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THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
THE DEATH OF THE LION
THE NEXT TIME
AND OTHER TALES

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON - BOMBAY - CALCUTTA • MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON e CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
LESSON OF THE MASTER
THE DEATH OF THE LION
THE NEXT TIME
AND OTHER TALES
BY
HENRY JAMES, * * *
MAC MILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST, MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
I 92.2
COPYRIGHT
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
PR EFACE
MY clearest remembrance of any provoking cause
connected with the matter of the present volume
applies, not to the composition at the head of my list
—which owes that precedence to its greatest length
and earliest date—but to the next in order, an effort
embalmed, to fond memory, in a delightful association.
I make the most of this passage of literary history—
I like so, as I find, to recall it. It lives there for me
in old Kensington days; which, though I look back
at them over no such great gulf of years—“The
Death of the Lion ” first appeared but in 1894–
have already faded for me to the complexion of ever
So long ago. It was of a Sunday afternoon early in
the spring of that year : a young friend, a Kensington
neighbour and an ardent man of letters, called on me
to introduce a young friend of his own and to bespeak
my interest for a periodical about to take birth, in
his hands, on the most original “lines '' and with the
happiest omens. What omen could be happier, for
instance, than that this infant recueil, joyously
christened even before reaching the cradle, should
take the name of The Yellow Book 2–which so
Certainly would command for it the liveliest attention.
What, further, should one rejoice more to hear than
that this venture was, for all its constitutional gaiety,
to brave the quarterly form, a thing hitherto of
V
PREFACE
austere, of awful tradition, and was indeed in still
other ways to sound the note of bright young defiance 2
The project, modestly and a little vaguely but all
Communicatively set forth, amused me, charmed me,
On the spot—or at least the touchingly convinced
and inflamed projector did. It was the happy fortune
of the late Henry Harland to charge everything he
touched, whether in life or in literature, with that
influence—an effect by which he was always himself
the first to profit. If he came to me, about The
Yellow Book, amused, he pursued the enterprise
under the same hilarious star ; its difficulties no
less than its felicities excited, in the event, his mirth ;
and he was never more amused (nor, I may certainly
add, more amusing) than when, after no very pro-
longed career, it encountered suddenly and all dis-
tressfully its term. The thing had then been to him,
for the few years, a humorous uneasy care, a business
attended both with other troubles and other pleasures;
yet when, before the too prompt harshness of his
final frustration, I reflect that he had adventurously
lived, wrought and enjoyed, the small square lemon-
coloured quarterly, “failure * and all, figures to me
perhaps his most beguiling dream and most rewarding
hours.
The bravest of the portents that Sunday afternoon
—the intrinsic, of course I mean ; the only ones
to-day worth speaking of-I have yet to mention ;
for I recall my rather embarrassed inability to measure
as yet the contributory value of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley,
by whom my friend was accompanied and who, as
his prime illustrator, his perhaps even quite in-
dependent picture-maker, was to be in charge of
the “art department.” This young man, slender,
pale, delicate, unmistakably intelligent, somehow
invested the whole proposition with a detached, a
slightly ironic and melancholy grace. I had met
V1
PREFACE
him before, on a single occasion, and had seen an
example or two of his so curious and So disconcerting
talent—my appreciation of which seems to me,
however, as I look back, to have stopped quite short.
The young recueil was to have pictures, yes, and they
were to be as often as possible from Beardsley's hand ;
but they were to wear this unprecedented distinction,
and were to scatter it all about them, that they should
have nothing to do with the text—which put the
whole matter on an ideal basis. To those who
remember the short string of numbers of The Yellow
Book the spasmodic independence of these contribu-
tions will still be present. They were, as illustrations,
related surely to nothing else in the same pages—
save once or twice, as I imperfectly recall, to some
literary effort of Beardsley's own that matched them
in perversity ; and I might well be at peace as to
any disposition on the part of the strange young
artist ever to emulate my comparatively so incurious
text. There would be more to say about him, but
he must not draw me off from a greater relevance—
my point being simply that he had associated himself
with Harland that brave day to dangle before me
the sweetest aid to inspiration ever snatched by a
poor scribbler from editorial lips. I should sooner
have come to this turn of the affair, which at once
bathed the whole prospect in the rosiest glow.
I was invited, and all urgently, to contribute to
the first number, and was regaled with the golden
truth that my composition might absolutely assume,
might shamelessly parade in, its own organic form.
It was disclosed to me, wonderfully, that—so golden
the air pervading the enterprise—any projected
contribution might conform, not only unchallenged
but by this circumstance itself the more esteemed,
to its true intelligible nature. For any idea I might
wish to express I might have space, in other words,
VII
PREFACE
elegantly to express it—an offered licence that, on
the spot, opened up the millennium to the “short
story.” One had so often known this product to
struggle, in one's hands, under the rude prescription
of brevity at any cost, with the opposition so offered
to its really becoming a story, that my friend's
emphasised indifference to the arbitrary limit of
length struck me, I remember, as the fruit of the
finest artistic intelligence. We had been at one—
that we already knew—on the truth that the forms
of wrought things, in this order, were, all exquisitely
and effectively, the things ; so that, for the delight
of mankind, form might compete with form and
might correspond to fitness; might, that is, in the
given case, have an inevitability, a marked felicity.
Among forms, moreover, we had had, on the dimen-
sional ground—for length and breadth–our ideal,
the beautiful and blest nouvelle ; the generous, the
enlightened hour for which appeared thus at last to
shine. It was under the star of the nouvelle that, in
other languages, a hundred interesting and charming
results, such studies on the minor Scale as the best
of Turgenieff’s, of Balzac's, of Maupassant's, of
Bourget's, and just lately, in our own tongue, of
Kipling's, had been, all economically, arrived at—
thanks to their authors', as “contributors,” having
been able to count, right and left, on a wise and
liberal support. It had taken the blank misery of
our Anglo-Saxon Sense of Such matters to organise,
as might be said, the general indifference to this
fine type of composition. In that dull view a “short
story '' was a “short story,” and that was the end
of it. Shades and differences, varieties and styles,
the value above all of the idea happily developed,
languished, to extinction, under the hard-and-fast
rule of the “from six to eight thousand words ''-
when, for one's benefit, the rigour was a little relaxed.
V111
PREFACE
For myself, I delighted in the shapely nouvelle—as,
for that matter, I had from time to time and here
and there been almost encouraged to show.
However, these are facts quite of the smaller
significance and at which I glance only because I
seem still to recognise in those of my three bantlings
held by Harland at the baptismal font—“The Death
of the Lion ” (1894), “The Coxon Fund ’’ (1894),
“The Next Time ’’ (1895), plus a paper not here
to be reproduced—something of the less troubled
confidence with which they entered on their first
state of being. These pieces have this in common
that they deal all with the literary life, gathering
their motive, in each case, from some noted adventure,
some felt embarrassment, some extreme predicament, ~
of the artist enamoured of perfection, ridden by his
idea or paying for his sincerity. They testify indeed,
as they thus stand together, to no general intention—
they minister only, I think, to an emphasised effect.
The particular case, in respect to each situation
depicted, appealed to me but on its merits ; though
I was to note with interest, as my sense more and
more opened itself, that situations of the order I
speak of might again and again be conceived. They
rose before me, in fine, as numerous, and thus, here,
even with everything not included, they have added
themselves up. I must further mention that if
they enjoy in common their reference to the troubled
artistic consciousness, they make together, by the
same stroke, this other rather blank profession, that
few of them recall to me, however dimly, any scant
pre-natal phase.
In putting them sundry such critical questions
so much after the fact I find it interesting to make
out—critically interesting of course, which is all our
interest here pretends to be—that whereas any
anecdote about life pure and simple, as it were,
ix Ö
PREFACE
proceeds almost as a matter of Course from Some
good jog of fond fancy's elbow, some pencilled note
on somebody else’s case, so the material for any
picture of personal states so specifically complicated
as those of my hapless friends in the present volume
will have been drawn preponderantly from the depths
of the designer's own mind. This, amusingly enough,
is what, on the evidence before us, I seem critically,
as I say, to gather—that the states represented, the
embarrassments and predicaments studied, the
tragedies and comedies recorded, can be intelligibly
fathered but on his own intimate experience. I
have already mentioned the particular rebuke once
addressed me on all this ground, the question of
where on earth, where round about us at this hour,
I had “found ’’ my Neil Paradays, my Ralph Lim-
berts, my Hugh Verekers and other such supersubtle
fry. I was reminded then, as I have said, that these
represented eminent cases fell to the ground, as by
their foolish weight, unless I could give chapter and
verse for the eminence. I was reduced to confessing
I couldn’t, and yet must repeat again here how little
I was so abashed. On going over these things I See,
to our critical edification, exactly why—which was
because I was able to plead that my postulates, my
animating presences, were all, to their great enrich-
ment, their intensification of value, ironic ; the
strength of applied irony being Surely in the sincerities,
the lucidities, the utilities that stand behind it. When
it’s not a campaign, of a sort, on behalf of the some-
thing better (better than the obnoxious, the provoking
object) that blessedly, as is assumed, might be, it’s
not worth speaking of. But this is exactly what we
mean by operative irony. It implies and projects
the possible other case, the case rich and edifying
where the actuality is pretentious and vain. So it
plays its lamp ; so, essentially, it carries that Smoke-
X
PREFACE
less flame, which makes clear, with all the rest, the
good cause that guides it. My application of which
remarks is that the studies here collected have their
justification in the ironic spirit, the spirit expressed
by my being able to reply promptly enough to my
friend : “If the life about us for the last thirty years
refuses warrant for these examples, then so much
the Worse for that life. The constatation would be so
deplorable that instead of making it we must dodge
it : there are decencies that in the name of the
general Self-respect we must take for granted, there's
a kind of rudimentary intellectual honour to which
we must, in the interest of civilisation, at least pre-
tend.” But I must really reproduce the whole
passion of my retort.
“What does your contention of non-existent
conscious exposures, in the midst of all the stupidity
and vulgarity and hypocrisy, imply but that we
have been, nationally, so to speak, graced with no
instance of recorded sensibility fine enough to react
against these things 2—an admission too distressing.
What one would accordingly fain do is to baffle
any such calamity, to create the record, in default of
any other enjoyment of it ; to imagine, in a word,
the honourable, the producible case. What better
example than this of the high and helpful public
and, as it were, civic use of the imagination ?—a
faculty for the possible fine employments of which
in the interest of morality my esteem grows every
hour I live. How can one consent to make a picture
of the preponderant futilities and vulgarities and
miseries of life without the impulse to exhibit as well
from time to time, in its place, some fine example
of the reaction, the opposition, or the escape 2 One
does, thank heaven, encounter here and there
symptoms of immunity from the general infection ;
One recognises with rapture, on Occasion, signs of a
X1
PREFACE
protest against the rule of the cheap and easy ; and
one sees thus that the tradition of a high esthetic
temper needn’t, after all, helplessly and ignobly
perish. These reassurances are one's warrant, accord-
ingly, for so many recognitions of the apparent doom
and the exasperated temper—whether with the
spirit and the career fatally bruised and finally broken
in the fray, or privileged but to gain from it a finer
and more militant edge. I have had, I admit, to
project signal specimens—have had, naturally, to
make and to keep my cases interesting ; the only
way to achieve which was to suppose and represent
them eminent. In other words, I was inevitably
committed, always, to the superior case ; SO that if
this is what you reprehensively mean, that I have
been thus beguiled into citing celebrities without
analogues and painting portraits without models,
I plead guilty to the critical charge. Only what I
myself mean is that I carry my guilt lightly and
have really in face of each perpetrated licence scarce
patience to defend myself.” So I made my point
and so I continued.
“I can’t tell you, no, who it is I aimed at in the
story of Henry St. George ; and it wouldn’t indeed
do for me to name his exemplar publicly even were
I able. But I none the less maintain his situation
to have been in essence an observed reality—though
I should be utterly ashamed, I equally declare, if I
hadn’t done quite my best for it. It was the fault
of this notable truth, and not my own, that it too
obscurely lurked—dim and disengaged ; but where
is the work of the intelligent painter of life if not
precisely in Some such aid given to true meanings to
be born ? He must bear up as he can if it be in
consequence laid to him that the flat grows salient
and the tangled clear, the common—worst of all !—
even amusingly rare, by passing through his hands.
X11
PREFACE
Just so when you ask who in the world I had in
mind for a victim, and what in the world for a treasure,
so sacrificed to the advertisement not even of their
own merits but of all sorts of independent, of really
indifferent, exhibitory egotism, as the practically
harried and hunted Neil Paraday and his borrowed,
brandished and then fatally mislaid manuscript,
I'm equally confident of having again and again
closely noted in the social air all the elements of such
a drama. I’ve put these elements together—that
was my business, and in doing this wished of course
to give them their maximum sense, which depended,
for irony, for comedy, for tragedy, in other words for
beauty, on the ‘importance ’ of the poor foredoomed
monarch of the jungle. And then, I’m not ashamed
to allow, it was amusing to make these people ‘great,’
So far as one could do so without making them in-
trinsically false. (Yes—for the mere accidental and
relative falsity I don’t care.) It was amusing because
it was more difficult—from the moment, of course
I mean, that one worked out at all their greatness ;
from the moment one didn't simply give it to be taken
on trust. Working out economically almost anything
is the very life of the art of representation ; just as
the request to take on trust, tinged with the least
extravagance, is the very death of the same. (There
may be such a state of mind brought about on the
reader's part, I think, as a positive desire to take on
trust ; but that is only the final fruit of insidious
proceedings, operative to a sublime end, on the
author's side ; and is at any rate a different matter.)
As for the all-ingenious “Figure in the Carpet,”
let me perhaps a little pusillanimously conclude,
nothing would induce me to come into close quarters
with you on the correspondences of this anecdote.
Here exactly is a good example for you of the virtue
of your taking on trust—when I have artfully begotten
X111
PREFACE
in you a disposition. All I can at this point say is
that if ever I was aware of ground and matter for a
significant fable, I was aware of them in that Con-
nexion.”
My plea for “correspondences” will perhaps,
however, after all, but bring my reader back to my
having, at the outset of these remarks, owned to
full unconsciousness of seed dropped here by that
quick hand of occasion that had elsewhere generally
operated ; which comes to saying, no doubt, that in
the world of letters things don’t at this time of day
very strikingly happen. Suggestive and illuminating
incident is indeed scarce frequent enough to be referred
to as administering the shake that starts up afresh
the stopped watch of attention. I shouldn’t there-
fore probably have accumulated these illustrations
without the sense of something interchangeable, or
perhaps even almost indistinguishable, between my
own general adventure and the more or less lively
illustration into which I was to find this experiment
so repeatedly flower. Let it pass that if I am So
Oddly unable to say here, at any point, “what gave
me my idea,” I must just a trifle freely have helped
myself to it from hidden stores. But, burdened thus
with the imputation of that irregularity, I shall give
a poor account of my homogeneous group without
the charity of a glance, however brief, at its successive
components. However I might have been introduced
in fact to Henry St. George, of “The Lesson of the
Master,” or however I might have been deprived of
him, my complete possession of him, my active
sympathy with him as a known and understood and
admired and pitied, in fine as a fully measured,
quantity, hangs about the pages still as a vague scent
hangs about thick Orchard trees. The great sign of
a grasped warrant—for identification, arrest or
whatever—is, after all, in the confidence that dissi-
XIV
PREFACE
pates vagueness; and the logic of such developed
situations as those of the pair commemorated at
the head of my list imposed itself all triumphantly.
Hadn't one again and again caught “society'' in
the very fact of not caring in the least what might
become of the subject, however essentially fine and
fragile, of a patronage reflecting such credit on all
concerned, so long as the Social game might be played
a little more intensely, and if possible more
irrelevantly, by this unfortunate's aid 2 Given the
Lion, his “death '' was but too conceivably the
issue of the cruel exposure thus involved for him ;
and if it be claimed by what I can but feel rather a
pedantic view that so precious an animal exactly
couldn't, in our conditions, have been “given,” I
must reply that I yet had met him—though in a
preserve not perhaps known in all its extent to
geographers.
Of such a fantasy as “The Next Time ’’ the
principle would surely soon turn up among the con-
sulted notes of any sincere man of letters—taking
literature, that is, on the side of the money to be
earned by it. There are beautiful talents the exercise
of which yet isn’t lucrative, and there are pressing
needs the satisfaction of which may well appear
difficult under stress of that failure of felicity. Just
so there are other talents that leave any fine apprecia-
tion mystified and gaping, and the active play of
which may yet be observed to become on occasion
a Source of vast pecuniary profit. Nothing then is
at moments more attaching, in the light of “com-
parative ’’ science, than the study of just where and
when, just how and why recognition denies itself
to the appeal at all artfully, and responds largely to
the appeal coarsely enough, commingled. The critical
spirit—with leisure indeed to spare—may well, in its
restlessness, seek to fix a bit exactly the point at
XV
PREFACE
which a beautiful talent, as I have called it, ceases,
when imperilled by an empty pocket, to be a
“worldly ” advantage. The case in which impunity,
for the malheureux ridden by that questionable boon,
insists on breaking down would seem thus to become
susceptible of much fine measurement. I don’t
know, I confess, that it provably is ; but the critical
spirit at all afraid of so slight a misadventure as a
waste of curiosity is of course deplorably false to its
nature. The difficulty here, in truth, is that, from
the moment a straight dependence on the broad-
backed public is a part of the issue, the explicative
quantity to be sought is precisely the mood of that
monster—which, consistently and consummately un-
able to give the smallest account of itself, naturally
renders no grain of help to inquiry. Such a study
as that of Ray Limbert's so prolonged, so intensified,
but so vain continuance in hope (hope of successfully
growing in his temperate garden some specimen of
the rank exotic whose leaves are rustling cheques) is
in essence a “story about the public,” only wearing
a little the reduced face by reason of the too huge
Scale, for direct portrayal, of the monstrous counten-
ance itself. Herein resides, as I have hinted, the
anxious and easy interest of almost any sincere man
of letters in the mere vicinage, even if that be all, of
such strained situations as Ray Limbert's. They
speak of the public, such situations, to whoever it
may concern. They at all events had from far back
insidiously beset the imagination of the author of
“The Next Time,” who can scarce remember the
day when he wasn't all sympathetically, all tenderly
occupied with some presumed literary watcher—and
quite of a sublime constitution—for that postponed
redress. Therefore in however developed a state the
image in question was at last to hover before him,
some form of it had at least never been far to seek.
XV1
PREFACE
I to this extent recover the acute impression that
may have given birth to “The Figure in the Carpet,”
that no truce, in English-speaking air, had ever seemed
to me really struck, or even approximately strikable,
with our so marked collective mistrust of anything
like close or analytic appreciation—appreciation, to
be appreciation, implying of course Some such rudi-
mentary zeal; and this though that fine process be
the Beautiful Gate itself of enjoyment. To have
become consistently aware of this odd numbness of
the general sensibility, which seemed ever to condemn
it, in presence of a work of art, to a view scarce of
half the intentions embodied, and moreover but to
the scantest measure of these, was to have been
directed from an early day to some of the possible
implications of the matter, and so to have been led
on by seductive steps, albeit perhaps by devious
ways, to such a congruous and, as I would fain call it,
fascinating case as that of Hugh Vereker and his
undiscovered, not to say undiscoverable, secret.
That strikes me, when all is said, as an ample indica-
tion of the starting-point of this particular portrayal.
There may be links missing between the chronic
consciousness I have glanced at—that of Hugh
Vereker’s own analytic projector, speaking through
the mouth of the anonymous scribe—and the poor
man's attributive dependence, for the sense of being
understood and enjoyed, on some responsive reach
of critical perception that he is destined never to
waylay with success; but even so they scarce signify,
and I may not here attempt to catch them. This
too in spite of the amusement almost always yielded
by such recoveries and reminiscences, or to be gathered
from the manipulation of any string of evolutionary
pearls. What I most remember of my proper process
is the lively impulse, at the root of it, to reinstate
analytic appreciation, by some ironic or fantastic
XV11
PREFACE
stroke, so far as possible, in its virtually forfeited
rights and dignities. Importunate to this end had I
long found the charming idea of some artist whose
most characteristic intention, or cluster of intentions,
should have taken all vainly for granted the public,
or at the worst the not unthinkable private, exercise
of penetration. I couldn't, I confess, be indifferent
to those rare and beautiful, or at all events odd and
attaching, elements that might be imagined to grow
in the shade of so much spent intensity and so much
baffled calculation. The mere quality and play of
an ironic consciousness in the designer left wholly
alone, amid a chattering unperceiving world, with the
thing he has most wanted to do, with the design more
or less realised—some effectual glimpse of that might
by itself, for instance, reward one's experiment. I
came to Hugh Vereker, in fine, by this travelled road
of a generalisation ; the habit of having noted for
many years how strangely and helplessly, among us
all, what we call criticism—its curiosity never
emerging from the limp state—is apt to stand off
from the intended sense of things, from such finely-
attested matters, on the artist's part, as a spirit and
a form, a bias and a logic, of his own. From my
definite preliminary it was no far cry to the conception
of an intent worker who should find himself to the
very end in presence but of the limp curiosity. Vere-
ker's drama indeed—or I should perhaps rather say
that of the aspiring young analyst whose report we
read and to whom, I ruefully grant, I have ventured
to impute a developed wit—is that at a given moment
the limpness begins vaguely to throb and heave, to
become conscious of a comparative tension. As an
effect of this mild convulsion acuteness, at several
points, struggles to enter the field, and the question
that accordingly comes up, the issue of the affair,
can be but whether the very secret of perception hasn’t
XV111
PREFACE
been lost. That is the situation, and “The Figure
in the Carpet ’’ exhibits a small group of well-meaning
persons engaged in a test. The reader is, on the
evidence, left to conclude.
The subject of “The Coxon Fund,” published in
The Yellow Book in 1894, had long been with me, but
was, beyond doubt, to have found its interest clinched
by my perusal, shortly before the above date, of
Mr. J. Dyke Campbell's admirable monograph on
S. T. Coleridge. The wondrous figure of that genius
had long haunted me, and circumstances into which
Ineedn’t here enter had within a few years contributed
much to making it vivid. Yet it’s none the less
true that the Frank Saltram of “The Coxon Fund ’’
pretends to be of his great suggester no more than
a dim reflexion and above all a free rearrangement.
More interesting still than the man—for the dramatist
at any rate—is the S. T. Coleridge type ; so what I
was to do was merely to recognise the type, to borrow
it, to re-embody and freshly place it ; an ideal under
the law of which I could but cultivate a free hand.
I proceeded to do so; I reconstructed the scene and
the figures—I had my own idea, which required, to
express itself, a new set of relations—though, when
all this is said, it had assuredly taken the recorded,
transmitted person, the image embalmed in literary
history, to fertilise my fancy. What I should, for
that matter, like most to go into here, space serving,
is the so interesting question—for the most part, it
strikes me, too confusedly treated—of the story-
teller’s “real person " or actual contemporary trans-
planted and exhibited. But this pursuit would take
us far, such radical revision do the common laxities
of the case, as generally handled, seem to call for.
No Such process is effectively possible, we must hold,
as the imputed act of transplanting ; an act essentially
not mechanical, but thinkable rather—so far as
X1X
PREFACE
thinkable at all—in chemical, almost in mystical
terms. We can surely account for nothing in the
novelist's work that hasn’t passed through the crucible
of his imagination, hasn’t, in that perpetually simmer-
ing cauldron his intellectual pot-au-feu, been reduced
to savoury fusion. We here figure the morsel, of
course, not as boiled to nothing, but as exposed, in
return for the taste it gives out, to a new and richer
Saturation. In this state it is in due course picked
out and served, and a meagre esteem will await, a
poor importance attend it, if it doesn’t speak most of
its late genial medium, the good, the wonderful
company it has, as I hint, esthetically kept. It
has entered, in fine, into new relations, it emerges for
new ones. Its final savour has been constituted, but
its prime identity destroyed—which is what was to
be demonstrated. Thus it has become a different
and, thanks to a rare alchemy, a better thing. There-
fore let us have here as little as possible about its
“being ” Mr. This or Mrs. That. If it adjusts itself
with the least truth to its new life it can’t possibly
be either. If it gracelessly refers itself to either, if it
persists as the impression not artistically dealt with,
it shames the honour offered it and can only be
spoken of as having ceased to be a thing of fact and
yet not become a thing of truth. I am tempted to
add that this recommemorative strain might easily
woo me to another light step or two round about
“The Coxon Fund.” For I find myself look at it
most interestedly to-day, after all, in the light of a
significance quite other than that just noted. A
marked example of the possible Scope, at once, and
the possible neatness of the nouvelle, it takes its place
for me in a series of which the main merit and sign is
the effort to do the complicated thing with a strong
brevity and lucidity—to arrive, on behalf of the
multiplicity, at a certain Science of control. In-
XX
PREFACE
finitely attractive—though I risk here again doubtless
an effect of reiteration—the question of how to exert
this control in accepted conditions and how yet to
sacrifice no real value ; problem ever dearest to any
economic soul desirous to keep renewing, and with a
frugal splendour, its ideal of economy. Sacred
altogether to memory, in short, such labours and
such lights. Thus “The Coxon Fund ’’ is such a
complicated thing that if it still seems to carry itself—
by which I mean if its clearness still rules here, or
still serves—some pursued question of how the trick
was played would probably not be thankless.
HENRY JAMES.
xxi
CONTENTS
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
THE DEATH OF THE LION .
THE NEXT TIME
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
THE COXON FUND
PAGE
I •
85
I 39
I 95
25 I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
I
HE had been told the ladies were at church, but this
was corrected by what he saw from the top of the
steps—they descended from a great height in two
arms, with a circular sweep of the most charming
effect—at the threshold of the door which, from the
long bright gallery, overlooked the immense lawn.
Three gentlemen, on the grass, at a distance, sat
under the great trees, while the fourth figure showed
a crimson dress that told as a “bit of colour" amid
the fresh rich green. The servant had so far accom-
panied Paul Overt as to introduce him to this view,
after asking him if he wished first to go to his room.
The young man declined that privilege, conscious of
no disrepair from so short and easy a journey and
salways liking to take at once a general perceptive
possession of a new scene. He stood there a little
with his eyes on the group and on the admirable
picture, the wide grounds of an old country-house near
London—that only made it better—on a splendid
Sunday in June. “But that lady, who's she 2 " he
said to the servant before the man left him.
“I think she's Mrs. St. George, sir.”
“Mrs. St. George the wife of the distinguished
Then Paul Overt checked himself, doubting if a
footman would know.
“Yes, sir—probably, sir,” said his guide, who
appeared to wish to intimate that a person staying at
y 3
3
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Summersoft would naturally be, if only by alliance,
distinguished. His tone, however, made poor Overt
himself feel for the moment Scantly so.
“And the gentlemen 2 ” Overt went on.
“Well, sir, one of them's General Fancourt.”
“Ah yes, I know ; thank you.” General Fancourt
was distinguished, there was no doubt of that, for
something he had done, or perhaps even hadn't
done—the young man couldn't remember which—
some years before in India. The servant went away,
leaving the glass doors open into the gallery, and Paul
Overt remained at the head of the wide double stair-
case, saying to himself that the place was sweet and
promised a pleasant visit, while he leaned on the
balustrade of fine old ironwork which, like all the
other details, was of the same period as the house. It
all went together and spoke in one voice — a rich
English voice of the early part of the eighteenth
century. It might have been church - time on a
summer's day in the reign of Queen Anne : the still-
ness was too perfect to be modern, the nearness
counted so as distance, and there was something SO
fresh and sound in the originality of the large Smooth
house, the expanse of beautiful brickwork that
showed for pink rather than red and that had been
kept clear of messy creepers by the law under which
a woman with a rare complexion disdains a veil.
When Paul Overt became aware that the people
under the trees had noticed him he turned back
through the open doors into the great gallery which
was the pride of the place. It marched across from
end to end and seemed—with its bright colours, its
high panelled windows, its faded flowered chintzes,
its quickly-recognised portraits and pictures, the blue-
and-white china of its cabinets and the attenuated
festoons and rosettes of its ceiling —a cheeerful
upholstered avenue into the other century.
4
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Our friend was slightly nervous ; that went with
his character as a student of fine prose, went with the
artist's general disposition to vibrate ; and there was
a particular thrill in the idea that Henry St. George
might be a member of the party. For the young
aspirant he had remained a high literary figure, in
spite of the lower range of production to which he had
fallen after his three first great successes, the compara-
tive absence of quality in his later work. There had
been moments when Paul Overt almost shed tears for
this ; but now that he was near him—he had never
met him—he was conscious only of the fine original
source and of his own immense debt. After he had
taken a turn or two up and down the gallery he came
out again and descended the steps. He was but
slenderly supplied with a certain social boldness—it
was really a weakness in him—so that, conscious of a
want of acquaintance with the four persons in the dis-
tance, he gave way to motions recommended by their
not committing him to a positive approach. There
was a fine English awkwardness in this—he felt that
too as he sauntered vaguely and obliquely across the
lawn, taking an independent line. Fortunately there
was an equally fine English directness in the way one
of the gentlemen presently rose and made as if to
“stalk ’’ him, though with an air of conciliation and
reassurance. To this demonstration Paul Overt
instantly responded, even if the gentleman were not
his host. He was tall, straight and elderly and had,
like the great house itself, a pink smiling face, and
into the bargain a white moustache. Our young man
met him halfway while he laughed and said: “Er—
Lady Watermouth told us you were coming ; she
asked me just to look after you.” Paul Overt
thanked him, liking him on the spot, and turned round
with him to walk toward the others. “They’ve all
gone to church—all except us,” the stranger continued
5
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
as they went ; “we’re just sitting here—it's so jolly.”
Overt pronounced it jolly indeed : it was such a
lovely place. He mentioned that he was having the
charming impression for the first time.
“Ah, you’ve not been here before ?” said his com-
panion. “It’s a nice little place—not much to do,
you know.” Overt wondered what he wanted to
“do”—he felt that he himself was doing so much.
By the time they came to where the others sat he
had recognised his initiator for a military man and—
such was the turn of Overt's imagination—had found
him thus still more sympathetic. He would naturally
have a need for action, for deeds at variance with
the pacific pastoral scene. He was evidently so
good-natured, however, that he accepted the in-
glorious hour for what it was worth. Paul Overt
shared it with him and with his companions for the
next twenty minutes; the latter looked at him and
he looked at them without knowing much who they
were, while the talk went on without much telling
him even what it meant. It seemed indeed to mean
nothing in particular ; it wandered, with casual
pointless pauses and short terrestrial flights, amid
names of persons and places—names which, for Our
friend, had no great power of evocation. It was
all sociable and slow, as was right and natural of a
warm Sunday morning.
His first attention was given to the question,
privately considered, of whether one of the two
younger men would be Henry St. George. He knew
many of his distinguished contemporaries by their
photographs, but had never, as happened, seen a
portrait of the great misguided novelist. One of
the gentlemen was unimaginable—he was too young ;
and the other scarcely looked clever enough, with
such mild undiscriminating eyes. If those eyes
were St. George's the problem presented by the ill-
6
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
matched parts of his genius would be still more
difficult of solution. Besides, the deportment of
their proprietor was not, as regards the lady in the
red dress, such as could be natural, toward the wife
of his bosom, even to a writer accused by several
Critics of Sacrificing too much to manner. Lastly,
Paul Overt had a vague sense that if the gentleman
with the expressionless eyes bore the name that had
Set his heart beating faster (he also had contradictory
conventional whiskers—the young admirer of the
Celebrity had never in a mental vision seen his face
in so vulgar a frame) he would have given him a
sign of recognition or of friendliness, would have
heard of him a little, would know something about
“Ginistrella,” would have an impression of how that
fresh fiction had caught the eye of real criticism.
Paul Overt had a dread of being grossly proud, but
even morbid modesty might view the authorship of
“Ginistrella " as constituting a degree of identity.
His soldierly friend became clear enough : he was
“Fancourt,” but was also “the General ”; and
he mentioned to the new visitor in the course of a
few moments that he had but lately returned from
twenty years' service abroad.
“And now you remain in England 2 º’ the young
man asked.
“Oh yes; I’ve bought a small house in
London.”
“And I hope you like it,” said Overt, looking at
Mrs. St. George.
“Well, a little house in Manchester Square —
there's a limit to the enthusiasm that inspires.”
“Oh I meant being at home again—being back in
Piccadilly.”
“My daughter likes Piccadilly—that's the main
thing. She's very fond of art and music and literature
and all that kind of thing. She missed it in India
7
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
and she finds it in London, or she hopes she'll find it.
Mr. St. George has promised to help her—he has been
awfully kind to her. She has gone to church—she's
fond of that too—but they'll all be back in a quarter
of an hour. You must let me introduce you to her—
she'll be so glad to know you. I daresay she has
read every blest word you’ve written.”
“I shall be delighted—I haven’t written so very
many,” Overt pleaded, feeling, and without resent-
ment, that the General at least was vagueness itself
about that. But he wondered a little why, expressing
this friendly disposition, it didn’t occur to the doubt-
less eminent soldier to pronounce the word that would
put him in relation with Mrs. St. George. If it was
a question of introductions Miss Fancourt—appar-
ently as yet unmarried—was far away, while the
wife of his illustrious confrère was almost between
them. This lady struck Paul Overt as altogether
pretty, with a surprising juvenility and a high Smart-
ness of aspect, something that—he could scarcely
have said why—served for mystification. St. George
certainly had every right to a charming wife, but he
himself would never have imagined the important
little woman in the aggressively Parisian dress the
partner for life, the alter ego, of a man of letters. That
partner in general, he knew, that second self, was far
from presenting herself in a single type : observation
had taught him that she was not inveterately, not
necessarily plain. But he had never before seen her
look so much as if her prosperity had deeper founda-
tions than an ink-spotted study-table littered with
proof-sheets. Mrs. St. George might have been the
wife of a gentleman who “ kept " books rather than
wrote them, who carried on great affairs in the City
and made better bargains than those that poets mostly
make with publishers. With this she hinted at a
Success more personal—a success peculiarly stamping
8
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
the age in which society, the world of conversation,
is a great drawing-room with the City for its ante-
chamber. Overt numbered her years at first as some
thirty, and then ended by believing that she might
approach her fiftieth. But she somehow in this case
juggled away the excess and the difference—you
only saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in
the conjuror's sleeve. She was extraordinarily white,
and her every element and item was pretty; her eyes,
her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands, her feet—
to which her relaxed attitude in her wicker chair
gave a great publicity—and the numerous ribbons
and trinkets with which she was bedecked. She
looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to
church and then had decided they were too good for
that and had stayed at home. She told a story of
some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had
treated the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation
to a purchase she had made in Paris—on her way
back from Cannes ; made for Lady Egbert, who had
never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected
her of a tendency to figure great people as larger
than life, until he noticed the manner in which she
handled Lady Egbert, which was so sharply mutinous
that it reassured him. He felt he should have under-
stood her better if he might have met her eye ; but
she scarcely so much as glanced at him. “Ah here
they come—all the good Ones | " she said at last ;
and Paul Overt admired at his distance the return of
the churchgoers—several persons, in couples and
threes, advancing in a flicker of sun and shade at the
end of a large green vista formed by the level grass
and the overarching boughs.
“If you mean to imply that we're bad, I protest,”
said one of the gentlemen—“ after making one's self
agreeable all the morning ! ”
“Ah if they've found you agreeable—!” Mrs.
9
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
St. George gaily cried. “But if we're good the others
are better.”
“They must be angels then,” said the amused
General.
“Your husband was an angel, the way he went off
at your bidding,” the gentleman who had first spoken
declared to Mrs. St. George.
“At my bidding 2 ”
“Didn’t you make him go to church 2 ”
“I never made him do anything in my life but once
—when I made him burn up a bad book. That's
all !” At her “That's all !” our young friend broke
into an irrepressible laugh ; it lasted only a second, but
it drew her eyes to him. His own met them, though
not long enough to help him to understand her; unless
it were a step towards this that he saw on the instant
how the burnt book—the way she alluded to it!—
would have been one of her husband's finest things.
“A bad book 2 " her interlocutor repeated.
“I didn’t like it. He went to church because your
daughter went,” she continued to General Fancourt.
“I think it my duty to call your attention to his extra-
ordinary demonstrations to your daughter.”
“Well, if you don't mind them I don’t l” the
General laughed.
“Il s'attache à ses pas. But I don’t wonder—
she's so charming.”
“I hope she won't make him burn any books l’’
Paul Overt ventured to exclaim.
“If she'd make him write a few it would be more
to the purpose,” said Mrs. St. George. “He has
been of a laziness of late ! ”
Our young man stared—he was so struck with the
lady's phraseology. Her “Write a few " seemed to
him almost as good as her “That's all.” Didn’t she,
as the wife of a rare artist, know what it was to pro-
duce one perfect work of art 2 How in the world did
IO
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
she think they were turned off 2 His private con-
viction was that, admirably as Henry St. George
wrote, he had written for the last ten years, and
especially for the last five, only too much, and there
was an instant during which he felt inwardly solicited
to make this public. But before he had spoken a
diversion was effected by the return of the absentees.
They strolled up dispersedly—there were eight or
ten of them—and the circle under the trees rearranged
itself as they took their place in it. They made it
much larger, so that Paul Overt could feel—he was
always feeling that sort of thing, as he said to himself—
that if the company had already been interesting to
watch the interest would now become intense. He
shook hands with his hostess, who welcomed him
without many words, in the manner of a woman able
to trust him to understand and conscious that so
pleasant an occasion would in every way speak for
itself. She offered him no particular facility for
sitting by her, and when they had all subsided again
he found himself still next General Fancourt, with an
unknown lady on his other flank.
“That's my daughter — that one opposite,” the
General said to him without loss of time. Overt saw
a tall girl, with magnificent red hair, in a dress of a
pretty grey-green tint and of a limp silken texture, a
garment that clearly shirked every modern effect. It
had therefore somehow the stamp of the latest thing,
so that our beholder quickly took her for nothing if
not contemporaneous.
“She’s very handsome—very handsome,” he re-
peated while he considered her. There was something
noble in her head, and she appeared fresh and strong.
Her good father surveyed her with complacency,
remarking soon : “She looks too hot—that's her
walk. But she'll be all right presently. Then I'll
make her come over and speak to you.”
II
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“I should be sorry to give you that trouble. If
you were to take me over there !” the young
man murmured.
“My dear sir, do you suppose I put myself out
that way ? I don’t mean for you, but for Marian,”
the General added.
“I would put myself out for her soon enough,”
Overt replied ; after which he went on : “Will you
be so good as to tell me which of those gentlemen is
Henry St. George 2 °
“The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he is
making up to her—they're going off for another walk.”
“Ah is that he – really 2 ” Our friend felt a
certain surprise, for the personage before him seemed
to trouble a vision which had been vague only while
not confronted with the reality. As soon as the reality
dawned the mental image, retiring with a sigh,
became substantial enough to suffer a slight wrong.
Overt, who had spent a considerable part of his short
life in foreign lands, made now, but not for the first
time, the reflexion that whereas in those countries he
had almost always recognised the artist and the man
of letters by his personal “type,” the mould of his
face, the character of his head, the expression of his
figure, and even the indications of his dress, so in
England this identification was as little as possible a
matter of course, thanks to the greater conformity,
the habit of sinking the profession instead of advertis-
ing it, the general diffusion of the air of the gentleman
—the gentleman committed to no particular set of
ideas. More than once, on returning to his own
country, he had said to himself about people met in
Society: “One sees them in this place and that, and
one even talks with them ; but to find out what they
do one would really have to be a detective.” In
respect to several individuals whose work he was the
opposite of “drawn to ”—perhaps he was wrong—
I2
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
he found himself adding, “No wonder they conceal
it—when it's so bad | " He noted that oftener than
in France and in Germany his artist looked like a
gentleman — that is, like an English one — while,
certainly outside a few exceptions, his gentleman
didn’t look like an artist. St. George was not one
of the exceptions; that circumstance he definitely
apprehended before the great man had turned his
back to walk off with Miss Fancourt. He certainly
looked better behind than any foreign man of letters
—showed for beautifully correct in his tall black
hat and his superior frock coat. Somehow, all the
same, these very garments—he wouldn’t have minded
them so much on a week-day—were disconcerting
to Paul Overt, who forgot for the moment that the
head of the profession was not a bit better dressed
than himself. He had caught a glimpse of a regular
face, a fresh colour, a brown moustache and a pair
of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, and he
promised himself to study these denotements on the
first occasion. His superficial sense was that their
owner might have passed for a lucky stockbroker—
a gentleman driving eastward every morning from a
sanitary suburb in a Smart dog-cart. That carried
out the impression already derived from his wife.
Paul's glance, after a moment, travelled back to this
lady, and he saw how her own had followed her
husband as he moved off with Miss Fancourt. Overt
permitted himself to wonder a little if she were jealous
when another woman took him away. Then he made
out that Mrs. St. George wasn’t glaring at the in-
different maiden. Her eyes rested but on her
husband, and with unmistakable Serenity. That
was the way she wanted him to be—she liked his
conventional uniform. Overt longed to hear more
about the book she had induced him to destroy.
I3
II
As they all came out from luncheon General Fancourt
took hold of him with an “I say, I want you to know
my girl | " as if the idea had just occurred to him and
he hadn't spoken of it before. With the other hand
he possessed himself all paternally of the young lady.
“You know all about him. I’ve seen you with his
books. She reads everything—everything !” he went
on to Paul. The girl Smiled at him and then laughed
at her father. The General turned away and his
daughter spoke—“Isn't papa delightful ?”
“He is indeed, Miss Fancourt.”
“As if I read you because I read “everything ' ' "
“Oh I don’t mean for saying that,” said Paul
Overt. “I liked him from the moment he began to
be kind to me. Then he promised me this privilege.”
“It isn't for you he means it—it's for me. If you
flatter yourself that he thinks of anything in life but
me you'll find you're mistaken. He introduces every
one. He thinks me insatiable.”
“You speak just like him,” laughed our youth.
“Ah but sometimes I want to ” —and the girl
coloured. “I don’t read everything — I read very
little. But I have read you.”
“Suppose we go into the gallery,” said Paul Overt.
She pleased him greatly, not so much because of this
last remark—though that of course was not too dis-
concerting—as because, seated opposite to him at
I4
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
luncheon, she had given him for half an hour the
impression of her beautiful face. Something else had
come with it—a sense of generosity, of an enthusiasm
which, unlike many enthusiasms, was not all manner.
That was not spoiled for him by his seeing that the
repast had placed her again in familiar contact with
Henry St. George. Sitting next her this celebrity was
also opposite our young man, who had been able to
note that he multiplied the attentions lately brought
by his wife to the General's notice. Paul Overt had
gathered as well that this lady was not in the least dis-
composed by these fond excesses and that she gave
every sign of an unclouded spirit. She had Lord
Masham on one side of her and on the other the
accomplished Mr. Mulliner, editor of the new high-
class lively evening paper which was expected to meet
a want felt in circles increasingly conscious that Con-
servatism must be made amusing, and unconvinced
when assured by those of another political colour that
it was already amusing enough. At the end of an hour
spent in her company Paul Overt thought her still
prettier than at the first radiation, and if her profane
allusions to her husband's work had not still rung in
his ears he should have liked her—so far as it could
be a question of that in connexion with a woman to
whom he had not yet spoken and to whom probably
he should never speak if it were left to her. Pretty
women were a clear need to this genius, and for the
hour it was Miss Fancourt who supplied the want.
If Overt had promised himself a closer view the occa-
sion was now of the best, and it brought consequences
felt by the young man as important. He saw more in
St. George's face, which he liked the better for its not
having told its whole story in the first three minutes.
That story came out as one read, in short instalments
—it was excusable that one's analogies should be
somewhat professional—and the text was a style
I5
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
considerably involved, a language not easy to trans-
late at sight. There were shades of meaning in it and
a vague perspective of history which receded as you
advanced. Two facts Paul had particularly heeded.
The first of these was that he liked the measured
mask much better at inscrutable rest than in Social
agitation; its almost convulsive Smile above all dis-
pleased him (as much as any impression from that
source could), whereas the quiet face had a charm
that grew in proportion as stillness settled again.
The change to the expression of gaiety excited, he
made out, very much the private protest of a person
sitting gratefully in the twilight when the lamp is
brought in too soon. His second reflexion was that,
though generally averse to the flagrant use of in-
gratiating arts by a man of age “making up '' to a
pretty girl, he was not in this case too painfully
affected : which seemed to prove either that St.
George had a light hand or the air of being younger
than he was, or else that Miss Fancourt's own manner
somehow made everything right. •
Overt walked with her into the gallery, and they
strolled to the end of it, looking at the pictures, the
cabinets, the charming vista, which harmonised with
the prospect of the Summer afternoon, resembling it
by a long brightness, with great divans and old chairs
that figured hours of rest. Such a place as that had
the added merit of giving those who came into it
plenty to talk about. Miss Fancourt sat down with
her new acquaintance on a flowered sofa, the cushions
of which, very numerous, were tight ancient cubes
of many sizes, and presently said: “I’m so glad to
have a chance to thank you.”
“To thank me 2 ” He had to wonder.
“I liked your book so much. I think it
splendid.”
She sat there Smiling at him, and he never asked
I6
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
himself which book she meant ; for after all he had
written three or four. That seemed a vulgar detail,
and he wasn’t even gratified by the idea of the pleasure
she told him—her handsome bright face told him—
he had given her. The feeling she appealed to, or
at any rate the feeling she excited, was something
larger, something that had little to do with any
quickened pulsation of his own vanity. It was re-
sponsive admiration of the life she embodied, the
young purity and richness of which appeared to imply
that real success was to resemble that, to live, to bloom,
to present the perfection of a fine type, not to have
hammered out headachy fancies with a bent back
at an ink-stained table. While her grey eyes rested
on him—there was a wideish space between these,
and the division of her rich-coloured hair, so thick
that it ventured to be smooth, made a free arch
above them—he was almost ashamed of that exercise
of the pen which it was her present inclination to
commend. He was conscious he should have liked
better to please her in some other way. The lines
of her face were those of a woman grown, but the
child lingered on in her complexion and in the Sweet-
ness of her mouth. Above all she was natural—that
was indubitable now ; more natural than he had
supposed at first, perhaps on account of her esthetic
toggery, which was conventionally unconventional,
suggesting what he might have called a tortuous
spontaneity. He had feared that sort of thing in
other cases, and his fears had been justified ; for,
though he was an artist to the essence, the modern
reactionary nymph, with the brambles of the woodland
caught in her folds and a look as if the satyrs had
toyed with her hair, made him shrink, not as a man
of starch and patent leather, but as a man potentially
himself a poet or even a faun. The girl was really
more candid than her costume, and the best proof
I7 C
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
of it was her supposing her liberal character suited
by any uniform. This was a fallacy, since if she was
draped as a pessimist he was sure she liked the taste
of life. He thanked her for her appreciation—aware
at the same time that he didn't appear to thank her
enough and that she might think him ungracious.
He was afraid she would ask him to explain something
he had written, and he always winced at that—
perhaps too timidly—for to his own ear the explana-
tion of a work of art sounded fatuous. But he liked
her so much as to feel a confidence that in the long
run he should be able to show her he wasn’t rudely
evasive. Moreover, she surely wasn’t quick to take
offence, wasn’t irritable ; she could be trusted to
wait. So when he said to her, “Ah don’t talk of
anything I’ve done, don’t talk of it here ; there's
another man in the house who's the actuality "-
when he uttered this short sincere protest it was with
the sense that she would see in the words neither
mock humility nor the impatience of a successful man
bored with praise.
“You mean Mr. St. George—isn’t he delightful ?”
Paul Overt met her eyes, which had a cool morning-
light that would have half-broken his heart if he
hadn’t been so young. “Alas I don’t know him. I
only admire him at a distance.”
“Oh you must know him—he wants so to talk to
you,” returned Miss Fancourt, who evidently had the
habit of saying the things that, by her quick calcula-
tion, would give people pleasure. Paul saw how she
would always calculate on everything's being simple
between others.
“I shouldn't have supposed he knew anything
about me,” he professed.
“He does then—everything. And if he didn't I
should be able to tell him.”
“To tell him everything 2 ” our friend smiled.
I8
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“You talk just like the people in your book,” she
answered.
“Then they must all talk alike.”
She thought a moment, not a bit disconcerted.
“Well, it must be so difficult. Mr. St. George tells
me it is—terribly. I’ve tried too—and I find it so.
I’ve tried to write a novel.”
“Mr. St. George oughtn't to discourage you,”
Paul went so far as to say.
“You do much more — when you wear that
expression.”
“Well, after all, why try to be an artist 2 º’ the
young man pursued. “It’s so poor—so poor l’’
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Miss Fan-
court, who looked grave.
“I mean as compared with being a person of
action—as living your works.”
“But what’s art but an intense life — if it be
real?” she asked. “I think it's the only one —
everything else is so clumsy ” Her companion
laughed, and she brought out with her charming
serenity what next struck her. “It’s so interesting
to meet so many celebrated people.”
“So I should think—but surely it isn’t new to
you.”
“Why, I’ve never seen any one—any one: living
always in Asia.”
The way she talked of Asia somehow enchanted
him. “But doesn’t that continent swarm with great
figures 2 Haven’t you administered provinces in
India and had captive rajahs and tributary princes
chained to your car 2 °
It was as if she didn’t care even should he amuse
himself at her cost. “I was with my father, after I
left school to go out there. It was delightful being
with him—we're alone together in the world, he and
I—but there was none of the society I like best. One
I9
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
never heard of a picture—never of a book, except
bad ones.”
“Never of a picture ? Why, wasn't all life a
picture ?”
She looked over the delightful place where they
sat. “Nothing to compare to this. I adore
England l’” she cried.
It fairly stirred in him the sacred chord. “Ah
of course I don’t deny that we must do something
with her, poor old dear, yet !”
“She hasn't been touched, really,” said the
girl.
“Did Mr. St. George say that ?”
There was a small and, as he felt, harmless spark
of irony in his question ; which, however, she answered
very simply, not noticing the insinuation. “Yes, he
says England hasn't been touched—not considering
all there is,” she went on eagerly. “He’s so interest-
ing about our country. To listen to him makes one
want so to do something.”
“It would make me want to,” said Paul Overt,
feeling strongly, on the instant, the suggestion of
what she said and that of the emotion with which
she said it, and well aware of what an incentive, on
St. George's lips, such a speech might be.
“Oh you—as if you hadn’t 1 I should like so to
hear you talk together,” she added ardently.
“That's very genial of you ; but he'd have it all
his own way. I'm prostrate before him.”
She had an air of earnestness. “Do you think,
then, he's so perfect 2 ”
“Far from it. Some of his later books seem to me
of a queerness | "
“Yes, yes—he knows that.”
Paul Overt stared. “That they seem to me of a
queerness 2 ”
“Well yes, or at any rate that they're not what
2O
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
they should be. He told me he didn’t esteem them.
He has told me such wonderful things — he's so
interesting.”
There was a certain shock for Paul Overt in the
knowledge that the fine genius they were talking of
had been reduced to so explicit a confession and had
made it, in his misery, to the first comer; for though
Miss Fancourt was charming what was she after all
but an immature girl encountered at a country-
house 2 Yet precisely this was part of the sentiment
he himself had just expressed: he would make way
completely for the poor peccable great man, not
because he didn’t read him clear, but altogether
because he did. His consideration was half composed
of tenderness for superficialities which he was sure
their perpetrator judged privately, judged more
ferociously than any one, and which represented Some
tragic intellectual secret. He would have his reasons
for his psychology d fleur de peau, and these reasons
could only be cruel ones, such as would make him
dearer to those who already were fond of him. “You
excite my envy. I have my reserves, I discriminate—
but I love him,” Paul said in a moment. “And
seeing him for the first time this way is a great event
for me.”
“How momentous—how magnificent l’’ cried the
girl. “How delicious to bring you together l’’
“Your doing it — that makes it perfect,” our
friend returned.
“He’s as eager as you,” she went on. “But it's
so odd you shouldn’t have met.”
“It's not really so odd as it strikes you. I've been
out of England so much—made repeated absences
all these last years.”
She took this in with interest. “And yet you
write of it as well as if you were always here.”
“It’s just the being away perhaps. At any rate
2I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
the best bits, I suspect, are those that were done in
dreary places abroad.” ºf
“And why were they dreary 2 ”
“Because they were health-resorts — where my
poor mother was dying.”
“Your poor mother ?”—she was all sweet
wonder.
“We went from place to place to help her to get
better. But she never did. To the deadly Riviera
(I hate it !), to the high Alps, to Algiers, and far away
—a hideous journey—to Colorado.”
“And she isn’t better P’’ Miss Fancourt went on.
“She died a year ago.”
“Really 2—like mine ! Only that’s years since.
Some day you must tell me about your mother,” she
added.
He could at first, on this, only gaze at her. “What
right things you say ! If you say them to St. George
I don’t wonder he's in bondage.”
It pulled her up for a moment. “I don’t know
what you mean. He doesn’t make speeches and
professions at all—he isn’t ridiculous.”
“I’m afraid you consider, then, that I am.”
“No, I don't.”—she spoke it rather shortly. And
then she added : “He understands —understands
everything.”
The young man was on the point of saying jocosely :
“And I don't—is that it?” But these words, in time,
changed themselves to others slightly less trivial.
“Do you suppose he understands his wife 2 ”
Miss Fancourt made no direct answer, but after a
moment's hesitation put it : “Isn’t she charming 2 ”
“Not in the least ! ”
“Here he comes. Now you must know him,” she
went on. A small group of visitors had gathered at
the other end of the gallery and had been there over-
taken by Henry St. George, who strolled in from a
22
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
neighbouring room. He stood near them a moment,
not falling into the talk but taking up an old minia-
ture from a table and vaguely regarding it. At the end
of a minute he became aware of Miss Fancourt and
her companion in the distance ; whereupon, laying
down his miniature, he approached them with the
Same procrastinating air, his hands in his pockets and
his eyes turned, right and left, to the pictures. The
gallery was so long that this transit took some little
time, especially as there was a moment when he
stopped to admire the fine Gainsborough. “He says
Mrs. St. George has been the making of him,” the
girl continued in a voice slightly lowered.
“Ah he's often obscure | " Paul laughed.
“Obscure ?” she repeated as if she heard it for the
first time. Her eyes rested on her other friend, and
it wasn’t lost upon Paul that they appeared to send
out great shafts of softness. “He’s going to speak
to us!” she fondly breathed. There was a sort of
rapture in her voice, and our friend was startled.
“Bless my soul, does she care for him like that ?—
is she in love with him 2 ” he mentally inquired.
“Didn't I tell you he was eager ?” she had meanwhile
asked of him.
“It’s eagerness dissimulated,” the young man
returned as the subject of their observation lingered
before his Gainsborough. “He edges toward us
shyly. Does he mean that she saved him by burning
that book 2 ”
“That book 2 what book did she burn ?” The
girl quickly turned her face to him.
“Hasn’t he told you, then 2 °
“Not a word.”
“Then he doesn’t tell you everything !” Paul had
guessed that she pretty much supposed he did. The
great man had now resumed his course and come
nearer; in spite of which his more qualified admirer
23
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
risked a profane observation. “ St. George and the
Dragon is what the anecdote suggests 1 ''
His companion, however, didn’t hear it ; she
Smiled at the dragon's adversary. “He is eager—
he is l’’ she insisted.
“Eager for you—yes.”
But meanwhile she had called out : “I’m sure you
want to know Mr. Overt. You'll be great friends, and
it will always be delightful to me to remember I was
here when you first met and that I had something to
do with it.”
There was a freshness of intention in the words that
carried them off; nevertheless our young man was
sorry for Henry St. George, as he was sorry at any
time for any person publicly invited to be responsive
and delightful. He would have been so touched to
believe that a man he deeply admired should care a
straw for him that he wouldn't play with such a pre-
sumption if it were possibly vain. In a single glance
of the eye of the pardonable master he read—having
the sort of divination that belonged to his talent—
that this personage had ever a store of friendly
patience, which was part of his rich outfit, but was
versed in no printed page of a rising scribbler. There
was even a relief, a simplification, in that : liking
him so much already for what he had done, how could
one have liked him any more for a perception which
must at the best have been vague 2 Paul Overt got
up, trying to show his compassion, but at the same
instant he found himself encompassed by St. George's
happy personal art—a manner of which it was the
essence to conjure away false positions. It all took
place in a moment. Paul was conscious that he knew
him now, conscious of his handshake and of the very
quality of his hand ; of his face, seen nearer and
consequently seen better, of a general fraternising
assurance, and in particular of the circumstance that
24
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
St. George didn’t dislike him (as yet at least) for being
imposed by a charming but too gushing girl, attractive
enough without such danglers. No irritation at any
rate was reflected in the voice with which he questioned
Miss Fancourt as to some project of a walk—a general
walk of the company round the park. He had soon
Said something to Paul about a talk—“We must
have a tremendous lot of talk; there are so many
things, aren’t there 2 ”—but our friend could see this
idea wouldn't in the present case take very immediate
effect. All the same he was extremely happy, even
after the matter of the walk had been settled—the
three presently passed back to the other part of the
gallery, where it was discussed with several members
of the party; even when, after they had all gone out
together, he found himself for half an hour conjoined
with Mrs. St. George. Her husband had taken the
advance with Miss Fancourt, and this pair were quite
out of sight. It was the prettiest of rambles for a
Summer afternoon — a grassy circuit, of immense
extent, skirting the limit of the park within. The
park was completely surrounded by its old mottled
but perfect red wall, which, all the way on their left,
constituted in itself an object of interest. Mrs.
St. George mentioned to him the surprising number
of acres thus enclosed, together with numerous
other facts relating to the property and the family,
and the family's other properties: she couldn’t
too strongly urge on him the importance of Seeing their
other houses. She ran over the names of these and
rang the changes on them with the facility of practice,
making them appear an almost endless list. She had
received Paul Overt very amiably on his breaking
ground with her by the mention of his joy in having
just made her husband's acquaintance, and struck
him as so alert and so accommodating a little woman
that he was rather ashamed of his mot about her to
25
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Miss Fancourt; though he reflected that a hundred
Other people, on a hundred occasions, would have
been sure to make it. He got on with Mrs. St. George,
in short, better than he expected ; but this didn't
prevent her suddenly becoming aware that she was
faint with fatigue and must take her way back to the
house by the shortest cut. She professed that she
hadn’t the strength of a kitten and was a miserable
wreck; a character he had been too preoccupied to
discern in her while he wondered in what sense she
could be held to have been the making of her husband.
