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THE PEST

The Pest

BY

W. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE

AUTHOR OF “THE TALKING MASTER,” “EGOMET,” ETC., AND

PART AUTHOR OF “THE FRUIT OF THE TREE”

NEW YORK

C. H. DOSCHER & CO.

1909

Copyright,  1909,  by

C.  H.  DOSCHER  &  CO.

The Pest

CHAPTER I

Pavements and roadway slippery with greasy, black mud; atmosphere yellow with evil-tasting vapor; a November afternoon in London; evening drawing on, fog closing down.

George Maddison, tall, erect, dark, walked slowly along, his eyes, ever ready to seize upon any striking effect of color, noting the curious mingling of lights: the dull yellow overhead, the chilly beams of the street lamps, the glow and warmth from the shop windows. Few of the faces he saw were cheerful, almost all wearing that expression of discontent which such dreary circumstances bring to even the most hardened and experienced Cockneys. For his own part he was well pleased, having heard that morning of his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy, a fact that gratified him not as adding anything to his repute, but as being a compliment to the school of young painters of which he was the acknowledged leader and ornament: impressionists whose impressions showed the world to be beautiful; idealists who had the imagination to see that the ideal is but the better part of the real.

Maddison paused before a highly lighted picture-dealer’s window, glancing with amusement at the conventional prettiness there displayed; then, turning his back upon it, he looked across the street, debating whether he should cross over and have some tea at the famous pastry cook’s. A tall, slight figure of a woman, neatly dressed in black, caught his attention. Obviously, she too was hesitating over the same question. In spite of the simplicity and quiet fashion of her black gown, her air was elegant; her head nicely poised; her shoulders well held; the lines of her figure graceful, lithe and seductive. Though he could not see her face he felt certain that she was interesting and attractive, if not beautiful; also, there was a something wistful and forlorn about her that appealed to him. Warily stepping through the slippery mud, he crossed over and stood behind her for a moment, marking the graceful tendrils of red-gold hair that clustered round the nape of her neck and the delicate shape and coloring of her ears. As she turned to move away, she came full face to him, instant recognition springing into her eyes.

“George—!” she exclaimed.

“Miss Lewis!”

There was immediate and evident constraint on each side, as though the sudden meeting were half-welcome, half-embarrassing.

“Were you going in to tea here?” he asked. “I was. Let me come with you? It’s an age since we met. It’s horrid and damp out here.”

“It is,” she replied, slightly shivering. “Yes, I should like a cup of tea.”

They went through the heavy swing doors, opened for them by a diminutive boy in buttons, into the long, highly decorated, dimly lighted, discreet tea room, which lacked its usual crowd. A few couples, in one case two young men, occupied the cozy corners, to one of the more remote of which Maddison led the way, and settled himself and his companion in the comfortable armchairs. He ordered tea and cakes of the pretty, black-eyed waitress, dainty and demure in the uniform of deep, dull red.

“You sigh as if you were tired, Miss Lewis, and glad to rest?” he said, trying in the dim light to study her expression.

“I am tired and I am glad to rest. It’s very cozy in here. I’ve never been here before.”

She laid her hand upon the arm of the chair next to him and he noticed that she wore a wedding ring.

“I called you Miss Lewis. I see——?”

“Yes—I’m married. I don’t suppose you remember much about Larchstone—I recognized you before you did me; I saw you across the road. But just possibly you do remember our curate, Mr. Squire—you used to laugh at him. I’m Mrs. Squire. He’s still a curate, but not any longer in the country. We live at Kennington; what a world of difference one letter makes! Kennington—Kensington. Have you ever been in Kennington?”

Maddison remembered Edward Squire distinctly: a tall, gaunt enthusiast, clumsy in mind and in body. He leaned back in his chair as a whirl of recollections rushed across his mind: the red-roofed, old-fashioned village of Larchstone; the old-world rector and his daughter, a pretty slip of a country girl, who had grown into—Mrs. Squire. He remembered the summer weeks he had spent there, painting in the famous woodlands, and the half-jesting, half-serious love he had made to the rector’s daughter. Since then until this afternoon he had not met her, though the memory of her face, with the searching eyes, had come to him now and again.

She watched him as he dreamed. He had changed very little; how distinctly she had always remembered him; the swarthy, narrow face framed in heavy black hair, the deep-set black eyes, the thin nose, the trim pointed beard and mustache hiding the sensual mouth, the tall, well-knit figure. Far more vividly than he did she recall those summer months; in her life they had been an outstanding event, an episode merely in his.

“Do you still take three lumps of sugar?” she asked, as she poured out the tea.

“You remember that? Yes, still three, thanks.”

“You see, I hadn’t very much to remember in those days.”

“It’s five years ago—” he hesitated.

“Five this last summer, and a good many things have happened since then. My father’s dead—three years ago—and I’m a good young curate’s wife. And you? But I needn’t ask; the newspapers have told me all about you. Are you still full of enthusiasms?”

“I suppose so. I think so, only they’re crystallizing into practices. As we grow older the brain grows stiff, and we’re not so ready to go climbing mountains to achieve impossible heights.”

“You’ve climbed pretty high. A step higher to-day—A.R.A. Fame, success and money, that’s a fairly high mountain to have climbed—at least it looks so to me.”

The forlorn tone of her voice confirmed the impression his first sight of her had made upon him. He looked at her keenly as she sat there with her eyes fixed upon her tea which she was stirring slowly. She had become a very lovely woman and a poor curate’s wife.

“Lonely?” he asked almost unintentionally.

“Did I say lonely?” she asked looking quickly at him. “We were talking in metaphors. I suppose that way of talking was invented by some one who didn’t want to blurt out ugly truths.”

“Or who fancied that commonplace ideas become uncommon when divorced from commonplace words.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it, sitting here, chatting like old friends—after all this time? You didn’t answer my question: have you ever been in Kennington?”

“I go down to the Oval now and then to watch the cricket; that’s all I know about Kennington.”

“And that’s nothing. You might as well judge West Kensington by an Earl’s Court exhibition, or a woman’s nature by her face. I think it would do you good to see more of Kennington. I can believe that to anyone who has lived there any other place on earth would seem heaven.”

“Heaven?”

“Even the other place would be an improvement.”

“You’re rather hard on Kennington, aren’t you?”

“It’s very hard on me! It stifles me. I come up to town—you see, I speak of coming up to town—every now and then, just to escape from the horrible atmosphere. There; just to breathe freely for a bit, to look at the shops, to see faces with some thoughts in them, to escape from—Kennington.”

“And do you escape?”

“Not altogether. The atmosphere there is saturating.”

“Does your husband like it?”

“He doesn’t know anything about it. Souls to save and bodies to feed, that’s his simple want in life. There are plenty of both in our neighborhood. I suppose you wouldn’t come down to see us?”

“If I may——?”

“You may,” she answered, laughing softly, almost to herself, and he noticed how her smile lit up her whole face for the moment. “You’ll seem so queer down there.”

“Why?”

“Just think—but no, you couldn’t realize what I’m laughing at; you’ve never been in Kennington, and—even more likely—have never seen yourself as I see you.”

Resisting the temptation to ask her in what light she saw him, he in turn laughed as he looked down into the provocative face turned toward him.

“You’re getting better,” he said.

“Yes, thanks; the tea has done me good, and the meeting with you.”

She spoke quite frankly.

“I’m glad,” he answered, “and glad I was lucky enough to meet you.”

“What a pretty, empty phrase,” she said, with a little sigh and a droop of the corners of her mouth. “Sayings like that are the threepenny bits of conversation; they’re not worth sixpence, but they’re better than coppers. Now, I must be off.”

“It’s quite early.”

“Yes, for you. But for me—Kennington and high tea; but you know neither of them.”

“You’ve asked me to come——”

“Not to high tea. Come some afternoon or evening. Drop me a post card so that we shall be sure to be in. My husband will be so glad to see you again.”

“And you?”

“I have seen you again.”

“Very well, I’ll drop you a line of warning. And how are you going home?”

“By a clever and cheap combination of penny bus and halfpenny tram. Now, good-by, and thank you.”

They lingered a moment in the shop entrance, warmth and coziness behind, the darkness and the thickening fog before.

“I don’t like you’re going alone. The fog’s getting very thick.”

“Please don’t worry about me; if the tram can’t get along I shall walk. Good-by, and, again, thank you.”

Nodding in a friendly manner, she walked quickly away, leaving him irresolute. But he soon determined to follow her.

“You really must let me see you home,” he said, as he caught up with her; “it’s going to be bad.”

“So am I, and insist on having my own way. Don’t spoil it for me. I don’t often have my own way with anything or anybody.”

Again she walked quickly away into the darkness.

CHAPTER II

Acacia Grove, Kennington, was once upon a time, and not so many years ago, the home of snug citizens, who loved to dwell on the borderland of town and country. It is a wide road of two-storied houses, all alike: three windows to the top floor; on the ground floor, two windows and a hall door, painted green and approached by three steep steps; a front garden, generally laid out in gravel with a circular bed of sooty shrubs in the center and a narrow border of straggling flowers along each side, spike-headed railings separating the garden from the pavement. Few of the gates are there that do not creak shrilly, calling aloud for oil. In one of these houses, distinguished only from its neighbors by its number, lodged the Reverend Edward Squire, occupying the front “parlor,” a small den at the back of the same, and the front bedroom and dressing room on the upper floor. The furniture throughout was plain, inoffensive, somber, entirely unhomelike; faded green curtains with yellow fringe hung at the parlor windows, by one of which Marian sat in the gloaming two days after her meeting with Maddison. The fire shed a flickering light over the room and on the weary face of her husband, who lay back asleep in a heavy horsehair armchair. She glanced at him now and then, each time comparing his commonplace features with those of George Maddison, her meeting with whom had stirred tumult in her already mutinous blood.

Rousing himself at length, Squire looked at his watch.

“Half-past four! I must be off, Marian. Don’t you find it dismal sitting there in the dark?”

“You can dream in the dark.”

“Dream?” he said, standing up and stretching his lanky limbs, stamping his heavy feet as though cold. “Don’t you dream too much, dear? I wish parish work had more interest for you; there is so much to do, and——”

“I don’t do much!” she broke in sharply.

