= ^ <^IEUNIVER% I" ~ < 71 Q 1^ g * ^OF-CALIFOJ^ a I UU3IIYJ 3 WU3IIYJ J t\E-UKIVER% > fcs ^T ^^ S "- 50 C3 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW BT VICTORIA CROSS FIVE NIGHTS LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW ANNA LOMBARD SIX WOMEN SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE THE WOMAN WHO DIDN'T TO-MORROW? PAULA A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE THE RELIGION OF EVELYN HASTINGS LIFE OF MY HEART ie s Window By VICTORIA CROSS NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY Copyright, 1907, by Mitchell Kennerley POPULAR EDITION 1909 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW And only the Master shall praise us t And only the Master shatt blame, And no one shall work for money, And no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, And each in his separate sphere, Shall paint the thing as he sees it, For the God of things as they are. RUDYABD KIPLING. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW PART I BEFORE THE WINDOW Tu ne qusesieris, scire nefas, quern mihi, quern tibi Finem Di dederint, Leuconoe, nee Babylonios Tentaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati ! CHAPTER I THE sky was very blue and tranquil that stretched over the village of Patterdale, and the air, after a month's steady rain, was clear as crystal. It was the very early spring and a tender mist of green was beginning to show amongst the branches of the trees. Primroses were opening their pale eyes in the damp copses and all along the banks of the rushing turbulent rills and streamlets that filled the sunny air with music for any who had ears to listen. Coming up the broad, white, undulating road that leads through the village was a young girl of six- teen, leading by each hand a small, lagging child. They made the one group of figures visible in the long, sunny stretch from the turn in the road to the top of the rising hill. The girl was tall for her age and very pretty with that unequivocal beauty which is independent of dress and circumstance, and which nobody not even another woman dreams of disputing. Just now, however, her clean 7 8 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW pink cotton dress, falling neatly to a little distance from the road, and her shady hat, and the circumstance of her long walk in the damp soft air, were all in its favour. The bloom on her cheeks was exquisite, like the very heart of the freshest rose, and contrasted sweetly with the velvety darkness of her eyes and the frame of her rich, clustering, dark hair. The features, small, regular and yet piquant, the dainty little crimson mouth with its curling upper lip, and the arching brows, made up a face arresting and not soon for- gotten. She carried herself easily and the well-developed hips and supple shoulders suggested all the vigour and strength of youth and constant work. Just now she walked slowly for the little feet of the children were tired and she had still some way to go, her objective point being Anderson's Farm, which lay beyond the village. There was a still, warm heaviness in the air inseparable from the first hot day after long ram, and the girl's eyes grew musing and dreamy as their gaze lost itself in the golden haze on the horizon, and the trio moved more and more slowly up the road. "I'se so tired, Lydia," complained a small voice at her side. ' ' I am so tired,' you should say," corrected Lydia, gently and mechanically, her thoughts far away, for her duties were many and varied, and one of them was to look after the grammar and general education of the small Ander- sons, and so make good her title of nursery governess, under which she had been sent to the farm. Lydia did not object to the work of her life, though to some it would have seemed hard, comprising as it did rising before the dawn, milking some of the cows, getting up, washing and dressing two small children* helping to get breakfast, washing up after breakfast, teaching two small children, taking them out and keeping them tidy, mending Miss Anderson's dresses and the household linen, helping to get dinner, washing up after dinner, helping to get tea, milking cows again, putting LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 9 small children to bed, washing tea things, and helping to get supper. Lydia took up all these duties in turn and carried them through with all the quick vigour and energy of her health and nature, but the great fault of her existence, in her own eyes, was its dulness: to get up so early and to look so pretty and not be seen by any single interesting individual all day long, not even on Sunday, was a trial that grew heavier each month that went by. It was true that there was Mike the stable boy and all the farm hands, there was the grocer's young man and the young man in the post office and general store, all these looked upon her with pleasure clearly to be seen in their faces, and even the curate, on Sundays, beamed upon her kindly. But none of these counted as anybody, simply because, whatever their ad- miration for her, her own attention was not arrested by any of them. There was something in her, not yet developed but capable of development, which prevented her, in spite of her humble rank, being ordinary and commonplace, and that same something prevented her from being attracted by anything ordinary and commonplace. So she wrapped herself in a proud and lonely reticence, that would not have been hard to bear, for she was by disposition shy and chaste, except that Nature would keep whispering in her ear, and the romances that she read led her to suppose that at sixteen it was tune for her own romance to begin. When she reached the crest of the little slope in the road, where a green byway led off across the fields to the farm, the small voice made itself heard again in feeble complaint at her side. "I'se so tired, p'ease sit down, Lydia." By the edge of the road there were some logs, cut from the neighbouring wood and not yet carted to their destina- tion. They were rather damp seats, being well soddened by recent rain, and lichen-covered; but with her usual good-nature Lydia walked to them and took a seat there, to let the children rest. From her position now the farm was visible, lying somewhat in a hollow, sheltered by cluster- 10 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW ing trees. It looked very beautiful in the late afternoon light, with a soft sheen of sunlight falling over its quaint, irregular and moss-grown roof and all the innumerable little out-buildings grouped round it. It seemed essentially peaceful lying there as if sleeping in the warm golden haze, with only the tiniest film of blue smoke rising lazily upward from it through the still air. Lydia leaned her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand and sat gazing at it absently, dreaming wonderful things of life and her future. Who has not paused, at Christmas time, before a blazing shop window, in which, under the brilliant lights, were ranged from end to end Christmas cards of every imaginable hue, shape, size and price ? Thus, one is struck by their beauty, the delicacy of one is thrown up by the brilliance of another, the tender greys of one picture are enhanced by the gilt glamour of the one next it, all together they present an enchanting scheme of colour and beauty, each lending to and heightening the charm of the other. Fascinated by the attractive variety we look from one card to another and fancy we see in each the beauty, which is really the beauty of the whole. We select one that suits particularly our fancy, enter the shop, and with the money in our hand we buy our card and go away well satisfied. Taking it out of its cover, at home, with the glamour of the shop window still in our eyes, who has not been disappointed with their one wretched little card ? Not this, not one card, but the whole shop window was what attracted and delighted us, what we desired, and what, foolishly, without reasoning, we thought we were buying. Thus is it with Life. In our youth, with money in our hands, we stand and stare into the brilliant blazing shop window of Life. Open before us stands the door of Life's great shop, crowded with wonderful glittering golden and wooden toys. There are the picture cards in the window making a wondrous display of colour and charm. Each card is a career, a destiny, whatever you may like to call it, a programme of an individual life. We may choose one of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 11 these, but only one. This is where the difficulty comes in. This is the cause of the disappointment in life that all youth feels when it has once bought its card and gone away with it. Poor puzzled Youth that cannot understand why, when gazing in at the window, it desired so much, and now, after purchase, is gratified so little. Humanity is really bigger than life. Here is the trouble. The one little narrow card is not what it wants, not what it is attracted by, not really what it sees. It sees and wants the whole shop window and would buy it if it could. Nature displays before us in our youth all the possible schemes of life, as the artful shopman to the intending purchaser, but she only lets us have one. There are some cards in the window more expensive than others, there are big cards and gilded cards, and these nat- urally demand more money. We may or may not be able to afford these. But this does not affect the theory, whatever card we buy, however big, however gilded, we are bound to be dissatisfied with it; it is not what we thought we were buying, we lusted after the whole and we have only secured a part. Each card, each life, as we stand staring at them from the outside, is enhanced by some colour thrown into it by another. In one we see the rosy warmth of passionate cupids playing, and just next it, in a broad frame of gold, at the side of it, is a pictured wreath of palm and a winged Victory blowing a horn in all men's ears, and on the other side a landscape of strange lands and rivers and trees. In our excited and misleading eyes the cupids and the gold frame, the Victory's wreath of fame and the lovely land- scape, are all on one card the card, our card, the one we will buy. So as we look into our future we see ourselves beloved and wealthy, victorious, famous, and free to wander through the sweetest paths of the world, passing through a thousand scenes, sometimes loving, sometimes warring, tasting and drinking of everything sweet and stimulating, knowing all things, enjoying all in turn; but this is the life of a God, not a man. And it is perhaps the God in us that so savagely demands the life of a God. But it is not granted 12 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW to us. We may enter the great shop once, buy our one card, and withdraw. What wonder that if we have bought the card with the cupids we are disappointed to find it has no gilt frame, no Victory, and the strange landscape has dis- appeared. But we have bought cupids and we must be content with them, and only them, for ever and ever, we are told. We cannot expect palms and wreaths and gold frames too. Sometimes, very rarely, we can with much trouble change our card, but then it is the same thing again, we change one for one other and what is the good of that ? Unless we could go through the whole shop, until we have tried them all. And that is never allowed. To none is the Whole permitted. None. And as the cupids failed to satisfy without palms, so equally the palms fail to fill the place of the cupids, so we are generally none the better, and sometimes worse, for the exchange. The time of youth, when we are still standing outside that dear delusive window, is popularly supposed to be a very blissful one, but it is not always so, for there is a great deal of anxiety as to what we shall buy. Nature sometimes, to put an end to such idle indecision, sends a wild madness upon us, pushed by which we rush in and buy without farther reflection, and these haphazard purchases often turn out as well as any can, under the given rules of the shop. Assuredly it is no use to delay too long looking in at the window, or we find suddenly that the pickpocket, Time, has stolen up behind us and taken the money from our hand: strength, health, beauty, youth, the biggest coin of all, has been snatched from us and then we can buy nothing. Only a few sweepings and remnants may then, out of charity, be flung to us. And the girl, now at sixteen, was standing with hesitating feet, outside this same wonderful window, with her hands full of money, and her heedless eyes straying from one to another of those gaily- painted cards, and as yet in the distance, round the corner, stood the grim pickpocket, Time, watching and waiting. The haze of the sunlight grew warmer and a fiery sheen was thrown upon the lake from the lofty fretted ceiling of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 13 sunset red above, and the fidgeting children began to kick their heels against the lichen-covered logs, and drum upon the projecting branches with little sticks picked out of the road. Lydia roused herself from her reveries and got up. "Come, children," she said, with a sigh, "it's late, we must go home." She resumed her walk, turning out of the road across the broad, luscious fields of long grass, and just as she approached the farm, which was lit up now in rosy brilliance, she saw Anderson, the owner, accompanied by another and unfa- miliar figure, come out of the farmyard and enter the house. Lydia 's eyes followed them with interest. She had heard at dinner to-day that Farmer Anderson was driving into town that afternoon, to meet the new-comer, whose arrival at the farm had been alluded to and discussed for the past week. She had heard that he was a gentleman farmer, though Mrs Anderson strongly objected to the term being used, adding "that if every farmer wasn't a gentleman she didn't know who was." Lydia herself did not know very well what the term implied, but secretly hoped it meant a more interesting type of human being than the farmers round Patterdale. Hastening her steps a little she crossed through the cabbage and gooseberry garden, and unlatching the door, passed straight into the kitchen, while the chil- dren scampered up to the nursery. "Is that you, Lydia?" called out the farmer's friendly voice from the hearth. "Come here, I have brought you someone from town to make the place more lively for you. I have arranged to teach him some farming and maybe you'll help him to learn something too." Anderson, like all other men, had a liking for nice-looking women, and while Mrs Anderson hated the girl who on all occasions cut out her own daughter in point of looks, and tried hard to deny this fact to herself and others, the father himself bore with philosophical resignation his own daughter's plainness, and liked to see this pretty maiden about the house, and show her off to others. "This is Mr Bernard Chetwynd Miss Lydia Wilton." 14 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Lydia glanced up quickly and then let her eyes fall immediately; in the dim light of the smoky kitchen her glance had taken in a tall figure that even from her own five feet eight of height seemed to be a long way up in the air above her, broad shoulders and a strong white neck rising from a common blue jean shirt, an oval face of a warm white complexion, two very bright keen blue eyes and a mass of bright brown hair. "She's the maid-of -all-work," announced Mrs Anderson, in a shrill tone, from the scullery, shaking the water and suds from her fingers into the pan of steaming water standing in the sink. Hearing which, Farmer Anderson chuckled to himself, and, seeing his guest duly interested in the girl, slipped out to his work. Possessed with a strong desire to wound and mortify Mrs Anderson would have been surprised had she seen the little mocking smile of triumph that played in the girl's eyes, beneath their drooping lids, as she heard this descrip- tion of herself and knew the spirit that prompted it. What did she care for any description of Mrs Anderson, standing before the new-comer in all the glory of her sixteen years, her beauty and her best pink cotton dress, freshly starched and ironed, with a pink ribbon at her neck, and the black velvet strings of her best hat tied securely under her white chin? She looked up again, emboldened by the bitter speech, and smiled as she laid her soft little hand in the large friendly one stretched out to her. "Shall I get you some tea?" she asked shyly. Strangers were rare at the farm and this one was so very good-looking and so very large. "Why, you just tell me where the things are and I ex- pect I can get it myself," he returned, in a voice in which her quick ear caught the pleased inflection at once. He was pleased with her, she knew. "It's my place to get it. I'm the maid-of -all-work," she answered, her eyes fairly dancing with amusement. She was so glad somebody had come to break up the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 15 monotony at the farm. She slipped past him into the scullery. Mrs Anderson had withdrawn by the outer door, to see after her cherished clothes line. Chetwynd followed the girl and stood watching her as she collected the cups and spoons and put them on a tea tray. She glanced round, and seeing they were alone, paused in her work, came a step nearer him, hesitated, and then spoke hurriedly and with an effort. "Mrs Anderson does not like me at all, I don't know why but I know she does not, so don't speak to me much when she is present, don't take any notice of me, don't look at me; talk to Bella, her daughter, not to me." The young man looked a little surprised, and, meeting his very keen clever eyes, she flushed a hot geranium red. She hated appealing to a stranger like this, on their first meeting, but something warned her she must. She was woman enough to read his glances, and to know that Mrs Anderson, being a woman, could read them too. He must be put on his guard at the very first, or he or she would be sent away. And why should he or she be sent away just now ? Bernard laughed. "I see she is rather a terror," he said, and then added, "but if I'm very good and obey your instructions while she is here, may I talk to you whole lots other times ? " Before the girl had time to answer the door was pushed open and Mrs Anderson reappeared with a bundle of clothes in her arms. Lydia was wholly occupied with her tray and the young man stood staring silently out of the little grimy window, apparently absorbed in the prospect of the farm- yard, but Mrs Anderson was not to be deceived. "Go upstairs and look after Sue, you careless girl," she called shrilly, "I hear her crying up there, I'll get Mr Chetwynd his tea. Be off with you," and without a look at him, or a word, Lydia laid down her teaspoons and left the room. "What a perfect darling," thought the young man to himself, looking after her. 16 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Upstairs Lydia ran, rather breathlessly, to her own attic at the top of the house, glancing into the children's room in passing, and finding, as she anticipated, that no one was crying, but that both children were seated happily on the floor, taking off their shoes and stockings. Arrived in her room she stood panting before the small square of glass on the table, under the sloping roof of the whitewashed attic. "How immensely handsome he is," she murmured, ad- dressing her own rosy image in the glass, "the very hand- somest face I have ever seen, and he looks so kind and nice I am sure I shall like him." She tore the hat from her head and threw it on to the bed, very differently from her usual neat method, and then brushed back her hair and patted it into shape on her pretty, small head. Though very dark, her hair was full of chestnut golden lustre that shone brightly in all its waves and ripples, and she could not help noticing, with a beating heart and full of joy, how exquisitely it fell on her soft white forehead. Leaning forward a little to the glass, she gazed, with a sort of rapt attention and wonder, on her roseate velvet cheeks, and into those large eyes facing her, behind their trembling lashes. How full they seemed now of mysterious fires! The face was full of light. The light of Youth and all the rapture of expectation of life. Tying her pink ribbon straight at her throat and drawing in her neat waist-belt, she turned from the glass and went downstairs to get the children dressed and ready for tea. At supper that evening Bernard was seated opposite Bella Anderson, and, after his instructions, gazed upon her with some interest. She was not a bad-looking girl, with rather straight, regular features, but her reddish hair drawn back from her face, her dull eyes, and the habit she had of letting her mouth fall open whenever she listened to any- thing that interested her, produced inevitably the effect of plainness and stupidity, contrasting curiously with the brilliant, quick, glancing beauty at the far end of the table, where Lydia's plate was laid, far out of the meagre circle LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 17 of light thrown by the lamp that Mrs Anderson had set before her plate. But to Bernard's quick intelligence Lydia's few words had amply sufficed to make clear the situa- tion, and he never even glanced towards the dusky end of the table where Lydia sat and took her meal unnoticed. He talked to Mr, Mrs and Miss Anderson exclusively, turning a little round in his chair sometimes towards his hostess so that his back was towards that end of the table, as if he was unconscious of the fact that anyone else was seated at it. As for Lydia she sat still as a mouse and occupied herself more with gazing out of her shadow than with her supper, just taking what was near her on the table, and never think- ing of asking for anything to be handed to her from the other end. She watched Bernard critically, and at her ease, as the light fell full on his handsome head and profile. The features were large and regular and the skin had the warm clear whiteness of youthful vigour: it had remained un- bronzed, unburnt and unfreckled in spite of his constant out-of-door life, and this pleased her greatly as she studied it. It singled him out and marked him with a certain dis- tinction amongst all the brown, red and tawny-skinned Patterdale farmers. The warm-coloured threads in the thick, short-cut hair, the clear eyes and quick laugh, gave an impression of brightness and charm that she felt without defining. The arms that he leant occasionally on the table, as he talked, were enormous in their great girth of muscle, though the sleek fatness of youth prevented them from being knotty, and under the close-fitting sleeves of his grey flannel shirt they showed smooth, even proportions. She gazed upon him, leaning one elbow on the table and her chin in her hand, forgetful of her supper and everything else, in fact, but him: gazed upon him with the perfect self- forgetfulness and unconsciousness of innocence. She had no thought of herself, nor of any bearing his advent might have upon her own life. She looked upon him with that instinctive pleasure all humanity looks upon any perfect specimen of the majesty of Life : with the same thrill that one 2 18 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW feels at the sight of the rounded curves, the massive, satin- coated beauty of the young wild horse of the prairie, or the stately glory of the bull elk, standing at the head of the herd in the mountain park of the Rockies. She let her eyes rest on him thus, reflectively, meditatively, and Bernard, feeling the gaze through his neck and shoulder, longed to turn towards the upper end of the table. At last the chairs were pushed back, scraping loudly on the board floor, and, as they all rose, he turned and she met full in her own eyes a bright, penetrating glance from his, that seemed to sweep her whole face and figure. She dropped her own eyes hastily, and, crossing the kitchen in a few swift steps, slipped into the passage, closing the door noiselessly behind her. Going upstairs she turned into the linen room, which had a landing of its own on the main staircase and two little steps leading down into it. She was occupied in getting out some tablecloths when a darkness in the doorway made her look up, and she started to see Bernard on the threshold. "Well, wasn't I good at supper ? ' r he asked hah* quizzingly, coming forward, as she eyed him in alarm from the cupboard. "Did I speak a single word to you ? " "No," she said hi an undertone; "but why do you come here now?" "Because I want to know when I may talk to you and see something of you if I mayn't at all ordinary times." "W T hy do you want to talk to me," she asked mistrust- fully, with one hand on the cupboard door and a pile of tablecloths balanced on her arm, "more than Bella ?" "Never mind! I do. Bella's a fool. Come, do tell me when is a good tune." "Do you want to lose me my place?" "No! of course I don't," Bernard exclaimed, with a sudden softening of his voice and face, "I wouldn't for the world. You know I wouldn't; but surely you go out some- times, mayn't I come and walk with you on Sunday, just to church or somewhere?" "I do have Sunday afternoon and I generally walk over LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 19 to Ulswater. I get so tired of just the country round here," Lydia answered reluctantly. "Very well! that's all I want to know. I will meet you on the road half way to the lake, you won't mind that ? At anyrate you can't help it, you know," he added quickly. "N-no, I suppose not," returned the girl, hesitatingly, "but do go away now," and she turned back to the cup- board. He went. Her reception of him and her want of eagerness in accepting his suggestions were far from compli- mentary, but that only increased, tenfold, the eagerness with which he looked forward to the promised Sunday. His was a firm, resolute, energetic character, he was quick to make his decisions and to act upon them, seldom, if ever, questioning or regretting them once made. Such are usually healthy, vigorous natures, which, while possessing great intelligence and quickness of perceptions, have distinctly not that curious gift of intellectuality which is generally such a dubious blessing to its owner. He went downstairs now, quickly, decisively, having gained his point, put on his hat, and went out for a walk, with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. The girl left behind in the linen room counted her tablecloths with increased attention. She was very glad now that the decision had been dragged out of her, that she had consented, and she began to think of Sunday with a new enjoyment. She was the very opposite to Ber- nard in all her mental equipment. Her intellectuality, instead of being a negligible quantity, overbalanced all else in her character. She was habitually vacillating and long in coming to any decision or conclusion, because she could see easily all round the subject in hand at once, whereas most people, more fortunate and less gifted, can only see the one side nearest them at a time. Her nerves were screwed at a high pitch and her imagination was keen and active, so that she easily apprehended and realised danger, and was open to fears that never come near a simple, direct nature like Bernard's. Mentally she could see in the dark, as some people can physically, as she herself, in fact, could 20 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW do. Therefore, in a dark room, she went slowly and warily, stepping this way and that, for she could see and divine the obstacles looming ahead, where her companions generally blundered forward and only realised the chair legs and foot- stools as they fell over them. Supper was taken early at the farm, and the spring days were lengthening, so that a soft pearly light still lingered on the fields and in the sky as Bernard emerged from the farm gate on to the cross cut from the highroad. The blood was running hotly in his veins and he welcomed the damp coolness of the evening; he had been constrained and worried by the little, pottering ways of the household all day, and he was glad of the wide stretch of road and sense of open country and freedom round him. He had been rather disappointed in the farm, it was not entirely what he had heard it represented to him, and the whole was on a smaller scale than he expected, but the girl he had seen for the first time that evening was as surpris- ing on the right side as the farm was on the wrong one. So that in his own phrase "things were evened up." It was of the girl that he was thinking as he walked. He heard within himself, distant as yet, the old familiar step of passion approaching, only the innocence of the object here would make it walk more softly than usual. He foresaw that though there might be nothing else to keep him at the farm, the girl alone was something worth watching and waiting for. Some- thing more important than crops and fertilisers, and all he had come to study, was now hi view. A new light had sprung up quite suddenly on his horizon, and he was now considering how best to steer his craft by it. So it is always: we are drifting on the great, wide, grey plains of Life's sea, with a blank sky above, and no port in sight. Then, hi a moment, as we look towards the horizon, a light comes up on that grey line: it streams across the waters and we are straining and tugging anew, all energy, at the helm. He thought of the girl now, and with youth's customary arrogance assigned her already her part to play; his knowl- edge of his own youth and good looks gave him confidence, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 21 he felt quite sure he would triumph and make her his own possession. He was sure that she must be lonely and worried in her dull, petty existence, and why should she not, a young girl, care for him if he chose to make her ? It was all in the natural order of things. And here, in his thoughts, he was both right and wrong, for it is in fact easy to ensnare the natural bodily instincts of any young human being, small, light birds that the fowler seldom makes much profit on, but the capture of the soul, the elusive soul that loves and lives, is another and a different matter. Bernard did not make these distinctions. He knew of the lust of the flesh and his own life had not been free from the touch upon it, here and there, of brutal passion. He also had a conception of love simple, honourable, devoted love; but of all those thousand subtle passions of the brain and lusts of the mind and desires of the soul, that lurk along Life's highway, dim shapes of terror, throwing their spells over the luckless way- farer, of these he had no conception. The moon was rising, and from the cloudy, covered sky its light fell gently, palely, through the tranquil air, the misty lake lay before him with a veiled mysterious radiance. He went low down amongst the sedge and rushes on its border and stood thoughtfully looking down into it. In it, as in an ancient silver mirror, he seemed to see the girl's face given back to him, as our own thoughts take shape always in all we see, and he studied the soft, thick, rather fat, but beautifully moulded, features, the plump rosy cheeks and onyx velvet eyes. He looked down at the water and her vision there, till the blood got up into his head and beat angrily about the temples. Then he threw himself down on the bank, regardless of the lush dampness of the herbage, and drew the slender reed stalks through his fingers. They felt to him like cool, shining tresses of dark hair. He pushed his hat off and lay looking up at the milky moon-filled sky. It was the roof he knew and loved best. He should nevei sleep, he felt sure, if he went back to the close, shut-up bed-room assigned him at the farm. The best bedroom, no 22 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW doubt, but one in which every care seemed to have been given to excluding the sweet spring air and banishing sleep. The window, not large to begin with, was provided with black wire blind, white linen blind, white curtains and red stuff curtains. When these had tightly covered every inch of glass, a large wire stand of geraniums had been pushed in front, and next came his toilet table. He thought of these fortifications in his room and dreaded to return to it. He wished he could stay where he was all night. He loved the open air and the open earth. He knew the land and came of a stock and family that had always owned land, and loved it, and worked on it. The Chetwynds had been land-owners for generations, always richer in land than in money, good and honourable, well educated without being great scholars and book lovers: intelligent, keen-witted, without the burden of great intellects: a fine, handsome, hardy race. Bernard's parents were dead, his sisters married, and his brothers had drifted away to America. That was the point on which his eyes were fixed : he meant to go there and settle down to steady farming, but he had delayed and put off the going, the thought in his mind, though he did not often formulate it to himself, was that he would not go alone. For a long time past there had been a sense of loneliness growing like a long shadow at his side. Life was aimless, empty. He had always been able to keep him- self comfortably and without any particular struggle, and so, after the fashion of humanity that sighs after effort, he longed to be obliged to keep two, which, with a particular struggle, he could do, uncomfortably. His first youth was past, the pages of its book scribbled on and turned over. He was nearing thirty, the time in men's lives when the sense of the worthlessness of most things in life, and the wild hope that the rest may have value, and the craving to possess them, ere life itself is over, all join and meet to form an implacable restlessness in the mind. The time when the tranquil confi- dence and hope of youth is past, and the resignation of middle age not yet set in. In fact, Bernard, after having been LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 23 strolling about in Life's great shop for some time, and buying for himself all sorts of cheap little toys that struck his fancy, was now tired of them all and only desired one large ex- pensive toy of curious and intricate mechanism marriage. When he thought of that, expatriation seemed no longer to be dreaded, and bright tinted pictures rose before him, of sunny skies and endless uplands teeming with flocks, through which he saw himself passing in evening light, with dainty feet, sweet voice, and laughing eyes beside him. But this vision had never taken solid shape till, in Lydia's supple form, it walked into the farm kitchen and stood before him. No woman's face that he had ever seen had had such a brightness, such a laughing piquancy, such an answering, responsive expression: no woman's form had called to him with its curving lines and youthful shape as this did. This was the vision and he opened his arms to it. For a long time that night Bernard lay among the long grasses by the lake, and thought. He had a quick, decisive way of thinking, as he had of acting, and he shaped his plans and built up his future clearly and steadily. When Sunday came the girl was up at three o'clock to get a good start with her work and be free to leave early, but Mrs Anderson possibly divined some special desire in the girl's quick energy, and was successful in finding pretext after pretext for delaying her. Not till three in the afternoon did she obtain a grudging permission to go to her room and dress. Up there, at last, the girl sat down on the edge of the bed exhausted. The sweat stood in great drops on her white forehead and tears of fatigue in her eyes. But for the knowledge that Bernard would be waiting for her on the road, she would have foregone her walk and crept into the bed to rest after her twelve hours' work. She lay back on it for a few minutes and pressed her hands over her eyes. The sun blazing down on the rafters above made the heat in the little attic in the roof, with its sloping tent-like ceiling, terrific. She grew drowsy as she lay there, but recalling Bernard's eager face in the linen room, a strange pleasure 24 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW began to stir at her heart, and a longing to be half way to Ulswater Lake came over her. There was only one way to satisfy it and only this one chance in a whole week. She got up, dashed the tired tears from her eyes, and began to dress. She bathed her face and neck and arms in the clear spring water, shook out her hair, and rolled it deftly into a great massive coil on the back of her neck, in honour of the day, and got out her best grey cashmere dress from the cupboard in the wall. It was not nearly so pretty as her everyday pink or white cotton, but she prized jit enormously because it was cashmere. She had not worn it now for a fortnight, and she was puzzled to find she had much diffi- culty in buttoning the bodice. "How fat I am getting," she thought, peering into the glass with dissatisfaction, and noting how the straitly-cut dress of a country dressmaker tried in vain to repress and constrain the beautiful figure. Then she put on a shady hat with some pink rosebuds twined round the crown, tied the narrow velvet strings under her chin, and seizing a pair of neat grey cotton gloves, hurried downstairs and out. It was the hottest part of the day and a drowsy stillness lay over the whole landscape. The violet hills lay as if sleeping behind transparent curtains of sunny sheen. The tall grasses in the rich green meadows stood motionless, breathing out their sweetness in the heat, and the cattle had retreated everywhere into the cool velvet shadows of the larch copse and fir wood. The road lay straight ahead, a blinding white ribbon unrolled before her, without a fleck of shade. No single being could be seen along it, nothing stirred in the whole scene round her. The girl thought nothing of the heat or the length of the way, and set out at an even, steady pace. Long before the half of the road lay behind she saw a tall, massive figure coming towards her. "This is not where I meant you to meet me," she said, smiling up at him as they met. "Well, you were such an awful time coming," he answered apologetically, "I couldn't help coming up a little way." LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 25 "I don't mind," she said softly, feeling indeed it was impossible to be ungracious to him. He looked so radiantly pleased to see her and so handsome, with his face dead white from the heat, and freshly shaved, showing to par- ticular advantage the smooth cheek and throat and finely - moulded chin. They moved on together down the road, away from the dainty little village behind them, which, with the surround- ing hills, looked like a painter's study hi blue and violet on a golden ground. She was not accustomed to such com- panionship, and while her heart beat with pleasure as she glanced timidly from under her hat brim at him, she realised suddenly that after this other Sunday afternoons, when he was not there, would seem very blank and dull. "Are you going to stay at the farm long?" she asked, under influence of this new thought. " No, I don't think so, now," he answered, with emphasis on the last word. " I did mean to stay here some time but I've altered my mind. I sha'n't stay a minute after " he stopped suddenly, and then added, "after I've made some arrangements. I have heard of a very good opening for me in America, and I sha'n't waste my time here. Things are getting fixed up already. The thing is, would you like a life in the town or country best ?" "I ?" repeated the girl, in surprise, and yet with a strange, wild, questioning throb at her heart. "What have I to do with it?" "Oh, well, of course I mean," he said, hastily catching himself up, "if you were in my place." She was looking up at him and saw that a dull red glowed in his face and he looked at the roadside and not at her. Again a strange sort of clamouring joy rose in her, but she pushed it from her as something not understood, and in any case stupid, and answered quietly, "Well, you see, I know nothing of town life, but I think I should like it. The country is very beautiful, but but," she paused, hesitating how to express herself, "as one grows up one seems to want 26 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW to know more about the world and things outside just one's own life, and I suppose one must go to the towns for that. Each town is like a little model of the general world, don't you think, but in the country there is nothing but Nature and all the things one knows so well." His face fell: he looked disappointed. "I am sorry," he said, "I like the country much best. You see it's all I do know about, and that's why I like it. I can always make a living in the country. I've got the offer of a ranch now, in America, a splendid place. It only wants a decent man on it, and you see I know an awful lot about farming and all that. I came down here to see if there was anything more I could pick up, but I see I know more about it than Anderson does. I don't know anything else but I seem to know that pretty thoroughly." There was a pause, while she pondered this speech, then he said suddenly, "I am awfully sorry you don't like a country life." "I don't see that it matters what I like," she returned simply, and there was silence again. A little farther on a narrow path diverged from the road and led straight into the green heart of a larch wood. The girl paused. "This is a short cut to the lake," she said. "Let's go through the wood. It is stupid walking on this straight white road." Bernard put out his hand to assist her over the low stile and Lydia laughed prettily as she took it. It was too funny for her to be helped over a stile! However, she took his assistance with all the grace of a great lady: they entered the green depths together, and a cool, delicious breath from damp mosses and ferns rose to greet them. Glades, full of deep emerald shadows, opened on every side of them, as their narrow path, mossy and little trodden, wound gently upwards through the wood. When they reached the crest of the ridge the trees grew less thickly, and, looking out from them, Chetwynd gave an exclamation of pleasure. L'lswater lay before them, shimmering like a great opal, full of cool, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 27 clear, green-grey tints in the shadow, and glowing with deep fiery hues where the sun struck the still surface. The trees on the islands rose tall and feathery into the crystalline air, and their reflections sank, deeply, smoothly, down below the delicate blue and glass-like surface of the water. Little boats glided here and there, shooting across the sunlit spaces, and then vanishing into the infinite cool depths of shadow at the side. "How beautiful the lake looks in this light," he said. "Shall I take you on it ? Would you like us to have a boat ?" Lydia smiled and shook her head. "No, indeed. I should never be allowed to go out again, nor even speak to you," she said. "But would you like to go ? Don't let me prevent you. I can walk back to the farm." Chetwynd gave a great laugh and flung himself down full length on the mossy turf where they stood, on the ridge, at the root of a drooping feathery larch. "Now as if I should want to leave you, to row on fifty lakes!" he said, laughing and gazing up at her. "I don't care about the old lake, I don't even want to look at it when I have you to look at." Lydia flushed suddenly, a lovely red. It was her first compliment, the first confirmation of the story she had so often read in her looking-glass, wondering if it were true. The words went through and through her brain and seemed echoing all about her. It was true then! She was good to look at. He thought so. Better than that lovely lake before them. "Sit down," he said, perhaps a trifle imperatively. " We don't want to go any farther. It's lovely here. Let's sit and talk." Lydia glanced down on him. He had stretched himself, with that easy grace that comes of great strength and a symmetrical form, at the foot of the tree, and was leaning his shoulder and uncovered head against the mossy trunk. A shaft of sunlight pierced the green roof of leaves above 28 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW and fell across his bright, smiling eyes and white, even teeth as he gazed up at her. Lydia looked round and then took her seat on the ground, a few feet from him. There was an old overgrown tree stump which made a stiff, straight back for her, as she, rather primly, sat down against it, her face towards the lake. All the slope intervening between them and the lake was one great hayfield, and the grass was already growing high in it. The blue bird's-eyes and the forget-me-nots made little spots of celestial colour in it, and the white spring butter- flies, and the yellow butterflies, floated across it lazily, as if borne up by the shimmering sea of sun. "Where is your home, where are your own people?" Chetwynd asked, after a minute, in which, while she watched a butterfly, he had been studying her face. " I haven't any now," the girl answered tranquilly. "Mamma used to keep a lodging-house in Ambleside, and some of her people lived in Tunbridge you know by London. Mamma died when I was quite little, and then aunt sent me to school; we learnt all sorts of things at school French, and the piano, and all that. Then when I grew up aunt was poorer, and couldn't afford to go on with the school, and she said I'd better see if I couldn't earn something with my education." "So your parents kept a lodging-house! I can't some- how believe it! What was your father?" "Father was a builder," she answered simply. Now Lydia, like many other young people, was quietly vouching for things of which she knew less than she thought. All she had said so far had been, to a certain degree, correct, but she had left out the name of a person of whom she had indeed never heard, and yet who had the chief responsibility of her existence. Sixteen summers ago an undergraduate, the Hon. Dudley Keith, had stayed at Mrs Walton's lodging- house, to read during the long vacation. Mrs Wilton was very pretty and the undergraduate was very dull. In the soft, long, summer twilights, when the fire of the brain had LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 29 communicated ungovernable fire to the blood of the student, words were whispered and kisses exchanged of which the builder remained in happy ignorance, and when Lydia appeared in the world she was welcomed as a legitimate child, and grew up with the builder's other children as her brothers and sisters. Mrs Wilton had stepped from the path of virtue for love alone and had never asked nor received a present from the undergraduate, but as she watched her most dearly-loved child grow up she saw that his involuntary gifts to his daughter were unmistakeable. From him she had her aristocratic voice and bearing, the turn of her head and the proud curl of her lip, her eager love of books, her quick, inquiring intellect, her pretty, easy ways and manner. Even as a little child these were remarkable, and the mother's eyes, watching her, would often fill with vain longing tears, so clearly did her lover stand before her in her child. Not to others, perhaps, was it apparent, for country wits are heavy and country eyes dull. They only saw a notably pretty and graceful child, and Mrs Wilton, with seven children, and always beside the proud builder, was without reproach. Bernard, looking at her now, and being neither slow of wit nor dull of eye, nor of the lower classes, felt sure that somehow in those veins flowed blood of rarer quality than country clowns have in theirs. Beauty is an impartial gift of Nature to the very lowest, beauty of form and of colour, but the beauty cf sound, certain tones of voice, certain invol- untary ways of thought, these are the gift of heredity alone, the result of long generations of birth and breeding and culture. Bernard however accepted her statements, guessing at some suggestion of the truth in the silence of his own brain. "You are so lovely, I believe the fairies were yourparents," he said, laughing. "You are so lovely." How strange and wonderful the words sounded. The green wood seemed to spin round her as she heard. She looked at him timidly, pale this time from excitement. 30 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Do you really think I am lovely?" she asked shyly, her bosom rising and falling visibly. "I do indeed," he answered, smiling and caressingly. "I think you lovely and a darling," and he leant forward and tried to take her hand. But a sudden anger swept over the girl. She snatched her hands from the turf and folded them both tightly to- gether in her lap. "I shall go home if you talk like that," she exclaimed inconsequently. "I only answered your question," replied Chetwynd, in rather a hurt tone. Lydia frowned. "Yes. But you answered it too much /" Chetwynd burst into a good-humoured laugh, leaning back again against his own tree. "I am very sorry. I apologise for the extra information I gave and that was not required. It's true all the same." Lydia did not answer. She gazed severely towards the lake. Her face white, her eyebrows still drawn together in a frown. She felt a strange nameless excitement waking up hi her, a strange trembling of her muscles, a great warm joy rushing into her heart. She felt sure she must really be very angry with Chetwynd; she felt, instinctively, that at all costs she must appear so, and yet and yet she had never felt so happy, so pleased, so overjoyed, and she sat rigid, looking before her, and frowning at the lake, trying to keep angry, but full, full to the lips of a great nameless delight. Chetwynd rolled over on his chest, and leaning on one elbow pulled at the tiny delicate flowers that grew in the turf, miniature parterres of red and blue and yellow spangled through the short, thick grass, where the moss pushed up between the blades, proudly raising to the light its thousands of microscopic spears, each bearing aloft its dark, glossy head. He pulled at these absently, tearing off a hundred at a tune, and they slipped through his fingers and fell back on the breast of the wounded moss. The copse was very silent. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 31 There was a great stillness all round them. Yet a stillness full of sound. Nature's own stillness, in which infinities of tiny voices rise upon the listening air, in such a choir of perfect harmony that to the dull ear of man it seems like silence. As the two human beings, sitting on the ground, in the sweet shadows of the interlacing larch boughs, neither moved nor spoke, the great kingdom of the wood began to continue its usual business, that had been interrupted by their presence. At the sound of the human voice the whole heart of the animal world stands still with terror, its voice is mute, but when that odious sound is stilled, then the small soft throats of the forest, furred and feathered, give out again their delicate symphonies of love and joy. A thrush in a little bush close by them forgot their presence and began to gossip to himself in low, warbling tones: he was really house- hunting in that bush, looking out for a desirable site for a nest, and great gushes and trills of music broke from his throat now and then as he thought of the mate that had yet to be found and wooed and won. A tiny blue and yellow tit glanced backwards and forwards, with the bright sun on its wings, and far back from a dell behind them came the low, triumphant call of the blackbird as he swept through the green light of the shady glades. Living, loving, nesting, wooing, mating, singing, trilling forth their joy in life and love, the great world of the wood went on about them and the fire of it got into the man's blood and he turned his face away from the girl and pressed it on his clasped hands that lay, palm downwards, on the moss, and lay listening to the glad calls from tree to tree, and bush to bush, that multiplied themselves now in the quiet. Two ringdoves of the wood flew suddenly, with the sound of shivering wings, to the tree above them, perched on a branch in it, and began to coo, violently at first, then softly, then more violently again, as their passions rose and fell. The two human beings beneath sat tongue-tied and silent, and listened to them. Quietly the soft golden minutes floated by, and the girl sat rapt and spellbound, motionless, for the pressure of count- 32 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW less feelings, indefinable, unexplainable, was upon her, like a million tiny hands that clung to her, holding her still. Never again would she be so happy, never again would the minutes float by so soft, so brilliant, so light filled. For that tune, when mind and brain and heart are white-wax- like and virgin, infantile, as well as the body, and stand awaiting the first onrush of passion, stand listening for the call and mandate of Nature, and knowing they will go for- ward obediently to the unknown, that time is unequalled. No pleasure afterwards, whatever intoxications the soul and body may know, can ever equal that first palpitating, expec- tant, divine curiosity, when the soul stands on tiptoe, trem- bling and waiting. Very slowly, imperceptibly, the sunshine grew more orange, the white light went out of it, and it grew more lustrous : stealthily, inch by inch, the shadows stretched forward across the sunny, sloping meadow, and a pure, pale green, tranquil and translucent, began to fill the western sky. That exquisite green of the sunset sky that seems to hold in its infinite stretches all the longings of men, to which men, through all ages, have turned their aching eyes in vain. Calm, unheeding, immutable, glorious in its beauty, it renews itself again and again eternally, that pure luminous green of the evening. Suddenly, jarring upon all the other sweet, joyous sounds of the light love of the wood, came a faint, weak whine of animal pain not far from them. Lydia started and looked round, listening. "What is that? Some creature in distress?" she said. It was repeated weakly, and she rose to her feet. Chet- wynd got up too, and as she went forward to a sort of thicket in the copse he followed her: she walked so easily, parting the great envious blackberry brambles that trailed from bush to bush, and Chetwynd, coming close behind, felt his blood thrill as he watched that well-balanced, supple young form, bending, swaying, stooping under this branch, moving aside from that one, as she went forward. "Oh, look, it's a poor rabbit," she exclaimed suddenly, as the thicket gave way to a small, bare turfy glade, in the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 33 centre of which a steel spring trap had been set. Lying over on the reddened grass, its pure white fur bloodstained and bedraggled, its two hind legs caught securely between the sharp steel teeth, was a fine, wild, female rabbit. It had evidently been a long time in the trap, doubtless since the first early dawn when it came out for its breakfast nibble on the dew-spangled grass; how terribly it had fought and struggled all through that glorious sunlit day the black blood on the steel of the trap, the black stains on the turf, and the limp, lacerated legs, torn out almost from the soft, heavy body, told too plainly. Now it was dying: its large dark eyes were dim and clouded, its panting breath came fee- bly from the soft white breast, one of the million beautiful perfect works that Nature creates apparently so heed- lessly, to be destroyed so pitilessly. With her face suddenly blanched, and a look of horror in her eyes, Lydia went softly up to the trap and knelt beside it. Chetwynd, who was gentle and kind-hearted naturally, but who, as a farmer, with the farmer's instincts in him, had no particular love for rabbits, watched her intently. She did not appeal to him for help, or indeed speak to him, or seem to know he was there. Quickly, firmly, she pressed down the spring of the trap, and with a soft, quiet hand drew the poor mangled, quivering body from it. Could there be any magnetic expression in that touch of the fervent sympathy that was pouring through all her body? Chetwynd won- dered, for the rabbit did not scream with fear, as he had heard them do often when approached to be released from the trap. Very softly she drew the rabbit oh to her knees, making a warm basin of her rosy hands for its head. It did not struggle any more nor seem to be alarmed Per- haps some voice from her heart spoke to it, perhaps it had no fear, for fear is one of the gifts of life, the twin to hope: when the hope of life is past fear departs also, and then only despair, the gift of death, remains. Motionless, in her cramped position, the girl waited while the tortured rabbit gasped out its life on her lap. It had ceased to moan. Its 3 34 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW broken, twisted legs lay limp and nerveless, its soft white dabbled fur shook with its quick, expiring sighs. Over their heads stretched the pale, delicate sky, ia its pure, serene, infinite green stretches. The filmy brown eyes of the dying rabbit grew fixed and set; in a few moments more the sighing gasps were over. Life's magic touch was withdrawn, and that perfect little piece of mechanism, that small world of hopes, fears and desires, that network of quick pulses of veins and muscles, the home of so much fleetness, agility and animation, was now a nothing, a huddled heap of crushed bones and bloodstained fur. Seeing the rabbit was dead, and sound and motion could no longer alarm it, Lydia laid it back on the grass before her and bent over it, stroking its glossy side. "Poor, poor, little rabbit!" he heard her murmur, and saw a torrent of tears burst from her eyes and flow down her cheeks. Chetwynd was deeply moved. He bent down beside her and tried to comfort her. "Don't cry, darling; what is one little rabbit, after all?" "Oh, it isn't only that," she sobbed, still stroking the dainty grey and white fur, "but it seems so cruel. Think what agony it has been in all this long day, what an agony of pain and terror combined, and it was so close to us, suffer- ing so much, while we were so happy." Chetwynd coloured with sudden joy as he heard this admission, made so thoughtlessly, so unconsciously, in her tide of emotions, outside herself. "They are horrible, cruel traps. The farmers have no right to torture the animals they want to catch. And it seems such a pity," she went on, the tears still welling out of her eyes, and great sobs breaking from her swelling breast, "it is such a perfect little thing in itself, so pretty, so won- derfully formed. Nothing that man can make could come near it in beauty, and he destroys it so clumsily." Chetwynd gazed at her in silence, with strange fire and longing in his eyes. Lydia got up from her knees and seemed to force her tears back. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 35 "It is getting late," she said, "we must go. It is dead. We can do nothing." Her dress, the grey cashmere of which she had been so proud, was spoiled by the bloodstains, but she did not heed it. As she rose Chetwynd noticed, with dismay, blood was running from one of her own fingers. "Look!" he said. "You have hurt your hand with that abominable trap." "Yes. I see," she said indifferently. "They are always hard to open, but there's nothing in that. Let it bleed," she added, as Chetwynd drew out his handkerchief, "the steel was rusty : it is better to let the poison bleed out. Why," she said, smiling suddenly at him, "you look quite upset! A cut finger won't hurt me, a great, fat human being! Think of the agony of that poor little thing all day." Chetwynd gazed at her with a sort of delight and admira- tion. The flesh of her finger was ripped open, from the jagged tooth that had caught it, and the blood flowed freely as she held it downwards. "Most women cry over a cut finger," he said. "Well, not quite all women," she answered composedly, smiling. "Now you may tie it up if you want to," and she held her little soft hand out towards him. White and small, in spite of all the use she had from it. For the hands, like the voice, are the gifts of race and heredity, and, once formed by these, cannot be spoiled by any work. With a trembling of his fingers, and very awkwardly, Chetwynd attempted to tie up the wounded hand, but a great embarrassment was upon him, the embarrassment of her warm vivid face and the curved young breast that was now so near him. "That won't do," she said, "you're not tying it properly. What are you thinking of? Tie it round the wrist. Thank you, that's better. Now let us go back. I shall be late." With a last look at the rabbit, stiffening on its mossy bed, in the gathering twilight beneath the pale, calm sky, she 36 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW turned from the dell and rounded the thicket to avoid the brambles. They regained their former narrow path and walked rapidly out of the wood. Once on the high road, they walked quicker still. It stretched before them, bathed in pleasant light from the lustrous green of the sky, where a few stars shone faintly, and. from the meadows at the side of the road, there began to rise thin wraiths of mist, as the chill of the dew struck into the heated air of the day. Gradually these mists rose higher, and from all sides, till the fields seemed smoking, and curious weird phantom shapes loomed up from them as the light in the air faded and the night fell. Chetwynd walked beside the girl, thinking. How he felt he cared for her, loved her, now: what a dear, little, warm, passionate heart she had showed him, as she caressed the rabbit with those slim white hands, that were full, overflowing, with sympathy. What understanding of other's pain she had, what indifference, what courage she displayed towards her own! He grew very silent, filled full of a desire that oppressed and weighed upon him like a heavy load, to get into some nearer intimacy and companionship with her; to establish some rights for the future, yet held back at all points by her reserve, her youth, her defencelessness, and her proud con- fidence in herself and him. But when in the failing light the farm became faintly visible, and he realised that for a whole week he might hardly have speech with her again, the burden became intolerable, and, walking close at her side, he gently clasped her arm above the elbow, and whis- pered, "Will you give me one kiss before we have to say good- bye ? " They were just passing one of the large barns that loomed up beside them in the mist. Lydia, who had been walk- ing hurriedly, absorbed and silent too, thinking of the late- ness of the hour and the work awaiting her, raised her head suddenly in startled anger. She gave him one fleeting LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 37 glance of indignant reproach, and then, shaking her arm free, without a word, fled from him, up the alley by the barn, through the long lines of kitchen gardens, by a short cut that she knew, towards the house, fled from him in the gathering twilight that a few minutes before had seemed drawing them closely together and enfolding them as if they two were alone together in the heart of a great pearl. The first approach of passion is the alphabet of a woman's edu- cation. When Lydia fled back to the farm in the dusk she had already lost much of her girlhood. She had made one long step forward to womanhood, and, undressing in her room that night, she dimly realised, herself, that she was a different being from the one that had gone out from that room in the morning. The child had died in her finally. She was full of nervous, restless, feverish feelings, and as she took off her clothes^ slowly, piece by piece, she looked seriously at herself and at her beauty as she had never done before. She unhooked the little square of glass from the wall and held it over her head at an angle, looking up at it, so that she could catch in it a partial reflection of her own face and body. It struck her as being very beautiful, a thrill of wonder and pleasure ran trembling through all her limbs, and she let the arm and hand that held the glass fall to her side, and sat, still and musing, on the side of the bed. What was the meaning of it all ? Why was beauty given to one, suddenly, like this, like light flung all over the body? For it was sudden. Lydia remembered herself well as a child, a little, skinny, slender object, nicely formed and pleasing, it is true, but this this that she saw now, in the glass, was something different, this radiant blush upon the cheeks, this brilliant light in the wide-open eyes, this rounding of all the contours, hiding of all the bones under the skin, till it was like soft white velvet padding on her throat and shoulders, wherever she looked. Who and what had done all this? And why ? Lydia heard for the first time the rushing of that great river that flows for ever under all our life. The river of the 38 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW passions, which Nature has ordained to flow there, beneath, in the quiet and darkness, fertilising, enriching, reproducing the life above. Far away in the East, in a great plain of flowers and foliage, stands the great city of Damascus. It is surrounded with a glory of green trees, its gardens flourish, its streets are teeming with life, it is filled with innumerable houses and dwellings, and underneath it flows, deep in the earth, the hidden, inexhaustible river that for thousands of years has fed and watered and nourished and enriched the city. Here and there, in the thronged streets, it comes up bubbling turbulently to the surface, it sparkles in the fountains and lies silent in the wells; from end to end of the city the song of the waters is heard, and the rushing of the river is a cease- less undertone to the mingled sounds of the traffic and trading. Even so is life, with its underlying river of the passions, and the girl, in the stillness of her little room, could hear now the loud rushing of the tumultuous river, and bent a wonder- ing ear to listen. She thought of the kiss that had been asked for and refused by her: the sudden pressure on her arm, the mur- mured tone, the whiteness of Bernard's face in the dusk, and a little panting breath parted her lips. The sight of herself became intolerable to her, it seemed burning her. She put out, suddenly, the dull flame of the candle, and got hastily into bed, only to stare wide-eyed into the darkness. So much worth thinking of and considering seemed pressing home to her. She was like one who has been walking for some time along a plain white road between high walls, in which, quite suddenly, a great door has been pulled open, disclosing wonderful gardens and orchards, with trailing vines and hanging fruit, and a far view to the sea beyond. Lydia had stopped short, so to speak, in front of this door, while a voice within her said, "That's your road, go in there." Feverishly she tossed and turned in her narrow bed. She knew it was Bernard's hand that had pulled open that LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 39 door. She knew instinctively that he was waiting there, eager to lead her over the threshold, and a great bounding delight and curiosity was swelling within her. It is a great thing when you have been walking hard for some time, on a plain, dusty, uninteresting road, never seeing anything better, to be invited to walk through the orchards under the vines instead. Lydia thought of Bernard, and his image rose before her in the darkness, as hers had done before him in the lake. She looked at it and admired it, and was grate- ful to him, not, as is the case with many girls, because she pleased him, but because he pleased her. Lydia knew that she pleased the eyes of most men that she met, but never till now had she herself been pleased. The thin, sallow curate, the brown-faced farmer, the red-skinned dairy owner, the undersized school teacher could any of these open those unknown paths of feeling for her and teach her to tread them as this man was doing? Never, never, and in the dark room she saw the gleaming threads of red gold in his hair, and the clear whiteness of cheek and chin, and felt deeply, wildly, grateful to him for all those qualities that were no merit of his own, no credit to him, only lucky gifts of Nature. The next morning, rising early in the cool pure dawn, with the pale light filling the silent room, she felt a little annoyed with herself for her emotions of the night, and a little vexed with the causer of them. She dressed herself hastily and went down to her work, determined to think only of it; but when she had crossed the yard with her pails, and pushed open the door of the cowhouse, where the soft darkness was heavy with the sweet breath of the kine, and had glanced over the wooden partitions into the sections where the small calves, not yet separated from their mothers, were nestling happily at their sides, a great rushing realisa- tion of Life and its needs, aims and powers, came over her again. She sat down suddenly, overwhelmed and feeling rather sick and frightened, in the close darkness, listening to the creatures moving in the hay and snuffing close beside 40 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW her. The cowshed ran on into the henhouse, and other sounds reached her from there; the triumphant clucking of a hen as it announced the most important event in its life, and then a hundred little creeping notes from the brood of chickens in the next roost. Lydia did not get up to look at them then, but she knew that in the far corner of the shed there was a family of small blind kittens, recently arrived, and behind a hurdle, there, opposite, a white kid sucked strenuously from its lean, patient mother. All this realisation of young life pushing forward, pressing round her, seemed to weigh upon her, become clear, significant to her, as never before. Was this then the message of Life, was this its great duty, to love, to be loved, to mate, to reproduce ? Was Humanity only one long chain, of which each human being was a link, bound to keep its place in the chain, to join the link behind it to the link in front, and if it broke and failed in this, was it to be counted base metal, to be cast aside with things for which there is no use ? Going out of the cowshed after the milking, with her pails full, hanging from the bar across her shoulders, she almost ran against Bernard, who stood before her. She started and trembled violently, so that the milk rippled in the pails. "I must speak to you," he said hurriedly. "I had no chance last night, and I've been so miserable." With an effort the girl steadied, straightened herself, and walked past him. "I can't listen to you," she said, without turning her head. "We are just under the farm windows. I can't speak to you." "But I must explain about last night," he persisted, hurriedly walking with her. "You thought perhaps that I meant some insult to you. I didn't, Lydia dearest, really. I have something particular to say to you. Will you come to that hollow in the orchard, this afternoon after dinner, by the spring where the violets grow? I will wait for you there. Do come." LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 41 Lydia walked on in silence. They were close to the house door now. "I have something special I must say to you," he repeated. "If you won't come to the hollow I shall say it before them all at dinner to-day." Lydia paled a little, but whether in apprehension of what he was going to say, or the threatened time and place of saying it, was not apparent. 'Very well, I will come to the hollow," she said quietly, and disappeared with her pails into the house. The hollow Bernard had appointed for their meeting was truly a lovely place. It was a green mossy depression, a soft-turfed tiny glade, lying on the farther side of the orchard, just outside the low brick wall that had there crumbled away. The almond trees in the orchard were one mass of pink, scented bloom, and their branches stretched far over the wall, making a perfect roof of stainless blossom to the hollow; on the other side farthest from the orchard, a spring of diamond clear water rose bubbling through the moss, and watering innumerable violet beds that had grown up by it. To this hollow, full of hushed, sweet-scented, shady repose, Bernard came, directly the mid-day meal was finished, and flung himself heavily on the moss by the spring. He threw his hat down beside him, little lines of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes and lips were very bright. Minute after minute went by, a white petal from the almond trees above floated down through the scented air from time to time, otherwise there was no movement in the hollow. The man lay motionless waiting. The pink bloom of the almond trees was shaken, their branches were parted, and the girl appeared suddenly before him Her face was glowing and heated from her quick walk through the sunny open spaces round the house, her eyes were large with excitement, and her full red lips parted in a little breathless smile as she looked up at him. He had sprung to his feet and taken her two hands, drawing her towards him 42 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "What did you want to say to me?" she asked, her bosom panting quickly, and holding her body rather rigidly upright and away from him. He tried to draw her still closer without replying, but feeling she resented it he seemed to abandon his intention, and said at once, simply and seriously, " Lydia, dearest, will you marry me ? " There was silence. He was looking at her but she would not meet his eyes, and looked anywhere away from that bright, eager, penetrating gaze. She hardly thought of his question, so confused and anxious she felt to get away from him. She felt oppressed and nervous, overwhelmed by his great form so near her, the hold on her hands, the stren- uous, eager meaning of tone and glance, all kept back, it is true, but overpowering in its visible pressure, against the restraint he put on it. She had only one thought now, to escape. She tried to tear her hands free and he suddenly let them go and encircled her waist instead. She stood still, holding herself together, not touching him, her eyes turned away. "Do let us marry at once, do say 'Yes,' " he urged. His strong arms were round her. Nature was thrilling all through her, pressing her to accept, to begin to learn some of the great lessons of life. His warm white oval face was just above hers, backed by the delicious almond blossoms that breathed their fragrance upon them. Up above, far out of sight in the blue sky, the larks trilled a madness of song into the hot sunshine. Here in the hollow, where the grasses were cool and sweet, there seemed a great impulse brooding for all things to love and be beloved. Lydia struggled against it, and full of indecision and half fear tried to draw away, but he held her tightly, though not roughly, and looking up she could not fail to see the breadth of the shoulders, the size of the powerful chest, the strong white neck above his turned-down shirt collar, and the bright, thick brown hair on his head bent over her, where the sun showed up the threads of red and gold. It was all charming LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 43 and pleasing and she coveted it. She had the same sensa- tion now as when, only a year or two back, she had coveted a big doll she had seen in a village shop window. She had longed to have that doll, its hair and eyes, and its fat stuffed body, for her own, and she felt the same covetousness now for this other big doll of rather different make and kind. But as before the doll in the window had been a high price for her resources, so now, she instinctively felt, this was an expensive doll too. So she strained away from him, full of frightened uncer- tainty and unwillingness, which had the effect of making the man more strenuous, eager, determined to hold her. How lovely she was, with her face all tremulous fleeting blushes and smiles, and the flickering softened light falling through the almond blossoms above them on to it! "I will never let you go till you say it," he murmured, not violently, but with a deep, strange new note in his voice. A tone that was unfamiliar and stirred a curious, indefinable sense of delight in her. She longed oh, how she longed! though to her shy experience it seemed impossible that such a thing could ever happen, to throw her own arms tightly round him, to press her bosom close to the broad chest above her, to feel that that neck was hers legitimately to clasp and kiss, to know that she need no longer struggle away from those arms that seemed such wonderful things to her, realising that her hand could not span their great girth of muscle above the elbow, that her fingers would not half reach round them. She had only to say "Yes," as he urged her, and she could have this wonderful big doll and the joy of knowing it hers. As a child she had finally bought her doll in the shop, and run all the way home with it, squeezing its fat body in her hot, eager fingers with an awful sense of delight; she had always remembered those first moments of the toy's possession with pleasure, and she divined that here possession meant some still more mysteriously enchanting joys. Impatient at her silence, Chetwynd tightened his arms about her waist and gave them a little jerk. Her face paled 44 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW and her lips parted. Nature was helping the man in his appeal all she could, but, fenced about with innocence as the girl was, Nature's voice could only reach dully to her ears. Suddenly, just as formerly she had rushed passionately into the shop, paid the necessary price and carried off the toy, she looked up at him. There was a great leaping in her heart, a great bending of all her impulses to one. "Will you let me go if I say 'Yes' ?" she asked. "If you will give me one kiss of your own free will first." "Yes," she whispered, while her face grew very white and her eyes afraid. Then, as he bent his head lower, she put her lips up, and for less than a second they just brushed his smooth cheek. It seemed the most wonderful, delight- ful and alarming thing that she had ever done, when that beautiful face came down so close to hers, under the pink and white blossoms, and the touch of the soft skin raised a sudden storm of unexplainable feelings: she pressed her hands down violently on his arms, and forced them apart, as, true to his promise, he allowed her to do, and she broke from him and ran from the hollow, out into the sunshine where the larks were still trilling, and the bees humming in the honey cups, and the butterflies chasing each other as they rollicked over the flowers, and a thousand sweet scents were rising from the amorous plants, from the crushed grasses and the sap-distilling larches and resinous firs, filling the still air with the riotous breath of Life. CHAPTER H IT was a blue and gold summer that year at the English Lakes. The heat came early and increased with each long lovely day, that stretched its golden light farther and farther into the mauve shadows of the evening. The earth responded eagerly to the unaccustomed fervour of the sun, and the young corn began to spring merrily in the fields, the slim, straight grass shot up in the hay meadows, the elms burst into a mass of tender green, the fruit trees were one great sea of pink and white blooms round the farm, and their perfume hung in the soft spring air and filled the delicate dusk of the warm evenings with a dangerous intoxication. Anderson's Farm, with its many orchards of peach and apple, plum and cherry, divided from each other by narrow grassy, mossy lanes between the low brick walls, where the spark- ling sunlight tumbled through the brilliant green of the inter- lacing leaves and the snow-white blooms on to the soft carpeted path beneath; with its flower garden back and front crowded with flowers and filled with perfume, and furnished with the double line of yellow beehives against the sunny wall : Ander- son's Farm with its projecting eaves and quaint angles, its beautiful roof red and gold and grey with lichen and covered in places by torrents of roses, blush, and pink and white, mingled with cascades of wistaria and screens of starry jas- mine: Anderson's Farm, lying somewhat in a hollow with its back against the green sugar-loaf mountain of Patterdale and surrounded by whispering fragrant lime trees, was a spot of beauty, and many artists and poets while touring through the district had been led off the high road to stop and gaze upon it. Lydia, sensitive, observant, and singu- 45 46 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW larlj open to and receptive of impressions, had always seen and loved the beauty round her. It had consoled her for much that was hard and painful in her daily life. Some- times in the early spring evenings, when the children had been put to bed and her work was done, she would slip out from the hot kitchen and run bareheaded down to the orchards and there walk slowly up and down those fragrant green alley ways where her feet fell silently on the moss and the tender, pale spring twilight under the young leaves seemed full of soothing comfort. Up and down she had been accus- tomed to walk with a strange beating of the heart and her face uplifted to the unfolding blooms above her, wondering what great thing Life held for her. But after that meeting in the hollow everything seemed, not transformed, but inten- sified. New senses seemed to have been given her, quicker and keener than her former ones. All that had appealed to her before appealed to her so much more strongly now, and the pleasure that some of the sights and sounds and scents round her gave was now so acute it became almost a sort of pain. And yet that pain again seemed to lose itself in joy. The scent of the limes now as she ran up the alleys between the orchards filled her with strange ecstasies of feeling till she thought her heart was bursting. The gleam of the sunlight, the blue of the sky, the tints of all the flowers and butterflies and birds round herweremore brilliant, glorified, till it seemed as if she looked at everything through a glittering veil hung before her eyes. She ceased to wonder if Life held any great thing for her. She was content. The great thing had happened. This large, powerful, handsome being that moved about in the farm, and that everyone considered and made way for, was hers, belonged to her, loved her. She rested content in that thought. That no one knew it nor recognised it did not trouble her in the least. That rather enhanced the new secret, wonderful charm of it all. At present she wished for nothing better and asked for no change in the sit- uation. She was too young yet to be anxious for the reality of love: the idea, the theory of it, the mental intoxication LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 47 that it brings with it were enough for her and enchanted her. She did not really covet Bernard's kiss: in fact the kiss itself rather frightened her and she fled from opportunities for it, but the thought that he desired it so much, the knowledge of that strange fire burning in him, that made him gaze so hungrily at her when he saw her gave her an alarmed and fearful joy and a nameless pleasure which she hugged to herself all day and carried into her dreams at night. At her work, when she was washing the dishes, or at any of her other duties, she was recalling those looks and the eager fire of those glances, and in those lonely mental exercises she really found more pleasure than in the glances themselves. The thought that Bernard was so anxious to meet her by the or- chard wall under the limes in the long mauve sweet-scented evening gave her such pleasure that she contentedly saw the long evening itself wear slowly, emptily to its close, while she was kept inside the house stitching and mending and ironing at the table. She did not know where Bernard was, but she knew that wherever he was he was restlessly longing for her to be beside him, to see her, touch her, and this knowledge made her supremely content and satisfied, and at the end of a long, tedious evening sent her to bed happy. But with Bernard things were very different, there was no content, no satisfaction at present. He was after all to be the main mover in carrying out her designs, so Nature drove the passion deep into him like a great spur fixed in his side and there was no rest and no escape from it. On the day when he had met the girl in the hollow he had had no opportunity to speak with her again. Tea-time had come, when all the family were present; after tea she had been occupied with the children, giving them their lessons and putting them to bed. At supper again all the household were gathered in the kitchen, and afterwards, according to her habit, she slipped gently off to bed. Bernard, knowing this, had gone to his room too immediately on finishing supper, and there had sat in the dark with his door open, hoping to intercept her as she passed up the stairs. Pres- 48 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW * ently he heard the quick, springing step and rushed to the door, but the girl had shot past and he only saw the blue cotton skirt disappearing up the dark and narrow stairway. The blood went to his head and he called her name in a whis- per; but no answer came back, and the shrill, clacking tones of Mrs Anderson talking at the foot of the stairs below warned him to check the impulse to follow after the light, bounding figure on its way to the attic. He went back into his room, closed the door, and took a seat by his open window. His hand, tightly clenched, lay upon the sill. The soft twilight gathered without under the limes and a delicious cool sweet air came in and touched his hot forehead; the small white night moths fluttered in, and once a bat skimmed past him, made the circle of his room, and flew out. He sat quite still without moving, and graduallly the sounds without and within sank into silence. Steps moved about for a time and there was the sound of closing windows and doors and bolts being shot: then these died away into nothingness. By half -past nine deep silence if not sleep enfolded the whole farm. The Andersons, with Bella and the younger children, slept on the floor beneath his room, and some other empty ones occupied the next landing, and from this a narrow staircase led up to servants' rooms and the attic round which all his thoughts were concentrated. The proposition that kept thrusting itself before him, though he resolutely pushed it away, was how easy it would be with silent feet to find his way up those narrow stairs to her door, now that all the house was wrapped in its heavy bucolic sleep, but he knew it would be useless. The girl would not open the door nor even whisper to him through it. He was a fair judge of character and he saw that however soft-hearted the girl might be, and however warm and passionate her nature, she was, at present at least, almost fiercely hard where her honour was concerned. He saw clearly he would obtain nothing from her till he had put himself in a position where he could demand it, and then there would be no need to demand, she would yield herself passionately, then he got up from the window and walked LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 49 nervously backwards and forwards in the room. There was only one way to get that spur out of his side and it was cutting him horribly just then, driving him on headlong whatever the obstacles before him. He lived over again those few minutes in the hollow. How exquisitely fresh and untouched, like the almond bloom itself, she had looked as he held her, and what a hot blush had burnt her cheek as she just brushed her lips against him, at his demand, how she had struggled and at last had broken away from him! The room seemed stifling him as he walked and he went to the window again, leaning his elbows on the sill and putting his head out into the still air. How the pulses beat round his temples and the bright brown hair grew damp on his forehead. The difficulties were not insuperable but still the position needed some thinking over. Firstly he had, on coming to the farm, paid over a premium to Anderson and so secured his board and lodging for some months; he foresaw now that if he married the girl openly and took her away with him there would be some unpleasantness to face, including the loss of the premium. He would then have to find money again for the board and lodging of two people until he saw his way to providing two passages and making their start for America. Again the very marriage itself presented, as usual, some difficulties. If they adopted the common people's way of publishing the banns for three weeks before- hand there would be no small opposition to fight against. The girl would certainly be dismissed from her situation; where would she go ? and how would she live for that time ? and to his distorted vision at that moment three weeks seemed like three years. In that interval it seemed to him as if someone or some circumstance might contrive to take her from him. Then again a secret marriage before a registrar, always quoted as so simple, he believed meant a residence for one of them hi the registrar's district for the interminable period of fifteen days. There seemed only the one way left of marriage by license. This was very ex- pensive and would hamper him later on, but it was the only 4 60 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW one that would give her to him immediately, and of course in his present frame of mind that way was the way chosen and decided on. He had a small yearly income and the half-yearly dividend would be due in a few days. He had intended to leave this as a resource for the fare out West, but no matter, he would find a means of providing for that later. To-morrow he would go up to London, get a few things he needed, draw the money on the day it was due, and come back with the license in his pocket. Then it would be easy surely they could find some opportunity to be married without anyone interfering, without anyone even knowing. Why should anyone know it ? The thought occurred to him suddenly and struck him with strange pleasure. To be married secretly where they were, at Patterdale, was of course impossible, but Keswick was only ten miles off by the mountain pass, buried over there in that purple basin of hills. They could go there, be married, and return. If they were careful no one need discover their secret. They could keep it till he was ready to start for America and in this way much expense would be saved. Once his wife, she would be his, she would belong to him. It there were still difficulties in their path they would matter very little. There were some opportunities for them to be together at the farm, but as matters now stood the girl would not accept them. She would not meet him at night but if they were married she would lose her fear of him. Their love would laugh at bolts and bars then. He began to pace his room again, thinking over the details of his now fixed plan. Somewhere in the lower part of the house a clock struck twelve, but he was still restlessly walking up and down. He drank a glass of water from his washing-stand, sat down to his table and wrote a couple of letters to Amer- ica, and then, just before the dawn, flung himself on his bed and fell into a fitful, tossing sleep. Upstairs above him the girl lay wrapped in a tranquil slumber, pressing the pillow to her rosy cheek and dreaming happily, innocently of him, with a contented smile on her lips. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 51 The next morning he was late, as might be expected, and when he came downstairs he found the family had already breakfasted and gone and the kitchen was empty. There was a good fire in the grate and a kettle singing on it, and his breakfast was left ready for him at one end of the table. The room was full of sun, and the balmy summer air laden with the scent of flowers and the hum of bees floated in through the half -open door from the kitchen garden. Ber- nard looked round, wondered where the girl was, and then stirred the fire and made his tea. As he was sitting at the table drinking it, and looking through the window with rather heavy eyes, the door from the scullery was pushed open and Lydia came into the kitchen with a pile of plates in her arms. Her sleeves were rolled up, for she had been washing the breakfast things, and her arms were bare to the elbows. Such arms! Small at the wrist but so round and plump above and milky white like her throat. She smiled as she saw him and said good-morning as she passed him, going towards the dresser. Bernard gazed at her with his heart beating : a beam of sun caught the side of her head and burned in a red-gold curl of her dark hair and slanted across the rosy down of her cheek. She was dressed in a cheap white print dress with little pink sprigs over it, and her hair fell in a thick soft plait down her back to her waist. She put away her plates deftly in the drawer and then came over to the table. "Have you all you want for breakfast?" she asked. "I laid it ready for you. You look very tired this morning," she added, noticing his white face and his bloodshot eyes that blinked in the hot sunshine. "Yes, I was awake all night thinking," Bernard answered, watching her with a keen, devouring gaze as she stood for a moment before him, delicious in all her pink-and- white morning freshness. "What were you thinking about?" she asked. "About you." Lydia coloured. "Does that make you so tired ?" 52 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW At that moment, before he had time to answer, the door behind him was pushed open and Bella Anderson came in. She was dressed in a long merino gown, long to the ground, after the town fashion, and wore a large new straw hat, trimmed with bright red ribbon, that accorded ill with her red hair, and she had in her hand a large bunch of early spring flowers, evidently just taken from the garden. She came up to the table and Lydia drew back at once. It is easy to give place and way to a rival of whom you have not any fear. "Nice flowers, aren't they?" Bella remarked, sitting down opposite Chetwynd. "I gathered them for you," she continued rather shamefacedly, and then pushing them across the table, added still more uncouthly, " You can have 'em. Put 'em in you room." Bernard took the flowers. "Thank you," he said frankly. "It's very kind of you. What a sweet scent they have." He smelt the flowers and then laid them down beside him and continued his break- fast. Bella watched him a few seconds in silence: then she turned round sharply in her chair to Lydia. "What are you doing standing there, Lydia, there's piles and piles of things wants washing in the scullery." Lydia moved away at once in the direction of the scullery, and Bernard, mad at having his girl ordered away in this fashion, sprang to his feet from his unfinished breakfast. "Are there so many things?" he said sharply. "All right, I'll come and help you wash up." Bella rose from the table, her face paling angrily beneath her freckles, and slipped between Bernard and the open scullery door. "Lor' no, Mr Chetwynd, don't you mind the things. Ma told me to take you over this morning to Simpson's, they've got a new hay cutter there that pa thinks you ought to see." She spoke hurriedly, facing him, with her back to Lydia. Bernard, looking over her head, met an appealing glance LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 53 from those wonderfully expressive eyes behind her. Under their arched, soft-lashed lids they said as plainly as words, "Do go, pray go with her, go, go." Bernard hesitated a minute, choking down his annoy- ance, but the eyes were resistless. He turned suddenly. "All right, Miss Anderson, I'll come. I'll just get my hat," and he swung out of the kitchen and upstairs to his room, leaving Bella's bouquet lying on the table. "You little cat /" remarked Bella, with vicious emphasis, as Lydia went silently to the pile of crockery, and she slammed the scullery door to and then walked back to the table, where she picked up the neglected flowers and sat sniffing at them discontentedly. That afternoon Bernard withdrew from the family society and remained up in his own room. He emptied out one of his bags, put in a few necessaries, looked up the trains to London, put his room in good order, and then sat down by the open window and gazed out meditatively. The next morning he announced he was going up to town for a few days on business, and caught the first coach running through Patterdale to take him over to Keswick, where he could get the train. There had been no oppor- tunity to speak to the girl or make any leavetaking, which filled Bernard with a sullen, smouldering wrath, but just as he turned out of the front garden gate with his bag in his hand, he looked up at the window in the deep gable of the roof. It was open and Lydia put her head forward. The sunlight sparkled on her rich, vine-like tendrils of glossy hair, and the green leaves of the creeper made a frame for the sweet, pro- vocative face. Bernard stood still, rooted to the spot, gazing at the bloom and beauty above him and feeling a furious impulse to dash into the house again, up the stairs and take her in his arms. Reading this in his upturned face, the girl was quite satisfied and withdrew into the room with a little laugh. Bernard had to go on: the coach was waiting. And he 54 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW went, with a tumultuous storm of angry, violent, thwarted passion raging in his breast. The girl upstairs buried her face for a moment in her pillow, feeling as if his kisses were burning on it, and then went about her work supremely content and happy. CHAPTER HI THE evening sunlight fell and lay upon the landscape like a golden veil: the air was very still. The little village, a col- lection of grey-roofed cottages, nestled at the foot of the great hills towering over it and holding purple light over and among their peaks. Lower down on the rich undulating slopes the cattle lay, in the long slanting shadows cast by the larch trees in the copses on the ridge. The side door of the farmhouse clicked and Lydia slipped out into the still, golden evening. Her heart beat joyfully. Her whole body thrilled as she felt the light on her face and smelt the sweet, hot scent of the grass. She gave one swift glance round her and then ran down the path, catching up her blue cotton skirt as she ran. She had never felt so happy, her feet had never had such wings as on this early summer evening when she stepped into the soft hot air laden with the scent of sweet flowering grasses. The air was full of light, the sky was all gold; looking up through the heavy, drooping, tent-like leaves she saw the white pyramid of the horse-chestnut blossom glow whitely against it; soft, ardent trills from hidden birds gushed out from every hedge and bush, the spirit of the summer night seemed to breathe upon her cheek, her heart was leaping, expectancy seemed in all her blood, something seemed calling her, awaiting her beyond those deep-leaved, protecting horse- chestnut trees. She was in those glorious moments of youth when nothing lies behind and nothing is known, but in front there is the shining mystery of Life, all veiled, uncertain and obscure, yet dazzling, calling. As yet she knew nothing, and all that surrounded her seemed in tender, silent con- 55 56 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW spiracy against her, keeping the secret that she too soon would know. Those little birds singing so passionately beside her, they knew it; the blooms, the white pyramids of bloom above her head distilling their fragrance in the dreamy air, they knew it; the bright rosy clouds, the sleepily-folding flowers, the tiny squeaking bats, the dancing mayflies beneath the young green lime trees, they knew it. For Love is Life, and Life is Love, and to know one is to know the other, and to be ignorant of one is to be ignorant of the other, though a man have all the book-learning of the ages in his brain. She felt happy, she was on the edge of the great secret. A joyous wonder, a delight ran through her with each quick- ened breath as she went onward amidst the tender mysteries of the summer night. Just at the end of the horse chestnuts she came under a magnificent cherry tree. It was one mass of snowy pink-tipped bloom, and looking up, the girl saw it against the warm gold of the sky beyond and paused, her heart filled with rapture. For she was an aesthete , born, and in every sense, and beauty always called to her, in a commanding tone, to worship. The perfect, stainless pink and white blossoms against the radiant golden sky enchanted her, she stood still gazing at the height and size and beauty of the tree and drinking in the loveliness of the picture. Now she understood all that the romances she had read had told her and so much more. Why had they made so little of love ? it was absurd. There could not be more difference between being in and out of life itself than there was between being in and out of love. This wonderful surging wave of joy rising up in all her veins was something more than life itself. Some days had passed since Bernard had come back from town and she had hardly had a word with him, but what days they had been! She had sped lightly through her work, hardly conscious of it, and the glance of his eyes when they met hers, as they said good-night, seemed to follow her up the narrow stairs and remain with her all night glowing in the darkness. She had had little sleep and little food and somehow had seemed to need neither. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 57 Bernard was to wait for her by the old church they had thought the orchard too near home and as she crossed the last field, full of weeds in flower, she saw his large form against the grey moss-covered wall. Her heart beat sud- denly to suffocation and she slackened her pace. She did not wish him to see her so hot and excited. So at last, walk- ing slowly, she emerged from the edge of the field where the larches threw a cool deep shadow. Bernard took her hand in his but did not stoop over her and attempt to kiss her as she vaguely expected, but said merely, as they turned to walk beside the wall, "I am glad you've come it seemed a long time." "I came when I could," she answered, a little coldly, hurt by his restrained manner. "You don't want me par- ticularly, do you?" she added rather pointedly. "Yes, I do. I have something particular to show you," and he put his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a folded paper. Lydia forgot her little chagrin. "Is it a dress pattern ?" she asked eagerly, walking closer to his side so that the soft-haired head almost brushed his shoulder. She thought suddenly he had perhaps brought something back for her from town. Bernard laughed shortly. There was something a little hard in the laugh and the mocking tone in which he answered, "Yes, it's a dress pattern! Lydia, it's a marriage license this enables us to be married at once, do you see. I am sorry I could not bring you a pretty ring as I wanted, but the license and the wedding ring took all the money I had." He paused suddenly. The girl had stopped and was staring at him; her face was quite white in the golden light and her bosom rose and fell convulsively. She was surprised, aston- ished, her breath was taken away literally so that she could not answer him. "Why why do you want us to marry so soon?" she stammered, looking at him, and as in the hollow, the terror of this unknown thing seemed to stare at her out of the 68 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW yellow sunshine all round them. That and the same odd delight it brought with it hammered and tugged at her heart. All the hesitation women feel at that last moment, before they enter Life's vast shop to make their first purchase, was upon her. That question that faces them all so grimly, Suppose she wanted to buy something else later on? faced her and caused her hesitation, though she herself did not know the cause. "We are so happy as we are, can't we go on like this ?" The eternal woman's appeal to the man: eternally an- swered in the negative. "No, we can't," Bernard answered decisively. "I could not see you and meet you secretly like this unless you will marry me." "But why not? I don't see," persisted Lydia. "Never mind, don't let's trouble to discuss it," he said. "I can't, that's why I got the license and everything why should you be so upset, dearest, you promised me you would." Looking up she was struck by the strange white, repressed look on his face, in which the eyes seemed kindling. "I did not say when," she retorted, with a sulky little smile. "No, but you will now: say to-morrow or the next day, do, dearest, you must say it," and then suddenly he flung his arm round her waist, drew her against him and kissed her. Lydia questioned his decision, his judgment, his reasons no longer; her apprehensions were quick and she learnt much from the kiss, which left her white, dazed and trembling. She slipped her arm softly into his for support and they went on for a few steps in silence. The light was softening, mellowing, and delicious rosy blushes were stealing into the sky, the shadows by the copse were a tender violet, and a cool sweetness stole out from them. Lydia walked on languidly, thinking life was an ecstatic thing. Her indecision was over, she ceased to struggle, she LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 59 would leave it all to him, he must settle, manage, arrange it all as he would. She would give herself to him and let him do with her what he would. It was nothing wrong, nothing dishonourable that he asked of her. It was a new strange wonderful thing this to come jumping into one's life so sud' denly, this pleasure and excitement, this acquiring of a great live, strong, restless human being and having it belong to one and belonging to it, but there was absolutely nothing wrong in it, since husbands were things most women had and there was no one who could possibly blame her. It is not to every nature that stolen kisses are the sweetest. To Lydia, young, open-minded and guiltless, the least suspicion of dishonour would have swept away the whole of her hap- piness, but as it was she could abandon herself to the strange new joy and let it carry her forward where it would. Influ- enced by this feeling she walked on in silence, she asked no question and made no remark. She had not the faintest idea of how they could be married or where or when, but she supposed if he wished it he would arrange it somehow. She drank in the deep sweet peace of the summer evening, the scent of dew from the fields, and the sense of the mystery of life going on all round her: she was elated for now she was entering it too. She had never walked down a narrow twilight lane where the field flowers were folding up in the hedges and the sky was growing rosy overhead with her arm resting in a man's arm before. The birds were twittering fussily as they nestled down together and small animals rustled through the grass. She did not envy them now, as she had often done lately, their happy companionship, their small, soft mates. All that was settled and she watched the tender, pinky twilight gather with contented eyes. Bernard's thoughts on one hot eager trail were very different. "To-morrow," he said, after a long silence, abruptly and speaking with a sort of quiet force, "the Ander- sons are going to Ambleside. Mrs Anderson told me so. Betsey and the cook will be left in charge of the house. I want you to come over to Keswick with me, where we can 60 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW be married, and and we can come back the next day be- fore they return," he finished hurriedly. The thought of decisive action jarred upon her mood and disturbed her. It was as if he had seized her b^ the arm and was hurrying her violently to the edge of a stream she was not prepared to jump over. "Why are they goi g to Ambleside?" she asked inconsequently. "I believe Mrs Anderson's sister's husband has died and they are going to see what they can do for her; I under- stood they would not come back till the next day at noon. Itold them I had business inKeswick andshould be away too." "You don't want them to know we are going to be mar- ried?" Lydia asked, looking up at him. The lane was very quiet, sweetly still, only a bat now and then flew silently over their heads, in the soft air, against the rose-coloured sky. "Well it is only because you say the old lady is so much against it," he answered, "and would make herself dis- agreeable. If she did we should have to go away; it shall be just as you like, Lydia darling, we will do that if you like, only when I came here I paid a premium to cover every- thing, my board and so on, and if I leave I suppose I must waste it. Then I have no place to take you to; it doesn't seem worth while to think of making a home here for as soon as I've collected the money I'll get the passages and we'll start for America." Lydia was silent. She was thinking it was nice to be called "darling," delightful to hear the eager passion in his voice and know that she was creating it. "I thought," he continued after a moment, " it would be better, would save us a little if we went on living here just as if nothing had happened till I was ready to start. The premium used up some of my ready money and the license cost me a lot; but but if you don't like the idea, we'll arrange something else." "I don't mind. I should like it to be any way you like," she answered softly, "only wouldn't it be better if we waited to marry till you are ready to start ? " LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 61 "No, no, no!" he exclaimed passionately, stopping in the lane and drawing her round into his arms, "I want you now, now for my very own." Lydia leant her head back on his shoulder, unresisting. "Very well," she murmured, her will submerged in his. "Will you be ready to-morrow, when they have left, to come over with me ? " he asked after a minute. "Yes, I will be ready," she answered, and between the waves of delight she felt at the idea of wholly belonging to him and the wonder at the transformation coming over her life, the thought intruded itself that she must get up early the next morning in time to wash, starch and iron her best white cotton dress to wear for the great event. "What time are they going?" she asked. "At eleven o'clock, before dinner, and they take the children; there will be no one to interfere with you. I've managed it all with Betsey. Someone had to know but I've made it all right with her. She won't say a word. If you leave the house at half -past eleven I will meet you up beyond the fir wood on the hill and we can walk into Keswick by the Sticks Pass in two hours or so. Will you mind the walk," he added anxiously, "will it be too far for you ?" Lydia laughed. "How nicely you have planned everything! You must have thought about our marrying quite a long time!" "Darling! I have never thought about anything else since I first saw you!" he exclaimed; "this is the opportunity I have been waiting for," and Lydia felt surprise. After all he had said so little and thought and meant so much. With women it is so different, she reflected they say so much and mean so little. "Well then we get to Keswick say about two," he con- tinued, eagerly pursuing what to him was a well-worn train of thought, "and we will go and be married at once, the first thing. Then we'll go to the inn and have tea, then we'll stroll about by the lake and we'll come back the next day." "Very well," Lydia answered with a little pant in her 62 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW voice, and looked away into the dusky hedge with a beating heart. They walked on very slowly. At the end of the lane, and in an angle where another lane joined it, there was an old oak tree. It had been agreed they should separate there and Bernard go round by the village and so home, while the girl should walk back by one of the lanes, so that if met near the farm she might seem to have been merely taking a walk alone. Under the oak when they came to it they stood to say good-night, and Lydia, with a vague prescience that never again in life could she be quite as happy as then, clung to each moment as it passed. But the minutes slip from us however we hold to them in the mad race-by of time, and those dusky pink moments faded rapidly and silver stars came out and glinted through the budding oak leaves. At last she had given Bernard the good-night kiss and he had walked away towards the village without looking back. Lydia slipped from the shade of the great tree and took her way homewards down the slanting lane at the side of the one by which they had come. It was quite light with that mysterious luminous twilight of sum- mer in England that is so absent in the East. That hushed light summer dusk, what a madness it stirs in the heart and blood of youth! The lilac in the hedges on either side of the lane made the dusk heavy with fragrance and it poured through the girl's nostrils till her brain and heart seemed bursting. Everywhere was tender light, sweet-scented still- ness, and the mysterious suggestion of love, of passion, of joy of the delight and wonder of Life and of the World. It seemed to come out and meet her from the branches of the may trees overhead laden with white blossom, and to steal out of the closed flowers sleeping in the hedge and be expressed in the disturbed twitter of some small wakeful bird in its nest. She walked on, possessed with a sense of exaltation, her feet light and springing, her cheeks aflame, her eyes wide and burning looking out questioningly into the twilight of the wonderful maddening summer night. PART II THE FIRST PURCHASE CHAPTER IV ALTHOUGH she had slept little through the night Lydia was up the following morning as soon as the first grey glimmer of the dawn stole into her room. She felt strong, glad and happy, with the wine of excitement flowing fast in all her veins, and she slipped down the stairs through the sleeping house, with her cotton dress on her arm, to the wash-house. She soon had a fire lighted and hot water, and the short simple garment was quickly washed through before the light had grown strong enough to show up clearly the things in the kitchen. As she was getting the starch water ready she caught sight of her flushed happy face in the little square of glass hanging opposite her on the wash-house wall and paused a moment looking at it, with her round moist arms resting on the edge of the steaming tub. How good it was to have firm round cheeks like that, and great velvety eyes, to have Bernard and to be loved and caressed; looking at the round white throat in the glass she remembered how he had kissed it last night; a hot blush burnt all over her face and she turned sharply to the starching bowl. She was buying him with all these things she knew. He was the new version of the big doll with the fat stuffed body she had so loved and covetec} a few years back and bought because she, 63 64 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW had been lucky enough to have the necessary pence of its price. Now again she had, it seemed, the necessary price. It was a great thing to be able to buy what you wanted in this world, she reflected, as she deftly starched and stiffened the cotton and the light grew strong in the kitchen. She felt very con- tented, and that the price she was paying might possibly have got her a better doll, or that accumulated toys are some- times troublesome, and that warehousing bills in life are sometimes heavy, never occurred to her. As the light grew she filled up the kettles and put them on the fire for the breakfasts and then ran upstairs with the finished dress in her arms to her room, where she set it out carefully by the window to get rid of its dampness. The morning was a very busy one, the Andersons were fussy and excited about their visit, and it seemed to the girl they would never get off. Bella Anderson seemed to stare at her so queerly too: she wondered if her happy secret was visible in her face. "You do look gay," that young lady remarked as she called Lydia into her room at the last minute to brush her dress for her. "What's come to you? I believe you're walking out with someone!" she added suspiciously as Lydia's colour heightened visibly and she bent over the flounce of the other's dress. "No indeed," she murmured in reply. "Like as not," returned Bella, giving the brim of her hat a vicious tug as she surveyed her own unpleasing image in the glass. "Well, if I find it out I'll tell ma and you'll just pack." Lydia did not answer at all but she felt a great sense of gratitude swell in her towards Bernard, who was going to make her independent of all these people, a great joy to think after to-day she would be mistress of a certain life of her own. Married! Then nothing would matter, nothing any of them could say or do would harm her. "There, that'll do," said Bella, sharply, "don't brush me into holes : give me my sunshade, it's gone down behind the bed there," 65 Lydia crawled under the bed after the sunshade and emerged again with it, red in the face and dusty. She was glad of the excuse for she could feel the blood was burning in her cheeks. Bella took it in silence and sailed downstairs, looking from head to foot the country girl in her best clothes, and Lydia from a side window saw the whole party fit them- selves into the heavy country cart and lumber off down the road. Then there was a great silence in the house in which she suddenly seemed to hear her heart beating and her breath coming and going. Bernard had had some lunch and gone off early, nominally to Keswick, but Lydia knew he would be waiting for her beyond the fir wood. With a curious terror and delight at the realisation that the time had come for her to take the last step, and her thoughts shying away from the aim and object of her expedition and absolutely refusing to stand in front of it, she turned from the window and went up to dress. In her fresh white cotton, a white straw hat and white cotton gloves, she came down a quarter of an hour later and went into the kitchen to find Betsey. The old woman was scouring out the saucepans as she entered, but stopped at her entry, and leaning against the kitchen table, watched her come up, with folded hands. "Betsey," said the girl, in her soft, caressing voice, "Mr Chetwynd has told you all about it, hasn't he ? You will be our friend, won't you, and not say anything about about this to Miss Bella or anyone ? " "That I will, my dear," said the old woman, eyeing her keenly from head to foot. "Mr Chetwynd has behaved to me like a gentleman and he shall never be worried by my tongue. You go and get married, and good luck to you. You make a handsome pair, you do. As for Miss Bella, she don't like me and I don't like her, but you, my dearie, you've been awful good to me and I'm glad you've got a personable young gentleman to take you up and marry you, that I am." Lydia bent forward and pressed her rosy lips to the old woman's wrinkled cheek in silence. Then she walked 5 66 sedately out of the kitchen and on across the gardens and fields to the high road. Alone on the road a certain sense of anxiety weighed upon her: physical and mental ner- vousness seemed trembling all through her, but the moment she felt the cool breath of the pine wood touch her face, and saw Bernard's tall figure moving restlessly up and down on its border, every misgiving fell from her. She felt joyous, confident. This was what she was marrying for. For nothing else. For the possession of this large vital being. It was natural that as her eyes rested on him she should feel content, and perhaps not so content at other times. It was the old tale of the big doll in the toy shop that had appealed so irresistibly to her, extended behind the panes of the shop window. "I thought you were never coming," he exclaimed, "it has seemed terrible ages that I have been waiting here." Lydia looked up and saw that his face seemed lined with anxiety. "I am so sorry," she said gently. "I felt as if something would happen, would prevent your coming," he continued feverishly as they started side by side to breast the hill that rolled upward above the fir wood. "Well then we must have been married some other day," she answered tranquilly, a little surprised at the fierce, strained tension of his manner. Bernard gave a dry laugh but no immediate reply. After a minute he slipped his arm round her waist as they walked side by side and said caressingly, with relief in his voice and manner, "But you are here, darling, you have been able to come, nothing else matters." "No, nothing natters," she answered joyfully, and join- ing hands they ran up the hill in the face of the sweet morn- ing air. The blue sky laughed over them, the purple hills rolled round them, the light nodding grass sprang up again as their footsteps passed over it: the song of the birds rose LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 67 in a great chorus on every side in the sunlight and to the girl that walk seemed over too quickly; Keswick was reached almost before she wished it. The streets of the town were dusty and deserted. It was the hot, unpleasant time of day when even the dogs in the streets crept into shady corners. Bernard and Lydia walked along almost in silence straight to the small stone church in its confined yard of scanty green near the market square. As they passed in an old ragged woman begged of Lydia at the gate. The girl had nothing with her and Bernard hardly noticed the beggar. The church door stood ajar as if grudging entry, as is the way with English churches, and the old verger shuffled round from the back to meet them. In another moment Bernard and Lydia had passed in to the grey interior from the hot sunlight and wavering shadows of the laughing poplar trees and their dancing leaves. The old beggar sat down by the gateway and eyed the church door with a sullen stare. The minutes passed, minutes that pass ever so lightly and quickly, weighted though they are with human destinies, and at last she saw them come out. In their faces was all the happy glow of triumphant life and love. The haggard eyes watching them saw the man draw the girl's arm into his with infinite desiring tenderness and the girl smile up into his face with quick pleasure and delight. Nearer they came on to the gate, and as they passed her the old beggar spat vigorously on the ground. "Do you think you'll wear that sprig of may long, stuck in your chest ? " she said with vicious emphasis, looking up at Bernard as he passed. "Such as that ain't for plain coats long!" Lydia pressed his arm as they hurried through the gate once more into the sleepy, dusty streets. "What did she mean, Bernard?" she asked. She was tender-hearted, sen- sitive and sympathetic, and the old woman's ragged misery distressed her. "Shall we give her anything?" "No," said Bernard, shortly, and looking up she saw he was white and angry. 68 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW The next minute he laughed his usual good-humoured laugh. "Don't think about it, darling. Now, where shall we go to have tea?" "Anywhere you like," she answered joyfully, giving his arm a little squeeze. "Isn't it perfectly delightful to be like this together and without anyone to bother us, I am so happy," she said, and clasped her left hand in front of her, looking at the bright sheen of her wedding ring that showed clearly in the sunlight through her cotton glove. Bernard did not answer in words but he looked down on her, and meeting his eyes the happy blushes flew all over her face again and she turned her own gaze away in trembling confusion. "I am so desperately hungry and thirsty I can't walk another step," Bernard exclaimed lightly after a few more paces, "let's go in here." They had stopped opposite the Rose and Crown, one of those delightful little inns that the great grey stone modern hotels have not yet quite swept away in the Lake district. Its red-tiled roof projected prettily over its whitewashed front and a torrent of tiny white button roses poured over it. The door in the trellis porch stood open, and looking in one could see straight down the narrow passage to the garden and cool green trees at the back. As they entered the land- lady came out of the primitive bar at the side of the passage and curtseyed. "Tea and eggs, sir? Yes, sir; straight on down the passage, miss, on the left," she called after Lydia, who had wandered on towards the garden door while Bernard gave his order. She turned into the little parlour on the left: a low-ceilinged room with two or three small tables near the window, covered with white cloths, and a large table at the back, with the huge Bible, crochet mats and cases of stuffed birds under glass without which no country inn is com- plete. True also to country traditions the window was tightly shut and bolted and weary bluebottles buzzed be- LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 69 tween the glass and the black wire blind. Lydia took a seat by it. "Sha'n't we open the window, Bernard?" she said as he came in; "it's a shame to keep out this lovely air." He leant across her, and with those strong arms she admired unhooked the blind and pushed up the sticking window. A flood of sweet rich air, laden with the scent of honey, came in and fanned their faces. The garden beyond was cool and shady and delicious in its medley of tossing roses, holly- hocks, reibe, and gooseberry bushes: down on the one narrow gravel path that wandered amongst the flowers and low fruit trees were countless small blue butterflies, fluttering, rising, alighting, wooing, mating, in the hot quiet afternoon. Lydia looked out and watched them, leaning her chin on her hand. She wanted to think of them or anything but herself at that moment. It was difficult, un- comfortable to think of herself then : her thoughts all seemed disorganised, confused, scurrying this way and that in her brain, jumping over certain things and leaving them blank, and attaching themselves to other unimportant details and trifles in a fidgeting manner. So she was really married now: how quickly, simply and quietly such an important thing had been done: she was not a girl any more: the individuality, the independence, the privacy of girl life was over: she had nothing of her own now: she did not even belong to herself any more. This absolute, legal right of another person to herself, at any hour, time or season, what- ever her own will at the moment might be, came before her suddenly with a sort of staggering self-assertion. It was a thought that swaggered about in her mind and filled her with consternation. Then the words of the marriage service flew into her mind; really she had not realised all that sol- emnity of the thing till she felt the chill of the musty church on her and found herself standing before the old clergyman who mumbled those weighty and unfamiliar words and phrases to her. Bernard, sitting far back in the big chair on the other 70 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW side of the window, tossed his hat aside, and leaning his head back watched her out of the shadow, with unbounded and unalloyed delight and satisfaction. In reality he would have had better right to congratulate himself had he just married the freckled, weak-mouthed Bella Anderson, but then he would not have thought so, and after all, it is better, in this world of unsatisfying dreams, to think we are blessed when we really are not, than to be really blessed when we do not think we are. If Bernard had that day bought himself a most dangerous toy he was at least as happy as a small boy with a new gun. A great affection came into his eyes as he gazed at her, softening their expression of triumphant possession. She was his now and in his hands, and in every nature which has any nobility in it the sense of ownership and power brings with it tenderness and diffi- dence. She was very pretty as she sat there with a new gravity and seriousness touching her face. The bodice of her white frock had strips of open embroidery work across the front, and through these he could see the delicate pinker tint of her neck and how tightly the cotton stuff pressed on the full roundness of her bosom: the waist below had slight, elegant lines drawn in by a simple white ribbon, and the plain clean skirt, falling not quite to the floor and showing the trim little boots below, still farther enhanced the effect of girlish innocence. The expression of her face as his eyes came back to it troubled him. He got up and went over to her. "Take off your hat and lean back," he said, "you will rest so much better: you must be tired by that long walk: you look so serious: what are your thinking of?" "Oh, lots of things," she answered with a little nervous laugh. "I was watching the butterflies, aren't they lovely ?" She put up her hands to draw the pin out of her hat and the landlady came in with the tea tray and set it on the table near them. "I've cut some bread and butter and there's toast and teacake and honey from our own garden," she said, settling the cosy on the teapot and surveying the simple but delicious LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 71 meal with genuine pride. "And if there's anything else you require please to touch the bell." Bernard glanced over the table. "Thank you, that's capital," he said, and the woman, with a side glance at Lydia, withdrew. The Lake district in England is so inundated with young men and girls, newly-married couples, and other couples not so much married as they might be, who walk, ride, row, coach, drive and take rustic teas together, that it was only their specially fine physique that in any way marked them out from hundreds of such pairs that the good lady served in the course of the month. "Come now," said Bernard, drawing up a chair to the table for her and waiting for her to rise. They took their places at the table and Lydia poured out the tea, following the movements of her left hand, where the fat gold ring shone, with interest. Bernard devoured the landlady's all too delicate bread and butter and swept up half the teacake in a way that made the girl laugh. "You are hungry," she said, offering him his cup. "I am indeed, and so must you be; just think of that early lunch and then all the walk and the time in the church and then the waiting here. I am most awfully hungry." He took the cup and their fingers touched as he did so, sending an exquisite little thrill of pleasure through them both. Bernard had spoken hastily, carelessly, and then feared suddenly as to how the words would sound, and a deep colour burned in his cheek. They conveyed nothing to the girl, who only laughed again. How happy they both felt as they sat there, as happy as the blue butterflies in the path outside, or the two sparrows in the reibe bush, and for the same reasons. They had food before them and their mate beside them, with no one present to disturb them. That which makes an animal's perfect joy is still enough to make a man's. We have not yet succeeded in finding any 72 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW better aid to happiness than the prescription originally written out for us by Nature. "This place seems very clean and nice," Bernard re- marked after a few minutes, when they had exhausted the teacake and toast and had passed on to the bread and honey. "Would you like to stay here the night or have you any fancy for any place ? Would you like to go up to the Kes- wick?" "I don't mind," murmured Lydia, her eyes on her plate. "I will do just as you like; this place is very nice." "All right then, we'll stay here," returned Bernard, cheerfully, lightly, affecting to treat the matter with indif- ference, to give her time to recover herself. "Give me some more tea, please." She poured out the tea, and after he had drunk it he rose with his usual decisive movements. "I'll go and pay for the tea, Lydia, you stay here." He went out and found the landlady at the door of the bar. "How much shall I give you for our tea?" he asked, bringing out a handful of change from his pocket. "Two shillings, sir, if you please." "Can you let us have a room here for the night?" he asked as he handed her the money. "One room, sir?" Bernard nodded. The landlady hesitated. "Please, sir excuse me, but is the lady your wife, sir?" Bernard was not at all offended, rather pleased at the opportunity it gave him of stating the pleasing fact. "Yes," he said frankly, "we were married to-day by your clergyman here. Would you like to see the certifi- cate?" The landlady's face cleared. "No, sir, I know a gentleman and I take his word. You'll excuse me asking for there's a many that comes here as is not married what should be and them's not the sort I like. Will you follow me, sir, and I'll show you the room?" LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 73 Bernard followed her up one flight of stairs, and was shown into a room over the one in which they had had tea. In its pretty brightness and clean simplicity it was a pleasing shrine for simple, youthful love to rest in. The bed was draped with pink and white dimity curtains, showing a pattern of climbing roses, and entirely enclosing it in their fresh folds. The floor was of white boards with strips of bright carpet in suitable places. The window had lace curtains looped back from it, and outside, great sprays, heavy with white roses, pushed against the glass, only asking the window to be opened for them to fill the room with fragrance. The woman crossed to the window and opened it. "There's a fine view, sir; you can't quite see the lake but the mountings is very clear." Bernard followed her to the casement and looked out. The splendid semi-circle of purple hills that hold Derwent- water in their arms rose faintly, bewitchingly soft into the sky just growing tender at the approach of evening. Bernard was so pleased with the room he never thought to inquire the price. "We'll take this one," he said at once, "you will reserve it for us. We shall probably stroll down to the lake this evening. What time do you close the hotel?" " Oh, not before twelve, sir. Me or my husband's in the bar and will let you in any time." Bernard hurried downstairs and found the girl still sitting gazing into the golden glory of the garden. " Which would you like," he said, laying his hand on her plump shoulder, "to go upstairs and rest, or come down to the lake ? Perhaps you're too tired for any more walking?" Lydia turned with a bright smile. "I am not one bit tired," she answered. "Let's go to the lake. I was just thinking how funny it was to be able to sit down like this and be idle for so long and not hear anyone saying, 'Lydia, do this,' 'Lydia, do that/ 'where are you?' 'what are you doing ?' To be one's own mistress, to please oneself for a whole day like this, is simply wonderful!" Bernard laughed, "Well henceforth, or at least very 74 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW shortly, when we live together, you will have nothing to do but please yourself." Lydia took his hand from her shoulder and held it be- tween both of hers, stroking it gently. "No," she said rather sadly, "my whole time then will be spent pleasing you." In which she showed much premature wisdom. "It's the same thing," protested Bernard. Lydia smiled but did not pursue the question. She turned her eyes again to the garden where some of the flowers hung drooping and faded on their stalks, after the heat of the day, killed by those kisses of the sun to which they had so eagerly unfolded their fresh petals that morning. Bernard drew away his hand from her soft, caressing palms and brought her hat to her, which she put on without rising, and then drew her gloves on. Bernard picked up his hat and they walked to the door. When they reached it, and before the girl had opened it, he placed himself between her and it and held out his arms. "Kiss me," he said, and the tone was more of a command than a request. He looked splendidly handsome in that moment, with all the grace of strength and vigour and spirit that Nature gives to the male to fight his battles of love with as generously as she gives charm to the female. Lydia looked at him and leant forward willingly, raising her face to his, feeling she really loved him very much indeed, but after the kiss she drew back trembling and with her heart beating and they went out into the passage, and then the road, in silence. The streets of the busy little town were very different in aspect from what they had been in the hot, dusty, sleepy noontide. A brass band was playing loudly and the pave- ment was covered by a stream of thronging figures: mostly couples, young men and women, the women in bright cotton frocks and summer hats, the young men in flannels, striped blazers or light suits. Here and there passed the familiar form of the regular pedestrian or mountain climber, in the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 75 correct costume knickerbockers, nailed boots, and tweed cap, alpine stock in hand, knapsack on back, and earnest sternness on face. Some of these passed two and three together, members of the same walking tour. It was a gay and pretty scene all these holiday-makers, sauntering by talking, smiling, laughing, joining arms, streaming along to and from the lake in the still, calm, golden air. A scene full of love, joy and life, and some of the best emotions of life. Lydia and Bernard mingled with it and turned their faces towards the lake. She felt influenced by it and a strange fire of excitement, of joy, began to grow in her. Round her on each side she heard gay chattering voices, she saw pleased faces lit up by youth and joy and expectant love, and she felt she too had her place there. This was life: she was tasting it now: she had laid hold of a big piece with both hands. It was a delicious evening, cool, pure and tranquil, with a moon rising above the meadows; not a great cold glaring moon that would go soaring up through a steely sky, showing how high above the earth it was, how vast and how desolate, but a small young tender moon, a slim crescent of sweet silver that nestled low down in the warm pink sky, only just above the larch tree tops and the bird's nests and seeming to hold a great sparkling planet of many fires between its delicate horns. Coming home Bernard was very silent, and when they had entered the narrow passage of the little inn, which was quite empty and dark save for a small blue bead of gas in the jet on the wall, he was silent still and went up to the table at the end where one candlestick and matches were standing. He lighted the candle without speaking and then turned and pushed the candlestick into her hands. "Here, darling, go upstairs, No. 20, but let me come rery soon, won't you?" he murmured hurriedly, bending over her. Lydia heard the stress in his voice and raised her face full of innocent joy and trust. She would have liked to say, "Come now, come with me," but she paused nerv* 76 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW ously. Perhaps it was not the right thing. Perhaps it would seem immodest. So she took the candle obediently and went up the stairs and found No. 20 and went in and closed the door. She set down the candle and looked round her. This was her wedding night. She had read in novels picked up here and there of such periods as this in women's lives. She had read of the besieging feelings of embarrass- ment, nervousness, timidity and shame. Why did she feel none of these things, she wondered, as she walked towards the window. She felt nothing, nothing of these. It all seemed so natural, so perfect. She had an overwhelming sense of the naturalness, the fitness of everything that was happening just as it ought to happen. It seemed to her as if she was merely acting in accordance with the commands of someone who had arranged all for her. It all seemed so simple. The sensation of surprise or shock that she ex- pected intellectually to feel was non-existent. There was no shrinking from the moment when Bernard would enter the room, only a great longing for him to be there. A straining in all the fibres of her body to feel his arms folded round her and to be crushed against his breast. The thought of revealing herself to him, of showing to him all that so far only her glass and herself had seen for as far as her remembrance went back no woman even had ever looked upon her unclothed filled her not with overwhelming confusion, as she thought it ought to, but with passionate pleasure. She walked across to the window and stood looking out into the sultry night, with her white fingers gripping hard at the window-sill. The voluptuous heat and scent of summer filled the air and the stars throbbed redly above the fruitful earth. Lydia looked out with a great wonder at herself and life, swelling in her. That which would take place in a few moments now was the direct violation of every thought, instinct, impulse and feeling that she had cherished and clung to, that had grown up with her and held her for the whole sixteen years of her virgin life. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 77 These clothes under which her beauty had been sheltered and which she would have defended and fought for and given up her life rather than see dragged from her as a maiden, she was now going to cast aside of her own free will before this man whom a few weeks ago she did not know, and yet she neither felt afraid nor dismayed. No. She felt no shame, only pleasure, elation, rapture, as she thought of her own beauty and the delight that would well up in his eyes as he saw it. But there must be some reason; she knew she was not immodest but there was some strange influence round her compelling her, ordering her to do this thing. A com- mand laid upon her like the command of a god that cannot be questioned nor reasoned about, only obeyed. It was in fact that she was in the hands of Nature, who was leading her gently by flowery paths as Nature will always lead those who blindly, implicitly obey her. Lydia had never thought about her marriage with her intellect. Nature had told her she loved this great powerful vital being she presented to her and that she must accept him and his desires, and Lydia, unthinkingly, had obeyed, and this pleasure, this rapture that seemed too great to be contained in this small and humble room, were Nature's marriage gifts to her. Recog- nising something of this within herself she drew back from the window, which she closed, and then drew down the little white blind tightly over it. Then she turned to the chest of drawers where the toilet-glass stood, and looking at her- self in it began slowly to unfasten the buttons of her bodice. The black hair was tossed upward from her forehead and her face was very white with that strange luminous whiteness of intense excitement. The soft red curling lips were apart and the eyes shone back at her from the glass, full of strange light and fire. A moment later there was a step, Bernard's step, on the stairs. He pushed the door open very softly and came in. She looked towards him with a faint smile. He held the handle of the door in both hands behind him nervously, and pressed 78 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW it shut. She noted his face was colourless. He hesitated: the very floor on which he stood seemed sacred, he hardly dared to walk on it. She looked again at him and realising all his feelings stretched out her arms to him. CHAPTER V WHEN the first light of the following morning began to glimmer faintly in the soft grey air behind the white blind, Lydia opened her eyes and gazed into the whitening twilight of the room. There was no confused half-consciousness in her thoughts. She felt clearly awake and remembered all that had passed, in the first instant of awakening. The brain had in fact been too greatly excited to lose remembrance even in its sleep. She lay quite still thinking intently; feel- ing that same rapture of last night kindling slowly in all her being. That rapture that all young and innocent things feel when their feet are first washed by the waves of Life: those little harmless waves that curl along the shore. After- wards, when we are called upon to breast its dark billows and brave its tempests and howling winds, we begin to dread that ocean, but the first touch of those little waves upon one's feet, when the shores of Time are a white sunny stretch before one, ah, who can forget its thrill? That thrill was quivering in Lydia now as she lay, and her thoughts were bright, intense. She saw the light irresistibly glowing be- hind the window pane and knew that outside the great orb of the sun was climbing over the rim of the earth to make this fresh cool grey morning, day. And it seemed to her that with exact similarity the sun was climbing into her life. Before this it had been only the morning, clear and cool and grey, just as the morning is before the dawn when the earth lies silent in it, quiet and dim and waiting. And just as the golden light rushes over it, filling it with colour, glory and music, so now the sun was rushing, golden and rosy, into her life. A.nd then another thought came What would anything 79 80 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW matter now? How hard she might have to work, how disagreeable, how long might be her day, would not nights like last night, not the same, ah, never, never the same but still similar, be repeated again and again ? Would not this joy be waiting for her every evening with every darkening of the sky? Would not this visit her and revisit her night after night through her life? And the nights of life, are they not hah* of life itself? Half at least then of her life must be beautiful, however hard and cruel the other half, the cold long days, might be. Half of it must be warm, rest- ful nights of love and joy. This idea filled her brain for a moment and she examined it with delight. Nothing could touch her, she cared for nothing so long as this loved and most wonderful being beside her were not taken from her. And then the days also that lay before her now. It seemed as if they must be happy too with this sunlight from the new risen sun streaming over them. She supposed they would be full of work, but work had no terrors for her. She had always worked, and for harsh, ungracious people who grudged her the food she ate and the wage she earned and rarely let a kind word or a smile for her escape them. Now when she was working for herself and Bernard, a little later when they began their real married life together, how differ- ent it would be! To work for this man whose voice was always kind, who never let his eyes rest upon her without a smile of tenderness! What work could tire her? How she would slave to please him! Impelled by the warm rush of tender feelings she moved cautiously and raised herself very slowly on one white doubled arm to hang over him as he lay silent, unconscious. She hardly drew her breath for fear of waking him and breaking the mysterious charm of that quiet morning twilight in the silent room with the glorious summer day growing on the other side of the white blind. She hung over him trembling with fascinated delight. Two hours later, when they had risen, Lydia was in the room alone, for Bernard had insisted on going downstairs first and bringing up some breakfast for her. She went to LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 81 the window and drew up the blind, when the sunlight flowed in, a rush of gold, and filled the room. She paused before the looking-glass and glanced at herself in it, a vision of flushed, and disordered disarray. Yet it seemed to her in a dim way, she could hardly explain, that her beauty was not now, and could no longer be, the barren, useless possession it had so often seemed in her maiden life. It had now mean- ing and worth. It had given pleasure to another, pleasure to herself, enjoyment had sprung from it, and in the future, repetitions of this beauty in different forms would be given to the world, would carry on the sacred burden, the life of the world. It had found its true use and employment, and it seemed to her, even in its first loss of its former untouched freshness, to be sanctified, made a higher and more precious thing. She threw open the window and the song of the birds came in on the glad air from the mountains and she went about the room singing too. When Bernard came back with a small breakfast tray in his hands, she was dressed and sitting by the window, to all outward appearance the same fresh and beautiful young girl of yesterday. He looked half disappointed as he caught sight of her. "Why you got up then?" "Yes, dear, it's so late, but I shall enjoy the tea more than ever now after dressing. Come and sit down here." After breakfast, as they turned to leave the room, the girl glanced round it with regret. " I am sorry to think I shall never be again in this room where I have been so happy," she whispered. "You will be in others where you will be as happy," he said gently. She met his eyes and put her arms round him and kissed him suddenly on the mouth with a passion in her lips that gave him a curious delight as the really terrible things of this world so often have the power to do. Then they went out. It was a wonderful blue-skied morning with a joyous 6 82 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW rollicking summer breeze that threw the white, billowy clouds about all over the sky and set the loose boughs in the hedges rocking till the small birds almost lost their balance on them. Once clear of the town and away in the open country, where they struck across by the footpath over the rolling hills, Bernard and Lydia walked and ran alter- nately like children out in play hours, racing each other, running straight up hill, slipping sometimes and rolling on the short, straight, shiny grass, catching each other up, laughing, chattering and kissing with a breathless delight in each other and in Life. They got back to the farm well within the limits of time they had set themselves and no one had as yet returned. Lydia went round to the back entrance and was let in by old Betsey. "Is it all right, dearie?" asked the old woman, rather anx- iously, looking up into the girl's radiant face, where natural beauty was glorified by youth, health and triumphant, gratified love. "Quite right, Betsey," she answered in a whisper. " Look here," and she tore off her glove and showed the bright massive ring on her finger with pride; "this will have to go in here," she added with a gay laugh, tapping her breast, "but you know it's there!" "That's good, dearie, you are a bonny bride sure enough, and that's a fine ring," the old woman answered, divided between admiration of the ring and its wearer. Then she looked behind her nervously into the house and advised the girl to run up and change into an old dress, tousle her hair a bit, and take the broom into the front parlour, where she was still duly sweeping and dusting when she heard the Andersons drive up to the door. Lydia paused in her work, listening and leaning with both hands on the broom that she had been banging about with, rather recklessly and aimlessly, her thoughts far away. She heard Bella's peevish voice, complaining as usual, in the passage. "I am sorry for Bella," she thought as she moved to her LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 83 work again, "I don't believe she will get much fun in life. It must be a bother to be so plain and unattractive. No wonder she is usually cross." She heard the footsteps clattering past and upstairs and pretty soon there was a scream for her to come up and undress the children. Lydia obediently left the parlour, and with the duster still tied round her head went upstairs. "Put the children into their everyday clothes," said her mistress, sharply, "and pinafores, and bring them down to dinner. Has Mr Chetwynd come back yet?" she added still more sharply. "I don't know, ma'am. I haven't heard anybody." Mrs Anderson went down without any remark and Lydia commenced undressing and redressing the children. They were cross and tired and fretful after their outing and the sweets and cakes they had eaten at their aunt's, but Lydia, full to the brim of her being with a great happiness, could not be vexed nor disturbed. Her temper was like satin and could not be ruffled. In half an hour she appeared in the dining-room with her two small charges. Bella and Mrs Anderson were seated at the table already and a minute later the farmer and Bernard came in together, having met at the gate. He did not glance at Lydia but began talking to Bella as he took his seat at the table, and asking her how she had enjoyed herself. Lydia took her usual place at the far end of the table and busied herself with cutting bread for the children. Dinner progressed smoothly enough for a time and was nearly over and the children dismissed, when Mrs Anderson suddenly looked down the table and inquired, "Did anyone come to the farm yesterday afternoon, Lydia?" Lydia suddenly addressed, and feeling Bernard's eyes upon her, as he had an excuse now for looking at her since all at the table did that, flushed and said merely, "I don't know, ma'am." "Don't know," harshly repeated Mrs Anderson. "And where were you, pray, then if you don't know ?" 84 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "I went for a walk," answered Lydia, now quite scarlet and with the moisture springing to her eyes. "Went for a walk and who gave you permission to go out at all, you idle, good-for-nothing hussy?" returned Mrs Anderson with increasing anger. Lydia sent one furtive, terrified glance towards Bernard. She saw he had grown as white as the tablecloth and was now resolutely holding his eyes on his plate. She knew his face well enough to recognise the bitter anger he was only just able to control and she dreaded his self-command would not last. "I've told you before I won't have you trapezing about the lanes alone." "She'd as like as not someone with her looking after her," sneered Bella, in an undertone. "You be quiet till I ask you to speak," snapped her mother. "You're a fat, lazy, good-for-nothing baggage," con- tinued Mrs Anderson, passionately, to Lydia. " Going out the minute my back is turned, the idea! That's what you like; to go sauntering here and sauntering there, getting the men to look at you, you greatstout, brazen-faced creature." Bernard threw himself back in his chair. "Surely, Mrs Anderson," he said with a strained calm and his lips white, "such terms are not deserved." "What is it to you, I should like to know, Mr Chetwynd, what I say to my servant?" demanded Mrs Anderson, turning on him, while Bella giggled across the table. "Leave this room, Lydia, at once, and if you go out of the house without my permission again you go for good, mind that." Lydia rose and left the room without a word, only too glad to get away. Bernard pushed his plate from him and his chair back with unconcealed disgust and without apology rose, took up his hat and went out. Mrs Anderson and Bella got up without finishing their dinner only the farmer was left seated, and he continued munching rather savagely at his bread and cheese in silence. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 85 All the rest of the day Lydia spent in the linen-room. There was a large quantity of sheets and other household linen to be darned and mended, and Mrs Anderson shut her in with them and turned the key in the lock, remarking she couldn't trust her. The linen-room was a small square place, lined all round the walls with cupboards, shelves and presses, and had one small window, opening with a casement and looking into the garden. Lydia pushed the casement open to its fullest extent and then sat down on the one cane chair in the centre of the room to her work. She was a beautiful darner although she hated all needlework, having inherited from her father a useless and pernicious love of books, reading and writing and kindred black arts, but having been obliged to sew ever since she could remember, she presented in this one particular an instance of the victory of training over inherited instincts, and sewed admirably. Bending over her sheet now the needle flew in and out making an ornament of every hole. How happy she was shut up alone in the quiet with her own thoughts! It was true the room was small and very hot with the sun beating on to it, but through the open window came the rich scent of flowers and the delicious drone of the bees, recalling the flowers and bees of that other garden at Keswick which she should never, never forget however long she lived. Blushes and smiles stole over her face as her thoughts flew from one pleasing point to another, happy as butterflies flying from blossom to blossom down a long, sunny, scented alley. What did it matter that Mrs Anderson called her names, she asked herself, or what any of these stupid, horrid people round her did or said now that she had this world of en- chantment of her own into which she could retire and shut the door upon them all? She was only sorry Bernard had upset himself so much about it as she saw he had. For the control he had preserved had not deceived her and she knew well what it had cost him. A commoner, less well-balanced mind than hers would have been more pleased with Bernard had he lost his temper 86 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW and stood up openly in her defence, but Lydia was of the higher order that appreciates control and knows its value and how far more strength of character it requires than demonstration. Bernard had kept his self-command for her she knew. It was her dearest wish now that she should go with him when he sailed for America and that could only be carried out if he had the money in hand to take her, and for this the greatest economies were necessary. That they should both stay on at the farm boarding and lodging free was an enormous advantage to them, and to stay would be impossible once their relations became known. Three sheets were now mended and her back was be- ginning to ache, sitting on the high, hard chair. The room was oppressively hot and her eyes and fingers burned. She got up and leaned for a minute at the open window, looking out into the garden, full of the deep sweet peace of Nature given with a lavish hand in the broad still bands of golden sunlight, in the cool green shadows in the heart of the great heavy damask roses nodding on their stems. Lydia longed to be out there in the sweet-scented shade, but she turned back to her work resolutely, knowing escape into the garden was impossible. Not quite uselessly had the undergraduate studied his Latin and Greek and read and re-read Horace's ode on resignation, for the calm patience and endurance, the absence of all fretting against an adverse destiny that classical training lends to a character, had been transmitted to his daughter and enabled Lydia now to sit quietly in her suffocating little room working patiently and wrapping herself up in her own pleasant thoughts, though she had never read Horace nor learned to repeat "virtute me invol- vam." The shadows lengthened across the garden as the slow golden hours wore away and Lydia heard the cow-bells tinkling as the cattle came home from the uplands. She heard, too, the cheerful rattle and clink of teacups and spoons within the house and wondered if she would be allowed any tea. Suddenly, without any warning, some LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 87. small object whizzed past her head from the open window and fell on the floor at the opposite side of the room. She ran to it and picked it up a little block of wood with a folded note attached to it by some string. She saw Bernard's handwriting on it and ran to the window to see if he were near. But no, the garden was empty, sweetly peaceful and silent and sleepy as before. Standing near the window, where a soft air came in and lifted the curls from her moist forehead, she read the note: "DARLING LITTLE ONE, I am so sorry you are shut up all day. I've been so angry I could not do anything but walk about and think of you. At dinner to-day I felt I could kill them all for abusing you. I don't think we shall be able to carry out our idea after all, I could not stand by constantly and see you bullied. I will tell them all about it and take you away to-morrow if you like. Think it over. It shall be as you wish. I shall wait down by the spring in the hollow for you this evening, but I doubt if you'll be able to get away. If not, may I come to your room, Lydia darling, to-night, when they're all asleep ? I will be very quiet and prudent. If I may, put your window open to- night and set the candle in it when you go to bed. Do let me come. I must talk to you. It seems years since this morning. Your own BERNARD." Lydia finished reading the note and then thrust it into her bosom, refastening her dress carefully. A second after the door was unlocked and pushed open. Bella put her head in. "Ma says you can come down and help get tea," she remarked and went downstairs again. Lydia followed, her heart brimming with happiness, wishing she dared to sing aloud. As she reached the lowest stair she glanced down the narrow passage and saw the door standing open into the garden : an extraordinary pleasure filled her as she saw the long yellow ray of sunlight coming into the hall and the .88 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW delicious green of the garden beyond. "I will wait down by the spring in the hollow for you this evening." These words were running through her brain and they sent a shiver of excited joy through her while all her veins seemed like little threads of fire in her flesh. She lingered for a moment looking into the loveliness of the evening: through the door she could see the outline of blue hills in the burnished haze, rising up over the masses of almond bloom of the orchard under which he would be waiting for her this evening. She turned away towards the kitchen with a thrilling joy in every fibre, that emperors, artists, millionaires any of those who labour to wring pleasure from life might have envied with despair. She was only a village girl in a cotton frock with no possessions at all in the world. She had not worked nor planned nor schemed for herself. She had just simply laid her hand confidingly in Nature's, wishing to be led. She had listened to Nature's voice and obeyed her commands unquestioningly and this exquisite, careless, heart-born joy was Nature's gift in return. She has it in her hand for every mortal equally. It is a pity men wander so far from her in their search for happiness. For this joy that Nature gives to youth is the best of all. Life itself has nothing more to give. Fight, struggle, labour as we may in this world for pleasure, we can never, at the end, do more than equal this. Never can any pleasure surpass the first rushing fire of delight, of rapture in every breath we draw, that Nature is willing to give us in our youth. To lose this, to pass it by in seeking for something else, is to lose the whole of the best of life. When Nature whispered in Lydia's ear, "Take Bernard," had she looked in her glass and said, "No, I will wait: perhaps my beauty will get me more from life," she might in many ways have done prudently and well. But she would have lost that wild, free, spontaneous happi- ness, that glorious joy of youth in life and love. Experiences and the flying-footed years kill it for ever out of the human soul. As soon as the supper was cleared away that evening the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 89 farmer sat down beside the fire, and putting on his spec- tacles gave himself over solemnly to perusing the paper. Mrs Anderson sat knitting on the other side of the hearth. Bella went out of the room with her music and began to play in the parlour next door. Lydia sat for a moment un- noticed behind Mrs Anderson and followed Bernard's figure with her eyes as he strolled restlessly about the kitchen. After a minute or two he sent one steady, compelling glance over to her, then he turned the door handle and went out. Mrs Anderson looked up, a second after the music next door, with its nervous wrong notes, ceased abruptly. Mrs Anderson seemed to listen a moment and then resumed her knitting. The passage beyond led equally to the front of the house, the back garden, or the parlour next door, and hearing the playing cease the good lady imagined Bernard had entered the room, led by the seductive siren strains within. Lydia knew better; she guessed that Bernard had gone to the garden en route for the orchard, and that Bella, hearing his step in the passage, had jumped up to look out of the window and see which way he went. She read Mrs Ander- son's wrong deduction in her face and thought it would be a propitious moment to make her request. "Please, ma'am," she began, going over to the hearth, "may I go out for half an hour when I've washed up the dishes?" The farmer laid down his paper and Mrs Anderson looked up. She was not in a particularly bad temper just then, and had Lydia been a plain girl she would have said "Yes" unhesitatingly. As she glanced up and met the girl's eyes fully she suddenly changed her mind and said curtly, "The idea! you going trapezing about in the evening. What next! When you've washed up the things off you go to bed, mind that." The farmer's paper rustled: his face grew red and he looked about to speak. He also changed his mind however, and clutching the newspaper in both hands recommenced reading deeply. Lydia merely said, "Very well," and went 90 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW away to the scullery. The window was open and she moved the dishes and pan on to the table where she could wash them and look out at the same time into the summer night. It called to her with a thousand voices, and a thousand pulses and fibres in her body called back in response. How she longed to be out there to flit across the dewy garden and run down those fragrant lanes to the orchard. And then to be there alone with him in that wonderful sweet-scented dusk, and look up through that roof of milky bloom to see a star burning through here and there, and to put her hand down in the soft cool grass, and hear perhaps a stoat rustle near by, and so to clasp him, so protective, so large and warm and lie close, very close, clinging to him in a delicious make-believe fear. Her hands moved on mechanically, rapidly washing and drying plate after plate, while her mind was out in the orchard with Bernard. She had meant, if she had been granted that half-hour she had asked for, not to receive him at all in her room, shrinking from the idea of doing anything in Mrs Anderson's house of which she did not know and approve, but now she would put her light in the window. Why should she sacrifice Bernard who loved her to this woman who, for her own pleasure, tormented her? She soon had all the china washed and in a neat pile. She dried her hands on her apron and then ran upstairs and locked herself in her room. The casement stood open and the sweet breath of the summer with its subtle intoxication, its whispering mystery, filled the little room. With soft, eager fingers she lighted her candle and set it on the window-sill. CHAPTER VI To those who have studied the marvellous physiological effect upon the female human being of love and joy, the change that came over Lydia at this time will only be a familiar and to-be-expected result. Where her beauty had been brightly attractive before, it was now radiantly in- sistent. The dull yokels paused to stare after her as she crossed the farmyard, and people who passed her on the road to the village turned their heads to look back at her and smiled. Up in her own little room, that had become such a shrine of strange enchantment and delight, the girl saw her own face given back to her by the small square of glass with a sort of wonder not wholly unmixed with alarm. Surely her secret would be read in those sparkling eyes and rosy smiles. She often pushed back the silky vine-like curls of hair from her face and pulled down her hat and put on her most quiet dress to make herself look plainer. Still she could not fail to escape the attention and censorious wonder of her female neighbours. The pew-opener's wife, Mrs Robbins, thought it her duty to call and remonstrate with Mrs Anderson at the farm. "I wonder you have that great flaming, flaunting beauty on the place. Looks like them ain't decent. That's what I call it," she expostulated, getting a little confused in her speech from her righteous indignation. "So different from a nice sober-faced girl like your Bella." "Bella's a lady," replied Mrs Anderson, with dignity, not over pleased with Mrs Robbins 's last remark, she could not exactly tell why, and then added sharply, "I can't help the girl being good-looking, can I ?" 91 92 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "That much of good looks ain't respectable, it don't look right somehow, everybody'll tell you the same, Mrs Anderson, they good looks never was amongst respectable people and never will be." "The girl is as respectable as any of us," asserted Mrs Anderson, with some asperity. She might not like the girl any too well herself, but since she was her servant her respec- tability became a matter of personal responsibility for Mrs Anderson, and she would no more hear it questioned than the condition of her pigs. "Maybe, maybe," returned Mrs Bobbins, dubiously shaking her head, "but if she's not fallen from grace yet, she be going to fall pretty soon, that's sure." "Time enough to talk when the time comes," returned Mrs Anderson, briefly. "The girl's a good servant and here she stays till I know there's anything wrong, and then out she goes." Nevertheless conversations and remarks like these had their effect in making Mrs Anderson look closely and sharply after the girl, but so far not the faintest suspicion of the real state of affairs dawned upon her. Watch her as she might she could never detect any covert glances between Lydia and Bernard, while his manner to her remained always the frank, polite indifference of the guest of the house to the servant of the house. Lydia was practically allowed no holidays now, and no walks, except Sunday afternoon, which the farmer had insisted should be allowed to her to spend as she chose without restraint. Mrs Anderson usually asked Bella to take the younger children out, and kept Lydia with her working in kitchen, scullery or linen- room, sometimes on happy occasions in the garden, but always close under her own eye, and Lydia, docile, cheerful, willing, quick and deft with her work, and apparently ab- sorbed in it, gave her no possible ground for suspicion. That every night, after midnight, when all the toil- weary farm was asleep, Bernard noiselessly left his room and passed up to the top of the house and then ascended LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 93 the narrow, rickety flight of wooden stairs, to the attic in the roof where his wife awaited him, and in the first faint glimmer of the dawn returned to his own room, where at six o'clock he answered sleepily to the summons to get up, would hardly have been believed by Mrs Anderson had it been actually related to her. For her mind had received a certain impression from what she saw : it had made itself up in fact. And the human mind is a funny thing. It reminds one of a wooden image with two fixed eyes that can see straight before them but cannot turn in their sockets. Consequently when any object stands in front of it, it sees just that aspect of it, just that side that is directly opposite to it and no other. There things remain till a hand comes along and, giving the image a tremendous punch on one side or the other, sends it reeling into a new position, where it finds itself opposite another side of the object it has been staring at so long. It then for the first time realises that there is another side! Mrs Anderson's mind was of the wooden image order, and having got its vision fixed towards Bernard and Lydia's conduct to each other in public there it rested, for as yet no hand had come along with a buffet to make it see differently. Bella was watchful and dully suspicious, but instinc- tively, she could not base nor prove her fears, even to herself, and not even remotely did the extremity to which things had actually arrived pass before her as a possibility. Of course they might have been discovered, and it was perhaps because they were not in any great dread of dis- covery that luck favoured them. It was more convenient indeed that things should go on for a little while as they were; but still, since that folded paper, her marriage cer- tificate, lay on the girl's breast, she really would have cared very little had an army marched into the room and found her in Bernard's arms. The situation was not without a touch of amusement, of delight, in it. Sunday afternoon constituted their greatest danger, but the Sunday fare was heavy and the whole household 94 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW generally slept after it. Even Bella went away to her own room. Lydia always left the house alone, walking down the open high road, and it did not occur to Mrs Anderson that two people who never seemed to seek each other's society within the house, would plan so wilily to meet outside. So the game of life was played successfully and with intense delight by the two most energetic players at least, day by day, in the farm, and the glorious golden summer glided on with its long delicious days and its violet-scented, mysterious, light-filled nights. It was Sunday afternoon and absolute quiet lay over Anderson's Farm. A great peace and stillness brooded over all the furred and feathered things that made up that small world, for man, the brute tyrant that ruled over them, was lying, gorged with his Sunday meal, within closed doors, and in his blest absence there was peace. Some little dis- tance from the house itself stood the hayricks, magnificent piles of rich yellow colour, in all its shades, from the bright gold of long-cut hay to the light saffron green of the new last added stack. By the hayricks ran the shallow, sparkling brooklet, the same that had its source in the shaded hollow under the almond boughs. The bed of the stream was sandy with deeper hollows and depressions in it, forming a series of little baths, just big enough for a bird bather. And to this brooklet a large bird club belonged, and here they used to flock and congregate on quiet summer afternoons, when the hot sunshine made the shallow, daintily-trickling water warm as the air itself. Here they came to bathe in all their beauty of bright colouring, of soft plumage and little singing throats. The bullfinches first, the male birds with their pink breasts like a tiny cloud from the evening sky caught in its rosiest tint, and their glossy, black -capped heads, and close after them the tomtits in their exquisite richness of blue and gold plumage, and then the dainty chaffinches and the fat, dappled thrushes with their large wide-open eyes, goldfinch, robin and wren and blackbird all belonged to the club and all came down in their tens and LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 95 twenties to the brook to bathe and sing and plume and chatter when man was safely out of the way. Anderson well knew, as a fruit-grower, the value of these little feathered flocks, and not one was allowed to be shot or snared on his land, while the bird-nester or egg-stealer, if caught, was liable to be thrashed unforgetably by the irate farmer. The other farmers round held generally contrary views, and shot, netted and snared unmercifully; but Anderson's Farm, as far as he could make it so, was a realm of safety for the birds and they flocked to it from the country round. Richly wooded and timbered as part of the land was, and largely given over to masses of fruit trees, the birds built and nested in undisturbed joy and security, and all through the summer the air was laden with their rapturous trilling and carolling. Every hedgerow, every bush, was full of the flutter of wings, the sound of joyous notes. Anderson held his own views on this subject, and as he tramped over his fields and through his lanes and orchards year by year, looking about him with open eyes, he saw no need to modify them. Great was the raillery fired upon him as he sat placidly smoking in the Red Lion inn, through a summer evening, sometimes in the fruit-selling season: many were the jeers hurled at him for his love of his pets. "No, they ain't no pets," he would reply calmly, "them's my little under-gardeners, and active, hardworking little devils they be too." "But, man alive, they pull your fruit to pieces. Why, you must have lost a quarter of your crop through them." "Well, I'm not one as expects my gardeners to work for nothing," serenely rejoined the other; "that's their pay for all the work they've done, all the grubs they've killed, all the caterpillars and the blights they've kept my trees from. A quarter of the crop, that's their pay for the three quarters they keep whole and sound for me, their pay, I say, and I don't grudge it." Laughter rang round the inn, but Anderson sat on un- moved finishing his smoke. Going home that evening he 96 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW took a long turn round, passing through the farm lands of his neighbours. Not a bird did he see, nor hear a note, but there was other life and plenty of it. Green blight, in countless thousands, clinging to the rose stems, armies of black slugs on parade in the cabbage patches, and as he peered about under leaves and between boughs, many insects whose long, high-sounding names are entered in the farmer's calendar as dangerous and destructive, met his amused and twinkling eyes. Suspicious round holes in various plants and whole trees covered with dusty cocoons, in place of young green leaves, were also noted, and finally he took the path leading to his own homestead with a satis- fied smile on his lips. And his orchards with their blaze of bloom and thei* whole sound trees, his roses, vegetables, hay and crops were undeniably the finest in the country round. So the birds throve, making good their very pleasant existence, and justifying the excellent character the farmer gave them. The bird club was formed in an old elm that grew near the hayricks, conveniently close to the bathing place, and a hawthorn bush and some fine may trees grow- ing close by made a commodious concert room, where the young birds were taken after their bath to try their first notes and practise their singing. This afternoon the gathering was larger than usual for the weather had been particularly hot and dry for a long time, culminating in the hottest day of all, and every bird longed for the coolness of the tinkling brook and left his hunting, his fly-catching or nest-building for a bath and a gossip. Lydia and Bernard lay side by side in one of the hay- stacks where a great slice of hay had been cut out, leaving a most comfortable ledge, with the wall of sweet-smelling hay going up straight on two sides of it. She was watching the birds as they bathed themselves so merrily in the spark- ling shallow stream, paddling incessantly backwards and forwards on the bright gravel, gossiping amongst themselves all the time. She was lying flat on her chest, looking over the edge of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 97 the stack, and Bernard watched her. A thick, dark curl of her loose hair fell over her shoulder and the blood mounted into the clear, well-carved cheek as she leant her head for- ward. His eyes were fed with delighted pleasure as he looked. "Bernard," she said, after a minute's pause in their talk, still watching the birds, "something is the matter with me. I am not well." "Not well, darling," said Bernard, electrified, sitting up suddenly. "Why, what is it ? What is the matter ?" "Well, I feel so dreadfully ill in the mornings now and not a bit inclined to get up and work as I used, and some- times in the kitchen, oh, I feel so odd, as if I should faint. I can't understand it. I hare never felt like it in my life before. What do you think it is?" Bernard leant back against the stack again and his face had become very grave. He did not answer for a minute, then he put his arm round her waist and leaning over her asked her first one question and then another, which she answered simply, directly, unthinkingly, her thoughts half with the bathing birds and half in her replies. When Ber- nard had finished his questions there was a long silence between them, and looking up suddenly Lydia was alarmed at the look on his face. She did not understand it. "Why, what are you thinking of?" she asked, startled. "Do you think there is anything serious ?" "I think it means, darling, that you are going to have a child," he said, drawing her to him firmly with one hand and passing the other round her smooth, supple waist. He was afraid she would burst into tears: he vaguely expected her to be displeased, and any grief that touched her he felt would go through his own heart and wound him terribly. Lydia stared at him for a moment as if not realising what he said, then suddenly she gave a low, joyous laugh. "No ? You don't mean it really, do you ? Oh, Bernard, how delightful: don't you think it's lovely ?" Bernard, confused, surprised, ashamed now of his own doubts of her, pressed her closer. 