He had arrived at a glimmering of the answer when she
announced that she must leave him, though this
perception was of course provisional. While he was
in the very act of placing himself at her disposal for
the return the situation underwent a change ; Lord
Masham had suddenly turned up, coming back to
them, overtaking them, emerging from the shrubbery
—Overt could scarcely have said how he appeared—
and Mrs. St. George had protested that she wanted
to be left alone and not to break up the party. A
moment later she was walking off with Lord Masham.
Our friend fell back and joined Lady Watermouth,
to whom he presently mentioned that Mrs. St. George
had been obliged to renounce the attempt to go
further.
“She oughtn't to have come out at all,” her lady-
ship rather grumpily remarked.
“Is she so very much of an invalid 2 ”
“Very bad indeed.” And his hostess added with
still greater austerity: “She oughtn't really to come
to one !” He wondered what was implied by this,
and presently gathered that it was not a reflexion on
the lady's conduct or her moral nature: it only
represented that her strength was not equal to her
aspirations.
26
III
THE Smoking-room at Summersoft was on the scale
of the rest of the place—high light commodious and
decorated with such refined old carvings and mould-
ings that it seemed rather a bower for ladies who
should sit at work at fading crewels than a parliament
of gentlemen smoking strong cigars. The gentlemen
mustered there in considerable force on the Sunday
evening, collecting mainly at one end, in front of one
of the cool fair fireplaces of white marble, the entab-
lature of which was adorned with a delicate little
Italian “subject.” There was another in the wall that
faced it, and, thanks to the mild summer night, a fire
in neither ; but a nucleus for aggregation was fur-
nished on one side by a table in the chimney-corner
laden with bottles, decanters and tall tumblers. Paul
Overt was a faithless Smoker; he would puff a cigar-
ette for reasons with which tobacco had nothing to do.
This was particularly the case on the occasion of
which I speak; his motive was the vision of a little
direct talk with Henry St. George. The “tremend-
ous ” communion of which the great man had held out
hopes to him earlier in the day had not yet come off,
and this saddened him considerably, for the party was
to go its several ways immediately after breakfast on
the morrow. He had, however, the disappointment of
finding that apparently the author of “Shadowmere *
was not disposed to prolong his vigil. He wasn't
27
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
among the gentlemen assembled when Paul entered,
nor was he one of those who turned up, in bright
habiliments, during the next ten minutes. The young
man waited a little, wondering if he had only gone to
put on something extraordinary; this would account
for his delay as well as contribute further to Overt's
impression of his tendency to do the approved super-
ficial thing. But he didn’t arrive—he must have been
putting on something more extraordinary than was
probable. Our hero gave him up, feeling a little
injured, a little wounded, at this loss of twenty coveted
words. He wasn’t angry, but he puffed his cigarette
Sighingly, with the sense of something rare possibly
missed. He wandered away with his regret and
moved slowly round the room, looking at the old
prints on the walls. In this attitude he presently felt
a hand on his shoulder and a friendly voice in his ear:
“This is good. I hoped I should find you. I came
down on purpose.” St. George was there without a
change of dress and with a fine face—his graver one
—to which our young man all in a flutter responded.
He explained that it was only for the Master—the
idea of a little talk—that he had sat up, and that, not
finding him, he had been on the point of going to bed.
“Well, you know, I don’t smoke—my wife doesn’t
let me,” said St. George, looking for a place to sit
down. “It’s very good for me—very good for me.
Let us take that sofa.”
“Do you mean smoking's good for you ?”
“No, no—her not letting me. It’s a great thing to
have a wife who's so sure of all the things one can do
without. One might never find them out one’s self.
She doesn't allow me to touch a cigarette.” They
took possession of a sofa at a distance from the group
of Smokers, and St. George went on : “Have you got
one yourself 2 ”
“Do you mean a cigarette 2 ”
28
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“Dear no—a wife ”
“No ; and yet I’d give up my cigarette for one.”
“You’d give up a good deal more than that,”
St. George returned. “However, you'd get a great
deal in return. There's a something to be said for
wives,” he added, folding his arms and crossing his
outstretched legs. He declined tobacco altogether
and sat there without returning fire. His companion
stopped smoking, touched by his courtesy; and after
all they were out of the fumes, their sofa was in a far-
away corner. It would have been a mistake, St.
George went on, a great mistake for them to have
separated without a little chat; “for I know all about
you,” he said, “I know you're very remarkable.
You've written a very distinguished book.”
“And how do you know it 2 ” Paul asked.
“Why, my dear fellow, it's in the air, it's in the
papers, it's everywhere.” St. George spoke with the
immediate familiarity of a confrère—a tone that
seemed to his neighbour the very rustle of the laurel.
“You’re on all men's lips and, what's better, on all
women's. And I’ve just been reading your book.”
“Just 2 You hadn’t read it this afternoon,” said
Overt.
“How do you know that ?”
“I think you should know how I know it,” the
young man laughed.
“I suppose Miss Fancourt told you.”
“No indeed—she led me rather to suppose you
had.”
“Yes—that's much more what she’d do. Doesn’t
she shed a rosy glow over life 2 But you didn't
believe her ?” asked St. George.
“No, not when you came to us there.”
“Did I pretend ? did I pretend badly 2 ” But
without waiting for an answer to this St. George went
on : “You ought always to believe such a girl as
29
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
that—always, always. Some women are meant to be
taken with allowances and reserves ; but you must
take her just as she is.”
“I like her very much,” said Paul Overt.
Something in his tone appeared to excite on his
companion's part a momentary sense of the absurd ;
perhaps it was the air of deliberation attending this
judgement. St. George broke into a laugh to reply.
“It’s the best thing you can do with her. She's a
rare young lady | In point of fact, however, I confess
I hadn’t read you this afternoon.”
“Then you see how right I was in this particular
case not to believe Miss Fancourt.”
“How right 2 how can I agree to that when I lost
credit by it 2 ”
“Do you wish to pass exactly for what she repre-
sents you ? Certainly you needn’t be afraid,” Paul
Said.
“Ah, my dear young man, don’t talk about passing
—for the likes of me ! I'm passing away—nothing
else than that. She has a better use for her young
imagination (isn't it fine 2) than in ‘representing ' in
any way such a weary wasted used-up animall ”
The Master spoke with a sudden sadness that pro-
duced a protest on Paul's part ; but before the pro-
test could be uttered he went on, reverting to the
latter's striking novel : “I had no idea you were so
good — one hears of so many things. But you're
surprisingly good.”
“I’m going to be surprisingly better,” Overt made
bold to reply.
“I see that, and it’s what fetches me. I don’t see
so much else—as one looks about—that's going to be
urprisingly better. They're going to be consistently
orse—most of the things. It's so much easier to be
worse—heaven knows I’ve found it so. I’m not in a
great glow, you know, about what's breaking out all

30
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
over the place. But you must be better, you really
must keep it up. I haven’t of course. It's very
difficult—that's the devil of the whole thing, keeping
it up. But I see you'll be able to. It will be a great
disgrace if you don't.”
“It’s very interesting to hear you speak of your-
self; but I don’t know what you mean by your
allusions to your having fallen off,” Paul Overt
observed with pardonable hypocrisy. He liked his
companion so much now that the fact of any decline
of talent or of care had ceased for the moment to be
vivid to him.
“Don’t say that—don't say that,” St. George
returned gravely, his head resting on the top of the
sofa-back and his eyes on the ceiling. “You know
perfectly what I mean. I haven’t read twenty pages
of your book without seeing that you can’t help it.”
“You make me very miserable,” Paul ecstatically
breathed.
“I’m glad of that, for it may serve as a kind of
warning. Shocking enough it must be, especially to
a young fresh mind, full of faith—the spectacle of a
man meant for better things sunk at my age in such
dishonour.” St. George, in the same contemplative
attitude, spoke softly but deliberately, and without
perceptible emotion. His tone indeed suggested an
impersonal lucidity that was practically cruel—cruel
to himself—and made his young friend lay an argu-
mentative hand on his arm. But he went on while
his eyes seemed to follow the graces of the eighteenth-
century ceiling : “Look at me well, take my lesson
to heart—for it is a lesson. Let that good come of it
at least that you shudder with your pitiful impression,
and that this may help to keep you straight in the
future. Don’t become in your old age what I have in
mine—the depressing, the deplorable illustration of
the worship of false gods ! ”
3I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“What do you mean by your old age 2 º’ the young
man asked.
“It has made me old. But I like your youth.”
Paul answered nothing—they sat for a minute in
silence. They heard the others going on about the
governmental majority. Then “What do you mean
by false gods 2 ” he inquired.
His companion had no difficulty whatever in Say-
ing, “The idols of the market ; money and luxury and
‘the world '; placing one's children and dressing
one's wife; everything that drives one to the short
and easy way. Ah the vile things they make one do ſ”
“But surely one's right to want to place one's
children.”
“One has no business to have any children,” St.
George placidly declared. “I mean of course if one
wants to do anything good.”
“But aren’t they an inspiration—an incentive 2 ''
“An incentive to damnation, artistically speaking.”
“You touch on very deep things—things I should
like to discuss with you,” Paul said. “I should like
you to tell me volumes about yourself. This is a
great feast for me !”
“Of course it is, cruel youth. But to show you I'm
still not incapable, degraded as I am, of an act of
faith, I’ll tie my vanity to the stake for you and burn
it to ashes. You must come and see me—you must
come and see us,” the Master quickly substituted.
“Mrs. St. George is charming ; I don’t know whether
you’ve had any opportunity to talk with her. She'll
be delighted to see you ; she likes great celebrities,
whether incipient or predominant. You must come
and dine—my wife will write to you. Where are you
to be found 2 ''
“This is my little address *—and Overt drew out
his pocket-book and extracted a visiting-card. On
second thoughts, however, he kept it back, remarking
32
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
that he wouldn’t trouble his friend to take charge of
it but would come and see him straightway in London
and leave it at his door if he should fail to obtain
entrance.
“Ah you’ll probably fail; my wife's always out—
or when she isn’t out is knocked up from having been
out. You must come and dine—though that won’t
do much good either, for my wife insists on big
dinners.” St. George turned it over further, but
then went on : “You must come down and see us
in the country, that's the best way; we’ve plenty of
room and it isn't bad.”
“You’ve a house in the country 2 ” Paul asked
enviously.
“Ah not like this But we have a sort of place we
go to-an hour from Euston. That's one of the
reasons.”
“One of the reasons 2 ”
“Why my books are so bad.”
“You must tell me all the others | * Paul
longingly laughed.
His friend made no direct rejoinder to this, but
spoke again abruptly. “Why have I never seen you
before ???
The tone of the question was singularly flattering to
our hero, who felt it to imply the great man's now per-
ceiving he had for years missed something. “Partly,
I suppose, because there has been no particular
reason why you should see me. I haven’t lived in the
world—in your world. I’ve spent many years out of
England, in different places abroad.”
“Well, please don’t do it any more. You must do
England—there's such a lot of it.”
“Do you mean I must write about it 2 ”—and
Paul struck the note of the listening candour of a
child.
“Of course you must. And tremendously well, do
33 D
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
you mind 2 That takes off a little of my esteem for
this thing of yours—that it goes on abroad. Hang
‘ abroad ' ' Stay at home and do things here—do
subjects we can measure.”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me,” Overt said, deeply
attentive. “But pardon me if I say I don’t under-
stand how you’ve been reading my book,” he added.
“I’ve had you before me all the afternoon, first in that
long walk, then at tea on the lawn, till we went to
dress for dinner, and all the evening at dinner and in
this place.”
St. George turned his face about with a smile. “I
gave it but a quarter of an hour.”
“A quarter of an hour's immense, but I don’t
understand where you put it in. In the drawing-
room after dinner you weren't reading—you were
talking to Miss Fancourt.”
“It comes to the same thing, because we talked
about ‘ Ginistrella.' She described it to me—she lent
me her copy.”
“Lent it to you ?”
“She travels with it.”
“It’s incredible,” Paul blushed.
“It’s glorious for you, but it also turned out very
well for me. When the ladies went off to bed she
kindly offered to send the book down to me. Her
maid brought it to me in the hall, and I went to my
room with it. I hadn’t thought of coming here, I do
that so little. But I don't sleep early, I always have
to read an hour or two. I sat down to your novel
on the spot, without undressing, without taking off
anything but my coat. I think that's a sign my
curiosity had been strongly roused about it. I read
a quarter of an hour, as I tell you, and even in a
quarter of an hour I was greatly struck.”
“Ah the beginning isn't very good—it's the
whole thing !” said Overt, who had listened to this
34
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
recital with extreme interest. “And you laid down
the book and came after me 2 ” he asked.
“That's the way it moved me. I said to myself,
‘I see it's off his own bat, and he's there, by the
way, and the day's over, and I haven’t said twenty
words to him.’ It occurred to me that you’d prob-
ably be in the Smoking-room and that it wouldn’t
be too late to repair my omission. I wanted to do
Something civil to you, so I put on my coat and
came down. I shall read your book again when I
go up.”
Our friend faced round in his place—he was
touched as he had scarce ever been by the picture of
Such a demonstration in his favour. “You’re really
the kindest of men. Cela s'est passé comme ca 2–
and I’ve been sitting here with you all this time and
never apprehended it and never thanked you ! ”
“Thank Miss Fancourt—it was she who wound
me up. She has made me feel as if I had read your
novel.”
“She’s an angel from heaven ” Paul declared.
“She is indeed. I’ve never seen any one like her.
Her interest in literature's touching—something
quite peculiar to herself; she takes it all so seriously.
She feels the arts and she wants to feel them more.
To those who practise them it's almost humiliating—
her curiosity, her sympathy, her good faith. How
can anything be as fine as she supposes it 2 "
“She’s a rare organisation,” the younger man
Sighed.
“The richest I’ve ever seen—an artistic intelli-
gence really of the first order. And lodged in such a
form l’’ St. George exclaimed.
“One would like to represent such a girl as that,”
Paul continued.
“Ah there it is—there's nothing like lifel ” said
his companion. “When you’re finished, Squeezed dry
35
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
and used up and you think the sack's empty, you're
still appealed to, you still get touches and thrills, the
idea springs up—out of the lap of the actual—and
shows you there's always something to be done. But
I shan’t do it—she’s not for me!”
“How do you mean, not for you ?”
“Oh it's all over—she’s for you, if you like.”
“Ah much less ’’ said Paul. “She’s not for a
dingy little man of letters; she's for the world, the
bright rich world of bribes and rewards. And the
world will take hold of her—it will carry her away.”
“It will try—but it's just a case in which there
may be a fight. It would be worth fighting, for a man
who had it in him, with youth and talent on his side.”
These words rang not a little in Paul Overt's con-
sciousness—they held him briefly silent. “It’s a
wonder she has remained as she is ; giving herself
away so—with so much to give away.”
“Remaining, you mean, so ingenuous—So natural P
Oh she doesn’t care a straw—she gives away because
she overflows. She has her own feelings, her own
standards; she doesn’t keep remembering that she
must be proud. And then she hasn’t been here long
enough to be spoiled ; she has picked up a fashion or
two, but only the amusing ones. She's a provincial—
a provincial of genius,” St. George went on ; “her
very blunders are charming, her mistakes are interest-
ing. She has come back from Asia with all sorts of
excited curiosities and unappeased appetites. She's
first-rate herself and she expends herself on the second-
rate. She’s life herself and she takes a rare interest
in imitations. She mixes all things up, but there
are none in regard to which she hasn’t perceptions.
She sees things in a perspective—as if from the top
of the Himalayas—and she enlarges everything she
touches. Above all she exaggerates—to herself, I
mean. She exaggerates you and me ! ”
º
36
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
There was nothing in that description to allay the
agitation caused in our younger friend by such a
sketch of a fine subject. It seemed to him to show the
art of St. George's admired hand, and he lost himself
in gazing at the vision—this hovered there before
him—of a woman's figure which should be part of
the glory of a novel. But at the end of a moment
the thing had turned into smoke, and out of the smoke
—the last puff of a big cigar—proceeded the voice of
General Fancourt, who had left the others and come
and planted himself before the gentlemen on the sofa.
“I suppose that when you fellows get talking you sit
up half the night.”
“Half the night 2—jamais de la vie / I follow a
hygiene "—and St. George rose to his feet.
“I see—you're hothouse plants,” laughed the
General. “That's the way you produce your
flowers.”
“I produce mine between ten and one every morn-
ing—I bloom with a regularity ” St. George went on.
“And with a splendour ! ” added the polite
General, while Paul noted how little the author of
“Shadowmere " minded, as he phrased it to himself,
when addressed as a celebrated story-teller. The
young man had an idea he should never get used to
that ; it would always make him uncomfortable—
from the suspicion that people would think they had
to—and he would want to prevent it. Evidently his
great colleague had toughened and hardened—had
made himself a surface. The group of men had
finished their cigars and taken up their bedroom
candlesticks; but before they all passed out Lord
Watermouth invited the pair of guests who had been
so absorbed together to “ have ’’ something. It
happened that they both declined ; upon which
General Fancourt said: “Is that the hygiene P You
don’t water the flowers ??’
37
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“Oh I should drown them ” St. George replied ;
but, leaving the room still at his young friend's side,
he added whimsically, for the latter's benefit, in a
lower tone : “My wife doesn’t let me.”
“Well I’m glad I’m not one of you fellows ” the
General richly concluded.
The nearness of Summersoft to London had this
Consequence, chilling to a person who had had a
vision of sociability in a railway-carriage, that most
of the company, after breakfast, drove back to town,
entering their own vehicles, which had come out to
fetch them, while their servants returned by train with
their luggage. Three or four young men, among
whom was Paul Overt, also availed themselves of the
common convenience ; but they stood in the portico
of the house and saw the others roll away. Miss
Fancourt got into a victoria with her father after she
had shaken hands with our hero and said, Smiling in
the frankest way in the world, “I must see you more.
Mrs. St. George is so nice ; she has promised to ask
us both to dinner together.” This lady and her
husband took their places in a perfectly-appointed
brougham—she required a closed carriage—and as
our young man waved his hat to them in response to
their nods and flourishes he reflected that, taken
together, they were an honourable image of success, of
the material rewards and the social credit of literature.
Such things were not the full measure, but he never-
theless felt a little proud for literature.
38
IV
BEFORE a week had elapsed he met Miss Fancourt
in Bond Street, at a private view of the works of a
young artist in “black-and-white ” who had been so
good as to invite him to the stuffy scene. The draw-
ings were admirable, but the crowd in the one little
room was so dense that he felt himself up to his neck
in a sack of wool. A fringe of people at the outer edge
endeavoured by curving forward their backs and pre-
senting, below them, a still more convex surface of
resistance to the pressure of the mass, to preserve an
interval between their noses and the glazed mounts of
the pictures; while the central body, in the compara-
tive gloom projected by a wide horizontal screen hung
under the skylight and allowing only a margin for the
day, remained upright dense and vague, lost in the
contemplation of its own ingredients. This contem-
plation sat especially in the sad eyes of certain female
heads, surmounted with hats of strange convolution
and plumage, which rose on long necks above the
others. One of the heads, Paul perceived, was much
the most beautiful of the collection, and his next dis-
covery was that it belonged to Miss Fancourt. Its
beauty was enhanced by the glad smile she sent him
across surrounding obstructions, a Smile that drew
him to her as fast as he could make his way. He had
seen for himself at Summersoft that the last thing her
nature contained was an affectation of indifference ;
39
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
yet even with this circumspection he took a fresh
Satisfaction in her not having pretended to await
his arrival with composure. She smiled as radiantly
as if she wished to make him hurry, and as soon as
he came within earshot she broke out in her voice of
joy: “He’s here—he's here ; he's coming back in
a moment l’’
“Ah your father ?” Paul returned as she offered
him her hand.
“Oh dear no, this isn’t in my poor father's line. I
mean Mr. St. George. He has just left me to speak to
Some one—he's coming back. It's he who brought
me—wasn’t it charming 2 ”
“Ah that gives him a pull over me—I couldn’t
have ‘brought you, could I ?”
“If you had been so kind as to propose it—why
not you as well as he 2 ” the girl returned with a face
that, expressing no cheap coquetry, simply affirmed
a happy fact.
“Why he's a pére de famille. They've privileges,”
Paul explained. And then quickly : “Will you go to
see places with me 2 ” he asked.
“Anything you like,” she smiled. “I know what
you mean, that girls have to have a lot of people !”
Then she broke off : “I don’t know ; I’m free. I’ve
always been like that—I can go about with any one.
I’m so glad to meet you,” she added with a sweet
distinctness that made those near her turn round.
“Let me at least repay that speech by taking you
out of this squash,” her friend said. “Surely people
aren’t happy here ! ”
“No, they're awfully mornes, aren’t they 2 But
I’m very happy indeed and I promised Mr. St. George
to remain on this spot till he comes back. He's
going to take me away. They send him invitations
for things of this sort—more than he wants. It was so
kind of him to think of me.”
40
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“They also send me invitations of this kind—more
than I want. And if thinking of you will do it ! ”
Paul went on.
“Oh I delight in them—everything that's life,
everything that's London | *
“They don’t have private views in Asia, Isuppose,”
he laughed. “But what a pity that for this year, even
in this gorged city, they're pretty well over.”
“Well, next year will do, for I hope you believe
we're going to be friends always. Here he comes | *
Miss Fancourt continued before Paul had time to
respond.
He made out St. George in the gaps of the crowd,
and this perhaps led to his hurrying a little to say:
“I hope that doesn’t mean I’m to wait till next year
to see you.”
“No, no—aren’t we to meet at dinner on the
twenty-fifth 2 ” she panted with an eagerness as happy
as his own.
“That's almost next year. Is there no means of
seeing you before ?”
She stared with all her brightness. “Do you mean
you’d come 2 ”
“Like a shot, if you'll be so good as to ask
| 9 3
“On Sunday then—this next Sunday ?”
“What have I done that you should doubt it 2 ” the
young man asked with delight.
Miss Fancourt turned instantly to St. George, who
had now joined them, and announced triumphantly :
“He’s coming on Sunday—this next Sunday !”
“Ah my day—my day too !” said the famous
novelist, laughing, to their companion.
“Yes, but not yours only. You shall meet in
Manchester Square ; you shall talk—you shall be
wonderful 1 ''
“We don’t meet often enough,” St. George allowed,
IIlé
4I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
shaking hands with his disciple. “Too many things
—ah too many things | But we must make it up in
the country in September. You won't forget you've
promised me that ?”
“Why, he's coming on the twenty-fifth–you'll
see him then,” said the girl.
“On the twenty-fifth 2 ” St. George asked vaguely.
“We dine with you ; I hope you haven’t forgotten.
He's dining out that day,” she added gaily to
Paul.
“Oh bless me, yes—that's charming ! And you're
coming 2 My wife didn’t tell me,” St. George said
to him. “Too many things—too many things | " he
repeated.
“Too many people—too many people !” Paul
exclaimed, giving ground before the penetration of
an elbow.
“You oughtn't to say that. They all read
you.”
“Me 2 I should like to see them Only two or
three at most,” the young man returned.
“Did you ever hear anything like that ? He
knows, haughtily, how good he is ” St. George
declared, laughing, to Miss Fancourt. “They read
me, but that doesn’t make me like them any better.
Come away from them, come away !” And he led
the way out of the exhibition.
“He’s going to take me to the Park,” Miss Fan-
court observed to Overt with elation as they passed
along the corridor that led to the street.
“Ah does he go there 2 ” Paul asked, taking the
fact for a somewhat unexpected illustration of St.
George's maeurs.
. “It’s a beautiful day—there’ll be a great crowd.
We're going to look at the people, to look at types,”
the girl went on. “We shall sit under the trees; we
shall walk by the Row.”
42
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“I go once a year—on business,” said St. George,
who had overheard Paul’s question.
“Or with a country cousin, didn't you tell me?
I’m the country cousin ” she continued over her
shoulder to Paul as their friend drew her toward a
hansom to which he had signalled. The young man
watched them get in ; he returned, as he stood there,
the friendly wave of the hand with which, ensconced
in the vehicle beside her, St. George took leave of him.
He even lingered to see the vehicle start away and
lose itself in the confusion of Bond Street. He
followed it with his eyes; it put to him embarrassing
things. “She's not for me !” the great novelist had
said emphatically at Summersoft ; but his manner
of conducting himself toward her appeared not quite
in harmony with such a conviction. How could he
have behaved differently if she had been for him 2
An indefinite envy rose in Paul Overt's heart as he
took his way on foot alone ; a feeling addressed alike,
strangely enough, to each of the occupants of the
hansom. How much he should like to rattle about
London with such a girl | How much he should like
to go and look at “types '' with St. George
The next Sunday at four o'clock he called in Man-
chester Square, where his secret wish was gratified by
his finding Miss Fancourt alone. She was in a large
bright friendly occupied room, which was painted
red all over, draped with the quaint cheap florid
stuffs that are represented as coming from Southern
and eastern countries, where they are fabled to serve
as the counterpanes of the peasantry, and bedecked
with pottery of vivid hues, ranged on casual shelves,
and with many water-colour drawings from the hand
(as the visitor learned) of the young lady herself, com-
memorating with a brave breadth the sunsets, the
mountains, the temples and palaces of India. He sat
an hour—more than an hour, two hours—and all
43
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
the while no one came in. His hostess was so good as
to remark, with her liberal humanity, that it was
delightful they weren’t interrupted : it was so rare in
London, especially at that season, that people got a
good talk. But luckily now, of a fine Sunday, half
the world went out of town, and that made it better
for those who didn't go, when these others were in
sympathy. It was the defect of London—one of two
or three, the very short list of those she recognised in
the teeming world-city she adored—that there were
too few good chances for talk: you never had time
to carry anything far.
“Too many things, too many things | " Paul Said,
quoting St. George's exclamation of a few days
before.
“Ah yes, for him there are too many—his life's
too complicated.”
“Have you seen it near 2 That's what I should
like to do ; it might explain some mysteries,” her
visitor went on. She asked him what mysteries he
meant, and he said: “Oh peculiarities of his work,
inequalities, superficialities. For one who looks at
it from the artistic point of view it contains a bottom-
less ambiguity.”
She became at this, on the spot, all intensity.
“Ah do describe that more—it’s so interesting.
There are no such suggestive questions. I’m so fond
of them. He thinks he's a failure—fancy l’” she
beautifully wailed.
“That depends on what his ideal may have been.
With his gifts it ought to have been high. But till
one knows what he really proposed to himself——l
Do you know by chance 2 ” the young man broke
Off.
“Oh he doesn’t talk to me about himself. I can’t
make him. It's too provoking.”
Paul was on the point of asking what, then, he did
44
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
talk about, but discretion checked it and he said
instead : “Do you think he's unhappy at home 2 ”
She seemed to wonder. “At home 2 ”
“I mean in his relations with his wife. He has a
mystifying little way of alluding to her.”
“Not to me,” said Marian Fancourt with her clear
eyes. “That wouldn’t be right, would it 2 ” she
asked gravely.
“Not particularly ; so I'm glad he doesn’t mention
her to you. To praise her might bore you, and he has
no business to do anything else. Yet he knows you
better than me.”
“Ah but he respects you ! ” the girl cried as with
envy.
Her visitor stared a moment, then broke into a
laugh. “Doesn’t he respect you ?”
“Of course, but not in the same way. He respects
what you’ve done—he told me so the other day.”
Paul drank it in, but retained his faculties.
“When you went to look at types 2 ”
“Yes—we found so many : he has such an
observation of them | He talked a great deal about
your book. He says it's really important.”
“Important Ah the grand creature l’—and
the author of the work in question groaned for joy.
“He was wonderfully amusing, he was in-
expressibly droll, while we walked about. He sees
everything ; he has so many comparisons and images,
and they're always exactly right. C'est d'un trouvé,
as they say !”
“Yes, with his gifts, such things as he ought to
have done !” Paul sighed.
“And don't you think he has done them 2 ”
Ah it was just the point. “A part of them, and of
course even that part's immense. But he might have
been one of the greatest. However, let us not make
this an hour of qualifications. Even as they stand,”
45
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
our friend earnestly concluded, “his writings are a
mine of gold.” -
To this proposition she ardently responded, and
for half an hour the pair talked over the Master's
principal productions. She knew them well—she
knew them even better than her visitor, who was
İstruck with her critical intelligence and with some-
, thing large and bold in the movement in her mind.
She said things that startled him and that evidently
had come to her directly ; they weren't picked-up
phrases—she placed them too well. St. George had
been right about her being first-rate, about her not
being afraid to gush, not remembering that she must
be proud. Suddenly something came back to her,
and she said: “I recollect that he did speak of Mrs.
St. George to me once. He said, apropos of some-
thing or other, that she didn't care for perfection.”
“That's a great crime in an artist's wife,” Paul
returned. -
“Yes, poor thing !” and the girl sighed with a
suggestion of many reflexions, some of them mitigat-
ing. But she presently added : “Ah perfection,
perfection—how one ought to go in for it ! I wish I
could.”
“Every one can in his way,
opined.
“In his way, yes—but not in hers. Women are
so hampered—so condemned Yet it's a kind of
dishonour if you don’t, when you want to do some-
thing, isn't it 2 '' Miss Fancourt pursued, dropping
one train in her quickness to take up another, an
accident that was common with her. So these two
young persons sat discussing high themes in their
eclectic drawing-room, in their London “season ’’-
discussing, with extreme seriousness, the high theme
of perfection. It must be said in extenuation of this
eccentricity that they were interested in the business.
y y
her companion
46
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Their tone had truth and their emotion beauty; they
Weren't posturing for each other or for some one else.
The subject was so wide that they found them-
Selves reducing it ; the perfection to which for the
moment they agreed to confine their speculations was
that of the valid, the exemplary work of art. Our
young woman's imagination, it appeared, had
wandered far in that direction, and her guest had the
rare delight of feeling in their conversation a full
interchange. This episode will have lived for years
in his memory and even in his wonder ; it had the
quality that fortune distils in a single drop at a time
—the quality that lubricates many ensuing frictions.
He still, whenever he likes, has a vision of the room,
the bright red sociable talkative room with the
curtains that, by a stroke of successful audacity, had
the note of vivid blue. He remembers where certain
things stood, the particular book open on the table
and the almost intense odour of the flowers placed,
at the left, somewhere behind him. These facts were
the fringe, as it were, of a fine special agitation which
had its birth in those two hours and of which perhaps
the main sign was in its leading him inwardly and
repeatedly to breathe, “I had no idea there was any
one like this—I had no idea there was any one like
this ” Her freedom amazed him and charmed him
—it seemed so to simplify the practical question.
She was on the footing of an independent personage—
a motherless girl who had passed out of her teens and
had a position and responsibilities, who wasn’t held
down to the limitations of a little miss. She came and
went with no dragged duenna, she received people
alone, and, though she was totally without hardness,
the question of protection or patronage had no
relevancy in regard to her. She gave such an im-
pression of the clear and the noble combined with the
easy and the natural that in spite of her eminent
47
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
modern situation she suggested no sort of sisterhood
with the “fast ’’ girl. Modern she was indeed, and
made Paul Overt, who loved old colour, the golden
glaze of time, think with some alarm of the muddled
palette of the future. He couldn’t get used to her
interest in the arts he cared for ; it seemed too good
to be real—it was so unlikely an adventure to tumble
into such a well of sympathy. One might stray into
the desert easily—that was on the cards and that
was the law of life; but it was too rare an accident to
stumble on a crystal well. Yet if her aspirations
seemed at one moment too extravagant to be real
they struck him at the next as too intelligent to be
false. They were both high and lame, and, whims for
whims, he preferred them to any he had met in a like
relation. It was probable enough she would leave
them behind—exchange them for politics or “smart-
ness '' or mere prolific maternity, as was the custom
of scribbling daubing educated flattered girls in an age
of luxury and a society of leisure. He noted that
the water-colours on the walls of the room she sat in
had mainly the quality of being naives, and reflected
that naïveté in art is like a zero in a number : its
importance depends on the figure it is united with.
Meanwhile, however, he had fallen in love with her.
Before he went away, at any rate, he said to her : “I
thought St. George was coming to see you to-day,
but he doesn’t turn up.”
For a moment he supposed she was going to cry
“Comment donc P Did you come here only to meet
him 2 º’ But the next he became aware of how little
such a speech would have fallen in with any note of
flirtation he had as yet perceived in her. She only
replied : “Ah yes, but I don’t think he'll come. He
recommended me not to expect him.” Then she gaily
but all gently added: “He said it wasn’t fair to you.
But I think I could manage two.”
48
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“So could I,” Paul Overt returned, stretching the
point a little to meet her. In reality his appreciation
of the Occasion was so completely an appreciation of
the woman before him that another figure in the
scene, even so esteemed a one as St. George, might for
the hour have appealed to him vainly. He left the
house wondering what the great man had meant by
its not being fair to him ; and, still more than that,
whether he had actually stayed away from the force of
that idea. As he took his course through the Sunday
Solitude of Manchester Square, swinging his stick and
with a good deal of emotion fermenting in his soul, it
appeared to him he was living in a world strangely
magnanimous. Miss Fancourt had told him it was
possible she should be away, and that her father
should be, on the following Sunday, but that she had
the hope of a visit from him in the other event. She
promised to let him know should their absence fail,
and then he might act accordingly. After he had
passed into one of the streets that open from the
Square he stopped, without definite intentions, look-
ing sceptically for a cab. In a moment he saw a
hansom roll through the place from the other side
and come a part of the way toward him. He was on
the point of hailing the driver when he noticed a
“fare * within ; then he waited, seeing the man
prepare to deposit his passenger by pulling up at One
of the houses. The house was apparently the one he
himself had just quitted ; at least he drew that infer-
ence as he recognised Henry St. George in the person
who stepped out of the hansom. Paul turned off as
quickly as if he had been caught in the act of spying.
He gave up his cab–he preferred to walk; he would
go nowhere else. He was glad St. George hadn’t
renounced his visit altogether—that would have been
too absurd. Yes, the world was magnanimous, and
even he himself felt so as, on looking at his watch, he
49 E.
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
noted but six o'clock, so that he could mentally Con-
gratulate his successor on having an hour still to sit
in Miss Fancourt's drawing-room. He himself might
use that hour for another visit, but by the time he
reached the Marble Arch the idea of such a course had
become incongruous to him. He passed beneath
that architectural effort and walked into the Park
till he had got upon the spreading grass. Here he
continued to walk; he took his way across the elastic
turf and came out by the Serpentine. He watched
with a friendly eye the diversions of the London
people, he bent a glance almost encouraging on the
young ladies paddling their sweethearts about the
lake and the guardsmen tickling tenderly with their
bearskins the artificial flowers in the Sunday hats of
their partners. He prolonged his meditative walk ;
he went into Kensington Gardens, he sat upon the
penny chairs, he looked at the little sail-boats launched
upon the round pond and was glad he had no engage-
ment to dine. He repaired for this purpose, very
late, to his club, where he found himself unable to
order a repast and told the waiter to bring whatever
there was. He didn’t even observe what he was
served with, and he spent the evening in the library
of the establishment, pretending to read an article
in an American magazine. He failed to discover
what it was about ; it appeared in a dim way to be
about Marian Fancourt.
Quite late in the week she wrote to him that she
was not to go into the country—it had only just been
settled. Her father, she added, would never settle
anything, but put it all on her. She felt her responsi-
bility—she had to—and since she was forced this was
the way she had decided. She mentioned no reasons,
which gave our friend all the clearer field for bold
conjecture about them. In Manchester Square on
this second Sunday he esteemed his fortune less good,
50
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
for she had three or four other visitors. But there
were three or four compensations; perhaps the
greatest of which was that, learning how her father
had after all, at the last hour, gone out of town alone,
the bold conjecture I just now spoke of found itself
becoming a shade more bold. And then her presence
was her presence, and the personal red room was there
and was full of it, whatever phantoms passed and
vanished, emitting incomprehensible sounds. Lastly
he had the resource of staying till every one had come
and gone and of believing this grateful to her, though
she gave no particular sign. When they were alone
together he came to his point. “But St. George did
come—last Sunday. I saw him as I looked back.”
“Yes, but it was the last time.”
“The last time 2 ''
“He said he would never come again.”
Paul Overt stared. “Does he mean he wishes to
cease to see you ?”
“I don’t know what he means,” the girl bravely
Smiled. “He won’t at any rate see me here.”
“And pray why not ? "
“I haven’t the least idea,” said Marian Fancourt,
whose visitor found her more perversely sublime than
ever yet as she professed this clear helplessness.
5I
V
“OH I say, I want you to stop a little,” Henry St.
George said to him at eleven o'clock the night he
dined with the head of the profession. The company
—none of it indeed of the profession—had been
numerous and was taking its leave ; our young man,
after bidding good-night to his hostess, had put out
his hand in farewell to the master of the house.
Besides drawing from the latter the protest I have
cited this movement provoked a further priceless
word about their chance now to have a talk, their
going into his room, his having still everything to say.
Paul Overt was all delight at this kindness; never-
theless he mentioned in weak jocose qualification the
bare fact that he had promised to go to another place
which was at a considerable distance.
“Well, then, you'll break your promise, that's all.
You quite awful humbug 1 ° St. George added in a
tone that confirmed our young man's ease.
“Certainly I’ll break it—but it was a real promise.”
“Do you mean to Miss Fancourt 2 You’re follow-
ing her ?” his friend asked.
He answered by a question. “Oh is she going 2 ”
“Base impostor l’ his ironic host went on. “I’ve
treated you handsomely on the article of that young
lady: I won’t make another concession. Wait three
minutes—I’ll be with you.” He gave himself to his
departing guests, accompanied the long-trained ladies
52
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
to the door. It was a hot night, the windows were
open, the Sound of the quick carriages and of the
linkmen's call came into the house. The affair had
rather glittered ; a sense of festal things was in the
heavy air : not only the influence of that particular
entertainment, but the suggestion of the wide hurry
of pleasure which in London on summer nights fills
So many of the happier quarters of the complicated
town. Gradually Mrs. St. George's drawing-room
emptied itself; Paul was left alone with his hostess,
to whom he explained the motive of his waiting.
“Ah yes, some intellectual, some professional, talk,”
she leered ; “at this season doesn't one miss it 2
Poor dear Henry, I’m so glad ' " The young man
looked out of the window a moment, at the called
hansoms that lurched up, at the smooth broughams
that rolled away. When he turned round Mrs. St.
George had disappeared ; her husband's voice rose
to him from below—he was laughing and talking, in
the portico, with some lady who awaited her carriage.
Paul had solitary possession, for some minutes, of the
warm deserted rooms where the covered tinted lamp-
light was soft, the seats had been pushed about and
the odour of flowers lingered. They were large, they
were pretty, they contained objects of value ; every-
thing in the picture told of a “good house.” At the
end of five minutes a servant came in with a request
from the Master that he would join him downstairs;
upon which, descending, he followed his conductor
through a long passage to an apartment thrown
out, in the rear of the habitation, for the special
requirements, as he guessed, of a busy man of
letters.
St. George was in his shirt-sleeves in the middle of
a large high room—a room without windows, but
with a wide skylight at the top, that of a place of
exhibition. It was fur-ished as a library, and the
53
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
serried bookshelves rose to the ceiling, a surface of
incomparable tone produced by dimly-gilt “backs ''
interrupted here and there by the suspension of old
prints and drawings. At the end furthest from the
door of admission was a tall desk, of great extent, at
which the person using it could write only in the erect
posture of a clerk in a counting-house ; and stretched
from the entrance to this structure was a wide plain
band of crimson cloth, as straight as a garden-path
and almost as long, where, in his mind's eye, Paul at
once beheld the Master pace to and fro during vexed
hours—hours, that is, of admirable composition.
The servant gave him a coat, an old jacket with a
hang of experience, from a cupboard in the wall,
retiring afterwards with the garment he had taken
off. Paul Overt welcomed the coat ; it was a coat
for talk, it promised confidences—having visibly
received so many—and had tragic literary elbows.
“Ah we're practical—we're practicall ” St. George
said as he saw his visitor look the place over. “Isn't
it a good big cage for going round and round 2 My
wife invented it and she locks me up here every
morning.”
Our young man breathed—by way of tribute—
with a certain oppression. “You don’t miss a
window—a place to look out 2 ”
“I did at first awfully ; but her calculation was
just. It saves time, it has saved me many months
in these ten years. Here I stand, under the eye of
day—in London of course, very often, it's rather a
bleared old eye—walled in to my trade. I can’t
get away—so the room's a fine lesson in concentra-
tion. I’ve learnt the lesson, I think ; look at that
big bundle of proof and acknowledge it.” He
pointed to a fat roll of papers, on One of the tables,
which had not been undone.
“Are you bringing out another
?” Paul asked
54
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
in a tone the fond deficiencies of which he didn't
recognise till his companion burst out laughing, and
indeed scarce even then.
“You humbug, you humbug l’—St. George ap-
peared to enjoy caressing him, as it were, with that
opprobrium. “Don’t I know what you think of
them 2 ” he asked, standing there with his hands in
his pockets and with a new kind of smile. It was as
if he were going to let his young votary see him all
IlOW.
“Upon my word in that case you know more than
I do | " the latter ventured to respond, revealing a
part of the torment of being able neither clearly to
esteem nor distinctly to renounce him.
“My dear fellow,” said the more and more inter-
esting Master, “don’t imagine I talk about my books
specifically ; they're not a decent subject—il ne
manquerait plus que ca / I’m not so bad as you may
apprehend. About myself, yes, a little, if you like ;
though it wasn’t for that I brought you down here.
I want to ask you something—very much indeed ; I
value this chance. Therefore sit down. We’re
practical, but there is a Sofa, you see—for she does
humour my poor bones So far. Like all really great
administrators and disciplinarians she knows when
wisely to relax.” Paul sank into the corner of a deep
leathern couch, but his friend remained standing and
explanatory. “If you don't mind, in this room, this
is my habit. From the door to the desk and from
the desk to the door. That shakes up my imagination
gently ; and don't you see what a good thing it is
that there's no window for her to fly out of 2 The
eternal standing as I write (I stop at that bureau and
put it down, when anything comes, and so we go on)
was rather wearisome at first, but we adopted it with
an eye to the long run : you're in better order—if
your legs don’t break down l—and you can keep it
55
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
up for more years. Oh we're practical—we're practi.
|call ” St. George repeated, going to the table and
taking up all mechanically the bundle of proofs.
But, pulling off the wrapper, he had a change of
attention that appealed afresh to our hero. He lost
himself a moment, examining the sheets of his new
book, while the younger man's eyes wandered over
the room again.
“Lord, what good things I should do if I had such
a charming place as this to do them in l’’ Paul re-
flected. The outer world, the world of accident and
ugliness, was so successfully excluded, and within the
rich protecting square, beneath the patronising sky,
the dream-figures, the summoned company, could
hold their particular revel. It was a fond prevision
of Overt’s rather than an observation on actual data,
for which occasions had been too few, that the Master
thus more closely viewed would have the quality, the
charming gift, of flashing out, all surprisingly, in
personal intercourse and at moments of Suspended
or perhaps even of diminished expectation. A happy
relation with him would be a thing proceeding by
jumps, not by traceable stages.
“Do you read them—really 2 ” he asked, laying
down the proofs on Paul's inquiring of him how soon
the work would be published. And when the young
man answered, “Oh yes, always,” he was moved to
mirth again by something he caught in his manner of
saying that. “You go to see your grandmother on
her birthday—and very proper it is, especially as she
won’t last for ever. She has lost every faculty and
every sense ; she neither sees, nor hears, nor speaks;
but all customary pieties and kindly habits are re-
spectable. Only you're strong if you do read 'em
I couldn’t, my dear fellow. You are strong, I know ;
and that’s just a part of what I wanted to say to you.
You're very strong indeed. I’ve been going into your
56
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
other things — they've interested me immensely.
Some one ought to have told me about them before
—Some one I could believe. But whom can one
believe 2 You're wonderfully on the right road—
it's awfully decent work. Now do you mean to keep
it up 2–that's what I want to ask you.”
“Do I mean to do others ?” Paul asked, looking
up from his sofa at his erect inquisitor and feeling
partly like a happy little boy when the schoolmaster
is gay, and partly like some pilgrim of old who might
have consulted a world-famous oracle. St. George's
Own performance had been infirm, but as an adviser
he would be infallible.
“Others—others ? Ah the number won’t matter ;
One other would do, if it were really a further step—
a throb of the same effort. What I mean is have you
it in your heart to go in for some sort of decent per-
fection ??’
“Ah decency, ah perfection !” the young man
sincerely sighed. “I talked of them the other
Sunday with Miss Fancourt.”
It produced on the Master's part a laugh of odd
acrimony. “Yes, they’ll talk of them as much as
you like | But they'll do little to help one to them.
There's no obligation of course ; only you strike me
as capable,” he went on. “You must have thought
it all over. I can’t believe you're without a plan.
That's the sensation you give me, and it's so rare
that it really stirs one up—it makes you remarkable.
If you haven't a plan, if you don't mean to keep it
up, Surely you’re within your rights; it's nobody's
business, no one can force you, and not more than
two or three people will notice you don’t go straight.
The others—all the rest, every blest soul in England,
will think you do—will think you are keeping it up :
upon my honour they will ! I shall be one of the
two or three who know better. Now the question is
57
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
whether you can do it for two or three. Is that the
stuff you’re made of 2 ”
It locked his guest a minute as in closed throbbing
arms. “I could do it for one, if you were the one.”
“Don’t say that ; I don’t deserve it ; it scorches
me,” he protested with eyes suddenly grave and
glowing. “The ‘one’ is of course one's self, one's
conscience, one's idea, the singleness of one's aim. I
think of that pure spirit as a man thinks of a woman
he has in some detested hour of his youth loved and
forsaken. She haunts him with reproachful eyes,
she lives for ever before him. As an artist, you know,
I’ve married for money.” Paul stared and even
blushed a little, confounded by this avowal ; where-
upon his host, observing the expression of his face,
dropped a quick laugh and pursued : “You don't
follow my figure. I’m not speaking of my dear wife,
who had a small fortune—which, however, was not
my bribe. I fell in love with her, as many other
people have done. I refer to the mercenary muse
whom I led to the altar of literature. Don’t, my boy,
put your nose into that yoke. The awful jade will
lead you a life l’’
Our hero watched him, wondering and deeply
touched. “Haven’t you been happy "
“Happy 2 It’s a kind of hell.”
“There are things I should like to ask you,” Paul
said after a pause.
“Ask me anything in all the world. I'd turn
myself inside out to save you.”
“To ‘save me 2 ” he quavered.
“To make you stick to it—to make you see it
through. As I said to you the other night at Summer-
soft, let my example be vivid to you.”
“Why, your books are not so bad as that,” said
Paul, fairly laughing and feeling that if ever a fellow
had breathed the air of art |
58
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“So bad as what 2 ''
“Your talent's so great that it's in everything you
do, in what's less good as well as in what's best.
You've some forty volumes to show for it—forty
volumes of wonderful life, of rare observation, of
magnificent ability.”
“I’m very clever, of course I know that ”—but it
was a thing, in fine, this author made nothing of.
“Lord, what rot they'd all be if I hadn’t been I’m
a successful charlatan,” he went on—“I’ve been
able to pass off my system. But do you know what
it is 2 It's carton-pierre.”
“Carton-pierre P’’ Paul was struck, and gaped.
“Lincrusta-Walton 1 ''
“Ah don’t say such things—you make me bleed!”
the younger man protested. “I see you in a beautiful
fortunate home, living in comfort and honour.” |
“Do you call it honour 2 °–his host took him up
with an intonation that often comes back to him.
“That's what I want you to go in for. I mean the
real thing. This is brummagem.”
“ Brummagem 2 ” Paul ejaculated while his eyes
wandered, by a movement natural at the moment,
over the luxurious room.
“Ah they make it so well to-day—it's wonder-
fully deceptive l’’
Our friend thrilled with the interest and perhaps
even more with the pity of it. Yet he wasn’t afraid
to seem to patronise when he could still so far envy.
“Is it deceptive that I find you living with every
appearance of domestic felicity—blest with a devoted,
accomplished wife, with children whose acquaintance
I haven’t yet had the pleasure of making, but who
must be delightful young people, from what I know
of their parents 2 ”
St. George smiled as for the candour of his question.
“It’s all excellent, my dear fellow—heaven forbid
59
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
I should deny it. I’ve made a great deal of money;
my wife has known how to take care of it, to use it
without wasting it, to put a good bit of it by, to
make it fructify. I’ve got a loaf on the shelf; I’ve
got everything in fact but the great thing.”
“The great thing 2 ” Paul kept echoing.
“The sense of having done the best—the sense
which is the real life of the artist and the absence of
which is his death, of having drawn from his in-
tellectual instrument the finest music that nature
had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be
played. He either does that or he doesn't—and if
he doesn’t he isn’t worth speaking of. Therefore,
precisely, those who really know don't speak of him.
He may still hear a great chatter, but what he hears
most is the incorruptible silence of Fame. I’ve
squared her, you may say, for my little hour—but
what's my little hour 2 Don't imagine for a moment,”
the Master pursued, “that I’m such a cad as to have
brought you down here to abuse or to complain of
my wife to you. She's a woman of distinguished
qualities, to whom my obligations are immense ; SO
that, if you please, we'll say nothing about her. My
boys—my children are all boys—are straight and
strong, thank God, and have no poverty of growth
about them, no penury of needs. I receive periodic-
ally the most satisfactory attestation from Harrow,
from Oxford, from Sandhurst—oh we’ve done the
best for them l—of their eminence as living thriving
consuming organisms.”
“It must be delightful to feel that the son of one's
loins is at Sandhurst,” Paul remarked enthusiastically.
“It is—it's charming. Oh I'm a patriot l’’
The young man then could but have the greater
tribute of questions to pay. “Then what did you
mean—the other night at Summersoft—by saying
that children are a curse 2 °
60
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“My dear youth, on what basis are we talking 2 ”
and St. George dropped upon the sofa at a short
distance from him. Sitting a little sideways he
leaned back against the opposite arm with his hands
raised and interlocked behind his head. “On the
Supposition that a certain perfection's possible and
even desirable—isn’t it so 2 Well, all I say is that
one's children interfere with perfection. One's wife
interferes. Marriage interferes.”
“You think, then, the artist shouldn’t marry 2 ”
“He does so at his peril—he does so at his cost.”
“Not even when his wife's in sympathy with his
work 2 ''
“She never is—she can’t be Women haven’t a
conception of such things.”
“Surely they on occasion work themselves,” Paul
objected.
“Yes, very badly indeed. Oh of course, often,
they think they understand, they think they sympa-
thise. Then it is they're most dangerous. Their
idea is that you shall do a great lot and get a great
lot of money. Their great nobleness and virtue,
their exemplary conscientiousness as British females,
is in keeping you up to that. My wife makes all my
bargains with my publishers for me, and has done so
for twenty years. She does it consummately well—
that's why I'm really pretty well off. Aren’t you
the father of their innocent babes, and will you with-
hold from them their natural sustenance 2 You
asked me the other night if they're not an immense
incentive. Of course they are—there's no doubt of
that ’’
Paul turned it over : it took, from eyes he had
never felt open so wide, so much looking at. “For
myself I’ve an idea I need incentives.”
“Ah well, then, n'en parlons plus ! ” his companion
handsomely smiled.
6I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“You are an incentive, I maintain,” the young
man went on. “You don’t affect me in the way
you'd apparently like to. Your great success is what
I see—the pomp of Ennismore Gardens ! ”
“Success 2 ”—St. George's eyes had a cold fine
light. “Do you call it success to be spoken of as
you'd speak of me if you were sitting here with
another artist—a young man intelligent and sincere
like yourself 2 Do you call it success to make you
blush—as you would blush —if some foreign critic
(some fellow, of course I mean, who should know
what he was talking about and should have shown
you he did, as foreign critics like to show it) were to
say to you : ‘He's the one, in this country, whom
they consider the most perfect, isn’t he Is it
Success to be the occasion of a young Englishman's
having to stammer as you would have to stammer at
such a moment for old England 2 No, no ; success
is to have made people wriggle to another tune. Do
try it !”
Paul continued all gravely to glow. “Try what ?”
“Try to do some really good work.”
“Oh I want to, heaven knows | *
“Well, you can’t do it without sacrifices—don't
believe that for a moment,” the Master said. “I’ve
made none. I’ve had everything. In other words,
I’ve missed everything.”
“You’ve had the full rich masculine human
general life, with all the responsibilities and duties
and burdens and sorrows and joys—all the domestic
and social initiations and complications. They must
be immensely suggestive, immensely amusing,” Paul
anxiously submitted.
“Amusing 2 ”
“For a strong man—yes.”
“They’ve given me subjects without number, if
that’s what you mean ; but they’ve taken away at
62
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
the same time the power to use them. I’ve touched
a thousand things, but which one of them have I
turned into gold 2 The artist has to do only with
that—he knows nothing of any baser metal. I’ve led
the life of the world, with my wife and my progeny;
the clumsy conventional expensive materialised
vulgarised brutalised life of London. We’ve got
everything handsome, even a carriage—we're perfect
Philistines and prosperous hospitable eminent people.
But, my dear fellow, don’t try to stultify yourself
and pretend you don’t know what we haven't got.
It's bigger than all the rest. Between artists—
come !” the Master wound up. “You know as well
as you sit there that you’d put a pistol-ball into your
brain if you had written my books ”
It struck his listener that the tremendous talk
promised by him at Summersoft had indeed come off,
and with a promptitude, a fulness, with which the
latter's young imagination had scarcely reckoned.
His impression fairly shook him and he throbbed with
the excitement of such deep soundings and such
strange confidences. He throbbed indeed with the
conflict of his feelings—bewilderment and recognition
and alarm, enjoyment and protest and assent, all
commingled with tenderness (and a kind of shame
in the participation) for the Sores and bruises exhibited
by So fine a creature, and with a sense of the tragic
secret nursed under his trappings. The idea of his,
Paul Overt's, becoming the occasion of such an act of
humility made him flush and pant, at the same time
that his consciousness was in certain directions too
much alive not to swallow—and not intensely to
taste—every offered spoonful of the revelation. It
had been his odd fortune to blow upon the deep
waters, to make them surge and break in waves of
strange eloquence. But how couldn’t he give out a
passionate contradiction of his host's last extrava-
63
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
gance, how couldn’t he enumerate to him the parts of
his work he loved, the splendid things he had found
in it, beyond the compass of any other writer of the
day ? St. George listened a while, courteously ; then
he said, laying his hand on his visitor's : “That's all
very well; and if your idea's to do nothing better
there's no reason you shouldn’t have as many good
things as I–as many human and material appendages,
as many sons or daughters, a wife with as many
gowns, a house with as many servants, a stable with
as many horses, a heart with as many aches.” The
Master got up when he had spoken thus—he stood a
moment—near the sofa, looking down on his agitated
pupil. “Are you possessed of any property 2 " it
occurred to him to ask.
“None to speak of.”
* “Oh well then there's no reason why you shouldn't
make a goodish income—if you set about it the right
way. Study me for that—study me well. You may
really have horses.”
Paul sat there some minutes without speaking.
He looked straight before him—he turned over many
things. His friend had wandered away, taking up a
parcel of letters from the table where the roll of proofs
had lain. “What was the book Mrs. St. George made
you burn—the one she didn't like 2 ” our young man
brought out.
“The book she made me burn—how did you
know that ?" The Master looked up from his letters
quite without the facial convulsion the pupil had
feared.
“I heard her speak of it at Summersoft.”
“Ah yes—she’s proud of it. I don’t know—it
was rather good.”
“What was it about 2 ”
“Let me see.” And he seemed to make an effort
to remember. “Oh yes—it was about myself.”
64
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Paul gave an irrepressible groan for the disappearance
of Such a production, and the elder man went on :
“Oh but you should write it—you should do me.”
And he pulled up—from the restless motion that had
come upon him ; his fine Smile a generous glare.
“There’s a subject, my boy : no end of stuff in it !”
Again Paul was silent, but it was all tormenting.
“Are there no women who really understand—who
can take part in a sacrifice 2 ”
“How can they take part 2 They themselves are
the sacrifice. They're the idol and the altar and the
flame.”
“Isn’t there even one who sees further 2 ” Paul
continued.
For a moment St. George made no answer; after
which, having torn up his letters, he came back to the
point all ironic. “Of course I know the one you
mean. But not even Miss Fancourt.”
“I thought you admired her so much.”
“It’s impossible to admire her more. Are you in
love with her ??” St. George asked.
“Yes,” Paul Overt presently said.
“Well, then, give it up.”
Paul stared. “Give up my ‘love 2 ”
“Bless me, no. Your idea.” And then as our
hero but still gazed : “The one you talked with her
about. The idea of a decent perfection.”
“She’d help it—she’d help it !” the young man
cried.
“For about a year—the first year, yes. After
that she’d be as a millstone round its neck.”
Paul frankly wondered. “Why, she has a passion
for the real thing, for good work—for everything you
and I care for most.”
“‘You and I' is charming, my dear fellow ! ” his
friend laughed. “She has it indeed, but she'd have
a still greater passion for her children—and very
65 F
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
proper too. She’d insist on everything's being made
comfortable, advantageous, propitious for them.
That isn’t the artist’s business.”
“The artist—the artist | Isn't he a man all the
same 2 ”
St. George had a grand grimace. “I mostly think
not. You know as well as I what he has to do : the
concentration, the finish, the independence he must .
strive for from the moment he begins to wish his work
really decent. Ah my young friend, his relation to
women, and especially to the one he's most intimately
concerned with, is at the mercy of the damning fact
that whereas he can in the nature of things have but
one standard, they have about fifty. That’s what
makes them so superior,” St. George amusingly
added. “Fancy an artist with a change of standards :
as you’d have a change of shirts or of dinner-plates.
To do it—to do it and make it divine—is the only
thing he has to think about. ‘Is it done or not ? '
is his only question. Not ‘Is it done as well as a
proper solicitude for my dear little family will allow 2 °
He has nothing to do with the relative—he has only to
do with the absolute; and a dear little family may
represent a dozen relatives.”
“Then you don’t allow him the common passions
and affections of men 2 ” Paul asked.
“ Hasn’t he a passion, an affection, which includes
all the rest ? Besides, let him have all the passions he
likes—if he only keeps his independence. He must
be able to be poor.”
Paul slowly got up. “Why, then, did you advise
me to make up to her ?”
