Chapter XV

They walked in silence through the little bye-streets of Soho, and followed their way down Shaftesbury Avenue. At the crossings, he lightly took her arm, protecting her from the traffic, freeing it directly they reached the pavement. Inwardly she thrilled, even at the slight touch of his hand on her elbow. She had never been quite so happy before. Nothing needed explanation. She defined no sensation to herself. When the sun first bursts in April after the leaden winter skies, you bask in it, drench yourself in the fluid of its light, and ask no questions. It is only the smallest natures that are not content with the moment that is absolute.

But in the mind of Traill, there swung a ponderous balance that could not find its equilibrium. She had called him a gentleman; was he going to act as one? Into her side of the scale, with both her little hands, she had thrown in her implicit confidence. Was there any weight on his side which he could put in to equalize? He hunted through his intentions as the goldsmith hunts amongst his drachms and his counterpoises; but he found nothing that could balance the massive quality of her faith--nothing!

In his most emotional dreams of women, he had never conceived himself in the drab light of the married man. Possibly because he had never moved amongst that class of women with whom intimacy is obtained only through the sanction of a binding sacrament. His contempt of the society to which his birth gave him right of entrance, had always kept him apart from them. But he scarcely saw the matter in that breadth of light. Intimacy with the women he had known had always been possible--possible in its various degrees, some more difficult to arrive at than others, but always possible. And, until that moment, when Sally had told him that she knew he was a gentleman, he had placed her no differently to the rest. Cheap, sordid seduction, there had been none of that in his mind; but he had tacitly admitted within himself that if their acquaintance were to drift--she willing, he content--into that condition of intimacy, then what harm would be done? She was a little type-writer; he, a man, amongst other men. A thousand women pass through the fire that way and come out little the worse.

So had he assessed her, until that moment when she had unthinkingly, unhesitatingly accepted his invitation to come and see him in his rooms. He had thought it innocence, he had imagined it a purity of mind that, in a city such as this, was almost unthinkable. It was his better nature then that had prompted the warning, the opening of a kitten's eyes before it is to be drowned.

Then the last position of all, the position that made the whole thing impossible. She was not innocent! She was not ignorant of the world! She did know the pitfalls in life--knew the luring dangers that lie concealed in the hedges of every woman's highway! No, it was not that. She knew everything--but she knew him to be a gentleman.

There is no more disarming passe in the everlasting duel between a man and a woman than this appeal--whether it be made intentionally or not--the appeal to his honour as a gentleman. Up flies the glittering rapier from his hand, he is weaponless--and at her mercy. For every man, even more especially when he is not one, would be thought a gentleman.

Traill, disarmed, defenceless, weighing every possibility, every intention, was still faced with the unequal balance, her gentle faith in the best of him dragging down the scale. By the time they had reached the stairway to his rooms, he had forged his mind to its decision. This once he would let her come to his rooms--this once, but never again. He knew his instincts and refused to trust them. If she thought him a gentleman, she should find him one. That was owed to her. We give the world its own valuation of us. This is humanity. It is therefore wisest to think well of a man. Those who think badly will find themselves surrounded by the impersonation of their own minds. It is wisest to think well, for even thinking has its unconscious effects. But say evil of a man, tell him to his face, without thought of punishment, merely in candid criticism that you find him ill and, besides giving him a bad name, you will make a dog of him.

She had said he was a gentleman--bless her heart!

"This staircase is confoundedly dark," he said; "I'll strike a match."

She waited, heart beating, listening to the scratching of the match-head against the woodwork. When it flared, he raised it above his head and strode on before her, grim shadows falling round him, following him like noiseless ghosts. Sally kept close behind.

"I used to live on the top floor," he said, "until the day before yesterday; I've moved down now to the first. There's not so much difference in the rooms, but those four flights of stairs in this sort of light were a bit too much." He thought of the last woman who had climbed the stairs with him. All she had said that evening, the first day he had met Sally, trooped through his mind in slow and vivid procession. He compared her life with that of Sally's, the ghastly hollowness of it in contrast with this child's simplicity of faith. The picture was an ugly one. He shuddered before the first, no less than before the second; for whereas one repelled, the other drew him to itself with all its subtle fascinations.

"Now," he said, forcing a smile and turning round to face her with his hand upon the handle of the door, "these are only bachelor's quarters, remember; no soft cushions, no mirrors--nothing. And if you'll stay there one second, I'll light a couple of candles. You'd far better have the room chucked at you all at once, than let it grow slowly to your eyes as I stalk round with a match. Do you mind?"

