Chapter X

The next day Clodagh made one of a party to the Lido, and the same night accompanied Lady Frances Hope, Deerehurst, and Serracauld to a theatre; but on neither occasion did she meet, or even see, Sir Walter Gore.

On the afternoon of the second day, however, he again appeared upon the scene of her interests, and in an unexpected manner.

The hour was six; and she, with Barnard and Milbanke, was seated on the hotel terrace, chatting desultorily in the warmth of the early evening.

While they talked, a gondola glided up to the hotel steps; and in the glow of the waning sun, they saw Gore step from the boat, pause to give some order to the gondolier, and then mount the stone steps.

They all three saw him simultaneously. Clodagh, to her own annoyance, coloured; and Barnard smiled in his observant, quizzical fashion.

"I didn't tell you that Gore was coming to see me this afternoon, Mrs. Milbanke," he said in an undertone. "I had a fancy that you might run away."

The flush on Clodagh's face deepened.

"Run away?" she exclaimed in angry haste.

But Barnard rose without replying, and went forward to meet his visitor.

Having greeted his host, Gore turned to Clodagh.

"How d'you do, Mrs. Milbanke?" he said, raising his hat. Then he looked interrogatively at Milbanke.

Barnard made a sweeping gesture.

"My old friend Mr. James Milbanke!" he said. "James, Sir Walter Gore!"

Milbanke looked up quickly; and the younger man held out his hand with a pleasant touch of cordiality.

"How d'you do, sir?" he said. "Are you making a long stay in Venice?"

With a friendly movement, he pulled forward one of the wicker chairs and seated himself beside Milbanke.

Clodagh, leaning far back in her own long, low seat, looked at him curiously. Unconsciously the remembrance of Serracauld's careless manner upon a similar occasion of first introduction recurred to her mind, coupled with the knowledge of Barnard's contemptuous idea of her husband--his fads and his peculiarities. What could this man see to attract him in a dry archaeologist of twice his age? She found herself waiting intently for his next remark--his next action.

"Are you making a long stay?" he repeated, settling himself in his chair.

Milbanke, surprised and pleased at the unexpected attention, sat up stiffly in his seat.

"Oh no!" he said--"no! We are leaving in three or four days. I--I am interested in antiquity, and should, properly speaking, be in Sicily at the present moment. Perhaps you have heard of the very remarkable researches that are being carried on there?"

Gore smiled.

"No, I'm afraid I must confess ignorance. I know disgracefully little about the past."

Barnard, fearing a dissertation from Milbanke, interrupted with a laugh.

"I'm afraid most of us find the present more alluring!"

He cast a swift glance at Clodagh.

But Clodagh, still annoyed with him, and with herself--still puzzled by Gore's attitude--lifted her head sharply.

"At least," she said, "we can be sure that the present is genuine."

Gore turned and looked at her.

"Are you quite sure of that, Mrs. Milbanke?" he asked quietly. "Don't you think there is trickery and deception in the manufacture of many things besides the antique?"

Her glance faltered.

"I have seen a lot of unauthentic relics," she said with a touch of obstinacy.

"And I, a lot of unauthentic life."

He looked at her with a slight smile. The smile stung her unreasonably.

"Some people can never become connoisseurs," she retorted quickly.

Gore laughed, but without offence.

"Not of treasures, perhaps, but with experience and observation, surely any one can become a judge of men--and women."

Clodagh forced herself to smile.

"You disapprove of women?"

"Disapprove! Indeed, no!"

But here Barnard interposed with one of his suave gestures.

"He only disapproves of the modern woman, Mrs. Milbanke!"

Gore turned to him good-humouredly.

"Wrong, Barnard!" he said. "I admire the modern woman--the truly modern woman. It is the society woman--of any period--that I lose patience with."

Barnard smiled.

"The present-day woman is very proud of her complex life," he said smoothly, "her big card debts and her little intrigues."

Gore's healthy face turned a shade redder.

"I know!" he said tersely. "But to me, a woman with no higher ambition than the playing of cards winter and summer, afternoon after afternoon, is--is pitiable."

Clodagh leant forward.