St. George laid a hand on his shoulder. “Because
she'd make a splendid wife And I hadn’t read you
then.”
The young man had a strained smile. “I wish you
had left me alone ! ”
66
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“I didn't know that that wasn’t good enough for
you,” his host returned.
“What a false position, what a condemnation of
the artist, that he's a mere disfranchised monk and
can produce his effect only by giving up personal
happiness. What an arraignment of art | " Paul
went on with a trembling voice.
“Ah you don't imagine by chance that I'm defend-
ing art 2 “Arraignment ' – I should think so
Happy the societies in which it hasn’t made its
appearance, for from the moment it comes they have
a consuming ache, they have an incurable corrup-
tion, in their breast. Most assuredly is the artist in
a false position | But I thought we were taking
him for granted. Pardon me,” St. George continued :
“‘Ginistrella " made me ! ”
Paul stood looking at the floor—one o'clock struck,
in the stillness, from a neighbouring church-tower.
“Do you think she'd ever look at me 2 ” he put to
his friend at last.
“Miss Fancourt—as a suitor P Why shouldn't I
think it 2 That's why I’ve tried to favour you—I’ve
had a little chance or two of bettering your oppor-
tunity.”
“Forgive my asking you, but do you mean by keep-
ing away yourself 2 ” Paul said with a blush.
“I’m an old idiot—my place isn't there,” St.
George stated gravely.
“I’m nothing yet, I’ve no fortune ; and there must
be so many others,” his companion pursued.
The Master took this considerably in, but made
little of it. “You’re a gentleman and a of genius.
I think you might do something.” *
“But if I must give that up—the genius 2 ”
“Lots of people, you know, think I’ve kept mine,”
St. George wonderfully grinned.
“You’ve a genius for mystification l’’ Paul
67
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
declared, but grasping his hand gratefully in attenua-
tion of this judgement.
“Poor dear boy, I do worry you ! But try, try,
all the same. I think your chances are good and
you'll win a great prize.”
Paul held fast the other's hand a minute ; he looked
into the strange deep face. “No, I am an artist—I
can’t help it !”
“Ah show it then ’’ St. George pleadingly broke
out. “Let me see before I die the thing I most want,
the thing I yearn for : a life in which the passion—
ours—is really intense. If you can be rare don't fail
of it ! Think what it is—how it counts—how it
lives | ?”
They had moved to the door and he had closed
both his hands over his companion's. Here they
paused again and our hero breathed deep. “I want
to live ‘’
“In what sense 2 ''
“In the greatest.”
“Well, then, stick to it—see it through.”
“With your sympathy—your help ?”
“Count on that—you'll be a great figure to me.
Count on my highest appreciation, my devotion.
You'll give me satisfaction—if that has any weight
with you ! ” After which, as Paul appeared still to
waver, his host added: “Do you remember what you
said to me at Summersoft 2 ''
“Something infatuated, no doubt l”
“‘I’ll do anything in the world you tell me.’ You
said that.”
“And you hold me to it?”
“Ah what am I ?” the Master expressively sighed.
“Lord, what things I shall have to do l’’ Paul
almost moaned as he departed.
68
VI
“IT goes on too much abroad—hang abroad ”
These or something like them had been the Master's
remarkable words in relation to the action of “Ginis-
trella "; and yet, though they had made a sharp im-
pression on the author of that work, like almost all
spoken words from the same source, he a week after
the conversation I have noted left England for a long
absence and full of brave intentions. It is not a per-
version of the truth to pronounce that encounter
the direct cause of his departure. If the oral utter-
ance of the eminent writer had the privilege of moving
him deeply it was especially on his turning it over at
leisure, hours and days later, that it appeared to yield
him its full meaning and exhibit its extreme import-
ance. He spent the summer in Switzerland and,
having in September begun a new task, determined
not to cross the Alps till he should have made a good
start. To this end he returned to a quiet corner he
knew well, on the edge of the Lake of Geneva and
within sight of the towers of Chillon : a region and a
view for which he had an affection that sprang from
old associations and was capable of mysterious
revivals and refreshments. Here he lingered late,
till the snow was on the nearer hills, almost down to
the limit to which he could climb when his stint, on
the shortening afternoons, was performed. The
autumn was fine, the lake was blue, and his book took
69
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
form and direction. These felicities, for the time,
embroidered his life, which he suffered to cover him
with its mantle. At the end of six weeks he felt he
had learnt St. George's lesson by heart, had tested
and proved its doctrine. Nevertheless he did a very
inconsistent thing : before crossing the Alps he wrote
to Marian Fancourt. He was aware of the perversity
of this act, and it was only as a luxury, an amusement,
the reward of a strenuous autumn, that he justified it.
She had asked of him no such favour when, shortly
before he left London, three days after their dinner in
Ennismore Gardens, he went to take leave of her.
It was true she had had no ground—he hadn't named
his intention of absence. He had kept his counsel for
want of due assurance : it was that particular visit
that was, the next thing, to settle the matter. He had
paid the visit to see how much he really cared for her,
and quick departure, without so much as an explicit
farewell, was the sequel to this inquiry, the answer
to which had created within him a deep yearning.
When he wrote her from Clarens he noted that he
owed her an explanation (more than three months
after l) for not having told her what he was doing.
She replied now briefly but promptly, and gave him
a striking piece of news : that of the death, a week
before, of Mrs. St. George. This exemplary woman
had succumbed, in the country, to a violent attack of
inflammation of the lungs—he would remember that
for a long time she had been delicate. Miss Fancourt
added that she believed her husband was overwhelmed
by the blow ; he would miss her too terribly—she
had been everything in life to him. Paul Overt, on
this, immediately wrote to St. George. He would
from the day of their parting have been glad to
remain in communication with him, but had hitherto
lacked the right excuse for troubling so busy a man.
Their long nocturnal talk came back to him in every
70
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
detail, but this was no bar to an expression of proper
sympathy with the head of the profession, for hadn't
that very talk made it clear that the late accomplished
lady was the influence that ruled his life 2 What
catastrophe could be more cruel than the extinction
of such an influence 2 This was to be exactly the
tone taken by St. George in answering his young
friend upwards of a month later. He made no
allusion of course to their important discussion. He
spoke of his wife as frankly and generously as if he
had quite forgotten that occasion, and the feeling
of deep bereavement was visible in his words. “She
took everything off my hands—off my mind. She
carried on our life with the greatest art, the rarest
devotion, and I was free, as few men can have been,
to drive my pen, to shut myself up with my trade.
This was a rare service—the highest she could have
rendered me. Would I could have acknowledged
it more fitly l’’
A certain bewilderment, for our hero, disengaged
itself from these remarks: they struck him as a
contradiction, a retractation, strange on the part of a
man who hadn’t the excuse of witlessness. He had
certainly not expected his correspondent to rejoice
in the death of his wife, and it was perfectly in order
that the rupture of a tie of more than twenty years
should have left him sore. But if she had been so
clear a blessing what in the name of consistency had
the dear man meant by turning him upside down
that night—by dosing him to that degree, at the most
sensitive hour of his life, with the doctrine of renuncia-
tion ? If Mrs. St. George was an irreparable loss,
then her husband's inspired advice had been a bad
joke and renunciation was a mistake. Overt was
on the point of rushing back to London to show that,
for his part, he was perfectly willing to consider it
so, and he went so far as to take the manuscript of the
7I
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
first chapters of his new book out of his table-drawer
and insert it into a pocket of his portmanteau. This
led to his catching a glimpse of certain pages he hadn’t
looked at for months, and that accident, in turn, to
his being struck with the high promise they revealed
—a rare result of such retrospections, which it was
his habit to avoid as much as possible : they usually
brought home to him that the glow of composition
might be a purely subjective and misleading emotion.
On this occasion a certain belief in himself disengaged
itself whimsically from the serried erasures of his
first draft, making him think it best after all to
ursue his present trial to the end. If he could write
so well under the rigour of privation it might be a
mistake to change the conditions before that spell
had spent itself. He would go back to London of
course, but he would go back only when he should
have finished his book. This was the vow he privately
made, restoring his manuscript to the table-drawer.
It may be added that it took him a long time to finish
his book, for the subject was as difficult as it was
fine, and he was literally embarrassed by the fulness
of his notes. Something within him warned him he
must make it supremely good—otherwise he should
lack, as regards his private behaviour, a handsome
excuse. He had a horror of this deficiency and found
himself as firm as need be on the question of the lamp
and the file. He crossed the Alps at last and spent
the winter, the spring, the ensuing summer, in Italy,
where still, at the end of a twelvemonth, his task was
unachieved. “Stick to it—see it through " : this
general injunction of St. George's was good also for
the particular case. He applied it to the utmost,
with the result that when in its slow order the
Summer had come round again he felt he had
given all that was in him. This time he put his
papers into his portmanteau, with the address
72
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
of his publisher attached, and took his way north-
ward.
He had been absent from London for two years;
two years which, seeming to count as more, had made
Such a difference in his own life—through the pro-
duction of a novel far stronger, he believed, than
“Ginistrella”—that he turned out into Piccadilly, the
morning after his arrival, with a vague expectation
of changes, of finding great things had happened.
But there were few transformations in Piccadilly—
only three or four big red houses where there had been
low black ones—and the brightness of the end of
June peeped through the rusty railings of the Green
Park and glittered in the varnish of the rolling
carriages as he had seen it in other, more cursory
Junes. It was a greeting he appreciated ; it seemed
friendly and pointed, added to the exhilaration of his
finished book, of his having his own country and the
huge oppressive amusing city that suggested every-
thing, that contained everything, under his hand
again. “Stay at home and do things here—do
subjects we can measure,” St. George had said ; and
now it struck him he should ask nothing better than
to stay at home for ever. Late in the afternoon he
took his way to Manchester Square, looking out for a
number he hadn't forgotten. Miss Fancourt, how-
ever, was not at home, so that he turned rather
dejectedly from the door. His movement brought
him face to face with a gentleman just approaching
it and recognised on another glance as Miss Fancourt’s
father. Paul Saluted this personage, and the General
returned the greeting with his customary good manner
—a manner so good, however, that you could never
tell whether it meant he placed you. The dis-
appointed caller felt the impulse to address him ;
then, hesitating, became both aware of having no
particular remark to make, and convinced that though
73
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
the old soldier remembered him he remembered him
wrong. He therefore went his way without com-
puting the irresistible effect his own evident recog-
nition would have on the General, who never neglected
a chance to gossip. Our young man's face was
expressive, and observation seldom let it pass. He
hadn’t taken ten steps before he heard himself called
after with a friendly semi-articulate “Er—I beg
your pardon | " He turned round and the General,
Smiling at him from the porch, said: “Won't you
come in 2 I won't leave you the advantage of me !”
Paul declined to come in, and then felt regret, for
Miss Fancourt, so late in the afternoon, might return
at any moment. But her father gave him no second
chance ; he appeared mainly to wish not to have
Struck him as ungracious. A further look at the
visitor had recalled something, enough at least to
enable him to say: “You’ve come back, you've
come back 2 ” Paul was on the point of replying
that he had come back the night before, but he
Suppressed, the next instant, this strong light on the
immediacy of his visit and, giving merely a general
assent, alluded to the young lady he deplored not
having found. He had come late in the hope she
would be in. “I’ll tell her—I’ll tell her,” said the
old man ; and then he added quickly, gallantly :
“You’ll be giving us something new P It's a long
time, isn’t it 2 ” Now he remembered him right.
“Rather long. I'm very slow,” Paul explained.
“I met you at SummerSoft a long time ago.”
“Oh yes—with Henry St. George. I remember
very well. Before his poor wife General Fan-
court paused a moment, Smiling a little less. “I dare-
say you know.”
“About Mrs. St. George's death P Certainly—I
heard at the time.”
“Oh no, I mean—I mean he's to be married.”
74
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“Ah I’ve not heard that l” But just as Paul was
about to add “To whom 2 º’ the General crossed his
intention. N
“When did you come back 2 I know you’ve been
away—by my daughter. She was very Sorry. You
ought to give her something new.”
“I came back last night,” said our young man, to
whom something had occurred which made his speech
for the moment a little thick.
“Ah most kind of you to come so soon. Couldn't
you turn up at dinner P’’
“At dinner 2 ” Paul just mechanically repeated,
not liking to ask whom St. George was going to marry,
but thinking only of that.
“There are several people, I believe. Certainly
St. George. Or afterwards if you like better. I
believe my daughter expects—” He appeared to
notice something in the visitor's raised face (on his
steps he stood higher) which led him to interrupt
himself, and the interruption gave him a momentary
sense of awkwardness, from which he sought a quick
issue. “Perhaps, then, you haven’t heard she's to be
married.”
Paul gaped again. “To be married ?”
“To Mr. St. George—it has just been settled.
Odd marriage, isn’t it 2 ” Our listener uttered no
opinion on this point : he only continued to stare.
“But I daresay it will do—she’s so awfully literary !”
said the General.
Paul had turned very red. “Oh it’s a surprise—
very interesting, very charming ! I'm afraid I can't
dine—so many thanks ’’
“Well, you must come to the wedding !” cried the
General. “Oh I remember that day at Summersoft.
He's a great man, you know.”
“Charming—charming !” Paul stammered for
retreat. He shook hands with the General and got
75
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
off. His face was red and he had the sense of its
growing more and more crimson. All the evening
at home—hºwent straight to his rooms and remained
there dinnerless—his cheek burned at intervals as if it
had been smitten. He didn’t understand what had
happened to him, what trick had been played him,
what treachery practised. “None, none,” he said
to himself. “I’ve nothing to do with it. I’m out
of it—it's none of my business.” But that bewildered
murmur was followed again and again by the in-
congruous ejaculation : “Was it a plan—was it a
plan 2 ” Sometimes he cried to himself, breathless,
“Have I been duped, sold, swindled 2 ” If at all,
he was an absurd, an abject victim. It was as if
he hadn’t lost her till now. He had renounced her,
yes; but that was another affair—that was a closed
but not a locked door. Now he seemed to see the
door quite slammed in his face. Did he expect her to
wait—was she to give him his time like that : two
years at a stretch 2 He didn’t know what he had
expected—he only knew what he hadn’t. It wasn’t
this—it wasn’t this. Mystification bitterness and
wrath rose and boiled in him when he thought of the
deference, the devotion, the credulity with which he
had listened to St. George. The evening wore on and
the light was long ; but even when it had darkened he
remained without a lamp. He had flung himself on
the sofa, where he lay through the hours with his
eyes either closed or gazing at the gloom, in the
attitude of a man teaching himself to bear something,
to bear having been made a fool of. He had made it
'too easy—that idea passed over him like a hot wave.
Suddenly, as he heard eleven o’clock strike, he jumped
up, remembering what General Fancourt had said
about his coming after dinner. He’d go—he'd see
her at least; perhaps he should see what it meant.
He felt as if some of the elements of a hard sum had
76
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
been given him and the others were wanting : he
couldn’t do his sum till he had got all his figures.
He dressed and drove quickly, so that by half-past
eleven he was at Manchester Square. There were a
good many carriages at the door—a party was going
On ; a circumstance which at the last gave him a slight
relief, for now he would rather see her in a crowd.
People passed him on the staircase ; they were going
away, going “on” with the hunted herdlike move-
ment of London Society at night. But sundry groups
remained in the drawing-room, and it was some
minutes, as she didn’t hear him announced, before
he discovered and spoke to her. In this short interval
he had seen St. George talking to a lady before the
fireplace ; but he at once looked away, feeling unready
for an encounter, and therefore couldn’t be sure the
author of “Shadowmere" noticed him. At all events
he didn’t come over ; though Miss Fancourt did as
Soon as she saw him —she almost rushed at him,
Smiling rustling radiant beautiful. He had forgotten
what her head, what her face offered to the sight ; she
was in white, there were gold figures on her dress and
her hair was a casque of gold. He saw in a single
moment that she was happy, happy with an aggressive
splendour. But she wouldn’t speak to him of that,
she would speak only of himself.
“I’m so delighted ; my father told me. How kind
of you to come !” She struck him as so fresh and
brave, while his eyes moved over her, that he said to
himself irresistibly : “Why to him, why not to youth,
to strength, to ambition, to a future ? Why, in her
rich young force, to failure, to abdication, to super-
annuation ?” In his thought at that sharp moment
he blasphemed even against all that had been left of
his faith in the peccable master. “I’m so sorry I
missed you,” she went on. “My father told me.
How charming of you to have come so soon l’’
77
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
“Does that surprise you ?” Paul Overt asked.
“The first day ? No, from you—nothing that's
nice.” She was interrupted by a lady who bade her
good-night, and he seemed to read that it cost her
nothing to speak to him in that tone ; it was her old
liberal lavish way, with a certain added amplitude
that time had brought ; and if this manner began to
operate on the spot, at such a juncture in her history,
perhaps—in the other days too it had meant just as
little or as much—a mere mechanical charity, with
the difference now that she was satisfied, ready to give
but in want of nothing. Oh she was satisfied—and
why shouldn’t she be 2 Why shouldn’t she have been
surprised at his coming the first day—for all the good
she had ever got from him 2 As the lady continued
to hold her attention Paul turned from her with a
strange irritation in his complicated artistic soul and a
sort of disinterested disappointment. She was so
happy that it was almost stupid—a disproof of the
extraordinary intelligence he had formerly found in
her. Didn’t she know how bad St. George could be,
hadn’t she recognised the awful thinness ? If she
didn’t she was nothing, and if she did why such an
insolence of Serenity ? This question expired as our
young man's eyes settled at last on the genius who
had advised him in a great crisis. St. George was
still before the chimney-piece, but now he was alone
—fixed, waiting, as if he meant to stop after every
one—and he met the clouded gaze of the young friend
so troubled as to the degree of his right (the right his
resentment would have enjoyed) to regard himself as
a victim. Somehow the ravage of the question was
checked by the Master's radiance. It was as fine in
its way as Marian Fancourt's, it denoted the happy
human being ; but also it represented to Paul Overt
that the author of “Shadowmere" had now definitely
ceased to count—ceased to count as a writer. As he
78
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
Smiled a welcome across the place he was almost
banal, was almost smug. Paul fancied that for a
moment he hesitated to make a movement, as if, for
all the world, he had his bad conscience ; then they
had already met in the middle of the room and had
shaken hands—expressively, cordially on St. George's
part. With which they had passed back together to
where the elder man had been standing, while St.
George said : “I hope you're never going away
again. I’ve been dining here ; the General told me.”
He was handsome, he was young, he looked as if he
had still a great fund of life. He bent the friendliest,
most unconfessing eyes on his disciple of a couple
of years before ; asked him about everything, his
health, his plans, his late occupations, the new book.
“When will it be out—soon, soon, I hope 2 Splendid,
eh 2 That's right; you're a comfort, you're a luxury !
I've read you all over again these last six months.”
Paul waited to see if he'd tell him what the General
had told him in the afternoon and what Miss Fancourt,
verbally at least, of course hadn’t. But as it didn’t
come out he at last put the question, “Is it true, the
great news I hear—that you're to be married ?”
“Ah you have heard it, then 2 ”
“Didn’t the General tell you ?” Paul asked.
The Master's face was wonderful. “Tell me
what 2 ”
“That he mentioned it to me this afternoon 2 ”
“My dear fellow, I don’t remember. We've been
in the midst of people. I’m sorry, in the case, that I
lose the pleasure, myself, of announcing to you a fact
that touches me so nearly. It is a fact, strange as it
may appear. It has only just become one. Isn't it
ridiculous 2 ” St. George made this speech without
confusion, but on the other hand, so far as our friend
could judge, without latent impudence. It struck his
interlocutor that, to talk so comfortably and coolly,
|
79
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
he must simply have forgotten what had passed
between them. His next words, however, showed
he hadn’t, and they produced, as an appeal to Paul's
own memory, an effect which would have been ludi-
crous if it hadn’t been cruel. “Do you recall the talk
we had at my house that night, into which Miss Fan-
court's name entered 2 I’ve often thought of it since.”
“Yes; no wonder you said what you did "-Paul
was careful to meet his eyes.
“In the light of the present occasion ? Ah but
there was no light then. How could I have foreseen
this hour 2 ''
“Didn’t you think it probable 2 ”
“Upon my honour, no,” said Henry St. George.
“Certainly I owe you that assurance. Think how
my situation has changed.”
“I see—I See,” our young man murmured.
His companion went on as if, now that the subject
had been broached, he was, as a person of imagina-
tion and tact, quite ready to give every satisfaction—
being both by his genius and his method so able to
enter into everything another might feel. “But it's
not only that ; for honestly, at my age, I never
dreamed—a widower with big boys and with so
little else ! It has turned out differently from any-
thing one could have dreamed, and I’m fortunate
beyond all measure. She has been so free, and yet
she consents. Better than any one else perhaps—
for I remember how you liked her before you went
away, and how she liked you—you can intelligently
congratulate me.”
“She has been so free l’’ Those words made a
great impression on Paul Overt, and he almost
writhed under that irony in them as to which it so
little mattered whether it was designed or casual.
Of course she had been free, and appreciably perhaps
by his own act ; for wasn’t the Master's allusion to
8O
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
her having liked him a part of the irony too P “I
thought that by your theory you disapproved of a
writer's marrying.”
“Surely—surely. But you don’t call me a
Writer 2 °
“You ought to be ashamed,” said Paul.
“Ashamed of marrying again P’’
“I won't say that—but ashamed of your reasons.” |
The elder man beautifully smiled. “You must
let me judge of them, my good friend.”
“Yes; why not ? For you judged wonderfully
of mine.”
The tone of these words appeared suddenly, for
St. George, to suggest the unsuspected. He stared as
if divining a bitterness. “Don’t you think I’ve been
straight 2 ”
“You might have told me at the time perhaps.”
“My dear fellow, when I say I couldn't pierce
futurity ! ”
“I mean afterwards.”
The Master wondered. “After my wife's death 2 ”
ſº When this idea came to you.”
i"Ah never, never ! I wanted to save you, rare
and precious as you are.”
Poor Overt looked hard at him. “Are you marry-
ing Miss Fancourt to save me 2 ”
“Not absolutely, but it adds to the pleasure. I
shall be the making of you,” St. George smiled. “I
was greatly struck, after our talk, with the brave
devoted way you quitted the country, and still more
perhaps with your force of character in remaining
abroad. You're very strong—you're wonderfully
strong.”
Paul tried to sound his shining eyes; the strange
thing was that he seemed sincere—not a mocking
fiend. He turned away, and as he did so heard the
Master say something about his giving them all the
8I G
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
proof, being the joy of his old age. He faced him
again, taking another look. “Do you mean to say
you’ve stopped writing 2 ”
“My dear fellow, of course I have. It's too late.
Didn’t I tell you ?”
“I can’t believe it ! ”
“Of course you can’t—with your own talent
No, no ; for the rest of my life I shall only read you.”
“Does she know that—Miss Fancourt 2 ''
“She will—she will.” Did he mean this, our young
man wondered, as a covert intimation that the assist-
ance he should derive from that young lady's fortune,
moderate as it was, would make the difference of
putting it in his power to cease to work ungrate-
fully an exhausted vein 2 Somehow, standing there
in the ripeness of his successful manhood, he didn’t
suggest that any of his veins were exhausted. “Don’t
you remember the moral I offered myself to you that
night as pointing 2 ” St. George continued. “Consider
at any rate the warning I am at present.”
This was too much—he was the mocking fiend.
Paul turned from him with a mere nod for good-night
and the sense in a sore heart that he might come back
to him and his easy grace, his fine way of arranging
things, some time in the far future, but couldn’t
fraternise with him now. It was necessary to his
Soreness to believe for the hour in the intensity of his
grievance—all the more cruel for its not being a legal
one. It was doubtless in the attitude of hugging this
wrong that he descended the stairs without taking
leave of Miss Fancourt, who hadn’t been in view at
the moment he quitted the room. He was glad to
get out into the honest dusky unsophisticating night,
to move fast, to take his way home on foot. He
walked a long time, going astray, paying no attention.
He was thinking of too many other things. His
steps recovered their direction, however, and at the
82
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER
end of an hour he found himself before his door in
the small inexpensive empty street. He lingered,
questioning himself still before going in, with nothing
around and above him but moonless blackness, a bad
lamp or two and a few far-away dim stars. To these
last faint features he raised his eyes; he had been
saying to himself that he should have been “sold ''
indeed, diabolically sold, if now, on his new founda-
tion, at the end of a year, St. George were to put
forth something of his prime quality—something
of the type of “Shadowmere’’ and finer than his finest.
Greatly as he admired his talent Paul literally hoped
such an incident wouldn’t occur ; it seemed to him
just then that he shouldn't be able to bear it. His
late adviser’s words were still in his ears—“You’re
very strong, wonderfully strong.” Was he really P
Certainly he would have to be, and it might a little
serve for revenge. Is he the reader, may ask in
turn, if his interest has followed the perplexed young
man so far. The best answer to that perhaps is that
he's doing his best, but that it’s too soon to say.
When the new book came out in the autumn Mr.
and Mrs. St. George found it really magnificent. The
former still has published nothing, but Paul doesn't
even yet feel safe. I may say for him, however, that
if this event were to occur he would really be the very
first to appreciate it : which is perhaps a proof that
the Master was essentially right and that Nature
had dedicated him to intellectual, not to personal
passion.
83
THE DEATH OF THE LION
85
I
I HAD simply, I suppose, a change of heart, and it
must have begun when I received my manuscript
back from Mr. Pinhorn. Mr. Pinhorn was my
“chief,” as he was called in the office : he had
accepted the high mission of bringing the paper up.
This was a weekly periodical, which had been sup-
posed to be almost past redemption when he took
hold of it. It was Mr. Deedy who had let the thing
down so dreadfully : he was never mentioned in the
office now save in connexion with that misdemeanour.
Young as I was I had been in a manner taken over
from Mr. Deedy, who had been owner as well as
editor; forming part of a promiscuous lot, mainly
plant and office-furniture, which poor Mrs. Deedy,
in her bereavement and depression, parted with at a
rough valuation. I could account for my continuity
but on the supposition that I had been cheap. I
rather resented the practice of fathering all flatness
on my late protector, who was in his unhonoured
grave ; but as I had my way to make I found matter
enough for complacency in being on a “staff.” At
the same time I was aware of my exposure to suspicion
as a product of the old lowering system. This made
me feel I was doubly bound to have ideas, and had
doubtless been at the bottom of my proposing to
Mr. Pinhorn that I should lay my lean hands on Neil
Paraday. I remember how he looked at me—quite,
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
to begin with, as if he had never heard of this celebrity,
who indeed at that moment was by no means in the
centre of the heavens ; and even when I had know-
ingly explained he expressed but little confidence
in the demand for any such stuff. When I had
reminded him that the great principle on which we
were supposed to work was just to create the demand
we required, he considered a moment and then
returned : “I see—you want to write him up.”
“Call it that if you like.”
“And what’s your inducement 2 ”
“Bless my soul—my admiration ’’
Mr. Pinhorn pursed up his mouth. “Is there
much to be done with him 2 ''
“Whatever there is we should have it all to our-
selves, for he hasn’t been touched.”
This argument was effective and Mr. Pinhorn
responded. “Very well, touch him.” Then he
added : “But where can you do it 2 ”
“ Under the fifth rib '’
Mr. Pinhorn Stared. “Where’s that 2 ''
“You want me to go down and see him 2 ” I asked
when I had enjoyed his visible search for the obscure
suburb I seemed to have named.
“I don’t ‘want ' anything—the proposal's your
own. But you must remember that that's the way
we do things now,” said Mr. Pinhorn with another
dig at Mr. Deedy.
Unregenerate as I was I could read the queer
implications of this speech. The present owner's
superior virtue as well as his deeper craft spoke in his
reference to the late editor as one of that baser sort
who deal in false representations. Mr. Deedy would
as soon have sent me to call on Neil Paraday as he
would have published a “holiday-number '' ; but
such scruples presented themselves as mere ignoble
thrift to his successor, whose own sincerity took the
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
form of ringing door-bells and whose definition of
genius was the art of finding people at home. It
was as if Mr. Deedy had published reports without
his young men's having, as Pinhorn would have said,
really been there. I was unregenerate, as I have
hinted, and couldn’t be concerned to straighten out
the journalistic morals of my chief, feeling them
indeed to be an abyss over the edge of which it was
better not to peer. Really to be there this time,
moreover, was a vision that made the idea of writing
Something subtle about Neil Paraday only the more
inspiring. I would be as considerate as even Mr.
Deedy could have wished, and yet I should be as
present as only Mr. Pinhorn could conceive. My
allusion to the sequestered manner in which Mr.
Paraday lived—it had formed part of my explana-
tion, though I knew of it only by hearsay—was, I
could divine, very much what had made Mr. Pinhorn
nibble. It struck him as inconsistent with the success
of his paper that any one should be so sequestered as
that. And then wasn't an immediate exposure of
everything just what the public wanted 2 Mr.
Pinhorn effectually called me to order by reminding
me of the promptness with which I had met Miss
Braby at Liverpool on her return from her fiasco
in the States. Hadn't we published, while its fresh-
ness and flavour were unimpaired, Miss Braby's own
version of that great international episode 2 I felt
somewhat uneasy at this lumping of the actress and
the author, and I confess that after having enlisted
Mr. Pinhorn's sympathies I procrastinated a little.
I had succeeded better than I wished, and I had, as
it happened, work nearer at hand. A few days later
I called on Lord Crouchley and carried off in triumph
the most unintelligible statement that had yet
appeared of his lordship's reasons for his change of
front. I thus set in motion in the daily papers
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
columns of virtuous verbiage. The following week
I ran down to Brighton for a chat, as Mr. Pinhorn
called it, with Mrs. Bounder, who gave me, on the
Subject of her divorce, many curious particulars that
had not been articulated in court. If ever an article
flowed from the primal fount it was that article on
Mrs. Bounder. By this time, however, I became
aware that Neil Paraday's new book was on the point
of appearing and that its approach had been the
ground of my original appeal to Mr. Pinhorn, who was
now annoyed with me for having lost so many days.
He bundled me off—we would at least not lose another.
I’ve always thought his sudden alertness a remarkable
example of the journalistic instinct. Nothing had
Occurred, since I first spoke to him, to create a visible
urgency, and no enlightenment could possibly have
reached him. It was a pure case of professional flair
—he had Smelt the coming glory as an animal smells
its distant prey.
II
I MAY as well say at once that this little record pre-
tends in no degree to be a picture either of my intro-
duction to Mr. Paraday or of certain proximate steps
and stages. The scheme of my narrative allows no
space for these things, and in any case a prohibitory
sentiment would hang about my recollection of So
rare an hour. These meagre notes are essentially
private, so that if they see the light the insidious forces
that, as my story itself shows, make at present for
publicity will simply have overmastered my pre-
cautions. The curtain fell lately enough on the
lamentable drama. My memory of the day I alighted
at Mr. Paraday's door is a fresh memory of kind-
ness, hospitality, compassion, and of the wonderful
illuminating talk in which the welcome was con-
veyed. Some voice of the air had taught me the right
moment, the moment of his life at which an act of
unexpected young allegiance might most come home
to him. He had recently recovered from a long
grave illness. I had gone to the neighbouring inn
for the night, but I spent the evening in his company,
and he insisted the next day on my sleeping under his
roof. I hadn’t an indefinite leave : Mr. Pinhorn
Supposed us to put our victims through on the gallop.
It was later, in the office, that the rude motions of the
jig were set to music. I fortified myself, however, as
my training had taught me to do, by the conviction
9I
THE DEATH OF THE LION
that nothing could be more advantageous for my
article than to be written in the very atmosphere. I
Said nothing to Mr. Paraday about it, but in the
morning, after my removal from the inn, while he
was occupied in his study, as he had notified me he
should need to be, I committed to paper the main
heads of my impression. Then thinking to commend
myself to Mr. Pinhorn by my celerity, I walked out
and posted my little packet before luncheon. Once
my paper was written I was free to stay on, and if it
was calculated to divert attention from my levity
in so doing I could reflect with satisfaction that I
had never been so clever. I don’t mean to deny of
course that I was aware it was much too good for
Mr. Pinhorn ; but I was equally conscious that Mr.
Pinhorn had the Supreme shrewdness of recognising
from time to time the cases in which an article was
not too bad only because it was too good. There was
nothing he loved so much as to print on the right
occasion a thing he hated. I had begun my visit
to the great man on a Monday, and on the Wednesday
his book came out. A copy of it arrived by the first
post, and he let me go out into the garden with it
immediately after breakfast. I read it from beginning
to end that day, and in the evening he asked me to
remain with him the rest of the week and over the
Sunday.
That night my manuscript came back from Mr.
Pinhorn, accompanied with a letter the gist of which
was the desire to know what I meant by trying to fob
off on him such stuff. That was the meaning of the
question, if not exactly its form, and it made my
mistake immense to me. Such as this mistake was
I could now only look it in the face and accept it. I
knew where I had failed, but it was exactly where I
couldn’t have succeeded. I had been sent down to
be personal and then in point of fact hadn’t been
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
personal at all : what I had despatched to London
was just a little finicking feverish study of my author's
talent. Anything less relevant to Mr. Pinhorn's
purpose couldn’t well be imagined, and he was visibly
angry at my having (at his expense, with a second-
class ticket) approached the subject of our enterprise
only to stand off so helplessly. For myself, I knew
but too well what had happened, and how a miracle—
as pretty as some old miracle of legend—had been
wrought on the spot to save me. There had been a
big brush of wings, the flash of an opaline robe, and
then, with a great cool stir of the air, the sense of an
angel's having Swooped down and caught me to his
bosom. He held me only till the danger was over,
and it all took place in a minute. With my manu-
script back on my hands I understood the pheno-
menon better, and the reflexions I made on it are what
I meant, at the beginning of this anecdote, by my
change of heart. Mr. Pinhorn's note was not only a
rebuke decidedly stern, but an invitation immediately
to send him—it was the case to say so—the genuine
article, the revealing and reverberating sketch to the
promise of which, and of which alone, I owed my
squandered privilege. A week or two later I recast
my peccant paper and, giving it a particular applica-
tion to Mr. Paraday's new book, obtained for it the
hospitality of another journal, where, I must admit,
Mr. Pinhorn was so far vindicated as that it attracted
not the least attention.
93
III
I was frankly, at the end of three days, a very pre-
judiced critic, so that one morning when, in the garden,
my great man had offered to read me something I
quite held my breath as I listened. It was the written
Scheme of another book—something put aside long
ago, before his illness, but that he had lately taken out
again to reconsider. He had been turning it round
when I came down on him, and it had grown magnifi-
cently under this second hand. Loose liberal con-
fident, it might have passed for a great gossiping
eloquent letter—the overflow into talk of an artist's
amorous plan. The theme I thought singularly
rich, quite the strongest he had yet treated ; and this
familiar statement of it, full too of fine maturities, was
really, in Summarised splendour, a mine of gold, a
precious independent work. I remember rather pro-
fanely wondering whether the ultimate production
could possibly keep at the pitch. His reading of the
fond epistle, at any rate, made me feel as if I were, for
the advantage of posterity, in close correspondence
with him—were the distinguished person to whom it
had been affectionately addressed. It was a high
distinction simply to be told such things. The idea
he now communicated had all the freshness, the
flushed fairness, of the conception untouched and
untried : it was Venus rising from the sea and before
the airs had blown upon her. I had never been so
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
throbbingly present at such an unveiling. But when
he had tossed the last bright word after the others,
as I had seen cashiers in banks, weighing mounds of
coin, drop a final sovereign into the tray, I knew a
Sudden prudent alarm.
“My dear master, how, after all, are you going to
do it? It's infinitely noble, but what time it will
take, what patience and independence, what assured,
what perfect conditions ! Oh for a lone isle in a tepid
sea l’’
“Isn't this practically a lone isle, and aren't you,
as an encircling medium, tepid enough 2 ” he asked,
alluding with a laugh to the wonder of my young
admiration and the narrow limits of his little pro-
vincial home. “Time isn’t what I’ve lacked hither-
to : the question hasn't been to find it, but to use it.
Of course my illness made, while it lasted, a great hole
—but I daresay there would have been a hole at any
rate. The earth we tread has more pockets than
billiard-table. The great thing is now to keep on m
feet.”
“That's exactly what I mean.” -
Neil Paraday looked at me with eyes—such
pleasant eyes as he had—in which, as I now recall their
expression, I seem to have seen a dim imagination |
of his fate. He was fifty years old, and his illness
had been cruel, his convalescence slow. “It isn’t
as if I weren't all right.”
“Oh if you weren't all right I wouldn’t look at
you ! ” I tenderly said.
We had both got up, quickened as by this clearer
air, and he had lighted a cigarette. I had taken
a fresh one, which with an intenser smile, by way of
answer to my exclamation, he applied to the flame
of his match. “If I weren’t better I shouldn’t have
thought of that I " He flourished his script in his
hand.
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
“I don’t want to be discouraging, but that's not
true,” I returned. “I’m sure that during the months
you lay here in pain you had visitations sublime.
You thought of a thousand things. You think of
more and more all the while. That’s what makes
you, if you’ll pardon my familiarity, so respectable.
At a time when so many people are spent you come
into your second wind. But, thank God, all the same,
you're better | Thank God too you're not, as you
were telling me yesterday, ‘successful.” If you
weren’t a failure what would be the use of trying 2
That's my one reserve on the subject of your recovery
—that it makes you ‘score,’ as the newspapers Say.
It looks well in the newspapers, and almost anything
that does that's horrible. ‘We are happy to announce
that Mr. Paraday, the celebrated author, is again
in the enjoyment of excellent health.” Somehow I
shouldn’t like to see it.”
“You won’t see it ; I’m not in the least celebrated
—my obscurity protects me. But couldn’t you bear
even to see I was dying or dead 2 ” my host inquired.
“Dead—passe encore ; there's nothing so safe.
One never knows what a living artist may do—one
has mourned so many. However, one must make
the worst of it. You must be as dead as you can.”
“Don’t I meet that condition in having just
published a book 2 ”
“Adequately, let us hope ; for the book's verily a
masterpiece.”
At this moment the parlour-maid appeared in the
door that opened from the garden : Paraday lived at
no great cost, and the frisk of petticoats, with a
timorous “Sherry, sir?" was about his modest
mahogany. He allowed half his income to his wife,
from whom he had succeeded in Separating without
redundancy of legend. I had a general faith in his
having behaved well, and I had once, in London,
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THE DEATH OF THE LION
taken Mrs. Paraday down to dinner. He now turned
to speak to the maid, who offered him, on a tray, some
card or note, while, agitated, excited, I wandered to
the end of the precinct. The idea of his security
became supremely dear to me, and I asked myself if
I were the same young man who had come down a
few days before to scatter him to the four winds.
When I retraced my steps he had gone into the house,
and the woman—the Second London post had come
in—had placed my letters and a newspaper on a
bench. I sat down there to the letters, which were a
brief business, and then, without heeding the address,
took the paper from its envelope. It was the journal
of highest renown, The Empire of that morning. It
regularly came to Paraday, but I remembered that
neither of us had yet looked at the copy already
delivered. This one had a great mark on the
“ editorial ‘’ page, and, uncrumpling the wrapper, I
saw it to be directed to my host and stamped with
the name of his publishers. I instantly divined that
The Empire had spoken of him, and I’ve not forgotten
the Odd little shock of the circumstance. It checked
all eagerness and made me drop the paper a moment.
As I sat there conscious of a palpitation I think I
had a vision of what was to be. I had also a vision
of the letter I would presently address to Mr. Pinhorn,
breaking, as it were, with Mr. Pinhorn. Of course,
however, the next minute the voice of The Empire
was in my ears.
The article wasn't, I thanked heaven, a review ;
it was a “leader,” the last of three, presenting Neil
Paraday to the human race. His new book, the fifth
from his hand, had been but a day or two out, and
The Empire, already aware of it, fired, as if on the
birth of a prince, a salute of a whole column. The
guns had been booming these three hours in the house
without our suspecting them. The big blundering
97 H
THE DEATH OF THE LION
newspaper had discovered him, and now he was pro-
claimed and anointed and crowned. His place was
assigned him as publicly as if a fat usher with a wand
had pointed to the topmost chair; he was to pass up
and still up, higher and higher, between the watch-
ing faces and the envious Sounds—away up to the
dais and the throne. The article was “epoch-
making,” a landmark in his life ; he had taken rank
at a bound, waked up a national glory. A national
lory was needed, and it was an immense convenience
he was there. What all this meant rolled over me, and
I fear I grew a little faint—it meant so much more
than I could say “yea’’ to on the spot. In a flash,
somehow, all was different ; the tremendous wave I
speak of had swept something away. It had knocked
down, I suppose, my little customary altar, my
twinkling tapers and my flowers, and had reared itself
into the likeness of a temple vast and bare. When
Neil Paraday should come out of the house he would
come out a contemporary. That was what had
happened : the poor man was to be squeezed into his
horrible age. I felt as if he had been overtaken on
the crest of the hill and brought back to the city. A
little more and he would have dipped down the short
cut to posterity and escaped.
98
IV
WHEN he came out it was exactly as if he had been
in custody, for beside him walked a stout man with
a big black beard, who, save that he wore spectacles,
might have been a polieeman, and in whom at a
Second glance I recognised the highest contemporary
enterprise.
“This is Mr. Morrow,” said Paraday, looking, I
thought, rather white : “he wants to publish heaven
knows what about me.”
I winced as I remembered that this was exactly
what I myself had wanted. “Already ?" I cried,
with a sort of sense that my friend had fled to me for
protection.
Mr. Morrow glared, agreeably, through his glasses:
they suggested the electric headlights of some
monstrous modern ship, and I felt as if Paraday and
I were tossing terrified under his bows. I saw his
momentum was irresistible. “I was confident that I
should be the first in the field. A great interest is
naturally felt in Mr. Paraday's surroundings,” he
heavily observed.
“I hadn't the least idea of it,” said Paraday, as if
he had been told he had been Snoring. - |
“I find he hasn’t read the article in The Empire,”
Mr. Morrow remarked to me. “That’s so very
interesting—it's something to start with,” he smiled.
He had begun to pull off his gloves, which were.
99 ... • * * * *
* º * e
, 3 * e
& e
THE DEATH OF THE LION
violently new, and to look encouragingly round the
little garden. As a “surrounding ” I felt how I
myself had already been taken in ; I was a little fish
in the stomach of a bigger one. “I represent,” Our
visitor continued, “a syndicate of influential journals,
no less than thirty-seven, whose public—whose
publics, I may say—are in peculiar sympathy with
Mr. Paraday's line of thought. They would greatly
|appreciate any expression of his views on the subject
of the art he so nobly exemplifies. In addition to
my connexion with the syndicate just mentioned I
hold a particular commission from The Tatler, whose
most prominent department, ‘Smatter and Chatter'
—I daresay you’ve often enjoyed it—attracts such
attention. I was honoured only last week, as a
representative of The Tatler, with the confidence of
Guy Walsingham, the brilliant author of ‘Obsessions.”
She pronounced herself thoroughly pleased with my
sketch of her method ; she went so far as to say that
I had made her genius more comprehensible even to
herself.”
Neil Paraday had dropped on the garden-bench
and sat there at once detached and confounded ; he
looked hard at a bare spot in the lawn, as if with an
anxiety that had suddenly made him grave. His
movement had been interpreted by his visitor as an
invitation to sink sympathetically into a wicker chair
that stood hard by, and while Mr. Morrow so settled
himself I felt he had taken official possession and that
there was no undoing it. One had heard of un-
fortunate people's having “a man in the house,”
and this was just what we had. There was a silence
of a moment, during which we seemed to acknowledge
in the only way that was possible the presence of
juniversal fate; the sunny stillness took no pity, and
my thought, as I was sure Paraday's was doing,
performed within the minute a great distant revolu-
... : : IOO
THE DEATH OF THE LION
tion. I saw just how emphatic I should make my
rejoinder to Mr. Pinhorn, and that having come, like
Mr. Morrow, to betray, I must remain as long as
possible to save. Not because I had brought my
mind back, but because our visitor's last words were
in my ear, I presently inquired with gloomy irrelevance
if Guy Walsingham were a woman.
“Oh yes, a mere pseudonym—rather pretty, isn't
it 2–and convenient, you know, for a lady who goes
in for the larger latitude. “Obsessions,” by Miss So-
and-So,” would look a little odd, but men are more
naturally indelicate. Have you peeped into ‘Obses-
Sions ° 2 º’ Mr. Morrow continued sociably to our
Companion.
Paraday, still absent, remote, made no answer, as
if he hadn’t heard the question : a form of intercourse
that appeared to suit the cheerful Mr. Morrow as:
well as any other. Imperturbably bland, he was a
man of resources—he only needed to be on the spot.
He had pocketed the whole poor place while Paraday
and I were wool-gathering, and I could imagine that
he had already got his “heads.” His system, at
any rate, was justified by the inevitability with
which I replied, to save my friend the trouble :
“Dear no—he hasn’t read it. He doesn’t read such
things ” I unwarily added.
“Things that are too far over the fence, eh?” I
was indeed a godsend to Mr. Morrow. It was the
psychological moment ; it determined the appearance;
of his note-book, which, however, he at first kept
slightly behind him, even as the dentist approaching
his victim keeps the horrible forceps. “Mr. Paraday
holds with the good old proprieties—I see ” And
thinking of the thirty-seven influential journals, I
found myself, as I found poor Paraday, helplessly
assisting at the promulgation of this ineptitude.
“There's no point on which distinguished views are
IOI
THE DEATH OF THE LION
so acceptable as on this question—raised perhaps
more strikingly than ever by Guy Walsingham—of
the permissibility of the larger latitude. I’ve an
appointment, precisely in connexion with it, next
week, with Dora Forbes, author of ‘The Other Way
Round,’ which everybody's talking about. Has Mr.
Paraday glanced at ‘The Other Way Round ’7” Mr.
Morrow now frankly appealed to me. I took on
myself to repudiate the supposition, while our com-
panion, still silent, got up nervously and walked
away. His visitor paid no heed to his withdrawal,
but opened out the note-book with a more fatherly
pat. “ Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground,
the same as Guy Walsingham's, that the larger
latitude has simply got to come. He holds that it
has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex
makes him a less prejudiced witness. But an authori-
tative word from Mr. Paraday—from the point of
view of his sex, you know—would go right round the
globe. He takes the line that we haven't got to face
it 2 ”
I was bewildered : it sounded somehow as if there
were three sexes. My interlocutor's pencil was poised,
my private responsibility great. I simply sat staring,
none the less, and only found presence of mind to
say: “Is this Miss Forbes a gentleman 2 ”
Mr. Morrow had a subtle Smile. “It wouldn’t be
‘ Miss '—there’s a wife ”
“I mean is she a man 2 ''
“The wife 2 º’—Mr. Morrow was for a moment as
confused as myself. But when I explained that I
alluded to Dora Forbes in person he informed me,
with visible amusement at my being so out of it,
that this was the “pen-name " of an indubitable male
—he had a big red moustache. “He goes in for the
slight mystification because the ladies are such
popular favourites. A great deal of interest is felt
IO2
THE DEATH OF THE LION
in his acting on that idea—which is clever, isn’t it 2
—and there's every prospect of its being widely
imitated.” Our host at this moment joined us again,
and Mr. Morrow remarked invitingly that he should
be happy to make a note of any observation the
movement in question, the bid for success under a
lady's name, might suggest to Mr. Paraday. But
the poor man, without catching the allusion, excused
himself, pleading that, though greatly honoured by
his visitor's interest, he suddenly felt unwell and
should have to take leave of him—have to go and
lie down and keep quiet. His young friend might
be trusted to answer for him, but he hoped Mr.
Morrow didn’t expect great things even of his young
friend. His young friend, at this moment, looked at
Neil Paraday with an anxious eye, greatly wondering
if he were doomed to be ill again ; but Paraday's
own kind face met his question reassuringly, seemed
to say in a glance intelligible enough : “Oh I'm not
ill, but I'm Scared ; get him out of the house as
quietly as possible.” Getting newspaper-men out of
the house was odd business for an emissary of Mr.
Pinhorn, and I was so exhilarated by the idea of it
that I called after him as he left us : “Read the
article in The Empire and you'll soon be all right !”
IO3
V
“DELICIOUS my having come down to tell him of
it !” Mr. Morrow ejaculated. “My cab was at the
door twenty minutes after The Empire had been laid
on my breakfast-table. Now what have you got
for me 2 " he continued, dropping again into his
chair, from which, however, he the next moment
eagerly rose. “I was shown into the drawing-room,
but there must be more to see—his study, his literary
Sanctum, the little things he has about, or other
domestic objects and features. He wouldn’t be lying
down on his study-table 2 There's a great interest
always felt in the Scene of an author's labours.
Sometimes we're favoured with very delightful peeps.
Dora Forbes showed me all his table-drawers, and
almost jammed my hand into one into which I made
a dash l I don’t ask that of you, but if we could talk
things over right there where he sits I feel as if I
should get the keynote.”
I had no wish whatever to be rude to Mr. Morrow,
I was much too initiated not to tend to more diplo-
macy; but I had a quick inspiration, and I enter-
tained an insurmountable, an almost superstitious
objection to his crossing the threshold of my friend's
little lonely shabby consecrated workshop. “No,
no—we shan’t get at his life that way,” I said. “The
way to get at his life is to But wait a moment l”
I broke off and went quickly into the house, whence
* IO4
THE DEATH OF THE LION
I in three minutes reappeared before Mr. Morrow
with the two volumes of Paraday's new book. “His
life's here,” I went on, “and I’m so full of this admir-
able thing that I can’t talk of anything else. The
artist's life’s his work, and this is the place to observe
him. What he has to tell us he tells us with this
perfection. My dear sir, the best interviewer’s the
best reader.”
Mr. Morrow good-humouredly protested. “Do
you mean to say that no other source of information
should be open to us 2 ”
“None other till this particular one—by far the
most copious—has been quite exhausted. Have
you exhausted it, my dear sir? Had you exhausted
it when you came down here 2. It seems to me in
our time almost wholly neglected, and something
should surely be done to restore its ruined credit.
It's the course to which the artist himself at every
step, and with such pathetic confidence, refers us.
This last book of Mr. Paraday's is full of revelations.”
“Revelations 2 ” panted Mr. Morrow, whom I had
forced again into his chair.
“The only kind that count. It tells you with a
perfection that seems to me quite final all the author
thinks, for instance, about the advent of the ‘larger
latitude.’”
“Where does it do that 2 ” asked Mr. Morrow,
who had picked up the second volume and was in-
sincerely thumbing it.
“Everywhere—in the whole treatment of his
case. Extract the opinion, disengage the answer—
those are the real acts of homage.”
Mr. Morrow, after a minute, tossed the book away.
“Ah, but you mustn't take me for a reviewer.”
“Heaven forbid I should take you for anything so
dreadful You came down to perform a little act of
sympathy, and so, I may confide to you, did I. Let
I O5
THE DEATH OF THE LION
us perform our little act together. These pages over-
flow with the testimony we want : let us read them
and taste them and interpret them. You'll of course
have perceived for yourself that one scarcely does
read Neil Paraday till one reads him aloud ; he gives
out to the ear an extraordinary full tone, and it's
only when you expose it confidently to that test that
you really get near his style. Take up your book
again and let me listen, while you pay it out, to that
wonderful fifteenth chapter. If you feel you can’t
do it justice, compose yourself to attention while I
produce for you—I think I can l—this scarcely less
admirable ninth.”
Mr. Morrow gave me a straight look which was
as hard as a blow between the eyes; he had turned
rather red, and a question had formed itself in his
mind which reached my sense as distinctly as if he
had uttered it : “What sort of a damned fool are
you ?” Then he got up, gathering together his hat
and gloves, buttoning his coat, projecting hungrily
all over the place the big transparency of his mask.
It seemed to flare over Fleet Street and somehow
made the actual spot distressingly humble : there
was so little for it to feed on unless he counted the
blisters of our stucco or saw his way to do something
with the roses. Even the poor roses were common
kinds. Presently his eyes fell on the manuscript
from which Paraday had been reading to me and
which still lay on the bench. As my own followed
them I saw it looked promising, looked pregnant,
as if it gently throbbed with the life the reader had
given it. Mr. Morrow indulged in a nod at it and a
vague thrust of his umbrella. “What's that 2 ”
“Oh it’s a plan—a secret.”
“A secret !” There was an instant's silence,
and then Mr. Morrow made another movement.
I may have been mistaken, but it affected me as the
IO6
THE DEATH OF THE LION
translated impulse of the desire to lay hands on the
manuscript, and this led me to indulge in a quick
anticipatory grab which may very well have seemed
ungraceful, or even impertinent, and which at any
rate left Mr. Paraday's two admirers very erect,
glaring at each other while one of them held a bundle
of papers well behind him. An instant later Mr.
Morrow quitted me abruptly, as if he had really
carried something off with him. To reassure myself,
watching his broad back recede, I only grasped my
manuscript the tighter. He went to the back door
of the house, the one he had come out from, but on
trying the handle he appeared to find it fastened.
So he passed round into the front garden, and by
listening intently enough I could presently hear the
Outer gate close behind him with a bang. I thought
again of the thirty-seven influential journals and
wondered what would be his revenge. I hasten to
add that he was magnanimous : which was just the
most dreadful thing he could have been. The Tatler
published a charming chatty familiar account of Mr.
Paraday’s “Home-life,” and on the wings of the
thirty-seven influential journals it went, to use Mr.
Morrow's own expression, right round the globe.
Io'7
VI
A week later, early in May, my glorified friend came
up to town, where, it may be veraciously recorded,
he was the king of the beasts of the year. No ad-
vancement was ever more rapid, no exaltation more
complete, no bewilderment more teachable. His
book sold but moderately, though the article in The
Empire had done unwonted wonders for it; but he
circulated in person to a measure that the libraries
might well have envied. His formula had been
found—he was a “revelation.” His momentary
terror had been real, just as mine had been—the
overclouding of his passionate desire to be left to
finish his work. He was far from unsociable, but he
had the finest conception of being let alone that I’ve
ever met. For the time, none the less, he took his
profit where it seemed most to crowd on him, having
in his pocket the portable Sophistries about the nature
of the artist's task. Observation too was a kind of
work and experience a kind of success; London
dinners were all material and London ladies were
fruitful toil. “No one has the faintest conception of
what I’m trying for,” he said to me, “ and not many
have read three pages that I’ve written ; but I must
dine with them first—they'll find out why when
they've time.” It was rather rude justice perhaps;
but the fatigue had the merit of being a new sort,
while the phantasmagoric town was probably after
IO8
THE DEATH OF THE LION
all less of a battlefield than the haunted study. He
Once told me that he had had no personal life to
Speak of since his fortieth year, but had had more
than was good for him before. London closed the
parenthesis and exhibited him in relations; one of
the most inevitable of these being that in which he
found himself to Mrs. Weeks Wimbush, wife of the
boundless brewer and proprietress of the universal
menagerie. In this establishment, as everybody
knows, on Occasions when the crush is great, the
animals rub shoulders freely with the spectators and
the lions sit down for whole evenings with the lambs.
It had been ominously clear to me from the
first that in Neil Paraday this lady, who, as all the
world agreed, was tremendous fun, considered that
she had secured a prime attraction, a creature of
almost heraldic oddity. Nothing could exceed her
enthusiasm over her capture, and nothing could
exceed the confused apprehensions it excited in me.
I had an instinctive fear of her which I tried without
effect to conceal from her victim, but which I let her
notice with perfect impunity. Paraday heeded it,
but she never did, for her conscience was that of a
romping child. She was a blind violent force to
which I could attach no more idea of responsibility
than to the creaking of a sign in the wind. It was
difficult to say what she conduced to but circulation.
She was constructed of steel and leather, and all I
asked of her for our tractable friend was not to do
him to death. He had consented for a time to be of
india-rubber, but my thoughts were fixed on the day
he should resume his shape or at least get back into
his box. It was evidently all right, but I should be
glad when it was well over. I had a special fear—
the impression was ineffaceable of the hour when,
after Mr. Morrow's departure, I had found him on
the sofa in his study. That pretext of indisposition
IO9
THE DEATH OF THE LION
had not in the least been meant as a Snub to the
envoy of The Tatler—he had gone to lie down in very
truth. He had felt a pang of his old pain, the result
of the agitation wrought in him by this forcing open
of a new period. His old programme, his old ideal
even had to be changed. Say what one would,
success was a complication and recognition had to be
reciprocal. The monastic life, the pious illumination
of the missal in the convent-cell were things of the
gathered past. It didn’t engender despair, but at
least it required adjustment. Before I left him on
that occasion we had passed a bargain, my part of
which was that I should make it my business to take
care of him. Let whoever would represent the
interest in his presence (I must have had a mystical
prevision of Mrs. Weeks Wimbush) I should represent
the interest in his work—or otherwise expressed in
his absence. These two interests were in their
essence opposed ; and I doubt, as youth is fleeting,
if I shall ever again know the intensity of joy with
which I felt that in so good a cause I was willing to
make myself odious.
One day in Sloane Street I found myself question-
ing Paraday's landlord, who had come to the door in
answer to my knock. Two vehicles, a barouche and
a Smart hansom, were drawn up before the house.
“In the drawing-room, sir? Mrs. Weeks Wim-
bush.”
“And in the dining-room ? "
“A young lady, sir—waiting : I think a foreigner.”
It was three o'clock, and on days when Paraday
didn’t lunch out he attached a value to these appro-
priated hours. On which days, however, didn’t the
dear man lunch out 2 Mrs. Wimbush, at such a
crisis, would have rushed round immediately after
her own repast. I went into the dining-room first,
postponing the pleasure of Seeing how, upstairs, the
IIO
THE DEATH OF THE LION
lady of the barouche would, on my arrival, point the
moral of my sweet solicitude. No one took such an
interest as herself in his doing only what was good
for him, and she was always on the spot to see that
he did it. She made appointments with him to dis-
cuss the best means of economising his time and pro-
tecting his privacy. She further made his health her
special business, and had so much sympathy with
my own zeal for it that she was the author of pleasing
fictions on the subject of what my devotion had led
me to give up. I gave up nothing (I don't count Mr.
Pinhorn) because I had nothing, and all I had as yet
achieved was to find myself also in the menagerie. I
had dashed in to save my friend, but I had only got
domesticated and wedged ; so that I could do little
more for him than exchange with him over people's
heads looks of intense but futile intelligence.
III
VII
THE young lady in the dining-room had a brave face,
black hair, blue eyes, and in her lap a big volume.
