Chapter X (1)

Smile, sweet baby, smile,
For you will have weeping-while;
Native in your Heaven is smile,--
But your weeping, Viola?

Whence your smiles, we know, but ah!
When your weeping, Viola?
Our first gift to you is a
Gift of tears, my Viola!

When the musical flow of his voice had ended, they had advanced many paces further on the path they were treading together, but its end was not yet known to either of them. Viola's cheeks were rose-flushed and her eyes were shining. There was silence for a time as they looked at one another, and love flew to and fro between them unhampered in his flight but hidden from them.

Viola breathed a deep sigh, as she drew her eyes away from his, half unwillingly. "It's lovely," she said. "I didn't know how lovely it was till you said it. I'm glad I've got the most beautiful name in the world."

"And the most beautiful eyes in the world," he said. "I never knew that there was anything half so beautiful as you, though I have always loved the beautiful things in the world. I used to wonder what they meant, and a year ago I thought I had found out. But now I know that I only knew half of it."

"Tell me," she said. "What did you find out a year ago?"

He told her of his moonlight vigil, which he had never thought to tell any one, and the vision that had come to him at the end of it.

Again she listened to him, fascinated, with her eyes on his and her lips apart. But as he drew to the end of his story her face grew a little troubled.

"I should never have seen that," she said when he had finished.

"We might have seen it together if you had been there," he said. "There is no secret I could see that you couldn't see."

"No," she said, rather sadly. "You have always lived in this beautiful place, and you have seen nothing that isn't beautiful--all your life. Of course you could see that, because there was nothing to get in the way. But it isn't at all beautiful where I live. I have seen so many ugly things all round me."

"It must always be beautiful where you live--Viola."

He spoke her name caressingly. It was the first time he had uttered it, except impersonally, and it made a new sweet contact between them.

She smiled at him. "Perhaps if you love beautiful things, and think about them," she said, "it doesn't so much matter if you can't always have them about you. Do you think I could really see the fairies, if I were with you?"

He thought for a moment, with a slight frown on his face, which made the words that should come out of his thought of great importance to her. It was not in him to say something just to please her. The lightest thing that he might say to her would come from the depths of the unspoilt spirit that was in him.

His face cleared, and he looked up at her again. "I think that when you are very young you may see something like that," he said, "--or, by chance, when you are older. It means something very important, or else it doesn't mean much. It meant something very important to me to see them, but now it's not so important. If I had never seen it I should have seen you, and it would have been just the same."

"Why would it have been just the same?"

She was fascinated anew. Did ever a girl have such incense as this burned before her? And it was incense lit from a flame in the heart, not from a spark on the tongue. Her nostrils were eager for the fume of it.

Again the little considering frown. "It would," he said, "I know it would. It all meant you, somehow, though I have never seen you until now. There was something wanting in it all the time; and it was you. I should never look at anything now, and think how beautiful it was, without thinking of you."

Lover's words, spoken by an unconscious lover. They pleased and pained her at the same time.

"I'm afraid you make too much of me," she said, with a sigh. "If I had lived here always, as I am living now----!"

She did not complete her sentence. The memory of things she had seen and known and of which he had known nothing, rose up between them. But she put them aside, and smiled at him again. "After all," she said, "I am here now, and I have never been so happy anywhere else. Perhaps I have been keeping myself for it, without knowing that it was this I was meant for. I think I was meant for it, because all the rest seems like nothing at all. When I go back, it will be less than ever to me."

Her talk of going back stabbed him. Life would be an incredible thing when they were parted. They stirred each the other's fears and shrinkings as they talked of it, but behind all the pain was the thought that they would be with one another for a long time yet. They were so young that time in front of them was not measured by the same rule as time that had passed. More than two whole weeks and most of a third Viola had still to spend in Paradise. They would meet every day. Surely, nothing could prevent their meeting every day! Twice a day they would meet, in this secret place, and be undisturbed for long summer hours in their happiness. No need to spoil it by thinking of the end.

They parted for a time. The last Harry saw of her was the white figure framed in its arch of green. Before she passed out of it she turned and stood there for a moment, motionless. She was too far for him to see her face clearly, but the message passed to and fro between them again. It was all there, though they had not yet spoken it in words, and eyes were too far off to be read.

*CHAPTER XII*

*AT THE THRESHOLD*

Harry went home to luncheon and hurried to the wood again immediately afterwards. He had much farther to go to the trysting-place than she. She might even be waiting for him when he got there.

She was not there, and after half an hour she had not come.

Oh cruel! And yet he knew, as his longing grew and his hopes fell, that she would have come if she could. Her father had claimed her; something out of her power to prevent or foresee had kept her away. She would not stay away from him for ever.

