book I

had presumed to consider a work of genius,--when it was launched on the tide of publicity and criticism, resolved itself into a sort of literary monster that haunted my days and nights with its hateful presence; the thick, black-lettered, lying advertisements scattered broadcast by my publisher, flared at me with an offensive insistence in every paper I casually opened. And the praise of the reviewers! ... the exaggerated, preposterous, fraudulent 'boom'! Good God!--how sickening it was!--how fulsome! Every epithet of flattery bestowed upon me filled me with disgust, and one day when I took up a leading magazine and saw a long article upon the 'extraordinary brilliancy and promise' of my book, comparing me to a new Æschylus and Shakespeare combined, with the signature of David McWhing appended to it, I could have thrashed that erudite and assuredly purchased Scot within an inch of his life. The chorus of eulogy was well-nigh universal; I was the 'genius of the day'--the 'hope of the future generation,'--I was the "Book of the Month,"--the greatest, the wittiest, most versatile, most brilliant scribbling pigmy that had ever honoured a pot of ink by using it! Of course I figured as McWhing's 'discovery,'--five hundred pounds bestowed on his mysterious 'charity' had so sharpened his eyesight that he had perceived me shining brightly on the literary horizon before anyone else had done so. The press followed his 'lead' obediently,--for though the press,--the English press at least,--is distinctly unbribable, the owners of newspapers are not insensible to the advantages of largely paying advertisements. Moreover, when Mr McWhing announced me as his 'find' in the oracular style which distinguished him, some other literary gentlemen came forward and wrote effective articles about me, and sent me their compositions carefully marked. I took the hint,--wrote at once to thank them, and invited them to dinner. They came, and feasted royally with Rimânez and myself;--(one of them wrote an 'Ode' to me afterwards),--and at the conclusion of the revels, we sent two of the 'oracles' home, considerably overcome by champagne, in a carriage with Amiel to look after them, and help them out at their own doors. And my 'boom' expanded,--London 'talked' as I had said it should; the growling monster metropolis discussed me and my work in its own independent and peculiar fashion. The 'upper ten' subscribed to the circulating libraries, and these admirable institutions made a two or three hundred copies do for all demands, by the simple expedient of keeping subscribers waiting five or six weeks till they grew tired of asking for the book, and forgot all about it. Apart from the libraries, the public did not take me up. From the glowing criticisms that appeared in all the papers, it might have been supposed that 'everybody who was anybody' was reading my 'wonderful' production. Such however was not the case. People spoke of me as 'the great millionaire,' but they were indifferent to the bid I had made for literary fame. The remark they usually made to me wherever I went was--"You have written a novel, haven't you? What an odd thing for _you_ to do!"--this, with a laugh;--"I haven't read it,--I've so little time--I must ask for it at the library." Of course a great many never did ask, not deeming it worth their while; and I whose money, combined with the resistless influence of Rimânez, had started the favourable criticisms that flooded the press, found out that the majority of the public never read criticisms at all. Hence, my anonymous review of Mavis Clare's book made no effect whatever on _her_ popularity, though it appeared in the most prominent manner. It was a sheer waste of labour,--for everywhere this woman author was still looked upon as a creature of altogether finer clay than ordinary, and still her book was eagerly devoured and questioned and admired; and still it sold by thousands, despite a lack of all favourable criticism or prominent advertisement. No one guessed that I had written what I am now perfectly willing to admit was a brutally wanton misrepresentation of her work,--no one, except Rimânez. The magazine in which it appeared was a notable one, circulating in every club and library, and he, taking it up casually one afternoon, turned to that article at once.

"You wrote this!" he said, fixing his eyes upon me,--"It must have been a great relief to your mind!"

I said nothing.

He read on in silence for a little; then laying down the magazine looked at me with a curiously scrutinizing expression.

"There are some human beings so constituted," he said, "that if they had been with Noah in the ark according to the silly old legend, they would have shot the dove bearing the olive-leaf, directly it came in sight over the waste of waters. You are of that type Geoffrey."

"I do not see the force of your comparison," I murmured.

"Do you not? Why, what harm has this Mavis Clare done to you? Your positions are entirely opposed. You are a millionaire; she is a hard-working woman dependent on her literary success for a livelihood, and you, rolling in wealth do your best to deprive her of the means of existence. Does this redound to your credit? She has won her fame by her own brain and energy alone,--and even if you dislike her book need you abuse her personally as you have done in this article? You do not know her; you have never seen her, ..."

"I hate women who write!" I said vehemently.

"Why? Because they are able to exist independently? Would you have them all the slaves of man's lust or convenience? My dear Geoffrey, you are unreasonable. If you admit that you are jealous of this woman's celebrity and grudge it to her, then I can understand your spite, for jealousy is capable of murdering a fellow-creature with either the dagger or the pen."

I was silent.

"Is the book such wretched stuff as you make it out to be?" he asked presently.

"I suppose some people might admire it,"--I said curtly, "I do not."

This was a lie; and of course he knew it was a lie. The work of Mavis Clare had excited my most passionate envy,--while the very fact that Sibyl Elton had read her book before she had thought of looking at mine, had accentuated the bitterness of my feelings.

"Well," said Rimânez at last, smiling as he finished reading my onslaught--"all I can say Geoffrey, is that this will not touch Mavis Clare in the least. You have overshot the mark, my friend! Her public will simply cry "what a shame!" and clamour for her work more than ever. And as for the woman herself,--she has a merry heart, and she will laugh at it. You must see her some day."

"I don't want to see her," I said.

"Probably not. But you will scarcely be able to avoid doing so when you live at Willowsmere Court."

"One is not obliged to know everybody in the neighbourhood,"--I observed superciliously.

Lucio laughed aloud.

"How well you carry your fortunes, Geoffrey!" he said--"For a poor devil of a Grub-street hack who lately was at a loss for a sovereign, how perfectly you follow the fashions of your time! If there is one man more than another that moves me to wondering admiration it is he who asserts his wealth strenuously in the face of his fellows, and who comports himself in this world as though he could bribe death and purchase the good-will of the Creator. It is such splendid effrontery,--such superlative pride! Now I, though over-wealthy myself, am so curiously constituted that I cannot wear my bank-notes in my countenance as it were,--I have put in a claim for intellect as well as gold,--and sometimes, do you know, in my travels round the world, I have been so far honoured as to be taken for quite a poor man! Now _you_ will never have that chance again;--you are rich and you look it!"

"And you,--" I interrupted him suddenly, and with some warmth--"do you know what _you_ look? You imply that I assert my wealth in my face; do you know what _you_ assert in your every glance and gesture?"

"I cannot imagine!" he said smiling.

"Contempt for us all!" I said--"Immeasurable contempt,--even for me, whom you call friend. I tell you the truth, Lucio,--there are times, when in spite of our intimacy I feel that you despise me. I daresay you do; you have an extraordinary personality united to extraordinary talents; you must not however expect all men to be as self-restrained and as indifferent to human passions as yourself."

He gave me a swift, searching glance.

"Expect!" he echoed--"My good fellow, I expect nothing at all,--from men. They, on the contrary,--at least all those _I_ know--expect everything from me. And they get it,--generally. As for 'despising' you, have I not said that I admire you? I do. I think there is something positively stupendous in the brilliant progress of your fame and rapid social success."

"My fame!" I repeated bitterly--"How has it been obtained? What is it worth?"

"That is not the question;" he retorted with a little smile; "How unpleasant it must be for you to have these gouty twinges of conscience Geoffrey! Of course no fame is actually worth much now-a-days,--because it is not classic fame, strong in reposeful old-world dignity,--it is blatant noisy notoriety merely. But yours, such as it is, is perfectly legitimate, judged by its common-sense commercial aspect, which is the only aspect in which anyone looks at anything. You must bear in mind that no one works out of disinterestedness in the present age,--no matter how purely benevolent an action may appear on the surface, Self lies at the bottom of it. Once grasp this fact, and you will perceive that nothing could be fairer or more straightforward than the way you have obtained your fame. You have not 'bought' the incorruptible British Press; you could not do that; that is impossible, for it is immaculate, and bristles stiffly all over with honourable principles. There is no English paper existing that would accept a cheque for the insertion of a notice or a paragraph; not one!" His eyes twinkled merrily,--then he went on--"No,--it is only the Foreign Press that is corrupt, so the British Press says;--John Bull looks on virtuously aghast at journalists who, in dire stress of poverty, will actually earn a little extra pay for writing something or somebody 'up' or 'down.' Thank Heaven, _he_ employs no such journalists; his pressmen are the very soul of rectitude, and will stoically subsist on a pound a week rather than take ten for a casual job 'to oblige a friend.' Do you know Geoffrey, when the Judgment Day arrives, who will be among the first saints to ascend to Heaven with the sounding of trumpets?"

