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The Whirlpool

by George Gissing · English · Gutenberg #4299 · 932,869 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Whirlpool

Author: George Gissing


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4299]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4299

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHIRLPOOL ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.










The Whirlpool


by

George Gissing





Part the First




CHAPTER 1


Harvey Rolfe was old enough to dine with deliberation, young and
healthy enough to sauce with appetite the dishes he thoughtfully
selected. You perceived in him the imperfect epicure. His club had no
culinary fame; the dinner was merely tolerable; but Rolfe's unfinished
palate flattered the second-rate cook. He knew nothing of vintages; it
sufficed him to distinguish between Bordeaux and Burgundy; yet one saw
him raise his glass and peer at the liquor with eye of connoisseur. All
unaffectedly; for he was conscious of his shortcoming in the art of
delicate living, and never vaunted his satisfactions. He had known the
pasture of poverty, and the table as it is set by London landladies; to
look back on these things was to congratulate himself that nowadays he
dined.

Beyond the achievement of a vague personal distinction at the
Metropolitan Club, he had done nothing to make himself a man of note,
and it was doubtful whether more than two or three of the members
really liked him or regarded him with genuine interest. His
introduction to this circle he owed to an old friend, Hugh Carnaby,
whose social position was much more clearly defined: Hugh Carnaby, the
rambler, the sportsman, and now for a twelvemonth the son-in-law of
Mrs. Ascott Larkfield. Through Carnaby people learnt as much of his
friend's history as it concerned anyone to know: that Harvey Rolfe had
begun with the study of medicine, had given it up in disgust,
subsequently was 'in business', and withdrew from it on inheriting a
competency. They were natives of the same county, and learnt their
Latin together at the Grammar School of Greystone, the midland town
which was missed by the steam highroad, and so preserves much of the
beauty and tranquillity of days gone by. Rolfe seldom spoke of his own
affairs, but in talking of travel he had been heard to mention that his
father had engineered certain lines of foreign railway. It seemed that
Harvey had no purpose in life, save that of enjoying himself. Obviously
he read a good deal, and Carnaby credited him with profound historical
knowledge; but he neither wrote nor threatened to do so. Something of
cynicism appeared in his talk of public matters; politics amused him,
and his social views lacked consistency, tending, however, to an
indolent conservatism. Despite his convivial qualities, he had traits
of the reserved, even of the unsociable, man: a slight awkwardness in
bearing, a mute shyness with strangers, a hesitancy in ordinary talk,
and occasional bluntness of assertion or contradiction, suggesting a
contempt which possibly he did not intend. Hugh Carnaby declared that
the true Rolfe only showed himself after a bottle of wine; maintained,
moreover, that Harvey had vastly improved since he entered upon a
substantial income. When Rolfe was five and twenty, Hugh being two
years younger, they met after a long separation, and found each other
intolerable; a decade later their meeting led to hearty friendship.
Rolfe had become independent, and was tasting his freedom in a
twelvemonth's travel. The men came face to face one day on the deck of
a steamer at Port Said. Physically, Rolfe had changed so much that the
other had a difficulty in recognising him; morally, the change was not
less marked, as Carnaby very soon became aware. At thirty-seven this
process of development was by no means arrested, but its slow and
subtle working escaped observation unless it were that of Harvey Rolfe
himself.

His guest this evening, in a quiet corner of the dining-room where he
generally sat, was a man, ten years his junior, named Morphew: slim,
narrow-shouldered, with sandy hair, and pale, delicate features of more
sensibility than intelligence; restless, vivacious, talking incessantly
in a low, rapid voice, with frequent nervous laughs which threw back
his drooping head. A difference of costume--Rolfe wore morning dress,
Morphew the suit of ceremony--accentuated the younger man's advantage
in natural and acquired graces; otherwise, they presented the contrast
of character and insignificance. Rolfe had a shaven chin, a weathered
complexion, thick brown hair; the penumbra of middle-age had touched
his countenance, softening here and there a line which told of
temperament in excess. At this moment his manner inclined to a bluff
jocularity, due in some measure to the bottle of wine before him, as
also was the tinge of colour upon his cheek; he spoke briefly, but
listened with smiling interest to his guest's continuous talk. This ran
on the subject of the money-market, with which the young man boasted
some practical acquaintance.

'You don't speculate at all?' Morphew asked.

'Shouldn't know how to go about it,' replied the other in his deeper
note.

'It seems to me to be the simplest thing in the world if one is content
with moderate profits. I'm going in for it seriously--cautiously--as a
matter of business. I've studied the thing--got it up as I used to work
at something for an exam. And here, you see, I've made five pounds at a
stroke--five pounds! Suppose I make that every now and then, it's worth
the trouble, you know--it mounts up. And I shall never stand to lose
much. You see, it's Tripcony's interest that I should make profits.'

'I'm not quite sure of that.'

'Oh, but it _is_! Let me explain--'

These two had come to know each other under peculiar circumstances a
year ago. Rolfe was at Brussels, staying--his custom when abroad--at a
hotel unfrequented by English folk. One evening on his return from the
theatre, he learnt that a young man of his own nationality lay
seriously ill in a room at the top of the house. Harvey, moved by
compassion, visited the unfortunate Englishman, listened to his
ravings, and played the part of Good Samaritan. On recovery, the
stranger made full disclosure of his position. Being at Brussels on a
holiday, he had got into the company of gamblers, and, after winning a
large sum (ten thousand francs, he declared), had lost not only that,
but all else. that he possessed, including his jewellery. He had
gambled deliberately; he wanted money, money, and saw no other way of
obtaining it. In the expansive mood of convalescence, Cecil Morphew
left no detail of his story unrevealed. He was of gentle birth, and had
a private income of three hundred pounds, charged upon the estate of a
distant relative; his profession (the bar) could not be remunerative
for years, and other prospects he had none. The misery of his situation
lay in the fact that he was desperately in love with the daughter of
people who looked upon him as little better than a pauper. The girl had
pledged herself to him, but would not marry without her parents'
consent, of which there was no hope till he had at least trebled his
means. His choice of a profession was absurd, dictated merely by social
opinion; he should have been working hard in a commercial office, or at
some open-air pursuit. Naturally he turned again to the thought of
gambling, this time the great legalised game of hazard, wherein he was
as little likely to prosper as among the blacklegs of Brussels. Rolfe
liked him for his ingenuousness, and for the vein of poetry in his
nature. The love affair still went on, but Morphew seldom alluded to
it, and his seasoned friend thought of it as a youthful ailment which
would pass and be forgotten.

'I'm convinced,' said the young man presently, 'that any one who really
gives his mind to it can speculate with moderate success. Look at the
big men--the brokers and the company promoters, and so on; I've met
some of them, and there's nothing in them--nothing! Now, there's Bennet
Frothingham. You know him, I think?'

Rolfe nodded.

'Well, what do you think of him? Isn't he a very ordinary fellow? How
has he got such a position? I'm told he began just in a small way--by
chance. No doubt _he_ found it so easy to make money he was surprised
at his success. Tripcony has told me a lot about him. Why, the
"Britannia" brings him fifteen thousand a year; and he must be in a
score of other things.'

'I know nothing about the figures,' said Rolfe, 'and I shouldn't put
much faith in Tripcony; but Frothingham, you may be sure, isn't quite
an ordinary man.'

'Ah, well, of course there's a certain knack--and then, experience--'

Morphew emptied his glass, and refilled it. Nearly all the tables in
the room were now occupied, and the general hum of talk gave security
to intimate dialogue. Flushed and bright-eyed, the young man presently
leaned forward.

'If I could count upon five hundred, she would take the step.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes, that's settled. What do you think? Plenty of people live very
well on less.'

'You want my serious opinion?'

'If you _can_ be serious.'

'Then I think that the educated man who marries on less than a thousand
is either mad or a criminal.'

'Bosh! We won't talk about it.'

They rose, and walked towards the smoking-room, Rolfe giving a nod here
and there as he passed acquaintances. In the hall someone addressed him.

'How does Carnaby take this affair?'

'What affair?'

'Don't you know? Their house has been robbed--stripped. It's in the
evening papers.'

Rolfe went on into the smoking-room, and read the report of his
friend's misfortune. The Carnabys occupied a house in Hamilton Terrace.
During their absence from home last night, there had been a clean sweep
of all such things of value as could easily be removed. The
disappearance of their housekeeper, and the fact that this woman had
contrived the absence of the servants from nine o'clock till midnight,
left no mystery in the matter. The clubmen talked of it with amusement.
Hard lines, to be sure, for Carnaby, and yet harder for his wife, who
had lost no end of jewellery; but the thing was so neatly and
completely done, one must needs laugh. One or two husbands who enjoyed
the luxury of a housekeeper betrayed their uneasiness. A discussion
arose on the characteristics of housekeepers in general, and spread
over the vast subject of domestic management, not often debated at the
Metropolitan Club. In general talk of this kind Rolfe never took part;
smoking his pipe, he listened and laughed, and was at moments
thoughtful. Cecil Morphew, rapidly consuming cigarettes as he lay back
in a soft chair, pointed the moral of the story in favour of humble
domesticity.

In half an hour, his guest having taken leave, Rolfe put on his
overcoat, and stepped out into the cold, clammy November night. He was
overtaken by a fellow Metropolitan--a grizzled, scraggy-throated,
hollow-eyed man, who laid a tremulous hand upon his arm.

'Excuse me, Mr. Rolfe, have you seen Frothingham recently?'

'Not for a month.'

'Ah! I thought perhaps--I was wondering what he thought about the
Colebrook smash. To tell you the truth, I've heard unpleasant rumours.
Do you--should you think the Colebrook affair would affect the
"Britannia" in any way?'

It was not the first time that this man had confided his doubts and
timidities to Harvey Rolfe; he had a small, but to him important,
interest in Bennet Frothingham's wide-reaching affairs, and seemed to
spend most of his time in eliciting opinion on the financier's
stability.

'Wouldn't you be much more comfortable,' said Rolfe, rather bluntly,
'if you had your money in some other kind of security?'

'Ah, but, my dear sir, twelve and a half per cent--twelve and a half! I
hold preference shares of the original issue.'

'Then I'm afraid you must take your chance.'

'But,' piped the other in alarm, 'you don't mean that--'

'I mean nothing, and know nothing. I'm the last man to consult about
such things.'

And Rolfe, with an abrupt 'Goodnight,' beckoned to a passing hansom.
The address he gave was Hugh Carnaby's, in Hamilton Terrace.

Twice already the horse had slipped at slimy crossings, when, near the
top of Regent Street, it fell full length, and the abrupt stoppage
caused a collision of wheels with another hansom which was just passing
at full speed in the same direction. Rolfe managed to alight in the
ordinary way, and at once heard himself greeted by a familiar voice
from the other cab. His acquaintance showed a pallid, drawn, all but
cadaverous visage, with eyes which concealed pain or weariness under
their friendly smile. Abbott was the man's name. Formerly a lecturer at
a provincial college, he had resigned his post on marrying, and taken
to journalism.

'I want to speak to you, Rolfe,' he said hurriedly, 'but I haven't a
moment to spare. Going to Euston--could you come along for a few
minutes?'

The vehicles were not damaged; Abbott's driver got quickly out of the
crowd, and the two men continued their conversation.

'Do you know anything of Wager?' inquired the journalist, with a
troubled look.

'He came to see me a few evenings ago--late.'

'Ha, he did! To borrow money, wasn't it?'

'Well, yes.'

'I thought so. He came to me for the same. Said he'd got a berth at
Southampton. Lie, of course. The fellow has disappeared, and left his
children--left them in a lodging-house at Hammersmith. How's that for
cool brutality? The landlady found my wife's address, and came to see
her. Address left out on purpose, I dare say. There was nothing for it
but to take care of the poor little brats.--Oh, damn!'

'What's the matter?'

'Neuralgia--driving me mad. Teeth, I think. I'll have every one
wrenched out of my head if this goes on. Never mind. What do you think
of Wager?'

'I remember, when we were at Guy's, he used to advocate the
nationalisation of offspring. Probably he had some personal interest in
the matter, even then.'

'Hound! I don't know whether to set the police after him or not. It
wouldn't benefit the children. I suppose it's no use hunting for his
family?'

'Not much, I should say.'

'Well, lucky we have no children of our own. Worst of it is, I don't
like the poor little wretches, and my wife doesn't either. We must find
a home for them.'

'I say, Abbott, you must let me go halves at that.'

'Hang it, no! Why should you support Wager's children? They're
relatives of ours, unfortunately. But I wanted to tell you that I'm
going down to Waterbury.' He looked at his watch. 'Thirteen
minutes--shall I do it? There's a good local paper, the _Free Press_,
and I have the offer of part-ownership. I shall buy, if possible, and
live in the country for a year or two, to pick up my health. Can't say
I love London. Might get into country journalism for good. Curse this
torment!'

In Tottenham Court Road, Rolfe bade his friend goodbye, and the cab
rushed on.




CHAPTER 2


It was half past ten when Rolfe knocked at the door in Hamilton
Terrace. He learnt from the servant that Mr. Carnaby was at home, and
had company. In the room known as the library, four men sat smoking;
their voices pealed into the hall as the door opened, and a boisterous
welcome greeted the newcomer's appearance.

'Come to condole?' cried Hugh, striding forward with his
man-of-the-wide-world air, and holding out his big hand. 'No doubt
they're having a high old time at the club. Does it please them? Does
it tickle them?'

'Why, naturally. There's the compensation, my boy--you contribute to
the gaiety of your friends.'

Carnaby was a fair example of the well-bred, well-fed Englishman--tall,
brawny, limber, not uncomely, with a red neck, a powerful jaw, and a
keen eye. Something more of repose, of self-possession, and a slightly
more intellectual brow, would have made him the best type of
conquering, civilising Briton. He came of good family, but had small
inheritance; his tongue told of age-long domination; his physique and
carriage showed the horseman, the game-stalker, the nomad. Hugh had
never bent over books since the day when he declined the university and
got leave to join Colonel Bosworth's exploring party in the Caucasus.
After a boyhood of straitened circumstances, he profited by a skilful
stewardship which allowed him to hope for some seven hundred a year;
his elder brother, Miles, a fine fellow, who went into the army,
pinching himself to benefit Hugh and their sister Ruth. Miles was now
Major Carnaby, active on the North-West Frontier. Ruth was wife of a
missionary in some land of swamps; doomed by climate, but of spirit
indomitable. It seemed strange that Hugh, at five and thirty, had done
nothing particular. Perhaps his income explained it--too small for
traditional purposes, just large enough to foster indolence. For Hugh
had not even followed up his promise of becoming an explorer; he had
merely rambled, mostly in pursuit of fowl or quadruped. When he
married, all hope for him was at an end. The beautiful and brilliant
daughter of a fashionable widow, her income a trifle more than
Carnaby's own; devoted to the life of cities, wherein she shone; an
enchantress whose spell would not easily be broken, before whom her
husband bowed in delighted subservience--such a woman might flatter
Hugh's pride, but could scarce be expected to draw out his latent
energies and capabilities. This year, for the first time, he had
visited no wild country; his journeying led only to Paris, to Vienna.
In due season he shot his fifty brace on somebody's grouse-moor, but
the sport did not exhilarate him.

An odd and improbable alliance, that between Hugh Carnaby and Harvey
Rolfe. Yet in several ways they suited each other. Old-time memories
had a little, not much, to do with it; more of the essence of the
matter was their feeling of likeness in difference. Ten years ago
Carnaby felt inclined to call his old school-fellow a 'cad'; Harvey saw
nothing in Hugh but robust snobbishness. Nowadays they had the pleasant
sense of understanding each other on most points, and the result was a
good deal of honest mutual admiration. The one's physical vigour and
adroitness, the other's active mind, liberal thoughts, studious habits,
proved reciprocally attractive. Though in unlike ways, both were
impressively modern. Of late it had seemed as if the man of open air,
checked in his natural courses, thrown back upon his meditations,
turned to the student, with hope of guidance in new paths, of counsel
amid unfamiliar obstacles. To the observant Rolfe, his friend's
position abounded in speculative interest. With the course of years,
each had lost many a harsher characteristic, whilst the inner man
matured. That their former relations were gradually being reversed,
neither perhaps had consciously noted; but even in the jests which
passed between them on Harvey's arrival this evening, it appeared
plainly enough that Hugh Carnaby no longer felt the slightest
inclination to regard his friend as an inferior.

The room, called library, contained one small case of books, which
dealt with travel and sport. Furniture of the ordinary kind, still new,
told of easy circumstances and domestic comfort. Round about the walls
hung a few paintings and photographs, intermingled with the stuffed
heads of animals slain in the chase, notably that of a great ibex with
magnificent horns.

'Come, now, tell me all about it,' said Rolfe, as he mixed himself a
glass of whisky and water. 'I don't see that anything has gone from
this room.'

'Don't you?' cried his host, with a scornful laugh. 'Where are my
silver-mounted pistols? Where's the ibex-hoof made into a paperweight?
And'--he raised his voice to a shout of comical despair--'where's my
cheque-book?'

'I see.'

'I wish _I_ did. It must break the record for a neat house-robbery,
don't you think? And they'll never be caught--I'll bet you anything you
like they won't. The job was planned weeks ago; that woman came into
the house with no other purpose.'

'But didn't your wife know anything about her?'

'What can one know about such people? There were references, I
believe--as valuable as references usually are. She must be an old
hand. But I'm sick of the subject; let's drop it.--You were
interrupted, Hollings. What about that bustard?'

A very tall, spare man, who seemed to rouse himself from a nap, resumed
his story of bustard-stalking in Spain last spring. Carnaby, who knew
the country well, listened with lively interest, and followed with
reminiscences of his own. He told of a certain boar, shot in the
Sierras, which weighed something like four hundred pounds. He talked,
too, of flamingoes on the 'marismas' of the Guadalquivir; of punting
day after day across the tawny expanse of water; of cooking his meals
on sandy islets at a fire made of tamarisk and thistle; of lying
wakeful in the damp, chilly nights, listening to frogs and bitterns.
Then again of his ibex-hunting on the Cordilleras of Castile, when he
brought down that fine fellow whose head adorned his room, the horns
just thirty-eight inches long. And in the joy of these recollections
there seemed to sound a regretful note, as if he spoke of things gone
by and irrecoverable, no longer for him.

One of the men present had recently been in Cyprus, and mentioned it
with disgust. Rolfe also had visited the island, and remembered it much
more agreeably, his impressions seeming to be chiefly gastronomic; he
recalled the exquisite flavour of Cyprian hares, the fat francolin, the
delicious beccaficoes in commanderia wine; with merry banter from
Carnaby, professing to despise a man who knew nothing of game but its
taste. The conversation reverted to technicalities of sport, full of
terms and phrases unintelligible to Harvey; recounting feats with
'Empress' and 'Paradox', the deadly results of a 'treble A', or of
'treble-nesting slugs', and boasting of a 'right and left with No. 6'.
Hugh appeared to forget all about his domestic calamity; only when his
guests rose did he recur to it, and with an air of contemptuous
impatience. But he made a sign to Rolfe, requesting him to stay, and at
midnight the two friends sat alone together.

'Sibyl has gone to her mother's,' began Hugh in a changed voice. 'The
poor girl takes it pluckily. It's a damnable thing, you know, for a
woman to lose her rings and bracelets and so on--even such a woman as
Sibyl. She tried to laugh it off, but I could see--we must buy them
again, that's all. And that reminds me--what's your real opinion of
Frothingham?'

Harvey laughed.

'When such a lot of people go about asking that question, it would make
_me_ rather uneasy if I had anything at stake.'

'They do? So it struck me. The fact is, we have a good deal at stake.
The dowager swears by Frothingham. I believe every penny she has is in
the "Britannia", one way or another.'

'It's a wide net,' said Rolfe musingly. 'The Britannia Loan, Assurance,
Investment, and Banking Company, Limited. Very good name, I've often
thought.'

'Yes; but, look here, you don't seriously doubt--'

'My opinion is worthless. I know no more of finance than of the Cabala.
Frothingham personally I rather like, and that's all I can say.'

'The fact is, I have been thinking of putting some of my own--yet I
don't think I shall. We're going away for the winter. Sibyl wants to
give up the house, and I think she's right. For people like us, it's
mere foolery to worry with a house and a lot of servants. We're neither
of us cut out for that kind of thing. Sibyl hates housekeeping. Well,
you can't expect a woman like her to manage a pack of thieving, lying,
lazy servants. The housekeeper idea hasn't been a conspicuous success,
you see, and there's nothing for it but hotel or boarding-house.'

'If you remember,' said Rolfe, 'I hinted something of the kind a year
ago.'

'Yes; but--well, you know, when people marry they generally look for a
certain natural consequence. If we have no children, it'll be all
right.'

Rolfe meditated for a moment.

'You remember that fellow Wager--the man you met at Abbott's? His wife
died a year ago, and now he has bolted, leaving his two children in a
lodging-house.'

'What a damned scoundrel!' cried Hugh, with a note of honest
indignation.

'Well, yes; but there's something to be said for him. It's a natural
revolt against domestic bondage. Of course, as things are, someone else
has to bear the bother and expense; but that's only our state of
barbarism. A widower with two young children and no income--imagine the
position. Of course, he ought to be able to get rid of them in some
legitimate way--state institution--anything you like that answers to
reason.'