“I wasn’t going to say that. Wouldn’t it make life brighter for you if you spent more time in brightening it for others? However, I mustn’t stop to talk now. There’s a meeting of the Boot Club at a quarter to five, and several things after that. I can’t get back till about half-past six: will that be too late for tea?”

He stood beside her, feeling clumsily helpless to express his sympathy with her evident discontent, and unable to help her.

“No, I don’t mind what time,” she answered, turning her back toward him, and looking out at the dreary prospect of leafless trees and dim gas lamps.

He stooped to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

“Don’t be silly, Edward; everyone can see into the room. If you don’t go, you’ll be late.”

With a sigh he turned away and went out.

For months past hatred of her home life had been growing in her, and it had been intensified, brought to fever heat, by her meeting with Maddison. His prosperity had emphasized the dunness of her own career. Why had he ever made love to her, giving her a glimpse of brightness, and then left her to be driven by circumstances to accept her husband’s dogged love, to accept this life of struggle, to accept this daily round of distasteful tasks and hateful duties? In the country days she had accepted without energy to protest against the routine work of a clergyman’s daughter; but here in London, her blood had caught afire, the devil of revolt was astir, her whole heart and soul rebelled against the wasting of her youth and beauty. In the old home there had been none with whom to compare herself; but in town hundreds of women, with smaller gifts of body and mind than her own, led a full and joyous life. She raged to think that she should bloom and fade, never knowing the glory of living.

She rose slowly, let the heavy venetian blind run down with a crash, drew the curtains close, and lit the gas. She stood before the glass over the mantelpiece, looking at her reflection. Then with growing disgust she turned and glanced round the meager room. In a basket was a pile of accumulated mending waiting for her; on the small writing table—above which hung a crucifix—several account books, which would have to be made up this evening. She stood there, tall, fair, throbbing with rebellion, longing to escape. Again the question that she had so often asked herself during the last two days came to her: was it possible that George Maddison would offer to free her? He had nearly, if not quite, loved her once; were there any means by which she could lure him to her again?

A sharp knock at the house door startled but did not interest her, the caller doubtless being for Edward, and his visitors did not amuse her. Her conjecture was wrong. The neat little maid servant, who feared her master and adored his wife, opened the parlor door, stammering out—

“A gentleman wants to know if you’re at home, mum. He wants to see you, mum.”

“Are you sure he wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I do, if I may,” said Maddison, appearing in the doorway; “or are you not ‘at home’?”

“Of course I’m at home; we don’t indulge even in conventional fibs in Kennington. Do come in; I’m so glad to see you. I didn’t think you’d really come.”

“Why not?” he asked, shaking hands with her. “Could I resist such a persuasive description as you gave me? It was so alluring that I walked the whole way, and, upon my word, I declare you have done the neighborhood an injustice. I’ve been in worse.”

“Very likely it’s my fault.”

They sat at either side of the fire for some little while silent; he noting the room, and furtively examining her face as she stared into the fire. He could see the tears that hovered in the corners of her eyes.

“Your fault?” he said at length. “You look fagged; you want a change.”

“A change!” she exclaimed, laughing hardly.

She stood up, leaned her arm upon the mantelpiece, and looked down at him.

“A change! You don’t know the irony of what you’ve said, Mr. Maddison. A change! Do you realize that each day drags along just the same as the days before have been, and the days after will be? Never a shadow of a change! And so all the life is being crushed out of me. If I’d only known; but what’s the good of talking this way, and why on earth should I trouble you with my worries?”

She was a splendid rebel and Maddison’s pulse stirred with sympathy and attraction. She looked to him like some fine, wild animal, caged, eating out her heart for freedom.

“I almost wish I hadn’t met you the other day,” she continued. “I know that sounds rude; what I mean is, it’s bad enough to be here, but it makes it worse, ever so much worse, to realize what I’ve not got.”

“I wish I could help you,” he said.

She sat down again and again looked into the fire, which she stirred into a roaring blaze.

“It would have been better had I stopped on in the country; I was only half alive there. I just vegetated. Edward, my husband, had what he thought was a ‘call’ to come up and work among the poor in London, so he brought me here. I wonder do you know the kind of man he is?”

“I can guess.”

“He’s good, because he never has any temptation to be anything else. He’s content, and works, eats, drinks, sleeps; he tries to be kind and sympathetic, and—nearly drives me mad. Don’t you think it strange,” she asked, looking at him eagerly, “that I should be talking to you like this? I must—must talk to some one.”

“I’m glad you look on me as a friend. I wish I could help you.”

“You are helping me by letting me talk to you. I wonder do you understand a bit of what’s the matter? Can you understand? You’ve always been free, and could make your life for yourself. I’m strong, but I mayn’t even try to use my strength. I hate all this cant about women’s rights; every woman can have her rights if she only dares to take them. But we’re all bred up to be dependent cowards. Now, I suppose you’re shocked?”

“Why? I think I understand what you mean—what you feel. Does—your husband know?”

“He? He couldn’t understand! He would try to, and would advise me to go out and work here with him. I did do some work with him, but it only sickened me. And the people he works with! Gossiping, chattering, self-important humbugs. So now I sit all day with my hands in my lap and cry like a baby for a moon I could have if I dared take it. I’m young—and—what’s the use of not saying it?—pretty, and——”

She clenched her hands on the arms of her chair and set her teeth firmly. The fire shed a warm glow over the handsome, alluring face; he watched her with admiration. A picture ready to his hand. The dull, stupid room; the woman, splendidly rebellious. What was she going to make of her future?

“I’m going to ask you to help me!” he exclaimed. “Let me paint your portrait; not an ordinary portrait. The subject has been in my head for a long time, but I’ve never been able to grasp it until just a moment ago. I shall call it ‘The Rebel.’ Will you come up two or three times a week to my studio and sit for me?”

“Shall I?” she answered, looking doubtfully at him—“shall I? And then when it’s over, come back here—here!”

He had his thoughts and she had hers, but neither expressed them or guessed the other’s.

“It would only make me more angry with things,” she said; “no, you don’t understand me a bit. It must be all—or nothing. A sweet to-day and bread-and-butter every other day? No, no. Understand? It has been so bad with me that I stood on Westminster Bridge the other night after I left you, and looked at the water; I am such a coward that I came home to this.”

“So—you won’t help me to paint my picture?”

“I’ll think about it, and let you know. When shall I come?”

Maddison took out his engagement book and turned over the pages.

“You have to find time between one engagement and another,” she said, watching him; “I’m free every day.”

“To-day’s Tuesday; would Thursday, eleven, suit you? We could go and have lunch somewhere afterwards.”

“I can’t decide. Will you leave it open? I’ll just come, if I’m coming, and, if I don’t come, it will mean I’d rather you didn’t come here again.”

“I won’t worry about that. I’ll just hope you will come. Now, I must be going. Good-by, and—again—I wish I could help you.”

As Maddison drove home, he was in doubt as to what course he should pursue in this adventure so suddenly thrown his way. Marian greatly attracted him, both by her beauty and her brains, but he did not as yet feel disposed to face the scandal that must come if he took her away from her husband, should she care to come to him, and should he care to ask her. He felt certain that if he saw much more of her he would fall under her fascination, yet, weakly, he had given her this invitation rather than run the risk of not meeting her frequently, rather than have to meet her in the dismal surroundings of her home.

During the last few years he had drilled himself into not yielding to his every impulse. When he had first met her the desire bred in him by her country comeliness had almost led him into marrying her; its renewal urged him strongly to ask her to be his mistress. He believed that she would yield. What would be the outcome of such a course? She was evidently trembling on the brink of revolt, undecided whether or not to dare all. Should he tempt her? There could be no question as to her beauty, which was of a type that had always appealed to him. Tall, lithe, well-proportioned; elegant in face and figure—how lovely she would look daintily dressed! No mere animal, but a woman.

Between now and Thursday he must decide with regard to her.

Then the fear shot into his mind that perhaps she would not come.

When he had left the room, Marian sat down again by the fire, her face lit up by a smile of complete satisfaction.

She was not trembling on the brink of revolt. When she had met him that foggy afternoon she had been so, but only because she felt helpless. Now succor had come. She felt certain that she could win Maddison to her will, that she would be able to use him as the stepping-stone to the luxury and power for which she lusted. He had almost loved her in the old days, he nearly loved her now after these two brief meetings; at any rate he was sorry for her. She would tempt him and he would fall.

Again she looked at herself in the mirror; she was made to conquer. This man, and others, should be hers. She held the two most powerful of weapons, beauty and heartlessness, and would use both without scruple.

She laughed as she thought of her upbringing in the little country village, of her ever having believed that she could live content as a curate’s wife. Whence came this unruliness in her blood? She could understand the discontent with the physical conditions of her life, but her desires went far beyond that. It was not merely for love and luxury that she longed, but for power—power over the body and mind of men of power.

Maddison would not satisfy all her cravings; but he could take her away out into the world, and there she knew she could win.

She had in her the confidence of a conqueror.

CHAPTER III

On Thursday morning Maddison waited impatiently for Marian, though he never for a moment doubted but that she would come.

Absence from her had made her influence the stronger; each hour the recollection of her face had grown more clear—the droop of the eyelids, their sudden lifting and the keen, searching look of her eyes; the dainty poise of her head, the masses of red-gold hair, the little mouth with its moist, tempting lips; the tall figure, the clean, determined movements.

He paced up and down the studio waiting for her.

Many pretty women had sat to him there, some of whom had tempted him and to a few of whom he had fallen willing captive for a time. But Marian held him by a stronger spell; it was not merely her beauty that called so, imperatively to him. She was a complete woman, body and brain, and to touch her heart, to win it, to keep it, to be able to hurt it—that he must do.

But she did not come and the hour was past. Was she fooling him, luring him on? He could not credit that; he had watched her keenly and it had seemed to him that she was ready to rebel but did not dare revolt, and that it remained for him to decide whether or not she should attain her freedom. To him this world was a delightful dwelling place, in which wise men gained all of pleasure upon which they could lay hands. To make her his own would bring him complete satisfaction, at any rate for a time. As for the future, only fools toted up bills that might have to be paid. There was one cost, however, which he would have to pay, the thought of which had at first given him pause. Doubtless Squire would sue for a divorce, and, though the case would be undefended, nevertheless it would cause considerable scandal. Afterwards, would she ask him to marry her? That he would not do, for it was a part of his creed that a woman who has left one man had best be left free to desert the next.