I shook my head, half vexed, half amused.

"All the English (not foreign) editors and journalists!" said Lucio with an air of pious rapture--"and why? Because they are so good, so just, so unprejudiced! Their foreign brethren will be reserved for the eternal dance of devils of course--but the Britishers will pace the golden streets singing Alleluia! I assure you I consider British journalists generally the noblest examples of incorruptibility in the world--they come next to the clergy as representatives of virtue, and exponents of the three evangelical counsels,--voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience!" Such mockery glittered in his eyes, that the light in them might have been the reflection of clashing steel. "Be consoled, Geoffrey," he resumed--"your fame is honourably won. You have simply, through me, approached one critic who writes in about twenty newspapers and influences others to write in other twenty,--that critic being a noble creature, (all critics are noble creatures) has a pet 'society' for the relief of authors in need (a noble scheme you will own) and to this charity I subscribe out of pure benevolence, five hundred pounds. Moved by my generosity and consideration, (particularly as I do not ask what becomes of the five hundred) McWhing 'obliges' me in a little matter. The editors of the papers for which he writes accept him as a wise and witty personage; _they_ know nothing about the charity or the cheque,--it is not necessary for them to know. The whole thing is really quite a reasonable business arrangement;--it is only a self-tormenting analyst like you who would stop to think of such a trifle a second time."

"If McWhing really and conscientiously admired my book for itself;" I began.

"Why should you imagine he does not?" asked Lucio--"Myself, I believe that he is a perfectly sincere and honorable man. I think he means all he says and writes. I consider that if he had found your work not worthy of his commendation, he would have sent me back that cheque for five hundred pounds, torn across in a noble scorn!"

And with this, throwing himself back in his chair, he laughed till the tears came into his eyes.

But I could not laugh; I was too weary and depressed. A heavy sense of despair was on my mind; I felt that the hope which had cheered me in my days of poverty,--the hope of winning real Fame, so widely different a thing to notoriety, had vanished. There was some quality in the subtle glory which could not be won by either purchase or influence. The praise of the press could not give it. Mavis Clare, working for her bread, had it,--I, with millions of money, had not. Like a fool I had thought to buy it; I had yet to learn that all the best, greatest, purest and worthiest things in life are beyond all market-value and that the gifts of the gods are not for sale.

About a fortnight after the publication of my book, we went to Court, my comrade and I, and were presented by a distinguished officer connected with the immediate and intimate surroundings of the Royal household. It was a brilliant scene enough,--but, without doubt, the most brilliant personage there was Rimânez. I was fairly startled at the stately and fascinating figure he made in his court suit of black velvet and steel ornaments; accustomed as I was to his good looks, I had never seen them so enhanced by dress as on this occasion. I had been tolerably well satisfied with my own appearance in the regulation costume till I saw him; then my personal vanity suffered a decided shock, and I realized that I merely served as a foil to show off and accentuate the superior attractions of my friend. But I was not envious of him in any way,--on the contrary I openly expressed the admiration I frankly felt.

He seemed amused. "My dear boy, it is all flunkeydom;" he said--"All sham and humbug. Look at this--" and he drew his light court rapier from its sheath--"There is no real use in this flimsy blade,--it is merely an emblem of dead chivalry. In old times, if a man insulted you, or insulted a woman you admired, out flashed a shining point of tempered Toledo steel that could lunge--so!" and he threw himself into a fencing attitude of incomparable grace and ease--"and you pricked the blackguard neatly through the ribs or arm and gave him cause to remember you. But now--" and he thrust the rapier back in its place--"men carry toys like these as a melancholy sign to show what bold fellows they were once, and what spiritless cravens they are now,--relying no more on themselves for protection, but content to go about yelling 'Police! Police!' at the least threat of injury to their worthless persons. Come, it's time we started, Geoffrey!--let us go and bow our heads before another human unit formed precisely like ourselves, and so act in defiance of Death and the Deity, who declare all men to be equal!"

We entered our carriage and were soon on our way to St James's Palace.

"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is not exactly the Creator of the universe;"--said Lucio suddenly, looking out of the window as we approached the line of soldiery on guard outside.

"Why no!" I answered laughing--"What do you say that for?"

"Because there is as much fuss about him as if he were,--in fact, more. The Creator does not get half as much attention bestowed upon Him as Albert Edward. We never attire ourselves in any special way for entering the presence of God; we don't put so much as a clean mind on."

"But then,"--I said indifferently--"God is _non est_,--and Albert Edward is _est_."

He smiled,--and his eyes had a scornful gleam in their dark centres.

"That is your opinion?" he queried--"Well, it is not original,--many choice spirits share it with you. There is at least one good excuse for people who make no preparation to enter the presence of God,--in going to church, which is called the 'house of God,' they do not find God at all; they only discover the clergyman. It is somewhat of a disappointment."

I had no time to reply, as just then the carriage stopped, and we alighted at the palace. Through the intervention of the high Court official who presented us, we got a good place among the most distinguished arrivals, and during our brief wait, I was considerably amused by the study of their faces and attitudes. Some of the men looked nervous,--others conceited; one or two Radical notabilities comported themselves with an air as if they and they alone were to be honoured for allowing Royalty to hold these functions at all; a few gentlemen had evidently donned their Levée dress in haste and carelessness, for the pieces of tissue-paper in which their steel or gilt coat-buttons had been wrapped by the tailor to prevent tarnish, were still unremoved. Discovering this fortunately before it was too late, they occupied themselves by taking off these papers and casting them on the floor,--an untidy process at best, and one that made them look singularly ridiculous and undignified. Each man present turned to stare at Lucio; his striking personality attracted universal attention. When we at last entered the throne-room, and took our places in line, I was careful to arrange that my brilliant companion should go up before me, as I had a strong desire to see what sort of an effect his appearance would produce on the Royal party. I had an excellent view of the Prince of Wales from where I myself waited; he made an imposing and kingly figure enough, in full uniform with his various Orders glittering on his broad breast; and the singular resemblance discovered by many people in him to Henry VIII. struck me more forcibly than I should have thought possible. His face however expressed a far greater good-humour than the pictured lineaments of the capricious but ever popular 'bluff King Hal,'--though on this occasion there was a certain shade of melancholy, even sternness on his brow, which gave a firmer character to his naturally mobile features,--a shadow, as I fancied of weariness, tempered with regret,--the look of one dissatisfied, yet resigned. A man of blunted possibilities he seemed to me,--of defeated aims, and thwarted will. Few of the other members of the Royal family surrounding him on the daïs, possessed the remarkable attraction he had for any observant student of physiognomy,--most of them were, or assumed to be, stiff military figures merely who bent their heads as each guest filed past with an automatic machine-like regularity implying neither pleasure, interest, nor good-will. But the Heir-Apparent to the greatest Empire in the world expressed in his very attitude and looks, an unaffected and courteous welcome to all,--surrounded as he was, and as such in his position must ever be, by toadies, parasites, sycophants, hypocritical self-seekers, who would never run the least risk to their own lives to serve him, unless they could get something personally satisfactory out of it, his presence impressed itself upon me as full of the suggestion of dormant but none the less resolute power. I cannot even now explain the singular excitation of mind that seized me as our turn to be presented arrived;--I saw my companion advance, and heard the Lord Chamberlain announce his name;--'Prince Lucio Rimânez'; and then;--why then,--it seemed as if all the movement in the brilliant room suddenly came to a pause! Every eye was fixed on the stately form and noble countenance of my friend as he bowed with such consummate courtliness and grace as made all other salutations seem awkward by comparison. For one moment he stood absolutely still in front of the Royal daïs,--facing the Prince as though he sought to impress him with the fact of his presence there,--and across the broad stream of sunshine which had been pouring into the room throughout the ceremony, there fell the sudden shadow of a passing cloud. A fleeting impression of gloom and silence chilled the atmosphere,--a singular magnetism appeared to hold all eyes fixed on Rimânez; and not a man either going or coming, moved. This intense hush was brief as it was curious and impressive;--the Prince of Wales started slightly, and gazed at the superb figure before him with an expression of eager curiosity and almost as if he were ready to break the frigid bonds of etiquette and speak,--then controlling himself with an evident effort he gave his usual dignified acknowledgment of Lucio's profound reverence, whereupon my comrade passed on,--slightly smiling. I followed next,--but naturally made no impression beyond the fact of exciting a smothered whisper from some-one among the lesser Royalties who caught the name 'Geoffrey Tempest,' and at once murmured the magic words "Five millions!"--words which reached my ears and moved me to the usual weary contempt which was with me growing into a chronic malady. We were soon out of the palace, and while waiting for our carriage in the covered court-yard entrance, I touched Rimânez on the arm.

