Chapter VIII

"Love, the great volcano, flings
Fires of lower earth to sky;
Love, the soul-permitted, sings
Sovereignly of Me and I."
MEREDITH.

And of what were they talking, those two, down by the sea? Of what else but the girl who agonized alone upon her bed? And Audrey, in her degree, was agonizing also; though Sinclair was not suffered to suspect the fact.

Her greeting had been blunt, and to the point. She was in no humour for softening sharp outlines. "Good evening, Nevil. If you can spare me half an hour before dinner, I would like a talk with you."

It was then that he had assented smiling.

"Delighted. My spare half-hours are of no remarkable value. Is it anything particular?"

"Yes. It's about Lilamani--and your picture."

"Ah! What of them?"

It was then that they walked off together down the wide path, ending in a balustrade, beyond which rough slabs of rock fell sheer to the sea. For a moment Audrey compressed her lips; and Sinclair, scrutinizing her profile, was puzzled and half annoyed.

"What's wrong with you, Audrey? You've not been a bit the same girl this week. One could only suppose you were still fussing over the picture and the studies and all the rest of it. Rather superfluous, surely, now the thing's half done. Rather hard lines, too, if I mayn't take such a unique chance without your making a tea-cup tragedy out of an interlude that's pleasant enough for us all, so far as I can see."

Audrey regarded him very straightly, without flinching.

"Pleasant for you, no doubt; and--in a sense--for her too. But if you will give me a chance to speak, instead, of rating me unheard, I can prove to you that the 'tea-cup tragedy'--which may be sufficiently serious for her, poor child, is of your own making, not mine."

"What d'you mean?" he asked sharply, genuine pain in his voice. "I wouldn't upset her for the world."

"It's not a question of what you would do, but of what you have done."

"Do be more explicit. You're keeping me on hot plough-shares. She seemed quite happy when I saw her just now."

"Saw her? Where?"

"Looking over the balcony, a minute before you came."

Audrey made a small sound of vexation. "I left her lying down. But really I don't know what to do about her. When she began to grow home-sick, I thought seeing a little more of people might do her good. But I didn't reckon on this affair of the picture; and now she seems quite overwrought and unstrung."

"And it pleases you to throw the blame on me?"

"It doesn't please me, Nevil." Her voice softened instinctively on his name. "The facts speak for themselves; and it's as well you should know them."

"Fire away, then--for God's sake."

His impatience in no wise hurried her wonted precision of speech, while she sketched for him in outline the week's day-to-day difficulties, ending with an expurgated edition of the final scene that had left her baffled for the moment, and deeply disquieted as regards possible results. To Nevil's half-knowledge the way out appeared sufficiently plain. They had reached the balustrade, and he brought his hand down on it with decision.

"I told you before, Audrey, she's not the type. That girl has the temperament of genius. I suspect her verses might be worth seeing. But as for trying to cram her brain with hygienics and physiology, you'd both be better occupied in trying to reach the moon."

Audrey bit her lip. "I am beginning to be afraid that's true. But--if you remember, Nevil, I told you also that these studies were of special importance to her; and now--it seems high time to convince you of the fact by telling you plainly what she came to England to escape."

"Escape? What was that?"

He spoke rapidly, almost under his breath. All the laughter had gone out of his eyes, that looked steadily seaward, and continued so to look, while Audrey--in phrases deliberately blunt and bald--told him the story that she hoped might disgust him a little; that must, at least, force him to recognize that gateless barrier of race, caste, and creed that divided him from this alluring yet antipodal child of the East.

The story was no easy one to tell. Only a conviction that her duty to both demanded plain speech, and a secret hope that his leaning toward sentiment might be checked in time, gave her strength to carry it through.

She drew an unvarnished picture of the conservative, priest-ridden Hindu mother, who, ever since Lilamani's fourteenth year, had urged betrothal, if not marriage, without avail. She told him of the bridegroom--wealthy, elderly, dissolute--finally brought forward by the Guru, to whom doubtless great gifts had been promised by the husband-elect if the transaction were carried through with success. She spoke of Lilamani's rebellion; of the nerve-shattering struggle which had ended in collapse. And at that the man could control himself no longer.

