Chapter VI: Part II: XIV (3)

“You were quite right, Eliza,” she said; “this is a most painful discovery. I must talk it over with Mr. Mince and see what his Christian conscience suggests. For the present, I should keep the whole affair a profound secret. Silence is golden, Eliza, on occasions.”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

Mrs. Mince seemed to gather her soul for a final flight of charitable circumspection.

“You must go back,” she said, unctuously, “watch, and say nothing. Try to be the poor, deluded girl’s guardian angel in secret. It is sad—most sad. I only hope something may be done before it is too late; as the wife of one of the Father’s ministers I will think it over, and pray to the dear God for guidance. Now you must really go into the kitchen, Eliza, and get some tea.”

Mrs. Primmer’s stony face seemed to lighten seraphically at the suggestion.

“I’ve only done, ma’am,” she said, “what the dear Lord put into my heart to do. I thank Him every day of my life that he gave me seven years of sojourn under this good, saintly roof. Mr. Mince’s sermons, ma’am, always taught me to love the Holy Book and to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. ‘God is love.’ I have that text you gave me over my bed, ma’am.”

“Ah, Eliza, we always try to do our best,” said Mrs. Mince, with an inimitable smirk in the direction of the vegetable garden.

When Mrs. Primmer had betaken herself to the scene of her past culinary prowess, Mrs. Mince panted up-stairs to her bedroom and proceeded to array herself in Sabbath attire. She donned her new bonnet with the red roses in it and her black silk dress. She buttoned on a new pair of glacé kid boots and hung her little gold cross on her bosom. Mrs. Mince’s toilet would have suggested a smart tea-party, a church service, or some important parochial function. Being in some vague way impressed by the onerous responsibility of her British matronship, she had donned full pontificals for the occasion. A state gossip, a most solemn scandal festival, was in the air, and with quaint feminine naïveté the vicaress had flown to her finery as though her attire should be in harmony with the splendor of her tidings.

Mrs. Mince threaded the archaic and picturesque Saltire High Street with a species of complacent waddle that characterized her mind. The glimpses of forestland and azure sky caught betwixt red roofs and bourgeoning orchards were foreign to her ken. She was a person who delighted in oil and vinegar. If you had shown her some masterpiece of art in the nude, she would have sniffed and remarked, “How very disgusting!” She possessed the mock modesty of coarse-minded persons—a mock modesty that waxes loud and aggressive to hide the nastiness beneath.

Mrs. Marjoy was at home, or in her lair, as certain uncharitable folk had expressed it. The doctor’s wife was in a particularly angelic mood. Mrs. Mince found Mrs. Marjoy closeted with the eldest Miss Snodley in her drawing-room. The mercurial lady was creaking to and fro in a patent-spring rocking-chair that needed oiling. She dribbled some lukewarm water into the exhausted teapot and greeted the vicaress with dubious delight.

Mrs. Mince had seated herself with a species of portentous calm. She looked supremely cheerful, big and beaming with the fat confessions stowed in her motherly bosom. Tidings of honey, vineyards, and much corn! The lady gloated like an Israelite over the promised spoiling of Canaan.

“Dear, dear, such news,” she said, fingering her fat wedding-ring, as though meditating upon the supreme respectability of her own lot.

The two listeners were “muzzles up” on the instant, like hounds that give tongue over a struck scent.

“What is it?”

“That Ginge girl’s engaged at last!”

“Nonsense.”

“That hussy!”

“Guess again, my dear.”

“Your cook’s gone wrong?” said Mrs. Marjoy, who had a particular grievance against domestics.

“No.”

“Some one has eloped?” ventured Miss Snodley.

“No, dear, much more exciting.”

“Tell us, then.”

Mrs. Mince took a deep breath and delivered herself of her tidings with fitting éclat.

“Young Strong has compromised himself?” she said.

There was a moment’s silence, then a kind of cackling outburst, like the pother in a farm-yard over the laying of an egg.

“Never,” said Miss Snodley.

“He has.”

“When—how?”

“I knew it,” quoth Mrs. Marjoy, with intense pride. “I always knew that fellow was a scoundrel.”

“And Ophelia?” said Miss Snodley.

