Now that Audrey Noel was lost to him, her loveliness and that

indescribable quality which made her lovable, floated before him, the

very torture-flowers of a beauty never to be grasped--yet, that he could

grasp, 'if he only would! That was the heart and fervour of his

suffering. To be grasped if he only would! He was suffering, too,

physically from a kind of slow fever, the result of his wetting on the

day when he last saw her. And through that latent fever, things and

feelings, like his sensations in the House before his speech, were all as

it were muffled in a horrible way, as if they all came to him wrapped in

a sort of flannel coating, through which he could not cut. And all the

time there seemed to be within him two men at mortal grips with one

another; the man of faith in divine sanction and authority, on which all

his beliefs had hitherto hinged, and a desperate warm-blooded hungry

creature. He was very miserable, craving strangely for the society of

someone who could understand what he was feeling, .and, from long habit

of making no confidants, not knowing how to satisfy that craving.

It was dawn when he reached his rooms; and, sure that he would not sleep,

he did not even go to bed, but changed his clothes, made himself some

coffee, and sat down at the window which overlooked the flowered

courtyard.

In Middle Temple Hall a Ball was still in progress, though the glamour

from its Chinese lanterns was already darkened and gone. Miltoun saw a

man and a girl, sheltered by an old fountain, sitting out their last

dance. Her head had sunk on her partner's shoulder; their lips were

joined. And there floated up to the window the scent of heliotrope, with

the tune of the waltz that those two should have been dancing. This

couple so stealthily enlaced, the gleam of their furtively turned eyes,

the whispering of their lips, that stony niche below the twittering

sparrows, so cunningly sought out--it was the world he had abjured! When

he looked again, they--like a vision seen--had stolen away and gone; the

music too had ceased, there was no scent of heliotrope. In the stony

niche crouched a stray cat watching the twittering sparrows.

Miltoun went out, and, turning into the empty Strand, walked on--without

heeding where, till towards five o'clock he found himself on Putney

Bridge.

He rested there, leaning over the parapet, looking down at the grey

water. The sun was just breaking through the heat haze; early waggons

were passing, and already men were coming in to work. To what end did

the river wander up and down; and a human river flow across it twice

every day? To what end were men and women suffering? Of the full current

of this life Miltoun could no more see the aim, than that of the wheeling

gulls in the early sunlight.

Leaving the bridge he made towards Barnes Common. The night was still

ensnared there on the gorse bushes grey with cobwebs and starry dewdrops.

He passed a tramp family still sleeping, huddled all together. Even the

homeless lay in each other's arms!

From the Common he emerged on the road near the gates of Ravensham;

turning in there, he found his way to the kitchen garden, and sat down on

a bench close to the raspberry bushes. They were protected from thieves,

but at Miltoun's approach two blackbirds flustered out through the

netting and flew away.

His long figure resting so motionless impressed itself on the eyes of a

gardener, who caused a report to be circulated that his young lordship

was in the fruit garden. It reached the ears of Clifton, who himself

came out to see what this might mean. The old man took his stand in

front of Miltoun very quietly.

"You have come to breakfast, my lord?"

"If my grandmother will have me, Clifton."

"I understood your lordship was speaking last night."

"I was."

"You find the House of Commons satisfactory, I hope."

"Fairly, thank you, Clifton."

"They are not what they were in the great days of your grandfather, I

believe. He had a very good opinion of them. They vary, no doubt."

"Tempora mutantur."

"That is so. I find quite anew spirit towards public affairs. The

ha'penny Press; one takes it in, but one hardly approves. I shall be

anxious to read your speech. They say a first speech is a great strain."

"It is rather."

"But you had no reason to be anxious. I'm sure it was beautiful."

Miltoun saw that the old man's thin sallow cheeks had flushed to a deep

orange between his snow-white whiskers.

"I have looked forward to this day," he stammered, "ever since I knew

your lordship--twenty-eight years. It is the beginning."

"Or the end, Clifton."

The old man's face fell in a look of deep and concerned astonishment.

"No, no," he said; "with your antecedents, never."

Miltoun took his hand.

"Sorry, Clifton--didn't mean to shock you."

And for a minute neither spoke, looking at their clasped hands as if

surprised.

"Would your lordship like a bath--breakfast is still at eight. I can

procure you a razor."

When Miltoun entered the breakfast room, his grandmother, with a copy of

the Times in her hands, was seated before a grape fruit, which, with a

shredded wheat biscuit, constituted her first meal. Her appearance

hardly warranted Barbara's description of 'terribly well'; in truth she

looked a little white, as if she had been feeling the heat. But there

was no lack of animation in her little steel-grey eyes, nor of decision

in her manner.

"I see," she said, "that you've taken a line of your own, Eustace. I've

nothing to say against that; in fact, quite the contrary. But remember

this, my dear, however you may change you mustn't wobble. Only one thing

counts in that place, hitting the same nail on the head with the same

hammer all the time. You aren't looking at all well."

Miltoun, bending to kiss her, murmured:

"Thanks, I'm all right."

"Nonsense," replied Lady Casterley. "They don't look after you. Was

your mother in the House?"

"I don't think so."

"Exactly. And what is Barbara about? She ought to be seeing to you."

"Barbara is down with Uncle Dennis."

Lady Casterley set her jaw; then looking her grandson through and

through, said:

"I shall take you down there this very day. I shall have the sea to you.

What do you say, Clifton?"

"His lordship does look pale."

"Have the carriage, and we'll go from Clapham Junction. Thomas can go in

and fetch you some clothes. Or, better, though I dislike them, we can

telephone to your mother for a car. It's very hot for trains. Arrange

that, please, Clifton!"

To this project Miltoun raised no objection. And all through the drive

he remained sunk in an indifference and lassitude which to Lady Casterley

seemed in the highest degree ominous. For lassitude, to her, was the

strange, the unpardonable, state. The little great lady--casket of the

aristocratic principle--was permeated to the very backbone with the

instinct of artificial energy, of that alert vigour which those who have

nothing socially to hope for are forced to develop, lest they should

decay and be again obliged to hope. To speak honest truth, she could not

forbear an itch to run some sharp and foreign substance into her

grandson, to rouse him somehow, for she knew the reason of his state, and

was temperamentally out of patience with such a cause for backsliding.

Had it been any other of her grandchildren she would not have hesitated,

but there was that in Miltoun which held even Lady Casterley in check,

and only once during the four hours of travel did she attempt to break

down his reserve. She did it in a manner very soft for her--was he not of

all living things the hope and pride of her heart? Tucking her little

thin sharp hand under his arm, she said quietly:

"My dear, don't brood over it. That will never do."

But Miltoun removed her hand gently, and laid it back on the dust rug,

nor did he answer, or show other sign of having heard.

And Lady Casterley, deeply wounded, pressed her faded lips together, and

said sharply:

"Slower, please, Frith!"

CHAPTER V

It was to Barbara that Miltoun unfolded, if but little, the trouble of

his spirit, lying that same afternoon under a ragged tamarisk hedge with

the tide far out. He could never have done this if there had not been

between them the accidental revelation of that night at Monkland; nor

even then perhaps had he not felt in this young sister of his the warmth

of life for which he was yearning. In such a matter as love Barbara was

the elder of these two. For, besides the motherly knowledge of the heart

peculiar to most women, she had the inherent woman-of-the-worldliness to

be expected of a daughter of Lord and Lady Valleys. If she herself were

in doubt as to the state of her affections, it was not as with Miltoun,

on the score of the senses and the heart, but on the score of her spirit

and curiosity, which Courtier had awakened and caused to flap their wings

a little. She worried over Miltoun's forlorn case; it hurt her too to

think of Mrs. Noel eating her heart out in that lonely cottage. A sister

so--good and earnest as Agatha had ever inclined Barbara to a rebellious

view of morals, and disinclined her altogether to religion. And so, she

felt that if those two could not be happy apart, they should be happy

together, in the name of all the joy there was in life!

And while her brother lay face to the sky under the tamarisks, she kept

trying to think of how to console him, conscious that she did not in the

least understand the way he thought about things. Over the fields

behind, the larks were hymning the promise of the unripe corn; the

foreshore was painted all colours, from vivid green to mushroom pink; by

the edge of the blue sea little black figures stooped, gathering

sapphire. The air smelled sweet in the shade of the tamarisk; there was

ineffable peace. And Barbara, covered by the network of sunlight, could

not help impatience with a suffering which seemed to her so corrigible by

action. At last she ventured:

"Life is short, Eusty!"

Miltoun's answer, given without movement, startled her:

"Persuade me that it is, Babs, and I'll bless you. If the singing of

these larks means nothing, if that blue up there is a morass of our

invention, if we are pettily, creeping on furthering nothing, if there's

no purpose in our lives, persuade me of it, for God's sake!"

Carried suddenly beyond her depth, Barbara could only put out her hand,

and say: "Oh! don't take things so hard!"

"Since you say that life is short," Miltoun muttered, with his smile,

"you shouldn't spoil it by feeling pity! In old days we went to the

Tower for our convictions. We can stand a little private roasting, I

hope; or has the sand run out of us altogether?"

Stung by his tone, Barbara answered in rather a hard voice:

"What we must bear, we must, I suppose. But why should we make trouble?

That's what I can't stand!"

"O profound wisdom!"

Barbara flushed.

"I love Life!" she said.

The galleons of the westering sun were already sailing in a broad gold

fleet straight for that foreshore where the little black stooping figures

had not yet finished their toil, the larks still sang over the unripe

corn--when Harbinger, galloping along the sands from Whitewater to Sea

House, came on that silent couple walking home to dinner.

It would not be safe to say of this young man that he readily diagnosed a

spiritual atmosphere, but this was the less his demerit, since everything

from his cradle up had conspired to keep the spiritual thermometer of his

surroundings at 60 in the shade. And the fact that his own spiritual

thermometer had now run up so that it threatened to burst the bulb,

rendered him less likely than ever to see what was happening with other

people's. Yet, he did notice that Barbara was looking pale, and--it

seemed--sweeter than ever.... With her eldest brother he always somehow

felt ill at ease. He could not exactly afford to despise an

uncompromising spirit in one of his own order, but he was no more

impervious than others to Miltoun's caustic, thinly-veiled contempt for

the commonplace; and having a full-blooded belief in himself---usual with

men of fine physique, whose lots are so cast that this belief can never

or almost never be really shaken--he greatly disliked the feeling of

being a little looked down on. It was an intense relief, when, saying

that he wanted a certain magazine, Miltoun strode off into the town.

To Harbinger, no less than to Miltoun and Barbara, last night had been

bitter and restless. The sight of that pale swaying figure, with the

parted lips, whirling round in Courtier's arms, had clung to his vision

ever since, the Ball. During his own last dance with her he had been

almost savagely silent; only by a great effort restraining his tongue

from mordant allusions to that 'prancing, red-haired fellow,' as he

secretly called the champion of lost causes. In fact, his sensations

there and since had been a revelation, or would have teen if he could

have stood apart to see them. True, he had gone about next day with his

usual cool, off-hand manner, because one naturally did not let people

see, but it was with such an inner aching and rage of want and jealousy

as to really merit pity. Men of his physically big, rather rushing,

type, are the last to possess their souls in patience. Walking home

after the Ball he had determined to follow her down to the sea, where she

had said, so maliciously; that she was going. After a second almost

sleepless night he had no longer any hesitation. He must see her! After

all, a man might go to his own 'place' with impunity; he did not care if

it were a pointed thing to do.... Pointed! The more pointed the better!

There was beginning to be roused in him an ugly stubbornness of male

determination. She should not escape him!

But now that he was walking at her side, all that determination and

assurance melted to perplexed humility. He marched along by his horse

with his head down, just feeling the ache of being so close to her and

yet so far; angry with his own silence and awkwardness, almost angry with

her for her loveliness, and the pain it made him suffer. When they

reached the house, and she left him at the stable-yard, saying she was

going to get some flowers, he jerked the beast's bridle and swore at it

for its slowness in entering the stable. He, was terrified that she

would be gone before he could get into the garden; yet half afraid of

finding her there. But she was still plucking carnations by the box

hedge which led to the conservatories. And as she rose from gathering

those blossoms, before he knew what he was doing, Harbinger had thrown

his arm around her, held her as in a vice, kissed her unmercifully.

She seemed to offer no resistance, her smooth cheeks growing warmer and

warmer, even her lips passive; but suddenly he recoiled, and his heart

stood still at his own outrageous daring. What had he done? He saw her

leaning back almost buried in the clipped box hedge, and heard her say

with a sort of faint mockery: "Well!"

He would have flung himself down on his knees to ask for pardon but for

the thought that someone might come. He muttered hoarsely: "By God, I

was mad!" and stood glowering in sullen suspense between hardihood and

fear. He heard her say, quietly:

"Yes, you were-rather."

Then seeing her put her hand up to her lips as if he had hurt them, he

muttered brokenly:

"Forgive me, Babs!"

There was a full minute's silence while he stood there, no longer daring

to look at her, beaten all over by his emotions. Then, with

bewilderment, he heard her say:

"I didn't mind it--for once!"

He looked up at that. How could she love him, and speak so coolly! How

could she not mind, if she did not love him! She was passing her hands

over her face and neck and hair, repairing the damage of his kisses.

"Now shall we go in?" she said.

Harbinger took a step forward.

"I love you so," he said; "I will put my life in your hands, and you

shall throw it away."

At those words, of whose exact nature he had very little knowledge, he

saw her smile.

"If I let you come within three yards, will you be good?"

He bowed; and, in silence, they walked towards the house.

Dinner that evening was a strange, uncomfortable meal. But its comedy,

too subtly played for Miltoun and Lord Dennis, seemed transparent to the

eyes of Lady Casterley; for, when Harbinger had sallied forth to ride

back along the sands, she took her candle and invited Barbara to retire.

Then, having admitted her granddaughter to the apartment always reserved

for herself, and specially furnished with practically nothing, she sat

down opposite that tall, young, solid figure, as it were taking stock of

it, and said:

"So you are coming to your senses, at all events. Kiss me!"

Barbara, stooping to perform this rite, saw a tear stealing down the

carved fine nose. Knowing that to notice it would be too dreadful, she

raised herself, and went to the window. There, staring out over the dark

fields and dark sea, by the side of which Harbinger was riding home, she

put her hand up to her, lips, and thought for the hundredth time:

"So that's what it's like!"

CHAPTER VI

Three days after his first, and as he promised himself, his last Society

Ball, Courtier received a note from Audrey Noel, saying that she had left

Monkland for the present, and come up to a little flat--on the riverside

not far from Westminster.

When he made his way there that same July day, the Houses of Parliament

were bright under a sun which warmed all the grave air emanating from

their counsels of perfection: Courtier passed by dubiously. His feelings

in the presence of those towers were always a little mixed. There was

not so much of the poet in him as to cause him to see nothing there at

all save only same lines against the sky, but there was enough of the

poet to make him long to kick something; and in this mood he wended his

way to the riverside.

Mrs. Noel was not at home, but since the maid informed him that she would

be in directly, he sat down to wait. Her flat, which was on--the first

floor, overlooked the river and had evidently been taken furnished, for

there were visible marks of a recent struggle with an Edwardian taste

which, flushed from triumph over Victorianism, had filled the rooms with

early Georgian remains. On the only definite victory, a rose-coloured

window seat of great comfort and little age, Courtier sat down, and

resigned himself to doing nothing with the ease of an old soldier.

To the protective feeling he had once had for a very graceful,

dark-haired child, he joined not only the championing pity of a man of

warm heart watching a woman in distress, but the impatience of one, who,

though temperamentally incapable of feeling oppressed himself, rebelled

at sight of all forms of tyranny affecting others.

