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 SEBASTIAN 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 
 A A' A
 
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 (
 
 SEBASTIAN
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 SEBASTIAN 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HEART OF A CHILD," "PIGS 
 IN CLOVER," ETC. 
 
 "For love than wisdom is more deeply wise." 
 
 Nefo If orfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1909 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1909, 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1909. Reprinted 
 April, 1909. 
 
 NottaooB 
 
 J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 SEBASTIAN
 
 SEBASTIAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DAVID slept badly. For this, the winter cough, that 
 had irritated his wife's sensitiveness even in the first 
 year of their marriage, was probably responsible. Va- 
 nessa always asserted that he was asthmatic, and certainly 
 he was short of breath. Although he was habitually an 
 insomniac, to-night he had woken with a start, suddenly, 
 as if from some external cause. He lay still for a few 
 moments, his heart beating quickly, his pulses throbbing. 
 What had startled him, how had he been roused ? 
 
 He opened his eyes. Darkness was in the room, and 
 quiet. He occupied the back room on the second floor; 
 the blinds were drawn, the outlook was on to the mews. 
 Perhaps Dr. Gifford's brougham, unusually late, had 
 driven its noisy way over the cobbled stones. But in 
 that case he would hear the clink of harness, the rattle of 
 unsteady hoofs, voices in the yard. He listened, but 
 outside all was still. The big Harley Street house had 
 been built in the Georgian era, the walls were thick, and 
 it was silence they seemed to hold. Black night alone 
 filled the room, and stillness. He shrank a little from 
 both, lying there, hearing his own heart-beats, hearing 
 nothing else, at first.
 
 2 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Was it Vanessa, coming up to bed, slamming her door, 
 thoughtlessly, who had awakened him? Vanessa was 
 writing late. Her new book was nearly finished; she 
 had been dead to him, and the household, to Stella, al- 
 most to Sebastian, in the last few absorbed weeks. Her 
 work held her, and he respected her for it. If a man, 
 nothing much to recommend him, just a plain business 
 man, was married to a girl of genius, to the daughter of 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom, if he, already middle-aged, 
 had taken her from the schoolroom, almost from the 
 nursery, how could he expect her ear, her attention, her 
 heart? 
 
 Vanessa was always David's first thought when he 
 woke; she was in his mind by night and day. The book 
 upon which she was now engaged, was the third since 
 her marriage, the third in nine years. He wished it were 
 finished. She was so remote from them all, even Se- 
 bastian . . . even from Sebastian ! 
 
 David jumped out of bed, forgot cold, himself, Va- 
 nessa, everything. It was Sebastian he had heard, of 
 course. He could hardly wait to thrust his feet into 
 slippers, hardly wait to find his overcoat ; dressing-gown 
 he had none. He sent his voice before him, as he 
 stumbled down the stairs: 
 
 "I am coming, Pupsy is coming!" Cold sweat was 
 on his forehead and his hands were clammy. It was 
 sobbing he had heard, sobbing in the night ! The boy 
 was awake, was crying. . . . "Pupsy is coming!" he 
 called out, "Pupsy is coming!" 
 
 The boy slept in the room leading out of his mother's, 
 just under David's. Vanessa's door was open, but
 
 SEBASTIAN 3 
 
 there was no light in it. She had not yet emerged from 
 her study. 
 
 David found the knob of the electric light, and turned 
 it up. 
 
 "I'm here, little man, I'm here!" 
 
 And Sebastian, who had been crying in his sleep, 
 whose bright eyes were heavy with sleep and tears, smiled 
 at his anxious father. The smile showed a gap, for he 
 had just shed his milk teeth ; but it was full of confidence. 
 It was a plain little face the electric light discovered on 
 the tumbled pillow, thin, and rather sallow, under the 
 straight black hair, but it was very intelligent. 
 
 "I fought you or Mumsy would come," he said. 
 "I've been crying!" He looked up under the obvious 
 expectation of creating a sensation. Sebastian never 
 cried, was not allowed to cry ! The awkward, middle- 
 aged father, the mother, too young and self-absorbed, 
 had been agreed on this one point only. Sebastian was 
 wonderful, unique, he must not be brought up like an 
 ordinary child, he must be allowed to develop. No one 
 must contradict, nor govern him, they must only stand 
 aside, intelligently, and watch his growth. Then why 
 should Sebastian cry? 
 
 "Don't you feel well?" David asked. "Have you 
 got a pain?" 
 
 "Why have you got a greatcoat on?" the little boy 
 demanded. 
 
 "I heard you crying; I did not stop to dress, I came 
 as quickly as I could." David was almost apologetic. 
 
 "You do look funny in your legs," Sebastian went on. 
 
 David looked down. He had not been converted to
 
 4 SEBASTIAN 
 
 pyjamas, and certainly the slippers and the bare legs, 
 the nightshirt and coat were sufficiently incongruous. 
 
 "But you haven't told me what is the matter." 
 
 Sebastian was glad of company, there was no doubt 
 about that. He did not want to talk of what had waked 
 him, what had fretted him; he wanted to talk of any- 
 thing else, to hear why Pupsy did not wear night-clothes 
 like his, why he had not got on a dressing-gown, why he 
 had not combed his hair, if that was a corn on his foot ? 
 He was filled with curiosity on every conceivable topic, 
 dumb as to what had made him cry. David had no gift 
 of obtaining confidence. 
 
 Sebastian would not let him go ; it was obvious he did 
 not want to be alone in the dark. He made his father 
 lift him out of bed presently, take him on his knee, tell 
 him stories. 
 
 This was the way Vanessa found them when she came 
 upstairs, hand tired, and brain weary, having written 
 herself out. 
 
 She was startled at seeing a light in the boy's room; 
 she saw it under the chink in the door, and it quickened 
 her step. She turned the handle quite as anxiously as 
 David had done ; the boy was as much hers as his 
 more, she thought. It gave her a quick, unrecognised 
 pain to see her husband sitting by the bedside, holding 
 her boy in his arms. Sebastian was growing sleepy 
 again ; his trouble had been soothed, his head was on his 
 father's shoulder, and David was nursing him tenderly. 
 
 But the quick, unrecognised pain in Vanessa's heart, 
 the jealousy that stung her, made her reckless of his 
 drowsiness.
 
 SEBASTIAN 5 
 
 "You might have seen the quilt was properly round 
 him," she said, sharply. "What is the matter? Why 
 did you not call me?" 
 
 And she knew she was unjust even while she spoke. 
 For had she not insisted she must be undisturbed when 
 writing? And David had taken the eiderdown from 
 the bed and enwrapped the boy. One little foot hung 
 down uncovered, but the boy was warm against his 
 father's breast. He opened drowsy eyes at his mother's 
 entry : 
 
 "I cwied in my sleep," he said; "it was your fault. 
 You said it was England, and about 'all the swallows.' 
 And they was only sparrows, and houses; there was 
 no blossoms, nor dewdrops, nor nothing." He was half 
 asleep again. 
 
 "What is he talking about?" said David. "Hush! 
 hush !" He soothed, and rocked him, to and fro, as if 
 he had been still a baby. 
 
 It was characteristic of Vanessa that she did not offer to 
 take him, although she stooped and adjusted the quilt, 
 covering the little foot carefully. Her heart-beats were 
 accelerated at the child's words, and her eyes triumphant. 
 How wonderful he was ! How quickly she understood 
 him ! His father was quite outside his mind. 
 
 " I am afraid he is not well ; he feels a little feverish. 
 Don't you think I'd better put my things on, and go for 
 Gifford?" David asked anxiously, although already 
 the boy's eyes were closed again, and his breathing was 
 soft and regular. 
 
 What was the good of trying to make David under- 
 stand? Her own heart beat high with pride, partly
 
 6 SEBASTIAN 
 
 in the boy, partly in her own quick comprehension of 
 him. 
 
 She stood in the room, nothing obviously literary 
 about her, and still less of the maternal; a slim and 
 graceful figure, gowned for the ballroom, and not for the 
 study. Vanessa always said she wrote best in evening 
 dress. She had been absorbed in her pen puppets for 
 hours, these two belongings of hers, husband and son, 
 more shadowy and unreal than the figures she created. 
 But when she dreamed, in days when her pen lay idle, 
 Sebastian was ever the centre of her dreaming: it was 
 only in her working hours that she escaped him. Now 
 she said, with that light in her eyes: 
 
 "He is quite right, it is my fault. This afternoon I 
 found him, curled up in the window-seat in the dining- 
 room, gazing out of the window, with a book in his hand. 
 He asked me, 'Is this England, Mumsy?' I did not 
 pause to think what his query might mean ; I am on my 
 last chapter, and it is difficult to find the tag. I was 
 absorbed in my closing scene, careless of anything else. 
 I answered quickly, 'Yes, of course this is England. I 
 thought you knew London was the capital of England, 
 the centre of the world.' It comes back to me now that 
 he seemed distressed, puzzled, unsatisfied." 
 
 "I don't understand . . ." 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 He winced at that. She had not meant to hurt him. 
 
 "I mean, it is difficult; he is so wonderful, so unusual. 
 I went into the dining-room just now. I picked up 
 this book look!" She held it out to David, open. 
 But he would not take it, nor move, for fear of rousing 
 the boy.
 
 SEBASTIAN 7 
 
 "Oh! to be in England 
 Now that April's there! 
 And whoever wakes in England 
 Sees some morning unaware 
 That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf . . ." 
 
 She broke off abruptly, her voice had grown low, al- 
 most unsteady. 
 
 "He had been reading it to himself. It comes back 
 to me now that his eyes were wet. And I failed him ! 
 I did not follow the working of his mind, the disappoint- 
 ment of his eyes, gazing on the grey street ..." 
 
 "And after April, when May follows 
 And the whitethrush builds, and all the swallows ..." 
 
 "He must have felt it ail so intensely, so exquisitely, 
 and I, I ought to have known. ... I am not fit to 
 mother him." 
 
 She looked down on the little fellow, fast asleep now 
 in his father's arms. 
 
 "If only my father had been alive!" 
 
 It broke from her involuntarily, it was heartfelt. 
 
 "It is so rare and fine a mind ! My father, too, never 
 read that poem without emotion. I put it in Sebastian's 
 hands on purpose to test him, and then forgot all about 
 it, fool that I am!" 
 
 "I don't think his brain ought to be excited." 
 
 "Try a thousand other children with it," she ex- 
 claimed, triumphantly. 
 
 David only sighed, he did not argue. It ached in him
 
 8 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that she still missed her father, longed for his sympathy. 
 David, too, knew Sebastian was different from all other 
 children. He had once read "Little Red Riding Hood" 
 to him, and this when he was in his fifth year. And it 
 was an experience he had never forgotten, for Sebastian 
 almost had convulsions over the end, and had cried him- 
 self sick, although all the household, mother, father and 
 doctor, had assured him of Red Riding Hood's final 
 safety. David had never hurt Sebastian's sensitiveness 
 again, and he never would. Vanessa was wrong in 
 thinking he failed to recognise it. 
 
 David was moved, nevertheless, after this incident, 
 to consult Dr. Gifford as to the best course to pursue 
 with regard to Sebastian's education. The boy slept 
 well the remainder of the night, and had apparently 
 forgotten all about his disappointment in the morning. 
 Vanessa would have liked to recall it to him, and to dis- 
 cuss the source of his rare tears. But she, too, was not 
 sure of the right course. She asked the boy, casually, 
 if he were going to read the same book to-day as he 
 read yesterday, and he replied, quite indifferently, that 
 he wasn't going to read to-day, he was going to play 
 horses. She purposely left the book in his way, but he 
 did not take it up. Whilst she was making her experi- 
 ments, David got Dr. Gifford to give an opinion. 
 
 "Send him to boarding school, let him mix with other 
 boys." Dr. Gifford was quite decisive. "I quite admit 
 that he is not an ordinary boy. How should he be, 
 with such parentage?" This was a sop to Vanessa, for 
 Dr. Gifford was genuinely interested, and wanted to 
 carry his point. "But the nearer you approximate him
 
 SEBASTIAN 9 
 
 to the normal, the better chance you give him of health 
 and happiness. He is not yet nine years old. You 
 give him Browning to read, and Madam, here, is revelling 
 in the fact that he cries at night because he can't see 
 the 'blossomed pear tree/ in Harley Street ! He ought 
 to be playing cricket, hockey, football, shirking his les- 
 sons, and barking his shins. That's the way to make a 
 man of him." 
 
 "I do not want him to be like other boys," Vanessa 
 objected. 
 
 "You need not fear that," the doctor answered, drily. 
 She was always a little outside his sympathies. He was 
 by no means a narrow-minded man, but Vanessa's 
 seriousness over her books, her father's reputation, and 
 literature generally, seemed to him exotic, perhaps a 
 trifle ridiculous. She had a husband, a home and a 
 baby what more did a young woman need ? He did 
 not realise that she had needed none of these things at 
 eighteen years of age, and had not been trained for them. 
 They were accidental to her, external, and she had not 
 yet grown used to them. Her slow development was 
 on other lines, and no maturity of womanhood, know- 
 ledge, or suffering was yet hers. 
 
 Sebastian was sent to boarding school in his ninth 
 year, where, in a phenomenally short time, he rose to be 
 head of his class, and presently, of every class. 
 
 His individuality survived the ordeal. Like his 
 mother, he took little colour from his surroundings. 
 What happiness he achieved was intrinsic, and it did not 
 include the popularity that accrued to athletic boys with 
 meaner brain power. But that he did not enjoy his life
 
 10 SEBASTIAN 
 
 at the preparatory school can be read in his letters to 
 David, which were carefully preserved, and of which 
 the following is a fair sample. It was written in his 
 eleventh year. David had typhoid fever, and the boy 
 received fewer visits from his parents in consequence. 
 
 ST. MICHAEL'S, November 25th. 
 
 "DEAR PUPSY, I am very glad to hear you are 
 steadily improving. I am getting on all right and am 
 well and jolly. How is Mumsy, Aunt Stella and Bice? 
 Thank Mumsy for her letter which I received this morn- 
 ing. I am so lonely that I don't know what I should do 
 without yours and Mumsy's letters, but I know that it 
 would do you harm to come down, and I don't want 
 Mumsy to leave you all alone, so I will wait patiently for 
 the end of the term to come, which is exactly three weeks 
 on Wednesday, and trials begin Saturday week. 
 
 P.T.O. 
 
 "I was two from top this week, but I am determined 
 to do better this time, and as I have begun well, I am in 
 great hopes. 
 
 "We played Becenham the 2nd best preparatory 
 school this week and were only beaten 3 1. 
 
 "In a second XI match v. South Eastern Junior we 
 beat 10. 
 
 "In a third XI v. Campbells we beat 5 2. 
 
 "Good-bye. 
 
 "Your loving son, SEBASTIAN. 
 
 "P.S. Don't let Mumsy leave you to come and 
 see me."
 
 SEBASTIAN 11 
 
 In his thirteenth year Sebastian went to Eton. The 
 position of affairs between his parents had not improved, 
 but of this, naturally, he knew nothing. Vanessa's 
 reputation as a novelist had by this time become 
 established, but as hers was never a popular success, 
 as she never rivalled Marie Corelli, nor Hall Caine, and 
 was as yet unknown on the sixpenny bookstalls, the boy 
 gained no kudos among his companions for being her son.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "GAME and set, and match to me," said Sebastian 
 scoffingly, pitching his racquet on to the springless 
 sofa. " I told you I could give you forty. You haven't 
 a chance at the odds, you haven't got the temper for the 
 game. Look at you now ! " 
 
 She had flung all her ill-directed energies into the 
 last stroke, and the little volatile ball had gone half 
 a yard beyond the table, leaped into the fireplace, 
 jumped, and finally disappeared under the bookcase. 
 
 The girl's face was scarlet with rage, her black 
 eyes flashed, she stamped her feet at him. 
 
 " You needn't stand there, jeering and grinning ! 
 Don't grin, I say, don't ! don't ! " 
 
 "All right, all right! Abuse me because you can't 
 play ping-pong." 
 
 " Can't play ? I can play ! You know you cheated ! " 
 
 " What a silly lie ! ' Just like a girl ! " 
 
 She burst into sudden tears. 
 
 "Anyway, you are a rude, a rude, beastly boy, and 
 I hate the sight of you ! " 
 
 "Very well, then I'll go. Mind, I shan't get round the 
 corner before you are running, full speed, after me, 
 begging me to come back." 
 
 " I shan't ! You know I shan't. I never want 
 to see you again. You're a prig, and I hate you ! " 
 
 12
 
 SEBASTIAN 13 
 
 " Not you, no such luck ! You can't live without me." 
 She dried her eyes, on a handkerchief that had seen 
 better days, and sniffed defiance at him. 
 "Well, you are glad enough to come here, anyhow." 
 "You don't suppose I come to see you, do you?" 
 " You come to see Pleasey, but she wouldn't even stop 
 at home to meet you this afternoon! She knew you 
 were coming I told her myself ; so there ! And she 
 says you are a prig, too. Everybody says you are ! " 
 
 He coloured at that. There was no doubt it was 
 Pleasey Plcyden-Carr he came to see, and not his fifteen- 
 year-old cousin. Beatrice Ashton was too impulsive, 
 passionate, untutored and crude, to suit the taste of an 
 Eton boy, already in the first hundred, and displaying 
 fancy waistcoats. He played ping-pong with Beatrice 
 because he had nothing better to do. But the dull back 
 schoolroom in Weymouth Street showed itself to him 
 in all its unrelieved and monotonous ugliness when there 
 was only Bice to set off its bareness with her ill-temper. 
 
 Sebastian sometimes wondered vaguely at the dif- 
 ference of Aunt Stella's own surroundings, and those with 
 which she was satisfied for her only daughter. For the 
 drawing-room was hung with water-colours and silken 
 draperies, luxurious with lounges, easy chairs and 
 femininess. The schoolroom was half of the dining-room, 
 shut off from it by folding doors. On the other side was 
 the inlaid, and beautiful, Sheraton sideboard; here was 
 only the rickety sofa, banished from some more luxurious 
 place. The carpet was shabby, the deal table, with 
 painted mahogany legs, might have been translated from 
 the kitchen; the window, of coloured glass, looked on to
 
 14 SEBASTIAN 
 
 the yard. There were shelves with broken-backed books, 
 a small piano in walnut case, a litter of music on the floor, 
 an ink-stained oak writing-table with untidy papers. 
 
 But Aunt Stella was altogether too contradictory, 
 puzzling, and complicated for Sebastian to understand. 
 He accepted her, as other people did, without explana- 
 tion, on her merits, her idle good humour, and plea of 
 indifferent health. 
 
 The ping-pong had been a failure this afternoon. 
 Beatrice hated being beaten, and Sebastian beat her 
 so easily. He gave her thirty, and owed thirty, and still 
 beat her. At Queen's College, in the various examina- 
 tions there, and at Burlington House, Beatrice Ashton 
 excelled her schoolfellows, was conscious of her abilities, 
 and had the reward of them. But the aggravation of 
 her life, its excitement and poignancy, was her cousin 
 Sebastian's calm superiority. 
 
 "You came to see Pleasey," Beatrice went on, for she 
 had noted the sudden flush on the boy's pale face, and 
 was glad, in her rage at his ping-pong victory over her, to 
 know she could touch him. She jeered: 
 
 " You are in love with Pleasey ! In love, stupid ! 
 She isn't in love with you, she likes me ever so much 
 better. I asked her, and she promised me she did. She 
 is only nice to you because you are my cousin. And she 
 likes Aunt Vanessa's books. She says you are only a 
 boy." 
 
 Excepting for that IHtle flush, it was impossible 
 to see that Sebastian had been moved at all by her 
 words. He prided himself on his self-control. 
 
 Beatrice's dark eyes had had no difficulty in detecting
 
 SEBASTIAN 15 
 
 glances between her cherished boy cousin and her new 
 companion-governess. She knew Sebastian and Miss 
 Pleyden-Carr had become friends in the Easter holidays. 
 Bice had been cruelly jealous and unhappy about it. 
 Her nature was generous, her temper passionate, her love 
 for her cousin, although it was, as yet, but a child's love, 
 was overwhelming. And it brought her little but suffer- 
 ing. Sebastian, sensitive himself, could play on her 
 sensitiveness as if it were a violin, and she vibrated 
 to every touch his humour devised. 
 
 Beatrice had manoeuvred to give Pleasey her holiday 
 this afternoon. She had determined on monopolising 
 Sebastian's mid-half leave. His look of disappointment 
 round the empty schoolroom had enraged her; and she had 
 tried to enrage him. In the game, too, she had played 
 badly, had not done herself justice, hitting the balls 
 wildly, and losing the two sets. 
 
 Now, when they had finished their game, and he 
 stood with his back to the empty fireplace, she 
 could not help trying to break through his self-possession. 
 
 "She thinks you are only a boy. I told her you 
 were sixteen, though you said you were seventeen." 
 
 He retained his self-possession. 
 
 " I am seventeen ; I am eighteen months older than 
 you are, and eighteen years wiser. You are not a human 
 being at all ; you are an irresponsible person rather 
 mad. I should never be surprised to see you come to a 
 bad end. ' Great wits to madness often are allied.' Mine 
 are the great wits, yours " 
 
 "Well, I am not mad enough to fall in love, in love." 
 It is impossible to exaggerate her scorn at such a state of 
 affairs. "She says you are ugly too. There!"
 
 16 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Oh, of course, she confides entirely in you ! " 
 
 "I don't care whether she confides in me, I didn't 
 say she confided in me." She stamped her foot at him. 
 " I know what she thinks, I see all her letters, she tells me 
 everything." 
 
 "Then you should have the tact and discretion to 
 keep it to yourself." 
 
 "Prig!" 
 
 "But there, I am tired of trying to teach you to 
 behave yourself. Perhaps I shall find you improved 
 by the midsummer." He took his carefully brushed 
 high hat from the mantelpiece. 
 
 Bice made a rush at him at the hat. 
 
 " You shan't go ! You shan't ! " 
 
 He held it up, out of her reach : he was nearly a foot 
 taller than she, and this was another grievance. 
 
 "I am going." 
 
 She got between him and the door, and put her back 
 against it. He placed his hat on his head, he was very 
 deliberate in his ways. Then he took her, not roughly, 
 but firmly, by the two elbows, and with a dexterous 
 movement jerked her away from the door, was outside, 
 and had turned the key. 
 
 She flung herself against the door, and burst into a 
 sudden cry, she shrieked and stamped, and shook the 
 handle. 
 
 " I hate you ! I hate you ! Come back, Sebastian ! 
 You are to come back; you are to; you are to ! " 
 
 But she heard his retreating footsteps, and threw 
 herself on the floor, beating it with her head and feet, 
 being altogether childish, hysterical and absurd as she
 
 SEBASTIAN 17 
 
 lay alone in that dull, empty schoolroom. She was 
 fifteen years old, freakishly small, with elf locks, gipsy 
 complexion, strangely unlike her delicate, fair mother, 
 a throw-back to some early type of Ventom, when the 
 woods sufficed them. 
 
 Sebastian's mother and Beatrice's mother were 
 twin sisters. Fate had played them many strange 
 and untoward tricks, but it had given them each other 
 as compensation. They had never been separated. As 
 children they had slept in each other's arms, whispered 
 their baby confidences, chattered their b.aby talk. They 
 had shared each other's rooms as grown girls, and still 
 the confidences and intimate talk had gone on, the in- 
 evitable moment of reserve delayed, until Stella met 
 Jack Ashton. 
 
 The complete confidence between the two sisters 
 ended on their wedding day. For Jack Ashton was a 
 rake, David Kendall a saint, and neither sister well 
 mated. They learned their silences, although no distance 
 separated them. 
 
 Within a few doors of one lived always the other, 
 and their children, each a solitary and unique bud on the 
 parent stalk, seemed to them born only to carry on the 
 tradition of their complete intimacy. 
 
 Sebastian would not leave the house, after his quarrel 
 with Beatrice, without a farewell to his aunt. He went 
 upstairs to the pretty drawing-room, and found Stella 
 sitting, as usual, surrounded by flowers; Mare'chal Niel 
 roses, although it was April, lilies of the valley, tall palms, 
 and broad dishes of Neapolitan violets. He found her
 
 18 SEBASTIAN 
 
 in a charming tea-gown, and still more charming mood, 
 pouring out tea for his mother. 
 
 "Is that you, Sebastian? Come in. How is Eton? 
 Well, what have you done wonderful this term? Are 
 you Captain of the Boats? And have you beaten Dr. 
 Warre in Greek verse? Here is your mother, dying to 
 know what new worlds you have conquered." 
 
 It was characteristic of the relations between Vanessa 
 Rendall and her son, that although it was a month since 
 they had met, they only greeted each other with a nod. 
 Also, that, although she knew that he was coming this 
 afternoon, she had not waited at home to receive him. 
 She always had tea with Stella on Saturday afternoons ! 
 Both sisters lived in an unuttered, perpetual, fear lest 
 they should hurt each other by displaying an affection 
 for their children. Vanessa would not give up coming 
 to tea with Stella, although this was Sebastian's long 
 leave, and the clever stripling held all of her heart that 
 was as yet developed. 
 
 " Where is my Bice ? What have you done with my 
 little Bice? " asked Stella. "Have some tea? " 
 
 "I thought I should find you here, mater." 
 
 They had only nodded to each other, but there was 
 intimacy and understanding in that nod. 
 
 "Yes, I will have some tea, Aunt Stella. Eton? 
 Well, Eton's just as it always was, a beastly, unhealthy 
 hole, inhabited by aborigines. It is a bear garden, I 
 shall be very glad when my time is up." 
 
 "Have you made up your mind about the Harvey? " 
 asked his mother. It was the first word she had ad- 
 dressed to him. There was an eager interest in her speech.
 
 SEBASTIAN 19 
 
 "It's such a sap," he answered, carelessly. Then 
 he smiled at her. His mouth was flexible, with sensitive 
 lips, and though his smile was what an unprejudiced 
 witness might call a grin, it answered her question, and 
 satisfied her. He belittled the Harvey prize for English 
 verse, but he meant trying for it, all the same. That was 
 what his smile told her. And when had Sebastian tried 
 for any scholastic prize that he had not achieved? 
 He had won a classical scholarship at Harrow before he 
 was twelve, refused it, and been elected on the founda- 
 tion at Eton the following year. 
 
 David Kendall had not allowed his son to become a 
 colleger, so Vanessa had to forego the pleasure of seeing 
 K.S. after his name, in the school list. But there were 
 few school distinctions obtainable by an Oppidan that 
 Sebastian had not acquired. He achieved everything 
 at Eton, except skill in sport, and the popularity that 
 goes with it. His mother urged him always on his course. 
 She had a pathetic, overwhelming, misdirected pride in 
 all his small triumphs. When he won the Brinkman 
 Divinity Prize, she sent paragraphs about it to the Press ! 
 She cherished his "sent up for good" reports, as if they 
 had been bank-notes ; when he got into the house quar- 
 tette, she imagined Mario looking to his laurels. 
 
 In some respects Vanessa Kendall had failed in at- 
 taining the full prime of womanhood. Her emotions 
 were all young, and centred in unessentials. The 
 Harvey prize for English verse at present filled her 
 horizon; it seemed vital that Sebastian should win it. 
 She was visiting Stella, but Stella only had the blurred 
 background of her attention. She had been listening
 
 20 SEBASTIAN 
 
 all the time for Sebastian's footsteps ; she knew he would 
 follow her here ! 
 
 "Have you got a plan? Have you jotted down any 
 of the lines ?" she asked him, eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, don't bore Aunt Stella about the Harvey. I'll 
 read the twaddle to you when we get home. They gave 
 us the theme ; ' Courage ! ' Original, isn't it ? Just 
 like them, it's a regular cinch choosing a subject for the 
 Harvey." 
 
 "What on earth is a cinch?" asked Stella. "Is that 
 some new Eton slang?" 
 
 "Not it! Eton never invented anything so good; 
 it is the American for a dead certainty. We have got 
 a Yankee in our house this half. You should hear his 
 opinion of our arrangements ! He says his father's 
 dogs are better lodged. I tell you what, Aunt Stella, 
 of all the crackpot old institutions that ought to be 
 shown up for mismanagement and muddlement, and 
 general rottenness, it is Eton." 
 
 She handed him the jam roll. 
 
 " Never mind, old boy. I have no doubt you will put 
 it right, and I should think, if you mentioned your views 
 in the school magazine, you would achieve popularity 
 with the authorities at a stroke. Now, tell me, where is 
 Bice? What have you done with my Bice?" 
 
 He was very much in the way. She had a thousand 
 things to discuss with his mother. Children are always 
 in the way with grown-up people, Stella thought. She 
 kept her Bice in the schoolroom, in the background. 
 But Vanessa was never happy without her lout about 
 her! This was what Mrs. Ashton thought. What she
 
 SEBASTIAN 21 
 
 did, always, was to make the boy welcome in her pretty 
 drawing-room, to feed him with jam sandwiches, and 
 interest in his pursuits. This was Stella's method, the 
 secret of her charming personality. And Vanessa, 
 although she occasionally suspected her sister of failing 
 in complete sincerity, never doubted that her interest in 
 Sebastian and his career was real. It seemed impossible 
 that it should be otherwise, seeing that his intellect 
 was so overwhelming, his brilliancy so remarkable, his 
 certainty of carrying on the Ventom tradition so com- 
 plete. 
 
 They were Mrs. Ashton and Mrs. Kendall; but to 
 Vanessa, at least, they remained, primarily, the daughters 
 of John Hepplewight- Ventom, the remarkable father to 
 whom her allegiance never faltered. 
 
 When Stella repeated her question about Bice for the 
 third time, Sebastian thought the limit of his self- 
 restraint was reached. 
 
 "I left her on the floor in the schoolroom, trying to 
 kick down the door," he said, calmly. 
 
 " Oh, Sebastian ! You have not been making my 
 baby cry again? She was so looking forward to your 
 leave. Why will you wretched children quarrel ? Your 
 mother and I never did." 
 
 "The mater has a perfect temper," he replied, quite 
 unmoved. "I expect that is how it was. So have I, 
 
 but Bice " He took another large slice of cake; 
 
 his manners were never quite on a level with his intelli- 
 gence, "she is a holy terror." He drew a long breath 
 over her. 
 
 Vanessa never found fault with Sebastian; in simple
 
 22 SEBASTIAN 
 
 truth, she never thought there was any fault in him; 
 she admired his sincerity when it was impossible to 
 admire his suavity. But at this juncture she did venture 
 to say: 
 
 "I suppose you beat her at ping-pong?" 
 
 "Yes, I admit that." 
 
 "It cannot be pleasant to be always beaten." 
 
 "Well, mater, you needn't hold a brief for Bice. I 
 know more about her than any one else ; she is all right 
 in a way, but she has got no self-control, no self-control 
 at all. She ought to go to boarding-school." 
 
 "And what am I to do without my baby?" 
 
 Stella hardly resented Sebastian's words. What 
 she did resent was his presence there at all. She wanted 
 to talk to his mother. 
 
 "Oh! you would be all right. You and the mater 
 are quite content with each other. In the summer half 
 you might come down to Windsor, and stop at the 
 'White Hart'; it is not at all a bad sort of pub." 
 
 "And you could dine with me there sometimes?" 
 
 He did not resent the gentle sarcasm. 
 
 "That is the ticket," he smiled. 
 
 Stella's gift of superficial sympathy had established 
 her position with Sebastian. He, too, had complete 
 faith in her interest in him, and in his importance to 
 her, and to the family of Hepplewight-Ventom generally. 
 She was only less to him than his own mother because 
 he thought less of her abilities. He did not consider her 
 clever. And he had no doubt that she had brought 
 up her daughter disgracefully. He contrasted it with 
 his own upbringing, and although he had to admit that
 
 SEBASTIAN 23 
 
 his aunt had inferior material upon which to work, still 
 he believed something could have been made of Bice, 
 if she had been trained differently. 
 
 Stella Ashton was one of those women, irresponsible, 
 humorous and delicate, who make instinctive appeal to 
 everything masculine. She was small, with exquisite 
 hands and feet; her pale face was crowned with hair 
 that waved naturally, brown in the shadows, and red 
 in the lights. Sometimes the lids of the light blue eyes 
 showed pinkish, and there were wrinkles in the corners. 
 But always her lips were soft and inviting, and her smile 
 charming, lacking only youth and happiness to make 
 it irresistible. Although Stella ranked so close to his 
 mother in Sebastian's calm affections, he never put this 
 puzzling aunt of his on the same pinnacle of respect. 
 It was an instinct with him, he did not reason about it, 
 was scarcely conscious of a feeling to which he could put 
 no name. 
 
 It was strange to think of Stella and Vanessa as twins. 
 Stella was delicate, Vanessa had never known a day's 
 illness. Vanessa's eyes were of a darker hue than her 
 sister's, the thick lashes veiling them; there was not a 
 ripple in the burnished ebon of her hair, but a patch of 
 white over her left temple gave it distinction. She was 
 half a head taller than her sister, and might have been 
 ten years younger. There were no wrinkles round her 
 eyes, no lines in her face. It was not as lovable as 
 Stella's, it was the face of a clever girl to whom every- 
 thing was fresh, interesting, but whose personal impor- 
 tance, aims, and interests, came before the world. 
 
 Sebastian urged his view about boarding-school for 
 Bice until Vanessa succeeded in changing the subject.
 
 24 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Beatrice has had no one with whom to practise 
 her ping-pong except her companion. By the way, 
 Stella, Sebastian told me the new companion is a Miss 
 Pleyden-Carr; not Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's daughter, 
 surely?" 
 
 Stella would have answered, but Sebastian had a 
 quick point to make. 
 
 "She has just as much practice as I have. They 
 don't play ping-pong at Eton." 
 
 "Yes, it is Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's daughter. I'll 
 talk to you about that presently." Then she turned 
 again to the boy : 
 
 "I am sure you were rude, or unkind, or something. 
 Bice has been counting on your coming the whole week. 
 Every evening when she kissed me good-night, she said, 
 'Sebastian is coming on Saturday, Mummie. Saturday 
 and Sunday I shall have Sebastian.' And now you 
 have been quarrelling with her !" 
 
 Aunt Stella was distressed, and therefore his mother 
 looked vexed; so Sebastian, although he felt the injustice, 
 and the absurdity of it, and jerked up his chin in con- 
 tempt of women, and women's arguments, nevertheless 
 answered : 
 
 "I suppose that means you want me to go down, and 
 bring her round?" 
 
 "There's a dear," said Stella. "I am sure she is 
 crying on the floor of the schoolroom, all by herself. 
 Perhaps she has got a bad temper, but she adores you. 
 I aril sure I can't see why," she added, with a smile. 
 
 Sebastian smiled, too. In the vicinity of either, 
 or both, of his parents, he knew himself to be enveloped 
 in an atmosphere of admiring love.
 
 SEBASTIAN 25 
 
 "Have it your own way," said the boy, 'good-hu- 
 mouredly. "I will go down to her. It's an awful bore, 
 but then, I suppose, one must always bore oneself in the 
 holidays, and annoy oneself in school-time; that's what 
 they call life !" And he sauntered out of the room. 
 
 "Isn't he good-natured?" said his mother, when the 
 door closed behind him. 
 
 "A bit of a prig, don't you think?" answered his aunt, 
 interrogatively. "But there, never mind. I see he is 
 still perfect in your eyes; and, anyway, thank heavens, 
 he has gone downstairs, and we can talk. Did you see 
 that Etruscan article in the Quarterly? I thought you 
 would be full of nothing else this afternoon. I suppose 
 you have already written reams to the editor about his 
 ignorance, and of how much better informed you are, 
 and, incidentally, what father said, or wrote." 
 
 "No, I have not had time to think, much less read, 
 or write. There are two crinoline pieces of Dresden in 
 to-morrow's sale at Christie's, and they have been before 
 me night and day. Nothing older, or younger, seems of 
 importance. Just now Etruria has no hold on me, and 
 the eighteenth is the only century that counts." 
 
 "What an extraordinary obsession that is of yours ! 
 I can buy all the vases I want for one-and-elevenpence- 
 half-penny at D. H. Evans', or Whiteley's, and I am sure 
 my rooms always look as well as yours, although you 
 are a millionaire, and I am a pauper." 
 
 "Millionaire! To hear David talk, sometimes, you 
 would think / was the pauper. And, by the way, 
 Stella, do you really think crinoline pieces of Dresden 
 are vases?"
 
 26 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Vases or figures, it is all the same. Your china 
 mania is an absurdity ! Why don't you breed dogs ? " 
 
 "I don't like the smell of them, or their promiscuous 
 habits. You think it extravagant when I buy china, 
 but your bill at Jay's is twice as much as mine at Red- 
 fern's. And you must spend a fortune at the florist's," 
 looking round at the roses and lilies, "I cannot think 
 how you do it. " 
 
 "Oh, don't worry. They come from Co vent Garden, 
 and cost nothing. I hate having my money affairs dis- 
 cussed. I know how to manage my income, that is all," 
 said Stella, hastily. 
 
 She never liked to discuss her finances with Vanessa. 
 Vanessa was such a clever woman, and so wonderfully 
 dull, in some things ! 
 
 The sisters were, financially, on a very different foot- 
 ing, although their fortunes had been the same. Jack 
 Ashton, when he left his wife in England, had left no 
 provision for her but debts, and an exhausted credit. 
 David Rendall, although he was a saint, and no husband 
 for any woman, had inherited an old substantial business, 
 and made a commensurate income. Yet there was no 
 luxury that Vanessa had, and Stella lacked. 
 
 These two lived in a wonderful intimacy, and in a 
 daily intercourse. But the gulf of silences created by 
 their marriages had deepened, and broadened, day by 
 day, and year by year. And of the gulf Vanessa knew 
 nothing, deeming herself completely in her sister's con- 
 fidences, delicately respecting some few scruples, re- 
 taining the same herself; thinking, quite rightly, that 
 Stella understood, without speech, her life with David,
 
 SEBASTIAN 27 
 
 taking for granted, quite wrongly, that she understood 
 what Stella's had been with Jack, and what it was with- 
 out him. Stella gazed sometimes across that gulf of 
 silence, in whimsical amusement, at her more brilliant 
 sister, who counted herself a woman of the world; who 
 held a salon, and collected china, and wrote epigrammatic, 
 futile novels, and cherished the family name; and was 
 so blind, and innocent, and unworldly. 
 
 If neither of these two had realised happiness, Stella, 
 at least, knew all that she had missed. Vanessa, with 
 her ambitions for her son, her books, and circle of ad- 
 mirers, her china, and prints, never dreamed that her 
 life was lacking. 
 
 Stella had no illusions left to her. 
 
 The sisters chatted that evening until it was time for 
 dinner. Time for Vanessa Kendall to go home to her 
 evening dress, and menservants, her well-conducted meal, 
 with its elaborate setting, time for her to reluctantly 
 leave Stella to what she supposed was solitude. 
 
 After dinner, in that 'luxurious, over-full drawing- 
 room in Harley Street, Sebastian lounged on the big, 
 softly cushioned sofa, and read extracts to his mother 
 from the poem with which he was endeavouring to win 
 the Harvey prize for English verse. He asked her 
 opinion of the lines, and of his treatment of the subject. 
 He was very annoyed, although he fancied he concealed 
 it completely, when she found anything he had done less 
 than perfect. And he disputed, or brushed aside im- 
 patiently, any unfavourable comment. He queried 
 her suggestions, and argued every point. 
 
 In the end, nevertheless, the poem was reshaped, not
 
 28 SEBASTIAN 
 
 as it had been first projected in his young, inexperienced 
 mind, but as, in her wider, and more mature intelligence, 
 she made him see that it should develop. She was a 
 writer by inheritance, as well as by inclination, and most 
 dexterously used her small talent. She wrote novels, 
 mordant and modern, and evanescent, and a gleam from 
 her father's mantle of glory lit the critic's judgment of 
 her work. She had success, and a special public, but 
 guessed her limitations. Sebastian was a boy in whom 
 she saw genius, the will-o'-the-wisp that had illumined 
 her father's life, and evaded her own. 
 
 When the poem had been revised, and the words 
 flowed easily from his pen on the lines she had indicated, 
 her pride in him was quite uncritical. He declaimed it 
 to her, when he had gone over it, correcting quantities 
 with a scholarly air of absorption and importance. 
 His voice was young, somewhat low, but it had a quality 
 that held the ear, a note of music, although the music 
 was in the minor key. She watched him as he recited 
 the poem, and the words he had written, and the deep 
 young voice, made her think of Keats, Shelley. It 
 seemed to her that here, in this boy, hers, was all their 
 fire, and immortal genius. And to her was entrusted 
 his future ! His career should not be wrecked, nor his 
 splendid talents obscured. She was intensely proud of 
 her possession, of Sebastian, she would garner up his 
 sands of life, and they should be all golden. Nothing 
 she had written might live, but she had given life to this. 
 She was very proud, and quite happy, missing nothing 
 as she watched him. 
 
 When she went to bed that night, the thought of his
 
 SEBASTIAN 29 
 
 career followed her into her dreams. She was still a 
 young woman, little more than thirty-six years of age, 
 yet this was all her dreams gave her. They had never 
 taken her nearer to happiness, nor nearer to mystery, 
 than Sebastian, and Sebastian's career. Whether she 
 slept, or whether she woke, whenever she was out of the 
 puppet world, she saw that thin and mobile face, crowned 
 with laurel leaves, framed in green vistas of triumphal 
 arches. 
 
 She had seen him a crowd hanging on his words, 
 as he defended some unhappy prisoner with irresistible 
 eloquence. She had pictured him in the House of Com- 
 mons, making the maiden speech on which a unanimous 
 Press would hail him as a descendant of the Great Com- 
 moner. As judge, or as prime minister, she had seen him 
 in his laurel leaves, but without the triumphal arches 
 she never envisaged him. To-night, in her happy dream- 
 ing, he was a poet, the laureateship illumined him, and 
 he stood alone among his fellows. 
 
 That was Vanessa's Saturday evening. 
 
 Stella's was different. Stella had no ambitions, no 
 illusions, strange experiences, and the temperament of 
 many artists. Her light humour, easy temper, her per- 
 functory sympathy with humanity in general, and her 
 reliance on Vanessa's love, were all her armoury against 
 a horde of pressing, continuous troubles. Often, when 
 she was alone, her time was spent in tears. Her friends 
 envied her her wonderful spirits, and even Vanessa never 
 guessed what it was that tinged those eyelids of Stella's 
 with unbecoming pink. 
 
 Stella sympathised with Vanessa because David
 
 30 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Kendall was a saint, and incidentally a tradesman. 
 Of her own matrimonial burdens she made no plaint. 
 But never a morning she rose, and never an evening she 
 went to bed, without the fear lest her Daily Mail, Evening 
 Standard, or Morning Post would show her the name 
 she bore, with some disgraceful story attached to it. 
 She was the most patient, the most reticent of little 
 women, but where she was tenderest, it was because there 
 she had been the deeper lacerated. And in her soul, she 
 was lonely, because even Vanessa, to whose strength she 
 clung, and on whose courage she leaned, knew nothing 
 of what Jack Ashton's vices and follies, his disgraceful 
 infidelities, and yet more disgraceful amorousnesses had 
 taught her, nothing of where her knowledge had brought 
 her. 
 
 These girls were the daughters of a man of high prin- 
 ciple, and the pride of them. And Stella had married 
 for love, and learned it afterwards, in a sad school. 
 
 Stella sat in her pretty drawing-room, with its scents 
 of lilies and roses, and Beatrice lay in her lap. Beatrice's 
 tears were all shed, and her rage had exhausted itself. 
 
 "It was not Sebastian's fault, Mummie. I was angry 
 because he wanted Pleasey. He looked round the 
 schoolroom, and frowned you know the way Sebastian 
 frowns just because he had to spend the afternoon 
 alone with me." 
 
 "Sebastian is rather too good, rather too perfect, 
 isn't he?" 
 
 But the child was loyalty itself. She pondered a mo- 
 ment or two over the proposition. 
 
 "But it is not affectation, Mummie, he really does do
 
 SEBASTIAN 31 
 
 everything better than any one else. He is always 
 right!" 
 
 "The people who are always right, my Bice, fail a 
 little in understanding their fellow-mortals," Stella said, 
 almost to herself. " Vanessa is always right, too." 
 
 " Doesn't Aunt Vanessa understand?" 
 
 "Not quite perhaps." 
 
 "Why don't you make her ? " 
 
 "Your Aunt Vanessa is very clever, and she thinks 
 Sebastian is cleverer still, so it is no great wonder that 
 he is impressed with himself, and his own importance. 
 But I wish he would not make my baby unhappy," 
 she went on, caressing her. 
 
 Dreamily the child answered, her head pressed against 
 her mother's breast, her eyes half-closed. 
 
 "It wasn't Sebastian's fault. I expect I shall always 
 be unhappy." 
 
 And then Stella grew chill, shivered, gathered the girl 
 closer to her, had, perhaps, an unspoken prayer in that 
 soft, ill-regulated heart of hers. 
 
 "Don't be so silly," was all she answered, however. 
 "Are you not happy now?" 
 
 "I like lying in your arms, I love you better than 
 anything in the world, Mummie, you and Sebastian " 
 
 "Well " 
 
 Sebastian had said Beatrice had no self-control. Yet 
 the child lay still when her mother's questioning voice 
 reached her ears; lay still for a long time. She would 
 not say what was in her heart. It lay in her heart 
 that she must always be unhappy, because she loved 
 people more than they loved her. All she said, how- 
 ever, was:
 
 32 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I am too sleepy to talk. Let me go to sleep here. 
 Hannah can carry me up to bed asleep, like she used to 
 when I was a little girl." 
 
 "You were always spoilt." 
 
 "That is what Sebastian says; but it's only because 
 you never have any time to say ' No' to me." 
 
 Stella laughed lightly. It was true. She rose late, 
 and her early hours were languid, in the afternoon there 
 were visitors, and various occupations. There was never 
 time to contradict Bice, nor argue with her. It had 
 always been so much easier to say "Yes" to anything 
 she asked, and thus avoid all tears, and contention. 
 
 " So Sebastian thinks you are spoilt ! I wonder what 
 he thinks about himself? You really must get down 
 now. You are getting too heavy for me, and I cannot ask 
 Hannah to carry a grown-up young lady to bed, it is 
 absurd." 
 
 Stella was really fragile. Even Bice's weight was too 
 much for her. She put the girl off her lap, and entreated 
 her to go to bed. There was much kissing, and many 
 loving words; Stella's demonstrative affection to Bice 
 was in reverse to Vanessa's apparent coolness with 
 Sebastian. 
 
 She had got rid of the child by nine o'clock. Now 
 the evening was her own, and that solitude, for which 
 her sister pitied her, should have begun. 
 
 Perhaps she was to be pitied, although, before she had 
 rested a little quarter of an hour, she heard the familiar 
 sound of a brougham stopping at her door, the familiar 
 knock, and voice on the stairs. 
 
 So weak, so solitary, so sweet a little woman, without
 
 SEBASTIAN 33 
 
 a husband's countenance, or the protection of a chastened 
 widowhood, had not been able to keep her defences 
 intact. Here was the intruder, here, too, was the mystery 
 of Lord Saighton's life, his strange political lapses, his 
 brilliant mistakes, uncertain ambitions, and unrelia- 
 bility. Here, in this secret orchard, lay the explanation 
 of all of them. For the orchard had been planted in bog 
 and swamp, and corruption lay in the tangled roots of 
 its gnarled and distorted fruit trees.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SEBASTIAN did not obtain the recognition he antici- 
 pated for his ambitious poem. 
 
 The Harvey prize for English verse was awarded to 
 Sparkes, K.S. And this was the beginning of the end. 
 Sparkes, K.S., although he was only "a dirty little tug," 
 was a personal acquaintance of Sebastian's, and, under 
 very slight pressure, was persuaded to show his friend a 
 copy of his prize poem. 
 
 It was shown to Vanessa too ; for Vanessa went down 
 to Eton to hear the result of the competition, and was 
 lunching with her boy at Leyton's the very day it was 
 announced. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to dilate upon the respective 
 literary, or scholastic, merits of the poems. Naturally, 
 considered as works of art, they were both rather futile. 
 But there was no possible doubt as to which was the 
 better of the two. Sebastian had had an idea, and had 
 worked it out consistently. He had taken for his thesis 
 the superiority of moral, over physical, courage, and told 
 a story to exemplify it. 
 
 It was the time of the South African War, and the 
 picture he had drawn was of the women, hardening their 
 hearts, sending forth their husbands, lovers, brothers, 
 sons ; holding back their tears, whilst urging on the men; 
 seeing all that made life sweet leave them, but being 
 
 34
 
 SEBASTIAN 35 
 
 brave for their country, and for themselves; sitting at 
 home, afterwards, knitting socks, and working com- 
 forters, their withheld tears falling slowly, then, in silence, 
 and in solitude. The poem was divided into two parts. 
 In the first one heard the rustle, and clank, the move- 
 ment of soldiers amid the shriek of the cannon, "the 
 murderous music of Maxims," as the boy had phrased it; 
 in the second, one saw the women, waiting, watching, 
 praying, in their empty rooms, and desolate homes. 
 The thing, although it was immature, was nevertheless 
 alive; one felt the conviction in it, and it convinced. 
 
 Sparkes, K.S.'s poem was Newbolt and water. There 
 was nothing in it to arrest the attention. It contained 
 lines, not pictures, and those lines were ready-made ones, 
 remembered, not invented. Putting the two poems 
 side by side, and selecting the latter for recommendation, 
 argued gross unfairness, or dense ignorance. It was not 
 a case for anything between these two opinions. 
 
 Vanessa read the poems through very carefully, and 
 very slowly, whilst the boy ate his roast fowl, drank his 
 ginger beer, and watched her, without speaking. It 
 must be borne in mind that Vanessa Kendall's was a 
 name quite well known in the world of letters. Stella 
 and Vanessa were the daughters of John Hepplewight- 
 Ventom, whose "Epigrams of the Saints," "In Umbrian 
 Hills and Valleys," and "Romances of the Sabine Hills," 
 are amongst the most notable literary works of the nine- 
 teenth century. And in the second place, Vanessa had 
 achieved her own distinction, by the delicate flavour, 
 and cultured mannerisms of her half score of society 
 novels. In appealing to her judgment, therefore, Se-
 
 36 SEBASTIAN 
 
 bastian was resting upon something tangible, and as- 
 sured. Had there been a question between Vanessa 
 Rendall, and the head-master of Eton, on a subject of 
 literary taste, or values, the literary public would not 
 have hesitated, at any moment, to have accepted the 
 woman's dictum. 
 
 She read Sparkes's poem very carefully, she was anx- 
 ious not to be biassed. But it was really not a position 
 in which hesitation was possible. The King's scholar 
 had succeeded in writing sixty lines of versification, 
 without one original thought or phrase. 
 
 "Well, mater?" asked Sebastian, when he had com- 
 manded pine-apple and cream, and had informed the 
 waiter that he should require an ice to follow. "Well, 
 mater?" he said, "what do you think of Eton now?" 
 
 She pushed the papers aside; she was on her own sub- 
 ject, and spoke with authority: 
 
 "Not a doubt about it, not room for a shadow of 
 doubt ; yours is a poem immature, of course, crude, 
 but full of imagination, power, and intelligence. The 
 other is a very bad schoolboy essay, without distinction, 
 or individuality. The decision that gave its author the 
 prize, and withheld it from you, is grossly unfair and 
 indefensible. What do you want me to do?" 
 
 " I will talk to you about that presently. In the first 
 place, I only wanted your opinion. You know I am not 
 conceited, but I have read a good bit, and I believe I 
 do know when a thing is absolutely worthless. They 
 have cheated me out of this prize." 
 
 "Has Ferguson seen them both?" 
 
 Mr. Ferguson was Sebastian's tutor, and house-master.
 
 SEBASTIAN 37 
 
 " Yes, he asked me to show him mine, and this morning 
 I showed him Sparkes's." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "Practically the same as you do. Then he tried to 
 gloze it over by talking a lot of twaddle about ' working 
 for work's sake/ and not for the sake of reward." 
 
 "What he usually puts into your report?" 
 
 "The same sort of rubbish. 'Dignity and value of 
 labour' ' desire for prizes somewhat vulgar.' He is an , 
 awful ass; conscientious, you know, and all that sort 
 of thing, but he doesn't know the world. Never been 
 outside of Eton, except to go to Oxford, nor outside 
 Oxford, except to return to Eton. But, of course, I 
 could see he knew my poem was miles ahead of the 
 other." 
 
 " Do you think he influenced the placing of the prize ? 
 That he thought it good for your moral character not 
 to win always?" 
 
 "No." Sebastian admitted it, although reluctantly. 
 " I don't believe he actually influenced the result. But 
 he has probably, at some time or another, told the Head 
 of my vulgar liking to be recognised. You see, all the 
 things I have got, are things neither of them could keep 
 from me. The 'Trial' prizes, the 'Brinkman Divinity,' 
 and the 'sent up for goods.' But they wouldn't give me 
 the Harvey, and you will see they won't give me the Jelf . 
 You want me to stay and have a shot for the Newcastle, 
 but they wouldn't give me that either. You don't 
 know the ropes here, mater. It suits them to give any- 
 thing that is going, in that sort of way, to a Tug. There 
 is a place in the boats for us, or in the eleven, or at foot-
 
 38 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ball; we can compete in the racquet court. But the 
 Oppidans have no right to try for scholastic success, 
 it's considered bad form. The authorities really look 
 upon me as an outsider, because of what I have done 
 already. And so do the fellows. Of course, I ought to 
 be in Pop, but I'm not, and never shall be. lam too 
 good at school work, that's a fact, and they resent it 
 all through the place. The thing is worked on a distinct 
 plan, and to kick against it is just pawing the air." 
 
 "I do not think you are right about the Newcastle. 
 Surely an Oppidan does sometimes get that?" 
 
 "Once, nineteen years ago; and his father was on 
 the council!" 
 
 Vanessa paid for the lunch, and they sauntered down 
 Brocas to the boat-house, still talking of the injustice 
 that had been done to Sebastian. It is rare, astonish- 
 ingly rare, to find a mother and son with the good under- 
 standing existing between these two, they seemed more 
 like brother and sister. The time came when they lost 
 that fine comprehension for a while, but to-day it was 
 complete between them. 
 
 The silver-grey water was jotted with boats, outriggers, 
 and skiffs. The eight shot past rafts, the sun shining on 
 young arms pulling vigorously, shoulders thrown back, 
 and faces set. The cox leaned forward, shouting con- 
 tinuously, and from the banks, one of the masters, on a 
 bicycle, called out criticism and comment; many boys 
 ran beside him. 
 
 Sebastian rowed his mother away from the crowd, 
 into the haze of the June afternoon, into the silence of 
 the Clewer backwater. She consoled his young pride,
 
 SEBASTIAN 39 
 
 and cheered him by her complete comprehension of 
 where, and how, it had been wounded. But still, she 
 had not anticipated the conclusion at which he had 
 arrived. She had mapped out Sebastian's life for him, 
 in that calm moment, succeeding her night of agony, 
 when the doctor's voice had penetrated her drugged 
 brain, and she had heard him say: 
 
 "It's a fine boy; a Ventom heir; well, the world ought 
 to hear of this little fellow." 
 
 From that hour to the present, her son had been to 
 her materialised ambition. He had stood next to her 
 work, before even Stella, she hardly yet knew how much 
 he meant to her. She never contemplated anything for 
 him but brilliant success, and until now, indeed, his foot- 
 steps had not faltered in the path she had marked out. 
 
 "They cannot keep you out of the Newcastle," she 
 reiterated, for about the fourth time. 
 
 But Sebastian, rowing on, giving her an occasional 
 direction as to the steering, throwing out an occasional 
 irrelevant observation, made no reply. Sebastian, in 
 his grey trousers, flannel shirt, and grey felt hat, rowed 
 leisurely. Under that shapeless hat one saw the sharply- 
 cut young face, pale ; the thin-lipped mouth was nervous, 
 but the cleft chin was square and strong. No one 
 could have called Sebastian Kendall a handsome boy, 
 but his was a beautifully modelled head, wide in the 
 brow, Grecian in its contour, and not only Vanessa saw 
 the promise in it. She appreciated the strength, yet 
 this afternoon she dreaded it. It seemed to her he had 
 come to some resolution, that he had something to say 
 to her of more importance than he had yet told her.
 
 40 SEBASTIAN 
 
 And she felt, instinctively, that whatever his determina- 
 tion, she would do well not to cross it. She had said to 
 herself a thousand times, noting other women with 
 adolescent children, that if there came a moment when 
 Sebastian and she thought differently on a given subject, 
 she would treat him as an equal. She would not oppose 
 her maternity to his intelligence. It was always Vanessa 
 Kendall's way to make phrases of her feelings, or reso- 
 lutions. At this period of her life she was primarily 
 a novelist. Motherhood, sisterhood, womanhood itself, 
 were shadows to the printed page's substance. 
 
 "Can we lie up by the lock, or are you in a hurry to 
 get home?" 
 
 "I am not in the slightest hurry. I can catch the 
 7.32, if that suits you?" 
 
 He brought the boat deftly to the side of the weir, 
 and shipped his sculls. 
 
 "Tie it up, and let us go for a walk," she suggested. 
 
 "No, I don't want to walk. She will ride all right 
 here. Make room for me, I am coming to sit beside you, 
 so that we can talk comfortably." 
 
 She made room for him; his young body, lax shoul- 
 ders, undeveloped chest, the boyishness of him, she saw 
 clearly. Nevertheless, it seemed to her that his mind 
 was developed, reliable ! She had a curious modesty, 
 curious considering her position. She never doubted 
 that the boy's brain was of better quality than her own. 
 She was ready to listen to him, not with condescension, 
 but with deference. They sat together comfortably 
 for a few moments, in silent companionship, but his face 
 was quite set and determined.
 
 SEBASTIAN 41 
 
 "You know, mater, after this, I can't stay." 
 
 She had the premonition of a shock, but nevertheless 
 it fell heavily. 
 
 "The Newcastle?" she reminded him. 
 
 "I knew you would be disappointed. I have made 
 up my mind to stay until after the Fourth, but I shan't 
 go and say good-bye to the Head, and I shan't take my 
 leaving book. I'll wash my hands of the beastly place 
 without any ceremony." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 "Oh, I knew you would feel pretty sick about it. 
 But that is only because you take a narrow view. Come 
 to think of it, what good am I doing here? Don't rot 
 about it, just think it out. There is a very decent set 
 of fellows at my tutor's, but you don't suppose they are 
 any companions to me, do you? When a man wants 
 to read, they bang at his door, or play a mouth-organ, 
 or get up an amateur band." Sebastian's grin held the 
 remembrance of many pranks. "Of course, it is all 
 right, it has been very jolly sometimes, but somehow 
 or other, I have outgrown horse-play, I don't find any 
 more fun in a mouth-organ, and I want to be free." 
 
 " I see your point of view. But not staying your time 
 out, and resenting this Harvey matter, seems to me, 
 nevertheless ' she hesitated a little for the word, 
 she wanted it to move him, "a little undignified." 
 
 "Mater, that is all rot. Dignity and exhibitions are 
 two words that can't be used in one sentence. I have 
 hinted what I'm going to say to you now half a dozen 
 times, but you never took any notice of it. I have gone 
 on in the path you laid out, just because you wanted it;
 
 42 SEBASTIAN 
 
 not because I have had any illusions about it. You set 
 your heart on my doing all the things that are no good 
 to anybody when they are done. And as learning is 
 easy enough to me I did them just to please you. Prizes 
 and scholarships have appealed to your vanity, not to 
 mine: I soon learnt they didn't lead anywhere. Far 
 from impressing the world I live in, they repel, and bore 
 it. Here I am neither fish, fowl, nor good red-herring. 
 At Hawtrey's, I worked for the Harrow Schol. when I 
 might have got into the second eleven; at Eton I have 
 flung away my chance for the eight, it was a very poor 
 one, by the way, by getting a reputation for Latin verse. 
 And, mind you, I am just as unpopular with the masters 
 as I am with the boys. They are here to teach the 
 Tugs, and watch the Oppidans. I have complicated 
 their work. They suspect a fellow of all sorts of things 
 if he doesn't play games, and he isn't a Tug. If you 
 knew the beastly minds of these people whom you expect 
 us to obey and to whom we are supposed to look up, 
 it would make you sick ! An average of, at least, ten 
 boys every half since I have been here, have been sacked, 
 or superannuated, because the authorities have neither 
 known how to guard, nor how to teach them. They 
 have been ruined for life, before they have learnt how 
 to take care of themselves, or to avoid the pitfalls, dug 
 by the beaks. There is no justice in the place. I don't 
 say it only because of my Harvey poem, although that 
 may help you to believe it. Look at Tagg's house, for 
 instance. It was broken up, and thirty fellows sent 
 away, whilst every lower boy in the whole school knew 
 they kept the two rotters who were responsible for all
 
 SEBASTIAN 43 
 
 the trouble, because one was in the boat, and the other 
 in the eleven. But I don't want to talk to you about 
 that. One of these days there will be some plain speak- 
 ing about it, and that will be the end of the famous public 
 school system ! The only thing we really are taught 
 here thoroughly is to hold our tongues; and for very 
 good reason too ! You are so sensible, that I don't 
 mind talking to you pretty straight ; I take it for granted 
 you know what I mean?" 
 
 She had not the slightest notion, but answered nothing. 
 
 "I've done my last stroke of work, school work. It's 
 no good, and I'm simply sick of boys and masters. I 
 suppose it is rather low down of me not to have spoken 
 out about the injustice, or resented it until it touched 
 me personally; but I believe I was coming to it. I've 
 studied to oblige you, since I've been seven years old, 
 and now I have finished with it. Do you think it matters 
 whether they're Eton boys, or Oxford boys ? Because it 
 doesn't, not a bit ! It is all run on the same lines. I've 
 put in my last piece of school work, you can bet on that. 
 There's no good arguing with me about it." 
 
 She was silent, and he too, for a minute. 
 
 "I suppose you think it's just because I have been 
 disappointed in the Harvey ? " he said tentatively. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I've been sick of it for a long time. You talk of 
 atmosphere; well, I'm in the wrong atmosphere. You 
 see, I don't really like any of the things the fellows about 
 here like, and I resent all the things they take for 
 granted." 
 
 "Stalky and Co.?"
 
 44 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I made old Ferguson mad by quoting that at him." 
 
 "Is there any use arguing? Are you open to argu- 
 ment ? Can I persuade you, do you think, not to throw 
 away your school career abruptly, not to leave Eton, so 
 to speak, under a cloud?" 
 
 "I'm not going on, if that's what you mean by 'am 
 I open to argument.' I see I've given you the hump." 
 For truly her face looked dull and disappointed, older, 
 as if the light had gone out of it. 
 
 "Well," as one making a great sacrifice, "I'll stay 
 the half out, if you want me to; and I'll get my leaving 
 book, although I'd like to refuse it, and tell the Head 
 what I think of the school, and the management generally ; 
 the antiquated laws, the beastly narrowness, and all the 
 injustice that's what I'd like to do. But I don't 
 want to worry you, you're not a bad sort, as mothers go, 
 so I'll leave in the odour of sanctity, just to please you, 
 and I'll give a dinner party, if it will run to it." 
 
 "Oh, that is all right," she interpolated hastily. 
 
 "A really good bust, champagne, you know. That's 
 the sort of thing they like, and I'll have an auction of my 
 things, and make them a farewell speech in debate." 
 
 He went into details as to how he should celebrate 
 his departure. And Vanessa sat beside him, silent. 
 The blow, for of course it was a blow, hurt her beyond 
 resentment. Sebastian had been brought up to expect 
 justice, perhaps more than justice. The platform, upon 
 which his character was being moulded, fell to pieces 
 when his work was unappreciated. She knew, immedi- 
 ately he had failed in obtaining the Harvey, that her 
 only chance of re-establishing the school authority with
 
 SEBASTIAN 45 
 
 him, lay in persuading him, or herself, here was another 
 genius in the field, and that a better poem had been sent 
 up. Had not young Sparkes, in the vanity of his heart, 
 exhibited his prize poem, she might have carried her 
 scheme through. But there was no argument for either 
 of them in face of Sparkes's poem. The authority with 
 which he was surrounded could not establish itself in the 
 face of such a decision. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't look so depressed. How would 
 you like to be shut up in a backyard ? That is the posi- 
 tion I'm in," he said, breaking off from his description of 
 the farewell supper he would give, to note her face. " It is 
 all very well for you to talk, why, you were married at 
 seventeen, and here am I, over that, and have never seen 
 the world at all." 
 
 She did not see the humour of his plaint, her sense of 
 humour, never her strongest point, was always in abey- 
 ance when she was following the convolutions of Sebas- 
 tian's mind ; she considered him too seriously, it was one 
 of her many mistakes. 
 
 " But you are not prepared to face the world," she said, 
 at length, hesitatingly. 
 
 "All rot, mater. Greek and Latin don't make you fit 
 to face the world, nor three years in a university. We 
 have too many of that sort here for me not to know." 
 
 " But you are not fit, you are not ready, you are not old 
 enough, to do anything." 
 
 She could not yet begin to focus him differently. 
 Before that shadowy university career was over, she 
 would have arranged the next section of his life ; without 
 that breathing time, she was nonplussed, all her images 
 confused.
 
 46 SEBASTIAN 
 
 " You know jolly well, that doing nothing is not my line. 
 I have never shirked work, nor idled, like the other 
 fellows." 
 
 It was true, Sebastian was a born worker; she made a 
 quick apology. 
 
 "Why, what I have hated most at Eton, after the 
 injustice of the expulsions, has been the encouragement 
 of the laziness;" he went on, "I have never seen why 
 it should be considered good form to get filthy dirty on the 
 footer field, and bad form to get a trial prize ; good form 
 to walk up and down the High, socking, and bad form to 
 sit in the library. Half the beaks have no common sense, 
 and the others have no power. The Head only cares 
 about the boat. And besides, mater," he began to 
 urge her along an easier path, "the place is fearfully un- 
 healthy. I know I never ever felt really well since I've 
 been here. We have been swamped every winter, and 
 the mud, well, you should just smell it ! " 
 
 She was beyond sustained speech, dull with disap- 
 pointment, with an overwhelming wish not to estrange 
 him, not to show herself out of sympathy with his sore- 
 ness, and irritation, and sense of having been badly 
 treated. To whom should he come for comfort and 
 comprehension, if not to his mother ? Again she thought 
 of Shelley and his parents. David Kendall was not like 
 that narrow squire, Shelley's father, not in the least like 
 him. But Vanessa wanted Sebastian to look to her, and 
 to her alone, for sympathy. Perhaps that was why she 
 asked: 
 
 "What do you think your father will say?" 
 
 Sebastian knew and trusted David better than Vanessa
 
 SEBASTIAN 47 
 
 ever had. That good, unusual father, of whom he so 
 seldom spoke, had touched some deeper spring in the boy's 
 fine nature than Vanessa had yet reached, notwithstand- 
 ing her intellectuality, and literary fame. 
 
 "Oh, he will be quite satisfied. But, mater, that 
 reminds me, there is something I have often been going 
 to ask you, you don't mind ' there was a certain 
 hesitation. What he had to ask seemed impertinent, 
 inquisitive. Sebastian was a little shy about it, and so 
 surprised her. 
 
 "Ask? Of course you can ask me anything ; why not? 
 I have no secrets from you. What is it ? Go on ! " 
 
 "About the business, about the pater's income? 
 Tell me, I don't ask out of curiosity, but before I make 
 my plans I want to know. Are we really so well off as we 
 seem ? Is the governor rich ? He hints sometimes 
 but there, of course, just tell me what you like. What 
 have I got to rely upon? " 
 
 "You have always had everything you want?" 
 she said quickly. 
 
 "Oh, that is because you are both such bricks to me. 
 I know how differently I am treated to other fellows, but 
 still ... I want to know how soon I ought to be earning 
 money; or if it will ever be necessary." 
 
 She did not reply at once. Her thoughts required re- 
 adjusting, she had had a shock, and her strength, that 
 strength upon which she prided herself, was reeling a 
 little. Of course, she had always known that Sebastian 
 had been a little outside, a little separate from his sur- 
 roundings at Eton. She had been satisfied, perhaps even 
 proud, that he had not assimilated the tone, that he had
 
 48 SEBASTIAN 
 
 not become the mere devotee of the school, a mere up- 
 holder of its conventions, like other boys. 
 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom had been a Borrow of the 
 towns, a wanderer, an intellectual gipsy. The Ventoms, 
 a long line of them, had been articulate with pen, or with 
 brush, one of them even with the violin bow. But no 
 Ventom had ever been articulate in praise of conserva- 
 tive rule. Reverence for tradition, and authority, was 
 not Sebastian's birthright, not from her side, that is to 
 say, and she wished to think, had taught herself to think, 
 that Sebastian was entirely a Ventom ; that David Ken- 
 dall's name was all that he bore of Kendall. It was one of 
 her dreams that he should discard even that. 
 
 "I think your father is a rich man; money has never 
 interested me very much. I suppose he does not work 
 all these hours for nothing. I have an income of my own, 
 your aunt and I have each five hundred a year, mine will 
 go to you when I die. Stella seems to do much more with 
 her money than I can, but then Stella, for all her seem- 
 ing frivolity, is wonderfully practical and clever. But 
 why are you asking ? Will you not let me see into your 
 plans ? What have you in your mind ? " 
 
 "Do you make a lot of money by your books, mater? 
 Of course I should be able to write, any fellow can earn 
 money that way, I suppose?" 
 
 She smiled at that. 
 
 "No! I do not think I make what you would call a 
 great deal of money." 
 
 "A good income ? " he persisted. 
 
 " I do not know what I make, I never go into it. When 
 my publisher sends me a cheque, I generally buy some-
 
 SEBASTIAN 49 
 
 thing unnecessary, china, prints, or ivories ; I suppose it 
 comes to a good deal, one way or another. I used to offer 
 the cheques to your father ; he never wished them to be 
 applied to household purposes. But why this sudden in- 
 terest in so strange a subject?" 
 
 "Well, it is difficult to form my plans without knowing 
 if I am justified in leading a comparatively selfish life for 
 a few years." 
 
 At some length Sebastian then proceeded to tell his 
 mother all over again why he had decided to leave 
 Eton, and why he refused to consider the idea of going 
 on to the 'Varsity. He dwelt again on the barren years 
 he had wasted in trying for valueless scholastic prizes, 
 letting the intellect, on which he prided himself, lie 
 fallow, whilst he associated with schoolboys and school- 
 masters, all of whom he found narrow, self-absorbed, and 
 unresponsive. He must gain experience. He admitted, 
 he rather more than admitted, he laboured the point, that 
 he had an idea in his head, but he did not wish to mention 
 it as yet. She longed for his complete confidence, but 
 would not press him for it. Listening to him, it became 
 more and more definite to her that his school-days were 
 inevitably over. Young as he was in his expressions, in 
 his undeveloped reasoning power, yet he was no longer 
 malleable. Nor could she conscientiously press him to 
 remain in subservience to an authority which he no longer 
 respected. 
 
 Sebastian's school-days were over. They had been one 
 long series of triumphs, one great gift to her. 
 
 They were not a caressing mother and son, but she 
 put her hand on his arm.
 
 50 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I won't balk you, Sebastian, I won't stand between 
 you and your needs. If you want to leave, you must 
 
 leave, but " her eyes softened, "but don't let it 
 
 alter things between us two. You will not be a school- 
 boy any more, but you will want me just the same, won't 
 you ? We shall be in sympathy just the same ? " 
 
 He was embarrassed by her half caress, by the hand on 
 his arm, the intimacy between them had been reached 
 without demonstration. 
 
 "That's all right, I knew I should be able to make you 
 listen to reason. I have not got the whole thing cut and 
 dried yet, but I must have six months in Paris to start 
 with, and I should like at least as long in Germany, Spain 
 and Italy. It is absurd to know only one language, one 
 hates to feel at a disadvantage with anybody, but of 
 course, it won't take me long to pick them up ; that sort 
 of thing comes easy to me." 
 
 "Then your Latin and Greek has not been wasted. 
 They will help you there?" She was pathetically eager 
 to justify the education she had thrust upon him. 
 
 "Oh yes, I daresay. But don't run away with the 
 notion that I'm going to spend the next few years only 
 in learning languages; they are simply an incident. I 
 don't want to tell you what I've got in my mind just yet, 
 nor the way I intend to get there." 
 
 A colour had come into his face, patchy, uneven; his 
 words were a little hurried, as if his breath came too 
 quickly. Whatever ambition he envisaged, whatever 
 goal he dimly saw, had obviously the power to move him, 
 and it moved her to a sympathetic thrill and silence. 
 His way must be left clear for him.
 
 SEBASTIAN 51 
 
 In the train, on the way home, she thought over all 
 that had occurred. Her belief in the boy was absolute, 
 and what he desired must be granted him, of that there 
 could be no doubt. She must break the news to the 
 boy's father, she must go through the farce of consulting 
 David. The end of the week would see her husband back 
 in Harley Street, and she would tell him that she had 
 decided to let Sebastian go abroad for a year or two 
 before he went to Oxford. That was the euphemism 
 with which she intended to cloak the affair. But she 
 hoped, she still hoped, that after these wandering years, 
 Sebastian might take up the thread of those studies he 
 now despised. 
 
