Chapter III: Part 3

“There are several points that still remain dark to me,” said Northcote, “in this odd affair. Having come in a moment of high inspiration to the attic of the obscure, having discovered its occupant to be of an uncommon faculty, having entrusted him with your business, all of a sudden, because of a singular revelation of his talent, you discard him and have recourse to an abject mediocrity.”

“You are certainly a queer fellow,” said the solicitor, amused by this piece of egotism. “A most unconventional fellow--quite the most unconventional fellow I have ever met.”

“Ah, there is my offence,” said the young man; “I have outraged the gods, I have disregarded the proprieties. Yet I would ask you, are not all conventions for the common vulgar? Are not nature’s most authentic specimens, those pioneers in every sphere of mundane activity who add the little more that means so much, are not these to walk about the earth just as nature fashioned them?”

“I am pleased to say,” said Mr. Whitcomb, emitting a soft purr of contentment, “I am a common lawyer. The whys and wherefores are not my province; I take things as they are.”

“That does not prevent all your instincts being up in arms when you encounter the unusual. How curious it is that the most deadly sin in the eyes of the average person is that shameless egotism which transacts the real business of the world.”

“If there were no rules to which one had to conform,” said the solicitor, “there would be no living in the world. Conventions to my mind are highly necessary. Of course every man has a perfect right to consider himself a tremendous fellow, but that is no reason why he should say as much to his neighbor. If he does, his neighbor will want to refute it.”

“And if he should throw down his gage, and prove to his neighbor in a perfectly logical and scientific manner that he is a tremendous fellow, his neighbor will not be content with wanting to refute him; his neighbor will want to shoot him, or hang him, or burn him, or crucify him, and it is long odds that his neighbor will succeed in so doing.”

“I am afraid I don’t follow you.”

“I am speaking of the fate that awaited upon the majority of the tremendous fellows whom we discover in the pages of history; the founders of the religions, the saints, the heroes, the discoverers, the makers of the philosophical systems.”

“One suspects,” said the solicitor, “it was because they made the world so uncomfortable while they were living in it.”

“I agree. But what a world we should have if they had not.”

“It is not at all clear to my mind,” said the solicitor, “that in the long run these fellows of whom you are speaking have not done more harm to the world than they have done good. Not only did their abnormal egotisms run am k during their own lives, but after their deaths, which as you suggest were often brutal and unnecessary, they continued in the guise of saints and martyrs, and inspired teachers to wreak iconoclasm and discomfort upon mankind.”

“One can readily believe,” said the young man, “that you, sir, in your capacity of a member of the comfortable classes, to which by fortune and education you belong, would fetter the march of ideas by every means in your power.”

“Yes,” said the solicitor, drawing peacefully at his cigar; “few things are more distasteful to me personally than ideas. Particularly those lawless ones which proceed from ill-regulated and ill-balanced natures. It seems to me that they are responsible for nine-tenths of the misery that is in the world.”

“Do I take it that, in your opinion, so far from these so-called ‘great men’ of whom we are speaking meriting esteem from their fellows, their doctrines as well as their persons should be pursued with the fire and the sword; and that means should be adopted to exterminate the growth of these ‘great’ ones from the comfortable republic which is inhabited by the average person?”

“I would suggest it. I have given little thought to this subject, but I cannot think of a single historical personage of whom I do not consider that in the long run mankind would have gained immeasurably had he never been born into its midst.”

“This is extreme doctrine,” said Northcote; “and may I pay you the compliment, sir, of saying that I find you to be one of a greater courage than I had suspected.”

“All the so-called ‘greatness’ one finds enshrined in history,” the solicitor continued, “proceeds from an abnormal egotism; and I think even a perfectly commonplace mind such as my own, which is content with the obvious, has only to take a most superficial look around to see that the abnormal is the only evil against which mankind has to contend.”

“Necessarily,” said Northcote, “since the self-consciousness of matter is the ugliest phenomenon known to natural law. But to follow the line of your reasoning, the abnormal person, whatever the sphere of his activity, is invariably the enemy of his kind?”

“That is my suggestion; the suggestion of an average mind that is content to rest on the plane of matter-of-fact common sense.”

“You would say that it would have been better for mankind had the poet Shakespeare never been given to it?”

“Unquestionably. In my view, all poetry, even in what we are pleased to call a sublime and concentrated form, is a direct emanation of morbid sensibility. It stimulates those already sufficiently irritable faculties of the mind which call for a never-ceasing vigilance to hold in check. Poetry is the chief enemy against which rational common sense has to contend.”

“Then in your view the greatest enemy of the human race of which history has taken cognizance is Jesus Christ?”

“I will not say the greatest; but He shares the opprobrium that attaches to His class. It was that type of abnormalism which developed the religious sense in man; and any sense more calculated to provoke infinite misery, any sense more completely out of harmony with the facts of existence, one cannot conceive.”

“In a word, excess of any kind is repugnant to the average person?”

“One would say so; mainly, I think, because it extorts such heavy toll of all who are brought in contact with it.”

“Then elevation of feeling, profundity of thought, subtlety of insight, austerity of morals, heroism, beauty, in short, the superlative in any guise whatever, should be eliminated from the republic of the average sensual person?”

“If the average sensual person could contrive a republic for himself, that would be its first decree.”