Yet he was increasingly unhappy as the time passed and the green frame remained empty of its sweet picture. The heat of a summer afternoon lay brooding on the silent wood, and was like lead upon his heart. He paced up and down the path, to the corner from which the garden of the cottage could be seen. He thought of going to it, and talking to Mrs. Ivimey, who would know what had become of Viola, and would certainly talk to him about her. But no, he could not do that. It would be sweet to hear her name on other lips, but he would have to pretend that he was hearing of her for the first time, and he shrank from that, and from all that it would imply. He never went farther than the corner, and by and by his hope of seeing her that afternoon died away completely.

He had come out prepared to stay away until dinnertime, but now he thought he would go home to tea, and come back immediately afterwards. His absence would not then be questioned until he came back at night. They did not like him to stay away from dinner too often, but he had not done so for some time, and if he said that he was going out into the woods they would not seek to prevent him.

He was all at sea with himself as at last he dragged himself away from the empty place, which might still be brightened by her coming, with many backward looks and much lingering. He knew that something that could easily be explained had kept her, and yet he was desperately unhappy because she had failed him. Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Would anything in the world have kept him away if he had promised to come to her? Supposing she should not come at all that day! He shrank from the thought of the long night that would divide him from her, if he had not seen her before it fell. But his spirit was tired with suspense. The world seemed full of trouble and disappointment as he made his way homewards.

The one thing he never thought of was that, somehow, their meeting of the morning might have been discovered, and she had been forbidden to meet him again. They had met, and promised to meet again, in all the innocence of their youth. If their elders had known of it, it would have spoilt their happy secret, but that was all. It had not occurred to Harry that it would spoil anything else.

They had tea on the terrace outside the drawing-room. It was always the same at home. Day after day, all the year round, it was always the same. In winter the tea tables were placed near one of the two fires that warmed the long room, at other times near one of the windows, or in the summer on the terrace outside. The four of them would sit round and talk, Lady Brent dispensing the tea, over which she was very particular. Occasionally some one from the Vicarage would be there, but scarcely ever anybody else. The friendships that had formerly been between the Castle and other big houses within reach had fallen off, and it was the rarest thing for visitors to appear there.

It might have been expected that, meeting like that, day after day, at formal meals as well as at this informal one, and with no intrusion from the outer world to break the monotony of their lives, they would have had nothing to say to one another. But there was always a great deal to say. Wilbraham read voluminously, Lady Brent read, and even Mrs. Brent read. They talked of what they had read in the papers and what they had read in books; but Mrs. Brent did not take part in the conversation over what they had read in books.

And there was the life immediately around them to talk about. If Royd Castle was cut off from the ordinary social intercourse that gathers about a large country house, it was by no means divided from the interests that depend upon ownership. There were a few hundred people living around it in direct relationship, and the personal contact with them was the closer because it represented nearly all the human interest there was in the life that was led there. It supplied the gossip which in some form or other is congenial to the most exalted minds, and without which little Mrs. Brent at least would have found the conversation unbearably arid.

Lady Brent visited among the tenantry assiduously. She was inclined to exercise authority, but could not fairly be said to be dictatorial. They were on their best behaviour before her, but there were few among them who had not some kindness to remember from her. Mrs. Brent also visited them and avoided doing so in the company of her mother-in-law if she possibly could. Her intercourse with them was on a more intimate plane. Her position as a great lady had to be implicitly accepted, but if this was done she would sit and talk with more than mere affability. Harry was her chief subject of conversation, and all the people of Royd loved Harry and expected great things of him. It might have surprised Lady Brent if she had known how clearly it was in the minds of those whom she treated as her dependents that she was only exercising temporary authority, and how much they looked forward to the time when her rule would be over. This was not because they found it irksome, for she ruled justly and considerately. But she had ruled for a long time and change is pleasant to most of us. Besides, the Castle provided very little variety of interest to those who lived within its shadow. It had not always been so, and it was expected that it would not be so when Harry came into his own.

Mrs. Brent could sometimes be induced to talk about the time that was coming, if she was flattered into a state of intimacy and skilfully drawn out. She was always careful not to create an impression that she and Lady Brent were at all antagonistic, but it was understood by everybody that this was so, the extent of the antagonism was gauged to a nicety, and the causes for it were frequently discussed and generally agreed upon.

The fact that Mrs. Brent derived from the stage was not actually known, but it would have surprised nobody to hear it; nor did her claims to belonging of right to the class into which she had married carry the smallest weight, however much they might be indulged. It was generally agreed that Lady Brent had done the right thing in absorbing her into the atmosphere of the Castle, and in keeping her closely under its influence. Poor little lady! She'd have liked to get away from it sometimes, and small blame to her! But 'twouldn't ha' done. She was all right where she was, and a nice little thing too, if you took her the right way; but there! she wasn't what you'd expect for Sir Harry's mother, and her ladyship's was the only way to keep him from knowing it.

