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The Price of Things

by Elinor Glyn · English · Gutenberg #9809 · 440,025 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Price of Things

Author: Elinor Glyn


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9809]
                Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9809

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THINGS ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and PG Distributed Proofreaders









                          THE PRICE OF THINGS

                             BY ELINOR GLYN

                                  1919




FOREWORD

I wrote this book in Paris in the winter of 1917-18--in the midst of
bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch,
and only primitive instincts seemed to stand out distinctly.

Life appeared brutal, and our very fashion of speaking, the words we
used, the way we looked at things, was more realistic--coarser--than in
times of peace, when civilization can re-assert itself again. This is why
the story shocks some readers. I quite understand that it might do so;
but I deem it the duty of writers to make a faithful picture of each
phase of the era they are living in, that posterity may be correctly
informed about things, and get the atmosphere of epochs.

The story is, so to speak, rough hewn. But it shows the danger of
breaking laws, and interfering with fate--whether the laws be of God
or of Man.

It is also a psychological study of the instincts of two women, which the
strenuous times brought to the surface. "Amaryllis," with all her
breeding and gentleness, reacting to nature's call in her fierce fidelity
to the father of her child--and "Harietta," becoming in herself the
epitome of the age-old prostitute.

I advise those who are rebuffed by plain words, and a ruthless analysis
of the result of actions, not to read a single page.

[Signature: Elinor Glyn]




THE PRICE OF THINGS




CHAPTER I


"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane,"
said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish
all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things,
one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one
discovers hope lying at the bottom of it."

"What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's
large grey eyes opened in a puzzled way. She was on her honeymoon in
Paris at a party at the Russian Embassy, and until now had accepted
things and not speculated about them. She had lived in the country and
was as good as gold.

She was accepting her honeymoon with her accustomed calm, although it was
not causing her any of the thrills which Elsie Goldmore, her school
friend, had assured her she should discover therein.

Honeymoons! Heavens! But perhaps it was because Sir John was dull. He
looked dull, she thought, as he stood there talking to the Ambassador. A
fine figure of an Englishman but--yes--dull. The Russian, on the
contrary, was not dull. He was huge and ugly and rough-hewn--his eyes
were yellowish-green and slanted upwards and his face was frankly
Calmuck. But you knew that you were talking to a personality--to one who
had probably a number of unknown possibilities about him tucked away
somewhere.

John had none of these. One could be certain of exactly what he would do
on any given occasion--and it would always be his duty. The Russian was
observing this charming English bride critically; she was such a perfect
specimen of that estimable race--well-shaped, refined and healthy. Chock
full of temperament too, he reflected--when she should discover herself.
Temperament and romance and even passion, and there were shrewdness and
commonsense as well.

"An agreeable task for a man to undertake her education," and he wished
that he had time.

Amaryllis Ardayre asked again:

"How can one not think? I am always thinking."

He smiled indulgently.

"Oh! no, you are not--you only imagine that you are. You have questioned
nothing--you do right generally because you have a nice character and
have been well brought up, not from any conscious determination to uplift
the soul. Yes--is it not so?"

She was startled.

"Perhaps."

"Do you ever ask yourself what things mean? What we are--where we are
going? What is the end of it all? No--you are happy; you live from day
to day--and yet you cannot be a very young ego, your eyes are too
wise--you have had many incarnations. It is merely that in this one life
the note of awakening has not yet been struck. You certainly must have
needed sleep."

"Many lives? You believe in that theory?"

She was not accustomed to discuss unorthodox subjects. She was
interested.

"But of course--how else could there be justice? We draw the reflex of
every evil action and of every good one, but sometimes not until the next
incarnation, that is why the heedless ones cannot grasp the truth--they
see no visible result of either good or evil--evil, in fact, seems
generally to win if there is a balance either way."

"Why are we not allowed memory then, so that we might profit by
our lessons?"

"We should in that case improve from self-interest and not have our
faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of
our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds
us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that the
desire is no more."

"Why do you say that for happiness we must banish thought--that seems
a paradox."

She was a little disturbed.

"I said if one _consciously_ and deliberately desired happiness, one must
banish thought to bring oneself back to the condition of hundreds of
people who are happy; many of them are even elementals without souls at
all. They are permitted happiness so that they may become so attached to
the earth plane that they willingly return and gradually obtain a soul.
But no one who is allowed to think is allowed any continued happiness;
there would be no progress. If so, we should remain as brutes."

"Then how cruel of you to suggest to me to think. I want to be
happy--perhaps I do not want to obtain a soul."

"That was born long ago--my words may have awakened it once more, but the
sleep was not deep."

Amaryllis Ardayre looked at the crowds passing and re-passing in those
stately rooms.

"Tell me, who is that woman over there?" she asked. "The very pretty one
with the fair hair in jade green--she looks radiantly happy."

"And is--she is frankly an animal--exquisitely preserved, damnably
selfish, completely devoid of intellect, sugar manners, the senses of a
harem houri--and the tenacity of a rat."

"You are severe."

"Not at all. Harietta Boleski is a product of that most astonishing
nation across the Atlantic--none other could produce her. It is the
hothouse of the world as regards remarkable types. Here for immediate
ancestry we have a mother, from heaven knows what European refuse heap,
arrived in an immigrant ship--father of the 'pore white trash' of the
south--result: Harietta, fine points, beautiful, quite a lady for
ordinary purposes. The absence of soul is strikingly apparent to any
ordinary observer, but one only discovers the vulgarity of spirit if one
is a student of evolution--or chances to catch her when irritated with
her modiste or her maid. Other nations cannot produce such beings. Women
with the attributes of Harietta, were they European, would have surface
vulgarity showing--and so be out of the running, or they would have real
passion which would be their undoing--passion is glorious--it is aroused
by something beyond the physical. Observe her nostril! There is simple,
delightful animal sensuality for you! Look also at the convex curve below
the underlip--she will bite off the cherry whether it is hers by right or
another's, and devour it without a backward thought."

"Boleski--that is a Russian name, is it not?"

"No, Polish--she secured our Stanislass, a great man in his
country--last year in Berlin, having divorced a no longer required,
but worthy German husband who had held some post in the American
Consulate there."

"Is that old man standing obediently beside her your Stanislass?--he
looks quite cowed."

"A sad sight, is it not? Stanislass, though, is not old, barely forty. He
had a _béguin_ for her. She put his intelligence to sleep and bamboozled
his judgment with a continuous appeal to the senses; she has vampired him
now. Cloying all his will with her sugared caprices, she makes him scenes
and so keeps him in subjection. He was one of the Council de l'Empire for
Poland; the aims of his country were his earnest work, but now ambition
is no more. He is tired, he has ceased to struggle; she rules and eats
his soul as she has eaten the souls of others. Shall I present her to
you? As a type, she is worthy of your attention."

"It sounds as if she had the evil eye, as the Italians say," Amaryllis
shuddered.

"Only for men. She is really an amiable creature--women like her. She
is so frankly simple, since for her there are never two issues--only to
be allowed her own desires--a riot of extravagance, the first
place--and some one to gratify certain instincts without too many
refinements when the mood takes her. For the rest, she is kind and
good-natured and 'jolly,' as you English say, and has no notion that
she is a road to hell. But they are mostly dead, her other spider
mates, and cannot tell of it."

"I am much interested. I should like to talk to her. You say that she
is happy?"

"Obviously--she is an elemental--she never thinks at all, except to plan
some further benefit for herself. I do not believe in this life that she
can obtain a soul--her only force is her tenacious will."

"Such force is good, though?"

"Certainly. Even bad force is better than negative Good. One must first
be strong before one can be serene."

"You are strong."

"Yes, but not good. Hardly a fit companion for sweet little English
brides with excellent husbands awaiting them."

"I shall judge of that."

"_Tiens!_ So emancipated!"

"If you are bad, how does your theory work that we pay for each action?
Since by that you must know that it cannot be worth while to be bad."

"It is not--I am aware of it, but when I am bad I am bad deliberately,
knowing that I must pay."

"That seems stupid of you."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I take very severe exercise when I begin to think of things I should not
and I become savage when I require happiness--now is our chance for
making you acquainted with Harietta, she is moving our way."

Madame Boleski swept towards them on the arm of an Austrian Prince and
the Russian Verisschenzko said, with suave politeness:

"Madame, let me present you to Lady Ardayre. With me she has been
admiring you from afar."

The two women bowed, and with cheery, disarming simplicity, the American
made some gracious remarks in a voice which sounded as if she smoked too
much; it was not disagreeable in tone, nor had she a pronounced
American accent.

Amaryllis Ardayre found herself interested. She admired the superb
attention to detail shown in Madame Boleski's whole person. Her face was
touched up with the lightest art, not overdone in any way. Her hair, of
that very light tone bordering on gold, which sometimes goes with hazel
eyes, was quite natural and wonderfully done. Her dress was
perfection--so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetière was an
artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken
off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand--it was well-shaped, save
that the thumb turned back in a remarkable degree.

"So delighted to meet you," Madame Boleski said. "We are going over to
London next month and I am just crazy to know more of you delicious
English people."

They chatted for a few moments and then Madame Boleski swept onwards. She
was quite stately and graceful and had a well-poised head. Amaryllis
turned to the Russian and was startled by the expression of fierce,
sardonic amusement in his yellow-green eyes.

"But surely, she can see that you are laughing at her?" she exclaimed,
astonished.

"It would convey nothing to her if she did."

"But you looked positively wicked."

"Possibly--I feel it sometimes when I think of Stanislass; he was a very
good friend of mine."

Sir John Ardayre joined them at this moment and the three walked towards
the supper room and the Russian said good-night.

"It is not good-bye, Madame. I, too, shall be in your country soon and I
also hope that I may see you again before you leave Paris."

They arranged a dinner for the following night but one, and said
au revoir.

An hour later the Russian was seated in a huge English leather chair in
the little salon of his apartment in the rue Cambon, when Madame Boleski
very softly entered the room and sat down upon his knee.

"I had to come, darling Brute," she said. "I was jealous of the English
girl," and she fitted her delicately painted lips to his. "Stanislass
wanted to talk over his new scheme for Poland, too, and as you know that
always gets on my nerves."

But Verisschenzko threw his head back impatiently, while he
answered roughly.

"I am not in the mood for your chastisement to-night. Go back as you
came, I am thinking of something real, something which makes your
body of no use to me--it wearies me and I do not even desire your
presence. Begone!"

Then he kissed her neck insolently and pushed her off his knee.

She pouted resentfully. But suddenly her eyes caught a small case lying
on a table near--and an eager gleam came into their hazel depths.

"Oh, Stépan! Is it the ruby thing! Oh! You beloved angel, you are going
to give it to me after all! Oh! I'll rush off at once and leave you, if
you wish it! Good-night!"

And when she was gone Verisschenzko threw some incense into a silver
burner and as the clouds of perfume rose into the air:

"Wough!" he said.




CHAPTER II


"What are you doing in Paris, Denzil?"

"I came over for a bit of racing. Awfully glad to see you. Can't we dine
together? I go back to-morrow." Verisschenzko put his arm through Denzil
Ardayre's and drew him in to the Café de Paris, at the door of which they
had chanced to meet.

"I had another guest, but she can be consoled with some of Midas' food,
and I want to talk to you; were you going to eat alone?"

"A fellow threw me over; I meant to have just a snack and go on to a
theatre. It is good running across you--I thought you were miles away!"

Verisschenzko spoke to the head waiter, and gave him directions as to the
disposal of the lovely lady who would presently arrive, and then he went
on to his table, rather at the top, in a fairly secluded corner.

The few people who were already dining--it was early on this May
night--looked at Denzil Ardayre--he was such a refreshing sight of health
and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and
fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played
cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a
muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon
him--young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him;
nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its
meaning. They knew one another very well--they had been at Oxford and
later had shot bears together in the Russian's far-off home.

They talked for a while of casual things, and then Verisschenzko said:

"Some relations of yours are here--Sir John Ardayre and his particularly
attractive bride. Shall we eat what I had ordered for Collette, or have
you other fancies after the soup?"

Denzil paid only attention to the first part of the speech--he looked
surprised and interested.

"John Ardayre here! Of course, he married about ten days ago--he is the
head of the family as you are aware, but I hardly even know him by sight.
He is quite ten years older than I am and does not trouble about us, the
poor younger branch--" and he smiled, showing such good teeth. "Besides,
as you know, I have been for such a long time in India, and the leaves
were for sport, not for hunting up relations."

Verisschenzko did not press the matter of his guest's fancies in food,
and they continued the menu ordered for Collette without further delay.

"I want to hear all that you know about them, the girl is an exquisite
thing with immense possibilities. Sir John looks--dull."

"He is really a splendid character though," Denzil hastened to assure
him. "Do you know the family history? But no, of course not, we were too
busy in the old days enjoying life to trouble to talk of such things!
Well, it is rather strange in the last generation--things very nearly
came to an end and John has built it all up again. You are interested in
heredity?"

"Naturally--what is the story?"

"Our mutual great-grandfather was a tremendous personage in North
Somerset--the place Ardayre is there. My father was the son of the
younger son, who had just enough to do him decently at Eton, and enable
him to scrape along in the old regiment with a pony or two to play with.
My mother was a Willowbrook, as you know, and a considerable heiress,
that is how I come out all right, but until John's father, Sir James,
squandered things, the head of the family was always very rich and full
of land--and awfully set on the dignity of his race. They had turned the
cult of it into regular religion."

"The father of this man made a _gaspillage_, then--well?"

"Yes, he was a rotter--a hark-back to his mother's relations; she was a
Cranmote--they ruin any blood they mix with. I am glad that I come from
the generation before."

Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so John
seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early, she had
had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away everything he
could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a tutor at home, for
some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about thirteen when she died
and at seventeen went straight into the city. He was determined to make a
fortune, it has always been said, and redeem the mortgages on
Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"

"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"

Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.

"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a Bulgarian
snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople! You may well
smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a whimsical
way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!

"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably, and
old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested, and
presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the little
brute was his own child--just to spite John."

Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.

"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"

"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were the
heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three years
before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the outside
semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he loathed
me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not have a
son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre, and will
be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years ago,
always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one knew
it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the city to
redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the South African
War, so he came into possession and lives there now in great state--I do
really hope that he will have a son."

"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in
it--since it cannot benefit you either way."

"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
reverence for it, even as a second cousin."

"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to have
ten sons!"

"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.

"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his attention
to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was pouring it out into
his glass.

"Not so you would say?"

"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
Ardayre son!"

"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
the decanted wine and they both drank together.

"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are of
the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my immediate
parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers, should I find this
same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who knows? I think not."

"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in
the picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole
way down."

"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have children
they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an individual
rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says 'English' to look
at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at once; one gets as
far as 'Calmuck' with me, that is all, but in years to come it will have
developed into 'Verisschenzko.'"

"How you study things, Stépan; you are always putting new ideas into my
head whenever I see you. Life would be just a routine, for all the joy of
sport, if one did not think. I am going to finish my soldiering this
autumn and stand for Parliament. It seems waste of time now, with no wars
in prospect, sticking to it; I want a vaster field."