 It vexed her to think, to remember, that she must con- 
 sult her husband. David Kendall had a thousand 
 virtues, but few of them appealed to her. He had, how- 
 ever, half a score of habits that were as blisters to her 
 social nerves. She was only free from irritation when she 
 was not in his company. She had never had a day's 
 illness, and her constitution was practically perfect, yet 
 a neuralgia of the conscience, physical in its effect, was 
 what her husband stood for in the limited ange of her 
 emotions. She had resented the marriage state from the 
 moment she had realised it, it was only her innate con- 
 scientiousness, and honesty, that had compelled her to 
 preserve its semblance. 
 
 But never, not until the very end, did she see, or under- 
 stand, David Kendall's tender, comprehending, daily, 
 and hourly effort that the chain should chafe only, and 
 not gall. Those awkward hands of his were for ever 
 tremulous in the effort to lift the fetters from eating into 
 her flesh.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was not strange that these daughters of the great 
 stylist had mismanaged their marriages. 
 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom had kept his twin girls 
 on the Continent during all their childhood. Their 
 mother had died in giving them birth, and with her, too, 
 died all that was young, and human, and natural, in 
 John Ventom. The children seemed no part of her, or of 
 him ; a cruel accident, a burden, where had been a bless- 
 ing. But he was always an honourable man, and he 
 accepted his responsibilities. Relations in England 
 approached him with kindness, with offers of adoption, 
 but he kept the little ones by him. They were to be 
 found, now in convent schools near Paris, now with 
 governesses and tutors in Rome, Vienna, Brussels, or 
 Florence, wherever his humour took him. He grew, 
 with their growth, into a vague, superficial intimacy with 
 them, and whenever no new work absorbed him, he found 
 pleasure in their society, in their intelligence and grace. 
 He had been occasionally interested in their likeness, 
 and unlikeness, to him and to each other, in the philology 
 of them, as it were. 
 
 But of the world, and its ways, of men and women, he 
 taught them nothing, and they had learnt nothing, when 
 at seventeen, they came to England for the first time. 
 
 The Honourable John Ashton was their great mis- 
 
 52
 
 SEBASTIAN 53 
 
 fortune. He met them in Venice, and achieved an 
 introduction. Their homeward journey was very dila- 
 tory and circuitous. The dissolute young attach6 had 
 ample opportunity for his wooing. Hepplewight-Ventom 
 had just begun to realise that Vanessa was intellectually 
 nearer akin to him than her sister. With the selfishness 
 of genius in pursuit of an idea, he absorbed whatever he 
 found of value. His then idea, and his whole mental 
 horizon was bounded by it, was a monograph on early 
 Italian missal paper. Vanessa's sympathetic intelli- 
 gence, young eyes, and enthusiasm were in constant re- 
 quest for the consideration and differentiation of speci- 
 mens. Stella was admittedly bored with such things. 
 Vanessa was then, and remained always, unobservant of 
 what held the attention of other girls or women. She 
 lived ever most vividly and intensely in her imagination ; 
 the monograph on fifteenth-century paper possessed her 
 entirely for the moment, she was inordinately proud that 
 her distinguished father should take her into his literary 
 confidence. 
 
 Stella had definitely engaged herself to Jack Ashton 
 before father or sister realised that they had been living 
 in an atmosphere of impetuous young love-making. And 
 then it was too late to interfere. But it was unlikely the 
 young couple would have had serious opposition to 
 encounter. John Hepplewight-Ventom believed in the 
 liberty of the individual, and he knew nothing, for or 
 against, Jack Ashton. The engagement was of little 
 importance in comparison with the monograph. 
 
 Before Vanessa had time to grow jealous of Jack's 
 monopoly of Stella's time, or interrogative of his desire,
 
 54 SEBASTIAN 
 
 or capacity, to make Stella's happiness, they were in 
 London, and David Kendall, of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall 
 and Co., owner of the Kendall Paper Mills, appeared on the 
 scene. 
 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom made David's life a burden 
 to him, whilst he was endeavouring to reproduce fifteenth- 
 century Italian paper. Vanessa and her father spent days 
 at the mills, and David discussed material, for hours, with 
 them in London. Experiments were made with every 
 description of recognised pulp, English, Irish, and Con- 
 tinental. There were old blue linen rags from Fra ce, 
 wood pulp from Norway, curious reeds from China, 
 esparto from South America, and pampas grass from 
 Canada. The wire frame, specially made with the 
 Ventom hieroglyphic, was dipped into every imaginable 
 mixture before the great faddist was satisfied. 
 
 Poor David fell humbly hi love with the bright- 
 eyed, graceful girl who was as keen as her father on 
 texture, colour, and printing possibilities. 
 
 Everybody knows what happened. The monograph 
 for which the experiments were being made was never 
 completed, the "limited edition" went no further than 
 the prospectus stage. The years in Italy had left the 
 idealist in no condition to brave an English spring; 
 he caught a cold and disregarded it, the cold became a 
 fever and was still ignored. Before the gravity of the 
 case was diagnosed, the danger signal of that first 
 haemorrhage had been hoisted. And it was never again 
 lowered. John Hepplewight-Ventom passed from one 
 rarefied atmosphere to another, one may hope more 
 rarefied.
 
 SEBASTIAN 55 
 
 There was no member of his family now ready to offer 
 a home to his suddenly orphaned girls; they were 
 practically without kin, and their trustees indifferent. 
 Jack Ashton pressed for an immediate marriage. In a 
 strange interview with Vanessa, immediately after the 
 funeral, a so-called business interview, about the now 
 useless sheets, David Kendall, moved by unmeasurable 
 pity, an almost insane desire to be of use, in an agony of 
 modesty and apprehension, put forth a timid suit. Stella, 
 coming in inopportunely, strengthened him to urge it. 
 
 What would Stella do without Vanessa? Vanessa 
 had talked wildly of returning to Italy, of taking up her 
 father's work; she was bewildered, weakened, by the 
 suddenness of her bereavement. Stella begged her not 
 to go away, not to leave her alone, she knew no husband 
 could replace her sister; perhaps, already, she doubted 
 the wisdom of her choice. It was what they had always 
 planned; to marry on the same day, to live in England, 
 as near as possible to each other. There was no other 
 way to fill the blank caused by their father's death. 
 
 There was argument, and misgiving, but Stella's af- 
 fectionate pleading prevailed, and on the same day that 
 Stella culminated her love affair with Jack Ashton, 
 Vanessa married David Kendall, to their mutual be- 
 wilderment and misfortune. 
 
 He knew, from the very beginning, that he had married 
 above him. Socially, intellectually, physically, he saw, 
 with painful accuracy of vision, the superiority of his 
 young wife. What he had expected when he secured the 
 treasure it is difficult to realise; what he received was 
 easy to see. His genuine humility of spirit, his complete
 
 56 SEBASTIAN 
 
 unselfishness, his overwhelming desire for her happiness, 
 were all obscured in her eyes in the early days, by his 
 obnoxious claim upon her. Had not Ventom's death 
 made Vanessa homeless, and threatened Stella with 
 loneliness, the marriage could never have taken place. 
 It was only Vanessa's unbalanced grief for her father, 
 her almost equally unbalanced love for Stella, that 
 blinded her, for a desperate hour, to David's and her 
 own incongruity. To her he was ever the typical trades- 
 man, awkward in a drawing-room, a trifle servile, of no 
 importance. 
 
 Because Stella, at seventeen, had fallen in love with 
 Jack Ashton, Vanessa had taken this husband whose 
 entire outlook upon the world was as a blank wall to her. 
 
 Vanessa was unconscious, and in her youthful hardness, 
 incapable, of realising how greatly her incongruous hus- 
 band loved and admired her. She resented marriage 
 intemperately, it had no meaning for her; between 
 herself and David Kendall the word held no holiness of 
 meaning. It was the man who recognised it, and early 
 made his renunciation, as an offering at the shrine of 
 his love. 
 
 The first year had been difficult, but for the advent 
 of Sebastian it might have proved impossible. But 
 David Kendall was extraordinarily moved by his new 
 dignity of fatherhood, accepting it in the lowliest of 
 spirit, striving for worthiness of his responsibility, be- 
 coming, if possible, more utterly selfless. Soon after 
 the birth of her son, Vanessa discovered that literature 
 was her metier; she wrote her first novel, and made a 
 small sensation with it, a sensation, and a success, that
 
 SEBASTIAN 57 
 
 both of them overestimated. But it proved the end of any 
 possibility of her acceptance of ordinary domestic life. 
 
 In the very earliest days of his marriage, David had 
 stood aside so that the sisters should not think of him 
 as of a barrier between them. He stood aside later, 
 that his wife should feel him to be no interruption to her 
 literary life. It was impressed upon him presently, that 
 his son was the grandson of John Hepplewight-Ventom, 
 and he let his own slighted paternity remain in the 
 background. 
 
 He grew to understand his young wife so well, and 
 to love her so greatly, notwithstanding, or perhaps 
 through, his complete comprehension, that he could 
 never forgive himself for having married her, nor palliate 
 his offence. His love and loyalty were never shaken 
 by her attitude toward him. But his self-esteem was 
 bruised and wounded; under her critical young eyes 
 he grew yearly more awkward, incongruous, less possibly 
 her husband. 
 
 He arrived in Harley Street a few days after Sebastian 
 had given in his ultimatum about Eton, after a week of 
 thought and toil, of the busy booking, and rapid execu- 
 tion of orders, of telegrams to and from his firm, calcu- 
 lations of freights and prices, of all the minutiae that 
 spell successful business. He returned home to an 
 empty house, to a chill unwelcome, and the dreariness 
 of its disregard. But he resented nothing. He made 
 no claim for appreciation, consideration, or compre- 
 hension. It was only as a firm that David Kendall still 
 asked for recognition. As an entity he had a complete 
 humility of spirit. But he was "our Mr. David," he
 
 58 SEBASTIAN 
 
 was David Kendall of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall and Co., 
 the firm that had been established over one hundred 
 years hi the City of London, and never had a question 
 raised as to its credit. He was proud of that, pathetically 
 proud, it stood to him for patriotism and religion, in 
 place of home and happiness, he clung to it as mystics 
 to their symbols. 
 
 His pride in the business that his grandfather had 
 created was utterly beyond the sympathy, or compre- 
 hension, of the daughter of John Hepplewight-Ventom. 
 It was a small business, a limited business; there was 
 no possibility of millions in it, not even of hundreds of 
 thousands, it was, at the best, a five or six thousand a 
 year affair, steady and unexciting. David Kendall 
 knew that his wife had a vague additional contempt 
 for him, because he was proud of that small solid busi- 
 ness. Vanessa was naturally frank, and David instinc- 
 tively reticent. She tried to conceal her feelings, she never 
 wished to hurt him; that she did so constantly, con- 
 tinuously, even fatally, was the secret he guarded from 
 her always. 
 
 He came home this Saturday and mounted the three 
 flights of stairs that led to his bedroom. He sat down 
 to recover himself, for his breath came quickly ; somehow 
 or other, although he was but a little past fifty, he felt 
 like an old man. He had gained weight rapidly lately, 
 and the stairs tried him. He had to remove his travel 
 stains, unpack, . transcribe his notes, put his papers in 
 order, but first he rested. He did not disguise from 
 himself that each time he came home from these busi- 
 ness journeys, which he took regularly four times a
 
 SEBASTIAN 59 
 
 year, he returned more weary, more consciously fatigued. 
 Although he was only fifty-one, he felt to-day that he 
 was almost worked out. And a pain, at the back of 
 his mind, that added bitterness to his over-fatigue, 
 was belief that he ought to let his partners know he was 
 no longer able to do them, nor the affairs of the firm, full 
 justice. He dreaded to tell them, he had had the fatigue 
 and doubt before, but he had put off telling them, for 
 he could not contemplate life without P. and A. Rendall. 
 He had always travelled for the firm, both in town, and 
 in the provinces, and if he were not fit to travel. . . . 
 
 To-day the stairs had tried him more than ever be- 
 fore, his breathing was more difficult, he had pins and 
 needles round his heart when he reached his room. A 
 "little inconvenience" he called it to himself, but never- 
 theless it terrified him. It terrified him because, once 
 or twice before, the pricking sensation, the pins and 
 needles, had, as it were, gathered themselves together, 
 in a sort of cramp. He bore pain well, but this pain was 
 almost unbearable; it made him helpless, and, not for 
 his own sake, he feared helplessness. 
 
 Vanessa, with her fine health, and strong brain, and 
 clear, sane outlook, shrank from weakness and help- 
 lessness; she felt them as a degradation, something of 
 which to be ashamed. He knew that, for Vanessa was 
 very open about her likes and dislikes, there was no 
 subtlety nor disguise, about her. It was only Stella 
 to whom she accorded her suffrages in illness. Stella's 
 unmistakable delicacy hurt Vanessa, got beneath the 
 surface of her hardness, and made her uncomfortable. 
 She met her trouble by denying its existence, for that 
 was her way.
 
 60 SEBASTIAN 
 
 David concealed his illness, whenever possible; for 
 he knew how it was with her. He was sorry, for her 
 sake, that he felt out of health and feeble. He looked 
 round his room now that he had managed to get up 
 there. It was bare, and chill, and sparsely furnished. 
 Vanessa liked colour and drapery and ornamentation; 
 her own rooms were luxurious. He thought how she 
 would hate to climb up here, and sit with him if he were 
 to have another illness. She would do it, she ever strove 
 to fulfil her duties toward him, he saw and appreciated 
 her struggle. She would come up here, and help to 
 nurse him, but she would do it with a sense of impatience, 
 luminous to him behind the cloak of her kind words and 
 service. She would never suspect that David saw the 
 impatience behind the words. Because David said so 
 little, she always thought David saw little. But, as a 
 matter of fact, he saw everything, as God may see our 
 human struggle, with infinite pity and forgiveness. 
 
 David had never been a strong man since he had had 
 typhoid, he knew exactly what Vanessa would do if he 
 became ill. She would get in nurses, and superintend 
 them, and twice, or even three times, a day she would 
 come into his room, and enquire how he felt. She 
 would sit with him when the nurses were at their meals, 
 trying to find subjects of conversation. She would 
 read to him. But even there their tastes were diametri- 
 cally opposed. Outside P. and A. Kendall, and the 
 paper trade, it was only science that interested David. 
 Vanessa's mind was essentially unscientific, yet she read 
 Huxley or Tyndal to him, conscientiously. 
 
 She would question him as to his symptoms, insisting
 
 SEBASTIAN 61 
 
 always that he was getting better. He would answer 
 her gratefully, reassuringly. After her task was over 
 she would go away, trying not to resent that he made 
 this dumb claim upon her. 
 
 In the years Sebastian spent at school, Vanessa's moral 
 growth had stopped. She had become, always more 
 definitely, an imaginative phrase-maker. She felt that 
 her life lay in her library, bending over her desk, pen in 
 hand, outside affairs. She created epigrammatists, the 
 real men and women she met, were too coarsely human; 
 they had not sufficient ideality for her. When she was 
 not writing, she found toys to play with; anything was 
 better than crude humanity. Her toys were needlework 
 pictures, she copied them exquisitely, prints and china, 
 ivories, and jade. She preferred them to everything 
 save Stella and Sebastian. She ought never to have 
 married. David heard her say this often, and she never 
 noticed that he winced whenever she said it. 
 
 Alone in that big, bare room, this afternoon, with the 
 pricking sensation round his heart, and some little fore- 
 sight of what it meant, David could feel, through his 
 fear and pain, a little hopeful, for Vanessa, that some day 
 she would be free from this burden of matrimony. He 
 found no fault with her, with her view of life and its 
 responsibilities. He had taken advantage of her youth, 
 ignorance of the world, of her sudden orphanhood, to 
 force his suit upon her. She was never like other girls. 
 No man had come into her life to make him jealous, 
 all she knew of love was her feeling for Stella. It was 
 her ambition, only, that the boy materialised, Sebastian 
 had not required tenderness from her; although his
 
 62 SEBASTIAN 
 
 days had not lacked tenderness. As yet, it seemed, he 
 was his mother's son, neither of them quite ripe in the 
 sun. 
 
 David, finishing his notes slowly, his dressing yet 
 more slowly, avoiding, however, that climax of pain that 
 he dreaded, thought, as ever, very lovingly, of Vanessa's 
 peculiarities. She was straightforward and honest, this 
 one partner of his who did not value him, she was beauti- 
 ful, brilliant, famous. How should she feel interest in a 
 middle-aged business man, tired, awkward, dull ! 
 
 The drawing-room, where he waited for her later on, 
 was an environment in which David never felt himself 
 at home. He had a knack, or habit, of stumbling over 
 anything that was in his way, and in Vanessa's drawing- 
 room everything was in his way ; lac screens, footstools, 
 and Chinese seats, Japanese dwarf trees in blue and 
 white dishes, small tables overladen with jade, with 
 famille verte vases, and famille rose plates. All these 
 things David Kendall dreaded; more than once he had 
 done irreparable injury to irreplaceable treasure. He 
 was out of place in his wife's drawing-room, he always 
 felt it; the very fact that he felt it so acutely, accen- 
 tuated it. 
 
 It was nearly eight o'clock when Vanessa came home. 
 
 "Oh, you are there," she said, opening the drawing- 
 room door, hurriedly. "I am sorry I am so late. I 
 have been at a matinee, and afterwards to tea with the 
 Robinsons, practically a suffrage meeting, with many 
 dissentients. I will be ready in ten minutes. Are you 
 all right?" 
 
 She was too anxious about the dinner hour to wait
 
 SEBASTIAN 63 
 
 for an answer. It was not a figure of speech; the re- 
 gret that she was late on the evening of David's return 
 to London was quite genuine. 
 
 She hurried over her dressing, hurried down to dinner, 
 determining to compensate him in some way for her 
 tardiness, to make the evening pleasant, to talk to him. 
 
 But it was always an effort to Vanessa to know what 
 to say to David, and this occasion proved no different 
 from any other. He knew that so well, he would have 
 helped her, had he been able. But subjects between 
 them were limited, mutual interests they had but one. 
 
 Over the soup she asked him, 
 
 "Did you have a good journey?" 
 
 "Fairly well, as things go. There's nothing much 
 doing just now, the paper trade is dull." 
 
 "What a pity! But anyway, it is a change for you, 
 getting away from London, interviewing a different set 
 of people." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there's something in that : and tell me, how 
 have you been getting on? What is the news here?" 
 
 " Nothing very new, I have been working all the week, 
 and Stella has absorbed most of my afternoons. There 
 were three first nights, but no good play." 
 
 "That must have been very disappointing." 
 
 They relapsed into silence until the next course ap- 
 peared. 
 
 "And what is the matter with Stella?" David asked 
 then. "I am sorry to hear she has been ill again." 
 
 "Dr. Gifford calls it influenza. I have been there a 
 good deal; in fact, I think if you do not mind I will go 
 to her this evening. Do you mind?"
 
 64 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Oh, of course not, if she is not well, you must not 
 leave her alone." 
 
 For what did the prospect of a solitary evening matter 
 to him, whose life was solitary ? 
 
 Glancing at him across the flower-laden dinner table, 
 the thought of his loneliness may have struck her, for 
 she said, as if to find occupation for that dull evening 
 of his, 
 
 "You have not read the paper, yet." 
 
 "Yes, I did, in the train, coming up. But it doesn't 
 matter, don't mind me; I am not feeling up to much 
 this evening, I shall probably go to bed early." 
 
 The dinner dragged on. 
 
 "Sebastian wants to leave Eton," she announced, 
 abruptly, when the servants had withdrawn. 
 
 "Yes, I know. He wrote to me to Manchester." 
 
 "Why did he write to you? What did he say?" she 
 asked, quickly. 
 
 "I have got the letter somewhere." 
 
 It was a way he had, to forget where he put things, 
 one of his many ways that irritated her. He felt in all 
 his pockets now, wondered whether he had dropped it 
 anywhere, was flustered at her obvious impatience, yet 
 sympathised with it. 
 
 "No, I believe, after all, I must have left it upstairs." 
 
 "You might have known I should want to see it," 
 she exclaimed, impatiently. 
 
 "But you saw him recently; you spent a whole day 
 with him!" 
 
 "That doesn't make any difference, I like to see what 
 he writes to you."
 
 SEBASTIAN 65 
 
 "He was quite well, I suppose?" 
 
 "Oh, of course he was well, quite well, he always is, 
 he inherits my constitution. But what was in the letter ? 
 What made him write to you at all?" 
 
 He got up : 
 
 "I will go and fetch it." 
 
 She could not but note the slowness of his movement, 
 the almost unwillingness. 
 
 "Let John fetch it," she said, much more gently. 
 It was not that she was deficient in heart, it was only that 
 David had ever abstained from making appeal to it, and 
 that it was not yet full grown, a little atrophied for want 
 of use. 
 
 "Oh, no, he would not be able to find it, I don't quite 
 know what I did with it." 
 
 "You never do know what you do with anything," 
 she murmured. She had not meant him to hear, but 
 he heard. 
 
 He looked grey when he came down with the letter, 
 his lips colourless. 
 
 "Dear Pupsie," the boy had written, in his irregular 
 schoolboy's hand, " I am seeing the mater on Wednesday, 
 so she will be able to tell you all my news when you come 
 back; this is only just to cheer you on your beastly 
 business journey. I'm sorry things are not as brisk as 
 you would like them to be. I knew you had the hump 
 at half-term. I hope you've sold stacks, and got cheery 
 since then. You must come down for the Fourth, there 
 are lots of things I want to talk to you about. I am 
 going to leave, for one thing ! ! ! ! 
 
 "Sparkes got the Harvey. Poor beggar! I don't
 
 66 SEBASTIAN 
 
 grudge it him, his people think he's a genius, and they 
 may as well remain of that opinion whilst he's here. Can 
 I have a couple of change suits and a proper shooting- 
 coat? It will save a lot of time if I get my things at 
 Brown's. I want a new dress-suit, too. I hope you 
 don't think I'm very extravagant. By the way, I used 
 a lot of paper over my Harvey poem, so I suppose we got 
 something out of it after all. I was sick about it at 
 first, but I don't care much now, it was rather footle any- 
 way, though the mater thought a lot of it. Buck up, 
 
 "So long, 
 "Always loving son, S. R." 
 
 Vanessa had no pleasure out of the letter. Nobody 
 else would have -called it a sentimental letter, but to 
 Vanessa it read in this way. 
 
 "It is such a pity you allow yourself to be depressed 
 when you are with Sebastian, it is very bad for him. 
 He asked me if we could afford to let him go abroad for 
 a year or two ! I don't think you ought to let him know 
 when business is bad. I suppose all businesses are bad, 
 at times. Stella tells me her dressmaker was complain- 
 ing just in the same way. I should not be surprised if 
 it were that talk of yours about bad times that has 
 induced Sebastian to give up trying for the Newcastle, 
 insist on leaving Eton, and not going up to Oxford." 
 
 "What's that?" said David, surprised for once out of 
 silence. 
 
 "Sebastian does not want to go on to Oxford." Her 
 heart sank as she said it ; it seemed the end of all things. 
 
 There was a pale dawn of hope, of relief, in David's 
 dull eyes ; as if of light on a dark horizon.
 
 SEBASTIAN 67 
 
 "He is seventeen. I was in the office when I was 
 fifteen." 
 
 "You!" she said, quickly, and then checked herself. 
 She must not tell her husband that he could not compare 
 himself with Sebastian. "Sebastian has such excep- 
 tional gifts," she added, almost apologetically. 
 
 David admitted there was little analogy. Sebas- 
 tian's scholastic capacities were out of the common, and 
 his had been but ordinary. But Sebastian had other 
 qualities, qualities of which David knew more than 
 Vanessa. 
 
 "What does he want to do?" 
 
 "He wants to go abroad for a year or two, to study 
 modern languages. I don't quite know his plans." 
 
 She was already sorry she had been impatient over 
 the letter, that David should have had to mount to the 
 top of the house for it. 
 
 "That is why I was so anxious to see his letter. I 
 thought he might have given you some hint, some clue." 
 
 He solaced her pride. 
 
 "It is not likely he would have told me anything he 
 had kept from you." 
 
 "No," she answered. "No, of course not. But I am 
 very anxious." 
 
 She tried to talk to him about Sebastian, but David 
 was unfortunate in saying he was not sure that Eton had 
 ever been Sebastian's proper environment. Vanessa 
 could not bear criticism from David, and it was she who 
 had selected Sebastian's school. She tried not to show 
 her irritation, but it was a complete failure. David 
 saw her effort, and the difficulty she had, after that, in 
 making conversation.
 
 68 SEBASTIAN 
 
 The constraint between them was always growing; 
 Vanessa could not be natural, or at ease, with her hus- 
 band; she had allowed herself first to despise, then to 
 ignore, finally, to be sorry for him, and this was the 
 worst stage. Her conscience was never clear as to her 
 conduct toward him, yet all the efforts to alter it resulted 
 in failure. She could not but realise his qualities. But 
 her eyes were critical of his contours, and her ears were 
 impatient of his cough. It was absurd that he should 
 deem himself qualified to judge of what was best for 
 Sebastian. 
 
 Presently he suggested that if she were going to 
 Weymouth Street it was time to start. He offered to 
 walk round with her, but she preferred to drive. She 
 hesitated about leaving him alone, but he reassured her, 
 he said he was tired from the journey, he would soon be 
 going to bed. 
 
 And, indeed, when she had been persuaded that he 
 really did not desire her to stay at home with him, she 
 felt glad. 
 
 David, when he was alone again, dozed over his cigar, 
 for half an hour, in the easy-chair. When the servants 
 woke him, coming in to clear the dinner things away, 
 he roused himself sufficiently to go, very slowly, up to 
 bed. 
 
 But he felt happier this evening than he had for some 
 time. Sebastian was leaving Eton; it had never been 
 the right place for him. David's compunction for having 
 made Vanessa his wife prevented him opposing her 
 wishes. But he knew his own weakness, and his con- 
 science, even more sensitive than Vanessa's, sometimes 
 tortured him with the fear lest he sacrifice Sebastian to it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHEN Sebastian came home at the end of the summer 
 half, with his leaving book, a presentation volume from 
 his tutor, an autographed, slender folio of indifferent 
 poems from one of the masters, and the usual quantum 
 of prizes, he had only a few days at home before him, 
 for he had accepted an invitation to Scotland for the 
 12th, from a school friend. 
 
 That first night at dinner he talked, not of his school 
 triumphs, for to them he had always been indifferent, 
 but with boyish swagger, about grouse. He aired some 
 newly acquired information, and was voluble on the 
 subject of a Harris tweed shooting-coat, with leather 
 on the shoulders, and a particular make of pocket. 
 
 His mother had promised him a gun, and this gun, 
 for which he had already been carefully measured, filled 
 the foreground of his talk. He told his father, inciden- 
 tally, that he should want a "pot of money" for travel- 
 ling and tips, as he must "do the thing well." 
 
 David smiled his assent. 
 
 "You can have what you want, of course," he said. 
 
 But before the evening was over, somehow or other ; 
 Sebastian's spirits had sunk, and his loquacity faltered. 
 
 David announced himself as "rather tired," about 
 ten o'clock, and went off to bed. 
 
 69
 
 70 SEBASTIAN 
 
 " Doesn't the pater look seedy, or is it my idea ? " 
 he asked his mother, when they were alone. 
 
 "Seedy? does he? I had not noticed," Vanessa 
 answered, indifferently. 
 
 And then she began to question the boy on his future 
 plans, to probe quietly for his confidence. She could not 
 pretend to undue interest in David's health, with Se- 
 bastian to hold her. She was glad David's short cough 
 was no longer in the room. It checked conversation, 
 punctuating it in the wrong places, it was supremely 
 irritating. 
 
 The next day was Friday. The office in Queen Vic- 
 toria Street was closed until after the Bank Holiday. 
 David said it was a treat to be at home, to have nothing 
 to do. He walked about the house, restlessly. Yet 
 he had no place there, no hobby, no occupation ! The 
 boy sympathised with him. 
 
 "It must be a fag, going every day to the same place, 
 at the same time, doing the same thing." 
 
 David told him there was never monotony in business, 
 there was endless variety. He grew quite animated 
 talking of the shifting kaleidoscope of commerce, of 
 detail and organisation. 
 
 "He likes talking about Queen Victoria Street," 
 Sebastian said, almost reproachfully, to Vanessa. 
 "Why did you interrupt him? It is very interesting, 
 I like hearing about it, too." 
 
 "I thought you were being bored; it bores me un- 
 utterably, to hear what Hopkins ordered, or Hayling 
 sent back." 
 
 "It is his whole life."
 
 SEBASTIAN 71 
 
 Before the end of that three days Sebastian found 
 himself, involuntarily, watching his father, jumping up 
 when he came into the drawing-room, insisting on his 
 resting on easy-chair, or sofa. With some gentle sort 
 of roughness he began ordering his father about, and 
 "bullying him" as he put it. 
 
 "What have you been rushing for, pater?" he would 
 ask, when the quick breathing made him think that 
 David had been hurrying. "You have got lots of time; 
 you have got all the time that is ! What is the good of 
 sprinting, and playing you are a two-year-old? Take 
 it easy; it's weight for age, you know." 
 
 "I'm all right, don't mind me." That was David's 
 response, it had become a mechanical one with him. 
 
 But, nevertheless, he was glad of the young arm; 
 proud, and moved, by the slangy, indefinite sympathy. 
 
 If that Saturday to Monday was not a gay time for 
 Sebastian, David at least had some happy moments. He 
 would obey the boy, lie down on sofa or easy-chair, and 
 watch him whilst he talked, or read, or lounged. 
 
 Vanessa was little at home. Stella was in the throes 
 of her quarterly attack of influenza. She considered 
 herself neglected if Vanessa spent less than half the day 
 with her. Vanessa felt herself justified in leaving David, 
 even if he were "rather run down, "since she was leaving 
 the boy with him. It was comparatively a free time 
 with her. "Persimmon and the Fig Tree" had been pub- 
 lished just after Easter. A new idea was germinating, 
 but she had got little further than a title. She could 
 lend herself to her ties. It was fortunate that Stella 
 needed her now.
 
 72 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Whilst Vanessa was occupied with Stella's varying 
 symptoms, her husband and son were together for many 
 hours. Sebastian became more uncomfortable, less 
 certain about his immediate future ; he grew deeper into 
 his father's confidence. Not that David told him things, 
 but the boy really had remarkable perception, and he 
 began dimly to see the things that David left untold. 
 It struck him, that his mother had stood between him 
 and at what he ought to look. And the thing at which 
 he had to look, although he saw it dimly, being very 
 young, and very self-absorbed, was that his father was 
 not in good health, and felt the strain of business, of 
 earning the income upon which he and his mother lived 
 luxuriously. 
 
 He had expected to enjoy these holidays, but the be- 
 ginning of them, at least, he found anything but enjoy- 
 able. His father was only fifty-one, other fellows' 
 fathers, older than his, still played cricket, and golf, 
 laughed heartily, were full of their own pleasures, lived 
 selfishly. His father had no pleasure but in him; he 
 was always tired, and his cough seemed to shake him. 
 He said he was all right, that there was nothing the 
 matter with him, that Sebastian must go away, and enjoy 
 himself. But Sebastian was never quite like other boys. 
 The cough that only vexed Vanessa, stirred something 
 in him that made him doubt, and question, and feel 
 depressed. 
 
 At the end of the three days of holiday David went 
 back to business, and Sebastian took advantage of the 
 occasion to visit the Gun Club, and try his new acquisi- 
 tion.
 
 SEBASTIAN 73 
 
 Dining together that evening, at first, the little party, 
 of three was unusually animated. Sebastian was full 
 of his exploits, his parents of appreciation. They had 
 even exchanged sympathetic looks. One of the instruc- 
 tors had told the boy he had "all the makings of a fine 
 shot, "and he said he had made up his mind that he would 
 show the Aspreys something, when he got among the 
 grouse. He made reckless plans for the disposal of his 
 bags of game. His spirits had risen again suddenly, 
 for no apparent reason, and he kept up a continual flow 
 of conversation. 
 
 Neither he, nor Vanessa, noticed that David, since the 
 soup, had eaten nothing, that the colour in his face 
 was rather deeper than usual, and his lips bluish. The 
 flow of Sebastian's conversation, for once, seemed end- 
 less to his father, the dinner interminable. If he were 
 only alone, he could bear what was coming. He wanted 
 to ask Sebastian to help him to his room, or to go out 
 of this, and leave him to himself, but no words came. 
 
 The throes of a physical terror were fastening upon 
 David. The pricking sensation that he knew so well 
 began its ominous warning. He filled his wine-glass 
 with trembling hand, some of the spirit was spilled on 
 the table-cloth; Vanessa looked up, and he felt she was 
 criticising his awkwardness. He could not even apolo- 
 gise, he was absorbed in trying to avert the impending 
 attack, the brandy seemed to help a little, and he reached 
 out for more. 
 
 "What are you doing?" asked Vanessa. "Isn't 
 that your third glass ? " 
 
 There had been times lately when a faint suspicion
 
 74 SEBASTIAN 
 
 had dawned in Vanessa's mind ; David was so curiously 
 unsteady, and now he kept a bottle of brandy in his room ! 
 His hand stopped mechanically in the act of filling his 
 glass, his eyes were dim and strained. 
 
 "Are you not accustoming yourself - to stimulants ?" 
 she said gently, uneasily. 
 
 He could not answer, the pain was deepening its hold, 
 he feared, he feared horribly what was coming. 
 
 "Hullo! taken to drink?" Sebastian turned to him, 
 smiling, but what he saw made him call out quickly: 
 
 "What's the matter?" His young shrill voice was 
 full of fear ; he ran to his father, and put thin arms about 
 him. "What is it ? Lean on me. Ring the bell, mater, 
 quickly, he's ill, he's awfully ill. . . . Oh, Pupsie !" 
 
 The boy's strength was not equal to the man's weight. 
 David slid through his arms to the floor ; the pain went 
 beyond disguise, presently beyond consciousness. 
 
 The sudden change in Sebastian's tone brought 
 Vanessa to them. 
 
 "You stay where you are," she said, hurriedly, her 
 own heart suddenly palpitating. "Lower him gently." 
 Her hand was on the bell. " Go at once for the doctor," 
 she told the man. 
 
 "Oh! can't you do something for him? Can't you 
 do anything, mater?" The anguish in the boy's voice 
 distressed her. She tried to get a teaspoon of brandy 
 through the closed lips. She felt wretchedly, that she 
 was only resenting this call on her, she tried to overcome 
 her repugnance, to be of use. Sebastian could do nothing 
 but try and hold his father in his arms, fling himself be- 
 side him on the floor, and hold to him, as if he could hold
 
 SEBASTIAN 75 
 
 the pain away. David was not so far gone, but that he 
 could feel the thin arms. Before the paroxysm of agony 
 had passed, he even tried to smile reassuringly. 
 
 "Oh, don't!" 
 
 Sebastian burst into tears; for he saw the effort his 
 father was making, and he held him closer. 
 
 "Oh, pater, pater!" Feebly through the dimness of 
 his subsiding anguish, David murmured : 
 
 "I'm all right," breathlessly he got out: "don't 
 cry, I'm . . . getting better ..." 
 
 "He is swallowing the brandy, his colour is coming 
 back. Try what you can do, he will take it from you." 
 But Sebastian's left hand was shaky, and his right arm 
 was round his father's neck. 
 
 "You go on, mater," he said, in his broken voice. 
 Vanessa held the glass to her husband's lips, wishing she 
 could feel anything but repulsion, feel differently. He 
 smiled at her, and tried to thank her, he could hear the 
 vibration of the boy's sobs. 
 
 "I'm sorry ... to be ... so troublesome." 
 
 And after another pause, when a little more strength 
 returned : 
 
 "Don't stay with me, I'm all right. Sebastian, . . . 
 your mother, she can't bear this, send her away." 
 
 All the time it was of them, not of himself, he was 
 thinking. It was the worst attack he had had, the 
 agony had been unbearable. But he kept murmuring 
 that it had passed, that he was better now, they were 
 not to mind . . . His exhaustion did not make him, 
 for a moment, oblivious of Sebastian's grief, hardly of 
 his wife's pallor.
 
 76 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Dr. Gifford's arrival was like air and sunshine in the 
 room; the awful shadow they had seen on David's face 
 seemed no longer there. 
 
 "Ah, he has had one of his attacks of indigestion?" 
 the doctor said, coolly, rapidly taking in the state of 
 affairs. He knelt down beside the patient, displacing 
 Vanessa, putting Sebastian, too, gently aside. He had 
 .his hand on David's pulse. 
 
 "You've given him brandy, quite right. Lie still, 
 dear fellow, you'll be all right in a few minutes, now. 
 Here, Sebastian, just you put your hand in my pocket, 
 and give me a case you'll find there. That's it, now 
 open it." 
 
 The doctor broke a little glass ball ; there was a curi- 
 ous, pungent smell in the room. Almost before they 
 had got used to it, David's breathing was easier, and his 
 face had grown flushed. Dr. Gifford unfastened his 
 waistcoat, then his collar. "Open the window, give me 
 that cushion, here, put it just under his head, gently 
 now," for Sebastian, in his anxiety to be of use, lost some- 
 thing of his deftness. "He will do all right now, don't 
 you move, don't you dare to move;" David was trying 
 to get up. "No, no; I know all about it; you want to 
 apologise for being such a trouble to us all. Well, it is 
 an unconscionable hour to call me out; and just when I 
 had sat down to dinner, too ! But your wife is going to 
 order me up something to eat. And you will lie where 
 you are, and entertain me, whilst I sample a glass of your 
 best champagne." 
 
 Dr. Gifford's tact was not cultivated, it was the efflo- 
 rescence of a large heart, kept constantly informed by
 
 SEBASTIAN 77 
 
 a clear brain. He knew the danger of David RendalFs 
 condition, and what it indicated; but nothing was to 
 be gained by alarming the invalid or those who would 
 have to minister to him. 
 
 Therefore he sat until he thought it was safe for his 
 patient to be taken upstairs, making a pretence of dining; 
 talking of himself, and his day's engagements, his hurried 
 breakfast and missed lunch, interrupted dinner, and the 
 inroads he was making into his capacity for supper. 
 He brought into the excited atmosphere that sense of 
 security that comes from commonplace things. The 
 figure on the floor was no longer tragic, when Dr. Gifford, 
 with a mouthful of chicken, was telling an anecdote of 
 two sisters who had come to his consulting room that 
 morning to induce him to take their cases at reduced fee, 
 because they would both require his services at about 
 the same time, and "there was always a reduction for 
 quantity." He made it seem quite absurd and amusing. 
 Although Vanessa considered it rather a coarse story, 
 and was sorry Sebastian should hear it, she recovered 
 her wonted serenity under it, and, after all, that had been 
 the result at which the narrator aimed. 
 
 "You will have to give up rushing through your 
 meals," he told David, who was lying on the floor, getting 
 flushed, and easier, under the rug that had been flung 
 over him. "Indigestion plays the very deuce with a 
 man of your age. The food presses on the thorax; 
 before you know where you are, an irritation is set up; 
 pain comes on, and a man thinks he has heart disease, 
 when it is only a rump steak in the wrong place." 
 
 It was very reassuring Jo the two listeners, who knew
 
 78 SEBASTIAN 
 
 nothing of medicine, and had unbounded confidence in 
 their doctor. Almost before David had been got up- 
 stairs, with the help of a carrying chair, borrowed from 
 a neighbouring doctor, Vanessa was thinking of the dra- 
 matic value of the scene, and Sebastian had remembered 
 to be ashamed of his tears. 
 
 "I will give him a few of those glass things to carry 
 about with him," Dr. Gifford said, on the steps, to Sebas- 
 tian, as he bade him good-night. "And never hesitate 
 about the brandy if he gets an attack whilst you are with 
 him; carry a flask about with you." 
 
 " Is he, is he very ill ? " Sebastian had not quite re- 
 covered his self-possession. "Is it really only indi- 
 gestion ? " 
 
 Dr. Gifford threw a kindly arm across the boy's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "He wants all we can do for him, poor fellow. But 
 he is all right for to-night, I think. Come round and see 
 me in the morning, and we will have a chat about him." 
 
 "I think, after all, it will be a bit slow in Scotland," 
 Sebastian said to his mother at breakfast the next day. 
 "The journey is an awful fag. I am really getting great 
 fun at the Gun Club. In fact, I've made up my mind 
 not to go, anyhow for another week or two." 
 
 "I am glad to have you here," was all she said, and 
 even that was a little perfunctory. For she had just 
 found a wonderful title, and was longing to get at her 
 first chapter. It was a pity she had so many ties. She 
 had satisfied herself already that David was all right,
 
 SEBASTIAN 79 
 
 climbing up the stairs, even before breakfast, to dutifully 
 inquire. He told her he had had a good night, and he 
 felt quite himself, and there was nothing in an attack of 
 indigestion to keep him at home. He quoted Dr. Gifford. 
 She strongly advised him to remain in bed. But he 
 wanted to go out, he was overburdened with a sense of 
 hurry, so many things required putting in order. 
 
 "Don't you mind about me, there's a good dear," 
 he said. And again it was the phrase, and not David, 
 she found arresting. She wanted to edit it. Anyway he 
 said he was well again, and she accepted his statement. 
 
 After breakfast it was necessary she should go round 
 to Stella. Heaven only knew when she could get a 
 couple of uninterrupted hours in her study. But she 
 had found her title. "Between the Nisi and the Abso- 
 lute" a strange time of waiting, emotion in suspense, a 
 wonderful subject. 
 
 Every morning, during all his adult life, punctually 
 at a quarter to nine, David had gone to the mills, or to 
 Queen Victoria Street. " Don't try and make me change 
 now," he urged, and she acquiesced. He did his best, 
 too, to reassure Sebastian, who breakfasted with him, 
 and scolded him for getting up, and for contemplating 
 going out. But David gained his point. 
 
 "Do you think the pater is really right in going out 
 to-day?" the boy asked Vanessa. He had put on his 
 hat, and was walking round with her to Weymouth Street. 
 " He seems to me to look jolly seedy. I think you ought 
 to make him chuck the office for a bit; stay at home, 
 and take care of himself, he has a beast of a cough, and 
 he gets those pains now and then, you know."
 
 80 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Oh, don't worry about your father, dear," she an- 
 swered, "he is always the same, he always has been the 
 same; illness is merely a habit he has contracted, a 
 hobby with him. It stands him in place of golf, or stamp 
 collecting. He says he is always quite well in the City. 
 You heard Dr. Gifford tell us the attack we saw was 
 nothing but indigestion. And he worries unnecessarily 
 about business. There seem to be good and bad seasons 
 in the paper trade; that, and not taking any exercise, 
 is what has upset him. I hope, by the way," she turned 
 to him, abruptly, "it is not through any idea about your 
 father that you have given up your visit to Scotland?" 
 
 " Oh, no, of course not," he answered, quickly. The 
 boyish shyness at the thought that any sentimentality 
 should be attributed to him, naturally taking alarm. 
 "It is such a rotten journey." 
 
 "Yes, it is long. Of course I am glad to have you 
 with me a few days more. I am only sorry I cannot be 
 with you all the time, but Aunt Stella's condition worries 
 me. This is the third attack of influenza she has had this 
 year; she has a bad throat, and she eats nothing, and 
 altogether I am not satisfied about her. I think I shall 
 have another doctor for her this afternoon." 
 
 He walked by her side, rather silently, through the 
 wide gloom of Harley Street, to the narrow quiet of 
 Weymouth Street. Just before they came to Stella's 
 door he said : 
 
 "I am not so abso-bally-lutely certain about going 
 abroad, mater." 
 
 She stopped suddenly at that, and eagerly. 
 
 "You are going to work at home. You are going to
 
 SEBASTIAN 81 
 
 have a coach, you are going up to Oxford, after all. 
 Oh, Sebastian, you do not know what it means to me." 
 
 "You think I should get a scholarship?" he said, 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Not a scintilla, not a shadow of doubt of it, there is 
 nothing you could not do. Well, we will talk about it at 
 tea-time. Father won't be in by then, so we shall be 
 quite undisturbed." Her face was bright, her interest 
 eager, and somehow that hurt him. 
 
 "She is jolly anxious about Aunt Stella, who has the 
 flue, a common thing that every one gets; she doesn't 
 seem to think about the governor," the boy commented, 
 as he followed her into his aunt's house. But all he 
 answered was : 
 
 "As I am here, I may as well come in, and see what 
 Bice is doing to-day." 
 
 "We shall be quite undisturbed at tea-time, we can 
 talk things over," Vanessa said again^ from the door. 
 "Your father won't be in by then." 
 
 The boy thought that it was a long day's work for a 
 man, for any man. He counted it up; nine to seven, 
 ten full hours ! And his father's face, on which he had 
 never seen anger, nor reproach, nor anything but affec- 
 tion, would persistently intrude. It was a plain face, 
 lined, and tired, and old, but it rose before him, and there 
 was something in it that made a lump in his throat. 
 
 Was his mother blind, or was he fussing about 
 nothing ? Damn it ! it was hard on a fellow when his 
 father looked like that. 
 
 He did not care to be alone, thinking over these things. 
 
 In the last few days he had almost forgotten Miss
 
 82 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Pleyden-Carr, but now he went to seek her and Bice in 
 the schoolroom. Because he was restless and unhappy 
 himself, he teased Bice, until she rushed from the room 
 in tears. 
 
 "Now we can talk comfortably," he said, flinging him- 
 self on the sofa. He wanted something to distract his 
 mind. 
 
 "I don't know that I ought to let you stay," Miss 
 Pleyden-Carr replied, hesitatingly. 
 
 Bice's companion-governess, Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's 
 daughter, was blonde cendre, almost an albino. Masses 
 of pale hair surmounted a childish face, with blue in- 
 genuous eyes, her nose and mouth were too small, and 
 all her features insignificant. But nine people out of ten 
 would have called her a very pretty girl, delicately and 
 exceptionally pretty. She prided herself on an eighteen- 
 inch waist that needed no compression, and a straight 
 back. Her toilette occupied many hours, her looking- 
 glass had absorbed her vitality. She was about twenty 
 years of age, and without an interest in the world beyond 
 her own feeble personality. 
 
 "I don't think you ought to stay, since Bice has 
 rushed away. I think I ought to go after her " 
 
 "Oh! Come now, there's no harm in our being to- 
 gether." He was very flattered at the suggestion that 
 it was not safe for him to be alone with her. "We don't 
 get much talk together, that little vixen is always in 
 the way. Tell me, now, if I stayed in London, would a 
 fellow have a chance with you ? I suppose* it isn't true 
 that you are engaged? Bice tried to get a rise out of 
 me by saying you were."
 
 SEBASTIAN 83 
 
 There was a beastly time in front of him, everything 
 was beastly, he might as well get any compensation that 
 was possible. 
 
 "Are you going to stay in London?" 
 
 "Well, what inducement will you give me?" 
 
 "What inducement could / give you?" 
 
 "You might say you wanted me, that you liked being 
 with me, for instance." 
 
 "Bice doesn't care for you to pay me much attention." 
 
 "But what is your view? that is the question; not 
 what Bice thinks. You get a day out now and then, 
 don't you ; we might do a Greenwich dinner, or Rich- 
 mond, together?" 
 
 He was cutting rather a dash here after all ; his mer- 
 curial spirits began to rise. 
 
 "Ought I to?" she answered, with encouraging hesi- 
 tation. 
 
 There was really much of the child in Pleasey, not- 
 withstanding her position. She had a child's greed, 
 although not for childish things. Her life was dull, 
 work of any sort was uncongenial to her, and she was 
 vaguely bored with Bice's activities. 
 
 "I don't think I ought to promise to go out with you. 
 Bice would not like it if she knew." 
 
 "She won't know, nobody will know. That is where 
 the fun will come in. You leave it up to me. We'll 
 have a ripping time." 
 
 "But I heard you were going abroad." 
 
 " Never you mind what you heard. I might be going 
 abroad, if you were going with me." 
 
 He felt himself a very Lothario when he had said
 
 84 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that, and the colour flushed into his cheek. He came 
 over to where she was sitting, and stood beside her chair. 
 Further than that he would scarcely have ventured with- 
 out more encouragement. But his heart was beating 
 rather fast, and in his brain thronged a hundred ro- 
 mantic incidents. "After all, a fellow must have some 
 fun," summarising them. 
 
 "You know you are awfully good-looking," he went 
 on. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't say such things." 
 
 "And what a ripping lot of hair you have got. I'd 
 like to see it down." 
 
 " I don't like my hair, I wanted it to be dark and curly, 
 like Bice's." 
 
 " Bice ? She's a perfect little gipsy ! " 
 
 "She is very fond of you." 
 
 "I wish you were." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "Do you think you could get fond of a fellow?" 
 
 "I know how clever you are." 
 
 "Oh! bar rot now." 
 
 He came quite close to her, not quite sure what was 
 stirring in him. 
 
 She was demure, but not discouraging. 
 
 "I say " 
 
 He wanted to kiss her, and she knew he did. It was 
 a pretty game, and Pleasey had played it often. This 
 time she had to be the teacher, and the lesson led but 
 a little way. But even that little way took the boy, 
 momentarily, out of that shadow-land of fear and mis- 
 giving in which he had been moving the last few days.
 
 SEBASTIAN 85 
 
 He thrilled with some unrecognised emotion, the sap 
 rising in his veins brought the promise of manhood to 
 him. In long, dim distance he had been gazing fearfully, 
 ignorantly, at death. Now, not less ignorantly, but with- 
 out fear, he gazed at life. 
 
 "How good you are to me," he said to her. "I've 
 been jolly miserable lately." For in the end, after much 
 fencing and demureness, she had let him kiss her, one 
 shy boy's kiss, on her pale cheeks, and then she played 
 at being ashamed, and lit his chivalry. 
 
 "Let me come and talk to you sometimes; you are 
 so different from everybody else. I am awfully in love 
 with you." 
 
 "You must not be that." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I don't know, but I know you must not. Bice " 
 
 "Never mind about Bice; she is only a kid. I say, 
 you know, I feel different about you to what I have ever 
 felt before. You won't throw me over, or say I'm too 
 young, or anything like that ? Let me call you Pleasey 
 when we are alone." 
 
 Sebastian was a little bewildered by his new emotions, 
 and a little proud of them. Of course he had fallen in 
 love; he always knew it would happen to him one day, 
 but it had come so quickly. His self-possession left him, 
 the rush of words in which to tell her how wonderful 
 she was, became congested in his throat. 
 
 Perhaps he was glad that Bice came back at this junc- 
 ture. His love was, as yet, too slender and frail a struc- 
 ture to bear further experience. Bice looked at the two, 
 suspiciously.
 
 86 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Oh! you are still here! I was not sure. Aunt 
 Vanessa wants you to go round to Dr. Gifford's; she 
 thinks nurse has made a mistake over his directions. 
 I am to go with you to explain." 
 
 Bice brought back into the room its familiar atmos- 
 phere. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He knew 
 he must chaff Bice before she began on him. 
 
 " I have got to be seen out with you have I ? That's 
 rather rough on a fellow, isn't it?" 
 
 "Oh! don't be unkind to poor Bice," exclaimed the 
 gentle Pleasey. 
 
 "I don't want you to interfere between me and Se- 
 bastian," was Bice's rude retort. 
 
 "I was only rotting her," Sebastian explained. 
 
 After all, why tease Bice? She was awfully fond 
 of him, people had a way of getting fond of him. " Come 
 along then, is that mane of yours going to stick out like 
 that all your life?" 
 
 Bice's hair was very curly and unruly, but she gave 
 him the retort discourteous that he expected, and they 
 went out together fairly peacefully. 
 
 The cousins were not as unsympathetic as their dia- 
 logue suggests. They had many pursuits and memories 
 in common, the intimacies of childhood, hereditary 
 predispositions. 
 
 Dr. Gifford saw them immediately, and reassured Bice 
 as to her mother. He confirmed the nurse's report on 
 the directions he had given her. And then he detained 
 Sebastian, with a friendly hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "You wait ten minutes for your cousin, will you?" 
 he said to the girl. "You will find plenty to amuse you
 
 SEBASTIAN 87 
 
 in the dining-room, illustrated papers, and some picture 
 books." He, too, teased her a little, kindly; Bice 
 resented her size, and the implication that it kept her 
 still a child, but no one could resent Dr. Gifford. 
 
 The Sebastian Kendall who emerged from the doctor's 
 sanctum a quarter of an hour later was not the same 
 lad who had entered it. The colour had gone out of 
 his cheeks, and something like fear was in his eyes. 
 Lightly as he had let him down, Dr. Gifford had told him 
 that which made the incident in the Weymouth Street 
 schoolroom dwindle into unimportance. He walked 
 quite silently by Bice's side, trying to regain his courage. 
 It was she who broke the silence. 
 
 " I heard Aunt Vanessa tell mother you had changed 
 your mind about going abroad," she began. 
 
 "Well, I wish she wouldn't mag about my affairs; 
 that is the worst of you women, you can't keep your 
 mouths shut." 
 
 " It would have been splendid though, travelling about. 
 I wish I were going. I wouldn't have given it up for 
 anything. But I suppose you want to show the Eton 
 people you can get a Balliol Scholarship without them." 
 
 "Don't be such a fool. I wouldn't have it if they 
 offered it to me." 
 
 "Then what are you going to do?" 
 
 He must have a confidant. He turned to her, suddenly. 
 
 " Can you keep a secret ? " 
 
 "Oh ! Sebastian !" He knew she could, he had tried 
 her more than once. 
 
 "Well, then, I have made up my mind to go into 
 business to join the pater."
 
 88 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Oh! Sebastian!" The tears in her eyes, the dis- 
 may in her voice, soothed him. 
 
 "Pretty shocked, aren't you?" 
 
 "How will aunt bear it? Oh! Sebastian, how can 
 you?" 
 
 "You don't suppose I like it, do you?" he answered, 
 gloomily. 
 
 "Then why " 
 
 "Why? Why? Because I am not so blind as some 
 people, that's all !" 
 
 " I don't understand. Sebastian, don't be so so 
 unkind, tell me, explain. You can't do it, you, that were 
 going to be everything, that we all thought Oh ! 
 Sebastian!" 
 
 " Leave off yelling out ' Oh ! Sebastian/ half across 
 the street. Good heavens ! you are not going to begin 
 to cry?" 
 
 But she was, she had begun already. Sebastian was 
 her hero, for him she dreamed her dreams, the world grew 
 dark when the glowing figure sank ; Sebastian in business, 
 Sebastian buying and selling ! 
 
 "I am not crying: I've got a cold," she sniffed. 
 
 It was something to have Bice on whom to work off 
 his feelings. After all Dr. Gifford had only told him what 
 he had already guessed. And as for his decision, had 
 he not been making it all these long three days ? 
 
 "You can't howl all the way home, we had better 
 turn into the Park. If you are so jolly dense you can't 
 see I have no choice, I'll show it you." 
 
 They were silent until they were in the comparative 
 quiet of Regent's Park. Beatrice accomplished a certain
 
 SEBASTIAN 89 
 
 amount of self-control, and Sebastian began to talk 
 again, as soon as the green was about them. 
 
 "The governor is ill; the mater doesn't see it. She 
 must not be made anxious, she' has a new book simmering. 
 He is working eight hours a day, so that I can have all I 
 want, and she can have her china, and prints, and things. 
 I can't go on watching him struggle out at nine o'clock 
 in the morning, come home, dead beat, at seven, with both 
 hands in his pockets, ready to give us all he has made. 
 I can't stand by, and see that going on, and then go off, 
 shooting grouse, and enjoying myself letting him grind 
 on. It takes the guts out of everything. I feel like a 
 beast every time I look at him. Why should a man of 
 fifty work for a man of eighteen? " 
 
 "But you can work later, you can make money, 
 writing, or at the bar, you can get scholarships, you can 
 coach and you're only seventeen. You are the only 
 grandson of Hepplewight-Ventom. Sebastian ! you can't 
 just buy and sell, you can't be a shopkeeper, like Uncle 
 David ! " The child's grief and rage could not be sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 "I can't be a cur," he kicked the gravel up with his 
 feet, dug vicious holes in it with his gold-headed cane. 
 "She can't see it. He can't even stand the stairs 
 he is not fit to go out and about by himself. He has al- 
 ways been a brick to me the mater is a wonder, of 
 course, but some one has to take care of the pater." 
 
 She got closer to him, he liked the instinctive sympathy, 
 and for once did not repel her. 
 
 "I meant to go abroad, to study philology, the origin 
 of language, to make a name, but there is no use going
 
 90 SEBASTIAN 
 
 into that now. I have got to give it up, to give up every- 
 thing but sticking to the governor. Whatever he does in 
 the City I must learn, and I must do it instead of him. 
 After all, I suppose it would be something if I grew like 
 him." 
 
 "Like Uncle David!" There was only one transla- 
 tion of her exclamation, and he turned on her, almost 
 savagely. 
 
 "There you go, just like the rest, half blind. Can't 
 you see what kind of man the governor is ? He doesn't 
 swagger about, or amuse himself, but did you ever hear 
 of his doing a selfish thing, or a mean one ? Did you crver 
 hear him talking about his feelings, or his individuality; 
 do you think he hasn't got any ? I tell you he is the best 
 man in the world and I believe he is Oh ! damn it." 
 
 Sebastian had turned his head away from his cousin, 
 and she could not see his eyes, but his voice startled her ! 
 
 "I believe he is going to die." 
 
 That hard young Sebastian whom Vanessa thought she 
 knew so well, got out the words with quivering lips. 
 Bice had never seen Sebastian cry. She was tingling 
 all over, hot and ashamed, and sat by his side in silence. 
 He brushed away his tears in a minute, they were painful 
 ones. 
 
 " Isn' t it ghastly ? The mater doesn' t know anything. ' ' 
 
 "Did Dr. Gifford tell you?" 
 
 " I have been miserable about him all the time. Just 
 now, when you'd gone out of the room, I said : 
 
 " ' The pater looks queer, doctor, can't you buck him 
 up ? ' He said : ' Not for long, I'm afraid, dear boy.' ' 
 
 Bice remembered, now, that Sebastian had left the house
 
 SEBASTIAN 91 
 
 quickly, she had to run to catch him up. Dr. Gifford was 
 the family doctor, the friend of all of them. If he had not 
 spared Sebastian, it was because he knew the boy had 
 strength, and could bear his burdens. 
 
 "Has any one told Aunt Vanessa?" Bice asked, 
 presently, when she had had time to grow quiet, and 
 dared to speak to him. 
 
 " No, and don't you open your mouth until I give you 
 leave. I'm going down this afternoon to see Uncle Will ; 
 the governor said he would not be at the office, he is at 
 the mills to-day. When I have arranged with the uncles, 
 and told the pater what I'm going to do, I'll let her know. 
 She will be glad I am going to stay at home, and that will 
 make things easier." 
 
 Very few words had passed between the boy and the 
 doctor. He had known his father was ill, from the be- 
 ginning of the vacation. He could see, anybody could 
 see, that his daily work was trying him beyond his strength. 
 David told the boy he had obligations to the firm, that 
 what he did in the City could be done by neither of his 
 brothers. What could a fellow do? Sebastian had it 
 borne in upon him gradually in these few days, and now 
 he felt, convincingly, overwhelmingly, that it was he 
 who must meet his father's obligations. 
 
 The truth about his health he nevertheless tried to put 
 away from him. 
 
 "Would it do him good to rest?" he had asked Dr. 
 Gifford. 
 
 "All the good in the world. But there is little chance 
 of such a thing, under present circumstances. I cannot 
 even get him to take a week's holiday."
 
 92 SEBASTIAN 
 
 " If some one else could do his work " 
 
 "Ah! if anybody could!" 
 
 Dr. Gifford knew what he was about. Sebastian had 
 been growing too selfish, too self-absorbed, his mother 
 had nearly succeeded in making a prig of him. But there 
 was good stuff in the lad ; there could not fail to be with 
 such parents. They had perhaps brought him up too 
 luxuriously, made him too much the centre of his little 
 world. But the doctor had great hopes of him, and was 
 doing his share towards his fulfilment of them.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THAT very afternoon, to the surprise of Messrs. P. A. 
 Kendall and Co., and for the edification of the whole 
 establishment, Mr. Sebastian Kendall called at No. 1130 
 Queen Victoria Street. He was resplendent in a well- 
 brushed top hat, the black coat that made his slenderness 
 so apparent, grey striped trousers turned up over his 
 patent leather boots, tan waistcoat, and grey suede 
 gloves. He was known to the clerks, who resented rather 
 than admired him ; it was almost with difficulty he found 
 one willing to inform Mr. William Kendall that he wished 
 for an interview. 
 
 The warehouse looked very dull and dreary to the boy 
 on this August day, half empty, save for a few stacks of 
 sample papers on the dusty shelves. There was no bustle, 
 or movement, the clerks and warehousemen looked only 
 half alive, the gloom was complete. He knew he would 
 have to learn all about paper, but what was on the shelves 
 seemed very grey, and ugly, and untempting. 
 
 "Well, young Admirable Crichton, and what can I 
 do for you?" was his uncle's greeting. 
 
 Mr. William Kendall had a red beard and wore glasses. 
 He was the head of the firm, a man about sixty-five. The 
 other partner, John, was also carroty, but in an inferior, 
 pink-eyed way. Both of them eyed Sebastian critically, 
 not unkindly, although they always had disapproved, in 
 
 93
 
 94 SEBASTIAN 
 
 their bachelor superiority, of his education, and up- 
 bringing, and literary mother. 
 
 He greeted them with an easy nod; he liked them 
 both; they were associated in his mind with "tips," 
 and handsome birthday presents. He thought they 
 were rum old buffers, and not equal to his father. It was 
 difficult to begin what he had to say to them. 
 
 " How do, Uncle Will. How do, Uncle John." 
 
 He subsided into a chair, talked about the weather, 
 commented on the state of the streets. 
 
 "How's business?" he asked presently. The question 
 irritated them both. As a matter of fact, it was pretty 
 slack, and it seemed an impertinence that he should en- 
 quire. 
 
 "Is that what you came into the City for?" John 
 asked, in a way that was intended to be satirical, "to 
 enquire how we were doing ? Because I should think you 
 might have waited until the evening, when your father 
 came home, and asked him." 
 
 "Very smart," answered Sebastian. "You have 
 guessed it at once. If that is what I had come for, I'd 
 have stopped at home. Where did you get that tie, 
 Uncle Jack?" 
 
 John instinctively put up his hand and straightened 
 out the bow. He was more dressy than either of his 
 brothers, younger-looking, too, for all his sixty years. 
 Although he disapproved, on principle, of Sebastian, he 
 had some secret family pride in him. So indeed had 
 William, although they never admitted it to each other. 
 John was rather pleased his dandy nephew admired his 
 tie, for of course he took the enquiry to mean admiration. 
 
 "At Hope's, do you like it?"
 
 SEBASTIAN 95 
 
 "M'yes, it's all right. Pretty stuffy here, isn't it?" 
 
 The windows were closed, the outlook of the partners' 
 office was on to a similar block of buildings, high enough 
 to obscure the light, a reflector arrangement only suc- 
 ceeded in obstructing air; the electric lamps had to be 
 kept burning all day. 
 
 " We have not been spoilt in a palatial establishment 
 at Eton/' said William. " It is good enough for us, and 
 good enough for your father." 
 
 Sebastian grinned at the remembrance of his " palatial 
 room" at Eton, eight feet by ten, with iron bars to the 
 windows, a door that would not shut, and walls that sloped 
 to the ceiling. Both Uncle Will and Uncle John had been 
 to tea with him there on successive fourths of June, and 
 both of them had thought, as business men, that David 
 was getting bad value for his 300 a year. 
 
 The conversation kept at the same level for a few 
 moments. As a matter of fact, the boy was embarrassed, 
 found it difficult to say what he had come for, and cov- 
 ered his difficulty with flippancy, until he succeeded in 
 thoroughly irritating the two whose suffrages he was 
 seeking. 
 
 " Well, young sir, I can't waste any more of the busiest 
 time in the day," said William, at length. "I quite 
 appreciate your condescension in looking us up, but I've 
 got work to do." 
 
 He took up a pile of letters, waiting for signature 
 in a basket on the table, and the hint was followed by 
 John, whose own desk, on the other side of the room, 
 was distinguished by sheets of writing, checked in red ink, 
 rather more interesting, Sebastian thought. He knew
 
 96 SEBASTIAN 
 
 they meant him to go, but he sat on, watching one uncle 
 rapidly scanning the post, adding his neat signature; 
 watching the other, referring to his ledger, comparing his 
 sheets. 
 
 "I say, couldn't the clerks do that work?" he asked 
 John, presently. 
 
 "No, they couldn't/' he answered, sharply. 
 
 Why did not the boy go, what on earth was he linger- 
 ing there for, what did he want ? 
 
 "Couldn't I?" 
 
 "You?" 
 
 John paused in handling his ledger. William looked up 
 from his correspondence. 
 
 "You?" said John again, and William listened. 
 
 "Yes, I; why not? I'm not exactly a fool. I learn 
 things pretty easily." 
 
 The brothers' eyes met. 
 
 "Sebastian, my boy, what did you come down here for 
 to-day ? Did anybody send you ? Had you any obj ect in 
 coming ? ' William's voice was encouraging. Sebastian 
 flushed a little, but took the plunge. 
 
 "Would I be any good, do you think ? Could you use 
 me ? Uncle Will, Uncle John ; I'm a Kendall, too. The 
 firm has been here nearly one hundred years, the pater 
 tells me." 
 
 He was shy, and his usual glibness failed a little. 
 
 "One hundred and eighteen, we celebrated our 
 centenary the year your father married. We were one 
 of the first firms of paper merchants in London. The 
 Kendall Mills were - 
 
 "I know; I know all about the firm. Well, is there 
 room for me ? "
 
 SEBASTIAN 97 
 
 It was not what he had meant to say, it was not the 
 way he intended to put it. 
 
 "Did your father tell you to come to us ?" 
 
 They were more than pleased. It had been a grievance, 
 it had been their only grievance against David, that he 
 had brought up his son to consider himself too good for 
 the old business; the business made by three generations 
 of Kendalls. 
 
 "No, it's my own idea; I thought if I could settle it 
 up with you, I would announce it at home afterwards. I 
 want to come down of a day with the pater. I might 
 begin by going about with him, if you don't mind. I 
 suppose there is some one goes round with him. Carries 
 the samples, or whatever it is. I don't care what I start 
 upon." 
 
 The brothers smiled at Sebastian's idea of his father's 
 work, travelling about, accompanied by some one with 
 samples, like a pedlar with his pack. But he had come 
 to them in the right spirit. 
 
 " We will talk about your work later on, we must have a 
 chat together, and with your father. It is enough for us 
 to say now, at once I think I may speak for you, John, 
 as well as for myself you are very heartily welcome, 
 we shall be glad to have you with us." 
 
 He added some trite phrases about work, and responsi- 
 bility, but they did not efface the effect of his welcome. 
 The welcome touched Sebastian; he was quick to take 
 in what the business meant to them, and that they 
 were glad he would be a part of it. He said the right 
 thing, that he would be proud of it, too ; and then was 
 half ashamed, for, after all, it was only business.
 
 98 SEBASTIAN 
 
 But William got up and solemnly shook hands with 
 him, and John followed suit. They were, perhaps, old- 
 fashioned people; but the little ceremoniousness of it 
 pleased the boy's taste, and he talked with them after- 
 wards more easily. Their point of view was quite clear 
 to him, a great pride in their good name in the City, 
 and established credit. They talked of David, too, in a 
 way that he thought would make Bice " sit up." To 
 them, David was the pivot of the business, he had ever 
 been the brain of the firm. He it was who interviewed 
 the clients, and practically ran the mills. Hand-made 
 paper was their speciality, the Mildenhall Press used none 
 but Rendall paper; every famous copy of the limited 
 editions of the Ewelme Press bore the imprint of the firm. 
 They were in touch with the first publishing houses in 
 London. All this, and more, Sebastian heard. 
 
 William and John superintended the office, and the 
 detail of distribution, but it was David who brought in 
 the business. He was rather venturesome in their 
 eyes, almost too go-ahead, but he had proved himself 
 right again and again, and they had reaped the profit 
 of his greater foresight, keener vision. Hitherto Sebastian 
 had not thought of his father as a clever, or particularly 
 able man, only as a good one. He began to realise that 
 the John Hepplewight-Ventom traditions of art and of 
 scholarship, his mother's clique of literary and newspaper 
 people, left outside their consideration, any appreciation 
 of a talent for generalship in business. If Uncle Will was 
 the nominal, his father, it appeared, was the actual, head 
 of the firm. And it was obvious, too, that his father had 
 been right in thinking himself indispensable, in finding 
 it impossible to abandon his responsibilities.
 
 SEBASTIAN 99 
 
 It did not seem so certain now that he could do his 
 father's work for him. He would have to learn his way 
 first, and that might prove a slower affair than he had 
 contemplated. Work, however, appealed to Sebastian; 
 he liked it, a rare quality in the very young. But then 
 Sebastian was rare, it was only a pity that he knew it so 
 well. He was greatly upheld at the moment by the 
 thought of the career that he was sacrificing. It was 
 impossible to do otherwise, after what he had learnt from 
 Dr. Gifford, but there was no doubt he was rather a fine 
 fellow. Languages were his forte, and philology but 
 there was no use thinking of that now. 
 
 He took a hansom from the City; work was in his 
 scheme of life, but economy held no place in it. Rather, 
 as the hansom took him further from the crowded, sordid 
 City, nearer the restful, luxurious West End, did he 
 begin to think, as Sebastian always thought, of the re- 
 wards of labour. 
 
 Of course, if he went into business he would make 
 money, a fortune; his greater brain must conduce to 
 a greater success than Uncles John or William, even than 
 his father, could accomplish. He would run a motor; 
 from Holborn to Oxford Circus he was weighing the 
 merits of various cars. Then he would reorganise the 
 office, brighten it up a bit, sack the old clerks, get young 
 fellows about him, brisk things up. By the time he had 
 reached Harley Street, he had the finest premises in the 
 City, plate glass and mahogany, commissionaires in uni- 
 form, everything, and more, that he had seen at the 
 private bank when he had cashed cheques. He had in- 
 herited the novelist's imagination, a dangerous gift for the 
 business man into which he saw himself develop.
 
 100 SEBASTIAN 
 
 He had not said a word to his uncles about his father's 
 health. He could not bring the words to his lips. Then, 
 too, ever since he had made his decision, hope, those high 
 fallacious hopes integral to his youth, grew strong, 
 that when he was with his father, looking after him, 
 sharing his work, David would improve in health, grow 
 happier, healthier. It was difficult to say when or how 
 Sebastian had first realised that his father was not a 
 happy man, but certainly the knowledge was there.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SEBASTIAN had to break the news of his decision to 
 his parents. He planned to do it at dinner, he even 
 arranged a little scene. He would announce it care- 
 lessly, he mentally rehearsed the exact shade of careless- 
 ness, he looked forward to his mother's dismay, and how 
 he would meet it, to his father's surprise. David must 
 never know the true reason ; it was then he felt a throb 
 of heroism again, and a sickening reaction of anxiety. 
 
 But his schemes fell through. 
 
 Stella had announced herself convalescent, and had 
 released Vanessa from the attendance that she saw was 
 irksome. Stella knew her sister. When Vanessa's eyes 
 wore that far-off look, and her answers came slowly, 
 sometimes unreasonably, Vanessa should be in her 
 library. 
 
 Stella knew Vanessa would not have written novels 
 had she been a happy woman; happy women do not 
 write. But, ignorant of all she missed, she found the 
 world that suited her, when she was alone, with her pen 
 in her hand. And the -necessity for the anodyne was 
 upon her now, when her disappointment over Sebastian's 
 relinquishment of Eton was acute, and her physical 
 consciousness was warring with her speech, on the 
 subject of David's health. 
 
 Stella released her from attendance on the condition 
 
 101
 
 102 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that she wrote her first chapter. And Vanessa was grate- 
 ful for the sympathy and understanding. 
 
 Therefore when Sebastian came home, full of his 
 announcement, he was met by the news that his mother 
 was in her study, and not to be disturbed; that his 
 father had come home with a bad headache, and gone 
 straight to his room. 
 
 Sebastian dined alone, and felt rather flat. He 
 lounged about, and criticised his mother's china, tried 
 the paper, and found it dull, took up a novel, pitched it 
 away again, and was just about to go round to Wey- 
 mouth Street, when the servant came in to tell him if 
 he wouldn't mind going upstairs his father would like 
 to see him. 
 
 Sebastian was little fonder of a sick room than Va- 
 nessa, although his sensitiveness was of a different order, 
 more natural, and less cultivated. He was ashamed of 
 that of which Vanessa was proud. 
 
 But David had the window open, there was a full 
 moon, and there was no other light in the room. In 
 its pallor, David looked very grey, he was lying on his 
 back, and he smiled at Sebastian. The boy thought it 
 a dear face, a rush of emotion seized him, wordless. 
 
 "I hope you didn't mind coming up," David began. 
 
 "Feeing better?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I'm all right again. I could have come 
 down, but I always think you and your mother talk 
 better without me." 
 
 "The mater didn't turn up. She has got an attack 
 of inspiration on, and has sported her oak." 
 
