.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 41752
   :PG.Title: The City of Beautiful Nonsense
   :PG.Released: 2013-01-01
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \E. Temple Thurston
   :DC.Title: The City of Beautiful Nonsense
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1909
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE
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   .. _`Cover`:

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      Cover

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      THE CITY OF
      BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE

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      BY

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      E. TEMPLE THURSTON

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      AUTHOR OF
      "The Apple of Eden," "Mirage," etc.

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      NEW YORK
      DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
      1911

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      Copyright, 1900, by
      DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

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      *Published, September, 1909*

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      *Dedicated to*
      ROSINA FILIPPI,
      *to whom I am indebted for the gift of
      laughter which I hope has crept its way
      into the pages of this book.*

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      LONDON, 18, 3, '09.

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   CONTENTS

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   BOOK I

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   THE ROAD TO THE CITY

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   CHAPTER

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   I. `A Prelude on the Eve of St. Joseph's Day`_
   II. `The Last Candle`_
   III. `The Greengrocer's--Fetter Lane`_
   IV. `What to Call a Hero`_
   V. `The Ballad-Monger--Fetter Lane`_
   VI. `Of Kensington Gardens`_
   VII. `The Voyage of the Good Ship Albatross`_
   VIII. `The Fateful Ticket-Puncher`_
   IX. `The Art of Hieroglyphics`_
   X. `The Need for Intuition`_
   XI. `A Side-Light Upon Appearances`_
   XII. `The Chapel of Unredemption`_
   XIII. `The Inventory`_
   XIV. `The Way to Find Out`_
   XV. `What is Hidden by a Camisole`_
   XVI. `Easter Sunday`_
   XVII. `The Fly in the Amber`_
   XVIII. `The Nonsense-Maker`_
   XIX. `The Mr. Chesterton`_
   XX. `Why Jill Prayed To St. Joseph`_
   XXI. `The City Of Beautiful Nonsense`_

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   BOOK II

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   THE TUNNEL

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   XXII. `The Heart of the Shadow`_
   XXIII. `Amber`_

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  BOOK III

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   THE CITY

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   XXIV. `The Palazzo Capello`_
   XXV. `The Letter--Venice`_
   XXVI. `The Return--Venice`_
   XXVII. `The True Mother`_
   XXVIII. `The Treasure Shop`_
   XXIX. `The Candle for St. Anthony`_
   XXX. `The Qualities of Ignatia`_
   XXXI. `The Sacrifice`_
   XXXII. `The Departure--Venice`_
   XXXIII. `The 16th of February--London`_
   XXXIV. `The Dissoluble Bondage`_
   XXXV. `The Wonder of Belief`_
   XXXVI. `The Passing`_
   XXXVII. `The Circular Tour`_
   XXXVIII. `A Process of Honesty`_
   XXXIX. `The End of the Loom`_

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.. _`A PRELUDE ON THE EVE OF ST. JOSEPH'S DAY`:

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   BOOK I

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   THE ROAD TO THE CITY

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   The City of Beautiful Nonsense

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   CHAPTER I

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   A PRELUDE ON THE EVE OF ST. JOSEPH'S DAY

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Of course, the eighteenth of March--but it is out
of the question to say upon which day of the week
it fell.

It was half-past seven in the evening.  At
half-past seven it is dark, the lamps are lighted, the
houses huddle together in groups.  They have
secrets to tell as soon as it is dark.  Ah!  If you
knew the secrets that houses are telling when the
shadows draw them so close together!  But you
never will know.  They close their eyes and they
whisper.

Around the fields of Lincoln's Inn it was as still
as the grave.  The footsteps of a lawyer's clerk
hurrying late away from chambers vibrated through
the intense quiet.  You heard each step to the
very last.  So long as you could see him, you heard
them plainly; then he vanished behind the curtain
of shadows, the sounds became muffled, and at last
the silence crept back into the Fields--crept all
round you, half eager, half reluctant, like sleepy
children drawn from their beds to hear the end of
a fairy story.

There was a fairy story to be told, too.

It began that night of the eighteenth of
March--the Eve of St. Joseph's day.

I don't know what it is about St. Joseph, but of
all those saints who crowd their hallowed names
upon the calendar--and, good heavens! there are
so many--he seems most worthy of canonisation.
In the fervent fanaticism of faith, the virtue of a
martyr's death is almost its own reward; but to
live on in the belief of that miracle which offers to
crush marital happiness, scattering family honour
like dust before the four winds of heaven--that
surely was the noblest martyrdom of all.

There is probably enough faith left in some
to-day to give up their lives for their religion; but I
know of no man who would allow his faith to
intercede for the honour of his wife's good name when
once the hand of circumstance had played so
conjuring a trick upon him.

And so, amongst Roman Catholics, who, when it
comes to matters of faith, are like children at a
fair, even the spirit of condolence seems to have
crept its way into their attitude towards this
simple-minded man.

"Poor St. Joseph," they say--"I always get
what I want from him.  I've never known him to
fail."

Or--"Poor St. Joseph--he's not a bit of good
to me.  I always pray to the Blessed Virgin for
everything I want."

Could anything be more childlike, more ingenuous,
more like a game in a nursery--the only place
in the world where things are really believed.

Every saint possesses his own separate quality,
efficacious in its own separate way.  St. Rock holds
the magic philtre of health; you pray to St. Anthony
to recover all those things that were lost--and
how palpably stand out the times when, rising
from your knees, your search was successful, how
readily those times drop into oblivion when you
failed.  It is impossible to enumerate all the saints
and their qualities crowding the pages of those
many volumes of *Butler's Lives*.  For safety at sea,
for instance, St. Gerald is unsurpassed; but
St. Joseph--poor St. Joseph!--from him flow all those
good things which money can buy--the children's
toys, the woman's pin money and the luxuries which
are the necessities of the man.

Think, if you can--if you can conjure before your
mind's eye--of all the things that must happen on
that eve of the feast day of St. Joseph.  How many
thousands of knees are bent, how many thousand
jaded bodies and hungry souls whisper the name of
poor St. Joseph?  The prayers for that glitter of
gold, that shine of silver and that jangling of
copper are surely too numerous to count.  What a
busy day it must be where those prayers are heard!
What hopes must be born that night and what
responsibilities lightened!  Try and count the candles
that are lighted before the shrine of St. Joseph!
It is impossible.

It all resolves itself into a simple mathematical
calculation.  Tell me how many poor there are--and
I will tell you how many candles are burnt, how
many prayers are prayed, and how many hopes are
born on the eve of St. Joseph's day.

And how many poor are there in the world?

The bell was toning for eight o'clock Benediction
at the Sardinia St. Chapel on that evening of the
eighteenth of March--Sardinia St. Chapel, which
stands so tremulously in the shadows of Lincoln's
Inn Fields--tremulously, because any day the
decision of the council of a few men may rase it
ruthlessly to the ground.

Amongst all the figures kneeling there in the dim
candle-light, their shoulders hunched, their heads
sinking deeply in their hands, there was not one but
on whose lips the name of poor St. Joseph lingered
in earnest or piteous appeal.

These were the poor of the earth, and who and
what were they?

There was a stock-broker who paid a rent of some
three hundred pounds a year for his offices in the
City, a rent of one hundred and fifty for his
chambers in Temple Gardens, and whose house in the
country was kept in all the splendour of wealth.

Behind him--he sat in a pew by himself--was a
lady wearing a heavy fur coat.  She was young.
Twenty-three at the utmost.  There was nothing to
tell from her, but her bent head, that the need of
money could ever enter into her consideration.  She
also was in a pew alone.  Behind her sat three
servant girls.  On the other side of the aisle,
parallel with the lady in the fur coat, there was a young
man--a writer--a journalist--a driver of the pen,
whose greatest source of poverty was his ambition.

Kneeling behind him at various distances, there
were a clerk, a bank manager, a charwoman; and
behind all these, at the end of the chapel, devout,
intent, and as earnest as the rest, were four Italian
organ-grinders.

These are the poor of the earth.  They are not
a class.  They are every class.  Poverty is not a
condition of some; it is a condition of all.  Those things
we desire are so far removed from those which we
obtain, that all of us are paupers.  And so, that
simple arithmetical problem must remain unsolved;
for it is impossible to tell the poor of this
world and, therefore, just so impossible it is to count
the candles that are burnt, the prayers that are
prayed or the hopes that are born on the eve of
St. Joseph's day.





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.. _`THE LAST CANDLE`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE LAST CANDLE

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When the Benediction was over and the priest had
passed in procession with the acolytes into the
mysterious shadows behind the altar, the little
congregation rose slowly to its feet.

One by one they approached the altar of
St. Joseph.  One by one their pennies rattled into the
brown wooden box as they took out their candles,
and soon the sconce before the painted image of
that simple-minded saint was ablaze with little
points of light.

There is nature in everything; as much in lighting
candles for poor St. Joseph as you will find in
the most momentous decision of a life-time.

The wealthy stock-broker, counting with care
two pennies from amongst a handful of silver, was
servant to the impulses of his nature.  It crossed
his mind that they must be only farthing candles--a
penny, therefore, was a very profitable return--the
Church was too grasping.  He would buy
no more than two.  Why should the Church profit
seventy-five per cent. upon his faith?  He gave
generously to the collection.  It may be questioned,
too, why St. Joseph should give him what he had
asked, a transaction which brought no apparent
profit to St. Joseph at all?  He did not appreciate
that side of it.  He had prayed that a speculation
involving some thousands of pounds should prove
successful.  If his prayer were granted, he would be
the richer by twenty per cent. upon his investment--but
not seventy-five, oh, no--not seventy-five!  And
so those two pennies assumed the proportions of
an exactment which he grudgingly bestowed.  They
rattled in his ear as they fell.

After him followed the charwoman.  Crossing
herself, she bobbed before the image.  Her money was
already in her hand.  All through the service, she
had gripped it in a perspiring palm, fearing that
it might be lost.  Three-penny-bits are mischievous
little coins.  She gave out a gentle sigh of relief
when at last she heard it tinkle in the box.  It was
safe there.  That was its destination.  The three
farthing candles became hers.  She lit them
lovingly.  Three children there were, waiting in some
tenement buildings for her return.  As she put each
candle in its socket, she whispered each separate
name--John--Mary--Michael.  There was not one
for herself.

Then came the clerk.  He lit four.  They
represented the sum of coppers that he had.  It might
have bought a packet of cigarettes.  He looked
pensively at the four candles he had lighted in the
sconce, then turned, fatalistically, on his heel.  After
all, what good could four farthing candles do to poor
St. Joseph?  Perhaps he had been a fool--perhaps
it was a waste of money.

Following him was the bank manager.  Six candles
he took out of the brown wooden box.  Every
year he lit six.  He had never lit more; he had
never lit less.  He lit them hurriedly,
self-consciously, as though he were ashamed of so many
and, turning quickly away, did not notice that the
wick of one of them had burnt down and gone out.

The first servant girl who came after him, lifted
it out of the socket and lit it at another flame.

"I'm going to let that do for me," she whispered
to the servant girl behind her.  "I lit it--it 'ud
a' been like that to-morrow if I 'adn't a' lit it."

Seeing her companion's expression of contempt,
she giggled nervously.  She must have been glad to
get away down into the shadows of the church.
There, she slipped into an empty pew and sank on
to her knees.

"Please Gawd, forgive me," she whispered.  "I
know it was mean of me," and she tried to
summon the courage to go back and light a new candle.
But the courage was not there.  It requires more
courage than you would think.

At last all had gone but the lady in the heavy
fur coat and the writer--the journalist--the driver
of the pen.  There was a flood of light from all
the candles at the little altar, the church was empty,
everything was still; but there these two remained,
kneeling silently in their separate pews.

What need was there in the heart of her that
kept her so patiently upon her knees?  Some
pressing desire, you may be sure--some want that women
have and only women understand.  And what was
the need in him?  Not money!  Nothing that
St. Joseph could give.  He had no money.  One penny
was lying contentedly at the bottom of his pocket.
That, at the moment, was all he had in the world.
It is mostly when you have many possessions that
you need the possession of more.  To own one penny,
knowing that there is no immediate possibility of
owning another, that is as near contentment as one
can well-nigh reach.

Then why did he wait on upon his knees?  What
was the need in the heart of him?  Nature
again--human nature, too--simply the need to know the
need in her.  That was all.

Ten minutes passed.  He watched her through
the interstices of his fingers.  But she did not move.
At last, despairing of any further discovery than
that you may wear a fur coat costing thirty guineas
and still be poor, still pray to St. Joseph, he rose
slowly to his feet.

Almost immediately afterwards, she followed him.

He walked directly to the altar and his penny
had jangled in the box before he became aware that
there was only one candle left.

He looked back.  The lady was waiting.  The
impulse came in a moment.  He stood aside and
left the candle where it was.  Then he slowly turned
away.

There are moments in life when playful Circumstance
links hands with a light-hearted Fate, and
the two combined execute as dainty an impromptu
dance of events as would take the wit of a man some
months of thought to rehearse.

Here you have a man, a woman, and a candle
destined for the altar of St. Joseph, all flung
together in an empty church by the playful hand of
Circumstance and out of so strange a medley comes
a fairy story--the story of the City of Beautiful
Nonsense--a dream or a reality--they are one and
the same thing--a little piece of colour in the
great patchwork which views the souls still sleeping.

He knew, as he slowly turned away, that the
matter did not end there.  You must not only be a
student of human nature in order to drive a pen.
Circumstance must be anticipated as well.  There may
be nature in everything, but it is the playful hand
of Circumstance which brings it to your eyes.  So,
he slowly turned away--oh, but very slowly--with
just so much show of action as was necessary to
convey that he had no intention to remain.

But every sense in him was ready for the moment
when her voice arrested him.

"You have not," said she, "taken the candle that
you paid for."  Her voice was low to a whisper.

He came round on his heel at once.

"No--it's the last.  I didn't notice that when I
dropped my penny in."

"But you ought to take it."

"I left it for you."

"But why should you?"

"It seemed possible that you might want to light
it more than I did."

What did he mean by that?  That she was poor,
poorer than he?  That the generosity of St. Joseph
was of greater account to her?  It was.  It
must be surely.  No one could need more sorely the
assistance of the powers of heaven than she did then.

But why should he know?  Why should he think
that?  Had it been that poor charwoman--oh, yes.
But--she looked at his serviceable blue serge suit,
compared it instinctively with the luxury of her
heavy fur coat--why should he think that of her?

"I don't see why I should accept your
generosity," she whispered.

He smiled.

"I offer it to St. Joseph," said he.

She took up the candle.

"I shouldn't be surprised if he found your
offering the more acceptable of the two."

He watched her light it; he watched her place it
in an empty socket.  He noticed her
hands--delicate--white--fingers that tapered to the dainty
finger nails.  What could it have been that she had been
praying for?

"Well--I don't suppose St. Joseph is very particular,"
he said with a humorous twist of the lip.

"Don't you?  Poor St. Joseph!"

She crossed herself and turned away from the altar.

"Now--I owe you a penny," she added.

She held out the coin, but he made no motion to
take it.

"I'd rather not be robbed," said he, "of a
fraction of my offer to St. Joseph.  Would you mind
very much if you continued to owe?"

"As you wish."  She withdrew her hand.  "Then,
thank you very much.  Good-night."

"Good-night."

He walked slowly after her down the church.  It
had been a delicate stringing of moments on a
slender thread of incident--that was all.  It had
yielded nothing.  She left him just as ignorant as
before.  He knew no better why she had been
praying so earnestly to poor St. Joseph.

But then, when you know what a woman prays
for, you know the deepest secret of her heart.  And
it is impossible to learn the deepest secret of a
woman's heart in ten minutes; though you may
more likely arrive at it then, than in a life-time.





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.. _`THE GREENGROCER'S--FETTER LANE`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   THE GREENGROCER'S--FETTER LANE

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Two or three years ago, there was a certain
greengrocer's shop in Fetter Lane.  The front window
had been removed, the better to expose the display
of fruits and vegetables which were arranged on
gradually ascending tiers, completely obstructing
your vision into the shop itself.  Oranges, bananas,
potatoes, apples, dates--all pressed together in the
condition in which they had arrived at the London
docks, ballast for the good ship that brought
them--carrots and cauliflowers, all in separate little
compartments, were huddled together on the ascending
rows of shelves like colours that a painter leaves
negligently upon his palette.

At night, a double gas jet blew in the wind just
outside, deepening the contrasts, the oranges with
the dull earth brown of the potatoes, the bright
yellow bananas with the sheen of blue on the green
cabbages!  Oh, that sheen of blue on the green
cabbages!  It was all the more beautiful for being
an effect rather than a real colour.  How an artist
would have loved it!

These greengrocers' shops and stalls are really
most picturesque, so much more savoury, too, than
any other shop--except a chemist's.  Of course,
there is nothing to equal that wholesome smell of
brown Windsor soap which pervades even the most
cash of all cash chemist's!  An up-to-date fruiterer's
in Piccadilly may have as fine an odour, perhaps;
but then an up-to-date fruiterer is not a greengrocer.
He does not dream of calling himself such.  They
are greengrocers in Fetter Lane--greengrocers in
the Edgware Road--greengrocers in old Drury, but
fruiterers in Piccadilly.

Compared, then, with the ham and beef shop, the
fish-monger's, and the inevitable oil shop, where, in
such neighbourhoods as these, you buy everything,
this greengrocer's was a welcome oasis in a desert
of unsavoury smells and gloomy surroundings.  The
colours it displayed, the brilliant flame of that
pyramid of oranges, those rosy cheeks of the apples, that
glaring yellow cluster of bananas hanging from a
hook in the ceiling, and the soft green background
of cabbages, cauliflowers and every other green
vegetable which chanced to be in season, with one last
touch of all, some beetroot, cut and bleeding,
colour that an emperor might wear, combined to make
that little greengrocer's shop in Fetter Lane the
one saving clause in an otherwise dreary scheme.
It cheered you as you passed it by.  You felt
thankful for it.  Those oranges looked clean and
wholesome.  They shone in the light of that double
gas jet.  They had every reason to shine.  Mrs. Meakin
rubbed them with her apron every morning
when she built up that perilous pyramid.  She
rubbed the apples, too, until their faces glowed,
glowed like children ready to start for school.
When you looked at them you thought of the
country, the orchards where they had been gathered, and
Fetter Lane, with all its hawkers' cries and screaming
children, vanished from your senses.  You do
not get that sort of an impression when you look
in the window of a ham and beef shop.  A plate of
sliced ham, on which two or three flies crawl lazily,
a pan of sausages, sizzling in their own fat, bear
no relation to anything higher than the unfastidious
appetite of a hungry man.

That sort of shop, you pass by quickly; but, even
if you had not wished to buy anything, you might
have hesitated, then stopped before Mrs. Meakin's
little greengrocer's stall in Fetter Lane.

Mrs. Meakin was very fat.  She had a face like
an apple--not an apple just picked, but one that
has been lying on the straw in a loft through the
winter, well-preserved, losing none of its flavour,
but the skin of which is wrinkled and shrivelled with
age.  On a wooden chair without any back to it,
she sat in the shop all day long, inhaling that
healthy, cleanly smell of good mother earth which
clung about the sacks of potatoes.  Here it was
she waited for the advent of customers.  Whenever
they appeared at the door, she paused for a
moment, judging from their attitude the likelihood of
their custom, then, slapping both hands on her
knees, she would rise slowly to her feet.

She was a good woman of business, was Mrs. Meakin,
with a capable way of explaining how poor
the season was for whatever fruit or vegetable her
customers wished to purchase.  It must not be
supposed that under this pretence she demanded higher
prices than were being asked elsewhere.  Oh--not at
all!  Honesty was written in her face.  It was only
that she succeeded in persuading her customers that
under the circumstances they got their vegetables
at a reasonable price and, going away quite
contented, they were willing to return again.

But what in the name, even of everything that is
unreasonable have the greengrocery business and
the premises of Mrs. Meakin to do with the City of
Beautiful Nonsense?  Is it part of the Nonsense to
jump from a trade in candles before the altar of
St. Joseph to a trade in oranges in Fetter Lane?  Yet
there is no nonsense in it.  In this fairy story, the
two are intimately related.

This is how it happens.  The house, in which
Mrs. Meakin's shop was on the ground floor, was
three stories high and, on the first floor above the
shop itself, lived John Grey, the journalist, the
writer, the driver of the pen, the at-present
unexplained figure in this story who offered his gift of
generosity to St. Joseph, in order that the other
as-yet-unexplained figure of the lady in the heavy
fur coat should gratify her desire to light the last
candle and place it in the sconce--a seal upon the
deed of her supplication.

So then it is we have dealings with Mrs. Meakin
and her greengrocery business in Fetter Lane.  This
little shop, with such generous show of brilliant
colours in the midst of its drab grey surroundings, is
part of the atmosphere, all part of this fairy-tale
romance which began on the eighteenth of March--oh,
how many years ago?  Before Kingsway was
built, before Holywell Street bit the dust in which it
had grovelled for so long.

And so, I venture, that it is well you should see
this small shop of Mrs. Meakin's, with its splashes
of orange and red, its daubs of crimson and
yellow--see it in your mind's eye--see it when the
shadows of the houses fall on it in the morning, when
the sun touches it at mid-day--when the double gas
jet illuminates it at night, for you will never see
it in real life now.  Mrs. Meakin gave up the
business a year or so ago.  She went to live in the
country, and there she has a kitchen garden of her own;
there she grows her own cabbages, her own
potatoes and her own beetroot.  And her face is still
like an apple--an older apple to be sure--an apple
that has lain in the straw in a large roomy loft,
lain there all through the winter and--been
forgotten, left behind.





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.. _`WHAT TO CALL A HERO`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   WHAT TO CALL A HERO

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John Grey is scarcely the name for a hero; not
the sort of name you would choose of your own free
will if the telling of a fairy story was placed
unreservedly in your hands.  If every latitude were
offered you, quite possibly you would select the
name of Raoul or Rudolfe--some name, at least, that
had a ring in it as it left the tongue.  They say,
however, that by any other name a rose would smell
as sweet.  Oh--but I cannot believe that is
true--good heavens! think of the pleasure you would lose
if you had to call it a turnip!

And yet I lose no pleasure, no sense of mine is
jarred when I call my hero--John Grey.  But if
I do lose no pleasure, it is with a very good reason.
It is because I have no other alternative.  John
Grey was a real person.  He lived.  He lived, too,
over that identical little greengrocer's shop of
Mrs. Meakin's in Fetter Lane and, though there was a
private side entrance from the street, he often
passed through the shop in order to smell the
wholesome smell of good mother earth, to look at the
rosy cheeks of the apples, to wish he was in the
country, and to say just a few words to the good
lady of the shop.

To the rest of the inhabitants of the house, even
to Mrs. Meakin herself, he was a mystery.  They
never quite understood why he lived there.  The
woman who looked after his rooms, waking him at
nine o'clock in the morning, making his cup of
coffee, lingering with a duster in his sitting-room
until he was dressed, then lingering over the making
of his bed in the bedroom until it was eleven o'clock--the
time of her departure--even she was reticent
about him.

There is a reticence amongst the lower classes
which is a combination of ignorance of facts and a
supreme lack of imagination.  This was the
reticence of Mrs. Rowse.  She knew nothing; she could
invent nothing; so she said nothing.  They plied
her with questions in vain.  He received a lot of
letters, she said, some with crests on the envelopes.
She used to look at these in wonder before she
brought them into his bedroom.  They might have
been coronets for the awe in which she held them;
but in themselves they explained nothing, merely
added, in fact, to the mystery which surrounded him.
Who was he?  What was he?  He dressed well--not
always, but the clothes were there had he liked
to wear them.  Three times a week, sometimes more,
sometimes less, he donned evening dress, stuck an
opera hat on his head and Mrs. Meakin would see
him pass down the Lane in front of her shop.  If
she went to the door to watch him, which quite
frequently she did, it was ten chances to one that he
would stop a passing hansom, get into it, and drive
away.  The good lady would watch it with her eyes
as it wheeled round into Holborn, and then,
returning to her backless chair, exclaim:

"Well--my word--he's a puzzle, he is--there's
no tellin' what he mightn't be in disguise--" by
which she conveyed to herself and anyone who was
there to listen, so wrapt, so entangled a sense of
mystery as would need the entire skill of Scotland
Yard to unravel.

Then, finally, the rooms themselves, which he
occupied--their furnishing, their decoration--the last
incomprehensible touch was added with them.
Mrs. Meakin, Mrs. Brown, the wife of the theatre
cleaner on the second floor, Mrs. Morrell, the wife
of the plumber on the third floor, they had all seen
them, all marvelled at the rows of brass candlesticks,
the crucifixes and the brass incense burners,
the real pictures on the walls--pictures, mind you,
that were painted, not copied--the rows upon rows
of books, the collection of old glass on the
mantle-piece, the collection of old china on the piano, the
carpet--real velvet pile--and the furniture all solid
oak, with old brass fittings which, so Mrs. Rowse
told them, he insisted upon having kept as bright
as the brass candlesticks themselves.  They had seen
all this, and they had wondered, wondered why a
gentleman who could furnish rooms in such a
manner, who could put on evening dress at least three
times a week--evening dress, if you please, that
was not hired, but his own--who could as often
drive away in a hansom, presumably up West, why
he should choose to live in such a place as Fetter
Lane, over a greengrocer's shop, in rooms the rent
of which could not possibly be more than thirty
pounds a year.

To them, it remained a mystery; but surely to
you who read this it is no mystery at all.

John Grey was a writer, a journalist, a driver of
the pen, a business which brings with it more
responsibilities than its remuneration can reasonably
afford.  There is no real living to be made by
literature alone, if you have any ambitions and any
respect for them.  Most people certainly have
ambitions, but their respect for them is so inconsiderable
when compared with their desire of reward, that
they only keep them alive by talking of them.  These
are the people who know thoroughly the meaning
of that word Art, and can discuss it letter for
letter, beginning with the capital first.

But to have ambitions and to live up to them is
only possible to the extreme idealist--a man who,
seeing God in everything, the world has not yet
learnt or perhaps forgotten to cater for.

So far everything is utilitarian--supplying the
needs of the body which can only see God in
consecrated wine, and so it is that wise men build
churches for fools to pray in--the wise man in this
world being he who grows rich.

This, then, is the solution to the mystery of John
Grey.  He was an idealist--the very type of person
to live in a City of Beautiful Nonsense, where the
rarest things in the world cost nothing and the
most sordid necessities are dear.  For example, the
rent of number thirty-nine was a gross exactment
upon his purse.  He could ill afford that thirty
pounds a year.  He could ill afford the meals which
sometimes hunger compelled him to pay for.  But
when he bought a piece of brass--the little brass
man, for example, an old seal, that was of no use to
anybody in the world, and only stood passively
inert upon his mantel-piece--the price of it was as
nothing when compared with the cheap and vulgar
necessities of existence.

But it must not be supposed that Fetter Lane
and its environs constitute the spires, the roofs and
domes of that City of Beautiful Nonsense.  It is
not so.  Far away East, on the breast of the Adriatic,
that wonderful City lies.  And we shall come to
it--we shall come to it all too soon.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BALLAD-MONGER--FETTER LANE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   THE BALLAD-MONGER--FETTER LANE

.. vspace:: 2

In Kensington Gardens, you will find romance.
Many a real, many a legendary, person has found
it there.  It will always be found there so long
as this great City of London remains a hive for the
millions of human bees that pass in and out of its
doors, swarming or working, idling or pursuing
in silent and unconscious obedience to a law
which not one of them will ever live to understand.

Why it should be Kensington Gardens, more than
any other place of the kind, is not quite possible of
explanation.  Why not Regent's Park, or St. James's
Park?  Why not those little gardens on
the Embankment where the band plays in the late
mornings of summer and romances certainly do find
a setting?  Why not any of these?  But no--Kensington
Gardens rule *par excellence*, and there is no
spot in this vast acreage of humanity to touch them.

You will see there the romances that begin from
both ends of a perambulator and, from that onwards,
Romance in all its countless periods, infinitely
more numerous than the seven ages of man; for
Romance is more wonderful than just life.  It has a
thousand more variations, it plays a thousand more
tricks with the understanding.  Life is real, they tell
us--Life is earnest; but Romance is all that is
unreal besides; it is everything that is and is not,
everything that has been and will be, and you will
find some of the strangest examples of it under the
boughs of those huge elms, on those uncomfortable
little penny seats in Kensington Gardens.

When those rooms of his in Fetter Lane became
unbearable, John Grey would betake himself to the
Gardens, sitting by the round Pond where the great
ships make their perilous voyages, or he would find
a seat under the trees near that little one-storyed
house which always shows so brave a blaze of colour
in the flower beds that circle it round.

Who lives in that little house?  Of course, everybody
knows--well, everybody?  I confess, I do not.
But the rest of the world does, and so what is the
good of letting one's imagination run a-riot when
the first policeman would cheerfully give one the
information.  But if your imagination did run riot,
think of the tales you could tell yourself about the
owner of that little house in Kensington Gardens!
I have never asked a policeman, so I am at liberty
to do what I like.  It is really the best way in this
world; so much more interesting than knowledge.
Knowledge, after all, is only knowing things, facts,
which next year may not be facts at all.  Facts die.
But when you imagine, you create something which
can live forever.  The whole secret of the matter
being that its life depends on you, not on Circumstance.

One Friday, three weeks or more after the slender
incident of the last candle in the Sardinia
St. chapel, those rooms in number 39 Fetter Lane
became unbearable.  When they did that, they
got very small; the walls closed in together and
there was no room to move.  Even the sounds in
the street had no meaning.  They became so loud
and jarring that they lost meaning altogether.

Moreover, on Friday, the clarionet player came.
It was his day; nothing could alter that.  If the
calendar had not been moved on for weeks together--and
some calendars do suffer in that way--John
at least knew the Friday of the week.  It is an
ill wind, you know--even when it is that which is
blown through the reed of a clarionet.

But on this particular morning, the clarionet
player was insufferable.

There is a day in nearly every week on which the
things which one has grown accustomed to, the
sounds that one listens to without hearing, the
sights that one looks at without seeing, become
blatant and jarring.  It is then that we hear these
sounds twice as loudly as we should, that we see
those things twice as vividly as they are.  It is then
that the word "unbearable" comes charged with the
fullest of its meaning.  And just such a day was
this Friday in the middle of April--it does not
matter how many years ago.

John had been working.  He was writing a short
story--a very tricksy thing to try and do.  It was
nearly finished, the room was getting smaller and
smaller; the sounds in the street were becoming more
and more insistent.  A barrel organ had just moved
away, leaving a rent of silence in all the noise of
traffic, a rent of silence which was almost as
unbearable as the confused clattering of sounds; and
then the clarionet player struck up his tune.

   |   "Oh, Charlie, he's my darling, my darling, my darling--
   |   Oh, Charlie, he's my darling, my young Chevalier."
   |

This was one of the only four tunes he knew.
You may readily guess the rest.  He always played
them through, one after the other, in never-varying
order.  Charlie, he's my darling--the Arethusa--Sally
in our Alley and Come Lasses and Lads.  He
was a ballad-monger.  He looked a ballad-monger--only
he was a ballad-monger on the clarionet.  John
Leech has drawn him over and over again in the
long ago pages of Punch; drawn him with his
baggy trousers that crease where they were never
intended to, with his faded black frock coat that
was never cut for the shoulders it adorned, with
every article of clothing, which the picture told you
he would wear to the end of his days, inherited from
a generous charity that had only disposed of its
gifts in the last moments of decay.

   |   "Oh, Charlie, he's my darling, my darling, my darling--"
   |

He brought such a minor tone into it all; it
might have been a dirge.  It was as he sang it.  For
these ballad-mongers are sad creatures.  Theirs is
a hard, a miserable life, and it all comes out in their
music.

The unhappy individual with a musical instrument
who stands on the curbstone in the pouring
rain can find some depressing note to dwell on in the
liveliest of tunes.  Art is most times only the cry
of the individual.

When the clarionet player began, John shut up
his book, rose from his chair, and went to the
window.  The windows wanted cleaning.  It only costs
a shilling for four windows--the difficulty is
sometimes to find the man to do it--more often the
difficulty is to find the shilling.  There is generally a
man at the first street corner, but never a coin of
the realm.

Someone threw a penny into the street from an
upper window.  The music stopped with a jerk.
The ballad-monger chased the rolling coin to the
very edge of a drain, then stood erect with a red
and grateful face.

He licked his lips, put the penny in his pocket
and began again.  That penny had insured another
five minutes at least.  The sun was burning down
into the street.  John got his hat, picked up his
book and went downstairs.  Kensington Gardens
was the only place left in the world.

Outside, he passed the ballad-monger as he was
shaking the moisture out of his reed.  No wonder it
is a thirsty business, this playing on the clarionet.
John was not in the mood to appreciate that very
necessary clearing of the instrument.  At that
moment all ballad-mongers were unnecessary, and their
habits loathsome.  He stopped.

"Do you know no other tunes," he asked, "than
those four you play here every Friday?"

"No, sir."  His voice was very deferential and
as sad as his music.

"Well--don't you imagine we must all be very
tired of them?"

"I often think that, sir.  I often think that.  But
you only hear them every Friday."

"You mean you hear them every day of the week?"

"That is what I mean, sir."

There is always the other person's point of view.
You learn that as you go along, and, in the street,
you will learn it as quickly as anywhere.  The man
who runs into you on the pavement is going in his
direction as well as you in yours, and it is always
a nice point to decide whether you ran into him or
he into you.  In any case, you may be certain that
he has his opinion on it.

John smiled.

"And you're sick of them too, eh?"

The ballad-monger fitted his mouthpiece carefully
on to the instrument that played the golden
tunes.

"Well, I've what you might call passed that
stage, sir.  They're in the blood, as you might say,
by this time.  They're always going on.  When I'm
asleep, I hear bands playing them in the street.  If
it isn't 'Arethusa,' it's 'Come Lasses and Lads,'
or 'Sally in Our Alley.'  They keep going on--and
sometimes it's shocking to hear the way they
play them.  You almost might say that's how I
earned the money that people give me, sir--not by
playing them on this instrument here--I don't mind
that so much.  It's the playing them in my head--that's
the job I ought to get paid for."

John looked at him.  The man had a point of
view.  He could see the nicer side of a matter.
There are not so very many people who can.  The
predominant idea when he came into the street, of
telling the man he was a nuisance, vanished from
John's mind.  He felt in his pockets.  There lay
one sixpence.  He fingered it for a moment, then
brought it out.

"Buy yourself a penny score of another tune,"
he said, "and let's hear it next Friday.  It may
drive the others out."

The man took it, looked at him, but said no word
of thanks.  No words are so obsequious.  No words
can so spoil a gift.  John walked away with a sense
of respect.

At the top of the Lane he remembered that he
had no penny to pay for his chair in Kensington
Gardens.  What was to be done?  He walked back
again.  The ballad-monger was at the last bars
of the "Arethusa."

He looked round when he had finished.

John stammered.  It occurred to him that he was
begging for the first time in his life and realised
what an onerous profession it must be.

"Would you mind sparing me a penny out of
that sixpence?" he asked; and to make it sound a
little bit better, he added: "I've run rather short."

The man produced the sixpence immediately.

"You'd better take it all, sir," he said quickly.
"You'll want it more than I shall."

John shook his head.

"Give me the penny," said he, "that you caught
at the edge of the drain."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OF KENSINGTON GARDENS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   OF KENSINGTON GARDENS

.. vspace:: 2

So strange a matter is this journey to the City of
Beautiful Nonsense, that one cannot be blamed if, at
times, one takes the wrong turning, finds oneself in
the cul de sac of a digression and is compelled to
retrace one's steps.  It was intended with the best
of good faith that the last chapter should be of
Kensington Gardens.  Quite honestly it began with
that purpose.  In Kensington Gardens, you will find
Romance.  What could be more open and above-board
than that?  Then up starts a ballad-monger
out of nowhere and he has to be reckoned with
before another step of the way can be taken.

But now we can proceed with our journey to that
far city that lies so slumberously on the breast of
the Adriatic.

If you live in Fetter Lane, these are your
instructions.  Walk straight up the Lane into Holborn;
take your first turning on the left and continue
directly through Oxford Street and Bayswater, until
you reach Victoria Gate in the Park railings.  This
you enter.  This is the very portal of the way.

'Twas precisely this direction taken by John
Grey on that Friday morning in April, in such a
year as history seems reticent to afford.

There is a means of travelling in London, you
know, which is not exactly in accordance with the
strict principles of honesty, since it is worked on
the basis of false pretences; and if a hero of a
modern day romance should stoop to employ it as a
means of helping him on his journey to the City of
Beautiful Nonsense, he must, on two grounds, be
excused.  The first ground is, that he has but a penny
in his pocket, which is needed for the chair in
Kensington Gardens; the second, that most human of
all excuses which allows that, when Circumstance
drives, a man may live by his wits, so long as he
takes the risk of the whipping.

This, then, is the method, invented by John Grey
in an inspired moment of poverty.  There may be
hundreds of others catching inspiration from the
little street arabs, who have invented it too.  Most
probably there are, and they may be the very first
to exclaim against the flippant treatment of so
dishonest a practice.  However that may be, out of
his own wits John Grey conceived this felonious
means of inexpensive travelling--absolutely the most
inexpensive I ever knew.

You are going from Holborn to Victoria Gate in
the Park railings--very well.  You must mount the
first 'bus which you see going in the direction you
require; grasp the railings--and mount slowly to
the top, having first ascertained that the conductor
himself is on the roof.  By the time you have reached
the seat upstairs, if you have done it in a masterly
and approved-of fashion, the 'bus has travelled at
least twenty yards or so.  Then, seeing the
conductor, you ask him politely if his 'bus goes in a
direction, which you are confident it does not.  This,
for example, is the conversation that will take place.

"Do you go to Paddington Station?"

"No, sir, we don't; we go straight to Shepherd's Bush."

"But I thought these green 'busses went to Paddington?"

"There are green 'busses as does, but we don't."

"Oh, yes, I think I know now, haven't they a
yellow stripe--you have a red one."

"That's right."

You rise slowly, regretfully.

"Oh, then I'm sorry," and you begin slowly to
descend the stairs.

"But we go by the Edgware Road, and you can
get a 'bus to Paddington there," says the conductor.

For a moment or two longer you stand on the
steps and try ineffectually--or effectually, it does
not matter which, so long as you take your time
over it--to point out to him why you prefer the
'bus which goes direct to its destination, rather than
the one which does not; then you descend with
something like a hundred yards or so of your
journey accomplished.  Repeat this *ad lib* till the
journey is fully complete and you will find that you
still possess your penny for the chair in Kensington
Gardens.  The honesty which is amongst thieves
compels you--for the sake of the poor horses who
have not done you nearly so much harm as that
conductor may have done--to mount and descend
the vehicle while in motion.  This is the unwritten
etiquette of the practice.  It also possesses that
advantage of prohibiting all fat people from its
enjoyment, whose weight on the 'bus would perceptibly
increase the labour of the willing animals.

Beyond this, there is nothing to be said.  The
method must be left to your own conscience, with
this subtle criticism upon your choice, that if you
refuse to have anything to do with it, it will be
because you appreciate the delight of condemning
those who have.  So you stand to gain anyhow by
the possession of the secret.  For myself, since John
Grey told me of it, I do both--strain a sheer
delight in a condemnation of those who use it, and use
it myself on all those occasions when I have but a
penny in my pocket for the chair in Kensington
Gardens.  Of course, you must pay for the chair.

By this method of progress, then, John Grey
reached Kensington Gardens on that Friday
morning--that Friday morning in April which was to
prove so eventful in the making of this history.

The opening of the month had been too cold to
admit of their beginning the trade in tea under the
fat mushroom umbrellas--that afternoon tea which
you and oh, I don't know how many sparrows and
pigeons, all eat to your heart's content for the
modest sum of one shilling.  But they might have plied
their trade that day with some success.  There was
a warm breath of the Spring in every little puff
of wind that danced down the garden paths.  The
scarlet tulips nodded their heads to it, the daffodils
courteseyed, bowed and swayed, catching the
infection of the dancer's step.  When Spring comes
gladsomely to this country of ours, there is no place
in the world quite like it.  Even Browning, in the
heart of the City of Beautiful Nonsense, must write:

   |   "Oh to be in England,
   |   Now that April's there."
   |

From Fetter Lane to the flower-walk in Kensington
Gardens, it is a far cry.  Ah, you do not know
what continents might lie between that wonderful
flower-walk and Fetter Lane.  Why, there are people
in the darksome little alleys which lie off that
neighbourhood of Fleet Street, who have never been
further west than the Tottenham Court Road!  Fetter
Lane, the Tottenham Court Road, and the flower-walk
in Kensington Gardens!  It may be only three
miles or so, but just as there is no such thing as
time in the ratio of Eternity, so there is no such
thing as distance in the ratio of Space.  There is
only contrast--and suffering.  They measure everything.

John made his way first to the flower-walk, just
for the sight and the scent of those wonderful
growing things that bring their treasures of inimitable
colour up out of the secret breast of the dull brown
earth.  Where, in that clod of earth, which does but
soil the hands of him who touches it, does the tulip
get its red?  Has the Persian Poet guessed the
secret?  Is it the blood of a buried Cæsar?  Enhance
it by calling it a mystery--all the great things
of the world are that.  Wherever the tulip does get
its red, it is a brave thing to look at after the dull,
smoky bricks of the houses in Fetter Lane.

John stood at the top of the walk and filled his
eyes with the varied colours.  There were tulips red,
tulips yellow, tulips purple and scarlet and mauve.
The little hunchback was already there painting
them, hugging up close to his easel, taking much
more into the heart of him than he probably ever
puts down upon his canvas.

He comes every season of every year, that little
hunchback, and Spring and Summer, and Autumn
and Winter, he paints in Kensington Gardens; and
Spring and Summer, and Autumn and Winter, I
have no doubt he will continue to paint the Gardens
that he loves.  And then one day, the Gardens will
miss him.  He will come no more.  The dull brown
earth will have taken him as it takes the bulb of a
tulip, and perhaps out of his eyes--those eyes which
have been drinking in the colours of the flowers for
so long, some tulip will one day get its red.

Surely there cannot be libel in such a statement
as this?  We must all die.  The little hunchback, if
he reads this, will not approach me for damages,
unless he were of the order of Christian Scientists
or some such sect, who defy the ravages of Time.
And how could he be that?  He must have seen the
tulips wither.

From the flower-walk, John made his way to the
round pond.  The ships were sailing.  Sturdy
mariners with long, thin, bamboo poles were launching
their craft in the teeth of the freshening breeze.
Ah, those brave ships, and those sturdy men with
their young blue eyes, searching across that vast
expanse of water for the return of the *Daisy* or the
*Kittywake* or some such vessel with some such fanciful name!

John took a chair to watch them.  A couple of
hoary sailors--men who had vast dealings with ships
and traffic on deep waters--passed by him with
their vessels tucked up under their arms.

"I sail for 'Frisco in five minutes," said
one--"for 'Frisco with a cargo of iron."

"What do you use for iron?" asked the other,
with the solemnity that such cargo deserved.

"My sister gave me some of her hairpins," was
the stern reply.

This, if you like it, is romance!  Bound for 'Frisco
with a cargo of iron!  Think of it!  The risk, the
peril, the enormous fortune at stake!  His sister's
hairpins!  What a world, what a City of Beautiful
Nonsense, if one could only believe like this!

John spread out his short story on his knee,
looked at the first lines of it, then closed it with
disgust.  What was the good of writing stories, when
such adventures as these were afoot?  Perhaps the
little hunchback felt that too.  What was the good
of painting with red paint on a smooth canvas when
God had painted those tulips on the rough brown
earth?  Why had not he got a sister who would
hazard her hairpins in his keeping, so that he might
join in the stern business of life and carry cargoes
of iron to far-off parts?

He sat idly watching the good ship start for
'Frisco.  One push of the thin bamboo pole and it
was off--out upon the tossing of the waves.  A
breath of Spring air blew into its sails, filled
them--with the scent of the tulips, perhaps--and bore
it off upon its voyage, while the anxious master,
with hands shading his eyes, watched it as it dipped
over the horizon of all possible interference.

Where was it going to come to shore?  The
voyage lasted fully five minutes and, at the last
moment, a trade wind seizing it--surely it must be a
trade wind which seizes a vessel with a cargo such
as this--it was born direct for the shore near where
John was sitting.

The captain came hurrying along the beach to receive
it and, from a seat under the elm trees, a girl
came toward him.

"Do you think it's brought them safely?" she asked.

He looked up with a touch of manly pride.

"The *Albatross* has never heaved her cargo
overboard yet," he said with a ringing voice.

So this was the sister.  From that wonderful head
of hair of hers had come the cargo of the good
ship *Albatross*.  She turned that head away to hide
a smile of amusement.  She looked in John's
direction.  Their eyes met.

It was the lady of the heavy fur coat who had
prayed to St. Joseph in the Sardinia Street chapel.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP ALBATROSS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium

   THE VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP ALBATROSS

.. vspace:: 2

This is where Destiny and the long arm of Coincidence
play a part in the making of all Romance.
One quality surely there must be in such matters,
far more essential than that happiness ever after
which the sentimentalist so clamours for.  That
quality, it is, of Destiny, which makes one know
that, whatever renunciation and despair may follow,
such things were meant to be.  Coincidence
combines to make them so, and, you may be sure, for a
very good reason.  And is it so long a stretch of
the arm from Sardinia Street Chapel to Kensington
Gardens?  Hardly!  In fiction, and along the
high-road, perhaps it might be; but then this is not
fiction.  This is true.

Romance then--let us get an entirely new definition
for it--is a chain of Circumstances which out
of the infinite chaos links two living things together
for a definite end--that end which is a pendant upon
the chain itself and may be a heart with a lock of
hair inside, or it may be a cross, or a dagger, or a
crown--you never know till the last link is forged.

When he looked into the eyes of the lady of
St. Joseph--so he had, since that incident, called her
in his mind--John knew that Destiny had a hand in
the matter.

He told me afterwards----

"You only meet the people in this world whom
you are meant to meet.  Whether you want to meet
them or not is another matter, and has no power
to bribe the hand of Circumstance."

He was generalising certainly, but that is the
cloak under which a man speaks of himself.

However that may be, and whether the law holds
good or not, they met.  He saw the look of recognition
that passed across her eyes; then he rose to
his feet.

The knowledge that you are in the hands of
Destiny gives you boldness.  John marched directly
across to her and lifted his hat.

"My name is Grey," he said--"John Grey.  I'm
taking it for granted that St. Joseph has already
introduced us and forgotten to tell you who I was.
If I take too much for granted, say so, I shall
perfectly understand."

Well, what could she say?  You may tell a man
that he's presumptuous; but hardly when he
presumes like this.  Besides, there was Destiny at the
back of him, putting the words into his mouth.

She smiled.  It was impossible to do otherwise.

"Do you think St. Joseph would be recognised
in our society?" she asked.

"I have no doubt of it," said he.  "St. Joseph
was a very proper man."

They turned to a cry of the master mariner as
the good ship *Albatross* touched the beach.
Immediately she was unloaded and her cargo brought
triumphantly to the owner.

"This," said John, "is the cargo of iron.  Then
I presume we're in 'Frisco.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I heard the sailing orders given in the Docks at
London ten minutes ago."

She looked down, concealing a smile, at her
brother, then at John, lastly at the good ship
*Albatross*--beached until further orders.  He
watched her.  She was making up her mind.

"Ronald," said she, when the wandering of her
eyes had found decision, "this is a friend of mine,
Mr. Grey."

Ronald held out a horny hand.

"How do you do, sir."

Surely that settled matters?  St. Joseph was
approved of.  She had said--this is a friend of
mine.

They shook hands then with a heavy grip.  It is
the recognised way with those who go down to the
sea in ships.

"When do you take your next voyage?" asked John.

"As soon as we can ship a cargo of gravel."

"And where are you bound for?"

"Port of Lagos--West Africa."

"Dangerous country, isn't it?  Fever?  White
man's grave, and all that sort of thing?"

"Those are the orders," said Ronald staunchly,
looking up to his sister for approval.

