IV

In the afternoon Laurence drove over to Bishop's Pudbury, some eight

miles distant from Stoke Rivers. An English soldier--by name

Bellingham--whom he had known in New York, and who had married a Miss

Van Renan, a cousin of Virginia--had taken a house there for the hunting

season. His wife had impressed upon Laurence the duty of making an early

call on these connections--he being the bearer of certain gifts to a

small daughter of the family, Virginia's godchild. A revulsion in favour

of the ordinary ways of ordinary modern life, in favour, indeed, of that

very Commonplace of which last evening he had supposed himself so

unwilling an exponent, was upon him. He wanted to get in with his

accustomed habits, his accustomed outlook, again. The last twenty-four

hours had been somewhat of a strain, and Laurence was as lazy as are

most healthy Englishmen. He hated energising, specially of the

super-induced, involuntary sort. And Mrs. Bellingham's society would be

helpful. She was an agreeable woman, of this world worldly. He could

have a good, square gossip with her. She was possessed, moreover, of a

cult for Virginia--for her beauty, her clothes, her social ability. And

in the back of his mind, somehow, Laurence was conscious that it would

be an excellent thing for him to hear Virginia's praises sounded loudly.

Mrs. Bellingham would count his blessings to him. That recital would be

at once humbling and bracing--altogether salutary. But, unfortunately,

neither the lady nor her husband were at home; so he could but deposit

Virginia's immaculate parcels, tied with flaring bows of amber ribbon,

and drive homeward through the rolling Sussex country--now engulfed in

its deep, narrow lanes, now climbing its breezy, wooded hills, catching

glimpses of the smooth, open downs ranging away to Beachy Head, and of

the grey turmoil of the dirty Channel sea.

All this was not very exciting, it must be owned, but it afforded him

relief from the singular sensations he had experienced during the

morning. He came into the house in excellent spirits, bringing the clean

chill of the March evening along with him--came in to meet the same

dry, dead atmosphere, the same dark, glossy walls, and rich, sombre

colours, the same at once unemotional yet almost voluptuous suggestion

from objects of art. A lonely dinner followed, admirably served by two

silent, middle-aged men-servants. Their faces were sallow and without

expression, their manner was correct to the point of absolute nullity of

character, they moved as automata. The dinner itself was a little

_chef-d'oeuvre_, and was served on remarkably handsome silver plate.

As centre-piece, three dancing female figures in silver-gilt--copied

apparently from those on some Etruscan vase--supported a cut-glass bowl,

in which floated fantastic orchids, some mottled, dull, brown-green,

toad-like, some in long sprays of mauve, or tiger-colour, striped with

glossy black. These last gave off a thick musky scent.

Towards the end of the meal Renshaw, the butler, delivered a note to

him, which Laurence read not without kindly amusement. It was from the

curate-in-charge--the Rector of Stoke Rivers preferring to dwell amid

the social excitements of Cheltenham, and but rarely, on the plea of

bad health, visiting the parish. Laurence judged the curate-in-charge to

be a very young man. His letter ran thus:--

"DEAR SIR,--I trust I am not presuming upon my official

connection with this parish by hastening to express to you the

great relief which I feel in learning that you have arrived at

the Courthouse. As representative of the incumbent of this

parish, I hold myself responsible for the spiritual welfare of

all persons resident in it, whether of exalted or humble

station. I have, therefore, suffered much anxiety regarding

your uncle's, Mr. Rivers, spiritual condition, in his present

very serious state of health. I know that his views are

regrettably latitudinarian, and that his attitude is far from

conciliatory towards the Church. These sad facts, however, far

from relieving me of responsibility, only increase it. I would

so gladly read and pray with him, and reason with him of those

things necessary to salvation. The time permitted him may, I

understand, be short. It is my duty first to warn, and then to

console. I cannot reproach myself with negligence in calling at

the Courthouse. I do so regularly three times a week.

Unhappily, Mr. Rivers is persistent in his refusal to receive

me. This is not only very shocking, as precluding the

possibility of my offering either the warnings or consolations

of religion to the invalid; but it injuriously affects my

position with my parishioners, who, seeing me thus slighted by

the principal landowner in the parish, show a painful

disposition to treat my ministrations with levity, and my

person with disrespect. I trust to your sense of justice to

obtain my admittance to the sickroom, both in the interests of

your uncle's eternal welfare and in those of the Church, of

which I am a humble, but, I trust, efficient minister.--I have

the honour to remain, dear Sir, yours obediently,

"WALTER SAMUEL BEAL."