So these remote but clear-sighted and kindly people judged of the situation at the Castle, and on the whole approved of it. As for Harry himself they one and all adored him. They were the only friends he had had outside his home from his childhood, and they were real friends. There was not one of them, man, woman or child, who had not some special feeling for him different from that of the rest. He knew them all, and was interested in them all, with a purely human sympathy. When the time came for him to take the reins, he would be dealing not with an impersonal aggregate, but with those whose interests were also his; and he would be regarded with a loyalty and affection which is enjoyed by few landowners.

Wilbraham kept himself more to himself, as was said of him, but had his friends too at Royd. It was he who brought Harry's heart to his mouth this afternoon by the announcement, made in a casual voice: "There is an artist come to stay at Mrs. Ivimey's. He rejoices in the name of Michael Angelo Bastian, which ought to mean that he is a very fine artist; but I've never heard of him. Have you?"

"No," said Lady Brent, who had been addressed. "But I did not know that Mrs. Ivimey let rooms. I think she should have asked me first. Nobody at Royd has done it hitherto."

"I wonder how she could get any one to take rooms in such an out-of-the-way place as hers," said Mrs. Brent.

"I can tell you that," said Wilbraham. "I had it all from Prout." Prout combined the occupations of shoemaker and postman at Royd. "Mrs. Ivimey has a sister who lives in London and lets lodgings. Michael Angelo Bastian lodges with her. The rest is plain to the meanest intelligence."

Harry was faced with the immediate alternative of acknowledging that he was aware of the fact stated or of affecting ignorance of it. If he kept silence now it would be deliberate and purposeful silence, and he might later on be called upon to explain it. He had not faced this; he had not faced anything in connection with Viola that had to do with the future.

Perhaps he would have spoken, if his mind had not been so full of his late disappointment, and of his reviving hopes of still meeting Viola that evening. He could not bring himself immediately to the point of making a decision, and when Lady Brent had next spoken, and Wilbraham had answered her, the time had gone by for him to speak. His not having done so directly Bastian's name had been mentioned would need explanation now. With a mental shrug of the shoulders he kept silence, and felt a warm delicious glow as he took the further step towards a fenced and guarded intimacy with Viola which no one outside must penetrate. The pleasure of hugging his secret afresh swamped the half-guilty feeling which had preceded it in his mind. He did not even ask himself why it should have come to him, but his attitude towards his elders underwent a slight change from that moment. His youth was to be defended from them; it had its rights, which could brook no interference.

As he hurried off again to the trysting-place, he was glad once more that he had refrained from betraying his secret, as he had been glad that he had resisted the impulse to confide in his mother the night before. He knew now that they would have disapproved. Some breath from the outside world, which divides people up into categories in a way he had never had to take into account, had come to him from the discussion he had just listened to. His grandmother had shown persistent concern at Mrs. Ivimey's having let her rooms without consultation with her. Such a thing had never happened before in Royd. You didn't know what sort of people you might get, if it became a practice. An artist--there was no great harm perhaps in an artist; but-- The postman had evidently not known, or if he had he had not told Wilbraham, that this particular artist had invaded the sanctities of Royd accompanied by a daughter, but Harry had felt instinctively that her presence would have increased the objections expressed by Lady Brent to Mrs. Ivimey's taking in anybody at all. It had come to him somehow that Viola's delicious charm would have done nothing to recommend her, had she been known, and that his mother would by no means have taken the confidence that it had been in his mind to make to her the night before in the spirit in which it would have been offered.

The reasons for all this were not clear to him. He had of course no idea that he was to be preserved at all costs from falling into unauthorized love; he had no more than a purely academic knowledge of what falling in love meant, and no idea as yet that he was already very deep in it himself. There were many things in which his inclinations had clashed with the rules formulated by his elders--as, for instance, in the matter of visits to the stables, during his early childhood. This was one of them, but he was not to be bound now by the views of his elders, and it was not necessary to examine their origin. There was a vague discomfort in the idea that he was setting himself against them, but no admission in his mind that he was in any way wrong in doing so. And even the slight discomfort was more than balanced by the feeling that his secret must certainly now be guarded, which had the effect of somehow bringing him and Viola more closely together.

It had been decided chat Wilbraham was to seek out the artist, and if he found him to be the sort of person who could be asked to Royd, he was to ask him there. Harry smiled to himself, as he thought of the possibilities ahead. He must tell Viola, and he and she must decide what was to be done about it. It gave him a thrill to think of their deciding anything together. He quickened his steps. There were such oceans to talk to her about. He had no doubts now about her coming to meet him; he had almost persuaded himself that she would be there waiting for him.