As he waited impatiently, the question came to him more forcibly than it had done before: did Marian care for him? Their two meetings had been brief, and there had been no hint of love making. He thought that she was desperate enough to grasp at any hand held out to her, that she would be easy to win. The idea of the picture had suggested itself opportunely, and he had seized on it as a convenient and plausible excuse for their meetings. He fancied that she would accept the chance eagerly, yet she had not seemed to do so, had hesitated, and now—he laughed angrily at the state of irritated disappointment into which he was working himself.

Perhaps she had been delayed, or detained at the last moment. Probably she would write, or maybe come up in the afternoon to explain.

He had arranged to lunch in the studio, luckily, so would not be out if she did arrive later. He looked at the pretty white table, which stood so daintily in the broad alcove before the wide hearth, with the quaint colored glasses and old silver. How delicious she would look against the dark oak of the fireplace!

A ring at the door!

The housekeeper announced “Mr. Mortimer,” and Maddison fumed that he had forgotten to say that he expected a sitter, and was not to be disturbed.

“Well, George,” said Mortimer, putting up his eyeglass as he walked into the room. “I’m extra busy at the office, so it’s jollier than ever to come up and waste an hour with you. It’s no fun lounging when there’s no reason why you should not do so. Ah! you were expecting some one—me, of course!”

He glanced at the luncheon table, quizzically. He was short, sturdy, with a somewhat bullet-shaped head, covered—though thin at top—with crisp, curly black hair. His features were Oriental in cast, with a tendency toward coarseness, and his voice somewhat thick and heavy.

He sat down on the steps that led up to the broad, deep bow window, laying down his glossy hat and natty stick on the rug beside him.

“I had meant to stay at least half an hour, and possibly to carry you off to lunch, but——”

“But you think I don’t want you,” answered Maddison, laughing. “I don’t think I shall mind much. I was expecting an old friend, whom I met the other day for the first time for years. She’s going to sit for me——”

“My dear fellow, why explain? Who would suspect you of being foolish enough to lunch alone when good company was procurable? I notice you say you were expecting?”

“Mrs. Squire was to have been here at eleven; then two hours’ work, then lunch. It’s now half-past twelve——”

“Did you fix any time for lunch?”

“Have a cigarette and don’t be cynical. You forget that pose don’t pay with me. How people would laugh if they found you out! Not a cynical old bachelor, but just as romantic and soft hearted as man could be.”

“They won’t laugh, because they never will know. Even if you told them, they’d not believe you. Is it a portrait or a picture you’re starting out on?”

“Picture. I won’t talk about it, though. As you know, I can’t talk about my ideas; they must just boil over, and then, if possible, or as far as possible, I get them on canvas. What a painter I should be if only I could make facts of all my fancies. There’s the blank canvas, and in my mind the picture. I wonder will you ever see it?”

“I wonder are you as impressionable as you used to be? And—it’s a beastly word, but there is no other—and as romantic as you still appear to be? As far as I know, you’ve never really been in love, George: perhaps it’s better that way for a painter or a poet, never to feel very deeply. He should understand deep feelings, but never experience them. What do you think?”

“I don’t think about art. Art’s in us, and comes out as well as it can. That’s all there is to it. There’s only one rule of art: don’t lie, don’t make up things; and if you can hit on a new truth, or can tell an old truth perfectly, you’re a genius. That’s all.”

“What are you?”

“How can I know?”

“You’re not in love, George?”

“What the deuce makes you say that? Who said I was?”

“Nobody. But I thought you were at first—with Mrs. What’s-her-name, who should have been here. But you can’t be, or not badly, or you would not have talked ‘shop’ so enthusiastically.”

“That’s no proof. I don’t think I could ever love a woman as much as I do my work. I can’t believe that, if ever I had to choose between my work and a woman, I should choose the woman.”

“Touch wood, old chap, touch wood; though even that powerful magic won’t make you safe. Just wait till ‘she’ comes along, and then, Lord preserve you! You—I can see you just mad for a woman.”

“You’re wrong. No woman I’ve ever seen has made me forget myself.”

“No woman—yet. That doesn’t insure the future.”

“No; but I haven’t any fears.”

“That’s what I used to say, once upon a time.”

“And——?”

“I’ve grown older and wiser. But that’s a story too stupid and too common to be worth telling. You—you’re capable of sacrificing everything for a woman, for the woman; and, after all, it’s the only thing worth making sacrifices for. Venus is the only goddess worth worshipers.”

“You romantic old cynic!”

“Cynic! I wonder how that ever came to be a term of reproach? A cynic’s simply a man who has learned that impulses should be restrained by reason. Most men find that wisdom when their impulses have ceased to be temptations. Good Lord! George, I came up here to lounge, and you mislead me into talking art and philosophy. The least compensation you can offer me is—lunch. I’m hungry.”

Mortimer went off after luncheon, and Maddison was once more free to study the problem that faced him. Mortimer’s belief that he could ever be induced to throw all else aside for the love of a woman had amused him and instilled into him a spirit of dare-deviltry, of intense desire to make hot love to Marian, for whom his longing grew keener and keener—just to prove that he could play with fire without burning his fingers.

Wonder at her not coming to him was now being supplanted by anxiety lest some accident should have befallen her.

If he walked down to Kennington he would not be there until after three o’clock, not too early an hour for a call in so unfashionable a neighborhood.

He walked slowly, surprised at the keenness of the anxiety he was now enduring. Had Marian, already, after two brief meetings, become so much to him that the fear of any hurt having come to her filled him with rage? How clearly he conjured up his last sight of her, as she stood back to the fire, whose light glinted through her hair. How graceful and gracious she had looked. Yes, he feared love unfulfilled, not love unrequited.

The gate creaked dismally as he pushed it open. He walked quickly up the gravel path, looking sharply up at the parlor window, through which in the dusk he could see the firelight dancing on the ceiling.

“Mrs. Squire was not in. Would he wait?” said the little maid.

Curiously the chance that she might not be in had not occurred to him, and he drew his breath sharply at the news.

“Is she likely to be in soon?”

“I dunno—shall I ask master?”

He told her not to trouble and turned away. He could not run the risk of having to face Squire, bearing in mind the errand on which he had come.

Apparently nothing unusual had occurred. Why had she not kept her appointment? Or, if unable to do so, why had she not written or telegraphed to him? Had it meant so little to her that she had forgotten it?

The best thing for him to do was to put the matter on one side, to wait awhile, to watch. Perhaps she had written and the letter had been delayed.

He walked some little distance before he could obtain a cab, and so, home.

There came no letter.

CHAPTER IV

That afternoon Marian had gone out, thinking it possible Maddison might call, and she was pleased to hear on her return that he had done so. He was anxious then: waiting makes the heart grow fonder.

But it had not occurred to her that he might stalemate her by adopting similar tactics to her own. Several days went by and he neither made any appearance nor gave any sign, so that she began to fear that she possessed either little or no influence over him.

If he failed her she could think of no means by which she could effect her escape from the life which she so loathed. Merely to leave her husband would be cutting herself off from the security of respectability without gaining any compensating advantages. To go to Maddison would be different; through him she would make friends and acquaintances, whom she did not doubt she could use to her advantage.

In the country the growth of her mind had been stunted, though, on the other hand, to those years of fresh air and simple life she owed her superb health. Her education had been scanty, with the one exception of music—singing and the pianoforte having been taught her by the church organist, an enthusiastic old bachelor of small means but of fine taste and accomplishment. She was not an expert performer; she had not a voice which could be coined into guineas; but to her own accompaniment she sang with feeling and effect simple ballads, sometimes those of her own countryside. Of literature and art she knew little and was content in her ignorance. Innate good taste enabled her to dress to advantage. In conversation she had the knack of making such use of the small knowledge she possessed as to hide deficiencies. With curious acuteness and minuteness she had taken stock of her capabilities and defects, realizing fully that on the whole she was well equipped for the world of adventure.

Two rules she had laid down for herself; never to lose control over her emotions and always to remember that the most powerful woman is she who seems most weak. She understood clearly that her chief handicap was lack of experience, but she believed that in a woman instinct takes the place of knowledge. She would feel her way carefully, step by step, watching and probing, but the first step and the most difficult was to free herself and to obtain a footing in the greater world. She had almost despaired of ever doing this, when so unexpectedly she had met with Maddison. She had watched his career with interest and with admiration of its brilliant and rapid success, and now she upbraided herself because it had never entered into her calculations that she might be able to utilize him in the attaining of her ambitions. She ought to have remembered how near to loving her he had once been.

So far, in her dealings with him, she did not think that she had made any error. She had shown no interest in him, which she believed was the best way to pique him into feeling interest in her. She had talked of herself, had told him enough to enable him to see clearly how dissatisfied she was with her present lot. She now felt that all that remained for her to do was to persuade him that she was worth winning, not merely for her beauty, but because she could add to the attractiveness and pleasure of his life. She, however, did not know anything of his way of life, and did not even know whether any other woman held the place she wished to obtain for herself.

He had vaguely said that he was willing to help her; he had shown anxiety by at once calling when she had failed to go to him; but, since then, silence. The next move was left to her, and with all her care she might make a false one. She knew that he was emotional, and conjectured that, once roused, no scruple of conventional morality would be a hindrance to him in achieving his desire.

If she were to approach him again now, without any reasonable excuse for doing so, she feared that she might fail to gain his help, and such a failure would mean lasting defeat. There was no means that she could think of by which she could bring him to her. To wait indefinitely was not only dangerous but repugnant to her daily intensifying longing for escape from her present life. So far, she had considered only two of the three factors in the case—herself and Maddison. It remained to be proved whether or not she could work her will by the instrumentality of her husband.

She knew his intense devotion to her, but that, great as it was, it weighed nothing against his sense of right and wrong. She did not hold the first place in his life: that was given to his work. Love, health, comfort, success—all were nothing in the scales against duty. Further, even if he were willing to give up all for her, he could neither help her ambitions nor satisfy her longings, the chief of which, indeed, was to be free from him.