'I don't know whether it would work.'

'Some day it will. People talk such sentimental rubbish about children.
I would have the parents know nothing about them till they're ten or
twelve years old. They're a burden, a hindrance, a perpetual source of
worry and misery. Most wives are sacrificed to the next generation--an
outrageous absurdity. People snivel over the deaths of babies; I see
nothing to grieve about. If a child dies, why, the probabilities are it
_ought_ to die; if it lives, it lives, and you get survival of the
fittest. We don't want to choke the world with people, most of them
rickety and wheezing; let us be healthy, and have breathing space.'

'I believe in _that_,' said Carnaby.

'You're going away, then. Where to?'

'That's the point,' replied Hugh, moving uneasily. 'You see, with
Sibyl--. I have suggested Davos. Some people she knows are there--girls
who go in for tobogganing, and have a good time. But Sibyl's afraid of
the cold. I can't convince her that it's nothing to what we endure here
in the beastliness of a London winter. She hates the thought of ice and
snow and mountains. A great pity; it would do her no end of good. I
suppose we must go to the Riviera.'

He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment there was silence.

'By-the-bye,' he resumed, 'I have a letter from Miles, and you'd like
to see it.'

From a pile of letters on the table he selected one written on two
sheets of thin paper, and handed it to Rolfe. The writing was bold, the
style vigorous, the matter fresh and interesting. Major Carnaby had no
graces of expression; but all the more engrossing was his brief
narrative of mountain warfare, declaring its truthfulness in every
stroke of the pen.

'Fine fellow!' exclaimed Rolfe, when he had read to the end. 'Splendid
fellow!'

'Isn't he! And he's seeing life.'

'That's where you ought to be, my boy,' remarked Rolfe, between puffs
of tobacco.

'I dare say. No use thinking about it. Too late.'

'If I had a son,' pursued Harvey, smiling at the hypothesis, 'I think
I'd make a fighting man of him, or try to. At all events, he should go
out somewhere, and beat the big British drum, one way or another. I
believe it's our only hope. We're rotting at home--some of us sunk in
barbarism, some coddling themselves in over-refinement. What's the use
of preaching peace and civilisation, when we know that England's just
beginning her big fight--the fight that will put all history into the
shade! We have to lead the world; it's our destiny; and we must do it
by breaking heads. That's the nature of the human animal, and will be
for ages to come.'

Carnaby nodded assent.

'If we were all like your brother,' Rolfe went on. 'I'm glad he's
fighting in India, and not in Africa. I can't love the buccaneering
shopkeeper, the whisky-distiller with a rifle--ugh!'

'I hate that kind of thing. The gold grubbers and diamond bagmen! But
it's part of the march onward. We must have money, you know.'

The speaker's forehead wrinkled, and again he moved uneasily. Rolfe
regarded him with a reflective air.

'That man you saw here tonight,' Carnaby went on, 'the short, thick
fellow--his name is Dando--he's just come back from Queensland. I don't
quite know what he's been doing, but he evidently knows a good deal
about mines. He says he has invented a new process for getting gold out
of ore--I don't know anything about it. In the early days of mining, he
says, no end of valuable stuff was abandoned, because they couldn't
smelt it. Something about pyrites--I have a vague recollection of old
chemistry lessons. Dando wants to start smelting works for his new
process, somewhere in North Queensland.'

'And wants money, I dare say,' remarked the listener, with a twinkle of
the eye.

'I suppose so. It was Carton that brought him here for the first time,
a week ago. _Might_ be worth thinking about, you know.'

'I have no opinion. My profound ignorance of everything keeps me in a
state of perpetual scepticism. It has its advantages, I dare say.'

'You're very conservative, Rolfe, in your finance.'

'Very.'

'Quite right, no doubt. Could you join us at Nice or some such place?'

'Why, I rather thought of sticking to my books. But if the fogs are
very bad--'

'And you would seriously advise us to give up the house?'

'My dear fellow, how can you hesitate? Your wife is quite right;
there's not one good word to be said for the ordinary life of an
English household. Flee from it! Live anywhere and anyhow, but don't
keep house in England. Wherever I go, it's the same cry: domestic life
is played out. There isn't a servant to be had--unless you're a Duke
and breed them on your own estate. All ordinary housekeepers are at the
mercy of the filth and insolence of a draggle-tailed, novelette-reading
feminine democracy. Before very long we shall train an army of
menservants, and send the women to the devil.'

'Queer thing, Rolfe,' put in his friend, with a laugh; 'I've noticed it
of late, you're getting to be a regular woman-hater.'

'Not a bit of it. I hate a dirty, lying, incapable creature, that's
all, whether man or woman. No doubt they're more common in petticoats.'

'Been to the Frothinghams' lately?'

'No.'

'I used to think you were there rather often.'

Rolfe gave a sort of grunt, and kept silence.

'To my mind,' pursued the other, 'the best thing about Alma is that she
appreciates my wife. She has really a great admiration for Sibyl; no
sham about it, I'm sure. I don't pretend to know much about women, but
I fancy that kind of thing isn't common--real friendship and admiration
between them. People always say so, at all events.'

'I take refuge once more,' said Rolfe, 'in my fathomless ignorance.'

He rose from his chair, and sat down again on a corner of the table.
Carnaby stood up, threw his arms above his head, and yawned with animal
vehemence, the expression of an intolerable ennui.

'There's something damnably wrong with us all--that's the one thing
certain.'

'Idleness, for one thing,' said Rolfe.

'Yes. And I'm too old to do anything. Why didn't I follow Miles into
the army? I think I was more cut out for that than for anything else. I
often feel I should like to go to South Africa and get up a little war
of my own.'

Rolfe shouted with laughter.

'Not half a bad idea, and the easiest thing in the world, no doubt.'

'Nigger-hunting; a superior big game.'

'There's more than that to do in South Africa,' said Harvey. 'I was
looking at a map in Stanford's window the other day, and it amused me.
Who believes for a moment that England will remain satisfied with bits
here and there? We have to swallow the whole, of course. We shall go on
fighting and annexing, until--until the decline and fall of the British
Empire. That hasn't begun yet. Some of us are so over-civilised that it
makes a reaction of wholesome barbarism in the rest. We shall fight
like blazes in the twentieth century. It's the only thing that keeps
Englishmen sound; commercialism is their curse. Happily, no sooner do
they get fat than they kick, and somebody's shin suffers; then they
fight off the excessive flesh. War is England's Banting.'

'You'd better not talk like that to Sibyl.'

'Why, frankly, old man, I think that's your mistake. But you'll tell
me, and rightly enough, to mind my own business.'

'Nonsense. What do you mean exactly? You think I ought to--'

Hugh hesitated, with an air of uneasiness.

'Well,' pursued his friend cautiously, 'do you think it's right to
suppress your natural instincts? Mightn't it give her a new interest in
life if she came round a little to your point of view?'

'Queer thing, how unlike we are, isn't it?' said Carnaby, with a sudden
drop of his tone to amiable ingenuousness. 'But, you know; we get along
together very well.'

'To be sure. Yet you are going to rust in the Riviera when you want to
be on the Himalayas. Wouldn't it do your wife good to give up her books
and her music for a while and taste fresh air?'

'I doubt if she's strong enough for it.'

'It would make her stronger. And here's a good opportunity. If you give
up housekeeping (and housekeepers), why not reform your life
altogether? Go and have a look at Australia.'

'Sibyl hates the sea.'

'She'd soon get over that. Seriously, you ought to think of it.'

Carnaby set his lips and for a moment hung his head.

'You're quite right. But--'

'A little pluck, old fellow.'

'I'll see what can be done. Have another whisky?'

They went out into the hall, where a dim light through coloured glass
illumined a statue in terracotta, some huge engravings, the massive
antlers of an elk, and furniture in carved oak.

'Queer feeling of emptiness,' said Carnaby, subduing his voice. 'I feel
as if they'd carried off everything, and left bare walls. Sibyl
couldn't stay in the place. Shall I whistle for a cab? By Jove! that
reminds me, the whistle has gone; it happened to be silver. A wedding
present from that fool Benson, who broke his neck in a steeplechase
three weeks after.' Harvey laughed, and stepped out into the watery fog.




CHAPTER 3


A cab crawling at the upper end of the terrace took him quickly home.
He entered with his latch-key as a church clock tolled one.

It was a large house, within a few minutes' walk of Royal Oak Station.
Having struck a match, and lit a candle which stood upon the hall table
(indicating that he was the last who would enter tonight), Harvey put
up the door-chain and turned the great key, then went quietly upstairs.
His rooms were on the first floor. A tenancy of five years, with long
absences, enabled him to regard this niche in a characterless suburb as
in some sort his home; a familiar smell of books and tobacco welcomed
him as he opened the door; remnants of a good fire kept the air warm,
and dispersed a pleasant glow. On shelves which almost concealed the
walls, stood a respectable collection of volumes, the lowest tier
consisting largely of what secondhand booksellers, when invited to
purchase, are wont to call 'tomb-stones' that is to say, old folios, of
no great market value, though good brains and infinite labour went to
the making of them. A great table, at one end of which was a tray with
glasses and a water-bottle, occupied the middle of the floor; nearer
the fireplace was a small writing-desk. For pictures little space could
be found; but over the mantelpiece hung a fine water-colour, the flood
of Tigris and the roofs of Bagdad burning in golden sunset. Harvey had
bought it at the gallery in Pall Mall not long ago; the work of a man
of whom he knew nothing; it represented the farthest point of his own
travels, and touched profoundly his vague historico-poetic
sensibilities.

Three letters lay on the desk. As soon as he had lit his lamp, and
exchanged his boots for slippers, he looked at the envelopes, and chose
one addressed in a woman's hand. The writer was Mrs. Bennet Frothingham.

'We have only just heard, from Mrs. Carnaby, that you are back in town.
_Could_ you spare us tomorrow evening? It would be so nice of you. The
quartet will give Beethoven's F minor, and Alma says it will be well
done--the conceit of the child! We hope to have some interesting people
What a shocking affair of poor Mrs. Carnaby's! I never knew anything
_quite_ so bad.--Our united kind regards.'

Harvey thrust out his lips, in an ambiguous expression, as he threw the
sheet aside. He mused before opening the next letter. This proved to be
of startling contents: a few lines scribbled informally, undated,
without signature. A glance at the postmark discovered 'Liverpool'.

'The children are at my last address,--you know it. I can do no more
for them. If the shabby Abbotts refuse--as I dare say they will--it
wouldn't hurt you to keep them from the workhouse. But it's a devilish
hard world, and they must take their chance.'

After a stare and a frown, Harvey woke the echoes with boisterous
laughter. It was long since any passage in writing had so irresistibly
tickled his sense of humour. Well, he must let Abbott know of this. It
might be as well, perhaps, if he called on Mrs. Abbott tomorrow, to
remove any doubt that might remain in her mind. The fellow Wager being
an old acquaintance of his, he could not get rid of a sense of far-off
responsibility in this matter; though, happily, Wager's meeting with
Mrs. Abbott's cousin, which led to marriage and misery, came about quite
independently of him.

The last letter he opened without curiosity, but with quiet interest
and pleasure. It was dated from Greystone; the writer, Basil Morton,
had a place in his earliest memories, for, as neighbours' children,
they had played together long before the grammar-school days which
allied him with Hugh Carnaby.

'For aught I know,' began Morton, 'you may at this moment be drifting
on the Euphrates, or pondering on the site of Alexandreia Eschate. It
is you who owe me an account of yourself; nevertheless, I am prompted
to write, if only to tell you that I have just got the complete set of
the Byzantine Historians. A catalogue tempted me, and I did buy.'

And so on in the same strain, until, in speaking of nearer matters, his
style grew simpler.

'Our elder boy begins to put me in a difficulty. As I told you, he has
been brought up on the most orthodox lines of Anglicanism; his
mother--best of mothers and best of wives, but in this respect
atavistic--has had a free hand, and I don't see how it could have been
otherwise. But now the lad begins to ask awkward questions, and to put
me in a corner; the young rascal is a vigorous dialectician and
rationalist--odd result of such training. It becomes a serious question
how I am to behave. I cannot bear to distress his mother, yet how can I
tell him that I literally believe those quaint old fables? _Solvetur
vivendo_, of course, like everything else, but just now it worries me a
little. Generally I can see a pretty clear line of duty; here the duty
is divided, with a vengeance. Have you any counsel?'

Harvey Rolfe mumbled impatiently; all domestic matters were a trial to
his nerves. It seemed to him an act of unaccountable folly to marry a
woman from whom one differed diametrically on subjects that lay at the
root of life; and of children he could hardly bring himself to think at
all, so exasperating the complication they introduced into social
problems which defied common-sense. He disliked children; fled the
sight and the sound of them in most cases, and, when this was not
possible, regarded them with apprehension, anxiety, weariness, anything
but interest. In the perplexity that had come upon him, Basil Morton
seemed to have nothing more than his deserts. 'Best of mothers and of
wives', forsooth! An excellent housekeeper, no doubt, but what shadow
of qualification for wifehood and motherhood in this year 1886? The
whole question was disgusting to a rational man--especially to that
vigorous example of the class, by name Harvey Rolfe.

Late as it was, he did not care to go to bed. This morning he had
brought home a batch of books from the London Library, and he began to
turn them over, with the pleasure of anticipation. Not seldom of late
had Harvey flattered himself on the growth of intellectual gusto which
proceeded in him together with a perceptible decline of baser
appetites, so long his torment and his hindrance. His age was now seven
and thirty; at forty he might hope to have utterly trodden under foot
the instincts at war with mental calm. He saw before him long years of
congenial fellowship, of bracing travel, of well-directed studiousness.
Let problems of sex and society go hang! He had found a better way.

On looking back over his life, how improbable it seemed, this happy
issue out of crudity, turbulence, lack of purpose, weakness,
insincerity, ignorance. First and foremost he had to thank good old Dr
Harvey, of Greystone; then, his sister, sleeping in her grave under the
old chimes she loved; then, surely himself, that seed of good within
him which had survived all adverse influences--watched, surely, by his
unconscious self, guarded long, and now deliberately nurtured. Might he
not think well of himself.

His library, though for the most part the purchase of late years,
contained books which reminded him of every period of his life. Up
yonder, on the top shelf, were two score volumes which had belonged to
his father, the share that fell to him when he and his sister made the
ordained division: scientific treatises out of date, an old magazine,
old books of travel. Strange that, in his times of folly, he had not
sold these as burdensome rubbish; he was very glad now, when love and
reverence for things gone by began to take hold upon him. There, at the
same height, stood a rank of school-books preserved for him by his
sister till she died; beside them, medical works, relics of his
abortive study when he was neither boy nor man. Descending, the eye
fell upon yellow and green covers, dozens of French novels, acquired at
any time from the year of his majority up to the other day; in the
mass, they reminded him of a frothy season, when he boasted a cheap
Gallicism, and sneered at all things English. A sprinkling of
miscellaneous literature accounted for ten years or more when he cared
little to collect books, when the senses raged in him, and only by
miracle failed to hurl him down many a steep place. Last came the
serious acquisitions, the bulk of his library: solid and expensive
works--historians, archaeologists, travellers, with noble volumes of
engravings, and unwieldy tomes of antique lore. Little enough of all
this had Rolfe digested, but more and more he loved to have erudition
within his reach. He began to lack room for comely storage; already a
large bookcase had intruded into his bedroom. If he continued to
purchase, he must needs house himself more amply; yet he dreaded the
thought of a removal.

He knew enough and to spare of life in lodgings. His experience began
when he came up as a lad to Guy's Hospital, when all lodgings in London
shone with the glorious light of liberty. It took a wider scope when,
having grasped his little patrimony, he threw physic to the dogs, and
lived as a gentleman at large. In those days he grew familiar with many
kinds of 'apartments' and their nomadic denizens. Having wasted his
substance, he found refuge in the office of an emigration agent, where,
by slow degrees, he proved himself worth a couple of hundred pounds per
annum. This was the 'business' to which Hugh Carnaby vaguely referred
when people questioned him concerning his friend's history.

Had he possessed the commercial spirit, Harvey might have made his
position in this office much more lucrative. Entering nominally as a
clerk, he undertook from the first a variety of duties which could only
be discharged by a man of special abilities; for instance, the literary
revision of seductive pamphlets and broadsheets issued by his employer
to the public contemplating emigration. These advertisements he
presently composed, and, from the point of view of effectiveness, did
it remarkably well. How far such work might be worthy of an honest man,
was another question, which for several years scarcely troubled his
conscience. Before long a use was found for his slender medical
attainments; it became one of his functions to answer persons who
visited the office for information as to the climatic features of this
or that new country, and their physical fitness for going out as
colonists. Of course, there was demanded of him a radical
unscrupulousness, and often enough he proved equal to the occasion; but
as time went on, bringing slow development of brain and character, he
found these personal interviews anything but agreeable. He had
constantly before him the spectacle of human misery and defeat, now and
then in such dread forms that his heart sank and his tongue refused to
lie. When disgust made him contemplate the possibility of finding more
honourable employment, the manifest difficulties deterred him.

He held the place for nearly ten years, living in the end so soberly
and frugally that his two hundred pounds seemed a considerable income;
it enabled him to spend his annual month of holiday in continental
travel, which now had a significance very different from that of his
truancies in France or Belgium before he began to earn a livelihood.
Two deaths, a year's interval between them, released him from his
office. Upon these events and their issue he had not counted;
independence came to him as a great surprise, and on the path of
self-knowledge he had far to travel before the significance of that and
many another turning-point grew clear to his backward gaze.

Seeking for a comfortable abode, he discovered these rooms in
Bayswater. They were to let furnished, the house being occupied by a
widow not quite of the ordinary type of landlady, who entertained only
bachelors, and was fairly conscientious in the discharge of her
obligations. Six months later, during Harvey's absence abroad, this
woman died, and on his return the house had already been stripped of
furniture. For a moment he inclined to take a house of his own, but
from this perilous experiment he was saved by an intimation that, if he
were willing to supply himself with furniture and service, an incoming
tenant would let him occupy his old quarters. Harvey grasped at the
offer. His landlord was a man named Buncombe, a truss manufacturer, who
had two children, and seemingly no wife. The topmost storey Buncombe
assigned to relatives of his own--a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Handover,
with a sickly grownup son, who took some part in the truss business.
For a few weeks Rolfe was waited upon by a charwoman, whom he paid
extravagantly for a maximum of dirt and discomfort; then the
unsatisfactory person fell ill, and, whilst cursing his difficulties,
Harvey was surprised by a visit from Mrs. Handover, who made an
unexpected suggestion--would Mr. Rolfe accept her services in lieu of
the charwoman's, paying her whatever he had been accustomed to give?
The proposal startled him. Mrs. Handover seemed to belong pretty much
to his own rank of life; he was appalled at the thought of bidding her
scrub floors and wash plates; and indeed it had begun to dawn upon him
that, for a man with more than nine hundred a year, he was living in a
needlessly uncomfortable way. On his reply that he thought of removing,
Mrs. Handover fell into profound depression, and began to disclose her
history. Very early in life she had married a man much beneath her in
station, with the natural result. After some years of quarrelling,
which culminated in personal violence on her husband's part, she
obtained a judicial separation. For a long time the man had ceased to
send her money, and indeed he was become a vagabond pauper, from whom
nothing could be obtained; she depended upon her son, and on the
kindness of Buncombe, who asked no rent. If she could earn a little
money by work, she would be much happier, and with tremulous hope she
had taken this step of appealing to her neighbour in the house.

Harvey could not resist these representations. When the new arrangement
had been in operation for a week or so, Harvey began to reflect upon
Mrs. Handover's personal narrative, and in some respects to modify his
first impulsive judgment thereon. It seemed to him not impossible that
Mr. Handover's present condition of vagabond pauper might be traceable
to his marriage with a woman who had never learnt the elements of
domestic duty. Thoroughly well-meaning, Mrs. Handover was the most
incompetent of housewives. Yet such was Harvey Rolfe's delicacy, and so
intense his moral cowardice, that year after year he bore with Mrs.
Handover's defects, and paid her with a smile the wages of two
first-rate servants. Dust lay thick about him; he had grown accustomed
to it, as to many another form of sluttishness. After all, he possessed
a quiet retreat for studious hours, and a tolerable sleeping-place,
with the advantage of having his correspondence forwarded to him when
he chose to wander. To be sure, it was not final; one would not wish to
grow old and die amid such surroundings; sooner or later, circumstance
would prompt the desirable change. Circumstance, at this stage of his
career, was Harvey's god; he waited upon its direction with an air of
wisdom, of mature philosophy.

Of his landlord, Buncombe, he gradually learnt all that he cared to
know. The moment came when Buncombe grew confidential, and he, too, had
a matrimonial history to disclose. Poverty played no part in it; his
business flourished, and Mrs. Buncombe, throughout a cohabitation of
five years, made no complaint of her lot. All at once--so asserted
Buncombe--the lady began to talk of dullness; for a few months she
moped, then of a sudden left home, and in a day or two announced by
letter that she had taken a place as barmaid at a music-hall. There
followed an interview between husband and wife, with the result, said
Buncombe, that they parted the best of friends, but with an
understanding that Mrs. Buncombe should be free to follow her own walk
in life, with a moderate allowance to supplement what she could earn.
That was five years ago. Mrs. Buncombe now sang at second-rate halls,
and enjoyed a certain popularity, which seemed to her an ample
justification of the independence she had claimed. She was just thirty,
tolerably good-looking, and full of the enjoyment of life. Her
children, originally left in the care of her mother, whom Buncombe
supported, were now looked after by the two servants of the house, and
Buncombe seemed to have no conscientious troubles on that score; to
Harvey Rolfe's eye it was plain that the brother and sister were
growing up as vicious little savages, but he permitted himself no
remark on the subject.