"I suppose you couldn't execute a secret commission
for me," said John.  He laid a gentle stress
on the word secret.  "You couldn't carry private
papers and run a blockade?"

Private papers!  Secret commission!  Run a
blockade!  Why the good ship *Albatross* was just
built for such nefarious trade as that.

John took the short story out of his pocket.

"Well, I want you to take this to the port of
Venice," said he.  "The port of Venice on the
Adriatic, and deliver it yourself into the hands of
one--Thomas Grey.  There is a fortune to be made if you
keep secret and talk to no one of your business.
Are you willing to undertake it and share profits?"

"We'll do our best, sir," said Ronald.

Then the secret papers were taken aboard--off
started the good ship *Albatross*.

The other mariner came up just as she had set sail.

"What cargo have you got this time?" he whispered.

Ronald walked away.

"Mustn't tell," he replied sternly, and by such
ready confession of mystery laid himself open to all
the perils of attack.  That other mariner must know
he was bound on secret service, and perhaps by
playing the part of Thomas Grey on the other side
of the round pond, would probably be admitted into
confidence.  There is no knowing.  You can never
be sure of what may happen in a world of romantic
adventure.

John watched their departure lest his eagerness
to talk to her alone should seem too apparent.  Then
he turned, suggested a seat under the elm trees and,
in silence, they walked across the grass to the two
little penny chairs that stood expectantly together.

There they sat, still in silence, watching the
people who were promenading on the path that circles
the round pond.  Nurses and babies and perambulators,
there were countless of these, for in the gardens
of Kensington the babies grow like the tulips--rows
upon rows of them, in endless numbers.  Like
the tulips, too, the sun brings them out and their
gardeners take them and plant them under the trees.
Every second passer-by that sunny morning in April
was a gardener with her tulip or tulips, as the case
might be; some red, some white, some just in bud,
some fully blown.  Oh, it is a wonderful place for
things to grow in, is Kensington Gardens.

But there were other pedestrians than these.
There were Darbys and Joans, Edwards and Angelinas.

Then there passed by two solemn nuns in white,
who had crosses hanging from their waists and wore
high-heeled shoes.

The lady of St. Joseph looked at John.  John
looked at her.

She lifted her eyebrows to a question.

"Protestant?" she said.

John nodded with a smile.

That broke the silence.  Then they talked.  They
talked first of St. Joseph.

"You always pray to St. Joseph?" said he.

"No--not always--only for certain things.  I'm
awfully fond of him, but St. Cecilia's my saint.  I
don't like the look of St. Joseph, somehow or other.
Of course, I know he's awfully good, but I don't
like his beard.  They always give him a brown
beard, and I hate a man with a brown beard."

"I saw St. Joseph once with a grey beard," said John.

"Grey?  But he wasn't old."

"No, but this one I saw was grey.  It was in
Ardmore, a wee fishing village in the county of
Waterford, in Ireland.  Ah, you should see
Ardmore.  Heaven comes nearer to the sea there than
any place I know."

"But what about St. Joseph?"

"Oh, St. Joseph!  Well, there was a lady there
intent upon the cause of temperance.  She built
little temperance cafés all about the country, and had
the pictures of Cruikshank's story of the Bottle,
framed and put on all the walls.  To propitiate
the Fates for the café in Ardmore, she decided also
to set up the statue of St. Daeclan, their patron
saint in those parts.  So she sent up to Mulcahy's,
in Cork, for a statue of St. Daeclan.  Now
St. Daeclan, you know, is scarcely in popular demand."

"I've never heard of him," said the lady of St. Joseph.

"Neither had I till I went to Ardmore.  Well,
anyhow, Mulcahy had not got a statue.  Should he
send away and see if he could order one?  Certainly
he should send away.  A week later came the reply.
There is not a statue of St. Daeclan to be procured
anywhere.  Will an image of St. Joseph do as
well?  It would have to do.  Very well, it
came--St. Joseph with his brown beard.

"'If only we could have got St. Daeclan,' they
said as they stood in front of it.  'But he's too
young for St. Daeclan.  St. Daeclan was an old
man.'

"I suppose it did not occur to them that St. Daeclan
may not have been born old; but they conceived
of a notion just as wise.  They got a pot
of paint from Foley's, the provision store, and, with
judicious applications, they made grey the brown
beard of St. Joseph, then, washing out the gold
letters of his name, they painted in place of them the
name of St. Daeclan."

The lady of St. Joseph smiled.

"Are you making this up?" asked she.

He shook his head.

"Well, then, the café was opened, and a little choir
of birds from the chapel began to sing, and all the
people round about who had no intention to be
temperate, but loved a ceremony, came to see the
opening.  They trouped into the little hall and stood
with gaping mouths looking at that false image
which bore the superscription of St. Daeclan, and the
old women held up their hands and they said:

"Oh, shure, glory be to God! 'tis just loike the
pore man--it is indeed.  Faith, I never want to see
a better loikeness of himself than that."

John turned and looked at her.

"And there he stands to this day," he added--"as
fine an example of good faith and bad painting
as I have ever seen in my life."

"What a delightful little story," she said, and
she looked at him with that expression in the eyes
when admiration mingles so charmingly with bewilderment
that one is compelled to take them both as a
compliment.

"Do you know you surprise me," she added.

"So I see," said he.

"You see?"

"In your eyes."

"You saw that?"

"Yes, you were wondering how I came to be
praying--probably for money--to St. Joseph--praying
in an old blue serge suit that looked as if
a little money could easily be spent on it, and yet
can afford to sit out here in the morning in
Kensington Gardens and tell you what you are so good
as to call a delightful little story?"

"That's quite true.  I was wondering that."

"And I," said John, "have been wondering just
the same about you."

What might not such a conversation as this have
led to?  They were just beginning to tread upon
that virgin soil from which any fruit may be born.
It is a wonderful moment that, the moment when
two personalities just touch.  You can feel the
contact tingling to the tips of your fingers.

What might they not have talked of then?  She
might even have told him why she was praying to
St. Joseph, but then the master mariner returned,
bearing papers in his hand.

"Are you one Thomas Grey?" said he.

"I am that man," replied John.

"These are secret papers which I am to deliver
into your hands.  There is a fortune to be made if
you keep secret."

John took the short story.

"Secrecy shall be observed," said he.





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.. _`THE FATEFUL TICKET-PUNCHER`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   THE FATEFUL TICKET-PUNCHER

.. vspace:: 2

The master of the good ship *Albatross* departed,
chartered for another voyage to the Port of Lagos
with his cargo of gravel, gathered with the sweat
of the brow and the tearing of the finger nails from
the paths in Kensington Gardens.

John hid the short story away and lit a
cigarette.  She watched him take it loose from his
waistcoat pocket.  Had he no cigarette case?  She
watched him take a match--loose also--from the
ticket pocket of his coat.  Had he no match-box?
She watched him strike it upon the sole of his boot,
believing all the time that he was unaware of the
direction of her eyes.

But he knew.  He knew well enough, and took as
long over the business as it was possible to be.
When the apprehension of discovery made her turn
her head, he threw the match away.  Well, it was a
waste of time then.

"I thought," said she presently, "you had told
me your name was John?"

"So it is."

"Then why did you tell Ronald to deliver the
papers to Thomas Grey?"

"That is my father."

"And does he live in Venice?"

What a wonderful thing is curiosity in other
people, when you yourself are only too ready to
divulge!  Loth only to tell her it all too quickly, John
readily answered all she asked.

"Yes, he lives in Venice," he replied.

"Always?"

"Always now."

She gazed into a distance of her own--that
distance in which nearly every woman lives.

"What a wonderful place it must be to live in,"
said she.

He turned his head to look at her.

"You've never been there?"

"Never."

"Ah! there's a day in your life yet then."

Her forehead wrinkled.  Ah, it may not sound
pretty, but it was.  The daintiest things in life
are not to be written in a sentence.  You get them
sometimes in a single word; but oh, that word is so
hard to find.

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"The day you go to Venice--if ever you do go--will
be one day quite by itself in your life.  You
will be alive that day."

"You love it?"

She knew he did.  That was the attraction in
asking the question--to hear him say so.  There
is that in the voice of one confessing to the
emotion--for whatever object it may happen to be--which
can thrill the ear of a sensitive listener.  A sense
of envy comes tingling with it.  It is the note in
the voice, perhaps.  You may hear it sometimes in
the throat of a singer--that note which means the
passion, the love of something, and something within
you thrills in answer to it.

"You love it?" she repeated.

"I know it," replied John--"that's more than loving."

"What does your father do there?"

"He's an artist--but he does very little work
now.  He's too old.  His heart is weak, also."

"Then does he live there by himself?"

"Oh, no--my mother lives with him.  They have
wonderful old rooms in the Palazzo Capello in the
Rio Marin.  She is old, too.  Well--she's over sixty.
They didn't marry until she was forty.  And he's
about ten years older than she is."

"Are you the only child?"

"The only child--yes."

"How is it that they didn't marry until your
mother was forty?"

She pattered on with her questions.  Having
accepted him as a friend, the next thing to do was to
get to know all about him.  It is just as well, in
case people should ask; but in this huddle of houses
where one knows more of the life of one's next-door
neighbour than one ever does of one's friends, it
really scarcely matters.  She thought she wanted to
know because she ought to know.  But that was not
it at all.  She had to know.  She was meant to know.
There is a difference.

"Perhaps I'm being too inquisitive?" she suggested
gently.  This is only another way of getting
one's question answered.  You might call it the
question circumspect and, by borrowing from another's
wit, mark the distinction between it and the question
direct.  But it is not so much the name that matters,
as its effectiveness.

In a moment, John was all apologies for his silence.

"Inquisitive?  No!  It's only the new sensation."

"What new sensation?"

"Somebody wanting to know something about
oneself.  On the other side of the street where I
live, there resides a parrot; and every Sunday they
put him outside on the window-sill, and there he
keeps calling out--'Do you want to know who I
am?  Do you want to know who I am?'  And
crowds of little boys and little girls, and idle men
and lazy women, stand down below his cage in the
street and imitate him in order to get him to say it
again.  'Do you want to know who I am, Polly?'
they call out.  And oh, my goodness, it's so like life.
They never reply--'Who are you, then?'  But
every single one of them must ask him if he wants
to know who they are, just when he's longing to
tell them all about himself.  It is like life you know."

"What nice little stories you tell.  I believe you
make them up as you go along--but they're quite
nice.  So that's the new sensation?"

"Yes--that's it.  Someone, at last, has said
'Who are you, then?'  And I hardly know where
to begin."

"Well, I asked you why your father didn't marry
till your mother was forty.  You said she was
forty."

"Yes, I know--yes, that's quite right.  You see
he was married before to a wealthy woman.  They
lived here in London.  I'm afraid they didn't get on
well together.  It was his fault.  He says so, and
I believe it was.  I can quite understand the way
it all happened.  You must love money very much
to be able to get on with it when it's not your
own.  He didn't love it enough.  Her money got
between them.  One never really knows the ins and
outs of these things.  Nobody can possibly explain
them.  I say I understand it, but I don't.  They
happen when people marry.  Only, it would appear,
when they marry.  She never threw it in his face,
I'm sure of that.  He always speaks of her as a
wonderful woman; but it was just there--that's all.
Gold's a strange metal, you know--an uncanny
metal, I think.  They talk of the ill-luck of the opal,
it's nothing to the ill-luck of the gold the opal is
set in.  You must realise the absolute valuelessness
of it, that it's no more worth than tin, or iron, or
lead, or any other metal that the stray thrust of a
spade may dig up; if you don't think of it like
that, if you haven't an utter contempt for it, it's
a poison, is gold.  It's subtle, deadly poison that
finds its heavy way into the most sacred heart of
human beings and rots the dearest and the gentlest
thoughts they have.  They say familiarity breeds
contempt.  In every case but that of gold, it's true.
But in gold it's just the reverse.  The only way
with gold, to have contempt for it, is to have none
and, when it does enter your possession, give it
away.  You keep it, you struggle for it, you give
it a moment's place on your altar, and you'll find
that your first-born must be the burnt offering you
will have to make to assuage its insatiable lust."

The sense of humour saved him from saying more.
Suddenly he turned and looked at her, and laughed.
The only way with gold, to have contempt for it,
is to have none and, when it does enter your
possession, give it away.

Glorious words to say when you have only a penny
in your pocket to pay for your chair in Kensington
Gardens--such a fine sense of bravado in them.  As
for the chance of money falling from the heavens or
the elm trees into your lap, it is so remote, that you
can afford to voice your preachings without fear
of having to put them into immediate practice.

Seeing all this and, seeing the solemn expression
on her face, John laughed.  All that fine parade of
words of his was very human.  He knew it.  There
is not one amongst us but who does it every day.
There never is so fine an army of brave men as you
will find in times of peace; never so lavish a man
with money as he who has none.  These are the real
humours, the real comedies in this struggle for
existence.  And yet, it is the only philosophy for the
poor man who has nothing, to say he wants less.
So you cheat the little gods of their laughter, and
whistle a tune to show how little you care.

But to see through it all--there are so many
who do it unconsciously--that is a quality beyond
philosophy.  John laughed.

She looked up quickly.

"You laugh?  Why?"

"You look so serious."

"I was.  It's so true--quite true, all you said.
But what is one to do when everybody around one
sets their standard in gold--when people are only
good-spirited when there is money to be had, and
cross and inconsiderate when there is none?  What
is one to do then?"

"Must you follow their lead?" asked John.

"What else?  The community governs, doesn't it?"

"So they say.  But even government is a thing
that must be taught, and someone must teach it to
the community, so that the community may become
proficient at its job.  When you get into a
community of people like that, all you have to do is to
break away.  It doesn't matter how universally
good a wrong may be, you can't make it right for
the individual."

"What did your father do?"

"Oh--he disobeyed the laws of the community.
He went away.  He deserted her."

She stole a hurried glance at his face.

"Don't you speak rather hardly?"

"No--conventionally--that's all.  That is the
technical term.  He deserted her.  Went and lived
in the slums and worked.  He was probably no
paragon, either, until he met my mother.  No man is
until he meets *the* woman with the great heart and
God's good gift of understanding."

"Have you ever met her yet?"

"No--I'm only twenty-six."

"Do you think you ever will meet her?"

"Yes--one day."

"When?"

"Oh, the time that Fate allots for these things."

"When is that?"

"When it's too late."

"Isn't that pessimistic?"

"No--I'm only speaking of Time.  Time's
nothing--Time doesn't count.  You may count it--you
generally do with a mechanical contrivance called
a clock--but it doesn't count itself.  As the
community looks at these things it may be too late, but
it's not too late to make all the difference in life.
The point is meeting her, knowing her.  Nothing
else really matters.  Once you know her, she is as
much in your life as ever marriage and all such
little conventional ceremonies as that can make her."

She looked up at him again.

"What strange ideas you have."

"Are they?"

"They are to me.  Then your father didn't meet
your mother too late?  How soon did he meet her
after--after he went away?"

"Two years or so."

"Oh--he was quite old, then?"

"No--quite young."

"But I thought you said they didn't marry until
she was forty."

"Yes--that is so.  He couldn't marry her till
then.  They were both Catholics, you see.  Eighteen
years went by before they married."

She made patterns on a bare piece of ground with
the ferrule of her umbrella, as she listened.  When
he came to this point of the story, she carved the
figure one and eight in the mould.

"Yes," said John, looking at them--"it was a
long time to wait--wasn't it?"

She nodded her head and slowly scratched the
figures out.

"So the secret papers were sent to your father?"
she said.

"Yes."

She communed with herself for a few moments.
She was very curious to know the secret of those
papers; just as curious as that other mariner had
been.  But when you get beyond a certain age, they
tell you it is rude to be curious--more's the pity!
It takes away half the pleasure from life.  She
wanted so much to know.  The mystery that
surrounded John Grey in Fetter Lane was clinging
to him here in Kensington Gardens.  She felt just
as curious about him as did Mrs. Meakin, and
Mrs. Rowse; and Mrs. Morrell, and, like them, she was
afraid to show it to him.

Presently she left off scratching her patterns in
the mould and raised her head, looking out wistfully
across the pond.

"Ronald was delighted to be carrying secret
papers," she said pensively.

"Was he?"

"Yes--he's been reading Stevenson, and Henty,
and all those books--the idea of secret papers was
just what he loved."

John's eyes twinkled.

"Do you think he told that other boy?" he asked.

"Oh--no--I'm sure he wouldn't."

"Not if he got the other boy to play the part
of Thomas Grey--and satisfied his conscience like
that?"

"No--because he delivered them to you.  I'm
sure he never looked at them.  You're the only one
who knows the secret."

John's eyes twinkled again.  She was so curious
to know.

"It's a terrible thing to be the only possessor
of a secret like that," he said solemnly.

She glanced quickly at his face.

"It is, if it's something you mustn't tell," said
she.  And you could hear the question in that; just
the faint lingering note of it; but it was there.  Of
course, if he could not tell, the sooner she knew it
the better.  You can waste upon a person even so
poor a sentiment as curiosity, and when a woman
gets proud, she will give you none of it.

If he had kept his secret another moment longer,
she would undoubtedly have got proud; but just
then, there came into view the insignificant little
figure of a man in faded, dirty livery, a peaked cap,
a sleuth-like, watchful air and, hidden in the
grasping of his hand, there was a fateful ticket puncher.
Two seats, and John had only a penny!  What can
one do under such circumstances as these?  He
looked helplessly through his mind for a way out
of the dilemma.  He even looked on the ground to
see whether some former charitable person had
thrown away their tickets when they left--he
always did as much for the cause of unknown humanity
himself.  You never know how many people there
are in London with only a penny in their pockets.
But he looked in vain.  There were only the figures
that she had carved and scratched out in the mould.

He thought of saying that he had bought a ticket
and lost it.  One of those little gusts of wind that
were dancing under the elm trees would readily
vouch for the truth of his story in such a
predicament as this.  But then this might be the only
ticket puncher in the gardens at that time of the
year, and he would know.  He thought of going
through all his pockets and simulating the despair
of a man who has lost his last piece of gold.  And
the slouching figure of the chair man drew nearer
and nearer.  And oh, he came so cunningly, as if he
had nothing whatever to do with this crushing tax
upon the impoverished resources of those who seek
Romance.

Yes, John rather liked that last idea.  Anyone
might lose their last piece of gold.  It is not even
a paradox to say it would be the first they would
lose.  But it would be acting the lie to her as
well as to the chairman.  Was that fair?  The
chairman would only look imperturbably at him with a
stony eye--it was more than likely he would have
heard that story before, and a chair man will not
be baulked of his prey.  Then she would have to
pay.  No--that would not be fair.  Then----

"I'm going to pay for my seat," said the Lady
of St. Joseph.

"Oh, no!" said John vehemently--"Why should you?"

Couldn't he get up and say he was only sitting
there by accident; had never meant to sit down at all?

"Yes--I'm going to pay," she said--"I owe you
a penny for the candle to St. Joseph."

Ah!  That was the way out of it!  You see, if
you only pray earnestly enough, St. Joseph is
bound to answer your prayer.  This was his return
for John's offer of generosity.  There is not a doubt
of it in my mind.  There was not a doubt of it in his.





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.. _`THE ART OF HIEROGLYPHICS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   THE ART OF HIEROGLYPHICS

.. vspace:: 2

The bell of the ticket-puncher rang, the tiny slips
of paper were torn off the roll and exchanged hands.
For that day, at least--so long as they chose to
sit there--the little penny chairs belonged to them;
indisputably to them.

You feel you have bought something when you
pay for it with your last penny.  John leant back
with a breath of relief as the chair man walked
away.  It had been a terrible moment.  In this life,
you never lose that sense that it is only the one
friend in the world who does not judge you by the
contents of your pocket; and when an acquaintance
is but of a few moment's standing--even if it be a
Lady of St. Joseph--it is hazarding everything to
have to admit to the possession of only one penny.

Do you wonder his breath was of relief?  Would
you wonder if, wrapped up in that breath, there had
been a prayer of thanks to St. Joseph?  Only a
little prayer, not even spoken in the breath, hardly
expressed in the thought that accompanied it--but
still a prayer--as much a prayer in his heart, as
you might say there was a butterfly in the heart of
a cocoon.  We know that there is only a
chrysalis--sluggish, inert, incapable of the light and dainty
flight of a butterfly's wings--but still it will be a
butterfly one day.  That was just about the relation
of John's breath to a prayer.

Under his eyes, he stole a look at her.  She was
not thinking of pennies!  Not she!  Once you make
a woman curious--pennies won't buy back her peace
of mind.  She was beginning her tricks again with
the ferrule of her umbrella.  Why is it that a woman
can so much better express herself with the toe of
an elegant shoe or the point of a fifteen and
six-penny umbrella?  Nothing less dainty than this will
serve her.  Give her speech and she ties herself into
a knot with it like a ball of worsted and then
complains that she is not understood.  But with the toe
of an elegant shoe--mind you, if it is not elegant,
you must give her something else--she will explain
a whole world of emotion.

She had begun scratching up the mould again.
John watched the unconscious expression of her mind
with the point of that umbrella.  One figure after
another she scratched and then crossed out.  First
it was a ship, rigged as no ship has ever been
rigged before or since.  The *Albatross*, of course.
Then a dome, the dome of a building.  He could
not follow that.  He would have had to know that
she had once had a picture book in which was a
picture of Santa Maria della Salute--otherwise the
meaning of that dome was impossible to follow.  He
thought it was a beehive.  Really, of course, you
understood this from the first yourself, it meant
Venice.  Then she began carving letters.  The first
was G.  The second was R.  She thought she felt
him looking, glanced up quickly, but he was gazing
far away across the round pond.  It is always as
well not to look.  Women are very shy when they
are expressing their emotions.  It is always as well
not to look; but you will be thought a dullard if
you do not see.  John was gazing across the pond.
But nevertheless, she scratched those first two
letters out.  When he saw that, he took pity.

"Shall I tell you what the secret papers are?"
said he, with a smile.

Ah, the gratitude in her eyes.

"Do!" she replied.

"It's a short story."

"A short story!  You write?  Why didn't you
tell me that before?"

"But it's only a short story," said John, "that
no one'll ever read."

"Won't it be published?"

"No--never."

"Why?"

"Because people won't like it."

"How do you know?"

"I'm sure of it.  I know what they like."

"Read it to me and I'll tell you if I like it."

Read it to her!  Sit in Kensington Gardens and
have his work listened to by the Lady of St. Joseph!
He took it out of his pocket without another word
and read it then and there.

This is it.

.. class:: center medium

   AN IDYLL OF SCIENCE

.. vspace:: 1

The world has grown some few of its grey hairs
in search of the secret of perpetual motion.  How
many, with their ingeniously contrived keys, have
not worn old and feeble in their efforts to open this
Bluebeard's chamber: until their curiosity sank
exhausted within them?  You count them, from the
dilettante Marquis of Worcester, playing with his
mechanical toy before a king and his court,
Jackson, Orffyreus, Bishop Wilkins, Addeley, with the
rest of them, and, beyond arriving at the decision
of the French Academy--"that the only perpetual
motion possible ... would be useless for the
purpose of the devisers," you are drawn to the
conclusion that mankind shares curiosity with the beasts
below him and calls it science lest the world should
laugh.

You have now in this idyll here offered you, the
story of one who found the secret, and showed it to
me alone.  Have patience to let your imagination
wander through Irish country lanes, strolling hither
and thither, drawn to no definite end, led by no
ultimate hope, and the history of the blind beggar,
who discovered the secret of perpetual motion, shall
be disclosed for you; all the curiosity that ever
thrilled you shall be appeased, feasted, satiated.

There was not one in the country-side who knew
his name.  Name a man in Ireland and you locate
him; Murphy, and he comes from Cork--Power, and
he comes from Waterford.  Why enumerate them
all?  But this blind beggar had no name.  There
was no place that claimed him.  With that tall silk
hat of his which some parish priest had yielded him,
with his long black coat which exposure to the
sorrowful rains of a sad country had stained a faded
green; with his long, crooked stick that tapped its
wearisome, monotonous dirge and his colourless, red
'kerchief knotted round his neck, he was a figure
well-known in three or four counties.

No village owned him.  At Clonmel, they denied
him, at Dungarvan, they disowned him; yet the
whole country-side, at certain seasons of the year,
had heard that well-known tapping of the crooked
stick, had seen those sightless eyes blinking under
the twisted rim of the old silk hat.  For a day or
so in the place, he was a well-known figure; for a
day or so they slipped odd pennies into his sensitively
opened palm, but the next morning would find him
missing.  Where had he gone?  Who had seen him
go?  Not a soul!  The rounded cobbles and the
uneven pavements that had resounded to the old
crooked stick would be silent of that tapping noise
for another year, at least.

But had chance taken you out into the surrounding
country, and had it taken you in the right
direction, you would have found him toiling along by
the hedges--oh, but so infinitely slowly!--his shoulders
bent, and his hand nodding like some mechanical
toy that had escaped the clutches of its inventor
and was wandering aimlessly wherever its mechanism
directed.

How it came to be known that he sought the secret
of perpetual motion, is beyond me.  It was one
of those facts about him which seem as inseparable
from a man as the clothes that belie his trade.  You
saw him coming up the road towards you and the
words "perpetual motion" rushed, whispering, to
your mind.  About the matter himself, he was
sensitively reticent; yet he must have told
someone--someone must have told me.  Who was it?  Some
inhabitant of the village of Rathmore must have
spread the story.  Whom could it have been?
Foley, the carpenter?  Burke, the fisherman?
Fitzgerald, the publican--Troy, the farmer?  I can
trace it to none of these.  I cannot remember who
told me: and yet, when each year he came round
for the ceremonies of the Pattern day, when they
honoured the patron saint, I said as I saw him:
"Here is the blind beggar who tried to invent
perpetual motion."  The idea became inseparable from
the man.

With each succeeding year his movements became
more feeble, his head hung lower as he walked.  You
could see Death stalking behind him in his footsteps,
gaining on him, inch by inch, until the shadow of it
fell before him as he walked.

There were times when I had struggled to draw
him into conversation; moments when I had thought
that I had won his confidence; but at the critical
juncture, those sightless eyes would search me
through and through and he would pass me by.
There must have been a time when the world had
treated him ill.  I fancy, in fact, that I have heard
such account of him; for he trusted no one.  Year
after year he came to Rathmore for the festival
of the Pattern and, year after year, I remained in
ignorance of his secret.

At last, when I saw the hand of Death stretched
out almost to touch his shoulder, I spoke--straight
to the pith of the matter, lest another year should
bring him there no more.

He was walking down from the Holy Well where
for the last hour, upon his tremulous knees, he had
been making his devotions to a saint whose shrine
his unseeing eyes had never beheld.  This was the
opportunity I seized.  For a length of many
moments, when first I had seen his bent and ill-fed
figure, rocking to and fro with the steps he took,
I had made up my mind to it.

As he reached my side, I slipped a shilling into
his half-concealed palm.  So do we assess our
fellow-kind!  The instinct is bestial, but ingrained.
Honour, virtue and the like--we only call them priceless
to ourselves; yet it takes a great deal to convince
us that they are not priceless to others.  I priced
my blind beggar at a shilling!  I watched his
withered fingers close over it, rubbing against the
minted edge that he might know its worth!

"That has won him," I thought.

Ah!  What a brutal conception of God's handicraft!
A shilling to buy the secret of perpetual
motion!  Surely I could not have thought that
Nature would have sold her mysteries for that!  I did.
There is the naked truth of it.

"Who gives me this?" he asked, still fingering
it as though it yet might burn his hand.

"A friend," said I.

"God's blessing on ye," he answered and his
fingers finally held it tight.  There he kept it,
clutched within his hand.  No pocket was safe in
the clothes he wore to store such fortune as that.
"You're leaving Rathmore after the Pattern, I
suppose?" I began.

His head nodded as he tapped his stick.

"There's something I want to ask you before you
go," I continued.

He stopped, I with him, watching the suspicions
pass across his face.

"Someone has told me----"  I sought desperately,
clumsily, for my satisfaction now.  "Someone has
told me that you have found the secret of perpetual
motion.  Is that true?"

The milk-white, sightless eyes rushed querulously
to mine.  All the expression of yearning to see seemed
to lie hidden behind them.  A flame that was not
a flame--the ghost of a flame burnt there, intense
with questioning.  He could not see; I knew he could
not see; yet those vacant globes of matter were
charged with unerring perception.  In that moment,
his soul was looking into mine, searching it for
integrity, scouring the very corners of it for the true
reason of my question.

I met his gaze.  It seemed then to me, that if I
failed and my eyes fell before his, he would have
weighed and found me wanting.  It is one of the
few things in this world which I count to my credit,
that those empty sockets found me worthy of the
trust.

"Who told ye that?" he asked.

I answered him truthfully that I did not know.

"But is it the case?" I added.

He shifted his position.  I could see that he was
listening.

"There is no one on the road," I said--"We are
quite alone."

He coughed nervously.

"'Tis a matter of fifteen years since I first thought
the thing out at all.  Shure, I dunno what made it
come into me head; but 'twas the way I used to be
working in a forge before I lost the sight of my
eyes.  I thought of it there, I suppose."

He stopped and I prompted him.

"What principle did you go on?" I asked--"Was
it magnetism?  How did you set to work to avoid
friction?"

This time, as he looked at me, his eyes were
expressionless.  I felt that he was blind.  He had not
understood a word I had said.

"Are ye trying to get the secret out av me?"
he asked at length.  "Shure, there's many have
done that.  They all try and get it out av me.  The
blacksmith--him that was working at the forge
where I was myself before I lost the sight in me
eyes--he wanted to make the machine for me.  But
I'd known him before I was blind and I hadn't lost
the knowledge with me eyesight."

"Are you making it yourself, then?"

He nodded his head.

"As well as I can," he continued--"but, shure,
what can these fingers do with feeling alone--I must
see what I'm doing.  Faith, I've all the pieces here
now in me pocket, only for the putting of 'em
together, and glory be to God, I've tried and tried,
but they won't go.  Ye can't do it with feelin' alone."

Some lump threatened to rise in my throat.

"Good God!" I thought--"this is tragedy----"  And
I looked in vain for sight in his eyes.

"Would ye like to see the pieces?" he asked.

I assured him that the secret would be safe in
my keeping were he so generous.

"No one about?" he asked.

"Not a soul!"

Then, from his pocket--one by one--he took them
out and laid them down on a grass bank by our
side.  I watched each piece as he produced it and,
with the placing of them on the bank of grass, I
watched his face.  These were the parts in the
construction of his intricate mechanism that he showed
to me--a foot of rod iron, a small tin pot that once
perhaps had held its pound of coffee, a strip of
hoop iron and an injured lock.

"There," he said proudly--"but if I were to give
these to that blacksmith, he'd steal the secret before
my face.  I wouldn't trust him with 'em and I
working these fifteen years."

I thanked God he could not see my face then.
The foot of rod iron!  The small tin pot!  The
injured lock!  They stared at me in derision.  Only
they and I knew the secret--only they and I could
tell it, as they themselves had told it me.  His wits
were gone.  Perpetual motion!  The wretched man
was mad.

Perpetual motion out of these rusty old things--rusting
for fifteen years in the corners of his pockets!
Perpetual motion!

But here the reality of it all broke upon
me--burst out with its thundering sense of truth.  Mad
the blind beggar might be; yet there, before my
very eyes, in those motionless objects, was the secret
of perpetual motion.  Rust, decay, change--the
obstinate metal of the iron rod, the flimsy substance
of the tin pot, always under the condition of change;
rusting in his pocket where they had lain for
fifteen years--never quiescent, never still, always
moving--moving--moving--in obedience to the
inviolable law of change, as we all, in servile obedience
to that law as well, are moving continually, from
childhood into youth, youth to middle-age--middle-age
to senility--then death, the last change of all.
All this giant structure of manhood, the very essence
of complicated intricacy compared to that piece of
rod iron, passing into the dust from which the
thousands of years had contrived to make it.  What
more could one want of perpetual motion than that?

I looked up into his face again.

"You've taught me a wonderful lesson," I said quietly.

"Ah," he replied--"it's all there--all there--the
whole secret of it; if only I had the eyes to put it
together."

If he only had the eyes?  Have *any* of us the eyes?
Have any of us the eyes?


When he had finished, he folded it slowly and put
it back in his pocket.

"Well----?" he said.

His heart was beating with anticipation, with
apprehension, with exaltation.  With one beat he knew
she must think it was good.  It was his best.  He
had just done it and, when you have just done it,
you are apt to think that.  But with another beat,
he felt she was going to say the conventional
thing--to call it charming--to say--"But how nice."  It
would be far better if she said it was all wrong, that
it struck a wrong note, that its composition was ill.
One can believe that about one's work--but that it
is charming, that it is nice--never!

For that moment Destiny swung in a balance,
poised upon the agate of chance.  What was she
going to say?  It all depended upon that.  But she
was so silent.  She sat so still.  Mice are still when
you startle them; then, when they collect their wits,
they scamper away.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.

"Will you be here in the Gardens to-morrow morning
at this time," she said--"Then I'll tell you how
very much I liked it."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEED FOR INTUITION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   THE NEED FOR INTUITION

.. vspace:: 2

In such a world as this, anything which is wholly
sane is entirely uninteresting.  But--thank heaven
for it!--madness is everywhere, in every corner, at
every turning.  You will not even find complete
sanity in a Unitarian; in fact, some of the maddest
people I have ever met have been Unitarians.  Yet
theirs is an aggravating madness.  You can have
no sympathy with a man who believes himself sane.

But anything more utterly irresponsible than this
sudden, impulsive departure of the Lady of St. Joseph
can scarcely be imagined.  John did not even
know her name and, what is more, did not even
realise the fact until she and Ronald had crossed the
stretch of grass and reached the Broad Walk.  Then
he ran after them.

Ronald turned first as he heard the hurrying
footsteps.  Anything running will arrest the attention of
a boy, while a woman hears, just as quickly, but
keeps her head rigid.  Evidently, Ronald had told
her.  She turned as well.  John suddenly found
himself face to face with her.  Then the impossible
delicacy of the situation and his question came home
to him.

How, before Ronald, to whom he had just been
introduced as a friend, could he ask her name?
Simplicity of mind is proverbial in those who traffic in
deep waters; but could the master of the good ship
*Albatross* ever be so simple as not to find the
suggestion of something peculiar in such a question as
this?

And so when he reached her side, he stood there
despairingly dumb.

"You wanted to say something?" said she.

He looked helplessly at Ronald.  Ronald looked
helplessly at him.  Then, when he looked at her, he
saw the helplessness in her eyes as well.

"What is it you want?" said her eyes--"I can't
get rid of him.  He's as cunning as he can be."

And his eyes replied--"I want to know your name--I
want to know who you are."  Which is a foolish
thing to say with one's eyes, because no one could
possibly understand it.  It might mean anything.

Then he launched a question at a venture.  If
she had any intuition, she could guide it safe to
port.

"I just wanted to ask," said John--"if you were
any relation to the--the----"  At that moment the
only name that entered his head was Wrigglesworth,
who kept a little eating-house in Fetter Lane--"the--oh--what
is their name!--the Merediths of Wrotham?"

He had just been reading "The Amazing
Marriage."  But where on earth was Wrotham?  Well,
it must do.

She looked at him in amazement.  She had not
understood.  Who could blame her?

"The Merediths?" she repeated--"But why
should you think----"

"Oh, yes--I know,"--he interposed quickly--"It's
not the same name--but--they--they have
relations of your name--they told me so--cousins or
something like that, and I just wondered if--well,
it doesn't matter--you're not.  Good-bye."

He lifted his hat and departed.  For a moment
there was a quite unreasonable sense of disappointment
in his mind.  She was wanting in intuition.
She ought to have understood.  Of course, in her
bewilderment at his question she had looked charming
and that made up for a great deal.  How intensely
charming she had looked!  Her forehead when she
frowned--the eyes alight with questions.  Anyhow,
she had understood that what he had really wanted
to say could not be said before Ronald and, into her
confidence she had taken him--closing the door quite
softly behind them.  Without question, without
understanding, she had done that.  Perhaps it made up
for everything.

Presently, he heard the hurrying of feet, and
turned at once.  How wonderfully she ran--like a
boy of twelve, with a clean stride and a sure foot.

"I'm so sorry," she said in little breaths.  "I
didn't understand.  The Merediths and the Wrotham
put me all out.  It's Dealtry--Julie Dealtry--they
call me Jill.  We live in Prince of Wales'
Terrace."  She said the number.  "Do they call you
Jack?  Good-bye--to-morrow."  And she was off.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SIDE-LIGHT UPON APPEARANCES`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   A SIDE-LIGHT UPON APPEARANCES

.. vspace:: 2

He watched the last sway of her skirt, the last
toss of her head, as she ran down the hill of the
Broad Walk, then, repeating mechanically to himself:

   |   *Jack and Jill went up the hill*
   |   *To fetch a pail of water,*
   |   *Jack fell down and broke his crown*
   |   *And Jill came tumbling after,*

.. class:: noindent

and, wondering what it all meant, wondering if, after
all, those nursery rhymes were really charged with
subtle meaning, he made his way to Victoria Gate
in the Park Railings.

In the high road, he saw a man he knew, a
member of his club, top-hatted and befrocked.  The silk
hat gleamed in the sunlight.  It looked just like a
silk hat you would draw, catching the light in two
brilliant lines from crown to brim.  The frock coat
was caught with one button at the waist.
Immaculate is the word.  John hesitated.  They were
friends, casual friends, but he hesitated.  There
might be two opinions about the soft felt hat he
was wearing.  He found it comfortable; but one
gets biased in one's opinions about one's hats.  Even
the fact that the evening before he had driven with
this friend in a hansom for which he had paid as
the friend had no money on him at the time--even
this did not give him courage.  He decided to keep
to his, the Park side of the Bayswater Road.

But presently the friend saw him, lifted his stick,
and shook it amicably in greeting.  He even crossed
the road.  Well, after all, he could scarcely do
anything else.  John had paid for his hansom only
the evening before.  He remembered vividly how, on
the suggestion that they should drive, his friend had
dived his hand into his pocket, shaken his bunch of
keys and said, with obvious embarrassment, that he
had run rather short of change.  It always is change
that one runs short of.  Capital is never wanting.
There is always a balance at the poor man's bank,
and the greater his pride the bigger the balance.
But at that moment, John had been rich in
change--that is to say, he had half a crown.

"Oh--I've got heaps," he had said.  It is permissible
to talk of heaps when you have enough.  And
he had paid for the whole journey.  It was not to
be wondered at then, that his friend came amicably
across the road.

John greeted him lightly.

"Going up to town?"

"Yes--are you?"

John nodded.  "Are you lunching at the Club?"

"No--I've got to meet some people at the
Carlton--How's the time--my watch is being mended."

"I don't know," said John--"my watch is all
smashed up.  It's just on one I should think."

"As much as that?  I must be moving on.  Shall
we get on a 'bus?"

The very thing.  John acquiesced readily.  He had
nothing; a careful calculation of what he had spent
that morning will account for that.  But his friend
could pay.  It was his turn.

They mounted the stairs and took a front seat
behind the driver.

"You'll have to pay for me to-day," said John.
"My pockets are empty till I get a cheque changed."

The blood mounted to the face of his friend.  For
a moment he looked as though his beautiful hat
were too tight for his head.  He felt in his pocket.
Then he produced a little stamp case, with gold
mounted corners and one penny stamp inside.

"I'm awfully sorry," said he--"I--I've only got
a penny stamp."  He rose quickly to his feet.

John laughed--laughed loudly.

"What are you going to do?" said he.

"Well--get off," said his friend.

"Sit down," said John--"there's no hurry."

"Have you got twopence, then?"

"No--not a farthing.  But we're getting into
Town, aren't we?  We've got nothing to grumble at."

When the 'bus had travelled another hundred
yards or so, John stood up.

"Now, you come downstairs," said he.  The friend
followed obediently.  The conductor was inside
punching tickets.  John looked in.

"Does this 'bus go to Paddington Station?" he
asked inquiringly.

"No--Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, and Strand."

"What a nuisance," said John--"Come on--we'd
better get off."

They descended on to the road, and the friend,
immaculate, top-hatted and befrocked, took his arm.

"I see," he said, and he looked back to measure
the distance with his eye.

There are more people in London with only a
penny in their pockets than you would imagine.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CHAPEL OF UNREDEMPTION`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium

   THE CHAPEL OF UNREDEMPTION

.. vspace:: 2

The next morning was one of promise.  For half
an hour before the time appointed for his meeting,
John was waiting, seated upon a penny chair,
thinking innumerable thoughts, smoking innumerable
cigarettes.  Sometimes he felt the money that was in
his pocket, running his finger nail over the minted
edge of the half crowns and florins to distinguish
them from the pennies.  No woman, whatever
franchise she may win, will ever understand the delight
of this.  You must have a pocket in your trousers
and keep your money there--even gold when you
possess it--to appreciate the innocent joy of such
an occupation as this.  Men have really a deal to
be grateful for.

That morning, John had money.  He even had
gold.  He had pawned his gold watch-chain,
intending, if the opportunity arose, to ask Jill to
lunch.

The watch, as you know, was smashed up.  That
is a technical term in use amongst all gentlemen and
sensitive people, having this great advantage that
it may be taken literally or not, at will.  No one
who uses the term has ever been so much in want
of shame as to define it.

You may wonder why it is that the watch and
not the chain should get smashed up first.  It is
the watch that tells the time.  But then, it is the
chain that tells you have got the watch that tells
the time, and in this life one has always to be
considering that there would be no maiden all forlorn
if it were not for the house that Jack built.  The
chain will always be the last to go, so long as
those three brass balls continue to hang over that
suspicious-looking shop in the dingy side street.

John's watch had been smashed up for some weeks;
but little boys and little girls in the street still
flattered him by asking to be told the time.

With one eye searching for a distant clock while
your hand pulls out the latch key which depends upon
the chain, giving it the weight of a reason to stay in
the pocket, you can easily deceive the eyes of these
unsuspecting little people in the street.  If you
discover the distant clock, all well and good.  If not,
then a hundred devices are left open to you.  You
can guess--you can tell it by the sun, but, and if
you are conscientious, you can apologise and say
your watch has stopped.  And last of all, if it is a
nice little person with eyes in which a laugh is
always a-tip-toe, you may dangle the key in front
of their face, and with their merriment experience
the clean pleasure of honesty.

A quality about John that was interesting, was
his ability to anticipate possibilities.  Perhaps a
man's mind runs instinctively to the future, and it
is the woman who lives in the past.

When Mrs. Rowse awakened him in the morning,
he sat up in bed with the glowing consciousness
that something was to happen that day.  Something
had been arranged; some appointment was to be
kept; some new interest had entered his life which
was to take definite shape that very day.

He asked Mrs. Rowse the time--not as one who
really wishes to know it, but as it were a duty, which
must sooner or later be accomplished.  Directly she
said a quarter to nine, he remembered.  Jill!  The
Lady of St. Joseph!  That morning she was going
to tell him how much she liked his story.

He sat up at once in bed.

"Mrs. Rowse!  I shall want my coffee in half
an hour.  Less!  Twenty minutes!"

In twenty minutes, he was dressed.  Allowance
must be made if he chose a sock that matched a tie
or spent a moment of thought upon the selection
of a shirt to go with them.  Vanity, it is, only to
do these things for your own approval; but when all
consciously, you stand upon the very threshold of
romance, it may be excused you if you consider
yourself in the reflexion of the door.  It is the man
who, wandering aimlessly through the streets in
life, looks in at every mirror that he passes, who is
abominable.  That is the vanity of which the
prophet spoke.  The prophet, himself, would have
been the first to set straight the tie, or rearrange
the 'kerchief of the lover who goes to meet his
mistress.

Even John smiled at himself.  The socks matched
the tie so absolutely; it was ludicrous how well they
matched.  There was no rough, blue serge suit that
day.  Out of the depths of the wardrobe came a coat
well brushed and kept.  Then he went in to breakfast.

During the meal, Mrs. Rowse lingered about in
the sitting-room, dusting things that might easily
have escaped notice.  John, reading his paper, at
last became aware of it with a rush of blood to his
cheeks.  She had paid the day before for the
washing--three and elevenpence.

If you go to a laundry in the environment of
Fetter Lane, it is like putting your clothes in pawn.
You can't get them back again until the bill is paid,
and there are times when that is inconvenient.

That was why Mrs. Rowse was lingering.  She
had paid for the washing.  Whenever money was
due to her, she lingered.  It is a subtle method of
reproach, a gentle process of reminder which at first
scarcely explains itself.

On the first occasion when she had adopted it,
John had thought she was losing her memory, that
her wits were gathering.  Out of the corner of his
eye, he had nervously watched her going aimlessly
about the room, dusting the same object perhaps six
separate times.  When a woman is paid seven
shillings a week for keeping one's rooms tidy, such
industry as this might well be a sign of madness.

At length, unable to bear it any longer, John
had said that he thought she had done enough.
Despairingly then, she had folded up the duster,
put it away, taken an unconscionable time in the
pinning on of that black, shabby hat, and finally,
but only when at the door itself, she had said:

"Do you think you could spare my wages to-day, sir?"

Now she was lingering again.  But he had come
to know the signs and meanings of the process.  This
time, John knew it was the washing.  He watched
her covertly from behind his paper, hoping against
hope that she might tire; for he had not got three
and elevenpence, nor three halfpence in the world.
But a master in the art of lingering does not know
what it means to tire.  Just when he thought she
must have finished, when she had done all the glass
on the mantel-piece for the second time, she went out
of the room to the cupboard on the landing where
John kept his two-hundredweight of coal and
returned with all the rags and pots of paste necessary
for the cleaning of the brass.

Here he gave in; the siege was over.  Under cover
of the newspaper, he detached the latch key from
his watch-chain, slipped it into his pocket and rose,
concealing the chain within his hand.

"I'm just going out," he said--"for a few
moments.  Can you wait till I get back?"

She looked as though she could not, as if it were
rather encroaching upon the limit of her time to ask
her to stay longer, but----

"I expect I can find one or two little things to
do for a few moments," she said.

John left her doing them.  They mainly consisted
of putting the brass polish and the rags back again
in the cupboard from which she had taken them.

It is here that you will see this quality interesting
in John, this ability to anticipate possibilities.  It
was not really the victory of Mrs. Rowse that had
impelled him to the sacrifice of his watch-chain.  It
is not consistent with human nature for any man to
pawn an article of value--far less one which implies
the possession of another--in order to pay his
washing bill.  Washing, like the income tax, is one of
those indemnities in life which appear to have no
justice in their existence.  It would always seem
that your integrity were still preserved, that you
were still a man of honour if you could avoid paying them.

I know a man, who has eluded the income tax
authorities for seven years, and he is held in the
highest esteem as a man of acumen, ability, and the
soul of honour.  I admit that this opinion is only
held of him by those who are endeavouring to do the
same as he.  A man, for instance, who belongs to the
same club and pays his income tax to the last
shilling, thinks him to be a hopelessly immoral citizen
and would believe him capable of anything.  But this
is not fair.  It would be far more just to say
that the man who pays his income tax to the
uttermost farthing is capable of nothing--invertebrate.

It was not, then, alone to pay his washing bill
that John decided to part with the gold
watch-chain.  He had, in a moment of inspiration,
conjured before him the possibility of asking Jill to
lunch, and these two motives, uniting from opposite
quarters of the compass of suggestion to one and the
same end, he sacrificed the last pretentions he
might have claimed to the opulence conveyed by a
gold watch-chain and repaired to Payne and Welcome's.

With a bold and unconscious step, he strode into
the little side entrance, which is a feature of all
these jeweller's shops displaying the mystical sign
of the three brass balls.  Without the slightest sense
of shame, he pushed open one of the small doors
that give admittance to the little boxes--those little
boxes where the confession of one's poverty is made.
And to no sympathetic ear of a gentle priest are
those terrible confessions to be whispered--the most
terrible confession you can make in this world.  The
man to whom you tell your story of shame is greedy
and willing to listen, eager and inexorable to make
your penance as heavy as he may.  A bailiff is,
perhaps, more stony of heart than a pawnbroker; yet
both are brothers in trade.  The dearest things in
the life of anyone are their possessions, and both
these tradesmen deal in their heartless confiscation.
The woman out at elbow, hollow-eyed, who comes to
pawn her wedding ring, the man--shabby--genteel--wearing,
until the nap is gone and the sleeves are
frayed, the garment of his self-respect, who comes to
put away his best and Sunday coat; they are all
one to the pawnbroker.  He beats them down to the
last farthing, well knowing that, having once
determined to part with their possessions, they will
not willingly go away again without that for which
they came.  He has them utterly at his mercy.  They
are all one to him.  The story in their faces is
nothing to his eyes.  He signs a hundred death warrants
in the tickets that he writes every day--death
warrants to possessions well-nigh as dear as life; but it
means nothing to him.