More than once he had spoken to her almost sternly of her idleness and unwillingness to assist him. Was it not possible in this connection to bring about some breach between them? In some indefinite way she felt a desire to quarrel with him. At this very time he was constantly urging her to join the small band of women who, under his guidance, were laboring to bring something of decency and comfort into the lives of the wretched dwellers in some notorious slum property in the parish. She steadfastly refused. It was not work which she could or would do.

When this thought came to her, she was engaged upon some accounts, which he had asked her to have complete for an important meeting in the evening.

She closed the books almost untouched, feeling fairly confident that this remissness would lead to remonstrance on his part, which she could make an excuse for defiance.

Coming home late in the afternoon, Squire found her, as often he had done of late, sitting idly in the dusk by the window, looking out at the dreary prospect. The fire had sunk low, and the glowing coals shed but a dim light over the room.

He was tired, physically and mentally, and a stir of anger came to him to find her sitting there thus, knowing that she knew that he considered this idleness wrong.

He sat down heavily in the worn armchair, and began to unlace his boots; his feet would be rested by an hour or so of slippers.

“I’m very tired,” he said; but she made no answer.

“How have you got on with the accounts?” he asked after a pause. “I suppose they were all right?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t touched them.”

“Not touched them!” he exclaimed, aghast, and turning sharply to her. “Not touched them! You—knew they must be ready for to-night!”

“Yes, I knew.”

She stood up, let the blinds down, pulled to the curtains viciously, and then went over to the chimney-piece for the matches. She struck a light and turned up the gas, which blazed up into a shrieking flame, and, in turning it low, she turned it out. She lit the gas again, and then stood leaning against the table, watching his face of amazement.

“I don’t understand,” he said, looking at her with puzzled eyes. “You knew they must be done, and you haven’t touched them? You’re not ill?”

“No, quite well. It’s just this, Edward, this life is killing me; you must change it. I’ve done my best to stand it, but I can’t go on with it any longer.”

“Change it—change it! How can we change it, even if it was right to?”

“Right! Right! Right!” she repeated fiercely. “Who made you the judge of what is right for me? You’re my husband, but that doesn’t make you my judge. You live your own life, and I must live mine; and this life you try to make me lead is not mine. Stop!—listen to me first. You’re so blinded with self-satisfaction, so obstinately sure that you’re right, that you’ve forgotten all about me. I’ve become just a mere item in your existence, a part of yourself. You’ve forgotten that I’ve a self, or you couldn’t really believe that this life would satisfy me. I’m young. Am I to have no fun in life? No amusements, no gayety, no pleasure, no friends? Am I to go on living here, seeing nobody worth seeing, going nowhere, just drudging along in this dismal hole?”

She stopped, panting, and he broke in——

“I can’t listen to you, Marian. Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“Yes, yes,” she interrupted, “I understand; it’s you who can’t. Can’t? Won’t—won’t! I sometimes wonder if you’re a man or a mere machine?”

“If you knew how much you are hurting me, Marian, you’d know how much of a man I am. Don’t you think I’ve seen how discontented you are, but you wouldn’t take my advice; you wouldn’t try to do what I know would make you happy. You’re—you’re so selfish; you criticise everything by whether it brings happiness to you. You have everything that I have, and could share everything with me, and be quite content and happy. But you do nothing; you keep outside my life and won’t let me help you.”

“I’ve heard all this before! What’s the use of preaching to me? Keep your sermons for those who agree with you. You’ve talked like this at me till I’m sick of hearing you.”

“Why not do as I ask you—work?”

“Why should I work?” she asked fiercely.

“Is it really you, Marian? I thought you so different.”

“I was different when you married me; I was a baby then, an ignorant fool of a girl. I’ve grown into a woman, but you haven’t noticed it.”

“A woman has more heart——”

“Copy-book platitudes won’t help us.”

“Don’t you love me?” he asked, straining eagerly toward her for the reply.

“No. I never did.”

“You never loved me?” he stammered, standing up and leaning heavily on the back of the chair. “You said you did—why did you marry me?”

“I suppose I thought I loved you—because I was lonely, poor; because I didn’t understand what love was; because I didn’t love anyone else; because I didn’t know any other man. If we’d gone on living down there in the country, I daresay I should have gone on vegetating. But you dragged me up here, and I’ve woken up. You said I was selfish. What about you? You knew what you were bringing me to and never stopped to think whether it would be good for me, this dull, stupid life, with nothing to care for, nothing to hope for, nothing to do.”

“You never really loved me? Oh, my God, why am I punished like this?”

He dropped his arms helplessly, standing before her, looking at her bewildered, as though struggling to shake himself free from some oppressive dream.

“Selfish again,” she said. “Your punishment! What about mine? You’ve often preached that there is no real happiness in life but to do your duty. Haven’t you done yours?”

“I can’t have.... What can I do?”

“Free me from this existence. Go away from here; somewhere there is life——”

“You know I can’t leave my work.”

“Others can do it.”

“If we all said that? You know I can’t leave my appointed work.”

Marian sat down and beat with her clenched fists upon the table.

“Can’t you see anyone’s life but your own?” she exclaimed fiercely. “You make me loathe you when you talk that way. Can’t you be a bit practical? Don’t you understand that things can’t go on like this? That you’re killing me? You’ve no pluck; I believe you’d be quite content to live all your life in these dingy lodgings. You say you love me——”

“I do—I do——”

“And won’t do a thing to make me happy! We can’t go on living together like this. Can we? Don’t you see we can’t?”

“What do you mean?”

“That something must be done to change it.”

“Wait, wait, let me think!” he said, tramping about the room; “let me think, let me think. No, Marian, I can’t go away; I must stop here and go on with my work. You see, dear, you’ve never really tried my way; if you worked hard all day like I do you’d have no time to be unhappy.”

“Why should I work?”

“Why shouldn’t you? That’s what we all have to do. And there’s so much work. You don’t know, I didn’t like to tell you, how it handicaps me, people knowing that you do nothing to help me. How can I urge them on when my wife does nothing? Then—what is it you want?”

“If I told you, oh! I know what you’d say. The same old sermons—the things I do want wouldn’t make me happy, the things I don’t would. You’ve made up your mind what I ought to do and you are so certain you’re right.”

“It’s not what I think——”

“Yes, yes, it is what you think; what others believe is right when you agree with them. I don’t agree with you. Your beliefs don’t make me happy.”

He sat down opposite her and began idly tracing with his finger the pattern on the shabby green cloth. She waited, wondering what he would say. So far there had been little more than a repetition of previous scenes between them. At last, after what seemed to her an interminable silence, he said—

“Don’t you see how you are breaking my heart? I believed you loved me. You deceived me. Then—do you think my work is easy to me? Don’t you know I would like to give you everything you want? But I can’t leave my work, and you—you do nothing to help me.”

“How can I when I think you’re all wrong?”

“Wrong in what way?”

“In everything. You preach about a merciful, just God! Is there any mercy or justice in allowing people to be born to live the life you are working to save them from? Nonsense!”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Quite well.”

“It’s blasphemy”—he stood up, looking down on her with the light of fanaticism in his eyes—“blasphemy! Pray to God you may be forgiven for it. Do you ever pray—truly?”

“What’s the use? I’ve prayed for what I want and can’t go on believing when I don’t get it. Of course you’ll tell me I pray for what wouldn’t be good for me! Praying doesn’t alter things, so what’s the use of it?”

“It’s because you don’t believe.”

“Yes, that’s religion all over!—Argue in a way that would be simply idiotic if you applied it to real life.”

“Marian! Marian!” he said, leaning across the table toward her, “God help you!”

“Soon, I hope,” she answered, turning away with a gesture of disgust.

He sprang up, but bit his lip, stopping the rush of words that came to his tongue. She looked up at him, laughing bitterly.

“Will you ever realize that our marriage was a mistake? We weren’t made for one another, that’s all about it. And we’re so poor we can’t afford to separate.”

“Separate!”

“What’s the use of stopping together? I tell you I can’t go on with this life; you must change it; you must.”

“I can’t. Marian, won’t you try once more?”

“No, I won’t. I’ve one life to live and I won’t be driven into wasting it. I’m young, full of life; you’ve often told me I’m beautiful, and you want me to go on living here and sharing your miserable work. I won’t. You must make a change.”

“I can’t,” he repeated doggedly. “You know I can’t. Not even you can tempt me to do that. I’ve listened to what you said, horrible as much of it was. I’ve felt hopeless about you for some time; you were so out of touch with me, you were becoming a stranger to me. I’ve asked you to try my way once more. I’ve often asked things of you. I begin to think I’ve been weak. I’ve tried to make you my true comrade and I’ve failed. Now, I must—must—make a change.” There was a tone in his voice that compelled her to stand up face to face with him. “I must make a change. Instead of our ruling our house together——”

“House! Lodgings!”

“I will be its master. I blame myself for not having been so sooner. Your life and salvation were intrusted to me and I should not have let my love for you interfere and tempt me to make life easy for you. Life is not easy and you must face it. Remember, I’m God’s minister.”

“So you say. You never give me a chance of forgetting it, with your continual preaching. So, now you can’t bend me, you’ll break me?”

“I must try to teach you that God must be obeyed.”

“How do you know His commands? But it’s no good talking this way any more. I shall leave you to-morrow”—her voice trembled, half with fear, half with defiant anger as she repeated—“I shall leave you to-morrow.”

“Leave me?”

“Leave you.”

“Where are you going?”

“What does that matter to you? You think divorce sinful, so my future address doesn’t concern you.”

She walked quickly out of the room, leaving him dazed.

For some moments he seemed scarcely conscious, scarcely able to breathe. Then, slowly, heavily, he kneeled down at the table, and, burying his face in his hands, prayed for forgiveness, the while he shook with sobbing and his heart ached.

CHAPTER V

Marian locked herself into the bedroom and sat down before the glass, laughing at her flushed, angry face. She was too astute to try to cajole herself into believing that Edward had really done or said anything to justify her leaving him. But in her present mood it pleased her to behave like a spoiled child. When Edward knocked at the door, asking for admission, she did not answer. She laughed again as she listened to his heavy, weary footfall going down the stairs. He would have to work out the accounts for himself; she had done with them.

