II

While Lucy wandered by the seashore, occupied with painful memories, her

old friend Dick, too lazy to walk with her, sat in the drawing-room of

Court Leys, talking to his hostess.

Mrs. Crowley was an American woman, who had married an Englishman, and

on being left a widow, had continued to live in England. She was a

person who thoroughly enjoyed life; and indeed there was every reason

that she should do so, since she was young, pretty, and rich; she had a

quick mind and an alert tongue. She was of diminutive size, so small

that Dick Lomas, by no means a tall man, felt quite large by the side of

her. Her figure was exquisite, and she had the smallest hands in the

world. Her features were so good, regular and well-formed, her

complexion so perfect, her agile grace so enchanting, that she did not

seem a real person at all. She was too delicate for the hurly-burly of

life, and it seemed improbable that she could be made of the ordinary

clay from which human beings are manufactured. She had the artificial

grace of those dainty, exquisite ladies in the _Embarquement pour

Cithere_ of the charming Watteau; and you felt that she was fit to

saunter on that sunny strand, habited in satin of delicate colours, with

a witty, decadent cavalier by her side. It was preposterous to talk to

her of serious things, and nothing but an airy badinage seemed possible

in her company.

Mrs. Crowley had asked Lucy and Dick Lomas to stay with her in the

house she had just taken for a term of years. She had spent a week by

herself to arrange things to her liking, and insisted that Dick should

admire all she had done. After a walk round the park he vowed that he

was exhausted and must rest till tea-time.

'Now tell me what made you take it. It's so far from anywhere.'

'I met the owner in Rome last winter. It belongs to a Mrs. Craddock, and

when I told her I was looking out for a house, she suggested that I

should come and see this.'

'Why doesn't she live in it herself?'

'Oh, I don't know. It appears that she was passionately devoted to her

husband, and he broke his neck in the hunting-field, so she couldn't

bear to live here any more.'

Mrs. Crowley looked round the drawing-room with satisfaction. At first

it had borne the cheerless look of a house uninhabited, but she had

quickly made it pleasant with flowers, photographs, and silver

ornaments. The Sheraton furniture and the chintzes suited the style of

her beauty. She felt that she looked in place in that comfortable room,

and was conscious that her frock fitted her and the circumstances

perfectly. Dick's eye wandered to the books that were scattered here and

there.

'And have you put out these portentous works in order to improve your

mind, or with the laudable desire of impressing me with the serious turn

of your intellect?'

'You don't think I'm such a perfect fool as to try and impress an

entirely flippant person like yourself?'

On the table at his elbow were a copy of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ and

one of the _Fortnightly Review_. He took up two books, and saw that one

was the _Froehliche Wissenschaft_ of Nietzsche, who was then beginning to

be read in England by the fashionable world and was on the eve of being

discovered by men of letters, while the other was a volume of Mrs.

Crowley's compatriot, William James.

'American women amaze me,' said Dick, as he put them down. 'They buy

their linen at Doucet's and read Herbert Spencer with avidity. And

what's more, they seem to like him. An Englishwoman can seldom read a

serious book without feeling a prig, and as soon as she feels a prig she

leaves off her corsets.'

'I feel vaguely that you're paying me a compliment,' returned Mrs.

Crowley, 'but it's so elusive that I can't quite catch it.'

'The best compliments are those that flutter about your head like

butterflies around a flower.'

'I much prefer to fix them down on a board with a pin through their

insides and a narrow strip of paper to hold down each wing.'

It was October, but the autumn, late that year, had scarcely coloured

the leaves, and the day was warm. Mrs. Crowley, however, was a chilly

being, and a fire burned in the grate. She put another log on it and

watched the merry crackle of the flames.

'It was very good of you to ask Lucy down here,' said Dick, suddenly.

'I don't know why. I like her so much. And I felt sure she would fit the

place. She looks a little like a Gainsborough portrait, doesn't she? And

I like to see her in this Georgian house.'

'She's not had much of a time since they sold the family place. It was a

great grief to her.'

'I feel such a pig to have here the things I bought at the sale.'

When the contents of Hamlyn's Purlieu were sent to Christy's, Mrs.