“Hence his hostility to those abnormal egotisms which are known as ‘greatness’?”

“As far as the average person can see, that appears to go down to the root of the matter.”

“Well, sir,” said the young advocate, “permit me to take a slight parable out of my own experience to refute this supposition.”

“Pray do so.”

The advocate selected as a preliminary a second cigar from the case of the solicitor, and resettled himself in comfort in the corner of the vehicle.

“All my life,” said Northcote, “from the farthest day to which my memory goes back, I have been persecuted with the consciousness of my own importance. In all my dealings with others, in the daily outlook upon my surroundings, not only have I been unable to detach myself from my own private entity, but I have also been obsessed with the knowledge that that entity was so much more powerful than any with which it happened to come in contact. As you will believe, a feeling of that kind spelt serious inconvenience to its possessor. At my private school I was the recipient of many cuffs in my capacity of a shy, nervous, and intensely self-centred child who detested games. It grew to be a special function of my youthful companions, and also that of every self-respecting master, to ‘knock the nonsense out of Northcote.’ However, so far from knocking it out, these disinterested efforts appeared to knock it farther in. And when in the fulness of time I ascended to the ampler region of a public school, my sufferings were materially increased. I was shunned, I was tormented, an opprobrious name was fastened upon me; and had not the fire which burned so intensely at the centre of myself kept me warm in spirit, life would have become intolerable.

“It was a consciousness of personal power haunting me day and night which caused me to scorn the gods of the little world in which I found myself, and to disregard the petty conventions which mean so much in every phase of human life. Accordingly I was marked out as an object of hatred and ridicule. However, as years went on, and I came to be endowed with the somewhat unusual physical frame which you may have observed I possess, I determined in a somewhat cynical spirit of revenge to devote myself to one of those stupid and unmeaning exercises, my contempt for which was one of the most potent causes of my unpopularity. Never before had I condescended to approach one of the usual school ‘games,’ other than in a spirit of levity; but when I awoke to the discovery that nature had somewhat ironically endowed me with a power of muscle, a suppleness of limb, and a bulk of inches which would in themselves make me the envy of every athlete in the school, I determined to turn them to account. It was in no spirit of open competition with those whom I despised that I resolved to become the most accomplished football-player who had ever appeared in the school. It was my somewhat curious method of avenging all the insults, all the barbarous forms of injustice, that had been wreaked upon me. I might have requited my assailants in other ways, but I was too proud to employ the methods of those whom I felt to be my mental, physical, and moral inferiors. Therefore I gave myself up to this mechanical exercise, and an abnormal concentration of will-power which I have always possessed, in conjunction with remarkable physical gifts, had the result for which I had prayed.

“When this new prowess was first bruited abroad it was received with derision. But in spite of an organized public opinion which in every walk of life assails the unconventional, this ability became a source of distress to the expert. ‘It comes to this,’ said the captain of the School Fifteen, after a House cup-tie in which dismay had been carried into the camp of the opposition, ‘if this sort of thing goes on, we shall have to think about playing “Cad” Northcote for the School.’ The shouts of derision with which this prophecy was received are still in my ears. However ‘this sort of thing’ continued to go on, and sure enough, to the amazement of men and gods, the day dawned on which ‘Cad’ Northcote did play for the School. He dominated the scene of action in every game in which he took part; but such was the strength of public opinion that the ruling powers withheld his ‘cap’ until the very last moment, the eve of the chief game of the year. It was the match against our great school rivals, a neighboring seminary, of which, sir, I discern by certain unfortunate tricks of manner that you are an alumnus.”

“Never mind about that,” said the solicitor; “get on with your story. It is enormously interesting. Did you play against us in the great match?”

“Yes, I played against you in the great match. The ‘fez’ of the School Fifteen, which should have been mine weeks before, was duly presented to me on the eve of ‘Waterloo,’ for although it was a dreadful crime to be ‘unpopular,’ it was yet highly necessary to ‘take on’ the French. And I recall now with some amusement the manner in which I contrived to flout the _amour propre_ of the venerable institution into whose service I was pressed. Instead of turning out in the garish colors with which I had been honored at the eleventh hour, I appeared upon the scene in a costume of the most immaculate whiteness. As soon as the captain beheld this apparition on the field of play, he came to me and said insolently: ‘Northcote, what do you mean by getting yourself up like this? Go back at once and put on the School colors.’ I rejoined: ‘I play for the School in my own colors on my own terms. I would like you to understand that if I am with you, I am not of you.’ There was a hurried consultation among my fourteen fellow players, and although their sense of outrage was enormous, that was neither the time nor the place to indulge it.

“The French were ‘taken on’ as they had never been ‘taken on’ before. But the debacle was the work of one man. Such a game as was played on that occasion by ‘Cad’ Northcote was never seen before or afterwards. According to tradition, which to this day invests his pious memory, he spent half his time in crossing the line of his adversaries, and the other half in standing the opposing three-quarters on their heads. He felt himself to be equipped for the part of the man of destiny. I believe the rout of our hereditary rivals on that occasion came near to approaching three figures.”

“You don’t mean to say,” exclaimed the solicitor, “that you are the great Northcote, the fellow who led the English pack while he was still at school?”

“No less.”

“Why, then I saw you play at the Rectory Field sometime in the ’nineties. I remember you had those damned Welshmen over the line three times in the first five minutes. You pushed them all over the place.”