"Good God!" he muttered between his teeth, but without looking round; for the which she was grateful.

"Yes, it seems incredible to us," she answered quietly. "Yet you know next to nothing of what such a marriage would mean for a girl so indulged by her father, so sensitive and fanciful as Lilamani; and even I know little enough. Happily for her Sir Lakshman is as brave as he is broadminded. But for his championship she could never have stood out against the combined authority of family and religion. He himself, when he called me in, was fairly desperate; or he might not have agreed so readily to my bold suggestion. But he did agree; and after a fresh struggle we three gained the day."

"Well done, Audrey!" he cried, looking full at her for the first time.

In spite of stern repression her heart throbbed at his praise, and she smiled. "I'm glad you think that, Nevil. It may help you to realize something of my feelings this week in seeing what I believe to be her one chance of freedom slipping from under her. The ordinary hotel-folk would probably have disturbed her very little. But talk with men like you, Mr. Broome, and Signor Martino over-stimulates her imagination, her emotions, which must be subordinated to her brain and commonsense if she is to stand on her own feet when her father and I go back to India. Surely any studies, however uncongenial, are better than her only alternative--an ignominious return to the arms of a dissolute, bigoted bridegroom. Not that I think she would go. This afternoon, when I was driven to speak of it, she said: 'I would kill myself rather.' Indian women are like that; and I firmly believe she spoke the truth."

"Good God!" the man broke out again. "It's downright brutal that a sensitive white-souled girl should be so tormented----" His voice near failed him; but he steadied it, and went on: "What are you going to do about it, Audrey? Speak to her father----?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think. Most likely I shall urge her to speak to him herself. The understanding between them is singularly perfect; and he may feel less baffled than I do by her deplorable change of front. But it's useless for you and me to discuss possibilities. I merely felt you ought to know; and now----" She consulted her wrist-watch. "I must hurry back. I shall be late for dinner. Are you coming in?"

"Not yet. You've given me too much to think about. But I'll see you to the hotel."

"Please not. I'd rather be alone. I have a good deal to think about, too. But it's close upon dinner-time, you know."

"Is it? Good night. You're a brick, Audrey; and I'm a worthless good-for-nothing. Forgive me if I've made things harder for you--or her."

To that she had no answer save: "Good night": and he, wringing her hand, turned down the lesser pathway that winds among shrubs of myrtle, cytisus, and olive toward that rocky promontory from which the hotel takes its name.

Flat and tapering, free of sun and wind, with its carpet of sea-lavender and scarlet-leaved mesembryanthemum; its cushions of myrtle and lentisk; its grey-green clumps of aloe and fringe of rugged white rocks--the Cap d'Antibes reaches farther out into the Mediterranean than any other headland of Southern France. To sit near its peak at dusk--with all the coast behind one, looking away to the Esterelles and hidden Corsica, is almost to believe oneself on a steadygoing vessel in mid-ocean.

As Nevil Sinclair strode rapidly toward this haven of solitude, the fires of sunset were ebbing from a sky tenderly rippled with light cloud, that threw into sharp relief the few outstanding features of the Cap. Here a lone umbrella-pine made a bold smudge of sepia on the delicate pallor beyond; there the crescent-topped outline of a spurious Moorish archway--remnant of some forgotten folly--was bitten out sharp and clear. Farther on, from a black mass of building and bushes the little lighthouse reared its head; and farthest of all, the skeleton of a dead aloe-flower, upspringing boldly from its nest of jagged leaves, was etched as with a fine-pointed pen upon the darkening sea.

Mechanically, the artist's eye noted every detail of the picture, even while brain and heart seethed with such an exalted mingling of rage and rapture as he had never known; a white heat of chivalry that burnt up in its pure flame mere accidents of race and creed; that bade him, at all hazards, snatch this heavenly-sweet flower of girlhood out of the impasse for which he was in a measure responsible.