"You think there can be no wars in prospect--no? Well, who can prophesy?
There are clouds in the Southeast, but for the moment we will not
speculate about them--and they may affect my country and not yours. And
so you will settle down and become a reputable member of Parliament?"
Then, as Denzil would have spoken perhaps upon the subject of war clouds,
Verisschenzko hastily continued:

"Will you dine to-morrow night at the Ritz to meet your cousin and his
wife? They are honouring me."

"I wish I could, but I am off in the morning. What is she like?"

Verisschenzko paid particular attention to the selection of a quail, and
then he answered:

"She is of the same type as the family, Denzil,--that is, a good
skeleton--bones in the right place, firm white flesh, colouring as
yours--well bred, balanced, unawakened as yet. Was she a relation?"

"Yes, I believe so--a cousin of a generation even before mine. I wish I
could have dined, I would awfully like to have met them; I shall have
to make a chance in England. It is stupid not to know one's own family,
but our fathers quarrelled and we have never had a chance of mending
the break."

"They were at the Russian Embassy last night; the throng admired Lady
Ardayre very much."

"And what are you doing in Paris, Stépan? The last I heard of you, you
were on your yacht in the Black Sea."

"I was cruising near countries whose internal affairs interest me for the
moment. I returned to my _appartement_ in Paris to see a friend of mine,
Stanislass Boleski--he also has a lovely wife. Look, she has just come
in with him. She is in the devil of a temper--observe her. If I sit back,
the pillar hides me--I do not wish them to see me yet."

Denzil glanced down the room; two people were taking their seats by the
wall. The mask was off Harietta Boleski's face for the moment; it looked
silly with its raised eyebrows and was full of ill temper and spite. The
husband had an air of extreme worry on his clever, intellectual face, but
that he was solicitous to gratify his wife's caprices, any casual
observer could have perceived.

"You mean the woman with the wonderful _cigrettes_--she is good-looking,
isn't she? I wonder who it is she has caught sight of now, though? Look
at the eagerness which has come into her eyes--you can see her in the
mirror if you want to."

But Verisschenzko had missed nothing, and he bent forward to endeavour
to identify the person upon whom Madame Boleski's gaze had turned. There
was nothing to distinguish any individual--the company were of several
nations--German and Austrian and Balkan and Russian scattered about here
and there among the French and American _habitués_. The only plan would
be to continue to watch Harietta--but although he did this throughout the
dinner, not a flicker of her eyelids gave him any further clue.

Denzil was interested--he felt something beyond what appeared on the
surface was taking place, so he waited for his friend to speak.

Verisschenzko was silent for a little, and then he casually gave a résumé
of the character and place of Madame Boleski and her husband, a good deal
more baldly expressed, but in substance much the same as he had given to
Amaryllis at the Russian Embassy the night before.

He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.

"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
telling a lie or the truth."

"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.

"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."

"She has lovers?"

"Has had many; her rôle now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
would commit bêtises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
hidden with the cunning of a fox."

"Who did you say the first husband was--?"

"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
one who stood in her way."

"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty épuisé--one feels sorry
for the poor man."

Then, as ever, at the mention of the débacle of Stanislass,
Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.

"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
must pay."

"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
Denzil remarked.

"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
Northern world."

His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
always been drawn to Stépan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
over many lands--and as they sat there in the Café de Paris, the thoughts
of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
Russia and in India between.

"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"

"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
Stépan? Twenty-nine years old!"

Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
good-night and went out.

But as Stépan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
jealous hate.

"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"

That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Arménonville.
Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
some show of emotion!

John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
beginning was only three months back!

They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.

She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!

The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
too congenial home.

She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
girl, luck did not come her way.

When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
gave her any thrill!

"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
fellow, but I will try."

Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
excitement in the whole conventional thing!

There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
talking on general subjects!

This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.

He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
could ever do.

She almost became jealous of it all.

Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.

Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
allow her stepfather to give her away.

Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!

And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."

The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
the honeymoon."

This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
any maiden to remain in ignorance now.

It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
retired to the magnificent state suite alone.

When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.

Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
there at Arménonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.

So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
did John sit silent there? Why?

Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!




CHAPTER III


It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocadéro. A tall German
officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.

He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
thick veil.

"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
a strong American accent.

He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.

The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
beasts had met.

Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
gave a little scream.

"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"

Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.

The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
puff, and red greases for her lips.

"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
only had been time--"

Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
telltale ear.

But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
her arms and was beating him well.

"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine bête m'a mordu l'oreil!"

"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
petit chien de Madame est si doux!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!

"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
know, and I just love to please you."

He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
on the papers.

"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."

Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--

"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.

And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
gladly from the room.

Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.

No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
extreme décolletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
gold! Never!"

Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.

"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
for the ball, "let me admire you!"

She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.

Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
ring. He examined it.

"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"

She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
expressed childish innocence.

"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"

He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.

"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.

The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.

"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
would not believe--such _insensés_ are men!"

Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
Verisschenzko.

Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
friend in the Turkish Embassy.

He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.

The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
Constantinople!

Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
performed as she now saw them.

"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."

Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.

"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"

He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
gesticulation.

"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."

"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
difficult to discuss.

"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"

Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!

"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
of love--"

"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"

His eyes grew fierce.

"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."

Amaryllis answered with dignity:

"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."

He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.

"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"

"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
the Marquise de Saint Vrillière--of the bluest blood in France and of a
rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
before this madness set in!"

"And you say it is a dance Macabre? Tell me just what you mean."

They had reached a comfortable sofa by now in a salon devoted to bridge,
which was almost empty, the players, so eager to take part in the
dancing, that they had deserted even this, their favourite game.

"When a nation loses all sense of balance and belies the traditions of
its whole history, and when masses of civilised individuals experience
this craze for dancing and miming, and sex display, it presages some
great upheaval--some calamity. It was thus before the revolution of 1793,
and since it is affecting England and America and all of Europe it seems,
the cataclysm will be great."

Amaryllis shivered. "You frighten me," she whispered. "Do you mean some
war--or some earthquake--or some pestilence, or what?"

"Events will show. But let us talk of something else. A cousin of your
husband's, who is a very good friend of mine, was here yesterday. He went
to England to-day, you have not met him yet, I believe--Denzil Ardayre?"

"No--but I know all about him--he plays polo and is in the Zingari."

"He does other things--he will even do more--I shall be curious to hear
what you think of him. For me he is the type of your best in England.
We were at Oxford together; we dreamed dreams there--and perhaps time
will realise some of them. Denzil is a beautiful Englishman, but he is
not a fool."

A sudden illumination seemed to come into Amaryllis' brain; she felt how
limited had been all her thoughts and standpoints in life. She had been
willing to drift on without speculation as to the goal to be reached.
Indeed, even now, had she any definite goal? She looked at the Russian's
strong, rugged face, his inscrutable eyes narrowed and gazing ahead--of
what was he thinking? Not stupid, ordinary things--that was certain.

"It is the second evening, amidst the most unlikely surroundings, that
you have made me speculate about subjects which never troubled me before.
Then you leave me unsatisfied--I want to know--definitely to know!"

"Searcher after wisdom!" and he smiled. "No one can teach another very
much. Enlightenment must come from within; we have reached a better stage
when we realise that we are units in some vast scheme and responsible for
its working, and not only atoms floating hither and thither by chance.
Most people have the brains of grasshoppers; they spring from subject to
subject, their thoughts are never under control. Their thoughts rule
them--it is not they who rule their thoughts."

They were seated comfortably on their sofa, and Verisschenzko leaning
forward from his corner, looked straight into her eyes.

"You control your thoughts?" she asked. "Can you really only let them
wander where you choose?"

"They very seldom escape me, but I consciously allow them indulgences."

"Such as?"

"Visions--day dreams--which I know ought not to materialise."

Something disturbed her in his regard; it was not easy to meet, so full
of magnetic emanation. Amaryllis was conscious that she no longer felt
very calm--she longed to know What his dreams could be.

"Yes--but if I told you, you would send me away."

It seemed that he could read her desire. "I shall order myself to be
gone presently, because the interest which you cause me to feel would
interfere with work which I have to do."

"And your dreams? Tell them first?" she knew that she was playing
with fire.

He looked down now, and she saw that he was not going to gratify her
curiosity.

"My noblest dream is for the regeneration of a nation--on that I have
ordered my thoughts to dwell. For the others, the time is not yet for me
to tell you of them--it may never come. Now answer me, have you yet seen
your new home, Ardayre?"

"No, but why should you be interested in that? It seems strange that you,
a Russian, should even know that there is such a place as Ardayre!"

"Continue--I know that it is a wonderful place, and that your husband
loves it more than his life."

Amaryllis pouted slightly.

"He does indeed! Perhaps I shall grow to do so also when I know it; it is
the family creed. Sir James--my late father-in-law--was the only
exception to this rule."

"You must uphold the idea then, and live to do fine things."

"I will try--if only--" then she paused, she could not say "if only John
would be human and unfreeze to me, and love me, and let us go on the road
together hand in hand!"

"It is quite useless for a family merely to continue from generation to
generation piling up possessions, and narrowing its interests. It must do
this for a time to become solid, and then it should take a vaster view,
and begin to help the world. Nearly everything is spoiled in all
civilisation because of this inability to see beyond the nose, this poor
and paltry outlook."

"People rave vaguely," Amaryllis argued, "about one's duty and vast
outlooks and those things, but it is difficult to get any one to give
concrete advice--what would you advise me to do, for instance?"

"I would advise you first to begin asking yourself the reason of
everything, each day, since Pandora's box has been opened for you in any
case. 'What caused this? What caused that?' Search for causes--then
eradicate the roots, if they are not good, do not waste time on trying to
ameliorate the results! Determine as to why you are put into such and
such a place, and accomplish what you discover to be the duty of the
situation. But how serious we have become! I am not a priest to give you
guidance--I am a man fighting a tremendously strong desire to take you in
my arms--so come, we will return to the ball room, and I will deliver you
to your husband."

Amaryllis rose and stood facing him, her heart was beating fast. "If I
try to do well--to climb the straight road of the soul's advancement,
will you give me counsel should I need it by the way?"

"Yes, this I will do when I have complete control, but for the moment you
are causing me emotions, and I wish to keep you a thing apart--of the
spirit. Hermits and saints subdue the flesh by abstinence and fasting;
they then become useless to the world. A man can only lead men while he
remains a man, with a man's passions, so that he should not fight in this
beyond his strength--only he should _never sully the wrong thing_. Come!
Return to the husband--and I shall go for a while to hell."

And presently Amaryllis, standing safely with John, saw Verisschenzko
dancing the maddest one-step with Madame Boleski, their undulations
outdoing all others in the room!




CHAPTER IV


The day after the wonderful rejoicing which the homecoming of Amaryllis
had been the occasion of at Ardayre, she was sitting waiting for her
husband in that exquisite cedar parlour which led from her room.

They would breakfast cosily there, she had arranged, and nothing was
wanting in the setting of a love scene. The bride wore the most alluring
cap and daintiest Paris négligé, and her fair and pure skin gleamed
through the diaphanous stuff.

How she longed for John to notice it all, and make love to her! She had
apprehended a number of delightful possibilities in Paris, none of which
had materialised, alas! in her case.

John was the same as ever--quiet, dignified, polite and unmoved. She had
taken to turning out the light before he came to her at night, to hide
the disappointment and chagrin which she felt might show in her eyes. It
would be so humiliating if he should see this. There would soon be
nothing left for her to do but pretend that she was as cold as he was, if
this last effort of _froufrous_ left him as stolid as usual.

She smoothed out the pale chiffon draperies with a tender hand. She got
up and looked at herself in the mirror. It was fortunate that the
reflection of snowy nose and throat and chin, and the pink velvet cheeks,
required no art to perfect them; it was all natural and quite nice, she
felt. What a bore it must be to have to touch up like Madame Boleski!

But what was the meaning of all the imputations she had read of in those
interesting French novels in Paris?--the languors and lassitudes and
tremors of breakfasting love! There was just such a scene as this in one
she had devoured on the boat. A _déjeuner_ of _amants--_certainly they
had not been married, there was that want of resemblance, but surely this
could not matter? For a fortnight, three weeks, a month, surely even a
husband could be as a lover--especially to a mistress who took such pains
to please his eye!

Would Elsie Goldmore spend such dull breakfasts when she espoused Harry
Kahn? Elsie Goldmore was a Jewess, perhaps that made the difference,
perhaps Jews were more expansive--But the people in the novels were not
Jews. Of course, though, they were French, that must be it! Could it be
that all Englishmen, to their wives, were like John? This she must
presently find out.

Meanwhile she would try--oh, try so hard to entice him to be lovely to
her! He was her own husband; there was absolutely no harm in doing this.
And how glorious it would be to turn him into a lover! Here in this
perfectly divine old house! John was so good-looking, too, and had the
most attractive deep voice, but heavens! the matter-of-factness of
everything about him!

How long would it all go on?

John came in presently with _The Times_ under his arm. He was
immaculately dressed in a blue serge suit. Amaryllis had hoped to see
him in that subduedly gorgeous dressing gown she had persuaded him to
order at Charvets during their first days. It would have been so
suitable and intimate and lover-like. But no! there was the blue serge
suit--and _The Times_.

A shadow fell upon her mood. Her own pink chiffons almost seemed
out of place!

John glanced at them, and at the glowing, living, delicious bit of young
womanhood which they adorned. He saw the rebellious ripe cherry of a
mouth, and the warm, soft tenderness in the grey eyes, and then he
quickly looked out of the window--his own blue ones expressionless, but
the hand which held the newspaper clenched rather hard.

"Amn't I a pet!" cooed Amaryllis, deliberately subduing the chill of her
first disappointment. "Dearest, see I have kept this last and loveliest
set of garments for the morning of our home-coming--and for you!" and she
crept close to him and laid her cheek against his cheek.

He encircled her with his arm and kissed her calmly.

"You look most beautiful, darling," he said. "But then, you always do,
and your frills are perfection. Now I think we ought to have breakfast;
it is most awfully late."

She sat down in her place and she felt stupid tears rise in her eyes.

She poured out the tea and buttered herself some toast, while John was
apparently busy at a side table where dwelt the hot dishes.

He selected the daintiest piece of sole for her, and handed her
the plate.

"I am not hungry," she protested, "keep it for yourself."

He did not press the matter, but took his place and began to talk quietly
upon the news of the day--in a composed fashion between glances at _The
Times_ and mouthfuls of sole.

Amaryllis controlled herself. She was too proud and too just to make a
foolish scene. If this was John's way and her little effort at enticement
was a failure, she must put up with it. Marriage was a lottery she had
always heard, and it might be her luck to have drawn a blank. So she
choked down the rising emotion and answered brightly, showing interest in
her husband's remarks--and she even managed to eat some omelette, and
when the business of breakfast was quite over she went to the window and
John followed her there.

The view which met their eyes was exquisite.

Beyond the perfect stately garden, with its quaint clipped yews and
masses of spring flowers and velvet lawns, there stretched the vast park
with its splendid oaks and browsing deer. It was a possession which any
man could feel proud to own.

John slipped his arm round her waist and drew her to him.

"Amaryllis," he said, and his voice vibrated, "to-day I am going to show
you everything I love here at Ardayre--because I want you to love it
all, too. You are of the family, so it must mean something to you, dear."

