PART II: THE DANCE ROUND THE

TOWN

I

Quarter of an hour later he left them, making his excuses, promising to

return at half-past ten. He could not have stayed another moment,

sitting there quietly in his wicker armchair looking out on the

darkening garden, listening to Crispin's pleasure in Peter Breughel,

without giving some kind of vent to his excitement.

He must get away and be by himself. Because--yes, he knew it, and

nothing could alter the vehement pulsating truth of it--he was in love

for the first time in his life.

As he threaded his way along the garden paths that was at first all that

he could see--that he was in love with that child in the shabby frock

who was married to that odious creature, that bag-of-bones, who had not

opened his mouth the whole evening long--that child terrified out of her

life and appealing to him, a stranger, in her despair, to help her.

In love with a married woman, he, Charles Percy Harkness? What would his

two sisters, nay, what would the whole of Baker, Oregon, say did they

know?

But, bless you, he was not in love with her like that--no hero of a

modern realistic novel he! He had no thought in that first ecstatic

glow, of any thought for himself at all--only his eyes were upon her, of

how he could help her, how serve her, now--at once--before it was too

late.

He was deeply touched that she should trust him, but he also realised

that at that particular moment she would have trusted anybody. And yet

she had waited, watching him through all the first part of that meal,

making up her mind--there was some tribute to him at least in that!

It was a considerable time before he could fight his way behind his own

singing happiness into any detailed consideration of the facts.

He was in touch with real life at last, had it in both hands like a

magic ball of crystal, after which for so long he had been searching.

Where had he been all his life, fancying that this was love and that?

That ridiculous touching of hands over a tea-cup, that fancied glance at

a crowded party, that half uttered suggested exchange of gimcrack

phrases? And this! Why, he could not have stopped himself had he wished!

None of the old considered caution to which he had now grown so

accustomed that it had seemed like part of his very soul, could have any

say in this. He was committed up to his very boots in the thing, and he

was glad, glad, glad!

Meanwhile he had lost his way. He pulled himself up short. He had been

walking just in any direction. He was in a far part of the garden. A

lawn in the twilight like dark glass beneath whose surface green water

played, stretched between scattered trees and beds of flowers now grey

and shadowy. Sparks of fire were already scattered across a sky that was

smoky with coils of mist as though some giant train had but now

thundered through on its journey to Paradise. Little whistles of wind

stole about the garden making secret appointments among the trees.

Somewhere near to him a fountain was splashing, and behind the lingering

liquid sound of it he could hear the merry-go-round and the drum. He

cared little about the dance now, but in some fashion he must pass the

time until nine-thirty when he would see her friend and learn what he

might do.

Her friend? A sudden agitation held him. Her friend? Had she a lover?

Was that all that there was behind this--that she had married in haste,

for money, luxury, to see the world, perhaps, and now that she had had a

month of it with that miserable bag-of-bones and his painted, talkative

father, discovered that she could not endure it and called to her aid

some earlier lover? Was that all that his fine knight-errantry came to

that he should assist in some vulgar ordinary intrigue? He stopped,

standing beside a small white gate that led out from the garden into the

road. It was as though the gate held him from the outer world and he

would never pass through it until this was decided for him. Her face

came before him as she had sat there on the other side of the table, as

it had been when their glances met. No, he did not doubt her for an

instant.

Whatever her experiences of the last month she was pure in heart and

soul as some child at her mother's knee. She had her pride, her pluck,

her resolve, but also, above all else, her innocent simplicity, her

ignorance of all the evil in the world. And as though the most urgent

problem of all his life had been solved, he gave the little white gate

a push and stepped through it into the open road.

II

He was now in the country to the left of, and above, the town. He could

see its lights clustered, like gold coins thrown into some capacious

lap, there below him in the valley.

He struck off along a path that led between deeply scented fields and

that led straight down the hill. He began now more soberly to consider

the facts of the case, and a certain depression stole about him. He

didn't after all see very well what he would be able to do. They were

going, on the following morning, the three of them, abroad, and once

there how was he to effect any sort of rescue?

The girl was apparently quite legally married and, although the horrible

young Crispin had been silent and sinister, there were no signs that he

was positively cruel. The deeper Harkness looked into it the more he was

certain that the secret of the whole mystery lay in the older

Crispin--it was of him that the girl was terrified rather than the son.

Harkness did not know how he was sure of this, he could trace no actual

words or looks, but there--yes, there, the centre of the plot lay.

The man was strange and queer enough to look at, but a more charming

companion you could not find. He had been nothing but amiable, friendly

and courteous. His attitude to his daughter-in-law had been everything

that any one could wish. He had seemed to consider her in every possible

way.

Harkness, with his American naïveté of conduct, was fond of the word

"wholesome," or rather, had he not spent so much of his life in Europe,

would have found it his highest term of praise to call his fellow-man "a

regular feller!" Crispin Senior was _not_ "a regular feller" whatever

else he might be. There had, too, been one moment towards the end of

dinner when a waiter, passing, had jolted the little man's chair. There

had been for an instant a glance that Harkness now, in his general

survey of the situation, was glad to have caught--a glance that seemed

to tear the pale powdered mask away for the moment and to show a living

moving visage, something quite other, something the more alive in

contrast with its earlier immobility. Once, years before, Harkness had

seen in the Naples Aquarium two octopuses. They lay like grey slimy

stones at the bottom of the shining sun-lit tank. An attendant had let

down through the water a small frog at the end of a string. The frog had

nearly reached the bottom of the tank when in one flashing instant the

pile of shiny stone had been a whirling sickening monster, tentacles,

thousands of them it seemed, curving, two loathsome eyes glowing. In one

moment of time the frog was gone and in another moment the muddy pile

was immobile once again. An unpleasant sight. Were the etchings of

Samuel Palmer Crispin's only appetite? Harkness fancied not.

III

Plunging almost recklessly down the hill he was soon in the town and,

pushing his way through two or three narrow little streets, found

himself in the market-place.

He caught his breath at the strange transformation of the place since

his last view of it more than three hours before. He learnt later that

this dance was held always as the Grand Finale of the Three Days' Annual

Fair, and on the last of the days there is an old custom that, from

four-thirty to six-thirty no trading shall be done, but that every one

shall entertain or be entertained within their homes. This pause had its

origin, I should fancy, in some kind of religious ceremony, to ask the

good God's blessing on the trading of the three days, but it had become

by now a most convenient interval for the purpose of drinking healths,

so that when, at seven o'clock, all the citizens of the town poured out

of their doors once again, they were truly and happily primed for the

fun of the evening.

Harkness found, therefore, what at first seemed to be naked pandemonium

and, stepping into it, crossed into the third room of his house of

delivery. The old buildings--the town hall, the church, the old grey

tower--were lit up as though by some supernatural splendour, all the

lights of the booths, the hanging clusters of fairy lamps, and, in the

very middle of the place, a huge bonfire flinging arms of flame to

heaven.

In one corner there was the merry-go-round. A twisting, heaving,

gesticulating monster screaming out "Coal Black Mammy of Mine," and

suddenly whooping with its own excitement, showing so much emotion that

it would not have been surprising to find it, at any moment, leap its

bearings and come hurtling down into the middle of the crowd.

The booths were thick with buyers and sellers, and every one, to

Harkness's excited fancy, seemed to be screaming at the highest pitch of

his or her strident voice.

Here was everything for sale--hats, feathers, coats, skirts, dolls,

wooden dolls, rag dolls, china dolls, monkeys on sticks, ribbons,

gloves, shoes, umbrellas, pies, puddings, cakes, jams, oranges, apples,

melons, cucumbers, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, broaches, diamonds

(glass), rubies (glass), emeralds (glass), prayer books, bibles,

pictures (King George, Queen Mary), cups, plates, tea-pots, coffee-pots,

rabbits, white mice, dogs, sheep, pigs, one grey horse, tables, chairs,

beds, and one wooden house on wheels. More than these, much more. And

around them, about them, in and out of them, before them and beside them

and behind them men, women, children, singing, crying, shouting,

sneezing, laughing, hiccuping, quarrelling, kissing, arguing, denying,

confirming, whistling, and snoring. Men of the sea bronzed with dark

hair, flashing eyes, rings on their fingers and bells on their toes; men

of the fields, the soil interpenetrated with the very soul of their

being, bearded to the eyes, broad-shouldered, broad-buttocked, their

Sunday coats flapping over their corduroyed thighs, their rough thick

necks moving restlessly in their unaccustomed collars; women of the fair

with eyes like black coals; gipsy women straight from the tents with

crimson kerchiefs and black hair piled high under feathered hats; women

of the town with soft voices, sidling eyes and creeping hands; women of

the farm with gaze wondering and adrift, hands like leather, children at

their skirts; women householders with their purses carefully clutched,

their hands feeling the cabbages, pinching the cauliflowers, estimating

the chairs and tables, stroking the china; young boys and girls,

confidence in their gaze, timidity in their hearts, suddenly catching

hands, suddenly embracing, suddenly triumphant on their merry-go-round,

suddenly everything, conscious of the last penny burning deep down in

the pocket, conscious of love, conscious of appetite, conscious of

possible remorse, conscious of blood pounding in their veins. And the

magicians, the wonder workers, the steal-a-pennies, the old men with

white beards and trays of coloured treasures, the bold bad men with

their thimble and their penny, the little stumpy, fellow with

his cards, the long thin melancholy fellow with his medicines,

the thick jolly drunken fellow with his tales of the sea, the twisty

turn-his-head-both-ways fellow with his gold watches and silver chains,

the red wizard with his fortunes in envelopes, his magic on strings of

coloured paper, his mysterious signs and countersigns whispered into

blushing ears. And then the children that should have been in bed hours

ago--little children, large children, young children, old children, fat

children, thin children, children clinging-to-mother's-skirts, children

running in and out, like mice, between legs and trousers, children

riding on father's shoulder, children sticky with sweets and sucking

their thumbs, children screaming with pleasure, shrieking with terror,

howling with weariness--and one child all by itself on the steps of the

town hall, curled up and fast asleep.

Away, to one side of the place, just as he had been there fifteen years

ago when Maradick had been present, was a preacher, aloft on an

overturned box, singing with hand raised, his thin earnest face

illumined with the lights, his scant hair blowing in the breeze. Around

him a thin scattering of people singing just as fifteen years ago they

had sung:

So like little candles

We shall shine,

You in your small corner

And I in mine.

The same recipé, the same cure, the same key offered to the unlocking

of the same mysterious door--and so it will be to the end of created

life--Amen!

The hymn was over. The preacher's voice was raised. Children step to the

edge of the circle, looking up with wondering eyes, their fingers in

their mouths.

"And so, dear friends, we have offered to us here the Blood of the Lamb

for our salvation. Can we refuse it? What right have we to disregard our

salvation? I tell you, my dear friends, that Judgment is upon us even

now. There cometh the night when no man may work. How shall we be found?

Sleeping? With our sins heavy upon us? There is yet time. The hour is

not yet. Let us remember that God is merciful--there is still time given

us for repentance----"

The Town Hall clock stridently, with clanging reverberation, heard

clearly above all the din, struck nine.

IV

Even as the strokes sounded in the air the wide doors of the Town Hall

unfolded and a tall stout man, dressed in the cocked hat and the cape

and cloak of a Dickensian beadle, appeared. Flaming red they were, and

very fine and important he looked as he stood there on the steps, his

legs spread, holding his gold staff in his hands. He was attended by

several other gentlemen who looked down with benignant approval upon the

crowd, and by a drum, a trumpet, and a flute, these last being

instruments rather than men.