"You made a veritable sensation Lucio!"

"Did I?" He laughed. "You flatter me Geoffrey."

"Not at all. Why did you stop so long in front of the daïs?"

"To please my humour!" he returned indifferently--"And partly, to give his Royal Highness the chance of remembering me the next time he sees me."

"But he seemed to recognise you,"--I said--"Have you met him before?"

His eyes flashed. "Often! But I have never till now made a public appearance at St James's. Court costume and 'company manners' make a difference to the looks of most men,--and I doubt,--yes, I very much doubt, whether, even with his reputed excellent memory for faces, the Prince really knew me to-day for what I am!"

XVII

It must have been about a week or ten days after the Prince of Wales's Levée that I had the strange scene with Sibyl Elton I am about to relate; a scene that left a painful impression on my mind and should have been sufficient to warn me of impending trouble to come had I not been too egotistical to accept any portent that presaged ill to myself. Arriving at Lord Elton's house one evening, and ascending the stairs to the drawing-room as was now my usual custom, unannounced and without ceremony, I found Diana Chesney there alone and in tears.

"Why, what's the matter?" I exclaimed in a rallying tone, for I was on very friendly and familiar terms with the little American--"You, of all people in the world, having a private 'weep'! Has our dear railway papa 'bust up'?"

She laughed, a trifle hysterically.

"Not just yet, you bet!" she answered, lifting her wet eyes to mine and showing that mischief still sparkled brightly in them,--"There's nothing wrong with the funds as far as I know. I've only had a,----well, a sort of rumpus here with Sibyl."

"With Sibyl?"

"Yes,"--and she rested the point of her little embroidered shoe on a footstool and looked at it critically--"You see it's the Catsup's 'At Home' to-night, and I'm invited and Sibyl's invited; Miss Charlotte is knocked up with nursing the Countess, and of course I made sure that Sibyl would go. Well, she never said a word about it till she came down to dinner, and then she asked me what time I wanted the carriage. I said 'Aren't you going too?' and she looked at me in that provoking way of hers,--_you_ know!--a look that takes you in from your topmost hair to your shoe-edge,--and answered 'Did you think it possible!' Well, I flared up, and said of course I thought it possible,--why shouldn't it be possible? She looked at me in the same way again and said--'To the _Catsups_? with _you_!' Now, you know, Mr Tempest, that was real downright rudeness, and more than I could stand so I just gave way to my mind. 'Look here,' I said--'though you are the daughter of an Earl, you needn't turn up your nose at Mrs Catsup. She isn't half bad,--I don't speak of her money,--but she's a real good sort, and has a kind heart, which it appears to me is more than you have. Mrs Catsup would never treat me as unkindly as you do.' And then I choked,--I could have burst out in a regular yell, if I hadn't thought the footman might be outside the door listening. And Sibyl only smiled, that patent ice-refrigerator smile of hers, and asked--'would you prefer to live with Mrs Catsup?' Of course I told her no,--nothing would induce me to live with Mrs Catsup, and then she said--'Miss Chesney, you pay my father for the protection and guarantee of his name and position in English social circles, but the companionship of my father's daughter was not included in the bargain. I have tried to make you understand as distinctly as I can that I will not be seen in society with you,--not because I dislike you,--far from it,--but simply because people would say I was acting as your paid companion. You force me to speak plainly, and I am sorry if I offend. As for Mrs Catsup, I have only met her once, and she seemed to me very common and ill-bred. Besides I do not care for the society of tradespeople.' And with that she got up and sailed out,--and I heard her order the carriage for me at ten. It's coming round directly, and just look at my red eyes! It's awfully hard on me,--I know old Catsup made his pile out of varnish, but varnish is as good as anything else in the general market. And----and----it's all out now, Mr Tempest,--and you can tell Sibyl what I've said if you like; I know you're in love with her!"

I stared, bewildered by her voluble and almost breathless outburst.

"Really, Miss Chesney," I began formally.

"Oh yes, Miss Chesney, Miss Chesney--it's all very well!" she repeated impatiently, snatching up a gorgeous evening cloak which I mutely volunteered to put on, an offer she as mutely accepted--"I'm only a girl, and it isn't my fault if I've got a vulgar man for a father who wants to see me married to an English nobleman before he dies,--that's _his_ look-out--_I_ don't care about it. English noblemen are a ricketty lot in _my_ opinion. But I've as good a heart as anyone, and I could love Sibyl if she'd let me, but she _won't_. She leads the life of an ice-berg, and doesn't care a rap for anyone. She doesn't care for you, you know!--I wish she did,--she'd be more human!"

"I'm very sorry for all this,"--I said, smiling into the piquante face of the really sweet-natured girl, and gently fastening the jewelled clasp of her cloak at her throat--"But you mustn't mind it so much. You are a dear little soul Diana,--kind and generous and impulsive and all the rest of it,--but,--well----English people are very apt to misunderstand Americans. I can quite enter into your feelings,--still you know Lady Sibyl is very proud----"

"Proud!" she interrupted--"My! I guess it must feel something splendid to have an ancestor who was piked through the body on Bosworth field, and left there for the birds to eat. It seems to give a kind of stiffness in the back to all the family ever afterwards. Shouldn't wonder if the descendants of the birds who ate him felt kinder stuck up about it too!"

I laughed,--she laughed with me, and was quite herself again.

"If I told you _my_ ancestor was a Pilgrim Father, you wouldn't believe me I expect!" she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling.

"I should believe anything from _your_ lips!" I declared gallantly.

"Well, believe that, then! Swallow it down if you can! I can't! He was a Pilgrim Father in the _Mayflower_, and he fell on his knees and thanked God as soon as he touched dry land in the true Pilgrim-Father way. But he couldn't hold a candle to the piked man at Bosworth."

Here we were interrupted by the entrance of a footman.

"The carriage is waiting, Miss."

"Thanks,--all right. Good-night Mr Tempest,--you'd better send word to Sibyl you are here; Lord Elton is dining out, but Sibyl will be at home all the evening."

I offered her my arm, and escorted her to the carriage, feeling a little sorry for her as she drove off in solitary state to the festive 'crush' of the successful varnisher. She was a good girl, a bright girl, a true girl,--vulgar and flippant at times, yet on the whole sincere in her better qualities of character and sentiment,--and it was this very sincerity which, being quite unconventional and not at all _la mode_, was misunderstood, and would always be misunderstood by the higher and therefore more hypocritically polished circles of English society.

I returned to the drawing-room slowly and meditatively, telling one of the servants on my way to ask Lady Sibyl if she could see me for a few moments. I was not kept waiting long; I had only paced the room twice up and down when she entered, looking so strangely wild and beautiful that I could scarcely forbear uttering an exclamation of wonder. She wore white as was always her custom in the evenings,--her hair was less elaborately dressed than usual, and clustered over her brow in loose wavy masses,--her face was exceedingly pale, and her eyes appeared larger and darker by comparison--her smile was vague and fleeting like that of a sleep-walker. She gave me her hand; it was dry and burning.