Amaryllis kindled with re-awakening hope.

"Indeed, it will mean everything to me, John."

He kissed her forehead and murmured something about her dressing quickly,
and that he would wait for her there in the cedar room. And when she
returned in about a quarter of an hour in the neatest country clothes, he
placed her hand on his arm and led her down the great stairs and on
through the hall into the picture gallery.

It was a wonderful place of green silk and chestnut wainscoting, and all
the walls of its hundred feet of length were hung with canvases of
value--portraits principally of those Ardayres who had gone on. Face
after face looked down on Amaryllis of the same type as John's and her
own--the brown hair and eyes of grey or blue. Some were a little fairer,
some a little darker, but all unmistakably stamped "Ardayre."

John pointed out each individual to her, while she hung fondly on his
arm, from some doubtful crude fourteenth century wooden panels of Johns
and Denzils, on to Benedict in a furred Henry VII. gown. Then came Henrys
and Denzils in Elizabethan armour and puffed white satin, and through
Stuart and Commonwealth to Stuart again, and so to William and Mary
numbers of Benedicts, and lastly to powdered Georgian James' and Regency
Denzils and Johns. And the name Amaryllis recurred more than once in
stately dame or damsel, called after that fair Amaryllis of Elizabeth's
days who had been maid of honour to the virgin Queen, and had sonnets
written to her nut brown locks by the gallants of her time.

"How little the women they married seem to have altered the type!" the
young living Amaryllis exclaimed, when they came nearly to the end. "It
goes on Ardayre, Ardayre, Ardayre, ever since the very first one. Oh!
John, if we ever have a son he ought to be even more so--you and I being
of the same blood--" and then she hesitated and blushed crimson. This was
the first time she had ever spoken of such a thing.

John held her arm very tightly to his side for a second, and his voice
was uncertain as he answered:

"Amaryllis, that is the profound desire of my heart, that we should
have a son."

A strange feeling of exaltation came over Amaryllis, half-innocent,
wholly ignorant as she was.

She had been stupid--French novels were all nonsense. Marriages in real
life were always like this--of course they must be--since John said
plainly and with such deep feeling that his profoundest desire was that
they should have a son! That meant that she would surely have one. This
was perfectly glorious, and it must simply be those silly books and Elsie
Goldmore's too uxorious imagination which had given her some ridiculously
romantic exaggerated ideas of what love hours would be. She would now be
contented and never worry again. She nestled closer to her husband and
looked up at him with eyes sweet and fond, the brown, curly lashes wet
with tender dew.

"Oh!--darling, when, when do you think we shall have a son?"

Then, for the first time in their lives, John Ardayre clasped her in his
arms passionately and held her to his heart.

"Ah, God," he whispered hoarsely, as he kissed her fresh young lips.
"Pray for that, Amaryllis--pray for that, my own."

Then he restrained himself and drew her on to the four last pictures at
the end of the room. They were of his grandfather and grandmother, and
his father and mother. And then there was a blank space, and the brighter
colour of the damask showed that a canvas had been removed.

"Who hung there, John?"

"The accursed snake charmer woman whom my father disgraced the family
with by bringing home. She was his wife by the law, and a Frenchman
painted her. It was a fine picture with the bastard Ferdinand in her
arms--the proof of our shame. I had it taken down and burnt the day the
place was mine."

Amaryllis was receiving surprises to-day--John's face was full of
emotion, his eyes were sparkling with hate as he spoke. How he must love
everything connected with his home, and its honour, and its name--he
could not be so very cold after all!

She thought of the Russian's words about a family--the uselessness of its
going on for generations, piling up possessions and narrowing its
interests. What had the aims been of all these handsome men? She knew the
earlier history a little, for even though she was of a distant branch
they had been proud of the connection, and treasured the traditions
belonging to it. But these were just dry facts of history which she knew,
so now she asked:

"John, what did any of them do? Did they accomplish great deeds?"

He took her back to the beginning again and began to tell her of the
achievements of each one. There would be three perhaps, one after
another, who had filled high posts in the State, and indeed had been
worthy of the name. Then would come one or two quiet plodding ones, who
seemed to have done little but sit still and hold on.

Then Denzil Ardayre, knight of Elizabeth's time, pleased Amaryllis most
of all--though there had been greater soldiers, and more able politicians
than he later on, culminating in Sir John Ardayre of George IV. days,
who had hammered against pocket boroughs and corruption until he died an
old man, the hour the Reform Bill swept aside abuses and the road to
freedom was won.

"How strange it seems that different ages produce more accentuated stamps
of breeding than others," Amaryllis said, "even in the same families
where the blood is all blue. Look, John! that Denzil and the rest of the
Elizabethans are the most refined, aristocratic creatures you could
imagine, in their little ruffs. Absolutely intellectual and cultivated
faces and of old race--and then comes a James period, less intelligent,
more round featured. And a Cavalier one, gay and gallant, aristocratic
and chiselled also, but not nearly so clever looking as the Elizabethan.
Then we get cadaverous William and Mary ones, they might be lawyers or
business men, not that look of great gentlemen, and the Anne's and the
first George's are really bucolic! And then that wonderfully refined,
cultivated, intellectual finish seems to crop up in the later eighteenth
century again. Have you noticed this, John? You can see it in every
collection of miniatures and portraits even in the museums."

John responded interestedly:

"The Elizabethans were supremely cultivated gentlemen--no wonder that
they look as they do--and their lives were always in their hands which
gives them that air of insouciance."

When the history of the family achievements had been told her down to
John's father, she paused, still clinging to his arm, and said:

"I am so glad that they did splendid things, aren't you? And we shall not
drift either. You must teach me to be the most perfect mistress of
Ardayre, and the most perfect wife for the greatest of them all--because
your achievement is the finest, John, to have won it all back and
redeemed it by the work of your own brain."

He pressed the hand on his arm.

"It was hard work--and the home times were ugly in those days, Amaryllis,
though the goal was worth it, and now we must carry on...." And then his
reserve seemed to fall upon him again, and he took her through the other
rooms, and kept to solid facts, and historic descriptions, and his bride
had continuously the impression that he was mastering some emotion in
himself, and that this stolidity was a mask.

When lunch time came the usual relations of obvious and commonplace
goodfellowship had been fully restored between them, and that atmosphere
of aloofness which seemed impossible to banish enveloped John once more.

Amaryllis sighed--but it was too soon to despair she thought, after the
hope of John's words, and with her serene temperament she decided to
leave things as they were for the present and trust to time.

But as her maid brushed out the soft brown hair that night, an unrest and
longing for something came over her again--what she knew not, nor could
have put into words. She let herself re-live that one moment when John
had pressed herewith passion to his heart. Perhaps, perhaps that was the
beginning of a change in him--perhaps--presently--

But the clock in the long gallery had chimed two, and there was yet no
sound of John in the dressing-room beyond.

Amaryllis lay in the great splendid gilt bed in the warm darkness, and at
last tears trickled down her cheeks.

What could keep him so long away from her? Why did he not come?

The large Queen Anne windows were wide open, and soft noises of the night
floated in with the zephyrs. The whole air seemed filled with waiting
expectancy for something tender and passionate to be.

What was that? Steps upon the terrace--measured steps--and then silence,
and then a deep sigh. It must be John--out there alone!--when she would
have loved to have stayed with him, to have woven sweet fancies in the
luminous darkness, to have taken and given long kisses, to have buried
her face in the honeysuckle which grew there, steeped in dew. But he had
said to her after their stately dinner in the great dining-hall:

"Play to me a little, Amaryllis, and then go to bed, child--you must be
tired out."

And after that he had not spoken more, but pushed her gently towards the
door with a solemn kiss on the forehead, and just a murmur of
"Good-night." And she had deceived herself and thought that it meant that
he would come quickly, and so she had run up the stairs.

But now it was after two in the morning, and would soon be growing
towards dawn--and John was out there sighing alone!

She crept to the window and leaned upon the sill. She thought that she
could distinguish his tall figure there by the carved stone bench.

"John!" she called softly, "I am, so lonely--John, dearest--won't
you come?"

Then she felt that her ears must be deceiving her, for there was the
sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her
husband's voice answering cheerily, with its usual casual note:

"You naughty little night bird! Go back to bed--and to sleep--yes--I am
coming immediately now!"

But when he did steal in silently from the dressing-room an hour later in
a grey dawn, Amaryllis, worn out with speculation and disappointment, had
fallen asleep.

He looked down upon her charming face--the long, curly brown lashes
sweeping the flushed cheek, and at the rounded, beautiful girlish
form--all his very own to clasp and to kiss and to hold in his arms--and
two scalding tears gathered in his blue eyes, and he took his place
beside her without making a sound.




CHAPTER V


"Here are the papers, Hans, but I think the whole thing stupid nonsense.
What does it matter to any one what Poland wants? What a nuisance all
these old boring political things are! They always spoiled our happiness
since the beginning--and now if it wasn't for them we could have a
glorious time here together. I would love managing to come out to meet
you under Stanislass' nose. None of the others I have ever had are as
good in the way of a lover as you."

The man swore in German under his breath.

"Of a lightness always, Harietta! No _dévouement_, no patriotism....
Should I have agreed to the divorce, loving your body as I do, had it not
been a serious matter? The pig-dog who now owns you must be sucked dry of
information--and then I shall take you back again."

A cunning look came into Madame Boleski's hazel eyes. She had not the
slightest intention of permitting this--to go back to Hans! To the
difficulty of making both ends meet! Even though he did cause every inch
of her well-preserved body to tingle! They had suggested her getting the
divorce for their own stupid political ends, to be able to place her in
the arms of Stanislass Boleski, and there she meant to stay! It was
infinitely more agreeable to be a grande dame in Paris, and presently in
London, than to be the spouse of Hans in Berlin, where, whatever his
secret power might be with the authorities, he could give her no great
social position; and social position was the goal of all Harietta
Boleski's desires!

She could attract lovers in any class of life--that had never been her
difficulty. Her trouble had been that she could never force herself into
good American society, even after she had married Hans, and they had
dwelt there for a year or more. Her own compatriots would have none of
her, and so she wanted triumph in other lands. She hated to remember her
youth of humiliation, trying to play a social game on the earnings of any
work that she could pick up, between discreet outings with--friends who
failed to suggest matrimony. Hans, on some secret mission to San
Francisco, where she had gone as companion to a friend, had seemed a
veritable Godsend and Prince Charming, when, in her thirtieth year, he
actually offered legal marriage, completely overcome by her great
physical charm. But although she loved Hans with whatever of that emotion
such a nature could be capable of, five years of him and more or less
genteel poverty had been enough, and now she was free of that, and could
still enjoy surreptitiously the pleasure of his passion, and reign as a
_persona grata_ wife of one of the richest men in Poland at the same
time. That those in authority who had arranged the divorce required of
her certain tiresome obligations in return for their services, was one of
those annoying parts of life! She took not the slightest interest in the
affairs of any country. Nothing really mattered to her, but herself. Her
whole force was concentrated upon the betterment of the position and
physical pleasure of Harietta Boleski.

It was this instinct alone which had prompted her to acquire a smattering
of education--and with the quick, adaptive faculty of a monkey she had
been able to use this to its utmost limits, as well as her histrionic
talent--no mean one--to gain her ends. She was now playing the rôle of a
lady, and playing it brilliantly she knew--and here was Hans back again,
and suggesting that when she had secured all the information that he
required from Stanislass she should return to him!

"Tra la la!" she said to herself, there in the room at the Hotel Astoria,
where she had gone to meet him, "think this if it pleases you! It will
keep you quiet and won't hurt me!"

For the moment she wanted Hans--the man, and was determined to waste no
further time on useless discussion. So she began her blandishments,
taking pride in showing him her beautiful garments, and her string of big
pearls; each thing exhibited between her voluptuous kisses, until Hans
grew intoxicated with desire, and became as clay in her hands.

"It is not thy pig-dog of a husband I wish to kill!" he said, after one
hour had gone by in inarticulate murmurings. "Him I do not fear--it is
the Russian, Verisschenzko, who fills me with hate--we have regard of
him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the
rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be
unpleasantness for you, my little cat--thy Hans will twist his bear's
neck, and thine also, if need be!"

"Verisschenzko!" laughed Harietta, "why, I hardly know him; he don't
amount to a row of pins! He's Stanislass' friend--not mine."

Then she smoothed back Hans' rather fierce, fair moustache from his lips
and kissed him again--her ruby ring flashing in a ray of sunlight.

"Look! isn't this a lovely jewel, Hans! My old Stannie gave it to me only
some days ago--it is my new toy--see--"

Hans examined it:

"Thou art a creature of the devil, Harietta, there is not one of thy evil
qualities of greed and extortion which I do not know. Thou liest to me
and to all men--the only good thing in thee is thy body--and for that all
men let thee lie."

Harietta pouted.

"I can't understand when you talk like that, Hans--it's all warbash, as
we said out West. What are qualities? What is there but the body anyway?
Great sakes! that's enough for me, and the devil is only in story books
to frighten children--I'm just like every other woman and I want to have
a good time."

"I hear that you are going to London soon," said Hans, dropping the
tutoyage and growing brutally severe, "to conquer new lovers and to wear
more dresses? But there you will be of great use to me. Your instructions
will be all ready in cypher by Tuesday night, when you must meet me at
whatever point is convenient to you, after nine o'clock--here, perhaps?"

Harietta frowned--she had other views for Tuesday night.

"What shall I gain by coming, or by going on with this spying on Stan?
I'm tired of it all; it breaks my head trying to take in your horrid old
cypher. I don't think I'll do it any more."

The Prussian's face grew livid and his mouth set like an iron spring. He
looked at her straight between the eyes, as a lion tamer might have done,
and he took a cane from where it laid on a bureau near.

"Until you are black and blue, I will beat you, woman," he said, "as I
have done before--if you fail us in a single thing--and do not think we
are powerless! It shall be that you are exposed and degraded, and so lose
your game. Now tell me, will you go on?"

Harietta crouched in fear, just animal, physical fear--she had felt that
stick, it was a nightmare to her, as it might have been to a child. She
knew that Hans would keep his word. His physical strength had been one of
the things she had adored in him--but to be degraded and exposed, as well
as beaten, touched her sensibilities, after all the trouble she had taken
to become a lady of the world! This was too much. No! Tiresome as all
these old papers were, she would have to go on--but since he threatened
her she would pay him out! The Russian should have papers as well! And so
there was good in all things, since now material advantage would come
from both sides. Was it not right that you looked to yourself, especially
when menaced with a stick?

She laughed softly; this was humorous and she could appreciate such kind
of humour.

Hans crushed her in his arms.

"Answer!" he ordered gutturally. "Answer, you fiend!"

Harietta became cajoling--no one could have looked more frank or simple,
as simple as she looked to all great ladies when she would disarm them
and win her way. She would look up at them gently, and ask their advice,
and say that of course she was only a newcomer and very ignorant, not
clever like they!

"Hans, darling, I was only joking, am I not devoted to your interests and
always ready to serve you and the higher powers whom you serve? Of
course, I will come on Tuesday night and, of course, I will go on."