The awful thought about it all, is to consider the
ease with which one loses the sense of shame which,
upon a first transaction of the kind, is a hot wind
blowing on the face, burning the cheeks to scarlet.

On the first occasion that John was driven to such
dealing, he passed that guilty side entrance many
times before he finally summoned courage to enter.
Every time that he essayed the fatal step, the
street became full of people whom he knew.  There
was that editor who was considering his last short
story!  He turned swiftly, his heel a sudden pivot,
and scrutinised the objects in the jeweller's window,
then harried away up the street, as though he were
ashamed of wasting his time.  A glance over the
shoulder, satisfied him that the editor was out of
sight and back he slowly came.  This time he had
got within a foot of the door--a foot of it.  One
step more and he would have been in the sheltering
seclusion of that narrow little passage!  There was
the girl who sold him stamps in the post-office--the
girl who smiled at him and said she had read a
beautiful story of his in one of the magazines!  He
had looked up quickly as though he had mistaken
the number on the door, then marched into the next
shop on the left, as if that were the one he had
been looking for.  When he had got in, he realised
that it was a butcher's.

The butcher, in a blithe voice, had said:

"And what this morning, sir?"

"I want--can you tell me the time?" said John.

In about half an hour there came a moment when
the street was empty.  John had seized it and
vanished up the little passage.  But the ordeal was not
over then.  He had had to face the high priest of
poverty--to tell to him the unforgivable, the
mortal crime of penury.  And there had been someone
in the next confessional--someone hardened in
sin--who could hear every single word that he said, and
even so far over-stepped the bounds of decency as
to look round the corner of their partition.

"How much will you give me for this?" said John,
laying his watch upon the counter.  It was the watch
his mother had given him, the watch for which she
had lovingly stinted herself of ten pounds in
order to mark, with degree, his twenty-first birthday.

The high priest had picked it up superciliously.

"D'you want to sell it?"

"No--oh, no!  Only--pawn it."

"Well, how much d'you want?"

"I'd rather you said," replied John meekly.

The high priest shrugged his shoulders.  It was
a wasting of his time, he said, to go on with
nonsense like that.

"How much do you want?" he repeated.

"Five pounds," said John, and suddenly, without
knowing how, found the watch back again in his
possession.  The high priest had turned to the
hardened sinner in the next confessional, and he was left
there looking at it blankly in the palm of his open
hand.  He scarcely knew how he had come by it
again.  In the midst of the other transaction, the
pawnbroker presently addressed him over his
shoulder--loudly, so that all in the shop could hear:

"I'll give you two pounds," he had said--"And
that's about as much as I could sell it for myself."

Two pounds!  It was an insult to that dear, little,
old, white-haired lady who had scraped and saved to
buy him the best she knew.

"It cost ten pounds!" John said boldly.

"Ten pounds!"  The laugh he gave was like the
breaking of glass.  "The person who gave ten
pounds for that must have wanted to get rid of
money in a hurry."

Wanted to get rid of money in a hurry!  If he
could have seen the number of dainty shawls the thin
white fingers had knitted and the trembling hands
had sold in order to amass the fortune of that ten
pounds, he would not have talked of hurry.

"I'll give you two pounds five," he had added.
"Not a farthing more and if you take it away
somewhere else and then bring it back here again,
I'll only give you two pounds, what I said at
first."

When the blood is mounting to your forehead,
when it seems you are crushed about by those
watching your discomfort till the warmth of their
pressing, phantom bodies brings the perspiration out in
beads upon your face, you will take anything to get
away.

The pawnbroker had made out the ticket as John
mumbled his name and address.

"Got a penny--a penny for the ticket?" said the man.

To be compelled to make this confession--the most
unabsolvable of all--that he had nothing in his
pocket, was the crisis to his suffering.  The high
priest sniffed, smiled and counted out two pounds
four and elevenpence.  Then John had turned and fled.

Out in the street again, he had breathed once
more.  The air was purer there.  The passers-by,
hearing the money jingle in his pocket, held him in
higher esteem than did those devotees in the chapel
of unredemption.  He could even stop and look in
the windows of the jeweller's shop--that open,
smiling face of a shop window which, beneath its smug
and shiny respectability, concealed all the secret,
sordid crimes of poverty--the polished pledges
unredeemed, that lay deceptively upon the glass shelves
as though they had come just new from the maker's
hands.

It was then, gazing in the window, on that
memorable day when he had made his first confession,
that John had seen the little brass man.  He stood
there on a glass shelf along with dozens of other
unredeemed trinkets, his low-crowned top-hat, his
long-tailed, slim-waisted, Georgian coat and
many-buttoned vest, giving him an air of distinction which
none of the other objects around him possessed.
His attitude, his pose, was that of a *Chevalier
d'honneur*--a chivalrous, courteous, proud old gentleman.
The one hand resting on the hip, was full of dignity.
The other stretched out as though to reach
something, John came later, on acquaintance, to learn
the fuller significance of that.  But though all the
features of his face were worn away by hands that had
held him, gripping him as they pressed him down,
a seal upon the molten wax, it had no power to lessen
his undeniable dignity.  For all his shapelessness of
eyes and nose and mouth, there was not an
inch thereby detracted from his stature.  From the
first moment that he had seen him, the little brass
man had taken his stand in John's mind as the
figure of all nobility, all honour, and all cleanliness
and generosity of heart.

To see that little figure in brass was to covet him.
John walked back without hesitation into the shop;
but this time it was through the jeweller's
entrance--this time it was with the confidence of one who
comes to buy, not to sell, with the self-righteousness
of the virtue of two pounds four and eleven-pence,
not with the shame of the sin of poverty.

Ah, they treat you differently on this side of
the counter.  If you were ordering a High Mass to
be sung, the priest of poverty could treat you with
no greater deference.  They may have thought he
was mad--most probably they did.  It is not
characteristic of the man who comes without a penny to
pay for the ticket as he pawns his watch, to
immediately purchase, haphazard, a little trinket that
is of no use to anyone.  The high priest of poverty,
himself, will tell you that the sin must weigh heavy
with need upon the mind before the tongue can bring
itself to confess.

They had looked at him in no little surprise as he
re-entered; but when he had asked to be shown the
little brass man, they cast glances from one to
another, as people do when they think they are in the
presence of a wandering mind.

"How much do you want for it?" John had asked.

"Seven and six.  It's very good--an old seal,
you know, quite an antique."

John considered the one pound fifteen which he
owed out of that two pounds four and elevenpence.

"I'm afraid that's too much," said he.

"Ah--it's worth it.  Why, that's over a hundred
years old--quite unique."

"I'm afraid it's too much," John repeated.

"Well--look here--I'll tell you what we'll do.
You can have it for seven shillings, and we'll give
you six on it any day you like to bring it back."

They could have offered no greater proof than
that of the value in which they held it.  If a
pawnbroker will buy back an article at almost the same
price that he sells it, he must indeed be letting you
have it cheap.  This offering to take back the little
brass man at only a shilling less than he was
asking for it, was the highest expression of honesty
with which he could defend his demands.

John accepted the conditions--paid out his seven
shillings and bore the little *Chevalier d'honneur* in
brass away.

It was three months later, he had only had
breakfast for two days--breakfast, which consisted of
toast made from a loaf that was ten days old,
bloater paste which keeps for ever, and coffee
which can--if you know where to get it--be
obtained on credit.  It was winter-time and the cold
had made him hungry.  Coals had run out.  The last
few scrapings of dust had been gathered out of that
cupboard on the landing.  Then depression set in.
Depression is a heartless jade.  She always pays you
a visit when both stomach and pocket are empty.
Putting his face in his hands, John had leant on
the mantel-piece.  There was nothing to pawn just
then.  Everything had gone!  Suddenly, he became
aware that he was gazing at the little brass man,
and that the little brass man had got one hand
aristocratically upon his hip, whilst the other was
holding out something as though secretly to bestow
it as a gift.  John looked, and looked again.  Then
he saw what it was.  The little brass man was
offering him six shillings and a spasm of hunger
creaking through him--he had taken it.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE INVENTORY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium

   THE INVENTORY

.. vspace:: 2

All this had happened more than a year ago, and
the sense of shame, accompanying that first
confession, had been worn to the dull surface, incapable of
reflecting the finer feelings of the mind.  Under
the very nose of that editor who was considering his
last short story, John would have stepped boldly
into the suspicious-looking little passage; returning
the smile of the girl who sold him stamps in the
post-office, he would have entered shamelessly the chapel
of unredemption.  Such is the reward of the
perpetual sin of poverty.  It brings with it the soothing
narcotic of callousness, of indifference--and that
perhaps is the saddest sin of all.

The watch-chain went that morning with the ease
of a transaction constantly performed.  There was
no need to haggle over the price this time.  The
same price had been paid many times before.  It
came last but one on the list of things to be pawned.
Last of all was the little brass man--the last to be
pledged, the first to be redeemed.  There is always
an order in these things and it never varies.  When
pledging, you go from top to bottom of the list;
when redeeming, it is just the reverse.  And the
order itself depends entirely upon that degree of
sentiment with which each object is regarded.

The following was the list, in its correct order,
of those things which from time to time left the
world of John's possession, and were hidden in the
seclusion of pledged retreat:--

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   FUR COAT.
   CUFF LINKS.
   CIGARETTE CASE.
   TIE PIN.
   MATCH BOX.
   WATCH.
   CHAIN.
   LITTLE BRASS MAN.

.. class:: noindent

Reverse the order of this and you arrive at the
sequence in which they returned.  And here follows a
detailed account of the history of each object--detailed,
where details are possible and of interest.

*Fur Coat*.  This pretentious-looking article was
bought by John as a bargain.  One day, when
paying his rent to the landlord--a man who smelted
and refined the gold that has an acquaintance with
false teeth--he was asked if he would like to buy
something very cheap.  Well--you know what a
temptation that is.  So great a temptation is it,
that you ask first "How much?" and only when you
have heard the price, do you inquire the nature of
the article.  Four pounds ten, he was told.  Then
what was it?  A fur-lined overcoat with astrachan
collar and cuffs!  There must be a presumption on
the part of the seller that you know nothing of
fur coats, or he will not talk to you like this.
Certainly it was cheap, but even then, it would not
have been bought had John not overheard the former
possessor offering to buy it back at four pounds
five.  Such a circumstance as this doubles the
temptation.  So seldom is it that one comes across a
bargain when one has any money in one's pocket, that
it is impossible, when one does, to let it go to
another man.  John bought it.  It would be a useful
thing to visit editors in when he had no money.

But you would scarcely credit the treachery of a
fur-lined coat with astrachan collar and cuffs.  John
had no idea of it.  It played fiendish tricks upon
him.  Just as he determined to mount upon a
'bus, it whispered in his ear--"You can't do this--you
really can't.  If you want to drive, you'd better
get a hansom.  If not, then you'd better walk."

It was of no avail that he complained of not
being able to afford a hansom and of being in too
great a hurry to walk.  That heavy astrachan
collar whispered again:

"You can't ride on a 'bus anyway--look at that
man laughing at you already----"

And with a fiendish joy, it gave him sudden and
magical insight into the jeering minds of all those
people in the 'bus.  He relinquished the 'bus then.
He called a hansom; he was in a hurry and he drove
away, while the astrachan collar preens itself with
pride and delight as it looks in the little oblong
mirror.

And this is not the only treachery which the fur
coat played upon him.  As he descended from the
cab, a man rushed out of nowhere to protect that
coat from the wheels, and overcome with pleasure,
the fur coat whispered in his ear once more--"Give
him twopence--you can't ignore him."

"I could have kept my coat off the wheel quite
easily myself," John replied--"He was really only
in the way."

"Never mind," exclaimed the astrachan collar--"If
you're going to be seen about with me, you'll
have to give him twopence."

Reluctantly John took the twopence out.

And then, all the while that he was fumbling in
his pocket for the shilling which should have been
more than his legal fare, seeing the distance he had
come, only that it cannot be less, the astrachan
collar was still at him.

"Can't you hear," it says suggestively--"can't
you hear what the cabman is going to say when you
only give him a shilling!"

Then it imitated his voice, just in the very way
John knew he would say it, and he felt the blood
tingling to the roots of his hair.  Of course, he
gave him one and six, for by this time he was the
slave of that fur-lined coat.  It dominated his life.
It ran up bills in his name and he had to pay
them.  For myself, I would sooner live with an
extravagant wife than with a fur-lined coat.

And so was it with John.  That bargain he had
purchased with the astrachan collar and cuffs treated
him shamefully.  It was insatiable in its demands,
and all under false pretences; for there came one
terrible day when John, who knew nothing about these
things, learnt that it was only imitation astrachan.
Then he asserted himself.  He refused to take it
out, and one freezing day in the month of February
pawned it for two pounds five.  Some three months
later, on a blazing day in May, he received a
notice from the pawnbroker, who said that he must
redeem it immediately, for he could not hold
himself responsible for the fur.  Now, even an
extravagant wife would have more consideration for you,
more idea of the true fitness of things than that.
Eventually that fur coat was pawned in order to
save a lady from the last, the most extreme sentence
that the law can pass upon the sin of poverty.
There comes a time when the sin of poverty can be
dealt no longer with by the high priest in the chapel
of unredemption.  Then it comes into the hands of
the law.  To save her from this, was a debt of
honour and perhaps the most generous action
that that fur coat ever did in its life, was to pay
that debt: for the three months went by, and on
one of the coldest days in winter, it passed silently
and unwept into the possession of the high priest.

*Cuff Links*.  No history is attached to these.
They realised ten shillings many times, till the ticket
was lost, and then, since, under these circumstances,
an affidavit must be made, and cuff links not being
worth the swearing about, they were lost sight of.

*The Watch*.  For this is the next article on the
inventory, of which any substance can be written,
and its history is practically known already.  John's
mother had given it to him.  It represented the
many times those two bright eyes were tired with
counting the stitches of the white lace shawls.  It
represented the thousands of times that those slender,
sensitive fingers had rested in weariness from their
ceaseless passing to and fro.  It represented almost
the last lace-work she had done, before those fingers
had at length been held motionless in the cold
grip of paralysis.  But, above all, it stood for the
love of that gentle heart that beat with so much
pride and so much pleasure, to see the little boy,
whose head her breast had fondled, come to the
stern and mighty age of twenty-one.  And two
pounds five was the value they put upon it all.

*The Little Brass Man*,--the *Chevalier d'honneur*.
His story has already been told--his life, so far as
it concerns this history.  But of what he had lived
through in the hundred years that had gone
before--nobody knows.  One can only assume, without fear
of inaccuracy, that it was the life of a gentleman.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE WAY TO FIND OUT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium

   THE WAY TO FIND OUT

.. vspace:: 2

These were the thoughts passing and re-passing
idly through John's mind as he sat, waiting, upon
the stiff little iron chair in Kensington Gardens, and
felt the minted edge of the half-crowns and the
florins that lay so comfortably at the bottom of his
pocket.

And then came Jill.  She came alone.

He saw her in the distance, coming up that
sudden rise of the Broad Walk down which hoops roll
so splendidly--become so realistically restive, and
prance and rear beneath the blow of the stick in the
circus-master's hand.  And--she was walking alone.

Then, in a moment, the Gardens became empty.
John was not conscious of their becoming so.  They
were--just empty.  Down a long road, tapering to
the infinite point of distance, on which her figure
moved alone, she might have been coming--slowly,
gradually, to their ultimate meeting.

He felt no wonder, realised no surprise at their
sudden solitude.  When in the midst of Romance,
you are not conscious of the miracles it performs.
You do not marvel at the wonders of its magic
carpets which, in the whisk of a lamb's tail, transport
you thousands of miles away; you are not amazed at
the wizardry of its coats of invisibility which can
hide you two from the whole world, or hide the
whole world from you.  All these you take for
granted; for Romance, when it does come to you,
comes, just plainly and without ceremony, in the
everyday garments of life and you never know the
magician you have been entertaining until he is gone.

Even John himself, whose business in life it was
to see the romance in the life of others, could not
recognise it now in his own.  There were women he
had met, there were women he had loved; but this
was romance and he never knew it.

With pulses that beat warmly in a strange, quick
way, he rose from his chair, thinking to go and
meet her.  But she might resent that.  She might
have changed her mind.  She might not be coming to
meet him at all.  Perhaps, as she lay awake that
morning--it was a presumption to think she had lain
awake at all--perhaps she had altered her opinion
about the propriety of an introduction afforded by
St. Joseph.  It were better, he thought, to see her
hand held out, before he took it.

So he sat back again in his chair and watched
her as she stepped over the railings--those little
railings scarcely a foot high, over which, if you
know what it is to be six, you know the grand
delight of leaping; you know the thrill of pleasure when
you look back, surveying the height you have cleared.

She was coming in his direction.  Her skirt was
brushing the short grass stems.  Her head was down.
She raised it and--she had seen him!

Those were the most poignant, the most conscious
moments of all when, after their eyes had met, there
were still some forty yards or so to be covered before
they met.  She smiled and looked up at the elm
trees; he smiled and looked down at the grass.  They
could not call out to each other,
saying--"How-do-you-do."  Inexorably, without pity, Circumstance
decreed that they must cross those forty yards of
silence before they could speak.  She felt the blood
rising in a tide to her cheeks.  He became conscious
that he had hands and feet; that his head was set
upon his shoulders and could not, without the
accompaniment of his body, face round the other way.
The correct term for these excruciating tortures of
the mind--so I am assured--is platt.  When there
is such a distance between yourself and the person
whom you are approaching to meet, you are known,
if you have any sensitiveness at all, to have a
platt.

Now, if ever people had a platt, it was these two.
That distance was measured in their mind, yard by
yard.

At last he held her hand.

"I was," she began at once, "going to write.
But I didn't know your address."

"You were going to write----?"

He pulled forward a chair for her, near to his.

"Yes--I was going to write and tell you--I'm
terribly sorry, but I can't come this morning----"
and she sat down.

A look of deepest disappointment was so plainly
written in his face as he seated himself beside her.
He made no effort to render it illegible to those
eyes of hers.

"Why not?" said he, despondently.  "Why can't
you come?"

"Oh--you wouldn't understand if I told you."

This was the moment for the ferrule of an
umbrella, or the point of an elegant shoe.  But she had
not brought the umbrella, and her shoes, well--she
was unable to come that morning, so it had scarcely
mattered what she had put on.  The toe of the
shoe did peep out for a moment from under the
skirt, but not being approved of for elegance, it
withdrew.  She was forced to fall back upon words;
so she just repeated herself to emphasise them.

"You wouldn't understand if I told you," she
said again.

"Is it fair to say that," said John, "before
you've found me wanting in understanding?"

"No, but I know you wouldn't understand.
Besides--it's about you."

"The reason why you can't come?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you another time, perhaps."

Ah, but that would never do.  You can't tell
people another time.  They don't want to hear it
then.

"You can tell me now," persisted John.

She shook her head.

"There's only one time to tell things," he said.

"When?"

"Now."

She just began.  Her lips parted.  She took the
breath for speech.  The words came into her eyes.

"No--I can't tell you--don't ask me."

But he asked.  He kept on asking.  Whenever
there was a pause, he gently asked again.  He began
putting the words into her mouth, and when he'd
half said it for her, he asked once more.

"Why do you keep on asking?" she said with a smile.

"Because I know," said John.

"You know?"

"Yes."

"Then why----"

"Because I want you to tell me, and because I
only know a little.  I don't know it all.  I don't
know why your mother objects to me, except that
she doesn't approve of the introduction of St. Joseph.
I don't know whether she's said you're not
to see me again."

That look of amazement in her eyes was a just
and fair reward for his simple hazard.  Girls of
twenty-one have mothers--more's the pity.  He had
only guessed it.  And a mother who has a daughter
of twenty-one has just reached that age when life
lies in a groove and she would drag all within it
if she could.  She is forty-eight, perhaps, and
knowing her husband as an obedient child knows its
collect on a Sunday, she judges all men by him.  Now,
all men, fortunately for them, fortunately for
everybody, are not husbands.  Husbands are a type, a
class by themselves; no other man is quite like them.
They have irritating ways, and no wife should judge
other men by their standards.  When she would
quarrel, theirs is the patience of Job.  When she
would be amiable, there is nothing to please them.
They are seldom honest; they are scarcely ever
truthful.  For marriage will often bring out of a man the
worst qualities that he has, as the washing-tub will
sometimes only intensify the strain upon the linen.

In the back of his mind, John felt the unseen
judgment of some woman upon him, and from this
very standpoint.  When he saw the look of amazement
in Jill's eyes, he knew he was right.

"Why do you look so surprised?" he said, smiling.

"Because--well--why did you ask if you knew?"

"Do you think I should ask if I didn't know?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Oh, no.  It's no good asking a woman questions
when you don't know, when you haven't the faintest
idea of what her answer is going to be.  She knows
very well just how ignorant you are and, by a subtle
process of the mind, she superimposes that ignorance
upon herself.  And if you go on asking her direct
questions, there comes a moment when she really
doesn't know either.  Then she makes it up or tells
you she has forgotten.  Isn't that true?"

She watched him all the time he spoke.  He might
have been talking nonsense.  He probably was; but
there seemed to be some echo of the truth of it far
away in the hidden recesses of her mind.  She seemed
to remember many times when just such a process
had taken place within her.  But how had he known
that, when she had never realised it before?

"What do you do, then, when you don't know,
if you don't ask questions?"

He took a loose cigarette from his pocket and
slowly lit it.

"Ah--then you have recourse to that wonderful
method of finding out.  It's so difficult, so almost
impossible, and that's why it's so wonderful.  To
begin with, you pretend you don't want to know.
That must be the first step.  All others--and there
are hundreds--follow after that; but you must
pretend you don't want to know, or she'll never tell
you.  But I am sure your mother's been saying
something to you about me, and I really want to know
what it is.  How did she come to hear about me?"

He knew it would be easy for her to begin with
that.  No woman will tell unless it is easy.

"Did you tell her?" he suggested gently, knowing
that she did not.

"Oh, no--I didn't.  It was Ronald."

"Ah--he said something?"

"Yes--at lunch--something about the papers."

"And you had to explain?"

"Yes."

"Was she vexed?"

"Yes--rather.  Well--I suppose it did sound
rather funny, you know."

"You told her about St. Joseph?"

"I said where I'd met you, in the Sardinia
St. Chapel."  She smiled up at him incredulously.  "You
didn't think I'd tell her that St. Joseph had
introduced us, did you?"

"Why not?  St. Joseph's a very proper man."

"Yes--on his altar, but not in Kensington."

"Well--what did she say?"

"She asked where you lived."

"Oh----"

It is impossible to make comparison between
Fetter Lane and Prince of Wales' Terrace without a
face longer than is your wont--especially if it is
you who live in Fetter Lane.

"And you told her you didn't know."

"Of course."

She said it so expectantly, so hopefully that he
would divulge the terrible secret which meant so much
to the continuation of their acquaintance.

"And what did she say to that?"

"She said, of course, that it was impossible for
me to know you until you had come properly as a
visitor to the house, and that she couldn't ask you
until she knew where you lived.  And I suppose
that's quite right."

"I suppose it is," said John.  "At any rate you
agree with her?"

"I suppose so."

It meant she didn't.  One never does the thing
one supposes to be right; there's no satisfaction in it.

"Well--the Martyrs' Club will always find me."

This was John's club; that club, to become a
member of which, he had been despoiled of the
amount of a whole year's rent.  He was still
staggering financially under the blow.

"Do you live there?" she asked.

"No--no one lives there.  Members go to sleep
there, but they never go to bed.  There are no
beds."

"Then where do you live?"

He turned and looked full in her eyes.  If she
were to have sympathy, if she were to have
confidence and understanding, it must be now.

"I can't tell you where I live," said John.

The clock of St. Mary Abbot's chimed the hour
of midday.  He watched her face to see if she
heard.  One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight
nine--ten--eleven--twelve!  She had not
heard a single stroke of it, and they had been
sitting there for an hour.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WHAT IS HIDDEN BY A CAMISOLE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium

   WHAT IS HIDDEN BY A CAMISOLE

.. vspace:: 2

Add but the flavour of secrecy to the making of
Romance; allow that every meeting be clandestine
and every letter written sealed, and matters will so
thrive apace that, before you can, with the children
in the nursery, say Jack Robinson, the fire will be
kindled and the flames of it leaping through your
every pulse.

When, with tacit consent, Jill asked no further
questions as to where John lived, and yet continued
clandestinely to meet him, listening to the work he
read aloud to her, offering her opinion, giving her
approval, she was unconsciously, unwillingly, too,
perhaps, had she known, hastening towards the
ultimate and the inevitable end.

It must not be supposed that after this second
interview in Kensington Gardens, when John had
plainly said that he could not tell her where he
lived, she had wilfully disobeyed the unyielding
commands of her mother not to see him again.  The
fulfilment of destiny does not ask for disobedience.
With the shuttles of circumstance and coincidence to
its fingers, Destiny can weave a pattern in defiance of
every law but that of Nature.

Jill had said that morning:

"Then we mustn't meet again."

"You mean that?" said John.

"I can't help it," she replied distressfully.  "After
all, I'm living with my people; I must respect their
wishes to a certain degree.  If you would only
tell me----"

"But I can't," John had interposed.  "It's no
good.  It's much better that I leave you in
ignorance.  Why won't the Martyrs' Club satisfy you?
There are men at the Martyrs' Club who live on
Carlton House Terrace.  That is a part of their
martyrdom.  Is it beyond the stretch of your
imagination for you to suppose that I might have an
abode in--in--Bedford Park or Shepherd's Bush?"

She laughed, and then, as that stiff social figure
of her mother rose before her eyes and she recalled
to her mind remarks about a dressmaker who
happened to live in Shepherd's Bush--"Poor thing--she
lives at Shepherd's Bush--Life treats some people
in a shameful way--" an expression of charity
that went no further, for the dressmaker's work was
not considered good enough or cheap enough, and
she was given nothing more to do--when she
remembered that, the laugh vanished from her eyes.

"Isn't it as good as Shepherd's Bush?" she had
asked quite simply.

Well, when, in your more opulent moments, you
have thought of such a thing as a better address
at Shepherd's Bush, and have a question such as
this put to you, you have little desire left to reveal
the locality of the abode you do occupy.  It takes
the pride out of you.  It silenced John.  He recalled
to his mind a remark of Mrs. Meakin's when, having
invited him to take a rosy-cheeked apple from that
little partition where the rosy-cheeked apples lay,
she had thought by this subtle bribe to draw him into
conversation about himself.

"Don't you find it very dull livin' 'ere all alone
by yourself?" she had asked.

"Wherever you live," said John evasively, "you're
by yourself.  You're as much alone in a crowd as in
an empty church."

She had nodded her head, picked up a large
Spanish onion, and peeled off the outer skin to make it
look more fresh.

"But I should have thought," she had added
pensively--"I should have thought as 'ow you'd have
found this such a very low-cality."

And so, perhaps it was--very low.  And if Mrs. Meakin
had thought so, and Jill herself could talk
thus deprecatingly of Shepherd's Bush, where he
had hoped to better his address, then it were as
well to leave Fetter Lane alone.

"So you have made up your mind," he had said
quietly.  "You've made up your mind not to see
me again?"

"It's not I who have made it up," she answered.

"But you're going to obey?"

"I must."

"You won't be here to-morrow morning, at this hour?"

"No--I can't--I mustn't."

"Not to tell me how you liked my short story?"

"You know I liked it--awfully."

"And you won't come and hear another that's
better than that?"

"How can I?  You don't understand.  If you
came and lived at Prince of Wales' Terrace, you'd
understand then."

"Then it's no good my coming to-morrow?"

"Not if you want to see me."

"Then good-bye."

John stood up and held out his hand.

If you know the full value of coercion in renunciation;
if you realise the full power of persuasion in
the saying of good-bye, you have command of that
weapon which is the surest and the most subtle in
all the armament of Destiny.  It is only when they
have said good-bye that two people really come together.

"But why must you go now?" Jill had said regretfully.

John smiled.

"Well--first, because you said you couldn't come
this morning, and we've been here for an hour and a
half; and secondly, because if, as you say, we are
to see no more of each other, then hadn't I better
go now?  I think it's better.  Good-bye."

He held out his hand again.  She took it
reluctantly, and he was gone.

The next morning, Jill had wakened an hour
earlier--an hour earlier than was her wont--an
hour earlier, with the weight of a sense of loss
pressing on her mind.  It is that hour in bed before
rising that a woman thinks all the truest things in
her day; is most honest with herself, and least subtle
in the expression of her thoughts.  Then she gets
up--bathes--does her hair and, by the time a dainty
camisole is concealing those garments that prove
her to be a true woman--all honesty is gone; she
assumes the mystery of her sex.

In that hour earlier before her rising, Jill
honestly admitted her disgust with life.  Romance is
well-nigh everything to a woman--for Romance is
the Prelude, full of the most sonorous of chords,
breathing with the most wonderful of cadences--a
Prelude to the great Duty which she must
inevitably perform.  And this had been Romance.  She
had just touched it, just set in motion the unseen
fingers that play with such divine inspiration upon
the whole gamut of the strings, and now, it had
been put away.

Mind you, she knew nothing of the evolution of
the Prelude; she knew little of the history of the
Duty to perform.  It was not the conscious loss
of these that brought the disgust of life into the
complaining heart of her; for Romance, when first
it comes to a woman, is like the peak of a mountain
whose head is lifted above the clouds.  It has
nothing of this earth; means no such mundane phrase
as--falling in love.  To the girl of twenty-one,
Romance is the spirit of things beautiful, and,
therefore, the spirit of all things good.  And Jill had
lost it.  They were not to meet again.  She was
never to hear another of his stories.  He was not
coming to Kensington Gardens any more.

But suppose he did come!  Suppose there were
the sense of regret in the heart of him, as it was
with her, and suppose he came to see the place
where they had sat together!  If she could only
know that he cared enough to do that!  It would
make the renunciation more bearable if she could
only know that.  How could she find out?  Send
Ronald to the Gardens at about that hour?  He
would say if he had seen him.  But if Ronald went
to the Gardens, he would be voyaging on the good
ship *Albatross*, far away out at sea, out of sight
of land, in the dim distance of make-belief.  But if
she went herself--just casually--just for a walk--just
to see, only to see.  And, if he were there, she
could easily escape; she could easily creep away
unnoticed.  Well--not quite unnoticed, perhaps.  He
might see her in the distance, just before she passed
out of sight.

She got up quickly from her bed.  She bathed;
she did her hair; she dressed; she put on that dainty
camisole with its pale blue ribbon twined through
intricate meshes and concealed those little garments
which proved her to be a true woman--concealed
them with the camisole and the mystery of her sex.

At breakfast, she talked of having her hair
washed that morning.  There was no gloss in it,
she said.  Ronald cast a glance at it, sniffed and
then went on with his hasty mouthfuls of porridge.
What fools were girls!  As if it mattered!  As if
anyone noticed whether there were gloss or not!
The good ship *Albatross* wanted a new spinnaker,
and from whose under-linen that was to be stolen
without detection was a far more delicate
matter.  He had petitioned for white linen shirts for
himself for the last six months--white linen shirts
are always valuable to a sailor--but he had not got
them as yet.  This deprivation naturally led to
nefarious dealings with the tails of his father's
old white shirts.  It was impossible to use his own.
You cannot have flannel sails to your ship, if
she sails on the Round Pond.  On the other waters--the
Atlantic, for example--it doesn't matter so
much.  There were one or two things he had begun
to fancy he would never be able to get.

Quite simply, quite pensively, he had said one day
at dinner:

"I wonder if I shall ever eat the wing of a
chicken."

They permitted him to wonder--he and his drumstick.
One cannot be surprised, then, that he
sniggered when Jill talked about the gloss of her hair.

"Well, don't go to this place in the High
Street," said her mother.  "They're terribly exorbitant."

"I shall go up to town," said Jill.  And, up to
town she started.

There are various ways of going up to town.
She chose to cross the Broad Walk with the
intention of going by Bayswater.  She even made a
detour of the Round Pond.  It was nicer to walk on
the grass--more comfortable under foot.  It was
not even an uncomfortable sensation to feel her heart
beating as a lark's wings beat the air when it soars.

Then the rushing of the wings subsided.  He was
not there.  From that mighty altitude to which it
had risen, her heart began to descend--slowly,
slowly, slowly to earth.  He was not there!

But oh! you would never know, until you yourself
had played there, the games of hide-and-seek that
the big elms afford in Kensington Gardens.  On the
far side of a huge tree-trunk, she came suddenly
upon him, and the slowly fluttering wings of her
heart were struck to stillness.  There he was, seated
upon his chair with a smile upon his lips, in his
eyes--spreading and spreading till it soon must be a
laugh.

And--"Oh!" said she.

Then it was that the smile became a laugh.

"What are you doing here at this time in the
morning?" he asked.

"I--I was just going up to town.  I--I wanted
to go to Bayswater first."

How much had he guessed?  How long had he
seen her looking here and there, and all about her?

"What are *you* doing?"  She had as much a
right to ask him.

"I've been waiting to see you go by," said he.

"But----"

"I knew you were coming."

"How?"

"We've been thinking just exactly the same
things ever since I said good-bye yesterday.  I
woke up early this morning wondering what had
happened."

"So did I," she whispered in an awed voice.

"Then--before I'd got my coat on, I came to the
conclusion that I had to live somewhere, and that
the only thing that mattered was whether I did it
honestly--not where I did it.  Then, I sort of felt
you might come to the Gardens this morning."

She set her lips.  Once that camisole is on, every
woman has her dignity.  It is a thing to play with,
much as a child plays with its box of bricks.  She
makes wonderful patterns with it--noble ladies--imperious
dames, who put dignity before humanity as
you put the cart before the horse.

"Why should you think I would come to the
Gardens?" she asked.

John steadied his eyes.

"Well, I presume you go up to town sometimes,"
he said.

"Yes--but one can get up to town by Knightsbridge."

"Of--course.  I forgot that.  But when you
might be wanting to go to Bayswater first."

She looked very steadily into his eyes.  How long
had he seen her before she had seen him?

"Perhaps you're under the impression that I
came to see you," she said, and she began walking
towards the Bayswater Road.

He followed quietly by her side.  This needed
careful treatment.  She was incensed.  He ought
not to have thought that, of course.

"I never said so," he replied quietly.

Then they fought--all the way over to the Bayswater
side.  Each little stroke was like velvet, but
beneath it all was the passion of the claw.

"I expect it's as well we're not going to see each
other any more," she said one moment and, when he
agreed, repented it bitterly the next.  He cursed
himself for agreeing.  But you must agree.  Dignity,
you know.  Dignity before humanity.

And then he called her a hansom--helped her
within.

"Are you going back to the Gardens?" she asked
from inside, not shutting the doors.

"No--I'm going up to town."

"Well----"  She pushed the bricks away.  "Can't--can't
I drive you up?"

He stepped inside, and the cab rolled off.

"Were you going to have walked?" she asked
presently, after a long, long silence.

"No," said John.  "I was going to drive--with you."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EASTER SUNDAY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   EASTER SUNDAY

.. vspace:: 2

One Easter Sunday, soon after his first clandestine
meeting with Jill, John was seated alone in his room
in Fetter Lane.  The family of Morrell and the
family of Brown--the plumber and the theatre
cleaner--had united in a party and gone off to the
country--what was the country to them.  He had
heard them discussing it as they descended the
flights of uncarpeted wooden stairs and passed
outside his door.

"As long as we get back to the Bull and Bush
by five," Mr. Morrell had said emphatically, and
Mr. Brown had said, "Make it half-past four."  Then
Mrs. Morrell had caught up the snatch of a
song:

   |   "I've a tickly feelin' in the bottom of me 'eart
   |     For you--for you,"

.. class:: noindent

and Mrs. Brown has echoed it with her uncertain
notes.  Finally the door into the street had
opened--had banged--their voices had faded away into the
distance, and John had been left alone listening to
the amorous frolics on the stairs of the sandy cat
which belonged to Mrs. Morrell, and the tortoise-shell,
the property of Mrs. Brown.

Unless it be that you are an ardent churchman,
and of that persuasion which calls you to the kirk
three times within the twenty-four hours, Easter
Sunday, for all its traditions, is a gladless day in
London.  There is positively nothing to do.  Even Mass,
if you attend it, is over at a quarter to one, and
then the rest of the hours stretch monotonously
before you.  The oppressive knowledge that the Bank
Holiday follows so closely on its heels, overburdens
you with the sense of desolation.  There will be no
cheerful shops open on the morrow, no busy hurrying
to and fro.  The streets of the great city will
be the streets of a city of the dead and, as you
contemplate all this, the bells of your neighbourhood
peal out in strains that are meant to be cheerful,
yet really are inexpressibly doleful and sad.  You
know very well, when you come to think about it,
why they are so importunate and so loud.  They are
only ringing so persistently, tumbling sounds one
upon another, in order to draw people to the
fulfilment of a duty that many would shirk if they dared.

The bells of a city church have need to be loud,
they have to rise above the greater distractions of
life.  Listen to the bells of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
The bell-ringers there know only too well
the sounds they have to drown before they can
induce a wandering pedestrian within.  It was just
the same in Fetter Lane.  John listened to them
clanging and jangling--each bell so intent and
eager in its effort to make itself heard.

He thought of the country to which the families
upstairs had departed; but in the country it is
different.  In the country, you would go to church
were there no bell at all, and that gentle, sonorous
note that does ring across the fields and down the
river becomes one of the most soothing sounds in
the world.  You have only to hear it to see the old
lych-gate swinging to and fro as the folk make their
way up the gravel path to the church door.  You
have only to listen to it stealing through the
meadows where the browsing cattle are steeping
their noses in the dew, to see with the eye of your
mind that pale, faint flicker of candle-light that
creeps through the stained glass windows out into
the heavy-laden air of a summer evening.  A church
bell is very different in the country.  There is an
unsophisticated note about it, a sound so far
removed from the egotistical hawker crying the virtue
of his wares as to make the one incomparable with
the other.  John envied Mrs. Brown and Mr. Morrell
from the bottom of his heart--envied them at
least till half-past four.

For an hour, after breakfast was finished, he sat
staring into the fire he had lighted, too lonely even
to work.  That heartless jade, depression, one can
not call her company.

Then came Mrs. Rowse to clear away the breakfast
things and make his bed.  He looked up with
a smile as she entered.

"What sort of a day is it outside?" he asked.

"Cold, sir; and looks as if we was going to have rain."

She caught up the breakfast things, the china
clattered in her fingers.  He turned round a little
in his chair and watched her clear away.  This is
loneliness--to find a sense of companionship in the
woman who comes to look after one's rooms.

"Whenever a man is lonely," wrote Lamartine,
"God sends him a dog."  But that is not always
so.  Some men are not so fortunate as others.  It
happens sometimes that a dog is not available and
then, God sends a Mrs. Rowse to clear away the
breakfast things.

But Mrs. Rowse was in a hurry that morning.
There was no money due to her.  You would not
have found the faintest suspicion of lingering in
anything that she did then.  Even the topic that
interested her most--her daughters--had no power
to distract her attention.

She was going to take them out to the country--they
were going down to Denham to see her
sister, as soon as her work was done--Lizzie, who
stuck labels on the jam-jars in Crosse and
Blackwell's, and Maud, who packed cigarettes in
Lambert and Butler's.

There were those living in Peabody Buildings,
who said that Lizzie would have a beautiful voice,
if she'd only practise.  She could sing, "Love Me
and the World Is Mine."  She could sing that
lovely.  And Maud--well, Mrs. Rowse had even got
a piano in their little tenement rooms for Maud to
learn on, but Maud would never practise neither.
True, she could pick up just anything she heard,
pick it up quite easy with the right hand, though
she could only vamp, foolish-like, with the left.

Yet upon these portentous matters, Mrs. Rowse
would say nothing that morning.  They were going
to catch a mid-day train from Marylebone down to
Denham, and she had no time to waste.

"Would you mind me coming with you, Mrs. Rowse?"
said John suddenly.  As suddenly he
regretted it, but only because of its impossibility.

There is some sort of unwritten law which says
that when you accompany ladies on a journey by
train, you must pay for their tickets, and all women
are ladies if they do not swear or spit on the ground.
You should take off your hat to everyone of them
you know when in the street.  It may be that they
are charwomen, that they stick labels upon
jam-jars in their spare hours, that they pack up little
boxes of cigarettes when there is nothing else to
do, but in the street, they are women--and all
women, with the restrictions here mentioned, are ladies.

Now John could not possibly pay for their tickets.
He could ill-afford to pay for his own.  It would
mean no meal the next day if he did.  And here let
it be said--lest any should think that his poverty is
harped upon--John was always poor, except for
five minutes after an excursion to the pawn-shop,
and perhaps five days after the receipt of the
royalties upon his work.  You may be sure at least of
this, that John will jingle the money in his pocket
and run his finger-nail over the minted edge of the
silver when he has any.  If he has gold, you will see
him take it out under the light of a lamp-post
when it is dark, in order to make sure that the
sovereign is not a shilling.  On all other occasions than
these, assume that he is poor,--nay, more than
assume, take it for granted.

Accordingly, directly he had made this offer to
accompany Mrs. Rowse and her daughters to
Denham, he had to withdraw it.

"No," said he, "I wish I could come--but I'm
afraid it's impossible.  I've got work to do."

Quite soon after that Mrs. Rowse departed.

"Hope you'll enjoy yourselves," said he.

"We always do in the country," replied she as
she put on her hat outside the door.  And
then--"Good-morning, sir,"--and she too had gone; the
door into the street had banged again, and the
whole house, from floor to roof, was empty but for
the sandy cat, the tortoiseshell cat and John.

He sat on there in the stillness.  Even the cats
grew tired of play and were still.  Then came the
rain, rain that turned to sleet, that drove against
the roofs outside and tried, by hiding in the
corners of the chimneys, to look like snow.  John
thought of the tulips in Kensington Gardens.
Spring can come gladsomely to England--it can
come bitterly, too.  Those poor people in the
country!  But would the country ever permit such
weather as this?  Even supposing it did, they would
not be lonely as he was.  Mr. Morrell had
Mrs. Brown to talk to, and Mr. Brown had the company
of Mrs. Morrell.  There were Lizzie and Maud for
Mrs. Rowse.  Perhaps going down in the train, they
would get a carriage to themselves and Lizzie would
sing, "Love Me and the World Is Mine," and Maud
would count cigarettes in her mind, and pack them
up in her mind, or more probably forget that there
ever were such things as cigarettes in the fresh
delight of seeing the country with bread and cheese
on all the hedges.  Those young green buds on the
hawthorn hedges are the pedestrian's bread and
cheese.  But you know that, every bit as well as I.

Well, it seemed that everyone had company but
John.  He took out of his pocket the last letter his
mother had written him from Venice--took it out
and spread it before him.  If only she were there!
If only her bright brown eyes were looking at him,
what thousands of things there would be to say!
What short stories and beginnings of new books
would there not be to read her!  And how
sympathetically would she not listen.  How frequently
would she not place those dear paralysed hands of
hers in his, as he read, at some new passage that
she liked!

"*My darling boy----*"

He could hear that gentle voice of hers--like the
sound you may hear in the ring of an old china
tea-cup--he could hear it, as she had dictated it to
his father to write----

"*This is where I begin counting the days to your
visit.  I dare not begin sooner--too many figures
always bewildered me.  It is now just about three
months.  Your father is much better than he was,
and is doing a little work these days.*"

And here was added in a quaint little parenthesis
of his father's: "*She calls it work, my dear boy,
just to please me--but when old men play, they
like to hear it called work.  You've got to do my
work.  And she is so quick--she has seen I have
been writing more than she has said.  I shall
persuade her to let this stay in nevertheless.*"

Then, uninterrupted for a space the letter continued.

"*I'm so pleased that your work is going on so
well.  I thought your last story was too sad,
though.  Must stories end unhappily?  Yours
always seem to.  But I think I guess.  They won't
always end like that.  But your father says I am
not to worry you on that point; that you can't
paint in a tone of gold what you see in a tone of
grey, and that what you see now in a tone of grey,
you will as likely as not see one day in a tone of
gold.*"

Then, here, another parenthesis.

"*You will understand what I mean, my dear boy.
I've read the story, and I don't think it ought to
end sadly, and you will no doubt say, 'Oh, he's
quite old-fashioned; he does not know that a sad
ending is an artistic ending.'  But that is not
because I am old-fashioned.  It is simply because I
am old.  When you are young, you see unhappy
endings because you are young enough to bear the
pain of them.  It is only when you get older that
you see otherwise.  When you have had your sorrow,
which, you know, only as an artist I wish for you,
then you will write in another strain.  Go on with
your unhappy endings.  Don't take any notice of
us.  All your work will be happy one day, and
remember, you are not writing for but because of us.
By the way, I think you spelt paregoric wrong.*"

Now again the dictation.

"*Well, anyhow, though I know nothing about it,
I feel you write as though you loved.  You would
tell me, would you not, if you did?  I am sure it
must be the way to write, the way, in fact, to do
everything.  Your father says the pictures he paints
now lack strength and vigour; but I find them just
as beautiful; they are so gentle.*"

Parenthesis.

"*One can't always love as one did at twenty-six--T.G.
That sounds like reverential gratitude for
the fact, but you understand it is only my initials.*"

"*He has written something again, John--and he
won't tell me what it is.  If he has said he is
getting too old to love, don't believe him.  He has
just leant forward and kissed me on my forehead.
I have insisted upon his writing this down.  Your
story about the girl in the chapel and the last
candle amused us very much.  It interested me
especially.  If it had been me, I should have fallen in
love with you then and there for being so considerate.
What was she like?  Have you ever seen her
since?  I can't feel that you were meant to meet
her for nothing.  I have tried to think, too, what
she could have been praying to St. Joseph for, but
it is beyond me.  It is not like a woman to pray for
money for herself.  Perhaps some of her relations
have money troubles.  That is all I can imagine,
though I have thought over it every day since I
got your letter.  God bless you, my darling.  We
are waiting eagerly for the reviews of your new
book.  When will it be out--the exact date?  I
want to say a novena for it, so let me know in good
time.  And if you meet the Lady of St. Joseph--as
you call her--again, you must promise to tell
me all about it.  Your father wants the rest of the
sheet of note-paper on which to say something to
you--so, God bless you always.*"

"*Don't read the reviews when they come out,
John.  Send them along to me, and I'll sort out the
best ones and send them back to you to read.  As
far as I can see, there are so many critics who get
the personal note into their criticisms, and to read
these, whether praising or blaming, won't do you
any good; so send them all along to me before you
look at them.  The first moment you can send me a
copy, of course, you will.  Your loving father.*"

Here the letter ended.  Long as it was, it might
well have been longer.  They were good company,
those two old people, talking to him through those
thin sheets of foreign paper, one breaking in upon
the other with all due courtesy, just as they might
with a "Finish what you have to say, my dear," in
ordinary conversation.

And now they had gone to the country, too--they
had left him alone.  When he had folded up
the letter, it was almost as if he could hear the
door bang again for the third time.

He leant back in his chair with an involuntary
sigh.  What a few people, after all, there were in
the world whom he really knew!  What a few people
who would seek out his company on such a day as
this!  He stood up and stretched out his arms above
his head--it was----

He stopped.  A sound had struck to his heart
and set it beating, as when the bull's-eye of a target
is hit.

The bell had rung!  His electric bell!  The electric
bell which had raised him immeasureably in
station above Mrs. Morrell and Mrs. Brown, who had
only a knocker common to the whole house--one, in
fact, of the landlord's fixtures!  It had rung, and
his heart was beating to the echoes of it.