"My father is out--" she began.

"I know. But I came to see _you_. May I stay a little?"

She murmured assent, and sinking listlessly into a chair, began to play with some roses in a vase on the table beside her.

"You look tired Lady Sibyl,"--I said gently--"Are you not well?"

"I am quite well--" she answered--"But you are right in saying I am tired. I am dreadfully tired!"

"You have been doing too much perhaps?--your attendance on your mother tries you----"

She laughed bitterly.

"Attendance on my mother!--pray do not credit me with so much devotion. I never attend on my mother. I cannot do it; I am too much of a coward. Her face terrifies me; and whenever I do venture to go near her, she tries to speak, with such dreadful, such ghastly efforts, as make her more hideous to look at than anyone can imagine. I should die of fright if I saw her often. As it is, when I do see her I can scarcely stand--and twice I have fainted with the horror of it. To think of it!--that that living corpse with the fearful fixed eyes and distorted mouth should actually be _my mother_!"

She shuddered violently, and her very lips paled as she spoke. I was seriously concerned, and told her so.

"This must be very bad for your health,"--I said, drawing my chair closer to hers--"Can you not get away for a change?"

She looked at me in silence. The expression of her eyes thrilled me strangely,--it was not tender or wistful, but fierce, passionate and commanding.

"I saw Miss Chesney for a few moments just now"--I resumed,--"She seemed very unhappy."

"She has nothing to be unhappy about--" said Sibyl coldly--"except the time my mother takes in dying. But she is young; she can afford to wait a little for the Elton coronet."

"Is not----may not this be a mistaken surmise of yours?" I ventured gently--"Whatever her faults, I think the girl admires and loves you."

She smiled scornfully.

"I want neither her love nor her admiration,"--she said--"I have few women-friends and those few are all hypocrites whom I mistrust. When Diana Chesney is my step-mother, we shall still be strangers."

I felt I was on delicate ground, and that I could not continue the conversation without the risk of giving offence.

"Where is _your_ friend?" asked Sibyl suddenly, apparently to change the subject--"Why does he so seldom come here now?"

"Rimânez? Well, he is a very queer fellow, and at times takes an abhorrence for all society. He frequently meets your father at the club, and I suppose his reason for not coming here is that he hates women."

"All women?" she queried with a little smile.

"Without exception!"

"Then he hates me?"

"I did not say that--" I answered quickly--"No one could hate you, Lady Sibyl,--but truly, as far as Prince Rimânez is concerned, I expect he does not abate his aversion to womankind (which is his chronic malady) even for you."

"So he will never marry?" she said musingly.

I laughed. "Oh, never! That you may be quite sure of."

Still playing with the roses near her, she relapsed into silence. Her breath came and went quickly; I saw her long eyelashes quiver against the pale rose-leaf tint of her cheeks,--the pure outline of her delicate profile suggested to my mind one of Fra Angelico's meditative saints or angels. All at once, while I yet watched her admiringly, she suddenly sprang erect, crushing a rose in her hand,--her head thrown back, her eyes flashing, her whole frame trembling.

"Oh, I cannot bear it!" she cried wildly--"I cannot bear it!"

I started up astonished, and confronted her.

"Sibyl!"

"Oh, why don't you speak, and fill up the measure of my degradation!" she went on passionately--"Why don't you tell _me_, as you tell my father, your purpose in coming here?--why don't you say to _me_, as you say to him, that your sovereign choice has fastened upon me,--that I am the woman out of all the world you have elected to marry! Look at me!" and she raised her arms with a tragic gesture; "Is there any flaw in the piece of goods you wish to purchase? This face is deemed worthy of the fashionable photographer's pains; worthy of being sold for a shilling as one of England's 'beauties,'--this figure has served as a model for the showing-off of many a modiste's costume, purchased at half-cost on the understanding that I must state to my circle of acquaintance the name of the maker or designer,--these eyes, these lips, these arms are all yours for the buying! Why do you expose me to the shame of dallying over your bargain?--by hesitating and considering as to whether, after all, I am worthy of your gold!"

She seemed seized by some hysterical passion that convulsed her, and in mingled amazement, alarm and distress, I sprang to her and caught her hands in my own.

"Sibyl, Sibyl!" I said--"Hush--hush! You are overwrought with fatigue and excitement,--you cannot know what you are saying. My darling, what do you take me for?--what is all this nonsense in your mind about buying and selling? You know I love you,--I have made no secret of it,--you must have seen it in my face,--and if I have hesitated to speak, it is because I feared your rejection of me. You are too good for me, Sibyl,--too good for any man,--I am not worthy to win your beauty and innocence. My love, my love--do not give way in this manner"--for as I spoke she clung to me like a wild bird suddenly caged--"What can I say to you, but that I worship you with all the strength of my life,--I love you so deeply that I am afraid to think of it; it is a passion I dare not dwell upon, Sibyl,--I love you too well,--too madly for my own peace----"

I trembled, and was silent,--her soft arms clinging to me robbed me of a portion of my self-control. I kissed the rippling waves of her hair; she lifted her head and looked up at me, her eyes alit with some strange lustre that was not love as much as fear,--and the sight of her beauty thus yielded as it were to my possession, broke down the barriers of restraint I had hitherto imposed upon myself. I kissed her on the lips,--a long passionate kiss that, to my excited fancy, seemed to mingle our very beings into one,--but while I yet held her in my arms, she suddenly released herself and pushed me back. Standing apart from me she trembled so violently that I feared she would fail,--and I took her hand and made her sit down. She smiled,--a very wan smile.

"What did you feel then?" she asked.

"When, Sibyl?"

"Just now,--when you kissed me?"

"All the joys of heaven and fires of hell in a moment!" I said.

She regarded me with a curious musing frown.

"Strange! Do you know what _I_ felt?"

I shook my head smiling, and pressed my lips on the soft small hand I held.

"Nothing!" she said, with a kind of hopeless gesture--"I assure you, absolutely nothing! I cannot feel. I am one of your modern women,--I can only think,--and analyse."

"Think and analyse as much as you will, my queen,"--I answered playfully--"if you will only think you can be happy with me. That is all I desire."

"Can you be happy with _me_?" she asked--"Wait--do not answer for a moment, till I tell you what I am. You are altogether mistaken in me." She was silent for some minutes, and I watched her anxiously. "I was always intended for this"--she said slowly at last,--"this, to which I have now come,--to be the property of a rich man. Many men have looked at me with a view to purchase, but they could not pay the price my father demanded. Pray do not look so distressed!--what I say is quite true and quite commonplace,--all the women of the upper classes,--the unmarried ones,--are for sale now in England as utterly as the Circassian girls in a barbarian slave-market. I see you wish to protest, and assure me of your devotion,--but there is no need of this,--I am quite sure you love me,--as much as any man can love,--and I am content. But you do not know me really,--you are attracted by my face and form,--and you admire my youth and innocence, which you think I possess. But I am not young--I am old in heart and feeling. I was young for a little while at Willowsmere, when I lived among flowers and birds and all the trustful honest creatures of the woods and fields,--but one season in town was sufficient to kill my youth in me,--one season of dinners and balls, and--fashionable novel-reading. Now _you_ have written a book, and therefore you must know something about the duties of authorship,--of the serious and even terrible responsibility writers incur when they send out to the world books full of pernicious and poisonous suggestion to contaminate the minds that have hitherto been clean and undiseased. Your book has a noble motive; and for this I admire it in many parts, though to me it is not as convincing as it might have been. It is well written too; but I gained the impression while reading it, that you were not altogether sincere yourself in the thoughts you strove to inculcate,--and that therefore you just missed what you should have gained."

"I am sure you are right,"--I said, with a wholesome pang of humiliation--"The book is worthless as literature,--it is only the 'boom' of a season!"