A crowd began to gather at the foot of the steps and the beadle to

address them at the top of his voice, but unlike his rival, the

preacher, his voice did not carry very far.

And now the Fair, having only five minutes more of life before it,

lifted itself into a final screaming manifestation. Now was the time for

which the wise and the cautious had been waiting throughout the three

days of the Fair--the moment when all the prices would tumble down with

a rush because it was now or never. The merry-go-round shrieked, the

animals bellowed, lowed, mooed and grunted, the purchasers argued,

quarrelled, shouted and triumphed, the preacher and his followers sang

and sang again, the bells clanged, the gas-jets flared, the bonfire rose

furiously to heaven. But meanwhile the crowd was growing larger and

larger around the Town Hall steps; they came with penny whistles and

horns and hand-bells and even tea-trays. Then suddenly, strong above the

babel, carried by men's stout voices, the song began:

Now, gentles all, attend this song,

Tra-_la_, la-la, Tra-_la_,

It is but short, it can't be long,

Tra-_la_-la-la, Tra-_la_,

How Farmer Brown one summer day

Was in his field a-gathering hay,

When by there came a pretty maid

Who smiling sweetly to him said,

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la_,

Then Farmer Brown, though forty year,

Tra-_la_, la-la, Tra-_la_,

When he that pretty voice did hear,

Tra-_la_-la-la, Tra-_la_,

He threw his fork the nearest ditch

And caught the maiden tightly, which

Was what she wanted him to do,

And so the same would all of you,

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la_,

But she withdrew from his embrace,

Tra-_la_-la-la, Tra-_la_,

And mocked poor Farmer to his face,

Tra-_la_-la-la, Tra-_la_,

And danced away along the lane

And cried "Before I'm here again

Poor Farmer Brown you'll dance with Pain,"

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la_,

And that was true as you shall hear,

Tra-_la_, la-la, Tra-_la_,

Poor Farmer Brown danced many a year,

Tra-_la_-la-la, Tra-_la_,

But never once that maid did see,

He grew as aged as aged could be,

And danced in_to_ Eterni-tee,

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la_.

The red-flaming beadle moved down the steps, and behind him came the

drum, the trumpet and the flute. The drum a stout fellow with wide

spreading legs, had from the practice of many a year, and his father and

grandfather having been drummers before him, caught the exact measure of

the tune. Along the market-place went the beadle, the drum, the trumpet

and the flute.

For a moment a marvellous silence fell.

To Harkness this silence was exquisite. The myriad stars, the high

buildings, their façades ruby-coloured with the leaping light, the dark

piled background, the crowd humming now with quiet, like water on the

boil, the glow of rich suffused colour sheltering everything with its

beautiful cloak, the rich voices tossing into the air the jolly song,

the sense of well-being and the tradition of the lasting old time and

the spirit of England eternally fresh and sturdy and strong; all this

sank into his very soul and seemed to give him some hint of the

deliverance that was, very soon, to come to him.

Then the procession definitely formed. All the voices--men's, women's

and children's alike--caught it up. One--two--three, one--two--three.

The drum, the trumpet and the flute came to them through the air:

How Farmer Brown one summer day

Was in his field a-gathering hay,

When by there came a pretty maid

Who smiling sweetly to him said,

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la._

He was never to be sure whether or no he had intended to join in the

dance. He was not aware of more than the colour, the lights, the rhythm

of the tune when a man like a mountain caught him by the arm, shouting,

"Now we're off, brother--now we're off," and he was carried along.

There had always been a superstition about the dance that to join in it,

to be in it from the beginning to the end, meant the best of good luck,

and to miss it was misfortune. There was, therefore, now a flinging from

all sides of eager bodies into the fray. No one must be left out and as

the path between the line of bodies and houses was a narrow one, every

one was pressed close together, and as there had been much friendly

swilling of beer and ale, every one was in the highest humour, shouting,

laughing, singing, ringing their bells and blowing their whistles.

Harkness was crushed in upon his enormous friend so completely that he

had no other impression for the moment but of a vast expanse of heaving,

leaping, corduroy waistcoat, of a hard brass button in his eye, and of

himself clutching with both hands to a shiny trouser that must hold

himself from falling. But they were off indeed! Four of them now in a

row and the song was swinging fine and strong. One--two--three,

one--two--three. Forward bend, one leg in air, backward bend, t'other

leg in air, forward bend again, down the market-place and round the

corner voices raised in one tremendous song.

He was easier now and able more clearly to realise his position. One arm

was tightly wedged in that of his companion, and he could feel the thick

welling muscles taut through the stuff of the shirt. On the other side

of him was a girl, and he could feel her hand pressing on his sleeve. On

her side, again, was a young man--her lover. He said so, and shouted it

to the world.

He leaned across her and cried out her beauties as they moved, and she

threw her head back and sang.

The giant on the hitherside seemed to have taken Harkness into his

especial protection. He had been drinking well, but it had done him no

order of harm. Only he loved the world and especially Harkness. He felt,

he knew, that Harkness was a stranger from "up-along." On an average day

he would have resented him, been suspicious of him, and tried "to do him

out of some of his blasted money." But to-night he would be his friend

and protect him from the world.

He would rather have had a girl crooked there under his arm, but the

girl he had intended to have had somehow missed him when the fun

began--but it didn't matter--the beer made everything glorious for

him--and after all he had two daughters "nigh grown up," and his old

missus was around somewhere, and it was just as good he didn't slip into

any sort of mischief which it was easy to do on a night like this--and

his name was Gideon. All this he confided to Harkness while the

procession halted, for a minute or two, at the corner of the

market-place to pull itself straight before it started down the hill.

He had his arm around Harkness's neck and words poured from him. Gideon

what or something Gideon? It didn't matter. Gideon it was and Gideon it

would be so long as Harkness's memory remained.

All the soil of the English country, all the deep lanes with their high

dark hedges, the russet cornfields with their sudden dips to the sea,

the high ridges with the white cottages perched like birds resting

against the sky, the smell of the earth, the savour of the leaves wet

after rain, the thick smoke and damp of the closed-in rooms, the mud,

the clay, the running streams, the wind through the thick-sheltering

trees, all these were in Gideon's speech as he stood, close pressed,

thigh to thigh with Harkness.

He was happy although he knew not why, and Harkness was happy because he

was in love for the first time in his life and tingled from head to foot

with that knowledge. And up and down and all around it was the same.

This was the night of all the nights of the year when enmities were

forgotten and new friendships made. As Maradick once had felt the

current of love running strong and true through a thousand souls, so

Harkness felt it now, and, as with Maradick once, so with Harkness now,

it seemed strange that life might not be simply run, that the lion might

not lie down with the lamb, that nations might not be for ever at peace

the one with another, and that the Grand Millennium might not

immediately be at hand.

All beer you say? Maybe, and yet not altogether so. Something anxious

and longing in the human heart was rising, free and strong, that night,

and would never again entirely leave some of the hearts that knew it.

Harkness for one. There were to be many years in the future when he was

to feel again the beating of Gideon's heart under his arm. Something of

Gideon's was his, and something of his was Gideon's forevermore, though

they would never meet again.

V

And now the procession was arranged. Harkness looking back could see how

it stretched, a winding serpent black in the shadows of the leaping

bonfire, through the square. They were off again. The drum had started.

Down the hill they went, all packed together, all swinging with the

tune. A kind of divine frenzy united them all. Young and old, men and

women, married and single, good and evil, vicious and virtuous, all were

together bound in one chain. Harkness was with them. For the first time

in all his life restraint was flung aside. He did not smell the beer nor

did the sweat of the perspiring bodies offend his sensitive nostrils,

nor the dung from the fields, nor the fishy odours of the sea. With

Gideon on one side and a young man's girl on the other, he swung through

the town.

Details for a time eluded him. He was singing the song at the top of his

voice, but what words he was singing he could not have told you; he was

dancing to the measure, but for the life of him he could not have

afterwards repeated the rhythm.

They swung down into the heart of the town. The doors of all the houses

were crowded with the very aged and the very young who stood laughing

and crying out, pointing to their friends and acquaintances, laughing at

this and cheering at that.

And always more were joining in, pushing their way, dancing the more

energetically because they had missed the first five minutes. Now they

were down on the fish-market all sprinkled with silver under the little

moon and the cloth of stars. Here the wind from the sea came to meet

them, and through the music and the singing and the laughter and the

press-press of the dancing crowd could be heard the faint breath of the

tide on the shore "seep-seep-sough-sough," wistful and powerful,

remaining for ever when they all were gone. The sheds of the fish-market

were gaunt and dark and deserted. For one moment all the naked place was

filled with colour and movement. Then up the hill they all pressed.

It was difficult up the hill. There were breaths and pants and "Eh,

sirs," and "Oh, the poor worm," and "But my heart's beating," and "I

cannot! I cannot!" One woman fell, was picked up and planted by the side

of the road, a young man staying with melancholy kindness beside her.

The rest passed on.

Soon they were at the top of the hill before they turned to the left

again back into the town. And this was Harkness's greatest moment. For

an instant the dance paused, and just then it happened that Harkness was

at the highest point of the climb.

Catching his breath, his hand to his heart, for he was out of training,

and the going had been hard, he looked about him. Below him to the right

and to the left and to the farthest horizon the sea, a grey silk shadow,

hung, so soft, so gentle, that the stars that crackled above it seemed

to be taunting it with its lethargy. On the other side of the hill was

all the clustered town, and before him and behind him the dark

multitudes of human beings. Pressed close to Gideon, who was drinking

something out of a bottle, he was unconscious of any personality--only

that time had found for him, it seemed, a solution to the whole problem

of life. The sea-wind fanning his temples, the salt snap of the sea, the

pounding of his own heart in union with that other heart of his

companion who was with him--all these things together made of him who

had been always afraid and timorous and edged with caution, a triumphant

soul.

And it was good that it was so because of all that he would be called

upon to do that night.

Gideon put his arm around him, pressing him close to him, and pushed the

bottle up to his lips. "Drink, brother," he said. "Drink, then, my

dear." And Harkness drank.

Now they were starting down the hill into the town once more, and the

dance reached the height of its madness.

He threw his fork the nearest ditch

And caught the maiden tightly, which

Was what she wanted him to do--

And so the same would all of you

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la._

They screamed, they shrieked, they tumbled on to one another, they held

on where they could, they swung from side to side. The red beadle

himself caught the frenzy, flinging his fat body now here, now there.

The very houses and the cobbles of the streets seemed to swing and sway

as the lights flashed and flared. All the bells of the town were

pealing. In the market-place they were setting off the fireworks, and

the rockets, green and red and gold, streaked the purple sky and fought

for rivalry with the stars. All the sky now was scattered with sparks of

gold. From the highest heaven to the lowest of man's ditches the world

crackled and split and sang.

Now was the moment when all enemies were truly forgotten, when love was

declared without fear, when lips sought lips and hands clasped hands,

and heaven opened and all the human souls marched in.

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la_

Tra-_la_-la-la-Tra-_la._

Back into the market-place they all tumbled, then, standing in a serried

mass as the beadle and his followers mounted the Town Hall steps, they

shouted:

"All together: One--two--three.

One--Two--Three.

One. Two. Three.

HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY!"

The dance of all the hearts was, for one more year, at an end.