“I’ve come for his autograph,” she said when I had
explained to her that I was under bonds to see people
for him when he was occupied. “I’ve been waiting
half an hour, but I’m prepared to wait all day.” I
don’t know whether it was this that told me she was
American, for the propensity to wait all day is not in
general characteristic of her race. I was enlightened
probably not so much by the spirit of the utterance
as by some quality of its Sound. At any rate I saw
she had an individual patience and a lovely frock,
| together with an expression that played among her
pretty features like a breeze among flowers. Putting
her book on the table she showed me a massive
album, showily bound and full of autographs of price.
The collection of faded notes, of still more faded
“ thoughts,” of quotations, platitudes, signatures,
represented a formidable purpose.
I could only disclose my dread of it. “Most
people apply to Mr. Paraday by letter, you know. ”
“Yes, but he doesn’t answer. I’ve written three
times.”
“Very true,” I reflected ; “the sort of letter you
mean goes straight into the fire.”
“How do you know the sort I mean 2 ” My
interlocutress had blushed and Smiled, and in a
II2
THE DEATH OF THE LION
moment she added : “I don’t believe he gets many
like them ‘’
“I’m sure they're beautiful, but he burns without
reading.” I didn’t add that I had convinced him he
Ought to.
“Isn't he then in danger of burning things of
importance 2 ”
“He would perhaps be so if distinguished men
hadn't an infallible nose for nonsense.”
She looked at me a moment—her face was Sweet
and gay. “Do you burn without reading too 2 ”—
in answer to which I assured her that if she’d trust
me with her repository I’d see that Mr. Paraday
should write his name in it.
She considered a little. “That's very well, but it
wouldn’t make me see him.”
“Do you want very much to see him 2 ” It
seemed ungracious to catechise so charming a creature,
but somehow I had never yet taken my duty to the
great author so seriously.
“Enough to have come from America for the
purpose.”
I stared. “All alone 2 ''
“I don’t see that that's exactly your business, but
if it will make me more seductive I'll confess that I’m
quite by myself. I had to come alone or not come
at all.”
She was interesting ; I could imagine she had lost
parents, natural protectors—could conceive even she
had inherited money. I was at a pass of my own
fortunes when keeping hansoms at doors seemed to
me pure swagger. As a trick of this bold and sensitive
girl, however, it became romantic—a part of the
general romance of her freedom, her errand, her
innocence. The confidence of young Americans was
notorious, and I speedily arrived at a conviction that
no impulse could have been more generous than the
&
II3 I
THE DEATH OF THE LION
impulse that had operated here. I foresaw at that
moment that it would make her my peculiar charge,
just as circumstances had made Neil Paraday. She
would be another person to look after, so that one's
honour would be concerned in guiding her straight.
These things became clearer to me later on ; at the
instant I had scepticism enough to observe to her, as
I turned the pages of her volume, that her net had all
the same caught many a big fish. She appeared to
have had fruitful access to the great ones of the
earth ; there were people, moreover, whose signatures
she had presumably secured without a personal
interview. She couldn’t have worried George Wash-
ington and Friedrich Schiller and Hannah More.
She met this argument, to my surprise, by throwing
up the album without a pang. It wasn't even her
own ; she was responsible for none of its treasures.
It belonged to a girl-friend in America, a young lady
in a western city. This young lady had insisted on
her bringing it, to pick up more autographs: she
thought they might like to see, in Europe, in what
company they would be. The “girl-friend,” the
western city, the immortal names, the curious errand,
the idyllic faith, all made a story as Strange to me,
and as beguiling, as some tale in the Arabian Nights.
Thus it was that my informant had encumbered
herself with the ponderous tome ; but she hastened
to assure me that this was the first time she had
brought it out. For her visit to Mr. Paraday it had
simply been a pretext. She didn’t really care a
Straw that he should write his name ; what she did
want was to look straight into his face.
I demurred a little. “And why do you require to
do that 2 ”
| “Because I just love him l’” Before I could
recover from the agitating effect of this crystal ring
my companion had continued : “Hasn’t there
II4
THE DEATH OF THE LION
ever been any face that you've wanted to look
into ? '’
How could I tell her so soon how much I appre-
ciated the opportunity of looking into hers ? I could
only assent in general to the proposition that there
were certainly for every one such yearnings, and even
such faces; and I felt the crisis demand all my lucidity,
all my wisdom. “Oh yes, I’m a student of physi-
ognomy. Do you mean,” I pursued, “that you've
a passion for Mr. Paraday's books 2 ”
“They’ve been everything to me and a little more
beside—I know them by heart. They’ve completely
taken hold of me. There's no author about whom
I'm in such a state as I’m in about Neil Paraday.”
“Permit me to remark, then,” I presently re-
turned, “ that you're one of the right sort.”
“One of the enthusiasts 2 Of course I am I ?”
“Oh there are enthusiasts who are quite of the
wrong. I mean you’re one of those to whom an appeal
can be made.”
“An appeal 2 ” Her face lighted as if with the
chance of some great sacrifice.
If she was ready for one it was only waiting for her,
and in a moment I mentioned it. “Give up this
crude purpose of seeing him. Go away without it.
That will be far better.”
She looked mystified, then turned visibly pale.
“Why, hasn’t he any personal charm 2 ” The girl
was terrible and laughable in her bright directness.
“Ah, that dreadful word ‘personal '!” I wailed ;
“we’re dying of it, for you women bring it out with
murderous effect. When you meet with a genius as
fine as this idol of ours, let him off the dreary duty of
being a personality as well. Know him only by what's
best in him and spare him for the same sweet sake.”
My young lady continued to look at me in confusion
and mistrust, and the result of her reflexion on what
II5
THE DEATH OF THE LION
I had just said was to make her suddenly break out :
“Look here, sir—what's the matter with him 2 ”
“The matter with him is that if he doesn’t look
out people will eat a great hole in his life.”
She turned it over. “He hasn’t any disfigure-
ment P '’
“Nothing to speak of !”
“Do you mean that social engagements interfere
with his occupations 2 ”
“That but feebly expresses it.”
“So that he can’t give himself up to his beautiful
imagination ? "
“He’s beset, badgered, bothered—he's pulled to
pieces on the pretext of being applauded. People
expect him to give them his time, his golden time, who
wouldn’t themselves give five shillings for one of his
books.”
“Five 2 I’d give five thousand ’’
| “Give your sympathy—give your forbearance.
Two-thirds of those who approach him only do it to
advertise themselves.”
“Why, it's too bad l’” the girl exclaimed, with the
face of an angel. “It’s the first time I was ever called
crude l’’ she laughed.
I followed up my advantage. “There's a lady
with him now who's a terrible complication, and who
yet hasn't read, I’m sure, ten pages he ever wrote.”
My visitor's wide eyes grew tenderer. “Then how
does she talk 2 ”
“Without ceasing. I only mention her as a single
case. Do you want to know how to show a super-
lative consideration ? Simply avoid him.”
“Avoid him 2 ” she despairingly breathed.
“Don’t force him to have to take account of you ;
admire him in silence, cultivate him at a distance and
secretly appropriate his message. Do you want to
know,” I continued, warming to my idea, “how to
II6
THE DEATH OF THE LION
perform an act of homage really sublime 2 " Then as
she hung on my words: “Succeed in never seeing
him at all !”
“Never at all 2 ”—she suppressed a shriek for it.
“The more you get into his writings the less you’ll
want to, and you’ll be immensely sustained by the
thought of the good you're doing him.”
She looked at me without resentment or spite, and
at the truth I had put before her with candour,
credulity, pity. I was afterwards happy to remember
that she must have gathered from my face the liveli-
ness of my interest in herself. “I think I see what
you mean.”
“Oh I express it badly, but I should be delighted if
you'd let me come to see you—to explain it better.”
She made no response to this, and her thoughtful
eyes fell on the big album, on which she presently laid
her hands as if to take it away. “I did use to say out
West that they might write a little less for autographs
—to all the great poets, you know—and study the
thoughts and style a little more.”
“What do they care for the thoughts and style 2
They didn’t even understand you. I'm not sure,”
I added, “that I do myself, and I daresay that you by
no means make me out.”
She had got up to go, and though I wanted her to
succeed in not seeing Neil Paraday I wanted her also,
inconsequently, to remain in the house. I was at any
rate far from desiring to hustle her off. As Mrs.
Weeks Wimbush, upstairs, was still saving our friend
in her own way, I asked my young lady to let me
briefly relate, in illustration of my point, the little
incident of my having gone down into the country for
a profane purpose and been converted on the spot to
holiness. Sinking again into her chair to listen she
showed a deep interest in the anecdote. Then think-
ing it over gravely she returned with her odd intona-
II7
THE DEATH OF THE LION
tion : “Yes, but you do see him I ?” I had to admit
that this was the case ; and I wasn’t so prepared with
an effective attenuation as I could have wished. She
eased the situation off, however, by the charming
quaintness with which she finally said: “Well, I
wouldn’t want him to be lonely ‘’ This time she
rose in earnest, but I persuaded her to let me keep
the album to show Mr. Paraday. I assured her I’d
bring it back to her myself. “Well, you’ll find my
address somewhere in it on a paper l’” she sighed all
resignedly at the door.
II8
VIII
I BLUSH to confess it, but I invited Mr. Paraday that
very day to transcribe into the album one of his most
characteristic passages. I told him how I had got rid
of the strange girl who had brought it—her ominous
name was Miss Hurter and she lived at an hotel ;
quite agreeing with him, moreover, as to the wisdom
of getting rid with equal promptitude of the book itself.
This was why I carried it to Albemarle Street no later
than on the morrow. I failed to find her at home, but
she wrote to me and I went again : she wanted so
much to hear more about Neil Paraday. I returned
repeatedly, I may briefly declare, to supply her with
this information. She had been immensely taken, the
more she thought of it, with that idea of mine about
the act of homage: it had ended by filling her with a
generous rapture. She positively desired to do some-
thing sublime for him, though indeed I could see that,
as this particular flight was difficult, she appreciated
the fact that my visits kept her up. I had it on my
conscience to keep her up ; I neglected nothing that
would contribute to it, and her conception of our
cherished author's independence became at last as fine
as his very own. “Read him, read him—that will be
an education in decency,” I constantly repeated ; '
while, seeking him in his works even as God in nature,
she represented herself as convinced that, according to
my assurance, this was the system that had, as she
II9
THE DEATH OF THE LION
expressed it, weaned her. We read him together when
I could find time, and the generous creature's sacrifice
was fed by our communion. There were twenty
selfish women about whom I told her and who stirred
her to a beautiful rage. Immediately after my first
visit her sister, Mrs. Milsom, came over from Paris, and
the two ladies began to present, as they called it, their
letters. I thanked our stars that none had been
presented to Mr. Paraday. They received invitations
and dined out, and some of these occasions enabled
Fanny Hurter to perform, forconsistency's sake, touch-
ing feats of submission. Nothing indeed would now
have induced her even to look at the object of her
admiration. Once, hearing his name announced at a
party, she instantly left the room by another door and
then straightway quitted the house. At another time
when I was at the opera with them—Mrs. Milsom had
invited me to their box—I attempted to point Mr.
Paraday out to her in the stalls. On this she asked
her sister to change places with her and, while that
lady devoured the great man through a powerful glass,
presented, all the rest of the evening, her inspired
back to the house. To torment her tenderly I pressed
the glass upon her, telling her how wonderfully near
it brought our friend's handsome head. By way of
answer she simply looked at me in charged silence,
letting me see that tears had gathered in her eyes.
These tears, I may remark, produced an effect on me
of which the end is not yet. There was a moment
when I felt it my duty to mention them to Neil Para-
day, but I was deterred by the reflexion that there
were questions more relevant to his happiness.
These questions indeed, by the end of the season,
were reduced to a single one—the question of re-
Constituting So far as might be possible the condi-
tions under which he had produced his best work.
Such conditions could never all come back, for there
I2O
THE DEATH OF THE LION
was a new one that took up too much place ; but some
perhaps were not beyond recall. I wanted above
all things to see him sit down to the subject he had,
On my making his acquaintance, read me that ad-
mirable sketch of. Something told me there was no
Security but in his doing so before the new factor, as
we used to say at Mr. Pinhorn's, should render the
problem incalculable. It only half-reassured me that
the sketch itself was so copious and so eloquent that
even at the worst there would be the making of a
Small but complete book, a tiny volume which, for the
faithful, might well become an object of adoration.
There would even not be wanting critics to declare, I
foresaw, that the plan was a thing to be more thankful
for than the structure to have been reared on it. My
impatience for the structure, none the less, grew and
grew with the interruptions. He had on coming up to
town begun to sit for his portrait to a young painter,
Mr. Rumble, whose little game, as we also used to
say at Mr. Pinhorn's, was to be the first to perch on the
shoulders of renown. Mr. Rumble’s studio was a
circus in which the man of the hour, and still more
the woman, leaped through the hoops of his showy
frames almost as electrically as they burst into tele-
grams and “specials.” He pranced into the exhibi-
tions on their back ; he was the reporter on canvas,
the Vandyke up to date, and there was one roaring
year in which Mrs. Bounder and Miss Braby, Guy
Walsingham and Dora Forbes proclaimed in chorus
from the same pictured walls that no one had yet got
ahead of him.
Paraday had been promptly caught and saddled,
accepting with characteristic good humour his con-
fidential hint that to figure in his show was not so
much a consequence as a cause of immortality. From
Mrs. Wimbush to the last “representative ’’ who
called to ascertain his twelve favourite dishes, it was
I2I
THE DEATH OF THE LION
the same ingenuous assumption that he would rejoice
in the repercussion. There were moments when I
fancied I might have had more patience with them
if they hadn’t been so fatally benevolent. I hated at
all events Mr. Rumble's picture, and had my bottled
resentment ready when, later on, I found my dis-
tracted friend had been stuffed by Mrs. Wimbush into
the mouth of another cannon. A young artist in
whom she was intensely interested, and who had no
connexion with Mr. Rumble, was to show how far he
could make him go. Poor Paraday, in return, was
naturally to write something somewhere about the
young artist. She played her victims against each
other with admirable ingenuity, and her establish-
ment was a huge machine in which the tiniest and the
biggest wheels went round to the same treadle. I had
a scene with her in which I tried to express that the
function of such a man was to exercise his genius—
not to serve as a hoarding for pictorial posters. The
people I was perhaps angriest with were the editors of
magazines who had introduced what they called new
features, so aware were they that the newest feature
of all would be to make him grind their axes by con-
tributing his views on vital topics and taking part in
the periodical prattle about the future of fiction. I
made sure that before I should have done with him
there would scarcely be a current form of words left
me to be sick of ; but meanwhile I could make surer
still of my animosity to bustling ladies for whom he
drew the water that irrigated their social flower-beds.
I had a battle with Mrs. Wimbush Over the artist
she protected, and another over the question of a
certain week, at the end of July, that Mr. Paraday
appeared to have contracted to spend with her in the
country. I protested against this visit; I intimated
that he was too unwell for hospitality without a
nuance, for caresses without imagination ; I begged
I22
THE DEATH OF THE LION
he might rather take the time in some restorative way.
A Sultry air of promises, of ponderous parties, hung
Over his August, and he would greatly profit by the
interval of rest. He hadn’t told me he was ill again—
that he had had a warning ; but I hadn't needed this,
for I found his reticence his worst symptom. The
only thing he said to me was that he believed a com-
fortable attack of something or other would set him
up : it would put out of the question everything but
the exemptions he prized. I'm afraid I shall have
presented him as a martyr in a very small cause if I
fail to explain that he surrendered himself much more
liberally than I surrendered him. He filled his lungs,
for the most part, with the comedy of his queer fate :
the tragedy was in the spectacles through which I chose
to look. He was conscious of inconvenience, and
above all of a great renouncement ; but how could he
have heard a mere dirge in the bells of his accession ?
The sagacity and the jealousy were mine, and his the
impressions and the harvest. Of course, as regards
Mrs. Wimbush, I was worsted in my encounters, for
wasn’t the state of his health the very reason for his
coming to her at Prestidge 2 Wasn't it precisely at
Prestidge that he was to be coddled, and wasn’t the
dear Princess coming to help her to coddle him P
The dear Princess, now on a visit to England, was of a
famous foreign house, and, in her gilded cage, with
her retinue of keepers and feeders, was the most
expensive specimen in the good lady's collection. I
don’t think her august presence had had to do with
Paraday's consenting to go, but it's not impossible he
had operated as a bait to the illustrious stranger. The
party had been made up for him, Mrs. Wimbush
averred, and every one was counting on it, the dear
Princess most of all. If he was well enough he was to
read them something absolutely fresh, and it was on
that particular prospect the Princess had set her heart.
I23
THE DEATH OF THE LION
She was so fond of genius in any walk of life, and was
so used to it and understood it so well ; she was the
greatest of Mr. Paraday's admirers, she devoured
everything he wrote. And then he read like an angel.
Mrs. Wimbush reminded me that he had again and
again given her, Mrs. Wimbush, the privilege of listen-
ing to him.
I looked at her a moment. “What has he read to
you ?” I crudely inquired.
For a moment too she met my eyes, and for the
fraction of a moment she hesitated and coloured.
“Oh all sorts of things ”
I wondered if this were an imperfect recollection
or only a perfect fib, and she quite understood my
unuttered comment on her measure of such things.
But if she could forget Neil Paraday's beauties she
could of course forget my rudeness, and three days
later she invited me, by telegraph, to join the party at
Prestidge. This time she might indeed have had a
story about what I had given up to be near the master.
I addressed from that fine residence several communi-
cations to a young lady in London, a young lady
whom, I confess, I quitted with reluctance and whom
the reminder of what she herself could give up was
required to make me quit at all. It adds to the grati-
tude I owe her on other grounds that she kindly
allows me to transcribe from my letters a few of the
passages in which that hateful sojourn is candidly
commemorated.
I24
IX
“I SUPPOSE I ought to enjoy the joke of what's going
On here,” I wrote, “but somehow it doesn’t amuse
me. Pessimism on the contrary possesses me and
cynicism deeply engages. I positively feel my own
flesh sore from the brass nails in Neil Paraday's
Social harness. The house is full of people who like
him, as they mention, awfully, and with whom his
talent for talking nonsense has prodigious success.
I delight in his nonsense myself; why is it therefore
that I grudge these happy folk their artless satisfac-
tion ? Mystery of the human heart—abyss of the
critical spirit ! Mrs. Wimbush thinks she can answer"
that question, and as my want of gaiety has at last
worn out her patience she has given me a glimpse of
her shrewd guess. I'm made restless by the selfish-
ness of the insincere friend—I want to monopolise
Paraday in order that he may push me on. To be
intimate with him's a feather in my cap ; it gives me
an importance that I couldn't naturally pretend to,
and I seek to deprive him of social refreshment be-,
cause I fear that meeting more disinterested people
may enlighten him as to my real motive. All the dis-
interested people here are his particular admirers and
have been carefully selected as such. There's Sup-
posed to be a copy of his last book in the house, and
in the hall I come upon ladies, in attitudes, bending
gracefully over the first volume. I discreetly aver
I25
THE DEATH OF THE LION
my eyes, and when I next look round the precarious
joy has been superseded by the book of life. There's
a Sociable circle or a confidential couple, and the re-
linquished volume lies open on its face and as dropped
under extreme coercion. Somebody else presently
finds it and transfers it, with its air of momentary
desolation, to another piece of furniture. Every one's
asking every one about it all day, and every one's
telling every one where they put it last. I’m sure it's
rather Smudgy about the twentieth page. I’ve a
strong impression too that the second volume is lost—
has been packed in the bag of some departing guest ;
and yet everybody has the impression that somebody
else has read to the end. You see therefore that the
beautiful book plays a great part in our existence.
Why should I take the occasion of such distinguished
honours to say that I begin to see deeper into Gustave
Flaubert's doleful refrain about the hatred of litera-
ture ? I refer you again to the perverse constitu-
tion of man.
“The Princess is a massive lady with the organisa-
tion of an athlete and the confusion of tongues of
a valet de place. She contrives to commit herself
extraordinarily little in a great many languages, and
is entertained and conversed with in detachments
and relays, like an institution which goes on from
generation to generation or a big building contracted
for under a forfeit. She can’t have a personal taste
any more than, when her husband succeeds, she can
have a personal Crown, and her opinion on any matter
is rusty and heavy and plain—made, in the night
of ages, to last and be transmitted. I feel as if I
ought to ‘tip some custode for my glimpse of it.
She has been told everything in the world and has
never perceived anything, and the echoes of her educa-
tion respond awfully to the rash footfall—I mean the
casual remark—in the cold Valhalla of her memory.
I26
THE DEATH OF THE LION
Mrs. Wimbush delights in her wit and says there's
nothing so charming as to hear Mr. Paraday draw
it out. He's perpetually detailed for this job, and he
tells me it has a peculiarly exhausting effect. Every
one's beginning—at the end of two days—to sidle
obsequiously away from her, and Mrs. Wimbush
pushes him again and again into the breach. None of
the uses I have yet seen him put to infuriate me quite
so much. He looks very fagged and has at last con-
fessed to me that his condition makes him uneasy—
has even promised me he'll go straight home instead
of returning to his final engagements in town. Last
night I had some talk with him about going to-day,
cutting his visit short ; so sure am I that he'll be
better as soon as he's shut up in his lighthouse. He
told me that this is what he would like to do ; re-
minding me, however, that the first lesson of his
greatness has been precisely that he can't do what he
likes. Mrs. Wimbush would never forgive him if he
should leave her before the Princess has received the
last hand. When I hint that a violent rupture with
our hostess would be the best thing in the world for
him he gives me to understand that if his reason
assents to the proposition his courage hangs woefully
back. He makes no secret of being mortally afraid
of her, and when I ask what harm she can do him that
she hasn’t already done he simply repeats : “I’m
afraid, I'm afraid Don’t inquire too closely,” he
said last night ; ‘ only believe that I feel a sort of
terror. It's strange, when she's so kind At any rate,
I’d as soon overturn that piece of priceless Sèvres as
tell her I must go before my date.’ It sounds dread-
fully weak, but he has some reason, and he pays for
his imagination, which puts him (I should hate it) in
the place of others and makes him feel, even against
himself, their feelings, their appetites, their motives.
It's indeed inveterately against himself that he makes
I27
THE DEATH OF THE LION
his imagination act. What a pity he has such a lot
of it ! He's too beastly intelligent. Besides, the
famous reading's still to come off, and it has been
postponed a day to allow Guy Walsingham to arrive.
It appears this eminent lady's staying at a house a few
miles off, which means of course that Mrs. Wimbush
has forcibly annexed her. She's to come over in a day
or two—Mrs. Wimbush wants her to hear Mr. Paraday.
“To-day's wet and cold, and several of the Com-
pany, at the invitation of the Duke, have driven over
to luncheon at Bigwood. I saw poor Paraday wedge
himself, by command, into the little supplementary
seat of a brougham in which the Princess and Our
hostess were already ensconced. If the front glass
isn't open on his dear old back perhaps he'll survive.
Bigwood, I believe, is very grand and frigid, all
marble and precedence, and I wish him well out of
the adventure. I can’t tell you how much more and
more your attitude to him, in the midst of all this,
shines out by contrast. I never willingly talk to these
people about him, but see what a comfort I find it to
scribble to you ! I appreciate it—it keeps me warm ;
there are no fires in the house. Mrs. Wimbush goes
by the calendar, the temperature goes by the weather,
the weather goes by God knows what, and the Princess
is easily heated. I’ve nothing but my acrimony to
warm me, and have been out under an umbrella to
restore my circulation. Coming in an hour ago I
found Lady Augusta Minch rummaging about the
hall. When I asked her what she was looking for she
said she had mislaid something that Mr. Paraday had
lent her. I ascertained in a moment that the article
in question is a manuscript, and I’ve a foreboding that
it's the noble morsel he read me six weeks ago. When
I expressed my surprise that he should have bandied
about anything so precious (I happen to know it's
his only copy—in the most beautiful hand in all
I28
THE DEATH OF THE LION
the world) Lady Augusta confessed to me that she
hadn’t had it from himself, but from Mrs. Wimbush,
who had wished to give her a glimpse of it as a salve
for her not being able to stay and hear it read.
“‘Is that the piece he's to read,” I asked, ‘when
Guy Walsingham arrives 2 °
“‘It’s not for Guy Walsingham they're waiting
now, it's for Dora Forbes,’ Lady Augusta said. “She’s
coming, I believe, early to-morrow. Meanwhile Mrs.
Wimbush has found out about him, and is actively
wiring to him. She says he also must hear him.’
“‘You bewilder me a little,” I replied ; “in the
age we live in one gets lost among the genders and the
pronouns. The clear thing is that Mrs. Wimbush
doesn’t guard such a treasure so jealously as she
might.”
“‘Poor dear, she has the Princess to guard ' Mr.
Paraday lent her the manuscript to look over.’
“‘She spoke, you mean, as if it were the morning
paper ??
“Lady Augusta stared—my irony was lost on her.
‘She didn’t have time, so she gave me a chance first ;
because unfortunately I go to-morrow to Bigwood.’
“‘And your chance has only proved a chance to
lose it 2 °
“‘I haven’t lost it. I remember now—it was very
stupid of me to have forgotten. I told my maid to
give it to Lord Dorimont—or at least to his man.’
“‘And Lord Dorimont went away directly after
luncheon.’ g
“‘Of course he gave it back to my maid—or else
his man did,” said Lady Augusta. “I daresay it's all
right.”
“The conscience of these people is like a summer
sea. They haven’t time to ‘look over a priceless
composition ; they’ve only time to kick it about the
house. I suggested that the man,’ fired with a noble
I29 K
THE DEATH OF THE LION
emulation, had perhaps kept the work for his own
perusal ; and her ladyship wanted to know whether,
if the thing shouldn't reappear for the grand occasion
appointed by our hostess, the author wouldn’t have
something else to read that would do just as well.
Their questions are too delightfull I declared to
Lady Augusta briefly that nothing in the world can
ever do so well as the thing that does best ; and at this
she looked a little disconcerted. But I added that if
the manuscript had gone astray our little circle would
have the less of an effort of attention to make. The
piece in question was very long—it would keep them
three hours.
“‘Three hours Oh the Princess will get up !”
Said Lady Augusta.
“‘I thought she was Mr. Paraday's greatest
admirer.’
“‘I daresay she is—she's so awfully clever. But
what's the use of being a Princess P
“‘If you can’t dissemble your love 2 " I asked as
Lady Augusta was vague. She said at any rate that
she’d question her maid ; and I'm hoping that when
I go down to dinner I shall find the manuscript has
been recovered.”
I30
X
“IT has not been recovered,” I wrote early the next
day, “ and I’m moreover much troubled about our
friend. He came back from Bigwood with a chill and,
being allowed to have a fire in his room, lay down
a while before dinner. I tried to send him to bed and
indeed thought I had put him in the way of it; but
after I had gone to dress Mrs. Wimbush came up to
see him, with the inevitable result that when I
returned I found him under arms and flushed and
feverish, though decorated with the rare flower she
had brought him for his button-hole. He came down
to dinner, but Lady Augusta Minch was very shy of
him. To-day he's in great pain, and the advent
of ces dames—I mean of Guy Walsingham and Dora
Forbes—doesn’t at all console me. It does Mrs.
Wimbush, however, for she has consented to his
remaining in bed so that he may be all right to-
morrow for the listening circle. Guy Walsingham's
already on the scene, and the doctor for Paraday also
arrived early. I haven’t yet seen the author of
‘Obsessions,’ but of course I’ve had a moment by
myself with the Doctor. I tried to get him to say
that our invalid must go straight home—I mean
to-morrow or next day; but he quite refuses to talk
about the future. Absolute quiet and warmth and the
regular administration of an important remedy are
the points he mainly insists on. He returns this
I31
THE DEATH OF THE LION
afternoon, and I’m to go back to see the patient at
one o'clock, when he next takes his medicine. It
consoles me a little that he certainly won’t be able to
read—an exertion he was already more than unfit
for. Lady Augusta went off after breakfast, assuring
me her first care would be to follow up the lost
manuscript. I can see she thinks me a shocking
busybody and doesn’t understand my alarm, but
she’ll do what she can, for she's a good-natured
woman. “So are they all honourable men.' That
was precisely what made her give the thing to Lord
Dorimont and made Lord Dorimont bag it. What
use he has for it God only knows. I’ve the worst
forebodings, but somehow I’m strangely without
passion—desperately calm. As I consider the un-
conscious, the well-meaning ravages of our apprecia-
tive circle I bow my head in submission to some great
natural, some universal accident ; I’m rendered
almost indifferent, in fact quite gay (ha-hal) by the
sense of immitigable fate. Lady Augusta promises
me to trace the precious object and let me have it
through the post by the time Paraday's well enough
to play his part with it. The last evidence is that
her maid did give it to his lordship's valet. One
would suppose it some thrilling number of The
Family Budget. Mrs. Wimbush, who's aware of the
accident, is much less agitated by it than she would
doubtless be were she not for the hour inevitably
engrossed with Guy Walsingham.”
Later in the day I informed my correspondent, for
whom indeed I kept a loose diary of the situation,
that I had made the acquaintance of this celebrity
and that she was a pretty little girl who wore her hair
in what used to be called a crop. She looked so
juvenile and so innocent that if, as Mr. Morrow had
announced, she was resigned to the larger latitude,
her superiority to prejudice must have come to her
I32
THE DEATH OF THE LION
early. I spent most of the day hovering about Neil
Paraday's room, but it was communicated to me from
below that Guy Walsingham, at Prestidge, was a
success. Toward evening I became conscious some-
how that her superiority was contagious, and by
the time the company separated for the night I was
sure the larger latitude had been generally accepted.
I thought of Dora Forbes and felt that he had no
time to lose. Before dinner I received a telegram
from Lady Augusta Minch. “Lord Dorimont thinks
he must have left bundle in train—inquire.” How
could I inquire—if I was to take the word as a com-
mand 2 I was too worried and now too alarmed
about Neil Paraday. The Doctor came back, and
it was an immense satisfaction to me to be sure he was
wise and interested. He was proud of being called
to so distinguished a patient, but he admitted to me
that night that my friend was gravely ill. It was
really a relapse, a recrudescence of his old malady.
There could be no question of moving him : we must
at any rate see first, on the spot, what turn his
condition would take. Meanwhile, on the morrow,
he was to have a nurse. On the morrow the dear
man was easier, and my spirits rose to such cheerful-
ness that I could almost laugh over Lady Augusta's
second telegram : “Lord Dorimont's servant been
to station—nothing found. Push inquiries.” I did
laugh, I’m sure, as I remembered this to be the mystic
scroll I had scarcely allowed poor Mr. Morrow to
point his umbrella at. Fool that I had been ; the
thirty-seven influential journals wouldn’t have
destroyed it, they'd only have printed it. Of course
I said nothing to Paraday.
When the nurse arrived she turned me out of the
room, on which I went downstairs. I should premise
that at breakfast the news that our brilliant friend
was doing well excited universal complacency, and
I33
THE DEATH OF THE LION
\
the Princess graciously remarked that he was only
to be commiserated for missing the society of Miss
Collop. Mrs. Wimbush, whose social gift never shone
brighter than in the dry decorum with which she
accepted this fizzle in her fireworks, mentioned to
me that Guy Walsingham had made a very favour-
able impression on her Imperial Highness. Indeed I
think every one did so, and that, like the money-
market or the national honour, her Imperial Highness
was constitutionally sensitive. There was a certain
gladness, a perceptible bustle in the air, however,
which I thought slightly anomalous in a house where
a great author lay critically ill. “Le roy est mort—
vive le roy '': I was reminded that another great
author had already stepped into his shoes. When I
came down again after the nurse had taken possession
I found a strange gentleman hanging about the hall
and pacing to and fro by the closed door of the
drawing-room. This personage was florid and bald ;
he had a big red moustache and wore showy knicker-
bockers—characteristics all that fitted to my con-
ception of the identity of Dora Forbes. In a moment
I saw what had happened : the author of “The
Other Way Round" had just alighted at the portals
of Prestidge, but had suffered a scruple to restrain
him from penetrating further. I recognised his
Scruple when, pausing to listen at his gesture of
caution, I heard a shrill voice lifted in a sort of
rhythmic uncanny chant. The famous reading had
begun, only it was the author of “Obsessions” who now
furnished the sacrifice. The new visitor whispered
to me that he judged something was going on he
oughtn't to interrupt.
“Miss Collop arrived last night,” I smiled, “and
the Princess has a thirst for the inédit.”
Dora Forbes raised his bushy brows. “Miss
Collop 2 °
I34
THE DEATH OF THE LION
“Guy Walsingham, your distinguished confrère—
or shall I say your formidable rival 2 ”
“Oh ” growled Dora Forbes. Then he added :
“Shall I spoil it if I go in 2 ”
“I should think nothing could spoil it !” I
ambiguously laughed.
Dora Forbes evidently felt the dilemma ; he gave
an irritated crook to his moustache. “Shall I go
in 2 ” he presently asked.
We looked at each other hard a moment ; then
I expressed something bitter that was in me, expressed
it in an infernal “Do I " After this I got out into
the air, but not so fast as not to hear, when the
door of the drawing-room opened, the disconcerted
drop of Miss Collop's public manner: she must have
been in the midst of the larger latitude. Producing
with extreme rapidity, Guy Walsingham has just
published a work in which amiable people who are
not initiated have been pained to see the genius of
a sister-novelist held up to unmistakable ridicule ; so
fresh an exhibition does it seem to them of the dread-
ful way men have always treated women. Dora
Forbes, it's true, at the present hour, is immensely
pushed by Mrs. Wimbush and has sat for his portrait
to the young artists she protects, sat for it not only
in oils but in monumental alabaster.
What happened at Prestidge later in the day is of
course contemporary history. If the interruption I
had whimsically sanctioned was almost a Scandal,
what is to be said of that general scatter of the com-
pany which, under, the Doctor's rule, began to take
place in the evening 2 His rule was soothing to
behold, small comfort as I was to have at the end.
He decreed in the interest of his patient an absolutely
soundless house and a consequent break-up of the
party. Little country practitioner as he was, he
literally packed off the Princess. She departed as
I35
THE DEATH OF THE LION
promptly as if a revolution had broken out, and Guy
Walsingham emigrated with her. I was kindly per-
mitted to remain, and this was not denied even to
Mrs. Wimbush. The privilege was withheld indeed
from Dora Forbes; so Mrs. Wimbush kept her latest
capture temporarily concealed. This was so little,
however, her usual way of dealing with her eminent
friends that a couple of days of it exhausted her
patience and she went up to town with him in great
publicity. The sudden turn for the worse her afflicted
guest had, after a brief improvement, taken on the
third night raised an obstacle to her seeing him before
her retreat ; a fortunate circumstance doubtless, for
she was fundamentally disappointed in him. This
was not the kind of performance for which she had
invited him to Prestidge, let alone invited the Princess.
I must add that none of the generous acts marking
her patronage of intellectual and other merit have
done so much for her reputation as her lending Neil
Paraday the most beautiful of her numerous homes
to die in. He took advantage to the utmost of the
singular favour. Day by day I saw him sink, and I
roamed alone about the empty terraces and gardens.
His wife never came near him, but I scarcely noticed
it : as I paced there with rage in my heart I was too
full of another wrong. In the event of his death it
would fall to me perhaps to bring out in some charm-
ing form, with notes, with the tenderest editorial care,
that precious heritage of his written project. But
where was that precious heritage, and were both the
author and the book to have been snatched from us?
Lady Augusta wrote me she had done all she could
and that poor Lord Dorimont, who had really been
worried to death, was extremely sorry. I couldn’t
have the matter out with Mrs. Wimbush, for I didn’t
want to be taunted by her with desiring to aggrandise
myself by a public connexion with Mr. Paraday's
I36
THE DEATH OF THE LION
Sweepings. She had signified her willingness to meet
the expense of all advertising, as indeed she was
always ready to do. The last night of the horrible
series, the night before he died, I put my ear closer to
his pillow.
“That thing I read you that morning, you know.”
“In your garden that dreadful day ? Yes! ”
“Won’t it do as it is 2 ”
“It would have been a glorious book.”
“It is a glorious book,” Neil Paraday murmured.
“Print it as it stands—beautifully.”
“Beautifully l’” I passionately promised.
It may be imagined whether, now that he's gone,
the promise seems to me less sacred. I’m convinced
that if such pages had appeared in his lifetime the
Abbey would hold him to-day. I've kept the adver-
tising in my own hands, but the manuscript has not
been recovered. It's impossible, and at any rate in-
tolerable, to suppose it can have been wantonly
destroyed. Perhaps some hazard of a blind hand,
Some brutal fatal ignorance has lighted kitchen-fires
with it. Every stupid and hideous accident haunts
my meditations. My undiscourageable search for
the lost treasure would make a long chapter. Fortu-
nately I’ve a devoted associate in the person of a young
lady who has every day a fresh indignation and a
fresh idea, and who maintains with intensity that the
prize will still turn up. Sometimes I believe her, but
I’ve quite ceased to believe myself. The only thing
for us at all events is to go on seeking and hoping
together, and we should be closely united by this
firm tie even were we not at present by another.
I37
THE NEXT TIME
I39
MRS. HIGHMORE’s errand this morning was odd
enough to deserve commemoration : she came to
ask me to write a notice of her great forthcoming
work. Her great works have come forth so frequently
without my assistance that I was sufficiently entitled
on this occasion to open my eyes; but what really
made me stare was the ground on which her request
reposed, and what prompts a note of the matter is the
train of memory lighted by that explanation. Poor
Ray Limbert, while we talked, seemed to sit there
between us : she reminded me that my acquaintance
with him had begun, eighteen years ago, with her
having come in, precisely as she came to-day before
luncheon, to bespeak my charity for him. If she
didn’t know then how little my charity was worth
she's at least enlightened now, and this is just what
makes the drollery of her visit. As I hold up the
torch to the dusky years—by which I mean as I
cipher up with a pen that stumbles and stops the
figured column of my reminiscences—I see that
Limbert's public hour, or at least my Small appre-
hension of it, is rounded by those two occasions. It
was finis, with a little moralising flourish, that Mrs.
Highmore seemed to trace to-day at the bottom of
the page. “One of the most voluminous writers
of the time,” she has often repeated this sign ; but
never, I daresay, in spite of her professional command
of appropriate emotion, with an equal sense of that
mystery and that sadness of things which to people
I4I
THE NEXT TIME
of imagination generally hover over the close of human
histories. This romance at any rate is bracketed by
her early and her late appeal; and when its melan-
choly protrusions had caught the declining light again
from my half-hour's talk with her I took a private
vow to recover while that light still lingers something
of the delicate flush, to pick out with a brief patience
the perplexing lesson.
It was wonderful to see how for herself Mrs. High-
more had already done so : she wouldn’t have
hesitated to announce to me what was the matter
with Ralph Limbert, or at all events to give me a
glimpse of the high admonition she had read in his
career. There could have been no better proof of
the vividness of this parable, which we were really
in our pleasant sympathy quite at one about, than
that Mrs. Highmore, of all hardened sinners, should
have been converted. It wasn’t indeed news to me :
she impressed on me that for the last ten years she
had wanted to do something artistic, something as to
which she was prepared not to care a rap whether or
no it should sell. She brought home to me further
that it had been mainly seeing what her brother-in-
law did and how he did it that had wedded her to this
perversity. As he didn’t sell, dear soul, and as several
persons, of whom I was one, thought highly of that,
the fancy had taken her—taken her even quite early
in her prolific course—of reaching, if only once, the
same heroic eminence. She yearned to be, like
Limbert, but of course only once, an exquisite failure.
There was something a failure was, a failure in the
market, that a success somehow wasn’t. A success
was as prosaic as a good dinner : there was nothing
more to be said about it than that you had had it.
Who but vulgar people, in such a case, made gloating
remarks about the courses 2 It was often by such
vulgar people that a success was attested. It made,
I42
THE NEXT TIME
if you came to look at it, nothing but money; that
is, it made so much that any other result showed small
in comparison. A failure now could make—oh with
the aid of immense talent of course, for there were
failures and failures—such a reputation | She did
me the honour—she had often done it—to intimate
that what she meant by reputation was seeing me
toss a flower. If it took a failure to catch a failure
I was by my own admission well qualified to place
the laurel. It was because she had made so much
money and Mr. Highmore had taken such care of it
that she could treat herself to an hour of pure glory.
She perfectly remembered that as often as I had
heard her heave that sigh I had been prompt with
my declaration that a book sold might easily be as
glorious as a book unsold. Of course she knew this,
but she knew also that it was the age of trash
triumphant and that she had never heard me speak
of anything that had “done well” exactly as she had
sometimes heard me speak of something that hadn’t
—with just two or three words of respect which,
when I used them, seemed to convey more than they
commonly stood for, seemed to hush the discussion
up a little, as for the very beauty of the secret.
I may declare in regard to these allusions that,
whatever I then thought of myself as a holder of the
scales, I had never scrupled to laugh out at the
humour of Mrs. Highmore's pursuit of quality at
any price. It had never rescued her even for a day
from the hard doom of popularity, and though I never
gave her my word for it there was no reason at all
why it should. The public would have her, as her
husband used roguishly to remark; not indeed that,
making her bargains, standing up to her publishers,
and even in his higher flights to her reviewers, he
ever had a glimpse of her attempted conspiracy
against her genius, or rather, as I may say, against
I43
THE NEXT TIME
mine. It wasn’t that when she tried to be what she
called subtle (for wasn’t Limbert subtle, and wasn’t
I?) her fond consumers, bless them, didn't suspect
the trick nor show what they thought of it : they
straightway rose on the contrary to the morsel she
had hoped to hold too high, and, making but a big
cheerful bite of it, wagged their great collective tail
artlessly for more. It was not given to her not to
please, not granted even to her best refinements
to affright. I had always respected the mystery of
those humiliations, but I was fully aware this morning
that they were practically the reason why she had
come to me. Therefore when she said with the flush
of a bold joke in her kind coarse face, “What I feel
is, you know, that you could settle me if you only
would,” I knew quite well what she meant. She
meant that of old it had always appeared to be the
fine blade (as some one had hyperbolically called it)
of my particular opinion that snapped the silken
thread by which Limbert's chance in the market
was wont to hang. She meant that my favour was
compromising, that my praise indeed was fatal. I
had cultivated the queer habit of seeing nothing
in certain celebrities, of seeing overmuch in an
occasional nobody, and of judging from a point of
view that, say what I would for it (and I had a
monstrous deal to say), mostly remained perverse and
obscure. Mine was in short the love that killed, for
my subtlety, unlike Mrs. Highmore's, produced no
tremor of the public tail. She hadn't forgotten how,
toward the end, when his case was worst, Limbert
would absolutely come to me with an odd shy pathos
in his eyes and say: “My dear fellow, I think I’ve
done it this time, if you’ll only keep quiet.” If my
keeping quiet in those days was to help him to
appear to have hit the usual taste, for the want of
which he was starving, so now my breaking-out
I44
THE NEXT TIME
was to help Mrs. Highmore to appear to have hit
the unusual.
The moral of all this was that I had frightened the
public too much for our late friend, but that as she
was not starving this was exactly what her grosser
reputation required. And then, she good-naturedly
and delicately intimated, there would always be, if
further reasons were wanting, the price of my clever
little article. I think she gave that hint with a flatter-
ing impression—spoiled child of the booksellers as she
is—that the offered fee for my clever little articles
is heavy. Whatever it is, at any rate, she had
evidently reflected that poor Limbert's anxiety for
his own profit used to involve my sacrificing mine.
Any inconvenience that my obliging her might entail
would not in fine be pecuniary. Her appeal, her
motive, her fantastic thirst for quality and her in-
genious theory of my influence struck me all as
excellent comedy, and when I consented at hazard
to oblige her she left me the sheets of her new novel.
I could plead no inconvenience and have been looking
them over ; but I’m frankly appalled at what she
expects of me. What's she thinking of, poor dear,
and what has put it into her head that the muse of
“quality “ has ever sat with her for so much as three
minutes ? Why does she suppose that she has been
“artistic ’’ 2 She hasn’t been anything whatever, I
surmise, that she hasn’t inveterately been. What
does she imagine she has left out 2 What does she
conceive she has put in 2 She has neither left out
nor put in anything. I shall have to write her an
embarrassed note. The book doesn’t exist and there's
nothing in life to say about it. How can there be
anything but the same old faithful rush for it 2
I45 L
I
THIS rush had already begun when, early in the
seventies, in the interest of her prospective brother-
in-law, she approached me on the singular ground of
the unencouraged sentiment I had entertained for
her sister. Pretty pink Maud had cast me out, but
I appear to have passed in the flurried little circle for
a magnanimous youth. Pretty pink Maud, so lovely
then, before her troubles, that dusky Jane was grate-
fully conscious of all she made up for, Maud Stannace,
very literary too, very languishing and extremely
bullied by her mother, had yielded, invidiously as it
might have struck me, to Ray Limbert's suit, which
Mrs. Stannace wasn’t the woman to stomach. Mrs.
Stannace was seldom the woman to do anything :
she had been shocked at the way her children, with
the grubby taint of their father's blood—he had
published pale Remains or flat Conversations of his
father—breathed the alien air of authorship. If not
the daughter, nor even the niece, she was, if I’m not
mistaken, the second cousin of a hundred earls and
a great stickler for relationship, so that she had other
views for her brilliant child, especially after her quiet
one—such had been her original discreet forecast of
the producer of eighty volumes—became the second
wife of an ex-army-surgeon, already the father of four
children. Mrs. Stannace had too manifestly dreamed
it would be given to pretty pink Maud to detach some
I46
THE NEXT TIME
one of the noble hundred, who wouldn’t be missed,
from the cluster. It was because she cared only for
cousins that I unlearnt the way to her house, which
she had once reminded me was one of the few paths
of gentility I could hope to tread. Ralph Limbert,
who belonged to nobody and had done nothing—
nothing even at Cambridge—had only the uncanny
Spell he had cast on her younger daughter to recom-
mend him ; but if her younger daughter had a spark
of filial feeling she wouldn't commit the indecency of
deserting for his sake a deeply dependent and intensely
aggravated mother.
These things I learned from Jane Highmore, who,
as if her books had been babies—they remained her
only ones—had waited till after marriage to show
what she could do, and now bade fair to surround her
satisfied spouse (he took, for some mysterious reason,
a part of the credit) with a little family, in sets of
triplets, which properly handled would be the support
of his declining years. The young couple, neither of
whom had a penny, were now virtually engaged : the
thing was subject to Ralph's putting his hand on
some regular employment. People more enamoured
couldn’t be conceived, and Mrs. Highmore, honest
woman, who had moreover a professional sense for a
love-story, was eager to take them under her wing.
What was wanted was a decent opening for Limbert,
which it had occurred to her I might assist her to
find, though indeed I had not yet found any such
matter for myself. But it was well known that I was
too particular, whereas poor Ralph, with the easy
manners of genius, was ready to accept almost any-
thing to which a salary, even a small one, was attached.
If he could only for instance get a place on a newspaper
the rest of his maintenance would come freely enough.
It was true that his two novels, one of which she had
brought to leave with me, had passed unperceived,
I47
THE NEXT TIME
and that to her, . Mrs. Highmore personally, they
didn't irresistibly appeal; but she could all the same
assure me that I should have only to spend ten
minutes with him—and our encounter must speedily
take place—to receive an impression of latent power.
Our encounter took place soon after I had read the
volumes Mrs. Highmore had left with me, in which I
recognised an intention of a sort that I had then
pretty well given up the hope of meeting. I daresay
that without knowing it I had been looking out rather
hungrily for an altar of sacrifice : however that may
be, I submitted when I came across Ralph Limbert
to one of the rarest emotions of my literary life, the
sense of an activity in which I could critically rest.
The rest was deep and salutary, and has not been
disturbed to this hour. It has been a long large
surrender, the luxury of dropped discriminations.
He couldn’t trouble me, whatever he did, for I
practically enjoyed him as much when he was worse
as when he was better. It was a case, I suppose, of
natural prearrangement, in which, I hasten to add,
I keep excellent company. We’re a numerous band,
partakers of the same repose, who sit together in the
shade of the tree, by the plash of the fountain, with
the glare of the desert round us and no great vice that
I know of but the habit perhaps of estimating people
a little too much by what they think of a certain style.
If it had been laid upon these few pages, none the less,
to be the history of an enthusiasm, I shouldn’t have
undertaken them : they're concerned with Ralph
Limbert in relations to which I was a stranger or in
which I participated but by sympathy. I used to
talk about his work, but I seldom talk now : the
brotherhood of the faith have become, like the
Trappists, a silent order. If to the day of his death,
after mortal disenchantments, the impression he first
produced always evoked the word “ingenuous,”
I48
THE NEXT TIME
those to whom his face was familiar can easily imagine
what it must have been when it still had the light of
youth. I had never seen a man of genius show so
for passive, a man of experience so off his guard.
At the time I made his acquaintance this freshness
was all unbrushed. His foot had begun to stumble,
but he was full of big intentions and of sweet Maud
Stannace. Black-haired and pale, deceptively lan-
guid, he had the eyes of a clever child and the
voice of a bronze bell. He saw more even than I
had done in the girl he was engaged to ; as time went
on I became conscious that we had both, properly
enough, seen rather more than there was. Our odd
Situation, that of the three of us, became perfectly
possible from the moment I recognised how much
more patience he had with her than I should have
had. I was happy at not having to supply this
quantity, and she, on her side, found pleasure in
being able to be impertinent to me without incurring
the reproach of the bad wife.
Limbert's novels appeared to have brought him
no money : they had only brought him, so far as I
could then make out, tributes that took up his time.
These indeed brought him from several quarters
Some other things, and on my part at the end of three
months The Blackport Beacon. I don’t to-day re-
member how I obtained for him the London corre-
Spondence of the great northern organ, unless it was
through somebody's having obtained it for myself.
I seem to recall that I got rid of it in Limbert's
interest, urging on the editor that he was much the
better man. The better man was naturally the man
who had pledged himself at the altar to provide for a
charming woman. We were neither of us good, as
the event proved, but he had the braver badness.
The Blackport Beacon rejoiced in two London corre-
spondents—one a supposed haunter of political circles,
I49
THE NEXT TIME
the other a votary of questions sketchily classified as
literary. They were both expected to be lively, and
what was held out to each was that it was honourably
open to him to be livelier than the other. I recollect
the political correspondent of that period and how
the problem offered to Ray Limbert was to try to be
livelier than Pat Moyle. He had not yet seemed to
me so candid as when he undertook this exploit, which
brought matters to a head with Mrs. Stannace, inas-
much as her opposition to the marriage now logically
fell to the ground. It's all tears and laughter as I
look back upon that admirable time, in which nothing
was so romantic as our intense vision of the real. No
fool's paradise ever rustled such a cradle-song. It
was anything but Bohemia—it was the very temple
of Mrs. Grundy. We knew we were too critical, and
that made us sublimely indulgent; we believed we
did our duty or wanted to, and that made us free to
dream. But we dreamed over the multiplication-
table ; we were nothing if not practical. Oh the
long Smokes and sudden happy thoughts, the knowing
hints and banished scruples | The great thing was
for Limbert to bring out his next book, which was
just what his delightful engagement with the Beacon
would give him leisure and liberty to do. The kind
of work, all human and elastic and suggestive, was
capital experience : in picking up things for his bi-
weekly letter he would pick up life as well, he would
pick up literature. The new publications, the new
pictures, the new people—there would be nothing
too novel for us and nobody too sacred. We intro-
duced everything and everybody into Mrs. Stannace's
drawing-room, of which I again became a familiar.
Mrs. Stannace, it was true, thought herself in
strange company ; she didn’t particularly mind the
new books, though some of them seemed queer
enough, but to the new people she had decided
I50
THE NEXT TIME
objections. It was notorious, however, that poor
Lady Robeck secretly wrote for one of the papers,
and the thing had certainly, in its glance at the doings
of the great world, a side that might be made attract-
ive. But we were going to make every side attractive
and we had everything to say about the sort of thing
a paper like the Beacon would want. To give it what
it would want and to give it nothing else was not
doubtless an inspiring but was a perfectly respectable
task, especially for a man with an appealing bride
and a contentious mother-in-law. I thought Lim-
bert's first letters as charming as the type allowed,
though I won’t deny that in spite of my sense of the
importance of concessions I was just a trifle dis-
concerted at the way he had caught the tone. The
tone was of course to be caught, but need it have
been caught so in the act P The creature was even
cleverer, as Maud Stannace said, than she had
ventured to hope. Verily it was a good thing to have
a dose of the wisdom of the serpent. If it had to be
journalism—well, it was journalism. If he had to be
“chatty"—well, he was chatty. Now and then he
made a hit that—it was stupid of me—brought the
blood to my face. I hated him to be so personal; but
still, if it would make his fortune ! It wouldn’t
of course directly, but the book would, practically
and in the sense to which our pure ideas of fortune
were confined ; and these things were all for the book.
The daily balm meanwhile was in what one knew of
the book—there were exquisite things to know ; in
the quiet monthly cheques from Blackport and in the
deeper rose of Maud's little preparations, which were
as dainty, on their tiny scale, as if she had been a
humming-bird building a nest. When at the end of
three months her betrothed had fairly settled down
to his correspondence—in which Mrs. Highmore
was the only person, so far as we could discover, dis-
I5I
THE NEXT TIME
appointed, even she moreover being in this particular
tortuous and possibly jealous ; when the situation had
assumed such a comfortable shape it was quite time
to prepare. I published at that moment my first
volume, mere faded ink to-day, a little collection of
literary impressions, odds and ends of criticism con-
tributed to a journal less remunerative but also less
chatty than the Beacon, small ironies and ecstasies,
great phrases and mistakes; and the very week it
came out poor Limbert devoted half of one of his
letters to it, with the happy sense this time of grati-
fying both himself and me as well as the Blackport
breakfast-tables. I remember his saying it wasn't
literature, the stuff, superficial stuff, he had to write
about me ; but what did that matter if it came back,
as we knew, to the making for literature in the round-
about way ? I had sold the thing, I recall, for ten
pounds, and with the money I bought in Vigo Street
a quaint piece of old silver for Maud Stannace, which
I carried her with my own hand as a wedding-gift.
In her mother's small drawing-room, a faded bower
of photography fenced in and bedimmed by folding
screens out of which sallow persons of fashion with
dashing signatures looked at you from retouched
eyes and little windows of plush, I was left to wait
long enough to feel in the air of the house a hushed
vibration of disaster. When our young lady came in
she was very pale and her eyes too had been retouched.
“Something horrid has happened,” I at once said ;
and having really all along but half-believed in her
mother's meagre permission, I risked with an un-
guarded groan the introduction of Mrs. Stannace's
Ila.II 162.
“Yes, she has made a dreadful scene ; she insists
on our putting it off again. We're very unhappy :
poor Ray has been turned off.” Her tears recom-
menced to flow.
I52
THE NEXT TIME
I had such a good conscience that I stared.
“Turned off what 2 ''
“Why, his paper of course. The Beacon has
given him what he calls the sack. They don’t like
his letters—they're not the style of thing they
want.”
My blankness could only deepen. “Then what
style of thing, in God’s name, do they want 2 ”
“Something more chatty.”
“More ?” I cried, aghast.
“More gossipy, more personal. They want
‘journalism.” They want tremendous trash.”
“Why, that’s just what his letters have been l’’
I broke out.
This was strong, and I caught myself up, but the
girl offered me the pardon of a beautiful wan smile.
“So Ray himself declares. He says he has stooped
so low.”
“Very well—he must stoop lower. He must keep
the place.”
“He can’t l” poor Maud wailed. “He says he
has tried all he knows, has been abject, has gone on
all-fours, has crawled like a worm ; and that if they
don’t like that y y
“He accepts his dismissal 2 ” I interposed in
dismay.
She gave a tragic shrug. “What other course is
open to him 2 He wrote to them that such work as
he has done is the very worst he can do for the
money.”
“Therefore,” I pressed with a flash of hope,
“they’ll offer him more for worse 2 ”
“No indeed,” she answered, “they haven’t even
offered him to go on at a reduction. He isn't funny
enough.”
I reflected a moment. “But surely such a thing
as his notice of my book ! ” -
I53
THE NEXT TIME
“It was your wretched book that was the last
straw He should have treated it superficially.”
“Well, if he didn't—l ”I began. Then I checked
myself. “Je vous porte malheur.”
She didn’t deny this; she only went on : “What
on earth is he to do 2 ”
“He’s to do better than the monkeys He's to
Write l’’
“But what on earth are we to marry on ?”
I considered once more. “You’re to marry on
‘The Major Key.’”
I54
II
“THE Major Key’’ was the new novel, and the great
thing accordingly was to finish it ; a consummation
for which three months of the Beacon had in some
degree prepared the way. The action of that journal
was indeed a shock, but I didn’t know then the
worst, didn’t know that in addition to being a shock
it was also a symptom. It was the first hint of the
difficulty to which poor Limbert was eventually to
succumb. His state was the happier, of a truth, for
his not immediately seeing all it meant. Difficulty
was the law of life, but one could thank heaven it was
quite abnormally present in that awful connexion.
There was the difficulty that inspired, the difficulty
of “The Major Key’ to wit, which it was after all base
to sacrifice to the turning of somersaults for pennies.
These convictions my friend beguiled his fresh wait
by blandly entertaining : not indeed, I think, that
the failure of his attempt to be chatty didn’t leave
him slightly humiliated. If it was bad enough to
have grinned through a horse-collar it was very bad
indeed to have grinned in vain. Well, he would try
no more grinning or at least no more horse-collars.
The only success worth one's powder was success in
the line of one's idiosyncrasy. Consistency was in
itself distinction, and what was talent but the art of
being completely whatever it was that one happened
to be 2 One's things were characteristic or they were
I55
THE NEXT TIME
nothing. I look back rather fondly on our having
exchanged in those days these admirable remarks
and many others; on our having been very happy
too, in spite of postponements and obscurities, in
spite also of such occasional hauntings as could spring
from our lurid glimpse of the fact that even twaddle
cunningly calculated was far above people's heads.
It was easy to wave away spectres by the reflexion
that all one had to do was not to write for people ;
it was certainly not for people that Limbert wrote
while he hammered at “The Major Key.” The taint
of literature was fatal only in a certain kind of air,
which was precisely the kind against which we had
now closed our window. Mrs. Stannace rose from
her crumpled cushions as soon as she had obtained
an adjournment, and Maud looked pale and proud,
quite victorious and superior, at her having obtained
nothing more. Maud behaved well, I thought, to
her mother, and well indeed, for a girl who had
mainly been taught to be flowerlike, to every one.