"At any rate,"--she went on, her eyes darkening with the intensity of her feeling--"you have not polluted your pen with the vileness common to many of the authors of the day. I ask you, do you think a girl can read the books that are now freely published, and that her silly society friends tell her to read,--'because it is so dreadfully _queer_!'--and yet remain unspoilt and innocent? Books that go into the details of the lives of outcasts?--that explain and analyse the secret vices of men?--that advocate almost as a sacred duty 'free love' and universal polygamy?--that see no shame in introducing into the circles of good wives and pure-minded girls, a heroine who boldly seeks out a man, _any_ man, in order that she may have a child by him, without the 'degradation' of marrying him? I have read all those books,--and what can you expect of me? Not innocence, surely! I despise men,--I despise my own sex,--I loathe myself for being a woman! You wonder at my fanaticism for Mavis Clare,--it is only because for a time her books give me back my self-respect, and make me see humanity in a nobler light,--because she restores to me, if only for an hour, a kind of glimmering belief in God, so that my mind feels refreshed and cleansed. All the same, you must not look upon me as an innocent young girl Geoffrey,--a girl such as the great poets idealized and sang of,--I am a contaminated creature, trained to perfection in the lax morals and prurient literature of my day."

I looked at her in silence, pained, startled, and with a sense of shock, as though something indefinably pure and precious had crumbled into dust at my feet. She rose and began pacing the room restlessly, moving to and fro with a slow yet fierce grace that reminded me against my wish and will of the movement of some imprisoned and savage beast of prey.

"You shall not be deceived in me,"--she said, pausing a moment and eyeing me sombrely--"If you marry me, you must do so with a full realization of the choice you make. For with such wealth as yours, you can of course wed any woman you fancy. I do not say you could find a girl better than I am; I do not think you could in _my_ 'set,' because we are all alike,--all tarred with the same brush, and filled with the same merely sensual and materialistic views of life and its responsibilities as the admired heroines of the 'society' novels we read. Away in the provinces, among the middle classes it is possible you might discover a really good girl of the purest blush-rose innocence,--but then you might also find her stupid and unentertaining, and you would not care for that. My chief recommendation is that I am beautiful,--you can see that; everybody can see that,--and I am not so affected as to pretend to be unconscious of the fact. There is no sham about my external appearance; my hair is not a wig,--my complexion is natural,--my figure is not the result of the corset-maker's art,--my eyebrows and eyelashes are undyed. Oh yes,--you can be sure that the beauty of my body is quite genuine!--but it is not the outward expression of an equally beautiful soul. And this is what I want you to understand. I am passionate, resentful, impetuous,--frequently unsympathetic, and inclined to morbidness and melancholy, and I confess I have imbibed, consciously or unconsciously, that complete contempt of life and disbelief in a God, which is the chief theme of nearly all the social teachings of the time."

She ceased,--and I gazed at her with an odd sense of mingled worship and disillusion, even as a barbarian might gaze at an idol whom he still loved, but whom he could no longer believe in as divine. Yet what she said was in no way contrary to my own theories,--how then could I complain? I did not believe in a God; why should I inconsistently feel regret that she shared my unbelief? I had involuntarily clung to the old-fashioned idea that religious faith was a sacred duty in womanhood; I was not able to offer any reason for this notion, unless it was the romantic fancy of having a good woman to pray for one, if one had no time and less inclination to pray for one's self. However, it was evident Sibyl was 'advanced' enough to do without superstitious observances; _she_ would never pray for me;--and if we had children, she would never teach them to make their first tender appeals to Heaven for my sake or hers. I smothered a slight sigh, and was about to speak, when she came up to me and laid her two hands on my shoulders. "You look unhappy, Geoffrey,"--she said in gentler accents--"Be consoled!--it is not too late for you to change your mind!"

I met the questioning glance of her eyes,--beautiful, lustrous eyes as clear and pure as light itself.

"I shall never change, Sibyl," I answered--"I love you,--I shall always love you. But I wish you would not analyse yourself so pitilessly,--you have such strange ideas--"

"You think them strange?" she said--"You should not,--in these 'new women' days! I believe that, thanks to newspapers, magazines and 'decadent' novels, I am in all respects eminently fitted to be a wife!" and she laughed bitterly--"There is nothing in the rôle of marriage that I do not know, though I am not yet twenty. I have been prepared for a long time to be sold to the highest bidder, and what few silly notions I had about love,--the love of the poets and idealists,--when I was a dreamy child at Willowsmere, are all dispersed and ended. Ideal love is dead,--and worse than dead, being out of fashion. Carefully instructed as I have been in the worthlessness of everything but money, you can scarcely be surprised at my speaking of myself as an object of sale. Marriage for me _is_ a sale, as far as my father is concerned,--for you know well enough that however much you loved me or I loved you, he would never allow me to marry you if you were not rich, and richer than most men. I want you to feel that I fully recognize the nature of the bargain struck; and I ask you not to expect a girl's fresh, confiding love from a woman as warped in heart and mind as I am!"

"Sibyl,"--I said earnestly--"You wrong yourself; I am sure you wrong yourself! You are one of those who can be in the world yet not of it; your mind is too open and pure to be sullied, even by contact with evil things. I will believe nothing you say against your own sweet and noble character,--and, Sibyl, let me again ask you not to distress me by this constant harping on the subject of my wealth, or I shall be inclined to look upon it as a curse,--I should love you as much if I were poor----"

"Oh, you might love me"--she interrupted me, with a strange smile--"but you would not dare to say so!"

I was silent. Suddenly she laughed, and linked her arms caressingly round my neck.

"There, Geoffrey!" she said--"I have finished my discourse,--my bit of Ibsenism, or whatever other ism affects me,--and we need not be miserable about it. I have said what was in my mind; I have told you the truth, that in heart I am neither young nor innocent. But I am no worse than all my 'set' so perhaps you had better make the best of me. I please your fancy, do I not?"

"My love for you cannot be so lightly expressed, Sibyl!" I answered in rather a pained tone.

"Never mind,--it is my humour so to express it"--she went on--"I please your fancy, and you wish to marry me. Well now, all I ask is, go to my father and buy me at once! Conclude the bargain! And when you have bought me,--don't look so tragic!" and she laughed again--"and when you have paid the clergyman, and paid the bridesmaids (with monogram lockets or brooches) and paid the guests (with wedding-cake and champagne) and cleared up all scores with everybody, even to the last man who shuts the door of the nuptial brougham,--will you take me away,--far away from this place--this house, where my mother's face haunts me like a ghost in the darkness; where I am tortured by terrors night and day,--where I hear such strange sounds, and dream of such ghastly things,--" here her voice suddenly broke, and she hid her face against my breast--"Oh yes, Geoffrey, take me away as quickly as possible! Let us never live in hateful London, but at Willowsmere; I may find some of the old joys there,--and some of the happy bygone days."

Touched by the appealing pathos of her accents, I pressed her to my heart, feeling that she was scarcely accountable for the strange things she said in her evidently overwrought and excitable condition.

"It shall be as you wish, my darling," I said--"The sooner I have you all to myself the better. This is the end of March,--will you be ready to marry me in June?"

"Yes," she answered, still hiding her face.

"And now Sibyl," I went on--"remember,--there must be no more talk of money and bargaining. Tell me what you have not yet told me,--that you love me,--and would love me even if I were poor."

She looked up, straightly and unflinchingly full into my eyes.

"I cannot tell you that,"--she said,--"I have told you I do not believe in love; and if you were poor I certainly should not marry you. It would be no use!"

"You are frank, Sibyl!"

"It is best to be frank, is it not?" and she drew a flower from the knot at her bosom, and began fastening it in my coat--"Geoffrey what is the good of pretence? You would hate to be poor, and so should I. I do not understand the verb 'to love,'--now and then when I read a book by Mavis Clare, I believe love may exist, but when I close the book my belief is shut up with it. So do not ask for what is not in me. I am willing--even glad to marry you; that is all you must expect."

"All!" I exclaimed, with a sudden mingling of love and wrath in my blood, as I closed my arms about her and kissed her passionately--"All!--you impassive ice-flower, it is not all!--you shall melt to my touch and learn what love _is_,--do not think you can escape its influence, you dear, foolish, beautiful child! Your passions are asleep,--they must wake!"