In another second, he had opened his door; in
another moment, he was flying down the uncarpeted
wooden stairs, five at a time.  At the door itself, he
paused, playing with the sensation of uncertainty.
Who could it be?  If the honest truth be known, it
scarcely mattered.  Someone!  Someone had come
out of nowhere to keep him company.  A few
personalities rushed to his mind.  It might be the man
who sometimes illustrated his stories, an untidy
individual who had a single phrase that he always
introduced into every conversation--it was, "Lend
me half-a-crown till to-morrow, will you?"  It would
be splendid if it were him.  They could lunch
together on the half-crown.  It might be the traveller
from the wholesale tailor's--a man whom he had
found begging in the street, and told to come round
to Number 39 whenever he was at his wit's end for
a meal.  That would be better still; he was a man
full of experiences, full of stories from the various
sleeping-houses where he spent his nights.

Supposing it were Jill!  A foolish, a hopeless
thought to enter the mind.  She did not know where
he lived.  She might, though, by some freak of

.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FLY IN THE AMBER`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   THE FLY IN THE AMBER

.. vspace:: 2

The sleet had driven honestly into snow by the time
John had finished his lunch and, there being but
two old original members in the Martyrs' Club, who
were congratulating each other upon having put on
their fur coats, stayed in town and not gone to the
country, he left as soon as his meal was over.

The hall-porter stood reluctantly to his feet as
he passed out,--so reluctantly that John felt as
though he should apologise for the etiquette of the
club.  In the street, he turned up the collar of his
coat and set off with determination, intended to
show the hall-porter that he had a definite
destination and but little time in which to reach it.

Round the corner and out of sight, he began
counting to himself the people he might go and see.
Each name, as he reviewed it in his mind, presented
some difficulty either of approval or of place.  At
last, he found himself wandering in the direction of
Holborn.  In a side street of that neighbourhood
lived his little typewriter, who had promised to
finish two short stories over Easter.  She would be as
glad of company as he.  She would willingly cease
from pounding the symphony of the one monotonous
note on those lifeless keys.  They would talk
together of wonderful works yet to be typed.  He
would strum on her hired piano.  The minutes would
slip by and she would get tea, would boil the kettle
on that miniature gas-stove, situated in her
bedroom, where he had often imagined her saying her
prayers in the morning while a piece of bacon was
frying in the pan by her side--prayers, the Amen of
which would be hastened and emphasised by the
boiling over of the milk.  Those are the prayers that
reach Heaven.  They are so human.  And a burnt
sacrifice of burnt milk accompanying them, they
are consistent with all the ritual of the Old Testament.

To the little typewriter's, then, he decided to go.
It did not matter so very much if his stories were
not finished over Easter.  They could wait.

He rang the bell, wondering if her heart was
leaping as his had done but an hour or so before.
His ears were alert for the scurrying of feet on her
uncarpeted, wooden stairs.  He bent his head
sideways to the door.  There was no sound.  He rang
again.  Then he heard the creaking of the stairs.
She was coming--oh, but so slowly!  Annoyed,
perhaps, by the disturbance, just as she was getting
into work.

The door was opened.  His heart dropped.  He
saw an old woman with red-rimmed eyes which
peered at him suspiciously from the half-opened
space.

"Is Miss Gerrard in?" he asked.

"Gone to the country--won't be back till
Tuesday," was the reply.

Gone to the country!  And his work would never
be finished over Easter!  Oh, it was not quite fair!

"Any message?" said the old housekeeper.

"No," said John; "nothing," and he walked away.

Circumstance was conspiring that he should
work--circumstance was driving him back to Fetter
Lane.  Yet the loneliness of it all was intolerable.
It was, moreover, a loneliness that he could not
explain.  There had been other Easter Sundays; there
had been other days of snow and sleet and rain, but
he had never felt this description of loneliness
before.  It was not depression.  Depression sat there,
certainly, as it were upon the doorstep, ready to
enter at the faintest sound of invitation.  But as yet,
she was on the doorstep only, and this--this leaden
weight at the heart, this chain upon all the
energies--was loneliness that he was entertaining, a
condition of loneliness that he had never known before.

Why had he gone to see the little typewriter?
Why had he not chosen the man who illustrated his
stories, or many of the other men whom he knew
would be in town that day and any day--men who
never went into the country from one year's end to
the other?

It had been the company of a woman he had
wanted.  Why was that?  Why that, suddenly,
rather than the company he knew he could find?
What was there in the companionship of a woman
that he had so unexpectedly discovered the need of
it?  Why had he envied Mr. Brown who had
Mrs. Morrell to talk to, or Mr. Morrell who could
unburden himself to Mrs. Brown?  Why had he been
glad when Mrs. Rowse came and unutterably lonely
when she left?  Why had he suggested going to the
country with her, pleased at the thought that
Lizzie would sing, "Love Me and the World Is Mine,"
and that Maud would be counting and packing
cigarettes in her mind?

The questions poured into his thoughts, rushing
by, not waiting for an answer, until they all
culminated in one overwhelming realisation.  It was
Jill.

Morning after morning, for a whole week, they
had met in secret, not in Kensington Gardens alone,
but in the most extraordinary of places--once even
at Wrigglesworth's, the obscure eating-house in
Fetter Lane, she little knowing how near they were to
where he lived.  He had read her his stories; he had
given her copies of the two books that bore his
name upon their covers.  They had discussed them
together.  She had said she was sure he was going
to be a great man, and that is always so consoling,
because its utter impossibility prevents you from
questioning it for a moment.

Then it was Jill.  And all the disappointment, all
the loneliness of this Easter Sunday had been
leading up to this.

Common sense--except in that mad moment when
he had hoped the bell had been rung by her--had
debarred him from thinking of seeking her out.  But
away in the deep corners of his mind, it was her
company he was looking for--her company he had
sought to find, first in Mrs. Rowse and then in the
little typewriter.

Shutting the door of his room, he went across
to the chair by the fire.  What did it mean?  What
did it mean?  Here and there he had fallen in love;
but this was not the same sort of thing.  This was
not falling in love.  Falling in love was quick,
sudden, a flash that burnt up all desire to work, flared
out in a moment, obliterating everything else.  But
this was slow, stealthy, a growing thing that asked,
not for sudden satisfaction, but for wonderful,
untellable things.

All the attributes common to love, as he had
understood it, had no place in this sensation.  As he
had thought of it, love found its expression in the
gratification of the need with which it had begun,
or it ended, like his stories--unhappily.  Then this
could not be love.  There was no ending of gratification
and no ending of unhappiness to this.  It
was unending.  Was that what his mother had
meant he would learn?

Then, as he sat before the fire, wondering what
new thing he had found, the bell rang again.  It
found no echo on this occasion.  He slowly turned
his head.  They were not going to deceive him a
second time.  He rose quietly from his chair, crossed
to the window, silently raised it and, as silently,
looked out.  There, below him, he saw a woman's
hat--a hat with fur in it, cunningly twined through
grey velvet,--a hat that he knew, a hat that he had
often seen before.

He closed the window quietly and slowly made his
way downstairs.  Before he reached the end of the
passage, the bell rang again.  Then he opened the
door.

It was the lady on whose behalf the fur coat
had discharged the debt of honour.

She stepped right in with a little laugh of pleasure
at finding him there; turned and waited while he
closed the door behind them, then linked her arm in
his as they mounted the stairs.

"I came," said she, "on chance.  Aren't you
glad to see me?"

There was just that fraction's pause before he
replied--that pause into which a woman's mind leaps
for answer.  And how accurately she makes that
leap, how surely she reaches the mental ground upon
which you take your place, you will never be able
truly to anticipate.

"Yes," said John, "I'm very glad."

"Then what is it?" she said quickly.  "Are you
writing?"

"No, I'm not.  I've tried to, but I can't."

"Then are you expecting someone?"

He looked up at her, smiled, opened the door of
his room, and bid her pass through.

"And is all this," said he, "because I paused a
moment when you asked me if I was glad to see
you?"

She seated herself easily in the chair to which
she was accustomed.  She began drawing the pins
out of her hat, as a woman does when she feels at
home.  When the hat was free of her heaps of
brown-red hair, she threw it carelessly upon the
table, shook her head and lifted the hair from her
forehead with her fingers.  And John stood by with
a smile, thinking how the faintest shadow of a
word of question would make that hat fly back
on to the head of brown-red hair, the hat-pins pierce
the crown with hasty pride, and the little purse that
lay upon the table alongside of them be clutched in
an eager, scornful hand, as she would rise, full of
dignity, to depart.

He let the smile fade away, and repeated his question.

"Yes," she said.  "I thought when you didn't
answer at once that you weren't very keen to see me."

"And if I said I wasn't very keen, would you
go at once?"

Her eyebrows lifted high.  She made a movement
in her chair.  One hand was already beginning to
stretch out for the grey velvet hat.

"Like a shot!" she answered.

He nodded his head.

"That's what I thought," said John.

She rose quickly to her feet.

"If you want me to go, why don't you say so?"

He put his hands on her shoulders and seated her
gently back again in the chair.

"But I don't want you to go," he replied.  "I've
got a lot of things I want to say to you."

"If you're going to talk evolution----" she began.

He laughed.

"It's something very like it," said he.

She gave a sigh of resignation, took out a packet
of cigarettes, extracted one, lit it and inhaled the
first breath deep--deep into her lungs.

"Well, go on," she said.

"Have you got plenty of cigarettes?"

"Yes, plenty to-day."

"Hadn't you yesterday?"

"No, Mother and I raked up all the cigarette
ends out of the fireplaces, and I just had a penny
for a packet of cigarette papers."  She laughed.

This is the honesty of poverty.  She would take
no money from any man.  For just as the virtue of
wealth will bring out the evil of avarice, so will the
evil of poverty bring out the virtue of self-respect.
In this world, there is as much good that comes out
of evil as ever stands by itself alone.  This, in fact,
is the need of evil, that out of it may lift the good.

"Well, what have you got to say?" she continued.
"Get it over as quick as you can.  I shan't understand
half of it."

"You'll understand it all," said John.  "You
may not admit it.  You don't admit your own
honesty--you probably won't admit mine."

She screwed up her eyes at him.  He said the most
incomprehensible things.  Of course, he was a crank.
She knew that--took it for granted--but what did
he mean by her honesty?

"I don't steal," she said.  "But I owe fifteen
pounds to my dressmaker, and thirteen to Derry &
Toms, and six somewhere else, and I don't suppose
they'll ever get paid.  Do you call that honest?"

"I don't mean that sort of honesty.  That's the
sort of honesty that a dishonest man shields
behind.  You'd pay them if I gave you the money to
pay them, or if anybody else gave you the money,
or if you made the money.  You meant to pay them,
you probably thought you could pay them when you
ordered the things."

She looked up at him and laughed.

"You poor old dear!  I don't suppose you've got
twopence in your pocket.  You couldn't give it to me."

"I've got one and nine," said John.  "But the
point is, if I could give it you, you wouldn't take it.
That's the honesty I'm talking about.  From the
standard at which you rate life, that's honesty, and
you never depart from it.  And, in a way, my standard
has been much about the same--till now."

"Till now?" She echoed it in a little note of
apprehension.

"Yes--till now.  I thought these things were
honest--now I've changed my standard, and I find them
different, too."

"What do you mean?"

Her eyes looked far into his, and he stood there
looking far back into hers.

"You don't love me, do you?" he said presently.

A pause preceded her answer.

"No," she said.

"And I've never told you I loved you?"

"No--never."

"And yet, does it strike you that there may be
such a thing?"

"Oh, I suppose there is.  Some people pretend
they know all about it.  I think you're the kindest
and the best person I've ever met--that's enough
for me."

"Would you marry me?" said John.

"No--never."

"Why not?"

"Because directly people marry--directly they
find themselves bound, they look at each other in a
different light.  The question of whether it can last
begins to creep in.  With us, it doesn't matter.  I
come and see you whenever you want me to.  If it
doesn't last, then nobody's hurt by it--if it does,
let it last as long as it can.  I don't want it to end
to-day--I might to-morrow.  I might see someone
I liked better."

"And then you'd go?"

"Most certainly."

"Well--suppose you came across someone with
whom you knew it must last; from whom you
expected to find those things which go on past time
and all measuring of clocks, would you marry them?"

She came up close to him and laid her hands upon
his shoulders.

"You can tell me straight out," she said gently.
"One of us was bound to find it one of these days.
I only hoped it would be me.  You can tell me who
she is.  Go on."

John told her.  This was what he had wanted the
woman for--first his mother, then Mrs. Rowse, then
the little typewriter, then even Jill herself.  For
it is a woman to whom a man must tell these
things--nobody else will do; nobody else will understand.

And when she had heard it all, she looked up
with the suspicion of tears in her eyes and smiled.

"Then I guess I'm the fly in the amber," she
said.  "It won't be a clear bit of stone till I'm
gone.  Isn't that what you mean?"

And, taking his face in her hands, she kissed his
forehead.  "You're a funny little boy," she said
with a wry smile.

This was the box of bricks, the playing at her
dignity.  Every woman has them, and while some
throw them at your head, the best make patterns--patterns
of fine ladies and noble dames.  It was
a fine lady who would call him a funny little boy.
It was a noble dame who would show him that she
was not hurt.  He had wanted her in his way, in
their way--the way she wanted him as well.  All
men want some woman like that, and there are as
good women to supply the need as there are bad
ones who would shrink from it.  And now, he wanted
her no longer.  She knew she had to bow her head
to something that she could not understand,
something that she could not supply.  He loved.  And
they had so easily avoided it.

"Are you going to be married?" she enquired.
She longed to ask what the other one was like.

John shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't know."

"Does she love you?"

"I couldn't tell you."

"You haven't asked her?"

"No--we haven't said a word about it."

She smiled.

"Then why do you send me away?"

"Because--I know, myself.  There comes a time--I
didn't know it--when you know--a time when
you don't excuse yourself with the plea of
humanity--when you wish to offer no excuse--when there is
only one way, the way I'm choosing.  I'm a crank,
of course.  I know you've called me that before.  To
you I'm a crank,--to heaps of other people as well.
But in the back of this muddled head of mine, I've
got an ideal--so has everyone else--so have you.
But now I've found a means of expressing it.  You
say I'm in love--that's what you call it.  I prefer
just to say, I love--which is another matter
altogether.  People fall in and out of love like an
india-rubber ball dancing on a spray of water.  But this
sort of thing must be always, and it may be only
once or twice in your life that you find a means of
expressing it.  But it's there all the time.  And one
time it's a woman with dark hair and another it's a
woman with gold--but the emotion--the heart of it
is just the same.  It's the same love--the love of the
good--the love of the beautiful--the love of the
thing which is clean through and through and
through.  And when you meet it, you'll sacrifice
everything for it.  And if you don't meet it, you'll
go on hunting for it your life through--unless you
lose heart, or lose character, or lose strength--then
this wonderful ideal vanishes.  You come to look for
it less and less and less till at last you only seek for
the other thing--what you call--falling in love."

"Do you think we all have this ideal?" she asked.

"Yes, every one of us."

"Then have I lost it?"

"No, I don't believe so.  I saw tears in your
eyes just now."





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.. _`THE NONSENSE-MAKER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium

   THE NONSENSE-MAKER

.. vspace:: 2

John took a box at the opera.  There is some sense
in taking a box at the opera when you owe two
quarters of your rent of thirty pounds a year.  To
have a box all the year round with your visiting-card
pinned to the door, that is needless, unforgiveable
extravagance, for it does not then belong to
you, but to your friends.

When John took the stage-box on the third
tier, it was bread and butter, dinners and teas,
that he laid down in payment for the little slip of
paper.  They did not know that.  The clerk at
the office thought it was three guineas.  He brushed
off the money carelessly into the palm of his hand
without thinking that it could be anything but
coin of the realm.  Who ever would go to the
box-office of Covent Garden, and, tendering ingenuously
bread and butter, expect to get a ticket for the
stage-box on the third tier in return?  But they
are not observant, these box-office clerks, for heaps
of people do it.

There was an old lady just behind John, who
handed in all her warm spring under-clothing and
a nice little embroidered lace cap that would have
looked delightful on her white head in the evenings
of the summer that was to come.

"I want a stall," said she, "for Tuesday night."

And in just the same inconsequent and unobservant
way, the clerk, without the slightest embarrassment,
swept all the warm spring under-clothing and
the little lace cap into his hand and gave it her
without a word, but heavens! how insulted he would
have been if you had told him that he was simply a
dealer in second-hand under-linen!  It would not
have appeased him a bit, to tell him that the
under-linen had never been worn, that, in fact, it had
never even been bought.

Just in this way, he took John's bread and
butter, and gave him the stage-box on the third tier.
It was for the night of *La Bohéme*.

On that same night, Jill was going to a dance,
chaperoned by an older school-friend of hers--one
who had married--a Mrs. Crossthwaite.  And
Mrs. Crossthwaite knew everything; not because she had
been told it.  That is not the way amongst women.
They tell each other what they are pretending to
believe, and both of them know all about it all the
time.

There was the invitation to the dance--one known
as a subscription.  Mrs. Dealtry could not go.  She
had a dinner party.  Jill nominated Mrs. Crossthwaite
as her chaperon, and went to tea with her
that day, having seen John in the morning.

First, she spoke of the dance.  Mrs. Crossthwaite
was delighted.  She had been stepping it in the
heart of her ever since she was married; but only
in the heart of her, and the heart of a woman is an
impossible floor to dance upon.  It makes the heart,
not the feet, tired.

Having won her consent--an easy matter, not
lasting more than five minutes--Jill began gently,
unobtrusively, to speak of the work of an author
called John Grey.  Mrs. Crossthwaite had read one
of the books, thought it distinctly above the
average, but very sad.  She did not like sad books.
There was quite enough sadness in real life, and so
on.  All of which is very, very true, if people would
only realise it, as well as say it.

From there, with that adroitness which only
women have the fine fingers for, Jill led on the
conversation to her acquaintance with John.  Oh, it
was all very difficult to do, for a school-friend, once
she has married, may have become a very different
sort of person from the girl who was ready to swarm
down the drain-pipe to meet the boy with the fair
hair and the cap far on the back of his head, who
passed her a note concealed between the pages of
the Burial Service in the Prayer-book.  Marriage is
apt to rob your school-friend of this courage; for,
though she never did climb down the drain-pipe, she
made you think she was going to.  She had one leg
on the window-sill and would soon have been outside,
only that she heard the voice of the mistress in the
corridor just in time.  And she sometimes loses this
courage when she marries.  Jill, therefore, had to
proceed with caution.

They merely talked about his work.  He was very
interesting.  His ideas were strange.  Of course, it
was a terrible pity that he would not say where he
lived, but Mrs. Crossthwaite did not seem to
consider that.  For a moment, she had expressed
surprise and approval of Mrs. Dealtry's action; but he
was a member of the Martyrs' Club, and Mr. Crossthwaite's
greatest friend was a member there as well,
and Mr. Crossthwaite's greatest friend was naturally
nearly as wonderful a person as Mr. Crossthwaite
himself.  So what did it really matter where
he lived?  The position of man was his club.  She
even had no curiosity about his residence.

Again, Jill had never seen *Bohème*.  Her people
were not musical.  They hated it.  She loved it.
This was the opportunity of her life.  He would
bring her back to the dance, of course, and no one
need ever know that she had not been there all the
time.  And in the intervals of the opera they would
talk about his work.  That was all they ever did
talk about.  She knew all his ambitions, all his
hopes.  Once or twice he had accepted her
suggestions, when really she knew nothing about it.  It
was only what she felt; but he had felt it too, and
the alteration had been made.  He said she helped
him, and that was all that was between them.  The
main fact of importance was that she had never
seen *La Bohème*, and might never see it, if she
refused this opportunity.

All these specious arguments she put forward in a
gentle, enticing, winning way--full of simplicity--full
of honesty; but the principal reason that
Mrs. Crossthwaite consented to become a party to this
collusion was that she did not believe a single word
of it.

Romance! it is a word in itself, a thing in
itself--a piece of fine-worked lace that must catch the
eye of every woman, and which every woman
would stitch to the Garment of maternity if she could.

So it was arranged.  In the vestibule of the rooms
where the dance was held, John was formally
introduced to the chaperon before he bore her charge
away.  Then they stepped into a hansom.

"The Opera," said John, through the trap-door,
carelessly, as though he went there most evenings of
his life; for when you give your bread and butter to
get a box at Covent Garden, hunger makes you talk
like that.  This is all part of the delight which you
miss in having a box all the year round.

And when they had got far away into the traffic--that
passing to and fro of people, which is all a
thumb-nail illustration of the stream of life--and
when her heart had begun to beat a little less like
a lark's wings in a six-inch cage, Jill broke the
silence.

"What did Mrs. Crossthwaite say to you while
I went to get my cloak?" she asked.

"She was good enough to hope that I would call on her."

"Oh!  I'm so glad she's asked you.  Did she say
anything else?"

"She asked me if I lived in London all the year
round.  I said I did--except for a month in the
year, when I went to Venice.  Then she asked me
what part of London I lived in."

"She asked you that?"

"Yes."

Jill was silent for a few moments.  It is always
an interesting moment in a woman's life when she
learns something about her sex.

"And what did you say?" she asked.

John laughed.  He thought he had said it rather
neatly.

"Oh, I've got rooms," he had said, "just
between St. Paul's and the Strand."  Which might
be the Inner Temple, if you had a nice mind with
which to look at it.  He told Jill this answer.  She
smiled.

"And is it between St. Paul's and the Strand?"
she asked.

"Roughly speaking--yes--but very roughly
speaking."

Again she was silent.  Could it be that he was
poor--at least, not well enough off to live at a
good-sounding address?  Could that have been why
he was praying to St. Joseph on the eighteenth of
March?  Yet he was a member of the Martyrs'
Club, and here he was taking her to a box at Covent
Garden.  She looked up quickly into his face.  This
was more mystery than her desire for knowledge
could afford.

"Do you remember what you said to me once,"
she began, "about the woman with the gift of
understanding?"

"Yes--the first day that we met in Kensington
Gardens."

"Well--do you think I am absolutely ungifted
that way?"

John closely searched her eyes.  Did she remember
all he had said about the woman with God's
good gift of understanding?  Did she realise the
confession it would entail if he admitted--as he
believed--that she was?  She was young, perhaps--a
girl, a child, a baby--just twenty-one.  But the
understanding which is the gift of God, comes
independently of experience.  Like genius, it is a gift
and of just such a nature.  Absolute simplicity is
the source of it, and with it, it brings the reward of
youth, keeping the heart young no matter the years.
Experience will show you that the world is full of
evil--evil motives and evil deeds; it will teach you
that evil is said of everyone, even the best.  But
with God's good gift of understanding, you have
the heart of a child, knowing nothing yet finding the
good in everything.

To such a one, no secrets are possible, no deeds
can lie hid; for no man does evil because he would,
but because it rises stronger against the innermost
will of him.  And so few are there with the gift
to understand this, that confession is seldom made.

And for John to tell her that she had this gift,
was to make admission of all he had learnt that
Easter Sunday.  Could it be that she asked for that
reason?  Did she wish to know?  In his own way,
he had meant to tell her; but not like this.  And so
he searched her eyes; but searched in vain.

"Why do you ask?" he said at length.

"Because--if you think I have any understanding
at all, don't you think I should understand, even
if you told me you lived at----"  She could not
think of a poor enough neighbourhood where people
might live.  She scarcely knew any.

"Shepherd's Bush?" he suggested.

"Well--yes--Shepherd's Bush."

"And so you want to know where I do live?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She looked up at him quite honestly.

"Well--pride, I suppose.  We're good friends.  I
hope we are.  I've never had a friend before.  I
think I should tell you everything, and I expect
I feel hurt because you don't tell me.  I'm sure you
have a good reason for not letting my people know,
but that hasn't prevented me from keeping you as
my friend against all their wishes.  They don't
understand, I admit.  But I believe I should.  I'm
sure I should."

Her hand in its white glove was resting on the
door of the hansom in front of her.  For a moment
he looked at it, and then, with heart beating, in
fear, joy, apprehension--a thousand emotions all
flowing into one--he took it in his and pressed it
reverently, then let it go.

"I know you would," he replied in his breath.
And then he told her.

Did she remember Wrigglesworth's?  Would she
ever forget it?  Those high-backed seats, the
sawdust on the floor, the poll-parrot in its cage in the
middle of the room!  And, then, who could forget
the name of Wrigglesworth?

Did she remember the little greengrocer's shop he
had pointed out to her, and how she had said she
would love one of the rosy-cheeked apples that were
piled up in their little partitions--and his reply,
rather reluctant, evidently none too eager that one
of the rosy-cheeked apples should be hers?  Yes,
she remembered.  She remembered, too, that nothing
more had been said about the apples, and that he
had not reminded her of them again when they came
away from lunch.

Exactly--because over that very little
greengrocer's shop in Fetter Lane--the two windows
above the shop itself--was where he lived.

For a moment she gazed at him in astonishment;
then she stared out into the traffic before her.  Back
through her mind raced the sensations she had
experienced that day when she had lunched with him.
The secrecy, the novelty, the stuffy little
eating-house, it had all seemed very romantic then.  The
tablecloth was not as clean as it might be, but the
high-backed seats had been there for nearly two
hundred years.  One thing weighed with another.  The
waiter was familiar; but, as John had explained to
her, the waiters knew everybody, and you might feel
as much annoyed at their familiarity as you had
reason to at the age of the poll-parrot and the
remarks that he made about the cooking.  They all
combined to make Wrigglesworth's--Wrigglesworth's;
and she had taken it for granted in the
halo of romance.  But to live there!  To sleep at
night within sight and sound of all the things which
her unaccustomed eyes and cars had seen and heard!
She suddenly remembered the type of people she
had seen coming in and out of the doorways; then
she looked back at John.

"Then you're very poor?" she said gently.

"If you mean I haven't a lot of money," he said.

"Yes."

"Then poor is the word."

He sat and watched her in silence.  She was
thinking very fast.  He could see the thoughts,
as you see cloud shadows creeping across water--passing
through her eyes.  Even now, he knew that
she would understand in the face of all upbringing,
all hereditary ideas.  But he waited for her to speak
again.  The moment was hers.  He trusted her to
make the best of it.

"Why didn't you ask me to come and see your
rooms after we'd had lunch at Wrigglesworth's?"
she said presently and, expecting simplicity,
counting upon understanding, even he was surprised.

"Ask you there?  To those rooms?  Over the
little greengrocer's shop?  Up those uncarpeted
wooden stairs?"

And then they found themselves under the portico
of the Opera House; in another moment in the crush
of people in the vestibule; then making their way
round the cheaply-papered boxes along the ugly
little passages to the stage-box on the third tier.

The attendant threw open the door.  Like children,
who have been allowed down to the drawing-room
after dinner, they walked in.  And it was all
very wonderful, the sky of brilliant lights and the
sea of human beings below them.  It was real
romance to be perched away up in a little box in the
great wall--a little box which shut them in so safely
and so far away from all those people to whom
they were so near.  Her heart was beating with the
sense of anticipation and fear for the fruit which
their hands had stolen.  For the first ten minutes,
she would scarcely have been surprised had the door
of the box opened behind them and her mother
appeared in a vision of wrath and justice.  Some
things seem too good to be true, too wonderful to
last, too much to have hoped for.  And Romance is
just that quality of real life which happens to be
full of them.

From the moment that the curtain rose upon the
life of these four happy-go-lucky Bohemians, to the
moment when it fell as Rudolfo and Mimi set off to
the *café*, these two sat in their third-tier box like
mice in a cage, never moving a finger, never stirring
an eye.  Only John's nostrils quivered and once or
twice there passed a ripple down Jill's throat.

At last fell the curtain, one moment of stillness to
follow and, shattering that stillness then into a
thousand little pieces, the storm of the clapping of
hands.

Music is a drug, a subtle potion of sound made
liquid, which one drinks without knowing what
strange effect it may or may not have upon the
blood.  To some it is harmless, ineffectual, passing
as quietly through the veins as a draught of cool
spring water; to others it is wine, nocuous and
sweet, bringing visions to the senses and pulses to
the heart, burning the lips of men to love and the
eyes of women to submission.  To others again, it
is a narcotic, a draught bringing the sleep that is
drugged with the wildest and most impossible of
dreams.  But some there are, who by this philtre
are imbued with all the knowledge of the good, are
stirred to the desire to reach forward just that
hand's stretch which in such a moment but separates
the divine in the human from the things which are
infinite.

This was the power that music had upon John.

While the applause was still vibrating through
the house, while the curtain was still rising and
falling to the repeated appearances of the players,
he slipped his hand into his pocket, took something
quickly out, and when she turned after the final
curtain fall, Jill beheld, standing upon the velvet
railing of the box, a little man all in brass, with
one hand resting aristocratically upon his hip and
the other stretched out as though to take her own.

Surprise and question filled her eyes.  She
looked up at John.  She looked back at the little
brass man, and the little brass man looked back at
her.  It may not have been that he raised his hat;
but he had all the appearance of having just done so.

"Did you put that there?" she asked.

John nodded.  She picked him up, and once her
fingers had touched him, the spell of his dignity was
cast.

"What is he?  Where did you get him?  What
does he mean?"  One question fell fast upon another.

"He's my little brass man," said John.  "He's
an old seal, over a hundred years old----"  And
he told her the whole story.

When he had finished, the curtain rose once
more--outside the *Café* Momus with the babel of
children and the hum and laughter of a crowd that
only a city southeast of the Thames can know or
understand.  Through all the act, Jill sat with the
little brass man standing boldly beside her.  When
it was over, she turned to him again.

"Aren't you very miserable when you have to--to
part with him?" she asked.

"Very.--He comes back as soon as possible.  But
I've made a resolve."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to put him out of reach of the
indignity.  He's never going to the chapel of
unredemption any more."

"What are you going to do?"

"Give him to you.  You are the only person I
know of, who has the gift of understanding poverty."

"To me?"  Instinctively her fingers tightened
round him.  "To me?" she repeated.

He smiled and bent his head.  "He seals our
friendship," said he.

This was his way of telling her that he knew
she understood.  The perfect nonsense of the
gift--a figure in brass that cost seven' shillings and
had been pledged and redeemed for six, times out
of number--this had little or nothing to do with
it.  Everything in this world is nonsense; the whole
of life is a plethora of ludicrous absurdities, one
more fanciful than another.  The setting upon the
head of a man a fantastic piece of metal and
calling in a loud voice that he is king--the holding
aloft of another piece of metal, crossed in shape,
studded with precious stones, and exhorting those
who behold it to fall upon their knees--the placing
on the finger of a little circular band--of metal
too--and thereby binding irrevocably the lives and
freedom of two living beings in an indissoluble
bondage, all these things are nonsense, childish,
inconsequent nonsense, but for their symbolism and
the inner meaning that they hold.

The crown is nothing, the cross is nothing, the
ring is nothing, too.  A goldsmith, a silversmith, a
worker in brass, these men can turn them out
under the hammer or upon the lathe; they can
scatter the earth with them and have done so.  From
the crown in finest gold and rarest jewels to the
crown in paper gilt, the difference can only be in
value, not in truth.  From the great cross in
Westminster Cathedral to the little nickel toy that hangs
from the cheapest of rosary beads, the difference is
only the same.  From the massive ring that the Pope
must wear to the tinsel thing that the cracker hides
in its gaudy wrappings at Christmas-time, the
difference is just the same.  Each would serve the
other's purpose.  Each would mean nothing but
nonsense and empty foolishness except to the eyes
which behold the symbolism that they bear.

Yet they, because of their meanings, dominate
the world.  Little pieces of metal of the earth's
reluctant yield--for the highest symbolism always
takes form in metal--they govern and command
with a despotism that is all part of the chaos of
nonsense in which we live.

Only one form of metal there is, which is a
meaning in itself; before which, without nonsense and
without symbolism, a man must bow his head--the
sword.  The only thing in this world of ours in
which nonsense plays no part; the only thing in this
world of ours which needs no symbolism to give it
power.  Yet in times of peace, it lies idly in the
scabbard and there are few to bring it reverence.

For the present, nonsense must content us then.
The greatest intellects must admit that it is still
in the nature of them to sprawl upon the floor of
the nursery, making belief with crowns, with crosses
and with rings--making belief that in these fanciful
toys lies all the vast business of life.

Until we learn the whole riddle of it all, the
highest profession will be that of the nonsense-maker.
The man who can beat out of metal some symbolical
form, earns the thankfulness of a complete world
of children.  For with baubles such as these, it is
in the everlasting nature of us to play, until the
hours slip by and the summons comes for sleep.

So played the two--children in a world of
children--in their stage-box on the third tier.  She
knew well what the gift of the little brass man must
mean--the *Chevalier d'honneur*.  John might have
sworn a thousand times that he knew the great
power of her understanding; yet such is the nature
of the child, that in this little symbol of brass--as
much a nonsense thing as any symbol of its
kind--she understood far clearer the inner meaning of
that word friendship.

"Will you accept him?" said John gently.

She looked back in his eyes.

"On one condition."

"What is that?"

"That if ever we cease to be friends, he must be
returned to you."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MR. CHESTERTON`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium

   THE MR. CHESTERTON

.. vspace:: 2

It was always a strain when July came round, for
John to amass those seventeen odd pounds for the
journey to Venice.  But it was a greater strain
when, having amassed it, he had some days before
him in which to walk about the streets before he
departed--it was a greater strain, then, not to
spend it.  For money, to those who have none, is
merely water and it percolates through the
toughest pigskin purse, finds it way somehow or other
into the pocket and, once there, is in a sieve with as
broad a mesh as you could need to find.

It was always in these few days before his yearly
exodus, that John ran across the things that one
most desires to buy.  Shop-keepers had a bad habit
of placing their most alluring bargains in the very
fore-front of the window.  Everything, in fact,
seemed cheaper in July, and seventeen pounds was a
sum which had all the appearance of being so
immense, that the detraction of thirty shillings from
the hoard would make but little material difference
to the bulk of it.

But John had learnt by experience that if you
take thirty shillings from seventeen pounds, it leaves
fifteen pounds ten, an odd amount, demanding that
those ten shillings be spent also to equalise matters.
Then the fifteen pounds which is left is still immense
and the process beginning all over again, there is
finally left but a quota of what had been at first.
With fifteen pounds in bank notes in his letter-case
and two pounds in gold in his pocket, he found
himself looking in the window of Payne and
Welcome's, where a little Nankin milk jug of some
unimpeachable dynasty was standing in all expectation,
just waiting to catch the eye of such a person
as himself who might chance to pass by.

That afternoon, Jill was coming to tea--her
first visit to Fetter Lane, made, as he thought,
simply in honour of his departure.  And that little milk
jug was begging to come, too.

He stood for a while and stared at it.  It would
not be more than fifteen shillings--expensive, too, at
that.  Fifteen shillings would make no impression
upon so vast a sum as seventeen pounds.  A voice
whispered it in his ear, from behind his back,--just
over his shoulder.

"You want a milk jug," said the voice, "and it's
a beautiful blue.  It will go wonderfully with the
teapot and the little blue and white cups and saucers.
Get it, man!  Get it!" and it reminded him in a
joking way, with a subtle, cunning laugh, of his
philosophy when he was a boy.  "What are sweets
for, but to eat?"  "What is money for, but to spend?"

With sudden decision, he walked in; but it was
not through the entrance of the jeweller's shop.  He
marched into the confessional box in the chapel of
unredemption.  There, pulling out his three
five-pound notes and his two sovereigns, he planked them
down upon the counter.

"I want ten shillings on those," said he.

They were used to John's eccentricities there, but
they never thought him so mad as this.

"Why, it's seventeen pounds," said the man.

"That's quite right," said John.  "I counted it
myself.  And I want ten shillings on it."

Ten shillings would feed him for a week.  He
strode out of the shop again with the ten shillings
in his pocket and the seventeen pounds safe in the
keeping of the high priest.  There was a man who
owed him fourteen shillings, and who, when the time
came to go to Venice, might possibly be induced to
part with that necessary ten, if he were asked for it
as a loan.  A man will willingly lend you ten
shillings if he owes you fourteen; it is the paying you
back that he does not like.

As he passed out into the street, John kept his
face rigidly averted from the little Nankin milk jug.
He had played that milk jug a sly, and a nasty
trick.  It was really nothing to be proud about.

When he returned to Number 39, there was a man
waiting outside his door, a man dressed in a
light-brown tweed, the colour of ripening corn.  He had
on a shiny-red silk tie, adorned with a pin--a
horseshoe set with pearls.  His face was round, fat and
solemn--the solemnity that made you laugh.  He
put John in good spirits from the loss of the Nankin
milk jug, the moment he saw him.  Someone had
left the door into the street open and so he had come
upstairs.

"Who are you?" asked John.

"Well--my name's Chesterton, sir, Arthur Chesterton."

John opened his door with the innocence of a babe,
and the man followed him into the room, closely at
his heels.

"And what do you want?" asked John.

Mr. Chesterton handed him a paper.  John looked
it through.

"Yes--of course--my two quarter's rent.  They
shall be paid," he said easily.  "There's money due
to me next month."

Mr. Chesterton coughed behind his hand.

"It must be now," he said quietly.  "That is to
say--I must wait here till I get it."

A bailiff!  And Jill was coming to tea!  In another
half hour she would be there!  She knew he was
poor; she thought Fetter Lane a terrible neighbourhood;
but with all her imagination, she had not
conceived anything as terrible as this.

There was only one way; to explain everything.
He had a lady coming to tea with him that
afternoon--a lady--did he understand?  Anyhow, he
nodded his head.  Well--it was quite impossible for
her to find him there--a bailiff!  It was not his
fault, of course, that he was a bailiff, but he must
see how impossible the position was.  The little man
nodded his head again.  Well, would he go away;
just for a short time, till they had had tea.  He
could return then, John promised he would let him
in.  He knew that once a bailiff was out of
possession, he was powerless; but this was a matter of
honour.  On his honour he would let him in again.

Mr. Chesterton blinked his eyes.

"Sometimes," he replied quietly--"Sometimes
they tell me it's their father as is comin'--then
again, if it's a woman, she says her husband'll be
back in a minute and her husband's always a man
with an 'orrible bad temper what's liable to do
dangerous things.  And sometimes, they say it's a girl
they're sweet on--same as you."

"But I'll swear it's true!" cried John wildly.

Mr. Chesterton smiled.

"Wouldn't payin' the money be better than
swearin'?" said he.  "It's only fifteen pounds.
Sometimes they gets rid of me that way--and it's
the only successful way of doin' it.  You see I'm
inside now.  I'm the nine points of the law now.
If I was outside, I'd be only one--you'd be the
nine, then--see.  You'd be able to lock your door
and make a long nose at me out of the window.
Lord! the times I've said that to people--and they
don't seem to see the truth of it--not they."

John had every sympathy with their obtuseness.
If he saw the point of it himself, it was only because
he knew it would not be so in his instance.

"Then you won't go?" he said.

Mr. Chesterton shook his head, quite patiently.

"Do you ever get kicked out of a place into the
street?" asked John.  The man was so small that
the question would rise naturally to the minds of
quite a lot of people.

He smiled amiably.

"Yes--they do that sometimes.  But two months,
without the option, for assault ain't pleasant, you
know.  I shouldn't care for it myself.  I'd sooner
'ave the assault, it's over quicker."

There are some tragedies in life in which, if you
do not find place for laughter, you become
melodramatic--a sin which is unforgivable.

John just saved the position in time.  He sat
down in a chair and laughed aloud.

"And till I've paid this money," he said.  "I've
got to put you up.  Where are you going to sleep?
I've only got a bedroom besides this and a cupboard
that holds two hundredweight of coal on the landing."

Mr. Chesterton looked about him.

"That settle looks comfortable enough," said he.
"I've slep' worse than that."  He crossed the room
and felt the springs of it with his fist.  "But it's
a small place.  I'm afraid I shall be a bit in the way."

"My Lord!"  John jumped up again.  "You will
this afternoon."  He was to have told Jill many
things that afternoon.  Now this ruined everything.
They would have to go out to tea, because there
was no paying of the money.  He could not
redeem his seventeen pounds and settle it with that.
There would be nothing left with which to go to
Venice and the calculations of that little old
white-haired lady who was waiting for him to put his arms
about her neck had become so small, so infinitely
small, that he had not the heart to add to them by
so much as a figure of seven.

"And you don't believe that a lady's coming to
tea with me?" he said excitedly.

Mr. Chesterton spread out a pair of dirty hands.

"I know that lady so well," he said.  "She's
always every inch a lady who wouldn't understand
the likes of me.  But I'm quite easy to understand.
Tell her I'm a friend of yours.  I won't give the
game away."

Oh!  It was ludicrous!  The laugh came again
quickly to John's lips, but as soon it died away.
So much was at stake.  He had pictured it all so
plainly.  She would be disappointed when she heard
he was going.  He would ask her why that look had
passed across her eyes.  Her answer would be evasive,
and then, word by word, look by look, he would
lead her to the very door of his heart until the
cry--"I love you"--the most wonderful words to
say--the most terribly wonderful words to mean, would
be wrung from his lips into her ears.

And now this imperturbable fiend of a bailiff,
with his very natural incredulity and his simple way
of expressing it, had come to wreck the greatest
moment of his life.

John looked him up and down.

"What sort of a friend do you think I could
introduce you as?" he asked.  "Do you think you
look like a friend of mine?"

The little man glanced down at his boots, at the
light-brown tweed trousers, upturned and showing a
pair of woollen socks not far removed in colour from
that of his tie.

"Well--you never know," said he, looking up
again.  "I'm stayin' here, aren't I?  They said you
was a writer--that you wrote books.  Well, have you
never seen a person who wrote books, like me?  Why
there was a woman I 'ad to get the rent from
once--a journalist, she called herself.  She'd got a bit
of a beard and a fair tidy moustache--and by gum,
she dressed queerer than anything my old woman
would ever put on.  I felt quite ashamed to be
stoppin' with her."

John laughed again; laughed uproariously.
Mr. Chesterton was so amused at the remembrance of it,
that he laughed as well.  Suddenly their laughter
snapped, as you break a slate pencil.  There came
a gentle, a timid knock on the door.

"This is she," whispered John.  "The door below
was open.  She's come upstairs.  What the devil
am I going to do?"

At last the little man believed him.  He really
was going to see the lady this time, the lady who
would never understand the likes of him, and he
began to feel quite nervous.  He began to feel
ashamed of being a bailiff.

"Introduce me as a friend," he whispered--"It'll
be all right--introduce me as a friend."

"Sit down there, then--on that settle."

Then John opened the door and Jill stepped
hesitatingly into the room.  Mr. Chesterton rose
awkwardly to his feet.

This was the lady, materialised at last.  From
long habit of summing up in a glance the people
with whom he had to deal, he made his estimation
of Jill in a moment.  The quietness of her voice as
she said--"I was rather afraid to knock, for fear
I had made a mistake"--that gentleness in the depth
of the eyes which admits of no sudden understanding,
yet as gently asks for it--the firm repose of
the lips already moulded for the strength which
comes with maturity, and all set in a face whose
whole expression was that innocence of a mind which
knows and has put aside until such moment when
life shall demand contemplation.  This--there was
no doubt of it--was the lady who would not
understand the likes of him.

John shook hands with her.  Mr. Chesterton took
it all in with his little solemn eyes.  He was in the
way.  Never had he been so much in the way before.
As their hands touched, he felt that John was
telling her just how much in the way he was.

"May I introduce you," said John, turning, when
that touching of the hands was done with.  "This
is my friend--Mr. Chesterton.  Miss----" he paused.
It seemed sacrilege to give her name to a bailiff,
and the little man felt sensitively, in his boots every
moment of that pause.  His red socks were burning
him.  He could see the colour of his tie in every
reflection.  It was even creeping up into his cheeks.

"Miss Dealtry."

He was going to come forward and shake hands,
but she bowed.  Then, when she saw his confusion,
out, generously, came her hand.

"Are you a writer, too?" she asked.

John was about to interpose; but the little man
wanted to stand well with her.  He felt that his
socks and his tie and his corn-coloured suit ought all
to be explained, and what more lucid or more
natural explanation than this.

"Oh, yes, I'm a writer," he said quickly.  "Books,
you know--and a little journalism--just to--to keep
me goin'--to amuse myself like.  Journalism's a
change, you know--what you might call a rest,
when your always writin' books----"  Then he
remembered a quotation, but where from, he could not
say, "Of the writin' of books, you know--at least, so
they say--there's no end."  And he smiled with
pleasure to think how colloquially he had delivered
the phrase.

"Why, of course, I know your work," said Jill--"Aren't
you *the* Mr. Chesterton?"

The little man's face beamed.  That was just
what they all called him--*the* Mr. Chesterton.

"That's right," said he delightedly, "the one and
only."  And under the mantle of genius and celebrity
his quaintnesses became witticisms, his merest phrase
a paradox.





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.. _`WHY JILL PRAYED TO ST. JOSEPH`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   WHY JILL PRAYED TO ST. JOSEPH

.. vspace:: 2

Little as you might have imagined it, there was a
heart beneath that corn-coloured waistcoat of
Mr. Chesterton's.  His old woman, as he called her,
would have vouched for that.

"He may have to do some dirty tricks in his
job," she had said of him.  "But 'e's got a 'eart,
'as my young man, if you know where to touch it."

And seemingly, Jill had known; tho' the
knowledge was unconscious.  It was just that she had
believed--that was all.  She had believed he was
the Mr. Chesterton, presumably a great writer, a
man to command respect.  He had never commanded
respect before in his life.  Abuse!  Plenty of that!
So much of it that his skin had become hardened
and tough.  But respect--never.

Ah!  She was a lady, certainly--a delightful,
a charming young lady.  He could quite believe
that she would not understand the likes of him.
He would even dare to swear, and did, when
eventually he went home to his old woman, that she
had never heard of a bailiff in her life.

And while John laid out the tea things, she
talked to him all the time as if he were a great
man--bless her little heart!  He was a fine fellow,
whoever this Chesterton was, and he seemed to have
said some mighty smart things.  Anyhow, if writing
books was not a paying game, as, judging by this
young Mr. Grey, it would not seem to be, it certainly
brought one a deal of credit.  The little bailiff
basked in the light of it, feeling like a beggar who
has awakened in the King's bed-chamber, ensconced
in the King's bed.  Only when, occasionally he caught
sight of the expression on John's face, did he realise
how abominably he must be in the way.

At last, when tea was ready, the kettle spitting
on the little spirit stove in the grate, Mr. Chesterton
rose to his feet.  A look had passed between
those two, a look unmistakable to his eyes--a look
of mute appeal from her, an answering look of
despair from John.  Had it been John alone, he would
have taken no notice.  John had been making
grimaces to himself for the last quarter of an hour;
besides, he had brought it on himself.  Young men
should pay their rent up to time.  He had little
or no sympathy for John.  But when he saw that
look in Jill's eyes, realising that it was only her
gentle politeness which made her talk to him so
nicely--only her gentle politeness and the kudos which he
had stolen from the name of Chesterton--then, he
felt he could stay there no longer.  He had always
had a tender heart for women, so long as they were
not unsexed by journalism, by a bit of a beard and
a fair tidy moustache.  He had no sympathy for
them then if their rents were overdue.  But now, this
was a different matter.  That look in Jill's eyes had
cut him to the quick.

"I've got to be goin' now, Mr. Grey," he said.

John's mouth opened in amazement.  He had just
decided in his mind that Kensington Gardens was
the only place left to them from this abominable
interloper.

"Going?" he echoed.  It might almost have
seemed as if he were intensely sorry, his surprise
was so great.

"Yes--goin'," said Mr. Chesterton with a look
that meant the absolute certainty of his return.
"Good-bye, Miss Dealtry--you'll excuse me runnin'
away, won't you?  Time and tide--they won't wait,
you know--they're just like a pair o' children goin'
to a circus.  They don't want to miss nuthin'."

Now that was his own, his very own!  He had been
determined all through their conversation to work in
something of his own.  *The great* Mr. Chesterton
had never said that!  This credit of being another
man, and gleaning all the approbation that did not
belong to him, had brought with it its moments of
remorse, and he longed to win her approval for
something that was truly, really his.

