

The Sailor found a stimulus in these new surroundings. Brinkworth

Street, its outlook and its ideals, was a cosmos he had yet to traverse

and explore. Mr. Paley was in his own way surprisingly a gentleman, as

Mrs. Paley in hers was surprisingly a lady; not, of course, in the way

that Edward Ambrose and his new friend, Mary Pridmore, were, but still

they undoubtedly stood for something--a curious, indefinable something

wholly beyond the _menage_ he had lately left, with its air of

make-believe refinement which was not refinement at all.

Mr. Paley and also Mrs. Paley treated him with great consideration.

And it was no second-hand or spurious emotion. It seemed to be their

nature to pay respect, they seemed to have a craving to pay it, just as

a person there was no need to name and that person's friends had a

craving to be always what they called "pulling your leg." Not only was

Mr. Harper treated with deference, but solid comfort, well cooked food

and punctual attention were lavished upon him, so that for his own part

he was bound to honor the source whence these blessings sprang. The

august shade of the relict of Sir O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., might have

been a little too much in evidence now and again for the plain and

unvarnished taste of a sailor, but an ever deepening perception showed

him that the very things he was inclined to despise and to laugh at--as

most of the people with whom his life had been passed would undoubtedly

have done--were of real importance if you were able to look at them

from the right point of view.

From the moment he invaded its rather oppressively respectable

precincts, No. 14, Brinkworth Street, by some alchemy of the spirit of

place, began to work sensibly upon the Sailor. A rapidly expanding

life had been in peril of being torn asunder, but Providence, which

owed him so much, had found him a harbor of refuge.

From the very first evening in his new quarters reconstruction began.

An air of ordered calm seemed to pervade the carefully laundered pillow

as he laid his head on it that night. He was miserably weary, for one

thing, but his physical state was not alone the cause of his sleeping

in a way that had not been possible at No. 106, King John's Mansions,

in all the months he had known it. Somehow, that sleep in those clean

sheets, in that well-aired room, seemed to be the prelude to a new

phase of being.

It was Sunday morning when the Sailor awoke. The first thing he knew

was that the noiseless Mr. Paley was in the room, that he had placed a

tiny tray on a small table at the side of his bed, that he had said, in

his discreet voice, "Eight o'clock, sir," and that he was now in the

act of drawing up the blinds and letting in the light of February.

"Do you desire a warm bath or a cold, sir?"

It might have been Portman himself who was asking that considered

question.

"Cold, please," said the Sailor, rubbing his eyes with a feeling of

pleasure.

Mr. Paley spread a mat and then produced from a chastely curtained

recess a large, yellow-painted bath. Shortly afterwards, he evolved

two cans of water from outside the bedroom door.

"Your bath is quite ready, sir."

"Thank you. Much obliged."

The Sailor sprang out of bed. Yes, it was another new world he had

entered.

Half an hour later, he had descended to the dining-room, feeling

perhaps a stronger and more composed man than he had ever been in his

life. A well cooked rasher and two poached eggs and crisp toast and

butter and the best Oxford marmalade awaited him. He sat near the

pleasant fire, with his back to the enlarged photograph of the late Sir

O'Gorman Price, K.C.M.G., the last portrait taken by Messrs. Barrett

and Filmer, of Regent Street, and at Brighton, before the country and

the empire endured its irreparable loss. He ate steadily for twenty

minutes by the marble and ormulu clock in the center of the chimney

piece, presented by the Honorable Lady Price (a daughter of Lord Vesle

and Voile) in recognition of the faithful and valued service of Miss

Martha Handcock, on the occasion of her marriage with Mr. Emerson

Paley. He also contrived to hold a brief conversation with Mr. Emerson

Paley in regard to the weather. In a word, the Sailor's first

breakfast in Brinkworth Street was a memorable affair.

After his meal, beginning to feel more and more his own man, and with

this new world of order, of respect for established things, unfolding

itself around him, he proceeded to unpack the books which the

surprisingly efficient member of Messrs. Mortimer's staff had collected

in three large parcels. He felt a little thrill of delight as he laid

out carefully each beloved volume on the well polished writing table

with its green baize top, and then arranged them with precision and

delicacy on a row of empty shelves that had been freshly papered to

receive them.

When this had been done and the litter had been carefully removed, the

Sailor chose the volume which had had the most to say to him of late.

In fact, it was the book which up till now had meant more to him than

any other. Then he sat luxuriously before the fire, bravely determined

to forget the world he had left and to envisage the new one opening

around him.

Two hours passed, whose golden flight it was not for him to heed, when

all at once he was brought to earth.

"Mr. Ambrose," announced Mr. Paley.

"I thought I'd like to see if you had moved in in good shape," said his

friend, as he entered briskly and cheerfully. "Sorry I couldn't come

with you last night, but I should have been hopelessly late for a very

dull dinner party, which might have made it longer for others. What

are you reading? Milton?"