After a few conversations, he gained an inkling of Buncombe's motive in
taking a house so much larger than he needed. This magnificence was
meant as an attraction to the roaming wife, whom, it was clear,
Buncombe both wished and hoped to welcome back before very long. She
did occasionally visit the house, though only for an hour or two; just
to show, said Buncombe, that there was no ill-feeling. On his part,
evidently, there was none whatever. An easy-going, simple-minded
fellow, aged about forty, with a boyish good temper and no will to
speak of, he seemed never to entertain a doubt of his wife's honesty,
and in any case would probably have agreed, on the least persuasion, to
let bygones be bygones. He spoke rather proudly than otherwise of Mrs.
Buncombe's artistic success.

'It isn't every woman could have done it, you know, Mr. Rolfe.'

'It is not,' Harvey assented.

Only those rooms were furnished which the little family used, five or
six in all; two or three stood vacant, and served as playgrounds for
the children in bad weather. Of his relatives at the top, Buncombe
never spoke; he either did not know, or viewed with indifference, the
fact that Mrs. Handover served his lodger in a menial capacity. About
once a month he invited three or four male friends to a set dinner, and
hilarity could be heard until long after midnight. Altogether it was a
strange household, and, as he walked about the streets of the
neighbourhood, Harvey often wondered what abnormalities even more
striking might be concealed behind the meaningless uniformity of these
heavily respectable housefronts. As a lodger he was content to dwell
here; but sometimes by a freak of imagination he pictured himself a
married man, imprisoned with wife and children amid these leagues of
dreary, inhospitable brickwork, and a great horror fell upon him.

No. In his time he had run through follies innumerable, but from the
supreme folly of hampering himself by marriage, a merciful fate had
guarded him. It was probably the most remarkable fact of his life; it
heightened his self-esteem, and appeared to warrant him in the
assurance that a destiny so protective would round the close of his
days with tranquillity and content.

Upon this thought he lay down to rest. For half an hour Basil Morton's
letter had occupied his mind: he had tried to think out the problem it
set forth, not to leave his friend quite unanswered; but weariness
prevailed, and with it the old mood of self-congratulation.

Next morning the weather was fine; that is to say, one could read
without artificial light, and no rain fell, and far above the
house-tops appeared a bluish glimmer, shot now and then with pale
yellowness. Harvey decided to carry out his intention of calling upon
Mrs. Abbott. She lived at Kilburn, and thither he drove shortly before
twelve o'clock. He was admitted to a very cosy room, where, amid books
and pictures, and by a large fire, the lady of the house sat reading.
Whatever the cause, it seemed to him that his welcome fell short of
cordiality, and he hastened to excuse himself for intruding at so early
an hour.

'I received a letter last night which I thought you had better know of
without delay.'

'From that man--Mr. Wager?' said Mrs. Abbott quickly and hopefully, her
face brightening.

'Yes. But there's nothing satisfactory in it. He writes from Liverpool,
and merely says that the children are at his lodgings, and he can do no
more for them.'

Mrs. Abbott set her lips in an expression almost of sullenness. Rolfe
had never seen her look thus, but it confirmed a suspicion which he had
harboured concerning her. Why, he hardly knew--for she always presented
a face of amiability, and talked in gentle, womanly tones--doubt as to
Abbott's domestic felicity haunted his mind. Perhaps he now saw her,
for the first time, as she commonly appeared to her husband--slightly
peevish, unwilling to be disturbed, impatient when things did not run
smoothly.

'You saw my husband yesterday?' was her next remark, not very
graciously uttered.

'We met in the street last night--before I got Wager's letter. He was
suffering horribly from neuralgia.'

Harvey could not forbear to add this detail, but he softened his voice
and smiled.

'I don't wonder at it,' returned the lady; 'he takes no care of
himself.'

Harvey glanced about the room. Its furnishing might be called
luxurious, and the same standard of comfort prevailed through the
house. Considering that Edgar Abbott, as Rolfe knew, married on small
means, and that he had toiled unremittingly to support a home in which
he could seldom enjoy an hour's leisure, there seemed no difficulty in
explaining this neglect of his own health. It struck the visitor that
Mrs. Abbott might have taken such considerations into account, and have
spoken of the good fellow more sympathetically. In truth, Harvey did
not quite like Mrs. Abbott. Her age was about seven and twenty. She
came of poor folk, and had been a high-school teacher; very clever and
successful, it was said, and Harvey could believe it. Her features were
regular, and did not lack sweetness; yet, unless an observer were
mistaken, the last year or two had emphasised a certain air of
conscious superiority, perchance originating in the schoolroom. She had
had one child; it struggled through a few months of sickly life, and
died of convulsions during its mother's absence at a garden-party. To
all appearances, her grief at the loss betokened tenderest feeling.
When, in half a year's time, she again came forth into the world, a
change was noted; her character seemed to have developed a new energy,
she exhibited wider interests, and stepped from the background to
become a leader in the little circle of her acquaintances.

'Have you read this?' asked his hostess abruptly, holding up to him a
French volume, Ribot's _L'Heredite Psychologique_.

'No. That kind of thing doesn't interest me much.'

'Indeed! I find it _intensely_ interesting.'

Harvey rose; he was in no mood for this kind of small-talk. But no
sooner had he quitted his chair, than Mrs. Abbott threw her book aside,
and spoke in another tone, seriously, though still with a perceptible
accent of annoyance.

'Of course that man's children are here, and I suppose it is our duty
to provide for them till some other arrangement is made. But I think we
ought to put the matter in the hands of the police. Don't you, Mr
Rolfe?'

'I'm afraid there's small chance of making their father support them.
He is certainly out of England by now, and won't easily be caught.'

'The worst of it is, they are anything but _nice_ children. What could
one expect with such a father? Since their poor mother died, they have
been in the hands of horrible people--low-class landladies, no doubt;
their talk shocks me. The last amusement they had, was to be taken by
somebody to Tussaud's, and now they can talk of nothing but "the hunted
murderer"--one sees it on the walls, you know; and they play at being
murderer and policeman, one trying to escape the other. Pretty play for
children of five and seven, isn't it?'

Rolfe made a gesture of disgust.

'I know the poor things can't help it,' pursued Mrs. Abbott, with
softer feeling, 'but it turns me against them. From seeing so little of
their father, they have even come to talk with a vulgar pronunciation,
like children out of the streets almost. It's dreadful! When I think of
my cousin--such a sweet, good girl, and _these_ her children--oh, it's
horrible!'

'They are very young,' said Harvey, in a low voice, perturbed in spite
of himself. 'With good training----'

'Yes, of course we must put them in good hands somewhere.'

Plainly it had never occurred to Mrs. Abbott that such a task as this
might, even temporarily, be undertaken by herself; her one desire was
to get rid of the luckless brats, that their vulgarity might not pain
her, and the care of them encumber her polite leisure.

After again excusing himself for this call, and hearing his apology
this time more graciously received, Harvey withdrew from the cosy
study, and left Mrs. Abbott to her _Heredite Psychologique_. On his way
to lunch in town, he thought of the overworn journalist groaning with
neuralgia, and wondered how Mrs. Abbott would relish a removal to the
town of Waterbury.




CHAPTER 4


Uncertain to the last moment, Harvey did at length hurry into his dress
clothes, and start for Fitzjohn Avenue. He had little mind for the
semi-fashionable crowd and the amateur music, but he could not answer
Mrs. Bennet Frothingham with any valid excuse, and, after all, she
meant kindly towards him. Why he enjoyed so much of this lady's favour
it was not easy to understand; intellectual sympathy there could be
none between them, and as for personal liking, on his side it did not
go beyond that naturally excited by a good-natured, feather-brained,
rather pretty woman, whose sprightliness never passed the limits of
decorum, and who seemed to have better qualities than found scope in
her butterfly existence. Perhaps he amused her, being so unlike the
kind of man she was accustomed to see. His acquaintance with the family
dated from their social palingenesis, when, after obscure prosperity in
a southern suburb, they fluttered to the northern heights, and were
observed of the paragraphists. Long before that, Bennet Frothingham had
been known in the money-market; it was the 'Britannia'--Loan,
Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited--that made him
nationally prominent, and gave an opportunity to his wife (in second
marriage) and his daughter (by the first). Three years ago, when
Carnaby (already lured by the charms of Sibyl Larkfield) presented his
friend Rolfe as 'the man who had been to Bagdad', Alma Frothingham, not
quite twenty-one, was studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and,
according to her friends, promised to excel alike on the piano and the
violin, having at the same time a 'really remarkable' contralto voice.
Of late the young lady had abandoned singing, rarely used the
pianoforte, and seemed satisfied to achieve distinction as a violinist.
She had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, whose performances were
frequently to be heard at the house in Fitzjohn Avenue.

Last winter Harvey had chanced to meet Alma and her stepmother at
Leipzig, at a Gewandhaus concert. He was invited to go with them to
hear the boys' motet at the Thomaskirche; and with this intercourse
began the change in their relations from mere acquaintance to something
like friendship. Through the following spring Rolfe was a familiar
figure at the Frothinghams'; but this form of pleasure soon wearied
him, and he was glad to escape from London in June. He knew the shadowy
and intermittent temptation which beckoned him to that house; music had
power over him, and he grew conscious of watching Alma Frothingham, her
white little chin on the brown fiddle, with too exclusive an interest.
When 'that fellow' Cyrus Redgrave, a millionaire, or something of the
sort, began to attend these gatherings with a like assiduity, and to
win more than his share of Miss Frothingham's conversation, Harvey felt
a disquietude which happily took the form of disgust, and it was easy
enough to pack his portmanteau.

Through the babble of many voices in many keys, talk mingling with
laughter more or less melodiously subdued, he made his way up the great
staircase. As he neared the landing, there sounded the shrill squeak of
a violin and a 'cello's deep harmonic growl. His hostess, small,
slender, fair, and not yet forty, a jewel-flash upon her throat and in
the tiara above her smooth low forehead, took a step forward to greet
him.

'Really? How delightful! I shot at a venture, and it was a hit after
all!'

'They are just beginning?'

'The quartet--yes. Herr Wilenski has promised to play afterwards.'

He moved on, crossed a small drawing-room, entered the larger room
sacred to music, and reached a seat in the nick of time. Miss
Frothingham, the violin against her shoulder, was casting a final
glance at the assembly, the glance which could convey a noble severity
when it did not forthwith impose silence. A moment's perfect stillness,
and the quartet began. There were two ladies, two men. Miss Frothingham
played the first violin, Mr. AEneas Piper the second; the 'cello was in
the hands of Herr Gassner, and the viola yielded its tones to Miss Dora
Leach. Harvey knew them all, but had eyes only for one; in truth, only
one rewarded observation. Miss Leach was a meagre blonde, whose form,
face, and attitude enhanced by contrast the graces of the First Violin.
Alma's countenance shone--possibly with the joy of the artist, perhaps
only with gratified vanity. As she grew warm, the rosy blood mantled in
her cheeks and flushed her neck. Every muscle and nerve tense as the
strings from which she struck music, she presently swayed forward on
the points of her feet, and seemed to gain in stature, to become a more
commanding type. Her features suggested neither force of intellect or
originality of character: but they had beauty, and something more. She
stood a fascination, an allurement, to the masculine sense. Harvey
Rolfe had never so responded to this quality in the girl; the smile
died from his face as he regarded her. Of her skill as a musician, he
could form no judgment; but it seemed to him that she played very well,
and he had heard her praised by people who understood the matter; for
instance, Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, from whom--in itself a great
compliment--Alma was having lessons.

He averted his eyes, and began to seek for known faces among the
audience. His host he could not discover; Mr. Frothingham must be away
from home this evening; it was seldom he failed to attend Alma's
concerts. But near the front sat Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, a dazzling
figure, and, at some distance, her daughter Mrs. Carnaby, no shadow of
gloom upon her handsome features. Hugh was not in sight; probably he
felt in no mood for parties. Next to Mrs. Carnaby sat 'that fellow',
Cyrus Redgrave, smiling as always, and surveying the people near him
from under drooping brows, his head slightly bent. Mr. Redgrave had
thin hair, but a robust moustache and a short peaked beard; his
complexion was a rifle sallow; he lolled upon the chair, so that, at
moments, his head all but brushed Mrs. Carnaby's shoulder.

Long before the close of the piece, Rolfe had ceased to listen, his
thoughts drifting hither and hither on a turbid flood of emotion.
During the last passage--_Allegro molto leggieramente_--he felt a
movement round about him as a general relief, and when, on the last
note, there broke forth (familiar ambiguity) sounds of pleasure and of
applause, he at once stood up. But he had no intention of pressing into
the throng that rapidly surrounded the musicians. Seeing that Mr.
Redgrave had vacated his place, whilst Mrs. Carnaby remained seated, he
stepped forward to speak with his friend's wife. She smiled up at him,
and lifted a gloved finger.

'No! Please don't!'

'Not sit down by you?'

'Oh, certainly. But I saw condolence in your face, and I'm tired of it.
Besides, it would be mere hypocrisy in you.'

Harvey gave a silent laugh. He had tried to understand Sibyl Carnaby,
and at different times had come to very different conclusions regarding
her. All women puzzled, and often disconcerted, him; with Sibyl he
could never talk freely, knowing not whether to dislike or to admire
her. He was not made on the pattern of Cyrus Redgrave, who probably
viewed womankind with instinctive contempt, yet pleased all with the
flattery of his homage.

'Well, then, we won't talk of it,' he said, noticing, in the same
moment, that her person did not lack the adornment of jewels. Perhaps
she had happened to be wearing these things on the evening of the
robbery; but Rolfe felt a conviction that, under any circumstances,
Sibyl would not be without rings and bracelets.

'They certainly improve,' she remarked, indicating the quartet with the
tip of her fan.

Her opinions were uttered with calm assurance, whatever the subject. An
infinite self-esteem, so placid that it never suggested the vulgarity
of conceit, shone in her large eyes and dwelt upon the beautiful curve
of her lips. No face could be of purer outline, of less sensual
suggestiveness; it wore at times an air of cold abstraction which was
all but austerity. Rolfe imagined her the most selfish of women,
thought her incapable of sentiment; yet how was her marriage to be
accounted for, save by supposing that she fell in love with Hugh
Carnaby? Such a woman might surely have sold herself to great
advantage; and yet--odd incongruity--she did not impress one as
socially ambitious. Her mother, the ever-youthful widow, sped from
assembly to assembly, unable to live save in the whirl of fashion; not
so Sibyl. Was she too proud, too self-centred? And what ambition did
she nourish?

Or was it all an illusion of the senses? Suppose her a mere graven
image, hollow, void. Call her merely a handsome woman, with the face of
some remarkable ancestress, with just enough of warmth to be subdued by
the vigorous passion of such a fine fellow as Carnaby. On the whole,
Rolfe preferred this hypothesis. He had never heard her say anything
really bright, or witty, or significant. But Hugh spoke of her fine
qualities of head and heart; Alma Frothingham made her an exemplar, and
would not one woman see through the vacuous pretentiousness of another?

Involuntarily, he was gazing at her, trying to read her face.

'So you think we ought to go to Australia,' said Sibyl quietly,
returning his look.

Hugh had repeated the conversation of last night; indiscreet, but
natural. One could not suppose that Hugh kept many secrets from his
wife.

'I?' He was confused. 'Oh, we were talking about the miseries of
housekeeping----'

'I hate the name of those new countries.'

It was said smilingly, but with what expression in the word 'hate'!

'Vigorous cuttings from the old tree,' said Rolfe. 'There is England's
future.'

'Perhaps so. At present they are barbarous, and I have a decided
preference for civilisation. So have you, I am quite sure.'

Rolfe murmured his assent; whereupon Sibyl rose, just bent her head to
him, and moved with graceful indolence away.

'Now she hates _me_,' Harvey said in his mind; 'and much I care!'

As a matter of courtesy, he thought it well to move in Miss
Frothingham's direction. The crowd was thinning; without difficulty he
approached to within a few yards of her, and there exchanged a word or
two with the player of the viola, Miss Leach--a good, ingenuous
creature, he had always thought; dangerous to no man's peace, but
rather sentimental, and on that account to be avoided. Whilst talking,
he heard a man's voice behind him, pretentious, coarse, laying down the
law in a musical discussion.

'No, no; Beethoven is not _Klaviermaszig_. His thoughts ate
symphonic--they need the orchestra.... A string quartet is to a
symphony what a delicate water-colour is to an oil-painting.... Oh, I
don't care for his playing at all! he has not--what shall I call
it?--_Sehnsucht_.'

Rolfe turned at length to look. A glance showed him a tall, bony young
man, with a great deal of disorderly hair, and shaven face;
harsh-featured, sensual, utterly lacking refinement. He inquired of
Miss Leach who this might be, and learnt that the man's name was Felix
Dymes.

'Isn't he a humbug?'

The young lady was pained and shocked.

'Oh, he is very clever,' she whispered. 'He has composed a most
beautiful song--don't you know it?--"Margot". It's very likely that
Topham may sing it at one of the Ballad Concerts.'

'Now I've offended _her_,' said Rolfe to himself. 'No matter.'

Seeing his opportunity, he took a few steps, and stood before Alma
Frothingham. She received him very graciously, looking him straight in
the face, with that amused smile which he could never interpret. Did it
mean that she thought him 'good fun'? Had she discussed him with Sibyl
Carnaby, and heard things of him that moved her mirth? Or was it pure
good nature, the overflowing spirits of a vivacious girl?

'So good of you to come, Mr. Rolfe. And what did you think of us?'

This was characteristic. Alma delighted in praise, and never hesitated
to ask for it. She hung eagerly upon his unready words.

'I only show my ignorance when I talk of music. Of course, I liked it.'

'Ah! then you didn't think it very good. I see----'

'But I _did_! Only my opinion is worthless.'

Alma looked at him, seemed to hesitate, laughed; and Harvey felt the
conviction that, by absurd sincerity, he had damaged himself in the
girl's eyes. What did it matter?

'I've been practising five hours a day,' said Alma, in rapid, ardent
tones. Her voice was as pleasant to the ear as her face to look upon;
richly feminine, a call to the emotions. 'That isn't bad, is it?'

'Tremendous energy!'

'Oh, music is my religion, you know. I often feel sorry I haven't to
get my living by it; it's rather wretched to be only an amateur, don't
you think?'

'Religion shouldn't be marketable,' joked Harvey.

'Oh, but you know what I mean. You are so critical, Mr. Rolfe. I've a
good mind to ask Father to turn me out of house and home, with just
half-a-crown. Then I might really do something. It would be splendid!--
Oh, what do you think of that shameful affair in Hamilton Terrace? Mrs
Carnaby takes it like an angel. They're going to give up housekeeping.
Very sensible, I say. Everybody will do it before long. Why should we
be plagued with private houses?'

'There are difficulties----'

'Of course there are, and men seem to enjoy pointing them out. They
think it a crime if women hate the bother and misery of housekeeping.'

'I am not so conservative.'

He tried to meet her eyes, which were gleaming fixedly upon him; but
his look fell, and turned as quickly from the wonderful white
shoulders, the throbbing throat, the neck that showed its colour
against swan's-down. To his profound annoyance, someone intervened--a
lady bringing someone else to be introduced. Rolfe turned on his heel,
and was face to face with Cyrus Redgrave. Nothing could be suaver or
more civil than Mr. Redgrave's accost; he spoke like a polished
gentleman, and, for aught Harvey knew, did not misrepresent himself.
But Rolfe had a prejudice; he said as little as possible, and moved on.

In the smaller drawing-room he presently conversed with his hostess.
Mrs. Frothingham's sanguine and buoyant temper seemed proof against
fatigue; at home or as a guest she wore the same look of enjoyment;
vexations, rivalries, responsibilities, left no trace upon her beaming
countenance. Her affections were numberless; her ignorance, as an
observer easily discovered, was vast and profound; but the desire to
please, the tact of a 'gentlewoman, and thorough goodness of heart,
appeared in all her sayings and doings; she was never offensive, never
wholly ridiculous. Small-talk flowed from her with astonishing
volubility, tone and subject dictated by the characteristics of the
person with whom she gossiped; yet her preference was for talk on
homely topics, reminiscences of a time when she knew not luxury. 'You
may not believe it,' she said to him in a moment of confidence, 'but I
assure you I am a very good cook.' Rolfe did not quite credit the
assurance, but he felt it not improbable that Mrs. Frothingham would
accept a reverse of fortune with much practical philosophy; he could
imagine her brightening a small house with the sweetness of her
disposition, and falling to humble duties with sprightly goodwill. In
this point she was a noteworthy exception among the prosperous women of
his acquaintance.