The sight of the grey towers, still just visible, under which Miltoun and

his father sat, annoyed him deeply; symbolizing to him, Authority--foe to

his deathless mistress, the sweet, invincible lost cause of Liberty. But

presently the river; bringing up in flood the unbound water that had

bathed every shore, touched all sands, and seen the rising and falling of

each mortal star, so soothed him with its soundless hymn to Freedom, that

Audrey Noel coming in with her hands full of flowers, found him sleeping

firmly, with his mouth shut.

Noiselessly putting down the flowers, she waited for his awakening. That

sanguine visage, with its prominent chin, flaring moustaches, and

eyebrows raised rather V-shaped above his closed eyes, wore an expression

of cheery defiance even in sleep; and perhaps no face in all London was

so utterly its obverse, as that of this dark, soft-haired woman,

delicate, passive, and tremulous with pleasure at sight of the only

person in the world from whom she felt she might learn of Miltoun,

without losing her self-respect.

He woke at last, and manifesting no discomfiture, said:

"It was like you not to wake me."

They sat for a long while talking, the riverside traffic drowsily

accompanying their voices, the flowers drowsily filling the room with

scent; and when Courtier left, his heart was sore. She had not spoken of

herself at all, but had talked nearly all the time of Barbara, praising

her beauty and high spirit; growing pale once or twice, and evidently

drinking in with secret avidity every allusion to Miltoun. Clearly, her

feelings had not changed, though she would not show them! Courtier's

pity for her became well-nigh violent.

It was in such a mood, mingled with very different feelings, that he

donned evening clothes and set out to attend the last gathering of the

season at Valleys House, a function which, held so late in July, was

perforce almost perfectly political.

Mounting the wide and shining staircase, that had so often baffled the

arithmetic of little Ann, he was reminded of a picture entitled 'The

Steps to Heaven' in his nursery four-and-thirty years before. At the top

of this staircase, and surrounded by acquaintances, he came on Harbinger,

who nodded curtly. The young man's handsome face and figure appeared to

Courtier's jaundiced eye more obviously successful and complacent than

ever; so that he passed him by sardonically, and manoeuvred his way

towards Lady Valleys, whom he could perceive stationed, like a general,

in a little cleared space, where to and fro flowed constant streams of

people, like the rays of a star. She was looking her very best, going

well with great and highly-polished spaces; and she greeted Courtier with

a special cordiality of tone, which had in it, besides kindness towards

one who must be feeling a strange bird, a certain diplomatic quality,

compounded of desire, as it were, to 'warn him off,' and fear of saying

something that might irritate and make him more dangerous. She had heard,

she said, that he was bound for Persia; she hoped he was not going to try

and make things more difficult there; then with the words: "So good of

you to have come!" she became once more the centre of her battlefield.

Perceiving that he was finished with, Courtier stood back against a wall

and watched. Thus isolated, he was like a solitary cuckoo contemplating

the gyrations of a flock of rooks. Their motions seemed a little

meaningless to one so far removed from all the fetishes and shibboleths

of Westminster. He heard them discussing Miltoun's speech, the real

significance of which apparently had only just been grasped. The words

'doctrinaire,' 'extremist,' came to his ears, together with the saying 'a

new force.' People were evidently puzzled, disturbed, not pleased--as if

some star not hitherto accounted for had suddenly appeared amongst the

proper constellations.

Searching this crowd for Barbara, Courtier had all the time an uneasy

sense of shame. What business had he to come amongst these people so

strange to him, just for the sake of seeing her! What business had he to

be hankering after this girl at all, knowing in his heart that he could

not stand the atmosphere she lived in for a week, and that she was

utterly unsuited for any atmosphere that he could give her; to say

nothing of the unlikelihood that he could flutter the pulses of one half

his age!

A voice, behind him said: "Mr. Courtier!"

He turned, and there was Barbara.

"I want to talk to you about something serious: Will you come into the

picture gallery?"

When at last they were close to a family group of Georgian Caradocs, and

could as it were shut out the throng sufficiently for private speech, she

began:

"Miltoun's so horribly unhappy; I don't know what to do for him: He's

making himself ill!"

And she suddenly looked up, in Courtier's face. She seemed to him very

young, and touching, at that moment. Her eyes had a gleam of faith in

them, like a child's eyes; as if she relied on him to straighten out this

tangle, to tell her not only about Miltoun's trouble, but about all life,

its meaning, and the secret of its happiness: And he said gently:

"What can I do? Mrs. Noel is in Town. But that's no good, unless--" Not

knowing how to finish this sentence; he was silent.

"I wish I were Miltoun," she muttered.

At that quaint saying, Courtier was hard put to it not to take hold of

the hands so close to him. This flash of rebellion in her had quickened

all his blood. But she seemed to have seen what had passed in him, for

her next speech was chilly.

"It's no good; stupid of me to be worrying you."

"It is quite impossible for you to worry me."

Her eyes lifted suddenly from her glove, and looked straight into his.

"Are you really going to Persia?"

"Yes."

"But I don't want you to, not yet!" and turning suddenly, she left him.

Strangely disturbed, Courtier remained motionless, consulting the grave

stare of the group of Georgian Caradocs.

A voice said:

"Good painting, isn't it?"

Behind him was Lord Harbinger. And once more the memory of Lady

Casterley's words; the memory of the two figures with joined hands on the

balcony above the election crowd; all his latent jealousy of this

handsome young Colossus, his animus against one whom he could, as it

were, smell out to be always fighting on the winning side; all his

consciousness too of what a lost cause his own was, his doubt whether he

were honourable to look on it as a cause at all, flared up in Courtier,

so that his answer was a stare. On Harbinger's face, too, there had come

a look of stubborn violence slowly working up towards the surface.

"I said: 'Good, isn't it?' Mr. Courtier."

"I heard you."

"And you were pleased to answer?"

"Nothing."

"With the civility which might be expected of your habits."

Coldly disdainful, Courtier answered:

"If you want to say that sort of thing, please choose a place where I can

reply to you," and turned abruptly on his heel.

But he ground his teeth as he made his way out into the street.

In Hyde Park the grass was parched and dewless under a sky whose stars

were veiled by the heat and dust haze. Never had Courtier so bitterly

wanted the sky's consolation--the blessed sense of insignificance in the

face of the night's dark beauty, which, dwarfing all petty rage and

hunger, made men part of its majesty, exalted them to a sense of

greatness.

CHAPTER VII

It was past four o'clock the following day when Barbara issued from

Valleys House on foot; clad in a pale buff frock, chosen for quietness,

she attracted every eye. Very soon entering a taxi-cab, she drove to the

Temple, stopped at the Strand entrance, and walked down the little narrow

lane into the heart of the Law. Its votaries were hurrying back from the

Courts, streaming up from their Chambers for tea, or escaping desperately

to Lord's or the Park--young votaries, unbound as yet by the fascination

of fame or fees. And each, as he passed, looked at Barbara, with his

fingers itching to remove his hat, and a feeling that this was She.

After a day spent amongst precedents and practice, after six hours at

least of trying to discover what chance A had of standing on his rights,

or B had of preventing him, it was difficult to feel otherwise about that

calm apparition--like a golden slim tree walking. One of them, asked by

her the way to Miltoun's staircase, preceded her with shy ceremony, and

when she had vanished up those dusty stairs, lingered on, hoping that she

might find her visitee out, and be obliged to return and ask him the way

back. But she did not come, and he went sadly away, disturbed to the

very bottom of all that he owned in fee simple.

In fact, no one answered Barbara's knock, and discovering that the door

yielded, she walked through the lobby past the clerk's den, converted to

a kitchen, into the sitting-room. It was empty. She had never been to

Miltoun's rooms before, and she stared about her curiously. Since he did

not practise, much of the proper gear was absent. The room indeed had a

worn carpet, a few old chairs, and was lined from floor to ceiling with

books. But the wall space between the windows was occupied by an

enormous map of England, scored all over with figures and crosses; and

before this map stood an immense desk, on which were piles of double

foolscap covered with Miltoun's neat and rather pointed writing. Barbara

examined them, puckering up her forehead; she knew that he was working at

a book on the land question; but she had never realized that the making

of a book requited so much writing. Papers, too, and Blue Books littered

a large bureau on which stood bronze busts of AEschylus and Dante.

"What an uncomfortable place!" she thought. The room, indeed, had an

atmosphere, a spirit, which depressed her horribly. Seeing a few flowers

down in the court below, she had a longing to get out to them. Then

behind her she heard the sound of someone talking. But there was no one

in the room; and the effect of this disrupted soliloquy, which came from

nowhere, was so uncanny, that she retreated to the door. The sound, as

of two spirits speaking in one voice, grew louder, and involuntarily she

glanced at the busts. They seemed quite blameless. Though the sound had

been behind her when she was at the window, it was again behind her now

that she was at the door; and she suddenly realized that it was issuing

from a bookcase in the centre of the wall. Barbara had her father's

nerve, and walking up to the bookcase she perceived that it had been

affixed to, and covered, a door that was not quite closed. She pulled it

towards her, and passed through. Across the centre of an unkempt bedroom

Miltoun was striding, dressed only in his shirt and trousers. His feet

were bare, and his head and hair dripping wet; the look on his thin dark

face went to Barbara's heart. She ran forward, and took his hand. This

was burning hot, but the sight of her seemed to have frozen his tongue

and eyes. And the contrast of his burning hand with this frozen silence,

frightened Barbara horribly. She could think of nothing but to put her

other hand to his forehead. That too was burning hot!

"What brought you here?" he said.

She could only murmur:

"Oh! Eusty! Are you ill?"

Miltoun took hold of her wrists.

"It's all right, I've been working too hard; got a touch of fever."

"So I can feel," murmured Barbara. "You ought to be in bed. Come home

with me."

Miltoun smiled. "It's not a case for leeches."

The look of his smile, the sound of his voice, sent a shudder through

her.

"I'm not going to leave you here alone."

But Miltoun's grasp tightened on her wrists.

"My dear Babs, you will do what I tell you. Go home, hold your tongue,

and leave me to burn out in peace."

Barbara sustained that painful grip without wincing; she had regained her

calmness.

"You must come! You haven't anything here, not even a cool drink."

"My God! Barley water!"

The scorn he put into those two words was more withering than a whole

philippic against redemption by creature comforts. And feeling it dart

into her, Barbara closed her lips tight. He had dropped her wrists, and

again, begun pacing up and down; suddenly he stopped:

"'The stars, sun, moon all shrink away,

A desert vast, without a bound,

And nothing left to eat or drink,

"And a dark desert all around.'

"You should read your Blake, Audrey."

Barbara turned quickly, and went out frightened. She passed through the

sitting-room and corridor on to the staircase. He was ill-raving! The

fever in Miltoun's veins seemed to have stolen through the clutch of his

hands into her own veins. Her face was burning, she thought confusedly,

breathed unevenly. She felt sore, and at the same time terribly sorry;

and withal there kept rising in her the gusty memory of Harbingers kiss.

She hurried down the stairs, turned by instinct down-hill and found

herself on the Embankment. And suddenly, with her inherent power of

swift decision, she hailed a cab, and drove to the nearest telephone

office.

CHAPTER VIII

To a woman like Audrey Noel, born to be the counterpart and complement of

another,--whose occupations and effort were inherently divorced from the

continuity of any stiff and strenuous purpose of her own, the uprooting

she had voluntarily undergone was a serious matter.

Bereaved of the faces of her flowers, the friendly sighing of her

lime-tree, the wants of her cottagers; bereaved of that busy monotony of

little home things which is the stay and solace of lonely women, she was

extraordinarily lost. Even music for review seemed to have failed her.

She had never lived in London, so that she had not the refuge of old

haunts and habits, but had to make her own--and to make habits and haunts

required a heart that could at least stretch out feelers and lay hold of

things, and her heart was not now able. When she had struggled with her

Edwardian flat, and laid down her simple routine of meals, she was as

stranded as ever was, convict let out of prison. She had not even that

great support, the necessity of hiding her feelings for fear of

disturbing others. She was planted there, with her longing and grief,

and nothing, nobody, to take her out of herself. Having wilfully

embraced this position, she tried to make the best of it, feeling it less

intolerable, at all events, than staying on at Monkland, where she had

made that grievous, and unpardonable error--falling in love.

This offence, on the part of one who felt within herself a great capacity

to enjoy and to confer happiness, had arisen--like the other grievous and

unpardonable offence, her marriage--from too much disposition to yield

herself to the personality of another. But it was cold comfort to know

that the desire to give and to receive love had twice over left her--a

dead woman. Whatever the nature of those immature sensations with which,

as a girl of twenty, she had accepted her husband, in her feeling towards

Miltoun there was not only abandonment, but the higher flame of

self-renunciation. She wanted to do the best for him, and had not even

the consolation of the knowledge that she had sacrificed herself for his

advantage. All had been taken out of her hands! Yet with characteristic

fatalism she did not feel rebellious. If it were ordained that she

should, for fifty, perhaps sixty years, repent in sterility and ashes

that first error of her girlhood, rebellion was, none the less, too

far-fetched. If she rebelled, it would not be in spirit, but in action.

General principles were nothing to her; she lost no force brooding over

the justice or injustice of her situation, but merely tried to digest its

facts.

The whole day, succeeding Courtier's visit, was spent by her in the

National Gallery, whose roof, alone of all in London, seemed to offer her

protection. She had found one painting, by an Italian master, the

subject of which reminded her of Miltoun; and before this she sat for a

very long time, attracting at last the gouty stare of an official. The

still figure of this lady, with the oval face and grave beauty, both

piqued his curiosity, and stimulated certain moral qualms. She, was

undoubtedly waiting for her lover. No woman, in his experience, had ever

sat so long before a picture without ulterior motive; and he kept his

eyes well opened to see what this motive would be like. It gave him,

therefore, a sensation almost amounting to chagrin when coming round once

more, he found they had eluded him and gone off together without coming

under his inspection. Feeling his feet a good deal, for he had been on

them all day, he sat down in the hollow which she had left behind her;

and against his will found himself also looking at the picture. It was

painted in a style he did not care for; the face of the subject, too,

gave him the queer feeling that the gentleman was being roasted inside.

He had not been sitting there long, however, before he perceived the lady

standing by the picture, and the lips of the gentleman in the picture

moving. It seemed to him against the rules, and he got up at once, and

went towards it; but as he did so, he found that his eyes were shut, and

opened them hastily. There was no one there.

From the National Gallery, Audrey had gone into an A.B.C. for tea, and

then home. Before the Mansions was a taxi-cab, and the maid met her with

the news that 'Lady Caradoc' was in the sitting-room.

Barbara was indeed standing in the middle of the room with a look on her

face such as her father wore sometimes on the racecourse, in the hunting

field, or at stormy Cabinet Meetings, a look both resolute and sharp.

She spoke at once:

"I got your address from Mr. Courtier. My brother is ill. I'm afraid

it'll be brain fever, I think you had better go and see him at his rooms

in the Temple; there's no time to be lost."

To Audrey everything in the room seemed to go round; yet all her senses

were preternaturally acute, so that she could distinctly smell the mud of

the river at low tide. She said, with a shudder:

"Oh! I will go; yes, I will go at once."

"He's quite alone. He hasn't asked for you; but I think your going is

the only chance. He took me for you. You told me once you were a good

nurse."

"Yes."

