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"I have abandoned the examination, and all thought of the Civil Service. If I invented reasons for this, you would not believe them, and you would think ill of me. The best way is to tell you the plain truth, and run the risk of being thought a simpleton, or something worse. I have been in great trouble, have gone through a bad time. Some weeks ago there came to stay here a girl of eighteen or nineteen, the daughter of Dr. Lowndes Derwent (whose name perhaps you know). She is very beautiful, and I was unlucky enough--if I ought to use such a phrase--to fall in love with her. I won't try to explain what this meant to me; you wouldn't have patience to read it; but it stopped my studies, utterly overthrew my work. I was all but ill; I suffered horribly. It was my first such experience; I hope it may be the last--in that form. Indeed, I believe it will, for I can't imagine that I shall ever feel towards anyone else in the same way, and--you will smile, no doubt--I have a conviction that Irene Derwent will remain my ideal as long as I live."

Enough of that. It being quite clear to me that I simply could not go in for the examination, I hit upon another scheme; one, it seemed to me, which might not altogether displease you. I went to see Mr. Tadworth, and told him that I had decided to go back into business; could he, I asked, think of giving me a place in their office at Odessa? If necessary, I would work without salary till I had thoroughly learned Russian, and could substantially serve them. Well, Mr. Tadworth was very kind, and, after a little questioning, promised to send me out to Odessa in some capacity or other, still to be determined. I am to go in about ten days.

"This, father, is my final decision. I shall give myself to the business, heartily and energetically. I think there is no harm in telling you that I hope to make money. If I do so, it will be done, I think, honourably, as the result of hard work. I had better not see you; I should be ashamed. But I beg you will write to me soon. I hope I shall not have overtried your patience. Bear with me, if you can, and give me the encouragement I value."

Jerome pondered long. He looked anything but displeased: there was tenderness in his smile, and sympathy; something, too, of pride. Very much against his usual practice, he wrote a reply the same day.

"So be it, my dear lad! I have no fault to find, no criticism to offer. Your letter is an honest one, and it has much moved me. Let me just say this: you rightly doubt whether you should call yourself unlucky. If, as I can imagine, the daughter of Dr. Derwent is a girl worth your homage, nothing better could have befallen you than this discovery of your 'ideal.' Whether you will be faithful to be faithful to it, the gods alone know. If you _can_ be, even for a few years of youth, so much the happier and nobler your lot!

"Work at money-making, then. And, as I catch a glimmer of your meaning in this resolve, I will tell you something for your comfort. If you hold on at commerce, and verily make way, and otherwise approve yourself what I think you, I promise that you shall not lack advancement. Plainly, I have a little matter of money put by, for sundry uses; and, if the day comes when something of capital would stead you (after due trial, as I premise), it shall be at your disposal.

"Write to me with a free heart. I have lived my life; perchance I can help you to live yours better. The will, assuredly, is not wanting.

"Courage, then! Pursue your purpose--

'Con l'animo che vince ogni battaglia, Se col suo grave corpo non s'accascia.'

"And, believe me that you could have no better intimate for leisure hours than the old Florentine, who knew so many things; among them, your own particular complaint."

CHAPTER X

Clad for a long railway journey on a hot day; a grey figure of fluent lines, of composedly decisive movements; a little felt hat close-fitting to the spirited head, leaving full and frank the soft rounded face, with its quietly observant eyes, its lips of contained humour--Irene Derwent stepped from a cab at Euston Station and went forward into the booking-office. From the box-seat of the same vehicle descended a brisk, cheerful little man, looking rather like a courier than an ordinary servant, who paid the cabman, saw to the luggage, and, at a respectful distance, followed Miss Derwent along the platform; it was Thibaut Rossignol.

Grey-clad also, with air no less calm and sufficient, a gentleman carrying newspapers in Britannic abundance moved towards the train which was about to start. Surveying for a moment, with distant curiosity, the travellers about him, his eye fell upon that maiden of the sunny countenance just as she was entering a carriage; he stopped, insensibly drew himself together, subdued a smile, and advanced for recognition.

"I am going to Liverpool, Miss Derwent. May I have the pleasure----?"

"If you will promise not to talk politics, Mr. Jacks."

"I can't promise that. I want to talk politics."

"From here to Crewe?"

"As far as Rugby, let us say. After that--morphology, or some other of your light topics."

It seemed possible that they might have the compartment to themselves, for it was mid-August, and the tumult of northward migration had ceased. Arnold Jacks, had he known a moment sooner, would have settled it with the guard. He looked forbiddingly at a man who approached; who, in his turn, stared haughtily and turned away.

Irene beckoned to Thibaut, and from the window gave him a trivial message for her father, speaking in French; Thibaut, happy to serve her, put a world of chivalrous respect into his "Bien, Mademoiselle!" Arnold Jacks averted his face and smiled. Was she girlish enough, then, to find pleasure in speaking French before him? A charming trait!

The train started, and Mr. Jacks began to talk. It was not the first time that they had merrily skirmished on political and other grounds; they amused each other, and, as it seemed, in a perfectly harmless way; the English way of mirth between man and maid, candid, inallusive, without self-consciousness. Arnold made the most of his thirty years, spoke with a tone something paternal. He was wholly sure of himself, knew so well his own mind, his scheme of existence, that Irene's beauty and her charm were nothing more to him than an aesthetic perception. That she should feel an interest in him, a little awe of him, was to be hoped and enjoyed: he had not the least thought of engaging deeper emotion--would, indeed, have held himself reprobate had such purpose entered his head. Nor is it natural to an Englishman of this type to imagine that girls may fall in love with him. Love has such a restricted place in their lives, is so consistently kept out of sight in their familiar converse. They do not entirely believe in it; it ill accords with their practical philosophy. Marriage--that is another thing. The approaches to wedlock are a subject of honourable convention, not to be confused with the trivialities of romance.

"I'm going down to Liverpool," he said, presently, "to meet Trafford Romaine."

It gratified him to see the gleam in Miss Derwent's eyes the' announcement had its hoped-for effect. Trafford Romaine, the Atlas of our Colonial world; the much-debated, the universally interesting champion of Greater British interests! She knew, of course, that Arnold Jacks was his friend; no one could talk with Mr. Jacks for half an hour without learning that; but the off-hand mention of their being about to meet this very day had an impressiveness for Irene.

"I saw that he was coming to England."

"From the States--yes. He has been over there on a holiday--merely a holiday. Of course, the papers have tried to find a meaning in it. That kind of thing amuses him vastly. He says in his last letter to me----"

Carelessly, the letter was drawn from an inner pocket. Only a page and a half; Arnold read it out. A bluff and rather slangy epistolary style.

"May I see his hand?" asked Irene, trying to make fun of her wish.

He gave her the letter, and watched her amusedly as she gazed at the first page. On receiving it back again, he took his penknife, carefully cut out the great man's signature, and offered it for Irene's acceptance.

"Thank you. But you know, of course, that I regard it as a mere curiosity."

"Oh, yes! Why not? So do I the theory of Evolution."

By a leading question or two, Miss Derwent set her companion talking at large of Trafford Romaine, his views and policies. The greatest man in the Empire! he declared. The only man, in fact, who held the true Imperial conception, and had genius to inspire multitudes with his own zeal. Arnold's fervour of admiration betrayed him into no excessive vivacity, no exuberance in phrase or unusual gesture such as could conflict with "good form"; he talked like the typical public schoolboy, with a veneering of wisdom current in circles of higher officialdom. Enthusiasm was never the term for his state of mind; instinctively he shrank from that, as a thing Gallic, "foreign." But the spirit of practical determination could go no further. He followed Trafford Romaine as at school he had given allegiance to his cricket captain; impossible to detect a hint that he felt the life of peoples in any way more serious than the sports of his boyhood, yet equally impossible to perceive how he could have been more profoundly in earnest. This made the attractiveness of the man; he compelled confidence; it was felt that he never exaggerated in the suggestion of force concealed beneath his careless, mirthful manner. Irene, in spite of her humorous observation, hung upon his speech. Involuntarily, she glanced at his delicate complexion, at the whiteness and softness of his ungloved hand, and felt in a subtle way this combination of the physically fine with the morally hard, trenchant, tenacious. Close your eyes, and Arnold Jacks was a high-bred bulldog endowed with speech; not otherwise would a game animal of that species, advanced to a world-polity, utter his convictions.

"You take for granted," she remarked, "that our race is the finest fruit of civilisation."

"Certainly. Don't you?"

"It's having a pretty good conceit of ourselves. Is every foreigner who contests it a poor deluded creature? Take the best type of Frenchman, for instance. Is he necessarily fatuous in his criticism of us?"

"Why, of course he is. He doesn't understand us. He doesn't understand the world. He has his place, to be sure, but that isn't in international politics. We are the political people; we are the ultimate rulers. Our language----"

"There's a quotation from Virgil----"

"I know. We are very like the Romans. But there are no new races to overthrow us."

He began to sketch the future extension of Britannic lordship and influence. Kingdoms were overthrown with a joke, continents were annexed in a boyish phrase; Armageddon transacted itself in sheer lightness of heart. Laughing, he waded through the blood of nations, and in the end seated himself with crossed legs upon the throne of the universe.

"Do you know what it makes me wish?" said Irene, looking wicked.

"That you may live to see it?"

"No. That someone would give us a good licking, for the benefit of our souls."

Having spoken it, she was ashamed, and her lip quivered a little. But the train had slackened speed; they entered a station.

"Rugby!" she exclaimed, with relief. "Have you any views about treatment of the phylloxera?"

"Odd that you should mention that. Why?"

"Only because my father has been thinking about it: we have a friend from Avignon staying with us--all but ruined in his vineyards."

Jacks had again taken out his letter-case. He selected a folded sheet of paper, and showed what looked like a dry blade of grass. The wheat, he said, on certain farms in his Company's territory had begun to suffer from a strange disease; here was an example of the parasite-eaten growth; no one yet had recognised the disease or discovered a check for it.

"Let my father have it," said Irene. "He is interested in all that kind of thing."

"Really? Seriously?"

"Quite seriously. He would much like to see it."

"Then I will either call on him, or write to him, when I get back."

Miss Derwent had not yet spoken of her destination. She mentioned, now, that she was going to spend a week or two with relations at a country place in Cheshire. She must change trains at Crewe. This gave a lighter turn to the conversation. Arnold Jacks launched into frank gaiety, and Irene met him with spirit. Not a little remarkable was the absence of the note of sex from their merry gossip in the narrow seclusion of a little railway compartment. Irene was as safe with this world-conquering young man as with her own brother; would have been so, probably, on a desert island. They were not man and woman, but English gentleman and lady, and, from one point of view, very brilliant specimens of their kind.

At Crewe both alighted, Arnold to stretch his legs for a moment.

"By the bye," he said, as Miss Derwent, having seen to her luggage, was bidding him farewell, "I'm sorry to hear that young Otway has been very ill."

"Ill?--I had no knowledge of it. In Russia?"

"Yes. My father was speaking of it yesterday. He had heard it from his friend, old Mr. Otway. A fever of some kind. He's all right again, I believe."

"We have heard nothing of it. There's your whistle. Good-bye!"

Jacks leapt into his train, waved a hand from the window, and was whirled away.

For the rest of her journey, Irene seemed occupied with an alternation of grave and amusing thoughts. At moments she looked seriously troubled. This passed, and the arrival found her bright as ever; the pink of modern maidenhood, fancy free.

The relatives she was visiting were two elderly ladies, cousins of her mother; representatives of a family native to this locality for hundreds of years. One of the two had been married, but husband and child were long since dead; the other, devoted to sisterly affection, had shared in the brief happiness of the wife and remained the solace of the widow's latter years. They were in circumstances of simple security, living as honoured gentlewomen, without display as without embarrassment; fulfilling cheerfully the natural duties of their position, but seeking no influence beyond the homely limits; their life a humanising example, a centre of charity and peace. The house they dwelt in came to them from their yeoman ancestors of long ago; it was held on a lease of one thousand years from near the end of the sixteenth century, "at a quit-rent of one shilling," and certain pieces of furniture still in use were contemporary with the beginning of the tenure. No corner of England more safely rural; beyond sound of railway whistle, bosomed in great old elms, amid wide meadows and generous tillage; sloping westward to the river Dee, and from its soft green hills descrying the mountains of Wales.

Here in the old churchyard lay Irene's mother. She died in London, but Dr. Derwent wished her to rest by the home of her childhood, where Irene, too, as a little maid, had spent many a summer holiday. Over the grave stood a simple slab of marble, white as the soul of her it commemorated, graven thereon a name, parentage, dates of birth and death--no more. Irene's father cared not to tell the world how that bereavement left him.

Round about were many kindred tombs, the most noticeable that of Mrs. Derwent's grandfather, a ripe old scholar, who rested from his mellow meditations just before the century began.

"GULIELMI W---- Pii, docti, integri, Reliquiae seu potius exuviae."

It was the first Latin Irene learnt, and its quaint phrasing to this day influenced her thoughts of mortality. Standing by her mother's grave, she often repeated to herself "_seu potius exuviae_," and wondered whether her father's faith in science excluded the hope of that old-world reasoning. She would not have dared to ask him, for all the frank tenderness of their companionship. On that subject Dr. Derwent had no word to say, no hint to let fall. She knew only that, in speaking of her they had lost, his voice would still falter; she knew that he always came into this churchyard alone, and was silent, troubled, for hours after the visit. Instinctively, too, she understood that, though her father might almost be called a young man, and had abounding vitality, no second wife would ever obscure to him that sacred memory. It was one of the many grounds she had for admiring as much as she loved him. His loyalty stirred her heart, coloured her view of life.

The ladies had some little apprehension that their young relative, fresh from contact with a many-sided world, might feel a dulness in their life and their interests; but nothing of the sort entered Irene's mind. She was intelligent enough to appreciate the superiority of these quiet sisters to all but the very best of the acquaintances she had made in London or abroad, and modest enough to see in their entire refinement a correction of the excessive _sans-gene_ to which society tempted her. They were behind the times only in the sense of escaping, by seclusion, those modern tendencies which vulgarise. An excellent library of their own supplied them with the essentials of culture, and one or two periodicals kept them acquainted with all that was worth knowing in the activity of the day. They belonged to the very small class of persons who still read, who have mind and leisure to find companionship in books. Their knowledge of languages passed the common; in earlier years they had travelled, and their reminiscences fostered the liberality which was the natural tone of their minds. To converse familiarly with them was to discover their grasp of historical principles, their insight into philosophic systems, their large apprehension of world-problems. At the same time, they nurtured jealously their intellectual preferences, differing on such points from each other as they did from the common world. One of them would betray an intimate knowledge of some French or Italian poet scarce known by name to ordinary educated people; something in him had appealed to her mind at a certain time, and her memory held him in gratitude. The other would be found to have informed herself exhaustively concerning the history of some neglected people, dear to her for some subtle reason of affinity or association. But in their table-talk appeared no pedantry; things merely human were as interesting to them as to the babbler of any drawing-room, and their inexhaustible kindliness sweetened every word they spoke.

