IX

For a week after this Chesney was much better, if rather languid. He

seemed in a peaceable, rather indifferent frame of mind--that is, he was

apparently detached from immediate matters, such as the life of his

little household, which usually "got on his nerves." He kept his room a

good deal, or lay on the big, leather lounge in the smoking-room,

reading incessantly. His interest in politics, however, seemed suddenly

to have revived, and he continually assured Sophy that the party which

had been in power since 1886 was on its last legs, and that the G. O. M.

would be reinstated as Prime Minister within two years. "If I wasn't so

handicapped with this rotten fever, I'd throw off my coat and jump into

the ring," he kept telling her.

"With the Liberals?" Sophy ventured.

He scowled, then grinned.

"Do I strike you as Conservative?" he asked.

"No--but your family----"

"Confound the family," he said cheerfully.

He took up his book again--a heavy volume on German politics, and Sophy

sat watching him quietly as she embroidered a collar for Bobby. She

wished with all her heart that he would "go in" actively for politics.

She felt that what he needed, perhaps most of all, was some steady,

vital interest and occupation. He was only thirty-three, and she had

heard from many people that much had been expected from him by men whose

opinion in such things mattered. Of course, his mother was furious at

his Radical tendencies and called him "turncoat" to his face, among

other terms as frank and equally harsh. He always met this with the

secretive smile that so enraged her. At twenty-seven his brilliant

series of articles, "The Liberalism of a Tory-Born," had been much

talked of. In them he showed originality, a singular grasp of matters

for so young a man, and, in addition, that perhaps most valuable gift

for the man who wishes to "arrive"--a tremendous power of conviction

that there is but one side to a question--the side on which he stands.

He saw the other side, of course, but he saw it as the side of the wave

which breaks--as froth.

There were people, however, who said that Cecil Chesney was "agin' the

Government" as he was against most facts that happened to be

established, that they had prophesied from the first that his "staying

power" was _nil_, and his brilliancy of the unstable, sky-rockety sort

that peters out in talk and scribbling. Certainly he had made an odd

_volte-face_, when he whipped about at twenty-eight and went off on that

exploring expedition to Africa.

Sophy was very ignorant about politics. She imagined that if Cecil only

chose, he could easily become a member of the House of Commons and make

a stir in that august and portly body. This innocent belief shows how

really and sincerely and extremely ignorant she was. But then she had

had few opportunities of information. The first year of her marriage had

been spent chiefly in learning how to adapt herself in some sort to her

eccentric, passionate husband, to the new characters and customs with

which she found herself surrounded, to the amazing difficulties of her

intercourse with Chesney's family. Lady Wychcote had been hostile to her

from the first. But Sophy had a gift of natural, fiery dignity, which

constrained even her imperious mother-in-law to treat her, if not with

kindness, at least with a certain measure of outward respect. Gerald was

a kindly, quiet, scholarly man of thirty-six, who cared nothing whatever

for politics. His books and the welfare of the miners whose labour was

one of the chief sources of the Wychcote riches, amply filled his time.

It may be imagined what a severe thorn her eldest son proved in the

proud flesh of his mother. And as her disappointment in Cecil waxed, her

love for Gerald waned. When she realised that there had sprung up a

quiet affection between him and his young sister-in-law--"the daughter

of Heth" as Lady Wychcote called her to her own circle--she came near to

hating him. That he had not married and showed no inclination to enter

that respectable state so incumbent on the heirs of old titles and large

fortunes, was like a continual draught on the smouldering embers of her

grievance against him for having been born sickly. He had suffered from

childhood with an obscure form of heart-trouble.

Sophy's second year of marriage had brought Bobby and the first serious

symptoms of her husband's malady. She had certainly had scant time for

the study of politics. What little she did know was gleaned from the

glib, rattling talk of Olive Arundel, who, as the wife of an M. P., had

the political patter at her tongue's tip.