"It simply takes my head off," said the Sailor. "I almost want to

shout and sing. It's another new world to me."

"We can all envy any man who enters it," said Edward Ambrose, with his

deep laugh.

VII

Three days later, at the punctual hour of half past four in the

afternoon, Mr. Henry Harper was at the threshold of No. 50, Queen

Street, Mayfair. He had been at pains to array himself as well as a

limited wardrobe allowed, which meant that neatness had been set above

fashion. In spite of all he had been through since his glimpse of

paradise, the coming of this present hour had been a beacon in his

mind. And now as he stood on the doorstep of No. 50, waiting for his

echoing summons to be heeded, he felt so nervous that he could hardly

breathe.

The magic portals of the Fairy Princess were drawn back by another Mr.

Portman, a bland and spreading gentleman who bore himself with the same

authentic air of chaste magnificence. He took charge of Mr. Harper's

coat and hat and then took charge of Mr. Harper himself as though he

had clearly expected him. As the young man followed him upstairs to

the drawing-room his heart beat with a violence wholly absurd.

Mary came forward to greet him as soon as he appeared in the room, her

eyes alight, her hand outstretched. It was a reception of pure

unstudied friendship.

There was only one other person in the large room just then, a lady of

quiet, slightly formidable dignity, who was enthroned before a massive

silver tea service on a massive silver tray.

"Mr. Harper--my mother," said Mary.

The young man took the offered hand timidly. The lady of the silver

tea service, kindly and smiling though she was, had none of the

impulsive accessibility of her daughter. The Sailor knew in a moment

that she belonged to another order of things altogether.

She was large and handsome, sixty, perhaps, and her finely modeled face

was framed in an aureole of extremely correct white hair. Indeed, in

spite of her smile and an air of genuine kindness, correctness seemed

to be her predominant feature. Everything about her was so ordered, so

exactly right, that she had the rather formal unimaginative look to

which the whole race of royalties is doomed by the walls of the Royal

Academy of Arts.

It is not certain that Lady Pridmore felt this to be a hardship. Mary

roundly declared that nothing would have induced her mother to part

with it. She had often been mistaken for this or that personage, and

although much teased on the subject by her daughters, it was an open

secret that such resemblances were precious in her sight.

To this lady's "How do you do?" Mr. Harper responded with incoherency.

But the watchful Mary, who knew "the effect that mother had on some

people," promptly came to the young man's aid and helped him out with

great gallantry and success.

With the laugh peculiarly hers, Mary fixed the sailorman in a chair at

a strategic distance from her mother, gave him a cup of tea and a

liberal piece of cake, also thoughtfully provided him with a plate and

a small table to put it on, because this creature of swift intuitions

somehow felt that he had not quite got his drawing-room legs at present.

"You have a whole volume of questions to answer presently, Mr. Harper,"

said Mary, "so take plenty of nourishment, please. One of the pink is

recommended. They've got maraschino." She took one herself and bit it

in half with a gusto that rather amazed the young man; somehow he had

not looked for it in a real Hyde Park lady.

"Mmm--I told you--mmm--Klondyke." The real Hyde Park lady was speaking

with her mouth full. "Klondyke is the black sheep of the family. My

mother is simply dying to talk to you about him."

This was not strictly true. Lady Pridmore was not of the kind that

simply dies to talk of anything to anybody. Before she married Sir

John, she had been a Miss Colthurst, of Suffolk. At the time of her

union with that gentleman, then plain Mr. Pridmore, _charge d'affaires_

at Porocatepetl, and afterwards Her Britannic Majesty's representative

in several European capitals, her standard of conduct had been rigidly

fixed. She had seen much of life since, but nothing had ever caused

her to modify it. She was greatly interested in the perennial subject

of her eldest son, but to her mind, as it would have been to the

collective mind of the Colthursts of Suffolk from immemorial time, it

was merely an abuse of language for Mary to state that she was simply

dying to hear about Klondyke. She was always _much_ interested,

nevertheless, in the doings of poor dear Jack.

However, a disappointment was in store for Lady Pridmore. This rather

strange looking young man with the shy and embarrassed manner was not

so communicative on the subject in conversation with her as he had been

when Mary had met him at dinner. He had really very little to tell

her. For one thing, it was by no means so easy to converse with her as

it had been with the altogether delightful daughter who knew exactly

when and how to lend a hand.

The mother of Klondyke had therefore to do most of the talking about

that unsatisfactory young man. She certainly did it very well. That

is to say, she talked about him in a very even, precise, persistent,

Hyde-Park-lady tone. And the Sailor, as he sat listening with awe to a

conversation in which he did not feel in the least able to bear a part,

could only marvel that Klondyke had had such a mother as Lady Pridmore

and that Lady Pridmore had had such a son as Klondyke.