Crowley, recently widowed and without a home, had bought one or two

pictures and some old chairs. She had brought these down to Court Leys,

and was much tormented at the thought of causing Lucy a new grief.

'Perhaps she didn't recognise them,' said Dick.

'Don't be so idiotic. Of course she recognised them. I saw her eyes fall

on the Reynolds the very moment she came into the room.'

'I'm sure she would rather you had them than any stranger.'

'She's said nothing about them. You know, I'm very fond of her, and I

admire her extremely, but she would be easier to get on with if she were

less reserved. I never shall get into this English way of bottling up my

feelings and sitting on them.'

'It sounds a less comfortable way of reposing oneself than sitting in an

armchair.'

'I would offer to give Lucy back all the things I bought, only I'm sure

she'd snub me.'

'She doesn't mean to be unkind, but she's had a very hard life, and it's

had its effect on her character. I don't think anyone knows what she's

gone through during these ten years. She's borne the responsibilities of

her whole family since she was fifteen, and if the crash didn't come

sooner, it was owing to her. She's never been a girl, poor thing; she

was a child, and then suddenly she was a woman.'

'But has she never had any lovers?'

'I fancy that she's rather a difficult person to make love to. It would

be a bold young man who whispered sweet nothings into her ear; they'd

sound so very foolish.'

'At all events there's Bobbie Boulger. I'm sure he's asked her to marry

him scores of times.'

Sir Robert Boulger had succeeded his father, the manufacturer, as second

baronet; and had promptly placed his wealth and his personal advantages

at Lucy's feet. His devotion to her was well known to his friends. They

had all listened to the protestations of undying passion, which Lucy,

with gentle humour, put smilingly aside. Lady Kelsey, his aunt and

Lucy's, had done all she could to bring the pair together; and it was

evident that from every point of view a marriage between them was

desirable. He was not unattractive in appearance, his fortune was

considerable, and his manners were good. He was a good-natured, pleasant

fellow, with no great strength of character perhaps, but Lucy had enough

of that for two; and with her to steady him, he had enough brains to

make some figure in the world.

'I've never seen Mr. Allerton,' remarked Mrs. Crowley, presently. 'He

must be a horrid man.'

'On the contrary, he's the most charming creature I ever met, and I

don't believe there's a man in London who can borrow a hundred pounds of

you with a greater air of doing you a service. If you met him you'd fall

in love with him before you'd got well into your favourite conversation

on bimetallism.'

'I've never discussed bimetallism in my life,' protested Mrs. Crowley.

'All women do.'

'What?'

'Fall in love with him. He knows exactly what to talk to them about, and

he has the most persuasive voice you ever heard. I believe Lady Kelsey

has been in love with him for five and twenty years. It's lucky they've

not yet passed the deceased wife's sister's bill, or he would have

married her and run through her money as he did his first wife's. He's

still very good-looking, and there's such a transparent honesty about

him that I promise you he's irresistible.'

'And what has happened to him since the catastrophe?'

'Well, the position of an undischarged bankrupt is never particularly

easy, though I've known men who've cavorted about in motors and given

dinners at the _Carlton_ when they were in that state, and seemed

perfectly at peace with the world in general. But with Fred Allerton the

proceedings before the Official Receiver seem to have broken down the

last remnants of his self-respect. He was glad to get rid of his

children, and Lady Kelsey was only too happy to provide for them. Heaven

only knows how he's lived during the last two years. He's still occupied

with a variety of crack-brained schemes, and he's been to me more than

once for money to finance them with.'

'I hope you weren't such a fool as to give it.'

'I wasn't. I flatter myself that I combined frankness with good-nature

in the right proportion, and in the end he was always satisfied with the

nimble fiver. But I'm afraid things are going harder with him. He has

lost his old alert gaiety, and he's a little down at heel in character

as well as in person. There's a furtive look about him, as though he

were ready for undertakings that were not quite above board, and there's

a shiftiness in his eye which makes his company a little disagreeable.'

'You don't think he'd do anything dishonest?' asked Mrs. Crowley

quickly.

