When Beth went to stay with the Kilroys in London, it was a question
whether she might not end by joining the valiant army of those who are
in opposition to everything; but before she had been there a week, she
had practically recovered her balance, and began to look out upon life
once more with dispassionate attention. Her depression when she first
arrived was evident, and the Kilroys were concerned to see her looking
so thin and ill; but, by degrees, she expanded in that genial
atmosphere, and although she said little as a rule, she had begun to
listen and to observe again with her usual vivid interest. She could
not have been better situated for the purpose, for people of all kinds
came to the Kilroys; and in moving among them merely as an onlooker,
she was bound to see and hear enough to take her out of herself. Her
own personality was too distinct, however, for her to remain for long
an onlooker merely. That mesmeric quality in her which, whether it
fascinates or displeases, attracts or repels, marks a distinct
personality which is not to be overlooked, made people ask at once who
she was, in the hope that her acquaintance might be worth
cultivating. For there was a certain air of distinction about her
which made her look like a person with some sort of prestige, whom it
might be useful to know--don't you know.
One afternoon soon after Beth's arrival, Mrs. Kilroy being at home to
visitors, and the rooms already pretty full, Beth noticed among the
callers an old-looking young man whose face seemed familiar to her. He
wore a pointed beard upon his chin, and a small moustache cut away
from his upper lip, and waxed and turned up at the ends. His face was
thin and narrow, his forehead high and bald; what hair he had grew in
a fringe at the back of his head, and was curly, and of a nondescript
brown colour. Had he worn the dress of the Elizabethan period, he
might have passed for a bad attempt to look like Shakespeare; and Beth
thought that that perhaps might be the resemblance which puzzled her.
While she was looking at him a lady was announced, a most
demure-looking little person in a grey costume, and a small,
close-fitting princess bonnet, tied under her chin, and trimmed with a
big Alsatian bow in front. She entered smiling slightly, and she
continued to smile, as if she had set the smile on her lips as she put
the bonnet on her head, to complete her costume. After she had shaken
hands with Angelica, she looked round as if in search of some one
else, and seemed satisfied when she discovered the old-looking young
man of Shakesperian aspect. He was watching her, and their eyes met
with a momentary significance, but they took no further notice of each
other. Most people would have perceived no more in the glance than
showed on the surface:--a lady and gentleman who looked at each other
and then looked away, like indifferent acquaintances or casual
strangers; but Beth's infallible intuition revealed to her an
elaborate precaution in this seeming unconcern. It was clear to her
that the two had expected to meet each other there, and their apparent
insensibility to each other's presence was a pose, which, however,
betrayed to her the intimacy it was affected to conceal. She hated
herself for seeing so much, and burned with blame of Dan for opening
her eyes to behold the inward wickedness beneath the conventional
propriety of the outward demeanour; but therein she was unjust to Dan.
He had opened her eyes sooner than they should have been opened, but
in any case she must have seen for herself eventually. Nothing in life
can be concealed from such a mind. What books could not teach her, she
discovered from people by sympathy, by insight, by intuition; but she
did not come into full possession of her faculties all at once. The
conditions of her life had tended rather to retard than to develop the
best that was in her, and the wonder was that her vision had not been
permanently distorted, so that she could see nothing but evil in all
things--see it, too, till her eyes were accustomed and her soul
corrupted, so that she not only ceased to resent it, but finally
accepted it as the inevitable order to which it is best to accommodate
oneself if one is to get any good out of life. This is the fate of
most young wives situated as Beth had been, the fate she had only
narrowly escaped by help of the strength that came of the brave
self-contained habits she had cultivated in her life of seclusion and
thought. It was the result of this training, and her constancy in
pursuing it, that her further faculty, hitherto so fitful, at last
shot up a bright and steady light which made manifest to her the
thoughts of others that they were not all evil, and helped her by the
grace in her own heart to perceive hidden processes of love at work in
other hearts, all tending to purification, and by the goodness of her
own soul to search out the goodness in other souls as the elements
find their constituent parts in the atmosphere.
Beth was looking her best that afternoon, although she had taken no
pains with herself. She seemed well dressed by dint of looking well in
her clothes; but she had not chosen to make herself look well. In the
exasperated phase of revolt through which she was passing, she could
not have been persuaded to dress so as to heighten the effect of her
appearance, and so make of herself a trap to catch admiring glances.
