CHAPTER XII.

BAD NEWS.

If Theo Trist had hoped to pass through London without meeting anyone except the editor of the mighty journal, from whose coffer he was soon to draw the income of a Continental prince, he was disappointed. It would seem, however, that he was upon this point, as on many, broadly indifferent. He went to a club, where he was almost certain of meeting some of his friends--a club of which the members never leave town because the calendar bids them do so; never quite lay aside their labour; and appear to sleep when others are awake, working while others sleep.

He went there because it was conveniently near at hand, and he was sure of having rapid attention given to his desires. As he entered the dining-room a young man rose from one of the small square tables with dramatic surprise.

'Theodore Trist, by all that's sacred!' exclaimed this youth. He was of medium height with a fair moustache, such as lady novelists delight to write about. This manly adornment was the prominent thing about him. But for it, his face was that of a fair and somewhat weak-minded girl. It curled away from either side of his full red lips (usually moist), with a most becoming languor. Its golden hue completed perfectly the harmony of his delicately tinted pink and white face. A shade lighter than his hair, it was itself of delicate texture, and the bewitching curl was in need of constant attention on the part of a long white finger and thumb. The top joint of the finger bent backwards with a greater suppleness than a manly person would perhaps admire. There was always an abundance of cuff and deep turn-down collar, of which the points overlapped the flap of a wide-cut waistcoat. In the matter of necktie, a soft silken material of faded hue rivalled the golden moustache in obtruding itself before the public gaze. Dark-blue eyes devoid of depth, and a slightly aquiline nose, complete the picture. This man was no ordinary being. Had he been dressed like an ordinary being--like, let us say, a tea-broker--men and women would still have looked at him twice. Kensington lion-hunters would still have kept him in touch, so to speak, on the chance of his developing from puppyhood into cubhood, and so on to the maturity of a London lion. But he made the most of such personal peculiarities as Providence had thought fit to assign to him. His tailor thought him slightly eccentric. 'Bit orf 'is chump,' that sartorial artist was wont to observe in his terse, clipping way; and he charged something extra for padded shoulders; and continuations, baggy from waist to ankle. Sundry small singularities of dress purchase a cheap notoriety, and to these the wise tailor gave his full consent with an eye to advertisement. It is an easy matter to trim with silk braid a coat of material usually worn without trimming, and the effect is most satisfactory to a man desirous of being looked at in public places. Again, the additional cost of a broad braid down the outer seam of one's dress-unmentionables is trifling, while the possession of it 'stamps a man, don't cher know.' Personally I do not know how it stamps a man, but on good authority I have it. A peculiar cut of collar is obtainable for the mere trouble of asking and running up a bill. But chiefest of all is a name. In such a thing there is to-day much more than in Shakespeare's time, and in this one most aggravating point the young man who rose to greet Theodore Trist as he entered the club dining-room failed most ignominiously. His name was William Hicks. In order to battle successfully against such a heavy handicap, the young man was forced, like a good general, to spare no expense in his outfit. This most commonplace association of two good English names cost their possessor as much per annum as would enable a thrifty maiden lady (or four German clerks) to live comfortably.

He would have given much to be labelled by such a nomenclature as 'Theodore Trist'--a poetic assimilation of letters quite unnecessary for the war-correspondent, and even wasted upon him. His work would have been equally popular if signed William Hicks, whereas the artist, who was some day going to surprise the old world and make the spirits of its ancient masters shake in their ethereal shoes, was dragged down and held back by the drysalting name of Hicks. For certain reasons, to which even the unmercenary soul of William was forced to bow, there was no hope of ever changing it for something more poetic. Certain it was (and perhaps the artist knew it) that there were many houses to which Theodore Trist had an ever-welcome entry, while he--William Hicks--was excluded. It could only be the name that drew this line, and, indeed, it was in many cases nothing else; for the name of Trist is rare, and in a certain county, far away from town, very powerful, whereas the milkman who supplies me with an opaque fluid of more or less nourishing qualities is called Hicks, and from the number of little Hickses who require everlasting boots, there is no present fear of the poetic surname becoming extinct.

