CHAPTER XXIV

Next afternoon, as Marigold was sitting near a window, idle as usual, the great High Priest was ushered in.

He came without any qualms of conscience, any loss of worldly dignity, without having to stoop his head to get within the door, and with no sense of being too big for the room where he now found himself.

Marigold, from her seat in the far window, saw him coming, and rose to greet him. Her heart beat a little faster, yet not with love, or that more common form, infatuation, but with a little sense of power and some unshown amusement.

But he, after all these weeks and their humiliations, forsaken by a beggar girl and laughed at by St Armand, felt his thin pulses quicken--for the face and figure before him were very beautiful, very dignified--an ideal wife for one in Holy Orders--had he not been too high.

“The Princess of Ellel, I believe?”

She smiled very sweetly, and drew a chair for him beside her own, near to the open window.

“It is not often I have such visitors,” she said. “It is ages and ages since I saw a clergyman except in Church.”

“I think you are a stranger to these parts. I noticed you in the Temple for the first time yesterday.”

“Yes; I live in Fairy Sky, and am renting this house from the Duke of Medona just for a little time. This is a pretty country.”

“But nothing to your own. The only dark blot on the fair beauty of your country is its religion.”

“I don’t know much about it.”

“You are a follower of the Serpent, I believe?”

She shook her head.

“I was brought up to worship nothing--at least, to worship something that I couldn’t see. But that is very unsatisfactory, you know. Now--now, with you, there really is something behind that wondrous curtain, is there not?”

How should he perceive the smile within those wondrous eyes, so shadowy, so bright, so tender, and so serious?

“Believe me, the only true God.”

“Is there any chance of ever really seeing Him?”

“For men, yes; for women, not--not at present.”

“I don’t see why it should not be--do you?”

Marigold’s voice was very soft and persuasive, her eyes more so.

“It is a canon of the Church,” he answered rigidly. Then, seeing her face, he added more unsteadily: “Laws are laws, Princess, much as at times we feel they might be broken.”

A sigh he heard, and which, despite his narrow education, he also understood, escaped the coral lips and was her only answer.

Again that dangerous stillness settled on the room, as once before in the Cathedral precincts.

He looked across at her, too weak to look away. Marigold smiled. Why not? for he was there to play with, and ease the horrid aching of her heart.

“It seems to me,” said he, “that I have met you previously. I feel as if I’d known you quite a lifetime.”

“I too. I felt it in the Temple yesterday, and now again to-day.”

“And you, being young, should have the better memory.”

But Marigold’s lips had almost pouted, and she shook her head.

“I should like _you_ to remember where it was you first saw _me_.”

“I cannot think. Only some weeks ago, I met a girl who struck me as being rather like you.”

“But not very?”

“No, indeed. Her prettiness was her nearest qualification. But her hair was very tousled, and her general appearance most untidy.”

“And I am the essence of neatness,” and Marigold laughed.

“An absolute necessity to distinguished beauty.”

“You think so?”

“I am sure of it. Are you interested at all in charitable work, Princess?”

“Well, occasionally. But in Fairy Sky there were so many beggars you didn’t know where to begin and where to stop. They seem to be better organised here. Now, your charity dinners----”

“You have heard of them?”

“Oh yes. Every one has praised them to me. Should I give you a subscription? I should simply love to.”

“I--they are quite a private charity?”

“I should like to take part in a private charity. When you give to public ones, it all goes in big salaries to the wrong people.”

“But I could never think of asking any one to subscribe to the dinners.”

“But I am such a stranger. And your charity appeals to me. Yet I would not for the world set up in opposition.”

And they both laughed. Yet it pleased the High Priest that she should wish to join him in something--and at her own request.

“Then we have shelter homes for women----”

But here Marigold got up and stopped him by going across and laying her hand upon his chair.

“I don’t want to hear any more,” she said. “Charities only interest me in the morning. Do you not find it very lonely in your big Palace--all alone?”

Her voice acted on him like a spell, as it always had done.

“At times, yes, it is very lonely.”

“So it is here.”

“But you are young. You can have the companionship that pleases you.”

“Indeed, no. I was brought up with a very exalted idea of my own position--very quiet and exclusive. And it is hard to break through a life-training. Only now and then I feel as if I really want to run away.”