VI

Every one was splitting up into little groups, some to look at the

fireworks, some to have a last drink together, some to creep off into

the dark shadows and there confirm their vows, some to drive home on

their carts and waggons to their distant farms, some to sit in their

homes for a last chatting about all the news, some to go straight to

their beds--the common impulse was over although it would not be

forgotten.

Harkness looked around to find Gideon, but that giant was gone nor was

he ever to see him again. He paused there panting, happy, forgetting for

an instant everything but the fun and freedom that he had just passed

through. Then, as though it would forcibly remind him, the Town Hall

clock struck half-past nine.

He spoke to a man standing near him:

"Can you kindly tell me where a hotel called the 'Feathered Duck' is?"

he asked.

"Certainly," said the man, wiping the sweat from the hair matted on his

forehead. "It's out on the sea-front. Go down High Street--that'll take

you to the sea-front. Then walk to your right and it's about five houses

down."

Harkness thanked him and hurried away. He had no difficulty in finding

the High Street, but there how strange to walk so quietly down it,

hearing your own foot tread, watched by all the silent houses, when only

five minutes ago you had been whirling in Dionysian frenzy! He was on

the sea-front and two steps afterwards was looking up at the quiet and

modest exterior of "The Feathered Duck."

The long road stretched shining and sleek. Not a living soul about. The

little hotel offered a discreet welcome with plants in large green pots,

one on either side of the door, a light warm enough to greet you and not

too startling to frighten you, and the knob gleaming like an inviting

eye.

Harkness pushed open the door and entered. The hall was anæmic and

dark, with the trap to catch visitors some way down on the right. There

seemed to be no one about. Harkness pushed open a door and at once found

himself in one of those little hotel drawing-rooms that are so

peculiarly British, compounded as they are of ferns and discretion,

convention and an untuned piano. In this little room a young man was

sitting alone. Harkness knew at once that his search was over. He knew

where it was that he had heard the name Dunbar before--this was his

young man of the high road, the wandering seaman and the serious

appointment, the young man of his expectant charge.

There was yet, however, room for mistake and so he waited standing in

the doorway. The young man was bending forward in a red plush armchair,

eagerly watching. He recognised Harkness at once as his friend of the

afternoon.

"Hullo!" he said, and then hurriedly, "why, what _has_ been happening to

you?"

Harkness stepped forward into the room. "To me?" he said.

"Why, yes. You're sweating. Your collar's undone. You look as though you

had run a mile."

"Oh, that!" Harkness blushed, fingering his collar that had broken from

its stud. "I've been dancing."

"Dancing?"

"Yes. All round the town. Like the lion and the unicorn."

"Oh, I heard you. On any other night----" He broke off. During this time

he had been watching Harkness with a curious expression, something

between eagerness, distrust, and an impatience which he was finding very

difficult to conceal. He said nothing more. Harkness also was silent.

They stared the one at the other, and could hear beyond the door the

noises of the little hotel, a shrill female voice, the rattle of plates,

some man's laughter.

At last Harkness said: "Your name is Dunbar, isn't it?"

The young man, instead of answering, asked his own question. "Look here,

what the devil are you after? I don't say that it is or it isn't, but

anyway why do _you_ want to know?"

"It's only this," said Harkness slowly, "that if your name _is_ Dunbar,

then I have a message for you."

"You _have_?"

He started out of his chair, standing up in front of Harkness as though

challenging him.

"Yes, a friend of yours asked me to come here, to meet you at half-past

nine and tell you that she agrees to your proposal----"

"She does? . . . At last!"

Then his voice changed to suspicion. "You seem to be a lot in this.

Forgive my curiosity. I don't want to seem rude, but meeting me on the

hill this afternoon and now this. . . . I've got to be so _damn_

careful----"

"My name is Harkness. It was quite by chance that I was walking down the

hill this afternoon and met you. As I told you then, I was on my way to

the 'Man-at-Arms.' This evening I offered my help to a lady there who

seemed to be in distress, and asked her whether there was anything that

I could do. She asked me to bring you that message. There was no one

else for her to ask."

Dunbar stared at Harkness, then suddenly held out his hand. "Jolly

decent of you. I won't forget it. My name is Dunbar as you know, David

Dunbar."

"And mine Harkness, Charles Harkness."

"I can't tell you what you've done for me by bringing me that message.

Here, don't go for a minute. Have something, won't you?"

"Yes, I think I will," said Harkness, conscious of a sudden weariness.

"What shall it be? Whisky? Large soda?"

They sat down. Dunbar touched a bell and then, in silence, they waited.

Harkness was humorously conscious that he seemed to be the younger of

the two. The boy had taken complete command of the situation.

The older man was also aware that there was some very actual and

positive situation here that was developing under his eyes. As he sat

there, sticking to the plush of his chair, listening to the ridiculous

chatter of the marble clock, staring into the Wardour Street Puritans of

"When did you see father last?" he felt urgency beating in upon them

both. A shabby waiter looked in upon them, received his order and

departed.

Dunbar suddenly plunged. "Look here, I know I can trust you. I'm sure of

it. And _she_ trusted you, so that should be enough for me. But--would

you mind--telling me exactly how it happened that you got this message?"

"Certainly," Harkness said. "I----"

"Wait," Dunbar interrupted, "forgive me, but drop your voice, will you?

One doesn't know who's hanging round here."

They drew their chairs closer together and Harkness, sitting forward,

continued. "I had dressed for dinner early. A friend of mine in London

had told me that there was a little old room at the top of the hotel

that was well worth seeing. I guess, like most Americans, I care for

old-fashioned things, so I got to the top of the house and found the

room. I was up in a little gallery at the back when two people came in,

a man and a girl. They began to talk before I could move or let them

know I was there. It was all too quick for me to do anything. The girl

begged the man, to whom she was apparently married, to let her go home

for a week before they went abroad, and the man refused. That was all

there was, but the girl's terror struck me as extreme----"

"My God!" Dunbar broke in, "if you only knew!"

"Well, I was touched by that and I didn't like the man's face, either.

They went out. I came down to dinner. While I was waiting in the garden

an extraordinary man spoke to me--extraordinary to look at, I mean.

Short, fat, red hair--"

"You needn't describe him," Dunbar interrupted, "I know him."

"He came and asked me for a match. He was very polite, and finally

invited me to dine with him, his son and daughter-in-law. I accepted. Of

course the son and daughter-in-law were the two that I had overheard

upstairs. I saw that throughout dinner she was in great distress, and at

the end as we were leaving the room I let her know that I had overheard

her inadvertently before dinner, and that I was eager to help her if

there was any way in which I could do so. We had only a moment, Crispin

and his son were close upon us. She was, I suppose, at the end of her

endurance and snatched at any chance, so she told me to do this--to find

you here and give you that message--that's all--absolutely all."

"The door opened, making both men turn apprehensively. It was only the

shabby little waiter with his tray and the whiskies. He set down the

glasses, split the soda, and stared at them both as Dunbar paid him.

"Will that be all, gentlemen?" he asked, scratching his ear.

"Everything," said Dunbar abruptly.

"Gentlemen sleeping here?"

"No, we're not. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir." With a little sigh the waiter withdrew. The door

closed, and instantly the ferns in the pots, the plush chairs and sofa

closed round as though they also wanted to hear.

"It's an extraordinary piece of luck," Dunbar began. Then he hesitated.

"But I don't want to bother you with any more of this. It isn't your

affair. You've come into it, after all, only by accident----"

He hesitated as though he were making an invitation to Harkness. And

Harkness hesitated. He saw that this was his last opportunity of

withdrawal. Once again he could hear the voice of the Imp behind his

shoulder: "Well, clear out if you want to. You have still plenty of

time. And this is positively the last chance I give you----"

He drank his whisky and, drinking, crossed his Rubicon.

"No, no, I am interested, tremendously interested. Tell me anything you

care to and if I can be of any help----"

"No, no," Dunbar assured him, "I'm not going to drag you into it. You

needn't be afraid of that."

"But I _am_ in it!" Harkness answered, smiling; "I'm going back with

Crispin to his house this evening!"

VII

The effect of that upon Dunbar was fantastic. The young man jumped from

his chair crying:

"You're going back?"

"Yes."

"To the house?"

"Why, yes!"

"And to-night!"

He stared down at him as though he could not believe the evidence of his

ears nor of his eyes nor of anything that was his. Then he finished his

whisky with a desperate gulp.

"But what's pushing you into this anyway?" he cried at last. "You don't

look like the kind of man---- And yet there you were on the hill this

afternoon, and then at the hotel and overhearing what Hesther said, and

then dining with the man and his asking you---- He did ask you, didn't

he?"

"Of course he asked me," Harkness answered. "You don't suppose I'd have

gone if he didn't."

"No, I don't suppose you would," agreed Dunbar. "I bet he offered to

show you his jewels and his pictures, his collections."

"Yes," said Harkness, "he did."

"Well, that's just a miracle of good luck for me, that's all. You can

help me to-night, help me marvellously. But I don't like to ask you.

Things might turn out all wrong and then we'd all be in for a bad time

and that wouldn't be fair to you." He paused, thinking, then he went on.

"I'll tell you what I'll do. You saw that girl to-night and talked to

her, didn't you?"

Harkness nodded his head.

"You saw that she was a damned fine girl?"

Harkness nodded again.

"Worth doing a lot for. Well, I'll put the whole story to you--let you

have it all. We've got nearly three-quarters of an hour. I can tell you

most of it in that time, and then you can make up your mind. If, when

I've told you everything, you decide to have nothing whatever to do with

it, that's all right. There's no obligation on you at all, of course.

But if you _did_ help me, being in the house at that very time, it would

make the whole difference. My God, yes!" he ended with a sigh of

eagerness, staring at Harkness.

Harkness sat there, thinking only of the girl. His own personal history,

the town, the dance, Crispin and his son, all these things had faded

away from his mind; he saw only her--as she had been when turning her

head for a moment she had spoken to him with such marvellous

self-control.

He loved her just as she stood there granting him permission to help

her. His own prayer was that it might not be long before he was allowed

to help her again. He was recalled to the immediate moment by Dunbar's

voice:

"You'll forgive me if I go back to the beginning of things--it's the

only way really to explain. Have you ever heard of Polchester, a town in

Glebeshire, north of this? There's a rather famous cathedral there."

"Yes," said Harkness, "I thought I might go there from here."

"Well," Dunbar went on, "out of Polchester about ten miles there's a

village--Milton Haxt. I was born there and so was Hesther. Her name was

Hesther Tobin, and she was the only daughter of the doctor of the

place--she had two brothers younger than herself. We've known one

another all our lives."

"Wait a moment," Harkness interrupted; "are you and she the same age?"

"No. I'm thirty, she's only twenty."

"You look younger than that, or you did this afternoon, I'm not so sure

now." Indeed the boy seemed to have acquired some new weight and

responsibility as he sat there.

"No," he went on. "When I said that we'd known one another always I mean

that she's always known about me. I used to take her on my knee and toss

her up and down. That was where all the trouble began. If she hadn't

been always used to me and fancied that I was years older than she--a

kind of grandfather--she'd have married me."

"Married you!" Harkness brought out.

"Yes. I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with her. I always

was, and she never was with me. She liked me--she likes me now--but

she's always been so used to the idea of me. I've always been David

Dunbar--and that's all. A friend who was always there but nothing more.

There was just a moment when I was missing for six months in the middle

of the war, I think she really cared then--but soon they heard that I

was safe in Germany and it was all as it had been before."