To be neat and fresh was all her care; but that was enough. The young
man with the pointed beard, who had been looking about the room
uneasily, seemed to have found what he wanted when he noticed her. He
asked an elderly man standing near him who the young lady of
distinguished appearance might be. "A friend of Mrs. Kilroy's, I
believe," the gentleman answered, and moved off as if he resented the
question.
But Pointed Beard was persistent. He asked two or three other people,
strangers, who did not know either, and then he made his way to Mrs.
Kilroy, but she was so surrounded he could not get near her. At last
he bethought him of the servants who were handing tea about, and
learnt Beth's name from one of them.
When Beth next noticed him, he was making his way towards her with a
cup of tea in one hand and a plate of cakes in the other.
"I have ventured to bring you some tea," he said, "but I do not know
if it is as you like it. I can easily get you some more, however, if
it is not."
"Thank you; I do not want any," Beth answered somewhat coldly.
"I'll put it here, then, on this console," he rejoined. "If I move
away I shall not be able to get near you again in this crowd. I wonder
why Mrs. Kilroy has so many people. Now, _I_ like just a few, eight or
ten for a dinner, you know, and twenty or so on these sort of
occasions. And they must all be interesting people, worth talking to.
I am exceedingly fastidious about the kind of people I know. Even as a
boy I was fastidious."
As he uttered that last sentence, Beth was again aware of something
familiar in his appearance, and she felt sure she had heard him make
that same remark more than once before--but when? but where?
"That is Lord Fitzkillingham," he continued, "that tall man who has
just come in--see, there!--shaking hands with Mrs. Kilroy. He looks
like a duke, don't you know. I admire people of distinguished
appearance much more than good-looking people--people who are merely
good-looking, I mean, of course. I saw _you_ directly I came into the
room, and was determined to find out who you were; and I asked I can't
tell you how many people, whether I knew them or not. What do you
think of that for perseverance?"
"You certainly seem to be persistent," Beth answered with a smile.
"Oh, I'm nothing if not persistent," he rejoined complacently. "I'll
undertake to find out anything I want to know. Do you see that lady
there in black? I wanted to know her age, so I went to Somerset House
and looked it up."
"What did you do that for?" Beth asked.
"I wanted to know."
"But did she want you to know?"
"Well, naturally not, or she would have told me. But it is no use
trying to conceal things from me. I am not to be deceived."
"You must be quite a loss to Scotland Yard," Beth ventured. "You would
have been admirably fitted for that--er--delicate kind of work."
"Well, I think I should," he rejoined. "You see I found _you_ out, and
it was not so easy, for--er--no one seemed to know you. However, that
does not matter. We'll soon introduce you."
Beth smiled. "Thank you," she said drily, "that will be very nice."
"I'll bring Fitzkillingham presently; he'll do anything for me. He was
one of our set at the 'Varsity. That's the best of going to the
'Varsity. You meet the right kind of people there, people who can help
you, you know, if you can get in with them as I did. You'll like
Fitzkillingham. He's a very good fellow."
"Indeed!" said Beth. "What has he done?"
"Done!" he echoed. "Oh, nothing that I know of. Consider his position!
The Earl of Fitzkillingham, with a rent-roll of fifty thousand a year,
has no need to do; he has only to be. There, he's caught my eye. I'll
go and fetch him."
"Pray do nothing of the kind," said Beth emphatically. "I have no wish
to know him."
The young man, disconcerted, turned and looked her full in the face.
"Why not?" he gasped.
"First of all, because you were going to present him without asking my
permission," Beth said, "which is a liberty I should have had to
resent in any case by refusing to know him; and secondly, because a
man worth fifty thousand a year who has done no good in the world is
not worth knowing. I don't think he should be allowed to _be_ unless
he can be made to _do_. Pray excuse me if I shock your prejudices,"
she added, smiling. "You do not know, perhaps, that in _our_ set,
knowing people for position rather than for character is quite out of
date?"
The young man smiled superciliously. "That is rather a bourgeois
sentiment, is it not?" he said.