Without any great show of cordiality, Trist shook the long, nerveless hand extended to him. He even went so far as to nod familiarly over Hicks' shoulder to a servant who, having drawn back a chair, fulfilled his immediate duty by waiting.

'Where have you come from, old man?' asked the artist. 'You look as if you had been sleeping in your shirt for a week.'

Like many of his tribe, Hicks had a great notion of being all things to all men. He prided himself exceedingly upon his powers of adaptability to environment. With men he was, therefore, slangy; with women tender and poetic. With the former he could not be manly, and for this quality he substituted an inordinate use of language more descriptive than that usually employed by gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Not possessing the slightest vein of humour, he assumed with women the poetic mantle, and surrounded himself for the time being with a halo of melancholy. There are people who, while endeavouring to be all things, are nothing--while seeking to render themselves valuable to the many, are of use to none.

'I have not been sleeping much in anything,' replied Trist, 'and just at the moment a wash is what I require. After that some dinner.'

This served as an answer to Hicks, and an order to the waiter at the same time; and with a nod Trist passed on to the dressing-rooms.

'Where will Mr. Trist dine?' asked Hicks, turning to the waiter, and speaking somewhat sharply, as people do who fear the ridicule of their inferiors.

'At my table, sir!' with a certain air of possession.

'Then just move my plate ... and things ... to the same, will you?'

When the war-correspondent returned to the dining-room, he found Hicks established at the table where he invariably sat, and the waiter holding a chair in readiness for him with a face of the most complete stolidity. Without betraying either pleasure or annoyance, he took the proffered chair and attacked his soup in a business-like way, which did not promise conversational leisure.

'In a deuce of a hurry, old man!' suggested the artist.

'Yes. Have to catch a train.'

'Going off to the East, I suppose?' asked Hicks carelessly.

With his shallow blue eyes persistently fixed on Trist's face, he stroked his moustache daintily.

'Yes.'

'To-night?'

'At eight-twenty,' replied Trist, meeting his gaze with gentle impatience.

'Ah! Lady Pearer was asking me the other day if you were there, or on the way to the seat of war.'

'Lady Pearer? Don't know her,' observed Trist, with his mouth full of bread.

'She seemed to know you.'

The suggestion of a smile flickered across Trist's face, but his entire attention was absorbed just then by a bony piece of turbot. He made no answer, and silently shelved the subject in a manner which was not strictly complimentary to Mr. Hicks' fair and aristocratic friend.

The artist was one of those exceedingly pleasant persons who can never quite realize that their presence and conversation might, without serious inconvenience, be dispensed with. The mere fact of being seen in friendly intercourse with a person of his social distinction was, in his own simple heart, worthy of the consideration of greater men than Theodore Trist. In recounting the fact later, of his having dined with the celebrated war-correspondent on the eve of his departure for Bulgaria, he took exceeding great care to omit the mention of certain details. Moreover, he allowed it to be understood that the farewell feast was organized by Trist, and that there was some subtle political meaning in the hurried interview thus obtained.

'Trist,' he said, with a suggestion of melancholy, to Lady Pearer and other of his friends, 'is a strange fellow. He has a peculiar repelling manner, which causes people to imagine that he is indifferent to them. Now, when I dined with him at the "Press" the other night,' etc., etc.

Trist continued his dinner with that tranquillity of demeanour which marked his movements upon all occasions, but more especially, perhaps, when he was displeased or very much on the alert. The silence which followed the collapse of the Lady Pearer incident did not appear in the least irksome to him, whatever it may have been to his companion.

Hicks toyed with the rind of his late cheese, and wondered whether the novel bow of his voluminous dress-tie was straight.

'By the way,' he said at length, 'have you not been in Norway with the Wylies?'

The young artist had at one time been a protégé of Mrs. Wylie's, but her protection had been gradually withdrawn.