"For you?" she queried, resting her head back against my shoulder, and gazing up at me with a dreamy radiance in her lovely eyes.

"For me!"

She laughed.

"'Oh bid me love, and I will love!'"--she hummed softly under her breath.

"You will, you must, you shall!" I said ardently. "I will be your master in the art of loving!"

"It is a difficult art!" she said--"I am afraid it will take a life-time to complete my training, even with my 'master.'"

And a smile still lingered in her eyes, giving them a witch-like glamour, when I kissed her again and bade her good-night.

"You will tell Prince Rimânez the news?" she said.

"If you wish it."

"Of course I wish it. Tell him at once. I should like him to know."

I went down the stairs,--she leaned over the balustrade looking after me.

"Good-night Geoffrey!" she called softly.

"Good-night Sibyl!"

"Be sure you tell Prince Rimânez!"

Her white figure disappeared; and I walked out of the house in a chaotic state of mind, divided between pride, ecstasy and pain,--the engaged husband of an earl's daughter,--the lover of a woman who had declared herself incapable of love and destitute of faith.

XVIII

Looking back through the space of only three years to this particular period of my life, I can remember distinctly the singular expression of Lucio's face when I told him that Sibyl Elton had accepted me. His sudden smile gave a light to his eyes that I had never seen in them before,--a brilliant yet sinister glow, strangely suggestive of some inwardly suppressed wrath and scorn. While I spoke he was, to my vexation, toying with that uncanny favourite of his, the 'mummy-insect,'--and it annoyed me beyond measure to see the repulsive pertinacity with which the glittering bat-like creature clung to his hand.

"Women are all alike,"--he said with a hard laugh, when he had heard my news,--"Few of them have moral force enough to resist that temptation of a rich marriage."

I was irritated at this.

"It is scarcely fair of you to judge everything by the money-standard,"--I said,--then, after a little pause I added what in my own heart I knew to be a lie,--"She,--Sibyl,--loves me for myself alone."

His glance flashed over me like lightning.

"Oh!--sets the wind in that quarter! Why then, my dear Geoffrey, I congratulate you more heartily than ever. To conquer the affections of one of the proudest girls in England, and win her love so completely as to be sure she would marry you even if you had not a sou to bless yourself with--this is a victory indeed!--and one of which you may well be proud. Again and yet again I congratulate you!"

Tossing the horrible thing he called his 'sprite' off to fly on one of its slow humming circuits round the room, he shook my hand fervently, still smiling,--and I,--feeling instinctively that he was as fully aware of the truth as I was, namely, that had I been a poor author with nothing but what I could earn by my brains, the Lady Sibyl Elton would never have looked at me, much less agreed to marry me,--kept silence lest I should openly betray the reality of my position.

"You see"--he went on, with a cheerful relentlessness--"I was not aware that any old-world romance graced the disposition of one so apparently impassive as your beautiful fiancée. To love for love's sake only, is becoming really an obsolete virtue. I thought Lady Sibyl was an essentially modern woman, conscious of her position, and the necessity there was for holding that position proudly before the world at all costs,--and that the pretty pastoral sentiments of poetical Phyllises and Amandas had no place in her nature. I was wrong, it seems; and for once I have been mistaken in the fair sex!" Here he stretched out his hand to the 'sprite,' that now came winging its way back, and settled at once on its usual resting-place; "My friend, I assure you, if you have won a true woman's true love, you have a far greater fortune than your millions,--a treasure that none can afford to despise."

His voice softened,--his eyes grew dreamy and less scornful,--and I looked at him in some astonishment.

"Why Lucio, I thought you hated women?"

"So I do!" he replied quickly--"But do not forget why I hate them! It is because they have all the world's possibilities of good in their hands, and the majority of them deliberately turn these possibilities to evil. Men are influenced entirely by women, though few of them will own it,--through women they are lifted to heaven or driven to hell. The latter is the favourite course, and the one almost universally adopted."

His brow darkened, and the lines round his proud mouth grew hard and stern. I watched him for a moment,--then with sudden irrelevance I said--

"Put that abominable 'sprite' of yours away, will you? I hate to see you with it!"

"What, my poor Egyptian princess!" he exclaimed with a laugh--"Why so cruel to her Geoffrey? If you had lived in her day, you might have been one of her lovers! She was no doubt a charming person,--I find her charming still! However, to oblige you--" and here, placing the insect in its crystal receptacle he carried it away to the other end of the room. Then, returning towards me slowly, he said--"Who knows what the 'sprite' suffered as a woman, Geoffrey! Perhaps she made a rich marriage, and repented it! At anyrate I am sure she is much happier in her present condition!"

"I have no sympathy with such a ghastly fancy,"--I said abruptly--"I only know that _she_ or _it_ is a perfectly loathsome object to me."

"Well,--some 'transmigrated' souls _are_ loathsome objects to look at;"--he declared imperturbably--"When they are deprived of their respectable two-legged fleshly covering, it is extraordinary what a change the inexorable law of Nature makes in them!"

"What nonsense you talk, Lucio!" I said impatiently--"How can you know anything about it!"

A sudden shadow passed over his face, giving it a strange pallor and impenetrability.

"Have you forgotten"--he said in deliberately measured accents--"that your friend John Carrington, when he wrote that letter of introduction I brought from him to you, told you in it, that in all matters scientific I was an 'absolute master?' In these 'matters scientific' you have not tested my skill,--yet you ask--'how can I know?' I answer that I do know--many things of which you are ignorant. Do not presume too much on your own intellectual capability my friend,--lest I prove it naught!--lest I demonstrate to you, beyond all possibility of consoling doubt, that the shreds and strippings of that change you call death, are only so many embryos of new life which you _must_ live, whether you will or no!"

Somewhat abashed by his words and still more by his manner, I said--

"Pardon me!--I spoke in haste of course,--but you know my theories--"

"Most thoroughly!" and he laughed, with an immediate resumption of his old manner--"'Every man his own theory' is the fashionable motto of the hour. Each little biped tells you that he has his 'own idea' of God, and equally 'his own' idea of the Devil. It is very droll! But let us return to the theme of love. I feel I have not congratulated you half enough,--for surely Fortune favours you singularly. Out of the teeming mass of vain and frivolous femininity, you have secured a unique example of beauty, truth and purity,--a woman, who apart from all self-interest and worldly advantage, weds you, with five millions, for yourself alone! The prettiest poem in the world could be made out of such an exquisitely innocent maiden type! You are one of the luckiest men alive; in fact, you have nothing more to wish for!"

I did not contradict him, though in my own mind I felt that the circumstances of my engagement left much to be desired. I, who scoffed at religion, wished it had formed part of the character of my future wife,--I, who sneered at sentiment, craved for some expression of it in the woman whose beauty attracted my desires. However I determinedly smothered all the premonitions of my own conscience, and accepted what each day of my idle and useless life brought me without considering future consequences.

The papers soon had the news that "a marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place between Sibyl, only daughter of the Earl of Elton, and Geoffrey Tempest, the famous millionaire." Not 'famous author' mark you!--though I was still being loudly 'boomed.' Morgeson, my publisher, could offer me no consolation as to my chances of winning and keeping a steady future fame. The Tenth Edition of my book was announced, but we had not actually disposed of more than two thousand copies, including a One-Volume issue which had been hastily thrust on the market. And the work I had so mercilessly and maliciously slated,--'Differences' by Mavis Clare was in its thirtieth thousand! I commented on this with some anger to Morgeson, who was virtuously aggrieved at my complaint.