'And what have you been doing?' she asked, not as a mere phrase of
civility, but in a voice and which a look of genuine interest.

'Wasting my time, for the most part.'

'So you always say; but it can't be true. I know the kind of man who
wastes his time, and you're not a bit like him. Nothing would gratify
my curiosity more than to be able to watch you through a whole day.
What did you think of the quartet?'

'Capital!'

'I'm sure they would make wonderful progress, and Alma does work so
hard! I'm only afraid she may injure her health.'

'I see no sign of it yet.'

'She's certainly looking very well,' said Mrs. Frothingham, with
manifest pride and affection. Of Alma she always spoke thus; nothing of
the step-mother was ever observable.

'Mr. Frothingham is not here this evening!'

'I really don't know why,' replied the hostess, casting her eyes round
the room. 'I quite expected him. But he has been dreadfully busy the
last few weeks. And people do worry him so. Somebody called whilst we
were at dinner, and refused to believe that Mr. Frothingham was not at
home, and made quite a disturbance at the door--so they told me
afterwards. I'm really quite nervous sometimes; crazy people are always
wanting to see him--people who really ought not to be at large. No
doubt they have had their troubles, poor things; and everybody thinks
my husband can make them rich if only he chooses.'

A stout, important-looking man paused before Mrs. Frothingham, and
spoke familiarly.

'I'm looking for B. F. Hasn't he put in an appearance yet?'

'I really hope he's enjoying himself somewhere else,' replied the
hostess, rising, with a laugh. 'You leave him no peace.'

The stout man did not smile, but looked gravely for a moment at Rolfe,
a stranger to him, and turned away.

Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, was about to play something; the guests
moved to seat themselves. Rolfe, however, preferred to remain in this
room, where he could hear the music sufficiently well. He had not quite
recovered from his chagrin at the interruption of his talk with Alma--a
foolishness which made him impatient with himself. At the same time, he
kept thinking of the 'crazy people' of whom Mrs. Frothingham spoke so
lightly. A man such as Bennet Frothingham must become familiar with
many forms of 'craziness', must himself be responsible for a good deal
of folly such as leads to downright aberration. Recalling Mrs.
Frothingham's innocent curiosity concerning his own life, Harvey
wished, in turn, that it were possible for him to watch and comprehend
the business of a great finance-gambler through one whole day. What
monstrous cruelties and mendacities might underlie the surface of this
gay and melodious existence! Why was the stout man looking for 'B. F.'?
Why did he turn away with such a set countenance? Why was that old bore
at the club in such a fidget about the 'Britannia'?

Ha! There indeed sounded the violin! It needed no technical
intelligence to distinguish between the playing of Wilenski and that of
Alma Frothingham. Her religion, forsooth! Herr Wilenski, one might be
sure, talked little enough about his 'religion'. What did Alma think as
she listened? Was she overcome by the despair of the artist-soul
struggling in its immaturity? Or did she smile, as ever, and
congratulate herself on the five hours a day, and tell herself how soon
she would reach perfection if there were real necessity for it?
Hopeless to comprehend a woman. The senses warred upon the wit; seized
by calenture, one saw through radiant mists.

He did not like the name 'Alma'. It had a theatrical sound, a
suggestion of unreality.

The _maestro_ knew his audience; he played but for a quarter of an
hour, and the babble of tongues began again. Rolfe, sauntering before
the admirable pictures which hung here as a mere symbol of wealth,
heard a voice at his shoulder.

'I'm very thirsty. Will you take me down?'

His heart leapt with pleasure; Alma must have seen it in his eyes as he
turned.

'What did Wilenski play?' he asked confusedly, as they moved towards
the staircase.

'Something of Grieg's Mr. Wilbraham is going to sing "Wie bist du,
meine Koniginn"--Brahms, you know. But you don't really care for music.'

'What an astounding accusation!'

'You don't really care for it. I've known that since we were at
Leipzig.'

'I have never pretended to appreciate music as you do. That needs
education, and something more. Some music wearies me, there's no
denying it.'

'You like the Melody in F?'

'Yes, I do.'

Alma laughed, with superiority, but not ill-naturedly.

'And I think it detestable--but of course that doesn't matter. When I
talk about books you think me a nincompoop.--That word used to amuse me
so when I was a child. I remember laughing wildly whenever I saw or
heard it. It _is_ a funny word, isn't it?'

'The last I should apply to you,' said Rolfe in an absent undertone, as
he caught a glimpse of the white teeth between her laughing lips.

They entered the supper-room, where as yet only a few people were
refreshing themselves. Provisions for a regiment spread before the
gaze; delicacies innumerable invited the palate: this house was famed
for its hospitable abundance. Alma, having asked her companion to get
her some lemonade, talked awhile with two ladies who had begun to eat
and drink in a serious spirit; waiting for her, Rolfe swallowed two
glasses of wine to counteract a certain dullness and literalness which
were wont to possess him in such company.

'I won't sit down,' she said. 'No, thanks, nothing to eat. I wonder
where Papa is? Now, _he_ enjoys music, though he is no musician. I
think Papa a wonderful man. For years he has never had more than six
hours sleep; and the work he does! He _can't_ take a holiday; idleness
makes him ill. We were down in Hampshire in July with some relatives of
Mamma's--the quietest, sleepiest village--and Papa tried to spend a few
days with us, but he had to take to flight; he would have perished of
ennui.'

'Life at high pressure,' remarked Rolfe, as the least offensive comment
he could make.

'Yes; and isn't it better than life at low?' exclaimed the girl, with
animation. 'Most people go through existence without once exerting all
the powers that are in them. I should hate to die with the thought that
I hadn't really lived myself _out_. A year ago Papa took me into the
City to see the offices of _Stock and Share_, just after the paper
started. It didn't interest me very much; but I pretended it did,
because Papa always takes an interest in _my_ affairs. But I found
there was something else. After we had seen the printing machinery, and
so on, he took me up to the top of the building into a small room,
where there was just a table and a chair and a bookshelf; and he told
me it was his first office, the room in which he had begun business
thirty years ago. He has always kept it for his own, and just as it
was--a fancy of his. There's no harm in my telling you; he's very proud
of it, and so am I. That's energy!'

'Very interesting indeed.'

'I must go up again,' she added quickly. 'Oh, there's miss Beaufoy; do
let me introduce you to Miss Beaufoy.'

She did so, unaware of Rolfe's groaning reluctance, and at once
disappeared.

The supper-room began to fill. As soon as he could escape from Miss
Beaufoy, who had a cavalier of her own, Harvey ascended the stairs
again, and found a quiet corner, where he sat for a quarter of an hour
undisturbed. Couples and groups paused to talk near him, and whenever
he caught a sentence it was the merest chatter, meaningless repetition
of commonplaces which, but for habit, must have been an unutterable
weariness to the least intelligent of mortals. He was resolved never to
come here again; never again to upset his peace of mind and sully his
self-respect by grimacing amid such a crowd. He enjoyed human
fellowship, timely merry-making; but to throng one's house with people
for whom, with one or two exceptions, one cared not a snap of the
fingers, what was this but sheer vulgarism? As for Alma Frothingham,
long ago he had made up his mind about her. Naturally, inevitably, she
absorbed the vulgarity of her atmosphere. All she did was for effect:
it was her cue to pose as the artist; she would keep it up through
life, and breathe her last, amid perfumes, declaring that she had
'lived herself out'.

In his peevishness he noticed that women came up from supper with
flushed cheeks and eyes unnaturally lustrous. What a grossly sensual
life was masked by their airs and graces! He had half a mind to start
tomorrow for the Syrian deserts.

'Do let us see you again soon,' said his hostess, as he took leave of
her. 'Come in at five o'clock on Wednesday, that's our quiet day; only
a few of our _real_ friends. We shall be in town till Christmas, for
certain.'

On the stairs he passed Mr. Felix Dymes, the composer of 'Margot'.

'Oh, it's the easiest thing in the world,' Mr. Dymes was saying, 'to
compose a song that will be popular. I'll give you the recipe, and
charge nothing You must have a sudden change to the minor, and a waltz
refrain--that's all. Oh yes, there's money in it. I know a man who----'

Rolfe had never left the house in such a bad temper.




CHAPTER 5


When he awoke next morning, the weather was so gloomy that he seriously
resumed his thought of getting away from London. Why, indeed, did he
make London his home, when it would be easy to live in places vastly
more interesting, and under a pure sky? He was a citizen of no city at
all, and had less desire than ever to bind himself to a permanent
habitation. All very well so long as he kept among his male friends, at
the club and elsewhere; but this 'society' played the deuce with him,
and he had not the common-sense, the force of resolve, to keep out of
it altogether.

Well, he must go to his bank this morning, to draw cash.

It was about twelve o'clock when he stood at the counter, waiting with
his cheque. The man before him talked with the teller.

'Do you know that the "Britannia" has shut up?'

'The bank? No!'

'But it has. I passed just now, and there were a lot of people standing
about. Closed at half-past eleven, they say.

Harvey had a singular sensation, a tremor at his heart, a flutter of
the pulses, a turning cold and hot; then he was quite calm again, and
said to himself, 'Of course.' For a minute or two the quiet routine of
the bank was suspended; the news passed from mouth to mouth; newcomers
swelled a gossiping group in front of the counter, and Harvey listened.
The general tone was cynical; there sounded scarcely a note of
indignation; no one present seemed to be personally affected by the
disaster. The name of Bennet Frothingham was frequently pronounced,
with unflattering comments.

'Somebody'll get it hot,' remarked one of the speakers; and the others
laughed.

Rolfe, having transacted his business, walked away. It struck him that
he would go and look at the closed bank, but he did not remember the
address; a policeman directed him, and he walked on, the distance not
being very great. At the end of the street in which the building stood,
signs of the unusual became observable--the outskirts of a crowd,
hanging loose in animated talk, as after some exciting occurrence; and
before the bank itself was gathered a throng of men, respectability's
silk hats mingling with the felts and caps of lower strata. Here and
there a voice could be heard raised in anger, but the prevailing
emotion seemed to be mere curiosity. The people who would suffer most
from the collapse of this high-sounding enterprise could not reach the
scene of calamity at half an hour's notice; they were dwellers in many
parts of the British Isles, strangers most of them to London city, with
but a vague mental picture of the local habitation of the Britannia
Loan, Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited.

His arm was seized, and a voice said hoarsely in his ear--

'By God! too late.'

Hugh Carnaby had tumbled out of a cab, and saw his friend in the same
moment that he got near enough to perceive that the doors of the bank
were shut.

'The thieves have lost no time,' he added, pale with fury.

'You had warning of it?'

Hugh pulled him a few yards away, and whispered----

'Bennet Frothingham shot himself last night.'

Again Harvey experienced that disagreeable heart-shock, with the
alternation of hot and cold.

'Where? At home?'

'At the office of _Stock and Share_. Come farther away. It'll be in the
evening papers directly, but I don't want those blackguards to hear me.
I got up late this morning, and as I was having breakfast, Sibyl rushed
in. She brought the news; had it from some friend of her mother's, a
man connected somehow with _Stock and Share_. I thought they would shut
up shop, and came to try and save Sibyl's balance--a couple of hundred,
that's all--but they've swallowed it with the rest.'

'With the rest?'

Hugh laughed mockingly.

'Of hers. Devilish bad luck Sibyl has. It was just a toss-up that a
good deal of my own wasn't in, one way or another.'

'Do you know any more about Frothingham?'

'No. Only the fact. Don't know when it was, or when it got known. We
shall have it from the papers presently. I think every penny Mrs
Larkfield had was in.'

'But it may not mean absolute ruin,' urged Harvey.

'I know what to think when B. F. commits suicide. We shall hear that
some of the others have bolted. It'll be as clean a sweep as our
housekeeper's little job.'

'I've had queer presentiments,' Harvey murmured.

'Why, damn it, so have I! So had lots of people. But nobody ever does
anything till it's too late. I must get home again with my agreeable
news. You'll be going to the club, I dare say? They'll have plenty to
talk about for the next month or two.'

'Try to come round tonight to my place.'

'Perhaps. It depends on fifty chances. There's only one thing I know
for certain--that I shall get out of this cursed country as soon as
possible.'

They parted, and Harvey walked westward. He had no reason for hurry; as
usual, the tumult of the world's business passed him by; he was merely
a looker-on. It occurred to him that it might be a refreshing and a
salutary change if for once he found himself involved in the anxieties
to which other men were subject; this long exemption and security
fostered a too exclusive regard of self, an inaptitude for sympathetic
emotion, which he recognised as the defect of his character. This
morning's events had startled him, and given a shock to his
imagination; but already he viewed them and their consequences with a
self-possession which differed little from unconcern. Bennet
Frothingham, no doubt, had played a rascally game, foreseeing all along
the issues of defeat. As to his wife and daughter, it would be strange
if they were not provided for; suffer who might, they would probably
live on in material comfort, and nowadays that was the first
consideration. He was surprised that their calamity left him so
unmoved; it showed conclusively how artificial were his relations with
these persons; in no sense did he belong to their world; for all his
foolish flutterings, Alma Frothingham remained a stranger to him, alien
from every point of view, personal, intellectual, social. And how many
of the people who crowded to her concert last night would hear the news
this morning with genuine distress on her account? Gratified envy would
be the prevailing mood, with rancorous hostility in the minds of those
who were losers by Bennet Frothingham's knavery or ill-fortune. Hugh
Carnaby's position called for no lament; he had a sufficient income of
his own, and would now easily overcome his wife's pernicious influence;
with or without her, he would break away from a life of corrupting
indolence, and somewhere beyond seas 'beat the British drum'--use his
superabundant vitality as nature prompted.

After all, it promised to clear the air. These explosions were
periodic, inevitable, wholesome. The Britannia Loan, &c, &c, &c, had
run its pestilent course; exciting avarice, perturbing quiet industry
with the passion of the gamester, inflating vulgar ambition, now at
length scattering wreck and ruin. This is how mankind progresses.
Harvey Rolfe felt glad that no theological or scientific dogma
constrained him to a justification of the laws of life.

At lunchtime, newspaper boys began to yell. The earliest placards
roared in immense typography. In the Metropolitan Club, sheets moist
from the press suddenly descended like a fall of snow. Rolfe stood by a
window and read quietly. This first report told him little that he had
not already learnt, but there were a few details of the suicide.
Frothingham, it appeared, always visited the office of _Stock and
Share_ on the day before publication. Yesterday, as usual, he had
looked in for half an hour at three o'clock; but unexpectedly he came
again at seven in the evening, and for a third time at about eleven,
when the printing of the paper was in full swing. 'It was supposed by
the persons whom he then saw that Mr. Frothingham finally quitted the
office; whether he actually left the building or not seems to remain
uncertain. If so, he re-entered without being observed, which does not
seem likely. Between two and three o'clock this morning, when _Stock
and Share_ was practically ready for distribution, a man employed on
the premises is said, for some unexplained reason, to have ascended to
the top floor of the building, and to have entered a room ordinarily
unused. A gas-jet was burning, and the man was horrified to discover
the dead body of Mr. Frothingham, at full length on the floor, in his
hand a pistol. On the alarm being given, medical aid was at once
summoned, and it became evident that death had taken place more than an
hour previously. That no one heard the report of a pistol can be easily
explained by the noise of the machinery below. The dead man's face was
placid. Very little blood had issued from the wound, and the shot must
have been fired with a remarkably steady hand.'

'A room on the top floor of the building, ordinarily unused----' What
story was it that Alma Frothingham told last night, of her visit to the
office of _Stock and Share_? Rolfe had not paid much attention to it at
the time; now he recalled the anecdote, and was more impressed by its
significance. That room, his first place of business, the scene of poor
beginnings, Bennet Frothingham had chosen for his place of death.
Perhaps he had long foreseen this possibility, had mused upon the
dramatic fitness of such an end; for there was a strain of melancholy
in the man, legible on his countenance, perceptible in his private
conversation. Just about the time when Alma laughingly told the story,
her father must have been sitting in that upper room, thinking his last
thoughts; or it might be that he lay already dead.

Later issues contained much fuller reports. The man who found the body
had explained his behaviour in going up to the unused room, and it
relieved the dark affair with a touch of comedy. Before coming to work,
he had quarrelled with his wife, and, rather than go home in the early
hours of the morning, he hit upon the idea of finding a sleeping-place
here on the premises, to which he could slink unnoticed. 'It's little
enough sleep I get in my own house,' was his remark to the reporter who
won his confidence. Clubmen were hilarious over this incident,
speculating as to the result of its publication on the indiscreet man's
domestic troubles.

It was not unremarked that a long time elapsed between the discovery of
the suicide and its being heard of by anyone who had an interest in
making it generally known. With the exception of two persons, all who
were engaged upon the production of the newspaper went home in complete
ignorance of what had happened, so cautiously and successfully was the
situation dealt with by the sub-editor and his informant. When, after
an examination by the doctor, who had been summoned in all secrecy, it
became necessary to communicate with the police, the employees had all
gone away, and the printed sheets had been conveyed to the distributing
agents. Naturally, the subeditor of _Stock and Share_' preserved a
certain reticence in the matter; but one could hardly be mistaken in
assuming that the directors of the Britannia Company--two or three of
them, at all events--had an opportunity of surveying their position
long before the hour when this momentous news got abroad.

With regard to the company's affairs, only conjecture could be as yet
indulged in. In view of the immediate stoppage of business, it was
pretty safe to surmise that alarming disclosures awaited the public. No
one, of course, would be justified in prejudging the case against the
unhappy man who, amid seemingly brilliant circumstances, had been
driven to so desperate an act.

And so on, and so on, in one journal after another, in edition upon
edition. Harvey Rolfe read them till he was weary, listened to the
gossip of the club till he was nauseated. He went home at length with a
headache, and, having carefully avoided contact with Buncombe or Mrs
Handover, made an effort to absorb himself in a volume of Gregorovius,
which was at present his study. The attempt was futile. Talk still
seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered
far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard
raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from
this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny
paper made the most of what Providence had sent them.

The first thing after breakfast next morning, he posted a line to Hugh
Carnaby. 'Is there any way in which I can be of use to you? If you
think not, I shall be off tomorrow to Greystone for a few days. I feel
as if we were all being swept into a ghastly whirlpool which roars over
the bottomless pit. Of course, I will stay if I can do anything, no
matter what. Otherwise, address for a week to Basil Morton's.'

This he dropped into the nearest pillar-box, and, as the sun was
endeavouring to shine, he walked the length of the street, a pretence
of exercise. On his way back he was preceded by a telegraph boy, who
stopped at Buncombe's front door, and awoke the echoes with a twofold
double knock. Before the servant could open, Harvey was on the steps.

'What name?'

'Rolfe.'

'For me, then.'

He tore open the envelope.

'Could you come at once? Something has happened.--Abbott.'

The boy wished to know if there would be a reply. Harvey shook his
head, and stepped into the hall, where he stood reflecting. What could
have happened that Edgar Abbott should summon him? Had his wife run
away?-- Ah, to be sure, it must have something to do with Wager's
children--an accident, a death. But why send for _him_?

He made a little change in his dress, and drove forthwith to Kilburn.
As his cab stopped, he saw that all the blinds in the front of the
Abbotts' house were drawn down. Death, then, obviously. It was with a
painful shaking of the nerves that he knocked for admission.

'Mr. Abbott----?'

The servant girl, who had a long-drawn face, said nothing, but left him
where he stood, returning in a moment with a mumbled 'Will you please
to come in, sir?' He followed her to the room in which he had talked
with Mrs. Abbott two days ago; and she it was who again received him.
Her back to the light, she stood motionless.

'Your husband has telegraphed for me----'

A voice that struggled with a sob made thick reply----

'No--I--he is dead!'

The accent of that last monosyllable was heart-piercing. It seemed to
Harvey as though the word were new-minted, so full it sounded of
dreadful meaning.

'Dead?'

Mrs. Abbott moved, and he could see her face better. She must have wept
for hours.

'He has been taking morphia--he couldn't sleep well--and then his
neuralgia. The girl found him this morning, at seven o'clock--there.'

She pointed to the couch.

'You mean that he had taken an overdose--by accident----'

'It _must_ have been so. He had to work late--and then he must have
lain down to sleep.'

'Why here?'

'A flood of anguish whelmed her. She uttered a long moan, all the more
terrible for its subdual to a sound that could not pass beyond the
room. Her struggle for self-command made her suffering only the more
impressive, the more grievous to behold.'

'Mr. Rolfe, I sent for you because you are his old friend. I meant to
tell you all the truth, as I know it. I _can't_ tell it before
strangers--in public! I _can't_ let them know--the shame--the shame!'

Harvey's sympathy gave way to astonishment and strange surmise.
Hurriedly he besought her not to reveal anything in her present
distress; to wait till she could reflect calmly, see things in truer
proportion. His embarrassment was heightened by an inability to
identify this woman with the Mrs. Abbott he had known; the change in
her self-presentment seemed as great and sudden as that in her
circumstances. Face and voice, though scarce recognisable, had changed
less than the soul of her--as Harvey imaged it. This entreaty she
replied to with a steadiness, a resolve, which left him no choice but
to listen.

'I cannot, dare not, think that he did this knowingly. No! He was too
brave for that. He would never have left me in that way--to my despair.
But it was my fault that made him angry--no, not angry; he was never
that with me, or never showed it. But I had behaved with such utter
selfishness----'

Her misery refused to word itself. She sank down upon a chair and
sobbed and moaned.