Laurence finished his glass of claret and his cigarette with a smile. He

sat a minute or two, gazing at the dancing, golden figures and at the

rather malign loveliness of the orchids.

"Poor little Padre Sahib!" he said to himself. "I'll go and see him

to-morrow and do my best to quiet his worthy conscience. Funny mixture

of soul and of self in that letter! But he's very much too mild a Daniel

to fling into the lion's den upstairs. He little imagines what he's

asking. Well, he won't get it anyhow, so that doesn't much matter.

Pah!--how hot this room is!"

Laurence rose from the table, folded up the letter, and put it in his

pocket.

"Now for processes of vivisection. It's the most original fashion of

paying succession duty I ever heard of. My word, if I ever do come into

possession, won't I just open the windows in this house!"

V

The conversation that evening did not move very smoothly. Laurence

brought all the good temper and practical philosophy at his command into

play. But the elder man was captious. His blank scepticism, his keen,

unsparing statements jarred on his companion. An inclination towards

revolt arose in Laurence.

"I am half afraid, sir," he permitted himself to say at last, while his

eyes rested on the gleaming breasts of the ebony sphinxes,--"that we

have made a radical mistake and put the cart before the horse. To

understand the average man, and his relation to things in general, must

not you begin with the study of the average woman? Is not _cherchez la

femme_, after all, the keynote of our inquiry?"

Mr. Rivers raised his thin hand almost as in warning, and the heavy

finger-rings chinked as he let it fall again on the arm of his chair.

"The subject of sex in connection with human beings is distasteful to

me," he said.

Laurence glanced at the speaker and then back at the carven sphinx

again. His eyes were a little merry--he could not help it.

"Oh! no doubt," he said; "there are times when it is distasteful to many

of us, and most infernally inconvenient into the bargain. Only you see,

unluckily, it is the pivot on which the whole history of the race

turns."

"A most objectionable pivot! An insult to the intellect, a degradation."

"That may be so," Laurence answered. "Still the thing is there--always

has been, always will be, modern science notwithstanding, unless

humanity agrees to voluntary and universal suicide, a consummation which

does not seem immediately probable in any case.--'Male and female

created He them.' An error perhaps of judgment, but one the Creator has

never shown much sign of wishing to correct as yet. The most venerable

religious systems recognise this. I need not remind you that it lies at

the heart of their mysteries. Christianity too--Catholic

Christianity--the only form, that is, of Christianity worth considering

seriously--acknowledges the profound significance of it in the worship

of the divine motherhood and the perpetually renewed miracle of the

Incarnation."

"You interest me," Mr. Rivers said slowly.

"I am glad of that," Laurence answered. He had warmed up unexpectedly to

his subject. "I am glad of that, for I can't help seeing--"

Mr. Rivers interrupted him.

"Pardon me," he said. "I would not have you labour even temporarily

under a misapprehension. It is less your exposition that interests me

than yourself. I note indications of thought and feeling for which I was

not wholly prepared. Taking you as a fair example of the type, I

perceive that the mind of the average member of society is of an even

lower order than I had supposed. I had, in my ignorance, imagined that,

even in the class to which you belong, modern, scientific ideas had

taken sufficient root to oust such effete superstitions as those to

which you have alluded. A more or less stupid Agnosticism, an utter

indifference, would not have surprised me. From such a condition

development is still possible. But here I recognise traces of a return

to fetich worship, to savage standards--this indeed is hopeless, a

degeneration from which revival is impossible. I admit, of course, the

necessity of the existence of woman, since the perpetuation of the race

appears at present desirable. It would be childish to argue the matter.

She must be kept and cared for by qualified persons, as are the other

higher, domestic animals, but--"

"But, but," Laurence said, laughing, "I must protest. Perhaps his type

of mind is too low for yours to be able to stoop to it; but, upon my

word, sir, even with so thorough-paced a specimen as myself before you,

you have not grasped the characteristics of the average man one bit. I

don't say we are conspicuously noble, or virtuous, or godly creatures,

and I don't say that the side of our lives which has to do with our

ambitions, with public affairs, our profession, or our art--the side, in

fact, in which woman counts least--may not give scope to that which is

best in us. I have no end of belief in the life a man lives among men. I

grant a good deal on your side of the question, you see. Only I know it

will be a precious bad day when we keep our women merely for breeding

purposes. We shall have degeneration in uncommonly full swing then.