It had always been Lady Pridmore's wish that her eldest son should

enter his father's profession. In the first place, he would have had

Influence to help him, and if there was anything more precious in the

sight of Lady Pridmore than Influence, it would have been very hard to

discover it. Again, he was the offspring of two diplomatic families;

at least, it was recorded in Burke, where each family's record was set

out at considerable length and no doubt with reasonable veracity, that

diplomacy was one of the callings which adorned two supremely honorable

escutcheons.

In the opinion of Mary, also in that of Silvia, who ought to have been

back from Mudie's by now, and also, but in a less degree, in the

opinion of Otto--named after his godfather, a certain Prince Otto von

Bismarck--who generally got home from the Foreign Office about five,

their mother exaggerated the importance of the Pridmores of Yorkshire

and the Colthursts of Suffolk. No doubt they were two fairly old and

respectable families; Burke could certainly show cause for setting

store by them; each family ran to two full pages, fairly bristling with

peers and baronets and Lady Charlottes and Lady Sophias; and yet, to

their mother's grief, these three heretics, Mary, Silvia, and Otto,

generally known as the Prince, took pleasure in developing the theory

that it was mere Victorianism for Burke or anyone else to flaunt such a

pride in the Colthursts and the Pridmores.

"Because," said Mary, "it is not as though either family has ever

produced anybody at all first-rate in anything."

The intrusion of Burke reveals a certain attitude of mind in Lady

Pridmore. It was really surprising--three of her progeny always

maintained it, and a fourth would undoubtedly have done so had he ever

felt called upon to express an opinion in the matter--that one who had

seen as much of the world as their mother, who had dined and supped and

danced and paid calls in the most famous European capitals, who had

been intimate with Crowned Heads, who had been whirled by them across

ballrooms, who had the entree to the great world and had cut a very

decent figure in it, according to the memoirs of the time, should have

such obsolete ideas in regard to the value of the Colthurst family of

Suffolk and in slightly modified degree of the Pridmore family of

Yorkshire. As Mary said, it was funny.

At present, however, Mr. Henry Harper did not share any such view of

Lady Pridmore. She and all that went with her seemed too important to

be contemplated in the light of levity. She had a dignity beyond

anything the Sailor had known or up till then had conceived to be

possible. Therefore, it made her relationship to Klondyke a crowning

wonder.

"I shall always think, Mr. Harper," said Lady Pridmore, "that if they

had only given Jack his Eleven during his last term at Eton, it would

have made a great difference in his life. I don't say he ought to have

played against Harrow, but I certainly think they might have played him

against Winchester for his bowling. Had they done that, I am convinced

it would have steadied him, and then, no doubt, he would have settled

down and have followed in the footsteps of his father."

This was the tragedy of Lady Pridmore's life, yet it said much for the

callousness of youth that Mary, Silvia, and the Prince were unable to

approach the subject with reverence.

The Sailor kept up his end as well as he could, but his awe of Lady

Pridmore did not grow less. Therefore he could do himself no sort of

justice. Mary, who had taken him completely under her wing, was always

on the watch to render well-timed assistance. She helped him out of

one or two tight places, and then Silvia came in, with three books in a

strap.

She was of a type different from Mary's, but Mr. Harper thought she was

very good to look at. She had the same air of directness that he liked

so much in the elder sister. An amused vivacity made her popular with

most people, yet behind it was a cool, rather cynical perception of men

and things.

Mary introduced Mr. Harper, and Silvia shook hands with him in her

mother's manner, but with an eye of merriment which made quite a comic

effect.

"I've just come from Mudie's," she said, "where they say everybody is

reading your book. It is wonderfully clever of you to have written it.

Sailors don't write as a rule, do they? Something better to do, I

suppose."

"I don't know about that," said Henry Harper. Somehow he felt already

that Silvia was disarmingly easy to get on with. "Myself, I'd rather

be John Milton than the master of any ship that ever sailed the seas."

"Yes, but that's because you were a sailor before you were a writer,

isn't it?"

"It's what every writer that's worth his salt has got to be," said the

young man, quaintly. "John Milton was a sailor, too. A master

mariner."

"Yes, of course," said Silvia. "I see what you mean."

She had decided already that she very much liked this strange, wistful,

rather fine-drawn young man. He was quite different from any other

young man she had ever met. Somehow, he was exactly like his book.

"It is odd you should have been on the same ship as my brother."

"Yes," said the Sailor. "And yet it isn't. Nothing is really queer if

you come to think about it. It seems very much more strange to me that

I should be in this beautiful room talking to you ladies, than that I

should have been in the port watch with Klondyke aboard the _Margaret

Carey_."

"The sea is more familiar to you than London," said Silvia, completely

disarmed by his naivete, as Mary had been.