"On the contrary," said Beth, "it is the other that is the huckster
spirit. What is called knowing the right people is only the commercial
principle of seeking some advantage. Certain people make a man's
acquaintance, and pay him flattering attentions, not because their
hearts are good and they wish to give him pleasure, but because there
is some percentage of advantage to be gained by knowing him. That is
to be bourgeois in the vulgar sense, if you like! And that is the
trade-mark stamped upon most of us--selfishness! snobbishness! One
sees it in the conventional society manners, which are superficially
veneered, fundamentally bad; the outcome of self-interest, not of good
feeling; one knows exactly how, where, and when they will break down."
"What are you holding forth about, Beth?" said Mrs. Kilroy, coming up
behind her.
"The best people," Beth answered, smiling.
"You mean the people who call themselves the best people--Society,
that is to say," said Mrs. Kilroy cheerfully. "Society is the scum
that comes to the surface because of its lightness, and does not
count, except in sets where ladies' papers circulate."
"I am surprised to hear _you_ talk so, Mrs. Kilroy," said Pointed
Beard in an offended tone, as if society had been insulted in his
person.
"I am sorry if I disappoint you," said Mrs. Kilroy. "And I confess I
like my own set and their pretty manners; but I know their weaknesses.
There is no snob so snobbish as a snob of good birth. The upper
classes will be the last to learn that it is sterling qualities which
are wanted to rule the world,--head and heart."
"This gentleman will tell you that all that is bourgeois," said Beth.
"I believe that at heart the bourgeois are sound," said Angelica.
"Bourgeois signifies good, sound, self-respecting qualities to me, and
steady principles."
"But scarcely 'pretty manners,' I should suppose," said Pointed Beard
superciliously.
"Why not?" said Angelica. "Sincerity and refinement make good manners,
and principle is the parent of both."
"Don't you think that for the most part Englishwomen are singularly
lacking in charms of manner?" he asked precisely.
"Just as Englishmen are, and for the same reason," said Angelica;
"because they only try to be agreeable when it suits themselves. A
good manner is a decoration that must be kept on always if it is to be
worn with ease. Good manners are rare because good feeling is rare,
for good manners are the outcome of good feeling. Manners are not the
mere society show of politeness, but the inward kindly sympathy of
which politeness is the natural outward manifestation; given these,
grace and charm of manner come of themselves."
She moved off as she spoke to attend to other guests.
"Mrs. Kilroy is obvious," said Pointed Beard, in a tone that suggested
sympathy with Beth for being bored. "I wonder she did not give us 'For
manners are not idle,' et cetera, or something equally banal--the kind
of thing we are taught in our infancy----"
"And fail to apply ever after," said Beth.
"I see you are ready," he observed fatuously, striking the personal
note again, which she resented.
"I dislike that cant of the obvious which there is so much of here in
town," she rejoined. "It savours of preciosity. All that is finest in
thought is obvious. A great truth, well put, when heard for the first
time, is so crystal clear to the mind, one seems to have known it
always. No one fears to be obvious who has anything good to say."
He stroked his beard in silence for some seconds. "I suppose you go in
for politics, and all that sort of thing," he said at last.
"Why?" Beth asked in her disconcerting way.
"Oh, judging by your friends."
"Not a safe guide," she assured him. "My friends have the most varied
interests; and even if they had not, it would be somewhat monotonous
for them to associate exclusively with people of the same pursuits."
"Then you do not take an interest in politics?" he jerked out, almost
irritably, as if he had a right to know.
For a moment Beth had a mind to baffle him for his tasteless
persistency, but her natural directness saved her from such
small-mindedness. "If I must answer your catechism," she said,
smiling, "social subjects interest me more. I find generalisations
bald and misleading, and politics are a generalisation of events. I
rarely read a political speech through, and remember very little of
what it is all about when I do. Details, individuals, and actions
fascinate me, but the circumstances of a people as a state rarely
interest me much."
"Ah, I fear that is--er--a feminine point of view, rather--is it not?"
he rejoined patronisingly.
"Yes," she said, "and a scientific method. We go from the particular
to the general, and only draw broad conclusions when we have collected
our facts in detail. But excuse me, I see a friend," she broke off
hastily, seizing the chance to escape.
A little later Beth saw that the demure-looking little person in the
princess bonnet was taking her leave. She passed down the room with
her set little smile on her lips, looking about her, but apparently
without seeing any one in particular till she got to the door, when
her eye lighted on the young man of Shakesperian mien, and her smile
flickered a moment, and went out. The young man turned and looked at a
picture with an elaborately casual air, then sauntered across the room
to Mrs. Kilroy, shook hands with her, spoke to one or two other
people, and finally reached the door and opened it with the same
solemn affectation of not being in a hurry, and disappeared. Beth
wondered if he kept his caution up before the footmen in the hall, or
if he made an undignified bolt of it the moment he was out of sight of
society.