 "So I just heard. I'm sorry you had to dine alone."
 
 SEBASTIAN 103 
 
 "I would have had it up here with you if you'd have 
 sent down word." 
 
 "I only wanted a little soup. Were you doing any- 
 thing this evening? I don't want to keep you." 
 
 " No ! I rather wanted to talk to you. But are you 
 fit to talk? Pain gone?" 
 
 "I'm all right." 
 
 David wanted to talk to Sebastian ; he had been think- 
 ing, and thinking. His conscientiousness was suffering. 
 Business was contracting, instead of expanding, his best 
 energies had been used up; John and William were 
 growing old. Expenses seemed always increasing. 
 Vanessa bought china, Sebastian was luxurious in his 
 tastes. He could grudge neither of them anything. 
 But he was a business man, and he saw rocks ahead. 
 For months, perhaps years, it had been in his mind that 
 Sebastian should know how things stood. He did not 
 think Dr. Gifford was right in his diagnosis, it was more 
 than indigestion that was robbing him of his strength, 
 the future was not clear. He was troubled about many 
 things, and sleep was more and more difficult. In the 
 long nights he was wearied with anxiety, and the doubt 
 as to what course to pursue. He came nearer, and ever 
 nearer, to the decision to take the boy into his confidence. 
 Yet ever he hesitated to trouble his youth. To-night 
 the pain had so weakened him, his solitude of thought, 
 and hours of indecision, had so unnerved him, that he 
 had sent for Sebastian to tell him everything. 
 
 Sebastian tilted back his chair, put his feet on the bed, 
 and talked. David lay and looked at him, at the slip 
 of a boy so vivid and egotistic, with a great pride in his
 
 104 SEBASTIAN 
 
 eyes, and a greater love. If only he could keep him 
 untroubled ! Already he was feeling better, stronger. 
 After all, there might be years of work in front of him. 
 
 "When do you go to Scotland?" 
 
 "I am not so sure I'm going at all. I have rather 
 changed my plans." 
 
 "Tell me about them; it does me good to listen." 
 
 "Sure you ought not to be quiet?" 
 
 " I have so many hours quiet ; I don't sleep very well." 
 
 "The mater can't stand a sick-room," Sebastian said, 
 apologetically. 
 
 But not a shadow of reproach must rest on Vanessa. 
 David was quick to answer : 
 
 " I like to be alone when I am not well. Your mother 
 knows that, she has her work to do, and your Aunt 
 Stella leans on her, looks to her for companionship." 
 
 "She has Bice." 
 
 "Well, haven't I got you?" 
 
 "You are going to have rather more of me than you 
 bargained for." 
 
 Now he could bring out his bomb-shell. He did not 
 want that his heart should ache for his father. It must 
 be pretty awful lying by himself in this dingy room; 
 perhaps what he was going to tell him would cheer him 
 up. 
 
 " I went down to Queen Victoria Street this afternoon," 
 he began, abruptly. 
 
 "Queen Victoria Street? Did you? I'm glad of 
 that. I didn't go back to the office. You were quite 
 right to call on your uncles. I'm sure they were pleased. 
 Did Uncle William say anything to you," there was a 
 shade of anxiety in his voice, "about business?"
 
 SEBASTIAN 105 
 
 "I said something to him." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " I told him I wanted to join them." 
 
 "You told them " 
 
 David sat up in his surprise, in his excitement. Se- 
 bastian was quite satisfied with his effect. 
 
 "You lie down," he said, patronisingly, "and I'll 
 tell you all about it." 
 
 He proceeded to describe the interview with his uncles. 
 David was nervously excited, and interested in every 
 detail of the conversation. He forgot everything, for 
 the moment, but that the secret dream of his heart was 
 to be realised, a son of his would carry on the tradition 
 of the old firm ! He thanked the boy over and over 
 again, it was pathetic to see his gladness in it. But 
 quickly he began to doubt, to question. Did Sebastian 
 realise what he was doing? Was he sacrificing himself 
 because William or John had suggested it; was it his, 
 David's, fault, that Sebastian had guessed his hopes ? 
 
 David, as the moments went by, and he realised what 
 the boy was telling him, tried to banish himself, and his 
 wishes, from the whole matter, and impersonally, to 
 make Sebastian think again of the step he contemplated. 
 David talked of difficulties, and disappointments. Se- 
 bastian, with ingenuous candour, pointed out that chaps 
 of his calibre so seldom went into business. He had not 
 the slightest doubt that when that was taken into account 
 difficulties would disappear. Listening to him, David, 
 perhaps, thought so too. It was, probably, the best 
 hour in David's married life. His secret pride in the 
 firm, his great pride in Sebastian, the vision of the future
 
 106 SEBASTIAN 
 
 with the boy by his side, compensated him for so much 
 that he had suffered and feared. He saw himself intro- 
 ducing the young Etonian to customers, hearing him 
 argue, and persuade, he allowed himself to be carried 
 away by Sebastian's optimism; it was only new blood 
 that was needed, new vigour and enthusiasm. 
 
 And then David began to talk, he had not talked so 
 much for years; he opened himself out to the boy, told 
 him business secrets, of negotiations that had been 
 brought to satisfactory conclusion, of orders pending or 
 given. For the moment, he saw the bright side of every- 
 thing. He forgot that but an hour ago he had seen the 
 necessity of exposing a dwindling clientele, a diminished 
 profit, a shrinking of capital value, and commercial 
 possibility. There were no orders nowadays for books 
 like Walter Rothschild's, or Millais' "Wild Game," no 
 unlimited commissions. But Sebastian's announcement 
 made everything appear more hopeful. The days of 
 hand-made paper no longer seemed numbered, no Amer- 
 ican enterprise seemed now to be knocking at the door 
 of established interests. 
 
 David had his hour; it was characteristic of him to 
 shorten it through consideration of others than himself. 
 
 "But what will your mother say?" There was the 
 question that took the savour from his new happiness. 
 Sebastian met it easily. 
 
 "There will be a row, of course," he said, easily; the 
 "row" would be half the fun. Sebastian understood, 
 little less clearly than David, with what contempt Va- 
 nessa regarded the source of her luxuries. And her 
 ambitions for her son were a no less open secret.
 
 SEBASTIAN 107 
 
 "But she has got a lot of common sense," he urged. 
 "She will give in when she knows my mind is made up. 
 She had set her heart on my staying on at Eton, and 
 going in for the Newcastle, but I soon brought her over 
 to my way of thinking. Don't you worry about the 
 mater, you leave it to me; I can manage her." 
 
 But David had his misgivings, his deep misgivings. 
 Vanessa despised P. and A. Kendall and Co. He could 
 not help being cheered and encouraged by Sebastian, 
 but his great content was troubled. 
 
 It was finally decided between the two that Vanessa 
 was not to be told for the moment. Her mind was full 
 of the new book, and it was not fair to distract her 
 further. The news could wait. Meanwhile David 
 thought Sebastian should pay his visit to Scotland, he 
 should take some holiday before starting work, the new 
 gun must be used. 
 
 Before Sebastian left his father that night, David 
 tried to tell him what he had been to him. Sebastian 
 wanted his father to know he was glad of the chance 
 of showing his love and his gratitude. But neither of 
 them found the right words. 
 
 "We'll work the old show into a boom, won't we?" 
 said Sebastian, as he leant over and kissed him good- 
 night. "You'll call it P. and A. Kendall and Son? I 
 suppose I shall be a partner?" 
 
 "Well, not all at once." David smiled again, but 
 he was very moved. "We mustn't hurt your uncles' 
 feelings." 
 
 "They will be jolly glad to have me, they said." 
 
 "The partnership will come in time."
 
 108 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Sebastian fortunately spared him the motor, the 
 mahogany, and the commissionaires, so that David, 
 in another sleepless night, had only Vanessa's reception 
 of the news to trouble him. 
 
 For the next few days, however, the matter remained 
 in abeyance. The first chapter progressed, Stella's con- 
 valescence required all of Vanessa that could be spared 
 from the book, and father and son were practically left 
 to each other. 
 
 Sebastian grew in intimacy with his father in these 
 days. The deeper he saw into David's mind, the more 
 definite grew his allegiance. David expounded his com- 
 mercial creed. Sincerity, punctuality, an open and 
 honest profit, were the basis of it. Commercial integ- 
 rity was religion to him. No consideration of gain 
 must alter the standard, the name must shine clear. 
 The word of P. and A. Kendall stood, and must stand, 
 for more than the bond of any other firm. Proudly he 
 told of connections of thirty years where there had 
 never been a contract, nor pen put to paper. 
 
 "It is enough when we say we will undertake to 
 supply a certain quality, or on a certain date. They 
 never bind us down, none of our customers treat us as 
 they do other people with whom they have dealings." 
 He mentioned various houses, and dilated upon his 
 standing with them. Vanessa might have despised all 
 this talk and pride, but it held Sebastian. 
 
 He went twice with his father to the City, and en- 
 joyed his new consequence at the office, and the new 
 interest of his uncles. He liked them to talk before 
 him, to handle the samples of paper, to feel he was
 
 SEBASTIAN 109 
 
 being treated as a man, and one who must eventually 
 inherit all the knowledge and interests they had ac- 
 cumulated. That which had at first been an honest 
 sacrifice of inclination assumed a different aspect. He 
 was enjoying himself in his unaccustomed position. His 
 father and uncles grew at times quite enthusiastic over 
 the diplomacy that was required, the tact in reconciling 
 conflicting interests, and satisfying exacting clients. 
 He heard of the intrigues of competitors, and the way 
 to combat them, the intricacies of finance, and the 
 mysteries of bills of exchange. And the relation of this 
 trade warfare made a new man of David, his eyes 
 brightened, his figure was more alert, he grew ani- 
 mated, almost well. The boy wanted to begin at once. 
 That whatever they could do, he would do better, was 
 ingrained in him. And what an audience they would 
 make ! Already he saw them in the background, ap- 
 plauding. 
 
 Vanessa, waking to mundane things a few days later, 
 found this intimacy between father and son. It hurt, 
 or vexed her, somehow. 
 
 She was dining out that night, and whilst she was 
 dressing, she analysed her feelings. She recognised 
 that her jealousy of David and Sebastian was rather 
 mean. After all, they were father and son. She 
 must not allow her pride in the boy, and his Ventom 
 inheritance, to hurt David. She had been careless of 
 them both these last few days. There is something 
 wonderful about a first chapter. She knew it had ab- 
 sorbed more of her than she could justly spare. But 
 out of her library she was unaccountably worried.
 
 110 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Stella's illness had sapped her nervous system. Stella 
 understood Vanessa. Vanessa prided herself that she 
 knew Stella. It must be the nervous system, because 
 Stella, who had borne all her troubles with gaiety of 
 spirit, and light humour, had been depressed this time, 
 had admitted to secret weeping, had asked Vanessa to 
 give her what time she could spare. 
 
 Stella's pride had usually forborne to urge what 
 Vanessa was always glad to give. But lately she had 
 not forborne to show that she needed her sister's love. 
 
 Vanessa thought of all these things as she dressed. 
 She became even more convinced that a novelist should 
 have no human ties ! And then, with an irrational 
 satisfaction, she remembered Sebastian was going with 
 her to the St. Maurs'. She would have him all to her- 
 self in the brougham, note him among the other guests, 
 feel her pride in possession. She thought he was dis- 
 tinguished-looking, his evening-clothes became him. 
 She had refused the invitation for herself and David. 
 But when Mrs. St. Maur had written that her son would 
 like to renew his acquaintance with Sebastian, she had 
 cancelled her, refusal. 
 
 "It will be rather a bore, won't it?" Sebastian asked 
 in the brougham. 
 
 "I don't think so. I think you may enjoy it. The 
 St. Maurs are lion-hunters in a small way, and the 
 asses' skins are generally humorously prominent. What 
 have you been doing all day ? I am sorry I have been 
 so uncompanionable." 
 
 "I've been to the City with the pater." 
 
 "To the City !" she repeated in surprise. "I thought 
 you were there last week."
 
 SEBASTIAN 111 
 
 " Well ! the pater has been going every day for thirty 
 odd years." 
 
 " The pater!" 
 
 But the brougham had drawn up at the St. Maurs', 
 and he had no time to tell her more.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE St. Maurs lived in Devonshire Place, in a large 
 over-decorated, over-furnished house permeated by 
 servants. There was a butler, stout as an archbishop, 
 many powdered footmen, velvet breeched, every ap- 
 purtenance that could proclaim the wealth of the St. 
 Maurs was supplied with a lavish hand. They were 
 very modern, even their name was new. Twelve or 
 fourteen years ago it had been Isaacs. They were not, 
 however, typically Isaacs; any more than they were 
 typically St. Maur. They were cousins, and had married 
 for love, spending their first years together in poverty. 
 How they had acquired wealth was something of a 
 mystery. A sewing-machine syndicate that went into 
 bankruptcy can hardly have accounted for the whole 
 of it. Yet it was after the collapse of the only specu- 
 lation in which Moritz Isaacs was known to have been 
 engaged, that he became Hilary St. Maur, and moved 
 from Portsdown Road, to Devonshire Place, where the 
 comedy of their social progress was played to an ever- 
 increasing audience. 
 
 Mrs. St. Maur started with the idea that their medi- 
 cal neighbours must be propitiated. She underwent 
 an operation for an appendicitis the necessity for which 
 a dose of salts might have obviated. She took a rest 
 cure later on, on the advice of a heart specialist who 
 
 112
 
 SEBASTIAN 113 
 
 had captured the organ of a popular novelist, and be- 
 come the hero of one of her books. Mrs. St. Maur had 
 the harmless tonsils of her children removed, and even 
 invented adenoids for them, in an ambitious moment. 
 She was contemplating inoculation with a brand-new 
 microbe, to cure a fortunate boil of Hilary St. Maur, 
 when she discovered that, socially, the Harley Street 
 medicos had no status, and that their wives had no 
 style ! 
 
 Then she joined a Bridge club, and revelled for a 
 few months among obscure titles, deeming herself very 
 smart, delighted at the censure of Father Vaughan. 
 The air of the club was thick with scandal, the rela- 
 tions between the lady and gentleman secretary more 
 than suspect and the upshot was in the Law Courts, 
 unsavoury and conclusive. This cured Mrs. St. Maur 
 of Bridge, but nothing could cure her of the wish to 
 rise. 
 
 The ambitions of the St. Maurs were wholly ad- 
 mirable. They desired to be considered artistic, liter- 
 ary, and above all things, cultured. Probably the 
 extraordinary stupidity of Mrs. St. Maur accounted 
 for the final illusion that they had attained their desire. 
 She talked house decoration with a specious gentleman, 
 representing an Oxford Street firm, and the white walls 
 and carton pierre decorations of the Devonshire Place 
 house were the disastrous result. 
 
 She bought pictures and bronzes on the same advice, 
 and often quoted his dicta on contemporary art, and 
 artists. He had a very high opinion of the Hon. John 
 Collier, whose flamboyant portrait of Mrs. St. Maur
 
 114 SEBASTIAN 
 
 pervaded the dining-room, but he thought nothing at 
 all of William Nicholson, or James Pryde, whose price- 
 less drawings of the two children were consequently 
 banished to the schoolroom ! 
 
 The Jew is always a collector, however. And now 
 the St. Maurs collected guests. They had apparently 
 no friends, and they had risen beyond their relations. 
 The people they gathered around their hospitable table 
 were a heterogeneous set of disconnected individuals, 
 bearing names one knew vaguely. They had generally 
 to be introduced to host or hostess, coupled with an 
 explanation. 
 
 What then brought Vanessa Kendall here? 
 
 Sebastian, in his very early days, had been sent to a 
 day school in Somerset Street, where Reginald St. 
 Maur was a pupil. Sebastian had been asked to tea, 
 to a children's party, Mrs. St. Maur had called upon 
 Vanessa. But the acquaintance had made little prog- 
 ress, the desire for it was so completely one-sided. 
 Dr. Gifford attended both households, and that was 
 something of a link. The boys were together again at 
 their preparatory school. They were not friends, there 
 was as little in common between them as between their 
 parents, but they knew each other. And it became 
 increasingly difficult to decline invitations, couched in 
 terms such as these: 
 
 "I am sure, dear Mrs. Rendall, you would like to 
 meet your sister novelist, Mrs. D'Ekroyd Baker, who 
 is longing to make your acquaintance ..." or, "I do 
 hope you are disengaged this day month. Mr. Grotz, 
 who, as you know, has painted the great religious picture
 
 SEBASTIAN 115 
 
 of the century, is honouring us with his company ..." 
 or, "We have been so unfortunate until now with our 
 dates. Can you join us on the 15th? Reggie is home 
 from Harrow and would so like to meet Sebastian again. 
 You say your husband is an invalid, and rarely dines 
 out, will you not bring your son instead? Lady de 
 Cliffe is coming, her husband is the great pigeon 
 shot. . . ." 
 
 The velvet-breeched, powdered footman passed the 
 names from one to another, and Mrs. and Mr. Kendall 
 were duly announced to a drawing-room of which the 
 prevailing feature was white plaster ornamentation. 
 The walls were panelled in crimson satin, and formed 
 the background for a number of people in the wrong 
 clothes, awkward in their carriage, disconnected in their 
 grouping, giving a general impression of being hired for 
 the occasion, of not being "society" in the ordinary 
 acceptation of the word. From these groups there 
 emerged a fluffy hostess in glasses, an extravagantly 
 thin host, also in glasses, a diminutive dark son, and 
 an extraordinarily fat girl of about sixteen, who, it 
 may be incidentally mentioned, was banished to the 
 schoolroom before dinner was served. 
 
 Mrs. St. Maur was a little overwhelming in her grati- 
 tude to Vanessa for honouring them with her presence. 
 Mrs. St. Maur had an affected voice, and too much 
 manner. Arthur St. Maur was so gentlemanly that one 
 would have taken him for a gentleman if he would have 
 misbehaved himself ever so slightly. He, too, had 
 adopted his wife's high falsetto voice, and he shook 
 hands from an angle that had been fashionable in '94.
 
 116 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Sportsmanship was his speciality ; having skated several 
 times at Olympia, he considered himself an Olympian 
 athlete. 
 
 "Do you play golf?" he asked Vanessa, as he offered 
 her his arm. " No ? Then I suppose you hunt, or per- 
 haps you play croquet; croquet is becoming quite a 
 fashionable amusement? I saw the other day that 
 Lady Aline Summers had taken part in a tournament !" 
 
 "Mind you keep Mrs. Rendall amused," Mrs. St. 
 Maur had said. 
 
 Vanessa, taking stock of her surroundings, began to 
 think he need not make much effort. 
 
 Sebastian and Reggie had nodded to each other with 
 the non-committal air of the public school boy, taking 
 in each other's "get up," at a glance. 
 
 "He is sidey, a regular Etonian," Reggie thought, 
 being an Harrovian, and used to having his thoughts 
 ready made for him. 
 
 " Got his- father's beak, and promises to inherit his 
 mother's figure; poor little beast! I must be civil to 
 him," was Sebastian's reflection. They went in to 
 dinner together, and hated it. 
 
 The table was laden with exotic flowers, a miniature 
 fountain sent up continual sprays of scent. There was 
 a bouquet of pink roses for every lady, and a button- 
 hole of lilies for every gentleman. The table linen was 
 heavily inlaid with lace, all the glass was Venetian, and 
 the dinner service was of gold, luxury seemed to have 
 said its last word. 
 
 The company upon which it was lavished seemed 
 strange in such surroundings. Vanessa listened to her
 
 SEBASTIAN 117 
 
 host, his dark face inclined deferentially to her; he 
 was trying to find her taste. He was ready to enthuse 
 on any subject, would meet her views, or opinions, 
 speak in praise of Catholicism, or of the ingenuity of 
 the three card trick. He was there to make himself 
 agreeable to the guest of the evening. He tried every- 
 thing but silence. Yet that would have best pleased 
 Vanessa, who was interested in the mise en scene. She 
 could just see Sebastian at the other end of the table. 
 He was not talking to Reggie; he looked bored, but 
 nodded to her, and raised his wine glass. 
 
 There was an Irish novelist who looked like a lob- 
 worm, and a minor poet, long-haired and hungry. 
 Both these Vanessa knew, but the majority of the 
 other diners were strange to her. When she found her 
 host liked to be asked who was this, or the other, and 
 was proud of his guests, she had no hesitation in satis- 
 fying her curiosity. She learned that the lady with a 
 red nose, and a number of gold hairpins holding to- 
 gether an untidy yellow wig, wrote wonderful serials for 
 the Evening Meteor, and that the little fair man with 
 the waxed moustache was the author of the most suc- 
 cessful novel of the season. She had never heard of 
 this successful novel, but surveyed its author with the 
 interest her host seemed to expect. There was a lady 
 in an 1889 tea-gown, who, she was told, composed 
 acrostics, and an Indian in native dress who, it was 
 understood, would presently recite. Mr. and Mrs. 
 George S terry were stars, in their way, and so was 
 Miss Margaret Stiltson. But the St. Maurs knew now 
 that the social vogue of the actor and actress was no
 
 118 SEBASTIAN 
 
 greater than that of the doctors' wives, and her host 
 mentioned these apologetically. 
 
 Vanessa became aware, presently, of a pair of green, 
 iridescent eyes surveying her with some interest. She 
 saw a fair head, that had evidently been dressed by a 
 good hairdresser, a green and gold bodice that meant 
 Jay's or Paquin, of a superb chain of uncut emeralds. 
 
 "Who is the little lady in green, with the emeralds?" 
 
 "That is Lady Hilda de Cliff e. Her husband is a 
 famous shot, she is a great favourite with a Royal 
 Prince !" He dropped his voice when he conveyed this 
 information. 
 
 After the long dinner was over, all the extravagance 
 of the menu discussed and ended, Vanessa found herself 
 interested only in the Prince's favourite. 
 
 Lady Hilda had preceded her hostess into the drawing- 
 room, and lent but a careless ear to her gush. She 
 sank into the most luxurious chair the room commanded, 
 and said, so that anybody might hear: 
 
 " Who is the woman in black cr&pe de chine f I want 
 to talk to her; bring her over to me." 
 
 It was superfluous for Mrs. St. Maur to explain to 
 Vanessa that Lady Hilda desired an introduction. It 
 was a custom of the house for the host and hostess to 
 find themselves ignored. Vanessa and Hilda smiled at 
 each other, the rapprochement was effected without 
 words. 
 
 "It is a treat to meet a frock like yours in this rag- 
 bag, or to see a woman walk across the room as if she 
 had a parr of legs that matched," was Lady de Cliff e's 
 unconventional beginning.
 
 SEBASTIAN 119 
 
 Vanessa had indeed a charming figure, and held her 
 well-shaped head erect, her dark eyes were very bright, 
 and she looked young for her years. The dark hair, 
 with its one white strand, was surmounted by a diamond 
 coronet, of exquisite workmanship. Vanessa nad the 
 dress instinct, although her attractiveness was inde- 
 pendent of her clothes. She liked none but simple 
 things, and by definitely adopting, and keeping true to 
 her standard, she achieved an asceticism informed by 
 distinction. Hilda admired her, and told her so, quite 
 frankly, after a few commonplaces had been exchanged. 
 But Hilda de Cliffe had little traffic with the common- 
 place. 
 
 "Mrs. St. Maur has just told me who you are. Do 
 you know that I have all your books, bound in very 
 light grey, undressed leather, with hammered silver 
 corners? I never can read a novel until it has been 
 rebound, can you?" 
 
 "I am your exact antithesis. I must have my 
 modern literature quite fresh, preferably in MSS., at the 
 worst in proof. All my publishers indulge my idio- 
 syncrasies, and send me their books before publication." 
 
 "I should like to talk to you about your books; are 
 you very sensitive about them? " 
 
 "Not inordinately, I think." 
 
 "The woman novelist bores me to tears. But your 
 novels are so extraordinarily sexless that they interested 
 me. I only came here to-night because I heard you were 
 coming, and I wanted to talk to you, to get at your 
 secret." 
 
 "My secret?"
 
 120 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Yes! I suppose you did not know you had one! 
 Looking at you, I find it fairly simple to guess. You 
 are demi vierge; you have never loved, nor suffered, nor 
 lived intensely for one single hour. You are virtuous, 
 simple. . . ." 
 
 She uttered her impertinences with such a charming 
 air that Vanessa, although she flushed, was not really 
 offended. 
 
 "Did my books tell you all this?" 
 
 "They told me a great deal of it. It is unusual to 
 find so much paradox, and so little humanity, in an 
 English novel. Of course it is all right for me, I like 
 that sort of thing, it is such a change. You see, 7 live, 
 all the time I live." One could not look at her red lips, 
 and smiling eyes, the invitation of her, and doubt it. 
 "I believe you are worse than innocent, you are ig- 
 norant." She laughed delightedly at having discovered 
 it. 
 
 Vanessa had not had much to endure in the way of 
 criticism. She had ever been one of the spoilt children 
 of the press. In the first place, she knew the right 
 people, in the second, it had become a habit with the 
 literary journals to praise the finished workmanship, 
 the undeniable style, and technique, of the daughter of 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom. Her small, eclectic public 
 remained always faithful. There was intellect in her 
 novels. Hilda described them: 
 
 " They are morally restful ; all phrase and no feeling. 
 We smile, but we never laugh, we are told of emotions, 
 but there is no throb, the refinement of your men and 
 women characterises every conversation, and cramps
 
 SEBASTIAN 121 
 
 every situation. It is extraordinarily clever of you to 
 have avoided dulness. For nothing is so dull in real 
 life as well-bred men and women who 'retain their 
 composure under any stress of feeling.' " She quoted 
 the words mockingly. 
 
 "Stressful moments are few. Good manners tell all 
 the time." 
 
 "You are quite good-looking," the other said, medi- 
 tatively. "I wonder ... I wonder no man has ever 
 startled, or taught you the things that are not in your 
 books." 
 
 Vanessa flushed again: 
 
 " I ought to have told you, I thought you knew ; I am 
 married; I have a grown-up son, he is here with me to- 
 night." 
 
 Hilda de Cliffe burst out laughing. 
 
 "I believe you must have been to Girton. There is 
 nothing between that, and suburbanism, to account for 
 you ! And your clothes redeem you from the last 
 reproach. Dear woman, I like you, I want to see more 
 of you. You must come and visit me in Curzon Street." 
 
 "I should like to," Vanessa answered, impulsively, 
 although already her circle of acquaintances was very 
 large, and she was not given to promiscuous calling. 
 
 "And introduce me to your son. You are much too 
 young to have a grown-up son. I suppose he has been 
 neglected, and is gauche and impossible, hairy and ill- 
 mannered. I am always so sorry for the children of 
 clever women. I knew two girls once, whose mother 
 was an M.D. and a militant suffragette. They came to 
 a party at Lord Pomfort's, my step-father-in-law, you
 
 122 SEBASTIAN 
 
 know. Good Heavens ! I can see them now; in filthy, 
 dirty dresses that looked as if they came out of a theatri- 
 cal wardrobe, white cotton stockings, one with a hole, 
 green satin slippers down at heel. Ugh ! Yes, I must 
 see your son." 
 
 Vanessa could afford to smile. She stayed beside her 
 strange fellow-guest until the men came up. 
 
 Hilda caught the quick glance that flashed between 
 her and Sebastian. 
 
 "Impossible!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "It really is." 
 
 " But he has quite an air." 
 
 "His grandfather was John Hepplewight-Ventom," 
 she answered, simply. 
 
 "I know. But he has been brought up by a female 
 novelist!" 
 
 Sebastian, slender and graceful, his clothes well put 
 on, and his manner completely assured, approached. 
 
 "And so you really are Mr. Kendall," Hilda began, 
 caressingly, putting out a jewelled hand. 
 
 "Was there ever any doubt about it? " he answered, 
 dropping easily into a chair beside her. 
 
 "Lady de Cliffe thinks you must have been neglected." 
 
 "I have suffered just the other way," he said lightly. 
 "I have had too much attention." 
 
 "Unlike your mother," she said, mischievously, "who 
 tells me she has had none." 
 
 Sebastian looked up inquiringly. But Arthur St. 
 Maur bore down upon them. 
 
 "I want you to come into the other room with me. 
 Mademoiselle Nigaska is just going to begin; she is 
 giving us an Indian love song."
 
 SEBASTIAN 123 
 
 Hilda refused to move. She said she wanted to talk 
 to Mr. Kendall. Sebastian was more than satisfied to 
 remain. Lady Hilda reminded him of Pleasey. He 
 wished he could see Pleasey dressed like this; he was 
 sure she had more hair, a better figure. 
 
 On their way home Vanessa asked him what had been 
 the subject of their conversation. 
 
 "She talks like the people in your books," was his 
 summary, after attempting a synopsis, and failing to 
 satisfy himself. He added: "I rather like it. Who is 
 she? she asked me to come and see her. Thundering 
 good dinner, wasn't it? Reggie is Harrow all over, a 
 regular little bounder." 
 
 "You were not bored then? " 
 
 " No ! I liked that hot lobster stuff in the gold sauce- 
 pans. The asparagus ice was good, too. I say, they 
 must have tons of money. I suppose Reggie will get 
 the lot. He talks of nothing but girls. I promised to 
 introduce him to Bice; she'll teach him what he looks 
 like." Then he yawned. 
 
 "I wonder what the pater has been doing? " 
 
 "Also yawning, probably," she replied, smiling.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SEBASTIAN had not yet broken his great news to his 
 mother. It was difficult to obtain her undivided atten- 
 tion, she was absorbed in the opening chapters of the 
 new book. He might have told her on the night of the 
 St. Maurs' dinner, but the moment seemed inappropriate. 
 
 He talked about it with his father, and David, weak 
 himself, and dreading the moment, counselled delay. 
 
 "You are going to take a few days' shooting before 
 you start work. Wait until you come back. There is 
 no hurry. Perhaps by then Aunt Stella will be out of 
 town, the first chapters finished, and everything easier." 
 
 "What are you going to do? " 
 
 " Oh ! never mind about me. I am all right again, 
 perhaps I will go away for a little, later on. Uncle Will- 
 iam is having a fortnight now. Uncle John ought to 
 have a change." 
 
 "The mater is going on a round of visits in Sep- 
 tember, she tells me. Why don't you go with her? 
 I'll be back by then; I'll take your place in Queen 
 Victoria Street. I shall know all about it in next to no 
 time." 
 
 "We shall see." 
 
 David was nervously anxious for Sebastian to take a 
 holiday, nervously anxious to put off the communication 
 to his mother ; full of thought for every one but himself. 
 
 124
 
 SEBASTIAN 125 
 
 Sebastian was stocked, and over-stocked, with clothes 
 and money. He had ammunition enough to decimate 
 a moor. Waterproof leggings were purchased, and all 
 the necessities and gear for duck shooting, and grouse 
 driving, deer stalking, and every conceivable form of 
 sport ! That he eventually missed a rabbit, and peppered 
 a keeper, never became public. But at least he re- 
 frained from boasting of his exploits. 
 
 Vanessa used his absence to finish her first and second 
 chapters. She was habitually a slow writer. When 
 she had packed off Stella to the Isle of Wight, and Se- 
 bastian to the moors, she could devote herself with an 
 easy mind to the embroglio she was bringing about in 
 "Between the Nisi and the Absolute." David knew how 
 to keep out of her way. 
 
 Only one incident disturbed her working hours. And 
 that was a visit to Lady de Cliffe. She had called, the 
 day after the party at the St. Maurs', leaving her own 
 and Sebastian's cards. A week later she received a 
 hurried scrawl, saying the writer was ill, and yearned to 
 see Vanessa again, begging her to come and sit with her. 
 She added, naively, that every one else was out of town. 
 It was the candour of it that appealed to Vanessa. 
 
 She walked to Curzon Street that afternoon. Lady 
 de Cliffe lived in a narrow, ill-built house, with a blue 
 door. It was next but one to a public-house, and the 
 aroma from the licensed premises came to Vanessa as she 
 stood on the step. A foreign man-servant let her in, 
 with apparent reluctance. She was shown into the 
 white-painted, meretricious drawing-room, to find her 
 hostess alone, huddled up over the fire, looking ill,
 
 126 SEBASTIAN 
 
 rather dishevelled, altogether different from her expecta- 
 tions. The house, too, was a shock, everything about the 
 narrow hall, and the staircase, hung with caricatures 
 and sporting prints, seemed out of keeping with the 
 brilliant little woman, who had talked so entertainingly 
 of modern literature. 
 
 Lady de Cliffe, however, was undoubtedly pleased to 
 see her visitor; she made her sit by the fire, and in- 
 structed the soiled foreigner to bring up tea imme- 
 diately, and to say she was out, should any one call. 
 
 "Isn't this house dreadful?" she asked Vanessa, 
 almost in the first breath. "We took it, furnished, 
 five years ago. I dislike it so much that I have never 
 been able to give it up. It belongs to that woman 
 who kidnapped Lord Loftus; you know who I mean, 
 Rothwell's eldest son. She was forty something, and 
 he was nineteen. Her first husband was a brewer, 
 but she is not even wealthy. Rothwell was delighted, 
 there is something wrong about the boy, I don't know 
 exactly what, and she takes care of him. He is never 
 likely to have children, so the succession is secured for 
 the second son, whom his father adores. Loftus gets an 
 infinitesimal allowance, and she travels about with the 
 title, and keeps him out of mischief, and always en 
 evidence. This is her house. Did you notice the cari- 
 catures? they are cut out of illustrated papers. In my 
 bedroom there are some Christmas numbers, framed, 
 and all 'dear Marie Corelli's ' books are in that case! " 
 
 She indicated a white painted cupboard, the top 
 decorated with modern Dresden figures. The white, 
 machine-made furniture was upholstered in light blue
 
 SEBASTIAN 127 
 
 damask. The curtains matched it, the carpet had a 
 blue centre, and a border of pink roses. Everything was 
 hideously en suite. 
 
 "I suppose you wonder how I can live here? Hugh 
 cannot bear the place, he has only slept one night in it, 
 in five years." 
 
 "That must be dull for you." 
 
 Vanessa was out of her surroundings, a little at sea, 
 it was all new to her. She was attracted, repelled, but 
 above all things interested. She had never before met 
 any one so like the people she invented. Hilda, al- 
 though she was shivering over the fire, obviously de- 
 pressed and out of spirits, roused herself to laugh at the 
 suggestion that she must be dull without her husband. 
 
 " Oh ! Hugh and I hardly ever meet ; we agree so 
 marvellously that we are afraid to spoil it. He is gen- 
 erally racing, when I'm in London; or, perhaps, it is 
 baccarat, and pigeons. He is always busy. I met him 
 last year at Monte Carlo. I rather think he had a lady 
 with him, for he was horribly distrait, and afraid lest my 
 feelings should be hurt ! I lent him my jewellery to pay 
 her off, he told me she was spoiling his shooting average." 
 
 The advent of tea for the time stopped the confi- 
 dences. The tea was abominably served, and of in- 
 ferior quality. Every time Vanessa got up to go Hilda 
 begged her to remain. She went on talking: 
 
 "No, I'm not really ill," this was in response to a 
 question, "but I got hopelessly bored at Newmarket, 
 and Hugh insisted on calling in the village idiot, who 
 practises medicine in that part. He practised on me to 
 such an extent that I ran away. He took the liberty of
 
 128 SEBASTIAN 
 
 suggesting I had appendicitis. I believe he would have 
 insisted on that disfiguring operation if I had stayed in 
 bed another hour. I came to town, and saw Dr. Gif- 
 ford. . . ." 
 
 "My Dr. Gifford?" 
 
 "I don't know whether he is yours, I rather thought 
 he was mine. He asked me whether I had ever been a 
 victim of the morphia habit." She shot an enquiring 
 glance at Vanessa, but obviously no whisper had reached 
 her. "I was in bed, but he said he would have me on 
 the sofa in a day or two. Wasn' t it enterprising of him ? ' ' 
 
 Half of Hilda's talk went over Vanessa's head, but the 
 other half proved stimulating. It was a new sensation 
 to meet her brain children in the flesh. Hilda seemed 
 only that, and she liked hearing her talk. 
 
 Lady de Cliffe said she had only once before met a 
 living English novelist. She was full of anecdotes 
 about this poor lady. The wife of a surgeon, deaf, 
 and a "typsomaniac," she lived in lodgings in a back 
 street in Mayfair, and rented a room, occasionally, at 
 Westgate-on-Sea. Her cards were -printed "Mrs. Her- 
 bert Mathieson-Barnes, Howard House, Mayfair. Ab- 
 botsford, Isle of Thanet." 
 
 This woman, red-haired, ungrammatical, and unsuc- 
 cessful, was of course well known to Vanessa, who had 
 often felt sorry for her idiosyncrasies, pretensions, and 
 poverty. She had not known of the cards, and the 
 assumption of a house in Mayfair, an estate in the 
 country, although she knew that, having neither birth 
 nor breeding, Mrs. Barnes laid large claim to both. 
 Hilda posed her in a new light, much more entertaining.
 
 SEBASTIAN 129 
 
 After that day, Vanessa and Lady de Cliffe fell into 
 something approaching intimacy, their incompatibility 
 of temperament making their superficial congeniality 
 more piquant. Hilda discovered the puritan under the 
 paradoxist, anticipating a day of shock. Vanessa 
 found herself on strange ground, with which she felt 
 herself mysteriously, or half, familiar, as if she had been 
 there in dreams. 
 
 It was the first fortnight in August. Parliament 
 had risen late, and London was practically empty. With 
 Sebastian and Stella both away, Vanessa had unoc- 
 cupied afternoons, and twice she drove out with Lady 
 de Cliffe, once she went to the theatre with her. The 
 mornings were taken up with the book. 
 
 David had no such compensation. 
 
 David Kendall, all through that hot and exhausting 
 August, remained in Harley Street, making his daily 
 journey to the City, spending his solitary hours face to 
 face with an emergency that taxed, to the uttermost 
 extent, his moral and his physical strength. He knew, 
 far better than Sebastian, what it would mean to Vanessa 
 to hear that all her ambitions for Sebastian were Dead 
 Sea fruit, that the dreams she had dreamed, and the 
 brilliant edifices she had built in the air, were to be 
 demolished ; that the heir of all the ages, the pride of the 
 Ventoms, the fine flower and culmination of them, as 
 she deemed, and rightly deemed, Sebastian, was to 
 follow in the despised footsteps of his father, was to buy 
 and sell in the market-place, and use his gifts to chaffer 
 in goods. David's love for her, that had taught him to 
 stand out of her path, taught him also how hardly she
 
 130 SEBASTIAN 
 
 would take her disappointment. Vanessa was still a 
 girl to him, and it was true there was no maturity of 
 knowledge, or suffering in her. She had only lived 
 in books and dreams. So much would be taken from 
 her when Sebastian's future, which had been her bright- 
 est phantasmagoria for eighteen contented years, faded 
 into obscurity. David had wanted to give her every- 
 thing, instead, he would take from her that which made 
 her life complete, the pride and joy of her maternity. 
 He knew the measure of Vanessa's love for Sebastian. 
 North, south, east, and west it was bounded by her am- 
 bition for him, and the unstable foundation of it had been 
 the Hepplewight-Ventom tradition. 
 
 David had an intense longing for the boy's com- 
 panionship, a yearning that was almost painful, to have 
 him for the house of Kendall. He guessed how short a 
 time was before him in which to wind up his affairs. 
 And they were not prosperous, they were not as they 
 seemed on the surface. Business was altering, growing 
 more difficult, there were new methods, and new men, 
 with whom to compete. P. and A. Kendall had not 
 moved with the times, and now the rushing feet of time 
 would not lag for them to make fresh headway. 
 
 Vanessa must have her luxuries, and Sebastian his. 
 David Kendall, in his bachelor days, had been a man of 
 large charities, and these he could never abandon. 
 The income to meet expenditure had been earned, but 
 little or nothing had been added to capital. And his 
 days were numbered. No man knew the number of them. 
 He had demanded the truth of Dr. Gifford. Reluctantly, 
 for it was not the nature of David Kendall to be peremp-
 
 SEBASTIAN 131 
 
 tory, and here he had been insistent, Dr. Gifford had 
 been forced to admit that it was not indigestion from 
 which David Kendall was suffering, nor premature old 
 age, but a well-known, easily diagnosed, lesion of the 
 heart. 
 
 " You may live until you are seventy, you may die at 
 any moment. You force me to tell you, and that is the 
 exact truth. You can see as many consultants as you 
 like. I will go with you to Sir Thomas Barlock, or Dr. 
 Badminton, or Greentree, or you can go alone. But 
 none of them will tell you anything different, if they are 
 honest with you. Valvular disease, that is the name by 
 which the public know your complaint," he gave him a 
 brief technical description. "I have seen a man, with 
 valvular disease of the heart, live to be seventy-four. 
 I've known another, differing from him in no appreciable 
 way, die in his carriage on the way home from my 
 consulting room; fortunately before my prescription 
 was made up!" 
 
 "I am grateful to you for your candour," David had 
 said, steadily, after a moment's pause. He looked at 
 grey death, but the shadowy one had no terror for him. 
 Only in the depths lay reflected the faces of his beloved, 
 of Vanessa and Sebastian, it was they death must not 
 hurt. 
 
 "You are a brave man, David Kendall." 
 
 "No! it isn't that. I know she will be as well, or 
 better, without me, I have done nothing for her. But 
 the boy . . . " his eyes were a little dim, he did not want 
 to leave the boy. 
 
 "That boy of yours will grow into a fine fellow if you
 
 132 SEBASTIAN 
 
 let him share responsibility with you ; you will attenuate 
 him if you give him nothing but himself for nourish- 
 ment." 
 
 "But there is his mother to think of first." 
 
 Dr. Gifford had never seen eye to eye with David 
 as to Vanessa's claims. 
 
 " I should not let his mother's views weigh too heavily 
 with me," he said, drily, "you cannot make men out of 
 paper and ink. Mrs. Kendall is a novelist." 
 
 "I must think what is best for her," he persisted. 
 
 It ended, the long sleepless nights, the long solitary 
 evenings, all the thought, and well-nigh desperate, desire 
 to do what was right and best for them both, in David 
 opening his heart fully to his son. 
 
 He wrote Sebastian a letter, the boy has it now, it 
 made a man of him, although, of course, the material 
 was always there. It told him his mother had the first 
 claim upon him, and reminded him of little tender, 
 childish things. It said that if, by accident or illness, 
 his own life were shortened, it was true he could not 
 leave them enough to live as they lived now, and very 
 humbly it entreated Sebastian's pardon for this. He 
 had been weak, but it had been a great thing for him when 
 Vanessa had consented to be his wife, she needed some 
 compensation, it had been his pride and happiness to 
 minister to her; Sebastian must ever feel the same. 
 Now it came to him that Vanessa would miss her ambi- 
 tion more than she would miss any other luxury, and it 
 was only luxuries of which his death would deprive them, 
 not necessities. He had therefore decided to take a 
 short holiday, and rest, as Dr. Gifford had advised;
 
 SEBASTIAN 133 
 
 after which he felt he would be able to work again, for 
 both of them. He was " not done yet" ; he would work 
 better for the knowledge that Sebastian had wished to be 
 with him. 
 
 " We can talk together better now, my dear boy, and I 
 shall often consult you, and tell you all I am doing. 
 But you must not sacrifice your career, nothing could 
 make up to your mother for that, we will find a way 
 out of the money difficulties ..." and he added some- 
 thing of what Sebastian's sympathy and offer had meant 
 to him. 
 
 Sebastian had a fresh glimpse into the love his father 
 bore to him and to his mother, the chivalry, the utter 
 unselfishness of it. 
 
 He wrote back, in his unfinished scrawl, Etonian, 
 and illiterate. 
 
 "DearGov. 
 
 "Don't rot about my career; it's bound up in P. 
 and A. Kendall and Co. (I suppose I'm the Co. until I 
 get to be a partner?) I'll be at the office 9.30 on the 
 25th as arranged, and I expect to boss the show in about 
 a fortnight. 
 
 "Don't funk about the mater, leave that up to 
 me; get away as soon as you like. What about Nor- 
 way ? The mater has never laid a scene on one of these 
 steamers. I should think she'd like something new. 
 She could chuck her autumn visits; she doesn't shoot. 
 You can get salmon in Norway ripping fun, salmon 
 fishing. 
 
 " By the way, a fellow I've met here says if I'm going
 
 134 SEBASTIAN 
 
 in the City I ought to have a rolled-top desk, and some 
 Shannon files. I suppose you'll see to all that. 
 " Love to the firm. So long ! 
 "Yours, 
 
 "SEBASTIAN KENDALL. 
 " (Pro Messrs. P. and A. Rendall and Co.) 
 "Pretty quick at the jargon, aren't I?"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 VANESSA would not leave London until Sebastian 
 returned. David did not really intend to go away at all. 
 Always the refrain beat itself in his brain that his time 
 was short; there was so much to do. 
 
 Lady de Cliffe left London, at last, for Newmarket, 
 after exacting a promise from Vanessa that she would visit 
 her there in the late autumn. Husband and wife were 
 left to the intercourse that meant a greater loneliness 
 for each of them than if they had been alone. Their 
 strained silences, their yet more strained conversation, 
 set a note of gloom about the house. And yet there was 
 no ill will in either of them. The word incompatibility 
 covers it all. Vanessa wished David would go away 
 and enjoy himself. David wished every good thing for 
 his wife ; fame and fortune, even love. But for Sebastian, 
 he had had no gift for her. Her kindness hurt him, the 
 unspoken criticisms that he read in her eyes, when he 
 coughed, or moved awkwardly, or spoke of what could 
 not interest her, made life well-nigh intolerable to him. 
 But for Sebastian ! There was always Sebastian's 
 return to which to look forward. 
 
 Vanessa announced it at breakfast. It was already 
 the 22nd. 
 
 "Sebastian will be home the day after to-morrow. 
 He writes me he has something to tell me, some news 
 
 135
 
 136 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that will surprise me. I suppose you have no idea 
 what it is?" 
 
 David was not very good at equivocation; but 
 Vanessa fortunately did not press her question. It had, 
 in fact, occurred to her, almost in the act of speaking, 
 that Sebastian had not mentioned his father, and it was 
 possible he did not wish him to know what the matter 
 was that he would confide in her, until they had talked it 
 over together. 
 
 Vanessa was waiting to hear about the year or two of 
 foreign travel, and the essential acquisition of modern 
 languages, and to what it was to lead. She had not 
 pressed for Sebastian's confidence, but she felt it must be 
 diplomacy he was contemplating. Already she had been 
 wondering if Lord Saighton's influence was still of value, 
 and thinking how pleased Stella would be if she could be 
 the medium to obtain it for the boy. Vanessa knew 
 Lord Saighton had been an intimate friend of Jack 
 Ashton's, and was still an occasional visitor in Weymouth 
 Street. That was all she knew. 
 
 On Sunday evening, Sebastian returned. 
 
 "Hallo, mater, not gone yet? I thought you were 
 due at the Cowers'/' was his greeting to his mother. 
 
 He stooped to kiss his father. 
 
 "Told her all about it?" he asked him. 
 
 Vanessa looked from one to another. She and David 
 had been sharing the drawing-room, awaiting Sebastian's 
 arrival. David had been even more than usually rest- 
 less, and Vanessa had found it difficult to control her 
 irritation. 
 
 " There is no sense in walking backward and forwards
 
 SEBASTIAN 137 
 
 to the window," she had said. " He will probably be an 
 hour late." 
 
 David's restlessness irritated and fidgeted her. She 
 could not know its source. His time was so short, 
 there was so much still to do. 
 
 And Sebastian, here almost before it was possible, 
 stopped the rush of pleasure that always came to her 
 with his mere presence, by his confidential smile, and 
 quick question : 
 
 "Have you told her?" 
 
 What was there David could tell her of him ? 
 
 The boy was too full of it to wait. He was boy enough 
 to 3iijoyin anticipation the effect he was going to produce. 
 In his Harris tweed travelling suit, brown tie and boots, 
 tan gloves, every detail of his toilette studied and correct, 
 he satisfied her eye and taste. 
 
 "Let us have tea; there wasn't a Pullman on the 
 train, and I hate the stuff they give you at stations. 
 Been all right, pater?" 
 
 "I'm all right, glad to see you back again. You've 
 had a good time?" 
 
 "Simply ripping." 
 
 Vanessa was already out of tune. It was difficult to 
 recognise that she was jealous of Sebastian's love for his 
 father, for hers was truly not an ignoble nature. David 
 dreaded, for her, what was to follow. When the man 
 was bringing in the tray, he took the opportunity to 
 ask Sebastian to wait with his news. David was very 
 nervous ; Sebastian grinned, and thought it good fun. 
 
 "That's not half enough buttered toast. I am simply 
 famished. Bring another stack, and look sharp," he
 
 138 SEBASTIAN 
 
 said to the butler. "Four lumps of sugar, mater. So 
 the pater hasn't sprung our bomb shell on you! I'm 
 going into business, joining that fine old firm, P. and A. 
 Kendall and Co. I'm a City man from to-morrow." 
 
 She looked from one to another. 
 
 "Isn't the joke rather vulgar," she asked, "rather in 
 bad taste?" 
 
 She poured out his tea with hands not quite steady. 
 But it was jealousy of the smile Sebastian threw to his 
 father, not the uncredited news, that unsteadied them. 
 She passed him the cup. 
 
 " You ought not to make fun of your father's occupa- 
 tion," she said, "there is nothing to be ashamed of in 
 business." 
 
 "That is why I'm not ashamed. What makes you 
 think I am making fun of the pater, or joking? I'm 
 in dead earnest; we settled it all up before I went away, 
 didn't we, governor? I've seen Uncle William, and 
 John too. Why, mater, you've turned quite pale. 
 You don't mean to say you really mind ?" 
 
 She had turned quite pale now. There was some 
 understanding or conspiracy between them, Sebastian 
 could not know how he was hurting her. David, watch- 
 ing, interposed quickly: 
 
 "It was not my wish. Sebastian went on his own 
 account, to see his uncles. ..." 
 
 " I do not know what you are both trying to tell me ; 
 about what you are talking. You don't suppose I am 
 going to submit to this degradation of my boy ? " 
 
 "Degradation! What rot, mater! Come down off 
 the high horse; if it's good enough for the pater, it's 
 more than good enough for me; you'll admit that."
 
 139 
 
 Vanessa lost her sense of proportion, and her self- 
 possession : 
 
 "You are in a very different position," she said, 
 quickly. " You are my son." 
 
 "So I have always heard." 
 
 David got up from his chair : 
 
 "I think I'll go upstairs a little." 
 
 David could not bear to see Vanessa in this mood, to 
 think of her in her conflict with Sebastian. 
 
 " No ! don't go away, governor. Mater will see my 
 point of view in a minute. I am eighteen, the governor 
 is fifty. He works ten hours a day so that you and I 
 can have all we want." 
 
 "My dear boy!" 
 
 "Oh! do let me finish. Well! I'm not taking any 
 more. You are a woman, and entitled to it, I'm a man, 
 and I'm not. So I am going to do my share, that is all." 
 
 She turned a bitter glance on David. All the revul- 
 sion of her marriage, all her hatred of its old disregarded 
 claim, was in it. 
 
 "So that is the meaning, and the intrigue, of your 
 attacks of illness?" 
 
 David's heart warned him. But he must think of her 
 first, he must keep steady, and not lose sight of her 
 point of view. 
 
 "Don't say anything more," he pleaded, "don't let us 
 discuss it before the boy. Sebastian, wait, your mother 
 is always right, perhaps you have been too hasty in your 
 decision." 
 
 Vanessa must not say words she might regret, bitter 
 things that might one day come back to her. He pleaded
 
 140 SEBASTIAN 
 
 to her for silence, and with an effort she regained a meas- 
 ure of control. 
 
 Sebastian had actually finished his tea. He pushed 
 his cup away, and stood up. 
 
 "Don't you go, pater, stay and talk it over with her, 
 whilst I put myself in some other togs. I suppose she 
 knows all you've told me ?" 
 
 He looked quickly from one to another of his parents, 
 he knew little of the position between them, children are 
 slow to recognise a division between mother and father, 
 if both hold their parenthood sacred, but his brain was of 
 exceptional quality, and his instincts acute. 
 
 "Don't bully the pater. After all, it's my own wish, 
 and not his. You will realise your ambitions, right 
 enough, mater. 'The Napoleon of the Paper Trade' 
 they'll call me. See if they don't ! " 
 
 From the door, still not quite satisfied at what he was 
 leaving behind, he added, good-humouredly : 
 
 "You know, mater, Milton had a jolly poor time com- 
 pared to Vanderbilt." 
 
 There was nobility in Vanessa, the future proved it. 
 Also, one in whom the elements were lacking could hardly 
 have inspired all David felt for her. Had he been able 
 to speak to her, even then, as he had written Sebastian, 
 had he been able to make her realise what she was doing, 
 it had been well for both of them. But he was never 
 quite at ease, or fluent before her. She had written 
 novels, inventing puppets, and endowing these, whilst 
 other women were sharing human thoughts with men 
 and women. He had thought, by leaving her leisure for 
 her puppets, standing between her and the world, he had 
 been feeding her greatest need.
 
 SEBASTIAN 141 
 
 Now she used her cultured gift of phrase to bite into 
 him her intolerance and anger. 
 
 "When was the foundation stone of this conspiracy 
 first laid ? " she asked, when the door had closed. Since 
 she and David were antagonists, she would fight him 
 with her own weapons. "I suppose you were corre- 
 sponding with him all this last term at Eton, with the 
 view to shortening his stay there?" 
 
 Vanessa might be antagonistic to him, but he was 
 no match for her in speech; and if he had been, there 
 was no feeling but sympathy with which to point his 
 weapon. 
 
 "It was almost as great a surprise to me as to you; 
 don't take it too hardly. Let him try it, we shall not 
 bind him to anything." 
 
 "You will not chain him physically to the desk," 
 she replied, bitterly. " You have chained him with gifts, 
 entangled him with sentimental appeals to some childish 
 feeling he had for you; you move him with an affecta- 
 tion of physical weakness, and incapacity." 
 
 "Affectation!" 
 
 "And because of your claim on him, you would drag 
 him down, selfishly, to your own level." 
 
 David's eyes were a little dim. How she must 
 be hurt, to try and wound him, to voice that which she 
 had tried always to conceal. The contempt hardly 
 touched him, he had always known it there, and in his 
 fine humility accepted it as reasonable. 
 
 "I make no claim on him, on either of you," he 
 answered. 
 
 That touched her a little, and she wavered in her
 
 142 SEBASTIAN 
 
 indictment. She tried now, in her own way, to hold 
 the scale even. 
 
 "He is only half educated. I have been laying the 
 foundation on which to erect a scholar. To under- 
 mine my influence, all I have been working for all these 
 years, was mean, mean. Now I know why he gave up 
 the Newcastle." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not directly perhaps. But you have appealed to 
 his feelings." 
 
 "Not consciously." 
 
 "That is possible. I do not want to be unjust," 
 she was softening a little. David was making no fight : 
 she would have him on her side, she thought, quickly, 
 if she would bring her argument down to the level of 
 his intelligence. 
 
 "I do not want to be unjust," she repeated. "I see 
 what has occurred. You have been run down, not in 
 your normal health. Instead of recuperating, you have 
 followed the line of least resistance, you have thought 
 of getting help, some one to do your work for you; 
 and Sebastian was the nearest. I am sorry if I spoke 
 too harshly, you will understand it was a great shock 
 to me that Sebastian should even think of abandoning 
 his career, in order to buy and sell paper in the City. 
 I don't suppose, for a moment, you can see things from 
 my point of view. To you, it was a strong young arm 
 upon which to lean, a prop for your old age. But to 
 me . . . Sebastian is so much more than that." 
 
 She really thought Sebastian was dearer to her than 
 he was to his father ! Her voice was lowered, and
 
 SEBASTIAN 143 
 
 full of genuine feeling, as she went on: "To me, he is 
 almost more my father's son than mine, the son of 
 John Hepplewight-Ventom ! I could give my father so 
 little, I was so young when he died, and my own talent 
 is but small." 
 
 She would be generous in taking David into her 
 confidence, showing him the impossibility of what he 
 proposed. 
 
 "Stella and Bice can do nothing for the name. Se- 
 bastian has all the gifts, music and song, the eye of a 
 true artist, extraordinary power of acquiring knowledge, 
 the genius to use it . . ." She broke off; she even 
 smiled at him, making his poor heart beat more 
 unevenly. 
 
 "When my father came to you to make the paper 
 for his book, you never suggested you would write the 
 monograph, and he might make the paper. Sebastian, 
 in some ways, is greater than my father; and will. go 
 further. His perception is quicker, for one thing." 
 
 David could not sit still whilst Vanessa talked; he 
 moved restlessly about the room, and Vanessa eyed, 
 watched him. 
 
 She was critical of his hands, his feet, in their square- 
 toed boots, his want of smartness. Involuntarily she 
 added : 
 
 "He and I are so different to you." 
 
 On flie surface it was true. There seemed little in 
 common with the light and grace of Sebastian's move- 
 ment, in David's springless step, nor in the boy's clear- 
 cut Ventom features and bright eyes, with David's 
 dulness of vision. But looking a little more intelli-
 
 144 SEBASTIAN 
 
 gently from one to another, one became conscious of 
 the same width of brow, and something of the same 
 shaped head. Vanessa saw only herself, or her father, 
 in the boy, but David was there, nevertheless. For- 
 tunately, perhaps, for the intellectual type, and Se- 
 bastian certainly had that for heritage, sinks to deca- 
 dence when like marries like. 
 
 Vanessa used all the weapons in her armoury against 
 David, phrase, and feeling, argument and allusion. 
 She thought she had fought a good, and winning, fight 
 when, at length, she left him. He was very wearied, 
 exhausted, and he had said she was probably quite 
 right, she was always right. He remained on in the 
 drawing-room when the door closed after her, he was 
 too tired to go upstairs just yet. He would not go to 
 dinner, he would leave her and Sebastian to talk things 
 out. Perhaps she would persuade the boy to change 
 his mind; to go on with his studies, en route for the 
 University. The University would be essential to al- 
 most any career that Vanessa would select for him. 
 That meant at least four years. 
 
 In his present condition David could not look four 
 years ahead. But it might be that she was right. 
 Perhaps he had been selfish in wanting the boy, oblivious 
 of his higher interests. It was difficult to gauge the ad- 
 vantages of a classical education if you have never had 
 one, and at fifty years of age to create a new ideal. In 
 David's youth, commercial integrity, and the good 
 name of P. and A. Kendall in the City, had stood to 
 him for all ambition. After his marriage, the effort to 
 make Vanessa happy, content, and free, had absorbed 
 his mind. He had none of the class sense which cramped
 
 SEBASTIAN 145 
 
 his wife's vision. He did not appreciate the differences 
 between the finished product of Eton, Harrow, or Win- 
 chester; the University, and perhaps the army; and 
 the men, in so many instances superior, who were 
 tumbled out of rough schools into City offices, and grew 
 to hold their citizenship and their homes, higher than 
 the exotic civilisation of Society's convention. 
 
 Apart from the greatness that was Sebastian's birth- 
 right, Vanessa incidentally insisted he must be a gen- 
 tleman. David missed this distinction in her eyes. It 
 is only when eyes have cried that vision grows clear. 
 Vanessa had not yet cried. 
 
 Tears of passion wash away no illusions. She fought 
 Sebastian passionately over his defection, and he met 
 argument with ridicule, immovable standards with 
 irreconcilable illustration. 
 
 As long as he could carefully conceal from his mother 
 the real reason for his abrupt decision, so long as he 
 need not touch on his father's health, nor what he felt 
 about it, he could hold his own against her. Of course 
 he was ashamed of anything approaching sentiment. 
 He cared for both his parents, he was, what he called, 
 thoroughly "pally" and intimate with them. But if 
 there were a sentimental side to his mother's nature, 
 he had not struck it; what he liked always about her 
 was her quick intelligence, and appreciation of his. 
 They were intellectually akin. They shared an un- 
 practical, limited view of life, and an esoteric consid- 
 eration of literature. Also they both had egotism, a 
 faculty for criticism, and a disproportionate apprecia- 
 tion of paradoxical phrase.
 
 146 SEBASTIAN 
 
 But when a boy like Sebastian is moved through his 
 secret sentiment to a certain course, none of these 
 things count, they fall into their right place. 
 
 Vanessa fought her son through a short dinner, and 
 a long evening. David did not appear again. She 
 used rhetoric, she appealed to his pride, she talked of 
 what his friends at Eton would say, his tutors, and the 
 world generally. She argued of the disgrace to her, 
 and of the value her position in the world of letters 
 would have been to him had he decided more worthily. 
 But she could not move him in his determination. 
 She even let him see her cry, she shed a hot tear or 
 two of baffled anger. 
 
 If he must "peddle" he must, she said, finally, there 
 was possibly a strain of hereditary vulgarity in him. 
 He could not believe that it was to his father she was 
 alluding, and she was quickly ashamed of having said it. 
 
 She could make him flush, she could get pin-pricks 
 into the sensitiveness of his young Eton-softened skin, 
 but she could not touch his decision, nor arrive at its 
 source in this way. The feeling for David, at which 
 she could not guess, and was not herself capable, made 
 him immune to her assaults. 
 
 "What is the use of talking any more about it?" he 
 said, at length. " I have absolutely made up my mind 
 that I am going into the City, that I am going to work 
 with the pater. But I wish you wouldn't take it the 
 way you do. We've never been like this before." 
 
 There had been in truth a beautiful sympathy be- 
 tween them. In a flash of painful intuition, gone almost 
 as it came, she saw the blank place in her life if she 
 should lose him.
 
 SEBASTIAN 147 
 
 "That is the point I am labouring," she got out 
 with difficulty. "I have never crossed you, contra- 
 dicted you, hardly argued with you. I have never 
 opposed my maternity to your intelligence." 
 
 She had long ago composed the phrase, but now it 
 sounded flat, and the rounded period held no comfort. 
 But she had no other method of expression. She went 
 on: "I see you sinking into the slough of commer- 
 cialism, tarnishing all your brightness, voluntarily put- 
 ting out your light, extinguishing the spark of genius 
 in you. ... I cannot keep silence, my conscience will 
 not let me. Heaven knows with what argument he has 
 plied you. ..." 
 
 "You know he has not influenced me by a word, 
 except a word to consider you, before him, or myself, 
 or anybody," he said, reproachfully. 
 
 "You have ranged yourself with him, and against 
 me," she cried. "I have no longer part, or share, or 
 interest in you. League yourself with him if you insist, 
 but leave me out of your thoughts. I have nothing in 
 common with the life you choose." 
 
 She was angered in her pride, and jealousy, past 
 reasonable thought, or self-restraint. All the evening, 
 she had fought and argued, now her strength broke 
 suddenly. 
 
 "I don't know how the future will shape for me. 
 But I will have no part in this sacrilege you contem- 
 plate, nor countenance it with my presence. I shall go 
 away to-morrow, and in the winter I shall go abroad. 
 I will fill my days with work, and try what I can do 
 that your grandfather shall not be forgotten. Ever
 
 148 SEBASTIAN 
 
 since you were born, I have dreamed, and longed to 
 make you worthy of your intellectual inheritance, I 
 have thought of little else." 
 
 "It never was me you cared for then, only the am- 
 bitions you had for me, your dreams for me." 
 
 "Perhaps. I don't know. I only know you have 
 never been out of my thoughts. I have subordinated 
 myself where you have been concerned, that you should 
 expand. Now I must cut you out of my life. I shall 
 live only for literature." 
 
 "Mater, you are angry now, disappointed. You 
 don't mean all this, you can't !" 
 
 "I mean a thousand times more. I know now that 
 my ambition for you has given colour to all my days; 
 that but for these dreams had all been grey. But you 
 don't care for that, you forget all we have been to each 
 other, you dissociate yourself from me. ..." 
 
 "You are thrusting me away as quickly as you 
 can," he murmured, half amused, incredulous. 
 
 "Not you, David Kendall's worthy son. I had never 
 anything in common with him. In the very first year 
 of our marriage I asked him to let me go, to release 
 me from such an unnatural tie. I wish I had been 
 firm about it, and had gone before I bore him a child 
 of whom he could rob me ! " 
 
 " Oh ! isn't that rot, just because I am going to 
 make paper, instead of staining it !" 
 
 "I can't expect you any longer to look at things in 
 the same way I do, not at this, nor anything. William 
 and John Kendall will form your mind, not I." 
 
 She believed every word she uttered, she believed 
 incredible things.
 
 SEBASTIAN 149 
 
 All that night, when she lay awake, in rage and grief, 
 she reiterated she had lost her only son, and that now 
 nothing was left her but the children of her brain. 
 Sebastian had said she thrust him away from her. 
 Well ! it was true. She did not want to mother a City 
 man, David's son. But her heart ached, ached, ached. 
 She had not known one could suffer so. She must get 
 away from him, begin life again, write travel 
 study. She had been wrong in surrendering her place 
 to Sebastian; she had felt that, whilst she had only 
 talent, he had genius. Always in the background of 
 her mind had been the day when the critics should 
 write that his "grandfather's incomparable style" and 
 his mother's "delicate talent" had culminated in him. 
 
 And now she told herself that all the burden borne 
 for posterity must be hers. She was unfit to bear it, 
 what Hilda de Cliffe said was true, it. was puppets she 
 created, not men and women. She had not known 
 there was suffering in the world such as she felt now, 
 then how could she write with only inexperience to be 
 her guide? Yet had she but been able to analyse 
 what shook her, and kept her sleepless, she would have 
 known it was but jealousy, and a faint doubt of herself, 
 the knowledge, that was never spared her, of David's 
 goodness, the dim truth on the horizon that what she 
 felt for the name of Hepplewight-Ventom was inherently 
 the same instinct as his pride in the unbroken succes- 
 sion of City Kendalls. She was almost as young as her 
 son, undisciplined to meet disappointment. 
 
 She would leave them both, dissociate herself from 
 them, go away, and freed from ties, would make her
 
 150 SEBASTIAN 
 
 new book more worthy of her and her father's name 
 than any she had yet written. The world would hold 
 her justified. In that white night, sleepless, she cried 
 that Sebastian should be proud of her, since she needs 
 must be ashamed of him. 
 
 She thought it was all true, and that the ache in 
 her heart would go, if she wrote books, and lived on in 
 dreamland, moving the world with words. She thought 
 that so she could recapture happiness. It is incredible, 
 one whom many critics had praised, could believe that 
 this was all for which God had given her a son. That 
 she might dream of his future, plan for him, and dis- 
 card him when his individuality outstripped her dreams !
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT is possible David and Sebastian had heartache 
 too, for Vanessa Kendall was not a woman whom one 
 could part with easily from life and home. She had 
 too much personality; she had the gift, or defect, of 
 being the centre of her circle. 
 
 And she kept to her determination. She went away 
 the next day on a round of visits, without bidding 
 them good-bye, without giving them any indication 
 when she would return. 
 
 David and Sebastian started their work together, 
 getting what happiness and satisfaction they could 
 from it. But it was all flat and savourless, because 
 of her action. They both loved her, and this way she 
 taught them; David had known that love can em- 
 bitter life, and now Sebastian saw a glimmer of the 
 same sad truth. 
 
 David spent much time, in those journeys to and 
 from Queen Victoria Street, in talking to the boy 
 about his mother, mutely asking sympathy and for- 
 giveness for her, dwelling on generous traits, if he could 
 not dwell on tender ones, speaking of Vanessa's loyalty, 
 single-heartedness, devotion to her father's memory; 
 reminding him how he and Stella filled her thoughts, 
 and that she had never failed either of them. 
 
 "Until now," Sebastian interrupted. 
 
 151
 
 152 SEBASTIAN 
 
 He missed her, and resented her defection. He 
 wanted sympathy, to talk about himself, and all that 
 he was doing, and planning. There is no doubt that 
 David's slowness of speech, and thought, awkwardness 
 of expression, and movement, affected Sebastian almost 
 as it affected Vanessa. The only difference was that 
 Sebastian loved his father. He wanted his mother. 
 All his years she had been part of him, they had lived 
 in a real intimacy. She could not mean to cut him off 
 like this. Yet his pride and her pride were alike. 
 He sent her no line, but plodded to the City with his 
 father, learning his trade. And she wrote him no word 
 of encouragement, nor help, nursing her grievance. 
 
 Vanessa's first visit was to the Gowers. Their place 
 was in Ireland, the post-town Bray. Lord Gowers was 
 a man of seventy, bearded, taciturn, irascible. Her 
 hostess was his second wife, the mother of sons. This 
 had been her raison d'etre, and remained her only claim 
 to consideration. But the boys themselves seemed 
 unworthy of the trouble that had been taken to secure 
 them. Mervyn had failed to get into the Army, and 
 Ren ton had been sent down from Oxford. Both were 
 in debt, and in awe of their father. The two days she 
 was there, before the rest of the party arrived, and the 
 grouse-shooting began, Vanessa spent in mentally com- 
 paring her boy with these two gentlemanly young 
 loafers. They were finished products of the schools 
 she admired, they had little or no brains, hearts, nor 
 consciences; but their manners and appearance were 
 excellent. Lady Gowers thought they were both well- 
 nigh perfect, and that their father was unconscionably
 
 SEBASTIAN 153 
 
 harsh to them. That, too, gave Vanessa food for 
 thought, although she tried to keep thought away from 
 her, and to banish that persistent heartache. 
 
 Lord Gowers had been a friend of John Hepple- 
 wight-Ventom. A disagreeable and cantankerous father 
 and husband he might be, but he was no mean scholar, 
 and the daughter of his old friend was a congenial com- 
 panion to him. He had most of Ventom's books in 
 original editions, autographed by their author. "Um- 
 brian Hills and Valleys," for instance, had been dedi- 
 cated to him "in affectionate memory of three months' 
 fellowship." They had journeyed together, and he 
 liked to talk of those old days. The "Etruscan Re- 
 searches," too, had pencil notes, and many reminiscences. 
 Lord Gowers' troubles had not begun until after his 
 second marriage, and the adolescence of the much-desired 
 heir. Their twinship was the first complication. He 
 said it was an extraordinary coincidence that both he 
 and his old friend should have had twin children. In- 
 cidentally he always touched Vanessa's small sense of 
 humour when he dilated on this subject. She had often 
 stayed at the Towers. When Sebastian was a very 
 little boy he had been here with her. But the twins had 
 been uncongenial companions to him, and she had never 
 repeated the experiment. 
 
 Lord Gowers asked after him. 
 
 "He must be getting a big boy now," he said, forget- 
 ting how quickly the years passed. " I suppose you have 
 packed him off to Eton; and begun to hear he is no 
 good," he added, with an impatient sigh. He was full 
 of his own disappointments, bad reports, requests to
 
 154 SEBASTIAN 
 
 remove, superannuation, and all the rest of it. Bad 
 training at home was Vanessa's secret explanation, but 
 she was able to successfully conceal her view. She was 
 not able to conceal her very different experience with 
 her son, nor to refrain from boasting of it. Was it 
 boasting, or only common fairness, and loyalty, to 
 the boy who was not to count with her any more, whom 
 she had discarded for ever? 
 
 She told Lord Gowers of what Sebastian had achieved, 
 of scholarships, prizes, and laudatory letters. Lord 
 Gowers was rather bored by the relation. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, "so you are quite proud of him ? 
 He had a look of his grandfather, I thought, when I last 
 saw him. What are you doing with him now ? Balliol 
 was your father's college, was it not, or New College? 
 He had left Oxford before my day. It was later on, 
 when I was in Rome, that we became intimate." 
 
 "Sebastian does not wish to go to the University," 
 she answered, slowly. She hated to have to say it. 
 In that beautiful old library, lofty, vellum-scented, 
 its deep mullioned windows giving on to the wooded 
 park, she seemed so far, and so apart, from David 
 Kendall. She and Lord Gowers had talked of Italy; 
 suddenly she envisaged monasticism, and the middle 
 ages, her father, and his absorption in mediae valism. 
 Why had Sebastian left her by herself in this world 
 that belonged to both of them? 
 
 Her host did not question her further as to where 
 Sebastian was going. He preferred to talk with her of 
 olden days. And she, too, thought such reminiscences 
 would help her to escape from the pull of the cord that
 
 SEBASTIAN 155 
 
 would not let her forget that half of her was in Harley 
 Street. 
 
 The house filled, and there was much talk of grouse. 
 There were motor drives, and dinner parties, bridge, 
 politics, and religion. There was the well-bred circle, 
 boring and bored, that the autumn always brings to- 
 gether. The cord vibrated painfully all the time. 
 Vanessa found herself awake at night, wondering what 
 Sebastian was doing, how he was faring, what City people 
 were thinking of him. She could not banish him, try as 
 she would. And always it was herself she doubted. 
 She was learning, in the hardest of schools, that to be at 
 war with one's own heart, and conscience, robs even 
 victory of its triumph, leaves the taste of ashes in the 
 mouth, and the field of battle desolate. 
 
 From Sebastian there came no line ; but David 
 wrote her. There was little he could say. If he told 
 her of Sebastian's quick powers of assimilation, of what 
 customers said to, or of, him, of what difference his daily 
 companionship, his ignorant, happy business optimism 
 made, of how all the colours seemed brightened, and the 
 future more promising, she might have resented it. 
 David, fearful of hurting her, left out, therefore, in his 
 short letters, all the things she was longing to hear. He 
 wrote about the weather, or news that she could have 
 read in the papers. He ignored that there was any 
 estrangement between them. He hoped she was having 
 a good time, and asked if she was making progress with 
 the new book. 
 