Otto now came in. His general aspect was not unlike Klondyke's, his

air was frank and manly, yet his bearing was more considered than that

hero's. All the same he had a full share of the family charm.

"Otto," said Mary, "this is Mr. Harper, who knows Jack."

"What, you know old Fly-up-the-Creek! Heaven help you!"

Mr. Harper had already made the discovery that these people had a

language of their own, which he could only follow with difficulty. It

was a language which Madame Sadleir didn't teach, a language that Mr.

Ambrose didn't use, although he understood it well enough; in fact, it

was a language he had never heard before, and he somehow felt that Lady

Pridmore was rather pained by it.

"Mr. Harper," said Mary, "this is our respectable brother. He is true

to type."

"For the love of heaven, be quiet!" said Otto, gulping his tea.

"Here's your book on Nietzsche," said Silvia. "Mr. Harper, what do you

think of Nietzsche?"

Mr. Harper had never heard of Nietzsche, and he didn't hesitate to say

so. Lady Pridmore alone, of the four people present, failed to respect

his frankness. To her mind, it was inconceivable that an author by

profession and one reputed to be successful should not have heard of

Nietzsche. It was almost as if he had not heard of Lord Tennyson.

Yet Mary and Silvia and even the Prince honored this candor. This chap

was a queer freak in the eyes of the budding diplomatist, but he had

been told by people who knew about such matters that all writing chaps

were, if they were at all first rate. All the same, he liked him. One

felt he was straight and decent, in spite of his outlandishness.

Somehow this quaint bird did not seem to be following the usual line of

country of the soaring eagles of the moment whom his sisters brought to

the house from time to time.

The Prince took not unkindly to the sailorman, who had written two very

curious books about the sea. They were much overrated, in the Prince's

opinion. The style was uncertain, and the colors were laid on too

thick for anything, but people who knew Ted Ambrose, for instance,

thought a good deal of them. Personally, the Prince believed in style.

Stevenson, for example, wrote like an educated man. This man's writing

in its crude force had somehow the air of the lower deck. Ambrose said

there was greatness in it, all the same. Personally, the Prince

preferred polished mediocrity, and was not ashamed of the fact, not

that one could call a chap like Stevenson mediocre. But this man

Harper lacked something, although it was to his credit to admit that he

had never heard of Nietzsche. But obviously he hadn't.

VIII

Mary's enthusiasm for the sailorman was shared by Silvia, although not

perhaps in an equal degree. Lady Pridmore was inclined to be a little

distressed by it, in the way that she was inclined to be a little

distressed by so many things. The Prince merely thought there was no

harm in the chap, but that he was a freak.

Edward Ambrose, who had discovered what Lady Pridmore considered this

rather odd young man, had many questions to answer when next he

appeared in Queen Street. As a particular friend of the house, he

turned the tables by adroitly chaffing Lady Pridmore and the Prince,

and by ministering gaily to Mary's and Silvia's tempered ecstasies.

In the meantime, the Sailor was indulging little private ecstasies of

his own. The visit to a Mayfair drawing-room had marked one more epoch

in a strange career. He had entered another new and wonderful world.

It was a world whose language was a closed book to him at present.

Perhaps it always would be; at any rate, it seemed to lie out of the

range even of Madame Sadleir, whose instruction he still courted

diligently.

It was a world of peculiar grace, of external harmony and beauty. The

trained minds marching with the trained movements of these people lent

the quality of poetry to all they said and did. And they took what he

could only call their refinement so much for granted, that they seemed

almost to apologize for the sheer niceness in which they had so

completely enveloped themselves. He had not known that such people

existed in mass and bulk, at least that they had a corporate life of

their own. The glamour they had for him was extraordinary. It would

have been impossible to think without a thrill of his friend Miss

Pridmore, even if she had not been the sister of the immortal Klondyke.

Mary herself found so much in common with the Sailor that she began to

show him the sights of the town. She was quite a modern girl in her

breadth and independence, happily inoculated against every sort of ism,

but at the same time capable of following any line she marked out for

herself. The Sailor had soon begun to interest her very much, and

instinctively divining something of his handicap, she wished to help

him all she could.

About a week after the first visit to Queen Street, she led the young

man to the National Gallery to see the Turners. They spent a very

profitable morning holding high communion before them. His unstudied

comments seemed to give her a juster view not of art merely, but of

life as well. The depth of his intoxication as he stood before these

seascapes, sensing them, drinking them in, filled her with wonder.

"God!" he muttered once. She saw his eyes were full of tears, and she

felt a stab of pity.

Life had not been kind to this man. A thousand subtle, half

apprehended things had already told her that. He had said in his odd

way, which was yet so poignant, that he "had started a long way behind

scratch." Indeed, it was the sight of these very Turners which had

wrung the admission from him.