"Were her father and mother living?" Harkness asked.

"Her father. Her mother died when her youngest brother was born, when

she was only six years old. The mother's death upset the father, and he

took to drink. He'd always been inclined that way I expect. He was too

brilliant a doctor to have landed in that small village without there

being some reason. Well, after Mrs. Tobin's death there was simply one

trouble after another. Tobin's patients deserted him. The big house on

the hill had to be sold and they moved into a small one in the village.

He had been a big, jolly, laughing, generous man before, now he was

always quarrelling with everybody, insulting the few patients left to

him, and so on. Hesther was wonderful. How she kept the house together

all those years nobody knew. There was very little she didn't know about

life by the time she was ten years old--ordinary life, I mean, not this

damned Crispin monstrosity. She always had the pluck and the courage of

the devil, and you can fancy what I felt just now when you told me about

her asking young Crispin to let her off. That _swine_!"

He paused for a moment, then went on hurriedly:

"But we haven't much time. I must buck ahead. I was quite an ordinary

sort of fellow, of course, but there was nothing I wouldn't do for her

if I got a chance. I helped her sometimes, but not so much as I'd have

liked. She was always terribly proud. All the things that happened at

home made her hold up her head in a kind of defiance.

"The odd thing was that she loved her father, and the worse he got the

more she loved him. But she loved her young brothers still more. She was

mother, sister, nurse, everything to them, and would be still if she'd

been let alone. They were nice little chaps too, only a lot younger, of

course--one three years, one six. One's in the Navy--very decent

fellow--and if he'd been home he'd never have allowed any of this to

happen.

"Well, the war came when she was quite a kid. I was away most of that

time. Then in 1918 my father died and left me a bit of property there in

Milton. I came home and asked her to marry me. She thought I was pitying

her, and anyway she didn't love me. And I hadn't enough of this world's

goods to make the old man keen about me.

"Then this devil came along." Dunbar stopped for a moment. They both

listened. There was not a sound in the whole house.

"What brought him to a village like yours?" asked Harkness, lowering his

voice. "I shouldn't have thought that a man like that----"

"No, you wouldn't," said Dunbar. "But that's one of his passions

apparently, suddenly landing on some small village where there's a big

house and bossing every one around him. . . . I shall never forget the

day I first saw him. It was just about a year ago.

"I had heard that some foreigner had taken Haxt, that was the big house

in Milton that the Dombeys, the owners, were too poor to keep up. Soon

all the village was talking. Furniture arrived, then lots of servants,

Japs and all sorts. Then one evening going up the hill I saw him leaning

over one of the Haxt gates looking into the road.

"It was a lovely July evening and he was without a hat. You've spoken of

his hair. I tell you that evening it was just flaming in the sun. It

looked for a moment like some strange sort of red flower growing on the

top of the gate. He stopped me as I was passing and asked me for a

match."

"That's what he asked me for," murmured Harkness.

"Yes, his opening gambits are all the same. He offered me a cigarette

and I took one. We talked for a little. I didn't like him at first, of

course, with his hair, white face, painted lips, but--did you notice

what a beautiful voice he has?"

"I should think I did," said Harkness.

"And then he can make himself perfectly charming. The beginning of your

acquaintance with him is exactly like your introduction to the villain

of any melodrama--painted face, charming voice, cosmopolitan, delightful

information. The change comes afterwards. But I must hurry on, I'll

never be done. I'm as bad as Conrad's Marlowe. Have another whisky,

won't you?"

"No, thanks," said Harkness.

"Well, it wasn't long before he was the talk of the whole place. At

first every one liked him. Odd though he looked you can just fancy how a

man with his wealth and knowledge of the world would fascinate a

country-side if he chose to make himself agreeable, and he _did_ choose.

He gave parties, he went round to people's houses, sent his motors to

give old ladies a ride, allowed people to pick flowers in his garden,

adored showing people his collections. I happened to be in Milton during

the rest of that year looking after my little property, and he seemed to

take to me. I was up at Haxt a good deal.

"Looking back now I can see that I never really liked him. I was aware

of my caution and laughed at myself for it. I liked pretty things, you

know, and I loved his jade and emeralds, and still more his prints. And

he knew so much and was never tired of telling me and never seemed to

laugh at one's ignorance.

"He was, as I have said, all the talk that summer. It was 'Mr. Crispin'

this and 'Mr. Crispin' that--Mr. Crispin everything. The men didn't take

to him much, but of course they wouldn't! They had always thought _me_ a

bit queer because I liked reading and played the piano. The first thing

that people didn't like about him was his son. That beauty arrived at

Haxt somewhere in September, and everybody hated him. I ask you, could

you help it? And he was the exact opposite of his father. _He_ didn't

try to make himself agreeable to anybody--simply went about scowling and

frowning. But it wasn't that people disliked--it was his relation to his

father. He was absolutely in his father's power--that is the only way to

put it--and there was something despicable, something almost obscene,

you know, almost as though he were hypnotized, the way he obeyed him,

listened to his voice, slaved away for him."

"I noticed something of that myself this evening," said Harkness.

"You couldn't help it if you saw them together. Somehow the son turning

up beside the father made the _father_ look queer--as though the son

showed him up. People round Milton are not very perceptive, you know,

but they soon smelt a rat, several rats in fact. For one thing the

people in the village didn't like the Jap servants, then one or two

maids that Crispin had hired abruptly left. They wouldn't say anything

except that they didn't like the place, that old Crispin walked in his

sleep or something of the kind.

"It was just about this time, early in October or so, that Crispin

became friendly with the Tobins. Young Crispin had a cold or something

and Tobin came up and doctored him. Crispin gave him the best liquor

he'd ever had in his life so he came again and then again. That was the

beginning of my dislike of Crispin. It seemed to me rotten of him, when

Tobin was already going as fast downhill as he could, to give him an

extra push. And Crispin liked doing that. One could see it at a glance.

I hated him from the moment when I caught him watching with amused

smiles Tobin fuddled in his chair. You can imagine that Tobin's

drunkenness, having cared for Hesther as I had for so long, was a matter

of some importance for me. I had tried to pull him up, without any sort

of success, of course, and it simply maddened me to see what Crispin was

doing. So I lost my temper and spoke out. I told him what I thought of

him. He listened to me very quietly, then he suddenly threw his head up

at me like a snake hissing. He said a lot of things. That was the first

time I heard all his nonsensical stuff about sensations. We haven't time

now, and anyway it wasn't very new--the philosophy that as this was our

only existence we had better make the most of it, that we had been given

our senses to use, not to stifle, and the rest of it. Omar put it better

than Crispin.

"He had also a lot of talk about Power, that if he liked he could have

any one in his power, and so could I if I liked. You had only to know

other people's weaknesses enough. And more than that. Some stuff about

its being good for people to suffer. That the thing that made life

interesting and worth while was its intensity, and that life was never

so intense as when we were suffering. That, after all, God liked us to

suffer. Why shouldn't _we_ be gods? We might be if we only had courage

enough.

"It was then, that morning, that it first entered my head that there was

something wrong with him--something wrong with his brain. It had never

occurred to me during all those months because he had always been so

logical, but now--he seemed to step across the little bridge that

separates the sane from the insane. You know how small that bridge is?"

Harkness nodded his head.

"Then all in a moment he took my arm and twisted it. I can't give you

any sort of idea how queer and nasty that was. As he did it he peered

into my face as though he didn't want to miss the slightest shadow of an

expression. Then--I don't know if you noticed when he shook hands with

you--his fingers haven't any bones in them, and yet they are beastly

powerful. He ought to be soft all over and he _isn't._ He twisted my arm

once and smiled. It was all I could do to keep from knocking him down.

But I broke away, told him to go to hell and left the house. From that

moment I hated him.

"It was directly after this that I noticed for the first time that he

had his eye on Hesther, and he had his eye upon her exactly because she

hated him and wouldn't go near him if she could possibly help it. I must

stop for a moment and tell you something about her. You've seen her, but

you cannot have any kind of idea how wonderful she really is.

"She has the most honourable loyal character you've ever seen in woman.

And she's never been in love--she doesn't know what love is. Those are

the two most important things about her. That doesn't mean that she's

ignorant of life. There's nothing mean or sordid or disgusting that

hasn't come into her experience through her beauty of a father, but

she's stood up to it all--until this, this Crispin marriage. The first

thing in her life she's funked.

"She's been saved all along by her devotion to one thing, her

family--her father and two brothers. She must have given her father up

pretty completely by now, seeing that it was hopeless; but her small

brothers--why, they are the key to the whole thing! If it weren't for

them she wouldn't be where she is to-night, and, as I have said, if the

elder one had known anything about it he wouldn't have allowed it, but

he's away on a foreign station and Bobby's too young to understand.

"She was always very independent in the village, keeping to herself. Not

being rude to people, you understand, but making no real friends. She

simply lived for those two boys, and she had to work so hard that she

had no time for friends. She knew that I loved her--I had told her often

enough. She saw more of me than of any one else, and she would allow me

to do things for her sometimes, but even with me she kept her

independence. To-night is the very first time in both our lives that she

has begged me to do anything!"

He stopped for a moment. "By God!" he cried, "if I can't help her

to-night I'll finish myself; there'll be nothing left in life for me!"

"We _will_ help her," Harkness said. "Both of us. But go on. Time's

advancing. I mustn't miss my appointment."

"No, by Jove, you mustn't," said Dunbar. "Everything hangs on that.

Well, to get on. It didn't take me very long to see what Crispin was

doing to her father, and one day she went up to see him alone and begged

him to be merciful. She says that he was charming to her and that she

hated him worse than ever.

"He promised her that he would stop her father's drinking, and, of

course, he didn't keep his promise, but made Tobin drink more than ever.

"It was round about Christmas that these things happened, and just about

this time all sorts of stories began to circulate about him. He suddenly

left, came over to Treliss, and took the White Tower where you're going

to-night. After he had gone _the_ stories grew in volume--the most

ridiculous things you ever heard, about his catching rabbits and

skinning them alive and holding witches' Sabbaths with his Japs--every

kind of fantastic thing. And all the women who had gone to see his

pretty things and raved about him when he first came said they didn't

know how they 'ever could have seen anything in him,' and that he

deserved imprisonment and worse.

"It was now that I discovered that Hesther was desperately worried. I

had known her all my life and had never seen her worried like this

before. She lost her colour, was always thinking about other things when

one spoke to her, and, several times, had been crying when I came upon

her. Naturally I couldn't stand this, and I bullied her until I got the

truth out of her. And what do you think that was? Why, of all the

horrible things, that the younger Crispin had asked her to marry him,

and that all the time her blackguard of a father was pressing her to do

it.

"You can imagine what I felt like when I heard this! I cursed and swore

and blasphemed and still couldn't believe that she was in any way taking

it seriously until, when I pressed her, I found that she was!

"She was always as obstinate as sin, had her own way of looking at

things, made up her own mind and stuck to it. She didn't hate the son as

she hated the father, although she disliked the little she'd seen of him

well enough; but, remember, she knew very little about marriage. All her

thoughts were on those two boys, her brothers.

"I found out that old Crispin had offered Tobin any amount of money if

he'd give his daughter up, and that Tobin had put this to Hesther,

telling her that he was desperately in debt, that he'd be put in prison

if the money didn't turn up from somewhere, and, above all, that the

boys would be ruined if she didn't agree, that he'd have to take the

younger boy away from school and so on.