She pulled out from beneath the bed her old-fashioned leather trunk and began to pack such clothes as she meant to take with her.

He sat down wearily to the books, checking them mechanically, while his mind was almost numb. He had never hesitated in his faith; it was not in him to do so; but never before had he felt so helpless. Prayer had brought softness to his anger, but as yet there was no light on the dark path ahead.

Before he left the house he went upstairs again, but, as before, obtained no answer to his knocking. From sheer habit he wrapped himself up closely, and, taking the books, went out.

Marian heard the door shut behind him, and knew that it closed on her married life.

This same day Maddison worked until the light failed, early in the afternoon, and then stood before the fire in the darkening studio, undetermined.

Marian’s intrusion into his life had rendered him dissatisfied, made him at one moment feverishly anxious for activity, at another full of longing for solitude and silence. As it chanced, the first was his present mood, but he had no engagement and did not know where to go or what to do.

It was only four o’clock. He could pay a visit to one or other of the many friends who would meet him with quick welcome, but this prosaic prospect did not allure him, nor did an afternoon of gossip or argument at the club.

It occurred to him to go and see Marian, but he resisted the insistent temptation. She had thrown him over without a word, either not wanting to see him, or wishing him to woo her; both pride and wisdom told him that he had best leave the next move to her. But if she made no move? Were there not other women equally desirable! Another Marian?

The ringing of the telephone bell broke in on his thoughts. The call was from Mortimer.

“Hullo! Is that you, George?”

“Yes.”

“I’m laid up with a sprained ankle. Can you come round for a chat? I’ve no woman for you—only tea.”

“All right.”

“At once?”

“Yes.”

A hansom bore him down quickly to the Adelphi, where Mortimer lived in a snug set of chambers overlooking the river. Maddison found him stretched out on the sofa before the fire, reading a prettily-bound, daintily-illustrated, wittily-written volume of French essays on cookery.

“Good man!” he exclaimed. “Come round to the fire. I’ve had a most lucky accident which will prevent me being able to go to the office this abominable weather and will get me out of several engagements I don’t want to keep.”

“You know you love going out!”

“No, I don’t. And as a matter of fact I don’t go out much. I used to, but I’m growing up. For one thing, people are so stupidly flippant; at best flippancy doesn’t sit well on English shoulders. You see I’m lucky: I’m an Englishman with foreign parents and a Jew for a grandfather. Do you mind ringing the bell?”

The servant brought in the tea table, which he set down beside the sofa; a bright, copper kettle was put on one trivet and a dish of hot cakes on the other.

“You old maid!” said Maddison, laughing, as he watched the trim preparations.

“That’s a compliment. An old maid is usually delightful. She has the ripeness of years without the rottenness of experience. And she’s free to do what she likes.”

“Because she hasn’t been able to do what every woman likes best; so she has to put up with the details of life.”

“Are there any details in life?” Mortimer asked.

“Yes; most important things are details.”

“I suppose you would call tea-making a detail? Three and a half minutes exactly. I hope you always drink China tea, George!”

“I never thought about it.”

“An unhappy old age is before the man who does not consider the tea he drinks? No doubt you are Vandal enough to take sugar? Art and sensibility of palate seldom go together. By the way, West’s back from his honeymoon. I had a line from him this morning. What a beggar he is for writing! He gets through more work in a day than the average man does in a week, and still has time to be married and write letters. He wants me to go down for a week-end.”

“What’s she like?”

“You saw her at the wedding.”

“Saw her. I know what she looks like—an empty-headed plaything. But you know her well, don’t you?”

“No man ever knows a woman.”

“Don’t be platitudinous.”

“I can’t always be lying. She—I really don’t know. I used to think her a devilish little flirt; in fact she was; but women do change so after they’re married. Besides, I may have been quite wrong, quite. Everyone else thought her just a simple little maiden—who knows?”

“And after all, it doesn’t really much matter. But it will take a clever woman to manage West. If she is just a doll he’ll soon grow tired of her—as he has of other dolls, whom he didn’t need to marry.”

“That’s so. We shall see. I like West. He’s such a delightful contrast to myself. How have you been jogging along? Anything new? Is the picture getting itself upon canvas?”

“Not begun!” answered Maddison, putting down his cup and lighting a cigarette.

“Refractory model, or what?”

“Just can’t get a start, that’s all. I can see it in my mind’s eye, Horatio, but—” he broke off abruptly.

They chatted on about matters indifferent, but Maddison, feeling out of tune with his companion, went away with an unwonted consciousness that he was out of tune with his life.

He lingered for a few minutes on the Terrace, looking at the picture spread before him: the blackness of the gardens below; the lamps on the Embankment and of the passing cabs and carriages; the dim mystery of the river; the black line of the railway bridge with its green and red lights; over all, the gloom and glamour of London.

Then he walked up Adam Street and so on along the noisy Strand to Charing Cross. As he walked, unconsciously directing his steps homeward, there came over him that intense feeling of loneliness that must fall at times upon any man who lives alone in London. He longed for some one, some woman, to whom he could go, with whom he could stay, in whom he could confide, from whom he could obtain the satisfying sympathy which only a woman can give to a man. There never had been one who had in any reality shared his life; he had never before suffered from the lack of such a one. But now he was hungry for intimate, human companionship and there was no one from whom he could obtain it. His thoughts turned to Marian. He realized that he did not know anything of her nature; she attracted him physically; she interested him. It did not appear unreasonable that a woman of her temperament should rebel against the circumstances of her dull, insipid life, but he wondered if it were solely against that existence that she was revolting, or was she one of those women who rebel against all restraint? Was she simply a man-hunter? A woman who lusted for pleasure, excitement, change for change’s sake? How greatly she had altered from the simple country girl she had been when he knew her first.

Or had she qualities in her which would enable her to become devoted to one man, to be happy with him? To be his comrade and ally? He must not permit sensual impulses to overthrow his reason. He must not allow Marian to become part of his life, only to find that he was not part of hers.

It is a long walk from the Strand to St. John’s Wood, and it was considerably after seven when he slipped his latchkey into the door and went into the dark studio, turning up the light as he entered. Still the sense of loneliness held him; the room, despite all its luxuriousness, appeared comfortless.

He sat down and stirred the fire into a flame; sat there, smoking and thinking.

Strength had gone out of him. During the last few days his work had failed to satisfy him: it had been labored and dull. He had never before suffered in this way. Painting had hitherto been the supreme thing in his life, but now a woman’s face was always flitting between him and the canvas. If she were with him, would it still be so? Or would she strengthen and inspire him? It was the uncertainty that disturbed him; to have and to hold her, then to find that she injured and did not aid him—that would hurt, but the wound would quickly heal, he felt sure. It would be wiser, then, to act promptly, to put an end to this state of doubt.

Supposing she rejected him? Probably she had not come to him because she did not care whether she met him again or did not. Or—it might be—she wished so dearly to see him that she could not bring herself to come to him.

He drove down to Acacia Grove.

As he strode up the crunching gravel path he saw that the parlor was in darkness, or else the curtains were very closely drawn.

If her husband were with her his visit would be in vain, save that it would show her that he was anxious to see her. His hand trembled as he knocked, and he waited anxiously for the maid’s approach.

“Is Mrs. Squire at home?”

“No, sir. She’s just gone away, sir, in a keb, with her boxes. She was a-goin’ on a wisit, she said.”

“Where to?”

“I dunno.”

He hurried away, shocked, angry. What silly trick was fate playing on him? He must write, cautiously, perhaps to find that she was gone out of his reach.

What an unutterably dreary part of the town was this in which he found himself pursuing the more or less romantic! Dingy vice and dreary respectability inextricably mingled, punctuated by blazing public houses. He hurried through the continuous stream of wayfarers, wondering if any of them knew the meaning of love. It startled him to find how intense had grown his longing for Marian, whom he thought at first he held in his hand, but who now eluded him so persistently.

A man passed him, walking rapidly in the opposite direction. Despite the dim light, he recognized Edward Squire. Then the thought came to him that perhaps Marian had come face to face with the great act of rebellion and had found her courage fail, had fled for safety. He did not believe that she would find safety; once her thirst for the fullness of life had been excited she would quench it. If he did not win her some other man would. He wanted her and would not leave anything undone to possess her.

Again and again the echo of her voice rang in his ears as he hurried along; again her face appealed to him. How glorious it would be to loosen her red-gold hair around her shoulders, to hold her close to him, looking deep into her eyes, his lips on hers; she and he alone.

CHAPTER VI

Both in situation and in itself, Stone’s Hotel is respectable and dull. Desperately so, Marian found it, as she stood looking out of the drawing room window on the sunlit, colorless street. She was alone.

It was an Early Victorian room; heavy, dingy red curtains hung down starkly before the window from a heavy, gilded cornice. The carpet also was dingy red, with faded roses of huge proportions displayed thereon; the walls were covered with dirty gold-and-white paper, chastened by oleographs in clumsy gold frames; over the mantelpiece there was a fly-blown, gilt-framed mirror; the furniture was upholstered in well-worn red velvet, and over the backs of the chairs and sofa were draped dirty white crochet antimacassars; in the center stood a huge round table covered with a green and black cloth and adorned with a careful selection of assorted hotel guides and photograph albums, among which a stray Tauchnitz volume looked sadly out of place; over the whole lay the blight of dust and dreariness.

Marian had dressed carefully in black, the single touch of color being a gold brooch at her neck.

She turned, with a gesture of impatience, away from the empty street to the empty room, and sat down by the fire, the one spot of warmth and brightness.

Her brows knit as she thought over the situation in which she had placed herself. She was ready to cross the Rubicon; had gone so far that return was unthinkable. It now depended upon Maddison whether her first fight would be a victory or a disastrous defeat. But she felt stronger now that she was free, and determinedly put aside all thought of what would face her if she failed to win.

The sharp pulling up of a hansom and the ringing of the house-bell made her listen eagerly. The subdued maidservant threw open the door and Maddison came in.

“It is so good of you to come!” Marian said, rising and holding out her hand. “I hope you didn’t mind my writing to you, but I’ve—no one else.”

The weariness and despondency in her voice and attitude hurt him.