'The fair Brenda was with them, n'est-ce pas?'

Trist broke his bread with grave deliberation and looked stolid. After a momentary pause he raised his eyes to his companion's face.

'Eh?' he murmured softly.

'Miss Gilholme,' explained the other, with an involuntary change of manner.

'Yes, she was there.'

'I thought,' reflected Hicks aloud, as he stroked his moustache contentedly, 'that I remembered her telling me that she was going to Norway. How is she?'

'Very well, thank you.'

'Is she any stouter?' with affectionate interest.

'I don't know,' replied Trist suavely.

'Because,' continued the other in his best 'private-view-of-the-Academy' style, 'that is the only fault I have to find with her. Her figure is perfect, except that she is a trifle too slight--if you understand.'

'Indeed,' very gently.

'From an artistic point of view, of course,' explained Hicks with a graceful wave of his hand, full of modest deprecation. For some unknown reason a sudden sense of discomfort had come over him.

'Ah, I am not an artist ... thank goodness!'

Hicks glanced uneasily across the table at his companion. There was something in the calm tone of his voice that was not quite natural, a peculiar thrill as if of some suppressed emotion which might have been laughter, but was more probably anger. William Hicks was not endowed with that species of brute courage which enables its possessor to enter boldly into controversy, wordy or otherwise. He was eminently a lover of peace, and for its gentle sake was ever ready to suppress pride, honour, or any other inconvenient passion likely to prove inimical to its preservation.

He had mixed with men and women of all shades and tastes. They were mostly affected, hypocritical, insincere, and utterly wearisome; but there is one virtue which we cannot help acquiring from contact with our fellow-beings, however silly, however shallow and profitless, their influence may be. This virtue is tact, and William Hicks possessed a sufficiency of it to smooth his own path through life. If he failed to use it for the benefit of others, neglected to render the footsteps of others less stony and less difficult, he was, perhaps, no worse in such respect than the majority of us.

He now began to perceive that he had taken the wrong road towards gaining the esteem (or perhaps the toleration) of this plain-spoken, honest student of war.

Trist was not to be impressed by the social position of this dilettante dabbler in the fine arts. Soul, pure unvarnished soul, had no effect upon his mental epidermis. Poetry in curious dress-clothes, behind a singular cambric tie, failed to touch his inmost being. Then a brilliant inspiration came to this ambitious youth who attempted to be all things to all men. For once he would be natural. On this one occasion sincerity should grace his actions and his wondrous thoughts.

'I say, Trist,' he remarked almost earnestly, 'I met Martin of the Royal Engineers the other day, and he told me that it is common mess-room gossip in Ceylon that Alice Huston is having a miserable life of it out there.'

Trist had almost finished his dinner. He looked up gravely, and there was in his eyes a worried expression, which, however, the artist (who, like most self-satisfied people, was not observant) failed to see.

'I am sorry to hear that,' quietly, almost indifferently.

'Yes,' continued the other in the perfunctorily sympathetic tone which we all assume while revelling in the recital of evil tidings. 'They say that Huston drinks, that he is madly jealous and coldly indifferent by turns. He always was a brute. I remember when he was young he was a gourmand, and professed to be a great judge of claret. Now a boy who thinks of his interior when he ought to be hardening his muscles will, in all human probability, turn out a drinker.'

While Hicks was giving the benefit of his opinion, Trist had risen from the table, and now stood with his two hands upon the back of his chair looking down thoughtfully at his companion. The artist was peeling an early pear with great delicacy of fingering. Before the war-correspondent had time to say anything, he continued:

'I suppose,' he said somewhat pathetically, 'that you and I are more interested in the Gilholmes than most people. To a certain extent they rely upon us as old friends. That is why I tell you this. I never repeat gossip, you know.'

The last addition was made in a deprecating way, as if to apologize for a celebrity which placed certain personal peculiarities within public reach. Trist had not heard that reticence was one of his companion's characteristics, and he treated the remark with silent contempt. He did not even smile in response to the sympathetic glance of the soulless blue eyes.