'Oh, no. I don't believe he has the nerve to sail closer to the wind

than the law allows, and really, at bottom, notwithstanding all I know

of him, I think he's an honest man. It's only behind his back that I

have any doubts about him; when he's there face to face with me I

succumb to his charm. I can believe nothing to his discredit.'

At that moment they saw Lucy walking towards them. Dick Lomas got up and

stood at the window. Mrs. Crowley, motionless, watched her from her

chair. They were both silent. A smile of sympathy played on Mrs.

Crowley's lips, and her heart went out to the girl who had undergone so

much. A vague memory came back to her, and for a moment she was puzzled;

but then she hit upon the idea that had hovered about her mind, and she

remembered distinctly the admirable picture by John Furse at Millbank,

which is called _Diana of the Uplands_. It had pleased her always, not

only because of its beauty and the fine power of the painter, but

because it seemed to her as it were a synthesis of the English spirit.

Her nationality gave her an interest in the observation of this, and her

wide, systematic reading the power to compare and analyse. This portrait

of a young woman holding two hounds in leash, the wind of the northern

moor on which she stands, blowing her skirts and outlining her lithe

figure, seemed to Mrs. Crowley admirably to follow in the tradition of

the eighteenth century. And as Reynolds and Gainsborough, with their

elegant ladies in powdered hair and high-waisted gowns, standing in

leafy, woodland scenes, had given a picture of England in the age of

Reason, well-bred and beautiful, artificial and a little airless, so had

Furse in this represented the England of to-day. It was an England that

valued cleanliness above all things, of the body and of the spirit, an

England that loved the open air and feared not the wildness of nature

nor the violence of the elements. And Mrs. Crowley had lived long enough

in the land of her fathers to know that this was a true England, simple

and honest; narrow perhaps, and prejudiced, but strong, brave, and of

great ideals. The girl who stood on that upland, looking so candidly out

of her blue eyes, was a true descendant of the ladies that Sir Joshua

painted, but she had a bath every morning, loved her dogs, and wore a

short, serviceable skirt. With an inward smile, Mrs. Crowley

acknowledged that she was probably bored by Emerson and ignorant of

English literature; but for the moment she was willing to pardon these

failings in her admiration for the character and all it typified.

Lucy came in, and Mrs. Crowley gave her a nod of welcome. She was fond

of her fantasies and would not easily interrupt them. She noted that

Lucy had just that frank look of _Diana of the Uplands_, and the

delicate, sensitive face, refined with the good-breeding of centuries,

but strengthened by an athletic life. Her skin was very clear. It had

gained a peculiar freshness by exposure to all manner of weather. Her

bright, fair hair was a little disarranged after her walk, and she went

to the glass to set it right. Mrs. Crowley observed with delight the

straightness of her nose and the delicate curve of her lips. She was

tall and strong, but her figure was very slight; and there was a

charming litheness about her which suggested the good horse-woman.

But what struck Mrs. Crowley most was that only the keenest observer

could have told that she had endured more than other women of her age. A

stranger would have delighted in her frank smile and the kindly sympathy

of her eyes; and it was only if you knew the troubles she had suffered

that you saw how much more womanly she was than girlish. There was a

self-possession about her which came from the responsibilities she had

borne so long, and an unusual reserve, unconsciously masked by a great

charm of manner, which only intimate friends discerned, but which even

to them was impenetrable. Mrs. Crowley, with her American impulsiveness,

had tried in all kindliness to get through the barrier, but she had

never succeeded. All Lucy's struggles, her heart-burnings and griefs,

her sudden despairs and eager hopes, her tempestuous angers, took place

in the bottom of her heart. She would have been as dismayed at the

thought of others seeing them as she would have been at the thought of

being discovered unclothed. Shyness and pride combined to make her hide

her innermost feelings so that no one should venture to offer sympathy

or commiseration.

'Do ring the bell for tea,' said Mrs. Crowley to Lucy, as she turned

away from the glass. 'I can't get Mr. Lomas to amuse me till he's had

some stimulating refreshment.'

'I hope you like the tea I sent you,' said Dick.

'Very much. Though I'm inclined to look upon it as a slight that you

should send me down only just enough to last over your visit.'