What she gave Ray Limbert her fine abundant needs
made him then and ever pay for ; but the gift was
liberal, almost wonderful—an assertion I make even
while remembering to how many clever women,
early and late, his work has been dear. It was not
only that the woman he was to marry was in love
with him, but that—this was the strangeness—she
had really seen almost better than any one what he
could do. The greatest strangeness was that she
didn't want him to do something different. This
boundless belief was indeed the main way of her
devotion ; and as an act of faith it naturally asked
for miracles. She was a rare wife for a poet, if she
was not perhaps the best to have been picked out for
a poor man.
Well, we were to have the miracles at all events
and we were in a perfect state of mind to receive them.
I56
THE NEXT TIME
There were more of us every day, and we thought
highly even of our friend's odd jobs and pot-boilers.
The Beacon had had no successor, but he found
Some quiet corners and stray chances. Perpetually
poking the fire and looking out of the window, he
was certainly not a monster of facility, but he was,
thanks perhaps to a certain method in that madness,
a monster of certainty. It wasn’t every one, however,
who knew him for this : many editors printed him
but once. He was getting a small reputation as a
man it was well to have the first time ; he created
obscure apprehensions as to what might happen the
Second. He was good for making an impression, but
no one seemed exactly to know what the impression
was good for when made. The reason was simply that
they had not seen yet “The Major Key,” that fiery-
hearted rose as to which we watched in private the
formation of petal after petal and flame after flame.
Nothing mattered but this, for it had already elicited
a splendid bid, much talked about in Mrs. Highmore's
drawing-room, where at this point my reminiscences
grow particularly thick. Her roses bloomed all the
year and her sociability increased with her row of
prizes. We had an idea that we “met every one ‘’
there—so we naturally thought when we met each
other. Between our hostess and Ray Limbert
flourished the happiest relation, the only cloud on
which was that her husband eyed him rather askance.
When he was called clever this personage wanted to
know what he had to “show ’’; and it was certain
that he showed nothing that could compare with
Jane Highmore. Mr. Highmore took his stand on
accomplished work and, turning up his coat-tails,
warmed his rear with a good conscience at the neat
bookcase in which the generations of triplets were
chronologically arranged. The harmony between his
companions rested on the fact that, as I have already
I57
THE NEXT TIME
hinted, each would have liked so much to be the
other. Limbert couldn’t but have a feeling about a
woman who in addition to being the best creature
and her sister's backer would have made, could she
have condescended, such a success with the Beacon.
On the other hand Mrs. Highmore used freely to say:
“Do you know, he’ll do exactly the thing that I
want to do 2 I shall never do it myself, but he'll
do it instead. Yes, he'll do my thing, and I shall
hate him for it—the wretch.” Hating him was her
pleasant humour, for the wretch was personally to
her taste.
She prevailed on her own publisher to promise to
take “The Major Key ’’ and to engage to pay a con-
siderable sum down, as the phrase is, on the presump-
tion of its attracting attention. This was good news
for the evening's end at Mrs. Highmore's when there
were only four or five left and cigarettes ran low ;
but there was better to come, and I have never for-
gotten how, as it was I who had the good fortune to
bring it, I kept it back on one of those occasions, for
the sake of my effect, till only the right people
remained. The right people were now more and
more numerous, but this was a revelation addressed
only to a choice residuum—a residuum including of
course Limbert himself, with whom I haggled for
another cigarette before I announced that as a conse-
quence of an interview I had had with him that after-
noon, and of a subtle argument I had brought to bear,
Mrs. Highmore's pearl of publishers had agreed to
put forth the new book as a serial. He was to “run”
it in his magazine and he was to pay ever so much
more for the privilege. I produced a fine gasp which
presently found a more articulate relief, but poor
Limbert's voice failed him once for all—he knew he
was to walk away with me—and it was some one
else who asked me what my subtle argument had
I58
THE NEXT TIME
been. I forget what florid description I then gave of
it : to-day I’ve no reason not to confess that it had
resided in the simple plea that the book was exquisite.
I had said: “Come, my dear friend, be original ; just
risk it for that ’’ My dear friend seemed to rise to
the chance, and I followed up my advantage, permit-
ting him honestly no illusion as to the nature of the
thing. He clutched interrogatively at two or three
attenuations, but I dashed them aside, leaving him
face to face with the formidable truth. It was just
a pure gem : was he the man not to flinch P His
danger appeared to have acted on him as the anaconda
acts on the rabbit ; fascinated and paralysed, he had
been engulfed in the long pink throat. When a week
before, at my request, Limbert had left with me for a
day the complete manuscript, beautifully copied out
by Maud Stannace, I had flushed with indignation at
its having to be said of the author of such pages that
he hadn’t the common means to marry. I had taken
the field in a great glow to repair this scandal, and it
was therefore quite directly my fault if three months
later, when “The Major Key’’ began to run, Mrs.
Stannace was driven to the wall. She had made a
condition of a fixed income, and at last a fixed income
was achieved.
She had to recognise it, and after much prostration
among the photographs she recognised it to the extent
of accepting some of the convenience of it in the form
of a project for a common household, to the expenses
of which each party should proportionately contribute.
Jane Highmore made a great point of her not being
left alone, but Mrs. Stannace herself determined the
proportion, which on Limbert's side at least and in
spite of many other fluctuations was never altered.
His income had been “fixed ” with a vengeance :
having painfully stooped to the comprehension of
it Mrs. Stannace rested on this effort to the end and
I59
THE NEXT TIME
asked no further question on the subject. “The Major
Key” in other words ran ever so long, and before it was
half out Limbert and Maud had been married and the
common household set up. These first months were
probably the happiest in the family annals, with
wedding-bells and budding laurels, the quiet assured
course of the book and the friendly familiar note,
round the corner, of Mrs. Highmore's big guns. They
gave Ralph time to block in another picture as well
as to let me know after a while that he had the happy
prospect of becoming a father. We had at times some
dispute as to whether “The Major Key’’ was making
an impression, but our difference could only be futile so
long as we were not agreed as to what an impression
consisted of. Several persons wrote to the author
and several others asked to be introduced to him :
wasn’t that an impression ? One of the lively
“weeklies,” snapping at the deadly “monthlies,”
said the whole thing was “grossly inartistic ’’—wasn’t
that ? It was somewhere else proclaimed “a wonder-
fully subtle character-study *—wasn’t that too 2
The strongest effect doubtless was produced on the
publisher when, in its lemon-coloured volumes, like
a little dish of three custards, the book was at last
served cold : he never got his money back and so far
as I know has never got it back to this day. “The
Major Key ’’ was rather a great performance than a
great success. It converted readers into friends and
friends into lovers; it placed the author, as the phrase
is—placed him all too definitely ; but it shrank
to obscurity in the account of sales eventually
rendered. It was in short an exquisite thing, but
it was scarcely a thing to have published and certainly
not a thing to have married on. I heard all about
the matter, for my intervention had much exposed
me. Mrs. Highmore was emphatic as to the second
volume's having given her ideas, and the ideas are
I60
THE NEXT TIME
probably to be found in some of her works, to the
circulation of which they have even perhaps contri-
buted. This was not absolutely yet the very thing she
wanted to do—though on the way to it. So much,
she informed me, she particularly perceived in the
light of a critical study that I put forth in a little
magazine; a thing the publisher in his advertise-
ments quoted from profusely, and as to which there
sprang up some absurd story that Limbert him-
self had written it. I remember that on my asking
some one why such an idiotic thing had been said my
interlocutor replied : “Oh because, you know, it's
just the way he would have written ” My spirit
sank a little perhaps as I reflected that with such
analogies in our manner there might prove to be some
in our fate.
It was during the next four or five years that our
eyes were open to what, unless something could be
done, that fate, at least on Limbert's part, might be.
The thing to be done was of course to write the book,
the book that would make the difference, really justify
the burden he had accepted and consummately express
his power. For the works that followed upon “The
Major Key ’’ he had inevitably to accept conditions
the reverse of brilliant, at a time too when the strain
upon his resources had begun to show sharpness.
With three babies in due course, an ailing wife and
a complication still greater than these, it became
highly important that a man should do only his best.
Whatever Limbert did was his best ; so at least each
time I thought and so I unfailingly said somewhere,
though it was not my saying it, heaven knows, that
made the desired difference. Every one else indeed
said it, and there was among multiplied worries always
the comfort that his position was quite assured. The
two books that followed “The Major Key ’’ did more
than anything else to assure it, and Jane Highmore
I6I M. : :
* p
42
J e -
3 *
sº dº
*
*
& a
THE NEXT TIME
was always crying out : “You stand alone, dear Ray ;
you stand absolutely alone !” Dear Ray used to
leave me in no doubt of how he felt the truth of this
in feebly-attempted discussions with his bookseller.
His sister-in-law gave him good advice into the
bargain ; she was a repository of knowing hints, of
esoteric learning. These things were doubtless not
the less valuable to him for bearing wholly on the
question of how a reputation might be with a little
gumption, as Mrs. Highmore said, “worked.” Save
when she occasionally bore testimony to her desire
to do, as Limbert did, something some day for her own
very self, I never heard her speak of the literary
motive as if it were distinguishable from the pecuniary.
She cocked up his hat, she pricked up his prudence for
him, reminding him that as one seemed to take one's
self so the silly world was ready to take one. It was a
fatal mistake to be too candid even with those who
were all right—not to look and to talk prosperous, not
at least to pretend one had beautiful sales. To
listen to her you would have thought the profession of
letters a wonderful game of bluff. Wherever one's
idea began it ended somehow in inspired paragraphs
in the newspapers. “I pretend, I assure you, that
you're going off like wildfire—I can at least do that
for you ! ” she often declared, prevented as she was
from doing much else by Mr. Highmore's insur-
mountable objection to their taking Mrs. Stannace.
I couldn’t help regarding the presence of this latter
lady in Limbert's life as the major complication :
whatever he attempted it appeared given to him to
achieve as best he could in the mere margin of the
space in which she swung her petticoats. I may err
in the belief that she practically lived on him, for
though it was not in him to follow adequately Mrs.
Highmore's counsel there were exasperated confes-
sions he never made, scant domestic curtains he rattled
* * I62
sº
& • &
THE NEXT TIME
on their rings. I may exaggerate in the retrospect
his apparent anxieties, for these after all were the
years when his talent was freshest and when as a
writer he most laid down his line. It wasn’t of Mrs.
Stannace nor even as time went on of Mrs. Limbert
that we mainly talked when I got at longer intervals
a Smokier hour in the little grey den from which we
could step out, as we used to say, to the lawn. The
lawn was the back-garden, and Limbert's study was
behind the dining-room, with folding doors not im-
pervious to the clatter of the children's tea. We some-
times took refuge from it in the depths—a bush and
a half deep—of the shrubbery, where was a bench
that gave us while we gossiped a view of Mrs. Stan-
nace's tiara-like headdress nodding at an upper
window. Within doors and without Limbert's life
was overhung by an awful region that figured in
his conversation, comprehensively and with unpre-
meditated art, as Upstairs. It was Upstairs that the
thunder gathered, that Mrs. Stannace kept her
accounts and her state, that Mrs. Limbert had her
babies and her headaches, that the bells for ever
jangled at the maids, that everything imperative
in short took place—everything that he had somehow,
pen in hand, to meet, to deal with and dispose of,
in the little room on the garden-level. I don’t think
he liked to go Upstairs, but no special burst of con-
fidence was needed to make me feel that a terrible
deal of service went. It was the habit of the ladies
of the Stannace family to be extremely waited on,
and I’ve never been in a house where three maids
and a nursery-governess gave such an impression of
a retinue. “Oh they’re so deucedly, so hereditarily
fine !”—I remember how that dropped from him in
some worried hour. Well, it was because Maud was
so universally fine that we had both been in love with
her. It was not an air, moreover, for the plaintive
-- 9
I63
THE NEXT TIME
note: no private inconvenience could long outweigh
for him the great happiness of these years—the
happiness that sat with us when we talked and that
made it always amusing to talk, the Sense of his being
on the heels of success, coming closer and closer,
touching it at last, knowing that he should touch it
again and hold it fast and hold it high. Of course
when we said success we didn’t mean exactly what
Mrs. Highmore for instance meant. He used to
quote at me as a definition something from a name-
less page of my own, some stray dictum to the effect
that the man of his craft had achieved it when of a
beautiful subject his expression was complete. Well,
wasn't Limbert's in all conscience complete 2
I64
III
IT was bang upon this completeness all the same that
the turn arrived, the turn I can’t say of his fortune
—for what was that 2—but of his confidence, of his
Spirits and, what was more to the point, of his system.
The whole occasion on which the first symptom
flared out is before me as I write. I had met them
both at dinner: they were diners who had reached the
penultimate stage—the stage which in theory is a
rigid selection and in practice a wan submission. It
was late in the season and stronger spirits than theirs
were broken ; the night was close and the air of the
banquet such as to restrict conversation to the refusal
of dishes and consumption to the sniffing of a flower.
It struck me all the more that Mrs. Limbert was
flying her flag. As vivid as a page of her husband's
prose, she had one of those flickers of freshness that
are the miracle of her sex and one of those expensive
dresses that are the miracle of ours. She had also a
neat brougham in which she had offered to rescue an
old lady from the possibilities of a queer cab-horse ;
so that when she had rolled away with her charge I
proposed a walk home with her husband, whom I
had overtaken on the doorstep. Before I had gone
far with him he told me he had news for me—he had
accepted, of all people and of all things, an “editorial
position.” It had come to pass that very day, from
one hour to anothcr, without time for appeals or
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ponderations: Mr. Bousefield, the proprietor of a
“high-class monthly,” making, as they said, a sudden
change, had dropped on him heavily out of the blue.
It was all right—there was a salary and an idea, and
both of them, as such things went, rather high. We
took our way slowly through the vacant streets, and
in the explanations and revelations that as we lingered
under lamp-posts I drew from him I found with an
apprehension that I tried to gulp down a foretaste of
the bitter end. He told me more than he had ever
told me yet. He couldn't balance accounts—that was
the trouble : his expenses were too rising a tide. It
was imperative he should at last make money, and
now he must work only for that. The need this last
year had gathered the force of a crusher: it had rolled
over him and laid him on his back. He had his
scheme ; this time he knew what he was about ; on
some good occasion, with leisure to talk it over, he
would tell me the blest whole. His editorship would
help him, and for the rest he must help himself. If
he couldn’t they would have to do something funda-
mental—change their life altogether, give up London,
move into the country, take a house at thirty pounds
a year, send their children to the Board-School.
I saw he was excited, and he admitted he was : he
had waked out of a trance. He had been on the
wrong tack; he had piled mistake on mistake. It
was the vision of his remedy that now excited him :
ineffably, grotesquely simple, it had yet come to him
only within a day or two. No, he wouldn't tell me
what it was ; he would give me the night to guess, and
if I shouldn’t guess it would be because I was as big an
ass as himself. However, a lone man might be an ass:
he had room in his life for his ears. Ray had a burden
that demanded a back : the back must therefore now
be properly instituted. As to the editorship, it was
simply heaven-sent, being not at all another case of
I66
THE NEXT TIME
The Blackport Beacon but a case of the very opposite.
The proprietor, the great Mr. Bousefield, had ap-
proached him precisely because his name, which
was to be on the cover, didn't represent the chatty.
The whole thing was to be—oh on fiddling little lines
of course—a protest against the chatty. Bousefield
wanted him to be himself ; it was for himself Bouse-
field had picked him out. Wasn’t it beautiful and
brave of Bousefield P. He wanted literature, he saw
the great reaction coming, the way the cat was going
to jump. “Where will you get literature ?” I woe-
fully asked ; to which he replied with a laugh that
what he had to get was not literature but only what
Bousefield would take for it.
In that single phrase I without more ado discovered
his famous remedy. What was before him for the
future was not to do his work but to do what somebody
else would take for it. I had the question out with
him on the next opportunity, and of all the lively
discussions into which we had been destined to drift
it lingers in my mind as the liveliest. This was not, I
hasten to add, because I disputed his conclusions: it
was an effect of the very force with which, when I had
fathomed his wretched premisses, I took them to my
soul. It was very well to talk with Jane Highmore
about his standing alone : the eminent relief of this
position had brought him to the verge of ruin.
Several persons admired his books—nothing was
less contestable ; but they appeared to have a mortal
objection to acquiring them by subscription or by
purchase: they begged or borrowed or stole, they
delegated one of the party perhaps to commit the
volumes to memory and repeat them, like the bards of
old, to listening multitudes. Some ingenious theory
was required at any rate to account for the inexorable
limits of his circulation. It wasn’t a thing for five
people to live on ; therefore either the objects circu-
I67
THE NExT TIME
lated must change their nature or the organisms to
be nourished must. The former change was perhaps
the easier to consider first. Limbert considered it
with sovereign ingenuity from that time on, and
the ingenuity, greater even than any I had yet
had occasion to admire in him, made the whole
next stage of his career rich in curiosity and
Suspense.
“I’ve been butting my skull against a wall,” he
had said in those hours of confidence; “and, to be
as Sublime a blockhead, if you'll allow me the word,
you, my dear fellow, have kept sounding the charge.
We've Sat prating here of ‘success,’ heaven help us,
like chanting monks in a cloister, hugging the Sweet
delusion that it lies somewhere in the work itself, in
the expression, as you said, of one's subject or the
intensification, as somebody else somewhere says, of
One's note. One has been going on in short as if the
Only thing to do were to accept the law of one's talent,
and thinking that if certain consequences didn’t
follow it was only because one wasn’t logical enough.
My disaster has served me right—I mean for using
that ignoble word at all. It’s a mere distributor's, a
mere hawker’s word. What is ‘success anyhow 2
When a book's right it's right—shame to it surely
if it isn’t. When it sells it sells—it brings money like
potatoes or beer. If there's dishonour one way and
inconvenience the other, it certainly is comfortable,
but it as certainly isn’t glorious, to have escaped
them. People of delicacy don’t brag either about their
probity or about their luck. Success be hanged —
I want to sell. It's a question of life and death. I
must study the way. I’ve studied too much the other
way—I know the other way now, every inch of it. I
must cultivate the market—it's a science like another.
I must go in for an infernal cunning. It will be very
amusing, I foresee that ; I shall lead a dashing life and
I68
THE NEXT TIME
drive a roaring trade. I haven’t been obvious—I
must be obvious. I haven’t been popular—I must be
popular. It's another art—or perhaps it isn’t an
art at all. It's something else; one must find out
what it is. Is it something awfully queer 2—you
blush l—something barely decent 2 All the greater
incentive to curiosity | Curiosity's an immense
motive ; we shall have tremendous sport. ‘They
all do it '-doesn’t somebody sing at a music hall ?
—it's only a question of how. Of course I’ve every-
thing to unlearn ; but what’s life, as Jane Highmore
says, but a lesson 2 I must get all I can, all she can
give me, from Jane. She can’t explain herself much ;
she's all intuition ; her processes are obscure ; it's
the spirit that swoops down and catches her up. But
I must study her reverently in her works. Yes,
you’ve defied me before, but now my loins are girded :
I declare I’ll read one of them—I really will ; I'll put
it through if I perish !”
I won’t pretend he made all these remarks at once ;
but there wasn’t one that he didn’t make at one time
or another, for suggestion and occasion were plentiful
enough, his life being now given up altogether to his
new necessity. It wasn’t a question of his having or
not having, as they say, my intellectual sympathy :
the brute force of the pressure left no room for judge-
ment ; it made all emotion a mere recourse to the spy-
glass. I watched him as I should have watched a long
race or a long chase, irresistibly siding with him, yet
much occupied with the calculation of odds. I con-
fess indeed that my heart, for the endless stretch he
covered so fast, was often in my throat. I saw him
peg away over the sun-dappled plain, I saw him double
and wind and gain and lose ; and all the while I
secretly entertained a conviction. I wanted him to
feed his many mouths, but at the bottom of all things
was my sense that if he should succeed in doing so in
I69
THE NEXT TIME
this particular way I should think less well of him.
Now I had an absolute terror of that. Meanwhile
so far as I could I backed him up, I helped him : all
the more that I had warned him immensely at first,
smiled with a compassion it was very good of him not
to have found exasperating over the complacency of
his assumption that a man could escape from himself.
Ray Limbert at all events would certainly never
escape ; but one could make believe for him, make
believe very hard—an undertaking in which at first
Mr. Bousefield was visibly a blessing. Ralph was
delightful on the business of this being at last my
chance too—my chance, so miraculously vouchsafed,
to appear with a certain luxuriance. He didn't
care how often he printed me, for wasn’t it exactly
in my direction Mr. Bousefield held the cat was
going to jump 2 This was the least he could do for
me. I might write on anything I liked—on anything
at least but Mr. Limbert's second manner. He didn't
wish attention strikingly called to his second manner;
it was to operate insidiously; people were to be left
to believe they had discovered it long ago. “Ralph
Limbert P Why, when did we ever live without
him 2 ” — that’s what he wanted them to say.
Besides, they hated manners—let sleeping dogs lie.
His understanding with Mr. Bousefield—on which
he had had not at all to insist ; it was the excellent
man who insisted—was that he should run one of his
beautiful stories in the magazine. As to the beauty
of his story, however, Limbert was going to be less
admirably straight than as to the beauty of everything
else. That was another reason why I mustn't write
about his new line : Mr. Bousefield was not to be too
definitely warned that such a periodical was exposed
to prostitution. By the time he should find it out for
himself the public—le gros public—would have bitten,
and then perhaps he would be conciliated and forgive.
I70
THE NEXT TIME
Everything else would be literary in short, and above
all I would be ; only Ralph Limbert wouldn't—he'd
chuck up the whole thing sooner. He'd be vulgar,
he'd be vile, he'd be abject: he'd be elaborately what
he hadn’t been before.
I duly noticed that he had more trouble in making
“everything else ’’ literary than he had at first
allowed for ; but this was largely counteracted by
the ease with which he was able to obtain that his
mark shouldn’t be overshot. He had taken well to
heart the old lesson of the Beacon ; he remembered
that he was after all there to keep his contributors
down much rather than to keep them up. I thought
at times that he kept them down a trifle too far, but
he assured me that I needn’t be nervous : he had his
limit—his limit was inexorable. He would reserve
pure vulgarity for his serial, over which he was sweat-
ing blood and water; elsewhere it should be quali-
fied by the prime qualification, the mediocrity that
attaches, that endears. Bousefield, he allowed, was
proud, was difficult : nothing was really good enough
for him but the middling good ; he himself, however,
was prepared for adverse comment, resolute for his
noble course. Hadn't Limbert, moreover, in the event
of a charge of laxity from headquarters the great
strength of being able to point to my contributions 2
Therefore I must let myself go, I must abound in
my peculiar sense, I must be a resource in case of
accidents. Limbert's vision of accidents hovered
mainly over the sudden awakening of Mr. Bousefield
to the stuff that in the department of fiction his
editor was palming off. He would then have to
confess in all humility that this was not what the old
boy wanted, but I should be all the more there as
a salutary specimen. I would cross the scent with
Something showily impossible, splendidly unpopular
—I must be sure to have something on hand. I
I7I
THE NEXT TIME
always had plenty on hand—poor Limbert needn't
have worried : the magazine was forearmed each
month by my care with a retort to any possible accusa-
tion of trifling with Mr. Bousefield's standard. He
had admitted to Limbert, after much consideration
indeed, that he was prepared to be perfectly human ;
but he had added that he was not prepared for an
abuse of this admission. The thing in the world I
think I least felt myself was an abuse, even though
—as I had never mentioned to my friendly editor—
I too had my project for a bigger reverberation. I
daresay I trusted mine more than I trusted Limbert's ;
at all events the golden mean in which, for the Special
case, he saw his salvation as an editor was something
I should be most sure of were I to exhibit it myself.
I exhibited it month after month in the form of a
monstrous levity, only praying heaven that my editor
might now not tell me, as he had so often told me, that
my result was awfully good. I knew what that would
signify—it would signify, sketchily speaking, disaster.
What he did tell me heartily was that it was just
what his game required : his new line had brought
with it an earnest assumption—earnest save when
we privately laughed about it—of the locutions
proper to real bold enterprise. If I tried to keep him
in the dark even as he kept Mr. Bousefield there was
nothing to show that I wasn’t tolerably successful :
each case therefore presented a promising analogy
for the other. He never noticed my descent, and it
was accordingly possible Mr. Bousefield would never
notice his. But would nobody notice it at all ?—that
was a question that added a prospective zest to one's
possession of a critical sense. So much depended
upon it that I was rather relieved than otherwise not
to know the answer too soon. I waited in fact a year
—the trial-year for which Limbert had cannily
engaged with Mr. Bousefield ; the year as to which,
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THE NEXT TIME
through the same sharpened shrewdness, it had been
conveyed in the agreement between them that Mr.
Bousefield wasn’t to intermeddle. It had been
Limbert's general prayer that we would during this
period let him quite alone. His terror of my direct
rays was a droll dreadful force that always operated :
he explained it by the fact that I understood him too
well, expressed too much of his intention, saved him
too little from himself. The less he was saved the
more he didn’t sell : I positively interpreted, and that
was simply fatal.
I held my breath accordingly ; I did more—I
closed my eyes, I guarded my treacherous ears. He
induced several of us to do that—of such devotions
we were capable—so that, not even glancing at the
thing from month to month and having nothing but
his shamed anxious silence to go by, I participated
only vaguely in the little hum that surrounded his
act of sacrifice. It was blown about the town that
the public would be surprised ; it was hinted, it was
printed, that he was making a desperate bid. His
new work was spoken of as “more calculated for
general acceptance.” These tidings produced in
some quarters much reprobation, and nowhere more,
I think, than on the part of certain persons who had
never read a word of him, or assuredly had never
spent a shilling on him, and who hung for hours over
the other attractions of the newspaper that announced
his abasement. So much asperity cheered me a little
—seemed to signify that he might really be doing
something. On the other hand, I had a distinct
alarm ; some One sent me for some alien reason an
American journal—containing frankly more than
that source of affliction—in which was quoted a
passage from our friend's last instalment. The
passage—I couldn't for my life help reading it—was
simply Superb. Ah he would have to move to the
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THE NEXT TIME
country if that was the worst he could do ! It gave
me a pang to see how little after all he had improved
since the days of his competition with Pat Moyle.
There was nothing in the passage quoted in the
American paper that Pat would for a moment have
owned.
During the last weeks, as the opportunity of read-
ing the complete thing drew near, one's suspense was
barely endurable, and I shall never forget the July
evening on which I put it to rout. Coming home to
dinner I found the two volumes on my table, and I
sat up with them half the night, dazed, bewildered,
rubbing my eyes, wondering at the monstrous joke.
Was it a monstrous joke, his second manner—was
this the new line, the desperate bid, the scheme for
more general acceptance and the remedy for material
failure ? Had he made a fool of all his following,
or had he most injuriously made a still bigger fool
of himself 2 Obvious 2—where the deuce was it
obvious 2 Popular 2—how on earth could it be
popular 2 The thing was charming with all his
charm and powerful with all his power : it was an
unscrupulous, an unsparing, a shameless merciless
masterpiece. It was, no doubt, like the old letters
to the Beacon, the worst he could do ; but the per-
versity of the effort, even though heroic, had been
frustrated by the purity of the gift. Under what
illusion had he laboured, with what wavering
treacherous compass had he steered 2 His honour
was inviolable, his measurements were all wrong. I
was thrilled with the whole impression and with all
that came crowding in its train. It was too grand
a collapse—it was too hideous a triumph ; I exulted
almost with tears—I lamented with a strange delight.
Indeed as the short night waned and, threshing about
in my emotion, I fidgeted to my high-perched window
for a glimpse of the Summer dawn, I became at last
I74
THE NEXT TIME
aware that I was staring at it out of eyes that had
compassionately and admiringly filled. The eastern
sky, over the London house-tops, had a wonderful
tragic crimson. That was the colour of his magnifi-
cent mistake.
I75
IV
IF something less had depended on my impression
I daresay I should have communicated it as soon as
I had swallowed my breakfast ; but the case was so
embarrassing that I spent the first half of the day in
reconsidering it, dipping into the book again, almost
feverishly turning its leaves and trying to extract
from them, for my friend's benefit, some symptom of
reassurance, some ground for felicitation. This rash
challenge had consequences merely dreadful ; the
wretched volumes, imperturbable and impeccable,
with their shyer secrets and their second line of
defence, were like a beautiful woman more denuded
or a great symphony on a new hearing. There was
something quite sinister in the way they stood up to
me. I couldn't, however, be dumb–that was to give
the wrong tinge to my disappointment ; so that later
in the afternoon, taking my courage in both hands, I
approached with a vain tortuosity poor Limbert's
door. A smart victoria waited before it, in which,
from the bottom of the street, I saw that a lady who
had apparently just issued from the house was settling
herself. I recognised Jane Highmore and instantly
paused till she should drive down to me. She soon
met me halfway and directly she saw me stopped
her carriage in agitation. This was a relief—it post-
poned a moment the sight of that pale fine face of
our friend's fronting me for the right verdict. I
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THE NEXT TIME
gathered from the flushed eagerness with which Mrs.
Highmore asked me if I had heard the news that a
verdict of some sort had already been rendered.
“What news 2—about the book 2 °
“About that horrid magazine. They're shock-
ingly upset. He has lost his position—he has had a
fearful flare-up with Mr. Bousefield.”
I stood there blank, but not unaware in my blank-
ness of how history repeats itself. There came to
me across the years Maud's announcement of their
ejection from the Beacon, and dimly, confusedly, the
same explanation was in the air. This time, however,
I had been on my guard ; I had had my suspicion.
“He has made it too flippant 2 ” I found breath
after an instant to inquire.
Mrs. Highmore's vacuity exceeded my own.
“Too “flippant ’2 He has made it too oracular ;
Mr. Bousefield says he has killed it.” Then per-
ceiving my stupefaction : “Don’t you know what
has happened 2 ” she pursued ; “ isn’t it because in
his trouble, poor love, he has sent for you that you've
come 2 You've heard nothing at all 2 Then you
had better know before you see them. Get in here
with me—I’ll take you a turn and tell you.” We
were close to the Park, the Regent's, and when with
extreme alacrity I had placed myself beside her and
the carriage had begun to enter it she went on : “It
was what I feared, you know. It reeked with culture.
He keyed it up too high.”
I felt myself sinking in the general collapse.
“What are you talking about 2 ”
“Why, about that beastly magazine. They're all
on the streets. I shall have to take mamma.”
I pulled myself together. “What on earth, then,
did Bousefield want 2 He said he wanted intellectual
power.”
“Yes, but Ray overdid it.”
I77 N
THE NEXT TIME
“Why, Bousefield said it was a thing he couldn't
Overdo.”
“Well, Ray managed : he took Mr. Bousefield too
literally. It appears the thing has been doing dread-
fully, but the proprietor couldn’t say anything,
because he had covenanted to leave the editor quite
free. He describes himself as having stood there in
a fever and seen his ship go down. A day or two ago
the year was up, so he could at last break out. Maud
says he did break out quite fearfully—he came to the
house and let poor Ray have it. Ray gave it him
back—he reminded him of his own idea of the way
the cat was going to jump.”
I gasped with dismay. “Has Bousefield aban-
doned that idea 2 Isn't the cat going to jump 2 °
Mrs. Highmore hesitated. “It appears she doesn’t
seem in a hurry. Ray at any rate has jumped too
far ahead of her. He should have temporised a little,
Mr. Bousefield says ; but I’m beginning to think,
you know,” said my companion, “that Ray can't
temporise.” Fresh from my emotion of the previous
twenty-four hours I was scarcely in a position to
disagree with her. “He published too much pure
thought.”
“Pure thought 2 ” I cried. “Why, it struck me
So often—certainly in a due proportion of cases—as
pure drivel !”
“Oh you’re more keyed up than he Mr. Bouse-
field says that of course he wanted things that were
Suggestive and clever, things that he could point to
with pride. But he contends that Ray didn’t allow
for human weakness. He gave everything in too
stiff doses.”
Sensibly, I fear, to my neighbour, I winced at her
words—I felt a prick that made me meditate. Then
I said: “Is that, by chance, the way he gave me 2 ”
Mrs. Highmore remained silent so long that I had
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Somehow the sense of a fresh pang; and after a
minute, turning in my seat, I laid my hand on her
arm, fixed my eyes on her face, and pursued press-
ingly : “Do you suppose it to be to my ‘Occasional
Remarks that Mr. Bousefield refers ?"
At last she met my look. “Can you bear to
hear it 2 ''
“I think I can bear anything now.”
“Well then, it was really what I wanted to give
you an inkling of. It's largely over you that they've
quarrelled. Mr. Bousefield wants him to chuck you.”
I grabbed her arm again. “And our friend
won’t 2 ”
“He seems to cling to you. Mr. Bousefield says
no magazine can afford you.”
I gave a laugh that agitated the very coachman.
“Why, my dear lady, has he any idea of my price P ‘’
“It isn’t your price—he says you're dear at any
price : you do so much to sink the ship. Your
‘ Remarks are called ‘Occasional,” but nothing
could be more deadly regular ; you're there month
after month and you’re never anywhere else. And
you supply no public want.”
“I supply the most delicious irony.”
“So Ray appears to have declared. Mr. Bouse-
field says that’s not in the least a public want. No
one can make out what you're talking about and no
one would care if he could. I'm only quoting him,
mind.”
“Quote, quote—if Ray holds out. I think I must
leave you now, please : I must rush back to express
to him what I feel.”
“I’ll drive you to his door. That isn't all,” said
Mrs. Highmore. And on the way, when the carriage
had turned, she communicated the rest. “Mr. Bouse-
field really arrived with an ultimatum : it had the
form of something or other by Minnie Meadows,”
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“Minnie Meadows 2 ” I was stupefied.
“The new lady-humourist every one seems talking
about. It's the first of a series of Screaming sketches
for which poor Ray was to find a place.”
“Is that Mr. Bousefield's idea of literature ?”
“No, but he says it's the public's, and you’ve got
to take some account of the public. Aux grands
maux les grands remèdes. They had a tremendous
lot of ground to make up, and no one would make it
up like Minnie. She would be the best concession
they could make to human weakness; she would
strike at least this note of showing that it wasn’t
going to be quite all—well, all you. Now Ray draws
the line at Minnie ; he won’t stoop to Minnie ; he
declines to touch, to look at Minnie. When Mr.
Bousefield—rather imperiously, I believe—made
Minnie a sine qua non of his retention of his post he
said something rather violent, told him to go to
some unmentionable place and take Minnie with him.
That of course put the fat on the fire. They had
really a considerable scene.” -
“So had he with the Beacon man,” I musingly
replied. “Poor dear, he seems born for considerable
scenes | It's on Minnie, then, they've really split 2 ”
Mrs. Highmore exhaled her despair in a sound which
I took for an assent, and when we had rolled a little
further I rather inconsequently and to her visible
surprise broke out of my reverie. “It will never do
in the world—he must stoop to Minnie l’’
“It’s too late—and what I’ve told you still isn't
all. Mr. Bousefield raises another objection.”
“What other, pray ?”
“Can't you guess 2 ”
I wondered. “No more of Ray's fiction ? "
“Not a line. That's something else no magazine
can stand. Now that his novel has run its course
Mr. Bousefield's distinctly disappointed.”
I8O
THE NEXT TIME
I fairly bounded in my place. “Then it may do 2 ”
Mrs. Highmore looked bewildered. “Why so, if
he finds it too dull 2 ”
“Dull 2 Ralph Limbert 2 He's as fine as the
spray of a lawn-irrigator.”
“It comes to the same thing, when your lawn's as
coarse as a turnip field. Mr. Bousefield had counted
On something that would do, something that would
have a wider acceptance. Ray says he wants gutter-
pipes and slop-buckets.” I collapsed again ; my
flicker of elation dropped to a throb of quieter com-
fort ; and after a moment's silence I asked my neigh-
bour if she had herself read the work our friend had
just put forth. “No,” she returned, “I gave him my
word at the beginning, on his urgent request, that I
wouldn't.”
“Not even as a book 2 ''
“He begged me never to look at it at all. He
said he was trying a low experiment. Of course I
knew what he meant and I entreated him to let me
just for curiosity take a peep. But he was firm, he
declared he couldn’t bear the thought that a woman
like me should see him in the depths.”
“He’s only, thank God, in the depths of distress,”
I answered. “His experiment's nothing worse than
a failure.”
“Then Bousefield is right—his circulation won’t
budge 2 ” -
“It won't move one, as they say in Fleet Street.
The book has extraordinary beauty.”
“Poor duck—after trying so hard ' " Jane High-
more sighed with real tenderness. “What will, then,
become of them 2 ''
I was silent an instant. “You must take your
mother.”
She was silent too. “I must speak of it to Cecil l’’
she presently said. Cecil is Mr. Highmore, who then
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entertained, I knew, strong views on the inadjusta-
bility of circumstances in general to the idiosyncrasies
of Mrs. Stannace. He held it supremely happy that
in an important relation she should have met her
match. Her match was Ray Limbert—not much of
a writer but a practical man. “The dear things still
think, you know,” my companion continued, “that
the book will be the beginning of their fortune.
Their illusion, if you’re right, will be rudely dispelled.”
“That's what makes me dread to face them. I’ve
just spent with his volumes an unforgettable night.
His illusion has lasted because so many of us have
been pledged till this moment to turn our faces the
other way. We haven’t known the truth and have
therefore had nothing to say. Now that we do know
it indeed we have practically quite as little. I hang
back from the threshold. How can I follow up with
a burst of enthusiasm such a catastrophe as Mr.
Bousefield’s visit 2 ''
As I turned uneasily about my neighbour more
comfortably snuggled. “Well, I'm glad, then, I
haven’t read him and have nothing unpleasant to
say !” We had come back to Limbert's door, and I
made the coachman stop short of it. “But he'll try
again, with that determination of his : he'll build his
hopes on the next time.”
“On what else has he built them from the very
first P It's never the present for him that bears the
fruit ; that's always postponed and for somebody
else : there has always to be another try. I admit
that his idea of a ‘new line has made him try harder
than ever. It makes no difference,” I brooded, still
timorously lingering ; “ his achievement of his neces-
sity, his hope of a market, will continue to attach
itself to the future. But the next time will disappoint
him as each last time has done—and then the next
and the next and the next | *
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I found myself seeing it all with a clearness almost
inspired : it evidently cast a chill on Mrs. Highmore.
“Then what on earth will become of him 2 ” she
plaintively repeated.
“I don’t think I particularly care what may
become of him,” I returned with a conscious reckless
increase of my exaltation ; “I feel it almost enough
to be concerned with what may become of one's
enjoyment of him. I don’t know in short what will
become of his circulation ; I'm only quite at my ease
as to what will become of his work. It will simply
keep all its quality. He'll try again for the common
with what he'll believe to be a still more infernal
Cunning, and again the common will fatally elude him,
for his infernal cunning will have been only his genius
in an ineffectual disguise.” We sat drawn up by
the pavement, facing poor Limbert's future as I saw
it. It relieved me in a manner to know the worst, and
I prophesied with an assurance which as I look back
upon it strikes me as rather remarkable. “Que
woulez-vous P” I went on ; “you can’t make a
sow's ear of a silk purse ! It's grievous indeed if you
like—there are people who can’t be vulgar for trying.
He can't—it wouldn't come off, I promise you, even
once. It takes more than trying—it comes by grace.
It happens not to be given to Limbert to fall. He
belongs to the heights—he breathes there, he lives
there, and it's accordingly to the heights I must
ascend,” I said as I took leave of my conductress,
“to carry him this wretched news from where we
move 1 ''
I83
V
A FEw months were sufficient to show how right I had
been about his circulation. It didn't move one, as I
had said ; it stopped short in the same place, fell off
in a sheer descent, like some precipice gaped up at
by tourists. The public, in other words, drew the
line for him as sharply as he had drawn it for Minnie
Meadows. Minnie has skipped with a flouncing caper
Over his line, however; whereas the mark traced by
a lustier cudgel has been a barrier insurmountable to
Limbert. Those next times I had spoken of to Jane
Highmore, I see them simplified by retrocession.
Again and again he made his desperate bid—again
and again he tried to. His rupture with Mr. Bouse-
field caused him in professional circles, I fear, to
be thought impracticable, and I’m perfectly aware,
to speak candidly, that no sordid advantage ever
accrued to him from such public patronage of my
performances as he had occasionally been in a position
to offer. I reflect for my comfort that any injury I
may have done him by untimely application of a
faculty of analysis which could point to no converts
gained by honourable exercise was at least equalled
by the injury he did himself. More than once, as
I have hinted, I held my tongue at his request, but
my frequent plea that such favours weren’t politic
never found him, when in other connexions there
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was an opportunity to give me a lift, anything but
indifferent to the danger of the association. He let
them have me, in a word, whenever he could ; some-
times in periodicals in which he had credit, sometimes
Only at dinner. He talked about me when he couldn’t
get me in, but it was always part of the bargain that
I shouldn't make him a topic. “How can I success-
fully serve you if you do 2 " he used to ask : he was
more afraid than I thought he ought to have been of
the charge of tit for tat. I didn’t care, for I never
could distinguish tat from tit; but, as I’ve intimated,
I dropped into silence really more than anything else
because there was a certain fascinated observation
of his course which was quite testimony enough and
to which in this huddled conclusion of it he practically
reduced me.
I see it all foreshortened, his wonderful remainder
—see it from the end backward, with the direction
widening toward me as if on a level with the eye.
The migration to the country promised him at first
great things—smaller expenses, larger leisure, con-
ditions eminently conducive on each occasion to the
possible triumph of the next time. Mrs. Stannace,
who altogether disapproved of it, gave as one of her
reasons that her son-in-law, living mainly in a village
on the edge of a goose-green, would be deprived of
that contact with the great world which was indis-
pensable to the painter of manners. She had the
showiest arguments for keeping him in touch, as she
called it, with good society; wishing to know with
some force where, from the moment he ceased to
represent it from observation, the novelist could be
said to be. In London fortunately a clever man
was just a clever man ; there were charming houses
in which a person of Ray's undoubted ability, even
though without the knack of making the best use of
it, could always be sure of a quiet corner for watching
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decorously the social kaleidoscope. But the kaleido-
Scope of the goose-green, what in the world was that,
and what such delusive thrift as drives about the
land (with a fearful account for flys from the inn) to
leave cards on the country magnates ? This solicitude
for Limbert's subject-matter was the specious colour
with which, deeply determined not to affront mere
tolerance in a cottage, Mrs. Stannace overlaid her
indisposition to place herself under the heel of Cecil
Highmore. She knew that he ruled Upstairs as well
as down, and she clung to the fable of the association
of interests in the north of London. The Highmores
had a better address, they lived now in Stanhope
Gardens; but Cecil was fearfully artful—he wouldn’t
hear of an association of interests nor treat with his
mother-in-law save as a visitor. She didn’t like false
positions; but on the other hand she didn’t like the
sacrifice of everything she was accustomed to. Her
universe at all events was a universe of card-leavings
and charming houses, and it was fortunate that she
couldn’t, Upstairs, catch the sound of the doom to
which, in his little grey den, describing to me his
diplomacy, Limbert consigned alike the country
magnates and the opportunities of London. De-
spoiled of every guarantee she went to Stanhope
Gardens like a mere maidservant, with restrictions
on her very luggage, while during the year that
followed this upheaval Limbert, strolling with me
on the goose-green, to which I often ran down,
played extravagantly over the theme that with what
he was now going in for it was a positive comfort
not to have the social kaleidoscope. With a cold-
blooded trick in view, what had life or manners or
the best society or flys from the inn to say to the
question ? It was as good a place as another to play
his new game. He had found a quieter corner than
any corner of the great world, and a damp old house
I86
THE NEXT TIME
at tenpence a year, which, beside leaving him all his
margin to educate his children, would allow of the
supreme luxury of his frankly presenting himself as
a poor man. This was a convenience that ces dames,
as he called them, had never yet fully permitted
him.
It rankled in me at first to see his reward so meagre,
his conquest so mean ; but the simplification effected
had a charm that I finally felt : it was a forcing-house
for the three or four other fine miscarriages to which
his scheme was evidently condemned. I limited him
to three or four, having had my sharp impression, in
spite of the perpetual broad joke of the thing, that a
spring had really broken in him on the occasion of
that deeply disconcerting sequel to the episode of his
editorship. He never lost his sense of the grotesque
want, in the difference made, of adequate relation to
the effort that had been the intensest of his life. He
had carried from that moment a charge of shot, and
it slowly worked its way to a vital part. As he met
his embarrassments each year with his punctual false
remedy I wondered periodically where he found the
energy to return to the attack. He did it every time
with a rage more blanched, but it was clear to me that
the tension must finally snap the cord. We got
again and again the irrepressible work of art, but what
did he get, poor man, who wanted Something So
different 2 There were likewise odder questions than
this in the matter, phenomena more curious and
mysteries more puzzling, which often for sympathy,
if not for illumination, I intimately discussed with
Mrs. Limbert. She had her burdens, dear lady :
after the removal from London and a considerable
interval she twice again became a mother. Mrs.
Stannace too, in a more restricted sense, exhibited
afresh, in relation to the home she had abandoned,
the same exemplary character. In her poverty of
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THE NEXT TIME
guarantees at Stanhope Gardens there had been least
of all, it appeared, a proviso that she shouldn’t resent-
fully revert again from Goneril to Regan. She came
down to the goose-green like Lear himself, with fewer
knights, or at least baronets, and the joint household
was at last patched up. It fell to pieces and was put
together on various occasions before Ray Limbert
died. He was ridden to the end by the superstition
that he had broken up Mrs. Stannace's original home
on pretences that had proved hollow, and that if he
hadn’t given Maud what she might have had he could
at least give her back her mother. I was always sure
that a sense of the compensations he owed was half
the motive of the dogged pride with which he tried to
wake up the libraries. I believed Mrs. Stannace still
had money, though she pretended that, called upon at
every turn to retrieve deficits, she had long since
poured it into the general fund. This conviction
haunted me ; I suspected her of secret hoards, and
I said to myself that she couldn’t be so infamous as
not some day on her deathbed to leave everything to
her less opulent daughter. My compassion for the
Limberts led me to hover perhaps indiscreetly round
that closing scene, to dream of some happy time when
such an accession of means would make up a little for
their present penury.
This, however, was crude comfort, as in the first
place I had nothing definite to go by and in the second
I held it for more and more indicated that Ray
wouldn’t outlive her. I never ventured to sound him
as to what in this particular he hoped or feared, for
after the crisis marked by his leaving London I had
new scruples about suffering him to be reminded of
where he fell short. The poor man was in truth
humiliated, and there were things as to which that
kept us both silent. In proportion as he tried more
fiercely for the market the old plaintive arithmetic,
I88
THE NEXT TIME
fertile in jokes, dropped from our conversation. We
joked immensely still about the process, but our treat-
ment of the results became sparing and Superficial.
He talked as much as ever, with monstrous arts and
borrowed hints, of the traps he kept setting, but we all
agreed to take merely for granted that the animal was
caught. This propriety had really dawned upon me
the day that, after Mr. Bousefield's visit, Mrs. High-
more put me down at his door. Mr. Bousefield at
that juncture had been served up to me anew, but
after we had disposed of him we came to the book,
which I was obliged to confess I had already rushed
through. It was from this moment—the moment at
which my terrible impression of it had blinked out at
his anxious query—that the image of his scared face
was to abide with me. I couldn’t attenuate then—
the cat was out of the bag; but later, each of the next
times, I did, I acknowledge, attenuate. We all did
religiously, so far as was possible ; we cast ingenious
ambiguities over the strong places, the beauties that
betrayed him most, and found ourselves in the queer
position of admirers banded to mislead a confiding
artist. If we stifled our cheers however, if we dis-
simulated our joy, our fond hypocrisy accomplished
little, for Limbert's finger was on a pulse that told a
plainer story. It was a satisfaction to have secured
a greater freedom with his wife, who at last, much to
her honour, entered into the conspiracy and whose
sense of responsibility was flattered by the frequency
of our united appeal to her for some answer to the
marvellous riddle. We had all turned it over till we
were tired of it, threshing out the question of why the
note he strained every chord to pitch for common
ears should invariably insist on addressing itself to the
angels. Being, as it were, ourselves the angels, we had
only a limited quarrel in each case with the event ;
but its inconsequent character, given the forces set in
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motion, was peculiarly baffling. It was like an inter-
minable sum that wouldn’t come straight ; nobody
had the time to handle so many figures. Limbert
gathered, to make his pudding, dry bones and dead
husks; how, then, was one to formulate the law that
made the dish prove a feast 2 What was the cerebral
treachery that defied his own vigilance 2 There was
some obscure interference of taste, some obsession of
the exquisite. All one could say was that genius was
a fatal disturber or that the unhappy man had no
effectual flair. When he went abroad to gather garlic
he came home with heliotrope.
I hasten to add that if Mrs. Limbert was not
directly illuminating she was yet rich in anecdote and
example, having found a refuge from mystification
exactly where the rest of us had found it, in a more
devoted embrace and the sense of a finer glory. Her
disappointments and eventually her privations had
been many, her discipline severe ; but she had ended
by accepting the long grind of life and was now quite
willing to take her turn at the mill. She was essen-
tially one of us—she always understood. Touching
and admirable at the last, when through the unmis-
takable change in Limbert's health her troubles were
thickest, was the spectacle of the particular pride that
she wouldn’t have exchanged for prosperity. She
had said to me once—only once, in a gloomy hour of
London days when things were not going at all—
that one really had to think him a very great man,
since if one didn't one would be rather ashamed of
him. She had distinctly felt it at first—and in a very
tender place—that almost every one passed him on
the road ; but I believe that in these final years she
would almost have been ashamed of him if he had
suddenly gone into editions. It’s certain indeed that
her complacency was not subjected to that shock.
She would have liked the money immensely, but she
I90 -
THE NEXT TIME
would have missed something she had taught herself
to regard as rather rare. There's another remark I
remember her making, a remark to the effect that of
course if she could have chosen she would have liked
him to be Shakespeare or Scott, but that failing this
she was very glad he wasn't—well, she named the
two gentlemen, but I won’t. I daresay she sometimes
laughed out to escape an alternative. She contri-
buted passionately to the capture of the second
manner, foraging for him further afield than he could
Conveniently go, gleaning in the barest stubble,
picking up shreds to build the nest and in particular,
in the study of the great secret of how, as we always
said, they all did it, laying waste of the circulating
libraries. If Limbert had a weakness he rather broke
down in his reading. It was fortunately not till after
the appearance of “The Hidden Heart” that he broke
down in everything else. He had had rheumatic
fever in the spring, when the book was but half-
finished, and this ordeal had in addition to interrupt-
ing his work enfeebled his powers of resistance and
greatly reduced his vitality. He recovered from the
fever and was able to take up the book again, but the
Organ of life was pronounced Ominously weak and it
was enjoined upon him with some sharpness that he
should lend himself to no worries. It might have
struck me as on the cards that his worries would now
be surmountable, for when he began to mend he
expressed to me a conviction almost contagious that
he had never yet made so adroit a bid as in the idea
of “The Hidden Heart.” It is grimly droll to reflect
that this superb little composition, the shortest of his
novels but perhaps the loveliest, was planned from
the first as an “adventure-story '' on approved lines.
It was the way they all did the adventure-story that he
had tried dauntlessly to emulate. I wonder how many
readers ever divined to which of their book-shelves
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“The Hidden Heart” was so exclusively addressed.
High medical advice early in the summer had been
quite viciously clear as to the inconvenience that
might ensue to him should he neglect to spend the
winter in Egypt. He was not a man to neglect any-
thing ; but Egypt seemed to us all then as unattain-
able as a second edition. He finished “The Hidden
Heart” with the energy of apprehension and desire, for
if the book should happen to do what “books of that
class,” as the publisher said, sometimes did, he might
well have a fund to draw on. As soon as I read the
fine deep thing I knew, as I had known in each case
before, exactly how well it would do. Poor Limbert
in this long business always figured to me an un-
discourageable parent to whom only girls kept being
born. A bouncing boy, a son and heir, was devoutly
prayed for and almanacks and old wives consulted ;
but the spell was inveterate, incurable, and “The
Hidden Heart” proved, so to speak, but another female
child. When the winter arrived accordingly Egypt
was out of the question. Jane Highmore, to my
knowledge, wanted to lend him money, and there
were even greater devotees who did their best to
induce him to lean on them. There was so marked
a “movement " among his friends that a very con-
siderable sum would have been at his disposal ;
but his stiffness was invincible : it had its root, I
think, in his sense, on his own side, of sacrifices already
made. He had sacrificed honour and pride, and he
had sacrificed them precisely to the question of money.
He would evidently, should he be able to go on, have
to continue to sacrifice them, but it must be all in the
way to which he had now, as he considered, hardened
himself. He had spent years in plotting for favour,
and since on favour he must live it could only be as
a bargain and a price.
He got through the early part of the season better
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THE NEXT TIME
than we feared, and I went down in great elation to
spend Christmas on the goose-green. He told me late
on Christmas Eve, after our simple domestic revels
had sunk to rest and we sat together by the fire, how
he had been visited the night before in wakeful hours
by the finest fancy for a really good thing that he had
ever felt descend in the darkness. “It’s just the
vision of a situation that contains, upon my honour,
everything,” he said, “ and I wonder I’ve never
thought of it before.” He didn’t describe it further,
contrary to his common practice, and I only knew later,
by Mrs. Limbert, that he had begun “Derogation ”
and was completely full of his subject. It was, how-
ever, a subject he wasn’t to live to treat. The work
went on for a couple of months in quiet mystery, with-
out revelations even to his wife. He hadn’t invited
her to help him to get up his case—she hadn’t taken
the field with him as on his previous campaigns.
We only knew he was at it again, but that less even
than ever had been said about the impression to be
made on the market. I saw him in February and
thought him sufficiently at ease. The great thing
was that he was immensely interested and was pleased
with the Omens. I got a strange stirring sense that
he had not consulted the usual ones and indeed that
he had floated away into a grand indifference, into a
reckless consciousness of art. The voice of the market
had suddenly grown faint and far : he had come back
at the last, as people so often do, to one of the moods,
the sincerities of his prime. Was he really, with a
blurred sense of the urgent, doing something now only
for himself 2 We wondered and waited — we felt
he was a little confused. What had happened, I was
afterwards satisfied, was that he had quite forgotten
whether he generally sold or not. He had merely
waked up one morning again in the country of the
blue and had stayed there with a good conscience and
I93 O
THE NEXT TIME
a great idea. He stayed till death knocked at the
gate, for the pen dropped from his hand only at the
moment when, from sudden failure of the heart, his
eyes, as he sank back in his chair, closed for ever.
“Derogation ” is a splendid fragment; it evidently
would have been one of his high successes. I am
not prepared to say it would have waked up the
libraries.
I94
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
I95
I
I HAD done a few things and earned a few pence—I
had perhaps even had time to begin to think I was
finer than was perceived by the patronising ; but
when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety
habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real
start from the evening George Corvick, breathless
and worried, came in to ask me a service. He had
done more things than I, and earned more pence,
though there were chances for cleverness I thought
he sometimes missed. I could only, however, that
evening declare to him that he never missed one for
kindness. There was almost rapture in hearing it
proposed to me to prepare for The Middle, the organ
of our lucubrations, so called from the position in the
week of its day of appearance, an article for which he
had made himself responsible and of which, tied up
with a stout string, he laid on my table the subject.
I pounced upon my opportunity—that is on the first
volume of it—and paid scant attention to my friend's
explanation of his appeal. What explanation could
be more to the point than my obvious fitness for the
task 2 I had written on Hugh Vereker, but never a
word in The Middle, where my dealings were mainly
with the ladies and the minor poets. This was his
new novel, an advance copy, and whatever much or
little it should do for his reputation I was clear on the
spot as to what it should do for mine. Moreover, if I
always read him as soon as I could get hold of him I
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had a particular reason for wishing to read him now :
I had accepted an invitation to Bridges for the follow-
ing Sunday, and it had been mentioned in Lady
Jane's note that Mr. Vereker was to be there. I was
young enough for a flutter at meeting a man of his
renown, and innocent enough to believe the Occasion
would demand the display of an acquaintance with his
“ last.”
Corvick, who had promised a review of it, had not
even had time to read it ; he had gone to pieces in
consequence of news requiring—as on precipitate
reflexion he judged—that he should catch the night-
mail to Paris. He had had a telegram from Gwen-
dolen Erme in answer to his letter offering to fly to
her aid. I knew already about Gwendolen Erme; I
had never seen her, but I had my ideas, which were
mainly to the effect that Corvick would marry her if
her mother would only die. That lady seemed now
in a fair way to oblige him ; after some dreadful mis-
take about a climate or a “cure * she had suddenly
collapsed on the return from abroad. Her daughter,
unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a rush for
home but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our
friend's assistance, and it was my secret belief that
at sight of him Mrs. Erme would pull round. His
own belief was scarcely to be called secret ; it discern-
ibly at any rate differed from mine. He had showed
me Gwendolen's photograph with the remark that
she wasn’t pretty but was awfully interesting ; she
had published at the age of nineteen a novel in three
volumes, “Deep Down,” about which, in The Middle,
he had been really splendid. He appreciated my
present eagerness and undertook that the periodical
in question should do no less ; then at the last, with
his hand on the door, he said to me: “Of course you'll
be all right, you know.” Seeing I was a trifle vague
he added : “I mean you won’t be silly.”
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“Silly—about Vereker | Why, what do I ever find
him but awfully clever ?”
“Well, what's that but silly 2 What on earth does
“awfully clever ' mean 2 For God's sake try to get
at him. Don’t let him suffer by our arrangement.
Speak of him, you know, if you can, as I should have
spoken of him.”
I wondered an instant. “You mean as far and
away the biggest of the lot—that sort of thing 2 ”
Corvick almost groaned. “Oh you know, I don’t
put them back to back that way; it’s the infancy of
art | But he gives me a pleasure so rare ; the sense
of ”—he mused a little—“something or other.”
I wondered again. “The sense, pray, of what ?”
“My dear man, that’s just what I want you to
say !”
Even before he had banged the door I had begun,
book in hand, to prepare myself to say it. I sat up
with Vereker half the night; Corvick couldn’t have
done more than that. He was awfully clever—I
stuck to that, but he wasn’t a bit the biggest of the lot.