At dinner that evening she asked Mrs. Kilroy who and what that
thin-nosed man, that sort of reminiscence of Shakespeare, was.
"He is by way of being a literary man, I believe," Angelica answered.
"He is not a friend of ours, and I cannot think why he comes here. I
never ask him. He got himself introduced to me somehow, and then came
and called, which I thought an impertinence. Did you notice that woman
with an Alsatian bow in her bonnet, that made her look like a horse
with its ears laid back? Her pose is to improve young men. She
improves them away from their wives, and I object to the method; and I
do not ask her here either. Yet she comes. His wife I have much
sympathy with; but he keeps her in the country, out of the way, so I
see very little of her."
"What is his name?" Beth asked.
"Alfred Cayley Pounce."
"Why!" Beth exclaimed. "He must be a youth I knew long ago, when I was
a child. I was sure I had seen him before. But what a falling off! I
wondered if he were an old young man, or a young old man when I first
saw him. He was refined as a boy and had artistic leanings; I should
have thought he might have developed something less banal in the time
than a bald forehead."
"That kind of man spends most of his time in cultivating acquaintances,"
said Mr. Kilroy. "When he hasn't birth, his pose is usually brains. But
Pounce took a fair degree at the University. And he's not such a bad
fellow, really. He's precious, of course, and by way of being
literary--that is to say, he is literary to the extent of having written
some little things of no consequence, upon which he assumes the right to
give his opinion, with appalling assurance, of the works of other
people, which are of consequence. There is a perfect epidemic of that
kind of assurance among the clever young men of the day, and it's
wrecking half of them. A man who begins by having no doubt of the worth
of his own opinion gets no further for want of room to move in."
Next day Beth was alone in a sunny sitting-room at the back of the
house, looking out into grounds common to the whole square. It was
about tea-time. The windows were wide open, the sunblinds were drawn
down outside, and the warm air, fragrant with mignonette, streamed in
over the window boxes. Angelica had given this room up to Beth, and
here she worked or rested; read, wrote, or reflected, as she felt
inclined; soothed rather than disturbed by the far-off sounds of the
city, and eased in mind by the grace and beauty of her surroundings.
For the room was a work of art in itself, an Adams room, with carved
white panels, framing spaces of rich brocade, delicately tinted, on
the walls; with furniture chosen for comfort as well as elegance, and
no more of it than was absolutely necessary, no crowding of chairs and
tables, no congestion of useless ornaments, no plethora of pictures,
putting each other out--only two, in fact, one a summer seascape, with
tiny waves bursting on shining sands; the other a corner of a
beautiful old garden, shady with trees, glowing with flowers, whence
two young lovers, sitting on an old stone seat, looked out with dreamy
eyes on a bright glimpse, framed in foliage, of the peaceful country
beyond. Angelica had thought that room out carefully for Beth, every
detail being considered, so that the whole should make for rest and
refreshment, and she had succeeded perfectly. Nothing could have eased
Beth's mind of the effect of her late experiences, or strengthened it
again more certainly, than the harmony, the quiet, and the convenience
of everything about her--books on the shelves, needlework on the
work-table, writing materials in abundance on the bureau, exquisite
forms of flowers, and prevailing tints of apple-blossom, white, and
pink, and green; music when she chose to play; comfort of couch and
chairs when she wished to repose; and, above all, freedom from
intrusion, the right to do as she liked gladly conceded, the respect
which adds to the dignity of self-respect, and altogether the kind of
independence that makes most for pleasure and peace. Before she had
been there three weeks she was happily released from herself by the
recovery of her power to work. She began to revise the book she had
thought so little of when it was first written. She had brought it to
town because it was not very bulky, rather than because she had any
hope of it; but when she took it out and read it here alone in peace,
it seized upon her with power, and, in her surprise, like Galileo, she
exclaimed: "But it does turn round!" The book was already "radiant
with inborn genius," but it still lacked the "acquired art," and
feeling this, she sat down to it regularly, and rewrote it from
beginning to end, greatly enriching it. She had no amateur impatience
to appear in print and become known; the thought of production induced
her to delay and do her utmost rather than to make indiscreet haste;
her delight was in the doing essentially; she was not one to glory in
public successes, however great, or find anything but a tepid
satisfaction therein compared to the warm delight that came when her
thoughts flowed, and the material world melted out of mind.