'I always herald my arrival in a country house by a little present of

tea,' said Dick. 'The fact is it's the only good tea in the world. I

sent my father to China for seven years to find it, and I'm sure you

will agree that my father has not lived an ill-spent life.'

The tea was brought and duly drunk. Mrs. Crowley asked Lucy how her

brother was. He had been at Oxford for the last two years.

'I had a letter from him yesterday,' the girl answered. 'I think he's

getting on very well. I hope he'll take his degree next year.'

A happy brightness came into her eyes as she talked of him. She

apologised, blushing, for her eagerness.

'You know, I've looked after George ever since he was ten, and I feel

like a mother to him. It's only with the greatest difficulty I can

prevent myself from telling you how he got through the measles, and how

well he bore vaccination.'

Lucy was very proud of her brother. She found a constant satisfaction in

his good looks, and she loved the openness of his smile. She had striven

with all her might to keep away from him the troubles that oppressed

her, and had determined that nothing, if she could help it, should

disturb his radiant satisfaction with the world. She knew that he was

apt to lean on her, but though she chid herself sometimes for fostering

the tendency, she could not really prevent the intense pleasure it gave

her. He was young yet, and would soon enough grow into manly ways; it

could not matter if now he depended upon her for everything. She

rejoiced in the ardent affection which he gave her; and the implicit

trust he placed in her, the complete reliance on her judgment, filled

her with a proud humility. It made her feel stronger and better capable

of affronting the difficulties of life. And Lucy, living much in the

future, was pleased to see how beloved George was of all his friends.

Everyone seemed willing to help him, and this seemed of good omen for

the career which she had mapped out for him.

The recollection of him came to Lucy now as she had last seen him. They

had been spending part of the summer with Lady Kelsey at her house on

the Thames. George was going to Scotland to stay with friends, and Lucy,

bound elsewhere, was leaving earlier in the afternoon. He came to see

her off. She was touched, in her own sorrow at leaving him, by his

obvious emotion. The tears were in his eyes as he kissed her on the

platform. She saw him waving to her as the train sped towards London,

slender and handsome, looking more boyish than ever in his whites; and

she felt a thrill of gratitude because, with all her sorrows and

regrets, she at least had him.

'I hope he's a good shot,' she said inconsequently, as Mrs. Crowley

handed her a cap of tea. 'Of course it's in the family.'

'Marvellous family!' said Dick, ironically. 'You would be wiser to wish

he had a good head for figures.'

'But I hope he has that, too,' she answered.

It had been arranged that George should go into the business in which

Lady Kelsey still had a large interest. Lucy wanted him to make great

sums of money, so that he might pay his father's debts, and perhaps buy

back the house which her family had owned so long.

'I want him to be a clever man of business--since business is the only

thing open to him now--and an excellent sportsman.'

She was too shy to describe her ambition, but her fancy had already cast

a glow over the calling which George was to adopt. There was in the

family an innate tendency toward the more exquisite things of life, and

this would colour his career. She hoped he would become a merchant

prince after the pattern of those Florentines who have left an ideal for

succeeding ages of the way in which commerce may be ennobled by a

liberal view of life. Like them he could drive hard bargains and amass

riches--she recognised that riches now were the surest means of

power--but like them also he could love music and art and literature,

cherishing the things of the soul with a careful taste, and at the same

time excel in all sports of the field. Life then would be as full as a

man's heart could wish; and this intermingling of interests might so

colour it that he would lead the whole with a certain beauty and

grandeur.

'I wish I were a man,' she cried, with a bright smile. 'It's so hard

that I can do nothing but sit at home and spur others on. I want to do

things myself.'

Mrs. Crowley leaned back in her chair. She gave her skirt a little twist

so that the line of her form should be more graceful.

'I'm so glad I'm a woman,' she murmured. 'I want none of the privileges

of the sex which I'm delighted to call stronger. I want men to be noble

and heroic and self-sacrificing; then they can protect me from a

troublesome world, and look after me, and wait upon me. I'm an

irresponsible creature with whom they can never be annoyed however

exacting I am--it's only pretty thoughtlessness on my part--and they

must never lose their tempers however I annoy--it's only nerves. Oh, no,

I like to be a poor, weak woman.'