'Your grief exaggerates every little fault,' said Harvey.

'No--you must hear it all--then perhaps I can hide my shame from
strangers. What use would it be if they knew? It alters nothing--it's
only in my own heart. I have no right to pain you like this. I will
tell you quietly. You know that he went to Waterbury, on business. Did
he tell you?--it was to buy a share in a local newspaper. I, in my
blindness and selfishness, disliked that. I wanted to live here; the
thought of going to live in the country seemed unbearable. That Edgar
was overworked and ill, seemed to me a trifle. Don't you remember how I
spoke of it when you came here the other morning?--I can't understand
myself. How could I think so, speak so!'

The listener said nothing.

'He did what he purposed--made a bargain, and came back to conclude the
purchase by correspondence. But his money--the small capital he counted
upon--was in "Britannia" shares; and you know what happened
yesterday--yesterday, the very day when he went to sell the shares,
thinking to do so without the least difficulty.'

Harvey gave a grim nod.

'He came home, and I showed that I was glad----'

'No! You accuse yourself unreasonably.'

'I tell you the truth, as my miserable conscience knows it. I was crazy
with selfishness and conceit. Rightly, he left me to my cowardly
temper, and went out again, and was away for a long time. He came back
to dinner, and then the suffering in his face all but taught me what I
was doing. I wanted to ask him to forgive me--to comfort him for his
loss; but pride kept me from it. I couldn't speak--I couldn't! After
dinner he said he had a lot of work to do, and came into this room. At
ten o'clock I sent him coffee. I wished to take it myself--O God! if
only I had done so! I _wished_ to take it, and speak to him, but still
I couldn't. And I knew he was in torture; I saw at dinner that pain was
racking him. But I kept away, and went to my own bed, and slept--whilst
he was lying here.'

A rush of tears relieved her. Harvey felt his own eyes grow moist.

'It was only that he felt so worn out,' she pursued. 'I know how it
was. The pain grew intolerable, and he went upstairs for his draught,
and then--not having finished his work--he thought he would lie down on
the sofa for a little; and so sleep overcame him. He never meant
_this_. If I thought it, I couldn't live!'

'Undoubtedly you are right,' said Harvey, summoning an accent of
conviction. 'I knew him very well, and he was not the man to do that.'

'No? You are sure of it? You feel it impossible, Mr. Rolfe?'

'Quite impossible. There are men--oh, you may assure yourself that it
was pure accident. Unfortunately, it happens so often.'

She hung on his words, leaning towards him, her eyes wide and lips
parted.

'So often! I have seen so many cases, in the papers. And he was
absent-minded. But what right have I to seek comfort for myself? Was I
any less the cause of his death? But must I tell all this in public? Do
you think I ought to?'

With comfortable sincerity Rolfe was able to maintain the needlessness
of divulging anything beyond the state of Abbott's health and his
pecuniary troubles.

'It isn't as if we had lived on ill terms with each other,' said the
widow, with a sigh of gratitude. 'Anything but that. Until of late we
never knew a difference, and the change that came was wholly my fault.
I hadn't the honesty to speak out and say what was in my mind. I never
openly opposed his wish to leave London. I pretended to agree to
everything, pretended. He showed me all his reasons, put everything
simply and plainly and kindly before me, and if I had said what I
thought, I feel sure he would have given it up at once. It was in my
own hands to decide one way or the other.'

'Why should you reproach yourself so with mere thoughts, of which he
never became aware?'

'Oh, it was yesterday, when he came back from the City. He knew then
that I was glad he couldn't carry out his purpose. He looked at me as
he never had done before--a look of surprise and estrangement. I shall
always see that look on his face.'

Harvey talked in the strain of solace, feeling how extraordinary was
his position, and that of all men he had least fitness for such an
office. It relieved him when, without undue abruptness, he could pass
to the practical urgencies of the case. Were Wager's children still in
the house? Alas! they were, and Mrs. Abbott knew not what to do about
them.

'You can't think of anyone who would take them--for a day or two, even?'

Among her acquaintances there was not one of whom she could venture to
ask such a service. 'People have such a dread of children.' Her sister
was a governess in Ireland; other near relatives she had none. Edgar
Abbott's mother, old and in feeble health, lived near Waterbury; how
was the dreadful news to be conveyed to her?

Harvey bestirred himself. Here, at all events, was a call to active
usefulness; he felt the privilege of money and leisure.

'Can you give me the name of any one at Waterbury who would be a fit
person to break the news to Mrs. Abbott?'

Two names were mentioned, and he noted them.

'I will send telegrams at once to both.'

'You will say it was an accident----'

'That shall be made clear. As for the children, I think I can have them
taken away this morning. In the house where I live there is a decent
woman who I dare say would be willing to look after them for the
present. Will you leave this entirely in my hands?'

'I am ashamed--I don't know how to thank you.'

'No time shall be lost.' He rose. 'If Mrs. Handover will help us, I
will bring her here; then I shall see you again. In any case, of
course, I will come back--there will be other business. But you ought
to have some friend--some lady.'

'There's _no_ one I can ask.'

'Oh, but of all the people you know in London--surely!'

'They are not friends in that sense. I understand it now--fifty
acquaintances; no friend.'

'But let me think--let me think. What was the name of that lady I met
here, whose children you used to teach?'

'Mrs. Langland. She is very kind and friendly, but she lives at
Gunnersbury--so far--and I couldn't trouble her.'

Upon one meeting and a short conversation, with subsequent remarks from
Edgar Abbott, Rolfe had grounded a very favourable opinion of Mrs
Langland. She dwelt clearly in his mind as 'a woman with no nonsense
about her', likely to be of much helpfulness at a crisis such as the
present. With difficulty he persuaded Mrs. Abbott to sit down and write
a few lines, to be posted at once to Gunnersbury.

'I haven't dared to ask her to come. But I have said that I am alone.'

'Quite enough, I think, if she is at home.'

He took his leave, and drove back to Bayswater, posting the letter and
despatching two telegrams on the way.

Of course, his visit to Greystone was given up.




CHAPTER 6


Hugh Carnaby was gratified by the verdict of _felo de se_. He applauded
the jury for their most unexpected honesty. One had taken for granted
the foolish tag about temporary madness, which would have been an
insult to everybody's common-sense.

'It's a pity they no longer bury at four cross-roads, with a stake in
his inside. (Where's that from? I remember it somehow.) The example
wouldn't be bad.'

'You're rather early-Victorian,' replied Sibyl, who by this term was
wont to signify barbarism or crudity in art, letters, morality, or
social feeling. 'Besides, there's no merit in the verdict. It only
means that the City jury is in a rage. Yet every one of them would be
dishonest on as great a scale if they dared, or had the chance.'

'Something in that, I dare say,' conceded Hugh.

He admired his wife more than ever. Calm when she lost her trinkets,
Sibyl exhibited no less self-command now that she was suddenly deprived
of her whole fortune, about eight hundred a year. She had once remarked
on the pleasantness and fitness of a wife's possessing in her own name
an income equal to that of her husband; yet she resigned it without
fuss. Indeed, Sibyl never made a fuss about anything. She intimated her
wishes, and, as they were always possible of gratification, obtained
them as a matter of course. Naturally, since their marriage, she and
Hugh had lived to the full extent of their means. Carnaby had reduced
his capital by a couple of thousand pounds in preliminary expenses, and
debt to the amount of two or three hundred was outstanding at the end
of the first twelvemonth; but Sibyl manifested no alarm.

'We have been great fools,' she said, alluding to their faith in Bennet
Frothingham.

'It's certain that _I_ have,' replied her husband. 'I oughtn't to have
let your mother have her way about that money. If there had been a
proper settlement, you would have run no risk. Trustees couldn't have
allowed such an investment.'

The same day Sibyl bought a fur for her neck which cost fifteen
guineas. The weather was turning cold, and she had an account at the
shop.

That afternoon, too, she went to see her mother, and on returning at
six o'clock looked into the library, where Hugh sat by the fire, a book
in his hand. Carnaby found the days very long just now. He shunned his
clubs, the Metropolitan and the Ramblers', because of a fear that his
connection with the 'Britannia' was generally known; to hear talk on
the subject would make him savage. He was grievously perturbed in mind
by his position and prospects; and want of exercise had begun to affect
his health. As always, he greeted his wife's entrance with a smile, and
rose to place a chair for her.

'Thanks, I won't sit down,' said Sibyl. 'You look comfortable.'

'Well?'

She looked at him reflectively, and said in balanced tones----

'I really think I can boast of having the most selfish mother in
England.'

Hugh had his own opinion concerning Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, but would
not have ventured to phrase it.

'How's that?'

'I never knew anyone who succeeded so well in thinking steadily and
exclusively of herself. It irritates me to see her since this affair; I
shan't go again. I really didn't know what a detestable temper she has.
Her talk is outrageous. She doesn't behave like a lady. Could you
believe that she has written a violent letter to Mrs.
Frothingham--"speaking her mind", as she says? It's disgraceful!'

'I'm sorry she has done that. But it isn't every one that can bear
injury as you do, Sibyl.'

'I supposed she could behave herself. She raises her voice, and uses
outrageous words, and shows temper with the servants. I wouldn't spend
a day in that house now on any account. And, after all, I find she
hasn't lost much more than I have. She will be able to count on six
hundred a year at least.'

Carnaby received the news with a brightened visage.

'Oh come! That's something.'

'She took very good care, you see, not to risk everything herself.'

'It's possible,' said Hugh, 'that she hadn't control of all her money.'

'Oh yes, she had. She let that fact escape in her fury--congratulated
herself on being so far prudent. Really, I never knew a more hateful
woman.'

It was said without vehemence, with none of that raising of the voice
which so offended her: a deliberate judgment, in carefully chosen
words. Hugh tried to smile, but could not quite command his features;
they expressed an uneasy thoughtfulness.

'Do you go out this evening?' he asked, after a pause.

'No; I'm rather tired and out of sorts. Dinner is at seven. I shall go
to bed early.'

The police had as yet failed to get upon the track of the felonious
housekeeper, known as Mrs. Maskell. Mrs. Carnaby's other servants still
kept their places, protesting innocence, and doubtless afraid to leave
lest they should incur suspicion. Domestic management was now In the
hands of the cook. Sibyl always declared that she could not eat a
dinner she had had the trouble of ordering, and she seemed unaffectedly
to shrink from persons of the menial class, as though with physical
repulsion. Perforce she submitted to having her hair done by her maid,
but she found the necessity disagreeable.

The dinner was simple, but well cooked. Sibyl never ate with hearty
appetite, and declined everything not of excellent quality; unlike
women in general, she was fastidious about wine, yet took of it
sparingly; liqueurs, too, she enjoyed, and very strong coffee. To a
cigarette in the mouth of a woman she utterly objected; it offended her
sense of the becoming, her delicate perception of propriety. When
dining alone or with Hugh, she dressed as carefully as for a
ceremonious occasion. Any approach to personal disorder or neglect was
inconceivable in Sibyl. Her husband had, by accident, heard her called
'the best-groomed woman in London'; he thought the praise well merited,
and it flattered him.

At table they talked of things as remote as possible from their
immediate concerns, and with the usual good humour. When he rose to
open the door, Hugh said----

'Drawing-room or library?'

'Library. You would like to smoke.'

For ten minutes he sat with his arms on the table, his great
well-shapen hands loosely clenched before him. He drank nothing. His
gaze was fixed on a dish of fruit, and widened as if in a growing
perplexity. Then he recovered himself, gave a snort, and went to join
his wife.

Sibyl was reading a newspaper. Hugh lit his pipe in silence, and sat
down opposite to her. Presently the newspaper dropped, and Sibyl's eyes
were turned upon her husband with a smile.

'Well?'

'Well?'

They smiled at each other amiably.

'What do you suggest, Birdie?'

The fondling name was not very appropriate, and had not been used of
late; Carnaby hit upon it in the honeymoon days, when he said that his
wife was like some little lovely bird, which he, great coarse fellow,
had captured and almost feared to touch lest he should hurt it. Hugh
had not much originality of thought, and less of expression.

'There are places, you know, where one lives very comfortably on very
little,' said Sibyl.

'Yes; but it leads to nothing.'

'What _would_ lead to anything?'

'Well, you see, I have capital, and some use ought to be made of it.
Everybody nowadays goes in for some kind of business.'

She listened with interest, smiling, meditative.

'And a great many people come out of it--wishing they had done so
before.'

'True,' said Carnaby; 'there's the difficulty. I had a letter from
Dando this morning. He has got somebody to believe in his new smelting
process--somebody in the City; talks of going out to Queensland
shortly. Really--if I could be on the spot----'

He hesitated, timidly indicating his thoughts. Sibyl mused, and slowly
shook her head.

'No; wait for reports.'

'Yes; but it's those who are in it first, you see.'

Sibyl seemed to forget the immediate subject, and to let her thoughts
wander in pleasant directions. She spoke as if on a happy impulse.

'There's one place I think I should like--though I dread the voyage.'

'Where's that?'

'Honolulu.'

'What has put that into your head?'

'Oh, I have read about it. The climate is absolute perfection, and the
life exquisite. How do you get there?'

'Across America, and then from San Francisco. It's anything but a cheap
place, I believe.'

'Still, for a time. The thing is to get away, don't you think?'

'No doubt of that.--Honolulu--by Jove! it's an idea. I should like to
see those islands myself.'

'And it isn't commonplace,' remarked Sibyl. 'One would go off with a
certain eclat. Very different from starting for the Continent in the
humdrum way.'

The more Carnaby thought of it, the better he liked this suggestion.
That Sibyl should voluntarily propose so long a journey surprised and
delighted him. The tropics were not his favourite region, and those
islands of the Pacific offered no scope for profitable energy; he did
not want to climb volcanoes, still less to lounge beneath bananas and
breadfruit-trees, however pleasant such an escape from civilisation
might seem at the first glance. A year of marriage, of idleness amid
amusements, luxuries, extravagances, for which he had no taste, was
bearing its natural result in masculine restiveness. His robust
physique and temper, essentially combative, demanded liberty under
conditions of rude or violent life. He was not likely to find a
satisfying range in any mode of existence that would be shared by
Sibyl. But he clutched at any chance of extensive travel. It might be
necessary--it certainly would be--to make further incision into his
capital, and so diminish the annual return upon which he could count
for the future; but when his income had already become ludicrously
inadequate, what did that matter? The years of independence were past;
somehow or other, he must make money. Everybody did it nowadays, and an
'opening' would of course present itself, something would of course
'turn up'.

He stretched his limbs in a sudden vast relief.

'Bravo! The idea is excellent. Shall we sell all this stuff?' waving a
hand to indicate the furniture.

'Oh, I think not. Warehouse it.'

Hugh would have rejoiced to turn every chair and table into hard cash,
not only for the money's sake, but for the sense of freedom that would
follow; but he agreed, as always, to whatever his wife preferred. They
talked with unwonted animation. A great atlas was opened, routes were
fingered; half the earth's circumference vanished in a twinkling.
Sibyl, hitherto mewed within the circle of European gaieties and
relaxations, all at once let her fancy fly--tasted a new luxury in
experiences from which she had shrunk.

'I'll order my outfit tomorrow. Very light things, I suppose? Who could
advise me about that?'

Among a number of notes and letters which she wrote next day was one to
Miss Frothingham. 'Dear Alma,' it began, and it ended with 'Yours
affectionately'--just as usual.

'Could you possibly come here some day this week? I haven't written
before, and haven't tried to see you, because I felt sure you would
rather be left alone. At the same time I feel sure that what has
happened, though for a time it will sadden us both, cannot affect our
friendship. I want to see you, as we are going away very soon, first of
all to _Honolulu_. Appoint your own time; I will be here.'

By return of post came the black-edged answer, which began with
'Dearest Sibyl,' and closed with 'Ever affectionately'.

'I cannot tell you how relieved I am to get your kind letter. These
dreadful days have made me ill, and one thing that increased my misery
was the fear that I should never hear from you again. I should not have
dared to write. How noble you are!--but then I always knew that. I
cannot come tomorrow--you know why--but the next day I will be with you
at three o'clock, if you don't tell me that the hour is inconvenient.'

They met at the appointed time. Mrs. Carnaby's fine sense of the
becoming declared itself in dark array; her voice was tenderly subdued;
the pressure of her hand, the softly lingering touch of her lips,
conveyed a sympathy which perfect taste would not allow to become
demonstrative. Alma could at first say nothing. The faint rose upon her
cheek had vanished; her eyes were heavy, and lacked their vital gleam;
her mouth, no longer mobile and provocative, trembled on the verge of
sobs, pathetic, childlike. She hung her head, moved with a languid,
diffident step, looked smaller and slighter, a fashionable garb of woe
aiding the unhappy transformation.

'I oughtn't to have given you this trouble,' said Sibyl. 'But perhaps
you would rather see me here----'

'Yes--oh yes--it was much better----'

'Sit down, dear. We won't talk of wretched things, will we? If I could
have been of any use to you----'

'I was so afraid you would never----'

'Oh, you know me better than that,' broke in Mrs. Carnaby, almost with
cheerfulness, her countenance already throwing off the decorous shadow,
like a cloak that had served its turn. 'I hope I am neither foolish nor
worldly-minded.'

'Indeed, indeed not! You are goodness itself.'

'How is Mrs. Frothingham?'

The question was asked with infinite delicacy, head and body bent
forward, eyes floatingly averted.

'Really ill, I'm afraid. She has fainted several times--yesterday was
unconscious for nearly half an hour.'

Sibyl flinched. Mention of physical suffering affected her most
disagreeably; she always shunned the proximity of people in ill health,
and a possibility of infection struck her with panic.

'Oh, I'm so sorry. But it will pass over.'

'I hope so. I have done what I could.'

'I'm sure you have.'

'But it's so hard--when every word of comfort sounds heartless--when
it's kindest to say nothing----'

'We won't talk about it, dear. You yourself--I can see what you have
gone through. You must get away as soon as possible; this gloomy
weather makes everything worse.'

She paused, and with an air of discreet interest awaited Alma's reply.

'Yes, I hope to get away. I shall see if it's possible.'

The girl's look strayed with a tired uncertainty; her hands never
ceased to move and fidget; only the habits of good breeding kept her
body still.

'Of course, it is too soon for you to have made plans.'

'It's so difficult,' replied Alma, her features more naturally
expressive, her eyes a little brighter. 'You see, I am utterly
dependent upon Mamma. I had better tell you at once--Mamma will have
enough to live upon, however things turn out. She has money of her own;
but of course I have nothing--nothing whatever. I think, most likely,
Mamma will go to live with her sister, in the country, for a time. She
couldn't bear to go on living in London, and she doesn't like life
abroad. If only I could do as I wish!'

'I guess what that would be,' said the other, smiling gently.

'To take up music as a profession--yes. But I'm not ready for it.'

'Oh, half a year of serious study; with your decided talent, I should
think you couldn't hesitate. You are a born musician.'

The words acted as a cordial. Alma roused herself, lifted her drooping
head and smiled.

'That's the praise of a friend.'

'And the serious opinion of one not quite unfit to judge,' rejoined
Sibyl, with her air of tranquil self-assertion. 'Besides, we have
agreed--haven't we?--that the impulse is everything. What you wish for,
try for. Just now you have lost courage; you are not yourself. Wait
till you recover your balance.'

'It isn't that I want to make a name, or anything of that sort,' said
Alma, in a voice that was recovering its ordinary pitch and melody. 'I
dare say I never should; I might just support myself, and that would be
all. But I want to be free--I want to break away.'

'Of course!'

'I have been thinking that I shall beg Mamma to let me have just a
small allowance, and go off by myself. I know people at Leipzig--the
Gassners, you remember. I could live there on little enough, and work,
and feel free. Of course, there's really no reason why I shouldn't. I
have been feeling so bound and helpless; and now that nobody has any
right to hinder me, you think it would be the wise thing?'

Alma had occasionally complained to her friend, as she did the other
evening to Harvey Rolfe, that easy circumstances were not favourable to
artistic ambition, but no very serious disquiet had ever declared
itself in her ordinary talk. The phrases she now used, and the look
that accompanied them, caused Sibyl some amusement. Only two years
older than Alma, Mrs. Carnaby enjoyed a more than proportionate
superiority in knowledge of the world; her education had been more
steadily directed to that end, and her natural aptitude for the study
was more pronounced. That she really liked Alma seemed as certain as
that she felt neither affection nor esteem for any other person of her
own sex. Herself not much inclined to feminine friendship, Alma had
from the first paid voluntary homage to Sibyl's intellectual claims,
and thought it a privilege to be admitted to her intimacy; being
persuaded, moreover, that in Sibyl, and in Sibyl alone, she found
genuine appreciation of her musical talent. Sibyl's choice of a husband
had secretly surprised and disappointed her, for Hugh Carnaby was not
the type of man in whom she felt an interest, and he seemed to her
totally unworthy of his good fortune; but this perplexity passed and
was forgotten. She saw that Sibyl underwent no subjugation; nay, that
the married woman did but perfect herself in those qualities of mind
and mood whereby she had shone as a maiden. It was a combination of
powers and virtues which appeared to Alma little short of the ideal in
womanhood. The example influenced her developing character in ways she
recognised, and in others of which she remained quite unconscious.