98 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Yes, indeed, but I was afraid "Of what?" she asked, looking up. "Why, that you might be distressed or sorry." "How could I be sorry to have a child by you?" she asked. Her tones were full of caresses, her eyes met his full of light and love and sunny pleasure, her fingers smoothed lightly the hair above his forehead. The beauty and se- duction of the woman beside him vibrated through Bernard till he felt his whole body full of an intensity of feeling that was like acute pain, and the beggar's curse on him came back with a strange, prophetic warning. She was so lovely, was it possible that he could content her always, keep her for ever for his own ? Still, nothing could link her more to him than this, that he would be the father of her child, and when she asked him again if he were pleased, he kissed her fiercely with a des- perate, jealous passion of the future, pressing her back on the hay beside him and bruising her lips and cheeks. But she only laughed as the sharp hay-stalks stuck into the back of her head and scratched her neck, and pushed him back from her with both her hands leaning on his chest, and then tore out some loose handfuls of hay from the edge of the stack and pelted him with them, tossing them lightly into his face as he bent over her to kiss her. "I am so happy, so glad," she murmured. "I never thought about that somehow: not that it would be so soon, but I am pleased. It's so interesting don't you think so?" Bernard laughed. "I am very glad," he said softly; "but I am sorry you should suffer and feel ill." "Oh, but I sha'n't now that I knotv, don't you see? It makes all the difference. I sha'n't mind one little bit how I feel now you've told me. It will be such fun to have a baby to play with; it will be just like you, I hope, you in miniature, and it will be so pretty and laugh." "Perhaps it will be ugly and cry," interrupted Bernard, teasingly. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 99 "My baby will never cry and it must be beautiful," she answered proudly, conscious of her superb health. "More than possible," returned Bernard, laughing, and Lydia fell into a silent reverie. She was so much Nature's own child, with such complete belief in the goodness of that great mother, of whom indeed she had nothing to complain, that it never occurred to her to question, to doubt, or to fear. She stood with open hands, and when any gift was put into them she accepted it with joy and amusement, as a child a new toy. Of such indeed are the happy in this world. "Perhaps you will love it more than you do me," Bernard said after a minute, with a sombre jealousy of tone. "Never," she answered, a hot damask blush sweeping up to her forehead and her eyes kindling. "I shall always love you best," and she flung her arms round him and they lay close together in the warm, sunburnt hay. Splash and twitter and song came from the bathing birds and song from all the trees and hedges and bushes near, while from above the liquid, passionate notes of a lark dropped down upon them out of the dome of blue above, where he mounted, invisible, singing, the leader of all this wondrous choir, and the song they sang again and again was always the same with a thousand variations the song of love. They also were Nature's children. The gold afternoon passed on into a still breathless evening, and as the great cool shadows sloped across the fields Lydia rose to go home, shaking the hay from her dress and pulling the burry sticks from her hair. A clock far off struck, warning her that it was unwise to linger with him then. As she came home, walking slowly through the golden glory of the sunlit fields, she began to sing softly to herself, thinking how good it was to live, to see this beauty of ripening corn, and hear the larks sing and breathe in this soft shining air, how good is was to feel the bounding strength in every limb and muscle, and how good to be loved, desired, valued by that great handsome thing she had left by the hayricks, and how good to have this new strange interest, this life within her own. As she crossed the last field, walk- 100 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW ing in the narrow little path that ran through the rippling corn, two malignant eyes watched her steadily from an upper window under the gable of the farm. Bella, full of furious envy and misery, stood at the open window and had seen her when she first entered the field. As the figure came nearer, graceful, exquisite, with the sun full on the brilliant, handsome face, and a rich cluster of scarlet flowers at the bosom, she scanned it closely, and seeing the radiant light and joy in the face, felt not only envy but wonder. What made this girl happy, while she, Bella, was always so dully miserable ? Bella answered to herself with savage rebellion that it was her beauty. But it was not only that, it was rather her temperament: gay, loving, lovable, receptive of all sensuous joy, with an eye delighting in loveliness, Lydia would have been happy without beauty and her face would still have been radiant with light as she crossed that field and looked round her, drinking in all the wonder of the world and the delight of her youth. Bella plodded backwards and forwards across the fields, never caring, never heeding, blind to all their beauty, deaf to their wonderful harmonies. The intoxication, the exultation of youth when it looks round upon life its inheritance, with all its possibilities, all its wonder, and says, "This is mine!" had never come near her. Her soul was but a blind, half -formed grub within her body, and for her, and the thousands of which she is but the type, life could never have any charm nor love any joy. Suddenly a dark shadow fell on Lydia's path, who for a moment had been looking down, tenderly, interestedly, at the blue bird's-eye flowers that grew on the edge of the corn. She looked up and found herself face to face with Bella, and saw her face was working with anger. "Where have you been, you dressed-up minx?" she said in a fierce, low tone, for her father might be in the next field, and before Lydia had time to answer she leaned for- ward and snatched the flowers by their heads from the girl's bosom, and so roughly that she burst open the bodice. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 101 In her dull, angry brain she confused the flowers with the girl's beauty, and she threw them down on the path and ground them into the damp soil with her heel. Lydia drew back a pace and stood looking at her with her eyes wide open and full of scorn, then something struck her in the other's face, something so hopeless, so despairing, that she forgot herself. Wonder and sympathy banished the retort from her lips and the scorn from her glance. She stood still in the pathway while the other watched her with her savage, fox-like eyes. "Why are you so against me, Bella?" she said at last. "Why are you always sneaking after Mr Chetwynd?" Bella rejoined, her face white and convulsed, and the freckles standing out in its pallor like livid patches. "Do you want him to marry you, you little ape ? Do you think he'd look at you, a common farm-servant without a penny ? " Anger and amusement struggled together in Lydia's mind at her words, but she let neither of them be visible. Pity for the obvious suffering before her was her dominant feeling. And it is the sign of a great nature when its sym- pathy can conquer every other feeling, and no insult, abuse nor enmity can lessen its indulgence to suffering. She under- stood quite well that she and this other girl had both looked into Life's shop window together and unfortunately had both coveted and chosen the same toy, namely that large, fat-stuffed-bodied doll with the gold-brown hair. She, Lydia, had had the money to buy it with and this other girl had not. She saw that this other girl should have been contented with one of the cheaper toys, for the village doctor, the master dairyman, and several young farmer dolls were in the window too, and her banknotes of youth and strength and social position in the village might have been enough to buy her any one of these; but Lydia felt how that one big doll had dragged her eyes from all else in the window, and whether Bella's resentment at not being able to get it was just or not, she sympathised with it. Besides, where is the justice of Fate that gives beauty to one girl and so all that 102 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW the world can give, and withholds it from another, so with- holding all else ? "I don't think we need quarrel over Mr Chetwynd," she replied quietly, and as the other did not answer, but moved a little aside from her path, she went on and into the house to lay the tea. That night was one of those summer nights when merely to live means an intoxication of every sense, when the fires of youth run mad in the veins and even the old feel the winter depths of their being stirred. Bernard sat at his table, staring down at a letter lying on it, and reading, with knit brows. " Come at once, but don't bring your wife nor any woman kind with you. The place is too dangerous and will be for the present. Six months will make a lot of difference as the settling up is going on rapidly." He got up and walked restlessly about the room. How he hated to leave her, and yet since the first time he had read that letter through in the morning he had known he must go. He was offered good land cheap in Arizona and he felt it was an opening for him such as he would never have in England. The climate was good and to him the prospect of hard work in a new country was not alarming. He hated to tell the girl of an approaching separation, especially that night of all others, after what had been said in the morning between them, but he determined it was best to face the position at once, and in a wretched fever of suspense and passion he stayed in his room, listening to the sounds of the household growing hushed one by one, waiting till midnight had sounded and it would be safe to join her. He delayed until she had almost fallen asleep in his arms, but at the first word of parting she sprang up, all the heavy sleepiness of real fatigue, after a long day's work, had fled from her. She clung to him with wide-open eyes full of passionate terror. "No, no, you mustn't go away and leave me!" she exclaimed in a frightened whisper. "Why?" LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 103 "The only reason is the danger for yourself," he answered, trying to draw her head down on his breast, but she sat up persistently, looking at him with wide, reproachful eyes. "The place is very wild and rough at present, and full of Indians bands of them pass through the country con- stantly the settlers are driving them out fast but the work is not done yet." "But I don't care. I will take all the risk and danger rather than be parted." "The responsibility of taking you there would be too great," he answered. "I have thought it all out, darling, and decided the question. I cannot take you with me." He did not tell her the bitter struggle he had had with himself over that decision, nor the pain he had suffered. Had he done so he would have soothed and comforted her, and induced a resignation that no mere reasoning could bring about, but being a man, great blundering idiots as they all of them are, with no real skill to play upon the delicate, many-stringed harp a woman puts into their hands when she gives them her love, he passed over the really important part, his own grief, his own feelings, in silence, and talked to her of practical detail and the practical ad- vantages of staying behind, till Lydia sat up suddenly beside him with a sort of smothered, whispered scream and both hands clasped over her ears. "Don't, don't," she said, "I won't hear any more. I want to come with you. I don't care what happens. I may as well be killed by Indians as hang myself here. You talk of the dangers there! You don't know what dangers there are here. Take me with you. You will regret it if you make us separate now." He looked at her as she sat up beside him in the white light of the moon-filled room, softened by the white blind drawn over the panes, and caught the beauty of the outlines of nose and chin of her half-averted face. It spoke to him more than her words and great flames of passion seemed round his heart devouring it. He longed to keep her and 104 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW take her with him : it seemed as if the very fibres of his body would be dragged apart when they separated, but the old stupid habit of doing the best, which is really often the worst, of looking ahead in one small circle, while the wide, far horizon beyond, that should be scanned, is neglected and forgotten, clung to him. He sat up too and put his arms round her and kissed her warm neck. "Darling, I am only doing this because I think it is the best." "Yes, I know, but if you loved me you would do what I think is best." "No, because you don't know what I should be taking you to." "Neither do you know what you are leaving me to." Both were silent. From her brow to the soles of her feet the girl's body throbbed with angry, passionate pulses: all the love and passion she felt for this man rose in a storm of resentment and indignation at his threatened loss. After a moment she turned to him and put both arms round his neck. "Please take me with you," she said softly, "you know how strong I am. I will work and take care of you and myself both. I love you so much now. I shall never love you so much again. Let us stay with each other and enjoy our love as we have done and face everything together." Bernard held her tightly in a tense silence. She was everything to him then. His whole world was now enclosed in this soft living body, in this gentle loving heart. All his life had never given him the joy her arms had brought him. It seemed as if it would be like death itself to tear himself from her. Almost he yielded, a flood of relief and happiness seemed to swell up within him and press against his lips, forcing them to say, "Come then, come with me." But he restrained it. All his man's obstinacy, all his sense of duty, ridiculous because where a woman is concerned generally erroneous, clung to him, strangling the real wisdom, the wisdom of impulse, of instinct. He thought for a moment LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 105 what would be the best argument to induce her to stay behind, and with his knowledge of her unselfish character selected at last the very best. "You see, dearest," he said gently, "I shall have my hands full even if I go alone. The work and worry will be enormous. If you came the feeling of responsibility, the anxiety, would make things ten times worse for me. The strain would be perhaps more than I could stand. I shall be more free, more able to look out for myself, more able to concentrate myself on the work and stand the worry, if I am alone. It is an awful thing to feel you have your one precious possession in the world with you where you cannot properly protect it. He kissed her and she was silent, thinking. "Of course, I don't want to make it harder for you," she said, doubtfully, after a minute; "but I am sure we should manage all right together and you would have much more fun between your working hours if I were with you." "Think how nice it will be when you join me in a few months, well and strong, when I have everything safe and comfortable for you. Think what you would feel if you came now and were dragged from me by a band of Indians who had murdered me to gain possession of you." At that suggestion his murder on her account surely the worst picture for any woman to contemplate, she clung to him shivering. "Oh, Bernard, that would be frightful I should kill myself the moment I could, but surely ' "Well, I'll read you Fred's letter about the place," said Bernard, sitting up and taking the matches from the chair beside the bed. He struck one, lighted the candle, got the letter out of the pocket of his coat and began to read it to her. It was full of horrible bits about the atrocities of the Indians on unprotected ranches, and dwelt again and again on the inadvisability of any woman coming out at that time. When he had finished it they began to argue the question again, until Lydia said suddenly, 106 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Very well, Bernard, go without me, since you wish it, but we can't tell what will come of it." She said no more, but lay down and closed her eyes. Bernard put out the light and gathered her into his arms. A week later Bernard was ready to leave the farm. From the first moment he had decided to go he had been burning with a mad desire to be gone and get the dreadful pain of parting over, and Lydia, after her day's work, walked out through the evening coolness, a little way from the farm, trying to face the thought that to-morrow she would be alone, left, it almost seemed, deserted. She leant her arms on the top rail of the stile and looked across the fields : beautiful as they had been in various forms ever since the first bright blade rose from the dark soil, they were now in the height of their glory, a stretch of shimmer- ing, gently-swaying gold with here and there the flare of the blood-red poppies. How beautiful it all was, yet how willingly she would leave it to go with Bernard to-morrow! How hateful to be left here with it without him. Love is the great interpreter: the beauty of the world means nothing to us when we are too young to know passion, and very little when we have grown too old and have finished with love. The air was sweet and cool as it touched her cheek, overhead hung the great bell of the sky, crystalline, serene, full of a lambent gold effulgence and soft rosy fire, and far in the clear, infinite, pink-tinged depths sparkled a planet, the planet that is the fairest, the most brilliant of all, and that men have, therefore, named Venus. From the hawthorn trees above, the hedges beside her, blush pink with wild roses, poured out the melody of the thrushes; great black bees went humming past her at intervals on the way to the nursery gardens behind her, where the rich damask roses hung heavy with fragrance, awaiting them, calling them impatiently through the hot silence, and where the standard lilies stood in the shadow with the thick honey dripping from their white lips and all the orange-yellow pollen on their stamens, lighter than the lightest dust, quivering, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 107 eager, yet helpless to rise on the soft evening air, longing foi the brush of the insect's wing. The girl moved restlessly as the deep heavy mysterious fragrance from those waiting flowers was borne towards her. Since love had broken down all barriers and opened many new paths to her thoughts she had looked about her with different eyes and seen into the springs of life, and had learnt the secrets, the life histories, often tragedies, of flower and insect and bird; had seen the deadly struggle ever going on between love and death in all created things. She felt now to-morrow she would be as lonely as those gasping lilies, as powerless to fulfil the law of her own being, as mutely suffering and helpless as they were now. As she stood waiting there a colour came into her cheeks : she saw in the distance the figure of a man enter the little track that wound across the fields, and come down it in her direction. The outline of a large hat in the gold evening air and the easy, swinging carriage of the tall form, told her it was Bernard. He came towards her. Generally she was careful not to let him even so much as pause by her side, but this evening she was reckless: what did anything matter? she cared for nothing the worst, had happened: he was going: to-morrow she would be alone. She said nothing as he placed himself by her side and put his hand over hers that lay loosely, idly on the rail. He looked down upon her with stormy passion in his eyes. Never again would he see her so lovely, so perfect in freshness, in animation, never again so full of a perfect untouched, undivided passion for himself, and the immensity of his own folly in leaving her came home to him and he thought madly, Was it possible to alter things, to revoke his decision? But then his passage had been taken and no money was free at hand for hers, then the danger there, the unbuilt house, the hardships, the words in his friend's letter "Bernard, don't come to my room to-night," her voice broke in on the medley of his thoughts. "I feel I could not 108 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW stand the stifling heat we had last night. I will come out and meet you in the orchard if you like." Bernard hesitated. The unusual in anything never attracted him. He was without that wild, romantic senti- ment that tinged all the feelings and coloured the whole mind of his wife. He was prepared to rough it at all times with any man if it were necessary: sleep under a hedge by all means if you had no roof, but why desert a moderately comfortable bed for the open country for no particular reason? "Very well, dearest, if you like," he said slowly. There was something strange about her this evening: a sort of fire he did not recognise. "I do like," she said decidedly. "I will come to the hollow about twelve. It is the last night we may ever have. I want to remember it with stars and cool airs and green leaves." She leant towards him and smiled, and Bernard assented, not to the words, but to the smile, and said he would wait for her in the hollow. It was after midnight before Lydia ventured down and out of the house : she was afraid of someone not being really asleep and hearing her descend. What a relief it was to her feverish, passionate mood when she stepped out on to the short turfy grass and felt the soft summer air play round her face, instead of the still heated atmosphere of her tiny room under the roof. The nights have different colours. Some nights are black, the nights of storm: some are electric blue, some are silver, the moon-filled nights; some are red under the hot planet Mars or the fierce harvest moon; some are white, the white nights of the Arctic winter; but this was a violet night, a hot, mysterious, violet night of midsummer. There was no moon, cold, callous spy upon the doings of men: the sky stretched above, a deep soft purple, lighted only by the throbbing, palpitating, restless stars, fretful, un- certain as human life itself. A deep delicious fragrance, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 109 indefinable because the intermingling of a thousand different scents hovered over the rose gardens and the flower-filled hedges and stole forward to meet the girl with subtle invi- tation as she passed noiselessly across the gardens towards the orchards. With footfalls quite silent on the soft, mossy paths Lydia found her way to the familiar hollow in the orchard. There was no bloom now on the trees, that wonderful immaculate snow of blossom had passed with the spring days. Masses of glossy green leaves, spray over spray, replaced it. With sure, swift feet and eyes that saw easily through the heavy, green, sweet-scented gloom of the alley, Lydia went on to the break in the old brick wall, like the silent-footed, sinuous- bodied cat slipping out to its nightly tryst, and when she reached it she parted the heavily-leafed boughs with one hand, and putting the other on the wall, leapt over and dropped down on the other side in the mossy dell. Bernard sprang from the ground and caught her supple body in his arms, and in the green twilight under their leafy roof they looked into each other's white faces. "Lie down," she said in a whisper, "I am so tired I cannot stand any longer; " and when he had thrown himself on the ground she stretched herself on him and kissed his face all over the eyes and brows and chin with ungovern- able passion. Bernard remembered always those moments when he lay beneath the warm, lithe form, full of its bound- ing pulses and overflowing with the strength of its first youthful passion. Looking up overhead between the thick, close-set leaves and broad, interlacing boughs, a star or planet glittered firily as they caught the vision: then one by one they seemed extinguished. Bernard saw nothing but the white outline of the face above him in the green dusk as he folded his arms tightly like steel cords about the slender, heaving waist. The nightingales had been singing fitfully but their songs died down into utter silence: the woods all round grew very still. The great orchestra, the marvellous harmonies of a 110 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW summer night, were silent. The small, nocturnal animals of field and wood passed silently through the grasses, each seeking its home in bank or hedgerow. The tiny footfalls passed and the hush deepened. A twitter, a young bird's cry of panic, broke the sultry stillness at intervals, to be instantly hushed by the parent birds, and the stillness grew and intensified till each tree, each leaf, each blade of grass seemed holding itself still and motionless, waiting, while the dark cloud curtain unrolled itself lower and lower down over the violet sky. Then with a sudden crash of thunder the storm broke. The first wild rush of the rain came down with a loud pattering on the protecting leaves overhead, and a moment later all the herbage was receiving it with a different voice; the long grass swished with a crisp, fierce hiss as the rain rushed through it, and the large dock leaves and strong meadow flowers leant this way and that as the deluge swirled over them. Lydia laughed as she heard the fury of the storm break and clung close to Bernard's breast. "Kiss me," she whispered; "lie close; keep me warm." "You will catch cold: it is madness to stop here." "No, we are all right: only a little rain will get through. Put your other arm over me, look what a glorious flash!" Looking up through the leaves it seemed to them as if the whole world above them had caught fire: great rivers of red lightning poured down the sky, and the light seemed to fall all about and round them, so that for a moment they could see the tree trunks and the trembling leaves and the wild, long grasses lashed hither and thither by the heavy, sting- ing rain, then again there was blackness, instantly, and they could only hear the thunder of the rain all around, striking the reverberating earth. Lydia lay listening, panting. In the storm of the desperate elements, in the excitement of smitten Nature round her, she seemed to feel a relief to her own feelings, a lightening of the load of passion and resent- ment and anger within her own breast. She wanted to shed angry tears but could not, and now everything was LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 111 weeping tumultuously round her; she wanted to shriek out in her pain, and now the grinding branches of the trees above groaned and shrieked as the wind drove them together; the blaze of the lightning seemed like the fire in her own breast; the long roll of the thunder and the fierce blow of the rain on the quivering foliage suggested to her the blows she could have given her lover between her kisses. She laughed as the storm drew nearer over their heads. "We ought to go in, darling, this is folly," urged Bernard, distracted by the new semi-savage fire of passion that vibrated through her body to hit arms and filled him with a vague apprehension and a new intoxication of pleasure they had not known before. "My last night with you: perhaps my very last, who knows ? You must let me do as I like. I like to stay." As she spoke a more vivid light than any of the former flashes blazed from end to end of the sky, and simultane- ously came a ripping, splitting crash of thunder just over their heads, as if giant hands were tearing some breadth of shrieking stuff, as the housewife tears her crisp, crying calico across. Lydia stopped his protestations with her lips on his and there was darkness again. All round them there was a wild rattle of leaves, and swish of grass and creaking of stems, while the rain roared down upon them. Bernard lost all sense of the storm, and to Lydia it only surged in her ears as a wild accompaniment to the feelings within her. But when the first passion of their meeting was over, and the chill of exhaustion crept over them, Ber- nard became conscious of the rain falling on his face and he felt the girl's hands lying in the long grass were wet and cold, and he roused himself and sat up regardless of her remon- strances. "There is a shed in the angle of the wall close here, let's go to that. Come, you must come, the trees do not protect us enough." Wearily, for the first sleep had just begun to steal over 112 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW her, the girl rose and followed him as he moved forward, stooping to avoid the low twisted branches of the trees. They reached the doorless shed in a few minutes, and Bernard entered, drawing the girl in after him. The ground was quite dry here and there was ample space for them to lie full length side by side upon it, the few farming implements, pails of lime for washing and marking the trees, and other various things which the shed contained, being ranged round its walls. Bernard lay down and stretched out his arm to form a pillow for the girl's head. She took her place beside him and threw her arms over him, putting up her lips to his cheek in the darkness, and almost immediately fell asleep, heedless of the damp air and the hard ground, contented because she was at his side. And the storm raged on through the night as they calmly slept there. Pale and tired Lydia walked back alone in the very early dawn to the farm. All round her Nature lay exhausted, stricken also; the gold corn was prostrate in the fields, the grasses were beaten down, the flowers trailed headless on the moist ground, the brooks were muddy, the birds plumed their feathers, cross and silent, in the dripping trees. Rapidly she crossed the farmyard to the barn where the cows awaited the milking, pulled open the door and dis- appeared hi the quiet, peaceful darkness. The large grey door swung silently to behind her. CHAPTER VH BREAKFAST of the day Bernard was to leave. Bella sat at the table with her heavy face looking heavier than usual; all the blood in it seemed pressed to the surface till the skin appeared a dull purplish brown. Lydia sat in her place at the end of the table: her face was very pale and the small, observant children at her side noticed how her hands shook as she cut their bread for them. Bernard's face had a frozen, mask -like look about it, and he answered abstractedly Mrs Anderson's attempts at conversation and inquiries about the new life and work he was going to. His bags and luggage had been brought down and set in the hall near the front door, and here after breakfast the whole family gathered to wish him good-bye. He was to catch the nine o'clock coach over to Troutbeck, from where he could take the train. The coach was not yet in sight and they all lingered waiting in the hall. Bernard himself, a little awkward and nervous in the embarrassment of adieux, but looking mag- nificent as usual by reason of his great height and strength and other natural gifts, lounged against the lintel of the open door. Bella, with a queer, strained expression, and wearing her hat, stood fiddling at a pair of new gloves oppo- site him. Mrs and Mr Anderson stood a little back, and behind them all, in the darkness of the passage, Lydia, motionless and silent, white-faced, with her trembling hands folded together under her apron. It had been arranged overnight that not a look nor a sign should pass between them, that their good-bye, if any, should be a perfectly formal one in public, so she stood back patiently, feeling the best part of her life ebbing away with each of those last 8 113 114 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW minutes, and dreading the last when she should no longer see that figure lounging against the lintel. "The coach is late," remarked Mrs Anderson, looking up the road. "Bella, you and Mr Chetwynd might walk up to the corner, they stop there a bit sometimes, and tell them the things is waiting down here." "All right, Mrs Anderson, I'll say good-bye here then," he answered. "Good-bye, Mr Anderson. Good-bye, Miss Wilton," and he lifted his large hat. Lydia's yearning eyes from out of the darkness saw the sun strike his straight, white forehead and bright hair. Then he and Bella turned and walked down the garden to the road. Lydia slipped away upstairs to her room. Fifteen minutes later the coach was at the farm gates. Bernard was already seated on the top near the front, his luggage was lifted out of the hall and put in, the coach started, and in a moment more was vanish- ing up the road, leaving a track of deep wheel furrows in the moist, brown road. Lydia, watching from her window, sank down by it on her knees, throwing her apron over her face in a flood of bitter, angry tears. The slow, long, hot summer day dragged on and she worked incessantly, but it seemed to her the hours would never pass; they stretched and stretched out infinitely it seemed, one into the other, for ever going on. It was as if darkness and solitude would never come. She saw little of Bella, for she did not come to the kitchen where Lydia was working all that day, and she did not join in the family mid-day meal. The storm of the previous night, while doing great damage, and leaving spoliation and destruction everywhere behind it, had failed to make the air cooler or the heat less heavy. The whole atmosphere remained electrical in the extreme, and the evening came down wind- less, with a deep violet sky and the long, low play of light- ning on the horizon. Very slowly and wearily it passed to the working girl, and at last as nine sounded it was with a reeling head and uncertain vision she dragged herself thank- fully up the long stairs to her attic. It was a very hot, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 116 sultry night, and it seemed to Lydia that the roof of her stifling little room was actually pressing on her head. The palms of her hands burnt till the skin felt cracking, a horrible sense of suffocation oppressed her. She set the window wide and opened her door on to the landing, but no draught passed through the room. The night was absolutely breath- less and the heavy clouds hung low outside, pressing down the sultry heat on the earth. With her bare feet she paced noiselessly backwards and forwards on the deal boards of her room and felt the floor grow warm as her burning feet passed over the tiny free space from wall to wall. In the past few days she had often wondered how she would feel when Bernard had really left her and had never realised the torment of longing, the helpless, blank, resentful despair lhat invaded her whole being now. She had known so much happiness, so much joy, in this little cramped room : she had been so accustomed to live wholly in those few hours of the night when Bernard came to her, that now that happiness was torn away from her, out of her life, now when, after the long, weary, tedious day was over, there was nothing to expect but blank unconsciousness, her whole passionate nature cried out in a revolt she could not master. She was young, and though not foolish had much to learn, and she resented bitterly this sudden loss of her happiness after she had taken all the necessary steps to secure it. Had she not married Bernard ? She thought by that she had riveted her happiness to her, chained it to her side, and that it could not escape. But happiness cannot be chained nor kept in permanent residence by any mortal means whatever. It is a flying spirit that we may embrace for a moment as it hovers near us, but try to chain it and no matter what the fetters they fall on the thin, empty air. This first hateful lesson of life she was learning now. In spite of that wonder- ful marriage that was to bind them to each other and happiness to both for ever and ever, Bernard was gone, taking her happiness with him, and for the moment she was as abso- lutely alone, deserted, miserable, as a girl who had loved 116 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW rashly without thought for the future. As she walked backwards and forwards restlessly, with the angry, burning thoughts shooting through her brain, she felt she could never love Bernard again as she had done after this infliction of pain upon her. It would have been better to have taken her and run all risks than left her like this. They ought to have avoided parting at all costs, this is what she thought, what the woman always thinks in like circumstances, with superficial foolishness and underlying wisdom. For the woman knows the value of that first tremendous gush of love and devotion that wells up in her in the first days of her passion, and that the man would be wise to drink deeply then and guard well the source, for afterwards, if he returns to seek the rushing, brilliant miraculous spring he has left, he is likely to find only a small, flat pool to meet his thirst. "Be calm, be calm," he says to the water as it rushes up spontaneous, impetuous, sparkling, full of its tremendous vitality. And by-and-by Time and Exhaustion have done their work and the small pool is calm, quite remarkably so, and the water no longer dashes into his face, rushing and dancing to his lips, in fact, he has to bend, and bend, and lie down prostrate before he can sip from its surface. And the taste is flat and muddy and unsatisfying, and the man sits thirsty by the pool and wonders what has become of the spring. For Bernard to take his wife with him would have been a step fraught with risks and dangers; outwardly, a foolish one. To leave her behind was to court a greater risk, prepare a greater harm for both. In those moments of pain, of anguish, of loneliness, of love thrown back upon itself, he prepared the waste field of his life. Each pain she suffered was like a seed thrown out into the dark abyss of the future from which would eventually spring a harvest of pain for him. Consciously she did not blame him, but he had cut a great wound in her love, and after pain and bleeding a wound heals, and where a wound has healed there is always a hardening of tissue. Suddenly, as Lydia walked to and fro restlessly, silently, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 117 stealthily, as an injured animal walks in its cage, her ear caught a slight sound. It was the creak of a stair. Some- one was coming up, slowly, softly, as if afraid of discovery. She stopped still and listened. How often she had longed for that sound and rejoiced as it at last caught her waiting ear. But now it could mean nothing pleasant and her heart beat rapidly as she heard it coming higher up, nearer. She stood waiting, facing the door, expecting she knew not what, and in a moment or two more Bella's figure appeared on the landing. She came straight into the room. Her red hair hung loose about her neck, her face was frightfully stained with tears, and her eyes, bloodshot and red-rimmed, seemed almost to have disappeared in the flesh. Lydia retreated somewhat dismayed. This was the first time that she could remember Bella having invaded her room. The latter did not seem to notice her but sat down on an empty chair heavily, like one drunk or blind. "Oh, Lydia," she broke out in a stifled sob, "he's gone, gone away for ever, and he did not care for either of us. I thought it was you and I hated you for it, but I see now. Oh, what beasts men are, how I hate him! He's gone. I shall never see him again. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do ? I loved him so much." Lydia sat down on a chair by the corner of the dressing- table, leaning her elbow on it, and with her hand pushing back the clustering, envious hair from her forehead, she looked steadily, fixedly, at the girl opposite her. Bella was in that state of abandoned grief in which a weak nature must speak, must talk, must confide in some other, even if that other is an enemy, and her hatred of Lydia rested on her own jealousy. There had never been one single act of hostility un Lydia's side tc her to make her fear this girl. Her grief, her disappointment, her absolute despair, had been pent up all that long hot day. Now she had lost sense of everything except her own mad blind pain. She must speak, must take the only relief at hand, and with frenzied words she tore at her own most inmost being, dragging off, 118 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW fiercely, every veil of modesty, shame, concealment, as the madman with frenzied hands tears at his body and rends off his clothes. Lydia, herself so full of tempestuous, angry sorrow, sat and looked back at her long and steadily: it was curious, gazing at the reflection of her very own emotions. The girl's face worked convulsively: it was hideous, terrible, and Lydia, lifted completely for the moment out of herself, was shaken with pity. "I -think he must have disliked me. That's what makes it so hard," moaned Bella, burying her face in her hands, and driving them deep into her disordered hair, " because, because " she added in a hoarse whisper, pressed on by that need to speak, to humiliate herself, to grovel in the abject misery that weighed upon her, "I asked him to, once, one night when he was walking home by the hedge, and he wouldn't." "Asked him to do what?"' Lydia asked, not in the least comprehending. Her own love had been so proud, so up- right, so glad, innocent and triumphant, from the first, with no need for any baseness in it, that she never dreamed of the tortuous paths this girl's wretched, ungratified passion might have forced her into. "Well, you are dull," Bella answered with fierce con- tempt, and a dark livid red crawled slowly over her face as she saw the absolute non-comprehension in the eyes opposite her. But the crawling red told its tale better than words, and as the girl's meaning flashed on her all the blood fled away suddenly from Lydia 's face and her blanched lips parted in a terror-stricken whisper. "Oh, Bella!" She sat mute, rigid, on her chair, gazing at the girl with eyes fixed open in horror. It was horror that she felt, nothing less than that, and for the moment not her kindness of heart, not even all her generous sympathy with any pain and suffering, could conquer it. For a girl to yield, after long resistance, to a lover's dishonourable temptation would have been, in her eyes, terrible. Something that with all the vital love for LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 119 Bernard alive in her breast she could not for a moment imagine herself as doing, yet understandable, forgivable. But this act of a girl, who knew herself uncared-for, unsought, even unpleasing to a man, seeking him, waylaying him, offering him her own dishonour, seemed so frightful, so inconceivable, that a sick faintness came over her. She felt suffocated. "Oh, Bella," repeated the other, fiercely, with a low, savage laugh. "It's all very well for you to say 'Oh, Bella!' You're only sixteen and don't know what love is. You wait till you're two-and-twenty and have seen someone you like, you won't be such a little namby-pamby, goody- goody as you are now." Lydia did not answer. She was thinking, trying to understand, as she always did, new aspects of life and emo- tion as they came before her. Trying to sympathise, trying to forgive, instead of, as most of us do, trying to condemn. "But there are lots of men who come here, Bella," she said faintly at last. "Some of them would like you, care for you." "But has there ever been one like him?" Bella broke out impetuously, interrupting her. "Oh, I did love him so. I thought he was so splendid. So tall, and them arms of his, I never did see anything like them. I caught him once washing of them at the spring: oh, I do tell you, Lydia, they was something to look at. Did you ever see him with his coat off? My!" and she lapsed into silence, thinking back into the past, with her eyes fixed on vacancy. Lydia 's hand trembled where it lay on the dressing-table and she passed the other over her eyes. Bella's questions went home to her and she felt the blood mount to her face. What would she say if other questions came ? What would happen if Bella probed deep with them? What would be the result if she suspected, discovered the true position of things, that of the girl she was so recklessly making her confidante? But Bella was lost in herself, rolled round in 120 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW that absorbing need for talk, for confession, for some relief for the accumulated unendurable pressure of feelings chained up in silence for many months. She did not want to listen. She did not want even answers. She wanted to talk of herself and know that another sat still and heard, and to Lydia there was a sort of awful fascination in thus sitting and listening to another girl's passion, poured out for her own lover, seeing all her own feelings, her distress, grief, resentment, passion, all travestied and put in far grosser form, moving, acting, speaking, as in a distorted reflector, without concealment, before her. "He was so handsome, that was it," the girl went on. "Look at the men here, look at every one of them. Why, there isn't one, as I see, that comes anywhere near him. Look at that fright of a curate, and even Mr Lamsden that owns the grey house, and them young bullocks of fanners that ma won't let me look at. I loved him. I'd have lain down in that cabbage patch and let him walk about upon me if he'd wanted to. I'd have gone right down there to the lake and thrown myself in and drowned there if he'd ha' given me a kiss first." Paler and paler grew the face opposite, as the words, winged with their desperate truth, wrung from this girl hi her pain, went in their low, shameful current from one to the other. Lydia realised she was face to face with an even stronger, if a coarser and baser, passion than her own : this girl would have given up her honour and counted it well sacrificed, and Lydia knew that that she herself would never have done. With this girl her love had been really, truly, first, but with Lydia it had come only third, after her own virtue and pride as she understood them. Great as her love for Bernard, great as her attraction to him had been, she would have shrunk from him in horror if his love had brought dishonour with it. "But he never would, no, not even kiss me, though I wanted nothing of him, and shouldn't have expected nothing. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 121 I didn't want no marriage, nor think of that, for though I'm a sight too good for these louts about here, I knew I wasn't good enough for him. He could get the prettiest girl as ever was, but it was just he didn't like me, couldn't bear the sight of me " Then, after a moment, "Do you think he was married perhaps?" " Of course, it's possible," returned Lydia, faintly. "He seemed young to be married," reflected the other, "and he didn't seem to have no young lady either, for I got ma to look at all his letters when the post came and there wasn't one in a lady's handwriting." Lydia was silent. She was thinking, " Has this girl really loved him more than I, or is it only that she thinks less of her honour, holds her virtue of less account than I do mine?" " Have you ever felt like this for anybody else ? " she asked. "Have you ever done what you said for anyone else?" Her tone was low, eager. She wanted to know whether there was really existent a love greater than her own for Bernard. "No, I haven't, I wouldn't, only for him. You know I am not the kind that goes about after the men. And I don't care for not one of them, only for him. I've always kept myself to myself, but he just made me quite mad. I used to see him come in at that door in the kitchen, with that big hat a little pushed off like, and his face so white and yet so healthy-looking, and then he'd cross and sit down, just flinging that beautiful figure of his in the chair opposite, and he'd smile and say, 'Well, it's a nice evening, Miss Anderson, isn't it ?' and I just used to feel my heart swelling up within me as though it would break out, and I could have gone and knelt right down at his feet and kissed them but there, it's no use, I hadn't the looks and it don't matter one snap what you feels if you haven't the looks. I hadn't the looks he fancied; it must have been that, for he didn't seem to care for no one else. But he didn't pay no more attention to you than he did to me," she added, as if on an afterthought. 122 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "No, indeed," murmured Lydia. She was thinking deeply, quickly, as she gazed stead- fastly at this broken-up, wrecked human vessel, stranded, destroyed by the same gale through which she herself had ridden so easily on the top of its buoyant waves. It is so, she thought, this girl is chaste, as good as I am, simply her love was great enough, strong enough, to make her fling all else aside for it. This I could not have done. So she has felt more than I. So there are greater, deeper, stronger passions than mine has been. And she sat pale and still on her chair, lost in startled reflection as she faced this disquieting discovery. Her eyes dilated and her hands grew cold. Some such passion then, wrecking, soul-destroy- ing, irresistible, might sweep over her too, tearing all from her, leaving only a tattered remnant of life with which to clothe herself. Something within her swelling breast told her that she was of the stuff to feel the very strongest emotions this world can give, and if not felt now, then the future held them for her. And this was the result, this is what they made out of one, she thought, staring at her companion. "You was sweet on him too," broke out Bella, coarsely, after a minute. "Oh, you needn't tell me anything different. No girl could help it. I wouldn't believe you if you was to lie till the eyes dropped out of your head. But you couldn't get him no more than I could, that's one comfort " and she stared across at the other devouringly, as the light from the candle on the dressing-table fell full on her. Lydia sat with her bare feet tucked back on the rail of the attic chair. She was in her petticoat and stays, her low chemise showing all the wealth of her round, white arms and delicious throat and full, white-cushioned neck. A hotter shade of pink colour stole into her transparent cheek as she felt the jealous glare of the other girl's eyes upon her and she drew herself together more closely on her chair. "I am sure, Bella, you're very good-looking and I don't see why you don't choose someone here and marry him and be happy with him," she said, hurriedly answering the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 123 other's evident, but unspoken, thoughts rather than her words. "It isn't any use thinking about Mr Chetwynd now he's gone." "No, it isn't any use," cried out Bella, "it isn't any use," with an accent of absolute heart-rending despair, and putting her head down suddenly on the dressing-table she broke into a fresh storm of agonised weeping. Lydia got up trembling; she was vibrating in every fibre with intense excitement. Overstrung already, physically ex- hausted, and mentally unnerved with passionate anger, rage and disappointment struggling together with love for the object causing all her pain she felt the scalding tears well up to her own eyes. Standing by the bowed figure of the miserable girl she laid her hand on her neck with a sympathetic touch. "Bella, I am so sorry," she whispered, and the scorching tears fell on the other's skin. Bella looked up quickly, her face haggard with misery, and the next moment they were in each other's arms, an- tagonism forced under by that pressing need of emotion to find expression. They clung to each other sobbing wildly, moved by a common madness of resentment against the man, a common misery. "Let me go. I shall go out and drown myself," muttered Bella, between stifling sobs. "No, no, come and lie down here with me," answered Lydia, holding her, "let us try and go to sleep. Why should you kill yourself for him?" "No, he was a beast, he was a beast," Bella answered, with quivering lips and streaming eyes, letting herself be drawn towards the bed. The warm magnetism of those living arms, the pressure against that other heaving human breast was insensibly acting on this hungry, longing, dis- tracted girl, insensibly soothing the jarred nerves. She let Lydia draw her on to the bed and stretched herself beside her. She was still sobbing but more quietly. Lydia kept her arms round the other's neck and drew her close. 124 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "I am dead tired. I can't cry. I can't think any more. Let's try and go to sleep," she murmured. Bella closed her eyes: she was exhausted too. The drowsiness that great pain, great grief, mercifully bring with them was creeping over them both. The candle burnt down unnoticed in the stick and went out. Their eyes were closed, and a little later, each soothed by the warm contact of the other's body, they drifted into sleep, their arms en- twined, their wet, tear-stained cheeks side by side on theii common pillow. CHAPTER AFTER Bernard's departure life went on at the farm in its same even, placid course as before he came. Outwardly there was no change, no difference. He had managed, in that short space of time that he had stayed there, to revolu- tionise the lives of the two girls, but each shut herself up in silent reserve and followed her usual routine of work and duties apparently undisturbed. After that first night of misery and confession Bella had never opened her lips again on the subject to Lydia, and Lydia herself was only too glad to let it lie in oblivion. She remained gentle, kind to Bella, as she always had been, and Bella, now that Bernard was gone and she felt no longer active fear and jealousy of the girl, did not seek to annoy her or be actively unkind. She dimly realised the sweetness of the other's disposition though her own was so different from it, and she did not hate Lydia for being the recipient of her shameful confession as so often results in such cases, because she felt quite sure Lydia would guard her secret and that she was safe in Lydia 's hands. Still, the smothered jealousy of her was too great to allow of anything like affection growing up between them. A sort of neutral sympathy, an absence of hostility was the nearest and only approach to it. Now that there was no danger of chance meetings with Bernard out of doors, Lydia was allowed to take the children out for walks as she had been before, and this made a great relief from the con- stant indoor drudgery. Field and wood and hedgerow took on a glory of colour, the trailing vines blushed crimson, there was a wealth of late roses everywhere, and the hot, golden, windless days 1*9 126 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW left every leaf on the trees to turn into a blaze of scarlet, violet and gold. The mountains, undisturbed this year by snow or rain or gales, lay serene against the tranquil azure skies. Meantime the days were slipping by and Nature was quietly, steadily, persistently working out her own ends as is her wont. Lydia had made all her preparations for her flight. She had written to her aunt at Tunbridge and received a kind letter in return, welcoming her heartily. And Lydia felt glad in her virtue. A poor girl, lonely, in distress and shame, would have found little help or comfort at such a time; but she, the honest wife of a young, hard- working man with unknown possibilities and future before him, would be welcomed with smiles anywhere. She could hold up her head and look the world in the eyes for she had faithfully followed its noble and glorious conventions, and she took out her marriage certificate and kissed it, and replaced it carefully in her bosom, together with her aunt's letter of welcome. She thought with passionate tenderness of Bernard, and loved him as no woman can love a man who has made her sacrifice her virtue to him. In all the impulses of the love of this latter there will be one pure, true impulse missing. She will never quite forgive him for the loss of her conventional virtue and all the moral freedom, pride and independence it bestows. The days sped by and Lydia watched them. She had saved a nice little sum of money, bought herself a few neces- sary things, and now contemplated departure any time, yet still stayed on for the sake of the small weekly wage paid her. At last one day, coming across the yard with the milk pails, she glanced up and saw Bella watching her critically from the doorway. She met Lydia's eye, turned quickly, and disappeared into the house, and Lydia heard her call sharply, "Mother." The expression on her face spoke worlds to Lydia's quick perceptions and she did not wait to carry the milk into the dairy, but set it down by the door and ran into the house and up the stairs. She LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 127 packed up her little box that stood almost ready, took off her apron and rolled down her sleeves. Work was over for a time now. She knew what was coming. She would be dismissed, but not with shame. No one could put that upon her, and she stood waiting calmly, with her hat already on, for the summons from below. She glanced round the room, it was empty, cleared up, neat. The box was locked, ready to be taken by the grocer's man, who would drive her over to Troutbeck for a small sum. She took out her dear wedding ring and put it on; it should never, never leave her hand again, and as it slipped over her finger it seemed like a talisman, a charm against all ills. "Lydia," came at last the familiar scream from below, and she went down the stairs in obedience to it. Mrs Anderson was in the dining-room, Bella was there too, with an extraordinary expression on her face: besides malignant triumph, surprise and eager curiosity, there was something else stronger than all these: what was it, Lydia vaguely wondered as she came into the room; later it came back to her and she knew it was envy. "Lydia, you've been deceiving me," Mrs Anderson began in a severe tone, but not without a touch of parental reproach in it, as if she had been in the habit of encouraging, by the most gentle sympathy, this girl's daily confidences and had a right to expect them. To this Lydia answered nothing, only, with her head held high, regarded Mrs Ander- son fully and gravely. The other woman looked back at her and realised the moral and physical beauty before her. The beauty of the figure only slightly marred by its increased heaviness, and the beauty of the eyes full of a wonderful nobility. "And now," with increasing asperity, "you have got yourself into trouble. Aren't you heartily ashamed of yourself?" "No, ma'am," replied Lydia, with perfect serenity, "I am most proud and happy. I am married." Mra Anderson suddenly sat down in the armchair be- 128 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW hind her with a little gasp. Bella came forward close to her, and Lydia in a glance saw her white face in which the eyes glittered strangely. "She's lying, ma, don't you believe her." Mrs Anderson pushed her daughter aside. A sudden thought seemed to have struck her. A pallor spread itself suddenly over her square, heavy face. She got up and seized Lydia by the shoulder. "Who has got you into trouble ?" she demanded fiercely, in a totally different tone from the former ones, the tone of keen personal interest instead of impartial condemnation. "Who is the man, who is the father? Tell me this minute or I'll brain you." Lydia shook herself free contemptuously, and looked down, with her great dauntless eyes, into the other's face. She had doubted if she would give them Bernard's name. After all, there was the fact. She was married. She need not tell them more than that, and some sympathy for Bella had made her lean to not saying anything further, but now, looking into this woman's face, she read her thoughts in a flash and decided on saying the truth. "It is more just to everyone," she thought. "I was married to Mr Chetwynd about five months ago," she answered quietly, "and he, Mrs Anderson, is the father of my child." She had hardly uttered the words when Bella was at her throat : she had sprung upon her as a cat springs, and the sudden rush bore Lydia back against the wall. Bella's hands flew like cat's claws at her face, and to protect that Lydia seized her anrs below the elbows and held them motionless. Bella, finding her hands were useless and that she could not loose them from the other's grip, began to kick violently, and Lydia felt the pain warn her that there was danger to the life within. She twisted Bella round with all her strength and felt the first savage puke of hate as her child was threatened. "Call your daughter off, Mrs Anderson," she said in a low, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 129 desperate tone, "or I shall kill her," as one speaks of a furious animal, which the girl seemed in reality for a moment to become. Her face distorted, without a sound, she bit, tore, kicked and struggled in a perfect fury of passion. "Bella, Bella, what are you doing? Listen to me," Mrs Anderson called to her and tried to draw her backwards by the shoulder, but silent still, without a sound, the frenzied girl fought on, and Lydia, feeling herself at a disadvantage, as the one merely on the defensive always is, suddenly exerted her great strength and flung the girl from her. She fell heavily on the floor and lay huddled up, stunned and gasping. Mrs Anderson, thoroughly, and almost equally frightened now of both the girls, and terrified at the storm of silent passion raging in the room, ran to the back door, screaming for her husband. "William, William!" Lydia walked away slowly, with her breast heaving, and out through the front entrance into the topaz glow of the late afternoon. She understood Bella and had always done, and had a deep sympathy with her. But this knowledge made her feel that all words, all acts were inadequate, useless. Nothing could ever mitigate that sullen, brutish hatred in that dull, overclouded soul. The only thing was to go and remove her presence that stirred it into fury. Could she herself, long ago, have ever forgiven another child who had come up and bought the fat, sawdust-body doll she coveted out of the window of old ? By the gate she met the farmer himself, who having been in front of the house had not heard his wife's appeal over the back garden. She stopped, with a smile, and told him, in a few words, of her intended departure, and its history, and added: "Look here. I was afraid to show them this, lest they should take it from me, but I want you to see it. I hate to think the whole village will talk scandal of Bernard and me when I am gone. You will stop it, won't you?" and she drew from her breast the precious certificate and made him read it. The fanner took it and studied it slowly with interest, 130 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW through his spectacles, then he folded it and gave it back to her. "Well," he said, "I saw a good deal more than you young people thought, but I must say I didn't think you had been quite so sly as this." "I never should have deceived you" murmured Lydia, her eyes filling, melted at once by his kind tone and smile and feeling self -reproachful under it, "but Mrs Anderson and Bella have always been so so " She hesitated, un- willing to complain even of them in their absence. The farmer patted her on the shoulder. "I know, I know, I've seen more than you think," he repeated, "and though I'm sorry to lose you I'm glad for your sake you're going. Maria's a bully, but all her bullying has not pre- vented you getting your fun," he chuckled. "I'm glad you carried off Chetwynd. I thought that's how it would be from the first." "William, William!" came Mrs Anderson's screaming voice from the house door. "Yes, my dear, I'm coming," he replied leisurely. There was a warm hand-clasp, a good-bye, and Lydia passed on. She went through the gate and slowly down the road in the hot, golden light. It was verging towards evening and the sunset already infused its rosy light through the amber air. How many sunsets she had seen flush and flare over those wooded slopes and swelling fields, and now this was the last she would probably ever see on the winding Patterdale road. The summer was nearly over, that wonderful summer, and with its close came the end of her sixteenth year, that joyous year. It had been a marvellous summer, she thought, perhaps nothing would be quite so good in life again as this first awakening, and her eyes filled with regretful tears as she remembered those dusk-filled, lilac-scented alleys behind the farm, and how she had run down them with the madness of the midsummer nights filling her veins. She thought of the strange sweetness of the flowers in blossom, and the exultant trilling of the larks in the spring, and the emerald LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 131 turf in the orchard where there was a soft light thrown through the masses of white and pink and purple bloom, and of those quick, nervous kisses exchanged as they lay close together, like mating wild things of the wood, overawed and with breath coming quickly as they heard footsteps passing, sometimes all too near them. But they had never been discovered, the thicket, the orchard, or the bending lilac and may had always guarded their secret well. It had always been beautiful, but she had never seen it clearly, fully till this summer when she had looked through the eyes of love, and then its beauty had been maddening, almost unbearable, driving her to the orchard's shade and her lover's arms. With reluctant feet she moved slowly down the road to the little grocer's shop by the post-office, where she would send back the boy and cart for her box, drink a cup of tea in the side parlour that was kept as a restaurant in the summer season, while she waited for him to come back, and then drive over to Troutbeck, where she could catch the train. It was all a new country, new ways, before her, and as the road descended and the farm sank out of sight she felt that the first epoch of her life, full of beauty and light and joy and love, the radiance of the very early morning, was definitely over. CHAPTER IX IN the ancient town of Tunbridge there are still left some of those quaint old houses with deep-gabled, projecting roofs and white faces crossed and recrossed with black, that date from the time of Elizabeth. One of these, turned into a hostelry of the quiet, old-fashioned type, belonged to Mrs Hailsham, Lydia's aunt. It stood a little back from the life of the town, behind the main street of Tunbridge, and overlooked, at the back, its own ample garden and beyond the wooded country. There was a deep porch in front and a small garden with rustic benches set against the house, where in the summer the regular customers were wont to sit gossiping through the hot afternoons. At this porch, one still golden September day, Lydia was set down with her small box beside her, and welcomed by Mrs Hailsham, who drew her into her arms and kissed her. Lydia, who had not been kissed since her parting with Bernard, re- turned the embrace with warmth and felt a glow of restful joy as she went into the house. Mrs Hailsham had given her a room at the back, the best position, and from the window, diamond-paned and opening in the middle, case- ment-wise, there was a lovely view over the garden and to the woods beyond. Above the window hung the deep, projecting eaves, and as she crossed the room and looked out Lydia saw with delight a row of swallows' nests built under them. The room was not large but fairly pretty, with its white-hung bed in one corner and the low table and chair by the open window, its bookcase full of quaint old books hanging on the wall and its large deep-cushioned couch. The breath from the garden and the rosebeds 132 133 without filled it. Lydia laid her hat and gloves on the bed and then sat down by the window, leaning her head back with a sigh of glad contentment. After a few moments she noticed the books on the wall opposite her and crossed over to examine them. Lydia had always loved books and felt instinctively familiar with them. She had hitherto had no time in her life to read as she would have liked, but now in this quiet time coming she thought suddenly with delight she would have the opportunity to study if she chose. It had never seemed hard to her at school; she remembered how far more quickly and easily she had always been able to learn than the other girls there. She was turning over the leaves of one of the volumes taken from the case when the door opened and her aunt re-appeared. "I thought you'd like some tea after your journey, dear," she said. "I've put it all ready in the coffee-room if you like to come down." Lydia followed her downstairs. The coffee-room was a long, narrow room running across the back of the house so that all its windows looked out into the garden. It was empty just now and on one of the tables at the end tea was laid out. Lydia sat down at it and Mrs Hailsham drew up a chair beside her. She wanted to hear all Lydia's news, and the girl, having nothing to conceal, was only too glad to find a sympathetic listener. Someone to talk to of Bernard, how delightful that was after such a long silence when his dear name even had never passed her lips! She described him, his height, his fair skin and bright hair, the beauty of his features, using the words and imagery of a poet, till her aunt stared in astonished admiration. "Why, Lydia, you talk like a poetry-book. I think you made good use of your schooling." Lydia laughed. "I suppose it's easy to be poetical when one is in love. Love teaches one everything." They went on then to talk of Bernard's position, his 134 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW prospects, and how soon she would be able to join him. Mrs Hailsham agreed with Bernard that it was most prudent of him to have left her behind. "I don't know," returned Lydia, "I feel, somehow, I shall never be so near, so united to hjm as I was before he left. I suffered so frigthfully, too, at his going. I never can love him so well again. Of course, I am getting more resigned now, and I think I shall like this quiet time here. I want to read and study and learn much more than I know." Mrs Hailsham looked at the brilliant, intellectual face before her for a few seconds in silence. "I don't think I'd read and learn too much," she said, sighing. "Where will it all come in in that life of yours out there ? It will only make you discontented, and your husband doesn't care for books, I take it." "Well, I can't help it," laughed Lydia. "He should have taken me then if he liked my being ignorant. Oh, aunt, I feel there is so much to know and learn in life, so much to do and feel! I should like to know it all, experience everything any woman ever does. If one only could!" Mrs Hailsham looked dubious. "I am not sure," she said doubtfully. "I sometimes think those are best off who know nothing and have very little experience." "Never, never," returned Lydia, joyfully, as Mrs Hail- sham rose. Some visitors were entering and claimed her attention. The reading of the books in the bookcase gave Lydia the desire, the impetus to read more, and in her daily walks she stopped constantly at a second-hand bookstall and bought for a few pence various volumes that struck her fancy. Amongst these was an old copy of Helvetius in French, and the famous treatise on the Mind captured that part of her intellect that had come to her from her father. She was not at that time a good French reader. Still, she had learnt the language, and with the dictionary she bought at the same time she progressed very well. No one who has LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 135 read carefully and thoroughly understood that marvellous masterpiece can be uneducated afterwards, even though they may have studied nothing else in the world, and when Lydia came to the end of it, having really spent much time and thought on its study, she had learnt infinitely more than the London school-board pupil has after a five years' course. The noble intellect bequeathed to her was thor- oughly awake and alert now, and she found it demanded food and occupation as pressingly as the body. She read and studied regularly many hours a day, rose in the morning full of ardour to begin her books and fell asleep thinking of them. She began to realise the fire and joy of mental labour that in its way is as marvellous a revelation as the passion of love, and th? enchantment and excitement that is en- closed in those dull, quiet little things called books. Her visits to the old dealer's bookstall became more and more frequent, and among the treasures she carried from it were some of Bulwer Lytton's novels, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and a Bohn's translation of the Odes of Pindar. These last were difficult for her to understand. Still, she did understand them, for Pindar's Odes had been her father's favourite book at the University. From this beginning she was led to get other volumes of the classics, and marred and spoiled though they were by the translations still through them she was able to stand on the threshold of that wonderful world that the classics throw open to the mind. Through the autumn she read largely out of doors, sitting in the grounds of the fine old Tunbridge Castle or walking up and down the gravel paths, wrestling with some of the problems presented to her in the book she was reading. Later, as the winter drew nearer and her condition became more and more evident to strangers, she sat in by the fire in her own room and read there. So her silent self-education went on from day to day, and her mind and brain, being naturally of the student's material, developed and expanded in its natural occupation. The ducklings when they first come from their shell take 136 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW to the water and swim perfectly, not because they have ever swum before, but because their parents swam before them and they are of the race that swims. Similarly this girl found study easy, simple, like a familiar occupation, not that she was practised in it herself, but because her father and his ancestors had studied before her. Gradually, in those months, without realising it, she changed greatly, becoming a different being, with different thoughts, ideas, desires, and a different view of life, and a different conception of its possibilities, to the girl who had stolen down to meet Bernard in the hollow under the almond bloom. She wrote regularly to Bernard once a week, but somehow she did not tell him much about her reading or her study. There was no reason: simply it did not occur to her to talk to him of the new world in which she was living. She still helped her aunt with all the lighter duties of the house and sometimes served hi the bar, where she was much appreciated, and her beauty and gentle manner exercised a beneficent effect on the language and behaviour of the customers. She also found time in her own room to make many dainty little clothes, and her fingers moved as deftly as ever with her needle, but hi all her occupations the silent, secret, mental growth went on. Nature was altering, developing, changing her as she is always changing and remodelling the unhappy human being and everything else in this sliding, shifting, changing, unsatisfactory world. So day followed day, serenely, while Nature steadily pursued her task, creating the new life within the girl's body and no less surely creating a new life, with equally independent powers and desires, hi her brain. Bernard's letters, that came regularly week by week were full of hope and satis- faction. Everything that he touched seemed to prosper, and through them all there ran the same ardent cry for her presence. The winter gradually approached and stripped the garden: the much-loved swallows had entirely dis- appeared and the deserted nests hung lonely under the eaves. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 137 Lydia turned more and more from her window and its cold, cheerless aspect to the fire and the wcnder of her book- world. Sometimes, when she put her feet on the little square footstool and settled herself comfortably into the arm- chair, she thought fancifully she was stepping into a carriage in which she was to drive to these different, enchanting scenes. It was a Monday afternoon, one of the American mail days. Lydia had felt peculiarly restless, nervous all day. She felt within herself that the appointed time was finished. Nature, who had always been her guide and friend, in whom she had implicitly confided, whispered in her ear. Those strong, natural instincts that were as much apart of her being and as well developed in her as they are in the game animals, the wild children of the woods, spoke to her eagerly that day. She felt a gathering within her of all her vital forces, a sense as if all the life of her frame was drawing itself together, preparing for a great effort. A dread, the natural dread of the unknown, of anything not yet experienced which, after all, constitutes the only dread of Death itself came upon her, but she struggled hard to put it from her, to call up all her mental courage. That sense of belief in her own Nature, in Life, in her ulti- mate destiny, that belongs to some minds and lends them a certain calm and grandeur, came to her aid. She went about all her duties as usual, and was just rinsing her hands in the little back kitchen about five o'clock when she heard the postman knock. Without waiting to dry them she ran with her wet hands towards the door. At the upper end of the hall she stopped and almost reeled against the wall. A great pain had seized her suddenly in its fangs and the shock of it seemed to tear the breath out of her body. The pain ran swiftly through her and died gradually away. Looking down the passage she saw a letter lying, a square of white, on the mat by the door. Her heart beat in a joyous tumult, she must get to that letter, but her whole body vibrated still with the recent pain, and before she could 138 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW move she felt it slowly growing up again within her. She drew herself up close to the wall and braced herself with shut lips to meet it as a bather braces himself to meet an incoming wave. No sound escaped her as she bore it patiently, her eyes fixed on the letter. Then, in a few seconds, as the torturing grip of the pain relaxed on her, she went forward, snatched up the letter and tore it open passionately, with trembling fingers. At that moment when she longed so intensely for her husband's presence, to be hi his arms and drown her pain in his kisses, the sight of his handwriting came as a balm to her hungry, frightened loneliness. As she unfolded the letter the driving, sword- like pain came through her again, and racked by it, unable to stand, she sank down on the door-mat, her eyes devouring the written words. Rocking herself backwards and forwards hi a silent agony she read on eagerly: "DARLING LITTLE ONE, You are to come immediately it is safe for you and the baby to travel. I have everything ready and nicely fixed up for you now. The house is finished and I hope you will like it. I am working on the garden and hope to have it finished soon. I calculate you should be able to start hi about two months from the time you get this letter, but do not run any risks. I think of you all day and night. Your face is before me everywhere " Before she had finished reading the letter Lydia became aware she was feeling very ill. It was not only the pain now that shook her but a curious sensation of revolt, of upheaval of all the inner life of her being, but she was happy, divinely happy. She staggered to her feet, and making her way down the passage called " Aunt." She thought she would have to explain when Mrs Hailsham ran out of the kitchen in re- sponse to her call, but she did not need to. The good lady looked at her sharply for a moment, and then taking LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 139 her arm urged her kindly to go upstairs and lie down. Lydia went obediently, mechanically, thinking of the contents of her letter, and when, a little later, Mrs Hailsham and the nurse she had gone out to fetch came up to her room they found her lying on her bed, her eyes closed, almost unconscious in a stupor of pain, but with a happy serenity on her face and Bernard's letter tightly clasped to her breast. CHAPTER X THREE weeks later the winter sunlight filling the little room found Lydia sitting up in bed playing with her child. This new toy given to her, the petted, favourite daughter of Dame Nature, delighted her beyond everything. She had all the wild pleasure she had known as a child running home with some coveted possession bought in the village toy-shop. She caressed it, talked to it, made it sit up amongst the pillows, and gazed upon it with unceasing delight. It was certainly a very lovely baby, very like a wax doll, with wide- open blue eyes and a fair, delicate bloom on its skin and its small, round head covered already with golden silk for hair. It was a girl, but strangely like Bernard in its face, and its eyes, looking up into Lydia's with a curious fixity, brought Bernard and their hours together so vividly back to the girl-mother that she almost crushed the child by the wild fierceness of her kisses as she threw herself forward on it, holding it tightly, almost suffocated, against her soft bosom. Still, it did not cry, it seemed rather to think it good fun to be so cuddled, and smiled and even chuckled as soon as it could get its breath. It hardly ever cried, being a wonderfully strong, healthy baby, round and fat in its case of satin skin. The great health and strength of both its parents and their natural, untrammelled love for each other had brought its inevitable result, the extreme health of the child, and Lydia's entire absence of worrying as to what the sex of her child might be, her own fate, or indeed anything out of her own hands, her calm confidence in Nature, her thankful happiness in all that was given her without ques- tioning rebellion, brought about the serenity of its nature. 