"I? Not a bit!" She laughed and turned with her back to the door, looking down the staircase which they had just ascended. Her heart was still beating, throbbing with unwonted excitement and anticipation. She knew she could trust, but there was a spring--a vibration in the thought that they played with fire. Yet what a harmless fire! No stake in the marketplace at which the soul, the honour, the life of the victim is burnt! No! Nothing like that. Only that fire which, when once it is lit, soothes, warms, nurses the hearts of men and women into love, and when once it is glowing white in heat, moulds them, forges them into the God-sent cohesion of unity. What need had she to fear in playing with so tenderly fierce a fire as that? None, and there was no trace of fear in the heart of her; but her pulses hammered; she felt them even in her throat.

"Now--you can come in now!" Traill called, and he came to the door, opening it wide for her to pass through.

Sally entered--two or three steps; then she stood there looking round her. The old oak chests, carved some of them, worm-eaten here and there; the clean, pale, straw-coloured matting, no rugs of any description: the dark green walls and the rough, heavy brass candle sconces that glittered against them, reflecting the candle flames in every polished surface: it was almost barbaric, more like a reception room of a presbytery than a living room; but a presbytery decorated to convey the best of a strong and self-reliant mind, rather than to pander with a taste ornate to the futile conception of a God.

Except for two rush-seated armchairs, there was no suggestion of providing any recognized forms of comfort. The chair at the open bureau, with its case of books above it, had a wooden seat; all the rest of the smaller wooden chairs were wooden-seated as well. There was no visible and obvious sign of any desire for luxury; yet luxurious it all seemed to Sally, every corner of it, as she gazed around her. It was a luxury conveyed by the intrinsic value of every article of furniture he possessed; a luxury far more lasting, far more complete, than any to be found in down cushions and gently shaded lights.

Austerity was the note through it all, austerity even in the pictures upon the walls. They were prints, old prints, coloured or plain, representing boxers of the old school, stripped to the waist, the ugly muscles flexed and bulging as they raised their lithe arms in the attitude of defence. There were no other pictures but these; nothing to show that he had a heart above boxing. There was one thing. In their journey around the walls, Sally's eyes fell on a little coloured miniature in a plain gold frame that hung by the side of the bureau. At that distance, she could distinguish that it was a girl, a girl with fair hair that clustered on her shoulders. The beating of her heart dropped to a whisper when she saw it, all the pulses stopped, and she felt a cool, damp air blowing across her face.

"Well," said Traill, with a smile, "I suppose you think it is confoundedly uncomfortable?"

She turned, faced him, forcing strength to master her sudden apprehension.

"I think it's absolutely lovely," she said, with simplicity. "I've never seen a room like it before."

"And you don't find the want of soft things, cushions and all that sort of business?"

"No, oh no! they'd spoil it. One doesn't want cushions to be comfortable, one wants surroundings. These are perfect."

He looked at her with appreciation; then, as a thought swept over him, it altered to an expression of tenderness. He put his heel on that, churned it round, and strode over to the fireplace.

"Here, come and sit down here and get warm while I make the coffee," he said. "It's frightfully cold outside, you know. I shouldn't wonder if it isn't freezing."

She followed obediently, and took the chair he had drawn out for her. Then he hurried about, opening cupboards and drawers, producing a saucepan here, a coffee-pot and a milk-can there, until all the things were laid on the table. And all this time, while she made sure that she was not being observed, Sally's eyes wandered backwards and forwards to the little miniature. She was nearer to it now and could more clearly distinguish the features. They reminded her somewhat of herself. There were the same round cheeks, the same small childishness of lips and nose and chin, the same pale complexion tinged with fragile pink, the same big, blue eyes. Had he taken an interest in her because she was like this girl, this girl whose miniature he had allowed to be the only breaking note in the whole symphony of his scheme of decoration? They were like each other, a likeness sufficiently apparent to suggest the thought to her mind. The miniature was painted in a fashion common to all such works of art a hundred and fifty years ago. She could not tell from its style when it had been done. But the fact that it hung there alone, the one gentle spot in otherwise austere and hard surroundings, was sufficient for her to give it the highest prominence in her mind.

It must be that, it must be what she had thought. He was lonely. He had said as much to her on that first evening when they had driven on the 'bus together as far as Knightsbridge. The girl was far away, in another country perhaps, and he had seen her, Sally, had seen the likeness, been reminded of her in some slight way, and had sought to ease his own solitude with the half-satisfying pretence that she was with him.