Nothing more salutary for Irene Derwent than this sojourn with persons whom she in every way respected--with whom there was not the least temptation to exhibit her mere dexterities. In London, during this past season, she had sometimes talked as a young, clever and admired girl is prone to do; always to the mockery of her sager self when looking back on such easy triumphs. How very easy it was to shine in London drawing-rooms, no one knew better. Here, in the country stillness, in this beautiful old house sacred to sincerity of heart and mind, to aim at "smartness" would indeed have been to condemn oneself. Instead of phrasing, she was content, as became her years, to listen; she enjoyed the feeling of natural youthfulness, of spontaneity without misgiving. The things of life and intellect appeared in their true proportions; she saw the virtue of repose.

When she had been here a day or two, the conversation chanced to take a turn which led to her showing the autograph of Trafford Romaine; she said merely that a friend had given it to her.

"An interesting man, I should think," remarked the elder of the two sisters, without emphasis.

"An Englishman of a new type, wouldn't you say?" fell from the other.

"So far as I understand him. Or perhaps of an old type under new conditions."

Irene, paying close attention, was not sure that she understood all that these words implied.

"He is immensely admired by some of our friends," she said with restraint. "They compare him to the fighting heroes of our history."

"Indeed?" rejoined the elder lady. "But the question is: Are those the qualities that we want nowadays? I admire Sir Walter Raleigh, but I should be sorry to see him, just as he was, playing an active part in our time."

"They say," ventured Irene, with a smile, "that but for such men, we may really become a mere nation of shopkeepers."

"Do they? But may we not fear that their ideal is simply a shopkeeper ready to shoot anyone who rivals him in trade? The finer qualities I admit; but one distrusts the objects they serve."

"We are told," said Irene, "that England _must_ expand."

"Probably. But the mere necessity of the case must not become our law. It won't do for a great people to say, 'Make room for us, and we promise to set you a fine example of civilisation; refuse to make room, and we'll blow your brains out!' One doubts the quality of the civilisation promised."

Irene laughed, delighted with the vigour underlying the old lady's calm and gentle habit of speech. Yet she was not convinced, though she wished to be. A good many times she had heard in thought the suavely virile utterances of Arnold Jacks; his voice had something that pleased her, and his way of looking at things touched her imagination. She wished these ladies knew Arnold Jacks, that she might ask their opinion of him.

And yet, she felt she would rather not have asked it.

CHAPTER XI

From this retreat, Irene wrote to her cousin Olga Hannaford, and in the course of the letter made inquiry whether anything was known at Ewell about a severe illness that had befallen young Mr. Otway. Olga replied that she had heard of no such event; that they had received no news at all of Mr. Otway since his leaving England. This did not allay an uneasiness which, in various forms, had troubled Irene ever since she heard that her studious acquaintance had abandoned his ambitions and gone back to commerce. A few weeks more elapsed, and--being now in Scotland--she received a confirmation of what Arnold Jacks had reported. Immediately on reaching Odessa, Piers Otway had fallen ill, and for a time was in danger. Irene mused. She would have preferred not to think of Otway at all, but often did so, and could not help it. A certain reproach of conscience connected itself with his name. But as time went on, and it appeared that the young man was settled to his mercantile career in Russia, she succeeded in dismissing him from her mind.

For the next three years she lived with her father in London; a life pretty evenly divided between studies and the amusements of her world.

Dr. Derwent pursued his quiet activity. In a certain sphere he had reputation; the world at large knew little or nothing of him. All he aimed at was the diminution of human suffering; whether men thanked him for his life's labour did not seem to him a point worth considering. He knew that only his scientific brethren could gauge the advance in knowledge, and consequent power over disease, due to his patient toil; it was a question of minute discoveries, of investigations unintelligible to the layman. Some of his colleagues held that he foolishly restricted himself in declining to experimentalise _in corpore vili_, whenever such experiments were attended with pain; he was spoken of in some quarters as a "sentimentalist," a man who might go far but for his "fads." One great pathologist held that the whole idea of pursuing science for mitigation of human ills was nothing but a sentimentality and a fad. A debate between this personage and Dr. Derwent was brought to a close by the latter's inextinguishable mirth. He was, indeed, a man who laughed heartily, and laughter often served him where another would have waxed choleric.

"Only a dog!" he exclaimed once to Irene, apropos of this subject, and being in his graver mood. "Why, what assurance have I that any given man is of more importance to the world than any given dog? How can I know what is important and what is not, when it comes to the ultimate mystery of life? Create me a dog--just a poor little mongrel puppy--and you shall torture him; then, and not till then. And in that event I reserve my opinion of the----" He checked himself on the point of a remark which seemed of too wide bearing for the girl's ears. But Irene supplied the hiatus for herself, as she was beginning to do pretty often when listening to her father.

Dr. Derwent was, in a sense, a self-made man; in youth he had gone through a hard struggle, and but for his academic successes he could not have completed the course of medical training. Twenty years of very successful practice had made him independent, and a mechanical invention--which he had patented--an ingenuity of which he thought nothing till some friend insisted on its value--raised his independence to moderate wealth. For his children's sake he was glad of this comfort; like every educated man who has known poverty at the outset of life, he feared it more than he cared to say.

His wife had brought him nothing--save her beauty and her noble heart. She wedded him when it was still doubtful whether he would hold his own in the fierce fight for a living; she died before the days of his victory. Now and then, a friend who heard him speak of his wife's family smiled with the thought that he only just escaped being something of a snob. Which merely signified that a man of science attached value to descent. Dr. Derwent knew the properties of such blood as ran in his wife's veins, and it rejoiced him to mark the characteristics which Irene inherited from her mother.

He often suffered anxiety on behalf of his sister, Mrs. Hannaford, whom he knew to be pinched in circumstances, but whom it was impossible to help. Lee Hannaford he disliked and distrusted; the men were poles apart in character and purpose. The family had now left Ewell, and lived in a poor house in London. Olga was trying to earn money by her drawing, not, it seemed, with much success. Hannaford was always said to be on the point of selling some explosive invention to the British Government, whence would result a fortune; but the Government had not yet come to terms.

"What a shame it is," quoth Dr. Derwent, "that an honest man who facilitates murder on so great a scale should be kept waiting for his reward!"

Hannaford pursued his slight acquaintance with Arnold Jacks, who, in ignorance of any relationship, once spoke of him to Miss Derwent.

"An ingenious fellow. I should like to make some use of him, but I don't quite know how."

"I am sorry to say he belongs by marriage to our family," replied Irene.

"Indeed? Why sorry?"

"I detest his character. He is neither a gentleman, nor anything else that one can respect."

It closed a conversation in which they had differed more sharply than usual, with--on Irene's part--something less than the wonted gaiety of humour. They did not see each other very often, but always seemed glad to meet, and always talked in a tone of peculiar intimacy, as if conscious of mutual understanding. Yet no two acquaintances could have been in greater doubt as to each other's mind and character. Irene was often mentally occupied with Mr. Jacks, and one of the questions she found most uncertain was whether he in turn ever thought of her with like interest. Now she seemed to have proof that he sought an opportunity of meeting; now, again, he appeared to have forgotten her existence. He interested her in his personality, he interested her in his work. She would have liked to speak of him with her father; but Dr. Derwent never broached the subject, and she could not herself lead up to it. Whenever she saw his name in the paper--where it often stood in reports of public festivities or in items of social news--her eye dwelt upon it, and her fancy was stirred. Curiosity, perhaps, had the greater part in her feeling. Arnold Jacks seemed to live so "largely," in contact with such great affairs and such eminent people. One day, at length, a little paragraph in an evening journal announced that he was engaged to be married, and to a lady much in the light, the widowed daughter of a Conservative statesman. It was only an hour or two after reading this news that Irene met him at dinner, and spoke with him of Hannaford; neither to Arnold himself nor to anyone else did she allude to the rumoured engagement; but that night she was not herself.

About lunch time on the next day she received a note from Jacks. His attention had been drawn--he wrote--to an absurd bit of gossip connecting his name with that of a lady whose friend he was, and absolutely nothing more. Would Miss Derwent, if occasion arose, do him the kindness to contradict this story in her circle? He would be greatly obliged to her.

Irene was something more than surprised. It struck her as odd that Arnold Jacks should request her services in such a matter as this. In an obscure way she half resented the brief, off-hand missive. And she paid no further attention to it.

A month later, she, her father and brother, were on their way to Switzerland. Stepping into the boat at Dover, she saw in front of her Arnold Jacks. It was a perfectly smooth passage, and they talked all the way; for part of the time, alone.

"I think," said Arnold, at the first opportunity, looking her in the face, "you never replied to a letter of mine last month about a certain private affair?"

"A letter? Oh, yes. I didn't think it required an answer."

"Don't you generally answer letters from your friends?"

Irene, in turn, gave him a steady look.

"Generally, yes. But not when I have the choice between silence and being disagreeable."

"You were both silent _and_ disagreeable," said Arnold, smiling. "Do you mind being disagreeable again, and telling me what your answer would have been?"

"Simply that I never, if I can help it, talk about weddings and rumours of weddings, and that I couldn't make an exception in your case."

Arnold laughed in the old way.

"A most original rule, Miss Derwent, and admirable. If all kept to it I shouldn't have been annoyed by that silly chatter. It occurs to me that I perhaps ought not to have sent you that note. I did it in a moment of irritation--wanting to have the stupid thing contradicted right and left, as fast as possible. I won't do it again."

They were on excellent terms once more. Irene felt a singular pleasure in his having apologised; it was one of the very rare occasions of his yielding to her on any point whatever. Never had she felt so kindly disposed to him.

Arnold was going to Paris, and on business; he hinted at something pending between his Company and a French Syndicate.

"You are a sort of informal diplomatist," said Irene, her interest keen.

"Now and then, yes. And"--he added with the frankness which was one of his more amiable points--"I rather like it."

"One sees that you do. Better, I suppose, than the thought of going into Parliament."

"That may come some day," he answered, glancing at a gull that hovered above the ship. "Not whilst my father sits there."

"You would be on different sides, I suppose."

Arnold smiled, and went on to say that he was uneasy about his father's health. John Jacks had fallen of late into a habit of worry about things great and small, as though age were suddenly telling upon him. He fretted over public affairs; he suffered from the death of old friends, especially that of John Bright, whom he had held in affectionate regard for a lifetime. Irene was glad to hear this expression of anxiety. For it sometimes seemed to her that Arnold Jacks had little, if any, domestic feeling.

She wished they could have travelled further together. Their talks were always broken off too soon, just when she began to get a glimpse of characteristics still unknown to her. On the journey she thought constantly of him; not with any sort of tender emotion, but with much curiosity. It would have gratified her to know what degree of truth there was in that rumour of his engagement a month ago; some, undoubtedly, for she had noticed a peculiar smile on the faces of persons who alluded to it. His apparent coldness towards women in general might be natural, or might conceal mysteries. So difficult a man to know! And so impossible to decide whether he was really worth knowing!

Among intimates of her own sex Irene had a reputation for a certain chaste severity becoming at moments all but prudery. It did not altogether harmonise with the tone of highly taught young women who rather prided themselves on freedom of thought, and to some extent of utterance. Singular in one so far from cold-blooded, so abounding in vitality. Towards men, her attitude seemed purely intellectual; no one had ever so much as suspected a warmer interest. A hint of things forbidden with regard to any male acquaintance caused her to turn away, silent, austere. That such things not seldom came to her hearing was a motive of troubled reflection, common enough in all intelligent girls who live in touch with the wider world. Men puzzled her, and Irene did not like to be puzzled. As free from unwholesome inquisitiveness as a girl can possibly be, she often wished to know, once for all, whatever was to be learnt about the concealed life of men; to know it and to have done with it; to settle her mind on that point, as on any other that affected the life of a reasonable being. Yet she shrank from all such enquiry, with a sense of womanly pride, doing her best to believe that there was no concealment in the case of any man with whom she could have friendly relations. She scorned the female cynic; she disliked the carelessly liberal in moral judgment. Profoundly mysterious to her was everything covered by the word "passion"--a word she detested.

Her way of seeing life on the amusing side aided, of course, her maidenly severity against trouble of sense and sentiment. This she had from her father, a man of quips and jokes on the surface of his seriousness. As she grew older, it threatened a decline of intimacy between her and her cousin Olga, who, never naturally buoyant, was becoming so cheerless, so turbid of temper, that Irene found it difficult to talk with her for long together. Domestic miseries might greatly account for the girl's mood, but Irene had insight enough to perceive that this was not all. And she felt uncomfortably helpless. To jest seemed unfeeling; sympathy of the sentimental sort she could not give. She feared that Olga was beginning to shrink from her.

Since the Hannaford's removal to London, they had not been able to see much of each other. Irene understood that she was not very welcome in the little house at Hammersmith, even before her aunt wrote to ask her not to come. Lee Hannaford's aloofness from his wife's relatives had turned to hostility; he spoke of them with increasing bitterness, threw contempt on Dr. Derwent's scientific work, and condemned Irene as a butterfly of fashion. Olga ceased to visit the house in Bryanston Square, and the cousins only corresponded. It was Dr. Derwent's opinion that Hannaford could not be quite sane; he was much troubled on his sister's account, and had often pondered extreme measures for her rescue from an intolerable position.

At length there came to pass the event to which Mrs. Hannaford had looked as her only hope. The widowed sister in America died, and, out of her abundance, her children all provided for, left to the unhappy wife in England a substantial bequest. News of this came first to Dr. Derwent, who was appointed trustee.

But before he had time to communicate with Mrs. Hannaford, a letter from her occasioned him new anxiety. His sister wrote that Olga was bent on making a most undesirable marriage, having fallen in love with a penniless nondescript who called himself an artist; a man given, it was suspected, to drink, and without any decent connection that one could hear of. A wretched, squalid affair! Would the Doctor come at once and see Olga? Her father was away, as usual; of course the girl would not be influenced by _him_, in any case; she was altogether in a strange, wild, headstrong state, and one could not be sure how soon the marriage might come about.

With wrinkled brows, the vexed pathologist set forth for Hammersmith.

CHAPTER XII

A semi-detached dwelling in a part of Hammersmith just being invaded by the social class below that for which it was built; where, in consequence, rents had slightly fallen, and notices of "apartments" were beginning to rise; where itinerant vendors, finding a new market, strained their voices with special discord; where hired pianos vied with each other through party walls; where the earth was always very dusty or very muddy, and the sky above in all seasons had a discouraging hue. The house itself furnished half-heartedly, as if it was felt to be a mere encampment; no comfort in any chamber, no air of home. Hannaford had not cared to distribute his mementoes of battle and death in the room called his own; they remained in packing-cases. Each member of the family, unhappy trio, knew that their state was transitional, and waited rather than lived.

With the surprise of a woman long bitter against destiny, Mrs. Hannaford learnt that something _had_ happened, and that it was a piece of good, not ill, fortune. When her brother left the house (having waited two hours in vain for Olga's return), she made a change of garb, arranged her hair with something of the old grace, and moved restlessly from room to room. A light had touched her countenance, dispelling years of premature age; she was still a handsome woman; she could still find in her heart the courage for a strong decision.

There was no maid--Mrs. Hannaford herself laid upon the table what was to serve for an evening meal; and she had just done so when her daughter came in. Olga had changed considerably in the past three years; at one-and-twenty she would have passed for several years older; her complexion was fatigued, her mouth had a nervous mobility which told of suppressed suffering, her movements were impatient, irritable. But at this moment she did not wear a look of unhappiness; there was a glow in her fine eyes, a tremour of resolve on all her features. On entering the room where her mother stood, she at once noticed a change. Their looks met: they gazed excitedly at each other.