“Yes, we pushed them all over the place. You saw me at the summit of my fame. And I am now coming to the point of my parable. From those days of my inordinate success, which conferred not only lustre upon myself, but upon my school and all who were associated with me, I became not only a hero, but a figure of legend. The opprobrious title ‘Cad’ Northcote was dropped as completely as though it had never been. My lightest opinion was treasured, and heaven only can tell us how many they were on every point under the sun. I became a dictator where formerly I had suffered infinite misery and persecution. By a display of personal force criticism was laid low; yet, sir, according to this theory of yours, it must have been inimical to all who came within its sphere of influence.”

“I would say so certainly; demoralizing alike to its possessor, and to those who despised it in its growth and abased themselves before it in its flower.”

“Yet was it not with bated breath that you inquired whether I was the ‘great’ Northcote?”

“Pray do not overlook the fact, my dear fellow, that however much the average sensual mind may deplore the false gods before which it kneels, it has not the power to deliver itself from their thrall. This passion to ‘excel’ is a flaw inherent in the race.”

“It is at least pleasant to discover,” said Northcote, “that the average sensual mind is unable to banish the sentiment of admiration from its republic.”

“If it could,” said the solicitor, “there would be an end of these abnormal egotisms of which we have been speaking.”

“I do not agree,” said Northcote. “It is not a thirst for admiration from which they spring, but a thirst for power. And it is an uncomfortable reflection for those who belong to your republic that the world has been so arranged that mere power will always have its devotees. How lamentably your own practice breaks down before your theory. You have reverence for me as a player of football, and Tobin’s powers as an advocate fill you with enthusiasm.”

“True; and it is men like Tobin and yourself who forbid any reconciliation between theory and practice. A phenomenon is always inimical to the society in which it appears. It may stand forth as memorable and fascinating as you please, but it does so at the expense of balance, law, and reason. Your presence in the football match ruined the game as a game, just as I have observed that the presence of Tobin in a case has been disastrous to the cause of justice.”

“Nevertheless, you invoke the aid of Tobin on every possible occasion.”

“I do.”

“Upon what pretext, may I ask, since you deplore his gifts so deeply?”

“The answer is simple. To whatever extent I may deplore the condition of things into which, through no fault of my own, I have been projected, beyond everything I am of a comfortable and conforming disposition. Therefore I make my subscription to the things that are. I have none of the reformer’s zeal; and it is one of the things for which I am thankful.”

At this stage of the conversation the voice of the cabman was heard from the roof.

“We’re in Norbiton, sir. Which house?”

“Straight on to the end of the road,” said Mr. Whitcomb; “then first to the right, second to the left, and it is the first house you come to at the corner of Avenue Road.”

“How quickly we’ve come,” said Northcote. “One would not have thought it possible to cover the distance in this time; with a tired horse, too.”

“The sound of your own voice may have been as agreeable to you,” said the solicitor, “as it has been to me. I confess it has passed the time very well.”

Northcote deduced from the more indulgent air of his companion that this imperious personality of his, of whose possession he was so conscious and upon which he built so much, had not been without an effect. He was thinking of the victory that he felt sure would crown his tenacity, when the hansom drew up at the gate of a very comfortable-looking suburban residence. It was girt with a high stone wall, and stood in a pleasant plot of ground amid tall trees.

As they got out of the hansom, the solicitor, after searching his pockets in leisurely fashion, collected four shillings and a sixpence and handed them up to the cabman on his perch.

“Wot’s this ’ere?” said the cabman gruffly. “This ain’t no use ter me, guv’nor. Yer promised me a quid.”

“In one’s dealings with the criminal classes,” said the solicitor, “one finds that the only method of self-protection is the use of their own weapons.”

“Yer promised me a quid, guv’nor,” said the cabman, who was too excited to follow the course of this reasoning.

“May I say,” rejoined the solicitor, with great suavity, “that a promise is considered to be a thing of no particular value among the members of the criminal classes.”

“Criminal classes! Wot!” cried the cabman, in a gust of fury. “Breaks yer promises and calls yerself a toff! Not a-going to part with that quid. Well, guv’nor, we’ll just see abaht it.”

Emitting a string of foul expressions, the cabman hopped down from his perch.

“Call yerself a toff? Give me that quid or I’ll knock out yer ---- eye.”

“Try,” said the solicitor, with a coolness that his companion felt to be inimitable.

Inflamed a little by drink as well as by a sense of injury, the cabman prepared to exact a summary vengeance. Breathing slaughter he came at Mr. Whitcomb with his fists in the air; and that gentleman, stepping aside coolly and nimbly, hit him with a hand ungloved for the purpose a heavy blow in the face. The cabman dropped like a log in the slush of the gutter.

“A broken nose,” said Mr. Whitcomb, turning to his companion, while they stood watching the unfortunate cabman gather himself slowly and painfully together.

“I feel for you, cabby,” said the solicitor, to his rueful assailant, “but I can assure you this is wholly in the public interest. Thieves and bullies, as well as fools, have to be taught by experience.”

“Why the ’ell didn’t yer sye so?” whimpered the cabman, as he strove in vain to stanch the blood that poured from his nose. “’Ow the ’ell should I know yer could use ’em? I piked yer fer a toff in yer ’igh ’at and yer fur coat and yer glass eye; ’ow the ’ell should I know yer could use ’em?”