She let her lip tremble and her eyes fill with tears; they were quite
real tears. She felt the hardship of having to weary her brain with a new
cypher, and self-pity inflames the lachrymose glands.

"To business then, _mein liebchen_--attend carefully to every word. In
England you must be received by Royalty itself, and you must go into the
highest circles of the diplomatic and political world. The men are
indiscreet there; they trust their women and tell them secret things. It
is the women you must please. The English are a race of fools; numbers
are aristocrats in all classes and therefore too stupid to suspect craft,
and those who are not are trying to appear to be, and too conceited to
use their wits. You can be of enormous use to our country, Harietta, my
wife," and he walked up and down the room in his excitement, his hands
clasped behind him--he would have been a very handsome man but for his
too wide hips.

Marietta looked at him out of the corner of her eye; she did not notice
this defect in him, for her he was a splendid male, with a delightful
quality of savagery in love which she had found in no other man except
Verisschenzko--Verisschenzko! Her thoughts hesitated when they came to
him--Verisschenzko was adorable, but he was a man to be feared--much more
than Hans. Him she could always cajole if she used passion enough, but
she had the uncomfortable feeling that Verisschenzko gave way to her only
when--and because--he wanted to, not for the reason that she had
conquered him.

"Of great use to our country, Harietta, my wife," Hans murmured again,
clearing his throat.

"I am not your wife, my pretty Hans!" and she raised her eyebrows, and
curled one corner of her upper lip. "You gave me up at the bidding of the
higher command--I am your mistress now and then, when I feel
inclined--but I am Stanislass' wife. I like a man better when I am his
mistress; there are no tiresome old duties along with it."

Hans growled, he hated to realise this.

"You must be more careful with your speech, Harietta. When you get to
England you must not say 'along with it'--after the pains I have taken
with your grammar, too! You can use Americanisms if they are apt, and
even a literal translation of another language--but bad grammar--common
phrases--pah! that is to give the show away!"

Harietta reddened--her vanity disliked criticism.

"I take very good care of my language when it is necessary in the
world--I am considered to have a lovely voice--but when I'm with you I
guess I can enjoy a holiday--it's kind of a rest to let yourself go," her
pronunciation lapsed into the broadest American, just to irritate him,
and she stood and laughed in his face.

He caught her in his arms. She never failed to appeal to his senses; she
had won him by that force and so held his brute nature even after five
years. This was always the reason of whatever success she secured. A man
had no smallest doubt as to why he was drawn; it was a direct appeal to
the most primitive animal nature in him. The birth of Love is ever thus
if we would analyse it truly, but the spirit fortunately so wraps things
in illusion that generally both participants really believe that the
mutual attraction is because of higher emotions of the mind, and so they
are doomed to disappointment when passion is sated, unless the mind
fulfills the ideal. But if the reality fails to make good, the refined
spirit turns in disgust from the material, unconsciously resentful in
that it has suffered deception. With Harietta this disappointment could
never occur, since she created no illusion that she was appealing to the
mind at all, and so a man if he were attracted faced no unknown quality,
but was aware that it was only the animal in him which was drawn, and if
his senses were his masters, not his servants, her victory was complete.

After some more fierce caresses had come to an end--there was no delicacy
about Harietta--Hans continued his discourse.

"There has come here to Paris a young man of the name of
Ardayre--Ferdinand Ardayre--he is slippery, but he can be of the greatest
value to us. See that you become friends--you can reach him through Abba
Bey. He hates his brother who is the head of the family and he hates his
brother's wife--for family reasons which it is not necessary to waste
time in telling you. I knew him in Constantinople. Underneath I believe
he hates the English--there is a slur on him."

"I have already met him," and Harietta's eyes sparkled. "I hate the wife
also for my own reasons--yes--how can I help you with this?"

"It is Ferdinand you must concentrate on; I am not concerned with the
brother or his wife, except in so far as his hate for them can be used to
our advantage. Do not embark upon this to play games of your own for your
hate--you may be foolish then and upset matters."

"Very well." The two objects could go together, Harietta felt; she never
wasted words. It would be a pleasure one day, perhaps, to be able to
injure that girl whom Verisschenzko certainly respected, if he was not
actually growing to love her. Harietta did not desire the respect of men
in the abstract; it could be a great bore--what they thought of her never
entered her consideration, since she was only occupied with her own
pleasure in them and how they affected herself. Respect was one of the
adjuncts of a good social position; and of value merely in that aspect.
But as Verisschenzko respected no one else, as far as she knew, that must
mean something annoyingly important.

Seven o'clock struck; she had thoroughly enjoyed being with Hans, he
satisfied her in many ways, and it was also a relaxation, as she need not
act. But the joys of the interview were over now, and she had others
prepared for later on, and must go back to the Rhin to dress. So she
kissed Hans and left, having arranged to meet him on the Tuesday night
here in his rooms, and having received precise instructions as to the
nature of the information to be obtained from Ferdinand Ardayre.

Life would be a paradise if only it were not for these ridiculous and
tiresome political intrigues. Harietta had no taste for actual intrigue,
its intricacies were a weariness to her. If she could have married a rich
man in the beginning, she always told herself, she would never have mixed
herself up in anything of the kind, and now that she _had_ married a rich
man, she would try to get out of the nuisance as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, there was Ferdinand--and Ferdinand was becoming in love with
her--they had met three times since the Montivacchini ball.

"He'll be no difficulty," she decided, with a sigh of relief. It would
not be as it had been with Verisschenzko, whom she had been directed to
capture. For in Verisschenzko she had found a master--not a dupe.

When she reached the beautiful Champs-Elysées, she looked at her diamond
wrist watch. It was only ten minutes past seven, the dinner at the
Austrian Embassy was not until half-past eight. Dressing was a serious
business to Harietta, but she meant to cut it down to half an hour
to-night, because there was a certain apartment in the Rue Cambon which
she intended to visit for a few minutes.

"What an original street to have an apartment in!" people always said to
Verisschenzko. "Nothing but business houses and model hotels for
travellers!" And the shabby looking _porte-cochère_ gave no evidence of
the old Louis XV. mansion within, converted now into a series of offices,
all but the top flooring looking on to the gardens of the _Ministère_.

Verisschenzko had taken it for its situation and its isolation, and had
converted it into a thing of great beauty of panelling and rare pictures
and the most comfortable chairs. There was absolute silence, too, there
among the tree tops.

Madame Boleski ascended leisurely the shallow stairs--there was no
lift--and rang her three short rings, which Peter, the Russian servant,
was accustomed to expect. The door was opened at once, and she was taken
through the quaint square hall into the master's own sitting-room, a
richly sombre place of oak boiserie and old crimson silk.

Verisschenzko was writing and just glanced up while he murmured
Napoleon's famous order to Mademoiselle George--but Harietta Boleski
pushed out her full underlip and sat down in a deep armchair.

"No--not this evening, I have only a moment. I have merely come, Stépan,
you darling, to tell you that I have something interesting to say."

"Not possible!" and he carefully sealed down a letter he had been writing
and put it ready to be posted. Then he came over and took some
cigarettes from a Faberger enamel box and offered her one.

Harietta smoked most of the day but she refused now.

"You have come, not for pleasure, but to talk! Sapristi! I am duly
amazed!"

Another woman would have been insulted at the tone and the insinuation in
the words, but not so Harietta. She did not pretend to have a brain, that
was one of her strong points, and she understood and appreciated the
crudest methods, so long as their end was for the pleasure of herself.

She nodded, and that was all.

Verisschenzko threw himself into the opposite chair, his yellow-green
eyes full of a mocking light.

"I have seen a brooch even finer than the ruby ring at Cartier's
just now--I thought perhaps if I were very pleased with you, it
might be yours."

Harietta bounded from her chair and sat upon his knee.

"You perfect angel, Stépan, I adore you!" she said. He did not return the
caresses at all, but just ordered:

"Now talk."

She spoke rapidly, and he listened intently. He was weighing her words
and searching into their truth. He decided that for some reason of her
own she was not lying--and in any case it did not matter if she were not,
because he had resources at his command which would enable him to test
the information, and if it were true it would be worth the brooch.

"She has been wounded in some way, probably physically, since nothing
less material would affect her. Physically and in her vanity--but who can
have done it?" the Russian asked himself. "Who is her German
correspondent? This I must discover--but since it is the first time she
has knowingly given me information, it proves some revenge in her goat's
brain. Now is the time to obtain the most."

He encircled her with his arm and kissed her with less contemptuous
brutality than usual, and he told her that she was a lovely creature, and
the desire of all men--while he appeared to attach little importance to
the information she vouchsafed, asking no questions and re-lighting a
cigarette. This forced her to be more explicit, and at last all that she
meant to communicate was exposed.

"You imagine things, my child," he scoffed. "I would have to have
proof--and then if it all should be as you say. Why, that brooch must be
yours--for I know that it is out of real love for me that you talk, and I
always pay lavishly for--love."

"Indeed, you know that I adore you, Stépan--and that brooch is just what
I want. Stanislass has been niggardly beyond words to me lately, and I am
tired of all my other things."

"Bring me some proof to the reception to-night. I am not dining, but I
shall be there by eleven for a few moments."

She agreed, and then rose to go--but she pouted again and the convex
_obstiné_ curve below her under lip seemed to obtrude itself.

"She has gone back to England--your precious bride--I suppose?"

"She has."

"We shall all meet there in a week or so--Stanislass is going to see some
of his boring countrymen in London--the conference you know about--and
we have taken a house in Grosvenor Square for some months. I do not know
many people yet--will you see to it that I do?"

"I will see that you have as many of these handsome Englishmen as will
completely keep your hands full."

She laughed delightedly.

"But it is women I want; the men I can always get for myself."

"Fear nothing, your reception will be great."

Then she flung herself into his arms and embraced him, and then moved
towards the door.

"I will telephone to Cartier in the morning," and Verisschenzko opened
the door for her, "if you bring me some interesting proof of your love
for me--to-night."

And when she had gone he took up his letter again
and looked at the address,

_To_
Lady Ardayre,
_Ardayre Chase,
North Somerset,
Angleterre_.

"I must keep to the things of the spirit with you, precious lady. And
when I cannot subdue it, there is Harietta for the flesh--wough! but she
sickens me--even for that!"




CHAPTER VI


Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
hostess, and was much admired in the world.

Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
visiting list with care.

Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.

They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Opéra, or the
Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.

"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.

John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.

Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!

A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
the world.

Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
the spirit of the time.

She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
any hostess's success!

Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
information she was forced to collect.

Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
preoccupation.

Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
give a ball.

"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."

So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.

None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
to be the greatest success.

Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.

"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"

Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.

"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."

Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
serious things at the Montivacchini hôtel. She had need of the counsel
he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
lustre to her soul.

Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
advance towards this goal.

He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
soft gloom.

"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
has gone further to sleep."

"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.

"Tell me about it."

"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."

Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.

"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
good that you live while you can."

"What things?"

"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
her London rôle?"

"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
coming to mine at Ardayre."

Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
sardonically whimsical than his smile.

"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."

"They are both coming on the twenty-third."

"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
Family house!"

"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
pictures. It means so much to John."

"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".

Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
in her eyes.

"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"

"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
husband, you know."

The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
Russian's unusual views.

"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.

"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
almost as _déséquilibré_ as the rest of the world."

"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."

"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
wait--and watch."

"If we had a new religion?"

"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."

"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
things divine!"

"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."

Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.

Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
appearances to any one who has developed intuition."

"How I wish I could learn to have that!"

"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."

Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
which had meant nothing to her until now.

"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
morphine _piqûres_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
drawing spiritual ills as well."

"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."

"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
them, all around us."

"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
for the vampires beyond to exist on."

"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.

"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."

"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."

"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"

He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"

"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"

They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.

"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."

His queer, husky voice took on a new note.

"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."

Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.

"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."

Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.

"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.

Verisschenzko laughed.

"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"

Amaryllis felt a number of things.

"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."

"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
must fulfil this rôle. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
beyond to exist on."

"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.

"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."

"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."

"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"

He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"

"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"

They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.

"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."

His queer, husky voice took on a new note.

"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."

Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.

"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."

Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.

"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.

Verisschenzko laughed.

"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"

Amaryllis felt a number of things.

"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."

"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
this rôle. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."

"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"

"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."

"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."

"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
view of the case."

"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
people--common sense."

Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
exquisite women.

"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."

Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!

"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."

"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"

"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
that he likes her clothes!"

Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
with John!

They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.

As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
hopeless then--I feared so--"

He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
down the stairs.

"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"

He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
Denzil Ardayre!

"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
I run into you!"

They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
Verisschenzko said:

"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
affair is going well?"

"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"

"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
I think it were wise."

Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
hesitate when attracted by a woman--

"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"

"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.

"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
the best."

Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.

"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
could ever have any power over me!"

Denzil smiled--Stépan was such a mixture of tenderness and
complete savagery.

"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
But you belie it, old boy!"

"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
not attain!"

"And you have attained."

"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"

"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
what interested him most:

"You think Europe will be blazing soon, Stépan? I have wondered myself in
the last month if this hectic peace could continue."

"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."

The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:

"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
another year."

"Yes--I would if I were you."

They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.

"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
like to have seen the whole thing."

"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."

"Had she ever any children?"

Verisschenzko crossed himself.

"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"

"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
things in selecting a wife!"

"You will not marry yet--no?"

"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."

"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
direct heir."

"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"

Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:

"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"




CHAPTER VII


Lady de la Paule really felt proud of her niece; the party at Ardayre was
progressing so perfectly. The guests had all arrived in time for the ball
at Bridgeborough Castle on the twenty-third of July and had assisted next
day at the garden party, and then a large dinner at Ardayre, and now on
the last night of their stay Amaryllis' own ball was to take place.

All the other big country houses round were filled also, and nothing
could have been gayer or more splendidly done than the whole thing.

John Ardayre had been quite enthusiastic about all the arrangements,
taking the greatest pride in settling everything which could add lustre
to his Amaryllis' success as a hostess.

The quantities of servants, the perfectly turned-out motors--the
wonderful chef--all had been his doing, and when most of the party had
retired to their rooms for a little rest before dinner on the
twenty-fifth, the evening of the ball, Lady de la Paule and John's
friend, Lady Avonwier, congratulated him, as he sat with them, the last
ladies remaining, under the great copper beech tree on the lawn which led
down to the lake.

"Everything has been perfect, has it not, Mabella?" Lady Avonwier said.
"I have even been converted about your marvellous Madame Boleski! I
confess I have avoided her all the season, because we Americans are far
more exclusive than you English people in regard to whom we know of our
own countrywomen, and no one would receive such a person in New York, but
she is so luridly stupid, and such a decoration, that I quite agree you
were right to invite her, John."

"She seems to me charming," Lady de la Paule confessed. "Not the least
pretension, and her clothes are marvellous. You are abominably severe,
Etta. I am quite sure if she wanted to she could succeed in New York."

"Mabella, you simple creature! She just cajoles you all the time--she has
specialised in cajoling important great ladies! No American would be
taken in by her, and we resent it in our country when an outsider like
that barges in. But here, I admit, since she provides us with amusement,
I have no objection to accepting her, as I would a new nigger band, and
shall certainly send her a card for my fancy ball next week."