"What is it? Why have you dressed?"

"Because I am a free woman. My sister is dead, and has left me a lot of money."

They rushed into each other's arms; they caressed with tears and sobs; it was minutes before they could utter more than broken phrases and exclamations.

"What shall you do?" the girl asked at length, holding her mother's hand against her heart. Of late there had been unwonted conflict between them, and in the reaction of joy they became all tenderness.

"What I ought to have done long ago--go and live away----"

"Will it be possible, dear?"

"It shall be!" exclaimed the mother vehemently. "I am not a slave--I am not a wife! I ought to have had courage to go away years since. It was wrong, wrong to live as I have done. The money is my own, and I will be free. He shall have a third of it every year, if he leaves me free. One-third is yours, one mine."

"No, no!" said Olga drawing back. "For me, none of it!"

"Yes, you will live with me--you will, Olga! This makes everything different. You will see that you cannot do what you thought of! Don't speak of it now--think--wait----"

The girl moved apart. Her face lost its brightness; hardened in passionate determination.

"I can't begin all that again," she said, with an accent of weariness.

"No! I won't speak of it now, Olga. But will you do one thing for me? Will you put it off for a short time? I'll tell you what I've planned; your uncle and I talked it all over. I must leave this house before _he_ comes back, to-morrow morning. I can't go to your uncle's house, as he asked me; you see why it is better not, don't you? The best will be to go into lodgings for a time, and not to let _him_ know where I am, till I hear whether he will accept the terms I offer. Look, I have enough money for the present." She showed gold that had been left with her by Dr. Derwent. "But am I to go alone? Will you desert me in my struggle? I want you, dear; I need your help. Oh, it would be cruel to leave me just now! Will you put it off for a few weeks, until I know what my life is going to be? You won't refuse me this one thing, Olga, after all we have gone through together?"

"For a few weeks: of course I will do that," replied the girl, still in an attitude of resistance. "But you mustn't deceive yourself, mother. My mind is made up; _nothing_ will change it. Money is nothing to me; we shall be able to live----"

"I can count on you till the struggle is over?"

"I won't leave you until it is settled. And perhaps there will be no struggle at all. I should think it will be enough for you to say what you have decided----"

"Perhaps. But I can't feel sure. He has got to be such a tyrant, and it will enrage him--But perhaps the money--Yes, he will be glad of the money."

Presently they sat down to make a pretence of eating; it was over in a few minutes. Mrs. Hannaford made known in detail what she had rapidly decided with her brother. Tonight she would pack her clothing and Olga's; she would leave a letter for her husband; and early in the morning they would leave London. Not for any distant hiding-place; it was better to be within easy reach of Dr. Derwent, and a retreat in Surrey would best suit their purposes, some place where lodgings could be at once obtained. The subject of difference put aside, they talked again freely and affectionately of this sudden escape from a life which in any case Mrs. Hannaford could not have endured much longer. About nine o'clock, the quiet of the house was broken by a postman's knock; Olga ran to take the letter, and exclaimed on seeing the address--

"Why, it's from Mr. Otway, and an English stamp!"

Mrs. Hannaford found a note of a few lines. Piers Otway had reached London that morning, and would be in town for a day or two only, before going on into Yorkshire. Could he see his old friends to-morrow? He would call in the afternoon.

"Better reply to-night," said Olga, "and save him the trouble of coming here."

The letter in her hand, Mrs. Hannaford stood thinking, a half-smile about her lips.

"Yes; I must write," she said slowly. "But perhaps he could come and see us in the country. I'll tell him where we are going."

They talked of possible retreats, and decided upon Epsom, which was not far from their old home at Ewell; then Mrs. Hannaford replied to Otway. Through the past three years she had often heard from him, and she knew that he was purposing a visit to England, but no date had been mentioned. After writing, she was silent, thoughtful. Olga, too, having been out to post the letter, sat absorbed in her own meditations. They did some hasty packing before bedtime, but talked little. They were to rise early, and flee at once from the hated house.

A sunny morning--it was July--saw them start on their journey, tremulous, but rejoicing. Long before midday they had found lodgings that suited them, and had made themselves at home. The sense of liberty gave everything a delightful aspect; their little sitting-room was perfection the trees and fields had an ideal beauty after Hammersmith, and they promised themselves breezy walks on the Downs above. Not a word of the trouble between them. The mother held to a hope that the great change of circumstance would insensibly turn Olga's thoughts from her reckless purpose; and, for the moment, Olga herself seemed happy in self-forgetfulness.

The man to whom she had plighted herself was named Kite. He did not look like a bird of prey; his countenance, his speech, were anything but sinister; but for his unlucky position, Mrs. Hannaford would probably have rather taken to him. Olga's announcement came with startling suddenness. For a twelvemonth she had been trying to make money by artistic work, and to a small extent had succeeded, managing to sell a few drawings to weekly papers, and even to get a poor little commission for the illustrating of a poor little book. In this way she had made a few acquaintances in the so-called Bohemian world, but she spoke seldom of them, and Mrs. Hannaford suspected no special intimacy with anyone whose name was mentioned to her. One evening (a week ago) Olga said quietly that she was going to be married.

Mr. Kite was summoned to Hammersmith. A lank, loose-limbed, indolent-looking man of thirty or so, with a long, thin face, tangled hair, gentle eyes. The clothes he wore were decent, but suggested the idea that they had been purchased at second-hand; they did not fit him well; perhaps he was the kind of man whose clothes never do fit. Unless Mrs. Hannaford was mistaken, his breath wafted an alcoholic odour; but Mr. Kite had every appearance of present sobriety. He seemed chronically tired; sat down with a little sigh of satisfaction; stretched his legs, and let his arms fall full length. To the maternal eye, a singular, problematic being, anything but likely to inspire confidence. Yet he talked agreeably, if oddly; his incomplete sentences were full of good feeling; above all, he evidently meant to be frank, put his poverty in the baldest aspect, set forth his hopes with extreme moderation. "We seem to suit each other," was his quiet remark, with a glance at Olga; and Mrs. Hannaford could not doubt that he meant well. But what a match! Scarcely had he gone, when the mother began her dissuasions, and from that moment there was misery.

For Olga, Mrs. Hannaford had always been ambitious. The girl was clever, warm-hearted, and in her way handsome. But for the disastrous father, she would have had every chance of marrying "well." Mrs. Hannaford was not a worldly woman, and all her secret inclinations were to romance, but it is hard for a mother to dissociate the thought of marriage from that of wealth and respectability. Mr. Kite, well-meaning as he might be, would never do.

To-day there was truce. They talked much of Piers Otway, and in the afternoon, as had been arranged by letter, both went to the railway station, to meet the train by which it was hoped he would come--Piers arrived.

"How much improved!" was the thought of both. He was larger, manlier, and though still of pale complexion had no longer the bloodless look of years ago. Walking, he bore himself well; he was self-possessed in manner, courteous in not quite the English way; brief, at first, in his sentences, but his face lit with cordiality. On the way to the ladies' lodgings, he stole frequent glances at one and the other; plainly he saw change in them, and perhaps not for the better.

Mrs. Hannaford kept mentally comparing him with the scarecrow Kite. A tremor of speculation took hold upon her; a flush was on her cheeks, she talked nervously, laughed much.

Nothing was to be said about the flight from home; they were at Epsom for a change of air. But Mrs. Hannaford could not keep silence concerning her good fortune; she had revealed it in a few nervous words, before they reached the house.

"You will live in London?" asked Otway.

"That isn't settled. It would be nice to go abroad again. We liked Geneva."

"I must tell you about a Swiss friend of mine," Piers resumed. "A man you would like; the best, jolliest, most amusing fellow I ever met; his name is Moncharmont. He is in business at Odessa. There was talk of his coming to England with me, but we put it off; another time. He's a man who does me good; but for him, I shouldn't have held on."

"Then you don't like it, after all?" asked Mrs. Hannaford.

"Like it? No. But I have stuck to it--partly for very shame, as you know. I've stuck to it hard, and it's getting too late to think of anything else. I have plans; I'll tell you."

These plans were laid open when tea had been served in the little sitting-room. Piers had it in mind to start an independent business, together with his friend Moncharmont; one of them to live in Russia, one in London.

"My father has promised the money. He promised it three years ago. I might have had it when I liked; but I should have been ashamed to ask till a reasonable time had gone by. It won't be a large capital, but Moncharmont has some, and putting it together, we shall manage to start, I think."

He paused, watching the effect of his announcement. Mrs. Hannaford was radiant with pleasure; Olga looked amused.

"Why do you laugh?" Piers asked, turning to the girl.

"I didn't exactly laugh. But it seems odd. I can't quite think of you as a merchant."

"To tell you the truth, I can't quite think of myself in that light either. I'm only a bungler at commerce, but I've worked hard, and I have a certain amount of knowledge. For one thing, I've got hold of the language; this last year I've travelled a good deal in Russia for our firm, and it often struck me that I might just as well be doing the business on my own account. I dreamt once of a partnership with our people; but there's no chance of that. They're very close; besides, they don't make any serious account of me; I'm not the type that gains English confidence. Strange that I get on so much better with almost any other nationality--with men, that is to say."

He smiled, reddened, turned it off with a laugh. For the moment he was his old self, and his wandering eyes kept a look such has had often been seen in them during that month of torture three years ago.

"You are quite sure," said Mrs. Hannaford, "that it wouldn't be better to use your capital in some other way?"

"Don't, don't!" Piers exclaimed, tossing his arm in exaggerated dread. "Don't set me adrift again. I've thought about it; it's settled. This is the only way of making money, that I can see."

"You are so set on making money?" said Olga, looking at him in surprise.

"Savagely set on it!"

"You have really come to see that as the end of life?" Olga asked, regarding him curiously.

"The end? Oh, dear no! The means of life, only the means!"

Olga was about to put another question, but she met her mother's eye, and kept silence. All were silent for a space, and meditative.

They went out to walk together. Looking over the wide prospect from the top of the Downs, the soft English landscape, homely, peaceful, Otway talked of Russia. It was a country, he said, which interested him more the more he knew of it. He hoped to know it very well, and perhaps--here he grew dreamy--to impart his knowledge to others. Not many Englishmen mastered the language, or indeed knew anything of it; that huge empire was a mere blank to be filled up by the imaginings of prejudice and hostility. Was it not a task worth setting before oneself, worth pursuing for a lifetime, that of trying to make known to English folk their bugbear of the East?

"Then this," said Olga, "is to be the end of your life?"

"The end? No, not even that."

On their return, he found himself alone with Mrs. Hannaford for a few minutes. He spoke abruptly, with an effort.

"Do you see much of the Derwents?"

"Not much. Our lives are so different, you know."

"Will you tell me frankly? If I called there--when I come south again--should I be welcome?"

"Oh, why not?" replied the lady, veiling embarrassment. "I see." Otway's face darkened. "You think it better I shouldn't. I understand."

Olga reappeared, and the young man turned to her with resolute cheerfulness. When at length he took leave of his friends, they saw nothing but good spirits and healthful energy. He would certainly see them again before leaving England, and before long would let them know all his projects in detail. So he went his way into the summer night, back to the roaring world of London; one man in the multitude who knew his heart's desire, and saw all else in the light thereof.

For three days, Mrs. Hannaford and her daughter lived expectant; then arrived in answer to the letter left behind at Hammersmith. It came through Dr. Derwent's solicitor, whose address Mrs. Hannaford had given for this purpose. A curt, dry communication, saying simply that the fugitive might do as she chose, and would never be interfered with. Parting was, under the circumstances, evidently the wise course; but it must be definite, legalised; the writer had no wish ever to see his wife again. As to her suggestion about money, in that too she would please herself; it relieved him to know her independent, and he was glad to be equally so.

For all that, Lee Hannaford made no objection to receiving the portion of his wife's income which she offered. He took it without thanks, keeping his reflections to himself. And therewith was practically dissolved one, at least, of the innumerable mock marriages which burden the lives of mankind. Mrs. Hannaford's only bitterness was that in law she remained wedded. It soothed her but moderately to reflect that she was a martyr to national morality.

She was pressed to come and stay for a while in Bryanston Square, but Olga would not accept that invitation. Her mother's affairs being satisfactorily settled, the girl returned to her fixed purpose; she would hear of no further postponement of her marriage. Thereupon Mrs. Hannaford took a step she feared to be useless, but which was the only hope remaining to her. She wrote to Kite; she explained to him her circumstances; she asked him whether, out of justice to Olga, who might repent a hasty union, he would join her (Mrs. Hannaford) in a decision to put off the marriage for one year. If, in a twelvemonth, Olga were still of the same mind, all opposition should be abandoned, and more than that, pecuniary help would be given to the couple. She appealed to his manhood, to his generosity, to his good sense.

And, much to her surprise, the appeal was successful. Kite wrote the oddest letter in reply, all disjointed philosophising, with the gist that perhaps Mrs. Hannaford was right. No harm in waiting a year; perhaps much good. Life was a mystery; love was uncertain. He would get on with his art, the only stable thing from his point of view.

From her next meeting with her lover, Olga came back pale and wretched.

"I must go and live alone, mother," she said. "I must go to London and work. This life would be impossible to me now."

She would hear of nothing else. Her marriage was postponed; they need say no more about it. If her mother would let her have a little money, till she could support herself, she would be grateful; but she must live apart. And so, after many tears it was decided. Olga went by herself into lodgings, and Mrs. Hannaford accepted her brother's invitation to Bryanston Square.

CHAPTER XIII

Piers Otway spent ten days in Yorkshire. His father was well, but more than ever silent, sunk in prophetic brooding; Mrs. Otway kept the wonted tenor of her life, apprehensive for the purity of the Anglican Church (assailed by insidious papistry), and monologising at large to her inattentive husband upon the godlessness of his impenitent old age.

"Piers," said the father one day, with a twinkle in his eye, "I find myself growing a little deaf. Your stepmother is fond of saying that Providence sends blessings in disguise, and for once she seems to have hit upon a truth."

On a glorious night of stars, he walked with his son up to the open moor. A summer breeze whispered fitfully between the dark-blue vault and the grey earth; there was a sound of water that leapt from the bosom of the hills; deep answering to deep, infinite to infinite. After standing silent for a while, Jerome Otway laid a hand on his companion's shoulder, and muttered, "The creeds--the dogmas!"

They had two or three long conversations. Most of his time Piers spent in rambling alone about the moorland, for health and for weariness. When unoccupied, he durst not be physically idle; the passions that ever lurked to frenzy him could only be baffled at such times by vigorous exercise. His cold bath in the early morning was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs; feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle of a frame strung to perfect service. Would he win his heart's desire?--let him be worthy of it in body as in mind. He pursued to excess the point of cleanliness. With no touch of personal conceit, he excelled the perfumed exquisite in care for minute perfections. Not in costume; on that score he was indifferent, once the conditions of health fulfilled. His inherited tone was far from perfect; with rage he looked back upon those insensate years of study, which had weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying his constitution. Only by conflict daily renewed did he keep in the way of safety; a natural indolence had ever to be combated; there was always the fear of relapse, such as had befallen him now and again during his years in Russia; a relapse not alone in physical training, but from the ideal of chastity. He had cursed the temper of his blood; he had raved at himself for vulgar gratifications; and once more the struggle was renewed. Asceticism in diet had failed him doubly; it reduced his power of wholesome exertion, and caused a mental languor treacherous to his chief purpose. Nowadays he ate and drank like any other of the sons of men, on the whole to his plain advantage.