 For a week or two she did not answer these letters. 
 Then she told herself it was her duty to give them her
 
 156 SEBASTIAN 
 
 address, and she wrote that she was leaving the Gowers, 
 and would be with the Harlands until such and such a 
 date, after that, with the Bowrings. 
 
 She altered her plans again, and yet again, and paid 
 many short, restless visits. But she could not get away 
 from her thoughts, they persistently followed the boy, 
 followed him into the City, home to long dull evenings. 
 She ached for him, yet still succeeded in persuading her- 
 self that it was only over his lost chance of greatness that 
 she was grieving! 
 
 She moved from place to place, and among different 
 circles of people. She made long journeys unneces- 
 sary, fatiguing. From Ireland to Scotland, and to the 
 South of England, before going into Wales. She stayed 
 with land owners, who cared only for the agrarian ques- 
 tion, and with those to whom nothing was vital but the 
 ritualistic movement, and the Catholic Church. She 
 found herself in country parsonages where the smallest 
 of local gossip filled dull conventional days ; and once in 
 a ducal castle where nobody cared for anything, or 
 anybody, but the concealment of the fact that the host 
 was a cripple, more than half an idiot, and that wife, 
 majordomo, valet, and doctor were little else than so 
 many keepers. 
 
 She had many friends, and to some she wrote and 
 offered herself, and many wrote to her. She was always, 
 and everywhere, a welcome guest. But all her friends 
 noted her changing looks. She had been extraordinarily 
 young in her appearance, fresh and vivid, now the sleep- 
 less nights and the tug, tug, at her heart-strings were 
 telling.
 
 SEBASTIAN 157 
 
 Always, before this, she had had Sebastian's childish 
 letters to read and answer, then his boyish ones. At 
 first there had been picture post-cards, and foreign 
 stamps, then money, cakes, and parcels generally. At 
 Eton he had wanted more from her. She had fallen in 
 the way of remembering for him all the good stories she 
 heard, all the interesting things. The tit-bits of each 
 day were reserved for him, and much of her intelligence 
 went into her letters. They had been almost daily, her 
 sweetest tasks, her imagination had played with them 
 more happily than with her literary puppets, for she 
 could always see the boy reading, laughing, commenting, 
 or questioning. Everything she saw or heard, read, or 
 discovered, were for his amusement or needs. Now 
 there was nothing. 
 
 By the end of October, her friends all palled, the days 
 were even more tedious. And, worst trouble of all, the 
 book dragged on her hands. The boy, whom she had 
 discarded, came between her and her bloodless hero, 
 between her and her paradoxical heroine. Their for- 
 tunes seemed hardly worth following. 
 
 The De Cliffes were her last resource. If any one 
 could cure her of, what she told herself constantly was, 
 merely "sentimentality," it would be Hilda de ClifTe. 
 
 Hilda would find the phrases to rescue her from 
 mundanity, from a commonplace, unworthy longing 
 for a boy, who, with his father, was "engaged in the 
 City"! " 
 
 Vanessa arrived late in Newmarket. She was not 
 disappointed to find her hostess was absent from the 
 platform, but was surprised to be accosted by a big,
 
 158 SEBASTIAN 
 
 thick-set man, clean-shaven, with a North Country 
 accent, who had got out of the next carriage, and been 
 obviously watching her movements, listening to the ques- 
 tions she put to the guard. 
 
 " Is there any one waiting for me ? Is there a carriage 
 from Seaton House? " 
 
 "Are you going to Seaton House? You are Mrs. 
 Kendall, I think." 
 
 "But how did you know? " 
 
 "Well! you sent me your photograph once, and I 
 have a good memory," he answered, quite simply. 
 
 "I sent you my photograph?" she repeated, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 "You did indeed. Come along with me, we'll find 
 the carriage, or one of the motors, waiting outside for us. 
 I know their ways." 
 
 "To whom am I speaking? " 
 
 "My name is Wallingford." 
 
 "Joseph Wallingford!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "That's right. That you, Leeward ? Find Mrs. Ken- 
 dall's maid, and help her with the luggage. I thought 
 so, here is De Cliffe's motor. Oh! the brougham 
 is there too. I suppose they weren't sure you would 
 want to come with me. What will you do? " 
 
 Vanessa elected for the motor, she was quite ready to 
 share it with Joseph Wallingford. She had wished to 
 meet him, although her literary friends had dissuaded 
 her, and told her that he was "impossible." For what 
 she knew of him interested her. 
 
 He was a power in the North of England, the owner 
 of a big syndicate of newspapers. He had given her,
 
 SEBASTIAN 159 
 
 through an agent, the largest price she had ever re- 
 ceived for a book, and having bought, he had advertised 
 it so extensively that for some weeks she had been 
 positively ashamed to open a newspaper, or stop at a 
 bookstall. The portrait of which he spoke had stared at 
 her from literary supplements, on scattered leaflets, and 
 in blurred pulls in daily papers. 
 
 It was difficult for them to hear each other speak in 
 the motor. 
 
 "I don't like these big machines," he said, and named 
 the maker, "they are noisy. What is the good of a 
 sixty horse-power machine with a twenty miles an hour 
 speed limit?" He talked of motors, with obvious 
 knowledge, until they pulled up at Seaton House, op- 
 posite the heath. It was a modern, unpretentious villa, 
 behind big pretentious iron gates. 
 
 Vanessa had not met her host before. Lord de Cliffe 
 was clean-shaven, stolid, he looked sufficiently stupid 
 to be a soldier, and he wore an eye-glass, as if to accen- 
 tuate the vacuity of his expression. Sir George Chitter- 
 ing was of the same type, but taller, thinner, and more 
 elegant. Tony Hawthorn was a stable boy, grown 
 stout, but having ridden in races, and been dubbed a 
 jockey, his social inequality was overlooked. All three 
 men were in the hall, smoking, and drinking whiskies 
 and sodas. They greeted "Joe" with enthusiasm. But 
 Vanessa seemed somewhat of a surprise to them. Lord 
 de Cliffe was equal to the occasion, although he had 
 forgotten, or never been told, that she was expected. 
 He explained that Lady de Cliffe was lying down; she 
 had complained of headache. He introduced the others,
 
 160 SEBASTIAN 
 
 and said he "supposed she knew Joe." Then he talked 
 vaguely of tea, and engineered her quickly to a house- 
 keeper, and her own room. 
 
 After which he and his friends said she " was a devilish 
 fine woman, and they would never have guessed she was 
 one of the 'scribbling crowd.' ' They then began to 
 talk horses, form, and the stud book, and continued 
 doing so until it was time to dress for dinner. 
 
 Vanessa was rather chilled by her reception. Also 
 she had expected to find a letter from David, and little 
 as there was ever hi his letters, she had begun to find 
 herself awaiting them eagerly. But tea was brought up 
 to her, she rested, and made her usual careful toilette. 
 
 Seaton House was less ostentatiously inharmonious 
 than the Curzon Street establishment. It was roomy, 
 comfortable, and only negatively ugly, in a modern, 
 leather chair, and saddle-backed sofa manner. Lady 
 de Cliffe came to her before dinner, and Vanessa had 
 never seen her look more beautiful, nor more fragile. 
 Her manner was excitable, and she talked continuously. 
 She was almost overwhelming in her welcome of Vanessa, 
 and admired everything she was wearing. She stayed 
 until it was nearly eight o'clock, and, in consequence, 
 was twenty minutes late in making her appearance in 
 the drawing-room, keeping dinner, and everybody wait- 
 ing. She took it quite airily : 
 
 "I am not late, am I? " was all she said, in apology. 
 " I am so awfully hungry, let us go down at once. The 
 soup will be cold anyhow, it always is. You are going 
 to take me down, aren't you, Sir George? " 
 
 She went in first, talking eagerly.
 
 SEBASTIAN 161 
 
 Lord de Cliff e offered his arm to Vanessa. Joe Wal- 
 lingford, and Tony Hawthorn, brought up the rear. 
 
 Vanessa was adaptable, and quite useful at society 
 small talk. But she found her host difficult, and mono- 
 syllabic. It was not that he was not used to the society 
 of women, but he had just been given so many instruc- 
 tions as to what he was to say, and avoid saying, he had 
 just been told so much about Vanessa's talents, and 
 more about her ingenuousness, that he was nervous. 
 He floundered hopelessly, and, as he expressed it after- 
 wards, chucked it altogether, and let Joe take it on. 
 
 Joe Wallingford was typical of an interesting class, 
 rare in London, fairly common in the Midlands. His 
 father had been a journeyman printer, and invented a 
 contrivance for facilitating his labour. He patented it, 
 and made a small fortune by dint of almost incredible 
 exertions, first in developing, and then in pushing his 
 discovery. But it was not until young Joe came on the 
 scene that the fortune grew to any considerable dimen- 
 sions. 
 
 The father had invented a printing machine, but the 
 son found how to put it to account. It was many years 
 ago, before the linotype, or the monotype, came into use, 
 and it may be said the Wallingford was a very ingenious 
 precursor of both. Young Joe found it difficult to per- 
 suade the contented owner of the Workington Gazette to 
 use the Wallingford. So he set up a press, and brought 
 out a weekly sheet of his own. A very small venture, at 
 first, for providing up-to-date sporting news in a sporting 
 district, it grew and grew, until money and advertise- 
 ments began to roll in. Then a Sunday paper edition,
 
 162 SEBASTIAN 
 
 with Saturday's football news, was added, and finally a 
 halfpenny daily. 
 
 At the present moment, Joe Wallingford, young Joe, 
 as he was still called by the fellow-townsmen who had 
 known his father, had inherited the fortune he had helped 
 his father to make, and possessed another for which he 
 was wholly responsible. There was a Workington 
 Chronicle that brought him in something like 40,000 
 a year, and the Millborough Express, worth another 
 28,000. And there was also the Imperial Syndicate 
 which financed a dozen daily, evening, and weekly 
 papers, magazines, monthlies, and cheap editions of 
 popular novels, incidentally securing to Joe further 
 annual 50,000 or so. 
 
 Joe Wallingford provided literature for the million. 
 But when he heard from Vanessa, or gathered from her, 
 that she was not dependent for her living upon her pen, 
 he questioned her with surprise as to her motive in 
 writing. He did not understand it. It seemed a 
 strange, small, mercenary thing to do. Literature had 
 no aspect for him but the pecuniary one. 
 
 "Why don't you give it up," he urged, "if your 
 husband can earn enough for both of you?" 
 
 He did not perhaps put this in actual words, but he 
 amused Vanessa by letting her see his point of view. 
 That he did not think there was anything beyond the 
 money question in her work, amused, whilst it made her 
 feel small. So did Joe Wallingford, himself, his slow, 
 deliberate speech, and entire simplicity of self-betrayal. 
 He spoke no language but his own, and that indifferently 
 well. He told her he had left school when he was thir- 
 teen and he seemed to think he had learned quite enough.
 
 SEBASTIAN 163 
 
 He knew nothing of John Hepplewight-Ventom, 
 and was quite unimpressed when, in answer to a ques- 
 tion, Vanessa described him as the great stylist of the 
 Victorian Era. But he was interested when Vanessa 
 mentioned that she had a grown-up son, and, for the 
 first time, she found herself saying Sebastian had chosen 
 a mercantile career, without being ashamed, or dis- 
 tressed. 
 
 There was no apparent reason Joe Wallingford should 
 have been more congenial to her than David Kendall, 
 neither of them possessed the external qualities that she 
 deemed so essential. But, without any apparent reason, 
 she was indefinably attracted by the millionaire news- 
 paper proprietor, and for the first time in all these in- 
 tolerable weeks she talked of Sebastian, and the dinner 
 hour proved all too short. 
 
 Joe Wallingford had spent over thirty, of his forty odd, 
 years, in making money. Incidentally he had met pro- 
 vincial women of the prosperous middle classes, and a 
 variety of those in a different strata altogether, poor 
 daughters of pleasure. Lately he had met Hilda de 
 Cliffe, after having a deal or two in horses with her hus- 
 band, and been introduced by him to a private club in 
 London, where they illegally played baccarat far into the 
 small hours. 
 
 Hughie de Cliffe, Tony Hawthorn, and all that clique 
 of racing men, thought they had got hold of rather a good 
 thing in Joe. But then it was like their half-sharpness 
 not to realise how little of a flat he was. He liked the 
 experience they gave him. He was willing to pay some- 
 thing for it, although of course he would pay as little as
 
 164 SEBASTIAN 
 
 he could. But he had no illusions about them at all, and 
 he could have given them points, and a beating, in know- 
 ledge of a horse. In his part of the world, the very gutter 
 children talk horse-flesh, and spot winners, betting their 
 halfpennies on the stables they fancy. 
 
 This was the second, or third time, Joe had been to 
 Seaton House. He played poker, and auction bridge, 
 and baccarat, there. Tony Hawthorn was training 
 some horses, and Joe had registered his colours on 
 the turf. Hilda had been very charming to Joe Walling- 
 ford, very charming indeed, but she had made no prog- 
 ress. He came for the horses, not for Hilda. It was 
 true he was, at first, at the very first, impressed with 
 rank and title. He was only now beginning to realise 
 the purchasing power of his money. But his strong 
 common sense saved him from over-rating anything 
 that was, so to speak, for sale, and Lord and Lady de 
 Cliffe, Seaton House, and the rest of it, had already 
 quickly assumed their proper place in his estimation. 
 
 He had come down to-night because the great sale 
 of yearlings was to-morrow, and Tony had written him 
 that he should make a certain purchase. Then he met 
 Vanessa Rendall, and to both of them it proved a mo- 
 mentous meeting. 
 
 After dinner, in the drawing-room, Hilda chaffed 
 Vanessa a little about her conquest. Vanessa had 
 always accepted the slight vulgarity, it was impos- 
 sible to disregard, about Lady de Cliffe. She was the 
 daughter of the Earl of Wargrave, and had not a drop of 
 blood in her veins that was not as blue as Burke could 
 prove it ; but the vulgarity was unmistakably there also.
 
 SEBASTIAN 165 
 
 It jarred upon Vanessa to-night, perhaps because her 
 nerves were out of order, but possibly because she recog- 
 nised that there was a substratum of truth in the implica- 
 tion she had been absorbed by her companion at dinner, 
 and she disliked the complexion her friend was putting 
 upon it. 
 
 "I found him interesting. He neither poses nor 
 boasts; he seems quite unaware he is remarkable." 
 
 " Is he remarkable ? " 
 
 Hilda yawned indifferently, she had curled herself up 
 on the sofa, and her spasmodic vivacity died suddenly 
 away. "I am glad you like him. I found him im- 
 possible, but I always knew you would fall in love some 
 day, and with some one ludicrously inappropriate. 
 You have as much jewellery as you can carry," she 
 added, irrelevantly. " I don't know what you'll do with 
 him." 
 
 "What has altered your mood?" Vanessa asked, 
 quietly. "You were not like this before dinner." 
 
 "No ! before dinner," Hilda sighed, "I was so happy. 
 I was happier, I think, than I had ever been in my life 
 before. Now now," she was quite tragic, "I am 
 wretched, tourmentee, miserable ! " She sat up suddenly. 
 "Look at me, Vanessa, look at me. Am I ugly, old, 
 dull?" and vehemently she answered herself. "I am 
 not, I know I am not. My nose is too small, I have 
 always admitted that, and some men like tall women best ; 
 but I looked lovely to-night when I came down, you know 
 I did. This green satin suits me, it is the colour of the 
 second circle in my eyes. The middle is black, and there 
 is a line of dark outside. Every one has told me about
 
 166 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that, and about my beautiful hair. And, to-night 
 to-night of all nights, I have grown pale, I look washed 
 out ! I was so good, too, I told Hugh what he must talk 
 to you about, and that he must make himself agreeable, 
 because you were the only woman I had ever known 
 that I really and truly liked. I said he wasn't to tell 
 you anecdotes from the Winning Post. . . ." 
 
 "But what has happened, what has upset you?" 
 Vanessa knew Hilda as a woman of moods, with some- 
 thing in her of the poet, and something of the child. 
 Vanessa's imagination invested Hilda de Cliff e with a 
 thousand qualities that were foreign to her, and missed 
 the essential one that set her apart. 
 
 "Can't you guess?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How dull you are." 
 
 Vanessa smiled, she knew she was not dull. "Can't 
 you see that I've fallen madly in love, that I shall die 
 if I don't get him ? Didn't you see that I've no eyes nor 
 ears for anything else? And he doesn't care for me, 
 you know he doesn't. They will play bridge after dinner, 
 they won't come up for hours." 
 
 Many weeks later when Stella, speaking of Lady de 
 Cliffe, said she was a disease, and not a woman at all, 
 Vanessa recalled this outpouring, about which there was 
 no reticence, and little modesty. Hilda had fallen in 
 love with Sir George Chitterling. She wanted Vanessa 
 to talk to Hugh, to talk to every one, she said she wanted 
 the coast left clear for her ! She had begun the conver- 
 sation by chaffing Vanessa about Joe Wallingford, she 
 ended up by a reckless betrayal of the lowest moral
 
 SEBASTIAN 167 
 
 standard; and an abandonment, scarcely sane, to an 
 emotion that had seized her some three days since. 
 
 Vanessa was repelled, amazed, incredulous. Then she 
 became analytic, and played the psychological novelist. 
 And Hilda liked to have her feelings dissected, and to help 
 in the dissection. Vanessa, who prided herself on being 
 broad-minded, tried to hide her repulsion. Hilda was 
 hysterically confidential, and unashamed. 
 
 When the men came up, the party fell easily into 
 their places. Sir George Chitterling sat on the sofa, and 
 murmured in a low voice to his hostess ; who began to 
 revive, and become animated, under the stimulus. Joe 
 Wallingford sought Vanessa, and the others sat down to 
 icarte. 
 
 Vanessa, anxious to leave her hostess, and the card 
 players, undisturbed, talked freely; and Joe listened, 
 sympathetically. He was amazingly shrewd. She 
 thought she had said little about Sebastian, or her dis- 
 appointment in him, yet that was Joe's text. In their 
 corner of the big drawing-room they were as isolated as 
 if it had been a t&te-h-tete they were enjoying. 
 
 "I should think he will do very well in business," 
 Joe told her. He had, somehow or other, quickly 
 found out the subject that interested her. "I've had a 
 lot of young fellows from public schools, and licked them 
 into shape. It is not the public schools that do the harm, 
 it's the loafing at the University for three years, after- 
 wards. They are not much good after that," he said. 
 
 "I was disappointed," she admitted. 
 
 " At his going into the City ? What did you want him 
 to do?"
 
 168 SEBASTIAN 
 
 She hesitated. 
 
 "Almost anything." 
 
 "But you had something in view for him?" 
 
 "No, not definitely. The bar, literature, or politics, 
 perhaps, if he had not preferred diplomacy." 
 
 "Ten years idling, and a crowd in front of him, 
 difficult to get past, hustling him out. As for politics, 
 a successful business man has the best chance there. 
 Whyl- 
 
 He paused, she could not want to hear what had 
 happened to him. But she did, and pressed for it. 
 
 " I have been asked to stand for my division ; it's not 
 worth talking about. Tell me more about your son. 
 It is his father's business, the hand-made paper, isn't it, 
 the Kendall Mills?" 
 
 " Yes ! They were trying material for my father's book 
 when I first met Mr. Kendall." 
 
 "Were you helping him to write it ?" 
 
 "Oh, no. How could I help him? Except perhaps 
 by a little research work, and arranging his notes." 
 
 From the beginning, Joe found'no difficulty in talking 
 to Vanessa Kendall, such as had barred his speech in other 
 drawing-rooms. He told her, presently, all about his 
 own political chances, they were not aspirations, they 
 were opportunities that were being pressed upon him. 
 She was genuinely interested, and he found her most 
 encouraging. The party, there was only one party in 
 Vanessa's eyes, and none at all, until lately, in Joe's, 
 wanted Press influence, to spread their Protection tenets. 
 London was safe, but there was doubt, hesitation, and 
 appalling ignorance, in provincial trade centres. Joe
 
 SEBASTIAN 169 
 
 Wallingford's seven or eight papers meant two or three 
 million readers. And Joe was being bribed to make them 
 read the truth about English merchandise, and the 
 failure of Free Trade. 
 
 Not all at once, not only in that first evening, did Joe 
 Wallingford unbosom himself to the first woman he had 
 met in whom he found companionship, understanding, 
 and something that he read for sympathy. 
 
 The Seaton House atmosphere was undoubtedly un- 
 congenial to Vanessa. In London, Hilda had been an 
 interesting novelty, a marionette, mouthing paradox 
 and epigram ; humanly speaking, something of an abstrac- 
 tion. At close quarters she was weird, corrupt, unwhole- 
 some. Lady de Cliffe was everything of which Vanessa 
 had no experience, and was unable to place. She was 
 a morphia-maniac, to begin with. If she had ever had 
 a moral fibre, it had become loose and coarse from the 
 drug. She was given, in the intervals of super-intelli- 
 gent analysis of her indulged emotions, to becoming 
 quite uncontrollably enamoured, now of this, and now of 
 the other, man. 
 
 It was, perhaps, unfortunate, that Vanessa should 
 have timed her visit at the beginning of one of these 
 erotic attacks. Hilda ate, slept, and dressed with only 
 Sir George Chitterling in her mind. She talked of 
 nothing else, she said inconceivable things that bewildered 
 and startled her guest. 
 
 Vanessa's visit was timed for a week, and she could not, 
 without discourtesy, of which she was incapable, cut it 
 short. But she could, and did, make it obvions to Joe 
 Wallingford that she was out of her element, and
 
 170 SEBASTIAN 
 
 thoroughly ill at ease. And Joe, who had a hundred calls 
 on his time, engagements and business of every descrip- 
 tion to which he should have been attending, dismissed 
 them all easily by letter, telegrams, and telephone, and, 
 with the exception of two hurried visits to London, 
 remained at her disposal. 
 
 It was an easy-going, hospitable house, and Joe knew 
 how to make himself welcome to his host. He rode out 
 on the heath in the mornings and saw the "young 'uns" 
 gallop. He bought a horse from Hugh, and two yearlings 
 at Tony's instigation. After the ladies had retired for 
 the night, he played bridge, or poker, or anything that 
 they suggested. One evening he took De Cliff e on at 
 billiards. But there was no profit for Hughie in that ! 
 It is probable there would have been little, or none, in 
 the other games if Joe had so minded. The position to 
 which Joe Wallingford had attained, is not won by a 
 fool, or a flat. The big provincial was neither, but this 
 week at Newmarket was worth paying for, so, although 
 he was not fond of wasting his well-earned money, he 
 paid for it. 
 
 He grew, in that week, into a very strange intimacy 
 with a woman who had a hundred acquaintances, and 
 only her sister and her son for friends. There was Stella, 
 and there had been Sebastian. These and her pen had 
 sufficed Vanessa. She had taken her politics from the 
 newspapers, and the world from books. Her acquaint- 
 ances, other than the St. Maurs, were literary people, 
 old friends of her father's; men and women to whom 
 pictures, or Cloisonne", Chippendale furniture, eighteenth- 
 century mezzotints, china and miniatures, were more 
 vital than humanity.
 
 SEBASTIAN 171 
 
 Joe Wallingford did not know an oleograph from an 
 oil-painting, nor Battersea enamel from Lowestoft china, 
 but she did not weary of his conversation. Joe was on the 
 eve of great things, on the threshold of a career that 
 might lead to power. Lord Lenham wished to come on 
 the board of the Imperial Syndicate. It had been 
 suggested by him that the proprietor of the Workington 
 Chronicle would find the party grateful for a correct 
 interpretation of their views, and that the gratitude that 
 commenced with a baronetcy, might easily expand to a 
 peerage. 
 
 Joe was being tempted to partizanship, and many 
 lures were being spread before him. The boy, who had 
 stood beside his father in shirt sleeves at the printing 
 press, who had been taken away from school at thirteen 
 years of age because the few shillings he could earn were 
 of importance to the family exchequer, had found himself 
 an honoured guest at the Earl of Tatterton's. He told 
 Vanessa that Lord Tatterton was very genial to him, 
 and Lenham, the eldest son and heir, who had been in the 
 last Cabinet, and was active now in Opposition, hardly 
 talked to any one else whilst Joe Wallingford had been 
 the guest of the moment at Wroxford. 
 
 All this Vanessa heard. Joe did not stop to explain to 
 himself his feeling for Vanessa, why he stayed on at 
 Seaton House, why he, who had all his life been reticent, 
 became communicative, why he, who had been attracted 
 by no lure spread before him, found them all alluring 
 when he was telling her of what might accrue. He had 
 looked for none of the things that were being dangled 
 before him. His ambitions had been to " sell a few more
 
 172 SEBASTIAN 
 
 papers," for so he worded his business instinct for rival- 
 ling his competitors in his own trade. He had had, and 
 this was Vanessa's phrasing, little interest in his own 
 personality. And his sense of citizenship had been con- 
 fined to local affairs. But Free Trade or Protection 
 was a national matter. So was the growing political 
 power of labour, woman's suffrage, and socialism. 
 
 Vanessa had always, it now appeared, been semi- 
 conscious of the nearness of these things to herself. 
 She had always resented the limitations of her immediate 
 interests, blaming Stella's health, her duty to David, the 
 absorption of Sebastian, for her practical ineptitude. 
 She grew momentarily absorbed in the man through 
 whom she saw them close to her just at the juncture 
 when life was so amazingly empty. His perfunctory, 
 slighting allusions to Imperial matters awoke in her an 
 almost passionate desire to bring his responsibilities 
 home to him. The ambitions, Sebastian had so thwarted, 
 knew a strange, hot, recrudescence after these talks with 
 Joe Wallingford. She knew how she could have helped, 
 and quickened him, had he been son or brother. And 
 she did quicken him by her eager intelligence, and insist- 
 ence that he must go where he was being impelled, that 
 he was the man for the hour. 
 
 For she had the mind to see, long before the world saw, 
 that Joe Wallingford was a force, a strong man who had 
 as yet shouldered no burden. The Conservatives were 
 waiting for a leader, vainly surveying the political hori- 
 zon for something, some one, to stem the rising tide of 
 democracy and Fabianism. They were looking in recog- 
 nised quarters, to great houses, for worthy scions. But
 
 SEBASTIAN 173 
 
 as before, in times of stress, it was from the people the 
 leader would arise. 
 
 Vanessa's enthusiasm led Joe Wallingford to accept 
 the offer that had been made to him to stand for the 
 southern division of Workington, but it had a far stranger 
 effect than that. 
 
 "You are not very happy here. Why are you staying 
 on?" Joe asked her, bluntly, one afternoon, when Sir 
 George and Hilda occupied the drawing-room, the men 
 monopolised the hall, and the dull library, with its stale 
 smoke, and air of disuse, was the only refuge from her 
 bedroom. She flushed, she was so completely honest. 
 
 "I do not want to go home." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He was blunt, and she was honest. It was because she 
 had said she would not go back, because Sebastian had 
 disappointed her by going into business ! How poor, 
 and trivial, and absurd, it suddenly seemed. Her heart 
 ached with longing for him; grew sick with longing for 
 him, when even his spoken name was in the room. This 
 week had solaced it, she knew in a flash of intuition, gone 
 almost as quickly as it came, how she had been solaced. 
 Joe Wallingford was a successful business man. And 
 her Sebastian was second to none in talent or industry. 
 
 "They will be looking for you," he said, shrewdly, 
 " a boy knows his mother won't stop away from him for 
 long because he has chosen his career for himself." 
 
 Joe did not speak of David, he did not want to re- 
 member she had a husband. But her son was part of 
 her, no intimacy with, or knowledge of, Vanessa could 
 ignore it. Estranged from him as she imagined herself, 
 his name was daily, hourly, on her lips.
 
 174 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You don't look as if you had a boy of eighteen/' 
 he went on. They very seldom touched intimate per- 
 sonal things. But the uttermost limit of his visit had 
 been reached. He was going to leave her behind him, 
 and take up the life of which they had talked. Meetings 
 and men loomed before him, indefinably lacking in in- 
 terest. "You must have married very young." 
 
 "I was barely eighteen." 
 
 "That means you are about thirty-eight." 
 
 It was involuntary ; it came to his mind he was forty- 
 three. He was the right age for her, and she was the 
 only woman he had ever seen that he could have married. 
 Not a man of sentiment, knowing little of women, and 
 not given to thinking of his personal needs, it had not 
 struck him until now that he was alone in the world. 
 
 They had been out together, and she was more femi- 
 nine than usual in her motor hat and flowing veil. Her 
 cheeks were flushed and her eyes softly bright. In the 
 glow of the firelight, she stood, warm, companionable, 
 and desirable. 
 
 Her upright figure was slim as a girl's, the dark tailor- 
 made coat defined its lines. 
 
 "You ought to be at home," he went on, slowly. 
 
 "Because?" 
 
 "Because it's your place. And they'll be wanting 
 you, they'll both be wanting you all the time." 
 
 "I have nothing in common with them," she repeated, 
 anxious to be contradicted, wanting to be persuaded. 
 " I am primarily, and above all things, a literary woman. 
 Books absorb me, the printed page, my own, and other 
 people's. You asked me once why I write? I cannot
 
 SEBASTIAN 175 
 
 help writing. Since I can remember, I have translated 
 feeling into phrase, that is my life's essence. I cannot 
 explain it, nor," and she smiled, "excuse it, for to you it 
 needs excuse. Even now " she hesitated. 
 
 "Even now, you were going to say, when you are 
 suffering from having separated yourself from the boy 
 and your home, when you are restless, and conscious 
 of the wrong surroundings, you think you can make a 
 story of it, and so get right?" 
 
 She could not be uncandid. 
 
 "It has always been true, but now it is not quite true. 
 
 I cannot write " She flushed slightly. Why 
 
 should she be talking so openly to this comparative 
 stranger ? 
 
 "You see him, he comes between the pen and the 
 paper?" 
 
 "Yes! between me and my book, between me and 
 my thoughts." And then she added, impulsively, "It 
 is only when I am talking about him that I get over it 
 a little, that that my heart does not ache." She 
 put her hand involuntarily to her side. "The heart- 
 ache stops then. Otherwise, all the time, day and night, 
 at meals, when I try to write, in the midst of talking, 
 all the time, I am conscious of nothing so acute as 
 my longing for him, the emptiness of my days and 
 dreams. ..." 
 
 Her voice broke a little, and she was ashamed. There 
 was more sympathy, more softness in his eyes, when she 
 raised hers to meet them, than she had expected to see. 
 She had never met any one so understanding, with 
 whom she could talk so freely. She went on, a little 
 breathlessly :
 
 176 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "It is possible I am exaggerating. Perhaps, talking 
 to you like this, is another form of literary self-indul- 
 gence, insincerity?" 
 
 "No, it isn't, you mean every word you say, and feel 
 it. You don't know yourself, that's all. There is a 
 woman in you, you've clouded her with ink, but she's 
 there all the same. I wish " 
 
 But she did not hear what he wished, for he dismissed 
 it with an impatient sigh, and went on : 
 
 "You are out of place here, out of your element. 
 This woman, Lady Hilda, is not your sort. You go 
 home. Home is the place for a woman like you, it don't 
 much matter what you do there. Scribble, or leave it 
 alone, but go back to the boy. You're loose from your 
 moorings without him. When a boat's loose from its 
 moorings, it drifts " 
 
 He stopped ; and she said, lightly : 
 
 "I should not drift very far." 
 
 "There are many might like to tow you to port/' 
 he rejoined, rather irritably. She looked up in surprise, 
 and some amusement. 
 
 "Don't you be offended with me. You know I'm 
 plain spoken. You're too good-looking to go about by 
 yourself." 
 
 "Absurd!" she answered quickly, reddening a little, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 "Too attractive." 
 
 "But I am not at all that sort of woman," she inter- 
 polated, interested, all the same, in a new view of herself. 
 
 "No ! and I have never been at all that sort of man, 
 nevertheless. . . ." Their eyes met. 
 
 "Absurd," she said again, averting hers.
 
 SEBASTIAN 177 
 
 "I knew it would seem like that to you," he answered, 
 quietly, one might have thought, indifferently. "You 
 don't care whether I'm dead or alive, I'm naught to you, 
 your whole mind is on the boy. But it wouldn't be 
 absurd if you did what you talk of doing, freed yourself 
 from your ties, lived alone." 
 
 "I can take care of myself." 
 
 " Every woman can take care of herself until she likes 
 the man who likes her." 
 
 So desirable she looked, in her surprise, and growing 
 interest, the firelight red on her ebon hair, and warm 
 about her warmth, that he said, harshly : 
 
 "Go home. You are not safe out of your home." 
 
 It struck her, quite suddenly, that he was telling her 
 something of what she had never known, of some power 
 or possibility in herself of which she had never dreamed. 
 She had had no love, or lovers, in her life. She wanted 
 to dwell on the literary value of the situation. But, 
 instead, the personality of the man held her, and his 
 next words arrested her. 
 
 "Are you going home?" he asked, brutally. "Be- 
 cause, if not, there is Workington." 
 
 "You mean?" 
 
 "I mean " 
 
 He changed his intention in the middle of his speech. 
 He was cool and level-headed, habitually, and there had 
 been only a momentary lapse from his habit. 
 
 "That if you are not going back to your home, you 
 had better come to Workington. You can write at your 
 novel, or you can come in with us in this campaign. 
 There will be articles, manifestos, speeches."
 
 178 SEBASTIAN 
 
 He had visions, a quick thought of companionship 
 in twilight hours, a room warm, like this one, with fire- 
 light, and she there, always, to meet him after the day's 
 work. 
 
 "Will you come?" he asked her, quite plainly. 
 
 And for a moment she stood silent, contemplating a 
 new prospect. He had a great future in front of him, 
 and she could help him. He would not thwart her, nor 
 break from her influence. His massive strength made 
 some appeal to her, the strangeness of her sensations 
 held, or compelled, her interest. 
 
 A subtle something, fear or feeling, thrilled her. She 
 looked up to meet enquiring eyes ; he was uncertain still, 
 he had known her but a short week. Now she hesitated, 
 when he expected quick rejection. 
 
 "Is it to be Workington?" 
 
 "Wait! Wait! I am trying to think what your 
 offer means." But she was unconsciously embarrassed 
 when she said the words, that, almost involuntarily, 
 brought him nearer to her. She went on, hurriedly, 
 getting, as she thought, on to safe ground, "You mean 
 that if I am genuine, serious; if I really intend dis- 
 sociating myself permanently from husband and son, 
 you" her speech grew slow, hesitating, it was absurd 
 to feel embarrassed, but the absurdity came to pass 
 "you would offer me a political career, polemics to write, 
 the Anti-Suffrage Movement to direct in your publica- 
 tions?" 
 
 He interrupted her, quite unceremoniously : 
 
 "I am offering you whatever you want. Work, 
 or "
 
 SEBASTIAN 179 
 
 He was standing directly in front of her now, and again 
 they looked into each other's eyes. His was a very 
 steady look, and it was Vanessa's eyes that fell. She 
 drew in her breath suddenly, and again she said : 
 
 "Wait!" 
 
 "You may as well be frank with me," he answered, 
 after a short pause. "Speak what is in your mind; 
 you must know what is in mine. I am in no hurry, 
 take your own time. If you are in earnest that you 
 have severed yourself from home, come to Workington. 
 Leave it at that; you can do as you like when you get 
 there I'd like to see you often." 
 
 She shaded her eyes with her hands, she was indeed 
 out of her element. She felt as stupid as a schoolgirl, 
 and as shy. Of course she was misunderstanding him, 
 and there was no meaning in his eyes, such as had lowered 
 hers. Out of the confusion of her thoughts, after a few 
 difficult moments, sprang sincerity of speech. 
 
 "I have been trying to do the impossible. How 
 stupid I have been ! How blind ! Sebastian is is 
 me," she said, slowly. "I have been contemplating life 
 without him, and there has become a hollow where was 
 my heart. I feel faint, physically faint. It could not 
 be, it is impossible. I have mistaken myself, my 
 strength. You have shown me my way, I have been so 
 horribly wrong." 
 
 Silence fell again. She uncovered her eyes, looking 
 into the fire, ignoring that which she did not wish to 
 understand. 
 
 "I have been horribly wrong, and unreasonable. At 
 this moment, I don't know why, I suddenly see it all
 
 180 SEBASTIAN 
 
 quite clearly. It has been only temper, my bad temper, 
 that I have been indulging, because I could not get my 
 own way ! One name or another, the trade of literature, 
 or the trade of paper making ; what does it really matter ? 
 Through your clear eyes one is no finer than the other. 
 How you belittle the things I revere unconsciously, 
 of course. The dead past is all dead to you, and there 
 is only the present, and a short future, for us to play in. 
 You have bought my books, but you have never read 
 them. You have heard my father's name, but it has no 
 meaning for you. And yet you, how strange, have made 
 everything so clear to me. How little I count " 
 
 "No. No." 
 
 "How little my work matters, my motherhood counts 
 more " 
 
 "Call it your womanhood." 
 
 She was really thinking aloud. She said, quite slowly : 
 
 "I have never been sure about that. Stella, my 
 sister, has queried it, and Lady de Cliffe, I myself, too, 
 sometimes!" 
 
 "It's there, right enough," said Joe. 
 
 " Perhaps I should never have written novels, divided 
 myself from the living?" she asked him, hesitatingly. 
 
 "You've had no call to do it." 
 
 "It has always seemed to me that I have had no 
 genuine call to do anything else, that that alone is in- 
 herent, uncontrollable. I think so much more clearly, 
 and easily, with a pen in my hand." 
 
 "Well, it has come to this. It is the first time you 
 are in trouble, and your pen has not helped you. You've 
 got a heart- "
 
 SEBASTIAN 181 
 
 "Small, narrow " 
 
 "Give it a chance." 
 
 "Go back?" 
 
 "Or go . forward. There's Workington, and and 
 the movement." He had almost added, instead, "and 
 me." 
 
 "You want to test me?" 
 
 "Don't you make a mistake. I want to put things 
 before you. You told me you'd left home for good, you 
 had done with your husband and your son. I've told 
 you where, and how, you can get into a new groove. 
 I'm not disinterested " 
 
 "You think I could be of use to you?" She wanted 
 to be assured that she was on safe ground, that nothing 
 had occurred to startle her. 
 
 He had no subtlety. 
 
 "I don't think anything of the sort," he answered, 
 plainly. "I think I could have been of use to you." 
 
 " You ! " And her face flushed. 
 
 "Well!" he said. "Well, it seems you don't get on 
 well with your husband. ..."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was not coincidence, but the parlourmaid, that 
 brought Sebastian's irregular scrawl on the silver 
 salver. 
 
 "An express letter, Madam." 
 
 She took it with a quick beat of the heart, and a thrill 
 of apprehension, or pleasure. He had written, it had 
 come at last, the call of her boy ; nothing was vital but 
 that, he had written to her, at last ! 
 
 "Dear Mater," the words struck coldly to her: 
 in his letters he had used always the childish pet name. 
 He had always before written "Mumsy," but now she 
 had estranged him. Her eyes ravished the page : 
 
 "Uncle John has had an accident, and it has knocked 
 the pater out of time. I thought you ought to know. 
 Sebastian." 
 
 With pale lips she turned to Joe : 
 
 "Bad news?" he asked, briefly, reading her face. 
 
 " I must get home, quickly, at once. How right you 
 were!" 
 
 He did not stay to argue, or tell her it was not he 
 who had said it. He set himself to help her. 
 
 "We'll have the motor round again. Your maid 
 can follow with the things ; I'll take you up. You shall 
 tell me all about it as we go along." 
 
 He was a man upon whom to lean. Vanessa had 
 
 182
 
 SEBASTIAN 183 
 
 prided herself on needing no strength but her own ; but, 
 from the first, she found Joe Wallingford reliable. It 
 seemed no time at all from the moment the servant 
 brought her the letter on the salver, to when she found 
 herself back again in the familiar Harley Street drawing- 
 room, listening to what had occurred in her absence. 
 
 Joe Wallingford was with her, and that made it dif- 
 ferent somehow. He had brought her up in the motor, 
 and she had let him come upstairs. She heard that no 
 one was at home. "Mr. Sebastian is at the office, the 
 master is with Mr. John; and so is Mr. William." It 
 seemed that Mr. John had been knocked down by a 
 motor-omnibus yesterday evening, they thought he 
 would not live through the night, but Mr. Sebastian said 
 this morning he was still alive. The master had been 
 with him all the time. 
 
 Vanessa pressed eager questions as to how Mr. Sebastian 
 was looking; the man could only say he seemed very 
 distressed about his father. 
 
 Joe Wallingford, listening, was taking in his surround- 
 ings. The beautiful, over-full drawing-room reflected 
 the personality of the woman with whom he had fallen 
 in love. There was no good disguising from himself 
 what had happened; he made no attempt to do so. 
 All the fine china, and prints, and miniatures were toys, 
 and she a child, who played with them. But the note 
 in her voice when she spoke of the boy was a woman's 
 note. It convinced him that here indeed was her heart ; 
 and it seemed to him, in a dull moment of disappoint- 
 ment, that she had given all of it. 
 
 "I am sorry Sebastian is not at home yet; he may
 
 184 SEBASTIAN 
 
 come in any minute. I expect he has gone on to Clap- 
 ham," she said to Joe. 
 
 "Mr. John is not at Clapham, ma'am," the man in- 
 terrupted. "He is close round here, at Dr. Gifford's; 
 they took him to the hospital, but Dr. Gifford had him 
 fetched away. Mr. Sebastian is coming home; he 
 ordered cold supper, so as he could be in when convenient. 
 He said he would fetch the master along with him, if 
 he could." 
 
 Vanessa hesitated. Should she go to Dr. Gifford's? 
 Should she wait? The boy was unused to trouble, 
 and she knew not what might be happening. David 
 was wrapped up in his brothers. 
 
 "You will be wanting to get your things off. I'll 
 go in the motor, if you give me the address, and bring 
 you back the latest news, or your son 
 
 She was quickly grateful; but Sebastian forestalled 
 him. He was in the room, the knowledge of his presence 
 was in her glad, satisfied eyes ! 
 
 Joe's heart felt cold and heavy. How near he had 
 been to making a fool of himself ; to believing that this 
 woman had ever seriously thought to cut herself adrift 
 from home, that he could have stood to her for anything 
 but an outsider. . . . 
 
 There was no sentiment in the greeting between mother 
 and son, and yet it told him all this. 
 
 "That you, mater?" 
 
 "I came as quickly as possible. I only got your letter 
 an hour and a half ago." 
 
 "You've come too late," he said, "it's all over." 
 
 Then he threw himself on the sofa, and she went over
 
 SEBASTIAN 185 
 
 to him, knelt by him, put her head down beside his, 
 said a word or two in his ear broken words. She was 
 so sorry. Neither of them noticed Joe Wallingford. 
 He was no part of them, an unconsidered stranger. He 
 went softly away, rather sore. 
 
 She had never had tender words for any man. She 
 could not find them even for Sebastian; but she knelt 
 beside him. 
 
 "Don't cry; I can't bear it," she said in a low voice, 
 "it is not like you." 
 
 He soon exhausted his emotion. Outwardly every- 
 thing between them was as it had always been. It was 
 she to whom he could always talk. 
 
 " It has been awful, too awful ! Thank God you've 
 come. Uncle William is off his head. He just sits and 
 moans, and rocks himself and gets out : ' I'm the eldest. 
 It ought to have been me ; it isn't fair, it ought to have 
 been me.' The governor tries to comfort him. He says : 
 'Pull yourself together, Bill, pull yourself together.' 
 He repeats it over and over again. And then he lies on 
 John's bed, and cries." 
 
 Sebastian's voice broke. 
 
 "Uncle John only spoke about once. He said: 'It's 
 all right, Will, it's all right, Dave; we've got the boy, 
 you won't miss me." 
 
 "Can anything be done?" 
 
 Sebastian gradually regained his composure. He 
 had an awed sense of responsibility ; he knew there was 
 a great deal to do. Uncle William was off his head, and 
 his father was dazed with grief. He would not have 
 broken down in this way, but for finding his mother wait-
 
 186 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ing for him, but for her familiar eyes and speech, and the 
 knowledge that nothing need be said, that all was right 
 between them once more. 
 
 "He died half an hour ago. The governor is still 
 sitting by him, all stunned and quiet. But they can't 
 quiet Uncle Will ; he goes on talking to him "he broke 
 off again. " It's awful ! I've got to go out to Clapham, 
 and tell them there. The pater will be in presently, 
 you'll look after him." 
 
 "But you must have something to eat first." 
 
 She took practical command at once. He was glad 
 to be taken care of, made to eat, to drink a pint of cham- 
 pagne, to tell what he knew, to talk. He was so young. 
 
 He said: "Aren't you glad now that I'm in the busi- 
 ness ? I suppose it's some sort of Providence made me 
 obstinate about it. I can take something off the pater's 
 shoulders." 
 
 But all of her heart was with him hi the immediate 
 present, and she was feeling acutely her past disloyalty. 
 
 " I will go out to Clapham instead of you. You have 
 been with your father all through, and it will be no fresh 
 excitement for him to see you when he comes back." 
 
 "I expect he would rather have you." 
 
 Before, however, they had got through with supper 
 or plans, Dr. Gifford arrived in Harley Street, bringing 
 David with him. David was very grey and quiet. He 
 did not seem surprised at seeing Vanessa there. 
 
 "Sebastian has wanted you," he said, dully. 
 
 Vanessa made him sit down; she pressed food and 
 drink upon him; she tried, wordlessly, to comfort him. 
 Dr. Gifford soon left the three together. He was taking
 
 SEBASTIAN 187 
 
 William home later, he thought the old housekeeper, and 
 the people to whom he was accustomed, would be best 
 able to meet his needs. 
 
 Vanessa went out in the hall with the doctor, and 
 was told the truth. William Kendall had had a shock 
 from which he might not recover. He was over sixty, 
 and had been failing somewhat, lately, in many ways. 
 
 "Put your husband to bed; keep him there, warm, 
 lightly fed, as quiet as possible. He has taken it better 
 than I could have expected, and will probably be all 
 right, if we get through the next few hours. Sebastian 
 can make the arrangements for the funeral. Tell him 
 to come round in the morning, about ten. I'll have the 
 certificate ready." 
 
 "He is so young." 
 
 "He is quite able to do all that is necessary. And at 
 the office it's a good thing he is there. It is the only 
 chance of keeping Kendall in bed." 
 
 Vanessa went back to the dining-room. Both hus- 
 band and son were very silent, awaiting her. Sebastian, 
 with the recuperative power of youth, was almost cheer- 
 ful. And exhausted as he was, and desperately miser- 
 able, David wanted Vanessa to know they were glad of 
 her presence. He exerted himself to eat a little, to drink 
 what was urged upon him. It seemed natural presently 
 that they should both of them be going upstairs with 
 him, mother and son conveyed a message to each other, 
 simultaneously. David must have Sebastian's room, 
 the one that opened into Vanessa's; he would want 
 company that night, comfort, the sound of a human 
 voice. They would not heed his protests. And he was 
 almost too broken to urge that they must not mind him.
 
 188 SEBASTIAN 
 
 After he had been got to bed, Vanessa sat talking in 
 her own room to Sebastian, far into the night. They 
 said little of what had divided them. The intimacy 
 between them was still there, but, perhaps, it was a 
 different intimacy. There was remorse, and a new 
 tenderness in Vanessa. Before this, Sebastian had only 
 loved and admired his mother; now he judged her. 
 It was for his father, and not for himself only, he had been 
 resentful. He could not forget it all at once, yet he 
 was himself unconscious of the change. If he never 
 again accepted her quite so unreservedly, on the surface, 
 all was as before. She needed the assurance of his love ; 
 the knowledge he had missed her was bitter-sweet and 
 poignant. There was no long-winded explanation. She 
 did not try to palliate her conduct. All he told her was : 
 
 "I was sorry you took it that way, my going into 
 business. I had to do it. We have always talked things 
 out before, and it made everything rotten." 
 
 "I was wrong, I was mistaken, unreasonable, illogical:" 
 her heart cried how wrong she had been. She was gen- 
 erous and passionate in her admission of it, there was no 
 hesitation or reserve. 
 
 "The pater had the hump over you." 
 
 "I was fearfully depressed the whole time, homesick 
 for you. Don't reproach me more than you can help !" 
 
 "Of course I know it was only because you thought 
 such a lot of me." 
 
 "I do still." They smiled at each other. Things 
 were very nearly as they had always been between 
 them, the sense of companionship, and comprehension 
 was still there.
 
 SEBASTIAN 189 
 
 "I daresay you are right. Uncle John said he'd 
 never seen any one take to the accountancy like I did : 
 figuring is awfully easy to me. Mater, isn't it funny 
 when you think it was classics brought me up in every- 
 thing at Eton ; and now it's only my mathematics that 
 are any good. And the mill too ; there's simply nothing 
 left for me to learn in the way of making hand-made 
 paper." 
 
 "Then you like it?" 
 
 "Well ! I wouldn't go as far as that." He sat silent 
 for a minute. But he was used to letting her see into his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "I suppose I am a bit of a snob. I hate selling the 
 stuff. I went round to Wroughton's with the governor ; 
 they are going to have a new magazine, archaeological, 
 and they are doing it top-up. Well, it happens Wrough- 
 ton minor was at my tutor's. He was still in remove 
 when I was in first hundred Sebastian paused, and 
 then went on, with a short laugh : 
 
 "The little beast patronised me. 'I'll give you a leg 
 up with the governor/ he said, whilst the pater was talk- 
 ing; 'there are three of you in it for quality and price, 
 but you'll get the order, you see.' " 
 
 "Irritating!" 
 
 "Sickening, wasn't it? I wanted to tell him to go 
 to the devil. But when we came out of the office the 
 pater said I seemed quite friendly with young John 
 Wroughton, and that he thought it would be of use !" 
 
 " I don't know how you bear it all." 
 
 "The governor has been ever so much better, in a lot 
 of ways. Dr. Gifford says he is pounds stronger."
 
 190 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "There was never such a son." 
 
 "That's rot ! " But he was quite pleased with himself, 
 nevertheless, and ready to sit up any length of time, 
 hearing Vanessa expatiate upon the theme. 
 
 David rallied from the shock of his brother's death, 
 but William Kendall never rallied, passing, by slow 
 stages, from feeble misery to happier vacuity, and second 
 childhood. 
 
 David and Sebastian were all that were left to maintain 
 the prestige, and the status, of P. and A. Kendall and 
 Co. It was pitiful during the next few months to note 
 David's efforts to guard the boy from overwork, from 
 over-anxiety, to make things easy for him, to take burden 
 after burden from the young shoulders, to press upon his 
 own. And always he belittled his efforts : 
 
 "You have no idea how that boy works," he told 
 Vanessa, often. "You should make him take a day 
 off now and again. Can't you think of some way of 
 persuading him away from the City?" 
 
 "I have never been able to persuade you away from 
 it," she would answer, drily. But indeed with her new, 
 softer vision she had heartache over both of them, her 
 first consciousness of a heart was the pain she felt there. 
 Sebastian was a man before he had grown out of boyhood. 
 That man and boy warred in him, to the advantage of 
 neither, she saw dimly. 
 
 The year that John Kendall died, and William Kendall 
 began to die, Vanessa Kendall relinquished her pen. 
 Sebastian taught her, or perhaps in some indefinable 
 way, Joe Wallingford had taught her, how little of value 
 she was abandoning. This was the year that she began
 
 SEBASTIAN 191 
 
 to grow toward womanhood, opening her heart, widening 
 her sympathies. Her pen lay idle, but her eyes began 
 to see. 
 
 Not very clearly at first, nor very quickly. They 
 had been blind eyes so long, focused to MSS., lost to a 
 larger perspective. 
 
 If puppets, and prints, and china were to be displaced, 
 what was she to put in their stead ? Always there had 
 been Sebastian and Stella, and the uneasy knowledge 
 of David's worth : none of this was new. Was Joe Wal- 
 lingf ord to supply the answer ? 
 
 He was constantly in Harley Street, coming up from 
 Workington on Saturday, and staying in London over 
 the week, becoming an habitue of her house, taking in 
 Sebastian and David with his quick intelligence, helpful 
 to them all in a way, and impressing his personality. 
 
 Stella, temporarily restored to her normal indifferent 
 health, became cognisant of the newcomer, and his in- 
 fluence. She jeered at it gently, but not without a little 
 jealousy. She could not bear that any one should have 
 a serious place in her sister's interest. Sebastian was 
 the only rival she tolerated, and that not without reser- 
 vations. 
 
 Stella was a little irritable with her sister these days : 
 the source of it lay deep. 
 
 "You still think Sebastian is a genius, I suppose," she 
 said to Vanessa, " although he is selling paper in the City, 
 and adopting a City attitude toward life?" 
 
 Vanessa had to admit that her opinion of Sebastian's 
 talents had not altered, and almost humbly she added 
 that her opinion of his character was higher than it had
 
 192 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ever been. She realised now how finely and quickly 
 he had seen his duty to his father, how loyally he was 
 performing it; she saw her own inferiority to him both 
 in perception and action. 
 
 And this canonisation of Sebastian at the mother's 
 expense, was a little exasperating to Stella, who loved 
 her sister and only tolerated her nephew. She said 
 little jeering things about him on every occasion. Va- 
 nessa, always conscious of Stella's loneliness in life, of 
 her unhappy marriage, restrained her replies, made 
 every possible allowance for a temper embittered by 
 circumstance. But she was conscious of a growing 
 estrangement, conscious that now she oftener sought her 
 sister's companionship from a sense of duty than of 
 pleasure.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SEBASTIAN took little advantage of his father's 
 solicitude. He worked his eight or ten hours a day 
 in the City, or at the mills, conscientiously learning the 
 intricacies of the paper trade, and incidentally of the 
 weakness in the methods of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall, 
 a weakness he saw a hundred easy ways of remedying ! 
 
 But he was not yet twenty, and play, of a sort, was 
 as essential to his growth as work. Pleasey Pleyden- 
 Carr, and his cousin Bice, each took their separate 
 place. With the first, his intimacy grew. His idealism 
 gilded the pale hair, made queenly and beautiful the 
 slight figure, rare and delicate the reserve that found 
 their friendship always at the same level. That secret 
 sentimentality, that never wholly left him, made the 
 girl's poverty and dependence part of her charm, light- 
 ing and keeping warm his chivalry, deepening his feel- 
 ing for her. And Bice was ever his confidante, although 
 they talked in ellipsis, finding together illuminative 
 love passages from Browning and Shakespeare, letting 
 it be understood, almost without words between them, 
 how it was with him. 
 
 And the St. Maurs added zest to the lives of the 
 young people. They were always getting up enter- 
 tainments, giving dinner parties, theatre parties, im- 
 promptu dances. Mrs. St. Maur had now got it well 
 
 o 193
 
 194 SEBASTIAN 
 
 into her frizzled head, and established behind her beam- 
 ing glasses, that the Kendalls and the Ashtons " mattered" 
 that they were really amongst the most distinguished of 
 her acquaintances ! She had even little obvious schemes, 
 and intrigues, about Bice and Reggie, about Sebastian 
 and the fat Viola. If the young St. Maurs knew what 
 was in store for them, Sebastian and Bice were igno- 
 rant. They lived on a higher plane of feeling than the 
 others, love itself was a sacrament, marriage dazzling, 
 inchoate, dim in the distance, a little beyond their 
 young vision. 
 
 Bice would willingly, cheerfully, at any time have 
 given her life for her cousin. All that he took from 
 her, however, was her tireless sympathy for his love of 
 Pleasey Pleyden-Carr. 
 
 It was, nevertheless, in pursuance of the matrimonial 
 schemes, doomed to prove abortive, that the St. Maurs 
 decided to devote their autumn to private theatricals. 
 This was Sebastian's second year in business. He was 
 twenty years of age, and there was a little down on his 
 upper lip, dark and becoming. Viola's frocks were hur- 
 riedly lengthened, and the theatricals suddenly decided 
 upon. 
 
 Naturally, with a Sebastian and Viola in the caste, 
 Twelfth Night was selected. The incongruity of the fat 
 and auburn-haired Viola with her suppositious twin, was 
 of no moment to Mrs. St. Maur. 
 
 "They can both be dressed alike, and Mr. Clarkson 
 will see about the wigs," she said, comfortably, when 
 it was brought before her, overriding all difficulties, 
 talking volubly, quoting the absurd dicta of insig-
 
 SEBASTIAN 195 
 
 nificant people, beginning already to get out a list of 
 guests who might attend the performance. 
 
 But it was Bice who did all the real work, organising 
 everything admirably, arranging rehearsals, settling 
 costumes, casting the parts among her college friends 
 and their brothers. Mrs. St. Maur wanted Reggie to 
 play Orsino, and at first he agreed with her, could not 
 see himself as anything but the love-sick Duke of 
 Illyria ! It was Bice who reminded him, and that 
 without offence, of his height, and of his glasses; who 
 finally persuaded him to Sir Andrew, where, incidentally 
 it may be noted, he achieved a well-merited success. 
 It was she, too, who preserved Olivia for Pleasey, 
 fighting for her, with almost incredible obstinacy, as 
 she would never have fought for herself. And thus 
 securing Sebastian his great opportunity. 
 
 The rehearsals brought the families together as they 
 could never otherwise have been brought. Mrs. St. 
 Maur was one continual beam of malapropos delight. 
 She called everybody by their wrong name, and dis- 
 played a most naive, and to the young people, other 
 than her own, delightful, ignorance of the play, the 
 characters, and the appropriate scenery. Viola, for in- 
 stance, had a pretty little voice; Mrs. St. Maur re- 
 ported that her music-master said it was just like 
 Patti's, but more refined ! It was Bice, no one but 
 she could have done it, who put Viola into motley, 
 cast her for the part of the clown, promising her be- 
 wildered mother that she would bring down the house 
 in that comic barcarolle, "Come away, death." 
 
 Sebastian was urgent that Viola should wear page's
 
 196 SEBASTIAN 
 
 costume, and exhibit her legs. Mrs. St. Maur was 
 quite flattered, almost looking upon it as a proposal, 
 when he said that she would look like one of his mother's 
 colour prints, like the Morland, that hung on the stair- 
 case. It was only Bice who knew that it was the 
 "Girl with Calves" to which he was alluding, and who 
 enjoyed his ribald merriment ! 
 
 Everybody had incredible fun out of Mrs. St. Maur; 
 there was hardly anything they could not make her 
 believe that Shakespeare had written, in his directions 
 to the players. Bice and Sebastian talked learnedly of 
 the second folio, or the fourth, arguing divers readings. 
 Mrs. St. Maur became confused between the folios and 
 the Follies, and actually took the whole party to the 
 Hippodrome to hear how the songs went ! 
 
 Of course both Stella and Vanessa heard what was 
 going on. At first they were, amused, afterwards their 
 sense of justice made them think the St. Maurs were 
 being hardly used. Their hospitalities were endless, 
 the young people were entertained almost daily, suppers 
 following the rehearsals. There were impromptu dances, 
 the whole house given up to their pleasure. 
 
 "We ought really to do something for them," Stella 
 said. " It is all very well making fun of Mrs. St. Maur, 
 and doing imitations of her husband; but they are 
 giving the children the time of their lives. I do not 
 see what they are getting hi return." 
 
 Vanessa suggested, somewhat hesitatingly, that she 
 could secure press notices. 
 
 "If they did it for a charity, took one of the smaller 
 theatres, and advertised it properly, they would obtain
 
 SEBASTIAN 197 
 
 what they would like better than anything in the world 
 recognition paragraphs. We could get some of the 
 right people to go. For once, they would have guests 
 such as they seek. I believe we do owe it to them." 
 
 The St. Maurs were easily persuaded to take the 
 "Coronet Theatre," to undertake the whole expense of 
 the entertainment, costumes, and the house, for the 
 benefit of the "Infant Orphan Asylum" that Stella 
 suggested. Both Stella and Vanessa worked, in the 
 end, for the success of the show, although Stella could 
 not refrain once or twice from querying the complete 
 purity of Vanessa's motive. 
 
 "Why do you bother about writing round to the 
 editors? Don't you know as well as I do that Sebas- 
 tian will get his headlines without any trouble? The 
 merest tyro in journalism even the old drunkards 
 who are kept on the staff to report on amateur per- 
 formances know that it is better copy to allude to 
 'the talented grandson of John Hepplewight-Ventom, 
 the son of the brilliant novelist, Vanessa Kendall/ than 
 to seriously consider Twelfth Night." 
 
 "The grandchildren of John Hepplewight-Ventom," 
 she corrected. 
 
 Vanessa was in very good spirits these days. She 
 had put "Between the Nisi and the Absolute" on one 
 side, but Joe Wallingford was taking articles from her, 
 and keeping her mind employed. Also, her conscience 
 was resting. She had given Sebastian to his father, 
 and so was out of debt to him. Joe never let her lose 
 sight of the possibilities attached to a commercial 
 career. There was hardly a day but some question or
 
 198 SEBASTIAN 
 
 answer of Sebastian's, some narration or allusion, 
 proved to her that his intellectuality was alive. She 
 thought little, or nothing, of the flirtation between 
 him and Miss Pleyden-Carr. To her, pale Pleasey pre- 
 sented herself unattractively, and she magnified the 
 slight difference in their ages. 
 
 The great night of the performance arrived. A cer- 
 tain number of pressmen had been secured, and an 
 unprecedented audience. The St. Maurs were more 
 than prominent. Mrs. St. Maur appeared to pervade 
 at least two boxes, resplendent in violet satin, nodding 
 plumes, and volubility. Hilary St. Maur was in all 
 the stalls at once, telling everybody who everybody 
 else was, generally wrong, and wearing the white flower 
 of his blameless life, large in his buttonhole, usually 
 entangled in the string of his glasses, as he stooped 
 officiously over inoffensive people, and assumed inti- 
 macy when there was hardly acquaintanceship. 
 
 Stella was hi the lower box, level with the stalls. 
 Behind her was Lord Saighton. Lord Saighton was her 
 contribution to the show. Both of them were enter- 
 tained by the St. Maurs; afterwards, when the curtain 
 had risen, in considering Vanessa. 
 
 "Do you think she really does believe that boy of 
 hers to be Irving, and Tree, and George Alexander, 
 rolled into one?" she asked him. 
 
 Lord Saighton had no doubt at all about it. 
 
 "Yes! I have been watching her, and it is quite 
 obvious there is no one else on all the stage, no play, 
 and no performers. Her eyes follow him, and when he 
 is off the stage, all her interest goes. She sits back,
 
 SEBASTIAN 199 
 
 she has forgotten the play, and the stage, she is think- 
 ing of something else. I see Kendall is with her to- 
 night. I don't know when I have seen them out to- 
 gether before. He looks very ill. And who is the 
 rough-hewn giant beside them? It can't be Walling- 
 ford, can it?" 
 
 "Yes, that is the Colossus of Workington. As for 
 David Kendall, he is Vanessa's new rdle. Some one has 
 told her he is going to die. Or else she has fallen in 
 love, and her conscientiousness takes it that way. But 
 love, I should imagine to be impossible to Vanessa." 
 
 She gave a quick sigh. Would it had been impos- 
 sible to her too ! Her companion looked at her : 
 
 "Are you unhappy?" he asked, gently. 
 
 "No! Quite happy," she answered, cynically, "how 
 could I be otherwise, with you beside me, the cynosure 
 of all eyes, and our positions so secure!" 
 
 "You are always haunted by the fear of Jack's 
 return, and what he might say or do!" 
 
 "Is there any other reason why you banished your- 
 self from the House?" she answered. 
 
 But they had threshed it out a score of times, and 
 nothing could be done or altered. 
 
 To-night was the first time it entered Vanessa's 
 head that Lord Saighton was a very attractive man, 
 and Stella still young, and perhaps susceptible. It is 
 possible it was Joe who drew her attention to it. But 
 if so, it was quite unconsciously: 
 
 "Isn't that Lord Saighton with your sister?" he 
 asked. "The last place in the world I should have 
 expected to find him ! I suppose, one way and an-
 
 200 SEBASTIAN 
 
 other, no public career has ever been quite as inex- 
 plicable as Saighton's. He had the ball at his feet, 
 and he would not kick it. There must have been a 
 reason." 
 
 "The public ascribed the usual one," she answered, 
 lightly. 
 
 "But it was scarcely sufficient." 
 
 Then it was that it struck her about Stella's possible 
 susceptibility. And her conscience troubled her that 
 she had been less affectionate, less attentive to Stella 
 lately. She was her sister's natural defence against 
 the world. She became, all at once, indefinitely un- 
 easy, and her pleasure in the performance was damped. 
 Whenever Sebastian was not on the stage, her thoughts 
 wandered to Stella. Lord Saighton had been right in 
 thinking her mind was only on the stage when the boy 
 was there, but he was far from suspecting where it had 
 wandered. 
 
 She must warn Stella against Lord Saighton, she 
 must throw the bulwark of her constant companion- 
 ship around the defencelessness of the deserted wife. 
 Once more she doubted if she had ever been justified in 
 writing novels. 
 
 These thoughts possessed her through Sebastian's 
 enthusiastic reception and the excitement of the trium- 
 phant finale. For of course it appeared to her as a 
 triumph. Surely his acting stood out among the others, 
 his voice carried, and his love-making scene with Olivia 
 had both grace and conviction! No one seemed to 
 touch him in talent or consequence, and it was his per- 
 sonality that dominated the stage.
 
 SEBASTIAN 201 
 
 The announcement, made by Mr. St. Maur, that the 
 "Charity had benefited to the extent of one hundred 
 and seventeen pounds, and that Mrs. St. Maur had 
 added a subscription to make up the amount to one 
 hundred and fifty pounds," was received with a burst 
 of applause. 
 
 Then came calls for the actors, and Sebastian's ap- 
 pearance with Pleasey. Bice, too, had her meed of 
 praise. Both mothers might be proud and satisfied. 
 
 There was to be a ball and supper at the Grafton 
 Galleries; everybody hurried to get away, invitations 
 had been liberally scattered. Lady de Cliffe intercepted 
 Vanessa to give forth a sparkling witticism or two. Sir 
 George was with her; she had accomplished all her 
 desires, and was alight with flashes of miasmic bril- 
 liancy. 
 
 "Sir George is coming on with me to supper. Keep 
 a table, we shall make a charming party. How quiet 
 you have kept your affair with the Wallingford ! Every- 
 body says you are only trying to sell him your next 
 book ! Your discretion is an absolute byword. And 
 your sister is here with Saighton, the St. Maurs 
 as proud as if they had invented the liaison. I 
 haven't seen Saighton since he made love to me in 
 the schoolroom, and pretended it was paternal. Do 
 get him!" 
 
 Vanessa tried to reach her sister, but the crowd 
 divided them. She wanted to speak to Stella; the 
 impression of discomfort, uneasiness had deepened. 
 Joe seemed to realise it, instinctively, or perhaps a 
 whisper had reached him.
 
 202 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "They are old friends," he said, following her thought. 
 "Slander hurts no one but the slanderer." 
 
 "He was an intimate friend of her husband's/' was 
 the quick reply. 
 
 But all that evening, watching Sebastian dance, 
 thinking no one danced so gracefully, receiving con- 
 gratulations, talking, supping, it was in the back- 
 ground of Vanessa's mind that Stella was threatened 
 by some danger, and was unhappy; that she had neg- 
 lected her responsibilities, allowed herself to be mo- 
 mentarily estranged by a verbal flippancy that might 
 be covering some new dilemma or distress. 
 
 David had gone home straight from the theatre. 
 Late nights, dances, and suppers were not for him. 
 He had seen Sebastian act, and that was sufficient. 
 Joe Wallingford was with Vanessa the greater part of 
 the evening; she did not dance, but she was continu- 
 ally surrounded by friends whose voices warred with 
 the band. Joe had little of her mind. As much of it 
 as she could spare from Sebastian was following Stella 
 into the night. Stella's face came back to Vanessa 
 amid gyrating figures, the music, the talk and laughter 
 around her. It was an unhappy face, haunting. Some 
 of Stella's prettiness was going. Vanessa had a quick 
 pang when she recalled it; the revealing pink in the 
 lids of the blue eyes had struck her to-night. She was 
 full of self-reproach that she had resented sharp speech, 
 or failed in kindness. 
 
 Poor Joe ! He had always known he had set his 
 heart on a woman who had not room for him, and 
 to-night she made it clearer than ever. He could do
 
 SEBASTIAN 203 
 
 nothing for her, and be nothing to her. And there was 
 no other woman for him. If he underrated her literary 
 importance, or her lineage, he was supremely conscious 
 of her social grace. 
 
 Stella, like David, had gone straight home from the 
 theatre. Vanessa was supposed to be chaperoning 
 Bice, and, at least, she succeeded in keeping Lady de 
 Cliffe from their table. Joe took them all home in the 
 motor he had kept waiting. The boy talked inces- 
 santly of the events of the evening, of Pleasey Pleyden- 
 Carr's dancing, and her acting. Vanessa listened with 
 only half an ear. But Bice was whole-hearted in praise 
 of "Olivia." None of them paid much heed to Joe 
 Wallingford, notwithstanding that he was Workington's 
 great man, and already of some consequence in a larger 
 sphere. 
 
 "Good-night, and thanks," Vanessa said to him at 
 the door, holding out her hand. They had dropped 
 Bice, he might have expected her attention now. 
 
 " It was awfully good of you to come up. I hope you 
 were not bored," Sebastian added, politely. 
 
 But they had forgotten him before the street 
 door shut them into their warm companionship, for- 
 gotten him before the sough of the motor had died in 
 the street. He knew it, but he knew it without bitter- 
 ness; not without envy, perhaps. 
 
 Vanessa was not quite in the mood for Sebastian. 
 He wanted to talk about the "show," about the scenery, 
 about the St. Maurs. It was with difficulty Vanessa 
 persuaded him to bed. 
 
 "It is nearly three o'clock, and you have got to be up
 
 204 SEBASTIAN 
 
 at eight. Go to bed now, there's a dear boy. We will 
 talk of it to-morrow. You had a great success, a great 
 triumph. And Bice too. There were no waits, the 
 whole thing was admirably done, unlike any other 
 amateur performance. We will talk it over to-morrow. 
 I am tired now. Good-night."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IT was Stella haunted her night. 
 
 It was still early in the morning of the next day, 
 hardly noon, when she was in Weymouth Street, seek- 
 ing words, embarrassed, she hardly knew at what. 
 
 Always Stella was surrounded by flowers, to-day 
 her room was full of violet and yellow orchids, rare and 
 costly. She wore a tea-gown, made out of an em- 
 broidered cre~pe de chine kimona, many coloured and 
 quaint. She looked singularly attractive to Vanessa, 
 and was for once in high spirits, and humour. 
 
 " Well ! did I ever see such a Sebastian as Sebastian ? 
 No ! I never did. And have I seen the press notices ? 
 Yes ! I have, and I think they are wonderful, and he is 
 wonderful, and you are more wonderful than either, to 
 think they matter. Sit down, I haven't seen you for an 
 age. It went off well, didn't it ? Bice is delighted with 
 Sebastian, and incidentally with herself. Anything the 
 matter?" Stella could read her sister like a book; 
 "you look worried, or anxious. Has anything happened 
 to the paragon? Did he drink too much champagne 
 last night, or dance too often with Pleasey ? " 
 
 "Look here, Stella." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "I want to speak to you." 
 
 "I thought perhaps you did not come round to re- 
 main entirely silent." 
 
 205
 
 206 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "About something rather serious." She was em- 
 barrassed, even with Stella it seemed a liberty she was 
 about to take. Stella was interested and curious. 
 
 " Go on, don't make too much fuss about it, whatever 
 it is." 
 
 "I won't. You know you are rather an attractive 
 woman. . ." 
 
 "Why only 'rather' attractive?" 
 
 "And Lord Saightori is in many ways a remarkable 
 man." 
 
 " Oh ! that's it, is it ? Your text is Lord Saighton ! 
 Go on with the sermon. I am in the rare position of 
 being able to answer its argument. You have not all 
 the best of it, like the parson in his ungetatable pulpit." 
 
 Stella, suddenly grave, felt she must treat the matter 
 lightly. How blind Vanessa had been all these years ! 
 Who, or what, had opened her eyes, and what had she 
 seen? 
 
 " I am fascinating, and Lord Saighton is remarkable ! 
 Where is there a connection, or isn't there a connection ? 
 You remember, I suppose," she added, with a touch of 
 bitterness under the lightness, "that Jack is not dead. 
 He is only living with another woman, and honouring 
 the Argentine Republic, until he has spent all they have 
 taken with them that was mine." 
 
 " I know, I know." 
 
 She knew how desperately Stella had been treated, 
 and how little she deserved it. " I don't talk about it, 
 but I never really forget." 
 
 They were twins, and she never forgot in what differ- 
 ent lines to her own, her sister's life had been cast,
 
 SEBASTIAN 207 
 
 "But although only by an hour, I am older than you. 
 Perhaps, too, I have seen more of the world." 
 