After this, they went one day to Manchester Square to see the Wallace

collection, and to concerts on several Sunday afternoons, but the

climax of esthetic delight was reached for Henry Harper when one

evening he was taken to the Opera to hear "Tristan." Edward Ambrose,

who it seemed numbered the super-rich among his friends, had been lent

a box on the grand tier. And nothing would content him save that

others should share the blessings which attend acquaintance with

plutocracy.

The box was able to accommodate six persons, and those whom Edward

Ambrose lured into honoring it and being honored by it were the three

ladies, the Prince, Henry Harper, and himself. Lady Pridmore and the

Prince were a little bored undoubtedly. She had the lowest opinion of

Wagner and thought the Germans overrated generally. The Prince was

more discreet in his condemnation, but he certainly thought the Prelude

was too long. Edward Ambrose, Mary, and Silvia had heard it so often

that it was almost ceasing to be an excitement for them: a frame of

mind, it is said, which connotes the amateur. As for Mr. Harper, that

was an ever-memorable night.

From this time on he was in a state of growing ecstasy which threatened

to become perilous. Existence was now an enchanted thing. A veritable

Fairy Princess had come into his life. In speech, in manner, in look,

in deed, she was of royal kin. In all the Sailor's wanderings, in all

his imaginings, no mortal woman had assumed the significance of this

sister of the immortal Klondyke.

O goddess rare and strange! He was already in her thrall. She was

gray-eyed Athena of whom his reading had lately been telling him, she

was Wisdom herself come to earth in the disciplined splendor of her

spirit. Already he was prostrate at the shrine. It was for Her that

he had sailed the multitudinous seas, it was for Her that he had

traversed noisome caverns measureless to man.

Aladdin, with a flash of the wonderful lamp, had shown him a reason for

many things. Strange and dreadful burdens had been laid upon him,

every inch of his endurance had been tested in Fate's crucible, that in

the end he might win through to a high destiny. Was it for nothing

that, shoeless and stockingless, he had cried, "Orrible Crime on the

Igh Seas," in the slush of a Blackhampton gutter? Was it for nothing

that he had looked on the Island of San Pedro? No; there was purpose

behind it all. At the chosen hour the goddess Athena was to appear in

order that he might be healed with the divine wisdom.

Life was touched to very fine issues for the Sailor now. And yet so

swift was the change that he did not realize its peril. The sister of

Klondyke meant much to him already. Sometimes he read his work to her.

When they discussed it afterwards her comments would reveal a depth of

knowledge that astonished him, and raised the whole matter of the

argument to a higher plane. Many an enchanted talk they had together.

So miraculously were their minds in tune that it almost seemed they

must have conversed through unnumbered ages. Then, too, in the most

tactful and delicate way, she was his guide amid the elusive paths of

this new and divine world he was entering. Yet she asked so little and

gave so much, such a change was wrought in his life by subtle degrees,

that he was blind to the terrible danger.

It was in late spring, when they had known each other nearly three

months, that the Sailor had a first intimation of coming disaster. By

that time he had yielded completely to a state of bliss. Moreover, he

was now in the thrall of Athena's counterfeit and epitome as imaged by

other sailormen who had held communings with her. She had sent to

Brinkworth Street on three successive Mondays, recking nought of her

deed, certain magic volumes in which she herself was mirrored by the

mind of a poet: "Richard Feverel," "Beauchamp," and "The Egoist." And

then as he felt the sorcery of Renee, Clara, Lucy, and other

adumbrations of Athena herself, something happened.

It was merely that she went out of town for a fortnight. But that

fortnight was enough to tell the Sailor one tragic thing. A glamour

had gone from the earth. The grass of May was no longer green;

Chelsea's river was no longer a vindication of Turner; the birds no

longer sang in Middlesex.

A strange thing had come to pass. The Sailor had suffered one sea

change the more. But at first, had his life depended on it, he could

not have said what it was. He only knew that he was losing appetite

for the magic food on which he had been waxing lately: it was no longer

possible to devour poetry and wisdom in the way he had done. Moreover

his pen no longer flew across the paper. It took him a whole week to

do that which he now expected to accomplish in a morning, and then the

result pleased him so little that he tore it up. He was bitterly

disconcerted by this mystery. But one day, the eighth of her absence,

the truth came to him, like a ghost in the night. Life was no longer

possible without Mary Pridmore.

It was about four o'clock of a morning in June when this fact overtook

him. As he lay in bed, facing it as well as he could, it seemed to

submerge him. He sprang forth to meet the cold dawn creeping from the

Thames, flung up the blind and opened the window. In the grip of the

old relentless force he turned his eyes to the east. The faint flecks

of orange across the river were the gates of paradise, yet the Sailor

hardly knew whether the sinister gloom beyond was a bank of cloud or

the trees upon the Island of San Pedro. In an exaltation of the spirit

which he had only known once before in his life, he seemed to hear a

particular name being twittered by the birds in the eaves. Mary

Pridmore! Mary Pridmore!