'You're a monster of cynicism,' cried Dick. 'You use an imaginary

helplessness with the brutality of a buccaneer, and your ingenuousness

is a pistol you put to one's head, crying: your money or your life.'

'You look very comfortable, dear Mr. Lomas,' she retorted. 'Would you

mind very much if I asked you to put my footstool right for me?'

'I should mind immensely,' he smiled, without moving.

'Oh, please do,' she said, with a piteous little expression of appeal.

'I'm so uncomfortable, and my foot's going to sleep. And you needn't be

horrid to me.'

'I didn't know you really meant it,' he said, getting up obediently and

doing what was required of him.

'I didn't,' she answered, as soon as he had finished. 'But I know you're

a lazy creature, and I merely wanted to see if I could make you move

when I'd warned you immediately before that--I was a womanly woman.'

'I wonder if you'd make Alec MacKenzie do that?' laughed Dick,

good-naturedly.

'Good heavens, I'd never try. Haven't you discovered that women know by

instinct what men they can make fools of, and they only try their arts

on them? They've gained their reputation for omnipotence only on account

of their robust common-sense, which leads them only to attack

fortresses which are already half demolished.'

'That suggests to my mind that every woman is a Potiphar's wife, though

every man isn't a Joseph,' said Dick.

'Your remark is too blunt to be witty,' returned Mrs. Crowley, 'but it's

not without its grain of truth.'

Lucy, smiling, listened to the nonsense they talked. In their company

she lost all sense of reality; Mrs. Crowley was so fragile, and Dick had

such a whimsical gaiety, that she could not treat them as real persons.

She felt herself a grown-up being assisting at some childish game in

which preposterous ideas were bandied to and fro like answers in the

game of consequences.

'I never saw people wander from the subject as you do,' she protested.

'I can't imagine what connection there is between whether Mr. MacKenzie

would arrange Julia's footstool, and the profligacy of the female sex.'

'Don't be hard on us,' said Mrs. Crowley. 'I must work off my flippancy

before he arrives, and then I shall be ready to talk imperially.'

'When does Alec come?' asked Dick.

'Now, this very minute. I've sent a carriage to meet him at the station.

You won't let him depress me, will you?'

'Why did you ask him if he affects you in that way?' asked Lucy,

laughing.

'But I like him--at least I think I do--and in any case, I admire him,

and I'm sure he's good for me. And Mr. Lomas wanted me to ask him, and

he plays bridge extraordinarily well. And I thought he would be

interesting. The only thing I have against him is that he never laughs

when I say a clever thing, and looks so uncomfortably at me when I say a

foolish one.'

'I'm glad I laugh when you say a clever thing,' said Dick.

'You don't. But you roar so heartily at your own jokes that if I hurry

up and slip one in before you've done, I can often persuade myself that

you're laughing at mine.'

'And do you like Alec MacKenzie, Lucy?' asked Dick.

She paused for a moment before she answered, and hesitated.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Sometimes I think I rather dislike him. But

I'm like Julia, I certainly admire him.'

'I suppose he is rather alarming,' said Dick. 'He's difficult to know,

and he's obviously impatient with other people's affectations. There's a

certain grimness about him which disturbs you unless you know him

intimately.'

'He's your greatest friend, isn't he?'

'He is.'

Dick paused for a little while.

'I've known him for twenty years now, and I look upon him as the

greatest man I've ever set eyes on. I think it's an inestimable

privilege to have been his friend.'

'I've not noticed that you treated him with especial awe,' said Mrs.

Crowley.

'Heaven save us!' cried Dick. 'I can only hold my own by laughing at him

persistently.'

'He bears it with unexampled good-nature.'

'Have I ever told you how I made his acquaintance? It was in about

fifty fathoms of water, and at least a thousand miles from land.'

'What an inconvenient place for an introduction!'

'We were both very wet. I was a young fool in those days, and I was

playing the giddy goat--I was just going up to Oxford, and my wise

father had sent me to America on a visit to enlarge my mind--I fell

over-board, and was proceeding to drown, when Alec jumped in after me

and held me up by the hair of my head.'