“A natural feeling in youth.”

“Then you are young, because sometimes you want to run away too.”

He sat, at a loss for words, because, after all, it needs practice to talk to a woman lightly and retain one’s common-sense. Especially when you’ve gone a whole lifetime asking to be delivered from them in order to satisfy a capital ambition.

“I feel very sorry for you,” she continued, half-laughing. “I should like you to feel sorry for me.”

Again he had no words, but Marigold knew that she was not distasteful to him.

“I should love to see through the Temple,” she continued. “I feel happy there--far more at home than here.”

“I will take you myself, whenever you care to go,” he answered, getting up eagerly. “Fix a day. To-morrow or any day I am quite at your service.”

And Marigold looked up at him and blushed, just sufficient for beauty and nothing more.

“I should like to go now--this afternoon.”

And the imperious tone, the imperious action, coming, as it did, like an unexpected lightning flash after sweetness and gentleness and childish loveliness, completed from that moment his moral downfall.

Never having been a lover, he became a slave, and, like most men who in theory admire the gentle, placid woman, it was in practice the domineering woman who had conquered him. A domineering woman, with a voice like music, and the manner of an empress, and the waywardness of a child.

So she drove back with him in the big, lumbersome High Priest’s carriage; and her face and station and the simple mourning robe were sufficient guarantee of decorum, even had his character not been.

The Temple was silent and grand as ever, and it impressed Marigold as it had never failed to do, for it brought back some heavy remembrance to her that she mistook for admiration of its exquisite beauty.

And he explained everything, whilst she listened most attentively; and the dim religious light suited her deep eyes and delicate ethereal face, as it suited all those saints and martyrs who carried golden sunbeams round their heads and were a credit to the great masters who had painted them.

“These panels are Crockerby’s work,” said he, stopping before six full-length paintings of the greatest female saints. “You have heard of him?”

“Oh yes, there are some of his pictures in the house where I am staying.”

“This last one, the sixth, is considered one of his best works--some say the best. But, believe me, we almost had a quarrel over it.”

“Why?” Marigold had gone up close to it, her cheeks flushed, her eyes alight.

“Because it is the exact face and figure of a woman who was a mischief-maker--one who caused much ill-feeling at the time of the late High Priest’s death, and one who escaped the punishment that was justly hers.”

“How?”

“By running away with a Mr Barringcourt. You may have heard of him.”

“Yes; what was her name?”

“Rosalie Paileaf.”

The shadows of the Temple hid Marigold’s face, its heaviness dulled the quick beating of her heart, for this was an exact copy of the face in Timothy’s bedroom.

“You did not like her?”

“I had every cause to dislike her. And he, knowing it might have shown himself a--a truer gentleman. Even now I never stand before it without irritation.”

“Why--why not send it to this Mr Barringcourt if--if he was so infatuated?”

“It would not be a bad idea. It has been consecrated; but still--his house is built after the cathedral style. I’ll think about it.”

And, as he passed along, Marigold followed him.

“I don’t think she has exactly the eyes for a Church--do you?” she asked at length.

“Who?”

“Rosalie--Rosalie, I forget her name.”

“No, she should have been imprisoned for a lifetime, had the law been justified.”

“Ah!” said Marigold softly, “then she would have looked more of a saint and less of a goddess. It is all very well to smile so when you’ve never felt any pain, and you love who loves you. I don’t like her a bit. She never suffered at all, and I am suffering every day.”

But aloud she said:

“Has he not flattered her?”

“No, except the eyes. They were at times tragic and rather startling. Where he got that trumped-up expression from I can’t tell. I asked him to alter them and stick to the truth, but he wouldn’t--said he’d as soon cut off his head. Like an artist, everything ideal, nothing natural.”

“But in the Church it is allowable.”

“Well, yes, but the right kind of ideal.”

And after this he found Marigold very quiet. But he did not object to it, for she went with him quite untiringly, and he felt the sympathy of her companionship, and liked her in this silent mood; for every one that came upon her suited her exactly as the one before.

And at last they left the Temple, and going down the steps met Mr Barringcourt coming up them. For the Temple was one of his especial interests. He spent much wealth and thought upon it.