But the green frame was still empty of its picture, as he had left it an hour before. The evening light was slanting on it now, giving warning that the time they would have to spend together was diminishing. But there were nearly two hours of daylight still. Surely she would come before the dusk fell!

He stretched himself under a tree, from where he could watch the place where she would appear. His mood was not yet impatient. She would surely come, and in the meantime he could think about her.

He did not think of her as a lover thinks of the mistress enthroned in his heart, to worship her there. He had not consciously enthroned her as yet. He thought of her as a wonderful revelation of something he must surely have been looking for all his life, since it was impossible now to think of life without her. She had come into his life, in some way to translate its meaning for him--for both of them. She was a revelation from the good influences all around him, as the vision of the fairies had been. He had got as far as that, and had told her so. It had been very sweet to tell her that; it would be sweet to tell her everything that came into his head. There was nothing that he would not want to tell her, at once and first of all. In his innocence of the world and the way of the world, he had reached that point in love's pilgrimage where the loved one shines out as the sweet vessel into which all confidences may be poured, and the desire is strong for a common aim and a common vision. But he had not reached the point, which usually precedes it, of an ardent desire for some sort of surrender. Perhaps it is not true to say that he had not yet enthroned Viola in his heart, for she sat there the centre of everything. But she sat there apart, as if she had mounted the steps of the throne without his hand to raise her. She must descend again and stand with him on the level ground of mutual desire before her seat should be secure and acknowledged.

But as he waited for her, and the desire for her sheer presence became stronger and stronger, he was being led towards that desire for surrender. The sweetest thing now would be, not to pour himself out in confidences to her, which would still be very sweet, but to obtain from her that look or that word which would move him to the depths.

He went over in his mind the looks and words he had received from her, and thirsted for more. The very first time their eyes had met, before a word had been spoken between them, she had looked at him, with something behind the look with which his memory blissfully played. Once or twice that morning, by the pool, and again when she had turned towards him and stood gazing, far off, there had been something that thrilled him with happiness to remember. And there had been tones in her voice, little things she had said--he dwelt upon them all, and longed to draw more of them from her. He would say this to her; greatly daring, he would say that. And she would reply; or if she spoke no answer he would watch her face, and gain courage from it for speeches still more daring.

But an hour passed, and she had not come to him.

The sun was sinking now. Outside the wood, under the open sky, its rays would be drawing the shadow of the rocks and the gorse across the close turf; there would be a soft golden radiance in all the air, and on the bright distant pavement of the sea. But here under the trees it was already dusk, and a gloom descended on his heart, as he thought of the sunset, from the sight of which he was shut off.

It was like a parable to him. He had never before missed the glory of a sunset, if he was out of doors. The woods had never kept him from that enlarging sight. They were for other times; not less loved then, but now seeming to hold him enchained in a menacing gloom. And so, just out of his reach was the solace for which he craved, but in place of it darkness was settling down over his heart, and trouble clutching at it.

But he would not go out of the wood. She might come still. The thought brought him no relief; his long watch had emptied his mind of the springs of hope. But still he waited for her. If she did come, she must find him there.

The darkness had settled down now. There was a fading light in the sky that could be seen here and there through the thick canopy of leaves, but beneath them only eyes that had grown used to the darkness could have descried anything.

The boy lay stretched at length on the grass, his face to the ground, utterly weary and utterly miserable. He had no strength to tear himself from this unhappy spot and go home; he only wanted to lie there in his pain, which still had a little of sweetness in it as long as he lingered in the place where he had last seen her.

He never moved. His body was as still as on that night in which he had kept his eager vigil, and at last been rewarded. But it was the stillness of exhaustion. No hope was left to him now.

But his ears, trained since his childhood to catch the lightest whispers of nature, and to interpret them, alert in spite of himself, heard something that was not of the life sinking to rest around him. He raised himself suddenly, almost violently, and peered into the darkness, all his senses once more on edge.

And out of the darkness she came, no more than a moth-glimmer flitting towards him. A wild joy filled him, down to the very depths of his being. He sprang up and ran towards her.

She gave a little cry that was half a sob, and flew to his embrace. His arms were around her, and his lips on hers. In all the long hours through which he had yearned for her, and played with the thought of her sweetness, no such blissful end to his waiting had entered his mind as this.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE TEMPLE*

Her face was wet with her tears, but he could just see her smile glimmering through the darkness. His eyes were as hungry as his lips. That sweet flower-like face, with the tender eyes and the mouth a-quiver--would he ever be able to gaze his fill of it?