The three ladies looked at one another and tittered.

“It will take the airs out of her,” said Mrs. Mince.

“Serve her right,” quoth the doctor’s wife.

“Those Gussets were always so stuck up,” said Miss Snodley.

Then they all stared at one another again, embraced rapturously in the spirit, and indulged in more tittering.

“Tell us all about it,” said Mrs. Marjoy, reserving her own Domremy episode as a finale.

They drew their chairs closer together, like Macbeth’s witches over their reeking caldron. Mrs. Mince related Mrs. Primmer’s experiences, with certain embellishments of her own, doing abundant justice, as was to be expected, to the sinister aspects of the romance. When she had talked her fill, Mrs. Marjoy capped the tale with her own conclusions drawn from the Domremy incident. Indeed, the three ladies enjoyed themselves with much thoroughness that afternoon. No such sport had fallen to their barbs since a local farmer had been accused of starving his pigs, a very minor excitement. Christians they were in name, yet the spirit of imperial Rome still lingered in their bosoms. To have witnessed a combat between wild beasts and slaves was a display beyond the possibilities of the civilized arena. Indeed, the very mention of it would doubtless have inspired them with unctuous horror and strident indignation. Yet there was little difference in the main betwixt the tiger-hearted dames of Rome and these modern ladies, save that the latter were hypocrites, the former honest even in their depravity. The pagans gloated over agonies in the flesh, the Christians over agonies in the spirit.

“What a scandal,” said the vicaress, with ill-concealed satisfaction, “if the affair comes to light!”

“As it must,” said Mrs. Marjoy, viciously; “and young Strong coming forward as our member, too! Nice sort of legislator to frame laws for the country’s good. Is it generally known yet?”

“My goodness! no,” quoth Mrs. Mince; “only Mrs. Primmer and ourselves are in the secret, so far as I can tell. The question is, what is to be done.”

The mind of this most moral trinity waxed meditative over the problem.

“I think Ophelia ought to be communicated with,” said the vicaress, after reasonable cogitation.

“Certainly,” observed the doctor’s wife, creaking to and fro in her chair.

“A matter of duty,” added Mrs. Mince.

“And charity,” said Miss Snodley, looking over the rims of her gold pince-nez.

They were all vastly serious over the business, exceedingly solemn, infinitely in earnest. The undercurrent of hypocrisy in their ethics did not seem to suggest itself to their minds. They were about to enjoy a triumph over a feminine autocrat, a woman disliked by reason of the superior comeliness of her person.

“Ophelia Strong must be warned,” said the vicaress, speaking as the most religious woman in Saltire.

“But by whom?” queried Miss Snodley.

Mrs. Marjoy’s aggressive voice claimed the responsibility.

“By us, of course,” she said.

For a moment they stared at one another in silence.

“How?” asked Miss Snodley, tentatively.

“By letter,” said the doctor’s wife.

“Anonymous, of course,” interposed Mrs. Mince, with hurried circumspection.

They debated the question briefly, and continued to satisfy the triple conscience as to the morality of the proceeding. Mrs. Marjoy possessed herself of her writing-case, and, after much tentative suggestion and voluminous wastage of paper, produced the following edifying document:

“As sincere and disinterested friends, we think Mrs. Strong
ought to be warned of the danger that is threatening her
domestic happiness. We do not desire to swear to facts or to
make mere poisonous insinuations. As Christian women we only
wish to put a sister on her guard. We hear that her husband has
been acting unwisely. There is a serpent in the grass near
Rilchester, at a place known as Burnt House. This letter is
despatched by its writers through a deep sense of Christian duty
and moral obligation. It had better be burned when it has been
read.”

“There,” said Mrs. Marjoy, straightening herself in her chair, with an expression of pride, “that ought to fire the furnace. I have disguised my writing by scrawling it backhand. I am going into Rilchester to-morrow, and I can post it there. The postmark will help to keep its origin secret.”

“I wonder what will come of it,” said Mrs. Mince, with reflection.

“Poor Ophelia Strong!” sighed Miss Snodley, with a breath of penitence. “What if it proves a great blow to her. Perhaps—”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Marjoy, sharply; “don’t be sentimental, Zinia. We are only doing our duty.”