There was no thought of blame in Sally's mind. He meant no evil by her; but it was hard. The bitterness of it struck at her heart. After all, there was no fire to be playing with. The coldness of being absolutely alone again chilled through her whole body, and she shivered.

"Now," said Traill--everything was ready at his hand. "The making of coffee's the simplest thing in the whole world; that's why everybody finds it so deucedly difficult. We'll put this kettle on first." He thrust the kettle on the flame, pressing the coals down beneath it to give it surer hold.

"I'm awfully glad you like my room," he said, looking up from his crouching attitude by the fire. "I should have been sorry if you hadn't."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. If you hadn't liked my room, you wouldn't have liked me. My friend and his dog, I suppose."

She tried to smile. "Well, I like it immensely. I think it's so awfully uncommon. I suppose you could never get a piano that would go with the rest of the things?"

For the moment his expression hardened. A piano! He hated the sight of them.

"No, never," he said.

"P'raps you're not fond of music?"

"No, not a bit. Are you?"

"Oh yes; I love it."

His eyes lost their steel again to the tone of her voice when she said that.

"Well, that's as it ought to be," he remarked. "Religion and music are two things a woman can't do without. Are you very religious?"

"I don't know exactly what you mean by that. I'm afraid I hardly ever go to church, and in that sense, I suppose, I'm not religious. But I always say my prayers every night and morning."

Traill smiled at her gently. "That's all right," he said; "churches are nothing, only monuments that fulfil the double purpose of reminding the more forgetful of us that there are a class of people who believe in things they can't prove, and that also provide employment for those who have to look after them. I don't pray myself, but I should think it's the nearest thing you can get to in a combination of religion and common sense. Is that kettle boiling, do you think? Looks like it. Oh, of course, I ought to have known you were religious."

"Why?"

"Do you remember the way you took that impoverished joke of mine about the occupants of the kingdom of heaven?"

She laughed lightly at the recollection. But it was the lightness only of a moment. Her head turned, and she found again the eyes of that miniature looking into hers. Questions then rushed to her lips--a chorus of children fretting with intense desire. She could not hold them back--they would speak. Each one held her heart in its hands.

"Why do you have that miniature--amongst all the other pictures?"

"That?" He turned round, following her eyes, the boiling kettle steaming in his hands. "Pretty, isn't it?"

They both looked at it--he, without distraction--she, with eyes wandering covertly backwards and forwards to his face. Of course, she admitted its charm. Could she do otherwise?

He poured the hot water into the strainer over the coffeepot, then shutting the lid, he laid the kettle back in the grate and walked across to the miniature, looking long and closely into it. Sally watched him, nostrils slightly distended, lips tightly pressed. In that moment an unwarranted jealousy almost charred her softer feelings with its burning breath.

"There are a good many points in it, you know," he said, turning round, "that bear a strong resemblance to you."

"Oh, but she's very pretty," said Sally.

"And you're not?" He came back to the fireplace; stood there, taking regard of every one of her features with no attempt to conceal the direction of his eyes. "And you're not, I suppose?" he repeated.

She smiled with an effort. "If I were, it 'ud scarcely be for me to say. But I don't think I am. I suppose I'm not ugly. When I'm in good spirits, I sometimes go so far as to think I'm not actually plain. But she's pretty--really pretty." Her eyes pointed in the direction of her last remark.

Traill leant forward, facing her, putting both hands on the arms of the chair in which she was sitting. "So are you," he said quietly, "really pretty."

She was locked in, his hands on the arms of her chair and his body making the bars, against which, even had she wished it, escape were impossible. She tried to take it with a little smile, the ordinary compliment in the ordinary way. But the note in his voice refused to harmonize with that. Her smile was forced, her expression unnatural. And there she was caged, locked in by his eyes and, like a bird in the first moments of its captivity, her heart beat wildly against her breast. It was not because she was afraid--the trust in her mind never failed her for an instant--but she knew that she was captive. Whoever the other woman might be, if his honour, his heart, his whole soul were plighted to her, yet Sally knew that she must love him. There was all the giving, all the yielding, all the passive abandonment in her eyes; and when he saw that, Traill shot upright, forcing his hands to anything they might do.

"That's my sister," he said hurriedly, breaking into conversation--the man pursued and seeking sanctuary. He could not trust himself to look closely at her again. The boiling of the milk was an action of refuge; he crushed the saucepan down on to the glowing coals. She had said he was a gentleman.