"I did everything I could. I went and saw Tobin and told him what I

thought of him, and he was drunk as usual and we had a scuffle, in the

course of which I unfortunately tumbled him over. Hesther came in and

saw him on the floor, turned on me, and then said she'd marry young

Crispin.

"I begged, I implored her. I said that if she would marry me I'd give

her everything that I had in the world, that we'd manage so that Bobby

shouldn't have to be taken away from school and the rest of it. Then

Father Tobin got up from the floor and asked me with a sneer how much

I'd got, and I tried to bluster it out, but of course they both of them

knew that I hadn't got very much.

"Anyway Hesther was angry with me--ashamed, I think, that I'd seen her

father in such a state, and her pride hurt that I should know how badly

they were placed. She accepted young Crispin by the next mail. If the

Crispins had actually been there in the flesh I don't think she would

have done it, but some weeks' absence had softened her horror of them,

and she could only think how wonderful it was going to be to do all the

marvellous things for the boys that she was planning.

"I'm sure that when young Crispin did turn up with his long body and

cadaverous face she repented and was frightened, but her pride wouldn't

let her then back out of it.

"I had one last talk with her before her marriage. I begged her to

forgive me for anything that I had done that might seem casual or

insulting, that she must put me out of her mind altogether, but just

consider in a general way whether this wasn't a horrible thing that she

was doing, marrying a man that she didn't love, taking on a

father-in-law whom she hated.

"She was very sweet to me, sweeter than she had ever been before. She

just shook her head and let me kiss her. And I knew that this was a

final good-bye."

VIII

"She married Crispin and came to Treliss. I wasn't at the wedding. I

heard nothing from her. And then a story came to my ears that, after I

had once heard it, gave me no peace.

"It was an old woman--a Mrs. Martin. She had, months before, been up at

Haxt doing some kind of extra help. She was an old mottled woman like a

strawberry--I'd known her all my life--and a grandmother. She suddenly

left, and it was only weeks after Crispin went that I found out why. She

was very shy about it, and to this day I've never discovered exactly

what happened. Something one evening when she was alone in the kitchen

preparing to go home. The elder Crispin came in followed by one of his

Japs. He made her sit down in one of the kitchen chairs, sat down beside

her, and began to talk to her in his soft beautiful voice. What it was

all about to this day she doesn't know--some of his fine stuff about

Sensation, I daresay, and the benefit of suffering so that you could

touch life at its fullest! I shouldn't wonder--anyway an old woman like

Mrs. Martin, who had borne eight or nine children of her husband who

beat her, knew plenty about suffering without Crispin trying to teach

her. Anyway he went on in his soft beautiful voice, and she sat there

bewildered, fascinated a bit by his red hair which she told me "she

never could get out of her mind like," and the Jap standing silent

beside her.

"Suddenly Crispin took hold of her old wrinkled neck and began stroking

it, putting his face close to hers, talking, talking, talking all the

time. Then the Jap stepped behind her, caught the back of her head and

pulled it.

"What would have happened next I don't know had not the younger Crispin

come in, and at the sight of him the older man instantly got up, the Jap

disappeared--it was as though nothing had been. Old Mrs. Martin got out

of the house, then tumbled to pieces in the shrubbery. She was ill for

days afterwards, but she kept the whole thing quiet with a kind of

villager's pride, you know--'she wasn't going to have other folks

talking as they did anyway when they saw how quickly she had left.'

"But she told one of her daughters and the daughter told me. There was

almost nothing in the actual incident, but it told me two things, one,

that the older Crispin really is mad--definitely, positively insane, the

other that the son, in spite of his seeming so submissive, has some sort

of hold over him. There is something between the two that I don't

understand.

"Well, that decided me. I went to Treliss to find out what I could. I

had to hang about for quite a time before I could learn anything at all.

Crispin was going on at Treliss just as he had done at Milton. He's

taken this strange house outside the town which you'll see to-night.

Quite a famous place in a way, built on the sea-cliff with a tangled

overgrown wood behind it and a high white tower that you can see for

miles over the country-side. At first the people liked him just as they

had done at Milton and were interested in him. Then there were stories

and more stories. Suddenly, only a week ago, he said he was going

abroad, and to-morrow he's going.

"Now the point I want to make clear to you is that the man's mad. I'm

not a clever chap. I don't know any of your medical theories. I've never

had any leaning that way, but I take it that the moment that any one

crosses the division between sanity and insanity it means that they can

control their brain no longer, that they are dominated by some desire or

ambition or lust or terror that nothing can stop, no fear of the law, of

public shame, of losing social caste. Crispin is mad, and Hesther, whom

I love more than anything in this world and the next, is in his hands

completely and absolutely. They go abroad to-morrow morning where no one

can touch them.

"The time's been so short, and I've not been sufficiently clever to give

you any clear idea of the man himself. I've got practically no facts.

You can't say that his stroking an old woman's neck is a fact that

proves anything. All the same I believe you've seen enough yourself to

know that it isn't all imagination, and that the girl is in terrible

peril. My God, sir," the boy's voice was shaking, "before the war there

were all sorts of things that didn't seem possible, we knew that they

couldn't exist outside the books of the story-tellers. But the war's

changed all that. There's nothing too horrible, nothing too beastly,

nothing too bad to be true--yes, and nothing too fine, nothing too

sporting.

"And this thing is quite simple. There are those two madmen and my girl

in their hands, and only to-night to get her out of them.

"I must tell you something more," he went on more quietly. "I've been

making desperate attempts to see her, and at the same time to prevent

either of those devils from seeing _me._ I saw her twice, once in the

grounds of the White Tower, once on the beach below the house. Neither

time would she listen to me. I could see that she was miserable,

altogether changed, but all that she would say was that she was married

and that she must go through with what she had begun.

"She begged me to go away and leave Treliss. Her one fear seemed to be

lest Crispin should find out I was there and do something to me.

"Her terror of him was dreadful to witness--but she would tell me

nothing. I hung about the place and made a friend of a fisherman he had

up there working on the place--Jabez Marriot--you saw him on the hill

to-day.

"He's a fine fellow. He's only been working on the grounds, had nothing

to do with inside the house, but he didn't love the Crispins any better

than I did, and he had lost his heart to Hesther. She spoke to him once

or twice, and he would do anything for her. I sent letters to her

through him: she replied to me in the same way, but they were all to the

same effect, that I was to go away quickly lest Crispin should do

something to me, that she wasn't being badly treated and that there was

nothing to be done.

"Then, about a week ago, Crispin saw me. It was in one of the Treliss

lanes, and we met face to face. He just gave me one look and passed on,

but since then I've had to be terribly careful. All the same I've made

my plans. All that was needed was her consent to them, and that, until

to-night, she has steadily refused to give. However, something worse

than usual has broken her down. What he has been doing to her I don't

know, I dare not think--but to-night I've got to get her out. I've _got_

to, or never show my face anywhere again. Now I've told you this as

quickly as I could. Will you help me?"

Harkness stood up holding out his hand: "Yes," he said, "I will."

"It can be beastly, you know."

"That's all right."

"You don't mind what happens?"

"I don't mind what happens."

"Sportsman."

The two men shook hands. They sat down again. Dunbar spread out a paper

on the little green-topped table.

"This is a rough plan of the house," he said. "I can't draw, but I think

you can make this out.

"Please forgive this childish drawing," he said again. "It's the best I

can do. I think it makes the main things plain. Here's the house, the

tower over the sea, the wood, the garden, the high road.

[Illustration]

"Now look at this other plan of the second floor.

[Illustration]

"You'll see from this that Hesther's room is at the very end of the

house and her husband's room next to hers. The two guest rooms are

empty, and there are no other bedrooms on that floor. The picture

gallery runs right along the whole floor. The small library is a rather

cheerful bright room. Crispin has put his prints in there, some on the

walls, the rest in solander boxes. The large library is a gaunt, dusty

deserted place hung with heads of many animals that one of the

Pontifexes (the real owners of the place) shot at some time or other. No

one ever goes there. In fact this second floor is generally deserted.

Crispin spends his time either in the tower or on the ground floor. He

is in the small library playing about with his prints some of the time

though.

"Now, my plan is this. I have told Hesther everything to the very

tiniest detail, and all that she had to do was to send word at any

moment that she agreed to it. That she has now done.

"To-night at one o'clock I am going to be up the high road under the

shadow of the wood at the back of the kitchen garden with a jingle and

pony----"

"A jingle?" asked Harkness.

"Yes, a jingle is Cornish for a pony trap. The obvious thing for me to

have had was a car, but after thinking about it I decided against it for

a number of reasons. One of them was the noise that it makes in

starting, then it might easily stick over the ground that we shall have

to cover, then I fancy that it will be the first thing that Crispin will

look for if he starts in pursuit. We have only to go three miles anyway,

and most of it over the turf of the moor."

"Only three miles?" Harkness asked.

"Yes, I'll tell you about that in a moment. Crispin Senior is pretty

regular in his movements, and just about one o'clock he goes up to his

bedroom at the top of the tower with his two Japs in attendance. That is

the only time of the day or night that one or another of those Japs

isn't hanging about somewhere. They are up there with him on exactly the

opposite side of the house from Hesther's room at just that time. That

leaves only young Crispin. We shall have to chance him, but, according

to Jabez, he has the habit of going to bed between eleven and twelve,

and by one o'clock he ought to be sound asleep.

"However, that is one of the things we ought to look out for, one of the

things indeed that I want your help about. Meanwhile Jabez is patrolling

in the grounds outside."

"Jabez!" Harkness cried, startled.

"Yes, that is our great piece of luck. Crispin has had some fellow of

his own in the grounds all this time, but three nights ago he sent him

up to London on some job and Jabez has taken his place. I don't think he

trusts Jabez altogether, but he trusts the others still less. He is

always cursing the Cornishmen, and they don't love him any the better

for it."

"Well, when you've got safely to your pony cart what happens next?"

"We drive up Shepherd's Lane, down across the moor until we reach the

cliff just above Starling Cove. Here I've got a boat waiting, and we'll

row across that corner of the bay to another cove--Selton--and just

above Selton is Selton Minor where there's a station. At four in the

morning there's the first train, local, to Truro, and at Truro we can

catch the six o'clock to Drymouth. In Drymouth there are an uncle and

aunt of hers--the Bresdins--who have long been fond of her and wanted

her often to stay with them. Stephen Bresdin is a good fellow and will

stand up for her, I know, once she's in his hands. Then we can get the

law to work."

"Won't Crispin be after you before you reach the Truro train?"

"Well, I'm reckoning first that he doesn't discover anything at all

until he wakes in the morning. They are making an early start for London

that day, but he shouldn't be aware of anything until six at least. But

secondly, if he does, I'm calculating that first he'll think she's

catching the three o'clock Treliss to Drymouth, or that she's motored

straight into Truro. If he goes into Truro after her or sends young

Crispin I'm reckoning that he won't have the patience to wait for that

six o'clock or won't imagine that we have, and will be sure that we will

have motored direct into Drymouth.

"He'll post after us there. I don't think he knows about the Bresdins in

Drymouth. He may, but I don't think so. Of course it's all chance, but

I figure that is the best we can do."

"And what's my part in this?" asked Harkness.

"Of course you're not to do a thing more than you want to," said Dunbar.

"But this is where you could be of use. The thing that we're mainly

afraid of is young Crispin. Hesther can get out of her room easily

enough. It is only a short drop on to an outhouse roof, and then a short

drop from there again, but if young Crispin is moving about, coming into

her room and so on, it may be very difficult. What I suggest is that you

stay with the older Crispin looking at his collections and the rest

until half-past twelve or so, then bid him a fond good-night and go.