XXIV

BY Dr. Glibly’s advice Ophelia Strong had removed to a fashionable seaside town on the southern coast, so that after the keen, brisk air of Callydon she might become more acclimatized for the warmer temper of the Saltire woods. The change, moreover, had been rendered expedient by other considerations. Major Maltravers had himself advised it, and, as he could generally furbish up sufficient facile logic to uphold his opinions, Ophelia had come to have great faith in him. The soldier had been playing a most romantic and problematic part, a part well calculated to render unstable the equilibrium of any ordinary woman’s brain. As for Miss Mabel Saker, she accompanied the invalid with creditable devotion, perhaps to found new kingdoms of sentiment on the southern shores. Flirtation with the brunette was an amiable habit, a habit that she had the sense to preserve from dissipation.

St. Aylmers claimed the usual features of seaside health resorts. It possessed a pier, a handsome promenade, winter-gardens, a concert-hall, a string-band, hotels, hydros, and expensive lodging-houses. The parade crescented the sea with a scroll-work of many colors. Aloes set in large, green tubs punctuated the pavement. Here and there rose an oasis of flowers ringed round by vivid circles of grass and æsthetically trimmed hedges. Bathing-machines were trundled down the beach by superlatively obese horses, the very obesity of the animals enlisting the sympathies of the old ladies with the virtuous and kind-hearted proprietor. Bath-chairs idled from east to west, their inmates snuffing the sea breeze and watching the false green gleam in the eyes of the feminine sea. St. Aylmers boasted a phenomenal share of sunshine, and was beloved of self-satisfied carriage-folk, whose aristocratic noses were never incensed by the perfumes of cockle booths and perspiring East-End trippers. St. Aylmers was eminently refined. The pine-woods that rose like a coronet on the hills to the north appeared like a throng of obsequious officials keeping the doorway of culture. Everything was clean and brilliant about the town, smart, precise, and opulent.

Ophelia had taken up her abode at the Queen’s Hotel, on the sea front. The building was elaborately stuccoed, its façade radiant with gold-lettering, flowers in window-boxes, and sun-blinds white and red. The garden fronting the hotel was as sprucely kept as the meagre thatch on a military dandy’s poll. The pavements were tiled, purple and green and white. There was a flattering medallion of the reigning monarch over the handsome porch.

On a particular May morning Miss Saker and the invalid had hired one of the green-and-white bathing-machines and were revelling in the sea. A cloudless sky burned azure overhead and every wavelet was scalloped green and gold. The sands glistened like burnished brass. The moist swish of the ripples along the strand rose like a slumber-song, soothing the senses of numberless decrepit old gentlemen who had had their chairs set in the sun above the ladies’ bathing enclosure. The weather was benign enough even to soothe the irascible propensities of patriarchs afflicted with gout.

Ophelia Strong was a fine swimmer. Attired in a blue French bathing-dress, with a blue-and-white cap coffing her amber hair, she seemed a veritable Venus, sapphire, pearl, and ruby, gemming the sea. Taking the more fragile Mabel under her escort, she swam to a large boat anchored off the shore as a haven for those who preferred an ambitious swim. They climbed up the brass-tipped ladder into the boat, and sat in the sunshine as in a bath of gold, watching St. Aylmers stretching east and west beneath its coronet of pines.

Miss Saker tucked a brown curl under her red bathing-cap and glanced mischievously at her companion.

“I bet he will,” she remarked.

“Will what?”

“Come to-day.”

“Who?”

“Don’t pretend such innocence.”

The boat swayed with them lazily over the almost imperceptible swell. Miss Saker, as she scanned the parade with its garden of many-colored parasols, broke suddenly into exclamatory delight.

“I said so,” she laughed.

“Where?”

“Oh, my prophetic soul, I believe I can see the rogues over there by the big electric standard perched on the railings.”

Ophelia reconnoitred the parade in turn.

“I believe you are right,” she said.