“That is for you banditti to discover,” was the rejoinder of his fare. “It is perhaps my chief recreation to thrash hansom cabmen in the interests of society. I am proud to say your case is one of many.”

“Blow me tight, a prize-fighter!”

“It is not too much to say I might have aspired to that calling, if the somewhat material nature of my ambitions had not summoned me to a more lucrative if less honorable practice. Twenty years ago I was considered rather useful with the gloves.”

“Not so rusty nah, guv’nor,” said the cabman, imperfectly mollified, and stanching his nose with his sleeve. “Give us a extra bob an’ I’ll drive to the ’orspital.”

“Here is your sovereign,” said Mr. Whitcomb. “Training and education make one so punctilious in regard to one’s word, although common sense assures one that like the majority of your class you are a rogue, a liar, and a bully; in a word, a common pirate. Here is your money; and have the goodness to take yourself off as reticently as you can.”

There was not a more astonished Jehu amid the ranks of his London brethren than this unfortunate specimen, as he climbed into the seat he had left so injudiciously. Bestowing a succession of brutal strokes of the whip upon his even more unfortunate horse, he was lost immediately in the sleet and darkness of the morning, leaving Northcote, who was only slightly less astonished than his bleeding and blasphemous self, standing at the side of the solicitor against the gate of the latter’s residence.

XI

MR. WHITCOMB’S FOIBLES

“In moments of relaxation from my studies,” said Northcote, taking his companion by the arm, “I like to look upon myself as something of an amateur of the human mind. I find a great fascination in the endless nuances of the human character. Permit me to say that I have never come across a more promising subject than is offered by your own personal complexity. Why in the name of the marvellous did you batter that poor devil if you had no intention of cozening him out of his money?”

“He suffered for one of my foibles. I am convinced that a society of banded robbers is at work to blackmail, bully, and despoil the peaceable citizens of London. The law is powerless to touch them, their operations are so cunning and are ordered on so mean a scale. Therefore it would seem to behove every stalwart private individual to make war upon them openly; and I am proud to affirm that a good measure of success has attended my own puny efforts. It is quite possible that in the course of these labors I may happen upon a retired champion who chooses to eke out a well-deserved leisure in a manner so unsavory, but in the meantime I deal out a dozen broken noses a year to this banditti.”

“You are an enigma, indeed,” said the young man. “You professed just now to accept the things that are, that your last intention is to effect any sort of social reform; yet look what you do. Again, you profess to be a connoisseur in men of promise, yet with your eyes open you reject the most authentic specimen that has ever swum into your ken. Further, you deride every form of ‘greatness,’ and despise every manifestation of the force that it is your daily business to employ.”

“I am an enigma, right enough,” said the solicitor; “yet, for that matter, so are we all. Who shall explain himself? Who shall attempt it? I preach one thing in all sincerity, yet with an equal sincerity I practise another. Nature designed the lymphatic Samuel Whitcomb to be the most consistent man alive, yet see, my friend, how malleable he is, how mobile, how entirely at the mercy of the caprices that whirl about in himself. It gives me an indescribable pleasure to thrash hansom cabmen; my being craves for that form of relaxation; it is its conception of true physical and intellectual enjoyment.”

“Did I not understand you to say,” asked the astonished young man, “that these Promethean labors were undertaken in the service of society?”

“Do not believe me,” said the solicitor, with his rich laugh floating melodiously into the chill night air. “I would deceive others with that pleasant figment, but I do not impose on myself. It is a sheer animal impulse, which I am powerless to withstand, that causes me to break the noses of this banditti.”

“Well, sir,” said Northcote, “I will wish you good night. It has been a real pleasure to have met you. The enchanting complexity of your personal character will beguile me during my long walk home. As for the brief that I hold, unless a whim should cause you to obtain a postponement of the trial, you will find it in my custody at the Old Bailey on Friday morning.”

“Not so fast, my friend,” said Mr. Whitcomb, as Northcote turned on his heel. “You had better come in and have a drink before you start. It will be a dreadfully cold and wearisome tramp back to town through this slush in the small hours of the morning.”

“My own foible is to walk the streets at night,” said Northcote. “That is the only taste of real freedom one enjoys in a city. It is only during the middle of the night in a place like London that one can think one’s own thoughts and breathe God’s air. But as we do not appear quite to have settled this momentous business of the brief, which may mean so much more to society at large than you can imagine, I will enter your domain and drink one glass of your whiskey.”

The solicitor led the way thereto, unlocked the front door with a latch-key, and Northcote found himself in the interior of a modern dwelling-house. It was furnished with perfect taste, fitted with every luxury. The heavy mats on the floors muffled the sounds of his feet; the warmed air that assailed his nostrils was seductive and delicate after the bitter inclemency from which he had taken refuge. Numerous objects of vertu were scattered in every nook, and the walls were lined with pictures that astonished him beyond measure.

“Why, that is a Whistler--one of the two or three!” he exclaimed, as he passed in the hall an unpretentious-looking portrait.

“I got it years ago for a song, before they began to be bought,” said Mr. Whitcomb modestly.

“And what is that stuck over the stairs? From this distance it looks suspiciously like a Velasquez. But surely that is in the Prado?”