There is an immense lot in the relation between man and woman beside the

physical one; and--and--I'm not ashamed to thank whatever gods there be

for that."

"Your wife--" began Mr. Rivers. Laurence looked hard at him, while the

good temper, the geniality, died out of his face.

"My wife does not enter into our contract, sir," he said shortly.

The coldly brilliant eyes fastened on him with a certain voracity of

observation. Then the elder man bowed slightly, courteously,

contemptuously.

"You interest me extremely," he said. "I am obliged to you. But I must

not presume upon your complaisance. You have supplied me with sufficient

subjects of meditation for to-night. I will not detain you further. I

thank you, my dear Laurence. Good-night."

"I was a fool to let myself go, and a still bigger one to lose my

temper," the young man said to himself as he closed the door and passed

out on to the corridor.

Save for a ticking of clocks, silence prevailed throughout the house.

The electric light, clear and steady, revealed every object in its

completeness. The temperature was some degrees higher than during the

day, and airless in proportion to its increased warmth. Half-way down

the shining oak staircase, Laurence was saluted by the musky odour of

the orchids. Clinging, enfolding, it seemed to meet him more as a

presence than a scent. The dining-room door stood wide open. The

under-butler came forth and went noiselessly towards the offices. There

followed a muffled sound of baize doors swinging to. Then

simultaneously, sharply, from all quarters, clocks struck the half hour.

"Only half-past ten!" Laurence exclaimed. "How villainously early! I

wish to goodness I had not lost my temper though. It was slightly

imbecile. If the poor, old gentleman enjoys being offensive, why

shouldn't he be so? He has none too many opportunities of amusement."

He paused, looking down the bright, vacant, silent corridor, past the

open doors of all the bright, vacant, silent rooms.

"If it comes to that, nor have I," he added, "when I come to think of

it. There's a notable paucity of excitement in this existence, and this

beastly hot air makes one too muzzy to read." He yawned.--"What a mercy

Virginia didn't come! She would have been most extensively and

articulately bored."

He sauntered aimlessly along the passage, past the fine, copper-plate

engravings, and the impassive, Roman emperors, and drew up before the

great, tapestry curtain. Again he looked curiously at the figures worked

so skilfully upon it. The light took the silken surface, bringing the

warm flesh-tints into high relief, against the dim, grey-green

background of shadowy hill and grove.

"No wonder my uncle blasphemes if that represents his only idea of the

relation of the sexes."

He sighed involuntarily.

"Yes, but, thank God, there is more in it all than merely that," he

said. Then he repeated:--"It is a mercy Virginia did not come. It would

not have suited her from any point of view. She'd have been hideously

bored, and she would have been offended and a good deal shocked. It is

queer the way the Puritanic element survives over there, notwithstanding

their modernity."

Laurence smiled to himself, becoming aware of the slight inconsistency

of his own attitude--his late heated championship of the claims of the

Eternal Feminine, his self-congratulation at the fact that his own

particular investment in the matter of womanhood was, at present, safely

away on the other side of the Atlantic.

Then, taken by a sudden impulse--born in part of a desire of escape from

the suffocating atmosphere around him--he pulled the edge of the heavy

curtain outwards, passed round it, letting it drop into place behind

him. He stood a moment in a contracted, blind space. The place seemed

possessed of singular influences. Again he grew faint as he groped for

the door handle; while a conviction grew upon him that he had stood just

here, and so groped an innumerable number of times already, and that he

should so stand and grope--either in fact or in imagination, just as

long, indeed, as consciousness remained to him--an innumerable number of

times again.

At last the handle was found and yielded. Breathing rather quickly,

Laurence entered the lofty, fair-coloured room. It too was bright with

electric light, but the air of it was sensibly purer than that of the

corridor; while, standing before the painted satin-wood escritoire, at

the further side of the fireplace, was a slender woman. Her back was

towards him. She wore a high-waisted, clinging, rose-pink, silken gown.

Her dark hair was gathered up in soft, yet elaborate, bows and curls

high on her small head, after the fashion prevalent in the early years

of the century. A cape of transparent muslin and lace veiled her bare

shoulders.