It was fantastic, it was ridiculous, it was perhaps a form of mania,

but there was the fact. And a policeman, passing along Brinkworth

Street at that moment, seemed to tread out that magic name upon its

echoing pavement!

She had given him her address: Miss Pridmore, at Greylands, near

Woking. He must write, she had said, but not before he had finished

"The Egoist," and had made up his mind about it; thereby revealing, as

became a properly conventional Miss Pridmore, that it was not so much

the sailorman who was of consequence as his opinion on a highly

technical matter!

In the innocence of his heart he had already written and posted a

letter. His views were expressed with a naivete at the opposite pole

from Box Hill on these high epistolary occasions. It was not in this

wise that the mage addressed his own particular goddesses.

No answer had yet come to this letter. Therefore in the half light of

dawn he sat down to write a second and more considered one. Vain

endeavor! It was not for the pen of mortal to unlock the heart of the

true prince, unless the genie willed it. And this morning, alas, the

genie was not amenable. For it suddenly addressed the Sailor, not with

the voice of a magician, but with rude horse sense.

"Get into bed, you fool," said the genie. "Cease making an idiot of

yourself. Athena is as far beyond you as the stars in their courses

which have just gone back into heaven."

The Sailor returned to his bed, to dream. He did his best to be

rational, but the task was hopeless. "Mary Pridmore! Mary Pridmore!"

twittered the sparrows in the eaves of Chelsea.

IX

A little after five had struck by the church of St. Clement at the

bottom of Brinkworth Street, he rose again from his bed. He flung on

his clothes, draped a scarf round his neck in lieu of a collar, crept

downstairs and out of the front door of No. 14 into the streets of the

metropolis.

This morning there was a coolness in the air. And as soon as he felt

it he was able to think more clearly. A sharp thrill ran through his

brain. It was hardly three months since he had roamed the streets of

London in the morning hours with tumult in his heart.

Since that night he had explored whole continents; hardly anything

remained of many former worlds he had inhabited; but there was a spear

in the side of Ulysses, and he must always remember that none could

pluck it out.

As he reached the bottom of the street and Thames in his majesty smiled

grimly upon him, he knew that he was in terrible case. He was no more

than a frail mortal, caught in the toils of irresistible forces. What

hope had such a one of outfacing the decrees of fate?

It was not until he had walked for an hour by the waters of Thames that

he returned to Brinkwater Street, to breakfast. A letter with the

Woking postmark was at the side of his plate. It said:

Greylands.

Thursday.

MY DEAR MR. HARPER,

Your view of 'The Egoist' is a new light to me on a most wonderful

book. It is not exactly how I see it myself, but I somehow feel you

are very near the truth. But when you say that a man such as

Willoughby is not quite sane there is a point for argument. You are

also too severe, I think, in your judgment of the author of his being.

You say he could never really have known what life is. There I frankly

don't agree with you, but of course we look at things so differently,

and that is the great charm of your long letter. This is a very stupid

one, but I won't apologize for it, because it is the best I can write,

and I shall not have the presumption to try to meet you on your own

ground. You have sailed the High Seas, whereas I have only read about

them. Looking back on the conversations we have had I see you as a

master mariner. This is not an idle compliment. You have not yet

gained your full stature, you have yet to declare yourself in your

power, but believe me you have the strength of a giant, and if such a

wish is not an impertinence I hope you will have the courage to achieve

your destiny.

Yours always most sincerely,

MARY PRIDMORE.

This letter was like a draft of wine to the Sailor. He read it many

times before that day was out, but he turned to it again and again long

after he knew every word by heart. It gave him a new zest for his

work. He had quite a good day with the pen. Under these high auspices

he took new courage to go on. Much was asked of him by this sacred

intimacy. By deeds alone could he show himself worthy.

In reply to this letter he wrote a very long one to Miss Pridmore, at

Greylands, near Woking. It was not so discreet and carefully

considered as the one he had intended to write; he let himself go far

more than he felt he ought to have done. And the reply he received the

day before the fortnight was up was similarly expansive and just as

entrancing as the former one. But the whole effect was marred by a

grievous disappointment. Instead of returning from Greylands on the

morrow, which was Saturday, she was going to stay another week.

How could he bear the burden of existence for such an intolerable

length of time without a sight of her? It was asking more of flesh and

blood than flesh and blood thought reasonable.

The next day, Saturday, was a time of gloom. He could not work at all,

and it was no use making a pretence of it. But in the evening, sadly

smoking a pipe after so meager a dinner that Mr. Paley was quite

disconcerted, there came an inspiration.

Why not pay a visit to Woking on the morrow? Why not make his way to

Greylands--wherever Greylands might be--and without revealing an

unsanctioned presence, gaze upon Athena in all her glory as she came

out of church, which he knew she attended every Sunday?