“Aren’t you confounding it with the companion picture?”

“I had no idea we had this in England.”

“We have many things in England which fortunately are not matters of common knowledge. Every year they are becoming rarer, owing to that scourge of nations, the press. If you value my regard, you will forget that you have noticed it.”

“Did you get that also before they began to be bought?”

“There is rather a strange story attaching to that picture.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Northcote, with an anticipatory eagerness; “that is where pictures are so unlike women--they are worthless if they have no history.”

“Possess your soul in patience, my friend,” said the solicitor, with his rich chuckle; “the history of the lady in the blue dress is not going to be told.”

“I must get a bit nearer,” said the young man, with shining eyes, “Eh, she’s authentic! You should be a proud man to keep that little lady under your own roof.”

“As proud,” said the solicitor, in his unctuous voice, “as any other Goth of a householder in his snug suburban residence. Conceive the feelings of the Huns when they overran Rome.”

“Or the mob,” said the young man, “when they sacked the Tuileries.”

“Is she not precious, the little girl in the blue frock?”

At the sound of soft accents, Northcote, a little startled, swung round to confront a lady. She had come upon him noiselessly, and was standing at his side.

“Hullo, Angel!” said Mr. Whitcomb, bestowing a kiss upon her; “this is late for you. Allow me to present Mr. Northcote, England’s future Lord Chancellor.”

Northcote found himself to be holding the hand of a singularly beautiful woman. All that art can devise to enhance the sure, strong, and original groundwork of nature was displayed about her, chastely yet abundantly. Diamonds were strewn in the flounces of her gown; three tight bands of pearls clasped her throat; her shoulders gleamed; her hair had the evanescent hues of the fleeciest silk--each tress was the fruit of cunning and labor. Yet through every curve of her gorgeous fairness there peeped forth an almost quaint simplicity. Her eyes were bright; her features, each of which seemed to add a personal brilliancy to her expression, had a lustre at once naïve and opulent, as becomes one who accepts greedily all the thousand and one glittering and delightful minutiæ that money adds to life; who has both hands outstretched to receive them; who carries them joyously, like a child, to her bosom; who presses them to her lips.

“His name is Northcote,” said the solicitor, patting her white arm. “From the window of his garret in Fleet Street he surveys the universe with the haughtiest eyes imaginable.”

“How clever of him,” said the lady, in a little melodious accent.

“Those eyes of his know everything,” said the solicitor. “Before them human nature unveils the whole of its mysteries. They range over the stars in their courses, and he himself is familiar with spirits. They have already promised to enable him to conquer the world.”

“He must be what they call a favorite of fortune,” said the lady, with engaging laughter. “He must be clever.”

“Yes; he confesses it.”

“He is young,” said the lady, with a tender little sigh.

She half-turned to meet the eyes of the young man, and looked straight into their sombre depths. Her own had a steadiness that was not at all imperious--they were not even faintly insolent; the candor of their inquiry was not so much as tinged with encounter. An infant staring with its ruthless curiosity into the human soul could have hardly dealt less in implication. Yet the act itself seemed to acquire for the young man the nature of a feat so meaningless, yet so charged with meaning did it appear. Only the support of a confident personal beauty rendered it possible; yet it was nothing at all, not even a comment, nor the formation of an opinion, hardly the faint awakening of an interest; all the same the blood had invaded Northcote’s ears.

“You mustn’t look at him so long,” said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing. “You are making him shy.”

“Pray look at me as long as you please,” said Northcote, who had recovered already his self-possession. “And if you do really succeed in making me shy, it may be shown to you one day as not the least of your works.”

Her laughter rang out pure and clear like the tinkling of steel.

“Yes, he is clever,” she said, “although he is so young. I am so pleased. I am sure to like you, Mr. Northcote; I like all men who are clever.”

“Is it that you have so little to fear?”

Northcote was now returning her frank look of inquiry with a gaze of equal candor.

“Yes, there is truth in that,” she said sagely.

“Are not the powerful among us the most vulnerable to your sex?” said Northcote gently.

“Yes, that is true also,” she exclaimed, in a sort of glee. “Why has it not occurred to one before?”

“If you speak much with this gentleman,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “he will tell you a large number of things that you will be surprised to think have not occurred to you before.”

“He looks like that,” said the lady, betraying a dimple. “I hope you don’t mind my looking so much at your face, Mr. Northcote. It is one of those fascinating faces that seem to give a new meaning to old ideas.”

“Yes, you are very well matched,” said Mr. Whitcomb cheerfully; “and doubtless you will find a great deal to say to one another. But it will not be to-night, madam. Are you aware it is a quarter to two? Now suppose you play us a bit of a tune while we take a much-needed drink, and then I shall send you to bed.”

The lady led the way to a drawing-room. Luxury and taste appeared there to have been carried to their highest point. Northcote, whose delicately poised sensibilities vibrated to the simplest of external things, was fain to believe that paradise itself could not have shaped a bolder contrast to that bleak squalor which he had been doomed to inhabit year after year. Somewhere apart in the sanctuary of the spirit, the home of so many complex and marvellous things, were chords responsive to the challenge of the beautiful. They could thrill before the manifestation of its power, even in that which was exterior, material, unmeaning. These cushioned enchantments, this bright bower, with so exquisite an occupant casting slim jewelled fingers across a wonderful instrument, sent a shock of intoxication into his blood. At the same instant he was conscious of a stab of shame. It was the flesh, the draperies, the trappings to which his pulses responded; it was not the magical secret which was contained in the miniatures upon the walls, in the passionate delicacy of the cadences which sobbed themselves out liquidly under the siren’s touch of this beautiful woman.