John Ardayre chuckled softly.

"That sound indicates?"--and Etta Avonwier flashed at him her lovely
clever eyes.

John Ardayre did not answer in words, but both women joined in his smile.

"Yes, we are worldlings," Lady Avonwier admitted, "just measuring people
up for what they can give us, it is the only way though when the whole
thing is such a rush!"

"I am so sorry for the poor husband," and Lady de la Paule's fat voice
was kindly. "He does look such a wretched, cadaverous thing, with that
black beard and those melancholy black eyes, and emaciated face. Do you
think she beats him when they are alone?"

"Who knows? She is so primitive, she may be capable even of that!"

"Her clothes are not primitive," and John Ardayre lighted a cigarette.
"I don't think she really can be such a fool."

"I never suggested that she was a fool at all!" Lady Avonwier was
decisive. "No one can be a fool who is as tenacious as she is--fools
are vague people, who let things go. She is merely illiterate and
stupid as an owl."

"I like your distinction between stupidity and foolishness!" John Ardayre
often argued with Lady Avonwier; they were excellent friends.

"A stupid person is often a great rest and arrives--a fool makes one
nervous and loses the game. But who is that walking with Amaryllis at the
other side of the lake?"

John Ardayre looked up, and on over the water to the glory of the beech
trees on the rising slope of the park, and there saw moving at the edge
of them his wife and Verisschenzko, accompanied by two of the great
tawny dogs.

"Oh! it is the interesting Russian whom we met in Paris, where all the
charming ladies were supposed to be in love with him. He was to have come
down for the whole three days. I suppose these Russian and Austrian
rumours detained him, he has only arrived for to-night."

       *       *       *       *       *

And across the lake Amaryllis was saying to Verisschenzko in her soft
voice, deep as all the Ardayre voices were deep:

"I have brought you here so that you may get the best view of the
house. I think, indeed, that it is very beautiful from over the water,
do not you?"

Verisschenzko remained silent for a moment. His face was altered in this
last week; it looked haggard and thinner, and his peculiar eyes were
concentrated and intense.

He took in the perfect picture of this English stately home, with its
Henry VII centre and watch towers, and gabled main buildings, and the
Queen Anne added Square--all mellowed and amalgamated into a whole of
exquisite beauty and dignity in the glow of the setting sun.

"How proud you should be of such possessions, you English. The
accumulation of centuries, conserved by freedom from strife. It is no
wonder you are so arrogant! You could not be if you had only memories, as
we have, of wooden barracks up to a hundred and fifty years ago, and
drunkenness and orgies, and beating of serfs. This is the picture our
country houses call up--any of the older ones which have escaped being
burnt. But here you have traditions of harmony and justice and
obligations to the people nobody fulfilled." And then he took his hat off
and looked up into the golden sky:

"May nothing happen to hurt England, and may we one day be as free."

A shiver ran through Amaryllis--but something kept her silent; she
divined that her friend's mood did not desire speech from her yet. He
spoke again and earnestly a moment or two afterwards.

"Lady of my soul--I am going away to-morrow into a frenzied turmoil. I
have news from my country, and I must be in the centre of events; we do
not know what will come of it all. I come down to-day at great sacrifice
of time to bid you farewell. It may be that I shall never see you again,
though I think that I shall; but should I not, promise me that you will
remain my star unsmirched by the paltriness of the world, promise me that
you will live up to the ideal of this noble home--that you will develop
your brain and your intuition, that you will be forceful and filled with
common sense. I would like to have moulded your spiritual being, and
brought you to the highest, but it is not for me, perhaps, in this
life--another will come. See that you live worthily."

Amaryllis was deeply moved.

"Indeed, I will try. I have seen so little of you, but I feel that I have
known you always, and--yes--even I feel that it is true what you said,"
and she grew rosy with a sweet confusion--"that we were--lovers--I am so
ignorant and undeveloped, not advanced like you, but when you speak you
seem to awaken memories; it is as though a transitory light gleamed in
dark places, and I receive flashes of understanding, and then it grows
obscured again, but I will try to seize and hold it--indeed, I will try
to do as you would wish."

They both looked ahead, straight at the splendid house, and then
Amaryllis looked at Verisschenzko and it seemed as though his face were
transfigured with some inward light.

"Strange things are coming, child, the cauldron has boiled over, and we
do not know what the stream may engulf. Think of this evening in the days
which will be, and remember my words."

His voice vibrated, but he did not look at her, but always across the
lake at the house.

"Whenever you are in doubt as to the wisdom of a decision between two
courses--put them to the test of which, if you follow it, will enable you
to respect your own soul. Never do that which the inward You despises."

"And if both courses look equally good and it is merely a question of
earthly benefit?"

Verisschenzko smiled.

"Never be vague. There is an Arab proverb which says: Trust in God but
tie up your camel."

The setting sun was throwing its last gleams upon the windows of the high
tower. Nothing more beautiful or impressive could have been imagined than
the scene. The velvet lawn sloping down to the lake, with a group of
trees to the right among which nestled the tiny cruciform ancient church,
while in the distance, on all sides, stretched the vast, gloriously
timbered park.

Verisschenzko gazed at the wonder of it, and his yellow-green eyes were
wide with the vision it created in his brain.

No--this should never go to the bastard Ferdinand, whose life in
Constantinople was a disgrace. This record of fine living and achievement
of worthy Ardayres should remain the glory of the true blood.

He turned and looked at Amaryllis at his side, so slender, and strong,
and young--and he said:

"It is necessary above all things that you cultivate a steadiness and
clearness of judgment, which will enable you to see the great aim in a
thing, and not be hampered by sentimental jingo and convention, which is
a danger when a nature is as good and true, but as undeveloped, as yours.
Whatever circumstance should arise in your life, in relation to the trust
you hold for this family and this home, bring the keenest common sense to
bear upon the matter, and keep the end, that you must uphold it and pass
it on resplendent, in view."

Amaryllis felt that he was transmitting some message to her. His eyes
were full of inspiration and seemed to see beyond.

What message? She refrained from asking. If he had meant her to
understand more fully he would have told her plainly. Light would come in
its own time.

"I promise," was all she said.

They looked at the great tower; the sun had left some of the windows and
in one they could see the figure of a woman standing there in some light
dressing-gown.

"That is Harietta Boleski," Verisschenzko remarked, his mood changing,
and that penetrating and yet inscrutable expression growing in his
regard. "It is almost too far away to be certain, but I am sure that it
is she. Am I right? Is that window in her room?"

"Yes--how wonderful of you to be able to recognise her at that distance!"

"Of what is she thinking?--if one can call her planning thoughts! She
does not gaze at views to appreciate the loveliness of the landscape;
figures in the scene are all which could hold her attention--and those
figures are you and me."

"Why should we interest her?"

"There are one or two reasons why we should. I think after all you must
be very careful of her. I believe if she stays on in England you had
better not let the acquaintance increase."

"Very well." Amaryllis again did not question him; she felt he knew best.

"She has been most successful here, and at the Bridgeborough ball she
amused herself with a German officer, and left the other women's men
alone. He was brought by the party from Broomgrove and was most
_empressé;_ he got introduced to her at once--just after we came in. I
expect they will bring him to-night. He and she looked such a magnificent
pair, dancing a quadrille. It was quite a serious ball to begin with!
None of those dances of which you disapprove, and all the Yeomanry wore
their uniforms and the German officer wore his too."

"He was a fine animal, then?"

"Yes--but?"

"You said _a pair_--only an animal could make a pair with Harietta!
Describe him to me. What was he like? And what uniform did he wear?"

Amaryllis gave a description, of height, and fairness, and of the blue
and gold coat.

"He would have been really good-looking, only that to our eyes his hips
are too wide."

"It sounds typically German--there are hundreds such there--some ordinary
Prussian Infantry regiment, I expect. You say he was introduced to
Harietta? They were not old friends--no?"

"I heard him ask Mrs. Nordenheimer, his hostess, who she was, in his
guttural voice, and Mrs. Nordenheimer came up to me and presented him and
asked me to introduce him to my guest. So I did. The Nordenheimers are
those very rich German Jews who bought Broomgrove Park some years ago.
Every one receives them now."

"And how did Harietta welcome this partner?"

"She looked a little bored, but afterwards they danced several times
together."

"Ah!"--and that was all Verisschenzko said, but his thoughts ran: "An
infantry officer--not a large enough capture for Harietta to waste time
on in a public place--when she is here to advance herself. She danced
with him because _she was obliged to_. I must ascertain who this man is."

Amaryllis saw that he was preoccupied. They walked on now and round
through the shrubbery on the left, and so at last to the house again.
Amaryllis could not chance being late.

Verisschenzko recovered from his abstraction presently and talked of
many things--of the friendship of the soul, and how it can only thrive
after there has been in some life a physical passionate love and fusion
of the bodies.

"I want to think that we have reached this stage, Lady mine. My mission
on this plane now is so fierce a one, and the work which I must do is so
absorbing, that I must renounce all but transient physical pleasures. But
I must keep some radiant star as my lodestone for spiritual delights, and
ever since we met and spoke at the Russian Embassy it seems as though
step by step links of memory are awakening and comforting me with
knowledge of satisfied desire in a former birth, so that now our souls
can rise to rarer things. I can even see another in the earthly relation
which once was mine, without jealousy. Child, do you feel this too?"

"I do not know quite what I feel," and Amaryllis looked down, "but I will
try to show you that I am learning to master my emotions, by thinking
only of sympathy between our spirits."

"It is well--"

Then they reached the house and entered the green drawing-room in the
Queen Anne Square, by one of the wide open windows, and there Amaryllis
held out her two slim hands to Verisschenzko.

"Think of me sometimes, even amidst your turmoil," she whispered, "and I
shall feel your ambience uplifting my spirit and my will."

"Lady of my Soul!" he cried, exalted once more, and he bent as though to
kiss her hands, but straightened himself and threw them gently from him.

"No! I will resist all temptations! Now you must dress and dine, and
dance, and do your duty--and later we will say farewell."

Harietta Boleski stamped across her charming chintz chamber in the great
tower. She was like an angry wolf in the Zoo, she burst with rage.
Verisschenzko had never walked by lakes with her, nor bent over with that
air of devotion.

"He loves that hateful bit of bread and butter! But I shall crush her
yet--and Ferdinand Ardayre will help me!"

Then she rang her bell violently for Marie, while she kicked aside
Fou-Chow, who had travelled to England as an adjunct to her beauty,
concealed in a cloak. His minute body quivered with pain and fear, and he
looked up at her reproachfully with his round Chinese idol's eyes, then
he hid under a chair, where Marie found him trembling presently and
carried him surreptitiously to her room.

"My angel," she told him as they went along the passage, "that she-devil
will kill thee one day, unless happily I can place thee in safety first.
But if she does, then I will murder for myself! What has caused her fury
tonight, some one has spoilt her game."

In the oak-panelled smoking room, deserted by all but these two,
Verisschenzko spoke to Stanislass, hastily, and in his own tongue.

"The news is of vital importance, Stanislass. You must return with me to
London; of all things you must show energy now and hold your men
together. I leave in the morning. You hesitate!--impossible!--Harietta
keeps you! Bah!--then I wash my hands of you and Poland. Weakling! to
let a woman rule you. Well; if you choose thus, you can go by yourself
to hell. I have done with you." And he strode from the room, looking
more Calmuck and savage than ever in his just wrath. And when he had
gone the second husband of Harietta leant forward and buried his head in
his hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

The picture Gallery made a brilliant setting for that gallant company! A
collection of England's best, dancing their hardest to a stirring band,
which sang when the tune of some popular Révue chorus came in.

"The Song of the Swan," Verisschenzko thought as he observed it all in
the last few minutes before midnight. He must go away soon. A messenger
had arrived in hot haste from London, motoring beyond the speed limit,
and as soon as his servant had packed his things he must return and not
wait for the morning. All relations between Austria and Servia had been
broken off, the conflagration had begun, and no time must be wasted
further. He must be in Russia as soon as it was possible to get there. He
blamed himself for coming down.

"And yet it was as well," he reflected, because he had become awakened in
regard to possible double dealing in Harietta. But where were his host
and hostess--he must bid them farewell.

John Ardayre was valsing with Lady Avonwier and Harietta Boleski
undulated in the arms of the tall German who had come with the party from
Broomgrove--but Amaryllis for the moment was absent from the room.

"If I could only know who the beast is before I go, and where she has met
him previously!" Verisschenzko's thoughts ran. "It is more than ever
necessary that I master her--and there is so little time."

He waited for a few seconds, the dance was almost done, and when the
last notes of music ceased and the throng of people swept towards him, he
fixed Harietta with his eye.

Her evening so far had not been agreeable. She had not been able to have
a word with Stépan, who had been far from her at the banquet before the
ball. She was torn with jealousy of Amaryllis; and the advent of Hans,
when she would have wished to have been free to re-grab Verisschenzko,
was most unfortunate. It had not been altogether pleasant, his turning up
at Bridgeborough, but at any rate that one evening was quite enough! She
really could not be wearied with him more!

His new instructions to her from the higher command were most annoyingly
difficult too--coming at a time when her whole mind was given to
consolidating her position in England,--it was really too bad!

If only the tiresome bothers of these stupid old quarrelsome countries
did not upset matters, she just meant to make Stanislass shut up his ugly
old Polish home, and settle in some splendid country house like this,
only nearer London. Now that she had seen what life was in England, she
knew that this was her goal. No bothersome old other language to be
learned! Besides, no men were so good-looking as the English, or made
such safe and prudent lovers, because they did not boast. If any
information she had been able to collect for Hans in the last year had
helped his Ober-Lords to stir up trouble, she was almost sorry she had
given it--unless indeed, ructions between those ridiculous southern
countries made it so that she could remain in England, then it was a good
thing. And Hans had assured her that England could not be dragged in.
Then she laughed to herself as she always did if Hans coerced her--when
she recollected how she had given his secrets away to Verisschenzko and
that no matter how he seemed to compel her obedience, she was even with
him underneath!

She looked now at the Russian standing there, so tall and ugly, and
weirdly distinguished, and a wild passionate desire for him overcame her,
as primitive as one a savage might have felt. At that moment she almost
hated her late husband, for she dared not speak to Verisschenzko with
Hans there. She must wait until Verisschenzko spoke to her. Hans could
not prevent that, nor accuse her of disobeying his command. So that it
was with joy that she saw the Russian approach her. She did not know that
he was leaving suddenly, and she was wondering if some meeting could not
be arranged for later on, when Hans would be gone.

"Good evening, Madame!" Verisschenzko said suavely. "May I not have the
pleasure of a turn with you; it is delightful to meet you again."

Harietta slipped her hand out of Hans' arm and stood still, determined to
secure Stépan at once since the chance had come.

Verisschenzko divined her intention and continued, his voice serious with
its mock respect:

"I wonder if I could persuade you to come with me and find your husband.
You know the house and I do not. I have something I want to talk to him
about if you won't think me a great bore taking you from your partner,"
and he bowed politely to Hans.

Harietta introduced them casually, and then said archly:

"I am sure you will excuse me, Captain von Pickelheim. And don't forget
you have the first one-step after supper!" So Hans was dismissed with a
ravishing smile.