Ophelia slipped over the gunwale and dropped gently into the tide. The water bubbled over her white shoulders, the sun shone in her hair. Mabel Saker followed down the steps. They swam shoreward together, laughing and chatting as the water rippled at their lips. Nor did the lessening distance dissolve the enchantment conjured up by the two exquisites upon the parade. The lifting of a hat, the wave of a hand, suggested a quick and mutual vigilance in the recognition.

While the two women ascended from the foam to the transfiguration of the toilet, Maltravers and his companion sat in the shadow of a groin, beguiling the time with cigarettes and confidential small-talk. The confessions of the average man would hardly edify the ear of the woman who honors him as lord. There is but little chivalry in smoking-rooms and before theatrical bars. Ribaldry generally passes for humor and nastiness for knowledge of the world. The philosophy of commercial travellers and army subalterns smacks forcibly of the flesh.

“I wonder how long the darlings will be lacing up their stays?” said the florid youth, who recognized in Maltravers a superior spirit, a sage erudite in the epicurism of life.

“Can’t tell,” said the elder.

The greetings were flippant, glib, leavened with smart innuendos and facile flattery. Two old gentlemen in bath-chairs by the promenade rail exchanged epigrams and recalled the romantic passages of their own youth. It was not long before the four separated, Miss Saker and the florid youth drifting towards the band-stand, while Maltravers and Ophelia wandered away along the beach.

Free of the promenade, Ophelia loosened her hair upon her shoulders, to dry in the sun. Like a gilded fleece it swept over her neck, bosom, and shoulders, fragrant with the salt breath of the sea. Her eyes were peculiarly brilliant and the sun had set a sunburned splendor on her cheeks. Her neck, bare above the low-cut collar of her blouse, had been touched with bronze since her short sojourn by the sea. Her sky-blue dress, fitting loosely about her fine figure, rippled with voluptuous folds. She seemed to walk the sands like some proud Cardiflamma, flashing her scarlet torch in the eyes of desire.

As they drew apart from the populous town the flippant temper of their meeting vanished more and more. There was silence about them save for the sound of the sea. A passionate gravity, a more potent power, seemed to weigh upon their hearts. There was a new significance in life for them. They were alone together with the future and their own thoughts.

“I have missed you,” said the woman, as they drew from the town and saw the blue crescent of a bay glimmer before them beneath white cliffs.

“And I, too,” said the man, with a species of melancholy self-suppression; “only fourteen days since you left Callydon. I never knew life could be so confoundedly dull.”

Their eyes met, flashed in a smile, and fell away again as though desirous of husbanding the impression.

“You are looking thin,” suggested the woman.

“Nonsense!”

“Don’t contradict me.”

“I have been sleeping badly,” said the soldier; “and, upon my soul, I have half-starved myself.”

“We must take care of you here.”

He laughed a deep quaver of sentiment.

“That hair of yours would flash heaven into any man’s heart,” he said.

They walked on a burnished stretch of sand, for the tide was low and the waves mere ripples. The sea was like a garment of many colors, ribbed with iridescent hues from cloud and sky. The cliffs rose like walls of ivory fringed with emerald silk, and the pines on the hills were webbed with a purple mist.

“Italian weather,” said the soldier, turning down the brim of his hat; “it is not often we get such a day in this damned climate. You know Italy?”

Ophelia’s mouth hardened.

“Italy!”

“A land to live in.”

“That depends on one’s companion.”

“Ah! I remember.”

“I spent my honeymoon there—a never-to-be-forgotten affair.”

“Was the bibliomaniac dull?”

“A sort of ‘Wandering Jew’ in trousers.”

“Let him evaporate,” said the soldier, with a laugh; “upon my soul, you are looking in splendid health.”

“To-day—perhaps,” she answered, with a reawakened smile.

They had left the town far behind by now, and the beach stretched solitary before them and utterly silent save for the moist sound of the sea. The ripples spent themselves in a glittering film of silver at their feet. The firm, smooth sand showed hardly any impress as they passed. It seemed difficult to believe that the sea was not ever thus, but that roaring waters trampled the shore and made the shingles shriek under lowering skies.

“I shall not forget my months at Callydon,” said the man, with deepening significance.

“Is there any need?” she answered.

“God knows! I have your picture here,” and he laid his big, brown hand over his heart.

Gabriel’s wife smiled with a suggestive intelligence.