He stood in front of the cosy fire, glass in hand. A soft warmth overspread his being. His eyes glanced from the white shoulders of the enchantress to the thousand and one hues which were blended so cunningly in the carpets and tapestries. The subtle playings of light and shadow, the mellow effects of the atmosphere, the softness of the music, began to assail his senses with indescribable pangs. He feasted his eyes, his ears, his nostrils; they rewarded him with gladness. His heart beat violently.

“These rare kinds of genius, are they not barbarous?” he said, when the siren had ceased to cast her fingers.

“It is like children lisping,” she said, half-turning her head, with a smile that curved her mouth entrancingly.

“Yes,” said the young man, “poetry, romance, imagination are primitive; they belong to the childhood of nations, to the dawn of new worlds. What a divine inspiration these sweet-voiced children of nature who are bought out of due time, these unhappy Poles, Germans, and Frenchmen bring to their despair. Instead of sitting down in black coats to make their music into beef and mutton, they should be tripping through the glades piping to the birds, the trees, the bright air.”

“This is a mad fellow, my angel,” said Mr. Whitcomb indulgently, “but if you are gentle with him you may find him amusing.”

“Mr. Northcote will amuse me enormously,” said the lady, with a demure glance.

“Is it thus you rebuke his madness?” the young man asked.

“On the contrary, I don’t think I have ever seen a sanity that is quite so perfect.”

“Drop it,” said the solicitor, roguishly pinching her ear. “Beware of dangerous turnings, my son. She is quite prepared to play George Sand to anybody’s Alfred de Musset. She even does it to the greengrocer when he comes round with his barrow. I understand they discourse divinely together upon the subject of cabbages.”

“But Witty is too much the man of the world to be jealous about it,” she purred.

“If Pussy hasn’t the opportunity to sharpen her claws on a sofa or an ottoman, she doesn’t mind a wicker-work chair.”

“Witty, darling,” said the lady, “I hate to find rudeness keeping company with real distinction of mind.”

“Upon my word,” expostulated Northcote, seeking to measure her depth, “I consider that rebuke to be much prettier than the one bestowed upon me.”

“When, Mr. Northcote, did I rebuke you?”

“Did you not say I should amuse you enormously?”

“Is not that the only compliment a woman has the power to pay nowadays?”

“Yes, Noodle,” said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing; “but don’t you see how young he is, and therefore how serious? Who would call ‘enormously amusing’ a fitting compliment for one of the seven champions of Christendom? This is a devil of a fellow.”

“I can roar you like any sucking dove,” said the young man.

“How it would thrill one to hear you do it!” said the lady, enfolding him with large eyes.

“He is a man of destiny,” said Mr. Whitcomb; “he carries a genie in his pocket.”

“Oh!” said the lady, with clasped hands.

“One of these fine mornings he will stand the world on its head.”

“O-o-o-o-h!” said the lady.

“And having done that,” said Northcote, “this amazing fellow will dig a hole in the universe for to bury the moon.”

“I would that all men had ambition,” said the lady, looking down at her shoe. “If Witty had only a little of that precious salt which forms a sediment at the bottom of every fine action he would be one’s beau-ideal of a hero, a Christian, and a philosopher.”

“Minx!” exclaimed the solicitor. “If it were not for my ambition I should never rise from my bed.”

“So this wonderful Mr. Whitcomb has no ambition!” said Northcote. “You see I have found his character so complex, that in my capacity of an amateur of the human mind I am picking it out, here a little, there a little, piece by piece.”

“You must give him no marks for ambition,” said the lady. “But since when did you become acquainted with him not to have found out that?”

“Since this evening at ten.”

“Ah, then, you are absolved. He will certainly baffle you at first.”

“He is wholly incomprehensible to me. He is a man of moods who oughtn’t to have any.”

The lady clapped her hands in a little ripple of glee.

“How right,” she cried. “In a dozen little words you have shown me the nothingness of my own knowledge.”

“Of course he has, Vapid One,” said Mr. Whitcomb. “Have I not told you he carries a genie in his pocket?”

“Then that is why his eyes are so deep and bright,” said the lady, turning to peruse Northcote again with an unfathomable coquetry; “and would you not say, Witty, that the genie is in some sort responsible for his mouth?”

“Is this public laying of one another upon the dissecting-table a new parlor-game that has been brought into vogue by the long winter evenings, may I ask?” said Mr. Whitcomb, concealing a yawn.

“Pray do not be insolent, Witty. The proper study of mankind is Man.”

“In the words of Pope,” said the solicitor, turning to replenish his glass.

“You can see how Mr. Whitcomb baffles me,” said Northcote, who did not propose to lose the opportunity of following up his clue.

“Is it his attitude to hansom cabmen that makes him so dark?”

“That is contributory. But it is mainly because he has come before me in the guise of a waverer that I stand so much at fault. If one knows anything about anything one would be prepared to affirm that nature had designed Samuel Whitcomb to know his own mind.”