"Perhaps they play cards because they have no real interests."

He looked at her quickly.

"And why have they no real interests, Mrs. Milbanke? Isn't it because they reject all simple, natural, wholesome things? Such women do not know the meaning of the word home. They do not want a home--or home life, as the women of the last generation understood it."

"Ah, there you touch bottom, my dear Gore! There you are in your depth!" Again Barnard gave one of his smooth, tactful laughs. "This young man has a great pull over us, Mrs. Milbanke, when he compares the present generation with the past."

At the suave words, Gore made a slightly embarrassed gesture, and looked instinctively towards Milbanke.

"Forgive my tirade, sir!" he said a little confusedly. "Mr. Barnard is right. I have rather a high ideal of womanhood. I am possessed of a--a very remarkable mother."

"A mother!" Clodagh looked round impulsively. "Oh, tell me what she is like!"

With a certain spontaneity, Gore turned to respond to her question; but before his eyes met hers, their glance was intercepted by a shrewd, amused, inquiring look from Barnard. The effect of the look was strange. His emotion so suddenly aroused, died suddenly. His face became passive, even a little cold. He straightened his shoulders, and gave the restrained, self-conscious laugh that the Englishman resorts to when he feels that his sentiments have entrapped him.

"Oh, you must not ask me what my mother is like, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "I could not give you an unbiassed opinion. As it is, I have been wasting your time unpardonably. Barnard, do you think Mrs. Milbanke will excuse you for ten minutes?"

Barnard rose slowly.

"Do not put me to the pain of saying 'yes,'" he exclaimed. "Let me imagine that I am tearing myself away against Mrs. Milbanke's express desire. Au revoir, Mrs. Milbanke! Au revoir, James!"

He nodded, and sauntered off in the direction of the hotel door.

A moment later Gore shook hands silently with Clodagh and her husband, and moved away in the same direction.

As he disappeared into the hotel, Milbanke folded his newspaper with interested haste.

"What a well-mannered young man!" he said. "Who is he? What is his name?"

Clodagh was sitting very still, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed upon some distant object.

"Gore," she said shortly--"Gore. Sir Walter Gore."

"Gore!" Milbanke repeated the name as though it pleased him. "A fine young fellow! Very unlike the majority of young men of the present day."

Clodagh said nothing.

"Don't you agree with me, my dear?"

As if by an effort, she recalled her wandering gaze, turned her head slowly, and looked at her husband.

"He--he certainly seems unlike other people," she admitted in a low voice.

After this rejoinder there was silence. Clodagh, her brows drawn together in a perplexed frown, relapsed into her former absorbed contemplation; while Milbanke, having changed his position once or twice, shook out the sheets of his newspaper and buried himself in the lengthy report of a scientific meeting.

But scarcely had he reached the end of his first paragraph, than a large shadow fell across the page, and, looking up quickly, he saw the ponderous figure of Mr. Angelo Tomes.

At the sight of his hero he started, coloured with pleasure, and rose hastily.

"Mr. Tomes!" he exclaimed. "Clodagh, my dear, here is Mr. Tomes!"

Clodagh turned without enthusiasm, and looked at the loose figure and unkempt hair of the scientist.

"I do not think you and my--my wife have met, Mr. Tomes!" Milbanke broke in with a nervous attempt at geniality.

Mr. Tomes bowed.

"No; but I have many times seen Mrs. Milbanke," he said ponderously.

Clodagh bent her head, noting with the fastidious intolerance of youth that his clothes were baggy and his hands unclean.

Milbanke gave a nervous, conciliatory laugh.

"I--I have noticed that great men are always observant," he said jocularly.

Mr. Tomes smiled.

"That is scarcely a compliment to Mrs. Milbanke," he interposed consciously.

Clodagh looked up and met his eyes.

"I don't wish to be paid compliments, Mr. Tomes," she said. "Please don't try to think of any. Did you come to take my husband out?"

Mr. Tomes stammered, visibly crestfallen.

"Well," he began, "there is a certain archway in one of the smaller churches, which I think Mr. Milbanke ought to see. But as an archway is not too weighty for a lady's consideration, it struck me--it occurred to me----"

But Clodagh cut him short.