He looked proudly at John as he said it.  He
laughed loudly at the thought of the two children
dragging at their mother's hands all the way to the
circus.  It was a real picture to him.  He could see
it plainly.  He had been one of those children
himself once.  Time and tide--like a pair o' children
goin' to a circus!  He thought it excellent--good,
and he laughed and laughed, till suddenly he realised
that John was not even smiling.  Then wasn't it
funny after all?  Wasn't it clever?  Yet the things
which this Mr. Chesterton was reputed to have
written, were quite unintelligible to him.

"The apple which Eve ate in the Garden of Eden
was an orange and the peel has been lying about
ever since."

Where was the sense in that?  How could an apple
be an orange.  But Time and Tide, like a pair o'
children going to a circus!  Oh--he thought it excellent.

Then, with a pitiable sensation of failure, he turned
in almost an attitude of appeal to Jill.  But she was
smiling.  She was amused.  Then there was something
in it after all!  It had amused her.  He held
out his hand, feeling a wild inclination to grip it
fiercely and bless her for that smile.

"Good-bye," said he in his best and most elaborate
of manners.  "I'm very pleased to have made your
acquaintance," and he marched, with head erect, to
the door.

John followed him.

"I'll just come down with you," he said.

As soon as they were outside and the door was
closed, he caught the little man's hand warmly in
his.

"You're a brick," said he.  "You're a brick.  I'll
let you in whenever you come back--you needn't
be afraid."

Mr. Chesterton stopped on the stairs as they descended.

"I wouldn't have done it," he said emphatically--"if
it wasn't that she was a lady as wouldn't
understand the likes of me.  I tell you, she's a sort
of lady as I shall never come across again,--not
even in my line of business,--bless her heart."  He
descended another step or so, then stopped once
more.  "See the way she smiled at that what I said.
I tell you, she's got a nicer sense of understandin'
than what you have."

John smiled.

"I know she has," said he.

"I suppose you didn't think that clever, what I said?"

"Oh, yes, I do--I do.  I don't even think *the*
Mr. Chesterton would have thought of that."

"Don'tcher really, now?  Don'tcher really?"

John had not smiled; but this--well, of course,
this made up for everything.  *The* Mr. Chesterton
would not have thought of Time and Tide being
like a pair of children goin' to a circus!  Now, if
he were to write that and a few other things like it,
which he dared say he could think of easily enough,
he, too, might be a great man whose name would
be on the lips of such women as that perfect little
lady upstairs.  Then she *would* understand the likes
of him.

"Then you think I suited the part?" he said
cheerfully at the door.

"I think, under the circumstances and everything
being considered, you did it wonderfully," said John.
"And as for your being good enough to trust
me--well--it's finer than all the epigrams in the world."

He wrung his hand once more and the little man
departed happily down the Lane, thinking of all the
clever things that he would say to his old woman
when eventually he got home.  But--Time and Tide,
like a pair of children--he knew he'd never beat that.
She had smiled at it.  She had thought it clever.
The other things that came laboriously into his mind
as he walked down the Lane, were not a patch on it.

The moment John had closed the door, he flew
upstairs.

"Well--what do you think of *the great* Mr. Chesterton?"
he asked with a laugh.

"I do not think his conversation is nearly as
good as his writing," said Jill.

"But you smiled at that last thing he said."

"Yes, I know."  She explained it first with her
eyes and then, "He was going," she added--"and
I think it must have been relief."

John's heart thumped.  A light of daring blazed
in his eyes.  It was relief!  She was glad to be alone
with him!  This meant more than the look of
disappointment.  He had crossed the room, found
himself beside her, found her hand gripped fiercely in
his before he realised that he had obeyed the volition
to do so.

"You wanted us to be alone?" he whispered.

"Yes--I've got a lot I want to say."

Had the moment not been such as this, he would
have caught the note of pain that vibrated in her
voice; but he was in the whirlwind of his love.  It
was deafening in his ears, it was blinding in his
eyes; because then he knew she loved him also.  He
heard nothing.  He saw nothing.  Her hand was to
his lips and he was kissing every finger.

Presently he held her hand to him and looked up.

"You knew this," he said--"didn't you?  You
knew this was bound to be?"

She bent her head.

"I don't know what it means," he went on
passionately.  "I haven't the faintest idea what it
means.  I love you--that's all.  You mean
everything to me.  But I can't ask you to marry me.
It wouldn't be fair."  A thought of Mr. Chesterton
rushed across his mind.  "I--I can barely keep
myself in rooms like these.  I couldn't keep you.
So I suppose I haven't a moment's right to say
one of these things to you.  But I had to say them.
You knew I was going to say them--didn't you--Jill--my
Jill--you knew--didn't you?"

She let him take both her hands in his; she let
him drag them to his shoulders and press them there.
But she bent her head forward.  She hid her face
from his.  There was that which she had to tell
him, things which she had to say, that must be
told before he could blame himself any more for the
love he had offered.  She had known it was coming.
He was quite right; she had known all he was going
to say, realised it ever since that day when they had
quarrelled in Kensington Gardens.  All the moments
between until this, had been a wonderful
anticipation.  A thousand times her breath had caught;
a thousand times her heart had thumped, thinking
he was about to speak; and through it all, just
these few weeks or so, the anxious longing, the
tireless praying that what she had now to say need
never be said.

For a little while she let him hold her so.  It
would be the last time.  God had been talking, or
He had been sleeping, and St. Joseph--perhaps he
had taken John's gift of generosity rather than that
last candle of her's, for the petition she had made on
that 18th of March in the Sardinia St. Chapel had
not been answered.

Presently she looked up into his eyes.

"You mustn't blame yourself, John," she said
gently.  "It is I who deserve all the blame."

"Why?" he said--"why?"

"Because--not for the reason you said--but for
something else, this is all impossible.  I know it is
the most wonderful thing that will ever be in my
life.  I know that.  I'm sure of it.  But something
has happened since I saw you last, which makes it
impossible for us to see each other again."

"Your people have found out?  They forbid it?"

She shook her head.

"No--no--it's not that.  They know nothing.  I
must go back in order to explain it to you."

Still holding his hand, she slipped into a chair,
motioning him to draw up another beside her.

"You remember when we first met?"

He nodded.

"Did you ever wonder why I was praying to St. Joseph?"

"Wonder?" he echoed.  "I've thought of a
thousand different things."

"I don't suppose you've thought of the right
one," said Jill.  "My father's not rich, you know;
not so rich as you might expect from his position
and the house where we live.  At one time we were
better off, but they still try to live on at Prince of
Wales' Terrace, though they can't really afford it.
Father lost money in speculation, and, before that,
he had put down Ronald's name for Eton.  Then the
chances of his ever going there seemed to dwindle
to nothing.  It was when it almost seemed as if we
must leave the house in Kensington, that a friend of
father's asked me to marry him.  He was over
forty--some years older than me and I----"

"You refused him, of course," said John quickly.
At twenty-six, forty years can seem the millennium
when they stand in your way.

"Yes--I--I refused.  But he did not take my
refusal.  He asked me to think about it; that he
would wait--would even wait a year.  Then, I
believe, he must have said something to father, besides
telling him that I had refused, because father talked
for a long while to me afterwards and mother, too.
They showed me as plainly as they could, though,
from their point of view alone, what an excellent
match it would be.  Father told me exactly what his
financial position was--a thing he had never done
before.  I had always thought him to be quite
rich.  Then, at the end, he said he had invested in
some speculation which he believed was going to
set him quite right again, enable us to stay on in
Kensington and make it quite possible for Ronald
to go to Eton.  But that if this failed, as he did not
believe it would, then he hoped that I would
reconsider my refusal to his friend.  I say he hoped; but
he did not put it in that way.  He showed me that
it would be my duty--that I should be spoiling
Ronald's chances and mother's life and his, if I did
not accept."

She paused.  She waited for John to say something;
but he sat there beside her with his lips set
tight and his eyes unmoving.

"It was on the 18th of March, he told me that,"
she continued--"the day that I went to pray to
St. Joseph that his speculation might not fail--the day
I met you.  Then--only the day before yesterday--they
told me.  The prayer had been no good.  I
always said poor St. Joseph was no good to me."

"He's lost his money?" said John hoarsely.  He
let her hand fall and moved away.

"Yes.  I--I've got to accept."





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.. _`THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


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   THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE

.. vspace:: 2

"Then you'll never know my people in Venice,"
said John presently.  He had suddenly remembered
that there was nothing to tell the little old
white-haired lady now.  To all the thousand questions
which she would whisper into his ears, only evasive
answers could be given her.

"I told my mother about you," he went on slowly.
"I told her how we met.  I told her that you were
praying to St. Joseph and she's been wondering
ever since--like me"--the emotion rose in his throat--"she's
been wondering what you could have had to ask."

He came back to the arm-chair--the arm-chair
in which he did his work--and quietly sat down.
Then, as quietly, as naturally as if she had done it
a thousand times before, Jill seated herself on the
floor at his feet and his arm wound gently round
her neck.

"Did your mother know we met again?" she asked
presently.

"Yes--I told her about the first time in Kensington
Gardens.  I haven't told her any more.  I dared not."

"Dared not?"  She looked up quickly.

"No--it's the hope of her life to see me
happy--to see me married.  They think I make more money
than I do, because I won't take anything from them.
They believe I'm in a position to marry and, in nearly
every letter she writes, she makes some quaint sort
of allusion to it.  I believe already her mind is set
on you.  She's so awfully cute.  She reads every
single word between the lines, and sometimes sees
more what has been in my mind when I wrote to
her, than I even did myself."

Jill's interest wakened.  Suddenly this old lady,
far away in Venice, began to live for her.

"What is she like?" she asked--"Describe her.
You've never told me what she's like."

Diffidently, John began.  At first it seemed wasting
their last moments together to be talking of
someone else; but, word by word, he became more
interested, more absorbed.  It was entering Jill into his
life, making her a greater part of it than she would
have been had she gone away knowing nothing more
of him than these rooms in Fetter Lane.  At last
the little old white-haired lady, with those pathetically
powerless hands of hers, was there, alive, in
the room with them.

Jill looked up at him with such eyes as
concealed their tears.

"She means a lot to you," she said gently.

"Yes--she means a great deal."

"And yet, do you know, from your description of
her, I seemed more to gather how much you meant
to her.  She lives in you."

"I know she does."

"And your father?  Thomas Grey--of the port
of Venice?"  She tried to smile at the remembrance
which that brought.

"Yes--he lives in me, too.  They both of them
do.  He, for the work I shall do, carrying on where
he left off; she, for the woman I shall love and the
children I know she prays I may have before she
dies.  That is the essence of true fatherhood and
true motherhood.  They are perfectly content to die
when they are once assured that their work and
their love is going on living in their child."

She thought of it all.  She tried in one grasp
of her mind to hold all that that meant, but could
only find herself wondering if the little old
white-haired lady would be disappointed in her, would
disapprove of the duty she was about to fulfil, if
she knew.

After a long pause, she asked to be told where
they lived; to be told all--everything about them;
and in a mood of inspiration, John wove her a
romance.

"You've got to see Venice," he began, "you've
got to see a city of slender towers and white domes,
sleeping in the water like a mass of water lilies.
You've got to see dark water-ways, mysterious
threads of shadow, binding all these flowers of stone
together.  You've got to hear the silence in which
the whispers of lovers of a thousand years ago,
and the cries of men, betrayed, all breathe and echo
in every bush.  These are the only noises in Venice--these
and the plash of the gondolier's oar or his
call--'Ohé!' as he rounds a sudden corner.  You've
got to see it all in the night--at night, when the
great white lily flowers are blackened in shadow, and
the darkened water-ways are lost in an impenetrable
depth of gloom.  You've got to hear the stealthy
creeping of a gondola and the lapping of the water
against the slimy stones as it hurries by.  In every
little burning light that flickers in a barred window
up above, you must be able to see plotters at work,
conspirators planning deeds of evil or a lover in his
mistress' arms.  You've got to see magic, mystery,
tragedy, and romance, all compassed by grey stone
and green water, to know the sort of place where
my mother and father live, to know the place where
I should have taken you, if--if things had been
different."

"Should we have gone there together?" she said
in a breath.

"Yes--I've always sort of dreamed, when I've
thought of the woman with God's good gift of
understanding, I've always sort of dreamed of what we
should do together there."

She looked up into his face.  The picture of it
all was there in his eyes.  She saw it as well.  She
saw the vision of all she was losing and, as you play
with a memory that hurts, as a mother handles the
tiny faded shoe of the baby she has lost, she wanted
to see more of it.

"Should we have gone there together?" she whispered.

He smiled down at her--mock bravery--a smile
that helped him bear the pain.

"Yes,--every year--as long as they lived and
every year afterwards, if you wished.  Every
morning, we'd have got up early--you know those early
mornings when the sun's white and all the shadows
are sort of misty and the water looks cleaner and
fresher than at any other time because the dew has
purged it.  We'd have got up early and come
downstairs and outside in the little Rio, the gondolier
would be blowing on his fingers, waiting for us.
They can be cold those early mornings in Venice.
Then we'd have gone to the Giudecca, where all the
ships lie basking in the sun--all the ships that have
come from Trieste, from Greece, from the mysterious
East, up through the Adriatic, threading their way
through the patchwork of islands, past Fort San
Nicolo and Lido till they reach the Giudecca Canal.
They lie there in the sun in the early mornings like
huge, big water-spiders, and up from all the cabins
you'll see a little curl of pale blue smoke where the
sailors are cooking their breakfasts."

"And how early will that be?" asked Jill in a whisper.

"Oh--six o'clock, perhaps."

"Then I shall be awfully sleepy.  I never wake up
till eight o'clock and even then it's not properly
waking up."

"Well, then, you'll put your head on my shoulder
and you'll go to sleep.  It's a wonderful place to
sleep in, is a gondola.  We'll go away down towards
Lido and you can go to sleep."

"But the gondolier?"

"Oh"--he laughed gently.  "The hood's up--he
stands behind the hood.  He can't see.  And if he
can, what does that matter?  He understands.  A
gondolier is not a London cabby.  He plies that oar
of his mechanically.  He's probably dreaming, too,
miles away from us.  There are some places in the
world where it is natural for a man to love a woman,
where it isn't a spectacle, as it is here, exciting sordid
curiosity, and Venice is one of them.  Well, then,
you'll go to sleep, with your head on my shoulder.
And when we're coming back again, I shall wake
you up--how shall I wake you?"

He leant over her.  Her eyes were in Venice
already.  Her head was on his shoulder.  She was
asleep.  How should he wake her?  He bent still
lower, till his face touched hers.

"I shall kiss you," he whispered--"I shall kiss
your eyes, and they'll open."  And he kissed her
eyes--and they closed.

"We'll go back to breakfast, then," he went on,
scarcely noticing how subtly the tense had changed
since he had begun.  "What do you think you'd
like for breakfast?"

"Oh--anything--it doesn't matter much what one
eats, does it?"

"Then we'll eat anything," he smiled--"whatever
they give us.  But we shall be hungry, you know.
We shall be awfully hungry."

"Well," said Jill under her breath--"I'm sure
they'll give us enough.  And what do we do then?"

"After breakfast?"

"Yes."

"Well--I finish just one moment before you do,
and then I get up, pretending that I'm going to the
window."

She looked up surprised.

"Pretending?  What for?"

"Because I want to get behind your chair."

"But why?"

"Because I want to put my arms round your
neck and kiss you again."

He showed her how.  He showed her what he
meant.  She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes
once more.

"When, without complaint, you take whatever is
given you, that's the only grace for such a meal as
that.  Well--when we've said grace--then out we
go again."

"In the garden?"

"Yes--to the Palazzo Capello in the Rio Marin."

"That's where your people live?"

"Yes.  Well, perhaps, we take them out, or we
go and sit in the garden.  I expect father will want
us to go and sit in the garden and see the things
he's planted; and mother of course'll consent,
though she'll be longing to go out to the Piazza
San Marco and look at the lace in the shops under
the Arcade."

"Well, then, I'll go out with her----" said Jill.

"If you go, I go," said John.

She laughed, and forced him to a compromise.
He would stay in the garden for half an hour; it
need not be more.

"There might be things we wanted to buy in the
shops," she said--"shops where you might not be
allowed to come."  So he could understand that it
ought to be half an hour.  But it must not be more.

"And then--what then?" she asked.

"Well, then, directly after lunch, we'd take a
gondola once more and set off for Murano."

"Directly after?  Wouldn't it be cruel to leave
them so soon?  If we only go for a month every
year, wouldn't it be cruel?"

This is where a man is selfish.  This is where a
woman is kind.  It was natural enough, but he had
not thought so much of them.

He consented that they should stay till tea-time
was over--tea in those little, wee cups without any
handles, which the little old white-haired lady could
just manage to grasp in her twisted hands, and
accordingly, loved so much because they did not jeer
at her powerlessness as did the many things which
she had once been able to hold.

"You didn't want not to come out with me--did
you?" he asked when the tea-time picture had passed
before his eyes.

"Not--not want--but you'd get tired, perhaps,
if you saw too much of me alone."

"Get tired!"

Three score years and ten were the utmost that a
man might hope for in this life.  Get tired!

Well, then, tea was over at last.  The light of a
pearl was creeping into the sky.  That was the
most wonderful time of all to cross the Lagoon to
Murano.

"Then it was much better we stayed to tea," she
whispered.

Much better, since the shadows were deepening
under the arches, and he could take her head in his
hands and kiss her--as he kissed her then--without
being seen.  Oh--it was much better that they had
stayed to tea.

Now they had started, past the Chiesa San
Giacomo into the Grand Canal, down the broad
waterway, past the Ca' d'Oro, which the Contarini built,
to the narrow Rio di Felice; then out into the Sacca
della Misericordia, and there, before them, the broad
stretch of the silent Lagoon--a lake of opal water
that never ended, but as silently became the sky,
with no line of light or shade to mark the alchemy
of change.

"And across this," said John,--"with their hour
glasses spilling out the sand, come the gondolas with
the dead, to the cemetery that lies in the water in the
midst of the Lagoon.  They churn up the water
with the speed they go, and if you ask a gondolier
why they go so fast, he will tell you it is because
the dead cannot pay for that last journey of theirs.
That is their humour in the city they call *La citta
del riso sangue*.  But we shall creep through the
water--we can pay--at least----" he thought of
his two quarters' rent--"I suppose we can.  We
shall steer through the water like the shadow of a
little cloud gliding across the sea.  Oh----" he
pressed his hands to his eyes--"but it would be
wonderful there with you!  And at night, when
the whole city is full of darkness--strange, silent,
mysterious darkness--where every lighted taper that
burns and every lamp that is lit seems to illuminate
a deed of mystery, we would go out into the Grand
Canal, when we had said good-night to those dear
old people of mine and we'd listen to them singing--and,
oh,--they sing so badly, but it sounds so wonderful
there.  At last--one by one, the lights would
begin to flicker out.  The windows that were alive
and awake would close their eyes and hide in the
mysterious darkness; a huge white lamp of a moon
would glide up out of the breast of the Adriatic, and
then----"

"Then?" she whispered.

"Then we should turn back to the little room
amongst all those other little rooms in the great
darkness--the gondolier would row home, and I
should be left alone with my arms tight round you
and my head resting on the gentlest place in the
world."

He lifted his hands above his head--he laughed
bitterly with the unreality of it all.

"What beautiful nonsense all this is," said he.

She looked up with the tears burning in her
eyes.  She looked up and her glance fell upon a
picture that his father had painted and given him--a
picture of the Rialto lifting with its white arches
over the green water.  She pointed to it.  He
followed with his eyes the white line of her finger.

"Then that," said Jill, and her voice quivered--"that's
the City--the City of Beautiful Nonsense."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HEART OF THE SHADOW`:

.. class:: center medium

   BOOK II

.. class:: center medium

   THE TUNNEL

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXII

.. class:: center medium

   THE HEART OF THE SHADOW

.. vspace:: 2

Ideals in the human being are as the flight of a
swallow, now high, now sinking to earth, borne
upwards by the bright light of air, pressed downwards
by the lowering of a heavy sky.

When John had said his last good-bye to Jill,
when it seemed to both of them that the Romance
was finished--when the City of Beautiful Nonsense
had just been seen upon the horizon, like a land
of promise viewed from a height of Pisgah, and then
faded into the mist of impossible things, John turned
back to those rooms in Fetter Lane, with his ideal
hugging close to earth and all the loneliness of life
stretching out monotonously before him.

But not until he had seen the empty tea-cups in
their position upon the table just as they had left
them, the little piece of bread and butter she had
half eaten, upon her plate; not until he had seen
the empty chairs standing closely together as though
repeating in whispers all the story of the City of
Beautiful Nonsense which he had told her, did he
come actually to realise that he had lost her--that
he was alone.

The minutes ticked wearily by as he sat there,
staring at it all as though it were an empty stage
at the end of a play, which the players had deserted.

At the sound of footsteps mounting the stairs,
he looked up.  Then, as a knock fell upon the door,
he started to his feet.  She had come back!  She
could bear the parting no more than he!  They were
never to be parted!  This loneliness was too
unendurable, too awful to bear.  In hurried strides, he
reached the door and flung it open.

There stood the little bailiff--*the great*
Mr. Chesterton--with a smile spreading agreeably over his
solemn face.  In those two hours of his absence, he
had thought of three clever things--three! which,
having just invented, he found to be in every way
as good as that famous simile of Time and Tide.
He was longing to say them.

But when he saw the look on John's face, he stopped.

"Yer not expecting another young lady are yer?"
he asked.

John turned back despairingly into the room,
making way for him to enter.  He offered no reply
to the little man's remark.

Mr. Chesterton closed the door behind him.

"'Ave you 'ad a scrap?" he asked sympathetically.

Now, sympathy from a bailiff, may be a very
beautiful thing, but when the mind of a man is
floundering in the nethermost pit, he has no need
of it.  John turned on him, his face changed, his
whole expression altered.

"You've come here to do your work, haven't
you?" he said thickly--"you've come here to take
possession of any confounded thing you like.
Well--take it!  Take the whole blessed show!  I don't
want to see a single thing in this room again."  He
strode to the door.  The little man stood staring
at him amazed.  "You can rip every damned thing
off the walls----" he went on wildly.  "Make up
your fifteen pounds whatever you do.  Don't stint
yourself!  For God's sake don't stint yourself!--Take
every damned thing!"

The door slammed.  He was gone.

It was half-past six.  Payne and Welcome were
just beginning to put up their shutters.  John
hurried into the side entrance and threw his ticket down
on the counter.

"I want that seventeen pounds," he said, and the
ten-shilling-piece twisted a giddy dance on the
counter by the side of the ticket, then sank down
with a gentle ringing sound.

The pawnbroker looked at him in amazement,
then went to a little pigeon-hole and produced the
packet of money.  John snatched it up and went.

They stared after him; then stared at one another.

"He ain't so far off it this time," said one.

"Next thing I'll do," said the high priest--"I'll
cut 'is throat in a barber's shop."

But supremely unconscious of all these gentle
remarks, John was hurrying on through the streets,
scarcely conscious of where he was going, or why
he had redeemed the money that was now gripped
fiercely in his hand.

For what did anything matter now?  There must
be some colour of reality about the ideal, some red
lamp burning before an altar to light up that utter
darkness into which the mind inevitably falls, blindly
and stumblingly, without such actual guiding flame
as this.  Where would be the wonderful reality of
the Host in the Tabernacle, if it was not for the
dim red lamp that burnt silently by day and night
before the altar?  Who could pray, who could
believe in utter darkness?

And in utter darkness Jill had surely left him now.
It might have been that they could not have married
for some years; it might have been that they could
never have married at all; but to see her no more--never
to feel again the touch of understanding in her
hands, the look of understanding in her eyes--that
was the gale of the wind which had obliterated the
red light of the lamp that burnt before his altar.
And now--he was in darkness.  Neither could he
pray, nor believe.

For an hour, he wandered through the streets,
then, as a clock struck the half-hour after seven, he
turned into a fashionable restaurant and took a table
in a corner alone.

A waiter came with the menu of the dinners--five
shillings, seven and six, ten shillings.  He chose
the last as it was handed to him.  The mere action
of spending money needlessly seemed a part of the
expression of that bitterness which was tainting all
his thoughts.

The waiter handed him the wine list with a bow.

John shook his head.

"Water," he said.

This was not his way of seeking oblivion.  In
even the blackest moments of his mind, he must have
his senses wide-eyed and awake.  The man who drinks
to forget, forgets Remorse as well.  Remorse is a
thing to be learnt of, not to drown.

This, if John had known it, was what his father
meant by wishing for the sorrow in his life.  By such
moments as these, he was to come to learn the value
of optimism; by such moments as these, he was to
come to know, not that there is too much sadness in
life already, but that there is too little of the
contrast of real happiness to appreciate it.

All through the meal, sending away one course
after another unfinished, he gave way voluntarily to
the passion of bitterness, made no effort to steady
the balance of his mind.

In a balcony, at the far end of the room, a band
of string instruments played the worst of meanings
into bad music--the music one hears without
listening to.  It was not long in finding its way into
John's mind, not long in exerting its influence upon
his mood.  One by one, crowding quickly upon each
other, he permitted its suggestions to take a hold
upon his thoughts.  What did it matter how he
thought?  What did it matter how low his ideal
should fall?  He could see nothing beyond the
moment, nothing further than that he was alone,
deprived of the greatest, the highest hope with which
his whole being had associated itself?  What did
anything matter now that he had lost that.

And then, out of a stillness that had fallen since
the last playing of the band, the musicians began a
selection from *La Bohème*.  He laid his knife and
fork upon the plate.  He sat back in his chair and
listened.

Why did it sound so different?  What had changed
in it since that night when he had heard it at the
Opera?  Now there was sensuality in every note of
it.  It maddened him.  The very passages that he
had once found beautiful--found wonderful as he
had listened to them with Jill--became charged with
the vilest imaginations.  Thoughts, the impurest,
surged into his mind.  The wildest and most
incomprehensible desire beat in his brain.  Was it the
players?  Was it their rendering of the music, or
was it himself?

He called the waiter, ordered his bill, paid--thinking
no loss in it--out of the seventeen pounds he
had redeemed, and strode out of the place into the
street.

There was nowhere to go, no friend whom he cared
at such a moment to see.  At last, without
consciously determining upon it, he found himself
making his way back to Fetter Lane.

With steps almost like those of an old man, he
climbed up the stairs, passing the sandy cat without
notice--not so much as a good-evening.

When he opened the door of his room, there was
Mr. Chesterton, comfortably ensconced in his
armchair and only saving his presumptuousness of its
occupation, by reading one of John's books.

But Mr. Chesterton was a man with a certain
amount of humility.  He rose to his feet as John
entered; because there was no doubt as to its being
John's particular arm-chair.  It was the only
armchair in the room.  The little bailiff had observed
that.  In fact, for that very reason, he had considerately
omitted it in the making of his inventory.

"I--I just been reading one of your books, Mr. Grey,"
he said, "an' if yer don't mind my sayin' so,
I've read many a story what was worse.  I 'ave,
indeed.  I like this story first rate.  It's no more
like a thing you'd hear of in life than I'm like the
photograph my son took of me last week with a
five-shilling camera.  'Ow on earth you manage to
do it is a marvel to me.  Do you get a plot in yer
'ead like and just stick it down just as it comes to
yer--what my old woman calls when the spirit moves?
'The spirit moves,' she says, and then she goes out
and gets a jug of beer.  But that's only figurative,
of course.  What I mean is, do you go on writing
what's in your 'ead, or do you get bits of it out of
other books?  'He threw his arms around her neck
and held her in a passionate embrace.'  I've read that
in 'eaps of books.  I suppose they get it from each
other."

"Did you find it in mine?" asked John.

"Well, no--I can't say as I 'ave yet.  But then,
they've only just been introduced.  I expect you'll
'ave to come to it sooner or later.  They all do."

"That's quite right," said John--"we all do.
There's something inevitable about it.  Have you
had a meal yet?"

"No--but I've got a little something here in a
basket.  I'll eat it on the landing if you like."

"Oh, no," said John--"eat it here.  It makes no
difference to me."

So Mr. Chesterton pulled out the basket with the
little something inside.  Two cold sausages and
some bread and butter were the extent of his meal
which he ate with evident relish, and table manners
that, perhaps, a fastidious person might have
objected to.  You could, for example, hear him eating.
Sometimes he exclaimed how excellent were sausages
when they were cold.  He went so far as to say he
loved them.  He also expanded on the way his old
woman cooked tripe; but when he talked about the
brains of certain animals being cheap and at the
same time a great delicacy, John found that his
hands wanted washing and went into the other room.

"They've had a tiff," said the little man as he
bit into the second sausage--"they've 'ad a tiff.
He's that down in the mouth, there's nothin' I can
say as'll buck him up.  Why, if I talk about sheep's
brains to my old woman, she gets as chirpy as a
cock-sparrer."

When John came back, Mr. Chesterton had
finished; the basket was put away and he was doing
things with his teeth and a bent pin in a far corner
of the room.

"'Ave yer got a box of draughts, Mr. Grey?" he
asked, when he was at liberty.  John nodded his head.

"Then come along," said the little man--"let's
have a game!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AMBER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium

   AMBER

.. vspace:: 2

But there is no oblivion to be found in a game of
draughts.  For some days, John bore with the
society of the amiable Mr. Chesterton.  He listened to
his stories of visits that he had paid in other
establishments, where they had prevailed upon him to do
odd jobs about the house, even to the cleaning of
the knives and boots.  The only time when he seemed
to have resolutely refused to do anything, was on
the occasion he had spent seven days with the lady
journalist who had a beard and a fair tidy
moustache.

"I wouldn't even have shaved her if she'd asked
me to," he said.

This sort of thing may be amusing; but it needs
the time, it needs the place.  In those rooms of
his, where only a few days before, Jill had been
sitting--at that period of his life when hope was
lowest and despair triumphant, John found no
amusement in it at all.

He wanted his oblivion.  His whole desire was to
forget.  The life that had held all promise for him,
was gone--irrevocably broken.  He sought for that,
which would, by contrast, close the memory of it, as
you shut a book that is read.  It was not to be
done by playing draughts with Mr. Chesterton.  It
was not to be done in the ways that the crowd of
men will choose.  He had attempted that--found it
impossible and flung it aside.

It was then that he thought of Amber.  She had
had a rightful place once, a place that had
accorded with his ideas of the cleanliness of existence.
Only that he had met Jill--only that he had loved--only
that he had found the expression of his ideal
in her, Amber would still have been there.  And
now--now that he had lost everything--why not
return?  It was the most human thing in the world.
Life was not possible of such ideals.

So he argued, the darkness slowly diminishing--the
light of some reason creeping again into his
mind.  But the bitterness was still there.  He still
did not care and, as yet, his mind did not even rebel
against such callousness.

One evening, then, he left Mr. Chesterton finishing
the reading of his book.  He hailed the first hansom
he saw and, screwing himself into the corner of the
seat, took a deep breath of relief as he drove away.

Then began the fear as he drove, the fear
that he would not find Amber, that since she had
gone out of his life, she would have readjusted her
mind, found other interests, or even that she might
not be there when he arrived.  And now, once his
destination was made, he dreaded the thought that
Circumstance should balk his desire.

Jumping quickly out of the hansom, he paid his
fare, hurried up the steps and rattled the flap of the
letter-box.  This was the knocker of friends.  All
those who used the proper means were creditors, not
answered until inspected carefully from behind lace
curtains.

For a few moments, his heart beat tentatively.
There was no sound, no light from within.  Then
came the quick tapping of high-heels.  He took a
breath.  The door opened.  He saw her face of
amazement in the darkness.

"You!" she exclaimed.  The door opened wider
to her hand.  "Come in."

He took off his hat and stepped in.  His manner
was strange.  He knew it was strange; he understood
the look of question in her eyes as she stared
at him--it reflected the look in his own mind.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

She nodded her head.

"My aunt is staying with me," she explained,
"but she's gone to bed.  She's got my bedroom.
The mater's gone to bed.  I'm sleeping on the floor
in the drawing-room.  I was sitting there.  Come in."

He followed her into the drawing-room.  There
was her bed upon the floor--a mattress, sheets and
blanket.  That was all.

"You're sleeping there?" he said.

She said--"hm" with a little jerk of the head,
in the most natural way in the world.  If he thought
he knew what it was to be poor, he flattered himself.
He had been without meals, but he had never slept
on the floor.

"Isn't it hard?" he questioned.  "Do you go to
sleep at all?"

She laughed gently under her breath.

"Good heavens, yes!  I'm used to it.  But what
have you come for?"

She sat down in a heap, like a journeyman tailor,
upon her bed, and gazed up at him.  At first, he did
not know how to say it.  Then he blurted it out.

"I want you to come back again to see me in Fetter Lane."

She smiled with pride.  Her mind reached for its
box of bricks.  He had sent her away from Fetter
Lane.  That was all over--past--done with.

"That's rather unexpected--isn't it?"

"I can't help that," he exclaimed, with a moment
of wildness.

"But after all you've said?"

"I can't help what I've said.  It holds good no
longer.  I take it all back.  It means nothing."

She knelt up quickly on her knees.  Dignity comes
often before humanity with a woman, but pity will
always outride the two.  Something had happened
to him.  He was in trouble.  The old appeal he had
once made to her rose out of the pity that she felt.
She stretched up her hands to his shoulders.

"What's happened?" she asked--"tell me what's
happened."

He dropped on to the mattress on the floor.  He
told her everything.  He told her how far his ideals
had fallen in those last few days.  He stripped the
whole of his mind for her to lash if she chose; he
stripped it, like a child undressing for a whipping.

When he had finished, she sat back again in her
former position.  She stared into the empty grate.

"I wonder," said she--"I wonder does the man
exist who can bear disappointment without becoming
like that."

That was the only lash that fell from her.  And
she did not direct it upon him, but it whipped across
the nakedness of his mind with a stinging blow.  He
winced under it.  It made him long to be that man.
Yet still, there was his desire; still there was the fear,
that circumstance would balk him of his oblivion.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Because, I thought you would be different," she said.

"I'm as human as the rest," said he.  "I'm the
crank, of course--but I'm a human crank.  Will you
come back to me again?"

She rose to her knees again.  She was trembling,
but she took his hand in hers and gripped it hard to
hide it from him.

"What will you say afterwards?" she asked
gently.  "What will you feel?  You'll be full of
remorse.  You'll hate me.  You'll hate yourself.  What
about your ideal?"

"I have none," he exclaimed blindly.

"I said that once," she whispered--"and you said
I was wrong, that I had an ideal, that everybody
had, only they lost sight of it."

He remembered all that.  He remembered the
reasoning of his mind.  He knew it was true.  He knew
it was true even then.

"Now you've lost sight of yours," she continued.
"But you'll see it again, you'll realise it again
to-morrow, and then--heavens!  How you'll hate me!
How you'll hate yourself."

He stared at her.  Were women as good, as fine
as this?  Was he the only vile thing in existence
then?  What would Jill think if she could see into the
pit of his mind now?  So low had he fallen that he
thought it impossible to struggle upwards; so
low, that it seemed he must touch the utmost
depth before he could get the purchase to
regain his feet.  And if he touched the lowest, he
might rise again, but it would not be so high as
before.

Amber watched all the thoughts in his face.  She
had done her utmost.  She could not do more.  If he
did not fight it out from this, then, what must be,
must be.

Yet one more thing she could do.  If she spoke of
Venice.  But why should she say it?  It was his
battle, not hers.  She had given him every weapon to
wage it but this.  Why should she say it?  The
battle was against herself.  Yet she answered to the best.
There was her ideal as well, however unconscious it
may have been.

"When are you going to Venice?" she asked hoarsely.

He told her how he had spent some of the
money--more than a pound of it was gone.

She pulled out her purse, quickly, fiercely, feverishly.

"Then won't you be able to go?" she asked.

"Not for a while."

"Won't your mother be disappointed,--the little
old white-haired lady?"

He tried to beat back the emotion in his throat,
then felt something cold and hard in his hand.  He
looked down.  It was a sovereign.

"You must take that," she said breathlessly.
"Pay it back some other time and go--go to Venice
to-morrow."

John looked full in her eyes.

"And you called yourself the fly in the amber,"
he said.  Then he tightened her fingers round the
coin--kissed them and walked to the door.

"I'll go to Venice," he said--"I'll go--somehow
or other.  I'll be the man who can bear things
without becoming like that.  You shan't be disappointed."

He came back again and seized her hand.  Then
he hurried out.

She listened to the door slamming.  She heard
his footsteps in the quiet street, then she dropped
down on the mattress on the drawing-room floor.

"Oh, you fool!" she whispered under her breath.
"Oh, you fool!"

But wisdom and folly, they are matters of
environment.  Behind it all, there was the most
wonderful satisfaction in the world in saying--"Oh,
you fool!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PALAZZO CAPELLO`:

.. class:: center medium

   BOOK III

.. class:: center medium

   THE CITY

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIV

.. class:: center medium

   THE PALAZZO CAPELLO

.. vspace:: 2

They tell you--come to Venice by night; that then
you will drift silently into the marvellous mystery of
it all; that then you will feel the weight of the
centuries in every shadow that lurks in the deep set
doorways; that then you will realise the tragedies
that have been played, the romances woven, and the
dark deeds that have been done in the making of its
history--all this, if you come to Venice by night.

They tell you, you will never see Venice as the
tourist sees it, if you will but do this; that the
impression of mystery will outlast the sight of the
Philistines crowding in the Square of St. Mark's,
will obliterate the picture of a fleet of gondolas
tearing through the Grand Canal, led by a conductor
shouting out the names of the Palaces as they pass.
Your conception of the city of mystery will last
for ever, so they tell you, if you do but come to
Venice by night.

But there is another Venice than this, a Venice
you see as you come to it in the early morning--a
city of light and of air, a city of glittering water,
of domes in gossamer that rise lightly above the
surface, finding the sun, as bubbles that melt all the
prisms of light into their liquid shells.

Come to Venice in the early morning and you will
see a city bathed in a sea of light; for it is not only
that the sun shines upon it, but that, like the white
shoulders of a mermaid, glittering with the water
drops as she rises out of the sea, this wonderful city
is not illuminated only, but is drenched in light itself.
It is no city of shadow and mysteries then.  There
are no dark water-ways, no deepening gloom beneath
the bridges.  In the early morning, it lies, as yet
unwakened, blinking, flashing, burning--a rose opal,
set clear against the sun.

Then the deepest shadow is in a tone of gold, the
highest light in a mist of glittering silver.  The
domes of San Marco and Santa Maria della Salute
are caught up in the brilliancy and melt shapelessly
into the glow.

Come to Venice in the early morning and you will
see a smelter's furnace into which has been cast the
gold and silver from a boundless treasure hoard.
You will see all that white and yellow metal
running in molten streams of light; you will see the
vibrating waves of air as the flames leap upward,
curling and twisting to the very gates of heaven
itself.  You will see a city of gold and silver, of
light and air all made liquid in one sea of
brilliance, if you do but come to Venice in the early
morning.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

In the Grand Canal, just at the corner of the
*Palazzo Babarigo*, there appears the entrance to
one of those myriad little ways that shoot secretly
away from the great, wide water street.  Turning
into this, the *Rio San Polo*, following its course
under the bridges and taking the second turning on the
left, an obedient gondolier will swing you round
with one sweep of his long oar into the *Rio Marin*.

Being human, assuming your love of the beautiful,
taking time also as his perquisite, he will probably
choose more devious ways than this.  But, everyone
will tell you that, by the *Rio San Polo*, it is the
shortest.

On each side of the *Rio Marin*, there runs a
narrow little pathway.  Here, the houses do not dip
down to the water's edge, the space of light is wider,
and the hurrying of the pedestrian on the footway
seems to concentrate life for a moment and give it
speech, in a place where everything is mute, where
everything is still.

Idlers gather lazily on the bridges to watch the
swaying gondolas as they pass beneath.  Here, even
the mystery you will find by night, is driven away.
The sun, the broad stretch of heaven, no longer a
ribbon-strip of blue tying together the house-tops,
these combine to defy mystery in the *Rio Marin*.
Rose trees and flowering bushes top the grey walls;
lift up their colours against a cloudless sky and smile
down to you of gardens concealed on the other side.

Towards the end of this little water-way, almost
opposite the *Chiesa Tedeschi*, stands the *Palazzo
Capello*, a broad and somewhat unbeautiful house,
looking placidly down upon the quiet water.  No
great history is attached to it.  No poet has ever
written there, seated at its windows; no tragedy has
been played that the guide books know of, no blood
has been splashed against its walls.  You will not
find it mentioned in any of the descriptions of Venice,
for it has no history to detain the ear; it bears no
show of ornament without to attract the eye.  Yet,
with that pomp and vanity that breathed in Venice
in the middle centuries, it was called--a palace--and
only to those who know it from within, can this
dignity of name seem justified.

A great, wide door divides the front of grey stone,
up to which lead steps from the pathway--steps, in
the crevices of which a patch of green lies here and
there in a perfect harmony of contrast to the
well-worn slabs.  This door is always closed and, with no
windows on either side, only the broad stretch of
masonry, there is a stern appearance about the place,
suggesting a prison or a barracks in its almost
forbidding aspect.  But when once that wide, wooden
gate is opened, the absence of windows upon the
ground floor is partly explained and the mind is
caught in a breath of enchantment.  It does not give
entrance to a hall, but to an archway--an archway
tunnelling under the house itself, at the end of which,
through the lace-work of wonderful wrought-iron
palings, you see the fairy-land of an old Italian
garden, glittering in the sun.

The shadows that lie heavily under the archway
only serve to intensify the brilliance of the light
beyond.  Colours are concentrated to the essence of
themselves and the burst of sunshine, after the
darkness, brings a haze, as when you see the air
quivering over a furnace.

But, having gained entrance and passed that
doorway, you are not yet within the house.  On either
side of this cool damp tunnel, making way to the
right and left on the palace, which is divided into
two houses, there are smaller archways cut into the
wall.  Taking that on your left, and before your
eyes have grown accustomed to the confusion of
lights and shadows, you might think it was a
passage burrowing down into some secret corners of the
earth.  Your feet stumble, you feel your way, fingers
touching the cold walls, suddenly realising that there
are steps to mount, not to descend and, groping
onwards, you reach another door confronting you
impassably in the blackness.

There is a bell here, but it is by chance you find
it--a long chain, like that at a postern gate, which
depends from somewhere above your head.  As you
pull it, there is a clanging and a jangling quite close
to your ear, shattering in a thousand little pieces
the stillness that reigns all round.

After a moment or so, a small door opens within
the bigger door, a curtain is pulled and, stepping
through the tiny entrance for which your head must
be bent low, you find yourself in a vast, big
room--a room stretching from back to front of the whole
house--a room that makes the meaning of the word
palace seem justified a thousand times.

At either end are windows, so broad, so high, that
the great stretch of this vast chamber, with its lofty
ceiling, is flooded by one swift stream of light.  Upon
the polished floor of wood, the generous sunlight is
splashed in daring brightness, throwing all near it
into comparative shade, yet reflecting from the
shining surface of the ground a glow that fills the air
with a mist of light.

Along the walls of a dull, cool grey, big pictures
are hung.  Many there are, yet so spacious is the
room, that they do not appear crowded; there is no
suggestion of a well-stocked gallery.  And on each
side of the room two rich, warm-coloured curtains
hang, concealing behind them silent, heavy, doors,
deep set within the wall.

One of these, if you open it, will give you
admittance to a tiny little room--so tiny, so small, that
its smallness laughs at you, as for the moment it
peers through the open space into the vast chamber
beyond.

Close the door and the smallness seems natural
enough then.  For there, sitting perhaps over their
afternoon tea, or their cups of coffee in the evening,
chatting and gossiping as tho' they had just met to
keep each other company, are two small figures;
small because they are old--one, that of an old man,
whose eyes are somewhat dimmed behind the high
cheek bones and the shaggy eyebrows, the other,
crumpled and creased like a silk dress that has lain
long-folded in a camphor-scented drawer, the figure
of a little old white-haired lady.





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.. _`THE LETTER--VENICE`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium

   THE LETTER--VENICE

.. vspace:: 2

In the daily affairs of those two old people in the
Palazzo Capello, there was one undeviating
ceremony, performed with the regularity and precision
of those mechanical figures that strike the great bell
on the clock tower in the square of St. Mark's.

As the bells of the churches rang out the hour of
ten at night, Claudina, the old dame who looked
after all the wants of this worthy pair, entered the
little room, carrying a large box in her hands.

Whatever their occupation may have been, whether
they were playing at cribbage, or merely writing
letters, up went their white heads together and one or
the other would say--in Italian--"You don't mean
to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina?"

And Claudina would bend her head, with a sudden
jerk, like a nodding mandarin, her big earrings
would swing violently in her ears, and she would
plant the box down gently upon the table.

"Si, signora," she said--always in the same tone
of voice, as though she had suddenly realised that
her nod of the head was not quite as respectful as it
ought to be.

One cannot describe this as a ceremony; but it was
the prelude to all the serious business that followed.
Claudina was the mace bearer.  Her entrance with
the wooden box was the heralding of the quaint little
procession of incidents that followed.

It was an evening in July, in that self-same year
which has so successfully hidden itself in the crevices
of our calendar.  The *jalousies* had not long been
closed upon a sky of primrose, in which the stars
were set like early drops of dew.  Claudina had just
brought in a letter by the post.  It was half-past
nine.

"A letter, signora," Claudina had said and,
knowing quite well who the letter was from, she had not
laid it down upon the table as ordinary letters were
treated, but had given it directly into her mistress's
hand.

If the old Italian servant knows curiosity, she does
not show it.  Claudina, once the letter was delivered,
discreetly left the room.  The moment the door had
closed, there followed as pretty a play of courtesy
as you might have wished to see.

The old gentleman laid down his book.

"It is from John?" he said quickly.

She nodded her head and passed it across to him.
Had she rolled the world to his feet, it could not have
been more generously done.  And had it been the
world, he could not have taken it more eagerly.

His finger was just trembling inside the flap of
the envelope, when he read the address.

"Why--it's written to you, my dear," said he,
slowly withdrawing his finger.

She smiled.  She nodded her head again.  It was
addressed to her; but in the rightful order of things,
it was really his turn.  For some unknown reason,
John had addressed the last two letters to her.  He
never did do that.  He was always most scrupulously
fair in this tacit understanding that he should
address his letters alternately, first to his father, then
to his mother.  This was the only time he had broken
the unwritten law.  It was really not her letter at
all.  That was why she had passed it across at once
to her husband.  He would never have dreamed of
asking for the letter out of his turn.  His fingers
often twitched while her poor hands fumbled with the
envelope, but he had never moved an inch to take it,
until, of her own accord, she had handed it to him.

Now--knowing that it was his turn, his hand had
stretched out for it naturally the moment Claudina
had closed the door, and she had as readily given it.
But there was a secret exultation in the heart of her.
John had addressed it to her.  There was no
getting away from that.

For a moment, the old gentleman sat fingering it
in dubious hesitation.  Then he passed it back again.

"It's your letter, my dear," he said.  "You open
it."  And picking up his book, he pretended to go
on reading.  Of course he did not see a single word
on the page before him.  Every sense in his body was
strained to catch the sound of the tearing paper as
she broke open the envelope.  But there was no sound
at all.  Another moment of silence and she was
bending over him from behind his chair, her arms round
his neck and the letter held before his eyes.

"We'll open it together," she said.

It was her way of letting him do it without
knowing that he had given way.  To be sure, it was his
finger that finally broke the flap of the envelope;
but then, he retained all the dignity of the sacrifice.
And so, as she leant over his shoulder, they read it
together, with little exclamations of delight, little
interruptions of pleasure, that need a heart for
their purer translation, and cannot be written here
because of that great gulf which is fixed behind the
mind and the pen--because of that greater gulf
which lies between the word and the eye that
reads it.

"*My dearest----*"

Just those two words beginning; but they were
almost the entire letter to her.  They set her little
brown eyes alight, her heart beating quickly behind
the stiff bodice.