“Of course I don’t mind—why on earth should I? Is—what’s happened?”

She sat down again, her back to the light, and he took the chair on the opposite side of the hearth. He could not see her face very distinctly in the dull room, but this very dimness gave an added charm to her beauty. She did not answer his question immediately, though her lips parted as if she were anxious but unable to speak.

“Now you’re here,” she said at last, “I’m frightened. I’d no right to ask you to come, but—I’d no one else, and I’m——”

Tears came into her eyes, rolling slowly down her cheeks. Then she covered her face with her hands, watching him very keenly between her fingers.

He rose quickly and came over to her, resting his hand upon the back of her chair and only by an effort restraining himself from catching her in his arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, “so sorry, and so glad you did send for me. Don’t—don’t cry.”

“I’m so helpless!” she sobbed.

She dropped her hands on her lap disconsolately; he took them in his, as he stooped over her.

“Come, come, you’re not helpless,” he said, “because you’re not alone. Tell me, what has happened?”

She drew her hands slowly from his, as she answered—

“You must forgive me—crying; I’m not often so silly, but I couldn’t help it. If you hadn’t come, I don’t know what I should have done. Please sit down again and I’ll tell you.”

She paused as though she were trying how best to begin her story.

“I’ve left home. Left it altogether. I couldn’t stay there any longer. I tried hard to get used to things, but they got worse and worse. Then yesterday afternoon Edward was wild with me because I couldn’t—couldn’t help him in his work. I broke out and—there was a regular scene between us. We quarreled—and—I came away here—what am I to do?”

“Why here?”

“It’s the only place I know. My father brought me here years ago; it wasn’t like this then, or didn’t seem so.”

“Have you no plans at all?” he asked.

“No, none. I must earn a living somehow. I’ve no money, and no friends, except you, and I’ve no right to bother you. I suppose you think I’m mad to run away like this—but the life there—it wasn’t life—it was killing me.

“I don’t set up to judge people; don’t talk like that. The first thing is—you mustn’t stop in this dingy hole.”

“Where else can I go?”

“We must hunt up some decent rooms somewhere. This place would kill you.”

“Decent rooms—with a decent rent! You forget I’m a working woman. The first thing to do is to find a way to earn my living.”

He hesitated for a moment; was she playing with him, or talking in innocent earnestness?

“What about your husband?” he asked abruptly.

“Edward? I left a letter for him, telling him I had gone away and that—nothing on earth would persuade me to go back.”

“Are you sure of that?”

Her hands clinched as she answered: “Nothing could ever persuade me to go back to him. What would be the use of it? To begin it all over again? There would be no change; he couldn’t change, and I couldn’t—not as he would want me to. He’ll be miserable at first, but soon he’ll be all the better for my being away. He never loved me really; it’s only his work he loves.”

“Won’t he search for you?”

“I dare say. But he’d only preach again if he found me.”

“Did you—did you—care for him?”

“Love him? I thought I did when I married him, and didn’t know what he was. I was a girl then and knew nothing. Gradually I came to hate him. I couldn’t help it; you don’t know how heartlessly cruel a good man can be—they’re so utterly selfish. But don’t let’s waste time on what has been. When I shut the door there last night, I shut it on the past. Now—what am I to do now? Can you help me? Do you know of any work I could do? Or how I could get it?”

“Let me think,” he said, walking slowly up and down the room. “Why—why did you not keep your promise to come and see me at my studio?”

“I—can’t tell you.”

“Can’t tell me?” he said, surprised.

“No; please don’t ask me. I could make up an excuse—lie to you, but—I shouldn’t like to tell you even the most innocent fib. So please don’t ask. All I can tell you,” she said, looking up at him as he stood beside her, “is that I had a very good reason.”

Their eyes met fully, and she dropped hers quickly and turned away.

“I went down to see you last night—just after you had left,” he said. “I—well, I wanted you to help me.”

“To help you? How could I help you?”

“We’re a helpless couple,” he answered, laughing nervously. Then he drew up a chair close to hers, so that he could see her face. “Yes, you can help me, and it’s just possible I can help you. You remember when I came down to see you that afternoon, and you told me something about your life and how—bad it was for you. I’ve never forgotten what you told me. It’s made me a good deal unhappy.”

“I don’t know why I told you,” she said doubtfully; “I suppose because you were the only person I knew who I thought could understand. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I’m very glad you did tell me. But something you did worried me very much—your not coming to see me. It made me angry at first and then miserable, especially as you didn’t write to say why you hadn’t been able to come.”

“I tried to write but I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t? What do you mean?” he asked keenly.

“Just, I couldn’t. Don’t ask me any more.”

“You couldn’t come to see me—you couldn’t write to me? I don’t understand.”

“I—can’t explain. But—you were telling me about yourself?”

“You care to hear?”

“Of course I do.”

“When I went down to see you last night it seemed as if it would be so easy; now, somehow I can’t say what I want.”

“Is it something I can do for you?”

“Yes—yes—look here, come down to the studio now. I’ll start that picture, and while I work you can talk. Then we’ll lunch there, and talk some more and see if we can’t put things a bit straight. Will you come?”

Little as he had said, his manner had conveyed an assurance to her that she would quickly gain her object, and it required all her self-restraint to enable her to conceal her relief and triumph. She did not reply to him immediately, looking into the fire as though she were thinking over what he had said, in reality waiting until she felt sure of her voice and eyes. The conversation of the last few minutes had shown him to be her captive and that the life she had been dreaming of was now about to become a reality.

She stood up as she answered him——

“I’ll come; it will do me good. You’ve been awfully kind to me.”

While waiting for her, he paced quickly up and down the room. All hesitation and all doubt had vanished; his pulse beat quickly; he longed to be away with her: to see her seated before him, the rebel whom he hoped to tame. Yet with this certainty there mixed a last remnant of reason: before he gave himself he must be sure that she was his. He could not bring himself seriously to mistrust her, but he realized that he was holding out a rescuing hand to a lonely, desperate, possibly cunning woman. She might clutch at it in helplessness; he longed that she should clasp it in love.

Though the drive was long it seemed only too short to him. She scarcely spoke at all, but looked straight ahead, wistfully, as it seemed to him, as though she were watching a world of men and women in which she only was sad. He, too, was silent, content to look at her, noting every beauty of her face, the graceful carriage of her head, the evanescent loveliness of her hair.

“Here we are!” he exclaimed, as he led the way into the studio. “Shan’t I just make a nuisance of myself! You’ll have to sit still, though you can talk. I can listen while I work.”

“What a lovely room!” she said, looking round at the deep archway before the carved oak fireplace; the opposite arch, the recess with the daïs and the wide expanse of latticed windows with the clear lights above; the parqueted floor, strewn with rugs and skins; the carved chairs and the luxurious settee—the display of somber, costly, beautiful things. “What a lovely room! I couldn’t work in a room like this—but then I’ve never found a room in which I could work, since I left the country.”

She threw off her wraps and flung them with her hat—recklessly—on a couch, and then stood warming her hands at the fire.

“I don’t think you were made for working,” he said, standing close beside her, looking down upon her as she bent to the blaze, which shed a warmth of crimson over her face. “You were meant to help others to work.”

“You?”

“Ever so much, I fancy.”

“Tell me what I’m to do, and I’ll try.”

He brought over to the fireside an old-fashioned, plain wooden chair, with high, stiff back and broad, flat arms.

“There—sit there—straight up—I shan’t keep you like that for long at a stretch; grip the ends of the arms slightly—and look into the fire; look like you did, as far as you can, that afternoon when I called you the rebel.”

She took the position he directed, while he sat down on a stool at a little distance and began to sketch rapidly upon a block on his knee.

“I want to rough it out,” he said, as he tore off a sheet of the paper and flung it on the floor, “until I’ve caught the pose, and then I’ll start to get it on a canvas.”

At first he worked quickly, the while she watched him with keen interest. She knew that if she had aroused deep emotion in him, he could not continue this make-believe of absorption in his work, could not long keep up this semblance of looking upon her simply as a model.

It was partly hatred of the surroundings in which he had found her this morning, partly fear of precipitancy that induced him to act as he was doing. If he spoke too soon he might not only lose her, but lose also—he loved her too sincerely not to dread it—the opportunity of helping her in her distress. But strive strongly as he could he was unable to concentrate his mind upon the work. Every time he looked at her and found her gaze fixed upon him it called for all his powers of control to keep him from throwing discretion aside at once and for all.

“You’re watching me,” he said with a touch of impatience that troubled her; “look at the fire, please.”

“I’m afraid you bully your sitters,” she replied, doing as he bade her. “I’m so tired of being told to do things. There are such lots of things I should like to do—but nobody ever told me to do any of them.”

“What things? May I know?”

“You’ll only laugh at me. They’re the kind of things that a woman with nothing a year and not much hope of earning anything much has to do without and had better not even think about.” She spoke slowly, wondering which of her ambitions it would be discreet to name to him. “I should like a lot of friends, clever people who can talk and be jolly and make me jolly too, if I haven’t forgotten how to be; and pretty rooms. I should like to read and to see pictures, and to go to the opera—and I want sympathy—and—and——”

As she broke off there was a catch in her voice that routed the remains of his discretion. He threw away his pencil and went quickly over to her, standing beside her chair.

“Look up at me,” he said eagerly. “What else do you want? Sympathy—and—what else?”

Instead of looking up at him, she turned away, clasping her hands in her lap.

“Look up at me,” he repeated. “Why don’t you?”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t again! Is it—is it for the same reason that you didn’t come here; didn’t write me? Tell me!”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to guess—but I daren’t, for if my guess was wrong, you’d never forgive me. But—I’ll risk it. I can’t wait any longer. It’s because you care more for me than you care for a mere friend. If that’s it, it’ll be all right and you shall have all your wishes.”

He noticed the quick heaving of her bosom and believed that it was love for him that stirred her.

“It’s just this: I love you, Marian, and if you’ll trust me I’ll do all I can to make you happy. Let me try.”

The revulsion from doubt to certainty was too great for her strength, and she burst into hysterical sobs as she hid her face in her hands.

“Marian, Marian,” he said, kneeling beside her, “just tell me—do you love me? Tell me, do you? Do you?”