So Sophy worked on the little collar for Bobby, and dreamed that she was

sitting behind the grating of the Ladies' Gallery, in the House of

Commons, to hear Cecil's maiden speech. She had just arrived at the

pleasant moment when Mr. Gladstone, reinstated as premier, was

listening, hand at ear, with unmistakable signs of surprised approval to

the eloquence of his new supporter, when Cecil himself destroyed the

vision. He let the heavy German book fall to the floor with a bang and

said:

"What's on for this week in the way of society? Anything promising?"

"We've had lots of invitations, Cecil, but I've refused them, because

you weren't feeling well."

He looked peevish.

"Hang it all! Why didn't you consult me before making such a holocaust

as that? I'm feeling much more fit. Think I'd like to mix with pleasant

fools for a time."

Sophy looked doubtful.

"Don't you think it's too soon, Cecil? You were awfully ill that night."

"Well, I didn't stay ill, did I?"

"N-no. You recovered wonderfully quickly. But it was that strong

medicine that Gaynor gave you." She stopped stitching on the little

collar, and looked at him earnestly. "Somehow, I _am_ so afraid of your

taking that medicine, Cecil."

"Rubbish!" he said curtly.

"You can't think how it affects you----"

"How that fever affects me, you mean, don't you?"

Sophy did not like to say too much. He was frowning, and he had been so

amiable for several days. She began to sew again, saying only:

"Of course, I don't really know. Only--it worries me."

Chesney got up.

"I think I'll go out for a bit," he said. "Just a turn in the Park. It's

beastly stuffy indoors."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"You forget--don't you? You told me Olive Arundel was coming for tea."

"Oh, so I did. Well then--but don't overtire yourself."

He scowled frankly this time.

"Confound it, Sophy--I told you I felt quite fit." He reached the door,

then turned. "Mind you hold on to the next invitation that seems

promising. I need bucking up a bit. Mixing with my fellows, confound

'em! It will give me something to vent my spleen on, if nothing else. So

long."

As it happened, Mrs. Arundel came with an invitation. It was for a

dinner at the House of Commons. She had coaxed her Jack to give this

dinner. Varesca had never been to a dinner at the House of Commons.

"You _must_ come, Sophy," she said urgently. "It's going to be

_bwilliant_." (Whenever Olive grew very intense she missed her "r's" and

this suited her Greuze type charmingly.)

Sophy needed no urging. It seemed to her that this was the very thing

for which Cecil had been wishing. She accepted for them both.

Olive leaned over and kissed her.

"Oh, I _am_ so pleased. And that duck of an Amaldi will be in the

seventh heaven."

Sophy could not help smiling at the idea of the quiet, reserved Amaldi

being called a "duck."

"Why do you smile, Sophy? Don't you like him? Varesca says he is madly

in love with you."

Sophy was annoyed to feel herself blushing, for this blush came wholly

from vexation and she knew that Olive would interpret it otherwise.

"It's very stupid of Count Varesca to say such things," she said a

little haughtily.

"Oh, _no_, darling!--Attilio may be impulsive--but he _isn't_ stupid."

Sophy's grey eyes grew long with laughter. Olive, puzzled, demanded to

know what she _could_ be laughing at.

"I think Attilio is such a funny name, Olive. Do you really call him

Attilio?"

"Of course I do. But I don't think it is a _funny_ name exactly--only

sweetly quaint. Besides--there's positively _no_ shortening it. Tilio is

_too_ silly, and one _couldn't_ call a _man_ 'Tilly' ... an Italian of

all things. Now _could_ one?"

Sophy laughed and laughed, and Olive, after pouting for a second, joined

in.

* * * * *

As Sophy thought, Chesney was much pleased with the idea of this dinner

at the House of Commons.

"It will be mostly made up of the Conservative gang, I suppose," he

commented. "All the more fun baiting them. I know a thing or two that

will wring the withers of the Hon. John--stodgy duffer! Thank God, his

career will end in the _cul-de-sac_ of the House of Lords!"