She had been busy with her book that afternoon, and very happy, until
tea came. Then, being somewhat tired, she got up from the bureau at
which she worked, and went to the tea-table, leaving her papers all
scattered about; and she was in the act of pouring herself out a cup
of tea, when the door opened, and the footman announced, "Mr. Alfred
Cayley Pounce."
Very much surprised, she put the teapot down deliberately and looked
at him. He held his hat to his breast, and bowed with exaggerated
deference, in an affected, foreign way.
"I insisted on seeing you," he began, as if that were something to
boast of. "Perhaps I ought to apologise."
Beth, not knowing what to say, asked him to sit down. Then there was a
little pause. He looked at the tea-table.
"I see that you do take tea," he observed. "Why did you refuse it when
I offered you some yesterday?"
"I am afraid I am not prepared to give you a reason," Beth answered
stiffly.
"Would it be out of place if I were to ask for some tea?" he said.
Beth silently poured him out a cup, and he got up, took what he
wanted in the way of sugar and cream and cake, and sat down again,
making himself very much at home.
"Do take some yourself," he pleaded. "You are making me feel such an
outsider."
"I beg your pardon," said Beth, helping herself.
She did not know whether to be annoyed or amused by his assurance. Had
she not known who he was she would certainly have been annoyed; but
the recollection of their days together, when the world was young and
life was all pure poetry, came upon her suddenly as she found
something of the boy in the face and voice of the man before her,
making it impossible for her to treat him as a stranger, and melting
her into a smile.
"Confess that you were surprised to see me," he said.
"I was," she answered.
"And not glad, perhaps," he pursued.
"Surprised means neither glad nor sorry," she observed.
"D'you know, the moment I saw you----" he began sentimentally; "but
never mind that now," he broke off. "Let me give you my reason for
coming, which is also my excuse. I hope you will accept it."
Beth waited quietly.
"I told you I could always find out anything I wanted to know about
anybody," he pursued, "and last night I happened to sit next a lady at
a dinner-party who turned out to be a great friend of yours. I always
talk to strange ladies about what I've been doing; that kind of thing
interests them, you know; and I described the party here yesterday
afternoon, and said I only met one lady in the whole assembly worth
looking at and worth speaking to, and that was Mrs. Maclure, who was
staying in the house. 'Oh, I know her quite well,' the lady said.
'She's a neighbour of mine at Slane. Her husband is a doctor, but I
hear _she_ is connected with some of the best county people in the
north. She's very clever, I believe, and by way of being literary and
all that sort of thing, don't you know. But I don't think she has any
one to advise her.'"
"Oh," said Beth, enlightened, "I know who my great friend is
then--Mrs. Carne!"
"Yes," said Mr. Pounce, "and when I heard you were literary, I felt a
further affinity, for, as I daresay you have heard, I am a literary
man myself."
"Yes; I heard you were 'by way of being literary,' too," Beth
rejoined.
"Who told you so?" he demanded quickly, his whole thought instantly
concentrated on the interesting subject when it concerned himself.
"I do not feel at liberty to tell you," she replied.
"Was it Mrs. Kilroy?"
Beth made no sign.
"Was it Mr. Kilroy?" he persisted.
"I have already said that I shall not tell you, Mr. Pounce," she
answered frigidly.
He sat in silence for a little, looking extremely annoyed. Beth, to
relieve the tension, offered him some more tea, which he refused
curtly; but as she only smiled at the discourtesy and helped herself,
he saw fit to change his mind, and then resumed the conversation.
"When Mrs. Carne heard that I was a literary man," he said with
importance, "she begged me to do what I could to help you. She said it
would be a great kindness; so I promised I would, and here I am."
"So it seems," said Beth.
He stared at her. "I mean it," he said.
"I don't doubt it," Beth answered. "You and Mrs. Carne are extremely
kind."
"Oh, not at all!" he assured her blandly. "To me, at all events, it
will be a great pleasure to help and advise you."
"How do you propose to do it?" Beth asked, relaxing. Such obtuseness
was not to be taken seriously.