Wait for a quarter of an hour in the grounds. Jabez will be there, and

then at about a quarter to one he will let you into the house again.

Crispin Senior should be up in the tower by then, but if he isn't you

can pretend that you have lost something, take him back into the small

library where the prints are and keep him well occupied until after one.

If he _has_ gone up to his tower, Hesther will leave a small piece of

white paper under her door _if_ Crispin Junior is in the way and hanging

about. In that case I should knock on his door, apologise, say that you

lost your gold match-box, had to come back for it as they are all

leaving early the next day, think it must be in the small library; he

goes back with you to look for it and--you keep him there. Do you think

you could manage that?"

"I will," said Harkness.

"There's more than that. One of the principal reasons that Hesther

refused to consider any of this was--well, running off alone with me in

the middle of the night. But if you are with us--some one, if I may say

so, so entirely----"

"Respectable," Harkness suggested as Dunbar hesitated.

"Well, yes--if you don't mind that word. It alters everything, don't you

see. Especially as you've never seen me before, aren't in love with her

or anything."

"Exactly," said Harkness gravely.

"There you are. The thing's full of holes. It can fall down in all sorts

of places, and if Crispin catches us and knows what we are up to it

won't be pleasant. But there's nothing else. No other plan that seems

any less dangerous. Are you for it, sir?"

"I'm for it," said Harkness. At that moment the little marble clock

struck the half-hour.

"My God!" Harkness cried, "I should be at the hotel this very minute. If

I miss them there's our plan spoiled."

He gripped Dunbar's hand once and was off.

IX

He went racing through the darkness, the two thoughts changing,

mingling, changing incessantly over and over in his brain--that he must

catch them at the hotel before they left it, and that he loved, he loved

her, he loved her with an intensity that seemed to increase with every

step that he ran.

In some way, although Dunbar had said so little about her, his picture

of her was infinitely clearer and stronger than it had been before. He

saw her in that small village of hers struggling with that drunken

father, with insufficient means, with the individualities and rebellions

of her two brothers who however deeply they loved her (and normal boys

are not conscious of their deep emotions), must have kicked often enough

against the limitations of their conditions, sneering servants, spying

neighbours, jesting and scornful relations, the father in his cups

abusing her, insulting her and for ever complaining--and yet she,

through all of this, showing a spirit, a hardihood, a pluck and, he

suspected, a humour that only this last fatal intercourse with the

Crispin family had broken down.

Harkness was the American man at his simplest and most idealistic, and

than this there is nothing simpler and more idealistic in the whole of

modern civilisation. The Englishman has too much common sense and too

little imagination, the Frenchman is too mercenary, the Southern peoples

too sensuous to provide the modern Quixote. In the United States of

America to-day there are as many Quixotes as there are builders of

windmills to be tilted at--and that is saying much.

So that, with his idealism, his hatred of cruelty and abnormality,

Harkness saw far beyond any personal aggrandisement in this pursuit. He

was not thinking now of himself at all, he had danced himself that night

into a new world.

In the market-place he had to pause for breath. He had run all the way

down the High Street, meeting no one as he went; he had already had

considerable exercise that evening, and he was in no very fine condition

of training. The market-place was quiet enough, only a few stragglers

about; the Town Hall clock told him it was twenty-eight minutes to

eleven.

He started up the hill, he arrived breathless at the hotel gates, the

sweat pouring down his face. He stopped and tried to arrange himself a

little. It would be a funny thing coming in upon them all with his tie

undone and lines of sweat running down his face. But, after all, he

could make the dance account for a good deal. He pushed his stud through

the two ends of his collar and pulled his tie up, finding it difficult

to use his hands because they were so hot, wiped his face with his

handkerchief, pushed his cap straight on his head.

His face wore an expression of grim seriousness as though he were indeed

Sir George off to rescue his Princess from the Dragon.

His heart gave a jump of relief when he saw that the Dragon was still

there, standing quite unconcernedly in the main hall of the hotel, his

son and daughter-in-law quietly beside him. Harkness's first thought at

view of him was that Dunbar's story was built up of imagination. The

little man was standing, a soft felt hat tilted a little on one side of

his head, a dark thin overcoat covering his evening clothes. Because his

hair was covered and his face shaded there was nothing about him that

was at all startling or highly coloured. He simply looked to be a nice

plump little English gentleman who was waiting, a smile on his face, for

his car to arrive that it might take him home. Nor was there anything in

the least exceptional in the pair that stood beside him, the man, thin,

dark, immobile; the girl, her head a little bent, a soft white wrap over

her shoulders, her hands at her side. At once it flashed into Harkness's

brain that all the scene with Dunbar had been imagined; there had been

no "Feathered Duck," no melodramatic story of madness and tyranny, no

twopence-coloured plan for a midnight rescue.

He was about to drive a mile or two to see some beautiful things, to

smoke a good cigar and drink some admirable brandy--then to retire and

sleep the sleep of the divinely worthy.

The girl raised her head. Her eyes met his, and he knew that whatever

else was true or false his love for her was certain and resolved.

Crispin looked extremely pleased to see him. He came towards him smiling

and holding out his hand:

"Why, Mr. Harkness, this is splendid," he said. "We were just wondering

what we should do about you. We were giving you up."

Harkness was conscious that, in spite of his attempts outside, he was

still in considerable disorder. He fingered his collar nervously:

"I'm sorry," he began. "But I'm so glad that I've caught you after all."

"Were the revels in the town amusing?" Crispin asked.

Harkness had a sudden impulse, whence he knew not, to make the younger

Crispin speak.

"Why didn't you come down?" he asked. "You'd have enjoyed it."

The man was astonished at being addressed. He sprang into sudden life

like any Jack-in-the-Box:

"Oh I," he said, "I had to go with my father, you know--yes, to see some

old friends."

He was looking at Harkness as though he were wondering why, exactly, he

had done that.

"Are you still willing to come and see my few things?" Crispin asked.

"It's only half-an-hour's drive and my car will bring you back."

"I shall be delighted to come," Harkness said quickly. "I would have

been deeply disappointed if I had missed you. But you must not think of

sending me back. I shall enjoy the walk greatly."

"Why, of course not!" said Crispin. "Walk back at that time of the

night! I couldn't allow it for a moment."

"But I assure you," Harkness pressed, laughing, "I infinitely prefer it.

You probably imagine that Americans never move a step unless they have a

car to carry them. Not in my case. I won't come if I feel that during

every minute that I am with you I am keeping your chauffeur up."

"Well, well--all right," said Crispin, laughing. "Have it your own way.

You're a very obstinate fellow. Perhaps you will change your mind when

the time really arrives."

They moved out to the doorway, then into the car. Mrs. Crispin sat in

one corner. Harkness was about to pull up the seat opposite, but Crispin

said:

"No, no. Plenty of room on the back for three of us. Herrick doesn't

mind the other seat. He's used to it."

They sat down. Harkness between the elder Crispin and the girl. The

night was black beyond their windows. Crispin pressed the button. The

interior of the car was at once in darkness, and instantly the night was

no longer black but purple and threaded with wisps of grey lavender that

seemed to hold in their spider filigree all the loaded scent of the

summer evening. Again, as the car turned into the long ribbon of the

dark road. Harkness was conscious through the open window of the smell

of innumerable roses, the late evening smell when the heat of the day is

over and the flowers are grateful.

Then a curious thing happened. Through the darkness, Harkness felt one

of the fingers of Crispin's left hand creeping like an insect about his

knee. They were sitting very closely together inside the car's

enclosure. Harkness was conscious that Hesther Crispin was pressed,

almost crouching, against the corner of the car, and although the stuff

of her dress touched him he was aware that she was striving desperately

that he should not be aware of her proximity, and then directly after

that, of why she was so striving--it was because she was

shivering--shivering in little spasms and tremors that shook her from

head to foot--and she was wishing that he should not realise this.

And even as he caught from her the consciousness of her trembling, at

the same moment he was aware of the pressing of Crispin's finger upon

his knee. He was so close to Crispin, and his leg was pushed so firmly

against Crispin's leg, that this movement might have been accidental had

Crispin's whole hand rested there. But there was only the finger, and

soon it began its movement, staying for an instant, pressing through the

cloth on to the bone of the knee, then moving very slowly up the thigh,

the sharp finger-nail suddenly pushing more firmly into the flesh, then

the finger relaxing again and making only a faint tickling creeping

suggestion of a pressure. Half-way up the thigh it stopped; for an

instant the whole hand, soft, warm and boneless, rested on the stuff of

Harkness's trousers, then withdrew, and the fingers, like a cautious

animal, moved on.

When Harkness was first conscious of this he tried to move his knee, but

he was so tightly wedged in that he could not stir. Then he could not

move for another reason, that he was transfixed with apprehension. It

was exactly as though a gigantic hand had slipped forward and enclosed

him in its grasp, congealing him there, stiffening him into helpless

clay--and this was the apprehension of immediate physical pain.

He had known all his days that he was a coward about physical pain, and

that was always the form of human experience that he had shrunk from

observing, compelling himself sometimes because he so deeply hated his

cowardice, to notice, to listen, but suffering after these contacts

acute physical reactions. Only once or twice in his life had pain

actually come to him. He did not mind it so deeply were it part of

illness or natural causes, but the deliberate anticipation of it--the

doctor's "Now look out; I am going to hurt," the dentist's "I may give

you a twinge for a moment," these things froze him with terror. During

the war, when he had offered his service, this was the thing that from

the clammy darkness of the night leapt out upon him. He had done his

utmost to serve at the front, and it was in no way his own fault when he

was given clerical work at home. He had tried again and again, but his

poor sight, his absurd inside that was always wrong in one fashion or

another, these things had held him back--and behind it all was there not

a faint ring of relief, something that he dared not face lest it should

reveal itself as cowardice? There had been times at the dentist's and

one operation. That operation had been a slight one, but it had involved

for several weeks the withdrawing of tubes and the probing with bright

shining instruments. Every morning for several hours before this

withdrawing and probing he lay panting in bed, the beads of sweat

gathering on his forehead, his hands clutching and unclutching, saying

to himself that he did not care, that he was above it, beyond it . . .

but closer and closer and closer the animal came, and soon he was at his

bedside, and soon bending over him, and soon his claws were upon his

flesh and the pain would swoop down, like a cry of a discoverer, and the

voice would be sharper and sharper, the determination not to listen, not

to hear, not to feel weaker and weaker, until at length out it would

come, the defeat, the submission, the scream for pity.

The creeping finger upon his knee had the same sudden warning of

imminent physical peril. The swiftly moving car, the silence, these

things seemed to bear in upon him the urgency of the other--that it was

no longer any game that he was playing but something of the deadliest

earnest. Once again the soft hand closed upon his thigh, then the finger

once more like a creeping animal felt its way. His body was responsive

from head to foot. He was all tingling with apprehension. His hand

resting firmly on his other knee began to tremble. Why was he in this

affair at all? If Crispin were mad, as Dunbar declared, what was to stop

him from taking any revenge he pleased on those who interfered with him?

The tale was no longer one of pleasant romantic colour, the rescuing of

a distressed damsel from an enchanted castle, but rather something quite

real and definite, as real as the car in which they were sitting or the

clothes that they were wearing. He, suddenly feeling that he could

endure it no longer--in another moment he would have cried out

aloud--jerked his knee upwards. The hand vanished, and at the same

moment Crispin's voice said: "We are almost there. We are going through

the gates now."