“Callydon is not a lost Paradise,” she said, “nor are we Adam and Eve. Do you remember the various things you said to me that day when we were playing golf? They seem prophetic as I recall them now. Well, it will save us trouble.”

He glanced suddenly in her face with a keen, desirous look.

“What is it?”

“I have news for you.”

“No—not that.”

“Come, sit down, and you shall see.”

There were bowlders scattered under the cliffs. The two climbed the beach and chose a species of stone circle where they were sheltered from the sun. Ophelia leaned back against one of the stones, with Maltravers lying at her feet.

“Read that,” she said, taking a crumpled letter from her pocket and giving it into his hand; “it was forwarded from Callydon.”

The soldier sat up, squatted with his knees under his chin, and ran his eyes rapidly over the crumpled sheet. There was a certain rapacious and wolfish look upon his face. His mustaches twitched above his big, clean-shaven jaw; his brown hands trembled. At the end thereof he whistled softly through his teeth and stared out over the sea.

“By Jove,” he said, “what a coincidence!”

“Strange, only three weeks ago.”

“Yes, I prophesied this.”

“Are you glad?”

He turned suddenly and looked at her, and his eyes glistened. Gabriel’s wife reached for the letter. Their fingers met, and the man’s closed on hers; her hand was moist and warm, with the letter crumpled betwixt their palms.

“Well!” she said.

They stared at each other a long while in silence, like those whose thoughts kindle and beacon from their eyes. The woman’s color deepened. Her bosom moved markedly; her white teeth showed between her lips.

“Jim!”

He unbuttoned her sleeve, bared her shapely forearm, and pressed his lips to it like one who sucks poison from a wound. She laughed softly, a sound that seemed to mimic the noise of the waves. Perhaps for one moment she remembered Gabriel, her husband, and that golden June evening in the Mallan meadows. The vision was transitory and powerless, a mere breath from the frozen past. Near her was the soldier’s bronzed, handsome face, with its hawk-like pride and the strong passion in its eyes.

“Well!” she said, at length.

“By God, Phyl, I can’t help it; don’t be hard on me; you make me mad.”

“Bide so,” she said, with a little pleasurable sucking in of her breath.

“Is it to be?”

“Need you ask that?”

He pressed her bare arm against his cheek, stretched himself at full length, and laid his head in her lap as she leaned against the stone. Gabriel’s wife bent over him and watched her own reflection in his eyes. She closed his lids with her finger-tips and let her hand rest on his forehead.

“You look tired, Jim.”

“Thinking hard, that is all.”

“What will you do?” she asked him, presently.

“Carry this through to the death,” he said, with a tightening of the jaw.

She looked over the face in her lap and away towards the sea, where gulls were sweeping like pure spirits over the blue. The transcendent egotism of the moment had made them both blind to the world that was beyond the mere ken of their senses. They were both happy in a desperate, headlong fashion. Ophelia still had Mrs. Marjoy’s letter crumpled in one hand.

“Jim, you are a man,” she said, “and no weakling. I am glad of that, for I will trust all to you. Yes, it must be so; we cannot hesitate.”

He opened his eyes and looked up at her with an expression of strenuous eagerness.

“I shall go to town to-night,” he said.

“So soon!”

“Well—”

“To-morrow.”

“Let it be to-morrow.”

“And then?”

“I shall employ agents, have them watched, collect evidence—it is very simple.”

“You have money?”

“I never lacked for that,” he said.

She brought her face near to his, her hair shrouding him in gold. The sun shimmered through upon them both. Her eyes commanded him, and he kissed her.

“I will go to-morrow,” he said.

“For life or death, Jim.”

“Phyl, you believe in me?”

“What a question, now!”

He held her hands, and spoke slowly, like a man taking a vow.

“The sin is not all ours,” he said, “and we cannot help it; as for the man, he is mere dust. If he had loved you, it would have been different. As it is, I will surrender to none, man or devil.”