He glanced over his shoulder at the bureau where her papers were
spread. "I shall get you to let me see some of your work," he said,
"and then I can judge of its worth."
"What have you done yourself?" she asked.
"I--well, I write regularly for the _Patriarch_," he said, with the
complacency of one who thinks that he need say no more. "The editor
himself came to stay with us last week, and that means something. Just
now, however, I am contemplating a work of fiction, an important work,
if I may venture to say so myself. It has been on my mind for years."
"Indeed," said Beth. "What is its purpose?"
"Purpose!" he ejaculated. "Had you said pur-port instead of pur-pose,
it would have been a sensible question. It is hardly likely I shall
write a novel with a purpose. I leave that to the ladies."
"I have read somewhere that Milton said the poet's mission was '_to
allay the perturbation of the mind and set the affections in right
tune_,'--is not that a purpose?" Beth asked. "And one in our own day
has talked of '_that great social duty to impart what we believe and
what we think we have learned. Among the few things of which we can
pronounce ourselves certain is the obligation of inquirers after truth
to communicate what they obtain._'"
"But not in the form of fiction," Alfred Cayley Pounce put in
dogmatically.
"Yet there is always purpose in the best work of the great writers of
fiction," Beth maintained.
Not being able to deny this, he supposed sarcastically that she had
read all the works to which she alluded.
"I see you suspect that I have not," she answered, smiling.
"I suspect you did not find that passage you quoted just now from
Milton in his works," he rejoined.
"I said as much," she reminded him.
"Well, but you ought to know better than to quote an author you have
not read," he informed her.
"Do you mean that I should read all a man's works before I presume to
quote a single passage?"
"I do," he replied. "Women never understand thoroughness," he
observed, largely.
"Some of us see a difference between thoroughness and niggling," Beth
answered. "I should say, beware of endless preparation! We have heard
of Mr. Casaubon and _The Key to all Mythologies_."
"I understand now what your friend Mrs. Carne meant about the manner
in which you take advice," Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce informed her, in a
slightly offended tone.
Beth, wondering inwardly why so many people assume they are competent
to advise, prayed that she herself might always be modest enough to
wait at least until her advice was asked.
"I hope I have not discussed your opinion impolitely," she said. "Pray
excuse me if you think I have."
Mollified, he turned his attention once more to the littered bureau.
"You have a goodly pile of manuscript there," he remarked; "may I ask
what it is?"
"It is a little book into which I am putting all my ignorance," she
said.
"I hope you are not going to be diffident about letting me see it?" he
answered encouragingly. "I could certainly give you some useful
hints."
"You are too kind," she said; and he accepted the assertion without a
suspicion of sarcasm. She rose when she had spoken, drew the lid of
the bureau down over her papers, and locked it deliberately; but the
precaution rather flattered him than otherwise.
"You need not be afraid," he said. "I promise to be lenient. And if we
are as fast friends when the book appears as I trust we shall be, the
_Patriarch_ itself shall proclaim its merits; if not----"
"I suppose it will discover my faults," Beth put in demurely. "I
wonder, by the way," she added, "who told you you are so much cleverer
than I am?"
But fortunately Mrs. Kilroy came in and interrupted them before he had
had time to grasp the remark, for which Beth, from whom it had slipped
unawares, was devoutly thankful.
When he had gone, she sat and wondered if she had really understood
him aright with regard to the _Patriarch_. Certainly he had seemed to
threaten her, but it was hard to believe that he had sunk so low as to
be capable of criticising her work, not on its own merits, but with
regard to the terms he should be on with its author. She was too
upright herself, however, to think such dishonest meanness possible,
so she put the suspicion far from her, and tried to find some
charitable explanation of the several signs of paltriness she had
already detected, and to think of him as he had seemed to her in the
old days, when she had endowed him with all the qualities she herself
had brought into their acquaintance to make it pleasant and of good
effect.
Beth had taken to rambling about alone in the quiet streets and
squares for exercise; and as she returned a few days later from one of
these rambles, she encountered Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce coming out of
a florist's with a large bouquet of orchids in his hand.
"You see I do not forget you," he said, holding the bouquet out to
her. "Every lady has her flower. These delicate orchids are for you."
But Beth ignored the offering. "You are still fond of flowers then?"
slipped from her.