A day or two after receiving a letter from Mrs. Hannaford, in which she told him of her removal to Dr. Derwent's house, he bade farewell to his father.

To his hotel in London, that night, came a note he had expected. Mrs. Hannaford asked him to call in Bryanston Square at eleven the next morning.

As he approached the house, memories shamed him. How he had slunk about the square under his umbrella; how he had turned away in black despair after that "Not at home"; his foolish long-tailed coat, his glistening stovepipe! To-day, with scarce a thought for his dress, he looked merely what he was: an educated man, of average physique, of intelligent visage, of easy bearing. For all that, his heart throbbed as he stood at the door, and with catching breath, he followed the servant upstairs.

Before Mrs. Hannaford appeared, he had time to glance round the drawing-room, which was simpler in array than is common in such houses. His eye fell upon a portrait, a large crayon drawing, hung in a place of honour; he knew it must represent Irene's mother; there was a resemblance to the face which haunted him, with more of sweetness, with a riper humanity. Whilst his wife still lived, Dr. Derwent had not been able to afford a painting of her; this drawing was done and well done, in the after days from photographs. On the wall beneath it was a little bracket, supporting a little glass vessel which held a rose. The year round, this tiny altar never lacked its flower.

Mrs. Hannaford entered. Her smile of greeting was not untroubled, but seeing her for the first time somewhat ornately clad, and with suitable background, Piers was struck by the air of youth that animated her features. He had always admired Mrs. Hannaford, had always liked her, and as she took his hand in both her own, he felt a warm response to her unfeigned kindliness.

"Well, is it settled?"

"It is settled. I go back to Odessa, remain with the firm for another six months, then make the great launch!"

They laughed together, both nervously. Piers' eyes wandered, and Mrs. Hannaford, as she sat down, made an obvious effort to compose herself.

"I didn't ask you, the other day," she began, as if on a sudden thought, "whether you had seen either of your brothers."

Piers shook his head, smiling.

"No. Alexander, I hear, is somewhere in the North, doing provincial journalism. Daniel--I believe he is in London, but I'm not very likely to meet him."

"Don't you wish to?" asked the other lightly.

"Oh, I'm not very anxious. Daniel and I haven't a great interest in each other, I'm afraid. You haven't seen him lately?"

"No, no," Mrs. Hannaford answered, with an absent air. "No--not for a long time. I have hoped to see an announcement of his book."

"His book?--Ah, I remember. I fear we shall wait long for that."

"But he really was working at it," said Mrs. Hannaford, bending forward with a peculiar earnestness. "When he last spoke to me about it, he said the material grew so on his hands. And then, there is the expense of publication. Such a volume, really well illustrated, must cost much to produce, and the author would have to bear----"

Piers was smiling oddly; she broke off, and observed him, as if the smile pained her.

"Let us have faith," said Otway. "Daniel is a clever man no doubt, and may do something yet."

Mrs. Hannaford abruptly changed the subject, returning to Piers' prospects. They talked for half an hour, the lady's eyes occasionally turning towards the door, and Otway sometimes losing himself as he glanced at the crayon portrait. He was thinking of a reluctant withdrawal, when the door opened. He heard a soft rustle, turned his head, and rose.

It was Irene! Irene in all the grace of her earlier day, and with maturer beauty; Irene with her light step, her bravely balanced head, her smile of admirable courtesy, her golden voice. Otway knew not what she said to him; something frank, cordial, welcoming. For an instant he had held her hand, and felt its coolness thrill him to his heart of hearts; he had bent before her, mutely worshipping. His brain was on fire with the old passion newly kindled. He spoke, he was beginning to converse; the room grew real again; he was aware once more of Mrs. Hannaford's presence, of a look she had fixed upon him. A look half amused, half compassionate; he answered it with a courageous smile.

Miss Derwent was in her happiest mood; impossible to be kinder and friendlier in that merry way of hers. Scarce having expected to meet her, still keeping in his mind the anguish of that calamitous and shameful night three years ago when he fled before her grave reproof, Piers beheld her and listened to her with such a sense of passionate gratitude that he feared lest some crazy word should escape him. That Irene remembered, no look or word of hers suggested; unless, indeed, the perfection of her kindness aimed at assuring him that the past was wholly past. She made inquiry about his father's health; she spoke of his life at Odessa, and was full of interest when he sketched his projects. To crown all, she said, with her eyes smiling upon him:

"My father would so like to know you; could you dine with us one evening before you go?"

Piers declared his absolute freedom for a week to come.

"Suppose, then, we say Thursday? An old friend of ours will be with us, whom you may like to meet."

She spoke a name which surprised and delighted him; that of a scientific man known the world over. Piers went his way with raptures and high resolves singing at his heart.

For the rest of daytime it was enough to walk about the streets in sun and shower, seeing a glorified London, one exquisite presence obscuring every mean thing and throwing light upon all that was beautiful. He did not reason with himself about Irene's friendliness; it had cast a spell upon him, and he knew only his joy, his worship. Three years of laborious exile were trifling in the balance; had they been passed in sufferings ten times as great, her smile would have paid for all.

Fortunately, he had a little business to transact in London; on the two mornings that followed he was at his firm's house in the City, making reports, answering inquiries--mainly about wool and hemp. Piers was erudite concerning Russian wool and hemp. He talked about it not like the ordinary business man, but as a scholar might who had very thoroughly got up the subject. His firm did not altogether approve this attitude of mind; they thought it _queer_, and would have smiled caustically had they known Otway's purpose of starting as a merchant on his own account. That, he had not yet announced, and would not do so until he had seen his Swiss friend at Odessa again.

The evening of the dinner arrived, and again Piers was rapt above himself. Nothing could have been more cordial than Dr. Derwent's reception of him, and he had but to look into the Doctor's face to recognise a man worthy of reverence; a man of genial wisdom, of the largest humanity, of the sanest mirth. Eustace Derwent was present; he behaved with exemplary good-breeding, remarking suavely that they had met before, and betraying in no corner of his pleasant smile that that meeting had been other than delightful to both. Three guests arrived, besides Otway, one of them the distinguished person whose name had impressed him; a grizzled gentleman, of bland brows, and the simplest, softest manner.

At table there was general conversation--the mode of civilised beings. His mind in a whirl at first, Otway presently found himself quite capable of taking part in the talk. Someone had told a story illustrative of superstition in English peasant folk, and Piers had only to draw upon his Russian experiences for pursuit of the subject. He told how, in a time of great drought, he had known a corpse dug up from its grave by peasantry, and thrown into a muddy pond--a vigorous measure for the calling down of rain; also, how he had seen a priest submit to be dragged on his back across a turnip field, that thereby a great crop might be secured. These things interested the great man, who sat opposite; he beamed upon Otway, and sought from him further information regarding Russia. Piers saw that Irene had turned to him; he held himself in command, he spoke neither too much nor too little, and as the things he knew were worth knowing, his share in the talk made a very favourable impression. In truth, these three years had intellectually much advanced him. It was at this time that he had begun to use the brief, decisive turn of speech which afterwards became his habit; a mode of utterance suggesting both mental resources and force of character.

Later in the evening, he found himself beside Mrs. Hannaford in a corner of the drawing-room. He had hoped to speak a little with Miss Derwent, in semi-privacy, but of that there seemed no chance; enough that he had her so long before his eyes. Nor did he venture to speak of her to her aunt, though with difficulty subduing the desire. He knew that Mrs. Hannaford understood what was in his mind, and he felt pleased to have her for a silent confidante. She, not altogether at ease in this company, was glad to talk to Otway of everyday things; she mentioned her daughter, who was understood to be living elsewhere for the convenience of artistic studies.

"I hope you will be able to meet Olga before you go. She shuts herself up from us a great deal--something like you used to do at Ewell, you remember."

"I do, only too well. Why mayn't I go and call on her?"

Mrs. Hannaford shook her head, vaguely, trying to smile.

"She must have her own way, like all artists. If she succeeds, she will come amongst us again."

"I know that spirit," said Piers, "and perhaps it's the right one. Give her my good wishes--they will do no harm."

The image of Olga Hannaford was distinct before his mind's eye, but did not touch his emotions. He thought with little interest of her embarking on an artist's career, and had small belief in her chances of success. Under the spell of Irene, he felt coldly critical towards all other women; every image of feminine charm paled and grew remote when hers was actually before him, and it would have cost a great effort of mind to assure himself that he had not felt precisely thus ever since the days at Ewell. The truth was, of course, that though imagination could always restore Irene's supremacy, and constantly did so, though his intellectual being never failed from allegiance to her, his blood had been at the mercy of any face sufficiently alluring. So it would be again, little as he could now believe it.

Before he departed, he had his wish of a few minutes' talk with her. The words exchanged were insignificant. Piers had nothing ready to his tongue but commonplace, and Miss Derwent answered as became her. As he left the room he suffered a flush of anger, the natural revolt of every being who lives by emotion against the restraints of polite intercourse. At such moments one _feels_ the bonds wrought for themselves by civilised mankind; commonly accepted without consciousness of voluntary or involuntary restraint. In revolt, he broke through these trammels of self-subduing nature, saw himself free man before her free woman, in some sphere of the unembarrassed impulse, and uttered what was in him, pleaded with all his life, conquered by vital energy. Only when he had walked back to the hotel was he capable of remembering that Irene, in taking leave, had spoken the kindest wishes for his future, assuredly with more than the common hostess-note. Dr. Derwent, too, had held his hand with a pleasant grip, saying good things. It was better than nothing, and he felt humanly grateful amid the fire that tortured him.

In his room the sight of pen, ink and paper was a sore temptation. At Odessa he had from time to time written what he thought poetry (it was not quite that, yet as verse not contemptible), and now, recalling to memory some favourite lines, he asked himself whether he might venture to write them out and send them to Miss Derwent. Could he leave England, this time, without confessing himself to her? Faint heart--he mused over the proverb. The thought of a laboured letter repelled him, and perhaps her reply--if she replied at all--would be a blow scarce endurable. In the offer of a copy of verses there is no undue presumption; it is a consecrated form of homage; it demands no immediate response. But were they good enough, these rhymes of his?--He would decide to-morrow, his last day.

And as was his habit, he read a little before sleeping, in one of the half-dozen volumes which he had chosen for this journey. It was _Les Chants du Crepuscule_, and thus the page sang:

"Laisse-toi donc aimer! Car l'amour, c'est la vie, C'est tout ce qu'on regrette et tout ce qu'on envie Quand on voit sa jeunesse au couchant dcliner. Sans lui rien n'est complet, sans lui rien ne rayonne. La beaut c'est le front, l'amour c'est la couronne. Laisse-toi couronner!"

His own lines sounded a sad jingle; he grew ashamed of them, and in the weariness of his passions he fell asleep.

He had left till to-morrow the visit he owed to John Jacks. It was not pleasant, the thought of calling at the house at Queen's Gate; Mrs. Jacks might have heard strange things about him on that mad evening three years ago. Yet in decency he must go; perhaps, too, in self-interest. And at the wonted hour he went.

Fortunately; for John Jacks seemed unfeignedly glad to see him, and talked with him in private for half an hour after the observances of the drawing-room, where Mrs. Jacks had been very sweetly proper and properly sweet. In the library, much more at his ease, Otway told what he had before him, all the details of his commercial project.

"It occurs to me," said John Jacks--who was looking far from well, and at times spoke with an effort--"that I may be able to be of some use in this matter. I'll think about it, and--leave me your address--I shall probably write to you. And now tell me all about your father. He is hale and hearty?"

"In excellent health, I think," Piers replied cheerfully. "Dante suffices him still."

"Odd that you should have come to-day. I don't know why, I was thinking of your father all last night--I don't sleep very well just now. I thought of the old days, a lifetime ago; and I said to myself that I would write him a letter. So I will, to-day. And in a month or two I shall see him. I'm a walking-copybook-line; procrastination--nothing but putting off pleasures and duties these last years; I don't know how it is. But certainly I will go over to Hawes when I'm in Yorkshire. And I'll write today, tell him I've seen you."

Much better in spirits, Piers returned to the hotel. Yes, after all, he would copy out those verses of his, and send them to Miss Derwent. They were not bad; they came from his heart, and they might speak to hers. Just his name at the end; no address. If she desired to write to him, she could easily learn his address from Mrs. Hannaford. He would send them!

"A telegram for you, sir," said the porter, as he entered.

Wondering, he opened it.

"Your father has suddenly died. Hope this will reach you in time.

EMMA OTWAY."

For a minute or two, the message was meaningless. He stood reading and re-reading the figures which indicated hour of despatch and of delivery. Presently he asked for a railway-guide, and with shaking hands, with agony of mental confusion, sought out the next train northwards. There was just time to catch it; not time to pack his bag. He rushed out to the cab.

CHAPTER XIV

"The circumstances are these. On the day after I said good-bye to him, my father went for his usual morning walk, and was absent for two hours. He returned looking very pale and disturbed, and with some difficulty was persuaded (you know how he disliked speaking of himself) to tell what had happened. It seems that, somewhere on the lonely road, he came across two men, honest-looking country folk, engaged in a violent quarrel; their language made it clear that one accused the other of some sort of slander, a very trivial affair. Just as my father came up to them, they began fighting. He interfered, tried to separate them--as he would have done, I am sure, had they been armed with pistols, for the sight of fighting was intolerable to him, it put him beside himself with a sort of passionate disgust. They were great strong fellows, and one of them, whether intentionally or not, dealt him a fierce blow on the chest, knocking him down. That put an end to the fight. My father had to sit by the roadside for a time before he could go home.

"The next day he did not look well, but spent his time as usual, and on the morning after, he seemed to be all right again. The next day again he went for his walk, and did not return. When his absence became alarming, messengers were sent to look for him, and by one of these he was found lying on the moorside, dead. The postmortem showed that the blow he had received affected the heart, which was already diseased (he did not know that). Of course the man who struck him cannot be discovered, and I don't know that it matters. My father would no doubt have been glad to foresee such a death as this. It was sudden (for that he always hoped), and it came of a protest against the thing he most hated, brutal violence."

So Piers Otway wrote in a letter to John Jacks. He did not add that his father had died intestate, but of that he was aware before any inquiries had been set on foot; in one of their last talks, Jerome had expressly told his son that he would shortly make a will, not having hitherto been able to decide how his possessions should be distributed. This intestacy meant (if Daniel Otway had spoken truth) that Piers would have no fruit whatever of his father's promises; that his recent hopes and schemes would straightway fall to the ground.

And so it was. A telegram from Piers brought down into Yorkshire the solicitor who had for many years been Jerome Otway's friend and adviser; he answered the young man's inquiries with full and decisive information. Mrs. Otway already knew the fact; whence her habitual coldness to Piers, and the silent acerbity with which she behaved to him at this juncture.

"Mrs. Otway," said Piers to her, on the day of the inquest, "I shall stay for my father's funeral, and to avoid gossip I still ask your hospitality. I do it with reluctance, but you will very soon see the last of me."