At the moment she almost felt that she did love him.

“Tell me—do you?”

“You really love me?” she asked, turning her tear-stained face to him.

“Really love you?” he exclaimed, seizing her hands and covering them with eager kisses. “What’s the use of telling you? Let me prove it.”

CHAPTER VII

Even in winter time the Manor House at Chelmhurst is a cheerful abode; the garden is no mere waste of promises kept and made; the two great yew-trees on the lawn behind the house by their spacious graciousness prevent any sense of void, nobly supported as they are by the splendid laurel hedges and the evergreen shrubberies. The long, low house, with warm red-brick walls, tiled roofs, haphazard gables and chimney-stacks, strikes rich and cozy to the eye. Behind the garden, barely divided from it by light iron railings, lies a broad meadow, with a pond and a confining belt of elms. Before the house, clearly seen over the low wall, stretches the gorse-clad common with its graceful clumps of ash-trees.

Thin wraiths of country mist strayed about the common, hanging in the tall trees that surround it on almost all sides, and there was a bitter winter sting in the air, as Philip West and Fred Mortimer drove up from the station one afternoon late in November.

With his long, lanky limbs, thick shock of black hair, which he had a habit of tossing from his forehead, dark blue eyes, which at times appeared to be the abode of dreams, but on occasion flashed with abundant energy, his thin, almost cadaverous face, West contrasted markedly with his companion. As ever, he was smoking a cigar, which he fidgeted between his thin fingers when it was not cocked up at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry Maddison could not come down; I find him a refreshing contrast to my restless self,” West said. “Besides I should like him to meet Alice Lane. She’s the sort of woman you don’t meet half a dozen times in a life. I wonder how they’d get on together.”

“Are you matchmaking for others, now you’ve made your own match?”

“Not a bit, Fred. That’s the one line of business I shouldn’t care to tackle. It’d do him a deuced lot of good to get married to the right woman.”

“I fancy he fancies other men have generally married the right woman—for him. Which is convenient, and does not land him in lifelong responsibilities. There are so many right men and so few right women.”

“Don’t agree with you a bit. The average man rubs along all right with the average woman. It’s when you get a man above or below the average that the trouble begins.”

Mortimer wondered if his companion were thinking of his own recent marriage. Strikingly beautiful he knew Mrs. West to be, and in a quaint, childish way, fascinating. But that would not suffice West for long. He had tired of similar charms often enough already.

The victoria swung briskly in through the gate on to the short drive, and before it had pulled up West leaped out and sprang up on to the veranda to greet his wife.

“You see, Fred,” he said, laughing—“you see we haven’t forgotten our honeymoon ways yet. We haven’t arrived at the silly stage when we’re ashamed of people knowing we’re fond of one another. You’ve met Fred before, Agatha; make the best you can of him, and let him do exactly what he likes, or he’ll never come again.”

A pretty blush lingered on her cheeks as she held out her hand to Mortimer in welcome.

“I try to keep him in order, Mr. Mortimer, but he’s just a great big baby—at home, at any rate.”

It was she who looked a child; her figure was girlish, supple and delicate, shown to perfection by the clinging soft silk gown; her face, too, was girlish, tender in every contour, set in a frame of unruly golden hair, the hazel eyes alone giving it distinction. Neither husband nor wife made any attempt to conceal their admiration of and affection for each other, and Mortimer could but question how long West, man of the world, would rest satisfied with the constant companionship of such a woman. Perhaps, however, she was exactly the helpmeet he needed, one who would catch him away from the serious work of life.

The chief characteristic of the interior of the Manor House is the long, low hall into which the front door opens directly; cozy, comfortable, half drawing room, half billiard room, the Wests used it constantly, Mrs. West working there in the morning and receiving visitors there in the afternoon; in the evenings the house-party assembling there before dinner and after.

“Here we are!” exclaimed West to a tall, graceful woman, who sat reading by the roaring fire. “Here’s Mortimer, and here’s me, so now you have some one to entertain or be entertained by, instead of reading all the time while Agatha insists on spooning with me.”

Mortimer considered himself quick at seeing whether a new acquaintance would prove to his liking, and immediately decided that there was not much chance of there being any real goodwill between Alice Lane and himself. She was not of a type that appealed to him; too sedate, too cool; stately, well-proportioned, almost robust, with a breezy, blunt, direct manner of speech, gesture and look.

“Why are you so late?” Mrs. West asked. “We waited lunch ever so long for you, and now it is almost tea time.”

“It’s partly my fault because I was so busy; partly the fog’s.”

“Chiefly his fault,” said Mortimer; “he kept me waiting in his room for two solid hours. Gave me The Times and a lot of cigars to keep me quiet.”

“You must be famished. Poor things! I’ll ring for tea at once. How can you be so naughty, Phil?”

“If you pull my hair like that I shall kiss you, and you know how that disgusts Alice. I should like to see her in love with some emotional young man like me——”

“Young!” exclaimed Mrs. West, with a merry laugh. “Young! Dark, thin and forty, you mean!”

“Like myself,” he continued, ignoring the interruption. “I wonder whether he would thaw her or she freeze him?”

“Don’t mind him, Alice.”

“I don’t. He’ll grow up some day.”

“There, Mrs. West,” he said, striking an attitude of triumph; “you see, this sensible young woman realizes that I am young. Profit by her example.”

Darkness was closing in, but Mrs. West protested that it would be far more pleasant to sit, chat and drink tea by the firelight than to have the lamp brought in.

“What a quaint quartette we are!” said West. “I, sedate and elderly; Alice, sedate and quite young; Agatha, the child; and Fred—well, all cynics are old.”

“Are you a cynic?” asked Mrs. West, handing him his cup.

“What do you mean by a cynic?”

“I always think cynics are—disagreeable and——”

“And you ask me if I am one!”

“Had you then, Aggie!” laughed her husband.

“I don’t care a bit. Mr. Mortimer knows I didn’t mean anything nasty. I’m always saying shocking things, and no one minds a bit.”

“Any more than when a kitten scratches,” said West.

“A kitten’s scratches hurt, and mine don’t. It’s mean of you to sit the other side of Alice, so that I can’t pull your hair. We have her here, Mr. Mortimer, to keep us good, and to make her better.”

“Aggie trying to make epigrams! What next! Heaven defend the poor man whose wife makes epigrams.”

Quite mistakenly, Mortimer counted himself an onlooker at life, delighting to sound the characters of his friends and when possible, to understand their doings. This night, as he lay awake, his thoughts dwelt upon the company of three with whom he had passed the evening. He had known Philip West for years, and considered him a strong, determined, pushing man. From small beginnings inherited from an uncle he had built up vast Stores known over London, indeed all the world over, thanks to skillful and persistent advertising. He was a man of considerable culture and refinement, one who, so Mortimer believed, would look for much in his wife, for much more, at any rate, than he would obtain from any pretty, overgrown schoolgirl. Agatha certainly was beautiful and her baby ways charming, but were they not likely soon to pall upon such a man as West? There was a further point: was she not simply a fair-weather mate? Would he not find her hopelessly wanting in any time of stress and storm? Could she shake herself free from her love of dress, luxury and excitement? Mortimer felt sorry for her; she was lovable, but helpless. To see her suffer would be as bad as to watch the pain of a pretty pet animal.

The third of the trio—Alice Lane? Mortimer tried to set aside his innate distaste for her and his suspicion that she despised him as a trifler, endeavoring to judge her justly. He had watched her closely, and had discovered that she in turn was closely watching West and his wife. She was obviously on intimate terms with Philip and apparently was entirely trusted by Agatha, but Mortimer had learned to mistrust the continued harmony of such a trio. A wrong note was sure to be sounded sooner or later. If Agatha failed or palled upon him, West would certainly turn to some other woman. If he held out his hand to Alice Lane, would she take it? Mortimer thought not, for he recognized that there was a great deal that was noble in her. But, then, she might hold that it was a noble part to help, in defiance of the world’s opinion, the man she loved. That she did love West he had so far seen no cause to believe, but he fancied that more than once when Agatha and her husband had indulged in open display of their affection she had shrunk back with some stronger emotion than mere distaste.

To Mortimer this openly displayed fondness was amusing and even grateful; it pleased him to meet a couple in their position whose refinement had not blunted their impulses. He felt himself old beside them, sighing as he thought that such innocuous sweets were insipid to him.

With that sigh he closed his eyes and fell asleep, leaving the future to expound itself.

Billiards and conversation helped the Sunday hours to pass rapidly, until at length Mortimer found himself late at night sitting alone with West.

“One more cigar and one more whisky,” said the latter, suiting the action to the word.

“Oh, yes, I know what that means. I grant you’ll probably be content with the one drink—but—several cigars. How do you manage it?”

“Manage what?”

“To burn the candle at both ends without burning out?”

“I don’t do it. I’ve several candles and I burn each at one end only. Work all day and rest down here.”

“Rest! You’d go mad if you ever tried to do it. You’re always at something, and as for sleep, it doesn’t seem to matter how little you have of it. You eat and drink everything you shouldn’t——”

“But I don’t worry. That’s my secret. I never let anything or anybody worry me. I sacked one of my head men the other day because he was developing a habit of trying to worry me.”

“Never worry! Lucky devil!”

“I’ve never done so. I’ve just worked straight ahead for what I wanted. I never stopped to consider whether I was a saint or a sinner, a beauty or a beast. What’s the good? We are what we are, that’s all. And—I’ll have what I want if I can get it, but I shan’t worry if I don’t get it—that’s all.”

“Again, lucky man.”

“You, Fred, you—your delight in life is to weigh in delicate scales one thing against another, and then choose by applying certain rules which you fancy you obey. But you don’t obey them, not you. No man could. We’re all creatures of impulse. Reason is only useful for getting us out of scrapes which are the result of our own or others’ mistakes. Why should I worry? I’ve got everything I want; money, power, a comfortable house, a pretty wife. Good Lord, what would be the use of deliberately shoving a fly into my own honey?”

“Yours is a fair-weather philosophy.”

“It’s brought me through a good many hours of foul weather. You know something about business, though your father—luckily for you—knows more. You know I’ve not built up my business without nearly running on rocks sometimes. Last year it was almost a toss-up whether I came a colossal smash or not.”