And Marigold felt all the passion of pride lash up in her, the scars on her neck red-hot, the wounds in her heart new opened--those raw wounds that would not, would not close and heal. For all that day she had expected a humble letter of apology, and none had come. And if it had come, the old French proverb stealing to her mind would have surely made her tear it in a thousand pieces. But of this she never thought. If only he would have said that he was sorry (and set them both in a most ridiculous position). But neither of this did she think. She thought of nothing tangibly. Why should she?--feeling so much. So now she bowed very coldly, and the High Priest saluted him as stiffly, for, since St Armand’s few gliding, simple words, suspicion and dislike had filled his heart. And somehow in the glance the Master gave to Marigold he detected something the jealous lover, though a slave, might take amiss. He remembered what St Armand had said about the beggar girl and this same man, and therefore would have passed him. But Marigold, woman-like, having one man there for a protection, felt fully capable of fighting with the other.

“Mr Barringcourt,” said she, standing two steps above him, and remembering St Armand’s words to good effect quite suddenly, that she had no heart. “Mr Barringcourt, we have been talking about you.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes; you have only to tell the High Priest when your birthday is, and you will receive the loveliest present.”

He did not answer, and Marigold was pleased, because he was looking at her in a troubled, puzzled way that was a great advance upon the weeks of constant coldness and dislike. So she continued:

“In the Temple there is the portrait of a lady, quite a masterpiece of art. But, by mistake, they’ve put her with the saints, and she was nothing but a sinner. And so I’ve advised the High Priest to send her on to you.”

And she laughed in his face--carelessly, lightly, almost contemptuously--and went on down the steps, the High Priest escorting her.

“There now!” said she, “you have been so kind to me all afternoon that you must still be kinder. I cannot walk home; you must drive me to the Palace gates--no further. I’ve enjoyed this afternoon so much, I’ll come again.”

And Marigold’s heart being broken, her voice was full of gaiety, her laughter sparkling.

And the High Priest drove her to the gates, and wanted badly to walk across the park with her; but she would not let him, only she smiled at him as they parted, and the footman and coachman prevented him doing anything rash.

And Mr Barringcourt, left alone, stood till the carriage had left the Temple place, and then very slowly passed on into the Temple.

And his steps turned to the Crockerby panels, the sixth and greatest masterpiece.

He stood before it, his face a strange mixture of pain and doubt and tenderness.

“I don’t know. No one but myself would see the least resemblance, and yet I have always seen it from the first, even in that mad trick of acting as a beggar girl. Seen and yet not believed, the obvious being always the hardest thing to find. Rags! when I looked for such untold perfection,” and suddenly he laughed, and the Temple rafters echoed it, not at all hollowly.

“Well may St Armand laugh; I’d laugh myself if I were one whit less in love with her. Fool that I was! And that last time--oh Heaven! that I should so far forget myself! And blaming him! thinking her one of his tools--a puppet with a devilish resemblance, worked up by his skill to look like Rosalie! Truly he may be flattered. His jokes have been so many, so excellent, with such keen point; but this would certainly have capped them all and passed the bounds of courtesy. But anyway the High Priest’s safe, and with the beggar girl I hardly thought he was.”

And then something seemed to strike him, and a shadow and a pallor crossed his face.

“Safe! Who ever yet was safe on Lucifram--God or man--till the net was passed?”

And the High Priest, driving home alone, thought on the Master.

“Decided signs of age,” said he. “Twenty years ago, he’d have settled any woman--even Marigold. Decided signs of age.”

And Marigold, walking home alone through the park, wrung her two hands silently together.

“I don’t want the High Priest; I want--I want _him_--Rosalie is dead. He should forget her. Oh! I wish I’d never spoken to him so about her, if--if she is dead. What a hardened, heartless wretch he must have thought me!”

And suddenly she put her hands before her face, that had grown suddenly scarlet.

“He’ll think me a bad, bad woman in every way, and I’m not--I’m not--I’m good. But I can’t help the things I’ve done and said--I can’t really. I--I wish I were dead. Indeed! indeed! I do. I wasn’t made to stand alone. I was made to take hold of some one. I--I wouldn’t even mind being the third person--the strawberry--no, the gooseberry--if I might be allowed to speak to him like other people now and again.”

So did Marigold argue, being the last person in the world to be content that way.