"*I have left writing to you until the last moment
for fear I should be unable to come on the day that
you were expecting me.  But it is all right.  I am
starting to-morrow morning, and shall be with you
the usual time the day following, just about sunset.
I can't tell you how glad I shall be to get away from
here.  You know what London can be like in July, and
I suppose I want a change as well.  I can't work these
days at all--but I don't mean to worry you.  I
expect I am depressed and want different air in my
lungs.  I shall go up to the bows of the steamer
crossing to-morrow, stand there with my mouth open, and
get it forced down my throat like a dose.*

"*God bless you, dearest.  Give my love to father,
but don't tell him I can't work.  I know he understands
it well enough, but I believe it depresses him
as much as it does me.*"

He looked up simply into her face as he handed
back the paper.

"You see, I wasn't meant to read it," he said
quietly.

Impulsively, she put her arm round his neck.  She
knew so well how that had hurt.  There had been
letters sometimes that she was not meant to see.
Of course, she had seen them; but that touch of
intimacy which, when you are a lover, or a mother,
makes letters such wonderful living things, had been
utterly taken from them.  They had contained loving
messages to her.  But the writing itself, that had
been meant for another eye to read.

"But it was only because he was thoughtful about
you," she whispered--"not because he didn't want
you to see.  He'll tell you himself quickly enough
that he can't work when he comes.  You see if he
doesn't.  He can't keep those sort of things to
himself.  He can do it in a letter, because he thinks he
ought to.  But he won't be here five minutes before
he's telling you that he can't write a line.  And
think!  He'll be here the day after to-morrow.
Oh--he is such a dear boy!  Isn't he?  Isn't he the
dearest boy two old people ever had in the world?"

So she charmed the smile back into his eyes; never
pausing until she saw that passing look of pain
vanish completely out of sight.  And so Claudina
found them, as she had often found them before,
poring once again over the letter as she brought
in the big box.

Up went the two white heads in amazement and
concern.

"You don't mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina?"

For to old people, you know, the hours pass very
quickly; they are scarcely awake, before they are
again being put to bed.  Time hurries by them with
such quiet feet, stepping lightly on the tips of its
toes lest it should disturb those peaceful last
moments which God gives to the people who are old.

Claudina laid down the big box upon the table.
She nodded her head; her earrings shook.

"Si, Signora," she replied, as always.

The little old white-haired lady crumpled the letter
into her dress; concealed it behind the stiff black
bodice.  Then they both stood to their feet, and the
procession, of which Claudina was the herald, began.

First of all the big wooden box was opened, and
out of it were taken numbers and numbers of little
white linen bags of all shapes and sizes.  White?
Well, they were white once, but long obedience to the
service for which they were required had turned their
white to grey.

Each one of them was numbered, the number
stitched in thread upon the outside; each one of them
had been made to fit some separate little ornament
in the room, to wrap it up, to keep the dust from it
through the night--a night-cap for it, in fact.  At
ten o'clock the ornaments were put to bed; after the
ornaments, then these two old people--but first of all
their treasures.  They stood by, watching Claudina
tuck them all up, one by one, and it gave them that
delicious sensation which only old people and young
children know anything about--the sensation that
they are sitting up late that others are going to
bed before them.

Of course they never knew they had that sensation;
they were not aware of it for a moment.  But
you might have known by the way they turned and
smiled at each other when the big Dresden-china
shepherdess was popped into her bag, you might
have known that in the hearts of them, that was what
they felt.

This evening in particular, their smiles were more
radiant than ever.  The old lady forgot to make her
little exclamations of terror when Claudina could not
get the night-cap over the head of the Dresden-china
shepherdess, and was in danger of dropping them
both together; the old gentleman forgot his
quiet--"Be careful, Claudina--be careful."  For whenever
his wife was very excited, it always made him realise
that he was very quiet, very self-possessed.  But they
felt none of their usual anxiety on this evening in
July.  In two days--in less--John would be with
them.  They had waited a whole year for this
moment and a whole year, however quickly the
separate moments may pass, is a long, long time to old
people.

"There is one thing," the old gentleman said,
presently, as the last ornaments were being ranged
upon the table, standing in readiness for their
nightcaps to go on.  "There is one thing I don't quite
know about."

She slipped her arm into his and asked in a
whisper what it was.  There was no need to talk in a
whisper, for Claudina did not know a word of
English; but she guessed he was going to say something
concerning John and about him, she nearly always
spoke in a whisper.

"It's the--the shop," he replied--"I--I don't
like to tell John."

"Oh--but why not?"  She clung a little closer to him.

"It isn't that I don't think he would understand--but
it's just like that sentence in his letter about
me.  I feel it would hurt him if he thought I couldn't
sell my pictures any more.  I believe he would blame
himself and think he ought to be giving us money, if
he knew that I had had to start this curio shop to
make things meet more comfortably."

She nodded her head wisely.  She would have been
all for telling her son everything.  But when he
mentioned the fact of John thinking he ought to support
them, and when she considered how John would need
every penny that he earned to support the woman
whom she longed for him to make his wife--it was
a different matter.  She quite agreed.  It was
better that John should be told nothing.

"You don't think he'll find out--do you?" she
said, and her eyes looked startled at the thought.

"No--no--I shouldn't think so.  It isn't as if I
had to be there every day.  Foscari looks after it
quite well.  Though I'm always afraid he'll sell the
very things I can't bear to part with.  He sold the
old brass Jewish lamp the other day, and I wouldn't
have parted with it for worlds.  But I dare say if I
tell him to be careful--I dare say----"

It was rather sad, this curio shop.  It would have
been very sad if his wife had not appreciated the need
for it; if she had not made it easier by telling him
how brave he was, by sharing with him the sense of
shame he felt when it became apparent that his
pictures were no longer saleable.

For when he had reached the age of seventy-three,
that was what they had told him.  If he had not
been a landscape painter, it might have been
different; but at seventy-three, when one's heart is
weak, it is not possible, it is not wise, to go far afield,
to tramp the mountains as once he had done, in
search of subjects new.  So, he had been compelled
to stay at home, to try and paint from memory the
pictures that lay heaped within his mind.  Then it
was that they began to tell him that they could not
sell his work; then he came to find that there must
be other means of support if they were not to appeal
to John for aid.  And so, having a collection of
treasures such as artists find, picked up from all the
odd corners of Europe, he bethought him of a curio
shop and, finding a little place to let at a quiet
corner in the *Merceria*, he took it, called it--The
Treasure Shop--and painting the name in a quaint old
sign which he hung outside, obliterated his identity
from the public eye.

For weeks beforehand, they had discussed this
plan.  Some of their own treasures, of course, would
have to be sacrificed; in fact, Claudina carried many
little grey night-caps away with her in the wooden
box--night-caps that no longer had Dresden heads
to fit them.  But the money they were going to make
out of the Treasure Shop would make up for all
these heart-rending sacrifices.  They would even be
able to send John little presents now and then.  There
was nothing like a curio-shop for minting money,
especially if the curios were really genuine, as were theirs.

But that was the very rub of it.  When he came
to open the shop, the old gentleman found it was the
very genuineness of the things he had to sell that
made it impossible for him to part with them.  He
loved them too well.  And even the most ignorant
collectors, British sires with check-cloth caps and
heavy ulsters, old ladies with guide books in one
hand and cornucopias of maze for the pigeons in the
other, even they seemed to pitch upon the very things
he loved the most.

He asked exorbitant prices to try and save his
treasures from their clutches and mostly this method
succeeded; but sometimes they were fools enough to
put the money down.  For there was one thing he
could never do; he could not belittle the thing that
he loved.  If it was good, if it was genuine, if it
really was old, he had to say so despite himself.
Enthusiasm would let him do no otherwise.  But
then, when he had said all he could in its praise, he
would ask so immense a sum that the majority of
would-be purchasers left the shop as if he had insulted them.

So it was that the Treasure Shop did not fulfil
all the expectations they had had of it.  It made
just enough money for their wants; but that was all.

And now came the question as to whether they
should let John know of it.  Long into the night they
discussed the question, their two white heads lying
side by side on the pillows, their voices whispering
in the darkness.

"And yet--I believe he would understand," said
the little old lady on her side--"he's such a dear,
good boy, I'm sure he would understand."

"I don't know--I don't know," replied the old
gentleman dubiously--"It will be bad enough when
he sees my last pictures.  No--no--I don't think
I'll tell him.  Foscari can look after the place.  I
need hardly be there at all while he's with us."

And then, making the sign of the cross upon each
other's foreheads--saying--"God bless you"--as
they had done every night their whole lives long, they
fell asleep.





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.. _`THE RETURN--VENICE`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium

   THE RETURN--VENICE

.. vspace:: 2

It was sunset when John arrived.  The gondolas
were riding on a sea of rose; the houses were
standing, quietly, silently, as you will see cattle herd,
knee-deep in the burning water.  Here and there in
the distance, the fiery sun found its reflection in
some obscure window, and burnt there in a glowing
flame of light.  Then it was a city of rose and pink,
of mauve and blue and grey, one shading into the
other in a texture so delicate, so fine that the very
threads of it could not be followed in their change.

John took a deep breath as he stepped into his
gondola.  It needed such colour as this to wash out
the blackness of that night in London.  It needed
such stillness and such quiet to soothe the rancour
of his bitterness; for the stillness of Venice is the
hushed stillness of a church, where all anger is
drugged to sleep and only the sorrow that one
learns of can hold against the spell and keeps its
eyes awake.

Now, in the desolation of his mind, John was
learning, of the things that have true value and of
those which have none.  It is not an easy lesson to
acquire, for the sacrifice of pre-conceived ideas can
only be accomplished on the altar of bitterness and
only the burning of despair can reduce them to the
ashes in which lies the truth concealed.

Having deposited his belongings in his rooms in
the *Rio della Sacchere*, where he always stayed, he
set off on foot by the narrow little pathways to the
*Palazzo Capello*.

That was always a moment in John's life when,
upon his arrival every year, he first opened the big
gate that closed on to the *fondamenta*.  It was
always a moment to be remembered when first he
beheld, from beneath the archway, the glow of the
flaming sunset in that old Italian garden, framed in
the lace-worked trellises of iron.

Life had these moments.  They are worth all the
treasure of the Indies.  The mind of a man is never
so possessed of wealth as when he comes upon them;
for in such moments as these, his emotions are wings
which no sun of vaunted ambition can melt; in such
moments as these, he touches the very feet of God.

Closing the big door behind him, John stood for
a moment in contemplation.  The great disc of the
sun had just sunk down behind the cypress trees.
Their deep black forms were edged with a bright
thread of gold.  Everything in that old garden was
silhouetted against the glowing embers of the
sunset, and every bush and every shrub was rimmed with
a halo of light.

This was the last moment of his warfare.  Had
his ideal not lifted again before the sight of such
magnificence as this, it would inevitably have been
the moment of defeat.  Through the blackness of
the tunnel, it is inviolably decreed that a man must
pass before he shall reach the ultimate light; but
if, when that journey is accomplished, the sight of
beauty, which is only the symbol of the good, if that
does not touch him and, with a beckoning hand, raise
his mind into the mystery of the infinite, then that
immersion in the darkness has not cleansed his soul.
He has been tainted with it.  It clings like a mist
about his eyes, blurring all vision.  He has been
weighed in the balance that depends from the
nerveless hand of Fate, and has been found--wanting.

But as a bird soars, freed from the cage that held
it to earth, John's mind rose triumphantly.
Acknowledging all the credit that was Amber's
due--and but for her, he could not have seen the true
beauty, the beauty of symbolism, in that sunset
there--he yet had passed unscathed from the depth
of the shadow into the heart of the light.

Here was a moment such as they would have known
had the story of the City of Beautiful Nonsense
come true.  Here was a moment when they would
have stood, hands touching, hearts beating, seeing
God.  And yet, though she was hundreds of miles
from him then, John's mind had so lifted above the
bitterness of despair, had so outstripped the
haunting cries of his body, that he could conjure Jill's
presence to his side and, in an ecstasy of faith,
believe her with him, seeing the beauty that he saw;
there.

In the text-books of science, they have no other
name for this than hysteria; but in those unwritten
volumes--pages unhampered by the deceptive sight
of words--a name is given to such moments as these
which we have not the eyes to read, nor the
simplicity of heart to understand.

Forcing back the rush of tears to his eyes, John
passed under the little archway in the wall, mounted
the dark stone steps, dragged down the chain, and
with the clanging of the heavy bell was brought
back, tumbling to reality.

With a rattling of the rings, the heavy curtain
was pulled, the little door was thrown open.  The
next moment, he was gripping Claudina's hand--shaking
it till her earrings swung violently to and fro.

Then came his father, the old white-haired
gentleman, looking so old to have so young a son.

They just held hands, gazing straight, deep down
into each other's eyes.

"God bless you, my boy," said the old man jauntily.
He stood with his back to the light.  He would
not for the world have shown that his eyes were filled
with tears.  Old men, like little boys, think it
babyish to cry--perhaps it is partly because the tears
rise so easily.

And last of all, walking slowly, because her
paralysis had affected her whole body, as well as
rendering powerless her hands, came the little old
white-haired lady.  There was no attempt from her
to hide the tears.  They were mixed up in a
confusion of happiness with smiles and with laughter in
the most charming way in the world.

She just held open her thin, frail arms, and there
John buried himself, whispering over and over again
in her ear--

"My dearest--my dearest--my dearest----"

And who could blame him if Jill were there still
in his mind.  There comes a time when a man loves
his mother because she is a woman, just as the
woman he loves.  There comes a time when a mother
loves her son, because he is a man just as the man
she has loved.





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.. _`THE TRUE MOTHER`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium

   THE TRUE MOTHER

.. vspace:: 2

It was not that evening that she plied her questions,
this gentle, white-haired old lady.  That first
evening of his arrival, there was John's work to talk of,
the success of his last book to discuss, the opinions
upon his criticisms to lay down.  The old gentleman
had decided views upon such matters as these.  He
talked affirmatively with wise nods of the head, and
the bright brown eyes of his wife followed all his
gesticulations with silent approval.  She nodded her
head too.  All these things he was saying then, he
had said before over and over again to her.  Yet
they every one of them seemed new when he once
more repeated them to John.

This critic had not understood what he had been
writing about; that critic had hit the matter straight
on the head.  This one perhaps was a little too
profuse in his praise; that one had struck a note of
personal animosity which was a disgrace to the
paper for which he wrote.

"Do you know the man who wrote that, John?"
he asked in a burst of righteous anger.

John smiled at his father's enthusiasm.  One is
so much wiser when one is young--one is so much
younger when one is old.

"I know him by sight," he said--"we've never
met.  But he always reviews me like that.  I suppose
I irritate him."

His mother felt gently for his hand.  Without
looking down, he found the withered fingers in his.

"How could you irritate him, my darling?" she
asked.  It seemed an impossibility to her.

"Well--there are always some people whom we
irritate by being alive, my dearest.  I'm not the only
one who annoys him.  I expect he annoys himself."

"Ah, yes!"  The old gentleman brought down
his fist emphatically upon the arm of his chair--"But
he should keep these personal feelings out of
his work.  And yet--I suppose this kind of thing
will always exist.  Oh--if it only pleased the Lord
that His people should be gentlemen!"

So his father talked, giving forth all the
enthusiasm of his opinions which for so long had been
stored up in the secret of his heart.

It was no longer his own work that interested him;
for whatever contempt the artist may have for his
wage, he knows his day is past when the public will
no longer pay him for his labour.  All the heart of
him now, was centred in John.  It was John who
would express those things his own fingers had failed
to touch.  He had seen it exultantly in many a line,
in many a phrase which this last book had
contained; for though the mind which had conceived it
was a new mind, the mind of another generation
than his own, yet it was the upward growth from
the thoughts he had cherished, a higher understanding
of the very ideas that he had held.  He, Thomas
Grey, the artist, was living again in John Grey, the
writer, the journalist, the driver of the pen.  In the
mind of his son, was the resurrection of his own
intellect, the rejuvenescence of his own powers, the
vital link between him, passing into the dust, and
those things which are eternal.

It was not until John had been there two or three
days, that his mother found her opportunity.

The old gentleman had gone to the *Merceria* to
look after the Treasure Shop.  Foscari, it seemed,
had been selling some more of his beloved curios.  A
packet of money had been sent to him the evening
before for a set of three Empire fans, treasures he
had bought in Paris twenty years before.  With a
smothered sigh, the little old lady had consented to
their going to the *Merceria*.  Only to make a show,
he had promised her that.  They should never be
purchased by anyone, and he put such a price upon
them as would frighten the passing tourist out of
his wits.  It was like Foscari to find a man who was
rich enough and fool enough to buy them.  With his
heart thumping and, for the first time in his life,
not quite being able to look John in the eyes, he had
made some excuse--a picture to be framed--and
gone out, leaving them alone.

This was the very moment John had dreaded.  He
knew that those bright brown eyes had been reading
the deepest corners of his heart, had only been
biding their time until such moment as this.  He had
felt them following him wherever he went; had
realised that into everything he did, they were
reading the hidden despair of his mind with an intuition
so sure, so unerring, that it would be quite useless
for him to endeavour to hide anything from her.

And now, at last they were alone.  The sun was
burning in through the windows into the little room.
The old garden below was pale in the heat of it.

For a little while, he stood there at the window
in nervous suspense, straining to think of things to
say which might distract her mind from that
subject which he knew to be uppermost in her thoughts.
And all the time his face was turned away as he
gazed down on to the old garden, he could still feel
her eyes watching him, until at last the growing
anticipation that she would break the silence with a
question to which he could not reply, drove him
blindly to speak.

He talked about his father's pictures; tried in vain
to discover whether he had sold enough for their
wants, whether the orders he had received were as
numerous, whether his strength permitted him to
carry them all out.  He talked about the thousand
things that must have happened, the thousand things
they must have done since last he was with them.
And everything he said, she answered gently,
disregarding all opportunity to force the conversation
to the subject upon which her heart was set.  But
in her eyes, there was a mute, a patient look of
appeal.

The true mother is the last woman in the world
to beg for confidence.  She must win it; then it comes
from the heart.  In John's silence on that one
subject that was so near as to be one with the very
centre of her being, it was as though she had lost
the power of prayer in that moment of her life when
she must need it most.

At last she could bear it no longer.  It could not
be want of confidence in her, she told herself.  He
was hurt.  Some circumstance, some unhappiness
had stung him to silence.  Instinctively, she could
feel the pain of it.  Her heart ached.  She knew
his must be aching too.

"John," she said at length and she laid both those
poor withered hands in his--"John--you're unhappy."

He tried to meet her eyes; but they were too
bright; they saw too keenly, and his own fell.  The
next moment, with straining powerless efforts, she
had drawn him on to his knees beside her chair, his
head was buried in her lap and her hands were gently
stroking his hair in a swift, soothing motion.

"You can tell me everything," she whispered;
and oh, the terrible things that fond heart of hers
imagined!  Terrible things they seemed to her, but
they would have brought a smile into John's face
despite himself, had he heard them.  "You can tell
me everything," she whispered again.

"There's nothing to tell, dearest," he replied.

For there was nothing to tell; nothing that she
would understand.  The pain of his losing Jill,
would only become her pain as well, and could she
ever judge rightly of Jill's marriage with another
man, if she knew?  She would only take his side.
That dear, good, gentle heart of hers was only
capable of judging of things in his favour.  She
would form an utterly false opinion and, he could
not bear that.  Much as he needed sympathy, the
want of it was better than misunderstanding.

"There's nothing to tell," he repeated.

Still she stroked his head.  There was not even
one thought of impatience in the touch of her
fingers.  It may be said without fear or hesitation
that a mother at least knows her own child; and
this is the way with children when they are in trouble.
They will assure you there is nothing to tell.  She
did not despair at that.  For as with John asking
his question of Jill in Kensington Gardens, so she
asked, because she knew.

"Isn't it about the Lady of St. Joseph?" she
said presently.  "Isn't that why you're unhappy?"

He rose slowly to his feet.  She watched him as he
moved aimlessly to the window.  It was a moment of
suspense.  Then he would tell her, then at that
moment, or he would close the book and she would
not see one figure that was traced so indelibly
upon its pages.  She held her breath as she watched
him.  Her hands assumed unconsciously a pathetic
gesture of appeal.  If she spoke then, it might alter
his decision; so she said nothing.  Only her eyes
begged mutely for his confidence.

Oh--it is impossible of estimate, the worlds, the
weight of things infinite, that swung, a torturing
balance, in the mind of the little old white-haired
lady then.  However much emotion may bring
dreams of it to the mind of a man, his passion is not
the great expression by which he is to be judged;
is the woman who loves.  It is the man who is
loved.  He may believe a thousand times that he
knows well of the matter; but the great heart, the
patience, the forbearance, these are all the woman's
and, from such are those little children who are of
the kingdom of heaven.

If these qualities belonged to the man, if John
had possessed them, he could not have resisted her
tender desire for confidence.  But when the heart
of a man is hurt, he binds his wounds with pride and
it is of pride, when one loves, that love knows
nothing.

Turning round from the window, John met his
mother's eyes.

"There's nothing to tell, dear," he said bitterly.
"Don't ask me--there's nothing to tell."

Her hands dropped their pathetic gesture.  She
laid them quietly in her lap.  If the suffering of
pain can be reproach, and perhaps that is the only
reproach God knows of in us humans, then, there it
was in her eyes.  John saw it and he did not need
for understanding to answer to the silence of its
cry.  In a moment he was by her side again, his arms
thrown impulsively about her neck, his lips kissing
the soft, wrinkled cheek.  What did it matter how
he disarranged the little lace cap set so daintily on
her head, or how disordered he made her appearance
in his sudden emotion?  Nothing mattered so long
as he told her everything.

"Don't think I'm unkind, little mother.  I can't
talk about it--that's all.  Besides--there's
nothing--absolutely nothing to say.  I don't suppose I
shall ever see her again.  We were just friends,
that's all--only friends."

Even this was more than he could bear to say.
He stood up again quickly to force back the tears
that were swelling in his throat.  Tears do not
become a man.  It is the most reasonable, the most
natural thing in the world that he should abominate
them, and so he seldom, if ever, knows the wonderful
moment it is in the life of a woman when he cries
like a baby on her shoulder.  It is only right that
it should be so.  Women know their power well
enough as it is.  And in such a moment as this, they
realise their absolute omnipotence.

And this is just why nature decrees that it is
weak, that it is foolish for a man to shed tears in
the presence of a woman.  Undoubtedly nature is right.

Before they had well risen to his eyes, John had
left the room.  In the shadows of the archway
beneath the house, he was brushing them roughly from
his cheek while upstairs the gentle old lady sat just
where he had left her, thinking of the thousands of
reasons why he would never see the lady of
St. Joseph again.

She was going away.  She did not love him.  They
had quarrelled.  After an hour's contemplation, she
decided upon the last.  They had quarrelled.

Then she set straight her cap.





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.. _`THE TREASURE SHOP`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII


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   THE TREASURE SHOP

.. vspace:: 2

At a quiet corner in the *Merceria*, stood the
Treasure Shop.  In every respect it had all the features
which these little warehouses of the world's
curiosities usually present.  Long chains of old copper
vessels hung down, on each side of the doorway,
reaching almost to the ground.  Old brass braziers
and incense burners stood on the pavement outside
and, in the window, lay the oddest, the wildest
assortment of those objects of antiquity--brass
candlesticks, old fans, hour-glasses, gondola lamps,
every conceivable thing which the dust of Time has
enhanced in value in the eyes of a sentimental
public.

At the back of the window were hung silk stuffs
and satin, rich old brocades and pieces of tapestry--just
that dull, burnished background which gives
a flavour of age as though with the faint scent of
must and decay that can be detected in its
withering threads.

All these materials, hanging there, shut out the
light from the shop inside.  Across the doorstep,
the sun shone brilliantly, but, as though there were
some hand forbidding it, it advanced no further.
Within the shop, was all the deepest of shadow--shadow
like heavy velvet from which permeated this
dry and dusty odour of a vanished multitude of years.

The Treasure Shop was a most apt name for it.
In that uncertain light within, you could just
imagine that your fingers, idly fumbling amongst the
numberless objects, might chance upon a jewelled
casket holding the sacred dust of the heart of some
Roman Emperor or the lock of some dead queen's hair.

Atmosphere has all the wizardry of a necromancer.
In this dim, faded light, in this faint, musty smell
of age, the newest clay out of a living potter's
hands would take upon itself the halo of romance.
The touch of dead fingers would cling to it, the
scent of forgotten rose leaves out of gardens now
long deserted would hover about the scarce cold
clay.  And out of the sunshine, stepping into this
subtle atmospheric spell, the eyes of all but those
who know its magic are wrapt in a web of illusion;
the Present slips from them as a cloak from the
willing shoulders; they are touching the Past.

Just such a place was the Treasure Shop.  Its
atmosphere was all this and more.  Sitting there
on a stool behind his heaped-up counter, in the
midst of this chaos of years, the old gentleman was
no longer a simple painter of landscape, but an old
eccentric, whose every look and every gesture were
begotten of his strange and mysterious acquaintance
with the Past.

It came to be known of him that he was loth to
part with his wares.  It came to be told of him in
the hotels that he was a strange old man who had
lived so long in his musty environment of dead
people's belongings that he could not bring himself to
sell them; as though the spirits of those departed
owners abode with him as well, and laid their cold
hands upon his heart whenever he would try to sell
the treasures they once had cherished.

And all this was the necromancy of the atmosphere
in that little curio shop in the *Merceria*.  But
to us, who know all about it, whose eyes are not
blinded with the glamour of illusion, there is little
or nothing of the eccentric about Thomas Grey.

It is not eccentric to have a heart--it is the most
common possession of humanity.  It is not
eccentric to treasure those things which are our own,
which have shared life with us, which have become a
part of ourselves; it is not eccentric to treasure them
more than the simpler necessities of existence.  We
all of us do that, though fear of the accusation of
sentimentality will not often allow us to admit
it.  It is not eccentric to put away one's pride, to
take a lower seat at the guest's table in order that
those we love shall have a higher place in the eyes
of the company.  We all would do that also, if we
obeyed the gentle voice that speaks within
everyone of us.

But if by chance this judgment is all at fault; if
by chance it is eccentric to do these things, then this
was the eccentricity of that white-haired old
gentleman--Thomas Grey.

Whenever a customer--and ninety per cent. of
them were tourists--came into the shop, he treated
them with undisguised suspicion.  They had a way
of hitting upon those very things which he valued
most--those very things which he only meant to be
on show in his little window.

Of course, when they selected something which
he had only recently acquired, his manner was
courtesy itself.  He could not say very much in its
favour, but then, the price was proportionately
small.  Under circumstances such as these, they
found him charming.  But if they happened to cast
their eyes upon that Dresden-china figure which
stood so boldly in the fore-front of the window; if
by hazard they coveted the set of old ivory chess
men, oh, you should have seen the frown that
crossed his forehead then!  It was quite ominous.

"Well--that is very expensive," he always said
and made no offer to remove it from its place.

And sometimes they replied----

"Oh, yes--I expect so.  I didn't think it would
be cheap.  It's so beautiful, isn't it?  Of
course--really--really old."

And it was so hard to withstand the flattery of
that.  A smile of pleasure would lurk for a moment
about his eyes.  He would lean forward through
the dark curtains of brocades and tapestries and
reach it down for inspection.

"It is," he would say in the gratified tone of the
true collector--"It is the most perfect specimen I
have ever seen.  You see the work here--this glaze,
that colour----" and in a moment, before he was
aware of what he was doing, he would be pointing
out its merits with a quivering finger of pride.

"Oh, yes--I think I must have it," the customer
would suddenly say--"I can't miss the opportunity.
It would go so well with the things in my collection."

Then the old gentleman realised his folly.  Then
the frown returned, redoubled in its forbidding scowl.
He began putting the Dresden figure back again in
the window from whence it had come.

"But I said I'd take it," the customer would
exclaim more eager than ever for its possession.

"Yes--yes--I know--but the price is--well it's
prohibitive.  I want seventy-five pounds for that
figure."

"Seventy-five!"

"Yes--I can't take anything less."

"Oh----" and a look of disappointment and dismay.

"You don't want it?" he would ask eagerly.

"No--I can't pay as much as that."

Then the smile would creep back again into his eyes.

"Of course--it's a beautiful thing," he would say
clumsily--"a beautiful thing."

And when he went home, he would tell the little
old white-haired lady how much it had been
admired, and they would call back to memory the day
when they had bought it--so long ago that it seemed
as though they were quite young people then.

So it fell out that this old gentleman of the
curio shop in the *Merceria* came to be known for his
seeming eccentricities.  People talked of him.  They
told amusing stories of his strange methods of doing
business.

"Do you know the Treasure Shop in the *Merceria*,"
they said over the dinner tables in London
when they wanted to show how intimately they knew
their Europe.  "The old man who owns that--there's
a character for you!"  They even grew to
making up anecdotes about him, to show how keenly
observant they were when abroad.  Everyone, even
Smelfungus and Mundungus, would be thought
sentimental travellers if they could.

It was the most natural coincidence in the world
then, that John, strolling aimlessly in the arcades
of the Square of St. Mark's that morning after he
had left his mother, should overhear a conversation
in which the eccentric old gentleman in the *Merceria*
was introduced.

Outside Lavena's two women were taking coffee,
as all well-cultured travellers do.

"--my shopping in Kensington----" he heard
one of them say, concluding some reference to a
topic which they were discussing.

John took a table near by.  It is inevitable with
some people to talk of Kensington and Herne Hill
when abroad.  John blessed them for it, nevertheless.
There was that sound in the word to him then,
which was worth a vision of all the cities of Europe.

He ordered his cup of coffee and listened eagerly
for more.  But that was the last they said of
Kensington.  The lady flitted off to other topics.  She
spoke to her friend of the curio shop in the *Merceria*.

Did she know the place?  Well, of course not, if
she had not been to Venice before.  It was called
the Treasure Shop.  She had found it out for
herself.  But, then, it always was her object, when
abroad, to become intimate with the life of the city
in which she happened to be staying.  It was the
only way to know places.  Sight-seeing was
absolutely waste of time.  And this old gentleman was
really a character--so unbusiness-like--so typically
Italian!  Of course, he spoke English perfectly--but,
then, foreigners always do.  No--she could not
speak Italian fluently--make herself understood at
table, and all that sort of thing--anyhow, enough
to get along.  But, to go back to the old
gentleman in the Treasure Shop, she ought to go and see
him before she left Venice.  She was going early
the next week?  Oh--then, she ought to go that
morning.  He was such a delightful personality.
So fond of the curios in his shop that he could
scarcely be persuaded to part with them.  There
was one thing in particular, a Dresden figure, which
he had in the front of the window.  He would not
part with that to anyone.  Well--asked such a
price for it that, of course, no one bought it.

But would it not be rather amusing if someone
did actually agree to pay the price--not really, of
course, only in fun, restoring it the next day, but
just to see how he would take it?  Was she really
going next week?  Then why not go and see the
Treasure Shop at once?  She would?  Oh--that was
quite splendid!

And off they went, John following quietly at their
heels.  This old Italian who could not bear to part
with his wares because he loved them so much, there
was something pathetic in that; something that
appealed to John's sense of the colour in life.  This
was a little incident of faded brown, that dull,
warm tint of a late October day when life is
beginning to shed its withering leaves, when the trees,
with that network of bare, stripped branches, are
just putting on their faded lace.  However
unsympathetic had been the telling, he had seen the
colour of it all with his own eyes.  He followed them
eagerly, anxious to behold this old Italian gentleman
for himself, to confirm his own judgment of the
pathos of it all.

Letting them enter first, for he had no desire to
listen to their dealings, he took his position
outside the window, intending to wait till they came out.

There was the Dresden figure the lady had mentioned.
Ah!  No wonder that he asked a large price
for it!  They had one just like that at the *Palazzo
Capello*.  His father had often said that if he could
get a pair of them, they would be almost priceless.
Supposing he bought it for his father?
Would it be cruel to the old gentleman inside?
Perhaps, if he knew that it was to make a pair, he
would be more reconciled to its loss.

John waited patiently, gazing about him until
the ladies should come out and leave the field free
for him to make his study--his study in a colour
of brown.

Presently the draperies in the back of the window
were pulled aside.  An old man leaned forward,
hands trembling in the strain of his position,
reaching for the Dresden figure.  John bit on the
exclamation that rose to his lips.

It was his father!  Had he seen him?  No!  He
slipped back again into the darkness of the shop
and the brocades and the tapestries fell together
once more into their place as though nothing had
happened.

What did it mean?  Was it true?  With an effort,
he held back from his inclination to rush into
the shop, making sure of the reality of what he had
seen.  If it were true, then he knew that his father
had not meant him to know.  If it were true, he
knew what the pain of such a meeting would be.

Crossing to the opposite side of the street, he
tried to peer in through the shop door; but there
was that clear-cut ray of sunshine on the step,
barring the entrance.  Only vaguely, like dim, black
shadows on a deep web of gloom, could he see the
moving figures of the two ladies who had entered.
On an impulse, he turned into the magazzino by
which he was standing.

Who was the owner of the curio shop on the other
side?  They did not know.  What was his name?
They could not say?  Had he been there long?  Not
so very long.  About a year.  He was an Englishman,
but he spoke Italian.  He lived in Venice.
They had heard some say in the *Rio Marin*.  He
was not used to the trade.  It was quite true that
he did not like to sell his things.  They had been
told he was a painter--but that was only what
people said.

That was sufficient.  They needed to say no more.
This answered the questions that John had put that
morning to his mother.  His father could no longer
sell his pictures.  In a rush of light, he saw the
whole story, far more pathetic to him than he had
imagined with his study in brown.

One by one, they were selling the treasures they
had collected.  Now, he understood the meaning of
those empty night-caps which Claudina carried away
with her every evening.  They said the things were
broken; they had said it with nervous little glances
at each other and then at Claudina.  At the time,
he had read those glances to mean that it was
Claudina who had broken them.  But no--it was
not Claudina.  This was the work of the heavy, the
ruthless hand of cruel circumstance in which the
frailest china and the sternest metal can be crushed
into the dust of destruction.

In a moment, as it was all made clear, John found
the tears smarting in his eyes.  As he stood there
in the little shop opposite, he painted the whole
picture with rapid strokes of the imagination.

The day had come when his father could no
longer sell his pictures.  Then the two white heads
had nodded together of an evening before Claudina
came in with the night-caps.  More emphatically
than ever, they had exclaimed--"You don't mean
to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina?"  And Claudina,
laying the box on the table, beginning to take out
the night-caps and place forth the treasures before
she tucked them up, would vouchsafe the answering
nod of her head.  At last, one evening, watching
the Dresden figure being put to bed, his father had
thought of the way out of the difficulty.

They had not decided upon it at once.  Such
determinations as these come from the head alone and
have to pass before a stern tribunal of the heart
before license is given them.  He could just imagine
how bitter a tribunal that had been; how inflexibly
those two brave hearts had sat in judgment upon
so hard a matter; how reluctantly in the end they
had given their consent.

Then, with the moment once passed, the license
once granted, John could see them so vividly,
questioning whether they should tell him, their decision
that it would not be wise, his father fearing that it
would lessen his esteem, his mother dreading that he
would feel called upon to help them.  Finally, that
first day, when the Treasure Shop had been opened
and his father, the artist, the man of temperament,
with all the finest perceptions and sensibilities
that human nature possesses, had gone to business.

So truly he could see the moment of his departure.
Nothing had been said.  He had just taken the
little old white-haired lady in his arms and kissed
her.  That was all.  It might have been that he
was merely going out, as he had quietly said that
morning, to see about the framing of a picture.
No one would ever have thought that he was about
to pass through the ordeal of becoming a
shop-keeper, because, in his old age he had failed as an
artist.

All this, incident by incident, he painted, a
sequence of pictures in his mind.

Presently the curtains in the shop-window stirred
again.  John's eyes steadied, his lips parted as he
held his breath.  The Dresden figure appeared, like
a marionet making its bow to the public.  Then
followed the head and shoulders of his father.  There
was a smile on his face, a glow of genial
satisfaction.  They had not bought it.  The price had
been too much.  That little Dresden figure, playing
upon its lute, decoyed many a customer into the
Treasure Shop, with its living tunes; but like a
will-o'-the-wisp, it always evaded them.  Back it danced
again into the fore-front of the window where the
old ivory chess-men stood stolidly listening to its
music of enchantment.  You might almost have seen
them nodding their heads in approval.

John felt a lump rise quickly in his throat.  He
knew just what his father was feeling; he knew just
what was in his mind.  He realised all his sense of
relief when the Dresden figure made its reappearance.
If it had not come back into the window, he could
not have restrained his desire to march into the
shop and repeat every word of the conversation to
which he had listened.

But it was safe once more and, with a breath of
satisfaction, he moved away towards the *Rialto*, his
head hanging as he walked.

That afternoon at tea, with the little cups that
had no handles, he made no comment on his father's
absence.  The little old white-haired lady was
trembling that he would ask, but he said not a word.

Only that evening, after Claudina had come in
for her ceremony and he was saying good-night, he
put both hands on his father's shoulders and,
impulsively drawing him forward, kissed his forehead.
Then he left the room.

The two old people sat staring at each other
after he had gone.  What did it mean?  Why had he
done it?

"Why, he hasn't kissed you since he was eight
years old," said his mother.

The old gentleman shook his head thoughtfully--"No--I
can't understand it.  Don't you remember
that first evening he refused, when I bent down to
kiss him and he blushed, drew back a little and held
out his hand?"

She smiled.

"You were hurt about it at first," she reminded him.

"Yes--but then when you said--'John's thinking
about becoming a man'--of course, it seemed
natural enough then.  And he's never done it
since--till now.  I wonder why."

The old gentleman went to bed very, very silent
that night, and long after Claudina had taken away
the lamp, he could feel John's lips burning on his
forehead and the blood burning in his cheeks.
Something had happened.  He could not quite understand
what it was.  Some change had taken place.  He
felt quite embarrassed; but he fell asleep before he
could realise that he was feeling just what John had
felt that night when he was eight years old.  That
was what had happened--that was the change.  The
child was now father to the man--and the man was
feeling the first embarrassment of the child--so the
last link had been forged between the irrevocable
past and the eternal present.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CANDLE FOR ST. ANTHONY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXIX


.. class:: center medium

   THE CANDLE FOR ST. ANTHONY

.. vspace:: 2

If you know aught of the history of Venice; if the
strenuous efforts of all those little lives that have
done their work and lived their day in that vast
multitude of human ephemera should have any
meaning for you; if, in the flames of colour that have
glowed and vanished in the brazier of Time, you can
see faces and dream dreams of all that romantic
story, then it is no wasting of a sunny morning to
sit alone upon the *Piazetta*, your face turned
towards *San Giorgio Maggiore* and, with the sun
glinting upwards from the glittering water, weave
your visions of great adventure in the diaphanous
mist of light.

It was in such a way as this that John was
spending one day when he could not work, when the
little old white-haired lady was busy with Claudina
over the duties of the house, when his father had
departed upon that engrossing errand of seeing to
the framing of a picture.

The sun was a burning disc, white hot in a
smelter's furnace.  A few white sails of cloud lay
becalmed, inert, asleep in a sky of turquoise.  John
sat there blinking his eyes and the windows in the
houses on *San Giorgio* blinked back in sleepy
recognition as though the heat was more than they could
bear.  Away down the *Giudecca*, the thin bare masts
of the clustering vessels tapered into the still
air--giant sea-grass, which the sickle of a storm can mow
down like rushes that grow by the river's edge.  Their
reflections wriggled like a nest of snakes in the
dancing water, the only moving thing in that sleepy day.
Everything else was noiseless; everything else was still.

John gazed at it all through half-closed eyes, till
the point of the Campanile across the water seemed
to melt in the quivering haze, and the dome of the
chiesa was lost in the light where the sun fell on it.
What had changed?  What was different to his eyes
that had been for the eyes of those thousands of
workers who had toiled and fought, lived and died,
like myriads of insects to build this timeless city of
light, this City of Beautiful Nonsense?  What had
altered?  A few coping stones, perhaps, a few mosaics
renewed; but that was all.  It was just the same as it
had been in the days of the Council of Ten; just
the same as when Petrarch, from his window on the
*Riva degli Schiavona*, sat watching the monster
galleys ride out in all their pomp and blazonry across
the pearl and opal waters of the lagoons.

In another moment the present would have slipped
from him; he would have been one of the crowd upon
the Piazetta, watching the glorious argosy of
Domenico Michieli returning from the Holy Land, with
its sacred burdens of the bodies of St. Isidore from
Chios and S. Donato from Cephalonia; in another
moment he would have been seeing them unload their
wondrous spoils of the East, their scents and their
spices, their silks and their sandalwood, had not a
most modern of modern hawkers, his little tray slung
by straps from his shoulder, chosen him out for prey.

"Rare coins, signor," he said--"coins from every
country in the world."

And for the price of one lira, he offered John an
English penny.

John looked him up and down.

"Is this your idea of humour?" he asked in Italian.

The man emphatically shook his head.

"Oh, no, signor!  It is a rare coin."

John turned away in disgust.

"You'd better go and learn your business," he
said.  "That's an English penny.  It's only worth
ten centesimi."

The hawker shrugged his shoulders and walked
away.  He had got the coin from a Greek whose
ship lay in the *Giudecca* there.  It was no good
saying what the Greek had said.  The signor would
never believe him.  He cast a wandering eye at the
ships and shrugged his shoulders once more.

John watched his retreating figure with a sense
of irritation--irritation because the man had gone
away thinking him an English fool--irritation
because, unasked, the hawker had betrayed to him his
loss of a sense of humour.

To be offered an English penny for one lira!  To
be told quite seriously that it was a rare coin!
And to take it in all seriousness; to go to the trouble
of saying in an injured voice that it was only worth
ten centesimi!  Was this what he had fallen to?
Was his sense of humour so far gone as this?  Of
course it was a rare coin!  Had there not been times
when an English penny would have saved him from
the dire awkwardness of an impossible position.
How about the chair in Kensington Gardens?  How
about the friend who mounted the 'bus with him in
the cheerful expectation that he was going to pay?
Of course it was a rare coin!  Why, there were times
when it was worth a hundred lire!

He called the hawker back.

"Give me that coin," he said.

The man took it out with a grin of surprise.

"It cost me half a lira, signor," he said, which
was a lie.  But he told it so excellently that John
paid him his price.

"Do you think they'll find it worth a candle at
the shrine of St. Anthony?" asked John.

"You have lost something, signor?"

He said it so sympathetically.

"My sense of humour," said John, and off he
strode to St. Mark's, the hawker gazing after him.

Without laughter in it, the voice is a broken reed;
without laughter in it, the heart is a stone, dullened
by a flaw; without laughter in it, even a prayer
has not the lightness or the buoyancy of breath to
rise heavenwards.

Can there be one woman in the world who has
never prayed to St. Anthony in all seriousness for
some impossible request which, by rights, she should
have enquired for at the nearest lost property
office--for a lost lock of hair that was not her own--one
of those locks of hair that she ties to the wardrobe
in the morning and combs out with all the seriousness
in the world?  Surely there must have been one
out of the thousands?  Then why not for a lost
sense of humour?  There is no office in the world
that will return you such valuable property as that,
once it has slipped your fingers.  He has the sense
himself, has St. Anthony.  Think of the things he
has found for you in your own hands, the jewels
that he has discovered for you clasped about your
own neck!  Why, to be sure, he must have a sense
of humour.  And if it is impossible to pay an
English penny for his candle in an Italian church--an
English penny, mind you, which has profited some
poor beggar by the sum of one lira; if it is a
sacrilege, a levity, to ask him for the return of so
invaluable a quality as a lost gift of laughter, then
why pray at all, for without laughter in it, even a
prayer has not the lightness or the buoyancy of
breath to rise heavenwards.

If, when one drops upon one's knees at night and,
beginning to deceive oneself in one's voluntary
confessions, making oneself seem a fine fellow by tardy
admissions of virtue and tactful omissions of wrong,
if when one shows such delightful humanity in one's
prayers as this, and cannot laugh at oneself at the
same time, cannot see that it is but a cheating at a
game of Patience, then it might be as well not to pray
at all.  For the humour in which a prayer is prayed,
is the humour in which a prayer will be judged, and
if, seriously, one deceives oneself into believing that
one is a fine fellow, just so seriously will that deceit
be weighed; for there are mighty few of us who are
fine fellows, which is a great pity, for so mighty
few of us to know it.

By the time John had reached the shrine of
St. Anthony in the Duomo, by the time his English
penny had rattled in the box along with all the other
Italian coins, by the time the first words of his
prayer were framed upon his lips, a laugh began to
twinkle in his eyes; he had found his sense of
humour, he had found his gift of laughter once more.
It was in his own prayer.  Before he could utter it,
he was smiling to think how St. Anthony must be
amused by the whole incident.  Then, all it needed
was for him to be grateful and, dropping his head
in his hands, he expressed his gratitude by asking
for other things.

St. Mark's is one of the few churches in the world
where you can pray--one of the few churches in the
world where they have not driven God out of the
Temple, like a common money-changer, driven Him
out by gaudy finery, by motley and tinsel.  Mass at
the High Altar there, is the great Passion Play it
was meant to be, performed upon a stage unhung
with violent colours, undecked with tawdry gems.
They had no pandering fear of the God they
worshipped, when they built that theatre of Christianity
in the great Square of St. Mark's.  The drama of
all that wonderful story has a fit setting there.  No
stage is lit quite like it; no tragedy is so tragic in
all its awful solemnity as when they perform the
Mass in the duomo of St. Mark's.  As the Host is
elevated, as that sonorous bell rings out its
thrilling chime and as the thousand heads sink down
within two thousand hands, a spirit indeed is
rushing upwards in a lightning passage to its God.

Once his head was bowed, once his eyes were
closed, John was lost in the contemplation of his
prayer.  He did not observe the party of people
who came by.  He raised his head, but his eyes were
fixed before him towards the little shrine.  He did
not see one separate herself from the party, did not
notice her slip away unobserved and, coming back
when they had gone on, seat herself on the chair
close by his side.

Only when his thoughts were ended, when St. Anthony
had listened to all that he had lost, to all the
aching story of his heart, did he turn to find what
St. Anthony had brought him.

His lips trembled.  He rubbed and rubbed his eyes.

There on the seat beside him, her hands half
pleading, her eyes set ready to meet his own, sat
Jill.





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.. _`THE QUALITIES OF IGNATIA`:

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   CHAPTER XXX


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   THE QUALITIES OF IGNATIA

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In amazement, John put out his hand.  He touched
her to see if she was real.  Her hand answered.  She
caught his finger.  Then she let it fall.

"Are you sorry?" she whispered.

He looked up at the image of St. Anthony, then
back at her; around the church, then back once more
at her.

"Where have you come from?" he asked.

"From home--from London."

"When?"

"I arrived last night."

"Alone?"

"No!  No!  With the Crossthwaites."

"Then what has happened?"

"Why--nothing has happened--and----" her
voice dropped below the whisper--that strange pitch
in which you hear not a syllable, yet know the
worst--"and everything has happened."

"You're going to be married?"

It sounded no less terrible in his voice because he
knew it.

"Yes."

"Then why have you come here?"

"The Crossthwaites were going.  They asked me
to come too.  It was the only chance I knew I should
ever have--our City of Beautiful Nonsense--I had
to come."

Still John gazed at her, as though she were
unreal.  One does not always believe one's own eyes,
for there are some things, which the readiness to see
will constitute the power of vision.  He put out his
hand again.

"I can hardly believe it," he said slowly.  "Here,
just a minute ago, I was telling St. Anthony all I
had lost.  You--the best thing in my life--my ideal
as well--even my sense of humour."

She looked up at his face wondering.  There had
been strange lost things for which she had prayed
to St. Anthony--things to which only a woman can
act as valuer.  But to pray for a lost sense of
humour.  She touched the hand that he put out.

"You're very funny," she said gently--"You're
very quaint.  Do you think you'll find the sense of
humour again?"

"I've found it," said John.

"Already?"

"Yes--already."  One eye lifted to St. Anthony.

Then he told her about the hawker and that rare,
that valuable coin--the English penny--and in two
minutes, they were laughing with their heads in their
hands.

This is not a reverent thing to do in a church.
The least that you can offer, is to hide your face, or,
turning quickly to the burial service in the
prayer-book--granted that you understand Latin--read
that.  Failing that of burial, the service of
matrimony will do just as well.