“He does as a rule. I have never known him waver in anything; but then, of course, it is only quite recently that he has begun to associate with dangerous persons who keep a genie.”

“Do you suggest that he is susceptible to such a thing as a genie? Would it have a malign influence upon him, do you suppose?”

“I would suggest it to be likely in the highest degree.”

“Now, look here, my young friends,” interposed the solicitor at this point, with a broad good humor, “Samuel Whitcomb does not propose to play the part of the corpse at the lecture on anatomy.”

“You will help yourself to another drink like a good boy,” said the lady severely; “and you will please to say nothing until we have dealt with your ‘case.’ Your character need not fear the lancet and bistoury of true science. Tell me, Mr. Northcote, wherein he is a waverer.”

“I am rejoiced to hear you put that question,” said the young man, with a gesture of triumph he did not try to conceal, “for now it is that I unfold my tale.”

XII

THE FAITH OF A SIREN

“At about ten o’clock this evening,” Northcote began, “as I was kneeling in front of the fire--there was not any fire, by the way, as it costs too much to afford one sometimes--in my miserable dwelling at the top of Shepherd’s Inn, the oldest and most moribund of all the buildings in Fleet Street, who should come climbing up to the topmost story of the rickety and unwholesome stairs, under which the rats have made their home for many generations, but Mr. Whitcomb. And what do you suppose was his business?”

“He wished to buy one of your pictures.”

“Ah, no, I am not a painter.”

“I thought there was a chance of it, since they say all very good painters are so poor. But perhaps you are a little too fierce, although I am told these impressionists are terrible men.”

“The painting of pictures is one of the few things I have not attempted,” said the young man, consenting to this interruption that he might sit for his own portrait.

“Well, I should not say you are a writer of fiction. They are so tame. Besides they are all nearly as rich as solicitors.”

“Why not a poet?”

“Why not? although your fierceness would make you a dramatic, not a lyric one. Still it is impossible for you to be a poet, because I am sure that Witty would never have climbed up all those stairs to your miserable garret--I feel sure it is a garret with a sloping roof with a hole in it--”

“There is a pool under the hole which has been caused by the percolation of water--”

“On to the atrocious bare boards, its occupant being much too poor to afford a carpet. Yes, Witty would never have climbed up to your garret if you had been a poet. Or stay, he might, had you been Mrs. Felicia Hemans. As you are a seeker of documentary evidence, he has been known to recite her poems, at the request of the rector of this parish, to a Sunday-school party.”

“Base woman,” said the solicitor, with an air of injury; “I claim to be an admirer of the poet Longfellow.”

“Never, Witty, in your heart; it is merely your fatal craving to be respectable in all things. But in the matter of poetry you must be content to remain outside. You would never have climbed those rickety stairs to that cold garret to see John Keats.”

“Well, now, Featherhead, did I not tell you at the first that our young friend was England’s future Lord Chancellor?”

“I will never believe that; I will never believe that his destiny is the law. His eye has amazing flashes; and is there not a beautiful eloquence burning in his mouth? I cannot think of him as rich Witty, and successful Witty, and smug Witty, like you atrocious lawyers. He is one who would be an overthrower of dynasties, a saviour of societies.”

“You are letting your tongue wag, Noodle. If you talk so much it will take the young man until daybreak to unfold his story.”

“I am an advocate,” said Northcote.

“An advocate,” said the lady softly; “yes, I think you may be that. One no more associates an advocate with the law than one associates a poet with a publisher.”

“You would say,” said Northcote, “that it is the function of an advocate to draw his sword for the truth, for progress, for justice, for every human amenity?”

“I would, indeed. Why, if one thinks about it, surely it is nobler to be an advocate than to be a poet or a soldier. One might say it was the highest calling in the world.”

“Then let us say it,” said the young man, “for I verily believe it to be so.”

“And what, pray, was Witty’s business with this advocate?”

“They are going to hang a woman; and Mr. Whitcomb, who to his infinite complexities and many-sidedness as a citizen of the world adds a leaven of the finest humanitarian principles, has undertaken to save the poor creature from a fate so pitiful.”

“To hang a woman!” said the lady, drawing in her breath with a sharp sound. “Is it still possible to hang a woman at this time of day?”

“Perfectly,” said the young man. “They do it in every Christian country.”

“Then the world has need for an advocate,” said the lady, with horror in her eyes. “It is necessary that we should have yet another champion for our sex in Christendom. Yes, this was he whom Witty came to seek in that garret at the top of all those rickety stairs.”

“He came to seek, and found no less a person,” said Northcote. “And having found this authentic champion of your sex, he gave him a mandate to plead on behalf of this unfortunate creature, the least happy of all its members.”

“What a moment of high inspiration for us and for him,” said the lady, with a glance of tenderness.

“It was even as you say. But I would have you mark what follows. Scarcely has he bestowed these high plenary powers upon one whom he has ventured to select from among all the great multitude to champion your sex in the name of humanity, than for a whim he withdraws his mandate.”

“Impossible; it would be an outrage upon us.”

“Yes; unconditionally and peremptorily he withdraws his mandate.”

“Impossible; they will do the poor creature to death.”

“Yes, they will do her to death. He who has been called to the office of averting her doom has decreed that she must walk to embrace it without a friend to plead her cause before humanity.”