"You are of course welcome to stay in the house," replied the lady. "There is no need to say that we shall in future be strangers, and I only hope that the example of this shockingly sudden death in the midst of----"

His blood boiling, Piers left the room before the sentence was finished.

Had he obeyed his conscience, he would have followed the coffin in the clothes he was wearing, for many a time he had heard his father speak with dislike of the black trappings which made a burial hideous; but enforced regard for public opinion, that which makes cowards of good men and hampers the world's progress, sent him to the outfitter's, where he was duly disguised. With the secret tears he shed, there mingled a bitterness at being unable to show respect to his father's memory in such small matters. That Jerome Otway should be buried as a son of the Church, to which he had never belonged, was a ground of indignation, but neither in this could any effective protest be made. Mute in his sorrow, Piers marvelled with a young man's freshness of feeling at the forms and insincerities which rule the world. He had a miserable sense of his helplessness amid forces which he despised.

On the day of the inquest arrived Daniel Otway, Piers having telegraphed to the club where he had seen his brother three years ago. Before leaving London, Daniel had provided himself with solemn black, of the latest cut; Hawes people remarked him with curiosity, saying what a gentleman he looked, but whispering at the same time rumours and doubts; for the little town had long gossiped about Jerome, a man not much to its mind. A day later came Alexander. With him there had been no means of communicating, and a newspaper paragraph informed him of his father's death. Appearing in rough tweeds, with a felt hat, he inspired more curiosity than respect. Both brothers greeted Piers cordially; both were curt and formal with the widow, but, for appearances' sake, accepted a cramped lodging in the cottage. Piers kept very much to himself until the funeral was over; he was then invited by Daniel to join a conference in what had been his father's room. Here the man of law (Jerome's name for him) expounded the posture of things; with all professional, and some personal, tact and delicacy. Will there was certainly none; Daniel, in the course of things, would apply for letters of administration. The estate, it might be said, consisted of certain shares in a prosperous newspaper, an investment which could be easily realised, and of a small capital in consols; to the best of the speaker's judgment, the shares were worth about six thousand pounds, the consols amounted to nearly fifteen hundred. This capital sum, the widow and the sons would divide in legal proportion. Followed technicalities, with conversation. Mrs. Otway kept dignified silence; Piers, in the background, sat with eyes sunk.

"I think," remarked the solicitor gravely and firmly, "that, assembled as we are in privacy, I am only doing my duty in making known that the deceased had in view (as I know from hints in his correspondence) to assist his youngest son substantially, as soon as that son appeared likely to benefit by such pecuniary aid. I think I am justified in saying that that time had arrived, that death interposed at an unfortunate moment as regards such plans. I wished only to put the point before you, as one within my own knowledge. Is there any question you would like to ask me at present, Mrs. Otway?"

The widow shook her head (and her funeral trappings). Thereupon sounded Piers Otway's voice.

"I should like to say that as I have no legal claim whatever upon my father's estate, I do not wish to put forward a claim of any other kind. Let that be understood at once."

There was silence. They heard the waters of the beck rushing over its stony channel. For how many thousand years had the beck so murmured? For how many thousand would it murmur still?

"As the eldest son," then observed Daniel, with his Oxford accent, and a sub-note of feeling, "I desire to say that my brother"--he generously emphasised the word--"has expressed himself very well, in the spirit of a gentleman. Perhaps I had better say no more at this moment. We shall have other opportunities of--of considering this point."

"Decidedly," remarked Alexander, who sat with legs crossed. "We'll talk it over."

And he nodded with a good-natured smile in Piers' direction.

Later in the day--a family council having been held at which Piers was not present--Daniel led the young man apart.

"You insist on leaving Hawes to-night? Well, perhaps it is best. But, my dear boy, I can't let you go without saying how deeply I sympathise with your position. You bear it like a man, Piers; indeed you do. I think I have mentioned to you before how strong I am on the side of morals."

"If you please," Piers interrupted, with brow dark.

"No, no, no!" exclaimed the other. "I was far from casting any reflection. _De mortuis_, you know; much more so when one speaks of a father. I think, by the bye, Alec ought to write something about him for publication; don't you? I was going to say, Piers, that, if I remember rightly, I am in your debt for a small sum, which you very generously lent me. Ah, that book! It grows and grows; I _can't_ get it into final form. The fact is Continental art critics-- But I was going to say that I must really insist on being allowed to pay my debt--indeed I must--soon as this business is settled."

He paused, watching Piers' face. His own had not waxed more spiritual of late years, nor had his demeanour become more likely to inspire confidence; but he was handsome, in a way, and very fluent, very suave.

"Be it so," replied Piers frankly; "I shall be glad of the money, I confess."

"To be sure! You shall have it with the least possible delay. And, Piers, it has struck us, my dear fellow, that you might like to choose a volume or two of the good old man's library as a memento. We beg you will do so. We beg you will do it at once, before you leave."

"Thank you. I should like the Dante he used to carry in his pocket."

"A most natural wish, Piers. Take it by all means. Nothing else, you think?"

"Yes. You once told me that you had seen a portrait of my mother. Do you think it still exists?"

"I will inquire about it," answered Daniel gravely. "It was a framed photograph, and at one time--many years ago--used to stand on his writing-table. I will inquire, my dear boy."

Next, Alexander sought a private colloquy with his disinherited brother.

"Look here, Piers," he began bluffly, "it's a cursed shame! I'm hanged if it isn't! If we weren't so solemn, my boy, I should quote Bumble about the law. Of course it's the grossest absurdity, and as far as I'm concerned----. By Jove, Piers!" he cried, with sudden change of subject, "if you knew the hard times Biddy and I have been going through! Eh, but she's a brick, is Biddy; she sent you her love, old boy, and that's worth something, I can tell you. But I was going to say that you mustn't suppose I've forgotten about the debt. You shall be repaid as soon as ever we realise this property; you shall, Piers! And, what's more, you shall be repaid with interest; yes, three per cent. It would be cursed meanness if I didn't."

"The fifty pounds I shall be glad of," said Piers. "I want no interest. I'm not a money-lender."

"We won't quarrel about that," rejoined Alexander, with a merry look. "But come now, why don't you let a fellow hear from you now and then? What are you doing? Going back among the Muscovites?"

"Straight back to Odessa, yes."

"I may look you up there some day, if Biddy can spare me for a few weeks. A glimpse of the bear--it might be useful to me. Terrible savages I suppose?"

Piers laughed impatiently, and gave no other answer.

"Well, the one thing I really wanted to say, Piers--you _must_ let me say it--I, for one, shall take a strong stand about your moral rights in this business here, Of course your claim is every bit as good as ours; only a dunder-headed jackass would see it in any other way. Daniel quite agrees with me. The difficulty will be that woman. A terrible woman! She regards you as sealed for perdition by the mere fact of your birth. But you will hear from us, old boy, be sure of that. Give me your Muscovite address."

Piers carelessly gave it. He was paying hardly any attention to his brother's talk, and would have felt it waste of energy to reassert what he had said in the formal conclave. Weariness had come upon him after these days of grief and indignant tumult; he wanted to be alone.

The portrait for which he had asked was very quickly found. It lay in a drawer, locked away among other mementoes of the past. With a shock of disappointment, Piers saw that the old photograph had faded almost to invisibility. He just discerned the outlines of a pleasant face, the dim suggestion of womanly charm--all he would ever see of the mother who bore him.

"It seems to me," said Daniel, after sympathising with his chagrin, "that there must be a lot of papers, literary work, letters, and that kind of thing, which will have more interest for you than for anyone else. When we get things looked through, shall I send you whatever I think you would care for?"

With gratitude Piers accepted what he could not have brought himself to ask for.

On the southward journey he kept taking from his pocket two letters which had reached him at Hawes. One was from John Jacks, full of the kindliest condolence; a manly letter which it did him good to read. The other came from Mrs. Hannaford, womanly, sincere; it contained a passage to which Piers returned again and again. "My niece is really grieved to hear of your sudden loss; happening at a moment when all seemed to be going well with you. She begs me to assure you of her very true sympathy, and sends every good wish." Little enough, this, but the recipient tried to make much of it. He had faintly hoped that Irene might send him a line in her own hand. That was denied, and perhaps he was foolish even to have dreamt of it.

He could not address his verses to her, now. He must hurry away from England, and try to forget her.

Of course she would hear, one way or another, about the circumstances of his birth. It would come out that he had no share in the property left by his father, and the reason be made known. He hoped that she might also learn that death had prevented his father's plan for benefiting him. He hoped it; for in that case she might feel compassion. Yet in the same moment he felt that this was a delusive solace. Pity for a man because he had lost money does not incline to warmer emotion. The hope was sheer feebleness of spirit. He spurned it; he desired no one's compassion.

How would Irene regard the fact of his illegitimacy? Not, assuredly, from Mrs. Otway's point of view; she was a century ahead of that. Possibly she was capable of dismissing it as indifferent. But he could not be certain of her freedom from social prejudice. He remembered the singular shock with which he himself had first learnt what he was; a state of mind quite irrational, but only to be dismissed with an effort of the trained intelligence. Irene would undergo the same experience, and it might affect her thought of him for ever.

Not for one instant did he visit these troubles upon the dead man. His loyalty to his father was absolute; no thought, or half-thought, looked towards accusation.

He arrived at his hotel in London late at night, drank a glass of spirits and went to bed. The sleep he hoped for came immediately, but lasted only a couple of hours. Suddenly he was wide awake, and a horror of great darkness enveloped him. What he now suffered he had known before, but with less intensity. He stared forward into the coming years, and saw nothing that his soul desired. A life of solitude, of bitter frustration. Were it Irene, were it another, the woman for whom he longed would never become his. He had not the power of inspiring love. The mere flesh would constrain him to marriage, a sordid union, a desecration of his ideal, his worship; and in the latter days he would look back upon a futile life. What is life without love? And to him love meant communion with the noblest. Nature had kindled in him this fiery ambition only for his woe.

All the passion of the great hungry world seemed concentrated in his sole being. Images of maddening beauty glowed upon him out of the darkness, glowed and gleamed by he knew not what creative mandate; faces, forms, such as may visit the delirium of a supreme artist. Of him they knew not; they were worlds away, though his own brain bodied them forth. He smothered cries of agony; he flung himself upon his face, and lay as one dead.

For the men capable of passionate love (and they are few) to miss love is to miss everything. Life has but the mockery of consolation for that one gift denied. The heart may be dulled by time; it is not comforted. Illusion if it be, it is that which crowns all other illusions whereof life is made. The man must prove it, or he is born in vain.

At sunrise, Piers dressed himself, and made ready for his journey. He was worn with fever, had no more strength to hope or to desire. His body was a mechanism which must move and move.

CHAPTER XV

In the saloon of a homeward-bound steamer, twenty-four hours from port, and that port Southampton, a lady sat writing letters. Her age was about thirty; her face was rather piquant than pretty; she had the air of a person far too intelligent and spirited to be involved in any life of mere routine, on whatever plane. Two letters she had written in French, one in German, and that upon which she was now engaged was in English, her native tongue; it began "Dearest Mother."

"All's well. A pleasant and a quick voyage. The one incident of it which you will care to hear about is that I have made friends--a real friendship, I think--with a delightful girl, of respectability which will satisfy even you. Judge for yourself; she is the daughter of Dr. Derwent, a distinguished scientific man, who has been having a glimpse of Colonial life. When we were a day or two out I found that Miss Derwent was the object of special interest; she and her father had been the guests of no less a personage than Trafford Romaine, and it was reported that the great man had offered her marriage! Who started the rumour I don't know, but it is quite true that Romaine _did_ propose to her--and was refused! I am assured of it by a friend of theirs on board, Mr. Arnold Jacks, an intimate friend of Romaine; but he declared that he did not start the story, and was surprised to find it known. Miss Derwent herself? No, my dear cynical mamma! She isn't that sort. She likes me as much as I like her, I think, but in all our talk not a word from her about the great topic of curiosity. It is just possible, I fear, that she means to marry Mr. Arnold Jacks, who, by the bye, is a son of a Member of Parliament, and rather an interesting man, but, I am quite sure, not the man for _her_. If she will come down into Hampshire with me may I bring her? It would so rejoice your dear soul to be assured that I have made such a friend, after what you are pleased to call my riff-raff foreign intimacies."

A few words more of affectionate banter, and she signed herself "Helen M. Borisoff."

As she was addressing the envelope, the sound of a book thrown on to the table just in front of her caused her to look up, and she saw Irene Derwent.

"What's the matter? Why are you damaging the ship's literature?" she asked gaily.

"No, I can't stand that!" exclaimed Irene. "It's too imbecile. It really is what our slangy friend calls 'rot,' and very dry rot. Have you read the thing?"

Mrs. Borisoff looked at the title, and answered with a headshake.

"Imagine! An awful apparatus of mystery; blood-curdling hints about the hero, whose prospects in life are supposed to be utterly blighted. And all because--what do you think? Because his father and mother forgot the marriage ceremony."

The other was amused, and at the same time surprised. It was the first time that Miss Derwent, in their talk, had allowed herself a remark suggestive of what is called "emancipation." She would talk with freedom of almost any subject save that specifically forbidden to English girls. Helen Borisoff, whose finger showed a wedding ring, had respected this reticence, but it delighted her to see a new side of her friend's attractive personality.

"I suppose in certain circles"--she began.

"Oh yes! Shopkeepers and clerks and so on. But the book is supposed to deal with civilised people. It really made me angry!"

Mrs. Borisoff regarded her with amused curiosity. Their eyes met. Irene nodded.

"Yes," she continued, as if answering a question, "I know someone in just that position. And all at once it struck me--I had hardly thought of it before--what an idiot I should be if I let it affect my feelings or behaviour!"

"I think no one would have suspected you of such narrowness."

"Indeed I hope not!--Have you done your letters? Do come up and watch Mrs. Smithson playing at quoits--a sight to rout the brood of cares!"

In the smoking-room on deck sat Dr. Derwent and Arnold Jacks, conversing gravely, with subdued voices. The Doctor had a smile on his meditative features; his eyes were cast down he looked a trifle embarrassed.

"Forgive me," Arnold was saying, with some earnestness, "if this course seems to you rather irregular."

"Not at all! Not at all! But I can only assure you of my honest inability to answer the question. Try, my dear fellow! _Solvitur quaerendo_!"

Jacks' behaviour did, in fact, appear to the Doctor a little odd. That the young man should hint at his desire to ask Miss Derwent to marry him, or perhaps ask the parental approval of such a step, was natural enough; the event had been looming since the beginning of the voyage home. But to go beyond this, to ask the girl's father whether he thought success likely, whether he could hold out hopes, was scarcely permissible. It seemed a curious failure of tact in such a man as Arnold Jacks.

The fact was that Arnold for the first time in his life, had turned coward. Having drifted into a situation which he had always regarded as undesirable, and had felt strong enough to avoid, he lost his head, and clutched rather wildly at the first support within reach. That Irene Derwent should become his wife was not a vital matter; he could contemplate quite coolly the possibility of marrying some one else, or, if it came to that, of not marrying anyone at all. What shook his nerves was the question whether Irene would be sure to accept him.