The room was steady enough now, but she had lost the preternatural

acuteness of her senses, and felt confused. She heard Barbara say: "I

can take you to the door in my cab," and murmuring: "I will get ready,"

went into her bedroom. For a moment she was so utterly bewildered that

she did nothing. Then every other thought was lost in a strange, soft,

almost painful delight, as if some new instinct were being born in her;

and quickly, but without confusion or hurry, she began packing. She put

into a valise her own toilet things; then flannel, cotton-wool, eau de

Cologne, hot-water bottle, Etna, shawls, thermometer, everything she had

which could serve in illness. Changing to a plain dress, she took up the

valise and returned to Barbara. They went out together to the cab. The

moment it began to bear her to this ordeal at once so longed-for and so

terrible, fear came over her again, so that she screwed herself into the

corner, very white and still. She was aware of Barbara calling to the

driver: "Go by the Strand, and stop at a poulterer's for ice!" And, when

the bag of ice had been handed in, heard her saying: "I will bring you

all you want--if he is really going to be ill."

Then, as the cab stopped, and the open doorway of the staircase was

before her, all her courage came back.

She felt the girl's warm hand against her own, and grasping her valise

and the bag of ice, got out, and hurried up the steps.

CHAPTER IX

On leaving Nettlefold, Miltoun had gone straight back to his rooms, and

begun at once to work at his book on the land question. He worked all

through that night--his third night without sleep, and all the following

day. In the evening, feeling queer in the head, he went out and walked

up and down the Embankment. Then, fearing to go to bed and lie

sleepless, he sat down in his arm-chair. Falling asleep there, he had

fearful dreams, and awoke unrefreshed. After his bath, he drank coffee,

and again forced himself to work. By the middle of the day he felt dizzy

and exhausted, but utterly disinclined to eat. He went out into the hot

Strand, bought himself a necessary book, and after drinking more coffee,

came back and again began to work. At four o'clock he found that he was

not taking in the words. His head was burning hot, and he went into his

bedroom to bathe it. Then somehow he began walking up and down, talking

to himself, as Barbara had found him.

She had no sooner gone, than he felt utterly exhausted. A small crucifix

hung over his bed, and throwing himself down before it, he remained

motionless with his face buried in the coverlet, and his arms stretched

out towards the wall. He did not pray, but merely sought rest from

sensation. Across his half-hypnotized consciousness little threads of

burning fancy kept shooting. Then he could feel nothing but utter

physical sickness, and against this his will revolted. He resolved that

he would not be ill, a ridiculous log for women to hang over. But the

moments of sickness grew longer and more frequent; and to drive them away

he rose from his knees, and for some time again walked up and down; then,

seized with vertigo, he was obliged to sit on the bed to save himself

from falling. From being burning hot he had become deadly cold, glad to

cover himself with the bedclothes. The heat soon flamed up in him again;

but with a sick man's instinct he did not throw off the clothes, and

stayed quite still. The room seemed to have turned to a thick white

substance like a cloud, in which he lay enwrapped, unable to move hand or

foot. His sense of smell and hearing had become unnaturally acute; he

smelled the distant streets, flowers, dust, and the leather of his books,

even the scent left by Barbara's clothes, and a curious odour of river

mud. A clock struck six, he counted each stroke; and instantly the whole

world seemed full of striking clocks, the sound of horses' hoofs, bicycle

bells, people's footfalls. His sense of vision, on the contrary, was

absorbed in consciousness of this white blanket of cloud wherein he was

lifted above the earth, in the midst of a dull incessant hammering. On

the surface of the cloud there seemed to be forming a number of little

golden spots; these spots were moving, and he saw that they were toads.

Then, beyond them, a huge face shaped itself, very dark, as if of bronze,

with eyes burning into his brain. The more he struggled to get away from

these eyes, the more they bored and burned into him. His voice was gone,

so that he was unable to cry out, and suddenly the face marched over him.

When he recovered consciousness his head was damp with moisture trickling

from something held to his forehead by a figure leaning above him.

Lifting his hand he touched a cheek; and hearing a sob instantly

suppressed, he sighed. His hand was gently taken; he felt kisses on it.

The room was so dark, that he could scarcely see her face--his sight too

was dim; but he could hear her breathing and the least sound of her dress

and movements--the scent too of her hands and hair seemed to envelop him,

and in the midst of all the acute discomfort of his fever, he felt the

band round his brain relax. He did not ask how long she had been there,

but lay quite still, trying to keep his eyes on her, for fear of that

face, which seemed lurking behind the air, ready to march on him again.

Then feeling suddenly that he could not hold it back, he beckoned, and

clutched at her, trying to cover himself with the protection of her

breast. This time his swoon was not so deep; it gave way to delirium,

with intervals when he knew that she was there, and by the shaded candle

light could see her in a white garment, floating close to him, or sitting

still with her hand on his; he could even feel the faint comfort of the

ice cap, and of the scent of eau de Cologne. Then he would lose all

consciousness of her presence, and pass through into the incoherent

world, where the crucifix above his bed seemed to bulge and hang out, as

if it must fall on him. He conceived a violent longing to tear it down,

which grew till he had struggled up in bed and wrenched it from off the

wall. Yet a mysterious consciousness of her presence permeated even his

darkest journeys into the strange land; and once she seemed to be with

him, where a strange light showed them fields and trees, a dark line of

moor, and a bright sea, all whitened, and flashing with sweet violence.

Soon after dawn he had a long interval of consciousness, and took in with

a sort of wonder her presence in the low chair by his bed. So still she

sat in a white loose gown, pale with watching, her eyes immovably fixed

on him, her lips pressed together, and quivering at his faintest motion.

He drank in desperately the sweetness of her face, which had so lost

remembrance of self.

CHAPTER X

Barbara gave the news of her brother's illness to no one else, common

sense telling her to run no risk of disturbance. Of her own initiative,

she brought a doctor, and went down twice a day to hear reports of

Miltoun's progress.

As a fact, her father and mother had gone to Lord Dennis, for Goodwood,

and the chief difficulty had been to excuse her own neglect of that

favourite Meeting. She had fallen back on the half-truth that Eustace

wanted her in Town; and, since Lord and Lady Valleys had neither of them

shaken off a certain uneasiness about their son, the pretext sufficed:

It was not until the sixth day, when the crisis was well past and Miltoun

quite free from fever, that she again went down to Nettlefold.

On arriving she at once sought out her mother, whom she found in her

bedroom, resting. It had been very hot at Goodwood.

Barbara was not afraid of her--she was not, indeed, afraid of anyone,

except Miltoun, and in some strange way, a little perhaps of Courtier;

yet, when the maid had gone, she did not at once begin her tale. Lady

Valleys, who at Goodwood had just heard details of a Society scandal,

began a carefully expurgated account of it suitable to her daughter's

ears--for some account she felt she must give to somebody.

"Mother," said Barbara suddenly, "Eustace has been ill. He's out of

danger now, and going on all right." Then, looking hard at the

bewildered lady, she added: "Mrs. Noel is nursing him."

The past tense in which illness had been mentioned, checking at the first

moment any rush of panic in Lady Valleys, left her confused by the

situation conjured up in Barbara's last words. Instead of feeding that

part of man which loves a scandal, she was being fed, always an

unenviable sensation. A woman did not nurse a man under such

circumstances without being everything to him, in the world's eyes. Her

daughter went on:

"I took her to him. It seemed the only thing to do--since it's all

through fretting for her. Nobody knows, of course, except the doctor,

and--Stacey."

"Heavens!" muttered Lady Valleys.

"It has saved him."

The mother instinct in Lady Valleys took sudden fright. "Are you telling

me the truth, Babs? Is he really out of danger? How wrong of you not to

let me know before?"

But Barbara did not flinch; and her mother relapsed into rumination.

"Stacey is a cat!" she said suddenly. The expurgated details of the

scandal she had been retailing to her daughter had included the usual

maid. She could not find it in her to enjoy the irony of this

coincidence. Then, seeing Barbara smile, she said tartly:

"I fail to see the joke."

"Only that I thought you'd enjoy my throwing Stacey in, dear."

"What! You mean she doesn't know?"

"Not a word."

Lady Valleys smiled.

"What a little wretch you are, Babs!" Maliciously she added: "Claud and

his mother are coming over from Whitewater, with Bertie and Lily

Malvezin, you'd better go and dress;" and her eyes searched her

daughter's so shrewdly, that a flush rose to the girl's cheeks.

When she had gone, Lady Valleys rang for her maid again, and relapsed

into meditation. Her first thought was to consult her husband; her

second that secrecy was strength. Since no one knew but Barbara, no one

had better know.

Her astuteness and experience comprehended the far-reaching probabilities

of this affair. It would not do to take a single false step. If she had

no one's action to control but her own and Barbara's, so much the less

chance of a slip. Her mind was a strange medley of thoughts and

feelings, almost comic, well-nigh tragic; of worldly prudence, and

motherly instinct; of warm-blooded sympathy with all love-affairs, and

cool-blooded concern for her son's career. It was not yet too late

perhaps to prevent real mischief; especially since it was agreed by

everyone that the woman was no adventuress. Whatever was done, they must

not forget that she had nursed him--saved him, Barbara had said! She

must be treated with all kindness and consideration.

Hastening her toilette, she in turn went to her daughter's room.

Barbara was already dressed, leaning out of her window towards the sea.

Lady Valleys began almost timidly:

"My dear, is Eustace out of bed yet?"

"He was to get up to-day for an hour or two."

"I see. Now, would there be any danger if you and I went up and took

charge over from Mrs. Noel?"

"Poor Eusty!"

"Yes, yes! But, exercise your judgment. Would it harm him?"

Barbara was silent. "No," she said at last, "I don't suppose it would,

now; but it's for the doctor to say."

Lady Valleys exhibited a manifest relief.

"We'll see him first, of course. Eustace will have to have an ordinary

nurse, I suppose, for a bit."

Looking stealthily at Barbara, she added:

"I mean to be very nice to her; but one mustn't be romantic, you know,

Babs."

From the little smile on Barbara's lips she derived no sense of

certainty; indeed she was visited by all her late disquietude about her

young daughter, by all the feeling that she, as well as Miltoun, was

hovering on the verge of some folly.

"Well, my dear," she said, "I am going down."

But Barbara lingered a little longer in that bedroom where ten nights ago

she had lain tossing, till in despair she went and cooled herself in the

dark sea.

Her last little interview with Courtier stood between her and a fresh

meeting with Harbinger, whom at the Valleys House gathering she had not

suffered to be alone with her. She came down late.

That same evening, out on the beach road, under a sky swarming with

stars, the people were strolling--folk from the towns, down for their

fortnight's holiday. In twos and threes, in parties of six or eight,

they passed the wall at the end of Lord Dennis's little domain; and the

sound of their sparse talk and laughter, together with the sighing of the

young waves, was blown over the wall to the ears of Harbinger, Bertie,

Barbara, and Lily Malvezin, when they strolled out after dinner to sniff

the sea. The holiday-makers stared dully at the four figures in evening

dress looking out above their heads; they had other things than these to

think of, becoming more and more silent as the night grew dark. The four

young people too were rather silent. There was something in this warm

night, with its sighing, and its darkness, and its stars, that was not

favourable to talk, so that presently they split into couples, drifting a

little apart.

Standing there, gripping the wall, it seemed to Harbinger that there were

no words left in the world. Not even his worst enemy could have called

this young man romantic; yet that figure beside him, the gleam of her

neck and her pale cheek in the dark, gave him perhaps the most poignant

glimpse of mystery that he had ever had. His mind, essentially that of a

man of affairs, by nature and by habit at home amongst the material

aspects of things, was but gropingly conscious that here, in this dark

night, and the dark sea, and the pale figure of this girl whose heart was

dark to him and secret, there was perhaps something--yes,

something--which surpassed the confines of his philosophy, something

beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the desert of divinity.

If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses at the scent of her

hair, and the longing to escape from this weird silence.

"Babs," he said; "have you forgiven me?"

Her answer came, without turn of head, natural, indifferent:

"Yes--I told you so."

"Is that all you have to say to a fellow?"

"What shall we talk about--the running of Casetta?"

Deep down within him Harbinger uttered a noiseless oath. Something

sinister was making her behave like this to him! It was that

fellow--that fellow! And suddenly he said:

"Tell me this----" then speech seemed to stick in his throat. No! If

there were anything in that, he preferred not to hear it. There was a

limit!

Down below, a pair of lovers passed, very silent, their arms round each

other's waists.

Barbara turned and walked away towards the house.

CHAPTER XI

The days when Miltoun was first allowed out of bed were a time of mingled

joy and sorrow to her who had nursed him. To see him sitting up, amazed

at his own weakness, was happiness, yet to think that he would be no more

wholly dependent, no more that sacred thing, a helpless creature, brought

her the sadness of a mother whose child no longer needs her. With every

hour he would now get farther from her, back into the fastnesses of his

own spirit. With every hour she would be less his nurse and comforter,

more the woman he loved. And though that thought shone out in the

obscure future like a glamorous flower, it brought too much wistful

uncertainty to the present. She was very tired, too, now that all

excitement was over--so tired that she hardly knew what she did or where

she moved. But a smile had become so faithful to her eyes that it clung

there above the shadows of fatigue, and kept taking her lips prisoner.

Between the two bronze busts she had placed a bowl of lilies of the

valley; and every free niche in that room of books had a little vase of

roses to welcome Miltoun's return.

He was lying back in his big leather chair, wrapped in a Turkish gown of

Lord Valleys'--on which Barbara had laid hands, having failed to find

anything resembling a dressing-gown amongst her brother's austere

clothing. The perfume of lilies had overcome the scent of books, and a

bee, dusky, adventurer, filled the room with his pleasant humming.

They did not speak, but smiled faintly, looking at one another. In this

still moment, before passion had returned to claim its own, their spirits

passed through the sleepy air, and became entwined, so that neither could

withdraw that soft, slow, encountering glance. In mutual contentment,

each to each, close as music to the strings of a violin, their spirits

clung--so lost, the one in the other, that neither for that brief time

seemed to know which was self.

In fulfilment of her resolution, Lady Valleys, who had returned to Town

by a morning train, started with Barbara for the Temple about three in

the after noon, and stopped at the doctor's on the way. The whole thing

would be much simpler if Eustace were fit to be moved at once to Valleys

House; and with much relief she found that the doctor saw no danger in

this course. The recovery had been remarkable--touch and go for bad

brain fever just avoided! Lord Miltoun's constitution was extremely

sound. Yes, he would certainly favour a removal. His rooms were too

confined in this weather. Well nursed--(decidedly) Oh; yes! Quite! And

the doctor's eyes became perhaps a trifle more intense. Not a

professional, he understood. It might be as well to have another nurse,

if they were making the change. They would have this lady knocking up.

Just so! Yes, he would see to that. An ambulance carriage he thought

advisable. That could all be arranged for this afternoon--at once--he

himself would look to it. They might take Lord Miltoun off just as he

was; the men would know what to do. And when they had him at Valleys

House, the moment he showed interest in his food, down to the sea-down to

the sea! At this time of year nothing like it! Then with regard to

nourishment, he would be inclined already to shove in a leetle stimulant,

a thimbleful perhaps four times a day with food--not without--mixed with

an egg, with arrowroot, with custard. A week would see him on his legs,

a fortnight at the sea make him as good a man as ever. Overwork--burning

the candle--a leetlemore would have seen a very different state of

things! Quite so! quite so! Would come round himself before dinner, and

make sure. His patient might feel it just at first! He bowed Lady

Valleys out; and when she had gone, sat down at his telephone with a

smile flickering on his clean-cut lips,

Greatly fortified by this interview, Lady Valleys rejoined her daughter

in the ear; but while it slid on amongst the multitudinous traffic, signs

of unwonted nervousness began to start out through the placidity of her

face.

"I wish, my dear," she said suddenly, "that someone else had to do this.

Suppose Eustace refuses!"

"He won't," Barbara answered; "she looks so tired, poor dear.