Verisschenzko had watched the German covertly and saw that with all his
forced stolidity an angry gleam had come into his eyes.

"They have certainly met before--and he knows me--I must somehow make
time," then, aloud:

"You are looking a dream of beauty to-night, Harietta," he told her as
they walked across the hall. "Is there not some quiet corner in the
garden where we can be alone for a few minutes. You drive me mad."

Harietta loved to hear this, and in triumph she raised her head and drew
him into one of the sitting-rooms, and so out of the open windows on into
the darkness beyond the limitations of the lawn.

Twenty minutes afterwards Verisschenzko entered the house alone, a grim
smile of satisfaction upon his rugged countenance. Jealousy, acting on
animal passion, had been for once as productive of information as a ruby
ring or brooch--and what a remarkable type Harietta! Could there be
anything more elemental on the earth! Meanwhile this lady had gained the
ball-room by another door, delighted with her adventure, and the thought
that she had tricked Hans!

"Have you seen our hostess, Madame?" the Russian asked, meeting Lady de
la Paule. "I have been looking for her everywhere. Is not this a
charming sight?"

They stayed and talked for a few minutes, watching the joyous company of
dancers, among whom Amaryllis could now be seen. Verisschenzko wished to
say farewell to her when the one-step should be done. They would all be
going into supper, and then would be his chance. He could not delay
longer--he must be gone.

He was paying little attention to what Lady de la Paule was saying--her
fat voice prattled on:

"I hope these tiresome little quarrels of the Balkan peoples will settle
themselves. If Austria should go to war with Servia, it may upset my
Carlsbad cure."

Then he laughed out suddenly, but instantly checked himself.

"That would be too unfortunate, Madame, we must not anticipate such
preposterous happenings!"

And as he walked forward to meet Amaryllis his face was set:

"Half the civilised world thinks thus of things. The sinister events in
the Balkans convey no suggestions of danger, and only matter in that
they could upset a Carlsbad cure! Alas! how sound asleep these splendid
people are!"

He met Amaryllis and briefly told her that he must go. She left her
partner and came with him to the foot of the staircase, which led
to his room.

"Good-bye, and God keep you," she said feelingly, but she noticed that he
did not even offer to take her hand.

"All blessings, my Star," and his voice was hoarse, then he turned
abruptly and went on up the stairs. But when he reached the landing above
he paused, and looked down at her, moving away among the throng.

"Sweet Lady of my Soul," he whispered softly. "After Harietta I could not
soil--even thy glove!"




CHAPTER VIII


Events moved rapidly. Of what use to write of those restless, feverish
days before the 4th of August, 1914? They are too well known to all the
world. John, as ever, did his duty, and at once put his name down for
active service, cajoled a medical board which would otherwise probably
have condemned him and trained with the North Somerset Yeomanry in
anticipation of being soon sent to France. But before all this happened,
the night War was declared; he remained in his own sitting-room at
Ardayre, and Amaryllis wondered, and towards dawn crept out of bed and
listened in the passage, but no sound came from within the room.

How very unsatisfactory this strange reserve between them was becoming!
Would she never be able to surmount it? Must they go on to the end of
their lives, living like two polite friendly acquaintances, neither
sharing the other's thoughts? She hardly realised that the War could
personally concern John. The Yeomanry, she imagined, were only for home
defence, so at this stage no anxiety troubled her about her husband.

The next day he seemed frightfully preoccupied, and then he talked to her
seriously of their home and its traditions, and how she must love it and
understand its meaning. He spoke too of his great wish for a child--and
Amaryllis wondered at the tone almost of anguish in his voice.

"If only we had a son, Amaryllis, I would not care what came to me. A
true Ardayre to carry on! The thought of Ferdinand here after me drives
me perfectly mad!"

Amaryllis knew not what to answer. She looked down and clasped her hands.

John came quite close and gazed into her face, as if therein some comfort
could be found; then he folded her in his arms.

"Oh! Amaryllis!" he said, and that was all.

"What is it? Oh! what does everything mean?" the poor child cried. "Why,
why can't we have a son like other people of our age?"

John kissed her again.

"It shall be--it must be so," he answered--and framed her face in
his hands.

"Amaryllis--I know you have often wondered whether I really loved you.
You have found me a stupid, unsatisfactory sort of husband--indeed, I am
but a dull companion at the best of times. Well, I want you to know that
I do--and I am going to try to change, dear little girl. If I knew that I
held some corner of your heart it would comfort me."

"Of course, you do, John. Alas! if you would only unbend and be loving to
me, how happy we could be."

He kissed her once more. "I will try."

That afternoon he went up to London to his medical board, and Amaryllis
was to join him in Brook Street on the following day.

She was stunned like every one else. War seemed a nightmare--an
unreality--she had not grasped its meaning as yet. She thought of
Verisschenzko and his words. What was her duty? Surely at a great crisis
like this she must have some duty to do?

The library in Brook Street was a comfortable room and was always their
general sitting-room; its windows looked out on the street.

That evening when John Ardayre arrived he paced up and down it for
half an hour. He was very pale and lines of thought were stamped
upon his brow.

He had come to a decision; there only remained the details of a course of
action to be arranged.

He went to the telephone and called up the Cavalry Club. Yes, Captain
Ardayre was in, and presently Denzil's voice said surprisedly:

"Hullo!"

"I heard by chance that you were in town. I suppose your regiment will be
going out at once. It is your cousin, John Ardayre, speaking, we have not
met since you were a boy. I have something rather vital I want to say to
you. Could you possibly come round?"

The two voices were so alike in tone it was quite remarkable, each was
aware of it as he listened to the other.

"Where are you, and what is the time?".

"I am in our house in Brook Street, number 102, and it is nearly seven.
Could you manage to come now?"

There was a second or two's pause, then Denzil said:

"All right. I will get into a taxi and be with you in about five
minutes," and he put the receiver down.

John Ardayre grew paler still, and sank into a chair. His hands were
trembling, this sign of weakness angered him and he got up and rang
the bell and ordered his valet who had come up with him, to bring him
some brandy.

Murcheson was an old and valued servant, and he looked at his master with
concern, but he knew him too to make any remark. If there was any one in
the world beyond the great surgeon, Lemon Bridges, who could understand
the preoccupations of John Ardayre, Murcheson was the man.

He brought the old Cognac immediately and retired from the room a
moment or two before Denzil arrived. Very little trace of emotion
remained upon the face of the head of the family when his cousin was
shown in, and he came forward cordially to meet him. Standing opposite
one another, they might have been brothers, not cousins, the
resemblance was so strong! Denzil was perhaps fairer, but their heads
were both small and their limbs had the same long lines. But where as
John Ardayre suggested undemonstrative stolidity, every atom of the
younger man was vitally alive.

His eyes were bluer, his hair more bronze, and exuberant perfect health
glowed in his tanned fresh skin.

Both their voices were peculiarly deep, with the pronunciation of the
words especially refined. John Ardayre said some civil things with
composure, and Denzil replied in kind, explaining how he had been
most anxious to meet John and Amaryllis and heal the breach the
fathers had made.

John offered him a cigar, and finally the atmosphere seemed to be
unfrozen as they smoked. But in Denzil's mind there was speculation. It
was not for just this that he had been asked to come round.

John began to speak presently with a note of deep seriousness in his
voice. He talked of the war and of his Yeomanry's going out, and of
Denzil's regiment also. It was quite on the cards that they might both be
killed--then he spoke of Ferdinand, and the old story of the shame, and
he told Denzil of his boyhood and its great trials, and of his
determination to redeem the family home and of the great luck which had
befallen him in the city after the South African War--and how that the
thought of worthily handing on the inheritance in the direct male line
had become the dominating desire of his life.

At first his manner had been very restrained, but gradually the intense
feeling which was vibrating in him made itself known, and Denzil grew
to realise how profound was his love for Ardayre and how great his
family pride.

But underneath all this some absolute agony must be wringing his soul.

Denzil became increasingly interested.

At last John seemed to have come to a very difficult part of his
narration; he got up from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the
room, then forced himself to sit down again and resume his original calm.

"I am going to trust you, Denzil, with something which matters far more
than my life." John looked Denzil straight in the eyes. "And I will
confide in you because you are next in the direct line. Listen very
carefully, please, it concerns your honour in the family as well as mine.
It would be too infamous to let Ardayre go to the bastard, Ferdinand, the
snake-charmer's son, if, as is quite possible, I shall be killed in the
coming time."

Denzil felt some strange excitement permeating him. What did these words
portend? Beads of perspiration appeared on John's forehead, and his voice
sunk so low that his cousin bent forward to be certain of hearing him.

Then John spoke in broken sentences, for the first time in his life
letting another share the thoughts which tortured him, but the time was
not for reticence. Denzil must understand everything so that he would
consent to a certain plan. At length, all that was in John's heart had
been made plain, and exhausted with the effort of his innermost being's
unburdenment, he sank back in his chair, deadly pale. The quiet, waiting
attitude in Denzil had given way to keenness, and more than once as he
listened to the moving narration he had emitted words of sympathy and
concern, but when the actual plan which John had evolved was unfolded to
him, and the part he was to play explained, he rose from his chair and
stood leaning on the high mantelpiece, an expression of excitement and
illumination on his strong, good-looking face.

"Do not say anything for a little," John said. "Think over everything
quietly. I am not asking you to do anything dishonourable--and however
much I had hated his mother I would not ask this of you if Ferdinand were
my father's son. You are the next real heir--Ferdinand could not be; my
father had never met the woman until a month before he married her, and
the baby arrived five months afterwards, at its full time. There was no
question of incubators or difficulties and special precautions to rear
him, nor was there any suggestion that he was a seven months' child. It
was only after years that I found out when my father first saw the woman,
but even before this proof there were many and convincing evidences that
Ferdinand was no Ardayre."

"One has only to look at the beast!" cried Denzil. "If the mother was a
Bulgarian, he's a mongrel Turk, there is not a trace of English blood in
his body!"

"Then surely you agree with me that it would be an infamy if he should
take the place of the head of the family, should I not survive?"

Denzil clenched his hands.

"There is no moral question attached, remember," John went on anxiously
before he could reply. "There is only the question of the law, which has
been tricked and defamed by my father, for the meanest ends of revenge
towards me--and now we--you and I--have the right to save the family and
its honour and circumvent the perfidy and weakness of that one man.
Oh!--can't you understand what this means to me, since for this trust of
Ardayre that I feel I must faithfully carry on, I am willing to--Oh!--my
God, I can't say it. Denzil, answer me--tell me that you look at it in
the same way as I do! You are of the family. It is your blood which
Ferdinand would depose--the disgrace would be yours then, since if
Ferdinand reigned I would have gone."

The two men were standing opposite one another, and both their faces were
pale and stern, but Denzil's blue eyes were blazing with some wonderful
new emotion, as they looked at John.

"Very well," he said, and held out his hand. "I appreciate the tremendous
faith you have placed in me, and on my word of honour as an Ardayre, I
will not abuse it, nor take advantage of it afterwards. My regiment will
go out at once, I suppose, the chances are as likely that I shall be
killed as you--"

They shook hands silently.

"We must lose no time."

Then John poured out two glasses of brandy, and the toast they drank was
unspoken. But suddenly Denzil remembered as a strange coincidence that he
was drinking it for the third time.

       *       *       *       *       *

Amaryllis arrived from Ardayre the next afternoon, after John's medical
board had been squared into pronouncing him fit for active service--and
he met his wife at the station and was particularly solicitous of her
well-being. He seemed to be unusually glad to see her, and put his arm
round her in the motor driving to Brook Street. What would she like to
do? They could not, of course, go to the theatre, but if she would rather
they could go out to a restaurant to dine--there were going to be all
kinds of difficulties about food. Amaryllis, who responded immediately to
the smallest advance on his part, glowed now with fond sweetness. She had
been so miserable without him; so crushed and upset by the thought of
war, and his possible participation in it. All the long night, alone at
Ardayre, she had tried to realise what it all would mean. It was too
stupendous, she could not grasp it as yet, it was just a blank horror.
And now to be in the motor and close to him, and everything ordinary and
as usual seemed to drive the hideous fact further and further away. She
would not face it for to-night, she would try to be happy and banish the
remembrance. No one knew what was happening, nor if the Expeditionary
Force had or had not crossed to France. John asked her again what she
would like to do.

She did not want to go out at all, she told him; if the kitchenmaid and
Murcheson could find them something to eat she would much rather dine
alone with him, like a regular old Darby and Joan pair--and afterwards
she would play nice things to him, and John agreed.

When she came down ready for dinner, she was radiant; she had put on a
new and ravishing tea-gown and her grey eyes were shining with a winsome
challenge, and her beautiful skin was brilliant with health and
freshness. A man could not have desired a more delectable creature to
call his own.

John thought so and at dinner expanded and told her so. He was not a
practised lover; women had played a very small part in his life--always
too filled with work and the one dominating idea to make room for them.
He had none of the tender graciousness ready at his command which
Denzil would very well have known how to show. But he loved Amaryllis,
and this was the first time he had permitted the expression of his
emotion to appear.

She became ever more fascinating, and at length unconscious passion grew
in her glance. John said some rather clumsy but loving things, and when
they went back to the library he slipped his arm round her, and drew her
to his side.

"I love to be near you, John," she whispered; "I like your being so tall
and so distinguished-looking. I like your clothes--they are so well
made--" and then she wrinkled her pretty nose--"and I adore the smell of
the stuff you put on your hair! Oh! I don't know--I just want to be in
your arms!"

John kissed her. "I must give you a bottle of that lotion--it is supposed
to do wonders for the hair. It was originally made by an old housekeeper
of my mother's family in the still room, and I have always kept the
receipt--there are cloves in it and some other aromatic herbs."

"Yes, that is what I smell, like a clove carnation--it is divine. I
wonder why scents have such an effect upon one--don't you? Perhaps I am a
very sensuous creature--they can make me feel wicked or good--some
scents make me deliciously intoxicated--that one of yours does--when I
get near you--I want you to hold me and kiss me--John."

Every fibre of John Ardayre's being quivered with pain. The cruel,
ironical bitterness of things.

"I've never smelt this same scent on any one else," she went on, rubbing
her soft cheek up and down against his shoulder in the most alluring way.
"I should know it anywhere for it means just my dear--John!"

He turned away on the pretence of getting a cigarette; he knew that his
eyes had filled with tears.

Then Murcheson came into the room with the coffee, and this made a
break--and he immediately asked her to play to him, and settled
himself in one of the big chairs. He was too much on the rack to
continue any more love-making then; "what might have been" caused too
poignant anguish.

He watched her delicate profile outlined against the curtain of green
silk. It was so pure and young--and her long throat was white as milk. If
this time next year she should have a child--a son--and he, not killed,
but sitting there perhaps watching her holding it. How would he feel
then? Would the certainty of having an Ardayre carry on heal the wild
rebellion in his soul?

"Ah, God!" he prayed, "take away all feeling--reward this sacrifice--let
the family go on."

"You don't think you will have really to go to the war, do you, John?"
Amaryllis asked after she left the piano. "It will be all over, won't it,
before the New Year, and in any case the Yeomanry are only for home
defence, aren't they?" and she took a low seat and rested her head
against his arm.