'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last
question; 'provided that----'

She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland
wisdom.

'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise me--tell me
just what you think.'

'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly
conventionalities and proprieties--our old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'

'That's it! You understand me perfectly, as you always do.'

'If it had been possible, we would have lived together.'

'Ah! how delightful! Don't speak of what can't be.'

'I was going to say,' pursued Sibyl thoughtfully, 'that you will meet
with all sorts of little troubles and worries, which you have never had
any experience of. For one thing, you know'--she leaned back, smiling,
at ease--'people won't behave to you quite as you have been accustomed
to expect. Money is very important even to a man; but to a woman it
means more than you can imagine.'

'Oh, but I shan't be living among the kind of people----'

'No, no. Perhaps you don't quite understand me yet. It isn't the people
you seek who matter, but the people that will seek _you_; and some of
them will have very strange ideas--very strange indeed.'

Alma looked self-conscious, kept her eyes down, and at length nodded.

'Yes. I think I understand.'

'That's why I said "provided". You are not the ordinary girl, and you
won't imagine that I feared for you; I know you too well. It's a
question of being informed and on one's guard. I don't think there's
anyone else who would talk to you like this. It doesn't offend you?'

'Sibyl!'

'Well, then, that's all right. Go into the world by all means, but go
prepared--armed; the word isn't a bit too strong, as I know perfectly.
Some day, perhaps--but there's no need to talk about such things now.'

Alma kept a short silence, breaking it at length with note of
exultation.

'I'm quite decided now. I wanted just to hear what you would say. I
shan't wait a day longer than I can help. The old life is over for me.
If only it had come about in some other way, I should be singing with
rapture. I'm going to begin to live!'

She quivered with intensity of feeling, or with that excitement of the
nerves which simulates intense feeling in certain natures. A flush
stole to her cheek; her eyes were once more full of light. Sibyl
regarded her observantly and with admiration.

'You never thought of the stage, Alma?'

'The stage? Acting?'

'No; I see you never did. And it wouldn't do--of course it wouldn't do.
Something in your look--it just crossed my mind--but of course you have
much greater things before you. It means hard work, and I'm only afraid
you'll work yourself all but to death.'

'I shouldn't wonder,' replied the girl, with a little laugh of pride in
this possibility.

'Well, I too am going away, you know.'

Alma's countenance fell, shame again crept over it, and she murmured,
'O Sibyl----!'

'Don't distress yourself the least on my account. That's an understood
thing; no mention, no allusion, ever between us. And the truth is that
my position is just a little like yours: on the whole, I'm rather glad.
Hugh wants desperately to get to the other end of the world, and I dare
say it's the best thing I could do to go with him. No roughing it, of
course; that isn't in my way.'

'I should think not, indeed!'

'Oh, I may rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever
seemed worth the trouble.--In a year or two, we shall meet and compare
notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do
indifferently what other people have done well and put into print--it's
a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and
original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm sure, at
Honolulu.'

They drank tea together, and talked, in all, for a couple of hours.
When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally
changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at first
presented herself.

'There's no one else,' she said, 'who would have behaved to me so
kindly and so nobly.'

'Nonsense! But _that's_ nonsense, too. Let us admire each other; it
does us good, and is so very pleasant.'

'I shall say goodbye to no one but you. Let people think and say of me
what they like; I don't care a snap of the fingers. In deed, I _hate_
people.'

'Both sexes impartially?'

It was a peculiarity of their intimate converse that they never talked
of men, and a jest of this kind had novelty sufficient to affect Alma
with a slight confusion.

'Impartially--quite,' she answered.

'Do make an exception in favour of Hugh's friend, Mr. Rolfe. I abandon
all the rest.'

Alma betrayed surprise.

'Strange! I really thought you didn't much like Mr. Rolfe,' she said,
without any show of embarrassment.

'I didn't when I first knew him; but he grows upon one. I think him
interesting; he isn't quite easy to understand.'

'Indeed he isn't.'

They smiled with the confidence of women fancy-free, and said no more
on the subject.

Carnaby came home to dinner brisk and cheerful; he felt better than for
many a day. Brightly responsive, Sibyl welcomed his appearance in the
drawing-room.

'Saw old Rolfe for a minute at the club. In a vile temper. I wonder
whether he really has lost money, and won't confess? Yet I don't think
so. Queer old stick.'

'By-the-bye, what _is_ his age?' asked Alma unconcernedly.

'Thirty-seven or eight. But I always think of him as fifty.'

'I suppose he'll never marry?'

'Rolfe? Good heavens, no! Too much sense--hang it, you know what I
mean! It would never suit _him_. Can't imagine such a thing. He gets
more and more booky. Has his open-air moods, too, and amuses me with
his Jingoism. So different from his old ways of talking; but I didn't
care much about him in those days. Well, now, look here, I've had a
talk with a man I know, about Honolulu, and I've got all sorts of
things to tell you.--Dinner? Very glad; I'm precious hungry.'




CHAPTER 7


About the middle of December, Alma Frothingham left England, burning
with a fever of impatience, resenting all inquiry and counsel, making
pretence of settled plans, really indifferent to everything but the
prospect of emancipation. The disaster that had befallen her life, the
dishonour darkening upon her name, seemed for the moment merely a price
paid for liberty. The shock of sorrow and dismay had broken innumerable
bonds, overthrown all manner of obstacles to growth of character, of
power. She gloried in a new, intoxicating sense of irresponsibility.
She saw the ideal life in a release from all duty and obligation--save
to herself.

Travellers on that winter day from Antwerp into Germany noticed the
English girl, well dressed, and of attractive features, whose excited
countenance and restless manner told of a journey in haste, with
something most important, and assuredly not disagreeable, at the end of
it. She was alone, and evidently quite able to take care of herself.
Unlike the representative English _Fraulein_, she did not reject
friendly overtures from strangers; her German was lame, but she spoke
it with enjoyment, laughing at her stumbles and mistakes. With her in
the railway carriage she kept a violin-case. A professional musician?
'Noch nicht' was her answer, with a laugh. She knew Leipzig? Oh dear,
yes, and many other parts of Germany; had travelled a good deal; was an
entirely free and independent person, quite without national prejudice,
indeed without prejudice of any kind. And in the same breath she spoke
slightingly, if not contemptuously, of England and everything English.

At Leipzig she stayed until the end of April, living with a family
named Gassner, people whom she had known for some years. Only on
condition that she would take up her abode with this household had Mrs.
Frothingham consented to make her an allowance and let her go abroad.
Alma fretted at the restriction; she wished to have a room of her own
in a lodging-house; but the family life improved her command of
German--something gained. To music, meanwhile, she gave very little
attention, putting off with one excuse after another the beginning of
her serious studies. She seemed to have quite forgotten that music was
her 'religion', and, for the matter of that, appeared to have no
religion at all. 'Life' was her interest, her study. She made
acquaintances, attended concerts and the theatre, read multitudes of
French and German novels. But her habits were economical. All the
pleasures she desired could be enjoyed at very small expense, and she
found her stepmother's remittances more than sufficient.

In April she gained Mrs. Frothingham's consent to her removal from
Leipzig to Munich. A German girl with whom she had made friends was
going to Munich to study art. For reasons, vague even to herself (so
ran her letters to Mrs. Frothingham), she could not 'settle' at
Leipzig. The climate did not seem to suit her. She had suffered from
bad colds, and, in short, was doing no good. At Munich lived an
admirable violinist, a friend of Herr Wilenski's, who would be of great
use to her. 'In short, dear Mamma, doesn't it seem to you rather
humiliating that at the age of four-and-twenty I should be begging for
permission to go here and there, do this or that? I know all your
anxieties about me, and I am very grateful, and I feel ashamed to be
living at your expense, but really I must go about making a career for
myself in my own way.' Mrs. Frothingham yielded, and Alma took lodgings
in Munich together with her German friend.

English newspapers were now reporting the trial of the directors of the
Britannia Company, for to this pass had things come. The revelations of
the law-court satisfied public curiosity, and excited indignant
clamour. Alma read, and tried to view the proceedings as one for whom
they had no personal concern; but her sky darkened, her heart grew
heavy. The name of Bennet Frothingham stood for criminal recklessness,
for huge rascality; it would be so for years to come. She had no
courage to take up her violin; the sound of music grew hateful to her,
as if mocking at her ruined ambition.

Three months had passed since she received her one and only letter from
Honolulu; two months since she had written to Sibyl. On a blue day of
spring, when despondency lowered upon her, and all occupation, all
amusements seemed a burden, she was driven to address her friend on the
other side of the world, to send a cry of pain and hopelessness to the
dream-island of the Pacific.

'What is the use of working at music? The simple truth is, that since I
left England I have given it up. I am living here on false pretences; I
shall never care to play the violin again. What sort of a reception
could I expect from an English audience? If I took another name, of
course it would get known who I was, and people would just come to
stare at me--pleasant thought! And I have utterly lost confidence in
myself. The difficulties are great, even where there is great talent,
and I feel I have nothing of the kind. I might toil for years, and
should do no good. I feel I am not an artist--I am beaten and
disgraced. There's nothing left but to cry and be miserable, like any
other girl who has lost her money, her hopes, everything. Why don't you
write to me? If you wait till you get this, it will be six or seven
weeks before I could possibly hear. And a letter from you would do me
so much good.'

Some one knocked at her door. She called '_Herein_!' and there appeared
a little boy, the child of her landlady, who sometimes ran errands for
her. He said that a gentleman was asking to see her.

'_Ein Deutscher_?'

'_Nein. Ein Englander, glaub'ich, und ein schnurriges Deutsch ist's,
das er verbricht_!'

Alma started up, shut her unfinished letter in the blotting-case, and
looked anxiously about the room.

'What is his name? Ask him to give you his name.'

The youngster came back with a card, and Alma was astonished to read
the name of 'Mr. Felix Dymes'. Why, she had all but forgotten the man's
existence. How came he here? What right had he to call? And yet she was
glad--nay, delighted. Happily, she had the sitting-room (shared with
her art-studying friend) to herself this morning.

'Bring him up here,' she said to the boy hurriedly, 'and ask him to
wait a minute for me.'

And she escaped to make a rapid change of dress. For Alma was not like
Sibyl Carnaby in perpetual regard for personal finish; she dressed
carelessly, save when the occasion demanded pains; she liked the ease
of gowns and slippers, of loose hair and free throat; and this taste
had grown upon her during the past months. But she did not keep Mr.
Dymes waiting very long, and on her entrance he gazed at her with very
frank admiration. Frank, too, was his greeting--that of a very old and
intimate friend, rather than of a drawing-room acquaintance. He came
straight from England, he said; a spring holiday, warranted by the
success of his song 'Margot', which the tenor, Topham, had sung at St
James's Hall. A few days ago he had happened to see Miss Leach, who
gave him Miss Frothingham's address, and he could not deny himself the
pleasure of calling. Chatting thus, he made himself comfortable in a
chair, and Alma sat over against him. The man was loud, conceited,
vulgar; but, after all, he composed very sweet music, which promised to
take the public ear; and he brought with him a waft from the happiness
of old days; and how could one expect small proprieties of a bohemian,
an artist? Alma began to talk eagerly, joyously.

'And what are you doing, Miss Frothingham?'

'Oh, fiddling a little. But I haven't been very well.'

'I can see that. Yet in another sense you look a better than ever.'

He began to hum an air, glancing round the room.

'You haven't a piano. Just listen to this; how do you think it will
do?' He hummed through a complete melody. 'Came into my head last
night. Wants rather sentimental words--the kind of thing that goes down
with the British public. Rather a good air, don't you think?'

Felix Dymes had two manners of conversation. In a company at all
ceremonious, and when it behoved him to make an impression, he talked
as the artist and the expert in music, with many German phrases, which
he pronounced badly, to fill up the gaps in his knowledge. His familiar
stream of talk was very different: it discarded affectation, and had a
directness, a vigour, which never left one in doubt as to his actual
views of life. How melody of any kind could issue from a nature so
manifestly ignoble might puzzle the idealist. Alma, who had known a
good many musical people, was not troubled by this difficulty; in her
present mood, she submitted to the arrogance of success, and felt a
pleasure, an encouragement, in Dymes's bluff _camaraderie_.

'Let me try to catch it on the violin,' she said when, with nodding
head and waving arm, he had hummed again through his composition.

She succeeded in doing so, and Dymes raised his humming to a
sentimental roar, and was vastly pleased with himself.

'I like to see you in a place like this,' he said. 'Looks more
business-like--as if you really meant to do something. Do you live here
alone?'

'With a friend.'

Something peculiar in Dymes's glance caused her to add, 'A German girl,
an art student.' Whereat the musician nodded and smiled.

'And what's your idea? Come now, let's talk about it. I wonder whether
I could be of any use to you--awfully glad if I could.'

Alma was abashed, stammered her vague projects, and reddened under the
man's observant eye.

'Look here,' he cried, with his charming informality, 'didn't you use
to sing? Somebody told me you had a pretty good voice.'

'Oh, that was long ago.'

'I wish you'd let me hear you.'

'No, no! I don't sing at all.'

'Pity, if it's true. I want to write a serio-comic opera, a new sort of
thing, and it struck me you were just cut out for that kind of singing.
You have the face and the--you know--the refinement; sort of thing not
easy to find. It's a poor chance, I'm afraid, coming out as a
violinist.'

Half inclined to resent his impertinence, yet subdued by the practical
tone and air of superior knowledge, Alma kept a grave face. Dymes,
crossing his legs, went on with talk of projects he had in view, all
intended to be lucrative. He had capital; nothing great, just a
comfortable sum which he was bent on using to the best advantage. His
songs would presently be bringing him in a few hundreds a year--so he
declared--and his idea of life was to get as much enjoyment as possible
without working over-hard for it. The conversation lasted for a couple
of hours, Dymes growing even more genial and confidential, his eyes
seldom moving from Alma's face.

'Well,' he said at length, rising, 'it's very jolly to see you again,
after all this time. I shall be staying here for a few days. You'll let
me call tomorrow?'

At once glad and sorry to see him go, Alma laughingly gave the desired
permission. When, that evening, she looked at her unfinished letter, it
seemed such a miserable whine that she tore it up in annoyance. Dymes's
visit had done her good; she felt, if not a renewal of hope, at all
events the courage which comes of revived spirits.

The next day she awaited his arrival with a pleasant expectation. He
entered humming an air--another new composition--which again she caught
from him and played on the violin.

'Good, don't you think? I'm in great vein just now--always am in the
spring, and when the weather's fine. I say, you're looking much better
today--decidedly more fit. What do you do here for exercise? Do you go
to the Englische Garten? Come now, will you? Let's have a drive.'

With sudden coldness Alma excused herself. The musician scrutinised her
rapidly, bit his lip, and looked round to the window; but in a moment
he had recovered his loud good humour.

'You'll hardly believe it, but it's the plain truth, that I came all
this way just to see you. I hadn't thought of coming to Germany till I
met Miss Leach and heard about you. Now I'm so far, I might as well go
on into Italy, and make a round of it. I wish you were coming too.'

Alma made no reply. He scrutinised her as before, and his features
worked as if with some emotion. Then, abruptly, he put a blunt question.

'Do you think people who go in for music, art, and that kind of thing,
ought to marry?'

'I never thought about it at all,' Alma replied, with a careless laugh,
striking a finger across the strings of the violin which she held on
her lap.

'We're generally told they shouldn't,' pursued Dymes, in a voice which
had lost its noisy confidence, and was a little uncertain. 'But it all
depends, you know. If people mean by marriage the ordinary kind of
thing--of course, that's the deuce. But it needn't be. Lots of people
marry nowadays and live in a rational way--no house, or bother of that
kind; just going about as they like, and having a pleasant, reasonable
life. It's easy enough with a little money. Sometimes they're a good
deal of help to each other; I know people who manage to be.'

'Oh, I dare say,' said Alma when he paused. 'It all depends, as you
say. You're going on to Italy at once?'

Her half-veiled eyes seemed to conceal amusement, and there was
good-humoured disdain in the setting of her lips. With audacity so
incredible that it all but made her laugh, Dymes, not heeding her
inquiry, jerked out the personal application of his abstract remarks.
Yes, it was a proposal of marriage--marriage on the new plan, without
cares or encumbrance; a suggestion rather than a petition; off-hand,
unsentimental, yet perfectly serious, as look and tone proclaimed.

'There's much to be said for your views,' Alma replied, with humorous
gravity, 'but I haven't the least intention of marrying.'

'Well, I've mentioned it.' He waved his hand as if to overcome an
unwonted embarrassment. 'You don't mind?'

'Not a bit.'

'I hope we shall meet again before long, and--some day, you know--you
may see the thing in another light. You mustn't think I'm joking.'

'But it _is_ rather a joke.'

'No; I never was more in earnest about anything, believe me. And I'm
convinced it's a good idea. However, you know one thing--if I can be of
use to you, I shall. I'll think it over--your chances and so on;
something may suggest itself. You're not cut out for everyday things.'

'I try to hope not.'

'Ah, but you can take my word for it.'

With this comforting assurance, Felix Dymes departed. No melodrama; a
hand-grip, a significant nod, a loud humming as he went downstairs.

Alma presently began a new letter to Sibyl Carnaby. It was written in a
cheery humour, though touched by the shadow of distressful
circumstance. She told the story of Mr. Dymes's visit, and made merry
over it. 'I am sure this is the very newest thing in "proposals".
Though I live in such a dull, lonely way, it has made me feel that I am
still in touch with civilisation. And really, if the worst come to the
worst--but it's dangerous to joke about such things.' She touched
lightly on the facts of her position. 'I'm afraid I have not been doing
very much. Perhaps this is a fallow time with me; I may be gaining
strength for great achievements. Unfortunately, I have a lazy
companion. Miss Steinfeld (you know her from my last letter, if you got
it) only pretends to work. I like her for her thorough goodness and her
intelligence; but she is just a little _melancholisch_, and so not
exactly the companion I need. Her idea just now is that we both need
"change" and she wants me to go with her to Bregenz, on the Bodensee.
Perhaps I shall when the weather gets hot.'

It had surprised her to be told by Felix Dymes that he obtained her
address at Munich from Miss Leach, for the only person in England to
whom she had yet made known her departure from Leipzig was her
step-mother. Speak of her how they might, her acquaintances in London
still took trouble to inform themselves of her movements. Perhaps the
very completeness of the catastrophe in which she was involved told in
her favour; possibly she excited much more interest than could ever
have attached to her whilst her name was respected. There was new life
in the thought. She wrote briefly to Dora Leach, giving an account of
herself, which, though essentially misleading, was not composed in a
spirit of conscious falsehood. For all her vanity, Alma had never aimed
at effect by practice of deliberate insincerities. Miss Leach was
informed that her friend could not find much time for correspondence.
'I am living in the atmosphere of art, and striving patiently. Some day
you shall hear of me.' And when the letter was posted, Alma mused long
on the effect it would produce.

With the distinguished violinist; the friend of Herr Wilenski, spoken
of to Mrs. Frothingham, she had as yet held no communication, and
through the days of early summer she continued to neglect her music.
Indolence grew upon her; sometimes she spent the whole day in a
dressing-gown, seated or reclining, with a book in her hand, or totally
unoccupied. Sometimes the military bands in the public gardens tempted
her to walk a little, or she strolled with Miss Steinfeld through the
picture galleries; occasionally they made short excursions into the
country. The art student had acquaintances in Munich, but did not see
much of them, and they were not the kind of people with whom Alma cared
to associate.

In July it was decided that they should go for a few weeks to Bregenz;
their health called for the change, which, as Miss Steinfeld knew of a
homely _pension_, could be had at small expense. Before their departure
the art student was away for a few days, and, to relieve the dreariness
of an existence which was becoming burdensome, Alma went out alone one
afternoon, purposing a trip by steam-tram to the gardens at
Nymphenburg. She walked to the Stiglmeyerplatz, where the tram starts,
and there stood waiting. A carriage drove past, with a sound of English
voices, which drew her attention. She saw three children, a lady, and a
gentleman. The last-mentioned looked at her, and she recognised Cyrus
Redgrave. Whether he knew her face seemed uncertain. Hoping to escape
unobserved, she turned quickly, and walked a few yards. Before she
faced round again, a quick footstep approached her, and the next moment
Mr. Redgrave stood, hat in hand, courteously claiming her acquaintance.

'I thought I could not possibly be mistaken!'

The carriage, having stopped for him to alight, was driving away.

'That is my sister and her children,' said Redgrave, when he had warmly
shaken hands and expressed his pleasure at the meeting. 'You never met
her. Her husband is in India, and you see me in full domesticity. This
morning I posted a note to you; of course, you haven't received it yet.'

Alma did her best to behave with dignity. In any case it would have
been trying to encounter such a man as Redgrave--wealthy, elegant, a
figure in society, who must necessarily regard her as banished from
polite circles; and in her careless costume she felt more than abashed.
For the first time a sense of degradation, of social inferiority,
threatened to overwhelm her self-respect.

'How did you know my address?' she asked, with an involuntary imitation
of hauteur, made pathetic by the flush on her face and the lingering
half-smile.