 Stella laughed. She could not help it, Vanessa 
 thought herself the more worldly of the two, the more 
 experienced, and practical, all because she wrote novels, 
 and invented paradoxes. But Vanessa ignored the 
 laugh, and went on earnestly. 
 
 "It seems a joke to you. But it is not really humor- 
 ous. People judge from what they see on the surface ; 
 and it struck me last night that, that, in a way, he was 
 being very attentive to you. And his being there at 
 all " 
 
 "He is on the council of the orphanage." 
 
 "Oh! I did not know that. But anyway " 
 
 she grew a little red, and went on : 
 
 " I know, I happen to know, that being married does 
 not make so much difference to what a man thinks of a 
 woman." 
 
 Stella wondered how Vanessa had acquired that 
 strange piece of information, and she put her wonder 
 into an exclamation. 
 
 " A man thinks a woman can be a companion to him. 
 He grows to like talking to her," she explained, with 
 some embarrassment, and a reserve, new between her and 
 Stella. "Even I " 
 
 "Tell me all about it, who was it ? " 
 
 Vanessa ignored that. It was not of herself she came 
 to speak. She could not put Joe Wallingford quite out 
 of her mind, but David was reaping the benefit in a new 
 consideration, and Sebastian in a remorseful absorption. 
 She had been disloyal to both of them, she felt her
 
 208 SEBASTIAN 
 
 responsibilities acutely, surprised and ashamed that 
 anything, except literature, should have come, even 
 momentarily, between her and them. 
 
 " No ! it it was of no consequence. Only it 
 taught me something of how men talk, feel, and act in 
 given circumstances, almost without encouragement. I 
 felt I must warn you. Lord Saighton was Jack's friend, 
 and of course he has that in his mind. Probably so have 
 you; but there comes a moment, there might come a 
 moment, when either of you, both of you " she 
 hesitated again, really exciting Stella's curiosity. 
 
 "This is quite a new development. You want to 
 tell me that there might come a moment when I re- 
 membered I was a young woman, or Saighton reminded 
 me that he was not an old man. And then ..." All 
 at once her patience broke : 
 
 " How ridiculous you are ! Why should we both re- 
 member? To whom are we in thraldom? Conven- 
 tionality, Mrs. Grundy, you? Or do you think I owe 
 Jack anything? " 
 
 "You have never spoken to me like this, don't do 
 it, Stella. Of course, I know you do not mean it, but 
 surely it is a bad habit to get into. You know, as well 
 as I do, that we can write about light conduct, and read 
 about immorality, more or less gross. But we cannot 
 live it; you nor I." 
 
 She was quite hot at the thoughts that arose. 
 
 "The word morality has no meaning for me," answered 
 Stella, almost sullenly, but not meeting Vanessa's eyes, 
 busying herself with the orchids. "Here, leave off 
 preaching. I'm tired of it. Saighton and I are very
 
 SEBASTIAN 209 
 
 good friends. He is very kind to me. I suppose it is 
 because of Jack. Talk of something else, I'm sick of it." 
 
 For a moment, a wild moment, she had thought 
 Vanessa knew, or guessed, and that she could unburden 
 her over-burdened mind. For a wild moment she felt 
 the relief, the wonderful relief it would have been, if she 
 might have spoken of what her life had been these last 
 few years. What had filled, and emptied it. How 
 well she knew that they, neither she nor Vanessa, were 
 of the type that could live happily where shame lay 
 ambushed. But she and happiness had parted com- 
 pany since many years. Now she only wanted again 
 that Vanessa should not divine her trouble. Had love 
 come into her sister's life, to soil it? It seemed im- 
 possible, Vanessa was as nearly as possible sexless. 
 Marriage with such a man as David Kendall kept her 
 where she stood. 
 
 "Who has been making love to you?" she asked, 
 nevertheless. "It cannot be that Wallingford per- 
 son ; he is too bourgeois not to recognise the divinity 
 of your household gods. It must have been some one 
 you met at Hilda de Cliffe's, some one she asked there on 
 purpose. She would hate to know a dog that had not 
 lost its tail." 
 
 "Why do you call Joe Wallingford bourgeois?" 
 Vanessa was glad to change the subject. She had said 
 too much, or too little. She had given her warning, yet 
 had been unable to word her sympathy. 
 
 "So it is Joe Wallingford? " 
 
 " I am disappointed you and he find no common 
 ground."
 
 210 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "My dear ! Everything about him is common ground, 
 very common ground ! " 
 
 It is possible both sisters were glad to switch the talk 
 into a different channel. Vanessa's fears had been 
 vague and formless. Her frankness was part of her 
 character. She could not keep back what had been in 
 her mind, but having delivered herself of it, she was glad 
 to be free of the whole subject. 
 
 She could speak of Joe Wallingford warmly, and 
 without reserve. If at Newmarket she had misled him, 
 or he had misled her, it had been merely an experience 
 for her, she told herself, something literary, removed 
 from life, a moment's revelation. She liked the man, he 
 interested her. She had not the least realised how much 
 he had taught, or was teaching her, she had no interpre- 
 tation of the message, save as it affected Stella. Va- 
 nessa, knowing so little, was ashamed of what she knew. 
 She could not tell Stella more than she had told her. 
 Lord Saighton had looked at Stella as Joe Walling- 
 ford had once looked at her. But it had been, perhaps, 
 unnecessary to warn her. The sudden fear had swift 
 banishment. 
 
 She began to talk easily of Joe, and of his powers and 
 prospects. Stella said : 
 
 " What on earth does it matter if one more demagogue 
 gets into a House hopelessly vulgarised by Liberal and 
 Labour members? Who cares? And anyway, why 
 are you bothering about it? Let us talk about Sebas- 
 tian. Joe Wallingford bores me." 
 
 And, of course, Vanessa was always willing, even eager, 
 to talk of Sebastian.
 
 SEBASTIAN 211 
 
 There was something to talk about. If Vanessa had 
 been sure of Stella's sympathy she would have told her 
 before. 
 
 Sebastian wanted to go abroad. Already he was 
 restless in business. But there was reason in his rest- 
 lessness, Sebastian's ability was no figment of his 
 mother's brain. He was working loyally with his father, 
 but he could see so many things that escaped the routine- 
 blinded vision of the older man. Young as he was, and 
 ignorant, he saw everywhere new machinery of trade, 
 and in Queen Victoria Street, old, inoperative, out-of- 
 date methods. It is incredible, but nevertheless true, 
 that John and William Kendall kept their own books, 
 wrote their own letters, and prided themselves on a 
 traditional secrecy from their clerks as to the detail and 
 management of the business; also on the smallness of 
 their office expenses. Sebastian had already intro- 
 duced typewriting machines, and shorthand clerks, a 
 Dictophone, an installation of telephones, an adding-up 
 machine, and everything which an enterprising, and 
 specious, firm of American manufacturers could persuade 
 him was essential to modern enterprise. 
 
 The thousand pounds or so, he spent on necessities, 
 or wasted on business toys, was of little moment. But 
 having procured the machinery for the office, human and 
 otherwise, it became necessary to find grist to keep it 
 working. The grist was new accounts ; new accounts 
 meant extended credits. David, watching Sebastian's 
 growth with ever-quickening pride, toiling after him 
 loyally, found himself soon apprehensive of where the 
 enterprise would land them.
 
 212 SEBASTIAN 
 
 A few months, David Kendall had, of watching and 
 teaching this strange young duckling that took so freely 
 to the water. Then he began to fear for the depths, for 
 the treacherous currents, swooping birds of prey, sports- 
 men with reckless guns. And fear was not good for 
 David's health. 
 
 And now Sebastian had made the startling announce- 
 ment that he wanted to go away for a year or two ; that 
 he was not going on making and selling hand-made 
 paper when fortunes were being piled up on all sides of 
 them by distributers of cheap grades of foreign machin- 
 ised goods. 
 
 He argued, and Vanessa repeated these convincing 
 arguments to Stella. 
 
 "He says that we would have been willing to send 
 him to the 'Varsity to waste three years in lounging over 
 the Classics, getting a degree that would have been no 
 earthly use to P. and A. Kendall, even if it had been a 
 First. He says he wants less than half that time to 
 educate himself in the paper trade. He wants to go to 
 Denmark and Sweden, and then over to America." 
 
 Sebastian had begun by pleading, gone on to urge, 
 ended by taking it for granted that his request would be 
 met, as his requests had ever been met. All this Vanessa 
 told Stella. 
 
 It is only fair to Sebastian to say he had completely 
 forgotten that he had originally decided to go into 
 business because he had learned the precariousness of 
 his father's health. He had got used to David's indefi- 
 nite delicacy. Seeing him active in town travelling, and 
 taking his bi-weekly journey to the mills with regularity,
 
 SEBASTIAN 213 
 
 it was perhaps natural in so young a man as Sebastian, 
 and one of so sanguine a disposition, to take it for granted 
 that if David had been ill he was cured, and that all he 
 had been unhappy about was the continuance of the firm 
 of P. and A. Kendall and Co. 
 
 And now Sebastian, himself, thought that was suffi- 
 cient career. Only he saw it large, the megalomania of 
 youth already cast an extraordinary glamour over the 
 small trade. He felt he must have it all. He must 
 supply England with paper; he would keep the hand- 
 made as a nucleus, but already, whilst he was talking 
 of acting as agent, of buying and distributing, he was 
 seeing plant and machinery, he was building and manu- 
 facturing; great castles in the air were erecting them- 
 selves in his over-active brain. 
 
 "He thinks it right to leave us for a time; to study 
 foreign markets, to learn all that is being done." 
 
 "But you! won't you miss him horribly?" Stella 
 asked, forgetting herself and her troubles, for a mo- 
 ment, in the consideration of Vanessa's. 
 
 But to sacrifice themselves for Sebastian came natu- 
 rally both to David and Vanessa. So that although 
 the idea of losing his companionship was devastating 
 to David, and made heartache for Vanessa, it had 
 been agreed almost without argument. When the 
 theatricals were over, and Twelfth Night out of the 
 way, Sebastian would go. 
 
 David knew that, in a way, the boy was right in 
 wishing to go outside their own business to learn what 
 was being done, and how to do it. The very fear he 
 had of everything that was new made him more fear-
 
 214 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ful lest he err in checking it. He could think of the 
 business and consider if it would suffer more by Sebas- 
 tian's absence now, than it would benefit by his return 
 more fully armed. He could think of Vanessa, and 
 realise how she would miss the daily sight, and expec- 
 tation, of the boy, pity her that she should be con- 
 demned to a long spell of his own society; he could 
 think of Sebastian, dread strangers, home-sickness, 
 temptation for him. But he wasted no time at think- 
 ing, though it loomed heavy and dark before him, of 
 what his own loneliness would be now he had almost 
 forgotten to be lonely.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WHAT passages or promises there had been between 
 Sebastian, not yet twenty, and Pleasey Pleyden-Carr, 
 some two or three years his senior, was never quite 
 clear. 
 
 At the very end, when they were already at South- 
 ampton, steam up, and the boat about to start, the 
 boy said something to his mother, which at the mo- 
 ment she regarded lightly. They were walking up and 
 down on the quay; she had come to see him off; and 
 David, too, was here. Everything had been said, and 
 said again. Money, clothes, home letters, Sebastian's 
 important instructions to his father as to the office 
 work, had all been threshed out. David was on board, 
 counting over the luggage. It was for a whole year 
 they were parting with him; he had never before been 
 out of their protecting care. And all their hearts were 
 heavy. 
 
 "Don't make it worse than it is, mater. You don't 
 suppose I like it, do you? But I know it has to be 
 done. I must keep Kendall's on the top; I've got to 
 learn about things; I want to make money. You'll 
 neither of you stand in my way when I get back, will 
 you? It isn't as if I were a boy." 
 
 "I don't think we have stood in your way," she 
 answered. "I have made mistakes," she was thinking 
 
 215
 
 216 SEBASTIAN 
 
 of Eton, she had not forgotten, either, how she had 
 opposed his going into business, " but it is difficult, all 
 at once, to learn to be a mother. You have a profess- 
 orship thrust upon you, as it were, before you are 
 through with your preliminary. I have always wanted 
 to do the best for you." 
 
 "I know," already there was the whistle, and David 
 had come down the gangway, and was making for 
 them: "you've been a good sort, never a better; and 
 the pater, too; don't think I don't know it. But 
 there is something I want to tell you. It is about 
 Pleasey Pleyden-Carr. I don't want you to be hurt 
 about it; it won't make any difference between you 
 and me, she hasn't exactly promised anything, but 
 we are going to write to each other. She is going to 
 wait " 
 
 Then there was David, out of breath, and nervous 
 lest Sebastian should miss the boat. There were kisses, 
 and the last good-byes, and no time for more words or 
 confidences. 
 
 Vanessa heard, later on, from Stella, that there had 
 been, apparently, some sort of love-making between 
 Sebastian and Bice's governess. But neither sister 
 looked upon it as very serious. 
 
 Bice, of course, was passionately loyal, and serious, 
 and secretive over it. Everything was to be kept a 
 secret until Sebastian came back. In the meantime 
 Bice was to be their best friend. She knew that he 
 meant to marry Pleasey when business was on the 
 right footing, when he was on the high road to fortune. 
 Pleasey had not actually promised to wait, but she
 
 SEBASTIAN 217 
 
 would write to him, and he would answer; and above 
 all things, Bice was to keep him fully informed, and 
 well supplied with news. If Pleasey had already a 
 second string to her bow, neither of the honest cousins 
 knew it. Her amiability and pale prettiness, her plain- 
 tiveness and poverty, had captured them both. 
 
 Sebastian Rendall remained away from England for 
 rather less than a year. Vanessa filled the blank 
 caused by his absence, by completing the abandoned 
 "Between the Nisi and the Absolute, 1 ' Incidentally, 
 too, it may be related that, when published, it proved 
 almost a complete failure. The paradoxes were forced, 
 laboured, and the humanity that was her new objec- 
 tive, failed of vraisemblance. The fact was that she 
 was learning something new, but she did not yet know 
 enough of it to teach. The book was disjointed, un- 
 convincing, weak. But, whilst it absorbed her, Stella 
 had only a perfunctory attention, and David was again 
 neglected, Joe Wallingford had become a mere model. 
 
 That was all he had done for her in the first year 
 of their acquaintanceship. He had confused her artistry, 
 set her to work from the life. She had endeavoured 
 to reproduce him, and what he had tried to convey to 
 her, on paper. But, not fully informed of what she 
 wrote, she wrote badly. Even the most amiable re- 
 viewer could not say she had increased her reputation 
 by the publication of "Between the Nisi and the Abso- 
 lute." 
 
 Meanwhile Sebastian was studying the paper trade, 
 and David was feeling the burden of running an old 
 business on new methods. The boy visited Sweden
 
 218 SEBASTIAN 
 
 and Norway and Denmark, Switzerland and remote 
 parts of Germany, becoming conversant with the jargon 
 of his subject, with cellulose, and half-stuff, with felting 
 and fibre, with esparto, and mechanical woods. 
 
 Then he had crossed the Atlantic, and wrote that 
 he found himself strangely and immediately at home. 
 He had, indeed, become enamoured of New York be- 
 fore he landed, inspired by the talk of a gentleman 
 who talked enthusiastically about the prohibition 
 States, and showed his appreciation by drinking deeply 
 to their prosperity. Sebastian liked the bustle of it, 
 and its utilitarian ugliness. The breathless, restless, 
 business atmosphere suited him; the men, who always 
 had time to tell him they had none to spare attracted 
 him ; and he picked up Yankee phrases, and an accent- 
 uated twang, before he had been a week on American 
 soil. 
 
 He had useful introductions, and in the course of 
 four to six months he visited the chief paper-mills in 
 the States. At Washington he found the trade all 
 agley with a new discovery, the manufacture of a pulp, 
 superior to that produced from wood, and extraordi- 
 narily cheaper, from cornstalks; and he journeyed to 
 Culpepper, where the experiments were being made. 
 In an access of enthusiasm he was induced to give a 
 large order, which incidentally, it may be noted, seri- 
 ously embarrassed David, and the Kendall mills, when, 
 some time afterwards, it arrived in London. 
 
 Outside Culpepper he visited a big truck farm, and 
 familiarised himself with American petit culture, with- 
 out bell glasses, but nevertheless profitable. "Truck
 
 SEBASTIAN 219 
 
 farm" was a new word for Sebastian. He found it 
 picturesque, and filled up half a letter with it. 
 
 But before the last of these letters arrived, that had 
 happened in Harley Street which made Sebastian's 
 return imperative. 
 
 Vanessa cabled as considerately as the circumstances 
 permitted. The message reached him when he was 
 still lingering in Washington. 
 
 "Should like you to return as soon as possible, Mater." 
 
 Sebastian showed the cable to the man who had put 
 him up at the Metropolitan Club. 
 
 "They can't get along any longer without me, you 
 see. I should not be surprised if it were my last letter 
 that has made them keen. The pater is sharp enough 
 to see we ought to have something in this new Com- 
 bine. I guess, too, he wants to talk over that Stock 
 proposition." 
 
 But even before he had finished his speech, his face 
 grew clouded. 
 
 "It is such rot they don't say what I'm wanted for," 
 he went on more slowly, interrogatively. 
 
 "Ay," said John P. Tibenham, who had put through 
 the cornstalk deal. 
 
 John P. Tibenham's expression was enigmatic. 
 
 "Your boss keen on Combines?" he drawled out. 
 
 "You don't suppose there is anything wrong, do 
 you?" said the boy. 
 
 "No-o; but they seem in a mighty hurry." 
 
 Sebastian's quickness realised what was in the other's 
 mind. 
 
 And John P. went on to speak of trains, without
 
 220 SEBASTIAN 
 
 going into the question of what the summons might 
 mean. Sebastian did not argue it. 
 
 The next few hours passed in expediting his depar- 
 ture, in drinking rye whisky with men who wished 
 him good luck, in a dream or a nightmare of good-byes. 
 
 But it was John P. who sent the cable to Vanessa, 
 in order that the answer should meet the boy in New 
 York: 
 
 "Starting Mauretania cable necessity." 
 
 Vanessa found it difficult to answer. She did not 
 want the boy to have his long week at sea with a great 
 grief to bear him company on the voyage. She could 
 not tell him all the truth, nor withhold it. 
 
 Sebastian had the long railway journey in which to 
 grow more and more anxious, in which fear knocked 
 day and night at his heart. He would not let it in, 
 his brain worked to keep it out. Aphorisms haunted 
 his sleeplessness: "III news travels apace." If there 
 was ill news, he would have known it. Besides, the 
 pater was all right ; every letter had assured him of it. 
 Aunt Stella might be ill, or Uncle William worse. He 
 fixed upon Uncle William finally and definitely. Of 
 course there would be things to settle up if Uncle Will- 
 iam were to die. He could not help thinking that it 
 would be a good thing for the business if some of the 
 capital locked up in Uncle William were released. No 
 one knew the contents of Uncle William's will; it was 
 probable that the pater would benefit largely by it. 
 It had been made many years ago: John's was ten 
 years old. Secretly Sebastian thought John might have 
 been less liberal to the Paper Trade Benevolent Fund,
 
 SEBASTIAN 221 
 
 and more so to him. But then John had not expected 
 to die. 
 
 Death was the intruder into Sebastian's thoughts 
 during all that tedious journey to the coast. Vanessa's 
 cable drove it away, but only for a time. Sebastian 
 could not stupefy himself, even to become content. 
 
 "Pater seriously ill." 
 
 There had been no death. But the pater would 
 never have so cabled, if the pater's hand or brain had 
 been free to write or dictate. The Pater, Father, the Gov- 
 ernor, Pupsy; loving words, and thoughts, chased with 
 grey death, and peopled the Mauretania with shadows. 
 
 Sebastian found himself starting in his sleep at night, 
 finding his pillow wet. Fear had knocked and knocked, 
 and now found full admission. Sleeping and waking, 
 his father's face was before his eyes. The boat made 
 slow, crawling progress, the hours hung, and the hands 
 of the clock lagged. Empty chatter went on, and a 
 monotonous routine. If he were only sure he would 
 be in time ! There was no longer faltering before fear, 
 he was enveloped in it ; it chilled him, froze him, over- 
 whelmed him. He found himself recalling, with sudden 
 anguish, an impatient or disrespectful word; he had, 
 ever and again, an overwhelming, sickening rush of 
 longing for one more chance, another look at that dear 
 face. He must be in time; he could not bear it else. 
 The dear pater, how generous he was, how unselfish ! 
 He must see him again, he must tell him. 
 
 Vanessa was on the dock at Liverpool. She had 
 been there since seven. The clinging, cold mist of the 
 winter morning had got in front of her courage, and
 
 222 SEBASTIAN 
 
 dimmed it a little. She was not in weeds; the boy 
 must have no shock. She did not even now know 
 what she would shout to him across the narrowing 
 channel of water that so slowly closed between them. 
 He was on the upper deck; she had her glasses with 
 her and picked him out, before it had seemed possible. 
 Her heart went out to him, leapt the waters and was 
 with him. 
 
 He would guess, when he saw her, that her work at 
 home was done. How slowly the big boat moved; 
 with what incredible dilatoriness they swung out the 
 stage for landing ! 
 
 If it had not been for Joe Wallingford, there 'had 
 been an hour or two more of this straining, she from 
 the shore, and Sebastian from the upper deck, and no 
 words between them. For officers of health, and from 
 the office of the steamship, and the customs, must first 
 go on board; then the big luggage must precede the 
 passengers. But Vanessa's "pass" overrode all these. 
 The officials, at foot of the gangway, could not under- 
 stand it when it was first shown them. 
 
 "Well, all the years I've been here, I've never seen 
 one like this," one said to the other, showing it. But 
 they had to let her up, reluctantly. And on the big 
 boat, too, they looked at it with surprise. It was all 
 right, however, apparently, for one of the stewards 
 was called, and bidden to find Mr. Rendall. 
 
 Sebastian was walking the upper deck, smoking 
 overwhelmingly, trying to be patient. He had not ex- 
 pected her here. He had informed himself of the pro- 
 cedure, and the delay in landing.
 
 SEBASTIAN 223 
 
 When the man told him he was " wanted in the 
 cabin," his mind leapt at once to keys and customs, 
 and he felt in his pockets as he descended leisurely. 
 
 His face flushed, then went white, when he saw her. 
 
 "Oh! it's you!" and his voice faltered in speaking. 
 "How is he?" But he knew; he knew before she 
 answered. 
 
 "I took the first boat," he went on, dully. 
 
 " It was absolutely sudden. He had no pain ; he was 
 asleep." 
 
 "He had not asked for me?" 
 
 "He had been talking about you the evening before. 
 We talked about you every evening." 
 
 It was difficult to hold back his anguish. He had 
 feared, but hope had been there too. He had only 
 wanted one more look, a last word, just to tell him 
 there had never been such a father; and that he knew 
 it, even if he had not always been respectful, or shown 
 what he felt. 
 
 "It's it's damned hard lines/' he said, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 She tried to comfort him. It was new to him, but 
 nearly two weeks old to her. And here was Sebastian, 
 taller, more manly to look upon, but her boy, Sebas- 
 tian, all her boys in one. The little one of whose future 
 she had dreamed, and the big one of whom she had 
 been so proud, and the one who had cast in his lot 
 with his father: perhaps she had become proudest of 
 all of that one. And now the one who was here, his 
 head in her lap, her hand on his dear, dark hair. She 
 bent and kissed it; time and the failure of her book 
 had softened her, taught her a few tender words.
 
 224 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "It is worse for you/' he said, when he had a little 
 recovered himself, and began to be ashamed of his 
 breakdown, getting up from his knees. "Poor old 
 mater! You must have had an awful time. I'll hear 
 all about it presently. I suppose I ought to be getting 
 my things together. How did you manage to get on 
 board?" 
 
 The tears started again, quite naturally. It was 
 wonderful what a boy he was still, although so tall, and 
 travelled. 
 
 "I will take care of you. We'll stick together." 
 
 The words were almost irrelevant. But she saw that 
 he was filled with tenderness for her, picturing her deso- 
 late, never having quite known how it had been between 
 her and David. 
 
 She told him much that he wanted to hear on their 
 way back to London. By mutual consent they avoided 
 sentiment, and confined themselves to business. She 
 did not want him to be hurt by the contents of his father's 
 will. It was contained in three lines, he had left every- 
 thing he possessed to "his dear wife." She was his sole 
 trustee and executrix. In telling Sebastian of it, 
 presently, she said that he and she were one, and that 
 his father knew this, and that their interests were identi- 
 cal. The will was made recently, after the trouble over 
 John's executors, and the legal questions that had arisen. 
 
 "He wanted to avoid taking capital from the business, 
 or investing in trust stocks for you, or for me. He 
 thought it over, and over again; it worried him a good 
 deal. In the end he said he knew all I cared for was you, 
 and that I would not hamper you in anything." She
 
 SEBASTIAN 225 
 
 was almost apologetic, but Sebastian took it from a lofty 
 standpoint. 
 
 "My dear mater, the money is a mere fleabite, it 
 doesn't even count. The pater was satisfied with a 
 competence. I am going to make a fortune. Of course, 
 you will leave all the capital in the business, and we shall 
 probably have to get some more from somewhere or other. 
 I have made up my mind to rebuild the mills, to have at 
 least two new machines. It will take a few years, but 
 I'll make a rich woman of you. I have learnt a lot since 
 I've been away; we are asleep over here, gone to seed, 
 played out. I am going to make things hum." 
 
 It was advisable to keep him on the business note, to 
 lead him to talk of what he had seen and learnt. He had 
 another breakdown on getting to Harley Street. She 
 found him, late in the evening, lying on the bed, face 
 downward, sobbing his heart out. 
 
 "He was so good to me I never half told 
 
 him " 
 
 It was strange to Vanessa that any one could grieve 
 so for David. For herself, she felt as if her chains were 
 struck off. No sense of duty unfulfilled now hung about, 
 and depressed her. She was acutely conscious of her 
 new freedom, and it was difficult to suppress the sense of 
 it before Sebastian. 
 
 " But he knew what a good son you had always been. 
 He said so often, and that if he never saw you again, 
 I was to tell you." 
 
 "Did he feel ill?" 
 
 "No. But it seems he knew his life was precarious." 
 
 She sat by his bedside many nights, talking to him,
 
 226 SEBASTIAN 
 
 of his father, and other things. He made her leave his 
 door open, to feel the sense of companionship with her, 
 a childish trick. He could not bear to be alone. 
 
 Death filled the house, chilling and trying his nerve. 
 Sebastian had been nervous as a child, he could never 
 bear darkness, nor solitude. All his childish habits, 
 reviving, supplied some craving in her, filled some place 
 she had not known was empty. She was surprised at her 
 happiness, his need of her. And love grew. He had the 
 softer heart of the two; in some few ways was the 
 weaker. So he leant upon her, and she gave him all her 
 strength, and was very happy in giving, and in realising 
 just where his need lay. 
 
 He was young for the burden thrust upon him. The 
 old business, the old name, John's executorship, and 
 William's trusteeship, all seemed to fall at once into 
 Sebastian's hands. That was a burden he grew quickly 
 to meet. No one hearing them discussing money matters 
 would have guessed that it was she, and not he, to 
 whom everything belonged. She was glad he felt this, 
 and that he had no resentment that David's will had 
 made no mention of him. 
 
 Sebastian decided no money was to be withdrawn from 
 the business, no settlement was to be made upon her. 
 
 "You draw a jolly good income," he said; "I suppose 
 it will not be long before you get double what you had in 
 the pater's time. I shall not want much for myself, 
 living at home with you. I will take 500 per annum, 
 and you can have the rest," he told her, magnanimously. 
 And they vied with each other in their mutual generosity. 
 
 Apart from business, invested in trust stocks, the
 
 SEBASTIAN 227 
 
 money David had left would hardly give her 2000 
 a year. But in business, in Sebastian's able hands, 
 he said it could not pay her less than 20 per cent. ; it 
 would rise to 100 per cent. ! His optimism was complete, 
 his faith in himself unbounded.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IT is extraordinary how little difference David's 
 death made to the house in Harley Street. The clean, 
 sweet, unselfish life dropped out of it as if it had never 
 been. Sebastian soon ceased weeping for him. David 
 Kendall left an influence, hardly a memory, he had never 
 made himself felt in the house . Remorse touched Vanessa 
 sometimes, grief never. Sebastian had little with which 
 to reproach himself, but his father's ways had irked him 
 sometimes. David's beautiful unselfishness had tempted 
 both of them into negligence. It was many years before 
 Vanessa really realised the character of the man by 
 whose side she had lived for twenty years. He passed 
 silently into the great silence, but everywhere his feet 
 had trodden was the better for his passing. His secret 
 charities, his fine integrity, his loving kindness to friends 
 and brothers, wife and son, became gradually clear, and 
 ever clearer. To his son, who had dimly divined him, 
 the memory of him became as a holy place where feet 
 trod softly. 
 
 Sebastian was a boy when he left England, he was still 
 a boy when he returned to it. Bice and Pleasy Pleydon- 
 Carr soon consoled him for the loss of his father. He 
 talked largely to them of his responsibilities, of the burden 
 of his mother's interests, of the reforms he had effected, 
 or would effect in the firm. 
 
 228
 
 SEBASTIAN 229 
 
 Almost immediately after his return home he started 
 putting into execution some of his plans for the extension 
 of the business. He was really a young man of great 
 parts, the future proved, or is proving it, it was his mis- 
 fortune that he had to control capital and expenditure 
 before he had learnt their relations. 
 
 In the meantime there were new agencies, and travel- 
 lers to push them, the enlargement of the mills, and the 
 acquisition of new machinery. P. and A. Kendall had 
 quietly, almost privately, disposed of their own hand- 
 made paper for four generations. Young Rendall, as he 
 was called, began to compete in other branches, in all 
 branches. He would be a paper-maker, and an agent 
 representing foreign 'mills, he announced himself as a 
 "wholesale stationer" and would have accepted printing, 
 or any other contract that was offered to him ; going out 
 of his way to look for illegitimate business. There was 
 resentment, indignation in the trade. For the firm 
 had held a unique place, and there was much shaking of 
 heads, and prophecies of disaster. But above all 
 things there was what Sebastian most enjoyed. There 
 was talk about him; the City discussed him, and his 
 plans. 
 
 The boy's vanity was excited by his competitors, 
 by the old men who came in to tell him of the old tradi- 
 tions, and seriously to urge him to walk in the same path 
 as his grandfather and father, his uncles and great-uncles ; 
 by young and middle-aged men, who explained to him 
 how inexperienced he was, or he would not have done this 
 or that, directing his attention to business etiquette. It 
 was pure enjoyment to him to spread out in the places he
 
 230 SEBASTIAN 
 
 was told were barred to him. He had little or no ex- 
 perience, that was perfectly true, but he had an extra- 
 ordinary energy, a vanity and faith in himself that were 
 alike unbounded. 
 
 There had been, at the very beginning, some necessary 
 talk with his mother about income and expenditure. 
 She quite saw that all the money David left should re- 
 main in the business, and that Sebastian should have 
 the full use of it and full authority. He told her candidly 
 it was not her subject, and she agreed with him. She 
 was quite content to leave herself and her income in his 
 hands. 
 
 Everything Sebastian did, he did, in a sense, dramati- 
 cally. He told Vanessa if she had every necessity 
 during his father's lifetime, she would have more than 
 that, she would have luxuries, and great wealth, soon 
 after he had gathered the reins properly in his own hands, 
 and was driving full speed. In the meantime he arranged 
 that she should draw 4000 per annum, and he should 
 take 500. 
 
 Money had never interested Vanessa, she had all she 
 wanted materially, rather more, from David, and her own 
 income, earned and inherited, went in bibelots. She 
 had no extravagances such as perplex smaller women in 
 their daily life. She did not gamble, nor dress beyond 
 her station, she had a horror of debt, and paid her bills 
 when they came in. She was generous, but that was a 
 luxury she could afford. Her quarter's allowance 
 covered the quarter's expenses, the rest was for those 
 who needed it. 
 
 But Sebastian made money, or, rather, the acquisition
 
 SEBASTIAN 231 
 
 of it, the topic at breakfast and the topic at dinner, 
 and through evenings that at last grew wearisome on the 
 one note. It seemed sordid to her, and a little vulgar. 
 Had it been any one but Sebastian who held forth in such 
 a manner, she would have checked, and resented it. As it 
 was, she tried to meet his views by putting the household 
 on a more lavish scale. David never quite accustomed 
 himself to extravagant expenditure, either in the City, 
 or in his private life ; he had frugal tastes and inherited 
 instincts. In Queen Victoria Street, and at home, 
 expenses grew at a proportionate rate. 
 
 There was no display, neither Sebastian nor Vanessa 
 had to buy society. In truth they neither of them cared 
 for ordinary social functions. Their individualities were 
 too strong. They had to be the guests, or found them- 
 selves bored. As host, too, although Vanessa never 
 acknowledged it even to herself, the boy was scarcely 
 an improvement on his father. It was the right and 
 proper thing, sometimes even it was an interesting thing, 
 to hear Sebastian, when alone with her of an evening, 
 relate all the details and embroglio of the paper trade. 
 He told her of the new "Association of Wholesale 
 Stationers" that he boasted was as a Trust, or Combine 
 against him personally, and he schemed how he should 
 meet it. But it was quite another matter when she 
 entertained her friends, and he dashed, relentlessly, 
 into congenial talk of Fabianism, or Free Trade, 
 with irrelevant personal information as to how he was 
 pushing P. and A. Kendall! It was always the "paper 
 trade" with Sebastian; she grew bored with the very 
 name of P. and A. Kendall, but disguised it, for its ex-
 
 232 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ponent was very dear to her, although now he satisfied 
 her critical taste so much less fully than she had hoped. 
 She even detected a gradual alteration in his speech, a 
 shade, or intonation that vexed her ear. She forced her- 
 self from this mentally critical attitude, surely she loved 
 him, and Stella ? For all her self-communings and analy- 
 sis, she could never quite persuade herself she had any 
 capacity of great affection outside these two. 
 
 Joe Wallingford had lost no time after David's death 
 in asking her to share his millions. With a man like Joe, 
 having a shrewd idea of the terms on which Vanessa 
 lived with her husband, there was no need for delicacy, 
 or restraint, in putting forward his suit. 
 
 He had written to her, even before Sebastian returned 
 from America. She answered, quite candidly and un- 
 reservedly, that married life had no lure for her, she was 
 glad of her freedom, and meant to retain it; Sebastian 
 and Stella were sufficient ties. She told him again that 
 she was primarily an authoress, and because her last 
 book had been badly received she was keener than ever 
 about the next. The correspondence between them 
 began before David had been dead a month. Joe was 
 not dissatisfied with the progress he was making. He 
 never deceived himself into thinking she would be easy 
 to woo. 
 
 After Sebastian's return, Joe came again to Harley 
 Street. She had refused to marry him, but she was glad 
 of his proffered friendship, she valued it, too, for the boy. 
 
 Joe Wallingford was the one habitue of the house, which 
 had so soon resumed its normal aspect and hospitality, 
 before whom the boy's talk never appeared intrusive or
 
 SEBASTIAN 233 
 
 banal. It might be egotistic, but it was not any longer 
 incongruous. The rest of the circle were cultivated, or 
 literary, people. Sebastian found no interest at the 
 moment save in himself or his work. Thus it came about 
 that to both mother and son, Joe was their most wel- 
 come visitor. 
 
 "He is getting on all right?" Joe asked her one even- 
 ing, some eight or nine months after David's death. 
 "He seems to take a great interest in the business. 
 You don't think he is going a bit too fast?" 
 
 "Oh, no, everything is very flourishing." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "He tells me I am to buy as much china as I want, 
 he begs me to deny myself nothing. He is such a good 
 son, he wants me not to miss David's generosity. But 
 really, David never encouraged me to spend as Sebastian 
 does. I am quite ashamed sometimes of the amount I 
 draw. But he says there is no reason to save." 
 
 "You have left all your money in the business?" 
 Joe asked, with apparent carelessness. He had a lurking 
 doubt or two, but was content with the position, honest 
 nevertheless. "It is a great responsibility for so young 
 a man, without much experience." 
 
 "He learnt a great deal whilst he was away. He 
 is really not to be judged by any standard that applies 
 to ordinary young men," she answered, easily. 
 
 Once or twice, on other occasions, Joe tried to convey 
 to her his sense that Sebastian was playing a big game 
 before he had learnt the rules. But she was deaf, or 
 careless, to any hint. And, after all, Joe had nothing 
 to gain by forcing that view upon her.
 
 234 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Vanessa could not feel anxiety or uneasiness about the 
 present, or the future, of Messrs. P. and A. Kendall; 
 she was only rather bored by it. But she could grow 
 anxious or worried about other matters in connection 
 with the boy, and her ever-deepening sense of responsi- 
 bility toward him took on a new complexion about this 
 time. 
 
 Miss Pleasey Pleyden-Carr was the fons et origo mali 
 of the change. 
 
 Pleasey, with a second string to her bow, intriguing 
 behind Bice's back, looking upon Sebastian as a boy, 
 but a boy who might one day be rich, played him with 
 more cleverness than one could have credited to her. 
 Sebastian was encouraged one moment, and held at arm's 
 length the next. He found it difficult to get at close 
 quarters with his lady love. She would not hear of an 
 engagement, she was not sure if she cared for him enough ! 
 She was coy, and sometimes amenable, but she was never 
 definite. She came between him and his business, 
 distracting his mind, but entertaining his evenings, and 
 many of his Sundays. 
 
 The room behind the dining-room in Weymouth 
 Street belonged still to the young people. No one 
 interfered if Bice chose to leave it to Sebastian and 
 Pleasey, to curl herself up with a novel in the dining-room, 
 and let them be undisturbed. That a certain amount 
 of love-making went on is indubitable; Bice was an 
 accessory before the act, as the legal phrasing runs. 
 Bice knew nothing of Bob Hayling. Pleasey had 
 leisure and many opportunities, whilst Bice attended 
 classes at Queen's College, performed a limited number
 
 SEBASTIAN 235 
 
 of social duties, filled her mother's unoccupied hours, 
 playing the part of the only daughter of the house. 
 She was loyal to Sebastian. She was as limited as her 
 Aunt Vanessa in her affections, her delicate mother, 
 and Sebastian, absorbed them all. Pleasey shone with 
 a reflected glory. Bice knew nothing of Bob Hayling, 
 of the second string to Pleasey's bow. 
 
 Then came a day when Pleasey discovered that she 
 was not "doing right" in encouraging Sebastian's at- 
 tentions, when she began to avoid tete-a-tetes, and make 
 a display of prudery. The thing grew. She said she 
 was too old for him, she resorted to tears, and repented 
 she should ever have allowed him to kiss her. The 
 episode ended by her seeking an interview with Stella, and 
 tendering a month's notice. She was agitated, and trem- 
 ulous, and vaguely candid. She told Stella all about 
 Sebastian's love-making. She said she thought she had 
 better go home to her father and mother. They were 
 so anxious about it, they were so particular. 
 
 "I shouldn't worry about it," Stella told her, sooth- 
 ingly. "He is only a boy, he is not twenty-one yet. 
 You are three or four years older than he 
 
 "Two," interposed Pleasey, mendaciously. "Well! 
 hardly more than eighteen months. My birthday is in 
 May," she added, thinking she had perhaps gone too far 
 on the road to veracity. 
 
 "What is the harm of his making love to you? He 
 has always done it, more or less, hasn't he?" Stella 
 went on, carelessly. She thought Miss Pleyden-Carr was 
 making too much of the circumstance. 
 
 "It it isn't only his making love to me." Pleasey
 
 236 SEBASTIAN 
 
 became indefinitely confidential. Stella had always 
 liked her for her prettiness, and tact, for her gift of put- 
 ting her clothes on well, and keeping Bice content. 
 Stella thought things had better go on as they were, 
 it would keep Sebastian out of mischief. Stella had a 
 very definite notion of how much mischief a boy could 
 get into, if he set his mind to it. 
 
 Pleasey suddenly confessed that he wanted her to 
 promise to marry him ! 
 
 Stella laughed. 
 
 "But surely you are not bound to do it because he 
 asks you ! And you have always Bice with you. Don't 
 make a fuss, there's a good girl. I have not time to 
 get any one else to be with Bice. What is the good of 
 bothering? All young men fall in love with women 
 older than themselves. But they get over it, you need 
 not give him any great encouragement, very little will 
 satisfy him, and he is sure to eventually like some 
 one else even better. Boys are not very constant; you 
 have nothing to fear from him, the 'young Lochinvar' 
 days are out of fashion." 
 
 Pleasey omitted to state how much encouragement 
 she had already administered. She played her game 
 very well indeed, and eventually converted Stella from 
 an active, to a passive, opponent of her going home for 
 a few months. 
 
 "I cannot be here, and not see him. I do not want 
 to deprive Bice of his companionship. I really think 
 
 I ought to go, you don't know how impetuous he is 
 
 Pleasey could even blush to command. 
 
 It was agreed she should rejoin her family circle for
 
 SEBASTIAN 237 
 
 six months. Stella gave her a handsome present. Lord 
 Saighton sent her father an additional cheque. He and 
 Stella agreed she had behaved extremely well. 
 
 "It won't do to have that young fellow hanging about 
 her here; it is not good for Bice, nor for any of them," 
 Saighton said, authoritatively. 
 
 Stella, who was only reticent about her own affairs, 
 could not resist sharing Pleasey's confidences with 
 Vanessa. 
 
 "Your Bayard has been making love to Bice's com- 
 panion," was the way she started the conversation, the 
 very afternoon that it had been decided Pleasey should 
 go home with her cheques. 
 
 "That is an old story, is it not?" Vanessa answered, 
 indifferently. "I thought I heard something about it 
 before he went abroad. Has it begun again?" 
 
 "Begun again ! It appears it never left off; they cor- 
 responded all the time." 
 
 "He never speaks of her to me." 
 
 "That is a bad sign." 
 
 "It is a sign he does not deem the affair important." 
 
 Vanessa could not be uneasy. Sebastian was still 
 exceptional and significant to her. Ambrose Pleyden- 
 Carr's daughter seemed an emasculate young person, 
 quite unworthy of serious consideration in such a con- 
 nection. 
 
 Stella did not like her news accepted so indifferently. 
 
 "You may say it is unimportant, but Sebastian is 
 madly in love with her." 
 
 "Calf love!" said Vanessa, looking again at Stella's 
 array of orchids. "I should not dream of interfering
 
 238 SEBASTIAN 
 
 with him, nor forcing his confidence. She is a feeble 
 young person with a habit of saying, ' Oh ! really ! ' She 
 varies it sometimes with, 'Fancy that!' Unless you 
 mind them meeting here, I do not see any harm in it. 
 She will soon tire him. I find five minutes of her vague 
 insincerity quite enough for me; so will he, presently." 
 
 "You under-rate her. She has a lovely figure, puts 
 on her clothes like a Parisian, and has at least a yard and 
 a half of fair hair." 
 
 "She is an albino, mentally and morally anaemic. I 
 have only seen her a few times, but I am sure she is not 
 going to be seriously dangerous. Besides, Sebastian is 
 absorbed in business. Really, Stella, this is a hare you 
 have started." 
 
 "I have not started it." 
 
 "Or are pursuing. The boy is serious-minded." 
 
 "Pleasey told me, herself." 
 
 "She is at an age when she must invent adventures 
 if she fail in encountering them." 
 
 "Well, don't say you have not been warned." 
 
 "In another five years I may begin to take Sebastian's 
 love affairs seriously. You don't understand him." 
 
 Stella laughed. 
 
 "He is not very difficult." 
 
 "He is fonder of his cousin than of her companion. 
 He has really a very fine appreciation of Bice. He 
 was only saying the other day - 
 
 There was no use urging the matter any further. 
 Vanessa was determined not to see, and after all, no 
 harm had been done. Pleasey indulged herself in a last 
 scene with the boy before returning to that shabby home
 
 SEBASTIAN 239 
 
 in Wimbledon, and the easy rendez-vous with Bob Hay- 
 ling. She contrived to put Sebastian completely in the 
 wrong. He had certain privileges, and it appeared he had 
 exceeded them. He thought he was engaged, whereas 
 it transpired he had only been on probation. Cer- 
 tainly an early marriage had not been in his mind. He 
 must wait until affairs were on a more settled basis in 
 Queen Victoria Street. But he wanted the privileges of 
 a lover. At a hint that she was going away, that he 
 would not see her again for some months, his ardour 
 broke through some new bonds that she had imposed on 
 herself, or him. She resented it most plaintively, and 
 distracted him beyond words. What he had done he 
 never quite knew. But it was all over, his love rejected, 
 his pride hurt, his intelligence bewildered. Whatever 
 was between them was at an end. He had misunder- 
 stood her, apparently, from the very beginning. 
 
 "She has done with me," he told Bice. 
 
 And for the moment she meant it. He was only a 
 boy, dependent on his mother. Pleasey knew all about 
 the will. Mr. Robert Hayling had a motor-car, and a 
 pretty lavish way of ordering luncheons and dinners. 
 She had been meeting him now and again for over a year, 
 but their opportunities had been limited. It was he who 
 had suggested that she should give up her situation, and 
 go home. He must mean something by it, and she 
 wanted to find out exactly what he meant. Sometimes 
 she fancied herself in love with Bob Hayling. He was 
 really a fine man, somewhere about forty, with expressive 
 eyes, his hair grey on the temples, his manner with 
 women extraordinarily confident. One could get a thrill
 
 240 SEBASTIAN 
 
 out of a man like that. There was no thrill to be had 
 from Sebastian Kendall's boyish passion for her. 
 
 But she had prevision, she kept her retreat open, 
 parting from Bice with tears and promises of constant 
 visits, dismissing Sebastian with a vague promise of 
 future friendship, impressing even the amused Stella 
 with the belief that she was really acting from conscien- 
 tious motives.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 VANESSA, when she heard that Miss Pleyden-Carr 
 had left the Ashtons, only observed that she thought 
 it was "a very good thing." She did not immediately 
 ascribe the change in Sebastian's habits to Pleasey's 
 absence from Weymouth Street. She was ever a writer 
 of romance, rather than an interpreter of human motives 
 and actions. 
 
 Business became now Sebastian's only objective. 
 Pleasey Pleyden-Carr may have obscured his outlook, 
 but such as she could not definitely affect the mainspring 
 of his character. He told his mother, about this time, 
 that "things were beginning to move." In truth, Se- 
 bastian was reaping the benefit of the name that had been 
 built up, and the principles with which his father had 
 imbued him. Competitors resented him, but new clients 
 liked the long credits, and the reliable quality. And 
 when they came in contact with him, they liked the eager 
 youngster, who was really a good salesman, and keen to 
 do business against his rivals, at almost any price that 
 offered. He talked very freely about "turnover," he 
 took the world into his confidence. He felt he had had 
 a good day when he had made a big contract, even if he 
 had accepted it at a loss, or if he had sold old stock at 
 or under cost, without taking into consideration that it 
 had been accumulating interest. 
 
 R 241
 
 242 SEBASTIAN 
 
 The defection of Pleasey but accelerated the activity 
 at the mills and in Queen Victoria Street. Incidentally 
 perhaps she necessitated it. The business was widening 
 and extending, the purely clerical work growing heavier 
 and heavier; humming and buzzing filled the office, 
 no trace was left of the prosperous, leisurely quietude 
 that had reigned there in the time of Sebastian's father 
 and uncles. The business, the capital, the income, were 
 all in the boy's young hands. He had none to interfere 
 with nor hamper him, and he could start one large 
 scheme after another without old-fashioned caution 
 cramping or paralysing his action. The very word 
 "overtrading" was outside his commercial dictionary, 
 it had been a figment of his father's brain, part of his 
 illness. Sebastian felt the necessity for enlarging the 
 mills, importing more machinery, trying every new pulp, 
 and combination of pulps, putting a hundred eggs in a 
 hundred baskets, relying on his brain to market them all 
 safely, counting cost neither of baskets nor eggs. Re- 
 action from the disappointment over Pleasey took the 
 immediate first form of an added vanity in his City 
 success, or that which looked so like success, on the 
 surface. 
 
 "You don't meet men of my calibre in the City," 
 he told his mother, quite simply. 
 
 "I shall sweep the board, they don't understand a 
 business policy over here, it is all just buying and selling 
 with them. I am going for monopolies. When I have 
 put everything in order at the mills, I shall have a go 
 at the wall paper trust; we are making long elephant 
 already ! I am getting it out at a wonderful price, with
 
 SEBASTIAN 243 
 
 that new machine of mine. They don't like it at Green- 
 hithe, I can tell you that. J. D. Rockefeller cornered oil 
 when he had more against him than I have." 
 
 He still talked continuously of the one subject. He 
 did not want to discuss anything else. He made no con- 
 fidences about his love affair, and Vanessa did not press 
 for them. Even Bice's sympathy had to remain word- 
 less. She was furious with Pleasey's betrayal. But the 
 boy's sensitiveness covered itself with P. and A. Kendall, 
 as with a garment. 
 
 There were difficulties ahead, and these, too, he 
 doubled, for distraction. 
 
 "I am plunging a bit," he admitted to Vanessa, "you 
 don't mind a fair trading risk, do you, mater?" 
 
 She had very little idea what was a fair, or unfair, 
 trading risk; she was satisfied, without being curious, 
 so long as the boy was content in what seemed to her, 
 nevertheless, very uncongenial work. Joe Wallingford's 
 warning had reached no further than her external ear. 
 She had resented the failure of her last book more than 
 she admitted, even to herself. She was laying down 
 the foundations of another. Perhaps that was why 
 she was slow in associating Pleasey's defection with a 
 certain development in Sebastian's conduct. 
 
 Sebastian's subsequent few months had many excuses. 
 His father's death, Pleasey's unreasonable dismissal, 
 chilled for the moment what was warmest and best in 
 him. The sentient parts, that remained unaffected, 
 were occupied entirely in mundane things. He saw 
 City men, and heard the talk of City men, at luncheons, 
 in private offices, in interchange of "drinks" at the con-
 
 244 SEBASTIAN 
 
 elusion of a bargain. And often it was coarse talk and 
 anecdote he heard. 
 
 Years of compulsory football at school had given him 
 a distaste for all forms of exercise, so there was no outlet 
 there. Both the spiritual side of him, for the boy had 
 ideals and a spiritual side, and the intellectual side of 
 him, and that too is undeniable, suffered temporary 
 eclipse. Materialism was what he had brought back 
 from America, not dogma perhaps, but a careless accept- 
 ance. There was no real viciousness, but some curiosity, 
 and an absence of creed. Quite deep down, unconfessed, 
 the ever-aching wound of Pleasey's rejection affected 
 his moral health. 
 
 By the time a new book was planned, and Vanessa 
 fully awakened, she discovered that Sebastian was no 
 longer content to spend his evenings alone with her in 
 the drawing-room. He had found that "life" was part 
 of the equipment of a business man, and had decided 
 upon penetrating its mysteries. 
 
 Reticence was no part of the scheme, quite the con- 
 trary. After all, "the mater is a woman of the world," 
 he argued, and "a novelist." The new side of life he 
 was learning was bound to interest her. 
 
 He talked about it at brekafast, and through dinner. 
 It is far more difficult to lead a fast life in London than 
 it is in Paris, or Vienna, in Buda Pesth, or Simla, for in- 
 stance, but it is not impossible. Sebastian's curiosity was 
 gratified long before he became in any way entangled, 
 or individually held, by what he saw and learnt. 
 
 Vanessa's instinctive purity shrank from what Se- 
 bastian told her, but she thought it was right that she
 
 SEBASTIAN 245 
 
 should listen. The unhappiness that lurks in wait for 
 all loving mothers of adolescent sons sprang upon her 
 presently, fastening claws of apprehension in all her 
 tender parts. 
 
 At first he skated over thin ice, and she missed seeing 
 that there were depths. It was this wide, misty vision 
 of hers that made her an indifferent novelist, she always 
 saw surfaces. Sebastian, however, only needed a listener, 
 it did not matter to him how much, or little, she saw, 
 or misunderstood. All his instincts were good, he was 
 not David's son for nothing. But he had been chaffed 
 by his City friends, comments were made, and doubts 
 thrown on his manhood, when he abstained from taking 
 part in loose talk, or found no food for laughter in coarse 
 anecdote. Vanity overrode his own secret antipathy 
 to impure things. He only wanted to know, it was only 
 curiosity he had, not evil instinct. 
 
 He met a woman who quoted Euripides, spoke three 
 or four modern languages, yet supped by herself at a table 
 at the Continental Hotel, and shared it with any one 
 who would pay for her society. He could not but talk 
 to Vanessa of this woman, and he described her flat, 
 and sought for the clue to her downfall. 
 
 There was another, French or Russian, who took a 
 fancy to him, and invited him to her house in Mayfair. 
 Sebastian described how, when he called, he was shown 
 up to her room, and how calmly she continued her toi- 
 lette before him. It was her lost attribute of modesty 
 that interested him, and her utter want of moral sense, 
 not the woman, not Sacha, herself. 
 
 "It is so jolly to be able to talk to you about every-
 
 246 SEBASTIAN 
 
 thing," he said to Vanessa, "you are so sensible. It 
 is the psychology of the thing that interests me. You 
 don't mind hearing about it, do you? I shall write 
 about it myself, one day, if you don't take it up, ' Autour 
 du demi-monde, 1 I shall call the book. I suppose my 
 French is good enough, and if not, you could polish it 
 up for me. It wouldn't do in English, the British public 
 like their powders in jam." 
 
 This was in the beginning. And to his Aunt Stella 
 he said : 
 
 "I am helping the mater to a lot of new copy. There 
 are a number of tilings she knows nothing whatever 
 about. Come to think about it, Stella," - for he refused 
 the prefix "Aunt" since he had become a man, and she 
 liked the impertinence, "I suppose I ought not to tell 
 her, but there are ripping stories that have never been 
 written, and she seems rather to have slackened off in 
 her writing. ' Between the Nisi and the Absolute 1 was 
 a frost. She doesn't know enough, that's the trouble. 
 Sometimes one would think she had never grown up, 
 nor had her eyes opened, she seems so curiously remote. 
 I used to take her for granted, but now I think about 
 her," he added, ingenuously. "I believe it will do her a 
 lot of good to hear about the things I am seeing." 
 
 "I should think the stories you tell her might prove 
 unpublishable." 
 
 " No ! what can be lived can be written." 
 
 "Theoretic, French, and untenable." 
 
 "Well, they ought to be written." 
 
 "You don't tell them to Bice, I hope?" 
 
 "What do you take me for?"
 
 SEBASTIAN 247 
 
 "I am not quite sure that your mother knows more 
 than Bice," she murmured. 
 
 "She is extraordinarily innocent, isn't she?" he went 
 on, confidentially. "I test her now and then, and she 
 takes my breath away.' But she thinks she knows life 
 backward, that is the funny thing about it." 
 
 " I'm not quite sure you ought to discuss your mother." 
 
 "It is all right if I only do it with you," he said, easily, 
 " there is something about twins besides I am not 
 saying anything I shouldn't. We both know there is 
 no one like her. She came down to Queen Victoria 
 Street the other day, and Hayling was there, you've 
 heard of Hayling, haven't you? senior partner in 
 Hayling and Johnson. They never did a stroke with us 
 until I came on, they were rather by way of being com- 
 petitors, they've got their own mills. But now I do a lot 
 of business with them, and I shall do more before long. 
 He met the mater, and I introduced them. He said he 
 didn't know I had a sister! Never could believe she 
 was my mother. Don't you think she is looking younger 
 than ever?" 
 
 "Happier." Stella knew Vanessa was happy in her 
 freedom. 
 
 "That's rot; she is lonely, I suppose," he had never 
 got close to the truth about Vanessa's attitude toward 
 his father, "but I think she is going on all right. We 
 talk of starting a book, or play, in collaboration. Not 
 that our talents march together. I am really quicker, 
 you know, up and dressed, so to speak, before she's 
 out of bed. Besides I'm so dog tired of an evening, that 
 business of mine is a fearful strain "
 
 248 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Vanessa was exerting herself now that Sebastian should 
 miss nothing in her companionship. Always she had 
 intended to be father and mother to him, and had been 
 full of theories. At this juncture she felt it might be a 
 father he needed. In truth she hated the nights he was 
 out, and feared the things he would tell her in the morn- 
 ings. She concealed her feelings, she was ashamed of 
 them. She, too, thought a knowledge of "life" might 
 be essential, and sought for the cause of her late failure 
 in her ignorance of ugly things. But she began to be 
 haunted by ugliness, and to dread always more Sebas- 
 tian's revelations. It was impossible to conceal her 
 distress of mind. Stella laughed at her when a few halt- 
 ing words revealed the cause of a growing restlessness, 
 and anxiety of demeanour. 
 
 "Are you worrying yourself into a shadow, because 
 Sebastian is stopping out late, or going out of town from 
 Friday until Monday ? What did you expect of him ? 
 you did not want him to be a saint, I suppose ? How 
 can you make yourself so ridiculous about that boy ? I 
 can't make it out." 
 
 And Hilda de Cliffe, who had her own quick way of 
 gratifying a curiosity, was no more sympathetic. 
 
 "Do tell me, I am just like Rosa Dartle, I always 
 want to know. Is it true that Sebastian is getting up 
 London life for you? Has he made any wonderful dis- 
 coveries ? Are they going to be in your next book ?" 
 
 Vanessa found curiosity, sympathy, and comment 
 equally hard to bear. And indeed Sebastian's im- 
 petuosity, and way of flinging himself entirely into the 
 affair of the moment, made the position dangerous.
 
 SEBASTIAN 249 
 
 Sometimes he gave, at breakfast or dinner, a lurid glimpse 
 into his evening life. But she never could quite grasp 
 if he coloured or cleared it of colour. 
 
 Whilst he remained curious only, and a student, she 
 was completely in his confidence. There came a time, 
 however, when he penetrated the arcana, and what he 
 saw he had no wish to tell her. But she had glimpses. 
 
 " Mater, could you let me have 250 ? I made a bit 
 of an ass of myself last night," he said to her one morning, 
 "without inconvenience, I mean." 
 
 " Whatever I have is yours, of course. I think there 
 is more than that in the bank, doing nothing." 
 
 He looked rather pale, his eyes were not quite as 
 bright as they had been, and there were shadows under 
 them. He was very thin. 
 
 "I am keeping awful hours," it was at breakfast, but 
 he was yawning. "I never got home until four this 
 morning; three hours' sleep isn't enough for a fellow, is 
 it ? But I have not been late in the City any morning, 
 have I?" He wanted her commendation. "A fellow 
 must live through this sort of thing." 
 
 She, too, was tired this morning, having listened for 
 his footstep, and given rein to her imagination, through 
 a lurid night. 
 
 "Shall I write you the cheque now?" 
 
 " You don't ask what it is for ?" 
 
 " Why should I ? You will tell me if you want me to 
 know." 
 
 "You can hear, if you like. I rather hate having 
 been such an ass." 
 
 "You said you were going to the American ball."
 
 250 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "So I did. I met some people I knew." 
 
 "Some one you knew in America?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it. It isn't Americans who go to this 
 sort of function, they want to get away from their own 
 people. I can't tell you now, I must be off. This 
 damned office is getting on my nerves. I feel like a 
 galley slave, chained to the oar. I'll tell you all about it 
 this evening; I shan't go out, I'm tired of it all." 
 
 His morning mood dismayed her. She thought noth- 
 ing of the cheque. Vanessa's generosity was not even 
 admirable, she always had more than she wanted. 
 But the boy left behind him that morning almost every 
 species of misgiving. He was tired of City work ! She 
 had anticipated the moment; but now it seemed a 
 weakness. Joe had warned her of a possible failure. 
 And she wanted to have been able to boast to him of an 
 overwhelming success. The boy was overstraining 
 himself, physically, through want of sleep. He had 
 eaten no breakfast, and admitted he had drank more 
 than was good for him last night. He had admitted, 
 too, that he had made a fool of himself, and this was the 
 first time she had heard him self-condemnatory. 
 
 The day was full of fears, and she tortured herself 
 with questions. She had had such fine material en- 
 trusted her. The boy had brain, and heart, and capacity. 
 What had she done, or left undone, that he should have 
 come to this pass ? And of course she exaggerated the 
 nature of the u pass," dreaming of crevasse and precipice, 
 whilst as yet, it was only that the sky was slightly over- 
 cast, and the air cold. 
 
 That same evening, enervated, slack, and sorry for
 
 SEBASTIAN 251 
 
 himself, Sebastian gave her an outline of what had oc- 
 curred to him. She was glad to have him at home, and 
 made him drink champagne with his dinner. Now she 
 bade him lie on the sofa, she adjusted the pillows, and 
 turned the lamp low. 
 
 "You are not looking well," was an involuntary state- 
 ment, although it was so obviously true. He took a 
 little pride in his dissipated appearance, and went over 
 to the mirror, before he accepted the sofa and the 
 cushions. 
 
 " I am thin, aren't I ?" he said, ingenuously, " you can't 
 burn the candle at both ends without feeling it. Isn't 
 that four nights running that I've been on the go ? I 
 shall have to pull up." 
 
 But it was clear he was not really ashamed. All these 
 months he had only been a looker-on. He remained an 
 idealist, and, true to his ideals, it was only knowledge 
 that he sought. On the subject of the cheque that had 
 been required, however, he was a little ashamed. 
 
 "I ought to have tumbled to it, of course. I was 
 cheated. I played poker before, in the States, but that 
 was among friends, dollar rises." 
 
 She was listening with all her ears and intelligence. 
 It was a gambling debt then that she had discharged. 
 
 He flung himself on the sofa, and went on : 
 
 "Hayling was at the ball, with rather a rowdy party. 
 We really had quite a good time," he began to recall the 
 events of the evening with a certain relish, notwithstand- 
 ing the climax. "I danced a lot, and there was plenty 
 of champagne. Hayling rather flung it about, I was tired 
 before I started, and wanted bucking up. It was In-
 
 252 SEBASTIAN 
 
 dependence Day, and we strained the point, perhaps; 
 American songs and choruses, waving flags and so on, 
 you know the sort of thing. A little woman that I'd 
 been dancing with most of the evening, she had reddish 
 hair, and a ripping figure, asked me to get her out of it. 
 She said it was getting too hot; it was rather hot." 
 
 He smiled reminiscently at a rowdyism in which he 
 had been rather spectator than actor. "Of course I 
 couldn't do less than see her home. She has a flat in 
 Victoria Street. Nothing could have been more domes- 
 ticated ; I stumbled over a perambulator in the passage. 
 She asked me to come in, she said her husband would be 
 sitting up, would like to thank me for my kindness to 
 her. She told me he was an Englishman, an old Etonian, 
 so of course he would not celebrate an Independence Day. 
 Well, mater, he was a very nice chap, and he had been in 
 Luxmore's house. We had a whisky and soda together, 
 and talked about the place. He had been rather good at 
 racquets ; and he agreed with what I said, that we only 
 really begin to care for Eton after we have left it. I 
 would not give up my memories of Eton for anything, 
 now, and I hated it all the time I was there, and so had 
 he. It was too early to turn in ! I think it was her sug- 
 gestion to send into the other flat, and finish up the 
 evening with a game of poker. Anyway he went to see 
 if there was any one there, and I got on all right with her 
 alone." 
 
 His smile, at the remembrance of the few moments 
 he had with this attractive, red-haired young woman, 
 was rather that of a mischievous schoolboy, than of a 
 dissipated young man.
 
 SEBASTIAN 253 
 
 "He brought back two pals of his, or hers, they were 
 both in the army, oldish men. I didn't care for either. 
 They had to teach me the game, I had forgotten the 
 values, although I knew all about the 'rises' and ' blinds.' 
 I don't think we fixed any limit. To make a long story 
 short, I won at first, and then I lost. I got the needle, 
 and played it up. Then I drew four kings, and went 
 up to 150. There were four aces against me ! I had 
 had enough of it then. They were very nice about it, 
 I must say that for them, they were sorry I'd lost, and 
 said I could have my revenge any time. I hadn't the 
 money on me, so I gave an I.O.U. for it." 
 
 "It was very unlucky." 
 
 She did not know anything at all about the game, 
 but gathered that the four kings should have been suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 "Well! that is what gives me the sick." Sebastian 
 had obviously renewed his acquaintanceship with Amer- 
 ican phraseology. "I started telling Hayling about it 
 to-day; we lunched together. He says they are card- 
 sharpers, known to the police, known to everybody. 
 Captain Villiers, Major Elers, they call themselves; 
 there is a regular gang of them." 
 
 "And the red-haired lady?" 
 
 "God knows." He stretched himself, and yawned. 
 " What I can't get over is having been such a mug. They 
 must have stacked the cards, of course." 
 
 She wanted to restore his belief in himself, to comfort 
 him for having been cheated. 
 
 " You could not possibly have known. I do not under- 
 stand how such a person could have got in to the dance.
 
 254 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Several people I know attend it regularly; the American 
 Ambassador is one of the patrons." 
 
 "The tickets are only ten bob, anybody can get in. 
 The strange part is that she really is a nice little woman, 
 and there is no doubt her husband was at Eton." 
 
 "You will not go there again, you will not pursue 
 the acquaintance?" she asked, anxiously. 
 
 "I am not so bally sure. Forewarned is forearmed, 
 I shan't play cards there again, but she is rather an 
 attractive little donah !" 
 
 This incident became one of many. Letters and 
 telegrams came to the house. Sebastian seemed to be in 
 great, and ever greater, request amongst a whole section 
 of people who were unknown to his mother. Out of a 
 shifting kaleidoscope of names, and places, and personal- 
 ities, one or two began to grow clear. Hayling, for in- 
 stance, was brought home, apparently at his own request. 
 
 She found herself distrustful of him, and resented the 
 familiarity of his manner. He was a partner in "John- 
 son and Hay lings," one of the leading firms in the paper 
 trade. They had been doing, for many years, the bulk 
 of the trade that Sebastian was keen on obtaining for 
 Kendalls. Mr. Hayling dropped into confidential talk 
 with Vanessa, the first evening he dined with them. 
 
 "Your son and I are great friends; I try to be of a 
 little assistance to him now and again. I am so much 
 older than he is." 
 
 "He has had the benefit of his father's experience," 
 she answered, stiffly. She was up in arms at once at the 
 note of patronage she detected, or suspected. 
 
 "Of course, but I wasn't alluding "
 
 SEBASTIAN 255 
 
 "The pater only had experience of an out-of-date 
 branch/' Sebastian struck in, "hand-made has gone pop. 
 No one uses it. Nobody cares for quality now, except 
 half a dozen firms, that we have got stone cold, firms 
 we have done business with for centuries. There isn't 
 a living in it, not enough to persuade a bank clerk from 
 his stool." 
 
 Hayling protested against such a sweeping statement, 
 and argument ensued. 
 
 Mr. Hayling, Robert, or "Bob," as his friends called 
 him, familiarly, was what is generally known as a " man 
 about town." His family were business people, origi- 
 nally Quakers, and they had been rich for three genera- 
 tions. Bob had been to a public school, and graduated 
 at Cambridge, taking a respectable second class. At 
 twenty-two he married a young woman he met in a tea- 
 shop, and at twenty-three he had grown tired of her. 
 Her early death left him free to indulge his tastes, which 
 were eclectic, and untrammelled save by his own con- 
 venience. He was justified in representing himself as 
 capable of benefiting Sebastian by his business expe- 
 rience, for he worked well in the City, in the intervals 
 of his self indulgence in the West End. But there was 
 an absence of moral consciousness about him that led 
 one to doubt even his commercial integrity. 
 
 Vanessa did not like her son's friend, and found it 
 difficult to understand the genesis of the intimacy, 
 although the whole of that first evening, and for many 
 months to follow, Bob Hayling devoted himself strenu- 
 ously to the task of making himself as acceptable to the 
 mother as he had to the son.
 
 256 SEBASTIAN 
 
 He was undeniably good-looking, in a grey-haired, 
 exhausted way. There was no more colour in his face 
 than in his hair, his complexion was grey, his face clean 
 shaven, and all the lines exposed. His figure was good, 
 and his height over six feet, he was undoubtedly what 
 the majority of women would call "a fine man." He 
 wore an eyeglass, on a moire silk ribbon, and dressed 
 with extreme care. He pursued adventure, as other 
 men pursue foxes, or kill game. It was the only sport 
 he knew. Already past his fortieth year, he had grown 
 perhaps a little languid in his pleasures. He sometimes 
 thought, now, that there might be an attraction in 
 domesticity, and one's own hearth. But he had been 
 too long used to play the cuckoo for him to lightly con- 
 template building a nest. His particular charm, and 
 what he considered the cause of his almost infallible 
 success with women, was a confidential tone, and a 
 caressing manner. He meant to have a "success" with 
 Sebastian's mother, but it would seem that it was long 
 in coming. 
 
 "You don't like Hayling, mater?" Sebastian said to 
 her, at breakfast. " Now I wonder why ? He is quite 
 a good sort. It was his idea my bringing him home. 
 He has asked me about it two or three times since that 
 day when he first saw you in the City. You were not 
 very civil to him last night. I can't think why." 
 
 "I thought I was quite civil, I tried to be, but I admit 
 he did not impress me favourably." 
 
 "His manners are good? " 
 
 "Y-e-es, perhaps. But there seems to be rather too 
 much of them."
 
 SEBASTIAN 257 
 
 "He puts things in my way." 
 
 "That is what I fear- -" 
 
 The boy reddened. 
 
 "Of course you know what I mean/' he interrupted 
 shortly, "in the City. He took a stack of stuff off my 
 hands when I collared that contract from Pierce's, and 
 then couldn't place it. You're prejudiced against him, 
 because he is in trade." 
 
 "Or because he introduces you to undesirable people 
 at American balls ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, and without her being able to avoid, 
 or perhaps to justify, her desire to avoid him, Hayling 
 became a frequenter of the Harley Street house ; Se- 
 bastian brought him home to dinner two or three times 
 a week. It seemed that, in all the dissipations in which 
 Sebastian took part, Hayling was an active, or passive, 
 participant. And he insisted on being confidential 
 with Vanessa, sometimes vexing her by a knowledge of 
 the boy's doings, by being more completely in his con- 
 fidence than she, sometimes reassuring her to the im- 
 pression that he was genuinely fond of the boy, and 
 anxious to pilot him safely through a difficult tide. 
 
 But she would not receive the other impression he 
 wished to convey, that it was his interest in her that 
 prompted, or deepened, his interest in Sebastian. Bob 
 Hayling was more or less a professional lover, with 
 conventional compliments and cliches. Sometimes he 
 irritated Vanessa, and often he bored her. Eventually 
 she came to look upon him as mere material, and the 
 interest she then extended to him was used to elicit 
 stock phrases of which she kept notes.
 
 SOME few weeks after the poker incident, Vanessa 
 became aware that a new interest, or absorption, held 
 Sebastian's leisure hours. She had a prevision of fresh 
 trouble. She still refrained from questioning him, but 
 his ingenuousness gave her the clue to an acquaintance 
 that, the moment they touched upon the subject, he 
 admitted he found extraordinarily exciting. There was 
 mystery in it, and romance. It was not his heart that 
 was involved, it was his imagination. 
 
 "You remember, mater, lending me the Victoria for 
 a couple of hours last Thursday ? I meant to go up to 
 the Albert Hall to see about those tickets for you. But 
 just as I got halfway through the park ; it was by the 
 water, before we got to the gate ; a lady bowed to me, a 
 ripping-looking woman. She was in a very smart turn- 
 out, a fine pair of bays, quite the right thing in liveries, 
 and cockade, and the rest of it. I returned the bow, 
 although I did not know her from Adam. I wanted to 
 have another look, so I told John to turn. We got 
 stopped by the traffic, side by side. She had bowed to 
 me, so I didn't see any harm in smiling at her. Then 
 she leaned forward, and said: 
 
 " ' It is a long time since we have met. I do not be- 
 lieve you even recognised me at first ? ' 
 
 "I had never set eyes on the woman before. So I 
 
 258
 
 SEBASTIAN 259 
 
 protested that I could not possibly have forgotten her, 
 that I remembered her perfectly. 
 
 "'How long are we going to be held up here?' she 
 asked. I told her I 'couldn't think.' 'Well, it seems 
 absurd we should be in two carriages, when we could talk 
 so much better in one,' she answered. And it did not 
 take me long to be sitting beside her, talking as if we had 
 known each other all our lives." 
 
 He went on to say that her conversation was most 
 interesting, and it was obvious she moved in select 
 circles. For she knew, and bowed, to many people, and 
 she spoke familiarly of the royalties, calling them by 
 their Christian names. She accepted an invitation, 
 which she prompted Sebastian to issue, that they should 
 dine together. She became suddenly doubtful, however, 
 if the proprieties were being observed, and she tried to 
 "cry off." Sebastian admitted that he was insistent, 
 and pleaded their old acquaintanceship ! And that pres- 
 ently the plea prevailed. 
 
 Vanessa heard this part of the story from Sebas- 
 tian. He related incidents of the dinner and evening, 
 how the waiter called his guest "your ladyship," and 
 how she rebuked his indiscretion ! 
 
 Sebastian was really ingenuous, at twenty-one illusion 
 had not yet vanished, and he was imaginative by in- 
 heritance. 
 