But before the image of St. Anthony, to whom
you have been praying for a lost gift of laughter--well,
you may be sure that St. Anthony will excuse
it.  After all, it is only a compliment to his powers;
and the quality of saintliness, being nothing without
its relation to humanity, must surely argue some
little weakness somewhere.  What better then than
the pride that is pardonable?

At length, when she had answered all his
questions, when he had answered all hers, they rose
reluctantly to their feet.

"I must go back to them," she said regretfully.

"But I shall see you again?"

"Oh, yes."

"Does Mrs. Crossthwaite know that you have seen me?"

"Yes.  Her husband doesn't.  He wouldn't understand."

John smiled.

"Men never do," said he.  "They have too keen
a sense of what is wrong for other people.  When
shall I see you?"

"This afternoon."

"Where?"

"Anywhere----" she paused.

"You were going to say something," said John
quickly.  "What is it?"

She looked away.  In the scheme of this world's
anomalies, there is such a thing as a duty to
oneself.  They have not thought it wise to write it in
the catechism, for truly it is but capable of so
indefinite a rendering into language, that it would be
only dangerous to set it forth.  For language, after
all, is merely a sound box, full of words, in the noisy
rattling of which, the finer expression of all thought
is lost.

But a thousand times, Jill had thought of it--that
duty.  Its phrases form quite readily in the
mind; they construct themselves with ease; the
words flow merrily.

Why, she had asked herself, should she sacrifice
her happiness to the welfare of those who had
brought her into the world?  What claim had they
upon her, who had never questioned her as to a
desire for existence?

All this is so simply said.  Its justice is so
palpably apparent.  And if she had gained nothing
herself by the transaction, it would have been so
easy of following.  But the mere knowledge that
she stood to win the very heart of her desire at the
cost of some others' welfare, filled her with the
apprehension that she was only inventing this duty of
self for her own gratification, as a narcotic to the
sleeplessness of her own conscience.

The education of the sex has so persistently
driven out egotism from their natures, that the
woman who finds paramount the importance of
herself, has but a small place in this modern community.

Fast in her very blood, was bred in Jill that
complete annihilation of selfishness, that absolute
abandonment to Destiny.  Strive as she might, she could
not place her own desires before the needs of her
father and mother; she could not see the first
essential of happiness in that gain to herself which would
crush the prospects of her brother Ronald.

To such women as these--and notwithstanding
the advent of the tradeswoman into the sex, there
are many--to be able to give all, is their embarrassment
of riches, to withhold nothing is their conception
of wealth.

In the ideal which she had formed of John, Jill
knew that he was possessed of more in himself, than
ever would be the bounty bequeathed to those three
people dependent upon her generosity.  And so, she
had given her consent of marriage to one, whom she
might have valued as a friend, whom, as a man, she
respected in every way, but who well, since brevity
is invaluable--like poor St. Joseph, had a brown
beard.

All this, in the pause that had followed John's
question, had passed for the thousandth time
through Jill's mind, bringing her inevitably once
more to the realisation of her duty to others.  And
when he pressed her again, offering, not perhaps
the penny for her thoughts, but an equivalent, just
as valuable as that most valuable of coins, the
promise of his eyes, she shook her head.

"Ah, but you were going to say something!" he
pleaded.

"I was going to ask you," said she, "if you
would take me to see your people."  She hesitated.
"I--I want to have tea with them out of the little
blue and white cups with no handles.  I want to go
and buy lace with the little old white-haired lady
in the arcades."

He seized her hand so that she winced.

"You've not forgotten!  You shall come this
afternoon."  And there, with a smile, she left him,
still standing by the silent image of St. Anthony;
and, gratitude being that part of prayer which
belongs to the heart and has nothing in common with
delay, John knelt down again.  When Jill looked
back over her shoulder, his head was buried in his
hands.

The little old white-haired lady was waiting over
the mid-day meal for him when he returned.  His
father had taken his food and gone out again,
leaving her alone to keep John company.  She was
sitting patiently there at the head of the table and,
by the side of her empty plate, stood a small bottle
containing white pills, over which she hurriedly laid
her hand as he entered.

But clever as they are, in their cunning, childish
ways, old people lose all the superior craft of deceit.
They go back to childhood when they imagine that
once a thing is hidden, it is out of sight.  That is
not at all the case.  There comes a moment when it is
too late to conceal; when curiosity will bring the
hidden thing twice vividly before the eyes.  Under
the very nose of John, was the best place for that
secret bottle of pills, had she needed it not to be seen.

As it was, his eyes travelled more quickly than
her hand.  She made a gentle little effort to hide
her concern as well.  She smiled up at him, asking
where he had been.  But it would not do.  The child
is parent to the man, he is parent to the woman
too--a stern parent, moreover, who will brook no
simple trifling with his authority, who overlooks
nothing and whose judgments are the blind record
of an implacable justice.  John could not let that
little deception pass.  Instead of answering her
question, instead of taking his place at the table, he
came to her side and put one arm gently round her neck.

"What are you hiding, dearest?" he asked.

Like a child, who is discovered in the act of
nefarious negotiations with the good things of this world,
she quietly took her hand away.  There stood the
innocent little bottle in all its nakedness.  John
stared at it questioningly--then at his mother.

"Is it something that you have to take, dearest?"
he asked.  "Aren't you well?"

"Yes, I'm quite well," she said, and she played
nervously with the cork in the little bottle.  It was
a delicate subject.  She began to wish that she had
never embarked upon it at all.  But faith brings
with it a rare quality of courage, and so firmly did
she believe, with the quaint simplicity of her heart,
in the course she had determined to adopt, that the
wish broke like a bubble on the moment.

"Well, what is in the bottle?" persisted John.

"Ignatia."

There was just the faintness of a whisper in her
voice.  She had not found full courage as yet.  Even
in their firmest beliefs, old people are pursued by the
fear of being thought foolish.  The new generation
always frightens them; it knows so much more than they.

"Ignatia?" John repeated.

"Yes--I--I want you to take it."

She began uncorking the bottle.

"Me?  What for?  I'm all right.  I'm not ill."

"No--but----" she paused.

"But what?"

"It'll do you good.  Try it, to please me."

She hid her white head against his coat.

"But what for, dearest?"

"Have you never heard of Ignatia?" she asked.

John shook his head.

"It's a plant.  It's a homeopathic medicine.  It's
a cure for all sorts of things.  People take it when
their nerves are bad, for worry, for insomnia.  It's
a cure for trouble when--when you're in love."

She said it so simply, in such fear that he would
laugh; but when he looked down and found the
hopefulness in her eyes, laughter was impossible.  He
caught it back, but his nostrils quivered.

"And do you want to cure me of being in love?"
he asked with a straightened face.

"I thought you'd be happier, my dear, if you
could get over it."

"So you recommend Ignatia?"

"I've known it do wonders," she asserted.  "Poor
Claudina was very much in love with a worthless
fellow--Tina--one of the gondolier!--surely you
remember him.  He lived on the *Giudecca*."

John nodded smiling.

"Well, she came to me one day, crying her heart
out.  She declared she was in love with the most
worthless man in the whole of Venice.  'Get over it
then, Claudina,' I said.  But she assured me that it
was impossible.  He had only to put up his little
finger, she said and she had to go to his beckoning,
if only to tell him how worthless she thought he
was.  Well--I prescribed Ignatia, and she was cured
of it in a week.  She laughs when she talks about
him now."

John was forced to smile, but as quickly it died
away.

"And is that what you want me to do?" he asked.
"Do you want me to be able to laugh when I talk
about the lady of St. Joseph?  You'd be as sorry
as I should, if I did.  It would hurt you as much as
it would me."

"Then you won't take it, John?" She looked
up imploringly into his face.

"No--no charms or potions for me.  Besides--" he
bent down close to her ear--"the lady of St. Joseph
is in Venice.  She's coming to see you this
afternoon."

With a little cry of delight, she threw the bottle
of Ignatia down upon the table and caught his face
in her trembling hands.





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.. _`THE SACRIFICE`:

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   CHAPTER XXXI


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   THE SACRIFICE

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A belief in Ignatia argues a ready disposition for
Romance.

The mind of the little old white-haired lady
belonged to that period when love was a visitation
only to be cured by the use of simples, herbs, and
magic.  She called the treatment--homeopathic.
It was her gentle way of assuring herself that she
marched bravely with the times; that the
superstition of the Middle-Ages had nothing whatever
to do with it.

This is all very well; but there is no such
scientific name for the portents told by the flight of a
magpie; you cannot take shelter behind fine-sounding
words when you admit to the good fortune
brought by a black cat; there is no marching with
the times for you, if you are impelled to throw salt
over your left shoulder.  You are not stepping it
with the new generation then.  And all these things
were essentials in the life of the little old
white-haired lady.  Certainly there were no flights of
magpies over the tiny Italian garden at the back of the
*Palazzo Capello* to disturb the peace of her mind
with joyous or terrible prognostications.  But the
resources of an old lady's suspicions are not
exhausted in a flight of magpies.  Oh, no!  She has
many more expedients than that.

The very day before John's announcement of the
advent of the lady of St. Joseph to Venice, she had
seen the new moon, a slim silver sickle, over her right
shoulder.  There is good omen in that.  She had
gone to bed the happier because of it.  What it
betokened, it was not in the range of her knowledge
at the time to conceive.  Destiny, in these matters,
as in many others, is not so outspoken as it might
be.  But immediately John told her, she remembered
that little slip of a moon.  Then this was what it
had heralded--the coming of the lady of St. Joseph.

As soon as their meal was finished, John went out
to the Piazza, the meeting place which he had
arranged with Jill, leaving his mother and Claudina
to make all preparations for his return.  How fast
the heart of the little old white-haired lady beat
then, it would be difficult to say.  She was as excited
as when Claudina put the treasures away to bed in
their night-caps.  Her little brown eyes sparkled,
for a party to old people is much the same as is a
party to a child.  The preparations for it are the
whirlwind that carries the imagination into the
vortex of the event.  And this, for which she was
getting ready, was all illuminated with the halo of
Romance.

Sometimes, perhaps, a wave of jealousy would
bring the blood warmly to her cheeks.  Supposing
the lady of St. Joseph was not equal to her
expectations?  Supposing she did not fulfil her hopes
and demands of the woman whom she had destined
in her mind to be the wife of her son?  How could
she tell him?  How could she warn him that he was
unwise?  How could she show him that the woman
he loved was unworthy of him?  It would be a
difficult task to accomplish; but her lips set tight at
the thought of it.  She would shirk no duty so grave
or serious as that.

Yet all these fears, with an effort, she put away
from her.  A generous sense of justice told her that
she might judge when she had seen, so she sent out
Claudina when everything was ready, to buy some
cakes at Lavena's and, stealing into her bedroom,
knelt down before the little altar at her bedside.

There, some ten minutes later, her husband found
her.  It was not her custom to pray at that time
of the afternoon, unless for some special request
and, for a moment, he stood in silence, watching the
white head buried in the pathetically twisted hands,
the faint rays of the little coloured lamp before the
image shining through the silken silver of her hair.

When at last, she raised her head and found him
standing there, a smile crept into her eyes.  She
beckoned to him silently to come to her, and when
he reached her side, she pulled him gently to his
knees.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I'm praying for John," she whispered back, for
when you kneel before an altar, even if it is only
rough-made out of an old box, as was this, you are
in a chapel; you are in a cathedral; you are at
the very feet of God Himself and you must speak low.

"What about him?" he whispered again.

She put her dear lips close to his ear with its
tuft of white hair growing stiffly on the lobe, and
she whispered:

"The lady of St. Joseph is in Venice.  She's
coming to tea this afternoon."

And then, looking round over his shoulder, to see
that he had closed the door--because old gentlemen
are sensitive about these things--his arm slipped
round her neck and both their heads bent together.
It was, after all, their own lives they were praying
for.  Every prayer that is offered, every prayer
that is granted, is really for the benefit of the whole
world.

What they prayed for--how they prayed; what
quaint little sentences shaped themselves in her
mind, what fine phrases rolled in his, it is beyond
power to say.  Certain it is that a woman comes
before her God in all the simplest garments of her
faith, while a man still carries his dignity well hung
upon the shoulder.

Presently, they rose together and went into the
other room.  Everything was in readiness.  The blue
and white cups were smiling in their saucers; the
brass kettle was beginning its tempting song upon
the spirit stove.

"Do you like my cap?" asked the little old
white-haired lady and, looking down to see if his
waistcoat was not too creased, the old gentleman
said that it was the daintiest cap that he had ever seen.

"Poor John will be very shy," she continued, as
she sat down and tried to fold her hands in her
lap as though she were at ease.

"John! shy!"

The old gentleman laughed at the idea of it and
kissed her wrinkled cheek to hide his excitement.
John, shy!  He remembered the days of his own
love-making.  He had never been shy.  It was like
an accusation against himself.  Besides, what woman
worth her salt would have anything to do with the
love-making of a man who was shy?  John, shy!
He straightened his waistcoat for the second
time, because it was getting near the moment of
their arrival, the kettle was nearly boiling, and he
was beginning to feel just a little bit embarrassed.

"Did John say when they were going to be married?"
he asked presently.

"Oh, but you mustn't say that to him!" she cried
out quickly.  "Why, he told me that he would never
see her again.  He said that they were friends--just
friends.  But d'you think I can't guess!  Why has
she come to Venice?  She must have known he was
here.  Oh, he'll tell nothing about it.  We must just
treat her as if she were a friend.  But----"  She
shook her head knowingly, not caring to finish her
sentence.

Of course, she guessed it all--their meeting in
the chapel--their meeting in Kensington Gardens!
A young man and a young woman do not meet
like that, unless it be that there is some good
reason for it.  Besides--that last candle!  What
woman could fail to fall in love with a man, who
had thought of such a gentle consideration as
that, even letting alone the fact that that man was
her son?  There are some things in this world which
a woman knows and it is not the faintest use trying
to contradict her.  To begin with, she is bound to
be right, and secondly, if it were possible to prove
her wrong, it would only convince her the more firmly
of her opinion.

The old lady knew quite well what she was talking
about.  These two were as fondly in love with each
other as it was possible for them to be.  Their
meeting here in Venice, after John had assured her
that they were never going to see each other again,
was all the proof that she needed of it.  And with
this knowledge held firmly in the heart of her, she
was already pre-disposed to see those signs by which,
in spite of all their cleverness, two people are bound
in this predicament to show their hands.

At last the bell clanged loudly.  Its jangling
hammered like echoes beating to and fro against
the walls of their hearts.  The old lady set straight
her cap for the twentieth time; for the twentieth
time, the old gentleman pulled down his waistcoat,
then he crept to the door and looked out into the
big room.

"Claudina's going!" he whispered back over his
shoulder.  "She's opened the door.  Yes--it's John!"

He came back quickly to his seat and there, when
the two visitors entered, they were sitting opposite
to each other, quite placidly, quite calmly, as though
there were nothing left to happen in the world.  Yet
I doubt if four hearts ever beat so quickly beneath
such quiet exteriors as these.

"This is Miss Dealtry," said John--in much the
same tone of voice as when he had told the cabman
to drive to the opera.

The old gentleman had risen from his chair and,
coming forward, with that air--it is the air of
courtesy--which makes a woman feel a queen, if she is
only a washerwoman, he took her hand, bowed low
as he gently shook it and then, drawing her further
into the room, he bowed solemnly again.

"My wife," said he, just catching the last note
from the tone of John's voice.

The little old white-haired lady held out her hands
and, as Jill saw the tortured, twisted fingers, her
heart shuddered in pity.  But before that shudder
could be seen, she had bent down and kissed the
wrinkled face that was lifted up to hers and from
that moment, these two loved each other.

With women, these things are spontaneous.  A
woman will go through the play of pretending to
kiss another; she will put forward her cheek, mutter
an affectionate word and kiss the air with her lips.
No one is deceived by it.  The lookers-on know quite
well that these two must hate each other.  The
actors know it perfectly well themselves.  But once
the lips of two women meet, their hearts go with the
touching.

From the instant that the lips of the little old
lady touched Jill's, there was sealed a bond.  They
both loved John, and in that kiss they both admitted
it.  The mother wanted no further proof than this.
Then all jealousy vanished.  With that kiss, she
made the mother's sacrifice, the sacrifice which is the
last that the incessant demands of nature makes
upon her sex.  She gave up the love of her son into
the keeping of another woman.  And when Jill stood
up again, the old lady's heart had died down to a
quiet, faint measure, fainter perhaps a little than
it had been before.  Her life was finished.  There
was only left the waiting and her eyes, still bright,
sought John's, but found them fixed on Jill.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DEPARTURE--VENICE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXII


.. class:: center medium

   THE DEPARTURE--VENICE

.. vspace:: 2

Before that little tea party was over, these two
old people had won the heart of Jill.  For all the
world, they were like two children, making believe
with the most serious things in life.  Like children,
they looked at each other in surprise when anything
happened, or when anything was said.  Like
children, they laughed or were intensely earnest over
their game.  Like children, it seemed as if they were
playing at being old, he, with his nodding of the
head, she, with her crumpled figure and withered
hands.

Sometimes at a thing that John would say, they
would look at each other and smile.  It had
reminded them of something far back in the years of
which neither John nor Jill knew anything.  And
in this again, they were like children, upon whose
faces one may sometimes trace a distant look of
memory--a look that is very marvellous and very
wise--as though they were gazing back into the
heart of Time from which the hand of destiny has
brought them.

Yet it was not only this--this charm of wonderful
simplicity--but that whenever Jill looked up, she
found their eyes resting tenderly on her.  It
seemed--she did not understand why just then--as though
they were trying mutely to tell her how fond of her
they were.

Then, when the old gentleman handed her her cup
of tea, she recognised from the description, the china
of blue and white and turned with a smile to John.

"Aren't these the cups?" she asked gently.

He nodded his head and tried to smile, too.  The
old lady watched those smiles.  Her eyes never left
them for a moment.

"I've been told about these cups," Jill explained
to the others.  "Your son told me one day when--when
he was giving me a description of where you
lived."

"That's the real Chinese cobalt," said the old
gentleman.  "John told you that of course."

"Well--no--they were not described in detail--at
least----" suddenly she found the blood mounting
to her cheeks.  "I--I knew that they had no
handles."

Why did she blush?  The little old lady had not
failed to see that sudden flame of colour.  Why did
she blush?  Something she had remembered?  Something
that John had said?  She looked quickly at
her son.  His eyes were bent on Jill.

Oh, yes, they loved.  There was no fear of her
mistaking that.  There was a secret between them;
a secret that had set free a flood of colour to Jill's
cheeks, that had brought a look of fixed intent into
John's eyes.  What other could such secret be
between a boy and girl, than love?  No one can keep
it; but it is the greatest secret in the world.

Before the tea was over, they had betrayed it in
a thousand different ways to the sharp, bright eyes
of the little old white-haired lady.  When vying
with John to do honour to their guest, the old
gentleman persuaded Jill to take from the plate he
proffered, then she bent her head and smiled to see
her husband's pride and poor John's discomfiture.

"She loves him!  She loves him!" she whispered
in her heart.  "She is the very woman for my John!"

"A charming little girl," whispered the old man's
vanity, as he proudly bore the plate back to the
table.  "Exactly the woman I would have chosen
for John myself."

And John was disconsolately wondering why, if
she loved him, Jill had so patently refused his
offering.

Why had she refused?  The little old white-haired
lady knew that.  She wanted to please his father,
because she loved John.  That was their secret.  How
it affected the blue and white china, she could not
guess; but that was their secret--they loved.

Only by exercising the greatest control over
herself, could she refrain from drawing her aside and
telling Jill all she had seen, all she had guessed, and
all she hoped.

Presently, without seeking for it, the opportunity
presented itself.  They had been eating little
jam sandwiches--jam sandwiches, which Claudina
knew how to cut so thin, that the bread was almost
threadbare, and looked as if it wanted darning.
They melted in your mouth, but then, they made
your fingers sticky.  Jill looked ruefully at hers
when the tea was over.  Holding them away from
her at arm's length, she made a little grimace.  When
one was young, one's mouth was the best, the
quickest, the most approved-of remedy for these matters.
She might have wished she were a child then, but
wishing was all.  She asked to be allowed to wash them.

"You will come into my room, dear," said the
little old lady eagerly, and away she led her, where
John could not hope to follow.

Ah, then she was cunning, when once she had her
alone!  What subtle little compliments she paid!
You would scarcely believe how cunning she could be.

"That is your little altar?" said Jill, when she
had dried her hands.  As she walked across to it,
the old lady took her arm.  It needed but little
manipulation from there to slip her hand into Jill's.  It
needed but little management to show her in a
hundred tender ways as she clung to her for support,
that she found her very dear, very loveable.

The hearts of women are responsive things.
When there is sympathy between them, they touch
and answer, as though some current united them,
as well indeed it may.

So gentle, so expressive were those simple signs
that passed between Jill and the little old
white-haired lady, that Jill was stricken in conscience,
realising all that they meant and wondering, almost
guiltily, what they would think of her if they knew.
They must never know.  She could not bear the
thought that these two old people, far away in
Venice as they might be, should hold in their hearts
anything but the affection which they were showing
to her then.

"I was praying here just before you came," said
the little old lady in a whisper.

Jill pressed the withered hand.

"Do you know what I was praying for?"

A sudden fear seized Jill.  She felt her forehead
cold.

"No----" she tried to smile--"How could I know?"

"I was praying for John."  She looked up simply
into Jill's face.  "He's such a dear boy, you don't
know.  Look at the way he comes every year to see
us--all the way from London.  I wonder would any
other son do as much.  Do you think they would?"

She asked the question as naïvely as if, were there
any doubt about it, she really would like to know.
You might have known there was no doubt in her mind.

Before that little altar then, was a dangerous
place to discuss such subjects.  Jill drew her gently
away towards the door.

"Do you think there are any other sons have
such a mother?" she said.  "Why don't you ask
yourself that question?"

The little old lady looked up with a twinkle in her
eyes.  "I thought perhaps you'd understand it
better that way," she answered.  "Besides--it's easy to
be a mother.  You have only to have a son.  It's not
so easy to be a son, because you need more than a
mother for that."

Jill looked at her tenderly, then bent and kissed
her cheek.

"I think John's very like you," she whispered.
She could not keep it back.  And that was as much as
the little old white-haired lady wanted; that was all
she had been playing for.  With her head high in
triumph, she walked back with Jill to join the others.

Soon afterwards Jill declared she must go; that
her friends would be waiting for her.

"But when----" the old people began in a
breath, then stopped together.

"You say, my dear," said the old gentleman--"I
can wait."

Oh, no--she would not hear of it.  He began first.
Let him say what he wanted to.  He shook his head
and bowed.  John caught Jill's eye and they held
their laughter.

"Then when----" they both began again together
and this time, they finished out their
sentence--"are we going to see you again?"

We share the same thoughts when we know each
other well.  But life runs along in its separate
channels with most people.  They may be many years
beneath the shadow of one roof, yet for all they
know of each other, they might live at opposite
ends of the earth, so little is it given to human
beings to understand humanity; so little do people
study it except in the desires which are in themselves.

In these two old people, it was quite charming
to see one standing out of the way to let the other
pass on, as if they both were going in vastly
different directions, and then, to find that one was but
speaking the other's thoughts.

They all laughed, but their laughter died away
again when Jill announced that in two days she
was leaving Venice for Milan, passing through the
Italian lakes on her way back to England.

"You only stay three days!" exclaimed the little
old lady, and she looked quickly at John.  But John
had known of it.  There was no surprise in his face.
He breathed deeply; looked away out of the
window over the old Italian garden--that was all.

They made her promise to come the next day to
lunch--to tea again if she would--to stay with them
the whole day.  John looked to her appealingly for
her answer.

"But I can't leave my friends all that time," she
said reluctantly.  "I'll come to lunch--I'll try and
stay to tea.  I can't do more than that."

Then John took her down to her gondola.  In the
archway, before they stepped on to the *fondamenta*,
he took her arm and held her near him.

"You're sure it's too late?" he said hoarsely,
below his breath.  "You're sure that there is nothing
I could do to make things different--to make them
possible?"

She clung to him quietly.  In the darkness, her
eyes searched impenetrable depths; stared to the
furthest horizons of chance, yet saw nothing beyond
the track of many another woman's life before her.

"It is too late," she whispered--"Oh, I should
never have come!  I should never have seen these
two wonderful old people of yours.  Now I know
all that the City of Beautiful Nonsense meant.  You
very nearly made them real to me that day in
Fetter Lane; but now I know them.  Oh, I don't wonder
that you love them!  I don't wonder that you would
come every year--year after year to see them!  If
only my mother and father were like that, how
different all of it would be then."

"You haven't the courage to break away from it
all?" asked John quietly--"to make these old
people of mine--to make them yours.  If I couldn't
support you over in London, you could live with
them here, and I would do as much of my work here
as possible."

Jill looked steadily into his eyes.

"Do you think I should be happy?" she asked.
"Would you be happy if, to marry me, you had to
give up them?  Wouldn't their faces haunt you in
the most perfect moments of your happiness?
Wouldn't his eyes follow you in everything you did?
Wouldn't those poor withered hands of hers be
always pulling feebly at your heart?  And if you
thought that they were poor----?"

"They are," said John.  He thought of the
Treasure Shop; of that pathetic figure, hiding in
the shadows of it, who would not sell his goods,
because he loved them too well.

"Could you leave them to poverty then?" said Jill.

"So it's too late?" he repeated.

"I've given my word," she replied.

He lifted her hand generously to his lips and
kissed it.

"Then you mustn't come to-morrow," he said
quietly.

"Not see them again?" she echoed.

"No.  You must send some excuse.  Write to my
mother.  Say your friends have decided to stop at
Bologna on their way to Milan and that they are
going to start at once.  She loves you too well--she
counts on you too much already.  It'll be a long
time before I can drive out of her head the thought
that you are going to be my wife.  And I don't
want to do it by telling her that you are going to
be married to someone else.  She wouldn't
understand that.  She belongs to an old-fashioned school,
where ringlets and bonnets and prim little black
shoes over dainty white stockings, make a
wonderful difference to one's behaviour.  She probably
couldn't understand your wanting to see them under
such a circumstance as that.  She could scarcely
believe that you cared for me and, if she did, would
think that we shouldn't see each other, as perhaps,
after this, we shan't.  No, I shall have quite enough
difficulty in driving you out of her mind as it is.
You mustn't come and see them to-morrow.  She'll
nearly break her heart when she hears it, but nearly
is not quite."

"Shan't I ever see them again then?" she asked
below her breath.

He shook his head.

"This is the last time you'll see any of us."

She put her hands on his shoulders.  For a moment,
she clung to him, her face closely looking into
his as though she must store him in her memory
for the rest of time.  He shut his eyes.  He dared
not kiss her.  When the lips touch, they break a
barrier through which floods a torrent there is no
quenching.  John shut his eyes and held back his
head, lest the touching of her hair or the warmth
of her breath should weaken his resolve.

"How am I to do it?" she whispered.  "I feel as
though I must stay now; as though I never wanted
to go back home again."

He said nothing.  The very tone of his voice
would have been persuasion to her then.  Slowly, she
unclasped her fingers; as slowly she drew herself
away.  That was the last moment when he could
have won her.  Then she was his as the blood was
rushing through him, as her pulses were throbbing
wildly in time to his.  But in love--it may be
different in war--these things may not be taken so.
Some vague, some mystical notion of the good does
not permit of it.

"You must be going," said John gently.  "We
can't stay here."

She let him lead her to the door.  As it came open
to his hand and the greater light flooded in, he knew
that it was all finished.

She stepped down into her gondola that was
waiting, and the gondolier pushed off from the steps.
Until it swayed out of sight, John stood motionless
on the fondamenta, watching its passing.  Sometimes
Jill looked back over her shoulder and waved
a little handkerchief.  John bent his head
acknowledging it.

But neither of them saw the two white heads that,
close together in a window up above, were whispering
to each other in happy ignorance of all the
misery which that little white handkerchief conveyed.

"You see how long they took to get down the
steps," whispered the old lady.

"Oh, I don't know that you can judge anything
by that," replied her husband.  "Those steps are
very dark to anyone not accustomed to them."

She took his arm.  She looked up into his face.
Her brown eyes twinkled.

"They are," she whispered back--"very dark--nearly
as dark as that little avenue up to the house
where I lived when you first met me."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The 16th of February--London`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXIII


.. class:: center medium

   THE SIXTEENTH OF FEBRUARY--LONDON

.. vspace:: 2

The abhorrence of Nature for a vacuum, is nothing
to her abomination of unfinished work.  In the great
Tapestry which Time sits eternally weaving with the
coloured threads of circumstance, there are no loose
ends allowed.  Every little picture which finds its
way into the mighty subject of that vast material,
must be complete in its symbol of accomplished
Destiny.  No ragged edges must there be; no lines
unfinished, no shadow left out.  And even, in so
inconsequent a matter as a story of Beautiful Nonsense,
some definite completion must be shown to round
the whole, to leave no hanging thread by which the
picture might be unravelled.

When John said good-bye to Jill on the steps of
the *fondamenta*, when the last wave of her little
white handkerchief had fluttered into a curling light
upon the water, he had turned back into the house,
believing that the story was irretrievably ended.
The last word had been written.  So far as Jill was
concerned, he might well close the book and thank
the pen of Chance that it had shown him an ideal as
high above the common conception of life as it is
good for the eyes of a man to lift.

But he had not, in this calculation, counted the
presence of those two white heads in the window up
above.  For him, so far as his eye could see,
Destiny had had its fill, had drained the cup of
possibility to its utmost dregs.  But this was not so for
them.  They had yet to be appeased.  For them,
the matter had only just begun.  To them, it was
the last shuttle, whose speeding to and fro, would
weave in the past with the present and so fulfil their
final justification.

From that day, the little old white-haired lady
looked forward to John's marriage with Jill as to
the consummation of her whole life's desire.  She
lived--she thought--she ordered her existence for
nothing else.  Her disappointment was pathetic to
witness when she received Jill's little note telling
her departure the next day.  But her beliefs were
not shaken; her hopes were not thwarted.  She still
saw the last burning of her romance before the
flame should flicker and become a light no more.

She spoke to John about it of course.  Sitting
in the window one day, the window that looked down
on to the old gentleman's garden, she told him what
she knew; what was not the slightest use his
contradicting.  They loved each other.  Oh, not a doubt
of it!  She spoke authoritatively, as women will on
these subjects.  Who better able to than they?

"You really think she loves me, mother?" he
asked in a quick moment of hopefulness.

She took his hand.  She lifted one tired arm about
his neck.

"Why do you think she came like that to
Venice?" she asked.  "There's not a thing she wouldn't
do for you--not a place she wouldn't go to in order
to see you.  Don't you realise that?"

It was unfortunate she should have chosen that
phrase.  There were things, Jill would not do for
him.  It had needed every effort from him to find
the full value of unselfishness in what she was about
to do; but he could not think that she loved him as
his mother would have him believe.  It was
unfortunate, her choosing of that phrase.  From that
moment, John shrank into himself.  He could not
bring himself to tell her the whole truth of it;
therefore, it was no good talking any more.

"Her people are too well off," he said, rising with
a gesture of despair from the seat in the window.
"They're in a different position altogether.  I've
no right to tell her.  I've no right to try and win
her affection.  It would only be a hopeless business
all through."

From that moment, he avoided the subject; from
that moment, he became impregnable whenever the
little old white-haired lady tried to assail him with
the weapons of her worldly knowledge.

"I can get John to say nothing," she said one
night to her husband.  "He won't speak about it at all."

He put his arms round her in the darkness.

"You're worrying yourself, little woman," he
said, sleepily.  "I woke up once last night and you
were wide awake.  Did you sleep at all?"

"Very little," she admitted.

"Well--you mustn't worry.  Leave it to Nature.
John will tell her everything about it one of these
days.  Young men are always getting on the high
horse and trying to tilt against Nature, and women
are forever offering to assist Nature, thinking she
must come off the worst.  It's waste of time either
way, my dearest.  Nature's a windmill.  It'll grind
the flour out of everyone of us when the wind blows.
It's no good tilting at it on a windy day; and
it's no good trying to turn the sails round when
it's calm.  The wind'll blow,"--he yawned and turned
over on his side--"soon enough."  And he was
asleep.

She believed so much in what her husband said,
did the little old white-haired lady.  It is not often,
that after twenty odd years of married life, a man
keeps still alive that ideal of unquestionable
reliability which his wife first found in everything he
said.  Usually there comes a time--sad enough in
its way, since ideals are almost everything--when
those which once were words of wisdom, fall tainted
with the odour of self-interest.  It becomes a
difficult thing to believe in then, that aphorism of your
philosopher, which brings him the warmest seat in
the chimney corner, or the softest place in the bed.
And that is the wisdom of a lot of people--a
philosophy of self, translated into a language for
others.

By some kink of chance perhaps--though rather
it would be kinder to think, by some quality of
mutual affection--the old gentleman had avoided this
tragedy.  It is a tragedy; for no man likes a mean
motive to be attributed to his philosophy--especially
when it is true.  And so, the old lady still believed
in the infallibility of her husband's wisdom which
in its way was quite good.  That night at least
then, she worried no more.  She turned over her
white head in his direction and she fell asleep.  And
whenever he turned through the night, she turned
as well.  After twenty years or so, these things
become mechanical.  Life is easier after twenty years,
if you can bear with it till then.

But before John had left, her worries began again
and, not daring to speak to him any more, she was
driven to bear her trouble in silence.

She hoped up to the last that he would mention
it once more, and a thousand different times in a
thousand different ways, decoyed their conversations
into topics which would suggest it to his mind.  Yet
always with the caution of some wary animal pursued,
John avoided it--sheered off and chose another path.

Even on the day of his departure, she yet thought
that he would speak and, clinging gently to him,
with her arms about his neck, she whispered:

"Have you nothing to say to me, John?"

"Nothing--nothing, dearest," he replied, adding
the term of endearment as he saw the bitter look
of disappointment in her eyes.

Then he was gone.  For another year that vast
chamber with its high windows, and that tiny room
which peeped out into it, would be silent of the
sound of his voice.  For another year, night after
night, these two old people would continue to look
up in surprise when Claudina entered for the
ceremony; they would continue to exclaim: "You don't
mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina!"  And
perhaps, as the days wore on and the year drew itself
out to the thin grey thread, the surprise would get
fainter, the note of exclamation not so emphatic as
it used to be.  She took her breath in fear as she
thought of it.  Supposing the year were to pass
and John had not married Jill?  She went into the
little altar in her bedroom and commenced a
novena--one of the many that she began and dutifully
finished, before that year had gone.

So, it may be seen, in these two old people, who
have woven themselves so inextricably into this whole
story of Nonsense, how Time has by no means
finished with the picture it set itself the weaving on
that mysterious 18th of March, whereof the calendar
still keeps its secret.

John went back to his labours in London, but he
left behind him, forces at work of which he knew
nothing.  The old gentleman was quite right.
Nature has no need of the meddling hand.  The seed
had been transplanted into the mind of the little
old white-haired lady and, in her, will the completion
of Destiny be found.

For the first few weeks, she wrote her usual
letters to John, avoiding the subject with a rigid
perseverance which, she might have known, which
certainly her husband knew, she could never hope to
maintain.  This perseverance did not break down all
at once.  She began with inconsequent allusions to
Jill; then at last, when they called forth no word
of a reply from John, she gave way to the
passionate desire that was consuming her, commencing a
long series of letters of counsel and advice such as
an old lady will give, who believes that the world
is the same place that it was when she was a girl.

"*Have you ever spoken to her, John?*" she asked
in one of her letters.  "*With your eyes you have.  I
saw you do it that afternoon at tea.  But the
language of the eyes is not enough for a woman, who
has never heard the sound of the spoken word in
her ears.*"

"*Tell her you love her--ask her to marry you,
and if she says no--don't believe her.  She doesn't
mean it.  It's more or less impossible for a woman
to say yes the first time.  It's over so soon.*"

"*You say her people are wealthy; that they are
in a very different position to you.  Of course, I
know blood is thicker than water, but love is
stronger than them both.  And, after all, their
position is one of luxury--that is of the body.  Your's
is a position of the mind.  There is no comparison.*"

"*I lie awake sometimes at night, thinking of all
the trials and troubles your father and I had to go
through before we found our corner in the world,
and then I know how much more worth than youth
or luxury, pleasure or ease, is love.*"

"*I believe in that short time she was here, she
became very fond of me, and in one of those
moments when one woman shows her heart to
another--they are very seldom--it was when she came to
wash her hands after eating the jam sandwiches--she
said she thought you were very like me.  Now
comparisons, with women, are not always odious; it
is generally the only way they have of describing
anything.*"

"*I am sending you a bracelet of jade to give to
her.  It is very old.  I will send you the history of
it another time.  I have it all written out somewhere.
Anyhow, it belonged to one of the great Venetian
ladies when Leonardo Loredano was Doge.  Give
it to her as coming from you.  It does come from
you.  I give it you.  A gift, however small, however
poor, means a great deal to a woman.  She reads a
meaning into it--the very meaning I send with this.*"

"*Oh, my dear boy, will you tell me nothing.  Don't
you know how my heart must be aching to hear some
news of your happiness.  It is the last happiness I
shall know myself.  Don't delay it too long.*"

These extracts from the letters written by the
little old white-haired lady to her son, John, over
that period of the first three months after her
meeting with Jill, could occupy the space of many a
page in this history.  But these few which, with
John's permission, I have quoted here, are sufficient
to show how close her heart was wrapt up in the
fortunes of his love-making.

Hoping, that, in his reticence on the subject, she
might in time grow to lose interest, finally even
forgetting Jill's existence altogether, John procrastinated,
putting off, putting off the day when he must
tell her all the truth.  There was, too, he has
admitted it, some fanciful sense of satisfaction
intricately woven in with the pain he felt when he read
those letters of hers every week.  It was nonsense
again, perhaps, but it kept the idea a living reality
in his mind.  He came to look forward to them as
to the expression of a life that was too wonderful,
except to dream of.  And so, as an Eastern takes
his opium and, retiring into the gloomy shadows of
his den, is transported into the glorious heavens of
a phantom creation, John read these letters of his
mother's in his room in Fetter Lane.  There, the
passings to and fro of Mrs. Rowse, the hawker's
cries and the screams of the parrot on the other side
of the road, had no power to waken him from his
sleep, so long as it lasted.

For nearly three months--week after week--he
received these letters, dreamed his dreams and, in
writing back to the little old white-haired lady,
tried to allay the expectancy of her mind.

At last it could be done no longer.  You may
put back the hands of a clock to your heart's
content, but there is no warding off of the inevitable.
There came a letter saying she would write of it
no more.  It was not impatient, it was not in anger,
but in the spirit, as when an old lady lays down her
sewing in her lap as the sun sets and, gently tells
you, she can see the stitches no longer.

It was then, that John, knowing what he had lost,
conceived another felonious means of transport--this
time the transport of the mind.

Jill was only known to his people as Miss Dealtry.
They did not know where she lived.  They knew
nothing of her relations.  They could not
communicate with her in any way.

For a long while he sat looking at that last letter
of his mother's, where she had said she would write
no more of Jill.

"She wants a love story--bless her heart," he
said musingly--and Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat
coming at that moment into the room, he repeated it
for the cat's benefit--"She wants a love story,"
he said.  The cat blinked its eyes, curled a rough
red tongue lovingly about its whiskers, and sat down
as though, having half an hour to spare and the
tortoiseshell not being in the way, it was quite ready
to listen to it then.

"And, by Jove!" exclaimed John--"She shall
have it!"

Miss Morrell curled her tail comfortably round
her in the most perfect attitude of attention.

"I'll write her a story," said John to Miss
Morrell--"a story of beautiful nonsense--some of
it true and some of it made up as I go along."

And, therewith, he sat himself down to answer
her letter.

It was necessary, if he were to re-create the
interest of the little old white-haired lady, for
him to meet Jill again.  Accordingly, with some
ingenious preamble, in which he explained his silence
of the preceding months, he began with the description
of his second meeting with Jill in Kensington
Gardens--that time when she came and spent the
entire morning in telling him that she could not come
and meet him that day.

"*Undoubtedly God could have made a place more
fitted for Romance than Kensington Gardens,*" he
began--"*but unquestionably He never did.*"

And this was how the last tissue of nonsense came
to be woven.

Of course, he told her, that it was all a secret.  Jill
had to keep it a secret from her people.  He had to
do that.  Well--surely it was true?  He put the
question boldly for his conscience to answer, and a
look of the real thing came into his eyes.  It was
as well, however, that he thought of doing it, for
the old lady was nearly landing him in an awkward
predicament.  She enclosed a letter to Jill and asked
him to forward it, as, of course, she did not know
the address.

He made a grimace at Miss Morrell when he
received it, as though asking her what she would do
under the circumstances.  Miss Morrell yawned.  It
was so simple.  So far, she had taken an interest
in the case, had come in every day since the writing
of the first letter to get her saucer of milk and hear
the latest.  But if he was going to put questions
to her like this, there was all probability that she
would be bored.  Of course there was only one thing
to be done.  Miss Morrell could see that.  And John
did it.  He answered the letter himself--wrote in a
woman's hand; which is to say, he wrote every letter
slanting backwards--said all that was important
when the letter was finished, and scribbled it in and
out between the date and the address, then, with
a last effort at realism, spelt two words wrong on
every page.

By this means, he was getting two letters every
week, answering them both himself with as much
industry and regularity as he ever put into his work.

This was all very well--all very simple so long
as it lasted.  But even Miss Morrell, whose eye to
the main chance was unerring when it concerned a
saucer of milk, warned him of what would follow.
One morning, he received a letter from the little old
white-haired lady, asking him when they were going
to be married.

Quite placidly, he sat down and wrote----

"*We're to be married on the 16th of February.
I've taken a small cottage down in the country.  It
costs forty pounds a year.  I thought it wise to
begin on economical lines.  There's a little rustic porch
to the front door, with William Allan Richardson
roses climbing all over it.  In the front, there are
ten feet of garden, protected from the road by a
wooden railing about two foot and a brick high with
a tiny gate that's always locked to prevent
burglars getting in.  Three pink chestnuts combine to
give it the appearance of an ambrosial park.  At
the back, there's a little lawn, just large enough for
pitch and toss--I've measured it myself, it takes
thirty-nine and a half of the longest steps I can
take.  And in the middle there's an apple tree,--that's
likely to have a crop of three this year.*"

Miss Morrell closed her eyes in silent acquiescence
when he read it out to her.  It is possible that she
may have considered him extravagant and, having
that eye to the main chance, wondered whether he
would be able to afford her her basin of milk with
all this expenditure on two establishments.  She did
not say it, however, and listened patiently when
he told her of other arrangements he had made.

"I forgot to tell you," he said, taking Miss
Morrell on his knee--"that Lizzie Rowse is going to
give up sticking labels on the jam-jars at Crosse
and Blackwell's and is coming to do housemaid, cook,
and general help for seven and sixpence a week--including
beer money as she doesn't drink.  I wanted
to pay her more, but she wouldn't take it.  I asked
her why and she said, because she mightn't get it;
that it was better to be certain of things in this
world, rather than spending your life in hoping for
what was too good to be true.  It was no good my
telling her that the whole business was only going
to be transacted on paper, and that black and white
would be the colour of everything she'd ever make
out of it.  But no!  Seven and six was what she
stuck at.  As it was, it was a rise of sixpence to
what she was getting at the jam-jars, and she
wouldn't take a penny more.  She said I'd been too
kind to her as it was."

Miss Morrell listened to all this with contempt.
Mrs. Rowse was not in good repute just then.  They
thought very nasty things about her on the third
and second floors--what is more, they said them, and
in tones quite loud enough for Miss Morrell and her
tortoiseshell companion to hear.

Mrs. Rowse, it appeared, had spilt some water
on the landing mid-way between the first and second
floor where was the water cock common to the entire
uses of the whole establishment.  Five drops would
convey an idea of about the amount she had spilled.
At a first glance, this may seem very slight, but
when it is explained that the stairs from the first
to the second floor were covered with linoleum
specially purchased by Mrs. Brown to make the
approach to her residence the more ornate, it will be
easily understood what a heinous offence this was.

Mrs. Brown had spoken about it and the untidy
habits of the people on the first floor generally, in
tones so opprobrious and so loud that not only the
first floor, but indeed the whole house had heard her.
Following this, there had appeared, stuck upon the
wall so that all who approached the fountain must
read, the accompanying notice--"If persons spill
the water, will they have the kindness to slop it up."

It may be imagined how, in the effort to compose
so reserved a notice as this, the feelings of
Mrs. Brown, aided and abetted by Mrs. Morrell, must
have overflowed in speech, all of which, of course,
Miss Morrell would undoubtedly have heard.  Hence
her contempt.

When John had finished his dissertation upon the
generosity and good qualities of Lizzie Rowse, Miss
Morrell climbed down quietly from his knee.  She
was too dignified to say what she thought about it
and so, with tail erect, stiffened a little perhaps for
fear he might not perceive the full value of her
dignity, she walked from the room.

The time passed by.  It grew perilously near to
that 16th of February.  But John took it all very
placidly; probably that is the way, when one does
these things on paper.  He invented all day long,
and took as much pride in the ingenuity and
construction of those letters as ever he took over his
work.

"We went last night to the pit of a theatre,"
he said one morning to Miss Morrell.  "Took
Mrs. Rowse and Lizzie and Maud.  The two girls
persisted in eating oranges till Maud put a piece of a
bad one in her mouth; then they both stopped.  I
was rather glad, Maud got hold of a bad one,
because I was just racking my brains to know how I
could stop them without giving offence."

Miss Morrell looked quietly up into his face.

"You shouldn't take those sort of people to a
theatre," said she.

John took no notice of her grammar.  "It was
Jill's idea," he replied.

On the 16th of February, right enough, they were
married.  Miss Morrell came that morning to drink
her saucer of milk in honour of the event.

She walked in without knocking.  It was her
privilege.  John was seated at his table, with his
head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking like
a woman's with sobs that had no tears in them.
And there, before him, with their paper wrappings
all scattered about the place, were a pair of Dresden
china shepherds, playing gaily on their lutes.
Hanging about the neck of one of them was a card, on
which was written: "*To John on his wedding
day--from his loving father*."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DISSOLUBLE BONDAGE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXIV


.. class:: center medium

   THE DISSOLUBLE BONDAGE

.. vspace:: 2

If only it were that these things could continue--but
alas! they cannot!  We make our bubbles with
all the colours of heaven in them, but cannot
abide to see them only floating in the air.  The
greens and purples, the golds and scarlets, they
seem so real upon the face of that diaphanous,
crystal disc, that to touch them, to find their glorious
stain upon the fingers, becomes the desire of every
one of us.  Out stretches the hand, the fingers
tighten!  The bubble is gone!

That was much the way with John's beautiful
bubble of Nonsense.  So long as Jill knew nothing
of it; so long as he played with the fairy thing by
himself, it was enough; but the every-day business
of life, in which death is one of the unavoidable
duties, intervened.  One cannot play at these
wonderful games for long.  You cannot be married on
paper--more perhaps is the pity.  There would be
fewer separations, fewer misunderstandings if you
could.  Life unfortunately does not permit of it.
The law of Gravity is universal.  You come down
to earth.

When John had been living a married life of
unbroken happiness for two months, there came two
letters on the same day to Fetter Lane.  He looked
at one with no greater bewilderment than he did at
the other.  The first was from Venice in a strange
handwriting; the second, from Jill.  He opened it
apprehensively.  It could not be an invitation to
her wedding?  She could not have done that?  Then
what?

"*Is there any reason why we should not see each
other again?  I shall be in Kensington Gardens
to-morrow at 11.30.*"

He laid it down upon the table.  For the moment,
he forgot the existence of the other letter.  In the
midst of all his make-believe, this message from Jill
was hard to realise; no easy matter to reconcile with
all the phantoms in whose company he had been
living.

What strange and unexpected things were women!
Did ever they know what they wanted? or, knowing,
and having found it, did any of them believe it to
be what they had thought it at first?