He began walking up and down the room, grinning over the "thing or two"

with which he would "wring the withers" of his host. Sophy felt suddenly

anxious. Suppose he had one of his outbursts of rage at that dinner? She

had forgotten his violent antipathy to the Powers that Were, when she

accepted the invitation.

"I suppose there'll be Liberals, too, at the dinner," she ventured

rather timidly.

"There'll be _one_ Liberal there, by Jove!" said Chesney, and he added a

few chuckles to his grin.

As the evening of the dinner drew near, Sophy grew more and more

apprehensive. Chesney was no longer in the amiably apathetic mood that

had followed the first days of his recovery from his last attack. His

face had taken on again that waxen pallor, and his pupils seemed to her

unnaturally dilated.

At tea-time an unfortunate incident occurred. Chesney sometimes had tea

with Sophy. He would wait until the tea was frightfully strong, then

drink two or three cups of it, without milk or sugar. This afternoon

they were sitting together while he drank what she called his "tea

stew," when William brought in a parcel.

"Fallals for to-night?" asked Chesney.

"No. I haven't bought anything. I can't think what it is," said Sophy,

puzzled. She fetched the little scissors from her writing-table and cut

the cord on the parcel. It contained an odd little boat, like the

fishermen's boats on Lago Maggiore. When it was wound up the little men

in it worked their oars. Amaldi's card lay on top. He had written on it:

"For my friend Bobby, from his 'man.'"

Chesney put down his cup, and came over.

"What the devil is that?" he said, scowling at the toy. Then he picked

up Amaldi's card. The blood rushed to his face. "I call that a

confounded liberty!"

Sophy paled. Amaldi had promised Bobby this toy the afternoon of his

call. Then she said, in as commonplace a tone as she could manage:

"I see no liberty in it--only a natural piece of kindness. Bobby took a

great fancy to him. He promised to send this toy."

Chesney turned on her.

"Throwing a nubbin to the calf to catch the cow, as you say in Virginia,

eh?" he said brutally. She flushed with such crimson intensity that the

tears sprang to her eyes. In a ringing voice she cried out, as she saw

him eyeing the flush jeeringly:

"It's for you ... for _you_ that I am blushing!"

Without another look at him, she took up the toy and went out of the

room.

She was so pale in her gown of white crepe when she came downstairs,

dressed for dinner, that he said, after eyeing her discontentedly:

"Good Lord! You look like the family ghost. Can't you stick on a bit of

rouge?"

"No. I don't like rouge."

His eyes fixed on the chaplet of ivy leaves in her shaded hair.

"I suppose that garland is to complete the impression of an Iphigenia

about to be sacrificed, eh?"

"Cecil...." she said it earnestly, impressively. "Don't let's quarrel

to-night."

"Why not to-night especially?"

"Because...." her lip quivered. "I've so looked forward to being proud

of you to-night."

He struggled against it, but she had touched him. His face softened. He

just brushed her shoulder with his great hand.

"You're a fine thing, by God!" he said, in a husky voice.

They drove to Westminster in silence.

* * * * *

At half-past eight the twilight was still clear and soft. The women's

bare shoulders and jewelled heads gleamed charmingly against the dark

sheen of the light-scattered river. Such of them as were made up for

artificial light looked as though they had strayed from another century

and forgotten to have their hair powdered also. Those that were prettily

painted reminded Sophy of strange orchids that would show best by

candle-light. She herself felt still and listless. Glancing at these men

and women gathered together for the evening, she saw as she realised

their personalities that the occasion would be "bwilliant" as Olive had

said. And she felt so dull--as though the flame of her spirit had died

down into pale smoke.

Olive found the chance to whisper a few words. Sophy had told her

frankly how ill Cecil had been only two weeks before, and of his renewed

interest in present political questions. She had begged Olive to

"arrange" things a little. She was so afraid that he would get excited

if he found himself surrounded entirely by men who were of the

Government or on its side.