 After the dinner, he had seen the woman home to a 
 luxurious flat in St. James's, where two men-servants, 
 and a French maid, completed the impression she con- 
 veyed. He thought now that either a fancied resem- 
 blance to some one else, or his own beaux yeux, had at-
 
 260 SEBASTIAN 
 
 tracted to him one of the leaders of society ! He respected 
 her anonymity, accepting a nom de guerre she gave, but 
 which she owned was not her own. 
 
 She admitted, too, it appeared, that she found his 
 society attractive, and deplored that she was not free 
 to indulge herself in it openly. 
 
 The wildest conjectures floated in the liquidity of 
 Sebastian's mind. He conferred peerages upon her, 
 sometimes even crediting her with royal blood. 
 
 Before he was disillusioned, however, he became, 
 for some reason or another, firmly convinced that she 
 was a very well-known lady, not of the blood royal, but 
 "daughter of a hundred earls," and recently involved in 
 a complicated divorce suit, from which she had emerged 
 with sufficient reputation to make it possible that the 
 co-respondent should deem it his duty to marry her ! 
 
 Sebastian took the theme of his mother's last book 
 for his inspiration. If he were right in his identification, 
 then she was living in that strange period "Between the 
 Nisi and the Absolute." Sebastian thought it was pos- 
 sible her lover was abroad. He did not find it strange that 
 she should wish to give him her unoccupied hours, nor 
 hesitate to avail himself of them. 
 
 At the beginning of this entanglement, Sebastian 
 voiced to Vanessa his interest, doubts, and amazing, 
 imaginative conclusions. As his interest deepened, and 
 the toils gathered round him, Bob Hayling dropped 
 her a hint or two. By the time the boy's infatuation 
 was patent to all London, Vanessa was conscious of a 
 change in his manner toward her. It was not that he 
 was a less good son, but her instinct taught her that she
 
 SEBASTIAN 261 
 
 was somewhat of a tie to him, that she had better not 
 claim his time, that what had been pleasure, the inter- 
 course between them, and familiar talk, was now an 
 irksome duty. His mind was elsewhere, and it was 
 difficult for him to conceal it. Even Bob was no longer 
 fully in his confidence : 
 
 "I suspect what is going on, but I can't make him 
 talk about it," he admitted to Vanessa. "Don't allow 
 yourself to be unhappy about it. I don't suppose there 
 is going to be trouble, although this secrecy is a bad sign. 
 Would you like me to investigate? " 
 
 "I should not like to pry upon him," she hesitated. 
 
 Again she was distracted by fears. If she, too, had 
 not been full of false theory, and impossible councils of 
 perfection, it would have been easier to meet the situa- 
 tion. As it was, she hesitated, and suffered. 
 
 But Bob, without a commission, urged by his own 
 curiosity, took the matter up, and soon found the way to 
 meet Sebastian's new reticence. 
 
 "You are such a beastly cynic," the boy admitted, 
 "I don't want to have her picked to pieces." 
 
 " Well, you need not keep her such a secret, you might 
 introduce me, for instance." 
 
 "I haven't the privilege. I am not sure she would 
 like it." 
 
 "You see her nearly every day ? " he asked, curiously. 
 
 "It is not a bit what you think. She is going through 
 a difficult time." 
 
 "Costing you something? " he asked, brutally. 
 
 "There you go. I swear the mater is right, there is 
 something inherently coarse about you."
 
 262 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Did your mother say that?" he asked, with a slow 
 flush. Sebastian was sorry he had said it. For Bob 
 changed colour under his grey skin. He scored it up 
 against Vanessa, the total of these scores was getting 
 high. 
 
 "Why do you ask me if she was costing me anything? 
 It shows such a beastly mind." 
 
 "You are a lucky fellow, it doesn't matter to you what 
 you spend on women," Bob sighed. It was his method to 
 endow Sebastian with supposition wealth, to credit him 
 with a great and growing business, to envy his luck 
 generally. The boy liked this, it added to his impor- 
 tance. 
 
 "You know, Bob," he went on, reluctantly, he did 
 not want to talk of that which obsessed him, but they 
 were lunching together in the City, and the occasion lent 
 itself to philosophy, "that is a rotten phrase of yours, 
 ' spending money on women ' ! We spend it with women, 
 because we cannot spend it without them. There is 
 not much fun having the best dinner in the world, if we 
 dine by ourselves, is there ? I don't think we are doing 
 women a favour by taking them out, they are doing us 
 one, by coming." 
 
 " She has taught you a lot, eh ! " 
 
 "Oh! Go to hell!" 
 
 Sebastian pushed his chair back, and rose impatiently. 
 
 He was dwelling in a region of romance. But very 
 close to his new domain there might be ugly realism and 
 slumland. He did not want to see them. Bob was 
 spectroscopic. 
 
 It was a mood difficult, of course, or impossible, of
 
 SEBASTIAN 263 
 
 continuance. He was young, idealistic, sentimental. 
 But he was no fool. The woman began to make pulls on 
 his credulity, and, incidentally, on his purse. Then her 
 conduct varied from that of a princess in disguise to 
 that of Lai's. To be her protector appealed to his 
 chivalry ; to be her lover would have spoiled everything 
 that had appealed to him. She had met nothing as fine 
 as Sebastian, and she did not understand the way to keep 
 him. The illusion would have survived the arrears of 
 rent at the flat, the stories of the large sum of money 
 that had been expected, but had failed to come ; he could 
 even have commiserated, and accepted, the moments 
 when he found her the worse for drink. Had not her 
 husband divorced her, her lover left her ? Was she not 
 alone in the world, save for him? But some of the 
 scales fell from his eyes when she would have paid his 
 liberality with caresses. She did not understand his 
 flush to be of repulsion, his rejection to be distaste. 
 She rallied him on his innocency, and completed the 
 disenchantment. But unfortunately, not sufficiently 
 soon, nor definitely. The matter was brought to a 
 climax after one desperate night when Vanessa lay 
 awake until the dawn, listening for the boy's footsteps. 
 He came in toward four; she heard him moving about, 
 and restless. Neither of them had slept, it appeared, 
 and even before breakfast he knocked at the door. 
 
 "I want to tell you something," he said. "Send 
 Marie away, do your own hair." 
 
 "Must I? I do it so badly," she answered, ner- 
 vously; her bad night had demoralised her, and she 
 was fearful of what she would hear.
 
 264 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You had better know before you get the papers. I 
 got into a row last night. . . ." 
 
 "The papers?" 
 
 " You know about the Princess ? " Vanessa had given 
 her that name when, in the early days of his confidences, 
 Sebastian had been so convinced of blood royal in the 
 veins of his incognito. "I was there last night, rather 
 late. She had been bothered ; she was out of sorts, and 
 begged me not to go, she was fearfully nervous." He 
 did not say that she had been drinking all day, but in 
 any case it appeared she had dreaded her own company. 
 
 It was a sordid, ugly story that came out. The boy 
 was distressed and worried, yet even in the morning 
 light he did not see how he could have acted differently. 
 
 A man had demanded admittance to the flat at one in 
 the morning. The Princess had appealed to Sebastian 
 for protection, she had represented her untoward visitor 
 as an insistent creditor ! The boy had taken a high hand, 
 and ordered the man out. He retorted with unpardon- 
 able words; he was obviously drunk, and Sebastian 
 had knocked him down. There was a scrimmage, a 
 great deal of unnecessary noise, and occupants of the 
 other flats had sent the night porter to investigate the 
 cause of the tumult. The upshot was that the police 
 were called in. The man was charged with " breaking and 
 entering " ; and he brought a counter charge of assault 
 against Sebastian. The whole degrading business must 
 be threshed out this morning, at eleven o'clock, in the 
 Marylebone Street Police Court. 
 
 Of course, both mother and son took an exaggerated 
 view of the incident. In the first flush of it, Vanessa
 
 SEBASTIAN 265 
 
 thought she could never hold up her head again among 
 the friends to whom she had so often spoken of Sebas- 
 tian, who knew how she regarded him ; she was shamed, 
 humiliated. Sebastian himself fluctuated uncertainly 
 between the doubt whether he would be considered by 
 his City friends and clients as a hero, or merely as a 
 brawler ! 
 
 "I don't see what else I could have done," he re- 
 peated. "I don't think it will do me any harm in 
 business. I shall 'phone Bob to come and see me 
 through. The man came there to make a row, and she 
 asked me to get rid of him. What would you have had 
 me do?" 
 
 What Vanessa would have really liked was that he 
 should avoid the company of bad women. But it had 
 seemed to him part of the necessary equipment of life. 
 And to this view Bob Hayling persuaded him, and al- 
 most succeeded in persuading her, when he arrived, 
 hot foot, in time to accompany Sebastian to the police 
 station. He was really helpful and alive to the situa- 
 tion. He made Sebastian send for a lawyer, and 
 whilst he was out of the room, telephoning to the one 
 Bob recommended, Bob put the situation tersely before 
 Vanessa : 
 
 "He must sow his wild oats. Of course I didn't 
 know it was the 'Princess of Pilsenstein' who had got 
 hold of him, or I might have stopped it," he said. "I 
 know all about it now. The Nawaab brought her out 
 about fifteen years ago, spending money on her like 
 water. When his claim on the Government was got 
 rid of, and he was left with two thousand a year, and a
 
 266 SEBASTIAN 
 
 recommendation to go back to Nepaul, she took up 
 with Oldcastle, the eldest son of the Duke of Thanet. 
 He is supposed to have said to her, 'I can't give you 
 wonderful gems like the Nawaab/ and she to have 
 replied, coolly, 'Don't worry, I'll rough it on the Thanet 
 diamonds.' There are any number of stories about her, 
 more or less true. She is a wonderful-looking woman for 
 her age, I'm not surprised she took hi Sebastian." 
 
 Bob said there would be no doubt now about freeing 
 Sebastian from the entanglement without any further 
 damage. The police would have her dossier, he would 
 learn all that was necessary. 
 
 "But what will happen?" 
 
 "Prosecutor and defendant will both be bound over. 
 You will be surprised to find how quickly the magis- 
 trate will understand what is behind the case." 
 
 "And will it be hi all the papers?" 
 
 "I should think so. But there is nothing much in it." 
 
 "We have different points of view." 
 
 Bob was putting her under an obligation to him, but 
 she could not be grateful. It seemed to her that his 
 whole perspective was awry. 
 
 "You can't expect a young fellow to sit at home, 
 evening after evening, twiddling his thumbs." 
 
 "We won't discuss ethics." She had poured Mr. 
 Hayling out a cup of coffee. He had hurried out, with- 
 out breakfast, in response to Sebastian's hasty sum- 
 mons. But now she rose to leave him. He put his 
 cup down. He intercepted her at the door: 
 
 "Just wait one minute." 
 
 She had no choice, for he had not opened the door
 
 SEBASTIAN 267 
 
 for her, only guarded it. "You've set yourself against 
 me. You think I've a bad influence on Sebastian. 
 But you are wrong. I'd do anything for him, or for 
 you. I want you to like me." 
 
 "Before he knew you, Sebastian was all and more 
 than a boy should be," she answered, deliberately. 
 
 "He wasn't twenty-one, he hadn't begun to live. 
 Look facts in the face. All young fellows have to pass 
 this stage. Sebastian is going through all right, he 
 won't come a mucker, I promise you that. His head 
 is screwed on the right way, he doesn't care for drink, 
 he is no gambler. I'll see no one gets right hold of 
 him, if you'll only trust me." 
 
 He wanted to make love to her, it had gone home 
 to him that she found him coarse. Her aloofness was 
 unbearable to him. 
 
 "Leave the boy alone a minute. Let us talk of our- 
 selves. You've never given me a chance." He did the 
 wrong thing, the inevitably wrong thing, he tried to 
 prevent her going, to keep the door against her. "Give 
 me a chance." 
 
 "Let me pass, please," she said, inconsiderately, she 
 was in no mood to be tolerant this morning, nor careful 
 of her words. 
 
 "I'm not to have a hearing?" 
 
 "You are to open the door. I want to go out." 
 
 "You would rather not have me as a friend?" 
 
 "It is absolutely indifferent to me." 
 
 She was so distracted by Sebastian's position that 
 she could not conciliate, nor parley. The sordid vul- 
 garity of the police court proceedings assumed quite an 
 exaggerated importance in her eyes.
 
 268 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Afterwards her social conscience told her she had 
 been rude. It was not necessary for Sebastian to rub 
 it in, as he did, frankly, a few days later. He had only 
 heard Mr. Hayling's version, she told him. But what 
 other could she give? A woman of sensitive feeling 
 cannot tell her son that she has had to rebuff a gallantry. 
 
 The seance at the police station, as Bob had foretold ; 
 ended in both combatants being bound over to keep 
 the peace. It was made quite clear that the intruder 
 had at least an equal right with the boy to consider 
 himself a welcome visitor at the St. James's Place flat. 
 
 It is almost impossible to overestimate, perhaps, for 
 any one but his mother, to understand, how Sebastian 
 suffered, when the region of romance in which he had 
 dwelt these weeks was suddenly invaded and devas- 
 tated by an old, disorderly population. And for the 
 moment, there was no romance nor poetry left in the 
 world for him, the effluvia of dead and rotting things 
 was in his nostrils. 
 
 The crisis was spiritual as well as mortal. He ac- 
 cused himself of having neglected his duties to his 
 mother, and to both names he bore. If, in truth, he 
 had not sinned, as, in light acceptance and scoffing, sin 
 was attributed to him, he knew he had dwelt in evil 
 places. The depths of him shrank from what he had 
 seen, and the surfaces suffered from what people might 
 be saying of him. He was shaken as if disaster had 
 overtaken him, he looked wan, and too fine-drawn. 
 He could not let Vanessa help him, nor touch his open 
 wounds. He worked harder than ever in the City, the 
 evenings were given over to misanthropy.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 JOE WALLINGFORD, who had never taken her letter 
 rejecting his offer of marriage as final, and would never 
 so take it, failed to understand what was .troubling 
 Vanessa. 
 
 He was, of course, often in London, pursuing his 
 suit in his own leisurely but definite way, making 
 Vanessa write articles for him, interest herself in his 
 enterprises, urge him to greater seriousness in his 
 political aspirations, or movements. It was Sebastian 
 who stood between him and his desires, he knew that. 
 
 It could not escape him, either, that not only the 
 mother, but the son, now looked depressed, and out 
 of tune. Naturally, a man of his calibre, even had he 
 known of it, would not have taken the Pilsenstein inci- 
 dent very seriously. It was to business, therefore, that 
 Joe attributed the causes of the heaviness in the Harley 
 Street atmosphere. 
 
 He spent a whole evening trying to draw the boy 
 out. Sebastian, weary of introspection and self-re- 
 proach, gladly talked of new engines, and raw material. 
 Joe was well up in the various pulps, and always in- 
 terested in machinery. Sebastian told Vanessa after- 
 wards that he "tapped the magnate's brain." If that 
 were so, there is no doubt Joe, quite consciously, allowed 
 the spigot to remain in, and dropped his valuable 
 
 comment. 
 
 269
 
 270 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "We had quite a good evening, didn't we?" Sebas- 
 tian said to Vanessa, lingering in the drawing-room 
 after Joe's departure, more like his old self than she 
 had seen him for some time. 
 
 "You know, mater, he could be quite useful to me, 
 I get things out of him as it is, he is up to a lot of busi- 
 ness dodges. He likes talking to me, too. You see, I 
 have got all the up-to-date stuff at my ringers' ends. 
 I did not waste my time abroad. He seemed to think 
 very well of my new treatment of that cornstalk pulp. 
 I am going to produce paper, as thick as vellum, and 
 as light as tissue, see if I don't." 
 
 Sebastian had great recuperative powers, and there 
 was no doubt Joe's visit had done him good. 
 
 Joe stayed in town to see the new buildings, and 
 Sebastian brought him back the next evening to tell 
 Vanessa how much he had been struck with what he 
 had seen. The walls were up, and much of the ma- 
 chinery in place. The old mill, with its limited water- 
 power, one vat, and small accommodation, was still 
 turning out the Kendall specialities. The old foreman, 
 and three other workmen, were still leisurely dipping 
 their wire frames into the bluish mixture, stagnant in 
 the receptacle that looked like a horse trough. Ap- 
 prentices were making the paper, sheet by sheet, lay- 
 ing it between felt, or blanket, examining each piece 
 as if time had been no object. Joe had never seen 
 paper made in this way, and it had great interest for 
 him. But Sebastian was full of the new machinery, 
 and was eager to confide a secret that he half felt he 
 should conceal. Joe understood that, and he put
 
 SEBASTIAN 271 
 
 cautious questions. Sebastian's own questions, how- 
 ever, were more illuminative than his answers. He 
 was curious about the books Joe published, the weight 
 and size of them, the paper he used, and where he 
 bought it. 
 
 Joe knew Sebastian wanted an order from him. He 
 was really ingenuous in his business methods. Joe 
 wondered if, by any chance, by any possible chance, 
 Vanessa was worrying at the possibility of his becom- 
 ing entangled in Sebastian's business schemes, or being 
 asked to help him. Joe was very cautious, and wait- 
 ing his time. He would not expedite the moment 
 when Sebastian might ask him for help. Only Vanessa 
 must not be worried, nor allowed to fear or fret. 
 
 Yet it seemed he was guessing wrongly; for Sebas- 
 tian asked nothing, wanted nothing, but praise and 
 appreciation. Both of these Joe could give freely. 
 
 Stella, although she did not like him, had become 
 in a measure reconciled to Joe Wallingford since David's 
 death. She had trafficked in love, and knew its values. 
 Joe might stand hi the background of Vanessa's life, 
 doing little kindnesses for her, adding something to it, 
 admiring, or worshipping, her from the distance. So 
 long as he did not attempt to get close, Stella would 
 tolerate him there. But in speaking of him to Vanessa 
 she was for ever attempting to widen the distance, or 
 keep it impregnable, by contemptuous word, or speech. 
 She made it ever obvious that she looked down upon 
 him, and thought him ignorant, bucolic, unworthy. 
 
 But Vanessa had no thought of marrying Joe Wal- 
 lingford. Sebastian held her thoughts ever more
 
 272 SEBASTIAN 
 
 securely. And her friends would not let her off the 
 discussion of his latest escapade. 
 
 Lady de Cliffe spent a long afternoon in Harley 
 Street, and in the intervals of admiring the china, be- 
 littling the eighteenth-century prints, and appraising 
 the jade, she found time to congratulate Vanessa, on 
 what she was pleased to call her son's matinee at the 
 police station. 
 
 "He had a splendid house, I hear, and such good 
 notices. It was really clever of him to be taken in by 
 the Princess of Pilsenstein, so beautifully ingenuous. 
 You must make him come and see me, I want to hear 
 all about it. I wonder what he will do next. You 
 are so unlike other people, you and your son. I was 
 afraid he was going to be quite good, and dull. That 
 terrible woman, Mrs. St. Maur, told me he had engaged 
 himself to his cousin's governess, that he meant to 
 marry her. Ridiculous ! I said it was ridiculous ! He 
 is much too attractive to marry. But I shouldn't be 
 surprised if he had a short attack of virtue. The 
 Princess must have been an exhausting experience!" 
 
 And Lord Saighton told Stella, carelessly: 
 
 "That boy of your sister's wants looking after. He 
 has made a confounded young ass of himself with the 
 Pilsenstein; it's a pity his father died so early. A 
 boy could not have gone far wrong with a man like 
 David Kendall at the back of him." 
 
 However carefully Stella conveyed the gist of this to 
 Vanessa, it was hard to bear. 
 
 Mrs. St. Maur, too, had an insatiable curiosity, and 
 Hilary St. Maur an inherent tactlessness. Vanessa could
 
 SEBASTIAN 273 
 
 not deny herself to callers. She had to meet the situa- 
 tion the proceedings at the police court revealed. 
 
 Mrs. St. Maur asked if Sebastian were going to marry 
 the Princess ! She repeated anecdotes about her. She 
 was, perhaps, a little spiteful, at seeing Viola's matri- 
 monial chances imperilled. Hilary St. Maur said he 
 was glad to say that their Reggie did not care about 
 women ! Vanessa was tempted to retort that perhaps 
 that was fortunate. 
 
 To Sebastian, reaction came intermittently. He 
 refused all invitations, he would not go out any more 
 of an evening. Like Reggie St. Maur, he, too, for- 
 swore women. He read a great deal, theology held 
 him for the moment, but that, too, soon palled. 
 
 A casual remark from Vanessa, that whenever things 
 went awry with her, she always found peace in the 
 world of creative fiction, or in composing verse, started 
 him on a new tack. There was no doubt he had as 
 much talent as his mother, or more. She said so her- 
 self. Then why should he not devote his evenings to 
 literary pursuits? There was no vital incompatibility 
 between a paper merchant and a poet. He had always 
 been good at verses, rhythm presented no difficulties to 
 him at any time. 
 
 The very moment the idea came to him he put it 
 into execution; although it was eleven o'clock at night, 
 and before the suggestion had been made he was con- 
 templating bed. 
 
 He boasted to his mother, in the morning, that he 
 had thought of a subject, began, finished and polished 
 it off, in less than three-quarters of an hour !
 
 274 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You know, mater," he said, "that is almost a 
 record. It was under the forty-seven minutes by the 
 pater's watch, and you know how he always swore by 
 that. It just came to me, as fast as I could write it. 
 What does one get for a sonnet? A tenner, or fiver? 
 Take it at the lowest figure, and let us reckon it at an 
 hour, it means forty pounds a day. You have never 
 made anything like that, have you?" 
 
 She admitted that she never had. 
 
 The Sebastian who spent the next few evenings at 
 the writing-table in the corner of the drawing-room was 
 still a boy. This quality of youth was the deodoriser 
 which purified him so quickly of the past. Vanessa 
 took pains to conceal from him that the quality of 
 literary work counts more highly than the speed at 
 which it is produced. 
 
 Sebastian gave her a rhymed version of the corre- 
 spondence column of a lady's paper, several short 
 stories, and the first chapter of his autobiography, all 
 within a fortnight. With infinite difficulty Vanessa 
 succeeded in placing one of the short stories. It had 
 been necessary to improve the literary form, and that 
 had been a labour of love for her. But Sebastian up- 
 braided her: 
 
 "I consider you've spoilt it. I suppose that is why 
 the others were not snapped up. You see, mater, your 
 style and mine are so different. You labour your 
 stories, and I just dash off mine. It's Impressionism, 
 that is my school. If you do not mind, for the future, 
 when I give you my things to sell, I would rather not 
 have a word altered."
 
 SEBASTIAN 275 
 
 Sebastian bore failure badly. And he was too sharp 
 for Vanessa to be able to conceal from him that his 
 output was not marketable. 
 
 He conceived a bad opinion of editors, and a worse 
 one of literary agents. He discovered the incompetency 
 of both : 
 
 "You have only got to give either of them some- 
 thing a little out of the way, something with a dash of 
 originality about it, for them to jib at it altogether," 
 he complained. "You know, yourself, that telephone 
 story of mine, when the line got entangled, and the 
 Johnny found himself switched on to Hell, talking to a 
 woman he had known when she was alive, was abso- 
 lutely new. You laughed like anything, when I read it 
 you." 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 "But I begged you not to send it to The Evangelist!" 
 
 "That is where you are all such a narrow-minded 
 lot, all you literary people. It may have been lurid, 
 but it was absolutely moral." 
 
 Sebastian said he should not write any more, until 
 literature was on a very different footing in England. 
 He lost spirits over it; business, too, seemed trying 
 him beyond his strength, or perhaps it was the spring 
 weather. Anyway, Vanessa knew him restless and 
 feverish at nights, languid in the mornings, exhausted 
 in the evenings, and took quick alarm. She sent for 
 Dr. Gifford, for Sebastian acknowledged that his intel- 
 lectual and physical vigour were both at ebb tide. 
 With Dr. Gifford he played the tired roue: 
 
 "I've gone the pace too fast. I've burned the candle
 
 276 SEBASTIAN 
 
 at both ends. After all, doctor, it isn't every fellow 
 under two-and-twenty who has seen and done as much 
 as I have." 
 
 He went over his Continental and American experi- 
 ences, he said he had built up a big business, and he 
 would have boasted, had not something quizzical in the 
 doctor's eyes restrained him, of how wide and deep was 
 his knowledge of human frailty. 
 
 It was certain that all this vaunted strenuousness 
 of life and labour had a temporary constitutional 
 effect. Dr. Gifford, with David in his mind, was per- 
 emptory in ordering change of air and scene, complete 
 rest, a strict regime, and the simple life. 
 
 Sebastian said, flatly, he would not stir; his hands 
 were full in the City, he was in no mood for a holiday, 
 he would stay where he was, but he did not mind swal- 
 lowing the beastly maltine. Sebastian was rather proud 
 of his breakdown in health, and made the most of it. 
 
 "I have lost nearly seven pounds," he told Bice. 
 "I wouldn't let the mater know for the world. I 
 never sleep the night through, my cough keeps me 
 awake. I suppose it's the beginning of the end. I 
 don't care, I've had a good time. It's hard luck on 
 the mater, but as far as I am concerned, what is the 
 odds?" 
 
 Bice could not bear it, simply could not bear that 
 Sebastian should pine away. He might think it was 
 consumption, she knew it was love ! She put her 
 pride in her pocket, she could not believe that Pleasey 
 would hold out if she knew how it was with him. Gen- 
 erous and unselfish herself, she honestly believed that
 
 SEBASTIAN 277 
 
 Pleasey had given Sebastian up because she deemed it 
 best for him ; because of the disparity of years, and the 
 difference in position. She had not been in the secret 
 of their final parting, but she saw its effect on Sebastian, 
 and thought Pleasey, too, might be unhappy. 
 
 She went by train to Wimbledon, she walked to 
 Cleeve Row, a mean street of lodging houses. The 
 shabby, sordid poverty did not repel her, as later on 
 it repelled Vanessa. She was full of her mission, she 
 thought of nothing else. 
 
 And Pleasey was glad to see her. There was no 
 doubt Pleasey was glad. She had just had her head 
 washed, all her fair hair was hanging over her shoulders, 
 and she sat before the fire drying it. She was all alone, 
 her mother had gone out with Zuley; her father was 
 away. Pleasey was wavering now in her belief at her 
 wisdom in having left Wey mouth Street. Certainly 
 when Mr. Hayling asked her to drive or dine with him, 
 she was free to go. She had had some wonderful 
 hours. But Mr. Hayling was intermittent in his atten- 
 tions, indefinite in his love-making, there was often a 
 long hiatus between his visits. And in all the intervals 
 there was the grinding perpetual poverty, the humilia- 
 tions at the hands of the exacting landlady. She was 
 exacting in requiring her rent to be paid punctually, 
 and both Pleasey and her parents resented this attitude 
 of hers! Pleasey had to listen to her mother's plaint 
 at the poor response to Ambrose Pleyden-Carr's begging 
 letters; stimulants were essential to solace the disap- 
 pointments. Always there were Zuley's vagaries to be 
 kept under control. Zuley was not sufficiently imbecile
 
 278 SEBASTIAN 
 
 to be locked up, nor sufficiently normal to be left un- 
 guarded. They were all four, shiftless, idle, unpractical 
 people. Pleasey's care for her appearance was a sav- 
 ing grace; the others were self-neglectful, slovenly. 
 
 Bice saw nothing, stopped to see nothing; she was 
 full of her subject. 
 
 "I know you only left him because you thought it was 
 for his good; you will have to come back. He is going 
 into a decline, nobody but me knows what is really 
 the matter with him, and the only thing that can save 
 him." 
 
 "Does he know you have come to me? Are you 
 sure he cares about me still? What about that story 
 I read in the paper? I thought he had forgotten 
 poor me." 
 
 "He never cared about anybody else, the Princess 
 was nothing to him ; it was only because she was lonely, 
 and in trouble, that he spent so much time with her. 
 He was just good to her, nothing else, he was always like 
 that." 
 
 " But what am I to do, if he did not ask you to come to 
 me, nor say anything?" 
 
 "/ know; you must believe I know my own cousin. 
 He is just pining after you, that is what he is doing, 
 pining." 
 
 Pleasey was only half reluctant to be persuaded Se- 
 bastian still idolised her. She had not been touched 
 by it, but she realised that he was unlike any other boy, 
 or man, whom she had met. Mr. Hayling suited her 
 better. But then Mr. Hayling was so indefinite. Bice 
 was certain to carry her point with Pleasey. for she was
 
 SEBASTIAN 279 
 
 deeply in earnest. She would have shed her own heart's 
 blood for Sebastian ; but it was Pleasey, alone, who could 
 cure him. 
 
 "I can't come back with you to-night, it is impossible. 
 I must wait until mother comes home. And then my 
 hair is not dry, it takes such a long time to dry," pro- 
 tested Pleasey, irresolutely. 
 
 "But I must take back a message." 
 
 "Tell him I am sorry to hear he is ill." 
 
 "Give me a note for him." 
 
 "Shall I?" 
 
 Pleasey was uncertain, but Bice had no uncertainty, 
 she found pencil and paper, she stood over her until it 
 was done. Pleasey would promise nothing, bind herself 
 to nothing. But Bice was sure she had been interested, 
 she asked so many questions, she almost promised she 
 would come back to Weymouth Street, temporarily, at 
 least. She would spend a few days there, to-morrow, 
 next day, next week, sometime. 
 
 Pleasey hesitated, temporised. But Bice went back, 
 happy in the note she carried for Sebastian, convinced 
 that it would benefit his health. 
 
 Pleasey, whose hair had been washed, and was pres- 
 ently waved, for the delectation of Mr. Robert Hayling, 
 was not disappointed in her expectation of seeing him. 
 For what else had she manoeuvred that her mother 
 should be absent all these hours? 
 
 He drove up to the door, in his forty horse-power 
 Panhard, and disentangled his length from the car, 
 slowly, and to the entertainment of the whole mean 
 street. His big coat became him, it was very well
 
 280 SEBASTIAN 
 
 cut, and hung loose and wide, straight from his shoulders ; 
 he wore no unsightly goggles. 
 
 "Miss Pleyden-Carr at home?" he asked the little 
 maid-servant. 
 
 She heard it across the narrow passage, in the stuffy 
 little parlour; she thrilled at the sound of his voice, as 
 she would never thrill for Sebastian. 
 
 Now he was in the room, her colour rose, her pulses 
 bounded. His greeting may have lacked respect. Who 
 wants respect? Why should he not kiss her, he had 
 done so before? 
 
 "Come out for a drive? I am in the big car, it's a 
 fine evening, and we can go to Hampton Court, dine at 
 the Mitre, or push on to. Skindles, we could do Maiden- 
 head in an hour, and it isn't seven yet. Everybody out ? 
 how did you manage it? Don't keep me waiting, I 
 haven't stopped the car, I don't want the petrol to run 
 out halfway." 
 
 "I won't be a minute." 
 
 But she was. Pleasey must cover the light hair with 
 a bonnet, or hood ; the lace inside, the very latest fashion, 
 borrowed from the eighteenth century, framed her small 
 face. She had on a big coat Bob had given her in the 
 autumn, for just such excursions as these. 
 
 "What a devil of a time you've been. Another two 
 minutes, and I should have started without you. I am 
 going to drive, and you can sit beside me. The boy will 
 go inside. Coming back, I'll let him take the wheel." 
 
 Pleasey's imagination could picture that drive back, 
 in the dark. Bob would be kind to her, very kind. She 
 had another little shudder-sweet thrill, of expectation,
 
 SEBASTIAN 281 
 
 perhaps of remembrance; she was sure he was fond of 
 her. 
 
 He talked of the car all the way down. At dinner he 
 made her drink more champagne than was good for her. 
 He was quite as kind as she anticipated, on the way 
 home, kinder even. She had no secrets from Bob, she 
 told him all about Bice's visit, and that Sebastian had 
 broken down in health. He said she was very sweet, 
 and he was not a bit surprised to hear that Sebastian had 
 been in love with her. He said Sebastian was only a 
 boy; he was a man, and knew a man's way of loving. 
 And he taught her something of what he meant, in an 
 after-dinner mood. She was an apt pupil, and it was not 
 a first lesson. 
 
 She arrived home late, her lips very hot, her heart 
 quite tempestuous, feeling all the emotion of which she 
 was capable, very excited. She had quite forgotten her 
 note to Sebastian. 
 
 But Bob Hayling had had too many after-dinner 
 moods, in his time, for this to have made any particular 
 impression upon him. The only memory he had of it 
 the next morning; beyond the vague one that Pleasey 
 had been very responsive, and he was not quite sure that 
 he would risk another similar evening; was the news 
 she had told him of Sebastian Kendall's health. 
 
 Robert Hayling had taken his own way of meeting 
 the competition that the boy's active business powers 
 set going. His partner cursed the young jackanapes 
 who cut prices, competed actively, and made them look 
 to their supremacy in the trade. But Bob did no curs- 
 ing, he thought Sebastian would soon tire of business.
 
 282 SEBASTIAN 
 
 At twenty-one, pleasure comes before business, if one 
 knew where to look for pleasure. That was the job 
 Mr. Robert Hayling thought would suit him down to 
 the ground, teaching young Kendall where to look for 
 pleasure! But Sebastian had disappointed him, quite 
 seriously disappointed him; he had been more active 
 than ever in business lately ; there was no doubt he was 
 making himself felt. His partner could not speak of P. 
 and A. Kendall without execration. If the boy con- 
 tinued to stand outside the "Association," to cut prices, 
 
 and boast he was an "Independent," why then 
 
 Bob cut himself shaving in the mere contemplation of 
 what might occur. 
 
 But Pleasey said the boy was ill, had developed a 
 tendency to consumption, had been ordered to strike 
 work. Quite a brilliant idea struck Mr. Hayling, as he 
 completed his toilette. And he surveyed himself in the 
 glass with satisfaction, notwithstanding that little cut. 
 He was attractive to women, it was absurd of Sebastian's 
 mother not to realise it. 
 
 He put on a frock-coat, and high hat, a grey tie that 
 toned with his grey hair, and notwithstanding the dissi- 
 pated lines about his clean-shaven face, and his pallor, 
 he thought he cut a good figure. 
 
 The morning he gave up to business. In the after- 
 noon he would pay a visit to Harley Street. He saw 
 Sebastian in his office, and made a suggestion to him. 
 He told his partner, casually, that he thought of taking 
 a few weeks off, now, instead of in the summer. 
 
 "If that cursed young fool in Queen Victoria Street 
 doesn't mend his ways, there will be no holiday for any 
 of us," his partner growled in response.
 
 SEBASTIAN 283 
 
 "I thought of taking him with me," Bob answered, 
 coolly. 
 
 "Do, and break his neck," was the rejoinder. 
 
 "I don't suppose there will be many of his plans I 
 shan't know by the time we get back/' Bob went on. 
 He bantered the other: 
 
 "You go on undercutting, and cursing. Perhaps 
 it does you good, eases your congested liver. But that 
 is not my method, and I bet you mine is the better. 
 Suaviter in modo, that's the ticket. If I pull off my little 
 scheme, we shall have the field to ourselves again in a 
 few weeks. You can get that Carter contract through 
 whilst I am away, I will give you the argument; and I 
 should not be surprised if you got Sadler's, too, if you go 
 the right way to work." 
 
 "At half the profit we used to make before David 
 Kendall died, and the whole trade became disorganised ! " 
 
 "How much of the money David Kendall left, do you 
 suppose is in the business now? " 
 
 "How should I know?" 
 
 "You shouldn't. You should not know anything; 
 as a matter of fact, you don't. But those new buildings 
 must have run away with a pot of money." 
 
 "I know as well as you do that he is up to the hilt." 
 
 "Well, drive the hilt in whilst he is away. He may drop 
 a bit of money at Aix. Anyway I am going to teach him 
 how to take the bank at baccarat. He will like to be 
 the cynosure of all eyes, playing the millionaire." 
 
 But he counted his chickens prematurely. 
 
 Certainly the suggestion he had dropped to Sebastian 
 was not unacceptable in Harley Street.
 
 284 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Sebastian had been ordered open air, cessation from 
 work, change of scene and surroundings. Mr. Hayling, 
 it appeared, had seen him that morning, and heard of 
 the prescription. Well, he was just off on a motor tour, 
 through France and Switzerland. He would not move 
 in the matter without first hearing it was agreeable to 
 Mrs. Kendall. Was it agreeable to her that Sebastian 
 should accompany him, should be his guest for the tour ? 
 
 It seemed as if a way was really opening out of the 
 difficulty. For Sebastian came in before Bob left, 
 languid, with that new little cough that he had devel- 
 oped, and that tried Vanessa so terribly. And Sebastian 
 said he had changed his mind about going away. Per- 
 haps Gifford was right; he did feel awfully run down, 
 and a run across the Continent in the new car would suit 
 him better than any other sort of holiday. 
 
 Vanessa said she must see if Dr. Gifford approved. 
 But after Bob had left, with the understanding that he 
 should have a definite answer to-morow, she demurred a 
 little at the obligation ! Sebastian looked at it in quite 
 a different light. 
 
 "There is no obligation. I am a linguist, and he is 
 not ; an experienced traveller, whilst he has hardly been 
 further than Margate." 
 
 It seemed useless to argue, she had no legitimate 
 excuse to urge. She did not like Robert Hayling, but 
 then as Sebastian very pertinently put before her, it 
 was a question of health. This holiday the boy would 
 take, or none. 
 
 And Dr. Gifford was quite satisfied when his opinion 
 was asked.
 
 SEBASTIAN 285 
 
 "There is nothing seriously the matter with the boy," 
 he said, "he is as sound as a bell, organically. That 
 cough you are fidgeting about is nervous. His mind has 
 outstripped his growth, and he is a little too young for 
 his responsibilities, a little too young to be quite so much 
 his own master; that is all that's wrong. There is 
 nothing better than motoring as a nerve tonic in such 
 cases; let him go. Your mind can be quite easy. Why 
 don't you send his cousin with him ? She would look 
 after him, and see he did not get fresh cold, or over- 
 exert himself. And it would do her no harm to have a 
 change. She hangs about her mother too much, leads 
 altogether too confined a life." 
 
 If it were a conspiracy, everybody must have been in it. 
 Stella would not allow Bice to join the expedition, if 
 only Mr. Hay ling and Sebastian were of the party. 
 Pleasey seemed like an after-thought, but if Pleasey 
 would accompany them, Stella's maternal solicitude 
 would be satisfied. 
 
 Pleasey had written that little sympathetic note to 
 Sebastian, and he had taken it very gratefully, as a 
 great concession from her. Perhaps it made him think 
 himself worse than he was, perhaps it had something to 
 do with his sudden decision to obey orders, to knock off 
 work. After all, there was one kind, sweet girl in the 
 world ! He kissed the note, he slept with it under his 
 pillow. He did not tell his mother he had received it. 
 
 Then came Dr. Gifford's suggestion that Bice should 
 accompany him and Bob. A hint was whispered to him, 
 by Bice, that seemed too wonderful to be possible. 
 
 "Mummy won't let me go alone. She would let me go
 
 286 SEBASTIAN 
 
 if I had a chaperon, if if Pleasey would come with 
 me." 
 
 "But she wouldn't it isn't possible !" 
 
 "I'll make her," Bice promised confidently. There 
 followed two or three days of great excitement, hope and 
 fear, with the result that Pleasey, after all, proved per- 
 suadable. She had one short interview with Sebastian, 
 which Bice engineered. She had rather been without it, 
 she did not know what to say to him. But she bore her- 
 self well. He was very agitated, and found words with 
 difficulty. She had nothing to say about her dismissal 
 of him. They were going to be friends, nothing but 
 friends, he must not agitate himself, she had heard he 
 had been ill. Bice saw they were not interrupted too 
 soon, but indeed they were both glad of interruption. 
 Sebastian's heart was too full for words, Pleasey's 
 too empty. 
 
 At first, when the plan of a bachelor trip was altered, 
 and it was settled that Sebastian was not to be his guest, 
 but one of a party, each paying their own expenses, 
 Mr. Hayling had bucked, he had nearly thrown over the 
 whole thing. He did not know Bice, and he was not 
 prepared to spend a month with Pleasey. It would be a 
 bore to drag two women about, it was not at all what 
 he intended. He had meant to push through, as quickly 
 as he could, to Aix-les-Bains, where baccarat and bad 
 women might be relied upon to keep Sebastian from 
 meddling with contracts, until the crucial moment had 
 passed when Messrs. Carter and Messrs. Sadler made 
 their arrangements for the year. 
 
 But Bob Hayling was only a lath and plaster Mephis-
 
 SEBASTIAN 287 
 
 topheles. Bice diverted half his intentions, and put his 
 plot out of his head, when Sebastian had her down in the 
 City to lunch, and began to discuss the route. She was 
 full of the pleasures of the trip, grateful to Mr. Hayling 
 for having made it possible, very attractive in her enthusi- 
 asm. 
 
 Bice was no longer abnormally small, although she had 
 not grown beyond five feet two. The whilom disorder 
 of her curly head was reduced, now that she was grown up, 
 to reasonable dimensions. Her skin was soft ivory, but 
 the dark expressive eyes and long lashes, the red lips and 
 fluctuating colour lit up its shadows. When she smiled, 
 the lovely row of teeth, the air of animation, and one little 
 dimple, made the face extraordinarily attractive. She 
 was small, but all her proportions were perfect, from 
 dainty feet to rounded waist. 
 
 Bob's tastes were eclectic, and before that lunch party 
 had drawn to a close in the crowded City restaurant, he 
 had forgotten he had ever doubted the charm of the 
 arrangement that would give him two attractive girls to 
 drive, and a new sensation to enjoy. Bice was a new 
 sensation to Bob Hayling, younger, fresher, prettier than 
 any one he had met for years. 
 
 "I am awfully surprised you think Bice so good- 
 looking," Sebastian said. "Of course I am fond of her, 
 we have always been great pals. But I never looked 
 upon her as a pretty girl, there is nothing of her, and then 
 she is so dark." 
 
 "Tastes differ." Bob laughed, he was quite content 
 Sebastian should not admire his cousin. Bob was fresh 
 from another amorous interview with Pleasey ; he was
 
 288 SEBASTIAN 
 
 glad there was something new in front of him. Ad- 
 venture to the adventurous ! 
 
 Stella and Vanessa, together at the door in Weymouth 
 Street to give the motor party a send-off, commended 
 their children to Bob's care : 
 
 "I'll take care of them all," Bob said. "You won't 
 know Sebastian when he comes back. He will weigh 
 twelve stone, and be the colour of beet-root." 
 
 "Take care of my Mummy," were Bice's last words to 
 her aunt. 
 
 "And you of my Sebastian," was Vanessa's reply. 
 
 But no one asked that Pleasey should be cared for. 
 Sebastian silently vowed himself to it. If she would only 
 let him ! It had all begun over again with him, his 
 heart leaped under his coat when he caught her eye. 
 She was quite conscious of it, she was even glad that Mr. 
 Hayling should see it.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 FOR once Vanessa was glad of Sebastian's absence. 
 She needed a breathing space, she had been living in the 
 boy's strenuous life, she had had no room for her own. 
 
 Neither during her husband's lifetime, nor since 
 Sebastian had taken the reins, had Vanessa any personal 
 acquaintance with the business in Queen Victoria 
 Street, nor the Kendall mills. She was the more sur- 
 prised, therefore, when three weeks after the motor 
 party had started, she received an urgent letter, sent by 
 hand, asking her if she would see Mr. Jones. She knew 
 vaguely that Mr. Jones was head clerk to Sebastian, as 
 he had been to his father. Mr. Jones had been over 
 thirty years with the firm, she had heard that, and that 
 he was one of the few who had survived the new regime. 
 But she was astonished at his asking for an interview 
 with her. Her mind leaped to a quick conclusion of 
 illness, domestic trouble, or the inheritance of a fortune. 
 It seemed incredible that he should apply to her on the 
 affairs of the firm. 
 
 From the beginning the interview oppressed and 
 puzzled her. 
 
 Mr. Jones was an elderly man, unused to drawing- 
 rooms, nervous, embarrassed, finding speech difficult. 
 She endeavoured to set him at ease, but her social sense 
 failed to respond to his particular needs ; he declined tea, 
 u 289
 
 290 SEBASTIAN 
 
 and would not part with his hat. She could not tell 
 him how long Mr. Sebastian intended to be away, nor 
 exactly where he was. It had been understood between 
 them that he was to be quite free, he would wire from 
 time to time ; no news meant that he was all right. 
 
 But Mr. Jones, floundering in some technical phrases 
 about "bills," was evidently seriously perturbed by this 
 indefiniteness. Vanessa really tried to understand what 
 he was endeavouring to convey to her ; but she had not 
 the slightest notion what "discounting bills" might 
 mean. If Kendalls had "drawn on" any one, or any 
 one had "drawn on" Kendalls, it was equally enigmatic. 
 And why the words " at sight" or " at sixty days " should 
 be reiterated, and why Mr. Jones should attach so much 
 importance to them, she had not the first idea. 
 
 She was very kind and reassuring : 
 
 "Of course, if anything is owing, it must be paid," she 
 said, peremptorily. There was no doubt about that. 
 How it was to be paid, was another matter. Surely 
 there was money in the bank ; there was always money 
 in the bank. 
 
 " Have you not the power to sign ? Did Mr. Sebastian 
 forget to leave you a cheque? If you will tell me the 
 amount, I can let you have it from my private account, 
 until he returns . Will that do ? Is that what you want ? ' ' 
 
 "There are bills of lading, and the dock charges. Mr. 
 Sebastian has a large consignment of " 
 
 "Really, Mr. Jones, you must not give me detail, I 
 understand nothing whatever about business. What is 
 the amount you are short ? For what do you want me to 
 draw a cheque?"
 
 SEBASTIAN 291 
 
 But it was impossible to get Mr. Jones to answer a 
 simple question. He would explain, and be apologetic, 
 and beg her to look into matters for herself. He 
 succeeded in making her slightly uncomfortable. And 
 when at last he named a sum that would " tide them over" 
 until Mr. Sebastian returned, she was more than uncom- 
 fortable, she was almost alarmed; she had no such 
 amount lying to her credit. But debt was impossible, of 
 course. 
 
 Mr. Jones ventured to suggest "securities." It was 
 he who explained to her that these might be available. 
 
 She was a very clever woman, even practical, but she 
 had no experience in money matters, they had not 
 interested her. 
 
 " If you will tell me what you want me to do," was her 
 final summary, "I will do it. Must I see a lawyer, or 
 what? Of course I have securities, my father's estate. 
 I believe that they are at my bankers', I am not quite sure. 
 Is there any immediate hurry ? " 
 
 She must ask some one else. Mr. Jones was much too 
 flurried, and uncertain, to be of any use to her, it was 
 she who reassured him. Whatever money was wanted, 
 would, of course, be found. He would hear from Mr. 
 Sebastian in a day or two, without doubt ; in the mean- 
 time she would see her lawyer, or her bank manager. 
 
 She sent him away considerably relieved. He did not 
 know her resources, but, at least, he had her word that > 
 the six thousand pounds that was required on the eighth, 
 would be there. He was not very resourceful, Kendalls 
 had not had to finesse in finance in the days when he was 
 growing up in their employ. "Financing" spelt ruin to
 
 292 SEBASTIAN 
 
 him, the boy had already left the old clerk far behind in 
 his way of running the business. Sebastian was alto- 
 gether modern, and full of expedients. But he ought to 
 have realised that his subordinates were none of them 
 trained to take his place. 
 
 Vanessa did the only thing that quickly occurred to 
 her. She drove to her bank, and asked to see the mana- 
 ger. He was very courteous, very courteous indeed, 
 but grave when he heard the amount she required. Of 
 course there was no difficulty about it. He sent for the 
 securities book. She had stock against her name 
 amounting to considerably more, to twelve or fourteen 
 thousand pounds, in fact. And six or eight hundred 
 pounds on her current account. They would advance 
 her the amount, but . . . 
 
 There were a great many bewildering "buts." And 
 even although she disregarded them, insisting on her 
 point that she must have the money at once, signing all 
 that was required of her, and urging expedition, she was 
 nevertheless not thoroughly easy in her mind. 
 
 She sent Mr. Jones the cheque she had promised him, 
 by the date he had named; his mind was relieved. 
 Hers, she thought, would be better for a little talk with a 
 business man. She was sure she could learn the language 
 Mr. Jones had talked, penetrate its mysteries; she only 
 wanted a teacher. 
 
 There was Joe Wallingford. He was really the only 
 business man she knew well. All her other friends were 
 literary, or artistic. 
 
 She did not accuse herself of disingenuousness when 
 she wrote to Joe Wallingford, asking him to come to her 
 when he was next in town.
 
 SEBASTIAN 293 
 
 She was still satisfied that she had no arri&re pensee, 
 that there was no danger in the position, when already 
 the next day he was in the drawing-room. 
 
 She could not have imagined she would be so glad to 
 see him. It was water after long drought to talk of 
 anything but Sebastian. She forgot why she had sent 
 for him, and of what she wanted to talk. For, at once, 
 they were on the easy terms of intimacy and com- 
 panionship. The recess was over, and Joe told her he 
 intended^terrernain in London for the present. He had 
 used the time well whilst Parliament had been sitting. 
 
 y\. have noted that. You have drifted so gradually 
 from free trade to colonial preference, and from colonial 
 ^reference to a differential tariff, that your readers are 
 hardly yet aware that your port is Protection !" 
 
 He said her articles had been of value, he wished she 
 had written more. There were journalistic differences 
 to decide. 
 
 \ "And you you look better than when I was here 
 last. And the boy? Where is he?" 
 
 He heard about the breakdown in health, and the 
 motor tour. 
 
 Then she said: 
 
 "Which reminds me why I wrote you. I want a 
 lesson, I want to know what bills of exchange are, and 
 what happens when you do not pay them. I want to 
 learn something about discounting. Sebastian is away, 
 and his head clerk seems singularly incompetent, he came 
 to me for advice, or help, and I felt like a fool." 
 
 "So you sent for me to help you?" 
 
 He came a few paces nearer to her. In his eyes was
 
 294 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that amazing consciousness of her that she had never 
 seen save in his. Looking at him, at the big powerful 
 head, and the consciousness in his eyes, a little rush of 
 feeling came over her, whether it were gratitude, or 
 personal interest, or something less definite than either, 
 it was amazingly new to her. 
 
 "Will you?" she asked him, "will you help me?" 
 
 "You don't suppose I ever looked upon your letter as 
 final?" 
 
 She waived that on one side. If her colour rose a 
 little, she could not help it. 
 
 "I want to ask you about business, business generally, 
 its intricacies, its difficulties." 
 
 "A dull subject." 
 
 "Sebastian ought not, perhaps, to have had the whole 
 burden of it ! I thought it was simple, now it appears 
 complicated, almost impossible. You cannot sympathise 
 intelligently with a man's daily work, if you are as 
 ignorant as I am of its detail. I am annoyed now that I 
 have shut it all out, listened with less than half an ear." 
 
 "That gift of sympathy you have " 
 
 "Don't, please, talk about me." 
 
 "Well, not at the moment. I'll wait, I don't care how 
 long I wait. You'll have to let me talk about you some 
 day. You'll not stand out against me for ever." 
 
 "I really want to speak about Kendalls." 
 
 "You shall." He sat down beside her on the sofa. 
 "Go on. What has roused your interest? Anything 
 wrong at the mills?" 
 
 She told him of the interview with Mr. Jones, relating 
 it humorously, but he listened gravely. Something
 
 SEBASTIAN 295 
 
 he had suspected, perhaps hoped. He did not let her see 
 he regarded the matter at all seriously. He explained 
 bills of exchange, and bills of lading, the difference 
 between "sight," and "three months." He liked teach- 
 ing her, liked sitting with her, noting her responsive 
 intelligence, noting, too, the luxuriance of her dark hair, 
 the softness of her thin lips, the entire desirability of her 
 for him. There was no other woman to whom he cared 
 to talk, he liked the sound of her voice, it was cultured, 
 musical, unlike those North Country voices to which all 
 his life he had been used. 
 
 "Mr. Jones was incoherent, and involved. He said 
 some bills were falling due on the eighth. It seems, or 
 so I took it, people who owed us money were asking for an 
 extension of time; yet bills we had accepted for large 
 amounts had to be met. I told him, of course, that 
 whether we were paid or not, he must not get into debt." 
 
 Joe's grey eyes opened at this. 
 
 " But credit is the very soul of business ! What did he 
 say when you told him he must not get into debt? " 
 
 "He was very stupid, and looked as if he thought I 
 did not know what I was talking about. I suppose, as a 
 rule, men who spend their lives in money-getting are 
 stupid." 
 
 "Counting me?" 
 
 She smiled at him: 
 
 "Are newspaper proprietors who represent their 
 county in Parliament supposed to be business men?" 
 
 "Does Eton turn them out?" 
 
 "Sebastian is absolutely wrapt up in Kendalls. He 
 talks to me about the paper trade by the hour together.
 
 296 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Have you seen this new 'feather weight/ as he calls it, 
 the light paper he is producing?" 
 
 "A sample was shown to me." 
 
 "It is his own invention, a new material, and a new 
 treatment. He says it has cost him thousands to pro- 
 duce and perfect it, in machinery and in chemical ex- 
 periments. Now it has to be advertised." 
 
 "Sebastian has been spending money like water, 
 apparently." 
 
 A word to that effect, brought back the boy's answer, 
 unconvincing through her lips : 
 
 "Spending thousands to make millions. He tells 
 me, in a year or two, I shall have ten thousand a year, 
 at least ! So you see, I do not want anything from you, 
 but advice. You told me once that nearly every one 
 who sought your acquaintance wanted something from 
 you. Well, at least / do not want money ! " she said, 
 lightly. 
 
 Joe suffered from candour. 
 
 "Perhaps it is lucky I have some, though," he an- 
 swered bluntly. He asked her : 
 
 "What did you do, finally, about those bills? " 
 
 "What bills?" 
 
 "That the manager came up about. Perhaps there 
 is not money enough in the bank ? " 
 
 She answered, quite calmly: 
 
 "I told him to let me know the amount." 
 
 That startled him. 
 
 "You wouldn't pay them yourself, without under- 
 standing the position, nor enquiring into it ? " 
 
 "Why not? Sebastian will give it me back."
 
 SEBASTIAN 297 
 
 "And the amounts?" 
 
 "Five or six thousand pounds. I sent him six thou- 
 sand five hundred, to be on the safe side. I borrowed 
 it from my bank. I signed some papers, and transferred 
 some securities. It seems rather complicated. I wish 
 Sebastian had been at home. Mr. Jones gave me an 
 impression of incompetence, of being uneasy and ner- 
 vous." 
 
 " You expected the boy last week ? " 
 
 "Yes, -or to have heard from him." 
 
 He meant to take care of her, although she had not 
 given him the right. He suspected he had suspected, 
 for some time past that Sebastian had been over- 
 trading on a limited capital; riding for a fall. There 
 was a good deal of the Rendall paper about, but it was 
 not ordinary merchandise, hand-made. It was stamped, 
 and on narrow slips, bearing the name of P. and A. 
 Rendall and Co. There was no use talking to her about 
 it. The only thing, apparently, that her intelligence 
 had missed, was the comprehension of money. It did 
 not matter, fortunately. Nothing should matter. She 
 might sign away her fortune, leave herself penniless. 
 His money might, after all, buy him the priceless. 
 
 "Would you like me to see Mr. Jones?" 
 
 "I do not want to do anything that Sebastian would 
 resent, that would look to him like interference, or doubt. 
 But there must be no question of credit. I know my 
 husband paid ready money for everything. I suppose I 
 did right in trying to carry out his views? " she asked. 
 "I am a little worried. It seems like getting into debt 
 myself ! Whatever they call it, of course, it is a loan."
 
 298 SEBASTIAN 
 
 He got up from beside her, took a turn or two about 
 the room. 
 
 "I suppose you know what you've done? You've 
 given away half your income, half your income that is 
 outside the business. You've had your eyes shut, and 
 I suppose you want to keep 'em shut. The boy is 
 running a business that wanted a quarter of a million of 
 capital, on less than a hundred thousand pounds. The 
 enlargement of the mills, and all that new plant and 
 machinery, is a lock-up of his resources. No one can run 
 a manufacturing business without liquid assets." 
 
 "Liquid assets means the water, I suppose? " 
 
 "Not exactly, though you might call it the 'driving 
 power.' ' 
 
 "You may spare me detail," she said, as she had said 
 to the old clerk. 
 
 He came over to her. 
 
 "I'll spare you everything. I'll take everything on 
 myself, set the boy on his feet again, if he has got out of 
 his depth. I like his ambition, I'll put him right, and 
 see he keeps right. Come, is it a bargain? I want 
 something for it: you know what I want." 
 
 It was astounding to her that Sebastian should have 
 got into any difficulties in the City; it was incredible. 
 
 "I cannot believe things are as you say. I should 
 think you have been misinformed. I will see Mr. Jones 
 again to-morrow. He did not tell me anything like 
 that, only that we were overdrawn. There is money 
 coming in, large payments are expected." 
 
 "Maybe. Or maybe he was counting on being able 
 to renew the bills. But that's naught to me. Are you 
 going to let me look after you, that's the question."
 
 SEBASTIAN 299 
 
 He stood over her, it seemed almost menacingly, wait- 
 ing for his answer. 
 
 "Well," he said, "well?" impatiently. It was not 
 gentle wooing. 
 
 She told him so, with laughter that touched hysteria. 
 
 "Really, your money-or-your-life manner is so melo- 
 dramatic." 
 
 " You mustn't mind my manner," he said, more gently. 
 "Let me get back those securities for you; let me put 
 things straight. I can do it easily if you say what I 
 want you to, if you'll take me. I shall never give up 
 asking you." 
 
 "I loathe married life." She grew flushed at the very 
 thought of it. 
 
 "You've never tried it. That wasn't married life 
 you lived with poor Kendall. " 
 
 "It was enough to make me know how I hate to be 
 tied." 
 
 He took another turn about the room: 
 
 "You don't give me any chance. You keep me at 
 arm's length. This City affair now . . . who else have 
 you got to turn to? " 
 
 " You want me to marry you for your money ? " 
 
 "What do I care what you marry me for? " 
 
 She listened to him now with ever-growing interest. 
 She knew that it was a great deal that he was offering 
 her, any woman might be proud of having inspired Joe 
 Wallingford with so much feeling. The incident and 
 his attitude toward her were outside her experience. 
 She searched her past for something that would help her, 
 but there was nothing. Nevertheless, she was irration-
 
 300 SEBASTIAN 
 
 ally glad, and flattered. He had written to her about 
 his wishes, a long time ago, and she had replied without 
 difficulty, but this was different to a letter, more difficult 
 to meet. He seemed so much in earnest. For no reason 
 she could find, her heart began to beat quickly. 
 
 He pressed his suit. He reminded her that she had 
 many lonely hours, he said that there would be more of 
 them as the boy's interests expanded. She cared for 
 curios, he would give her money enough to buy the 
 British Museum. He was ashamed of having said that; 
 but it was in his mind, and he gave it speech. There 
 might be shortage of money if Sebastian went on as he 
 had been doing. She might have to give up her car- 
 riage. 
 
 Vanessa murmured that she "liked walking." He 
 saw she was genuine in not seeing any money trouble in 
 prospect, whatever an investigation into City matters 
 would show. She had never known poverty, never seen 
 it at close quarters, it had no terrors for her. And she 
 was sure when Sebastian came home, everything would 
 be found to be all right; she had unbounded confidence 
 in him. 
 
 "All right!" He ceased his perambulations, his 
 almost irritated insistence, and he drew up in front of 
 her: "You think you can do without me; the advice 
 you asked me for, you don't mean to take. For, mind 
 you, I don't go behind my advice. It is ' marry me,' and 
 be done with it. Well ! you won't, you're obstinate 
 about it. It's not that you don't like me " 
 
 " I do like you," she interposed, quickly. He stooped : 
 
 "I've half a mind to make you."
 
 SEBASTIAN 301 
 
 He put an uncertain hand upon her shoulder. " There 
 is a woman in you, I swear." 
 
 She flushed, she would have risen. 
 
 " Sit you still. I am not going to hurt you. Think of 
 it again." 
 
 He kept his hand on her shoulder. 
 
 " You do know how I feel about you ; you know that, 
 anyway." 
 
 She could not get away from him without making too 
 much of the incident. She was greatly embarrassed by 
 his attitude, not quite sure what she must do ; there was 
 quite a light in his eyes. But she disliked his hand on her 
 shoulder. She put hers up to release herself; and he 
 caught it in his. 
 
 " Give me a hearing. What have you got against me ? " 
 
 "It is not you, it is me. I am too old, for one thing." 
 
 "You're the age I want you to be." 
 
 "I'm so so occupied." 
 
 "Well! aren't I a busy man?" 
 
 "Then, there is Sebastian." Her flush deepened 
 under his regard, her confusion increased. Perhaps he 
 thought it was his opportunity. He put his arms 
 gently about her, his big arms, he kissed her. 
 
 It was incredible, impossible, unprecedented. But 
 there was no doubt about it having happened. She put 
 out both hands to ward him off; but she had no need. 
 He was standing up now, waiting his sentence, waiting 
 to hear if she would send him away, or bid him stay. 
 She could find no words for him, no words at all. 
 
 " Well ! Say at least you'll think it over ! you won't 
 forget."
 
 302 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Could she ever forget ? She put up her shaking hands 
 to her outraged face, burning now. She could not 
 understand that she did not feel more angry. 
 
 "It it was unpardonable," she began, helplessly. 
 He was glad he was not being sent away, dismissed 
 summarily. He would have to walk warily ; he did not 
 under-rate the difficulties in front of him. " What would 
 Stella say? Stella to whom I am all the world? " 
 
 " Yes, about Stella," he said, " tell me. Is she not any 
 stronger? Does she take up more of your time? " 
 
 "I wish you would sit down, or, or look out of the 
 window. I can't talk while you are standing up, and 
 staring at me." 
 
 He went to the window obediently, even turned his 
 back on her that she might recover her self-possession. 
 He was surprised himself at what he had done. 
 
 "Tell me about Stella," he said again, but added, 
 "I want to know everything, to share all your troubles." 
 
 It seemed as if she were arguing with herself, showing 
 a weakness new to her. 
 
 "I cannot abandon my responsibilities. Perhaps I 
 should not resent being being cared for. But I am 
 not free, not free in any way. Sebastian could not live 
 alone, I know my companionship is much to him, vital 
 almost, just now. Stella is out of health, I am often 
 filled with anxiety about her. I try and disguise it; I 
 tell her, and Bice, and myself, that she gains strength. 
 But it is not true. She hardly goes out at all now, sur- 
 rounding herself with books and flowers. If I fail in 
 going there daily she resents it, I know she does, even 
 if she does not say so. Bice is not the companion to her 
 that I am, however much she may care about her."
 
 SEBASTIAN 303 
 
 Vanessa was following her own thoughts, following 
 them aloud. A new point had been reached in her 
 intimacy with Joe Wallingford, she felt nearer to him, it 
 was even possible his wish might become hers. "Some- 
 times I dream I dream that Stella is leaving me. I 
 cannot give you what I owe to her. I can put no one in 
 her place 
 
 "And afterward afterward?" he asked, coming 
 near to her again. 
 
 The unready tears were hot behind her eyes, although 
 they did not fall. 
 
 " Don't press me, let me think. You have said enough 
 for to-day, give me time." 
 
 He stooped, he kissed her hand. 
 
 "Quite right. I've said enough, you've been very 
 good to me. I'll go now, and you will let me see you 
 oftener. I'll not stand between you and your dear ones. 
 Tell me when I may come again." 
 
 She was glad to be alone. She had never voiced her 
 fears for Stella, now all at once they shook her. She 
 would not marry Joe Wallingford, marriage was not for 
 her, she had so many responsibilities, interests. 
 
 But often she remembered that Joe Wallingford had 
 kissed her, and that she had not been angry. She 
 forgot for what she had sent for him, the difficulties in 
 Queen Victoria Street passed out of her mind.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SEBASTIAN was overdue. There was no doubt about 
 it. The third week had gone by, and now the fourth, 
 and still there came no letter, and no Sebastian. She 
 heard no further disquieting news from the City, she 
 told herself that this proved Joe Wallingford to have 
 been wrong, there was no trouble impending there, he 
 had jumped to a wrong conclusion, misled perhaps by 
 what she had told him. She could not get Joe Walling- 
 ford out of her mind. He had said that he did not mean 
 to give up his intentions. Could it be that she was glad ? 
 Again, it was her writing that suffered, and the new 
 book, The Education of a Novelist, became subordinate 
 to a certain pleasure she had in recalling a moment, a 
 phrase, an action, reviving in herself that untoward 
 flush, and heat of the blood. 
 
 Perhaps but all the possibilities that thronged her 
 were dependent on what Sebastian might say. What 
 was delaying him ? A vague uneasiness arose, was ban- 
 ished, persisted. 
 
 Stella had taken advantage of Bice's absence to try a 
 fortnight at Brighton. She returned before Vanessa's 
 uneasiness took concrete form. 
 
 She had brought back grapes and orchids; roses and 
 violets bloomed perpetually in her vases and dishes. 
 But she was looking no better for the change, very frail 
 and tired. 
 
 304
 
 SEBASTIAN 305 
 
 "Saighton brought me up," she explained. "He has 
 been staying at Brighton for the week-end. Tell me all 
 your news. What does Sebastian write of the trip? 
 Bice was enthusiastic at first, but I fancy her enthusiasm 
 has died down considerably. I have not heard at all for 
 more than a week." 
 
 "Sebastian and I have a sort of unwritten contract 
 about letters, he hates the idea of them following him 
 about. And we find if we do not correspond there is 
 more to talk about when we see each other. He ought 
 to be home really, he was due last week. He is wanted 
 at the office, too. I believe I am getting worried about 
 him." 
 
 "Well! you are always more or less worried about 
 him, are you not ? There is nothing new in that," Stella 
 answered, wearily. 
 
 "Did Bice's letters say anything about Sebastian?" 
 
 "Every letter reiterated that Sebastian was an angel, 
 or words to that effect." 
 
 "Did she say he was quite well?" 
 
 " Of course he is quite well. Why not ? He is young, 
 happy. He has something to live for." 
 
 "I wish they were back," Vanessa repeated again. 
 " I suppose there is no cause for their delay ? I am full 
 of presentiment, forebodings." She wanted reassurance. 
 
 "What could have happened?" Stella asked her. 
 
 "There have been such things as motor accidents." 
 
 "Yes! But not motor annihilations. Including the 
 chauffeur, there were five people in the car. One must 
 have lived to tell the tale." 
 
 But when Stella realised that Vanessa was genuinely ill
 
 306 SEBASTIAN 
 
 at ease, she discontinued rallying, and roused herself to 
 argue with her. There had been times, capable of 
 psychic explanation no doubt, during Sebastian's school 
 career, when an attack of measles, or mumps, influenza, 
 or a football mishap, had been known to Vanessa before 
 the letter announcing it arrived. In early days, Stella 
 had refused to acknowledge this phenomenon. If any 
 one had such hold on Vanessa as that, it should have 
 been she, her twin. 
 
 But of late years there was grey, stifling mist between 
 her and her sister, growing ever thicker and sadder, a 
 soft sea-mist of tears. Through it they no longer saw 
 each other clearly ; even their speech together was dulled. 
 All this Stella felt to-day, returning from her ever more 
 fruitless journey after health. Her spirits were chilled, 
 and the premonition of misfortune she read in Vanessa's 
 mind found immediate pale reflection in her own. 
 
 Could anything be wrong with the motor party ? 
 
 They began to argue with themselves, with each other, 
 to calculate times and distances, to discuss the French 
 and Swiss postal systems, to talk of possible punctures, 
 breakdowns. 
 
 The premonition of evil remained ; no amount of talk, 
 nor argument, could dissipate it. 
 
 A telegram, received a day or two later, from Bice, 
 lightened the disquietude, but only partially relieved 
 the anxiety. 
 
 "Motor party broken up. Folkestone 3.18. Home to 
 dinner." 
 
 Stella sent it to Vanessa, and together the sisters 
 awaited the arrival, and the explanation. As they sat,
 
 SEBASTIAN 307 
 
 they exhausted conjecture. If Sebastian had been ill, 
 for, of course, that was the spectre Vanessa conjured up, 
 Bice would not have left him. There was no doubt about 
 that. Yet, that something ailed Sebastian, that he was 
 in trouble, trouble of mind or body, his mother could not 
 doubt. The tie between them was really close; in her 
 uneven heart-beats and distressful pulses she knew all 
 was not normal with her son. Psychic, or merely hu- 
 man, she could not persuade herself her fears were 
 groundless. 
 
 She wanted to meet Bice at the station, but it was 
 impossible to leave Stella. Stella had had several at- 
 tacks of faintness in the last forty-eight hours. Dr. 
 Gifford had been backwards and forwards, making light 
 of them. 
 
 He said to Vanessa : 
 
 "I shouldn't go to Victoria if I were you. The train 
 might be ten minutes late, and Mrs. Ashton would con- 
 jure up both of you in a collision. I should stay here, 
 together, until Bice comes with her story." He was 
 quite in their confidence, and secretly shared their anx- 
 iety. "It will be a very simple one, you see, you are 
 both of you working yourselves into a panic over noth- 
 ing." 
 
 Vanessa took the hint that she must not leave Stella 
 alone, she knew Dr. Gifford's methods, her knowledge 
 of him told her he was not satisfied with Stella's condi- 
 tion. She neglected nothing of his orders for diet, stimu- 
 lant, or medicine. 
 
 "There she is ! I hear the cab stop," Stella cried out, 
 suddenly, pale among the cushions. "You run down;
 
 SOS SEBASTIAN 
 
 I'll stay here. Make her speak loud, I shall hear her 
 voice on the stairs." 
 
 Vanessa had not waited for permission. She was 
 down the stairs, and at the street door, before Bice had 
 got the cab door opened. Her voice reached Stella 
 through the open windows of the drawing-room. 
 
 "How is mummy?" 
 
 "Sebastian, how did you leave Sebastian?" 
 
 "All right. He was quite well all the time." 
 
 "The motor?" 
 
 "Is mummy all right?" 
 
 "She is in the drawing-room. Talk loud, she wants 
 to hear your voice." 
 
 "I'll rush up. I knew she had been ill." 
 
 "You are quite sure Sebastian is well?" 
 
 "He was quite well when I left him." 
 
 Vanessa let her get her first greeting over with her 
 mother. For a full ten minutes she restrained her im- 
 patience for news, for detail. 
 
 When she went upstairs again, Bice was on her knees, 
 her head in her mother's lap. 
 
 "I ought not to have come away," Vanessa heard her 
 saying. "I know I ought not to have. But I couldn't 
 bear it. . . ." 
 
 She did not rise when her aunt came in. Stella's 
 hand was on her hair, soothing her. 
 
 "There is nothing the matter with Sebastian," Stella 
 said, quickly. "The party was inharmonious from the 
 first. They did not stay long together. Bice left the 
 others in Zurich, more than a week ago." 
 
 "I had to," Bice whispered. But Stella went on, as 
 if she had not heard.
 
 SEBASTIAN 309 
 
 "It was a series of misunderstandings. Mr. Hayling 
 behaved badly. Pleasey - 
 
 But Bice rose suddenly to her feet. 
 
 "Wait until Aunt Vanessa hears it from the others. 
 It was all horrid. But I'm home again now." 
 
 She threw herself on the sofa, pressing her head to 
 her mother's breast. 
 
 "I'm home again with my mummy. I'll never leave 
 her again, will I? You wanted me back all the time, 
 didn't you?" 
 
 Vanessa knew she must leave them with each other, 
 but she was full of a natural curiosity, still not freed 
 from fears. She accepted Bice's assurance that the 
 boy was well, but it left her unsatisfied. 
 
 She went away reluctantly; it was all very unsatis- 
 factory. Why did not Sebastian return, or at least 
 write? It was unlike him to be inconsiderate of her. 
 
 Stella never heard the full detail of that motor trip; 
 it is doubtful if even Vanessa penetrated all its mysteries. 
 Stella heard that, at first, Bice liked Mr. Hayling, and 
 that then she didn't. But the reasons she gave for 
 her change of feeling were involved and difficult. She 
 was not confidential about Pleasey, either; she could 
 not speak freely of Pleasey, even to her mother. 
 
 Things had not been so bad until they got to Aix. 
 And at Aix, for a short time, she had been happier than 
 at any other part of the tour. Mr. Hayling taught 
 Pleasey to play baccarat ; he took banks with her. He 
 wanted Sebastian to play, but Sebastian said he had had 
 his lesson, he would never gamble again as long as he 
 lived. Mr. Hayling had chaffed him, and called him a
 
 310 SEBASTIAN 
 
 milksop, but it had not made any difference. She and 
 Sebastian had had many hours together, and had ex- 
 plored the country, revelling in the beauty of mountain, 
 lake, and gorge. But one of these trips all of them had 
 taken together. It was to the Grande Chartreuse. 
 Their own motor was being repaired, and they had hired 
 two. It was supposed that she and her cousin were to 
 occupy one, and in that order they started. But Mr. 
 Hayling had driven back with her. . . . 
 
 There came a pause ; Bice did not want to talk about 
 the drive. She would say no more about Mr. Hayling. 
 