I didn’t allude to the lot, however ; I flattered my-
self that I emerged on this occasion from the infancy
of art. “It’s all right,” they declared vividly at the
office; and when the number appeared I felt there
was a basis on which I could meet the great man. It
gave me confidence for a day or two—then that
confidence dropped. I had fancied him reading it
with relish, but if Corvick wasn't satisfied how could
Vereker himself be 2 I reflected indeed that the heat
of the admirer was sometimes grosser even than the
appetite of the scribe. Corvick at all events wrote me
from Paris a little ill-humouredly. Mrs. Erme was
pulling round, and I hadn’t at all said what Vereker
gave him the sense of.
I99
II
THE effect of my visit to Bridges was to turn me out
for more profundity. Hugh Vereker, as I saw him
here, was of a contact so void of angles that I blushed
or the poverty of imagination involved in my Small
precautions. If he was in spirits it wasn't because
he had read my review ; in fact on the Sunday morn-
ing I felt sure he hadn't read it, though The Middle
had been out three days and bloomed, I assured my-
self, in the stiff garden of periodicals which gave one
of the Ormolu tables the air of a stand at a station.
The impression he made on me personally was such
that I wished him to read it, and I corrected to this
end with a surreptitious hand what might be wanting
in the careless conspicuity of the sheet. I'm afraid I
even watched the result of my manoeuvre, but up to
luncheon I watched in vain.
When afterwards, in the course of our gregarious
walk, I found myself for half an hour, not perhaps
without another manoeuvre, at the great man's side,
the result of his affability was a still livelier desire
that he shouldn’t remain in ignorance of the peculiar
justice I had done him. It wasn’t that he seemed to
thirst for justice ; on the contrary I hadn't yet caught
in his talk the faintest grunt of a grudge—a note for
which my young experience had already given me an
ear. Of late he had had more recognition, and it was
pleasant, as we used to say in The Middle, to see how
2OO
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
it drew him out. He wasn’t of course popular, but I
judged one of the sources of his good humour to be -
precisely that his success was independent of that.
He had none the less become in a manner the fashion ;
the critics at least had put on a spurt and caught up
with him. We had found out at last how clever he
was, and he had had to make the best of the loss of
his mystery. I was strongly tempted, as I walked
beside him, to let him know how much of that unveil-
ing was my act ; and there was a moment when I
probably should have done so had not one of the
ladies of our party, Snatching a place at his other
elbow, just then appealed to him in a spirit compara-
tively selfish. It was very discouraging : I almost
felt the liberty had been taken with myself.
I had had on my tongue's end, for my own part, a
phrase or two about the right word at the right time ;
but later on I was glad not to have spoken, for when
on our return we clustered at tea I perceived Lady
Jane, who had not been out with us, brandishing The
Middle with her longest arm. She had taken it up at
her leisure ; she was delighted with what she had
found, and I saw that, as a mistake in a man may
often be a felicity in a woman, she would practically
do for me what I hadn’t been able to do for myself.
“Some sweet little truths that needed to be spoken,”
I heard her declare, thrusting the paper at rather a
bewildered couple by the fireplace. She grabbed it
away from them again on the reappearance of Hugh
Vereker, who after our walk had been upstairs to
change something. “I know you don't in general
look at this kind of thing, but it's an occasion really
for doing so. You haven't seen it 2 Then you must.
The man has actually got at you, at what I always
feel, you know.” Lady Jane threw into her eyes a
look evidently intended to give an idea of what she
always felt ; but she added that she couldn’t have
2OI
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
expressed it. The man in the paper expressed it in a
striking manner. “Just see there, and there, where
I’ve dashed it, how he brings it out.” She had
literally marked for him the brightest patches of my
prose, and if I was a little amused Vereker himself
may well have been. He showed how much he was
when before us all Lady Jane wanted to read some-
thing aloud. I liked at any rate the way he defeated
her purpose by jerking the paper affectionately out
of her clutch. He'd take it upstairs with him and
look at it on going to dress. He did this half an hour
later—I saw it in his hand when he repaired to his
room. That was the moment at which, thinking to
give her pleasure, I mentioned to Lady Jane that I
was the author of the review. I did give her pleasure,
I judged, but perhaps not quite so much as I had
expected. If the author was “only me '’ the thing
didn’t seem quite so remarkable. Hadn't I had the
effect rather of diminishing the lustre of the article
than of adding to my own 2 Her ladyship was
subject to the most extraordinary drops. It didn't
matter ; the only effect I cared about was the one it
would have on Vereker up there by his bedroom fire.
At dinner I watched for the signs of this impression,
tried to fancy some happier light in his eyes; but to
my disappointment Lady Jane gave me no chance
to make sure. I had hoped she'd call triumphantly
down the table, publicly demand if she hadn’t been
right. The party was large—there were people from
outside as well, but I had never seen a table long
enough to deprive Lady Jane of a triumph. I was
just reflecting in truth that this interminable board
would deprive me of one when the guest next me, dear
woman—she was Miss Poyle, the vicar's sister, a
robust unmodulated person—had the happy inspira-
tion and the unusual courage to address herself across
it to Vereker, who was opposite, but not directly, so
2O2
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
that when he replied they were both leaning forward.
She inquired, artless body, what he thought of Lady
Jane’s “panegyric,” which she had read—not con-
necting it, however, with her right-hand neighbour;
and while I strained my ear for his reply I heard him,
to my stupefaction, call back gaily, his mouth full of
bread : “Oh it’s all right—the usual twaddle !”
I had caught Vereker's glance as he spoke, but
Miss Poyle's surprise was a fortunate cover for my
own. “You mean he doesn’t do you justice 2 " said
the excellent woman.
Vereker laughed out, and I was happy to be able
to do the same. “It’s a charming article,” he tossed
U.S.
Miss Poyle thrust her chin half across the cloth.
“Oh you're so deep !” she drove home.
“As deep as the ocean | All I pretend is that the
author doesn’t see ” But a dish was at this
point passed over his shoulder, and we had to wait
while he helped himself.
“Doesn’t see what ?” my neighbour continued.
“Doesn’t see anything.”
“Dear me—how very stupid ”
“Not a bit,” Vereker laughed again. “Nobody
does.”
The lady on his further side appealed to him and
Miss Poyle sank back to myself. “Nobody sees
anything ! ” she cheerfully announced ; to which I
replied that I had often thought so too, but had
somehow taken the thought for a proof on my own
part of a tremendous eye. I didn’t tell her the
article was mine ; and I observed that Lady Jane,
Occupied at the end of the table, had not caught
Vereker’s words.
I rather avoided him after dinner, for I confess he
struck me as cruelly conceited, and the revelation
was a pain. “The usual twaddle "—my acute little
}
2O3
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
study l That one’s admiration should have had a
reserve or two could gall him to that point 2 I had
thought him placid, and he was placid enough ; such
a surface was the hard polished glass that encased the
bauble of his vanity. I was really ruffled, and the
only comfort was that if nobody saw anything George
Corvick was quite as much out of it as I. This com-
fort, however, was not sufficient, after the ladies had
dispersed, to carry me in the proper manner—I
mean in a spotted jacket and humming an air—into
the Smoking-room. I took my way in some dejection
to bed; but in the passage I encountered Mr. Vereker,
who had been up once more to change, coming Out
of his room. He was humming an air and had on
a spotted jacket, and as soon as he saw me his gaiety
gave a start.
“My dear young man,” he exclaimed, “I’m so
glad to lay hands on you ! I'm afraid I most un-
wittingly wounded you by those words of mine at
dinner to Miss Poyle. I learned but half an hour ago
from Lady Jane that you're the author of the little
notice in The Middle.”
I protested that no bones were broken ; but he
moved with me to my own door, his hand, on my
'shoulder, kindly feeling for a fracture ; and on hear-
ing that I had come up to bed he asked leave to cross
my threshold and just tell me in three words what his
qualification of my remarks had represented. It was
plain he really feared I was hurt, and the sense of his
solicitude suddenly made all the difference to me.
My cheap review fluttered off into space, and the best
things I had said in it became flat enough beside the
brilliancy of his being there. I can see him there still,
on my rug, in the firelight and his spotted jacket, his
fine clear face all bright with the desire to be tender
to my youth. I don’t know what he had at first
meant to say, but I think the sight of my relief
2O4
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
touched him, excited him, brought up words to his
lips from far within. It was so these words presently
conveyed to me something that, as I afterwards knew,
he had never uttered to any one. I’ve always done
justice to the generous impulse that made him speak ;
it was simply compunction for a Snub unconsciously
administered to a man of letters in a position inferior
to his own, a man of letters, moreover, in the very act
of praising him. To make the thing right he talked
to me exactly as an equal and on the ground of what
we both loved best. The hour, the place, the un-
expectedness deepened the impression : he couldn't
have done anything more intensely effective.
205
III
“I DON'T quite know how to explain it to you,” he
said, “but it was the very fact that your notice of my
book had a spice of intelligence, it was just your
exceptional sharpness, that produced the feeling—a
very old story with me, I beg you to believe—under
the momentary influence of which I used in speaking
to that good lady the words you so naturally resent.
I don’t read the things in the newspapers unless
they’re thrust upon me as that one was—it's always
one’s best friend who does it ! But I used to read
them sometimes—ten years ago. I daresay they
were in general rather stupider then ; at any rate it
always struck me they missed my little point with a
perfection exactly as admirable when they patted me
on the back as when they kicked me in the shins.
"Whenever since I’ve happened to have a glimpse of
them they were still blazing away—still missing it,
I mean, deliciously. You miss it, my dear fellow,
with inimitable assurance ; the fact of your being
awfully clever and your article's being awfully nice
doesn’t make a hair's breadth of difference. It's
quite with you rising young men,” Vereker laughed,
“ that I feel most what a failure I am I ?”
I listened with keen interest ; it grew keener as he
talked. “You a failure—heavens ! What then may
your “little point ’ happen to be 2 ”
“Have I got to tell you, after all these years and
2O6
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
labours ?” There was something in the friendly
reproach of this—jocosely exaggerated—that made
me, as an ardent young Seeker for truth, blush to the
roots of my hair. I’m as much in the dark as ever,
though I’ve grown used in a sense to my obtuseness;
at that moment, however, Vereker's happy accent
made me appear to myself, and probably to him, a
rare dunce. I was on the point of exclaiming, “Ah,
yes, don’t tell me: for my honour, for that of the
craft, don’t l” when he went on in a manner that
showed he had read my thought and had his own idea
of the probability of our some day redeeming our-
selves. “By my little point I mean—what shall I
call it 2—the particular thing I’ve written my books
most for. Isn’t there for every writer a particular
thing of that sort, the thing that most makes him
apply himself, the thing without the effort to achieve
which he wouldn’t write at all, the very passion of
his passion, the part of the business in which, for him,
the flame of art burns most intensely? Well, it’s that l”
I considered a moment—that is, I followed at a
respectful distance, rather gasping. I was fascinated
—easily, you'll Say ; but I wasn’t going after all to
be put off my guard. “Your description's certainly
beautiful, but it doesn’t make what you describe
very distinct.”
“I promise you it would be distinct if it should
dawn on you at all.” I saw that the charm of our
topic overflowed for my companion into an emotion
as lively as my own. “At any rate,” he went on,
“I can speak for myself: there's an idea in my work
without which I wouldn't have given a straw for the
whole job. It’s the finest fullest intention of the
lot, and the application of it has been, I think, a
triumph of patience, of ingenuity. I ought to leave
that to somebody else to say ; but that nobody does
say it is precisely what we're talking about. It
2O7
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
stretches, this little trick of mine, from book to book,
and everything else, comparatively, plays over the
surface of it. The order, the form, the texture of
my books will perhaps some day constitute for the
initiated a complete representation of it. So it’s
naturally the thing for the critic to look for. It
strikes me,” my visitor added, smiling, “even as the
thing for the critic to find.”
This seemed a responsibility indeed. “You call
it a little trick 2 ”
“That's only my little modesty. It's really an
exquisite scheme.”
“And you hold that you’ve carried the scheme
Out 2 ”
“The way I’ve carried it out is the thing in life
I think a bit well of myself for.”
I had a pause. “Don’t you think you ought—
just a trifle—to assist the critic 2 °
“Assist him 2 What else have I done with every
stroke of my pen 2 I’ve shouted my intention in
his great blank face l’’ At this, laughing out again,
Vereker laid his hand on my shoulder to show the
allusion wasn’t to my personal appearance.
“But you talk about the initiated. There must
therefore, you see, be initiation.”
“What else in heaven's name is criticism supposed
to be 2'' I'm afraid I coloured at this too; but I took
refuge in repeating that his account of his silver
lining was poor in something or other that a plain
man knows things by. “That's only because you've
never had a glimpse of it,” he returned. “If you
had had one the element in question would soon have
become practically all you'd see. To me it's exactly
as palpable as the marble of this chimney. Besides,
the critic just isn't a plain man : if he were, pray,
what would he be doing in his neighbour's garden P
You're anything but a plain man yourself, and the
208
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
very raison d'être of you all is that you’re little
demons of subtlety. If my great affair's a secret,
that's only because it’s a secret in spite of itself—
the amazing event has made it one. I not only never
took the smallest precaution to keep it so, but never
dreamed of any such accident. If I had I shouldn't
in advance have had the heart to go on. As it was,
I only became aware little by little, and meanwhile
I had done my work.”
“And now you quite like it 2 ” I risked.
“My work 2 ”
“Your secret. It's the same thing.”
“Your guessing that,” Vereker replied, “is a
proof that you're as clever as I say !” I was en-
couraged by this to remark that he would clearly be
pained to part with it, and he confessed that it was
indeed with him now the great amusement of life.
“I live almost to see if it will ever be detected.”
He looked at me for a jesting challenge ; something
far within his eyes seemed to peep out. “But I
needn’t worry—it won’t l”
“You fire me as I’ve never been fired,” I declared ;
“you make me determined to do or die.” Then I
asked : “Is it a kind of esoteric message 2 ”
His countenance fell at this—he put out his hand
as if to bid me good-night. “Ah, my dear fellow, it
can’t be described in cheap journalese ! ”
I knew of course he'd be awfully fastidious, but
our talk had made me feel how much his nerves were
exposed. I was unsatisfied—I kept hold of his hand.
“I won’t make use of the expression, then,” I said,
“in the article in which I shall eventually announce
my discovery, though I daresay I shall have hard
work to do without it. But meanwhile, just to
hasten that difficult birth, can’t you give a fellow a
clue 2 ” I felt much more at my ease.
“My whole lucid effort gives him the clue—every
209 P
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
page and line and letter. The thing's as concrete
there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of
cheese in a mouse-trap. It's stuck into every volume
as your foot is stuck into your shoe. It governs
levery line, it chooses every word, it dots every i, it
'places every comma.”
I scratched my head. “Is it something in the
style or something in the thought 2 An element of
form or an element of feeling 2 ”
He indulgently shook my hand again, and I felt
my questions to be crude and my distinctions pitiful.
“Good-night, my dear boy—don't bother about it.
After all, you do like a fellow.”
“And a little intelligence might spoil it?” I still
detained him.
. He hesitated. “Well, you've got a heart in your
body. Is that an element of form or an element of
feeling 2 What I contend that nobody has ever
mentioned in my work is the organ of life.”
“I see—it’s some idea about life, some sort of
philosophy. Unless it be,” I added with the eager-
ness of a thought perhaps still happier, “some kind
of game you're up to with your style, something
you're after in the language. Perhaps it's a prefer-
ence for the letter P!” I ventured profanely to break
out. “Papa, potatoes, prunes—that sort of thing 2 ”
He was suitably indulgent : he only said I hadn’t
got the right letter. But his amusement was over ;
I could see he was bored. There was nevertheless
'Something else I had absolutely to learn. “Should
you be able, pen in hand, to state it clearly yourself—
to name it, phrase it, formulate it 2 ”
“Oh,” he almost passionately sighed, “if I were
only, pen in hand, one of you chaps | *
“That would be a great chance for you of course.
But why should you despise us chaps for not doing
what you can’t do yourself 2 ”
2IO
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
“Can't do 2 ” He opened his eyes. “Haven’t
I done it in twenty volumes 2 I do it in my way,”
he continued. “Go you and do it in yours.”
“Ours is so devilish difficult,” I weakly ob-
served.
“So's mine ! We each choose our own. There's
no compulsion. You won’t come down and
Smoke 2 ”
“No. I want to think this thing out.”
“You’ll tell me, then, in the morning that you've
laid me bare 2 °
“I’ll see what I can do ; I'll sleep on it. But just
one word more,” I added. We had left the room—
I walked again with him a few steps along the passage.
“This extraordinary ‘general intention,’ as you call
it—for that's the most vivid description I can induce
you to make of it—is then, generally, a sort of buried
treasure ?”
His face lighted. “Yes, call it that, though it's
perhaps not for me to do so.”
“Nonsense ! ” I laughed. “You know you're
hugely proud of it.”
“Well, I didn’t propose to tell you so ; but it is
the joy of my soul!”
“You mean it's a beauty so rare, so great 2 ” ;
He waited a little again. “The loveliest thing in
the world !” We had stopped, and on these words
he left me ; but at the end of the corridor, while I
looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and
caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him
earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake
his head and wave his finger. “Give it up—give it
up ! ”
"This wasn’t a challenge—it was fatherly advice.
If I had had one of his books at hand I’d have
repeated my recent act of faith—I'd have spent
half the night with him. At three o'clock in the
2II
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
morning, not sleeping, remembering, moreover, how
indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole down
to the library with a candle. There wasn’t, so far
as I could discover, a line of his writing in the
house.
2I2
IV
RETURNING to town I feverishly collected them all;
I picked out each in its order and held it up to the
light. This gave me a maddening month, in the
course of which several things took place. One of
these, the last, I may as well immediately mention,
was that I acted on Vereker's advice : I renounced
my ridiculous attempt. I could really make nothing
of the business; it proved a dead loss. After all I
had always, as he had himself noted, liked him ; and
what now occurred was simply that my new intel-
ligence and vain preoccupation damaged my liking.
I not only failed to run a general intention to earth,
I found myself missing the subordinate intentions I
had formerly enjoyed. His books didn't even remain
the charming things they had been for me ; the
exasperation of my search put me out of conceit of
them. Instead of being a pleasure the more they
became a resource the less ; for from the moment I
was unable to follow up the author's hint I of course
felt it a point of honour not to make use professionally
of my knowledge of them. I had no knowledge—
nobody had any. It was humiliating, but I could
bear it—they only annoyed me now. At last they
even bored me, and I accounted for my confusion—
perversely, I allow—by the idea that Vereker had
made a fool of me. The buried treasure was a bad
joke, the general intention a monstrous pose.
2I3
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
The great point of it all is, however, that I told
George Corvick what had befallen me and that my
information had an immense effect on him. He had
at last come back, but so, unfortunately, had Mrs.
Erme, and there was as yet, I could see, no question
of his nuptials. He was immensely stirred up by the
anecdote I had brought from Bridges; it fell in So
completely with the sense he had had from the first
that there was more in Vereker than met the eye.
When I remarked that the eye seemed what the
printed page had been expressly invented to meet he
immediately accused me of being spiteful because I
had been foiled. Our commerce had always that
pleasant latitude. The thing Vereker had mentioned
to me was exactly the thing he, Corvick, had wanted
me to speak of in my review. On my suggesting at
last that with the assistance I had now given him he
would doubtless be prepared to speak of it himself
he admitted freely that before doing this there was
more he must understand. What he would have
said, had he reviewed the new book, was that there
was evidently in the writer's inmost art something
to be understood. I hadn’t so much as hinted at
that : no wonder the writer hadn’t been flattered
I asked Corvick what he really considered he meant
by his own supersubtlety, and, unmistakably kindled,
he replied : “It isn't for the vulgar—it isn't for the
vulgar ! ” He had hold of the tail of something : he
would pull hard, pull it right out. He pumped me
dry on Vereker's strange confidence and, pronouncing
me the luckiest of mortals, mentioned half-a-dozen
questions he wished to goodness I had had the
gumption to put. Yet on the other hand he didn’t
want to be told too much—it would spoil the fun
of seeing what would come. The failure of my fun
was at the moment of our meeting not complete, but
I saw it ahead, and Corvick saw that I saw it. I, on
2I4
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
my side, saw likewise that one of the first things he
would do would be to rush off with my story to
Gwendolen.
On the very day after my talk with him I was
surprised by the receipt of a note from Hugh Vereker,
to whom our encounter at Bridges had been recalled,
as he mentioned, by his falling, in a magazine, on
some article to which my signature was attached.
“I read it with great pleasure,” he wrote, “ and
remembered under its influence our lively conversa-
tion by your bedroom fire. The consequence of this
has been that I begin to measure the temerity of my
having saddled you with a knowledge that you may
find something of a burden. Now that the fit's over
I can’t imagine how I came to be moved so much
beyond my wont. I had never before mentioned, no
matter in what state of expansion, the fact of my
little secret, and I shall never speak of that mystery
again. I was accidentally so much more explicit
with you than it had ever entered into my game to
be, that I find this game—I mean the pleasure of
playing it—suffers considerably. In short, if you
can understand it, I’ve rather spoiled my sport. I
really don’t want to give anybody what I believe you
clever young men call the tip. That's of course a
selfish solicitude, and I name it to you for what it
may be worth to you. If you're disposed to humour
me don't repeat my revelation. Think me demented
—it's your right ; but don’t tell anybody why.”
The sequel to this communication was that as
early on the morrow as I dared I drove straight to
Mr. Vereker's door. He occupied in those years one
of the honest old houses in Kensington Square. He
received me immediately, and as Soon as I came in
I saw I hadn’t lost my power to minister to his mirth.
He laughed out at sight of my face, which doubtless
expressed my perturbation. I had been indiscreet—
2I5
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
my compunction was great. “I have told somebody,”
I panted, “and I’m sure that person will by this time
have told somebody else ! It's a woman, into the
bargain.”
“The person you’ve told 2 ”
“No, the other person. I’m quite sure he must
have told her.”
“For all the good it will do her—or do me ! A
woman will never find out.”
“No, but she'll talk all over the place : she'll do
just what you don’t want.” e
Vereker thought a moment, but wasn’t so discon-
certed as I had feared : he felt that if the harm was
done it only served him right. “It doesn’t matter—
don’t worry.”
“I’ll do my best, I promise you, that your talk
with me shall go no further.”
“Very good ; do what you can.”
“In the meantime,” I pursued, “George Corvick's
possession of the tip may, on his part, really lead to
something.”
“That will be a brave day.”
I told him about Corvick's cleverness, his admira-
tion, the intensity of his interest in my anecdote ; and
without making too much of the divergence of our
respective estimates mentioned that my friend was
already of opinion that he saw much further into a
certain affair than most people. He was quite as
fired as I had been at Bridges. He was, moreover, in
love with the young lady: perhaps the two together
would puzzle something out.
Vereker seemed struck with this. “Do you mean
they're to be married ?”
“I daresay that's what it will come to.”
“That may help them,” he conceded, “but we
must give them time !”
I spoke of my own renewed assault and confessed
2I6
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
my difficulties; whereupon he repeated his former
advice : “Give it up, give it up ! ” He evidently
didn't think me intellectually equipped for the adven-
ture. I stayed half an hour, and he was most good-
natured, but I couldn’t help pronouncing him a man
of unstable moods. He had been free with me in a
mood, he had repented in a mood, and now in a mood'
he had turned indifferent. This general levity helped
me to believe that, so far as the subject of the tip
went, there wasn’t much in it. I contrived, however,
to make him answer a few more questions about it,
though he did so with visible impatience. For him-
self, beyond doubt, the thing we were all so blank
about was vividly there. It was something, I guessed,
in the primal plan ; something like a complex figure
in a Persian carpet. He highly approved of this
image when I used it, and he used another himself.
“It’s the very string,” he said, “ that my pearls are
strung on 1 * The reason of his note to me had been
that he really didn’t want to give us a grain of succour
—our density was a thing too perfect in its way|
to touch. He had formed the habit of depending on
it, and if the spell was to break it must break by some
force of its own. He comes back to me from that last
Occasion—for I was never to speak to him again—
as a man with some safe preserve for sport. I
wondered as I walked away where he had got his
tip.
217
V
WHEN I spoke to George Corvick of the caution I
had received he made me feel that any doubt of his
delicacy would be almost an insult. He had instantly
told Gwendolen, but Gwendolen’s ardent response
was in itself a pledge of discretion. The question
would now absorb them and would offer them a
pastime too precious to be shared with the crowd.
They appeared to have caught instinctively at
Vereker's high idea of enjoyment. Their intellectual
pride, however, was not such as to make them in-
different to any further light I might throw on the
affair they had in hand. They were indeed of the
“artistic temperament,” and I was freshly struck
with my colleague's power to excite himself over a
question of art. He'd call it letters, he'd call it life,
but it was all one thing. In what he said I now seemed
to understand that he spoke equally for Gwendolen,
to whom, as soon as Mrs. Erme was sufficiently better
to allow her a little leisure, he made a point of intro-
ducing me. I remember our going together one
Sunday in August to a huddled house in Chelsea,
and my renewed envy of Corvick's possession of a
friend who had some light to mingle with his own.
iHe could say things to her that I could never say to
him. She had indeed no sense of humour and, with
her pretty way of holding her head on one side, was
one of those persons whom you want, as the phrase
2I8
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
is, to shake, but who have learnt Hungarian by them-
Selves. She conversed perhaps in Hungarian with
Corvick; she had remarkably little English for his
friend. Corvick afterwards told me that I had chilled
her by my apparent indisposition to oblige them with
the detail of what Vereker had said to me. I allowed
that I felt I had given thought enough to that indica-
tion : hadn't I even made up my mind that it was
vain and would lead nowhere 2 The importance they
attached to it was irritating and quite envenomed
my doubts.
That statement looks unamiable, and what prob-
ably happened was that I felt humiliated at seeing
other persons deeply beguiled by an experiment that
had brought me only chagrin. I was out in the cold
while, by the evening fire, under the lamp, they
followed the chase for which I myself had sounded the
horn. They did as I had done, only more deliberately
and sociably—they went over their author from
the beginning. There was no hurry, Corvick said
—the future was before them and the fascination could
Only grow ; they would take him page by page, as
they would take one of the classics, inhale him in slow
draughts and let him sink all the way in. They
would scarce have got so wound up, I think, if they
hadn’t been in love : poor Vereker's inner meaning
gave them endless occasion to put and to keep their
young heads together. None the less it represented
the kind of problem for which Corvick had a special
aptitude, drew out the particular pointed patience of
which, had he lived, he would have given more
striking and, it is to be hoped, more fruitful examples.
He at least was, in Vereker's words, a little demon of
subtlety. We had begun by disputing, but I soon
saw that without my stirring a finger his infatuation
would have its bad hours. He would bound off on
false scents as I had done—he would clap his hands
:
2I9
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
Over new lights and see them blown out by the wind
of the turned page. He was like nothing, I told him,
but the maniacs who embrace some bedlamitical
theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare. To
this he replied that if we had had Shakespeare's own
word for his being cryptic he would at once have
accepted it. The case there was altogether different
—we had nothing but the word of Mr. Snooks. I
returned that I was stupefied to see him attach such
importance even to the word of Mr. Vereker. He
wanted thereupon to know if I treated Mr. Vereker's
word as a lie. I wasn't perhaps prepared, in my un-
happy rebound, to go so far as that, but I insisted
that till the contrary was proved I should view it
as too fond an imagination. I didn't, I confess, say
—I didn't at that time quite know—all I felt. Deep
down, as Miss Erme would have said, I was uneasy, I
was expectant. At the core of my disconcerted State
—for my wonted curiosity lived in its ashes—was the
harpness of a sense that Corvick would at last prob-
ably come out somewhere. He made, in defence of
his credulity, a great point of the fact that from of old,
in his study of this genius, he had caught whiffs and
hints of he didn't know what, faint wandering notes
of a hidden music. That was just the rarity, that was
the charm : it fitted so perfectly into what I reported.
If I returned on several occasions to the little house
in Chelsea I daresay it was as much for news of
Vereker as for news of Miss Erme's ailing parent.
The hours spent there by Corvick were present to my
fancy as those of a chessplayer bent with a silent
scowl, all the lamplit winter, over his board and his
moves. As my imagination filled it out the picture
held me fast. On the other side of the table was a
ghostlier form, the faint figure of an antagonist good-
humouredly but a little wearily secure—an antagonist
who leaned back in his chair with his hands in his
22O
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
pockets and a smile on his fine clear face. Close
to Corvick, behind him, was a girl who had begun to
strike me as pale and wasted and even, on more
familiar view, as rather handsome, and who rested
On his shoulder and hung on his moves. He would
take up a chessman and hold it poised a while over
One of the little squares, and then would put it back in
its place with a long sigh of disappointment. The
young lady, at this, would slightly but uneasily shift
her position and look across, very hard, very long,
very strangely, at their dim participant. I had asked
them at an early stage of the business if it mightn't
Contribute to their success to have some closer com-
munication with him. The special circumstances
would surely be held to have given me a right to
introduce them. Corvick immediately replied that
he had no wish to approach the altar before he had
prepared the sacrifice. He quite agreed with our
friend both as to the delight and as to the honour of the
chase—he would bring down the animal with his own
rifle. When I asked him if Miss Erme were as keen
a shot he said after thinking : “No, I’m ashamed to
say she wants to set a trap. She'd give anything to
see him ; she says she requires another tip. She's
really quite morbid about it. But she must play
fair—she shan’t see him ” he emphatically added.
I wondered if they hadn’t even quarrelled a little on
the subject—a suspicion not corrected by the way
he more than once exclaimed to me : “She's quite
incredibly literary, you know—quite fantastically ”
I remember his saying of her that she felt in italics
and thought in capitals. “Oh when I’ve run him to
earth,” he also said, “then, you know, I shall knock
at his door. Rather—I beg you to believe. I’ll
have it from his own lips: ‘Right you are, my boy;
you’ve done it this time !” He shall crown me
victor—with the critical laurel.”
* -------
22I
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
Meanwhile he really avoided the chances London
life might have given him of meeting the distinguished
novelist ; a danger, however, that disappeared with
Vereker's leaving England for an indefinite absence,
as the newspapers announced—going to the South
for motives connected with the health of his wife,
which had long kept her in retirement. A year—
more than a year—had elapsed since the incident at
Bridges, but I had had no further sight of him. I
think I was at bottom rather ashamed—I hated to
remind him that, though I had irremediably missed
his point, a reputation for acuteness was rapidly over-
taking me. This scruple led me a dance ; kept me out
of Lady Jane's house, made me even decline, when
in spite of my bad manners she was a second time so
good as to make me a sign, an invitation to her
beautiful seat. I once became aware of her under
Vereker's escort at a concert, and was sure I was seen
by them, but I slipped out without being caught. I
felt, as on that occasion I splashed along in the rain,
that I couldn’t have done anything else ; and yet I
remember saying to myself that it was hard, was even
cruel. Not only had I lost the books, but I had lost
the man himself: they and their author had been
alike spoiled for me. I knew too which was the loss I
most regretted. I had taken to the man still more
than I had ever taken to the books.
222
VI
SIX months after our friend had left England George
Corvick, who made his living by his pen, contracted
for a piece of work which imposed on him an absence
of Some length and a journey of some difficulty, and
his undertaking of which was much of a surprise to
me. His brother-in-law had become editor of a great
provincial paper, and the great provincial paper, in a
fine flight of fancy, had conceived the idea of sending
a “Special commissioner’ to India. Special com-
missioners had begun, in the “metropolitan press,”
to be the fashion, and the journal in question must
have felt it had passed too long for a mere country
cousin. Corvick had no hand, I knew, for the big
brush of the correspondent, but that was his brother-
in-law's affair, and the fact that a particular task was
not in his line was apt to be with himself exactly a
reason for accepting it. He was prepared to out-
Herod the metropolitan press; he took solemn
precautions against priggishness, he exquisitely out-
raged taste. Nobody ever knew it—that offended
principle was all his own. In addition to his expenses
he was to be conveniently paid, and I found myself
able to help him, for the usual fat book, to a plausible
arrangement with the usual fat publisher. I natur-
ally inferred that his obvious desire to make a little
money was not unconnected with the prospect of a
union with Gwendolen Erme. I was aware that her
223
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
mother's opposition was largely addressed to his
want of means and of lucrative abilities, but it so
happened that, on my saying the last time I saw him
something that bore on the question of his separation
from our young lady, he brought out with an emphasis
that startled me: “Ah, I’m not a bit engaged to her,
you know !”
“Not overtly,” I answered, “because her mother
doesn’t like you. But I’ve always taken for granted
a private understanding.”
“Well, there was one. But there isn’t now.”
That was all he said save something about Mrs.
Erme's having got on her feet again in the most extra-
ordinary way—a remark pointing, as I Supposed,
the moral that private understandings were of little
use when the doctor didn’t share them. What I
took the liberty of more closely inferring was that the
girl might in some way have estranged him. Well,
if he had taken the turn of jealousy, for instance, it
could scarcely be jealousy of me. In that case—over
and above the absurdity of it—he wouldn’t have
gone away just to leave us together. For some time
before his going we had indulged in no allusion to
the buried treasure, and from his silence, which my
reserve simply emulated, I had drawn a sharp con-
clusion. His courage had dropped, his ardour had
gone the way of mine—this appearance at least he
left me to scan. More than that he couldn’t do ;
he couldn’t face the triumph with which I might
have greeted an explicit admission. He needn’t have
been afraid, poor dear, for I had by this time lost all
need to triumph. In fact I considered I showed
magnanimity in not reproaching him with his collapse,
for the sense of his having thrown up the game made
me feel more than ever how much I at last depended
on him. If Corvick had broken down I should never
know ; no one would be of any use if he wasn’t. It
224
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge;
little by little my curiosity not only had begun to ache
again, but had become the familiar torment of my
days and my nights. There are doubtless people to
whom torments of such an order appear hardly more
natural than the contortions of disease ; but I don’t
after all know why I should in this connexion so
much as mention them. For the few persons, at any
rate, abnormal or not, with whom my anecdote is
concerned, literature was a game of skill, and skill
meant courage, and courage meant honour, and
honour meant passion, meant life. The stake on the
table was of a special substance and our roulette
the revolving mind, but we sat round the green board
as intently as the grim gamblers at Monte Carlo.
Gwendolen Erme, for that matter, with her white
face and her fixed eyes, was of the very type of the
lean ladies one had met in the temples of chance. I
recognised in Corvick's absence that she made this
analogy vivid. It was extravagant, I admit, the way
she lived for the art of the pen. Her passion visibly
preyed on her, and in her presence I felt almost tepid.
I got hold of “Deep Down” again: it was a desert in
which she had lost herself, but in which too she had
dug a wonderful hole in the sand—a cavity out of
which Corvick had still more remarkably pulled her.
Early in March I had a telegram from her, in
consequence of which I repaired immediately to
Chelsea, where the first thing she said to me was :
“He has got it, he has got it !”
She was moved, as I could see, to such depths that
she must mean the great thing. “Vereker's idea 2 ”
“His general intention. George has cabled from
Bombay.”
She had the missive open there ; it was emphatic
though concise. “Eureka. Immense.” That was
all—he had saved the cost of the signature. I shared
225 Q
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
her emotion, but I was disappointed. “He doesn’t
say what it is.”
“How could he—in a telegram P. He'll write
it.”
“But how does he know 2 ”
“Know it's the real thing 2 Oh I'm sure that when
you see it you do know. Vera incessu patuit dea 1"
“It's you, Miss Erme, who are a “dear' for bring-
ing me such news | *—I went all lengths in my high
'spirits. “But fancy finding our goddess in the
temple of Vishnu ! How strange of George to have
been able to go into the thing again in the midst of such
different and such powerful solicitations ! ”
“He hasn’t gone into it, I know ; it's the thing
itself, let severely alone for six months, that has simply
Sprung out at him like a tigress out of the jungle. He
didn’t take a book with him—on purpose ; indeed he
wouldn't have needed to—he knows every page, as
I do, by heart. They all worked in him together,
and some day somewhere, when he wasn’t thinking,
they fell, in all their superb intricacy, into the one
right combination. The figure in the carpet came
out. That's the way he knew it would come and the
real reason—you didn’t in the least understand,
but I suppose I may tell you now—why he went
and why I consented to his going. We knew the
change would do it—that the difference of thought,
of scene, would give the needed touch, the magic
shake. We had perfectly, we had admirably calcu-
lated. The elements were all in his mind, and in
the secousse of a new and intense experience they just
struck light.” She positively struck light herself—
she was literally, facially luminous. I stammered
Something about unconscious cerebration, and she
continued: “He’ll come right home—this will bring
him.”
“To see Vereker, you mean 2 ”
226
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
“To see Vereker—and to see me. Think what
he'll have to tell me ! ”
I hesitated. “About India 2 ”
“About fiddlesticks | About Vereker—about the
figure in the carpet.”
“But, as you say, we shall surely have that in a
letter.”
She thought like one inspired, and I remembered
how Corvick had told me long before that her face
was interesting. “Perhaps it can’t be got into a
letter if it’s ‘immense.’”
“Perhaps not if it's immense bosh. If he has hold
of something that can’t be got into a letter he hasn’t
hold of the thing. Vereker's own statement to me was
exactly that the ‘figure ' would fit into a letter.”
“Well, I cabled to George an hour ago—two
words,” said Gwendolen.
“Is it indiscreet of me to ask what they were 2 ”
She hung fire, but at last brought them out.
“‘Angel, write.’”
“Good | " I cried. “I’ll make it sure—I’ll send
him the same.”
227
VII
My words, however, were not absolutely the same
—I put something instead of “angel”; and in the
sequel my epithet seemed the more apt, for when
eventually we heard from our traveller it was merely,
it was thoroughly to be tantalised. He was magni-
ficent in his triumph, he described his discovery as
stupendous ; but his ecstasy only obscured it—there
were to be no particulars till he should have sub-
mitted his conception to the supreme authority. He
had thrown up his commission, he had thrown up his
book, he had thrown up everything but the instant
need to hurry to Rapallo, on the Genoese shore, where
Vereker was making a stay. I wrote him a letter
which was to await him at Aden—I besought him
to relieve my suspense. That he had found my letter
was indicated by a telegram which, reaching me after
weary days and in the absence of any answer to my
laconic despatch to him at Bombay, was evidently
intended as a reply to both communications. Those
few words were in familiar French, the French of the
day, which Corvick often made use of to show he
wasn’t a prig. It had for some persons the opposite
effect, but his message may fairly be paraphrased.
“Have patience ; I want to see, as it breaks on you,
the face you'll make l’” “Tellement envie de voir ta
tête / "-that was what I had to sit down with. I can
certainly not be said to have sat down, for I seem to
228
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
remember myself at this time as rattling constantly
between the little house in Chelsea and my own.
Our impatience, Gwendolen's and mine, was equal,
but I kept hoping her light would be greater. We
all spent during this episode, for people of our means,
a great deal of money in telegrams and cabs, and I
Counted on the receipt of news from Rapallo immedi-
ately after the junction of the discoverer with the
discovered. The interval seemed an age, but late
One day I heard a hansom precipitated to my door
with the crash engendered by a hint of liberality. I
lived with my heart in my mouth and accordingly
bounded to the window—a movement which gave
me a view of a young lady erect on the footboard of
the vehicle and eagerly looking up at my house. At
sight of me she flourished a paper with a movement
that brought me straight down, the movement with
which, in melodramas, handkerchiefs and reprieves
are flourished at the foot of the scaffold.
“Just seen Vereker—not a note wrong. Pressed
me to bosom—keeps me a month.” So much I read
On her paper while the cabby dropped a grin from
his perch. In my excitement I paid him profusely
and in hers she suffered it ; then as he drove away
we started to walk about and talk. We had talked,
heaven knows, enough before, but this was a wondrous
lift. We pictured the whole scene at Rapallo, where
he would have written, mentioning my name, for
permission to call ; that is, I pictured it, having
more material than my companion, whom I felt
hang On my lips as we stopped on purpose before
shop-windows we didn’t look into. About one
thing we were clear: if he was staying on for fuller
communication we should at least have a letter from
him that would help us through the dregs of delay.
We understood his staying on, and yet each of us saw,
I think, that the other hated it. The letter we were
229
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
clear about arrived ; it was for Gwendolen, and I
called on her in time to save her the trouble of bring-
ing it to me. She didn’t read it out, as was natural
enough ; but she repeated to me what it chiefly em-
bodied. This consisted of the remarkable statement
that he'd tell her after they were married exactly what
she wanted to know.
“Only then, when I’m his wife—not before,”
she explained. “It’s tantamount to saying—isn't it 2
—that I must marry him straight off ” She Smiled
at me while I flushed with disappointment, a vision of
fresh delay that made me at first unconscious of my
surprise. It seemed more than a hint that on me
as well he would impose some tiresome condition.
Suddenly, while she reported several more things
from his letter, I remembered what he had told me
before going away. He had found Mr. Vereker
deliriously interesting and his own possession of the
secret a real intoxication. The buried treasure was
all gold and gems. Now that it was there it seemed
to grow and grow before him ; it would have been,
through all time and taking all tongues, one of the
most wonderful flowers of literary art. Nothing, in
especial, once you were face to face with it, could show
for more consummately done. When once it came out
it came out, was there with a splendour that made you
ashamed ; and there hadn’t been, save in the bottom-
less vulgarity of the age, with every one tasteless and
tainted, every sense stopped, the Smallest reason why
it should have been overlooked. It was great, yet
so simple, was simple, yet So great, and the final
knowledge of it was an experience quite apart. He
intimated that the charm of such an experience, the
desire to drain it, in its freshness, to the last drop,
was what kept him there close to the source.
Gwendolen, frankly radiant as she tossed me these
fragments, showed the elation of a prospect more
230
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
assured than my own. That brought me back to
the question of her marriage, prompted me to ask if
what she meant by what she had just surprised me
with was that she was under an engagement.
“Of course I am I ?” she answered. “Didn't you
know it 2 ” She seemed astonished, but I was still
more so, for Corvick had told me the exact contrary.
I didn’t mention this, however; I only reminded
her how little I had been on that score in her con-
fidence, or even in Corvick's, and that moreover I
wasn’t in ignorance of her mother's interdict. At
bottom I was troubled by the disparity of the two
accounts ; but after a little I felt Corvick's to be
the one I least doubted. This simply reduced me
to asking myself if the girl had on the spot improvised
an engagement—vamped up an old One or dashed
off a new—in order to arrive at the satisfaction she
desired. She must have had resources of which I
was destitute, but she made her case slightly more
intelligible by returning presently : “What the
state of things has been is that we felt of course
bound to do nothing in mamma's lifetime.”
“But now you think you'll just dispense with
mamma's consent 2 ''
“Ah it mayn’t come to that l” I wondered what
it might come to, and she went on : “Poor dear, she
may swallow the dose. In fact, you know,” she
added with a laugh, “she really must l’—a proposi-
tion of which, on behalf of every one concerned, I
fully acknowledged the force.
23I
VIII
NOTHING more vexatious had ever happened to me
than to become aware before Corvick's arrival in
England that I shouldn’t be there to put him through.
I found myself abruptly called to Germany by the
alarming illness of my younger brother, who, against
my advice, had gone to Munich to study, at the feet
indeed of a great master, the art of portraiture in oils.
The near relative who made him an allowance had
threatened to withdraw it if he should, under specious
pretexts, turn for superior truth to Paris—Paris
being somehow, for a Cheltenham aunt, the school
of evil, the abyss. I deplored this prejudice at the
time, and the deep injury of it was now visible—first
in the fact that it hadn’t saved the poor boy, who was
clever frail and foolish, from congestion of the lungs,
and second in the greater break with London to
which the event condemned me. I’m afraid that
what was uppermost in my mind during several
anxious weeks was the sense that if we had only been
in Paris I might have run over to see Corvick. This
was actually out of the question from every point of
view : my brother, whose recovery gave us both
plenty to do, was ill for three months, during which
I never left him and at the end of which we had to
face the absolute prohibition of a return to England.
The consideration of climate imposed itself, and he
was in no state to meet it alone. I took him to
232
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
Meran and there spent the summer with him, trying
to show him by example how to get back to work
and nursing a rage of another sort that I tried not
to show him.
The whole business proved the first of a series of
phenomena so strangely interlaced that, taken all
together—which was how I had to take them—they
form as good an illustration as I can recall of the
manner in which, for the good of his soul doubtless,
fate sometimes deals with a man's avidity. These
incidents certainly had larger bearings than the com-
paratively meagre consequence we are here concerned
with—though I feel that consequence also a thing
to speak of with some respect. It’s mainly in such a
light, I confess, at any rate, that the ugly fruit of my
exile is at this hour present to me. Even at first
indeed the spirit in which my avidity, as I have
called it, made me regard that term owed no element
of ease to the fact that before coming back from
Rapallo George Corvick addressed me in a way I
objected to. His letter had none of the sedative
action I must to-day profess myself sure he had
wished to give it, and the march of occurrences was
not so ordered as to make up for what it lacked. He
had begun on the spot, for one of the quarterlies, a
great last word on Vereker's writings, and this
exhaustive study, the only one that would have
counted, have existed, was to turn on the new light,
to utter—oh so quietly l—the unimagined truth. It
was, in other words, to trace the figure in the carpet
through every convolution, to reproduce it in every
tint. The result, according to my friend, would be
the greatest literary portrait ever painted, and what
he asked of me was just to be so good as not to trouble
him with questions till he should hang up his master-
piece before me. He did me the honour to declare
that, putting aside the great sitter himself, all aloft
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in his indifference, I was individually the connoisseur
he was most working for. I was therefore to be a
good boy and not try to peep under the curtain
before the show was ready : I should enjoy it all the
more if I sat very still.
I did my best to sit very still, but I couldn’t help
giving a jump on seeing in The Times, after I had
been a week or two in Munich and before, as I knew,
Corvick had reached London, the announcement of
the sudden death of poor Mrs. Erme. I instantly, by
letter, appealed to Gwendolen for particulars, and
she wrote me that her mother had yielded to long-
threatened failure of the heart. She didn’t say, but
I took the liberty of reading into her words, that from
the point of view of her marriage and also of her
eagerness, which was quite a match for mine, this
was a solution more prompt than could have been
expected and more radical than waiting for the old
lady to swallow the dose. I candidly admit indeed
that at the time—for I heard from her repeatedly—
I read some singular things into Gwendolen’s words
and some still more extraordinary ones into her
silences. Pen in hand, this way, I live the time
Over, and it brings back the oddest sense of my having
been, both for months and in spite of myself, a kind
of coerced spectator. All my life had taken refuge
in my eyes, which the procession of events appeared
to have committed itself to keep astare. There were
days when I thought of writing to Hugh Vereker and
simply throwing myself on his charity. But I felt
more deeply that I hadn’t fallen quite so low—
besides which, quite properly, he would send me about
my business. Mrs. Erme's death brought Corvick
straight home, and within the month he was united
“very quietly ”—as quietly, I seemed to make out,
as he meant in his article to bring out his trouvaille
—to the young lady he had loved and quitted. I
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THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
use this last term, I may parenthetically say, because
I subsequently grew sure that at the time he went
to India, at the time of his great news from Bombay,
there had been no positive pledge between them
whatever. There had been none at the moment
she was affirming to me the very opposite. On the
Other hand, he had certainly become engaged the
day he returned. The happy pair went down to
Torquay for their honeymoon, and there, in a reckless
hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young
bride a drive. He had no command of that business :
this had been brought home to me of old in a little
tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a
dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over
Devonshire hills, on one of the likeliest of which he
brought his horse, who, it was true, had bolted, down
with such violence that the occupants of the cart
were hurled forward and that he fell horribly on his
head. He was killed on the spot ; Gwendolen escaped
unhurt.
. I pass rapidly over the question of this unmitigated
tragedy, of what the loss of my best friend meant for
me, and I complete my little history of my patience
and my pain by the frank statement of my having,
in a postScript to my very first letter to her after the
receipt of the hideous news, asked Mrs. Corvick
whether her husband mightn't at least have finished
the great article on Vereker. Her answer was as
prompt as my question : the article, which had been
barely begun, was a mere heartbreaking scrap. She
explained that our friend, abroad, had just settled
down to it when interrupted by her mother's death,
and that then, on his return, he had been kept from
work by the engrossments into which that calamity
was to plunge them. The opening pages were all
that existed ; they were striking, they were promising,
but they didn't unveil the idol. That great intel-
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THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
lectual feat was obviously to have formed his climax.
She said nothing more, nothing to enlighten me as
to the state of her own knowledge—the knowledge
for the acquisition of which I had fancied her pro-
digiously acting. This was above all what I wanted
to know : had she seen the idol unveiled P Had
there been a private ceremony for a palpitating
audience of one P For what else but that ceremony
had the nuptials taken place 2 I didn’t like as yet
to press her, though when I thought of what had
passed between us on the subject in Corvick's absence
her reticence surprised me. It was therefore not till
much later, from Meran, that I risked another appeal,
risked it in some trepidation, for she continued to
tell me nothing. “Did you hear in those few days
of your blighted bliss,” I wrote, “what we desired
So to hear 2 " I said “we ?’ as a little hint ; and she
showed me she could take a little hint. “I heard
everything,” she replied, “ and I mean to keep it
to myself l’’
236
IX
IT was impossible not to be moved with the strongest
sympathy for her, and on my return to England I
showed her every kindness in my power. Her
mother's death had made her means sufficient, and
she had gone to live in a more convenient quarter.
But her loss had been great and her visitation cruel ;
it never would have occurred to me, moreover, to
suppose she could come to feel the possession of a ,
technical tip, of a piece of literary experience, a
counterpoise to her grief. Strange to say, none the
less, I couldn’t help believing after I had seen her a
few times that I caught a glimpse of Some such oddity.
I hasten to add that there had been other things I
couldn't help believing, or at least imagining ; and
as I never felt I was really clear about these, so, as
to the point I here touch on, I give her memory the
benefit of the doubt. Stricken and solitary, highly
accomplished and now, in her deep mourning, her
maturer grace and her uncomplaining Sorrow, in-
contestably handsome, she presented herself as
leading a life of singular dignity and beauty. I had
at first found a way to persuade myself that I should
soon get the better of the reserve formulated, the
week after the catastrophe, in her reply to an appeal
as to which I was not unconscious that it might
strike her as mistimed. Certainly that reserve was
something of a shock to me—certainly it puzzled
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THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
me the more I thought of it and even though I tried
to explain it (with moments of success) by an imputa-
tion of exalted sentiments, of Superstitious scruples,
of a refinement of loyalty. Certainly it added at the
same time hugely to the price of Vereker's secret,
precious as this mystery already appeared. I may as
well confess abjectly that Mrs. Corvick's unexpected
attitude was the final tap on the nail that was to fix
fast my luckless idea, convert it into the obsession of
which I’m for ever conscious.
But this only helped me the more to be artful, to
be adroit, to allow time to elapse before renewing my
suit. There were plenty of speculations for the
interval, and One of them was deeply absorbing.
Corvick had kept his information from his young
friend till after the removal of the last barrier to their
intimacy—then only had he let the cat out of the
bag. Was it Gwendolen's idea, taking a hint from
him, to liberate this animal only on the basis of the
renewal of such a relation ? Was the figure in the
carpet traceable or describable only for husbands and
wives—for lovers Supremely united 2 It came back
to me in a mystifying manner that in Kensington
Square, when I mentioned that Corvick would have
told the girl he loved, some word had dropped from
Vereker that gave colour to this possibility. There
might be little in it, but there was enough to make
me wonder if I should have to marry Mrs. Corvick
to get what I wanted. Was I prepared to offer her
this price for the blessing of her knowledge P. Ah
that way madness lay !—so I at least said to myself
in bewildered hours. I could see meanwhile the
torch she refused to pass on flame away in her chamber
of memory—pour through her eyes a light that shone
in her lonely house. At the end of six months I was
fully sure of what this warm presence made up to
her for. We had talked again and again of the man
238
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
who had brought us together—of his talent, his
character, his personal charm, his certain career, his
dreadful doom, and even of his clear purpose in that
great study which was to have been a supreme
literary portrait, a kind of critical Vandyke or Velas-
quez. She had conveyed to me in abundance that
she was tongue-tied by her perversity, by her piety,
that she would never break the silence it had not
been given to the “right person,” as she said, to
break. The hour, however, finally arrived. One
evening when I had been sitting with her longer than
usual I laid my hand firmly on her arm. “Now at
last what is it 2 ”
She had been expecting me and was ready. She
gave a long slow soundless headshake, merciful only
in being inarticulate. This mercy didn't prevent its
hurling at me the largest finest coldest “Never !”
I had yet, in the course of a life that had known
denials, had to take full in the face. I took it and
was aware that with the hard blow the tears had
come into my eyes. So for a while we sat and looked
at each other ; after which I slowly rose. I was
wondering if some day she would accept me ; but
this was not what I brought out. I said as I Smoothed
down my hat : “I know what to think then. It's
nothing !”
A remote disdainful pity for me gathered in her
dim Smile ; then she spoke in a voice that I hear at
this hour. “It’s my life ” As I stood at the door
she added: “You’ve insulted him l’’
“Do you mean Vereker 2 ”
“I mean the Dead | *
I recognised when I reached the street the justice
of her charge. Yes, it was her life—I recognised
that too ; but her life none the less made room with
the lapse of time for another interest. A year and a
half after Corvick's death she published in a single
239
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
volume her second novel, “Overmastered,” which I
pounced on in the hope of finding in it some tell-tale
echo or some peeping face. All I found was a much
better book than her younger performance, showing
I thought the better company she had kept. As a
tissue tolerably intricate it was a carpet with a figure
of its own ; but the figure was not the figure I was
looking for. On sending a review of it to The Middle
I was surprised to learn from the office that a notice
was already in type. When the paper came out I
had no hesitation in attributing this article, which I
thought rather vulgarly overdone, to Drayton Deane,
who in the old days had been something of a friend
of Corvick's, yet had only within a few weeks made
the acquaintance of his widow. I had had an early
copy of the book, but Deane had evidently had an
earlier. He lacked all the same the light hand with
which Corvick had gilded the gingerbread—he laid
On the tinsel in splotches.
240
X
Six months later appeared “The Right of Way,” the
last chance, though we didn’t know it, that we were
to have to redeem ourselves. Written wholly during
Vereker's sojourn abroad, the book had been heralded,
in a hundred paragraphs, by the usual ineptitudes.
I carried it, as early a copy as any, I this time flattered
myself, straightway to Mrs. Corvick. This was the
only use I had for it; I left the inevitable tribute of
The Middle to some more ingenious mind and some
less irritated temper. “But I already have it,”
Gwendolen said. “Drayton Deane was so good as
to bring it to me yesterday, and I’ve just finished it.”
“Yesterday ? How did he get it so soon 2 ”
“He gets everything so soon | He's to review it
in The Middle.”
“He—Drayton Deane—review reker 2 ” I
couldn't believe my ears.
“Why not ? One fine ignorance is as good as
another.”
I winced but I presently said: “You ought to
review him yourself l’’
“I don’t, “ review,’’
viewed | * ,
Just then the door was thrown open. “Ah yes,
here's your reviewer l’’ Drayton Deane was there
with his long legs and his tall forehead : he had
come to see what she thought of “The Right of Way,”
y
she laughed. “I’m re-
24I R
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
and to bring news that was singularly relevant.
The evening papers were just out with a telegram
On the author of that work, who, in Rome, had been
ill for some days with an attack of malarial fever.
It had at first not been thought grave, but had
taken, in consequence of complications, a turn that
might give rise to anxiety. Anxiety had indeed at
the latest hour begun to be felt.
I was struck in the presence of these tidings with
the fundamental detachment that Mrs. Corvick's
Overt concern quite failed to hide : it gave me the
measure of her consummate independence. That
independence rested on her knowledge, the know-
ledge which nothing now could destroy and which
nothing could make different. The figure in the
carpet might take on another twist or two, but the
sentence had virtually been written. The writer
might go down to his grave : she was the person in
the world to whom—as if she had been his favoured
heir-his continued existence was least of a need.
This reminded me how I had observed at a particular
moment—after Corvick's death—the drop of her
desire to see him face to face. She had got what
she wanted without that. I had been sure that if
she hadrfºat it she wouldn’t have been restrained
from the endsvour to sound him personally by those
Superior reflexions, more conceivable on a man's
part than on a woman's, which in my case had served
as a deterrent. It wasn’t however, I hasten to add,
that my case, in spite of this invidious comparison,
wasn't ambiguous enough. At the thought that
Vereker was perhaps at that moment, dying there
rolled over me a wave of anguish—a poignant Sense
of how inconsistently I still depended on him. A
delicacy that it was my one compensation to suffer
to rule me had left the Alps and the Apennines
between us, but the sense of the waning occasion

242
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
Suggested that I might in my despair at last have
gone to him. Of course I should really have done
nothing of the sort. I remained five minutes, while
my companions talked of the new book, and when
Drayton Deane appealed to me for my opinion of it
I made answer, getting up, that I detested Hugh
Vereker and simply couldn’t read him. I departed
with the moral certainty that as the door closed
behind me Deane would brand me for awfully super-
ficial. His hostess wouldn’t contradict that at
least.
I continue to trace with a briefer touch our in-
tensely odd successions. Three weeks after this came
Vereker's death, and before the year was out the
death of his wife. That poor lady I had never seen,
but I had had a futile theory that, should she survive
him long enough to be decorously accessible, I might
approach her with the feeble flicker of my plea.
Did she know and if she knew would she speak 2
It was much to be presumed that for more reasons
than one she would have nothing to say ; but when
she passed out of all reach I felt renouncement indeed
my appointed lot. I was shut up in my obsession
for ever—my gaolers had gone off with the key. I
find myself quite as vague as a captive in a dungeon
about the time that further elapsed before Mrs.
Corvick became the wife of Drayton Deane. I had
foreseen, through my bars, this end of the business,
though there was no indecent haste and our friend-
ship had rather fallen off. They were both so
“awfully intellectual ’’ that it struck people as a
suitable match, but I had measured better than any
one the wealth of understanding the bride would
contribute to the union. Never, for a marriage in
literary circles—so the newspapers described the
alliance—had a lady been so bravely dowered. I
began with due promptness to look for the fruit of
243
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
the affair—that fruit, I mean, of which the premoni-
tory symptoms would be peculiarly visible in the
husband. Taking for granted the splendour of the
other party's nuptial gift, I expected to see him make
a show commensurate with his increase of means. I
knew what his means had been—his article on “The
Right of Way” had distinctly given one the figure. As
he was now exactly in the position in which still
more exactly I was not I watched from month to
month, in the likely periodicals, for the heavy message
poor Corvick had been unable to deliver and the
responsibility of which would have fallen on his
successor. The widow and wife would have broken
by the rekindled hearth the silence that only a widow
and wife might break, and Deane would be as aflame
with the knowledge as Corvick in his own hour, as
Gwendolen in hers, had been. Well, he was aflame
doubtless, but the fire was apparently not to become
a public blaze. I scanned the periodicals in vain :
Drayton Deane filled them with exuberant pages,
but he withheld the page I most feverishly sought.