"Dear me, Mr Tempest, you are not the only writer who has been 'boomed' by the press and who nevertheless does not sell,"--he exclaimed--"No one can account for the caprices of the public; they are entirely beyond the most cautious publisher's control or calculation. Miss Clare is a sore subject to many authors besides yourself,--she always 'takes' and no one can help it. I sympathize with you in the matter heartily, but I am not to blame. At any rate the reviewers are all with you,--their praise has been almost unanimous. Now Mavis Clare's 'Differences,' though to my thinking a very brilliant and powerful book, has been literally cut to pieces whenever it has been noticed at all,--and yet the public go for her and don't go for you. It isn't my fault. You see people have got Compulsory Education now, and I'm afraid they begin to mistrust criticism, preferring to form their own independent opinions; if this is so, of course it will be a terrible thing, because the most carefully organized clique in the world will be powerless. Everything has been done for you that can be done, Mr Tempest,--I am sure I regret as much as yourself that the result has not been all you expected or desired. Many authors would not care so much for the public approval; the applause of cultured journalism such as you have obtained, would be more than sufficient for them."

I laughed bitterly. 'The applause of cultured journalism!' I thought I knew something of the way in which such applause was won. Almost I began to hate my millions,--golden trash that could only secure me the insincere flattery of fair-weather friends,--and that could not give me fame,--such fame as has sometimes been grasped in a moment by a starving and neglected genius, who in the very arms of death, succeeds in mastering the world. One day in a fit of disappointment and petulance I said to Lucio--

"You have not kept all your promises, my friend!--you told me you could give me fame!"

He looked at me curiously.

"Did I? Well,--and are you not famous?"

"No. I am merely notorious," I retorted.

He smiled.

"The word fame, my good Geoffrey, traced to its origin means 'a breath'--the breath of popular adulation. You have that--for your wealth."

"But not for my work!"

"You have the praise of the reviewers!"

"What is that worth!"

"Everything!" he answered smiling--"In the reviewers' own opinion!"

I was silent.

"You speak of work;" he went on--"Now the nature of work I cannot exactly express, because it is a divine thing and is judged by a divine standard. One must consider in all work two things; first, the object for which it is undertaken, and secondly the way in which it is performed. All work should have a high and unselfish intent,--without this, it perishes and is not considered work at all,--not at least by the eternal judges invisible. If it _is_ work, truly and nobly done in every sense of the word, it carries with it its own reward, and the laurels descend from heaven shaped ready for wearing,--no earthly power can bestow them. I cannot give you _that_ fame,--but I have secured you a very fair imitation of it."

I was obliged to acquiesce, though more or less morosely,--whereat I saw that he was somewhat amused. Unwilling to incur his contempt I said no more concerning the subject that was the nearest to my heart, and wore out many sleepless hours at night in trying to write a new book,--something novel and daring, such as should force the public to credit me with a little loftier _status_ than that obtained by the possession of a huge banking account. But the creative faculty seemed dead in me,--I was crushed by a sense of impotence and failure; vague ideas were in my brain that would not lend themselves to expression in words,--and such a diseased love of hypercriticism controlled me, that after a miserably nervous analysis of every page I wrote, I tore it up as soon as it was written, thus reducing myself to a state of mind that was almost unbearable.

Early in April I made my first visit to Willowsmere, having received information from the head of the firm of decorators and furnishers employed there, that their work was close on completion, and that they would be glad of a visit of inspection from me. Lucio and I went down together for the day, and as the train rushed through a green and smiling landscape, bearing us away from the smoke, dirt and noise of the restless modern Babylon, I was conscious of a gradually deepening peace and pleasure. The first sight of the place I had recklessly purchased without so much as looking at it, filled me with delight and admiration. It was a beautiful old house, ideally English and suggestive of home-happiness. Ivy and jessamine clung to its red walls and picturesque gables,--through the long vista of the exquisitely wooded grounds, the silver gleam of the Avon river could be discerned, twisting in and out like a ribbon tied in true love-knots,--the trees and shrubs were sprouting forth in all their fresh spring beauty,--the aspect of the country was indescribably bright and soothing, and I began to feel as if a burden had been suddenly lifted from my life leaving me free to breathe and enjoy my liberty. I strolled from room to room of my future abode, admiring the taste and skill with which the whole place had been fitted and furnished, down to the smallest detail of elegance, comfort and convenience. Here my Sibyl was born, I thought, with a lover-like tenderness,--here she would dwell again as my wife, amid the lovely and beloved surroundings of her childhood,--and we should be happy--yes, we should be happy, despite all the dull and heartless social doctrines of the modern world. In the spacious and beautiful drawing-room I stopped to look out from the windows on the entrancing view of lawn and woodland that stretched before me,--and as I looked, a warm sense of gratitude and affection filled me for the friend to whose good offices I owed this fair domain. Turning, I grasped him by the hand.

"It is all your doing, Lucio!" I said--"I feel I can never thank you enough! Without you I should perhaps never have met Sibyl,--I might never have heard of her, or of Willowsmere; and I never could have been as happy as I am to-day!"

"Oh, you are happy then?" he queried with a little smile--"I fancied you were not!"

"Well--I have not been as happy as I expected to be;" I confessed,--"Something in my sudden accession to wealth seems to have dragged me down rather than lifted me up,----it is strange----"

"It is not strange at all"--he interrupted,--"on the contrary it is very natural. As a rule the most miserable people in the world are the rich."

"Are you miserable, for instance?" I asked, smiling.

His eyes rested on me with a dark and dreary pathos.

"Are you too blind to see that I am?" he answered, his accents vibrating with intense melancholy--"Can you think I am happy? Does the smile I wear,--the disguising smile men put on as a mask to hide their secret agonies from the pitiless gaze of unsympathetic fellow-creatures,--persuade you that I am free from care? As for my wealth,--I have never told you the extent of it; if I did, it might indeed amaze you, though I believe it would not now arouse your envy, considering that your trifling five millions have not been without effect in depressing your mind. But I,--I could buy up kingdoms and be none the poorer,--I could throne and unthrone kings and be none the wiser,--I could crush whole countries under the iron heel of financial speculation,--I could possess the world,--and yet estimate it at no higher value than I do now,--the value of a grain of dust circling through infinity, or a soap-bubble blown on the wind!"

His brows knitted,--his face expressed pride, scorn and sorrow.

"There is some mystery about you Lucio;"--I said--"Some grief or loss that your wealth cannot repair--and that makes you the strange being you are. One day perhaps you will confide in me ..."

He laughed loudly,--almost fiercely;--and clapped me heavily on the shoulder.

"I will!" he said--"I will tell you my history! And you, excellent agnostic as you are, shall 'minister to a mind diseased,' and 'pluck out the memory of a rooted sorrow!' What a power of expression there was in Shakespeare, the uncrowned but actual King of England! Not the 'rooted sorrow' alone was to be 'plucked out' but the very 'memory' of it. The apparently simple line holds complex wisdom; no doubt the poet knew, or instinctively guessed the most terrible fact in all the Universe ..."

"And what is that?"

"The eternal consciousness of Memory--" he replied--"God can not forget,--and in consequence of this, His creatures _may_ not!"

I forbore to reply, but I suppose my face betrayed my thoughts, for the cynical smile I knew so well played round his mouth as he looked at me.

"I go beyond your patience, do I not!" he said, laughing again--"When I mention God,--who is declared by certain scientists to be non-existent except as a blind, indifferent natural Force or Atom-producer;--you are bored! I can see that at a glance. Pray forgive me! Let us resume our tour of inspection through this charming abode. You will be very difficult to satisfy if you are not a very emperor of contentment here;--with a beautiful wife and plenty of cash, you can well afford to give fame the go-by."

"I may win it yet!" I said hopefully--"In this place, I feel I could write something worthy of being written."

"Good! The 'divine flutterings' of winged thoughts are in your brain! Apollo grant them strength to fly! And now let us have luncheon,--afterwards we shall have time to take a stroll."

In the dining-room I found an elegant repast prepared, which rather surprised me, as I had given no orders, having indeed forgotten to do so. Lucio however had, it appeared, not forgotten, and an advance telegram from him had placed certain caterers at Leamington on their mettle, with the result that we sat down to a feast as delicate and luxurious as any two epicures could desire.

"Now I want you to do me a favour, Geoffrey,"--said Lucio, during our luncheon--"You will scarcely need to reside here till after your marriage; you have too many engagements in town. You spoke of entertaining a big house-party down here,--I wouldn't do that if I were you,--it isn't worth while. You would have to get in a staff of servants, and leave them all afterwards to their own devices while you are on your honeymoon. This is what I propose,--give a grand fête here in honour of your betrothal to Lady Sibyl, in May--and let me be the master of the revels!"