“Last year!”

“Last year.”

“But last year——”

“Oh, yes,” West broke in, “I know what you’re going to say. Last year I gave ten thousand pounds to a Royal charity fund. People said I did it to buy a knighthood. I did it to set my credit above suspicion. It saved me.”

“I’ve never heard you talk about business before.”

“Very likely not. I don’t often talk ‘shop.’ Does it bore you?”

“No, I like hearing men talk shop.”

“I wish I had been married then,” West said, lying back on the sofa and watching the smoke from his cigar as it drifted across to the fire. “A business man ought to have a home that keeps him—so to speak—out of his office.”

“And a wife to share his anxieties?”

“H’m—I don’t know that. Perhaps it would help.”

He knocked the ash off his cigar, got up and began pacing slowly up and down the long room.

“That’s just the difference between us, Fred. You’d weigh the woman you thought of marrying in those silly scales of yours, and if you found her short weight in any particular would fight shy. I’ve human impulses and follow them. When they get me into a mess I get out of it as well as I can. You spend so much of time in avoiding messes that you’ll never get into anything else.”

“I don’t seem to have many impulses left.”

“Rats! You don’t know anything about yourself—you analytical gents never do. Or else, which I suspect is more true, you don’t want anyone else to know you have just ordinary, human impulses. I believe you’re a sentimental old humbug. Come to bed.”

CHAPTER VIII

Marian understood that if her bargain with Maddison was to last, it must be made satisfying to him as well as to herself. She did not think that because the first skirmish had been won the remainder of the campaign would be easy and necessarily victorious. She rejoiced in having won her freedom from the shackles of matrimony, but did not overlook the fact that her foothold in her new world was precarious, and that a single false step might bring her to trouble far worse than that from which she had escaped.

Inexperience was her chief weakness. Intuition, impulse and insight she possessed in high degree, but these alone would not suffice her, would not enable her to make her new position unassailable. It was certain, once the first rush of pleasurable emotion was over, that Maddison would begin to weigh the consequences of what he had done, that he would question whether stress of circumstances had not driven him to act foolishly in tying himself so closely to her. He would study her keenly to find out whether she was really charming or only appeared so to him. The woman desired is so often more desirable than the woman won. It must be her unremitting task never to disappoint him in any way, and in this the chief difficulty would be to know where to draw the line between the utter submission to his will which might lead to rapid satiation and the making it difficult for him to gain his every point without feeling that he was not being given all that he was paying for. She must make her hold upon him so tight that there would be no chance of his easily loosening it before she herself might desire to be free. She determined that no avoidable rashness or haste should endanger the future.

Maddison acted as she expected. After the first outburst of passion he was strongly impelled to draw back, to survey critically the situation into which he had been drawn almost against his will, and certainly against his better judgment, and to ask himself repeatedly if there could be any continued content for him in this liaison.

He settled Marian in a pretty flat not far from his studio, and the first test to which he put her was to watch carefully her taste in the decorating and furnishing of her new home.

“I want everything to be just what you like,” she said to him, as they surveyed the bare, unpapered rooms. “It is so lovely to start with everything to do and not to have to put up with what other people have put up. Everything must be just what you like, George.”

He laughed.

“What I like?—What you like.”

“Perhaps we shall both like the same things! Though it’s cheeky of me to imagine that my taste could be as good as yours. I don’t think I shall want anything you will consider dreadful, but you must teach me what are the best things. Only, do let everything be pretty and quiet—and not too many things. And don’t let’s go to one shop and get everything there; I’d much rather do it bit by bit. I want a home—our home—not a gimcrack shop or a ready-made bandbox as if I were a new hat—a real home.”

She spoke the word almost sadly, and turning away from him, went across the room and looked out of the window at the canal, the noisy road, the vast vistas of houses and the dun-colored sky. Her tone touched him, as she had hoped it would; there rushed in on him a sudden realization that he had taken into his keeping a human soul, a lonely soul that had called to him for help.

“Don’t think I’m ungrateful—talking like this,” she said, going back to him and laying her hands on his shoulders; “but—I do love you so much, and I do want to be what you want me to be—so that you will go on loving me. Teach me. You’re so strong and I’m so weak. You’re able to do so much for me and I can do so little for you. I’ll try hard to make you so happy that you’ll—never be sorry.”

He took her face between his hands, looking into her deep, eager eyes, then drew her close to him, kissing her again and again, eagerly, passionately. She lay passive in his arms, her head on his shoulder. Then forced herself quick apart.

“Don’t, don’t, George! We mustn’t be too happy—it can’t last.”

“Can’t it? Why not? We’ll just see. But at any rate we must try to be comfortable as well as happy. And for comfort, more than bare walls and boards are needed.”

“The Nest,” as Marian called the little flat, was quickly put into habitable order, though in accordance with her wish only essentials were bought en bloc and details were left over for gradual treatment. It was a cozy nest: a tiny drawing room where the prevailing colors were gold and green: a brown and red dining room; the bedroom a bower of blue and white; a neat entrance hall, which Maddison had fitted up with dark wainscoting which he had bought from an old farmhouse.

Meanwhile Marian stayed at an hotel, spending long hours every day with Maddison, at his studio or shopping with him; watching the progress made at “The Nest”; dining with him every night at various restaurants, reveling in her luxurious freedom. But he soon tired of this vagabondish life, which had not any novelty for him, and she discreetly made pretense of sharing his desire for quiet and of rejoicing with him when the day came for her installation in her new domain.

It was with a sense almost of nervousness that he dressed on the first evening that she was to be his hostess. The night was dark though the sky was full of stars; the air was keen and frosty. As he walked along, the feeling of shyness grew stronger; it was almost as if he had been a lover going forth to woo. How great a part of his life Marian had become! It was not merely her beauty that he loved: there was so much of refinement and, as he believed, such utter sincerity in her, that she had caught firm hold of him. He must not hurt her by word or look or deed.

The drawing room was empty when he entered it, and he glanced impatiently at the clock, thinking that women are always late. He stepped across toward her bedroom, but again the sense of shyness took hold on him; he stopped. There seemed to him now to be something gross about such familiarity. Then the door opened and Marian came quietly in, radiantly lovely in a soft, clinging gown of dull crimson and flame-color, a red chrysanthemum in her hair; a bright flush on her cheeks, a look of glad welcome in her eyes.

“Isn’t it nice, George?” she said, taking his hands in her own and looking up merrily. “Our little nest. I’ve been exploring it all day, as though I didn’t know everything in it; trying all the chairs, strumming on the piano, tasting everything as it were—and doesn’t it taste sweet? Thank you—thank you—thank you——!”

He held her face close to his; the scent of her hair, the warmth of her breath intoxicated him as he kissed her and pressed her close.

“You do love me, really love me, George?”

He kissed her again.

“I do, my dear, I do. You’re a witch. I often thought I should never love any woman really, though I very nearly loved you when you were a little country girl. Then you come along and just wind yourself into my life and make me forget everything except you.”

“Everything except me,” she repeated dreamily, “and I forget everything except you. I feel just like Cinderella must have done when she met the prince, only this is all real, real, all real. Now, come along; you’re a man, and—dinner is ready. Come, give me your arm and lead your hostess in.”

The dining table was plainly but daintily furnished; pretty flowers, simple china, cheap green German glass, a homely dinner, light Rhine wine, red and white, good coffee, mellow liqueurs. There was nothing to remind him of the garish restaurant life they had been leading, no touch of meretriciousness or hint of sham.

When the servant left them, Marian drew her chair close to his, filled his glass and her own.

“Have you no toast to propose?” she asked.

“Yes, but no wine in the world is good enough to drink it in, dear. You—you!”

“I’ve a better toast—and it’s the wish, not the wine, that counts—We. We!”

“You’re right! We! Though I should be nothing without you. We!”

They clinked glasses and drank.

“How nice and quiet it is here!” she said. “Just you and I, and all the rest of the world shut out. I wonder——”

“What?”

“Should we have been as happy if you had quite loved me then?”

“We were different then.”

“Yes, how different!” said Marian; “I at any rate. I daresay you haven’t changed much. You were grown-up then, but I was merely a child. I don’t know that I am very much more now, am I?”

She laughed lightly as she spoke, and glanced at him; then laughed again as she leaned back in her chair and nibbled a marron glacé.

“A child!” she went on. “Am I anything more than a mere grown-up child? I don’t think I can be much more. I don’t want to really grow up. Just a Cinderella, whom you found sitting among the ashes. I’d never met a prince before, so—I let you carry me off in your fairy hansom. So—they lived happily ever afterward. I wonder, did they?”

She leaned forward, her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her folded hands.

“What a way to talk on our first night here! What nonsense!”

“It’s nice to talk nonsense sometimes.”

“Yes, but only jolly nonsense. I’ll tell you something that will make you laugh. Do you know—I felt quite—nervous coming here to-night.”

“Quite right. Any man going to dine with a lovely lady should feel nervous.”

“I was rather glad I felt that way,” he continued. “I don’t want——”

“What don’t you want?”

“It’s rather awkward to say. I’ll tell you another time. Let’s talk about something else.”

“To-night—anything you like and only what you like,” she answered, curious, however, to know what he had in his mind.

“Now I’m going to be serious,” she went on after a moment’s pause; “I want to say something straight out. I know what people think of me; I know that I can only have a part of your life, that is, if you’re going to be happy. I don’t want you to give up anything for me, or any of your friends. Don’t think I’m a baby and will cry if I can’t always have what I’d love to have always. We can never be anything more to each other; we can’t marry—Edward won’t let us: he thinks divorce wicked. You understand? And now—come along into the next room; I’ll graciously permit you to smoke. It’s nice and cozy there. You sit in the corner of the sofa—poke the fire first—and I’ll snuggle up against you.”

He woke toward dawn, the late winter dawn, when gray light was furtively peeping through the curtains. She lay with her cheek on the pillow, her hair straying over in gorgeous cords. He watched the gentle rise and fall of the lace upon her bosom, the beating pulse in a blue vein. He wondered at her loveliness; he marveled at his love for her.

She stirred; slowly opened her eyes; smiled at him; then slipped her arm round his neck and drew his head down upon her shoulder.

For the moment she was self-forgetful.