Six months ago, he had no doubt of it. He viewed Miss Derwent with an eye accustomed to scrutinise, to calculate (in things Imperial and other), and it amused him to reflect that she might be numbered among, say, half a dozen eligible women who would think it an honour to marry him. This was his way of viewing marriage; it was on the woman's side a point of ambition, a gratification of vanity; on the man a dignified condescension. Arnold conceived himself a brilliant match for any girl below the titled aristocracy; he had grown so accustomed to magnify his place, to regard himself as one of the pillars of the Empire, that he attributed the same estimate to all who knew him. Of personal vanity he had little; purely personal characteristics did not enter, he imagined, into a man's prospects of matrimony. Certain women openly flattered him, and these he despised. His sense of fitness demanded a woman intelligent enough to appreciate what he had to offer, and sufficiently well-bred to conceal her emotions when he approached her. These conditions Miss Derwent fulfilled. Personally she would do him credit (a wife, of course, must be presentable, though in the husband appearance did not matter), and her obvious social qualities would be useful. Yet he had had no serious thought of proposing to her. For one thing, she was not rich enough.

The change began when he observed the impression made by her upon Trafford Romaine. This was startling. Romaine, the administrator of world-wide repute, the man who had but to choose among Great Britain's brilliant daughters (or so his worshippers believed), no sooner looked upon Irene Derwent than he betrayed his subjugation. No woman had ever received such honour from him, such homage public and private. Arnold Jacks was pricked with uneasiness; Irene had at once a new value in his eyes, and he feared he had foolishly neglected his opportunities. If she married Romaine, it would be mortifying. She refused the great man's offer, and Arnold was at first astonished, then gratified. For such refusal there could be only one ground: Miss Derwent's "heart" was already disposed of. Women have "hearts"; they really do grow fond of the men they admire; a singular provision of nature.

He would propose during the voyage.

But the voyage was nearly over; he might have put his formal little question fifty times; it was still to be asked--and he felt afraid. Afraid more than ever, now that he had committed himself with Dr. Derwent. The Doctor had received his confession so calmly, whereas Arnold hoped for some degree of effusiveness. Was he--hideous doubt--preparing himself for an even worse disillusion?

Undoubtedly the people on board had remarked his attentions; for all he knew, jokes were being passed, nay, bets being made. It was a serious thing to proclaim oneself the wooer of a young lady who had refused Trafford Romaine; who was known to have done so, and talked about with envy, admiration, curiosity. You either carried her off, or you made yourself fatally ridiculous. Half a dozen of the passengers would spread this gossip far and wide through England. There was that problematic Mrs. Borisoff, a frisky grass widow, who seemed to know crowds of distinguished people, and who was watching him day by day with her confounded smile! Who could say what passed between her and Irene, intimates as they had become? Did they make fun of him? Did they _dare_ to?

Arnold Jacks differed widely from the common type of fatuous young man. He was himself a merciless critic of fatuity; he had a faculty of shrewd observation, plenty of caustic common sense. Yet the position into which he had drifted threatened him with ridiculous extremes of self-consciousness. Even in his personal carriage, he was not quite safe against ridicule; and he felt it. This must come to an end.

He sought his moment, and found it at the hour of dusk. The sun had gone down gloriously upon a calm sea; the sky was overspread with clouds still flushed, and the pleasant coolness of the air foretold to-morrow's breeze on the English Channel. With pretence of watching a steamer that had passed, Arnold drew Miss Derwent to a part of the deck where they would be alone.

"You will feel," he said abruptly, "that you know England better now that you have seen something of the England beyond seas."

"I had imagined it pretty well," replied Irene.

"Yes, one does."

Under common circumstances, Arnold would have scornfully denied the possibility of such imagination. He felt most unpleasantly tame.

"You wouldn't care to make your home out yonder?"

"Heaven forbid!"

This was better. It sounded like emphatic rejection of Trafford Romaine, and probably was meant to sound so.

"I myself," he pursued absently, "shall always live in England. If I know myself, I can be of most service at the centre of things. Parliament, when the moment arrives----"

"The moment when you can be most mischievous?" said Irene, with a glance at him.

"That's how you put it. Yes, most mischievous. The sphere for mischief is growing magnificent."

He talked, without strict command of his tongue, just to gain time; spoke of expanding Britain, and so on, a dribble of commonplaces. Irene moved as if to rejoin her company.

"Don't go just yet--I want you--now and always."

Sheer nervousness gave his voice a tremor as if of deep emotion. These simple words, which had burst from him desperately, were the best he could have uttered--Irene stood with her eyes on the darkening horizon.

"We know each other pretty well," he continued, "and the better we know each other, the more we find to talk about. It's a very good sign--don't you think? I can't see how I'm to get along without you, after this journey. I don't like to think of it, and I _won't_ think of it I Say there's no need to."

Her silence, her still attitude, had restored his courage. He spoke at length like himself, with quiet assurance, with sincerity; and again it was the best thing he could have done.

"I am not quite sure, Mr. Jacks, that I think about it in the same way."

Her voice was subdued to a very pleasant note, but it did not tremble.

"I can allow for that uncertainty--though I have nothing of it myself. We shall both be in London for a month or so. Let me see you as often as I can, and, before you leave town, let me ask whether the doubt has been overcome."

"I hold myself free," said Irene impulsively.

"Naturally."

"I do you no wrong if it seems to me impossible."

"None whatever."

His eyes were fixed on her face, dimly beautiful in the fading shimmer from sea and sky. Irene met his glance for an instant, and moved away, he following.

Arnold Jacks had never known a mood so jubilant. He was saved from the terror of humiliation. He had comported himself as behoved him, and the result was sure and certain hope. He felt almost grateful, almost tender, towards the woman of his choice.

But Irene as she lay in her berth, strangely wakeful to the wash of the sea as the breeze freshened, was frightened at the thought of what she had done. Had she not, in the common way of maidenhood, as good as accepted Arnold Jacks' proposal? She did not mean it so; she spoke simply and directly in saying that she was not clear about her own mind; on any other subject she would in fact, or in phrase, have reserved her independence. But an offer of marriage was a thing apart, full of subtle implications, needing to be dealt with according to special rules of conscience and of tact. Some five or six she had received, and in each case had replied decisively, her mind admitting no doubt. As when to her astonishment, she heard the frank and large confession of Trafford Romaine; the answer was an inevitable--No! To Arnold Jacks she could not reply thus promptly. Relying on the easy terms of their intercourse, she told him the truth; and now she saw that no form of answer could be less discreet.

For about a year she had thought of Arnold as one who _might_ offer her marriage; any girl in her position would have foreseen that possibility. After every opportunity which he allowed to pass, she felt relieved, for she had no reply in readiness. The thought of accepting him was not at all disagreeable; it had even its allurements; but between the speculation and the thing itself was a great gap for the leaping of mind and heart. Her relations with him were very pleasant, and she would have been glad if nothing had ever happened to disturb them.

When her father suggested this long journey in Arnold's company, she hesitated. In deciding to go, she said to herself that if nothing resulted, well and good; if something did, well and good also. She would get to know Arnold better, and on that increase of acquaintance must depend the outcome, as far as she was concerned. She was helped in making up her mind by a little thing that happened. There came to her one day a letter from Odessa; on opening it, she found only a copy of verses, with the signature "P.O." A love poem; not addressed to her, but about her; a pretty poem, she thought, delicately felt and gracefully worded. It surprised her, but only for a moment; thinking, she accepted it as something natural, and was touched by the tribute. She put it carefully away--knowing it by heart.

Impertinence! Surely not. Long ago she had reproached herself with her half-coquetry to Piers Otway, an error of exuberant spirits when she was still very young. There was no obscuring the fact; deliberately she had set herself to draw him away from his studies; she had made it a point of pride to show herself irresistible. Where others failed in their attack upon his austere seclusion, _she_ would succeed, and easily. She had succeeded only too well, and it never quite ceased to trouble her conscience. Now, learning that even after four years her victim still remained loyal, she thought of him with much gentleness, and would have scorned herself had she felt scorn of his devotion.

No other of her wooers had ever written her a poem; no other was capable of it. It gave Piers a distinction in her mind which more than earned her pardon.

But--poor fellow!--he must surely know that she could never respond to his romantic feeling. It was pure romance, and charming--if only it did not mean sorrow to him and idle hopes. Such a love as this, distant, respectful, she would have liked to keep for years, for a lifetime. If only she could be sure that romance was as dreamily delightful to her poet as to her!

The worst of it was that Piers Otway had suffered a sad wrong, an injustice which, when she heard of it, made her nobly angry. A month after the death of the old philosopher at Hawes, Mrs. Hannaford startled her with a strange story. The form it took was this: That Piers, having for a whispered reason no share in his father's possessions, had perforce given up his hopes of commercial enterprise, and returned to his old subordinate position at Odessa. The two legitimate sons would gladly have divided with him their lawful due, but Piers refused this generosity, would not hear of it for a moment, stood on his pride, and departed. Thus Mrs. Hannaford, who fully believed what she said; and as she had her information direct from the eldest son, Daniel Otway, there could be no doubt as to its correctness. Piers had behaved well; he could not take alms from his half-brothers. But what a monstrous thing that accident and the law of the land left him thus destitute! Feeling strongly about it, Irene begged her aunt, when next she wrote to Odessa, to give Piers, from her, a message of friendly encouragement; not, of course, a message that necessarily implied knowledge of his story, but one that would help him with the assurance of his being always kindly remembered by friends in London.

Six months after came the little poem, which Irene, without purposing it, learnt by heart.

A chapter of pure romance; one which, Irene felt, could not possibly have any relation to her normal life. And perhaps because she felt. that so strongly, perhaps because her conscience warned her against the danger of still seeming to encourage a lover she could not dream of marrying, perhaps because these airy nothings threw into stronger relief the circumstances which environed her, she forthwith made up her mind to go on the long journey with her father and Arnold Jacks. Mrs. Hannaford did not fail to acquaint Piers Otway with the occurrence.

And those two months of companionship told in Arnold's favour. Jacks was excellent in travel; he had large experience, and showed to advantage on the highways of the globe. No more entertaining companion during the long days of steamship life; no safer guide in unfamiliar lands. His personality made a striking contrast with the robustious semi-civilisation of the colonists with whom Irene became acquainted; she appreciated all the more his many refinements. Moreover, the respectful reception he met with could not but impress her; it gave reality to what Miss Derwent sometimes laughed at, his claim to be a force in the great world. Then, that eternal word "Empire" gained somewhat of a new meaning. She joked about it, disliking as much as ever its baser significance but she came to understand better the immense power it represented. On that subject, her father was emphatic.

"If," remarked Dr. Derwent once, "if our politics ever fall into the hands of a stock-jobbing democracy, we shall be the hugest force for evil the poor old world has ever known."

"You think," said Irene, "that one can already see some danger of it?"

"Well, I think so sometimes. But we have good men still, good men."

"Do you mind telling me," Miss Derwent asked, "whether our fellow-traveller seems to you one of them?"

"H'm! On the whole, yes. His faults are balanced, I think, by his aristocratic temper. He is too proud consciously to make dirty bargains. High-handed, of course; but that's the race--the race. Things being as they are, I would as soon see him in power as another."

Irene pondered this. It pleased her.

On the morning after Arnold's proposal, she knew that he and her father had talked. Dr. Derwent, a shy man, rather avoided her look; but he behaved to her with particular kindliness; as they stood looking towards the coast of England, he drew her hand through his arm, and stroked it once or twice--a thing he had not done on the whole journey.

"The brave old island!" he was murmuring. "I should be really disturbed if I thought death would find me away from it. Foolish fancy, but it's strong in me."

Irene was taciturn, and unlike herself. The approach to port enabled her to avoid gossips, but one person, Helen Borisoff, guessed what had happened; Irene's grave countenance and Arnold Jacks' meditative smile partly instructed her. On the railway journey to London, Jacks had the discretion to keep apart in a smoking-carriage. Dr. Derwent and his daughter exchanged but few words until they found themselves in Bryanston Square.

During their absence abroad, Mrs. Hannaford had been keeping house for them. With brief intervals spent now and then in pursuit of health, she had made Bryanston Square her home since the change in her circumstances two years ago. Lee Hannaford held no communication with her, content to draw the modest income she put at his disposal, and Olga, her mother knew not why, was still unmarried, though declaring herself still engaged to the man Kite. She lived here and there in lodgings, at times seeming to maintain herself, at others accepting help; her existence had an air of mystery far from reassuring.

On meeting her aunt, Irene found her looking ill and troubled. Mrs. Hannaford declared that she was much as usual, and evaded inquiries. She passed from joy at her relatives' return to a mood of silent depression; her eyes made one think that she must have often shed tears of late. In the past twelvemonth she had noticeably aged; her beauty was vanishing; a nervous tremor often affected her thin hands, and in her speech there was at times a stammering uncertainty, such as comes of mental distress. Dr. Derwent, seeing her after two months' absence, was gravely observant of these things.

"I wish you could find out what's troubling your aunt," he said to Irene, next day. "Something is, and something very serious, though she won't admit it. I'm really uneasy about her."

Irene tried to win the sufferer's confidence, but without success. Mrs. Hannaford became irritable, and withdrew as much as possible from sight.

The girl had her own trouble, and it was one she must needs keep to herself. She shrank from the next meeting with Arnold Jacks, which could not long be postponed. It took place three days after her return, when Arnold and Mrs. Jacks dined in Bryanston Square. John Jacks was to have come, but excused himself on the plea of indisposition. As might have been expected of him, Arnold was absolute discretion; he looked and spoke, perhaps, a trifle more gaily than usual, but to Irene showed no change of demeanour, and conversed with her no more than was necessary. Irene felt grateful, and once more tried to convince herself that she had done nothing irreparable. In fact, as in assertion, she was free. The future depended entirely on her own will and pleasure. That her mind was ceaselessly preoccupied with Arnold could only be deemed natural, for she had to come to a decision within three or four weeks' time. But--if necessary the respite should be prolonged.

Eustace Derwent dined with them, and Irene noticed--what had occurred to her before now--that the young man seemed to have particular pleasure in the society of Mrs. Jacks; he conversed with her more naturally, more variously, than with any other lady of his friends; and Mrs. Jacks, through the unimpeachable correctness of her exterior, almost allowed it to be suspected that she found a special satisfaction in listening to him. Eustace was a frequent guest at the Jacks'; yet there could hardly be much in common between him and the lady's elderly husband, nor was he on terms of much intimacy with Arnold. Of course two such excellent persons, such models of decorum, such examples of the English ideal, masculine and feminine, would naturally see in each other the most desirable of acquaintances; it was an instance of social and personal fitness, which the propriety of our national manners renders as harmless as it is delightful. They talked of art, of literature, discovering an entire unanimity in their preferences, which made for the safely conventional. They chatted of common acquaintances, agreeing that the people they liked were undoubtedly the very nicest people in their circle, and avoiding in the suavest manner any severity regarding those they could not approve. When Eustace apologised for touching on a professional subject (he had just been called to the Bar), Mrs. Jacks declared that nothing could interest her more. If he ventured a jest, she smiled with surpassing sweetness, and was all but moved to laugh. They, at all events, spent a most agreeable evening.