Blessed Fate that had brought her to him! Not that he might paint her merely; but that he might save her from a degradation worse than death. Audrey, plucky Audrey, need not trouble her head about ways and means. He--Nevil Sinclair--would be the god out of the machine. This pearl of womanhood--who had awakened his talent no less than his heart--should not die, but live--and give herself to him. For he could win her; some inner voice assured him of that, even while he marvelled at his own arrogance. The divine intoxication that had put a new song in his mouth, blinded him to the hundred and one prosaic obstacles that hovered outside the charmed circle of his dream, biding their time. He could have shouted aloud in triumph, there alone with the darkening sky and sea. This was something altogether different from earlier sentimental adventures. So lightly, in his unawakened ignorance, had he taken the name of Love in vain.

One only problem puzzled him. Why had he not discovered the truth until to-day? From the first she had so enthralled his imagination; so satisfied his taste for all that was rare and beautiful. Yet her tender years, her impalpable aura of grace and purity had made her seem a being set apart from the rough and tumble of common life; and always absorption in his picture had stood between him and personal thoughts of her.

But to-day in that direct contact of spirit with spirit, the divine ray had passed between them. They had touched the electric force that vivifies the world and hurls it spinning through the spheres. Then, in that moment, he had first seen her as woman--the one woman, preordained to be his own; brought to him by Fate, in the teeth of opposing circumstances across six thousand miles of sea. Striking sharply upon this revelation, Audrey's story--that was to have disenchanted him--or at least checked sentimental impulses--had wrought the very opposite effect. The rage it engendered sprang, not from chivalry alone, but from the consuming jealousy that is twin-brother to passion. He had scarce known how to control himself, to hide his secret, as it must be hid till he could win speech of his beloved alone.

And here the first prosaic obstacle reared its head. The thing seemed impossible of achievement. But their destiny was assured; and somehow, somewhen, it must come to pass. If matters looked too hopeless, he could always write, or speak first to her father. But neither alternative was to his taste. It was she to whom he should first tell the secret, that he might watch the rose of her heart blossom in her cheeks, that lamp of her pure spirit lighten in her eyes....

At this point he found himself far out among the last of the broken rocks, whitely fringed with foam. Here he sat him down, lit a cigar and gave himself up to his fairy-tale, while the sky changed imperceptibly from grey to indigo, the stars from silver to gold; and the half-moon, high in the east, took on her borrowed robe of light.

Appetite rather than hunger whispered of dinner that by now must be half over. But in his present mood he was loath to face the heat and noise of the crowded dining-room and the penetrating eyes of Cuthbert Broome. He would go in when it was over, and get a plate of something from his friend the head-waiter; and avoiding the studio, make straight for his own room. In the meantime, his cigar--while it dulled the edge of the body's need, enhanced his mood of dreams, his visions of a purely Bohemian life with this Jewel of Delight here in the glowing South or among the Italian hills. Only let Martino praise the picture he was to see to-morrow, and he, Nevil, would devote himself in earnest to the art that, but for her, might have withered and died in him unrecognized, unfulfilled. Henceforth her temperament of genius would be as oil to the flame of his new-lighted lamp. He would not take her home, or subject her to the ordeal of family disapproval; with a throb of exultation he perceived how completely such a marriage would exonerate him from the rôle of politician and landed proprietor that had hung over him like the sword of Damocles for seven unfruitful years.

And Jane?

He smiled to himself in the darkness at thought of her impotent wrath. But his father's wrath--tinged with bitter disappointment--was another affair altogether. For Nevil--primarily the child of his mother--seemed to have inherited also her indelible tenderness toward the stolid, obstinate, good-hearted man, who had so little true affinity with either wife or son. This same tenderness that had kept him loitering at the cross-roads, surged up in him now and threw the first shadow across his enchanted garden of dreams....

It was close on ten when he ran up the hotel steps on to the balcony-verandah. The hall was nearly empty, and waiters were putting out the lights. He went straight to the restaurant, unearthed a plate of cold tongue and a bottle of Burgundy; asked if there were any letters, and was presented with an envelope addressed in the square, uncompromising hand of Lady Roscoe.

"Damn," said he softly; and pocketing the missive, went upstairs.