'He'd have some difficulty in doing that now, wouldn't he?' suggested

Mrs. Crowley, with a glance at Dick's thinning locks.

'And the odd thing is that he was absurdly grateful to me for letting

myself be saved. He seemed to think I had done him an intentional

service, and fallen into the Atlantic for the sole purpose of letting

him pull me out.'

Dick had scarcely said these words when they heard the carriage drive up

to the door of Court Leys.

'There he is,' cried Dick eagerly.

Mrs. Crowley's butler opened the door and announced the man they had

been discussing. Alexander MacKenzie came in.

He was just under six feet high, spare and well-made. He did not at the

first glance give you the impression of particular strength, but his

limbs were well-knit, there was no superfluous flesh about him, and you

felt immediately that he had great powers of endurance. His hair was

dark and cut very close. His short beard and his moustache were red.

They concealed the squareness of his chin and the determination of his

mouth. His eyes were not large, but they rested on the object that

attracted his attention with a peculiar fixity. When he talked to you

he did not glance this way or that, but looked straight at you with a

deliberate steadiness that was a little disconcerting. He walked with an

easy swing, like a man in the habit of covering a vast number of miles

each day, and there was in his manner a self-assurance which suggested

that he was used to command. His skin was tanned by exposure to tropical

suns.

Mrs. Crowley and Dick chattered light-heartedly, but it was clear that

he had no power of small-talk, and after the first greetings he fell

into silence; he refused tea, but Mrs. Crowley poured out a cup and

handed it to him.

'You need not drink it, but I insist on your holding it in your hand. I

hate people who habitually deny themselves things, and I can't allow you

to mortify the flesh in my house.'

Alec smiled gravely.

'Of course I will drink it if it pleases you,' he answered. 'I got in

the habit in Africa of eating only two meals a day, and I can't get out

of it now. But I'm afraid it's very inconvenient for my friends.' He

looked at Lomas, and though his mouth did not smile, a look came into

his eyes, partly of tenderness, partly of amusement. 'Dick, of course,

eats far too much.'

'Good heavens, I'm nearly the only person left in London who is

completely normal. I eat my three square meals a day regularly, and I

always have a comfortable tea into the bargain. I don't suffer from any

disease. I'm in the best of health. I have no fads. I neither nibble

nuts like a squirrel, nor grapes like a bird--I care nothing for all

this jargon about pepsins and proteids and all the rest of it. I'm not a

vegetarian, but a carnivorous animal; I drink when I'm thirsty, and I

decidedly prefer my beverages to be alcoholic.'

'I was thinking at luncheon to-day,' said Mrs. Crowley, 'that the

pleasure you took in roast-beef and ale showed a singularly gross and

unemotional nature.'

'I adore good food as I adore all the other pleasant things of life, and

because I have that gift I am able to look upon the future with

equanimity.'

'Why?' asked Alec.

'Because a love for good food is the only thing that remains with man

when he grows old. Love? What is love when you are five and fifty and

can no longer hide the disgraceful baldness of your pate. Ambition? What

is ambition when you have discovered that honours are to the pushing and

glory to the vulgar. Finally we must all reach an age when every passion

seems vain, every desire not worth the trouble of achieving it; but then

there still remain to the man with a good appetite three pleasures each

day, his breakfast, his luncheon, and his dinner.'

Alec's eyes rested on him quietly. He had never got out of the habit of

looking upon Dick as a scatter-brained boy who talked nonsense for the

fun of it; and his expression wore the amused disdain which one might

have seen on a Saint Bernard when a toy-terrier was going through its

tricks.

'Please say something,' cried Dick, half-irritably.

'I suppose you say those things in order that I may contradict you. Why

should I? They're perfectly untrue, and I don't agree with a single word

you say. But if it amuses you to talk nonsense, I don't see why you

shouldn't.'

'My dear Alec, I wish you wouldn't use the mailed fist in your

conversation. It's so very difficult to play a game with a spillikin on

one side and a sledge-hammer on the other.'