Not so Mrs. Hannaford, who, just before dinner, had received a letter, which at once she destroyed. The missive ran thus:

"DEAR MRS. HANNAFORD--I am distressed to hear that you suffer so in health. Consult your brother; you will find that the only thing to do you good will be a complete change of climate and of habits. You know how often I have urged this; if you had listened to me, you would by now have been both healthy and happy--yes, happy. Is it too late? Don't you value your life? And don't you care at all for the happiness of mine? Meet me to-morrow, I beg, at the Museum, about eleven o'clock, and let us talk it all over once more. Do be sensible; don't wreck your life out of respect for social superstitions. The thing once over, who thinks the worse of you? Not a living creature for whom you need care. You have suffered for years; put an end to it; the remedy is in your hands. Ever yours,

D.O."

CHAPTER XVI

A few days after her return, Irene left home in the morning to make an unceremonious call. She was driven to Great Portland Street and alighted before a shop, which bore the number of the house she sought. Having found the private entrance--a door that stood wide open--and after ringing once or twice without drawing anyone's attention, she began to ascend the uncarpeted stairs. At that moment there came down a young woman humming an air; a cheery-faced, solidly-built damsel, dressed with attention to broad effect in colours which were then--or recently had been--known as "aesthetic." With some diffidence, for the encounter was not of a kind common in her experience, Irene asked this person for a direction to the rooms occupied by Miss Hannaford.

"Oh, she's my chum," was the genial reply. "Top floor, front. You'll find her there."

With thanks the visitor passed on, but had not climbed half a dozen steps when the clear-sounding voice caused her to stop.

"Beg your pardon and all that kind of thing, but would you mind telling her that Tomkins is huffy? I forgot to mention it before I came out. Thanks, awfully."

Puzzled, if not disconcerted, Miss Derwent reached the top floor and knocked. A voice she recognised bade her enter. She found herself in a bare-floored room, furnished with a table, a chair or two, and a divan, on the walls a strange exhibition of designs in glaring colours which seemed to be studies for street posters. At the table, bending over a drawing-board, sat Olga Hannaford, her careless costume and the disorder of her hair suggesting that she had only just got up. She recognised her visitor with some embarrassment.

"Irene--I am so glad--I really am ashamed--we keep such hours here--please don't mind!"

"Not I, indeed! What is there to mind? I spoke to someone downstairs who gave me a message for you. I was to say that Tomkins was huffy. Do you understand?"

Olga bit her lip in vexation, and to restrain a laugh.

"No, that's too bad! But just like her. That was the girl I live with--Miss Bonnicastle. She's very nice really--not a bit of harm in her; but she will play these silly practical jokes."

"Ah, it was a joke?" said Irene, not altogether pleased with Miss Bonnicastle's facetiousness. But the next moment, good humour coming to her help, she broke into merriment.

"That's what she does," said Olga, pointing to the walls. "She's awfully clever really, and she'll make a great success with that sort of thing before long, I'm sure. Look at that advertisement of Honey's Castor Oil. Isn't the child's face splendid?"

"Very clever indeed," assented Irene, and laughed again, her cousin joining in her mirth. Five minutes ago she had felt anything but hilarious; the impulse to gaiety came she knew not how, and she indulged it with a sense of relief.

"Are you doing the same sort of thing, Olga?"

"Wish I could. I've a little work for a new fashion paper; have to fill in the heads and arms, and so on. It isn't high art, you know, but they pay me."

"Why in the world do you do it? _Why_ do you live in a place like this?"

"Oh, I like the life; on the whole. It's freedom; no society nonsense--I beg your pardon, Irene----"

"Please don't. I hope I'm not much in the way of society nonsense. Sit down; I want to talk. When did you see your mother?"

"Not for a long time," answered Olga, her countenance falling. "I sent her the new address when I came here, but she hasn't been yet."

"Why don't you go to her?"

"No! I've broken with that world. I can't make calls in Bryanston Square--or anywhere else. That's all over."

"Nonsense!"

"It isn't nonsense!" exclaimed Olga, flushing angrily. "Why do you come to interfere with me? What right have you, Irene? I'm old enough to live as I please. I don't come to criticise your life!"

Irene was startled into silence for a moment. She met her cousin's look, and so gravely, so kindly, that Olga turned away in shame.

"You and I used to be friends, and to have confidence in each other," resumed Irene. "Why can't that come over again? Couldn't you tell me what it all means, dear?"

The other shook her head, keeping her eyes averted.

"My first reason for coming," Irene pursued, "was to talk to you about your mother. Do you know that she is very far from well? My father speaks very seriously of her state of health. Something is weighing on her mind, as anyone can see, and we think it can only be _you_--your strange life, and your neglect of her."

Olga shook her head.

"You're mistaken, I know you are."

"You know? Then can you tell us how to be of use to her? To speak plainly, my father fears the worst, if something isn't done."

With elbow on knee, and chin in hand, Olga sat brooding. She had a dishevelled, wild appearance; her cheeks were hollow, her eyes and lips expressed a reckless mood.

"It is not on my account," she let fall, abstractedly.

"Can you help her, Olga?"

"No one can help her," was the reply in the same dreamy tone.

Then followed a long silence. Irene gazed at one of the flaring grotesques on the wall, but did not see it.

"May I ask you a question about your own affairs?" she said at length, very gently. "It isn't for curiosity. I have a deeper interest."

"Of course you may ask Irene. I'm behaving badly to you, but I don't mean it. I'm miserable--that's what it comes to."

"I can see that, dear. Am I right in thinking that your engagement has been broken off?"

"I'll tell you; you shall know the whole truth. It isn't broken; yet I'm sure it'll never come to anything. I don't think I want it to. He behaves so strangely. You know we were to have been married after the twelvemonth, with mother's consent. When the time drew near, I saw he didn't wish it. He said that after all he was afraid it would be a miserable marriage for me. The trouble is, he has no character, no will. He cares for me a great deal; and that's just why he won't marry me. He'll never do anything--in art, I mean. We should have to live on mother's money, and he doesn't like that. If we had been married straight away, as I wanted, two years ago, it would have been all right. It's too late now."

"And this, you feel, is ruining your life?"

"I'm troubled about it, but more on his account than mine. I'll tell you, Irene, I want to break off, for good and all, and I'm afraid. It's a hard thing to do."

"Now I understand you. Do you think"--Irene added in another tone--"that it's well to be what they call in love with the man one marries?"

"Think? Of course I do!"

"Many people doubt it. We are told that French marriages are often happier than English, because they are arranged with a practical view, by experienced people."

"It depends," replied Olga, with a half-disdainful smile, "what one calls happiness. I, for one, don't want a respectable, plodding, money-saving married life. I'm not fit for it. Of course some people are."

"Then, you could never bring yourself to marry a man you merely liked--in a friendly way?"

"I think it horrible, hideous!" was the excited reply. "And yet"--her voice dropped--"it may not be so for some women. I judge only by myself."

"I suspect, Olga, that some people are never in love--never could be in that state."

"I daresay, poor things!"

Irene, though much in earnest, was moved to laugh.

"After all, you know," she said, "they have less worry."

"Of course they have, and live more useful lives, if it comes to that."

"A useful life isn't to be despised, you know."

Olga looked at her cousin; so fixedly that Irene had to turn away, and in a moment spoke as though changing the subject.

"Have you heard that Mr. Otway is coming to England again?"

"What!" cried Olga with sudden astonishment. "You are thinking of _him_--of Piers Otway?"

Irene became the colour of the rose; her eyes flashed with annoyance.

"How extraordinary you are, Olga! As if one couldn't mention anyone without that sort of meaning! I spoke of Mr. Otway by pure accident. He had nothing whatever to do with what I was saying before."

Olga sank into dulness again, murmuring, "I beg your pardon." When a minute had elapsed in silence, she added, without looking up, "He was dreadfully in love with you, poor fellow. I suppose he has got over it."

An uncertain movement, a wandering look, and Miss Derwent rose. She stood before one of the rough-washed posters, seeming to admire it; Olga eyed her askance, with curiosity.

"I know only one thing," Irene exclaimed abruptly, without turning. "It's better not to think too much about all that."

"How _can_ one think too much of it?" said the other.

"Very easily, I'm afraid," rejoined the other, her eyes still on the picture.

"It's the only thing in life _worth_ thinking about!"

"You astonish me. We'll agree to differ--Olga dear, come and see us in the old way. Come and dine this evening; we shall be alone."

But the unkempt girl was not to be persuaded, and Irene presently took her leave. The conversation had perturbed her; she went away in a very unwonted frame of mind, beset with troublesome fancies and misgivings. Olga's state seemed to her thoroughly unwholesome, to be regarded as a warning; it was evidently contagious; it affected the imagination with morbid allurement. Morbid, surely; Irene would not see it in any other light. She felt the need of protecting herself against thoughts which had never until now given her a moment's uneasiness. Happily she was going to lunch with her friend Mrs. Borisoff, anything but a sentimental person. She began to discern a possibility of taking Helen Borisoff into her confidence. With someone she _must_ talk freely; Olga would only harm her; in Helen she might find the tonic of sound sense which her mood demanded.

Olga Hannaford, meanwhile, finished her toilet, and, having had no breakfast, went out a little after midday to the restaurant in Oxford Street where she often lunched. Her walking-dress showed something of the influence of Miss Bonnicastle; it was more picturesque, more likely to draw the eye, than her costume of former days. She walked, too, with an air of liberty which marked her spiritual progress. Women glanced at her and looked away with a toss of the head--or its more polite equivalent. Men observed her with a smile of interest; "A fine girl," was their comment, or something to that effect.

Strolling westward after her meal, intending to make a circuit by way of Edgware Road, she was near the Marble Arch when a man who had caught sight of her from the top of an omnibus alighted and hastened in her direction. At the sound of his voice, Olga paused, smiling, and gave him her hand with friendliness. He was an Italian, his name Florio; they had met several times at a house which she visited with Miss Bonnicastle. Mr. Florio had a noticeable visage, very dark of tone, eyes which at one time seemed to glow with noble emotion, and at another betrayed excessive shrewdness; heavy eyebrows and long black lashes; a nose of classical Perfection; large mouth with thick and very red lips. He was dressed in approved English fashion, as a man of leisure, wore a massive watchguard across his buff summer waistcoat, and carried a silver-headed cane.

"You are taking a little walk," he said, with a very slight foreign accent. "If you will let me walk with you a little way I shall be honoured. The Park? A delightful day for the Park! Let us walk over the grass, as we may do in this free country. I have something to tell you, Miss Hannaford."

"That's nice of you, Mr. Florio. So few people tell one anything one doesn't know; but yours is sure to be real news."

"It is--I assure you it is. But, first of all, I was thinking on the 'bus--I often ride on the 'bus, it gives one ideas--I was thinking what a pity they do not use the back of the 'bus driver to display advertisements. It is a loss of space. Those men are so beautifully broad, and one looks at their backs, and there is nothing, nothing to see but an ugly coat. I shall mention my little scheme to a friend of mine, a very practical man."

Olga laughed merrily.

"Oh, you are too clever, Mr. Florio!"

"Oh, I have my little ideas. Do you know, I've just come back from Italy."

"I envy you--I mean, I envy you for having been there."

"Ah, that is your mistake, dear Miss Hannaford! That is the mistake of the romantic English young lady. Italy? Yes, there is a blue sky--not always. Yes, there are ruins that interest, if one is educated. And, there is misery, misery! Italy is a poor country, poor, poor, poor, poor." He intoned the words as if speaking his own language. "And poverty is the worst thing in the world. You make an illusion for yourself, Miss Hannaford. For a holiday when one's rich, yes, Italy is not bad--though there is fever, and there are thieves--oh, thieves! Of course The man who is poor will steal--_ecco_! It amuses me, when the English talk of Italy."

"But you are proud of--of your memories?"

"Memories!" Mr. Florio laughed a whole melody. "One is not proud of former riches when one has become a beggar. It is you, the English, who can be proud of the past, because you can be proud of the present. You have grown free, free, free! Rich, rich, rich, ah!"

Olga laughed.

"I am sorry to say that I have not grown rich."

He bent his gaze upon her, and it glowed with tender amorousness.

"You remind me--I have something to tell you. In Italy, not everybody is quite poor. For example, my grandfather, at Bologna. I have made a visit to my grandfather. He likes me; he admires me because I have intelligence. He will not live very long, that poor grandfather."

Olga glanced at him, and met the queer calculating melancholy of his fine eyes.

"Miss Hannaford, if some day I am rich, I shall of course live in England. In what other country can one live? I shall have a house in the West End; I shall have a carriage; I shall nationalise--you say naturalise?--myself, and be an Englishman, not a beggarly Italian. And that will not be long. The poor old grandfather is weak, weak; he decays, he loses his mind; but he has made his testament, oh yes!"

The girl's look wandered about the grassy space, she was uneasy.

"Shall we turn and walk back, Mr. Florio?"

"If you wish, but slowly, slowly. I am so happy to have met you. Your company is a delight to me, Miss Hannaford. Can we not meet more often?"

"I am always glad to see you," she answered nervously.

"Good!--A thought occurs to me." He pointed to the iron fence they were approaching. "Is not that a waste? Why does not the public authority--what do you call it?--make money of these railings? Imagine! One attaches advertisements to the rail, metal plates, of course artistically designed, not to spoil the Park. They might swing in the wind as it blows, and perhaps little bells might ring, to attract attention. A good idea, is it not?"

"A splendid idea," Olga answered, with a laugh.

"Ah! England is a great country! But, Miss Hannaford, there is one thing in which the Italian is not inferior to the Englishman. May I say what that is?"

"There are many things, I am sure----"

"But there is one thing--that is Love!"

Olga walked on, head bent, and Florio enveloped her in his gaze.

"To-day I say no more, Miss Hannaford. I had something to tell you, and I have told it. When I have something more to tell we shall meet--oh, I am sure we shall meet."

"You are staying in England for some time?" said Olga, as if in ordinary conversation.

"For a little time; I come, I go. I have, you know, my affairs, my business. How is your friend, the admirable artist, the charming Miss Bonnicastle?"

"Oh, very well, always well."

"Yes, the English ladies they have wonderful health--I admire them; but there is one I admire most of all."

A few remarks more, of like tenor, and they drew near again to the Marble Arch. With bows and compliments and significant looks, Mr. Florio walked briskly away in search of an omnibus.

Olga, her eyes cast down as she turned homeward, was not aware that someone who had held her in sight for a long time grew gradually near, until he stepped to her side. It was Mr. Kite. He looked at her with a melancholy smile on his long, lank face, and, when at length the girl saw him, took off his shabby hat respectfully. Olga nodded and walked on without speaking. Kite accompanying her.

CHAPTER XVII

Olga was the first to break silence.

"You ought to take your boots to be mended," she said gently. "If it rains, you'll get wet feet, and you know what that means."

"You're very kind to think of it; I will."

"You can pay for them, I hope?"

"Pay? Oh, yes, yes! a trifle such as that--Have you had a long walk?"

"I met a friend. I may as well tell you; it was the Italian, Mr. Florio."

"I saw you together," said Kite absently, but not resentfully. "I half thought of coming up to be introduced to him. But I'm rather shabby, I feared you mightn't like it."

"It wouldn't have mattered a bit, so far as I'm concerned," replied Olga good-naturedly. "But he isn't the kind of man you'd care for. If he had been, I should have got you to meet him before now."

"You like him?"

"Yes, I rather like him. But it's nothing more than that; don't imagine it. Oh, I had a call from my cousin Irene this morning. We don't quite get on together; she's getting very worldly. Her idea is that one ought to marry cold-bloodedly, just for social advantage, and that kind of thing. No doubt she's going to do it, and then we shall never see each other again, never!--She tells me that Piers Otway is coming to England again."