"We do not leave a taste for flowers behind us with our toys," he
rejoined. "If we like flowers as children, we love them as men. The
taste develops like a talent when we cultivate it. To love flowers
with true appreciation of their affinities in regard to certain
persons, is an endowment, a grace of nature which bespeaks the most
absolute refinement of mind. And what would life be without refinement
of mind!"
Beth had walked on, and he was walking beside her.
"And how does the book progress?" he inquired.
"It is finished," she answered.
"What! already?" he exclaimed. "Why, it takes _me_ a week to write
five hundred words. But then, of course, my work is highly
concentrated. I have sent home for some of it to show you. You see I
am pertinacious. I said I would help you, and I will. I hope you will
live to be glad that we have met. But you must not write at such a
rate. You can only produce poor thin stuff in that way."
Beth shrugged her shoulders, and let him assume what he liked on the
subject.
They walked on a little way in silence, then he began again about the
flowers. "Flowers," he informed her, "were the great solace of my
boyhood--the sole solace, I may say, for I had no friends, no
companions, except a poor little chap, a cripple, on whom I took pity.
My people did not think me strong enough for a public school, so they
sent me to a private tutor, a man of excellent family, Rector of a
large seaside parish in the north. He only took me as a favour; he had
no other pupils. But it was very lonely in that great empty house. And
the seashore, although it filled my mind with poetry, was desolate,
desolate!"
Beth, as she listened to these meanderings of his fancy, and recalled
old Vicar Richardson and the house full of children, thought of Mr.
Pounce's remarks about feminine accuracy.
"But had you no girl-friend?" she asked.
"Only the lady of my dreams," he answered. "There was no _other_ lady
I should have looked at in the place. I was always refined. I met the
lady of my dreams eventually. It was among the mountains of the Tyrol.
Imagine a lordly castle, with drawbridge and moat, portcullis and
pleasaunce, and sauntering in the pleasaunce, among the flowers, a
lady--dressed in white----"
"Samite?" Beth ventured, controlling her countenance.
"I cannot recall the texture," he said seriously. "How could one think
of textures at such a moment! That would have been too commercial! All
I noted was the lily whiteness--and her eyes, dark eyes! All the
poetry and passion of her race shone in them. And on the spot I vowed
to win her. I went back to the 'Varsity, and worked myself into the
best set. Lord Fitzkillingham became, as you know, my most intimate
friend. He was my best man at the wedding."
"Then you married your ideal," said Beth. "You should be very happy."
He sighed. "I would not say a word against her for the world," he
asserted. "When I compare her with other women, I see what a lucky man
I must be thought. But," he sighed again, "I was very young, and youth
has its illusions. As we grow older, mere beauty does not satisfy,
mere cleverness and accomplishments do not satisfy, nor wealth, nor
rank. A man may have all that, and yet may yearn for a certain
something which is not there--and that something is the one thing
needful."
They were opposite to the house by this time, and he looked up at the
windows sentimentally. "Which is yours?" he asked. "I pass by daily
and look up."
They had stopped at the door. "I cannot ask you in," Beth said
hastily. "Please excuse me. This is my time for work."
"Ah, the time and the mood!" he ejaculated. "I know it all so well!
Inspiration! Inspiration comes of congenial conversation, as I hope
you will find. You will take my flowers. I cannot claim to have culled
them for you, but at least I chose them."
As the door had been opened, and the footman in the hall stood looking
on, Beth thought it better to take the flowers in a casual way as if
they belonged to her. A card tied to the bouquet by a purple ribbon
fell out from among the flowers as she took them. On it was written:
"Mrs. Merton Merivale." Beth held the flowers out to Mr. Pounce, with
the card dangling, and raised her eyebrows interrogatively.
"Ah, yes," he began slowly, detaching the card as he spoke to gain
time, and changing countenance somewhat. "I confess some one else had
had the good taste to choose these orchids before I saw them; but I
always insist on having just what _I_ want, so I took them, and
suggested that another bouquet might be made for the lady. I
overlooked the card."
Beth bowed and left him without further ceremony.
She tossed the flowers under the table in the hall on her way
upstairs, and never knew what became of them. Later in the day she
described her morning's adventure to Angelica, and asked her if she
knew who Mrs. Merton Merivale was.
"Oh, that woman in the princess bonnet with the big Alsatian bow, you
know," Angelica said. "Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce's sometime
intellectual affinity."