He wrote on a thousand subjects, but never on the
subject of Vereker. His special line was to tell
truths that other people either “funked,” as he said,
or overlooked, but he never told the only truth that
seemed to me in these days to signify. I met the
couple in those literary circles referred to in the
papers: I have sufficiently intimated that it was only
in such circles we were all constructed to revolve.
Gwendolen was more than ever committed to them
by the publication of her third novel, and I myself
definitely classed by holding the opinion that this
work was inferior to its immediate predecessor. Was
it worse because she had been keeping worse com-
pany ? If her secret was, as she had told me, her
life—a fact discernible in her increasing bloom, an
air of conscious privilege that, cleverly corrected by
244
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
pretty charities, gave distinction to her appearance—
it had yet not a direct influence on her work. That
only made one—everything only made one—yearn
the more for it; only rounded it off with a mystery
finer and subtler.
245
XI
It was therefore from her husband I could never
remove my eyes: I beset him in a manner that might
have made him uneasy. I went even so far as to en-
gage him in conversation. Didn't he know, hadn't
he come into it as a matter of course 2—that question
hummed in my brain. Of course he knew ; other-
wise he wouldn't return my stare so queerly. His
wife had told him what I wanted and he was amiably
amused at my impotence. He didn't laugh—he
wasn’t a laugher : his system was to present to my
irritation, so that I should crudely expose myself, a
conversational blank as vast as his big bare brow.
It always happened that I turned away with a settled
conviction from these unpeopled expanses, which
seemed to complete each other geographically and to
symbolise together Drayton Deane's want of voice,
want of form. He simply hadn’t the art to use what
he knew ; he literally was incompetent to take up the
duty where Corvick had left it. I went still further—
it was the only glimpse of happiness I had. I made up
my mind that the duty didn’t appeal to him. He
wasn’t interested, he didn’t care. Yes, it quite com-
forted me to believe him too stupid to have joy of
the thing I lacked. He was as stupid after as he had
been before, and that deepened for me the golden
glory in which the mystery was wrapped. I had of
course none the less to recollect that his wife might
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THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
have imposed her conditions and exactions. I had
above all to remind myself that with Vereker's death
the major incentive dropped. He was still there to be
honoured by what might be done—he was no longer
there to give it his sanction. Who alas but he had
the authority ?
Two children were born to the pair, but the second
cost the mother her life. After this stroke I seemed
to see another ghost of a chance. I jumped at it in
thought, but I waited a certain time for manners,
and at last my opportunity arrived in a remunerative
way. His wife had been dead a year when I met Dray-
ton Deane in the Smoking-room of a small club of
which we both were members, but where for months
—perhaps because I rarely entered it—I hadn’t
seen him. The room was empty and the occasion
propitious. I deliberately offered him, to have done
with the matter for ever, that advantage for which I
felt he had long been looking.
“As an older acquaintance of your late wife's than
even you were,” I began, “you must let me say to
you something I have on my mind. I shall be glad
to make any terms with you that you see fit to name
for the information she must have had from George
Corvick—the information, you know, that had come
to him, poor chap, in one of the happiest hours of his
life, straight from Hugh Vereker.”
He looked at me like a dim phrenological bust.
“The information 2 ”
“Vereker's secret, my dear man—the general
intention of his books: the string the pearls were
strung on, the buried treasure, the figure in the
carpet.”
He began to flush—the numbers on his bumps
to come out. “Vereker's books had a general inten-
tion ? '’
I stared in my turn. “You don’t mean to say
247
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
you don’t know it?” I thought for a moment he was
playing with me. “Mrs. Deane knew it ; she had it,
as I say, straight from Corvick, who had, after infinite
search and to Vereker's own delight, found the very
mouth of the cave. Where is the mouth 2 He told
after their marriage—and told alone—the person
who, when the circumstances were reproduced, must
have told you. Have I been wrong in taking for
granted that she admitted you, as one of the highest
privileges of the relation in which you stood to her,
to the knowledge of which she was after Corvick's
death the sole depositary 2 All I know is that that
knowledge is infinitely precious, and what I want you
to understand is that if you’ll in your turn admit
me to it you’ll do me a kindness for which I shall be
lastingly grateful.”
He had turned at last very red; I daresay he had
begun by thinking I had lost my wits. Little by little
he followed me ; on my own side I stared with a
livelier surprise. Then he spoke. “I don’t know
what you're talking about.”
He wasn’t acting—it was the absurd truth. “She
didn't tell you 2 ”
“Nothing about Hugh Vereker.”
I was stupefied ; the room went round. It had
'been too good even for that “Upon your honour 2 ”
“Upon my honour. What the devil's the matter
with you ?” he growled.
“I’m astounded—I’m disappointed. I wanted
to get it out of you.”
“It isn’t in me !” he awkwardly laughed. “And
even if it were—”
“If it were you'd let me have it—oh yes, in
common humanity. But I believe you. I see—I
see l’’ I went on, conscious, with the full turn of the
wheel, of my great delusion, my false view of the
poor man's attitude. What I saw, though I couldn't
248
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
Say it, was that his wife hadn’t thought him worth
enlightening. This struck me as strange for a woman
who had thought him worth marrying. At last I
explained it by the reflexion that she couldn’t possibly
have married him for his understanding. She had
married him for something else.
He was to some extent enlightened now, but he was
even more astonished, more disconcerted : he took
a moment to compare my story with his quickened
memories. The result of his meditation was his
presently saying with a good deal of rather feeble
form : “This is the first I hear of what you allude to.
I think you must be mistaken as to Mrs. Drayton
Deane's having had any unmentioned, and still less
any unmentionable, knowledge of Hugh Vereker.
She'd certainly have wished it—should it have borne
On his literary character—to be used.”
“It was used. She used it herself. She told me
with her own lips that she ‘lived ’ on it.”
I had no sooner spoken than I repented of my
words; he grew so pale that I felt as if I had struck
him. “Ah ‘lived ’——l ” he murmured, turning
short away from me.
My compunction was real ; I laid my hand on his
shoulder. “I beg you to forgive me—I’ve made a
mistake. You don't know what I thought you knew.
You could, if I had been right, have rendered me a
Service ; and I had my reasons for assuming that
you’d be in a position to meet me.”
“Your reasons 2 ” he echoed. “What were your
reasons 2 ”
I looked at him well ; I hesitated ; I considered.
“Come and sit down with me here and I’ll tell you.”
I drew him to a sofa, I lighted another cigar and,
beginning with the anecdote of Vereker's one descent
from the clouds, I recited to him the extraordinary
chain of accidents that had, in spite of the original
249
THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET
gleam, kept me till that hour in the dark. I told him
in a word just what I’ve written out here. He listened
with deepening attention, and I became aware, to
my surprise, by his ejaculations, by his questions, that
he would have been after all not unworthy to be
trusted by his wife. So abrupt an experience of her
want of trust had now a disturbing effect on him ; but
I saw the immediate shock throb away little by little
and then gather again into waves of wonder and
curiosity—waves that promised, I could perfectly
judge, to break in the end with the fury of my own
highest tides. I may say that to-day as victims of
unappeased desire there isn't a pin to choose between
º The poor man's state is almost my consolation ;
\there are really moments when I feel it to be quite
my revenge.

250
THE COXON FUND
25I
I
“THEY’ve got him for life ” I said to myself that
evening on my way back to the station ; but later
on, alone in the compartment (from Wimbledon to
Waterloo, before the glory of the District Railway)
I amended this declaration in the light of the sense
that my friends would probably after all not enjoy
a monopoly of Mr. Saltram. I won't pretend to
have taken his vast measure on that first occasion,
but I think I had achieved a glimpse of what the
privilege of his acquaintance might mean for many
persons in the way of charges accepted. He had
been a great experience, and it was this perhaps that
had put me into the frame of foreseeing how we
should all, sooner or later, have the honour of dealing
with him as a whole. Whatever impression I then
received of the amount of this total, I had a full
enough vision of the patience of the Mulvilles. He
was to stay all the winter: Adelaide dropped it in
a tone that drew the sting from the inevitable
emphasis. These excellent people might indeed have
been content to give the circle of hospitality a dia-
meter of six months; but if they didn't say he was
to stay all summer as well it was only because this
was more than they ventured to hope. I remember
that at dinner that evening he wore slippers, new and
predominantly purple, of some queer carpet-stuff;
but the Mulvilles were still in the stage of supposing
that he might be snatched from them by higher
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THE COXON FUND
bidders. At a later time they grew, poor dears, to
fear no snatching ; but theirs was a fidelity which
needed no help from competition to make them proud.
Wonderful indeed as, when all was said, you inevitably
pronounced Frank Saltram, it was not to be overlooked
that the Kent Mulvilles were in their way still more
extraordinary: as striking an instance as could easily
be encountered of the familiar truth that remarkable
men find remarkable conveniences.
They had sent for me from Wimbledon to come
out and dine, and there had been an implication in
Adelaide's note—judged by her notes alone she
might have been thought silly—that it was a case in
which something momentous was to be determined
or done. I had never known them not be in a
“state ’’ about somebody, and I daresay I tried to be
droll on this point in accepting their invitation. On
finding myself in the presence of their latest discovery
I had not at first felt irreverence droop—and, thank
heaven, I have never been absolutely deprived of that
alternative in Mr. Saltram's company. I saw, how-
ever—I hasten to declare it—that compared to this
specimen their other phoenixes had been birds of
inconsiderable feather, and I afterwards took credit
to myself for not having even in primal bewilderments
made a mistake about the essence of the man. He
had an incomparable gift; I never was blind to it—
it dazzles me still. It dazzles me perhaps even more
in remembrance than in fact, for I’m not unaware
that for so rare a subject the imagination goes to some
expense, inserting a jewel here and there or giving a
twist to a plume. How the art of portraiture would
rejoice in this figure if the art of portraiture had only
the canvas Nature, in truth, had largely rounded
it, and if memory, hovering about it, sometimes holds
her breath, this is because the voice that comes back
was really golden.
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Though the great man was an inmate and didn't
dress, he kept dinner on this occasion waiting, and the
first words he uttered on coming into the room were
an elated announcement to Mulville that he had
found out something. Not catching the allusion and
gaping doubtless a little at his face, I privately asked
Adelaide what he had found out. I shall never forget
the look she gave me as she replied : “Everything !”
She really believed it. At that moment, at any rate,
he had found out that the mercy of the Mulvilles was
infinite. He had previously of course discovered, as
I had myself for that matter, that their dinners were
Soignés. Let me not indeed, in saying this, neglect to
declare that I shall falsify my counterfeit if I seem
to hint that there was in his nature any ounce of
calculation. He took whatever came, but he never
plotted for it, and no man who was so much of an
absorbent can ever have been so little of a parasite.
He had a system of the universe, but he had no system
of sponging—that was quite hand-to-mouth. He
had fine gross easy senses, but it was not his good-
natured appetite that wrought confusion. If he had
loved us for our dinners we could have paid with our
dinners, and it would have been a great economy of
finer matter. I make free in these connexions with
the plural possessive because if I was never able to
do what the Mulvilles did, and people with still bigger
houses and simpler charities, I met, first and last,
every demand of reflexion, of emotion—particularly
perhaps those of gratitude and of resentment. No
one, I think, paid the tribute of giving him up so
often, and if it's rendering honour to borrow wisdom
I've a right to talk of my sacrifices. He yielded
lessons as the sea yields fish—I lived for a while on
this diet. Sometimes it almost appeared to me that
his massive monstrous failure—if failure after all it
was had been designed for my private recreation.
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He fairly pampered my curiosity; but the history of
that experience would take me too far. This is not
the large canvas I just now spoke of, and I wouldn’t
have approached him with my present hand had it
been a question of all the features. Frank Saltram's
features, for artistic purposes, are verily the anecdotes
that are to be gathered. Their name is legion, and
this is only one, of which the interest is that it con-
cerns even more closely several other persons. Such
episodes, as one looks back, are the little dramas that
made up the innumerable facets of the big drama—
which is yet to be reported.
256
II
It is furthermore remarkable that though the two
stories are distinct—my own, as it were, and this
other—they equally began, in a manner, the first
night of my acquaintance with Frank Saltram, the
night I came back from Wimbledon so agitated with
a new sense of life that, in London, for the very thrill
of it, I could only walk home. Walking and swinging
my stick, I overtook, at Buckingham Gate, George
Gravener, and George Gravener's story may be said
to have begun with my making him, as our paths lay
together, come home with me for a talk. I duly
remember, let me parenthesise, that it was still more
that of another person, and also that several years
were to elapse before it was to extend to a second
chapter. I had much to say to him, none the less,
about my visit to the Mulvilles, whom he more in-
differently knew, and I was at any rate So amusing
that for long afterwards he never encountered me
without asking for news of the old man of the sea. I
hadn’t said Mr. Saltram was old, and it was to be seen
that he was of an age to outweather George Gravener.
I had at that time a lodging in Ebury Street, and
Gravener was staying at his brother's empty house
in Eaton Square. At Cambridge, five years before,
even in our devastating set, his intellectual power had
seemed to me almost awful. Some one had once
asked me privately, with blanched cheeks, what it
257 S
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was then that after all such a mind as that left stand-
ing. “It leaves itself ” I could recollect devoutly
replying. I could smile at present for this remem-
brance, since before we got to Ebury Street I was
struck with the fact that, save in the sense of being
well set up on his legs, George Gravener had actu-
ally ceased to tower. The universe he laid low had
Somehow bloomed again—the usual eminences were
visible. I wondered whether he had lost his humour,
or only, dreadful thought, had never had any—not
even when I had fancied him most Aristophanesque.
What was the need of appealing to laughter, however,
I could enviously inquire, where you might appeal so
confidently to measurement 2 Mr. Saltram's queer
figure, his thick nose and hanging lip, were fresh to
me: in the light of my old friend's fine cold symmetry
they presented mere success in amusing as the refuge
of conscious ugliness. Already, at hungry twenty-six,
Gravener looked as blank and parliamentary as if he
were fifty and popular. In my scrap of a residence—
he had a worldling's eye for its futile conveniencies,
but never a comrade's joke—I sounded Frank
Saltram in his ears; a circumstance I mention in
order to note that even then I was surprised at his
impatience of my enlivenment. As he had never
before heard of the personage it took indeed the form
of impatience of the preposterous Mulvilles, his rela-
tion to whom, like mine, had had its origin in an early,
a childish intimacy with the young Adelaide, the fruit
of multiplied ties in the previous generation. When
she married Kent Mulville, who was older than
Gravener and I and much more amiable, I gained a
friend, but Gravener practically lost one. We re-
acted in different ways from the form taken by what
he called their deplorable social action—the form
(the term was also his) of nasty second-rate gush. I
may have held in my for intérieur that the good people
258
THE COXON FUND
at Wimbledon were beautiful fools, but when he
Sniffed at them I couldn't help taking the opposite
line, for I already felt that even should we happen to
agree it would always be for reasons that differed. It
came home to me that he was admirably British as,
without so much as a sociable sneer at my book-
binder, he turned away from the serried rows of my
little French library.
“Of course I’ve never seen the fellow, but it’s
clear enough he's a humbug.”
“Clear ‘enough ' is just what it isn’t,” I replied ;
“if it only were !” That ejaculation on my part must
have been the beginning of what was to be later a
long ache for final frivolous rest. Gravener was pro-
found enough to remark after a moment that in the
first place he couldn’t be anything but a Dissenter,
and when I answered that the very note of his fasci-
nation was his extraordinary speculative breadth my
friend retorted that there was no cad like your culti-
vated cad, and that I might depend upon discovering
—since I had had the levity not already to have
inquired—that my shining light proceeded, a genera-
tion back, from a Methodist cheesemonger. I con-
fess I was struck with his insistence, and I said, after
reflexion : “It may be—I admit it may be ; but why
on earth are you so sure ?”—asking the question
mainly to lay him the trap of saying that it was be-
cause the poor man didn't dress for dinner. He took
an instant to circumvent my trap and come blandly
out the other side.
“Because the Kent Mulvilles have invented him.
They've an infallible hand for frauds. All their geese
are swans. They were born to be duped, they like it,
they cry for it, they don’t know anything from any-
thing, and they disgust one—luckily perhaps l—
with Christian charity.” His vehemence was doubt-
less an accident, but it might have been a Strange
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foreknowledge. I forget what protest I dropped ; it
was at any rate something that led him to go on
after a moment : “I only ask One thing—it's per-
fectly simple. Is a man, in a given case, a real
gentleman 2 ”
“A real gentleman, my dear fellow—that's so
soon said l ‘’
“Not so soon when he isn’t If they’ve got hold
of one this time he must be a great rascal ”
“I might feel injured,” I answered, “if I didn't
reflect that they don’t rave about me.”
“Don’t be too sure | I'll grant that he's a gentle-
man,” Gravener presently added, “if you'll admit
that he's a scamp.”
“I don’t know which to admire most, your logic
or your benevolence.”
Mycompanion coloured at this, but he didn't change
the subject. “Where did they pick him up 2 ”
“I think they were struck with something he had
published.”
“I can fancy the dreary thing ! ”
“I believe they found out he had all sorts of
worries and difficulties.”
“That of course wasn't to be endured, so they
jumped at the privilege of paying his debts ” I
professed that I knew nothing about his debts, and
I reminded my visitor that though the dear Mulvilles
were angels they were neither idiots nor millionaires.
What they mainly aimed at was reuniting Mr. Saltram
to his wife. “I was expecting to hear he has basely
abandoned her,” Gravener went on, at this, “ and
I’m too glad you don't disappoint me.”
I tried to recall exactly what Mrs. Mulville had
told me. “He didn't leave her—no. It’s she who
has left him.”
“Left him to us 2 º' Gravener asked. “The
monster—many thanks I decline to take him.”
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“You’ll hear more about him in spite of yourself.
I can't, no, I really can’t resist the impression that
he's a big man.” I was already mastering—to my
shame perhaps be it said—just the tone my old
friend least liked.
“It’s doubtless only a trifle,” he returned, “but
you haven’t happened to mention what his reputa-
tion's to rest on.”
“Why, on what I began by boring you with—his
extraordinary mind.”
“As exhibited in his writings 2 ”
“Possibly in his writings, but certainly in his talk,
which is far and away the richest I ever listened to.”
“And what’s it all about 2 ''
“My dear fellow, don’t ask me ! About every-
thing ! ” I pursued, reminding myself of poor Adelaide.
“About his ideas of things,” I then more charitably
added. “You must have heard him to know what
I mean—it’s unlike anything that ever was heard.”
I coloured, I admit, I overcharged a little, for such
a picture was an anticipation of Saltram's later
development and still more of my fuller acquaintance
with him. However, I really expressed, a little
lyrically perhaps, my actual imagination of him
when I proceeded to declare that, in a cloud of tradi-
tion, of legend, he might very well go down to posterity
as the greatest of all great talkers. Before we parted
George Gravener had wondered why such a row
should be made about a chatterbox the more and
why he should be pampered and pensioned. The
greater the wind-bag the greater the calamity. Out
of proportion to everything else on earth had come
to be this wagging of the tongue. We were drenched
with talk—our wretched age was dying of it. I
differed from him here sincerely, only going So far as
to concede, and gladly, that we were drenched with
sound. It was not, however, the mere speakers who
26I
THE COXON FUND
were killing us—it was the mere stammerers. Fine
talk was as rare as it was refreshing—the gift of the
gods themselves, the one starry Spangle on the ragged
cloak of humanity. How many men were there who
rose to this privilege, of how many masters of con-
versation could he boast the acquaintance 2 Dying
of talk?—why, we were dying of the lack of it! Bad
writing wasn’t talk, as many people seemed to think,
and even good wasn’t always to be compared to it.
From the best talk indeed the best writing had some-
thing to learn. I fancifully added that we too should
peradventure be gilded by the legend, should be
pointed at for having listened, for having actually
heard. Gravener, who had glanced at his watch and
discovered it was midnight, found to all this a retort
beautifully characteristic of him.
“There's one little fact to be borne in mind in the
presence equally of the best talk and of the worst.”
He looked, in saying this, as if he meant great things,
and I was sure he could only mean Once more that
neither of them mattered if a man wasn’t a real
gentleman. Perhaps it was what he did mean ; he
deprived me, however, of the exultation of being right
by putting the truth in a slightly different way.
“The only thing that really counts for one's estimate
of a person is his conduct.” He had his watch still
in his palm, and I reproached him with unfair play
in having ascertained beforehand that it was now
the hour at which I always gave in. My pleasantry
so far failed to mollify him that he promptly added
that to the rule he had just enunciated there was
absolutely no exception.
“None whatever ??’
“None whatever.”
“Trust me then to try to be good at any price l’’
I laughed as I went with him to the door. “I declare
I will be, if I have to be horrible !”
262
III
IF that first night was one of the liveliest, or at any
rate was the freshest, of my exaltations, there was
another, four years later, that was one of my great
discomposures. Repetition, I well knew by this time,
was the secret of Saltram's power to alienate, and of
course one would never have seen him at his finest
if one hadn’t seen him in his remorses. They set in
mainly at this season and were magnificent, elemental,
orchestral. I was quite aware that One of these
atmospheric disturbances was now due ; but none
the less, in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet
as a lecturer, it was impossible not to feel that two
failures were a large order, as we said, for a short
course of five. This was the second time, and it was
past nine o'clock; the audience, a muster unpre-
cedented and really encouraging, had fortunately the
attitude of blandness that might have been looked
for in persons whom the promise of (if I’m not mis-
taken) An Analysis of Primary Ideas had drawn to
the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There
was in those days in that region a petty lecture-hall
to be secured on terms as moderate as the funds left
at our disposal by the irrepressible question of the
maintenance of five small Saltrams—I include the
mother—and one large one. By the time the Sal-
trams, of different sizes, were all maintained we had
pretty well poured out the oil that might have
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THE COXON FUND
lubricated the machinery for enabling the most
original of men to appear to maintain them.
It was I, the other time, who had been forced into
the breach, standing up there for an odious lamplit
moment to explain to half-a-dozen thin benches,
where earnest brows were virtuously void of any-
thing SO cynical as a suspicion, that we couldn't
so much as put a finger on Mr. Saltram. There was
nothing to plead but that our scouts had been out
from the early hours and that we were afraid that on
One of his walks abroad—he took one, for meditation,
whenever he was to address such a company—some
accident had disabled or delayed him. The medi-
tative walks were a fiction, for he never, that any one
could discover, prepared anything but a magnificent
prospectus; hence his circulars and programmes, of
which I possess an almost complete collection, are
the solemn ghosts of generations never born. I put
the case, as it seemed to me, at the best ; but I admit
I had been angry, and Kent Mulville was shocked
at my want of public optimism. This time therefore
I left the excuses to his more practised patience, only
relieving myself in response to a direct appeal from
a young lady next whom, in the hall, I found myself
sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had
been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded
an observer of the fact that no one else in the room
had an approach to an appearance. Our philosopher's
“tail” was deplorably limp. This visitor was the
Only person who looked at her ease, who had come a
little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry
amusement in her handsome young head, and her
presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden
extension of Saltram's sphere of influence. He was
doing better than we hoped, and he had chosen such
an occasion, of all occasions, to succumb to heaven
knew which of his fond infirmities. The young lady
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THE COXON FUND
produced an impression of auburn hair and black
velvet, and had on her other hand a companion of
obscurer type, presumably a waiting - maid. She
herself might perhaps have been a foreign countess,
and before she addressed me I had beguiled our sorry
interval by finding in her a vague recall of the opening
of some novel of Madame Sand. It didn’t make her
more fathomable to pass in a few minutes from this
to the certitude that she was American ; it simply
engendered depressing reflexions as to the possible
check to contributions from Boston. She asked me
if, as a person apparently more initiated, I would
recommend further waiting, and I answered that if
she considered I was on my honour I would privately
deprecate it. Perhaps she didn't ; at any rate our
talk took a turn that prolonged it till she became
aware we were left almost alone. I presently ascer-
tained she knew Mrs. Saltram, and this explained in
a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the
friends of the husband was as nothing to the brother-
hood, or perhaps I should say the sisterhood, of the
friends of the wife. Like the Kent Mulvilles I be-
longed to both fraternities, and even better than
they I think I had sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltram's
wrongs. She bored me to extinction, and I knew
but too well how she had bored her husband ; but
there were those who stood by her, the most efficient
of whom were indeed the handful of poor Saltram's
backers. They did her liberal justice, whereas her
mere patrons and partisans had nothing but hatred
for our philosopher. I’m bound to say it was we,
however—we of both camps, as it were—who had
always done most for her.
I thought my young lady looked rich—I scarcely
knew why; and I hoped she had put her hand in
her pocket. I soon made her out, however, not at
all a fine fanatic—she was but a generous irresponsible
265
THE COXON FUND
inquirer. She had come to England to see her aunt,
and it was at her aunt's she had met the dreary
lady we had all so much on our mind. I saw she'd
help to pass the time when she observed that it was
a pity this lady wasn't intrinsically more interesting.
That was refreshing, for it was an article of faith
in Mrs. Saltram's circle—at least among those who
scorned to know her horrid husband—that she was
attractive on her merits. She was in truth a most
ordinary person, as Saltram himself would have been
if he hadn’t been a prodigy. The question of vulgarity
had no application to him, but it was a measure his
wife kept challenging you to apply. I hasten to add
that the consequences of your doing So were no
sufficient reason for his having left her to starve.
“He doesn’t seem to have much force of character,”
said my young lady; at which I laughed out so loud
that my departing friends looked back at me over
their shoulders as if I were making a joke of their
discomfiture. My joke probably cost Saltram a
subscription or two, but it helped me on with my
interlocutress. “She says he drinks like a fish,” she
sociably continued, “ and yet she allows that his
mind's wonderfully clear.” It was amusing to con-
verse with a pretty girl who could talk of the clearness
of Saltram's mind. I expected next to hear she had
been assured he was awfully clever. I tried to tell
her—I had it almost on my conscience—what was
the proper way to regard him ; an effort attended
perhaps more than ever on this occasion with the
usual effect of my feeling that I wasn’t after all very
sure of it. She had come to-night out of high curiosity
—she had wanted to learn this proper way for herself.
She had read some of his papers and hadn’t under-
stood them ; but it was at home, at her aunt’s, that
her curiosity had been kindled—kindled mainly by
his wife's remarkable stories of his want of virtue.
266
THE COXON FUND
“I suppose they ought to have kept me away,” my
companion dropped, “ and I suppose they’d have
done so if I hadn’t somehow got an idea that he's
fascinating. In fact Mrs. Saltram herself says he
is.”
“So you came to see where the fascination resides 2
Well, you've seen l’’
My young lady raised fine eyebrows. “Do you
mean in his bad faith ? '’
“In the extraordinary effects of it ; his possession,
that is, of some quality or other that condemns us
in advance to forgive him the humiliation, as I may
call it, to which he has subjected us.”
“The humiliation ? '’
“Why, mine, for instance, as one of his guarantors,
before you as the purchaser of a ticket.”
She let her charming gay eyes rest on me. “You
don’t look humiliated a bit, and if you did I should
let you off, disappointed as I am ; for the mysterious
quality you speak of is just the quality I came to see.”
“Oh you can’t ‘see’ it !” I cried.
“How then do you get at it 2 ”
“You don’t You mustn't suppose he's good-
looking,” I added.
“Why, his wife says he's lovely
My hilarity may have struck her as excessive, but
I confess it broke out afresh. Had she acted only in
obedience to this singular plea, so characteristic, on
Mrs. Saltram's part, of what was irritating in the
narrowness of that lady's point of view P “Mrs.
Saltram,” I explained, “undervalues him where he's
strongest, so that, to make up for it perhaps, she over-
praises him where he's weak. He's not, assuredly,
superficially attractive : he's middle-aged, fat, feature-
less save for his great eyes.”
“Yes, his great eyes,” said my young lady atten-
tively. She had evidently heard all about his great
y y
!
267
THE COXON FUND
eyes—the beaux yeux for which alone we had really
done it all.
“They're tragic and splendid—lights on a danger-
ous coast. But he moves badly and dresses worse,
and altogether he's anything but smart.”
My companion, who appeared to reflect on this,
after a moment appealed. “Do you call him a real
gentleman 2 ”
I started slightly at the question, for I had a Sense
of recognising it : George Gravener, years before,
that first flushed night, had put me face to face with
it. It had embarrassed me then, but it didn't
embarrass me now, for I had lived with it and Over-
come it and disposed of it. “A real gentleman 2
Emphatically not l’’
My promptitude surprised her a little, but I
quickly felt how little it was to Gravener I was now
talking. “Do you say that because he's—what do
you call it in England 2–of humble extraction ?”
“Not a bit. His father was a country school-
master and his mother the widow of a sexton, but
that has nothing to do with it. I say it simply because
I know him well.”
“But isn’t it an awful drawback 2 °
“Awful—quite awful.”
“I mean isn’t it positively fatal 2 ”
“Fatal to what ? Not to his magnificent vitality.”
Again she had a meditative moment. “And is
his magnificent vitality the cause of his vices 2 ”
“Your questions are formidable, but I’m glad you
put them. I was thinking of his noble intellect. His
vices, as you say, have been much exaggerated : they
consist mainly after all in one comprehensive defect.”
“A want of will 2 ”
“A want of dignity.”
“He doesn’t recognise his obligations 2 ”
“On the contrary, he recognises them with effusion,
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THE COXON FUND
especially in public : he smiles and bows and beckons
across the street to them. But when they pass over
he turns away, and he speedily loses them in the
Crowd. The recognition's purely spiritual—it isn't
in the least social. So he leaves all his belongings
to other people to take care of. He accepts favours,
loans, sacrifices—all with nothing more deterrent
than an agony of shame. Fortunately we're a little
faithful band and we do what we can.” I held my
tongue about the natural children engendered, to the
number of three, in the wantonness of his youth.
I Only remarked that he did make efforts—often
tremendous ones. “But the efforts,” I said, “ never
Come to much : the only things that come to much
are the abandonments, the surrenders.”
“And how much do they come to ?”
“You’re right to put it as if we had a big bill to
pay, but, as I’ve told you before, your questions are
rather terrible. They come, these mere exercises of
genius, to a great sum total of poetry, of philosophy,
a mighty mass of speculation, notation, quotation.
The genius is there, you see, to meet the surrender ;
but there's no genius to support the defence.”
“But what is there, after all, at his age, to show 2 ”
“In the way of achievement recognised and reputa-
tion established 2 ” I asked. “To ‘show 'if you will,
there isn’t much, since his writing, mostly, isn’t as
fine, isn’t certainly as showy, as his talk. Moreover,
two-thirds of his work are merely colossal projects
and announcements. ‘Showing Frank Saltram is
often a poor business,” I went on ; “we endeavoured,
you’ll have observed, to show him to-night ! How-
ever, if he had lectured he'd have lectured divinely.
It would just have been his talk.”
“And what would his talk just have been 2 ”
I was conscious of some ineffectiveness, as well
perhaps as of a little impatience, as I replied : “The
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THE COXON FUND
exhibition of a splendid intellect.” My young lady
looked not quite satisfied at this, but as I wasn’t
prepared for another question I hastily pursued :
“The sight of a great suspended swinging crystal—
huge lucid lustrous, a block of light—flashing back
every impression of life and every possibility of
thought !”
This gave her something to turn over till we had
passed out to the dusky porch of the hall, in front of
which the lamps of a quiet brougham were almost
the only thing Saltram's treachery hadn’t extin-
guished. I went with her to the door of her carriage,
out of which she leaned a moment after she had
thanked me and taken her seat. Her smile even in
the darkness was pretty. “I do want to see that
crystall ”
“You’ve only to come to the next lecture.”
“I go abroad in a day or two with my aunt.”
“Wait over till next week,” I suggested. “It’s
quite worth it.”
She became grave. “Not unless he really comes l’”
At which the brougham started off, carrying her away
too fast, fortunately for my manners, to allow me to
exclaim “Ingratitude ’’
270
IV
MRS. SALTRAM made a great affair of her right to be
informed where her husband had been the second
evening he failed to meet his audience. She came
to me to ascertain, but I couldn’t satisfy her, for in
Spite of my ingenuity I remained in ignorance. It
wasn’t till much later that I found this had not
been the case with Kent Mulville, whose hope for
the best never twirled the thumbs of him more placidly
than when he happened to know the worst. He had
known it on the occasion I speak of—that is im-
mediately after. He was impenetrable then, but
ultimately confessed. What he confessed was more
than I shall now venture to make public. It was of
course familiar to me that Saltram was incapable
of keeping the engagements which, after their separa-
tion, he had entered into with regard to his wife, a
deeply wronged, justly resentful, quite irreproachable
and insufferable person. She often appeared at my
chambers to talk over his lapses; for if, as she
declared, she had washed her hands of him, she had
carefully preserved the water of this ablution, which
she handed about for analysis. She had arts of her
own of exciting one's impatience, the most infallible
of which was perhaps her assumption that we were
kind to her because we liked her. In reality her
personal fall had been a sort of social rise—since I
had seen the moment when, in our little conscientious
27I
THE COXON FUND
circle, her desolation almost made her the fashion.
Her voice was grating and her children ugly ; more-
over she hated the good Mulvilles, whom I more and
more loved. They were the people who by doing
most for her husband had in the long run done most
for herself ; and the warm confidence with which he
had laid his length upon them was a pressure gentle
compared with her stiffer persuadability. I’m bound
to say he didn't criticise his benefactors, though
practically he got tired of them ; she, however, had
the highest standards about eleemosynary forms.
She offered the odd spectacle of a spirit puffed up by
dependence, and indeed it had introduced her to
some excellent society. She pitied me for not know-
ing certain people who aided her and whom she
doubtless patronised in turn for their luck in not
knowing me. I daresay I should have got on with
her better if she had had a ray of imagination—if it
had occasionally seemed to occur to her to view
Saltram's expressions of his nature in any other
manner than as separate subjects of woe. They
were all flowers of his character, pearls strung on an
endless thread ; but she had a stubborn little way
of challenging them one after the other, as if she
never Suspected that he had a character, such as it
was, or that deficiencies might be organic ; the
irritating effect of a mind incapable of a generalisation.
One might doubtless have overdone the idea that there
was a general licence for such a man ; but if this had
happened it would have been through one's feeling
that there could be none for such a woman.
I recognised her superiority when I asked her
about the aunt of the disappointed young lady: it
sounded like a Sentence from an English-French or
other phrase-book. She triumphed in what she told
me and she may have triumphed still more in what
she withheld. My friend of the other evening, Miss
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Anvoy, had but lately come to England; Lady
Coxon, the aunt, had been established here for years
in consequence of her marriage with the late Sir
Gregory of that name. She had a house in the
Regent's Park, a Bath-chair and a fernery; and
above all she had sympathy. Mrs. Saltram had made
her acquaintance through mutual friends. This
vagueness caused me to feel how much I was out of
it and how large an independent circle Mrs. Saltram
had at her command. I should have been glad to
know more about the disappointed young lady, but
I felt I should know most by not depriving her of
her advantage, as she might have mysterious means
of depriving me of my knowledge. For the present,
moreover, this experience was stayed, Lady Coxon
having in fact gone abroad accompanied by her niece.
The niece, besides being immensely clever, was an
heiress, Mrs. Saltram said ; the only daughter and
the light of the eyes of some great American merchant,
a man, over there, of endless indulgences and dollars.
She had pretty clothes and pretty manners, and she
had, what was prettier still, the great thing of all.
The great thing of all for Mrs. Saltram was always
sympathy, and she spoke as if during the absence of
these ladies she mightn't know where to turn for it.
A few months later indeed, when they had come back,
her tone perceptibly changed : she alluded to them,
on my leading her up to it, rather as to persons in her
debt for favours received. What had happened I
didn't know, but I saw it would take only a little
more or a little less to make her speak of them as
thankless subjects of social countenance—people for
whom she had vainly tried to do something. I
confess I saw how it wouldn’t be in a mere week or
two that I should rid myself of the image of Ruth
Anvoy, in whose very name, when I learnt it, I found
something secretly to like. I should probably neither
273 T
THE COXON FUND
See her nor hear of her again : the knight's widow
(he had been Mayor of Clockborough) would pass
away and the heiress would return to her inheritance.
I gathered with surprise that she had not communi-
cated to his wife the story of her attempt to hear Mr.
Saltram, and I founded this reticence on the easy
supposition that Mrs. Saltram had fatigued by over-
pressure the spring of the sympathy of which she
boasted. The girl at any rate would forget the small
adventure, be distracted, take a husband ; besides
which she would lack occasion to repeat her experi-
ment.
We clung to the idea of the brilliant course, delivered
without an accident, that, as a lecturer, would still
make the paying public aware of our great man; but
the fact remained that in the case of an inspiration
So unequal there was treachery, there was fallacy at
least, in the very conception of a series. In our
scrutiny of ways and means we were inevitably subject
to the old convention of the synopsis, the syllabus,
partly of course not to lose the advantage of his
grand free hand in drawing up such things; but for
myself I laughed at our play-bills even while I stickled
for them. It was indeed amusing work to be scrupu-
lous for Frank Saltram, who also at moments laughed
about it, so far as the comfort of a sigh so unstudied
as to be cheerful might pass for such a Sound. He
admitted with a candour all his own that he was in
truth only to be depended on in the Mulvilles' draw-
ing-room. “Yes,” he suggestively allowed, “it’s
there, I think, that I’m at my best ; quite late, when
it gets toward eleven—and if I’ve not been too much
worried.” We all knew what too much worry
meant ; it meant too enslaved for the hour to the
superstition of sobriety. On the Saturdays I used to
bring my portmanteau, so as not to have to think of
eleven o’clock trains. I had a bold theory that as
274
THE COXON FUND
regards this temple of talk and its altars of cushioned
Chintz, its pictures and its flowers, its large fireside and
clear lamplight, we might really arrive at something
if the Mulvilles would but charge for admission.
Here it was, however, that they shamelessly broke
down ; as there's a flaw in every perfection this was
the inexpugnable refuge of their egotism. They
declined to make their saloon a market, so that
Saltram's golden words continued the sole coin that
rang there. It can have happened to no man, how-
ever, to be paid a greater price than such an enchanted
hush as Surrounded him on his greatest nights. The
most profane, on these occasions, felt a presence ;
all minor eloquence grew dumb. Adelaide Mulville,
for the pride of her hospitality, anxiously watched the
door or stealthily poked the fire. I used to call it the
music-room, for we had anticipated Bayreuth. The
very gates of the kingdom of light seemed to open and
the horizon of thought to flash with the beauty of a
Sunrise at Sea.
In the consideration of ways and means, the
sittings of our little board, we were always conscious
of the creak of Mrs. Saltram's shoes. She hovered,
she interrupted, she almost presided, the state of
affairs being mostly such as to supply her with every
incentive for inquiring what was to be done next.
It was the pressing pursuit of this knowledge that, in
concatenations of Omnibuses and usually in very wet
weather, led her so often to my door. She thought
us spiritless creatures with editors and publishers,
but she carried matters to no great effect when she
personally pushed into back-shops. She wanted all
moneys to be paid to herself: they were otherwise
liable to such strange adventures. They trickled
away into the desert—they were mainly at best, alas,
a slender stream. . The editors and the publishers were
the last people to take this remarkable thinker at the
275
THE COXON FUND
valuation that has now pretty well come to be estab-
lished. The former were half-distraught between the
desire to “cut” him and the difficulty of finding a
crevice for their shears; and when a volume on this
or that portentous subject was proposed to the latter
they suggested alternative titles which, as reported to
our friend, brought into his face the noble blank
melancholy that sometimes made it handsome. The
title of an unwritten book didn’t after all much matter,
but some masterpiece of Saltram's may have died in
his bosom of the shudder with which it was then con-
vulsed. The ideal solution, failing the fee at Kent
Mulville's door, would have been some system of
subscription to projected treatises with their non-
appearance provided for—provided for, I mean, by
the indulgence of subscribers. The author's real
misfortune was that subscribers were so wretchedly
literal. When they tastelessly inquired why publica-
tion hadn’t ensued I was tempted to ask who in the
world had ever been so published. Nature herself had
brought him out in voluminous form, and the money
was simply a deposit on borrowing the work.
276
V
I WAS doubtless often a nuisance to my friends in
those years; but there were sacrifices I declined to
make, and I never passed the hat to George Gravener.
I never forgot our little discussion in Ebury Street,
and I think it stuck in my throat to have to treat
him to the avowal I had found so easy to Miss Anvoy.
It had cost me nothing to confide to this charming
girl, but it would have cost me much to confide to
the friend of my youth, that the character of the
“real gentleman ’’ wasn’t an attribute of the man I
took such pains for. Was this because I had already
generalised to the point of perceiving that women
are really the unfastidious sex 2 I knew at any rate
that Gravener, already quite in view but still hungry
and frugal, had naturally enough more ambition
than charity. He had sharp aims for stray Sovereigns,
being in view most from the tall steeple of Clock-
borough. His immediate ambition was to occupy
a lui seul the field of vision of that smokily-seeing
city, and all his movements and postures were calcu-
lated for the favouring angle. The movement of
the hand to the pocket had thus to alternate grace-
fully with the posture of the hand on the heart. He
talked to Clockborough in short only less beguilingly
than Frank Saltram talked to his electors; with the
difference to our credit, however, that we had already
voted and that our candidate had no antagonist but
277
THE COXON FUND
himself. He had more than once been at Wimbledon
—it was Mrs. Mulville's work, not mine—and by
the time the claret was served had seen the god
descend. He took more pains to swing his censer than
I had expected, but on our way back to town he fore-
stalled any little triumph I might have been so artless
as to express by the observation that such a man was
—a hundred times l—a man to use and never a man
to be used by. I remember that this neat remark
humiliated me almost as much as if virtually, in the
fever of broken slumbers, I hadn't often made it
myself. The difference was that on Gravener's part
a force attached to it that could never attach to it
on mine. He was able to use people—he had the
machinery; and the irony of Saltram's being made
showy at Clockborough came out to me when he said,
as if he had no memory of our original talk and the idea
were quite fresh to him : “I hate his type, you know,
but I’ll be hanged if I don’t put some of those things
in. I can find a place for them : we might even find a
place for the fellow himself.” I myself should have
had some fear—not, I need scarcely say, for the
“things ’’ themselves, but for some other things very
near them ; in fine for the rest of my eloquence.
Later on I could see that the oracle of Wimbledon
was not in this case so appropriate as he would have
been had the politics of the gods only coincided more
exactly with those of the party. There was a distinct
moment when, without saying anything more distinct
to me, Gravener entertained the idea of annexing Mr.
Saltram. Such a project was delusive, for the dis-
covery of analogies between his body of doctrine and
that pressed from headquarters upon Clockborough
—the bottling, in a word, of the air of those lungs for
convenient public uncorking in corn - exchanges—
was an experiment for which no one had the leisure.
The only thing would have been to carry him massively
278
THE COXON FUND
about, paid, caged, clipped ; to turn him on for a
particular occasion in a particular channel. Frank
Saltram's channel, however, was essentially not calcul-
able, and there was no knowing what disastrous floods
might have ensued. For what there would have been
to do The Empire, the great newspaper, was there
to look to ; but it was no new misfortune that there
were delicate situations in which The Empire broke
down. In fine there was an instinctive apprehen-
Sion that a clever young journalist commissioned to
report on Mr. Saltram might never come back from the
errand. No one knew better than George Gravener
that that was a time when prompt returns counted
double. If he therefore found our friend an exasper-
ating waste of orthodoxy it was because of his being,
as he said, poor Gravener, up in the clouds, not
because he was down in the dust. The man would
have been, just as he was, a real enough gentleman if
he could have helped to put in a real gentleman.
Gravener's great objection to the actual member was
that he was not one.
Lady Coxon had a fine old house, a house with
“grounds,” at Clockborough, which she had let ; but
after she returned from abroad I learned from Mrs.
Saltram that the lease had fallen in and that she had
gone down to resume possession. I could see the
faded red livery, the big square shoulders, the high-
walled garden of this decent abode. As the rumble
of dissolution grew louder the suitor would have
pressed his suit, and I found myself hoping the politics
of the late Mayor’s widow wouldn’t be such as to
admonish her to ask him to dinner; perhaps indeed,
I went So far as to pray, they would naturally form a
bar to any contact. I tried to focus the many-buttoned
page, in the daily airing, as he perhaps even pushed
the Bath-chair over somebody's toes. I was destined
to hear, none the less, through Mrs. Saltram—who,
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THE COXON FUND
I afterwards learned, was in correspondence with
Lady Coxon's housekeeper—that Gravener was
known to have spoken of the habitation I had in my
eye as the pleasantest thing at Clockborough. On
his part, I was sure, this was the voice not of envy
but of experience. The vivid Scene was now peopled,
and I could see him in the old-time garden with Miss
Anvoy, who would be certain, and very justly, to
think him good-looking. It would be too much to
describe myself as troubled by this play of Surmise ;
but I seem to remember the relief, singular enough,
of feeling it suddenly brushed away by an annoyance
really much greater; an annoyance the result of its
happening to come over me about that time with a
rush that I was simply ashamed of Frank Saltram.
There were limits after all, and my mark at last had
been reached.
I had had my disgusts, if I may allow myself to-day
such an expression ; but this was a supreme revolt.
Certain things cleared up in my mind, certain values
stood out. It was all very well to have an unfortunate
temperament ; there was nothing so unfortunate as to
have, for practical purposes, nothing else. I avoided
George Gravener at this moment and reflected that
at such a time I should do so most effectually by
leaving England. I wanted to forget Frank Saltram
—that was all. I didn’t want to do anything in the
world to him but that. Indignation had withered on
the stalk, and I felt that one could pity him as much
as one ought only by never thinking of him again.
It wasn’t for anything he had done to me; it was for
what he had done to the Mulvilles. Adelaide cried
about it for a week, and her husband, profiting by the
example so signally given him of the fatal effect of a
want of character, left the letter, the drop too much,
unanswered. The letter, an incredible one, addressed
by Saltram to Wimbledon during a stay with the
28O
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Pudneys at Ramsgate, was the central feature of the
incident, which, however, had many features, each
more painful than whichever other we compared it
with. The Pudneys had behaved shockingly, but that
was no excuse. Base ingratitude, gross indecency—
One had one's choice only of such formulas as that
the more they fitted the less they gave one rest.
These are dead aches now, and I am under no obliga-
tion, thank heaven, to be definite about the business.
There are things which if I had had to tell them—well,
would have stopped me off here altogether.
I went abroad for the general election, and if I
don’t know how much, on the Continent, I forgot, I
at least know how much I missed, him. At a dis-
tance, in a foreign land, ignoring, abjuring, unlearn-
ing him, I discovered what he had done for me. I
owed him, oh unmistakably, certain noble concep-
tions; I had lighted my little taper at his smoky
lamp, and lo it continued to twinkle. But the light
it gave me just showed me how much more I wanted.
I was pursued of course by letters from Mrs. Saltram
which I didn't scruple not to read, though quite
aware her embarrassments couldn’t but be now of
the gravest. I sacrificed to propriety by simply
putting them away, and this is how, one day as my
absence drew to an end, my eye, while I rummaged in
my desk for another paper, was caught by a name on a
leaf that had detached itself from the packet. The
allusion was to Miss Anvoy, who, it appeared, was
engaged to be married to Mr. George Gravener;
and the news was two months old. A direct question
of Mrs. Saltram's had thus remained unanswered
—she had inquired of me in a postScript what sort
of man this aspirant to such a hand might be. The
great other fact about him just then was that he
had been triumphantly returned for Clockborough
in the interest of the party that had swept the country
28I
THE COXON FUND
—so that I might easily have referred Mrs. Saltram
to the journals of the day. Yet when I at last wrote
her that I was coming home and would discharge
my accumulated burden by seeing her, I but remarked
in regard to her question that she must really put it to
Miss Anvoy.
282
VI
I HAD almost avoided the general election, but some
of its consequences, on my return, had Smartly to
be faced. The season, in London, began to breathe
again and to flap its folded wings. Confidence, under
the new Ministry, was understood to be reviving,
and one of the symptoms, in a social body, was a
recovery of appetite. People once more fed together,
and it happened that, one Saturday night, at some-
body's house, I fed with George Gravener. When
the ladies left the room I moved up to where he sat
and begged to congratulate him. “On my election ?”
he asked after a moment ; so that I could feign,
jocosely, not to have heard of that triumph and to be
alluding to the rumour of a victory still more personal.
I daresay I coloured, however, for his political success
had momentarily passed out of my mind. What was
present to it was that he was to marry that beautiful
girl ; and yet his question made me conscious of
some discomposure—I hadn’t intended to put this
before everything. He himself indeed ought grace-
fully to have done so, and I remember thinking the
whole man was in this assumption that in expressing
my sense of what he had won I had fixed my thoughts
on his “seat.” We straightened the matter out, and
he was so much lighter in hand than I had lately
seen him that his spirits might well have been fed from
a twofold source. He was so good as to say that
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THE COXON FUND
he hoped I should soon make the acquaintance of
Miss Anvoy, who, with her aunt, was presently coming
up to town. Lady Coxon, in the country, had been
seriously unwell, and this had delayed their arrival.
I told him I had heard the marriage would be a
splendid one ; on which, brightened and humanised
by his luck, he laughed and said “Do you mean
for her ?” When I had again explained what I
meant he went on : “Oh she’s an American, but
you'd scarcely know it ; unless perhaps,” he added,
“by her being used to more money than most girls
in England, even the daughters of rich men. That
wouldn't in the least do for a fellow like me, you know,
if it wasn’t for the great liberality of her father. He
really has been most kind, and everything's quite
satisfactory.” He added that his eldest brother
had taken a tremendous fancy to her and that during
a recent visit at Coldfield she had nearly won over
Lady Maddock. I gathered from something he
dropped later on that the free-handed gentleman
beyond the seas had not made a settlement, but had
given a handsome present and was apparently to be
looked to, across the water, for other favours. People
are simplified alike by great contentments and great
yearnings, and, whether or no it was Gravener's
directness that begot my own, I seem to recall that in
some turn taken by our talk he almost imposed it on
me as an act of decorum to ask if Miss Anvoy had also
by chance expectations from her aunt. My question
drew out that Lady Coxon, who was the oddest of
women, would have in any contingency to act under
her late husband's will, which was odder still, saddling
her with a mass of queer obligations complicated with
queer loopholes. There were several dreary people,
Coxon cousins, old maids, to whom she would have
more or less to minister. Gravener laughed, without
saying no, when I suggested that the young lady might
284
THE COXON FUND
come in through a loophole ; then suddenly, as if he
suspected my turning a lantern on him, he declared
quite dryly: “That's all rot—one's moved by other
springs ’’
A fortnight later, at Lady Coxon's own house, I
understood well enough the springs one was moved
by. Gravener had spoken of me there as an old
friend, and I received a gracious invitation to dine.
The Knight's widow was again indisposed—she had
succumbed at the eleventh hour ; so that I found
Miss Anvoy bravely playing hostess without even
Gravener's help, since, to make matters worse, he
had just sent up word that the House, the insatiable
House, with which he supposed he had contracted for
easier terms, positively declined to release him. I was
struck with the courage, the grace and gaiety of the
young lady left thus to handle the fauna and flora of
the Regent's Park. I did what I could to help her to
classify them, after I had recovered from the con-
fusion of seeing her slightly disconcerted at perceiving
in the guest introduced by her intended the gentleman
with whom she had had that talk about Frank
Saltram. I had at this moment my first glimpse of the
fact that she was a person who could carry a responsi-
bility; but I leave the reader to judge of my sense of
the aggravation, for either of us, of such a burden,
when I heard the servant announce Mrs. Saltram.
From what immediately passed between the two ladies
I gathered that the latter had been sent for post-
haste to fill the gap created by the absence of the
mistress of the house. “Good | " I remember crying,
“she'll be put by me.”; and my apprehension was
promptly justified. Mrs. Saltram taken in to dinner,
and taken in as a consequence of an appeal to her
amiability, was Mrs. Saltram with a vengeance. I
asked myself what Miss Anvoy meant by doing such
things, but the only answer I arrived at was that
285
THE COXON FUND
Gravener was verily fortunate. She hadn’t happened
to tell him of her visit to Upper Baker Street, but she'd
certainly tell him to-morrow ; not indeed that this
would make him like any better her having had the
innocence to invite such a person as Mrs. Saltram on
such an occasion. It could only strike me that I had
never seen a young woman put such ignorance into her
cleverness, such freedom into her modesty; this, I
think, was when, after dinner, she said to me frankly,
with almost jubilant mirth : “Oh you don’t admire
Mrs. Saltram 2 ” Why should I? This was truly a
young person without guile. I had briefly to consider
before I could reply that my objection to the lady
named was the objection often uttered about people
met at the social board—I knew all her stories. Then
as Miss Anvoy remained momentarily vague I added:
“Those about her husband.”
“Oh yes, but there are some new ones.”
“None for me. Ah; novelty would be pleasant l”
“Doesn’t it appear that of late he has been
particularly horrid 2 ”
“His fluctuations don’t matter,” I returned, “ for
at night all cats are grey. You saw the shade of this
one the night we waited for him together. What
will you have 2 He has no dignity.”
Miss Anvoy, who had been introducing with her
American distinctness, looked encouragingly round
at Some of the combinations she had risked. “It’s
too bad I can’t see him.”
“You mean Gravener won’t let you ?”
“I haven’t asked him. He lets me do everything.”
“But you know he knows him and wonders what
some of us see in him.”
“We haven’t happened to talk of him,” the girl
said
“ Get him to take you some day out to see the
Mulvilles.”
286
THE COXON FUND
“I thought Mr. Saltram had thrown the Mulvilles
Over.’’
“Utterly. But that won't prevent his being
planted there again, to bloom like a rose, within a
month or two.”
Miss Anvoy thought a moment. Then, “I should
like to see them,” she said, with her fostering smile.
“They're tremendously worth it. You mustn't
miss them.”
“I’ll make George take me,” she went on as Mrs.
Saltram came up to interrupt us. She smiled at this
unfortunate as kindly as she had smiled at me and,
addressing the question to her, continued : “But the
chance of a lecture—one of the wonderful lectures 2
Isn't there another course announced 2 ”
“Another ? There are about thirty ” I ex-
claimed, turning away and feeling Mrs. Saltram's
little eyes in my back. A few days after this I heard
that Gravener's marriage was near at hand—was
settled for Whitsuntide ; but as no invitation had
reached me I had my doubts, and there presently came
to me in fact the report of a postponement. Some-
thing was the matter; what was the matter was sup-
posed to be that Lady Coxon was now critically ill.
I had called on her after my dinner in the Regent's
Park, but I had neither seen her nor seen Miss Anvoy.
I forget to-day the exact order in which, at this period,
Sundry incidents occurred and the particular stage at
which it suddenly struck me, making me catch my
breath a little, that the progression, the acceleration,
was for all the world that of fine drama. This was
probably rather late in the day, and the exact order
doesn't signify. What had already occurred was some
accident determining a more patient wait. George
Gravener, whom I met again, in fact told me as much,
but without signs of perturbation. Lady Coxon
had to be constantly attended to, and there were
287
THE COXON FUND
other good reasons as well. Lady Coxon had to be
so constantly attended to that on the occasion of a
second attempt in the Regent's Park I equally failed
to obtain a sight of her niece. I judged it discreet
in all the conditions not to make a third ; but this
didn’t matter, for it was through Adelaide Mulville
that the side-wind of the comedy, though I was
at first unwitting, began to reach me. I went to
Wimbledon at times because Saltram was there, and
I went at others because he wasn’t. The Pudneys,
who had taken him to Birmingham, had already got
rid of him, and we had a horrible consciousness of his
wandering roofless, in dishonour, about the Smoky
Midlands, almost as the injured Lear wandered on
the storm-lashed heath. His room, upstairs, had been
lately done up (I could hear the crackle of the new
chintz) and the difference only made his smirches
and bruises, his splendid tainted genius, the more
tragic. If he wasn’t barefoot in the mire he was sure
to be unconventionally shod. These were the things
Adelaide and I, who were old enough friends to stare
at each other in silence, talked about when we didn’t
speak. When we spoke it was only about the brilliant
girl George Gravener was to marry and whom he had
brought out the other Sunday. I could see that this
presentation had been happy, for Mrs. Mulville com-
memorated it after her sole fashion of showing con-
fidence in a new relation. “She likes me—she likes
me ’’: her native humility exulted in that measure of
success. We all knew for ourselves how she liked
those who liked her, and as regards Ruth Anvoy she
was more easily won over than Lady Maddock.
288
VII
ONE of the consequences, for the Mulvilles, of the
sacrifices they made for Frank Saltram was that
they had to give up their carriage. Adelaide drove
gently into London in a one-horse greenish thing,
an early Victorian landau, hired, near at hand,
imaginatively, from a broken-down jobmaster whose
wife was in consumption—a vehicle that made people
turn round all the more when her pensioner sat
beside her in a soft white hat and a shawl, one of
the dear woman's own. This was his position and I
daresay his costume when on an afternoon in July
she went to return Miss Anvoy's visit. The wheel of
fate had now revolved, and amid silences deep and
exhaustive, compunctions and condonations alike
unutterable, Saltram was reinstated. Was it in
pride or in penance that Mrs. Mulville had begun
immediately to drive him about 2 If he was ashamed
of his ingratitude she might have been ashamed of
her forgiveness; but she was incorrigibly capable of
liking him to be conspicuous in the landau while she
was in shops or with her acquaintance. However, if
he was in the pillory for twenty minutes in the
Regent's Park—I mean at Lady Coxon's door while
his companion paid her call—it wasn’t to the further
humiliation of any one concerned that she presently
came out for him in person, nor even to show either
of them what a fool she was that she drew him in to
289 U
THE COXON FUND
be introduced to the bright young American. Her
account of the introduction I had in its order, but
before that, very late in the season, under Gravener's
auspices, I met Miss Anvoy at tea at the House of
Commons. The member for Clockborough had
gathered a group of pretty ladies, and the Mulvilles
were not of the party. On the great terrace, as I
strolled off with her a little, the guest of honour
immediately exclaimed to me: “I’ve seen him, you
know—I’ve seen him ” She told me about Saltram's
call.