"Oh, Mr. Tomes, I'm much too frivolous even for archways. Don't take me into your calculations; I should only spoil them. Of course it's very kind of you," she added with tardy remorse, "but the experiment would be a failure. Ask my husband----"

Milbanke looked distressed.

"Oh, my dear----" he began.

But Clodagh's nerves were jarred.

"I know!" she broke in--"I know it's awfully kind of Mr. Tomes! But I couldn't go to see an archway to-day. I couldn't. I really--really couldn't."

Mr. Tomes relapsed into a state of pompous offence.

Milbanke looked from one to the other in nervous misery.

"Certainly not--certainly not, my dear!" he agreed. "You are tired; you have been doing too much." He peered at her through the softly falling twilight with a look of helpless concern.

She felt, rather than saw the look; and that sensitive dread of being rendered conspicuous that attacks us all in early life, caused her to shrink into herself.

"Nonsense!" she said a little coldly. "I am perfectly well. Please go and see Mr. Tomes's archway. I don't mind being left alone. I would like to be left alone."

Milbanke stirred uneasily.

"Of course, my dear, if you wish it!" he murmured. "Mr. Tomes, shall we---- Are you ready----"

He waved his hand towards the canal.

Mr. Tomes drew his loose limbs together, and bowed formally to Clodagh.

"Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Milbanke!" he said stiffly; and walked off along the terrace.

Milbanke did not follow him at once. He stood looking at his wife in pained uncertainty.

"Clodagh, my dear," he began at last, "if there is anything I can do----"

But Clodagh turned away.

"No," she said almost inaudibly; "no, there is nothing. I'd like to be alone. I want to be alone."

And Milbanke--perplexed, embarrassed, vaguely unhappy--turned slowly, and walked across the terrace after his scientific friend.

Clodagh waited until the last sound of Mr. Tomes's loud, rolling voice had melted into the distance with the departure of his gondola; then with a stiff, tired movement she rose, walked in her own turn across the terrace, and, leaning upon the stone parapet, gazed out into the purple twilight, as she had gazed on the evening of her first arrival.

How long ago--how infinitely far away--that first arrival seemed to her! With the capacity for the assimilation of new emotions that belongs to all her race, she had lived more keenly during the last three days, than during the preceding four years. To one of her temperament, life is not a matter of time, but of experience. At eighteen she had been a child; on her twenty-second birthday she had been a girl; and now, when that birthday was past by but a few months, she was conscious of the stirring of her womanhood--roused into swift activity by the first approach of the world with its men and women, its laxities and prejudices, its infinite potentialities for good or evil.

Some vague foreshadowing of this idea was casting itself across her mind, when the thread of her musings was suddenly broken by a quick step sounding across the deserted terrace, and with a slight, involuntary movement, she straightened herself, and brought her hands together upon the cold surface of the parapet.

Sir Walter Gore had parted with Barnard in the hall of the hotel; and now he crossed the terrace quickly, conscious of the fast falling twilight. He was close to the flight of stone steps that led to the water, before the flutter of Clodagh's light dress caught his preoccupied attention.

Seeing her, he paused and raised his hat.

"You look very mysterious, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "Has your husband gone indoors?"

Clodagh felt herself colour. Unreasonably, and seemingly inexplicably, the mention of Milbanke's name jarred upon her.

"My husband has gone to see an archway in one of the churches," she said with a tinge of sharpness.

Caught by the inflexion of her voice, Gore looked at her more closely through the gathering dusk.

"And you do not share his taste for the antique?"

She turned towards him, her eyes alight with a sharp, cold brightness.

"I hate the antique!" she said with sudden vehemence.

Almost against his will, Gore looked at her again.

"And yet you come from Ireland? Isn't everything there very old?"

For an instant she looked away across the darkening waters; then her glance flashed back to his.

"Yes, old," she said passionately; "but so naturally old, that its age is not thrust upon you. Where I come from, there is a ruined chapel on the edge of a cliff that dates from the fourth century. And at the present day the peasants pray there, just as their ancestors prayed centuries and centuries ago. They don't stare at it, and read about it, and write about it, like the antiquarians do. They pray there. The chapel isn't a curiosity to them; it's a part of their lives."