"Your sister?" Sally whispered. He did not turn; he did not see her lips twitching in the reaction of relief. He had known nothing of the whirlwind that had been sweeping through her mind. All that play he had lost and yet was no loser. Had he seen the jealous hunger in her heart, it would have pointed the rowels of the spur that was already drawing its blood.

"Yes; she lives down in Buckinghamshire. My father left her the place. She's married. That was done of her when she was twenty."

"Apsley Manor?"

"Yes," he twisted round. "How did you know the name of the place?"

"I saw it in _Who's Who?_"

"Oh--" He laughed--laughed hard. "Of course, you told me. Yes, Apsley Manor. It's a fine old place."

"I'm sure it is. I've often--tried--to picture it."

"I'll take you there one day to see it."

It was out! Ripped from him on the impulse. How could he take her to see it, if they were not going to meet again after this? But he had never determined that they were not to meet again; only that he would not bring her to his rooms. It amounted to the same thing. He was not the man to let his inclinations fool him. If they met, what was there to keep him from bringing her here? Nothing! He knew he would do it. He hoped then that she would take no notice of his remark; but he hoped in vain. She leapt to it, eyes glinting with delight. To her that offer conveyed everything. She saw herself down there in the country with him, the spring just lifting its promise of life, like a child, out of the cradle of the earth. She heard him telling her that he loved her. She felt herself pledging the very soul that God had given her into the open hollow of his hands. Take no notice of his remark? Her whole instinct lifted to it.

"I don't believe there's anything else I should like so well," she exclaimed intensely.

He inwardly cursed his impulsiveness. "Oh, well, that'll be splendid," he said soberly. "Only it's no good going down at this time of the year. The country now's a grave, a sort of God's acre where only dead things are buried. I can't stand the country at this time of the year."

"No, of course not. It's much too cold now; but in the spring--"

"Yes," he jumped at that--"in the spring. That's the time."

Then he thought so too. Perhaps the same fancies were shaping in his mind as well. She threw back her head, resting it on the chair behind. There was complete happiness in the heart of her. Every breath she took was an unspoken gratitude.

"Do you see your sister often?" she asked, as he handed her her cup of coffee.

"Often? No, once a month perhaps." His lips shut tight, as though the question had been a plea that he should see her more frequently and he were determined to refuse.

"But why is that?" she asked sympathetically. "Doesn't she often come to Town?"

"Oh yes--most part of the year. They've got a small house in Sloane Street, and live there all the winter."

Sally looked at him with troubled eyes--troubled in sympathy because, with the quick wit of a woman in love, she had felt here the need of it. His sister lived in Sloane Street--lived there for the most part of the winter, and he saw but little of her; yet he kept her miniature lovingly in his room. If there is but one woman pictured on his walls, you may be sure a man rates her high. Sally knew all this--knew there was more behind it, yet hesitated to intrude. Another gentle question was rising to her lips, when he volunteered it all.

"My sister and I differ in our points of view," he said without sentiment. "We look at life from hopelessly opposite quarters. That's why I live here. The house, the grounds, they were all left to me when my father died. She was given her legacy in a round sum--not very round either. He wasn't particularly well off. Whatever it was, at any rate, it meant little or nothing to her. The house--the property--they were the only things worth having. I was the eldest son--I got 'em. P'raps this bores you?"

She shook her head firmly--an emphatic negative. "How could you possibly think that?"

"Well, anyhow," he continued, "she was disappointed. She's become--since she married--a woman to whom social power is a jewelled sceptre. Before then, she was what you see in that miniature--a little bit of a child with a pretty face that wanted kissing--and got it. Got it from me as well as others. I was fond of her, even after she married this man--a soldier; he's in the Guards, and after dinner sometimes thinks he has an eye to the situation in politics. Even after that, when she began to lift her head so that you couldn't kiss her and wouldn't have wanted to if you could, I was fond of her. But I hate society--I wouldn't come to her crushes--I wouldn't go to her dinners. These things sicken me. They're as empty as an echo. We fell out a bit over that; but I was living down at the Manor then, and so it didn't actually come to a split. But when the governor died and she found that I'd been left the house which was worth no end to her--socially--and she'd been left the money which really wasn't worth a damn--sorry--that slipped out"--Sally smiled--"she came back to me, arms round the neck--head quite low enough to be kissed then--and did her best to patch the business up. I suppose that rattled me. I could see the value of it. It was just as empty as all the rest of her social schemes. I took her at the valuation, told her she could have the house and I'd take the money, and behaved generally like a young fool. I was only--what? Only twenty-six then. And sham seemed to me the most detestable thing on earth. So Apsley Manor went over to her and I came up to live in London. I don't know really that I regret it so very much. This life suits me in a way, though sometimes it's a bit lonely. That's, at any rate, the gist of the whole business. We see each other sometimes; but her continual efforts to get me to don the uncomfortable garments of social respectability make the meetings as uninviting as when you go to be fitted at a tailor's. I suppose that's a sort of thing you like--you're a woman--but I'm hanged if I do. I'd buy all my clothes ready made if I could be sure that nobody else had worn 'em before. Anyhow, I won't be fitted for social respectability any more often than I can help. By Jove! What's that? Do you hear that noise? It's at the back!"