Besides----"

Lady Valleys gazed with curiosity at that young face, which had flushed

pink. Yes, this daughter of hers was a woman already, with all a woman's

intuitions. She said gravely:

"It was a rash stroke of yours, Babs; let's hope it won't lead to

disaster."

Barbara bit her lips.

"If you'd seen him as I saw him! And, what disaster? Mayn't they love

each other, if they want?"

Lady Valleys swallowed a grimace. It was so exactly her own point of

view. And yet----!

"That's only the beginning," she said; "you forget the sort of boy

Eustace is."

"Why can't the poor thing be let out of her cage?" cried Barbara. "What

good does it do to anyone? Mother, if ever, when I am married, I want to

get free, I will!"

The tone of her voice was so quivering, and unlike the happy voice of

Barbara, that Lady Valleys involuntarily caught hold of her hand and

squeezed it hard.

"My dear sweet," she said, "don't let's talk of such gloomy things."

"I mean it. Nothing shall stop me."

But Lady Valleys' face had suddenly become rather grim.

"So we think, child; it's not so simple."

"It can't be worse, anyway," muttered Barbara, "than being buried alive

as that wretched woman is."

For answer Lady Valleys only murmured:

"The doctor promised that ambulance carriage at four o'clock. What am I

going to say?"

"She'll understand when you look at her. She's that sort."

The door was opened to them by Mrs. Noel herself.

It was the first time Lady Valleys had seen her in a house, and there was

real curiosity mixed with the assurance which masked her nervousness. A

pretty creature, even lovely! But the quite genuine sympathy in her

words: "I am truly grateful. You must be quite worn out," did not

prevent her adding hastily: "The doctor says he must be got home out of

these hot rooms. We'll wait here while you tell him."

And then she saw that it was true; this woman was the sort who

understood.

Left in the dark passage, she peered round at Barbara.

The girl was standing against the wall with her head thrown back. Lady

Valleys could not see her face; but she felt all of a sudden exceedingly

uncomfortable, and whispered:

"Two murders and a theft, Babs; wasn't it 'Our Mutual Friend'?"

"Mother!"

"What?"

"Her face! When you're going to throw away a flower, it looks at you!"

"My dear!" murmured Lady Valleys, thoroughly distressed, "what things

you're saying to-day!"

This lurking in a dark passage, this whispering girl--it was all queer,

unlike an experience in proper life.

And then through the reopened door she saw Miltoun, stretched out in a

chair, very pale, but still with that look about his eyes and lips, which

of all things in the world had a chastening effect on Lady Valleys,

making her feel somehow incurably mundane.

She said rather timidly:

"I'm so glad you're better, dear. What a time you must have had! It's

too bad that I knew nothing till yesterday!"

But Miltoun's answer was, as usual, thoroughly disconcerting.

"Thanks, yes! I have had a perfect time--and have now to pay for it, I

suppose."

Held back by his smile from bending to kiss him, poor Lady Valleys

fidgeted from head to foot. A sudden impulse of sheer womanliness caused

a tear to fall on his hand.

When Miltoun perceived that moisture, he said:

"It's all right, mother. I'm quite willing to come."

Still wounded by his voice, Lady Valleys hardened instantly. And while

preparing for departure she watched the two furtively. They hardly

looked at one another, and when they did, their eyes baffled her. The

expression was outside her experience, belonging as it were to a

different world, with its faintly smiling, almost shining, gravity.

Vastly relieved when Miltoun, covered with a fur, had been taken down to

the carriage, she lingered to speak to Mrs. Noel.

"We owe you a great debt. It might have been so much worse. You mustn't

be disconsolate. Go to bed and have a good long rest." And from the

door, she murmured again: "He will come and thank you, when he's well."

Descending the stone stairs, she thought: "'Anonyma'--'Anonyma'--yes, it

was quite the name." And suddenly she saw Barbara come running up again.

"What is it, Babs?"

Barbara answered:

"Eustace would like some of those lilies." And, passing Lady Valleys,

she went on up to Miltoun's chambers.

Mrs. Noel was not in the sitting-room, and going to the bedroom door, the

girl looked in.

She was standing by the bed, drawing her hand over and over the white

surface of the pillow. Stealing noiselessly back, Barbara caught up the

bunch of lilies, and fled.

CHAPTER XII

Miltoun, whose constitution, had the steel-like quality of Lady

Casterley's, had a very rapid convalescence. And, having begun to take

an interest in his food, he was allowed to travel on the seventh day to

Sea House in charge of Barbara.

The two spent their time in a little summer-house close to the sea; lying

out on the beach under the groynes; and, as Miltoun grew stronger,

motoring and walking on the Downs.

To Barbara, keeping a close watch, he seemed tranquilly enough drinking

in from Nature what was necessary to restore balance after the struggle,

and breakdown of the past weeks. Yet she could never get rid of a queer

feeling that he was not really there at all; to look at him was like

watching an uninhabited house that was waiting for someone to enter.

During a whole fortnight he did not make a single allusion to Mrs. Noel,

till, on the very last morning, as they were watching the sea, he said

with his queer smile:

"It almost makes one believe her theory, that the old gods are not dead.

Do you ever see them, Babs; or are you, like me, obtuse?"

Certainly about those lithe invasions of the sea-nymph waves, with ashy,

streaming hair, flinging themselves into the arms of the land, there was

the old pagan rapture, an inexhaustible delight, a passionate soft

acceptance of eternal fate, a wonderful acquiescence in the untiring

mystery of life.

But Barbara, ever disconcerted by that tone in his voice, and by this

quick dive into the waters of unaccustomed thought, failed to find an

answer.

Miltoun went on:

"She says, too, we can hear Apollo singing. Shall we try."

But all that came was the sigh of the sea, and of the wind in the

tamarisk.

"No," muttered Miltoun at last, "she alone can hear it."

And Barbara saw, once more on his face that look, neither sad nor

impatient, but as of one uninhabited and waiting.

She left Sea House next day to rejoin her mother, who, having been to

Cowes, and to the Duchess of Gloucester's, was back in Town waiting for

Parliament to rise, before going off to Scotland. And that same

afternoon the girl made her way to Mrs. Noel's flat. In paying this

visit she was moved not so much by compassion, as by uneasiness, and a

strange curiosity. Now that Miltoun was well again, she was seriously

disturbed in mind. Had she made a mistake in summoning Mrs. Noel to

nurse him?

When she went into the little drawing-room Audrey was sitting in the

deep-cushioned window-seat with a book on her knee; and by the fact that

it was open at the index, Barbara judged that she had not been reading

too attentively. She showed no signs of agitation at the sight of her

visitor, nor any eagerness to hear news of Miltoun. But the girl had not

been five minutes in the room before the thought came to her: "Why! She

has the same look as Eustace!" She, too, was like an empty tenement;

without impatience, discontent, or grief--waiting! Barbara had scarcely

realized this with a curious sense of discomposure, when Courtier was

announced. Whether there was in this an absolute coincidence or just

that amount of calculation which might follow on his part from receipt of

a note written from Sea House--saying that Miltoun was well again, that

she was coming up and meant to go and thank Mrs. Noel--was not clear, nor

were her own sensations; and she drew over her face that armoured look

which she perhaps knew Courtier could not bear to see. His face, at all

events, was very red when he shook hands. He had come, he told Mrs.

Noel, to say good-bye. He was definitely off next week. Fighting had

broken out; the revolutionaries were greatly outnumbered. Indeed he

ought to have been there long before!

Barbara had gone over to the window; she turned suddenly, and said:

"You were preaching peace two months ago!"

Courtier bowed.

"We are not all perfectly consistent, Lady Barbara. These poor devils

have a holy cause."

Barbara held out her hand to Mrs. Noel.

"You only think their cause holy because they happen to be weak.

Good-bye, Mrs. Noel; the world is meant for the strong, isn't it!"

She intended that to hurt him; and from the tone of his voice, she knew

it had.

"Don't, Lady Barbara; from your mother, yes; not from you!"

"It's what I believe. Good-bye!" And she went out.

She had told him that she did not want him to go--not yet; and he was

going!

But no sooner had she got outside, after that strange outburst, than she

bit her lips to keep back an angry, miserable feeling. He had been rude

to her, she had been rude to him; that was the way they had said

good-bye! Then, as she emerged into the sunlight, she thought: "Oh!

well; he doesn't care, and I'm sure I don't!"

She heard a voice behind her.

"May I get you a cab?" and at once the sore feeling began to die away;

but she did not look round, only smiled, and shook her head, and made a

little room for him on the pavement.

But though they walked, they did not at first talk. There was rising

within Barbara a tantalizing devil of desire to know the feelings that

really lay behind that deferential gravity, to make him show her how much

he really cared. She kept her eyes demurely lowered, but she let the

glimmer of a smile flicker about her lips; she knew too that her cheeks

were glowing, and for that she was not sorry. Was she not to have

any--any--was he calmly to go away--without----And she thought: "He shall

say something! He shall show me, without that horrible irony of his!"

She said suddenly:

"Those two are just waiting--something will happen!"

"It is probable," was his grave answer.

She looked at him then--it pleased her to see him quiver as if that

glance had gone right into him; and she said softly:

"And I think they will be quite right."

She knew those were reckless words, nor cared very much what they meant;

but she knew the revolt in them would move him. She saw from his face

that it had; and after a little pause, said:

"Happiness is the great thing," and with soft, wicked slowness: "Isn't

it, Mr. Courtier?"

But all the cheeriness had gone out of his face, which had grown almost

pale. He lifted his hand, and let it drop. Then she felt sorry. It was

just as if he had asked her to spare him.

"As to that," he said: "The rough, unfortunately, has to be taken with

the smooth. But life's frightfully jolly sometimes."

"As now?"

He looked at her with firm gravity, and answered

"As now."

A sense of utter mortification seized on Barbara. He was too strong for

her--he was quixotic--he was hateful! And, determined not to show a

sign, to be at least as strong as he, she said calmly:

"Now I think I'll have that cab!"

When she was in the cab, and he was standing with his hat lifted, she

looked at him in the way that women can, so that he did not realize that

she had looked.

CHAPTER XIII

When Miltoun came to thank her, Audrey Noel was waiting in the middle of

the room, dressed in white, her lips smiling, her dark eyes smiling,

still as a flower on a windless day.

In that first look passing between them, they forgot everything but

happiness. Swallows, on the first day of summer, in their discovery of

the bland air, can neither remember that cold winds blow, nor imagine the

death of sunlight on their feathers, and, flitting hour after hour over

the golden fields, seem no longer birds, but just the breathing of a new

season--swallows were no more forgetful of misfortune than were those

two. His gaze was as still as her very self; her look at him had in at

the quietude of all emotion.

When they' sat down to talk it was as if they had gone back to those days

at Monkland, when he had come to her so often to discuss everything in

heaven and earth. And yet, over that tranquil eager drinking--in of each

other's presence, hovered a sort of awe. It was the mood of morning

before the sun has soared. The dew-grey cobwebs enwrapped the flowers of

their hearts--yet every prisoned flower could be seen. And he and she

seemed looking through that web at the colour and the deep-down forms

enshrouded so jealously; each feared too much to unveil the other's

heart. They were like lovers who, rambling in a shy wood, never dare

stay their babbling talk of the trees and birds and lost bluebells, lest

in the deep waters of a kiss their star of all that is to come should

fall and be drowned. To each hour its familiar--and the spirit of that

hour was the spirit of the white flowers in the bowl on the window-sill

above her head.

They spoke of Monk-land, and Miltoun's illness; of his first speech, his

impressions of the House of Commons; of music, Barbara, Courtier, the

river. He told her of his health, and described his days down by the

sea. She, as ever, spoke little of herself, persuaded that it could not

interest even him; but she described a visit to the opera; and how she

had found a picture in the National Gallery which reminded her of him.

To all these trivial things and countless others, the tone of their

voices--soft, almost murmuring, with a sort of delighted gentleness--gave

a high, sweet importance, a halo that neither for the world would have

dislodged from where it hovered.

It was past six when he got up to go, and there had not been a moment to

break the calm of that sacred feeling in both their hearts. They parted

with another tranquil look, which seemed to say: 'It is well with us--we

have drunk of happiness.'

And in this same amazing calm Miltoun remained after he had gone away,

till about half-past nine in the evening, he started forth, to walk down

to the House. It was now that sort of warm, clear night, which in the

country has firefly magic, and even over the Town spreads a dark glamour.

And for Miltoun, in the delight of his new health and well-being, with

every sense alive and clean, to walk through the warmth and beauty of

this night was sheer pleasure. He passed by way of St. James's Park,

treading down the purple shadows of plane-tree leaves into the pools of

lamplight, almost with remorse--so beautiful, and as if alive, were they.

There were moths abroad, and gnats, born on the water, and scent of

new-mown grass drifted up from the lawns. His heart felt light as a

swallow he had seen that morning; swooping at a grey feather, carrying it

along, letting it flutter away, then diving to seize it again. Such was

his elation, this beautiful night! Nearing the House of Commons, he

thought he would walk a little longer, and turned westward to the river:

On that warm evening the water, without movement at turn of tide, was

like the black, snake-smooth hair of Nature streaming out on her couch of

Earth, waiting for the caress of a divine hand. Far away on the further;

bank throbbed some huge machine, not stilled as yet. A few stars were

out in the dark sky, but no moon to invest with pallor the gleam of the

lamps. Scarcely anyone passed. Miltoun strolled along the river wall,

then crossed, and came back in front of the Mansions where she lived. By

the railing he stood still. In the sitting-room of her little flat there

was no light, but the casement window was wide open, and the crown of

white flowers in the bowl on the window-sill still gleamed out in the

darkness like a crescent moon lying on its face. Suddenly, he saw two

pale hands rise--one on either side of that bowl, lift it, and draw it

in. And he quivered, as though they had touched him. Again those two

hands came floating up; they were parted now by darkness; the moon of

flowers was gone, in its place had been set handfuls of purple or crimson

blossoms. And a puff of warm air rising quickly out of the night drifted

their scent of cloves into his face, so that he held his breath for fear

of calling out her name.

Again the hands had vanished--through the open window there was nothing

to be seen but darkness; and such a rush of longing seized on Miltoun as

stole from him all power of movement. He could hear her playing, now.

The murmurous current of that melody was like the night itself, sighing,

throbbing, languorously soft. It seemed that in this music she was

calling him, telling him that she, too, was longing; her heart, too,

empty. It died away; and at the window her white figure appeared. From

that vision he could not, nor did he try to shrink, but moved out into

the, lamplight. And he saw her suddenly stretch out her hands to him,

and withdraw them to her breast. Then all save the madness of his

longing deserted Miltoun. He ran down the little garden, across the hall,

up the stairs.

The door was open. He passed through. There, in the sitting-room, where

the red flowers in the window scented all the air, it was dark, and he

could not at first see her, till against the piano he caught the glimmer

of her white dress. She was sitting with hands resting on the pale

notes. And falling on his knees, he buried his face against her. Then,

without looking up, he raised his hands. Her tears fell on them covering

her heart, that throbbed as if the passionate night itself were breathing

in there, and all but the night and her love had stolen forth.

CHAPTER XIV

On a spur of the Sussex Downs, inland from Nettle-Cold, there stands a

beech-grove. The traveller who enters it out of the heat and brightness,

takes off the shoes of his spirit before its, sanctity; and, reaching the

centre, across the clean beech-mat, he sits refreshing his brow with air,

and silence. For the flowers of sunlight on the ground under those

branches are pale and rare, no insects hum, the birds are almost mute.