XXV

IT was the day of the mass-meeting at Rilchester, when Gabriel Strong, gentleman, of The Friary, Saltire, was to be formally presented to electors of the place as the accepted candidate in the Unionist cause. The Rilchester town-hall had been retained for the occasion and prepared for the ceremony with bunting, palms, and flowers. Many of the local dignitaries, swollen big within Sabbath apparel, were purposing to represent the ancient and noble corporation of Rilchester on the platform that afternoon. The Golden Lion, the county hotel, was draped in red, white, and blue, for the members of the Conservative Association were giving a lunch there at five shillings a head. There was also a select Primrose League déjeuner at Lady Popham’s, where the knights and dames of the Rilchester habitation were to assemble before ascending in force to uphold the empire.

At Saltire Hall many tables were spread. John Strong, confident in purse and wine-cellar, revelled in his son’s publicity with a British pride. The coming oracle was himself modestly solemn and inclined towards silence. He kept Judith at his side, feeling in her nearness a peculiar yet powerful sense of comfort. The air was oleaginous with flattery and unction. Gabriel responded after lunch to the toast of his own success with a certain shy deference and timidity. He was one of those men apt to efface their convictions in the presence of strangers. His personality only unveiled itself to the intelligent sympathy of elect souls.

Many of the Saltire worthies were in attendance, attracted more as blue-bottles to fish-bones than being drawn thither by any superabundance of political fervor. Here were Mr. Mince, sublimely didactic and full of egregious hauteur; Dr. Marjoy, debonair and practice-pushing; Mr. Lang, the local notary, a shrivelled shred of sardonic whimsicality, a veritable wasp, forever marring the mellifluous productions of the vicar’s tongue. Mrs. Mince, who had favored champagne and salmon mayonnaise, had retired to the hall with an overladen look, and Mrs. Marjoy was seated beside her on one of the lounges. The two ladies were as critical as ever, even after the benign influence of lunch. They were very eager to detect any evidence that might reveal to them the productiveness of their most Christian epistle.

“The poet fellow looks a bit worried,” said Mrs. Marjoy, fanning herself with her handkerchief.

“Any man ought to look worried,” declared the vicaress, “who is leading a shockingly evil and double-faced life. We cannot escape from the prick of conscience, my dear. God’s laws move slowly, but oh—they are sure. I wonder why on earth they don’t bring us some coffee.”

The florid lady entered upon a further disquisition concerning the iniquities of mankind at large. Champagne had quickened her tongue, whereas the vicaress began to wax somnolent with a pleasant sense of satiety. She responded in monosyllables to Mrs. Marjoy’s dithyrambics on morals.

Sir Hercules Dimsdale, a hook-nosed veteran with a fine head of snowy hair, had drawn Gabriel aside into the conservatory for the purpose of political counsel. The baronet was a very pithy old gentleman, having imbibed a certain genial cynicism during his many years of political campaigning. Like a free lance, he had fought perhaps more for the love of fighting than from any intense enthusiasm of purpose.

“Ha, my boy, are you one of those rare young beings capable of listening to an old man’s patter?”

“I can take advice,” said Gabriel, with a smile.

“Then you are a paragon for your age. Don’t be too diffident to-day; arrogance counts for strength with the average Britisher. Stand up and talk like a Beaconsfield. Self-confidence is an Excalibur when the wielder is worthy. Above all things you must pretend to convictions, even if you don’t believe half you say. Talk as though you thought every man on the other side the most infernal jackass that ever chewed carrots.”

“I will strive not to hide my light under a bushel,” said the neophyte.

“Have you your crackers ready?”

“The customary gibes, Sir Hercules.”

“Your comic condiments. Always raise a laugh; it is nearly as effective as offering free drinks all round. And don’t forget to blarney the beggars. Stroke the local big-wigs the right way and they’ll purr like tom-cats; flatter their opinions; make ’em think they’re all statesmen.”

“I will do my best.”

“And then the catch sentiments, the gallery rhetoric—”

“Such as these: The grand and glorious future of our British empire! The splendid tenacity of the Anglo-Saxon race! Our stupendous commercial energy! The magnificent heroism of our army!”

“That’s it, that’s it. Always superlatives.”

“Claim all the fine statesmanship ever witnessed in the island as the special heirloom of our own party.”

“Exactly. And promise ’em everything, in reason and out of reason—old-age pensions, acres and cows, the moon, the immortal cherubim, anything, only be generous.”