Lamps flashed upon their faces and Crispin's eyes seemed to have

vanished into his fat white face. He had, in that sudden illumination,

the most curious effect of blindness. His lids were closed over his

eyes, lying like little pieces of pale yellow parchment under the faint

red eyelashes.

"Here we are!" he cried. "Out you get, Herrick." And as Harkness stepped

out of the car something deep within him whispered: "I am going to be

hurt. Pain is coming----"

Before him swung a cavern of light. It swung because on his stepping

from the car he was dizzy, dizzy with a kind of poignant thick scent in

the soul's nostrils, deep deep down as though he were at the edge of

being spiritually anæsthetised. He paused for a moment looking back

into the night piled up behind him.

Then he walked in.

X

It was an old house. The long hall was panelled and hung with the heads

of animals. A torn banner of faded red and yellow with long tassels of

gold hung above the stone fireplace. The floor was of stone, and some

dim rugs of uncertain colour lay like splashes of damp here and there.

The first thing of which he was aware was that a strong cold draught

blew through the hall. It seemed to come from a wide oak staircase on

his right. There were no portraits on the panelled walls. The house gave

a deep sense of emptiness. Two Japanese servants, short, slim, immobile,

their hair gleaming black, their faces impassive, waited. The outer door

closed. The banner fluttered, the only movement in the house.

"Come in here, Mr. Harkness," Crispin said. "It is more comfortable."

His little figure moved forward. Harkness followed him, but he had had

one moment with the girl as he entered the hall. The two Crispins had

been for an instant back by the car. He had said, his lips scarcely

moving:

"I gave him the message. He is coming," and she had answered without

turning her head or looking at him: "Thank you."

Only as he walked after Crispin he wondered whether the Japanese could

have understood. No. He was sure that no one could have heard those

words, but he turned before leaving the hall, and he had a strange

impression of the bare, empty, faded place, the staircase running darkly

up into mystery, and the four figures, the two servants, Hesther and the

younger Crispin, at that moment immobile, waiting as though they were

listening--and for what?

The room into which Crispin led him was even shabbier than the hall. It

was a large ugly place with dim cherry-coloured paper, and a great glass

candelabrum suspended from the ceiling. The walls had, it seemed, once

been covered with pictures of all shapes and sizes, because the

wall-paper showed everywhere pale yellow squares and ovals and lozenges

of colour where the frames had been. The wall-paper had indeed leprosy,

and although there were still some pictures--a large Landseer, an

engraving of a Millais, a shabby oil painting of a green and windy

sea--it was these strange sea-sick evidences of a vanished hand that

invaded the air.

There was very little furniture in the place, two shabby armchairs, a

round shining table, a green sofa. The draught that had swept the hall

crept here, now come now gone, stealing on hands and feet from corner to

corner.

"You see," said Crispin, standing beside the empty fireplace, "I am here

but little. I have pulled down the pictures from the walls and then left

it all shabby. I enjoy the contrast." At the far end of the room were

long oak cupboards. Crispin went to them and pulled back the heavy

doors, and instantly in the shabby place there were blazing such

treasures as Harkness had never set eyes on before.

Not very many as numbers went--some dozen shelves in all--but gleaming,

glittering, shining, flinging out their flashes of purple and amber and

gold, here crystalline, now deeply wine-coloured, pink with the petals

of the rose, white with the purity of the rising moon. There was jewelry

here that seemed to move with its own independent life before Harkness's

eyes--Jaipur enamel of transparent red and green, lovely patterns with

thick long strips of enamel on a ground of bright gold, over which,

while still soft from the furnace, an open-work pattern of gold had been

pressed; large rough turquoises set in silver; Chinese work of carved

ivory and jade, cap ornaments exquisitely worked, a cap of a Chinese

emperor with its embroidered gold dragon and its crown of pearls. Then

the inlaid Chinese feather work, and at the sight of these tears of

pleasure came into Harkness's eyes, cells made as though for cloisonné

enamel, and into these are daintily affixed tiny fragments of

king-fisher feather. Colours of blue, green and mauve here blend and

tone one into another miraculously, and the effect of all is a

glittering sheen of gold and blue. There was one tiny fish, barely half

an inch long, and here there were thirty cells on the body, each with

its separate piece of feather. Chinese enamel buttons and clasps,

nail-guards beautifully ornamented, Japanese hair combs marvellously

wrought in lacquer, horn, gold lac on wood, wood with ivory appliqués,

and stained ivory.

Then the Netsukes! Had any one in the world such lovely things! With the

ivory and its colour richly toned with age, the metal ones showing a

glorious patina. The sword guards--made of various metals and alloys and

gold and silver, the metal so beautifully finished that it had the rich

texture of old lace.

There was then the Renaissance jewelry, pieces lying like fragments of

sky, of peach tree in bloom, of cherry and apple, a lovely pendant

parrot enamelled in natural colours, a beautiful ship pendant of

Venetian workmanship, an Italian earring formed of a large irregular

pear-shaped pearl, in a gold setting a Cinquecento jewel--an emerald

lizard set with a baroque pearl holding an emerald in its mouth.

Eighteenth-century glory. Gold studs with little skeletons on silk,

covered with glass and set in gold. Initials of fine gold with a ground

of plaited hair, this edged with blue and covered with faceted glass on

crystal and the border of garnets. A pair of earrings, paintings in

gouache mounted in gold. A brooch set with garnets. A French vinaigrette

enamelled in panels of green on a gold and white ground.

Loveliest of anything yet seen, a sixteenth-century cameo portrait of

Lucius Verius cut in a dark onyx. The enamel was green with little white

"peas" and small diamonds were set in each pod.

"Ah this!" said Harkness, holding it in his hand. "This is exquisite!"

But Crispin was restless. The eyes closed, the short body moved to

another part of the room leaving all the treasures carelessly exposed

behind him. "That is enough," he said--"enough of those, I bore you. And

now," turning aside with a deprecatory child-like smile, as though he

had been exhibiting his doll's house, "you must see the prints."

Harkness turning back to the room saw it as even shabbier than before.

It was lit by candle-light, and in the centre of the round shining table

there were four tall amber-coloured candlesticks that threw around them

a flickering colour as the draught ruffled their power. To this table

Crispin drew two chairs. Then he went to a handsome old oak cabinet

carved stiffly with flowers and fruit. He stayed looking with a long

lingering glance at the drawers, then sharply up at Harkness. Seen there

in the mellow light, with the coloured glory of the open cabinets dimly

shining in the far room, with the pleasant timid smile that a collector

wears when he is approaching his beloved friends, he might have stood to

Rembrandt for another "Jan Six," short and stumpy though he be.

"Now what will you have? Dürer, Whistlers, Little Masters, Meryons,

Dutch seventeenth century, Callot, Hollar? What you will. . . . No, you

shall have only a few, and those not the most celebrated but perhaps the

best loved. Now, here's for your pleasure. . . ."

He came to the table bearing carefully, reverentially, his treasures. He

set them down. From one after another he withdrew the paper, there

gleaming between the stiff white shining mats they breathed, they lived,

they smiled. There was the Rembrandt "Landscape with a flock of sheep,"

there the Muirhead Bone "Orvieto," the Hollar "Seasons," Callot's

"Passion," Meryon's "College Henri Quatre," Paul Potter's "Two Horses,"

a seascape of Zeeman, Cotman's "Windmill," Bracquemond's "Teal

Alighting," a seascape of Moreau, and Aldegrever's "Labour of Hercules"

to close the list. Not more than thirty in all, but living there on the

table with their personal glow spontaneity. He bent over them caressing

them, fondling them, smiling at them. Harkness drew near and, looking at

the tender wistfulness of the two old Potter's horses, bravely living

out there the last days of their broken forgotten lives, he felt a

sudden friendliness to all the world, a reassurance, a comfort.

Those glittering jewelled things had had at their heart a warning, an

alarm; but no one, he was suddenly aware, who cared for these prints

could be bad. There are no things in the world so kindly, so simple, so

warm in their humanity. . . .

The little man was near to him. He put his hand on his knee.

"They are fine, eh? They know you, recognise you. They are alive, eh?"

"Yes," said Harkness, smiling. "They are the most friendly things in

art."

The door opened and one of the Japanese servants came in with liqueurs.

They were put on the table close to Harkness, and soon he was drinking

the most wonderful brandy that it had ever been his happy fortune to

encounter.

He was warm, cosy, quite unalarmed. The prints smiled at him, the dim

room received him as a friend.

Crispin was talking, leaning back now from the table, his fat body

hugged up like a cushion into his chair.

His red hair stood, flaming, on end. Harkness was, at first, only

vaguely conscious that Crispin was speaking, then the words began to

gather about him, to force their way in upon his brain; then, as the

monologue continued, his comfort, his cosiness, his sense of security

slowly slipped from him. His eyes passed from the "Two Horses" to the

high sharp cliffs of the "Orvieto," to the thick naked Hercules of the

Aldegrever. Then, he was aware that he was frightened, as he had been on

the road, in the hotel, in the car. Then, with a flash of awareness,

like the sharp contact with unexpected steel, he was on his guard as

though he were standing alone with his back to the wall against an army

of terrors.

". . . And so as I like you so much, dear Mr. Harkness, I feel that I

can talk to you freely about these things and that you will understand.

That has always been my trouble--that I have not been understood

sufficiently, and if now I go my own way and have my own fashion of

dealing with life I am sure that it is comprehensible enough.

"I was a very lonely child, Mr. Harkness, and mocked at by every one who

saw me. No, I have not been understood sufficiently. The colour of my

hair has been a barrier. I realise that I am, and always have been,

absurd in appearance, and from the very earliest age I was aware that I

was different from other human beings and must pursue another course

from theirs. I make no complaint about that, but it justifies, I think,

my later conduct."

Here, as though some wire had sprung taut inside him he sat forward

upright in his chair, staring with his little pale eyes at Harkness, and

it was now that Harkness was abruptly aware of his conversation.

"I am not boring you, I trust, but I have taken a sympathetic liking to

you, and it may interest you to understand my somewhat unusual

philosophy of life.

"My mother died when I was very young. My father was a surgeon, a very

wealthy man, money inherited from an uncle. He was a strange man,

peculiar, odd. Cruel to me. Very cruel to me. He hated the sight of me,

and told me once that it was a continual temptation to him to lay hands

on me and cut my heart out--to see, in fact, whether I had a heart. He

liked to torment and tease me, as indeed did every one else. I am not

telling you these things, Mr. Harkness, to rouse your pity, but rather

that you should understand exactly the point at which I have arrived."

"Yes," said Harkness, dragging his eyes with strange difficulty from the

pursed white face, the red hair, and glancing about the dim faded room

and the farther spaces where the jewels flashed in the candle-light.

"Many people would have called my father insane, did not hesitate to do

so. He was a large, extremely powerful man, given to violent tempers.

But, after all, what is insanity? There are cases--many I suppose--where

the brain breaks down and is unable to perform any longer its ordinary

functions, but in most cases insanity is only the name given by envious

persons to those who have strength of character enough to realise their

own ideas regardless of public opinion. Such was my father. He cared

nothing for public opinion. We led a strange life, he and I, in a big

black house in Bloomsbury. Yes, black, that's how it was. I went to

Westminster School, and they all mocked me, my hair, my body, my

difference. Yes, my difference. I was different from them all, different

from my father, different from all the world. And I was glad that I was

different. I hugged my difference. Different. . . ."