And close to the border trees are the quiet, milk-white sheep, in

congregation, escaping from noon heat. Here, above fields and dwellings,

above the ceaseless network of men's doings, and the vapour of their

talk, the traveller feels solemnity. All seems conveying divinity--the

great white clouds moving their wings above him, the faint longing murmur

of the boughs, and in far distance, the sea.... And for a space his

restlessness and fear know the peace of God.

So it was with Miltoun when he reached this temple, three days after that

passionate night, having walked for hours, alone and full of conflict.

During those three days he had been borne forward on the flood tide; and

now, tearing himself out of London, where to think was impossible, he had

come to the solitude of the Downs to walk, and face his new position.

For that position he saw to be very serious. In the flush of full

realization, there was for him no question of renunciation. She was his,

he hers; that was determined. But what, then, was he to do? There was no

chance of her getting free. In her husband's view, it seemed, under no

circumstances was marriage dissoluble. Nor, indeed, to Miltoun would

divorce have made things easier, believing as he did that he and she were

guilty, and that for the guilty there could be no marriage. She, it was

true, asked nothing but just to be his in secret; and that was the course

he knew most men would take, without further thought. There was no

material reason in the world why he should not so act, and maintain

unchanged every other current of his life. It would be easy, usual.

And, with her faculty for self-effacement, he knew she would not be

unhappy. But conscience, in Miltoun, was a terrible and fierce thing.

In the delirium of his illness it had become that Great Face which had

marched over him. And, though during the weeks of his recuperation,

struggle of all kind had ceased, now that he had yielded to his passion,

conscience, in a new and dismal shape, had crept up again to sit above

his heart: He must and would let this man, her husband, know; but even if

that caused no open scandal, could he go on deceiving those who, if they

knew of an illicit love, would no longer allow him to be their

representative? If it were known that she was his mistress, he could no

longer maintain his position in public life--was he not therefore in

honour bound; of his own accord, to resign it? Night and day he was

haunted by the thought: How can I, living in defiance of authority,

pretend to authority over my fellows? How can I remain in public life?

But if he did not remain in public life, what was he to do? That way of

life was in his blood; he had been bred and born into it; had thought of

nothing else since he was a boy. There was no other occupation or

interest that could hold him for a moment--he saw very plainly that he

would be cast away on the waters of existence.

So the battle raged in his proud and twisted spirit, which took

everything so hard--his nature imperatively commanding him to keep his

work and his power for usefulness; his conscience telling him as urgently

that if he sought to wield authority, he must obey it.

He entered the beech-grove at the height of this misery, flaming with

rebellion against the dilemma which Fate had placed before him; visited

by gusts of resentment against a passion, which forced him to pay the

price, either of his career, or of his self-respect; gusts, followed by

remorse that he could so for one moment regret his love for that tender

creature. The face of Lucifer was not more dark, more tortured, than

Miltoun's face in the twilight of the grove, above those kingdoms of the

world, for which his ambition and his conscience fought. He threw

himself down among the trees; and stretching out his arms, by chance

touched a beetle trying to crawl over the grassless soil. Some bird had

maimed it. He took the little creature up. The beetle truly could no

longer work, but it was spared the fate lying before himself. The beetle

was not, as he would be, when his power of movement was destroyed,

conscious of his own wasted life. The world would not roll away down

there. He would still see himself cumbering the ground, when his powers

were taken, from him. This thought was torture. Why had he been

suffered to meet her, to love her, and to be loved by her? What had made

him so certain from the first moment, if she were not meant for him? If

he lived to be a hundred, he would never meet another. Why, because of

his love, must he bury the will and force of a man? If there were no

more coherence in God's scheme than this, let him too be incoherent! Let

him hold authority, and live outside authority! Why stifle his powers

for the sake of a coherence which did not exist! That would indeed be

madness greater than that of a mad world!

There was no answer to his thoughts in the stillness of the grove, unless

it were the cooing of a dove, or the faint thudding of the sheep issuing

again into sunlight. But slowly that stillness stole into Miltoun's

spirit. "Is it like this in the grave?" he thought. "Are the boughs of

those trees the dark earth over me? And the sound in them the sound the

dead hear when flowers are growing, and the wind passing through them?

And is the feel of this earth how it feels to lie looking up for ever at

nothing? Is life anything but a nightmare, a dream; and is not this the

reality? And why my fury, my insignificant flame, blowing here and

there, when there is really no wind, only a shroud of still air, and

these flowers of sunlight that have been dropped on me! Why not let my

spirit sleep, instead of eating itself away with rage; why not resign

myself at once to wait for the substance, of which this is but the

shadow!"

And he lay scarcely breathing, looking up at the unmoving branches

setting with their darkness the pearls of the sky.

"Is not peace enough?" he thought. "Is not love enough? Can I not be

reconciled, like a woman? Is not that salvation, and happiness? What is

all the rest, but 'sound and fury, signifying nothing?"

And as though afraid to lose his hold of that thought, he got up and

hurried from the grove.

The whole wide landscape of field and wood, cut by the pale roads, was

glimmering under the afternoon sun, Here was no wild, wind-swept land,

gleaming red and purple, and guarded by the grey rocks; no home of the

winds, and the wild gods. It was all serene and silver-golden. In place

of the shrill wailing pipe of the hunting buzzard-hawks half lost up in

the wind, invisible larks were letting fall hymns to tranquillity; and

even the sea--no adventuring spirit sweeping the shore with its

wing--seemed to lie resting by the side of the land.

CHAPTER XV

When on the afternoon of that same day Miltoun did not come, all the

chilly doubts which his presence alone kept away, crowded thick and fast

into the mind of one only too prone to distrust her own happiness. It

could not last--how could it?

His nature and her own were so far apart! Even in that giving of herself

which had been such happiness, she had yet doubted; for there was so much

in him that was to her mysterious. All that he loved in poetry and

nature, had in it something craggy and culminating. The soft and fiery,

the subtle and harmonious, seemed to leave him cold. He had no particular

love for all those simple natural things, birds, bees, animals, trees,

and flowers, that seemed to her precious and divine.

Though it was not yet four o'clock she was already beginning to droop

like a flower that wants water. But she sat down to her piano,

resolutely, till tea came; playing on and on with a spirit only half

present, the other half of her wandering in the Town, seeking for

Miltoun. After tea she tried first to read, then to sew, and once more

came back to her piano. The clock struck six; and as if its last stroke

had broken the armour of her mind, she felt suddenly sick with anxiety.

Why was he so long? But she kept on playing, turning the pages without

taking in the notes, haunted by the idea that he might again have fallen

ill. Should she telegraph? What good, when she could not tell in the

least where he might be? And all the unreasoning terror of not knowing

where the loved one is, beset her so that her hands, in sheer numbness,

dropped from the keys. Unable to keep still, now, she wandered from

window to door, out into the little hall, and back hastily to the window.

Over her anxiety brooded a darkness, compounded of vague growing fears.

What if it were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most merciful

way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel! Close on the

heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she told herself

that she was a fool. He was at the House; something quite ordinary was

keeping him. It was absurd to be anxious! She would have to get used to

this now. To be a drag on him would be dreadful. Sooner than that she

would rather--yes--rather he never came back! And she took up her book,

determined to read quietly till he came. But the moment she sat down her

fears returned with redoubled force-the cold sickly horrible feeling of

uncertainty, of the knowledge that she could do nothing but wait till she

was relieved by something over which she had no control. And in the

superstition that to stay there in the window where she could see him

come, was keeping him from her, she went into her bedroom. From there

she could watch the sunset clouds wine-dark over the river. A little

talking wind shivered along the houses; the dusk began creeping in. She

would not turn on the light, unwilling to admit that it was really

getting late, but began to change her dress, lingering desperately over

every little detail of her toilette, deriving therefrom a faint,

mysterious comfort, trying to make herself feel beautiful. From sheer

dread of going back before he came, she let her hair fall, though it was

quite smooth and tidy, and began brushing it. Suddenly she thought with

horror of her efforts at adornment--by specially preparing for him, she

must seem presumptuous to Fate. At any little sound she stopped and

stood listening--save for her hair and eyes, as white from head to foot

as a double narcissus flower in the dusk, bending towards some faint tune

played to it somewhere oft in the fields. But all those little sounds

ceased, one after another--they had meant nothing; and each time, her

spirit returning--within the pale walls of the room, began once more to

inhabit her lingering fingers. During that hour in her bedroom she lived

through years. It was dark when she left it.

CHAPTER XVI

When Miltoun at last came it was past nine o'clock.

Silent, but quivering all over; she clung to him in the hall; and this

passion of emotion, without sound to give it substance, affected him

profoundly. How terribly sensitive and tender she was! She seemed to

have no armour. But though so stirred by her emotion, he was none the

less exasperated. She incarnated at that moment the life to which he

must now resign himself--a life of unending tenderness, consideration,

and passivity.

For a long time he could not bring himself to speak of his decision.

Every look of her eyes, every movement of her body, seemed pleading with

him to keep silence. But in Miltoun's character there was an element of

rigidity, which never suffered him to diverge from an objective once

determined.

When he had finished telling her, she only said:

"Why can't we go on in secret?"

And he felt with a sort of horror that he must begin his struggle over

again. He got up, and threw open the window. The sky was dark above the

river; the wind had risen. That restless murmuration, and the width of

the night with its scattered stars, seemed to come rushing at his face.

He withdrew from it, and leaning on the sill looked down at her. What

flower-like delicacy she had! There flashed across him the memory of a

drooping blossom, which, in the Spring, he had seen her throw into the

flames; with the words: "I can't bear flowers to fade, I always want to

burn them." He could see again those waxen petals yield to the fierce

clutch of the little red creeping sparks, and the slender stalk

quivering, and glowing, and writhing to blackness like a live thing.

And, distraught, he began:

"I can't live a lie. What right have I to lead, if I can't follow? I'm

not like our friend Courtier who believes in Liberty. I never have, I

never shall. Liberty? What is Liberty? But only those who conform to

authority have the right to wield authority. A man is a churl who

enforces laws, when he himself has not the strength to observe them. I

will not be one of whom it can be said: 'He can rule others,

himself----!"

"No one will know."

Miltoun turned away.

"I shall know," he said; but he saw clearly that she did not understand

him. Her face had a strange, brooding, shut-away look, as though he had

frightened her. And the thought that she could not understand, angered

him.

He said, stubbornly: "No, I can't remain in public life."

"But what has it to do with politics? It's such a little thing."

"If it had been a little thing to me, should I have left you at Monkland,

and spent those five weeks in purgatory before my illness? A little

thing!"

She exclaimed with sudden fire:

"Circumstances aye the little thing; it's love that's the great thing."

Miltoun stared at her, for the first time understanding that she had a

philosophy as deep and stubborn as his own. But he answered cruelly:

"Well! the great thing has conquered me!"

And then he saw her looking at him, as if, seeing into the recesses of

his soul, she had made some ghastly discovery. The look was so mournful,

so uncannily intent that he turned away from it.

"Perhaps it is a little thing," he muttered; "I don't know. I can't see

my way. I've lost my bearings; I must find them again before I can do

anything."

But as if she had not heard, or not taken in the sense of his words, she

said again:

"Oh! don't let us alter anything; I won't ever want what you can't give."

And this stubbornness, when he was doing the very thing that would give

him to her utterly, seemed to him unreasonable.

"I've had it out with myself," he said. "Don't let's talk about it any

more."

Again, with a sort of dry anguish, she murmured:

"No, no! Let us go on as we are!"

Feeling that he had borne all he could, Miltoun put his hands on her

shoulders, and said: "That's enough!"

Then, in sudden remorse, he lifted her, and clasped her to him.

But she stood inert in his arms, her eyes closed, not returning his

kisses.

CHAPTER XVII

On the last day before Parliament rose, Lord Valleys, with a light heart,

mounted his horse for a gallop in the Row. Though she was a blood mare

he rode her with a plain snaffle, having the horsemanship of one who has

hunted from the age of seven, and been for twenty years a Colonel of

Yeomanry. Greeting affably everyone he knew, he maintained a frank

demeanour on all subjects, especially of Government policy, secretly

enjoying the surmises and prognostications, so pleasantly wide of the

mark, and the way questions and hints perished before his sphinx-like

candour. He spoke cheerily too of Miltoun, who was 'all right again,'

and 'burning for the fray' when the House met again in the autumn. And

he chaffed Lord Malvezin about his wife. If anything--he said--could

make Bertie take an interest in politics, it would be she. He had two

capital gallops, being well known to the police: The day was bright, and

he was sorry to turn home. Falling in with Harbinger, he asked him to

come back to lunch. There had seemed something different lately, an

almost morose look, about young Harbinger; and his wife's disquieting

words about Barbara came back to Lord Valleys with a shock. He had seen

little of the child lately, and in the general clearing up of this time

of year had forgotten all about the matter.

Agatha, who was still staying at Valleys House with little Ann, waiting

to travel up to Scotland with her mother, was out, and there was no one

at lunch except Lady Valleys and Barbara herself. Conversation flagged;

for the young people were extremely silent, Lady Valleys was considering

the draft of a report which had to be settled before she left, and Lord

Valleys himself was rather carefully watching his daughter. The news

that Lord Miltoun was in the study came as a surprise, and somewhat of a

relief to all. To an exhortation to luring him in to lunch; the servant

replied that Lord Miltoun had lunched, and would wait.

"Does he know there's no one here?"

"Yes, my lady."

Lady Valleys pushed back her plate, and rose:

"Oh, well!" she said, "I've finished."

Lord Valleys also got up, and they went out together, leaving Barbara,

who had risen, looking doubtfully at the door.

Lord Valleys had recently been told of the nursing episode, and had

received the news with the dubious air of one hearing something about an

eccentric person, which, heard about anyone else, could have had but one

significance. If Eustace had been a normal young man his father would

have shrugged his shoulder's, and thought: "Oh, well! There it is!" As

it was, he had literally not known what to think.

And now, crossing the saloon which intervened between the dining-room and

the study, he said to his wife uneasily:

"Is it this woman again, Gertrude--or what?"

Lady Valleys answered with a shrug:

"Goodness knows, my dear."

Miltoun was standing in the embrasure of a window above the terrace. He

looked well, and his greeting was the same as usual.

"Well, my dear fellow," said Lord Valleys, "you're all right again

evidently--what's the news?"

"Only that I've decided to resign my seat."

Lord Valleys stared.

"What on earth for?"

But Lady Valleys, with the greater quickness of women, divining already

something of the reason, had flushed a deep pink.

"Nonsense, my dear," she said; "it can't possibly be necessary, even

if----" Recovering herself, she added dryly:

"Give us some reason."

"The reason is simply that I've joined my life to Mrs. Noel's, and I

can't go on as I am, living a lie. If it were known I should obviously

have to resign at once."

"Good God!" exclaimed Lord Valleys.

Lady Valleys made a rapid movement. In the face of what she felt to be a

really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of

the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and

become a genuine woman. Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in

speaking, turned towards her.

"I can't argue it," said Miltoun; "I consider myself bound in honour."

"And then?" she asked.

Lord Valleys, with a note of real feeling, interjected:

"By Heaven! I did think you put your country above your private

affairs."

"Geoff!" said Lady Valleys.

But Lord Valleys went on:

"No, Eustace, I'm out of touch with your view of things altogether. I

don't even begin to understand it."

"That is true," said Miltoun.

"Listen to me, both of you!" said Lady Valleys: "You two are altogether

different; and you must not quarrel. I won't have that. Now, Eustace,

you are our son, and you have got to be kind and considerate. Sit down,

and let's talk it over."

And motioning her husband to a chair, she sat down in the embrasure of a

window. Miltoun remained standing. Visited by a sudden dread, Lady

Valleys said:

"Is it--you've not--there isn't going to be a scandal?"

Miltoun smiled grimly.