 Stella heard that Pleasey and Sebastian came back 
 very late from the Grande Chartreuse ; it appeared they 
 had had a puncture. 
 
 "Pleasey asked me what Mr. Hayling had talked to 
 me about in the hours we had been together, whether he 
 had talked about her. I told her he he was horrid. 
 She said such strange things to me about him ! And I 
 thought she had cared always for Sebastian, mummy !" 
 
 "What sort of things?" asked Stella, holding the girl 
 in her weak arms, listening to her confidences, with her 
 heart a little cold. In this, too, had she failed? Had 
 she guarded her young daughter so badly; had evil 
 shown itself to her so soon ? 
 
 But over such as Bice, or such as Sebastian Kendall, 
 evil passes comparatively harmlessly. 
 
 Bice could not repeat what Pleasey had said to her 
 about Mr. Hayling; she did not want to remember. 
 But they had never been really good friends after that 
 conversation. And Bice had been miserable. Neither 
 Bice nor Sebastian had wished to remain on at Aix.
 
 SEBASTIAN 311 
 
 Mr. Hayling had driven them to Zurich. Apparently 
 the drive had been pleasant, and some sort of peace 
 was patched up between the parties. For Bice told of 
 a wonderful sunset behind snow-clad mountains, snow 
 and sun reflection on the green waters of Lake Geneva, 
 of a panorama of spring loveliness in the clear air. 
 
 "In Zurich Mr. Hayling asked me to to forgive 
 him. He said 
 
 "That he had fallen in love with my baby?" 
 
 "He was horrid, mummy, horrid ! I told Sebastian." 
 
 "And Sebastian?" 
 
 "He thought he had better tell Pleasey, he said that 
 Pleasey knew him so well she would speak to him, and 
 tell him to leave me alone. Sebastian was so good 
 about it, so sweet." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Pleasey told Sebastian I must have been imagining 
 things!" 
 
 "Sebastian agreed with her?" 
 
 "He believes anything Pleasey tells him. Mr. Hay- 
 ling told me so, he laughed about it. He said he had 
 led her off the scent. Mummy, aren't men beastly? 
 Mr. Hayling was always was always dodging me 
 about ; you know what I mean in ... in corridors, 
 everywhere. I ran away, I know I ought not to have 
 been such a coward. Pleasey was being so nice to 
 Sebastian, and making him believe in her. Then when 
 he wasn't looking, she was being nice to Mr. Hayling. 
 And he was laughing at her, to me ; and and dodg- 
 ing. I couldn't bear it, I ran away. I wouldn't come 
 straight home, I was afraid Mr. Hayling would follow
 
 312 SEBASTIAN 
 
 me in the car. So I went on to Frankfort." (Bice had 
 had a year at school there.) "I went to Frau von 
 Schroeder. I didn't tell her anything, except that I 
 had been travelling with a motor party, and the party 
 had broken up. She wouldn't let me come home alone. 
 She was awfully kind and nice. She knew some people 
 who were coming to England in a few days, and she 
 made me wait for them. They brought me as far as 
 Folkestone an old professor and his two sisters, 
 stuffy sort of people, but quite nice. Are you angry 
 with me ? Oughtn't I to have come away ? You don't 
 know how horrid it all was. And it seemed as if they 
 were both deceiving Sebastian, and I couldn't make him 
 know. I couldn't bear that, I didn't know what to 
 do." 
 
 That was Bice's version of the story a sufficiently 
 difficult one to convey to Vanessa. 
 
 The full force of the blow, for which she had been 
 unconsciously waiting, fell upon her before she under- 
 stood the significance of what she heard. 
 
 It came in a letter from Sebastian, nearly a week 
 after Bice's return. It was not like his usual letters; 
 and it conveyed incredible news, heart-breaking news. 
 He had stayed in Geneva, waiting the necessary formali- 
 ties. He had married Pleasey Pleyden-Carr ! He said 
 he could not write about his happiness, his unspeakable 
 happiness ! His mother would forgive his not having 
 waited to consult her; he would explain everything 
 when he saw her. He was bringing his wife home, he 
 knew his mother would love Pleasey, would welcome 
 them both !
 
 SEBASTIAN 313 
 
 It was heart-breaking, devastating, irretrievable. 
 
 She could not face Stella with her news. She kept 
 it for a day, like an asp in her breast it burned within 
 her; it was poison in the wound, that she had not fore- 
 seen his danger,, not guarded him against it. It was 
 almost unbearable that perhaps she had wandered from 
 him in thought, that perhaps the link between them 
 had been weakened, the light obscured, by Joe Walling- 
 ford. What had transpired between her and Joe was 
 secret, and now it was a secret shame. Her life be- 
 longed to her son; she had faltered in her trust. 
 
 With a heart like lead, with feet that lagged, she did, 
 nevertheless, what Sebastian asked of her in his letter. 
 
 She told the news to the household; she had rooms 
 prepared for them. And she went to see Pleasey's 
 parents, went to that sordid lodging-house in Wimble- 
 don, renewing a painful, half-obliterated memory. 
 
 Mrs. Pleyden-Carr was at home. Vanessa saw in a 
 moment that her news would be no news to Pleasey's 
 mother. How the old story came back, the story of 
 Pleyden-Carr's dismissal from the Embassy, the ru- 
 mours, the disgraceful truth ! 
 
 The tall, gaunt woman who rose to greet her in the 
 stuffy parlour, redolent of mutton fat and musty poverty, 
 had once been accounted beautiful, and had held her 
 position in the inner circle of Italian society. In his 
 cups, Ambrose Pleyden-Carr had let out to her an 
 international secret. No one knew exactly what oc- 
 curred, but the secret was betrayed almost immediately, 
 and it was suspected that his wife had told it to an 
 Italian lover. All that followed was a nightmare of
 
 314 SEBASTIAN 
 
 blurred remembrance. Hepplewight-Ventom had helped 
 them, everybody had tried to help them. But the weak- 
 ness of moral character was in both husband and wife, 
 and deterioration had been rapid. 
 
 Mrs. Pleyden-Carr held out a soiled and shaky hand, 
 she had lost even her self-respect, her care for her per- 
 son; she was one with her sordid surroundings. 
 
 "I have just heard the great news," she said; "Mr. 
 Carr has gone out to telegraph to them." 
 
 "You were surprised?" 
 
 "I never thought Pleasey would have married a 
 business man. Her father always said that when Lord 
 St. Clair came home from Egypt, he would see that she 
 had the right introductions. You would hardly believe 
 it, but Pleasey has not even been presented ! We were 
 waiting for the St. Clairs. I don't know what they will 
 say at having a married woman to present ! Our 
 Pleasey it seems impossible ! " She laughed affectedly. 
 
 The artificiality of it all, the high falsetto voice, and 
 assumption that things were not as they seemed on the 
 surface, that they were still in their old position, turned 
 her sick. Anything had been better than that. Frank- 
 ness, simplicity, honest poverty, would not have re- 
 pelled her. Ambrose Pleyden-Carr did nothing to re- 
 lieve the situation, when he hurried in. 
 
 He was, perhaps, less completely a wreck than his 
 wife. Behind his shabbiness, one could see a shadowy 
 something, a possibility that he had once been a gentle- 
 man, but it was like a spirit photograph: it might be 
 there, or it might not, there was no substance in it. 
 
 "I have just telegraphed to that naughty girl of
 
 SEBASTIAN 315 
 
 mine," he began. "To think of her marrying in this 
 way!" He had evidently been ill coached in his part. 
 "And before the Lechlades return from India! Lady 
 Lechlade mil be disappointed; she had set her heart 
 on bringing Pleasey out. They've no girls of their 
 own, you know. Pleasey would have had such oppor- 
 tunities. Lord Lechlade would have been sure to ad- 
 mire her. This sudden marriage is such a surprise to 
 us; you won't mind if I say something of a disappoint- 
 ment!" 
 
 "You anticipated a great alliance for your daugh- 
 ter?" Vanessa answered dully, sick at heart. Such 
 pin-pricks as their assumption of disappointment could 
 not hurt her. The poison in her veins was that she 
 might have saved him. Had her thoughts wandered 
 from him? 
 
 She tried to be courteous, to pretend to believe what 
 they told her, although she knew quite well that they 
 lived by writing begging letters to those who had met 
 them in reputable days. She listened whilst they used 
 big names, talking of those who pitied and helped them, 
 as if they were still intimate personal friends. Even if 
 it had not been for this awful, this irremediable mar- 
 riage of Sebastian's, they would have been alike in- 
 tolerable in themselves, and in the reminiscences they 
 evoked. 
 
 "I remember your father coming to me about his 
 book on missal paper. Was it ever finished? I don't 
 recollect his sending me a copy. I am glad to say I 
 was able to be of great assistance to him. I gained 
 him access to the Castellento Collection. You remem- 
 ber
 
 316 SEBASTIAN 
 
 She remembered. Her father had put little jobs in 
 his way, jobs of copying documents, making extracts. 
 They had not fallen so low as this then, not nearly so 
 low. Ambrose had still tried to get work. She recalled 
 her father's description of his capacity: "His mind is a 
 lumber-room, he cannot get at what is stored there." 
 
 Now he talked on : 
 
 "You remember our Pleasey when she was quite a 
 little girl? Always a great beauty; people turned 
 round to look at her in the streets. When the Grand 
 Duke " 
 
 "Mrs. Kendall could not remember Pleasey," Mrs. 
 Carr reminded him, with dignity. "Pleasey was the 
 baby in those days, it is twenty years ago since we were 
 in Florence. It is Violetta she would remember, our 
 beautiful Violetta." She put her soiled handkerchief 
 to her rheumy eyes. Pleasey was something older than 
 her bridegroom. Pleasey's age must be obscured. 
 
 Vanessa's blurred memory called up other children. 
 Pretty, lint-haired babies, boys and girls, four or five 
 of them, had been part of the pathos of the position, 
 that which had moved the English colony in Rome to 
 pity when the catastrophe happened. 
 
 She asked of these children. They had slipped 
 through weak, incompetent hands. One lay buried in 
 Florence, and one at St. Rapello. Violetta lay in 
 Rome. Vanessa thought bitterly it was well that they 
 were dead. The Pleyden-Carrs recalled who the god- 
 fathers and godmothers had been, reciting their names, 
 talking as if Grand Dukes, and Royalty, had been proud 
 to stand sponsors to their children. Mrs. Carr said
 
 SEBASTIAN 317 
 
 they had had many troubles, losing their dear ones. 
 Now there were only Pleasey and Zuley. 
 
 All the time Vanessa's visit lasted, Zuley sat and 
 stared at her. She was paler even than Pleasey, her 
 scant hair was white, and white, too, the eyelashes of 
 her blinking eyes. 
 
 There was no understanding in her, and limited 
 speech; she had a cleft palate, and a wandering dis- 
 position towards forbidden things. She wore a battered 
 red velvet, three-cornered hat. It was horribly incon- 
 gruous, and absurd, this warm spring day. Afterwards 
 Vanessa learnt that, indoors, or out of doors, in velvet, 
 in plush, or in felt, she clung to this insignia. God 
 alone knows what it meant to her. But it was im- 
 possible to take it from her; she was never seen with- 
 out it. All through that visit Vanessa paid, Zuley 
 played with her three-cornered Napoleonic hat, setting 
 it now and again on her untidy head, posing vacantly.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IT was incredible he should look so radiantly well, so 
 extravagantly happy. 
 
 "Where is the mater?" 
 
 She heard his voice in the hall, on the stairs. She 
 went out to welcome him, but her eyes were misty. 
 
 "I surprised you this time, didn't I? I left Pleasey 
 at Victoria, she has gone off to see her people; she will 
 be back in time for dinner." He noticed her pallor. 
 "You didn't mind? You weren't sick about it, were 
 you? It will be ever so much cheerier for you, having 
 some one to be with you when I'm out." He put his 
 arm about her, he kissed her cheek, he was unwontedly 
 affectionate. "Have you missed me, old dear?" 
 
 It moved her; nothing had the power to move her 
 like any demonstration from Sebastian, it was so un- 
 usual with him. The tenderness that lay so deep in 
 her, trickled out painfully to meet him. She saw, not- 
 withstanding his flippant entry, that he was a little out- 
 side himself, wanting sympathy. She must wait to 
 hear all he would tell her. Now she had to nerve her- 
 self to give him something of what he wanted reas- 
 surance, and evidence that it was indeed home where he 
 had come. 
 
 "I was right to bring her here?" 
 
 "Of course. Isn't this your home?" 
 
 318
 
 SEBASTIAN 319 
 
 "Don't think it was only a sudden impulse. I have 
 always wanted her. I should never have done those 
 rotten things I did, gone that mucker, but that I thought 
 she did not care for me, that it was hopeless. She has 
 forgiven me, I have told her everything." 
 
 " You have had a tiring journey ? " It was so difficult 
 to dissimulate with him. 
 
 "Poor old mater ! Now that I know what it is to be 
 married myself, I am so awfully sorry for you. I have 
 thought of it so often lately . . . you must be beastly 
 lonely at times. I wish I had been different to you. I 
 understand now so much better than I did. . . ." 
 
 She could not bear his self-reproach, that he should 
 think she missed David. She said hurriedly : 
 
 "You have been everything to me, all and more than 
 a son could be. You would like to go upstairs, to see 
 what I have arranged for you ? You hav8 trie two rooms 
 over mine, the front one, and the one that was your 
 father's." 
 
 "But who will sleep next to you?" 
 
 "Don't, Sebastian, don't !" she cried out. But there 
 was little understanding of the source of her pain. 
 
 He wanted to talk now, he was eager to tell her all 
 about it, and how it had come about. He said he should 
 use his old bedroom as a dressing-room, and then they 
 could have talks together. He made her come upstairs 
 with him now. He had not discarded her, he still needed 
 her. Again his arm went about her waist. 
 
 "I want to tell you all about everything," he said. 
 
 "Did the motor go well?" 
 
 Poor Vanessa, she found words so difficult, tears so 
 hot behind her eyes.
 
 320 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I'll begin at the beginning. You haven't got any- 
 thing else to do, have you ? Sit with me whilst I dress." 
 
 All the time he was talking, he was changing his coat for 
 a lounge jacket, washing his hands and face, brushing his 
 hair before the mirror, interposing irrelevant matter 
 about shoes, the necessity of having all his clothes 
 pressed, and telling her the number of things he had 
 left behind him at different hotels. 
 
 "Pleasey is worse than I am," he said, "she never 
 knows where she has put anything, she has left half her 
 clothes between here and Zurich ! You want to know 
 all about everything. I'll begin at the beginning. We 
 did Folkestone under the three hours, slowing down three 
 times for police traps. He is a wonder, that chauffeur 
 of Bob's. We had a very good time in Paris, the girls 
 went nearly everywhere with us; not the Rat Mort, or 
 Maxim's, but everywhere else. We were a party carr, 
 just the right number. Bice amused Bob, and at first 
 she seemed to like him. She did all the talking in shops 
 and places, for all of us. His French is unspeakable." 
 
 "Unspoken?" 
 
 "No ! that was the worst of it." He was as quick as 
 she in realising he had used the misappropriate word. 
 " It's really good to get back to you ! No, it wasn't 
 unspoken, he liked airing it." 
 
 Then followed a description of what they had done in 
 Paris, interspersed with splashing, and enquiry for some 
 soap Vanessa used to get for him, and which he had 
 mislaid. 
 
 "We started for Aix, after ten days in Paris, and there 
 was trouble with the tyres; we had three punctures
 
 SEBASTIAN 321 
 
 in one afternoon ! The engine was knocking most of 
 the time, and we were running on three cylinders. ..." 
 
 Now he chatted about routes, and the French Touring 
 Association, then French inn accommodation, price of 
 petrol, something about speedometers. 
 
 "We got to Aix at last. But nothing was going well. 
 Bice was sulking with Bob over something or other, and 
 Pleasey was awfully worried about it. Bice has always 
 had a bad temper, you know, but she was always all 
 right with me. It was the day we went to the Grande 
 Chartreuse that she really broke. You know the Grande 
 Chartreuse ? grey walls, grey corridors, grey environ- 
 ment, empty, piteous, appealing. Pleasey and I had a 
 jolly time there. We lunched at the restaurant; an 
 omelette, veloute de veau, and souffle potatoes. Why 
 don't we get that kind of cooking at Pangbourne, or 
 anywhere up the river? We got separated from the 
 others. I think Bob was all along getting fond of Bice, 
 although Pleasey said I was quite wrong. You know, 
 mater, Bice is pretty useful; she did the packing, and 
 unpacking for the lot of us. We never lost a thing whilst 
 she was with us. And she did the catering, and looked 
 out all the routes. But it seems there was a 'bust up' 
 between her and Bob on the way home from the Char- 
 treuse. She told Pleasey about it, and Pleasey ragged 
 him properly. They had long confabs about it. Pleasey 
 made me leave them together, she wanted to get at Bob's 
 intentions. But, of course, he is too old for Bice, not 
 quite . . . well, I suppose he really is not quite good 
 enough. Bice took against him, same as you did, you 
 recollect, mater?"
 
 322 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You all went on to Zurich together?" 
 
 "Yes, and that was the end of it." 
 
 He had finished dressing ; he put his arm in hers : 
 
 "Come down to the drawing-room, I'll finish the 
 story there. We shall have lots of time, Pleasey is sure 
 to be late, she's always late." 
 
 Vanessa heard of Bice's flight, and Pleasey's distress 
 about it. Telegrams were sent off, and Bob started 
 (as Bice had anticipated) in search of her in the motor. 
 Sebastian must look after Pleasey, of course. It was a 
 distressing position in which the poor girl found herself. 
 Pleasey, Sebastian said, had scene after scene with Bob 
 over his treatment of Bice, trying to get at the bottom of 
 it. Sebastian really believed that Pleasey's stormy 
 interviews with Mr. Hayling, from which she ever 
 emerged tear-stained and wretched, were to get a clue 
 to Bice's disappearance ! In the end Bob had got 
 ruffled by her suspicions, or her accusations, and had 
 started off to England without consulting their wishes, 
 practically without giving them an opportunity of ac- 
 companying him. Pleasey, by then, Sebastian said, 
 was quite unfit to travel, broken down by her anxieties. 
 
 "You know, mater," he said, as if it were an addition 
 to her charms, "she is awfully delicate, the least thing 
 knocks her up, she can't even pack for herself." 
 
 It was the only time Vanessa varied from the course 
 of conduct she had laid down for herself. 
 
 "It seems, then, she is utterly incapable. What could 
 Stella have been thinking of to entrust Bice to her !" she 
 exclaimed, not waiting to think, not calculating her 
 words.
 
 SEBASTIAN 323 
 
 He flushed with anger, or perhaps pride. 
 
 "Bice has always looked after her; Aunt Stella never 
 knew, but that is how it has always been. She is really 
 only a child, she is not fit to take care of herself, and 
 and I want to do it. Mater, I care about her, I am so 
 glad when she lets me do things for her, so proud." He 
 faltered a little on this last, the tone of his voice was a 
 revelation a pain. " I feel differently about her to 
 what I have ever felt for any one before. She has had 
 such a rotten time. Old Pleyden-Carr is an impracticable 
 person, they have never had any fixed home, she has had 
 to work for her living, been awfully poor, even hungry." 
 His voice dropped, he broke off. In his own way, he was 
 entreating his mother's sympathy. 
 
 "I want her to have a good time. You have made 
 me rather selfish, mater." His tone grew tender, 
 affectionate, even. This was not the boyish Sebastian, 
 it seemed he had at last grown to some new manhood. 
 
 " You have always been so good to me, you and the 
 pater. And Pleasey has had nothing !" 
 
 "Would nothing less than my son content her?" 
 
 "You will try and care for her, won't you? I I 
 love her, like the pater did you. I know now that he 
 never thought of anybody else, except, sometimes per- 
 haps, of me. Nothing was too good for you; he told 
 me once that loving a woman, as he hoped I should one 
 day, made one humble. I know what he meant now. 
 He wasn't like other men. I don't think I am, perhaps, 
 but we have both of us been lucky in finding the one 
 woman." 
 
 She knew loyalty and fidelity were inherent in him, and
 
 324 SEBASTIAN 
 
 that it had been so, too, with David. Perhaps then, for 
 the first time, she had sharp realisation of what her in- 
 difference might have meant to her husband. Something 
 it seemed of retribution, this marriage of Sebastian's; 
 it made it worse, not better, if he must suffer for her sins. 
 And what but suffering must ensue of a union between 
 the fine spirit, the strength, and brain power, of such as 
 he, with the feeble personality, and thin incompetency 
 she divined in the wife that had been foisted on him. It 
 all surged over her as she listened to him, the hopeless- 
 ness of it, the irremediableness of it. 
 
 Pleasey was late. She came in about ten minutes to 
 eight. The boy had been listening for some time, mak- 
 ing excuses for her to his mother. Vanessa liked an 
 orderly and punctual house, it was the one excuse that 
 may be made for any subsequent mistake in her treat- 
 ment of Sebastian's wife, that it was never punctual nor 
 orderly from the moment Pleasey came into it. To- 
 night, perhaps, was pardonable, accounted for by the 
 reunion with her family, and all she must have had to 
 tell them. 
 
 Vanessa looked at her critically, when some five- 
 and-twenty minutes late, the three of them sat down 
 to a spoiled meal. She had done, and said, the con- 
 ventional thing, made her son's wife welcome. Perhaps 
 she had regarded Bice's companion with perfunctory 
 interest until now. Now all her heart was in her eyes. 
 
 Pleasey, never very natural, had adopted a new 
 affectation with her marriage. Vanessa heard the echo 
 of her mother's voice in her italics. And all her story, 
 as she spoke it, was tainted with poor untruth.
 
 SEBASTIAN 325 
 
 After dinner, when they left Sebastian over his wine, 
 Pleasey said, with an attempt at impulsive spontaneity : 
 
 "I think it was perfectly sweet of you to let us come 
 here. Sebastian was so keen on it." 
 
 And Vanessa, out of the fulness of her aching heart, 
 asked a question. There was only one anodyne, she 
 asked for it, almost humbly: 
 
 "Do you care for my boy?" 
 
 "I simply adore him," came unconvincingly. 
 
 It was many months before the climax was reached, 
 but the daily impossibilities of a life led under one roof 
 for these two, revealed themselves from the very begin- 
 ning. 
 
 Pleasey would not breakfast with Sebastian and his 
 mother, neither would she, as her hostess suggested, 
 have her meal sent up to her bedroom. She came down 
 when the coffee was cold, the bacon congested, and a 
 disorder of plates and dishes gave her a familiar atmos- 
 phere. And then she would have liked Vanessa to sit 
 with her, listening to aimless, staccato, empty gossip. 
 She had nothing to do, she did nothing. She had no 
 hatred of her mother-in-law, such as, unfortunately, 
 Vanessa so soon conceived for her. But all her slovenly 
 habits proved uncongenial, and to play hostess to her, 
 be courteous, and not critical, became an ever more 
 intolerable burden. 
 
 Pleasey idled an hour over her breakfast; she had 
 no appetite, took one thing or another on her plate, 
 and left it there, filled her cup, but forgot to drink, 
 hindered the servants in their duty, kept Vanessa from 
 her desk.
 
 326 SEBASTIAN 
 
 After breakfast, she sat on, doing nothing, talking 
 about her hair, or her dress, or some shopping she 
 must accomplish, until nearly noon. At noon she 
 would suddenly discover she wanted something in a 
 great hurry. She would "rush away" to dress; she 
 called it "rushing," but more irrelevant talk delayed 
 her. She would be something like an hour adjusting 
 her hat, preparing for the street, during which time 
 Vanessa sat thinking of her, in exasperated expectancy, 
 unable to settle until she had gone. Then she would 
 "rush" in again, on her way here, or there, to enquire 
 the hour for lunch, would find she was short of time, 
 and sit down, whilst a cab was whistled for her. Al- 
 though her admitted destination might be only five 
 minutes off, she must have a cab. And she never suc- 
 ceeded hi returning in time for the meal. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that until the hour Vanessa's pa- 
 tience broke, Pleasey had never once managed to sit 
 down to any one meal at the same moment as her 
 hostess. 
 
 Of course, the deep temperamental differences be- 
 tween the two women was at the root of the trouble. 
 Vanessa was ever conscious of her injustice, of the 
 triviality of the things she found unbearable in Sebas- 
 tian's wife. Pleasey was conscious of nothing, save that 
 she had done very well for herself. 
 
 It was rarely Sebastian asked Pleasey to do any- 
 thing for him, repair a hole hi a torn dressing-gown, 
 put a button on a new glove, order hair lotion, or theatre 
 tickets. But rare as they were, Pleasey never succeeded 
 in executing them. She said, alternately, that she had
 
 SEBASTIAN 327 
 
 been "feeling so seedy," or that she had been "so 
 busy." And of course those critical clear eyes of 
 Vanessa's saw that she was never too ill nor too tired 
 to shop, or dress, or amuse herself, and that she did 
 nothing whatever from morning until evening, for her 
 people, nor for Bice, nor for herself, except wear out 
 each looking-glass in the house by her intent regard, 
 grow daily idler, vainer, more extravagant, and artificial. 
 Vanessa was intolerant, and critical; and "beggar on 
 horseback" was the phrase that bored her with its 
 recurrent inevitability. 
 
 As the days wore on, Pleasey grew indefinitely aware 
 of Vanessa's attitude toward her, and bore herself more 
 uneasily. She ceased to use a paste stick to her pale 
 lips when she met Vanessa's contemptuous regard, 
 even her powder-puff became something of a surrepti- 
 tious indulgence. Pleasey was never too delicate to try 
 on clothes, or trapse the streets, or park, decked in 
 showy finery; but to Vanessa she appeared sickly and 
 unwholesome, by dint of her feebleness of character. 
 It was true that she was amiable, as Stella and Bice had 
 so often repeated. That is to say, she never argued, 
 she only cried when one failed to admire a new dress, 
 or commend a purchase, when Sebastian, overtired, 
 would beg off from a theatre or entertainment, or 
 queried an extravagance. 
 
 She neither worked, nor read, nor wrote; sometimes, 
 and this but rarely, she scanned a novel, but it never 
 held her, it lay in her lap whilst she planned new cos- 
 tumes. She cared for her body, that was the begin- 
 ning, and end of her day. She lavished endless hours
 
 328 SEBASTIAN 
 
 in supplementing nature's kindness to her. Her eye- 
 lashes blacked, and standing out stickily, the waved 
 and shaded abundance of her lint hair, became the 
 entire woman to Vanessa, and Sebastian's wife a mere 
 mannequin, or less still, a padded and wired dress- 
 stand, surmounted by a hair-dresser's waxen face. 
 Mechanically Vanessa found herself watching to see her 
 fade. 
 
 And, as Pleasey became more and more conscious of 
 Vanessa's attitude towards her, she exhibited herself 
 always less attractively. She evaded t&te-b-t&tes now, 
 and came in, and went out, unpunctually, with little 
 lying excuses. 
 
 Her untruthfulness was ingrain, it seemed to Vanessa 
 to make all conversation impossible. If she were asked 
 casually if she had been shopping, she would say "No," 
 and ten minutes afterwards would talk of her purchases. 
 If she said she had been in the West End, it almost 
 certainly turned out that she had been seen hi the 
 East. 
 
 Vanessa spoke to Sebastian once about this untruth- 
 fulness. It was slow in dawning upon him that his 
 mother and his wife were uncongenial. It was possible 
 that by this time his wife had also made her comment. 
 
 "Well, mater, you ought not to question her ! She is 
 nervous with you. She does not know what you are 
 trying to get at." 
 
 "But why should I be trying to get at anything? 
 I want nothing except that you should be happy; but 
 can you, or any one, be happy with a woman upon 
 whose lightest word you cannot rely? I think you
 
 SEBASTIAN 329 
 
 might suggest this to her ! I won't say anything more, 
 perhaps I should not have said so much. But I wish 
 you would beg her not to tell me these silly little lies. 
 I am trying to carry out your wishes. I try to talk to 
 her, but she cannot even concentrate her mind to 
 answer consistently ! She grows vaguer, and vaguer, 
 and repeats her ' Oh ! really,' until the mere iteration 
 paralyses my brain. She wanders from any of the 
 things in which I try to interest her, to the size of her 
 waist, the condition of her hair, her dress, or some new 
 scent " 
 
 "Mater, you know you don't mean what you are 
 saying. She is all right with me. You don't under- 
 stand her, she is nervous with you. The pater used 
 to be the same." 
 
 He did his best to make the home life pleasant or 
 possible, poor boy, wavering neither in love nor loyalty, 
 to either wife or mother. He was going through a 
 hard and difficult time in the City. Trouble had been 
 waiting for him, and he braced himself to meet it. 
 Already he had thanked Vanessa for her loan, for what 
 she had done for him in his absence. He had been 
 diffident in asking if she minded that the repayment 
 should be left over for the present. He admitted diffi- 
 culties, but said they would be overcome. He was 
 obviously full of cares, working eight and ten hours a 
 day. Pleasey yawned and found the evenings dull. 
 Every single day, she went out, to spend in extravagant 
 gew-gaws, for the adornment of her person, the money 
 he worked so hard to gain. Always Vanessa's resent- 
 ment of her grew. She was so unnecessary, her staccato
 
 330 SEBASTIAN 
 
 speech so hollow and mechanical. These months were 
 full of a sense of foreboding, of mental discomfort, and 
 of incidents, like blind alleys, that seemed to lead no- 
 where. Sebastian's wife had no sympathy nor under- 
 standing of Sebastian's anxieties, she had no interest 
 beyond fashion plates and unguents. She was a strange, 
 unnatural intruder into strenuous lives. 
 
 Stella, whose society was the one haven of refuge 
 Vanessa had from the home permeated by Pleasey's 
 clothes and person, the mental and moral twilight of 
 her atmosphere, tried to make her sister look more 
 leniently on the disastrous marriage. It was Stella's 
 state of health, by the way, that had been the burden 
 of Vanessa's last letter to Joe Wallingford. She told 
 him what he wished was yet impossible, notwithstand- 
 ing Sebastian's marriage. Wait, was what he read be- 
 tween the lines of finality, and he had infinite patience. 
 He ignored his dismissal, he asked her of the business. 
 She had nothing to tell him, the boy had told her noth- 
 ing; he was working very hard. 
 
 She was glad he did not attempt to reverse her deci- 
 sion, yet still wrote to her. He stood beyond the dis- 
 tress and uneasiness of her days like firm ground beyond 
 quicksand. She saw no way to get to it, engulfment 
 and disaster were at her feet, but beyond, out of reach, 
 hopeless of attainment, was solid earth and safety. 
 
 Stella was sympathetic, in her own way, of the minor 
 troubles; they became minor in Stella's sick-room. 
 
 "You take her wrongly," she said, wearily, "you 
 don't see her good points. She is pretty, and amiable, 
 and the boy adores her. She looks well in her clothes,
 
 SEBASTIAN 331 
 
 and will look better in better clothes. What more do 
 you want?" 
 
 "Qualities, capacity. I should like her simple, 
 sincere, truthful; even if she is without ideals." 
 
 "Hasn't she ideals? How do you know?" 
 
 "I have never heard her serious and concentrated 
 but once, and then she said : ' I'd give anything on earth 
 for a long ermine coat ! Do you think I'll ever have 
 an ermine coat, Sebastian?'" 
 
 ''Well, she would look better in it than any one else; 
 why shouldn't she want an ermine cloak? You can't 
 complain of want of simplicity in her expression of her 
 wishes. Put her in a Paquin get-up, with a bunch of 
 gardenias, or violets, at her waist, and let her wander 
 up and down Bond Street, looking into the shop-win- 
 dows, and she will be as happy as the day is long, and 
 surely she will not be in your way. You don't want 
 to walk up and down Bond Street, do you?" 
 
 "She will be happy until she sees something she 
 cannot afford," Vanessa interpolated, bitterly, " and 
 then she will buy it, nevertheless, and try it on before 
 every glass in the house." 
 
 All the things that irritated Vanessa seemed so small 
 to Stella. 
 
 "Does it matter? It seems to me, these days, that 
 nothing matters. I have worried over so many things. 
 And now they all seem trivial." 
 
 She had lived her years, unsafely, in the haunted 
 shadows that veil the figure of naked shame. And the 
 fear that had shaken her heart was lest the veil should 
 be rent asunder by pitiless hands, and the figure be
 
 332 SEBASTIAN 
 
 betrayed to the incredulous, and horrified, eyes of the 
 two who loved her. What were any troubles in com- 
 parison with what she had gone through? But it was 
 nearly over, the time had nearly come for frankness. 
 
 " I hate you to be annoyed, but I really think you are 
 taking this too seriously. It was not probable you 
 would have liked any one Sebastian selected." 
 
 "I would have cared for anybody that cared for him. 
 I would have left him in any hands that moved about 
 him lovingly," Vanessa said, passionately. 
 
 Stella looked at her enquiringly. 
 
 "Left him, left him?" 
 
 " Joe Wallingford " 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "But how can I leave him? She does not care if he 
 be well or ill. He had a headache one night, and she 
 said vaguely, when he told her, 'Poor darling.' Then 
 there was quiet ; it was after dinner, and he lay on the 
 sofa. I hoped he would fall asleep. You know he has 
 always had these headaches, and just now he is overwork- 
 ing himself. He was looking a trifle better, his breath- 
 ing deeper, as if he were easier, growing drowsy, when 
 her staccato voice roused him, roused us both : 
 
 "'Sebastian, did I tell you? I saw such an exquisite 
 gold bag at Phillips's to-day. I must have a gold bag, 
 every one has one. This is all wrinkled and full, little 
 diamonds and rubies in the chains. . . .' He roused 
 himself, his rest was broken. But what did she care? 
 She had forgotten he had a headache. And then, when 
 he said wearily, that he supposed it was 'expensive/ and 
 money was tight, and wouldn't she wait, she, she begged
 
 SEBASTIAN 333 
 
 for it ! Neither dignitj^ nor his condition, nor my 
 presence restrained her. She wanted it, 'Pleasey wants 
 it/ she begged, with an affectation of childishness. It 
 turned out afterwards she had actually sent it home ! 
 She said it was for him to see, but of course she had 
 bought it. She has inherited the paternal, or maternal, 
 notions of honour. My boy went so white. 'The throb- 
 bing has come back, mater/ he said to me. 'Can't you 
 get me anything, phenacetin, or something ? ' Oh ! it is 
 piteous, piteous to see how little she cares for anything 
 but herself! And I, it seems to me I never cared so 
 much for him as now, nor in the same way. There are 
 times when I don't know how to bear the way she be- 
 haves." 
 
 "You ought to leave them to each other." 
 "And know him without companionship, in bondage 
 to a doll." And then came the final cry : "Living, side 
 by side, with a light woman who does not even know 
 that he is in difficulties, nor care to help him through 
 them, who will always be a burden, and never a help- 
 mate." 
 
 Vanessa knew it, she could not shut out the knowledge 
 that was borne in upon her all the time. He would not 
 speak to her of what was amiss. But, at last, they were 
 real mother-eyes that watched, eyes cleared by tears.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AFTERWARDS it seemed as if all the troubles came at 
 once, the blind alleys converging, and opening on to 
 one waste space. The very afternoon that she voiced 
 her troubles to Stella, and Stella had made light of them, 
 Sebastian came home early from the City, and went at 
 once to his room; the room that was peculiarly his, 
 next to her own. 
 
 She entered the hall, with heavy heart, to hear that 
 "Mr. Sebastian came home with a bad headache, he 
 would be glad if you would go up to him when you came 
 in." 
 
 Pleasey had been in, but had gone out again, leaving 
 no message. 
 
 Sebastian was lying on the bed, fully dressed ; he saw 
 his mother come in, but did not rise, nor, for the mo- 
 ment, speak. The afternoon sun was flooding the room ; 
 the first thing she did was to pull down the blinds, very 
 quietly. If he were ill, or in trouble, the dark was best. 
 Then she sat down by the bedside. She put an unaccus- 
 tomed finger on his pulse, then her hand on his forehead. 
 
 "I'm not ill," he said. 
 
 "Thank God for that." 
 
 "I don't know how to tell you." 
 
 She found his hand again, and held it; it was quite 
 dusk in the room. 
 
 334
 
 SEBASTIAN 335 
 
 "I've made a hopeless muddle of everything." 
 
 "Not of everything, dear." How dear he was to her, 
 how dear ! She wished she could tell him. 
 
 "I meant to make you rich, it was never for myself I 
 wanted money." 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "Now I can't see my way." He had rolled over on 
 the pillow, discarding her hand, his voice came muffled. 
 "Don't go away. I want to tell you. I never thought 
 it possible anything could go wrong. Business was 
 widening and broadening all the time. We had three 
 hundred and seventy accounts in the pater's time; I've 
 got nearly three thousand now. The new mills are 
 finished, and I was right after all about the cornstalks, 
 the pulp is the very thing for the 'feather-weight.' 
 We've worked it all up. Everything looked flourishing 
 when I went away." 
 
 "What has happened, tell me?" 
 
 "Everything, the unexpected." 
 
 He got off the bed now, then sat down, weakly, on the 
 side of it. "I have been fighting ill-luck ever since I 
 came back; to-day has been simply awful. I could not 
 stand the City any more, I came home. My head is 
 only a machine for aching. I couldn't use it to think." 
 
 "How long have you been home?" 
 
 "About half an hour. Those blinds were a good idea 
 of yours, I can bear it better now." 
 
 "Lie down again. I will bring you some phenacetin." 
 
 "What is the good of drugging myself? I've got to 
 see it through. Mater, what a conceited young ass you 
 must have thought me all the time ! "
 
 336 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Well, it is the truth. I thought I knew a thousand 
 times more than the pater, that I could keep on our 
 specialities, run the agencies, manufacture the 'feather- 
 weight/ be independent of the Association. Nobody 
 knew, or guessed, all that I was doing, not even in the 
 office. Then came that breakdown of mine, and having 
 to be away." 
 
 She sat quietly on in her chair by the bed. It was 
 only money, he was not ill, that would have been un- 
 bearable. 
 
 "Cannot I help? There are still more securities, or 
 they could be sold. There are Stella's, too. Stella 
 would do anything for either of us." 
 
 " I am not going to drag anybody down with me, least 
 of all you two. I wish now I had never touched your 
 capital." 
 
 "What is mine is yours." 
 
 "You don't understand, mater. I'm up to my neck, 
 I don't know where to turn. I had a mortgage on the 
 mills, and the mortgagees have given notice to call it in. 
 That was the first thing after I got to the City yesterday 
 morning. I didn't tell you, I thought I could transfer 
 it, I still think I can. Then you know we do a very big 
 business with Hayling's firm; they've got some bills of 
 ours " 
 
 "But Mr. Hayling! surely Mr. Hayling would not 
 press you?" 
 
 "He has a partner, a dead nailer. It looks as if they 
 have got to know I am in a mess for money. Yet how 
 could they have got to know? The raw material keeps
 
 SEBASTIAN 337 
 
 pouring in, one thousand pounds' worth yesterday, and 
 the shippers have drawn on us at sight. I had to get the 
 money from somewhere, so I asked Bob's partner if he 
 would renew one of our bills. But instead of doing it as 
 a matter of course, he made a fuss about it. He funked 
 me, mater. What could they have heard? Excepting 
 to Pleasey, I haven't breathed a word how I was placed." 
 
 "You told Pleasey?" 
 
 "She wanted a pair of ear-rings she saw, old ones, 
 Brazilian diamonds, she looked beautiful in them. I 
 seem always to be saying ' No ' to her. Poor girl ! I 
 had to explain I was in a tight place it is rotten luck 
 on her!" 
 
 Then the natural bent of his nature began to assert 
 itself. His aching head had become easier in the quiet 
 room, tea was brought to him. Depression, the imp that 
 lies in ambush for all young optimists, had leaped on 
 him, and fastened its claws in the softness of his mood. 
 Now he made an effort to throw it off. 
 
 "It is overtrading, nothing worse than that. I am 
 full up to the eyes with schemes and business; they are 
 all good. I swear I have not made one mistake. I may 
 have produced too much of the 'feather-weight,' per- 
 haps; but I can place that if I have time. It is only 
 capital of which I am so desperately short. If I could 
 get hold of twenty thousand pounds at once even ten 
 would tide me over. Do you know anybody with a liquid 
 ten thousand?" 
 
 "Hilary St. Maur?" she suggested, after a moment's 
 thought. 
 
 "He is chairman of the Mortgagee Association, and
 
 338 SEBASTIAN 
 
 they would not want a registered debenture. Besides, 
 no one on earth must know, it would be fatal. We 
 should have all our creditors on us at once. Our agen- 
 cies would be jeopardised. The whole position is crit- 
 ical, it is like a new business I have built up. If our 
 competitors got to know the position we are in they 
 could do us no end of harm. Credit is the very life of 
 the concern, a breath on it spells ruin." 
 
 Something she did not know what prevented 
 her, at that moment, uttering Joe Wallingford's name. 
 
 "Say something, even if it is only to tell me what an 
 ass I have been; what an overwhelming, conceited fool ! 
 And yet, I have been right. I have got a twelfth of the 
 whole trade of the United Kingdom; outside the news- 
 papers, I mean, and wall-paper trust. It is nothing 
 going to break me now but want of capital." 
 
 Vanessa tried to follow him as he went into figures 
 and calculations. He showed her that fortune waited 
 for him, round the corner, and that only the obstructing 
 void at the bank made it impossible to turn it. She 
 believed in him implicitly, she said, and that raised his 
 courage. They soon began to persuade each other 
 that things must come right. 
 
 "How about Mr. Wallingford, Joe Wallingford?" 
 She hesitated, but went on: "Would you mind his 
 knowing? He is a good friend of mine, and of yours." 
 
 "He does a little with us. He would never do an- 
 other stroke if he thought we were shaky." 
 
 "You wrong him there," she answered, quickly. But 
 he would not have it. 
 
 "I know him better than you do, mater. He will
 
 SEBASTIAN 339 
 
 crow over me ; he has always said I was going too fast. 
 No ! I won't have any interference from Wallingford." 
 
 If Stella were not so critical of Sebastian, so naturally 
 satirical about his talents ! She knew that whatever 
 Stella had, she would lend to her, or to the boy. 
 
 "It all seemed to come over me at once. Panic is 
 the word, I got into a panic. And then a number of 
 little things happened. Spurlings cancelled an order, 
 we made a big bad debt, one of our best travellers 
 gave notice. I am getting better now, you have done 
 me good. I'm afraid I frightened Pleasey's life out of 
 her, coming in as I did. My head was splitting, I saw 
 nothing but ruin before us. Kendalls in the Bank- 
 ruptcy Court ! I don't know what got hold of me. 
 Suddenly everything went black." 
 
 " Pleasey was .at home ? " 
 
 "I met her in the hall. She was just going out, I 
 talked blue ruin, wildly. I could hardly see to get up- 
 stairs, it was the worst sort of pain." 
 
 "She went out all the same?" 
 
 "I daresay she thought I would be best alone. You 
 recollect the pater liked to be alone when he had his 
 headaches?" 
 
 Had he? Had he? Memories, like winged insects, 
 set about her, stung her. 
 
 "Pleasey will not mind if we have got to pull in a 
 bit. She has never had any money, she has often 
 said she doesn't care about money. The way she buys 
 things is nothing, she is like a child with a hole in its 
 pocket. One gets that way if there has never been 
 anything regular; it doesn't seem worth while to try
 
 340 SEBASTIAN 
 
 and save on an income of a fiver to-day, and nothing 
 to-morrow! You could help her more than you do, 
 mater, help both of us." 
 
 He could not know how his mother felt toward the 
 girl he had married. 
 
 "I know you have done a lot, the trousseau, and 
 everything." Indeed Vanessa had paid, and paid, and 
 paid ; and yet heard Pleasey beg from Sebastian, hu- 
 miliating both of them. "You have always been won- 
 derful about money, it is that that breaks me your 
 great trust in me, the way you left everything in my 
 hands, all that the pater meant for you. That is where 
 I got frightened. Not that it isn't safe " 
 
 His eyes sought hers, entreated her. "It is that 
 that breaks me," he said, again. "I am in an awful 
 funk, panic if you like to call it. I can't have muddled 
 things past help, I can't have, mumsy," the old name 
 came to his lips, "tell me it is only this beastly head- 
 ache. Things could not have looked so right, and sud- 
 denly gone so wrong. The stock is good, the book 
 debts sound, the mortgage secured." 
 
 How she wished she knew the language he was speak- 
 ing. But her faith in him never wavered, and that 
 steadied him again when the fresh paroxysm had passed. 
 He was only twenty-one, little more than a boy, and 
 his responsibilities, of which he had been so proud, 
 now crushed down upon him. 
 
 She lent him her strength and courage, they were 
 his birthright, her calm certainty of faith in him soothed 
 him, her capacity growing with his need. 
 
 He had worked himself into fever. It was with diffi-
 
 SEBASTIAN 341 
 
 culty that she persuaded him presently to undress and 
 go properly to bed. She said she would see Pleasey, 
 and explain, she would undertake his wife should not 
 be unduly alarmed about him. She even got him to 
 swallow the cachet of phenacetin, she dared to tell him 
 it was that, yet substituted veronal, a light sleeping 
 powder. He must have rest, sleep. Meanwhile she 
 must think, work for him, plan. 
 
 She had not got very far, either with working or 
 planning, when Pleasey came home. The two ought 
 not to have been together at such a juncture, it was 
 too much to expect of any woman, even of Vanessa 
 Kendall. 
 
 "I am sorry I'm late." 
 
 She glanced into the drawing-room, she was still in 
 her afternoon clothes, looking very smart, the grub of 
 Bice's governess had developed into a very butterfly 
 as Sebastian's wife. It did not matter to her who 
 paid for her clothes, or if they were unpaid for, so long 
 as she got new clothes. She was greedy for them, she 
 could never have enough, it was an obsession, ever 
 growing, a very madness of greed. "I have had to 
 try that velours gris of mine on to-day. I am tired to 
 death. I stood for nearly an hour. You don't know 
 how tall it makes me look ! And now my waist is only 
 eighteen and a half inches. Isn't that good news?" 
 
 "Sebastian has gone to bed with a headache," Vanessa 
 began, coldly. 
 
 "A headache! How awful, poor darling! But we 
 are going to the Alstons' to-night. I told Mason," 
 Mason was Vanessa's maid, "I told Mason to put out
 
 342 SEBASTIAN 
 
 my mauve. I wonder whether you would lend me your 
 amethysts? Sebastian will be all right after dinner, I 
 suppose ! It doesn't begin until ten ; we needn't get 
 there until half-past. I mean the amethyst necklace. 
 But it would be simply darling of you, if I could have 
 the brooches as well." 
 
 Vanessa kept herself fairly well in hand. 
 
 "He will be quite unable to go out to-night. He 
 was ill when he came home this afternoon." 
 
 "Oh, yes, poor darling. I quite forgot." Pleasey 
 was always vague about other people. "He said he 
 had lost a lot of money, or something like that. But 
 I knew about it all along, there is nothing new to-day, 
 is there? I really must go, it's half-past seven now. 
 Shall I dine in a tea-gown, and dress afterwards? Is 
 Sebastian in the bedroom?" 
 
 "No, in his dressing-room." 
 
 "I'm so glad. I should have hated to disturb 
 him. Bob said yesterday that he was looking seedy 
 again." 
 
 Vanessa felt a little cold shiver; a chill. 
 
 "Bob?" she said, "Bob?" as if uncertain who the 
 other meant. 
 
 "Bob Hayling. I had tea with him at the Carlton 
 yesterday. He said Sebastian didn't seem like him- 
 self, as if married life was not agreeing with him!" 
 She actually tittered. Vanessa's self-control was al- 
 most at breaking-point. "I said it was nothing to do 
 with me; he was bothered about money, about not 
 being able to meet some bills. I said that was all that 
 was the matter with Sebastian."
 
 SEBASTIAN 343 
 
 "You told him that?" 
 
 Of course she had told him that, loosened the ava- 
 lanche under which the boy lay crushed! Vanessa 
 could not speak for the moment, she was so over- 
 whelmed by indignation, rage. And before words came, 
 Pleasey had left the room. 
 
 She came down to dinner, when soup had been twenty 
 minutes on the table, her lint hair admirably disposed, 
 the amethyst brooch supporting a violet aigrette. She 
 had on a white crepe-de-chine tea-gown, and another 
 amethyst brooch held together the folds. 
 
 "I am so sorry I am late. Mason was so long over 
 my hair, I told her you said I might have the brooches. 
 You did say so, didn't you? I said she was to leave 
 Sebastian quite alone until half-past nine. He will 
 have had a good sleep by then. He can dress in half 
 an hour." 
 
 "John," said Vanessa, dangerously calm, "tell Mason 
 she is not to go near Mr. Sebastian, no one is to go near 
 him. You understand?" 
 
 "Yes, 'm." 
 
 Pleasey looked up, she flushed a little, half opened 
 her feeble mouth, as if to speak, thought better of it, 
 and said nothing. From time to time, as that now 
 silent dinner made its slow uncomfortable progress, she 
 glanced surreptitiously at Vanessa's face, set, angry, or 
 contemptuous, wholly uncongenial. 
 
 Vanessa could wait, now, until dessert was on the 
 table, and the servants out of the room. Pleasey 
 would not rebel against her ruling that Sebastian must 
 be left undisturbed, she was as incapable of riot or re-
 
 344 SEBASTIAN 
 
 bellion as a sheep; she could scurry this way and that 
 if she were prodded, but she could not butt back. 
 
 "You don't think Sebastian is really ill?" she asked, 
 propitiatingly. "He was at the office all day. Bob 
 said- 
 
 "You met Mr. Hayling again to-day?" 
 
 "He motored me to Wimbledon. There was no 
 harm in that, was there?" 
 
 "And did you tell him any more of your husband's 
 secrets?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 Then the storm broke, Vanessa could contain her 
 feelings no longer. Perhaps much that she said was 
 over-harsh, bearing in view that she had no argument 
 to encounter, and no defence. Perhaps she might have 
 omitted to remind her son's wife that, even as she had 
 betrayed Sebastian's secrets to Robert Hayling, so had 
 her mother ruined the diplomatic career of Ambrose 
 Pleyden-Carr. Every biting word was true, that they 
 sank into the nebulous resilence of Pleasey's conscious- 
 ness stifled, without falsifying, them. 
 
 "He took you practically from the gutter, you were 
 without clothes, or means, or character. He set you 
 on the throne of his great heart, and you drum your 
 light heels against it, like a ballet girl." 
 
 "You are very unkind." Pleasey soon began to sob. 
 She dabbed her eyes with her lace-edged handkerchief. 
 She looked to see if the black had come off her eye- 
 lashes. Even then she wondered feebly, how it was 
 that nobody could invent an eyelash dye that was fast. 
 "I don't know what I've done, you never did like me."
 
 SEBASTIAN 345 
 
 " Like you ! Like you ! Who could like you, except 
 my poor besotted boy. What is there in you, or of 
 you, to excite any emotion but contempt? You don't 
 work with your hands, or brain, or heart. You can- 
 not help having feeble brain power, and limited ca- 
 pacity of feeling, but you have hands ! Mason takes 
 hours a day mending your laces, your torn clothes that 
 lie about your untidy room, putting ribbons into your 
 extravagant, flimsy underclothes. You give more 
 trouble in this house than three decent women. You 
 are disorderly in your habits, unprincipled in your ex- 
 travagances, selfish to the last degree ! Four or five 
 solid hours every day you spend before your glass ! 
 And what do you see there ? A doll face, vacuous, not 
 worth the labour you spend on its adornment." 
 
 "Sebastian thinks I am pretty." 
 
 "He also thinks you loyal, honest." 
 
 She dried her eyes, she tried to be indignant. 
 
 "What do you mean by honest? I I won't be 
 insulted." 
 
 "You will listen until I have finished, you can think 
 it over afterwards. I have had it in my mind ever since 
 you have been in the house to show you to yourself as 
 you are. There is such a thing as technical honesty, it 
 is possible you have not yet transgressed its laws. But 
 when your husband, who is also your benefactor, your 
 protector, and your lover, is ill and in trouble, you spend 
 his money recklessly, you go out to tea with his trade 
 rival, all powdered and painted " 
 
 "I don't paint, it isn't true, I don't." 
 
 "You are rouged, your lips are daubed with paste,
 
 346 SEBASTIAN 
 
 your eyelashes are blacked. However slightly, and 
 cleverly you do all these things, in the long hours you 
 devote to them, any intelligent person can see it is art, 
 not nature, that supplies colour to your albinoism. You 
 dally with this man in public places, betraying your 
 husband's confidences, disloyal " 
 
 "I did not know it was a secret that Sebastian was 
 short of money. How should I know it was a secret? 
 We were talking about those ear-rings. Mr. Hayling 
 said he made sure Sebastian would have given them to 
 me. I have never said a word against Sebastian, it is 
 not true what you say of me. You have made me look 
 a perfect sight, my eyes are all red. I don't know what 
 the Alstons will think " 
 
 "You will go to this ball!" 
 
 She was in a hurry to escape out of the room, she had 
 been in a hurry all the time. It was Pleasey's way, it 
 was the Pleyden-Carrs' characteristic way, to hurry 
 from unpleasantness, to hide it shakily, gloze it over, 
 pretend it was not there. 
 
 "I am not sure now, I feel quite ill. I must go up- 
 stairs, you have been very unkind to me," she got away 
 as soon as she could, holding her handkerchief to her 
 smudged eyes. 
 
 But it was Vanessa who was the more shaken, the more 
 agitated, by what had passed. Anger was so rare with 
 her, hot, articulate anger like this had never before 
 assailed her. It had overleaped the bounds of hospi- 
 tality, of something more, of the respect that was due 
 to Sebastian's wife, because she was his wife. Some- 
 thing of Vanessa's own self-respect suffered through her
 
 SEBASTIAN 347 
 
 candour. Hatred was so rare, so unknown to her. 
 Everything about her was black and bitter through 
 its expression. She had darkened the waters of inter- 
 course by this emission, and was ashamed, humiliated, 
 unhappy.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IT was then Bice telephoned her mother was worse 
 to-night, was desperately ill. Could Aunt Vanessa 
 come over at once ? 
 
 It was from herself that Vanessa was so glad to escape. 
 She reiterated her orders that no one must disturb Mr. 
 Sebastian. She could not bear to think she might have 
 hurt him through his unworthy wife. She had never 
 been so at war with herself, and uncertain. What good 
 could her outspoken comment do, save embitter future 
 intercourse, make impossible that the lives of the three 
 of them should be lived out together ? 
 
 All those gulfs of silence between her and Stella were 
 bridged, at last, to-night; speech flooded them. 
 
 Stella had gone to bed, early in the afternoon, and had 
 awakened feeling faint; she thought she must be sink- 
 ing ! She had taken the tablet that lay on the table by 
 her bedside, and scribbled on it in pencil "Died at 
 eight-forty, send for your aunt." And then had sunk 
 back upon her pillows, and slept again. But Bice, never 
 long away from the bedroom, had come in softly, and 
 read the message. The next time Stella opened her eyes 
 they fell upon Dr. Gifford and Vanessa, in bewilderment. 
 There were twinkles in the doctor's eyes, but Vanessa 
 and Bice were pale and apprehensive. 
 
 "Your message seems to have been a little premature," 
 
 348
 
 SEBASTIAN 349 
 
 Dr. Gifford said. "I won't prescribe a coffin this time. 
 We will try some chicken, and a glass of champagne, 
 instead." 
 
 "I wrote a note, didn't I?" 
 
 "You gave us the last bulletin." 
 
 "I must have felt very seedy. Poor Bice, poor 
 Vanessa! But you knew it was not true, surely you 
 could see for yourselves that I was not dead." 
 
 Bice swallowed her tears, and felt she had been very 
 stupid. She, too, had been going to the Alstons', and 
 had already cancelled her appointment. Dr. Gifford 
 enjoyed the joke, and promised Stella a long resuscita- 
 tion. Later on, when the matter had been cleared up, 
 and the momentary faintness explained, Stella and Va- 
 nessa united in persuading Bice to dress, and go out. 
 
 It was Stella who said, when they were alone : 
 
 "Pleasey and Sebastian are going, are they not?" and 
 so loosed the flood-gates. But the stream came gradu- 
 ally, not all at once. 
 
 "Sebastian is not at all well. He is worried about 
 things, overworked." 
 
 Always the quicker-witted of the two, even if her 
 quick wits were shallow, Stella asked: 
 
 "Worried in business?" 
 
 "You won't speak of it, I know. Yes, he is worried 
 about business. He wants more capital. Stella, I 
 wonder if you would mind ? I have been thinking, these 
 last few hours, that money father left, is ours absolutely. 
 I have lent him some of mine, if you would do the same 
 thing ?" 
 
 She expected ready response. As children she and
 
 350 SEBASTIAN 
 
 Stella had held their goods in common. Now Stella's 
 eyes puckered, and she answered nothing. 
 
 "There is not the least risk. I know my boy. He is 
 marked for success. The machine is in a rut, money 
 will give it the push it needs." 
 
 "But you know, you know as well as I do, that he 
 should have it, if it were mine to give." 
 
 "Bice would - 
 
 "Bice would give her soul for Sebastian; it isn't that. 
 Don't you know, can't you guess? I haven't got it, I 
 haven't got anything. Jack made away with it." 
 
 "But but " she was quite bewildered, "you have 
 lived just the same." 
 
 Stella flushed painfully, she could not speak for a 
 minute or two. 
 
 It had come, it had come at last. Now Vanessa must 
 know. How could she make her understand, all her 
 secret life, and the burden of it, all that her days had 
 hidden, and that had eaten away her strength and 
 courage? She had been silent, and silence had sapped 
 slowly, like salt sea-waves against her coast of life, lap, 
 lap, in silence making inroad. 
 
 "You have never guessed?" 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 "I haven't anything; Jack left me without anything." 
 
 "Then, then " 
 
 "Saighton has given me " 
 
 "Don't say it - 
 
 "All I needed. More, he would have given me so 
 much more." 
 
 " It cannot be true. And I, knowing nothing."
 
 SEBASTIAN 351 
 
 "You wrote your books, you had your Sebastian. 
 You have never known anything about real men and 
 women." 
 
 It was earthquake shaking Vanessa's world, buildings 
 were crumbling, landmarks disappearing, howling wind 
 was in her ear, and the sound of many waters. 
 
 "You have not been his " 
 
 "It doesn't matter what word you use. I don't know 
 why you have never guessed it, I think all the world 
 knows or guesses it, but you ! Jack went away with 
 another woman. I had a child I could not keep, lonely 
 days and nights. And I was only twenty-three. Don't 
 go on being blind, and deaf, and dumb. Try and feel 
 what other women suffer. I could not live alone, that 
 was the beginning; I wanted love, I needed it. I took 
 what was offered me. And you went on writing your 
 books, not noticing anything. I have never been happy, 
 not a day, not an hour. Look from you to me, and you 
 will see." 
 
 And indeed there might have been years, instead of 
 minutes, between them. Vanessa's face had grown a 
 little hard these few months, and the lips were thinner, 
 and tight. But still there were no wrinkles round her 
 eyes. Stella's face was lined, and tired; all that had 
 been beauty was soft and blurred, it was as a tale that 
 had been told. 
 
 Quite suddenly tears rose in Vanessa's eyes, tears that 
 could not fall. She stooped and kissed the dear tired 
 face. They clung to each other a moment. 
 
 " You have had nothing out of life ; I have had every- 
 thing," were the words that broke forth involuntarily.
 
 352 SEBASTIAN 
 
 David's goodness, his generosity, Sebastian's school 
 successes, happy hours with her pen, even her pleasures 
 in prints, and china, rose in her mind. Stella had had 
 nothing. 
 
 All these years Stella had kept a secret from her. And 
 such a secret ! That she had lived on Lord Saighton's 
 bounty, been Lord Saighton's mistress Vanessa's 
 cheeks went hot with shame, she felt a terrible repul- 
 sion, at which she was even more terribly ashamed. 
 Was it true that she was unlike other women, looked at 
 such things from a different standpoint? Hilda de 
 Cliffe had told her so. But Stella had not been happy, 
 she had never been happy in it, and it was this that had 
 aged her. 
 
 Now Stella began to talk, such sad talk ! Vanessa 
 had, at last, a glimpse into Jack Ashton's conduct; a 
 thrill of appreciation, understanding, came to her as she 
 heard of Saighton's sympathy. Stella, so young and 
 pretty, made for love and luxury, had been bereft of 
 both. 
 
 "You were absorbed in your second book. The first 
 had been well received. You told me, yourself, your 
 whole life seemed to hang on making the second better, 
 more worthy of father. You came to see me with your 
 body, but your mind was in your library. And he was 
 so good to me, so patient with me, unselfish, he has al- 
 ways been good to me. I wanted petting, he said, and 
 he wanted to give it to me. There are some things you 
 have never known. Petting is one of them, caresses, 
 tenderness. . . . You have been a good mother, but 
 you could not give even Sebastian what you never knew.
 
 SEBASTIAN 353 
 
 You cannot see what Sebastian finds in Pleasey; it is 
 what he has missed from you, the traffic of love, love's 
 expression. Whether we are men or women, boys or 
 girls, there are times when each of us wants the other, 
 close, when we need a hand in our hand, a cheek upon 
 our cheek, arms about each other; that is the half of 
 life you have missed." 
 
 Now she threw aside the reticence of years. She told 
 her listening, bewildered, unhappy sister of all Lord 
 Saighton had given up for her sake. Jack had had 
 money from him again and again, threatening pub- 
 licity, he, who had nothing to lose ! Other politicians 
 had had their careers ruined by women, dragging the 
 women down with them when they fell. O'Shaughnessy 
 and Fenwick were given as instances, and the names of 
 the women were by- words. Saighton would never ex- 
 pose her to this, he had sacrificed everything to avoid 
 it. She dwelt on his kindnesses, his devotion to her. 
 Again and again she reverted to Vanessa's blindness, 
 convicting her of lapses of interest, or carelessness of 
 detail. 
 
 "You spoke sometimes of my extravagance, my 
 flowers, or my tea-gowns. Did you really think they 
 represented only five hundred pounds a year?" 
 
 "I did not think," Vanessa answered, humbly enough. 
 
 "You pride yourself on being a woman of the world. 
 I have been away six or seven times every year. Do 
 you think you can travel about, go to the best hotels, 
 on five hundred pounds a year?" 
 
 Vanessa sat on as one half stunned. It was all un- 
 real, it was something that must separate her from her 
 
 2A
 
 354 SEBASTIAN 
 
 sister. She could not hurt Stella, she could hurt no 
 one again with bitter words that recoiled. But it was 
 horrible, horrible! And then she reproached herself 
 for intolerance, trying to put herself in the other's posi- 
 tion, to recall her pleas. But Vanessa would never 
 have done it, could never have done it. She thought 
 of Joe Wallingford, flushed at the thought of Joe Wal- 
 lingford. But she had not needed love or petting, she 
 had been strong until now. Now she broke down a 
 little, and cried, with her face against the pillow on 
 which Stella lay. 
 
 Stella saw only her softening, thought only how well 
 she had taken the story, how much better than had 
 seemed possible. 
 
 It is easy to talk of conventional laws, to despise 
 and belittle them. But these poor women who live 
 outside the pale, live in a sad country. From their 
 windows, every morning as they rise they see loneli- 
 ness and desolation, every wind that blows has menace 
 in it, the wolves howl, and their security is threatened. 
 Always, she had feared lest Vanessa should hear the 
 howling of the wolves, and recognise in what country 
 her sister had set foot. It had been always this fear 
 that had lurked miserably on the cold threshold of her 
 solitary hours. And now, at last, it was no longer there ! 
 
 She talked, and talked, far into the night. The bur- 
 den of it was that now she could get better, stronger, 
 it was the secrecy from Vanessa that had been so wear- 
 ing. Stella gave her sister a rare, occasional insight 
 into wonderful moments. She wished Vanessa had 
 known love. Vanessa could not bear that talk, her
 
 SEBASTIAN 355 
 
 sensitiveness, perhaps a distant dawn of knowledge, or 
 premonition, shrank from it. There is no doubt Joe 
 Wallingford was in her mind. She changed the subject. 
 
 Presently she found herself talking of Sebastian's 
 wife, confessing her breakdown, not excusing it. 
 
 Stella's morality had inevitably suffered; she could 
 not conceal that she thought Sebastian's wife would 
 serve a phase for him. Vanessa knew that this was 
 not Sebastian's way of love, but her sister could not 
 credit him with his virtues of fidelity and continence, 
 hereditary virtues. 
 
 "I know I said unjustifiable things to her. I am 
 intolerant of her," Vanessa admitted. 
 
 "You don't understand what need of Sebastian's it 
 is that she serves. You live in blinkers. She is an 
 idle, unprincipled little thing, and he will outgrow her, 
 but in the meantime, she is an improvement on the 
 Princess. Leave them alone, and let him find her out 
 for himself. From the first, I thought it could never 
 answer for you to live together. Pleasey's extravagant 
 habits are easy to understand, if you look at them 
 sympathetically. If you have nothing, it is not worth 
 while to try and save it ! Until now she has never had 
 anything, and as she has neither creed, nor conscience, 
 now that the opportunity offers, she is snatching at 
 anything she can get. But I thought Sebastian was 
 doing so well what has happened?" 
 
 Vanessa tried to explain the situation. 
 
 "Well, why doesn't your provincial millionaire come 
 to the rescue? It is all that kind of man is good for. 
 Make him give Sebastian anything he wants."
 
 356 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "And cheat him of return?" 
 
 "Not necessarily, why not marry him? You can- 
 not go on living with Sebastian and his wife. I would 
 withdraw my opposition at once, if you would only 
 tell me you have at last realised that you have missed 
 something, and that Joe Wallingford can give it you." 
 
 "A hand in my hand, a cheek against my cheek," 
 Vanessa quoted, jestingly, trying to take it lightly. 
 
 Stella answered : 
 
 "For me, for Sebastian, for Pleasey, for nearly every- 
 body, love is vital to life. But not for you, perhaps; 
 you are so strong, there is so little feminine about you. 
 Perhaps you are the one exception, the one woman 
 who can stand alone, without feeling lonely. But, if 
 so, don't be proud about it, be sorry. I have been 
 wretched but I have had my moments. You have 
 only had pen and ink; rooms without flowers, days 
 without sun. ..." 
 
 Was it true, was it? She wondered all through that 
 night. She was still wondering when the morning 
 dawned. 
 
 ******* 
 
 She had gone into the boy's room when she got home ; 
 he was still sleeping, heavily, peacefully. She left the 
 door open between them, watching him through the 
 remaining few hours of that long night. Pleasey was 
 late at the ball; Vanessa heard her come in, about 
 three, she pictured her opera cloak lying about the 
 hall, a glove dropped on the stairs. That is what 
 Pleasey Pleyden-Carr had brought into their lives, 
 frivolity, disorder, indifference.
 
 SEBASTIAN 357 
 
 And Stella! Vanessa could not yet think of Stella, 
 it was all pain and confusion there. She must believe 
 it, bear it, bear with it. But she was mentally and 
 morally all bruised and tired. She could not think 
 clearly, nor find solid foothold amid the ruins.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 PLEASEY was later than ever next morning. She did 
 not want to meet Vanessa, and sent down word that 
 she was seedy, and would like a tray sent up to her. 
 Sebastian told her that the "poor girl" had not got 
 home until four. He had been up to see her, and had 
 advised her to take the day in bed. 
 
 Sebastian felt better, in the morning things looked 
 less black. He said he should get down early to the 
 office, and see Robertson. 
 
 "Robertson?" 
 
 "An accountant, an awfully clear-headed fellow. 
 He does our books. I know what he will say. He 
 will want me to give up the manufacturing, get rid of 
 the new mills altogether. He thinks he could get me 
 an offer. All I've been working for must go by the 
 board ! " 
 
 "Let me see Mr. Wallingford." 
 
 "No! I would rather let everything go. I don't 
 want any outsiders consulted, I'll get through in my 
 own way, or not at all. Your money shall not be lost. 
 I can always make an income. I wish I knew how 
 Hay ling heard we were short. And the curse of it is, 
 the damned hard lines is, that if we liquidated, we 
 could pay forty shillings in the pound, that everything 
 is as right as rain. Except, perhaps, for the 'feather- 
 
 358
 
 SEBASTIAN 359 
 
 weight/ every ounce of stock is worth what it cost, 
 or more. We are selling more hand-made than we sold 
 in the pater's time; the two machines are working 
 full time, and the travellers are doing more turnover 
 than ever. It is the curse of having to stick to the 
 old tradition. I pay spot cash, and give twelve months' 
 credit." 
 
 He meant to say that is what he had started by 
 doing ! And yet it is not as if the boy had only talked. 
 He had honestly worked like three ordinary men. He 
 had often been out by eight o'clock in the morning, to 
 return, utterly exhausted, twelve hours later. She did 
 not know where lay the flaw; but all through break- 
 fast, as all through last evening, and in the night, she 
 remembered he was only one-and-twenty, and that 
 Stella said he had missed something essential from her. 
 
 He had built up a large business. She watched his 
 strained face, and knew that if the foundation was 
 weak, and the building toppling, like Atlas, he would 
 support it with his shoulders. But then she criticised 
 the simile and found it jejune. She could not help her 
 limitations. She was no more womanly than her 
 daughter-in-law. Felicitous phrase-making occupied her, 
 as making up her face occupied the other. Vanessa was 
 entirely dissatisfied with herself this morning. 
 
 She went into the hall with her son that morning, 
 to help him on with his coat, to try for a last word 
 with which to comfort him. When he ran up once 
 more to say good-bye to his wife, she waited for him. 
 
 Never inconsiderate or careless to her, he thanked 
 her, when he came down again. "Don't you worry,
 
 360 SEBASTIAN 
 
 old dear; you have helped me. You have been a 
 brick, as usual. We shall pull through all right. Pleasey 
 is going to Eastbourne, this afternoon, until Monday; 
 she feels the strain. I told her to go, for I may be 
 late all this week. You and I can talk things over 
 again, this evening, after I have seen Robertson." 
 
 She was satisfied that she was to be spared Pleasey's 
 company, that for the next few days there would be 
 breathing space. It was she the boy wanted, his 
 mother, not his wife ! How mean she was, and un- 
 worthy. She could not make peace with herself, since 
 that scene with Sebastian's wife. 
 
 Pleasey went off by the morning train, there was no 
 meeting between them, and evidently nothing had been 
 said to Sebastian. 
 
 Vanessa had lunch by herself. The relief of feeling 
 there was no one for whom to wait, no hurried entry 
 to expect, no coat or furs strewn about the room, was 
 like harbour after a tossing sea. Her writing-table 
 tempted her, but it was too soon; life was pressing her 
 too close, too insistently, she could not get back yet to 
 the happy world of unreality, and brilliant, subtle 
 shadows. She prepared instead for an idle afternoon. 
 Idleness with Vanessa meant needlework, a piece of 
 embroidery, the regular stitch, stitch that left her free 
 to dream. She sat over the drawing-room fire, the 
 needlework in her hands, thinking; thinking only one 
 thought. What had she missed; was it too late? 
 
 And Joe Wallingford thought he had stayed away 
 from her quite long enough. 
 
 They had constantly exchanged letters, she had dis-
 
 SEBASTIAN 361 
 
 couraged his visits. But now he had a legitimate busi- 
 ness excuse for an interview. The Messina earthquake 
 was but a few hours old. It was strange how insig- 
 nificant it had been in face of her personal cares. But 
 when Joe Wallingford was in the drawing-room, inter- 
 fering between her and her needlework, bigger than 
 ever, she found herself moved by his narration of the 
 appalling calamity, lifted out of herself. 
 
 He had his special correspondent out there, his early 
 wires had kept him on a level with the London papers. 
 But he wanted detail, local colour, and she, he knew, 
 was familiar with every rood of the ground, could give 
 life and substance to the leading articles. At first, for 
 fully half an hour, it was only of the earthquake he 
 talked. 
 
 .But it must not be forgotten that he cared for her, 
 that he had not seen her since Sebastian's marriage, that 
 she was ever a woman whose subtlety lay only in her pen, 
 who was easy to read. 
 
 Should she tell him he had been right about Sebas- 
 tian's business difficulties, should she go behind her 
 boy's wishes, and tell him of the need of further capital, 
 should she confide in him? She counted her stitches, 
 and talked of the earthquake, but this was at the back 
 of her brain. 
 
 It was all taken out of her hands. He asked her, 
 quite bluntly : 
 
 "What's the matter? What has happened since I 
 was here last ? Have you been ill ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Worried?"
 
 362 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "More or less." Her hands trembled, and she laid 
 the work down. She was really glad to see him, to talk 
 to him. He seemed so strong, and decided, so reliable. 
 Perhaps he held the key to all her mysteries. 
 
 "Sebastian well?" 
 
 "Yes; somewhat overworked." 
 
 "Stella?" 
 
 "She is not in very good health, feeble rather." 
 
 "Worse than usual?" 
 
 "No hardly." 
 
 "Well ! if it isn't Stella, and it isn't Sebastian, it can 
 only be me!" 
 
 She laughed, it did her good to laugh. 
 
 "I really have not been worrying about you." 
 
 "Forgotten all about me?" 
 
 "I don't say that." 
 