Was she married?  Since he had come back from
Venice, the world might have been dead of her.  He
had heard nothing--seen nothing--and now this
letter.  Like the falling of some bolt of destruction
from a heaven of blue, it had dropped into his
garden, crushing the tenderest flowers he had planted
there, in its swift rush of reality.

She wanted to see him again.  The mere wish
was a command; the mere statement that she would
be in Kensington Gardens, a summons.  All his
sacrifice, his putting her away from him that day of her
departure in Venice, was in one moment gone for
nought.  All this dream in which he had been living,
became the bubble broken in the hand of such
circumstance as this.  While it had lasted, while he
had continued to hear nothing of her, it had been
real enough.  Up till that moment, he had been
happily married, quietly living down at Harefield in the
county of Middlesex, in his cottage with its William
Allan Richardson roses and its insurmountable
wooden railing, two foot and a brick high.  Every
day, he had been coming up to London to work in
Fetter Lane and to get his letters.  Some very good
reason, he had given to the old people why they
should write to him there.  And now, because he
must obey this summons to go to Kensington
Gardens and talk of things, perhaps, that little
mattered, for fear they might embark upon the sea of
those things that did, all his dream had vanished.
The only reality left him, was that he was alone.

With a deep breath of resignation, he turned to
the other letter and opened it.

"*Dear Mr. Grey--I am writing this for your
mother, to tell you the unfortunate news that your
father is very ill.  He has had a heart seizure, and,
I fear, cannot live more than a few days.  I am told
by Mrs. Grey to ask you and your wife to come here
as soon as possible.  He knows the worst, and is
asking to see you before he dies.*"

The paper hung limply in John's fingers.  He
stared blindly at the wall in front of him.  One hand
of ice seemed laid upon his forehead; the cold
fingers of another gripped his heart.

Death--the end of everything--the irrevocable
passing into an impenetrable darkness.  It was well
enough to believe in things hereafter; but to put it
into practice wanted a power greater than belief.
The old gentleman was going to die.  The little old
white-haired lady was to be left alone.  How could
he believe it?  Would she believe it?  Old people
must die.  He had said that often enough to himself
while they had been well, while there had been no
fear of it.  He had said it, as the philosopher says
that everything that is, is for the best.  Now, as the
philosopher so frequently has to do, he had to put
it to the test.

His father was going to die.  In a few days, he
would see the last of him.  Then pictures--scenes in
his father's life--rode processionally through his
mind.  Last of all, he saw him, hands trembling,
eyes alight and expression eager, placing back the
Dresden Shepherd in the window of the Treasure
Shop--that same gay figure in china which, with its
fellow, he had sent to John on his imaginary wedding day.

With that picture, came the tears tumbling from
his eyes.  The wall opposite became a blurred vision
in shadow as he stared at it.  And all the time, the
two Dresden Shepherds, perched upon his mantel-piece,
played gaily on their lutes.

In the light-heartedness of his imagination, he
had not conceived of this aspect of his deception.
His father had asked to see his wife before he died.
Now, he would give the world that the description
had never been.  Already, he could see the look of
pain in the old gentleman's eyes, when he should
say--as say he must--that he had had to leave her
behind.  Already, he could feel the sting of his own
conscience when, by that bedside in the little room,
he invented the last messages which Jill had sent to
make his passing the easier.

It had been simple matter enough to conceive a
thousand of these messages and write them upon
paper; it had been simple matter enough to write
those letters, which they were to suppose had come
from Jill's own hand.  But to act--to become the
mummer in mask and tinsel, beside his father's
death-bed, hurt every sensibility he possessed.  It was
beyond him.  He knew he could not do it.  Jill must
know.  Jill must be told everything, the whole story
of this flight of his imagination.  He trusted the
gentle heart of her, at least, to give him some
message of her own; something he could repeat for his
father to hear, without the deriding knowledge in
his heart that it was all a lie, all a fabrication, which,
if the old gentleman did but know, he would reproach
him with in his last moments.

There, then, with the tears still falling down his
cheeks, he wrote to Jill, telling her everything;
enclosing the last letter which he had just received.

"*Give me something to say,*" he begged--"*something
which comes from the kindness of your
heart and not from the fiendishness of my imagination.
In those few moments you saw him, he must
have shown you some of the gentleness of his nature;
must have shown you something which, putting aside
the blame which I deserve at your hands for all I
have said, expects this generosity from you.  I have
become a beggar, an importunate beggar, scarcely
to be denied; but I become so with all humility.  Just
write me a line.  You can see now, that I dare not
meet you to-morrow, now that you know.  But send
me a line as soon as you receive this, which I may
learn by heart and repeat to him with a conscience
made clear, in so much as I shall know that such
words have actually been said by you.*"

When he had posted this, John began the packing
of those things which he would require for the
journey.  Into the chapel of unredemption he marched
and made an indiscriminate offering of everything
he possessed on his list of sacrificial objects.  The
high priest swept them all into his keeping and
winked at his acolytes.

The next morning came Jill's reply.  John tore
it open, and read and re-read and re-read again.

"*Meet me on Friday morning on the Piazetta
at 12 o'clock.*"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE WONDER OF BELIEF`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXV


.. class:: center medium

   THE WONDER OF BELIEF

.. vspace:: 2

To believe, is the greater part of reality.

Despite all argument that flung itself at his
credulity, John believed that Jill would be true to her
word.  Reasons in multitude there were, why it
should be impossible for her to take such a journey
and at such short notice.  He admitted them all, as
his mind presented them before him; yet still he
believed.  Though his faith trembled a thousand times
in the balance; though common sense warned him
insistently that hope was fruitless; nevertheless, he
believed.  Even when the little men on the Plaza
began the striking of their twelve strokes on that
Friday morning and, searching the gondolas as they
rode in sight, searching them with eyes burning and
pupils dilated in nervous expectancy, yet finding no
sight of Jill, he still had faith that triumphed above
all reason and overcame all doubt.

The vibrations of the last stroke from the great
clock in the Square had died down to the faint
trembling in his ear; the single bell in all the churches
was tolling for the Angelus; hope was just beginning
to flicker in John's heart as a candle trembles
that feels its approaching end and then, round the
corner of the *Rio San Luca*, shooting quickly into
the Grand Canal, came the twentieth gondola John
had espied, in which one solitary lady was seated.
Something about the haste with which this
gondolier plied his oar, something in the attitude of the
lady as she half leant forward, half reclined upon
the cushion at her back, something even in the crisp,
swift hiss of the water as it shot away from the bows,
brought him the conviction at last that it was Jill.
When instinct is once awake, it finds a thousand
little proofs to give it assurance.

As the gondola came nearer, the lady moved her
position.  She had observed John waiting.  He
strained his eyes to see through the glare of light
that sparkled up from the dancing water.  Then a
little white handkerchief darted out, and fluttering,
shook the beating of his heart with realisation.  It
was Jill.

In another moment, he was holding her hands and
saying the most common-place words of greeting,
but in a voice that held in it all the joy of his heart.
The gondolier stood by smiling, waiting to be paid.
The signora had wanted to be taken quickly to the
*Piazetta*, and he had travelled as fast as if they were
going to a funeral.  It was almost payment enough
to see her meeting with the signor.  Not quite
enough, however, for when they walked away,
forgetting, in the embarrassement of their happiness,
what he was owed, he stepped forward and, very
politely, touched John's arm.

"*Doue lire, signor,*" he said and showed some
wonderful teeth in a brilliant smile.  John thought
of a London cabby under similar circumstances,
giving him three and a smile as well.

Then he turned back to Jill.

"Well--are you going to explain it all?" he asked.

"There's nothing to explain," she said, half
laughing.  "I'm here--isn't that enough?"

"But your husband?"

"We're not married yet.  I pleaded for a long
engagement."

"Then your people?"

"Aren't you satisfied that I'm here?" she said
gently.  "Does it matter how I got here?  You
might just as well be curious to know whether I
came by the St. Gothard or the Simplon.  But you
don't ask that.  I'm here--you don't worry about
that.  Then why worry about the other?" and her
eyes twinkled with mystery.

"Is it Mrs. Crossthwaite again?"

She nodded her head with a laugh.

"She's with you?"

"No--she's at her cottage in Devonshire."

"But you'll be found out."

"Not if I go back to-morrow."

"And you are going back?"

"Yes."

"And you came all this way----?"

"Yes--here I am--in the City of Beautiful
Nonsense again."

"The little old white-haired lady was right
then!" he exclaimed.

"How right?"

"She said that you would come anywhere, that
you would do anything for me."

Jill tried to meet his eyes.

"When did she say that?" she asked.

"Last year--after you had gone."

He watched her as he waited for her to reply,
but she kept silent.  It was not a moment in which
she dared to speak; moreover, other matters were
waiting.

In St. Mark's, beneath the image of St. Anthony,
where they had met the year before, they chose to
go and make their arrangements.  There is
everything that is conservative about Romance.  Places
become dear for themselves, for the spirit of the
Romance which, like a lingering perfume, still hangs
about their corners.  The times alter perhaps,
sometimes even the woman herself is different; but the
spirit, the Romance and with them often the place,
remain the same.

"You understand all it means, your coming to see
them?" he asked when they were seated.  "You
understood my letter?  You realise what I've been
saying?"

"Yes, every word."

"Then why did you come?"

"I couldn't bear to think of his dying
without----" she hesitated, or did she hang upon the
words--"without seeing your--your wife as he
wanted to.  Oh, John!  Why did you say it?  It
wasn't right of you!  You ought not to have done it!"

She was angry!  His beautiful nonsense had
offended her!  Might he not have known that?  What
woman in the world was there who could have understood
so well as to sympathise with the trick which
he had played.

"If it has annoyed you," said he, "why did
you come?  Of course, I know it was unpardonable;
but then, I thought you'd never know.  I didn't
understand how much a fabrication, an invention it
was, until I heard that he was dying and wanted
to see you before the end.  It had been so easy to
make up till then.  I'd become infatuated with my
own success.  Then, when I got the letter from the
doctor, I realised that I was done.  I couldn't go to
his death-bed, making up lies, giving him messages
that had never passed your lips, never entered into
your thoughts.  I was done.  And I hoped you'd
understand.  I hoped--like a fool, I suppose--that
you wouldn't be offended."

"But I'm not offended."

He stared at her.  Even St. Anthony stared,
because St. Anthony does not know so much about
women as you would expect.  He knows full well their
extraordinary valuation of trifles, but on serious
matters such as these, he is as ignorant of them as
the rest of us.

"You're not offended!" echoed John.

"No."

"Then why did you say I was wrong?  Why did
you say I ought not to have done it?"

"Because it was not fair to them.  They might
have found out.  The little old white-haired lady
may find out even now."

"Then you don't think it was unfair to you?"

"You thought I should?"

He nodded emphatically two or three times.

"That, I believe, is the way you judge women.
That is why their actions are so incomprehensible
to you.  You form an opinion of them and then,
naturally, everything they do seems a mystery, because
you won't change your opinion.  They're not the
mystery.  I assure you women are very simple.
The mystery is that their actions don't conform with
your pre-conceived opinion."  She stumbled over
those last big words.  She was not quite sure of
them.  They sounded very large, moreover, they
sounded as if they expressed what she felt.  What
they really meant was another matter.  She could
have told you nothing about that.  That is not the
way women choose their words.

"Well now," he said--"we must be going.  Of
course I haven't been, though I arrived last night.
I counted on your coming."

"Yes," she whispered, "that's the wonderful part
about you--you believe."

She thought of her father--she thought of the
man with the brown beard like St. Joseph.  They
believed nothing until it was before their eyes.  But
a woman likes to be trusted, because at least, she
means to do what she says; sometimes--God
knows--she does it.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PASSING`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XXXVI


.. class:: center medium

   THE PASSING

.. vspace:: 2

It was a greater ordeal than they knew of, for
Death, though he is for ever in our midst, always
covers his face, and you may never recognise the
features until that last moment when, with the
sweeping gesture of the arm, he throws aside the
folds that enshroud him, and in his quiet voice, so
low, yet so distinct, announces "It is finished."

At the opening of the little door, they beheld
the dear old white-haired lady.  Her arms fell
about them both and, in her feeble way, she clasped
them to her.  It was not hysterical, not that cry of
the witless woman who is faced with the stern matters
of life and will lean upon any shoulder to support
her weight.  She was losing that which was hers
alone, and these two, though she thought they
belonged irrevocably to each other, belonged also in
their way to her.  They were all now that was left her.

"How is he?" asked John, as she led them down
that vast chamber to the deep-set door which opened
to the tiny bedroom.

"You're only just in time," she replied.  "The
priest is with him.  It's just the end."

There was a true, a steady note of reconciliation
in her voice.  She knew and had accepted the
inevitable with that silent courage which brave women
have.  You knew that there would be no sudden
passionate outburst of cries and tears when at last it
actually was all over.  His time of departure had
come.  She recognised it; had faced it bravely for
the last few days.  On Claudina's ample bosom, the
first wild torrent of weeping had been made; for your
servant, your meanest slave is a woman when she
understands in such moments as these.  When her
agony had passed, she had raised her head, brushed
away the tears.  With warm water, Claudina had
bathed her eyes and then, bravely setting a smile
upon her trembling lips, she had gone to watch by
his bedside.

Gently, now, she opened the door and admitted
them, then silently closed it behind her.  The jalousies
were closed.  In faint bars of light, the sunshine
stole into the room and lit it faintly as though
stained through the amber-coloured glass of church
windows.  In a deep shadow, burnt the tiny flame of
red upon their bedroom altar.  Bowed humbly down
before it, knelt the priest, whose even, muttered
tones just stirred in a gentle vibration of sound as
of some hive of bees muffled with a heavy cloth and,
only with the sibilant lisping of the breath between
his lips as he pronounced certain letters, did it seem
that a man was speaking at all.  It was all so quiet,
so even, so monotonous, a gentle noise to waft a
spirit to its last sleep.

In a dark corner of the room, away from the rest,
almost lost in the shadow, knelt Claudina, her head
bent low upon her breast, her shoulders gently
lifting and falling in sobs that were tuned low to the
silence.  She did not look up as they entered.  The
priest did not move his head.  It all continued, just
as if nothing had happened and, lying still, inert
upon the pillow, almost lost in the big bed, was that
silent figure of the old white-haired gentleman, who
never stirred, nor uttered any sound, as though the
chanting of the priest had already lulled him to his
infinite sleep.

They all knelt down by the bedside, buried their
faces in their hands, and the chanting continued.

What thoughts passed through the minds of those
two who knelt there, playing their part, acting the
life which both of them knew could never be real,
it would be impossible to say.  In the face of death,
the mind has such simple thoughts, that words
can scarcely touch their expression.  Remorse may
have scourged them; it may have been that, in
seeing the peaceful passing of his spirit, they were
satisfied that what they did was for the best; or,
in the deepest secrets of their hearts they may have
been longing that it all were true.  Yet, there they
both knelt, with the little old white-haired lady by
their side.  For all the world you might have
thought, as did all the others in the room, that they
were husband and wife on the very threshold of that
journey through the years of which this death-bed
meeting was the gate where all must pass out into
the land that is in the blue haze beyond.

Presently, the voice of the priest became silent.
The heads of all sank lower in their hands as the
Extreme Unction was given.  God visits the earth
in great silences.  It was a wonderful silence then.
The wine gurgling softly into the cup, the unfolding
of the little napkin, the patten lying on the tongue,
the last brave effort as the old gentleman swallowed
the sacred bread, were all noises that thrilled and
quivered in that silence.

Then it was all passed, all finished, the spirit
cleansed, the last gentle confession made of such sins
of thought and deed as a brave and generous
gentleman is capable of.  The priest rose to his feet
and, taking his little vessels with him in their case,
stole quietly from the room.  A moment or so
passed in still deeper silence.  At last Claudina rose.
She crossed herself as she passed the little altar,
crept also to the door and went away.

Now the silence was still deeper than before, as
though, in the mere functions of their living, these
two had taken with them their disturbing elements of
full-blooded life from this place where life was so
fainting and so weak.  When they had gone, the
very vibrations of air seemed more still and a greater
quietness fell with their absence.

And the three who remained, continued there
motionless on their knees--motionless, until, in the midst
of the silence, came the whispering of a tired
voice--a voice, pronouncing with infinite difficulty, one,
single word,

"John--John."

John knelt quickly upright.  He stretched out his
hand and found a hand to meet it, a hand that
could not hold, that only lay in tender submission
upon his own.

"Father," he said; and that, after all, is the only
word that a son can say--father or mother--they
are the last words left in the deepest heart of a man.
He utters them, incoherently almost, when emotion
is choking speech.

"Where is Jill?" the voice whispered again.

Jill crept round on her knees to his side.  With
one hand below in the darkness, John held hers.  They
clasped them and unclasped them as the sobs rose
and broke silently in their throats.

The old gentleman's eyes took a light into them,
as he saw their heads together by his bedside.
With a great effort, he strained himself to rise upon
one elbow in the bed and, laying the other hand upon
their heads, he whispered that blessing which it has
been in the power of the father to give from time
immemorial.

"God bless you," he whispered.  "Make your lives
out of love, as I have made mine.  Make your
children out of love, as I have made mine.  Make your
work out of love--as I have made mine."

His voice burnt low, but yet it burnt.  The flame
of it was there.  It seared into the very hearts of
them.  Jill's fingers lay in John's as a bird that is
starved and cold, lies limply in the hand that
succours it.  Her cheeks were ashen white.  Her eyes
stared wildly before her at the pattern on the
counter-pane and tears rolled from them without heed
or stay.

The moments passed then, as the old gentleman
leant back upon his pillows.  Without moving,
they stayed there with heads bowed down before him.
At last, he moved again.  His hand stretched out
once more and felt for John's.

"God bless you my boy," he said, as his son bent
over him.  "You've made us very happy.  You've
set your life just as we could wish.  Now do your
work.  I expect I shall hear how you get on.  They
won't keep that from me.  They'll let me see your
first happy ending.  It's the only way to end--like
this.  Now kiss me--you don't mind--this time--do you?"

John kissed him, as pilgrims kiss the feet of God.

"And tell me----" the old gentleman whispered.
He paused to breathe as the thought came swiftly
on him.  "Tell me--why did you kiss me--on the
forehead--that night--a year ago?"

"I'd seen you in the Treasure Shop, sir--and
I----" the words wrestled in his throat--"I
thought you were the finest man I'd ever known."

The old gentleman lay back again upon his
pillows.  The light of a great pride was flashing in
his eyes.  His son had called him--sir.  That was
all.  Yet in that moment, he felt like a Viking being
borne out upon his burning ship into the sea of
noble burial.  His son had called him, sir.  He lay
still, listening to the great sound of it, as it
trumpeted triumphantly in his ears.  His son, who
was going to be far greater than he had ever been,
whose work was above and beyond all work that he
had ever done--his son had called him--sir.

Then, for some time, everything was still once
more.  They bent their heads again within their
hands.  At last, the little old white-haired lady, like

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.. _`THE CIRCULAR TOUR`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVII


.. class:: center medium

   THE CIRCULAR TOUR

.. vspace:: 2

The evening, with her quiet feet, had stolen across
the sky; night was fast riding in the wake of her,
when at last they left the little old white-haired
lady alone.

Repeatedly John had offered to stay and keep
her company.

"You may not sleep, dearest," he said gently.
"Someone had better be with you."

"I shall have Claudina," she replied with a smile
of gratitude.  "And I think I shall sleep.  I've
scarcely been to bed since he was ill.  I think I shall
sleep."  And her eyes closed involuntarily.

Jill offered to stay, to help her to bed, to sit by
her side until she slept.  But, patiently and
persistently, she shook her tired, white head and smiled.

"Claudina understands my little fidgety ways,"
she said--"and perhaps I shall be better with her."

Down the vast chamber, she walked with them
again to the little door.  Her head was high and
brave, but the heart within her beat so faintly and
so still, that sometimes, unseen by them, she put
her hand upon her bodice to assure herself that it
beat at all.

Before they pulled the heavy curtain, she stopped
and took both their hands in hers.

"My dear--dear children," she whispered, and for
the first time her voice quivered.  A sob answered it
in Jill's throat.  She tried to face the old lady's
eyes, bright with a strange and almost unnatural
brilliance, but a thousand reproaches cried at her
courage and beat it back.

"My dear--dear children," said the old lady once
more, and this time her voice took a new power into
itself.  Her figure seemed to straighten, her eyes
to steady with resolve.

"I have something I want to say; something
your father would have said as well, had there been
time.  I thought of waiting till to-morrow, perhaps
till he was buried.  But I'm going to say it now;
before you can tell me what I know you mean to.
I discussed it all with your father before you came,
and he quite agreed with me."  She paused.  A
great, deep breath she drew, as does a painter when
he nerves his hand.  And in the gathering darkness
in that great room, they waited with all attention
expectant.

"When your father is buried," she began slowly,
drawing with reserve from that long deep breath,
"I am going to live on here."  Quickly she raised
her hand before John could answer.  She thought
she knew what he was going to say.  "No!" she
said, "you must let me finish.  I'm going to live
on here.  For the next ten years, these rooms belong
to us--and ten years----" she smiled--"are more
than I shall need.  I could not leave here.  I know
it so well.  You want me to come and live with
you--but no----" the white head shook, and a curl fell
out of place upon her cheek.  She did not notice it.
"No--I know what is best," she went on.  "Your
father and I decided what was right.  Old people
have their place.  They should never get in the way
of the ones who are just beginning.  I shall be
contented waiting here for the year to come round to
bring you both to see me.  Don't think I shall be
discontented.  Claudina will take care of me, and I
shall not be in your way.  You'll like me all the
better in the summer.  I get tiresome in the winter.
I know I do.  He used not to say so, but Claudina
has to admit it.  I get colds.  I have to be looked
after.  Sometimes I'm in bed for days together and
have to be nursed.  All of which things," she added,
turning with a bright smile to Jill, "Claudina can
do so much more easily than you.  She's more
accustomed to them."

And look at my poor hands, she might have said,
how much would you not have to do for me?  You
would have to dress me, to undress me, to get me
up, to put me to bed.  But she hid her hands.  Those
withered hands had their pathos even for her.  She
would not press them upon their notice.

"Think over what I've said, dear," she concluded,
looking up to John.  "Tell me what you've thought
about it to-morrow, or the next day.  I know all
this evening, it has been in your mind to tell me of
the arrangements you have thought of making for
me in your little cottage; but think over it again,
from my point of view.  Understand it as I do, and
I'm sure you'll find I'm right."

And they could say nothing.  In silence, they had
listened to all this indomitable courage, to this little
old white-haired lady preparing to face the great
loneliness after death.  In silence, Jill had bent down
and kissed her.  The last lash had fallen upon her
then.  She could not speak.  By the bedside of the
old gentleman, the utmost tears had tumbled from
her eyes.  And now this, from the little old lady, had
been more than she could bear.  That sensation which
they call the breaking of the heart, was almost
stifling the breath within her.  The whole army of her
emotions had been thundering all this time at the
gates of her heart.  When she had heard his blessing,
she had flung the gates open wide.  Now, they were
trampling her beneath their feet.  She could not
rise above them.  She could not even cry out loud
the remorse and pain she felt.

With John, this silence that was forced upon
him was more cruel still.  On a scaffold, set before
the crowd, he stood, listening to the loathing and
reproach that groaned in every throat.  The little
old lady was making this sacrifice, and yet, he knew
a thousand times that he should not let it be.  To
stand there then and, in that derisive silence, to
quietly give consent, was the utmost penalty that he
could pay.  Then, in the teeth of all reproach, as
though to shut out from his ears the moaning of that
cruel, relentless crowd, he caught her slender figure
in his arms and strained her to him.

"My little mother," he said wildly in his breath,
"it can't be like that--it can't be!  Something must
be done.  I'll think it out, but something must be
done."

Then, kissing her again and again, he put her
down from him, as you put back a little doll into
its cradle--a little doll which some thoughtless hand
has treated ill.

They said no word to each other as they passed
through the archway this time.  In silence, they
stepped into the gondola which had been waiting
for them at the steps for an hour and more.

John told him the hotel at which Jill was staying,
and the gondolier pushed out into the black water.
Another moment, and they were swaying into the
soft velvet darkness, rent here and there with little
points of orange light, where a lamp burnt warmly
in some tiny window.

"And to-morrow," said John presently, "you
must go back?  Perhaps that's the hardest part of it."

"I shall not go for a few days," Jill replied
quietly.

He looked quickly at her white face.  Impulsively
his hand stretched out to hers.  She stared before
her as he took it.  She was like a figure of ivory,
set strangely in black marble, as black as the water
itself.  There was no movement from her, no stir,
scarcely a sign of life.

"That's good of you," he said in honest thankfulness.
"You're being wonderfully good to me."  He
repeated it, ruminating, with his eyes looking out
into the distance where hers were set.  "But, I might
have known you'd be that."

She shuddered.  Praise from him, then, hurt more
than all.  She shuddered as if a wind had chilled
her.

After a long pause, he moved and spoke again.

"How are you going to manage?" he asked.
"What are you going to do?"

"I shall write."

"Home?"

"No--to Mrs. Crossthwaite."

"Is it safe?"

"I think so."

"But you mustn't be discovered," he said quickly.
Conscience pulled him first one way, then another.
Every instinct prompted him to accept her generosity
without question.  "You must not take too
great a risk.  Why, indeed, should you take any?"

The words came slowly.  He felt both glad and
sorry when once they were spoken.  The tragedy of
life is indecision.  They bury suicides at the
crossroads, for that is where lurks all tragedy--the
indecision of which way to choose.

At last, she turned her head and looked at him.
The hand he held quickened with feeling.  It became
alive.  He felt the fingers tighten on his own.

"You are thinking of me?" she said.

"I must," he replied.

"You feel it your duty because I'm here alone?"

He shook his head.

"I don't feel duty," he answered.  "There is no
such thing.  People do what they do.  When it is a
disagreeable thing to do, they make it worth the
doing by calling it duty.  That is the satisfaction
they get out of it.  But everything that is done,
is done for love--love of self or love of other people.
Duty is the name that enhances the value of disagreeable
things.  But it's only a name.  There's nothing
behind it--nothing human, nothing real.  I don't
feel duty as some do, and so I never attempt
anything that's disagreeable.  A thing that is weighed
is repugnant to me.  Just now things are very
hard--just now I scarcely know which way to turn.
The little old white-haired lady puts her arms round
me and I feel I can't let her go.  You hold my hand
and I feel that I would move heaven and earth to
save you from a moment's unhappiness."  Reluctantly,
he let go her hand and sat upright.  "Here
we are; I say good-night here.  You must think
before you write that letter."

She put out a detaining hand.

"Tell him to go back to your rooms," she said--"I'll
take you back there before I go in.  I've
got a lot to say."

John smiled incredulously.  He could have asked
heaven for no greater gift.  His heart was sick.
There was nothing but disillusionment to which he
could look forward.  His own disillusionment had
come already; but that of the little old
white-haired lady was harder to bear than his own.
Stretching before him, an ugly shadow, he saw the
unswerving promise of that day when he must tell
her all the truth; that day, a year perhaps to come,
when, arriving in Venice without Jill, he must
explain her absence, either by another fabrication or
the naked fact.

To hide his face from it all a little longer; to
have Jill's presence closing his eyes to it, even though
it were only for a speck of time in the eternity that
was to follow, was a reprieve for which he had not
dared to hope.

"You mean that?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

John gave the order.  The gondolier did not smile.
Perhaps the motion of his oar as he swung them
round was a gentle comment.  Every man has his
different medium of expression.  There was once a
ballet dancer who, whenever she became excited and
was driven to gesticulation, always caught her skirt
just below the knee and lifted it to show her
instep.  It meant more than any words she could ever
have uttered.

John sat back again by Jill's side.

"Oh! it's good," he said, half aloud, half to
himself.

"What is good?" she whispered.

"To be just a little while longer with you.  I
dread to-night, I dread the next few nights to come.
I shall see his eyes.  I shall hear that sound in his
voice when he called to her.  I shall see that brave
look in her face, and hear that whole speech of her
sacrifice as we stood by the door.  My God!  What
wonderful things women can be when they love."

"She's so gentle and yet so brave," said Jill.

"Brave!" he echoed it, but it had not the force
of all he felt.  "Great Heavens!  Think of her
there now, alone.  Everything but us gone out of
her life; a sudden rent in the clouds--just a flash,
and but for us, in that moment she's made destitute.
And then, with a smile in her eyes, to give up what
little she has.  And I, to have to accept it.
Lord! what a fool I've been.  I remember that day when
Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat came slouching into the
room and I'd just received the letter saying she
would write no more of you.  I took that confounded
cat into my confidence--'The little old lady wants
a love story,' I said.  And the cat seemed to wink
as though it had no objection to hearing one, too.
Then I began.  Lord! what a child I am.  Not the
faintest idea of the future!  No conception of
consequence!  Just a blind idea of doing things as they
come, without the smallest consideration of results!
I never foresaw that it was going to lead to this.
What a child!  My heavens!  What a child!  He was
a child!  She's a child!  I'm a child, too!  We're a
family of children, not fit for one of the
responsibilities of life."

"Do you think you're any the worse for that?"
she asked softly.

"I don't know," he shrugged his shoulders.
"Upon my soul, it seems now the greatest crime
a man can commit.  In a world of grown-up men
and women who can pay their rents and taxes,
meet their bills and save their money, to be a child
is a monstrous, a heinous crime."

"Only to those who don't understand," she answered.

"Well--and who does?"

"I do."

"You do?  Yes, I know that--but how can you
help?  You've done more than a thousand women
would have done.  You helped me to make his
passing a happy one; you can't do more than that.
You're even going to stay on a few days longer to
help this fool of a child still more.  That proves
you understand.  I know you understand--God bless you."

He shrank into himself despairingly.  His whole
body seemed to contract in the pain of self-condemnation,
and he pressed his hands violently over
his eyes.  Suddenly, he felt her move.  He took his
hands away and found her kneeling at his feet, that
white face of ivory turned up to his, her eyes dimmed
with tears.

"Do you call it understanding if I leave you now--little
child?" she whispered, and her voice was like
the sound in a long-dreamt dream which, on the
morning, he had forgotten and striven to remember
ever since.

Slowly, he took away his hands.  Now he recalled
the voice.  The whole dream came back.  It was
summer--summer in England.  They were in a field
where cattle grazed under the warm shadows of high
elm trees.  Cowslips grew there, standing up through
the grass with their thin, white, velvet stems; here
and there an orchid with spotted leaves, a group of
scabii bending their feathered heads in the heat of
the day.  Jill sat sewing little garments, and he lay
idle, stretched upon his back, gazing up into the
endless blue where the white clouds sailed like little ships,
making for distant harbours.  And as she sewed, she
talked of things more wonderful than God had made
the day; of things that women, in the most sacred
moments of their life, sometimes reveal to men.

This was the dream he had forgotten.  In his
sleep, he had known that it was a dream; had known
that he must remember it all his life; yet in the
morning, but faintly recollected he had dreamt at
all.  Now, those two words of hers--little child--and
the summer day, the browsing cattle, the white
flutter of the tiny garments, the scent of the fields and
the sound of her voice had all returned in one swift
rush of memory.

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly--"if you
leave me now, what do you mean?  What do you
mean by--little child?"

Both hands, she put out; both hands to clasp on
his.  The tears ceased gathering in her eyes.
Before God and in great moments, the eyes forget their
tears; there is no trembling of the lips; the voice
is clear and true.

"Don't you remember what he said?" she asked.
"'Make your lives out of love, as I have made mine.
Make your children out of love as I have made
mine.'  Did you think I could hear that from him
without knowing what you yourself have said just
now, that there is no such thing as Duty?"

John stared at her.  He dared not interpose.  He
dared not even answer the question she had asked,
for fear his voice should break the linking of her
thoughts.

"Can you hear him saying--'Make your lives
out of duty, as  I have made mine.  Make your
children out of duty as I have made mine?'  Can
you imagine him saying that?  Can you feel how it
would have grated on your ears?  Yet that's just
what I'm going to do; but I didn't realise it till
then."

"What is it you're going to say?" he asked
below his breath.  "What is it you're leading to?
All this is leading to something.  What is it?"

"That I'm not going to leave you, little child.
That if, after all, there is such a thing as Duty, he
has shown me what it is."

The gondola bumped against the steps.  The voice
of the gondolier called out that their destination was
reached.  John rose quickly to his feet.

"Go back," he said.  "Go back to the hotel."

Away they started again and as he plied his oar,
the gondolier gazed up at the stars, and hummed a
muffled tune.

For a few moments, John remained standing.  She
was not going to leave him.  She was never going
to leave him.  That was the big thought, triumphant
in his mind.  But a thousand little thoughts, like
grains of dust in a great sunbeam, danced and
whirled about it.  He thought of those rooms of his
in Fetter Lane; of his own improvidence, of the
disreputable appearance of Mrs. Morrell on Saturday
mornings when she cleaned the stairs of the house,
and conversed, in language none too refined, with
Miss Morrell.  He thought of the impudence of
Mrs. Brown, when she appeared in curling papers and
made remarks about her neighbours with a choice of
words that can only be said to go with that particular
adornment of the hair.

But these were only cavilling considerations, which
made the big thought real.  He could change his
address.  Now, indeed, he could go down to
Harefield.  He could work twice as hard; he could make
twice as much money.  All these things, ambition
will easily overcome in the face of so big a thought
as this.  She was never going to leave him.

He took her hands as he sat down.

"Do you think you realise everything?" he said;
for the first instinct of the grateful recipient is
to return the gift.  He does not mean to give it
back; but neither does he quite know how to
take it.

She nodded her head.

"All my circumstances?  How poor I am?"

"Everything."

"And still----?"

"And still," she replied.  "Nothing but your
asking could change me."

He sat gazing at her, just holding her hands.
Only in real stories do people at such a moment fall
into each other's arms.  When the matter is really
nonsense, then people act differently--perhaps they
are more reserved--possibly the wonder of it all is
greater then.

John sat silently beside her and tried to understand.
It was so unexpected.  He had scarcely even
wished that it might be so.

"When did you think this?" he asked presently.

"Just--before he died."

"When he blessed us?"

"Yes."

"Why haven't you said so before?"

"I couldn't.  I haven't been able to speak.  I've
suddenly seen things real----"

"In the midst of all this nonsense----"

"Yes--and it's taken my breath away.  All in
a few hours, I've seen death and love, and I don't
know what the change is in me, but I'm different.
I've grown up.  I understand.  You say I have
understood before; but I've understood nothing.  I
should never have come here last year, if I had
understood.  I should never have continued meeting you
in Kensington Gardens, if I had understood.  Women
don't understand as a rule; no girl understands.  She
would never play with love, if she did.  I know,
suddenly, that I belong to you; that I have no right
to marry anyone else.  In these last few hours, I've
felt that a force outside me determines the giving
of my life, and it has frightened me.  I couldn't say
anything.  When you said you were a child, then I
suddenly found my tongue.  I wasn't afraid any
more.  I knew you were a child, my child--my little
child--not my master.  There's no mastery in it;
you're just my child."

Suddenly she closed her arms round him; she
buried her head on his shoulder.

"I can't explain any more!" she whispered--"It's
something I can't explain--I haven't any
words for it."

And, as he held her to him, John thought of the
dream he had dreamt, of the field and the cattle,
and the white fluttering of the tiny garments, and the
clouds sailing in the sky, and again came to him
the note in her voice as she told him the most
wonderful thing in the whole world.  Then, leaning
out from the hood, he called out to the gondolier:

"Just take us out on the Lagoon before we go back."

And they swung round again to his oar.





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.. _`A PROCESS OF HONESTY`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVIII


.. class:: center medium

   A PROCESS OF HONESTY

.. vspace:: 2

The very best of us have a strain of selfishness.
The most understanding of us are unable to a nicety
to grasp the other person's point of view; and there
will always be some little thing, some subtle matter,
which it is not in the nature of us to perceive in
the nature of someone else.  Perhaps this is the
surest proof of the existence of the soul.

When, on the steps of the hotel, John bid good-night
to Jill, there was but one regret in the minds
of both of them, that that blessing which they had
received at the hands of the old gentleman had
come too soon; that in the receipt of it, they had
been impostors, unworthy of so close a touch with
the Infinite.

There is nothing quite so distressing to the honest
mind as this and, to avoid it, to mitigate the
offence, it is quite a simple process for the honest mind
to project itself into some further evil of selfishness,
so long as it may gain peace and a free conscience.

"There is only one thing that we can do," said
John, and, if good intentions weigh, however lightly,
in the sensitive scales of justice, let one be here
placed in the balance for him.

"I know what you are going to say," replied Jill.

Of course she knew.  They had begun to think
alike already.

"We must tell her."

She nodded her head.

"We can't deceive her," he went on--"It's bad
enough to have deceived him.  And now--well, it's
such a different matter now.  She must understand.
Don't you think she will?"

With a gentle pressure of his hand, she agreed.

They both pictured her glad of the knowledge,
because in the hearts of them both, they were so glad
to be able to tell.  For this is how the honest deceive
themselves, by super-imposing upon another, that
state of mind which is their own.  With all belief,
they thought the little old white-haired lady must
be glad when she heard; with all innocence and
ignorance of human nature, they conceived of her
gratitude that such an ending had been brought about.

"When shall we tell her?" asked Jill.

"Oh--not at once.  In a day or so.  The day
you go, perhaps."

"And you think she'll forgive me?"

He smiled at her tenderly for her question.

"Do you think you know anything about the
little old white-haired lady when you ask that?
I'll just give you an example.  She abominates
drunkenness--loathes it--in theory has no pity for
it, finds no excuse.  Well, they had a gardener once,
when they were better off.  There's not a school for
the trade in Venice, as you can imagine.  Tito knew
absolutely nothing.  He was worthless.  He was as
likely as not to pull up the best plant in the
garden and think it was a weed.  But there he was.
Well, one day Claudina reported he was drunk.
Drunk!  Tito drunk!  In their garden!  Oh, but it
was horrible--it was disgusting!  She could scarcely
believe that it was true.  But Claudina's word had
to be taken and Tito must go.  She could not even
bear to think he was still about the place.

"Tito--I have heard so and so--is it true?" she said.

Well--Tito talked about not feeling well and
things disagreeing with him.  At last he admitted it.

"Then you must go," said she--"I give you a
week's wages."

But a piteous look came into Tito's face and
he bent his head and he begged--'Oh, don't send
me away, *egregia signora*!' and that cry of his
went so much to her heart, that she almost took
his head on her shoulder in her pity for him.  And
you say--will she forgive you?  Why, her capacity
for forgiveness is infinite!  I often think, when they
talk of the sins that God cannot pardon, I often
think of her."

She looked up and smiled.

"Do you always tell a little story when you want
to explain something?" she asked.

"Always," said he--"to little children."

She shut her eyes to feel the caress in the words.

"Well, then," she said, opening them again--"we
tell her the day after to-morrow."

"That is the day you go?"

"Yes--I must go then.  And may I say one thing?"

"May you?  You may say everything but one."

"What is that?"

"That I have been dreaming all this to-night."

"No, you haven't been dreaming.  It was all real."

"Then--what do you want to say?"

"That the little old white-haired lady is not to
live alone.  I'm going to live with her as much of
the year as you'll let me--all of it if you will."

For one moment, he was silent--a moment of realisation,
not of doubt.

"God seems to have given me so much in this
last hour," he said, "that nothing I could offer
would appear generous after such a gift.  It shall
be all the year, if you wish it.  I owe her that and
more.  But for her, perhaps, this would never have
been."

He took her hand and pressed his lips to it.

"Good-night, sweetheart.  And the day after
to-morrow then, we tell her everything."





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.. _`THE END OF THE LOOM`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIX


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   THE END OF THE LOOM

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When the little door had closed behind them, the
old lady stood with head inclined, listening to the
sound of their footsteps.  Then, creeping to the
high window that looked over the *Rio Marin*,--that
same window at which, nearly a year before,
she had stood with her husband watching Jill's
departure--she pressed her face against the glass,
straining her eyes to see them to the end.

It was very dark.  For a moment, as John helped
Jill into the gondola, she could distinguish their
separate figures; but then, the deep shadow beneath
the hood enveloped them and hid them from her gaze.
Yet still she stayed there; still she peered out over
the water as, with that graceful sweeping of the
oar, they swung round and swayed forward into the
mystery of the shadow beyond.

To the last moment when, melting into the darkness,
they became the darkness itself, she remained,
leaning against the sill, watching, as they watch,
who long have ceased to see.  And for some time
after they had disappeared, her white face and still
whiter hair were pressed against the high window
in that vast chamber, as if she had forgotten why it
was she was there and stood in waiting for her
memory to return.

Such an impression she might have given, had you
come upon her, looking so lost and fragile in that
great room.  But in her mind, there was no want
of memory.  She remembered everything.

It is not always the philosopher who makes the
best out of the saddest moments in life.  Women
can be philosophic; the little old white-haired lady
was philosophic then, as she stood gazing out into
the empty darkness.  And yet, no woman is really a
philosopher.  To begin with, there is no heart in
such matter at all; it is the dried wisdom of
bitterness, from which the burning sun of reason has
sucked all blood, all nourishment.  And that which
has no heart in it, is no fit food for a woman.  For a
woman is all heart, or she is nothing.  If she can
add two and two together, and make a calculation of
it, then let her do it, but not upon one page in your
life, if you value the paper upon which that life
be written.  For once she sees that she can add
aright, she brings her pen to all else.  The desire
of power, to a woman who has touched it, is a
disease.

But it was other than the calculation of philosophy
which sustained the mind of the little old lady at
this, the saddest and the most lonely moment of her
life.

As she leant, gazing out of the window down the
black line of water that lost itself in the silent
gathering of the houses, there almost was triumph in
her mind.  She had lost everything, but she had done
everything.  She was utterly alone; but only
because she had outlived her world.  And last of all,
there was triumph in her heart, because her world
was complete.  She could have asked nothing more
of it.  Her Romance was rekindled.  If there was
anything to live for, it was to see the flames
leaping up in some other brazier--those flames which
she had given the spark of her life to ignite.  And
had she not seen them rising already?  Had she not
seen the fire blessed by the only hand to whom the
power of blessing is given?  For all she knew, for
all she dared to guess, the old gentleman's blessing
had fallen upon a future, further distant than,
perhaps, he dreamed of.  What more had desire to ask
for than that?

She remembered how, in those days of doubt and
troubling, she had counted in fear the time which
was left in which John should take his wife.  She
remembered doubting that they might even live to
see the realisation of such happiness as that.

They were old people.  There had no longer been
certainty for them in the counting of the years.
And, as this very day had proved, John's marriage
had come none too soon.  Had it been later, had
they not received that blessing to which, with all
such things as the flights of magpies and the
turnings of the moon, this simple soul of hers gave
magic virtue, then, indeed, she might have looked
sorrowfully out of the high window in the great room.

But no--there had been no such mischance as
that.  The vivid sense of completeness filled her
heart and raised the beating of it for a few
moments, as the hope of a dying priest is raised by
the presentation of his beloved cross.

And this is the philosophy, the stoicism of women,
who will face the fearsome emptiness of a whole
desert of life, so be it, that their heart is full and
satisfied.

Who, passing below on the black strip of water
and, seeing her pale, white face looking out from
that high window into the night, could have
conceived of such wonderful reconciliation as this?  Who
could have imagined the whole moment as it was?
An old gentleman lying in a tiny room, the lamp
still burning on the altar at his side, his hands
crossed upon his breast in an unbreaking sleep;
away out upon the water of the Lagoon, two lovers,
young, alight with life, exalted in a sudden
realisation of happiness, and this little old white-haired
lady, alone in that great, high-ceilinged room, with
its heavy, deep-coloured curtains and its massive
pictures hanging on the wall and in the heart of her,
a great uplifting thankfulness in the midst of such
absolute desolation as this, a thankfulness that her
life was a great, an all-comprehending fulfilment,
that her greatest work was done, her highest
desire reached--who, in the first inspiration of their
imagination, seeing that frail white face pressed close
against the window pane, could have conjured to
their mind such a moment as this?

And yet, these simple things are life.  A face
peering from a window, a hand trembling at a touch,
a sudden laugh, a sudden silence, they all may hide
the greatest history, if one had but the eyes to
read.

For more than half-an-hour she remained there
without movement almost, except when she pressed
her hand inquiringly to her breast to feel for the
beating of her heart.  At last, with a little shudder,
as though, in that moment, she realised the vast
space of emptiness in the great room behind her, she
moved away.

Still her steps were steady, still her head was high,
as she walked back to the little room where, evening
after evening, year after year, the old gentleman
had sat with her and talked, until the time came
when they must go to bed.  For with old people, as
you know, it comes to be a state of--must--they
must go to bed.  It is not kind to tell them so, but
there it is.

The room was disordered; for a time of sickness
is as a time of siege--the time when Death lays
siege upon a house and there are no moments left
to put things as they were.

On any other occasion, she would have fretted at
the sight.  The world is sometimes all compassed
in an old lady's work-basket, and to upset that, is
to turn the world upside down.  But now, as she
saw all the untidiness, the little old white-haired
lady only sighed.  She took her accustomed chair
and, seating herself, stared quietly at the chair that
was empty, the chair that was still placed, just as
he had left it that morning when, going down to
see to his garden and to speak to Tito, he had fallen
in the great room outside, and they had carried him
straight to his bed.

Now it was empty.  The whole room was empty.
She heard sounds, sounds in Venice, sounds that she
had never realised before.  She heard the clock
ticking and wondered why she had never heard that.
She heard Claudina moving in the kitchen.  She
heard the voice of a gondolier singing on the canal.

Presently, she rose to her feet and walked slowly
to a drawer that had long been closed.  Opening it,
she took out some part of an old lace shawl,
unfinished, where it had been laid from that moment when
God had withered her hands and she was powerless
to do her work.

Bringing it with her, she came back to her chair;
sat down and laid it on her lap.  This was the only
thing incomplete in her life.  Memory became
suddenly vivid as she looked at it.  She almost
remembered--perhaps pretended that she did recall--the
last stitch where she had left off.

And there, when she came in for her unfailing
ceremony, Claudina found her, gazing towards the
door with the unfinished lace shawl in her hands.

The little white head moved quickly, the eyes
lighted for one sudden moment of relief----

"Surely it's after ten o'clock, Claudina," she said.

And Claudina shook her head gravely.

"No, signora.  It wants some minutes yet.  But
I thought if Giovanino was gone, you ought to go
to bed."

They had prepared another little room for her to
sleep in; but she insisted first upon going to see
him once more.

By the light of the altar lamp, she found her way
to the bed.  Without the sound of a cry, or the
hesitation of those who are suddenly brought into the
presence of Death, she lifted the sheet from his face.
It was almost as though she had expected to find
that he was asleep.

For a little while, she stood there, looking quietly
at the peacefulness of it all, then she bent over
the bed.  Claudina saw her whisper something in his
ear.  At the last, she crossed him with trembling
finger, laid back the sheet upon his face and,
without a sound, slowly turned away.

In Claudina's hands she was like a little child.
Like a little child, she was undressed, like a little
child put into her bed, the clothes pulled warmly
round her, her beads given into her hand to hold.

With candle lighted and held above her head,
Claudina stood at the door before she went out.
The tears rushed warmly to her eyes as she saw the
white head alone upon the pillow, and thought of
the silent figure they had just left in the other room.

"*Buona notte, signora,*" she said as bravely as
she could.

"*Buona notte,*" replied the little old white-haired
lady.


At her accustomed hour of the morning, came
Claudina into the little room.  Feeling her way to
the window, she threw open wide the jalousies.  A
flood of sunshine beat into the room and made all
dazzling white.  Claudina felt thankful for it.  It
was a new day.  It was a wonderful day.

She turned to the bed.  There was the still white
head, alone upon the pillow, the powerless hand just
showing from beneath the coverlet, still holding its
string of beads.

"*Buona Giorno, signora,*" she said, trying to
make the note of some cheerfulness in her voice.

But there was no reply.

Far away out in the wonderful city, she heard
the cry of a gondolier,--"Ohé"--and in through
the window, there floated a butterfly of white, that
had been beating its wings against the jalousies
outside.  Into the room it flew, dipping and dancing,
swaying and lifting in the free air of the day just
born.

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   THE END

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