140 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 141 The little room enclosed now a small, complete world of happiness. To Lydia, who had been alone so long, it was delightful to have this small, soft companion, so warm, so quiet, to nestle beside her. It seemed never displeased nor cross but to stretch out its tiny hands to life with the same calm confidence that its mother had. The daily events of its small life did not trouble it at all. Its morning bath, in which Lydia had heard children generally screamed, seemed only an amusement to it, for it laughed and chuckled gaily when Lydia poured the warm water over its dimpled pink back, and to the mother herself, not yet seventeen, this bath became an amusing game to play with the new doll. Taking it out and drying it, and slipping on the tiny clothes she had made was the next occupation, and then combing through its silky gold hair. This grew quickly and lay all over its head in tiny curls. Lydia's sensuous nature took a passionate delight in its beauty and she would set it in the sun to see the light burn on its hair and sparkle in its blue eyes. The books were for the tune laid aside and forgotten. Nevertheless, they had done their work and their effect was established ineradicably. Lydia was now in one of those little, quiet, sunny nooks that line the shores of Life's terrible ocean. Far out at sea there were roaring billows and white-crested waves, whirlpools and rocks and tempests, but this was a little cove where the water rippled in, warm and shallow and clear, over white sand and small pebbles, a warm sheltered spot full of sun- light and quiet peace. But after a little while how tired the mortal gets of such places! How he longs to put out again to sea and face the roar of the tempests. As the days began to grow longer and the tide of life and vitality swept once more at its full strength through her veins, Lydia began to grow tired of the little room in which she had known so many happy hours. Bernard's letters became more and more urgent, and happy longings to be with him again clamoured within her. Her glass, showing her her bright face, added its arguments, and the 142 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW size and health and loveliness of the baby made her im- patient to show it and hear it praised. And at last, not without many tears, for she had grown most gratefully fond of Mrs Hailsham, a letter was sent, announcing her depart- ure, to Bernard, and her passage taken from Liverpool to New York. It was a mild, dull, February afternoon when she drove across London from Charing Cross to Euston Station in her four-wheel cab, with her luggage on the top. Besides the small, square box of earlier days, there were; now added two others, one for the baby's clothes, and another one packed to the brim with books. So can our develop- ment in life be traced even in our baggage. Once inside this great city, the heart of all civilised life, a great excite- ment seemed to come over the girl and pervade her. She felt overjoyed at the idea and importance of her journey, and the unaccustomed noise and bustle at the large stations animated and amused, without in the least disconcerting, her. Sitting now in the cab, with the child tightly clasped on her knee, she looked interestedly out of the windows and scanned the various moving figures of the crowded streets with bright, inquisitive eyes. When she arrived at Euston she had still some time before her train left and she went into the refreshment-room to get some tea. Well-dressed, in her neat black travelling clothes, and with her fine figure and carriage, she attracted general, if quiet, attention, and it dawned on her suddenly, as the men lounging near the counter made way for her, that it was of far more importance to be good-looking at a London station than in a country lane. Sipping her tea quietly at a little marble table, while the baby lay placidly beside her wrapped in her travelling rug, she looked about her and troops of new thoughts came up to her and made her acquaintance. She had long ago told Bernard she thought she would like town life so much better than country and now she felt sure she would. The racket and the turmoil, the surge and roar that is London's well- LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 143 known voice, came to her from the outside and seemed like distant music; the very grey, foggy air that lurked about the station seemed to her to have something inspiring in its mysterious clinging murkiness; the stream of hurrying human figures, with their intent, anxious faces, passing by her constantly, edified and interested her. Why? She could not tell: but many people know and feel this strange intoxication of the Great City. To those who feel it there is no need to explain it, and to those who do not perhaps it cannot ever be explained. As the greyness increased lights began to sparkle everywhere, an express thundered in and platform and refreshment-room became crowded with figures. Lydia paid and left, finding a seat outside by her luggage, where she deposited the baby and her wraps and then decided she would go and buy a paper for herself as a crowd of other travellers seemed doing. She strolled across to the bookstall and had just picked up her Westminster Gazette, when feeling a gaze upon her she glanced up, meet- ing, in the full glare of the lighted stall, the grave, earnest gaze of two quiet eyes fixed upon her: her own were held by them, she read in them a great, though reserved, admiration : there was nothing to resent in the look, no boldness, no insolence, only that deep, strong admiration looking out of that calm, pale, unmoved face above her. It compelled her own gaze in return and swept her with a strange, momentary pleasure and delight. The man's features were somewhat thin, the face refined, and figure, attitude, pose, dress, air, all had extreme distinction. For a second Lydia looked up, while all this impressed itself sharply upon her, then, re- collecting herself, she reddened and turned away, handed her penny to the boy, who was also staring at her rosy beauty, and walked hurriedly away. The crowd in the station pressed in between her and the stall and she found her way back to her seat, where the baby was placidly awaiting her, and sat down, mechanically putting her arm round the child. A great blankness was upon her. For the first time she 144 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW felt dissatisfied with the card she had bought in Life's great shop. It is a horrible moment and it comes once in nearly every life. The moment when we reflect that with all the money we had in our hand in the beginning we could have bought something we should have liked so much better than what we have. Metaphorically, Lydia now took out her card and looked at it. It had poverty, obscurity, hard work written all over it, and it was besides a very ordinary card; it had a little house, some trees and fields, pictured on it, some children playing about, and in the centre the hand- some head of a young man. Lydia 's thoughts softened suddenly as she recalled her husband's face. True, the card had some beauty and many rosy colours, but there was no gilding on it anywhere and no deep violet hues, nothing in it of the glamour of wealth, nor the mystery and deep, fierce pleasure of Life. It was the knowledge of the existence of this and the knowledge that she had missed it that came home to her now and vaguely oppressed and disturbed her. Her eyes followed the passing figures; the tall figure by the stall had disappeared, but the keen memory of it and the quiet, compelling eyes remained, not to be forgotten. She saw the women of the street pass and repass her seat, dis- playing their hard, painted faces, and weighed mechanically their poor, thin shadow of beauty beside her own, rich and vigorous, warm in the sun of her youth and health. Beauty was cash, money wherewith to buy. These women ran up and down the market place carrying it in their hands to buy bread. She, herself, had had her hands full of it; had she gone too hurriedly, thoughtlessly, into the shop where there were so many wonderful and beautiful toys and spent it all on this one little card? A sort of horrid clutching at her heart almost stilled her breath as she sat there, heedless of the envious glances of the passing women and the open admiration of the men, lost in herself, trying to wrestle out the meaning of these new unfamiliar thoughts that forced themselves upon her and to understand why the chance LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 145 gaze of a stranger should have given them life. He was, she recognised, a man of a different type from any that she, living hi the country, ever came in contact with. The type that is common hi the neighbourhood of the clubs and Piccadilly is practically unknown elsewhere, and the slight, elegant figure, the frock coat, the high circle of white collar round the long neck, the silk hat, the distinguished face, the gravity and calm of which and the lines of thought traced on it seemed to hint at passions repressed and afflictions passed through, at things felt and things seen, all these made up to her unaccustomed eyes a very wonderful, mys- terious and interesting being, a being she felt to be repre- sentative of that side of life of which she knew nothing the wealthy, cultured, leisured side, where emotions, passions, feelings were more complex, perhaps more interesting than in the simple, healthy, primitive existence she knew. And this man, whose face seemed to tell of so much experience and knowledge of the ways of Life, had looked upon her with admiration, with evident pleasure, with deep interest; her face burned angrily as she stumbled full on the thought to which she had been drifting so long. What would her life have been, lived with this man, or one like him, one belonging to that mysterious other side of life, instead of with such a one as her husband? She hated and loathed the thought and pushed it from her, never hi all her married life had one like it presented itself : she was surprised, shocked, startled at herself, for a sudden something seemed to have sprung up, a new personality within her own, that she could not recognise: a wild, unmanageable thing that seemed to fight with her ordinary self and be beyond her control. A great revolt had come suddenly upon her. A great sorrow and resentment that she was going away from this great city, this heart and centre of life, where beauty such as she had was valued and weighed, atom by atom, as gold in a jeweller's scales, and full value paid for it, where all life's intimate secrets were known and the little devious paths that 10 146 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW lead to pleasure. Where all the great joys and the little joys of the world were bought and sold and exchanged and given in all manner of ways and for all sorts of prices, Life's great department store, in fact, the greatest in the world. And she with but one little card in her hand, on which was written the simple programme of her life, was leaving it to bury herself in lonely wilds, never perhaps to return, or perhaps only as an old woman, the poorest of all the beggars on Life's highway. Then her hands would have nothing but ashes, now they were full of gold. She was going to waste it, throw it away on the fields and hedgerows, gaining nothing for it but the privilege to work hard day by day in her even, simple toil, toil for husband, for children, knowing nothing but her own straight little path of homely duties: knowing nothing of other lives, other loves, other lights that gleamed and danced and rose and set on other paths. En- gulfed in this sudden wave of feeling that came she knew not whence and swept over her in a bitter flood, she suddenly for one blind moment hated husband and child, hated the little house in the cornfields she had so prized, hated the life that called her, hated her future. "This your luggage, mum?" Lydia rose suddenly to her feet, shaking the vile thoughts from her as if they were crawling snakes. All her bright, brave nature rose to her aid. She looked her life in the face. She had chosen it. She could not change it. She loved her husband and she was going to him: she loved her child and that was at her side. As for her beauty, it would always brighten and gladden her life, why should she wish it to do more ? "Yes, that's mine," she answered the inquiring porter, and followed him to the train. In the third-class carriage into which she got she found to her relief that there was no one in the least resembling the man by the bookstall on the platform. Her compan- ions here were of the same type as those so familiar in the suburbs: a half -drunken man in workman's clothes in LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 147 the far corner; next him a fat, motherly woman with a baby in her arms; beside her a little, neat old man whose face had disappeared in lines and wrinkles, and a red-haired child belonging to the fat woman opposite, made up the company. Amongst these people her thoughts sobered down but she was intensely angry with herself for having had such as her recent ones had been, and not a little frightened at the new self, within herself, that she had discovered. Though the thoughts themselves had gone now the mystery of their birth at all puzzled and troubled her. She could not un- derstand why, never having had such ideas before, they should arise now. She did not recognise the fact that as she was growing up farther and farther from girlhood, so was her inner nature changing, developing. She could no more expect to retain the thoughts, wishes and ideas of fifteen than she could the face and figure of fifteen. The human being always resents the change in himself that is his perpetual fate. He is always surprised and wounded by it, and whereas he blames Nature for the changes in his physique, he makes crimes of his own, out of the equally natural change in his feelings. We are always growing up or growing old, in our minds as in our looks, and it is no more our fault, however deeply it is to be deplored, if the loved wife or husband of one year cease to please and satisfy us the next, than it is our fault when the wax doll or the tin soldier, idolised in our thirteenth year, fail to move us in the least when we have passed the fifteenth. Lydia, however, made no such excuses for herself. She was thoroughly disgusted with her thoughts and with this new creature that she discovered was sleeping inside her, and not only sleeping but now stirring in its sleep. She could only hope and pray that it would never wake up wholly : she shuddered at the thought of a hand-to-hand contest with it. Looking out into the damp blackness of the night, as the train sped on its way, she thought hard of the husband and child and the fresh, joyous life that awaited her under skies of endless blue. But Nature, who cannot be said to be entirely on 148 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW the side of Morals as man has invented them, and who deeply resents our restraining her changes and evolutions, in the short sleep that came over the girl between London and Liverpool, sent her a dream, in which the light was not sunshine but the gas lamps of a certain bookstall, and the world was filled to its horizon with a strange presence that was not husband nor child. CHAPTER XI THE evening sky was one perfect arch of azure, unflecked by the smallest cloud, stretching over the valley, from rich, green hilltop to hilltop, when Lydia, from the side of the covered wagon, in which Bernard had driven her from the station, first looked out upon the ranch. The house lay bathed in golden light from the west and shone out softly, richly, white amongst its radiant fields of springing crops. A glorious, red, swelling, bluff rose im- mediately behind it, clothed from foot to summit with slender larch and pine and fir, that stood up distinct and gold on the edge against the blue light of the sky. Throwing the reins on the horse's back Bernard sprang from the wagon and almost lifted Lydia in his arms bodily and set her on the neat, raised, ^gravel platform before the open house door. Seizing the upper part of her arm in a strong, excited grip, he gently pushed her in before him over the quiet sun-smitten threshold, into the large, cool shade of the house. "Oh, Bernard, what a lovely, large and altogether charming house!" she exclaimed, looking round her. He bent down over her and pressed his lips passionately on hers. "My empress, my queen, it is not good enough for you ! It is nothing. I wish I had a palace to see your beauty in!" The force, the intensity, the passionate admiration, almost adoration, in the words caused her to look up a little wonderingly and her great brilliant eyes rested on him. He drew back from her as an artist from a wondrously 149 150 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW lovely picture, and all his delight in her was stamped upon his face. She saw it, and thrill upon thrill pierced her nerves: it was herself, her beauty, that stirred him, she knew; he had called her an empress, and she saw that indeed here she had an empire. A flush burnt in his cheeks : the fire of love, joy and possession seemed glowing in his eyes, trembling through all lu's frame. How handsome he was not one bit spoiled in this year they had been sepa- rated. His physique had only grown a little finer, stronger, more virile, more imposing than before. The warm, clear white of the skin was the same: the magnificent swelling throat and finely-moulded chin appealed to her more than ever. Her heart began to leap in a joyous tumult as she looked up at his immense form, strong and lithe and shapely, towering over her. She opened her arms to him suddenly with a little glad cry. "How happy I am! How I love you!" A sense of intoxication seemed to sweep up through Bernard's being to his brain, suddenly, as when a man drinks recklessly a draught of brandy after long fasting. It was some wild dream surely, that this exquisite girlish face and form, radiant in all the fresh unfolding beauty of seventeen, stood here actually with open arms before him and was his. All the soft colouring in her cheeks, the light of her eyes, the gleam on her silky hair, the wonderful warmth and soft sweet fragrance about her, seemed filling all the room, floating everywhere on the atmosphere round them. To this lonely man, waiting, working, hoping, in the absolute stillness of his solitary existence in his empty house, wearied out sometimes by his day's toil, in his silent evenings the dream of this woman's presence had become almost a reality. Now its reality so disordered the senses it almost seemed a dream. He made a step forward unsteadily: would she vanish like his mocking visions ? No, she was real: he gripped her, caught her, strained LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 151 her close to him: the warm bosom heaved against his: the little soft lips fluttered to meet his: the warm, lustrous eyes looked smilingly up into his as he crushed her roughly, unsparingly, hungrily to him. And she yielded herself gladly. She was so sorry for him: she understood so well what this past lonely year had been to him. She would compensate him now to the utmost of her powers. "We have forgotten the child," she said, laughing, as she escaped from his arms at last. "Come with me and bring her in." She held herself from him a little and he gazed on her rich vivid face with its glow of rose in the cheeks and the lustre of its great velvet eyes under the white, tran- quil brow, where the gleaming silk-like hair rose from it in soft waving masses. "Come," she said, smiling, and he followed her. They found the child peacefully asleep in its rugs and shawls and Bernard carried it into the house and laid it on a sofa. "Is it not a very pretty baby just like you, Bernard?" she questioned, looking down at the flower-like face amongst the rugs. It was the beauty of the child that called up in Lydia all an artist's adoration of any loveliness, rather than that the fact of its being her child, spoke to her maternal instincts. "Yes, it is lovely," assented Bernard. "How could it be otherwise with such a mother?" "Nonsense, it isn't a bit like me," returned Lydia, laugh- ing. "Now, let's come and look at the house." They went from room to room: out of the large, well- lighted, comfortable sitting-room opened the kitchen with all the latest appliances stoves, tables, dressers, and every equipment that American skill could invent and hard-earned money could buy. "What a lot you must have spent, how hard you must have worked, how you must have saved!" exclaimed Lydia, with grateful, wondering eyes. "And everything is so bright and clean, how could you, just one person, do it all?" 152 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Because I was doing it for you" he murmured in her ear, the strong delight beating in all his veins, thickening his speech and driving the hot, red blood to his temples as he looked down on her. They were standing by the kitchen window, and before them on a gentle downward slope rolled the velvet fields to where masses of giant trees marked the edge of the forest, and beyond these again towered the arrogant red bluffs through the golden quivering air towards the wondrous blue of the Arizona sky. A perfect peace, an unbroken quiet lay over everything. Within the house was shade and absolute stillness: without, fierce-burnished light, but equally silence. For a hundred miles on every side but one lay open country unmarked by any sign of human habitation, uncontaminated by the pres- ence of the destroyer Man: the destroyer of peace, of beauty, of joy, of life. To the east alone civilisation, in the form of a baby branch railway line and a tiny rustic station, whence they had driven that day, approached to within forty miles of them. Bernard's ranch was the only one in the valley, and to communicate with human life at all he had to drive forty miles to the east or a hundred in any other direction and pierce through the encircling ring of mountains called The Chain. Beyond these, in neighbouring valleys, lay scattered ranches here and there, and at long intervals tiny villages. Bernard had had men to work for him from time to time, and in the early days when the ranch had been little but a wilderness he had seldom been without one or two helping him in his work of reclaiming it. But now all was in good working order, and when he had written for his wife to join him he had given his man a holiday. The man had gone joyfully, for few besides Bernard, with his splendid courage and unwearying tenacity of purpose, could stand the deathly sunlit stillness of the ranch. Bernard alone, single-handed, did the whole work within and without the house: rode after his cattle, felled his trees, made his fences, milked his cows, lighted his fires, cooked his food, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 153 and kept the house sparkling with cleanliness for those two months before her coming, filled to overflowing with joy and energy, endued with the magic strength of a great hopeful desire. And now she was here : the great day had come: and those two stood alone together, the only two human beings in that sun-filled silent valley, hidden away from, forgotten by, the world, unknown to it, in the midst of the fertile paradise which his ceaseless labours, his un- remitting toil, had made. They both felt a supreme sense of happiness, the primal happiness of Eden. How fortunate it is that for the time our pleasures so absorb us that they shut out all fear of the future, that it seems as it does Impossible to us we can ever change or tire. When Bernard, with joyous pride, conducted her up the one short flight of stairs that led to the upper storey an addition he had made himself and the furniture for which he had fashioned with his own hands and showed her their room, Lydia felt the same whole-hearted delight, the same pleasure that excluded all else from her mind, which she had experienced a year ago, on her wedding night. They were together. She wanted and asked nothing else, nor did it seem possible she would ever want or ask more than this. She looked at him. How splendid he was and he was hers. Her joy was in the man himself just as it had been when she married him. She looked at him and her heart beat quickly. He satisfied that eager demand for beauty that was a natural impulse in her. She felt over- joyed as she watched him move and speak and smile just as she had done years back when the new doll had been triumphantly purchased and she could squeeze its sawdust- filled body, peer into its eyes, stroke its hair and pinch it to hear its wonderful squeak. She moved round the room beside him, examining everything because he had made it, and wanted her praise, pulled out the drawers from the chests and shut them again, sat on all the chairs and looked into the mirror, beautifully framed by himself in rosewood- 154 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Everything is lovely, I never knew you were so clever, you have done wonders," she said, with flashing eyes looking at him, "but you are the most enchanting thing of all. If I were camping out there with no roof but a cedar tree I should be happy in your arms." Bernard stopped still and looked back at her. "Come, then," he said, stretching them out to her, and clasping her to him he covered her face with kisses. "I am mad, I think," he said, "mad with joy at having you out here, you must not make me worse. Come, I will carry you down to supper. I am selfish. You have had nothing to eat for hours." Without trouble he carried her down, and the girl lay against his breast in a dream of delight of the most superb confidence in the fate of her life. CHAPTER XII "BERNARD, how beautiful the world is!" "And how beautiful some things are in it! especially some women!" he answered, laughing, fixing his glad, keen, triumphant eyes upon her. They were sitting side by side, their backs against a fallen tree trunk, with glade beyond glade in the forest open- ing before them, and floating far up above the giant tree tops over their head the fierce unchanging azure of the sky. It was the height of the noonday heat and all was still round them: a burning, sultry silence reigned unbroken, such as broods in the desert and that seemed well suited to the tawny, savage beauty of Nature in this place. It was the wild, free, grand, untameable beauty of America: of spring in Southern Arizona: not the sweet, tender, delicate, vir- ginal beauty of spring in England, with its soft mists of green amongst the newly-budding trees and faint tints of rose and amber in the dewy field flowers, nor yet the glori- ous, triumphant, radiant beauty of the east, the all-con- quering brilliance, the gorgeous wonder of the tropics, but a burning, magnificent, barbaric beauty that belongs to America alone. Rich and fertile as the foliage is, it is not luxuriant and profuse; there is always the suggestion of the desert as the gold sunlight beats on it in the dry, still air: always the suggestion of desolation and solitude in its grand- eur and immensity, always a hint of aridity in its red-glow- ing bluffs pushing up against the fervid blue of the sky. And spring, so dainty and pale and shy in England, looks out upon you boldly here in the arid zone with fierce hot eyes and the torrid sunlight flaming on her brow. Here, 155 156 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Spring comes to no sleeping Nature wrapped in a white pall of snow, as in England, to free it from its chill, frosty bonds with the soft touch of her pale rose fingers. Here, all through the winter, Nature has been warm and alive, full of superb and glowing beauty, throbbing under cloudless skies in the liquid gold of never-ending sunshine. All the winter have the steep, dry slopes blazed with the cedar trees in full glory of golden blossom or of rich purple fruit; all the winter the low-spreading clumps of the manzanita bush have been brilliant with leaves and the gleaming pink and white of its flowers that distilled their heavy fragrance through the dazzling air; ah 1 the winter have the bees hummed merrily and the flowers bloomed and the butterflies floated like wonderful coloured banners over the dry, warm, ruddy, sunlit earth. What then can Spring do in such a land, with such a rival in Winter, except appear in still fiercer beauty, more scorching lights and heats ? The grass springs everywhere, a vivid emerald green, f oh 1 owing some short, wild tempests that she throws upon the earth, and this brilliant emerald carpet replaces the brazen-coloured, parched and withered grass: the days lengthen and the frost no longer gleams silver on the leaves in the sweet, pearly mornings, the birds sing with more frenzied rapture as Spring pours her madness into them, and in the soft, hot nights, from the depths of the forest, come the wild cries of the animals rioting under the magic of her sway. By these signs only and the torrid glare of noon can you know her here from her milder, gentler sister Winter. In England Spring wakes the dormouse from its winter sleep; in Arizona it is the bear that, hungry and desperate, she lures from his rock caves to be her playmate in the fierce yellow heat of the long days. The Chain Valley is un- utterably beautiful with a violent untamed beauty that heats the blood of the few who find their way into it and are privileged to look upon it. As one stands on one of its LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 157 elevated plateaus, a sloping ridge of golden earth between two higher peaks, on which great giant firs stand towering above one's head, thrusting their red boughs and deep emerald foliage into the blue, where the cedar trees stand in the scorching light a blaze of sheer topaz, and the spread- ing manzanita bushes riot round one's feet, with their in- toxicating sweetness weighing on one's senses, one's eyes can sweep round the lilac chain that encloses the favoured valley a hundred miles across and see innumerable lesser peaks and slopes rising and falling, red and scarlet and amber, clothed with the dark fir or the feathery larch or the fiery gold of the cedar, and the valleys are bowls of blue between the hills. Amongst the more rocky peaks lie the great canons which are the peculiar glory of Western America, canons so deep that whole forests grow upon their sides, gigantic fissures between the hills cut in a million years by the spark- ling stream, that now seems gushing so idly, so merrily, along its rocky bed. Sheer and steep are the sides of the canon in places, where the shelving rock gives no foothold even to the war}' feet of the bear, the cougar and the wild cat; at others a larch copse or a fir forest will stretch one velvet slope from the sun-baked ridge above down to the very margin of the crystal stream. Here in these canons, in the hot white nights when the wine of Spring is in all their blood, the wild creatures fight together, sending up weird cries to the sky ablaze with planet and moon and star. Bernard and Lydia were going up through the Chain Valley on horseback towards Flagstaff, where they would go on to the Grand Cation of the Colorado River. It was to be a pleasure trip for them to take the place of the con- ventional wedding journey which they had never had. It was the spring, the busy tune for him, when there was much work on the ranch. Still, he had got away just for this few days' trip, leaving some hired men in charge. To the wife 158 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW of one of them Lydia had entrusted the baby, and they were like two children out together on a holiday, over-running with joyous excitement at their freedom. They mounted their horses again and rode on through the endless green forest that covered the whole of this par- ticular table-land they were traversing, startling the scream- ing blue jays that fled before them, putting the deer to flight from the stream where they had gathered to drink. Sometimes the branches of fir and larch and pine were so thickly intertwisted that no sun penetrated them and all beneath was deep green coolness. They rode on till the evening light filled the sky, and then after riding by a hundred spots as not pretty enough to camp in, they chose one ex- quisite as any bower in a lyric poem. A tiny brook, sparkling and clear between mossy banks and miniature wet beaches, ran by, and near it stood three cedar trees in full golden flower. Between these, growing close to the ground, rich in thick protective foliage, they pitched their bed; they had no need of a tent, but as a protection against the mad skunks which roamed in the forest, they had brought a light wagon-sheet with them, which they fastened to the low, thick-foliaged branches of the cedars; this, secured, touching the ground in the centre, but drawn well up on all sides, they half filled with the fresh, delicious cedar boughs, heavy with perfume and gold blossom, and leaving a loose corner of the wagon-sheet to draw over them for a roof when they were inside, they built as near an imitation of the tomtit's nest as clumsy, bungling man could hope to achieve. This done a crackling fire was soon made up and lighted, formed of the same precious cedar wood, that in burning diffuses a scent-like incense on the still evening air. Their kettle filled at the crystal stream and set on the clear, small flame to boil for the cedar wood burns like some precious substance, hot and red and clear, with a smokeless, or all but smokeless, flame there was nothing more for the moment to do but lie on the fine sandy soil by the trees and look across LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 159 stream and valley and velvet slope to the far-distant lilac hills. That night they slept well in their fragrant tomtit's nest and did not waken, stretched on the springy boughs, till the inquisitive blue jays screeched at them in the morning, when the birds came in their brilliant multitudes to bathe in the brook. CHAPTER XIII IT was just dawn and Aurora stepped across the Eastern sky to unbar the rose-hued gates, leaving footprints of golden light behind her on the soft grey clouds. Over the Grand Canon of the Colorado River hung snowy mists, a swaying sea of white vapour moving a little to one side or the other, rising and falling as the breeze blew thin wraiths of it hither and thither, but always concealing jealously the awful grandeur, the mighty abyssmal depths beneath. The gates in the East were unbarred and a flood of rosy light rushed through the awakening sky. The pine forests awoke, tossing up their branches with glad murmurs to the light, and the whole joyous, beautiful animal world roused itself to the delight of a new day. Shafts of light fell obliquely into the canon, and the whirling mists, pierced by them, grew thinner and more transparent, dissolving impercepti- bly into the pure gold air of the morning. Longer and more brilliant rays shot across the level plain and fell abruptly over the edge into the dark mystery of the canon, as the sun rose steadily and mounted higher in the smiling blue of the waiting sky. And in the full flood of gold the last veil of clinging vapour rose and melted also into clear gold, and the whole wonder and glory of this stupendous master- piece of God lay revealed. It is His masterpiece nothing that language has ever described, nor the mind of man conceived, nor the hand of God created, can surpass the majesty, the wondrous beauty and glory of this one creation. Standing on the extreme edge this great chasm descends a mile deep into the earth. It is thirteen miles across to its opposite edge, while its whole length, receding on either ItJO LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 161 side of one, stretches away a hundred and fifty miles. The canon at dawn is full of a luminous purple-blue gloom: a blue so marvellous in its richness and transparency that its equal does not exist in the known quarters of the world; not in the tints of the Indian Ocean, nor in any Eastern dye, nor in the depths of the desert sky, is there such a brilliant richness of transparent blue darkness as this canon encloses at sunrise and after sunset within its magic walls. As one looks into this home of blue shadow it seems as if the whole world or many worlds were lying spread out, decked hi peculiar glory, at one's feet: for the giant river, the great Colorado, working through millions of years, has cut and carved and shaped and fashioned the rocks into every form and outline that matter can assume, and sink- ing slowly downwards, gradually over its whole thirteen miles of breadth, lowering its bed, cutting deeper throughout those long centuries its beautiful cradle, it has left, as it receded, the marvel of its workmanship. As the sun grows higher and some of its rays touch the yellow sandstone pinnacles, turning them into flaming gold, great cities seem to start into life, below one, in those blue recesses, for the patient water, working on the sandstone, has carved it into thousands of architectural forms. Here there seem palaces massed together and there a Gothic cathedral: spires and arches and domes without number rise one behind another, and there are infinities of smooth terraces, streets and roads between, a whole city with all the beauty of a great city rises up, dazzling, as if built in gold, with the clear blue vapour beneath and round it, and this city is but a pinnacle of sandstone rising from the bed of the river the great builder and it is but one of a million such glorious and magic pinnacles that glow gold and amber and topaz colour, crimson, scarlet and blood red, according to the tint of the sandstone, as the sun touches them. City after city, all the cities of the world surely are here, but much more beautiful than any mortal cities in form and colour, marvels of architecture. 11 162 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Towards eight o'clock, when the strengthening flood of sunlight was pouring down the rocks, dispelling the trans- parent waves of blue vapour, Lydia and Bernard came slowly riding down the narrow trail that, starting from the edge, winds round the crest of gilded and scarlet-tinted pinnacles, clings to this forest-covered slope, follows that glittering sandstone ridge, descending gently mile by mile through the glorious panorama, cleaving the mysterious blue shadows, down into the heart of the canon. Of all the wonders and glories in this exquisite world, on which man is the only blot, this canon, this stupendous work of fantastic archi- tecture, executed by the river alone through millions of past ages, is the supreme crown. Nothing in Nature can sur- pass it, nothing that man has ever achieved can even faintly approach it. Lydia felt a joy rushing through her as she gazed from side to side, such as holy men have represented filling the veins of saints while being wafted to Paradise. Everything commonplace, ordinary, worldly, had been left behind them on the plain above. Here on every side round them was nothing but majestic forms of rock and cliff and ridge, set out in a scheme of vivid and dazzling colour under a stainless sky, with glorious wells and lakes and pools of blue shade to give divine mystery to the whole. The river, the great Colorado, the wonder-worker of it all, was not yet visible. After, in its countless ages of work, it had fashioned this wondrous mighty cradle for itself out of the red and yellow sandstones, it found it had reached hard granite, dark and implacable, and in this it attempted no carving, no exquisite pillar and portal and throne. Straight down for fifteen hundred feet it sank its bed in the granite, and now between these unyielding, impressive walls it rushes on, all-powerful, all-conquering. "Bernard, how wonderful this is! People talk of heaven and fairyland; they need only come here to get both. Don't you think it's wonderful ? And it is so vast! Why, it looks as if all England could drop into one of its valleys and be lost!" LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 163 Bernard, ahead of her on the narrow trail, stopped and looked back. "I thought you would like it," he said, with a pleased smile. The sun was growing hot now, the air was quite still, for little wind drops over the lip of the canon and penetrates its warm and glowing recesses. The shrill clamour of the cicala singing came to them from all sides. A little low and twisted tree clung to the side of the trail and gave them shade as they paused. On each side of them the ridge fell away thousands of feet, sloping down into chasms of clear blue shadow, spanned here and there by a fantastic bridge of rock that, harder than the rest, had resisted the carving tooth of the water, and so was left swung up, high and glit- tering, bridging the space from peak to peak or ridge to ridge, while the chasm beneath grew ever deeper, yielding before the incessant tunnelling out, the worrying, erosive touch of the eddying water. Lydia gazed on the scene silently; never had she felt so lifted out of herself and above all common things. Her gaze leapt about from one dazzling rich point to another over those dark defiles of blue between, from carven gold terrace jutting out over space to isolated pinnacle flashing scarlet in the sun, from rock plateau, on which a colossal Taj Mahal seemed carved in snowy whiteness, to purple pyramid beyond. Every hue is here and every shade and tint, but these only start out in detail when the eye looks for them. The great scheme of colour is crimson and dark blue: that is the dominant note of the whole. Even the birds in the canon are luxurious. On every ledge and pinnacle and terrace they have their baths, of porphyry, of marble, of jade and alabaster they seem, small rounded bowls, carved out by the dexterous waters, smoothed and exquisitely polished in a million years by them, and then left high on the burning rocks where else there would be no reservoirs, no baths for the birds to drink from and bathe in. On the summit of one conical rock that lifted its fiery 164 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW crest from the ocean-like depths of shadowy blue beneath an eagle had built its nest in solitary grandeur, and there on that inaccessible peak, for no ridge of earth, or spur of mountain, or bridge of rock reached out to it, the bird sat brooding on its young, while the male, with wide, out- stretched wings, skimmed away over blue space until he was lost to view amongst the countless grand defiles, the endless vistas of gorges, peaks and mammoth terraces of glittering rock. Lydia gazed upon it all, lost in thought, fascinated, until Bernard's voice roused her. "Yes," she assented, "we must go on. I am longing to see the river itself, the author of all this, the great master: it has painted the greatest picture of the world, executed the greatest piece of sculpture, hasn't it, Bernard ? Is it not wonderful ? Without hands and without eyes it has surpassed all that all the men in the world have ever done." Bernard laughed. He was delighted at her wonder and her praise. "Yes. I haven't seen all the world, but I believe there is nothing like it anywhere. I have never read or heard of anything approaching it." They were going on slowly now, descending : with every quarter of a mile the view changed : new colours, new forms, came before the eye: now one seemed to be looking at the Acropolis of Athens hewn out of solid gold and rising ma- jestically from its clinging veils of clear dark-blue atmosphere; at another turn in the trail the maze of delicate spires of rock, the rounded blocks shaped to circular form, recalled irresistibly the minarets and domes of the East, and from some eminence one seemed gazing at Jerusalem. They went on in silence: words seemed to lose their value, to become so inadequate to express its wonder and its magic, the thin piping of the human voice seemed to profane the great stillness, the awe-inspiring beauty round them. It grew towards noonday and the heat reflected from all sides by burnished stone became intense: the deep blue vapour in the chasms all but disappeared, not to regather in them till after sunset: all was bright, flaming, garish LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 165 colour now and less lovely than the effect at dawn. The afternoon came and they stopped by a group of welcome trees and lunched, then mounted again and pressed on in their descent, longing to come upon the river. When they caught the first glimpse of it, lying, as it seems at that distance, motionless, a dull gold snake, two thousand feet still below them, Lydia felt like a devotee that penetrates the dun recesses of the temple to the idol's shrine. For the last fifteen hundred feet to the actual edge of the water is a straight, clean drop through the black granite, and only by a tiny trail cut in the side, wide enough only for a footway, can one descend lower. They tethered their horses on a green spit of soft turfy land hi a minor canon and then entered singly on foot the dark rocky trail. Little grows here but fierce and savage plants that seem suited to the frowning hardness and blackness of the rocks. As they descended Lydia had to stop many tunes to free her skirts from the great hooked fingers of the giant camel thorn springing from clefts in the granite. Sure-footed and eager she sped on endlessly down and down, it seemed, that narrow, winding, giddy ledge of rock, but at last the lowest depths were reached, the level of the river. The granite cliffs run down straight, uncompromising walls into the actual current, in places, but in others the river has carved out, even of them, coves for itself and made a floor to them of grey sand: in one of these the trail debouches, and when Bernard and Lydia reached this at last and saw the colossal body of water hurl- ing itself along its granite bed, she threw herself flat and put her lips to the margin of the magic flood, as Catholics kiss the feet of St Peter at Rome. They sat on the sand together, silent, awestruck, gazing on the mighty worker whose masterpiece they had seen. Calm on the surface, enormous, irresistible, the river rushes by, so swift in its course that a stick thrown in is swept instantly from sight. In colour it is thick brown gold and it moves by like some solid mass ; there are moments when one can hardly believe that it is water. 166 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "What a contrast this last gorge is to the part above/* murmured Lydia, looking up the straight, black walls of granite. "Above there is such vivid colour, such heat and light, here it is almost cold, and no colours but black and grey and the dull gold of the river itself." They did not dare to stay long in their cove of grey sand for the granite trail in the side of the precipice had to be climbed by the daylight. Lydia would have sat on there incautiously for hours, watching the mighty, resistless rush of the river as it swept by them, stirred by the swirl of air sucked through by it, awed by the force, the hugeness, the solemn silence of it all, but Bernard kept looking at his watch and worrying her about the passing hour, until they were both mounting the trail again, Lydia affected with the same melancholy that invades the Hadji turning away from Mecca. When they reached the green spit of turf between the rocks where their animals were peacefully grazing, the rosy light of approaching evening illuminated all the sky from side to side and the blue glow in the canon's million recesses had come back to them. It is a feature of the canon and it is neither haze nor mist, as sometimes falsely called. The rosy glow of evening is well known, the blue glow of the canon is the same in transparency, in quality, in brilliance, only the colour is dark blue instead of rose. It is the effect of light on the atmosphere and to its depth of transparent colour there is no equal except the clear blood-coloured glow of the Aurora Borealis in northern skies. Under the enchanting evening light the citadel and dome, minaret, terrace, peak and spire, rising up from the bottom of the canon, jutting out from the sides, rising one behind the other in bewildering array, seemed to take on more brilliant colours from the sky. Their summits were bathed daz- zlingly in gold or tipped with flame, while slowly round their bases and in their great dividing chasms rose deeper and ever deeper in tint the dark-blue glow of the atmosphere. For once she was selfish and let Bernard do the work of the camp, while she sat silent, gazing on the scene, trying to LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 167 hold it with her eyes and stamp its image into her memory for ever. Receptive and intelligent as Bernard was she felt it did not mean the same to him as to her. He looked upon it with pleasure and enjoyed it, and there an end. To her it seemed as if its beauty drew her soul through her eyes up to a heaven of which she had never dreamed. The spit of level green land on which they were resting was a shelf, as one might say, in the side of one of the minor canons that the river in its countless windings has left behind. Im- mediately facing her the other side of the canon went up, a straight wall of scarlet sandstone, smooth for a thousand feet, then near the top terraced and battlemented against the radiant sky. Looking down the canon this great wall continued some two thousand yards, then fell back as the gully widened, and rising at the end, majestically placed on a colossal plateau of rock in the midst of a fathomless abyss of blue, one of the magic cities of the canon came into view. The sunset light fell over it and the whole city seemed of solid gold, its domes and spires flashing out a million rays of reflected light. Lydia gazed at it, lost in reverie, and it seemed to her, so perfect was the illusion, that those straight streets between the buildings were peopled; little lights and shadows between the irregularities of the rock gave the idea of figures seen at some distance, and it seemed as if throngs of people were passing up and down its golden ways. In the centre of the city was an open square before one of the great domed buildings, and gazing on this Lydia remembered where she had seen its counterpart, in a picture of Jerusalem, the great square of the temple of Solomon, the Haram es sherif of the Turks. This seemed to be a fortified city, just as Jerusalem is, and in its solid gold walls were arched gates with fretwork and machicolations over them, through which the visionary throngs of people seemed passing to and fro. All round the city floated the unfathom- able, impalpable sea of blue vapour, it alone on its solid plateau of rock stood out brilliant as the sun flooded it. 168 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW As the setting rays shifted and changed over it, new buildings started into view, fresh minarets and spires flashed out, while others sank into gloom as the light left them. Then, as the sun fell to another angle, the whole city became veiled in the mysterious blue vapour, obscure and dim, while instantly beyond, another loftier pinnacle started into sight flaming with fiery red, and a thousand other cities, for miles down the great canon, glowed and gleamed scarlet and amber and topaz out of the blue abyss, rich in dome and spire and fretted arch, a marvellous panorama of all the cities of the world brought before the vision at once. Wonderful illusion, like some gorgeous dream. Lower and lower sank the sun in the roseate sky, higher and higher rose the mystic blue of the canon, floating over carved dome and fretted spires, submerging city after city beneath a transparent sea, till only the loftiest crests of rock, the highest pinnacles, were left still glowing blood red in the light above the magic flood. On this friendly spit of land Bernard made their camp, lit their fire and then came and sat by her. Silent, side by side, they watched the phantom glory shift and change about them. It was hot here with tropic heat and stillness: not a sound came to them save the incessant song of the cicala from every rock and bush. Overhead the sky flashed and changed from pale rose to gold and tranquil green, from blood red back to faint rose, and in it, luminous, in pink glow, behind a great fretted minaret of crimson rock, ap- peared suddenly the moon, an enormous transparent disc; pale and frail as white tissue it floated up into their sight through the warm-hued sky. They drank their tea and ate their simple meal, and then, unrolling the two Navajo blankets they had brought, stretched themselves on them in the open. There was no fear of rain; a multitude of stars already sparkled faintly in the resplendent sky. There was no thought of cold, as the heat stored up by the rocks in the day steals fiercely out at night. Bernard, worn out with the long toil of the day, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 169 threw his arms about her, put his head down on her shoulder, and after a murmured "Glorious night, isn't it?" fell asleep, but Lydia, though she lay still, could not sleep. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at those wondrous heavens stretched above this wonder of the earth. A great planet, like a casement put open in the sky, letting through a burst of silver light, was before her eyes, and she watched it rising slowly behind the domes and castles of the canon. The whole sky was spangled over with stars, but none had the lustre and size of this one, and waking constantly \hrough that still hot night from her excited sleep she met the light from it again and again in different places as the sky swung on in the night, but always fascinating, magical. "How happy I am!" she thought. "How delightful is life and the world." CHAPTER XIV THE yellow sunlight fell all about the ranch, blazing in golden glory on the south front which looked across the valley to the steep-wooded ranges beyond. It was very still, with the solemn, brilliant stillness of Arizona and that glorious peace which reigns wherever man, with all his hate- ful attributes, is absent. Lydia sat against the house front looking south, through the burnished light, out to the mighty ranges submerged in their sapphire-tinted haze. The sun felt warm on her face and bosom, all over her, and on her little feet stretched out in it. She was not afraid of it, and it seemed to caress her, touching all her beauty of cheek and eye and hair and finding no fault anywhere. She sat very still and the black pigs came and trotted past her, and a chipmunk sat close to her by the wall of the house, eating undisturbed. She was thinking, It was her birthday. She was twenty-three years old. Six years had gone by since she had come out to the ranch, six years of golden days, slipping silently one after another, running with swift, shining, noiseless feet past her, never to be recalled or to return. She could not tell why, but this afternoon her thoughts had a strange activity: her soul seemed rising within her, calling her to account, demand- ing what she had done hour by hour of all that golden tune, and with a strange sort of fear and anxiety possessing her she went carefully back in memory over that period, scanning it, weighing it, impelled by a feeling of necessity to examine it. It seemed incredible that six years had gone by, but there were the dates. She was twenty-three and she had only been seventeen when she came out, but these six years 170 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 171 had not added to her knowledge of Life, not given any joys and delights she had not known before. At seventeen she had known what it was to work, to love, to be loved, to be a wife and mother. She knew no more now. She had had Bernard's love and passion then, she had it now: she had made a deeper acquaintance with pain in her various child- bearings, she had worked unremittingly, there had been ceaseless daily toil from day to day. She had had more of the things she had already been familiar with, but nothing new, nothing fresh, and it struck her suddenly that in six years Life should have done more for her than this. She went carefully over the time. How she had worked! How Bernard had worked! It was a life of toil. For him outside, for her inside, the house, rising in the dark and working till the dark came round again. So had they kept the ranch prosperous and the house a model as it stood now clean and trim with the sun bright in each corner without a speck of dust to sparkle in its ray. How she had suffered too! What agonies, three times in those six years, to bear her children, and then what mental grief she had gone through in that one fierce summer which had swept away the three youngest in spite of her ceaseless care; and now it was all past, the six years had gone and she sat there, the same, with the same house behind her, the same blue ridges in front, the same child she had had at seventeen, the same husband, still the same beauty and health, that was, as yet, unmarred, untouched and nothing to show for her six years. That longing for Life as a whole, to know and experience it in all its countless different forms, that is common to human minds at least some human minds and is like the breath of a god stirring the brain, swept over her now as it had done at the London station six years before. And a sudden terror grew up in her, as it had done then, only now it was wilder, more desperate, to think she had pledged herself irrevocably to know only this one phase of existence, to look only on this single facet of the great, sparkling, wonderfully cut jewel we call Life. 172 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW She felt resentment against Bernard; he had induced her, at sixteen, to promise all sorts of things to him that would be held binding on her all her life long. He had been more than thirty, she reflected, when they married, and had already held the jewel in his hands, turning it over and seeing its various lights and colours for as many years as she had lived altogether, before he bound himself to her. When was she to see those other lights and colours ? Never ? In their marriage, too, she thought next, he had gained more than she had and paid less. She had given him her youth and six splendid years of her health and strength; she had worked for him, lived for him, and for their mutual passion she had submitted to days of agony, to the sacrifice of her health, to the burden of the children when they came. He, while he also had worked all that time, had worked no more than would have been necessary had he been on the ranch alone. It seemed to her kind heart hard and selfish to think of all these things and put them so to herself, but there was something stirring within her to-day that she could not understand nor repress. She went back in memory to the evening of her first coming out here. That lovely evening, just such a one as this, all amber lights and deep gold reflections and blue depths of distance, the enchantment of the scene, the spell upon the senses, the ardour of their passions, the mystic violet night when she had felt again, after her year's absence, his arms about her, pressing her to his leaping heart. But then it had all been so new and had possessed the magic of new things. Now for six years she had seen the amber light play on the eternal hills and the sapphire evening close over them, night after night, she had been clasped by those passionate arms, but the fires were less and the magic had gone. In all those six years she had had very little time to give to her books that she had begun to love with such strong passion at Tunbridge; only a stray hah* hour, very rarely, here and there, could she bestow upon them, and sometimes when employed in her ceaseless, never-varying, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 173 manual toil she would feel a wild brain hunger stir her almost to madness. Bernard, never very deeply intellectual, in those six years had become more and more engrossed in the work of the ranch, less and less interested in anything outside that. His conversation in the evenings, when he was not too tired to speak at all, was always on the price of cattle, the state of the grass, the fencing that was down in the pasture, the possibility of the rail approaching nearer them. He seemed less and less able to respond to his wife on any abstract theme, less receptive of her ideas, less comprehensive of anything outside their own life. Clever, keen and energetic as he was in everything concerning the ranch and its interest, the artistic and intellectual side of his brain seemed going to sleep, while that of his wife's was waking up, growing more and more restless, eager for food and exercise, with each barren year that went by. Lydia found it quite im- possible to explain to him the terrible aching hunger of the intellect that was with her all day long. The yearning to read and think, to let the mind fly out as a falcon, over the plains of reflection, of thought, of discussion, to give it light, air, food. No, he could not understand that the minds of some people need this just as much as the body. Had he seen his wife suffering bodily starvation he would have been distressed beyond all measure, had he seen her cheeks pale for want of fresh air he would have exerted himself super- humanly that she might get out to the pine woods and walk freely there, but that her poor, netted mind, struggling for freedom, in this mass of petty duties, cried and fought and bled within her, like an eagle in the toils, he never faintly realised, nor could he very well have done, so completely unknown to himself was such a mental state. How often in the deathly stillness of those long, work- filled afternoons did that brief glimpse she had had of London recur to her. London! Sometimes she breathed the word aloud to herself in the quiet room, with a strange beating of the heart, and listened awestruck to its sound. 174 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Sometimes an agonised longing swept over her to walk out of the open door, walk onward, always onward, away from the valley, still on somewhere, seeking she knew not what. It was the wild impetus of the human mind seeking a companion, the mad desire of the soul for the fire as well as the clay, for the song as well as the prose of Life. Suddenly coming up towards her, through the wonderful topaz light of the evening, she saw her husband approaching. Fine, strong and powerful, straight as one of his own young pines, he looked a noble specimen of life at its best. He was whistling to himself, the sun struck on his white forehead and nose and white throat, where the blue jean shirt opened at the neck. His dress, consisting of heavy riding-boots coming up above the knee, overalls thrust into the top, a heavy leather belt round the waist, and the huge sombrero of soft grey felt, had a certain rough picturesqueness which harmonised well with his own fine type of physique and the barbaric splendour of the scene. Lydia, looking at h m with a smile, sprang to her feet, remembering that while she had been dreaming there the grate was empty in the kitchen, the water cold in the well, even the wood not brought in, nor the kitchen wood-basket filled; she could not give him his tea instantly as usual and as he would expect. She had dared for one afternoon to sit still, to be idle, to think, and as a consequence the whole machinery of their being had stopped still. In a life like this each second brings its duty, its imperative necessity for labour; not one mouthful to eat not a draught of water, can be obtained till the due amount of work is performed. In a moment Bernard was beside her. "Oh, I am so sorry!" she exclaimed. "I have for- gotten everything this afternoon, nothing is ready for you. I am so sorry." Bernard looked at her for a moment and then laughed. He had a sunny, good-tempered disposition, partly due to his splen- did health, and the idea of anyone forgetting their necessary daily work seemed to him rather amusing than reprehensible. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 175 "Well, never mind," he answered. "We'll soon get our tea. Got the fire started ? " "No." "Is there any wood in ?" "No, I have done nothing. I began thinking. I for- got everything." Bernard stopped short. "Has anything happened?" he asked, looking round. It was characteristic of their life that he should feel something extraordinary must have occurred to make any- one sit still and think. "Nothing, no, nothing; it was all my fault. I have never kept you waiting before, have I ?" "Never," he answered, smiling upon her. "You work tremendously. Sit down. I'll get the tea for a change." But Lydia had seized the kettle and run out to the well. In a second he heard the pump handle creaking. He laughed again and went out, whistling, to the wood shed. At the end of half an hour's work by both of them the fire was blazing, the kettle boiling, and their tea on the table. "Bernard, I've been thinking I should so like to go away from here with you for a change and travel," she said, when he was drinking it, comfortably ensconced in the armchair opposite her. "You see we have only the one child now, we are both young and well and strong, we should so enjoy it. Do you think we could possibly manage it?" "Well, we could, if we sold the ranch, but I am afraid that's impossible; even then the income from the money we should get would hardly allow us to travel." "You'd like it, wouldn't you?" "Yes, very much, but it's out of the question for us, I am afraid. I couldn't expect to get much more than len thousand pounds for this place if I could sell it." "Ten thousand pounds," repeated Lydia, softly. "Well, if we spent that we could have five years' travel. Think, Bernard, for two thousand a year we could go everywhere, we could live splendidly and see heaps of places go all over 176 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW the world in five years. Oh, it -would be such fun." Her eyes glowed, and her velvet cheeks dimpled. In imagina- tion she saw before her many of the pictures she had dwelt upon in her books. Turkey, with its white palaces rising from the Bosphorus; India, with its ancient civilisations; London, with its wonderful life of the present. The vista of movement, change, enchanted her fancy. Bernard laughed. "Yes, but if we spent it all in five years, at the end we should have nothing no money, no ranch, we should have to begin at the very beginning again." "Well, then we could work hard every day, just as we do now. But we should have had five years' holiday!" "But with no capital, you see, we should have to work for other people instead of being our own masters and work- ing for ourselves, and having our own house and land. No, that would be quite impossible. All we could do would be to travel on our income, which I am afraid would be too small." "Yes, I suppose so," she answered dully. She was looking into the fire, over which the iron kettle swung merrily. The visions of life faded slowly from her gaze between the red coals. "I expect we shall have to stay here for always," she said gloomily, after a minute. "I don't see any way out of it," he answered. "Every- thing goes on first rate with the ranch while I am here, and we get a comfortable living out of it, but if I were away it would all go to pieces. But we might get away in the middle of the summer or middle of the winter for a time. We might go to places near here, the Yosemite Valley, for instance that's lovely, or the Grand Canon again. We might do that for a change." "That would be nice," murmured Lydia, "but we should have to come back?" "Yes, of course we should have to come back," he answered. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 177 Lydia was silent, and kept her eyes away. It was not what she wanted, going away for a little while, and then eternally coming back to this same spot, like a bird tethered by the leg. Youth never wants to come back, it loves going forward, pressing on to the new, the unknown. There was no time then for more conversation, for all the cows had to be milked before dark, and Bernard started off to get the pails as soon as he had finished his tea, and Lydia had to clear away and wash the cups and prepare the supper, which she did, with a curious absent look on her face, as if her mind were far away. She did not renew the conversation at supper nor after. There was something within her struggling for expression but she did not quite know how to express it, and the few moments after their supper, before eight, when they went to bed, Bernard gave up to looking through some illustrated papers just arrived by the mail. He laughed so over some jokes and seemed so thoroughly comfortable and satisfied with his existence, it seemed to Lydia selfish to disturb him with her wandering fancies. The autumn passed, a vision of glory, a blaze of splendour, and winter closed in. Not the winter of a northern clime; a winter of sunny days when the temperature stood at 70 as long as the sun was up. But still they were short and the nights were long and cold, the mornings and evenings dark and frosty, and towards the middle of the winter there were heavy snowfalls. Lydia lived mechanically. Once or twice she spoke to Bernard about their going away and he indulgently took her view and thought they should get a change, though it might strain their finances a little, but the Yosemite Valley and the Grand Canon were both closed by the snow in the winter time; there was nowhere they could very well go just then, so after a little talk and discussion it was agreed nothing could be arranged for the moment, and they settled that after the spring work on the ranch was over they would go away for a holiday the following summer, 12 CHAPTER XV IT was evening. A bright fire sparkled in the big grate of the sitting-room, and Lydia, sitting at one side of the hearth, watched the warm red light leaping from one familiar object to another in the room. On the opposite side of the fire, in the other deep armchair, lay Bernard, asleep; dead tired, worn out with a day of the hardest kind of work, begun at three that morning, he lay motionless, soundless, wrapped hi a blank dead sleep with his head resting on the high arm of the chair towards the fire. Lydia 's eyes rested on him meditatively at times in their wanderings round the room, and saw how the bright red light made the gold threads in the thick brown hair shine and how softly it fell on the firm white outlines of the face. He was just as handsome as he had always been, but those red-gold threads were no longer like cords attached to her heart, making it leap with wild pleasure as they tugged at it. Who shall explain that departing of power to excite passion from familiar things ? She was too kind-hearted to wake him, nor did she even wish to do so. Had she wakened him it would only be for him to suggest they should go to bed, and sleep was far from Lydia's eyes and brain. She felt wild, mad, that night, as she sat so quietly opposite him in the tidy, com- fortable room; wild with longing for the greater gifts of life, mad with desire for a change, for mental light and air, mad to knock open a door somewhere in these straight narrow walls of her life and step into some field without of freedom and action. She had risen at the same time as her husband in the cold dark of the whiter morning and worked as hard as he had done all day, but now, though 178 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 179 her body was tired, her brain was on fire, the strong restless brain she had inherited from her father, a brain not suited to the hard-working, simple lives of the poor. That wanted food and exercise too, and in a life like hers there was no time, no opportunity to attend to its wants. She had read all the week's illustrated papers through and laid them aside, she had tried to get up a discussion with Bernard on a letter in the Times, but poor Bernard, tired to death and sleepy, and with no fire in his brain, had listened with a sort of apathetic admiration to her brilliant, animated talk, without response. At last Lydia had lapsed into silence, a dangerous burning silence of thought, and Bernard, re- lieved, had dropped quietly to sleep. Now she sat revolving the peaceful scene, the quiet day just passed, the quiet even day that would take its place to-morrow and for a hundred, two hundred to-morrows in succession. They would not be able to go to England that year, nor anywhere, money was too short. She glanced down on herself in the firelight. She had hurried over her work that afternoon, and full of the strange, nameless excitement that came over her so often now, had run upstairs to dress early, and spent more time on her toilet than usual. She had put on her best dress, a dull red cloth, which fitted her admirably, and a high white collar round her slim, distinguished-looking neck; she had piled up the shining, waving masses of her black hair on her head with care, and looking into her glass when ready to come down had recognised that she was a wonderfully beautiful object to look at. Bernard had kissed her as usual on coming in, but he was so accustomed to her looking well and he looked at her so perpetually, all yesterday, and the days before stretching back for ages, and she would be there of course to look at to-morrow and the next day, and the day after that for ages, so there was no particular reason why he should keep awake to look at her that evening. Therefore he quietly dropped to sleep. Lydia understood it all. She did not blame him. She understood everything, but oh, how this mad fire burnt in her, sitting in that stillness, only 180 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW broken by the sedate, regular ticking of the large clock on the wall and the crackling of the fire. How she longed for something to happen, for the walls to fall flat, for people, for voices, for music, for movement, for conversation, for laughter, for excitement, for the whispers and the blushes that hide the passions, for the noise of a great city, for the leaping of another heart against her breast as the arms steal round, for the kiss, for the dance, for large rooms, over the floors of which her feet could glide, for changing scenes, for floods of light, for hurrying motion, in a word for Life. She thought of the early days of passion with Bernard and her whole being throbbed, then she saw herself driving fast in a hansom through London streets, lighted, and in the whirl and roar of the traffic. Then the railway plat- form came before her the bookstall and the man's figure that had been standing there, his face, how clear it was to her, that look he had thrown upon her. It had burnt into her brain never to be effaced. Suddenly, in the soft black quiet of the night outside there was the sound of wheels on the road which stopped abruptly, with a heavy grind, by the house. Lydia sprang to her feet, electrified in every quivering fibre, and stood listening. Yes, the bar of the yard gate was being lifted. Something was going to happen, someone, some strangers, were coming to put up at the ranch. For a moment she did not stir, stand- ing looking down on Bernard, who continued to sleep tran- quilly. Then she heard some voices, and she ran to the door, tearing it wide open, letting a great stream of golden, ruddy light out into the yard, where the snow lay lightly powdered on everything. She leant forward and looked out, her heart leaping in her breast with joyous excitement. A four-wheeled wagon with two horses had already entered the yard, and seeing her, the driver turned his horses' heads to the door. "Good-evening, ma'am. Is this Chetwynd's ranch?" he asked, and looking up at the wagon, which was a covered one, Lydia saw three heads, and three faces rather white LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 181 and cold-looking, peer anxiously out at her. The cold air streaming in and the sense of confusion roused Bernard, who came to the door and then passed by his wife into the yard. "Yes, this is Chetwynd's ranch. Come in, whoever you are, and have supper," he said at once, going up to the wagon at the side and beginning to unfasten the cover flaps. The driver jumped down and began to unharness the horses. Lydia saw the figures rise and move in the wagon, and as the flaps were put up a quantity of small luggage was dis- closed at the back. Bernard shouted to the driver to take his horses out and put them into the stable at the other side of the yard; the ranch dogs came up, barking and wagging their tails at the same time, confused by so much unusual excitement. One by one the figures jumped down from the side of the wagon, two men and a woman, the latter of whom was carefully helped down last. They all wore soft felt deer-stalking hats and were wrapped in long rough travelling cloaks. Lydia heard them laugh and make some disjointed remarks to each other, and knew at once by the clear tones and soft timbre of their voices they were English and of the higher English ranks. Out of the great world, from home, from England, from London, from the great shop of the world, they had come, and all her pulses bounded with joy, the very flesh of her body seemed to tingle as she saw them approaching towards her over the snow-covered ground, the dogs leaping and snuffing round them. They would bring her again into touch with Life. She felt as the sinking swimmer in the sea as he grasps the end of the line flung to him. He is not on the steamer, but the other end of the cord is, and hope and new strength rushes into him along it. Both men raised their hats as they came up to where Lydia stood in the warm blaze of light from the room be- hind her. "This is a great intrusion, I am afraid." "No, indeed, you are most welcome, we are so delighted to see strangers here," Lydia answered, stretching out her 182 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW hand American fashion. "Come in to the fire. You must be frozen, driving to-night." "How delightful this is," the woman exclaimed, as they all poured over the threshold. She was quite young, with a pale, oval, high-bred face, stamped with a curious used-up, weary expression; one of the men, who might have been her father, was tall, with that peculiar distinctive carriage and air that marks the soldier, and the other man As Lydia's eyes fell on him in the full light of the bright room, lights, fire, faces, all seemed to die out and a huge booming sound filled her ears. She was back again on the station platform at the bookstall. This was the same man, the same face, that had glanced at her for a moment there and remained clear in her memory and sometimes thought of since. She recognised instantly, the rather thin, handsome features, the pale level eyebrows, the quiet, long, blue-green eyes, the smooth, light hair, the lines of much passed through and passions repressed, she had noticed then. For a second the shock, the surprise, the refusal of her reason to believe in such a curious coincidence, paralysed her, but her sudden silence and pause only seemed to the rest like a momentary embarrassment, and the woman of the party broke it up by asking if she might take off her wraps. Lydia immediately recovered herself. "Yes, please do, and take this chair," she said, "and won't you take off your overcoats and sit down," she added, turning to the men. "Of course you will stay with us now ? We have plenty of room." "Well, we have our tents with us, we intended to camp here if we'd got in earlier; we don't like the idea of putting you out," the elder man answered. Lydia laughed, and just then Bernard appeared in the doorway, bringing in a light yellow handbag in each hand. "Where are the guns?" said the girl, springing up from the big chair suddenly and standing with her hands thrust down into the pockets of her long travelling coat that still hung loosely on her. "Do, Mr Chetwynd, see that the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 183 man takes them out carefully; we've had one broken already." "I'll bring them myself," answered Bernard, setting down the bags and disappearing. The driver came in next with a small leather portmanteau and a bundle of bedding. Then Bernard came back, struggling with a collection of gun cases, and the men went forward to help him. "That's right, Pelham, stack them up, they'll take less room like that," Lydia heard the older man say. In a few minutes, when some cases of provisions, tenting and tent poles had been added, the whole end of the room was pretty well filled up. Lydia gazed on the handsome yellow leather luggage with a curious feeling of pleasure. Scratched and battered with hard usage as it was it spoke, like its owners, of those other mysterious spheres of life far from that which revolves on an American ranch. "I should like just to see that the horses are all right," said the man whom Lydia had heard called Pelham. "All right, come out and see them in the stable," said Bernard, and he and Pelham disappeared. "I think there ought to be some introductions," remarked the woman, stretching out her feet to the fire and looking up at Lydia with a laugh. "This is my husband, Colonel Bristowe, and my name is Kate Bristowe, and the other man is Eustace Pelham, camping with us. We were told there was only Mr Chet- wynd and Mrs Chetwynd on the ranch, so I suppose you are Mrs Chetwynd ? You see, I am trying to be quite American. The Americans have a perfect passion for introductions, haven't they, and for 'locating' you. Can you 'locate' us now, do you think?" Lydia laughed. "Perfectly, I think, thank you," she answered. "I was quite sure you were all English when I first heard you speak, and that was quite 'location' enough for me. You can't possibly camp anywhere to-night, it's too late," she added, stirring the fire into a still stronger blaze, "and I do wish you 184 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW would decide to stay here, instead of in camp, all the time you are in the district. Have you had good shooting up till now?" "Perfectly abominable," answered Mrs Bristowe, re- signedly, "haven't we, Jack? We've been about in the hills round here for a month now, and only got one wretched deer. We've been nearly starved too, living on oatmeal and tea. The people round here always told us 'there's deer here, there's deer there' and we've religiously followed their directions, but we have never even seen any except this one miserable doe, and that Pelhain luckily shot." "I'm sorry; there are lots of deer, I know, round about, but they're difficult to find. I suppose you drove up from Longridge now did you come in that way ?" "Yes, we came in from Longridge. They told us your place was only twenty-five miles off, but it seemed like ninety-five, with that cold snow driving in our faces. But we're well rewarded now we're here," she added, looking round the large, well-ordered, well-furnished, well-lighted room. "You have got a comfortable place here and I can't believe you're quite alone. You must keep a dozen servants locked up somewhere." Lydia laughed and flushed. "No, really, we have no servants, we do everything ourselves. You can't get servants here, or if you do by chance, they want a dollar a day at the least, and then they are so troublesome, they want to be your equal and sit with you and eat with you and all that." Bernard and Pelham came back just as she finished speaking, and the others made room for them at the hearth. "I will see to the supper, Lydia, if you will get the rooms ready for them," Bernard said, and Lydia, with a smiling excuse, took up one of the lamps and left the room. She went upstairs to the two unused rooms on the same floor as her own, and entering one set down the lamp on the table, closed the door, and then sank down on a chair by the dressing-table. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 185 She felt neither the great cold of the room nor thought of her errand. She was absorbed for the moment in the strangeness of it all. The Israelites walked round Jericho, wishing the walls to fall flat, and the accommodating walls are reported to have done so. Not more astonishing was her wild longing for Life this evening, and this sudden inroad of Life, in the shape of these strangers, upon her. Her walls had fallen flat indeed. And this man, this Pelham, that out of all the five millions in London, the one, the particular one she had seen and noted, should be the one to come to this out-of-the-way nook of the world, thousands of miles from the place where she had seen him before ! And his look at her! Doubtless he did not recognise her, a woman seen once in a crowd at a bookstall, but Lydia knew the look. It was the same she had felt upon her then : the same rather cold admiration, the same reserved interest, the same arrested attention. And Lydia, sitting in the empty, half-lighted room, seemed to feel the blood rise as a tide in her veins and then pour in a scarlet stream over all her face, for she knew she was beautiful and that she could command, com- pel, this man's admiration and interest the same as she could any man's, but never, never had she cared for any as she felt wondering and surprised at herself that she did for this. No, no: rapidly she looked back over the road of life she had traversed, back to the days at Anderson's Farm; never had she cared like this. When she had seen Bernard she had admired him, coveted him eventually as she had the big, sawdust-body doll in the shop, and she had accepted his love and passion gladly, gaily, naturally, without thought. But this great interest that the stranger's face awoke in her, this sudden, excessive wish that he should look at her, see her, admire her, just the same wish that had swept over her at the station, what was it? Why did she feel it? Where did it come from ? She hated it. It humiliated her. Was it only because he seemed so representative of the life she always really had leant to and coveted ? The life of the city ? The life of gentlepeople who had others to work for them 186 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW and were surrounded by gentlepeople instead of the common, stupid people she had to meet ? The life to which her hus- band belonged and to which she always had some vague feeling that she belonged too? No, it wasn't that, because the old Colonel downstairs was as distinguished, as much a representative of the class as this other man, and Lydia felt that the old Colonel might look at her all day with the most undisguised admiration and she would not even feel pleased. No, it was some special influence that the other possessed. Some power in the glance that was inexplicable, unreasonable, intangible, and yet could not be denied. She stretched out her hands from her suddenly, in the cold dim air, as if warding off a blow or some horrible sight. Then a burst of laughter reached her from below and she recollected how much she had to do. And for him. For this man Pelham. He was her guest, dependent upon her. The great bounding tide in her blood was flowing hard now. She rose to her feet and looked round. This was the best room. He should have it. She ran to the linen chest out- side, where the linen was kept after drying and airing, and got out sheets, toilet covers, lace curtains, hooks and pins. Her hands and feet flew to do her bidding. Long practice had made her deft and active. In a short time she had the curtains up in both rooms, the beds made, and the toilet covers spread. All that was left now was the laying and lighting of the fires. She brought in baskets of wood from the wood cupboard outside and laid and lighted them, waiting till they had burnt up. Then she raced downstairs with a jug in each hand to fill at the pump in the yard. She went out at the back door and so passed round outside the dining-room, where she could tell by the voices and laughter they had all gathered. The water was unfrozen and hi a few minutes she was up in her rooms with the filled jugs. She heaped some more wood on the fire in the Colonel's room and looked round quite satisfied. Then she passed into Pelham 's, and holding the lamp above her head surveyed it thoughtfully. Could she do anything more? It looked LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 187 bright and cheerful enough now with the fire roaring up the chimney and the light dancing over the room, from the spot- less curtains at the window to the large comfortable bed and the cushioned rocking-chair. Yes, there was that little bare table in the centre. She ran to her own room, stripped from the table there its bright, pretty blue cloth and vase full of red, frost-bitten leaves gathered that morning, and brought them into Pelham's room. These arranged upon the table she rinsed her hands in her room, and turning down the lamp, ran downstairs. They were all seated at the long, narrow table in the dining-room when she entered. Pelham saw her come in and rose to offer her his chair. "Don't move, please," she said, pushing another up for herself beside his. "We have had supper before. We only want to wait upon you." Bernard sat opposite, between the Colonel and Mrs Bristowe, pouring out tea for them into great half -pint cups. The driver of the wagon sat down at the end of the table and made Lydia suddenly think of the days at Anderson's Farm when she used to sit lonely at the end of the table, far from all the best dishes, and she determined to look after him. The table was crowded with all Bernard had been able to find in the safes and cupboards, and there was never any lack of food at the ranch. Great bowls of milk, large as washing basins, stood in the centre; cold fowl, cold ham, a whole one cured and boiled by themselves, cold veal and plates of rolls, cakes and bread in abundance, were grouped round them, with jars of jam and tins of jelly bought in Longridge and considered a luxury. Two big lamps and the blazing fire which Bernard had made up in the stove lighted the kitchen and the table from end to end. The unfamiliar, pleased faces in the bright light, the voices and laughter mingling with the humming of the great kettle on the stove, all formed a general harmony which fell pleasingly on Lydia's senses. "Well, the question is," Mrs Bristowe was saying, "are there any deer in this valley, or not?" 188 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "It's always considered a good place for hunting," answered Bernard. Mrs Bristowe laughed. "You remind me of the tale of the stranger who came to these parts and was informed there was good hunting in the neighbourhood. " 'Is there?' he said, very pleased. 'What sort of game is there ? ' " ' Game ? Oh, there isn't any game, just plain huntin'.' "Well, we've had 'plain huntin' for a month now and are rather tired of it." The others all laughed, and Bernard answered. "I'll tell you what it is. You go out to-morrow and have a hunt round here, and if you don't find any deer we'll see if we can't take you up to the Chain and find some there.' 