"I shall tell this man, of course, but you may make your minds easy, I

imagine; I understand that his view of marriage does not permit of

divorce in any case whatever."

Lady Valleys sighed with an utter and undisguised relief.

"Well, then, my dear boy," she began, "even if you do feel you must tell

him, there is surely no reason why it should not otherwise be kept

secret."

Lord Valleys interrupted her:

"I should be glad if you would point out the connection between your

honour and the resignation of your seat," he said stiffly.

Miltoun shook his head.

"If you don't see already, it would be useless."

"I do not see. The whole matter is--is unfortunate, but to give up your

work, so long as there is no absolute necessity, seems to me far-fetched

and absurd. How many men are, there into whose lives there has not

entered some such relation at one time or another? This idea would

disqualify half the nation." His eyes seemed in that crisis both to

consult and to avoid his wife's, as though he were at once asking her

endorsement of his point of view, and observing the proprieties. And for

a moment in the midst of her anxiety, her sense of humour got the better

of Lady Valleys. It was so funny that Geoff should have to give himself

away; she could not for the life of her help fixing him with her eyes.

"My dear," she murmured, "you underestimate three-quarters, at the very

least!"

But Lord Valleys, confronted with danger, was growing steadier.

"It passes my comprehension;" he said, "why you should want to mix up sex

and politics at all."

Miltoun's answer came very slowly, as if the confession were hurting his

lips:

"There is--forgive me for using the word--such a thing as one's religion.

I don't happen to regard life as divided into public and private

departments. My vision is gone--broken--I can see no object before me

now in public life--no goal--no certainty."

Lady Valleys caught his hand:

"Oh! my dear," she said, "that's too dreadfully puritanical!" But at

Miltoun's queer smile, she added hastily: "Logical--I mean."

"Consult your common sense, Eustace, for goodness' sake," broke in Lord

Valleys. "Isn't it your simple duty to put your scruples in your pocket,

and do the best you can for your country with the powers that have been

given you?"

"I have no common sense."

"In that case, of course, it may be just as well that you should leave

public life."

Miltoun bowed.

"Nonsense!" cried Lady Valleys. "You don't understand, Geoffrey. I ask

you again, Eustace, what will you do afterwards?"

"I don't know."

"You will eat your heart out."

"Quite possibly."

"If you can't come to a reasonable arrangement with your conscience,"

again broke in Lord Valleys, "for Heaven's sake give her up, like a man,

and cut all these knots."

"I beg your pardon, sir!" said Miltoun icily.

Lady Valleys laid her hand on his arm. "You must allow us a little logic

too, my dear. You don't seriously imagine that she would wish you to

throw away your life for her? I'm not such a bad judge of character as

that."

She stopped before the expression on Miltoun's face.

"You go too fast," he said; "I may become a free spirit yet."

To this saying, which seemed to her cryptic and sinister, Lady Valleys

did not know what to answer.

"If you feel, as you say," Lord Valleys began once more, "that the bottom

has been knocked out of things for you by this--this affair, don't, for

goodness' sake, do anything in a hurry. Wait! Go abroad! Get your

balance back! You'll find the thing settle itself in a few months.

Don't precipitate matters; you can make your health an excuse to miss the

Autumn session."

Lady Valleys chimed in eagerly

"You really are seeing the thing out of all proportion. What is a

love-affair. My dear boy, do you suppose for a moment anyone would think

the worse of you, even if they knew? And really not a soul need know."

"It has not occurred to me to consider what they would think."

"Then," cried Lady Valleys, nettled, "it's simply your own pride."

"You have said."

Lord Valleys, who had turned away, spoke in an almost tragic voice

"I did not think that on a point of honour I should differ from my son."

Catching at the word honour, Lady Valleys cried suddenly:

"Eustace, promise me, before you do anything, to consult your Uncle

Dennis."

Miltoun smiled.

"This becomes comic," he said.

At that word, which indeed seemed to them quite wanton, Lord and Lady

Valleys turned on their son, and the three stood staring, perfectly

silent. A little noise from the doorway interrupted them.

CHAPTER XVIII

Left by her father and mother to the further entertainment of Harbinger,

Barbara had said:

"Let's have coffee in here," and passed into the withdrawing room.

Except for that one evening, when together by the sea wall they stood

contemplating the populace, she had not been alone with him since he

kissed her under the shelter of the box hedge. And now, after the first

moment, she looked at him calmly, though in her breast there was a

fluttering, as if an imprisoned bird were struggling ever so feebly

against that soft and solid cage. Her last jangled talk with Courtier

had left an ache in her heart. Besides, did she not know all that

Harbinger could give her?

Like a nymph pursued by a faun who held dominion over the groves, she,

fugitive, kept looking back. There was nothing in that fair wood of his

with which she was not familiar, no thicket she had not travelled, no

stream she had not crossed, no kiss she could not return. His was a

discovered land, in which, as of right, she would reign. She had nothing

to hope from him but power, and solid pleasure. Her eyes said: How am I

to know whether I shall not want more than you; feel suffocated in your

arms; be surfeited by all that you will bring me? Have I not already got

all that?

She knew, from his downcast gloomy face, how cruel she seemed, and was

sorry. She wanted to be good to him, and said almost shyly:

"Are you angry with me, Claud?"

Harbinger looked up.

"What makes you so cruel?"

"I am not cruel."

"You are. Where is your heart?"

"Here!" said Barbara, touching her breast.

"Ah!" muttered Harbinger; "I'm not joking."

She said gently:'

"Is it as bad as that, my dear?"

But the softness of her voice seemed to fan the smouldering fires in him.

"There's something behind all this," he stammered, "you've no right to

make a fool of me!"

"And what is the something, please?"

"That's for you to say. But I'm not blind. What about this fellow

Courtier?"

At that moment there was revealed to Barbara a new acquaintance--the male

proper. No, to live with him would not be quite lacking in adventure!

His face had darkened; his eyes were dilated, his whole figure seemed to

have grown. She suddenly noticed the hair which covered his clenched

fists. All his suavity had left him. He came very close.

How long that look between them lasted, and of all there was in it, she

had no clear knowledge; thought after thought, wave after wave of

feeling, rushed through her. Revolt and attraction, contempt and

admiration, queer sensations of disgust and pleasure, all mingled--as on

a May day one may see the hail fall, and the sun suddenly burn through

and steam from the grass.

Then he said hoarsely:

"Oh! Babs, you madden me so!"

Smoothing her lips, as if to regain control of them, she answered:

"Yes, I think I have had enough," and went out into her father's study.

The sight of Lord and Lady Valleys so intently staring at Miltoun

restored hex self-possession.

It struck her as slightly comic, not knowing that the little scene was

the outcome of that word. In truth, the contrast between Miltoun and his

parents at this moment was almost ludicrous.

Lady Valleys was the first to speak.

"Better comic than romantic. I suppose Barbara may know, considering her

contribution to this matter. Your brother is resigning his seat, my

dear; his conscience will not permit him to retain it, under certain

circumstances that have arisen."

"Oh!" cried Barbara: "but surely----"

"The matter has been argued, Babs," Lord Valleys said shortly; "unless

you have some better reason to advance than those of ordinary common

sense, public spirit, and consideration for one's family, it will hardly

be worth your while to reopen the discussion."

Barbara looked up at Miltoun, whose face, all but the eyes, was like a

mask.

"Oh, Eusty!" she said, "you're not going to spoil your life like this!

Just think how I shall feel."

Miltoun answered stonily:

"You did what you thought right; as I am doing."

"Does she want you to?"

"No."

"There is, I should imagine," put in Lord Valleys, "not a solitary

creature in the whole world except your brother himself who would wish

for this consummation. But with him such a consideration does not

weigh!"

"Oh!" sighed Barbara; "think of Granny!"

"I prefer not to think of her," murmured Lady Valleys.

"She's so wrapped up in you, Eusty. She always has believed in you

intensely."

Miltoun sighed. And, encouraged by that sound, Barbara went closer.

It was plain enough that, behind his impassivity, a desperate struggle

was going on in Miltoun. He spoke at last:

"If I have not already yielded to one who is naturally more to me than

anything, when she begged and entreated, it is because I feel this in a

way you don't realize. I apologize for using the word comic just now, I

should have said tragic. I'll enlighten Uncle Dennis, if that will

comfort you; but this is not exactly a matter for anyone, except myself."

And, without another look or word, he went out.

As the door closed, Barbara ran towards it; and, with a motion strangely

like the wringing of hands, said:

"Oh, dear! Oh! dear!" Then, turning away to a bookcase, she began to

cry.

This ebullition of feeling, surpassing even their own, came as a real

shock to Lady and Lord Valleys, ignorant of how strung-up she had been

before she entered the room. They had not seen Barbara cry since she was

a tiny girl. And in face of her emotion any animus they might have shown

her for having thrown Miltoun into Mrs. Noel's arms, now melted away.

Lord Valleys, especially moved, went up to his daughter, and stood with

her in that dark corner, saying nothing, but gently stroking her hand.

Lady Valleys, who herself felt very much inclined to cry, went out of

sight into the embrasure of the window.

Barbara's sobbing was soon subdued.

"It's his face," she said: "And why? Why? It's so unnecessary!"

Lord Valleys, continually twisting his moustache, muttered:

"Exactly! He makes things for himself!"

"Yes," murmured Lady Valleys from the window, "he was always

uncomfortable, like that. I remember him as a baby. Bertie never was."

And then the silence was only broken by the little angry sounds of

Barbara blowing her nose.

"I shall go and see mother," said Lady Valleys, suddenly: "The boy's

whole life may be ruined if we can't stop this. Are you coming, child?"

But Barbara refused.

She went to her room, instead. This crisis in Miltoun's life had

strangely shaken her. It was as if Fate had suddenly revealed all that

any step out of the beaten path might lead to, had brought her sharply up

against herself. To wing out into the blue! See what it meant! If

Miltoun kept to his resolve, and gave up public life, he was lost! And

she herself! The fascination of Courtier's chivalrous manner, of a sort

of innate gallantry, suggesting the quest of everlasting danger--was it

not rather absurd? And--was she fascinated? Was it not simply that she

liked the feeling of fascinating him? Through the maze of these

thoughts, darted the memory of Harbinger's face close to her own, his

clenched hands, the swift revelation of his dangerous masculinity. It

was all a nightmare of scaring queer sensations, of things that could

never be settled. She was stirred for once out of all her normal

conquering philosophy. Her thoughts flew back to Miltoun. That which

she had seen in their faces, then, had come to pass! And picturing

Agatha's horror, when she came to hear of it, Barbara could not help a

smile. Poor Eustace! Why did he take things so hardly? If he really

carried out his resolve--and he never changed his mind--it would be

tragic! It would mean the end of everything for him!

Perhaps now he would get tired of Mrs. Noel. But she was not the sort of

woman a man would get tired of. Even Barbara in her inexperience felt

that. She would always be too delicately careful never to cloy him,

never to exact anything from him, or let him feel that he was bound to

her by so much as a hair. Ah! why couldn't they go on as if nothing had

happened? Could nobody persuade him? She thought again of Courtier. If

he, who knew them both, and was so fond of Mrs. Noel, would talk to

Miltoun, about the right to be happy, the right to revolt? Eustace ought

to revolt! It was his duty. She sat down to write; then, putting on her

hat, took the note and slipped downstairs.

CHAPTER XIX

The flowers of summer in the great glass house at Ravensham were keeping

the last afternoon-watch when Clifton summoned Lady Casterley with the

words:

"Lady Valleys in the white room."

Since the news of Miltoun's illness, and of Mrs. Noel's nursing, the

little old lady had possessed her soul in patience; often, it is true,

afflicted with poignant misgivings as to this new influence in the life

of her favourite, affected too by a sort of jealousy, not to be admitted,

even in her prayers, which, though regular enough, were perhaps somewhat

formal. Having small liking now for leaving home, even for Catton, her

country place, she was still at Ravensham, where Lord Dennis had come up

to stay with her as soon as Miltoun had left Sea House. But Lady

Casterley was never very dependent on company. She retained unimpaired

her intense interest in politics, and still corresponded freely with

prominent men. Of late, too, a slight revival of the June war scare had

made its mark on her in a certain rejuvenescence, which always

accompanied her contemplation of national crises, even when such were a

little in the air. At blast of trumpet her spirit still leaped forward,

unsheathed its sword, and stood at the salute. At such times, she rose

earlier, went to bed later, was far less susceptible to draughts, and

refused with asperity any food between meals. She wrote too with her own

hand letters which she would otherwise have dictated to her secretary.

Unfortunately the scare had died down again almost at once; and the

passing of danger always left her rather irritable. Lady Valleys' visit

came as a timely consolation.

She kissed her daughter critically; for there was that about her manner

which she did not like.

"Yes, of course I am well!" she said. "Why didn't you bring Barbara?"

"She was tired!"

"H'm! Afraid of meeting me, since she committed that piece of folly over

Eustace. You must be careful of that child, Gertrude, or she will be

doing something silly herself. I don't like the way she keeps Claud

Harbinger hanging in the wind."

Her daughter cut her short:

"There is bad news about Eustace."

Lady Casterley lost the little colour in her cheeks; lost, too, all her

superfluity of irritable energy.

"Tell me, at once!"

Having heard, she said nothing; but Lady Valleys noticed with alarm that

over her eyes had come suddenly the peculiar filminess of age.

"Well, what do you advise?" she asked.

Herself tired, and troubled, she was conscious of a quite unwonted

feeling of discouragement before this silent little figure, in the silent

white room. She had never before seen her mother look as if she heard

Defeat passing on its dark wings. And moved by sudden tenderness for the

little frail body that had borne her so long ago, she murmured almost

with surprise:

"Mother, dear!"

"Yes," said Lady Casterley, as if speaking to herself, "the boy saves

things up; he stores his feelings--they burst and sweep him away. First

his passion; now his conscience. There are two men in him; but this will

be the death of one of them." And suddenly turning on her daughter, she

said:

"Did you ever hear about him at Oxford, Gertrude? He broke out once, and

ate husks with the Gadarenes. You never knew. Of course--you never have

known anything of him."

Resentment rose in Lady Valleys, that anyone should knew her son better

than herself; but she lost it again looking at the little figure, and

said, sighing:

"Well?"

Lady Casterley murmured:

"Go away, child; I must think. You say he's to consult' Dennis? Do you

know her address? Ask Barbara when you get back and telephone it to me.

And at her daughter's kiss, she added grimly:

"I shall live to see him in the saddle yet, though I am seventy-eight."

When the sound of her daughter's car had died away, she rang the bell.

"If Lady Valleys rings up, Clifton, don't take the message, but call me."

And seeing that Clifton did not move she added sharply: "Well?"

"There is no bad news of his young lordship's health, I hope?"

"No."

"Forgive me, my lady, but I have had it on my mind for some time to ask

you something."

And the old man raised his hand with a peculiar dignity, seeming to say:

You will excuse me that for the moment I am a human being speaking to a

human being.

"The matter of his attachment," he went on, "is known to me; it has given

me acute anxiety, knowing his lordship as I do, and having heard him say

something singular when he was here in July. I should be grateful if you

would assure--me that there is to be no hitch in his career, my lady."

The expression on Lady Casterley's face was strangely compounded of

surprise, kindliness, defence, and impatience as with a child.

"Not if I can prevent it, Clifton," she said shortly; "in fact, you need

not concern yourself."

Clifton bowed.

"Excuse me mentioning it, my lady;" a quiver ran over his face between

its long white whiskers, "but his young lordship's career is more to me

than my own."

When he had left her, Lady Casterley sat down in a little low chair--long

she sat there by the empty hearth, till the daylight, was all gone.