She made no effort to draw herself from him, but nestled to him, and poured out a broken sobbing explanation of her absence to which he hardly listened. What did it matter how she had been prevented from coming to him, since she had longed for him as he had longed for her, and was with him now?

He kissed away her tears; she had not returned his kisses since her first unconsidered impelled surrender, but was still sweetly receptive of them. "Oh, I ought not to," she said, smiling at him. "But I do love you, and I have wanted you so."

Yes, this was love, of which he had never consciously, thought. She had spoken the word first, but he knew before she had spoken it that all his joy and all his pain had sprung from that source, and exulted in his new knowledge.

"I love you too--Viola," he said, lingering caressingly on her name. "Oh, how I love you!"

He drew a long breath, and they gazed silently into one another's eyes, to find in them what no speech could utter. The melting sweetness of her gaze filled him with trembling rapture. The secret of life and all its beauty which he thought he had divined, now seemed to have depths beneath depths of meaning, beyond mental capacity to grasp, in their almost intolerable rapture. With a sigh they released each other, and speech flowed to their relief, broken and melodious, bearing them again to the surface of their bliss.

They withdrew a little from the path where they had met, and told over the tale of their love. By and by they moved along it again, in a common impulse to escape from the thick darkness of the wood, and gain the freedom of the starry night.

They passed the cottage where Viola dwelt and never gave it a thought. At a later time they confessed to one another that they had no recollection of passing it at all. They were so wrapped up in one another that nothing and nobody else in the wide world mattered to them at that moment. But when they had emerged from the wood they turned aside, instinctively perhaps, to escape prying eyes, and passed slowly along the path which they had taken the afternoon before.

After the darkness of the wood, the sky, moonless, but lit by the innumerable lanterns of the stars, had the effect of brightness. Their young faces could be plainly seen in this soft radiance, and they stood to worship one another afresh.

"You're so beautiful, Viola! How beautiful you are! I must have been blind not to see it before."

"I saw that you were from the very first."

Here were two statements of surpassing interest. They had to be enlarged upon and explained, with new and immeasurable content gained from the disclosures that were made. Nothing had ever happened like it before. They were pioneers in the uncharted country of love, and the springs at which they refreshed themselves, and the flowers brushed by their feet as they wandered through it, had been waiting for them unseen and unguessed at since the world began. The wonder of it increased.

They sat down on a low rock, jutting through the fern, and gave themselves up to the miracle of their discoveries. Harry held her hands in his, and his eyes were never off her face, except when he looked out into space as if trying to fathom something that passed his comprehension. Sometimes they drew together by an irresistible mutual impulse, but every kiss he gave her was a consecration. She was too beautiful and too sacred a thing not to be treated with high reverence. Instinctively he held himself back, though without cessation he thirsted for her sweetness, and her lips assuaged his thirst only so long as his were upon them.

For more than an hour they sat there, and the time seemed as nothing. Then she sprang up suddenly and said she must go in. She had only meant just to run out and tell him why she had not been able to come in the afternoon. As she said it, a voice was heard calling: "Viola! Viola!" out of the darkness. She raised herself hurriedly to kiss him, of her own accord, and tearing her hands from his ran off without a word.

Harry stood for a long time where she had left him, while the unhurrying stars marched on to their celestial music and looked down upon him, a creature of the moment, who had yet found his way into the courts of eternity. He looked up at them, and in the rapture of the revelation that had come to him worshipped anew in the temple whose gates he had besieged all his life. It was for this that he had been born; it was for this that the heavens were lit, and the earth put forth its beauty. At last he had been admitted into the innermost sanctuary of the temple, and the secret of life was his.

He moved slowly towards the cottage which enshrined his love, unable to leave its hallowed precincts.

There were lights in the lower windows, and presently in that upper one which he knew to be Viola's. Perhaps she knew that he would linger out there under the stars, for she came to the window and stood there for a long time, and before she left it she kissed the tips of her fingers and threw her message out into the darkness.

Presently her light went out. Harry laid himself down on the warm turf. He would sleep there that night, as he had sometimes slept out in the open on warm summer nights before, but not with that sense of bliss enfolding him. He would keep guard over her, and perhaps, when the stars had paced onwards in their western march, and the moon had arisen, she would come to the window again, as she had come the night before. He had told her that he had seen her there. He thought she would come. And surely her presence would make itself felt through his dreams, and he would awake to see her! It was not possible that he should sleep while she was awake near him.

He pillowed his head on the fern and slept, and for a long time there was silence, on the moor and in the cottage, while the stars watched over them and waited for their waking.