1 "All right: that's a bargain. What time shall we start to-morrow, Eustace ? " she said, looking across at Pelham. It struck Lydia disagreeably the use of the Christian name, and she looked curiously at the small, pretty, but hard and tired-looking face opposite her. "As early as possible, if you want to get anything," Pel- ham answered. "I don't know whether I'll go to-morrow," remarked Mrs Bristowe, suddenly. "Suppose you and Jack go with- out me, and I'll stay with Mrs Chetwynd and learn some- thing about ranching." She glanced at Lydia with a very winning and pleasant look and Lydia smiled. "Do," she answered. "I shall be delighted. I am generally alone all day." "And if you don't bring back a whole family in the evening, buck, doe and fawn, we'll go up to the Chain, right away, as they say here. Fill up my cup, Mr Chetwynd. Thank you." Pelham ate very little, but the others seemed to try everything on the table and enjoy it fully. The supper was a much longer meal than the Chetwynds generally made it LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 189 and Lydia saw poor Bernard's eyes getting sleepy again as he listened to Mrs Bristowe's incessant chatter. "We've had a splendid supper," she remarked finally, as they all rose, "so different from the camp oatmeal. Good- night, Mr Chetwynd, you've been most good to the wayfarers." Lydia, with one of the lamps in her hand, preceded the Colonel and his wife to their room. The fire had burnt low and a rred glow lay on everything. Mrs Bristowe pressed her hand warmly. "Good-night. Thanks immensely for all you have done for us," and Lydia left them. She went into Pelham's room and crossed to the fire, to put more logs on. As she turned from the hearth she heard his step ascending, and with a curious interest she stood still and waited. As he opened the door the flames leapt up to receive the new wood and the whole room was filled with burnished, dancing light. "I really can't bear to give you all this trouble," he said, as he came into the room. The tones were very soft, the voice insinuating, caressing, and it struck strangely on Lydia, who was accustomed to simple, clear, direct speech used only as a means of conveyance of words. She had no knowl- edge of it as it is used by certain classes of men and women, as a vehicle for all sorts of meanings, emotions and passions. Some men and women kiss with their voice when they cannot with their lips, and can stroke softly with certain tones when they dare not reach out their hand. Pelham was one of these. It struck Lydia, rather with a sense of displeasure, but yet it forced her attention, and compelled her to wish to listen. "It is no trouble," she said, looking at him with eyes large and velvet like in the red light, and a rich soft bloom like the damask rose in her cheeks. Pelham, standing a little distance from the hearth, looked at her meditatively. "Have I ever seen you before?" he asked gently. "It seems to me I have, that I know your face." 190 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Yes," answered Lydia, with direct simplicity, "when I was seventeen, coming out here for the first tune, I saw you at the bookstall of Euston railway station." "Really?" answered Pelham. "Was it there that I saw you ? Do you remember me ?" "I have never forgotten you," Lydia answered. She did not herself realise the tremendous flattery of the admission she was making, nor the effect it would have on him. She was simply stating fact after fact. Pelham 's face did not alter. The calm gravity of the expression remained unchanged. But the voice when he spoke again was still more full of insidious flattery. It seemed to Lydia almost like a small steel blade that sank into her flesh, yet so deftly inserted that it slid between muscles and veins and made no pain in its passage. "Why did you notice me particularly ?" he asked. "What were the circumstances? I knew I had seen your face before, but can't even now recall the scene where it was." "You were just standing by the bookstall at the station and looked at me as I came up to buy a paper. Perhaps you were going somewhere by train. It was in the winter, six years ago. As to remembering you, you struck me very much as being so different from all the people I knew and yet as belonging to a life in which I should have liked to have been born. I can't quite explain myself," she said, breaking off, and with a flush, as she realised suddenly she was talking what must seem the greatest nonsense to this stranger. "I think you explain yourself very well," he said, smiling. "Six years ago I daresay I was going somewhere on a shoot and we did not speak to each other ?" "Oh, no," said Lydia, in surprise. "We were just stand- ing together for a moment in the crowd, that was all. Well, I must not stay talking to you and keeping you up," she broke off hastily. " Good-night." "Good-night," he answered, putting out his hand. She felt compelled, obliged to put hers into it, though she shrank LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 191 from the sound of his "Good-night." It was too much like a caress, and without exactly realising why she wanted to resent it, she did so want, but yet could not. He held her hand in his in a quiet, gentle clasp. "Is it not very strange that Destiny should have sent me out here so far from London to find you again?" lie asked softly. She looked up at him, conscious of an immense sense of pleasure filling her through her eyes, as they took in his tall, slight figure, his distinguished head and neck, the grave face with its fine features, the curious interesting expression of power and experience on it all. She withdrew her hand in silence, not knowing what to answer, and moved towards the door. "I hope you will have everything you want," she said a little stiffly. "Good-night," and she went out, shutting the door quietly after her. The passage was cold and perfectly dark outside, but a line of light lay under her husband's door opposite. She crossed to it and entered softly. The lamp was left burning for her, but Bernard, as she anticipated, had gone to bed and was already sound asleep. She went up to him and looked down on the head and face half buried in the pillow. It was, in a way, as handsome as the one she had just been looking up at, but what a curious difference of expression there was. In Bernard's face, so bright, so open, so candid, all seemed on the surface, so easily to be read, the fine char- acter, the bright, strong intellect. On this other all seemed obscure, dark; the character of the man, his life, his actions, his motives, his feelings, all seemed packed away behind those deep, tired lines, those calm, level eyebrows. Lydia turned away, shading the light from Bernard's face, and sat down by the table. Her body ached all over with fatigue, but her brain seemed alight and sleepless. It seemed to her to be like a fire, and the thoughts leapt and sprang about in it just as the little flames play over the coals in a grate. CHAPTER XVI THE afternoon of the second day following found the whole party, except Bernard, slowly winding their way up the scarped side of the mountain, from the sheltered valley to the Chain, where they were going to make a temporary camp it was hoped, in the heart of the game country. Bernard had been coming with them, but at the last moment his work had claimed him. Some of the cattle had broken loose on the ranch and had to be re-coralled, and he had hurriedly told his wife to go up with their guests alone. The last day's hunting had been quite unfruitful, and the men had returned at nightfall, tired and cross and empty-handed, to the women waiting for them. Bernard had then sug- gested the expedition to the Chain or rim the high table- land that lay round the deep valley, or basin, like the edge of a bowl, and two of the best hunters in the district had been requisitioned from another ranch to conduct the party, as it was easy to get lost in the wild forests of the rim. These men, the Fultons, were hard, thin, why men, a good deal lower in the scale of morality, of intelligence, of soul, than the beasts they hunted, but equally with them swift of foot, cunning and fierce, and familiar with the woods. Lydia felt a curious thrill when Bernard refused to come; usually she would go nowhere without him, but now a sense of elation, of freedom, came over her at his words. It was of those still, grey, overclouded days that often come hi mid-winter, the air was moist and cool, the sky heavy with unshed snow. A slight powdering of it, crisp, ice- like, lay over the ground. The tall trees on the ascend- ing slopes stood motionless, their branches unstirred in the 192 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 193 clear, wet air; wood and field and copse were very still. Nature seemed mute, voiceless, passive. There was no movement of life except that small birds flew, with joyful twitterings, over the dank fields, and flocks of quail ran, calling to each other, between the rows of stubble. Such a day has a curious, solemn beauty of its own. Slowly the moving string of human beings and cattle wound up towards the Chain, alone the narrow, stony path. The hillside was very steep, covered with a poor, ragged grass and loose stones and boulders; great fir trees grew sparsely over it, and small saplings struggled up everywhere from the un- grateful soil. The whole party were on foot, it being im- possible to ride up when your mount's back became a verti- cal line, and the lower branches of the fir trees scraped the saddle as the animal desperately scrambled upwards, like a rat on a rough wall. The two hunters, with their horses, were on ahead to show the way; the driver, leading a packhorse loaded with tents, came next; the Colonel and his wife followed, walking up, one behind the other, unen- cumbered, but even so, finding walking not at all easy on the narrow, frozen path that went up and up, endlessly, in front of them, like the wall of a house. Behind them, sure-footed, vigorous, and hot with exercise, came Lydia, leading by the bridle one of the enormous bay horses that usually drew the wagon, and that, for the occasion, they had converted into a packhorse. He came close behind her, putting his feet docilely into the very steps she took her own from, his nose sometimes rubbing on her shoulder, his huge pack bulging out widely on either side of him, threaten- ing sometimes to overbalance him altogether, as it swayed with his movements. It was a very dangerous thing to do, to lead the large, heavy, inexperienced beast, so heavily loaded, up the stony, frozen trail on which there was but just room for one human being to stand, the mountain slope running steeply down for hundreds of feet, sheer away from the edge of the track, and Lydia had seen the danger directly they had come to the foot of the final ascent which 13 194 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW would bring them to the Chain. The hunters of the valley, with their small, tough, wiry ponies, accustomed to climb like mice, eyed the two large high-standing bays with dis- trust and suspicion as a halt was called as the foot of the trail. The driver could lead one up; more was impossi- ble. Pelham had been assigned two recalcitrant pack jacks to drive, loaded with provisions. Lydia offered to lead the big bay. "You'll have to take awful care," they remarked du- biously, "with a big horse and that tremendous pack, and he's such a scary beast too." He was "scary," poor, large, wagon horse, accustomed as he was to be guided by a careful drivei, with bit and reins, and in shafts, over wide, smooth-rolling roads. The huge swaying pack upon his back, and long, alarming, ill- balanced tent poles bound to his side, frightened him, and the hilly, frozen, rock-strewn path, up which he saw the others beginning to crawl, made him throw up his head and show the whites in his great startled eyes. "I'll lead him," said Lydia, taking the bridle. All her warm, loving heart and sympathy rushed out to the poor, frightened brute, and full of this great emotional tide of pity and sympathy, and understanding of his fears, she put her warm hand on his neck. She never thought of herself nor of the danger to herself. She was thinking of him. She saw the other hands were full, and if not very skilfully led and managed on that tiny trail he would slip and roll over down that horrible slope, jagged with the teeth of broken stumps of trees, to a mangled death at the bot- tom. She made herself responsible for him. The driver, who owned the horses, was nervous and anxious, and looked round appealingly at her as he started up after the hunters. "He is mortal scary, but he do seem to take to you," he said, with a sort of wonder. The horse, feeling that mar- vellous touch electric with love and sympathy, and all the passionate force of her will to get him through his difficulties, stood quiet and charmed into confidence, eyeing meditatively LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 195 with his soft brown liquid orbs the slender creature at his head. Then, full of implicit trust, as she turned, drawing lightly on the bridle, he willingly followed her on to the hate- ful, slippery, deceitful little path winding up amongst the fir trees. Pelham drove his two tiresome, wandering jacks into the trail, and, bringing up the rear himself, the pro- cession was all fairly started. As they got higher up and the mountain side above the path grew steeper and steeper, offering neither foothold nor handhold, and the mountain side below the path fell more steeply away into dizzy space, with nothing but those great jagged, gashed stumps to catch the body if it fell, as the path became more full of ice, and sometimes a stone at the edge broke loose beneath her feet, and fell with sickening, thudding bounds down, down, end- lessly, the brave blood in her veins seemed all to gather at her heart and besiege it. The horse's hoofs, heavy and awkward, came stumbling after her; he crashed through the thin crusts of ice and sent the little freed pebbles, as the earth broke loose, rolling merrily into space, the pack swayed and lurched; Lydia saw that if she slipped and fell in his path he must, almost inevitably, trample upon her. The path had grown so steep and rocky in places that she had to take the greatest care to keep enough ahead of him, to leave him room to make his cat-like struggles over the rocky patches, without trampling upon her with his forefeet; if he over- balanced he would drag her with him and they would both roll to destruction. Death's face looked up at her very close from that slope below her, yet all her thought was for the horse. She must bring him safely through, poor frightened beast, that so willingly followed his fools of masters, wher- ever they, in their obstinate folly, chose to go, and nearly breathless as she was by the long ascent, taken so quickly, to keep ahead of the struggling animal, with her feet con- stantly slipping and her hand cut on the jagged rocks at her side, that she saved herself upon, she held the bridle with even, gentle firmness, and cheered him by her voice, pulling his head up in his constant stumbles, and soothing his fears. 196 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW She had two resolutions fixed. If she fell on or over the edge she was going to set the bridle free so that her charge might remain in safety; if, on the other hand, he slipped, she would hold him if she could, or roll down with him in the attempt. And this very quixotism, this foolish sentiment, was that which, as often happens in life, brought them both through in safety. For the exquisite love and sympathy that flowed from her into the nervous beast, and the accord between them, gave her a control and power over him she could not have had by force of her muscles or her reason. Once, for a moment, both their lives were in the balance. A jagged old tree grew near to the trail, a gnarled branch bent down, and, as the horse passed it, it scored along the canvas covering of the pack with a ripping noise: the scary horse started violently flinging up his head, and Lydia, turning in- stantly, saw the pitiful whites of the large, frightened eyes. He was terrified at that screech along his back. If he plunged ever so little, over they must go. He was trying to back, pulling at the bridle. Lydia saw the stony mountain breast above them, saw the dizzy, swimming space, broken only by the tooth-like snags beneath, and spoke to him, softly, calmly, but that screech of the tree was in his ears, it had frightened him, he couldn't make it out, he pulled at the bridle, he plunged with his hind feet, and one went over the edge, thr rill, sang all the little stones as they whirled away down the slope, Lydia set her feet in the path and drew him strongly forward by the bridle. She was white and her body rigid. He was trembling, sweating. She called him gently, pulling with all her strength, and, with a sudden terrific scramble, he drew up his hind leg on the path and lunged forward, his impetus almost throwing him on to her. The little pack jacks had come, crowding up behind. Pelham had seen it all, holding his breath, and the others from the top of the trail, reached at last, had been looking on, the hunters with a dull, stolid admiration; all alike powerless to aid or help the two on the ledge where there was but room to stand. Lydia turned and walked on up to the end of the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 197 trail, and then, when the last stony steps had been taken, and the large beast with his great staggering pack was fairly up in safety, beside her, on the flat edge of the table forest land, she stood with her breast heaving and white lips. No one took any outward notice of what was really a great feat. The hunters were already talking over the different routes and possible camping-places in the forest. The Colonel was seated, panting, on a log, looking at her; his wife stood pulling on her fur jacket as the cold breath of winter came out of the forest. Lydia did not think of any of them. She turned to the horse and kissed it on its damp neck. "You were a dear, good darling, you behaved very well on the whole," she said, softly pressing her white lips against the hot, wet coat. And as Pelham watched her lean forward, her breast swelling, her whole figure tense, her eyes shining with ex- citement, and press that kiss, full of a wealth of passionate emotion, on the horse's neck, an impulse was born within him. Deep, small, silent and secret, like all beginnings, the seed of desire, of covetousness, sank into him, and thus, true to the usual irony of life, it was from this act of unselfish devotion that the Upas tree which was to overshadow her life took its roots. The afternoon was advancing. The sky hung soft and grey and heavy. They must be thinking of getting into camp soon. The hunters had already gone on, and their receding footsteps and voices, and the snapping of the twigs in the loaded pack animals' path, was all there was to guide the rest: men and animals were lost to view directly among the closely-growing firs. The driver tramped on after them, leading his horse as best he could amongst the thickening branches and trunks, the two little pack jacks trotted forward, methodically now, scenting camp ahead. The party of four were left together to follow as they pleased. They started: they were all hi good spirits after the toil up the hill face, and glad to have level walking they went at a good pace, 198 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW laughing and talking, their voices sounding small and thin in the soft, dead air, in the vast spaces and great solemn silence of the forest. Lydia walked rather slower than the others on account of her charge that she still had and refused to give up, and it was natural that in a little while the Colonel and his wife were walking some yards in front, and Lydia, with Pelham at her side, had dropped behind. "Is not this splendid, this forest up here? Have you ever seen anything finer in your travels?" Lydia asked, pausing for a moment and looking round. The stately grandeur, the still majesty of the scene, was incomparable. They stood silent in the quiet freezing air and looked upon it, while the crackling of their companions' steps went on farther into the distance. For hundreds of miles round them stretched this great plateau of forest land, most of it virgin, untrodden by the foot of man, known only to the bears and panthers, cougars and wild cats that laired in its thick, deep recesses, and the herds of deer that fed in its sheltered, grassy little parks. Pressing thick upon them as they stood there, towering over them, rose the magnificent red- wood firs, lifting their wonderfully symmetrical bell-like crown of green, a hundred and fifty feet, sometimes two hundred feet, towards the white, snow-charged sky: their great girth and warm ruddy stems making them finer than any porphyry columns ever hewn by man; and the beauty of the forest lay, not in these colossal parent trees alone, that had grown, adding to their beauty and their size, year by year for thousands of years, but in the generation of younger trees growing up, with the fairy grace of youth, beneath them. Here was the true life of the forest, a marvel of wondrous beauty, of order, where Nature ruled alone, uninterfered with by man; something sublime, seldom seen by men. There stood the graceful, vigorous saplings, the tall adolescents, and everywhere on all sides rose the countless millions of the little baby trees, from a foot to two feet high, and, below these again, others of a few inches only, lifting their deep, brilliant green above the soft -stretched carpet of sparkling snow: mile LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 199 upon mile of these tiny infants, spreading their miniature branches to the sun and the dew, under their superb and lofty parents; Nature's infinite nurseries, the forests of the future. They stretched away far as vision could reach; unmarked by any foot track lay that carpet, except here and there was the tiny claw print of a bird. Silent, solemn, immaculate was everything in this vast temple to the greatest divinity of all Nature. It was a temple unstained with slaughter of sacrifice, unprofaned by worship, unviolated by priests. In that holy silence, over that pure carpet, under those gigantic firs, gods might well have walked. Now and then, silently, obeying the almighty law of endless re- production, endless provision for eternity, fell a great cone, swiftly through the still, white air, to the receptive earth. "No, I have never seen anything finer. It is superb," Pelham answered. "I am sorry you want to do your horrid shooting here," remarked the girl, discontentedly. "This place, this forest, is so beautiful, principally because man, with all his hateful ways, is absent. Only now and then some single hunter comes here after bear or cougar." "You don't like the shooting then ?" "No, I think it is a contemptible, cowardly thing for a man, with all his intellect and weapons, to spend his time hunting down small defenceless animals that can't possibly hurt him nor defend themselves, and put them to death for his amusement." The girl spoke hotly, all her heart in her words. She did not care a bit whether he was pleased or displeased, in fact, at that moment, she hated him as the exponent of the vice she hated, and, like most intellectual people accustomed to think for themselves, her theories and opinions were a good deal dearer to her than persons or tangible things. They were walking rapidly on now, her eyes still fixed on the proud, imposing spectacle round them. Pelham looked amused. 200 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "I am afraid you can't like me much then," he answered "I've spent a great part of my life in shooting." Lydia turned her head and looked at him. The deer- stalking hat, with its rim only a little above the eyebrows, lent to the face the same look it had worn under the brim of the silk hat at the London station, and a curious feeling of suddenly being vanquished swept over her. "Yes, I like you very much," she answered, trying to make her tone quite commonplace. "I only feel sorry to think you should have spent your life in such despicable, unworthy occupation." Pelham, brought up as the ordinary English gentleman, to think hunting and shooting gentlemanly sports, was a little surprised at her view. He had been accustomed to hunt with women who loved to see the bleeding brush cut from the panting, mangled body of the fox; he had shot with women who were proud when their rifles blinded and maimed a struggling fawn. He had liked and admired these. Yet now, suddenly, listening to her, he did not feel sure that the warmer, truer, feminine instinct was not speak- ing to him now. He was intellectual enough also, enough versed in the ways of life to be able to hold his mind open to the words of others, to be able to see things from points of view other than his own. They walked on in silence, the little tinkling bells on the jacks' necks in front coming back to them with a small, thin sound. A delicious fire of joy and life seemed burning in Lydia's veins as she walked, with her head lifted to the wet, pure air, that clung to her cheeks and made them deepest rose colour. Her head was bare; in that uninhabited country there was no need to follow a senseless fashion, and certainly no need to protect her head, already crowned by those soft masses of shining hair. Her skirt was quite short and of a rough, thick material, and her unimpeded feet carried her lightly along. She walked be- side Pelham as the young Bacchus might have walked over the slopes of Parnassus. She felt immensely attracted towards her companion; the grace of his figure, the grave, well-cut LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 201 lines of his face, the quiet voice, all appealed to that instinc- tive sense of refinement that was so strong in her. She liked his calm, indulgent way of listening to her, not contemptuous but interested, yet, in a way, unmoved : she liked his absence of argumentative answer: his great repose and serenity of manner. He was so much older than she was that she did not resent the feeling she had of his superiority to herself. It was because he was so much older, he had seen so much of life, experienced so much, thought and felt so much, that in heaps of ways he must know so much more than she did, and she willingly admitted it. There was a sort of quiet force about his manner and in his voice, because there was a character of force behind it. And there was no effort to impress her, no attempt to pose, which would have been immediately detected, and infinitely despised by her. Since she was keen-sighted and intelligent, it was because he was obviously not thinking of himself, nor interested in himself, because he was so perfectly natural, so simple, that there was some reality of greatness in him. To this new, wonderful sense of pleasure in her companion was joined the exhilaration of the superb beauty round them: step by step as they walked, new vistas opened before them, and round them, long, lofty lines of blood-red trunks, crowned, far up against the billowy sky, with their masses of living green, and silent, snowy path- ways leading everywhere between, broken only by the little trees. This limitless grandeur of vast spaces, this pure, cold beauty, this eternal sacred silence, appealed to Lydia. How far away the valley seemed now with its petty human cares, her own narrow, daily routine, the dusting of the rooms, the care of the child, the cooking of the dinner, the constant pressure of the four square walls. That was what she had been enduring, day after day, while all this glory had been awaiting her. She felt as if she had entered into another world, and Pelham shared in the effect that the scene had upon her: she felt that he, like herself, was receptive of its influence, struck by it, deeply affected by its beauty, and while the hunters pressed forward, urging on the pack ani- 202 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW mals, only thinking where they could best camp and light the camp fires, and the Colonel and his wife shivered in the unaccustomed cold, and groaned at the long walk they had been led into, she and Pelham passed through the immense silence, touched by the same deep fire of satisfaction in the beauty of the world. As they walked on farther the trees gave way for a space, and they stepped out into a long, rather narrow depression in the ground, where the grass grew strong and ragged and the soil became tussocky. "I should think this is an old lake bed," Pelham said, as they entered the clear space. "I suppose the Fultons are following it up, looking for water." "Yes, they're hunting the water," Lydia answered, mechanically. She was looking up; all round stood the forest, black in gloomy magnificence; overhead the white, billowy, snow-charged sky rolled like a vast trackless sea, the light was failing, but in the open here it was still clear. The tracks of the party in front were not visible on the grassy tussocks, the snowy carpet had ceased with the trees. For a moment there was no sound of the footsteps nor the bells. It seemed as if they were alone < "Come," she said suddenly, realising this. "We must not lose them: it would be easy to wander about here and be quite lost. The same country goes on for hundreds of miles in all directions." "I think I could take care of you." She looked at him suddenly. There was nothing in the words and the tone was very quiet: as she looked at him his face was very grave and calm, and the eyes were serene as they fixed upon her. There were none of the usual minauderies of ordinary love-making visible: yet Lydia felt the colour ebb from her face, leaving it quite white to the lips with a strange excitement, her heart seemed to rise suddenly, as if a hand pushed it underneath. Pelham looked at her, smiling a little. "If we were lost together, up here, would you very much LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 203 mind ? " he asked, in a tone that might be used for any society commonplace. Still Lydia said nothing: she was lost in the contempla- tion of his face, that attracted her so much, not only be- cause it was particularly handsome according to the received rule, but because it represented to her so much that was a sealed mystery to her, and yet that she vaguely longed to know and have a share in : she knew that it represented life, and the passions and experiences of life that was not of the same simple bucolic kind that her own was. Pelham, gazing back at her, was strongly attracted too by the fresh, hand- some face, the youthful, innocent eyes fixed upon him. For years no woman had interested him, appealed to him, as she did. That pretty face, with all the wealth of her warm, passionate nature shining in it, and lifted to his, with that admiring wonder, as if he possessed the wisdom of all the ages, woke up curious, half-forgotten fires within him. He was in a state then when the mind is receptive, glad to wel- come new impressions, to fill up the emptiness expired emotions leave behind them. His relations with Kate Bris- towe were at an end : the termination brought him no regret, only relief: yet there was in the relief that inevitable blankness that follows the death of the least-desired passion. The liaison begun coldly on both sides, and yielded to on his because the woman attracted him and because she insisted on it, had left him harder than he was before, with even less belief in unselfish love, devotion, constancy, honour, or any of those as he had always regarded them theoretical virtues. The complete selfishness, the cynicism, the brutality of her whole nature in its absolute never-wavering self-worship, in its entire indifference to everything except the gratification of its own wishes, had succeeded at last in raising a loath- ing and disgust for her, their connection, and the very memory of it, from which the mind turned to fasten with special delight on something that promised to be entirely different. "Would you be afraid to be lost with me ?" he said again, 204 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW and this time his tone was softer, more tender and affectionate. Involuntarily they both slackened their footsteps, then came to a pause, looking at each other. She felt a great delight born suddenly in her. Lost with him ? No, she knew she would not care, would feel no fear, no sense of danger, only excitement, joy at an adventure shared with him. Something of this he read in her great star-like eyes fixed on him, but before he could speak again she had turned from him in silence and pressed on her steps. "I think I see the light of the camp," she said, hurrying on, and he followed her. At the end of the old lake stood a group of red-wood firs, seven, standing together, forming something of a semi-circle, and here the hunters had made their camp: a dry log, the whole tree, many feet in length, on the ground, served them for their fire: they had kindled it in the centre and great sheets of flame went up from it, throwing a warm, ruddy light all round, lighting up the men's figures as they went to and fro, and the small white tent pitched a little way off against another clump of trees. The Colonel and the driver were busy pegging it down, while Mrs Bristowe lay at full length on a sheepskin spread in front of a smaller and more moderately burning fire. Overhead now there was darkness, into which the tall trees rose up and up till they were lost in it, except where the flare of the Fultons' fire lighted up all the underneath of their lofty crowns, and one saw, far above, spreading over one, their protecting roof, a beautiful network of far-spreading ruddy boughs like rafters, and on the shorter trees near by the clear red light fell and glowed, as if the rich, deep, velvet green of their foliage were splashed with wine. In the darkness that stood round the camp like a wall, stretched protectively, silent and mighty, the sombre forest. The Fultons disdained all camp and camp outfit; they had flung down some sheepskins at the foot of the trees, where later they would sleep, their dogs beside them, the fire at their feet. They were getting their supper now : one was swinging the kettle over their giants' fire, the other, on his knees, was LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 205 cleaning out the frying-pan, while the dogs, huddled on the sheepskins, watched them eagerly. Lydia came into the circle of the fierce red light with Pelham beside her, feeling all her blood dancing with joy and animation: there was no sense of guilt yet to throw its shadow on her: she felt simply delight in Pelham 's admira- tion and companionship, without having had time to analyse the feelings or fear or suspect them. Kate looked up as they approached and her face gathered a mocking expression as she glanced from one to the other. "The temperature has got considerably warmer," she remarked. "Nonsense, Kate," said the Colonel, who was just coming up to the fire with a newly-filled kettle, "it's been getting colder every minute ; it can't do anything else at this time in the evening, when one is three thousand feet up." Kate rolled over on her side on the sheepskin and laughed mockingly. Lydia stooped over the fire to arrange the logs so that the "Colonel could balance the kettle, and heard Pelham answer coldly, "Mrs Bristowe is not accustomed to high altitudes, and does not understand them." Lydia had understood at once the double meaning to both remarks, though the Colonel, apparently, had not, and she glanced at Kate, who was supporting her head on her hand and leaning on one elbow gazing into the fire, to see if she could resent, in any way, Pelham 's speech, but she said nothing, only followed him about with a derisive gaze on her hard, clever face. " Why do you fuss and bother so much about the supper ? " she asked lazily. "Let's do without supper. I don't want any." "Perhaps not," replied Pelham, as he and Lydia dragged forward the provision box and began to open it, "but others, who have worked harder than you have, do, you see." "It's always stupid to work hard," remarked Mrs Bris- towe, kicking at a projecting log and watching Pelham and 206 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Lydia and the Colonel all labouring over the box, which had been nailed down to secure the contents travelling safely, and now refused to be opened altogether. By their combined efforts it was forced at last and the supper laid on the top. Lydia volunteered to make the tea and coffee, and when great steaming cans of this were ready, and the whole meal pre- pared and laid out, Kate discovered she was hungry and thirsty after all, and briskly took her place at the box table. From where they sat grouped round it, in the merry circle of their own firelight, they could see the hunters' rough-and- ready camp a few yards from them, the whole picture stand- ing out against the soft blackness like a Rembrandt. The log had burned down somewhat now into a mass of crimson and scarlet coals, and a steady, blood-red glare was thrown upon the face of the darkness. In it were bathed the men's outstretched figures, their pale, grim faces and grey hats; behind, the white curls of the sheepskin rugs, with the dogs asleep on them, were turned into pale rose colour; beyond, just on the edge of the deep firelight, stood grouped together the small, grey pack asses, pulling at a heap of fodder, and the horses tethered to a pine a little farther back, in deep brown shadows, caught a glint of red on their sides now and then as they moved. Far up over all rose the red-trunked trees, straight from the golden, glowing core of fire at their feet, flinging back the red flare from their ruddy, interlacing, rafter-like boughs spread like a roof above the camp. "The fire wants attending to and more wood put on," remarked Mrs Bristowe, who was lying nearest the pile of cut logs for the fire, where she had thrown herself after supper. "Well, suppose you attend to it," answered Pelham, without moving. "Pas si bete," laughed Mrs Bristowe, rolling round on her rug, "I'm much too comfortable to get up, and I know if I don't keep the fire in someone else will. Look at the moon!" she added suddenly. "Diana isn't looking as chaste as she might to-night." They all lifted their eyes. Far, far up, far over their LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 207 own roof of protecting trees, there seemed a black cavern torn open in the heart of the dome above them, in the centre of the great white sky. Masses of snowy-crested clouds were driving furiously by the ragged edges of the cavern, and in its centre swung the full moon. Over its silver face was spread- ing slowly, from one side, a stain of dusky lurid red, and slowly the light that had filled the sky, though obscured by the massed clouds, faded and dwindled. Nature's hand was extinguishing her lamp. Silently the small scircle of humanity round their dying camp fire watched it. Slowly and relentlessly the great light was being put out. A feeling of awe swept over them as they watched that small red stain creep forward, a stain as of discoloured blood oozing slowly from a wound. From the depths of the forest, distant and far-reaching, came the wild howl of a panther, full of an in- stinctive and inarticulate dread. "What is it, is it an eclipse?" asked Mrs Bristowe, in a whisper. "It isn't a bit like an ordinary eclipse," answered Lydia from where she sat on the other side of Pelham. He wished that, under influence of that awestruck, uncanny feeling that oppressed them all under this red moon, she would have come nearer to him, and sat close for protection and com- panionship, but she did not. She remained, not very near him, with her hands clasped round her knees. "In an ordinary eclipse it looks as if the darkness had bitten a little piece out of the moon, and the black bite gets larger and larger until the whole moon is swallowed up. This is quite different, it is like a red stain spreading on the surface." She spoke softly, gazing up at it. Pelham saw she was deeply impressed by the curious phenomenon, and moved by it. He watched her face beside him, thinking how pretty it looked with the clear glow from the fire falling on the white throat, and underneath of the full round chin, and what a sweet little mouth she had, with its soft curling lips like the turned-back petals of the pomegranate flower when it first 208 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW opens. Out of the depths of the forest came another long, weird cry, answering the panther's. Mrs Bristowe sat up and shivered. "Jack," she said imperatively, "put some more logs on. This is horrible." ' Bristowe got up obediently and threw two or three great round grey cedar logs onto the glowing coals, flames leapt up to receive them, and a scent like the scent of incense spread all through the air from the kindling cedar. Looking across to the other camp they saw the Fultons were also sitting up, scanning the moon, like themselves. The dogs were all on their haunches, snuffing the air, with lowered ears, shivering and moaning. "Well, I'm going to bed," remarked Mrs Bristowe. "If you people will sit up all night moon-gazing, I can't help it, but at least I'll set you a good example." "My dear Kate, we oughtn't to leave all the work to Mrs Chetwynd; we'd better help them clear up before you go." "Nonsense," laughed Mrs Bristowe, "it will be a labour of love for Pelham and Mrs Chetwynd to do it, I know, and I specially dislike washing dishes. Good-night." "I don't mind clearing up, Colonel, thank you," mur- mured Lydia, her eyes still fixed on the moon, and Mrs Bristowe, without waiting for anyone, gathered up her wraps and walked towards the tent, followed slowly by the Colonel, who was beginning to feel stiff in every joint. Pelham and Lydia were left together by the fire. The red stain had now crept, with an irregular outline, half across the moon, the other side was still white, though the discolouration seemed faintly affecting it, too, as blood dropped into water forms a red core, and also, almost im- perceptibly, discolours the whole. Pelham drew up close beside the gill, and there was silence between them as they both watched the gradual de- filement of the pure silver light above. When it was nearly complete Lydia rose suddenly to her feet with a sigh. The LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 209 instinct of one who habitually works, and usually for others and to the crossing of her own desires, was awake in her. "Where are you going?" asked Pelham, rising too. "I was going to wash up all the things and leave every- thing ready for the morning," she answered, going over to the fire and lifting the kettle. "There's hardly any- thing in the kettle. Do you know if there's any water in the camp ?" "No, there's none left, I think; we'd better send Jackson to the creek for some more." "Can't we get it ourselves?" Lydia asked. "I don't like waking him up, he has just lain down and gone off to sleep. He's had a hard day on the whole." Pelham glanced to the side of the tent, where, on the old wagon sheet, their driver lay peacefully asleep. "Yes, I expect we can find it," Pelham answered, picking up his gun; "give me the kettle." "I would rather you carry the gun and be ready to shoot anything that may attack us, though it's not likely anything will," she said. "I am quite accustomed to carry a kettle as heavy as this." They went forward between the trees; the light was almost gone now; behind them blazed the warm red fire of their camp, shooting out long golden gleams along the snow before them, as they walked towards the creek. "Perhaps we shall meet a panther there," said Lydia, laughing. The stream rushed by, black and sullen beneath the arches of ice that spanned it here and there from stone to stone; the ghastly expiring light from the dying moon just glimmered on it and showed the snowy banks. "Let me fill it," said Pelham. "No, stop on the bank, and have your gun ready. I can fill it. I am accustomed to it." She descended the bank, and stooping, held the kettle down hi the stream, so that the water rushed into it. When 34 210 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW it was quite full she swung it up and turned to ascend the bank. The weight of the kettle in one hand disturbed her balance; just near the edge of the bank her foot slid back on the melted snow, and, with a little cry, she seized Pel- ham's hand instantly outstretched, and was drawn on to the level. The little cry, the appealing, clinging hold of her soft hand on his, was as a torch to the magazine. A sudden fierce desire broke down the door of his self-control and invaded his whole being. As Lydia set the kettle on the ground and paused for a moment to recover her breath, she felt his arms suddenly round her, and herself drawn up tightly against his breast. The pressure was so tight, the clasp so strong, that she could not even struggle in it, she could not move, but that which came back to her afterwards in such a fury of anger against herself was, that she did not even wish to. The power to resist, to escape, was not there, but, equally, the will was absent. To her own dull horror and stupefied surprise she knew that she was glad to be held, numb, nerveless, resistless, against him. An extraordinary feeling of pleasure swept through her body at the touch of his arms, and when she felt his heart-beats against her breast it seemed to her as if all the pulses and fibres of her body had been waiting for something that was suddenly given them; an indefinable sense of peace, of well-being, flowed over her. And from these was born a passivity she could not help. The touch of his arms and lips compelled her to be passive, to accept them. In that moment all her mental powers, her moral strength and instincts, seemed gagged, bound and thrown down. There was a sudden revolt against them of all the physical instincts which swept the mind aside and usurped her. Mentally she feared and distrusted Pelham, morally she recoiled from the character and the kind of morality she divined in him; but with this distrust the physical instincts had nothing to do. They leapt up to meet the embrace, in which they found a superb satisfaction, and they held her passive, powerless to struggle away from him. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 211 Leaning her head back against his shoulder, where indeed it was forced irresistibly, her eyes glanced upward for a moment, between his kisses, to the wild sky, rolling its great cold billows above their heads, and it seemed to her that her life was like a kaleidoscope some unseen hand was holding to her eyes. She had been looking down it yesterday and many yesterdays before that, and had always seen the same pattern at the end, but now the hand had turned it suddenly, and there was another pattern, another device, another colour, at the end. The pattern was changed, the turn had been given. She knew in that moment she could never turn it back. The sensation was gone by, passed over in a flash. With a sudden wrench she disengaged herself, picked up the kettle from the ground and walked towards the camp. Pelham lifted his gun and followed. Lydia went through her work and washed all the plates and dishes, Pelham helping her quietly, dexterously, without speaking, and both were as calm outwardly as before. Only Lydia 's eyes had a curious fire beneath their lids, and her nostrils dilated and quivered nervously when she felt Pel- ham's eyes upon her. When all the work was done she withdrew with a cold "Good-night," and walked to their common tent. It was fairly large, and it had been arranged the two men should sleep together on one side, and the two ladies on the other. When Lydia parted the flap of the canvas now, and entered, the swinging lamp from the centre pole was smoking and burning dim; in the thick and acrid atmosphere she saw the two beds, the Colonel lying at the extreme inner edge of his and fast asleep, leaving a wide space for Pelham; on the other lay his wife, carefully rolled round in all the blankets, and well in the centre; an earthen- ware basin of charcoal, glowing brightly, burned between the beds. Lydia smiled, and stretched herself noiselessly by the side of the sleeping woman. She was so hardy she needed no covering beyond her own warm clothing, and, when the charcoal had gone out, she reflected it would be time to get up. 1 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW She wondered, in a wild fever of pain, whether Pelham would come in to take his place on the other side of the fire. She thought not. She lay, with closed eyes, listening, but there was no sound except, far awa'y, the faint cries of the wild beasts, carrying out their lawless loves, in the dying moonlight. CHAPTER XVH THE following morning, earlier than all the others, Lydia slipped out of the tent and stood still to look round on the matchless glory of Nature undefiled. The snow had fallen in the night, as the hunters had feared and prophesied, and now there was a great white stillness everywhere, a radiant, sparkling silence, a wonderful beauty, without sound. The dawn had already broken but its majesty still filled the sky; the whole dome, from east to west, was alight and flamed in golden silence above the silent earth. She had slept very little through the night. Those kisses of Pelham's had burned upon her lips, and the vision of that face bent over her scorched her eyes all through the dark hours. She felt extraordinarily elated, proud of, and glad in, her own beauty. This man, that had seemed, on her first meeting with him, a being so interesting, yet so far removed, so far out of her reach, so quiet, grave, so in- accessible, was stirred by her beauty, her personality, from all his coldness, all his reserve. They had been very near; last night, in the dying light, she had seen those cold pale features close above hers, the inscrutable eyes had been full of fire. An exultation filled her that she could not repress, and yet, following it instantly, came the icy tide of recollection. What good was it to have the power to rouse this man, or any man? She was married, tied to one all her life long. She could not do anything to hurt Bernard. She loved him. Yet, as she stood there, looking up to the white light in the morning sky, that wave of exultation rose in her, higher and higher, and would not be repressed. This man, this per- sonality, drew her to him, attracted her as powerfully as 213 214 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW the steel is drawn over painful spaces to join the magnet. What was it ? What was wrong ? Why, when she loved Bernard so much, should she feel this for another man ? No one man is enough for a woman, as no one woman is enough fora man. Nature has not ordained that it should be so. And it is curious that man, hampered by his mind, should have set up this fetich of fidelity, and that now, false idol as it is, neither man nor woman can be happy in their relations with each other without it. For a few desperate moments Lydia regretted, wildly, that she was not free. "Why should one marry at all?" she thought suddenly, "since one cannot marry them all." A woman cannot marry in succession, still less at the same time, all the men that please and enchant her; she must, unlike the wiser animals, choose one alone. It is the old story of man coveting the Whole of Life though each one can but get a portion. "Of what are you thinking?" said Pelham's soft voice beside her. She brought her eyes down from the sky, and the colour flamed all over her face. "I am thinking of the desperateness of Life," she an- swered calmly. She glanced round. They were alone where they stood. A little way off, the hunters were making their fire and preparing their breakfast. "It was so horrid and disgusting of me to kiss you last night, by the brook. So mean and treacherous, and dishonourable to Bernard," she went on angrily, pale and scarlet by turns. Pelham looked amused. "All the same you will kiss me many more tunes," he said quietly, his calm, unmoved face looking particularly refined and distinguished in contrast with his rough clothes and the rugged, weather-seamed features of the hunters, and as she stared at him, white and speechless with amaze- ment, he turned away towards the smouldering hearth. "We'd better get some breakfast for those idle people," he said, "and be breaking up camp. The hunters say we can't stay here; it's too dangerous on account of the snow. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 215 If it fell, as it might, to a depth of ten or twelve feet, we should be snowed up and all starved to death, so, game or no game, they say we must go down." He went towards the brook, with the kettle in his hand, and left Lydia there, transfixed, trying to think, trying to understand herself and him. As Pelham said, the hunters refused to stay up in the rim country. Ridiculous as it seemed, to have come up there simply to go down again without attempting any shooting, they insisted on doing so. The snow might not have come for weeks, but, now that it had begun it would probably go on, and lie deep on the ground till the spring. Men and horses had been frozen before on the high lands of Arizona, overtaken in camp by a ten-foot fall, and left only their skeletons and the camp fittings to tell the tale in the spring. They would not risk staying, and without con- sulting for a moment their patrons they began, American fashion, to break up their camp, pack their bag and baggage and prepare for the descent. The Colonel, furious at first, was thoroughly frightened finally by their tales of whitening bones and skulls of starved campers, and packed up, speedily, the luggage for himself and his lazy wife. "I'm rather sick of the shooting altogether, Jack," she remarked, sitting watching him pack a refractory animal. "Let's get down and on to the train at Flagstaff as soon as we can, and back to civilisation." "All right. It's as Pelham likes," returned the Colonel, battling with a strap. "He started this shoot." "Oh, Eustace won't come back yet," replied Mrs Bris- towe, laughing. "He's still occupied with the chase. We can't wait for him." She glanced to where Pelham stood, close to Lydia's side as she nailed a box lid. "You are quite right," he answered in unmoved tones. "I shall stay a little longer in the valley and see what fortune I have." This time, in making the descent, the hunters chose an 216 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW easier route; they turned to the south and struck a trail that, after three or four miles on the level plateau, came to the edge, where fairly wide terraces, cut in the face of the cliffs, wound slowly, by easy and exquisitely wooded gradients, to the valley. At Pelham's earnest request Lydia gave her horse this time to one of the hunters to lead down the easier slopes, and he and she fell behind the others, walking slowly in the rear of the long procession. At any other time he would have been keenly annoyed at going back from such an expedition empty-handed, with no deer slaugh- tered, no blood on his hands, no stain on his gun, his desire for killing unappeased, but now, since there was other and just as good game in view, other slaying and devastation to be accomplished on ahead, he was quite satisfied and in a pleased and pleasing temper. The morning was lovely; for the present the sky had done its work and its stored-up snow had fallen; it was now calm and tranquil, of the palest and most exquisite blue, out of which, though no clouds were visible, fell, at rare intervals, one tiny flake, or two, of snow. Every tree had a mantle of glittering diamonds, the ground was glisteningly, radiantly white. Lydia walked beside Pelham in silence, her brain torn by emotions battling amongst themselves. She felt she hated herself, hated her companion. Yet there was a violent delight at being beside him, a wonderful excitement. Nothing like this feeling had ever shaken her before. Her passion for Bernard had been very wild and very great, but as there had been no barrier to its gratification, there had been no obstacle against which it could measure its strength. Now, to her amaze, she felt this new desire within her, fighting furiously against her love for Bernard, and recognised, with terror, it was all- conquering, all-powerful. It was greater than the other had ever been. Had she been free she felt there would have come into her heart now a glorious happiness, a joy surpassing any she had known. She would have asked nothing, stipulated nothing, demanded nothing of Pelham except himself, taking his love, as a gift from the hands of Life, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 217 thankfully without any doubt, hesitation, cavilling or con- ditions, taking all chances, asking nothing for the future, because it was so dazzling a toy, for the moment so coveted, so supremely necessary, so intensely satisfying. She knew she would never have given herself to Bernard without marriage, but to this man she felt, horrible as the thought was to herself, that she would. And why ? "'The question came to her madly. Her brain seemed on fire with resent- ment, with surprise, with anger, at this invasion of an out- side, an extraordinary influence. She looked at him as he walked beside her. He was not quite so tall nor so broad- shouldered as Bernard, but still tall and erect, without the least stiffness. The figure had an unusual elegance about it, difficult to define; it was slim and lithe, beautifully built and put together. The profile was good, well cut, and exceedingly refined, the nose particularly so, straight and hard, fine without being thin and sharp the nose of one who, whatever other pleasures he might indulge in, never over ate or over drank. The skin was a little tanned by constant outdoor life, a clear pale tan, and, like the features, suggested refinement. He turned to her, feeling her gaze, and she was struck again by the force and power of his ex- pression, blended with the calm gravity and serenity of his face. "Don't hurry so," he said, smiling. "We have all the day before us." "We must follow the others," she answered, mechan- ically, keeping her eyes on his face. She was thinking it was not exactly intellectual, but there was a great intelligence in it. It was clever, with the cleverness of life rather than of books. "Nonsense, there is not the least need. We can find the way down from here perfectly alone. I have hunted too much in wild countries to get lost. Let's sit and rest a little in this dell. It's lovely here." Lydia's feet slackened in mechanical obedience. The sound of the downward movement ahead of them, and the 218 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW tinkle of the bells, came back faintly to them on the silver air, then lessened and lessened, and ceased. The hollow they had entered was full of gold leaves; all through the autumn they had drifted in here in their gilded millions, and now lay there, at rest, gleaming softly in the winter sunlight; they yielded, whispering together, as the four human feet pressed them, crossing the dell. Pelham went to the farther side and sat down on the turfy edge of the hollow, where the snow lay in a thin, crisp silver crust. Lydia fell back and took her seat on the edge opposite, and so they faced each other across the hollow of dead leaves. It was very still; Nature was not awake, stirring and ardent, leaping and driving upwards in all things as she is in the spring, filling them with her mad impulses. She was asleep, wrapped in a majestic repose. There was a certain awfulness in this aloofness of Nature from these two mortals and their mortal passions. There seemed, to Pelham's fancy, almost a menace in the heavy stillness of the dead cold air, so divinely clear; never had he felt so entirely alone with another as he did now, and a sense of the responsibility of his own actions weighed upon him as it seldom does at such moments. Nature was not with them, urging, exciting, aiding, excusing, co-operating, as she so often is; she was asleep, cold, inac- cessible, indifferent. Whatever was to happen hi the next few minutes he alone would be responsible for. In the white silence there seemed to be a dictum, "Take this woman, desecrate this shrine if you will at your own risk. I have nothing to do with you." But the man's whole blood and nature responded to the challenge: he had the soul of the hunter, and what hunter forbears to shoot when the quarry stands still at last facing him? His eyes travelled slowly up the scarlet stem of a huge red fir tree, giant among giants, that grew beside the hollow, till gaze was lost in the bell of green foliage, and then went up beyond to the serene light blue sky. He put his hand down on the bank beside him. "Come and sit here," he said, looking across at her with a smile. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 219 Lydia rose and hesitated, then she crept across the hollow, as a mouse creeps towards the snake waiting for it. When she had taken her place beside him he looked at her again, and she looked back at him, the colour trembling uncertainly in her cheeks that delightful waiting fear, that mad expectancy which is one of the best parts of love, rushed into her heart and through her frame, filling her. How long now since she had felt it! This very essence of life pouring so strangely through her veins. Pelham bent down over her, put his arm round her waist, kissed her and drew her close to his breast. " You are happy in my arms ?" he said softly. Lydia put her head down on his shoulder. "I should be if it were not for Bernard. As it is I am utterly miserable." Pelham laughed. "Little goose," he said gently. "Why do you bother about him? He must look out for himself. He has had you for six years now, it's time you gave another fellow a chance." The girl made no answer. The extremes of misery and happiness, pain and pleasure, were invading her being, paralysing her between them. "So you love Bernard and nobody has come between you all these six years ? He has had you all to himself?" "Yes. I love him. He is a splendid fellow." "He is to look at. But I should have thought the life was too dull, too narrow for you. You must want more than he can give you." "Perhaps. I don't know." The cold tide of self-reproach, of hopelessness, of des- peration, was swallowing her up in spite of the ecstatic feeling of delight the touch of his arms gave her. "You must come away with me when I leave," he con- tinued, stroking the soft ebony waves of hair pushed up like ruffled silk against his arm. "I am going down into Mexico. Bernard will want to stay with his ranch, as he did yester- 220 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW day," he laughed; the tones of his light voice were half joking and quizzical. It was only in the touch of his lips when he kissed her that she knew the reality of his intentions. She wrenched herself free from his arms and sat on the edge of the bank beside him. "But how can you come into a man's house, be hospit- ably welcomed and entertained, and in return try to steal the thing he values most his wife? What do you think of the man, taken in and kindly treated, who then leaves with his benefactor's spoons?" Pelham's brows contracted: a look of iron hardness came over his face. "It seems to me, in this case, the mistress of the house is giving away the spoons," he said coldly. "You are quite right. If you are bad I am a thousand times worse," Lydia responded furiously. "It's that that makes me so wretched." Pelham was silent a few minutes. Then he slipped his arm round her again. "You must not worry about morality or right and wrong. It's all a fiction: there's nothing in it. As for Bernard, he must look out for himself. Each man has to fight for his own, both to get it and keep it." "No, I am not thinking about the morality," returned Lydia, leaning her chin on her hands, and gazing down on the gold carpet beneath their feet with drawn brows, "there is nothing in that, as you say. It's only a ridiculous code that man has been idiot enough to make up for his own annoyance, I quite feel that, with you. Do you know, I think it's so funny that English people should make such a fuss over what they call morality, when there is absolutely nothing in their own religion to support it. I have read the New Testament all through and Christ does not say a word about what we are to do, or not to do, in moral things. One might have a hundred wives, or husbands, or lovers, for anything He says. He merely enjoined us to be kind, to love OUT neighbours as ourselves, etc. That is the ethical LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 221 law running through all religions. I think there is truth in that. It is so universal, isn't it ? " She glanced up at him as she made her query. He was gravely watching her, listening, quietly interested. He nodded. "Yes. One can't very well get away from that." "Well, that is the law I am breaking if I leave Bernard. That is what I feel. I shall be doing something unkind. I shall be making him unhappy. I don't care about any- thing else. I would leave him to-morrow if I could give him some young, pretty girl to amuse him, to immediately take my place, if I could do it in some way without making him unhappy." Pelham smiled with slightly raised eyebrows. "Do you talk to the practical Bernard like this," he asked, "about morality?" "Oh, no. Bernard would not understand. I have never talked to anyone, except, the day before yesterday, to Mrs Bristowe. She is very clever: we talked a great deal: about you for one thing," she added, looking up again. "You have been very fond of each other." "Mrs Bristowe and I have been very good friends, never anything more," he said, quietly and easily. Lydia smiled to herself. How easily and well he lied. He must be an accomplished liar, must have had practice. To lie was his habit, evidently. She did not pursue the point. She had heard the whole story from Mrs Bristowe and knew all she wanted from her and from her own observations. Being an intensely candid nature herself, she despised him for the lie, though she admitted, in this particular case, he could hardly do otherwise. But she felt it was ha his character to lie and deceive, it came to him naturally. "He must constantly do it," she thought, "in his pro- fession of wife-stealing." "I wonder what would have happened if we had met when I was sixteen ?" she said, after a Moment. "We should have had a good time, I expect," he an- 222 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW swered, smiling, and leaning over her, "as we shall have now, if you don't spoil it, darling, darling." He had drawn her into his arms and kissed her, but she gathered together the whole of her mental strength and struggled away from him in a sudden terror of him and of herself. Then she ran over the gold leaves, over the level plateau, and then down and down the wide grassy terraces ran quickly, with all her speed, till she was within sound again of the jingling bells. Pelham rose and followed her tranquilly. If not to-day, a few days hence he was sure of her, sure of his influence over her. When, at last, far down the slope, he overtook her walking slowly not far behind the others, only ordinary conversation was resumed between them. Pelham knew well the peculiar obstinacy that comes over women when much pressed to any course by a man, and the ensuing dis- appointment, that is his best ally, which invades them when he stops pressing. So he merely chatted on ordinary topics, and the whole party, warmed and cheered by the summer climate welcoming them as they descended, walked, laughing and talking jovially, into the ranch, about five in the evening, to find Bernard making his own tea and much surprised at their early return. He roared with laughter over their arduous climb up and their prompt retreat with not a thing to show for their pains. "Snow?" he echoed. "Why, we've had all the snow there's likely to be till next year! We shall have now a spell of the most glorious weather one can imagine, clear away to the spring." "So we thought, and told those fools of hunters so," said the Colonel, angrily. "But they seemed panic-stricken, they wouldn't listen to us." "Well, no one can positively tell; more snow might come, and then it would be dangerous, but I think myself it's over for the year." . He was moving about, getting tea for them. He would LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 223 not let any of them work, but insisted on their sitting down and letting him wait on them. After the meal was over he threw more logs on the fire, great blocks of slow-burning cedar, and they drew in round it in a half circle. A little chill of the evening was in the still moonlit air outside. The Colonel and his wife sat in the two easy chairs on opposite sides of the fire. Bernard, Lydia and Pelham sat together between them, Lydia on the rug, with her head leaning against Bernard's knee. She was glad to be back with him. How handsome he was, and so immensely kind and good and nice, so good-tempered and bright. He was delightful. How she wished, as she glanced at Pelham sitting beside them, that this could go on, that she could remain with Bernard, and yet keep Pelham also, for her own, with his stately gravity, the quiet dignity of mien, the mysterious air of life and experience, of knowl- edge and power, about him, that so attracted her; how she wished that she need not part from the man she still loved, but yet have this outside desire of another pressing close to the walls of her life and throwing its excitement into it! It was a strange feeling, and she did not know how to name or define it. It was the vain sighing of the Soul for the Whole of Life, that struggling breath within, which is the cause of all in- fidelities. The Colonel and his wife told Bernard they intended to start homeward, by train from Flagstaff, as soon as they could get there. They were tired of shooting and camping for a time. Pelham surprised everyone by re- marking he was going to leave the ranch that night, take his tents and move down to what was known as the Blue Creek : he should shoot there, if he found game, for another week perhaps, then move on to Kingsley, a little station north of the Creek, and go home from there. Bernard expostulated. "Oh, stay the night here: you will be dead beat if you start for Blue Creek now. You can be off in the morning as early as you like." "I like travelling by night," answered Pelham, quietly. 224 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "The scene in the forest is magnificent by moonlight. It's only half -past six now. I shall be in camp by four in the morning." Lydia felt herself pale, and leant forward that the red glow of the fire might fall on her face. He was going! What should she do if she lost him ? If he passed out of her life ? She had been so occupied by thinking of all that would ensue upon her going with him, she had not thought of what she would feel if he left her now. It came upon her suddenly that she would go mad if he went and her life swallowed her up again, smothering her in its quietness, its monotony. She could not second her husband's appeal to him to stay, she felt speechless, powerless. Mrs Bristowe, however, stared at Pelham across the firelit space, with open eyes. "Why, Eustace ?" she exclaimed, in supreme astonish- ment, and then burst into fits of laughter. Pelham sat quite unmoved for a few seconds and then rose, with the remark, "I am going to look out my tents and traps." Ber- nard followed to see if he could help him. Lydia sat trans- fixed and motionless. After an interval Bernard came back. "Where's Pelham?" asked the Colonel. "I left him by the stables. He is just fixing up his saddle, something's gone wrong with it. I am sorry he feels he must go off late like this, but it's certainly a lovely night." Lydia got up from the rug, moved about the room for a minute or two, and then went out. She slipped to the back of the house and then stepped over the threshold. The air was fine and soft, the chill of the sunset had gone, the sky was full of stars, and the moon, rising steadily, lighted the whole scene exquisitely. Lydia crossed to the stables behind the house: the door was open and she heard move- ments within: she entered, stepping just inside. In the grey hah* light she saw Pelham 's figure standing by his horse. "You are really going?" she said. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 225 "You seemed to think I was abusing your husband's hospitality," he answered: his voice was very low, and she noticed what a hard tone it had now. " I was a sort of burglar, or worse, stealing the silver, so I cannot do better than go." Lydia leant back against the rough wall, feeling she needed its support. Pelham looked at her and thought how magnificent she looked, her tall figure seen against the grey light, her breast rising and falling, her face a glow of colour. "Am I never to see you again?" she asked, ignoring the way he threw the blame of his leaving on her. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. Pelham left his horse and came up to her. "You can see me again as soon as you like," he said softly, smiling. "I am not going to Blue Creek, that's only for your husband's benefit. I shall ride down, to-night, in that direction, but where the road forks I shall turn off and go a little way into the forest. I shall pitch my tent just by the old cattle corral, you must know it quite well. There I shall stay for three nights, and you will come to join me as soon as you can get away and we'll go down into Mexico together." Then he leant forward and kissed her on her mouth. Her face had been lifted towards him, her lips a little parted, as she listened. The kiss seemed to send a shock all through her, paralysing her, rooting her to the ground, as the touch of an electric battery. Her lips were intensely conscious of it and remembered it, feeling it again through years after- wards, though many other kisses had been exchanged. Pelham walked out into the moonlight, leading his horse, through the soft, flickering, dancing shadows thrown by the trees, and went up towards the house. 15 PART III THE EXCHANGE iv xpaivoufft 0so{ xal TO. doxfjdsvT dux twv CHAPTER XVIII "I FIND the stores are all getting low, or out. I shall have to go to town with the wagon and get some more," remarked Bernard. It was the third day after the party had broken up at the ranch. Pelham had gone, as he had given out, to Blue Creek, by night, and the Colonel and his wife had left the following day. An immense quiet had supervened on their going, and even Bernard felt it and was rather glad that the lack of stores gave him the excuse of a trip, with the wagon, to town. Lydia looked at him across the breakfast-table, her face whitening. So, on this last night, she was to be left alone, mistress of herself, the way for her made easy. Was this her destiny? Should she accept it? She looked at Bernard keenly. His face was so dear to her on account of its beauty, its fine features, its warm clear skin, the charming smile showing the even teeth, the bright, intelligent eyes. He was looking particularly well and happy. No, she thought, she must keep to him. She could not make him unhappy. At whatever cost to herself she must stay here: die here if 226 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 227 necessary: she could not leave him. She would go with him to-day, and to-morrow, when she returned, all would be over and of the past, as far as Pelham was concerned. He would be gone. "I should like to come up with you," she responded. "Take me, Bernard," she continued, her eyes dancing with the excitement of her forming resolutions, "and we'll stay the night there. We'll do our shopping and then put up at the hotel. It'll be great fun. I shall enjoy it." Bernard hesitated. For years he had been accustomed to spend only with the greatest care, to save, to economise, and he saw that taking his wife with him would mean a wholly unnecessary expense. He would like it, enjoy having her with him, but were they justified in pleasing themselves at the cost ? "I think we had hardly better go to the expense of your coming," he said, after a minute, "unless you have some very special reason." "Oh, no," returned Lydia, hastily. What else could she say? She was afraid of her own voice and sat silent. Bernard went out after breakfast to look through the stores and make lists of what was wanted. Lydia, left alone, felt wild with terror of herself and longing to make her own de- sires impossible. It seemed ages till Bernard came in again. When he did, he came up to her chair, and putting his hands on the back said he was ready to start. She looked up at him with hot eyes. "Do, please, take me with you," she said, clinging to him with nervous hands. He looked down at her, not unkindly, but with a practical, prosaic surprise that jarred upon her. "Tell me why you wish to come so much, so specially, this time," he asked good-humouredly. Lydia looked at him desperately, with the eyes of one at bay. Should she tell him the real reason, she asked herself? How could she ? Tell him she was afraid to be left alone with her passions, lest they should drive her to another man! 228 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW She could not say that. It would, if said, cut at the founda- tion of their after life together. " I don't know," she stammered. " I hate being left behind. Just take me because I ask you to, won't you ?" "It seems so unreasonable," he returned, in a man's dull, hammering way. "Besides, there's the child." Lydia's face darkened. Why, after all, should he put the child's needs before her desires ? Was it not she who had given him the child, as she had given him everything ? "I can take the child," she answered shortly. Bernard put her from him rather resolutely. "It is waste," he said, "to spend money on a mere fancy. You had much better stay here. I shall only be away one night." Lydia's face grew very pale, her nervous, clinging hands dropped away from him. She said nothing. She did not know what to say. He had formed his resolution to go alone, and she did not see how to break it up without betraying herself too far. "Please, take me," she murmured, as he was turning away. "I have a good reason." "It can't be a good reason or you could tell it to me," he answered shortly. "I never knew you to be so childish before," and he went out. Lydia remained in her chair. She let her head sink in her hands. "He is quite right," she thought. "It's not a good reason: it's a bad one. But it's a reason all the same." Outside, Bernard was putting in the horses. His heart smote him: perhaps he had been rather unkind to her. When all was ready for the start, he turned into the house again, and, coming up to where she still sat, he put his arm round her and kissed her. "Good-bye, little girl," he whispered, "I shall be back soon." Lydia accepted the kiss passively, and let him go without ft word. "What's the use of a man making up to you just LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 229 after he's refused to do what you want," she thought. "Just like them," and the kiss had no effect upon her. She heard the door close and the wagon start, and the horses' hoofs on the road. Then there was stillness; sunny, brilliant stillness outside, and in the room, where the sun beat fiercely on the panes and fell hi broad burning bands across the floor. Lydia lay back in the chair, with closed eyes. A great horror of herself was upon her. Two streams of emotion flowed over her and she felt as if raised and swayed inertly by their alternate tides. One was the cold, reasoning regret that she had been left behind, the other, a hot, mad onrush of delight that she was alone and free. And this last, this fierce undertow, was so much stronger than the other, that she struggled vainly, as a helpless swimmer, to keep herself afloat hi the cool, calm upper tide. The undertow dragged her down, engulfed her, and she knew herself, her old self, drowning in its rushing waves. Visions came before her eyes of the little white tent, pitched amongst the trees, like a pearl amongst emeralds. How cool it must be in the thick green of the forest, with only a gold shaft of light piercing through the leafy cover here and there. To-morrow that little tent would be gone, and the forest would know it no more, and with it would vanish her one chance of escape to the great world, to the open deeps of the sea of Life that was calling her. After this there would be no more hope for her. The soft-footed years would go on, flying past her, snatching away from her, silently, as they passed, her gifts and powers one by one. She would go on, and on, in her little treadmill round, like some small, furred captive in its cage, and then go quietly to her simple grave, that waited for her, near by, in the forest. With a smothered scream she pressed her hands over her eyes. As the four close walls of the cell become sometimes unendurable to the recluse and, seeming to narrow upon him, crush him into madness, so did the limits of her life seem to crush in upon the girl. There was no moderate outlet, only one des- perate way open, only one low door through which she could, 230 by stooping, creep. All the energy, the vitality, of her strong nature called out in stifled cries. The bright vigour of her brain, the joyous health of all her body, the keen edge of her senses and perceptions, called for more employment. With an effort she wrenched her thoughts back from the direction in which they were tending, and turned them towards her husband's home-coming. If he could only respond more to her, her life, circumscribed as it was, would have been tolerable. It was not his fault that he could not. He could no more help his nature than she hers. She recognised that, as is the case with most women in their relations with most men, there were so many more emotions, perceptions, vary- ing phases and moods in her than in him. In the duet of life between man and woman, the woman's voice has usually the greater range: she has higher notes and lower notes, which he can never reach, and these she has to sing alone. His range consists of a few middle notes, generally very good and true, but he has only these, and these are the sole ones that they can sing together. The woman's nature is so far more complex than the man's, that it would hardly tax her to respond to a hundred different men. No wonder that she rarely finds one satisfy her. What is, after all, the tuning fork to the instrument? If the tuning fork is A, the instrument has one A string amongst its many. Strike that string and the fork responds in unison, but strike any other and the fork is silent, or in discord. So it was with Lydia. She knew that it was only in one or two of her simplest phases that her mind was in harmony with Bernard's. And she wanted to use her other strings, so to speak, sometimes. Any instrument will spoil and get out of repair if you play only on one of its notes. The one string wears thin from overuse and the others rust or swell and draw tight, and shatter the instrument. Dis- organised, shattered now was the once perfect instrument of Lydia 's mind as she lay that last afternoon of her old life in the chair, with the bands of sun burning the flooring. Of course the world, everybody, would tell her it was her duty LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 231 to stay, stay, stay with Bernard all the rest of her life, it might well be fifty-seven years, she thought, working, drudg- ing, slaving, giving up her health and strength and beauty year by year. Yes, they would say, unquestionably, she was bound to go on doing all that she hated until eighty, because she had once liked doing it at sixteen. But was she really bound ? In honour ? She could not feel convinced that she was. It was true that she had promised. But at the time she did not know what she was promising. Bernard had, for his own advantage, hurried her, while under the influence of passing emotions, into declaring things wholly foreign to her feelings, ones that would never, naturally, have risen to her lips. Was she more bound by them than a man is by promises wrung from him in states of terror, pain or intoxication ? And none of such promises are held binding in law or honour. No, on the ground that one must never do anything unkind, never sacrifice another to oneself, she was far safer. These were her natural instincts, and to leave Bernard was to violate them. But here again, she felt, the conditions were not fair. There must always be proportion between the benefit conferred and the sacrifice made. No man would be required to have his arm amputated to save another from having a cold, even by the most rigid law of charity and self-sacrifice. And must she, ought she to give up the whole of her future, her reason possibly for the life here seemed driving her to the edge of madness in order that Bernard might be spared the pain of losing her and not be obliged to do his own work and cook his own dinner ? And there was another point to be considered : if she did lose her life or her reason, not even Bernard would benefit by the sacrifice. That Bernard would suffer if she went, she knew, but that he would not suffer one-tenth of that she must suffer if she stayed she knew as certainly. He had not the capacity for feeling which she had. His brain could no more feel what hers did, than her arms could lift the weights his did. He would suffer, she foresaw, perhaps for a year. After that 232 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW he would take another wife, and if she were young, pretty, worked hard, sewed nicely and cooked well, Bernard would be happy again. He loved her very much, it was true, but he loved her, she knew, principally for those things youth, prettiness, usefulness which he could so easily find in another. Of that strange, wild, passionate spirit within her, which was peculiarly her own, and could not be duplicated, he knew very little. Lydia did not think he would miss it. Their union had not been one of those that are divine, an- chored in the soul. It had been of the flesh. Then why expect of it what the flesh cannot give fidelity ? Twelve o'clock struck from the clock on the wall above her, and she rose to get the dinner. She could not eat, herself, but the child must have its food, no matter what the mother was feeling and suffering. Slowly she moved into the kitchen and gathered the plates and dishes together, longing, in her mad gusts of feeling, to throw them from her and see them shiver to atoms on the ground. But she con- trolled herself and laid them regularly on the table, with hot, trembling fingers, going through the whole routine as she had done two thousand times before, at twelve o'clock, on that same table. Regular work is popularly supposed to be a safeguard against all moral difficulties, but it kills some natures as it supports others. Two or three days of reckless idleness at this crisis of her life might have saved Lydia. But there was the great trial. The machinery could no more be stopped for three days than three years. Round came each hour with its appointed little, petty, mechanical task, bringing no more than that with it, and taking that much of her life away. The table was laid, and the food set on it, at last, and she went to fetch the child, still playing silently, interestedly, as only an intelligent child can play, with its bricks, in the corner. Lydia paused a minute and looked down at it, absorbed, unconscious, on the floor be- fore her. "Now the bricks," she mused, "then the dolls, a little later the books, and then, ah, then! the passions of men will be her toys, and why, when in our first days each LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 233 year brings us a different toy, should we be obliged when we grow up to always play with the same one ?" "Come, darling, your dinner's ready," she said aloud. The child looked up, and laying down her bricks obedi- ently, rose and trotted briskly after her mother into the kitchen. "Mama's not eating anything," she remarked after a minute, when she had scrambled up on her chair and com- menced her porridge. "No. I can't eat to-day," Lydia answered, leaning her elbow on the edge of the table, and gazing at the little figure opposite her. It was lovely, delicate and dainty in all its ways and movements, sweet and graceful and attractive, a replica of herself in miniature. "Then I can't either," came its soft little voice, as it laid down the spoon in the plate and looked at her gravely. A long line of sun came in sideways, and touched the chestnut curls on its shoulders, hair lighter and brighter than her own, and struck across the delicate transparent skin, lighting up the eyes and the whole face with an ethereal loveliness, such as the small blue butterflies possessed that came floating into the sunlit room. With a sudden swift movement Lydia rose from her place and caught the child up into her arms, covering its face with kisses, in a stormy passion of tears. Not surprised or alarmed, but full of all the sympathy its little being could hold, it put its arms softly round her neck and pressed its roseleaf lips into her cheek. It asked no questions. "Poor mamma, poor mamma," was all it said. Lydia's tears were soon over. Her griefs lay below the surface of any tears. They dried on her hot lids and she set the child back in its chair, and taking her own, made pretence to eat. After dinner she sent the child into the garden to play, and sat down again in the big armchair by the grate. She did not want the child with her. It was true that she loved it with all the strength of her fervent nature, but it could not help her now. Filled with the strange brain passion that was on her it was to her brain 234 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW that she needed some response, and that the child could not give. She was in love with that most fatal and desperate lover for women Life and Pelham represented Life to her in an extraordinary degree. She felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that he had seen, felt, done, known everything that was possible for one man. Life was a vari -coloured, twisting, gleaming snake, and he seemed to have it by the throat, clasped easily in one hand. He had spoken very little of himself, beyond saying he had lived in many differ- ent countries and tried many different forms of existence, but Lydia felt, instinctively, that only Life and its experiences could have given his face its expression, his manner its calm and self-reliance, his voice its wonderfully different and varying tones. The long, glittering afternoon wore slowly on and the lovely sheen of evening crept over the cornfields. Lydia, thirsty and parched, with her throat and head on fire, threw some logs into the wide grate, and hooked the iron kettle in the chimney over them. Then she sat forward in her chair and gazed into it. She liked to see the cool spring water, calm and crystal at first, become slowly troubled and tremble as the heat waves ran through it, liked to watch the agitation increase in the helpless water, until it rose, in its boiling fury, to the brim, leaping out into the very flames that made its pain. It was symbolic of her own fate. At sixteen her being had been calm and pure as the fresh spring water, and whose the hands that had confined it in iron walls and lighted that cruel fire beneath ? She made herself some tea and drank it thirstily. She glanced at the clock. Five: well, she was here : she had not gone yet. If she could only hold out against the obsession of her fierce thoughts and longings until to-morrow noon, all would be safe. For a little while she lay in a sort of stupor of intense fatigue. Then she rose, found a sheet of paper, and began to write to Bernard. She was still not decided. Some- thing impelled her to write, as a sort of experiment, a fare- well letter, but before it was finished she had decided. She must go. She sealed the letter and left it in the middle of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 235 the table, gave the child its supper, put it to bed, and saw it fall asleep. Then she descended to the lower room again. She slipped out of the door and softly closed it behind her. Then she paused, looking about her. The pale radiance of the moon filled the whole air. It was deliciously cool and sweet after the heat of the day, and laden with the fragrance of fir and pine, damp violets and woodland things. All lay still and soft and tranquil round her, pure, untroubled and undefiled, sleeping under the silver rays. Lydia looked up and down the silent green ways that opened round the house. "The dogs are off hunting, I suppose," she thought, then she paused again. It was very still, not a little leaf moved, not a murmur came up from the great forest. Nothing barred her progress: she was free. The house behind her stood white and tranquil, looking restful as always, with its deep gables: the door would open again to her hand. She could re-enter, or go forth, as she chose. It was this freedom that clung about her like a cloak, impeding her flight forward. She had not had freedom enough hitherto : had she had she would never perhaps have used it ill. It is in captivity that desire of flight is born. She stood still, tortured by the last throes of that struggle of many racking hours. In that large peace of the night, in the sweet stillness, in the centre of that wonderful beauty, only one aesthetic like herself could realise fully all she was losing. "But I can have this I can have this at the end of my life , when I am old . Nature will still be young, but the other I can never have if not now." The thought of Pelham's face, the desire to see it again, came across her brain in a whirl of madness. It seemed as if palpable hands were dragging her forward : she could not get free from them, resist them, and turn back into the warm quiet of the house. She went forward a few steps, then, without a look back, broke into a run, and fled swiftly down the green alley that led to the forest camp. It was a long way to go and she could not run very far. She was spent