CHAPTER XX

Not far from the dark-haloed indeterminate limbo where dwelt that bugbear

of Charles Courtier, the great Half-Truth Authority, he himself had a

couple of rooms at fifteen shillings a week. Their chief attraction was

that the great Half-Truth Liberty had recommended them. They tied him to

nothing, and were ever at his disposal when he was in London; for his

landlady, though not bound by agreement so to do, let them in such a way,

that she could turn anyone else out at a week's notice. She was a gentle

soul, married to a socialistic plumber twenty years her senior. The

worthy man had given her two little boys, and the three of them kept her

in such permanent order that to be in the presence of Courtier was the

greatest pleasure she knew. When he disappeared on one of his nomadic

missions, explorations, or adventures, she enclosed the whole of his

belongings in two tin trunks and placed them in a cupboard which smelled

a little of mice. When he reappeared the trunks were reopened, and a

powerful scent of dried rose-leaves would escape. For, recognizing the

mortality of things human, she procured every summer from her sister, the

wife of a market gardener, a consignment of this commodity, which she

passionately sewed up in bags, and continued to deposit year by year, in

Courtier's trunks.

This, and the way she made his toast--very crisp--and aired his

linen--very dry, were practically the only things she could do for a man

naturally inclined to independence, and accustomed from his manner of

life to fend for himself.

At first signs of his departure she would go into some closet or other,

away from the plumber and the two marks of his affection, and cry

quietly; but never in Courtier's presence did she dream of manifesting

grief--as soon weep in the presence of death or birth, or any other

fundamental tragedy or joy. In face of the realities of life she had

known from her youth up the value of the simple verb 'sto--stare-to stand

fast.'

And to her Courtier was a reality, the chief reality of life, the focus

of her aspiration, the morning and the evening star.

The request, then five days after his farewell visit to Mrs. Noel--for

the elephant-hide trunk which accompanied his rovings, produced her

habitual period of seclusion, followed by her habitual appearance in his

sitting-room bearing a note, and some bags of dried rose--leaves on a

tray. She found him in his shirt sleeves, packing.

"Well, Mrs. Benton; off again!"

Mrs. Benton, plaiting her hands, for she had not yet lost something of

the look and manner of a little girl, answered in her flat, but serene

voice:

"Yes, sir; and I hope you're not going anywhere very dangerous this time.

I always think you go to such dangerous places."

"To Persia, Mrs. Benton, where the carpets come from."

"Oh! yes, sir. Your washing's just come home."

Her, apparently cast-down, eyes stored up a wealth of little details; the

way his hair grew, the set of his back, the colour of his braces. But

suddenly she said in a surprising voice:

"You haven't a photograph you could spare, sir, to leave behind? Mr.

Benton was only saying to me yesterday, we've nothing to remember him by,

in case he shouldn't come back."

"Here's an old one."

Mrs. Benton took the photograph.

"Oh!" she said; "you can see who it is." And holding it perhaps too

tightly, for her fingers trembled, she added:

"A note, please, sir; and the messenger boy is waiting for--an answer."

While he read the note she noticed with concern how packing had brought

the blood into his head....

When, in response to that note, Courtier entered the well-known

confectioner's called Gustard's, it was still not quite tea-time, and

there seemed to him at first no one in the room save three middle-aged

women packing sweets; then in the corner he saw Barbara. The blood was

no longer in his head; he was pale, walking down that mahogany-coloured

room impregnated with the scent of wedding-cake. Barbara, too, was pale.

So close to her that he could count her every eyelash, and inhale the

scent of her hair and clothes to listen to her story of Miltoun, so

hesitatingly, so wistfully told, seemed very like being kept waiting with

the rope already round his neck, to hear about another person's

toothache. He felt this to have been unnecessary on the part of Fate!

And there came to him perversely the memory of that ride over the

sun-warmed heather, when he had paraphrased the old Sicilian song: 'Here

will I sit and sing.' He was a long way from singing now; nor was there

love in his arms. There was instead a cup of tea; and in his nostrils

the scent of cake, with now and then a whiff of orange-flower water.

"I see," he said, when she had finished telling him: "'Liberty's a

glorious feast!' You want me to go to your brother, and quote Bums? You

know, of course, that he regards me as dangerous."

"Yes; but he respects and likes you."

"And I respect and like him," answered Courtier.

One of the middle-aged females passed, carrying a large white card-board

box; and the creaking of her stays broke the hush.

"You have been very sweet to me," said Barbara, suddenly.

Courtier's heart stirred, as if it were turning over within him; and

gazing into his teacup, he answered--

"All men are decent to the evening star. I will go at once and find your

brother. When shall I bring you news?"

"To-morrow at five I'll be at home."

And repeating, "To-morrow at five," he rose.

Looking back from the door, he saw her face puzzled, rather reproachful,

and went out gloomily. The scent of cake, and orange-flower water, the

creaking of the female's stays, the colour of mahogany, still clung to

his nose and ears, and eyes; but within him it was all dull baffled rage.

Why had he not made the most of this unexpected chance; why had he not

made desperate love to her? A conscientious ass! And yet--the whole

thing was absurd! She was so young! God knew he would be glad to be out

of it. If he stayed he was afraid that he would play the fool. But the

memory of her words: "You have been very sweet to me!" would not leave

him; nor the memory of her face, so puzzled, and reproachful. Yes, if he

stayed he would play the fool! He would be asking her to marry a man

double her age, of no position but that which he had carved for himself,

and without a rap. And he would be asking her in such a way that she

might possibly have some little difficulty in refusing. He would be

letting himself go. And she was only twenty--for all her

woman-of-the-world air, a child! No! He would be useful to her, if

possible, this once, and then clear out!

CHAPTER XXI

When Miltoun left Valleys House he walked in the direction of

Westminster. During the five days that he had been back in London he had

not yet entered the House of Commons. After the seclusion of his

illness, he still felt a yearning, almost painful, towards the movement

and stir of the town. Everything he heard and saw made an intensely

vivid impression. The lions in Trafalgar Square, the great buildings of

Whitehall, filled him with a sort of exultation. He was like a man, who,

after a long sea voyage, first catches sight of land, and stands

straining his eyes, hardly breathing, taking in one by one the lost

features of that face. He walked on to Westminster Bridge, and going to

an embrasure in the very centre, looked back towards the towers.

It was said that the love of those towers passed into the blood. It was

said that he who had sat beneath them could never again be quite the

same. Miltoun knew that it was true--desperately true, of himself. In

person he had sat there but three weeks, but in soul he seemed to have

been sitting there hundreds of years. And now he would sit there no

more! An almost frantic desire to free himself from this coil rose up

within him. To be held a prisoner by that most secret of all his

instincts, the instinct for authority! To be unable to wield authority

because to wield authority was to insult authority. God! It was hard!

He turned his back on the towers; and sought distraction in the faces of

the passers-by.

Each of these, he knew, had his struggle to keep self-respect! Or was it

that they were unconscious of struggle or of self-respect, and just let

things drift? They looked like that, most of them! And all his inherent

contempt for the average or common welled up as he watched them. Yes,

they looked like that! Ironically, the sight of those from whom he had

desired the comfort of compromise, served instead to stimulate that part

of him which refused to let him compromise. They looked soft, soggy,

without pride or will, as though they knew that life was too much for

them, and had shamefully accepted the fact. They so obviously needed to

be told what they might do, and which way they should, go; they would

accept orders as they accepted their work, or pleasures: And the thought

that he was now debarred from the right to give them orders, rankled in

him furiously. They, in their turn, glanced casually at his tall figure

leaning against the parapet, not knowing how their fate was trembling in

the balance. His thin, sallow face, and hungry eyes gave one or two of

them perhaps a feeling of interest or discomfort; but to most he was

assuredly no more than any other man or woman in the hurly-burly. That

dark figure of conscious power struggling in the fetters of its own

belief in power, was a piece of sculpture they had neither time nor wish

to understand, having no taste for tragedy--for witnessing the human

spirit driven to the wall.

It was five o'clock before Miltoun left the Bridge, and passed, like an

exile, before the gates of Church and State, on his way to his uncle's

Club. He stopped to telegraph to Audrey the time he would be coming

to-morrow afternoon; and on leaving the Post-Office, noticed in the

window of the adjoining shop some reproductions of old Italian

masterpieces, amongst them one of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus.' He had

never seen that picture; and, remembering that she had told him it was

her favourite, he stopped to look at it. Averagely well versed in such

matters, as became one of his caste, Miltoun had not the power of letting

a work of art insidiously steal the private self from his soul, and

replace it with the self of all the world; and he examined this far-famed

presentment of the heathen goddess with aloofness, even irritation. The

drawing of the body seemed to him crude, the whole picture a little flat

and Early; he did not like the figure of the Flora. The golden serenity,

and tenderness, of which she had spoken, left him cold. Then he found

himself looking at the face, and slowly, but with uncanny certainty,

began to feel that he was looking at the face of Audrey herself. The

hair was golden and different, the eyes grey and different, the mouth a

little fuller; yet--it was her face; the same oval shape, the same

far-apart, arched brows, the same strangely tender, elusive spirit. And,

as though offended, he turned and walked on. In the window of that

little shop was the effigy of her for whom he had bartered away his

life--the incarnation of passive and entwining love, that gentle

creature, who had given herself to him so utterly, for whom love, and the

flowers, and trees, and birds, music, the sky, and the quick-flowing

streams, were all-sufficing; and who, like the goddess in the picture,

seemed wondering at her own existence. He had a sudden glimpse of

understanding, strange indeed in one who had so little power of seeing

into others' hearts: Ought she ever to have been born into a world like

this? But the flash of insight yielded quickly to that sickening

consciousness of his own position, which never left him now. Whatever

else he did, he must get rid of that malaise! But what could he do in

that coming life? Write books? What sort of books could he write? Only

such as expressed his views of citizenship, his political and social

beliefs. As well remain sitting and speaking beneath those towers! He

could never join the happy band of artists, those soft and indeterminate

spirits, for whom barriers had no meaning, content-to understand,

interpret, and create. What should he be doing in that galley? The

thought was inconceivable. A career at the Bar--yes, he might take that

up; but to what end? To become a judge! As well continue to sit beneath

those towers! Too late for diplomacy. Too late for the Army; besides,

he had not the faintest taste for military glory. Bury himself in the

country like Uncle Dennis, and administer one of his father's estates?

It would be death. Go amongst the poor? For a moment he thought he had

found a new vocation. But in what capacity--to order their lives, when

he himself could not order his own; or, as a mere conduit pipe for money,

when he believed that charity was rotting the nation to its core? At the

head of every avenue stood an angel or devil with drawn sword. And then

there came to him another thought. Since he was being cast forth from

Church and State, could he not play the fallen spirit like a man--be

Lucifer, and destroy! And instinctively he at once saw himself returning

to those towers, and beneath them crossing the floor; joining the

revolutionaries, the Radicals, the freethinkers, scourging his present

Party, the party of authority and institutions. The idea struck him as

supremely comic, and he laughed out loud in the street....

The Club which Lord Dennis frequented was in St. James's untouched by the

tides of the waters of fashion--steadily swinging to its moorings in a

quiet backwater, and Miltoun found his uncle in the library. He was

reading a volume of Burton's travels, and drinking tea.

"Nobody comes here," he said, "so, in spite of that word on the door, we

shall talk. Waiter, bring some more tea, please."

Impatiently, but with a sort of pity, Miltoun watched Lord Dennis's

urbane movements, wherein old age was, pathetically, trying to make each

little thing seem important, if only to the doer. Nothing his

great-uncle could say would outweigh the warning of his picturesque old

figure! To be a bystander; to see it all go past you; to let your sword

rust in its sheath, as this poor old fellow had done! The notion of

explaining what he had come about was particularly hateful to Miltoun;

but since he had given his word, he nerved himself with secret anger, and

began:

"I promised my mother to ask you a question, Uncle Dennis. You know of

my attachment, I believe?"

Lord Dennis nodded.

"Well, I have joined my life to this lady's. There will be no scandal,

but I consider it my duty to resign my seat, and leave public life alone.

Is that right or wrong according to, your view?"

Lord Dennis looked at his nephew in silence. A faint flush coloured his

brown cheeks. He had the appearance of one travelling in mind over the

past.

"Wrong, I think," he said, at last.

"Why, if I may ask?"

"I have not the pleasure of knowing this lady, and am therefore somewhat

in the dark; but it appears to me that your decision is not fair to her."

"That is beyond me," said Miltoun.

Lord Dennis answered firmly:

"You have asked me a frank question, expecting a frank answer, I

suppose?"

Miltoun nodded.

"Then, my dear, don't blame me if what I say is unpalatable."

"I shall not."

"Good! You say you are going to give up public life for the sake of your

conscience. I should have no criticism to make if it stopped there."

He paused, and for quite a minute remained silent, evidently searching

for words to express some intricate thread of thought.

"But it won't, Eustace; the public man in you is far stronger than the

other. You want leadership more than you want love. Your sacrifice will

kill your affection; what you imagine is your loss and hurt, will prove

to be this lady's in the end."

Miltoun smiled.

Lord Dennis continued very dryly and with a touch of malice:

"You are not listening to me; but I can see very well that the process

has begun already underneath. There's a curious streak of the Jesuit in

you, Eustace. What you don't want to see, you won't look at."

"You advise me, then, to compromise?"

"On the contrary, I point out that you will be compromising if you try to

keep both your conscience and your love. You will be seeking to have, it

both ways."

"That is interesting."

"And you will find yourself having it neither," said Lord Dennis sharply.

Miltoun rose. "In other words, you, like the others, recommend me to

desert this lady who loves me, and whom I love. And yet, Uncle, they say

that in your own case----"

But Lord Dennis had risen, too, having lost all the appanage and manner

of old age.

"Of my own case," he said bluntly, "we won't talk. I don't advise you to

desert anyone; you quite mistake me. I advise you to know yourself. And

I tell you my opinion of you--you were cut out by Nature for a statesman,

not a lover! There's something dried-up in you, Eustace; I'm not sure

there isn't something dried-up in all our caste. We've had to do with

forms and ceremonies too long. We're not good at taking the lyrical

point of view."

"Unfortunately," said Miltoun, "I cannot, to fit in with a theory of

yours, commit a baseness."

Lord Dennis began pacing up and down. He was keeping his lips closed

very tight.

"A man who gives advice," he said at last, "is always something of a

fool. For all that, you have mistaken mine. I am not so presumptuous as

to attempt to enter the inner chamber of your spirit. I have merely told

you that, in my opinion, it would be more honest to yourself, and fairer

to this lady, to compound with your conscience, and keep both your love

and your public life, than to pretend that you were capable of

sacrificing what I know is the stronger element in you for the sake of

the weaker. You remember the saying, Democritus I think: 'each man's

nature or character is his fate or God'. I recommend it to you."

For a full minute Miltoun stood without replying, then said:

"I am sorry to have troubled you, Uncle Dennis. A middle policy is no

use to me. Good-bye!" And without shaking hands, he went out.

CHAPTER XXII

In the hall someone rose from a sofa, and came towards him. It was

Courtier.

"Run you to earth at last," he said; "I wish you'd come and dine with me.

I'm leaving England to-morrow night, and there are things I want to say."

There passed through Miltoun's mind the rapid thought: 'Does he know?'

He assented, however, and they went out together.

"It's difficult to find a quiet place," said Courtier; "but this might

do."

The place chosen was a little hostel, frequented by racing men, and famed

for the excellence of its steaks. And as they sat down opposite each

other in the almost empty room, Miltoun thought: Yes, he does know! Can

I stand any more of this? He waited almost savagely for the attack he

felt was coming.

"So you are going to give up your seat?" said Courtier.