'Mrs. Frothingham kindly gave it me.--You were walking this way, I
think?--My sister is living at Stuttgart, and I happened to come over
just in time to act as her courier on a journey to Salzburg. We got
here yesterday, and go on tomorrow, or the day after. I dropped you a
note, asking if I might call.'

'Where have you seen Mamma lately?' asked Alma, barely attentive to the
explanations he was giving her.

'In London, quite by chance. In fact, it was at Waterloo Station. Mrs
Frothingham was starting for the country, and I happened to be going to
Wimbledon. I told her I might possibly see you on my way through
Munich.'

Alma began to recover herself. That Cyrus Redgrave should still take an
interest in her was decidedly more gratifying than the eccentric
compliment of Felix Dymes. She strove to forget the humiliation of
having been found standing in a public place, waiting for a tram-car.
In Redgrave's manner no change was perceptible, unless, indeed, he
spoke with more cordiality, which must be prompted by kind feeling.
Their acquaintance covered only a year or two, and had scarcely
amounted to what passes for friendship, but Redgrave seemed oblivious
of late unpleasant events.

'I'm glad you didn't call unexpectedly,' she said, trying to strike a
light note. 'I'm a student now--no longer an amateur--and live as a
student must.'

'So much the better. I'm a natural bohemian myself, and like nothing so
well as to disregard ceremony. And, by-the-bye, that's the very reason
why I ran away from my sister to speak to you; I knew you would dislike
formalities. I'm afraid I was rather glad than otherwise to escape. We
have been taking the children for a drive--charming little rascals, but
for the moment my domestic instincts are satisfied. Mrs. Frothingham
mentioned that you were living with a friend--an art student.'

'We go away for a holiday in a day or two,' said Alma, more at her
ease. 'To Bregenz--do you know it?'

'By name only. You go in a day or two? I wish you would let me know
your address there,' he added, with frank friendliness. 'I go on with
my sister to Salzburg, and then turn off on my own account; I might be
able to pass your way, and I should so much like to have a talk with
you--a real talk, about music and all sorts of things. Did I ever tell
you of my little place at Riva, head of Lake Garda? Cosy little nook,
but I'm not there very often; I half thought of going for a week or
two's quietness. Quite cool there by the lake. But I really must try to
see you at Bregenz--do let me.'

He begged it as a favour, a privilege, and Alma without hesitation told
him where she would be living.

'For a few weeks? Oh, then, I shall make a point of coming that way.
You're not working too hard, I hope? I know you don't do things by
halves. When I first heard you were going in seriously for music, I
said to myself, "_Tant mieux_, another great violinist!"'

The listener reddened with delight; her step became elastic; she
carried her head gallantly, and feared not the glances Redgrave cast at
her.

'I have learnt not to talk about myself,' she said, bestowing a smile
upon him. 'That's the first bad habit to be overcome by the amateur
converted.'

'Capital! An axiom worth putting into print, for the benefit of all and
sundry. Now I must say goodbye; that fellow yonder will take me back to
the domesticities.' He hailed an empty carriage. 'We shall meet again
among the mountains. _Auf Wiedersehen_!'

Alma continued to walk along the Nymphenburg road, unconscious of
external things. The tram for which she had been waiting passed by; she
no longer cared to go out into the country. It was enough to keep
moving in the bright sunshine, and to think her thoughts.

No; people had by no means forgotten her. Whilst she was allowing
herself to fall into gloom and indolence, her acquaintances, it was
evident, made her a constant subject of talk, of speculation; just what
she had desired, but had lost courage to believe. They expected great
things of her; her personal popularity and her talents had prevailed
against the most prejudicial circumstance; people did not think of her
as the daughter of Bennet Frothingham,--unless to contrast the
hopefulness of her future with the black calamity that lay behind.

She waxed philosophical. How everything in this world tends to good! At
her father's death she had mourned bitterly; it had struck her to the
heart; his imprudence (she could never use, even in thought, a harsher
word) pained more than it shamed her, and not a day passed but she
sorrowed over the dishonour that darkened his memory. Yet were not
these woes and disasters the beginning of a new life for _her_! In
prosperity, what would she ever have become? Nothing less than being
thrown out into the world could have given her the impulse needed to
realise a high ambition. '_Tant mieux_, another great violinist!' How
sincerely, how inspiringly, it was said!

And Alma's feet had brought her home again before she paused to reflect
that, for all purposes of ambition, the past half-year had been utterly
wasted. Never mind; after her return from Bregenz!

On her table lay Redgrave's note; a very civil line or two, requesting
permission to call. There was another letter, black-bordered, which
came from her step-mother. Mrs. Frothingham said that she had been
about to write for several days, but all sorts of disagreeable business
had hindered her; even now, she could only write hurriedly. In the last
fortnight she had had to go twice to London. 'And really I think I
shall be obliged to go and live there again, for a time; so many things
have to be seen to. It might be best, perhaps, if I took a small flat.
I was going to say, however, that the last time I went up, I met Mr.
Redgrave, and we had quite a long talk--about _you_. He was most
sincerely interested in your future; indeed it quite surprised me, for
I will confess that I had never had a very high opinion of him. I fancy
he suffered _no loss_. His behaviour to me was that of a gentleman,
very different from that of some people I could name. But it was _you_
he spoke of most. He said he was shortly going to Germany, and begged
me to let him have your address, and really I saw no harm in it. He may
call upon you. If so, let me hear all about it, for it will interest me
very much.'

Alma had half a mind to reply at once, but on reflection decided to
wait. After all, Mr. Redgrave might not keep his promise of coming to
see her at Bregenz, and in that event a very brief report of what had
happened would suffice. But she felt sure that he meant to come.

And decidedly she hoped it; why, she was content to leave a rosy
vagueness.




CHAPTER 8


Alma and her German friend silently agreed in foreseeing that they
would not live together much longer. Miss Steinfeld, eager at first to
talk English, was relapsing into her native tongue, and as Alma lazily
avoided German, they conversed in different languages, each with a
sprinkling of foreign phrase. The English girl might have allied
herself with a far worse companion; for, in spite of defects which
resembled Alma's own, vagueness of purpose, infirmity of will, Miss
Steinfeld had a fund of moral principle which made her talk wholesome
and her aspirations an influence for good. She imagined herself in love
with an artist whom she had seen only two or three times, and no strain
could have been more exalted than that in which she confided her
romance to the sympathetic Alma. Sympathetic, that is, within her
limits; for Miss Frothingham had never been in love, and rarely
indulged a mood of sentiment. Her characteristic emotions she of course
did not reveal, save unconsciously, and Miss Steinfeld knew nothing of
the tragic circumstances which explained her friend's solitude.

In the first days at Bregenz they felt a renewal of pleasure in each
other's society; Alma's spirits were much improved; she enjoyed the
scenery, and lived in the open air. There was climbing of mountains,
the Pfander with its reward of noble outlook, and the easier
Gebhardsberg, with its hanging woods; there was boating on the lake,
and rambling along its shores, with rest and refreshment at some
Gartenwithschaft. Miss Steinfeld, whose reading and intelligence were
superior to Alma's, liked to explore the Roman ruins and linger in the
museum. Alma could not long keep up a pretence of interest in the
relics of Brigantium; but she said one day, with a smile----

'I know someone who would enjoy this kind of thing--an Englishman--very
learned----'

'Old?' inquired her friend significantly.

'Yes--no. Neither old nor young. A strange man; rather interesting.
I've a good mind,' she added mischievously, 'to send him a photograph.'

'Of yourself?'

'Oh dear, no! He wouldn't care for that. A view of the Alt-Stadt.'

And in her mood of frolic she acted upon the thought. She purchased two
or three views, had them done up for post, and addressed them to Harvey
Rolfe, Esq, at the Metropolitan Club; for his private address she could
not remember, but the club remained in her mind from Sibyl's talk of
it. When the packet was gone, of course she regretted having sent it.
More likely than not, Mr. Rolfe considered himself to have ended all
acquaintance with the disgraced family, and, if he recognised her
handwriting, would just throw the photographs aside. Let him; it
mattered nothing, one way or the other.

When a week had passed, the novelty of things wore off; the friends
began to wander apart; Miss Steinfeld made acquaintances in the
_pension_, and Alma drifted into solitude. At the end of a fortnight
she was tired of everything, wished to go away, thought longingly of
England. It was plain that Mr. Redgrave would not come; he had never
seriously meant it; his _Auf Wiedersehen_ was a mere civility to get
rid of her in the street. Why had he troubled to inquire about her at
all? Of course it didn't matter--nothing mattered--but if ever she met
him again! Alma tried her features in expression of cold scornfulness.

On the next day, as she was returning from an idle walk with her friend
along the Lindau road, Mr. Redgrave met them. He was dressed as she had
never seen him, in flannels, with a white necktie loosely knotted and a
straw hat. Not till he had come near enough to salute did she recognise
him; he looked ten years younger.

They talked as if the meeting were of daily occurrence. Redgrave
addressed himself to Miss Steinfeld as often as to Alma, and showed a
graceful command of decorous commonplace. He had arrived early this
morning, had put up at the Oesterreichischer Hof, was already delighted
with Brogenz. Did Miss Steinfeld devote herself to landscape? Had she
done anything here? Had Miss Frothingham brought her violin? They
strolled pleasantly to the Hafen promenade, and parted at length with
assurances of meeting again, as if definite appointment were needless.

'That is my idea of the English gentleman,' said Miss Steinfeld
afterwards. 'I think I should have taken him for a lord. No doubt he is
very rich?'

'Oh, pretty well off,' Alma replied, with assumed indifference. 'Ten
thousand pounds a year, I dare say.'

'Ten thousand! _Lieber Himmel_! And married?'

'No.'

'In Parliament, I suppose?'

'No.'

'Then, what does he do?'

'Oh, amuses himself.'

Each became occupied with her thoughts. Alma's were so agreeable, that
Miss Steinfeld, observing her, naturally fell into romantic speculation.

Redgrave easily contrived that his next walk should be with Miss
Frothingham alone. He overtook her next morning, soon after she had
left the house, and they rambled in the Gebhardsberg direction.

'Now let us have the promised talk,' he began at a favourable moment.
'I've been thinking about you all the time.'

'Did you go to your place on Lake Garda?'

'Yes; just to look at it, and get it put in order. I hope to be there
again before long. You didn't doubt I should come?'

'You left it uncertain.'

'To be sure. Life is uncertain. But I should have been desperately
disappointed if I hadn't found you here. There are so many things to be
said about going in for music as a profession. You have the talent, you
have the physical strength, I think.' His eye flattered her from head
to foot. 'But, to be a great artist, one must have more than technical
qualifications. It's the soul that must be developed.'

Alma laughed.

'I know it. And what is your receipt for developing the soul?'

Redgrave paused in his walk. Smiling, he gave a twist to his moustache,
and appeared to meditate profoundly.

'The soul--well, it has a priggish sound. Let us say the character; and
that is developed through experience of life.'

'I'm getting it.'

'Are you? In the company of Miss Steinfeld? I'm afraid that won't carry
you very far. Experience means emotion; certainly, for a woman. Believe
me, you haven't begun to live yet. You may practise on your violin day
and night, and it won't profit you--until you have _lived_.'

Alma was growing serious. These phrases harmonised well enough with her
own insubstantial thoughts and idly-gathered notions. When preparing to
escape from England, she had used much the same language. But, after
all, what did it mean? What, in particular, did Cyrus Redgrave mean,
with his expressive eyes, and languid, earnest tone?

'You will say that a girl has few opportunities. True, thanks to her
enslavement by society.'

'I care nothing for society,' Alma interposed.

'Good! I like the sound of that defiance; it has the right ring. A man
hasn't often the pleasure of hearing that from a woman he can respect.
It's easy, of course, to defy the laws of a world one doesn't belong
to; but you, who are a queen in your circle, and may throne, at any
moment, in a wider sphere--it means much when you refuse to bow down
before the vulgar idols, to be fettered by superstitions.'

His aim was dark to her, but she tasted the compliment which ignored
her social eclipse. Redgrave's conversation generally kept on the
prosaic levels--studiously polite, or suavely cynical. It was a new
experience to see him borne on a wave of rhetoric; yet not borne away,
for he spoke with an ease, a self-command, which to older ears would
have suggested skill rather than feeling. He had nothing of the ardour
of youth; his poise and deliberation were quite in keeping with the two
score years that subtly graved his visage; the passions in him were
sportive, half-fantastical, as though, together with his brain, they
had grown to a ripe worldliness. He inspired no distrust; his good
nature seemed all-pervading; he had the air of one who lavishes
disinterested counsel, and ever so little exalts himself with his
facile exuberance of speech.

'I have seen much of artists; known them intimately, and studied their
lives. One and all, they date their success from some passionate
experience. From a cold and conventional existence can come nothing but
cold and conventional art. You left England, broke away from the common
routine, from the artificial and the respectable. That was an
indispensable first step, and I have told you how I applauded it. But
you cannot stop at this. I begin to fear for you. There is a convention
of unconventionality: poor quarters, hard life, stinted pleasures--all
that kind of thing. I fear its effect upon you.'

'What choice have I?' exclaimed Alma, moved to familiar frankness. 'If
I _am_ poor, I must live poorly.'

He smiled graciously upon her, and raised his hand almost as though he
would touch her with reassuring kindness; but it was only to stroke his
trimmed beard.

'Oh, you have a choice, believe me,' came his airy answer. 'There's no
harm in poverty that doesn't last too long. You may have profited by
it; it is an experience. But now--Don't let us walk so far as to tire
you. Yes, we will turn. Variety of life, travel, all sorts of joys and
satisfactions--these are the things you need.'

'And if they are not within my reach?' she asked, without looking at
him.

'By-the-bye'--he disregarded her question--'your friend, Mrs. Carnaby,
has taken a long flight.'

'Yes.'

The monosyllable was dropped. Alma walked with her eyes on the ground,
trailing her sunshade.

'I didn't think she had much taste for travel. But you know her so much
better than I do.'

'She is enjoying herself,' said Alma.

'No need for _you_ to go so far. Down yonder'--he nodded southward--'I
was thinking, the other day, of the different kinds of pleasure one
gets from scenery in different parts of the world. I have seen the
tropics; they left me very much where I was, intellectually. It's the
human associations of natural beauty that count. You have no desire to
go to the islands of the Pacific?'

'I can't say that I have.'

'Of course not. The springs of art are in the old world. Among the
vines and the olives one hears a voice. I must really try to give you
some idea of my little place at Riva.'

He began a playful description--long, but never tedious; alluring, yet
without enthusiasm--a dreamy suggestion of refined delights and
luxuries.

'I have another place in the Pyrenees, to suit another mood; and not
long ago I was sorely tempted by the offer of a house not far from
Antioch, in the valley of the Orontes--a house built by an Englishman.
Charming place, and so entirely off the beaten track. Isn't there a
fascination in the thought of living near Antioch? Well away from bores
and philistines. No Mrs. Grundy with her clinking tea-cups. I dare say
the house is still to be had.--Oh, do tell me something about your
friend, Fraulein Steinfeld. Is she in earnest? Will she do anything?'

His eloquence was at an end. Thenceforward he talked of common things
in unemotional language; and when Alma parted from him, it was with a
sense of being tired and disappointed.

On the following day she did not see him at all. He could not have left
Bregenz, for, of course, he would have let her know. She thought of him
incessantly, reviewing all his talk, turning over this and that
ambiguous phrase, asking herself whether he meant much or little. It
was natural that she should compare and contrast his behaviour with
that of Felix Dymes. If his motive were not the same, why did he seek
her society? And if it were? If at length he spoke out, summing his
hints in the plain offer of all those opportunities she lacked?

A brilliant temptation. To leave the world as Alma Frothingham, and to
return to it as Mrs. Cyrus Redgrave!

But, in that event, what of her musical ambitions? He spoke of her art
as the supreme concern, to which all else must be subordinate. And
surely that was his meaning when he threw scorn upon 'bores and
philistines'. Why should the fact of his wealth interfere with her
progress as an artist? Possibly, on the other hand, he did not intend
that she should follow a professional career. Cannot one be a great
artist without standing on public platforms? Was it his lordly thought
to foster her talents for his own delectation and that of the few
privileged?

Her brain grew confused with interpreting and picturing. But once more
she had made an advance in self-esteem. She could await the next
meeting with a confidence and pride very unlike her sensations in the
Stiglmeyerplatz at Munich.

It took place on the second day. This time Redgrave did not wait upon
accident; he sent a note, begging that he might have the pleasure of
another talk with her. He would call at a certain hour, and take his
chance of finding her at home. When he presented himself, Alma was
sitting in the common room of the _pension_ with two German ladies;
they in a few minutes withdrew, and familiar conversation became
possible. As the windows stood open, and there were chairs upon the
balcony, Redgrave shortly proposed a move in that direction. They sat
together for half an hour.

When Redgrave took his leave, it was without shaking of hands--with no
_Auf Wiedersehen_. He smiled, he murmured civilities; Alma neither
smiled nor spoke. She was pale, and profoundly agitated.

So this was his meaning?--made plain enough at last, though with the
most graceful phrasing. Childish vanity and ignorance had forbidden her
to dream of such an issue. She had not for a moment grasped the
significance to a man of the world of the ruin and disgrace fallen upon
her family. In theory she might call herself an exile from the polite
world; none the less did she imagine herself still illumined by the
social halo, guarded by the divinity which doth hedge a member of the
upper-middle class. Was she not a lady? And who had ever dared to offer
a lady an insult such as this? Shop-girls, minor actresses, the
inferior sort of governess, must naturally be on their guard; their
insecurity was traditional; novel and drama represented their moral
vicissitudes. But a lady, who had lived in a great house with many
servants, who had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, the hem of whose
garment had never been touched with irreverent finger--could _she_
stand in peril of such indignity?

Not till now had she called to mind the forewarnings of Sibyl Carnaby,
which, at the time of hearing them, she did not at all understand.
'People,' said Sibyl, 'would approach her with strange ideas.' This she
might have applied to the grotesque proposal (as it seemed to her) of
Felix Dymes, or to the risk of being tempted into premature publicity
by a business offer from some not very respectable impresario. What
Sibyl meant was now only too clear; but how little could Mrs. Carnaby
have imagined that her warning would be justified by one of her own
friends--by a man of wealth and consideration.

She durst not leave the house for fear of encountering Redgrave, who,
if they crossed by chance, might fancy she invited another meeting. She
dreaded the observation of women, especially of Miss Steinfeld. The
only retreat was her bedroom, and here she secluded herself till
dinner-time. At this meal she must needs face the company or incur
remark. She tried to return her friend's smile with the ordinary
unconcern. After dinner there was no avoiding Miss Steinfeld, whose air
of extreme discretion showed that she had an inkling of events, and
awaited confidences.

'Mr. Redgrave has gone--he called to say goodbye.'

'_So_?'

Irritated by self-consciousness, revolting against a misinterpretation
which would injure her vanity, though it was not likely to aim at her
honour, Alma had recourse to fiction.

'I daresay you guess?--Yes, and I refused.'

Miss Steinfeld was puzzled. It did not astonish her that a girl should
reject ten thousand pounds per annum, for that she was too high-minded;
but she had thought it beyond doubt that Alma's heart was engaged.
Here, it had seemed to her, was the explanation of a mystery attaching
to this original young Englishwoman; unhoped, the brilliant lover, the
secretly beloved, had sought her in her retirement. And after all, it
was a mistake.

'I don't care for him a bit,' Alma went on. 'It had to be got over and
done with, that was all.'

She felt ashamed of herself. In childhood she had told falsehoods
freely, but with the necessity for that kind of thing the habit had
fallen away. Solace, however, was at hand, for the German girl looked
at her with a new interest, a new sympathy, which Alma readily
construed as wonder and admiration, if not gentle envy. To have refused
an offer of marriage from a handsome man of great wealth might be
counted for glory. And Alma's momentary shame yielded to a
gratification which put her outwardly at ease.

The restless night brought torment of the mind and harassed spirits.
Redgrave's proposal echoed in the vacant chambers of her life, sounding
no longer an affront, but an allurement. Why, indeed, had she repelled
it so unthinkingly? It did not necessarily mean scandal. He had not
invited her to open defiance of the world. 'You can absolutely trust
me; I am discretion itself. All resources are at my command.' Why had
she rejected with scorn and horror what was, perhaps, her great
opportunity, the one hope of her struggling and sinking ambition? She
had lost faith in herself; in her power to overcome circumstances, not
yet in her talent, in her artistic birthright. Redgrave would have made
her path smooth. 'I promise you a great reputation in two or three
years' time.' And without disgrace, without shadow of suspicion, it
would all be managed, he declared, so very easily. For what alternative
had she rebuffed him?

Redgrave's sagacity had guided him well up to a certain point, but it
had lost sight of one thing essential to the success of his scheme.
Perhaps because he was forty years of age, perhaps because he had so
often come and seen and conquered, perhaps because he made too low an
estimate of Bennet Frothingham's daughter,--he simply overlooked
sentimental considerations. It was a great and a fatal oversight. He
went far in his calculated appeal to Alma's vanity; had he but credited
her with softer passions, and given himself the trouble to play upon
them, he would not, at all events, have suffered so sudden a defeat.
Men of Redgrave's stamp grow careless, and just at the time of life
when, for various causes, the art which conceals art has become
indispensable. He did not flatter himself that Alma was ready to fall
in love with him; and here his calm maturity served him ill. To his own
defect of ardour he was blinded by habit. After all, the affair had
little consequence. It had only suggested itself after the meeting in
Munich, and perhaps--he said to himself--all things considered, the
event was just as well.