It happened just as Harry had thought when he laid himself down to sleep. He awoke to find the moor flooded by the bright radiance of the moon, which shone also upon the front of the cottage and the window of Viola's room. And she was there, with her dusky hair about her face and on her shoulders, and with some dark wrap round her, so that her face alone, and her hands, were softly illumined.

He arose and went towards her. She saw him coming, for she gave a little start, and then sat motionless again until he stood just beyond the garden fence, where he could see her face, though his was in shadow.

He stood there; neither of them spoke and neither of them moved, but drank their fill of one another's presence. They made no motion of farewell when at last Harry moved away and his form was lost in the shadows of the wood.

He could go home now and sleep, with his great happiness to bear him company. On the morrow he would see her again, and new happiness would be his lot.

*CHAPTER XIV*

*BASTIAN*

Wilbraham picked his way along the woodland path, humming a tune. His only preoccupation for the moment was to preserve his shoes from getting wet, for much rain had fallen, and there were spongy patches to be avoided.

Wilbraham disliked exercise of almost every sort. His bad times, in the winter, were when he felt impelled to go for a walk, which was for at least an hour every afternoon unless the weather absolutely forbade. In the summer he did not mind it so much, except when the heat tried him; but he would always have preferred to spend his leisure with a book in the library, or in the garden.

He had long ceased to accompany Harry in any out of door expedition. They saw quite enough of one another indoors, and their respective preferences in the matter of pace were so in opposition that it was a pleasure to neither of them to take the air together. Mrs. Brent sometimes accompanied him in his constitutionals, but he seldom invited her to do so. They also saw enough of one another indoors, or at least he saw enough of her. He liked her, but she did not interest him in conversation, while she did expect him to interest her. He was quite capable of doing so, but the effort spoilt the mild refreshment that came from leaving his brain to wander where it would while his body was being gently exercised. He found abundant interest in the thoughts of his well-stored mind, and sometimes stayed out for longer than he had intended because he had fallen into such an absorbing train of speculation.

Yet this man, who lived his monotonous life with books as his chief recreation and his intercourse with his fellows narrowed to the few with whom he lived, was very fond of company. His walk this afternoon, longer than he usually imposed upon himself in the heat of summer, was cheered by having an object other than that of keeping his liver from troubling him. He was going to make a new acquaintance. This artist, with the rather absurd name, who was lodging with Mrs. Ivimey, might possibly be a man of intelligence, with views upon the art he practised; or he might be a mere commercial dauber. If he proved to be a man of intelligence, it would be agreeable to exchange views with him, for after books Wilbraham liked pictures, better even than he liked music. Or rather, his taste for music had become a little atrophied, since he was cut off from enjoyment of it, while art could always be read about, and there were always pictures or reproductions of pictures to be seen.

He reached the cottage on the outskirts of the wood, and looked about him with pleasure before he entered it. The great open space upon which it faced was a refreshment after the wooded environment of the Castle, and the few buildings that enlivened this point relieved it of the impression of loneliness which was unpleasing to a man of Wilbraham's fibre. It was half a mile further by the path he had taken than by the one he usually took if his humour led him towards the common, but he thought as he stood there with his hat off, so that the breeze could cool his brow, that he would come there more often, even if Mr. Bastian should not turn out to be the sort of person that he might want to come for.

A well-satisfied gentleman he looked as he stood there leaning on his stick, his brow rather bald, his presence on the verge of portliness, though he was not otherwise of the habit of body that runs to flesh. The look of discontent that Grant had remarked about him on a first acquaintance was absent now. In his suit of dark grey flannel, with his black-ribboned straw hat, he had something of a clerical air, and as he turned towards the cottage his unusually sharp ears heard the sound of hurried movement through the open window of a downstairs room, and a voice uttering the words: "The parson come to call! Good Lord, I'm lost; I can't get out."

He stood chuckling to himself as he waited for an answer to his knock. The door stood open. The artist could not have escaped him if his fears had been justified. This pleased his humour, especially as he anticipated the pleasure of bringing relief to him.

Mrs. Ivimey did not respond to his summons, and as he was preparing to knock again, a door on the left of the little passage opened and the artist came out to him.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Ivimey is out at the back somewhere," he said. "Shall I go and call her for you?"

"Thanks, it's you I've come to see, if you're Mr. Bastian," said Mr. Wilbraham. "I'm tutor to young Sir Harry Brent at the Castle. We heard you were here, and as we don't get many visitors at Royd I came to look you up."

Bastian's face changed. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Do come in."

He led the way into the little sitting-room, and Wilbraham followed him with the feeling that his visit had justified itself.