John stroked her hair.

"I am afraid it will not be over for a long time, Amaryllis. Yes, I
think we shall go out and pretty soon. You would not wish to stop
me, child?"

Amaryllis looked straight in front of her.

"What is this thing in us, John, which makes us feel that--yes, we
would give our nearest and dearest, even if they must be killed? When
the big thing comes even into the lives which have been perhaps all
frivolous like mine--it seems to make a great light. There is an
exaltation, and a pity, and a glory, and a grief, but no holding back.
Is that patriotism, John?"

"That is one name for it, darling."

"But it is really beyond that in this war, because we are not going to
fight for England, but for right. I think that feeling that we must give
is some oblation of the soul which has freed itself from the chains of
the body at last. For so many years we have all been asleep."

"This is a rude awakening."

They were silent for a little while, each busy with unusual thoughts.

There was a sense of nearness between them--of understanding, new and
dangerously sweet.

Amaryllis felt it deliciously, sensuously, and took joy in that she was
touching him.

John thrust it away.

"I must get through to-night," he thought, "but I cannot if this hideous
pain of knowledge of what I must renounce conquers me--I must be strong."

He went on stroking her hair; it made her thrill and she turned and bit
one of his fingers playfully with a wicked little laugh.

"I wish I knew what I am feeling, John," she whispered, and her eyes were
aflame, "I wish I knew--"

"I must teach you!" and with sudden fierceness he bent down and
kissed her lips.

Then he told her to go to bed.

"You must be tired, Amaryllis, after your journey. Go like a good child."

She pouted. She was all vibrating with some totally new and overmastering
emotion. She wanted to stay and be made love to. She wanted--she knew not
what, only everything in her was thrilling with passionate warmth.

"Must I? It is only ten."

"I have a frightful lot of business things to write tonight, Amaryllis.
Go now and sleep, and I will come and wake you about twelve!" He looked
lover-like. She sighed.

"Ah! if you would only come now!"

He kissed her almost roughly again and led her to the door. And he stood
watching her with burning eyes as she went up the stairs.

Then he came back and rang the bell.

"I shall be very late, Murcheson--do not sit up, I will turn out the
lights. Good-night."

"Very good, Sir John."

And the valet left the room.

But John Ardayre did not write any business letters; he sank back into
his great leather chair--his lips were trembling, and presently sobs
shook him, and he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

Just before twelve had struck, he went out into the hall, and turned off
the light at the main. The whole house would now be in absolute darkness
but for an electric torch he carried. He listened--there was not a sound.

Then he crept quietly up to his dressing room and returned with a bottle
of the clove-scented hair lotion.

"What a mercy she spoke of it," his thoughts ran. "How sensitive women
are--I should never have remembered such a thing."

Yes--now there was a sound.

       *       *       *       *       *

Midnight had struck--and Amaryllis, sleeping peacefully, had been
dreaming of John.

"Oh! dearest," she whispered drowsily, as but half awakened, she felt
herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms--"Oh!--you know I love
that scent of cloves--Oh!--I love you, John!"




CHAPTER IX


When Amaryllis awoke in the morning her head rested on John's breast, and
his arm encircled her. She raised herself on her elbow and looked at him.
He was still asleep--and his face was infinitely sad. She bent over and
kissed him with shy tenderness, but he did not move, he only sighed
heavily as he lay there.

Why should he look so sad, when they were so happy?

She thought of loving things he had said to her at dinner--and then the
afterwards!--and she thrilled with emotion. Life seemed a glorious thing
and--But John was sad, of course, because he must go away. The
recollection of this fact came upon her suddenly like a blast of cold
air. They must part. War hung there with its hideous shadow, and John
must be conscious of it even in his dreams, that was why he sighed.

The irony of things--now--when--Oh! how cruel that he must go.

Then John awoke with a shudder, and saw her there leaning over him with a
new soft love light in her eyes, and he realised that the anguish of his
calvary had only just begun.

She was perfectly exquisite at breakfast, a fresh and tender graciousness
radiated in her every glance; she was subtle and captivating, teasing him
that he had been so silent in the night. "Why wouldn't you talk to me,
John? But it was all divine, I did not mind." Then she became full of
winsome ways and caresses, which she had hitherto been too timid to
express; and every fond word she spoke stabbed John's heart.

Could she not come and stay somewhere near so as to be with him while he
was in training? It was unbearable to remain alone.

But he told her that this would be impossible and that she must go back
to Ardayre.

"I will get leave, if there is a chance, dear little girl."

"Oh! John, you must indeed."

After he had gone out to the War Office, she sang as she undid a bundle
of late roses he had sent her from Soloman's, on his way.

She must herself put them in water; no servant should have this pleasing
task. Was it the thought of the imminence of separation which had altered
John into so dear a lover? She went over his words there in the library.
She relived the joy of his sudden fierce kiss, when he had said that he
must teach her as to what her emotions meant.

Ah! how good to learn, how all glorious was life and love!

"Sweetheart," the word rang in her ears. He had never called her that
before! Indeed, John rarely ever used any term of endearment, and never
got beyond "Dear" or "Darling" before. But now it was an exquisite
remembrance! Just the murmured word "Sweetheart!" whispered softly again
and again in the night.

John came back to lunch, but two of the de la Paule family dropped in
also, and the talk was all of war, and the difficulty of getting money at
the banks, and how food would go on, and what the whole thing would mean.

But over Amaryllis some spell had fallen--nothing seemed a reality, she
could not attend to ordinary things, she felt that she but moved and
spoke as one still in a dream.

The world, and life, and death, and love, were all a blended mystery
which was but beginning to unravel for her and drew her nearer to John.

The days went on apace.

John in camp thanked God for the strenuous work of his training that it
kept him so occupied that he had barely time to think of Amaryllis or the
tragedy of things. When he had left her on the following afternoon, the
seventh of August, she had returned to Ardayre alone and began the
knitting and shirt-making and amateurish hospital committees which all
well-meaning English women vaguely grasped at before the stern
necessities brought them organised work to do. Amaryllis wrote constantly
to John--all through August--and many of the letters contained loving
allusions which made him wince with pain.

Then the awful news came of Mons, then the Marne--and the Aisne--awful
and glorious, and a hush and mourning fell over the land, and Amaryllis,
like every one else, lost interest in all personal things for a time.

A young cousin had been killed and many of her season's partners and
friends, and now she knew that the North Somerset Yeomanry would shortly
go out and fight as they had volunteered at once. She was very
miserable. But when September grew, in spite of all this general sorrow,
a new horizon presented itself, lit up as if by approaching dawn, for a
hope had gradually developed--a hope which would mean the rejoicing of
John's heart.

And the day when first this possibility of future fulfilment was
pronounced a certainty was one of almost exalted beatitude, and when
Doctor Geddis drove away down the Northern Avenue, Amaryllis seized a
coat from the folded pile of John's in the hall, and walked out into the
park hatless, the wind blowing the curly tendrils of her soft brown hair,
a radiance not of earth in her eyes. The late September sun was sinking
and gilding the windows of the noble house, and she turned and looked
back at it when she was far across the lake.

And the whole of her spirit rose in thankfulness to God, while her soul
sang a glad magnificat.

She, too, might hand on this great and splendid inheritance! She, too,
would be the mother of Ardayres!

And now to write to John!

That was a fresh pleasure! What would he say? What would he feel? Dear
John! His letters had been calm and matter of fact, but that was his way.
She did not mind it now. He loved her, and what did words matter with
this glorious knowledge in her heart?

To have a baby! Her very own--and John's!

How wonderful! How utterly divine--!

Her little feet hardly touched the moss beneath them, she wanted to
skip and sing.

Next May! Next May! A Spring flower--a little life to care for when
war, of course, would have ended and all the world again could be happy
and young!

And then she returned by the tiny ancient church. She had the key of it,
a golden one which John had given her on their first coming down. It hung
on her bracelet with her own private key.

The sun was pouring through the western window, carpeting the altar steps
in translucent cloth of gold.

Amaryllis stole up the short aisle, and paused when she came between the
two tall canopied tombs of recumbent sixteenth century knights, which
made so dignified a screen for the little side aisles--and then she moved
on and knelt in the shaft of the sunlight there at the carved rails.

And no one ever raised to God a purer or more fervent prayer.

She stayed until the sun sunk below the window, and then she rose and
went back to the house, and up to her cedar room. And now she must
write to John!

She began--once--twice--but tore up each sheet. Her news was a supreme
happiness, but so difficult to transmit!

At last she finished three sides of her own rather large sized
note-paper, but as she read over what she had written, she was not quite
content; it did not express all that she desired John to know.

But how could a mere letter convey the wordless gladness in her heart?

She wanted to tell him how she would worship their baby, and how she
would pray that they should be given a son--and how she would remember
all his love words spoken that last time they were together, and weave
the joy of them round the little form, so that it should grow strong and
beautiful and radiant, and come to earth welcomed and blessed!

Something of all this finally did get written, and she concluded thus:

"John, is it not all wonderful and blissful and mysterious, this coming
proof of our love? And when I lie awake I say over and over again the
sweet name you called me, and which I want to sign! I am not just
Amaryllis any longer, but your very own 'Sweetheart'!"

John received this letter by the afternoon post in camp. He sat down
alone in his tent and read and re-read each line. Then he stiffened and
remained icily still.

He could not have analysed his emotions. They were so intermixed with
thankfulness and pain--and underneath there was a fierce, primitive
jealousy burning.

"Sweetheart!" he said aloud, as though the word were anathema! "And must
I call her that 'Sweetheart'! Oh! God, it is too hard!" and he clenched
his hands.

By the same post came a letter from Denzil, of whose movements he had
asked to be kept informed, saying that the 110th Hussars were going out
at once, so that they would probably soon meet in France.

Then John wrote to Amaryllis. The very force of his feelings seemed to
freeze his power of expression, and when he had finished he knew that it
was but a cold, lifeless thing he had produced, quite inadequate as an
answer to her tender, exalted words.

"My poor little girl," he sighed as he read it. "I know this will
disappoint her. What a hideous, sickening mockery everything is."

He forced himself to add a postscript, a practice very foreign
to his usual methodical rule. "Never forget that I love you,
Amaryllis--Sweetheart!" he said.

And then he went to his Colonel and asked for two days' leave, and when
it was granted for the following Saturday and Monday he wired to his wife
asking her to meet him in Brook Street.

"I must see her--I cannot bear it," he cried to himself.

And late at night he wrote to Denzil--it was just that he should do this.

"My wife is going to have a baby--if only it should be a son, then it
will not so much matter if both of us are killed, at least the family
will be saved, and be able to carry oh."

He tried to make the letter cordial. Denzil had behaved with the most
perfect delicacy throughout, he must admit, and although they had met
once and exchanged several letters, not the faintest allusion to the
subject of their talk in the library at Brook Street had ever been
made by him.

Denzil had indeed acted and written as though such knowledge between
them did not exist. He--Denzil--in these last seven weeks had been
extremely occupied, and while his forces were concentrated upon the
exhilarating preparations for war, it would happen in rare moments
before sleep claimed him at night that he would let his thoughts conjure
a waking dream, infinitely, mystically sweet. And every pulse would
thrill with ecstasy, and then his will would banish it, and he would
think of other subjects.

He could not face the marvel of his emotions at this period, nor dwell
upon the romantically exciting aspect of some things.

He was up in London upon equipment business on the very Saturday that
John got leave, and he was due to dine at the Carlton with Verisschenzko
who had that day arrived on vital matters bent.

As they came into the hall, a man stopped to talk to the Russian, and
Denzil's eyes wandered over the unnumerous and depressed looking company
collected waiting for their parties to arrive. War had even in those
early Autumn days set its grim seal upon this festive spot. People looked
rather ashamed of being seen and no one smiled. He nodded to one or two
friends, and then his glance fell upon a beautiful, slim, brown-haired
girl, sitting quietly waiting in an armchair by the restaurant steps.

She wore a plain black frock, but in her belt one huge crimson clove
carnation was unostentatiously tucked.

"What a lovely creature!" his thoughts ran, and Verisschenzko
turning from his acquaintance that moment, he said to him as they
started to advance:

"Stépan, if you want to see something typically English and perfectly
exquisite, look at that girl in the armchair opposite where the band used
to be. I wonder who she is?"

"What luck!" cried Verisschenzko. "That is your cousin, Amaryllis
Ardayre--come along!"

And in a second Denzil found himself being introduced to her, and being
greeted by her with interested cordiality, as befitted their cousinly
relationship.

But Verisschenzko, whose eyes missed nothing, remarked that under his
sunburn, Denzil had grown suddenly very pale. Amaryllis was enchanted to
see her friend, the Russian. John had gone to the telephone, it
appeared--and yes, they were dining alone--and, of course, she was sure
John would love to amalgamate parties, it was so nice of Verisschenzko to
think of it! There was John now.

The blood rushed back to Denzil's heart, and the colour to his face--he
had only murmured a few conventional words. Mercifully John would decide
the matter--it was not his doing that he and Amaryllis had met.

John caught sight of the three as he came along the balcony from the
telephone, so that he had time to take in the situation; he saw that the
meeting was quite _imprévu_, and he had, of course, no choice but to
accept Verisschenzko's suggestion with a show of grace. At that very
moment, before they could enter the restaurant, and re-arrange their
tables, Harietta Boleski and her husband swept upon them--they were
staying in the hotel. Harietta was enraptured.

What a delightful surprise meeting them! Were they all just together,
would they not dine with her?

She purred to John, while her eyes took in with satisfaction Denzil's
extraordinary good looks--and there was Stépan, too! Nothing could be
more agreeable than to scintillate for them both.

John hailed their advent with relief: it would relax the intolerable
strain which both he and Denzil would be bound to have to experience. So
looking at the rest of the party, he indicated that he thought they would
accept. It suited Verisschenzko also for his own reasons. And any
suggestion to enlarge the intimate number of four would have been
received by Denzil with graciousness.

He had not imagined that he would feel such profound emotion on seeing
Amaryllis, the intensity of it caused him displeasure. It was altogether
such a remarkable situation. He knew that it would have been of thrilling
interest to him had it not been for the presence of John. His knowledge
of what John must be suffering, and the knowledge that John was aware of
what he also must be feeling, turned the whole circumstance into
discomfort.

As soon as he recalled himself to Madame Boleski they all went into the
restaurant to the Boleski table, just inside the door, by the window on
the right. Harietta put John on one side of her and Denzil at the other,
and beyond were Verisschenzko and her husband, with Amaryllis between,
who thus sat nearly opposite Denzil, with her back to the room.

Harietta, when she desired to be, was always an inspiriting hostess,
making things go. She intended to do her best to-night. The turn affairs
had taken, England being at war, was quite too tiresome. It had spoilt
all her country house visits and nullified much of the pleasure and
profit she was intending to reap from her now secured position in this
promised land.

Stanislass, too, had been difficult, he had threatened to go back to
Poland immediately, which he explained was his obvious duty to do--but
she had fortunately been able to crush that idea completely with tears
and scenes. Then he suggested Paris, but information from Hans gave her
occasion to think this might not be a comfortable or indeed quite a safe
spot, and in all cases if the Frenchmen were fighting for dear life they
would not have leisure to entertain her, therefore, dull and gloomy as
England had become, she preferred to remain.