The idea at once took possession of him. And presently it flamed so

hot in his mind that he borrowed a Bradshaw from Mr. Paley and found,

as he had surmised, that there was no lack of trains to Woking on the

morrow. He decided that the one which arrived at 9.20 would be the

best for his purpose. That would give him plenty of time to locate

Greylands, and ample opportunity, no doubt, to reach it.

Sunday came, a fair June day, and the Sailor, having made an early, but

in the circumstances surprisingly efficient, breakfast, set forth to

Waterloo Station. Such an adventure could receive no sanction from men

or gods, but after all, reflected Henry Harper as he went his way, no

possible harm can come of it if I don't let her see me!

The train arrived at Woking only five minutes late, which was really

not bad for the Sabbath. Only one porter was to be seen on the

deserted platform, and he, with the gruffness of a martyr ill resigned,

had "never heard on it," that is to say, had never heard of Greylands.

This was a rebuff. The clerk in the booking office, suffering also

from a sense of injustice, was equally unhelpful. However, outside the

station was a solitary flyman in charge of a promiscuous vehicle, and

he, it seemed, had heard of Greylands, moreover, scenting a fare, knew

how to get there.

"It's afore you come to Bramshott, just off the Guildford Road. How

far? All out three mile. But I shan't ask more than four shilling."

The Sailor declined this offer with politeness. He would have plenty

of time to walk, which was what he wanted to do. The flyman, in spite

of a keen disappointment, received such a sincere and cordial "Good

morning," that he returned it without discourtesy.

The first thing to enkindle the senses of the Sailor was the smell of

the fresh country earth. A very little rain had fallen in the night,

but enough to renew with a divine cleanliness these wide spaces, these

open heaths.

The bracken, young and green and a mass of shining crystals, was

uncurling itself on each side of the road. The birds were in full

choir, the trees were near the pomp of midsummer, the sun of June made

a glory of the distant hills. It was a noble world. Long before the

Sailor came to Greylands he was like a harp strung and touched to

ecstasy by the implicit hand of nature.

He knew he was speculating on the bare chance of a sight of Athena.

There was nothing to tell him that she would go that morning to

Bramshott parish church. The only guide he had was that she went to

church at least once every Sunday, and sometimes twice, but whether

this would involve attendance at the local service must be the part of

faith to answer.

At any rate, whether he set eyes on her or not, he was trudging to

Greylands through the bracken in ease of mind and high expansion of

spirit. He might not see her, yet he was giving himself the glorious

opportunity. It was on the knees of the gods, but already he felt

stronger, braver, saner, for having put it to the touch.

A little after ten he came to Bramshott village. It was a small place

of quaint timber-framed houses, and in the middle was a church. But it

all seemed commonplace enough. There was nothing here to minister to

an intense emotion; nothing but the sun, the birds, the sky, the

bracken, the perfumed loveliness of mother earth.

He was not such a fool as to fear his ecstasy. Come what might he

would live his hour. The towers of Greylands, he was told in the

village, could be seen from the church porch. There they were, sure

enough, banked and massive, cutting across the sun with their

importunate red brick. This, at any rate, was her local habitation.

It was his to gaze upon even if no other guerdon rewarded him.

As became a true sailorman, who had sailed six years before the mast,

he had brought home a pocket of horse sense from his wanderings.

Therefore, as soon as he had drunk his fill of those flanked towers, he

went inside the church and found a decrepit pew-opener who was full of

information.

The service began at eleven. Reverend Manson was the vicar and also

the squire of the parish, although Greylands was the rich folk, and

they always came of a Sunday morning, whatever the weather, if the

Fambly was at home. Their name was Ellis, and they were very rich.

Armed with this knowledge, the Sailor decided upon a bold course. He

took up a position in a corner of the church some way behind the

Greylands pew, which had been duly pointed out to him. Here he sat

unseen with one solid pillar to conceal him. But he had taken care

that in spite of the pillar a clear sight of the Greylands pew should

be his.

It seemed a long time to eleven. But it came at last, and with it, or

rather shortly before it, by the courtesy of the gods, came Mary

Pridmore. She entered before the Sailor, counting the seconds in his

fastness, realized that she was there.

She wore a simple dress of soft gray and a black hat. But in no

particular had she abated a whit of her regality. In that fine outline

was a quality that made his pulses leap. As she went down the aisle

with two white-spatted, ultra-princelike cavaliers, and two ladies,

older than she, yet in garb more fanciful, the Sailor caught just a

glimpse of her face. Yes, this was Athena herself, a creature

altogether splendid yet restrained, who drew the Sailor's very soul and

held it, while she knelt on her hassock, with an air of gravest

submission and dignity.

Suddenly he realized that she was praying. With a rather irrational

impulse of shame he fell on his knees. The knowledge abased him that

he had neglected this obvious duty, but yet he had the excuse, such as

it was, that this was the very first time in his life he had entered a

church.