Gore was silent. An unconquerable surprise--a reluctant fascination--held him chained, forgetful of the gathering darkness and of the gondola that awaited him at the foot of the steps.

As he stood hesitating, Clodagh spoke again.

"Don't you believe that things should be lived--not merely looked at?" she asked, her voice low and tense. Almost unconsciously the desire to interest this man, to win his attention, to compel him to share her opinions, had sprung into her mind.

Gore answered her with directness.

"No," he said. "All things cannot be lived."

His voice was quiet and controlled; the pose of his body, the look in his eyes, all suggested a tempered strength--a curbed vitality. The desire to dominate him rose higher, overshadowing every other sensation in Clodagh's brain.

She stepped nearer to him, her hand resting on the stone balustrade, her body bending forward.

"Don't you think that when life is so very short, we are justified in taking all we can--when we can?"

Her warm lips were parted, her eyes shone with an added light. She was walking on the edge of an abyss with the ardour of one whose gaze is fixed upon the sun. But Gore--seeing only the abyss--girded on his armour.

"No," he said slowly and deliberately. "No; that has never been my standpoint."

"Then you refuse the good things of life when they come your way?"

"Good is a very elastic word."

He was fencing, and she realised it. With a subtle change of tone, she made a fresh essay.

"Isn't the meaning of every word merely a matter of inflexion?"

He hesitated.

"I--I suppose so," he admitted guardedly.

She smiled suddenly, looking up into his face.

"Then to me, the word 'good' means all that is warm and light and happy. And to you, it means something cold--or unattainable?"

"Indeed no! You have made a wrong deduction."

"Well, what does it mean to you?"

"Mean? I--I am not sure that I can tell you."

"Perhaps you have not found the meaning?"

"Perhaps not."

"But you are seeking for it?"

He laughed a little constrainedly.

"I may be--unconsciously."

Again she averted her eyes, and turned towards the mysterious canal.

"Now I understand one thing!" she said in a soft, slow voice.

"What is that?" Gore was curious, despite himself.

"Why they call you 'Sir Galahad'?"

There was a moment of silence. His face flushed, then turned cold.

"Indeed!" he said stiffly. "And, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask who calls me 'Sir Galahad'?"

At the tone of his voice, Clodagh wheeled round.

"Didn't you know?" she asked. "I thought--oh, I was sure you knew----"

He laughed.

"No!" he said with elaborate indifference--"no! To whom am I indebted for the name?"

But his companion was silent. Acutely conscious of having struck a wrong note, she felt angry with herself--angry with him.

"Who gave me the name?" he asked again.

"I had better not say. I thought you knew of it."

"Then I am at liberty to guess. It was Lord Deerehurst?"

His tone was curt--even contemptuous.

Clodagh flushed. It seemed as if, by a subtle insinuation, he had scorned her.

"And if it was Lord Deerehurst?" she asked sharply.

Gore made an exclamation of contempt.

"You dislike Lord Deerehurst?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"You dislike Lord Deerehurst?" She was persistent, remembering keenly and uncomfortably the favour she had shown the old peer in his presence the night before.

Gore gave a short, indifferent laugh, and the sound galled her.

"Lord Deerehurst is a friend of mine," she said unwisely.

He bent his head with a stiff movement.

"If I have transgressed," he said, "please forgive me! I have already trespassed on your time. Good-bye! Perhaps we shall meet later at the Palazzo Ugochini."

His voice was cold and very reserved.

The blood beat hotly and uncomfortably in Clodagh's veins, but she raised her head and answered in a voice as indifferent as his own.

"Good-bye! It's quite possible that you may _see_ me at the Palazzo Ugochini; but I can't promise more."

Gathering up her light skirt, she turned and walked across the terrace to the door of the hotel.

Gore stood and watched her until the last gleam of her dress was lost in the lighted hall; then slowly--thoughtfully, almost reluctantly--he began his descent of the steps.