"Poor dear," Olive now whispered. "You're so pale. I'm sure it's

anxiety. Don't be anxious. I've put Cecil at the uttermost end from

Jack. Poor, darling Jack _does_ so irritate him with his honest

platitudes. _I_ know! Then he'll have that rabid Radical, Cunnynham

Smythe, near by. He'd have to out-Herod Herod you know, to fall foul of

Cunny Smythe. And there's the Russian Ambassador, Suberov, opposite. You

told me that Cecil read the Russians, didn't you? Well--that ought to be

soothing. I've gathered all the ultra-Tories at _my_ end. Amaldi's to

take you in, and I've put Oswald Tyne on your right--two poets together,

you know. There's that provoking Sybil Chassilis--at least half an hour

late----"

She went forward to greet Lady Chassilis, and Amaldi came up to Sophy.

She saw her husband glance their way, then deliberately turn his back

and begin talking to the man next him. Something in that great, stolid,

well-shaped back struck Sophy as ominous. She felt herself grow even

paler. Her very lips felt cold as they rested on each other. She was

filled with a presentiment of coming disaster. But, somehow, as she

looked into Amaldi's eyes and listened to his quiet voice, a feeling of

reassurance stole over her. This feeling was wholly without reason. It

was only that his mere presence seemed to give her a feeling of safety,

as on that first occasion of their meeting.

"Did Bobby approve of my offering?" he asked, noticing her extreme

pallor. He thought that she looked even more lovely pale like this.

"Yes. It was good of you. He went to sleep with the little boat in his

arms."

Here Oswald Tyne approached. He was one of the most remarkable

characters of his day. Years ago, when she was a schoolgirl, Sophy had

heard him lecture in her own country. He himself had then been a youth

but just graduated from Oxford. She remembered him, a slender, poetic

figure. Now he was a heavy, middle-aged man. The long face had become

jowled; the light irises of his eyes showed too broad a crescent of

white below them. The sensual, heavy-lipped, good-natured mouth seemed

to weigh upon the chin, creasing it downward. He was always delightful

to Sophy, but she always felt ill-at-ease with him. This feeling was

obscure to her herself. She had never tried to analyse it. With the

oddest contradiction, at one and the same time she admired his gifts,

and felt a great compassion for him--the man. And this compassion could

not have been called forth by anything in the circumstances of his life.

"Thank you for being so pale to-night, dear lady," he said in his

abrupt, whimsical way. "One gets so weary of colour. How Iris must have

hated her rainbow at times. Our Englishwomen are too beautifully tinted.

One longs sometimes for the sight of an albino. Think of an assembly of

negroes and albinos. How austere and weird at the same time. Would you

have such an assembly garmented all in black or white or dull orange?"

"But orange is a colour," ventured Sophy, smiling.

Tyne grew extremely serious and impressive. "No; no! Pardon me. Orange

is only the earthly body of light. I think we should dress our assembly

in orange--the albinos in a clear tulip tint--the negroes in a fierce

saffron."

"Oswald! what _fwightful_ nonsense you talk at times!" cried Mrs.

Arundel, overhearing this. "Please go and take in Countess Hohenfels.

She's dying to hear you talk."

Tyne looked at her out of his heavy, swimming eyes.

"A German? You have given me a German for dinner? I see. You divined

that my mood would be musical. But Germans have mathematical

imaginations. Their music is the integral calculus of the spheres. It

is----"

Olive firmly drew him away, still pouring forth this flood of easy

nonsense.

At table, Sophy noticed that her husband glanced from her to Amaldi once

or twice. His look was hard and hostile. She determined to try to talk

as much as possible with both Tyne and Amaldi. This would be easier--as

it became at once evident that the dinner would be one of those

delightful occasions on which little groups talk together, even across

the table.

"When are you going to make me see another beautiful dawn?" asked Tyne

abruptly.

Sophy gazed at him. She wondered what was coming, and as he smiled at

her in his slow way, she thought how much worse it seemed for a poet to

have black teeth than for a mere, ordinary mortal like John Arundel.