“I will,” said the novice; “it is very easy to promise. And afterwards—”

“Oh, hang the afterwards! Win the seat. That’s what you’re talking for.”

At three o’clock Gabriel and his patrons were caught up into glory and carried towards Rilchester by a coach and four. There was a lavish following of friendly chariots along the old Roman highway. It was down hill to Rilchester, and the procession rattled through Saltire with horns blowing and a great jingling of harness. Sir Hercules was still playing the Nestor in the body of the coach; the reminiscences of forty years had bubbled up under the airy touch of John Strong’s champagne.

Politics have bulked largely on occasions in the literary stock-pot; much of the material has been sucked to the marrow. Nor was the pageant at Rilchester that day less commonplace or more unusual than any tramp can see for the shoving, perhaps ten times in his mortal career. There was a scattered gathering in the streets, bunting overhead, a moderate mob outside the public hall, a portrait of the Queen loyally pilloried over the stone balcony. Within there was the inevitable gathering of local somebodies on the platform, the usual assemblage of local nobodies in the hall. There was the eternal green baize table, the array of bent-cane chairs behind a bulwark of palms and flowers with the florist’s card carefully inserted amid the decorations. There were the usual smiling dames, the usual earnest patricians.

The proceedings may be summarized on account of the dismal prosaicisms of such a scene. Sir Hercules Dimsdale, as chairman, taking his applause with dignity, prepared to warm the hearts of those assembled towards the person of the projected candidate. With his usual genial wit and solid complacency he professed himself confident of the enthusiastic support of the meeting. There was never a more promising politician than the gentleman now presenting himself to the constituency. In Sir Hercules’ belief this young man was marked out by fortune for a brilliant and valuable career. Rilchester would be proud in the future of having given parliamentary birth to one of the ablest men of the younger generation.

It was after some such florid preamble that Gabriel stood up to face the most patriotic electors of Rilchester. He was palpably nervous, in a modest fashion that appealed perhaps to the parental instincts of his auditors. And yet a certain circumstance had come near marring his first serious public attempt at oratory. Looking down, he had seen suddenly under the fringe of palms a girl’s face staring up to his, a face aureoled with gold, the face of Joan Gildersedge, that Beatrice from the Rilchester hills.

Joan had heard incidentally from Gabriel of the affair, and had plotted in her heart how to behold the man’s triumph. She had come into Rilchester on foot and waited for an hour outside closed doors to gain good vantage. As she sat in the dingy hall she seemed to hallow it into a cedarn temple. There was a species of celestial pride upon her face and an eagerness that was almost pained in its intense thirst for the man’s triumph. To her the whole affair was vividly impressive, a most solemn conclave gathered for great ends. The chicanery, the stultiloquent bathos of much of it was hid from her ken. She took the applause as demonstrating enthusiasm and soulfulness, and hyperbolical oratory as expressing grandeur of conviction.

The recognition staggered Gabriel’s brain. Like a glare of light the girl’s face blinded thought for the moment. He was conscious only of her presence, the solemn stare of her gray eyes, the straining eagerness upon her lips. She was leaning forward like one who waits to catch the first notes of some noble song. Gabriel stood stiffly with head thrown back and shoulders squared, the fingers of his right hand fidgeting his notes. Strain as he would the thread of speech had broken on his tongue. Those on the platform, taking his silence for a lapse of memory, applauded zealously, an acclaim that was echoed through the hall.

Gabriel looked again at Joan and found his manhood on her face. Intuition spoke to him of the jealous pride that burned within her woman’s heart; she had come to see him triumph; it was enough. The wistful face aureoled with gold lifted him inspiredly above the present, transfigured the prosaic building into a shrine of grandeur, elevated the occasion above the common concourse to which it pandered. A breath as from Olympus touched his lips. He spoke, kindled, and held his theme.

