"The devil is in the whole business;"--I said bitterly--"If women were
good, men would have nothing to do with them. Look round you at what is
called 'society'! How many men there are who deliberately choose tainted
women for their wives, and leave the innocent uncared for! Take Mavis
Clare----"
"Oh, you were thinking of Mavis Clare, were you?" he rejoined, with a
quick glance at me--"But she would be a difficult prize for any man to
win. She does not seek to be married,--and she is not uncared for, since
the whole world cares for her."
"That is a sort of impersonal love;"--I answered--"It does not give her
the protection such a woman needs, and ought to obtain."
"Do you want to become her lover?" he asked with a slight smile--"I'm
afraid you've no chance!"
"I! Her lover! Good God!" I exclaimed, the blood rushing hotly to my
face at the mere suggestion--"What a profane idea!"
"You are right,--it _is_ profane;"--he agreed, still smiling--"It is as
though I should propose your stealing the sacramental cup from a church,
with just this difference,--you might succeed in running off with the
cup because it is only the church's property, but you would never
succeed in winning Mavis Clare, inasmuch as she belongs to God. You know
what Milton says:
'So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacquey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things which no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th'outward shape
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence
Till all be made immortal!'
He quoted the lines softly and with an exquisite gravity.
"That is what you see in Mavis Clare,"--he continued--"that 'beam on the
outward shape' which 'turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,'--and
which makes her beautiful, without what is called beauty by lustful
men."
I moved impatiently, and looked out from the window near which we were
seated, at the yellow width of the flowing Thames below.
"Beauty, according to man's ordinary standard," pursued Lucio, "means
simply good flesh,--nothing more. Flesh, arranged prettily and roundly
on the always ugly skeleton beneath,--flesh, daintily coloured and soft
to the touch, without scar or blemish. Plenty of it too, disposed in the
proper places. It is the most perishable sort of commodity,--an illness
spoils it,--a trying climate ruins it,--age wrinkles it,--death destroys
it,--but it is all the majority of men look for in their bargains with
the fair sex. The most utter _roué_ of sixty that ever trotted jauntily
down Piccadilly pretending to be thirty, expects like Shylock his
'pound' or several pounds of youthful flesh. The desire is neither
refined nor intellectual, but there it is,--and it is solely on this
account that the 'ladies' of the music-hall become the tainted members
and future mothers of the aristocracy."
"It does not need the ladies of the music-hall to taint the already
tainted!" I said.
"True!" and he looked at me with kindly commiseration--"Let us put the
whole mischief down to the 'new' fiction!"
We rose then, having finished luncheon, and leaving the Savoy we went on
to Arthur's. Here we sat down in a quiet corner and began to talk of our
future plans. It took me very little time to make up my mind,--all
quarters of the world were the same to me, and I was really indifferent
as to where I went. Yet there is always something suggestive and
fascinating about the idea of a first visit to Egypt, and I willingly
agreed to accompany Lucio thither, and remain the winter.
"We will avoid society"--he said--"The well-bred, well-educated
'swagger' people who throw champagne-bottles at the Sphinx, and think a
donkey-race 'ripping fun' shall not have the honour of our company.
Cairo is full of such dancing dolls, so we will not stay there. Old Nile
has many attractions; and lazy luxury on a dahabeah will soothe your
overwrought nerves. I suggest our leaving England within a week."
I consented,--and while he went over to a table and wrote some letters
in preparation for our journey, I looked through the day's papers. There
was nothing to read in them,--for though all the world's news palpitates
into Great Britain on obediently throbbing electric wires, each editor
of each little pennyworth, being jealous of every other editor of every
other pennyworth, only admits into his columns exactly what suits his
politics or personally pleases his taste, and the interests of the
public at large are scarcely considered. Poor, bamboozled, patient
public!--no wonder it is beginning to think that a halfpenny spent on a
newspaper which is only purchased to be thrown away, enough and more
than enough. I was still glancing up and down the tedious columns of the
Americanized Pall Mall Gazette, and Lucio was still writing, when a
page-boy entered with a telegram.
"Mr Tempest?"
"Yes." And I snatched the yellow-covered missive and tore it open,--and
read the few words it contained almost uncomprehendingly. They ran
thus--
"Return at once. Something alarming has happened. Afraid to act
without you. Mavis Clare."
A curious chill came over me,--the telegram fell from my hands on the
table. Lucio took it up and glanced at it. Then, regarding me
stedfastly, he said--
"Of course you must go. You can catch the four-forty train if you take a
hansom."
"And you?" I muttered. My throat was dry and I could scarcely speak.
"I'll stay at the Grand, and wait for news. Don't delay a moment,--Miss
Clare would not have taken it upon herself to send this message, unless
there had been serious cause."
"What do you think--what do you suppose----" I began.
He stopped me by a slight imperative gesture.
"I think nothing--I suppose nothing. I only urge you to start
immediately. Come!"
And almost before I realized it, he had taken me with him out into the
hall of the club, where he helped me on with my coat, gave me my hat,
and sent for a cab to take me to the railway station. We scarcely
exchanged farewells,--stupefied with the suddenness of the unexpected
summons back to the home I had left in the morning, as I thought, for
ever, I hardly knew what I was doing or where I was going, till I found
myself alone in the train, returning to Warwickshire as fast as steam
would bear me, with the gloom of the deepening dusk around me, and such
a fear and horror at my heart as I dared not think of or define. What
was the 'something alarming' that had happened? How was it that Mavis
Clare had telegraphed to me? These, and endless other questions
tormented my brain,--and I was afraid to suggest answers to any of them.
When I arrived at the familiar station, there was no one waiting to
receive me, so I hired a fly, and was driven up to my own house just as
the short evening deepened into night. A low autumnal wind was sighing
restlessly among the trees like a wandering soul in torment; not a star
shone in the black depths of the sky. Directly the carriage stopped, a
slim figure in white came out under the porch to meet me,--it was Mavis,
her angel's face grave and pale with emotion.
"It is you at last!" she said in a trembling voice----"Thank God you
have come!"
[3] _Edmond Rostand._ '_La Princesse Lointaine._'