They strained their ears; lips half parted on which the breath waited, to listen. The sounds, muffled, were broken at moments by a subdued chorus of men's voices.

Traill crossed the room to the door that opened into his bedroom; unlatched it, held it wide. Sally watched his face with half-expectant eyes.

"There's a yard at the back," he said; "my bedroom looks on to it. Excuse me a second." He disappeared. She heard him throw up the window, when the sounds increased in volume. Now she could distinguish individual voices--voices taut, strained to a pitch of excitement. Then Traill's voice, with a strange, stirring voice of vitality keyed in it.

"Sally--here!"

It was not thinkingly said. That there had been no thought, no premeditation, was the fact that stirred her most. In his mind she had been Sally, and in a moment of tensity he had let it shape on his lips. She felt the blood racing through her like a mill-dam loosed. She thought when first she rose to her feet--and it was as though some strong hand had lifted her--that her limbs would refuse obedience. A moment of emotion, that was passivity itself, obsessed her. Then she hurried through into the other room, across to the open window where he stood expectant. There was no thought that it was his bedroom in which they stood--no consideration in her mind of the observance of any narrow laws of propriety. He had asked her. She came.

"This is the cleanest bit of luck," he said, with scarce controlled excitement.

"What is it?" She pressed nearer to the window.

He explained. "This yard at the back belongs to some railway company and two of their men are going to settle a difference of opinion--that's putting it mildly--as far as I can make out they mean business."

"What are they going to do?"

He answered her question by putting another. "You know I told you I belonged to the National Sporting?"

"Are they going to fight?" She caught her breath, forcing back the sense of nausea.

"Yes; bare fists with a definite end in view. Why look here--" He took her arm and gently pulled her to the window where he was standing. "Look here, you see they've even got assistants--those two chaps with towels over their arms. The men are over in that shed--stripping, I suppose. By Jove, if I had thought of an entertainment, I couldn't have got anything more exciting than this for you. Ever seen a fight?"

"No." The word struggled through cold lips.

"P'raps you'd rather not look at this? Don't you hesitate to say so if you think it'll be disgusting."

She caught the note of disappointment. There was no mistaking it. In this moment of excitement, he had become a child--scarce content with seeing the passing show himself, but must drag others with him to share his delight and thereby intensify it.

"I can easily go away if I don't like it," she said.

"Yes--of course you can--of course you can. But you ought just to see the beginning, you ought to really. They'll be as quaint as two waltzing Japanese mice. All these preparations will put them right off at first. They'll be funked utterly and look as if they were trying to break bubbles, then they'll warm up a bit. You should see the novices at the National Sporting on Thursday afternoon. They make the whole house roar with laughter. Talk about Don Quixote and the windmills! You must just see the beginning!"

How could she disappoint or refuse him, though the prospect was a moving horror in her mind? She could close her eyes. He had called her. He wanted her to see it with him. How could she refuse, lessen herself perhaps in his opinion? She leant out upon the window-sill and looked bravely below. Their shoulders were touching--she found even consolation and assistance in that.

"Do you think it'll be long?" she asked in a low voice.

"Don't know; it all depends. I hope it won't be too short. Sure you don't mind?"

She was possessed of that same motive which induces a woman to make light, to make nothing of her pain and her suffering to the man she loves. In such moments--loving deeply--she looks upon it, speaks of it, as a visitation of which she is ashamed. Begs him to forgive her that she suffers. It is an entire abnegation of self. It was so in this matter with Sally.

"I'm quite sure," she replied, as she held, with tightening hands and knuckles white, upon the window-sill.