Even the local socialists present were not averse to acknowledging the virtues of an honest optimism. As for the Primrose Dames, they were clapping their gloved hands with the furor of enthusiastic amateurs at a public rehearsal. The electors of Rilchester thundered approbation; Sir Hercules beamed on the assembly like a Moses. Thirty eloquent minutes had not caught Gabriel’s tongue wavering; he had flown from flight to finish. The reporter of the _Rilchester Guardian_, sucking inspiration from his pencil, jotted down certain euphemistical phrases—“the new Demosthenes,” “Burke redivivus,” and the like.

Questions were launched and answered; amiable passes of humor glittered, rapier-like, in the air. The assemblage with hoof and hand expressed itself enraptured, chanted “Rule Britannia” with great fervor, listened with docility to the meanderings of various local comets, applauded, and dispersed with glee. For Gabriel, keen of brain and flushed of face, there was a single trophy, the triumph fire in a woman’s eyes. For him a golden head moved through the press, sunning the prosaic shadows with Olympian gold.

“Excellent,” said Sir Hercules to John Strong, who was paternally elated; “a most inspiring oration, though a trifle bold. Thought the boy had stage fright at the first push. Excellent.”

“A slap-up jaw,” quoth the Conservative agent to a gentleman who wore a red carnation and yellow gaiters. “Fine young stallion. Well run him in with a ‘thou’ to the good, you bet.”

“Who would have thought it!” said Mrs. Mince. “Why, he spoke quite intelligently, though, of course, after Jacob’s eloquence it sounded flat and dull to me. I wonder who gave him all his ideas?”

“Dissolute young men have oily tongues,” said Mrs. Marjoy. “There will be a big crash in the Strong ‘market’ some day,” and she leered suggestively.

At Saltire Hall there was much decking of tables and shimmering of glass that night. Success spoke in the breath of the flowers and the bubbling mirth of champagne. Wines, white and red, flooded many dainty lips. Silks shivered and elaborate coiffures glimmered under the lamps. The panelled hall was a green gloom of shrubs and palms. The stairways shone with color. Luxury smiled in silver and gold, from the gleaming, snowy tables, from tapestries purple and green, from parquetry burnished like brass. Music moved in the air. Amethyst, diamond, and ruby breathed on the bosoms of women. Laughter, like a carillon of bells, ran through the well-thronged rooms.

The noise of an ephemeral triumph rang loud in Gabriel’s ears that night. The gilt card of social excellence was proffered to his fingers; the perfume of a facile and flattering life ascended into his nostrils. And yet through the gilded meshes of the net the one face gazed, fair as Truth, with eyes looking straight to the heart. Eyes, crystal bright, yet dim with immortal dreams!

Thus it came about that before the rout grew silent John Strong missed his son from the glare of the many lamps. Judith, his sister, went in search of him, clad in a rust-red gown that made more vivid the beauty of her hair and the white brilliance of her skin. In the library she found him, with a solitary candle burning on the mantel-shelf and the room in gloom. He was standing by an open window with the wind sweeping in as he looked out into the night.

“Gabriel,” she said, as she touched his sleeve.

He started, for he had not heard her enter and thought himself alone.

“Why have you left us?”

He did not look at her, but still stared out into the dark.

“I am tired,” he said.

“Of course, dear.”

“Is the nonsense over?”

Judith took his hand between hers and he did not resist her. Her voice was restful as a quiet wind through trees.

“What is the matter?” she asked him.

“Nothing.”

“Can you not tell me, your sister?”

He stood with slouched shoulders and face darkened in the shadows. The candle smoked and flickered on the mantel-shelf; the books glimmered gilt-lettered in the gloom like parables half cloaked in mystery.

“I am very weary of all this,” he said.

“When you have done so splendidly!”

“Splendidly, indeed!”

“Yes.”

“It was not I, but the soul of another in me.”

“Still these dark sayings.”

“All is dark, dear, save for the stars in the vault, and I have one star.”

“Gabriel!”

“All this is glare and mockery and discord. I hate, I loathe it. Only to be in the dark alone—that is all I desire. Leave me alone, dear, to-night.”

“But your father and the others?”

“They are content after their lights, so am I—here.”

“Come for my sake.”

“No, dear.”

“Not even for me?”

He bent and kissed her forehead.

“I obey my thoughts,” he said, “and they are too sacred for anything save solitude. Darkness is good in its season. We see less of earth, more of the universe. Good-night.”