Hans, too, had given her orders. For the present London must be her home,
and the lease of the Mount Lennard house in Grosvenor Square having
expired, they had moved to the Carlton Hotel.

The misery of war, the holocaust of all that was noblest, left her
absolutely cold. It was certainly a pity that those darling young
guardsmen she had danced with should have had to be killed, but there was
never any use in crying over spilt milk--better look out for new ones
coming on. She was quite indifferent as to which country won. It was
still a great bother collecting information for her former husband, but
he threatened terrible reprisals if she refused to go on, and as in her
secret heart she thought that there was no doubt as to who would be
victor, she felt it might be wiser to remain on good terms with the power
she believed would win!

Ferdinand Ardayre had been very helpful all the summer--he had moved from
the Constantinople branch of his business to one in Holland and had just
returned to England now; he was, in fact, coming to see her later on when
she should have packed Stanislass safely off to the St. James' Club.

Harietta had no imagination to be inflamed by terrible descriptions of
things. She saw no actual horrors, therefore war to her was only a
nuisance--nothing ghastly or to be feared. But it was a disgusting
nuisance and caused her fatigue. She had continually to remember to
simulate proper sympathy, and concern and to subdue her vivacity, and
show enthusiasm for any agreeable war work which could divert her dull
days. If she had not been more than doubtful of her reception in America,
even as a Polish magnate's wife, she would have gone over there to escape
as far as possible from the whole situation, and she had been bored to
death now for several days. People were too occupied and too grieved to
go out of their way now to make much of her, and she had been left alone
to brood. Thus the advent of Verisschenzko, who thrilled her always, and
a possible new admirer in Denzil, seemed a heaven-sent occurrence.
Amaryllis and John were undesired but unavoidable appendages who had to
be swallowed.

Denzil's type particularly attracted her. There was an insouciance about
him, a _débonnair sans gêne_ which increased the charm of his good looks;
he had everything of attraction about him which John Ardayre lacked.

Amaryllis, against her will, before the end of the dinner, was conscious
of the fact also, though Denzil studiously avoided any conversation with
her beyond what the exigencies of politeness required. He devoted himself
entirely to Harietta, to her delight, and Verisschenzko and Amaryllis
talked while John was left to Stanislass. But the very fact of Denzil's
likeness to John made Amaryllis look at him, and she resented his
attraction and the interest he aroused in her.

His voice was perhaps even deeper than John's, and how extraordinarily
well his bronze hair was planted on his forehead; and how perfectly
groomed and brushed and soldierly he looked!

He seemingly had taken the measure of Madame Boleski, too, and was
apparently enjoying with a cultivated subtlety the drawing of her out. He
was no novice it seemed, and there was a whimsical light in his eyes and
once or twice they had inadvertently met hers with understanding when
Verisschenzko had made some especially cryptic remark. She knew that she
would very much have liked to talk to him.

Verisschenzko was observing Amaryllis carefully. There was a new
expression in her eyes which puzzled him. Her features seemed to be drawn
with finer lines and pale violet shadows lay beneath her grey eyes. Was
it the gloom of the war which oppressed her? It could not be altogether
that, because her regard was serene and even happy.

"Did I not know that nothing could be more unlikely, I should say she was
going to have a child. What is the mystery?" He found himself very much
interested. Especially he was anxious to watch what impression Denzil
made upon her. He saw, as the dinner went on, that Amaryllis was aware
that he was an attractive creature.

"There is the beginning of a chapter of necessary and
expedient--romance--here," he decided. "If only Denzil is not killed."
But what did his growing so pale on learning that she was his cousin
mean...? that was not a natural circumstance--some deep undercurrents
were stirred. And in what way was all this going to affect the lady
of his soul?

They could not have any intimate conversation at dinner; they spoke of
ordinary things and the war and the horror of it. Russia was moving
forward, but Verisschenzko did not appear to be very optimistic in spite
of this. There were things in his country, he told Amaryllis, which might
handicap the fighting.

Stanislass Boleski looked extremely depressed. He had a hang-dog,
strained mien and Verisschenzko's contemptuously friendly attitude
towards him wounded him deeply. Once he had shone as a leader and chief
in Stépan's life, and now after the stormy scene in the smoking-room at
Ardayre, that he could greet him casually and not turn from him in anger,
showed, alas! to where he had sunk in Verisschenzko's estimation--a thing
of nought--not even worth his disapproval. The dinner to him was a
painful trial.

John also was far from content. He had been longing to see Amaryllis, and
yet the sight of her and her fond and insinuating words and caresses had
caused him exquisite suffering. His emotions were so varied and complex.
His prayer had been answered, but apart from his natural loathing for all
subterfuge, every new tenderness towards himself which Amaryllis
displayed aroused some indefinable jealousy. She had been so glad to see
him and he had been conscious himself that he had been even unusually
stolid and self-contained towards her. He knew that she grew disappointed
and that probably the exalted sentiment which her letter had indicated
that she was feeling had been chilled before she could put it into words.

All this distressed him, and yet he could not break through the reserve
of his nature.

And now to crown unfortunate things, there was Denzil brought by fate and
no one's manoeuvring into Amaryllis' company! Of all things he had hoped
that they need not meet before he and his cousin should go to the Front.
And it was all brought about by his own action in insisting that they had
better dine at a restaurant, as the kitchenmaid, who always remained at
Brook Street, had gone to see a wounded brother.

Amaryllis had sighed a little as she had consented, with the faint
protest that they could have eaten something cold.

But on their drive to the Carlton she had become fondly affectionate
again, nestling close to him, and then she had pulled out the carnation
from her belt and held it for him to smell.

"I picked it in the greenhouse this morning, the last of them; I have had
them all around me while there were any, because they remind me of you,
dearest--and of everything divine."

John felt that he should always now hate that clove stuff for the hair
and could no longer bear to use it.

He was perfectly aware that Denzil on his hostess' other hand was
looking everything that a woman could desire, and that his easy
casualness of manner would be likely to charm. He saw that Amaryllis,
too, observed him with unconscious interest, and a feeling akin to
despair filled his heart.

Life for him had always been difficult, and he was accustomed to blows,
but this one was particularly hard to bear, because he really loved
Amaryllis and desired happiness with her which he knew could never really
be attained.

Only Harietta of the whole party was quite content. She intended to annex
Stépan when they should be drinking coffee in the hall. She looked upon
Denzil's conquest now as almost an accomplished fact, and so felt that
she might let him talk to Amaryllis, since the Russian was her real
object. His ugly rugged face and odd Calmuck eyes always attracted her.

"Why aren't you staying in the hotel, darling Brute?'" she whispered to
him as they left the restaurant. "If you had been--"

"I am," said Verisschenzko, and leaving her for a moment he went and
telephoned to his not unintelligent Russian servant at the Ritz to
arrange about the transference of his rooms.

"She requires the most careful watching--I must waste no time."

And then he returned to the party in the hall.




CHAPTER X


Denzil Ardayre took up his letters which had been forwarded to him from
the dépót where he was stationed. He and Verisschenzko were passing
through the hall of his mother's house, for a talk and a smoke in his
sitting-room, after leaving the Carlton.

The house was in St. James' Place, a small, old building, the ground
floor of which was given over to Denzil whenever he was in London. His
mother was absent at Bath, where she spent a long autumn cure.

John's letter lay on the top, and Verisschenzko caught the look of
interest which came into Denzil's face.

"Don't mind me, my dear chap," he remarked, "read your letters." And they
went on into the sitting-room.

"I want just to look at this one--it is from John Ardayre whom we met
to-night," and Denzil opened it casually--"I wonder what he is writing to
me about, he did not say anything at dinner."

He read the short communication and exclaimed: "Good God!" and then
checked himself. He was obviously stirred, and Verisschenzko watched him
narrowly. Anything to do with John must concern Amaryllis, and therefore
was of profound interest to himself.

"No bad news, I hope?" he said.

Denzil was gazing into the fire, and there was a look of wonderment and
even rapture upon his face.

"Oh! No--rather splendid--" He felt quite the strangest emotion he had
ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy
flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to
link certain things in his mind.

"Tell me, what did you think of your cousin, Lady Ardayre?" he asked
casually, as though the subject was irrelevant.

"Amaryllis?" and Denzil almost started from a reverie. "Oh, yes, of
course, she is a lovely creature, is not she, Stépan?"

Verisschenzko narrowed his eyes.

"I have told you that I adore her--but with the spirit--if it were
not so, she would appeal very strongly to the flesh--Yes?--Did you
not feel it?"

"I did."

"Well?"

"Well--"

"She is longing to understand life, she is groping; why do you not set
about her education, Denzil?"

"That is the husband's business."

"Not in this case. I consider it is yours; you are the right mate
for her. John Ardayre is a good fellow, but he stands for nothing in
the affair. Why did you waste your time upon Harietta, when time is
so short?"

"I was given no choice."

"But afterwards, in the hall?"

It was quite evident to Verisschenzko that the mention of Amaryllis was
causing his friend some unexplainable emotion.

"You did not even exert yourself, then. Why, Denzil?"

Denzil lit a cigarette.

"I thought her awfully attractive--it is the first time I have ever seen
her--as you know."

"And that was a reason for remaining silent and as stiff as a poker in
manner! You English are a strange race!"

Denzil smiled--if Stépan only knew everything, what would he say!

"You were made for each other. If I were you, I would not lose a
second's time!"

"My dear old boy, you seem quite to forget that the girl has a husband
of her own!"

"Not at all, it is for that reason--just because of that husband. I shall
say no more, you are quite intelligent enough to understand."

"You think it is all right then for a woman to have a lover?" Denzil
smiled as he curled rings of smoke. "It is curious how the most
honourable among us has not much conscience concerning such things."

Verisschenzko knocked off his cigarette ash and spoke contemplatively:

"The world would be an insupportable place for women, if he had! But
whatever the moral aspect of the matter is in general, circumstances
arise which alter the point, and that is where the absurd ticketing
system hampers suitable action. A thing is ticketed 'dishonourable.'
Pah! it is sometimes, and it is not at others--there is no hard and
fast rule."

Denzil stretched himself--he was always interested in Verisschenzko's
reasonings and prepared to listen with enjoyment:

"The general idea is that a man should not make love to another man's
wife. Man professes this as a creed, and the law enforces it and punishes
him if he is found out doing so. And if he acted up to this creed as he
does about stealing goods and behaving like a gentleman over business
matters, all might be well, but unfortunately that seldom occurs, because
there is that strong; instinct which is the base of all things working in
him, and which does not work in regard to any other point of
honour--i.e., the unconscious desire to re-create his, species, so that
this one particular branch of moral responsibility cannot be measured,
judged, or criticised from the same standpoint as any other. No laws can.
alter human nature, or really control a man's actions when a natural
force is prompting him unless stern self-analysis discovers the truth to
the man, and so permits his spirit to regain dominion. The best chance
would be to resist the first feeling of attraction which a woman
belonging to another man aroused before it had actually obtained a hold
upon his senses--but the percentage of men who do this must be very
small. Some resist--or try to resist the actual possession of the woman
from moral motives, but many more from motives of expediency and fear of
consequences. Then to salve conscience the mass of men ride a high moral
stalking horse, and write and speak condemnation of every back-sliding,
while their own behaviour coincides with the behaviour they are
criticising. The hypocrisy of the thing sickens me; no one ever looks any
question straight in the face, denuded of its man-made sophistries. And
few realise that a woman is a creature to be fought for--it is
prehistoric instinct, and if she can't be obtained in fair fight then you
secure her by strategy. And if a man cannot keep her once he has secured
her, it is up to him. If I had a wife, I should take good care that she
_desired_ no other man--but if I bored her, or was a cold and bad lover,
I should not expect the other men not to try and take her from
me--because I should know this was a natural instinct with them--like
taking food. It would probably be no temptation to most of us to steal
gold lying about in a room, even if we were poor, but a hideous
temptation to refrain from eating a tempting dish if we were starving
with hunger and it was before us--and if a woman did succumb to some new
passion I should blame myself, not her."

Denzil agreed.

"Jealousy is a natural instinct, though," he said, "and although there
would be not much profit in trying to hold a woman who no longer cared,
one could not help being mad about it."

"Of course not--that is the sense of personal possession which is
affronted. Vanity is deeply wounded, and so the power to analyse cause
and result sleeps. But this attitude which men take up of neglecting a
woman and then expecting her to be faithful still is quite ridiculous,
and without logic; they are as usual fogged by convention and can't see
straight."

Verisschenzko's rough voice was keen--compelling.

Denzil smiled.

"Another of your windmills to fight!"

"I am always fighting convention and shams. Get down to the meaning of a
thing, and if its true significance coincides with the convention which
surrounds it, then let that hold, but if convention is a super-imposed
growth, then amputate it and study the thing without it."

"I suppose a man marries a woman nine times out of ten because he cannot
obtain her in any other way; then when he has become indifferent by
possession, he still thinks that she should remain devoted to him. You
are right, Stépan, it is very illogical."

"Club the creature, or keep her in a cage if you want fidelity through
fear, but don't expect it if you allow her to remain at large and
neglected, and don't be such an ass as to imagine that your friends won't
act just as you yourself would act were she some one's else wife. If a
woman has that quality in her which arouses sex, married or single, I
never have observed that men refrained from making love to her."

"All this means that you consider I am quite at liberty to make love to
Amaryllis Ardayre!"

"Quite."

Denzil threw his cigarette end into the fire:

"Well, for once you are wrong, Stépan, in your usually perfect
deductions," he got up from his chair. "There is a reason in this
case which makes the thing an absolute impossibility; under no
possible circumstance while John is alive could I make the smallest
advance towards Amaryllis! There is another point of honour involved
in the affair."

Verisschenzko felt that here was some mystery which he had yet to
elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then
became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis
that evening for the first time!

"If this is so, then it is a very great pity," he announced, after a
moment or two's thought. "Were the times normal, we might leave all to
Fate and trust to luck, but if you are killed and John is killed, it
will be a thousand pities for Ferdinand to be the head of the family.
A creature like that will not enlist, he will be safe while you risk
your lives."

Denzil went over to the window, apparently to get out a fresh box of
cigars which were in a cabinet near.

"John writes to-night that there is the chance of an heir after all--so
perhaps we need not worry," he said, his voice a little hoarse with
feeling. "I was so awfully glad to hear this--we all loathe the thought
of Ferdinand."

Verisschenzko actually was startled, and also he was strangely moved.

"When I saw my lady Amaryllis to-night that idea came to me, only as I
believed it was quite an impossibility--I dismissed it--It is a war
miracle then?" and he smiled enquiringly.

"Apparently."

The cigar box was selected and Denzil had once more resumed his seat in a
big chair before either of them spoke again.

"I perfectly understand that there is some mystery here, Denzil--and that
you cannot tell me--and equally I cannot ask you any questions, but it
may be that in the days that are coming I could be of assistance to you.
I have some very curious information which I am holding concerning
Ferdinand Ardayre in 

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