Hitherto--if the Sailor must face the truth--the whole of his

intercourse with religious things had been confined to two tea and bun

fights with addresses to follow, under the aegis of that light of his

youth, the Reverend Rogers, at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall.

Therefore he didn't know in the least what to do. However, let him

keep his eyes in front of him. When Athena got up he must get up, when

she sat down he must sit down. And kneeling as she kneeled, he

devoutly hoped that he was rendering homage to the same God as she,

although with far less whole-hearted allegiance than hers at the moment.

It was hard to know what use to make of the Book of Common Prayer that

the verger had given him. He had never opened such a volume before.

To the best of his recollection one had been lent him at the Brookfield

Street Mission Hall, but certainly it had not been opened. It would

have been no use to do so, seeing that he could not read a word of it

then. But he could read it now, and he desired to render thanks for

that miraculous, that crowning mercy.

The service was long, but to the Sailor it was entrancing. The

imperial outline of Athena was ever before him; and yet in despite of

her he had at least a part of a devout mind to spare for an ancient

mystery. Reverend Manson in his dual role of vicar and squire of

Bramshott was something of a patriarch. It was a fine face, and to the

Sailor it was a symbolical presence. He was simple and sincere, and

whatever his learning may have been he wore it like a flower. Somehow,

Reverend Manson spoke to the heart of the Sailor. During that

enchanted hour he followed him into an unknown kingdom. Yet as he did

this the young man was thrilled by the thought that he did not journey

alone. Athena was with him at every step he took.

The prayers passed and the singing, which affected him strangely; then

came the sermon, and after that more singing, and then came the verger

with the collection plate. The Sailor put in half a sovereign;

anything but gold seemed a profanation of a most solemn rite. And then

he did an immensely wise thing. He glided swiftly, in the midst of the

hymn, out of the church, and out of Bramshott village into the lanes of

Surrey.

X

More than one long and golden hour the Sailor wandered through bracken

and heather. He didn't know in the least where he was going, and there

seemed no reason why he should care. He had a wonderful sense of

adventure. Here was something real. This was the noble and gorgeous

life to which the streets of Blackhampton, the deck of the _Margaret

Carey_, the sojourn at King John's Mansions were the dreadful but

necessary prelude.

After a long beat across country, and away, away he knew not where, he

struck a path which carried him into a charming village tucked away

under a hill. It then occurred to him that he was very hungry. The

sign of "The Chequers" in the village street brought the fact home. At

this neat hostelry with a roof of thatch he was able to declare himself

a _bona fide_ traveler, and was rewarded with a noble chunk of bread

and cheese and a glass of beer, a thin and tepid brew whose only merit

was the quality of wetness. But such fare and an hour's rest on a

wooden bench in a cool parlor with a sanded floor was Elysium.

After that again the road--but only the road in a manner of speaking.

The Sailor, roaming now the high seas of his desire, was in no mood at

present for the ordered routes of commerce. Let it be the open

country. Let him be borne across multitudinous seas on the wings of

fancy. Therefore, as a bird flies, he struck across the pathless

heather. The bracken rose waist high, but wherever it ran he followed

it, now through the close-grown woods, now across furzy common and open

spaces.

On and on he wandered all the golden afternoon. And then quite

suddenly came evening and an intense weariness which was not made less

because he didn't know where he was. He only knew that he was in

Surrey and very tired. But, all at once, Providence declared itself in

an unexpected way. Straight ahead among the trees was a tiny opening,

and threading it a hum of telegraph wires.

This could only mean that a main road was at hand. Quickened to new

life by such a rare piece of luck he pushed on, thanking his stars.

Evidently he could not be far from a town or a railway. As a fact, he

had struck the Guilford Road, and a hundred yards or so along it the

friendliest milestone he had ever met assured him that he was three

miles from the country town of Surrey.

Those three miles, honest turnpike as they were, proved a test of

endurance. But they ended at last. Footsore and limping now, he

crossed a bridge and entered a railway station where the lamps were lit

already. And then Providence really surpassed itself! The last train

to London was due in twenty minutes.

The Sailor flung himself down on a seat in the station in a state of

heavenly fatigue. It had been such a day as he had never known, and

his final gracious act of fortune was a fitting climax. It was true

the last train to London was twenty minutes late, but it sufficed to

know that it was surely coming.

Finally it came, and the Sailor entered it. Moreover, he had the

carriage to himself, and was able to lie full length on the cushions in

an orgy of weariness. He dozed deliciously all the way to Waterloo,

which he reached at something after eleven. It was striking midnight

by St. Clement's Church as he turned the latchkey in the door of No. 14

Brinkworth Street. At a quarter past that hour the Sailor was in his

bed too deeply asleep even to dream of Athena.

XI