I was in the mood to agree to anything,--moreover the idea seemed an excellent one. I said so and Rimânez went on quickly--

"You understand of course, that if I undertake to do a thing I always do it thoroughly, and brook no interference with my plans. Now as your marriage will be the signal for our parting,--at any rate for a time,--I should like to show my appreciation of your friendship, by organizing a brilliant affair of the kind I suggest,--and if you will leave it all to me, I guarantee you shall hold such a fête as has never been seen or known in England. And it will be a personal satisfaction to me if you consent to my proposal."

"My dear fellow--" I answered--"Of course I consent--willingly! I give you _carte blanche_,--do as you like; do all you like! It is most friendly and kind of you! But when are we to make this sensation?"

"You are to be married in June?" he asked.

"Yes,--in the second week of the month."

"Very well. The fête shall be held on the twenty-second of May,--that will give society time to recover from the effect of one burst of splendour in order to be ready for another,--namely the wedding. Now we need not talk of this any more--it is settled,--the rest devolves on me. We've got three or four hours to spare before we take the train back to town,--suppose we take a saunter through the grounds?"

I assented to this, and accompanied him readily, feeling in high spirits and good humour. Willowsmere and its peaceful loveliness seemed to cleanse my mind of all corroding influences;--the blessed silence of the woods and hills, after the rush and roar of town life, soothed and cheered me, and I walked beside my companion with a light heart and smiling face,--happy, and filled with a dim religious faith in the blue sky, if not in the God beyond it. We sauntered through the fair gardens which were now mine, and then out through the park into a lovely little lane,--a true Warwickshire lane, where the celandines were strewing the grass with their bright gold coinage, and the star-wort thrust up fairy bouquets of white bloom between buttercups and lover, and where the hawthorn-buds were beginning to show themselves like minute snow-pellets among the glossy young green. A thrush warbled melodiously,--a lark rose from almost our very feet and flung itself joyously into the sky with a wild outburst of song,--a robin hopped through a little hole in the hedge to look at us in blithe inquisitiveness as we passed. All at once Lucio stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder,--his eyes had the beautiful melancholy of a far-off longing which I could neither understand nor define.

"Listen, Geoffrey!" he said--"Listen to the silence of the earth while the lark sings! Have you ever observed the receptive attitude in which Nature seems to wait for sounds divine!"

I did not answer,--the silence around us was indeed impressive;--the warbling of the thrush had ceased, and only the lark's clear voice pealing over-head, echoed sweetly through the stillness of the lane.

"In the clerical Heaven," went on Lucio dreamily--"there are no birds. There are only conceited human souls braying forth 'Alleluia'! No flowers are included,--no trees; only 'golden streets.' What a poor and barbarous conception! As if a World inhabited by Deity would not contain the wonders, graces and beauties of all worlds! Even this little planet is more naturally beautiful than the clerical Heaven,--that is, it is beautiful wherever Man is not. I protest--I have always protested,--against the creation of Man!"

I laughed.

"You protest against your own existence then!" I said.

His eyes darkened slowly to a sombre brooding blackness.

"When the sea roars and flings itself in anger on the shore, it craves its prey--Mankind!--it seeks to wash the fair earth clean of the puny insect that troubles the planet's peace! It drowns the noxious creature when it can, with the aid of its sympathizing comrade the wind! When the thunder crashes down a second after the lightning, does it not seem to you that the very clouds combine in the holy war? The war against God's one mistake;--the making of humanity,--the effort to sweep it out of the universe as one erases a weak expression in an otherwise perfect Poem! You and I, for example, are the only discords in to-day's woodland harmony. We are not particularly grateful for life,--we certainly are not content with it,--we have not the innocence of a bird or a flower. We have more knowledge you will say,--but how can we be sure of that? Our wisdom came from the devil in the first place, according to the legend of the tree of knowledge,--the fruit of which taught both good and evil, but which still apparently persuades man to evil rather than good, and leads him on to a considerable amount of arrogance besides, for he has an idea he will be immortal as a god in the hereafter,--ye majestic Heavens!--what an inadequately stupendous fate for a grain of worthless dust,--a dwarfish atom such as he!"

"Well, _I_ have no ideas of immortality"--I said--"I have told you that often. This life is enough for me,--I want and expect no other."

"Aye, but if there were another!" answered Lucio, fixing me with a steady look--"And--if you were not asked your opinion about it--but simply plunged headlong into a state of terrible consciousness in which you would rather not be----"

"Oh come," I said impatiently--"do not let us theorise! I am happy to-day!--my heart is as light as that of the bird singing in the sky; I am in the very best of humours, and could not say an unkind word to my worst enemy."

He smiled.

"Is that your humour?" and he took me by the arm--"Then there could be no better opportunity for showing you this pretty little corner of the world;"--and walking on a few yards, he dexterously turned me down a narrow path, leading from the lane, and brought me face to face with a lovely old cottage, almost buried in the green of the young spring verdure, and surrounded by an open fence overgrown with hawthorn and sweet-briar,--"Keep firm hold over your temper Geoffrey,--and maintain the benignant tranquillity of your mind!--here dwells the woman whose name and fame you hate,--Mavis Clare!"

XIX

The blood rushed to my face, and I stopped abruptly.

"Let us go back," I said.

"Why?"

"Because I do not know Miss Clare and do not want to know her. Literary women are my abhorrence,--they are always more or less unsexed."

"You are thinking of the 'New' women I suppose,--but you flatter them,--they never had any sex to lose. The self-degrading creatures who delineate their fictional heroines as wallowing in unchastity, and who write freely on subjects which men would hesitate to name, are unnatural hybrids of no-sex. Mavis Clare is not one of them,--she is an 'old-fashioned' young woman. Mademoiselle Derino, the dancer, is 'unsexed,' but you did not object to her on that score,--on the contrary I believe you have shown your appreciation of her talents by spending a considerable amount of cash upon her."

"That's not a fair comparison"--I answered hotly--"Mademoiselle Derino amused me for a time."

"And was not your rival in art!" said Lucio with a little malicious smile--"I see! Still,--as far as the question of being 'unsexed' goes, I, personally, consider that a woman who shows the power of her intellect is more to be respected than the woman who shows the power of her legs. But men always prefer the legs,--just as they prefer the devil to the Deity. All the same, I think, as we have time to spare, we may as well see this genius."

"Genius!" I echoed contemptuously.

"Feminine twaddler, then!" he suggested, laughing--"Let us see this feminine twaddler. She will no doubt prove as amusing as Mademoiselle Derino in her way. I shall ring the bell and ask if she is at home."

He advanced towards the creeper-covered porch,--but I stood back, mortified and sullen, determined not to accompany him inside the house if he were admitted. Suddenly a blithe peal of musical laughter sounded through the air, and a clear voice exclaimed--

"Oh Tricksy! You wicked boy! Take it back directly and apologise!"

Lucio peered through the fence, and then beckoned to me energetically.

"There she is!" he whispered, "There is the dyspeptic, sour, savage old blue-stocking,--there, on the lawn,--by Heaven!--she's enough to strike terror into the heart of any man--and millionaire!"

I looked where he pointed, and saw nothing but a fair-haired woman in a white gown, sitting in a low basket-chair, with a tiny toy terrier on her lap. The terrier was jealously guarding a large square dog-biscuit nearly as big as himself, and at a little distance off sat a magnificent rough-coated St Bernard, wagging his feathery tail to and fro, with every sign of good-humour and enjoyment. The position was evident at a glance,--the small dog had taken his huge companion's biscuit from him and had conveyed it to his mistress,--a canine joke which seemed to be appreciated and understood by all the parties concerned. But as I watched the little group, I did not believe that she whom I saw was Mavis Clare. That small head was surely never made for the wearing of deathless laurels, but rather for a garland of roses, (sweet and perishable) twined by a lover's hand. No such slight feminine creature as the one I now looked upon could ever be capable of the intellectual grasp and power of 'Differences,' the