Bastian was a tall thin man with a shock of untidy grey hair, but a curiously young face. His eyes were very light blue. He had a half-whimsical, half-appealing look, as if he was in a constant state of amusement at himself and was begging not to be taken too seriously. The upper part of his face was firmly and delicately modelled, but his mouth was indeterminate and his chin weak. He was atrociously dressed, in an old discoloured suit of light grey flannel, and a pair of stained canvas shoes, and he wore no collar; but he did not apologize for his appearance. Wilbraham judged him to be about forty-five, but discovered later that he was three or four years younger.

Mrs. Ivimey's parlour was furnished with the customary mixture of old good things and bad new ones. A few canvases stood with their faces against the wall, and a half-finished picture of a flaming sunset over the moor and the sea was propped on the mantelpiece. Wilbraham threw a glance at it as he entered, but could not make up his mind whether it was going to be a good picture or an exceptionally bad one. There were some books on the round table in the middle of the room, as well as some of the untidy paraphernalia of an artist. On a smaller table in the window was a bottle of whisky, a glass and a jug of water, and by the side of the table was a shabby but comfortable looking easy chair, upon which was a book face downwards. The room was full of the odour of strong tobacco.

"I'm afraid it's rather like a bar-parlour," said Bastian. "I have a horrible habit of smoking shag, which some people object to strongly. Will you have some whisky?"

He looked sideways at Wilbraham as he spoke, with an engaging smile. There was something attractive and appealing about him; he was rather like a naughty child, caught in the act--indoors on a summer afternoon with his shag tobacco and his whisky and his advanced dishabille. Wilbraham was one of those who hated the reek of shag, but he forgave him for it readily and took out his own cigarette case. He did not reply to the offer of whisky.

"I'll go and get you a glass," said Bastian. "I'm afraid there's no soda-water, but it's good whisky and better with water."

He went out of the room, and Wilbraham stood with his eyes fixed upon the whisky bottle, and a queer look in them, half of eagerness, half of repulsion.

Bastian was away longer than it would have taken him to get a glass, and when he returned he had on a collar and a flowing brightly coloured tie. He now looked like an artist, and not so much like a broken-down gentleman-loafer.

"Say when!" he said, pouring out the whisky, and Wilbraham said when, but not immediately.

"I get tired of painting," said Bastian. "It's very hot out there on the moor, and I didn't bring a sketching umbrella with me. I thought I'd have a lazy time with a book. 'David Copperfield.' One of the best books, I consider." He held his head aside as he looked at Wilbraham.

Wilbraham had taken his first sip of whisky. It was only a sip, but his face seemed to expand under it. His heart also expanded towards a Dickens enthusiast, and for a time they talked about Dickens, and found themselves always in encouraging agreement.

"It's a pleasure to have somebody to talk to," said Bastian. "I love being in the country and I hate being in London. I came down here to be as far away from London as possible, but there's no doubt one does want human intercourse. I'm devoted to my little girl, who's here with me; but one wants men to talk to."

"Oh, you've got a daughter with you," said Wilbraham. He had been considering all the time, underneath the conversation, whether or not Bastian could be introduced to Royd. He was a gentleman: that was obvious. But it was equally obvious that he had shed some of the customs usually followed by gentlemen. Would his innate breeding carry him through, with women--with Lady Brent? With a man, or at least with one who prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface, the shocking old clothes and the shag tobacco would make no difference. Then there was the whisky. Wilbraham had rather more than a suspicion that Bastian's case was not so very different from his own: that whisky meant a good deal to Bastian. There were signs of it on his smooth child-like face--a lack of clearness in a skin that was meant to be unusually clear, a slackness of muscle, a look in the eye and in the droop of the mouth; and the second--or possibly the third--allowance that Bastian had poured into his glass had exceeded by a good half inch the not meagre allowance that Wilbraham had accepted in his own. Perhaps it might lead to complications to invite him to Royd. If Wilbraham should decide not to, the daughter might be made an excuse.

"She's a dear child," said Bastian. "Her mother's dead. She was one in a thousand." He sighed. "Viola and I are everything to one another. We're scarcely ever parted, except when we're at work. She has to earn money, poor child, and neither of us manages to earn very much. Still, we're happy together, and happiest of all when we leave the streets behind us and get out into the country."

He was revealing himself as one of those people who like to pour themselves out about their own affairs, not so much out of egotism as from an impulse to show confidence towards their hearers, to establish relations which shall rest upon no misunderstanding, in which nothing shall be kept back.

Wilbraham was without that impulse, but he was also without any large share of egotism. He was interested in other people, and usually preferred that they should talk about themselves, since few people are interesting upon any other subject. He had some curiosity about Bastian's history, which seemed to have had contradictions in it, when his refinement of speech and manner was compared with his confessed and apparent indigence, which was rather below that to which men of birth and breeding sink, even if they are without the earning capacity.

"How old is your daughter?" he asked, a little confused between the mention of her as a child and that of her work.