and worn and weary with the long conflict of the day. 236 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW The woodland opened out into a little glade, and here, on a fallen log, Lydia sank down, trembling. She was calmer now. "Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner," she thought, looking up absently to the magnificent trees towering over her head, great lofty firs, rising nobly into the soft moonlight; then her eyes fell, and followed the undulating slope of the rich forest land, with its multitude of tiny baby fir trees growing up, and its low, flowering shrubs. "But Bernard will not understand, and probably will not be able to forgive. No, he will not understand what my life has been and how much I have suffered all these years." The expression of her face grew colder. She rose and took the small green trail again. As she walked on a wonder grew up hi her at the strange force that was pushing her. She felt obliged, forced, constrained to do this, though she loathed it, though her heart felt breaking and the tears stood in a flood behind her eyes. She felt she was not going of her own choice to Pelham, but that she was being forced to go. She did not even believe that it would bring her happiness: she believed she was saying good-bye to happiness for the rest of her life, yet she was obliged to go forward. She did not exculpate herself or try to make an excuse to herself for herself by this reasoning that she was compelled : had she been reproached by another she would not have made use of this defence that she could not help it. She hated and loathed herself with a fierceness greater than any other could have felt towards her, but still, in her inmost being, she knew and realised that she was helpless, that she was being driven onward, powerless to resist, just as the fallen leaf is swept onward by the storm gust. What can the leaf do when the gust attacks it, lifts it up and flings it forward ? What could she do now, with all her moral being disintegrated, all her mental power paralysed, and only this one blind instinct pushing her forward like the storm gust ? What was it ? WTiat was this force outside her that she could not resist nor restrain, under the pressure of which she could only struggle fruitlessly ? She had seen a fly on a sunny pane, suddenly seized upon, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 237 gripped by a spider, and then slowly wound and wrapped round, in spite of all its desperate struggles, with fine, sticky threads, till, still living, breathing, palpitating, it had lain, bound, helpless, mummy-like, while the spider slowly de- voured it. That was Nature : the working out of one of her laws. What was she but this miserable fly, her life the sunny pane in which, unsuspected, passions, like hungry spiders, stalked about. One of these had darted upon her and bound her up, mummy-like, in its viscous coils, help- less even to struggle; the passion, like the spider, had now come to its feast, and was devouring her, living, palpitat- ing, agonised, unresisting. There seemed no outside help. She had begged Bernard to take her away, but he had not understood and had left her in the claws of the hungry spider. Nothing could be done now: the law must work itself out to the end. When the spider has once begun to suck at the living fly, the suction goes on till the end, till the awful death is complete, and the empty husk of the tortured fly drops into nothingness. These thoughts, coursing through her brain, became so horrible to her that she stopped and laid one hand on the smooth stem of a little sapling by her path. She clung to it for support; a sickening dread was upon her. "I don't want to go on," she said aloud, "I want to go back." Her words sounded loud to herself in the soft, still air: there was no sound in the forest: little glades opened round her, with velvety, mossy carpets, and full of subdued and misty light. She was trembling so now that it was easier to sink upon her knees than stand, and on her knees she prayed wildly for strength, for help, but all the tune there seemed ringing in her ears a defiant proclamation. She had to cease praying and to listen to it. It seemed like the voice of Nature reading out the law: "You must go on: it is your destiny: go on and suffer like the rest of humanity: as it shall be to the end. What have I created a woman like you for, except to suffer and make others suffer ? You have stood on the banks of life's stream too long and watched it go by. Get in now, into its turbulent waves, and let it 238 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW wash you along till it mangles you on its rocks. That is the eternal law. Up! To your destiny. It is irrevocable. It is fixed. There is no appeal. You, miserable atom, have no voice in the matter. These things are governed by me and by eternity. Up! On! The night is passing. On!" Dragged to her feet, Lydia rose and walked on quickly, feverishly, yet stumbling now and then like a driven beast. "Bernard, Bernard, what will he feel? And the child and her heart seemed drawn asunder, physical and mental pains seemed tearing at it, going through body and mind. Yet she knew, once Pelham's touch was upon her, they would sink into nothingness: that everything would be lost to her remembrance, except his presence, his proximity: that an immense comfort, well-being and joy would flow all through her when she reached him, and the hungry desire to be out of this present pain, this anguish of remorse and sorrow for others, bounded her on. As her feet hurried through the silent aisles and glades the persistent question still kept pace with her. What was it that was so urging her, so driving her? Was it, as it seemed, some resistless law that she was obeying, fulfilling ? Was she, as the apple that grows, ripening on the bough, and which, at the appointed moment, in obedience to the law, has to fall, called by the force of gravity down to the receiving ground ? How that mighty law, absolutely resistless, works on mysteriously, unseen, unheard, silently: its existence unrecognised except in its results, yet governing everything. What is the apple after all? What can it do? By one law it takes its being and grows; by another it ripens slowly on its bough, its fibres weaken, it becomes heavy with dew and sap, its stalk gives way: by another law it falls. Called to the earth by gravity, to the earth it goes. Strong as the all-governing force or gravity seemed the physical force now acting upon her, drawing upon all the fibres, all the molecules of her body, drawing them forward, against the will of her brain. How different this fighting, struggling, tearing passion LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 239 was from her early love for Bernard! How clear and inno- cent that had been, what real, unshaded happiness that had given her! How light had been her singing heart! Looking back, how fittingly it had been ushered in, that love of her sixteenth spring! It was all mingled in her mind with those soft, sunny blue skies and snow-white almond blossoms, and the dewy stillness of rose-scented lanes. How glad she had been when she first realised the greatest of Life's gifts was hers. How freely, joyously she had accepted it. What happiness she had found in Bernard's kiss, in his embrace! It had all been one clear, joyous harmony, like a melody played on one or two sweet silver strings. But it had gone, passed like the sixteenth year itself, and there could never again be anything of that nature or kind for her. Different emotions, different desires had developed in her, different appetites, different capabilities. The instrument itself had so changed, so many new strings had been added, and now it was so differently tuned that never again could that simple Arcadian melody be heard from it. And it was curious, she thought dully for her brain was beginning to grow heavy with long repetition of painful thought how the setting of this second passion had been so different from that of the first, portentous, as it were, of the passion itself. That oppressive, awful grandeur of the Chain, that snowy stillness and repose of Nature, broken by their savage, blood-red fires, and the rising of that stained and sickly moon that gave them no light, only seemed to threaten them, lowering and sanguinous, from out of the turbulent, billowy sky. Suddenly something caught her heavy eyes. Before her glowed the red of a camp fire : the dull, still red of a fire burnt down. In the circle of illuminated dusk round it she looked mechanically for the white tent she expected. But there was no tent; to a shrub, not far from the fire, two horses were tethered. They were saddled and weighted, in addition, with many bundles: the ground round the fire was cleared up: some black holes gaped in it, whence tent 240 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW poles and tent pegs had been withdrawn. It had been, but was no longer, Pelham's camp. This was her destination, and the power that had been urging on her feet now left them. The horror that had been striving with that power was still clinging to her. She stared with wild eyes and light, swimming brain at the camping ground: then turned from it, and would have fled back towards the misty, white- lighted aisles behind her, but a slim, straight figure barred her path. "You have come at last, darling: I have been ready so long. I was getting dreadfully impatient." Lydia looked up. She saw Pelham's face above her and the long green misty aisles behind. "Did you expect me then?" she muttered. "Of course. I thought you'd be here long before. I should have come after you but was afraid we should miss in the wood. Let us start at once." His voice was very soft and gentle, and the sound of it seemed to flow over her with a lulling, soothing effect, as warm water flows over aching limbs and strained muscles, lulling and soothing them. Her presence was so absolutely taken for granted. Everything was so simple and natural: she was here: she was to remain: it seemed only unnatural, complicated, difficult, impossible, to go back now. She remembered suddenly her wedding night. Everything had seemed so easy, so simple, so natural, all in order. She had put her hand in the hand of her destiny then. Now it was the same thing again. She put her hand into the hand of her new Fate, and all was at once simple and easy. It was only when she was struggling wildly to act for herself, to be free, that she suffered so terribly as she had just now. Pelham was leading her to where the horses stood tethered. He unfastened one and lifted her up bodily upon it into the saddle. He put the reins into her hands. She looked down into the noble, grave and beautifully-carved face, and all rebellion of herself against herself died away. She gathered the reins into her hands and sat upright, looking forward into LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 241 the gloom of the thick, silent forest before them. The inner revolt had ceased : only in her heart she felt as if there was a great rent. In that deep, bleeding gash, which in a nature like hers must bleed for ever, were thrown her love for Bernard and her child, her attachment to and memory of her former life. It was their grave. Pelham had mounted. They were sitting now side by side on their horses. The camp fire had burned lower and lower: the red glow only reached the hoofs of their horses: above the camping-place rose the dark shadow of the trees, and above, again, the clear violet sky. "Follow the line of the stream," Pelham said, and the impatient horses broke into a flying canter over the easy ground, down one of the dim endless aisles before them. The air was cool and soft as it struck their faces, and the horses' hoofs fell soundless on the mossy turfy ground. On and on, silently, they cantered, defile after defile of glorious straight lofty firs ever opening before them, as mile after mile lay behind. To Lydia, in her curious dream-like con- dition, the motion seemed as of enchantment. The easy swing of the horse beneath her moved her body no more in the saddle than one moves in a rocking-chair. The endless lines of trees flying by as she went, ever forward, with this swift, motionless motion, the soft, dim, unearthly light, and the great silence, working on her strained, excited system, that had known neither food nor sleep for twenty-four hours, produced a sense of unreality, of ethereal freedom from the body, a sensation of being only a spirit moving in a dream. The moon sank slowly in the sky behind them, but, as its rays grew shorter and paler, another light began growing in the east, and as the moon finally sank below the horizon, great ribs of glowing pink began to stand out in the pearly morning sky. The light, the first sweet, gentle light, began to steal about amongst the gigantic tree trunks, and into the deep green recesses, with its renewed promise of another day, and in this white light of dawn Pelham looked at his com- panion. The girl rode on beside him : her face was bloodless: 16 242 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW the lips compressed into a thin, colourless line, and over the large dark eyes, that stared before her as if into the future the brows were drawn closely together into a straight dark line of pain. Never had the face looked so impressively beautiful as at this moment, and to Pelham came that rush of mad idolatry of his possession, that worship that is not wholly ignoble, which unhappily only beauty, the least worthy of all human things, is able to inspire. He slackened his speed gently, then reined in. Her horse, without guidance, followed the example of its fellow, and stopped still also. They had come through the thickest part of the wood and were now in an open glade. The grass was short and thick, some young trees stood round, and at one side flowed a narrow stream to which the brilliant blue jays were akeady directing their radiant flight. "We have gone far enough: we'll stop and make a camp here, and get some breakfast," Pelham said quietly. He jumped from his horse and came to hers and stretched out his arms to take her from the saddle. Mechanically she loosed hold of the reins and turned towards him. He looked up into her eyes, and as their glance met the lignt went out of her face and she fell forward into his arms, unconscious CHAPTER XIX THE open window of the room which looked out on the main street of Oaxaca was protected by upright iron bars, only eight inches apart, solid, immovable, as the bars of a prison. Within, her face pressed against these bars, and her eyes straining out into the thick darkness of the tropical night, sat Lydia, huddled close against the window. It was past midnight, but on the heavy, suffocating air came floating gently the ceaseless throbbing of the band in the Plaza, play- ing its wild Mexican music. In the Plaza, that is where she longed to be, walking slowly under those glorious grape- fruit trees, that were standing in the dark heat of the night, their drooping branches weighed down with their great golden globes of fruit, that are such a dazzling wonder to the beholder. Modelled like an orange, only of colossal proportions, five times the size of an orange, and gold as a ripe lemon in the light, the fruit hangs in gorgeous clusters between its dark, glossy leaves. Walking round the Plaza, in the afternoon, with Eustace, this fruit had caught the girl's eye, so sensitive to beauty. Seen for the first time and in its full perfection of loveliness in the fierce heat and light of the Mexican noon, they had impressed her deeply, and for all her life after she could easily conjure up, before closed eyes, those wonderful, stately trees, weighed down with colossal golden globes. But Eustace had not shared her enthusiasm: forty-three is less easily consoled by beauty in its surroundings than twenty- three. And there was much he felt he needed consolation for. He was suffering from nervous fatigue, which took all the spring out of his limbs and muscles, and robbed him of 243 244 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW all power to enjoy. The life he had been leading for the past weeks, in the small and poor posadas, or Mexican inns the only ones the country afforded was extremely uncom- fortable, and without the excitement of any sport, seemed unbearable; moreover, with regard to the woman beside him, an intense reaction had set in, and so far from giving him any pleasure, her presence near him filled him with annoyance and irritation. He felt, too, she was so abomin- ably fond of him, that she would probably want to stay with him, and that irritated him all the more. He had coveted her possession intensely, but, now that she was entirely his, he felt none of the joy of possession, and hated her for his disappointment, for the failure, within himself, of his own desire. She had now become dependent on him, and man generally shows to better advantage in his conduct to those above him than below him. With how few natures is it the rule to treat those helpless and dependent on them well! Man's attitude to the animals is one of cruel oppression, because they are helpless and dependent, and whenever a woman drifts into the position of an animal, namely of help- less dependence upon a man, she too has to bear his brutality. The thought that this woman cared for him so much that he might have some difficulty in decently getting rid of her, annoyed him. It would have been well if he could have known how needless his anxiety was, how infinitely short- lived is that first exquisite adoring passion which a woman brings to a man. For the moment she loved him so much, and, in consequence, was so submissive to his every wish, that she irritated him. The more irritated he grew and the more harsh and brutal in his manner, with that refined brutality that in the higher class takes the place of the plate- throwing and kicking of the lower one, the more gentle and tender, the more anxious to please, she became, without realising it was resistance, not submission, he desired. He was by nature, essentially, a hunter. That which was free, untamed, independent, strong, attracted him; to pursue, to capture, to tame, to weaken, to break was to him a pleasure : LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 245 and the pleasure lay in the doing it: when it was done the tamed and captured thing had no further interest nor at- traction for him. Lydia, as he had seen her first, the property of another and entirely independent of himself, gay, bright and strong, careless and free, in her radiant youth and beauty, had a violent, irresistible attraction for him. He had had to conquer her, and the excitement of the struggle had been a passionate delight to him. He could not realise beforehand that her resistance, once conquered, would change to complete compliance, and she, on her side, could not understand that herself, so determinedly stolen, at such risk and cost, once acquired, would become valueless. She was no more to him, then, in that first terrible reaction after the joy of the fight, than the shot quail he stuffed, with broken wings, into the pockets of his shooting coat: quail that, soaring free and powerful against the blue sky, he had followed, fasting and thirsting, with eager enthusiasm and tireless feet. So now, with little interest in his companion, with no shooting, and no society, and an extremely uncom- fortable daily existence, in which his health and strength steadily declined, Eustace pitied himself deeply, yet gained a certain satisfaction in having someone near whom he could make more unhappy than he was himself, and to whom he could be persistently and savagely disagreeable. Lydia, absolutely bewildered by this treatment of her, resented nothing outwardly, and only marvelled at it inwardly. Ber- nard had been the embodiment of good health and good temper. She had had no experience of a man who had bad health and bad temper. Bernard and she had made happi- ness out of nothing: or rather, out of each other: they had had no luxurious setting to help their love: poverty, hard work, hard life, how they had laughed over it all together, and got sunshine out of it ! and now this man, with his wealth, and the power of it at his command, contrived to shed round them, and through their relationship, gloom and discomfort. She did so want to be happy the great wish of youth. She longed for happiness, and it seemed so near her, all round 246 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW her, yet she could not grasp it. It eluded her, mocked her. Here, in this beautiful tropical corner of the earth, it seemed to smile upon her from the azure sky, dance in the sunlight, sway in the palms as they waved against the gold sunsets, speak to her in the songs of the birds, in the throb of the constant music, yet it was not hers. At no time in her life had her eyes known such continual tears, never had she been so wretched, as in these first months after her new purchase in Life's shop. Eustace had looked charming, perfect, in the window, behind that magic crystal pane of the Unexperienced, that is its plate glass, and she had bought him at a great price, and with him terrible disappointment, humiliation, self-reproach and tears! She thought him hard, harsh, brutal and unkind. She was amazed at the change in him and dismayed at the step which she had taken, and that had put her in his power. But in spite of this, and the mental loathing of so cruel a character creeping over her, the fire of passion, once so subtly, so dexterously, kindled, could not be immediately extinguished. She loved him wildly, and miserable though he made her on every oppor- tunity, it was a sort of fiercely happy misery that she suffered since she was near him, and his physical presence, that had become so much to her, was about her. Her passion flamed up with a great leaping flare of a wood fire to which no more wood is given. It must die down at last from want of food, but for a time it leaps hungrily and desperately from its consumed logs, seeking more: all the brighter it glows be- cause no fresh fuel is added. Feeling this within her, and knowing instinctively how short a life so fierce a flame must have, she longed for Eustace to recognise it then, to delight in it, to accept it, instead of repelling it. "Perhaps some time he will long for this very passion from me," she thought at nights, in the lonely room of some ghastly old inn where they might be stopping, "ask for it, and I shall not be able to give it," and her thoughts went back to the night when she had begged and prayed Bernard to take her out West with him in the first fire of her love. Had he done so then, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 247 she thought, she would never have read and studied, never have educated herself mentally, as she had unconsciously done, for a man like Eustace, and probably never have succumbed to his influence when he came into her life. Besides, deep in her heart, she knew she had never forgiven Bernard for refusing to take her then, and that had helped to justify her, in her own eyes, for leaving him. Similarly she would never be able to forgive Eustace for his cruelty to her now. Still, for the present, cruel or kind, the fas- cination of this man's personality for her, the boundless in- fluence he possessed over her, remained. And, short as those few first weeks had been, spent in the forest camps with him, while the delight of his victory lasted, she could not forget them. They hung in her memory, pictures framed in fire. The remembrance of their wild passion and pleasure could never be obliterated except with life itself. She sat crushed against the bars of the window, looking out with dry, staring eyes: she was too tired to cry. A mental weariness of tears possessed her. She sat silent and motionless, thinking how strange it was that so little now would have made her happy, and that little was denied her. The whole framework of happiness was here: she herself brought in her hands those e'ements from which, generally, happiness takes its being, youth and beauty, superb and perfect health, and that ardent desire, that capacity for enjoyment, without which no other gift avails, and, in addi- tion to this, the place, the climate, the beauty of every scene they passed through made the most perfect frame for human joy that could exist anywhere. Moreover, Pelham himself was singularly endowed with everything that could give the extreme of pleasure to any woman, and particularly to one like herself. It had seemed to Lydia, in those wonderful first days, that she lived by enchantment, so great was the magic charm that his face, his voice, his manner and whole bearing exercised upon her. He had only to smile to make her feel happy, only to kiss her to lift her into heaven itself. Besides this personal charm, the superiority of his rank to 248 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW hers, the knowledge of that long life behind him, much of it lived before she was even born, and of which she knew nothing, his countless experiences for the life of the rich is infinitely more varied than that of the poor his knowledge, for she soon made him talk to her of books, and delighted in hearing him quote and explain Greek and Latin phrases to her, all threw a glamour of mystery over him, and inten- sified her passion by appealing to it through the brain. He was to her deeply interesting, and for the first time in her life she found herself with a mental companion. Her soul flew out to him joyfully, as a bird to its mate, and in those tent hours she had been deeply, wonderfully happy. " Why does he make himself so hateful ? Why is he so cruel and unkind? I can't think," she meditated now, with the seductive low throbbing of the music coming to her ears, and the wonderful heavy fragrance of the orange flowers pressing on her senses. She glanced up: the sky hung, jewelled with its innumerable stars, above her, a faint breath passed through the soft, dark-scented air. "So lovely, everything so lovely, and he spoils it all!" and she thought passionately of the lovers who now, with linked arms, were walking round the Plaza, feeling all the beauty round them a thousand times intensified by the presence of each other. Passing at the moment was a young Mexican : their eyes met across the bars. Involuntarily his feet slackened as he saw her, and his eyes took in her lovely blooming face, and the delicate pink silk of her bodice pressed against the old iron of the window. His face showed a pale oval in the darkness, his eyes were dark and full of fire: in them she saw all the pleasure, attraction and admiration she felt was her due: for one moment, in her wild resent- ment at the treatment she received from the man for whom she had done so much, the thought came, " Why not go to the Plaza with him?" She glanced over her shoulder into the room behind her, full of its oppressive quiet, and at the bed where Eustace lay sleeping, silently and profoundly, the whole length of his figure distinctly outlined as he lay LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 249 on his side under the thin white covering. The door of the room was close to the door of the house : she had but to open hers, step across the passage, and pass through the house door to the street. The man outside lingered, feeling her hesitation. "Alone and so beautiful," she heard him murmur, and the words maddened her. All the windows facing the street and on the ground floor are barred, and it is the Mexican custom for the young unmarried girls to sit behind them on fine summer nights, while their admirers, or even their recognised fiances, stand without, conversing, playing a serenade, or sometimes merely exchanging love's silent looks with them. The man lingered. He could see into the lighted room beyond her: see her little narrow bed against the farther wall, but he could not see the corner where Eustace lay sleeping, his bed pressed against the near wall, and fancied she was alone. The music invited her: she was wide awake, it was past midnight, but she did not feel sleepy. She longed for amuse- ment: in the young Mexican's face she saw that dear look of tender admiration that is the due of young and pretty women, and makes the world seem bright to them. She was so weary of the gloomy discontent with which Pelham's eyes usually rested on her. "Come to the Plaza, sefiorita," said the man, softly. "The music is not nearly finished yet. We will take one or two turns together. I will bring you safely back. Your father will never know." "My father?" repeated Lydia, amused at his mistake. "How do you know I have a father?" "I saw you in the Plaza with him to-day," murmured back the man; "but it looks better at night. Come, sefio- rita, I will protect you." Lydia glanced back into the room. Eustace slept on tranquilly as usual. It was hard, with the blood beating high in her veins, to say no, to stay, and she felt she would get no thanks for doing so. Still, to go out thus, at this 250 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW hour, would be a serious step, and she loved Eustace at present so much she would not risk giving him ground to find fault with her. Mad as she felt, like any wild im- prisoned thing, she would not yield to the temptation. She shook her head. "No, I cannot. Do not stay here, it is useless," and she rose from the window, stepped back to the centre table, extinguished the lamp, and flung herself, in the darkness, on her bed. She heard the man at the window still cajoling, imploring, entreating, in murmured words, but she did not move nor speak, and in a little while she heard his feet move onward down the stone-paved street. Then there was silence, broken at intervals by a soft faint gust of the distant music blown in on orange-scented air through the open window. She lay there; across the room she could see the great planets burn and flash in the soft, dark sky between the bars. "What a pity, .what a pity," she thought. "We might be so happy, if only Eustace wanted to take me to the Plaza as much as that man does; or if we could sleep happily in each other's arms, under those stars. What on earth did he take me from Bernard for if he did not want me ?" She lay there, every pulse in her body bounding, and sleep far from her eyes. "It's only what I deserve," she thought. "I made Bernard miserable by leaving him, and I'm thoroughly miserable myself. I am a splendid example for the moralist." * She thought of Bernard and longed to have his arms about her, in her desolate state of feeling. The question even came, "Could she go back?" But she knew, in Me, there is no returning, and besides, with her passion for Eustace still in her veins, she preferred her present fierce misery with him to tranquil life without him. It was nearly six o'clock, the time fixed for their rising, before the wretched girl fell asleep, and at ten minutes past, Pelham, who had been comfortably sleeping since the previous evening, came over and woke her, feeling fresh and alert enough himself. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 251 "Do get up," he said crossly, as she opened her tired eyes, with a sigh. "You are always behind because you won't get up when I do." Lydia sat up and looked round: she was deadly tired, and a splitting, tearing pain on being awakened just when she had sunk to sleep, from exhaustion, began to rend her temples. She felt she could not get up then, could not face the day of rough travel before them. She sighed again helplessly: she was dazed: her face was quite white, and her skin and eyes had a dried, burnt-up look, wholly foreign to her usual bloom. Virtue is not always even its own reward. Had she yielded to her wishes and gone the previous night to the Plaza with the young Mexican, the physical exercise in the cool air, the outlet to her spirits would probably have resulted in her getting afterwards some hours of tranquil and refreshing sleep, and this morning she would have been brighter and far more attractive to look at than now. She said nothing, but rose and began to dress in silence; the pain, however, in her head was so intense that as she stooped to find her shoes she felt suddenly faint and sat down on the bed for support. "Eustace, would you mind very much waiting here one day and going on to-morrow? I have such a headache. I could not sleep last night." "Why do you sit up half the night ?" he answered, in an annoyed tone. "Of course you're not ready to get up in reasonable time the next morning." "I did go to bed," she answered, "but I could not sleep. You always sleep so well you don't understand what sleep- lessness is." "You would sleep if you got up earlier," he rejoined sharply, opening his razor. "Well, I was up at five yesterday morning: I don't see that one could get up much earlier than that." Eustace crossed the room towards her with a quick, savage step. "Don't argue with me," he exclaimed furi- ously. She glanced up from where she was sitting on the floor, 252 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW putting on her stockings, and saw he was white with anger, and his eyes alight. He had the open razor in his hand, and for one moment she expected him to strike her with it. Many women would have cowered before him in that moment, but she felt no pulse of fear and therefore showed none. She stared him full in the face with her great eyes, sitting motionless where she was, surprise being her first feeling: then slowly mounted in her blood the spirit of combat, as in all brave animals when attacked. So they looked at each other for a moment, then Eustace turned away. Though he was not conscious of it himself, he liked her dauntless look and attitude, and her absolute silence appeased his irritation. "I am going on to-day," he said, crossing back to the glass. "You can stay behind if you like, alone." Lydia, on the floor, gave her shoulders an almost imper- ceptible shrug as she drew on her stocking. "What a brute he is!" she thought to herself. "Argue with him! If one simply replies to a remark of his it's arguing!" Still, Eustace had looked exceedingly hand- some in that white heat of anger, with the light blazing in his blue-green eyes, and she felt a certain soft sense of aesthetic satisfaction. They finished their dressing in the most pro- found silence, and then the girl sank into a chair to await their breakfast, exhausted. The pain in her head was agonising. When the breakfast came in she drank her coffee eagerly, and it made the headache somewhat better, but she still looked deadly white and ill. Pelham noticed it, but so far from its exciting any sym- pathy it irritated him against her, and he had a sense of satisfaction in thinking of the hard day's travel before her, for which he saw she was quite unfit. In the Mexican country places there is, according to English ideas, no food fit to eat: the coffee, so called, supplied by the inns, is not real coffee, but a cheap black bean, which gives a liquid thin and black, with a flavour not unlike poor, burnt, very weak coffee; the milk, from the scarcity of pasture, is ex- LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 253 tremely thin and watery, the eggs are small and flavourless; the butter poor; the bread only represented by small, tough, heavy buns. So that the breakfast put before them was not an inspiring meal, and had the effect of increasing Pelham's bad temper. Lydia ate hers in silence, and, afterwards, packed all her small luggage, without any further com- plaint or appeal, and when she had finished sat down by the window to look out. Pelham was not ready, and the wagon to take them further on south stood waiting at the door, for they had left the rail behind. He was in and out of the room several times, and at last she heard an im- patient call from the hall, and went to join him. Their luggage was all on the roof of the wagon, and Eustace stood at the door. "Do come," he said angrily. "I do wish you would not always keep me waiting but be ready in good time." Lydia did not answer at all. She was accustomed to these unjust accusations and knew that she would only be told she was arguing if she pointed out that she had been sitting perfectly ready for the last twenty minutes. She walked forward and took her seat in the carriage, the spell of the beautiful morning falling gently over her. The sparkling brightness of the sunny crystal air, the glad notes of the birds, the cloudless Mexican sky, spoke to her and enchanted her, in spite of her pain and fatigue. She was so eagerly anxious to enjoy life that she tried hard to extract all the joy she could from each passing moment, in spite of Pelham who did his utmost to spoil it. He flung himself beside her now, shut the door, and they started, leaving the landlady bowing in the stone arched doorway of the pictur- esque little inn in the narrow winding street. The road to Mitla is the steep and stony bed of a watercourse, some- times of a raging torrent. Just now there was little water in it, and provided, as the driver thought, an excellent road for them. His team consisted of three mules abreast, with two horses beyond them as leaders, and these he whipped up to their fastest pace. The wagon wheels were entirely 254 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW without springs, but strong, and, driven hard against the huge boulders in the stream, jumped gaily over them, while the vehicle rocked and swayed from side to side. Lydia and Pelham within were thrown helplessly about like dice in a box, their heads striking heavily the wagon roof, constantly, as the wheels made their flying bounds over stone and rock. At any other time Lydia would have thought it rather fun, but to-day the motion made the pain in her head blinding nearly intolerable. As the day progressed the heat grew intense, and still in obedience to the oaths and objurgations of the driver the little mules and ponies pulled on the flying, bounding coach. The two people inside were very silent. Lydia essayed a few remarks, but they were not well received, and she lapsed into silence, trying, in spite of her headache and the bruising blows she got every now and then from the roof or side, to see out of the window and enjoy the lovely country, rich in waving banana and palm, they were going through. At last the evening coolness came, its rosy flush, its amber light, and with it they drew into the dainty, charm- ing little village of Mitla, lovely and ideal, like a scene on an exquisite plate or hand-painted card. Sick and exhausted, cramped and bruised, but fully alive to the charm of it all, Lydia stepped out in the still sweet air, and looked up and down the green turfy road, on either side of which stood the small grass-thatched huts of the natives, each standing in its own enclosure, fenced round with giant organ cactus, planted so that it grows up straight and tall, many feet in height, forming a natural fence. Seen for the first time these great lofty, dark-green palisades of cactus, some bearing vivid crimson and golden flowers, enclosing each one its hut and garden, and leaving neat alleyways between, are striking and impressive. Lydia gazed upon them with delight, and felt a little thrill of joy as she went into the low, square build- ing, not as high as the banana trees that waved by it, of the Mitla posada. This was no native hut but had been the hacienda of a great man in its day, and still owned its char- acteristic patio, or court, open to the stars, full of banana LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 255 trees, with its deep well in the centre, and its covered way running all round, into which the heavy wooden doors of the windowless, brick-floored rooms opened. One of these was assigned to them, and a little table placed outside, in the covered way, for their dinner. The still, delicious, sweet-scented peace of the court in the rosy gold of the evening, after the heat and noise of the day, appealed to Lydia greatly, and soothed even Pelham, as they came into it. Her head ached still, but she was hardly conscious of it, nor of her great fatigue, as she sat in the verandah, look- ing into the green of the banana-filled court : the sky burned over it with a deep pink lustre, it was very still all round, except for the hot sound of the cicala singing. There seemed no one staying in the hacienda but themselves, and the people of the house were all away at the back, behind the covered way. Eustace had disappeared too, there was no one near her to break the harmony of colour and silence. She sat still, drinking it in, and felt revived and refreshed by it. The true aesthete can never be really unhappy. There is so much in this world to feed every sense with joy. Her thoughts slipped back to the wonderful Arizona valley, over which how often she had seen these same stars rise and set, but she had no wish to return. Hateful as many of her days were made for her now, they were never alike, and to some natures a varying succession of disagreeable things is more bearable than an unvarying succession of agreeable ones. She had run away with two lovers Life and Pelham and if the latter were unsatisfactory, at least the former, in his constant changes of mood, delighted her. When Pelham came out into the covered way, very cross and dusty from unstrapping his portman- teaux, he found her tranquil and smiling. She wanted him to sit down and share with her the beauty of the scene. "Yes, it's very beautiful," he answered, "but I must go and see what they are going to give us for dinner. I am frightfully hungry, and I suppose they won't give us any 256 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW thing fit to eat," and he went away again. Lydia turned to the court. Pelham was fairly correct in his prophecy as to the dinner, prettily served on their little table, under a swinging lamp, with quantities of the red cactus flower arranged in a blue bowl in the centre. Some very thin soup was followed by some hard and impossible meat, and this by an enormous dish of frijoles the brown haricot bean on which the natives live and thrive the aforementioned stone-like buns and black bean coffee completed the meal. However, it was something to eat, and Lydia ate her beans and drank her pulke the native drink of the country, which looks like milk and tastes like beer uncomplainingly, looking out to the lustrous purple twilight. The cicalae sang merrily round them, their wild song only heard in the tropics, the hot still air was full of sweet scent, and Pelham seemed rather less unamiable than usual. She felt happy with this much. She was young, she was well and strong and good- looking, in a sense she was independent: no one could hurt her much. If one purchase in Life's shop were unsatisfac- tory she had plenty of money in her hand, she could buy something else. She could not be said to think this: it was simply a sub-conscious state of her mind that gave colour to her thoughts. But there was error in her half -uncon- scious reasoning. No human being is independent. He carries within him the elements of servitude. He is never independent of his feelings. He is too apt to consider his feelings as his own, his property, his toys, but they are no more his than are the servants of his household. They are his servitors, not his slaves, they stand in much the same relation to him. They do his bidding up to a certain point and serve him faithfully as a rule, but rebellion and revolt is common to them if too harshly treated, and then they usurp the mastery, and he has to do their bidding, as the successful and undetected murderer finds to his cost, when they drive him to confess, and to the scaffold. He has trampled on then, and, to his infinite surprise, they and they alone rise LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 257 to slay him. Lydia, already once conquered, and driven by their stress to this man, might have foreseen easily how they might conquer again, but she had not yet learnt her lesson. The future still held it for her After dinner they took a few turns together up and down the covered way in the moonlight, and then, to her regret, Pelham said he was tired, and they went to their room, that opened, by a great wooden door, off the verandah. "Do you notice that we have no windows, and when we shut this door we shall be in pitch darkness?" Pelham re- marked. "There's a large crack under the door: we shall get some moonlight," replied Lydia, with her bright, careless laugh. She took her hat off and flung herself upon the little bed on the opposite side of the room to Pelham 's: she was worn out and needed sleep. Pelham swung the great, thick, wooden doors, like the doors of a church or a barn, to, and shot the massive bolts. Then they were in utter darkness, like that of a prison cell, save for the vivid silver riband of light on the worn bricks beneath the door. The girl said nothing more, and soon drifted into oblivion. But in the middle of the night, when the moon had set, and even the silver streak disappeared, she awoke suddenly to find herself in Pelham 's arms. And because the shape of his nose was perfect and she loved it, and because the tones of his voice pleased her ear, and his whole personality was such as took by storm her fastidious taste, she turned to him with delight, and the harshness of the previous day was melted away in pleasure, and she sank into a happy sleep against his breast 17 CHAPTER XX THE next morning Lydia got up feeling happy, for the joy of the night was still with her, but her happiness did not last, for Pelham seemed determined to be more unkind, inconsiderate, more cruel than usual, and it oppressed the sensitive, delicate nature of the girl even amongst these surroundings, where every sense was wooed and soothed by beauty. She could not understand his excessive harshness, coming immediately after the perfect union and passion of the night. He complained of feeling ill, and she saw that he looked so, and, more than this, she divined that he felt a hatred of her as being the cause of his fatigue, his nervous inability to enjoy the scenes about him. She excused him to herself on this account, and tried, by her tender gentle- ness and yielding to all he wished, to soothe him. They were up with the first ray of light and went out into the patio to find their miserable breakfast set on the little table, ex- quisitely decorated with flowers, as the night before. In exchange for the black bean coffee they thought they would have some cocoa, which they had with them, and while Pel- ham attended to making it, Lydia slipped out to see if she could get some better milk in the village. How lovely it was, she thought, as she stepped into the road through the stone archway. The morning air was sweet and cool, a bright silence was all around, the sky stretched overhead a pale tranquil blue, and the rich dark green defiles of the great organ cactus opened on every side, soft, silent, sandy ways leading out to the desert plain. Down one of these she went, admiring the straight, lofty cactus, each succulent stem nearly as thick round as her body, each standing close 258 . LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 259 to each, and rising straight from twelve to twenty and thirty feet. These wild savage plants, armed with their deadly spines, pressed into the service or man to make these orderly and formidable palisades, and yet, even in order, reminding one irresistibly of their barbaric origin, the fierce desert from which they come, impressed her deeply. It was something she had never seen before, familiar as she was with the spreading, large-leaved cactus, and nowhere perhaps in the world is it seen to such perfection, in such magnificent pro- portions, as here. At each little hut, in its compound within the living green paling, she inquired for milk; her knowledge of Mexican, even of Spanish, was limited, but she was marvellously quick in all learning, thanks to the many hours of brain work her father had done, and she had already picked up all that was most useful. In one of the last of the huts she saw some rather good-looking bread, and bought it, together with a pannikin of goat's milk, and with these she hurried back to the hotel at top speed. She found Pelham waiting for her at the table. He couldn't understand why she had been so long, and grumbled at the shape of the loaves she had chosen. He did not thank her for exerting herself to get it, but admitted it was somewhat better than what they had, which was all Lydia wanted. If only he was pleased! If only she could please him! That was her one single thought. They had their cocoa and a fairly pleasant breakfast, while the birds warbled to them, and the sun, climbing up, just glinted on the top of the great swaying banana leaves in the deep cool patio. Then they packed some lunch in a basket, which Lydia carried, and started on foot for the ruined temples that are the pride and glory of the tiny village of Mitla. Full of youth and health and the love of novelty and adventure, excited by new scenes and sights, the girl would have felt perfectly happy, and trod on air beside him, but Pelham did his very best to crush all the joy out of her. There is one gift which all men seem to possess in common, and in perfection, the art of being ungracious. There is no other word that expresses it so 260 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW well. A woman may be angry, petulant, hasty, sulky, but in sheer ungraciousness she is never a match for the average man, when he chooses. There was nothing that morning that the girl could look, do, say or be that was right. As they walked down a cactus-lined way to the open country he remarked that her dress was too long, it raised the dust. "Why do you have your dresses all down on the ground like that ? a detestable, unhealthy custom." Lydia, who knew perfectly well her dress was two inches from the ground, and could not possibly touch it, forbore to say so, lest she should be "arguing." She merely said she was sorry she raised a dust, and lifted her dress. As she did so a small piece of braid on the edge, about hah* an inch, that had come undone, caught his eye. "Why don't you mend your things? That skirt is all in rags at the bottom. I do dislike torn and ragged clothes. I can't think why you don't attend to those simple matters." Lydia said nothing. She did not know what to say. The skirt she was wearing was a new one, and the braid had merely come unfastened where it had been carelessly finished off by the tailor. Pelham went on, in the most acrid tone, "American girls are always so neat and trim in their dress. You never see them in rags. Even when they are poor they manage to be always smart. I hate long, trail- ing, ragged skirts." Lydia, thinking it would seem rude to remain silent any longer, murmured, "I am very sorry, I will mend it when we get back," but Pelham was one of those people who never accepted an apology generously. He seemed always to look upon an apology as a sign of weakness, and when people apologised to him he jumped upon them all the more. Lydia learned this in time, and later she never apologised to him for anything, even when she knew herself in fault. It was no good: it only made matters worse. "Being sorry doesn't alter it," returned Pelham, sharply; LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 261 "there ought never to be occasion for me to speak of these things." Lydia was silent. To herself she said, "There is none but you make it." By this time they had reached the plain, the waste country lying round the fertile village. The road sloped gently up- wards, climbing to the slight eminence whereon are set the sacred temples of Mitla. Lydia gave a little cry of delight, in spite of the depress- ing effect of Pelham's strictures, as she drank in the beauty of the sc*ne. Ringed round the horizon stood the distant purple hills, and here in front of them, enthroned above the surrounding sandy plain, broken by dark green patches of the maguey plant under cultivation, the graceful lines of a pepper tree, and here and there an adobe hut, stood the temples, their bright yellow sandstone walls flashing gold in the morning light, as they have stood for thousands of years, so many thousands that their origin and history is lost. Who built them, by what arts, for what gods, who worshipped here, all is lost behind the veils of their antiquity. The temples are roofless now, perhaps always were, but the walls stand solid and complete and perfect, unhurt by the tooth of Time or the grating desert sand, and wall after wall is covered inside and outside by panels of beautiful patterns: strange snake-like scrolls and designs that, at a little distance, look like some magic writing in gold upon a golden wall. Awestruck and charmed they went on towards them in silence and gained admittance at a little gate, kept by a gatekeeper, in the old crumbling wall that runs round a wide square of ground surrounding the temples. The custodian was old and apathetic and passed them through in silence, without offering to accompany them. No human being seemed to be within the enclosure, all was calm, im- pressive, sunlit stillness round these perfect, enduring, monuments of a vanished past. Within the wall there was a spring, near which two pepper trees were growing, their song, delicate, waving foliage drooping down to and sweep- 262 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW ing the ground like long strands of waving hair, and the strings of brilliant scarlet berries, the fruit of the tree, seemed like jewels in beauty's tresses; a fine green turf, spangled with tiny wild flowers, sprang softly beneath their feet as they crossed to the open portal of the main temple. At its side stand some colossal monoliths, upright, with a single huge stone laid across the top. In the cool shade of one of these they paused for a moment, looking through, out over the burnished sand, away to the deep purple of the hills. "How exquisite it all is," Lydia murmured. "What a beautiful view they had all round their temples." "Yes, but it's getting hot now. It would have been much better if we had got here earlier. I wish I could get you into the habit of getting up in the morning." Lydia stared at him, involuntarily, for a moment. Had he forgotten that she was up first this morning ? Pelham was looking up at the golden wall of the temple beside them, and as there seemed no need for an answer, Lydia made none. "It is curious that all these Mitla temples face the west," he remarked, after a moment. "All others that I know face east; these people seem to have had no idea of Orientation." "But this one faces the east, Eustace," replied Lydia, unthinkingly, from where she sat in the sun, looking out to the morning sky. Pelham turned upon her furiously. "I wish you would not contradict me," he said. "I cannot make a single remark without you immediately say the contrary. You know nothing of what you are talking about, you simply delight in putting yourself in opposition to whatever I say. If you take the trouble to look at the sky you will see which is the east." "But the sun rises in the east and is directly in our eyes now, and on the face of the temple," expostulated the girl. They were standing facing the east and so was the temple. It seemed incredible to her that he meant what he said. "Don't speak," Pelham thundered. His face was grey, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 263 like the ancient stone in the shadow: he made a few steps towards her, his eyes ablaze with sudden anger, he felt if she said one word he could dash her head against the pillar beside her. But she neither moved nor spoke, and after a second's rigid silence Pelham turned away from the open archway and passed into the temple. The girl sat where she was, a prey to the most intense surprise: that was her sole feeling for the moment. She had not had the least intention of contradicting Pelham. When he had first spoken she had thought he referred to the other temples in the group, and by her remark she had only intended to draw his attention to this one, which was, perhaps, an exception. She reproached herself now for not having accepted his statement in silence. She had had some lessons before. "But it is so hard to remember, on the spur of the minute, that I am never to have any opinion of my own, that whatever he says I am to seem to agree, whether I do really or not. I wonder how he can like to have a companion who is nothing but a senseless echo. I should hate it." Her thoughts slipped back to days with Bernard, how freely they had always expressed their opinions, each to each, without a thought of offence on either side. She could not understand how the amicable interchange of ideas and opinions, even though opposite ones, she had always been accustomed to, should be considered "arguing" and "contradiction" by this man. "I must remember to say yes to everything, no matter what, or else be silent," she impressed upon herself, calling herself stupid for having for a moment forgotten this. Then a little smile came to her lips as she remembered how even this course brought her into difficulties. Sometimes, in re- tracing a road, Pelham would stop short before a turning to left or right and say, "I think this is our road, don't you ?" Knowing quite well it was not, but that theirs lay in the opposite direction, she was afraid to say so, lest, black with anger, as just know, he should tell her she was contradicting him; if she hastily agreed with him it was hard to tramp, 264 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW tired and footsore, mile after mile away from camp, knowing that the moment Pelham discovered the mistake he would turn upon her sharply, saying, "I asked you: you said this was the road. I wish you would pay some little attention to the direction and try to help me. I can't understand why it is women are such fools at topography!" Yes, it was difficult, but she must manage somehow to avoid irritating and annoying him. Surely she was clever enough to find some diplomatic way of turning off the question when it seemed impossible to say "Yes." Those delicious passionate moments, were they not worth any price in self-denial, self-control? She loved him so much then, and found so much joy in the sight and sound and presence of him, above all in his passion for her, that it seemed little to spend her life in the effort to please and satisfy him. She stayed where she was, instinctively feeling that the wisest thing to do. For the moment his irritation was so great the sight of her was intolerable to him. When he wished for her he would return. Her thoughts travelled on: it was very still round her: the heat increased as the sun rose, and a scorching wind, with a rabid, grating, sandy tooth, began to blow from the desert and invade the quiet temple court. She sat still, drinking in the beauty of the graceful scrolls and patterns on the golden temple walls, and watching some small birds winging their way across the enclosure. They were one vivid tint of brightest crimson from beak to tail, from wing- tip to wing-tip, tropical birds, crested and beautiful. After about an hour Pelham returned. She heard his footsteps on the stone and looked up with her brightest smile. He seemed to have forgotten his annoyance, and sat down, proposing they should have some luncheon. She unpacked the basket and deftly set everything out on the stone threshold of the door, that formed a table. They had a small bottle of champagne, which she started to open, but Pelham took it away from her with the curt remark, "You'd better let me do that. You will only make a muddle of it." Lydia, who had always opened bottles of all sorts of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 265 wine on the ranch, and was generally complimented on her quick and dexterous way of doing it, felt hurt, but said nothing. She was accustomed to be hurt all day long, in small ways, by look, by tone, by word and manner, and have it intimated to her, usually acknowledged to be partic- ularly bright and clever, that she was a perfect fool. Only an extraordinarily sunny temper like her own could have stood it without resentment. Perhaps the very knowl- edge of its injustice helped her. Something seemed to say within her, "No matter, one day he will know and recognise you for what you are." Lunch passed off smoothly, and then Pelham told her to come in with him and examine the different temple rooms, and they passed from one to another, while he talked about the decoration and explained some of the hieroglyphs. Lydia, well on her guard, assented to everything, listened earnestly to each word, and only made the most guarded observations. Some of the courts were full of sun, others deep in shade, but the magic-looking writing stood out in gold or grey, equally mysterious and beautiful, in each one. As the sun- light was growing orange, and the hot wind sinking to a whisper, and the sky flushing at the kiss of evening, they went down beneath one of the temples to a subterranean chamber, narrow and low, dark, save for the light that entered with them, and here the writing and the scrolls were vermil- ion, blue and purple, tints cherished by the darkness, and very beautiful. Pelham seemed to linger there, unwilling to leave, and Lydia, nothing loath, sat down on the yellow sanded floor, hugging her knees, and watching him as he moved from one panel to another of the ornamentation, looking at the work. Going back across the enclosure, in the warm, lustrous, violet evening, it was all such an en- chanting scene of calm, mysterious beauty, that she pressed his arm suddenly and said, "Oh, Eustace, it's so lovely. Do let us stay another day and enjoy it. We came a long way to see them, let's stay, now we are here, one more day." Pelham, up till that 266 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW moment, had been debating with himself if he should stay longer: he had made an arrangement for three days' hire of his carriage and team, and by that they should return to-morrow, but the place attracted him, and he was almost on the point of deciding to stay longer when she spoke. Immediately she did so he felt inclined to refuse, and said, in an annoyed tone, " Surely a whole day is enough! Most Americans would have given the place only an hour or two. That is so like you. You are never satisfied." "Yes, I am immensely pleased to have seen them, and grateful to you for bringing me. I only thought we might stay one more day. We have no special reason for going back." "We must keep the carriage if we do, and we have to make a new arrangement about it." Lydia was silent. She was thinking, when they had come thousands of miles to see a place, at a cost of hundreds of pounds, he might have stayed twenty-four hours longer to please her. "If we stayed another day, you'd still wish to stay on," continued Pelham, in a biting tone. "I am not going to alter the whole arrangement now: we must go back to- morrow." Lydia did not answer: crossing that court, so still, so full of the splendour of the past, in the hot night, with the low hills of the sandy waste just visible in the dusk round the enclosure, the temples clear still against the luminous sky, tears rose in her eyes. It had been a day of so much brilliance and beauty and interested delight, yet its memory would always be tarnished with the pain he had put into it. "He can't love me a bit," she thought despairingly. "What is the matter with me ?" No more was said between them on the point. As they passed through the enclosure gate, under the pepper trees by the well, she took a farewell glance at the exquisite lines of the lonely walls against the star and planet-filled violet LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 267 sky, then followed Pelham, silently, into the road. It seemed very lonely, not a step, not a sound. As they started homewards a slouching figure crept from the darkness of the wall and followed them. Lydia saw it and dropped a shade behind Pelham, putting herself between him and the skulking shadow. The Mexican's knife should go through her before it touched Eustace, she thought, but, either aware of her watchfulness, or merely because he was an honest villager homeward bound, the man did not offer to attack them. As they neared the cactus palisades and their shadower disappeared, a sudden ray of light illumined the melancholy that invaded Lydia's thoughts. Pelham took her arm, drew her to him, and murmured, "Ah, how I should have liked to have you in my arms in that dark vault! What thousands of years it has been there. What numbers of other lovers it may have sheltered!" Lydia half stopped, her heart beating, "Well, but why ?" she whispered. "I was afraid. Some American tourists might have come down there, or the custodian any minute." "I am glad you thought about me there," murmured Lydia. She was surprised, pleased, confused. He had seemed very unkind to her that day, but yet The next day the deep green patio, the stretches of ma- guey plants, the cactus palisades and grass-roofed adobe huts were left behind. They returned to Oaxaca and thence to the city of Mexico. CHAPTER XXI WEEK followed week, day after day slipped from the warm golden sunlight of the present into the cold blue shadows of the past, and matters did not improve between these two. The girl was in despair, and saw the hours she had bought at such cost slipping one by one to their grave. She saw she was young and beantiful, she felt she was well and strong, all round her persistent beauty challenged her to enjoy; they had wealth and freedom. Nobody interfered with them, but the man himself spoiled it all. Of course there were happy hours when they knew together delight such as few men and women attain to in this world, for highly-strung temperaments with intense sensibility, though they carry heavy penalties with them, still have their reward in capacity for pleasure as well as pain, but they came so seldom, there were such long blanks between, sometimes months, when day after day, night after night passed unen joyed, unlived, and the girl, who had the brain of a philosopher, and knew that youth and beauty and health must pass, felt sometimes maddened by pain and longing 'and regret, as one who, having a bag of pearls, saw some maniac drop them singly into the sea. These days were pearls indeed, falling wasted into the sea of the past. One night, when they were staying at Orizaba, one lovely night of moon and stars and soft hot airs, floating laden with the fragrance of orange bloom, from grove and gar- den, this sense of desperate regret swept over her with atremen- dous force. They had just come up from dinner; she stood alone in her room before the open casement, which looked out over an old and tangled garden of luxuriant tropical beauty, away to the gorgeous snow-capped Peak of Orizaba. 268 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 269 "Is it myself, is it my fault?" she asked herself. "Can I do any more ?" She struck a light and put it to the wax candles above the toilet glass. Then, as they burnt up slowly, she looked at herself critically in the liquid shadow of the mirror. She had dressed herself carefully for dinner, though there were no eyes to please but his, for the guests at the moment in the hotel comprised only a few old sleepy Mexicans and some very common American youths on a tour through the country. Her dress of pale pink silk, the colour of the fairest rose leaf, became her. Her hair, so lovely in itself, was beautifully done, her great, star-like, impassioned eyes looked back at her, exquisitely seductive, full of a wondering despair. No, there seemed nothing want- ing here, nothing farther that could be done to enhance the picture. "If I am not happy now I shall never be," she thought. Partly emboldened by the sight of her beauty, partly urged by that thought of the flying present and the uncertain future, partly maddened by the lustrous, exciting, inviting beauty of the night, she passed through her room to his, and after knocking, entered. He was writing a letter on the corner of the dressing-table, and neither rose nor looked up. She did not speak until he had finished, standing silent by the open window, looking at the moon-light pouring through the orange leaves, and pointing with light, here and there, great white buds of the sleeping flowers beneath. "What a lovely night it is," she said softly, when he had sealed up his letter and pushed his chair back. "Should we go out and take a turn round the garden ? " "No, I am dead tired and worn out. I am going to bed," he answered, rising and turning his coat off his shoulders. "I suppose it's the damp and the heat, and getting nothing to eat, that makes one feel so used up in these places." She sat down on the foot of his bed and watched him while he undressed. When he came up to the bed she rose and stood in front of him, close to him. She had her loveliest smile, her softest air. 270 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Eustace, will you not let me sleep in your arms to night? I am so unhappy because we seem so estranged. I need not disturb you. I get no sleep, by myself, in my room, but I should fall asleep directly beside you. Your presence, your proximity is all I need to make me perfectly happy. Do let me stay." She looked very lovely and her voice was very tender, but to the man, nervously tired and exhausted, the vision of her was only as the hot glow of sunlight is to wearied, bloodshot eyes. He did not put his arms round her, as she stood by him. They hung straight at his side. His face was cold. "I want complete rest and sleep. I must have them. Good-night. I hope you will sleep well." He bent and put his lips to her forehead. She was too wise and far too sensitive to press the matter. She turned from him and went back gently into her own room. But she was not in a gentle mood, though her self-control pre- vented her from showing any other, and her whole heart flamed within her with resentment and passion. She crossed to the window and sat down, looking out into the glory of the night. She ached in every limb and muscle. She felt ill and sick and feverish and sleepless, and she knew perfectly well that all these feelings would vanish into one of perfect rest and peaceful delight if she had been allowed to nestle down beside him and lose for a time that frightful sense of loneliness of body and mind that pressed upon her. "He might sacrifice himself for me sometimes," she thought bitterly, "and risk one sleepless night while I slept. How many do I stay away from him for his sake!" Then the consciousness of herself and what she was, and how she had been loved, came over her, and she smiled at her own thoughts. "Sacrifice! What a strange position life has worked me into! how many men would give almost all they had to be in his place, to be loved by me even one tenth as much as I love him. Why do I stay with him ? It is useless, absurd. Why do I stay?" LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 271 She looked out into the soft, delicious night, questioning herself, but gained no answer. When she finally lay down, feeling brimful of electricity that went round and round in her body, forming a burning circle which consumed her, neuralgia sprang upon her, and she tossed, sleepless and tortured, till the early dawn. After that night nearly every one was made hideous by it as it tore and raged through the delicate nerves of head and eyes and teeth. "Bernard's avenger" she used to call it, as, maddened and beside herself with agony, she would sit up and rock herself backwards and forwards, while Pel- ham slept tranquilly on the other side of the door. Wine, she found, did it good, but Pelham seemed to have an ex- traordinary prejudice against her having wine, and seemed unable to realise her agonies of pain when she told him of them. There was always coldness if she asked for wine at dinner, and sometimes it was positively refused. He sug- gested she should drink mescal instead, which she tried to do. The poor quality of it supplied at that place tasted like methylated spirits, and made her feel sick, but it sufficed sometimes to deaden the pain, when at its most terrible point. "I can only suppose he has a craze for being cruel to me," she thought, when each morning, remorseless as the dawn itself, Pelham came to her room at six o'clock and made her get up, though she might only just have fallen to sleep. "Or else he is so absorbed in himself he cannot understand an- other's suffering." The long, hot days, full of Pelham's abuse and fault- finding, the nights of torture, the weakness induced by scanty food and want of sleep, the crushing mental disappointment, made this life with him, that had seemed to her so covetable, so inviting, the wretchedest and most miserable of her exist- ence. So does the window of Life's great shop deceive us. One night, after Pelham had gone to bed, the waiter brought her a letter. It was much stamped and had been redirected several times, as it had followed them from place to place, but the original address to the post-office, City of Mexico, 272 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW was in Bernard's handwriting. Lydia turned pale, and trembled like a leaf as she took it and went, with weak steps, to her own room. Low and wretched as she usually felt now, any fresh wave of emotion seemed to unnerve her utterly. She lighted a candle, locked the door, and then, because all the chairs were covered, sat down on the floor and opened the letter. "DEAR LYDIA, I have obtained a divorce against you, as I believe this is the best and kindest thing to do for you. Pelham can now marry you if he chooses, and I hope he will. I say nothing of myself. You, who always studied these things, will know how bitterly I must have suffered. But I do not blame you altogether. I know there must have been faults on my side too. I know that while I had you, you were the dearest, most devoted wife a man could have. I blame myself terribly for having lost you. The child has died. There seems little to h've for, but I still go on. Yours, BERNARD." A great tide of ice-cold tears that came to her eyes made her read this but slowly, then as the full sense of it broke over the tender, sensitive heart, it seemed to her as if she had had her death-blow. Stretched out on the floor, with her face on this terrible letter terrible because so simple, so unreproachful the tears streamed from her eyes, and her soul, her life, seemed rushing away with them. All night she lay there; she seemed literally unable to move. It was as if a heavy wheel had gone over her, mind and body. Prostrate, agonised, she lay motionless, oblivious of physical sensation. Her mind was out, away, in the plains of the past. What immense sorrow to everyone her effort to change her life had caused. How Bernard had suffered, how she herself had done, and now there seemed nothing but one great mass of discontentment and unhappiness she had got into. Was Ihere some unrecognised law, that one cannot LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 273 change one's life, she wondered ? One must for ever go on in the same ill-fitting harness of circumstance, though one's self is always changing and altering. Could she go back to Bernard console him for her error, return again to the old groove her feet had once known? No. She felt that iron, implacable "No" answer her. Whether it came from outside or within she was unconscious, but she knew it for an overwhelming truth. She could never go back. She could not re-enter that placid, never- varying, silent circle of quiet, empty, sunny days. Though she seemed wandering now in a dark thicket where the thorns tore her flesh and the boulders bruised her feet, yet she felt inevitably she must struggle on, either through it or die in it. To turn back was impossible. Nor could she ever rest in Bernard's arms, or enjoy that simple, whole-hearted, open love again, even if he could give it, after the curious, violent, dark and devious- wayed passion she had known for Pelham. The next morning the early light found her there, stiff and chilled, upon the floor. She had had no sleep, only been lost in a sort of wandering stupor. She got up and re- dressed, and when she was ready for breakfast, beyond being rather pale she showed no trace of the past night's suffering. Youth can suffer much without disfigurement. A little after eight she went into Pelham 's room, where breakfast was generally laid on a table near the window, and when they were seated, handed him the letter. Pelham took it and read it, then laid it down on the table without any comment. "I am so very grieved about the child," she said in a very low voice, stirring the coffee with a trembling hand. "Well, it was a pity you left her. Why did you do it?" answered Pelham, brutally. Lydia looked at him across the little table: her face was deadly pale, her eyes swam, her lips quivered. "Why, indeed?" she murmured in a hardly audible tone. They had their breakfast in silence. Lydia ate nothing, 18 274 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW but she drank her coffee, and gazed through the window to the lovely enchanting scene without of blue sky, and sway- ing palm, and crystal air. When Pelham rose and unfolded the paper for the day, Lydia spoke. Her face was quite calm now. "You see what Bernard says about the divorce and our marriage, but I don't think you want to marry me, do you ?" It was characteristic of Pelham that he never answered any question direct. He always met it with an evasion or an equivocation. "I don't think I care about marrying anyone," he said. "We do very well as we are." Lydia said nothing. He settled himself in a cane chair to read the paper. She waited a moment by the window, then went away to her own room, shutting the door noise- lessly behind her. She crossed over and moving some dresses from a chair, drew it to the window and sat down where the soft air came in upon her face. She felt very tired and broken; a sort of drowsy sadness seemed to envelop her in lethargy. "It is quite natural that he should dislike to see me grieved about the death of my child by another man, "she mused, thinking over Pelham 's answer. "As to the marriage, it doesn't really matter. In this world, where all is so transitory, what is the use of any arrangement that aims at permanency ? We float and drift, from day to day, like the surf on the tide, lifted by one wave, depressed by another, now clinging round this rock, now round that: then we disappear altogether: nothing matters." Her eyes closed: she ceased to think clearly. But in spite of what she had told herself she knew that in her breast there was a passionate joy contained in the idea of marriage with Pelham, a joy that was the child of her great and devoted passion for him. The thought of being linked to him, bound to him in the abstract, gave her the same delight as to have been bound to him actually. Every manner and form of contact, of proximity, of linking to the loved one, is an ecstasy to the one who truly loves. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 275 Lulled by the dreamy contemplation of this rosy joy she did not ever hope to obtain, she passed gradually into a gentle sleep, that sweet tranquil stream where the burdens of joy and pain alike float from one and leave one free. Half an hour later she was roughly roused by someone shaking her arm. She looked up suddenly and saw Pelham's cross and handsome face above her. "I have just decided to go on to Aguas Calientes to-day instead of to-morrow. It's too hot to make any expeditions and I am tired of this hotel. We have just hah* an hour to get to the station. I've packed all my things. I never thought you were in here, doing nothing all this time. I can't think why you want to go to sleep when you've only just gotup." Dazed and confused, and feeling very stiff, and rather sick from nervous exhaustion, Lydia rose to her feet. "Do you think you can be ready?" Pelham inquired harshly. "Yes, I think so. I will try," she answered as Pelham disappeared. She looked round the room hopelessly. It was littered and crowded. All these things to be packed and her dress changed, for she was not in travelling costume, in less than half an hour! It seemed impossible. Her head was swimming, and she felt unutterably tired. But her nerve and force of will were splendid, though Pelham never gave her credit for either, and she forced herself to the work and accomplished it, so that when he came back, in twenty minutes, she was ready. All her things had been mercilessly thrown in, but her trunks were strapped, and she was dressed, waiting. He did not smile or seem pleased, as she had hoped. "I don't know now whether we shall catch the train, but it only takes five minutes to drive to the station. Of course, one can't expect to accomplish much in travelling if you want to sleep all the time." Lydia felt inclined to reply that had she not been sleeping she would not have been preparing for a journey he had not told her he intended making, but she remained silent. Nothing seemed to matter. 276 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW They reached the station in time, and after a hot, dusty, and all day journey, came into Aguas Calientes in the cool of a delicious evening, when the sky was glowing a soft rose colour, behind the delicate palms in the little Plaza. "How lovely," thought Lydia, stepping from the heated carriage on to the station platform, and drinking in the exquisite clear air. "How happy I should be, arriving at a place like this, if I only had a nice companion who seemed pleased and happy too." Aguas is one of the most charming places in Mexico, famed for its hot springs and its beautiful women. Its climate seems made to go with its boiling wells and medi- cinal baths. It is hot, still, damp, yet delightfully fresh, sweet-scented, tropical. Pelham seemed to have no time to notice the beauty of air and light. He was annoyed with the porters for smashing some of his luggage, and still more annoyed to find, when they reached the hotel, that owing to a fair being in progress in the town they could have only one room. The place was quite full. It was a great distress to the girl to note how much the fact that they had to occupy this small space together seemed to anger him. When the door was shut, and he was still complaining of the misfortune, she said, "Still, Eustace, it is not so small as the tiny little tent, with its couch of pine branches, we were so happy in when I first came to you." "All things are different in their beginnings," returned Pelham, savagely, pushing one of his portmanteaux under the bed. He, too, quite well remembered the tent and the pine branch couch, and the intense joy he had felt in the close physical contact with this woman, but then at any moment he had thought she might be torn from him; at any moment Bernard, with a loaded pistol, might have appeared, drag- ging back the tent flap, calling him out to combat, perhaps to death. There was an excitement in that that roused and pleased his whole savage, jealous, courageous nature, but LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 277 now that fierce excitement was taking its toll. It was over, and he felt he wanted, not pleasure but rest. She could give one and not the other. The very sweet seduction about her prevented it. So in a sort of self-defence, for fear he should yield to her influence, he hedged himself about with cruelty, with spiked words and thorny looks and manner. The girl took off her hat and sat down in the far corner of the room. It appealed to her, this Mexican room, so unlike anything European. How high it was! with a vaulted, groined ceiling, painted blue, and stencilled in rude design, bare stone walls all washed over with bright pink, a massive oak door arched at the top, a large high window with vertical iron bars before it, an uneven red brick floor with felt carpeting over the centre. The two door casements of the window stood open to the soft, still night, the blind was drawn down, through it came the conversation of some natives seated on the sill outside. Against one wall stood a large fourpost bed, all draped in pink pink curtains and quilts and valance and mosquito curtains to match the walls. A round table, covered with a pink cloth, and on which stood the powerful lamp that lighted them, was on the other side of the room before a very large and comfortable easy chair; a high and artistic screen intervened between the table and the oak door; the centre of the room was left free. Other chairs, and a high oak chest, stood against the walls, and two little wire stands for washing at, occupied the corners. She could not tell why she liked the room. If he had seemed content she would have felt quite happy. In Mexican country inns the meals for each person are served in the private rooms, and after a minute the fat Mexi- can servant brought in their supper tray, setting it by the lamp on the pink table. A band was playing gaily in the Plaza not far from the hotel. The conversation on the sill outside dropped to whispers, interspersed with low laughter. "Two lovers talking, I expect." thought Lydia, sadly. They had their supper almost in silence. Pelham looked pale, cross and tired, as usual. The girl was afraid 278 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW he was feeling ill, and beyond answering any remark he made with a bright smile, said nothing. Her own fatigue had passed off and she felt well, in spite of sleeplessness and long journeys, with the irrepressible "wellness" of youth. The soft, romantic air of the place delighted her. Oh, to have had a companion pleased like herself, receptive to the joys of climate, and scene, and change! to have gone out under the palms and orange trees and heard words of love murmured in her ear, an under-current to the wild Spanish music. After supper Pelham threw off his clothes and went to bed. "I should like you to put out the lamp as soon as you can," he remarked, and Lydia extinguished the light and went to bed too. Pelham was asleep in a moment but she lay wide awake. Her neuralgia did not come to her that night. She lay listening to the low love-conversation and love-laughter coming from the sill without, and her eyes were wide open and full of tears. Their stay at Aguas, intended to be of a few days only, was lengthened into three months, for Pelham was struck down there suddenly with typhoid fever, the seeds of which he had probably taken with him from the city of Mexico, which is full of it. When Lydia realised the illness and its true nature, and the first cold terror we all feel when a beloved object is attacked had passed over, her whole nature rose to grapple with the situation. She felt sure she could save him, and she welcomed this opportunity to prove her love to him. "Let me turn an evil into a good," she thought to herself, "and make this illness a link of union between us." She was indefatigable, devoted beyond all belief, and her whole mind, soul and will bent to the one single effort of giving him back his health. This attitude of a nurse, of a constant companion in sickness, who shall say how far-reaching its effect on the patient, in itself, may be ? Very little do we know of the forces of hypnotism and telepathy, and it may LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 279 well be difficult to die in an atmosphere charged with the electricity of another determined we shall live. Lydia ob- tained the best doctor the place afforded, and had his drugs carefully made up and regularly administered, but she did not put her trust in him, nor in them, but in herself, in her constant attendance on her patient, in her noting of every sign and symptom, anticipating of every want, combating every little rise in temperature, every unfavourable tendency, as soon as it appeared, saving every degree of strength gained, and, through all, intensely willing him to live. Excitement and terror lent her new physical strength. She slept by snatches when she could, between the hours for giving food and medicine. She hardly, in all that time, left that one room. The days of soft sweet air and sunlight went gaily on outside, the band played in the Plaza, the Mexicans sat and giggled, evening after evening, on the sill outside, and within that one room the lonely girl fought desperately, hour by hour, day and night, with death for three months, and conquered. One great surprise came to her during this time, a joy that bloomed suddenly like a rose in the desert; she found that Eustace, so hard and cruel while well and independent, dereloped in illness a patience and gentleness that seemed to her amazing, and woke in her a still stronger passion of affection. He never spoke crossly or harshly to her now, and hardly ever complained. That consideration which he had never showed while they were both well he displayed now amidst his own sufferings to an unusual degree. He never called to her or broke her rest when she lay at his feet in one of her short slumbers. Whatever he wanted he would never awaken her: as he grew better he begged her to go out, to get air and exercise, to leave him to a nurse. His overbearing ill-temper had entirely vanished. As a patient he was one in a thousand, and Lydia felt it instinc- tively. Such patient resignation and gentle consideration under the stress of great physical suffering she knew were not usual. Studied psychologically this attitude of Pelham's 280 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW was not really surprising, nor at variance with his character, but was the natural outcome of it. It was his nature to be hard towards those beneath him, in his power, or dependent on him. To those independent of him, or on whom he in any way depended, it was natural to him to show his best side. In illness, feeling as he felt now, absolutely helpless and prostrate, it never occurred to him to misuse, ill-treat, or in any way alienate the only being who stood between him and destruction, in whose power he found himself. It was not in any way with him cunning or cowardice that led him to change his way of conduct. The change came about naturally. This girl, with her health, strength and activity, her ability to abandon him if she chose, became for the time being superior to him stretched helpless on a sick bed, and he admired what was superior to himself, out of his sphere of influence, above his power. Gratitude to her that she was so faithful, so devoted to him, and the knowledge that came to him in his helplessness of how comforting this warm, ardent love was to lean upon, gave him strength and resolu- tion to restrain all selfishness and impatience, and to lighten the load for her that she carried so well. Those days, full though they were of stress and strain and terror-stricken anxiety, yet were made light to her, blessed by the relief from his unkindness, easier than the preceding ones had been. At the end of one afternoon shortly after Pelham had been declared out of all danger, and was already pro- gressing rapidly in convalescence, Lydia, feeling a great fatigue sweeping over her, threw herself into the large arm- chair beneath the window and leant back in it. The warm sunset glow was filling the whole room with rose-coloured light, the drooping boughs of an accacia, just outside the window, swayed in it. All was very still. On the bed at the other side of the room Pelham lay silent. She thought he was sleeping. Very tired indeed she felt, very thin, she seemed to herself as if made of paper. Her lids fell a little, she was sinking to sleep, when a call from the bed roused her. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 981 She started up and crossed the room, expecting some request for water, or medicine, or food. When she reached the bedside she saw Pelham lying there wide-eyed, a curiously intense expression on his expressive face. He stretched out both arms to her. In an instant she saw that he wanted nothing but herself, her caresses, and bent over and kissed him. He folded his arms tightly round her, and mur- mured into the little ear, as she laid her head down on his breast, "I have been lying here a long time, thinking only of you, how good you have been to me all this long time, of all I owe to you. My little girl, but for you I should not be here. You have given me back my life." The tones of the voice she loved were so exquisitely tender, so tense with feeling, the hand he put on her hair was so gentle, so full of the electricity of love and passion, that for those few moments the gates of heaven swung wide, the girl was lifted into it, and anything she might have suffered seemed as nothing vanished, gone, lost in joy. For the moment she could not answer at all, and then the tears came with her words. "I am so happy to have done anything for you," she murmured, and he felt her warm tears flow over his neck. "As for your life, if I could not have saved it my own would have ceased to be any use to me. You don't know how I love you. I want nothing in this world to make me perfectly happy except that you should be kind and nice to me." Pelham did not answer, but she felt his folding arms close more tightly round her, and his heart beating beneath her head in great throbs. Something, some subtle influence, seemed to pass from him to her, that was far more to her than words. Love still less passion does not require any form of expression to prove its existence. Its wonderful ray can be felt, life-giving, inspiring, as the furnace blast of hate can be felt without forms or words, death-dealing, annihilating. 282 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Don't move," he whispered, as she stirred, fearing her weight would be too much on his heart. "Sleep here, I know you are very tired. And you have grown so thin and slight! and lost all your lovely bloom, watching and nursing me! Sleep now, and I will watch over you. Sleep in my arms, darling, darling." CHAPTER XXII PELHAM had entirely recovered. His illness was now a thing of the past. He had grown tired of America and had announced his intention of going to Europe, to which Lydia had, as usual, assented. A change had come over her feel- ings towards him, a change so gradual, so imperceptible, that she herself was not conscious of it till long after its inception. Her passion, after a long decline, had died. Overwhelming as it had been at first, full of a strength that it seemed nothing could kill, persistent starvation and re- pression had weakened it, and finally brought it to its death- bed. Then Pelham's illness had come, his helplessness, his dependence, and his wonderful change in his treatment of her. Her dying passion had flamed up to its old height; his weakness, his danger, called out instantly those inex- haustible reserves of tenderness and love that were in her nature. No resentment against him existed, it was all swept away, and at any moment in those weeks of devotion, in that steadfast and ultimately victorious battle against his illness, she would willingly, delightedly, have offered her life for his. When the struggle was over and victory hers it seemed as if a new era had dawned for their love. In that first embrace, when Pelham had poured his thanks into her ear, her love for him had reached its highest point. Intensely grateful herself by nature, gratitude from another always came to her as a delighting surprise, as an overwhelming bounty, not as a due. What she had done seemed little to herself, for, from her point of view she could have done nothing else. Loyalty and duty would have forced her to put out every effort, to almost kill herself in the struggle to pre- 284 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW serve the life of the man with whom she was living, and from whom she accepted food and clothes, even if love had not. She felt she had only done what she must, from her nature, do, and she was more grateful to him for his gratitude than he was to her for saving his life. Closely drawn together as they were for the first few days after his recovery, it seemed to her that at last happiness in each other, and in life, had come to them. But the union did not last. Pelham, more than ever satisfied that this woman loved him as no other had done, and thinking falsely, as so many do, that the strongest, most devoted love is also the longest lived, instinctively felt that no effort on his part was needed to preserve it. As he got better and his health and strength returned his feelings of independence came back with them, and his gentleness and consideration disappeared. There are three classes of people: the first includes those who are naturally sunny, bright and good-tempered, and very rarely feel, or wish to be, anything else. The second contains those who are naturally unamiable and bad- tempered, but generally succeed in controlling themselves and appearing the reverse. The third class consists of those who, being naturally ill-tempered and irritable, make no effort, or, at anyrate, futile ones, to be anything different. Pelham was of a nature that was easily annoyed, and though no one could control himself better when it was necessary, since he had found a companion who was in- variably amiable to him, whatever his own actions, it seemed he could allow himself the luxury of being disagreeable whenever he felt so, which in his case was nearly always. After his illness and during the great reaction that neces- sarily followed, in the girl's whole system, the great strain she had been through when she found his apparent dis- satisfaction with everything, herself included, continued when his fault-finding and harshness recommenced after that brief re-union, when nothing she did, or said, or looked, or wore pleased him, when he seemed to grudge everything he gave her, and any passing indisposition of her own seemed LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 285 to him to be a reason for putting some extra strain upon her, and insisting on her doing something she was particularly unfitted for, when all this went on from day to day, though it was generally but small matters that were involved, the flame of passion that had risen so high during his illness died down lower and lower and finally went out. When she first became conscious of this it seemed to her an immensely fortunate thing. She rejoiced. She was free. Free from what had made a painful bondage. It did not come to her knowledge suddenly. It dawned upon her by degrees that she was becoming indifferent. Formerly an unkind word from him had made the colour rush to her face and the tears to her eyes, now she found herself able to smile lightly. His words did not bite deeply. Formerly, crazily anxious as she was to please him, every detail of her dress had been shown to him, eagerly, hopefully, while she had longed for his approval, and her heart had been torn and wounded beyond description by his cutting remarks, his invariably adverse judgments. Now she so entirely expected pain from his opinions that she rarely referred to him on any personal point, and when he volunteered harsh criticisms they fell upon her unmoved. Some faint warning of vague change came to Pelham's own mind on one of these latter occasions, when she appeared to accompany him on a walking expedition wearing a new hat. "I don't like that hat at all," was his first remark, as usual. "No?" returned Lydia, quietly. "But then you never do like anything I wear." She spoke very gently, without the faintest touch of resentment, as if she was stating a natural, undisputed fact. And though there was a sort of polite hint of regret in the tone, the look of acute pain he had enjoyed seeing pass over her face, the vivid flush, the tears in the hurt eyes, were quite absent now. She realised, herself, that he was losing the power to pain or grieve her. That knowledge came as a great relief. To be free from 286 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW pain, either mental or physical, after a long experience of it, is a divine joy. But after this came the sudden revelation, that he was losing also the power to please her, that she now was, mentally, as a stone, upon which his hand might fall either with blow or caress and leave both unfelt. This last knowledge came to her, and she saw by degrees that it de- vastated her life with him. At first she welcomed the fact that she could say good- night to him indifferent whether they kissed or not, and then sleep tranquilly, alone, until the dawn, that she could wake up refreshed and fit to begin the day, that she need not hurry so desperately over her dressing, her poor heart beating, her fingers shaking with fear lest she should be a moment late and so displease him; she was glad that she could dress as she pleased, and know that she did not care whether he praised or blamed. She was free to take an interest in what was going forward, in their expeditions, in the fun she could get for herself out of the day; she no longer was exclusively wrapped up in the vain endeavour to content and please him. At first all this seemed an ad- vantage. But after a little time she saw that to live this life with him, without that soul of passion that had at first inflamed it, was like clasping to one's breast the dead body from which life has departed. She looked back now, with regret, to the anguished nights when she had walked up and down her room, longing for the simplest caress, the merest kind word from him, to rest one moment in his arms and be close to him. Because then, at least, while she had lived in hell, there had been paradise above her. In those rare moments when all misunderstandings were cleared away, and when Pelham sought her, she had been divinely happy and repaid for all the past pain. Now, it was true there was no more hell, but also there was no more heaven. Paradise had vanished. The power had passed from Pelham to give either to her. Passion, that makes both hell and heaven, had left her, and there was now only an ordinary, common- place earth, which would never content her. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 287 "If I only cared for him less," she had thought, over and over again in the past. Now she found, freed from her passion for him, life was empty, unlivable. Self-controlled as she naturally was, she gave no outward sign of the change that had slowly taken place in her, and Pelham, never given to observing others closely, was quite unaware of the revolution his own acts had brought about in the kingdom once so absolutely his own. He noticed that the girl never sought him when he did not wish it, and was relieved by the fact, but she accepted his presence and his caresses, when he offered them, so, in seeming, life was smoother than before. But, inwardly, the girl was filled with a great wonder, a questioning, an indecision, and finally, out of this con- tinual questioning and wondering thought, the decision grew in her mind, sharp and clear, to leave Pelham at the first opportunity Fate offered. "I have tried my very utmost," she thought, "and failed. He does not love me, and I have come to the point where I do not love him. There is no use in any further effort. If I won his love now I should not want it, for my own is gone. There is no use in remaining together." And with a certain virility of thought and strength that was always hers she put the joys and sorrows of her relation with Pelham from her mind, and formed the determination to take the next turning onward that opened on either side of the road she was now travelling CHAPTER XXin SITTING on the verandah of the Summer Palace at Therapia, Lydia watched with dreaming eyes, the sheen of yellow sunlight play on the Bosphorus. It was a very still afternoon; the pale blue of the Turkish sky stretched above, without the smallest fleck of cloud, and the usually rolling, tumbling, riotous blue waters of the Bosphorus lay absolutely still and tranquil, a mirror of burnished gold. Above her head stretched out the dark blue-green branches of some gigantic pines, throwing a delicate shade upon her, thrusting their smooth red boughs up into the hot blue light above. From the garden at the back of the hotel came the scent of flowers and the hum of bees. She sat there alone, filled with the sense of enjoyment of Life. A waiter came up to her and asked if she would have tea there. No, she would wait till Mr Pelham returned, and at that moment she saw Eustace coming up the road towards the hotel with another man. In a few minutes more they were both on the balcony beside her, and she heard Eustace introduce the other as Mr Ivan Blakney. She looked up, and a feeling of pleased surprise ran through her. Something that had long been asleep within suddenly woke up. It was as if a silver bell had been sounded in her brain, stirring a thousand sleeping emotions into life. Her eyes fixed for a moment on the man's face, and she realised fully all its beauty. A very white skin, that warm, clear white that had first so captured her vision in Bernard's face, on which the brown eyebrows showed so clearly, eye- brows drawn in two straight sweeping lines, delicate and well defined, across the flat, wide forehead. Brown hair 288 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 289 above, full of gold lights; blue-grey eyes, now full of warm, smiling admiration; straight, delicate features, finely cut, and the scarlet line of the mouth, all these things pierced her senses with pleasure, in that first swift look at him. They all took chairs at the edge of the balcony, and tea was brought to them. Lydia poured out the tea, waves of gay merriment rising in her, and the newcomer laughed, and joked, and jested, and chattered, and she responded. Eustace, looking rather tired and haggard, took his tea in silence, and looked out over the blue waters, gloomy and cross as usual. For once Lydia was not affected by his gloom. Nothing seemed able to check that joyous uprising of spirits within her. It was good to be with someone again who laughed, who seemed well and strong and gay, and full of the joy of life, and she gave herself over to gaiety, looking at this bright face, all white and gold, between her and the blue spaces beyond the balcony. She was as attentive to Eustace as usual, constantly referring to him and drawing him into the conversation, but it was a relief to both the younger people when he rose, saying he had letters to write, and went into the hotel. By this time Blakney had told her something of himself and his nationality, half-Russian, half-English, and Lydia, looking at him, realised that from the Russian side had come that glorious white and gold colouring, that marble skin and light in the hair: then he told her of his broken career, just shortly in a few words, with jests between, how he had been ir the Army, sent in his papers in a fit of passion, and now was a penniless guest of the Consul there: how he in- tended to go out to the wilds, Australia, America, somewhere to make his fortune, or to return to England and write j books for a living, and how he was now just drifting on Life's stream where the sunlight played. Lydia listened, inter- ested, he talked so well and brightly, and such a sweeping smile, full of light, passed over his face constantly: his manner was so simple, so unaffected, he seemed so unconscious of self. When the waiter came to take the tea things they both 290 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW rose regretfully, and then, immediately, Blakney found an excuse to linger by her. "You know, of course, the view from the hill behind the hotel, but I have never seen it. Won't you come up there with me ? Such an evening as this the Bosphorus must look splendid from there." Lydia hesitated. "If you wait for me a minute I will come. I will tell Eustace I am going." She turned away, and Blakney leant his arms on the balcony rail, looking over. "What a lovely, lovely face," he mused, "cheeks like velvet and the colour of the Turkish rose in spring." He gazed absently into the golden sheen, before, above, beneath him, for the balcony is high and seems to swing in space. Lydia entered the hotel and found Eustace, deeply occu- pied, in the writing-room. "I am going up the hill with Mr Blakney. You don't mind, do you ? " she asked softly, standing by him, a vision of beauty in her white, loose-falling draperies in the darkened room. Eustace looked up. "Not at all," he said, and went on with his writing. Lydia turned, and when she had reached the balcony again her feet seemed to spring as she approached her com- panion. They went up the hill together, through the blaze of hot light. A narrow path led through the shady, flower- filled garden and then wound gently up a rugged hillside, all fern and pines and mossy rocks and long grass. She glanced at him as he walked beside her, tall and lithe and full of grace, and all the old delicious feelings that had first crowded on her, when she and Bernard had walked together amongst the English hills, came floating up within her again. Wrong- doing and trouble, self-reproach and disappointment, all had crushed down her heart, and left her in that dejected condition in which most human beings seem to live and die; LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 291 but it was a very young heart, and now, in a moment, it sprang upward again at the touch of joy. She felt pleased, glad, elated, she could not say why, nor did she seek a reason. Like one shut up some time in a cold, dark room, and then brought out into the sunlight, her heart seemed dancing joyfully with irresponsible happiness. They reached the summit in time to see the sun set in a wonderful violet glory over the smooth mirror of the waters, and descended in the deep rose afterglow that followed, laughing and chatting, each feeling deeply interested, in the other's most trifling remarks, wonderfully amused at the other's jokes. Though they had had an hour's walk it seemed only a few moments that they had been together when they stood again in the hotel balcony. Pelham was there, reading a paper. He did not invite Blakney to dinner, so the latter departed after a sudden quick pressure of Lydia's hand as it lay in his, and a look into her eyes of longing, of admiration, of tender worship that recalled to her her happiest hours. The next day and the next after, and for many days in succession, Blakney called at the Summer Palace, and had afternoon tea with the Pelhams on the balcony. As they were nearly always in themselves at this hour, they could not very well have avoided his society had they wished, and there was no question of invitation, since Blakney simply came, as many others of the English in Constanti- nople, to have his afternoon tea there, and paid for the same. It was quite natural, of course, that the waiters, knowing them to be acquainted, always put his table and that of the Pelhams close together. Pelham made no objection, and the afternoon hour passed pleasantly enough. To Lydia, a new light had come into her life; she knew she was again in that mystic shop of Life, another glittering bauble in her hand, again her eyes were ravished by all the array of shining toys. Perhaps this tune she would be more fortunate: perhaps happiness was before her. The duty and the effort of pleasing Pelham, without return, had become dull and 292 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW burdensome. She felt she could lay him down now, as a child lays down its old toy when choosing a new one. One afternoon Pelham was out he had gone into Con- stantinople on business when Blakney came, and she sa\v by the colour that came and went in his cheek, when he found her alone, by the blaze of his eyes, he would tell her in words all that he had been saying otherwise since he first saw her. She looked radiant, and felt a wild rejoicing within her, as a captured lark may feel when liberated again in the sunlight. They took their tea in almost silence, and immediately it was over Blakney said simply, "Will you come to the top of our hill with me?" And she assented. They walked up slowly, and when about half way up, towards, as it seemed, the fiery heavens, and the earth and the still blue water seemed to swing in space below them, he said, "Lydia, you know already how I love you, will you marry me?" Lydia paused and looked at him, her face white in the fire of the sunset. Then he knew her story: knew her relation to Pelham was not marriage! She had thought that perhaps he guessed it. Still, it was a shock to find that he felt so absolutely sure of it, had done so from the first. "What makes you think I can marry you or anyone?" she asked with a little smile, facing him. Blakney bent forward impulsively and took her hand. "Forgive me if I have offended you. I feel so sure you are not married to Pelham, and I can't think why you should stay with him. He is so hateful to you, such a brute. And you, you could have anyone, anyone you liked. Why do you stay with him? I know he is rich, but you are not a woman who would sell herself; besides, you have no need to. Any man you smiled upon almost would be your slave." He poured the words out in an eager, passionate stream: his face and eyes were alight. She looked at him for a LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 293 second, hesitating. Before she could answer he had stooped forward and kissed her on the lips, passionately, yet rever- ently, as a fanatic might kiss a shrine. "Say 'Yes,' say you will marry me. You shall never regret it. I have nothing now, but I love you and will work for you and worship you. Kiss me and say 'Yes.' " He drew her towards him, and she lifted her arms and put them softly round his neck and kissed him. After two barren years, in that time of life which is most hungry for love, the touch of his lips on hers thrilled her, and seemed to fill her with life, as the spring in the desert thrills the parched mouth of the traveller, and the beauty of the face above her seemed to carry her senses away on a stream of volup- tuous pleasure, just as a glorious melody sweeps the senses along in a flood of joy. Blakney felt all the Russian blood in his veins turn to fire at her kiss, and held her to him in an ecstasy as the sky flamed over them. He did not notice that she said noth- ing, gave no promise. He was content that she accepted his caresses and yielded hers. To hold so lovely a thing in his arms, and feel, even for a moment, it was his own, gave an intoxicating delight. And she, realising in those moments the great flood-tide of pleasure she sent through all his being, gave herself up equally to the joy of it in his arms. The evening turned to opal round them, and as its fires faded she withdrew herself from him. "I must not stay any longer," she said reluctantly, watch- ing the great planets leap into the sky above them. "Good- night." "Good-night, my darling one. To-morrow I shall see you. I pray I may live through the hours till I can touch your lips again." She sped back through the sweet-scented gloom, the long grass brushing her skirts, the light air lifting the curls from her forehead, her heart bounding. How she loved those smooth scarlet lips that had just kissed her, what a moment of intense delight when that head had bowed over 294 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW her in the violet twilight, and now in a short time she would be with him always. Eustace would be said good-bye to, and pass from her life with the shadow he had brought into it: gloom and disappointment, the starving of the passions, repression of self, and also ease, wealth and luxury, all would be said good-bye to; instead there would be love and laughter and work, the homage of a man who loved and valued her, the hard, simple existence of the poor made rich by the feasts of love. How happy she was: how the pale stars in the still luminous sky spoke to her, telling her of nights of love! She was like a captive set free. She could have sung in the fulness of her heart. It did not occur to her that there would be any opposition, that, if in Life's great shop it is sometimes difficult to buy, it is harder still, at times, to throw away a purchase once made. No, this thought was not near her. She bounded on home to the hotel, thinking only of the new doll, all white and gold, she was about to buy. When she reached the Summer Palace there was barely time to dress for dinner, and she did not speak to Eustace until they were seated at their table. From habit, the long habit of striving to please him, she was punctual to the minute. She tossed her hair up on to her head more carelessly than of old, and hardly glanced in the mirror. She cared no longer whether he admired or disapproved. Formerly she had been sometimes late an intolerable offence in his eyes because of her great, her all-absorbing longing to please him, to appear at her very best. She would linger to smooth her glossy hair again, to fasten yet another rose against her breast, to set an extra jewel at her neck, to gaze despairingly in the mirror and ask herself why he was always so cross, what more of charm could she lend herself to please him? And those few minutes she was late were a crime to Eustace. Now she was not late. And he was better satisfied to note her increased punctuality. Ah! Could he have known what that new virtue meant! No sign of her dead passion, of her dying love, was more sure than this. She did not care now: she could be punctual LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 295 easily. She never paused before the glass to try to win his approval, to avoid those scathing remarks of his. If he made them now they had ceased to hurt. She could hear them, and smile, and say she was sorry, but, inwardly, she cared no more. Those little desperate five minutes she had kept him waiting formerly, had he but recognized them at their value, how he would have recalled them now! After dinner they went to their own room: that splen- did room of which the open windows gave all the blue vault to view, and when they were sitting there, in the blaze of hot starlight, drinking their coffee, she decided to speak those words that, in her view, cut their lives apart. She knew enough to feel that Eustace must be hurt in his vanity, though she was obsessed by the idea that his love and passion were dead, so she suppressed all her own joyous elation, and said merely, in a cold, practical tone, "Eustace, Blakney proposed to me this afternoon." Pelham did not seem much interested. "Oh? Did you tell him, then, you were not married to me?" he replied. "No, I did not, but he divined it. You see, it is diffi- cult to conceal anything from people who really love you. Ordinary people don't care, they don't bother, it's no parti- cular interest to them, but if a man is in love he is so quick to see, to feel, it's all such a vital matter to him. I never said anything at all to lead him to think we were not married, but he seemed to know from the first." "What infinite assurance to ask a woman like you to marry him! I suppose he was much upset by your refusal ?" "I did not refuse him," replied Lydia, steadily. "I have accepted him." Pelham looked at her fixedly for a few moments, in silence. His face did not change. It seemed intensely grave: the eyebrows were level over the green-blue eyes. Lydia met his gaze in silence too: the pink colour mount- ing to and burning in her cheeks. Then, as he did not speak, she felt constrained to, and said, 296 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "So, now, you see, you will get rid of me, and I shall be no more : .trouble to you." In spite of herself her voice shook: she affected to speak lightly, but her real gaiety of a little while back had gone. She was again within the sphere of his influence, and his gravity affected her. She became aware, suddenly, that he was feeling deeply, pain, and she hated hurting him. "I have not said you were any trouble, as far as I remem- ber," he answered. "No, I don't know that you have," she replied quickly, "but you don't seem to care very much for me. You are always rather cross and horrid to me, and we are very little together. I thought, on the whole, perhaps you would be glad for us to part." She spoke hurriedly and suddenly stopped short, her face colouring. She realised then she had not thought he would be glad : that he would be bitterly sorry when it actually came to a parting, regretful. Yes, she must have known that. But this seemed to be worse than anything she had anticipated. Indefinably she felt he was suffering. She grew frightened and confused. Pel- ham was absolutely silent. He sat motionless, his gaze turned now through the window. Their coffee was finished : speech between them seemed dead. Not a sound came from outside, the waters gleamed tranquilly beneath them, the stars burnt tremulously in the glorious darkness of the sky. Lydia sat still, a wild longing filling her for all this to be over, to be away, away from this man, whose presence for so long now had always meant pain or some mental discomfort to her. She did not want to hurt him, she did not want to suffer herself. She cared no longer to try and understand the problem he presented. For two years she had tried, with the whole force of her ardent nature, to make their passion a success, to make it an agent to happiness, to them both, to gain his love: she fancied she had failed, and now all she wanted was to throw aside this ungrateful burden, this impossible task, to forget it all, to be free. That, where she thought she had failed, she had in fact succeeded, that LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 297 those two years had so chained this man to her that he would never be free in this life again she was absolutely unaware of. A dim warning was beginning to sound within, a vague feeling of alarm was awakening, but as yet she did not realise its meaning. "Why did you accept him?" inquired Pelham, at last, in an even voice. "Are you in love with him ?" It seemed to Lydia, put thus, the question paralysed her power to answer it. Was she in love with Blakney ? Her intelligence, her thoughts seemed scattered. "What is being in love?" she said at last, desperately. "I do admire Blakney immensely. I think he has one of the most beautiful faces I have ever seen. I like to look at him. I like being with him. I feel happy with him. If that's being in love, I suppose I am." "I imagined you cared about me," returned Pelham, in a stony tone. "I did. I was devoted to you. I would have died for you any time, willingly, but I think you have killed my love for you. You have been so unkind to me. We have not made a success of our lives just lately: we don't seem really happy, it all seems to have been a mistake and a muddle, and we had better let it end." There was another long pause. Lydia was looking out into the night, or she would have seen that a redness grew round Pelham 's eyelids. "Blakney has absolutely nothing. How does he pro- pose to keep you?" he said after a time in the same cold, restrained voice. "I don't care," responded Lydia, passionately. "I have been brought up to work. All I want is to live with someone I love, and who is nice to me." The silence came down again between them like a pall, and there seemed no possibility, this time, of breaking it. Half an hour went by and then Pelham rose. "It's late: we ought to go to bed," he said merely. "Good-night." 298 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Good-night," Lydia replied without moving, and he went to his own room. Lydia, filled 'with a rage of passion- ate feelings, rose and stepped out on the balcony. She felt a sensation of keen pain all through her, as one whose flesh has been scraped with oyster shells, but she grew calm again, standing alone in the soft, hot darkness of the Turkish night, and after a little while smiled to herself. "I shall soon be away from all this," she thought, and let her mind return to the image of Blakney, to the mouth and eyes that, so far, had always smiled upon her, to the face that was like the Russian snow, and the hair full of gold lights. She went back to her room and began to undress: she dismissed Pelham from her mind. Too many nights in the past she had walked up and down her room in agony, longing for his love and tenderness, filled with the wasting flame of passion, while he slept unconscious. That was past now. She lay down in her bed and fell asleep with a smile on her mouth, dreaming of other eyes and lips, while beyond the closed door it was Pelham, that night, who could not sleep. CHAPTER XXIV "WHAT are you going to do this morning?" Lydia asked, over their breakfast the next morning. "Will you go out fishing to-day ? " "Yes, I can go out," returned Pelham, in a voice lacking in any enthusiasm. "Will you come ?" Lydia hesitated. She hated that fishing, and now, surely there was no longer any need, any moral reason, foi sacrificing herself to please him. "I think I would rather stay at home," she said gently. Pelham made no reply. It was a very silent breakfast, and afterwards he busied himself in a mechanical way with getting ready his rod and line. Lydia loitered near him all the time, in silence too. When he was ready he said, "Good-bye," and she looked into his face: it seemed greatly older, and thin, and drawn in the extreme. "Good-bye till dinner," Lydia answered, and he left her, with rather a feeling of dismay pervading her. How wretched he looked! When he was out of sight she went upstairs and chose her prettiest toilet, a delicate rose muslin, with bands of inserted lace, and lace lying flat round the perfect column of her neck. She gazed in the glass, well content with the velvet cheeks and great soft-lashed eyes. Then she descended and took a chair on the balcony, delighted with the feeling she could sit still and be idle, and was not obliged to be climbing rocks in the burning sun, or rowing in the glare of the water, or doing any of the tiresome, stupid, hateful things Pelham had always wanted her to and she had done to please him. She had only been seated a few minutes when Blakney appeared beside her and drew up bis chair 299 300 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW near to hers. She turned and looked at him, knowing that keen pleasure, through the eyes, that only the born aesthete can feel. In the bright morning light his face, without a line, and the blue eyes beneath the white forehead, looked their very best. "I am so fortunate to find you," he said, with his easy smile. "Where's Pelham?" "Where should he be but out fishing," Lydia answered, with a laugh. It had hurt her a little, though she hardly recognised it, that Pelham should, on the eve of finally losing her, go out fishing as usual. She had a curious sense of having ex- pected it, and yet not having expected it. But she did not analyse her feelings. It only had the effect of making her deliver herself more fully and freely to the pleasure of Blak- ney's society. He felt that. He felt that somehow she was nearer him that morning than ever before, and it filled him with a joy and elation that coloured his cheek and lighted his eye, and gave him that attractiveness that rising con- fident passion always bestows. Not a very long time had passed on that sunny balcony, with the ethereal blue above and the deeper blue below, with the little breeze bearing a thousand rich fragrances to them, before they were talking interestedly of their plans, and he was pressing her to settle a marriage in six days, or in as little a time as he could get a license, but Lydia drew back before a definite date. No, no, she would say nothing just yet, he must be content to wait a little; this tune was so happy, let them enjoy it, not seek for anything better than this. And all the time her restraining words were like little drops of oil dropping on the flame in him. At lunch tune he rose to go and Lydia did not ask him to stay to lunch. Something within her forbade her to entertain this man at Pelham 's expense, so he went, saying he should return in the afternoon, and she promised to be there at tea-time, and went in to lunch alone. Afterwards, before Blakney returned, sitting alone on the balcony, she LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 301 fell into a reverie. Her mind was curiously divided now, half seemed to have rosy light on it when she thought of Blakney; on the other side, in a cold grey shadow, was the image of Pelham. "All endings are sad," she mused, "the death of a love, the termination of any period in our lives has a certain sad- ness. I shall not feel it when it's over and done and I am away." Then the thought came, Would she ever miss Pelham, or want him, when she could never see him again ? She won- dered. She did not seem to miss him while Blakney was with her. He seemed to absolutely satisfy her and fill her mental vision so completely that Pelham's image was entirely excluded from it. Blakney possessed all the qualities that were necessary to evoke passion in her particular organisation. It is in fact qualities and not individuals that excite passion in the human being. It is this fact, so little recognised, that ex- plains the otherwise inexplicable thing, infidelity, that often quite sudden transference of love from one object to another. A young man, for instance, meets his first love, she is adorable, she is twenty, she has wonderful health and spirits, a good temper, a ready laugh, thick brown tresses, a merry smile; he loves her, her he thinks, but what is this her for him? He knows nothing of her as the individual. His love is, perhaps, at first sight. She, the individual, is an unknown quantity for him. It is not that that he loves, however much he may deceive himself on this point. It is these qualities that he loves, the youth, the health, the bright smile, the thick brown hair, the sweet sight of her, these attract him, enchain, violently agitate him. This must be so, for we know if the age were changed to eighty, the health to de- crepitude, the smile to wrinkles, the thick hair to baldness, if this sudden transformation were made, though no change effected in her ego, the young man would love no more. Here, then, we have the root of infidelity, in this love of the qualities only, for while the adorable creature possessing 302 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW them is near to him it is easy to see that he continues faithful, he probably will do so; if she is taken from him, at first he is desolated, missing her, as he thinks, in reality missing her qualities, and if then he is confronted with another object also possessing them, perhaps more of those which attract him, perhaps the same in a greater degree, then the chances are his passion flames up for them and he becomes, as the phrase goes, unfaithful. In reality he loves now what he loved before; the first individual was a stranger to him, as the second is, but he sees again that same youthful grace, that same buoyancy of form and mind, that lovely smile, those thick soft curls, and his heart rushes out to them now as it did before. This then is the course of ordinary love, the secret of that infidelity which we see all round us, marring it every day. It is, again, easy to see from the above that any object possessing qualities very peculiar to itself, or so many qualities that they will rarely be found all together in another, cannot be easily duplicated, and therefore, if it once has aroused passion in another, is likely to retain it, since the lover can find, in no other form, those qualities, or combina- tion of qualities that excite him, and so in that case comes nearer loving the individual, and that one alone. The qualities that had so greatly attracted Lydia to Pelham had been his height, his figure, his features and air of distinction. She had always detested his bad temper and exacting self- ishness. In Blakney she was drawn equally by the three first attributes, and if he had not that special air and carriage that characterised Pelham so strongly, he had, she could see, an infinitely sunnier, pleasanter disposition. There- fore, since Pelham had relied wholly on those outward advantages he had to hold her, when another offered those same advantages, and, in addition, other qualities that her sweet and gentle nature had always sighed for, it was natural that she should turn to the latter with relief, gratitude and love. When Blakney returned they had tea and then strolled up the hill together: their hill, as they called it now, and LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 303 as it was a little rough in places, most of the guests eschewed it, and to-night they had it entirely to themselves. At the top a wonderful sight awaited them; the sunset flared across a sky of fretted gold, the waters beneath gleamed unbroken gold, and all round them was a luminous glowing pink in which the red branches of the pines seemed to catch fire above them. Lydia's aesthetic sense was filled full of satis- faction; to her it seemed she walked beside the Sun God in the Elysian Fields, and when, beneath the firs, he took her into his arms and kissed her again and again, in the strange transfiguring light of the heavens, she made no resistance: she returned his kisses, feeling all her senses swimming in seas of unknown delight. She consented to his entreaties for an early marriage, to some wild plea for a quick journey to some point where they could be united. She repeated, as he urged her, that she loved him and only him. Her lips moved with the words he poured into them in his own tempest of feeling. She cared about nothing. That evening she felt she had entered Elysium and was with the immortals. They stayed there a long time on the red pine needles beneath the fir, the large arms of which stretched over them as if in benediction, and watched the glorious rose pale over the amber water, and the crystal planets step forth in the green, translucent sky: the twilight fell, and fell, its violet folds darkening with each second, and they still sat on, close, side by side, watching the changing glory of the atmosphere light each other's faces, everything forgotten but their own supreme content and happiness. \t last the call of the muezzin from a mosque below reached them through the purple air, and Lydia woke suddenly to realise the hour. "I must go, really. It has all been such a dream of splendour here, I feel dazzled, stupefied, but let us go now, please, I must." They descended together. "You have been so good to me this evening I shall leave you to-night happy," Ivan murmured in her ear, his voice 304 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW strained with intense feeling, his beautiful face bent close to hers. Lydia smiled faintly, in silence. A sudden pang went through her. Good to him! because she had given him a few kisses, the right to press her lips! And he was grateful! What had she not done for Pelham! and was he grateful ? She wondered. At the hotel they parted and she went up to her room. Pelham had not returned, and, when her toilet was com- pleted, she sat dow r n in the easy chair in her room to await him, her eyes suffused, and dreaming still, seeing the glory of the hilltop yet beneath her lids. When Pelham came in she looked at him and noted his face was pale and stamped with the same drawn suffer- ing look of the morning. "Have you had good fishing?" she asked, in her soft, gentle voice. "Yes, the fishing was good, better than usual, the fish were in the water all round me, but somehow I didn't feel I cared about it. I didn't bother to take them. I didn't care about anything. I couldn't fish." He flung all his fishing-tackle down in a corner of the room and came over to her. "I was thinking so much of ourselves," he said, in a low tone, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I don't think we must separate just yet." A cold ice wave seemed to envelop Lydia from head to foot, the words were short and simple, but either in the tone or through the contact of his hands she became conscious of the terrific tension in him, felt, concentrated in a few moments, the whole misery and wretchedness he had suf- fered throughout that horrible day. She sat quite still, hedged about with a feeling of dismay, afraid, incapable of word or motion, much as one sees a small bird sit motionless, crouched to the earth, every feather still, as the shadow of a hawk crosses the blue above. In a second she realised that here, now, wailing for her, at her feet, was that passion that once she had longed so wildly to possess, and she saw too that he realised it. That LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 305 in that long day alone he had been looking into his own brain and heart, and learning their secret. Not only did he love her now, but he knew that he loved her. Odd as it may seem one may love and not know it, may have a strong passion for another and not know it, until some accident or threatened loss reveal it to oneself. And until the knowl- edge comes we do not value the object of our love. "I was thinking of you so much all to-day," he continued softly, leaning over her and kissing her, "of all the nice things you have done for me, how good and sweet you have been all this time to me, and I don't feel I can let you go, I don't know what I should do without my little companion. We must stay together." His voice was very tender and had all the accents of intense feeling: it vibrated with the suffering of the past hours. The girl sat still. Within her there was no response. She felt simply, knew simply, in an agonised wave of feeling, that she was not, as she had imagined, free. In those mo- ments a great resentment against him filled her. For two years he had had her beside him, hungering for his love, striving her very utmost to earn it, pouring out for him a devotion that asked nothing but love as its reward; for two years he had made her life uniformly unhappy, had spoiled every pleasure for her, and treated her with persistent harsh- ness, subjected her to every mental indignity, trampled upon, despised and rejected her passion. Now, when driven by his own acts to another, now, when the sun had just flashed out over the dreary existence he had made for her, when she had at last been able to crush out her passion for him and rejoice in another love, he stepped forward between her and happiness, and offered in exchange what he had succeeded finally in making worthless to her. Had she been a man in the same circumstances she would at once have rejected utterly the love offered to her now. Without mercy she would have told Pelham it was too late, his opportunities had been his and were past. She had set 20 306 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW her feet on another road, given her promise to another, and her future lay before her, in which he could have no part. But, unfortunately for herself, she had no strain of cruelty in her character, none of that calm indifference to others' suffering which is such a marked characteristic of every man, and which is so useful to him in securing, generally, what he wants in the world. "We will go anywhere you like, do anything you like," continued Pelham, as she remained silent. "You have only to say, but we must not think of separating. It is impossible. You have not been amused enough lately. You have always wanted to go to London, well, we'll go now, the day after to-morrow. I will take you to the opera, which you have always longed for. You shall enjoy the whole season there." "I don't really care very much about anything, I think," she answered in a low voice, "except living with someone ^ love, and who cares about me." "That you are, that you will be." His hands burnt on her shoulders. "You don't seem to have cared very much." "Well, I do. I cannot help what I have seemed. I am telling you the facts now." His voice was lower even than hers, and had an intense vehemence. Lydia was white to the lips: as she saw more and more clearly the greatness of this passion, once so wildly longed for, her sense of freedom diminished, the oppression upon her grew. She spoke calmly, keeping her self-possession, carefully choosing her words. It is in moments of passion, whether of anger or love, of excitement, fear or despair, such as swept over her now, that the quality of a nature is revealed, and it was in these moments that Lydia's innate inborn gentleness displayed itself. She was, to the very inmost core, a gentlewoman, and her self-command, the refinement of all her demeanour and words, in sudden and trying situations, were always a marvel to Pelham, and half unconsciously had, by degrees, attached him very closely 307 to her. To his most unjust and stinging taunts he had never had a coarse or violent, and rarely any, answer; in his fierce outbursts of temper, when he had been on the point of striking her, and she had divined it, although she had never shrunk from him, she had never provoked him farther, he had met her indignant or contemptuous glance and silence. The furious light leaping into her eyes alone told him what a rage of passion he had excited and she controlled. She had never once shown herself in an angry, undignified or childish temper, and Pelham respected her more than any other woman he had ever met. She always reminded him, vaguely, of the description that is given in one of the Greek plays, though its context, place and even subject he could not remember: "Whatever happens she will never do or say anything un- fitting or indecorous, for she is a King's daughter." He saw now her pallor and the blazing look in her eyes, and knew that there was a storm going on within her and little of that old illimitable tenderness for him was left. And she, in opposition to him thus, excited him, gave back to him that pulse of wild passion, of keen desire, he had first known for her. He loved and desired her, in those moments, to the very utmost, and she again became for him the supreme pleasure in life. "I think," she said very quietly, "you had better let me go. You only feel you care for me just now because she hesitated, "because of the peculiar circumstances, and they will not last." What she meant to imply, but refrained from saying, was, "I cannot always be in love with another man, and on the point of leaving you, to keep up your pas- sion." "Then," she continued aloud, "we shall be again as we were before, and I am too unhappy to stay. You see, Eustace, it is not as if you would have any difficulty in replacing me. You are not ill, old, poor or ugly: with your looks you can have any woman you like: independ- ently of that, your wealth would buy you the most beautiful woman in London. You have had me and I have been a failure. You wanted to get rid of me once. I was not 308 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW willing to go then. Now I am ready. I want to go. Let me go. You can get a far more lovely and charming mis- tress than I am at once, and in a week or two you will have forgotten me." Pelham felt a sort of horror growing in him as she spoke. Paid caresses, bought smiles had never at any time appealed to him. Did he not know and loath the ways of those beauti- ful women and charming mistresses that she spoke of so glibly? Their coarseness, their recklessness, their com- mon brutish stupidity, their repelling avarice; could they, who had never pleased, now satisfy him after he had once lived in close communion with this woman, with her refine- ment, her delicacy, her tender, disinterested love, her sen- sitive receptiveness, her clear intellect, her sweetness, her intensity of real passion ? "I don't want anybody but you," he broke out savagely, and yet there was a wild tender edge to his tone that the girl's ear heard, "and you know it. You must stay with me. I can't let you go. You must not think of it." He threw himself upon her as she sat in the low chair, and pressed his lips on hers in a violent torrent of kisses. Lydia did not return them: neither did she resent them. She lay back passive, with her eyes closed. Two years ago! Ah, how her aching heart and body, broken up with intense longing for this man's love and caresses, would have rejoiced, been transported with ecstasy by them! If she could but have had them then! And, thinking thus, another arrow of thought passed through her brain. She had offered her love then, he had refused it and now longed for it. Was she not now in the same position ? If she refused this proffered gift now might some future regret await her ? The loud clanging of the dinner-gong in the hall below them, and a chambermaid's knock at their door, startled them. "You are not dressed for dinner yet, Eustace. Make haste," she said, pushing him gently away from her, and he went into the adjoining room, leaving her sinking under a tide of overwhelming distress and dismay. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 309 At dinner, sitting opposite him at their little flower-laden table in the brilliantly-lighted table d'hote hall, she could not help noticing how extraordinarily well and handsome Pelham was looking. The fires of the excitement of the chase were now well lighted, and they glowed in his long green-blue eyes, and whitened the clear tan of his skin. The fatigue, age and pain that had marked his face, on his first return, had fled from it. Those kisses on her lips, received if not returned, the contact again with that warm beauty of hers, after the chill, lonely horrors of his day, had reanimated, electrified him. They had an excellent dinner, and then strolled out on to the terrace together, followed by many eyes, and not a few were keenly envious. The Turkish stars were all ablaze, the moon, just rising, showed a tiny tip of her gold crescent above a ridge of cypress, the night was warm, still, transparent, and full of wandering perfumes. Lydia felt her heart on fire. At this moment she was loved intensely by two men, and the magnetism of it had its own delight. She knew that it could not last, that one or other of these passions must be relinquished and laid down; she would have kept them both if she could, but she knew it was impossible, and she foresaw the wretched struggle between them, facing her. But for the moment she did not feel the burden of it, and the warmth of love beat in upon her heart and suffused it. Pelham came to her room that night, and she felt she had no adequate reason for refusing him. It would have been, to her view, unnatural, almost absurd, and, as she saw, extremely difficult to resist. It was simpler to yield, if she could not now respond. Moreover, she felt no repug- nance to Eustace as a result of her love for Blakney, only indifference, a knowledge that he could not satisfy her senses at that moment because they were enchained by another. Her tempestuous, eager love for Pelham, so long ill-used, seemed now to have flown out of her bosom, to have gone, as completely as a frightened bird vanishes from its nest. When he pressed her to his heart, and she felt its warm, 310 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW strong beats, she realised her own was empty, and the beat- ing of his went through it with a hollow sound, and her thoughts were away with the other man. Pelham, though she spoke little, evading and turning aside his burning questions, was keenly aware of the state she was in, and felt an almost overwhelming dismay as he saw the ground he had lost, but he would make a desperate fight for it now, and his whole soul rose to the combat. He had looked deeply and closely into the past years, and into the future, in those hours spent alone on the Bosphorus; he had asked himself the question, "Now, do I want this woman or not? For I am on the point of losing her," and with agonised distress he had realised that he did want her. However foolishly for his own interests he had acted in neglecting and undervaluing his possession while he had it, he did the very best and utmost now to regain it. In this crisis, in which he recognised a day or an hour might lose him all, he showed those qualities that lay in the greater side of his nature, his decision, strength of will, immediate compre- hension of the situation, when he had been blind so long. He had given up their suite of expensive rooms, sacrificing the rent, he had arranged that they should leave for London at once, a plan that would give her her often-expressed desire and remove her instantly from the new influence. Profiting wisely by her unresistingness he forced his presence, his kisses, his embraces upon her to exclude the vision of his rival, and though he did not succeed in doing this he succeeded in troubling her, weakening her decision, making her hesitate. Time, at least, was gained. When the rosy glow of dawn filled her room this morning, and later the warm sunlight fell all about her bed, it found her lying back, wide-eyed, amongst the fine linen and laces, confused, oppressed and undecided. Her hair lay in ruffled silky waves over the pillow, her face was pale without its wonderful bright tints, but the beauty of her features, the well-modelled nose, the short upper lip, and soft, curling crimson mouth, struck Pelham as it had never yet done. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 311 Bright is the light of imminent loss, and men can see much by it. He brought her a cup of chocolate, and, after setting it on a little table by the bed, stood and looked down upon her. The stress of passion that had swept over him last night, its gratification, had not exhausted, not even satisfied him: the blood beat round his temples, his heart moved nervously. He had never realised how lovely and how dear she was, his possession, till now, and now another was planning to enjoy it, steal her, and she, in her thoughts, consenting. This was the idea that really cut and spurred his brain. Others had coveted her already and left him unmoved, because he had felt, on her side, there was no response to them. But now this was wholly different. And the knowledge that Blakney was poor, that he had nothing but himself to offer, drove the spur deeper. It was the man himself, and that alone, that attracted her. It was for this she was desiring to leave him. And ah, how she would give herself, as she had once given herself to him! that pas- sionate rapture of self -surrender he had known! It should never be for another. The blood came into his face, his jaws set a little. The girl, looking at him, divined his thoughts. "He might even kill me first, if it came to the point," she thought suddenly, but the thought did not prevent her saying, after she had thanked him for the chocolate, "Eustace, I said I would see Blakney again this even- ing. You will not mind my going while you are at the Em- bassy , will you ?" She had raised herself on one elbow; the delicate lace sleeve fell down from it, showing its white loveliness. "No, I suppose you will want to say good-bye to him." "I don't know if I shall say good-bye," was what Lydia thought, but she said nothing. Through the day she sat idle and listless on the balcony, looking out into golden space. She felt she could not do anything, and Pelham did not ask her to. He was very 312 busy himself, packing up, paying bills, and arranging every- thing for their departure. In the little intercourse they had with each other through that day he was exceedingly gentle and kind in manner, said, did and looked everything that was charming, and once the tears started suddenly to Lydia's eyes as the thought stung her, "What a pity to have wasted those years they had spent together when he could, with apparently no effort, be like this! How useless it was now. What priceless happiness it would have given her then!" Idle though she seemed, her thoughts were not idle. Pelham's action in starting immediately for England forced her to decide the next step for her to take. Either she must go with him or join Blakney and marry him, and after last night, after the sudden reversing of all that had led her to her decision to leave Pelham, she felt she was not ready to adhere to that decision, not ready to be precipitated into that course, until she had viewed it under its new aspects. No, she would accompany Pelham to England, and then see how thoughts and decisions moulded themselves within her, how outside events influenced her. Perhaps Pelham, in England, surrounded with his own friends, back in his own life and environment, might find new attractions there and become willing to part with her. If he would part from her voluntarily how gladly she would go! But to leave him when he adjured her, implored her to stay, seemed to her like some sin from which she shrank, and which she would never have the courage to commit, a sin similar to those he had committed against her. So she made her decision to go with him, and looked upon her interview with Blakney that evening as a farewell, even if only a temporary one. But like all decisions to do our duty, which runs contrary to our desires, it brought no rest or satisfaction with it. She felt miserable and wretched. She longed to stay here with Blakney, longed to be with him, comforted by his presence. All her personal feelings swayed her violently towards him. Pelham, for the moment, had lost all power LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 313 over her to please, soothe or satisfy. Her mind lay scream- ing on the floor of Life's shop for this new toy in it, like an ill-governed child refusing the old one vainly offered by its gentle nurse. It was only her principle of avoiding the infliction of pain on others, to which she blindly adhered, that saved Pelham then. When he came out on the bal- cony to tea, her innate gentle breeding forced her to cover her feelings, wretched though she felt, and smile and talk pleasantly to him. Pelham felt an immeasurable relief when she spoke of having time to pack her things after dinner and being ready to start in the morning. She was coming then! His heart flew upward with unbounded joy and relief. A sense of being suddenly freed from an iron constriction possessed him. A cold black terror had been about him, an icy, paralysing dread that he had really irretrievably lost her. For the last twenty-four hours he had felt as a man clinging with teeth and hands to the face of a precipice, struggling to regain a lost foothold. Now he felt as one feels when the foothold is regained, the bound- ing, exultant joy of life, almost lost, restored. The precipice still yawns below, there are other dangers to be faced, but for the moment one is safe. Pelham asked no questions: he was afraid. He knew nothing of her thoughts or views, or ultimate intentions, but for the present there was respite. Blakney would be left, she was coming with him! Time would be given him. In that he would regain her. Never, never would he let her go from him. They drank their tea together in the limpid yellow light of the Turkish afternoon, and talked of their prospective journey. It seemed to Pelham he had never known happi- ness till now. After tea they went to their rooms, and he kissed her and said he should not be long at the Embassy, and would be back to dinner. Then he left her. He hated the thought that she was going to the Russian, but in the savage goading of the idea he kept repeating to himself it was the last time, and he was too wise to lay any embargo 314 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW on her going. Matters were at too acute and sensitive a balance between them : a breath would disturb it. He went, trusting to her honour, and Lydia, after a few restless wan- derings in their rooms, descended the stairs and went out. Blakney and she had arranged to meet at the top of the hill, under the boughs that had spread above them, so warmly gold, the previous night, and she climbed very slowly up- ward, the little narrow path over rock and fern, and through the long, dewy, tangled grass. It seemed as if two hands were laid upon her heart, one hot, one cold, dragging it in opposite directions. How differently she felt now from last night. The clanking weight of iron fetters seemed upon her. She was like a prisoner upon whom, after a short hour's liberty, the chains are laid again. She felt now, that happy as she was with Blakney, great as the feelings were that he had roused, after the self-revelation of Pelham, she could not abandon him for the other. Why she could not she did not quite know. She thought it was perhaps the instinctive horror she had of the remorse that would be sure to follow if she were unkind to him. She had been unkind to her husband and how miserable she had been! She had deserted her duty, laid aside her first purchase, hoping to exchange it for a better one, and what a failure it had all been! What unhappiness, what disappointment, what self-reproach she had endured! Now, were she to leave Pelham, would it be all that over again ? If she could have gone from Pel- ham, convinced he needed her no longer, how joyfully she would have taken her freedom! She knew, she had felt last night, that her passion for him was dead. Brilliant, wonderful, tropic bloom it had been that she had offered him, the whole radiant expansion of that strangely passionate nature, and he had gathered it, caught by its rich hues, and then crushed it under his heel. Now it was dead, and he lifted it up, and his agony and tears were of no avail to restore a single petal. What a brute he had been, she thought, why, why should she consider him now? Did he consider others? She recalled the horribly bleeding deer that had LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 315 fled, maimed and shattered, from his gun, a picture that al- ways infused a loathing of him through her thoughts; the cruel way in which the half-dead water-fowl had been flung into the boat by him on that still, golden evening when they had sat in their boat amongst the tall, green, glistening reeds, and her hands clenched in a spasm of anger as she walked. "Then I was tied by my own accursed passion for him; now I have none: must I still stay with him, tied to him now, by pity for him, who has never pitied others?" And she felt she would not, and could not stay, and her feet bounded up more quickly the uneven slope. Then the vision came of Pelham leaving Constantinople to-morrow, of going out, away from her, into the wide world, and being for ever lost to her. Would she ever regret it? And again, cruel, dishonourable, detestable as he had been, and would, doubtless, be again, would not this other for whom she exchanged him be as bad, or worse ? Even if not in the same ways, in others ? After all, since all the toys in Life's shop are wooden and worm-eaten and rotten, was it worth while to bother to change one for the other? A great, grey blankness came suddenly over all her thoughts, tears blotted out the glorious gold light of all around her. She sank suddenly down on a stone in the path, half-way up the hill. "Lydia!" Two arms came suddenly round her, she was lifted wholly up off the ground and clasped to a living breast. She looked up and saw Blakney's face above her, bent down to hers, with the extreme eagerness of passion stamped on it. It repelled her just then. She closed her eyes that she might not see it, while he kissed her. "Dearest, that wretched hill was too much for you. I am so sorry. You are quite done up. What a fool I was to let you come up it." "No, oh, no, it's not the hill. Oh, Ivan, it's all so dread- ful. We are going away to-morrow, and I don't know what to do." 316 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Blakney had taken one of the moss-covered stones on the hillside for a seat, drawing her down with him. "We?" he repeated. "Who do you mean?" "Eustace has decided to go to England to-morrow." "Well, let him go! It's nothing to us. I should think he would want to go. \Ve will be married immediately, and go home, or stay here, just as you like." "Oh, but I don't think I can. There was such a terrible business last night. He does not want to part with me after all, and I can't, can't marry you, or do anything, as far as I can see." "But why ? You love me, don't you?" There was a terrible intensity in Blakney 's tones. His arms were locked round her tightly. She looked up to his face, it was dead white, and the eyes were filled with resent- ful light: its beauty commanded all her senses. She put both arms round his neck and kissed, with wild passion, the carved lips above her. " You know I do. I love you," she answered so strenu- ously, her whole form pressed to him, her ardent spirit seeming to leap from her lips and pass into his as she kissed him, that Blakney was instantly satisfied. "Then why worry about anything else? Marry me and all will settle itself naturally." Lydia said nothing. Her tears had ceased, a blank despair sat on her face. Blakney looked at her keenly, and apprehension grew up in him. "I believe you love Pelham," he said at last in a strained voice. "I have loved him," returned Lydia, "and now there is left a sense of duty, affection and gratitude." "Gratitude!" repeated Blakney, with the most intense surprise, "to that brute! After what I have seen! His manner, his way to you!" "Yes: gratitude," replied Lydia, firmly. "He bos been a brute, as you say, in heaps of ways, but half the time un- LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 317 consciously, and of course, on the other hand, he has done lots of things for me, been very good too in many ways. Nothing can blot out one's gratitude for the things a person has done for one, even though he treats one badly in others. It is like an account: all done for one stands on one side, all done against one on the other." "Well, and when you balance your account is the balance in Pelham's favour ? " asked Blakney, bitterly. "I don't know. I am not good at balancing accounts: it seems beyond me. All I feel is, I can't leave him for you, just at this minute. I can't decide now to leave him, after last night." "Then you do love him still! You love us both!" ex- claimed Ivan, incredulously, savagely, as if this simplest fact of nature were impossible to grasp. "It may be that. You know how handsome you are: you must know that. It is impossible that when I see you and know that you love me I should not love you: I want you, long for you, delight in your beauty " and she stretched out her arms to him with a gesture of inexpressible longing. Blakney caught her hands and held them to his breast. "Your face commands me to love you. I cannot do otherwise, but all that passion, that desire for you, cannot sweep away entirely the emotions, the feelings, the ties that kave been growing for two years. I do feel an affec- tionate consideration for Eustace. I have nursed him from death to life. I can't throw him aside now, when he appeals to me, wants me. If he did not I would come to you directly. It is passion that calls me to you, affection that holds me to him. He and I are bound together by so many common experiences, so many memories. What is there between you and me? At present nothing, only the demand your beauty makes on my senses." Blakney listened to this speech dumfoundered. Men so seldom hear the truth of women's emotions. Women, generally, do not know the truth of them, and if they do 318 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW they have not the power of expressing and explaining them- selves. He stared down upon her, white to the lips, as wave after wave of surging emotion swept over him. He did not understand her, did not grasp her feeling or see her view. It would have been difficult for a man to do so, for a man would not have acted, felt, or thought, as she did. A man, having suffered at a woman's hands, and having had his love rejected or ill-used, would have felt no scruple at all in abandoning the woman when called to a new love, how- ever the woman might plead, however well he might realise her love, her repentance, her anguish. A man usually follows his inclination, even without justification. Here, where there was certainly justification for Lydia, if she chose to leave Pelham and come to him, no man could understand her hesitation for one instant. Men cannot understand the word "duty" in sexual relations. They know what is meant by "duty" on the field of battle, duty to their country, duty in business, in finance, but the idea of duty in love is one their brains are not apparently constructed to be able to grasp. Inclination rules a man's love matters throughout. Nature, in this, is on his side and willed it should be so, since while a female may receive, from a sense of duty, or a thousand other reasons, the gift of life, the male can only confer it, swayed by, and under the dominion of, his inclination. Blakney, then, completely uncomprehending of her state, felt fire rushing all over his brain as he looked at and listened to her. He saw that, in some strange way, Pelham had re- gained, temporarily at least, his ascendency over her, and the thought that she was withdrawing from himself, that actually to-morrow she was going from him, maddened him beyond endurance. He felt he could take her and kill her in his arms rather than let her go from him with this other. He struggled with the emotion and gained the upper hand of it, but his thoughts were all in chaos. Her words, just uttered, suggested to him that perhaps she was anxious to retain such position, comfort and ease as Pelham LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 319 could give, that she dreaded the poverty she must face with himself, and yet she loved him had she not just said so? Like a man, again, he emphasised the passion for physical possession, under-estimated the aesthetic, refined spirit of love, that in a nature like hers must always be the first, the paramount influence. With the blood tearing and flying all over his body, he flung himself beside her and put his arms round her. " I love you, I want you, you know how I do, but I suppose it is selfish of me to ask you to give up Pelham. I have nothing to offer, he has everything. Give yourself to me and I will be content. I will follow you to England, anywhere. We can be all the world to each other." He had strained her to him, and was kissing her, in a blind fury, before she could resist him, but she had heard all his words clearly, and they incensed and froze her at the same time. She saw how entirely she was misunder- stood; she felt as a woman always feels with men, how low their standards of honour are, how grovelling their ideas and perceptions. She resented his embrace and struck his breast, pushing him from her, and burst apart his arms. Hitherto buoyed up with the thought of her indifference to Pelham and the security of their approaching marriage, Blakney had treated her as a man treats his fiancee, and she had felt safe and happy in his gentle deference. Things had swung suddenly on to new ground, and she was white and trembling with anger as she faced him. On the moss, beneath the lofty, far-stretching, crimson boughs, in the soft, rosy silence, they glared at each other silently for a few moments, the man flushed, with his eyes glittering, the woman white, her eyes black with menace and outraged feeling. She conquered herself first, and regained her speech. "You don't understand in the least, Ivan," she said, speaking calmly, but with stormy emphasis. "What a contemptible creature you seem to think me! You think I am reluctant to leave Pelham because of his wealth! Do you know that if he lost everything and were going into a 320 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW garret, that then I could never, never leave him while he wanted me ? That the fact he has so much of all this world can give is the one thing that makes it possible for me to think of leaving him and coming to you? Do you believe that or don't you? And next, do you not feel that as long as I am with Pelham, and kept by him, I would die rather than do anything he might not see or hear ? If I say good-bye to him, and become yours, that is different, but while I am his, and he trusts me, I shall be faithful to him, as I should be to you if I were yours. Do you understand that ? I don't suppose you do. I don't know that it matters whether you do or not," and she rose to her feet and walked away. Blakney sprang to his feet and followed her. He was beside her in an instant and had taken her hand. "Do forgive me," he said, lifting it to his lips, and pressing them, quivering and burning, upon it. "I am beside my- self. Think what it is for me! Only last night we were talking of our marriage, how soon we could arrange it, and now you tell me you are going away with Pelham. How have you got so drawn to him again ? I can't understand it, and yet I do. He is jealous of me, his jealousy has re- aroused his passion, he has persuaded you to stay with him. You are going to leave me, give me up." Lydia's heart melted, her anger disappeared. A sense of wrong-doing oppressed her. She sank down on a fallen pine beside them. "It seems I can't help being unkind to someone," she said hopelessly. Blakney took his seat beside her. His face was white and drawn, his hands shook. "You are going back to him," he persisted. "You want me to give you up ? " "Not exactly what I thought was this: Eustace is unwilling to give me up now." She would not put it more strongly, she felt it dishonour- able to show one man's soul to another. She would only say of Eustace the least that was necessary. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 321 "But it may not always be like that. If I go to England with him, and you stay here quietly, as I wish, I think his own life may absorb him again. I can withdraw gradually, become less to him. What I hope is, in his own circle, surrounded by his own friends and interests, I shall become of less value to him. I may even be something of an in- convenience. He is always sought after we cannot tell what may happen. He will perhaps, later, let me go gladly, and then I will come to you. That is my idea in consenting to go to England now." She stopped. Blakney did not reply. He stared fixedly at the green moss at their feet without seeing it, his brows contracted. "But I don't believe it will be as you say: he won't want to give you up : he never will now. . . . Think of me here . . . think of the suspense." "Would you rather me say good-bye finally to you and end it here ?" "No. Oh, no! No! Not that." He buried his face in his hands and rocked himself back- wards and forwards in silence. Lydia, watching him, felt a great ache in her heart, as if a cavern were opening in it. She reproached herself, hated herself for having misled him, but how could she tell that Pelham really cared so much? Besides, whatever she had done he would have fallen in love with her just the same, and suffered nearly the same. The sunlight falling on his head turned the hair to bright gold; the ear that she could see above his clenched fingers was white as a statue's and beautifully shaped; the neck that rose above the collar was beautiful also. She felt utterly wretched, full of a sick longing to throw herself into his arms and let Pelham and her ideas of duty go, let him be as unhappy as he liked, to give pleasure to this man, and find it in his arms. She could not feel sure, in face of his misery, that she was doing right either: she might only be rather 21 322 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW foolish, and perhaps Pelham would tell her so one day him- self. Still, memories of last night rose before her, and it seemed that to leave him would be like raising her hand to murder him, and she could not do it. "Tell me," said Blakney at last, raising his head, "are you going to live with him in England as you have been doing here ? " "No," returned Lydia, meeting his angry, bloodshot, miserable eyes with hers. "No. I shall have my own rooms and he will have his or go to his country place. I want him, don't you see, to live his own life, away from me, to get drawn to other people. Besides, I don't want to live with him any more. I want to be quiet, somewhere where I can think about you and write to you, and look forward to your coming over." A great weight of burning misery seemed to roll off Blakney as she spoke. He tried to shut out Pelham from his thoughts. She was more like his dear little fiancee of last evening again now. He stretched out his arms to her. "How long will it be before I may come over?" he asked. "I don't know. I will write and tell you directly you may." After that they sat silent. There seemed nothing more to be said. The light dropped gradually round them, the lovely clear rose changed to a tender, mysterious mauve, the gold vanished from sky and water, the silver light of planet and star showed through the branches above them. Just at the last, when she had said she must go, the man seemed to throw from him all they had saio! and agreed: reasons and theories fell away from him, he implored her, folded tightly in his arms, to his breast, to come away with him then and there, they could take the boat to Odessa and be married as soon as possible. They were on the way to the Black Sea; unknown though it was to her, it was his country beyond. If she would trust herself to him all would be well, love would smooth the way for them, find LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 323 out a path through all difficulties. And all her leaping frame seemed to answer him, body and mind responded to him. She, who loved adventure and excitement and cared so little for pain or discomfort, how the dangers and the difficulties invited her! Flight by night over those enchanted waters lighted by the stars, the crossing of the Euxine that lies so vague, so mysterious, beyond the guarding rocks at the head of the Bosphorus! Entering Russia, a new, un- known country, with him! With him! All sorts of good and evil fortunes awaiting her there, to be shared with him! He loved her, and through all, those protecting arms would be about her. She clung to his neck and breast, feeling how intensely she loved and coveted this splendid frame. Living, starved and desolate, with Pelham, he had found her, and brought back the sunlight and joy of life to her. She longed to go with him. The screech of a steamer on the Bosphorus, invisible now in the darkness below them, seemed to call to her. She saw herself stepping on to the boat, its swift pas- sage up the familiar strait, past the white palaces and the cypress groves, with the Turkish moon just climbing up over them, and then the change of steamer at the junction, with the pale wide sea beyond, the unknown sea on which they would be borne to unknown shores! She saw the Russian ship, the narrow interior of the Odessa boat, the water cleaving asunder beneath their bows as they went on and on, leaving Pelham, and Constantinople, and the old life and ties behind. She saw the faint dim shores, the play of silver sheen on the smooth dark ripples, and then herself, descending to their tiny cabin, where the rush of the water could be heard against the side, oil-lighted and close, fitted with two narrow berths, where one would have sufficed. Filled with the magic of love's delight, she would sink into oblivion on that breast, that was the crowning joy of all, those arms tightly folded round her, to wake to a new to- morrow, a new love, a new life, in a new land. It was a bitter and terrible struggle, full of sharp anguish, to resist, for everything begged, and swayed, and pushed her to yield; 324 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW there was only that one little bland of consideration for another that stood firm in the wild swirl of the waters of temptation. It was over at last, and she was out of his clasp, and blinded with tears, her heart bursting with resentful dis- appointment, her feet stumbling, she made her way down the hill. The night was full of voluptuous sighs, of rich perfumes: light, wandering airs caressed the girl's face and lifted her hair from her hot forehead. The lights of countless lamps spangled all the slopes of the hills and the shores of the Bosphorus below her, and round her, just as the stars spangled the sky. Strains of music from the string band reached her from the hotel as she descended. The moon lifted her tiny yellow horn above the fir trees behind her in the deep purple sky. Half-way down she descried suddenly a slim, straight figure ascending towards her: a moment after Pelham's voice came out of the darkness, and it was very gentle and tender. "I am so glad to find you. I was getting anxious about you." CHAPTER XXV WHEN Pelham and Lydia arrived in London they separated, Pelham to go to rooms near his club, and Lydia to find some for herself. This was her wish. Pelham, in desperation, had vainly urged upon her that they should be married. Vainly urged now that which a little while back would have been so enthusiastically welcomed and would have given so much joy. So does the kaleidoscope of Time turn on before our eyes, and with each turn a new pattern of its wondrous colours captivates our fancy. Marriage with Pelham, the idea of which had made the blood dance in her veins, and her heart sing for joy, was firmly refused by Lydia now, with the gold and white of the Russian's face before her. She had refused to accept mar- riage with him also, but she still longed after it and coveted it, and while she respected the old ties to Pelham the thought of adding one more link to the chain that bound her to the man she had once so longed to bind to her, filled her with horror. "Let me come and help you find your rooms at least," Pelham had urged, but Lydia had gently refused. It was impossible in London, in the centre of his friends and ac- quaintances, for them to live together without, at least, giving out that they were married, and to this Lydia would not consent. "You go to your rooms and lead your own bachelor life," she said; "whenever you want me come to me, but for the present I am not in your life, officially or publicly." "You will wire me directly you have found your place then, will you?" Pelham urged. 