Lucy, sitting back in her chair, quietly, was observing the new arrival.

Dick had asked her and Mrs. Crowley to meet him at luncheon immediately

after his arrival from Mombassa. This was two months ago now, and since

then she had seen much of him. But she felt that she knew him little

more than on that first day, and still she could not make up her mind

whether she liked him or not. She was glad that they were staying

together at Court Leys; it would give her an opportunity of really

becoming acquainted with him, and there was no doubt that he was worth

the trouble. The fire lit up his face, casting grim shadows upon it, so

that it looked more than ever masterful and determined. He was

unconscious that her eyes rested upon him. He was always unconscious of

the attention he aroused.

Lucy hoped that she would induce him to talk of the work he had done,

and the work upon which he was engaged. With her mind fixed always on

great endeavours, his career interested her enormously; and it gained

something mysterious as well because there were gaps in her knowledge of

him which no one seemed able to fill. He knew few people in London, but

was known in one way or another of many; and all who had come in contact

with him were unanimous in their opinion. He was supposed to know Africa

as no other man knew it. During fifteen years he had been through every

part of it, and had traversed districts which the white man had left

untouched. But he had never written of his experiences, partly from

indifference to chronicle the results of his undertakings, partly from a

natural secrecy which made him hate to recount his deeds to all and

sundry. It seemed that reserve was a deep-rooted instinct with him, and

he was inclined to keep to himself all that he discovered. But if on

this account he was unknown to the great public, his work was

appreciated very highly by specialists. He had read papers before the

Geographical Society, (though it had been necessary to exercise much

pressure to induce him to do so), which had excited profound interest;

and occasionally letters appeared from him in _Nature_, or in one of the

ethnographical publications, stating briefly some discovery he had made,

or some observation which he thought necessary to record. He had been

asked now and again to make reports to the Foreign Office upon matters

pertaining to the countries he knew; and Lucy had heard his perspicacity

praised in no measured terms by those in power.

She put together such facts as she knew of his career.

Alec MacKenzie was a man of considerable means. He belonged to an old

Scotch family, and had a fine place in the Highlands, but his income

depended chiefly upon a colliery in Lancashire. His parents died during

his childhood, and his wealth was much increased by a long minority.

Having inherited from an uncle a ranch in the West, his desire to see

this occasioned his first voyage from England in the interval between

leaving Eton and going up to Oxford; and it was then he made

acquaintance with Richard Lomas, who had remained his most intimate

friend. The unlikeness of the two men caused perhaps the strength of

the tie between them, the strenuous vehemence of the one finding a

relief in the gaiety of the other. Soon after leaving Oxford, MacKenzie

made a brief expedition into Algeria to shoot, and the mystery of the

great continent seized him. As sometimes a man comes upon a new place

which seems extraordinarily familiar, so that he is almost convinced

that in a past state he has known it intimately, Alec suddenly found

himself at home in the immense distances of Africa. He felt a singular

exhilaration when the desert was spread out before his eyes, and

capacities which he had not suspected in himself awoke in him. He had

never thought himself an ambitious man, but ambition seized him. He had

never imagined himself subject to poetic emotion, but all at once a

feeling of the poetry of an adventurous life welled up within him. And

though he had looked upon romance with the scorn of his Scottish common

sense, an irresistible desire of the romantic surged upon him, like the

waves of some unknown, mystical sea.

When he returned to England a peculiar restlessness took hold of him. He

was indifferent to the magnificence of the bag, which was the pride of

his companions. He felt himself cribbed and confined. He could not

breathe the air of cities.

He began to read the marvellous records of African exploration, and his

blood tingled at the magic of those pages. Mungo Park, a Scot like

himself, had started the roll. His aim had been to find the source and

trace the seaward course of the Niger. He took his life in his hands,

facing boldly the perils of climate, savage pagans, and jealous

Mohammedans, and discovered the upper portions of that great river. On a

second expedition he undertook to follow it to the sea. Of his party

some died of disease, and some were slain by the natives. Not one

returned; and the only trace of Mungo Park was a book, known to have

been in his possession, found by British explorers in the hut of a

native chief.