"Sixteen or seventeen," said Bastian. "I can't quite remember which, and I don't particularly want to. I don't suppose I shall keep her with me for many years. She's a very beautiful girl. So was her mother. And gentle and sweet and good too--both of them. Ah, whatever I've missed in life--whatever mistakes I've made--I've had that. There's nothing in this world like a good and beautiful woman,--'A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament'--how does it go on? I can't keep these things in my head."

Wilbraham threw a look at Bastian's glass, of which the contents were now reduced by half. His speech showed no sign of deterioration--he was evidently one of those people who could "carry their liquor"--but Wilbraham recognized his state as one in which the ordinary dictates of reticence would be considerably relaxed.

His own glass was nearly as full as before. He could quite easily have gone away and left it there. He felt that the small amount he had already drunk had done him a vast amount of good, enlightened his brain and stimulated his body. He had an impulse of pity towards Bastian, who was under the influence of the desire from which he had emancipated himself, and of self-congratulation at his own freedom. Thank God that he could drink what was good for him, and stop there. He was inclined to like Bastian exceedingly. It might be possible, if he got to know him better, to help him out of the morass into which he had fallen. It seemed probable that the state of poverty to which he had come was owing to habits of intemperance. A man who had had the same inclinations and might have been brought under by them, but had overcome them instead, would be the right man to help another, if he could gain his confidence. And Bastian seemed to be in the mood to give confidence.

"I'm afraid I don't know your name as an artist," said Wilbraham with a glance at the picture on the mantelpiece. "But it's years since I went to an exhibition. I'm interested in art, though, and have read a good deal about the modern movements."

"Art!" echoed Bastian. "There's nothing like it, is there? The older I get the more I love it. Poetry, music, painting--everything. To tell you the truth, art has been my downfall."

Wilbraham felt some surprise. He had thought that if Bastian had been through any experience that might be described as a downfall, it had been from other causes. "Well, if you've followed it when you might have been doing something else that would have brought you more money," he said, "I don't know that you're so much to be pitied. If I had the gift for painting, which I haven't at all, I'd rather do what you're doing now, than get rich."

Bastian laughed. "I'm afraid I haven't much gift either," he said. "I'm a rotten artist, and I'm a rotten musician, and I'm a rotten poet. I've tried to make my living out of all three; but perhaps you might say that I haven't tried very hard. I love 'em all too much. It's rotten to have to make your living out of what you love. You want to enjoy it, not to practise it, unless you've got a turn that way. You don't have to be a singer yourself to enjoy other people's singing; it doesn't follow that you can paint good pictures because you know a bad one when you see it. There ought to be scholarships at the Universities for people with a genius for contemplation, and life fellowships to follow them up."

"The holders of life fellowships have sometimes been known to practise contemplation to an excessive extent," said Wilbraham.

Bastian laughed heartily. "That's rather good," he said. "But what a pleasant life, eh? These jolly places--and plenty of good company, and good wine! Why should that happy lot be reserved for people who happened to interest themselves in one or two subjects, out of all that there are to interest one, in their extreme youth? I suppose you were at Oxford or Cambridge in those happy days of long ago?"

"Cambridge," said Wilbraham. "I was at Christ's."

"We must have been there about the same time. I was at Magdalene--a nice snug little college, and becoming quite an intelligent one, from what I've heard. But I haven't been there since I came down. They wouldn't be very proud of me now, I'm afraid. One or two touts or stablemen might recognize me perhaps. They had plenty of money out of me when I had it. I don't belong to that life any more."

He had a sudden mournful droop, and drank what was left in his glass. Wilbraham had lost the impression that he was much affected by what he had drunk, but it returned now. That drop into self-pitying depression immediately after smiling excitement told its tale. His own sobriety was indicated by his glass, still two-thirds full. He had half a mind to remark upon Bastian's helping himself to another stiff peg, which he did with a perfectly steady hand. But he did not know him well enough yet; the time for that sort of sympathy had not yet come.

But he was more than ever interested in him. His fall must have been from a higher social plane than he had suspected. Undergraduates whose money had been spent in connection with horse-flesh usually had more than the average to begin with, and Magdalene had been a super-sporting college in his day and Bastian's day.

"I was the son of a poor parson," he said. "I got my scholarship, and if I had worked I should probably have got my fellowship too. I did work at what interested me, but the devil of it was that it didn't interest the dons. Those prizes are reserved for the people who have the sense to stick at one thing till they've got them. Then they can do what they like. They're not necessarily the people who are best at their subjects. I've got a real love for the classics, and I probably know a good deal more about them than a lot of the people who got Firsts when I only got a Second. It's the concentration of those few years that counts."