 A slightly heightened colour encouraged him. He sat 
 down beside her on the sofa. Although she moved away 
 from him, shrank a little into the corner, he spread him- 
 self at ease. Somehow, or other, it was impossible to 
 explain his impression, but it was certainly there, he 
 felt that her attitude was more favourable to him than 
 it had ever been before; that her reluctance now was 
 but the reluctance of habit; that she remembered he 
 had kissed her, and had ceased to resent it, that she was 
 really glad of his presence, and presently should tell 
 him so. 
 
 "Will you have tea, whisky-and-soda, or a cigarette?" 
 
 "I would rather talk." 
 
 "The tea will not interfere with your conversation." 
 
 "You were angry with me the last time I was here?"
 
 SEBASTIAN 363 
 
 The colour was rather warm in her cheeks, but she felt 
 a new uneasiness in his presence, a restlessness. 
 
 "Not very," she said, in a low voice, hardly realising 
 what she was admitting. 
 
 She had had weeks of stress, of sinking her own in- 
 dividuality in that of other people's. Since last night 
 she had known herself no longer indispensable to Stella's 
 life, and that she had never filled it; she had been sup- 
 planted with Sebastian. It had been for them only she 
 cared, and nothing could displace them with her. But 
 it was good at such a moment to know herself first with 
 some one. 
 
 And Joe Wallingford made no immediate capital out 
 of her admission. He had a hundred things to tell her, 
 interesting things, and she lost herself in them for a 
 contented hour. Her personal perplexities had loomed 
 large because she had ceased to compare them. Joe 
 brought air into the close spaces of her narrowed days, a 
 breath from the outer world, where great tragedies were 
 being enacted, and smaller international complications, 
 yet made her own seem infinitesimal. 
 
 He talked of Austria and Servia, of the Sicilian earth- 
 quakes, of American promptitude in voting help, and 
 something of Little Italy in New York City. Then of 
 the King's message to the Navy, the Government grant 
 it suggested, of home politics, and the possibilities of a 
 general election in the ensuing autumn, of his own seat, 
 and what he hoped to do. It was a pleasant hour, 
 giving her a sense of companionship, of mutual interests, 
 if not of tastes. And when at length he came to the 
 point, to close quarters, what he said seemed reasonable.
 
 364 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Why should I have to come all the way from Work- 
 ington to talk to you? Haven't you held out long 
 enough? I told you from the beginning I was never 
 going to take 'No' for an answer. Come, own you are 
 hesitating ; it is only the pluck to cross the line that you 
 need. Put your foot over it, there is firm ground here." 
 
 "I want to be candid with you," she said, hesitatingly. 
 "It it tempts me." 
 
 "Well, succumb to temptation. This isn't one of 
 those we pray against." 
 
 She laughed, as he meant her to. They were both 
 standing up again now, on the rug, in front of the fire. 
 She was older than she had been on the day that it had 
 first come to him she was the woman for him, the day in 
 the library at Seaton House. There was more grey in 
 her hair, there were more lines in her face. But he was 
 just as certain. 
 
 "Talk it over with me. Is it that I'm not refined 
 enough for you, that you want a scholar?" 
 
 " It is nothing in you." 
 
 He put a tentative arm about her, and the flush 
 mounted her cheek. 
 
 " You'll have to give yourself to me this time. You've 
 come to the end of your excuses." 
 
 She watched herself to see if she resented the arm 
 about her waist. Her colour rose, her pulses throbbed, 
 but again there was no resentment in her. 
 
 "I am not going to press you." He saw the smile 
 at the corner of her lips, the smile that died before it 
 was born. "You say you don't like married life. And 
 you've posed yourself cold " the arm tightened. " I'll
 
 SEBASTIAN 365 
 
 make you feel different. There's more than words bind 
 a man and woman. I'll give you time, though the Lord 
 knows you've had time enough. Will you marry me? 
 I'll care for you, and hold you, I won't stand between 
 you and him, nor between you and your sister; only 
 don't set yourself against me." 
 
 She tried to disentangle herself from him. 
 
 "Let me speak, hear me. I like you, I have never 
 liked any one better. But you are not really wooing a 
 woman. It isn't in me to to feel as you would have 
 me. I am analysing it all the time, phrasing it." 
 
 "Not you. I know you better than you know your- 
 self. I'll make you care." Both his arms were about 
 her shoulders now, but he held her very gently, looking 
 down at her from his height. He was outside himself, 
 speaking words that in the dusk caressed her ears like 
 warm gusts of wind. 
 
 "You've grown where you are, without ever having 
 had a shoulder to lean on, or an arm that dared tighten 
 about you. But that is what counts, when you're reck- 
 oning up." For a second he put his cheek against her 
 soft one, hot, almost ashamed. "You've grown up 
 without ever knowing it, and so, you are still a child. 
 Love, it is love that fills the world. You talk of married 
 life ! You think you know married life, because you 
 lived a few months, when you were a girl, with a man that 
 didn't suit you. I know more than that; give me a 
 chance to show you. I don't know French nor German, 
 but I know that if you're not as young as you were, you'll 
 want the more care." Now he was really holding her to 
 him, and she was leaning against him, a little glad of his
 
 366 SEBASTIAN 
 
 size, and realising the gentleness. "I love you; it 
 means a thousand things more than you dream of, it 
 isn't in any of your books. I'll teach you something 
 you have never felt, for all I'm uneducated. . . ." 
 
 A strange half-hour ! Before it had ended he had 
 gained his point, and she had promised that when Stella 
 was better, when business was easy, and her boy happy, 
 she would make venture with him, leaving the issue in 
 his hands. 
 
 "You are taking all the risk," she told him. "I still 
 do not think any woman who writes, and must write, is 
 fit for married life. She only gives half herself, at best." 
 
 "I'll take the risk. A half's better than nothing, 
 I'm grateful for half." 
 
 But she was disingenuous, and happier than she 
 would admit, questioning herself, perhaps, still lagging 
 on the threshold of a new kingdom, but not without the 
 wish to enter. It had grown from shadowland to some 
 dim brightness; now at least she had the curiosity, the 
 desire to explore, to venture in. 
 
 Joe stayed with her until Sebastian came home. 
 They had not dwelt on the topic, but he gathered Ren- 
 dalls needed help. Sebastian looked pale, tired; but 
 better than he had looked yesterday. At the moment, 
 he resented Joe Wallingford's presence. He wanted 
 Vanessa's sympathy, her entire attention, the restful- 
 ness that his mother alone could give him. And he was 
 a little fearful lest she should have been talking of him, 
 of his affairs, his confidence had been shaken since Hay- 
 ling had queried the renewal of his bills. 
 
 "Had a good day?" she asked, making room for him 
 on the sofa, settling the cushions.
 
 SEBASTIAN 367 
 
 " Not bad. I'm dog tired. Pleasey go off all right ? " 
 
 "Yes, she went quite early; I think she must have 
 caught the 11.40." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad of that, anyway. You heard of my 
 marriage?" he asked Joe, after the usual greetings. 
 
 Joe said he had heard, and that it was wonderful good 
 news, amazing news. His congratulations were un- 
 stinted, cordial. He said he must find him a proper 
 wedding present. 
 
 "Where have you set up your tent?" 
 
 "We're living with the mater for the present, it was 
 rather a sudden affair." 
 
 Vanessa supplied a lame explanation. 
 
 "And your wife?" 
 
 He heard that young Mrs. Kendall was delicate, had 
 gone out of town for a few days. But from the moment 
 of Sebastian's entry, the conversation grew a little 
 strained, a little difficult. 
 
 It was an inspiration of Vanessa's to leave the boy 
 with the millionaire after dinner, to hope she hardly 
 knew what. It would be wonderful if Sebastian could 
 unbosom himself; she had faith in the older man's 
 power. She truly believed that Sebastian was exag- 
 gerating the state of affairs in the City, and that the situ- 
 ation was bound to straighten itself out. 
 
 She made her excuses, saying she must see Stella before 
 she went to bed. And Joe fell in quickly with her inten- 
 tion. 
 
 "If Mr. Kendall will let me, I would like to stay, and 
 have a smoke with him," he said. 
 
 "I am bad company for anybody," Sebastian an-
 
 368 SEBASTIAN 
 
 swered, almost ungraciously. "I've got a beast of a 
 headache again. I shouldn't be surprised if I'm getting 
 a tumour on the brain ! " 
 
 "Humour?" she interjected, and got the smile from 
 him for which she had tried. 
 
 "Well! I'll try not to make your headache worse," 
 Joe said, good-humouredly. He had not heard, until 
 an hour ago, that Sebastian had brought his bride to 
 Harley Street. Was it this that had graven those lines 
 on Vanessa's face, precipitated the cloud into her eyes ? 
 He would soon know. 
 
 He had tact, and definite intention. Sebastian had 
 no arms against it. He was untowardly depressed, 
 although his day of desperate work had not been fruit- 
 less. 
 
 Joe began by talking about cigarettes. After he had 
 persuaded Sebastian to try a new variety, a wonderful 
 nerve-soothing Sandorides Lucana, the boy's tongue 
 became a little loosened. After all, any company was 
 better than his own, just then. And he had always 
 liked Joe Wallingford. 
 
 Joe felt the moment to be propitious, and he also 
 knew he had waited long enough. He smoked, and he 
 looked into the fire, dreaming happily, although dream- 
 ing had not hitherto been his way. Sebastian smoked, 
 and thought of business, and incidentally of Joe's 
 possibilities as a customer. 
 
 "I have been thinking of getting married, myself," 
 Joe began, "you know, I suppose," smiling at him, 
 "that I am fairly well-to-do." 
 
 "I don't know it through your orders to P. and A.
 
 SEBASTIAN 369 
 
 Kendall/' the boy answered, irritably, following his own 
 line of thought. "You ought to have done your whole 
 one-shilling series in that new 'feather-weight' of mine. 
 I relied on your using it, you told the mater it was a 
 good idea, and you were interested in it; the books 
 would have weighed nothing." 
 
 "I did consider it, but it took the illustrations very 
 badly," Joe replied. He was startled by the sudden 
 turn the conversation had taken, but not entirely dis- 
 satisfied. It might make things easier, there was much 
 he could put in the boy's way. He had many irons in 
 the fire, and all these fires were lit, more or less, with 
 paper. He wanted the boy to be reconciled to his 
 mother's marriage. If this was the way to reconcile 
 him, well ! he was glad of the opportunity. 
 
 "Your first scheme was for only one illustration," 
 Sebastian was full of his grievance, and went on airing 
 it, "the title-page; and that could have been on art 
 paper. I could have done you that at three-three 
 farthings. You are paying more." 
 
 Joe was really entertained at Sebastian knowing so 
 much about his business; he would not interrupt him. 
 
 "You go to Hayling for your office paper, and circu- 
 lars, and to Seaton's for your sixpenny and one-shilling, 
 you get the stuff for your newspapers from abroad. 
 Come to talk business, I don't know why I haven't 
 had a turn." 
 
 "I don't quite like the texture of your 'feather- 
 weight.' And you probably know, as well as I do, 
 that there is no substance in it. It's too soft, and will 
 fall to pieces if it is handled." 
 
 2B
 
 370 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Nobody reads the books twice; and if they do. 
 they can buy a second copy." 
 
 "Yes, that's true. There is something in that." 
 
 "Not that I care. You can buy your paper where 
 you like; it was you started the subject." 
 
 "I suppose you have placed the first run?" 
 
 "No, I haven't. There is between four and five 
 thousand pounds locked up in the new boiler, pulp, 
 and all the experiments." 
 
 "Have you tried Drivers?" 
 
 "They are stocked, we filled them up in the spring." 
 
 Joe got up, and stretched himself. He would rather 
 have got what he wanted by other means. He had 
 misread the boy, after all, and Sebastian sank in his 
 estimation. But it was the goal he was playing for, 
 how he got there was of minor importance. 
 
 "I'll take all you have made off your hands if you 
 like," he said. "You can invoice it to me. I'll use it 
 for a spring number of the magazine, and print the 
 advertisements and pictures on the art, as you suggest." 
 
 Sebastian sprang to his feet, his pale face flushed. 
 
 "Will you really?" he said. 
 
 The relief was too great, too immediate. Joe's order 
 meant the turning-point; he had, with almost incon- 
 ceivable trouble, arranged the matter of the mortgage, 
 and to meet the bills in Hayling's hands. It all meant 
 financing, and everywhere there was loss. He had 
 given big discounts to get in cash, paying heavily for 
 accommodation. He was almost in sight of land, but 
 had shed sails, dropped valuable cargo overboard, seen 
 himself seriously disabled in the process. Talking to
 
 SEBASTIAN 371 
 
 Joe had been mere idleness, the salvage from the de- 
 struction that had been wrought. 
 
 Now here was an offer that made everything easier, 
 that meant at least a respite, perhaps more. His eyes 
 were bright on Joe as he stood up, and repeated his 
 query : 
 
 " Do you mean it ? Will you take all we have made ?" 
 
 "I shall want quite that, I should think, if not 
 more. I reckon to sell over two hundred and fifty 
 thousand of the spring number," and he calculated the 
 reamage. 
 
 The next half hour was occupied with detail; bulk, 
 weight, and finish must be discussed. Joe wanted to 
 know how the new paper was maturing, the first sample 
 he had seen had not impressed him. Then there was 
 the question of guaranteeing dates for delivery, and an 
 undertaking there should be no variation in the repeats. 
 It was impossible for Joe not to appreciate Sebastian's 
 quickness and resource. And he dealt well. If Joe had 
 not known beforehand, he would not have learnt from 
 Sebastian, when price came to be considered, that it 
 mattered in the least whether the transaction was cash 
 or credit. 
 
 "Take your own time," he said, cheerfully, when 
 everything else had been settled; "we know the ac- 
 count is all right, and that is all P. and A. Kendall 
 look to." 
 
 "Which reminds me," said Joe, perhaps with too 
 obvious carelessness. "I said something to you about 
 over-trading the last time I was in town. And you 
 resented it. I don't want you to resent what I'm
 
 372 SEBASTIAN 
 
 going to say now. About that order, of course, we 
 pay cash for everything, and take all the discount we 
 can get. But a rumour did reach me, some few weeks 
 since, that cash was short with you " 
 
 Sebastian was in arms at once. 
 
 "A trade canard! We've got unscrupulous com- 
 petitors, like most people." 
 
 "Don't get mad. It is no secret that a business, 
 expanding too quickly, sometimes gets too big for its 
 capital. I like to have a good many irons in a good 
 many fires. Could you pay a decent interest on a few 
 thousand pounds ? Say on twenty-five thousand pounds ? 
 Are you open?" 
 
 Nothing could have been put more carefully, more 
 delicately. Sebastian, who saw himself, all at once, 
 sailing into haven, sky blue, sun shining, all sails set, 
 white and beautiful in the breeze, could only maintain 
 his dignity by absolute silence. He had been through 
 great stress; his natural buoyancy and optimism had 
 had a shock that had sent both reeling, had almost 
 submerged them. Now he had to hold his breath; his 
 equilibrium was established with difficulty. 
 
 "Well ! you don't say yes? I am not proposing im- 
 possible terms; a small sleeping partnership, exclusive 
 use of anything I want." 
 
 Considering the real position of affairs, Sebastian's 
 self-possession under such circumstances must be con- 
 sidered exceptional. 
 
 "Kendalls never have had a partner who was not 
 one of the family," he answered, with all the calm that 
 he could command. "Kendall has succeeded Kendall
 
 SEBASTIAN 373 
 
 since the first hand-made paper mill was put up in 
 England." 
 
 Joe squared his shoulders. His smile was really 
 attractive. 
 
 "Well! you know/' he said, "that is part of my 
 proposition. I propose to become one of the family."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 SEBASTIAN came into Vanessa's bedroom that night, 
 after she had retired. He wanted to talk. As usual, 
 he was slow in beginning. He played with the toilet 
 things, he spoke disparagingly of the portraits of him- 
 self and Stella that stood upon the dressing-table; 
 silver-framed, conspicuous. But he was a long time 
 getting to what brought him here. 
 
 She tried to help him: 
 
 "Did Mr. Wallingford stay long after I went out?" 
 
 "Long enough." 
 
 "I had rather you put that photograph down; it is 
 the only one I have of Stella in that particular pose, I 
 don't want the glass broken." 
 
 "You have not got a photo of the pater here." 
 
 "He disliked having his portrait taken." 
 
 "I suppose Joe Wallingford has himself painted in 
 oils?" 
 
 " I should not be surprised." 
 
 "He is not much to look at." 
 
 "Rather a fine man, in his way, I think. It is a 
 rugged head, but full of power." 
 
 Sebastian shot a glance at her. The psychology of 
 Sebastian, at the moment, seemed to Vanessa the most 
 interesting thing in the world. What Joe had said to 
 him, or he to Joe, what effect their talk would have on 
 her own future, was very insignificant hi comparison. 
 
 374
 
 SEBASTIAN 375 
 
 "You don't like him, I suppose?" He could not get 
 the stronger word over his lips. His mother could not 
 be in love with the fellow ! 
 
 "Yes, I do. I have always liked him." 
 
 There was a longer pause. 
 
 "I suppose I am a selfish beast. I can't bear the 
 thought of this fellow in the pater's place." 
 
 "In a way, it would make things simpler." 
 
 "You mean in the City?" 
 
 "You could be working for yourself, not for me." 
 
 "That is just it; all the motive, all the heart would 
 go out of it. I don't really care for money; what is 
 the use of it to me? I have no time to spend it. I 
 like the fight of it, and seeing Kendalls going up. But 
 the real thing was making it for you, pouring it into 
 your banking account, hearing you say, one day, you 
 were glad I took it on, and that I was right in joining 
 the pater ! You have never quite said that." 
 
 "But you will be glad of Mr. Wallingford's help?" 
 
 " I shall simply hate it. You don't understand. I've 
 been going through an awful time ever since I came 
 back, worse than I can tell you. But still it was be- 
 tween you and me, and you stood by me. And I had 
 begun to see my way. I meant to have told you about 
 it to-night. I wanted you to give up this house for a 
 year or two, live in the country; you could write as 
 well, or better in the country, Pleasey and I would 
 have kept you from being dull. We could have managed 
 on very little, say one thousand five hundred a year. 
 You don't know how good the business really is, I went 
 through it all with Robertson; he does the books for a
 
 376 SEBASTIAN 
 
 number of other houses in our line. He thinks awfully 
 well of it. It's I'll give you a literary simile, you'll 
 see it better. It is like an extraordinary fertile coun- 
 try, only wanting irrigation; capital is the irrigation. 
 I have been hoeing, digging, planting fields, when there 
 was not enough water for those already sown; in the 
 result the crops were poor, uncertain, some failing alto- 
 gether. But the land is rich, richer than the pater 
 guessed, richer than any one knows but me " 
 
 He walked about; she waited, patiently. She was 
 in the midst of her night toilette. She looked in the glass 
 now, as Pleasey looked so often, and she thought Mr. 
 Wallingford's taste was not bad, after all. Her hair 
 was thick and abundant, and everything about her fresh, 
 natural, unstained by unguents; surely she was more 
 worthy of all that Stella wished for her, than was Pleasey, 
 whom Sebastian adored. 
 
 Then she said : 
 
 "But if Mr. Wallingford will do the irrigation?" 
 
 "The fun is gone, the savour out of everything. I 
 was working for you, and I had found the way. It is 
 only a question of saving, not spending too much either 
 in business, or private, for a few years, rearranging the 
 credits. Mater, when I came home to-day I was full of 
 it. I had worked it all out, I wanted to show you my 
 papers, and the calculations. Then I found that fellow 
 here. He gave me a good order. The 'feather-weight' 
 was my pet field, and he opened the sluice-gate. But 
 then he let this cataract loose on me. I I don't like 
 it. You are only doing it for me ?" 
 
 "No."
 
 SEBASTIAN 377 
 
 "I know you are. If I thought you were doing it 
 because you liked him, I'd put my feelings on one side. 
 But I know what you do care about. Me, and Stella, 
 your writing, buying those prints and things, doing your 
 embroidery. It is not as if you had any temperament 
 even the pater wasn't wasn't really necessary to 
 you. You said yourself - 
 
 Sebastian was very moved. He could not bear to 
 think of his mother with a new husband, to think of his 
 father as replaced. He did not want Joe Wallingford's 
 money flowing through his business. He wanted to 
 build up, hold up, extend, push Rendalls, all by himself. 
 The pride in it was rooted in him, as it had been in his 
 father. But she was more tolerant of him than she had 
 ever been of her husband. Rendalls had ceased to be 
 contemptible since Sebastian spent his energies there. 
 
 "You would never have thought of doing it if I had 
 not made this one mistake of overtrading. Give me 
 another chance, mater, don't " he turned his back 
 so that she should not see his eyes "don't desert a 
 fellow." 
 
 She was greatly moved, the boy held the ultimate 
 core of her heart, and it would never be different . 
 What Joe offered her, tempted her with, left this un- 
 touched. If Sebastian had stopped then, had said no 
 more, she would then and there have promised anything 
 he asked, given up the kingdom into which she had 
 glanced ; it was still dim, and Joe's figure too large. 
 
 But now he began to speak again, of Pleasey, and of a 
 new hope that had come to him. 
 
 "Mater, she is so young, in some ways. I want you 
 to be with her. If it should happen to be a boy "
 
 378 SEBASTIAN 
 
 She was incredulous, startled, irrationally angered. 
 The words she had spoken crowded back upon her, more 
 bitter now in their staleness. Perhaps Stella was right, 
 all of them had been right, and she was unwomanly. 
 It seemed an outrage that Pleasey should be the mother 
 of Sebastian's son. No feeling stirred in her but anger. 
 Yet she knew he was standing there, waiting for sym- 
 pathy, expectant. Must she fail him? She made a 
 strong effort, an effort that robbed her of eloquence, and 
 she said, f alteringly : 
 
 "That is great news. Is it certain ?" 
 
 "Great, isn't it? We've always been pretty intimate, 
 more than most mother and sons, but this will make a 
 difference " 
 
 "You will want me less?" 
 
 "I shall understand you better. I know, even now, 
 more of how I must have disappointed you than I ever 
 did before. Already I want him to be something out 
 of the way. I wish I could wipe out that bad time of 
 mine. The pater would never have done the things I 
 did. I wish he could think of me as I think of the pater." 
 
 "You have nothing with which to reproach yourself. 
 I have had a better son than I deserved." 
 
 "You will like having a grandson?" 
 
 A hundred conflicting feelings took her conscience for 
 battle-ground, and fought silently. She saw she was 
 disappointing him. 
 
 "You are glad about it, aren't you?" 
 
 "I think it is what your Aunt Stella says sometimes 
 I am not soft enough, feminine enough. I ought to 
 be glad but you are so young it is another respon-
 
 SEBASTIAN 379 
 
 sibility for you." She was floundering in words, and 
 words were always so much to Vanessa. 
 
 "I like responsibility. And you will help us, won't 
 you? Pleasey is frightfully excited about it." 
 
 She tried to tell him of her unkindness to his wife, 
 but of that Sebastian was incredulous. 
 
 "Pleasey would have told me if she had thought any- 
 thing of it. But she never said a word, she doesn't 
 know how to bear malice. I daresay you have felt it, 
 she and me, you know, a sort of jealousy ! But it will 
 be different now. Mater, of course, we must call him 
 David - 
 
 "Or after your grandfather " 
 
 "Well, you see I never knew him. But about Walling- 
 ford. This makes it impossible, doesn't it? That is 
 why I told you to-night, although Pleasey wanted it 
 kept a secret. You will see her through, won't you ? 
 If I can get the money part right, you won't leave us ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 He went on talking for some time. She answered 
 him mechanically, the future had become darkened to 
 her, and she must grope her way. He stood between 
 her and her kingdom. But perhaps he was right, and 
 Stella was right, and it was not her kingdom at all, but 
 one set apart for other women, who had no gift of ex- 
 pression save this. They could express themselves in 
 loving speeches and caresses. For her there was the 
 pen. But to-night it seemed a dreary road she traversed, 
 and even her boy was indistinct.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 IT was agreed that Sebastian should tell Joe Walling- 
 ford he could not spare his mother. If it cost him the 
 order for the " feather- weight," dried up the source of 
 that river of capital, the boy was prepared to face it. 
 He was rather worried when the morning came, because 
 he had no letter from his wife, but he had no doubt any 
 longer of his capacity to meet the situation in Queen 
 Victoria Street. The pendulum had swung out again, 
 again optimism was the note. He had not forgotten his 
 plans; the figures, and notes the accountant had pre- 
 pared. 
 
 "We will put this house in the agents' hands, and let 
 it furnished, just as it is." 
 
 She was quite as ready as he to do whatever was neces- 
 sary, or advisable, but more ignorant as to how to pro- 
 ceed. They had carriages, and horses, motors, and men ; 
 it was difficult to rid herself quickly of her large establish- 
 ment. She offered to send the curios to Christie's, to 
 abandon china, prints, ivories, miniatures. She had 
 no fear of what the world might say, and a passionate 
 desire to get everything settled, to find herself again. 
 It was he who understood that they must not manage 
 affairs in this way, that they had more at stake than the 
 few hundreds, or few thousands, such a sale might bring. 
 
 "You must not do that, you must not make any 
 
 380
 
 SEBASTIAN 381 
 
 move that cannot be easily explained. To dismiss 
 some of the servants, and let the house furnished, is 
 quite enough to begin with. We don't want to set the 
 City talking, and have Kendalls in every one's mouth. 
 We will have to keep the motor anyhow, you can't live 
 in the country without a motor. You are not going to 
 be a pauper, only to live on a smaller income for a year 
 or two. You mustn't part with anything you care for, 
 only just be without them for a bit. I wish Pleasey had 
 written, I am afraid she is seedy. I shall run down my- 
 self if I don't hear by to-night. I wish now you or Bice 
 had gone with her. ..." 
 
 Vanessa offered, a little half-heartedly, to journey to 
 Eastbourne. If only she had not been so outspoken 
 that evening ! 
 
 "I am sure she isn't ill," she said. "The Alstons' 
 dance knocked her up, perhaps, and those few 
 words " 
 
 " Oh ! that is simply nonsense. Pleasey would not 
 take anything you said badly, after all you've done. 
 No, it is not that. I think I'll wire." 
 
 Vanessa undertook the wire, and to telephone the reply 
 to him to the City. She did not want to hear him talk 
 of Pleasey, would rather he had spoken of Joe ; she was 
 interested as to what Joe Wallingford's attitude would 
 be when Sebastian told him he would not hear of her 
 remarriage. 
 
 She need not have been anxious, Sebastian's decision 
 would not affect Wallingford's, but that, of course, she 
 only learnt later. 
 
 Joe came to the office in Queen Victoria Street soon
 
 382 SEBASTIAN 
 
 after Sebastian arrived there. He saw no sign of dif- 
 ficulties, or lack of money. Sebastian, ostentatiously 
 busy, perhaps a little dramatic, but that was instinct 
 with him, was giving and taking orders through the 
 telephone, dictating letters; an array of clerks waited 
 instructions and signatures, the whole place was shiny 
 with polished mahogany and brass, on the surface every- 
 thing reflected prosperity. 
 
 It was not in the boy to avoid posing to Joe, the older 
 man could smile on it, since he did not know all that the 
 pose concealed. 
 
 "Awfully good of you to come; get a chair for Mr. 
 Wallingford, Haines. You'll excuse me, won't you, if 
 I just finish off these letters, and set them all going? 
 Everything is on my shoulders, we don't do a small 
 trade here. Ever seen the telewriter at work? There 
 it is, in the corner, this is my private instrument." 
 
 The machinisation of the business was really admir- 
 able, but a scrap of conversation, here and there, enlight- 
 ened Joe, if he had needed enlightenment, as to the 
 underlying weakness. "Who? Draper. Oh, yes. Sell 
 it him at cost, we must get in there at any price." 
 
 "Jones and Taylor. Tell them we'll hold it for them, 
 they can call it up when they want it. Plenty of room 
 at the mills." 
 
 As far as it went, the boy was quite candid to Joe, 
 after the clerks had left the room, when they were alone. 
 
 " I hate any one else to get an order. I would rather 
 a thousand times give them the stuff, than hear of them 
 going elsewhere, once we have got a foot in with a good 
 firm. If I had enough capital at my back, I would
 
 SEBASTIAN 383 
 
 undersell the whole market. And from mill wrapping 
 to best hand-made, I would sell at cost. Wouldn't the 
 trade hum with me, you bet ? " 
 
 "If you are really convinced that would be a wise 
 plan, I don't think there need be any difficulty about 
 capital," the other answered, quietly, meaningly. 
 
 That brought Sebastian up rather sharply, and he 
 flushed. 
 
 "Oh! I say, that reminds me " he began, but 
 
 was interrupted by the buzz of the instrument on the 
 table, "excuse me a minute." 
 
 "That you, Bob? Mr. Hayling out of town? What 
 a bore ! Where's he gone ? Got a woman with him ! 
 Good for him. I wanted to speak to him about these 
 
 bills. What the devil did he mean You! No 
 
 thanks. I'll wait until Bob is through with his spree. 
 So long." He hung up the telephone. 
 
 "You can't play the prude in the City," he explained, 
 apologetically, "there is no real harm in Bob, though he 
 likes to pose as Don Juan. It is really about that stuff 
 you said you'd take that I want to see him." He was 
 uncomfortable, and a little embarrassed. "I believe 
 you didn't really need it, you only wanted to do me a 
 turn. It won't do, you know. There is no such thing 
 as friendship in business. The mater made a mistake, 
 we talked it out last night " 
 
 "Oh! you talked it out last night?" Joe sat quiet 
 for a minute ; he was vexed, if not overwhelmed. This 
 might mean delay, although nothing would alter his 
 determination. But he would rather have had the boy 
 with him, than against him; he had, perhaps, misun- 
 derstood him, he did not want to make another mistake.
 
 384 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "She doesn't want to do it," Sebastian went on, em- 
 phatic, though obscure. "It was only me she was 
 thinking of, and Kendalls. I am short of cash, I'll go 
 as far as that, I'll admit that, but nothing serious, noth- 
 ing I can't get out of " 
 
 "I never thought there was. I never doubted but 
 that you were solvent." 
 
 "So you see " 
 
 "I see no reason why you should refuse a good order." 
 
 "You mean " 
 
 "I mean I am going to print the autumn number on 
 the 'feather-weight.' Don't mix up one thing with 
 another. Now this limited partnership, this twenty- 
 five thousand pounds?" 
 
 "That is out of the question," he answered, shortly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I don't want it." 
 
 "Don't want to lay yourself under an obligation to 
 me?" 
 
 "Something like that." 
 
 "You think I'd use the position to force your mother's 
 hand?" 
 
 "Not exactly that." 
 
 "Then exactly what?" 
 
 Sebastian's discomfort passed away. After all, he 
 had always liked the fellow, and the mater was not 
 going to marry him. Sebastian grew his natural ego- 
 tistic self under Joe's influence. He told him he was 
 not afraid any longer of his "getting at" the mater, but 
 he liked to be on his own ; Kendalls was Kendalls, he did 
 not want a partner in it.
 
 SEBASTIAN 385 
 
 "You are fighting against odds, when you might have 
 the odds on your side; going into battle without am- 
 munition, when the arsenal is stocked." 
 
 "You can pay too dear for ammunition. I have 
 found that out already," he answered, ingenuously. 
 He did not want to talk any more about "obligation," 
 least of all did he want to talk about his mother. He 
 wished Joe would stick to business; to further his 
 wishes, he sent for the order clerk. 
 
 Joe saw samples of his purchase, and was satisfied as 
 to its maturing. He was also shown the "heavily 
 coated chromo," the imitation "art," produced by 
 water finish, and the "highly glazed super-calendered." 
 Sebastian was proud of his extensive stock, and he did 
 not get a customer like Joe Wallingford every day in 
 Queen Victoria Street. He kept him talking, plying 
 him ably. At last Joe rose to go. This was when the 
 telephone rang again : 
 
 "Wait a second," said Sebastian; "I want to show 
 
 you Yes, yes, I'm there, hurry up, we're Kendalls. 
 
 Who are you ? Oh ! Good God ! not Bob, not Bob ! 
 What! Where " 
 
 He stood at the telephone, irresolutely, and with 
 blanching cheeks. 
 
 "It is my friend Hayling, Bob Hayling. They have 
 just heard he has had a motor smash, they say, they 
 say " 
 
 Clerk, Joe, office routine, notwithstanding, Sebastian's 
 eyes filled. "I must go round; he was such a good 
 fellow, I can't believe it is hopeless." 
 
 But again the instrument was alive. 
 
 2o
 
 386 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You answer it, Haines, I am done for the minute. 
 They say, they say it is ... all over with him !" His 
 eyes asked for sympathy, and his voice was husky. 
 
 "I'll get my hat," he said to Joe; "I daresay I seem 
 
 an awful ass to you, but Bob and I, old Bob " He 
 
 was not ashamed to show his emotion. They had told 
 him that Bob was hopelessly injured, and Bob had been 
 his friend. 
 
 The clerk, secretly unsympathetic, for Hayling's firm 
 had done them some nasty turns, held the receiver : 
 
 "It's Mrs. Kendall, sir, your mother. She says she 
 would like to speak to you herself, she says it's very 
 important." 
 
 Sebastian made an effort, and recovered himself. He 
 took the receiver again : 
 
 "That you, mater? Like me to come home at once? 
 Me ! Why ! what's the matter, you're not ill, are you ? 
 Blast it, they've cut us off. Are you there? Are you 
 there ? Are you there ? " 
 
 The thing buzzed, but nothing came through. 
 
 Joe said : 
 
 "If she said she would like you to come straight home, 
 what is the use of trying to get on, it only means delay, 
 and more delay. We can get to Harley Street in fifteen 
 minutes, if the roads are fairly clear." 
 
 Sebastian did not resent the "we," he was quite weak 
 for the moment, full of apprehension. 
 
 "They will put us on again in a minute," he answered, 
 uncertainly. 
 
 " It won't alter the fact she asked you to come straight 
 home."
 
 SEBASTIAN 387 
 
 The men's eyes met. It is possible, in that moment, 
 Sebastian forgot he had opposed his mother's remarriage. 
 
 Joe hurried him into the car, gave his instructions. 
 
 "Perhaps it is Aunt Stella?" 
 
 "I hope so," Joe said, fervently. But he did not 
 mean it, he did not know what he hoped, or feared, as 
 they crawled through Cheapside, dashed along a side 
 street, got held up in Holborn, and yet reached Harley 
 Street within twenty minutes of that hasty summons. 
 
 Joe made no pretence of letting Sebastian go into the 
 house alone. Sebastian was seized with a horrible fear, 
 he was glad not to be alone. He had said half a dozen 
 times, "The mater must be all right," he could swear it 
 was her own voice he had heard. And yet he was white 
 with fear, sick with fear. 
 
 Vanessa met them both in the hall ; she, too, was glad 
 of Joe's presence. That it was no light matter he saw 
 in her eyes, and in the white set of her lips. And yet, it 
 was rather rage than grief, it was a whole tempest of 
 feeling he read there. It was shipwreck and death to 
 Sebastian ; and Sebastian was the innermost core of her 
 heart. 
 
 Of course there leapt from her to him, intuition, a 
 flash of certainty. He held out his hands as to if ward 
 it off: 
 
 "I can't bear it," he said, "mater, I can't bear it, it 
 it is Pleasey." 
 
 For half a second the hall went dark before his eyes, 
 reeled about him. 
 
 "Be a man," Joe said. Joe kept him from falling. 
 
 "Bring him in here." The dining-room was quite 
 near. Sebastian found it was steadier than the hall.
 
 388 SEBASTIAN 
 
 " Go on, drink it up." Joe made him swallow a liqueur 
 glass of brandy, and that brought his colour back, and 
 his full consciousness with it. Joe stood by his chair, 
 Vanessa behind it ; she did not know how to tell him her 
 news. 
 
 "I'm better now," he said, "go on. What has hap- 
 pened to her? Don't keep me in suspense. What 
 have you heard?" 
 
 "They must have been on the way to Folkestone," 
 she hesitated. 
 
 "They!" 
 
 "Mr. Hayling was with her." 
 
 "Hayling?" He needed Joe's support, the dining- 
 room was darker than the hall, and the beastly place 
 swayed. He was very glad of Joe's arm. 
 
 Vanessa went on, she had to break it to him : 
 
 "They were motoring together, had been together all 
 the time. There was a bad accident. Mr. Hayling 
 was practically killed on the spot. It is in the papers 
 already, that is why I asked you to come straight 
 home." 
 
 "Pleasey?" His eyes implored her, he must have 
 reassurance. 
 
 It was cruel of her to blurt out : 
 
 "What does it matter?" 
 
 Cruel, it was cruel of her, and yet she could not help it. 
 
 He put his hand on her dress. 
 
 "You didn't mean that, mater." His senses were 
 coming back to him, and his manhood. "You don't 
 know what you are saying. Why shouldn't they have 
 been together? You dare not think '
 
 SEBASTIAN 389 
 
 She knelt down by him, she could not bear to see his 
 face, to add to what was written there. 
 
 " I don't think, I won't think. My son, my son, teach 
 me to help you. What must we do ?" 
 
 " I must get to her as quickly as possible. Let me see 
 the paper, have you had a telegram? Wallingford will 
 lend us his car. I don't know what came over me, what 
 you have got hold of. Read it out." 
 
 She read it out, the brief newspaper account, shouted 
 in the streets, justifying the early second edition. She 
 heard them shouting even before the telegram had come 
 for Sebastian, never connecting it with herself, never 
 dreaming it was the knell of his happiness. 
 
 "Fatal motor accident. London gentleman killed 
 on the spot. Chauffeur unconscious. Lady dragged 
 from under car." 
 
 But she had more direct news than that. Pleasey 
 had been taken to the Cottage Hospital, at Rye. She 
 had been able to give her name and address, and the 
 authorities had telegraphed to her husband, never heed- 
 ing who she was with, nor why. And Vanessa had been 
 on the telephone to them since she sent for Sebastian. 
 
 Vanessa had no pity for Pleasey, although she heard 
 the shock had been severe, and that her courage had been 
 great ; nothing but indignation, too deep for words, and 
 a great horror. Those hopes, those hopes that now 
 would know no fruition ; were they, too, part of the dis- 
 simulation that had been practised on her son ? There 
 was no room for pity, and now, at last, she was glad she 
 had uttered those bitter words, even if they had pre- 
 cipitated the catastrophe.
 
 390 SEBASTIAN 
 
 But Sebastian would not listen, nor understand. The 
 mere physical shock of the news of the accident had 
 shaken him, but he recovered quickly. He thrust right 
 into the background anything surprising, or unexpected, 
 in his wife having been motoring with Bob. They might 
 have met at Eastbourne, why should she not drive with 
 him to Folkestone ? A hundred coincidences might have 
 brought about their meeting. Once his brain had 
 cleared, his loyalty stood firm, no shock could under- 
 mine that. 
 
 The accident had taken place between Winchelsea 
 and Rye; he knew the place well. His head might still 
 be swimming, and his legs unsteady, but what he wanted 
 was an A B C. 
 
 "Will it be any quicker if I motor you down?" Joe 
 said. 
 
 "You don't mean to say you are going?" she asked. 
 
 The boy's pallor now was indignant. 
 
 "The mater has got something in her head " 
 
 Joe's eyes met Vanessa; they said as clearly as if they 
 had been lips : 
 
 "This is not the moment . . . leave him alone. Let 
 it come to him gradually, if it must come." 
 
 And for once Vanessa obeyed. She busied herself in 
 getting wraps together, having a flask filled. None of 
 them wanted to think; action is the only relief in such a 
 crisis. 
 
 Bice, too, had seen the papers; now they heard her 
 voice in the hall. And she was as staunch as Sebastian, 
 although she knew Bob Hayling differently. She, too, 
 wanted to go to Pleasey, was proud and touched that
 
 SEBASTIAN 391 
 
 Sebastian asked it of her. Her mother was better this 
 morning, well enough to be left ; Aunt Vanessa could go 
 round to her. Bice was as practical as Vanessa. It was 
 quickly decided that train was easier, and more certain 
 than motor. Mr. Wallingford would take them to Vic- 
 toria; they had to hurry to catch the 12.14. 
 
 It was so completely taken out of Vanessa's hands that 
 she could only move in one direction, ignore as they ig- 
 nored, treat the accident as the beginning and end, what 
 led to it of no moment. Again and again Sebastian 
 made her repeat that Pleasey was not dangerously hurt, 
 that the hospital people who telephoned had con- 
 firmed the telegram. 
 
 "Mr. Hayling killed. Chauffeur's injuries severe. 
 Mrs. Kendall suffering shock." And this had been am- 
 plified verbally, but not altered. 
 
 "She is not seriously hurt," Vanessa repeated, "she 
 has not broken anything, and is quite conscious." 
 
 She could not say more. She was overwhelmed at 
 Sebastian's attitude. It was a relief when Joe had 
 driven off with him and Bice. At the last moment, 
 Sebastian called to her to have everything in readiness, 
 he shouted, "I shall try to get her back here as quickly 
 as possible. Ask Gifford to keep on the qui vive." 
 
 It was a relief to be left alone, not to have to feign 
 interest in Pleasey's state.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 VANESSA did not hear for some days that Pleasey's 
 injuries were of a more serious nature than had been at 
 first diagnosed, not in fact until the invalid was in- 
 stalled in those upstairs rooms, with a nurse and Dr. 
 Gifford in attendance. If there had been an explana- 
 tion between husband and wife, she was shut out of 
 Sebastian's confidence, and heard nothing of it. That 
 the boy was unhappy, desperately unhappy, his face 
 showed, that his unhappiness was due alone to his wife's 
 condition of health it was impossible to believe. For 
 the first time in his life he wanted to avoid a t&te-b-t&te 
 with his mother. In the evenings he sat in his wife's 
 room, in the mornings he came down late, and hurried 
 away to business. 
 
 People came and went in these strange days. The 
 Pleyden-Carrs filled the house, taking their meals there 
 as a matter of course, asking for perpetual brandies, or 
 whiskies and sodas, "keeping up their strength," as they 
 expressed it, talking disconnectedly of their troubles, 
 dilating on Pleasey's beauty and virtue, for ever explain- 
 ing, and explaining, that to which there was but one ex- 
 planation. And they were doing it all so blunderingly, 
 so badly ! " Mr. Hayling and Pleasey had been prac- 
 tically brought up together," was their unnecessary story. 
 They told lying, easily refuted anecdotes to prove the 
 
 392
 
 SEBASTIAN 393 
 
 fraternal nature of the regard that existed between them. 
 They made vague, unintentional admissions of an in- 
 timacy that had warranted presents of jewellery, of 
 clothes. They talked of Mr. Hayling's generosity to 
 Ambrose Pleyden-Carr, and of the great loss he would 
 be to them. Their wandering, unsteady eyes for ever 
 questioned Vanessa, for ever answered the doubts she 
 might be disposed to have, for ever attempted to obtain 
 some assurances that they, at least, should not lose if 
 Pleasey had made a mistake ! 
 
 It came to that before the inquest on Robert Hayling 
 was held, "if Pleasey had made a mistake!" The posi- 
 tion was so inexplicable, they were so desperately fright- 
 ened of having their daughter again on their hands. 
 They feared lest her fine position, and the benefits that 
 incidentally accrued to them therefrom should be lost 
 beyond recall. They could not rest away from Harley 
 Street. Often they brought with them the idiot girl in 
 the three-cornered hat; she was horribly like Pleasey, 
 making effort to attract attention from Sebastian, or 
 from Dr. Gifford, or from any one who came to the house, 
 unhappy in the manner of her infirmity. 
 
 Vanessa tried again and again to get speech with Se- 
 bastian, but something had for the moment stifled their 
 intimacy. She wanted to cry to him: "If I was harsh 
 that morning, have I not been justified?" But he gave 
 her no opening. Bice, too, who came in and out, for 
 whom Pleasey asked continuously, had no reassurance 
 for Vanessa; all her loyalty was up in arms for Pleasey, 
 and all her sympathy was for Sebastian. Here, in her 
 own house, Vanessa felt an intruder, or that they were
 
 394 SEBASTIAN 
 
 all intruders. It was grotesque and impossible; the 
 presence of the Pleyden-Carrs, Sebastian's reticence, his 
 unhappy face, younger, not older, in its misery, but 
 shutting her out of his confidence. She knew how it 
 was, of course. Whether pleading for herself, or in ex- 
 tenuation, his erring wife would have repeated to Se- 
 bastian some of the phrases that, she must have alleged, 
 had driven her forth ! And he was aching to hear ex- 
 tenuation, to be deceived, to believe anything that could 
 exonerate her. 
 
 "She was driven to it," he said, in one moment of 
 revealing agony; "if she did anything that she should 
 not, she was driven to it. You told her she was drag- 
 ging me down, useless and unwelcome here, that she had 
 ruined me by her extravagances " And then he had 
 got away. For his love of his mother warred with his 
 love for his wife, and, painfully throbbing in his open 
 wound, was an incredulous horror of unbelief that he 
 had been so mistreated by the girl to whom he had given 
 his love, and the name that had never been tarnished. 
 
 Joe Wallingford was invaluable to him at this juncture. 
 Joe kept out of Vanessa's way, this was not his moment. 
 But he saw that the Kendalls were properly represented 
 at the inquest on Robert Hayling, and, in truth, that 
 they had been well served beforehand. 
 
 The Pleyden-Carrs, Vanessa, Sebastian himself, could 
 hardly breathe until it was over, until they knew what 
 must be said, and what might be reported. And in the 
 end there was nothing to hurt them. The accident was 
 gone into, the steep hill outside Hastings, the climb 
 towards Winchelsea, the flock of sheep that caused the
 
 SEBASTIAN 395 
 
 swerve, the quick descent, the impetus that flung Mr. 
 Hayling from his seat; everything was described in 
 detail. The chauffeur had recovered; his injuries had 
 been greatly exaggerated. His evidence proved all that 
 was necessary; it scarcely transpired that there had 
 been a party of three. Good taste, good feeling, charac- 
 terised the reports. Newspapers do these things some- 
 times, give up " good copy " to save a good name. There 
 is free-masonry among reporters, and among newspaper 
 proprietors. Joe had never known his powers, nor used 
 them, as he used them in the Kendall interest. It was 
 doubtful if Vanessa knew what had been done for her, 
 but Sebastian knew. 
 
 And Joe was not inactive, either, in the City. It got 
 about, quite mysteriously, that Joe Wallingford was 
 "backing" Kendalls. Without a shilling changing 
 hands, nor any fresh capital introduced, difficulties 
 melted away. And Joe learnt to appreciate the boy, 
 whilst he helped him without touching his pride. It 
 was really a big thing he had been laying out, showing 
 invention, resource, energy, the highest order of business 
 ability. 
 
 "When I first offered you that twenty-five thousand 
 pounds, and asked if you would take me in, I admit it 
 was for other than business reasons," Joe said, bluntly, 
 some weeks later. "But, to-day, when I ask you again, 
 it is only as one business man to another. I see a great 
 future for Kendalls, a future in which I should be glad 
 to share." 
 
 It seems strange, now, when "Kendalls, Ltd.," have 
 stood the test of Stock Exchange valuation, and stand
 
 396 SEBASTIAN 
 
 at four times their par value, to think that there should 
 ever have been hesitation on one side, or another, over 
 the amalgamation that presently took place. But this 
 belongs to the region of history, rather than romance, and 
 Sebastian's talents have received their recognition. For 
 the moment, he was only glad that he had to work harder 
 than ever, that he could throw off in Queen Victoria 
 Street the troubles that lay in wait for him at home. 
 
 He knew it was with his wife that Bob had played Don 
 Juan for the last time, and he was tortured by doubts 
 and jealousy. And yet he could not part with her, nor 
 condemn her. She was ill, she might never be well again, 
 and between her and the world stood only himself. For 
 better or worse he had taken her. But it was not that 
 alone, it was that there was no condemnation of her in 
 him. She was weak, and the mater had been harsh to 
 her. His soul was one white fire of love for both women 
 who had betrayed him. He had his duty to both of 
 them. But it was not duty that paralysed his tongue 
 when he would tell Vanessa she must be hand in hand 
 with him in helping his weak wife back to her place, and 
 it was not duty that made him sit long, silent hours by 
 Pleasey's difficult bedside. It was love. 
 
 As the weeks went by, and Pleasey grew no better, the 
 agony of jealousy gave way to an almost equally unbear- 
 able pity. She had no one but him, he grudged the 
 hours now, as they stole her from him, he remembered 
 nothing but that he had always loved her. 
 
 It was Stella who advised Joe to wait no longer. The 
 time seemed ripe, for the position in Harley Street must 
 be intolerable, and the way out doubtful. Sebastian
 
 SEBASTIAN 397 
 
 had set the seal on his condonation. It was still not 
 clear what injuries Pleasey had sustained. But there she 
 was, installed in his mother's house, new doctors being 
 called in consultation, day and night nurses engaged to 
 help her, everything that money could do, or science 
 could suggest, surrounding her sick bed. 
 
 "I cannot keep Bice from going to her," Stella told 
 Joe: "if Sebastian is satisfied, and Vanessa quiescent, 
 they create a position we are bound to accept." 
 
 Bice knew nothing, suspected nothing, it was enough 
 for her that Pleasey clung to her, that Sebastian said 
 she was the only comfort he had. 
 
 No one could doubt Bice's devotion to Sebastian, call 
 it by what name they would cousinly love or sisterly 
 love, or sweetest love of all, the love that has friendship 
 for its sound base, mutual intimacies for its brickwork, 
 and for ornamentation, carven, imperishable moments 
 of sympathy and tenderness. 
 
 Bice loved Sebastian this way, or the other. She 
 vowed herself passionately to his service, even Stella 
 went a little short of attention in those worst days of 
 the illness. 
 
 It is possible that if Joe had been able to take im- 
 mediate advantage of Stella's suggestion, if he had 
 pressed home to Vanessa the expediency of getting 
 away at once from her surroundings, and the ease with 
 which she could accomplish it by means of a special 
 licence, and a commission to him to save her explana- 
 tion or argument, he would have achieved his desire. 
 For Vanessa was nearly at the end of her power of for- 
 bearance with all the Pleyden-Carrs.
 
 398 SEBASTIAN 
 
 She stayed away from the sick room, she could not 
 find it in her to show sympathy with what lay there, 
 and she was bitterly wounded and distressed at the 
 estrangement between herself and her son. Self- 
 reproach, the worst trouble of all, lay at the bottom 
 of all her other troubles. Her feelings toward Pleasey 
 never altered, were unalterable. But seeing, daily, 
 what parents she had had, what upbringing, and ex- 
 ample, she could not condemn as unreservedly as she 
 would have liked. The girl had had little chance to 
 live a decent life until her marriage. Then, what help 
 or incentive had Vanessa given? She had met her 
 with daily criticism, and harsh judgment. It was 
 justified, it was justified, it was justified, she said to 
 herself a dozen tunes a day, but never proved it. At 
 the greatest time of need in his life she had failed her 
 son. She knew it. And her eyes grew even as Stella's 
 eyes, and burned behind their lids with hot, continuous 
 tears, unshed, perhaps, but rising, rising in an ever- 
 gathering tide. 
 
 She might have taken Joe Wallingford had he asked 
 her then. There seemed no light in the horizon, and 
 alone in the cold and dark, one grasps at any warm 
 human hand. But Joe hesitated. And it was Sebas- 
 tian's hand she felt at length, putting her face down 
 upon it, that the tears might flow, and wash away what 
 had been between them. 
 
 That day yet another doctor had been called to say 
 why Pleasey made no move toward recovery, what 
 vital nerve had been attacked, why her strength ebbed, 
 and ebbed, and what would be the end. And that
 
 SEBASTIAN 399 
 
 verdict brought Sebastian to his mother when the 
 house was all quiet, and the Pleyden-Carrs had bor- 
 rowed their cab fare, and gone home with it, when 
 dreary day was succeeded by dreary evening, and 
 courage and patience were at their lowest ebb. 
 
 He came to her, as he had been wont to come to her, 
 silent at first of what was nearest to him. 
 
 "Business is waking up," was the way he began; 
 "they seem to have begun to believe in me again." 
 
 She was so glad of his presence here ; she hardly dared 
 answer lest the wrong words came. 
 
 "Money is coming in every day. Joe Wallingford's 
 order for the 'feather-weight' has practically cleared 
 us." 
 
 " He he was of use ? " 
 
 "Rather" and then a pause. "Mater, was I 
 selfish in hating to see him in the governor's place? 
 He is a good fellow, white all through. If if you 
 feel you could be happy with him 
 
 Sebastian stood up, he was leaning against the mantel- 
 piece, those sad young eyes of his seemed to see more 
 clearly than they had seen before. "I have filled up 
 your house, you hate all the Pleyden-Carrs. You hate 
 poor Pleasey ! I want to speak to you about that. 
 This is your house, and we are both here 
 
 "That is not fair, it is hardly fair. You know," she 
 did not mind now if he saw her hot eyes, "it is the 
 only comfort I have, that you should be here, that I 
 see you daily." 
 
 "You heard what the doctors said?" 
 
 "Months, perhaps, even years !"
 
 400 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "Yes!" There was hopelessness in his acquiescence. 
 "She can't get well, it is something to do with her 
 spine. God!" he broke down for a minute, "how 
 ghastly it is ! living death, the first time she ever had 
 a chance . . . and you, you sit and judge her!" 
 "She had been with him the three days." 
 "That makes no difference, it makes it worse for 
 her. She has lost Bob, too. Who am I, that I should 
 condemn her, or you? Nothing is as you see it, you 
 criticised her all the time, and it was love she needed, 
 poor little girl ! I ought never to have brought her 
 here. In your eyes she had a hundred little faults, 
 and those were all you saw. But they were so unim- 
 portant to me. I never thought I had married a woman 
 like you, strong, self-reliant, clever. I couldn't have 
 done that. That was the charm, she leaned on me. 
 Mater, she would have come more and more to lean on 
 me. She wouldn't have told me lies, she would have 
 understood in time that I loved her whatever she did. 
 If she spent too much money, I would have earned it 
 for her. You don't know how to care like I do. You 
 said bitter things to her, she was lonely and frightened. 
 And I was full of Queen Victoria Street. Bob had 
 always been kind to her. She has told me everything. 
 She went down to Eastbourne by herself, she was 
 frightened to face you again, after all you said. She 
 knew suddenly how you felt about her. Poor girl ! 
 And she thought of me; she did not want to tell me 
 about you, and so come between us. She felt so lonely, 
 she had no one to speak to. She wrote Bob, and asked 
 him if she had said anything about me, about my
 
 SEBASTIAN 401 
 
 affairs, she had not meant to harm me, and he was 
 to promise her not to use it. Mater, she was getting 
 to care for me. It was of me she was thinking, and 
 she was always sweet to me, always. She wrote from 
 Eastbourne, and Bob drove down to reassure her. He 
 was my best friend neither of them meant to wrong 
 me. You have the novelist's imagination; that is 
 what has led you away. And I have got to see too 
 much through your eyes. If it had even been true . . . 
 what you think, and if," his voice sank, "if, afterwards 
 it was God speaking, I I am silenced. Bob was on 
 his way to Paris. We had all been the Folkestone part 
 of the journey together. It was natural she should 
 want to go over the old ground. He had not arranged 
 to take the car to Paris, she was coming back to East- 
 bourne in it. You do believe this, don't you?" 
 
 What was she to say to him? He, too, flung it at 
 her that she was a novelist first, and only a woman 
 after that. Had she indeed wasted more than half 
 her life, her heart divided? Novelist, or mother, she 
 must speak now. Nothing but truth could clear the 
 clouds from between them, and let them see each other 
 face to face. 
 
 "And if I cannot believe it?" she asked. 
 
 The young face was grey with unhappiness, but it 
 was set on rigid lines. 
 
 "You must," he said, "you must." 
 
 "It will serve your purpose if I act as if I believed it." 
 
 "God! how hard you are, mater. Sometimes, 
 lately, since I have grown so uncertain of myself, so un- 
 happy, I have wondered about the pater, and you. . . ." 
 SB
 
 402 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "You think I I failed him too?" 
 
 "No, no. Only that, perhaps, he missed it. I can- 
 not quite explain myself. Loving any one as I love 
 Pleasey, teaches one such a lot. If you have not ever 
 felt just this love " 
 
 The speech that came was not the one she meant 
 to make: 
 
 "Whatever I have had, or missed, leaves the essen- 
 tials unchanged, my hatred of unchastity - 
 
 "Don't say it, mater, don't make things irrevocable 
 between us. You have been good to me, if it has 
 been from duty, as I sometimes thought, lately, or 
 from ambition, where I have thwarted, or disappointed 
 you, it hasn't seemed to matter until now. But now, 
 if you really care for me 
 
 It was hard, and difficult, after what he had said. 
 For she had loved him always, had loved nothing so 
 well, and he was questioning it. She told him that he 
 wronged her, with quivering lips. It did not need 
 many words. Then he was kneeling, with his face in 
 her lap: 
 
 " Forgive me, I am more unhappy than words can say." 
 
 She put her lips a moment to the black hair. 
 
 "I will help you. You know I will help you." 
 
 "It must make no difference, even, even if it is all 
 true. She she's never going to get well." 
 
 "But if she does, if she does?" 
 
 "It would make no difference. She belongs to me, 
 she gave herself to me. I swore to cherish her. I 
 I love her, nothing can alter it, nothing else matters." 
 
 "But years "
 
 SEBASTIAN 403 
 
 He got up from his knees, the moment was over, 
 was past, but they were nearer to each other through it. 
 
 "You are going to say she may linger for years." 
 
 "Be a burden round your neck, between you and 
 any other marriage, between you and such hopes as 
 those of which you told me so proudly. Sons, to carry 
 on the name " 
 
 He burst out : 
 
 "What would you have me do? My wife, she is 
 my wife, young, and in such trouble ! I pray to be 
 able to help her. Do you know, she calls out for me, 
 night after night? The nurse wakes me then, for she 
 is frightened, terrified lest I turn against her. I wouldn't 
 turn against her, if if even I knew everything was true. 
 You know I am right." 
 
 "All the hopes of your youth, all the joys of your 
 
 manhood, your right of life " It was almost a 
 
 moan. 
 
 "She sleeps more peacefully when I sit by her, she 
 calls for me when she is in her worst pain. Mater," 
 and the word was a cry, "I see you criticise me, judg- 
 ing, condemning both of us. I cannot bear it." And 
 again he came over to her, sat down beside her, leant 
 his head against her shoulder. 
 
 "Be like other fellows' mothers for once. I am so 
 done, so tired, so beat." She knew it was as Stella 
 had said, he wanted tenderness, petting. And she 
 took his hand, cold, not quite steady, in hers, she warmed 
 it against her face. 
 
 It is not to be supposed her judgment went with her
 
 404 SEBASTIAN 
 
 actions. She had to keep the love of her son. She 
 went into the sick room that very evening to make her 
 peace with the invalid. 
 
 "Here is the mater/' Sebastian announced. "She 
 has been wanting to see you these three weeks, but 
 the nurses make such a fuss about keeping you quiet." 
 
 It was not so difficult as Vanessa had feared. With- 
 out the paint, and without the powder, it was a puny 
 face that lay on the pillow, the blue eyes larger than 
 before, dull and pathetic, it was the face of a poor 
 sinner. 
 
 "You have not been up to see me before," Pleasey 
 complained. 
 
 "I did not know you would care to have me," Vanessa 
 answered, quietly, laying an uncertain hand on the pillow. 
 
 "It is dull, lying here so many hours alone," she 
 said, plaintively. 
 
 She had not grown more candid, she had known quite 
 well why Vanessa stayed away. 
 
 "I am glad you have come. It is lucky I am not 
 disfigured, isn't it?" It was not she who had altered, 
 it was Vanessa who must grow pitiful. "Dr. Gifford 
 said to-day even illness did not make me look like other 
 people." She looked to Sebastian for confirmation, 
 and he lay down beside her, and took her in his arms, 
 murmuring that she was more beautiful than ever, and 
 dearer. Vanessa found it hard to bear, any mother 
 would have found it hard to bear. But she won him, 
 she won both of them. 
 
 Within a week, Pleasey would have no day without 
 her, would be nursed, read to, comforted only by her
 
 SEBASTIAN 405 
 
 mother-in-law. She clung to these two, their strength 
 lifting her from where she had sunk. It was not in her to 
 be grateful, or really penitent, or ever frank, to face the 
 future, or repent the past. She made many poor ad- 
 missions, whenever pain, fatigue, or fear prompted her. 
 But the truth was not in her. And perhaps it was 
 best. For Sebastian had no wish to know anything but 
 that his mother and he were united in their tendance. 
 
 "Neither do I condemn thee; neither do I condemn 
 thee!" How often Vanessa said it, and it was never 
 true. She would leave them together sometimes, when 
 it became unbearable to think Sebastian's youth was 
 to be spent at the feet of this violated shrine, this poor 
 stale idol. She had to go through with her struggle alone. 
 
 But she did not misunderstand; she saw that he was 
 growing all the time. He, who had been an egoist, 
 now was proudest above all things when he alone could 
 soothe poor Pleasey to sleep. He, who had been selfish, 
 now found happiness when she kept him from work, 
 and from play, chaining him to the close room. His 
 heart was the heart of his father. What dumb distress 
 fell upon Vanessa when she knew that even so had David 
 been to her, had her need been the same. And yet she 
 could not even bear with him when he stumbled, or 
 coughed. Father and son, she was unmeet for either of 
 them. Not perhaps as Pleasey was unmeet, but yet 
 unloving. It was retribution that she suffered. But 
 in suffering she, too, grew slowly wise. 
 
 She would stay with them until the end, although Joe 
 urged his suit. He urged it too late; for, now, neither 
 Pleasey nor Sebastian were willing to give her up.
 
 406 SEBASTIAN 
 
 "I like to know you are in the house when I am in 
 the City, that if anything were wanted you are on the 
 spot," Sebastian pleaded. 
 
 And Pleasey, too, put in her plaint : 
 
 "Are you going out? Don't go out when mother is 
 here, she always wants something." 
 
 And, indeed, even the emergency bottle of brandy 
 by the bedside was not safe when Mrs. Pleyden-Carr's 
 emotion over her "dear daughter" became acute at sight 
 of the spirit. "Don't let them bring Zuley up to see 
 me; keep father downstairs." 
 
 Pleasey wanted none of her own people. She did not 
 wish to hear their troubles, nor relieve them. She wanted 
 to bask in comforts, with no thoughts for the morrow. 
 She liked her lace and silk new dressing-jackets, the 
 peaches, and grapes, and flowers Sebastian sent home, 
 the gold-backed hand-mirror Vanessa bought her to 
 keep under her pillow. She was greedy of gauds that 
 ceased to deck her, food for which she had small appetite, 
 attentions of which she grew ever more exacting. 
 
 Vanessa saw all that. Bice and Sebastian only saw, 
 and told each other, how bravely Pleasey bore her pain, 
 how little querulous she was, or fearful. 
 
 Joe tried argument. He came to Vanessa, straight 
 from the House, the day the Woman's Suffrage Bill had 
 been read for the first time, and the Government defeat 
 made a general election imminent. 
 
 "Your word was as good as given to me," he said. 
 "You promised that if the boy was satisfied, you would 
 not keep me waiting any longer. The boy said to me 
 only to-day: 'If it will make the mater happy, well,
 
 SEBASTIAN 407 
 
 that is all I care for. She is being an angel to me, and 
 to my poor girl, but I'll do without her, if she wants to 
 go.'" 
 
 "He said that!" 
 
 "What have you got if you stay? She may linger for 
 years " 
 
 "Weeks, Dr. Gifford says, not even months. He 
 thinks none of the consultants they have called in have 
 taken into consideration her feeble physique, bad family 
 history, the rapidity with which one symptom follows 
 another, and never a step gained." 
 
 "Well ! and then, and then? What afterwards?" 
 
 "Comforting him a little, please God." 
 
 " But for you, for yourself ? What are you going to 
 get out of it?" 
 
 She smiled then. She was content since the old con- 
 fidence was re-established between herself and Sebastian, 
 happier, perhaps, than she had been since the tragedy 
 of his marriage. She was helping him daily, hourly, 
 and often he said a grateful, or a tender, word to her, 
 a word that touched her more nearly than Joe's love- 
 making, although that, too, was not unwelcome. 
 
 "I am getting a great deal, learning so many things 
 I never knew before. I have missed what you would 
 give me, do not think I underrate it any longer." She 
 could blush, and she held out her hand to him, "You 
 have taught me something, too." 
 
 "Let me teach you more." 
 
 "No, no, no. I have not really altered. Characters 
 do not alter, they only develop. I want to write 
 what I have learned, I shall write so much better, you
 
 408 SEBASTIAN 
 
 know I shall write better, it is my mission, my only 
 strength." 
 
 ******* 
 
 She had learnt a great deal; and further knowledge 
 was not spared her. The thin tallow candle of poor 
 Pleasey's life spluttered out, as Dr. Gifford had predicted, 
 within a few short weeks. But it was in Bice's arms, 
 not his mother's, that Sebastian found his chiefest com- 
 fort. Both of them cried for Pleasey, they sobbed out 
 little stories of the courtship, and kissed, and cried, to- 
 gether. Vanessa was outside their reminiscences. 
 
 She comforted herself in her isolation: 
 
 " Who gives the best account of the feast ? 
 He who has none, and enjoyed it least " 
 
 and started on her masterpiece, almost before the heavy 
 scent of the funeral flowers had faded from the house. 
 
 And it proved her masterpiece. She had learnt some- 
 thing of human nature, and that paradoxes were not 
 its expression. "Earth's Crammed Full of Heaven" was 
 on a different plane to her other books, and the critics 
 were able to praise it unreservedly. 
 
 What she found strange, overwhelming even, was that 
 there was some savour lacking even in a literary success. 
 It was absurd to feel lonely, and isolated from life, when 
 a fourth edition was in the press ! But the absurdity 
 came to pass. 
 
 She had to admit as much to Joe Wallingford. 
 
 If he forced the syllogism home, in his own direct 
 way, he at least took care that she never was able to 
 completely controvert it. And the argument supplies 
 the salt of their daily intercourse.
 
 BY FRANK DANBY 
 
 The Heart of a Child 
 
 BEING PASSAGES FROM THE EARLY LIFE 
 OF SALLY SNAPE, LADY KIDDERMINSTER 
 
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 ' She has a man's sense of honor, coupled with a child's unconsciousness of 
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 BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 The Three Brothers 
 
 Cloth, $1.50 
 
 " ' The Three Brothers ' seems to us the best yet of the long series of these 
 remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we can think 
 that some of his pages would have been like some of these. Here certainly is 
 language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor of incident such as might 
 have come straight from Elizabeth's day. . . . The story has its tragedy, but 
 this is less dire, more reasonable than the tragedy is in too many of Mr. Phill- 
 potts's other tales. The book is full of a very moving interest, and it is agree- 
 able and beautiful." The New York Sun. 
 
 " That Eden Phillpotts is the greatest contemporary English novelist since 
 Hardy and Meredith have ceased writing, ' The Three Brothers ' will furnish 
 proof. . . . Any man who can appreciate a well-sustained plot, abundant 
 and true action, superb character-drawing, a crowded canvas with every figure 
 on it alive, standing out as clear and real as your own neighbors, ought to 
 read ' The Three Brothers.' 
 
 " It is a great novel. It has the vitality to outlive a thousand more popular 
 tales, and it is rich in wit and humor, sound thinking, fine feeling, insight and 
 truth." The Record-Herald, Chicago. 
 
 The Secret Woman 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF "CHILDREN OF THE MIST," ETC. 
 
 "Nothing could be more tenderly beautiful than the opening chapter of 
 this, Mr. Phillpotts's strongest story. . . . There cannot be two opinions as 
 to the interest and the power of 'The Secret Woman.' It is not only its 
 author's masterpiece, but it is far in advance of anything he has yet written 
 and that is to give it higher praise than almost any other comparison with 
 contemporary fiction could afford." The Times' Saturday Review, New 
 York. 
 
 " Sombre, passionate, intensely and poignantly dramatic, ' The Secret 
 Woman ' is by far the finest novel that Mr. Phillpotts has yet given us, and to 
 say this is to say a good deal. We do not hesitate to declare that the last 
 decade has produced, so far as our knowledge extends, only one English novel 
 of equal power and impressiveness." East Anglian Times, London. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
 
 Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS 
 
 Each, cloth, gilt tops and titles, 
 
 Mr. Crewels Career Illustrated 
 
 " Another chapter in his broad, epical delineation of the American spirit. 
 ... It is an honest and fair story. ... It is very interesting ; and the 
 heroine is a type of woman as fresh, original, and captivating as any that 
 has appeared in American novels for a long time past." The Outlook, 
 New York. 
 
 " Shows Mr. Churchill at his best. The flavor of his humor is of that 
 stimulating kind which asserts itself just the moment, as it were, after it has 
 passed the palate. ... As for Victoria, she has that quality of vivid fresh- 
 ness, tenderness, and independence which makes so many modern 
 American heroines delightful." The Times, London. 
 
 The Celebrity. An Episode 
 
 " No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for 
 years. ... It is the purest, keenest fun." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 Richard Carvel Illustrated 
 
 ". . . In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and 
 rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an 
 American romance." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 The Crossing Illustrated 
 
 " ' The Crossing ' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting 
 adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in 
 detail and in spirit." The Dial. 
 
 The Crisis Illustrated 
 
 " It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest. . . . The intense 
 political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown under- 
 standingly." - Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia. 
 
 Coniston Illustrated 
 
 " ' Coniston ' has a lighter, gayer spirit and a deeper, tenderer touch than 
 Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before. . . . It is one of the truest and 
 finest transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fic- 
 tion." Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PTTBLISHEBS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE
 
 By AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE 
 
 Each in decorated cloth cover, $ 1.50 
 
 Wroth 
 
 The first novel, as distinguished from more or less connected episodes, 
 by these authors since their charming " If Youth But Knew " appeared 
 some three years ago. 
 
 The Pride of Jennico 
 
 It is a story of brisk adventure and eager love amid unaccustomed scenes; 
 and it is told with such freshness and sincerity and breezy vigor of word 
 and sentiment as to captivate all readers, whether critical or careless. 
 "This lively story has a half-historic flavor which adds to its interest . . . 
 told with an intensity of style which almost takes away the breath of the 
 reader." Boston Transcript. 
 
 Young April 
 
 It is a delightful story of a runaway month, when the young Duke, care- 
 fully reared in every punctilio of his position, escapes into an atmosphere 
 of freedom, youth, and an April love, that knows nothing of lords. At 
 the end it is a very grave young Duke who comes into his title, because 
 "noblesse oblige" and yet one who sometimes wears with all his quiet 
 dignity a gently reminiscent smile. 
 
 If Youth But Knew 
 
 "One of the most spirited, moving, colorful, and fairly enchanting novels 
 written in many a day a book that moves one to be optimistic of the 
 quality of modern fiction." Republic (St. Louis). 
 
 "My Merry Rockhurst" 
 
 " In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are here 
 gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the fragrant 
 charm of those books, like 'The Pride of Jennico,' in which they first 
 showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances. 
 " It is not the romance of mere intrigue and sword-play that the authors 
 make their leading motive. . . . The book is absorbing, and it is, into 
 the bargain, as spontaneous in feeling as it is artistic in execution." 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 Flower o f the Orange and 
 Other Tales of By-gone Days 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE
 
 NOVELS, ETC., BY "BARBARA" 
 
 (MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT) 
 
 Each, in decorated cloth binding, $1.50 
 
 The Garden of a Commuter's Wife Illustrated 
 
 " Reading it is like having the entry into a home of the class that is the 
 proudest product of our land, a home where love of books and love of 
 nature go hand in hand with hearty, simple love of ' folks.' ... It is a 
 charming book." The Interior. 
 
 People of the Whirlpool Illustrated 
 
 " The whole book is delicious, with its wise and kindly humor, its just per- 
 spective of the true values of things, its clever pen pictures of people and 
 customs, and its healthy optimism for the great world in general." 
 Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 
 
 The Woman Errant 
 
 " The book is worth reading. It will cause discussion. It is an interest- 
 ing fictional presentation of an important modern question, treated with 
 fascinating feminine adroitness." Miss JEANNETTE GILDER in The Chi- 
 cago Tribune. 
 
 At the Sign of the Fox 
 
 " Her little pictures of country life are fragrant with a genuine love of 
 nature, and there is fun as genuine in her notes on rural character. A 
 travelling pieman is one of her most lovable personages ; another is Tatters, 
 a dog, who is humanly winsome and wise, and will not soon be forgotten 
 by the reader of this very entertaining book." New York Tribune. 
 
 The Garden, You and I 
 
 "This volume is simply the best she has yet put forth, and quite too deli- 
 ciously torturing to the reviewer, whose only garden is in Spain. . . . The 
 delightful humor which pervaded the earlier books, and without which 
 Barbara would not be Barbara, has lost nothing of its poignancy, and 
 would make ' The Garden, You and I ' pleasant reading even to the man 
 who doesn't know a pink from a phlox or a Daphne cneorum from a 
 Cherokee rose." Congregationalist. 
 
 The Open Window* Tales of the Months. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK
 
 mil iii f iii ii inn in jj mil dm in mi 
 
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