'If,' he observed, 'they rely upon us, they will expect us to hold our tongues. The truest friendship is shown in talking of anything but one's friends. I must go now. Good-night!'

The artist rose and held out his delicate hand. Within Trist's brown and sunburnt fingers the shapely limb looked small and frail and very useless. The very manner in which Hicks stood was in strong contrast to the sturdy deportment of his companion. If Brenda Gilholme should at any future day be forced to rely upon one of these strikingly dissimilar men, the choice would surely be no hard task; for one was all latent energy, quiet, reserved, and manly force, while the other was a mere creature of drawing-room and boudoir, a lady's knight, a dandy, an effeminate egoist.

And the stronger man, Theo Trist, went out from the brilliant chamber down the broad and silent stairs, out of the huge door, wrapt in his own thoughts as in a cloak which shielded him from men's eyes, for he saw no one, heard no sound, and was sensible of no definite feeling.

This great stone building was as a home to him--the only home he had ever known. The faces of the servants were pleasantly familiar; the stillness of the vast rooms, the very softness of the rich carpet beneath his feet, were distinct pleasures, and imparted a pleasant feeling of homeliness. And from this he passed out in the bright August evening alone and absorbed. To the war he gave no thought, neither meditated over the ripening fruits of his pen. There was before his meek and pensive eyes a vision which would not be cast aside. He saw a yacht rolling gently on the still waters of a northern fjord. The sails were hastily clewed up or lowered, hanging idle in the soft breeze. Away behind, clear and hard in the morning light, were brown hills rising sheer from the water--bleak rocks of unlovely contour. But the soul of the whole picture looked from the eyes of a slight young girl, clad in sober black, standing bareheaded, so that the sun gleamed on her soft brown hair, beside the stern rail, smiling bravely.

He had left Brenda alone in the midst of sorrow, and now he knew that she was on her way home to England to meet more of it. There is nothing so sad in human life as the bitter realization of human helplessness. Alice Huston was miserable, and Trist knew that he could do nothing. He was fully aware that misery with her meant misery to others. She was too impulsive--too selfish, perhaps--to keep her sorrows to herself, and Brenda would sooner or later be dragged into the trouble. He smiled to himself at the remembrance of William Hicks' words. The idea of Brenda Gilholme--the gifted, the capable, the learned--seeking the aid of this _exalté_ artist was ludicrous, and yet Trist did not smile over it for long. He wished that there had been another man--such a man as himself, he unconsciously decided--near Brenda at this time.

Accustomed as he was to act alone, he perhaps assigned to the spirit of independence a greater importance in the average nature of men and women than such spirit really occupies. Independence or self-dependence is a quality which, being possessed, brings with it a certain blindness. A man such as Theodore Trist, whose every action and thought receives its motive from a calm, straightforward independence, cannot quite realize that there are people to whom the necessity of thinking and acting on their own responsibility is little short of agony. He was sensible in a vague manner that Brenda Gilholme was an exceptional girl in many ways, but he never through all his life quite understood that she was one in a thousand. His life and work brought him into contact with men, and men exceptionally ignorant of women and their ways. In his dreamy, chivalrous way, he gave women credit for a much greater self-dependence and self-sufficiency than they possess--bless them all! In leaving Brenda to bring home Mrs. Wylie, and in a sense to take command of the _Hermione_, he acted somewhat in the spirit of a soldier who, leaving his subordinate behind while he goes forth to other work, feels that his late duties are made over to hands and brain in all probability as competent as his own, but merely wanting in opportunity. And he started on his flying journey across Europe without the knowledge that Brenda was quietly assuming responsibilities from which many older women would have shrunk aghast.

Now that this news of further trouble coming to meet her, as it were, from the East, touched him in passing, he never for one moment doubted Brenda's capability to meet it, and act in the quickest and wisest manner. But there was a vague apprehension, nevertheless, and he thought with discomfort of the girl's utter loneliness.