Once in his room, he sat down by the small table that held his books, manuscript, and painting gear. "Now for Jane's hydrostatics!" he mused, slipping a penknife under the flap. It was her answer to his own first letter, giving chapter and verse for his impulsive flight abroad; and through the curt, vigorous phrases he could hear his sister's familiar tone.

"My dear Boy,--You bolted. That's the plain truth, stripped of lame excuses. But my party isn't coming off after all. So you can safely take the next express home! In fact, you must come and do your duty at the election like a man. You should have heard Lord Shandon's inquiries after you the other night. Polite, of course--he wouldn't be otherwise to _me_--but scathing. That I should live to hear a brother of _mine_ called 'shirker'--even by implication! But what do you care for our good name? So long as the sun shines and there's a yard of blank canvas in the market, the dear old Place might go down before the auctioneer's hammer and I might take in washing without your turning a hair. Why I was allowed to be the eldest, and yet not a _man_, passes my comprehension. All I can do is to try and hammer you into the outward semblance of a Sinclair. Little enough use! But it's my duty, and the word carries weight with _some_ of us.

"If you've an ounce of right feeling or affection for the dear old Dad, you _ought_ to be at home this spring. I don't quite know what's wrong with him, and he refuses to consult Dr. Ransome. He seems just irritable and restless and out of spirits. Not like himself, in fact. Business worries, I fancy, from something Thornbrook said the other day about the estate. But I'm sure it would give him a fillip to have you at the Place for a few weeks, and to feel he had a personal stake in the election. So just pocket your artistic selfishness, and wire 'Coming' to my town address. Don't give yourself time to haver and change your mind. Remember I _expect_ you. So it's _au revoir_.

"Your affectionate sister,
"JANE ROSCOE."

"Damn!" her affectionate brother remarked again--not softly this time--flinging the sheet from him as if it burnt his fingers.

Then, rising, he paced the room in a turmoil of conflicting wrath, indecision and dismay. Here was no shadow, but a bomb flung ruthlessly into his enchanted garden. Jane and her exhortations went for nothing. But the poor old man, worried and out of spirits--that was quite another matter. The inherent impulse of tenderness tugged at him; and, but for the tone of Jane's letter, might have overruled "artistic selfishness," for all the chains that bound him, and his recoil from the prospect of three or four weeks at Bramleigh Beeches alone with Sir George in his present mood.

The first warmth of greeting over, he would probably be sworn at, and certainly bored to extinction by the old futile effort at playing good comrade to the father with whom he had nothing in common save the mysterious tie of blood and their unspoken allegiance to her who was gone. For, even when Nevil exasperated him most, the stubborn heart of Sir George clave to the son who spoke the language of his dead wife, and smiled upon him with her eyes. A sore point, this last, for Jane who, in secret, sympathized acutely with the immaculate elder brother in the parable. For her, the loyal, the ever-present, neither fatted calf nor feasting. But for Nevil, the defaulter----. Eyebrows and shoulders, mutely eloquent, implied the rest.

Could she have witnessed his present perturbation, she might have admitted a rudiment of conscience in his spiritual anatomy. Certain it is that, in the face of such a call, his picture alone would not have held him back. But--there remained Lilamani; her possible love for him; and the cruel alternations between which she stood.

So half the night long he agonized and deliberated over the age-old problem--that loses no whit of its tragedy through repetition--how far a man is constrained to cripple the fulfilment of his own life and love, out of respect for his father's wishes. Can filial duty condemn a son to live unhappy that his father may die happy? All the undiluted Nevil in his blood cried out, No, a thousand times. How, then, if he went home immediately for a week or two and thrashed out the whole matter with his father once for all? A few days earlier such a step had been conceivable, if uncongenial; but now--on the eve of his divine discovery--! No, again.

Should Lilamani prove indifferent, or marriage with an Englishman beyond the pale of possibility, time enough then to think of fathers and of flight. For the present two events only filled all his horizon: Martino's verdict, and Lilamani's answer. On the morrow a wire should speed homeward: "Immediate return impossible. Writing"; nor would he put pen to paper till his fate was sealed.