"Poor Alfred! he is too crude!" Beth ejaculated. "How I have outgrown
him!"
* * * * *
Ideala called next day, and found Angelica alone. "I hear that Beth is
with you?" she said. "What is she doing?"
"Writing a book."
"What kind of a book?"
"Not a book for babes, I should say," said Angelica. "She does not
pretend to consider the young person in the least. It is for parents
and guardians, she says, not for authors, to see to it that the books
the young person reads are suitable to her age. She thinks it very
desirable for her only to read such as are; but personally she does
not see the sense of writing down to her, or of being at all cramped
on her account. She means to address mature men and women."
"That is brave and good," said Ideala. "What is the subject?"
"I don't know," said Angelica; "but she is certain to put some of
herself into it."
"If by that you mean some of her personal experiences, I should think
you are wrong," said Ideala. "Genius experiences too acutely to make
use of its own past in that way; it would suffer too much in the
reproduction. And besides, it can make better use and more telling of
what it intuitively knows than of what it has actually seen."
"I do not think you believe that Beth will succeed," said Angelica.
"On the contrary," Ideala rejoined, "I expect her success will be
unique; only I don't know if it will be a literary success. Genius is
versatile. But we shall see."
Having finished her book, Beth collected her friends and read it aloud
to them. "I don't know what to think of it," she said. "Advise me. Is
it worth publishing, or had I better put it aside and try again?"
"Publish it, by all means," was the unanimous verdict; and Mr. Kilroy
took the manuscript himself to a publisher of his acquaintance, who
read it and accepted it.
"Oh," Beth exclaimed, when she heard the reader's report, "I do know
now what is meant by all in good time! If I had been able to publish
the first things I wrote, how I should have regretted it now! And I
did think so much of myself at that time, too! You should have heard
how I dogmatised to Sir George Galbraith; and he was so good and
kind--he never snubbed me. But I believe I am out of the amateur stage
now, and far advanced enough to begin all over again humbly and learn
my profession. But I find my point of view unchanged. Manner has
always been less to me than matter. When I think of all the
preventable sin and misery there is in the world, I pray God give us
books of good intention--never mind the style! Polished periods put
neither heart nor hope in us; theirs is the polish of steel which we
admire for the labour bestowed upon it, but by which we do not
benefit. The inevitable ills of life strengthen and refine when they
are heroically borne; it is the preventable ones that act on our evil
passions, and fill us with rage and bitterness; and what we want from
the written word that reaches all of us is help and advice, comfort
and encouragement. If art interferes with that, then art had better
go. It would not be missed by the wretched--the happy we need not
consider. I am speaking of art for art's sake, of course."
"We need not trouble about that," said Ideala. "The works of art for
art's sake, and style for style's sake, end on the shelf much
respected, while their authors end in the asylum, the prison, and the
premature grave. I had a lesson on that subject long ago, which
enlarged my mind. I got among the people who talk of style
incessantly, as if style were everything, till at last I verily
believed it was. I began to lose all I had to express for worry of the
way to express it! Then one day a wise old friend of mine took me into
a public library; and we spent a long time among the books, looking
especially at the ones that had been greatly read, and at the queer
marks in them, the emphatic strokes of approval, the notes of
admiration, the ohs! of enthusiasm, the ahs! of agreement. At the end
of one volume some one had written: 'This book has done me good.' It
was all very touching to me, very human, very instructive. I never
quite realised before what books might be to people, how they might
help them, comfort them, brighten the time for them, and fill them
with brave and happy thoughts. But we came at last in our wanderings
to one neat shelf of beautiful books, and I began to look at them.
There were no marks in them, no signs of wear and tear. The shelf was
evidently not popular, yet it contained the books that had been
specially recommended to me as best worth reading by my stylist
friends. 'There is style for you!' said my friend. 'Style lasts, you
see. Style is engraved upon stone. All the other books about us wear
out and perish, but here are your stylists still, as fresh as the day
they were bought.' 'Because nobody reads them!' I exclaimed.
'Precisely,' he said. 'There is no comfort in life in them. They are
the mere mechanics of literature, and nobody cares about them except
the mechanicians.' After that I prayed for notable matter to indite,
and tried only for the most appropriate words in which to express it;
and then I arrived. If you have the matter, the manner will come, as
handwriting comes to each of us; and it will be as good, too, as you
are conscientious, and as beautiful as you are good."