He lent forward, tapped Harkness's knee with his hand, staring into his

face.

"Different, Mr. Harkness, different. Different. . . ."

And the long draughty room echoed "Different . . . different . . .

different."

"My father beat me one night terribly, beat me so that I could not move

for pain. For no reason, simply because, he said, he wished that I

should understand life, and first to understand life one must learn to

suffer pain, and that then, if one could suffer pain enough, one could

be as God--perhaps greater than God.

"It was to that night in the Bloomsbury house that I owe everything. I

was fifteen years of age. He stripped me naked and made me bleed. It was

terribly cold, and I came in that bare room right into the very heart of

life, into the heart of the heart, where the true meaning is at last

revealed--and the true meaning----"

He broke off suddenly, then whispered:

"Do you believe in God, Mr. Harkness?" and the draught went whispering

on hands and feet round the room, "Do you believe in God, Mr. Harkness?"

"Yes," said Harkness.

"Yes," said Crispin, in his lovely melodious voice; "but in a good God,

a sweet God, a kind beneficent God. That is no God. God is first cruel,

terrible, lashing, punishing. Then when He has punished enough, and the

victim is in His power, bleeding at His feet, owning Him as Lord and

Master, then He bends down and lifts the wounded brow and kisses the

torn mouth, and in His heart there is a great and mighty triumph. . . .

Even so will I do, even so will I be . . . and greater than God

Himself!"

There was silence in the room. Then he curled up in his chair as he had

done before, and went on with his friendly air:

"Dear Mr. Harkness, it is good indeed of you to listen to me so

patiently. Tell me at once when I bore you. My father died when I was

seventeen and left me all his wealth. He died in a Turkish bath very

suddenly--ill-temper with some casual masseur, I fancy.

"I realised that I had a power. The realisation was very satisfactory to

me. I married and during the three years of my married life I collected

most of the things that I have shown you this evening. I married a woman

whom I was unfortunately unable to make happy. She could have been

happy, I am sure, could she have only understood, a little, the

philosophy that my father had taught me. My father was a very remarkable

man, Mr. Harkness, as perhaps you have perceived, and he had, as I have

told you, shown me the real meaning of this strange life in which we are

forced, against our wills, to take part. It was foolish of my wife not

to benefit by this knowledge. But she did not, and died sooner than I

had anticipated, leaving me one child.

"A widower's life is not a happy one, and you will have undoubtedly

perceived how many widowers marry again."

He paused as though he expected some comment, so Harkness said yes, that

he had perceived it. Crispin sat forward looking at him inquisitively,

and making, with his fingers, a kind of pattern in the air as though he

were tracing there a bar of music.

"Yes. I did not marry again, but rather gave myself up to the

continuation of my father's philosophy. The philosophy of pain as

related to power one might perhaps term it. God--of whose existence no

thinking man can truly permit himself to doubt--have you ever thought,

Mr. Harkness, that the whole of His power is derived from the pain that

He inflicts upon those less powerful than Himself? We conceive of Him as

a beneficent Being, and from that it follows that He must have

determined that pain is, from Him, our greatest beneficence. It is

plainly for our good that He torments us. Should not then we, in our

turn, realising that pain is our greatest happiness, seek, ourselves,

for more pain, and also teach our fellow human beings that it is only

_through_ pain that we can reach the true heart and meaning of life?

Through Pain we reach Power.

"I test you with pain, and as you overcome the pain so do you climb up

beside me, who have also overcome it, and we are in time as gods knowing

good and evil. . . . A concrete case, Mr. Harkness. I slash your face

with a knife. You are so powerful that you take the pain, twist it in

your hand and throw it away. You rise up to me, and suddenly I, who have

inflicted the pain on you, love you because you have taken my power over

you and used it for your soul's advantage."

"And do I love you because you have slashed my face?" asked Harkness.

Crispin's eyes narrowed. He put out his hand and laid it on Harkness's

knee.

"We would have to see," Crispin murmured. "We would have to see. I

wonder--I wonder...."

They were silent. Harkness's body was cold, but the room was very hot.

The candles seemed to throw out a metallic radiant heat. Harkness moved

his knee.

"It would not do to prove your theory too frequently," he said at last.

"No, no, of course it would not. It is, you understand, only a theory

that I have inherited from my father. Yes. But I will confess that when

an individuality comes close to me and remains entirely outside my

influence I am tempted to wonder. . . . Well, to speculate. . . . I like

to see how far one personality _will_ surrender to another. It is

interesting--simply as a speculation. For instance, you have noticed my

daughter-in-law?"

"Yes," said Harkness, "I have. A charming girl."

"Charming. Exactly. But independent, refusing to make the most of the

advantages that are open to her. Like my poor late wife, for instance.

Unfortunate, because she is young and might benefit so much from my

older and more experienced brain.

"But she refuses to come under my influence, remains severely outside

it. Now, my son is almost too willing to understand my meaning. Were I

to plunge a knife into his arm no blood would flow. I am speaking

metaphorically of course. After a very slight training in his early

youth he was all that I could wish. But too submissive--oh yes,

altogether too submissive.

"His wife's independence, however, is quite of another kind. It might

almost seem as though during these last weeks she had taken a dislike

both to myself and my son. However, she is very young and a little time

will alter that, I have no doubt. Especially as we shall be in foreign

countries and to some extent alone by ourselves."

Harkness pressed his hands tightly together. A little shiver ran, as

though it responded to the draught that blew through the room, up and

down his body. He was anxious that Crispin should not notice that he was

shivering.

"Have you any idea where you will go?" he asked--and his voice sounded

strangely unlike his own, as though some third person were in the room

and speaking just behind him.

"We have no idea," said Crispin, smiling. "That will depend on many

things. On Mrs. Crispin herself of course amongst others. A young wife

must not show too complete an independence. After all, there are others

whose feelings must be considered----" He was smiling as it were to

himself and as though his thoughts were pleasant ones.

Suddenly he sprang up and began to walk the room. The effect on Harkness

was strange--it was as though he were suddenly shut in there with an

animal. So often in zoological gardens he had seen that haunting

monotonous movement, that encounter with the bars of the cage and the

indifferent acceptance of their inevitability, indifferent only because

of endless repetition. Crispin, padding now up and down the long room,

reminded Harkness of one of the smaller animals, the little jaguars, the

half-wolf, half-fox; his head forward, his hands crossed behind his

short thick back, his eyes, restless now, moving here, there about the

room, his movements soft, almost furtive, every instinct towards escape.

As he moved in the room half-clouded with light, the soft resolute step

pervaded Harkness's sense, and soon the thick confined scent of a caged

animal seemed to creep up to his nostrils and linger there.

Furry--captive--danger hanging behind the plodding step, so that if a

sudden release were to come. . . . And he sat there fixed in his seat as

though nailed to it while the sweet voice continued: "And so, my dear

Mr. Harkness, I have devoted my later years to the solution of this

problem.

"I feel, if I may say so, without too much arrogance, that I am

intending to help poor human nature along the road to a better

understanding of life. Poor, muddled human nature. Defeated always by

Fear. Yes, Fear. And if they have surmounted Pain and stand with their

foot on its body, what remains? It is gone, vanished. I myself am

increasing my power every day. First one, then another. First through

Pain. Then through Love. I love all the world, yes, everything in it,

but first it must be taught, and it is so reluctant--so strangely

reluctant--to receive its teaching. And I myself suffer because I am too

tender-hearted. I should myself be superior to the suffering of others

because I know how good it is for them to suffer. But I am not. Alas,

no. It is only where my indignation is aroused, and aroused justly, that

I can conquer my tenderness, and then--well then . . . I can make my

important experiments. My daughter-in-law, for instance. . . ."

He paused, not far from Harkness, and once again his hands made a

curious motion in the air as though he were transcribing a bar of music.

He stepped close to Harkness. His breath, scented curiously with a faint

odour of orange, was in Harkness's face. He leaned forward, his hands

were on Harkness's shoulders.

"For instance, I have taken a fancy to you, my friend. A real fancy. I

liked you from the first moment that I saw you. I don't know when, so

suddenly, I have taken a fancy to any one. But to care for you deeply,

first--yes, first--I would show you the meaning of pain. . . ." Here his

body suddenly quivered from the feet to the head. ". . . And I could

not, liking you so much, do that unless you were seriously to annoy me,

interfere in any way with my simple plans"--the hands pressed deeply

into the shoulders--"yes, only then could we come really to know one

another . . . after such a crisis what friends we might be, sharing our

power together! What friends! Dear me! Dear me!"

He moved away, turning to the table, looking down on the prints that

were spread out there.

"Yes, yes, I could show you then my power." His voice vibrated with

sudden excitement. "You think me absurd. Yes, yes, you do. You do. Don't

deny it now. As though I couldn't perceive it. Do you think me so

stupid? Absurd, with my ridiculous hair, my ugly body. Oh! I know! You

can't hide it from me. You laugh like the rest. Secretly, you laugh. You

are smiling behind your hand. Well, smile then, but how foolish of you

to be so taken in by physical appearances. Do you know my power? Do you

know what I could do to you now by merely clapping my hands?

"If my fingers were at your throat, at your breast, and you could not

move but must wait my wish, my plan for you, would you think me then so

absurd, my figure, my hair, ridiculous? You would be as though in the

hands of a god. I should be as a god to you to do with you what I

wished. . . .

"What is there that is so beautiful that I, ugly as I am, cannot do as I

wish with it? This----" Suddenly he took up the "Orvieto" and held it

forward under the candle-light. "This is one of the most beautiful things

of its kind that man has ever made, and I--am I not one of the ugliest

human beings at whom men laugh?--well, would you see my power over it? I

have it in my hands. It is mine. It is mine. I can destroy it in one

instant----"

The beautiful thing shook in his hand. To Harkness it seemed suddenly to

be endued with a human vitality. He saw it--the high sharp razor-edged

rocks, the town so confidingly resting on that strength, all the daily

life at the foot, the oxen, the peasants, the lovely flame-like trees,

the shining reaches of valley beyond, all radiating the heat of that

Italian summer.

He sprang to his feet. "Don't touch it!" he cried. "Leave it! Leave it!"

Crispin tore it into a thousand pieces, wrenching it, snapping at it

with his fingers like an animal. The pieces flaked the air. A white

shower circled in the candle-light then scattered about the table, about

the floor.

Something died.

A clock somewhere struck half-past twelve.

Crispin moved from the table. Very gently, almost beseechingly, he

looked into Harkness's face.

"Forgive me my little game," he said. "It is all part of my theory. To

be above these things, you know. What would happen to me if I

surrendered to all that beauty?"

The eyes that looked into Harkness's face were pathetic, caged, wistful,

longing. And they were mad. Somewhere deep within him his soul, caught

in the wreckage of his bodily life like a human being pinned beneath a

ruined train, besought--yes, besought Harkness for deliverance.

But he had no thought at that moment of anything but his own escape. To

flee from that room--from that room at any cost! He said something.

Crispin did not try to keep him. They moved together into the hall.

"And you won't allow my chauffeur to drive you back?"

"No, no thank you, I shall love the walk."

"Well, well. It has been delightful. We shall meet some day again I have

no doubt. . . ."

Silence flooded the house. Once more Harkness's hand touched that other

soft one. The door was open. The lovely night air brushed his face, and

he had stepped into the dim star-drenched garden. The door closed.