“Surely this cannot be; society itself must protest.”

“One expects it; yet things are as they are.”

The beautiful creature turned to the solicitor with an almost royal air.

“What, sir, can you find to say in your defence?”

Mr. Whitcomb gave a short laugh.

“I yield,” said he.

“You restore the mandate?”

“Yes, yes, yes! My blood be on my own head, but so it must be. It is beyond flesh and blood to withstand such a pair. You, madam, are a sorceress; and this fellow is the devil.”

“I am content to be a sorceress in the cause of my unfortunate sex,” cried the lady; and turning to Northcote added gravely: “And is it not high time that we acquired a devil for our advocate?”

Northcote, who from the moment of her first appearance had foreseen a victory, took her hand to his lips impulsively, with an expression of gratitude.

“I hope this will be all right,” said the solicitor, viewing his surrender with a rueful smile. “You see it is the first time in my life that a foreboding has overtaken me in the midst of action. Whether it is the importance of the case, the obscurity of the advocate, or a certain flamboyancy in his bearing which is so repugnant to an English common lawyer, I cannot tell; but let me confess that I have already a premonition that I have been guilty of a mistake. And I will go farther,” said Mr. Whitcomb, with a wry laugh; “I even see ruin, blue ruin for all concerned, hidden in this irresolute act. Sharp little shivers go down my spine.”

“It is no more than the reaction,” said Northcote, “which attends our highest resolves. Is it not in such moments that a man truly measures himself? It must have been at the fall of the barometer that Samson was shorn of his locks.”

“Is there not always a woman in these cases?” said the lady. “This unfortunate creature whom our advocate is to deliver from the gallows, may she not be a Delilah of some kind?”

XIII

BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT

At these words, lightly spoken, Northcote grew conscious of an indescribable sensation which he had never experienced before.

“If it were one’s custom,” he said, with a laugh as wry as the solicitor’s, “ever to heed the note of prophecy, one might discern it in your words. But I will not do so. Since that dark hour in which I summoned the genie, have I not adopted as my device, ‘Be bold, wary, fear not’?”

“Now you come to mention it,” said the solicitor, “it may be this talk of the genie that has filled me with these forebodings.”

“That is very foolish, Witty,” said the lady. “You have but to look into the eyes of our advocate to know what it is and where it dwells.”

“He is quite entitled to keep one, of course, but it is not usual to take it into society. I sometimes think I may have a bit of a genie myself, but I do what I can to keep it a profound secret from the world.”

“Should a man venture to compliment himself, Witty, upon the score of his reticence?”

“Would you not say,” inquired Northcote, “that all our reticences had their roots in our cowardice?”

“I would love to say it if I dared. And I would love to say of our advocate that his genie enables him to fear nothing.”

“Yes,” said Northcote, “you shall say that.”

“A man must have fear of some kind,” said the solicitor, “if he is to succeed against enormous odds.”

“There may be a place for it in his reflections, but never in his resolves. Hence you will discern how our reticence has its basis in our cowardice.”

“Subtle brute,” said Mr. Whitcomb, giving his mustache a tug of perplexity. “He is entering upon his special function of turning black into white.”

“Nay,” said Northcote, “the subtlety is not mine, but Francis Bacon’s.”

“Good, O Advocate!” said the lady, as she rewarded him with bright eyes. “You do well to confute the Philistine with a learned name.”

Again the young man carried the jewelled hand to his lips. He felt the lithe fingers respond with a sweet and secret motion.

“Rogue!” said the solicitor, laughing. “George Sand and De Musset--Polly Whitcomb and the greengrocer at the back door. Well, Mischief, as you have entered into a compact with this fellow to get him his way, play us another bit of a tune, he shall keep his brief, and we will go to bed.”

“I knew we should force him to capitulate,” said Northcote to the siren, as he arranged the stool before the piano.

“What must I play?” she said, looking down at her hands.

“Play me a bit of Beethoven, so that I may take him out with me into the darkness of the streets.”

She played three movements of a symphony, and all his senses were submerged in the colors of romance. These fragrant hues which had a delicate aroma and pungency the imagination alone can impart were of no time or country. There was nothing that the mind could render as belonging to itself; the faculties which embody the technical were overcome by the tumultuous surgings with which they were oppressed. He seemed to be transfigured with the sense of joy, to be overpowered with the knowledge that he was a living man, able to breathe and to perform. The room had grown small and heavy. He was consumed with an overmastering desire for the spacious streets, for the largeness of the universe.

“There is a bed for you here,” said the beautiful player, almost before the last phrase had ceased to vibrate under her touch. “We could not think of turning you out at this hour.”

“I have not the least intention of staying,” said Northcote. “The hospitality you have given me already has been too profuse. I feel that I must roam for the rest of the night in the open streets, a Flying Dutchman of the London slush. Perhaps I shall fancy myself to be the mad music-maker of Leipsic, who walked at night on the ramparts to weave his harmonies.”

“We cannot consent to your leaving us in this manner,” said the hostess. “As for roaming through the night, it will not be good for you. Nor is there the least necessity why you should.”

“You forget his genie,” laughed the solicitor. “The infernal thing will drive him all over the suburbs of south London and send him home _via_ the Crystal Palace and Blackfriars Bridge.”