But Alma felt the double insult, to her worldly honour, to her
womanhood. The man had not even made pretence of loving her; and this,
whilst it embittered her disappointment, strengthened her to cast from
her mind the baser temptation. Marriage she would have accepted, though
doubtless with becoming hesitancy; the offer could not have been made
without one word of tenderness (for Cyrus Redgrave was another than
Felix Dymes), and she had not felt it impossible to wed this polished
capitalist. Out of the tumult of her feelings, as another day went by,
issued at length that one simple and avowable sense of disappointment.
She had grasped the prize, and heated her imagination in regarding it;
had overcome natural reluctances, objections personal and moral; was
ready to sit down and write to Mrs. Frothingham the splendid, startling
announcement. And here she idled in her bedroom, desolate, hopeless,
wishing she had courage to steal down at night to the waters of the
Bodensee, and end it all.

On the third day she returned to Munich, having said farewell to her
friend, who was quite prepared for the parting. From Munich she
proceeded to Leipzig, and there entered again the family circle of the
Gassners. She had no intention of staying for very long; the pretence
of musical study could not be kept up; but her next step was quite
uncertain.

A fortnight later, Mrs. Frothingham wrote thus:----

'I am sending you on a letter which, if I am not mistaken, comes from
Mr. Rolfe. Do tell me if I am right. Odd that he should write to you, if
it is he. You have not told me yet whether you saw Mr. Redgrave again.
But I see that you don't care much, and perhaps it is as well.'

The forwarded letter had been originally addressed to the care of Mrs
Frothingham, and Alma, at a glance, recognised Harvey Rolfe's writing.
He dated from London. Was he mistaken, he began, in thinking that
certain photographs from Bregenz had come to him by Miss Frothingham's
kindness? For his part, he had spent June in a ramble in South-west
France, chiefly by the Dordogne, and through a strange, interesting bit
of marsh-country, called La Double. 'I hardly know how I got there, and
I shall not worry you by writing any account of the expedition. But at
a miserable village called La Roche Chalais, where I had a most
indigestible supper and a bed unworthy of the name, I managed to fall
ill, and quite seriously thought, "Ah, here is the end!" It has to come
somewhere, and why not on a _grabat_ at La Roche Chalais? A mistake; I
am here again, wasting life as strenuously as ever. Would you let me
hear from you? I should think it a great addition to your kindness in
sending the views. And so, with every good wish, he remained, &c.

Having nothing better to do, Alma got out a map of France, and searched
for La Roche Chalais; but the place was too insignificant to be marked.
On the morrow, being still without occupation, she answered Rolfe's
letter, and in quite a playful vein. She had no time to correspond with
people who 'wasted their lives'. To her, life was a serious matter
enough. But he knew nothing of the laborious side of a musician's
existence, and probably doubted its reality. As an afterthought, she
thanked him gravely for his letter, and hoped that some day, when she
had really 'done something', they might meet and renew their friendship.




CHAPTER 9


On an afternoon in September, Harvey Rolfe spent half an hour at a
certain London bookseller's, turning over books that dealt with the
theory and practice of elementary education. Two or three of them he
selected, and ordered to be sent to a lady at Gunnersbury. On his way
out he came upon an acquaintance making a purchase in another
department of the shop. It was some months since he had seen Cecil
Morphew, who looked in indifferent health, and in his dress came near
to shabbiness. They passed out together, Morphew carrying an enwrapped
volume, which he gave Rolfe to understand was a birthday present--for
_her_. The elder man resisted his inclination to joke, and asked how
things were going on.

'Much the same as usual, except that her father is in very bad health.
It's brutal, but I wish he would die.'

'Naturally.'

'That's what one's driven to, you see. And anyone but you, who know me,
would set me down as a selfish, calculating beast. Can't help it. I had
rather have her penniless.--Will you come in here with me? I want to
buy some pyrogallic acid.'

In the street again, Morphew mentioned that he had taken up photography.

'It gives me something to do, and it takes me out into the open air.
This beastly town is the ruin of me, in every way.--Come to my rooms
for an hour, will you? I'll show you some attempts; I've only just
tried my hand at developing. And it's a long time since we had a talk.'

They made for a Chelsea omnibus and mounted.

'I thought you were never in town at this time,' Morphew resumed. 'I
want to get away, but can't afford it; devilish low-water with me. I
must have a bicycle. With that and the camera I may just manage to
live; often there seems little enough to live for.--Tripcony? Oh,
Tripcony's a damned swindler; I've given him up. Speculation isn't
quite so simple as I imagined. I made a couple of hundred, though--yes,
and lost nearly three.'

The young man's laugh was less pleasant to hear than formerly.
Altogether, Rolfe observed in him a decline, a loss of refinement as
well as of vitality.

'Why don't you go into the country?' he said. 'Take a cottage and grow
cabbages; dig for three hours a day. It would do you no end of good.'

'Of course it would. I wish I had the courage.'

'I'm going to spend the winter in Wales,' said Harvey. 'An
out-of-the-world place in Carnarvonshire--mountains and sea. Come along
with me, and get the mephitis blown out of you. You've got town
disease, street-malaria, lodging-house fever.'

'By Jove, I'll think of it,' replied the other, with a strange look of
eagerness. 'But I don't know whether I can. No, I can't be sure. But
I'll try.'

'What holds you?'

'Well, I like to be near, you know, to _her_. And then--all sorts of
difficulties----'

Morphew had his lodgings at present in a street near Chelsea Hospital,
a poor-looking place, much inferior to those in which Rolfe had
formerly seen him. His two rooms were at the top, and he had converted
a garret into a dark chamber for his photographic amusement. Dirt and
disorder made the sitting-room very uninviting; Rolfe looked about him,
and wondered what principle of corruption was at work in the young
man's life.

Morphew showed a new portrait of his betrothed, Henrietta Winter; a
comely face, shadowed with pensiveness. 'Taken at Torquay; she sent it
a day or two ago.--I've been thinking of giving her up. If I do, I
shall do it brutally and savagely, to make it easy for her. I've spoilt
her life, and I'm pretty sure I've ruined my own.'

He brought out a bottle of whisky and half filled two tumblers. His own
measure he very slightly diluted, and drank it off at once.

'You're at a bad pass, my boy,' remarked Rolfe. 'What's wrong?
Something more than usual, I know. Make a clean breast of it.'

Morphew continued to declare that he was only low-spirited from the
longstanding causes, and, though Rolfe did not believe him, nothing
more could at present be elicited. The talk turned to photography, but
still had no life in it.

'I think you had better dine with me this evening,' said Harvey.

'Impossible. I wish I could. An engagement.'

The young man shuffled about, and after a struggle with embarrassment,
aided by another tumbler of whisky, threw out something he wished to
say.

'It's deuced hard to ask you, but--could you lend me some money?'

'Of course. How much? Why do you make such a sputter about it?'

'I've been making a fool of myself--got into difficulties. Will you let
me have fifty pounds?'

'Yes, if you'll promise to clear at once out of this dust-bin, and in a
month or so come into Wales.'

'You're an awfully good fellow, Rolfe,--and I'm a damned fool. I
promise! I will! I'll get out of it, and then I'll think about breaking
with that girl. Better for both of us--but you shall advise me.-- I'll
tell you everything some day. I can't now. I'm too ashamed of myself.'

When he got home, Harvey wrote a cheque for fifty pounds, and posted it
at once.

Not many days after, there came to him a letter from Mrs. Frothingham.
With this lady he had held no communication since the catastrophe of
last November; knowing not how to address her without giving more pain
than his sympathy could counterbalance, he remained silent. She wrote
from the neighbourhood of Swiss Cottage, where she had taken a flat; it
was her wish, if possible, to see him 'on a matter of business', and
she requested that he would make an appointment. Much wondering in what
business of Mrs. Frothingham's he could be concerned, Harvey named his
time, and went to pay the call. He ascended many stairs, and was
conducted by a neat servant-maid into a pleasant little drawing-room,
where Mrs. Frothingham rose to receive him. She searched his face, as
if to discern the feeling with which he regarded her, and her timid
smile of reassurance did not lack its pathos.

'Mr. Rolfe, it seems years since I saw you.'

She was aged a little, and her voice fell in broken notes, an unhappy
contrast to the gay, confident chirping of less than twelve months ago.

'I have only been settled here for a week. I thought of leaving London
altogether, but, after all, I had to come backwards and forwards so
often,--it was better to have a home here, and this little flat will
just suit me, I think.'

She seemed desirous of drawing attention to its modest proportions.

'I really don't need a house, and lodgings are so wretched. These flats
are a great blessing--don't you think? I shall manage here with one
servant, only one.'

Rolfe struggled with the difficulty of not knowing what to say. There
was nothing for it but to discourse as innocently as might be on the
advantages of flats, their increasing popularity, and the special
charms of this particular situation. Mrs. Frothingham eagerly agreed
with everything, and did her best to allow no moment of silence.

'You have heard from Miss Frothingham, I think?' she presently let
fall, with a return of anxiety.

'Not very long ago. From Leipzig.'

'Yes. Yes.--I don't know whether she will stay there. You know she is
thinking of taking up music professionally?--Yes. Yes.--I do so hope
she will find it possible, but of course that kind of career is so very
uncertain. I'm not sure that I shouldn't be glad if she turned to
something else.'

The widow was growing nervous and self-contradictory. With a quick
movement of her hands, she suddenly resumed in another tone.

'Mr. Rolfe, I do so wish you would let me speak to you in confidence. I
want to ask your help in a most delicate matter. Not, of course, about
my step-daughter, though I shall have to mention her. It is something
quite personal to myself. If I could hope that you wouldn't think it
tiresome--I have a special reason for appealing to you.'

He would gladly, said Harvey, be of any use he could.

'I want to speak to you about painful things,' pursued his hostess,
with an animation and emphasis which made her more like the lady of
Fitzjohn Avenue. 'You know everything--except my own position, and that
is what I wish to explain to you. I won't go into details. I will only
say that a few years ago my husband made over to me a large sum of
money--I had none of my own--and that it still belongs to me. I say
belongs to me; but there is my trouble. I fear I have no right whatever
to call it mine. And there are people who have suffered such dreadful
losses. Some of them you know. There was a family named Abbott. I
wanted to ask you about them. Poor Mr. Abbott--I remember reading----'

She closed her eyes for an instant, and the look upon her face told
that this was no affectation of an anguished memory.

'It was accident,' Rolfe hastened to say. 'The jury found it accidental
death.'

'But there was the loss--I read it all. He had lost everything. Do tell
me what became of his family. Someone told me they were friends of
yours.'

'Happily they had no children. There was a small life-insurance. Mrs
Abbott used to be a teacher, and she is going to take that up again.'

'Poor thing! Is she quite young?'

'Oh, about thirty, I should say.'

'Will she go into a school?'

'No. Private pupils at her own house. She has plenty of courage, and
will do fairly well, I think.'

'Still, it is shocking that she should have lost all--her husband, too,
just at that dreadful time. This is what I wanted to say, Mr. Rolfe. Do
you think it would be possible to ask her to accept something----? I do
so feel,' she hurried on, 'that I ought to make some sort of
restitution--what I can--to those who lost everything. I am told that
things are not quite hopeless; something may be recovered out of the
wreck some day. But it will be such a long time, and meanwhile people
are suffering so. And here am I left in comfort--more than comfort. It
isn't right; I couldn't rest till I did something. I am glad to say
that I have been able to help a little here and there, but only the
kind of people whom it's easy to help. A case like Mrs. Abbott's is far
worse, yet there's such a difficulty in doing anything; one might only
give offence. I'm sure my name must be hateful to her--as it is to so
many.'

Rolfe listened with a secret surprise. He had never thought ill of Mrs
Frothingham; but, on the other hand, had never attributed to her any
save superficial qualities, a lightsome temper, pleasure in
hospitality, an easy good nature towards all the people of her
acquaintance. He would not have supposed her capable of substantial
sacrifices; least of all, on behalf of strangers and inspired by a
principle. She spoke with the simplest sincerity; it was impossible to
suspect her motives. The careless liking with which he had always
regarded her was now infused with respect; he became gravely attentive,
and answered in a softer voice.

'She was embittered at first, but is overcoming it. To tell you the
truth, I think she will benefit by this trial. I don't like the words
that are so often used in cant; I don't believe that misery does any
good to most people--indeed, I know very well that it generally does
harm. But Mrs. Abbott seems to be an exception; she has a good deal of
character; and there were circumstances--well, I will only say that she
faces the change in her life very bravely.'

'I do wish I knew her. But I daren't ask that. It's too much to expect
that she could bear to see me and listen to what I have to say.'

'The less she's reminded of the past the better, I think.'

'But would it not be possible to do something? I am told that the sum
was about fifteen hundred pounds. The whole of that I couldn't restore;
but half of it--I could afford so much. Could I offer to do so--not
directly, in my own name, but through you?'

Harvey reflected, his head and body bent forward, his hands folded
together. In the flat beneath, someone was jingling operetta on a piano
not quite in tune; the pertinacious vivacity of the airs interfered
with Harvey's desire to view things seriously. He had begun to wonder
how large a capital Mrs. Frothingham had at her command. Was it not
probable that she could as easily bestow fifteen hundred pounds as the
half of that sum? But the question was unworthy. If in truth she had
set herself to undo as much as possible of the wrong perpetrated by her
husband, Mrs. Frothingham might well limit her benefactions, be her
fortune what it might.

'I will do whatever you desire,' he said, with deliberation. 'I cannot
answer for Mrs. Abbott, but, if you wish it, she shall know what you
have in mind.'

'I do wish it,' replied the lady earnestly. 'I beg you to put this
before her, and with all the persuasion you can use. I should be very,
very glad if she would allow me to free my conscience from a little of
this burden. Only that I dare not speak of it, I would try to convince
you that I am doing what my dear husband himself would have wished. You
can't believe it; no one will ever believe it; even Alma, I am
afraid--and that is so cruel, so dreadful; but he did not mean to wrong
people in this way. It wasn't in his nature. Who knew him better than
I, or so well? I know--if he could come back to us----'

Her voice broke. The piano below jingled more vivaciously than ever,
and a sound of shrill laughter pierced through the notes. Afraid to sit
silent, lest he should seem unsympathetic and sceptical, Rolfe murmured
a few harmless phrases, tending to nervous incoherence.

'I am thinking so much about Alma,' pursued the widow, recovering
self-command. 'I am so uncertain about my duty to her. Of her own, she
has nothing; but I know, of course, that her father wished her to share
in what he gave me. It is strange, Mr. Rolfe, that I should be talking
to you as if you were a relative--as if I had a right to trouble you
with these things. But if you knew how few people I dare speak to.
Wasn't it so much better for her to lead a very quiet life? And so I
gave her only a little money, only enough to live upon in the simplest
way. I hoped she would get tired of being among strangers, and come
back. And now I fear she thinks I have behaved meanly and selfishly.
And we were always so kindly disposed to each other, such thorough
friends; never a word that mightn't have passed between a mother and
her own child.'

'I gathered from her letter,' interposed Harvey, 'that she was well
contented and working hard at her music.'

'Do you think so? I began to doubt--she wrote in low spirits. Of
course, one can't say whether she would succeed as a violinist. Oh, I
don't like to think of it! I must tell you that I haven't said a word
to her yet of what I am doing; I mean, about the money. I know I ought
to consider _her_ as much as other people. Poor girl, who has suffered
more, and in so many ways? But I think of what I keep for myself as
hers. I was not brought up in luxury, Mr. Rolfe. It wouldn't seem to me
hard to live on a very little. But in this, too, I must consider Alma.
I daren't lose all my acquaintances. I must keep a home for Alma, and a
home she wouldn't feel ashamed of. Here, you see, she could have her
friends. I have thought of going to Leipzig; but I had so much rather
she came to London--if only for us just to talk and understand each
other.'

Harvey preserved the gravest demeanour. Of Alma he would not permit
himself to speak, save in answer to a direct question; and that was not
long in coming.

'I am sure you think I should be quite open with her?'

'That would seem to me the best.'

'Yes; she shall know all my thoughts. But with regard to Mrs. Abbott, I
know so well what she would say. I beg you to do me that kindness, Mr
Rolfe.'

'I will write to Mrs. Abbott at once.'

The interview was at an end; neither had anything more to say. They
parted with looks of much mutual kindliness, Harvey having promised to
make another call when Mrs. Abbott's reply had reached him.

After exchanging letters with Mrs. Abbott, Harvey went over to see her;
for the sake of both persons concerned, he resolved to leave no
possibility of misunderstanding. A few days passed in discussions and
reflections, then, at the customary hour for paying calls, he again
ascended the many stairs to Mrs. Frothingham's flat. It had rained all
day, and in this weather there seemed a certainty that the lady would
be at home. But, as he approached the door, Harvey heard a sound from
within which discomposed him. Who, save one person, was likely to be
playing on the violin in these rooms? He paused, cast about him a
glance of indecision, and finally pressed the electric bell.

Mrs. Frothingham was not at home. She might return very shortly.

'Is--Miss Frothingham at home?'

The servant did not straightway admit him, but took his name. On his
entering the drawing-room, three figures appeared before him. He saw
Alma; he recognised Miss Leach; the third lady was named to him as Miss
Leach's sister.

'You knew I was in London?' Alma remarked rather than inquired.

'I had no idea of it--until I heard your violin.'

'My violin, but not my playing. It was Miss Leach.'

From the first word--her 'Ah, how d'you do' as he entered--Alma's tone
and manner appeared to him forced, odd, unlike anything he remembered
of her. In correcting him, she gave a hard, short laugh, glancing at
Dora Leach in a way verging upon the ill-bred. Her look had nothing
amiable, though she continuously smiled, and when she invited the
visitor to be seated, it was with off-hand familiarity very
unflattering to his ear.

'You came to see Mamma, of course. I dare say she won't be long. She
had to go through the rain on business with someone or other--perhaps
you know. Have you been in London all the summer? Oh no, I remember you
told me you had been somewhere in France; on the Loire, wasn't it?'

Rolfe dropped a careless affirmative. His temper prompted him to ask
whether Miss Frothingham knew the difference between the Loire and the
Garonne; but on the whole he was more puzzled than offended. What had
come over this young woman? Outwardly she was not much altered--a
little thinner in the face, perhaps; her eyes seeming a trifle darker
and deeper set; but in the point of demeanour she had appreciably
suffered. Her bearing and mode of speech were of that kind which, in a
man, would be called devil-may-care. Was it a result of student-life?
If her stinted allowance had already produced effects such as this, Mrs
Frothingham was justified in uneasiness.

He turned to Miss Leach, and with her talked exclusively for some
minutes. As soon as civility permitted, he would rise and make his
escape. Alma, the while, chatted with the younger sister, whom she
addressed as 'Gerda'. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Frothingham came
in, wearing her out-of-doors and gave him cordial welcome, though in
few and nervous costume; she fixed her eyes on Rolfe with a peculiar
intensity, words.

'I am no longer alone, you see.' She threw a swift side-glance at Alma.
'It is a great pleasure.'

'Does it rain still, Mamma?' asked Alma in a high voice.

'Not just now, my dear; but it's very disagreeable.'

'Then I'll walk with you to the station.' She addressed the sisters.
'Dora and Gerda can't stay; they have an appointment at five o'clock.
They'll come again in a day or two.'

After the leave-takings, and when Alma, with a remark that she would
not be long, had closed the door behind her, Mrs. Frothingham seated
herself and began to draw off her gloves. The bonnet and cloak she was
wearing, though handsome and in the mode, made her look older than at
Rolfe's last visit. She was now a middle-aged woman, with emphasis on
the qualifying term; in home dress she still asserted her sex, grace of
figure and freshness of complexion prevailing over years and sorrows.
At this moment, moreover, weariness, and perhaps worry, appeared in her
countenance.

'Thank you so much for coming,' she said quietly. 'You must have been
surprised when you saw----'

'I was, indeed.'

'And my surprise was still greater, when, without any warning, Alma
walked into the room two days ago. But I was so glad, so very glad.'

She breathed a little sigh, looking round.

'Hasn't Alma given her friends any tea? I must ring--Thank you.--Oh,
the wretched, wretched day! I seem to notice the weather so much more
than I used to. Does it affect you at all?'

Not till the tea-tray was brought in, and she had sipped from her cup,
did Mrs. Frothingham lay aside these commonplaces. With abrupt gravity,
and in a subdued voice, she at length inquired the result of Rolfe's
delicate mission.

'I think,' he replied, 'that I made known your wish as clearly and
urgently as possible. I have seen Mrs. Abbott, and written to her
twice. It will be best, perhaps, if I ask you to read her final letter.
I have her permission to show it to you.'

He drew the letter from its envelope, and with a nervous hand Mrs
Frothingham took it for perusal. Whilst she was thus occupied, Rolfe
averted his eyes; when he knew that she had read to the end, he looked
at her. She had again sighed, and Harvey could not help imagining it an
involuntar

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