325 326 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "Yes, I will wire," Lydia assented. At Charing Cross lie kissed her and saw her into a cab. He had given her money, and she had accepted it simply. She had none and she was still his property. When the cab drove on and her bright rosy face and smiling eyes were taken away from his vision, a great depression came over him. For two years, night and day, she had been beside him, hardly so much as an hour had seen them sep- arated, and never in all that time had the eyes frowned or the lips uttered one unkind word to him. In all his life, in all the world, could he find another fellow-being like her? The query seemed suddenly to loom out before him and overshadow everything else. He mechanically saw his luggage put on to a cab and got into it, a prey to a great sadness. What a fool he had been, he told himself over and over again, to be loved so much by such a woman and to lose her, but he would not, no, he would not lose her, he vowed within himself, and damned Blakney over and over again in his thoughts. Now, as he looked round on his life, seeing it in imagination without her, it looked to him abso- lutely desolate. He reached his rooms; dull and cheerless enough they seemed, and the absence of the sweet familiar face, the soft caressing voice, made an emptiness about him that was simply appalling. He read a few letters, and then sat idly in his chair longing for, awaiting her telegram, with an agony of expectancy. He let the servants bring him some coffee, but he would not order dinner here. He was so sure her wire would come and he would go to dine with her. He looked at his watch; it was only five. He could think of nothing, attend to nothing. He only longed to be with her. Time passed and no one came to disturb him. There was no sound except the distant rumble of the traffic and the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece above him. Its hands moved round to seven. He got up and went into the adjoining room to dress. Amongst his letters on the table were several invitations for that evening, but he left LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 327 them lying there unnoticed. The society of his friends, that he had so often deplored the lack of whilst with her, seemed now suddenly useless, worthless, distasteful to him without her. This struck him as he passed the table where the letters were lying, and he paused, looking down at them. Here were his friends gathering round him to welcome him back; the woman who, as he had so often reminded her, kept him from them, was gone. He was quite free to spend the evening how and with whom he pleased. And now he only wanted to spend it with her! And used his freedom only to hang upon the moments, awaiting her telegram! He tossed the letters into a heap and went on to his bedroom. Eight o'clock came: still no telegram. Eustace, in his evening clothes, with his hat on, and his overcoat thrown over his arm, that he might be quite ready, sat in the arm- chair by the fireplace. He was very empty and hungry now, and needed his dinner badly. Still, he hardly felt that. He sat and wondered what could have prevented her send- ing the wire sooner. Could anything have happened to her, any accident ? He felt uneasy and worried, but kept telling himself she was sure to be all right. That was his general phrase where other people were concerned, but it consoled him less than usual this evening. At last, at eight- thirty, the familiar telegraph knock came up from the street, and he started from his chair. At the door he took the telegram from the man's hand and tore it open. It simply contained the words: "I am at this address," giving the street and number. He went on down the stairs and out, threw himself into the first hansom he could get, and drove to her place, feeling happier and lighter at heart than he had ever done since their stay at Constantinople. Lydia had found nice rooms for herself in the neighbour- hood of Piccadilly, and it was a fine, handsome drawing- room that Pelham entered, well lighted and cheerful, with a fire sparkling in the grate. She was sitting by it reading, and looked up in surprise as he came in. She evidently 328 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW had not expected him. She was still in her travelling dress but looked fresh and round and radiant, and his heart rushed out to her. He felt his whole being full of simple animal joy in being with her again. "Well," he said, in a pleased tone, putting his hat on the table and coming over to kiss her, "why didn't you wire sooner? I have been sitting starving and freezing in my rooms a perfect eternity." Lydia looked up at him in dismay. "Why, I didn't think it mattered specially when you got the wire! and why haven't you had your dinner?" "Waited to have it with you, of course," he returned, smiling down upon her pretty, distressed face. " Oh, Eustace, I am so sorry! I never thought you would. I thought you would dine at your club or with some friends, and I haven't even ordered any dinner!" "Haven't you had anything then ?" "I had some tea at five, that's all. I didn't seem to want anything else, and I thought I'd go to bed soon." "Well, we must go out and dine somewhere. I'm fright- fully hungry." She pulled forward an armchair for him, full of distress at his having been kept waiting and hungry for her wire. The sight of his faultless evening attire filled her with self- reproach. "Never mind," he said brightly, "go and change as quickly as you can." Nothing in fact seemed to matter now they were together again. The bedroom opened out of the drawing-room, through folding doors, and as she passed in to dress, Eustace followed her and looked round. "You've got a nice little place here," he remarked, going over to the glass: the electric light burned above it, and the whole room, with its comfortable curtained bed, was reflected in it. Lydia was on her knees before her portmanteau. When she was ready he fastened her bodice for her, and LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 329 to him it seemed as if the happiest days of their intimacy were re-established as he kissed the beautiful white neck and round throat before clasping her necklet. She looked splendid, regal, in her long dinner-gown, one he had himself chosen for her, with narrow bands of deep rose-coloured velvet confining, imprisoning as it were, the bust and lying against the white flesh of neck and arm. She had washed her face previously, after the dust and smoke of the journey, and her skin looked transparently clear and pure against the lustre of her dark eyes and piled-up masses of dark hair. Eustace looked upon her with keen pride and joy. He was now on his own ground again, hunting down a strong, independent creature: something free and vigorous that might possibly escape him. She looked, as she stood before him, as superb and proudly full of life and strength as any forest deer that had fallen, maimed and helpless, before his gun, and all the old joy of pursuit rose up in him, and the old fire of the chase burned in his veins. Lydia's mind was filled full of the image of another man, but with that wide range that in some natures the sexual impulse has, she was not indifferent to the pleasure that Eustace, in his present mood, gave her. He was the man she had loved, and whose personality exercised over her, as it had done from the first moment of their meeting, a mysteri- ous charm. "Shall I do now?" she said, smiling up at him as he put her cloak round her. "You look capital," he said happily, with a bright look in his eyes, and they switched off the electric light and went out together. He took her to the most expensive restaurant in Picca- dilly, and ordered an elaborate dinner, with champagne, coffee and liqueurs, and every delicacy the waiter could suggest. What was the good of his wealth if not to be made use of on an occasion like this ? He felt pleasure in spend- ing money upon her now. It was a satisfaction and a balm to him. They enjoyed their dinner thoroughly. It was 330 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW late and they really both needed it after a long and fatiguing day. Eustace was at his very best, amusing, charming, attentive, caressing in manner and way and look and tone: yet without a hint of sadness or appeal to her. He seemed to take it for granted he was the victor, the master of the situation, that they could no more separate than that the sun could fall, but at the same tune he showed her his grati- tude for the decision to stay with him, that he assumed, his pride and delight in her. It all combined to produce a very pleasing impression, and Lydia, looking across at his face, pale and with its wonderful look of refinement, of distinction stamped upon it, kept asking herself, "I wonder if he would keep on being like this if I stayed with him?" After dinner it was ten-thirty, and he suggested driving round to his rooms. "I think I had much better not. It will make me so late getting back to my place." The lines of Eustace's lips set ever so little, a steel-like light came into his eyes. "Let me come to yours then." "It'll make such a talk if you come in late and stay. We must be careful. I had better go back alone now." "And what shall I do, all alone at my rooms?" Lydia looked at him across the table, a smile in her lovely eyes. It struck her as extremely amusing, this pathetic inquiry, this bint of utter desolation because of one night alone, from the man who had slept night after night in a room close to hers, and never sought her when she had longed for him through the long, sleepless hours alone. However, she understood perfectly. Then she had been the tame, captive creature penned up near him, safely secured, possessed and subdued. Now she was the free, wild thing escaping to the open. "Come along, you must come," he said, "you need not be very late," and because she had been in the habit of obeying him she obeyed him now and went. She felt happy as they rose from the table, and Eustace lifted her cloak LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 331 from the chair to put it round her. The wine was warm in her veins, and the light, the soft glow of colour round her, the low strain of music from the string band, playing Wagner's "Abendstern," wooed her sesthetic senses. Glancing round at the other diners, her eyes did not fall upon one that could compare favourably with Pelham. Here a stout red roll of flesh rose above a collar, there a bald head bent earnestly over its soup; at this side two very young men with vacuous faces and high collars were dining two very pretty women; at the opposite side a highly-coloured young man's face, with a bristly black moustache, stared at her in a mirror. There was no one among them like the one that belonged to her, she thought, as she glanced at Eustace with his tall slim figure, pale skin and finely-cut features, the whole expression of intelligence and character that sat on them, the exceedingly well-bred air. She gathered her cloak round her, and hi another minute they were driving side by side to Pelham's rooms. It was three hours later when she let herself in with her latchkey to her own place. Upstairs she found her fire out and the rooms in complete darkness. She passed into her bedroom, switched on the light, and slipped thankfully into bed, physically exhausted. A vague sense of humiliation weighed upon her. Passionate relations always seemed to her sensitive perceptions hallowed by the ensuing sleep in the loved one's arms, by that mysterious setting free of the souls to wander forth together in those dark realms that are the mirror of death. Without that warm com- panionship of consecrating sleep, passion seemed on a dif- ferent and lower plane. Moreover, for the first time, she had given herself, not because she wished it, but because the man to whom she belonged demanded it. She had yielded from a sense of obligation and that was humiliating. Crowding on this came the sense of infidelity to Blakney, whom she had declared she loved. "I can't help it," she reflected, slipping down in the luxurious bed, and feeling fatigue draw its soft veil over all the sharp-cut thoughts. 332 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW "I owe nothing to Blakney yet. He has done nothing except covet me as one covets a peach to eat, and besides, even now, perhaps, he is himself with another woman." With a sudden great weariness of Life's whole dusty shop she closed her eyes and drifted into sleep. CHAPTER XXVI FOR the first few days of her life in London Lydia enjoyed herself, fascinated by all the new sights and sounds round her, by the dazzle of all the new toys in this fresh department of the great shop. It was the beginning of the season and the air was clear and sunny, full of the freshness of May; streets, parks, houses, people, all wore their brightest aspect. The opera was going on and Pelham took her to it on a night when Melba was singing in Faust. Spellbound and enraptured Lydia sat motionless, almost rigid, while the voice of that most exquisite singer transported her mind into new worlds of sensation, of the existence of which she had never dreamed. It was not only the faultless and lovely voice that captivated her, but the singer's beauty of face and form that enthralled her. Lydia had always felt passionate admiration for harmony of line, and at the first moment that Melba came upon the stage an unbounded delight filled her. All beauty, every possible grace that she could ever have imagined, seemed centred in the ex- quisite vision the great singer presented. The spirit of poetry was in every line and movement. Towards the end of the opera it seemed to Lydia as if her very life was ebb- ing from her, borne away on a passion of delight of the senses as she listened to that wonderful song of Marguerite renouncing all earthly ties and love, and dedicating herself to heaven. The divine voice, circling ever higher and higher, so absolutely perfect, both in strength and melody, so su- perbly superior to the music of the orchestra, now playing with stormy energy, seemed like the upward flight of some 333 334 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW pure enraptured spirit, vanquishing everything of earth, winging its way to immortal light. Lydia could not shake off the influence, and afterwards, at supper, could talk of nothing else but the wonderful voice and the beauty of the singer. To her great pleasure Pelham entered completely into her feelings, and talked, interestedly and well, about music. He was as sensitive to its influence as she was, and her en- thusiasm seemed natural enough to him. She had never realised before how near they were together, mentally, and, as in the forest camps, she saw that here was the compan- ionship she had so much missed, and longed for, with Ber- nard. When her mind , as it were, expanded towards Pelham, as a plant to the light, it was not checked and pushed back, but drawn further forward. It did not find itself against a stone wall, but warmed in the sun of his responsiveness. She had never felt this more than on that wonderful night of her first opera, when they talked of the music together afterwards, and her last waking thought was, would Ivan understand all she had felt so well ? She asked Pelham to take her again several nights in succession, and he did so: she had only to ask now for him to delightedly comply with her lightest wish. Hardly any- thing then, at that time, would have been too extravagant a request for him to grant her. But, true to her nature, she asked for very little. A worldly woman would have seen her opportunity and seized it to secure her future. But Lydia, in this new state of things, with her wish to leave Pelham always before her, shrank from seeing him spend money on her, and would not accept fresh benefits and favours. She kept carefully within the weekly allow' ance he made her, and when he pressed jewellery and dress upon her evaded and refused his suggestions. She spent a great part of her time reading there was no let or hindrance to it now and in the pages of her books she escaped, for a time, from the perplexing problem of her own life. She would often visit Hatchard's, close to her in Piccadilly, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 335 that very palace of enchantment to the book lover, and enjoyed those half hours she spent in its cool recesses, turn- ing over new, uncut leaves, gazing upon the countless shining piles round her, buying, here and there, any volume she fancied. Pelham dined with her every night at her place. She never asked him and that was why he always came. At the same time, as he was paying for everything she felt she could not refuse. When he was there she was never cross or disagreeable, for it was not her nature to be so. She was sweet, kind and gentle in voice, manner and look, as she had always been, and it would have passed the ability of any outsider to discover the change in her feelings to him. But he was quite conscious of it. Where before her passionate devotion to him had made her weak, clinging, dependent, here she was strong, brilliant, gay, indifferent, and these are four powerful fans to a man's passion. It astonished them both, in those moments when it was brought home to them, to note how their positions had changed: she, who had for- merly hung on his words, known delight in his smile, ecstasy in those rare moments when he had shown his love for her, now felt herself only listening to him out of politeness, op- pressed by his society, repelled by his passion; and he, who had once fancied himself aggrieved by her adoring affection, now clung to the moments passed by her side, cared for no hour in the day except that which brought them together, and planned and longed and hoped and schemed to recover that which he had thrown away. His life now seemed worthless without her. Nothing, of all the many things his great resources allowed him to choose from, invited him, pleased him. He felt, after all, her companionship in his life gave it something he could not buy elsewhere. His table was crowded with invitations but he would not accept them. He was sought after, courted, flattered by his friends, partly for himself, partly for his position and what he could do for them in return, but he now only thought 336 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW about, only cared, for the one disinterested soul he had met in his life, possessed and lost. Among his invitations at that time came one from an old friend, asking him to stay a week at his place in the country, near London. Pelham was about to refuse, as usual, when he paused with the pen in his hand. The daughter of the house was a very beautiful girl, recently come out her portrait had been in a Society paper only a week or two back. Pelham got up, looked for the paper amongst his others, found it, and, with the portrait before him, wrote a note accepting the invitation. It occurred to him if he left Lydia for a week, with a little jealousy added to her loneliness, it might help him more than his presence beside her. For a long time after writing he sat gazing before him into space, and thinking. It seemed so extraordinary, to himself, that he should feel so tied to, and bound up in, this one woman now. Perhaps, after all, he had been exaggerating to himself his own feelings and her importance ,to him. Why not try, during this week away from her, to free himself, to look out upon his life without her, take it up and enjoy it as he always had done, for himself alone, without regard or consideration for others ? Inconstancy and selfishness had been the rule of his life, and he had lived very comfortably by it. Now, it seemed to him, through contact with this woman he was getting good, unselfish, to think of someone else, getting faithful and attached to one, all of which would probably be very stupid and uninteresting and inconvenient. After dinner that night he showed Lydia the paper he had brought with him, containing the portrait, and told her of his accepted invitation. Lydia looked up with a charming pleased smile that cut him like a knife. "Yes? Oh, do go, I am so glad. You will quite enjoy it. What a lovely girl! Is she dark or fair?" "Dark," returned Pelham, sulkily. This was not what he wanted. It did not seem like incipient jealousy. He LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 337 waited to hear her say she would miss him, to urge him to write, to return soon, but she did not say anything of the sort. She was genuinely relieved and pleased to think he was going, his presence now being merely a strain upon her and nothing else, and though she felt no interest any longer in what he did or where he went, it had been her habit for so long to affect interest in all he wished to do, to throw herself into things he liked, for his sake, that she did so now without effort, from long habit, and talked brightly of his visit. "I am so glad they have such a lovely place," she re- sponded to his answer to her query, "and two daughters you say ? Oh, Eustace, how you will flirt with those two girls! Both of them, no doubt, are dying to marry you!" "I don't suppose I shall ever marry anybody," returned Eustace, gloomily. "You may want to. You are young and have your life before you. It is different with me: I am quite content if I keep you with me." Lydia was silent. She did not want to begin discussing herself, her own views or plans. If only he would choose one of these girls and marry her! That would solve her own difficulty. She could leave him, knowing he was happy, that he no longer wanted her, and she could follow out the path she wished. She could marry Blakney with a light heart and clear conscience. "You will miss the opera," said Pelham, after a moment. "I am afraid you will be dull." "Yes, I shall miss it. There is nothing I enjoy so much, but I must get accustomed to doing without it." The words fell like a chill on her companion. He guessed she was thinking of her future as linked to Blakney and his poverty. "We will go every night when I come back," he said, forcing a smile. On the following Friday Pelham, after an affectionate farewell to Lydia, went down to Milton Court, and was warmly received by papa and mamma, and the two beautiful 22 338 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW daughters, the Lady Ann and the Lady Jane (since the aristocrats apparently delight to share the names of the kitchen). An exceedingly handsome individual, well born, and with a large rent-roll, could hardly fail to be welcome in such a centre. He was rather surprised to find himself the only guest staying in the house. After dinner the Lady Ann played and sang for him, alone in the exquisite blue drawing-room that showed off her red chestnut hair, and later the lovely Lady Jane glided beside him, down the picture-gallery, to display her own water-colour sketches at the far end of it. Both girls were beautiful, most wonderfully clad in shimmering silk, yet not too much clad, their hair, treated with hot tongs before- hand, waved in crisp cut ripples, half a foot high, above their classic brows; they hung upon his lips with devotion, and their gentle, well-bred voices cooed in his ears. Pelham did not pass an insupportable evening on the whole, but that night, when he was finally in bed in his magnificent state chamber, which he was supposed to share with the ghost of Henry the Eighth, who had once slept there, it was not of their tonged tresses nor lofty forms that he dreamt, but of a rosy face and velvet eyes full of sweetness: a dear little mouth that had always smiled upon him, and dark hair that had rippled, even in a snow fog. The following day there were many guests in the house, coming and going to luncheon, tea and dinner, but Pelham was never neglected. Either Ann or Jane was always at his side, floating, hovering, cooing, surrounding him with attentions. He longed, however, for post time, and felt the only real joy of the day when he received a letter from Lydia. A bright, frank little note, just the one to add oil to his flame at that moment. There was no word of missing him, of his return, just a few wishes that he was enjoying himself, affectionately worded. He tried to stay his full week, but he grew more and more anxious to return each day, and at last, on the sixth afternoon of his visit, he made an excuse and caught the express up to town. Sitting in the LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 339 train, reviewing the time spent away from her, he recog- nised more fully the fact that she was indispensable, irre- placeable, different from other women, and nothing in this world could repay him for giving her up. Comparing her with the girls he had just left he tried to grasp what the difference was: there seemed so much more character in her, more depth and breadth, infinitely more vitality, more intensity, more capability. She was a real, vivid, living thing, full, as it were, of light and fire. These girls seemed like animated dolls, capable of dressing well and crimping their hair, but of little else. They seemed to have only a few phrases to say, a few small thoughts to think, a few microscopic feelings to feel. Would they ever, could they, develop ? He thought not. After marriage they would be just the same, dressing well and crimping their hair, thinking their little thoughts, feeling their little feelings. The more he thought of Lydia the more strongly he felt how great the difference was between her and them, but it maddened him to know he could not define the difference plainly to himself. Were there any great passions, anything great at all, in the average woman? He had known so many and he thought not. He had found them mostly self-seeking, trivial, foolish, selfish, childish. But this one stood out separate from them all. How great had been her love and passion for himself, and how entirely free from the seeking of gift or payment or advantage! How unselfishly she had nursed him, dimming her beauty, breaking down her health! How far above all childish trivial things she seemed; the little vexations that make up so much of the ordinary woman's life had no power over her; in all the time they had been together he had never heard a silly or petulant remark from her lips. And in this last passion for this Russian how great her self-control had been! Yes, he thought, musing, she has the great qualities: there is nothing of the small, the mean, or the petty in her. In two years passed with most women he would have found them out in innumerable 340 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW little falsehoods. There was not one to her account. In fact fear, the father of lies, he believed, was entirely absent from her nature, Thinking of her thus an unutterable longing filled him to be with her again, and he drove straight to her rooms from the station. She was not at home the maid told him, but would he wait, she would be back to tea. Pelham went into the drawing-room and walked impatiently about. The place was full of sun, it poured through all the windows, and, falling across one of the tables, lighted up brilliantly a photograph on it. It was not framed but just set up against an inkstand. In his angry prowls round the room Pelham came face to face with it and stopped. It was one of Ivan Blakney, showing to great advantage the brilliant, perfect beauty of the head and profile. Pelham picked it up, and red seas of jealousy seemed to go over him and swirl about him. What if he had really lost her, and this man were to be master of all her beauty and that great soul he had been pondering on just now? Then he checked his own idea. No man would ever be a master or owner of her. Men were to her but playthings, for all that outward obedience she rendered them. Had he, with all her extravagant passion for him, ever inspired her with fear, or compelled her thoughts or inner soul? And neither would another. That was her charm, therein, perhaps, lay her greatness. It broke upon him suddenly. She was unconquerable, an empire none could absolutely win. He sank into a chair, the portrait still in his hand, gazing at the wonderful type, the statuesque beauty of the features, and in that moment the door opened and Lydia came in. Pelham sprang up and went to greet her. He bent over her and kissed her with all the gathered passion of the last hours. He saw there was no smile of pleasure on her face, only a sharp contraction of her eyebrows, but her voice was gentle, as usual, as she said, "You have come back, Eustace ? When did you arrive ? I am sorry I was out." LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 341 "I could not stay any longer away from you," he said gently, with a wonderful accent of tenderness in his flexible voice, that had always great power over her, "and I came up early that we might have a jolly evening at the opera." He waited for a look of pleasure to come to her face, but there was none. She gazed out of the window with grave eyes. " Had you anything else to do ? " he asked, as she remained silent. "Yes. I met one of our American friends, Mr Downing do you remember him ? in the park to-day, and he asked me to go to the theatre with him. I said I would, not think- ing you would be back to-night, but I can send him a wire." "Oh, well which would you rather do? Don't let me interfere with your arrangements, if you would rather go to the theatre with him." "I would rather go to. the opera with you, now you have come back," she answered quietly, and turned to find the telegraph forms on her desk. Pelham had thrown himself into an armchair and sat watching her. He felt that she had no enthusiasm behind her last speech. That she only made it because politeness dictated it, because, to her well-bred ideas, it was impossible to tell a person, to his face, you did not in the least desire his company. And, torn by bitter pangs, Pelham con- trasted this attitude towards him now with the fervent, ardent enthusiasm of the past. The form, the outward semblance of their relations, still remained. Would he ever be able to re-kindle that glorious passion of the spirit which had once filled them? CHAPTER XXVII THREE months had slipped by. All that time Pelham had lived at her place as nearly entirely as she would allow him, and persuaded her to be with him as often as she would come. He had given her more presents in that twelve weeks' space than in all the rest of the time they had passed together, and daily encompassed her with acts of kindness and attention. He was keenly absorbed in the pursuit now of what he had had and lost, and the joy of success and the fear of failure equalled that of their first days of tent life. Nor was it only that. An influence, the greatest influence in the world, the influence of love was upon him, remoulding, subtly and gently and gradually, his whole mental person- ality. As any given drug will act like a charm on an individual that has never tried it before, on a constitution absolutely fresh to it, so this influence came upon him with redoubled force because it had never swayed him hitherto. Passion, in every conceivable form, he had experienced, but his mind and soul had slept through it all, and consequently each object of his passion had been said good-bye to without pain or regret. Before he had loved qualities, those physical qualities which Nature reproduces by the thousand, blue eyes and golden hair, bright cheeks, white arms, that if lost in one can be found again in another; but now mind and soul were fully awake, he knew now that he loved, and in Lydia he loved a mental personality, and Nature is not prodigal in her duplicates of the mind as she is of the body. When Lydia was absent he felt a strange sense of loss, that some- thing vitally necessary to him had been taken away, and no society of other women could replace it for him. He was 342 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 343 getting more and more convinced that she was irreplaceable to him, and gradually there came to be two groups in his mind when he thought of these things: all the women he had ever known stood on one side, and Lydia alone on the other. He had given to others as much as they had given to him, varying forms of selfish passion. But Lydia, for the time she had loved him, he knew, had given the most devoted love, the affection that would have hesitated at no self- sacrifice. And in those two years when she fancied all her striving had been in vain, her gentleness, her sweetness, her unselfish devotion to him had been influencing him, pene- trating to his heart, atrophied from long disuse, developing in it its power to love, as the soft summer rain, falling in its persistent showers, penetrates a rocky soil, developing the hidden seeds of flowers and bringing them forth to the light. She had taught him what love can be, and what the com- panionship means of one who really loves. Now that he had once learnt this, it seemed impossible to live again without it, without that subtle, all-pervading influence of another's love, in and round and through all one's life, and if she with- drew from him to whom could he look for it ? He had never known it except through her, and therefore she and love seemed to him one. He had taken her down to his country place one day, and they had sat in the park under his century-old oaks, talking of many things. They had lunched together in the fine dining-room, and the house- keeper had gazed admiringly on the pretty young lady that she made sure was to be her future mistress. Lydia, herself, walked through the magnificent suites of rooms, and gazed upon all he showed her, with a curious sense of detachment, of which Pelham was half unconsciously aware. She admired everything, but her admiration was impersonal: there was no touch of covetousness, of longing to possess what she saw. Her attitude, absolutely natural and unaffected, one that she simply could not help, brought home to Pelham, very keenly, that quality of hers of putting emotions far above material things. He knew how once she 344 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW had coveteil his love. That indeed had been priceless to her. But for these other things that he could give he saw that she cared nothing. The picture-gallery seemed to please her most of all inside the house, and Pelham, who was himself extremely fond of all art, delighted in the way she lingered before the best pictures, the enthusiasm and keen judgment she displayed. He had often been annoyed in this gallery by the silly remarks of some of the women that had visited it with him, or else by their indifference and the eager relief with which they left it. But he saw she was an artist, with the artist's eye and brain, and she said nothing which jarred upon him, nor did she wish to leave the pictures. They lingered together there, full of mutual enjoyment, unconscious of the time, till a gong sounding brought memory of it back. They went out for their tea, which was served on a low stone terrace, on the south side of the house, shaded by trees and overlooking the rose garden. He watched her with pleasure as she sat, pouring out his tea from the massive old silver teapot, her pale green summer silk gown making a soft harmony with the grey stone of the terrace. "Which of all the pictures did you like best?" he asked. "The one of Zeus appearing to Semele," she answered, without hesitation, "but then I like the idea of that so much that she was willing to give up her life if she might only see him once in his immortal beauty, as a god. Who would not be willing to die for such a moment ?" Pelham laughed. It was a very characteristic answer, he thought. He took her back to town in the best of humours with her, and to the theatre and supper after. Driving home alone to his place he realised what a charm there had been in the companionship of the day. He thought now of little else but her, and his friends in town and country looked for him to no purpose, while the Lady Ann wrote constantly in an affectionate strain, but wrote in vain. His efforts with Lydia had availed Him this much that the image of the Russian was less clear LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 345 before her, the longing for his presence less keen, and in her gentle heart were growing up fresh feelings of affection and gratitude towards Pelham. Reading character, and the mental life of people, their motives and most secret springs of action, which she did easily, as most men read a written page, she was conscious of the efforts Pelham was making, and of the real greatness of a nature that could, at its own command, rise to so fine a height, and win victory over itself, its own selfishness and habitual faults. Most of his impulses were selfish, many were cruel, his temper was impatient and unjust, yet all these, to which he had given free rein through those bitter two years, which had anni- hilated her passion, were now completely held in check, suppressed, restrained. To achieve such a conquest over oneself without long previous training is a feat only a great character could accomplish. Sometimes the old manner, the old disposition would show itself suddenly, unexpectedly, but only for an instant. Without even seeming difficulty he would check and control himself, producing, as it were, a mood of charming amiability, as a conjuror does a rabbit from his sleeve. He would not allow himself now to be angry with her, to speak harshly, even impatiently to her. Nor did the tenderness with which he regarded and treated her seem like a veneer put on for a certain end. It was rather the gradual transformation of a character attained by iron self-restraint and self-conquest, and for this woman, feeling it going on from day to day, possessed a fascination of its own. During these months many letters had reached her from Ivan, all in the same strain, telling of his wretched- ness, his longing for her, his hopelessness, his conviction that her plan was a useless one, that Pelham would never tire of her, that they could never hope to be together, pressing her for a decision, begging her to take her life in her own hands and do with it what she wanted, without consideration for others. Such a letter had come in one morning in the late autumn, a hot, still day, when the air hung languid and heavy in the 346 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW deserted streets. They had stayed in town all the summer, since Lydia had shrunk unconquerably from going away with Pelham, and so recommencing the old life, and seeming to ratify her temporary decision to remain with him. She had stayed on in London, and where she was there, for the present at least, was Pelham chained. And now, suddenly, this morning, broke over her, like the wave of a flood, a longing to be away, away from Pelham, alone, where she could face her life and see her way more clearly than here, compassed about with Pelham 's goodness, his kindness, his love and passion, hedged in by his constant presence and appeal to her sympathies, and at the same time tortured and maddened by the incessant clamouring letters from Ivan, calling upon her to free herself. As the letter in her hand said it did not seem as if any change onPelham's side would give her liberty. It she wished to go, the hand that cut her bonds must be her own. And from this some intangible power seemed to hold her back. Lying amongst her pillows this morning, with Ivan's letter in her hand, she wondered if there were any unrecognised law that or- dains we shall not change our lives. That we shall not be the arbiters of our own Fate, but wait, working in the old groove, till Destiny itself makes the change? If we break the law are there not mysterious penalties we must pay? It almost seems so. Over and over again Life furnishes us with examples of unhappy mortals who have dared to change, and Life has wrecked them in the changing. Lydia lay thinking, but above all her thoughts rose this one great longing to be alone, to be free from all influences, to feel the calm of solitude, of independent life h'ved without reference to another. In that might come to her strength for a decision. And she must make one. The winter was approaching. Pelham was urging her to go East with him. Ivan's letters were growing more impatient, more insistent. She felt weak and ill with mental strain as she lay there, the warm autumn sunshine streaming over her. She rose, dressed, and then packed her things. If she saw Pelham LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 347 he would fight against her going alone, he would insist on coming with her. And to go alone was imperative. A week, a fortnight, might be all she needed, but that she must have. She wrote him a very gentle note, saying she must have solitude for a little while, and promising to write at the end of a week. Then she paid all that was owing and had a cab called. While her luggage was being put up she wondered where she should go. WTien the cabman asked her she said Waterloo. In the cab, driving to the station, she ran over the places one can get to from that station, and of them chose Southampton. The thought of the sea and its great open silent spaces came to her softly, bringing a sense of comfort. She leaned back in the cab, with closed eyes, wondering what was the nature of those vast secret powers that seem to watch us from behind the walls of Life. CHAPTER XXVHI WHEN Lydia installed herself in the lodgings at Southampton she found herself again under that strange influence that all through her life new rooms possessed for her. It swept over her so strongly that it almost carried her self-control with it, and a nervous frenzy seized her for the moment to send a wire immediately to the man she had left, sum- moning him to her there. But she resisted, with a scornful smile at herself, and then, as the landlady withdrew, threw herself down in a great comfortable wicker chair by the fire, musing over this curious mood that always came to meet her on the threshold of each new room that she had to sleep in, in her different weary travels about life. It was a curious strange longing for companionship that the sight of the new room, the new furniture, the new view even from the new window, gave her. Hundreds of nights she slept in some room she was accustomed to, and it never came near her. Solitude, as solitude, had no special obnoxiousness to her: but to be alone in a new room, to enter the new room alone, to know she was to sleep alone in it, brought this strange feeling sweeping over her, akin perhaps to that of nostalgia, that they say comes sometimes over human beings, borne to them by a particular fragrance, sound or sight: there seemed a spirit in the empty room that stood calling for another to enter with her. She never felt desolate, never hardly hungry for another's look, and voice, and presence, except when she stocd in a new room. It was an extraordinarily strong feeling, and she often won- dered whether other women felt it also. It depended in no way on the room; whether it was large or small, well or ill 348 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 34 furnished, comfortable or uncomfortable, it always brought that strange, sharp longing with it, and, in her former life with either her husband or Pelham, the longing was turned to an equally strange access of delight. So well did she recognise it that if Pelham ever reproached her with seeming: wearied coldness she would Jaugh and say, "Take me to. a new room, Eustace;" and once they had actually left their rooms in the town where they were staying and passed the night at an hotel, that she might have the pleasure of this novelty. She sat thinking of this for some time, by the blazing fire, looking round the eminently comfortable room,, with its capacious bed, its two windows with the duchesse table between, its thick carpet, its couch at the foot of the: bed, its many deep, roomy chairs and silver fox hearthrug; by the fire, then, with a long, deep sigh, she rose and began to undress. The next morning she got up about eight late for hr had a hot bath, dressed, took a long, quiet breakfast with the sun streaming across the breakfast-table, and then went out for a row on Southampton water. It was one of those mild damp days so usual in the early part of the English winter. She sky was lightly overcast, but every now and then the sun poured a sudden splash of bright light on the dull, smooth, gently-heaving surface of the water. She had a long, light boat and an excellent pair of sculls, and went shooting over the water in keen delight. So long as the body is healthy and the fires of youth are still burning in it, there are some pleasures that no circumstances, no enemies can destroy for us, and the pleasure of unrestrained, rollicking, physical exercise is one of these. Lydia visited the yachts lying at anchor, took a perfect race round the harbour proper, and came back to luncheon flushed, smiling, lovely, feeling the full intoxication of animal life in her veins. The afternoon grew cloudier than the morning, so she gave no thought to going out again, but piled up the fire and threw open the piano: now she would play, have a glorious practice till five, with no one to interrupt her, and no fear of 350 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW disturbing anyone. She played, throwing herself into the arms of another great wonderful pleasure that is mercifully independent of others' aid. Dusk came before she had exhausted her desire, and she got up to ring for lights and tea, filled full of the excited delight of her playing. As, thrown back in a very comfortable armchair, she sipped her tea, and felt the glow of the fire on her feet, she fell into a surprised reverie at herself. How little she had missed, really wanted, Pelham all to-day. Here was a day nearly completely spent without him, and she had really been enjoying it. While with him she had always shrunk so from the idea of parting with him, fearing lest that awful hunger for his presence, that curious, ungovernable longing she had once known, should envelop her again. But here was a whole day in which she had been happy, content, yes, relieved, that he was not there. Several days passed and Lydia realised fully how little she really needed Pelham. The affection, natural to her soft heart and nature, remained alive: she hoped he was well, content and happy: had she heard he was ill, alone, needing her, she would have flown to him at all sacrifices, and nursed him anxiously, untiringly. These were the affairs of affection, but the passion, that curious spell that seems to make the presence, the contiguity of the object, almost a necessity to the life of the lover, and that also makes every cross, every wound borne with ease, or even unfelt, this apparently was dead. Passion is eminently selfish: that is, perhaps, its most reprehensible part. It desires the object for its own gratification, its own necessities, and Lydia, well versed in such matters, knew now, looking into her own state of mind, that the absence of selfishness in her feeling towards Pelham meant the absence of passion. She was still so anxious for his welfare, anxious for him to be happy, but she herself, now, she was happy without him. Formerly she had longed to have him with her, and would have bought his presence at any cost to herself, or, far more significant, at any cost to himself. That is the first instinct LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 351 of passion. Now she was still ready to sacrifice herself for him, and loved him too much to let him sacrifice himself for her. Her affection had, morally, certainly improved her feeling for him, but it had improved the passion out of it. All the time she was dressing in the morning, before her glass, she pondered over these things within herself, wonder- ing at the mystery of Life. But wonder and ponder over it as she might there the fact remained. She was content without Pelham. She was free. And as she slowly grasped this more and more and realised it a great gladness took possession of her. Her relation with Pelham had always had something of humilia- tion in it. That stress of passion that at one time had forced her to accept all that he did and said against her had been, even at the time, terrible to her. The knowledge that she could not assert her dignity as a human being, that she dared not resent any word or action of his, simply because his presence was food, water, life itself to her, had always borne her down with its oppression. Now her freedom, with the rights of all ordinary human beings, was given back to her. And she rejoiced in her emancipation, she was overjoyed at the re-possession of her mental, and moral, and physical freedom. Secure in the idea that that servitude was all put behind her and done with, she looked forward eagerly to a new future, and all her dreams now were of days to come. And the past faded gradually out of the pictures in her mind. Everything combined to lull her into a glad serenity. The thought of Pelham 's great wealth and position, that would have caused regret to so many women at such a juncture, delighted her. "He can have everything in the world that he wants, he cannot fail to be amused and happy hi life," she thought to herself. "I shall be soon replaced and for- gotten;" and her heart was not heavy at that thought, but light and glad, which proved how far she had progressed, morally, away from passion and towards pure affection. So day by day she began to think with increasing joy about Ivan. He became everything to her. She thought 352 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW with pleasure of the cramped, struggling life they would have to lead, and characteristically meditated on how much she could sacrifice for him, in such an existence, and the joy it would be to do it. Her thoughts grew tender towards the man who was willing to bind himself to her, work for her, and who considered any burden well taken up for her sake. It was a contrast to Pelham, who had come in upon her life and deliberately set himself to take all that it con- tained without . . . but she would not allow herself to think on those lines. The past was over and done with. Pelham was of the past. In the books of the Divine Judge the account between these two was written and closed. Her mind turned towards Ivan with his sincere, youthful, devoted love and sunned itself gratefully there. The two letters that came to her, after about a week of her life at Southampton, helped still farther the boat of her wishes along the flowing tide on which it had embarked. One was from Ivan, and the other from Pelham. She took up Ivan's letter and read it with a smile. It was full of quick, ardent desire for herself, to be with her. If that were attained nothing else mattered. That was the burden of the whole missive. At the end was written, "I cannot wait any longer. I am leaving here this week. I must see you, if there is only misery for me after- wards." So, after ah 1 , the matter was being taken out of her hands. She was not called upon to write either invitation to him or dismissal. He was coming to her. She did not feel, if Pelham continued to stay away and Ivan appeared, that she could again resist him. Destiny now seemed holding one man back and urging the other on. To her destiny, she felt, she must leave the issue. Pelham 's letter she took up next and read that also with a smile. It was just the opposite to the other, and exactly similar to his general style: beginning with the usual cold, "Dear Lydia," and telling her some news of the various indifferent things he had been doing. There was no word of regret at her departure, no suggestion of his coming down LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 353 to see her. In fact, had the letter been read by a third per- son the impression would have been that it was one written to an acquaintance of a few weeks' standing. An impression which Pelham always wished his letters to coilvey, and care- fully studied to produce. Lydia, who herself, when she loved, would have laid her head on the block and put the axe into the hands of her lover in calm trust and security, laughed at the pains Pelham took to avoid putting even a compro- mising letter into her possession. "After all this time," she thought, "he knows me so little that he writes as he would to a possible blackmailer. Why write at all ? What emotion, advantageous to himself, does he suppose such a letter would excite in any woman?" Then she let him slip from her mind and wondered about Ivan, and how soon he would be coming to her. She wanted him. She was getting very tired of living alone. She was much too unselfish, naturally, much too warm-hearted and responsive to remain long content with the charm of pleasing herself. There is an undoubted charm in this, but in natures like hers, the charm of pleasing another is far greater. While living with Pelham she was almost constantly employed in doing what he wanted, which generally crossed her own views or wishes for the moment. And this partially ex- plained the relief she felt at his absence, a relief which, naturally enough, he did not feel at hers. Her absence was all loss to him, whereas to her his absence meant the sudden and unusual pleasure of self-gratification. Even to a nature like hers the constant denial of self, moment by moment, becomes at times a yoke hard to wear. Just when she had taken a book she particularly wished to read, and had seated herself in an armchair by the fire, how often she was accus- tomed to force herself to lay it aside with a smile as Pelham approached, wanting her to go out with him. How usual it had been for her to be asked to play when she did not wish it; how usual to be asked not to when she did ! How constantly she wished to be out when she stayed in with him, to go to the theatre when he wished to go to bed! How often in 23 354 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW maddening, moonlight nights, in strange foreign cities, she had stood with burning, bursting heart at her window listen- ing to some strains of music, smelling the stealthy scent of the orange flowers creeping in, watching the fireflies, and imprisoned because he slept in the next room! All, all her little wishes, born from moment to moment in the day, she quietly killed, like inconvenient children of a cruel mother. She had trained herself to do this, and the result w r as that her society was very pleasant to him, and badly missed, but to her the strain of all that killing was somewhat exhausting. And in his absence the charm of her free will, the chair by the fire, the unforbidden walks, the uninterrupted occupations worked rather soothingly. But not for long; self-indulgence is not for the best of humanity. It cannot satisfy. The excitement of the sacrifice has, in all ages, appealed to men more and held them : only the sacrifice must yield the excite- ment. That is the pay of the victim. One afternoon, when she had returned from a long row on the silvery, shim- mering Solent, she thought she looked lovelier than she had ever seen herself. Exercise, open air, early hours and pleasant, joyous emotions are the wonderful cosmetics, the paints and dyes of Nature, and Lydia looked at herself, with a beating heart, and took out eagerly her prettiest dinner dress and put it on. She had a curious pre- sentiment that Ivan would come that evening, and she flew about her bedroom singing, adding touch after touch, beauty after beauty, of lace and jewel and flower to the radiant picture in the glass. When it was complete and she could do no more she leant forward and looked into it. "Ah, Ivan, Ivan," she murmured to herself, "I can make you so happy, and I shall be so happy myself. Do come to-night." Then she went down, and was pleased to see the land- lady had put a fresh and beautiful bunch of chrysanthe- mums on the table, and that the room was in good order, and the fire sparkling in the grate. As she walked about LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 355 the room, putting straight a trifle here and there, a ring came at the hall door-bell. "That is Ivan," she thought, stopping short in her occu- pation, "come to dinner." So certain did she feel of her assumption that after a hasty glance into the large mirror over the mantelpiece she ran herself out of the room and down the hall to the door. Her heart was beating with a joyful flutter. At last it was over, the tiresome dull waiting, and he had come, and there need be no more worry and "deciding." He had come, and she was resolutely resolved to put all else aside, accepting him, putting him between herself and the light, standing him in the window, as it were, which looked out over her past life. She had no other thought in her heart but of him, no word on her lips but his name as she slid back the catch and opened the door. But, with that word unuttered, she drew back suddenly in a frozen silence, against the wall, saying nothing. On the steps stood a tall, slight figure, elegant in all its outlines, perfect in carriage and dress. The same that once had sent such a madness of joyous devotion through her, such fierce, ungovernable pleasure and passion. It was Eustace, and her heart fell and froze at sight of him. She felt a sort of shrinking horror rushing over her, a terror, a cringing hatred. The very sight of him, that once so dearly- loved silhouette, seemed to hurt and sear her eyes. Yet she said nothing, so accustomed had all the powers of her frame and brain become to serving this man, to shielding him from all possible pain, to pleasing and satisfying him, to using every sort of self-control in his service. Eustace, though she was silent, was well aware of her state and her thoughts. The union between them physically, the curious balance of electricity, the ties of body and mind, made it impossible for either of them to be certain of successful con- cealment or deception with the other. He did not appear to notice her welcome, or rather want of it, but stepped over the threshold and paused, with his hat in his hand. "It's very good of you to come to let me in," he said 356 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW lightly, easily, naturally, and yet with that tone of great affection in his voice that at one time had sent the pleased blood flying to her face. He did not suggest that his visit was unexpected, or that there was any need to apologise for it, or to make excuses. He took it as the most natural thing in the world, in fact, as if he had been calling there every evening. Still silent, Lydia followed him up the hall, and as he stood aside, passed him into her sitting room. She went straight over to the hearth and threw herself into one of the armchairs there, leaving him to enter also, and shut the door after him, if it pleased him, which it did. Pelham laid his overcoat and hat on a chair by the door, and then walked over and stood by the fire, looking down upon her. She glanced up, let her eyes wander over him, and then turned their gaze back upon the fire without speak- ing. He would not notice her silence, nor anything unusual in her manner. "The weather is perfectly terrible in London," he said, speaking in his softest tones. "You are more fortunate down here. I was very lonely in town. I thought I would come down and see you this evening. Would you like me to stay to dinner : is it convenient ? " "Yes, certainly, stay to dinner," answered Lydia, mechan- ically. Was it all pain, this feeling his presence gave her? Was it all soreness that her eyes felt as she looked at him, or was there some of the old pleasure mixed with it ? She could not tell. There seemed some confusion. After all, our senses are only as so many servants of a household, of which the brain is the head. If these servants have, for a long time, been accustomed to obey stringent commands from their head, no wonder they stand about confused when these commands are suddenly reversed. Lydia's brain had for so long issued commands as "Eyes, admire Pelham." "Ears, feel delight in Pelham's voice." "Touch, respond to Pelham's," that now, though the brain had changed, the poor senses could not immediately understand and act upon its new commands. All servants need training. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 357 Pelham was not in the least disconcerted. The change that had come over her face when she first looked out at him, her slow shrinking back against the wall, after that swift run to the door, had been noted, with a bitter pang at his heart. How often that eager swiftness had been for him! And the contrast of his reception now, with former ones, gave him sharp, deep pain, but that only strengthened the fierce determination with which he had come, and which underlay his suave and gentle manner. This determination to conquer her, to draw her back again under his control, to make her reverse all that she had planned and decided, was that which was disturbing and distressing her senses, her brain, her whole organisation. She was perfectly conscious of his determination, his aim in seeking her, his thoughts, as conscious as he had been of hers when she opened the door. And this strong determination, this savage will working in him, and hostile to her own, created a mesmeric and disturbing influence, a disquieting atmosphere round him, that acted on her physically, making her feel nervous, ill and exhausted. She did not speak nor look at him, but remained sitting motionless, with her cheek in her hand, gazing into the blazing fire. She wished he were away, longed for his absence. She felt suffocated. How different it would have been if Ivan had come. She had just struggled, as it were, into a clean, cool, new affection when Eustace reappeared, bringing with him, and throwing on to her, the hot weight of these old hampering emotions, impulses, feelings, which were not quite dead. No, that was the worst of it, they could not have harmed her dead, but dying. They cer- tainly would have died had he left her alone a little longer and Ivan had had time to come. Pelham sat down in the armchair opposite her and stretched his feet out before him, with an air of ease and pleasure. She would not look at him. She knew well enough what her eyes, gossiping servants as they were, would tell her, they had told it so often, that they had never rested 358 LIFE'S SHOP WIN'DOW on anything so graceful and charming, that there was nothing commonplace about him, that each movement was full of ease and dignity. She knew all that, she did not wish to hear it again. "Are you pleased that I came down to see you?" he asked, after a minute's pause. "Of course I am always pleased to see you," Lydia answered, quietly, with an even dead tone and accent. She could not be unkind to this man she would never be so deliberately. For years her training had been to turn aside from him anything that might hurt him. She hoped he would go away from her soon, the sooner the better, but while there she must be kind to him as always. Pelham, though he showed nothing, inwardly felt fear. This calm evenness, this effort to keep to the letter of old forms, when their spirit was obviously dead, alarmed him as no anger, no reproaches, no form of passion could have done. And he was right, for it is a dangerous symptom. It seemed to him as if he really might be too late to re-conquer this prov- ince once so entirely his own, and the man's whole soul and will rose furiously to the battle. In the silence that followed, the maid came in to lay the dinner, and she took plenty of time in arranging the cloth and the covers, staring covertly at Pelham the while. When she got downstairs she described his appearance minutely to the landlady, adding that she supposed he was the lady's husband. The landlady made no remark, reserving her opinion on that point apparently after hearing his description. When the dinner was served Lydia and Pelham took their places at the table, and since the maid was waiting in the room handing round the dishes Lydia laid aside her silence, which she looked upon as her coat-of-mail while they were alone, and responded easily in the same light, indifferent vein to Pelham 's desultory conversation. She was even bright and gay, for, after all, she would much rather Ivan had come, but then, still, she could not help Pelham 's pres- ence, and why need it disturb her so much? She had quite LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 359 made her decision, and Ivan himself would perhaps come to-morrow. Her dinners alone for so long had been simply frightful to her, and there was some secret excitement, some faint, far-off pleasure in the presence of this man, who she felt now desired her, admired her, wanted her immensely, if too late. She ordered the maid to bring out the cham- pagne from its case in the corner, and under its influence and that of the knowledge that nothing serious could be broached before the servant, Lydia gained a bright serenity. Pelham talked to her of the theatres in town, and other amusements, choosing, with some skill, all those only obtain- able at considerable cost. Lydia listened and laughed, and the dinner, which was a perfect one, perfectly ordered and cooked, passed as gaily and brightly as their dinners had done when there were no storms brooding round them. The servant finally set the coffee on the table, which, with its silver coffee-pot and tiny cups, usually remained all night, and withdrew. A gravity fell upon the girl when they were both alone again. Pelham noticed it and immediately set himself to combat it. "See what I have brought for you," he said, smiling, drawing from his pocket a tiny case, and putting it on the table by her cup. Lydia took it up slowly and opened it. On a white velvet cushion lay a heart brooch of rubies. The gems glittered and sparkled brilliantly under the electric lamps, with their own crimson fire. Lydia looked down a long time at it without speaking. The gift had a language, an eloquence of its own that she understood perfectly. He had never been able to speak well and smoothly of things which he felt deeply. He had told her once of things that he felt most deeply he could not speak at all, but he had spoken now by this gift, chosen evidently, thought of, with care, perhaps made for her. It was a gift which, by reason of its form, its significance, its value, no man would give lightly to one he esteemed lightly, in the circumstances into which these two had drifted. Least of all a man like Pelham, who knew her well enough to be certain that gifts could not 360 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW buy of her anything, though they might speak to her. Lydia lifted the glowing thing from its case still in silence. Was his heart, at losing her, really pulsating, bleeding, as the quivering, sanguinous light of these stones made this golden heart appear to do ? She was infinitely distressed as she looked down at it. "Come here and let me fasten it on for you." In the gentle, quiet tones her quick ear detected the veiled accent of anxiety, of pain, almost of fear, and it ap- pealed to her. Reserved, self-contained, proud as he was, she knew that in those moments she had supreme power over him. But she had no idea of using it. Vengeance was hers but she had no thought of repaying. When he had had the power he had made her suffer cruelly, she knew. She remembered everything. But no man ever stood be- fore a more clement, generous tribunal. She was infinitely distressed. She did not want to pain nor to humiliate him. Their love, their relationship, after all, with all its faults, had been on a higher plane than most of such earthly ties. It had taken some dignity, some nobility, from her own ardent desire for his benefit, his happiness, and latterly, also, there had been many sacrifices, much tenderness on his part, too, to sanctify their passion. So it must ever remain in thought and in memory as it had been in fact. Something above the usual level of human relations: above revenge, above all sordid considerations, above reproaches, recriminations, above harsh judgments. Her fingers trem- bled a little as they touched the lustrous crimson stones. "It will look very well on that white dress of yours," came again his voice, even, contained, but with that strange underlying anxiety in it. "It is very good indeed of you to get it for me," she said at last, slowly, constrainedly. She wanted no longer either him or his presents, she wanted to be free from the suffo- cating burden of things once so prized, so wildly valued, set above all price. But the great tide of his passion welled up, and stood towering like a huge wave on the sea-shore, LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 361 and she was awed by it. Not lightly either can a mind like hers, trained to dwell upon emotions and weigh them and judge them, turn away from a love like this, when offered to it. Few men or women in this world know the worth of the various affections they unthinkingly accept or refuse, and, therefore, the mistakes they constantly make can be understood and pardoned, but her eyes were open. She knew well the value of a love, of a heart like this. Feeling and passion were sacred to her, she who had felt and suffered so much. And she saw before her, clearly, both the passion she must throw away and the suffering she must inflict. Would she not regret it ? Ever ? Yet she knew she was cold now to the giver and the gift. She wanted nothing of him. Neither did she want to hurt him. She wanted him gone away, to trouble her no more. She wanted peace in her life, and, if possible, forgetfulness. Why had he not proved and shown his love to her sooner? It was all his own fault. He had strained the bonds that held her to him until their strength, their elasticity had gone. He had had the free gift of a love such as few men find, had seemed not to consider it, and had lost it. Now he came to her asking for it again, when she had it no longer to give. Her face and eyes were cold when she at length raised them from the jewel to his face. "Come here," he repeated, and obediently, from force of long habit, she went up to him. He took the brooch and fastened it very gently into the white lace at her neck, in the white silk of her bodice. "It looks very well," he said, speaking in an ordinary tone, "go and look in the glass." Lydia let him fasten in the brooch without protest. She had no thought of refusing his gift. It would have hurt him intensely at that moment, and a refusal on the grounds of her own pride, her unwillingness to accept gifts from him, at a moment when she contemplated parting with him, would have seemed supremely absurd, considering that, from head to foot, she stood clothed in things he had bought 362 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW for her, not a shoe buckle on her foot, nor a piece of lace at her throat, not a spray in her hair, but what was already his gift. To her to refuse his brooch would be like a mon- strous, ungrateful denial of her indebtedness for all these. Besides, she knew and he knew, and the knowledge was their common property, that none of these things constituted any claim or tie. She had given to him all she had, he had also given very much to her. Nothing but the divine scales could decide justly which of these two had laid heavier weight in the balance, and one great sign of their equality was the generous willingness of each to admit their debt to the other. When Lydia had left for Southampton she had taken naturally all her personal things, all given, without exception, by him: now, whether she received one more jewel from him mattered little. Nor to this would either of them have given a thought, since their love had always been above and beyond the little and the meaner things of life. "It is a lovely thing," she said, after a swift glance at the glass, "but really I am sorry you brought it to me." "Why should you be sorry ? You were always so fond of rubies : these I had selected especially for you and made into that form. You must wear it and enjoy it." Lydia was silent again. Sunk under a great load of oppression she felt hardly able to speak, to raise her eyes, to move, or even think: the whole atmosphere was becom- ing charged with waves of electricity, starting from him, filled full of the strong, indomitable will which was natural to him, and now fully awake, and his devouring determination to re-possess her; these waves rolled through the short space between them and broke against her and over her horribly. "What name are you staying here under?" he asked after a minute. She looked at him with some surprise. "Why, yours. I could not tell that you would not come down here." "What do you mean to do ?" he pursued, and though his face was very calm it seemed to her that it grew whiter while LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 363 he waited for her answer. "You left me without my knowing very decidedly, and I want to know where I stand." Lydia answered slowly, and with evident effort. "It seemed, when I thought over everything, that there was no use in our continuing to be together, and as I cannot live alone, and he wishes it very much, I feel I may as well marry Ivan." "Blakney cannot do as much for you as I can, can he ?" "I daresay not, but I have not stayed with you for what you could do for me; besides, he can, and wishes to, marry me." "I can't see why you should be so keen on being married. You were married once and then you were anxious to get out of it." Lydia was silent, as this demanded no direct answer. "What do you think marriage will do for you ?" "I am afraid I can't explain it if you do not see for your- self," Lydia answered coldly. "Partly, I think, I want rest, peace, security. I have never liked my position with you, just balanced on the ragged edge of uncertainty. While I was under the influence of great passion I accepted it gladly. Passion gives such tremendous compensations that nothing is too great to bear, to suffer, to go through for it. But that is over, there is no compensation now, and the life has become intolerable." Pelham, sitting motionless in the chair opposite her, was conscious of the deadliest pain at her words. He sat silent, waiting, for he expected her each minute to suggest the idea of marriage with him: to ask for it as she had once before: to put that forward as the price of her staying with him. It was true that she had refused it when they first came to town and he had offered it, but then the Blakney matter was quite new in her mind. Also, in these months, he knew he had really striven to regain his position, and he was con- scious that her feelings were softened towards him. He had determined when he came to win at all costs: even at this one. He felt within himself the possibility of bis own 364 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW love dying when once chained up and made a captive, and he felt too he could never have the same entrain of passion for a woman to whom he was bound, as for an object entirely free from him. But no matter how much deterioration the hateful tie brought with it, how much he might suffer in the future, if that were the price, he must pay it to keep this woman to himself. What he had suffered last night when he had seen her belonging to another, even though only in the flash of a dream, had been a torture beyond human strength. Could he prepare this for himself, night after night, by letting the dream become a reality ? And admitted that in time per- haps forgetfulness, indifference would come to his rescue, what a frightful gap seemed opening in the midst of his life. But Lydia, having answered his questions and made her statement, said nothing more. She wished to say the least possible. There was no use. All words seemed so inadequate now. The time was gone by for asking him for anything, to do anything. Had Pelham realised how far she was from asking again for the marriage she had once so eagerly desired, he would have been surprised, he could hardly have understood. He never wholly grasped how far dearer theoretical delights were to her than practical advantages. How entirely accustomed she was to view everything in this world from its romantic side, never from the sordid and mercenary one. So that, when she had wished for marriage with him, he naturally thought she looked to the advantage to be gained from the position, whereas, to Lydia, that formed but a microscopic portion of her reasons for desiring it. The idea of belonging to him wholly, and of establishing between them a tie the world could not break, was what had captured her imagination and her fancies. Similarly that which had wounded her so terribly and distressed her in his refusal had been, not the loss of any solid advantage, of which she had scarcely thought, but the realisation that he did not care for her enough to marry her, that she was only reckoned as one of LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 365 the many other women who had been loved before her. The possibility of urging him into a marriage, if he were unwilling, was absolutely revolting to her. His wish, his desire for their marriage was valuable to her. That, indeed, she coveted; the marriage, without these, she would not have tolerated. But Pelham had never had the companionship of a soul so utterly detached from worldly views, so pure in its devotion to sentiment and ideals, and it is not to be wondered at that he made mistakes in dealing with it. He made one here for, as it seemed to him, even granting that her passion for him were dead as she said, that she must prefer marriage with him, which would confer so much upon her, to marriage with Blakney that could give her nothing. That Blakney's intense desire for it outweighed every tangible benefit in her judgment, never occurred to him. He fought silently for some time within himself, for though he meant to pay this price for her, if he actually could not keep her without, he loathed the very words he had to use. "I suppose you want me to say I will marry you?" he said at last in his hardest tone. She put out her hands with a gesture as of pushing him away from her. "Eustace, I want nothing of you except to leave me by myself and let me marry this man as I have arranged." Pelham paled, visibly this time, to the very lips. Lydia, looking at him, wondered what storm of feeling was raging in that quiet, motionless figure, and marvelled at that wonderful jealousy of the male, which is stronger than any other of the component parts of love. All her affection, all her devotion, all her charm had been as nothing in their power to rouse his passion as this approach of another man. Eustace himself afterwards wondered what would have happened had his friend entered the room at that mo- ment. He pressed one hand over his eyes, and the other clenched involuntarily as it hung by his side. How often 366 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW he had watched the wild dogs of Constantinople fighting for the female. The bloodshot eyes, the bared fangs, mangling, mauling the throat of their rival. He thought of them and of Blakney together. Are men any different? Any better ? When he spoke again his voice had that curious tone in it which his mistress knew so well meant with him the ex- treme of pain and anger. If the ordinary voice can be represented by some smooth broad blade then this tone was the same weapon turned on its edge. " But do you love him ? " "Not as I have loved you, no," she answered. "But it is my nature to love any man with whom I live and who is good to me. Besides, in a new connection of this kind there is always passion, and, as I have said, that is a com- pensation for everything." After she had spoken she was sorry. The veins swelled into a hideous network by the temples, and the lines all over his face seemed deepening as she looked at him. Hitherto she had been letting her words out one by one, with caution. Now, for a moment, she had spoken less guardedly, and the look on his face punished her. She knew something of his passions, and it flashed through her that at any moment that calm might break. He might prefer to strangle her rather than let her go to another. But she did not shrink nor stir. She had always faced him in his moments of anger unmoved. She had not a single cowardly instinct in her. But this jealousy, ardent, brutal, overpowering as it is, men strive to conceal. Pelham now did not deign to pursue a line which might seem like action against a rival. There was a long, long silence while he inwardly fought for self-control, and the girl, lying far back in her chair, watched him. Then he got up and went over to her. That dear slim figure that she had once so worshipped, that ease and grace of movement, that dignity of face and form! How it all came back to her! The breathless rush of passion it had inspired in former days ! LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 367 He came and stood close beside her chair, looking dow on her head and its wealth of glossy, waving hair. "I am going to Ceylon next month. I have taken cabin for the 6th for two. You had better come with me." He spoke in a tender, confident tone, and as if rivals, marriage ceremonies, old and new passions had no existence in a calm and happy world. He drew up a chair close beside hers. Her head was turned away. The blood-red heart on her breast burned with fierce flames in the firelight. "No, I don't want to live with you again," she said, feeling herself growing infinitely tired as this fierce, power- ful will battled over her. "Mrs Bristowe recommended you to me as a good lover: she said the place was a good one, easy, and the pay high. It was high, as I've said, while I could respond to you, but now I do not find the place easy. I do not want to stop in it. You had better let me go now, and I think," she added, "to keep up Mrs Bris- towe 's metaphor, you should be able to give me a good character." She paused for a moment and then added, reflectively, half to herself, as she looked back into the past, "You know I have loved you, though even you will never know how much. I could have died for you easily with the greatest joy." She had not glanced up at him once while she was speaking, and there was a dead silence in the room. She felt a horrible, sick tiredness in every fibre, and sank lower into her chair. Suddenly she felt a burning on her hand. She glanced at it. It was wet. She sprang up and looked at him. His eyes were brimming, suffused, and the scorching tears left a crimson stain on the face. It was horrible to see the tears and bloodshot veins in those grave, quiet eyes. "Oh, don't, pray, don't," Lydia exclaimed, involuntarily approaching him, distressed beyond measure. How often she had shed tears for him she forgot to think of. Besides, she knew the different value of his tears and hers. 368 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Pelham stretched out his arms and entwined them round her waist, as she stood near him, and laid his head against the bosom he had been accustomed to stab with pain or make leap with pleasure as he wished. "Darling," he murmured, and Lydia stood with a sense of being vanquished. A feeling that she could not get away pressed on her. She glanced down at his face against her breast. There was something terrible in the way those slow, scorching tears forced themselves from beneath the closed, reddened lids. She was not a woman who could despise tears, or mistake them for a sign of weakness. That those eyes which had gazed often into Death's, without flinching, that were like flints when they looked upon an enemy, should fill with tears for her, was, she knew, the truest, deepest homage she could have, and it commanded from her, as all homage does from those who are worth it, respect. The terrible pain that, in one to whom reserve was so habitual, and usually so easy, must cause such tears, spoke to her. The emotion they meant was unconcealed. And Pelham 's capacity for emotion was the trait of all that perhaps she valued most. The query came to her then again, Was it well to abandon this? "Pray don't," she murmured, and stooped to kiss him on the wet eyelids. He drew her head lower and kissed her lips, and she was drawn close to him in the old embrace, and heard his heart beating hard upon her own. And the old feelings began to stir, and run into their old grocves again. She was held, as one is held who lays his hands on an electric battery, unwilling, tortured and afraid. Yet once that cruel invisible force is working, and the invisible circle established, no earthly power can set one free. "Surely you do care for me a little still ?" he murmured, drawing her closer and closer into his arms, and the agony he suffered in those moments went into her, and made her own agony, and to loosen the weight of the pain from her, her lips instinctively said "Yes" in reply. LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 369 "Then why do you let anyone else come between us? You don't really want to marry Blakney," and, sinking under the flood of his emotions that he was pouring over her, she began to feel that she did not. "We have had some good times together, haven't we ? " "Yes," she answered again, but it was his will in her that spoke and not her own. She felt in those moments that though there had been good times, though they had been quite the best, there could never be any more for her with him that would hold that highest point of pleasure that the gods have decreed for mortals to know. But she felt she was being gradually conquered, irresistibly, by the affection that was the child of her former passion, and she saw, in a flash of thought, now suddenly, what her punishment, her Nemesis, was going to be. Her affection, that kind nature and heart of hers, that she had once outraged in the desertion of Bernard and the child, were going to throw her, bound and helpless, a prisoner at the feet of this man, who could no longer fill up her life, no longer satisfy those restless desires that would be the Erinnyes of her future. She realised now, as once before, that purchases made in Life's shop are not easily flung away and disposed of at the exact minute the purchaser wishes, at least, not when one has been sent into the world with that horrible burden, a kind and gentle heart. Struggling now to free herself from the bonds of a past passion she found she could not. She had done so once she had changed her purchase once a privilege that, even in the great shop, but she was not to be allowed to do it again. And as a bound captive she ceased to resist, to struggle. She had said to herself she would accept her Destiny, and now, face to face with it, realising it as different from what she had hoped, expected, yet fully understanding it was hers, she accepted it, and with that acceptance, so full is life of swift surprises, there came a sudden ease of heart, a lifting of pain from her. She yielded, knowing herself utterly vanquished, yet freed from suffering in defeat. 370 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW Had Lydia, that night, been permitted for one instant to lift the curtain, she would have been surprised at her future, so little do we know of our own hearts' mysteries. She would have seen beyond, not empty darkness but transfiguring light. Many things do the gods accomplish which are unhoped for and, through a maze of difficulties, they open sometimes an unexpected way. The kaleidoscope of time moved on and not back, but the colours were not yet blurred nor blotted out, and as the divine hand turned it slowly through the ensuing year, before her eyes, the pattern of life fell gently again into place, brilliant and glowing with the tints cf re- awakening love. The magic influence that Pelham had possessed over her, which had drawn her unwilling feet through the forest to him, was strong enough still to re-capture the fleeting spirit of her passion. Time only was needed in which the magic might work, and time was given him. Though the flowers might be dead, the roots of that love she had for him still remained alive, and from them, in the summer of his love for her, flowers bloomed again. The letter of final farewell which she wrote that night to Blakney was stained with tears, but a year later in India, looking back to that picture of her weeping self, she marvelled at the vision. Full of her re-animated love for Pelham and absolutely happy in it she could not realise her distress of these-moments. So does surprise after surprise crowd upon us as the hues of our life ever shift and change around us, varying and tran- sient as the colours of the sunset, and happy indeed are those, for whom, through that brilliant mirage, a god finds out the way. The next day, in the dusk of the wintry '^iternoon, Pelham and Lydia drove from Waterloo back to his rooms, where they would stay for a few days till their steamer started. Sitting in the cab, with Pelham 's hand lying on her knee, Lydia gazed out through the window at the brightly-lighted LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW 371 streets. Shop window after shop window, filled with Christ- mas presents and Christmas cards and toys, threw their warm floods of yellow light across the pavements, and ever, in front of those brilliant panes, drifted a staring, coveting, hesitating crowd of figures always looking in. So does the human being, in his youth desiring the Whole, yet having in hand only the price of one small part, stare, covet and hesitate before that dear, delusive, cheating, dis- tracting window, with the pickpocket Time watching and waiting at the corner, that great brilliant, mocking window., THE SHOP WINDOW OF LIFE. By VICTORIA CROSS "The great English novelist" "Victoria Cross is a writer of genius." Review of Reviews. "The work of Victoria Cross in its peculiar power of vivid description has ^real genius." The Crown (London). FIVE NIGHTS $1.50 LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW $1.50 THE RELIGION OF EVELYN HASTINGS $1.50 SIX WOMEN $1.50 SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE $1.50 ANNA LOMBARD $1.50 A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE $1.50 THE WOMAN WHO DIDN'T $1.50 PAULA $1.50 LIFE OF MY HEART $1.50 TO-MORROW? $1.50 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 2 East 29th Street NEW YORK NEW FICTION |j WORTH WHILE MITCHELL KENNERLEY M^JIJ/ Publisher NEW YORK THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE by FRANK RICHARDSON ^ It is a large theme, largely handled, that is making talk about "The Other Man's Wife." The New York Herald says : " We find here a novel with an unmistak- able mastery of style and a vivid portrayal of human beings bowed beneath passions and ambitions stronger than themselves." THE BOMB by FRANK HARRIS ^f A powerful book, vividly and finely written. The story moves swiftly on, with its wonderful love scenes, its vivid portrayal of character, and the gradual unfolding of the tragedy which made a shambles of the Haymarket, and drew upon Chicago the gaze of the world. ONE FAIR DAUGHTER by FREDERIC P. LADD fj A strikingly unusual story of "the usual and universal three." It is a tale that grips. Its theme is beauty, in body and in character: beauty that has an inevitable affinity for its own likeness, and an inevitable repulsion from the grotesque, the vulgar, the sordid and the untrue. THE POWER OF A LIE by JOHAN BOJER CJ The Power of a Lie has lately been crowned by the Academy of France. This is a high guarantee of excel- lence, but it could scarcely have been witheld from a book of such fine construction and such absorbing interest. At all bookshops By SEWELL FORD Side-Stepping with Shorty $1.50 Illustrated by F. Vaux Wilson "A most diverting and illuminating book. Some of the chapters Mark Twain would not be ashamed of. Others are written with all Mr. Dooley's wealth of humour, keen knowledge of life and caustic shrewdness. 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