Then Alec MacKenzie read of the efforts to reach Timbuktu, which was the

great object of ambition to the explorers of the nineteenth century. It

exercised the same fascination over their minds as did El Dorado, with

its golden city of Monoa, to the adventurers in the days of Queen

Elizabeth. It was thought to be the capital of a powerful and wealthy

state; and those ardent minds promised themselves all kinds of wonders

when they should at last come upon it. But it was not the desire for

gold that urged them on, rather an irresistible curiosity, and a pride

in their own courage. One after another desperate attempts were made,

and it was reached at last by another Scot, Alexander Gordon Laing. And

his success was a symbol of all earthly endeavours, for the golden city

of his dreams was no more than a poverty-stricken village.

One by one Alec studied the careers of these great men; and he saw that

the best of them had not gone with half an army at their backs, but

almost alone, sometimes with not a single companion, and had depended

for their success not upon the strength of their arms, but upon the

strength of their character. Major Durham, an old Peninsular officer,

was the first European to cross the Sahara. Captain Clapperton, with his

servant, Richard Lander, was the first who traversed Africa from the

Mediterranean to the Guinea Coast. And he died at his journey's end. And

there was something fine in the devotion of Richard Lander, the

faithful servant, who went on with his master's work and cleared up at

last the great mystery of the Niger. And he, too, had no sooner done his

work than he died, near the mouth of the river he had so long travelled

on, of wounds inflicted by the natives. There was not one of those early

voyagers who escaped with his life. It was the work of desperate men

that they undertook, but there was no recklessness in them. They counted

the cost and took the risk; the fascination of the unknown was too great

for them, and they reckoned death as nothing if they could accomplish

that on which they had set out.

Two men above all attracted Alec Mackenzie's interest. One was Richard

Burton, that mighty, enigmatic man, more admirable for what he was than

for what he did; and the other was Livingstone, the greatest of African

explorers. There was something very touching in the character of that

gentle Scot. MacKenzie's enthusiasm was seldom very strong, but here was

a man whom he would willingly have known; and he was strangely affected

by the thought of his lonely death, and his grave in the midst of the

Dark Continent he loved so well. On that, too, might have been written

the epitaph which is on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren.

Finally he studied the works of Henry M. Stanley. Here the man excited

neither admiration nor affection, but a cold respect. No one could help

recognising the greatness of his powers. He was a man of Napoleonic

instinct, who suited his means to his end, and ruthlessly fought his way

until he had achieved it. His books were full of interest, and they were

practical. From them much could be learned, and Alec studied them with

a thoroughness which was in his nature.

When he arose from this long perusal, his mind was made up. He had found

his vocation.

He did not disclose his plans to any of his friends till they were

mature, and meanwhile set about seeing the people who could give him

information. At last he sailed for Zanzibar, and started on a journey

which was to try his powers. In a month he fell ill, and it was thought

at the mission to which his bearers brought him that he could not live.

For ten weeks he was at death's door, but he would not give in to the

enemy. He insisted in the end on being taken back to the coast, and

here, as if by a personal effort of will, he recovered. The season had

passed for his expedition, and he was obliged to return to England. Most

men would have been utterly discouraged, but Alec was only strengthened

in his determination. He personified in a way that deadly climate and

would not allow himself to be beaten by it. His short experience had

shown him what he needed, and as soon as he was back in England he

proceeded to acquire a smattering of medical knowledge, and some

acquaintance with the sciences which were wanted by a traveller. He had

immense powers of concentration, and in a year of tremendous labour

acquired a working knowledge of botany and geology, and the elements of

surveying; he learnt how to treat the maladies which were likely to

attack people in tropical districts, and enough surgery to set a broken

limb or to conduct a simple operation. He felt himself ready now for a

considerable undertaking; but this time he meant to start from

Mombassa.

So far Lucy was able to go, partly from her own imaginings, and partly

from what Dick had told her. He had given her the proceedings of the

Royal Geographical Society, and here she found Alec MacKenzie's account

of his wanderings during the five years that followed. The countries

which he explored then, became afterwards British East Africa.

But the bell rang for dinner, and so interrupted her meditations.