“And how did you find him 2 ”
“Oh so strange l’’
“You didn’t like him 2 ”
“I can’t tell till I see him again.”
“You want to do that P ‘’
She had a pause. “Immensely.”
We went no further; I fancied she had become
aware Gravener was looking at us. She turned back
toward the knot of the others, and I said: “Dislike
him as much as you will—I see you're bitten.”
“Bitten ?” I thought she coloured a little.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter l’” I laughed; “one
doesn’t die of it.”
“I hope I shan’t die of anything before I’ve seen
more of Mrs. Mulville.” I rejoiced with her over
plain Adelaide, whom she pronounced the loveliest
woman she had met in England ; but before we
separated I remarked to her that it was an act of
mere humanity to warn her that if she should see
more of Frank Saltram—which would be likely to
follow on any increase of acquaintance with Mrs.
Mulville—she might find herself flattening her nose
against the clear hard pane of an eternal question—
that of the relative, that of the opposed, importances
of virtue and brains. She replied that this was
Surely a subject on which one took everything for
290
THE COXON FUND
granted ; whereupon I admitted that I had perhaps
expressed myself ill. What I referred to was what
I had referred to the night we met in Upper Baker
Street—the relative importance (relative to virtue)
of other gifts. She asked me if I called virtue a gift—
a thing handed to us in a parcel on our first birthday;
and I declared that this very inquiry proved to me the
problem had already caught her by the skirt. She
would have help however, the same help I myself had
Once had, in resisting its tendency to make one cross.
“What help do you mean 2 ”
“That of the member for Clockborough.”
She stared, smiled, then returned : “Why my
idea has been to help him ’’
She had helped him—I had his own word for it
that at Clockborough her bedevilment of the voters
had really put him in. She would do so doubtless
again and again, though I heard the very next month
that this fine faculty had undergone a temporary
eclipse. News of the catastrophe first came to me
from Mrs. Saltram, and it was afterwards confirmed
at Wimbledon : poor Miss Anvoy was in trouble—
great disasters in America had suddenly summoned
her home. Her father, in New York, had suffered
reverses, lost so much money that it was really
vexatious as showing how much he had had. It
was Adelaide who told me she had gone off alone at
less than a week’s notice.
“Alone 2 Gravener has permitted that ?”
“What will you have 2 The House of Commons ! ”
I'm afraid I cursed the House of Commons : I was
so much interested. Of course he'd follow her as
soon as he was free to make her his wife ; only she
mightn't now be able to bring him anything like the
marriage-portion of which he had begun by having
the virtual promise. Mrs. Mulville let me know what
was already said: she was charming, this American
29I
THE COXON FUND
girl, but really those American fathers ! What
was a man to do 2 Mr. Saltram, according to Mrs.
Mulville, was of opinion that a man was never to
suffer his relation to money to become a spiritual
relation—he was to keep it exclusively material.
“Moi pas comprendre / " I commented on this ; in
rejoinder to which Adelaide, with her beautiful
sympathy, explained that she supposed he simply
meant that the thing was to use it, don’t you know
but not to think too much about it. “To take it,
but not to thank you for it?” I still more profanely
inquired. For a quarter of an hour afterwards she
wouldn’t look at me, but this didn't prevent my
asking her what had been the result, that afternoon
in the Regent's Park, of her taking our friend to see
Miss Anvoy.
“Oh so charming !” she answered, brightening.
“He said he recognised in her a nature he could
absolutely trust.”
“Yes, but I’m speaking of the effect on herself.”
Mrs. Mulville had to remount the stream. “It
was everything one could wish.”
Something in her tone made me laugh. “Do you
mean she gave him—a dole 2 ''
“Well, since you ask me !”
“Right there on the spot ? "
Again poor Adelaide faltered. “It was to me of
course she gave it.”
I stared ; somehow I couldn’t see the scene. “Do
you mean a sum of money 2 ”
“It was very handsome.” Now at last she met
my eyes, though I could see it was with an effort.
“Thirty pounds.” *
“Straight out of her pocket 2 ”
“Out of the drawer of a table at which she had
been writing. She just slipped the folded notes into
my hand. He wasn’t looking ; it was while he was
292
THE COXON FUND
going back to the carriage. Oh,” said Adelaide re-
assuringly, “I take care of it for him ” The dear
practical Soul thought my agitation, for I confess I
was agitated, referred to the employment of the
money. Her disclosure made me for a moment muse
violently, and I daresay that during that moment I
wondered if anything else in the world makes people
So gross as unselfishness. I uttered, I suppose, Some
vague, synthetic cry, for she went on as if she had had
a glimpse of my inward amaze at such passages. “I
assure you, my dear friend, he was in one of his happy
hours.”
But I wasn’t thinking of that. “Truly indeed
these Americans ! ” I said. “With her father in the
very act, as it were, of swindling her betrothed ”
Mrs. Mulville stared. “Oh I suppose Mr. Anvoy
has scarcely gone bankrupt—or whatever he has
done—on purpose. Very likely they won’t be able
to keep it up, but there it was, and it was a very
beautiful impulse.”
“You say Saltram was very fine 2''
“Beyond everything. He surprised even me.”
“And I know what you've enjoyed.” After a
moment I added : “Had he peradventure caught a
glimpse of the money in the table-drawer P’’
At this my companion honestly flushed. “How
can you be so cruel when you know how little he
calculates ?”
“Forgive me, I do know it. But you tell me
things that act on my nerves. I’m sure he hadn't
caught a glimpse of anything but some splendid idea.”
Mrs. Mulville brightly concurred. “And perhaps
even of her beautiful listening face.”
“Perhaps even | And what was it all about 2 ”
“His talk 2 It was apropos of her engagement,
which I had told him about : the idea of marriage,
the philosophy, the poetry, the sublimity of it.” It
293
THE COXON FUND
was impossible wholly to restrain one's mirth at this,
and some rude ripple that I emitted again caused my
companion to admonish me. “It sounds a little stale,
but you know his freshness.”
“Of illustration ? Indeed I do | ?”
“And how he has always been right on that great
question.”
“On what great question, dear lady, hasn’t he
been right 2 ”
“Of what other great men can you equally say it 2
—and that he has never, but never, had a deflexion ?”
Mrs. Mulville exultantly demanded.
I tried to think of some other great man, but I had
to give it up. “Didn't Miss Anvoy express her satis-
faction in any less diffident way than by her charming
present 2 ” I was reduced to asking instead.
“Oh yes, she overflowed to me on the steps while
he was getting into the carriage.” These words
somehow brushed up a picture of Saltram's big
shawled back as he hoisted himself into the green
landau. “She said she wasn't disappointed,”
Adelaide pursued.
I turned it over. “Did he wear his shawl 2 °
“His shawl 2 ” She hadn’t even noticed.
“I mean yours.”
“He looked very nice, and you know he's really
clean. Miss Anvoy used such a remarkable expres-
sion—she said his mind’s like a crystall ”
I pricked up my ears. “A crystal 2 ”
“Suspended in the moral world—Swinging and
shining and flashing there. She's monstrously clever,
you know.”
I thought again. “Monstrously l’’
294
VIII
GEORGE GRAVENER didn’t follow her, for late in
September, after the House had risen, I met him in
a railway-carriage. He was coming up from Scot-
land and I had just quitted some relations who lived
near Durham. The current of travel back to London
wasn’t yet strong ; at any rate on entering the Com-
partment I found he had had it for some time to
himself. We fared in company, and though he had
a blue-book in his lap and the open jaws of his bag
threatened me with the white teeth of confused papers,
we inevitably, we even at last sociably conversed. I
saw things weren’t well with him, but I asked no
question till something dropped by himself made, as
it had made on another occasion, an absence of
curiosity invidious. He mentioned that he was
worried about his good old friend Lady Coxon, who,
with her niece likely to be detained some time in
America, lay seriously ill at Clockborough, much on
his mind and on his hands.
“Ah, Miss Anvoy's in America 2 ”
“Her father has got into horrid straits—has lost
no end of money.”
I waited, after expressing due concern, but I eventu-
ally said: “I hope that raises no objection to your
marriage.”
“None whatever; moreover it's my trade to meet
objections. But it may create tiresome delays, of
295
THE COXON FUND
which there have been too many, from various causes,
already. Lady Coxon got very bad, then she got
much better. Then Mr. Anvoy suddenly began to
totter, and now he seems quite on his back. I'm
afraid he's really in for some big reverse. Lady
Coxon's worse again, awfully upset by the news from
America, and she sends me word that she must have
Ruth. How can I supply her with Ruth 2 I haven't
got Ruth myself ”
“Surely you haven’t lost her ? " I returned.
“She's everything to her wretched father. She
writes me every post—telling me to smooth her
aunt's pillow. I’ve other things to smooth ; but the
old lady, save for her servants, is really alone. She
won't receive her Coxon relations—she’s angry at
so much of her money going to them. Besides, she's
hopelessly mad,” said Gravener very frankly.
I don’t remember whether it was this, or what it
was, that made me ask if she hadn’t such an appre-
ciation of Mrs. Saltram as might render that active
person of Some use.
He gave me a cold glance, wanting to know what
had put Mrs. Saltram into my head, and I replied
that she was unfortunately never out of it. I hap-
pened to remember the wonderful accounts she had
given me of the kindness Lady Coxon had shown her.
Gravener declared this to be false; Lady Coxon, who
didn’t care for her, hadn’t seen her three times. The
only foundation for it was that Miss Anvoy, who used,
poor girl, to chuck money about in a manner she must
now regret, had for an hour seen in the miserable
woman—you could never know what she'd see in
people—an interesting pretext for the liberality with
which her nature overflowed. But even Miss Anvoy
was now quite tired of her. Gravener told me more
about the crash in New York and the annoyance it
had been to him, and we also glanced here and there
296
THE COXON FUND
in other directions; but by the time we got to Don-
caster the principal thing he had let me see was that
he was keeping something back. We stopped at that
station, and, at the carriage-door, some one made a
movement to get in. Gravener uttered a sound of
impatience, and I felt sure that but for this I should
have had the secret. Then the intruder, for some
reason, spared us his company; we started afresh, and
my hope of a disclosure returned. My companion
held his tongue, however, and I pretended to go to
sleep; in fact I really dozed for discouragement.
When I reopened my eyes he was looking at me with
an injured air. He tossed away with some vivacity
the remnant of a cigarette and then said: “If you're
not too sleepy I want to put you a case.” I answered
that I'd make every effort to attend, and welcomed
the note of interest when he went on : “As I told you
a while ago, Lady Coxon, poor dear, is demented.”
His tone had much behind it—was full of promise.
I asked if her ladyship's misfortune were a trait of her
malady or only of her character, and he pronounced
it a product of both. The case he wanted to put to
me was a matter on which it concerned him to have
the impression—the judgement, he might also say—
of another person. “I mean of the average intelligent
man, but you see I take what I can get.” There
would be the technical, the strictly legal view ; then
there would be the way the question would strike a
man of the world. He had lighted another cigarette
while he talked, and I saw he was glad to have it to
handle when he brought out at last, with a laugh
slightly artificial : “In fact it's a subject on which
Miss Anvoy and I are pulling different ways.”
“And you want me to decide between you ? I
decide in advance for Miss Anvoy.”
“In advance—that’s quite right. That's how I
decided when I proposed to her. But my story will
297
THE COXON FUND
interest you only so far as your mind isn’t made up.”
Gravener puffed his cigarette a minute and then con-
tinued : “Are you familiar with the idea of the
Endowment of Research 2 ''
“Of Research 2 ” I was at sea a moment.
“I give you Lady Coxon's phrase. She has it on
the brain.”
“She wishes to endow 2 ”
“Some earnest and ‘loyal seeker,” Gravener
said. “It was a sketchy design of her late husband's,
and he handed it on to her ; setting apart in his will
a sum of money of which she was to enjoy the interest
for life, but of which, should she eventually see her
opportunity—the matter was left largely to her
discretion—she would best honour his memory by
determining the exemplary public use. This sum of
money, no less than thirteen thousand pounds, was
to be called the Coxon Fund ; and poor Sir Gregory
evidently proposed to himself that the Coxon Fund
should cover his name with glory—be universally
desired and admired. He left his wife a full declara-
tion of his views, so far at least as that term may be
applied to views vitiated by a vagueness really in-
fantine. A little learning’s a dangerous thing, and a
good citizen who happens to have been an ass is
worse for a community than bad sewerage. He's
worst of all when he's dead, because then he can’t be
stopped. However, such as they were, the poor
man's aspirations are now in his wife's bosom, or
fermenting rather in her foolish brain : it lies with
her to carry them out. But of course she must first
catch her hare.”
“Her earnest loyal seeker P’’
“The flower that blushes unseen for want of such
a pecuniary independence as may aid the light that's
in it to shine upon the human race. The individual,
in a word, who, having the rest of the machinery, the
3 3
298
THE COXON FUND
spiritual, the intellectual, is most hampered in his
search.”
“His search for what 2 ”
“For Moral Truth. That's what Sir Gregory
calls it.”
I burst out laughing. “Delightful munificent
Sir Gregory ! It's a charming idea.”
“So Miss Anvoy thinks.”
“Has she a candidate for the Fund 2 ”
“Not that I know of and she's perfectly reason-
able about it. But Lady Coxon has put the matter
before her, and we’ve naturally had a lot of talk.”
“Talk that, as you've so interestingly intimated,
has landed you in a disagreement.”
“She considers there's something in it,” Gravener
said.
“And you consider there's nothing 2 °
“It seems to me a piece of solemn twaddle—which
can’t fail to be attended with consequences certainly
grotesque and possibly immoral. To begin with,
fancy constituting an endowment without establishing
a tribunal—a bench of competent people, of judges.”
“The sole tribunal is Lady Coxon 2 ”
“And any one she chooses to invite.”
“But she has invited you,” I noted.
“I’m not competent—I hate the thing. Besides,
she hasn’t,” my friend went on. “The real history
of the matter, I take it, is that the inspiration was
originally Lady Coxon's own, that she infected him
with it, and that the flattering option left her is
simply his tribute to her beautiful, her aboriginal
enthusiasm. She came to England forty years ago,
a thin transcendental Bostonian, and even her odd
happy frumpy Clockborough marriage never really
materialised her. She feels indeed that she has
become very British—as if that, as a process, as a
Werden, as anything but an original sign of grace, were
299
THE COXON FUND
conceivable ; but it's precisely what makes her cling
to the notion of the ‘Fund '-cling to it as to a link
with the ideal.”
“How can she cling if she's dying 2 ”
“Do you mean how can she act in the matter 2 ”
Gravener asked. “That's precisely the question.
She can’t As she has never yet caught her hare,
never spied out her lucky impostor—how should she,
with the life she has led 2–her husband's intention
has come very near lapsing. His idea, to do him
justice, was that it should lapse if exactly the right
person, the perfect mixture of genius and chill penury,
should fail to turn up. Ah the poor dear woman's
very particular—she says there must be no mistake.”
I found all this quite thrilling—I took it in with
avidity. “And if she dies without doing anything,
what becomes of the money 2 ” I demanded.
“It goes back to his family, if she hasn’t made
some other disposition of it.”
“She may do that then—she may divert it 2 ”
“Her hands are not tied. She has a grand dis-
cretion. The proof is that three months ago she
offered to make the proceeds over to her niece.”
“For Miss Anvoy's own use 2 ”
“For Miss Anvoy's own use—on the occasion of
her prospective marriage. She was discouraged—
the earnest seeker required so earnest a search.
She was afraid of making a mistake ; every one she
could think of seemed either not earnest enough or
not poor enough. On the receipt of the first bad
news about Mr. Anvoy's affairs she proposed to Ruth
to make the sacrifice for her. As the situation in
New York got worse she repeated her proposal.”
“Which Miss Anvoy declined 2 ”
“Except as a formal trust.”
“You mean except as committing herself legally
to place the money 2 °
3OO
THE COXON FUND
“On the head of the deserving object, the great
man frustrated,” Gravener said. “She only consents
to act in the spirit of Sir Gregory's scheme.”
“And you blame her for that ?” I asked with
Some intensity.
My tone couldn’t have been harsh, but he coloured
a little and there was a queer light in his eye. “My
dear fellow, if I ‘blamed 'the young lady I'm engaged
to I shouldn’t immediately say it even to so old a
friend as you.” I saw that some deep discomfort,
Some restless desire to be sided with, reassuringly,
approvingly mirrored, had been at the bottom of his
drifting so far, and I was genuinely touched by his
confidence. It was inconsistent with his habits ; but
being troubled about a woman was not, for him, a
habit : that itself was an inconsistency. George
Gravener could stand straight enough before any
other combination of forces. It amused me to think
that the combination he had succumbed to had an
American accent, a transcendental aunt and an in-
solvent father ; but all my old loyalty to him mustered
to meet this unexpected hint that I could help him.
I saw that I could from the insincere tone in which
he pursued : “I’ve criticised her of course, I’ve con-
tended with her, and it has been great fun.” Yet it
clearly couldn’t have been such great fun as to make
it improper for me presently to ask if Miss Anvoy had
nothing at all settled on herself. To this he replied
that she had only a trifle from her mother—a mere
four hundred a year, which was exactly why it would
be convenient to him that she shouldn’t decline, in
the face of this total change in her prospects, an
accession of income which would distinctly help
them to marry. When I inquired if there were no
other way in which so rich and so affectionate an
aunt could cause the weight of her benevolence to
be felt, he answered that Lady Coxon was affectionate
3OI
THE COXON FUND
indeed, but was scarcely to be called rich. She could
let her project of the Fund lapse for her niece's benefit,
but she couldn’t do anything else. She had been
accustomed to regard her as tremendously provided
for, and she was up to her eyes in promises to anxious
Coxons. She was a woman of an inordinate con-
Science, and her conscience was now a distress to her,
hovering round her bed in irreconcilable forms of
resentful husbands, portionless nieces and undis-
coverable philosophers.
We were by this time getting into the whirr of
fleeting platforms, the multiplication of lights. “I
think you'll find,” I said with a laugh, “that your
predicament will disappear in the very fact that the
philosopher is undiscoverable.”
He began to gather up his papers. “Who can
Set a limit to the ingenuity of an extravagant
woman 2 ”
“Yes, after all, who indeed 2 ” I echoed as I re-
called the extravagance commemorated in Adelaide's
anecdote of Miss Anvoy and the thirty pounds.
302
IX
THE thing I had been most sensible of in that talk
with George Gravener was the way Saltram's name
kept out of it. It seemed to me at the time that we
were quite pointedly silent about him ; but after-
wards it appeared more probable there had been on
my companion's part no conscious avoidance. Later
on I was sure of this, and for the best of reasons—
the simple reason of my perceiving more completely
that, for evil as well as for good, he said nothing to
Gravener's imagination. That honest man didn't
fear him—he was too much disgusted with him. No
more did I, doubtless, and for very much the same
reason. I treated my friend's story as an absolute
confidence ; but when before Christmas, by Mrs.
Saltram, I was informed of Lady Coxon's death
without having had news of Miss Anvoy's return,
I found myself taking for granted we should hear no
more of these nuptials, in which, as obscurely un-
natural, I now saw I had never too disconcertedly
believed. I began to ask myself how people who
suited each other so little could please each other so
much. The charm was some material charm, some
affinity, exquisite doubtless, yet superficial ; some
surrender to youth and beauty and passion, to force
and grace and fortune, happy accidents and easy
contacts. They might dote on each other's persons,
but how could they know each other's souls 2 How
303
THE COXON FUND
could they have the same prejudices, how could they
have the same horizon 2 Such questions, I confess,
seemed quenched but not answered when, one day in
February, going out to Wimbledon, I found our young
lady in the house. A passion that had brought her
back across the wintry ocean was as much of a passion
as was needed. No impulse equally strong indeed had
drawn George Gravener to America ; a circumstance
on which, however, I reflected only long enough to
remind myself that it was none of my business. Ruth
Anvoy was distinctly different, and I felt that the
difference was not simply that of her marks of mourn-
ing. Mrs. Mulville told me soon enough what it
was : it was the difference between a handsome girl
with large expectations and a handsome girl with
only four hundred a year. This explanation indeed
didn’t wholly content me, not even when I learned
that her mourning had a double cause—learned
that poor Mr. Anvoy, giving way altogether, buried
under the ruins of his fortune and leaving next to
nothing, had died a few weeks before.
“So she has come out to marry George Gravener 2 °
I commented. “Wouldn’t it have been prettier of
him to have saved her the trouble 2 ”
“Hasn’t the House just met 2 " Adelaide replied.
“And for Mr. Gravener the House—l ” Then she
added : “I gather that her having come is exactly a
sign that the marriage is a little shaky. If it were
quite all right a self-respecting girl like Ruth would
have waited for him over there.”
I noted that they were already Ruth and Adelaide,
but what I said was : “Do you mean she'll have had
to return to make it so 2 ”
“No, I mean that she must have come out for
some reason independent of it.” Adelaide could only
surmise, however, as yet, and there was more, as we
found, to be revealed. Mrs. Mulville, on hearing of
3O4
THE COXON FUND
her arrival, had brought the young lady out in the
green landau for the Sunday. The Coxons were
in possession of the house in Regent's Park and Miss
Anvoy was in dreary lodgings. George Gravener
had been with her when Adelaide called, but had
assented graciously enough to the little visit at
Wimbledon. The carriage, with Mr. Saltram in it
but not mentioned, had been sent off on some errand
from which it was to return and pick the ladies up.
Gravener had left them together, and at the end of an
hour, on the Saturday afternoon, the party of three
had driven out to Wimbledon. This was the girl's
Second glimpse of our great man, and I was interested
in asking Mrs. Mulville if the impression made by the
first appeared to have been confirmed. On her reply-
ing, after consideration, that of course with time and
opportunity it couldn't fail to be, but that she was
disappointed, I was sufficiently struck with her use
of this last word to question her further.
“Do you mean you're disappointed because you
judge Miss Anvoy to be 2 ”
“Yes; I hoped for a greater effect last evening.
We had two or three people, but he scarcely opened
his mouth.”
“He’ll be all the better to-night,” I opined after
a moment. Then I pursued : “What particular
importance do you attach to the idea of her being
impressed ?”
Adelaide turned her mild pale eyes on me as for
rebuke of my levity. “Why the importance of her
being as happy as we are ”
I'm afraid that at this my levity grew. “Oh
that’s a happiness almost too great to wish a person 1 ''
I saw she hadn’t yet in her mind what I had in mine,
and at any rate the visitor's actual bliss was limited to
a walk in the garden with Kent Mulville. Later in the
afternoon I also took one, and I saw nothing of Miss
305 X
THE COXON FUND
Anvoy till dinner, at which we failed of the company
of Saltram, who had caused it to be reported that he
was indisposed and lying down. This made us, most
of us—for there were other friends present—convey to
each other in silence some of the unutterable things
that in those years our eyes had inevitably acquired
the art of expressing. If a fine little American
inquirer hadn’t been there we would have expressed
them otherwise, and Adelaide would have pretended
not to hear. I had seen her, before the very fact,
abstract herself nobly; and I knew that more than
once, to keep it from the servants, managing, dis-
simulating cleverly, she had helped her husband to
carry him bodily to his room. Just recently he had
been So wise and so deep and so high that I had begun
to get nervous—to wonder if by chance there were
Something behind it, if he were kept straight for
instance by the knowledge that the hated Pudneys
would have more to tell us if they chose. He was
lying low, but unfortunately it was common wisdom
with us in this connexion that the biggest splashes
took place in the quietest pools. We should have
had a merry life indeed if all the splashes had sprinkled
us as refreshingly as the waters we were even then to
feel about our ears. Kent Mulville had been up to his
room, but had come back with a face that told as
few tales as I had seen it succeed in telling on the
evening I waited in the lecture-room with Miss Anvoy.
I said to myself that our friend had gone out, but it
was a comfort that the presence of a comparative
stranger deprived us of the dreary duty of suggesting
to each other, in respect of his errand, edifying possi-
bilities in which we didn’t ourselves believe. At ten
o'clock he came into the drawing-room with his waist-
coat much awry but his eyes sending out great signals.
It was precisely with his entrance that I ceased to be
vividly conscious of him. I saw that the crystal, as
306
THE COXON FUND
I had called it, had begun to swing, and I had need of
my immediate attention for Miss Anvoy.
Even when I was told afterwards that he had, as
we might have said to-day, broken the record, the
manner in which that attention had been rewarded
relieved me of a sense of loss. I had of course a
perfect general consciousness that something great
was going On : it was a little like having been etherised
to hear Herr Joachim play. The old music was in
the air; I felt the strong pulse of thought, the sink
and swell, the flight, the poise, the plunge; but I
knew something about one of the listeners that nobody
else knew, and Saltram's monologue could reach me
only through that medium. To this hour I’m of no
use when, as a witness, I’m appealed to—for they still
absurdly contend about it—as to whether or no on
that historic night he was drunk; and my position is
slightly ridiculous, for I’ve never cared to tell them
what it really was I was taken up with. What I got
out of it is the only morsel of the total experience that
is quite my own. The others were shared, but this is
incommunicable. I feel that now, I’m bound to say,
even in thus roughly evoking the occasion, and it
takes something from my pride of clearness. How-
ever, I shall perhaps be as clear as is absolutely needful
if I remark that our young lady was too much given up
to her own intensity of observation to be sensible of
mine. It was plainly not the question of her marriage
that had brought her back. I greatly enjoyed this
discovery and was sure that had that question alone
been involved she would have stirred no step. In this
case doubtless Gravener would, in spite of the House
of Commons, have found means to rejoin her. It
afterwards made me uncomfortable for her that,
alone in the lodging Mrs. Mulville had put before me
as dreary, she should have in any degree the air of
waiting for her fate; so that I was presently relieved
307
THE COXON FUND
at hearing of her having gone to stay at Coldfield.
If she was in England at all while the engagement
stood the only proper place for her was under Lady
Maddock's wing. Now that she was unfortunate and
relatively poor, perhaps her prospective sister-in-law
would be wholly won over.
There would be much to say, if I had space, about
the way her behaviour, as I caught gleams of it,
ministered to the image that had taken birth in my
mind, to my private amusement, while that other
night I listened to George Gravener in the railway-
carriage. I watched her in the light of this queer
possibility—a formidable thing certainly to meet—
and I was aware that it coloured, extravagantly
perhaps, my interpretation of her very looks and
tones. At Wimbledon for instance it had appeared
to me she was literally afraid of Saltram, in dread of a
coercion that she had begun already to feel. I had
come up to town with her the next day and had been
convinced that, though deeply interested, she was
immensely on her guard. She would show as little
as possible before she should be ready to show every-
thing. What this final exhibition might be on the
part of a girl perceptibly so able to think things out
I found it great sport to forecast. It would have been
exciting to be approached by her, appealed to by her
for advice ; but I prayed to heaven I mightn't find
myself in such a predicament. If there was really a
present rigour in the situation of which Gravener had
sketched for me the elements, she would have to get
out of her difficulty by herself. It wasn’t I who had
launched her and it wasn’t I who could help her. I
didn’t fail to ask myself why, since I couldn’t help her,
I should think so much about her. It was in part my
suspense that was responsible for this ; I waited
impatiently to see whether she wouldn’t have told
Mrs. Mulville a portion at least of what I had learned
308
THE COXON FUND
from Gravener. But I saw Mrs. Mulville was still
reduced to wonder what she had come out again for
if she hadn’t come as a conciliatory bride. That she
had come in some other character was the only thing
that fitted all the appearances. Having for family
reasons to spend some time that spring in the west of
England, I was in a manner out of earshot of the
great oceanic rumble—I mean of the continuous hum
of Saltram's thought—and my uneasiness tended to
keep me quiet. There was something I wanted So
little to have to say that my prudence surmounted
my curiosity. I only wondered if Ruth Anvoy talked
over the idea of the Coxon Fund with Lady Maddock,
and also somewhat why I didn't hear from Wimbledon.
I had a reproachful note about something or other
from Mrs. Saltram, but it contained no mention of
Lady Coxon's niece, on whom her eyes had been much
less fixed since the recent untoward events.
309
X
Poor Adelaide's silence was fully explained later—
practically explained when in June, returning to
London, I was honoured by this admirable woman
with an early visit. As soon as she arrived I guessed
everything, and as soon as she told me that darling
Ruth had been in her house nearly a month I had my
question ready. “What in the name of maidenly
modesty is she staying in England for 2 °
“Because she loves me so !” cried Adelaide gaily.
But she hadn't come to see me only to tell me Miss
Anvoy loved her : that was quite sufficiently estab-
lished, and what was much more to the point was
that Mr. Gravener had now raised an objection to
it. He had protested at least against her being at
Wimbledon, where in the innocence of his heart he
had originally brought her himself: he called on her
to put an end to their engagement in the only proper,
the only happy manner.
“And why in the world doesn't she do so 2 ” I
asked.
Adelaide had a pause. “She says you know.”
Then on my also hesitating she added : “A condition
he makes.”
“The Coxon Fund 2 ” I panted.
“He has mentioned to her his having told you
about it.”
3IO
THE COXON FUND
“Ah but so little ! Do you mean she has accepted
the trust 2 ''
“In the most splendid spirit—as a duty about
which there can be no two opinions.” To which my
friend added : “Of course she's thinking of Mr.
Saltram.”
I gave a quick cry at this, which, in its violence,
made my visitor turn pale. “How very awful 1 ''
“AWful ? '’
“Why, to have anything to do with such an idea
one’s self.”
“I’m sure you needn’t ” And Mrs. Mulville
tossed her head.
“He isn’t good enough ” I went on ; to which
she opposed a sound almost as contentious as my
own had been. This made me, with genuine im-
mediate horror, exclaim : “You haven’t influenced
her, I hope l’’ and my emphasis brought back the
blood with a rush to poor Adelaide's face. She de-
clared while she blushed—for I had frightened her
again—that she had never influenced anybody and
that the girl had only seen and heard and judged for
herself. He had influenced her, if I would, as he did
every one who had a soul: that word, as we knew,
even expressed feebly the power of the things he said
to haunt the mind. How could she, Adelaide, help
it if Miss Anvoy's mind was haunted 2 I demanded
with a groan what right a pretty girl engaged to a
rising M.P. had to have a mind ; but the only ex-
planation my bewildered friend could give me was
that she was so clever, She regarded Mr. Saltram
naturally as a tremendous force for good. She was
intelligent enough to understand him and generous
enough to admire.
“She's many things enough, but is she, among
them, rich enough 2 ” I demanded. “Rich enough,
I mean, to sacrifice such a lot of good money P ‘’
3II
THE COXON FUND
“That's for herself to judge. Besides, it's not her
own money; she doesn’t in the least consider it so.”
“And Gravener does, if not his own 2 and that's
the whole difficulty 2 ”
“The difficulty that brought her back, yes: she
had absolutely to see her poor aunt's solicitor. It's
clear that by Lady Coxon's will she may have the
money, but it’s still clearer to her conscience that the
Original condition, definite, intensely implied on her
uncle's part, is attached to the use of it. She can only
take one view of it. It’s for the Endowment or it's
for nothing.”
“The Endowment,” I permitted myself to observe,
“is a conception superficially sublime, but funda-
mentally ridiculous.”
“Are you repeating Mr. Gravener's words 2 ”
Adelaide asked. -
“Possibly, though I’ve not seen him for months.
It's simply the way it strikes me too. It’s an old
wife's tale. Gravener made some reference to the
legal aspect, but such an absurdly loose arrangement
has no legal aspect.”
“Ruth doesn’t insist on that,” said Mrs. Mulville ;
“ and it's, for her, exactly this technical weakness that
constitutes the force of the moral obligation.”
“Are you repeating her words 2 ” I inquired. I
forget what else Adelaide said, but she said she was
magnificent. I thought of George Gravener con-
fronted with such magnificence as that, and I asked
what could have made two such persons ever suppose
they understood each other. Mrs. Mulville assured
me the girl loved him as such a woman could love
and that she suffered as such a woman could suffer.
Nevertheless she wanted to see me. At this I sprang
up with a groan. “Oh I'm so sorry l—when 2 ”
Small though her sense of humour, I think Adelaide
laughed at my sequence. We discussed the day, the
3I2
THE COXON FUND
nearest it would be convenient I should come out ;
but before she went I asked my visitor how long she
had been acquainted with these prodigies.
“For several weeks, but I was pledged to secrecy.”
“And that's why you didn’t write 2 ”
“I couldn’t very well tell you she was with me
without telling you that no time had even yet been
fixed for her marriage. And I couldn't very well tell
you as much as that without telling you what I knew
of the reason of it. It was not till a day or two ago,”
Mrs. Mulville went on, “that she asked me to ask
you if you wouldn't come and see her. Then at last
She spoke of your knowing about the idea of the
Endowment.”
I turned this over. “Why on earth does she want
to see me 2 ”
“To talk with you, naturally, about Mr. Saltram.”
“As a subject for the prize 2 * This was hugely
obvious, and I presently returned : “I think I’ll sail
to-morrow for Australia.”
“Well then—sail ” said Mrs. Mulville, getting
up.
But I frivolously continued. “On Thursday at
five, we said 2 ” The appointment was made definite
and I inquired how, all this time, the unconscious
candidate had carried himself.
“In perfection, really, by the happiest of chances:
he has positively been a dear. And then, as to what
we revere him for, in the most wonderful form. His
very highest—pure celestial light. You won't do him
an ill turn ?” Adelaide pleaded at the door.
“What danger can equal for him the danger to
which he's exposed from himself 2 ” I asked. “Look
out sharp, if he has lately been too prim. He'll
presently take a day off, treat us to some exhibition
that will make an Endowment a scandal.”
“A scandal 2 ” Mrs. Mulville dolorously echoed.
3I3
THE COXON FUND
“Is Miss Anvoy prepared for that ?”
My visitor, for a moment, screwed her parasol into
my carpet. “He grows bigger every day.”
“So do you ! ” I laughed as she went off.
That girl at Wimbledon, on the Thursday after-
noon, more than justified my apprehensions. I
recognised fully now the cause of the agitation she
had produced in me from the first—the faint fore-
knowledge that there was something very stiff I
should have to do for her. I felt more than ever
committed to my fate as, standing before her in the
big drawing-room where they had tactfully left us to
ourselves, I tried with a smile to string together the
pearls of lucidity which, from her chair, she successively
tossed me. Pale and bright, in her monotonous
mourning, she was an image of intelligent purpose, of
the passion of duty; but I asked myself whether any
girl had ever had so charming an instinct as that
which permitted her to laugh out, as for the joy of
her difficulty, into the priggish old room. This
remarkable young woman could be earnest without
being solemn, and at moments when I ought doubt-
less to have cursed her obstinacy I found myself
watching the unstudied play of her eyebrows or the
recurrence of a singularly intense whiteness pro-
duced by the parting of her lips. These aberrations,
I hasten to add, didn’t prevent my learning soon
enough why she had wished to see me. Her reason
for this was as distinct as her beauty: it was to make
me explain what I had meant, on the occasion of our
first meeting, by Mr. Saltram's want of dignity. It
wasn’t that she couldn’t imagine, but she desired
it there from my lips. What she really desired of
course was to know whether there was worse about
him than what she had found out for herself. She
hadn’t been a month so much in the house with him
without discovering that he wasn't a man of monu-
3I4
THE COXON FUND
mental bronze. He was like a jelly minus its mould,
he had to be embanked ; and that was precisely
the source of her interest in him and the ground of
her project. She put her project boldly before me :
there it stood in its preposterous beauty. She was as
willing to take the humorous view of it as I could be :
the only difference was that for her the humorous
view of a thing wasn’t necessarily prohibitive, wasn’t
paralysing.
Moreover she professed that she couldn’t discuss
with me the primary question—the moral obligation :
that was in her own breast. There were things she
couldn’t go into—injunctions, impressions she had
received. They were a part of the closest intimacy of
her intercourse with her aunt, they were absolutely
clear to her ; and on questions of delicacy, the inter-
pretation of a fidelity, of a promise, one had always in
the last resort to make up one's mind for one's self.
It was the idea of the application to the particular
case, such a splendid one at last, that troubled her,
and she admitted that it stirred very deep things.
She didn't pretend that such a responsibility was a
simple matter; if it had been she wouldn't have
attempted to saddle me with any portion of it. The
Mulvilles were sympathy itself, but were they abso-
lutely candid 2 Could they indeed be, in their
position—would it even have been to be desired 2
Yes, she had sent for me to ask no less than that of me
—whether there was anything dreadful kept back.
She made no allusion whatever to George Gravener
—I thought her silence the Only good taste and her
gaiety perhaps a part of the very anxiety of that
discretion, the effect of a determination that people
shouldn’t know from herself that her relations with
the man she was to marry were strained. All the
weight, however, that she left me to throw was a
sufficient implication of the weight he had thrown in
3I5 -
THE COXON FUND
vain. Oh she knew the question of character was
immense, and that one couldn’t entertain any plan
for making merit comfortable without running the
gauntlet of that terrible procession of interrogation-
points which, like a young ladies' school out for a walk,
hooked their uniform noses at the tail of governess
Conduct. But were we absolutely to hold that there
was never, never, never an exception, never, never,
never an occasion for liberal acceptance, for clever
charity, for suspended pedantry—for letting one side,
in short, outbalance another ? When Miss Anvoy
threw off this appeal I could have embraced her for
so delightfully emphasising her unlikeness to Mrs.
Saltram. “Why not have the courage of one's
forgiveness,” she asked, “as well as the enthusiasm of
one's adhesion ? " -
“Seeing how wonderfully you’ve threshed the
whole thing out,” I evasively replied, “gives me an
extraordinary notion of the point your enthusiasm
has reached.”
. She considered this remark an instant with her
eyes on mine, and I divined that it struck her I might
possibly intend it as a reference to some personal
subjection to our fat philosopher, to some aberration
of sensibility, some perversion of taste. At least I
couldn’t interpret otherwise the sudden flush that
came into her face. Such a manifestation, as the
result of any word of mine, embarrassed me ; but
while I was thinking how to reassure her the flush
passed away in a smile of exquisite good nature.
“Oh you see one forgets so wonderfully how one dis-
likes him ” she said ; and if her tone simply extin-
guished his strange figure with the brush of its com-
passion, it also rings in my ear to-day as the purest
of all our praises. But with what quick response of
fine pity such a relegation of the man himself made
me privately sigh “Ah poor Saltram ' " She in-
3I6
THE COXON FUND
stantly, with this, took the measure of all I didn't
believe, and it enabled her to go on. “What can
one do when a person has given such a lift to one's
interest in life 2 ”
“Yes, what can one do 2 ” If I struck her as a
little vague it was because I was thinking of another
person. I indulged in another inarticulate murmur
—“Poor George Gravener | * What had become of
the lift he had given that interest ? Later on I made
up my mind that she was sore and stricken at the
appearance he presented of wanting the miserable
money. This was the hidden reason of her alienation.
The probable sincerity, in spite of the illiberality, of
his scruples about the particular use of it under dis-
cussion didn’t efface the ugliness of his demand that
they should buy a good house with it. Then, as for
his alienation, he didn't, pardonably enough, grasp
the lift Frank Saltram had given her interest in life.
If a mere spectator could ask that last question, with
what rage in his heart the man himself might ! He
wasn’t, like her, I was to see, too proud to show me
why he was disappointed.
3I7
XI
I WAs unable this time to stay to dinner: such at
any rate was the plea on which I took leave. I desired
in truth to get away from my young lady, for that
obviously helped me not to pretend to satisfy her.
How could I satisfy her ? I asked myself—how could
I tell her how much had been kept back 2 I didn't
even know and I certainly didn’t desire to know.
My own policy had ever been to learn the least about
poor Saltram's weaknesses—not to learn the most. A
great deal that I had in fact learned had been forced
upon me by his wife. There was something even
irritating in Miss Anvoy's crude conscientiousness, and
I wondered why, after all, she couldn’t have let him
alone and been content to entrust George Gravener
with the purchase of the good house. I was sure he
would have driven a bargain, got something excellent
and cheap. I laughed louder even than she, I
temporised, I failed her; I told her I must think
over her case. I professed a horror of responsibilities
and twitted her with her own extravagant passion for
them. It wasn’t really that I was afraid of the
scandal, the moral discredit for the Fund ; what
troubled me most was a feeling of a different order.
Of course, as the beneficiary of the Fund was to
enjoy a simple life-interest, as it was hoped that new
beneficiaries would arise and come up to new standards,
it wouldn’t be a trifle that the first of these worthies
318
THE COXON FUND
shouldn't have been a striking example of the domestic
virtues. The Fund would start badly, as it were,
and the laurel would, in some respects at least, scarcely
be greener from the brows of the original wearer.
That idea, however, was at that hour, as I have
hinted, not the source of solicitude it ought perhaps to
have been, for I felt less the irregularity of Saltram's
getting the money than that of this exalted young
woman's giving it up. I wanted her to have it for
herself, and I told her so before I went away. She
looked graver at this than she had looked at all,
saying she hoped such a preference wouldn't make me
dishonest.
It made me, to begin with, very restless—made
me, instead of going straight to the station, fidget
a little about that many-coloured Common which
gives Wimbledon horizons. There was a worry for
me to work off, or rather keep at a distance, for I
declined even to admit to myself that I had, in Miss
Anvoy's phrase, been saddled with it. What could
have been clearer indeed than the attitude of recog-
nising perfectly what a world of trouble the Coxon
Fund would in future save us, and of yet liking better
to face a continuance of that trouble than see, and in
fact contribute to, a deviation from attainable bliss
in the life of two other persons in whom I was deeply
interested P Suddenly, at the end of twenty minutes,
there was projected across this clearness the image of
a massive middle-aged man seated on a bench under
a tree, with sad far-wandering eyes and plump white
hands folded on the head of a stick—a stick I recog-
nised, a stout gold-headed staff that I had given him
in devoted days. I stopped short as he turned his
face to me, and it happened that for some reason
or other I took in as I had perhaps never done before
the beauty of his rich blank gaze. It was charged
with experience as the sky is charged with light,
3I9
THE COXON FUND
and I felt on the instant as if we had been over-
spanned and conjoined by the great arch of a bridge
or the great dome of a temple. Doubtless I was
rendered peculiarly sensitive to it by something in the
way I had been giving him up and sinking him.
While I met it I stood there smitten, and I felt myself
responding to it with a sort of guilty grimace. This
brought back his attention in a smile which expressed
for me a cheerful weary patience, a bruised noble
gentleness. I had told Miss Anvoy that he had no
dignity, but what did he seem to me, all unbuttoned
and fatigued as he waited for me to come up, if he
didn’t seem unconcerned with small things, didn't
seem in short majestic P There was majesty in his
mere unconsciousness of our little conferences and
puzzlements over his maintenance and his reward.
After I had sat by him a few minutes I passed
my arm over his big soft shoulder—wherever you
touched him you found equally little firmness—and
said in a tone of which the suppliance fell oddly on
my own ear: “Come back to town with me, old
friend—come back and spend the evening.” I
wanted to hold him, I wanted to keep him, and at
Waterloo, an hour later, I telegraphed possessively
to the Mulvilles. When he objected, as regards
staying all night, that he had no things, I asked him
if he hadn’t everything of mine. I had abstained
from ordering dinner, and it was too late for prelimin-
aries at a club ; so we were reduced to tea and fried
fish at my rooms—reduced also to the transcendent.
Something had come up which made me want him
to feel at peace with me—and which, precisely,
was all the dear man himself wanted on, any occasion.
I had too often had to press upon him considerations
irrelevant, but it gives me pleasure now to think that
on that particular evening I didn’t even mention
Mrs. Saltram and the children. Late into the night
320
THE COXON FUND
we Smoked and talked; old shames and old rigours fell
away from us; I only let him see that I was conscious
of what I owed him. He was as mild as contrition
and as copious as faith ; he was never so fine as on
a shy return, and even better at forgiving than at
being forgiven. I daresay it was a smaller matter
than that famous night at Wimbledon, the night of
the problematical sobriety and of Miss Anvoy's
initiation ; but I was as much in it on this occasion
as I had been out of it then. At about I.30 he was
sublime.
He never, in whatever situation, rose till all other
risings were over, and his breakfasts, at Wimbledon,
had always been the principal reason mentioned
by departing cooks. The coast was therefore clear
for me to receive her when, early the next morning,
to my surprise, it was announced to me his wife had
called. I hesitated, after she had come up, about
telling her Saltram was in the house, but she herself
settled the question, kept me reticent by drawing
forth a sealed letter which, looking at me very hard
in the eyes, she placed, with a pregnant absence of
comment, in my hand. For a single moment there
glimmered before me the fond hope that Mrs. Saltram
had tendered me, as it were, her resignation and
desired to embody the act in an unsparing form.
To bring this about I would have feigned any humilia-
tion ; but after my eyes had caught the Superscription
I heard myself say with a flatness that betrayed a
sense of something very different from relief: “Oh
the Pudneys l’” I knew their envelopes though they
didn’t know mine. They always used the kind sold
at post-offices with the stamp affixed, and as this
letter hadn't been posted they had wasted a penny
on me. I had seen their horrid missives to the
Mulvilles, but hadn’t been in direct correspondence
with them.
32I Y
THE COXON FUND
“They enclosed it to me, to be delivered. They
doubtless explain to you that they hadn't your
address.” tº
I turned the thing over without opening it. “Why
in the world should they write to me 2 ”
“Because they've something to tell you. The
worst,” Mrs. Saltram dryly added.
It was another chapter, I felt, of the history of
their lamentable quarrel with her husband, the
episode in which, vindictively, disengenuously as they
themselves had behaved, one had to admit that he
had put himself more grossly in the wrong than at
any moment of his life. He had begun by insulting
the matchless Mulvilles for these more specious
protectors, and then, according to his wont at the
end of a few months, had dug a still deeper ditch for
his aberration than the chasm left yawning behind.
The chasm at Wimbledon was now blessedly closed ;
but the Pudneys, across their persistent gulf, kept up
the nastiest fire. I never doubted they had a strong
case, and I had been from the first for not defending
him—reasoning that if they weren't contradicted
they'd perhaps subside. This was above all what
I wanted, and I so far prevailed that I did arrest the
correspondence in time to save our little circle an
infliction heavier than it perhaps would have borne.
I knew, that is I divined, that their allegations had
gone as yet only as far as their courage, conscious
as they were in their own virtue of an exposed place
in which Saltram could have planted a blow. It
was a question with them whether a man who had
himself so much to cover up would dare his blow ;
so that these vessels of rancour were in a manner
afraid of each other. I judged that on the day the
Pudneys should cease for some reason or other to
be afraid they would treat us to some revelation
more disconcerting than any of its predecessors.
322
THE COXON FUND
As I held Mrs. Saltram's letter in my hand it was
distinctly communicated to me that the day had
come—they had ceased to be afraid. “I don’t
want to know the worst,” I presently declared.
“You’ll have to open the letter. It also contains
an enclosure.”
I felt it—it was fat and uncanny. “Wheels within
wheels | " I exclaimed. “There's something for me
too to deliver.”
“So they tell me—to Miss Anvoy.”
I stared ; I felt a certain thrill. “Why don’t they
send it to her directly 2 ”
Mrs. Saltram hung fire. “Because she's staying
with Mr. and Mrs. Mulville.”
“And why should that prevent 2 ”
Again my visitor faltered, and I began to reflect
On the grotesque, the unconscious perversity of her
action. I was the only person save George Gravener
and the Mulvilles who was aware of Sir Gregory
Coxon's and of Miss Anvoy's strange bounty. Where
could there have been a more signal illustration of the
clumsiness of human affairs than her having com-
placently selected this moment to fly in the face of it 2
“There's the chance of their seeing her letters. They
know Mr. Pudney's hand.”
Still I didn't understand ; then it flashed upon me.
“You mean they might intercept it 2 How can you
imply anything so base ?” I indignantly demanded.
“It’s not I–it's Mr. Pudney !” cried Mrs. Saltram
with a flush. “It’s his own idea.”
“Then why couldn’t he send the letter to you to
be delivered 2 ”
Mrs. Saltram's embarrassment increased ; she gave
me another hard look. “You must make that out for
yourself.”
I made it out quickly enough. “It’s a denuncia-
tion ? '’
323
THE COXON FUND
“A real lady doesn’t betray her husband l’’ this
virtuous woman exclaimed.
I burst out laughing, and I fear my laugh may
have had an effect of impertinence. “Especially to
Miss Anvoy, who's so easily shocked 2 Why do such
things concern her ?” I asked, much at a loss.
“Because she's there, exposed to all his craft.
Mr. and Mrs. Pudney have been watching this: they
feel she may be taken in.”
“Thank you for all the rest of us ! What differ-
ence can it make when she has lost her power to
contribute 2 ''
Again Mrs. Saltram considered ; then very nobly :
“There are other things in the world than money.”
This hadn’t occurred to her so long as the young lady
had any ; but she now added, with a glance at my
letter, that Mr. and Mrs. Pudney doubtless explained
their motives. “It’s all in kindness,” she continued
as she got up.
“Kindness to Miss Anvoy 2 You took, on the
whole, another view of kindness before her reverses.”
My companion smiled with some acidity. “Per-
haps you're no safer than the Mulvilles ’’
I didn’t want her to think that, nor that she should
report to the Pudneys that they had not been happy
in their agent ; and I well remember that this was
the moment at which I began, with considerable
emotion, to promise myself to enjoin upon Miss
Anvoy never to open any letter that should come to
her in one of those penny envelopes. My emotion,
and I fear I must add my confusion, quickly deepened;
I presently should have been as glad to frighten
Mrs. Saltram as to think I might by some diplomacy
restore the Pudneys to a quieter vigilance.
“It’s best you should take my view of my safety,”
I at any rate soon responded. When I saw she didn’t
know what I meant by this I added: “You may turn
324
THE COXON FUND
out to have done, in bringing me this letter, a thing
you’ll profoundly regret.” My tone had a signifi-
cance which, I could see, did make her uneasy, and
there was a moment, after I had made two or three
more remarks of studiously bewildering effect, at
which her eyes followed so hungrily the little flourish
of the letter with which I emphasised them that I
instinctively slipped Mr. Pudney's communication
into my pocket. She looked, in her embarrassed
annoyance, capable of grabbing it to send it back to
him. I felt, after she had gone, as if I had almost
given her my word I wouldn’t deliver the enclosure.
The passionate movement, at any rate, with which,
in Solitude, I transferred the whole thing, unopened,
from my pocket to a drawer which I double-locked
would have amounted, for an initiated observer, to
Some such pledge.
325
XII
MRS. SALTRAM left me drawing my breath more
quickly and indeed almost in pain—as if I had just
perilously grazed the loss of something precious. I
didn’t quite know what it was—it had a shocking
resemblance to my honour. The emotion was the
livelier surely in that my pulses even yet vibrated
to the pleasure with which, the night before, I had
rallied to the rare analyst, the great intellectual
adventurer and pathfinder. What had dropped
from me like a cumbersome garment as Saltram
appeared before me in the afternoon on the heath was
the disposition to haggle over his value. Hang it,
One had to choose, one had to put that value some-
where ; so I would put it really high and have done
with it. Mrs. Mulville drove in for him at a discreet
hour—the earliest she could suppose him to have
got up ; and I learned that Miss Anvoy would also
have come had she not been expecting a visit from
Mr. Gravener. I was perfectly mindful that I was
under bonds to see this young lady, and also that
I had a letter to hand to her ; but I took my time,
I waited from day to day. I left Mrs. Saltram to deal
as her apprehensions should prompt with the Pudneys.
I knew at last what I meant—I had ceased to wince
at my responsibility. I gave this Supreme impression
of Saltram time to fade if it would ; but it didn’t
fade, and, individually, it hasn’t faded even now.
During the month that I thus invited myself to stiffen
326
THE COXON FUND
again, Adelaide Mulville, perplexed by my absence,
wrote to me to ask why I was so stiff. At that season
of the year I was usually oftener “with ” them.
She also wrote that she feared a real estrangement
had set in between Mr. Gravener and her sweet
young friend—a state of things but half satisfactory
to her so long as the advantage resulting to Mr.
Saltram failed to disengage itself from the merely
nebulous state. She intimated that her sweet young
friend was, if anything, a trifle too reserved ; she also
intimated that there might now be an opening for
another clever young man. There never was the
slightest opening, I may here parenthesise, and of
course the question can’t come up to-day. These are
old frustrations now. Ruth Anvoy hasn’t married, I
hear, and neither have I. During the month, toward
the end, I wrote to George Gravener to ask if, on a
Special errand, I might come to see him, and his
answer was to knock the very next day at my door.
I saw he had immediately connected my inquiry
with the talk we had had in the railway carriage, and
his promptitude showed that the ashes of his eager-
ness weren’t yet cold. I told him there was some-
thing I felt I ought in candour to let him know—I
recognised the obligation his friendly confidence had
laid on me.
“You mean Miss Anvoy has talked to you? She
has told me so herself,” he said.
“It wasn’t to tell you so that I wanted to see you,”
I replied ; “for it seemed to me that such a com-
munication would rest wholly with herself. If, how-
ever, she did speak to you of our conversation she
probably told you I was discouraging.”
“Discouraging 2 ”
“On the subject of a present application of the
Coxon Fund.”
“To the case of Mr. Saltram 2 My dear fellow, I
327
THE COXON FUND
don’t know what you call discouraging !” Gravener
cried.
“Well, I thought I was, and I thought she thought
I was.”
“I believe she did, but such a thing's measured by
the effect. She's not ‘discouraged,’ ” he said.
“That’s her own affair. The reason I asked you
to see me was that it appeared to me I ought to tell
you frankly that—decidedly l—I can’t undertake
to produce that effect. In fact I don’t want to ”
“It’s very good of you, damn you ! ” my visitor
laughed, red and really grave. Then he said :
“You’d like to see that scoundrel publicly glorified
—perched on the pedestal of a great complimentary
pension ? "
I braced myself. “Taking one form of public
recognition with another it seems to me on the whole
I should be able to bear it. When I see the compli-
ments that are paid right and left I ask myself why
this one shouldn’t take its course. This therefore
is what you're entitled to have looked to me to mention
to you. I've some evidence that perhaps would be
really dissuasive, but I propose to invite Miss Anvoy
to remain in ignorance of it.”
“And to invite me to do the same 2 ”
“Oh you don’t require it—you've evidence enough.
I speak of a sealed letter that I’ve been requested
to deliver to her.”
“And you don’t mean to ?”
“There's only one consideration that would make
me,” I said.
Gravener's clear handsome eyes plunged into
mine a minute, but evidently without fishing up a
clue to this motive—a failure by which I was almost
wounded. “What does the letter contain 2 ”
“It’s sealed, as I tell you, and I don’t know what
it contains.”
328
THE COXON FUND
“Why is it sent through you ?”
“Rather than you ?” I wondered how to put the
thing. “The only explanation I can think of is that
the person sending it may have imagined your rela-
tions with Miss Anvoy to be at an end—may have
been told this is the case by Mrs. Saltram.”
“My relations with Miss Anvoy are not at an end,”
poor Gravener stammered.
Again for an instant I thought. “The offer I
propose to make you gives me the right to address you
a question remarkably direct. Are you still engaged
to Miss Anvoy 2 ”
“No, I'm not,” he slowly brought out. “But
we're perfectly good friends.”
“Such good friends that you’ll again become
prospective husband and wife if the obstacle in your
path be removed 2 ”
“Removed 2 ” he anxiously repeated.
“If I send Miss Anvoy the letter I speak of she
may give up her idea.”
“Then for God’s sake send it !”
“I’ll do so if you're ready to assure me that her
sacrifice would now presumably bring about your
marriage.”
“I’d marry her the next day !” my visitor cried.
“Yes, but would she marry you ? What I ask of
you of course is nothing less than your word of honour
as to your conviction of this. If you give it me,” I
said, “I’ll engage to hand her the letter before night.”
Gravener took up his hat ; turning it mechanic-
ally round he stood looking a moment hard at its
unruffled perfection. Then very angrily honestly and
gallantly, “Hand it to the devil ’’ he broke out ;
with which he clapped the hat on his head and left me.
“Will you read it or not ? " I said to Ruth Anvoy,
at Wimbledon, when I had told her the story of Mrs.
Saltram's visit.
329
THE COXON FUND
She debated for a time probably of the briefest,
but long enough to make me nervous. “Have you
brought it with you ?”
“No indeed. It's at home, locked up.”
There was another great silence, and then she said,
“Go back and destroy it.”
I went back, but I didn't destroy it till after
Saltram's death, when I burnt it unread. The
Pudneys approached her again pressingly, but,
prompt as they were, the Coxon Fund had already
become an operative benefit and a general amaze :
Mr. Saltram, while we gathered about, as it were, to
watch the manna descend, had begun to draw the
magnificent income. He drew it as he had always
drawn everything, with a grand abstracted gesture.
Its magnificence, alas, as all the world now knows,
quite quenched him ; it was the beginning of his
decline. It was also naturally a new grievance for
his wife, who began to believe in him as soon as he
was blighted, and who at this hour accuses us of having
bribed him, on the whim of a meddlesome American,
to renounce his glorious office, to become, as she says,
like everybody else. The very day he found himself
able to publish he wholly ceased to produce. This
deprived us, as may easily be imagined, of much of Our
occupation, and especially deprived the Mulvilles,
whose want of self-support I never measured till they
lost their great inmate. They've no one to live on
now. Adelaide's most frequent reference to their
destitution is embodied in the remark that dear far-
away Ruth's intentions were doubtless good. She and
Kent are even yet looking for another prop, but no
one presents a true sphere of usefulness. They
complain that people are self-sufficing. With Saltram
the fine type of the child of adoption was scattered,
the grander, the elder style. They’ve got their
carriage back, but what’s an empty carriage 2 In
33O
THE COXON FUND
short I think we were all happier as well as poorer
before ; even including George Gravener, who by
the deaths of his brother and his nephew has lately
become Lord Maddock. His wife, whose fortune
clears the property, is criminally dull; he hates being
in the upper House and hasn’t yet had high office.
But what are these accidents, which I should perhaps
apologise for mentioning, in the light of the great
eventual boon promised the patient by the rate at
which the Coxon Fund must be rolling up 2
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
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THE LETTERS OF HENRY JAMES
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