"How did I make you see a beautiful dawn?" she asked, knowing that he

wanted her to put the question.

"By writing your 'Shadow of a Flame' and letting me read it. Yes--all

night I played with those lovely, flickering verses."

"You are too kind to me," she said shyly. "Tell me when I am to read

another of _your_ books--that are not shadows of flames, but flames

themselves."

"Lovely--lovely!" he murmured. "That is quite lovely of you. But as for

a new book---- It is so prosaic to publish a book in London. Nothing

really happens. Now in Paris--why--one day all the boulevards blossom

like beds of daffodils. You are amazed. You ask, 'Why this delicious

flowering?' You are answered--'Paul Bourget has published a new novel.'"

He went airily on for some moments in this strain. From across the

table, a clever critic and man of letters was listening with pleased

amusement. Suddenly he said:

"Tell me, Oswald, have you ever read the works of an American called

Edgar Saltus?"

"Why Edgar Saltus, like a stiletto from the blue? Yes; I have read some

of his productions. But why?"

"Because the American boulevards seem to blossom with his flowers of

rhetoric in the way that you describe. I have often wanted to parody

him. But parody crouches at his feet."

Tyne held up one of his suave, heavy hands.

"Softly, please," he murmured. "Tread softly there. I have a certain

tenderness for Mr. Edgar Saltus. I know nothing in literature more

touching than the way that passion and grammar struggle for mastery on

every one of his wonderful pages!"

Amaldi listened with his quiet smile. He himself was not in a talkative

mood that night. Besides, he was one of those men who, while seeming

outwardly unconscious of what is not directly in contact with them,

notice everything that takes place, and he had caught those dark looks

cast by Cecil Chesney at Sophy and himself. Now he was glad to see that

she was becoming diverted and roused from her listlessness by the talk

of Oswald Tyne and his friend. He also observed that Chesney, too, had

apparently changed his humour and was engaged in an animated

conversation with the men and women nearest him. After a while, he saw

that Chesney was holding forth alone. But it was evidently a perfectly

amiable harangue, for the others were listening with animated faces.

Still Sophy, who could not catch the gist of her husband's talk, looked

suddenly anxious, and Amaldi was relieved when the critic, who had been

talking with Tyne, and whose name was Ferrars, said to Sophy:

"Your husband's having a brilliant go at Russian literature, Mrs.

Chesney. Are you as keen on that subject as he is?"

"Yes, quite, I think."

"Tolstoy and Dostoievsky are our living Pillars of Hercules," said

Ferrars, a little didactically. "They guard the portals of modern

literature. They are our colossi--we others fuss and potter about under

their huge limbs like pygmies."

"Speak for yourself, Charles," said Tyne coolly. "I may not be a

colossus, but I have wings. Gauzy, iridescent, little vans maybe, but

sufficient to lift me. I am not what sportsmen call a 'heavyweight' of

literature--but I can coruscate, which your colossi cannot. And I am not

sure that I don't prefer fireflies to eagles."

"Which do you think greater--Tolstoy or Dostoievsky?" Sophy slipped in,

before Ferrars could launch a sarcasm.

"Oh, Tolstoy, Tolstoy ... by all means," murmured Tyne.

"Which do _you_ think greater?" said Sophy to Amaldi.

"Well...." Amaldi reflected an instant. "When Tolstoy regards the human

race, one feels that he sees it made up of little Tolstoys. When

Dostoievsky looks inward--it is as if he saw all humanity in himself--in

Dostoievsky."

"Capital!" cried Ferrars. Sophy looked at Amaldi, pleased at hearing her

own conviction so well put into words. Tyne regarded the young man

dreamily.

"How charming is the multiplicity of opinion," he then said. "If I ever

sacrificed it would be to the goddess of Variety. Now to me, Tolstoy is

by far the greater figure of the two."