"Oh, now I should like to know _him_, I really should!" exclaimed Kite, with a mild vivacity.

"So you shall, if he stays in London. Perhaps you would suit each other."

"I'm sure, because you like him so much."

"Do I?" asked Olga doubtfully. "Yes, perhaps so. If he hasn't changed for the worse. But it'll be rather irritating if he talks about nothing but Irene still. Oh, that's impossible! Five years; yes, that's impossible."

"One should think the better of him, in a way," ventured Kite.

"Oh, in a way. But when a thing of that sort is hopeless. I'm afraid Irene looks down upon him, just because--you know. But he's better than most of the men she'll meet in her drawing-rooms, that's Certain. Shall I ask him to come to my place?"

"Do. And I hope he'll stay in England, and that you'll see a good deal of him."

"Pray, why?"

"Because that's the right kind of acquaintance for you, he'll do you good."

Olga laughed a little, and said, with compassionate kindness:

"You _are_ queer!"

"I meant nothing unpleasant, Olga," was the apologetic rejoinder.

"Of course you didn't. Have you had dinner yet?"

"Dinner? Oh yes--of course, long ago!"

"I know what that means."

"'Sh! 'Sh! May I come home and talk a little?"

Dinner, it might be feared, was no immutable feature of Mr. Kite's day. He had a starved aspect; his long limbs were appallingly meagre; as he strode along, his clothing, thin and disreputable, flapped about him. But his countenance showed nothing whatever of sourness, or of grim endurance. Nor did he appear to be in a feeble state of health; for all his emaciation, his step was firm and he held himself tolerably upright. One thing was obvious, that at Olga's side he forgot his ills. Each time he glanced at her, a strange beautiful smile passed like a light over his hard features, a smile of infinite melancholy, yet of infinite tenderness. The voice in which he addressed her was invariably softened to express something more than homage.

They had the habit of walking side by side, and could keep silence without any feeling of restraint. Kite now and then uttered some word or ejaculation, to which Olga paid no heed; it was only his way, the trick of a man who lived much alone, and who conversed with visions.

On ascending to the room in Great Portland Street, they found Miss Bonnicastle hard at work on a design of considerable size, which hung against the wall. This young lady, for all her sportiveness, was never tempted to jest at the expense of Mr. Kite; removing a charcoal holder from her mouth, she nodded pleasantly, and stood aside to allow the melancholy man a view of her work.

"Astonishing vigour!" said Kite, in his soft, sincere voice. "How I envy you!"

Miss Bonnicastle laughed with self-deprecation. She, no less than Olga Hannaford, credited Kite with wonderful artistic powers; in their view, only his constitutional defect of energy, his incorrigible dreaminess, stood between him and great achievement. The evidence in support of their faith was slight enough; a few sketches, a hint in crayon, or a wash in water-colour, were all he had to show; but Kite belonged to that strange order of men who, seemingly without effort or advantage of any kind, awaken the interest and gain the confidence of certain women. Even Mrs. Hannaford, though a mother's reasons set her against him, had felt this seductive quality in Olga's lover, and liked though she could not approve of him. Powers of fascination in a man very often go together with lax principle, if not with active rascality; Kite was an instance to the contrary. He had a quixotic sensitiveness, a morbid instinct of honour. If it is true that virile force, preferably with a touch of the brutal, has a high place in the natural woman's heart, none the less does an ideal of male purity, of the masculine subdued to gentle virtues, make strong appeal to the imagination in her sex. To the everyday man, Kite seemed a mere pale grotesque, a creature of flabby foolishness. But Olga Hannaford was not the only girl who had dreamed of devoting her life to him. If she could believe his assurance (and she all but did believe it), for her alone had he felt anything worthy to be called love, to her alone had he spoken words of tenderness. The high-tide of her passion had long since ebbed; yet she knew that Kite still had power over her, power irresistible, if he chose to exercise it, and the strange fact that he would not, that, still loving her, he did not seem to be jealous for her love in return, often moved her to bitterness.

She knew his story. He was the natural son of a spendthrift aristocrat, who, after educating him decently had died and left a will which seemed to assure Kite a substantial independence. Unfortunately, the will dealt, for the most part, with property no longer in existence. Kite's income was to be paid by one of the deceased's relatives, who, instead of benefiting largely, found that he came in for a mere pittance; and the proportion of that pittance due to the illegitimate son was exactly forty-five pounds, four shillings, and fourpence per annum. It was paid; it kept Kite alive; also, no doubt, it kept him from doing what he might have done, in art or anything else. On quarterly pay-day the dreamer always spent two or three pounds on gifts to those of his friends who were least able to make practical return. To Olga, of course, he had offered lordly presents, until the day when she firmly refused to take anything more from him. When his purse was empty he earned something by journeyman work in the studio of a portrait painter, a keen man of business, who gave shillings to this assistant instead of the sovereigns that another would have asked for the same labour.

As usual when he came here, Kite settled himself in a chair, stretched out his legs, let his arms depend, and so watched the two girls at work. There was not much conversation; Kite never began it. Miss Bonnicastle hummed, or whistled, or sang, generally the refrains of the music-hall; if work gave her trouble she swore vigorously--in German, a language with which she was well acquainted and at the sound of her maledictions, though he did not understand them, Kite always threw his head back with a silent laugh. Olga naturally had most of his attention; he often fixed his eyes upon her for five minutes at a time, and Olga, being used to this, was not at all disturbed by it.

When five o'clock came, Miss Bonnicastle flung up her arms and yawned.

"Let's have some blooming tea!" she exclaimed. "All right, I'll get it. I've just about ten times the muscle and go of you two put together; it's only right I should do the slavey."

Kite rose, and reached his hat. Whereupon, with soft pressure of her not very delicate hands, Miss Bonnicastle forced him back into his chair.

"Sit still. Do as I tell you. What's the good of you if you can't help us to drink tea?"

And Kite yielded, as always, wishing he could sit there for ever.

Three weeks later, on an afternoon of rain, the trio were again together in the same way. Someone knocked, and a charwoman at work on the premises handed in a letter for Miss Hannaford.

"I know who this is from," said Olga, looking up at Kite.

"And I can guess," he returned, leaning forward with a look of interest.

She read the note--only a few lines, and handed it to her friend, remarking:

"He'd better come to-morrow."

"Who's that?" asked Miss Bonnicastle.

"Piers Otway."

The poster artist glanced from one face to the other, with a smile. There had been much talk lately of Otway, who was about to begin business in London; his partner, Andre Moncharmont, remaining at Odessa. Olga had heard from her mother that Piers wished to see her, and had allowed Mrs. Hannaford to give him her address; he now wrote asking if he might call.

"I'll go and send him a wire," she said. "There isn't time to write. To-morrow's Sunday."

When Olga had run out, Kite, as if examining a poster on the wall, turned his back to Miss Bonnicastle. She, after a glance or two in his direction, addressed him by name, and the man looked round.

"You don't mind if I speak plainly?"

"Of course I don't," he replied, his features distorted, rather than graced, by a smile.

The girl approached him, arms akimbo, but, by virtue of a frank look, suggesting more than usual of womanhood.

"You've got to be either one thing or the other. She doesn't care _that_"--a snap of the fingers--"for this man Otway, and she knows he doesn't care for her. But she's playing him against you, and you must expect more of it. You ought to make up your mind. It isn't fair to her."

"Thank you," murmured Kite, reddening a little. "It's kind of you."

"Well, I hope it is. But she'd be furious if she guessed I'd said such a thing. I only do it because it's for her good as much as yours. Things oughtn't to drag on, you know; it isn't fair to a girl like that."

Kite thrust his hands into his pockets, and drew himself up to a full five feet eleven.

"I'll go away," he said. "I'll go and live in Paris for a bit."

"That's for _you_ to decide. Of course if you feel like that--it's none of my business, I don't pretend to understand _you_; I'm not quite sure I understand _her_. You're a queer couple. All I know is, it's gone on long enough, and it isn't fair to a girl like Olga. She isn't the sort that can doze through a comfortable engagement of ten or twelve years, and surely you know that."

"I'll go away," said Kite again, nodding resolutely.

He turned again to the poster, and Miss Bonnicastle resumed her work. Thus Olga found them when she came back.

"I've asked him to come at three," she said. "You'll be out then, Bonnie. When you come in we'll put the kettle on, and all have tea." She chanted it, to the old nursery tune. "Of course you'll come as well"--she addressed Kite--"say about four. It'll be jolly!"

So, on the following afternoon, Olga sat alone, in readiness for her visitor. She had paid a little more attention than usual to her appearance, but was perfectly self-possessed; a meeting with Piers Otway had never yet quickened her pulse, and would not do so to-day. If anything, she suffered a little from low spirits, conscious of having played a rather disingenuous part before Kite, and not exactly knowing to what purpose she had done so. It still rained; it had been gloomy for several days. Looking at the heavy sky above the gloomy street, Olga had a sense of wasted life. She asked herself whether it would not have been better, on the decline of her love-fever, to go back into the so-called respectable world, share her mother's prosperity, make the most of her personal attractions, and marry as other girls did--if anyone invited her. She was doing no good; all the experience to be had in a life of mild Bohemianism was already tasted, and found rather insipid. An artist she would never become; probably she would never even support herself. To imagine herself really dependent on her own efforts, was to sink into misery and fear. The time had come for a new step, a new beginning, yet all possibilities looked so vague.

A knock at the door. She opened, and saw Piers Otway.

If they had been longing to meet, instead of scarcely ever giving a thought to each other, they could not have clasped hands with more warmth. They gazed eagerly into each other's eyes, and seemed too much overcome for ordinary words of greeting. Then Olga saw that Otway looked nothing like so well as when on his visit to England some couple of years ago. He, in turn, was surprised at the change in Olga's features; the bloom of girlhood had vanished; she was handsome, striking, but might almost have passed for a married woman of thirty.

"A queer place, isn't it?" she said, laughing, as Piers cast a glance round the room.

"Is this your work?" he asked, pointing to the posters.

"No, no! Mine isn't for exhibition. It hides itself--with the modesty of supreme excellence!"

Again they looked at each other; Olga pointed to a chair, herself became seated, and explained the conditions of her life here. Bending forward, his hands folded between his knees, Otway listened with a face on which trouble began to reassert itself after the emotion of their meeting.

"So you have really begun business at last?" said Olga.

"Yes. Rather hopefully, too."

"You don't look hopeful, somehow."

"Oh, that's nothing. Moncharmont has scraped together a fair capital, and as for me, well, a friend has come to my help, I mustn't say who it is. Yes, things look promising enough, for a start. Already I've seen an office in the City, which I think I shall take. I shall decide to-morrow, and then--_avos_!"

"What does that mean?"

"A common word in Russian. It means 'Fire away.'"

"I must remember it," said Olga, laughing. "It'll make a change from English and French slang--_Avos_!"

There was a silence longer than they wished. Olga broke it by asking abruptly:

"Have you seen my mother?"

"Not yet."

"I'm afraid she's not well."

"Then why do you keep away from her?" said Piers, with good-humoured directness. "Is it really necessary for you to live here? She would be much happier if you went back."

"I'm not sure of that."

"But I am, from what she says in her letters, and I should have thought that you, too, would prefer it to this life."

He glanced round the room. Olga looked vexed, and spoke with a note of irony.

"My tastes are unaccountable, I'm afraid. You, no doubt, find it difficult to understand them. So does my cousin Irene. You have heard that she is going to be married?"

Piers, surprised at her change of tone, regarded her fixedly, until she reddened and her eyes fell.

"Is the engagement announced, then?"

"I should think so; but I'm not much in the way of hearing fashionable gossip."

Still Piers regarded her; still her cheeks kept their colour, and her eyes refused to meet his.

"I see I have offended you," he said quietly. "I'm very sorry. Of course I went too far in speaking like that of the life you have chosen. I had no righ----"

"Nonsense! If you mustn't tell me what you think, who may?"

Again the change was so sudden, this time from coldness to smiling familiarity, that Piers felt embarrassed.

"The fact is," Olga pursued, with a careless air, "I don't think I shall go on with this much longer. If you said what you have in your mind, that I should never be any good as an artist, you would be quite right. I haven't had the proper training; it'll all come to nothing. And--talking of engagements--I daresay you know that mine is broken off?"

"No, I didn't know that."

"It is. Mr. Kite and I are only friends now. He'll look in presently, I think. I should like you to meet him, if you don't mind."

"Of course I shall be very glad."

"All this, you know," said Olga, with a laugh, "would be monstrously irregular in decent society, but decent society is often foolish, don't you think?"

"To be sure it is," Piers answered genially, "and I never meant to find fault with your preference for a freer way of living. It is only--you say I may speak freely--that I didn't like to think of your going through needless hardships."

"You don't think, then, it has done me good?"

"I am not at all sure of that."

Olga lay back in her chair, as if idly amused.

"You see," she said, "how we have both changed. We are both much more positive, in different directions. To be sure, it makes conversation more interesting. But the change is greatest in me. You always aimed at success in a respectable career."

Otway looked puzzled, a little disconcerted.

"Really, is that how I always struck you? To me it's new light on my own character."

"How did you think of yourself, then?" she asked, looking at him from beneath drooping lids.

"I hardly know; I have thought less on that subject than on most."

Again there came a silence, long enough to be embarrassing. Then Olga took up a sketch that was lying on the table, and held it to her visitor.

"Don't you think that good? It's one of Miss Bonnicastle's. Let us talk about her; she'll be here directly. We don't seem to get on, talking about ourselves."

The sketch showed an elephant sitting upright, imbibing with gusto from a bottle of some much-advertised tonic. Piers broke into a laugh. Other sketches were exhibited, and thus they passed the time until Miss Bonnicastle and Kite arrived together.

CHAPTER XVIII

Strangers with whom Piers Otway had business at this time saw in him a young man of considerable energy, though rather nervous and impulsive, capable in all that concerned his special interests, not over-sanguine, inclined to brevity of speech, and scrupulously courteous in a cold way. He seldom smiled; his clean-cut, intelligent features expressed tension of the whole man, ceaseless strain and effort without that joy of combat which compensates physical expenditure. He looked in fair, not robust, health; a shadowed pallor of complexion was natural to him, and made noticeable the very fine texture of his skin, which quickly betrayed in delicate flushes any strong feeling. He shook hands with a short, firm grip which argued more muscle than one might have supposed in him. His walk was rapid; his bearing upright; his glance direct, with something of apprehensive pride. The observant surmised a force more or less at odds with the facts of life. Shrewd men of commerce at once perceived his qualities, but reserved their judgment as to his chances; he was not, in any case, altogether of their world, however well he might have studied its principles and inured himself to its practice.

He took rooms in Guildford Street. Indifferent to locality, asking nothing more than decency in his immediate surroundings, he fell by accident on the better kind of lodging-house, and was at once what is called comfortable; his landlady behaved to him with a peculiar respectfulness, often noticeable in the uneducated who had relations with Otway, and explained perhaps by his quiet air of authority. To those who served him, no man was more considerate, but he never became familiar with them; without a trace of pretentiousness in his demeanour, he was viewed by such persons as one sensibly above them, with some solid right to rule.