Miltoun looked at him for some seconds, before replying.

"From what town-crier did you hear that?"

But there was that in Courtier's face which checked his anger; its

friendliness was transparent.

"I am about her only friend," Courtier proceeded earnestly; "and this is

my last chance--to say nothing of my feeling towards you, which, believe

me, is very cordial."

"Go on, then," Miltoun muttered.

"Forgive me for putting it bluntly. Have you considered what her

position was before she met you?"

Miltoun felt the blood rushing to his face, but he sat still, clenching

his nails into the palms of his hands.

"Yes, yes," said Courtier, "but that attitude of mind--you used to have

it yourself--which decrees either living death, or spiritual adultery to

women, makes my blood boil. You can't deny that those were the

alternatives, and I say you had the right fundamentally to protest

against them, not only in words but deeds. You did protest, I know; but

this present decision of yours is a climb down, as much as to say that

your protest was wrong."

Miltoun rose from his seat. "I cannot discuss this," he said; "I

cannot."

"For her sake, you must. If you give up your public work, you'll spoil

her life a second time."

Miltoun again sat down. At the word 'must' a steely feeling had come to

his aid; his eyes began to resemble the old Cardinal's. "Your nature and

mine, Courtier," he said, "are too far apart; we shall never understand

each other."

"Never mind that," answered Courtier. "Admitting those two alternatives

to be horrible, which you never would have done unless the facts had been

brought home to you personally--"

"That," said Miltoun icily, "I deny your right to say."

"Anyway, you do admit them--if you believe you had not the right to

rescue her, on what principle do you base that belief?"

Miltoun placed his elbow on the table, and leaning his chin on his hand,

regarded the champion of lost causes without speaking. There was such a

turmoil going on within him that with difficulty he could force his lips

to obey him.

"By what right do you ask me that?" he said at last. He saw Courtier's

face grow scarlet, and his fingers twisting furiously at those flame-like

moustaches; but his answer was as steadily ironical as usual.

"Well, I can hardly sit still, my last evening in England, without

lifting a finger, while you immolate a woman to whom I feel like a

brother. I'll tell you what your principle is: Authority, unjust or

just, desirable or undesirable, must be implicitly obeyed. To break a

law, no matter on what provocation, or for whose sake, is to break the

commandment"

"Don't hesitate--say, of God."

"Of an infallible fixed Power. Is that a true definition of your

principle?"

"Yes," said Miltoun, between his teeth, "I think so."

"Exceptions prove the rule."

"Hard cases make bad law."

Courtier smiled: "I knew you were coming out with that. I deny that they

do with this law, which is altogether behind the times. You had the

right to rescue this woman."

"No, Courtier, if we must fight, let us fight on the naked facts. I have

not rescued anyone. I have merely stolen sooner than starve. That is why

I cannot go on pretending to be a pattern. If it were known, I could not

retain my seat an hour; I can't take advantage of an accidental secrecy.

Could you?"

Courtier was silent; and with his eyes Miltoun pressed on him, as though

he would despatch him with that glance.

"I could," said Courtier at last. "When this law, by enforcing spiritual

adultery on those who have come to hate their mates, destroys the

sanctity of the married state--the very sanctity it professes to uphold,

you must expect to have it broken by reasoning men and women without

their feeling shame, or losing self-respect."

In Miltoun there was rising that vast and subtle passion for dialectic

combat, which was of his very fibre. He had almost lost the feeling that

this was his own future being discussed. He saw before him in this

sanguine man, whose voice and eyes had such a white-hot sound and look,

the incarnation of all that he temperamentally opposed.

"That," he said, "is devil's advocacy. I admit no individual as judge in

his own case."

"Ah! Now we're coming to it. By the way, shall we get out of this

heat?"

They were no sooner in the cooler street, than the voice of Courtier

began again:

"Distrust of human nature, fear--it's the whole basis of action for men

of your stamp. You deny the right of the individual to judge, because

you've no faith in the essential goodness of men; at heart you believe

them bad. You give them no freedom, you allow them no consent, because

you believe that their decisions would move downwards, and not upwards.

Well, it's the whole difference between the aristocratic and the

democratic view of life. As you once told me, you hate and fear the

crowd."

Miltoun eyed that steady sanguine face askance:

"Yes," he said, "I do believe that men are raised in spite of

themselves."

"You're honest. By whom?"

Again Miltoun felt rising within him a sort of fury. Once for all he

would slay this red-haired rebel; he answered with almost savage irony:

"Strangely enough, by that Being to mention whom you object--working

through the medium of the best."

"High-Priest! Look at that girl slinking along there, with her eye on

us; suppose, instead of withdrawing your garment, you went over and

talked to her, got her to tell you what she really felt and thought,

you'd find things that would astonish you. At bottom, mankind is

splendid. And they're raised, sir, by the aspiration that's in all of

them. Haven't you ever noticed that public sentiment is always in

advance of the Law?"

"And you," said Miltoun, "are the man who is never on the side of the

majority?"

The champion of lost causes uttered a short laugh.

"Not so logical as all that," he answered; "the wind still blows; and

Life's not a set of rules hung up in an office. Let's see, where are

we?" They had been brought to a stand-still by a group on the pavement

in front of the Queen's Hall: "Shall we go in, and hear some music, and

cool our tongues?"

Miltoun nodded, and they went in.

The great lighted hall, filled with the faint bluefish vapour from

hundreds of little rolls of tobacco leaf, was crowded from floor to

ceiling.

Taking his stand among the straw-hatted throng, Miltoun heard that steady

ironical voice behind him:

"Profanum vulgus! Come to listen to the finest piece of music ever

written! Folk whom you wouldn't trust a yard to know what was good for

them! Deplorable sight, isn't it?"

He made no answer. The first slow notes of the seventh Symphony of

Beethoven had begun to steal forth across the bank of flowers; and, save

for the steady rising of that bluefish vapour, as it were incense burnt

to the god of melody, the crowd had become deathly still, as though one

mind, one spirit, possessed each pale face inclined towards that music

rising and falling like the sighing of the winds, that welcome from death

the freed spirits of the beautiful.

When the last notes had died away, he turned and walked out.

"Well," said the voice behind him, "hasn't that shown you how things

swell and grow; how splendid the world is?"

Miltoun smiled.

"It has shown me how beautiful the world can be made by a great man."

And suddenly, as if the music had loosened some band within him, he began

to pour forth words:

"Look at the crowd in this street, Courtier, which of all crowds in the

whole world can best afford to be left to itself; secure from pestilence,

earthquake, cyclone, drought, from extremes of heat and cold, in the

heart of the greatest and safest city in the world; and yet-see the

figure of that policeman! Running through all the good behaviour of this

crowd, however safe and free it looks, there is, there always must be, a

central force holding it together. Where does that central force come

from? From the crowd itself, you say. I answer: No. Look back at the

origin of human States. From the beginnings of things, the best man has

been the unconscious medium of authority, of the controlling principle,

of the divine force; he felt that power within him--physical, at

first--he used it to take the lead, he has held the lead ever since, he

must always hold it. All your processes of election, your so-called

democratic apparatus, are only a blind to the inquiring, a sop to the

hungry, a salve to the pride of the rebellious. They are merely surface

machinery; they cannot prevent the best man from coming to the top; for

the best man stands nearest to the Deity, and is the first to receive the

waves that come from Him. I'm not speaking of heredity. The best man is

not necessarily born in my class, and I, at all events, do not believe he

is any more frequent there than in other classes."

He stopped as suddenly as he had begun.

"You needn't be afraid," answered Courtier, "that I take you for an

average specimen. You're at one end, and I at the other, and we probably

both miss the golden mark. But the world is not ruled by power, and the

fear which power produces, as you think, it's ruled by love. Society is

held together by the natural decency in man, by fellow-feeling. The

democratic principle, which you despise, at root means nothing at all but

that. Man left to himself is on the upward lay. If it weren't so, do

you imagine for a moment your 'boys in blue' could keep order? A man

knows unconsciously what he can and what he can't do, without losing his

self-respect. He sucks that knowledge in with every breath. Laws and

authority are not the be-all and end-all, they are conveniences,

machinery, conduit pipes, main roads. They're not of the structure of

the building--they're only scaffolding."

Miltoun lunged out with the retort

"Without which no building could be built."

Courtier parried.

"That's rather different, my friend, from identifying them with the

building. They are things to be taken down as fast as ever they can be

cleared away, to make room for an edifice that begins on earth, not in

the sky. All the scaffolding of law is merely there to save time, to

prevent the temple, as it mounts, from losing its way, and straying out

of form."

"No," said Miltoun, "no! The scaffolding, as you call it, is the

material projection of the architect's conception, without which the

temple does not and cannot rise; and the architect is God, working

through the minds and spirits most akin to Himself."

"We are now at the bed-rock," cried Courtier, "your God is outside this

world. Mine within it."

"And never the twain shall meet!"

In the silence that followed Miltoun saw that they were in Leicester

Square, all quiet as yet before the theatres had disgorged; quiet yet

waiting, with the lights, like yellow stars low-driven from the dark

heavens, clinging to the white shapes of music-halls and cafes, and a

sort of flying glamour blanching the still foliage of the plane trees.

"A 'whitely wanton'--this Square!" said Courtier: "Alive as a face; no

end to its queer beauty! And, by Jove, if you went deep enough, you'd

find goodness even here."

"And you'd ignore the vice," Miltoun answered.

He felt weary all of a sudden, anxious to get to his rooms, unwilling to

continue this battle of words, that brought him no nearer to relief. It

was with strange lassitude that he heard the voice still speaking:

"We must make a night of it, since to-morrow we die.... You would curb

licence from without--I from within. When I get up and when I go to bed,

when I draw a breath, see a face, or a flower, or a tree--if I didn't

feel that I was looking on the Deity, I believe I should quit this palace

of varieties, from sheer boredom. You, I understand, can't look on your

God, unless you withdraw into some high place. Isn't it a bit lonely

there?"

"There are worse things than loneliness." And they walked on, in

silence; till suddenly Miltoun broke out:

"You talk of tyranny! What tyranny could equal this tyranny of your

freedom? What tyranny in the world like that of this 'free' vulgar,

narrow street, with its hundred journals teeming like ants' nests, to

produce-what? In the entrails of that creature of your freedom,

Courtier, there is room neither for exaltation, discipline, nor

sacrifice; there is room only for commerce, and licence."

There was no answer for a moment; and from those tall houses, whose

lighted windows he had apostrophized, Miltoun turned away towards the

river. "No," said the voice beside him, "for all its faults, the wind

blows in that street, and there's a chance for everything. By God, I

would rather see a few stars struggle out in a black sky than any of your

perfect artificial lighting."

And suddenly it seemed to Miltoun that he could never free himself from

the echoes of that voice--it was not worth while to try. "We are

repeating ourselves," he said, dryly.

The river's black water was making stilly, slow recessional under a

half-moon. Beneath the cloak of night the chaos on the far bank, the

forms of cranes, high buildings, jetties, the bodies of the sleeping

barges, a--million queer dark shapes, were invested with emotion. All was

religious out there, all beautiful, all strange. And over this great

quiet friend of man, lamps--those humble flowers of night, were throwing

down the faint continual glamour of fallen petals; and a sweet-scented

wind stole along from the West, very slow as yet, bringing in advance the

tremor and perfume of the innumerable trees and fields which the river

had loved as she came by.

A murmur that was no true sound, but like the whisper of a heart to a

heart, accompanied this voyage of the dark water.

Then a small blunt skiff--manned by two rowers came by under the wall,

with the thudding and the creak of oars.

"So 'To-morrow we die'?" said Miltoun: "You mean, I suppose, that 'public

life' is the breath of my nostrils, and I must die, because I give it

up?"

Courtier nodded.

"Am I right in thinking that it was my young sister who sent you on this

crusade?"

Courtier did not answer.

"And so," Miltoun went on, looking him through and through; "to-morrow is

to be your last day, too? Well, you're right to go. She is not an ugly

duckling, who can live out of the social pond; she'll always want her

native element. And now, we'll say goodbye! Whatever happens to us both,

I shall remember this evening." Smiling, he put out his hand 'Moriturus

te saluto.'

CHAPTER XXIII

Courtier sat in Hyde Park waiting for five o'clock. The day had

recovered somewhat from a grey morning, as though the glow of that long

hot summer were too burnt-in on the air to yield to the first assault.

The sun, piercing the crisped clouds, those breast feathers of heavenly

doves, darted its beams at the mellowed leaves, and showered to the

ground their delicate shadow stains. The first, too early, scent from

leaves about to fall, penetrated to the heart. And sorrowful sweet birds

were tuning their little autumn pipes, blowing into them fragments of

Spring odes to Liberty.

Courtier thought of Miltoun and his mistress. By what a strange fate had

those two been thrown together; to what end was their love coming? The

seeds of grief were already sown, what flowers of darkness, or of tumult

would come up? He saw her again as a little, grave, considering child,

with her soft eyes, set wide apart under the dark arched brows, and the

little tuck at the corner of her mouth that used to come when he teased

her. And to that gentle creature who would sooner die than force anyone

to anything, had been given this queer lover; this aristocrat by birth

and nature, with the dried fervent soul, whose every fibre had been bred

and trained in and to the service of Authority; this rejecter of the

Unity of Life; this worshipper of an old God! A God that stood, whip in

hand, driving men to obedience. A God that even now Courtier could

conjure up staring at him from the walls of his nursery. The God his own

father had believed in. A God of the Old Testament, knowing neither

sympathy nor understanding. Strange that He should be alive still; that

there should still be thousands who worshipped Him. Yet, not so very

strange, if, as they said, man made God in his own image! Here indeed

was a curious mating of what the philosophers would call the will to

Love, and the will to Power!

A soldier and his girl came and sat down on a bench close by. They

looked askance at this trim and upright figure with the fighting face;

then, some subtle thing informing them that he was not of the disturbing

breed called officer, they ceased to regard him, abandoning themselves to

dumb and inexpressive felicity. Arm in arm, touching each other, they

seemed to Courtier very jolly, having that look of living entirely in the

moment, which always especially appealed to one whose blood ran too fast

to allow him to speculate much upon the future or brood much over the

past.

A leaf from the bough above him, loosened by the sun's kisses, dropped,

and fell yellow at his feet. The leaves were turning very soon?

It was characteristic of this man, who could be so hot over the lost

causes of others, that, sitting there within half an hour of the final

loss of his own cause, he could be so calm, so almost apathetic. This

apathy was partly due to the hopelessness, which Nature had long

perceived, of trying to make him feel oppressed, but also to the habits

of a man incurably accustomed to carrying his fortunes in his hand, and

that hand open. It did not seem real to him that he was actually going

to suffer a defeat, to have to confess that he had hankered after this

girl all these past weeks, and that to-morrow all would be wasted, and

she as dead to him as if he had never seen her. No, it was not exactly

resignation, it was rather sheer lack of commercial instinct. If only

this had been the lost cause of another person. How gallantly he would

have rushed to the assault, and taken her by storm! If only he himself

could have been that other person, how easily, how passionately could he

not have pleaded, letting forth from him all those words which had

knocked at his teeth ever since he knew her, and which would have seemed

so ridiculous and so unworthy, spoken on his own behalf. Yes, for that

other person he could have cut her out from under the guns of the enemy;

he could have taken her, that fairest prize. And in queer, cheery-looking

apathy--not far removed perhaps from despair--he sat, watching the leaves

turn over and fall, and now and then cutting with his stick at the air,

where autumn was already riding. And, if in imagination he saw himself

carrying her away into the wilderness, and with his devotion making her

happiness to grow, it was so far a flight, that a smile crept about his

lips, and once or twice he snapped his jaws.