Ferrars had begun to talk to the woman on his right and was not

listening any longer. The women on the left and right of Tyne and Amaldi

were eagerly attentive.

"Why?" asked several voices at once.

"Because Tolstoy is the greatest Immoralist of his time," said Tyne

serenely.

"Oh! Oh!" came several voices.

"He is immoral in spirit where others are only immoral in fact,"

continued the poet, quite unmoved. "Never was there so irreligious, so

immoral a spectacle as that Titan in the throes of religion. For this

religion of his violates and thwarts every natural instinct and desire

of his pagan nature. To deny one's true nature is irreligion. To be

egotistically selfless is the paradox of the inferno. Besides, is there

a greater sin against genius than to worship the commonplace? Now virtue

is the norm--the level convention invented by civilised man. The crime

of virtuous genius is that it becomes null. The cult of virtue is the

eighth deadly sin--in a creative mind. Fancy a virtuous Creator!"

He laughed suddenly into the faces which seemed not to have decided

whether to look shocked or to smile.

Sophy turned to Amaldi. But try as she might, she could not overcome the

_gene_ cast upon her by those hostile looks of her husband. She felt

that she was not being natural with Amaldi, and the more this feeling

overcame her, the more she felt it impossible to recover her free,

delightful intercourse with him. They talked conventionally, gliding

over the surface of things. Once, in spite of herself, her eyes strayed

towards Cecil. But he was not looking at her. He was leaning close to

Lady Chassilis. A flush had come into his face. His eyes glittered. He

seemed to be saying something delightful but rather shocking, for Sybil

Chassilis gave him a sidelong flash out of her black eyes--then flushed

and cast them down, smiling in a peculiar way. Sophy noticed with a

sinking heart that he drank glass after glass of champagne. It must

indeed be good wine for Cecil to drink so freely of it. He usually

cursed the champagne of his friends.

Suddenly Tyne turned again to Sophy.

"I have a grievance--a sorrow--a real sorrow," he said. "I wonder if you

can console me?"

"What is it?" asked Sophy in a low voice. He seemed never to be in

earnest, yet, at that moment, the queer feeling of compassion that he

always excited in her, rose in her heart.

He drew a deep sigh. Now she was sure that there was a mocking light,

far back in his pale eyes.

"It is that no one will believe in my real wickedness--my beautiful

vileness. I have no disciple who really believes in me. Yet I am

wonderfully vile. Virtue seems like a pale, pock marked wench to me. I

feel like crying out on her like old Capulet: 'Out, you tallow-face! You

baggage!' But Sin, with the clear black flames curled about her naked

feet like the petals of a lotus--Sin, with her delicate, acrid lips that

never satiate and are never satiated--her I worship! her I serve!--Do

you believe me?"

Sophy sat gazing at him. Something strange and wild, and unbelievable

took place in her. She saw--no, she _knew_--not by ratiocination, but as

one knows when one falls into the sea that one is wet--she _knew_ that

this man was truly vile, that he was speaking the truth to her. But even

more wonderful, she knew that horror and tragedy unspeakable waited for

him. It was as if the poisonous shadow fell over him as she looked--as

if its outer hem touched her like a thing of palpable texture.

He was looking at her strangely, too--half as if afraid, but curious.

Like a man who knows that the oracle can divine truly--that it may

answer to his undoing, and that, if it answers thus, that answer will

surely come to pass.

"Do you believe me?" he said again, keeping up the bravado of his light

tone, but some chord in his voice stirred oddly.

Sophy drew a long breath. She felt herself shivering, then, "Yes," she

said almost inaudibly. He continued to look at her--a strange, musing

look.

"Thank you," he said blandly. "So I have a disciple at last."

Then that passion of horror and pity broke down all conventional

restraint in Sophy.

"But _why_?" she said, in a passionate whisper. "Why? _Why?_"

He was silent just for an instant's pressure, then he answered by the

most extraordinary and appalling piece of blasphemy.

"Because," he said, "'_before Abraham was I am_.'"